|
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT. |
| WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
|  | | Greetings from West Virginia, and welcome back to Forwarding the News. Today: Joe Biden, Mel Brooks, Deborah Lipstadt, Elon Musk, Benjamin Netanyahu, Jonathan Sarna, Shakespeare, Billy Bob Thornton, Donald Trump, and the Hallmark Channel expands its canon of Hanukkah films. |
| | |  | Estimates put the number of Jews in Pico-Robertson at between 25,000 and 30,000. (Jackson Krule) |
| Neighborhood watch
Pico-Robertson, a neighborhood on Los Angeles’ Westside, has the largest Orthodox Jewish community west of New York. It also has historically supported Democrats for president, like the rest of L.A. and California. Not this year. Roughly 3 in four Pico voters backed Hillary Clinton in 2016. In 2020, about 2 out of 3 went for Joe Biden. But in 2024, for the first time, parts of Pico-Robertson turned red and supported Donald Trump.
The result reflects the convergence of two trends: Jewish Democrats concerned about Kamala Harris’ approach to the Israel-Hamas war and the related subsequent rise in antisemitism; and Orthodox Jews nationally moving towards Trump, along with other demographic slices of the electorate.
Our reporter Louis Keene, who lives in the neighborhood, spoke with more than a dozen community leaders about the shift and what it portends for his hometown and the nation.
|
| | Related: Amid Trump’s win, mainstream Jewish organizations are adopting more conservative approaches to rising antisemitism and campus protests against the war. (JTA) |
|  | President-elect Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last week in New York. (Getty) |
| In other Trump-related news… Zach Witkoff, the son of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, named his newborn son Don James as a tribute to the president-elect.
The emcee at the New York Young Republican Club gala Sunday night made a joke about a Jewish attorney some saw as antisemitic. (X)
Trump has tapped at least a dozen Catholics for top jobs in his new administration, starting with Vice President-elect JD Vance. How might their religious background shape the agenda? (Politico)
Opinion | The Constitution guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the country, but Trump wants to erase that for children of undocumented migrants. Joel Snyder who teaches such children, called Dreamers, says this policy goes against Jewish tradition. “Our opportunity to stand up for strangers is a fulfillment of the core values of our people,” he writes. Read his essay ► |
| | |  | Relatives of Israelis held hostage in Gaza at a demonstration Thursday in Tel Aviv. (Getty) |
| The hostages…
Opinion | Why a hostage deal is imminent: Hamas is in shambles, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is newly ascendant after a deal with Hezbollah in Lebanon and a weakened Iran and Syria. President-elect Trump has said he wants the hostages back before he retakes power, and President Biden is looking to shore up his legacy. “Rarely will Trump and Biden find themselves so aligned,” writes our Tel Aviv-based columnist, Dan Perry. “Both will take credit. Let them.” Read his essay ►
Netanyahu and Trump spoke on Saturday and Israeli officials said a hostage deal could be done by Hanukkah, which starts Dec. 25. (Times of Israel)
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right security minister, opposes such a deal, warning that releasing Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the hostages could lead to “tens of thousands of girls being raped” in the future. An Israeli TV station released a tape of saying this during a meeting in which a freed hostage detailed her abuse at the hands of Hamas in Gaza. (Times of Israel)
More from the Middle East… Israel is closing its embassy in Dublin, days after Ireland said it would support South Africa’s International Court of Justice case accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. It plans to open an embassy in Moldova. (JTA)
With Bashar al-Assad gone from Syria, efforts are underway to assess damage to the country’s synagogues and other Jewish heritage sites over years of neglect and war. (JTA)
Many residents of northern Israel are reluctant to return to their homes despite the truce reached with Hezbollah. (JTA)
Plus…
► Our most-read story last week was an op-ed by Daniil Brodsky about why he resigned as chairman of Amnesty Israel — and it wasn’t because of the parent organization’s report on genocide in Gaza.
