WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Kanye West apologizes for months of antisemitic outbursts, pro-Palestinian event at Holocaust museum canceled, IDF chief says war will last “many more months,” and remembering the concert pianist whose catchphrase was “Yoohoo, bubeleh.”

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ISRAEL AT WAR

Rachel Goldberg-Polin with her son Hersh, who was abducted by Hamas. (Collage by Odeya Rosenband)

‘Everybody needs to be uncomfortable’: How a hostage’s mother became the international voice and conscience of the war

Rachel Goldberg-Polin, 54, a soft-spoken teacher who grew up in Chicago, is remarkably comfortable in the unwanted role she has inhabited since shortly after Oct. 7, when her son, Hersh, 23, was kidnapped by Hamas at the Nova music festival.

Our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren, recently visited the Goldberg-Polin home in Jerusalem, where Rachel spoke about bionic arms (Hersh’s left arm was blown off during the fighting), what daily life is like without her son and the prayers that give her strength.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin in her son’s room. (Jodi Rudoren)

Constant motion: Goldberg-Polin met with President Biden and Pope Francis and spoken at the United Nations. She’s been profiled in People magazine and The New York Times. She’s done countless Zoom events with American synagogues, posts daily on social media to tens of thousands of followers, and spoke at the March for Israel in Washington, D.C. “It’s almost like an animalistic drive,” she said.

Sense of purpose: “All the public speaking, all that stuff would have — before — made me very nervous,” she told Jodi. “That does not exist anymore. When you’ve been so traumatized and so terrified, nothing scares you anymore.”

Plus: Jodi shares takeaways from her 10 days of reporting in Israel. “I just hope 2024 brings us a little more light,” she writes.

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

During the first b’nai mitzvah at Tbilisi’s Peace Synagogue, Nina Mgeladze, center, was one of the first women to read Torah in Georgia’s 2,600 years of Jewish history. (Eli Deush Krogmann)

This week in Forwarding the News, we’ll be revisiting some of our favorite stories of 2023…

‘Make for me a sanctuary’: Amid Orthodox ire, Tbilisi women read Torah for the first time

In May, Jodi joined a delegation from her New Jersey synagogue to Tbilisi, Georgia, where an ambitious new religious project — a synagogue, mosque and church, all under the same roof — hosted a b’nai mitzvah ceremony in which women read Torah in the country for the first time in 2,600 years.

The effort drew substantial ire from Georgia’s largely Orthodox Jewish community. One of the women who read Torah, Keti Chikviladze, and her husband, Misha Grishashvili, cut ties with the local Hillel, where she had previously been executive director, over the fallout. And certain elements of the ceremony, foremost the inclusion of a Christian with no plans to convert in the b’nai mitzvah cohort, raised questions for Jodi over whether the interfaith effort had engaged sufficiently with Jewish tradition in the country.
Yet for Jews who had felt stymied by the Georgian Jewish community’s strict traditions, the new endeavor represented an important change. “It stands for choice,” Grishashvili said. “In Torah, we know this is the only thing that separates humans from all other creations of God.”

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Kanye West said he is committed to “learning from this experience.” (Getty)

🙏 Rapper, entrepreneur and sometime Hitler apologist Kanye West had a belated Christmas present for Jews on Tuesday: an apology for his past antisemitic outbursts, written entirely in Hebrew. (Forward)

😲 An organization opposed to the war in Gaza canceled plans to gather at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., saying its motives were misconstrued as antisemitic. (Forward)

🇵🇸 Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, was criticized for two social media posts on Christmas that compared Jesus to the Palestinians in Gaza. (JTA)

🇨🇦 Canada’s House Speaker resigned in September after having led Parliament in a standing ovation for a 98-year-old Ukrainian immigrant who turns out to have fought in a Nazi unit during World War II. The new speaker is now working on guidelines so that it doesn’t happen again. (Toronto Star)

🇳🇱 Until the 1980s, the Netherlands spied on Holocaust survivors in Amsterdam, considering them a potential threat to democracy, according to an analysis of declassified documents. (El Pais)

🤔 A rabbi who served in the Israeli army and is now a Dartmouth professor argues in a new book that Jews living in exile in the Diaspora could be a constructive alternative to Zionism. (Religion News Service)

Shiva calls ➤ Ruth Seymour, a public radio pioneer devoted to Jewish culture, died at 88 … Zita Carno, a renowned concert pianist known for her eccentric style, including greeting people with her catchphrase, “Yoohoo, bubeleh!,” died at 88.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

(Getty)

An Israeli soldier sits next to the beach Tuesday in Tel Aviv. A high-ranking IDF official said that the military is intensifying the fighting in Gaza, and that the war will last “many more months.”

Thanks to 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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