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| | | WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
| | Good morning. Here’s what you need to know to start the day. Campus: The Trump administration ramped up its attacks on Harvard, calling for the school’s accreditation to be revoked.
Pulpit: A new IRS rule allows rabbis to endorse candidates. Pastors have been doing it for decades.
The great escape: In 1985, I ran away from Jewish summer camp. It was the most liberating 20 minutes of my childhood.
More on that below, but first a follow-up to one of our most talked about stories last month… |
| | | | | Alan Iszauk at the bimah where he was bar mitzvahed, married, and still prays. The sanctuary’s blue stained-glass windows cast an ethereal glow onto the room. (Benyamin Cohen) |
| Holy ground
It’s not every day that a 113-year-old synagogue closes — and donates its ark, bimah, a Torah, and even stained-glass windows to a 40-year-old Jewish farmer building a synagogue on a two-acre cornfield in rural Illinois.
That’s the story I shared last month about Temple B’nai Israel and Nik Jakobs, whose lives and legacies are forever linked.
Today, I’ve got a follow-up — not about what’s ending or beginning, but what’s still hanging on in the middle.
If this were a movie, the camera would pan just one mile down the road from the shuttered sanctuary of Temple B’nai Israel to Gemilas Chesed: a 139-year-old synagogue that, despite all odds, is still open for business.
Even though most of the Jews in this once-bustling Rust Belt milltown have left, some still gather each morning.
I traveled there to meet the people who hold on — with a shot of whiskey. |
| | | | | | Federal agents wearing masks patrol the halls of immigration court in New York. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) |
| Deportations, echoed
Opinion | Have we become the “ordinary Germans” now? “What in God’s name has happened to the Jewish community,” writes our columnist, Rabbi Jay Michaelson, “that we can sit idly by and watch a minority population being targeted in this way: dehumanized, lied about, harassed, arrested, and shipped off to ‘facilities’ around the country? Do we not see the obvious similarities?” Read his essay ►
Opinion | An app that warns of immigration raids — inspired by the memory of the Holocaust: Los Angeles has become the epicenter of President Trump’s effort to carry out deportations, now buoyed by his “Big Beautiful Bill,” which sets aside $75 billion for ICE. As our senior columnist, Rob Eshman, writes: “The most vocal and effective activism has come from liberal congregations and movements, relatively small progressive groups, and one guy named Joshua Aaron.” Read his essay ►
Related… A senior Homeland Security official testified Wednesday that the agency used names from Canary Mission — an anonymous website accused of doxxing critics of Israel — to help identify pro-Palestinian student activists for potential deportation. (NBC News)
Amid growing fears over immigration raids, at least two Catholic dioceses — including one in California where detentions occurred on church grounds — have granted dispensations allowing immigrants to skip Sunday Mass. (AP, Axios) |
| | | President Donald Trump signs the “Big Beautiful Bill” into law. (Samuel Corum/Getty Image) |
| Could a $1,700 rebate change Jewish education?
“A first-of-its-kind national school voucher program is being hailed by some Jewish groups as a breakthrough — and mourned by others as a hammer blow to the separation of church and state,” reports my colleague Louis Keene. What is it? The Educational Choice for Children Act — part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law by President Donald Trump — handed a long-sought victory to proponents of school choice, creating a tax rebate of up to $1,700 for donations to private school scholarship funds.
Internal debate: The reaction to the bill from Jewish leaders reflects denominational disagreement. The Orthodox Union called its passage a “monumental win.” Paul Golin, a leader in the Humanistic Judaism movement, called it an “unmitigated disaster.” |
| | | | Dr. Jerry Falwell gestures while speaking at a religious conference on January 8, 2006 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sponsored by the Family Research Council, the rally was held one day before the start of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. (Photo by Jeff Fusco/Getty Images) |
| Rabbis can now endorse candidates. Churches have been doing it for years.
The IRS said Monday it will now treat political endorsements from the pulpit as private “family discussions,” softening its enforcement of the decades-old Johnson Amendment barring such activity by tax-exempt groups.
“It’s a huge change,” writes our Mira Fox. “Except for the fact that tons of churches have been endorsing candidates the whole time.” Mira points to televangelists like Jerry Falwell, who embraced Republican candidates.
