Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) condemned in the “strongest terms” the anti-Israel protesters who physically assaulted Orthodox Jews in the Borough Park neighborhood of Brooklyn on Tuesday evening. 

“Mask-wearing protestors chanting anti-Semitic slogans in the middle of the most Orthodox Jewish community in the city is all about provocation and not about free speech. I applaud the NYPD for keeping order and condemn in strongest terms those who used antisemitic language and symbolism at this event,” Schumer said in a statement provided exclusively to Jewish Insider.

Democratic Majority for Israel is calling on Al Williams, a candidate for Michigan’s Democratic Party chair who has faced widespread criticism over recent antisemitic comments, to drop out of the race ahead of Saturday’s election.

Williams, a veteran Democratic organizer from Detroit, drew backlash for claiming at a candidate forum co-hosted by the Arab American Democratic Caucus earlier this month that his party is “not the Jewish party,” invoking an antisemitic trope about Jewish control of American politics.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) on Wednesday morning became the latest Republican to push back on President Donald Trump’s hostility toward Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelensky, as U.S. officials sit down with Russian leaders to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.

Lawler, who represents a suburban New York swing district and is eyeing a gubernatorial run, rejected a series of moves and comments by the Republican president, without directly mentioning Trump. Lawler is also a subcommittee chair on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) will host 12 Israeli orphans who lost parents in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel at the Senate Republican Conference’s lunch meeting on Thursday, Jewish Insider has learned.

“We must never forget the unimaginable suffering depraved Hamas terrorists inflicted on innocent Israeli families during the October 7th attacks and I’m proud to play a small role in honoring those lost,” Moreno said in a statement to JI. “Hamas started this war and is solely responsible for the death [and] destruction.”

The emerging race to succeed outgoing Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), who announced last week that she would not seek reelection, is setting the stage for an ideologically divisive Democratic primary, with rival members of the party’s progressive and moderate wings now eyeing the rare open seat.

While just one candidate, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, has so far entered the primary, a range of state and federal lawmakers are expressing interest in joining the race — most recently Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), a moderate Democrat who on Monday said that she is “giving serious consideration to” a campaign and “will make a decision in the near future.”

Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said on Tuesday that Edan Alexander, the Tenafly, N.J., native who has been held hostage by Hamas since Oct. 7, has not yet been released because he is “tied in with phase two” of the cease-fire deal. 

Kim was part of a bipartisan group of senators who traveled to Israel after attending the Munich Security Conference to meet with Israeli leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar. The New Jersey senator wrote on X on Monday that he was in Jerusalem “to ensure we use every diplomatic tool available to get New Jersey’s Edan Alexander, and all remaining hostages, home safely.”

Think of the just-launched and first-ever House Jewish Caucus as a family — a big, noisy, opinionated Jewish family.

Brad Schneider (D-IL), one of the caucus’ co-chairs, emphasized his interest in keeping the caucus as a place where Jewish members “can have family conversations in a safe place that stays within the family.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is facing criticism for his controversial pick to chair the board of trustees at the University of West Florida, with a bipartisan group of Jewish lawmakers raising concerns about the appointee’s “history of antisemitic and misogynistic rhetoric.” 

Scott Yenor, a political scientist at Boise State University and a staffer at the right-wing Claremont Institute, is under fire for suggesting last month that only straight white men under 65 are capable of rising to political leadership positions.