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Today: Israel rescues hostage, activists target Cornell and University of Michigan, polio vaccines rushed to Gaza to prevent outbreak, Amish religious freedom case heads to court, and taste-testing a sesame bagel ice cream sandwich.

OUR LEAD STORY

Author Joshua Leifer, left, with Rabbi Andy Bachman on Monday night at Union Temple in Brooklyn. (Beth Harpaz)

A Jewish author whose book launch was canceled because of a conflict over a pro-Israel moderator got a sellout crowd at a rescheduled event Monday night.

  • “Someone asked me what should happen to the person who decided not to do the event,” author Joshua Leifer told the audience. “I said I’m going to send them a fruit basket.”


  • Media coverage of last week’s cancellation also boosted sales for Leifer’s book, Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life.


Go deeper ➤


Opinion | Instead of piling on Joshua Leifer, listen to him: Leifer has been turned into an “anti-Zionist caricature” on social media, writes our columnist, Rob Eshman. “But the people who want to shout Leifer down, on the pro- or anti-Israel side, are the ones who need to listen up. So many of us are caught up in the gotcha moments of political back and forth over Israel. Leifer’s book challenges us with the big picture, and that’s a lot harder to mean-tweet away.” Read his essay ➤


Related: The moderator at the event, Rabbi Andy Bachman, writes what he learned from the experience.

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ALSO IN THE FORWARD

To be clear, this is fake. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never set the Dome of the Rock on fire. (Grok)

It’s impossible to moderate artificial intelligence. Maybe we should stop trying:Grok, the AI assistant on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, will generate pretty much any image you want: Benjamin Netanyahu doing cocaine, Orthodox Jews snuggling with rats and riding pigs. But the thing is, Grok isn’t really much worse than the very heavily moderated AI feature on Instagram, or any other AI generator — “human ingenuity will always find a way” to get past the guardrails, writes internet culture reporter Mira Fox. But what if there’s another way — one in which conspiracy theories and inflammatory ideas are accessible, but couched in context and educational materials that defang them.

This Palestinian chef loves Bethlehem’s delicious, seasonal cuisine. He’s afraid it could soon be destroyed: Fadi Kattan is a culinary ambassador. He has hosted a radio show and YouTube series on Palestinian cooking, and is chef-owner of Palestinian restaurants in the West Bank and in London. This spring, he released his first cookbook. Kattan spoke with us about Jewish cuisine in pre-1948 Palestine, his favorite source of “Palestinian umami” and how the war in Gaza made him rethink his role as a chef.

Election news…

  • A new Trump campaign video blames the Biden administration for the deaths of 31 Americans on Oct. 7.


  • Is the Harris-Walz campaign asking Jewish donors to contribute in multiples of $18?

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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Students participate in a protest at Columbia University in November. (Getty)

On campus…


💻   The Columbia University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine says its Instagram account was “permanently deleted.” As of this morning, their website was also down. (X)


Go deeper: In a December investigation, our Arno Rosenfeld explored the secret history and uncertain future of Students for Justice in Palestine.


😲  Vandals painted anti-Israel messages on Cornell University’s main administration building on Monday, the first day of the fall semester. Glass on the front door was also smashed. (Cornell Daily Sun)


💃  At the University of Michigan, pro-Palestinian activists won control of student government. And now they won’t fund groups like the Ultimate Frisbee club and the ballroom dance team until the school divests from Israel. (NY Times)


And elsewhere…


🇮🇱  “The Israeli military said it had freed a 52-year-old Arab Israeli man. He is the eighth hostage to be rescued alive of the approximately 250 abducted 10 months ago.” (New York Times)


💉  A project to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza to stop a potential polio outbreak is set to start on Saturday. Some doctors worry that “if a ceasefire does not begin it will be difficult to carry out the entire vaccination campaign.” (Haaretz, NY Times)


🖼️  A Pennsylvania museum is giving up a 16th century painting that was stolen by the Nazis. It will be sold at auction; the proceeds will be split between the museum and the heirs of the original Jewish owners. In a separate case, Germany returned a stolen Nazi painting to the heirs of the Jewish family that owned it. (NY Times, Algemeiner)


🐴  A new traffic law in Ohio requires the Amish to put flashing lights on the back of its horse-drawn carriages. They say that violates their faith. Harvard University’s Religious Freedom Clinic has jumped in to help, filing a complaint on the Amish’s behalf. (Religion News Service)


Shiva call ➤  Harvey Sigelbaum, a former Forward board member and an all-around super mensch, died at 87. He was devoted not only to the culture that the Forward embodied, but also to his decades-long close friendship with the late Harold Ostroff, the Forward’s general manager.  


What else we’re reading ➤  At Camp Ramah in Ukraine, sports and Jewish traditions are an escape from war … In Holland’s Bible belt, a Christian family’s pro-Israel empire shifts into overdrive … This Jewish comedian hopes to set a new baseball record.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

What does a sesame bagel ice cream sandwich taste like? Russ & Daughters, our historic neighbors on the Lower East Side, teamed up with Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream to make this limited edition summer sandwich. They’ve also come up with a babka pop and a five-layer halva ice cream bar. (And also, a raspberry rugelach sandwich that was sold out when we tried to get one!)


We brought these desserts back to the Forward office to see how they’d stand up to our discerning palates — and more importantly, whether they were worth the Lactaid.

Thanks to Nora Berman, Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Mira Fox, Arno Rosenfeld, Sam Lin-Sommer and Jake Wasserman 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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