JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.

WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Today: Trump compares freed hostages to Holocaust survivors • Netanyahu calls Hamas terrorists ‘overweight’ • Harvard divinity school leaders quit • and the AARP honors Bob Dylan.

THE SUPER BOWL

The Philadelphia Eagles scored a touchdown in the first quarter using the "tush push" play. (Getty)

My colleague PJ Grisar and I watched the big game and wrote up some of our thoughts about the night’s most Jewish moments…

• Philadelphia dominated Kansas City 40-22 to win the second Super Bowl in franchise history. The Eagles scored their first touchdown of the night with a play called the “tush push,” which has its roots in Yiddish, and a Mel Brooks musical number.

  
  

• For the second consecutive year, Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism bought a Super Bowl ad; the new one featured Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg and aired twice during the game.

  
  

• Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan remade their famous Katz’s Deli scene from When Harry Met Sally. This time, she had an orgasmic experience with, sigh, Hellmann’s mayonnaise.

  
  

• There was an ad promoting Jesus and the biblical dictum to help those in need. Our Mira Fox wrote about the evangelical campaign, which first launched in 2023. Elsewhere in Christendom, the Fox Nation streaming service promoted a new series from Martin Scorsese about the most famous saints in history.

  
  

• In a hirsute theme featuring two Jewish actors, Eugene Levy’s eyebrows were so impressed by Little Caesars’ Crazy Puffs that they took flight in one ad. Adam Brody’s blow into a Pringle’s can released Nick Offerman’s mustache, which also went airborne in another. (If we didn’t know better we’d say these ad execs were sneaking a look at each others’ pitch decks.)

  
  

• Kendrick Lamar performed his five-time Grammy-winning diss track “Not Like Us” during the halftime show. Drake is suing Universal Music over the song, which his lawyers argue alludes to his “Jewish heritage.”

  
  

• Amid the dozens of dancers on the field during Lamar’s performance, one unfurled a combined Palestinian and Sudanese flag. Security eventually tackled and removed him, reports The New York Times.

  
  

• Chabad emissaries arranged for kosher food delivery to visiting fans, and set up a booth in the French Quarter on Sunday to encourage Jewish men to wrap tefillin.

THE U.S. AND ISRAEL

President Donald Trump speaks to the press aboard Air Force One on his way to the Super Bowl. (Getty)

The latest…

• Asked about Gaza aboard Air Force One en route to the Super Bowl, President Donald Trump said, “I’m committed to buying it and owning it,” calling it a “big real estate site.” He added, “We may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it.” (CNN, JTA, X)

  
  

• Egypt said it would host an emergency Arab summit on Feb. 27 to discuss “new and dangerous developments” related to Trump’s plan. (AP)

  
  

• Trump said that the three gaunt Israeli hostages released on Saturday “looked like Holocaust survivors.” (X)

  
  

• Trump’s cuts to USAID’s budget may jeopardize essential humanitarian aid in Gaza, including provisions for food, shelter and medical care. (New York Times)

  
  

• Attorney General Pam Bondi launched a federal task force to investigate crimes committed against Americans in Israel on Oct. 7, as well as “antisemitic civil rights violations” and “other federal crimes” committed by Hamas supporters domestically. (Jewish Insider)

Plus…

• Iran’s threat to assassinate Trump during the 2024 campaign was more serious than publicly known, forcing the candidate to travel to an event on a decoy plan owned by Steve Witkoff, who is now Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, according to a new book. (Axios)

  
  

• Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister and the incoming U.S. ambassador to Israel, said the Trump administration would make changes of “biblical proportions” to the Middle East. (Times of Israel)

  
  

• Trump tapped Tom Rose, the former publisher of The Jerusalem Post, as the next U.S. ambassador to Poland. (Jewish Insider)

  
  

• After Kanye West posted a series of antisemitic posts Friday on X, his wife, Bianca Censori, posted thanks to Trump “for his unwavering support in securing the release of Israeli hostages.” (Forward, X)

  
  

• Last week, we told you about an early Saturday Night Livesketch that seemed to foreshadow Trump’s Gaza plan. It turns out The Golden Girls made a similar joke in 1992 when they suggested “giving the Palestinians Greenland.” (Forward, JTA)

Will a devastated Gaza soon be transformed into something opulent akin to Mar-a-Lago? (Getty)

Opinions…

• The so-called “Gaza-a-Lago” plan is a reminder to take Trump seriously, not literally, writes our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren.

