WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Hostage killed during failed rescue attempt, Toronto Jewish deli set ablaze in suspected antisemitic arson attack, former Israeli prime minister listed among Jeffrey Epstein’s associates, and Elon Musk to visit Auschwitz.

ISRAEL AT WAR

The campus of San Diego State University. (Stuart Seeger/Creative Commons)

On campus…

• After the Hamas attacks in Israel, San Diego State University sent a campus-wide email supporting Jewish students. Now that email is at the center of a federal civil rights investigation, tied to a complaint that the school “promoted hate and racism against Arabs and Muslims.”

  
  

• An Israeli student filed a federal lawsuit against the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, alleging antisemitic harassment and discrimination. Meanwhile, a Jewish law school student filed a suit against Rutgers University for failing to protect him from a “hostile school environment.”

  
  

• A day after the resignation of Harvard’s president, Jewish alumni at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said they would withhold donations to their alma mater until it cracks down on antisemitism on campus.

  
  

• We sent 11 reporters to colleges across the country during the fall semester to find out what’s it really like to be Jewish on campus now.

Israeli soldiers load a mortar round along the border in southern Israel on Wednesday. (Getty)

The latest Israeli-Palestinian battleground? Urban Dictionary: The user-run site emerged in the early 2000s to define and occasionally create online slang — and, in doing so, has both shaped and reflected the internet, as well as indexing it. Now, as dozens of one-sided entries for a new verb, “Israeled,” have appeared since the war began — and tens of thousands of users have battled to get the entries down-voted or deleted — the site has become an important staging ground for contests over who should control the online narrative of the war. Read the story ➤

Plus…

• The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday confirmed that a hostage held by Hamas in Gaza died in early December during a failed rescue attempt.

  
  

• The IDF also confirmed that it completed demolishing a Hamas tunnel network to Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital.

  
  

• Pro-Palestinian activists disrupted the start of California’s legislative session on Wednesday, forcing lawmakers to adjourn.

  
  

• The Hollywood community is contemplating how to address the war in Israel at Sunday’s Golden Globes ceremony. One idea currently being discussed is for celebrities to wear a yellow lapel ribbon to remind viewers of the hostages still being held by Hamas.

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ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Madonna, circa 1985. (Getty)

There’s more to Madonna’s Jewish story than just Kabbalah and social media posts about Israel:Like her name and much of her music videos suggest, Madonna was raised Roman Catholic. But those who know her yearslong commitment to Kabbalah (and the controversial Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles), may be surprised to learn that her connection to Jewishness was more than faddish. In a new biography, Madonna: A Rebel Life, we learn that growing up in Michigan, Madonna’s family belonged to a Jewish-Catholic organization and even observed Passover.

First in Forwarding: Elon Musk, who is accused of tolerating and promoting antisemitic tweets on X, the social media platform he owns which was formerly known as Twitter, is expected to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland later this month ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Related: The head of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Technology and Society is reportedly leaving the organization due to a disagreement with the ADL CEO’s praise of Musk.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Clockwise from bottom left: Ehud Barak, Leslie Wexner, Jeffrey Epstein and Alan Dershowitz. (Getty)

⚖️   Hundreds of pages of unsealed documents from a lawsuit connected to accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein were publicly released on Wednesday. Several high-profile names who were associated with Epstein appear in the pages, including former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, noted attorney Alan Dershowitz and Jewish philanthropist Leslie Wexner. Much of what was in the documents was already made public months ago from previous court cases or from earlier media reports. The fact that people were named in these documents does not mean any of them face allegations or evidence of wrongdoing. (NPR, Times of Israel)

🔥  A Jewish-owned deli in Toronto was set ablaze in an apparent antisemitic attack. “Free Palestine” was graffitied on the entrance. (National Post)

🚂  Following a pro-Palestinian rally, police in Berlin are investigating vandalism on a memorial to the Jewish children who escaped the Nazis on the Kindertransport. (JTA)

🇮🇳  Members of the Bnei Menashe Jewish community are disputing an Israeli report that a missile strike in Northeast India killed seven community members this week. (JTA)

☪️  An imam in New Jersey was shot and killed outside his mosque on Wednesday. The shooter is still at large. Local law enforcement have stepped up outreach to synagogues and mosques since the war in Israel began in October. (AP)

Shiva call ➤  Rabbi Matisyahu Chaim Salomon, a longtime leader at one of America’s largest Orthodox yeshivas, died at 86.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Mandy Patinkin — actor, activist, Yiddish singer and friend of the Forward (here, here and here) — is starring in a new TV series where he plays a detective aboard a cruise ship trying to solve a murder mystery. The trailer for Death and Other Details, which is giving off Agatha Christie vibes and features Mandy with a jaunty accent, was released Wednesday. The show debuts on Hulu on Jan. 16.

Thanks to PJ Grisar, Louis Keene 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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