Yemina political party representative, Former Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked leaves after a meeting with President Reuven Rivlin at the President’s residence on April 5, 2021 in Jerusalem, Israel. The country’s political leaders are meeting with President Reuven Rivlin to recommend who should be the next prime minister, with a mandate for forming a governing coalition.

When it comes to visiting the United States, Israelis often feel like the proverbial child: Nose pressed up against the window of the candy store: so near, yet so far. Unlike entry to Europe and most countries in Asia, to visit the country government officials like to refer to as their closest and most strategic ally, Israeli citizens must obtain a visa — a bureaucratic and burdensome process that most visitors to Israel remain totally oblivious to. Now, with wait times for U.S. visas topping more than a year, Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, are stepping up efforts to get the Jewish state included in a special Visa Waiver Program that allows 90-day visa-free tourist and business visits. And, they are hopeful it could happen as soon as 2023, Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash and Gabby Deutch report.

Biden’s commitment: Bennett discussed the issue during a meeting with President Joe Biden last August in Washington, D.C. The president said at the time that he was committed to “working together towards Israel’s inclusion in the Visa Waiver Program.” Last week, while in the U.S., Israeli Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked emphasized the matter to her counterpart, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. He later tweeted, “DHS remains committed to working with Israel to help it meet all Visa Waiver Program requirements.”

Overcoming barriers: Shaked, who served as justice minister from 2015-2019, told JI she was confident Israel would be able to overcome the barriers. She said representatives from her ministry will now meet once a month, virtually, with counterparts at DHS to iron out specifics such as sharing data and addressing problems faced by U.S. citizens of Palestinian descent. “On a professional level I know what needs to be done in Israel,” Shaked added, highlighting that both Mayorkas and incoming U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, with whom she also met during her visit, “really want this to happen.”

Politically popular: “Israelis look at other countries who are in the program and say, ‘Why not us?’” former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren, who served in Washington from 2009-2013, told JI. “They want to go to the U.S. to travel or study. Many have family connections.  Politically this would be very popular in Israel,” added Oren, who says he also worked intensely on the issue during his tenure. “I used to tell my staff, ‘Whoever does this, they will erect a statue to them in Dizengoff Square.’”

Important for Israelis: Scott Lasensky, a senior adviser to former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro, told JI that the visa issue “looms large for Israelis,” while “Americans, including American Jews, are nearly blind toward it.” Lasensky added, “It has really outsized impacts on certain segments of Israeli society, thousands of people who work in certain industries, anyone who’s working with the Diaspora, especially North American Jewry.”

Read the full story here.

Dave Dreifus

For many people at the beginning of the pandemic, baking cookies, cakes and other treats was a coping mechanism — a sugary salve for the soul. For Dave Dreifus, it was a matter of professional survival. The 29-year-old private chef, who lives in New York City, had recently found himself out of work last year when he turned to baked goods, churning out cookies from a friend’s restaurant in Williamsburg. “I was biking 30 miles a day selling chocolate chip cookies,” Dreifus recalled in a conversation with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel.

Damn good business: Business has grown considerably since then. Best Damn Cookies, as the company is called, now operates out of a permanent storefront in the Essex Market food hall on the Lower East Side, where Dreifus oversees production at a nearby commissary kitchen. He says he is making thousands of cookies a week, while shipping orders nationwide.

Jewish roots: While Dreifus had previously done tours of duty at such Michelin-starred establishments as the French Laundry and SingleThread, Best Damn Cookies is, in many ways, a return to his roots: His paternal grandfather, Armin Dreifus, once ran a Jewish pastry shop, Stern’s, in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Midwood. Until recently, Dreifus had largely ignored his Ashkenazi culinary heritage, highlighting different cultures instead. His latest offering, rugelach, hits closer to home.

