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JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.

WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Good morning. Today: A year since the arrest of Evan Gershkovich; the Palestinian Authority announces a new cabinet; and a renowned Bible scholar weighs in on Trump’s USA Bible.

ISRAEL AT WAR

Haredi boys and men sit in front of traffic during a Jerusalem protest against the expiration of a law preventing them from being drafted into the IDF. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

Opinion | Israel’s future depends on a Haredi draft. Can it survive implementing one?An Israeli Supreme Court decision on Thursday brought an effective legal end to the country’s 76-year-old policy exempting most Haredim from being included in the draft. (More on that, below.) What may seem like a “tedious sectarian kerfuffle” to non-Israelis is, in fact, close to being a matter of national life or death, writes Dan Perry. If the Haredim continue to evade the draft, “there will be mass protests and a wave of refusals to serve by secular people” — not to mention increasingly unsustainable costs for the government, which subsidizes much of the rapidly growing Haredi population. But if the draft exemption really is done, “it will be hard and possibly morally wrong to try to draft Haredim by force, and there is no room in the jails for the masses who will defy such an effort.” Read his essay ➤

Israeli High Court brings Haredi draft exemption to a legal end — with unclear consequences. The controversial policy is out of legal luck — but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s dead. As our Israel correspondent Susan Greene reported, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is still seeking a legislative fix to the quandary, and it’s far from the first time the High Court has pushed back on the loophole. “The High Court had previously ruled in 1998 and 2017 that the draft loophole violates the right of the Israeli majority to equal treatment under the law,” Susan writes. Read the story ➤

Plus:Inside the world of the Haredi “lost boys.”

A child amid the rubble after Israeli airstrikes made Friday on the Maghazi camp for Palestinian refugees in central Gaza. (AFP via Getty Images)

Latest from the war…

The International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take additional measures to prevent civilian deaths in Gaza, including by ensuring humanitarian aid is delivered “at scale” and “that its military does not commit acts which constitute a violation of any of the rights of the Palestinians in Gaza as a protected group.” Separately, Ireland announced plans to file an argument in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ. “What we saw on 7 October in Israel, and what we are seeing in Gaza now, represents the blatant violation of international humanitarian law on a mass scale,” said Irish foreign minister Micheál Martin.

The Palestinian Authority announced a new cabinet, after the previous government resigned in late February. The United States praised the move, with State Department spokesman Matthew Miller saying President Joe Biden’s administration appreciated the inclusion of ministers born in Gaza.

Japan and France both shared plans to restore funding to UNRWA, the United Nations agency that serves Palestinian refugees.

More than 300 Jewish leaders sent a letter to Biden and Sen. Chuck Schumer arguing that “the only way forward” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “is for Palestinians to govern themselves in an independent state alongside a secure and democratic Israel,” adding that “political leaders who stand in the way of fulfilling this goal are obstacles to ensuring Israel's security, protecting Jews globally and ensuring a long-lasting U.S.-Israel relationship.”

Shortly before his death, former Sen. Joe Lieberman finalized a statement on the Biden administration’s approach to the war co-authored with the controversial lawyer Alan Dershowitz. “We have become concerned about what appears to be a weakening of support for Israel by President Biden, Vice President Harris and some other leading Democrats,” the duo wrote, adding, “you can no longer simply count on our vote just because Jews traditionally have voted Democratic.”

Protesters interrupted a Biden campaign event with former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton to lambast the president’s Israel policy, with one shouting “Shame on you, Joe Biden.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order demanding colleges and universities take stronger action against “the sharp rise in antisemitic speech and acts on university campuses,” singling out student groups like the Palestine Solidarity Committee and Students for Justice in Palestine.