  
  

• Trump’s plan to relocate 2 million Palestinians dehumanizes them and takes the focus off Hamas, writes Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib.

  
  

• Trump’s Gaza plan is outrageous, writes Yardena Schwartz. But it could also be just what the Middle East needs.

  
  

• As part of the hostage deal, Israel freed the terrorist who murdered Yaya Ofer in 2013. Ofer’s daughter, Meytal, writes that she is at “peace with his freedom.” (New York Times)

In Israel…

• Returning hostages informed the family of Alon Ohel, who was abducted from the Nova music festival, that he is still alive but injured and not getting medical attention. (Times of Israel)

  
  

• In a Fox News interview that aired Saturday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is not starving people in Gaza, and that when the IDF arrests Hamas terrorists, “you will not find one, not one, that is emaciated. In fact, you will find quite a few that are overweight.” He added that they “don’t get much exercise in the tunnels.” (X)

  
  

• After returning from a weeklong trip in the U.S., Netanyahu returned to court Monday in Tel Aviv for his corruption trial. (Times of Israel)

  
  

• Lebanon on Sunday formed its first full government since 2022, with the prime minister promising to rebuild areas damaged in the recent war with Israel. (AP)

  
  

• Israeli police in East Jerusalem Sunday raided two bookstores known for selling books about the conflict and arrested the owners. (Haaretz)

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Adam Brody, left, with Adrien Brody on Friday at the Critics Choice Awards in Santa Monica, Calif. (Getty)

Over the weekend…

🏆  Actors Adam Brody and Adrien Brody (no relation) both won Critics Choice Awards — the former for portraying a rabbi who falls in love with a non-Jewish woman and the latter for playing a Holocaust survivor who struggles to rebuild his life in the U.S. (JTA)

🎸  Elsewhere in Los Angeles were the AARP Movies for Grownups Awards where the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, won the best picture honors. (Hollywood Reporter)

✂️  A scissors-wielding man tried to stab a group of Jewish men on Saturday in Crown Heights. Police arrested the suspect. (Times of Israel)

On campus…

👎  Two administrators at Harvard Divinity School quit. No explanation was given for one departure, while the other cited anti-Muslim bias for his decision. (Religion News Service)

⛺  To protest Trump’s Gaza takeover proposal, Bowdoin College’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine set up an encampment in a campus building Friday, which continued through the weekend. (Portland Press Herald)

🏫  Hebrew Union College sold its Greenwich Village building to New York University for $75 million and will relocate to a landmarked building in Manhattan's Upper West Side, which it bought for $32 million. (New York Jewish Week)

🏀  The University of Florida basketball team beat Auburn 90-81 Saturday. The matchup was a rarity in college sports: it featured two Jewish coaches. (ESPN, Gainesville Sun)

Plus…

😲  The city of Springfield, Ohio filed a federal lawsuit against a neo-Nazi group, alleging it orchestrated a campaign of intimidation, including bomb and death threats, to terrorize residents who supported Haitian immigrants. (New York Times)

🎨  There is controversy around an art exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center depicting Uncle Sam and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as murderers. Some are calling for its removal; others say that sets a dangerous precedent. (ABC 7, Fox 32)

🌳  Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, both Democrats of New York, introduced a bill to turn an upstate military installation that sheltered Holocaust refugees into a national park. (Oswego County News)

Shiva call ► Tony Roberts, who played easygoing characters in Woody Allen films, died at 85.

What else we’re reading ► A new opera and film challenges how Germany recalls the 1972 Olympics massacre (New York Times) … Five Palestinian scholars discuss what self-determination means for them (New York Times) … The Joshua Venture launched Heeb magazine, JDub Records and other Jewish startups 25 years ago. What happened to their projects? (eJewishPhilanthropy).

VIDEO OF THE DAY

After nearly 500 days in captivity, three more Israeli hostages — Ohad Ben-Ami, Or Levy and Eli Sharabi — were released on Saturday. Watch them reunite with their families in the video above.

Thanks to PJ Grisar and Jacob Kornbluh for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Julie Moos for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

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