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HAPPY HUMMUS DAY! More on that below…

DRIVING THE CONVO — Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) set off a firestormon Friday as she claimed that Palestinians provided Jews a “safe haven” after the Holocaust. Tlaib made these remarks in the context of arguing in favor of a one-state solution during an interview on the Yahoo News Skullduggerypodcast with Michael Isikoff and Dan Klaidman on Friday.

Describing it as a “calming feeling,” Tlaib said, “I always tell folks, when I think of the Holocaust and the tragedy of the Holocaust and the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, the human dignity, their existence in some ways had been wiped out… all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post the Holocaust, post the tragedy and horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time. And, I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that.” [JewishInsider]

“There is no justification for the twisted and disgusting comments made by Rashida Tlaib just days after the annual Day of Holocaust Remembrance,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) said in a statement.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the House Republican Conference Chair, tweeted: “Surely now Speaker Pelosi⁩ & ⁦Leader Hoyer⁩ will finally take action against vile anti-Semitism in their ranks. This must cross the line, even for them. Rashida Tlaib says thinking of the Holocaust provides her a ‘calming feeling.’”

Dr. Einat Wilf tweeted: “Is she f***ng kidding?! Arabs of Palestine bear MASSIVE responsibility for scale of [the] Holocaust. Had they not opposed Zionism at every turn and forced Britain to betray its mandate, the Jews of Europe would have had a place to flee when they still could!”

Rep. Tlaib pushed back against critics on Sunday night, claiming her comments were deliberately taken out of context: “Policing my words, twisting & turning them to ignite vile attacks on me will not work. All of you who are trying to silence me will fail miserably. I will never allow you to take my words out of context to push your racist and hateful agenda. The truth will always win.”

HEARD THE OTHER DAY — Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in remarksduring a breakfast with reporters on Friday: “There’s been an overwhelming focus on a small number of members in our caucus who did not flip seats, who did not help win the House, who are doing what is right for their districts, but who don’t represent our districts, or at least my district.”

PODCAST PLAYBACK — Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the new members on the left are not his ‘cup of tea,’ in an interview on the AJC Passport podcast. “There are a handful of people that aren’t my cup of tea, but we have to transcend that and we will, and we have been,” Engel stressed.

Engel added: “I want to make sure that the U.S.-Israel relationship is so strong that it doesn’t even matter who is president or who is prime minister at any given time, because presidents come and go, prime ministers come and go, member of the Knesset come and go, and even members of Congress come and go — although I don’t want to go so quickly.” [AJCPassport]

Vice President Mike Pence renewed his call for Democratic leadership to strip Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) of her seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Ilhan Omar has made statements — antisemitic comments — against our most cherished ally Israel that ought to be rejected by every American,” Pence said in an interview with Fox and Friends on Friday. “Congresswoman Omar has no place on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Democratic leadership ought to remove her.” [Video]

ON THE HILL — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is under fire for allowing North Texas Imam Omar Suleiman, who once compared Israel to the Nazis, to deliver the invocation on the House floor on Thursday. Suleiman was invited by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX). Pelosi’s office told JTA that it is looking into how and why Rep. Johnson invited Suleiman.

Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) said in a statement that inviting Suleiman was a “terribly bad call.”

Suleiman responded to the criticism in a lengthy statement on Sunday: “When I said this prayer on the U.S. House floor on Thursday, I held in my heart the Jews in Pittsburgh and San Diego, the Christians in Sri Lanka, and the Muslims in Christchurch I had the opportunity of burying and praying upon… After giving the invocation in Congress last week, I have been attacked online and threatened with violence. This hate is similar to the hate that led to the other massacres above… Never did I expect my prayer on the House floor would be so threatening… I have never attacked the Jewish community or peddled conspiracies about it… I have spent my life fighting bigotry whether targeted at my Jewish brethren or at my own community, or at anyone else.”

