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Good morning. Today: Biden and Netanyahu spar; AIPAC plans to increase pressure on House Republicans; and the big reveal of Israel’s Eurovision song.

OUR LEAD STORY

The cast and crew of ‘Oppenheimer’ take the stage to celebrate the film’s final Oscars win, for Best Picture. (Getty Images)

Oscars 2024: ‘Oppenheimer’ cleans up, ‘Zone of Interest’ director calls out Israel. In one of the most politically tense years in memory, the world outside the Dolby Theater broke through at the Oscars in a few key moments — particularly when Jonathan Glazer, the Jewish director of the Holocaust movie The Zone of Interest, gave a searing speech against the memory of the Holocaust being used to justify the war in Gaza. Our culture team live-blogged the event, starting with the red carpet, which a number of celebrities walked wearing pins associated with the antiwar group Artists4Ceasefire. Read the story ➤

Plus:

• Glazer’s comments, which quickly drew a vehement internet backlash, came after a number of viewers drew parallels between the scenario The Zone of Interest depicts and the war unfolding in Gaza.

  
  

• How a video advocating for Israeli hostages in Gaza wound up on display outside an Academy Awards afterparty

And, read our coverage of some of the Oscar-winning films:

• At the core of Oppenheimer, a debate about how to be Jewish

  
  

• Leonard Bernstein was far more Jewish than you’d know from Maestro

  
  

• The Zone of Interest asks: Why would a family want to live at Auschwitz?

  
  

• Is Barbie Jewish? Is Barbie Shabbat? Is Barbie the Book of Genesis? Four drunk Jews discuss

Analysis: Biden and Netanyahu trade barbs to satisfy their bases. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent the weekend at each other’s throats, after Biden said Netanyahu’s pursuit of the war in Gaza is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” in a Saturday morning MSNBC appearance. The sniping might seem brutal, writes our senior political correspondent Jacob Kornbluh, but it’s actually beneficial to both leaders — “because it could boost their prospects for political survival.”Read the story ➤

Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque on the eve of Ramadan. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images)

Latest from the war…

• As Ramadan started last night, Israeli police stopped hundreds of Palestinians from entering Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, a holy Muslim site. Netanyahu had previously said that access to Al-Aqsa would not be restricted during the monthlong Muslim holiday’s first week.

  
  

• In a statement marking the start of Ramadan, Biden said “the suffering of the Palestinian people will be front of mind for many,” during the holiday, and that “it is front of mind for me.”

  
  

• AIPAC lobbyists are planning to put new pressure on Congressional Republicans to pass a bipartisan Israel aid bill, as House Speaker Mike Johnson has stalled on bringing a $95 billion foreign aid bill focused on Ukraine and Israel to a floor vote.

  
  

• Israeli President Isaac Herzog was met by a ceasefire protest as he attended the opening of Amsterdam’s new National Holocaust Museum; in a speech, he called for the return of the hostages still in Gaza.

  
  

• A new University of Chicago study found that more than half of all Jewish and Muslim college students in the U.S. feel a sense of personal danger on campus because of their perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Itamar Ben-Gvir. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images)

This Israeli minister wants a full-on religious war. His proposals for Ramadan risked starting one. The far-right Interior Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was sidelined after campaigning for major restrictions on access to Al-Aqsa during Ramadan. But Ben-Gvir’s increasing prominence in Israeli public life, David Zenlea writes, is a meaningful step on the way toward “the ultimate nightmare scenario: a multifront war that includes the West Bank and Jerusalem, along with violent confrontations throughout Israel between Jewish and Arab citizens.” Read his essay ➤

Survey: Large majority of Israeli Jews want Haredim to serve in the military. Seventy percent of the Israeli public want the government to end a longstanding exemption from military service for the ultra-Orthodox, per a new poll published Sunday. The growing prominence of the issue may threaten Netanyahu’s governing coalition, which includes some Haredi parties; Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi threatened that an end to the draft exemption would push Haredi Jews to move abroad. Read the story ➤

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EVEN MORE ON THE OSCARS

Selections from Shoshana Gottlieb’s red carpet reviews. (Courtesy of Shoshana Gottlieb)

Is every red carpet look sort of Jewish? This meme queen says yes. Dressing for the red carpet is an art — and so is figuring out exactly what Jewish joke to make about the glamorous outfits on parade. That’s where Shoshana Gottlieb, an online personality with a specialty in Jewish memes, excels. Her red carpet reviews have made her a staple of the Jewish internet, and have found, she said in an email interview, a surprisingly broad audience: “Rabbis love it, middle-aged mothers love it.”

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Eugene, Oregon. (GarysFRP/iStock by Getty Images)

😧  An Oregon man was charged with a federal hate crime after defacing a synagogue four separate times between August and January. Adam Edward Braun, 34, of Eugene, had antisemitic writings and neo-Nazi paraphernalia in his home. (KGW8)  

😨  A California woman pleaded guilty to charges related to antisemitic messages she left on a Jewish person’s cellphone; she faces up to five years in prison. (U.S. attorney’s office, Southern District of Florida)

🖼️  21 countries agreed to new standards for restituting Nazi-looted art, after a report found that only seven countries had made meaningful progress in restitution efforts after international principles were first established in 1998. (JTA)

😰  Peruvian police arrested an Iranian man who they alleged planned to kill an Israeli living in Peru. Two Peruvian citizens were also arrested in connection to the plot, with authorities seeking a third. (Associated Press)

📣  Protesters staked out a Sunday event in Teaneck, New Jersey, where a real estate company was pitching homes in Israel and the occupied West Bank. Some critics accused the rally of thousands of being a pro-Hamas event. (northjersey.com)

🫢  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he will not seek office again after the forthcoming election cycle. Erdogan, who has been in power since 2003, has been a strident critic of Israel, particularly during the current war. (Times of Israel)

📱 A surprising side effect of the war: More than 60% of profiles showing up on Tinder in Lebanon in February were of Israeli nationals, a consequence of the Israeli army’s signal jamming efforts as part of its defensive maneuvers against attacks from Hezbollah. “They're absolutely gorgeous,” said one discontented Lebanese would-be dater of his new Israeli matches, “but I can't do anything because we're divided by an apartheid wall and a genocidal army that doesn't take too well to Arabs." (Haaretz)

Shiva call ➤Kathy Goldman, a longtime activist who combated hunger among low-income New Yorkers, died at 92.

What else we’re reading ➤“The Nazi shame of the first ever Best Actor winner at the Oscars” … “I’m Jewish and I feel totally safe marching for Palestine” … “Providing both bombs and food, Biden puts himself in the middle of Gaza’s war.”

VIDEO OF THE DAY

After much tsoris, Israel will officially compete in Eurovision — and here’s the video for the rewritten song, “Hurricane,” that got contestant Eden Golan’s entry approved.

Thanks to Beth Harpaz for editing today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

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