Rep. John James (R-MI), the GOP nominee for governor of Michigan, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) visited Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich., the site of an attempted shooting and bombing attack earlier this year, on Thursday.

“I appreciate Leader Scalise coming here to see the site of the attack first-hand, and to talk with community leaders,” James said in a statement. “To have a top member of Congress visit signals that we are treating the rise in threats seriously, and that this is an urgent national concern.”

Andy Baker, a White House deputy national security advisor and one of Vice President JD Vance’s closest foreign policy aides, is leaving the Trump administration in the coming weeks.

Baker, a former foreign service officer at the State Department, served as Vance’s national security advisor in the White House and in Vance’s Senate office before joining the White House National Security Council this spring. He emerged as a low-profile but influential figure within the Trump administration on foreign policy matters and was directly involved in diplomatic talks with Iran in the aftermath of this year’s war.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), facing a runoff special election to succeed the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), has walked a fine line on supporting Israel during his nearly decade in Congress — maintaining strong rhetorical support for the Jewish state while voting against major aid packages and some antisemitism legislation.

Sources with Norman’s campaign and with the campaign of his opponent, Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC), told Jewish Insider that both camps are seeking the pro-Israel vote in the Aug. 25 runoff. Still, the two candidates have taken different approaches to the issue, which are now under the microscope as the race enters its final leg. 

A federal judge in Boston dismissed the Trump administration’s antisemitism lawsuit against Harvard University on Thursday, ruling that the incidents were “too isolated and episodic” to show an ongoing violation of civil rights law.

Judge Richard Stearns pointed out that while the government’s amended complaint cited three March 2025 incidents, it still focused almost entirely on the 2023–2024 school year. 

J Street Action Fund, the super PAC affiliated with the progressive Israel advocacy group, spent $108,000 on Thursday on digital advertisements to boost progressive California state Sen. Aisha Wahab in the special election in California’s 14th Congressional District.

The AIPAC-affiliated super PAC United Democracy Project has spent nearly $2.5 million — along with significant independent expenditures by other groups — attacking Wahab and boosting moderate former local mayor Melissa Hernandez in the special election runoff to replace former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA).

A synagogue in the capital of Vermont co-sponsored a fundraiser last Sunday for Mohsen Mahdawi, a former Columbia University anti-Israel activist who has voiced sympathy for Hamas, drawing sharp criticism from some congregants. 

The event took place at Unitarian Church of Montpelier, which co-sponsored it with Beth Jacob Synagogue, according to a flyer posted on the synagogue’s website and distributed to all members. The congregation is unaffiliated with a denomination.

A quarter century ago, when the late Sen. Joe Lieberman was tapped by Al Gore, the Democratic nominee for president, to be his running mate on the 2000 ticket, the question around many a Shabbat table was, “Is he too Jewish to be in the White House?”

There’s a different question being asked, largely in Democratic circles, of today’s Jewish presidential candidates: “Is he the ‘right’ kind of Jewish candidate to be president?” — a question that is almost entirely centered around a candidate’s position on Israel and how openly he identifies with his religious faith. 

Behnam Ben Taleblu, the senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Iran program, warned on Thursday of potential Iranian escalation — military or otherwise — in the run-up to the midterms, with the goal of disrupting the elections.

Taleblu said on a panel at the Hudson Institute that, ahead of November, “my fear for the president prior to the midterms … is not failure. My fear for the president now is success.” He said that U.S. economic pressure alongside the blockade has been highly effective and will have success in squeezing Iran’s economy and oil exports, potentially bringing retaliation from Iran, even in the event of another diplomatic agreement.