HEARD ON THE TRAIL — South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg singled out casino mogul Sheldon Adelson by name during remarks at the Human Rights Campaign gala held at the Caesar’s Palace on the Las Vegas Strip. “A real democracy — I must say this even though I know I’m a guest in Sheldon Adelson’s town — but a real democracy means that the voice you have in our political process is gauged by the merits of what you have to say and not by the number of zeros in your bank balance,” he said to applause. [Video]

Batya Ungar-Sargon‏ tweeted: “Of course, one can criticize Sheldon Adelson without using antisemitic dog whistles. But if blaming George Soros for the caravan is a dog whistle, so is this. Either all money is dirty or no money is dirty. But when you focus on Jewish money, you’re talking to people who hate us.”

Alex Halpern Levy, a former aide to Senator Chuck Schumer who has advised Jewish leaders on the left and right, tells JI: “Calling out Sheldon Adelson’s outsized political influence is not a dog whistle; it’s stating an indisputable fact. Ridding our politics of the corrosive effects of big money is a pillar of Buttigieg’s campaign, and I see his comment as consistent with that focus.”

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) discussed his support for Israel and critics of Israel within the Democratic Party in an interview on The Axe Filespodcast with David Axelrod.

Axelrod: What do you make of the debate within the Democratic Party over Israel and there were some young members of the House, of color, have raised concerns about the Palestinians, about Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. And this has created obvious tension, Representative Omar’s comments and so on. That seems more pronounced.

Booker: “You know, I have the blessing of discovering Israel before I was a politician. And you know this, a lot of times the first trips people take, often when they’re running for office — they run over to Israel, and they should, to learn about foreign policy. My first trip to Israel was when I was 24 years old. I had been studying Torah for two years and discovering Israel for me, and the people of Israel and the authenticity and the grit… Some of the harshest criticisms of Israeli policy right now are Israeli Jews and the wonderful thing about Israel is its democracy and you have fearsome debates, the same way we have in our country. And I often laugh at people and say, ‘I don’t want anybody to judge my nation on Donald Trump and the same way I’m not going to judge Israel by Netanyahu.’”

Axelrod: That’s the government policy. Now, the question is whether or not the opportunity for the two-state solution that’s stood for a generation has a future.

Booker: “And it’s in peril, I would say legitimacy so. And I worry about this administration. You hear the President’s comments, he doesn’t even seem to understand the history of that commitment to a two-state solution and is doing things to me that are offensive by pulling back humanitarian support. I understand one thing, not giving payments to the Palestinian Authority, I supported the Taylor Force Act, but to pull money from NGOs and other[s]— often led by Americans trying to get access to clean water, that’s wrong to me. And so this is a perilous time that I think we as a government, and we as a nation, need to recommit ourselves to a two-state solution.” [AxeFiles]

ULTIMATE DEAL WATCH — The rollout of the Trump peace plan won’t happen before June 10th, Mideast peace envoy Jason Greenblatt told Fox News in an interview published on Saturday. According to Greenblatt, the plan will include both political and economic solutions to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “It deals with all the core issues. We have developed solutions for each point,” he said. In an interview with Reuters, Greenblatt said that it would be a mistake for the Palestinian Authority to proclaim it dead on arrival before it has been presented. “For any side to say it’s dead on arrival and not give it a lot of attention and hard work is a tremendous missed opportunity.”

INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE — Eliana Johnson reports on Jared Kushner’s pre-rollout briefings: “Kushner has convened dozens of journalists at the White House with the goal of getting them on board with the plan, but declined to discuss the details — though he promises to unveil ‘the most detailed plan ever,’ according to two people who have attended these meetings… Foreign diplomats say they have seen what they describe as the ‘economic portion’ of the plan… but remain in the dark about what the White House is describing as the political portion.” [Politico]

REPORT — Channel 12’s Amit Segal reported on Sunday that the Trump peace plan will recognize all Israeli settlements in the West Bank under Israeli rule. The administration will also not object to the government unilaterally applying civilian law over those communities, according to the report.

Channel 13’s Barak Ravid reports: Former IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Gadi Eizenkot warned of an imminent outbreak of violence in the West Bank in a meeting with Greenblatt last week. Eizenkot, who is in the U.S. as a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute, participated in the 3-hour meeting along with ten other Middle East experts. According to the report, Eizenkot told Greenblatt that the situation in the West Bank is “sensitive and explosive” — partially due to the total cessation of U.S. funding to the Palestinian Authority and its security forces. He recommended the White House take the danger of an escalation in consideration when presenting the peace plan.

