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| | | WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION |
| | Today: Iranian Jews in L.A. consider the consequences • Birthright students stranded in Israel • What happened when a millionaire paid Jews to move to Alabama • and Fargo is getting a mikvah. |
| | | | President Donald Trump steps off of Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland Monday night after cutting short his trip to the G7 summit in Canada. (Getty) |
| The headlines are relentless — President Trump urging an evacuation of Tehran, Birthright kids stuck in Israeli shelters, and talks of a possible diplomatic solution. In today’s newsletter, I’ll help you make sense of it all: how American Jews are reacting, what’s happening on the ground, why this conflict feels different than Gaza, and where this fast-moving crisis may be headed next.
What American Jews want Trump to do about Iran
The Israel-Iran conflict is uniting the often-divided American Jewish community in a way the Gaza war has not, my colleague Jacob Kornbluh reports this morning. Where American Jews differ is on how involved the U.S. should be and what the ultimate outcome should look like. Trump’s Jewish base: “What’s best for America is to make sure that the mullahs in Tehran never get a nuclear weapon,” said Dov Hikind, a former assemblyman from New York who is close to Trump’s inner circle. “The U.S. should definitely play a role in making it possible for Israel,” he said, adding, “There’s no turning back now.”
American Jews holding the center: “I think there is a much greater consensus about this, certainly about anything else since Oct. 7,” said Rabbi David Wolpe, who affiliates with the Conservative movement. “I think this is unambiguously good for the world. There’s no doubt about it.”
Jewish Democrats and progressives: “The most important thing that needs to happen now is to de-escalate,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street. “The worst outcome would be a broader array of targets being hit, drawing the U.S. in and expanding this into a regional or even multinational conflict.”
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| | Related…
The White House is weighing a possible meeting this week with Vice President JD Vance or U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian officials to explore a nuclear deal and end the Israel-Iran conflict — a last-ditch bid by Trump to pivot from the threat of war to diplomacy. (Axios, Reuters) Trump repeatedly brushed off right-wing media personality Tucker Carlson on Monday, mocking his criticism of U.S. support for Israeli strikes on Iran and calling his comments “kooky.” (Jewish Insider)
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, defended Carlson — posting on social media that “foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction.” (X)
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| | Three Jewish men who fled Iran more than 30 years ago played cards Monday at an community center in Los Angeles. (Louis Keene) |
| At an Iranian Jewish hangout in LA, retirees wonder if regime change is in the cards
My colleague Louis Keene visited a Los Angeles community center on Monday where Iranian Jewish retirees gather regularly to play Rummy and backgammon. They are among the legions of Jews who fled Iran in the 1980s and 1990s after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Many of them eventually settled in Los Angeles, where anywhere between 22,500 to 50,000 Jews help constitute what today is the largest Iranian community outside Iran.
Though some still have family in Iran, they were not ambivalent about the bombing. “I talked to someone there today,” said one, referring to Iran. “They are happy.”
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| | | Israeli soldiers and medics look for casualties Monday in a house destroyed in Bnei Brak, following an Iranian ballistic missile barrage. (Getty) |
| In Iran… On Monday evening, President Trump urged Iranian civilians to “immediately evacuate Tehran.” Soon after, the White House said he would be leaving the G7 summit ahead of schedule to “attend to many important matters.” (Axios)
Israel echoed that message and urged hundreds of thousands of people to leave Tehran, resulting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on roads heading out of the capital. (AP, Times of Israel)
The Israel Defense Forces said Monday it killed Maj. Gen. Ali Shadmani, a senior Iranian commander appointed just days earlier after his predecessor was killed in Israel’s initial strikes on Iran last week. (Haaretz)
Israeli forces struck Iran’s state TV headquarters while it was broadcasting live, forcing the anchor to duck for cover mid-broadcast. (New York Times)
Travel issues… Around 2,800 Birthright participants are stranded in Israel amid ongoing rocket fire and closed airspace, leaving tour groups sheltering and unsure when they’ll get home. (Times of Israel)
With travel from Israel halted, Jewish summer camps in the U.S. are scrambling to replace hundreds of Israeli counselors stranded abroad just days before campers arrive. (JTA)
With more than 100,000 Israelis stranded abroad since airspace closed Friday, Israel is launching special repatriation flights — and El Al says more than 60,000 signed up within hours. (Times of Israel)
In Israel… Just a day before Israel’s strike on Iran, the opposition was plotting to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — but now, amid the operation, they’ve shelved criticism and closed ranks behind him. (AP)
In front of mostly empty seats, a scaled-down Knesset met in a conference room Monday instead of its usual chambers. (Times of Israel)
Nights spent in bomb shelters, days brimming with life: Tel Aviv’s beaches and cafes were packed. A shoe store owner shrugged: “Why should I stay at home? What will I do there?” (JTA)
Potential ceasefire… Iran is urgently pushing to end the conflict and resume nuclear talks, sending messages to the U.S. and Israel through Arab intermediaries, according to regional and European officials. (Wall Street Journal)
Trump said that Tehran should move quickly to de-escalate the conflict, warning, “they should talk immediately before it’s too late,” adding that he is looking for “a real end, not a ceasefire.” (Times of Israel, New York Times)
Stay updated with our Iran coverage. |
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| | | | | Karen Arenson and her daughter Emily light the Shabbat candles at Temple Emanu-El in Dothan, Alabama, as Rabbi Lynne Goldsmith looks on, in a scene from the 2016 documentary There Are Jews Here. (Courtesy of 371 Productions) |
| An Alabama millionaire offered Jews $50,000 to move to his town. What happened?
