WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Eleven Israeli soldiers were killed during fighting in Gaza on Tuesday, feds charge Cornell junior over threats to kill Jewish students, Senate confirms U.S. ambassador to Israel, and meet the all-time winningest Jewish college basketball coach: He works at a Catholic school.

ISRAEL AT WAR

Peter Tsadilas owns the Golden Dolphin, a diner in Huntington, New York. (Stewart Ain)

The Israeli flags outside his diner prompted a boycott. Then Jewish customers came to his rescue.

Peter Tsadilas, who owns the Golden Dolphin on Main Street in Huntington, New York, plastered the front windows of his non-kosher Greek restaurant with rows of pictures of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas.

That prompted a boycott. Staff quit, delivery services refused to pick up food, customers fled. He lost 40% of his business in a week.

Many Long Island Jews heard of the heat Tsadilas had taken for his support of Israel, and decided to show up. Business has been booming ever since.

Lior Satan, 43, whose son is a lone soldier fighting in Israel, drove 45 minutes with six of her friends for lunch on Tuesday. “This is our first time but not the last, for sure,” she said.

“I’m not Jewish but I’m pro Israel and I hope Israel kicks Hamas’ ass,” said customer Jim Fry, 67, outside of the Golden Dolphin Diner on Long Island on Tuesday. (Stewart Ain)

Seeking support, Israel has a social media strategy — and it involves Harry Potter and Taylor Swift: It all seems to have a clear goal in mind: winning over digital natives. “Israel might feel like it needs to appeal to that younger, diaspora audience and the reason for that is because they know that younger American Jews are much less likely to express knee-jerk support of Israel,” said Melissa Weininger, a professor of Jewish studies. Read the story ➤

She wrote the book on Israeli horror movies — real-life horror stopped the book tour: Author Olga Gershenson spent the last few years diving into the emerging wave of Israeli horror films, which routinely place zombies on IDF bases or, in one instance, a killer on a kibbutz. “I made a decision starting with Oct. 7 to not watch the real-life violence,” Gershenson said in an interview. “There’s something to visual violence that we’re in some ways habituated to, and I’m very wary of that being circulated and people watching it on their phones in the same way that they used to watch entertainment or fictional violence.” Read the story ➤

President Joe Biden on a solidarity visit last month to Israel.

Politics…

Democrats are emphasizing President Biden’s pro-Israel chops in their campaign for Jewish votes, a shift for a party that has long made domestic policy front and center.

Meanwhile, Arab American support for Biden’s reelection bid has plummeted in recent weeks, according to a new poll released Tuesday.

The Senate confirmed Jack Lew, the Jewish former treasury secretary, to be ambassador to Israel, a process that Democratic leaders sought to accelerate as Israel wages war with Hamas.

Bolivia said Tuesday it is severing diplomatic ties with Israel over what it called Israel’s crimes against humanity.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Republican of Virginia, issued an executive directive Tuesday aimed at combating antisemitism and other forms of anti-religious hatred in his state amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, has emerged as a pro-Israel pugilist.

Students from Israel at New York University offer to speak with classmates as tensions between supporters of Israelis and Palestinians increase on college campuses across the nation. (Getty)

Campus…

Police arrested a 21-year-old Cornell junior on Tuesday over threats to kill Jewish students at the university. Earlier on Tuesday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul spoke out against recent antisemitic incidents at schools in the state.

The Biden administration set a two-week deadline to devise a plan to combat what they say is an alarming rise in antisemitism at U.S. colleges and universities.

Two Jewish high schools in New Jersey told college admission offices they will have to prove they can keep Jewish students safe before coming to the high school to recruit students.

Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, is converting part of its facility to a school for Israeli evacuees from Gaza-area communities.

The Israeli-Palestinian discourse on campus is even more terrifying than the Hamas attack, writes William Kolbrener, a professor at Bar Ilan University, in a new essay.

Culture…

Israeli, Palestinian and Iranian students came to Berlin to study music with the star Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim. Now the Israel-Hamas war is testing their ideals.

The story of a mother whose sons were taken hostage by Hamas is now an animated film.

The Austin Jewish Film Festival is opening Thursday with topical movies and increased security.

Senator Jacky Rosen, a Jewish Democrat from Nevada. (Getty)

And more…

Federal officials charged a Las Vegas man with threatening to kill Sen. Jacky Rosen, the Nevada Jewish Democrat, lacing his threats with antisemitic invective and anger at her advocacy for Israel while it is at war with Hamas.

