WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Good morning. Israel resumed airstrikes against Gaza today as rocket warning sirens blared in Israeli towns bordering the strip. Israel also dropped leaflets on southern Gaza, suggesting it plans to widen the scope of its offensive.

ISRAEL AT WAR

Humanitarian aid trucks lined up at the Egypt-run Rafah Crossing into Gaza after the truce expired Friday morning. (SAID KHATIB/AFP via Getty Images)

A weeklong truce in the Israel-Hamas war ended Friday morning, with last-minute efforts to prolong the pause failing after Hamas reportedly didn’t show Israel a list of hostages it would release in exchange for another day without combat. The truce saw the release of more than 100 hostages who had been held in Gaza since the Oct. 7 attack; some 140 remain in the strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that as fighting resumed, the government was “committed to achieving the goals of the war: releasing the hostages, eliminating Hamas and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to the residents of Israel.”

Qatar, which has been the primary mediator of talks between Israel and Gaza, said negotiators were working to develop an agreement to restart the truce, and criticized Israel’s resumption of airstrikes for “complicating mediation efforts.” Aid trucks to Gaza, which had been entering the strip at an increased rate since the start of the truce, were halted at the Egypt-run Rafah Crossing.

Eight hostages were released yesterday, including Mia Shem, the 21-year-old French-Israeli hostage who appeared in the first hostage video Hamas shared after Oct. 7. Separately, the oldest Israeli hostage taken by Hamas, 86-year-old Arye Zalmanovich, reportedly died in captivity.

Hamas claimed responsibility for a Thursday attack in Jerusalem that killed three and wounded six. One of the victims was reportedly pregnant with her first child.

Documents suggest Israel was given detailed warning of plans for the Oct. 7 attack more than a year before it happened, per a new report from The New York Times. A 40-page document, which did not name a date for the planned attack, reportedly outlined a strike with the exact contours of Oct. 7. Israeli officials dismissed it, thinking Hamas wasn’t capable of executing the plan.

During a Thursday visit to Israel, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken cautioned officials to work to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. He reportedly also warned that Israel does not have a timeline of months to conclude the war, citing increased pressure on President Joe Biden’s administration to push for an end to the fighting. Biden’s administration also told Israel it plans to ban West Bank settlers who have engaged in violence toward Palestinians from entering the U.S.

Israel recalled its ambassador to Spain after Spain’s prime minister said he had “serious doubt” as to whether Israel’s wartime actions have complied with international law.

Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, both prominent far-right Israeli cabinet members. (Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

As combat resumes, three perspectives on the wartime landscape …

Opinion | It’s time for Israel’s far right to go. Yes, a majority of American Jews back the war with Hamas. But they do not support the goals of Israeli nationalists calling for “an ethnic cleansing of Gaza and a reestablishment of settlements on land that, from biblical times to our own, does not belong to the Jewish people,” writes columnist Jay Michaelson. As some members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet have argued for those ends, it’s time for American politicians to take a stronger line in pushing for their ouster. Read his essay ➤

Opinion | How Oct. 7 is reshaping the Zionist — and anti-Zionist — left in the US. It’s not just Israel’s political world that deserves scrutiny in the wake of war: “It is becoming clear that the seismic events of Oct. 7 have created aftershocks in the American Jewish political map that could reshape its contours for years to come,” writes Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute. Among the big changes whose effects are still unpredictable: “The messy mainstream of American Jews is energized anew toward identification with Israel and the Jewish people,” in “a reversal of decades of assimilation and decline.” Read his essay ➤

Debate rages over whether a letter from an Israeli hostage to her Hamas captors is a fake. But does it matter? After Hamas released a letter it claimed was written by Danielle Aloni, a hostage freed last week, which appeared to thank her captors for showing “gentleness, warmth and love,” people across the world debated its veracity. For some, that debate missed the forest for the trees, as freed hostages shared stories of malnutrition, threats of violence and other horrors during their captivity. “Can’t we accept the possibility that individual Hamas members who interacted with Danielle and her daughter in Gaza expressed kindness,” one expert asked, “and that at the same time, know that Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 was pure evil and should not have happened?” Read the story ➤

Plus:

I was shouted down in Oakland for condemning Hamas. The councilmembers did nothing to stop it

The Forward is made possible by readers like you.