🎧 Tune in: The latest episode of our podcast, Make Art Not War, features Ala Dakka, an actor who played a Palestinian boxer on Fauda. “I don’t want to be a victim,” he tells our host, Libby Lenkinski. “I want to be something else.” Listen now.
|
| | - From our Sponsor, UHaifa International - |
| | UHaifa International. Master Your Mind. Live Your Israel Experience. |
| Imagine studying for your Master's in a beautiful campus on the top of Mount Carmel, meeting students from all over the world, experiencing Israel, living your best life. All this and more can be yours at the University of Haifa; a world-class institution dedicated to academic research and excellence, with the highest national score in the Times Global Impact Ranking. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| | | |  | Billy Bob Thornton in Landman (not Landsman). (Paramount+) |
| Drill, bubbe, drill
While on vacation last week, I binged Landman, the latest series from the prolific Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone, Tulsa King, Lioness, etc.). It stars Billy Bob Thornton as a man who manages an oil drilling company, and not, as some Jewish viewers may have thought, a landsman, the Yiddish word for a fellow member of the tribe. The show is set in the Bible Belt, and my colleague PJ Grisar found within it some Talmudic teachings and rabbinic lessons. Go deeper ►
|
|  | The cast of a new production of The Merchant of Venice. (Kirill Simakovan) |
| Of Shakespeare and Shylock
Igor Golyak’s new staging of The Merchant of Venice has a radical idea for the text in a post-Holocaust world: playing it for laughs as Shakespeare intended. Set in a fusion of a late night talk show and Saturday Night Live, it stars Richard Topol as a Shylock playing antisemitic tropes to the hilt, only to have the audience question why they might be laughing. “One of the main points for me is that evil lives in good people,” said Golyak. Read the story ►
Plus:Sunday was the 50th anniversary of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein. Here’s a deep dive into Marty Feldman, the bug-eyed Jewish comic actor who played the film’s Igor, and a ranking of Brooks’ oeuvre. |
| |  | | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
|  | Left tot right: Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Doug Emhoff and President Biden at the 2023 Hanukkah reception at the White House. (Getty) |
| 🇺🇸 President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden are set to host their final Hanukkah party tonight at the White House. Our editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren and senior political correspondent Jacob Kornbluh will be there.
🤝 The University of Virginia has reached a settlement with an Israeli student who filed a lawsuit alleging he was subjected to antisemitic harassment on campus. (Daily Progress)
👏 Switzerland is proposing an immediate ban on public displays of Nazi symbols, with exceptions for educational, scientific, artistic or journalistic purposes. (Guardian)
😡 Several Holocaust remembrance organizations have quit using the social media platform X, citing increased misinformation and inadequate content moderation since Elon Musk took it over. (DW)
🖼️ The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia is one step closer to becoming part of the Smithsonian umbrella, thanks to a new bill signed into law by President Biden. (JTA)
💰 Yeshiva University revealed at a gala dinner Sunday night that a handful of donors have given it more than $50 million. (eJewishPhilanthropy)
Transitions ► Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, who served as the Biden administration’s antisemitism envoy, will return to teaching Jewish and Holocaust studies at Emory University, her academic home for nearly 30 years … Jonathan Sarna, the foremost historian of American Jewish history, taught his final class at Brandeis University after decades in the role. “I am retiring from teaching,” he told me, “not from scholarship and writing.”
Shiva calls ► Henri Borlant, who survived Auschwitz as a teen and later became a doctor, died at 97 … Barbi Weinberg, the founder of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, died at 95 … Isak Andic, the founder of the Mango fashion brand and one of the richest people in Spain, died at 71.
What else we’re reading ► Stories of Bob Dylan and the Lubavitcher Rebbe (X) … PJ Library looks to build community with in-person gatherings (eJewishPhilanthropy) … The important lesson Jews can learn from Gladiator II (Religion News Service).
|
| | |  | Hanukkah on the Rocks, a romantic comedy about a Jewish bartender who finds love during the holidays, debuted on the Hallmark Channel this weekend. But don’t worry if you missed it: It airs again on Dec. 22, and is also available to stream now on Peacock.
And speaking of Hallmark, my colleague Samuel Eli Shepherd reviewed the channel’s other Hanukkah entry this year, Leah’s Perfect Gift. He writes that while it had its cringe moments, it offered an authentic take on American Judaism.
|
| Thanks to PJ Grisar, Louis Keene and Jacob Kornbluh for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Jodi Rudoren for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
| | Support independent Jewish journalism |
| With your help, the Forward will be ready for whatever news 2025 will bring. Make a tax-deductible gift and invest in the future of Jewish journalism. |
| |  | |
|
|
|
| |
|
