This article is part of our morning briefing. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox each weekday. With an eye to 2024, Biden takes a ‘passive-aggressive’ approach to Israel
With Israel in unprecedented political turmoil over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s push to overhaul its judicial system, our senior political reporter, Jacob Kornbluh, spoke with a dozen Jewish leaders and experts to assess the repercussions on U.S. politics and the historic alliance between the two nations. With Netanyahu and his ministers bent on elevating religious rights and annexing the occupied West Bank, they are wondering how American politicians can address the crisis without alienating voters in an election where either party could take the presidency, the House and the Senate.
Tightrope: American Jews, about 70% of whom voted for President Biden in 2020, have generally been repulsed by the Israeli government’s plan to skew the balance of power toward the right-wing dominated Knesset. But Biden has declined to respond to pleas by some of his supporters for a more aggressive approach toward the Israeli government. |
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greets then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2010. (Getty) |
Dealmakers: There have been reports of a potential deal normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, with the U.S. as broker, building on the Abraham Accords. If realized, such a deal could define Netanyahu’s legacy and be a political boon for Biden by blunting criticism from the right, and broaden bipartisan support for Israel in Congress. Frenemies: Biden has nurtured a relationship with Netanyahu over four decades, warmer than that of former President Barack Obama and many other Democrats. He once inscribed a photograph of the two of them: “Bibi, I don’t agree with a damn thing you had to say, but I love you.” Things have chilled this year, however, with Biden letting months pass without inviting his counterpart to the White house. |
Vacationers stranded in Maui baked challah for Shabbat at a Chabad farm (left), while counselors at the Chabad summer program made breakfast (upper right) for dozens of Jews left homeless after the wildfires. (Courtesy/Getty) |
On Maui, a Chabad farm gives safe harbor and a Shabbat meal: With an orchard, livestock and “enough kosher food to feed a small army,” our Louis Keene reports, the farm is sheltering dozens of Jews displaced by the wildfires. And tourists are volunteering to help support them. Michelle Andron and her husband and five children, who live in Los Angeles, spent Friday there washing dishes, collecting eggs from the chicken coop and baking challah. “This is not the vacation we planned,” she said. “But we’ve been given the opportunity to be on the front lines, helping.” Read the story ➤ Related: Hawaii’s Jewish governor, Josh Green, said the wildfires were “likely the largest natural disaster in Hawaii state history.” The Jewish Federations of North America launched a relief fund to help. Opinion | What’s really at stake in the legal struggle between Yeshiva University and its LGBTQ+ students: Professors at the Modern Orthodox school worry that a potential Supreme Court ruling could give educational institutions wide scope to sidestep civil rights laws in the name of religious liberty. “A ruling of this kind,” four of them write, “could have far-reaching consequences for any member of the university community whose views do not conform to religious standards as determined by the administration.” Read their essay ➤
Plus: Neo-Nazis in Maine, a Jewish summer camp in Ukraine, and pork-flavored kosher chips in the grocery store. Take our weekly news quiz. |
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY |
Hasidic men during their 2022 Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to Uman, Ukraine. (Getty)
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?? Ukrainian authorities are (again) trying to discourage Hasidic Jews from making their annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to Uman, the burial site of Rabbi Nachman of Breslav. But whether it’s because of safety concerns or displeasure with how Israel treats Ukrainian visitors is up for debate. (Algemeiner, Times of Israel) ✍️ Surveillance footage caught a vandal scrawling antisemitic graffiti on a sign outside a synagogue Saturday night on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Police are searching for the suspect. (CBS News) ? Israeli forces demolished four buildings at an illegal Jewish settler outpost Monday morning, a rare move. It was approved by Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right minister who oversees administration of much of the West Bank and himself lives in a settlement. A source close to Smotrich said this particular plot of land was Palestinian-owned and would have been difficult to annex. (Haaretz, Times of Israel) ? Chabad filed a federal lawsuit accusing a Long Island town of religious discrimination. The town is trying to seize through eminent domain a plot of land the group bought hoping to build a synagogue. (NY Post) ? It’s been 50 years since Jewish teenagers Mitchel Weiser and Bonnie Bickwit disappeared after leaving a concert in upstate New York. Family and friends say this is the year law enforcement should finally resolve the cold case. (Rolling Stone) ? Hoping to change the course of World War II, two British intelligence officers plotted to break Hitler’s grip on Europe by recruiting the most unlikely of secret agents: a dead man. The real-life mission, dubbed “Operation Mincemeat,” was turned into a Netflix film last year, and is now a comedic musical on stage in London. (New York Times) Shiva call ➤ Joan Kaplan Davidson, a philanthropist and preservationist of New York landmarks, died at 96.
What else we’re reading ➤ Israeli police chief chases cow down highway … Halal nail polish raises complex discussions among Muslim consumers … Meet the Jewish comedian behind the song of the summer. |
Vidal Sassoon in 1975 with two of his clients. (Getty) |
On this day in history (1967): Vidal Sassoon, the Jewish celebrity hairdresser, gave Mia Farrow a pixie cut in a publicity stunt for the film Rosemary’s Baby. Sassoon was paid $5,000 for the haircut, which Paramount Pictures invited reporters to cover. In 2010, Farrow tweeted that Sassoon was only flown in to trim what she’d already cut herself. Upon Sassoon’s death in 2012, Forward contributor Benjamin Ivry chronicled his arc, from apprentice for an Orthodox wigmaker to creating the bob, a liberating style for a “symbolic tribe of women warriors.” |
A camp in Petaluma, California, serves as a haven for Jewish kids of color. About 60 campers attended this summer’s session of Be’chol Lashon, Hebrew for “in every language.” Counselor Satya Sheftel-Gomes, 22, has attended since she was 11. “Early on when I had less connections, it really felt like I was one in a million,” she said. “Now I know that’s not the case.” Read more in this article from the Associated Press or watch the video above. — Thanks to Beth Harpaz, Louis Keene, Jacob Kornbluh, Lauren Markoe, Rebecca Salzhauer and Talya Zax for contributing to today’s newsletter. You can reach the “Forwarding” team at [email protected]. |
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