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WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Good morning. Today: Trump official gives grim picture of Gaza rebuilding timeline • Holocaust survivor rebukes German government over far-right • RIP, Marianne Faithfull.

TRUMP 2.0

President Donald Trump leaves the stage after speaking at the Israeli American Council National Summit in September 2024. (Getty Images)

What the controversial antisemitism executive order actually means for college students and schools. President Donald Trump’s Wednesday order, aimed at addressing campus antisemitism, generated a wave of furious discourse. But its actual effect, at least initially, will be somewhat limited, reports our Arno Rosenfeld. That could be paving the way for future, more assertive actions by the administration — or be aimed at prompting universities, nervous about the security of their federal funding, to take more aggressive steps themselves. “What we don’t want to see is schools saying, ‘Hey, Students for Justice in Palestine, I’m going to need a list of everyone in that club and we’re going to comb it for foreign students,’” one attorney said. Read the story ➤

CEASEFIRE

Israelis hold signs bearing the names of hostages believed to be dead during a demonstration demanding action to retrieve all remaining hostages in Tel Aviv on Friday. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)

The release of eight hostages — three Israeli and five Thai — from Gaza yesterday marked a particularly poignant illustration of how much individual hostages have come to mean to Israelis, and their supporters abroad. Two of the Israelis released, the octogenarian Gadi Mozes and 20-year-old Agam Berger, both sparked a flurry of social media posts: Mozes, over an instant-classic photograph of him marching through masked gunmen with a defiant smile, and Berger over reports that she took on the small but meaningful caretaker role of braiding her fellow hostages’ hair.

The response to Mozes and Berger was a symbol of how, to many in Israel and beyond, these hostages have taken on deep, individual significance. With three more hostages scheduled for release tomorrow — including Yarden Bibas, whose young family’s unknown status has become a particular pain point amid the unfolding ceasefire — it’s a reminder of how personal the war has felt, amid all the political battles around its conduct.

Plus:

• Keith Siegel, an American citizen, is scheduled to be released alongside Bibas tomorrow; Ofer Kalderon, whose two children were released in the November 2023 ceasefire, will join them. (JTA)

  
  

• Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said rebuilding Gaza could well take 10-15 years. Witkoff, who on Wednesday became the first U.S. official to visit the strip in more than a decade, said “what was inescapable is that there is almost nothing left of Gaza.” (Axios)

CULTURE

An image from an Anne Frank exhibit at The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. (Getty Images)

What we write about when we write about Anne Frank. It seems like everyone knows at least a bit about the story of Anne Frank — which means that the way that story is told is ever-changing. In her new book The Many Lives of Anne Frank, the critic Ruth Franklin examines the girl behind the icon, and the effect of the complicated interweaving of narratives around her. “Anne Frank herself has become not just a person who once lived, breathed, and wrote but a symbol: a secret door that opens into a kaleidoscope of meanings, most of which her legions of fans understand incompletely, if at all,” she writes in the book. Read the story ➤

‘A Knock on the Roof’ is a tragic, heart-pounding portrait of war in Gaza. A new play at the New York Theater Workshop takes audiences inside the agonizing experience of awaiting a bombing in Gaza, in an 80-minute monologue in which a Golan Heights-born playwright and actor plays a civilian in Gaza who “ruminates on her life before the war, as well as her uncertain future.” Read the story ➤

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Holocaust survivor Albrecht Weinberg, 99, on January 20, 2025 in Leer, Germany. (Focke Strangmann/Getty Images)

On the right…

• The 99-year-old Holocaust survivor Albrecht Weinberg said he would return his German federal order of merit after the government passed an anti-immigrant motion Wednesday with the support of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, saying “what happened in the Bundestag on Wednesday reminded me of Germany in 1933.” Separately, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly rebuked her party, the Christian Democratic Union, for joining with AfD on the effort. (Guardian, Politico)

• Also in public rebukes: UFC fighter Bryce Mitchell received harsh words from the mixed martial arts organization’s president and CEO, Dana White, after using antisemitic rhetoric and engaging in Holocaust denial on a podcast. “I’ve heard a lot of dumb and ignorant (stuff) said over the years, but this is probably the worst,” White said. (AP)

• The Anglican Catholic Church kicked out a British priest who, during a pro-life summit last week, went viral for mimicking Elon Musk’s much-scrutinized inauguration day salute, which swiftly drew Nazi comparisons. (JTA)

• Musk said he’s considering suing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, former Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in the 2024 campaign, after Walz called that now-infamous gesture a “Nazi salute.” (Minnesota Star Tribune)

• Amazon is ramping up advertising on X, formerly Twitter, the social media site Musk owns; many major tech companies suspended advertising on the platform after Musk was seen as supporting an antisemitic post in 2023. (Reuters)

Also in the news…

• Ian Epstein, one of the flight attendants killed in Wednesday night’s Washington, D.C. plane crash, was an alumnus of the Jewish youth group BBYO. (JTA)

• Marianne Faithfull, the British singer and Mick Jagger muse whose British father helped save her mother from the Nazis, died at 78. (Times of Israel)

• Hebrew Union College will sell its downtown Manhattan building to NYU for $75 million, relocating within New York to a yet-to-be-announced new site. (New York Jewish Week)

• If you need weekend plans in New York City, may we recommend seeking out a challah croissant? (New York Times)

What else we’re reading ➤

• How “an exhibition of Franz Kafka’s postcards, letters, and manuscript pages rekindles our sense of him as a writer deeply connected to his own time and place.” (New York Review of Books)

• Why “Paul Newman is the OG Jewish heartthrob.” (Hey Alma)

• “If Iranian assassins kill them, it will be Trump’s fault.” (Atlantic)

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Happy birthday, 88th birthday, Philip Glass! Celebrate by joining the composer on a tour through his career and influences.

Thanks to Benyamin Cohen 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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