Israel on Tuesday said it thwarted an aerial attack from Iran-backed Houthi rebels near the Red Sea port of Eilat.

A new website uses a digital map of Israel to pinpoint the location of every murder and kidnapping that took place during the Hamas attacks.

SodaStream built a factory for Israelis and Palestinians to work together. Then a war erupted.

Israel’s envoy to the United Nations pinned to his suit jacket a yellow Star of David, bearing the words “Never Again.” The head of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, was not happy.

The power of words: We’ve got opinion essays from Robert Zaretsky on what people get wrong when they call the Hamas terror attack a “pogrom,” and from Rabbi Jay Michaelson on the perils of Israel’s critics using the word “genocide.”

Stay informed: We’ve taken down our paywall for coverage of Israel’s war with Hamas. Read all of our stories here.

The Forward is made possible by readers like you.

Support our work with a donation of any size.

Want more Forward? Explore all our newsletters at forward.com/newsletters

ALSO FROM THE FORWARD

Hedy Lamarr in Samson and Delilah. (Hulton Archive/Getty)

Why Jewish actress Hedy Lamarr might be the next big name in luxury shopping: Once promoted by Hollywood as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” Lamarr would also get credit for helping invent a technology that paved the way for Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. Now the Lamarr department store is under construction in Vienna. It’s set to include an interactive museum and plans to host film screenings, performances and workshops in addition to exhibitions about Lamarr’s life and work.

The Golem of Brooklyn updates a Jewish legend for the antisemitism of today: Adam Mansbach’s latest novel imagines a 400-pound slugger cobbled together by an art teacher and unleashed to take on neo-Nazis in rural Kentucky. But the book, writes our PJ Grisar, blithely indulges in harmful tropes of its own, all while being wishy-washy about just how dire the threat of antisemitism really is. “Mansbach isn’t sure that we are at an inflection point to pull our old earthen ace out of retirement. If he asked an actual Brooklyn Hasid, whose everyday threat of violence is almost nowhere alluded to, I’m sure he’d hear more about the urgency.”

Plus: Going to your first Orthodox shiva? Here’s what you need to know.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Andy Yosinoff in a huddle with his Emmanuel College Saints team. (Courtesy)

🗣️ Second gentleman Doug Emhoff held a roundtable this morning with U.K. Jewish leaders to discuss combating antisemitism while on a visit to London with his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris. On Thursday, Emhoff is expected to meet with the Chelsea Football Club Foundation to discuss its “Say No To Hate” campaign.

⚖️ A grand jury indicted a 21-year-old man on charges that he vandalized three synagogues and a Jewish volunteer ambulance over the summer on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. (Gothamist)

🔎 Dr. Michael R. Hayden is one of the world’s leading geneticists, and the founder of five biotech companies. Despite his busy schedule, he has spent more than a decade patiently searching for the looted silver Judaica stolen from his grandparents, who were killed by the Nazis. (New York Times)

🎞️ A Muslim family saved a Jewish one from the Nazis. Half a century later, the Jewish family returned the favor in Sarajevo. Their true story is now a movie. (JTA)

🏀 After 47 years and 900 wins, Andy Yosinoff is the all-time winningest Jewish college basketball coach. His school? A small Catholic college. (JTA)

Shiva calls ➤ Gershon Hundert, a historian of Polish Jewry who served as the editor-in-chief of the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, died at 77 … Wanda Poltawska, a non-Jewish Polish resistance fighter who survived a concentration camp and worked through her trauma with a spiritual counselor who would later become Pope John Paul II, died at 101.

What else we’re reading ➤ At a Republican Jewish gathering, Trump’s first term inspires pride. The idea of a second spurs anxiety … Why did the neo-Nazis pick Charlottesville? It wasn’t for the Confederate statue … If Bob Dylan could sing about Israel and Hamas.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

(Getty)

Dozens of protesters with red-painted hands shouting “Cease-fire now!” repeatedly disrupted a Senate hearing Tuesday where Secretary of State Antony Blinken was seeking emergency wartime assistance funds for Israel and Ukraine.

Thanks to PJ Grisar, Jacob Kornbluh, Lauren Markoe and Talya Zax 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

Without you, the Forward’s stories don’t just go unread — they go untold. Please support our nonprofit journalism today.