Washington Institute’s Robert Satloff, who interviewed Jared Kushner at the Washington Institute’s 2019 Soref Symposium dinner earlier this month, writes… “Jared Kushner’s Peace Plan Would Be a Disaster: Reading between the lines, it seems as though they view the peace process as the functional equivalent of turning a rent-controlled apartment building in midtown Manhattan into luxury condominiums… If past is prologue, most Palestinians — and certainly their leaders — would prefer to wait out the developers rather than accept a lowball offer; after all, they rejected far more attractive offers before.” [AmericanInterest]

A senior administration official tells Politico: “There’s risks to not doing anything, too. He doesn’t know what’s in our plan, he doesn’t know what we’re doing, so I think it’s a little naive of him to be saying that without really understanding context. The one thing we are not going to do is do it just like these people in the past in order to get these idiots praising us.”

VIEW FROM RAMALLAH — Hanan Ashrawi, a veteran Palestinian politician told NBC News that the Palestinians don’t believe diplomacy should be conducted on Twitter but are paying close attention nonetheless.

Michael Oren hangs up on the New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner: Former MK Michael Oren discussed Netanyahu’s victory and the state of politics in Israel. But when Chotiner pressed him about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S.-Israel relations, Oren cut the interview short and hung up the phone on him.

Chotiner: Why is [the two-state solution] no longer tenable?

Oren: “The two-state solution, of which that formula was part, is no longer supported by anybody not just to the center right but even in the center. You would have to go to the left to find anyone who supports the two-state solution.” 

…. 

Chotiner: I am curious about American-Israeli relations.

Oren: “But you are not interested in this; you are not actually interested in what I have to say. And I can see already you are going to put things in my mouth that you have taken out of context.” 

Chotiner: I am not going to take anything out of context.

Oren: “Sure you are. You already have in the questions. Your questions are hostile, but they are not even informed hostile. You are not that good. So let’s just pull it, and we will call it quits, and please don’t call me again. Take care. [Hangs up.]” [NewYorker]

1ST ANNIVERSARY — U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman writes… “A year after opening the Jerusalem embassy: On the right side of history: Contrary to all the negative predictions, the Jerusalem embassy has been an extraordinary success, advancing peaceful coexistence, bilateral cooperation and cultural exchange between and among Israelis, Palestinians and Americans. Most of all, the United States Embassy in Jerusalem stands for the truth – the bedrock of all successful policies.” [IsraelHayom]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday that plans to name a community on the Golan after President Trump are underway. “I would like to inform you that we have already selected a site on the Golan Heights where this new community will be established, and we have started the process,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. “I will submit a decision for official approval by the new government once it is formed.”

The place chosen for the new community is an existing village called Beruchim that was repeatedly settled and abandoned over the years. Today, Beruchim is the home of 10 people. Residents of the neighboring Qela hung signs protesting the move on their entrance gate.

STATE VISIT — A bipartisan delegation of U.S. mayors, led by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, is on a weeklong visit to Israel with the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange. The group is expected to meet with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, high-ranking government officials and Jewish and Arab civil society leaders.

IRAN ON NOTICE — The Pentagon will deploy a Patriot anti-missile battery to the Middle East to shore up defenses against Iranian threats, Pentagon officials said on Friday. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace division, called the increased U.S. presence in the region “opportunities” to turn into targets. “If (the Americans) make a move, we will hit them in the head,” the Iranian commander said on Sunday. Israel’s Minister of Energy, Yuval Steinitz, warned of possible direct or proxy Iranian attacks on Israel should the standoff between Tehran and Washington escalate.

Meanwhile, CNN reported on Friday, the White House has contacted Swiss officials and given them a phone number for Iran to directly call President Trump for direct negotiations. A source told CNN that the Swiss are unlikely to hand over the phone number to Iran unless they are asked to, and that Iran is unlikely to make such a request. President Hassan Rouhani is showing no signs of capitulating. 

Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, tells The Atlantic that the more Trump offers negotiations, the more the supreme leader himself will appear to Iranians to be the obstacle to economic relief. 