High-toned touch: Even for an old-fashioned Jewish pastry, his approach, as he described it, is somewhat high-toned. Call it Jewish fusion. “My grandpa traditionally used walnuts, golden raisins and cinnamon. I was like, ‘Walnuts, raisins … that’s basically charoset,’” Dreifus said, referring to the sweet, chunky mixture traditionally served at Passover Seders. “So I started making a charoset rugelach.” His take includes cinnamon walnut butter, apples and golden raisins, stewed with white wine and apple brandy — all combined with homemade cream cheese and sour cream.

Deli dream: For Dreifus, his foray into Jewish cuisine, particularly after years in fine dining, represents the answer to a question he has long been mulling. “It’s about finding my identity and how I feel,” he said. The rugelach, he suggested, is just the first step in a new direction, one that includes moving beyond cookies as he seeks to celebrate his past. “I’m an Ashkenazi Jew — German, Hungarian and Russian,” he said. “I have aspirations of opening up my own deli one day, named after my grandparents, Hannah and Armin Dreifus.”

Read the full interview here.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) speaks during a news conference with a group of bipartisan lawmakers to unveil a COVID-19 emergency relief framework in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington on Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020.

A bipartisan group of 84 House members will send a letter to President Joe Biden on Wednesday requesting that the administration push for the inclusion of $1 billion in supplemental funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system in an upcoming government spending bill, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The funding, passed by the House in September, is currently stalled in the Senate, where Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is blocking a fast-tracked approval process.

Pushing ahead: The House members — 76 Democrats and eight Republicans — led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) will urge Biden in their letter, a draft of which was obtained by JI, to “specifically request that Congress include supplemental funding for Israel’s Iron Dome in an appropriations bill enacted before the year’s end — including in any anomalies you may request to a new continuing resolution.”

Time crunch: Government funding is currently set to run out on Dec. 3 — just days after Congress returns from its Thanksgiving recess, requiring the House and Senate to pass either a series of appropriations bills setting government funding levels for the year or a shorter-term continuing resolution (that would carry forward previously set funding levels) before that date to avert a government shutdown.

Backstory: The letter follows clashes over attempts by House Democratic leadership to include the Iron Dome funding in a continuing resolution in September. No Republicans supported that continuing resolution because it also increased the debt limit. The federal government is set to hit another debt limit in the coming weeks, but it is unclear how congressional leadership plans to address it.

Read the full story here.

Deborah Lipstadt

With Deborah Lipstadt’s nomination to be the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism stalled in the Senate, 23 House Democrats sent a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee leadership on Tuesday urging them to “swiftly” schedule a confirmation hearing for the Holocasut historian, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Republicans have blocked the committee from setting a hearing due to concerns about Lipstadt’s past tweets, particularly those about committee members.

Tick tock: Led by Reps. Kathy Manning (D-NC) and Ted Deutch (D-FL), the Democrats urged Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Ranking Member Jim Risch (R-ID) in their letter to schedule a hearing for Lipstadt next week. The Senate committee has scheduled its next hearing for Biden administration nominees for Dec. 1, but Lipstadt is not set to be considered at that convening.

Quotable: “In a time when antisemitic incidents are on the rise, and when Jewish people feel less and less safe, we need a respected leader and true fighter leading our government’s response to antisemitism,” Deutch told JI. “Dr. Deborah Lipstadt has a proven track record of fighting antisemitism in all its forms, wherever it originates. And she has earned the admiration she has received from the Jewish community and from members of both parties. The Senate must confirm her now and let her get to work.”

No dice: Manning’s spokesperson, Hailey Barringer, told JI that the letter’s authors solicited GOP signatures but no Republicans joined before the signing period closed Monday night.

Joining forces: The letter’s other signatories include Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL), Susan Wild (D-PA), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Grace Meng (D-NY), Dina Titus (D-NV), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), David Cicilline (D-RI) Juan Vargas (D-CA), Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Kathleen Rice (D-NY), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Marc Veasey (D-TX), Marilyn Strickland (D-WA), Jackie Speier (D-CA), Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Elaine Luria (D-VA).

Read more here.