Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed hired a veteran political consultant, Lenore Goldman, as a Jewish outreach director for his campaign. Goldman reportedly said she had joined the campaign in September, but the campaign has made no public announcement.

Goldman, according to her LinkedIn and website, has consulted for various Michigan-based political efforts and causes including Attorney General Dana Nessel’s campaign, a Michigan coordinated campaign effort, a 2018 anti-gerrymandering ballot initiative, an advocacy group working to end the tipped minimum wage and a long-shot 2024 Michigan Democratic House campaign.

Manhattan’s Waldorf Astoria was basking in blue light on Wednesday night as more than 800 guests gathered for the inaugural benefit gala of Robert Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance Against Hate. The sold-out event raised more than $32 million to combat antisemitism and discrimination, according to the organizers. 

The haul marks the largest amount the group has raised in a single night. With opening remarks by CNN commentator Van Jones, the program honored Bank of America Chair and CEO Brian Moynihan for his support of the organization’s work, and featured a video message from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a member of Blue Square’s advisory board, who shared her personal experiences confronting racism and hate. 

Michigan Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers described his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, as a national security threat in their second and final debate, while appealing to Jewish and other disaffected Democratic voters to support him.

Overall, however, the debate was considerably more restrained and sedate than a previous debate two weeks ago.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) and Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon on Wednesday joined the chorus of Democrats speaking out against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and state Sen. Omar Fateh’s planned event in Minneapolis with Hasan Piker, set to take place next week.

“We shouldn’t only condemn bigotry when it’s politically convenient. We as Democrats need to hold ourselves to the same standards that we hold the right,” Frey said in a statement shared with Jewish Insider. 

New York Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander announced on a Zoom call with reporters on Wednesday that he would sign on to a new bill to impose sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Speaking from a hotel in Beit Jala in the West Bank, where the Democrat traveled in a heavily promoted junket to participate in the local olive harvest, Lander told journalists that he had decided that, once he joins the next Congress, he would sign onto the Stop the Settlements Act, which Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) introduced last month. 

Syria’s national school curriculum under President Ahmed al-Sharaa promotes antisemitic depictions of Jews, denies Israel’s right to exist and glorifies violent struggle against the Jewish state, despite the Syrian leader positioning himself as a pragmatic statesman with no hostility toward Jerusalem, according to a new review of the country’s textbooks following the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The study, titled: “The New Syria: Education Under al-Sharaa Review of Syria’s National School Curriculum, 2025-2026,” published by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), evaluated 130 textbooks across grades 1-12 in Syria’s 2025-2026 national curriculum. It marks the first full analysis of instructional materials issued under President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s administration following Assad’s ouster in December 2024.

AIPAC announced on Wednesday that, after three cycles of direct political involvement through its political action committee AIPAC PAC, it will no longer issue endorsements or directly earmark contributions to candidates, but said it will remain involved in political organizing and fundraising in other ways, including with its influential super PAC.

The decision is a striking turnabout just five years after the group first launched its PAC and super PAC and began directly endorsing and fundraising for candidates. The United Democracy Project super PAC, which launched alongside AIPAC’s PAC in 2021 and has spent tens of millions across numerous races, will continue its engagement.

A House Education & Workforce Committee investigation of K-12 schools found widespread issues with antisemitism and anti-Israel advocacy in school curricula in the Philadelphia and Berkeley school districts. It also found that the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, had funded purveyors of antisemitism.

The committee report described the issues in the two school districts as not isolated classroom incidents but systemic patterns of behavior pushing biased definitions of Israel and relying on antisemitic activists and organizations for educational materials.