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JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT. |
| WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
|  | | Today: Trump teases hostage deal by inauguration • Feds investigate Sarah Lawrence College over alleged antisemitism • Abigail Pogrebin remembers Peter Yarrow • And celebrating the 90th birthday of Elvis — who was Jewish (seriously). |
| | |  | The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center burns Tuesday in the wildfire in Pasadena, California. (Getty) |
| Devastating inferno
The wildfires ripping through the Los Angeles area destroyed at least one synagogue and had other local Jewish leaders wondering if their spiritual homes would still be standing in the morning, reports our Louis Keene from California. The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center, a Conservative synagogue whose campus dates back to the 1920s, was among the hundreds of structures ravaged by the Eaton Fire. The main sanctuary could be seen on live television engulfed in flames, stunning news reporters and onlookers.
Fueled by roaring winds, the fires began Tuesday morning in the Pacific Palisades, a tony coastal suburb that is home to a large Jewish population and at least two synagogues: Kehillat Israel, a Reconstructionist congregation, and Chabad of Pacific Palisades.
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| | | |  | Wikipedia has drawn ire from a conservative think tank and right-wing figures including Elon Musk. (Getty) |
| Control, alt, delete
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank aligned with the incoming Trump administration, plans to “identify and target” volunteer editors on Wikipedia who it says are “abusing their position” by publishing content the group believes to be antisemitic, according to documents obtained by my colleague, Arno Rosenfeld. The material was sent to Jewish foundations and other prospective supporters of Project Esther, Heritage’s roadmap for fighting antisemitism and anti-Zionism. The plan was drafted by a coalition made up largely of evangelical Christian organizations.
Wikipedia has long faced claims from conservatives that it has a liberal bias, and several prominent Jewish groups have also expressed concern since the start of the Israel-Hamas war that the encyclopedia is tilted against Israel.
Heritage said that its campaign against Wikipedia editors would be led in part by a former FBI agent who had received an award from the Anti-Defamation League, which protested in June after editors on the website declared it to be an unreliable source.
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| | |  | | |  | President-elect Donald Trump speaks to members of the media Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago. (Getty) |
| The latest…
President-elect Donald Trump reiterated this week that “all hell will break out” if Hamas doesn’t release the hostages, and said that Steve Witkoff, his Mideast envoy, would fly to Qatar Wednesday for deal talks. “I think that we’ve had some really great progress,” Witkoff said, “and I’m really hopeful that by the inaugural, we’ll have some good things to announce on behalf of the president.” (JTA)
Plus… Ireland has officially asked to join South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocide. Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said he would close the country’s embassy in Dublin. (Times of Israel)
Israeli leaders threatened they could go to war in the occupied West Bank, after Palestinian gunmen there fired on a highway Monday, killing three Israelis. (JTA)
Israel is looking to bolster its domestic manufacturing of bombs, in an effort to be less reliant on U.S. military aid. (Jewish Insider)
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| | |  | Peter Yarrow and Mary Travers — of Peter, Paul and Mary — perform at the Dec. 1987 rally for Soviet Jewry in Washington, D.C. (Robert A. Cumins) |
| Folk hero
Peter Yarrow — of the legendary folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, who died Tuesday at 86 — lived a few doors down from where author Abigail Pogrebin grew up, and the singer was a frequent guest in her home. Never without his guitar, he provided the soundtrack to her Jewish childhood — including singing “Light One Candle” for the first time at the family’s annual Hanukkah party. The singer performed last year at her dad’s memorial service. “I realize now,” she writes, “that I fully equated my parents’ oft-emphasized values of compassion, decency and equality with the messages of Peter’s canon.” Read her remembrance ►
Related: Peter Yarrow’s legacy, an uneasy blend of Jewish values and personal transgressions
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|  | Elvis often wore both a chai and cross necklace, joking it was his guaranteed ticket into heaven. (Getty) |
| Birthday for a king
Elvis Presley would’ve turned 90 years old today. He grew up helping out a family of neighboring Orthodox Jews on Shabbat. It came naturally to Presley who was, to many people’s surprise, Jewish. The headstone on the grave for Elvis’ mother, Gladys, features a Jewish star; his maternal great-great grandmother, Nancy Burdine, was a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania who settled in Memphis in the 19th century. It was a lineage Presley marked by wearing both a chai and cross necklace, joking that it was his guaranteed ticket into heaven. Go deeper ►
Related: In January 1956, just before Elvis became a national sensation, nobody wanted to interview him — except for Fred Danzig, the grandfather of our culture reporter PJ Grisar. |
| | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
|  | Pierre Poilievre, who may become Canada’s next prime minister, is a staunch Israel supporter. (Getty) |
| 🇨🇦 Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative politician poised to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister of Canada, took a hitchhiking trip through Israel in his youth, has referred to Canadian Jews as “the true Indigenous people,” condemned campus protests against the war in Gaza as antisemitic and is staunchly pro-Israel. (Forward)
🏫 The Department of Education launched an investigation into Sarah Lawrence College after allegations from Hillel that the school failed to address harassment and intimidation of Jewish students. (JTA)
😞 Vandals defaced a memorial for the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in Poland, with graffiti equating the 1943 event to the current war in Gaza. (JTA)
💻 Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, said on Tuesday that it is getting rid of fact checkers. Jewish groups are warning that the new policies could worsen antisemitism on the platforms. (Forward, Jewish Insider)
🤔 Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, acknowledged his group failed to combat the “inferno of antisemitism,” and called for new strategies, including modeling its fight against antisemitism on the Israeli military “genius” behind the Lebanon pager attacks. (eJewishPhilanthropy)
Transitions ► Barak Hermann of the JCC of Greater Baltimore will become the new president and CEO of the JCC Association of North America.
Shiva call ► Jim Sherman, a longtime leader in the Jewish community of Sioux City, Iowa, died at 92.
What else we’re reading ► Europe has Holocaust commissions for restitution claims against the Nazis. Should the U.S. follow suit? (New York Times) … How Christian nationalism played a role in incorporating the phrase ‘so help me God’ in the presidential oath of office (The Conversation) … Why playing a 70-year-old bat mitzvah student was so freeing for Carol Kane (Los Angeles Times).
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| | |  | | Many mazels to my wife, Elizabeth, who has more focus than I do, starting a 4,000-piece puzzle on Hanukkah and finishing it last night. She’s missing one piece. However, we do have a lead on a suspect. 🧩 🐈 |
| Thanks to Louis Keene, Jacob Kornbluh and Arno Rosenfeld 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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