The Democratic National Committee announced the launch of a new Jewish constituency council in order to organize and engage Jewish Democrats in advance of the 2028 election.

“Following many months of engagement with DNC members around the country, I’m pleased to welcome the Jewish American Council as a new constituency council of the DNC,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement. “The council will serve as an important outreach and advocacy body, and I’m grateful to the many members who shared their perspectives throughout this process.”

A FlyDubai flight from the United Arab Emirates bound for Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia this morning in what Israeli security officials said may have been a terrorist incident following a violent altercation in which the plane’s captain, reportedly assisted by a passenger, wrested control from his co-pilot after the plane was thrown into a brief, rapid descent.

Images emerged in the hours following the incident of several passengers in bloody clothing. “We just heard screams, and then the cockpit door opened and we saw a huge amount of blood,” one passenger told Israeli media after landing in Saudi Arabia’s Tabuk Airport, near the Gulf state’s border with Jordan. Video also showed passengers tending to the pilot covered in blood on the floor, while the co-pilot appears tied up and possibly unconscious.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) wrote to Attorney General Todd Blanche and New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport on Wednesday urging them to investigate alleged antisemitic zoning discrimination against Hasidic Jews by the city of Linden, N.J.

The letter highlights zoning changes allegedly enacted with what the letter says is the discriminatory goal of limiting the Hasidic community’s religious and family lives since the Hasidic community began settling in the city seven years ago.

Noah Arbit, a rising Jewish Democrat in Michigan’s state Legislature, has been a vocal critic of Abdul El-Sayed, a fellow Democrat whose Senate campaign in the key battleground state has exposed deep divisions within the Jewish community.

But until now, Arbit had not yet publicly clarified if he is willing to set aside his differences and endorse El-Sayed, like some prominent Jewish Democrats in the state who have recently announced their support despite reservations with his hostile stances on Israel and approach to countering antisemitism.

On Tuesday, the day his new memoir about spending 491 days in Russian captivity hit bookshelves, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich reflected on the country he covered for six years — and on how dramatically life there has changed for Russian Jews since the start of the war in Ukraine. 

Speaking at the Streicker Center in Manhattan, in conversation with The New Yorker’s David Remnick, Gershkovich recalled being struck by the vibrancy of Jewish life in Moscow when he moved there a decade ago to report on Russia. Gershkovich, the son of Soviet refuseniks, said the war and President Vladimir Putin’s increasingly hostile stance toward Israel changed that. 

U.S. efforts to protect commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have helped revive Persian Gulf oil exports and weaken Iran’s grip on the waterway, experts now acknowledge, but a debate is brewing over how durable those gains are, and whether Washington is willing to sustain the costly naval commitment that underpins them.

Persian Gulf crude exports rebounded to nearly 13 million barrels a day in September, approaching 72% to 80% of pre-war volumes as regional flows head back toward normal levels. According to maritime tracker Kpler, crude oil moving specifically through the Strait of Hormuz climbed to a wartime high average of 7.4 million barrels a day — supplemented by alternative pipeline and ship-to-ship routes — with an average of 17 to 19 tankers securely transiting the waterway daily under U.S. military protection.

Nearly all Senate Democrats voted on Tuesday for a resolution requiring the State Department to produce a report for Congress on violence by settlers and Israeli forces in the West Bank, with a focus on the killings and detentions of Americans.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) was the only Democratic senator to vote against the resolution — a striking turnabout from a vote on a similar resolution more than two years ago, when a small minority of Democrats voted in favor. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was the sole Republican to support the measure. The resolution failed by a 51-47 vote.

Republican lawmakers are speaking up against recent moves by European countries to impose new sanctions and trade restrictions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

The latest restrictions took effect in the Netherlands on Sept. 22, when the country began barring goods obtained or produced wholly or partly in Israeli settlements from entering the country, including products carried by private travelers. Violations can carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison. Israel has since revoked the diplomatic status of Dutch diplomats serving in Ramallah.