| JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT. |
| WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
| | | Hostage families say Biden now has political freedom to pressure Israel and Hamas, Netanyahu travels to U.S. for speech to Congress, Louisiana will slightly delay Ten Commandments rule in classrooms, and why a pro-Palestinian activist may sue Adidas. |
| | | | A man shows his support on Sunday outside the White House. (Getty) |
| Opinion | The profound Talmudic resonance of Biden’s departure
“Who is rich?” asks the seminal Jewish moral code, Ethics of the Fathers. “The person who is satisfied with their portion.”
Our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, writes that “Biden’s ‘portion’ — 36 years in the United States Senate, eight as vice president and an unlikely topper of a term as commander in chief — was unimaginably larger than he could have dared dream as a boy with a stutter growing up in hardscrabble Scranton, Pennsylvania.”
Vice President Harris is also a student of Ethics of the Fathers. “At the Rosh Hashanah reception I attended at her residence in 2022,” Jodi recalls Harris quoting another of its famous aphorisms: “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”
Read Jodi’s new column, which also discusses the death of her father and lessons learned from The West Wing on presidential legacy.
More on Biden… Aviva Siegel, a freed American-Israeli hostage, and the families of others taken captive say Biden now has more political freedom to pressure Israel and Hamas into a deal. Our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh, met with them on Sunday.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog called Biden “a true ally of the Jewish people.” Here’s how other Jewish leaders (and Barbra Streisand) reacted to the news. |
| | Vice President Kamala Harris and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro earlier this month in Philadelphia. (Getty) |
| | | President Joe Biden during a visit to Israel on Oct. 18, 2023, after the start of the war. (Getty) |
| Commentary…
Opinion | Joe Biden was a remarkable president for Israel — and very likely the last of his kind:“As a member of the generation that came of age in the years immediately after World War II and the establishment of Israel, Biden has throughout his political career been a friend of the version of Israel that dominated the discourse in those years,” writes our columnist Dan Perry. “To Biden and his peers, Israel was seen as having laid a marker in the sand — not just for the Jewish birthright in the Holy Land but also for Western civilization in the Middle East.” Read his essay ➤ By leaving the presidential race, Biden is living out the core Jewish principle of l’dor vador, writes Emily Tamkin, referring to the phrase “from generation to generation.”
Harris has been a strong ally to Israel, fought tirelessly against antisemitism, and advanced policies in line with liberal Jewish values, writes Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, a Jewish Democratic delegate. |
| | Lew Goldstein in the entryway of P.S. 108, a public school in the Bronx where he was a teacher in the 1970s and 1980s. (Brittainy Newman) |
| | | | | | Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week in Jerusalem during a ceremony for soldiers killed during the war. (Getty) |
| Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is traveling to the U.S. today ahead of his scheduled Wednesday address at 2 p.m. in front of a joint session of Congress. The Israeli leader is set to meet Tuesday with President Biden who, according to the White House, “continues to improve steadily” from COVID-19. Vice President Harris also plans to meet with Netanyahu while he is in D.C.
Hall pass: Some Democrats, angry over the mounting death toll in Gaza, are planning to boycott Netanyahu’s speech. Congress members have a history of boycotting invited speakers — including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Pope Francis.
While he’s in town: Netanyahu may also attend a Wednesday morning memorial service at D.C.’s Adas Israel Congregation for former Sen. Joe Lieberman, who died in March.
From the flight deck: This is Netanyahu’s first time out of Israel since the outbreak of the war in October. It is also his inaugural flight on Wing of Zion, the Israeli version of Air Force One. Previously, Netanyahu and his entourage leased El Al planes for their travel needs.
Related… Some families of hostages think Netanyahu’s speech to Congress is premature, calling it an unjustified “victory lap.”
The IDF said new intelligence information revealed that two hostages thought to possibly be alive— Alex Dancyg, 75, and Yagev Buchshtav, 35 — died months ago in Gaza.
Hostage-ceasefire negotiations are set to resume on Thursday.
“Almost single-handedly, Netanyahu has made support for Israel into a partisan issue,” writes Hadar Susskind, the CEO of Americans for Peace Now, in an opinion essay. |
| | Bella Hadid, a supermodel and pro-Palestinian activist, in an ad for an Adidas sneaker commemorating the 1972 Munich Olympics, where Israeli athletes were murdered. (Courtesy) |
| And in other Israel news… In a first, the IDF issued draft orders Sunday to 1,000 Haredi men. Our columnist Dan Perry writes in an opinion essay how this could change Israel — for better and for worse.
Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested on college campuses this spring. Months later, many of the charges against them have been dropped. “The goal isn’t to punish people,” said an expert in criminal law. “It’s to clear the streets.”
Israel’s soccer team has been cleared to play in the Olympics, which begin this week in Paris, after the sport’s governing body postponed a decision to ban Israel.
Adidas made a new shoe to honor the 1972 Munich Olympics, where members of the Israeli delegation were murdered, and hired Bella Hadid, a supermodel and pro-Palestinian activist, to promote it. After backlash, Adidas said it would revise the campaign. Now Hadid is mulling legal action against the shoe company. |
| | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
| | A woman holds a sign at a rally against antisemitism last month in Paris. (Getty) |
| 🤷 The majority of European Jewish leaders are worried about a rise in antisemitism, yet they have no plans to leave, according to a new survey published this morning. (JTA)
🏫 A federal judge in Louisiana ruled that a new law requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in every classroom will be delayed until at least November as a lawsuit filed by families — three of whom are Jewish — works its way through the court system. (AP)
🇦🇷 Argentina’s non-Jewish president has developed a public adoration with Judaism unusual for a leader of a mostly Roman Catholic country. “He also regularly studies the Torah, attends Shabbat dinner and has said that perhaps his most important adviser is his rabbi.” (New York Times)
🦸 Marvel was accused of erasing the Israeli identity of the Sabra superhero, portrayed by actress Shira Haas, in the upcoming Captain America movie. But two insiders say she is still Israeli in the film. (Wrap)
📙 A professor of world religion and philosophy died while she was in the middle of writing a book about Emma Mordecai, a Confederate Jewish woman who owned slaves. One of her colleagues, an American Jewish historian who appeared on Jeopardy!, picked up the project and finished the book. (Jewish Exponent)
What else we’re reading ➤ Their son captive in Gaza, parents dedicate a Torah scroll to 120 remaining hostages … How to succeed in business as a Hasidic Jew? A giant expo offered tips and networking … Barney Greengrass, a popular New York deli, is collaborating with an unlikely partner: Nordstrom. |
| | | | Everybody’s talking about the elections. Here’s how to do so in Yiddish, with a little help from our Rukhl Schaechter. |
| Thanks to Jacob Kornbluh, Lauren Markoe, Julie Moos and Talya Zax 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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