WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Today: What’s next for the war in Israel • Ben & Jerry’s and the campus protests • Activists disrupt Gal Gadot’s Hollywood ceremony • Bob Dylan’s prophetic anthem • and much more.

ISRAEL AT WAR

Protesters demonstrate against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today in Jerusalem. (Getty)

Renewed fighting

Opinion | It’s hard to see how breaking the ceasefire helps Israel, argues Alex Lederman. But it’s easy to see how it helps Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “What it will do is take care of several important aims for Netanyahu, foremost among them shoring up his coalition in advance of the March 31 deadline to pass a budget in the Knesset,” he writes. “If Netanyahu falls short of the 61 votes he needs, elections will automatically be triggered.” Read his essay ►

Related…

• Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of a far-right party who left Netanyahu’s cabinet in January when the ceasefire began, returned on Tuesday. (Times of Israel)

  
  

• “This is just the beginning,” Netanyahu said in a televised address. “We will keep fighting to achieve all of the war’s objectives.” (New York Times)

  
  

• “We must stop the fighting and bring everyone home,” said Yarden Bibas, a released hostage whose wife and two sons were killed by Hamas in captivity. (Kveller)

  
  

• Hundreds of New Yorkers took to the streets on Wednesday to protest Israel’s renewed airstrikes on Gaza amid the ceasefire’s end. (Haaretz)

  
  

• Our Tel Aviv-based columnist, Dan Perry, explains why the ceasefire broke down, and what to expect next. (Forward)

Plus…

• Around 40,000 people in Tel Aviv Tuesday night protested Netanyahu’s plan to remove Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar. (Times of Israel)

  
  

• Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, is one of several speakers who backed out of an Israeli conference on antisemitism after organizers invited leaders of European far-right parties. (JTA)

POLITICS

Supporters of Mahmoud Khalil call for his release at a rally outside the White House on Tuesday. (Getty)

On campus…

• Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian protester arrested at Columbia University earlier this month, called himself a “political prisoner” in a letter from a Louisiana detention center — and urged students to keep rallying for the Palestinian cause. “At stake,” he wrote, “are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.” (JTA)

  
  

• The Justice Department’s new task force to combat antisemitism filed a court brief backing Jewish students and a professor who accuse UCLA of allowing anti-Israel protesters to harass them and block access to classes. (Jewish Insider)
  

Opinion | “A renowned university in its country’s biggest city is brought to its knees by a government intent on attacking perceived outsiders and cultural elites,” writes Emily Tamkin. “That could describe Columbia University today under attacks by President Donald Trump’s administration. Or it could describe the George Soros-founded Central European University several years ago, under Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.” And there’s much Columbia can learn from what happened to CEU. Read her essay ►

Plus…

• Just before former Rep. Nita Lowey’s death, the Trump administration quietly gutted the $250 million Middle East peace fund named in her honor. (JTA)

  
  

• What we’re reading ► This Bret Stephens column in The New York Times: Chuck Schumer isn’t Jewish like the Pope isn’t Catholic

CULTURE

Bob Dylan, circa 1963. (Getty)

Music and movies

Bob Dylan saw it all coming. It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding), written when Dylan was just 23, is a prophetic anthem: it skewered greed, corruption, and hypocrisy — sounding eerily like a soundtrack for Trump’s America and echoing the warnings of King Solomon, writes our music critic, Seth Rogovoy, who authored a book about Dylan. Read his essay ►

Plus…

• No Other Land, the Oscar-winning documentary about Israelis and Palestinians trying to save a West Bank village, has been ignored by mainstream distributors. But small cinemas in the U.S. say that screening it has been a no-brainer.

  
  

• The discovery of a Holocaust-era secret escape tunnel inspired a new PBS film about Jewish resistance.

  
  

• Coming tomorrow: Christmas is not the only holiday for which Coke makes special ads. We dug up one for Passover in our archives.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

(Getty)

🍦 Ben & Jerry’s is accusing its parent company Unilever of firing the ice cream maker’s CEO over his push to spotlight social causes — including Black History Month — and calls to free Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia protest leader detained by U.S. immigration authorities. (Times of Israel)

🍽️   Jewish students at Columbia University can now use money from their meal plan for hot kosher food from the nearby cafeteria at the Jewish Theological Seminary. (New York Jewish Week)

🇮🇱  Filming on season 5 of the hit Israeli series Fauda will begin in April. The Netflix thriller has not aired a new episode since January 2023 as production was delayed due to the war. (Variety)

📺  A new comedy inspired by France’s most prominent female rabbi is coming to the Max streaming service — following a young rabbi navigating the quirks and challenges of her Jewish community. (Kveller)

What we’re listening to ► The Cockney Yiddish Podcast explores how Yiddish played a pivotal role for decades in London’s historic Jewish neighborhood.

Shiva call ► Gyorgy Kun, among the few survivors of the medical tests on twins conducted by Josef Mengele at Auschwitz, died at 93.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

⭐  Pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters clashed Tuesday at Gal Gadot’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony, just days after Disney tightly restricted attendance at the premiere of Snow White — which stars Gadot, who served in the Israeli Defense Forces and has been outspoken since Oct. 7.

“To all the young women out there, the young people, especially young girls watching, if a girl from Rosh Ha’ayin can get a star at the Hollywood Boulevard, anything is possible,” Gadot said at the event. Watch her speech above, and read more about the protests here and here.

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