WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Good morning. It’s been one month since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel marked the onset of war. Today: Brandeis revokes recognition for its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, and Sen. Chuck Schumer requests extra security funds for religious groups.

ISRAEL AT WAR

The death of a Jewish man following an altercation at a Greater Los Angeles pro-Palestinian protest left the Jewish community “frightened, terrified to express ourselves, to be ourselves,” one rabbi said.

Jewish man dies following altercation at pro-Palestinian protest in Greater Los Angeles. Paul Kessler, 69, died Monday from an injury sustained when he hit his head on the ground during a confrontation with a protester at a Sunday demonstration. One rabbi said Kessler was part of a pro-Israel group that showed up to the protest, but the exact circumstances of Kessler’s injury remain murky. Video from the scene shows him on the ground with his head bleeding before being loaded into an ambulance, at which point he appeared alert. The Ventura County Sheriff’s office ruled the death a homicide, our Louis Keene reports, and said it has “not ruled out the possibility of a hate crime.” Read the story ➤

And:

• Palestinian man who plotted to kill Jews in Houston arrested on federal firearms charges

  
  

• Antisemitism envoys from 24 countries call on governments to ensure ‘necessary security assistance’ for Jews following Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel

  
  

• National Jewish groups put out the call for a massive ‘March for Israel’ in DC on Nov. 14

Approximately 500 demonstrators rallied at the Statue of Liberty yesterday in protest of the war. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

Global backlash…

• Hundreds of protesters, led by Jewish Voice for Peace, staged a demonstration at the Statue of Liberty on Monday, with many wearing shirts bearing the slogan “Jews Say Cease Fire Now.” The group chose “this iconic American location that represents peace and liberty,” one organizer said, “to say, ‘Not in our name. Let Gaza live.’”

  
  

• A memo by a group of State Department staffers revealed sharp criticism of President Joe Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war. Diplomats used the memo to request that the U.S. support a cease-fire, and bring greater balance to its public statements on the war, including by publicly criticizing the Israeli military’s treatment of Palestinians.

  
  

• The memo arrived as Biden faces growing frustration from Muslim communities over his response to the war. In a new poll, only 16% of Muslim and Arab Democrats in Michigan, a key swing state, said they would vote for Biden in 2024; Biden is estimated to have won 69% of the national Muslim vote in 2020.

  
  

• New York Sen. Chuck Schumer proposed legislation that would grant $1.2 billion in extra funds for security for religious groups and nonprofits, citing escalating antisemitism in the wake of the war and saying bigotry has reached a “boiling point.”

  
  

• An Israeli-American police officer died after being stabbed in Jerusalem on Monday. Rose Lubin, a 20-year-old lone soldier, was one of two officers stabbed by a 16-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem, who was shot dead during the attack.

  
  

• The U.K.’s deputy prime minister said those protesting the war have failed to state with “moral clarity” that “Jewish lives matter,” as a British Jewish security group said a record number of hate incidents had been reported in the country since the war began. In a speech opening parliament, King Charles said the U.K.’s government is “committed to tackling antisemitism.”

  
  

• Antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents are reportedly both surging in Australia; posters put up around Sydney on Sunday depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Adolf Hitler in disguise.

  
  

• The war is raising the ghosts of old traumas for Jews in Germany and Russia, as some 1,800 antisemitic incidents have been reported in Germany since Oct. 7, and Russian Jews fear a rise in antisemitism following the Kremlin’s recent turn away from Israel.

A sign on the Brandeis University campus with the school’s emblem and motto reads, “Truth even unto its innermost parts.” (Wikimedia)

On campus…

• Brandeis University revoked recognition of its campus chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, claiming the group “openly supports Hamas.” It is the first private university in the U.S. to take such a move, after Florida’s public university system banned SJP last month at the direction of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

  
  

• A student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst was arrested Friday after allegedly punching a Jewish student and spitting on an Israeli flag during a vigil for hostages held in Gaza.

