As the first day of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire held strong, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared the Strait of Hormuz “completely open” for the duration of the 10-day pause in hostilities.

President Donald Trump affirmed the strait is “ready for business and full passage” in a Truth Social post, but said the U.S.’ naval blockade “will remain in full force and effect as it pertains to Iran, only, until such time as our transaction with Iran is 100% complete.” 

Amid a surge in antisemitism across the political spectrum, many American Jews have described feeling a growing sense of isolation. But for Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, being “politically homeless” is not a crisis to be solved, but rather a position to be embraced.

“I don’t think some measure of political homelessness is a fundamentally bad thing,” Kurtzer said on Thursday while speaking alongside Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. “I think Americans have become hyper-partisan in ways that reflect that partisan political identity has become part of our identities in ways that are not healthy for Americans.”

The leader of a newly launched progressive campus advocacy group affiliated with More Perfect Union, a prominent left-wing media organization, liked social media posts justifying the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, and expressed similar sentiments in at least one now-deleted X comment.

Elise Joshi, a Gen Z activist and influencer, is taking the helm of a new campus organization, More Perfect University, that is casting itself as a populist left rival to Turning Point USA, the right-wing advocacy group that has played a key role in pulling younger voters to President Donald Trump and promoting conservative values at colleges and universities across the country.

The Democratic shift on Israel policy was on full, dramatic display on the Senate floor on Wednesday night as 40 of 47 Senate Democrats voted for at least one of two resolutions to block U.S. shipments of bulldozers and bombs to Israel.

The votes left many pro-Israel Democrats shocked and disillusioned — exemplified in the muted statements, if any, on the vote from key pro-Israel groups — and is being seen by some as the marker of a new era of Democratic policy on Israel, in which critics of Israel are firmly in the party mainstream.

The Trump administration official leading a controversial probe into antisemitism at the University of Pennsylvania told Jewish leaders and legal experts on Thursday that compiling a list of Jewish faculty with their detailed personal information was necessary to identify and protect victims. 

“There is no other way to protect victims of harassment or discrimination unless you collect information about them,” Andrea Lucas, chair of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law’s inaugural conference on antisemitism and civil rights law, held at Harvard University. 

Saying that funding to protect synagogues and other religious-based nonprofits “has not kept pace to meet the moment,” 41 senators — almost entirely Democrats — wrote to leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee urging members to provide $750 million in funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in 2027.

That figure amounts to a substantial increase in funding over current levels, as well as over Senate lawmakers’ request from last year.

As Hamas reportedly continues to reject the U.S.-led Board of Peace’s disarmament framework and fails to comply with key demilitarization deadlines, the future of the fragile Gaza peace process remains uncertain.

Disarming Hamas is a central pillar of President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace initiative, which secured the release of the remaining Israeli hostages and included a partial Israeli military withdrawal from eastern Gaza. Its second phase has hinged on Hamas laying down its arms — a step that is expected to pave the way for further IDF withdrawal from the enclave and a transition to governance by the 15-member National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, led by Ali Shaath and operating under the Board of Peace.

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has long been a vocal advocate for combating antisemitism and active on Middle East security issues. But it was her questioning at a December 2023 hearing that made her a household name in the American Jewish community and beyond, and drew her into the center of the unfolding fight on campus antisemitism.

“Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your school’s] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying and harassment?” Stefanik asked the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.