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Good morning. Today: Itamar Ben-Gvir imperils ceasefire talks, Haredi draft to begin Sunday, and trouble for Adidas over a sneaker linked to the 1972 Olympics.

OUR LEAD STORY

Former President Donald Trump accepts the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

Our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh, reports from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee:


Donald Trump issued a stern ultimatum to Hamas during his speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination Thursday, to the sound of cheers from the crowd — as well as, at one point, that of a shofar, an increasingly common prop used by far-right Christian nationalists at political events.


Addressing the Gaza conflict, Trump claimed that Hamas would never have attacked Israel had he been in the Oval Office, and promised to bring the war between Israel and Hamas to an end “with a telephone call.” He didn’t, however, elaborate on any vision for a postwar regional peace vision, or commit to stopping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon — a pledge given by almost every U.S. president.


Trump repeatedly veered off-script through the evening, including by disputing the 2020 election results, praising authoritarians like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and labeling Nancy Pelosi as “crazy.” At one point, while praising Israel’s Iron Dome and proposing a similar system for the U.S., he complained that America was falling behind Israel in effective defense measures. The speech, which ran for nearly two hours and was broadcast live, was a typical Trump rally spectacle.


By the time the balloons dropped, some supporters deemed the lengthy oration a bust. “It sucked out all the momentum we had,” one Jewish attendee was overheard telling another.


Trump says he had God on his side — Bob Dylan knew it was never that simple. Trump’s profession of faith while recounting the story of his attempted assassination last weekend came across as humble. But he should take warning, writes our PJ Grisar, from Bob Dylan's 1964 song “With God on Our Side,” a wry examination of the ways that people use the delusion of divine support to justify actions that history looks at unkindly. “Such is the paradox of piety,” Grisar writes, “that humility before one’s maker is often just a front for hubris.” Read the story ➤

Shabbos Kestenbaum speaks at the Republican National Convention. (Getty Images)

Opinion | When American values are Jewish values — the convention speech I’d give in response to Shabbos Kestenbaum. Recent Harvard Divinity School graduate Shabbos Kestenbaum, a self-professed lifelong Democrat, drew cheers from the RNC crowd for a Wednesday speech in which he decried his alma mater’s response to pro-Palestinian protests and suggested deporting those protests’ participants. Our columnist Jay Michaelson wrote a counterpoint in response — to Kestenbaum, and to the rhetorical environment that invited his claims. “It is not the Jewish way to inflame anger, to use harmful speech, or to distort the truth to suit one’s point of view,” Michaelson writes. Read the story ➤


ANALYSIS: What a second Trump presidency could mean for Jews and Israel. Trump “hasn’t said much about what he would do in a second term about issues of particular interest to Jewish Americans,” Jacob Kornbluh writes. But there are clues. Among them: Trump has indicated that, if he is elected and the Israel-Hamas war is ongoing once he enters office, he “would likely try to end the conflict with the help of Mideast allies, some of the same partners he called on to broker the Abraham Accords.” Read the story ➤


Plus:

ISRAEL AT WAR

The site of the Nova Music Festival in the Reim Forest. (Triptych by Daniel Jackson)

In Israel, a photographer sees a country whose parts don’t fit perfectly but still form a whole. How can an artist capture the reality of the moment in Israel — a country striving to heal after the devastations of Oct. 7, while still grappling with ever-growing internal divisions? For Daniel Jackson, a computer scientist and photographer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the answer while on a weeklong trip to Israel was to assemble triptych photographs — a way of capturing a broad scene that “reveal the seams and mismatches between the individual frames.” Read the story ➤


Latest on the war…

  • A drone hit a building in Tel Aviv early Friday morning, killing one, in an attack claimed by the Houthis. The victim was a 50-year-old who immigrated from Belarus two years ago, after the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war.


  • The International Court of Justice is expected to issue a nonbinding opinion today deciding whether Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is an illegal annexation.


  • Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited the Temple Mount Thursday, posting video of himself saying he had gone there to pray, in a move that imperiled ceasefire talks. Jewish prayer is taboo at the site, also known as the al-Aqsa mosque compound and the holiest Muslim spot in Jerusalem.


  • The Israel Defense Forces will issue its first draft call-ups to Haredi men on Sunday, with 1,000 notices sent in the first round, and 2,000 more to follow in coming weeks.


  • An overwhelming majority in the Knesset voted against the creation of a Palestinian state, approving a resolution that asserts “the establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel would pose an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens.”

Bella Hadid in an ad for the re-released Adidas SL72 sneaker. (Courtesy of Adidas)

Adidas chose a pro-Palestinian activist to promote its new shoe. It didn’t go as planned. “For a company whose founder was a literal Nazi, you would think Adidas might tread lightly launching a shoe referencing the 1972 Munich Olympics, when 11 members of the Israeli delegation were killed after being taken hostage by a Palestinian terrorist group,” writes our Louis Keene. “Instead, the company made Bella Hadid — a supermodel of Palestinian descent who once called Israel ‘a Jewish supremacist state’ — the face of the new SL72 sneaker’s marketing campaign.” Now, the company has said it is “revising” its approach to the launch. Read the story ➤

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Larry Doby plays for the White Sox during a 1956 spring training game. (Getty Images)

This baseball star’s life paralleled Jackie Robinson’s — this Jewish sportswriter wants to make sure he’s not forgotten. Jerry Izenberg’s mission: Bring new attention to the story of Larry Doby, the first Black player in the American League, who contended with a hostile manager and teammates while playing with the Cleveland Indians, and whose role in helping integrate American baseball has often been overlooked. “Izenberg, a legendary sportswriter who has been enshrined in 16 different halls of fame himself — including the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2016 — was a dear friend of Doby’s for decades,” writes Dan Epstein, “and Larry Doby in Black and White is a heartfelt testament to that friendship.”

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

The scene where Samantha Woll, 43, was found dead with stab wounds in October. (Sarah Rice/AFP via Getty Images)

⚖️  The trial of the man accused of killing Detroit synagogue president Samantha Woll ended with the jury deadlocked on multiple counts, although they decided to acquit him on charges of premeditated, first-degree murder and convict him of lying to the police. Prosecutors must now decide whether to retry the case on the deadlocked counts. (Detroit Free Press)


😨  Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in prison in what the U.S. government deemed a sham trial on charges of spying. (CNN)


🇫🇷   French legislators reelected a Jewish ally of President Emmanuel Macron as leader of the National Assembly. Yaël Braun-Pivet’s victory was seen as an affront to parties on the left, who won a surprise victory in national elections earlier this month. (New York Times)


👀 Among the attendees of the RNC were a group of students from the University of North Carolina who celebrated the hoisting of the U.S. flag during pro-Palestinian protests on campus. (X, Forward)


Shiva call ➤ Peter Buxtun, the whistleblower who drew attention to the inhumane treatment of Black men with syphilis in the Tuskegee study, died at 86.


What else we’re reading ➤ “Are Hollywood’s Jewish founders worth defending?” … “This 2001 animated TV show quietly celebrated Judaism and diversity” … Examining the extraordinary “energy in Chaïm Soutine’s portraits, landscapes, and still lifes.”


PHOTO OF THE DAY

(X/Michael Tracy)

Spotted in Milwaukee: A dress that said everything there was to say about the adoration of Israel on display at the RNC.

Thanks to Benyamin Cohen and Jacob Kornbluh 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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