Daily Kickoff
TOP TALKER: “Iran tests new precision-guided ballistic missile” by Sam Wilkin: “Iran tested a new precision-guided ballistic missile on Sunday in defiance of a United Nations ban, signaling an apparent advance in Iranian attempts to improve the accuracy of its missile arsenal. State television showed what appeared to be a successful launch of the new missile, named Emad, which will be Iran’s first precision-guided weapon with the range to strike its regional arch-enemy Israel.” [Reuters; WSJ] • NYTimes Headline: “Iran Tests Long-Range Missile, Possibly Violating Nuclear Accord” [NYT]
Reports: Washington Post reporter convicted in Iran: “In a broadcast on state TV late Sunday, judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi said: “He has been convicted, but I don’t have the verdict’s details,” according to the Associated Press. Ejehi said Rezaian and his lawyer are eligible to appeal the conviction within 20 days.” [USAToday] • “Iran Hints at Prisoner Exchange” [NYT]
Weekend Essay: “America’s Fading Footprint in the Middle East” by Yaroslav Trofimov: “Even Israel is hedging its bets. Last year, it broke ranks with Washington and declined to vote for a U.S.-sponsored U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning the Russian annexation of Crimea. In recent days, Israel didn’t criticize the Russian bombardment in Syria. So how deep—and how permanent—is this deterioration of the U.S. ability to shape events in the Middle East?” [WSJ]
SUNDAY SHOWS: President Obama on 60 Minutes — “I guarantee you that there are factions inside of the Middle East, and I guess factions inside the Republican party who think that we should send endless numbers of troops into the Middle East, that the only measure of strength is us sending back several hundred thousand troops, that we are going to impose a peace, police the region, and– that the fact that we might have more deaths of U.S. troops, thousands of troops killed, thousands of troops injured, spend another trillion dollars, they would have no problem with that. There are people who would like to see us do that. And unless we do that, they’ll suggest we’re in retreat.” [CBS] • Recap of the other shows [JI]
Elliott Abrams reviews Dennis Ross’ new book — “Best of Frenemies: Though the Washington hand credits Obama with deep sympathy for the Jewish state, the incidents he recounts contradict that assertion.” [WSJ]
2016 WATCH: “Some Florida Jewish voters sour on Hillary Clinton” by Jeremy Diamond: “Republicans have seized on Obama’s rocky relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has publicly clashed with the President over Iran and the Palestinians, to argue that Obama has not been a strong ally of the Jewish state. And they’re extending that criticism to Clinton, who carried out Obama’s policies for four years in her role as his secretary of state. Though Jews overwhelmingly vote Democrat, conversations with Jewish voters at Ben’s Kosher Delicatessen in Boca Raton suggested the GOP strategy is more than just wishful thinking.” [CNN]
“Bernie Sanders’ Brother Is a BDS Supporter” by Jacob Kornbluh: “Bernie’s brother Larry, who lives in England, revealed in a tweet a few months ago that he supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel… Larry has been very supportive of his older brother’s campaign, opening up the window for the media to peek in on Bernie’s upbringing and Jewish childhood in Brooklyn. In April, Bernie Sanders credited his brother as a large influence on his politics.” [JI]
HAPPENING TODAY: Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders set to address Joe Lieberman’s bipartisan No Labels convention: “Eight presidential candidates, including six in person, will speak to an estimated 2,000 political activists in Manchester on Monday at the No Labels’ Problem Solvers Convention.” [WMUR; MSNBC]
Campaign Finance: “The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election” [NYTimes]
BUSINESS BRIEFS: “Fed’s Fischer Says 2015 U.S. Rate Rise ‘an Expectation, Not a Commitment'” [Reuters] • “Why Glencore’s Longtime Lenders Haven’t Walked Away” [Bloomberg] • “Sol Zakay’s Topland sells 24-Apartment block in Putney to private investor for £15m” [PMI] • “Toby Moskovits to settle lawsuits with ex-partners” [RealDeal] • “Trump hits back at Barry Diller after media mogul brands him a ‘huckster'” [DailyMail]
“At Clipper Equity, Generational Change” by Theresa Agovino: “Jacob “J.J.” Bistricer got no cushy job when he joined his family’s real-estate business in 2005 as a 24-year-old. Rather, he was put in charge of Clipper Equity’s effort to fix the broken pipes, leaky roofs and myriad other blights among the 12,000 violations plaguing a massive rent-regulated complex in Flatbush… Mr. Bistricer survived his trial by fire. Most recently, Mr. Bistricer, now chief operating officer, is working with his father, David Bistricer, on a plan to sell a large piece of the family’s portfolio in an initial public offering. Clipper was started by David’s father, Moric Bistricer, who arrived in the U.S. from Belgium in 1951. Now aged 95, he bought up rent-regulated buildings in Manhattan and Brooklyn and still goes to the company’s Borough Park office daily to check on those initial investments.” [WSJ]
SPOTLIGHT: “Adam Neumann’s WeWork Used These Documents To Convince Investors It’s Worth Billions” by Nitasha Tiku: “October 2014 fundraising documents obtained by BuzzFeed News reveal how Neumann answers those questions behind closed doors. The material was shared with BuzzFeed by someone familiar with the company, on the condition of anonymity, and independently verified… But the material also reveals that WeWork relied on enormous demand projections and certain accounting tricks — both of which are popular tactics among private companies — to keep its profit margins looking as high as its aspirations.” [BuzzFeed]
