WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Trial begins today for rabbi accused of sexual abuse, Nebraska lawmakers want to mix religion and public schools, all of Hitler’s speeches to be put online, and meet the plastic surgeon offering free services to victims of antisemitism.

ISRAEL AT WAR

Ariela Rosenzweig, left, and Nour Abaherah are two of the Brown University students on a hunger strike. (Talia LeVine/Alicia Joo)

Brown University hunger strikers, one Jewish and one Palestinian, open up about their war protest

A group of 19 Brown University students has been on a hunger strike since Friday. Their goal? To push the university to divest in companies that they say profit from human rights abuses in Gaza. Our deputy opinion editor, Nora Berman, spoke Monday with two of the striking students, one Jewish and one Palestinian.

Ariela Rosenzweig grew up in a Boston suburb in a family with Zionist ideals. Her grandparents fled Poland during the Holocaust and were among the first citizens of the State of Israel. “I don’t think that the cycle of violence that was perpetrated against my family had to be repeated,” she said.

Nour Abaherah, whose grandparents survived the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, was born in Jordan and raised in Rhode Island. “I don’t remember ever not advocating, or talking about, or just bringing awareness to Palestine and what’s happening there,” she said. The hunger strike, she said, “is the least that we can do.”

The hunger strikers hope to meet with the university’s governing body this week.

President Biden on a visit to Israel in October. (Getty)

Opinion | Biden’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan is our best hope. Here’s why: “Unless Israelis and Palestinians want the result of unbearable tragedy to be nothing but a hiatus before the next tragedy, there has to be a different path forward,” writes our senior contributing columnist, Rob Eshman who has a handy acronym for people to rally around: NOGA — No one’s going anywhere. Read his essay ➤

A new Israeli ad makes Gaza look like a Mediterranean paradise — what’s the goal?In a new ad airing on Hulu, images flash by: children playing on the beach, people dancing under disco lights, fancy hotels and a building that looks oddly like the Taj Mahal. The slogan? Visit Gaza. “This is what Gaza could have been like,” says a narrator as the ad ends. “Without Hamas. Free Gaza from Hamas.” Marketing experts told our Mira Fox that the ad may do more harm than good. Read the story ➤

Related: Those imagined scenes of Gaza in the ad? They were apparently created by AI.

University of Haifa administrators handed out materials with the slogan “Continuing to study together” in order to cool tensions. (Eliyahu Freedman)

Plus…

American campuses aren’t the only ones erupting over Gaza. Welcome to the University of Haifa.

Some CNN staffers are accusing the news network of “journalistic malpractice” for what they claim is a pro-Israel stance at the expense of Palestinian perspectives.

A Democratic group in Michigan is telling voters to mark “Uncommitted” on their ballots in the Feb. 27 primary. The group’s slogan is blunt: “Tell Biden, count me out for genocide.”

Argentina’s new president is headed to Israel where he plans to meet with the families of Argentinian hostages still held in Gaza.

After suspending payments to UNRWA, the U.S. is looking for other humanitarian groups to deliver aid to Gaza. Israel has reportedly suggested that UNRWA should continue to do its work in the short term, but be overhauled after the war.

A number of art galleries in New York City were vandalized with anti-Israel graffiti over the past few weeks, but some gallery owners say they haven’t publicized it, so as not to bring visibility to the vandals.

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Princess Diana wearing a red coat designed by Bellville Sassoon and a John Boyd hat in 1982. (Getty)

In Princess Diana’s red dress, a symbol of the Jewish rise to prominence in the UK garment business: A new exhibit at the Museum of London pays homage to the Jews who helped create outfits for everyday folk as well as celebrities. They include a Kindertransport arrival who designed simcha dresses for Jewish mothers and a designer named Mr. Fish who made flamboyant embroidered looks for Jimi Hendrix.

Plus…

Six years after a bombshell report revealed sexual abuse accusations against a beloved Orthodox rabbi, a jury will now decide whether the claims have merit — or whether the families who brought them are liable for defamation.

The House will vote today on impeaching the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, over border policy. Our columnist Rob Eshman writes in an opinion essay that the attempt to get rid of Mayorkas is part of an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Actor Carl Weathers, who died last week at 76, is best-known for his role as Apollo Creed in the Rocky franchise. But there was also that time he helped dedicate a Torah scroll in a 1994 episode of In the Heat of the Night.

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WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs, right, during a game earlier in the season. The team is headed to the Super Bowl this Sunday. (Getty)

🏈 Americans are expected to bet $1.3 billion on this Sunday’s Super Bowl, thanks to legalized sports gambling. Faith leaders in the few holdout states know the odds are against stopping it. (Religion News Service)

☎️ The U.S. charged a Philadelphia man with making antisemitic and Islamophobic threats when he called eight people and threatened to injure, rape and kill them. If convicted, he could face up to 40 years in prison. (Justice Dept.)

🤔 The founding dean of Hebrew College’s rabbinical school was barred from its campus over the fallout from allegations of sexual misconduct. Now the community he influenced is grappling with how to view his teaching and writing in light of what they’ve learned about his behavior. (JTA)

🎒 Conservative lawmakers in Nebraska introduced a set of bills on Monday that would intertwine religion with public schools. For example, students could receive school credit for attending religious classes outside school. (AP)

🗣️ Some of us might wonder if this is a good idea, but a German research consortium working on a project about the power of propaganda is putting online for the first time all of Hitler’s speeches made between 1933 and 1945. (Times of London)

🩺 Since offering free plastic surgery to victims of antisemitism, a Manhattan doctor has removed a Hebrew tattoo from a Jewish woman who was afraid it might incite threats or violence, and gave a survivor of the Nova Music Festival attack some Botox to “just lift her spirits up.” (NY Jewish Week)

Shiva call ➤ Robie Harris, whose children’s books on sex and sexuality often got her work banned, died at 83.

What else we’re reading ➤ The IDF’s rabbis go to war … Could parasols in space counter global warming? Israeli scientists want to find out … The Jewish boy who became a Nazi mascot.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

If you watched the season premiere of Curb Your Enthusiasm, you heard Larry David call a hotel housekeeper a “farbisene,” a sourpuss. Our Yiddish editor, Rukhl Schaechter, gives a brief lesson today on how to to use that and other related terms.

Thanks to Mira Fox 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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