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WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
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This newsletter will be off until Wednesday morning. Instead of Forwarding the News, you’ll receive newsletter headlines from us on Monday and Tuesday mornings.
Today: Protagonist of Gaza documentary killed • Detained Tufts student denied bail • The British Jew who became a Zulu king. |
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Hersh Goldberg-Polin at Camp Ramah Darom’s Passover retreat as a camper on the ropes course, and later as a counselor entertaining children. (Courtesy of Camp Ramah Darom) |
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‘Whose seat is now empty’: Remembering Hersh Goldberg-Polin at his family’s Passover retreat. Yesterday brought a profound moment of solemnity for attendees enjoying “a blue-sky Thursday in the north Georgia mountains” at an annual Passover retreat: The dedication of a memorial to slain hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who attended the retreat with his family for many years.
Jason Steinberg, one of the more than 200 people present for the dedication, “remembered Hersh from the retreat’s annual ‘Passover Basketball Decathlon,’” reports our Benyamin Cohen. “Hersh brought joy, hustle, grit, Energizer Bunny stamina and love to our game,” said Steinberg, who named his infant son after Hersh.
“The memorial, a decorative curtain hanging in front of the ark in a sanctuary overlooking a lake, bears a verse from Exodus,” Benyamin writes: “This shall be my name forever, this my remembrance for all eternity.” |
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A father mourns as he carries the shrouded body of his daughter, killed in an Israeli strike, during her funeral in the northern Gaza Strip. (Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images) |
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The latest in Israel… Gaza-based photojournalist Fatma Hassona, the protagonist of the Cannes Film Festival-bound documentary Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, was killed alongside her family in an April 16 Israeli airstrike. (Vulture)
A portrait of a Palestinian boy in Gaza who lost both arms during the war won World Press Photo of the Year. (AP)
Hamas rejected an Israeli proposal for a 45-day ceasefire, saying any proposal that does not include a “comprehensive” plan for an end to the war is a non-starter. (CNN)
Aid groups suggest that thousands of children in Gaza are malnourished and the humanitarian system in the strip “is facing total collapse,” as Israel has blocked the entry of food for six weeks. (AP)
Some 180 Jews were allowed into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound Thursday, including a far-right Haredi lawmaker who prostrated himself in prayer, adding new pressure to longstanding tensions over a policy that only Muslims are allowed to pray at the site. (Times of Israel)
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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro speaks during a press conference after being targeted by an arson attack last weekend. (Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images) |
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Opinion | Yes, the attack on Gov. Shapiro was antisemitic. Here’s what the left should learn from it. Earlier this week, our senior columnist Rob Eshman cautioned against assuming last weekend’s arson attack targeting Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was antisemitic, before there was concrete evidence. Well, now that evidence has been uncovered, Rob writes, it speaks to the particular risks of an ascendant form of bigotry against Jews: “anti-Israelism.” Read his essay ➤
In the ashes of the governor’s mansion, clues to a mystery about Josh Shapiro’s Passover Seder. Perusing the photos of the wreckage left by the arson attack, our reporter Louis Keene was intrigued by a snap showing what was apparently a page from a haggadah — just not the haggadah that had appeared in a social media post Shapiro shared prior to hosting his Saturday Seder. What Louis found: The haggadah in question was produced by Israel’s Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an inclusion in Shapiro’s Passover celebrations with deep relevance to his broader politics, which the suspected arsonist mentioned as a motive. Read the story ➤
Plus: At a Thursday lunch, Shapiro expressed gratitude for the prayers he and his family have received since the attack — especially a Priestly Blessing, or Birkat Kohanim, from the chaplain of the Harrisburg Fire Department. (Forward)
For some Pennsylvania Jews, the attack has raised traumatic memories of the 2018 Tree of Life Massacre. (AP)
More on politics: El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, who has become a major partner for Trump in organizing deportations, is of Palestinian descent — and vocally pro-Israel. (JTA)
Vandals attached swastikas to the Albany headquarters of the New York GOP. (X)
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Nathan Fielder observes a bustling fake airport terminal. (John P. Johnson/HBO) |
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In ‘The Rehearsal’ season 2, is Nathan Fielder serious? The new outing of Fielder’s controversial show, which premieres on Sunday, makes a convincing case that its creative mastermind has, well, some mishegas to work through, writes our PJ Grisar. After all: “Fielder would rather create a facsimile of the Houston Airport with an operational Panda Express, stage a singing competition there, craft elaborate forced-perspective sets with lactating puppets, recruit a legion of identically dressed actors to help with a commercial pilot’s love life, adopt a Tom Cruise-level commitment to performing his own stunts — and claim it’s all in the name of improving cockpit communication — instead of seeing an analyst.” |
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How a Jewish boy from Canterbury became a Zulu chieftain. A Jewish Zulu king in Africa might sound stranger than fiction — but Nathaniel Isaacs’ 19th-century stint as just that is a matter of historical fact. “This is a figure who really was marginalized at home,” said Adam Rovner, author of a new biography of Isaacs. “He was fabulously successful, undoubtedly talented, surely brave and constitutionally hearty. But he also ends up not such a great guy.” |
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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
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Harvard University. (Sophie Park/Getty Images) |
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On campus… The Trump administration notice freezing $2.2 billion in grants and federal contracts to Harvard University does not detail specific violations of student civil rights, and skipped several government-mandated steps required when penalizing universities over such violations. Separately, small donors are trying to help Harvard make up for the lost funding, and more than 100 Jewish Harvard students signed an open letter objecting to the Trump administration’s moves against the campus. (Washington Post, New York Times, Harvard Crimson)
An immigration judge denied bail to detained Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, ruling she was a “flight risk” and “danger to the community.” (Guardian)
Elsewhere… The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews spoke out against an open letter criticizing the war in Gaza signed by some of the communal body’s representatives. (BBC)
Much of Maurice Sendak’s personal art collection, including an etching by Pablo Picasso and a watercolor by William Blake, will go up for auction at Christie’s this summer. (New York Times)
Shiva call ➤ Casino magnate, Democratic fundraiser and philanthropist Elaine Wynn died at 82.
What else we’re reading ➤ “Under Netanyahu's reign, Shin Bet agents spy on – and betray – each other” (Haaretz) Delia Ephron, Richard Kind and more on the best small treats to lighten up challenging times (New York Times) “How small-town Jewish teens like me stay connected in the Bible Belt” (JTA)
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A superhero space flick — with Yiddishkeit roots? In a new trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, “one of the signs near Thing’s old stomping grounds is for a tailor named H. Stern, with Hebrew lettering spelling out tikunim (repairs),” writes our PJ Grisar. |
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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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