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WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Brandeis welcomes transfers looking for campus free of “Jew-hatred,” Hamas releases video of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin talking about Passover, famous painting possibly looted by Nazis sells at auction, and how the NFL draft this year is getting more Jewish.

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CHAOS ON CAMPUS

Columbia students participate in a pro-Palestinian encampment this week on their campus. (Getty)

It’s not just Columbia University. A growing number of colleges across the country convulsed on Wednesday as anti-Israel protesters tried to set up encampments on campuses — including at Brown, Harvard, MIT and NYU.

• At the University of Texas at Austin, state troopers in riot gear helped keep the peace. At least 34 people who refused to disperse were arrested.

  
  

• At the University of Southern California, where students were upset over the recent cancellation of a commencement address by an pro-Palestinian speaker, police came to break up an encampment of around 100 activists.

  
  

• The demonstrations spread across the globe, with campus gatherings in Cairo, Paris and Sydney.

Plus…

• Some New York City officials wondered if a hidden hand nefariously supplied student protesters with identical pop-up tents. Others said, “You never heard of Amazon?”

  
  

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, responding to the chaos, said Wednesday that “antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities.”

  
  

• Brandeis, where about one-third of the students are Jewish, extended its deadline for transfer applications, inviting students from other schools to a university “free of harassment and Jew-hatred.”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson takes questions from the media after meeting with Jewish students Wednesday at Columbia University in New York City. (Getty)

‘A culture of harassment’ | Hillel’s CEO sees trouble for Jews in new spate of campus clashes:“At our Seder,” said Adam Lehman, CEO of Hillel, “relatives and I were saying how thankful we are that our kids are no longer on campus in this moment. It’s just so emotionally challenging for many students. It’s, without question, taking away from the core experience of being in a healthy, supportive learning community.” Read the story ➤

Opinion | Protesters at Columbia are fighting for our deepest values as Jews: The confluence of the outbreak of new protests with Passover is a reminder of what it means to fight for what’s right, writes Leo Ferguson of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. “Our Jewishness should demand that we take risks in pursuit of our highest values of justice and the preservation of life. We should not take refuge in vague fears about the inappropriate language of a few protestors — we should drown them out by flooding the streets with our own voices.” Read his essay ➤

Opinion: The center of campus resistance is not just at Columbia. It’s at Hebrew University, argues David Theo Goldberg, a professor and author.

THE HOSTAGES

Today marks the 202nd day that Hersh Goldberg-Polin and others have been held hostage. (Getty)

The latest: Hamas released a video Wednesday of American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin. His parents called the video, in which Hersh talks about Passover, “overwhelming.”

‘We have failed’ | A conversation with the parents of another Israeli hostage: Omer Neutra grew up in Long Island, New York, served as captain of his Jewish day school basketball team and worked as a lifeguard. He joined the IDF and was taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7. “We’ve got to do different things in order to get them released because doing the same thing and expecting different results is not working,” said his dad, Ronen. Added his mom, Orna: “We really hope that he’s able to survive this — but for how much longer can he be a hostage?” Read the story ➤

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Women’s auxiliaries and SS officers enjoy music not far from the barracks of Auschwitz-Birkenau. (Courtesy of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum)

Hidden in this picture, the murder of 1.1 million Jews: Photographs from a 1944 album show a group of coworkers enjoying music, drinking and even going on a hunting expedition. Those pictured in the photos were the staff of Auschwitz. The album, which the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C. received in 2006, is the basis of Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich’s play Here There Are Blueberries, now playing at the New York Theatre Workshop. “The images of these people just having a perfectly lovely day, when, outside of the frame, 1.1 million people are being killed, really struck me,” Kaufman said.

That Passover song about the goat captivated a famous artist who wasn’t Jewish:Frank Stella grew up in an Italian Catholic immigrant family in Malden, Massachusetts. An exhibition of Stella’s “Had Gadya” series, illustrating the beloved Haggadah song about the little goat, just opened at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Our Beth Harpaz went for a visit, and discovered the Yiddish picture book that inspired Stella.

Plus: Hilda Chazanovitz writes about bringing Passover back to the town where the Nazis killed her relatives.

NEW FROM THE FORWARD

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

An auctioneer sells the Gustav Klimt painting "Portrait of Miss Lieser" Wednesday in Vienna. It was possibly stolen from Jews by the Nazis. (Getty)

🖼️  A long-lost painting by Gustav Klimt sold at auction Wednesday for $37 million. The work’s whereabouts during the Holocaust are unknown and casts a shadow over the painting’s ownership history. (New York Times)

⚖️  A California county is reviewing more than 30 death penalty cases after it unearthed records suggesting that prosecutors intentionally excluded Jewish and Black jurors from capital trials. (The Guardian)

🇹🇳   Thousands of tourists flock every year to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Lag B’Omer in Tunisia. But after a deadly shooting there last year, and increased anti-Israel rhetoric due to the war in Gaza, organizers are planning a more muted celebration next month, and with increased security. (AP)

🏈  The New England Patriots’ third-round pick in the NFL draft on Friday is set to be announced by members of Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism. Kraft, a Jewish philanthropist, is the owner of the Patriots. (Pats Pulpit)

Shiva calls ➤  Phyllis Pressman, the matriarch of the family that founded the Barneys department store in New York, died at 95 … Rabbi Albert Thaler, founding director of the Ramah Day Camp in Nyack, New York, died at 91 … Dr. Joel Breman, who helped stop an Ebola outbreak in Africa, died at 87 … Carrie Robbins, a costume designer for dozens of Broadway shows, including Grease and For the Lost Children of Paris, about Jewish children who were sent to Auschwitz, died at 81 … Howie Schwab, an ESPN researcher who later starred in his own sports trivia game show, died at 63.

What else we’re reading ➤  A candid conversation with Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt about antisemitism on both the right and the left … Owner of the NFL’s Washington Commanders on his Jewish identity and Israel … The iconic story of the 1976 Saturday Night Live backstage Seder.

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

(Photographs By Robert A. Cumins)

Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse, the famed Lower East Side restaurant which shut down in 2021, will reopen in May. But first it hosted Passover Seders this week. Nearly 100 people attended the early dinner Tuesday — which included a rabbi, musical entertainment, dancing and, of course, steak — while around 100 more waited outside for the second session.

Thanks to PJ Grisar 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.

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