| WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION | | | Israeli military withdraws from Khan Younis; pope to meet with families of hostages; and lessons from the Curb Your Enthusiasm finale. | | It’s the Forward’s Passover Pledge Drive! We’re looking for 500 people who will step up and make a gift of support by April 30.
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This Passover, you can help protect the Forward’s freedom to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly, and to ensure that everyone has access to it. | | | THE SOLAR ECLIPSE | | People watching the 2017 solar eclipse in Fort Worth, Texas. (Getty) | The secret Jewish history of the solar eclipse: The Torah, the Prophets and the Talmud all discuss eclipses, which the Lubavitcher Rebbe viewed as an occasion for increasing prayer and introspection. “Even at totality, there is a penumbra around the moon, and before and after rays of light explode outward,” writes Seth Rogovoy. “These ‘rays of hope’ remind us that God is always with us, even in the darkness.” Read the story ➤
Today, God will turn the sun into darkness and the moon into blood: Some Jewish texts also say eclipses are punishment for sins. The Maharal, a renowned 16th century Talmudic scholar from Prague, said that if humanity did not sin, we would live in eternal light. “That’s why,” writes our Mira Fox, “while most natural phenomena have blessings in Judaism — there’s a specific bracha for rainbows, as well as thunder, lightning and earthquakes — eclipses don’t merit a prayer.” Read the story ➤
How the 1919 solar eclipse made Albert Einstein famous: For six minutes and 51 seconds on May 29, 1919, one of the longest solar eclipses of the 20th century proved Einstein’s theory of relativity. The New York Times was so unprepared that it sent its golf reporter to cover a press conference announcing the news. The next day’s all-caps headline declared: “EINSTEIN THEORY TRIUMPHS” and went on to call it “perhaps the greatest of achievements in the history of human thought.” Read the story ➤
Plus… Six inmates — including two atheists — sued a New York prison for the right to watch the solar eclipse, saying that being prevented from doing so infringes upon their right to freely practice religion. A judge granted them a last-minute victory.
Synagogues and JCCs in the path of totality have invited Jewish groups from other cities to join them. | | ISRAEL AT WAR | | Supporters of Israeli hostages at a demonstration Sunday in front of the Knesset in Jerusalem. (Getty) | ‘Everyday feels like forever’ | Israelis observe 6-month anniversary with sadness and frustration: Outdated hostage posters, frayed flags and an embattled prime minister’s call for unity marked a somber Sunday in Israel. Visiting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, our Susan Greene tried to gauge how Israelis have perceived the passage of time since Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7. Read the story ➤
6 months into war, American rabbis are grappling with anxiety over the battle’s aims and mounting toll:When Rabbi Marc Katz of Bloomfield, New Jersey, discusses the war, he tells his Reform congregation to find a place in the “messy middle, which is this idea that you can hold a lot of things at once, and you can feel for the Palestinian people, you can feel for the Israeli people. Compassion is not a zero-sum game.” Read the story ➤ | | The World Central Kitchen aid center in Gaza is temporarily closed. (Getty) | Opinion | Why ‘tragedy’ is not the right word to describe the deadly strike on the World Central Kitchen convoy: “Most of us have a deeply ingrained reflex to look at certain events, like those now unfolding in Gaza, and blurt ‘It’s a tragedy!’” writes Robert Zaretsky. But that response can keep us from truly understanding the scope of what’s happening. “Not only does it housebreak an event whose enormity would otherwise break us, it also makes us into simple spectators, thus unmaking any moral responsibility we might have for these events.” Read his essay ➤
Related… A group calling themselves “Rabbis for World Central Kitchen” has raised over $57,000 to donate to the NGO. “It felt like a concrete, meaningful way of almost atoning for that tragedy,” said a pulpit rabbi in D.C.
Chef José Andrés called the Israeli airstrike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers last week “unforgivable.” | | Palestinians return to Khan Younis on Sunday to inspect their abandoned homes after Israel pulled its ground forces out of the southern Gaza Strip. (Getty) | The hostages… Israel retrieved the body of Elad Katzir, a hostage who was shown in two Hamas propaganda videos, but is believed to later have been killed in captivity.
