Jon Lovett visits BuzzFeed’s “AM To DM” on September 11, 2019 in New York City.

Jon Lovett, the former Obama speechwriter, progressive podcast host and stand-up comedian, seemed eager to hone his act in an interview with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel last week before returning to a live stage for the first time in 18 months. “I’m really excited to go back to it because if I don’t get applause, my doctor says I could get very sick,” the Crooked Media co-founder deadpanned, testing out a gag over the phone.

Zoom gloom: Before the pandemic, Lovett, 39, hosted a raucous weekly podcast, “Lovett or Leave It,” in front of a live audience, often in his home city of Los Angeles. For the past year-and-half, he kept his show going remotely, as best he could, on Zoom, recording interviews with a wide assortment of comedians, journalists, politicos and other guests “in front of a needy golden-doodle,” as a facetiously updated tag line informed viewers tuning in from home — an allusion to Lovett’s beloved dog, Pundit.

Back to basics: Now, Lovett is stepping back onto the stage as he embarks on a series of weekly outdoor shows, “Lovett or Leave It: Live or Else,” which began last Thursday at the Cinelounge in Hollywood and will culminate in a performance at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan on Nov. 12. Lovett’s panelists have so far included Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and B.J. Novak, the actor and comedian, with future guests yet to be confirmed. “Doing jokes over Zoom, you know, we made it work,” Lovett said. “I’ll be glad to not do it for a while.”

‘Not married yet’: Still, Lovett had more company than just Pundit and his remote audience during the pandemic. He is engaged to investigative journalist Ronan Farrow, who proposed two years ago in a draft of his book Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators. Asked if they were married yet, Lovett guffawed. “Do you know what would happen if I told you that we were married and my mother saw a link to this piece that said we were married already?” he said. “I would hear the shouting from Boynton Beach, Florida. We are not married yet.”

Borscht Belt charm: Lovett, who is Jewish, has been regaling listeners with his charmingly anachronistic brand of Borscht Belt-inflected political commentary for years. Though Lovett admits that he is “super rusty” after months of video interviews, he is looking forward to perfecting his on-stage approach after months of video interviews. “There’s going to be a lot of experimentation and trial and error,” he said.

Read the full interview here.

‘Toward Tomorrow’ sign written in Arabic and Hebrew

The World Expo, set to open its doors to the public in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Friday, will mark a series of firsts — the first time the global event has ever been hosted by an Arab country, the first time it has ever been held in the Middle East and the first time every participating country will have its own pavilion. Until recently, it may have seemed far-fetched that Israel, which until last year had no official ties with any country in the Gulf, would be a participant in this event. Israel, however, received an invitation to join the fair 18 months before it normalized relations with the UAE, Elazar Cohen, the commissioner-general of the Israeli pavilion, told Jewish Insider’s Tamara Zieve last week, ahead of his flight to Dubai where he will remain for the six-month duration of the Expo.

Warm reception: The invitation was part of a gradual and below-the-radar warming of relations between the two countries. “We appreciated and respected this invitation and it was a courageous step before the announcement of the bilateral relations,” said Cohen, a career diplomat who has worked for the Israeli Foreign Ministry for 30 years. He was referring to the Abraham Accords, the path-breaking agreement signed between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. Israel accepted the invitation and Cohen and his team have since been traveling between Israel and the UAE in preparation for the event. “We were accepted warmly, with open arms and open hearts,” he said.

A soft-power opportunity: For Israel, the Expo provides an historic opportunity to build on its relations with the UAE, as well as others from the region and around the world. Cohen sees the fair as his team’s contribution to the Abraham Accords, signed on the White House lawn on Sept. 15, 2020. The pavilion’s activities will cover a span of fields including the economy, culture, science, medicine, technology and engineering, via events, meetings, think-tanks, concerts, press conferences and Ted Talks. Israel also plans to hold at least three separate events with the UAE and the U.S. to explore trilateral collaborations in energy, clean-tech and medicine, with the participation of companies and ministers from the three countries.

Diversity and inclusion: Each of the 192 countries participating in the Expo will hold its own national day celebrations, and Israel will use its day, on Nov. 9, which is expected to be attended by high-level Israeli officials, to present examples of diversity and inclusivity in its society. The day’s events will include performances by: the Shalva Band, made up of musicians with various disabilities; the Jerusalem East and West Orchestra, a multicultural orchestra consisting of Christian, Muslim and Jewish musicians from all over the country and from all sectors that make up Israeli society; and Firqat Alnoor, an orchestra comprised of Israeli Jewish, Arab, Christian, Muslim and Druze musicians who play classical Middle Eastern music.

Read the full story here.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted yesterday to advance the Israel Relations Normalization Act to the full House, as Republicans and Democrats offered divergent reasons for why they are backing the legislation, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The bill, which seeks to strengthen and expand last year’s Abraham Accords normalizing relations between Israel and four Muslim-majority states, has broad bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, including 220 cosponsors in the House.

