SURVEY: We need your feedback about this newsletter! Russia declares its former chief rabbi a foreign agent, kosher bakery refuses to make Pride pastries for shul, Kim Kardashian cries over Kanye West's antisemitism, and the secret Jewish history of Hawaii. |
Israeli soldiers fire tear gas during a military operation on Tuesday in the West Bank city of Jenin. (Getty) |
A massive Israeli military operation, described as the fiercest attack on the occupied West Bank in nearly two decades, wound down Wednesday morning after 44 hours. At least 12 Palestinians were killed and 120 injured in the raid on the city of Jenin; one Israeli soldier was killed during the withdrawal. At least seven Israeli civilians were wounded Tuesday when a Palestinian attacker rammed his truck into people waiting at a Tel Aviv bus stop and then stabbed patrons at a nearby cafe before being shot dead. Hamas claimed him as a member and said the attack was in retaliation for the military raid in the city of Jenin. Overnight, militants in the Gaza Strip fired fired five rockets towards the Israeli city of Sderot and were intercepted by the Iron Dome; the IDF responded with a strike on what it said were underground Hamas facilities for manufacturing weapons in Gaza. Opinion | What’s happening in Jenin is a dire warning for Israel’s future: Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, argues that the current situation is unique in that Israel finds itself a country divided like never before. Hundreds of thousands have protested, including soldiers refusing to report for duty, in opposition of proposed new laws from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And the far-right elements in Netanyahu’s government have strained Israel’s usually unflappable bond with the United States. “Our failure to unite internally – and to convince the world of our case – will impair our ability to defend ourselves against dangers that will surely mount,” Oren warned. Read his essay ➤ |
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and Defense Minister Yoav Galant on Tuesday at a military post in the occupied West Bank. (Getty) |
Opinion | Israel has a problem in Jenin — with an obvious, radical solution: “Israel must enact a serious strategic shift, and consider working to strengthen the Palestinian Authority,” writes Noa Shusterman Dvir, a national security researcher focusing on the Middle East. “Only when Israel invests in economic, political and diplomatic efforts within the West Bank — and curbs the elements within the Israeli government who wish to see the Palestinian Authority collapse — will we move forward to a time when more violence in and around Jenin is no longer a tragic certainty.” Read her essay ➤ Explainer | What’s happening in the Palestinian city of Jenin, and why is Israel targeting it? Our partners at the Israeli daily Haaretz break down the backdrop for the violence, why Jenin is a uniquely dangerous place and how the escalation could spread to other fronts. The attack “is reminiscent of the dark days of the second intifada,” they say, and “the potential start of a darker phase.” Read the story ➤
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Plus: Our editor-in-chief’s column after a spate of violence in January feels newly resonant. “We have seen this horror movie so many times, and it just gets more difficult to watch,” she wrote “It’s not that the narrative always has the same ending. It’s that it never ends.” |
Same old Indiana Jones fighting the same old Nazis – but with a twist:Everyone’s favorite archaeology professor returns for a swashbuckling installment in which he is, once again, dropping deep down into caves to obtain a relic ahead of the guy sporting a swastika. Only this time, the relic in question allows for time travel and the Nazi in question wants to use it to go back and kill Hitler. Our culture reporter, Mira Fox, says it’s a particularly prescient plot point given the state of the world today.Read the story ➤
Opinion | Roseanne Barr tested us and we failed — again:When the Jewish comedian seemed to deny the Holocaust, and later said she was being sarcastic, it dominated the news cycle. “What weakens us is not the words, but our reactionary, performative outrage to them,” writes our columnist, Rob Eshman. “It’s almost as if we’ve lost the ability to discern real threats from perceived ones, or even allies from enemies. Here we are again, taking the frivolous seriously. Collectively, we failed the Barr exam.”Read his essay ➤
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Plus… The Supreme Court ruled last week that a Colorado web designer could refuse to make a website for a same-sex couple. Meanwhile in New Jersey, a kosher bakery refused to make Pride pastries for a local synagogue.
Fox News agreed to pay $12 million to Abby Grossberg, a producer who accused the network of maintaining a workplace rife with sexism and antisemitism.
The U.S. Navy commissioned a ship honoring the late U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, a Democrat from Michigan. It joins more than a dozen Navy vessels named for notable Jews. |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
The Maxwell Street Klezmer band at the Highland Park July 4 parade in 2019. (Courtesy) |
🇺🇸 Hundreds gathered on Tuesday to mark the first anniversary of the massacre that killed seven people in the heavily Jewish Chicago suburb of Highland Park. While the local Independence Day parade was put on hold, the Klezmer band that survived the shooting performed elsewhere around the city. (New York Times, Forward) 🇷🇺 Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the former chief rabbi of Moscow who fled Russia last year because of the war with Ukraine, has been named a “foreign agent.” It is largely a symbolic distinction given that Goldschmidt, who now lives in Israel, does not plan on returning to Russia. (JTA) 🙏 The Kremlin on Tuesday, for the first time, hinted that it might be open to a prisoner swap for Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been jailed in Russia since April. (AP, JTA) 🤔 At least 10 women testified in a religious court this week against a Berlin rabbi who is accused of preying on young women. The court postponed ruling on the case because the rabbi presented a note from his doctor saying he could not testify due to shock from the case. He is now scheduled to do so on July 13. (JTA) 🎒 The New York City Department of Education determined that 18 yeshivas fell short of the state’s secular education standards, a landmark ruling in the ongoing battle over government oversight of Hasidic day schools. (New York Times) 🚘 The Federal Aviation Administration certified for testing the first-of-its-kind flying car. It’s made by a startup called Alef Automotive whose CEO, a Silicon Valley-based Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, was inspired by the airborne DeLorean in Back to the Future. (CNN, JWeekly) 😢 Kim Kardashian got emotional talking about the antisemitic comments of her ex-husband Kanye West in this week’s episode of The Kardashians, which streams on Hulu. “It’s so different than the person that I married,” she said through tears. (JTA) Shiva call ➤ Rabbi Aryeh Spero, the president of the Conference of Jewish Affairs and a conservative commentator, died at 72. Quotable ➤ “If you wish to see the full panoply of a human life, moments of ecstatic joy and deepest sorrow, the summit of hopes and the connections of community, they exist concentrated in one place: your local house of worship.” – Rabbi David Wolpe, the longtime leader of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, reflecting on his retirement in an essay in The New York Times.
Plus: Wolpe spoke with Andrew Silow-Carroll of the JTA about what he learned as a rabbi — and his hopes and fears for the future.
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Elvis Presley at the Mississippi-Alabama Fairgrounds in Tupelo in 1956. (Getty) |
On this day in history (1954): Elvis Presley participated in his first professional recording session, organized by producer Sam Phillips. Presley grew up helping out a family of neighboring Orthodox Jews on Shabbat, and had a Jewish great-great grandmother, a lineage he marked by wearing Star of David and “chai” pendants throughout his life.
In honor of National Hawaii Day, check out our secret Jewish history of the Aloha State. |
Israel’s under-21 soccer team qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics this weekend, after it eked out a victory over Georgia in the European Championship quarter-finals on penalty kicks (4-3). It is the first time an Israeli soccer team has made the Olympics since the 1976 Games in Montreal. --- Thanks to Laura E. Adkins, Jodi Rudoren and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. |
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