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WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

What it’s like living with anti-Zionist Jews at Columbia University, Trump promises to deport pro-Palestinian campus protesters, why an NBA show was good for the Jews, and a new opera tells the dramatic story of the making of the Great Yiddish Dictionary.

ISRAEL AT WAR

Demonstrators in France on Monday gather in support of Palestinians after the Rafah attack. (Getty)

The latest…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted it was a “tragic mistake” that an Israeli strike that killed two senior Hamas figures also reportedly killed dozens of Palestinians at a displaced persons camp in Rafah.

“For us, every uninvolved civilian who is hurt is a tragedy,” Netanyahu said. “For Hamas, it’s a strategy. That’s the whole difference.”

The U.N. Security Council is set to convene an emergency meeting today over the killings.

Spain, Ireland and Norway are set to formally recognize a Palestinian state today. Israel slammed the decision as a “reward” for Hamas during the war.

Canada said on Monday it will give temporary visas to 5,000 Gaza residents who have relatives in Canada, a preparatory move in case they are able to leave in the future.

Around 10,000 people demonstrated near the Israeli embassy in Paris on Monday to protest the attack on Rafah.

Opinion | Will the IDF’s ‘tragic mistake’ in Rafah spell the end of the war?“When a single Israeli action has resulted in a civilian death toll that the world cannot tolerate, it’s often become a tipping point in the course of conflict,” writes Dan Perry, the author of two books about Israel. “The pressure from all sides may finally become too much to bear.” Read his essay ➤

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CONFLICT ON CAMPUS

An Israeli flag and photos of the hostages placed opposite the encampment of pro-Palestinian student protesters this spring at Columbia University. (Getty)

Opinion | As a young Zionist, I used to think anti-Zionist Jews hated being Jewish. Then I lived with them: Arielle Kaden lived in a Jewish dormitory at Columbia University where she met Jews who were involved in anti-Zionist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine. “What I learned,” she writes, is that “the reason that many young American Jews join these radical groups isn’t because they dislike Jewish people, but because they care so very deeply about their Jewishness.” Read her essay ➤

Plus…

During a radio interview, Alan Dershowitz likened the antisemitism and anti-Israel protests on college campuses to the early days of Nazi Germany.

Students at Canada’s McGill University said they found an effigy of Netanyahu hanging from the top of the school’s gates.

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

TNT’s Inside the NBA team: from left, Shaquille O’Neal, Ernie Johnson Jr., Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley. (Getty)

Why the TV series Inside the NBA was good for the Jews:The popular halftime and postgame show may become a casualty of a deal the league is making with other networks. Which is a shame, writes our sports reporter, Louis Keene, because its willingness to provide sobriety at crucial moments may be harder to replace. “Never was that clarity more evident, or required, than when one of the sport’s biggest stars shared a movie that claimed Jews had used slavery to usurp Jewish identity from Black people and invented the Holocaust to cover it up.”

New opera brings to life the poignant fate of the Great Yiddish Dictionary: Sixty years ago, two experts were in a bitter dispute over how to create a comprehensive Yiddish dictionary — not a bilingual one, but one that had the definitions in Yiddish. Both men wanted to rescue the language, but their vision of how to do this diverged considerably. In the end, their difference of opinion had dramatic consequences. So dramatic that their story has now been transformed into an opera.

Plus: The poet Jerome Rothenberg died last month, but his musical project linking Jewish and Native American cultures is carrying on.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt at the 'March for Israel' in Washington, D.C., on Nov 14, 2023. (Getty)

🇺🇸 Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt was sworn in two years ago this week to travel the world to help combat antisemitism in other countries. Now when she’s abroad, people ask her about America instead. “I’ve been having countries saying to me, ‘Is your country OK? What can we do for you?’” Lipstadt recounted. (Jewish Insider)

😲 Former President Donald Trump said that if reelected, he’ll throw pro-Palestinian campus protesters out of the country. (Washington Post)

🎒 New York City is set to send 85,000 eighth graders from public and private schools to visit the Museum of Jewish Heritage as part of an initiative to combat antisemitism. (NY Jewish Week)

Shiva call ➤ Stanley Goldstein, who helped found Consumer Value Stores, later shortened and better known as CVS, died at 89.

What else we’re reading ➤ The Hamas chief and the Israeli who saved his life … The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College ordained three students. All are anti-Zionists … A chill has fallen over Jews in publishing.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

(Getty)

Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld (left) and Margot Friedländer (center), a Holocaust survivor, were honored Monday by French President Emmanuel Macron (second from right) and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier after the heads of state laid wreaths at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial.

Thanks to Jacob Kornbluh 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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