TALK OF THE REGION — Saudi Arabia claims two of its oil tankers came under attack off the coast of the UAE on Sunday, shortly after the UAE said four of its vessels had been sabotaged amid rising tensions in the Gulf. 

DRIVING THE DAY ― President Trump will host Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the Oval Office this afternoon. This marks the first such Oval Office meeting since Orbán met with President Bill Clinton in 1998. The last time a Hungarian PM visited the WH was in 2005 when then-PM Ferenc Gyurcsany met President George W. Bush.

Orbán was elected for a third term last year in an election marked by xenophobic fears of refugees and immigrants from the Middle East, and has been denounced for limiting press freedom, undermining judicial independence, encouraging racist and antisemitic conspiracies and targeting an institution founded by George Soros. White House advisers are cautioningTrump against a full embrace of Orbán.

BUZZ ON BALFOUR — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to advance a far-reaching bill that would allow the Knesset and government ministers to ignore rulings of the High Court of Justice in administrative matters, Haaretz reported on Monday. The proposed law, that is said to be included in the coalition agreements, would permit the annulment of a High Court decision to rescind Netanyahu’s immunity, if such a decision is made. Likud denied the report. 

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin granted Netanyahu a two-week extension to form a coalition on Monday. Netanyahu now faces a May 29 deadline to form a government. 

2020 WATCH  — They worked for Barack Obama. They’re not supportingJoe Biden — yet… ‘There he goes again’? Not yet, as Biden avoids major gaffes… Democrats think Biden and Sanders benefit from running against one another… Cory Booker hits Elizabeth Warren over her proposal to break up tech giants… Beto O’Rourke plans ‘reintroduction’ as 2020 buzz fizzles… Kirsten Gillibrand is campaigning by living her best life. So why aren’t voters responding?… Pete Buttigieg’s unexpected rise draws praise, envy from fellow mayors… 

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BUSINESS BRIEFS:Long-Term Stock Exchange, founded by Eric Ries, Cleared to Become 14th U.S. Stock Exchange [WSJ]• Aterian Investment Partners enters into agreement to acquire Hain Pure Protein, which is comprised of the Empire Kosher, Kosher Valley and FreeBird poultry brands [Yahoo] • Jacob Rothschild Flew the Nest and Still Became Fabulously Rich [Bloomberg] • Julian Edelman graduates from Kent State University 10 years after leaving to enter the NFL draft[Boston]

Hedge Funds No Longer Stars of Their Flashiest Conference  — by Rachael Levy: “Daniel Loeb was once a featured speaker at a Las Vegas event considered a staple of the hedge-fund circuit. This year the billionaire manager didn’t show. The SkyBridge Alternatives Conference, known as SALT, is famous for attracting heavyweight investors along with celebrities and politicians. But a number of hedge-fund stars such as Ken Griffin, Steve Cohen, David Tepper and Paul Singer were missing this year from the halls of the Bellagio after speaking or attending in the past… A prominent hedge-fund investor who was scheduled to speak, Avenue Capital co-founder Marc Lasry, dropped out before the conference started. Mr. Lasry, an owner of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team, said he watched the team play in the NBA playoffs instead.” [WSJ]

PROFILE — Frances Fox Piven, of a political generation — by Alex Traub: “Frances Fox Piven was born in Canada in 1932 and grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens. Her parents both emigrated from Uzlyany, a shtetl near Minsk. It’s a background shared by other great polemicists of the 20th century. The sociologist Nathan Glazer, the historian Howard Zinn, and the writer Vivian Gornick also were born between 1920 and 1935 to Jewish immigrant parents from Eastern Europe and grew up in outer-borough New York. The same goes for the socialist critic Irving Howe, whose father, like Ms. Piven’s, struggled to run a deli. Secular to the point of not celebrating birthdays, nostalgic for the culture of Russia and bitterly conscious of their poverty, Ms. Piven’s family found a source of meaning in politics. This was most true of her father… With the rise of a youthful radical left, her admirers are growing in influence for the first time since Ms. Piven entered politics in the 1960s.”[NYTimes]

