 | WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |  | | Hamas officials join ceasefire talks, Jewish teens withdraw applications to Ivy League schools, neo-Nazis march in Nashville, Kanye West’s new album tops charts, and the highly anticipated spinoff to Netflix’s Shtisel begins filming. | | ISRAEL AT WAR |  | A march on Monday night in Jerusalem demanded the release of hostages. (Getty) | The latest…
Israeli army releases footage discovered in Gaza of abducted Bibas family:The video shows the Bibas family arriving in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza, shortly after terrorists from Hamas kidnapped them on Oct. 7. The family and their two red-haired children — Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9 months old when he was taken as the youngest hostage — has become an international symbol of the effort to secure the release of the hostages. Read the story ➤
|  | Teens at BBYO’s convention in Orlando this weekend taped a broadcast from the event. (Jacob Gurvis) | On campus…
Jewish teens are looking at a new factor in their college search — antisemitism: A survey of nearly 2,000 BBYO participants across North America, taken in recent weeks, found that 64% said antisemitism on campus was an important factor in their decision regarding where to attend college. And at this weekend’s BBYO national convention, some students said they are withdrawing applications to Ivy League schools. Read the story ➤
➤ Harvard said Monday night it is investigating an antisemitic social media post shared over the weekend by two pro-Palestinian student groups and reshared by faculty and staff.
➤ StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy group, filed a lawsuit against Middlebury College in Vermont over alleged antisemitism on campus.
➤ Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, now a professor at Columbia University, said in a speech in Munich Saturday that young people in America are “woefully uninformed” about antisemitism and the Holocaust. |  | Israel's Anastasia Gorbenko won silver Sunday at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships. (Getty) | Plus… Israeli swimmer Anastasia Gorbenko was jeered by some of the crowd after winning the silver medal Sunday at the World Aquatics Championships in Doha, Qatar. “I’m just so happy to be here and represent my country in this hard time,” she said.
A Jewish lawyer in Skokie, Illinois, is suing the public defender’s office, where she works, because she was told to not publicly display a photo of herself with a gun standing in front of an Israeli flag.
A statue of Amy Winehouse in London was defaced with a sticker of the Palestinian flag covering up the late Jewish singer’s Star of David pendant.
Both the Israeli and Palestinian governments should be obligated to recognize the other’s right to statehood, writes Dylan Williams in an opinion essay.
The world’s most listened-to Jewish podcast has spun off a new series called Wartime Diaries. Our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, speaks to its creator in her latest column.
Are you in South Florida? Jodi will be hosting two events this week about Jewish journalism in a time of war — on Wednesday in Pinecrest and on Thursday in Davie.
| READERS LIKE YOU SHAPE EVERY PART OF OUR WORK | | Help us to provide Jewish news you can trust: reporting driven by truth, not ideology. Your support will make a real difference. | | ALSO IN THE FORWARD |  | A 1665 portrait of Baruch Spinoza. (Wikimedia Commons) | A new book asks readers to understand Spinoza through cancel culture: The ban on Baruch Spinoza is perhaps the most famous in Jewish history — might it also be a lesson for today? In Ian Baruma’s new Spinoza biography, the Dutch philosopher’s groundbreaking work is put into the context of his time. The Netherlands of the 17th century was turbulent, rocked by new ideas, Protestant schisms, wars and struggles between royalty and a patrician-led Republic. But, our PJ Grisar writes, while Buruma renders these details well, his occasional mentions of contemporary “cancel culture” distract from the unique circumstances that fostered such a singular thinker. | | In Hollywood, the rarest of people — not a score settler or a tattletale, just a mensch: In his new memoir, Hits, Flops and Other Illusions, writer-director Edward Zwick offers an insightful, funny and self-aware look at his four decades in film. Sharing stories from the sets of movies like Glory, Defiance and Legends of the Fall, Zwick speaks of his direction by misdirection and the memorable moments his actors ad-libbed and the general messiness of the screen trade. “He imagines himself as a mensch,” Carrie Rickey writes in her review, “but knows that he’s just Ahab in a baseball cap who wants what he wants and wants it now.” | | | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |  | Alexei Navalny, right, corresponded with Natan Sharansky about life in a Russian prison. (Getty) | ✍️ Alexei Navalny, the Putin critic who died mysteriously in a Siberian prison last week, had corresponded in the past year with Natan Sharansky, the Jewish prisoner who spent nine years in a Soviet forced labor camp before immigrating to Israel and becoming a member of Knesset. (Free Press, Times of Israel)
👮 A Florida man was arrested Saturday afternoon for allegedly beating up an elderly Jewish man, who had just left Shabbat services at a nearby synagogue. (CBS News)
🤦 A group of masked neo-Nazis marched Saturday in downtown Nashville. A video posted on X by state Rep. Justin Pearson shows the red-shirted group waving swastika flags at the state legislature building. No arrests were made. (NBC News)
🎵 Kanye West’s first album since a barrage of antisemitic comments he made in 2022 debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 list. It is the rapper’s 11th No. 1 album. (New York Times)
🎬 Production has begun on Kugel, the highly anticipated spinoff of the Netflix hit Shtisel, a Jerusalem-based family drama. The new series will follow fan favorites Uncle Nuchem and his daughter Libby. (X)
Shiva call ➤ Rebbetzin Chaya Chana Twersky — who with her husband, the Skverer Rebbe, helped lead the Hasidic community in New Square, New York — died at 81.
What else we’re reading ➤ At Conservative and Reform rabbinical schools, a debate over red lines on anti-Zionism … Near Gaza, apprehensive returnees trickle back home to revive deserted communities … Inside D.C.’s new Jewish history museum.
| | VIDEO OF THE DAY |  | Rob Reiner, best known for directing beloved comedies — including This is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally — is getting serious in his latest project, God and Country, which hit theaters this weekend. Reiner produced the documentary which tracks the rise of Christian nationalism in the United States.
“They believe that America should be a white Christian nation, and it is ordained by God to be a white Christian nation,” said Reiner, adding that its followers are “willing to go to the lengths of violence to get their way.” Watch the trailer above, and read an interview with Reiner.
Related: Allies of former President Donald Trump are developing plans to infuse Christian nationalist ideas into his administration should he return to power.
| Thanks to PJ Grisar 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. | | |  | | Support Independent Jewish Journalism | Without you, the Forward’s stories don’t just go unread — they go untold. Please support our nonprofit journalism today. | | | | |
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