JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.

WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Hezbollah strikes Israeli town named after Mayim Bialik’s family, FBI says antisemitic incidents up 63%, Springfield rabbi to meet with Haitians after making disparaging comments, Holocaust-era Torah rescued from fire at Orlando Chabad, and there’s now a kids’ book about the Sandy Koufax of pingpong.

ELECTION 2024

(Graphic by Beth Harpaz; map by iStock; photos by Getty)

The Jewish vote could swing the election in seven key battleground states

While the percentage of Jewish voters is small compared to the overall electorate, the number of Jewish voters in many of these states exceeds the number of voters who determined the winner in the 2020 presidential race.

Because Jewish voters are more likely to be Democrats, Republicans are making an extra effort to chip away at their impact and maximize Jewish GOP turnout. The Republican Jewish Coalition is spending $10 million to corral Jewish votes in swing states; the Jewish Democratic Council of America is spending $2 million on the election.

With 19 electoral votes, more than any other swing state, Pennsylvania is the biggest prize among the battleground seven. President Biden beat former President Trump there in 2020 by 80,000 votes, a 1% margin. The state’s 300,000 Jews make up 3% of the electorate; two-thirds of them are Democrats, so their support is crucial to a win for Vice President Harris.

Speaking of Pennsylvania…

At a Trump rally Monday in Pennsylvania, former Rep. Lee Zeldin, who is Jewish and married to a Mormon, accused Gov. Josh Shapiro of “trying to un-Jewish himself” to become Harris’ VP pick. A Shapiro spokesperson called the comments “disgusting.”

The Harris campaign made two new hires to its Jewish outreach team, including Eva Wyner, an alum of Jewish day schools in Pennsylvania, who will solely focus on the critical swing state.

Former President Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention in July. (Getty)

Opinions…

“Under Trump, Republicans have grown even more brazen about appealing to the antisemites in their midst,” writes Eric Alterman, the author of a book about the U.S.-Israel relationship. “Right-wing Jews have tended to look the other way when it comes to their party peers’ nasty ideas about Jews.” Read his essay ►

Wealthy Jewish supporters of Donald Trump are embracing the sort of conspiracy theories they should be warning against, argues our columnist Rabbi Jay Michaelson. Read his essay ►

ISRAEL AT WAR

Vehicles were stuck in traffic Tuesday as people fled southern Lebanon amid Israeli airstrikes. (Getty)

The latest…

Israeli strikes in Lebanon Monday killed more than 500 people and injured nearly 2,000, according to the Lebanese health ministry, which does not differentiate between armed militants and civilians. It was the deadliest day of conflict in Lebanon since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

Hezbollah fired over 100 rockets into northern Israel today, mostly striking open areas, the IDF said.

Kiryat Bialik, a northern Israel town named for actress Mayim Bialik’s ancestors, was struck Sunday by Hezbollah rockets.

The U.S., which already has roughly 40,000 troops in the region, said it would send more amid the escalation in conflict.

President Biden is set to address the United Nations General Assembly this morning. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech there is scheduled for Friday.

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in The Brutalist. (Courtesy Lol Crawley)

In The Brutalist, Adrien Brody wills an impossible dream:The new three-and-a-half hour epic, playing at the New York Film Festival Sept. 28 and Oct. 11, follows a Holocaust survivor, László Tóth, over two decades as he rebuilds his life and constructs a massive community center in rural Pennsylvania. Undercutting his efforts to achieve the American dream is the conditional acceptance of the Christian community. “Tóth’s agony and ecstasy are, from almost the first moment, shaded by a cross,” our PJ Grisar writes in his review.

Plus…

He’s a rabbi at one of the nation’s most prominent synagogues, speaks at major rallies and raised millions of dollars for Israel in the days after Oct. 7. But his job, he says, is all about one-on-one relationships.

She was the Sandy Koufax of pingpong. Now she’s the star of a children’s book.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

A mural in downtown Springfield, Ohio. (Getty)

🤦 A rabbi in Springfield, Ohio, said he will meet with local Haitian migrants after he disparaged the community using racist stereotypes amid claims that they are eating people’s pets. (JTA)

🔥 Fire officials are investigating the cause of a blaze that destroyed most of the inside of the Chabad of Greater Orlando. Nobody was injured. Six Torah scrolls, including one that was hidden during Kristallnacht, were rescued from the flames. (COL Live, Spectrum)

📈 Antisemitic incidents in the U.S. increased 63% from 2022 to 2023, according to new FBI data. It also showed that “Jews, who make up about 2.5% of the U.S. population, are regularly targeted more often than any other religious group.” (JTA)

🇵🇸 At the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain, where Palestinian flags lined the red carpet, actor Javier Bardem said that “what’s happened in Gaza is unacceptable.” (Hollywood Reporter)

🛌 Mike Lindell, the conspiracy theorist and MyPillow CEO, is facing backlash “after his company marked down some of its pillows to $14.88,” a number associated with white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Lindell denied there was any connection, adding, in the third person, “This whole thing is another attack on Mike Lindell and MyPillow because I want to go to paper ballots, hand-counted in our country.” (HuffPost, NY Post)

Shiva call ► Fania Brantsovsky, the last surviving member of the Jewish underground in the Vilna ghetto and a lifelong promoter of Lithuania’s Yiddish culture, died at 102.

What else we’re reading ► The antisemitic revolution on the American right … Lutherans in Walz’s Minnesota put potlucks before politics during divisive election season … For Jewish White Sox fans, this season has made a bad year even worse.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

We Will Dance Again, a documentary about the Hamas attack on the Nova music festival, debuts today on Paramount+. It features CCTV footage, dashcam and cell phone video — including a woman’s selfie footage while she hid from terrorists in a fridge. The Hollywood Reporter says the 92-minute film, which shows how the day unfolded for the 3,500 attendees and includes interviews with survivors, has “hard-to-stomach moments of terrible loss and incredible bravery.” Watch the trailer above.

Thanks to PJ Grisar, Jacob Kornbluh and Jodi Rudoren for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Dan Perry for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].

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