WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Good morning. Today: Hostage’s father rebukes ADL • Mahmoud Khalil sues Trump administration • The Polish far-right tries to rewrite the history of a horrifying pogrom.

OUR LEAD STORY

Superman: American hero, or saboteur? (Ian Walton/Getty Images)

Authoritarianism is on the rise. Certain circles are deep in conversation about the nuclear potential of uranium. In the American West, unexpected flooding has killed dozens. A film adaptation of the fairytale of Snow White is hitting theaters.

It’s 1938, and it’s time for Superman.

In a year both like and unlike our current one, the superhuman vigilante from Krypton — created by two Jews in Cleveland — made his comic book debut. Today, he’s back on the big screen, in a buzzy new movie starring David Corenswet, the first Jew to play the now-prototypical superhero, and Rachel Brosnahan, the first non-Jew famous for playing an extremely Jewish role — Mrs. Maisel herself — to portray his beloved Lois Lane.

Superman has always been political. In his first appearance, in Action Comics #1, he went after a United States senator whom he suspected (correctly) of corruption. But early responses suggest that this new outing might be the character’s most politically fraught Hollywood adventure to date.    

“In response to director James Gunn’s recent claim that his forthcoming Superman film is about ‘an immigrant that came from other places,’ the right-wing media is having a conniption,” writes our PJ Grisar, “with Fox News labelling the DC tentpole ‘Superwoke’ and Jesse Watters joking that Supes’ cape now has MS-13 written on the back.”

It’s not the first time the Man of Steel has been charged with possessing a suspicious ulterior goal of corrupting Western culture. In 1940, the Nazis published “a full-page tirade accusing Superman of being a Jewish conspiracy to poison the minds of American youth” in the official newspaper of the SS, wrote Roy Schwartz in 2022.

Whether or not you plan to catch Gunn’s film this weekend, it’s worth spending time with PJ’s thoughtful piece about the superhero’s Jewish roots — and what they mean in the context of the hyperintense politics of the present day.

Plus:

• From 2021: Superman taught me how to be a Cuban Jew

• David Corenswet, the next Superman, has deep Jewish roots in New Orleans

• 10 Jewish things you probably didn’t know about Superman

ISRAEL

Changes in a holy city, seen through one man’s eyes. (Graphic by Canva/Olivia Haynie/Book cover designed by Lauren Sheldon)

After 40 years in Jerusalem, everything has changed except one man’s love for it. The tumult that reshaped Jerusalem in the last eight decades is hard to capture — but a new novel, Michael Kinnamon’s A Rooftop in Jerusalem, tries. While the novel is sometimes “schmaltzy,” writes our Olivia Haynie, it also has moments of real deftness. “In 2003, as Israel begins building the West Bank barrier,” the protagonist “Daniel asks himself, ‘Was this the Israel he had known in 1969?’, a question I’ve heard almost verbatim from multiple people in my life.” Read her review ➤

A Palestinian woman mourns a relative killed in an overnight Israeli strike on July 11. (Photo by Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)

And:

• The New York Times released a report, based on a six-month investigation, into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prolonging of the war in Gaza. Among the findings: Netanyahu was poised to present his cabinet with a proposal for a long-term ceasefire in April 2024 — until far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich preempted him with a threat to unravel his governing coalition if such a plan were put forward. (New York Times)

  
  

• Netanyahu confirmed that 2o hostages in Gaza remain alive, and said that Hamas will select the 10 to be freed in a ceasefire deal currently under discussion. As Netanyahu wrapped up his third trip to the U.S since President Donald Trump’s January inauguration, he stressed that such a deal would inherently be temporary. (Times of Israel, AP)

  
  

• The United Nations found that, since May 27, at least 798 people have been killed in Gaza while attempting to receive humanitarian aid. (Times of Israel)

  
  

• The U.S. issued sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio accusing her of conducting a “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel.” (Guardian)

  
  

• An Israeli official said that some of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium escaped destruction by Israeli and American attacks last month. (New York Times)

  
  

• Yehuda Cohen, father of Nimrod Cohen, who remains a hostage in Gaza, lambasted the ADL, demanding that the organization stop using Nimrod’s likeness in campaigns and accusing the group’s head, Jonathan Greenblatt, of spreading falsehoods about his family. (Haaretz)

  
  

• A 22-year-old Israeli was killed in a shooting by two attackers in the West Bank. (Haaretz)

CULTURE

A still from the episode “Nochebuena at the Funhouse / Hanukkah at Hilda’s.” Hilda’s hands are covering the ichthys, commonly known as a Jesus fish. Courtesy of Disney Wiki / Screenshot

Disney fixed a messianic necklace, but there’s still work to do on Jewish representation. How’s this for an opening sentence, courtesy of our reporter Hannah Feuer: “Hilda the Hanukkah-loving hippo is no longer wearing a messianic necklace in Mickey Mouse Funhouse.” If you know exactly what she’s talking about, congratulations. If not, let Hannah guide you through the complexities of a scandal over the religiously inaccurate neckwear in question — including why one advocate says it’s “indicative of a broader problem.” Read the story ➤

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Mahmoud Khalil in Manhattan on June 22. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

⚖️  Mahmoud Khalil filed a $20 million suit against the Trump administration, alleging false imprisonment and malicious prosecution in his detention — without charges — over his role in Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protest movement. (Guardian)

👀  Ultranationalists in Poland erected signs denying the role of Poles in the infamous Jedwabne pogrom of 1941, which killed hundreds of Jews, and accusing Jews of being complicit in the massacre. Separately, Poland opened an investigation into a far-right legislator who said, during a radio interview, “ritual murder is a fact, and such a thing as Auschwitz with its gas chambers is unfortunately a fake.” (Haaretz, Associated Press)

​​💻  After Grok, an AI engine developed by Elon Musk, went on an antisemitic spree earlier in the week, ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt said he regretted not condemning Musk’s Nazi-style salute following Trump’s inauguration in January. (X)

🎥  Larry David will return to TV in a comedy series about American history, with a boost from former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama’s production company. (JTA)

🎤  A Slovakia music festival at which Kanye West was set to headline was canceled in response to West’s May song “Heil Hitler.” (Times of Israel)

🇦🇺  Australia’s first antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, released a report recommending measures for fighting antisemitism in the country, which has seen a recent spate of antisemitic hate crimes. Among them: Stripping funding from Australian universities not seen as taking sufficient steps to combat anti-Jewish hate. (CNN)

📱 A new tour conceived by an AI company will help tourists experience Amsterdam through the eyes of Anne Frank, including by following the route she took to walk to school before going into hiding. (Times of Israel)

Shiva call ➤  Writer Jane Lazarre, author of The Mother Knot, died at 81.

What else we’re reading ➤

• “The precarious position of Iranian Jews” (Atlantic)

• “The tale of Elaine Yoneda, a Jewish woman in a Japanese American concentration camp” (Literary Hub)

• How the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case pushed Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni to turn whistleblower (New Yorker)

• 100 years on, what one of the most famous American court cases about religion means to one rabbi (Religion News Service)

VIDEO OF THE DAY

The great Jewish literary critic Harold Bloom, who died in 2019, was born 95 years ago today. Here, he talks about how his first encounter with Shakespeare — one of his great subjects — took place in the Yiddish theater.

Plus:

• Was Harold Bloom right about J.K. Rowling?

• From our archives: A portrait of Harold Bloom as a young man

Today’s newsletter made me:

🤓 Confident I understand issues impacting American Jews.

🔗 Connected to the Jewish world.

💡 Curious to learn about something I read.

🤷🏽‍♀️ No different.

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