The Backstory
The context behind a story in the newsletter, in a few hundred words, with the sources.
The Haredi draft exemption fight, explained
A blanket exemption that started with 400 yeshiva students in 1948 is now a High Court order nobody's enforcing.
The hostage timeline, October 2023 to January 2026
251 people were taken on Oct. 7, 2023. The last one came home on Jan. 26, 2026.
How aliyah numbers actually get counted
Two organizations, two 2025 totals a few hundred people apart, and a much bigger number nobody counts as easily: who's leaving.
How Israeli coalition math actually works
120 seats, 61 to govern, a 3.25% cutoff, and a five-seat party that could decide October's election.
Who Jews for Jesus actually are
The group behind Jerusalem's Cafe Basimta, founded 1973, is a Christian missionary organization. No Jewish denomination disagrees.
The study behind the '39% of young Jews' number
2,071 Jewish adults, ages 22 to 40, surveyed over five months. Here's what the number does and doesn't say.
What a Title VI investigation actually does
OCR opened one at two Cal State schools Aug. 6. Here's what that letter can and can't force a university to do.
What the Yesha Council actually is
The settler umbrella group that's lobbied the Knesset since 1980, and the West Bank incident that got its own members called terrorists.