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Today: Israel launches ground invasion in Lebanon, antisemitic shooter sentenced in Los Angeles, hurricane upends High Holiday plans in the Carolinas, a Jewish look at tonight’s vice presidential debate, and the curious history of Rosh Hashanah cards.

OUR LEAD STORY

President Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1979 at the White House. (Robert A. Cumins)

On Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday, assessing the 39th president’s record on Jewish issues

“Gallic historians tell us that Napoleon Bonaparte sometimes badmouthed France’s Jews, while also helping them in concrete ways,” writes Benjamin Ivry, who contends that Carter also has a mixed legacy for Jews.

On one hand: Carter helped launch the Camp David Accords, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and the annual National Menorah lighting ceremony in the nation’s capital. He paved the way for thousands of Iranian Jews to find refuge in America.

On the other: “But Carter also wrote the one-sided polemic Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” Ivry notes, “which blamed all Middle East woes solely on Israel and fudged some basic facts.”

Jimmy Carter is 100. In biblical times, that’s a teenager: Carter is the longest-living president in U.S. history. But when you compare him to early Biblical figures, some of whom lived past 900, his centennial seems more like a bar mitzvah. But lifespans dropped significantly after Noah and the flood. A rabbi explains why. Go deeper ►

From left: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, President Jimmy Carter, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin during the Camp David Accords in Sept. 1978. (Getty)

Opinions…

Stuart Eizenstat worked in the Carter White House. He writes that “no American president has done more to advance the security of the state of Israel, champion the rights of the Jewish people around the world, memorialize the victims of the Holocaust and honor its survivors, and embody the Jewish tradition of tikkun olam, repairing the world, than Jimmy Carter, a devout Southern Baptist from the tiny hamlet of Plains, Georgia. And none were less rewarded politically by the American Jewish community for doing so.” Read his essay ►

► The evangelical president felt a kinship with Jews, but at times angered them with his outreach to Israel’s adversaries in the Middle East, writes Dave Schechter, a journalist from Carter’s native Georgia.

► Steve Berman resigned from the board of the Carter Center after the former president published a book critical of Israel. Berman later agreed with some of Carter’s logic on Israel and apologized. Carter offered him grace in return.

From our archive: Read all of our Carter coverage

And in other political news…

Tonight is the vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance. Our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh, writes that while neither is particularly Jew-ish, they have each left clues as to how they would handle issues of interest to American Jewry.

Walz’s Lutheran values share a lot in common with Judaism.

ISRAEL AT WAR

Rubble at the site of an overnight Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs. (Getty)

Start here ► Israel’s third Lebanon war is underway. Here’s what you need to know.

Plus…

Israel began a ground invasion in southern Lebanon, escalating its conflict with Hezbollah.

Hezbollah launched rockets this morning into central Israel.

Lufthansa is the latest airline to cancel its flights to Israel.

Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have so far remained silent on Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Opinion: Many news reports described Nasrallah as a “towering figure” and a “leader.” But our language columnist, Aviya Kushner, says he should instead be remembered as a “terrorist” and “murderer.”

Amit Kochavi overlooks the future site of a new college campus in Sderot, Israel. (Rob Eshman)

Opinion | A year after Oct. 7, Israel’s south is still discovering new depths of resilience: Our senior columnist, Rob Eshman, traveled to Sderot where he found that the revitalization efforts in the war-torn region include plans for a new public university — and a distiller producing Israel’s first tequila. Said Amit Kochavi, a 25-year-old entrepreneur overseeing the project: “We will build a plan for the city to not only come back to what it was, but five steps forward.” Read his essay ►

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Claudia Sheinbaum is Mexico’s first female president and one of just a handful of Jews to ever lead a country outside of Israel. (Getty)

Claudia Sheinbaum takes office today as Mexico’s first female — and first Jewish — president.

The country’s Jews have a complicated relationship with her.

Sheinbaum’s mother survived the Holocaust — despite claims she was born in Mexico.

Opinions…

Connections between Jewish values and political action are often downplayed in countries of refuge like the U.S. and Mexico, writes Stephanie M. Pridgeon, a professor of Hispanic studies.

Ben Raab, a junior at Yale University, is a Mexican Jew who wishes Sheinbaum would embrace the complexity of their shared heritage.

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Hurricane Helene caused massive flooding and damage in Asheville, North Carolina. (Getty)

The High Holidays…

🌧️ The Carolinas were battered by Hurricane Helene. For the Jewish communities of Asheville and Greenville, the High Holidays are taking a backseat to basic safety. (JTA)

✍️ Rabbis writing their High Holiday sermons are pondering the theology of the Hamas massacre. “The challenge,” said one rabbi, “has been the attempt to understand why God did this to us, or where was God on Oct. 7?” (Religion News Service)

On campus…

😲 Columbia suspended a student in the spring for blocking Jewish students on campus. The student is now suing the university, claiming he was targeted for being Black and pro-Palestinian. (Haaretz)

🥊 The FBI is investigating a second antisemitic assault in less than a month at the University of Pittsburgh. The latest incident occurred Friday when “six to eight men used antisemitic and anti-Israel language” and punched a Jewish student wearing a Star of David necklace. (JTA)

And elsewhere…

⚖️ The man who shot two Jewish men walking home from prayer services in Los Angeles last year was sentenced Monday to 35 years in federal prison, a term one of the victims told the judge was “lenient.” (Forward)

📖 Ta-Nehisi Coates, the award-winning author, has a new book out today: it compares Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the Jim Crow South, writing that the Jewish people survived a genocide “only to perpetrate another.” (JTA) Also out today: Black Saturday, a new book by Trey Yingst, Fox News chief foreign correspondent, about the Oct. 7 attack. (Vanity Fair)

🇦🇹 A far-right party founded by former Nazis won Austria’s national elections on Sunday. Whether or not it can form a coalition government with other parties remains to be seen. (JTA)

📰 The Jewish Chronicle in Britain was rocked by scandal this month after a “series of sensational articles about the war in Gaza” were “later debunked as fabricated.” It sparked a bigger question: Who is the mysterious owner behind the paper? (NY Times)

Shiva call ► Joel Fleishman, a philanthropist who promoted Jewish education and mentored other donors, died at 90.

VIDEO OF THE DAY

The curious history of Rosh Hashanah cards: Watch the video above to discover how the tradition started and how it became so popular both in prewar Eastern Europe and in the United States. Plus: A graphic artist named Haim Goldberg became the most prolific designer of Yiddish new year’s cards from the early 20th century. He later designed posters for the Judenrat. Go deeper ►

Thanks to Robert A. Cumins, Marilynn Jacobs and Rukhl Schaechter 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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