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| WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
| | | | | | Today: Mamdani offers moderation on “globalize the intifada” • U.S. condemns West Bank settlers’ alleged killing of Palestinian American • Emmy love for Nobody Wants This. |
| | | | | Robert Groves, the interim president of Georgetown University, speaks at a congressional hearing Tuesday on campus antisemitism. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) |
| Campus antisemitism hearing turns partisan
House Republicans clashed with university leaders on Tuesday over their handling of campus antisemitism, writes our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh, in the fifth such hearing in front of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Democrats, in turn, accused the GOP of “weaponizing” antisemitism and ignoring President Donald Trump’s hiring of officials with antisemitic ties — pointing to Kingsley Wilson, the deputy press secretary at the Pentagon, who posted Nazi slogans on her personal social media accounts and promoted the antisemitic great replacement conspiracy.
Takeaways from the hearing… Matt Nosanchuk, who oversaw civil rights investigations at the Department of Education under former President Joe Biden’s administration, testified that Trump cuts to the department will make campuses less safe for Jewish students.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, a Democrat from Oregon who is Jewish, used most of her time to highlight what she described as Republican hypocrisy on antisemitism. “My colleagues are weaponizing the real problems of the Jewish community, a community I am an active member of, in furtherance of their attacks on and plans to defund colleges and universities,” she said.
Robert Groves, the interim president of Georgetown University, revealed that a professor of Islamic civilization who in a social media post last month appeared to support an Iranian strike on a U.S. base was placed on leave and removed as chair of a department in the School of Foreign Service. |
| | Also at the hearing: A protester interrupted questions from Florida Rep. Randy Fine, a Jewish Republican who was wearing a yarmulke. “Get out of here, you loser,” Fine shot back. Fine has come to calling himself “The Hebrew Hammer” (he’s got merch!) for his brash and controversial style of combatting antisemitism. (AP)
Plus… Columbia University on Tuesday said it will take steps — including cutting ties with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, an anti-Israel student group — to reach a Title VI agreement with the Trump administration in an effort to restore $400 million in suspended federal funding. (Jewish Insider)
Wednesday’s episode of The New York Times’ podcast The Daily takes a deep dive into how Project Esther — a plan produced by the same conservative think tank responsible for Project 2025 — is working to dismantle pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses. (New York Times)
Rewind: Our Arno Rosenfeld first reported on Project Esther’s planned campus tactics in October 2024. |
| | | President of the National Education Association Becky Pringle, left, speaks alongside President of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) |
| Also in education: Hundreds of Jewish groups signed a letter to the head of the National Education Association, warning of growing antisemitism in teachers’ unions — a concern they say was amplified by the NEA’s recent decision to sever ties with the Anti-Defamation League. But our Arno Rosenfeld reports that J Street, the progressive pro-Israel lobbying group, is refusing to join the effort, saying that the ADL under CEO Jonathan Greenblatt can no longer be trusted as a credible authority on antisemitism. The split comes as progressives have grown frustrated with Greenblatt, who has defended the Trump administration’s crackdown on universities and at times excused the far-right tendencies of billionaire Elon Musk.
“The ADL under Greenblatt has focused resources on combatting anti-Zionism,” Arno writes, “changing the organization’s methodology for tracking antisemitic incidents to count many protests against Israel and comparing student protesters on college campuses to al-Qaida.” |
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| | | | | | The kosher eatery Holy Bagels & Pizzeria in Miami after vandalism in June 2024. (Courtesy of Josh Nodel) |
| Cuisine in the crossfire
“Shortly after the attacks of Oct. 7, Josh Nodel, the Israeli-born owner of Bagel Time Cafe in Miami Beach, hung Israeli and American flags on his storefront,” reports our Hannah Feuer. “The cafe has been vandalized three times since.”
Context: Reports of vandalism and harassment at Israeli or Jewish food establishments since Oct. 7 have been widespread, including at a juice bar in Brooklyn, a falafel restaurant in Philadelphia, a kosher deli in Los Angeles, an Israeli-owned restaurant in Houston, a kosher restaurant in Manhattan, and an Israeli restaurant in Brooklyn. This month, there were similar attacks in Australia and Greece.
