Paul Ingrassia, the Department of Homeland Security’s White House liaison who withdrew his nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel late last month after antisemitic and racist text messages of his were unearthed, has been appointed to serve as deputy general counsel at the General Services Administration.

Ingrassia, 30, has served in multiple roles in the second Trump administration. Prior to his most recent role at DHS, Ingrassia briefly served as the liaison to the Department of Justice but was reassigned after clashing with the DOJ’s chief of staff. 

The Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, a union representing over 3,000 legal workers, has acknowledged “inappropriate” communication around Israel and antisemitism as part of a settlement reached on Thursday brought on behalf of three union members who sued to block an anti-Israel resolution proposed weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks. 

Under the agreement, ALAA, part of Local 2325 of the United Auto Workers, will pay the plaintiffs $315,000 in monetary damages and will refer all disciplinary charges brought against members to the union’s outside counsel for review. The union also agreed to implement mandatory training for its executive board to understand its obligation to ensure its members rights are being protected.

So much of the conversation about the rise of right-wing antisemitism has been focused on the supply side of the equation — the growing number of online commentators and podcasters, led by Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, who are mainlining anti-Jewish tropes, conspiracy theories and Holocaust revisionism to their sizable audiences.

Less scrutinized is the demand-side part of the equation: Why are so many people in the independent podcasting ecosystem mimicking the same antisemitic arguments and hosting the same extremist guests? Is there really a significant audience for this nonsense?  

Antisemitism is on the rise within 20 major U.S.-based professional academic associations, according to a study published Thursday by the Anti-Defamation League.

The research, conducted in September, found that 42% of surveyed Jewish faculty members who belong to an association report feeling alienated because they are Jewish or perceived as Zionist; 25% report feeling the need to hide their Jewish or Zionist identity from colleagues in their association; and 45% report being told by others in their associations what does and does not constitute antisemitism. The data was collected using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.  

Rabbi Yosef Hamra, the brother of the last chief rabbi of Syria, who now lives in Brooklyn, was invited to offer a blessing to Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa during a meeting between al-Sharaa and a variety of Syrian diaspora activists in Washington on Sunday.

The moment produced a striking visual — a handshake between a kippah-wearing rabbi and the new president of Syria, a former Islamist terrorist affiliated with Al-Qaida and ISIS.

The Republican Jewish Coalition announced on Wednesday that it had elected Dan Conston, the former president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, and Charlie Spies, a veteran elections attorney, and philanthropist David Gemunder to its board of directors. 

Conston, a longtime ally of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), led the House GOP campaign arm for six years before departing last December to launch Watchtower Strategy alongside McCarthy. During his time leading CLF, Conston was among those credited with helping House Republicans secure a majority in 2022 and keep the lower chamber in GOP control in 2024. 

Jordan Wood, a Maine Democrat who dropped his Senate bid on Wednesday to run for the seat held by retiring Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME), said in a recent podcast interview that he would reject contributions from AIPAC, the pro-Israel advocacy group, joining a growing crop of Democratic candidates who have made similar pledges.

In the conversation with Kaivan Shroff, a Democratic activist, released last week, Wood pointed to what he called “a tremendous amount of distrust right now among Democratic primary voters that the money that AIPAC has put into our political system has affected our priorities when it comes to foreign aid to Israel.”

At the White House on Monday, as President Donald Trump met with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, two other high-level figures were in attendance — Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, underscoring how Syria has become a new battleground for regional influence. 

Following the fall of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime last December, the war-ravaged nation has become a political vacuum, transformed into a critical security frontier for many regional players — most notably Turkey and Saudi Arabia.