WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Today: Harvard nears truce with Trump administration • Why Jews are watching today’s NYC mayoral primary • Neo-Nazis infiltrated martial arts school for kids • And how to talk about the heatwave in Yiddish.

WAR WITH IRAN

President Donald Trump spoke briefly with reporters this morning before departing the White House to travel to a NATO summit at The Hague in the Netherlands. (Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Ceasefire?

A fragile truce brokered by President Donald Trump went into effect early Tuesday — but its fate was already in doubt just hours later. Israel accused Iran of launching a missile barrage in violation of the deal and vowed to respond “with force.”

Asked about the potential breakdown while boarding his helicopter this morning en route to a NATO summit in the Netherlands, Trump said: “I’m not happy with Israel … I’m not happy with Iran either … We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f—k they’re doing.”

Here’s what you need to know…

• Trump announced a ceasefire Monday night, its sudden nature catching his own officials by surprise. (JTA, New York Times)

  
  

• Trump said he believed the truce will last “forever.” (NBC News)

  
  

• Vice President JD Vance, who learned about the ceasefire while on Fox News, said Iran is no longer able to build a nuclear weapon and that it’s time “to restart a real peace process.” (Jewish Insider)

But…

• On Tuesday, Israel claimed it intercepted two ballistic missiles fired from Iran. Tehran denies it fired missiles at Israel after the ceasefire. (AP)

  
  

• Defense Minister Israel Katz says he has instructed the military to “respond forcefully to Iran’s violation of the ceasefire with intense strikes against regime targets in the heart of Tehran.” (Times of Israel)

Collateral damage…

• Just before the ceasefire was set to begin at 7 a.m., Iran launched missiles into Israel around 5:40 a.m. local time, killing four people in Beersheba and injuring at least 22. (Times of Israel)

  
  

• On Monday, before the ceasefire, Iranian missiles struck a U.S. military base in Qatar. No casualties were reported as Iran gave Qatar and the U.S. advance warning of the attack. (Axios)

Israeli emergency responders work at a building where four people were killed by an apparent Iranian missile strike in Beersheba this morning. (Erik Marmor/Getty Images)

Some context…

• Our deputy opinion editor, Nora Berman, spoke with an expert on asymmetric alliances — when a smaller country allies with a larger one for its protection — and asks: Did Netanyahu coerce Trump into attacking Iran? (Forward)

  
  

• Want to know what Trump sounds like in Hebrew? Just listen to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, writes our language columnist, Aviya Kushner. Both pepper their speeches with references to promises and strength. (Forward)

  
  

• For years, when dealing with Iran, Israel preferred “the devil we know” over whatever might follow. But now Israel, rarely a fan of regime change, contemplates an Iran without ayatollahs. (JTA)

  
  

• Trump’s whiplash shift from promising limited strikes to suddenly calling for regime change in Iran left some of his fervent base rattled. “We’ve definitely had our trust shaken,” said one Trump voter. (Axios, New York Times)

Our most-read story yesterday: Schumer, highest-ranking Jewish official, slams Trump over Iran strike — but leaves his own position unclear

NYC MAYORAL PRIMARY

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo at a campaign stop on Sunday in Borough Park. (Jacob Kornbluh)

From Borough Park to the bimah

Voters head to the polls today to determine who will be the Democratic candidate in the November election to be the next mayor of New York City, home to the largest concentration of Jews outside of Israel.

• Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo launched his primary campaign in March by prioritizing the fight against antisemitism and the far left’s attacks on Israel. The voting now ends with Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist and outspoken critic of Israel, surging in a dead heat with Cuomo in the final stretch.

  
  

• Every leading candidate has faced questions about their positions on the Gaza war. The Jewish candidates in the race, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and his predecessor Scott Stringer, have cursed their rivals in Yiddish. Outreach to Hasidic voting blocs intensified. Plans to combat antisemitism have proliferated.

Our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh — who has been following the candidates on the campaign trail for months — looks at the key Jewish moments in the race.

