SURVEY: We need your feedback about this newsletter! Israeli researcher kidnapped by Shi’ite militia, Tel Aviv police chief quits rather than crack down on protests, N.C. politician encourages reading Hitler, and Manischewitz launches gefilte ice cream. |
CUNY students and faculty calling in 2021 for the university to divest from Israel. (Getty) |
Behind CUNY graduation speech furor, a university divided over Zionism When Fatima Mohammed dashed off a speech for her CUNY law school graduation, she never anticipated it would spark weeks of national outrage. “Maybe I would have spent more time writing it,” Mohammed told our Arno Rosenfeld. Her remarks included accusing Israel of indiscriminately murdering Palestinians, sparking calls from prominent politicians to strip the City University of New York of its funding. It was only the latest controversy over antisemitism and Zionism at the sprawling public university, where these disputes tend to burn hotter and run longer than at most campuses.
Caught off guard: Mohammed and her allies were surprised by the intensity of the reaction. CUNY law students are known for their radical politics; the 2022 commencement speaker made similar remarks. “Fatima’s speech was pretty standard,” said Amal Thabateh, an attorney at Palestine Legal. “A lot of student groups and speakers and advocates have given the same kind of talk.”
|
David Brodsky, a professor at Brooklyn College, has testified before the New York City Council about antisemitism in the CUNY system. (Courtesy) |
Part of a pattern: But critics said it fit into a pattern of hostility at CUNY toward Jews, especially those who are attached to Israel. “She didn’t call for ‘revolution’ and ‘rage’ against Israelis,” said one professor. “She’s talking about me and the many thousands of Zionist Jews at CUNY.”
More complicated: Others say CUNY remains a good place for Jewish students, and that advocacy groups that insert themselves into campus debates can do more harm than good. As Brooklyn College’s Hillel director put it: “It’s people and organizations from the outside that are creating tensions.”
|
Elsewhere on college campuses… Opinion | Rabbi Seth Winberg, the Hillel director at Brandeis University, argues that the school is a great place for Orthodox Jews, despite a recent ad by the school that seemed to mock them. (The university has apologized.) Brandeis was “the first university in the country to have strictly kosher dining,” Rabbi Winberg notes, has a Shabbat eruv, offers separate hours for women and men at its pool and hosts Torah study classes. Read the essay ➤
Opinion | Lev Golinkin, who has documented Nazi monuments around the world for the Forward, says Stanford University should not have hosted a delegation from Ukraine’s Azov Brigade, which began as a volunteer private militia with neo-Nazi roots. “This event — and the disturbing lack of reaction from Jewish organizations — showcases the limits of America’s commitment to combating white supremacy,” he writes. Read the essay ➤
|
Lorie Smith, a website designer, speaks outside the Supreme Court in December. (Getty) |
Opinion | Religion won at the Supreme Court, but not as big as people think: The justices ruled last week for religious plaintiffs in two blockbuster church-state cases, saying workers have the right not to work on the Sabbath, and to refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings. Michael A. Helfand, a law professor and expert on religious liberty, described them as “relatively modest decisions,” where, “upon careful review, there was ultimately less there than originally meets the eye.” Read his essay ➤ Strange bedfellows? The lieutenant governor of North Carolina encouraged the reading of quotes from Adolf Hitler and other dictators at a conservative conference hosted by Moms for Liberty. (That’s the group that last month apologized for putting a quote from Hitler atop one of its newsletters, and has asked for a version of The Diary of Anne Frank to be banned from schools.) Also having a conference at the same Marriott in downtown Philadelphia? The Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs. Plus… There was an odd finding in a new ADL survey: American Jews report less online harassment than other Americans. Our opinion editor, Laura E. Adkins, thinks this might be because 1 in 4 American Jews take steps to hide their Jewish identity online.