When the offer was made back in 2009, the story went viral. So many people visited the shul’s website, it crashed. There was a segment on NPR. Jay Leno joked about it on The Tonight Show. Howard Stern did a radio segment about it. Applications came in. Some took the leap. I spoke with the rabbi who oversaw the effort and learned what happened — and what it reveals about the promise and limits of Jewish life in small-town America. Go deeper ►
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| | With an Albert Einstein statue in the background, members of the U.S. Army dressed in Revolutionary War uniforms march along Constitution Avenue during a military parade on Saturday. (Getty) |
| What was Albert Einstein thinking as he gazed down on Trump’s military parade?
Photos from the Saturday event showed the iconic D.C. sculpture of Einstein, who often referred to himself as a “militant pacifist,” his bemused eyes cast down in contemplation of a squadron of United States soldiers marching past in full Revolutionary War regalia. “There are some stark ironies here,” writes our Talya Zax. “While it makes sense that a past iteration of the United States chose to celebrate Einstein’s commitment to ‘equality of all citizens before the law,’ in President Trump’s view, that equality can be a threat.” Read her essay ► |
| | | | WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
| | A K-9 officer walks around the Warren E. Burger Federal Building in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Vance Boelter had a court appearance on Monday. (Getty) |
| ✝️ Vance Boelter, charged with the killing of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband, is a minister who said he attended Christ for the Nations, a Bible college linked to a movement that believes Christians should control the U.S. government. (Mother Jones, Religion News Service)
🍽️ A Jewish student at West Virginia University says he was banned from the campus dining hall after a Muslim student complained when he passed out copies of a pro-Israel book by Alan Dershowitz. (Times of Israel)
🌊 Fargo, North Dakota, is about to get its first mikvah in 50 years, with construction on the $100,000 ritual bath nearly finished. (Chabad)
🎬 Ruth Madeley and Mark Ruffalo are set to star in a film about Judy Heumann, the Jewish disability rights advocate who died in 2023. Read our 2021 interview with Heumann. (Deadline, Variety)
Transitions ► Shuly Rubin Schwartz, the chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, said she will step down in 2026 … Rabbi Sandra Lawson is the new executive director of Carolina Jews for Justice … Rabbi Dov Linzer is stepping down from his role as president of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah.
What else we’re reading ► The untold story of how American Jewry and Israel nearly resolved the question of who is a Jew (Arc Mag) … Fifteen years after his death, a Jewish bridge builder is buried in Michigan (JTA) … In Brooklyn, you can party like it’s the Borscht Belt in 1963. (New York Jewish Week)
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| | | | My colleague Arno Rosenfeld, who helms the Forward’s new Antisemitism Decoded newsletter, joined PBS to talk about his beat and shared one of his favorite statistical insights: “When you ask American Jews how concerned they are about campus antisemitism, the numbers go up exponentially the further away you get from people who are on college campuses,” he said. “So, folks over 30, it’s like 80 to 90% think it’s a very serious issue. Folks on college campuses, they still think it’s serious, but they think that it's a serious issue alongside racism, alongside Islamophobia, homophobia.” |
| Thanks to Louis Keene and 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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