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| | | | WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
| | Good morning. Today: Rescuing a Reddit page about the Holocaust from the grips of white nationalists • Trump creates commission on religious liberty • Anguish over Israeli aid blockade of Gaza. |
| | | | | The Forward’s May 2, 1945 front page, with the above-the-fold headline declaring “Hitler’s Dead.” (Forward Association) |
| Eighty years ago today, the Forward shared a monumental piece of news with its readers: Adolf Hitler was dead.
Hitler’s death, which took place on April 30, had been announced by German radio late the evening before. But in the first hours after the earth-shaking news spread, confusion reigned as the Allies tried to independently establish exactly what had happened, and the Nazi onslaught across Europe began its final collapse.
“A million Nazis in Italy and Austria surrender; all of Berlin captured,” read a subsidiary headline on our May 2, 1945 front page. “General Eisenhower stated today that there is evidence Hitler died of a brain hemorrhage, rather than in battle with the Russians, as the Nazis are reporting,” the article beneath reported. (Hitler had in fact died by suicide, a fact that would not be officially confirmed until 1956, when Germany formally issued his death certificate.) But there would “be a demand for Hitler’s body in order to be convinced of his death,” the report concluded. |
| | | Former Irish Prime Minister Éamon de Valera in an undated photo. (AFP via Getty Images) |
| Opinion | Ireland’s prime minister gave condolences for Hitler’s death — here’s why that’s a contemporary problem. Only one democracy issued condolences for Hitler’s death: Ireland, whose then-prime minister, Éamon de Valera, visited Germany’s ambassador in Ireland on May 2, after the news broke. 80 years later, there’s a fledgling movement advocating for the Irish government to recant the condolences. “For those of us with Jewish heritage in Ireland,” writes the poet Simon Lewis, that legacy “touches on deeply personal questions about identity and the lasting shadows of antisemitism.” Read his essay ➤
A subreddit notorious for Holocaust denial is back online — now as a memorial. For years, the moderators of a Reddit forum called “r/holocaust” — following the site’s conventions, in which communities devoted to a specific subject take names like “r/Judaism” — censored factual posts about the Shoah, and promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories. Getting it out of their grips — and into the hands of experienced Jewish moderators — in time for the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust’s end involved an unusually intense engagement with the landmine-dotted landscape of social media content moderation. Read the story ➤
More on what Hitler means in 2025: Opinion | I wrote the book on Hitler’s first 100 days. Here’s how Trump’s compare
Nazis are praising Hitler’s art prowess. But was he really any good?
In 1913 Vienna, Freud meets Hitler — and the patient of his nightmares
Plus: In 2019, I wrote about an unexpected “Hitler boom” in academia, as historians began to re-evaluate how central his role in the Holocaust really was, for The New York Times. There had previously been a belief that “dangerous developments only stem from social movements or structural trends,” Peter Longerich, a biographer of Hitler, told me. “It can also be, simply, that a person has the abilities to use a certain political situation to set a new agenda.” |
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| | | | | | Napoleon, the model of a world-historical individual. (Getty Images) |
| Opinion | In this Hegelian age, we should be talking about Herzl, not Trump. Pundits have increasingly come to invoke a concept proposed by the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel to discuss President Donald Trump: that of the world-historical individual, who comes to define the era in which they live. But the figure of that kind who might be most important to understand in our current age — yes, even though he’s dead — could be Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, argues our culture columnist Rob Zaretsky. Read his essay ➤
Plus: On Thursday, which was National Prayer Day, Trump used a new executive order to establish a presidential committee on religious liberty. “They say separation between church and state … I said, ‘All right, let’s forget about that for one time,’” he said. (Politico)
Career prosecutors and investigators at the Justice Department objected to a senior Trump appointee’s insistence that they investigate pro-Palestinian student protesters from Columbia University, suggesting the effort may have shaky legal standing. (New York Times)
On Friday, Trump reiterated his previous statement that he intends to strip Harvard of its tax-exempt status. The university recently filed a lawsuit against his administration over frozen federal funding amid his attempted crackdown on campuses over their handling of antisemitism. (Wall Street Journal)
