Nicky Montana

To most Israelis, Nicky Montana appears to be just another ambitious American entrepreneur and investor curious about the start-up nation’s vibrant innovation scene and what it might contribute to our world in the future. For Americans and NFL-knowledgeable Israelis, however, he is sports royalty, as the son of iconic Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana. The younger Montana moved to Israel three months ago and takes all such labels — and his father’s legendary status — in stride. He remains singularly focused on learning as much as he can about what makes Israel’s high-tech sector tick, adding knowledge to his already successful foray into the industry, The Circuit’s Ruth Marks Eglash reports.

Ingrained in tech: “There’s so much interesting stuff that has brought my attention here,” Montana, 29, told The Circuit in an interview at a Tel Aviv cafe last week.  “I was here in the past – on a trip with [New England Patriots owner and sponsor of the Israel Football League] Robert Kraft – and that was very different. We went to Jerusalem, and we toured around, the schedule was very regimented. Now I am living here and meeting real people and just kind of getting ingrained in everything, and it’s really been incredible.”

Son of an icon: Born and raised in California, where his father won four Super Bowl championships with the San Francisco 49ers, Montana said his father tried to downplay his fame and “never really talked about any of it really.” He said he only learned the true extent of his father’s celebrity status more recently from the new six-part documentary series, “Joe Montana: Cool Under Pressure,” produced by Peacock.

No pressure: Montana, who said as a baby he initially called his father ‘Hey Joe,’ mimicking the fans who would scream out to the legendary quarterback, also said that growing up, he and his older brother, Nate, were not pressured to pursue the game professionally. (Montana also has two older sisters.) “It was never like, ‘You have to play or we’re going out to the yard now for drills,’ he would never bring it up, really,” said Montana. “I would have to beg him to help with practices, but he was super sensitive because of the pressure that might be put on us from a young age.”

College football: In the end, both brothers went on to play college football. Nicky, a quarterback like his father, first played for the University of Washington from 2009 to 2012, and later for Mt. San Antonio College. After one season with the junior college, he transferred in 2013 to Tulane, where he was the starting quarterback. Eventually, however, he decided not to pursue a career in professional football. “It was always my dream, but towards the end, I kept getting hurt and taken out of the game,” Montana explained. “At a certain point, towards the end, I was just like, I’ve been doing this my whole life and I don’t know what it is, but the feeling is gone.”

Innovation success: Putting his football career behind him, Montana took the skills of leadership and endurance that he learned on the field and turned his attention to the world of high-tech. He began by dabbling in fantasy sports, and eventually sold his own startup, a Y Combinator-backed company called Balto, to FuboTV, the leading sports-first live TV streaming platform in the U.S., in December 2020. Montana then began investing as an angel investor in more than half a dozen companies across the globe. Last year, when Isaac “Yitz” Applbaum, co-founder and partner of Tel Aviv-based MizMaa Ventures, and a close friend of the Montana family (as well as a wine columnist at Jewish Insider), asked if he wanted to move to Tel Aviv and work for MizMaa, Montana hesitated only slightly.

Vision for the future: His friends, he said, thought he was crazy. “All they knew about Israel was camels and rockets,” he quipped. “But the opportunity to come to a place like Israel, given everything that’s going on here, was super enticing – everyone is an entrepreneur here.” Montana, whose focus at MizMaa is on Web3, cryptocurrencies and fintech, continued, “There’s so much ambition and it’s amazing being on the venture side and seeing how everyone thinks the world’s gonna look in the future.”

Read the full story on The Circuit.

Bonus: U.S. financial firm Morgan Stanley Capital International, known as MSCI Inc., is surveying international investors to determine whether Israel will be added to the MSCI Europe Index, boosting investment into Israeli companies. Today is the last day of the survey.

Jake Auchincloss (L) speaks to reporters after winning the 4th Congressional District seat as he stands beside his wife, Michelle, in Needham, Mass., on Election Night, Nov. 3, 2020.

Democratic Majority for Israel’s political arm will announce on Monday that it is backing 15 House candidates in the primary elections as part of its first round of congressional endorsements. The list, which DMFI shared exclusively with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel, includes 10 incumbents, four open-seat primary candidates and one Democratic challenger — all of whom the group described as “committed to strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship” in their support for continued U.S. military assistance to Israel as well as their rejection of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Incumbent clash: Just two of the incumbents, Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) and Ritchie Torres (D-NY), have yet to draw competition. The others are either facing Democratic challengers or defending their seats in member-on-member primary matchups, including Reps. Haley Stevens (D-MI), Sean Casten (D-IL), John Larson (D-CT), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Kurt Schrader (D-OR), Dina Titus (D-NV), David Trone (D-MD) and Shontel Brown (D-OH). “We think all these people will be strong supporters of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Mark Mellman, the president of DMFI PAC, told JI. “We have serious doubts about whether their opponents will be.”

Justice Dems redux: As with previous races where DMFI has devoted resources, the pro-Israel group is now endorsing in races where Israel is likely to emerge as a source of tension. In backing Maloney, a pro-Israel stalwart, DMFI is setting itself up for another head-to-head clash with Justice Democrats, which has endorsed one of her primary challengers. DMFI is also supporting Steve Irwin in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, where Justice Democrats is backing Summer Lee, a state legislator affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, which formally endorsed the BDS movement in 2017.

