Then-Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Thomas Nides speaks during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the September 11th attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, on Capitol Hill, December 20, 2012 in Washington, D.C.

After months of intense speculation and numerous reports that Thomas Nides was a top contender for the job, the Biden administration announced on Tuesday that it will nominate the Morgan Stanley vice chairman and former deputy secretary of state for management and resources as U.S. ambassador to Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

High praise: Dennis Ross, a fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, described Nides as “an inspired choice.” Ross added that Nides’s close ties to Biden, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will be critical assets to him in Jerusalem. “The message to Israel is you’re getting someone who is high-powered, has experience, but is extremely close to the president and the two most senior people on foreign policy and national security,” Ross said. “It cuts both ways, both in terms of the Israelis knowing their concerns will be immediately brought in in a very clear way to the highest levels of the administration… [and] the Israelis will know that when the ambassador comes in to the prime minister, this is someone who’s absolutely representing where the president’s coming from.”

Speed dial: Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a friend of Nides, described the Morgan Stanley vice chairman as “the perfect choice.” Miller noted that Nides has both previous government experience and political connections — rather than being a career foreign service officer or a high-powered donor with no government experience. “Because he is not a former elected official, he understands about being a staffer, which is what being an ambassador is, right?” said Jarrod Bernstein, a former White House associate director of public engagement and cohost of JI’s “Limited Liability Podcast.”

Building relationships: Miller said that Nides will “do really well in the personality department, particularly with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett,” who also has a background in finance and business. “The bilateral relationship is going to improve fundamentally” under the new Israeli government, Miller predicted. “Not only will Biden be the beneficiary of that, Nides will be the beneficiary as well. In many ways this is a perfect appointment and it’s coming at a time when the Biden administration will be open to Israel, and the Israelis will respond, in a way we have not seen… in the Netanyahu years.”

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A Yemeni Jewish family poses together in Raydah.

Jews have lived in Yemen for nearly two millennia. A thriving community, which less than a century ago was 50,000 strong, has dwindled to single digits in recent months. In March 2021, the majority of Yemen’s tiny Jewish population was expelled from the country. One of the only remaining community members is Levi Salem Marhabi, a Jewish man who has been imprisoned by the Houthi rebels since 2016, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Ancient artifact: Marhabi was arrested for the crime of smuggling a national artifact out of the country, after he helped a group of departing Yemeni Jews bring an ancient Torah, said to be 800 years old, with them to Israel. Human rights organizations claim he now remains in prison solely because of his religion, and that his health is rapidly deteriorating. He did not want to make aliyahto Israel: “We have an interview of Levi on Yemeni TV, which I think is from about 13 years ago, in which he said that he would have to be kicked out of the country, that that was the only way he would ever leave,” said Jason Guberman, executive director of the American Sephardi Federation, which has spearheaded a campaign on Marhabi’s behalf, in conjunction with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

From Foggy Bottom: “We continue to advocate for the release of Yemeni Jew Levi Marhabi. We have raised his case repeatedly at the U.N. Security Council and the former secretary of state released a statement calling for his immediate release,” a State Department spokesperson told JI, referring to a November 2020 statement made by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “calling for [Marhabi’s] immediate and unconditional release.” When asked whether Secretary of State Tony Blinken would comment on Marhabi’s imprisonment, the spokesperson said, “We don’t preview statements,” but noted that “throughout his tenure, Secretary Blinken has been very outspoken about his and the Biden administration’s commitment to human rights and the plight of unjustly detained individuals.”

Dwindling diversity: The only Jews left in the country, aside from Marhabi, are four elderly co-religionists with no families to continue propagating Jewish life in the country. But the departure of the 13 Jews in March also demonstrates how Yemen has, under Houthi rule, essentially stamped out all forms of religious diversity: Jewish life in modern-day Yemen, which has survived for thousands of years, will soon come to an end, and the Shi’ite Houthis — themselves a minority in the country — have persecuted Yemen’s Baha’i minority and forced their beliefs onto the country’s much larger population of Sunni Muslims.

Iran angle: Financial backing from Iran has had a significant role in the Houthis’ rise, U.S. officials have said. In April, Lenderking told lawmakers that “Iran’s support to the Houthis is quite significant, and it’s lethal.” As the Houthis have recently advanced an offensive on the city of Marib, a Saudi stronghold, the U.S. has engaged in indirect nuclear talks with Iran. It remains unclear if the issue of Iran’s support for Yemen will play a role in America’s decision to renegotiate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Biden administration officials have said that the president seeks a “longer and stronger deal” that also focuses on Iran’s support for terrorist groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah. When asked about this pledge at a Senate hearing last week, Blinken said, “We have to look at specific aspects, whether there are areas where we can get even stronger commitments from Iran,” without providing detail on the “specific aspects.”

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Repair The World volunteers on MLK day. 808 Nostrand aveCrown Heights, Brooklyn NY. (Credit: Stefano Giovannini)

MacKenzie Scott, known for her record-setting charitable donations, has now become — with her husband, Dan Jewett — a supporter of two Jewish organizations: Repair the World, a service corps for young people, and HIAS, the immigrant support and advocacy group. Repair the World, whose annual budget was $5.9 million, will receive an unrestricted grant of $7 million from Scott and Jewett, CEO Cindy Greenberg told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Helen Chernikoff.  It was part of $2.74 billion in new gifts Scott and her husband announced yesterday.

Signing the pledge: These are Scott’s first gifts to Jewish groups. HIAS CEO Mark Hetfield did not disclose the details of HIAS’ gift, but said it would enable the group to become an emergency responder to refugee crises around the world in addition to a resettlement agency. Scott, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, gave away almost $6 billion to nonprofits and charities last year. After their divorce, she signed the Giving Pledge, which commits signatories to giving at least half of their wealth to charity.

Mystery solved: When Greenberg was approached by Scott and Jewett’s representatives, she did not suspect the identity of the donors, she said. She shared with the representatives the organization’s three-year plan and its mission, which is both to make service a defining element of what it means to be Jewish in America and to enact social change. A few weeks after that conversation, about two and a half weeks ago, she got “the call.” “I lost my breath; I made the representative repeat herself,” Greenberg said. “I said, ‘You’re either an angel or a prank caller.’”

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