Haverford College’s Founders Hall. (Jackbauerinvc/WikiCommons)

Philly Federation furious over Haverford’s ‘COVID in times of genocide’ campus event. Three student groups at the Philadelphia-area college staged the event, which billed itself as investigating how “the Israeli state intentionally debilitates Palestinians through the spread of COVID and how we fight mass death on all fronts,” as part of Israel Apartheid Month. The event’s apparent invocation of a number of antisemitic canards — like that Jews exploit crises like the pandemic to advance their own interests — troubled local Jewish leaders. “It goes into conspiracy,” one said. Read the story ➤

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ALSO IN THE FORWARD

(annette2022/iStock by Getty Images)

I translated the complete Hebrew Bible. Trump’s ‘USA Bible’ betrays its greatest asset. Robert Alter spent more than two decades working on a full-length translation of the Hebrew Bible, an endeavor that taught him that the text’s value is inextricably tied to the diversity of its sources. The divergent viewpoints within the Hebrew Bible, which “comprises texts written by different hands over close to nine centuries,” have turned it into a staggering “source for inquiring about reality,”Alter writes — a stark difference to the one-note nationalism advanced by former President Donald Trump’s new God Bless the USA Bible.

Plus:In Trump’s USA Bible, a reminder of his biggest moments with his ‘favorite book’

Done with gefilte dogs, Manischewitz launches a new look in time for Pesach. It’s no longer your grandmother’s Manischewitz matzo: Now, everyone’s favorite once-a-year treat (?) comes in a perky orange box, a far cry from the sedate blue-hued packaging of bygone days. The company-wide rebrand aims to “take the stuffiness out of this brand,” Shani Seidman, Manischewitz’s chief marketing officer, told our PJ Grisar — including by debuting a new nickname, “Mani’z.”

NEW FROM THE FORWARD

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Evan Gershkovich, during a February hearing. (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP via Getty Images)

😢 Today is the one-year anniversary of Evan Gershkovich’s detainment in Russia. The U.S. government sees the 32-year-old Russian Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter as “wrongfully detained” — a designation for citizens imprisoned abroad on apparently unfounded charges. (Wall Street Journal)

😧 A Michigan man who allegedly spray-painted swastikas on a Kalamazoo Chabad faces federal charges. Jiafeng Chen, 27, is accused of vandalizing the building in November 2023. (WWMT)

🖼️ California legislators introduced a bill aiming to help Holocaust survivors and the heirs of victims reclaim Nazi-looted art. The measure comes amid a global re-evaluation of principles for art restitution related to the Holocaust, as many countries have made little progress. (Los Angeles Times)

😳 A Jewish woman in Amsterdam was called a “child killer” over her daughter’s Israel Defense Forces service by three women who confronted her on her doorstep, one of whom allegedly said, “I don’t understand why you are still here in the Netherlands.” (Times of Israel)

🚗 Uber backed down after preventing a Sydney woman named Swastika Chandra from using her name on its app. In Hindu, the name “Swastika” refers to divinity; the rideshare company had initially stood by its decision, citing “sensitivity surrounding historical events … and the symbol’s appropriation by the Nazis.” (IndianLink)

🍺 A pub in Cornwall, England, lost a “Pub of the Year” award over a Nazi armband exhibited in the establishment. “Soldiers came back from the war with spoils of war memorabilia,” the pub’s landlord said: “It was not to hero-worship Hitler or the Nazis but to celebrate the victory over fascism.” He has removed the armband. (Cornwall Live)

Shiva call ➤ Esther Lipsen Coopersmith, a “Capitol Hill lobbyist, Democratic fundraiser, philanthropist, UNESCO goodwill ambassador” and more, died at 94.

What else we’re reading ➤ “Colleges use his antisemitism definition to censor. He calls it a ‘travesty’” … “Easter 2024 in the Holy Land: a holiday marked by Palestinian Christian sorrow” … “What we know about Palestinians detained in Israel.”

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Stuffed full of A-listers — and casting a satirical eye on self-serious films telling the origin stories of name-brand products — the trailer for Jerry Seinfeld’s long-awaited Pop-Tart movie Unfrosted is finally here. Framing the development of a toaster pastry as a kind of space race, the Netflix comedy is a full-circle moment for a comedian whose most memorable bits have often circled the cereal aisle. (Whether Seinfeld will, as in his 2020 special, liken these breakfast treats to Moses’ tablets of the law remains to be seen.)

Thanks to Benyamin Cohen and PJ Grisar 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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