The Survivor: Shalom Yospe’s resilience living in Nahal Oz near Israel’s embattled border with Gaza since the 1960s — by Noga Tarnopolsky: “Shalom Yospe has made it his home since 1965, when he was 19 years old… He is a happy man. During his years at Nahal Oz he has cycled through several careers (diving instructor; chief inspector of buildings for a major car importer) married, had four children, divorced, endured a bout of cancer and now, when not engaged in his favorite activity, which is adventure traveling, he enjoys observing the kibbutz’s flourishing green lawns from the comfort of his porch… In years past, Yospe has lost a car to a rocket and, separately, a motorbike, ‘gone,’ he says… Usually, when sirens wail, Yospe grabs a cigarette and a coffee and passes the time on his porch. But last weekend was ‘difficult,’ he says, and in part to appease his kids, none of whom live in Nahal Oz, he ‘took my blankie and went to the safe room.’” [DailyBeast]

Reclaiming Lost Palestinian Dreams Through Role-Play — by Steven Davidson: “Along with hundreds of adults, more than 3,000 kids in schools and refugee camps have LARPed with Bait Byout, learning leadership and community skills. Laura Alajma is communicating with the Ministry of Education seeking to embed LARP into the school curriculum, and she is pursuing LARP’s potential in the private sector. Bait Byout has brought LARP to places like Tunisia, Jordan and Lebanese refugee camps. But for a group promoting healing, the greatest division Palestinians face — with Israelis — remains a topic so contentious that they avoid it.” [Ozy]

Jewish-Swedish astronaut prepares for blast off with Israeli flag — by Itamar Eichner: “An astronaut whose father fought in the 1948 War of Independence, will be the fourth Jewish woman to participate in a NASA space mission this September… The 41-year-old Jessica Meir was born in the United States to an Iraqi-Israeli father and Native American-Swedish mother… Jessica claims that despite her mother being Christian, she and her brothers see themselves as Jews and occasionally visit a synagogue… Among the three items — each astronaut is allowed to take with them on a mission — Jessica decided to take an Israeli flag (along with a pair of socks which have an image of a seven-branch menorah on them).” [Ynet]

Antisemitic Arizona pastor becomes first person banned from Ireland — by Tamar Lapin: “An anti-gay, anti-Semitic Arizona pastor [Steven Anderson] on Sunday became the first person to be banned from Ireland.” [NYPost]

SPORTS BLINK — Putin Shoots, Scores and Falls Face First on Hockey Ice — by Palko Karasz: “Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin… is known as a fierce competitor in the ice hockey rink… But that image slipped, just briefly, during a friendly game at the Bolshoi Ice Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Friday. Video footage shows a jubilant Mr. Putin and his team circling the rink on skates as they celebrated a 14-7 victory. But as Mr. Putin takes his lap in front of his teammates, smiling and waving to fans, basking in the cheers of the crowd, he falls — face first — onto the ice.” [NYTimes]

LONG READ — Was Shakespeare a Woman? — by Elizabeth Winkler: “Not long after my Macbeth outing, I learned that Shakespeare’s Globe, in London, had set out to explore this figure’s input to the canon. The theater’s summer 2018 season concluded with a new play, Emilia, about a contemporary of Shakespeare’s named Emilia Bassano. Born in London in 1569 to a family of Venetian immigrants — musicians and instrument-makers who were likely Jewish — she was one of the first women in England to publish a volume of poetry (suitably religious yet startlingly feminist, arguing for women’s “Libertie” and against male oppression). Her existence was unearthed in 1973 by the Oxford historian A. L. Rowse, who speculated that she was Shakespeare’s mistress, the “dark lady” described in the sonnets… Her Bassano lineage — scholars suggest the family were conversos, converted or hidden Jews presenting as Christians — also helps account for the Jewish references that scholars of the plays have noted.” [TheAtlantic]

EUROVISION — Eurovision week kicks off with glitz and glamor in Tel Aviv — by Amy Spiro: “Eurovision festivities officially kicked off Sunday evening… All 41 contestants walked along the orange carpet laid out in Habima Square in the heart of Tel Aviv, posing for photos and greeting fans as well as local and international media… ‘We are very happy that we have [the Eurovision] here,’ Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai told event host Noa Tishby… The four Eurovision hosts, Erez Tal, Bar Refaeli, Assi Azar and Lucy Ayoub, made their appearance at the very end of the evening… The first live semi-final will be held on Tuesday evening at Expo Tel Aviv, when the first batch of 17 countries take the stage… The grand finale… will be held in Tel Aviv on May 18.” [JPost]

