WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

TikTok sends users down antisemitic rabbit hole, New York Jews divided on Biden, Florida on path to allowing chaplains in schools, and meet the rising Jewish star in the new Professional Women’s Hockey League.

ISRAEL AT WAR

Hostage update: Israel is reportedly open to allowing Yaha Sinwar, the Hamas leader behind the Oct. 7 attacks, to go into exile in exchange for the release of all the hostages.

A poster of an Israeli hostage on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Getty)

Critics slammed Harvard’s new antisemitism czar. He says he’s been misunderstood: Derek Penslar, a history professor, found his work under new scrutiny when he assumed leadership of the university’s antisemitism task force. “I feel like there are two Derek Penslars in the world,” he told our reporter, Irene Katz Connelly. “There’s the Derek Penslar who teaches at Harvard, who has devoted his professional and personal life to Israel, who cares deeply about his Jewish students, and who is very concerned about antisemitism. And then there is a malicious avatar whom people are accusing of heinous misdeeds.” Read the interview ➤

More from Harvard…

• A new federal investigation at Harvard will decide whether the school has done enough to stop harassment of Palestinian students and their allies.

  
  

• Harvard is under fire for hosting an upcoming event featuring a Palestinian professor from the occupied West Bank who previously blamed Israel for the Oct. 7 attacks. The Middle East Dialogues series this semester will also include speeches by two Harvard alumni: Jared Kushner and Einat Wolf, a former member of the Knesset.

  
  

• A congressional committee investigating antisemitism on college campuses asked the University of Pennsylvania for a trove of documents. The school began handing them over Wednesday. Meanwhile, the committee has accused Harvard of obstructing its investigation.

Members of Jewish Voice for Peace and other activists were arrested while protesting President Biden’s stance on Israel during his Wednesday visit to Manhattan. The protesters briefly shut down traffic along Fifth Avenue in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Getty)

Jews deliver mixed messages to Biden: Scores of Jewish New Yorkers tried to block President Biden’s motorcade Wednesday. They held signs that called the war in Gaza a genocide and urged the president to call for a ceasefire. About three blocks away, a humbler Jewish cadre delivered a strikingly different message. Their signs said, “Thank you Biden,” and “Thanks for being the good guy.” The demonstrations around the president’s three-day fundraising trip to New York — his first visit to the city since Oct. 7 —  revealed the Jewish community’s division over the war as it enters its fifth month. Read the story ➤

Where the rivals to succeed former Rep. George Santos stand on aid to Israel: The outcome of next Tuesday’s swing district contest, where 13% of the electorate is Jewish, could help determine whether Republicans maintain their House majority. Democrat Tom Suozzi, who used to hold the seat, and Republican Mazi Melesa Pilip, an Ethiopian Israeli and Nassau County legislator, are both claiming to be the better friend to Israel. Read the story ➤

Related: Congress’ debate over an aid package to Israel, which has been linked to immigration reform here at home, has divided Jewish activists.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israel's President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday in Jerusalem. (Getty)

More on the war…

• “Israelis were dehumanized in the most horrific way on Oct. 7,” U.S. Secretary State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday, as he wrapped up his seventh visit to the country since the attacks. “The hostages have been dehumanized every day since. But that cannot be a license to dehumanize others.”

  
  

• A group of protesters calling for a ceasefire gathered outside an AIPAC dinner in Jefferson City, Missouri, and labeled the biggest Jewish lobbying group “white supremacist antisemites.”
  

  
  

• French President Emmanuel Macron presided over a somber ceremony in Paris on Wednesday to honor the 42 French nationals murdered during the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.

  
  

• Actress Debra Messing is producing a documentary called Primal Fear, about the rise in global antisemitism since the Hamas attacks.

  
  

• Israel chose Eden Golan, 20, to represent the country at the annual Eurovision Song Contest, to be held in May in Sweden. There have been growing calls for Israel, which has won the competition four times since 1978, to be banned from this year’s event.

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

A self-portrait by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1648. (Getty)

Can Jews still embrace Rembrandt — even if his love for the Jewish people is only a myth? As a new book attests, the Dutch painter’s philosemitic reputation may have been greatly exaggerated. “Rather than an atypical pro-Jewish advocate,” writes Benjamin Ivry in a review, “Rembrandt instead fully accepted the general Christian belief of his era, that Christianity redeemed Judaism, an inferior and superseded belief.”

How fast does TikTok send users down the antisemitic rabbit hole? You can always find antisemitism online if you’re looking. But on TikTok, it might find you even if you’re not. On the video-streaming platform, an all-powerful algorithm feeds users whatever it thinks might keep them hooked, whether that’s dog videos or conspiracy theories. Our culture reporter Mira Fox started scrolling to see just what might make the algorithm think she liked antisemitism, and how easy it is to trigger a flood of hate speech. As it turned out, her experiment worked worryingly well.

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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Sandro Mamukelashvili of the San Antonio Spurs dunks the ball Wednesday against the Miami Heat. (Getty)

🏀  The San Antonio Spurs were in Florida to play the Miami Heat Wednesday and needed a place to practice. They ended up at the gym of the Hebrew Academy, and the students got to watch. The Heat beat the Spurs 116-104. (AP)

Related: How gyms at Los Angeles’ Jewish high schools became hotspots for NBA players to stay in shape

🤦  Florida school districts could choose to allow volunteer chaplains in schools under a bill approved Tuesday by a Senate committee. The bill, and a similar one being considered in the state House, have not yet become law. (AP)

🪖  An American-Israeli rabbi, who frequently travels into the occupied West Bank to help Palestinian farmers access their land, was indicted for obstructing two soldiers and pushing another, preventing them from carrying out their duties. (JTA)

🏕️  Filming has wrapped on the The Floaters, a comedy starring Jackie Tohn as a struggling musician who takes a last-minute job at a Jewish summer camp. No release date has been announced. (Deadline)

🏒 Abbey Levy is a rising Jewish star in the new Professional Women’s Hockey League. “She’s not your stereotypical goalie,” said one of her teammates. (JTA)

Shiva call ➤  Nina Gottlieb, a Holocaust survivor who told her story in an award-winning documentary, died at 91.

What else we’re reading ➤  Torah scrolls that survived the Nazis now fuel faith around the world … How Oct. 7 drove a wedge into the Democratic party … Trapped between two wars, Ukrainians in Gaza plead for an exit.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

(Getty)

Israel’s synchronized swimming team competed in the preliminary round of the free artistic swimming event during the 2024 World Aquatics Championships on Thursday in Doha, Qatar.

Thanks to Mira Fox, Jacob Kornbluh 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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