David Brog

After 16 years in pro-Israel activism as the executive director of Christians United for Israel and, since 2015, the campus antisemitism-focused nonprofit Maccabee Task Force, David Brog has his eyes set on Capitol Hill, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The Republican and former chief of staff to the late Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) threw his hat in the ring last week as a congressional candidate in Nevada’s newly redrawn 1st Congressional District, which encompasses the Las Vegas area.

Red alert: Brog told JI in an hour-long interview last week that his congressional bid was prompted by trends he observed as the head of the Maccabee Task Force — a job he plans to continue during the campaign. The bulk of the funding for the Maccabee Task Force has come from the late Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam. “My sense of the threats [to the country] and the priority shifted really over the summer of 2020,” he explained. “I was really shocked at the speed with which some of the crazy ideas from the campuses are now finding expression on the streets of our cities and at the base of one of our two political parties… I started to feel that the greatest threat to our country and our civilization is right here at home.”

Trendy: Brog has associated himself with the National Conservatism movement, a growing element of the conservative movement that he described as favoring a more protectionist trade policy and decreased U.S. military engagement abroad alongside conservative social values. Other politicians associated with the movement include Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance. “My big belief is that the Republican Party needs to be the party of the working class and that means it’s a party that really takes the issues of America’s working class seriously and seeks to defend the working class,” he said.

Pinnacle: Citing his national conservative ethos, Brog — a cousin of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak — described the U.S.-Israel relationship as the “ultimate example” of how he believes U.S. foreign policy should operate, because it has never asked for U.S. troops to defend it and shares security interests with the U.S.

No good option: Brog, an opponent of the 2015 nuclear deal, said that the U.S. should pressure the Iranian regime with maximum sanctions, with the ultimate goal of prompting an uprising against the government. “We have a choice — either Iran will be on a path toward enrichment and a nuclear weapon with full economic benefits, or they’ll be on a path toward weapons and enrichment under a severe sanctions regime that is putting the regime under severe pressure and creating an opportunity for perhaps Iranians to liberate themselves from the regime,” he explained. “I wish there was option C, which is how through negotiations, through economic policy, you remove the opportunity that Iran can have a weapon. But that doesn’t seem to be an option.”

Long shot: Amy Tarkanian, the former chair of the Nevada Republican Party and a GOP strategist, told JI that the state’s new congressional new map provides “a glimmer of hope for the GOP” in the 1st District, compared to the “midnight blue” current district, but added that the strong union presence among the thousands of hospitality workers in the district will be a major obstacle for Republicans to overcome.

Read the full interview here.

In other GOP primary news: Jennifer Strahan, a Republican who is challenging Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District primary, served gazpacho at a fundraiser on Tuesday evening at Coosa Country Club in Rome. (Greene is a new member of the club.) The soup course was a not-so-subtle dig at a recent viral malapropism in which Greene, during an interview earlier this month, ranted against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) “gazpacho police.” According to a spokesperson for Strahan’s campaign, the event’s host committee made the decision to serve gazpacho, which was cooked up by a chef at the club and “followed a recipe from Spain.” Greene’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Reps. Sean Casten (D-IL) and Marie Newman (D-IL)

In a closely watched Chicago-area primary between two incumbent House Democrats, liberal pro-Israel group J Street is throwing its weight behind Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL), J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch on Tuesday. Casten is participating in a J Street delegation of House members visiting Israel this week.

Change of heart: J Street had previously endorsed both Casten and his opponent, Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL), prior to a redistricting process that changed the borders of the legislators’ districts. The organization stood by Newman in September when she was one of just eight Democrats to vote against a $1 billion supplemental funding package for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system — legislation that J Street supported. The group held a fundraiser for Newman days after the vote. At the time, Illinois’ new maps had not yet been approved.

New factors: “After redistricting placed them both in a race for Illinois’ 6th District,” Logan Bayroff, J Street’s spokesman, told JI on Tuesday, “we reviewed the race based on a number of factors and ultimately have made the decision this month to endorse Rep. Casten alone in this new head-to-head matchup.” Casten also earned the endorsement last month of the pro-Israel political action committee Democratic Majority for Israel.

Under investigation: Newman is currently embroiled in a congressional ethics investigation relating to her alleged bribery of Palestinian-American professor Iymen Chehade, who now serves as a highly paid advisor to her reelection campaign. A congressional ethics watchdog report revealed that Chehade had asked Newman to agree to support a range of anti-Israel policies, as well as to hire him to her congressional staff, in exchange for his agreement not to challenge her in the 2020 Democratic primary. Newman did not sign the proposed agreement on Israel policy, but responded to Chehade, “most of [the proposal] looks good.”

Read more here.

Cooperation between Bahrain and Israel stepped up a level this weekend with the prominent participation of both countries in the Munich Security Conference, Ahdeya Ahmed, former president of the Bahraini Journalists Association, writes in an op-ed for The Circuit.

Mutual interests: Undersecretary for Political Affairs of the Foreign Ministry Dr. Sheikh Abdullah bin Ahmed Al Khalifa represented Bahrain in the session titled “Abrahamic Agreements and Peace Options,” and shed light on a strong alliance between two countries in the Middle East that have common interests aimed at creating a more secure region in the face of the rise of extremism and terrorism that has threatened both countries and has destabilized others nations of the Middle East.

Quotable: “If this security cooperation between Bahrain and Israel would mean providing more stability and security, so be it,” Abdullah said. “If it would mean saving the lives of innocent civilians, so be it. That is why during a number of visits of the head of the Mossad to Bahrain, it was publicly announced in the Bahrain News Agency. Probably, the first time it was announced was in September 2020 and in May 2021 that, yes, the head of the Mossad was received by his counterpart in Bahrain. So we do believe that security cooperation, intelligence cooperation is part of our ongoing partnership between Bahrain and Israel.”

Read the full piece here.

Leon Cooperman at the American Museum of Natural History on November 12, 2015, in New York City.

In a virtual conversation last week with brothers of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, investor Leon Cooperman outlined a philosophy that could be described as “work hard, give hard,” reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Ben Sales. The chairman and CEO of Omega Advisors, who joined the Jewish fraternity as an undergraduate at Hunter College before going on to manage a hedge fund for 25 years, has a net worth of $2.5 billion, according to Forbes.

Overview: Cooperman encouraged his audience, should they grow wealthy, to donate generously. According to the most recent available tax forms, the Leon & Toby Cooperman Foundation gave $22 million in charity in 2019 and the beginning of 2020, including to a range of Jewish organizations. A recent article in The Washington Post, headlined “The Moral Calculations of a Billionaire,” depicted both Cooperman’s success — it reports that he made $700 million in 2021 — and his intention to give away almost all of his wealth. The article included Cooperman’s relatively modest lifestyle: He hunts for specials at Costco and drives a Hyundai, a detail he also mentioned in the AEPi talk.

‘Share your success’: “When you have achieved financial security, share your success with others less fortunate than yourself,” he said on the call. “In the Biblical sense, we are our brothers’ keeper, and we have a moral obligation to help others in need.” Following the Post article, he said, he’s gotten 300 requests for donations. “When you read these letters — and I read them all — the amount of suffering out there is legendary.”

Read the full story here.