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Today: Acclaimed author calls Israel racist in new book, airline bans pagers on flights after attack on Hezbollah, meet the Jewish attorney hoping to become North Carolina’s next governor, and Hallmark to air two new Hanukkah films this holiday season.

ISRAEL AT WAR

Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli strike on Monday in Lebanon. (Getty)

The latest…

• Israel launched a barrage of airstrikes into Lebanon this morning — hitting over 300 Hezbollah targets, according to the IDF — after warning locals to “distance themselves from sites used by the Iran-backed terror group to store weapons.” At least 100 people were killed, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

  
  

• The army said “25 projectiles were fired” from Lebanon into northern Israel; most were intercepted or landed in open areas.

  
  

• “We’re going to do everything we can to keep a wider war from breaking out,” President Joe Biden told reporters Sunday.

First responders and Israeli security forces gather amid debris and charred vehicles in Kiryat Bialik in the Haifa District of Israel, following a strike Sunday by Hezbollah. (Getty)

Opinion | Why Lebanon is different than Gaza:The fight by Iran and Hezbollah “is not for justice or self-determination, but an orchestrated campaign of aggression,” argues our Israel-based columnist, Dan Perry. He offers seven strategies for a path forward, including putting pressure on the Lebanese government which “needs to publicly disavow Hezbollah’s actions” and invite “external intervention or peacekeeping forces.” Read his essay ►

Plus…

• After a year of fighting Hamas in the South, a potential war against Hezbollah in the north means different enemies, terrain and weather. Civilians are helping to equip Israeli soldiers.

  
  

• Qatar Airways banned pagers on flights to and from Beirut, for fear the devices could explode in-flight.

  
  

• Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attack, has dropped off the radar. Israel is investigating the longshot possibility that he may have been killed in an IDF strike.

  
  

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is traveling to the U.S. this week, where he is set to deliver a speech Friday at the United Nations General Assembly.

ELECTION 2024

Former President Donald Trump delivers remarks Thursday at an Israeli American Council event. (Getty)

Fallout continues after former President Donald Trump said at a Thursday event addressing antisemitism that Jews would be to blame if he loses. The American Jewish Committee called it “outrageous and dangerous.”

• On CNN Sunday, Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, refused to condemn Trump’s remarks.

  
  

• “This is who Donald Trump is,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat from Georgia and a reverend. “He’s got so much bigotry, so much antisemitism, so much racism, so much misogyny, in his heart, that it comes out.”

Opinions…

• Trump put “Jews even more centrally in the crosshairs of every conspiracy theorist in America,” argues our senior columnist, Rob Eshman.

  
  

• “As far back as Pharaoh, as far back as Haman,” writes Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, “there have been leaders who have accused Jews of dual loyalty, of being a fifth column, of being a threat to the well being of the general population. And that’s what Trump did.”

Josh Stein, the North Carolina attorney general, wants to be the state’s first Jewish governor. (Getty)

What to know about Josh Stein, who is outpolling the scandal-plagued Mark Robinson in North Carolina governor’s race: Voters will choose between a Jewish Democrat and a Republican with an affinity for invoking Nazism. As the state’s attorney general, Stein has negotiated settlements in the opioid crisis and worked on environmental cleanup and reproductive health issues. Stein is active in his synagogue (even serving as a High Holiday usher) and coached his son’s JCC soccer team. Read the story ►

Related: Robinson called himself a “Black Nazi” on a pornographic messaging board and expressed support for reinstating slavery. Most of his staff resigned on Sunday.

Plus…

• Vice President Kamala Harris is ramping up efforts to win over Mormon voters in the critical swing state of Arizona.

  
  

• On social media over the weekend, Trump promoted an endorsement he received from the mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan — the first U.S. city to divest from Israel. The mayor also previously “liked” a comment referring to Jews as monkeys.

  
  

• Most Americans don’t think Harris or Trump are particularly Christian, according to a new poll.

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Sen. Bernie Sanders, Albert Einstein and Bob Dylan have a few things in common. (Getty)

The hugely influential record label that unites Albert Einstein, Bob Dylan and Bernie Sanders lives on:Legend has it that the idea for Folkways Records was hatched at a 1939 dinner conversation between founder Moses Asch, his father Sholem — a prominent Yiddish-language novelist and leftist intellectual — and the Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist. It would go on to release recordings by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and a young upstart named Bob Dylan. And thanks to the Smithsonian, the label is still releasing new albums.

Plus…

• Low-income Jews are desperate for community after Oct. 7, write Ilana M. Horwitz and Mimi Kravetz in an opinion essay. The High Holidays are an ideal time to welcome them.

  
  

• The Yiddish word “schlub” is having a moment.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Award-winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates tackles the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his new book. (Getty)

📖  Acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates has a new book in which he lays out “the case that the Israeli occupation is a moral crime.” He writes, “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn” as intensely than in Israel. (New York)

⚖️  A federal judge sentenced the former editor of The Jewish Press to four months in prison for participating in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (JTA)

🖼️  California passed a law aimed at helping families gain restitution for stolen art and other property during the Holocaust. (JTA)

🙏  For the first time in modern American history, young men are now more religious than young women, marking a significant shift in religion trends. (NY Times)

🕎  The Hallmark Channel unveiled this year’s slate of 47 (!!) new holiday movies, which include two Hanukkah romances: Leah’s Perfect Gift, about a Jewish woman trying to fit in at her boyfriend’s family Christmas; and Hanukkah on the Rocks, about a Jewish woman who traverses Chicago looking for the last box of menorah candles. (Kveller, Variety)

What we’re listening to ► A new seven-part podcast series, The Rabbis Go South, which tells the story of 16 rabbis answering the call of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to help desegregate St. Augustine, Florida. Listen to the trailer here.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Our West Coast reporter Louis Keene appeared this weekend on CBS’ 48 Hours to discuss the Blaze Bernstein case. Bernstein, a gay and Jewish college student, was stabbed to death in 2019 by an avowed neo-Nazi after the former high school classmates matched on a dating app. Louis covered the trial of Bernstein’s killer, Samuel Woodward, who was convicted this summer and sentenced to life in prison. Watch the trailer above, and the entire episode on Paramount+.

Dept. of corrections: In Thursday’s edition, we incorrectly stated that a musician who remixed a section of Psalms was Jewish. He is not.

Thanks to PJ Grisar, Louis Keene and Jacob Kornbluh for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Dan Perry for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

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