Related: Jacob also explains why New York’s Jewish voters should care about the down ballot race for … comptroller. (Forward)

Members shop at the Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn. Formed in 1973, it is one of the oldest and largest food cooperatives in America. (James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images)

Give peas a chance: The mayoral primary is not the only election happening today. At the Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn, members will vote on a new board sate — some pro-Israel and some pro-Palestinian, which could determine if Israeli products are sold in the grocery store. (New York Jewish Week)

From our archive (2024): We did a deep dive into the schism at the cooperatively-owned grocery. (Forward)

CULTURE

A scene from The Chosen, a hit series about the life of Jesus. (Courtesy Amazon Prime)

Why should Jews pay attention to Christian media?

“Movies and TV may seem like just meaningless entertainment, particularly when it’s not meant for you,” writes our Mira Fox. “But popular culture builds soft power, which spreads the kind of norms that trickle into government and schools. Especially when it’s becoming increasingly common for Christians to act like Jews are automatically on board with their Christian — or, in a popular but misleading term, Judeo-Christian — values.” Read her essay ►

Mira’s essay, about how she became obsessed with Christian media, is part of our revamped Looking Forward newsletter that’s sent on Friday afternoons, when a rotating cast of colleagues will write personal takes on the news. Sign up here.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

The Trump administration has been battling with Harvard over the White House’s perception that the school is, among other things, not protecting its Jewish students. (Cassandra Klos/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

On campus…

🤝  Harvard, under pressure from a high-stakes clash with the Trump administration, is quietly weighing a truce — while struggling to avoid the optics of surrender. (New York Times)

🏫  For the second time in a week, a federal judge in Boston blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to stop new international students from enrolling at Harvard. (CNN)

✍️  A University of Florida law student who wrote that Jews should be “abolished by any means necessary” and claimed the Constitution only protects white people sparked outrage on campus after receiving an academic award. (JTA)

🎓  Doug Emhoff, the former second gentleman, is starting next week as a visiting professor at the University of Southern California’s law school, where he is an alumnus. (USC)

🎒  A House committee is set to hold a hearing at 2 p.m. called “Rising Threat: America’s Battle Against Antisemitic Terror.” Ken Marcus of the Brandeis Center will appear as a witness to speak about antisemitism on college campuses. (Watch it here)

🙏  Just over half of U.S. adults — 52% — say they support public school teachers leading Christian prayers in U.S. public school classrooms, according to a new survey. (Pew)

And elsewhere…

🥋  A neo-Nazi fight club was banned from a Tennessee martial arts school after secretly infiltrating the facility, which trains young children, as part of a broader effort to recruit boys and young men into white nationalist extremism. (Guardian)

✂️  The Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear the case of a devout Rastafarian who is seeking damages after Louisiana prison officials cut his dreadlocks in violation of his religious beliefs. (AP)

🥯  Immigration authorities detained Fernando Mejia, the manager of Schmear Bagel &  Café on Long Island, sparking protests by his co-workers and friends. (NBC New York, PIX11)

🎤  Mo Chara, a rapper facing U.K. terror charges for wearing a Hezbollah flag on stage, may soon perform to sold-out crowds in the U.S. (JTA)

☀️  A heat wave sweeping the East Coast is expected to push temperatures past 100 degrees today in cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia. (It’ll “only” be 93 here in West Virginia.) Our Rukhl Schaechter teaches you how to talk about cool refreshments in Yiddish. (YouTube)

PHOTOS OF THE DAY

At Monday night’s Rockower Awards: Top row center is with Rabbi Hillel Goldberg, the longtime editor of the Intermountain Jewish News. Bottom row, from left: Journalists Menachem Wecker, Esther Kustanowitz and Ami Eden. And yes, I really am that short. (Photos courtesy of my iPhone)

I was at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh last night for the American Jewish Press Association’s annual awards banquet. Think of it as the Pulitzers of Jewish journalism. Representing the Forward, I definitely got my 10,000 steps in walking back and forth to the stage to collect our 30 (!) awards. Huge kudos to my brilliant colleagues. See the complete list of winners.

Today’s newsletter made me:

🤓 Confident I understand issues impacting American Jews.

🔗 Connected to the Jewish world.

💡 Curious to learn about something I read.

🤷🏽‍♀️ No different.

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