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JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.

WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Columbia removes deans for antisemitic texts, NYU settles lawsuit with Jewish students, Airbnb suspends Muslim host who refused Israeli guest, what the Talmud says about Alec Baldwin’s trial, the Jewish lessons in Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new novel, and remembering the Lubavitcher Rebbe on his 30th yahrzeit.

OUR LEAD STORY

Devorah Halberstam with a photo of her son Ari, who was fatally shot on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994. (Beth Harpaz)

It’s been 30 years since 16-year-old Ari Halberstam was murdered by a cab driver who shot up a van taking Lubavitcher kids across the Brooklyn Bridge. The gunman died in prison last year while serving a 141-year sentence. But Ari’s mother, Devorah Halberstam, wants you to know that the full story has yet to be told.

“I’m still fighting for justice for Ari,” she said in an interview in her home in Crown Heights, where the first thing you see in the living room is a photo of teenage Ari, frozen in time.

Our Beth Harpaz, who has covered the Lubavitcher community since the 1990s when she was a reporter at The Associated Press, spent decades looking into the case. What she found on the 30th anniversary was conspiracy theories, unanswered questions and a mother still in mourning.

“It lives in your heart,” Halberstam said. “It doesn’t matter what I do. You fill it up, but there’s a hole at the bottom, so it just goes right through. It’s empty.”

Related: Today is the 30th yahrzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Rabbi Yossi Newfield, who grew up in Crown Heights revering the Rebbe, recalls paying final respects the night of his death.

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ISRAEL AT WAR

Liat Beinin Atzili, a freed American-Israeli hostage, met on Monday with President Biden at the White House. (Courtesy)

President Joe Biden met at the White House Monday with Liat Beinin Atzili, an American-Israeli who was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7. Her husband, Aviv, was murdered during the same incident, and his body taken into Gaza. Liat was freed in November as part of a hostage release deal. Said Biden: “My work isn’t done until we secure the release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas.”

Plus…

Israeli troops demolished six terror tunnels in Gaza City and have mapped out three more to demolish. Israeli media reported Monday that most of Hamas’ tunnel network is still in a “good functional state.”

A pro-Palestinian group is planning a protest Sunday in front of the Zekelman Holocaust Museum near Detroit. The Anti-Defamation League’s Michigan chapter is working with local law enforcement to address safety concerns.

The parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli held hostage, are launching a “Week of Goodness” on July 14 “with opportunities to volunteer, study, give money to charity, pray, sing, bake challah and help dedicate a new Torah scroll.”

Quotable ➤ Vice President Kamala Harris spoke about the campus protesters in a new interview: “They are showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza. There are things some of the protesters are saying that I absolutely reject, so I don’t mean to wholesale endorse their points. But we have to navigate it. I understand the emotion behind it.”

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NEW FROM THE FORWARD

ALSO IN FORWARD

André Steiner’s photograph of Rudolf Hiden, an Austrian-French goalkeeper. (Courtesy)

He photographed athletes and he photographed nudes — André Steiner contained multitudes:The Paris Olympics begin this month, and the City of Light’s Museum of the Art and History of Judaism is celebrating with an exhibition on a Hungarian-born French Jewish photographer, André Steiner, an accomplished athlete himself who served in the Resistance in World War II and who focused on creating images of sports, nudes and the human body in motion.

Must Jews be defined by trauma? Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s sharp new novel offers a surprising answer:Media — books, TV, movies, everything really — have long portrayed American Jews as nebbishy and neurotic, as though the trauma of the Holocaust, pogroms and antisemitism encoded anxiety into our genome. Philip Roth and Woody Allen’s characters all struggled to escape this inherited angst. But Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new novel, Long Island Compromise, which debuts today, focuses on a younger generation of Jews — ones who have already assimilated fully and achieved the American dream. Must their lives, too, revolve around trauma?

Plus…

Actor Alec Baldwin’s trial begins this week for the accidental killing of a cinematographer on a movie set. The Torah and Talmud offer a legal loophole for people charged with involuntary manslaughter.

“Why weren’t Columbia University protesters brought to justice?” former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo asks in an opinion essay.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

A Jewish student watches a protest last fall at Columbia University. (Getty)

On campus…

🏫 Columbia University removed three deans for sending text messages to each other during a panel on campus Jewish life that “disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes.” (JTA)

⚖️ New York University settled a federal lawsuit brought by Jewish students that accused the school of failing to stop antisemitism on campus. Terms of the settlement were not immediately disclosed. (Reuters)

😠 Brown University failed to adequately address complaints of antisemitism and anti-Muslim harassment, the U.S. Department of Education concluded in a federal civil rights investigation released Monday. (JTA)

💬 The University of Texas at Austin this week disciplined students who occupied parts of campus during pro-Palestinian demonstrations. The school also tightened its free speech policy. (Texas Tribune, CBS Austin)

💰 Through his philanthropic organization, Michael Bloomberg donated $1 billion to the medical school at Johns Hopkins University, where most students will now receive free tuition. (WSJ)

🛑 A group of parents suing Louisiana over its new law requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms have asked a federal judge to block the law’s implementation this fall while their case winds its way through the court system. (AP)

And elsewhere…

🇬🇧 Airbnb suspended a Muslim host who refused to allow an Israeli woman to stay at her property in England. “I cannot condone the war,” the host said. (Jewish Chronicle)

🇦🇺 Australia on Tuesday appointed a special envoy to address a rise in antisemitism across the country since the Israel-Hamas war began. A similar envoy to deal with Islamophobia will also be named. (Times of Israel)

🇮🇱 Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, opened a new facility Monday to conserve the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in its collection. It includes five floors of underground storage. (AP)

Shiva calls ➤ Arnold J. Band, who founded the UCLA Center for Jewish Studies, died at 94 … Dorothy Lichtenstein, the philanthropist and widow of artist Roy Lichtenstein, died at 84.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

In a new video, The Associated Press profiles Beatie Deutsch, an Orthodox runner who qualified to represent Israel in the Tokyo Olympics, but didn’t compete because the women’s marathon was scheduled for a Saturday. Injuries kept her from qualifying for the Paris Games, which begin this month, but the 34-year-old mother of five recently started training again with her eyes on the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Thanks to Mira Fox 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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