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| WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
| | | | | Today: Elmo posts ‘Kill All Jews’ • Mandy Patinkin on why Netanyahu is ‘worst thing for Jewish people’ • The race to save Brandeis’ Yiddish program • And ‘Nazi Creek’ gets a new name. |
| | | | | Talk show host Tucker Carlson in October. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images) |
| Divided loyalty smear
Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host and a leader in the Republican Party’s isolationist wing, said at a conservative convention this weekend that Americans who previously served in the Israeli Defense Forces should have their U.S. citizenship stripped over concerns of divided loyalty. Spy games: He also criticized the Trump administration for its focus on deporting pro-Palestinian students who engaged in anti-Israel activity on campus. And Carlson claimed that Jeffrey Epstein, a disgraced Jewish financier accused of sex trafficking, was working for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.
Zooming out: Several Trump cabinet members and Republican officials attended and spoke at the three-day conference. |
| | Related: The official social media account for Elmo, the beloved Sesame Street character, shared several antisemitic posts Sunday night — including “Kill all Jews” and “Donald Trump is Netanyahu’s puppet because he is in the Epstein files.” Sesame said Elmo was hacked; the posts were subsequently removed. (JTA) |
| | | Zohran Mamdani, left, and Brad Lander on the campaign trail in June. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) |
| Exclusive: Why New York City ended investment in Israel Bonds
Brad Lander, New York City’s outgoing comptroller, is defending his decision to end pension fund investments in Israel Bonds, calling it a standard financial decision. In a letter first shared with our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh, Lander said he was following the city’s policy of avoiding foreign sovereign debt, treating Israel the same as other countries rather than giving it special treatment in the pension portfolio. The boycott Israel movement “asks investors to treat Israel worse than other countries,” wrote Lander, who is Jewish. “I oppose this effort.” Lander is backing Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor. Mamdani, a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, said during the primary that he would divest from Israel if elected.
Mayor Eric Adams is using Lander’s decision to lobby for support from Jewish voters. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who lost to Mamdani in the primary, is reportedly launching an independent bid this week. |
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| | Opinion | I’m a Zionist Democrat. Mamdani has me asking if I must choose between my ideals and identity: “If the party values its Jewish base,” writes Ethan Kushner, chair of American Democrats in Israel, “it must act decisively to ensure safe spaces for Jewish identity within progressive coalitions, in part by signaling an understanding that support for Israel does not preclude support for social justice.” Read his essay ►
Plus: Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Minority Leader, has not yet endorsed a candidate for mayor. He plans to meet this week with Mamdani who, Jeffries said, needs “to reassure” Jewish voters “that he’s going to stand up for their safety and security.” (Punchbowl News)
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| | | | | Brandeis University was established by the Jewish community after World War II. (Ken Wolter/iStock) |
| ‘If Yiddish isn’t safe at Brandeis, where is it safe?’
Facing budget cuts and dwindling enrollment, Brandeis said it would place its Yiddish program “on hiatus” after next year — a move that would effectively eliminate the role of Ellen Kellman, the university’s sole Yiddish professor for nearly three decades. The pushback: But the decision sparked an outcry, reports our Clara Shapiro. Within days, current and former students mobilized, firing off emails to Dean of Arts and Sciences Jeffrey Shoulson. The response was overwhelming — and effective. Moved by the deluge, Shoulson persuaded university leadership to reverse course and keep the program going, though on a more limited scale.
The reprieve: Now, students are hoping the program’s survival marks a turning point. “The story of Yiddish is similar to the story of the Jewish community as a whole,” said Ian Jacobs, a rising senior and linguistics major at Brandeis. “Despite everything, despite external and internal pressure to stop, despite the institutional pressures, and genocides, and everything, it has managed to survive.” |
| | Plus… Amid rising concerns about antisemitism, Jewish students continue to enroll at Ivy League schools, with Columbia’s Hillel director reporting a strong incoming class for the fall. (Jewish Insider)
Officials from Georgetown, UC Berkeley, and CUNY are set to testify Tuesday before Congress, where they’re expected to face tough questions not only about campus pro-Palestinian activism, but also deeper concerns over foreign funding and faculty-led organizing efforts. (Jewish Insider) |
| | | | | A boy on Monday carries a jug filled with water drawn from the tank of a destroyed mobile water cistern in a camp for Palestinian refugees in Gaza. (Eyad Baba/AFP via Getty Images) |
| President Donald Trump said Sunday he’s hopeful a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza could be reached within a week, even as talks remain stalled over Israel’s military withdrawal — and some sources accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of intentionally slowing the process. (Times of Israel)
The latest… Trump attended the FIFA Club World Cup soccer final Sunday in New Jersey, where U.S. officials, including Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, met with officials from Qatar, who are serving as intermediaries in the ceasefire talks. (CBS News)
At least 10 people, including children, were killed near a water distribution site in Gaza on Sunday, in what Israel’s military called a “technical error.” (New York Times)
Israeli military officials warned that plans for a “humanitarian city” to hold at least 600,000 Palestinians in Gaza could take months to set up and might jeopardize ongoing hostage talks; former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called it a “concentration camp.” (Times of Israel, Guardian)
A new poll shows 74% of Israelis — including most Netanyahu voters — support a deal with Hamas that would see the release of all the hostages in exchange for an end to the war, sharply rejecting the prime minister’s more limited proposal. (Times of Israel)
Jonathan Polin, whose son Hersh was kidnapped and killed in Gaza, urged Netanyahu to stop taking credit for hostage returns — including those who are dead — calling his claims disrespectful to those who might have been saved through a deal. Netanyahu reiterated the claim over the weekend (Facebook, Times of Israel)
Netanyahu recorded an interview with the Nelk Boys, a group of pro-Trump YouTubers and pranksters with a large following among young men, while he was in the U.S. last week. It has not yet been released. (Axios)
The Conservative movement’s four-decade-old gap-year program in Israel shut down in 2024 due to low enrollment. But it now has plans to relaunch in 2026 with a revamped model featuring internships, college credits, and a new base in Tel Aviv’s trendy Florentin neighborhood. (JTA) |
| | | | | David Keene, the author’s dad, with the ark he built. The bottom of the ark shows the two synagogues it has called home. (Courtesy Louis Keene) |
| An ark’s second life
My colleague Louis Keene recalls growing up in California where his dad — “a pediatrician who never saw a scrap of wood that couldn’t be saved” — built a Torah ark for the family’s congregation. Fast forward a couple decades and the shul closed its building, returning the ark to the Keene family, where it was collecting dust in the garage.
