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JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.

WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

A Jewish guide to Kamala Harris’ CNN interview, Trump claims God wants him to win election, FIFA may ban Israeli soccer team, Jerry Lewis’ lost Holocaust film, a 4-year-old child broke a Haifa museum’s ancient jar, and much more.

Scheduling note: Forwarding the News will be off for the Labor Day weekend. We’ll be back in your inbox on Tuesday morning.

ON CAMPUS

As part of its heightened security measures, Columbia is now only allowing those with student IDs and their approved guests to be allowed onto campus. (Getty)

Back to school: New policies, fewer protests

Students returning to college campuses this week found bans on tents, rules regarding masks and training around antisemitism.

Context: After an intense academic year marked by pro-Palestinian protests, complaints about antisemitism on campus and heated debates over the line between free speech and student safety, universities are returning with a panoply of new policies.

Clubbed: Rutgers and George Washington University have suspended their chapters of  Students for Justice in Palestine. Columbia’s chapter of SJP was banned on Instagram.

Clubbed, part deux: The University of Michigan and The New School restored funding to student clubs — like the Ultimate Frisbee and ballroom dance teams — after pro-Palestinian leaders in student government threatened to withhold the funds.

► Go deeper: Our Odeya Rosenband (whose last day was yesterday 😞) rounded up a list of policy changes or other actions at campuses around the country. Take a look, and let us know if we missed any!

ELECTION 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz earlier this month in Philadelphia. (Getty)

The Jewish guide to Kamala Harris’ CNN interview

Harris and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, will sit today with CNN’s Dana Bash for their first joint interview since the campaign began. It will air at 9 p.m.

At the Democratic National Convention last week, Harris made a forceful case for Israel’s security — and Palestinian self-determination — and appeared to thread the needle between two constituencies.

The war in Gaza: Bash will likely press Harris for specifics. Will there ever come a point when the U.S. should cut off military aid to Israel? What does Harris believe is the main obstacle to an elusive ceasefire? How would her approach to the conflict differ from Biden’s?

Rising antisemitism: Harris can point to the first national plan to combat antisemitism — spearheaded by her husband, Doug Emhoff — released by the Biden administration in May, as well as Trump’s accusations that Jewish Democrats need to “have their head examined.”

► Go deeper: Read the story

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee. (Getty)

Plus…

• JD Vance attacked Randi Weingarten, the influential Jewish head of one of the nation’s largest teachers unions, for not having biological kids. She is married to a rabbi  and, like Harris, has two stepchildren.

  
  

• Former President Donald Trump said, without evidence, that if Jesus were the vote counter, he would win California. Trump also suggested that his life was spared in the July assassination attempt because God wants him “to bring our country back.”

  
  

• The Harris-Walz campaign hired a Presbyterian minister to lead its outreach to faith communities, along with a White House Muslim adviser to reach out to Arab American voters, and an Israeli-born former peace negotiator as a liaison to Jewish community.

– From our Sponsors: Hadar–

ISRAEL AT WAR

Jonathan Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, parents of Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, at a demonstration for families of the hostages today in southern Israel by the border with Gaza. (Getty)

The latest…

The IDF killed five Palestinian gunmen, including a top commander, overnight at a mosque in the occupied West Bank.

Related…

• Earlier on Wednesday, and also in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers killed at least nine Palestinian gunmen. “The Israeli military has succeeded so far in keeping something of a lid on the West Bank,” argues columnist Dan Perry in an opinion essay. “But the pot is rapidly coming to a boil.”

  
  

• The U.S. announced sanctions against a nonprofit that offers support to West Bank Jewish settlers who have fenced off a Palestinian village “to prevent the return of 250 Palestinian residents who had been driven off their land.”

The hostages…

• Farhan al-Qadi, an Israeli Arab hostage who was rescued this week, said that at some point during his captivity, another hostage died next to him. It was Aryeh Zalmanovich, 85, whose death was first reported back in December.

  
  

• The IDF recovered the body of an Israeli soldier who had been killed on Oct. 7, and whose remains were dragged into Gaza.

And elsewhere…

• FIFA, the global soccer federation, is mulling a request from the Palestinian Football Association to ban Israel from international play.

  
  

• Rep. Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York, is accusing several U.S. airlines — including American, Delta and United — of “effectively boycotting” Israel since they have suspended air travel due to the war.

  
  

• Relatedly, El Al, which now carries the bulk of travelers to Israel, turned a record profit this year. It is also under investigation for its high wartime pricing.

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Chaim Mendl Kaplan in his cell at the Deer Island Prison in January 1920. (Courtesy of the Kaplan family)

Labor Day reading: Emily Kaplan shares the story of her great-grandfather who helped lead a strike of more than 20,000 immigrant textile workers in 1919 — and how his dramatic rise as a strike leader came to a sudden end.

Related: As Labor Day approaches, learn how to say in Yiddish: “job,” “wages,” “a raise” and “working like a horse.”

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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Jerry Lewis during the 1972 filming of The Day the Clown Cried. (Getty)

🎭  Jerry Lewis directed and starred in a film about a circus performer sent to a concentration camp where he entertained Jewish children headed for the gas chambers. The 1972 film was never released (and you still can’t see it). A documentary about it will debut in September at the Venice Film Festival. (JTA)

🎒  Nearly 40 students have enrolled in a new Jewish school in Manhattan which focuses on “classical education,” deemphasizing progressive values. The model is “closely entwined with Christian ideals” and “advances a nostalgic worldview that gives short shrift to women” and people of color. (NY Jewish Week)

😲  A 4-year-old boy visiting an archaeology museum in Haifa accidentally knocked over a 3,500-year-old jar. The curators said they would turn this into a teachable moment by restoring the artifact in front of the public, and inviting the boy back for a visit. (NY Times)

►  Shiva call: Betty Halbreich, known as the world’s “most famous personal shopper,” died at 96. She spent the bulk of her career at Bergdorf Goodman and authored a bestselling memoir about her job.

►  What else we’re reading: Why a kosher restaurant on the Lower East Side has a mural depicting 2,000 years of Jewish tragedies … Anti-Trump evangelical Christians make the case for Harris … Once a beacon of the Yiddish-speaking world, Lithuania’s Jews work to keep the language and their identity alive.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Ever wonder what Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline would sound like if it was sung in Yiddish? Wonder no more.

Thanks to Lauren Markoe, Odeya Rosenband, Rukhl Schaechter and Jake Wasserman for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Beth Harpaz for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

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