TALK OF THE TOWN — The Wall Street Journal‘s critic at large Edward Rothstein took a tour of the new ‘Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away’ exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. The following is his observation: “This show wields considerable power, but, like most Holocaust exhibitions (aside from Yad Vashem in Jerusalem), it is oddly discomfited by that Judaic center and overly content with contemporary platitudes. In the catalog, Piotr M. A. Cywiński, the director of the Auschwitz museum, warns that an Auschwitz could happen again because of ‘the escalation of populism, xenophobia, antisemitism, and other racist ideologies.’ … But we see enough at this exhibition to recognize that anti-Semitism is not really an example of racism (or a matter of ‘tropes,’ as is now often suggested). It is, instead, as Auschwitz itself starkly suggests, an almost metaphysical vision of threatening evil.” [WSJ]

Three Brothers Bakery in Houston loses kosher certification after staying open on Passover: “The story of the Three Brothers Bakery began in Chrzanow, Poland when the Jucker family opened a bakery nearly 200 years ago. The family was sent to concentration camps in 1941, escaped in 1945, and opened the original Three Brothers Bakery in Houston in 1949… After Hurricane Harvey, current owners, Bobby and Janice Jucker, say they took on almost $750,000 in disaster loans to help recover the business. The Juckers had to make a tough decision in 2019, keep the kosher bakery open during Passover, or potentially close the bakery. Bobby and Janice decided it was best for their business and employees to stay open. Their decision ended up costing them their kosher certification.”

“‘We have a survivor mentality, we’re going to survive,’ said Janice. Bobby, the fifth generation baker, and his wife say they will continue to make their baked goods the same way, and hope their kosher customers will continue to come by the bakery, even if it is just to say hello.” [ABC13]

DESSERT — Dubai is going to organize a hummus festival & the best part is that it’s going to be held during iftar: “It’s International Hummus Day on the 13th of May, 2019. And all hummus lovers will concur that our love for the delicious spread/dip goes much beyond just one day. So, to help all the hummus lovers celebrate, Al Meada, a restaurant at DoubleTree by Hilton in Dubai is organizing a legit hummus festival. And the best part? They’re planning to organize it at the same time as their iftar buffet so that all those observing Ramadan can also enjoy the dish.” [GQ]

Ben Lang, who founded the day seven years ago in Tel Aviv, tells us regarding the global spread of International Hummus Day: “I’m thrilled to see Hummus Day celebrations in dozens of countries this year. It’s all happened organically because people just love their hummus. Particularly neat to see so much traction in places like Dubai and Australia, so far from where this all started.”

BIRTHDAYS: Lawyer Sir Sydney Lipworth QC turns 88… Film, television and stage actress, Zohra Lampert turns 82… Actor and producer, Harvey Keitel turns 80… Former FDA Commissioner (1990-1997), he then served as dean of the Yale School of Medicine (1997-2003), David A. Kessler turns 68… San Francisco-born, raised in Israel, author and CEO of LRN, a legal research, ethics and compliance management firm, Dov Seidman turns 55… NFL defensive lineman (1995-2002), Josh Heinrich Taves, a/k/a Josh Heinrich, turns 47… Ice hockey player, she won a gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics and a silver medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics, Sara Ann DeCosta turns 42…

UK Labour Party MP (2010-2019), in February 2019 she left the Labour Party to form The Independent Group of MPs, Luciana Berger turns 38… Software entrepreneur, Google project manager (2004-2007), Facebook engineering lead (2007-2008), co-founder in 2008 of Asana, Justin Rosenstein turns 36… Retired NFL offensive lineman (2008-2015), Brian de la Puente turns 34… Actress and director, known as the creator, writer and star of the HBO series “Girls,” Lena Dunham turns 33… Talent and outreach program manager at Google, Raquel Saxe… The Israel Director for J Street since 2012, Yael Patir… Dore Feith…