WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

New documentary about Hamas’ sex crimes on Oct. 7, Biden meets with children held hostage, former employee allegedly used AI to make his boss say antisemitic comments, how Nazi psychedelic research influenced the CIA, and meet the self-proclaimed “punk rock queen of the Jews.”

CHAOS ON CAMPUS

Mounted police tried to contain demonstrators on Wednesday at the University of Texas at Austin. (Getty)

The latest…

Pro-Palestinian activists clashed with authorities on campuses across the country Thursday, leading to more than 400 arrests. Here’s a map showing where. The schools included Emory University, the University of Texas and Ohio State.

At the University of Southern California, where 93 protesters were arrested, the school took the unusual move of canceling its primary graduation ceremony in May. Some expressed sympathy for the class of 2024, which also missed its high school graduation because of the pandemic.

At Brown University in Rhode Island, our reporter found a different story. The university is taking a less confrontational approach: not arresting people who set up encampments, and keeping its main campus green open to the public.

A day after Brandeis University, where a third of the population is Jewish, invited students to transfer to its campus, Yeshiva University did the same. The Modern Orthodox institution, located about 70 blocks north of Columbia, said it was reopening its transfer portal to allow students who feel unsafe at other schools to switch to Y.U.

Meanwhile, an umbrella group for colleges in Israel has also said that they will do their “best to assist” U.S. students “who wish to join Israeli universities and find a welcoming academic and personal home.”

USC public safety officers detain a pro-Palestinian demonstrator Wednesday on campus. (Getty)

Opinion | USC taught its pro-Palestinian valedictorian to ask good questions — then axed commencement because it was afraid of them: When Jonathan Cohen, a USC professor, met USC’s 2024 valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, two years ago, she told him that a class she was taking about Jerusalem — which had students of all three Abrahamic faiths — taught her to be curious about others’ life experiences and perspectives. By first canceling Tabassum’s planned commencement speech after criticism of her pro-Palestinian activism, then canceling its primary commencement altogether, USC has shown itself to be scared of the inquisitiveness Tabassum demonstrates, Cohen writes. In doing so, administrators “sent students a message that the university is afraid to allow the complex conversations that the war in Gaza so desperately needs.” Read his essay ➤

Opinion | Yes, antisemitism is rising. But pro-Palestinian protests aren’t the real threat to our campuses: Hank Kalet, a journalism professor at Rutgers, writes that universities have “come to lack the kind of intellectual humility we all need to exhibit,” and often infuse “regardless of truth — any pro-Palestinian protest with the specter of antisemitism. Universities are supposed to be places in which ideas are tested through rigorous research and debate, places of learning.” Read his essay ➤

The Hungarian Pastry Shop, a popular cafe a few blocks from Columbia’s campus. (Sam Lin-Sommer)

Columbia’s campus is rocked by protests. The surrounding neighborhood? Not so much:It would be easy to think that Columbia’s tumult would send shockwaves through the Morningside Heights neighborhood in which it is situated. But instead, from interviews with locals and a stroll through the area, life carried on with errands and trips to coffee shops. For residents of the area, the only reminder that they lived in the vicinity of protests garnering nationwide attention were the sounds of helicopters overhead. “I watch TV over the air,” said a 71-year-old man who lives in a senior center a few blocks from campus. “Helicopters break up the signal.” Read the story ➤

ISRAEL AT WAR

Friends and family of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza protested Thursday outside the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv. (Getty)

The latest…

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected in Israel on Tuesday to discuss a possible Rafah invasion and the latest on a hostage deal.

Israel is now willing to accept less than 40 living hostages in the first phase of an upcoming deal.

Freed hostage Noga Weiss, 18, said in a new interview that her Hamas captor gave her a ring and said they would get married and raise children together. The captor went so far as to reunite Noga with her kidnapped mother, so that he could get her blessing for the marriage.

U.S. troops began construction on a pier off the coast of Gaza to help with the flow of humanitarian aid into the enclave. It should be operational by early May.

World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres, left, attends an interfaith memorial service for the seven aid workers killed in Gaza Thursday at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Doug Emhoff, the second gentleman of the United States, looks on. (Getty)

An interfaith memorial service was held Thursday in Washington, D.C., for the seven World Central Kitchen aid workers who were killed while trying to deliver food to Gaza.

Sheryl Sandberg, the former Facebook COO, released a new documentary, Screams Before Silence, about Hamas’ sex crimes on Oct. 7. It is free to watch on YouTube.

The upcoming Eurovision Song Contest, set for May 7-11 in Sweden, is adding extra security for expected protests against Israel’s participation in the annual event.

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Rossi now and on the cover of her memoir, during her time in high school. (Courtesy)

How a ‘lowly Orthodox,’ punk rock lesbian ended up in Hasidic Crown Heights:In her new memoir, Rossi, as she is mononymously known, reveals the time her parents drove her from her home state of New Jersey and deposited her smackdab in the middle of Chabad Lubavitch, Brooklyn, to be reformed. Punk Rock Queen of the Jews follows Rossi as she challenges Hasidic convention, meets a bizarre cast of characters and eventually comes out of the closet to make her own way in the world. The book came out during Passover for a reason. “It’s a whole story about my Exodus and here we are in the Exodus,” Rossi said.

The Holocaust survivor in the typewriter repair shop:Sharon Packer describes a Manhattan street that was once lined with used bookstores, and recalls one older man whose livelihood was fixing worn Underwood and Royal typewriters. “It wasn’t the sad smile or the stained apron that made me remember him so well,” she writes. “It was the tattoo on his forearm.”

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Gratz College's Alison Joseph sifts through boxes that contain Elie Wiesel's archives. (Courtesy)

💻 The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity chose Philadelphia’s Gratz College to host the world’s first digital archive dedicated to the work of the Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate. It will be free to use, and open to the public. (JNS)

📞 A former athletic director at a Baltimore high school used artificial intelligence software to create fake audio of the principal saying antisemitic and racist comments. He was arrested Thursday. (JTA)

📖 A new book details the untold story of how Nazi experiments into psychedelics covertly influenced CIA research and secretly shaped the war on drugs. (New York Times)

✝️ There’s a new movie about Mary, mother of Jesus, and her life story as told in the New Testament. It stars an Israeli actress as the lead character. (Algemeiner)

What else we’re reading ➤ Why you might have heard Paul Simon’s The Sound of Silence at Spanish Mass … The mental health benefits linked to going to houses of worship … Here are all the foods mentioned in Barbra Streisand’s 970-page memoir.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

(Courtesy the White House)

President Biden on Wednesday spent over an hour with several children who were held hostage by Hamas at the start of the war — including Abigail Edan, a 4-year-old American girl. “She’s remarkable and recovering from unspeakable trauma,” Biden said, adding that the visit “was a reminder of the work we have in front of us to secure the release of all remaining hostages.”

Thanks to PJ Grisar, Jacob Kornbluh, Rukhl Schaechter and Talya Zax for contributing to this newsletter, and to Beth Harpaz for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].

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