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Good morning. Today: Pro-Palestinian groups link LA fires to U.S. aid to Israel; second Bedouin hostage confirmed dead; and reflections on Jimmy Carter’s profound faith at his state funeral.

FIRES IN LA

Where do we look in challenging times? To the Torah. (Photo courtesy of Cantor Ruth Berman Harris)

Opinion | What a remarkable Torah rescued from Iran — then LA fire — can teach about community amid devastation. The Persian Torah rescued from the Pasadena Jewish Center just before the building went up in flames has a striking history: It was personally returned to the family that commissioned it in Iran in the 1930s by Ayatollah Khomeini, responding to a plea by the family’s patriarch. Its story — one of diaspora and survival through unexpected upheavals — makes it a powerful emblem for a community already determined to rebuild, writes our senior columnist, Rob Eshman. And yes, the Torah will be on display during the PJC’s Shabbat services tomorrow, in a temporary space at a private school. Read his essay ➤

Kehillat Israel in the Pacific Palisades on Wednesday afternoon, as firefighters battled blazes on either side. (Louis Keene)

More on the ground: All three rabbis at Kehillat Israel, a Reconstructionist synagogue in the Palisades, have lost their homes as Los Angeles has been ravaged by wildfires. Our Louis Keene reported from the scene, where senior Rabbi Amy Bernstein spoke to him about the challenges of providing care to the community — some 300 congregant families have lost their homes — while mourning her own loss. “Everything I have from my whole childhood forward, that was important enough for me to save and keep as part of my home, is gone,” she said. “And that means my daughter will never get it from me.” Read the story ➤

“I cannot begin to describe the feeling that I am currently holding as I hear from so many beloved community members who’ve lost their homes — while my family has found out that we’ve lost our home,” said Kehillat Israel rabbi Daniel Sher on social media. Read more ➤

Plus:

The wildfires have destroyed houses of worship across faiths, including mosques and churches. (Religion News Service)

Some pro-Palestinian groups have drawn a connection between U.S. funding for Israel’s war in Gaza and the fires, including the New York branch of Jewish Voice for Peace, which wrote in an Instagram post that, “instead of putting resources toward making our country livable, our government is putting billions toward Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.” (Times of Israel)

And: “It is time for us to accept the truth that, as a result of human-caused climate change, nature is now posing grave dangers no matter where we live,” writes Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, founder of the Jewish advocacy organization Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action, in a new op-ed. Read her essay ➤

ISRAEL AT WAR

Relatives and friends of people killed on Oct. 7 cry during a ceremony commemorating the first anniversary of the attack. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

Opinion | After 15 months of war, Israelis are all scaffolding, helping hold each other up. These days, Jessica Steinberg sees grief wherever she goes in Israel; on a recent trip to Haifa, watching soldiers returning to base, “I kept on looking at their young faces, wondering how many funerals they’ve attended this year, what kind of burdens they’re carrying,” she writes. As the news of two new hostage deaths, of a Bedouin father and son, brought a new blow this week, one father mourning a son lost in combat gave her a new perspective on what it means to grieve as a collective. Read her essay ➤

Plus…

The death of the second Bedouin hostage, Hamza Ziyadne, was confirmed; the remains of the 22-year-old father of two were recovered Tuesday night. (Times of Israel)

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that would sanction International Criminal Court officials, as well as anyone who aids the court in seeking to “to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute” citizens of countries that are not ICC signatories — including the U.S. and Israel. (JTA)

Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar unveiled a new, lighter proposal for changes to Israel’s judicial system Thursday, reviving the judicial overhaul debates that rocked Israel before Oct. 7. (JTA)

An IDF soldier who served in Gaza after surviving the Nova Music Festival massacre on Oct. 7 was smuggled out of Brazil after the country sought to open a war crimes investigation against him while he was on vacation in the country. As efforts to investigate IDF soldiers abroad over their actions in Gaza ramp up, the IDF decided Wednesday to try to hide the identities of all combat troops. (Times of Israel, times two)

Haredi men protesting against an end to their longstanding exemption from Israel’s draft attacked the senior IDF officer in charge of efforts to conscript Haredim on Thursday night, drawing harsh criticism from the IDF, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and others. (Times of Israel)

Listen ➤ All Things Considered reported from the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on the power struggle unfolding in the camp between different Palestinian groups, including the Palestinian Authority, whose support there is teetering. (NPR)

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

In politics…

Former President Jimmy Carter’s state funeral in Washington, D.C., was marked by reflections on how his deeply held Christian faith shaped his work, in and out of office. (Religion News Service)

Elon Musk held a live conversation with a leader of the far-right political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) on X, the social media platform Musk owns, with Musk calling the party’s policies “just common sense.” (NBC)

Johns Hopkins University became the latest higher education institution to agree to on-campus changes after the Department of Education investigated complaints about antisemitism and other bigotry on campus. (Washington Post)

Misinformation alert: After President Joe Biden awarded Jewish philanthropist George Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Jan. 4, social media posts falsely claiming that Soros was a Nazi during World War II proliferated, reaching hundreds of thousands of viewers. (Reuters)

Internationally…

A synagogue in Sydney, Australia was vandalized with graffiti proclaiming “Hitler on top”; earlier in the week, a man was arrested after pretending to point a gun at a different synagogue in the city. (Sydney Morning Herald)

The critically acclaimed documentary No Other Land, about an expansion of the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, has failed to find a U.S. distributor over concerns that the film is too political, its Israeli and Palestinian directors said. (Variety)

Shiva call ➤Otto Schenk, an opera director known for his elaborate stagings of the works of Richard Wagner, died at 94.

What else we’re reading ➤

“Tens of millions of American Christians are embracing a charismatic movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation, which seeks to destroy the secular state.” (The Atlantic)

“The growing rift between Holocaust scholars over Israel/Palestine” (Journal of Genocide Research)

Did a neolithic “mountain cult” in the Negev lay the groundwork for modern religion? (Haaretz)

Remembering Barry Malzberg, “novelist on a deadline.” (The Nation)

VIDEO OF THE DAY

NBC journalist Jacob Soboroff hails from Pacific Palisades, which was devastated by wildfires this week. In a Thursday segment, he reported on the fate of the synagogue he grew up in — and the community that surrounds it.

Thanks to Benyamin Cohen for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Julie Moos for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

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