“It’s too hard to draw the line between religion and political advocacy,” she writes. “Religion so often informs people’s political values, just as it informs and shapes other parts of their cultural understandings and values.” |
| | Related: There’s a reason that synagogues are supposed to be apolitical spaces, writes columnist Sruli Fruchter, a rabbinical student, in an opinion essay. |
| | | Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, at the U.S. Capitol in April. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images) |
| Zohran Mamdani… Some Jewish Democrats in Congress, including Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, are criticizing Zohran Mamdani’s anti-Israel views, even as other prominent Jewish Democrats have endorsed his bid for New York City mayor. (JTA)
A new poll about the general election found that Mamdani holds a 10-point lead over Andrew Cuomo, who is considering mounting an independent bid after losing to Mamdani in the Democratic primary. Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams is in fourth place, after Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa. (Politico)
Related: Sliwa has a plan to beat Mamdani — and it starts with apologizing to Jews
Our most-read story yesterday: Meet the Jews who helped elect Mamdani
In other political news… After defending controversial nominee Paul Ingrassia by claiming he had the backing of “many Jewish groups,” the Trump administration faced pushback as several of those groups said they’d never heard of the lawyer with ties to a white supremacist. (JTA)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, is introducing an amendment that would cut military aid to Israel. “Not giving another additional $500 million to nuclear armed Israel will not make us all antisemitic,” she posted on social media. (X) |
| | | | | Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu poses before a Wednesday meeting with members of Congress. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) |
| Netanyahu in D.C.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Senate leaders on Capitol Hill Wednesday to discuss a possible Gaza ceasefire and the future of the Abraham Accords, and also sat down with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon. (Haaretz, Jewish Insider) Abraham Azulay, an Israeli soldier, was killed in southern Gaza during what the IDF said was an attempted abduction by Hamas militants who also tried to take his dead body. (Times of Israel)
Five prominent Palestinian sheiks in the West Bank made an unorthodox peace proposal to Israel this week, including the creation of an “Emirate of Hebron.” (JTA)
Eli Sharabi’s memoir Hostage, the first book by an Oct. 7 Hamas kidnapping survivor, will be released in English this fall on the two-year anniversary of the attack. (Times of Israel)
Investigation: Friends of the IDF, a major American charity that’s raised hundreds of millions of dollars for Israeli soldiers since the Gaza war began, is now embroiled in a crisis over claims of financial mismanagement, cronyism, and a toxic workplace — with chairman Morey Levovitz accused of lavish spending and steering contracts to allies. (JTA)
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| | | | | Yep, that’s me at around 10 years old. (Courtesy Benyamin Cohen archives) |
| From color war to culture war
We usually divide American Jews by politics or religiosity. But there’s another split: those who loved Jewish summer camp — and those of us who plotted our escape. I was 10, the lone Southern kid at a Catskills camp full of tri-state lifers who seemed born for color wars. I was homesick and desperate to get back to Atlanta in time for the biggest social soiree of the summer: The Estreicher family had a baby and I didn’t want to miss the bris. So I hatched an audacious plan to make a run for it. And in the cover of darkness, I did. Read my essay ►
My colleague Mira Fox never went to Jewish summer camp — and probably isn’t the target audience for The Floaters, a new coming-of-age film set at the fictional Camp Daveed. Still, she clocked all the familiar tropes: “a persnickety chef who freaks out after the fleishig spoons get served with his homemade ice cream! The camp dances after Shabbat! The constant references to Fiddler on the Roof!” But for all its nostalgia, the film sidesteps one major reality: the growing tensions around Israel that have roiled many camps since Oct. 7. Read her review ►
Got a Jewish summer camp story you’d like to share? Send it to us at editorial@forward.com.
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| | | | | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
| | | Israeli professor Shai Davidai outside of Columbia University in April 2024. (Luke Tress) |
| On campus…
🏫 Shai Davidai, the Israeli professor who became a vocal critic of Columbia’s handling of campus antisemitism, has resigned, and the university has closed its investigation into his conduct. (JTA)
🎓 The Trump administration on Wednesday escalated its attacks against Harvard, issuing subpoenas for data on international students and urging the New England Commission of Higher Education to revoke the school’s accreditation over alleged indifference to campus antisemitism. (Crimson, New York Times)
🧪 An Israeli chemist who resigned from Stanford is suing the university, alleging it enabled antisemitic discrimination — including tampering with lab results and claiming that he was under investigation. (Jewish Insider)
And elsewhere…
💻 The Writers Guild of America West is leaving X, after Grok, an A.I. tool on Elon Musk’s social media platform, went on an antisemitic conspiracy spree earlier this week. (Variety, Forward)
👋 Linda Yaccarino stepped down Wednesday as CEO of X. She did not give a reason for her departure, but sources familiar said she had already decided to leave before the incident with Grok. (New York Times)
📈 The Old Glory Club, a far-right men’s group known for antisemitism, is rapidly expanding across the U.S., with at least 26 chapters whose members include military personnel, lawyers, and government workers. (Guardian)
Shiva call ► Rabbi Avraham Korf, who served as a Chabad emissary in Florida for 65 years, died at 92.
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| | | | | This week marks the fourth anniversary of Forwarding the News. To celebrate, we’re flashing back to our very first edition — which featured a sushi restaurant attack in L.A., the debut of MLB’s first Orthodox player, and a countdown of the 50 best covers of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”
Every morning since, we’ve brewed a strong cup of coffee (sometimes two) and sifted through the headlines so you don’t have to — bringing you all the Jewish news you need to start your day. Here’s to the next four years! ☕ 📰 🥂
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| Thanks to Ron Kampeas, Jacob Kornbluh and Jake Wasserman 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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