Then came the wildfires that destroyed the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center. In the days following the blaze, Louis reported on b’nai mitzvahs that went on in borrowed auditoriums; precious family heirlooms found in the rubble; a forgotten mural revealed by the flames.
Louis’ dad reached out to the shul: You need an ark? |
| | Movies… The No. 1 film at the box office this weekend was Superman, a comic book hero with Jewish origins and a modern-day message about undocumented immigrants.
A new documentary celebrating the 50th anniversary of Jaws reveals lots about the Spielberg classic — including a background character wearing a yarmulke. |
| | | | | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
| | | Elon Musk in the Oval Office at the White House in May. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) |
| Elon Musk…
💻 Elon Musk’s A.I. firm apologized Saturday after a software update led its Grok chatbot to post antisemitic content on X, including praise for Adolf Hitler and conspiracy theories about Jews in Hollywood. (NBC News)
🚘 Musk said that Grok will be integrated into Tesla cars this week. (TechCrunch)
🤷 Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League says he regrets defending Musk’s Nazi-style salute in January. “It’s not so much what he intended,” Greenblatt told CNN. “It’s the impact that it had. It’s the way that white nationalists rejoiced at seeing him do this,” adding, “I wish we’d called it out more clearly when it happened.” (X)
Elsewhere…
📈 Speaking of the ADL, a new survey it commissioned found that 1 in 4 Americans view recent antisemitic attacks as “understandable,” with even more saying such violence would stop if Israel ends the war with Hamas in Gaza. (JTA)
⛪ Two women were killed Sunday at a church in Lexington, Kentucky, after a shooting spree that began when a state trooper was shot during a traffic stop; police say the suspect was also killed. (Axios)
☪️ A Muslim inmate who won a Supreme Court case over his right to grow a beard says Arkansas officials retaliated for several other lawsuits he filed by transferring him to a federal prison in West Virginia. (AP)
💰 Tel Aviv was ranked the eighth most expensive city in the world for buying a home, with city center prices soaring 110% since 2012, according to a new report. (Times of Israel)
🌊 After more than 70 years, Alaska has renamed “Nazi Creek,” a remote site that German soldiers never actually reached during World War II. Its new name is Kaxchim Chiĝanaa, which means “gizzard creek.” (New York Times)
Food…
🇬🇷 The Israeli owner of a new kosher burger spot in Athens says vandals targeted the six-week-old restaurant Saturday night, spray-painting anti-Israel graffiti. Since the Gaza war began in 2023, Israeli-owned restaurants in New York, Melbourne, Philadelphia and other cities have been frequent targets — often followed by surges of public support. (JTA)
🥪 Inspired by David Sax’s seminal Save the Deli book, a Jewish Florida woman organizes “meat ups” across the country to find the best pastrami sandwiches. (Fox News)
🍲 In some Orthodox neighborhoods in Israel, it’s become a Thursday night ritual to dig into cholent, the hearty stew traditionally reserved for Shabbat. But now a prominent rabbi has stirred the pot — ruling that eating it early diminishes the joy of Shabbat. (JTA)
Shiva calls ► Daniel Kleppner, a physicist who brought precision to GPS and helped confirm a rare state of matter first theorized by Albert Einstein, died at 92 … Alan Hassenfeld, a philanthropist to Jewish causes and former CEO of Hasbro, whose grandfather founded the toy company, died at 76 … Andrew Kassoy, an entrepreneur who sought to harness capitalism for social good and a supporter of Lab/Shul, died at 55.
What else we’re reading ► “Israel’s hottest new export: Reform and Conservative rabbis” (Haaretz) … “The precarious position of Iranian Jews” (Atlantic) … “Donkey bone study unlocks how Canaanites hauled ass from Egypt 4,700 years ago” (Times of Israel) |
| | | | | Actor Mandy Patinkin, his wife, actress and writer Kathryn Grody, and their younger son, Gideon, sat down with The New York Times to talk about their unexpected rise to internet fame, the highs and lows of their marriage, their political activism, and what being Jewish means to them today.
In this clip, the family talks about their disdain for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mandy says: “For the Jewish people to allow this to happen to children and civilians of all ages in Gaza, for whatever reason, is unconscionable and unthinkable. And I ask you Jews, everywhere, all over the world, to spend some time alone and think, ‘Is this acceptable and sustainable? How could it be done to you and your ancestors and you turn around and you do it to someone else?’”
Watch the entire 55-minute interview.
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| Thanks to Jacob Kornbluh 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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