
Daily Kickoff: Meeks pushes back + Dr. Oz’s blank slate
👋 Good Wednesday morning!
U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett this morning in Jerusalem. The meeting focused on nuclear talks between Iran and European negotiators in Vienna.
“These days are pretty important. What happens in Vienna has profound ramifications for the stability of the Middle East and the security of Israel for the upcoming years. And that’s why it’s such a timely meeting,” Bennett said at the start of the meeting.
Sullivan said he was asked to make the trip now, “even just before Christmas, because at a critical juncture for both of our countries on a major set of security issues, it’s important that we sit together and develop a common strategy, a common outlook, and find a way forward that fundamentally secures your country’s interests and mine. And we believe those interests, like the values upon which our countries are built, are deeply shared and deeply felt.”
Earlier in the day, Sullivan held a working meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Eyal Hulata, and last night participated in a diplomatic working meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides and other senior officials joined the meetings with the president and prime minister.
U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malleytold CNN yesterday that time is running out for negotiations with Iran. “If they continue at their current pace, we have some weeks left but not much more than that, at which point, I think, the conclusion will be that there’s no deal to be revived,” Malley said.
Israel will be the first country in the world to administer a fourth COVID-19 vaccine. The country’s Pandemic Expert Committee decided to make the fourth shot available to adults over 60 and medical personnel. “This is wonderful news that will assist us in getting through the Omicron wave that is engulfing the world,” Bennett said. The government also announced a new series of restrictions to avoid overcrowded public spaces.
On Tuesday, leaders from local Jewish groups in Washington, D.C., met with the chancellor of the D.C. Public Schools and the director of the Mayor’s Office of Religious Affairs following an incident in which third-graders at a Capitol Hill elementary school were forced to reenact scenes from the Holocaust.
“This incident is one of the most disturbing that my colleagues and I have ever encountered,” Guila Franklin Siegel, associate director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, told Jewish Insider. “We hope that DCPS completes its internal investigation in a timely fashion, so that we can better understand how a heinous incident like this could happen.” The meeting was also attended by representatives from the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee.
The teacher at the center of the incident, Kimberlynn Jurkowski, was the school’s library media specialist. She was fired from a previous teaching job in 2013 following a conviction for her role in a $24,000 tutoring scandal and later stripped of her New Jersey teaching license. She was also charged with animal cruelty in 2019.
for the record
Meeks denies DSA collaboration in NYC speaker race

Congressman Gregory Meeks, D-NY, Wednesday, May 22, 2019, at LaGuardia Community College in New York.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) forcefully denied recent reporting in The New York Post that suggested he had courted votes from anti-Israel activists affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America in a behind-the-scenes effort to lock up support for Adrienne Adams in the race for New York City Council speaker. “The New York Post was 100% wrong in their reporting, not even close,” Meeks said in an interview with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel on Tuesday. “There were no negotiations and not even any conversations with anyone from the DSA or anything of that nature. Not one.”
Correct the record: Meeks was responding to a series of stories published last week alleging that he had forged an alliance with incoming council members connected to the DSA — which supports the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement targeting Israel — to elect Adrienne Adams, his preferred candidate, over Francisco Moya, who was until recently a leading contender for the speakership. “Under any circumstances, that wouldn’t be,” Meeks, who chairs the Queens County Democratic Party, told JI. “But the implication of me even meeting with them to cut a deal is false in fact because that never happened.”
Silent treatment: Until now, Meeks had refrained from commenting publicly on the matter. “I just chose not to talk about it,” he explained, “because I know anyone that could read the article thoroughly would see that it just didn’t make sense.” But the congressman also seemed eager to correct what he viewed as a separate misimpression — that his back-channeling had been part of an effort to stymie Mayor-elect Eric Adams, who had favored Moya for the speakership. Far from it, he said. “The person that I was talking to the most was the mayor himself, who had nothing to lose in this scenario,” Meeks told JI, referring to Eric Adams. “We understood each other.”
No tension: Meeks, for his part, rejected the implication that his support for Adams had caused tension for the mayor-elect. “Some tried to make it like the mayor wasn’t successful and this was a defeat,” Meeks said. “That’s not true, because it was all of us,” including labor groups as well as county chairs, who “had an open line to the mayor all the time. He knew that he could not lose in this process.” “I’m a moderate Democrat — look at my voting record, look at Adrienne’s and look at the mayor’s, and you’ll see they’re similar,” Meeks said. “I think that we are in a prime position to move forward to make the city safer. That’s important. That’s what this is really about, is making the city safer and more prosperous, and that benefits everybody.”