Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) speaks at The National Council for Incarcerated Women and Girls “100 Women for 100 Women” rally in Black Lives Matter Plaza near The White House on March 12, 2021 in Washington, DC.

After a bill calling for $1 billion in additional funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives last week by a vote of 420 to 9, members of the Boston Jewish community are grappling with the fact that Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) — who upon first entering Congress in 2019 was seen as a supporter of the Jewish state — was one of just nine members to vote against the measure. What changed? Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch talked to community leaders and activists in Boston to find out who has the congresswoman’s ear on Israel.

Anti-BDS outlier: In July 2019, Pressley was the only one of the four “Squad” members to vote to condemn the BDS movement, despite receiving criticism from some on the left. “What I heard resounding in [the] community was that voting yes on this resolution affirmed to my constituents raised in the Jewish faith Israel’s right to exist, a view I share as a supporter of a two state solution,” Pressley tweeted at the time.

Stoking outrage: In August 2019, weeks after her vote condemning BDS, Pressley was outraged when Omar and Tlaib were barred from entering Israel by then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Former President Donald Trump urged Netanyahu to shut down their visit, and Netanyahu obliged, arguing that Omar and Tlaib’s support for boycotting Israel meant they should not be allowed in the country. “When you attack one of us, you attack all of us. Netanyahu is stoking division and punishing dissent just like the occupant of the White House,” Pressley said in a statement at the time. “We should reevaluate our relationships with any country who seeks to ban Americans and threatens the safety of anyone, including government officials.”

Local influencers: It was after that July 2019 vote that Pressley met with local progressive Jewish activists critical of Israel. “We reached out, just expressing some disappointment [about the anti-BDS vote], and she actually responded [by] asking for a meeting,” said Kayla Neumeyer, a volunteer organizer with the Boston chapter of IfNotNow. This meeting appeared to be significant for Pressley. She spoke at a 2019 Hanukkah party the group hosted at a brewery in Jamaica Plain and called herself a “sister in solidarity” with IfNotNow activists. “Really every vote since that 2019 bill has been in support of Palestinian rights,” Neumeyer said.

Self respect: Jeremy Burton, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, has a yearslong relationship with Pressley, who served on the Boston City Council until her election to Congress. He has previously defended her pro-Israel bona fides in the face of attacks from the right. Burton called last week’s vote a “severe disappointment” but acknowledged that JCRC must work with Pressley on other local issues. Still, Burton cautioned that the Jewish community’s reserves of tolerance are not limitless: “We have to have some self-respect in how we approach public officials who don’t show us a lot of respect.”

Read the full story here.

Bonus: In a New York Times piece titled “For Progressives, Iron Dome Isn’t the Issue. It’s Israel Itself,” former Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) suggests that while the House’s Iron Dome vote indicated broad Democratic support for Israel, the Biden administration “must take robust action to create a two-state reality on the ground, one that gives all wings of the Democratic Party a stake in stability and security for all within Israel, Gaza and the West Bank,” amid a drop in support for Israel by the far-left flank of the party.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is complicating efforts by Democratic leaders in the Senate to pass the upper chamber’s version of the $1 billion Iron Dome funding legislation that passed the House of Representatives last week, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Background: According to a source familiar with the effort, on Wednesday morning Senate Democratic leadership formally launched the “hotline” for the bill, a precursor process to passing legislation by unanimous consent. Senators with objections to the legislation are asked to notify Senate cloakroom staff if they have objections.

Objection: Paul — a libertarian who is often skeptical of foreign aid and has attempted to limit security assistance to Israel in the past — is demanding an amendment to pay for the Iron Dome supplement, a congressional source told Jewish Insider. The source described the Paul amendment as a poison pill that would ultimately kill the bill in the Senate.

Different message: Speaking to JI on Wednesday, Paul disputed that he was blocking the funding. “We’re offering a funding bill,” Paul said. “We have a unanimous consent request to fund the Iron Dome.” A Paul spokesperson deflected a follow-up question about what his proposal entailed, and said the senator would have more details to offer later Wednesday but did not respond to an additional request for comment.

Timing question: If the unanimous consent request is blocked, a vote on the original bill will likely be delayed by at least several days as the legislation works its way through Senate procedure and floor debate, a source told Jewish Insider. Senate Democrats are also attempting to raise the debt ceiling over strong Republican objections, an issue that is likely to take priority for Senate floor time.

Onboard: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who said last week that he wanted to see the additional Iron Dome aid paired with additional aid for Palestinians, told JI he’s still in discussions with leadership about the issue but would not object to the House bill being passed by the Senate in its current form. “I certainly don’t intend to object,” he said. “My belief continues to be that we should make sure that we fully fund Iron Dome and that we provide substantial relief to Palestinians, in particular with the Gaza reconstruction.”

Read more here.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett speaks about the U.S.-Israel relationship at an event hosted by The Jewish Federations of North America on Monday, Sept. 27, 2021. (Shahar Azran)

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett addressed both world leaders and American Jewish leaders during a trip to New York on Monday, marking a reset in relations with both communities following more than a decade of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s premiership, Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports.

Teamwork: Bennett highlighted the security relationship between Israel and the U.S. during an afternoon speech to Jewish leaders hosted by The Jewish Federations of North America. “We are nine million [the approximate population of Israel] boots on the ground. We are fighting. We are day in, day out in touch with those terrorists. We’re gaining intelligence, methodologies. We’re fending them, without ever asking America to send one troop. And we never will,” he said, noting that Israel’s security apparatus has helped allies locate terror threats in their own countries. “We’re not the problem. We’re the solution.”

Eye on Washington: Bennett also addressed the House of Representatives vote last Thursday to approve a $1 billion replenishment of the Iron Dome missile-defense system in a 420-9 vote, saying he was “very happy” with the outcome. “It’s not only about the fact that Iron Dome is defensive. It’s broader than that,” he said, recalling his own experience on Sept. 11, 2001, when he was running a high-tech company in Manhattan and evacuated his employees following that morning’s terror attack.

Time in Turtle Bay: Bennett’s U.N. speech largely focused on Iranian threats in the region, drawing attention to the Islamic republic’s deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that have targeted Saudi, U.S. and Israeli interests in the Middle East, including the recent attack on an oil tanker that killed two people. Earlier Monday, Bennett met with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. On Monday afternoon, he met with U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who accepted an invitation from Bennett to visit Israel. That evening, he spoke at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, a Modern Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Read the full story here.

Spotted at the JFNA event: Eric Fingerhut, Mark Wilf, Sarah Eisenman, Adam Lehman, Betsy Berns Korn, Alisa Doctoroff, Susie Stern, Gidi Grinstein, Jay Sanderson, Ari Ackerman, Rabbi Daniel Kraus, Mark Charendoff, Michal Gerstler, Rivka Kidron, Stephen Greenberg, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, Erika Rudin-Luria, David Heller, Naomi Adler, Eric Goldstein, Amy Bressman, Ben Pery, Cindy Greenberg, Malcolm Hoenlein, William Daroff, Paul Bernstein, David Friedman, Rabbis Arthur and Marc Schneier, David Moore, Rhoda Smolow, Brett Barth, Jeff Shapiro, Jeff Finkelstein, Steve Hoffman, Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt and Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt.