| WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION | | | Good morning. Today: More on latest hostage deal talks, hostage families block aid to Gaza, and Saturday is Holocaust Remembrance Day. | | ISRAEL AT WAR | | The International Court of Justice. (Remko de Waal / ANP / AFP) | The International Court of Justice ruled this morning on South Africa’s charges that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Our Israel correspondent, Susan Greene, has more:
The International Court of Justice did not order an immediate cease-fire in Israel’s war in Gaza, but has demanded emergency measures requiring Israeli forces to reduce the number of Palestinian civilian deaths and improve the humanitarian situation in the occupied territory.
The ICJ also ordered Israel to report in one month on its progress meeting those so-called provisional measures, and to preserve all evidence that might prove South Africa’s genocide claim.
The ruling stopped short of meeting South Africa’s main goal: forcing an Israeli cease-fire in Gaza. But the ICJ’s requirement that Israel take steps to avoid killing Palestinians and augment humanitarian aid and services is consistent with South Africa’s argument that Israeli actions in Gaza have been inhumane. The measures are not directly enforceable, and the extent to which Israel will abide by them is unclear as of this posting. A trial on whether Israel has committed genocide isn’t likely to take place for years.
Shortly before the ICJ’s announcement, three representatives of Israeli hostage families derided South Africa’s genocide charge on a Zoom call with journalists.
“Those people who came with guns and killed all the people without guns and started the war, they are doing the genocide, not us,” said Michael Kuperstein, a Holocaust survivor whose son, Bar Kuperstein, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival. His family has not received any sign of life since.
About 15 minutes after the decision, red alerts sounded throughout Israel about rocket attacks in the nation’s south.
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Plus: Susan took in the mood in Tel Aviv Thursday evening, before the ICJ decision was passed down. “We don’t need lectures on morals from the world — or from the news media,” one commuter said. Read the story ➤ | | A view from Israel shows buildings in Gaza damaged by Israeli strikes. (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images) | Latest from the war… As Susan notes, thousands of activists who want Israel to re-establish settlements in Gaza after the war will meet to discuss that goal on Sunday. The last Israeli settlements in Gaza were cleared in 2005.
El Al, Israel’s national airline, will drop its Tel Aviv to Johannesburg route in April, citing a sharp drop in Israeli interest in traveling to South Africa in the wake of the ICJ case.
The heads of the CIA and Mossad are expected to meet with Qatar’s prime minister in Europe to discuss a deal for a temporary cease-fire and hostage release.
Families of hostages still held in Gaza blocked humanitarian aid from entering the strip via an Israeli crossing for the second day in a row, with one demonstrator protesting that “while we don’t know where our families are and if they are alive,” Gazans are “getting humanitarian aid.” The U.S. reportedly responded by pushing Israel to ensure the Kerem Shalom crossing remains accessible.
An Israel Defense Forces report released earlier this month said that nearly 20% of the Israeli soldiers who had so far died in Gaza had been killed by friendly fire or accidents, one of the highest such rates among contemporary wars.
Democratic U.S. senators are speaking out against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, saying “I’m looking forward to the time when he is no longer the leader.”
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry claimed that at least 20 Palestinians were killed and 150 wounded when Israeli fire hit a crowd awaiting humanitarian aid. The IDF said it was looking into the incident.
New York University suspended an adjunct faculty member after video was released of him denying Hamas’ Oct. 7 atrocities and referring to New York as a “Zionist city.” | | A demonstration organized by Standing Together, an Israeli-Palestinian peace movement, to demand a cease-fire in the ongoing war in Gaza. (Getty Images) | BDS movement targets cease-fire group over ‘normalization.’A branch of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement raised questions on Thursday when it issued a statement condemning Standing Together, a leftist Israeli-Palestinian group, for allegedly attempting to “whitewash Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.” But Standing Together is opposed to the war and has spoken out against Israel’s occupation in the West Bank, leading some to wonder why BDS, a pro-Palestinian movement, would target them. Read the story ➤ | | | | HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY | | Agnes Keleti, Budapest, 2019. (Bea Bar Kallos Israel/Hungary, Courtesy of Lonka Project) | Saturday is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Curious about why there are so many different days for commemorating the Shoah? We’ve got answers.
Beautiful, intimate photos of the last living Holocaust survivors. As a group, Holocaust survivors are “very resolute people, very forgiving, very peace-loving, very compassionate,” said Jim Hollander, a photographer who co-created a Wednesday display at the United Nations of portraits of some of the estimated 245,000 Holocaust survivors still living today. A book of the portraits will soon be available in the United States. Read the story ➤
LISTEN: Playing Anne Frank. The Forward’s 2023 podcast series about how The Diary of Anne Frank became one of the most influential plays of the 20th century is a reminder of how deeply resonant the stories of the Holocaust and its victims have become. “We were really introducing a whole new world to these people,” said Steve Press, who played Peter Van Daan on Broadway and on several tours: “people who had never met a Jew in their lives, didn’t know anything about Judaism, didn’t know anything about the Holocaust.” Listen to the podcast ➤
And: In a statement, President Joe Biden commented on the significance of the first Holocaust Remembrance Day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel. “In the aftermath of Hamas’s vicious massacre, we have witnessed an alarming rise of despicable antisemitism at home and abroad that has surfaced painful scars from millennia of hate and genocide of Jewish people,” he wrote. “It is unacceptable.” Pope Francis, in a statement at the end of his weekly general audience, said, “The remembrance and condemnation of that horrific extermination of millions of Jews and of other faiths, which occurred in the first half of the last century, help us all not to forget that the logic of hatred and violence can never be justified, because they deny our very humanity.”
Plus: Could social media really have stopped the Holocaust? Scholars say Elon Musk’s ‘fantasy scenario’ is far-fetched
UN chief to sit out Park East Synagogue Holocaust event for first time in 10 years
Auschwitz would seem an unlikely backdrop for a love affair, yet this is a true story | | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY | | The Georgia State Capitol. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) | ✡️ State legislators in Georgia passed a bill to define antisemitism in state law. The act, which Gov. Brian Kemp said he would sign, will see the state adopt the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. (Associated Press)
🇩🇪 Protests in Germany against the right-wing party Alternative for Germany continued into their third week. The most significant wave of protests Germany has seen in years began after senior party officials attended a meeting with right-wing extremists discussing schemes for the mass deportations of “unassimilated citizens.” (Reuters)
🖼️ A portrait by Gustav Klimt of a Jewish heiress resurfaced after nearly 100 years. “Portrait of Fraulein Lieser,” the daughter of a wealthy Viennese Jewish family, was last seen in public in 1925; it will be put up for auction in August. (BBC)
😔 Close to four times as many antisemitic incidents were reported in France in 2023 as in 2022, new data suggests, with 1,676 reports in 2023 compared to 436 in 2022. Belgium reported 91 antisemitic incidents last year, compared to 57 in 2022. (NY1)
Shiva call ➤Dr. Leonard Glick, professor of Jewish history and anthropology at Hampshire College — and one of the doctors who performed Elvis Presley’s physical when he joined the military — died at 94.
What else we’re reading ➤“Partygoers who fled Supernova massacre reunite with Holocaust survivor who hid them” … “Why descendants of Holocaust survivors are replicating Auschwitz tattoos”… “Every time Barbra Streisand mentions trees in her memoir.” | | PHOTO OF THE DAY | | (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images) | The National Library of Israel, in Jerusalem, is displaying a giant backlit screen with portraits of Israelis killed during Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks alongside those of soldiers who died in the course of the war. | Thanks to Benyamin Cohen and Susan Greene for contributing to today’s newsletter, and Beth Harpaz for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected]. | | | Support Independent Jewish Journalism | Without you, the Forward’s stories don’t just go unread — they go untold. Please support our nonprofit journalism today. | | | | |
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