Two Israeli women, including a former Hamas hostage, traveled to Amsterdam Friday to give a talk about the war in Gaza. They claim they were subjected to “harassment and humiliation” by a security guard at the airport.
Artificial intelligence will allow Yotam Haim, an Israeli drummer who was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 and later shot and killed by friendly IDF fire, to perform at a concert today with his musical heroes David Bowie and Frank Zappa.
Pope Francis is set to meet with families of the hostages today at the Vatican.
Plus… Israel’s military withdrew Sunday from the Gaza city of Khan Younis, bringing the number of its ground troops in the territory to one of the lowest levels since the onset of war.
A vast majority of Israelis, 71%, think Netanyahu should resign now or as soon as the war is over, according to a new poll.
A new AI feature on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, shared a fake headline about Iran attacking Israel.
The editor-in-chief of Guernica, a prestigious literary magazine, resigned on Friday after being pressured to retract an essay by an Israeli writer last month. “The magazine stands by its retraction of the work,” she wrote in a farewell note. “I do not.”
“Six months into the devastating war that Hamas spawned,” writes our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, “my head and heart are filled with a single word, one used by both Israelis and Palestinians: Khalas. Enough.” | | | CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM FINALE | | Larry David in the series finale of Curb Your Enthusiasm. (HBO) | In Curb finale, Larry David defends his life — but has he learned his lesson?As many predicted, Curb Your Enthusiasm ended in much the same way Seinfeld did, with the protagonist on trial as a parade of character witnesses testify to his monstrous behavior. But, our PJ Grisar writes, the nature of David’s crime — and indeed, of the show in general — points to an altogether different question than its predecessor: how can anyone live with others? “The show was never about nothing,” Grisar writes, “but the decorum and expectations of a very specific and urgent something.” | | Related… The oral history of ‘Palestinian Chicken,’ Larry David’s favorite episode
The 18 most Jewish episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm | | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY | | In 2018, President Donald Trump presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Miriam Adelson, philanthropist and widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. (Getty) | 💰 Former President Donald Trump is still courting his biggest donor from 2020: Jewish philanthropist Miriam Adelson who has, for the moment, opted not to contribute. (WSJ)
🔥 A man was arrested on Sunday for spraying a liquid on the floor near the entrance to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Vermont office and setting it on fire. Nobody was injured. (AP)
🤷 A Republican state lawmaker said that she “would like to know what” Nazis did “that was wrong, that infringed on another person’s right.” Now she’s accusing Democrats of taking her comments out of context. (AP)
🤦 A judge tossed out a $4.8 billion lawsuit brought by Louis Farrakhan against the Anti-Defamation League. Farrakhan claimed the ADL falsely called him an antisemite. (NY Post)
🧕 A judge ruled that New York City should pay two Muslim women $17.5 million for forcing them to remove their hijabs while taking their mug shots after they were arrested. (AP)
🌊 Student athletes from a small college in Maine helped harvest ice from a frozen pond to be used as water in a new mikvah for a local synagogue. (New York Times)
What else we’re reading ➤ “University administrators on high alert for Gaza protests at upcoming graduations” … “They want to become nuns and priests. Student debt holds them back” … “10 new haggadahs for Passover 2024.”
| | VIDEO OF THE DAY | | Learn the Yiddish terms for “solar eclipse,” “lunar eclipse” and other celestial phenomena, courtesy of our Yiddish editor, Rukhl Schaechter. | | New York friends! Come join me tonight for cocktails and a conversation about my book on the modern-day relevance of Albert Einstein. Details here. | Thanks to Mira Fox, Susan Greene, PJ Grisar and Jacob Kornbluh for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Talya Zax for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com. | | | Support the Forward this Passover! | Passover reminds us that we can’t take our freedom for granted. Now is our time to step up and protect our freedom to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly, and to ensure that everyone has access to it. | | | | |
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