DSA duel: DMFI is hoping to fend off at least one high-profile DSA member, Amy Vilela, who is running to unseat Titus in Nevada’s 1st Congressional District, which includes portions of North Las Vegas. DMFI is also backing former Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) as he competes against another DSA member, Brittany Ramos DeBarros, in the Democratic primary for New York’s 11th Congressional District. Rose is seeking to reclaim the Staten Island seat after losing to freshman Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) in 2020.

Broader ‘context’: “There’s a context here that I think we ought to take cognizance of, which is to say that we have had some organized groups out there that have said they are attempting to execute, in their words, a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party,” Mellman emphasized. “A number of those groups have moved anti-Israelism from a peripheral part of their issue agenda to a central part of their issue agenda.” Their strategy “is to go into deep-blue districts that the party doesn’t care about because it’s going to be a Democrat no matter who wins,” he added. “This is a real challenge that we’re facing.”

Read more here.

Rep. Haley Stevens

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and prominent supporters in the Jewish community are planning what they hope will be a major fundraiser to be held in late February, months after the Michigan legislator announced she would be running in a newly drawn congressional district against fellow Democrat Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI), Jewish Insider‘s Marc Rod reports.

Big names: The hosts of the fundraiser include former AIPAC President David Victor; Robert Naftaly, who chairs the United Auto Workers’ retiree healthcare fund; University of Michigan Board of Regents member Mark Bernstein; several current and former members of leadership of the local Jewish federation; and other prominent business and philanthropic figures in the Detroit area. Co-hosts and the Stevens campaign are hoping to raise $300,000 through the event.

All aboard: “It has generated an interest in not only the Jewish community locally but also with Jews nationally,” David Kramer, one of the fundraiser’s hosts and a Stevens finance committee member, told JI. “It’s going to be important in a contested primary to be able to have sufficient funds. But also I think to raise money early shows strength, and to raise money early from the Jewish community shows unity and urgency among the Jewish community.”

Strong interest: Co-host Michael Horowitz noted that the response to the event has been especially strong for such an early stage of the campaign — the new district was only finalized in late December — and the organizers raised their fundraising goal in response to initial interest. Stevens’ campaign manager, Jeremy Levinson, told JI that support for Israel has been a primary concern for those joining the fundraiser. Stevens and her supporters align more closely with a traditional pro-Israel approach, while Levin is to the left and more outspoken on Israel issues.

Cash machine: Kramer said he’s confident that the fundraiser, which is currently set to be held with a mix of virtual and in-person attendees, will hit its goal, given the level of interest he’s seen so far. The fundraiser is already around halfway to its goal. “The fact that we’re raising as much money as we’re raising and getting the kind of support and sponsors — people willing to put their name on it and to give a pretty substantial sum — is amazing,” he said.

Read the full story here.

From top left: Alison Barkoff, Samantha Vinograd, Rebecca Lissner, Ellen Germain

After fleeing a death march, Ann Gabor Arancio “spent a long, cold winter” with her mother in a wine cellar in the Budapest hills, relying on a righteous gentile to survive the Holocaust. Arancio eventually made her way to California, where she lived on welfare as a single mother before graduating from the University of California, Berkeley at age 40 and becoming a social worker. Her granddaughter Rebecca Lissner shared her story at a virtual “pre-Shabbat briefing” hosted by the White House on Friday, the day after International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Life lessons: Arancio “ultimately built a really lovely life for her family,” said Lissner, director for strategic planning at the National Security Council. She told the approximately 800 people who tuned in to watch the event that knowing her grandmother’s story “really ingrained in me an understanding that matters of war and peace are not just abstract questions. They’re not theoretical. These are actually forces that shape and in many cases actually do take individuals’ lives.”

Administration approach: “We want to share with you what we’re doing to address Holocaust issues,” explained Chanan Weissman, the White House liaison to the Jewish community. “We also wanted to showcase individuals who serve in the United States government because they were inspired in part by their parents or grandparents who survived the Holocaust.”

Not inevitable: Samantha Vinograd, acting assistant secretary for counterterrorism and threat prevention at the Department of Homeland Security, spoke about her father Serge, a Holocaust survivor who joined the call virtually from Paris. Many of his family members were killed at Auschwitz, including his father. “From a very early age, I was deeply aware of the legacy and the lessons of the Holocaust. My father taught me several things which continue to guide my work today,” she said. “My father taught me that the Holocaust did not happen overnight. There was not one big moment that led to the murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others. It unfolded over several years at several stages… The Holocaust was never inevitable.”

Greatest honor: Weissman concluded the event with a story from President Joe Biden’s 90-minute meeting on Thursday with Auschwitz survivor Bronia Brandman and her daughter. “As he escorted both of them out, Bronia looked up at him, and said, ‘Mr. President, to go from the gates of Auschwitz to being able to meet the president in the White House is the greatest honor,’” Weissman recalled. “He gently bent down to her and called her mom. He said, ‘Mom, actually, you’re wrong. For the president of the United States to meet a survivor of Auschwitz, that’s the greatest honor.’”

Read the full story here.