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| | | | WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
| | Today: Jewish and Christian groups split over South African refugees • California students launch hunger strike for Gaza • John Oliver explains the Supreme Court’s latest religious liberty case • and Netflix gets in the bagel business. |
| | | | | Released hostage Edan Alexander hugs his mom, Yael, after 584 days in captivity. (Courtesy IDF) |
| Free at last
Hamas freed Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage in Gaza, on Monday after 584 days in captivity. Our Stav Ziv was in Alexander’s hometown of Tenafly, New Jersey, where crowds gathered to watch the release on large outdoor screens. “Some in attendance shed quiet tears of joy, relief, heartache, and disbelief that the long-awaited moment had arrived,” she writes. Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” played on the loudspeaker.
“My joy is tempered by the fact that the war is not over,” said former Tenafly mayor Peter Rustin, wearing an IDF T-shirt and Rotary Club baseball cap. “There’s still more to do, but for one brief moment, we have something to celebrate.” |
| | More on the hostage release… Alexander is “New Jersey tough, you betcha,” Gov. Phil Murphy told our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh. (Forward)
The 21-year-old spoke by phone this morning from his hospital room with President Trump. Rumors had swirled that Alexander would travel to Qatar on Wednesday to meet Trump during the president’s Mideast trip, which angered many who hold Qatar responsible for funding Hamas. (Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post)
The negotiations that ultimately freed Alexander began when a Hamas official reached out to Bishara Bahbah, the former head of Arab Americans for Trump, according to several officials. (Axios)
Watch the moment Alexander reunited with his family. His father, Adi, called it “an out-of-body experience.” (Times of Israel)
Opinion | “Alexander is only free because Trump excluded Israel from his plans,” writes our columnist, Sruli Fruchter. Apparently, even the U.S. sees the “haunting reality” that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is an “obstacle in bringing the hostages home.” Read his essay ► |
| | | President Donald Trump met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman today in Riyadh. (Getty) |
| Plus… President Trump landed in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday morning, kicking off a four-day Gulf tour — his first major trip abroad since starting his second term. (CBS News)
The U.S. is working with Saudi Arabia to end the war in Gaza, according to a U.S. State Department spokesman. (AP)
There is growing backlash among Jewish conservatives — who normally stand steadfast behind Trump — over the president’s plan to accept a new Air Force One plane from Qatar. “Taking sacks of goodies from people who support Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Al Jazeera, all the rest, that’s not America First,” Ben Shapiro said on his podcast. (Axios) |
| | | | | People gather for a rally in support of Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk and Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi last week in New York City. (Getty) |
| Opinion | Jewish groups are criticizing the Trump administration’s efforts to detain some pro-Palestinian students. “They are speaking up because they understand that one day, it will be their turn,” writes our senior columnist, Rob Eshman. “Once you strip away the protections afforded by due process and the First Amendment, or suspend habeas corpus on the pretext of a made-up emergency — as Trump aide Stephen Miller has recently suggested could and should be done — all of us with opinions, including, let’s face it, is most Jews, become vulnerable.” Read his essay ►
Related: Hasan Piker, a popular Turkish American streamer, says U.S. border agents detained him at a Chicago airport for hours on Sunday after an international flight, grilling him about his political views and his stance on the war in Gaza. (New York Times)
The latest… Mo Khan, the suspended Temple University student who posted video of a “F— the Jews” sign at Dave Portnoy’s Philadelphia sports bar, has been making the rounds on alt-right media to defend himself — including appearing on several Holocaust deniers’ podcasts. (Forward)
The student newspaper at the University of California, Davis, gave its “best” campus club award to Students for Justice in Palestine for the second year in a row. (Algemeiner, Aggie)
The University of San Francisco’s endowment fund will divest from four companies that do business with Israel’s military. (Jewish Insider)
The federal government is opening an investigation into a downtown Denver campus — home to three schools — over a spring 2024 incident involving a three-week long pro-Palestinian encampment where roughly 40 people were arrested. (CBS News)
Leo Terrell, who leads the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force, said that students on visas are not owed the same due process as U.S. citizens. (Jewish Insider)
Around two dozen California State University students launched a hunger strike, fasting since May 5, to protest hunger in Gaza caused by Israel’s aid blockade. (Guardian) |
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| | | | | | Pope Leo XIV at his first public audience with journalists Monday at the Vatican. (Getty) |
| Is Pope Leo XIV Jewish? Sort of.
Yesterday’s most-read story: Our Robin Washington maintains his family tree on a genealogy website and discovered that he’s (very) distantly related to the new pontiff. “Oh, all right,” he writes, “make that a third or fourth cousin, by marriage, two or three times removed. But however indirect, it’s real, with names and family lineage to prove it.” Both are from biracial families and have Chicago roots. Perhaps there’s a family reunion in the future. “On Passover, maybe? Next year at the Vatican!” Read his essay ►
Plus: How do you deal with invitations from someone who drives you nuts? Our Bintel Brief advice column turns to Seinfeld for an answer.
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| | | | | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
| | | Newly arrived South Africans listen to officials from Homeland Security and the State Department deliver welcome remarks in a hangar near Washington Dulles International Airport on Tuesday. (Getty) |
| 🛬 The first group of white South Africans claiming discrimination arrived in the U.S. after receiving asylum, even as resettlement for most other refugees remains stalled. HIAS, the Jewish refugee aid group, said it would assist them, while the Episcopal Church declined to participate, citing moral opposition. (New York Times, NPR, Religion News Service)
📚 A man in suburban Cleveland checked out 100 library books — including titles on Jewish history and Black and LGBTQ+ themes — then burned them in a video posted to social media. Authorities said they couldn’t prosecute until the books were officially overdue. (Cleveland.com)
🐐 Jerusalem police arrested nine Jewish men Monday who were trying to smuggle a baby goat in a shopping bag onto the Temple Mount. Their plan was to sacrifice the animal in observance of Pesach Sheni, a “second Passover” that falls a month after Passover. (Times of Israel)
🇩🇪 Germany banned a far-right “Reich citizen” group and arrested four of its leaders for trying to dismantle the country’s democratic order. (AP)
📦 Authorities in Argentina uncovered more than 80 boxes of Nazi documents confiscated from World War II, long forgotten in the basement of the country’s Supreme Court. (JTA, Reuters)
🥯 Netflix is teaming up with Los Angeles-based Yeastie Boys Bagels for two events where a food truck will serve sandwiches inspired by the hit series Nobody Wants This, about a “hot rabbi” and his non-Jewish girlfriend. (Instagram)
What we’re watching ► A tribute to Joan Rivers, the legendary Jewish comedian, airs tonight on NBC (and later this month on Peacock). It features tributes from Chelsea Handler, Sarah Silverman, Tracy Morgan, Bill Maher and more.
Shiva call ► Robert Shapiro, a corporate executive who mainstreamed the use of NutraSweet as a sugar substitute in thousands of products, died at 86.
What else we’re reading ► Trump puts an American first, and Israel rejoices (Times of Israel) … How a little-known Japanese American battalion freed Jews from a Nazi death march (Washington Post) … For the first time since Henry VIII created the role, a Jew will helm Hebrew studies at Cambridge (JTA).
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| | | | | As readers of this newsletter are aware, the Supreme Court is soon set to weigh in on a case that may allow Oklahoma to use public funds to operate the country’s first religious charter school. If you want to learn more about the conservative Christian lawyers behind this and other high-profile religious liberty cases, I recommend checking out this deep dive that John Oliver did on his most recent show.
In case you missed it: Our enterprise reporter Arno Rosenfeld held an “Ask Me Anything” session Monday on Reddit where readers asked about why the ADL has defended Elon Musk, how to resolve the confusion between anti-Zionism and antisemitism … and where they can get their hands on old Yiddish copies of the Forward. Check it out here.
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| Thanks to Jacob Kornbluh for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Julie Moos for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected]. |
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