Democratic New York Rep. Dan Goldman, speaking at a Jewish Democratic Council of America conference, expressed concern about the political left’s response to the Trump administration’s efforts to detain and deport student protesters, saying, “We are seeing, because of Donald Trump’s overreach, that people who have espoused antisemitism are becoming martyrs.” (Jewish Insider) |
| | | | | Settlers in the West Bank pose for a photo as Israeli soldiers stand nearby during a march in Hebron, Sept. 28, 2024. (Mosab Shawer / Middle East Images via AFP via Getty Images) |
| Opinion | The Trump administration is primed to give a gigantic gift to extremists in the West Bank. Amid the scads of cuts that have characterized the first months of the Trump administration, a new excision proposed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio — the elimination of the U.S. security coordinator for the West Bank and Gaza — might sound like just another bureaucratic gesture. Not so fast, writes our Israel-based columnist, Dan Perry. The three-star general who holds the role does crucial work with Israel and the Palestinian Authority to rein in extremist violence perpetrated both by Palestinian terrorists and Israeli settlers. To cut the role would be “a gamble with lives, and an insult to logic and expertise that’s likely to further destabilize the West Bank at a time of already exceptional volatility.”Read his essay ➤
Plus: Trump said he’s received reports that fewer than 24 hostages — the long-reported number — remain alive in Gaza. 59 hostages total are believed held in the territory. (Times of Israel)
The United Nations’ emergency relief coordinator pushed for Israel to lift the blockade of aid into Gaza that it’s maintained since the breakdown of the ceasefire. The U.N. reported that thousands of Palestinians breached a humanitarian field office in Gaza in search of aid on Wednesday, with one senior official with UNRWA — the agency that serves Palestinian refugees — saying, “The looting, while devastating, is not surprising in the face of total systemic collapse.” (Associated Press)
As fires outside Jerusalem were brought under control, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said they may have resulted from arson, although police and fire services suggested that there was little evidence to support that suggestion. (JTA) |
| | | | | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
| | | Rabbi Deborah Waxman. (Courtesy Reconstructing Judaism) |
| ✡️ Rabbi Deborah Waxman, the leader of the Reconstructionist movement, announced that she will retire in 2026. The progressive movement has experienced significant conflict over anti-Zionism amid the Israel-Hamas war. (JTA)
🏫 New York legislators are considering a proposal, as part of a budget deal, that would reduce their oversight of Orthodox yeshivas, in a move the state education commissioner has strongly advised against. (New York Times)
👀 Three pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested at UCLA on Wednesday night, after a similar arrest at Virginia Commonwealth University earlier this week. Meanwhile, two students and two recent graduates filed a federal lawsuit against the University of Texas, Austin, over their arrests at a protest last year. (Daily Bruin, Commonwealth Times, KUT)
🎤 Audience members at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest will be able to wave Palestinian flags, after a longstanding policy disallowing the display of flags from non-participant countries was overturned. Last year’s Israeli contestant was met with protests both outside and inside the competition; this year’s competitor is a survivor of the Nova music festival massacre. (CNN, JTA)
🎻 A Jewish prisoner constructed a violin while imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp — but the instrument’s remarkable origin story has only just surfaced, after repairs revealed a hidden note reading, “Trial instrument, made under difficult conditions with no tools and materials.” (ABC Australia)
Shiva call ➤Singer and songwriter Jill Sobule, who broke boundaries with her 1995 song “I Kissed a Girl,” died at 66.
What else we’re reading ➤ “The fears and hopes of being a Jewish trans woman under Trump” (MSNBC) “A public letter criticizing Israel reveals a schism among Britain’s Jews” (New Lines) “What interviews with ordinary Germans living under the Nazis can teach us about our current politics” (Conversation) “The Supreme Court seems to think the separation of church and state is anti-Catholic bigotry” (Slate) |
| | | | | If you, like me, have had Eva Victor’s tongue-in-cheek videos dot your social media feeds for years — shoutout to the woman who absolutely totally did not murder her husband — the prospect of the Jewish writer, director and actress’s debut feature film, Sorry, Baby, is one to celebrate. The film won raves in its Sundance debut; it arrives in theaters on June 27. |
| 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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