WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Jerry Seinfeld’s emotional trip to Israel, our culture team weighs in on Netflix’s Leonard Bernstein biopic, and Massachusetts and New Hampshire sue neo-Nazis.

ISRAEL AT WAR

The latest: Israel is offering to pause the fighting in Gaza for at least one week as part of a new deal to get Hamas to release roughly 40 hostages. In other news, IDF troops nearly captured Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar twice in recent days.

Pro-Palestinian supporters gathered on Sunday in Washington, D.C. (Getty)

Controversy over letter from Jewish day school alumni saying they were fed ‘false narratives’ about Israel: Around 130 graduates from Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School outside Washington, D.C., are appealing to other alumni to help “break the cycle of ‘no matter what’ support for Israel.” Hundreds of other alumni, teachers, staff and parents, pushed back with two letters of their own, calling the first letter “shameful” and written by “self-hating Jews.” Read the story ➤

Almost all of those who signed the letter taking the school to task graduated in the 21st century. Their relative youth reflects a larger pattern among Americans, with younger generations taking a far more critical view of Israel. Which leads us to our next story…

Young American voters prefer Palestinians — and Trump, new poll shows: Among the statistics, 48% of those ages 18 to 29 think Israel is intentionally killing civilians, and 55% oppose further U.S. aid to the Jewish state. The New York Times, which released the survey Tuesday, noted that “those who identify as regular users of TikTok were the most adamant in their criticism” of Israel, because it’s a platform where “brutal images of slain Palestinians bombard youthful eyes.” The poll also shows that, for the first time, young voters prefer Trump to Biden, 49% to 43%. Read the story ➤

Members of Israeli security forces search for identification and personal effects at the music festival site, where hundreds were killed or captured by Hamas terrorists. (Getty)

Opinion | How psychic numbing can limit comprehension of the Oct. 7 attacks: “The wider the scale of suffering, the more likely people are to develop numbness to it,” writes Pamela Meyer, pointing to a recent study that found a photo of one suffering child can transform public opinion about an issue, but a photo of two suffering children is less impactful. “Given the unprecedented pace at which news of global horrors inundates us these days, we’re all more likely to develop psychic numbness than previous generations.” Read her essay ➤

With military reservists on the front lines, armed neighborhood watch groups in Israel have proliferated since Oct. 7: By some estimates, the number has skyrocketed to 700 from 89 before the war. “We’re meant to be part of the landscape,” said a project manager for a tech company who now leads a patrol unit east of Tel Aviv. Read the story ➤

Jerry Seinfeld at the headquarters of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum in Tel Aviv. (Courtesy)

Plus…

• Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York are quickly building a case against Hamas, which will likely focus on the group’s financial network.

  
  

• More than 1,000 current and former members of the Union for Reform Judaism published an open letter urging the URJ to “call for an immediate cease-fire in Israel and Palestine.”

  
  

• The European Union launched an investigation into X, the site formerly known as Twitter, over alleged dissemination of misinformation and propaganda related to Hamas.

  
  

• Comparing Israel to Russia, Iceland is calling for the Jewish state to be disqualified from the 2024 Eurovision song contest.

  
  

• Jerry Seinfeld met for several hours Monday night in Tel Aviv with families of the hostages. Seinfeld and his wife, Jessica, have been vocal in their support of Israel since the outbreak of the war. Did you know? When Jerry Seinfeld was a teenager in 1971, he picked bananas while volunteering at Kibbutz Sa’ar.

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ALSO FROM THE FORWARD

The Forward culture team went to a screening of Maestro starring Bradley Cooper. (Netflix)

Leonard Bernstein was a big deal. Why does Maestro make him so small? Bradley Cooper’s much feted biopic of Leonard Bernstein approaches a man whose expansive life included composing, conducting, activism and education by zeroing in on just one facet of his biography: his marriage. In a conversation, four Forward culture reporters discussed where the film fell short, where it succeeded, and why it is basically “the same movie as Ridley Scott’s Napoleon.”

How a sly Jewish playwright wrote ‘the Citizen Kane of horror movies’:Despite unassuming beginnings, Anthony Shaffer’s Wicker Man, released 50 years ago this month, became a cult classic. The film’s fiery ritual sacrifice, writes Dan Friedman, represented not the triumph of the old gods over a newer one, but rather the perils of blind faith.

– From our Sponsor: Spertus Institute –

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Temple Israel in Canton, Ohio. (Courtesy)

✍️  A 13-year-old boy who was accused of planning a mass shooting at Temple Israel in Canton, Ohio, will have to write a book report on a Swiss diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during World War II, a judge ruled. (NBC News)

😲  Attorneys general in Massachusetts and New Hampshire are filing lawsuits to curtail the increasingly public activities of a neo-Nazi group. (NPR)

💰  A narrow window is open now through Dec. 31 for Lithuanian Holocaust survivors and their descendants to apply for restitution. A similar law enacted in Latvia has also taken effect. (JTA)

🇵🇹  Over the past decade, a community of roughly 1,000 Jews has materialized in Porto. It’s thanks to a law that since 2015 has allowed the return of people whose ancestors were expelled during the Portuguese Inquisition. (JTA)

🎞️  When the Oscar-winning film Life is Beautiful debuted 25 years ago, it shook audiences by attempting to infuse humor into the setting of a concentration camp. It raised issues that linger today. (JTA)

Shiva call ➤  Dan Greenburg, a bestselling satirist who achieved fame with the 1964 publication of How to Be a Jewish Mother, died at 87.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks at a news conference Tuesday at the Capitol. (Getty)

Negotiations broke down Tuesday in the Senate over a deal to extend additional U.S. military aid to Israel and Ukraine. Republicans insisted that a bill also include money for a crackdown on migration across the U.S.-Mexico border. Congress will revisit the discussion in January after the holiday break. “Our goal is as soon as we get back to get something done,” Senator Chuck Schumer said.

Thanks to PJ Grisar, Jacob Kornbluh and Talya Zax 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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