Moderate Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) remains favored to win the New Hampshire Democratic Senate primary, but the race is shaping up to be more competitive than expected, both in the Democratic primary and in the general election.

In the primary, Pappas’ progressive challenger, Karishma Manzur, has been gaining ground against him, and leveling attacks related to Pappas’ past support from AIPAC and backing of  the U.S.-Israel relationship. Pappas has subtly recalibrated his foreign policy views during the primary.

Stefany Shaheen, the daughter of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), has been attacking AIPAC as a central message of her campaign in the closing days of her campaign.

But unlike some other Democrats who have used attacks against Israel to boost fortunes with the progressive base, Shaheen has fallen behind her primary opponent, military veteran Maura Sullivan, who holds a narrow lead in the latest public polling. Sullivan, who entered the race as a supporter of Israel, has also taken a more critical turn, supporting blocking at least some offensive weapons sales to the Jewish state.

Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the Trump administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, visited the United Arab Emirates this week for his first official visit, taking part in high-level meetings that culminated in a Thursday morning discussion with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

During his trip, the envoy also held meetings with senior government officials and rulers, including Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi, chairman of the Defence, Interior and Foreign Affairs Committee at the Federal National Council, the UAE’s parliament.

Footage from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s visit to a Brooklyn Judaica store showed a little-known Orthodox City Hall staffer blowing the shofar and explaining aspects of Hasidic garb to the democratic socialist — as well as ushering aside a heckler — provoking questions and commentary from Jewish observers.

Uri Fraenkel, who accompanied Mamdani and faith liaison Rabbi Miriam Grossman on the pre-High Holidays trip to Borough Park, cuts an unlikely figure in a leftist City Hall: an Israel-supporting Lubavitcher from Crown Heights, whose social media features multiple photos with former Mayor Eric Adams (“a true Mayor who fights for all New Yorkers,” a caption on LinkedIn reads), in whose administration he previously served. 

President Donald Trump met with several Hasidic rabbis at the White House on Thursday ahead of Rosh Hashanah, a gathering his office called the first of its kind in nearly 50 years.

The rabbis, many of whom were pictured in photos that circulated on social media ahead of the meeting flying to Washington on private jets, hailed from a range of leading Hasidic communities in New York — including the two rival Satmar sects in Brooklyn and Kiryas Joel; the Bobov sect in Brooklyn; the Vizhnitz sect in Monsey; and the Skver sect in New Square. 

The American Jewish community spent over $1 billion on security in 2025, according to a new Jewish Federations of North America study — a record high and a 33% increase over 2024.  The results, published today, showed that on average, Jewish communal organizations, including Jewish community centers, synagogues, schools, summer camps and nonprofits, spend roughly $225,000 on security per institution.

“Even the old number, $765 million [spent in 2024], was just a demonstration of the impossible situation that the Jewish community is being put in,” Eric Fingerhut, JFNA’s president and CEO said. “To have to raise extraordinary sums of money and dedicate extraordinary sums of money to security just to be able to fully live a flourishing Jewish life in this great and free country,”

A co-founder of “Jews for Abdul,” a loose coalition of Jewish activists backing Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic nominee for Senate, voiced reservations over the nominee’s approach to Israel in a recent organizing call, arguing he could “do a better job” toning down harsh rhetoric that has alienated many Jewish voters in the key battleground state.

Steve Gold, a “Jews for Abdul” member in a heavily Jewish Detroit suburb, said during the mid-August call that there were “three issues” about which El-Sayed has been “less than effective in communicating” his views, citing his refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, his “insistence on using the word genocide” to describe Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and his opposition to all U.S. funding for Israel, including defensive aid.

Vice President JD Vance defended his friendship with antisemitic podcaster Tucker Carlson at a White House press briefing on Thursday, saying that he would not “play the game where I throw friends under the bus because I have political disagreements with them.”

Vance made the comments after being asked to respond to the concerns raised by his continued association with the far-right commentator and accusations that he has been “avoiding addressing a lot of these issues,” as Carlson has increasingly used his show to promote antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial.