Jazz Lewis

On a cold and rainy morning earlier this month, Jazz Lewis sat outside a Starbucks two blocks from the U.S. Capitol — the building where he had worked for seven years, until October. It was “kind of weird,” Lewis told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch, to be on Capitol Hill as a visitor and not an employee. But he doesn’t expect his hiatus from the central hub of American democracy to last very long. He resigned from his position as senior policy advisor to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) last month to run for Congress in Maryland’s 4th Congressional District.

The why: “Folks ask me about the why,” said Lewis. “We are grounding it in issues that are really important to our district, like food deserts and access to healthcare.” The big draw of Congress is “resources,” said Lewis, who also serves part-time in Annapolis as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, where he chairs the Democratic caucus. “Especially with the ability to talk directly to the secretary of agriculture or [Housing and Urban Development], we can direct resources to communities like mine that lack access to fresh food.”

Early endorsement: Lewis, 32, will face a tough competitor in Glenn Ivey, a former county prosecutor nearly twice Lewis’s age who has been a political mainstay in the county for more than two decades. But Lewis garnered an early boost from his former boss, Hoyer, who endorsed him last week. “Jazz has always fought for our community,” Hoyer said in the endorsement. “He is a dear friend, and I can think of no one I would rather have as my partner in representing Prince Georgians in Congress.”

Working in the present: Lewis is “unabashedly a progressive,” he says, but one who intends to make compromises to pass legislation. “Folks want change today, right? Not something perfect five years from now,” Lewis explained. “They want something that will help them today. And I think we need to keep that in mind as we’re working with legislation.”

‘One of our core friends’: On foreign policy, Lewis named Israel as “one of our core friends.” He added that he “would have 100% voted” for a recent bill providing supplemental funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system that passed the House in September 420-9. (The bill remains stalled in the Senate.) “It’s fair for friends to criticize each other,” Lewis explained. “It’s not fair for friends to put the safety and security of their people at risk. And that’s what was on the line there. That wasn’t a vote of conscience.”

Seeking consensus: “A lot of people in the Jewish community view him as not only a potential… pro-Israel voice, but potentially a strong progressive pro-Israel voice like Ritchie Torres,” said Ron Halber, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, referring to the freshman Democratic congressman from the Bronx. Like Torres, Lewis did not express a desire to align with the Squad. “I see myself as a consensus-maker. I hope to make friends of the Squad as much as I hope to make friends of anyone who’s willing to work with me to move forward the issues that are important to people in my district,” Lewis said.

Read the full interview here.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD)

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), who led a congressional trip to Israel last week, told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod yesterday that he believes it’s possible for the U.S. and Israel to come to an agreement about reopening the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem.

Showdown: Members of the Israeli government from across the political spectrum have been steadfastly opposed to the Biden administration’s plans to reopen the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem that served Palestinians, which was shuttered by the Trump administration in 2019.

Room for improvement: Cardin, who met last week with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, believes the dispute is solvable. “I think it’s an issue that can be resolved between the two countries,” Cardin said. “But obviously anything with Jerusalem is sensitive.”

At issue: He noted that, based on conversations with Israeli officials, their primary concern is not the consulate itself, but the prospect that the consulate could open the door to dividing Jerusalem or ending U.S. recognition of the city as Israel’s capital. “I think the view there is that this needs to be talked out between the Israelis and the Americans,” the Maryland senator said. “The consulate in Jerusalem, in and of itself, is not controversial. But if it gets engaged at all in regards to the peace process or legitimacy of the capital for Israel, then it becomes an issue.”

Read more here.

President Joe Biden gives a speech on his Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal and Build Back Better Agenda at the NJ Transit Meadowlands Maintenance Complex in Kearny, New Jersey.

After months of intraparty brinkmanship, House Democratic leadership is aiming to vote this week on Build Back Better, Democrats’ nearly $2 trillion social policy bill. But a coalition of religious groups, including major Orthodox Jewish advocacy organizations, are pushing for changes to key provisions before the bill passes Congress, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. As currently written, three specific provisions in the mammoth spending package could make it difficult for religious programs to receive childcare and universal pre-kindergarten (UPK) funding or deter them from seeking it out, individuals who’ve lobbied on the measure told JI.

Shut out: UPK aid would be distributed in the form of a direct grant to preschools, which constitutionally cannot go to programs with religious content. Rabbi Abba Cohen, Agudath Israel of America’s vice president for government affairs, told JI the legislation would prevent any programs that celebrate Jewish holidays or include Jewish blessings — key elements of Orthodox Jewish preschool programs — from receiving funding. “The limitation is so great that it effectively cuts out religious faith-based UPK providers,” Cohen said.

New designation: The bill also includes language stating that childcare aid — which would be administered via certificates — would be considered federal financial assistance to the provider, raising questions about whether religious groups would be eligible. “All kinds of things that have never applied to [providers] before are now going to apply,” Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, told JI.

Nondiscrimination: The bill could also make both the childcare and pre-K programs subject to a slate of additional antidiscrimination requirements, including those in the 2007 Head Start Act. Cohen said these requirements could exclude single-sex programs and impact whether faith-based providers can give preference to members of their own faith.

Counterproductive: Diament and Cohen argued that the restrictions would ultimately undercut the effectiveness of the two programs in question by excluding major childcare providers across the nation. Religious organizations provide childcare and preschool to more than half of families in the U.S. using such services, according to a 2020 Bipartisan Policy Center survey. “You can’t say you want religious organizations involved and then say, ‘We’re going to write the rules so that you can’t teach about Hanukkah and sing Hanukkah songs in your pre-K program because we’re going to write rules that make that impermissible,” Diament said.

Read more here.

Andrea Meza, the reigning Miss Universe from Mexico, poses in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as she tours the Old City of Jerusalem, Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021, ahead of the 70th Miss Universe pageant being staged in the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat next month.

Draped in a white satin sash but minus her crown, the winner of last year’s Miss Universe pageant, Andrea Meza, toured Jerusalem’s holy sites on Wednesday, expressing hope that the international beauty pageant will serve as a forum for empowering women and bringing together people of all faiths, nationalities and backgrounds. “This is my first time in Israel and I am very excited to see Jerusalem’s Old City,” Meza, 27, told Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash. Meza, who hails from Mexico, arrived on Monday in Israel, where the annual competition is set to take place here for the first time — in the southern city of Eilat, on Dec. 12.

No pressure: Meza dismissed controversies lobbied at such beauty contests in the age of #MeToo, heightened feminism and political correctness. Meza also said she had not felt pressure to boycott this year’s pageant because it is taking place in Israel — as some of the contestants have. “I have to mention that Miss Universe is not a political or religious movement,” Meza, who was crowned in May after the 2020 pageant was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, stated. “It is about the women who are participating, about what they have to offer and about all of us coming together.”

Politicization: Despite appeals not to politicize the event, the fact the 70th annual pageant is taking place in Israel has evoked some strong responses. On Sunday, the government of South Africa announced that it was dissociating itself from a decision by the reigning Miss South Africa, Lalela Mswane, to take part.

Good relations: Miss Universe United Arab Emirates will participate for the first time and Miss Universe Morocco returns to the competition after a four-decade absence, the organizers said. Both countries signed normalization agreements with Israel last year. “There were some comments on social media,” said Meza of her own decision to travel to Israel. “But I think Mexico and Israel have a good relationship.”

Read more here.