House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) addresses reporters during a press conference to unveil the Joseph H. Rainey Room in the in the U.S. Capitol on February 3, 2022, in Washington, D.C.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is expected to travel to Israel later this month, according to official Israeli sources. A spokesperson for the speaker’s office told Jewish Insiderthat security protocols barred them from confirming or denying pending international travel. The House has no votes scheduled for the next two weeks — from Feb. 10-27, but is set to hold virtual committee hearings from Feb. 15-17. Members often use recess periods, when they are not expected in Washington, for international travel.

On the docket: In recent months, Pelosi has met in Washington with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. Discussion topics in those meetings have included Iran nuclear negotiations, the May 2021 Gaza conflict and funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system — which Democrats aim to include in the still-pending 2022 government funding package. The top House Democrat’s visit comes at what Biden administration officials have described as a critical time for their negotiations to reenter the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduces former US Senator Bill Nelson, nominee to be administrator of NASA, at a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on April 21, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

Following a classified briefing from the Biden administration on Wednesday morning, members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee painted a worrisome picture of Iran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program and unclear prospects for how close or achievable a deal might be, reports Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod.

On the horizon: “I think a deal is in sight, but only if you really squint,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), one of the Senate’s most vocal supporters of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), told JI. “There’s significant gaps between the two sides. It’s not [that] they can’t be closed, but every day that goes by and they’re not is not great for the chances of success.”

Tick tock: Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one of the upper chamber’s few Democratic JCPOA opponents, said that it is “possible [but] becoming increasingly difficult” to reenter the agreement because “the window is closing and closing rapidly.” He added that “it’s an open question” if the administration believes it is close to a deal with Iran.

Closed doors: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), the Senate Intelligence Committee’s vice chair, who participated in another recent classified session with that committee, said that the briefing “reflects a lot of what you’re hearing the public statements are from the administration, which is that a deal is in sight.”

Pressure on: Senators on both sides of the aisle offered dire warnings about the current status of Iran’s nuclear program. “The assessment of where the program — where Iran’s nuclear program is right now — is downright scary,” Murphy said, adding that Iran’s current breakout time is around eight weeks and “that time is getting smaller, not bigger, every single day.”

Cut bait: Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI), who recently participated in a similar briefing for House Foreign Affairs Committee members, said that the administration has a “clear sense of the timeline” for potentially walking away from the talks. “I think the administration has a very sober understanding of what the situation is, and they’re acting accordingly,” he said. “I think the United States has a fairly clear understanding of where things stand, and we’re very, very concerned about Iran emerging as a country that has nuclear weapons… they’re getting closer.”

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Elsewhere: National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with his Israel counterpart, Eyal Hulata, yesterday at the White House to discuss a range of issues, including “the threats posed by Iran and its proxies,” according to a White House readout.

Sol Werdiger

Sol Werdiger, founder and CEO of the youth sports apparel manufacturer Outerstuff, has attended every Super Bowl game for more than two decades. While he enjoys the competition, the chairman of Agudath Israel’s board of trustees has always arrived a few days early so he can mingle with Jewish locals while hosting a Friday night Shabbat meal, including kosher food and a ticket raffle, writes Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel. The festive dinners are an annual tradition for Werdiger, who enjoys regaling his guests with the colorful Super Bowl stories he has collected over the years.

Change of plans: On Friday, Werdiger is planning an event with Olami, a nonprofit Jewish organization, in Los Angeles, where the hometown Rams will be facing off against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday at SoFi Stadium for the NFL’s 56th championship game. The only tradition Werdiger himself will be breaking is that he won’t be there for Shabbat. “The plans have changed only because of some good news,” Werdiger told JI ecstatically. “Thank God, my grandson had a boy. It’s my first great-grandson’s bris on Friday morning.”

Eager to engage: Instead, Werdiger is now flying into Los Angeles on Saturday night after the Sabbath. “We’ll be there at the Super Bowl,” he told JI, adding that he would be hosting “whoever wants to come into our hospitality suite at one of the downtown hotels” in Los Angeles. The Orthodox leader is grateful for any opportunity to engage in Jewish communal life now that COVID restrictions have eased. At last year’s Super Bowl in Tampa, Werdiger was unable to host a catered event. He had dinner in his hotel room before the game.

Bengals business: From a business standpoint, Werdiger said the situation has also improved considerably. “Thank God,” Werdiger told JI. “The stadiums are open. People are going. People are shopping at the stores.” According to Werdiger, the underdog Bengals are a more reliable source of revenue than the Rams. “We get all the if-win orders in advance,” he said. While he emphasized that “we like both teams,” Werdiger suggested that, “business-wise,” a Bengals victory would lead to more jersey sales than a Rams win.

Beyond jerseys: Werdiger admitted that he is by no means “a sports-crazy guy.” Over the years, he has often questioned how he ended up in the sports apparel industry, and he has found the answer, he said, by joining with Jewish community members of varying religious persuasions in a manner that has imbued an otherwise secular American pastime such as football with an extra layer of meaning. “There’s no question,” Werdiger concluded, “that the reason God put us into the sports business is because He knew that we’ll use it beyond just selling a lot of jerseys.”

Read the full interview here.

Teenage participants in the Israel Aerospace Industries ‘Engineers of the Future’ program work on a group project with their mentor.

Not far from Ben Gurion Airport, in a spacious and airy hangar, sits Israel’s latest collection of highly sophisticated Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Large and small, short distance and longer range — even the first Israeli drone, circa 1980, strung from the ceiling — the space has everything one might expect to inspire, create and develop these innovative flying machines. However, among the workstations, spare parts and a plethora of highly trained engineers, there’s one thing conspicuously missing: women. The space is part of a sprawling campus belonging to Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), a state-owned company that develops all manner of civilian and military aerial systems it sells to more than 100 countries. It is a leader in the field both in Israel and around the world, however, among its 15,000 engineers only around a third are female, reports Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash.

Gender imbalance: The shortage of female engineers at IAI mirrors Israel’s broader technology and innovation sector today where women make up roughly a third of employees. And IAI is among the leaders in the industry looking for ways to address this gender imbalance.

Future engineers: “We want to raise the percentage of women in the engineering positions in the high-tech world in the future, not only for the IAI but for all of Israel,” Gili May, IAI’s chief relationship officer, who is responsible for the company’s social responsibility outreach, told JI. “I think IAI has an obligation to fight for the right of women to take their place in the field of engineering. Of course, we hope that those graduating from our program will come back to us in the future, but that does not really matter as long as some of the girls from this program end up becoming engineers.”

Manpower shortage: A recent study by Power in Diversity, a joint venture of more than 60 Israeli venture capital firms and more than 170 Israeli startups aimed at promoting diversity and inclusion, found that women account for only 33% of all industry employees. Dror Bin, CEO of Israel’s Innovation Authority, told JI last month that boosting the number of women in the sector was one of the authority’s main priorities, also in part to address an overall shortage of manpower in the country’s high-tech sphere.

High-tech pipeline: “The manpower shortage in Israel’s high-tech [sector] is chronic,” Maty Zwaig, CEO of Scale-Up Velocity, a branch of Start-Up Nation Central, which seeks to advance Israel’s high-tech industry and provide solutions to its human capital challenges, told JI. Zwaig said that along the traditional route to careers in Israeli high-tech there were many points where young women could and should be encouraged and engaged much more, which would ultimately increase their participation in the industry. “The pipeline to the high-tech industry in Israel begins with STEM, then there is the army and then university,” she described, using the acronym for the curriculum focused on science, technology, engineering and math. “We have a clear understanding of points where things go wrong, where we lose girls in the system.”

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