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Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are slated to be in Israel next week for the Monday launch of the Abraham Accords Caucus in the Knesset, a spokesperson for Knesset member Ruth Wasserman Lande told Jewish Insider.
The caucus, chaired by Lande and MK Ofir Akunis, will focus on the economic and tourism potential created by Israel’s normalization agreements with four Muslim-majority countries, as well as deepening the relations with each country and exploring the possibility of new agreements with additional states in the region.
The Kushners will also likely attend the opening of former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman’s new institute, The Friedman Center for Peace through Strength, to take place at the as-yet-unopened Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem on Monday evening. Friedman’s nonprofit also aims to work on strengthening the Accords and getting other Arab countries to join.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israel and Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr is wrapping up a four-day visit to Israel and the West Bank today. “The Oct. 4-7 visit is an important trip for DAS Amr to touch base with Israeli and Palestinian leaderships on key issues of security, prosperity and freedom for both Israelis and Palestinians,” a spokesperson for the Palestinian Affairs Unit told JI.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a $25 million grant on Wednesday aimed at boosting security for nonprofits threatened by hate crimes. Hochul also launched a new system for reporting online hate crimes. The funds are in addition to $43 million previously earmarked for nonprofit organizations to improve security at facilities.
Speaking at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in lower Manhattan, Hochul said, “No New Yorker should have fear going to their homes, going to their work, going to their places of worship or just taking the subway or going out to dinner,” Hochul said, tipping her hat to former President (and former New York governor) Franklin D. Roosevelt and his “four freedoms.” “We have to eradicate that fear once and for all.”
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Newsom launches Council on Holocaust and Genocide Education

Gov. Gavin Newsom at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the launch of the Governor’s Council on Holocaust and Genocide Education on Wednesday in Los Angeles, citing “xenophobia, the antisemitism on the rise, the hate [and] the bigotry” as the impetus for its “long overdue” creation. “The purpose of this council on the Holocaust and genocide [is] more broadly around education, more sustainable investments, more peer-to-peer, more professional development, more of a systemic investment that will transcend jurisdictions and boundaries — that is where we need to do more,” Newsom told Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weissshortly after the announcement.
What it is: The council will include state legislators, civic leaders and representatives from minority communities, Anita Friedman, a Jewish community leader and longtime friend of the governor, told JI. Rabbi Meyer May, the executive director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said the council would be a “major game-changer” for the state. “I don’t see this as one of those cases where it becomes polarized. It shouldn’t become polarized,” he said, “If you’re in Poland, that becomes polarized, because Poland has trouble with its Holocaust memory, as do some of the Eastern European countries. But here, we don’t have that. We’re all rowing in the same direction.”
‘This is ominous’: As part of the state’s $196 billion 2021 budget, more than $13 million was allocated to Holocaust education institutions around the state, including $10 million to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, which will fund a new exhibition on antisemitism. Newsom announced the council’s launch at an event hosted by the museum on Wednesday morning. “The fundamental fear of the Holocaust is pretty pronounced when you look at the number of young people that don’t know, never heard of Auschwitz, don’t know what the Holocaust is, don’t sometimes believe it,” Newsom told JI. “I mean, they’re getting their history from Instagram. This is ominous. And so we have to make up for that.”
Campus beat: The governor’s announcement comes amid rising concerns in the state over the inclusion of anti-Israel lessons in educational materials, as well as efforts by local teachers’ unions to adopt anti-Israel measures. Last month, a union representing San Diego community college educators passed a resolution condemning Israel. Weeks later, an effort by United Teachers Los Angeles to pass a resolution supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel was tabled indefinitely after an uproar from the local Jewish community. Newsom recalled his time on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, when he encountered anti-Israel sentiment on campus. “I remember at [San Francisco] State [University] being at a number of rallies, and [there being] just sort of a rank anti-Israel sentiment that was coming out, the antisemitism that was bleeding over, only to be formalized [into] the BDS movement,” he recalled.