High praise: “I personally think that the Israel Normalization Act is significant and could be the game-changer that we’ve been waiting for,” Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks (D-NY) said during Thursday’s meeting. “To have individuals talking, other Gulf countries, other Islamic countries [about] how they can work together with Israel, reducing conflicts and creating opportunity and talking about how we can do trade and cross-relationships — it’s significant. A major breakthrough.”

Current events: Several members pointed to a recent conference in Erbil, Iraq, during which an estimated 300 Iraqis called for normalization between Israel and Iraq, as evidence of the necessity of the legislation. Some of the Iraqis who participated have faced death threats, and Iraqi security forces are seeking to arrest some participants. “This bill is critical to breaking stereotypes that have long existed, particularly through the provision requiring reporting on the criminalization of civil society contacts between Israelis and certain Arab citizens,” Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) said. “Look at what’s happening in Iraq, in Erbil, where activists championing normalization with Israel are now being arrested and threatened.”

Forcing hands: Republicans on the committee offered similar arguments, but some also said that the legislation was necessary to force the Biden administration — which they claim has not been sufficiently engaged in advancing the Abraham Accords — to champion the issue. “I am deeply disappointed that the Biden administration does not seem to recognize the value of this agreement,” Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO), the bill’s lead Republican sponsor, said. “This legislation will force the administration to prioritize the Abraham Accords by requiring coordination across federal agencies to deepen and expand these agreements.”

Making tweaks: Four amendments to the bill were introduced during the meeting, two of which were approved. The first, from Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), added language specifying that, within its support for a two-state solution, the U.S. supports a Palestinian state “that rejects the use of terrorism.” The second, from Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA), also received bipartisan support. That amendment requires a report from the secretary of state on the effect of policy changes, agreements and commitments by the U.S. on the peoples of countries that have normalized relations.

Read the full story here.

Sen. Bob Menendez, (D-N.J.) leaves the Capitol after a vote on Tuesday, June 8, 2021.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) will bring the $1 billion Iron Dome replenishment bill to the Senate floor on Monday, the senator said Thursday night, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Menendez said that he had planned to bring a unanimous consent request on the Iron Dome funding bill, which passed the House last week, to the Senate floor on Thursday night but ultimately delayed until Monday “as a courtesy” to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) who is currently blocking the request and asking that it be amended.

Back and forth: Menendez criticized Paul for blocking unanimous consent on the funding request. “I think it’s a shame that he can’t allow it to move forward,” Menendez told JI. “There is broad bipartisan support for that, to stand by Israel and have them have the wherewithal to defend themselves.” Paul’s amendment, obtained by Jewish Insider on Thursday morning, would rescind all unobligated reconstruction aid to Afghanistan, including aid to non-governmental organizations, and reallocate it to fund the Iron Dome missile-defense system.

Read more here.

Bonus: In an op-ed in The Hill, Daniel Silverberg, who served as national security advisor to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) from 2014-2021, wrote that hyperpartisanship in Washington doomed the Iron Dome funding’s chances of being passed without a standalone vote. “In truth, last Tuesday’s events have little to do with a narrow group of members commanding more influence, but rather the extraordinarily thin margins of any legislation moving through the House these days.”

In the second installment of a new series exploring new and upcoming books, Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss previews some of the top and relevant titles coming out in October:

Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood by Mark Oppenheimer (Oct. 5): In the year following the deadly shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in October 2018, Tablet senior editor Mark Oppenheimer made more than 30 trips to Pittsburgh, where his ancestors had settled over a century earlier, to chronicle the resilience of the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, where much of the city’s Jewish population lives.

Come and Hear: What I Saw in My Seven-and-a-Half-Year Journey through the Talmud, by Adam Kirsch (Oct. 8): For nearly eight years, poet and literary critic Adam Kirsch wrote about his experience with Daf Yomi, the daily reading of a page of Talmud. The secular Kirsch writes about his journey through the text through observations that range from the mundane to serious, taking readers along for a ride few non-religious Jews ever experience.

The Lost Café Schindler: One Family, Two Wars, and the Search for Truth, by Meriel Schindler (Oct. 12): Following her father’s death in 2017, attorney Meriel Schindler began to research her family history dating back more than a century to Innsbruck, Austria, to learn how generations survived and thrived — and eventually had their dreams destroyed by the Holocaust. Schindler explores her complicated relationship with her late father, who fled the Nazis as a teenager, and the timeline of ownership of her family’s famed restaurant, Café Schindler.

It’s Better to Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness, by Seth Wickersham (Oct. 12): Seth Wickersham, a senior writer at ESPN, takes a detailed look at the New England Patriots franchise, including emails, game plans and text messages, to better understand the team’s top names: owner Robert Kraft, head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady, who left the team in 2020.

Read the full synopses here.