  
  

• A hate crime inquiry was opened after an Arab Muslim Stanford student was injured by an alleged hit-and-run; the driver reportedly yelled about “you and your people” after the attack.

  
  

• The Anti-Defamation League partnered with a law firm to launch a legal helpline for college students and faculty encountering antisemitism on campus.

  
  

• A Pennsylvania man was charged with vandalism after allegedly drawing swastikas at a residence hall at Millersville University.

An installation of balloons and pictures of Israeli hostages abducted by Palestinian militants during the Oct. 7 attack. (Getty Images)

The first anthology of writing about the war is an outpouring of poetry and anguish.Am Yisrael Chai: Essays, Poems, and Prayers is “a yelala, a primal moan of our people,” Rabbi Menachem Creditor, who compiled and edited the anthology, told our contributor Stav Ziv. Creditor began seeking submissions for the anthology only five days after war broke out. What he found, he said, was that “almost every poem was painful. No prayer was confident.” Read the story ➤

And:

• 30 days after Oct. 7, a Jewish world wracked by grief is marking a traditional milestone of mourning

  
  

• Leading Israeli leftists rebuke progressives elsewhere for failing to condemn Hamas

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ALSO FROM THE FORWARD

Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue in Detroit. (Courtesy of IADS)

‘A heartbroken community’: Detroit congregation grapples with murder of synagogue president. Two weeks after Samantha Woll was found stabbed to death outside her home, our editor Benyamin Cohen spent Shabbat at the congregation she helped nurture into new vibrancy, Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue. “In this moment that feels full of anxiety and anguish, the thing that we can do is continue the projects that Sam felt really passionately about,” one congregant said. “And not be scared to show up for Shabbat.”

New musical will highlight the remarkable creativity of Jews in the ghettos and camps.Amid Falling Walls, the new production by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, highlights the musical efforts of Jews imprisoned in ghettos and concentration and labor camps during the Holocaust. “There’s a lot of focus on how they died,” Zalman Mlotek, the show’s musical director, said of the artists whose work is included in the show, but his “is about how they lived. You can’t listen to these songs without being wrenched.”

– From our Sponsor: Spertus Institute –

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

A family embraced while looking at the scene of a 2022 mass shooting at a July 4th parade in downtown Highland Park, Illinois. (Max Herman/AFP via Getty Images)

⚖️  The father of the suspect in a deadly 2022 shooting at a July 4 parade in a heavily Jewish Chicago suburb pleaded guilty to charges related to his efforts to help his son obtain a gun license. Robert Crimo III killed seven people, five of whom belonged to Jewish families; his father sponsored his gun license application in 2019, after Crimo had already made violent threats. (Guardian)

😟  A German daycare center named after Anne Frank sparked outcry after it shared plans to change its name, in a move the International Auschwitz Committee condemned as “fearful and anxious.” (JTA)

🎉  Barbra Streisand’s long-awaited memoir was released. My Name is Barbra, which clocks in at almost 1,000 pages, includes juicy behind-the-scenes details about the making of films like Yentl, which Streisand wrote, directed, produced and starred in. (Atlantic)

👀  Proposed legislation would expand the number of acts that can be considered hate crimes in New York, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced. If passed, the legislation would classify 97 charges as eligible to be prosecuted as hate crimes; there are currently 66. (New York Jewish Week)

😔  Newly uncovered documents reveal the Nazis planned a mass execution of prisoners in the only camp on British soil, a labor camp on the island of Alderney where some 1,000 people were imprisoned. The U.K. is currently engaged in efforts to understand the exact scale of Nazi crimes on Alderney. (Guardian)

What else we’re reading ➤ “The lifesaving potential of Latin American passports in the Warsaw ghetto” … “Why a State Department official lost hope in Israel” … “What I read to my son when the world is on fire.”

PHOTO OF THE DAY

(AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images)

Photos of the hostages held in Gaza were projected on the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem yesterday, as Israel marked the month anniversary of the attack in which they were kidnapped.

Thanks to Jaclyn De Bonis and Jay Ehrlich 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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