Pattern: “It’s low-hanging fruit for antisemites or for anti-Israel people,” said Dani Klein, who runs the website YeahThatsKosher. “We don’t have a security guard in front of our favorite sushi spot or kosher steakhouse or kosher pizzeria. So in a sense, they’re very soft targets.” |
| | The latest… The Israeli- and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said at least 20 Palestinians were killed in a stampede at a food distribution site; they blamed armed Hamas-affiliated agitators for sparking the deadly chaos. (Haaretz)
Trump is set to have dinner tonight at the White House with the prime minister of Qatar, a lead mediator between Israel and Hamas. The two are expected to talk about the Gaza ceasefire efforts and broader regional negotiations. (X)
Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for United Nations ambassador, told senators he would push to dismantle UNRWA, the U.N. agency that serves Palestinian refugees, accusing it of antisemitism and involvement in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. An August 2024 U.N. report found that nine staffers “may have been involved” in the attacks. (Times of Israel)
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee condemned the killing of Saif Mussallet, a 20-year-old Palestinian-American allegedly beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, as a “terrorist act” and urged Israeli authorities to investigate. (JTA)
Huckabee also attended Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial today to show support, amid criticism that the Trump administration is meddling in Israel’s internal affairs. (Times of Israel, X) |
| | | | | Elon Musk at the White House in May. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) |
| Opinion | Oh, great, Elon Musk’s antisemitic AI is about to ride shotgun in my Tesla: Last week, Grok, the AI chatbot in question, spewed antisemitic content and praise for Hitler. Now it’s being installed in Teslas. So, how does that make our senior columnist Rob Eshman, who leases a Tesla, feel? “As if the leader of the far-right group the Proud Boys assured me that some of his best friends were Jewish, then asked if I could drive him cross-country,” Rob writes. “As if David Duke took off his Ku Klux Klan robe, then immediately asked if he could come with me to shul.” Read his essay ►
Plus: The Department of Defense blessed Musk’s AI this week with $200 million of taxpayer money. Our Louis Keene explains the context.
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| | | | | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
| | | Zohran Mamdani at a Tuesday event in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) |
| In New York City…
🗳️ Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, told an influential group of business leaders on Tuesday that he would avoid using the slogan “globalize the intifada” and discourage others from using it as well. During the primary, critics said he didn’t do enough to distance himself from the phrase. (JTA, New York Times)
💻 One of Mamdani’s rivals in the race, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is touting Jewish endorsements from the Democratic primary — which he lost to Mamdani — on his website. But as he launches an independent bid for mayor, some groups listed say those endorsements no longer apply. (JTA)
💰 Comptroller Brad Lander’s recent revelation that his office ended all city pension investments in Israel Bonds in 2023 is drawing fierce pushback from the Jewish establishment. (Forward)
And elsewhere…
🤷 Six months into Trump’s presidency, the State Department’s antisemitism envoy post remains unfilled, with the Senate yet to hold a hearing for nominee Yehuda Kaploun.
🫄 A Kentucky appeals court ruled that one of three Jewish women suing over the state’s near-total abortion ban, Jessica Kalb, has standing to challenge the law and says the state’s restrictions have directly impacted her IVF treatment. She is claiming those restrictions violate her religious freedom. (Louisville Public Media)
Mazel tov ► To Nobody Wants This, the Netflix romantic comedy about a rabbi in an interfaith relationship, which nabbed three Emmy nominations Tuesday, including nods for lead actors Kristen Bell and Adam Brody. (Threads)
Your pick ► Our most-read story yesterday was about why some moviegoers are seeing metaphors of the Middle East conflict in the new Superman.
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| | | | | Palestinian American comedian Sammy Obeid thinks it’s important to use humor to talk about the war in Gaza, he told PBS News Hour. “People don’t understand how dark of a sense of humor Palestinians have and how necessary it is for us to deal with what we see on a daily basis,” he said. “This is how we cope.” |
| Thanks to Ron Kampeas and Jacob Kornbluh for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Talya Zax for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected]. |
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