Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Wednesday morning!
It’s National Bagels and Lox Day — we hope you celebrate accordingly! 🥯Tag us on Instagram or Twitter with your best bagel and lox photo for a chance to appear in tomorrow’s newsletter.
Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will receive a classified briefing at 10 a.m. on the status of nuclear talks with Iran.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) was the only Democrat to vote against the House’s stopgap funding bill last night. He previously told Jewish Insider he would not vote for another continuing resolution if it did not include supplemental Iron Dome funding.
A series of Jewish leaders, including Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, who survived the synagogue attack in Colleyville, Texas, last month, testified before the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday, calling both for more federal money for synagogue security and an easier process to apply for that aid.
Calls to double funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program from $180 million to $360 million have grown louder since the Colleyville attack. At the hearing, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said “there’s still more we can do… in closing the $200 million funding shortfall.”
Cytron-Walker said, “Right now, there are far too many houses of worship that… are counting on the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to put them into place and help them feel more secure in their spiritual home… Right now, there are far too many houses of worship who won’t get the support they need.”
At one point, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) said, “Scripture says that a nation that stands against Israel stands against itself. That very simple truth must permeate homeland security policy.” He also asked the Jewish leaders to confirm “that the Jewish community stands solidly with law enforcement professionals” and said, “Domestic or international, any act of aggression toward Israel or its citizens must be handled swiftly.”
The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel highlights the Democratic primaries where Israel has become a hot topic of debate, citing JI’s reporting on the races.
back for more
Donna Edwards steps back into the fray

Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., adjusts her scarf on the House steps following a vote in the Capitol on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2015.
A lot has changed since Donna Edwards was last in Congress just over five years ago. After eight years representing the Washington, D.C., suburbs, the former Maryland congresswoman suffered election defeats in 2016 and 2018. She drove a used RV 12,000 miles across the country on a road trip, part beatnik soul-searching and part political quest to understand the sources of America’s disunity. And she’s changed too — or maybe it’s the Democratic Party that’s changed. She’s still figuring that one out. ”I recently had somebody describe me as a centrist, which was so bizarre,” Edwards, 63, told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch in a recent interview. ”I’m still a progressive. In some ways, I look at some of the younger members, and they have a lot of energy and stuff about them, and I think, ‘Maybe that was me 30 years ago, but the me today is a little bit more pragmatic.’”
Progressive darling: When Edwards walked the halls of Congress, from 2008 to 2017, “centrist” was not a word that would have been used to describe her. She ran on a left-wing platform to unseat Al Wynn, a formidable Democratic incumbent whom she painted as out of touch on issues such as the Iraq War, which he had voted to authorize. Ever since that race, which she won with the support of groups including Emily’s List and MoveOn, she has been a darling of national progressive organizations.
Getting attention: Maryland’s 4th District, which is mostly composed of the majority-Black Prince George’s County, has a rather small Jewish population. But the district’s location near both Montgomery County and Baltimore, the two hubs of Jewish life in the state, means it has attracted strong interest from local Jewish activists.
Rocky start: Edwards’ tenure in Congress was colored by a strained relationship with the mainstream pro-Israel community in Maryland, dating back to her early days in office. “The relationship between the Jewish community and Donna Edwards got off to a rocky start,” Ron Halber, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, told Politicoin 2009. “I would be lying if I told you there wasn’t concern.” That year, amid tensions between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Edwards voted “present” on a resolution “recognizing Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza” that passed 390-5.
Early endorsement: In 2008, Edwards was one of the first candidates ever endorsed by J Street. “The interesting thing for Donna is that she was ahead of her time,“ J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami told JI last week. “She’s been someone who really typifies what it means to be pro-Israel, and at the same time to have a very, very clear set of critiques about what the government and the policies of the [Israeli] government are.”
No boycott: Edwards does not support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. “I have not supported it, either when it first emerged, and not now,” said Edwards. “I know, that sets me apart from some other members of Congress where people might say, ‘Oh, she might be aligned with them.’ And really, I mean, my history tells me that I have not.”