SILICON ALLEY 100 — a ranking of the coolest, most inspiring people in the New York tech industry: 3. Adam Neumann; 5. Dan Doctoroff; 6. Mike Bloomberg; 8. Jonah Peretti; 9. Josh Kushner; 14. David Gilboa and Neil Blumenthal; 19. Barry Diller; 24. Nick Denton; 26. Adam Singolda; 27. Eliot Horowitz; 35. David Haber; 40. Avi Flombaum; 42. David Arabov; 49. Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin; 50. Adi Sideman; 52. Steve Rosenblatt; 54. Robert Reffkin and Ori Allon; 56. Jake Horowitz; 57. Bryan Goldberg; 60. Rob Wiesenthal; 62. Jon Steinberg; 63. Howard Lerman; 66. Alan Tisch, David Tisch; 72. Shana Fisher; 75. Jennifer Fleiss; 83. Ken Lerer; 90. Liz Wessel and JJ Fliegelman; 99. Josh Kopelman. [BusinessInsider]
TALK OF OUR NATION: “In Israel, A New Battle Over Who Qualifies As Jewish” by Emily Harris: “Since the country’s founding, the rabbinate has determined who is considered Jewish and overseen conversions of new Jews. In Israel, only Orthodox conversions are recognized, following halakha, or Jewish law. Reform and conservative streams of Judaism, while widespread in the U.S., have only small followings in Israel and are are not officially recognized by the rabbinate. Secular Israeli Jews joke that the synagogue they don’t go to is Orthodox.” [NPR]
Letter from Shanghai: “City’s Jewish heritage blends glamour and compassion” [IrishTimes]
TALK OF THE TOWN: “Lakewood: 350 Orthodox properties tax-exempt” by Shannon Mullen: “The total number of tax-exempt yeshivas, synagogues and other religious properties owned by the Orthodox Jewish community is in the hundreds, not the thousands, as many here seem to believe, the township’s tax assessor says.” [APP]
“Business grows for lobbying firms linked to Heastie” by Kenneth Lovett: “MirRam Group, has had 26 clients this year, 11 of which jumped aboard after Heastie replaced the criminally charged Sheldon Silver as speaker on Feb. 3… The firm’s most recent client is the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregation of America, which this month began paying Jenkins’ firm $15,000 a month through the end of next year to lobby on education funding. The issue of a controversial education investment tax credit for private and parochial schools promises to be a big issue again in 2016.” [DailyNews]
“Bloomberg health commissioner: City wrong to repeal circumcision forms” by Dan Goldberg: ““I thought the consent forms were the right thing to do and the right balance and so I’m disappointed they rolled that back,” Farley told Politico. “There are some parents who are not themselves ultra-Orthodox who may hire a mohel who is and they may be completely unaware of this [practice]. Those parents deserve to be informed before they take that risk. Under the current schema I don’t think that’s guaranteed.” [CapitalNY]
PROFILE: “He Fought City Hall Over the Homeless. Now He’s Battling From the Inside” by Leslie Kaufman: “When City Hall announced Steve Banks’s appointment, Human Resources Administration officials were watching on television. “There was an audible gasp,” said Lisa Fitzpatrick, a 30-year veteran of the agency who now serves as Mr. Banks’s chief program officer. “We all knew Steve Banks,” she said. “He was seen as an adversary that was constantly monitoring what the agency was doing.”” [NYT]
SPORTS BLINK: “Can Joc Pederson Kill the Cliché That Jewish Athletes Are Smart Weaklings?” by David Fontana: “If Pederson sustains his performance for any length of time, he could be the first respected, mainstream Jewish athlete in some time to be publicly recognized for his powerful athletic performance. This could change the image of Jews in sports, and perhaps even more broadly.” [DailyBeast]
DESSERT: “Is There Anything More L.A. Than This Mexican Kosher Ice Cream Shop?” [LAWeekly]
“Larry Brezner, Hollywood Manager of Star Comics, Is Dead at 73” by Margalit Fox: “Larry Brezner, a Hollywood manager and producer who helped propel two little-known comics named Robin Williams and Billy Crystal to stardom, died on Oct. 5 in Duarte, Calif. He was 73. Lawrence Ira Brezner was born in the Bronx on Aug. 23, 1942. With his family, he often visited the Laurels Country Club in the Catskills to hear the great midcentury comics. To the end of his life, colleagues said, he could mimic them impeccably. “He did the best old Jew I’ve ever heard,” Mr. Steinberg said on Thursday.” [NYT]
Power Couple: “Jon Huntsman’s daughter to wed Gloria Borger’s son” by Emily Heil: “How’s this for a power union: Mary Anne Huntsman, the daughter of former Utah governor and Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman and wife Mary Kaye, is set to tie the knot later this month to Evan Morgan, the son of CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger and her husband, Lance Morgan. The prospective bride and groom, now both 30, were set in 2013 up by a mutual friend, Lynn de Rothschild… The requisite meet-the-family rituals were a success, and Huntsman, who was raised Mormon, plans to convert to Judaism after the Oct. 17 wedding in Montana.” [WashPost]
BIRTHDAYS: BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray… David Schottenstein… Uri Zaki… David Lehrer… Zev Palatnik… Michael Dickson (yesterday)…
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