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WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Housekeeping: This newsletter will be taking a break for the long holiday weekend (I’ll be at the national Mensa convention in Kansas City), and back in your inbox bright and early Monday morning.

Today: Stabbing attack at mall in northern Israel, Jewish voters in U.K. pivot to party with antisemitic past, German politician fined for using Nazi slogan, texts reveal Columbia University administrators complaining about Hillel official, and why Israel is without a chief rabbi for the first time in a century.

IN THE FORWARD

Joey Chestnut has won Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest 16 times. He is barred from competing this year because he endorsed Impossible Foods, a vegan hot dog brand. (Getty)

Is your July 4th hot dog tradition kosher or kosher-style?The annual Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest takes place Thursday on Coney Island. That’s where Nathan Handwerker, a Jewish Polish immigrant, and his wife, Ida, set up a stand in 1916 selling dogs from a family recipe for a nickel apiece. Meanwhile, Hebrew National claims it “answers to a higher authority” — but do they? Our Beth Harpaz investigates. Read the story ➤

How Gaza became an online clapback to anything you disagree with: “Kids in Palestine have nothing to eat and you can’t bring yourself to eat?” reads a comment on a video of an 8-year-old girl documenting her attempts to overcome a food disorder. These kinds of comments are popping up on social media platforms, exhorting users excited about a new song or inconsolable over a bad breakup to shut up. Our culture critic Mira Fox wonders: “Do these comments serve to refocus people on world events?” Read the story ➤

It was not widely known that Rose Renfroe, who won a seat on the Dallas City Council in 1975, was Jewish. (Courtesy of G. William Jones Film and Video Collection at SMU)

A former Dallas city councilwoman just died. Almost no one knew she was Jewish:Rose Renfroe graduated from a Baptist college and married a Catholic man. She went by the name “Rosita,” which critics say was an effort to pass herself off as something she wasn’t, to appeal to a Latino electorate. But behind those facts is a more nuanced story, as described by those who helped bury her in a Jewish cemetery this week. Read the story ➤

How Judaism mattered to Sigmund Freud — and why Freud mattered to Jews: A new book offers a compelling, quasi-sociological view of how Freud’s Jewish admirers translated his works into Hebrew and Yiddish as a sign of prideful acceptance. But Forward editors of the day, calling psychoanalysis “a fraud, a way to make money” weren’t too impressed. Read the story ➤

Plus: The Supreme Court’s decision to criminalize homeless people for sleeping outside will decimate the faith-based nonprofit sector, writes Hannah Lebovits in an opinion essay.

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ISRAEL AT WAR

Released hostage Noa Argamani and her father, Ya'akov Argamani, at the funeral for her mother Liora Argamani on Tuesday in Israel. Liora died from brain cancer three weeks after Noa was rescued. (Getty)

The latest…

• One man was killed and another seriously wounded in a stabbing attack Wednesday at a mall in Karmiel, a city in northern Israel. One of the victims shot and killed the attacker, who police said was an Israeli resident of the Arab town of Nahf.

  
  

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday publicly upbraided Israeli military leaders who are pushing for a ceasefire that leaves Hamas in power, accusing the officials of “defeatism.”

  
  

• President Joe Biden is likely to meet with Netanyahu when the Israeli leader travels to D.C. at the end of the month to address a joint session of Congress.

  
  

• In a joint letter, a dozen officials who resigned from the Biden administration said the United States has “undeniable complicity” in the war in Gaza.

  
  

• Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said Jewish Americans will still vote for Biden, despite a poor performance at last week’s debate because “he’s been a supporter of Israel longer than many of us have been alive.”

  
  

• A Drexel University professor is accused of stealing pro-Israel lawn signs outside a synagogue and a home in Philadelphia.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Pro-Palestinian protesters hold a rally outside of Columbia University on April 30. (Getty)

🏫  The congressional committee investigating antisemitism on college campuses released text messages between Columbia University administrators in which they complained about Jewish students and a Hillel leader. (NY Jewish Week)

🇮🇱  Israel’s two chief rabbis left office on Sunday after their decade-long term ended. No replacements have been installed yet, leaving Israel without a chief rabbi for the first time since the 1920s. (Religion News Service)

🇺🇸  Pro-Israel Republicans are voicing support for former President Donald Trump to pick as his vice president North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who frequently discusses Middle East policy on the campaign trail. (Jewish Insider)

🇩🇪  A judge fined a far-right German politician roughly $18,000 for using a banned Nazi slogan. He was also fined in May for using the slogan. (JTA)

🇬🇧  A British university suspended a student group after a video surfaced of members dancing to a Nazi marching song. (BBC)

🇫🇷  A far-right candidate dropped out of the race for France’s parliament on Tuesday after a social media post surfaced showing her in a Nazi cap. France heads to the polls this weekend. (AFP)

🗳️  Britain will go to the polls on Thursday. The election will be a pivot for the United Kingdom’s 290,000 Jews — because they are expected to vote largely for Labour after years of breaking with it over antisemitism in the party. (JTA, Religion News Service)

🪦  Vandals in Montreal placed rocks in the shape of a swastika atop tombstones at a Jewish cemetery. Meanwhile, the FBI is investigating an incident in Cincinnati where 176 Jewish gravestones were vandalized. (Algemeiner, AP)

Shiva calls ➤  Audrey Flack, a painter and sculptor who helped define the photorealist movement, died at 93. In May, we wrote about her new memoir and art exhibit … Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Chinatown, died at 89 … Rabbi Burt Jacobson, a social activist and pioneer in the Jewish Renewal movement, died at 87.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

(Chana Pollack)

Check out this Independence Day-themed red, white and blue bagel window display at Monticello’s Bagel Bakery, family-owned since 1967 and a landmark in the Borscht Belt.

Thanks to Mira Fox and Chana Pollack for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Beth Harpaz for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

Support Independent Jewish Journalism

Reporting from the ground in Israel and campuses takes resources. Support the news that matters to you with a monthly donation.