Former Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), who represented the Bronx and Westchester County in the House from 1988 to 2020 and served for years as the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, died Friday at age 79.

Engel, who was Jewish, rose to become the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee when Democrats retook the House in 2018, after serving as the ranking member from 2013 to 2018. He was a strong and vocal advocate for the U.S.-Israel relationship and the Jewish community, also acting as a co-chair of the House antisemitism task force.

J Street, the progressive Israel advocacy organization which describes itself as a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group, offered backing for the growing calls among far-left lawmakers to end U.S. support for Israel’s missile-defense systems, such as Iron Dome, which until recently had been largely spared even by strident critics of the Jewish state.

“What progressives are saying is not radical, and in fact, [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and [Sen.] Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are arguing the same thing. Israel is capable of paying for its own military equipment, including supplies for its missile defense systems,” a J Street spokesperson told Jewish Insider.

Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is challenging Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in a bitterly contested June primary, called for ending all U.S. aid to Israel during an interview published Friday, reversing his prior support for funding to bolster Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system.

Lander, a Jewish Democrat who identifies as a progressive Zionist, told The New York Editorial Board, a Substack of New York City journalists focused on local campaigns, that he “would not vote for any more aid [to Israel] at this moment,” when asked about his position on Iron Dome, saying he believed Israel was not following international law in the wake of its war in Gaza that he has called a genocide.

The Yale Political Union, a storied debate society at the Ivy League university, is slated to host antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker on campus on Tuesday for a debate titled “Resolved: End the American Empire,” according to the organization’s social media.

YPU — a registered student-run group, which is the oldest and largest collegiate debate society in America, according to its website — has hosted a range of elite figures such as former Presidents Ronald Reagan, Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter; media figures like Walter Cronkite and George Stephanopoulos; and leading intellectuals including economist Milton Friedman and Margaret Mead. 

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has lately been saying that she does not take money from AIPAC or any corporate political action committees. So when a college student asked her at a town hall in Cincinnati on Thursday about $4.5 million she has received from “pro-Israel lobbies,” Slotkin pushed back — arguing the student was unfairly lumping together all Jewish donors. 

“I’m not sure what you’re referring to on ‘not AIPAC but the Israel lobby.’ If you’re equating ‘Israel lobby’ to Jews, I got a problem with that,” Slotkin said. 

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro accused President Donald Trump of being “bullied” into starting a war with Iran, suggesting in an interview with the “All-In Podcast” that Israel had pressured the U.S. into joining a military campaign against the Islamic Republic. 

“America should never be led around by any other nation. It should always be about America’s interests, our national security interests, the interests of expanding freedom and opportunity for the American people,” said Shapiro, who was responding to a question from tech investor Jason Calacanis about whether the U.S. followed Israel into an unnecessary war. “We should never, ever be bullied, as maybe President Trump was, by any other world leader.”

The Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals rejected Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil’s attempt to dismiss his deportation case on Thursday, his lawyers said. 

Khalil called the ruling, which was widely expected and brings him closer to re-arrest and possible deportation, “biased and politically motivated.” 

Tucker Carlson, the anti-Israel and antisemitic podcaster whose outspoken opposition to the Iran war has strained his relationship with President Donald Trump, has seen his personal ratings nosedive including among Republicans, according to a new YouGov poll. 

The survey, commissioned by UMass-Lowell between March 26-30, finds Carlson’s overall favorability rating at a dismal 17%, with 38% viewing him unfavorably. Nearly one-third of respondents said they had no opinion of him, and 15% had never heard of him.