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.”

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Deborah Lipstadt, nominee to be special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, speaking at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden administration’s nominee to be U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, appears bound for Senate confirmation following a long-delayed confirmation hearing on Tuesday, with the support of at least three Republicans, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The hearing, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was not without contentious moments: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) accused the Holocaust historian of spreading “malicious poison” by tweeting in March 2021 that Johnson had espoused “white supremacy/nationalism.”

In support: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) questioned Lipstadt over her tweets and told JI afterward that he plans to support her nomination. “Despite my concerns about what she has said, I think she’ll be a very forceful advocate at a time when we need someone who’s very forceful and credible,” he said. “My guess is most people will arrive at the place that… she has a long and distinguished commitment to battling antisemitism. It certainly makes her very credible and strong in that way.”

Clear path: At least two other Republicans have said they will support Lipstadt’s nomination — Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who co-chairs the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, and Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH). With the support of Rubio and Portman in committee and at least three Republicans on the Senate floor, Lipstadt should have sufficient support to be confirmed, despite objections from some Republican senators.

Face-to-face: Johnson called Lipstadt “simply not qualified” and said he hoped his colleagues would not support her. Lipstadt told Johnson that she seeks to criticize the rhetoric people employ, rather than the people themselves. “You don’t know me,” Johnson said. “You don’t know a lot of the people that you have accused online in front of millions of people. You have engaged in the malicious poison — you have accused people you don’t know of very vile things. It seems like how you engage in malicious poison is purely partisan. You’re hurling these charges against people that are generally of one political persuasion. That’s not nonpartisan.”

Brush off: In his opening statement, Foreign Relations Ranking Member Jim Risch (R-ID) brushed off criticism that Republicans have faced for delaying the confirmation proceedings for six months. “I know there was some grumbling about how quickly Ms. Lipstadt’s nomination moved forward,” he said. “This probably is a learning moment for people who want to be appointed to something that requires Senate confirmation, and that is that whenever an appointee has made remarks publicly regarding a member… it always draws and should draw more scrutiny and more vetting than usual.”

Drawing lines: During her testimony, Lipstadt drew a distinction between criticism of the Israeli government’s policies and antisemitism. “I don’t think any rational-minded person would think that criticism of Israeli policies is antisemitism. I do think there are certain things that cross the line into antisemitism, and criticism can often cross the line,” Lipstadt said. “If you call everything antisemitism, when you have a real act of antisemitism, people aren’t paying attention.”

No Amnesty: Lipstadt called Amnesty International’s recent report accusing Israel of apartheid “unhistorical” and “part of a larger effort to delegitimize the Jewish state.” Such language, she added, “poisons the atmosphere” for Jewish students on college campuses.

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US Army Lieutenant General Michael Kurilla testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on his nomination to the next commander of the US Central Command.

Lt. Gen. Michael Kurilla, the nominee to lead U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), warned of Iranian threats and discussed options for increasing cooperation between the U.S., Arab nations and Israel at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Deal or no deal: Kurilla, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Iran “the number one destabilizing factor in the Middle East with their malign behavior,” and called for an “enforceable agreement” ensuring that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon as the Biden administration engages in talks in Vienna over a possible return to the 2015 nuclear deal. He also acknowledged “a risk” that sanctions relief through a potential deal could be used to support proxy and terrorist groups that target U.S. forces in the region.

Options: The general said he was not aware of the military options currently on the table for a strike against Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but said he would conduct such an assessment if confirmed. “My only concern would be that you could never take away the intellectual knowledge that they have on how to increase their nuclear capability and then the reaction that Iran would have to any strike on them,” he added.

Join hands: Kurilla also offered praise for increasing cooperation between Israel and Arab states, fueled by the 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and Israel’s move to CENTCOM. He said that there is “significant opportunity” for security cooperation — especially on issues like drone and missile defense and cybersecurity, as well as potential joint military exercises between Israel and the Gulf states that face similar threats from Iranian proxies.

Read the full story here.

Bonus: In a speech yesterday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) called on the Senate to support the administration’s efforts to reenter the Iran deal. “Former President [Donald] Trump’s decision [to pull out] allowed us for four years to test the theory of the opponents [of the deal]… it was a spectacular failure,” Murphy said. The notion that Trump’s policies restored deterrence is “a laughable proposition because it did the exact opposite,” he added. “Iran didn’t come to the table on anything. Their actions… just got more serious and worse.” The Connecticut senator also said it will not be easy to reenter the agreement, given the advancements in Iran’s knowledge and the bevy of new non-nuclear sanctions the U.S. has imposed.