Support our work with a donation of any size.

Want more Forward? Explore all our newsletters at forward.com/newsletters

ALSO IN THE FORWARD

Gene Siskel, left, and Roger Ebert in 1986. (Norm Staples/Getty Images)

Why Siskel & Ebert were the Talmudic scholars of their day. The film critics, whose sometimes argumentative but always respectful relationship is detailed in the new book Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel and Ebert Changed Movies Forever, shared a mode of discourse that should be familiar to Jewish scholars, writes Rabbi Herbert J. Cohen. Like the duo, “many Talmudic sages do not share the same opinions, and they robustly challenge the other’s viewpoint on a particular subject.” But “disagreement does not mean disengagement from the other.”

In Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie’s latest, chicken, conversions and a deeply complicated American atonement.The Curse, Fielder’s first outing since his 2022 series The Rehearsal, gives a portrait of weaponized Jewishness in the character of Whitney, played by Emma Stone, the daughter of slumlords and a convert to Judaism. In part because of her complicated guilt over her parents’ legacy, writes staff writer PJ Grisar, there’s “a void in her life that Jewishness fills: the ability to identify as something other than a nondescript white Christian, or, put another way, as a victim.”

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

A pro-Palestinian protest in Denver in early November. (JASON CONNOLLY/AFP via Getty Images)

⛰️ Pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets in Denver over the Jewish National Fund-USA’s Global Conference for Israel. The conference began Thursday; protests, which have been ongoing in the city since the start of the war, ramped up on Monday, as protesters flooded a City Council meeting. (Denverite)

⚖️ A Nevada man was indicted over allegedly issuing antisemitic threats against Jewish Sen. Jacky Rosen, among others. John Anthony Miller, 43, was arrested last month after allegedly making death threats in a series of phone calls to Rosen and others, including one in which he shared intentions to “finish what Hitler started.” (CNN)

🤨 A Maine town removed a Star of David from its holiday lights display after a local Arab American organization reportedly called it “offensive.” The mayor said local Jewish groups agreed it should be taken down, and that it would be replaced with depictions of dreidels. (JTA)

😔The man accused of shooting three Palestinian students in Vermont last Saturday allegedly has a history of troubling behavior in relationships. An ex-girlfriend reportedly asked police to remove his gun from her home in 2013, saying they had a history of domestic violence and that she did not feel safe returning it to him. Another ex reported troubling contact after their breakup in 2019. (Associated Press)

😟 A German domestic intelligence agency warned that the Israel-Hamas war has forged new alliances between different antisemitic groups in the country, and that the risk of terror attacks related to the war was rising. (Politico)

👀Three Rutgers donors said they would no longer contribute to the school, citing concerns of antisemitism. Martin and Eva Schlanger, who have donated $130,000 to the university, wrote in a letter to its president “You have an obligation to ensure that students are protected from intimidation.” (northjersey.com)

What else we’re reading ➤“Substack has a Nazi problem” … “Why Christmas is canceled in Bethlehem” … “How American librarians helped defeat the Nazis.”

PHOTO OF THE DAY

(OHN MACDOUGALL/AFP via Getty Images)

Israel resumed ground operations today in Gaza along with airstrikes; here, a tank crossed into the strip after the truce expired.

Thanks to Benyamin Cohen for contributing to today’s newsletter, and to Beth Harpaz for editing it. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected].

Support Independent Jewish Journalism

Without you, the Forward’s stories don’t just go unread — they go untold. Please support our nonprofit journalism today.