WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

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ISRAEL AT WAR

Left to right: Claudine Gay, president of Harvard, Liz Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, and Sally Kornbluth, president of MIT, testified before Congress on Tuesday about antisemitism on campus. (Getty)

In a high-profile congressional hearing Tuesday, the presidents of three of the nation’s top universities acknowledged that Jewish and Israeli students have felt unsafe on campus since Oct. 7 and said their schools were taking action to fight antisemitism.

But at times the three leaders — from Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania — did not define what kinds of antisemitic and anti-Israel speech could be formally disciplined on campus.

In a widely shared video clip, New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik repeatedly asked if “calling for the genocide of Jews” is against the universities’ respective codes of conduct; all three presidents said the answer depended on the context. Read the story ➤

Elsewhere on campus…

The UCLA newspaper fired a Jewish student reporter, a former Forward intern, who spoke at a pro-Palestinian rally.

Two University of Pennsylvania students filed a lawsuit against the school, claiming it violated civil rights law by not protecting Jewish students.

Harvard became the first university to screen the roughly 45-minute film of Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7, mostly gathered from the terrorists’ own cameras. Alex Friedman, a first-year student at Harvard Law School, called the footage “among the most gruesome I have seen in my life.”

Sylvan Adams, a Canadian-Israeli philanthropist, donated $100 million to Ben-Gurion University as part of an effort to rebuild the south following the Hamas terror attacks. It is the largest gift ever to an Israeli university.

(Getty)

Politics…

The Biden administration announced Tuesday that it would ban entry to the U.S. to people who have “been involved in undermining peace, security, or stability in the West Bank” — a signal of its frustration with Israel’s government for not reining in extremist Israeli settlers.

The House of Representatives passed a resolution Tuesday that equated anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Several Jewish members protested the wording.

The Senate is expected to vote today on an aid package for Israel and Ukraine. Republicans say they’ll oppose it because it doesn’t include substantial changes to U.S. border and immigration policy.

Rep. Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, sparked bipartisan backlash Tuesday with a tweet about Zionism that the White House called “virulent antisemitism.”

Concerned about the backlash Sen. John Fetterman faces for his strong support of Israel since Oct. 7, a group of Jewish Pennsylvanians launched a billboard campaign to express their appreciation for the Democratic senator.

Released hostages, siblings Maya and Itay Regev, returned home on Monday after spending a few days in the hospital. (Getty)

The hostages…

Hamas gave Israeli hostages Klonopin, a tranquilizer, to make them appear to be in good spirits when their release was filmed, an Israeli Health Ministry official confirmed on Tuesday.

At least 10 freed hostages were sexually abused by Hamas in captivity, a doctor who treated them said.

Here’s more of what we know about how the hostages were treated.

Emilia Aloni, 5, who was held hostage by Hamas, returned to kindergarten for the first time since being released. Watch the reunion with her classmates.

Raja Shehadeh’s memoir was a finalist for the National Book Award. (Mariana Cook)

Plus…

Our Irene Katz Connelly spoke with Palestinian author Raja Shehadeh, who was a finalist for this year’s National Book Award.

On Tuesday, the Manhattan district attorney indicted a suspect on hate crimes charges for allegedly attacking an Israeli tourist near Times Square on Oct. 18.

We should call what happened on Oct. 7 a “pogrom,” not because it’s akin to horrific events more than a century ago in Russia, but because it makes trauma comprehensible, argues Fredric Brandfon in a new opinion essay.

Quotable: “I say to the women’s rights organizations, to the human rights organizations: You’ve heard of the rape of Israeli women, horrible atrocities, sexual mutilation. Where the hell are you?” – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Tuesday press conference.

Join us today at 1 p.m. ET: Our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, reporting live from Israel, and senior columnist Rob Eshman will hop on Zoom for a conversation about the war and the critical role of independent Jewish journalism. Register for free here ➤

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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Former Rep. George Santos was expelled from Congress last week. (Getty)

🎬 HBO and an executive producer of Veep are turning the rise and fall of former Rep. George Santos into a movie. Santos, who lied about his career and background, including his Jewish heritage, was expelled from Congress last week. (Deadline)

📱 TikTok’s CEO is getting personally involved in efforts to address concerns that the app has fueled anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric since the start of the war, meeting in recent weeks with a number of prominent Jewish groups and leaders. (New York Times)

🕎 A Canadian city that decided not to display a menorah and nativity scene outside of its city hall in an attempt to “be neutral as far as religion is concerned” has reversed its decision after days of public outcry. (CBC)

🇦🇷 The first Jewish university in South America is set to open in Buenos Aires next year. The school will confer degrees in subjects including Jewish and religious studies, ethics and ancient manuscripts. (JTA)

📚 I’ll Be Home for Hanukkah is a book about a Jewish woman from a big city who finds herself living out a bizarre Hallmark Christmas-movie fantasy with a Jewish colleague when they get stuck in North Pole, Alaska, over the holiday. It’s one of the many Jewish romance novels discussed on a new podcast series. (JTA)

🕍 Hollywood rabbis say that in the two months since the war began, their congregants “are confronting new millennia-old questions about assimilation, antisemitism and the fraught notion of Jewish power itself.” (Hollywood Reporter)

Shiva calls ➤ Norman Lear, the sitcom king who gave TV a social conscience, died at 101. Our culture reporter writes that Lear imbued his work with a Jewish sense of tikkun olam … Shlomo Avineri, an Israeli public intellectual and columnist for Haaretz, died at 90.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

The new Hallmark Hanukkah movie, Round and Round, is about a woman who keeps reliving the same Hanukkah party. “Can Zach, the ‘nice boy’ Grandma’s trying to set her up with, help her make it to tomorrow?” asks the tagline. Sounds like a Jewish Groundhog Day. It debuts Sunday at 8 p.m. ET. Watch the trailer above.

Related: Our culture reporter PJ Grisar rounded up every Hanukkah special, movie and TV episode worth knowing about.

Thanks to Jacob Kornbluh, Lauren Markoe and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter, and Beth Harpaz for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].

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