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JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.

WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

World Central Kitchen pauses Gaza food aid, IDF sends draft orders to Haredim, Jewish high school in California recruiting students from China, Connecticut synagogue installs vending machine that sells religious items, and meet the rabbi who makes whiskey named after Jewish pirates.

ISRAEL AT WAR

Tens of thousands of Israelis protesting the war and the leadership of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are gathering this week for the largest rallies since the war began. “This may be a turning point,” our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, said last night on CNN. “While most Israelis do strongly support the war, and despite the level of devastation that it has wrought in Gaza, they don’t support Netanyahu.” She added: “You do get a sense of anger and anguish, and a little bit, I think, beginning to see an exhaustion from the war and from the international reaction to it.” Watch the segment above.

Opinion | Protesters want Netanyahu out. Israel’s increasingly dysfunctional government makes that almost impossible: “Protesters want everyone to understand that Netanyahu’s path has begot disaster, and they want the stubborn premier to admit even an ounce of responsibility for the epic breakdown of security, intelligence and strategy that was Oct. 7,” writes Dan Perry, the author of two books about Israel. “Governments as cataclysmic as this one are supposed to fall or resign. That's why, before the war, Israel had five elections in four years. Stasis in the face of mass displeasure is not supposed to be a real possibility. But stasis there is.” Read his essay ➤

Relatives and friends on Tuesday mourned the death of a staff member of the U.S.-based aid group World Central Kitchen who was killed in an airstrike while delivering food in Gaza. (Getty)

The latest…

World Central Kitchen, a philanthropic organization led by Chef Jose Andres that had been providing food to the residents of Gaza, said it would be pausing operations in the region after seven of its workers were killed in an airstrike Monday. Israel took responsibility for the strike and expressed “sincere sorrow.”

The IDF began sending out draft orders to Haredim, after a law exempting them from service expired this week. Our Susan Greene reports from Jerusalem on thousands of “lost boys” who may be among the first recruits.

Netanyahu pledged to close down the Israeli offices of Al Jazeera, thanks to a new law passed by the Knesset that allows the government to temporarily shut down a news outlet it deems is a threat to security.

Japan on Tuesday became the latest country to resume funding UNRWA, the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency, as the relief body works to regain trust after Israel surfaced intelligence that some of its staff were involved in the Oct. 7 attack.

The Biden administration is set to approve the sale of as many as 50 American-made F-15 fighter jets to Israel, in a deal expected to be worth more than $18 billion.

An airstrike destroyed an Iranian consulate building in Syria, killing a top Iranian commander and others. Iran blamed Israel and vowed revenge.

Rep. Ritchie Torres on Monday toured sites attacked by Hamas. (Getty)

Plus…

Rep. Ritchie Torres, Democrat from New York, visited on Monday the home of the Bibas family at a kibbutz in southern Israel. The parents and their two young sons were taken hostage on Oct. 7. “I see the goal of removing Hamas from power as nonnegotiable,” he said.

“Every girl there is sexually harassed in one way or another,” Maya Regev, a freed Israeli hostage, told members of the Knesset in an emotional session on Tuesday.

Spain plans to recognize Palestinian statehood by July, according to several Spanish media reports published on Tuesday.

A close adviser to Netanyahu said Monday that the heightened tension between the Israeli government and the Biden administration over the war in Gaza is a price worth paying to achieve “total victory” over Hamas.

Today at 1 p.m. ET: The Forward’s language columnist, Aviya Kushner, joins Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., and novelists Elisa Albert and Iddo Geffen for a conversation about how Jewish literature can be a point of connection in times of war. Register for the Zoom event ➤

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ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Death, tired of war and bloodshed, goes on strike in a new graphic novel. (Patrick Lay)

In 1943, an opera was composed at a concentration camp. Now, it’s a graphic novel:The Emperor of Atlantis was written and rehearsed in the Terezin concentration camp. Its writers, Peter Kien and Viktor Ullmann, didn’t live to see it performed, but since the 1970s, when it was first arranged for a production, the opera has seen new life, playing in cities like Amsterdam, London and Warsaw. Its newest iteration is a graphic novel, a fitting medium for what its writer and illustrator call an “incredible sci-fi fantasy story.”

Plus…

Meet the Jewish artist bringing abortion history to America’s museums.

Our deputy opinion editor, Nora Berman, spoke with Noah Feldman, a Harvard professor who has a new book out about what it means to be a Jew today.

NEW FROM THE FORWARD

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Rabbi Binyomin Terebelo is a master distiller, and a fan of Jewish pirates. (Anne-Marie Caruso)

🥃 A rabbi who owns a distillery makes whiskey named for Jewish pirates. He plays music — sometimes heavy metal, sometimes classical — to help with the aging process. He says that different sound waves will create different types of whiskey. (NorthJersey)

🎒 After years of opening its doors to non-Jewish applicants, a Jewish high school in Palo Alto, California, is now actively recruiting students from mainland China. (J, The Jewish News of Northern California)

🕍 A Connecticut synagogue installed in its lobby a vending machine full of “everyday Jewish” items — including yarmulkes, parchment for the inside of a mezuzah, “mazel tov” cards, yahrzeit candles and a rotation of food items. It recently sold hamantashen for Purim. (Jerusalem Post)

What we’re watching ➤ The hilarious new special from comedian Modi Rosenfeld. Despite being filled with inside jokes about the difference between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, what it’s like to sit next to a Hasid on an El Al flight, and the occasional Yiddishism, Modi insists he wants non-Jews to watch, too. “I think one of the best ways to end antisemitism is not educating people on what’s happening. It’s more just — laugh with us,” he said.

Shiva calls ➤ Maurice El Medioni, an Algerian pianist revered among Jews and Muslims, died at 95 … Liron Petrushka, 57, a tech entrepreneur and former Israeli pro soccer player, died with his wife, Naomi, 58, when their plane crashed during a snowstorm. The couple leaves behind three children.

What else we’re reading ➤ A Palestinian-Israeli band was rock’s next big thing. Then came war … What a mom told her children when their synagogue was graffitied with a swastika … A large Jewish book publisher gets its own zip code.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Tonight’s episode of Finding Your Roots on PBS features two Jewish actors, Michael Douglas and Lena Dunham. In it, Douglas finds the 18th-century cemetery in Belarus where some of his ancestors were likely buried, and Dunham discovers that she had family members who survived the Holocaust — and at least one who did not. Watch a clip above, and read more about the episode here.

Thanks to PJ Grisar, Louis Keene and Jacob Kornbluh for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Beth Harpaz for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].

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