If you convert to Judaism to marry, what happens when you divorce? In our Bintel Brief advice column, Mira Fox tackles a letter from a woman who loves being Jewish, but whose ex says she can’t keep the faith now that they’re apart.
Six months after making headlines for refusing to recite the Prayer for the State of Israel, a New York City pulpit rabbi rewrote it. Our editor-in-chief spoke to him for her latest column. |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
Israelis block a highway during a demonstration Wednesday night against the Israeli government. (Getty) |
👮 Protesters burned bonfires on a Tel Aviv highway after the city’s police chief, Ami Eshed, resigned on Wednesday. Eshed quit rather than accede to a demand from Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right minister in charge of national security, to be tougher on those protesting the government’s judicial overhaul. “With my head held high,” Eshed said, “I am paying an intolerably heavy personal price for my choice to avert a civil war.” (Haaretz, JTA) ⚖️ A neurologist testified in the penalty phase of the Tree of Life trial that Robert Bowers, who was convicted of killing 11 people at the synagogue, is not mentally ill. The doctor was called by prosecutors to rebut experts witnesses for the defense who have said Bowers is psychotic and delusional. (AP) 🇮🇷 Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton University graduate student who is a citizen of Israel and Russia, has been kidnapped by an Iran-backed Shi’ite militia in Iraq, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed on Wednesday. (Haaretz) 🏈 A new law in Florida allows for public prayers to be recited at high school sporting events. “If government is denying your right to say a prayer before a game, they are infringing your speech,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said. (Tallahassee Democrat) 💊 A former white supremacist says he no longer holds extremist beliefs after taking the drug MDMA as part of a research study. “In certain cases,” the author of a book about MDMA wrote, the drug can “help people see through the fog of discrimination and fear that divides so many of us.” (BBC) 🍦 Manischewitz has launched what some shoppers are calling “Frankenstein” foods: ice cream that tastes like gefilte fish or matzo balls. Asked why they chose those flavors rather than sweets like hamantaschen or babka, the company said: “Gefilte scored higher on the research.” (Jewish Chronicle) ⚽ Soccer legend David Beckham opened up about his family’s Jewish background in a speech this week at a London synagogue. Beckham praised his bubbe’s matzo ball soup and, when quizzed, perfectly recited the hamotzi blessing over bread. (Jewish Chronicle, JTA)
What else we’re reading ➤ Researchers use artificial intelligence to help translate the Bible into rare languages … Rabbi’s brush with danger in Ukraine went viral … The Bear on Hulu brings up ‘Jewish lightning’: What does it mean, and is it antisemitic?
|
On this day in history (1986): The so-called “first Palestinian suicide attack” claimed the lives of 17 civilians, one of whom was American. The bomber, Abed al-Hadi Ghaneim, was associated with the Islamic Jihad. He boarded a bus bound for Jerusalem, yanked the wheel from the driver and drove the vehicle off of a cliff. One of the students from a nearby yeshiva who rushed to provide help went on to found ZAKA, a United Nations-recognized organization dedicated to providing help during disasters, including terrorist attacks.
In honor of National Fried Chicken Day, check out our recipe for crispy oven-fried chicken.
|
The Borscht Belt in the Catskill mountains was once home to the best summertime resorts for American Jews. They “were largely barred from gentile-owned hotels, so they had to really create their own vacation world,” said Andrew Jacobs, who is helping build the Borscht Belt Museum in Ellenville, New York. NBC News got a sneak peek in the video above. While the museum is not set to open for two years, fans can trek to Ellenville for the first-ever Borscht Belt Fest on July 29. --- Thanks to Beth Harpaz, Arno Rosenfeld, Gall Sigler and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
Support Independent Jewish Journalism The Forward is a non-profit 501(c)3 so our journalism depends on support from readers like you. You can support our work today by donating or subscribing. All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of US law. Make a donation ➤ Subscribe to Forward.com ➤ "America’s most prominent Jewish newspaper" — The New York Times, 2021 |
|
|
|
