Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Wednesday morning!
Is Israel headed for new elections? MK Idit Silman quit Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s fragile coalition this morning, ending Bennett’s one-seat majority that has held since last June, and potentially sending Israel to its fifth election in just over three years.
“I am ending my membership in the coalition and I will continue to try to persuade my colleagues to return home and to form a right-wing government,” the senior lawmaker, a member of Bennett’s Yamina party, wrote in a statement. “I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way.”
Fifteen House Democrats will hold a press conference today expressing their concerns about a new Iran nuclear deal. Many in the group, led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), have already voiced objections, but two members — Reps. Val Demmings (D-FL) and close Biden ally Brendan Boyle (D-PA) — have not previously spoken out about the renewed Iran deal.
Boyle and Demmings — who is leaving the House for a Senate run in Florida — bring the count of House Democrats who have raised concerns about the new deal to 19.
Boyle told JI Tuesday night that he’s concerned about some of the reports he’s seen about the new deal, but said it’s difficult to tell what is actually part of the deal as it stands.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), who has previously raised his own concerns about a potential new agreement, said at an AIPAC event yesterday that lawyers in the administration are working to develop a pathway to avoid congressional review of a new deal as “an amendment to the JCPOA which would be exempt from congressional review,” a notion Torres said is at odds with the “clear intent” of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act.
After the event, Torres slammed a J Street official for “a cheap shot” taking his comments out of context by “reframing empathy for a US ally as though it were a form of ‘dual loyalty.’” Torres added, “The fact that I might hold an opinion that differs from yours does not mean I care about America any less than you do.”House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans are also holding a press conference this afternoon regarding the deal.
The Senate passed Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Maggie Hassan’s (D-NH) Pray Safe Act last night by unanimous consent. The bill, supported by various Jewish community groups, would create a centralized database for religious institutions with information on federal security programs and resources.
fighting hate
One American diplomat’s latest mission: tackling global antisemitism

Ludovic Hood (Hilary Eldridge for Jewish Insider)
While Deborah Lipstadt was enmeshed in Capitol Hill chaos during her monthslong confirmation process to be special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Ludovic Hood was in his State Department office across town, reading her books. As a senior Foreign Service officer, Hood’s career has taken him around the world, with stops in Paris, Bahrain and Qatar. But his first year-plus in his current role, as a senior advisor to the special envoy’s office, was spent in Foggy Bottom, diving deep into the history of the world’s oldest hatred. Hood’s career, and his position in the antisemitism office, provide a window into a policy team that is roundly praised by the U.S. Jewish community but whose work — the day-to-day of how combating antisemitism fits into American diplomacy — is not widely understood, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch writes. So what does an antisemitism-fighting diplomat actually do?
Fresh eyes: Like Hood’s overseas postings, his latest role as a senior advisor in the special envoy’s office has opened his eyes to new issues and diverse perspectives: Unlike Lipstadt, the noted Holocaust historian who was confirmed by the Senate last week as the special envoy, Hood is not Jewish. Many of the officers now working in the antisemitism office are not. The deputy special envoy, Aaron Keyak, told JI that this diversity is a crucial aspect of what makes American diplomacy unique. “It’s not about being one religion or another, or having one particular set of experiences or background. It’s about serving your government,” said Keyak, a political appointee who led Jewish outreach for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020.
Immigrant story: Born and raised in the U.K., Hood came to the U.S. as a teenager to attend boarding school. “I was 9 or 10 years old in England, and I was unduly or preposterously intrigued by the seemingly quixotic endeavor to take back these islands on the other side of the world,” Hood recalled, referencing England’s war in the Falkland Islands in 1982. He ended up staying and becoming a citizen, ultimately so taken with the country that he joined the Foreign Service as an Arabic language specialist in 2006 after a few years working in finance.
Fertile territory: Behind Hood’s desk hangs an old map of “Persia and Arabia,” alerting visitors to Hood’s portfolio on the antisemitism beat. He is focused on working with Arab countries on education around antisemitism, Judaism and the Holocaust. In a region that has been transformed by the Abraham Accords, the Middle East is now surprisingly fertile territory for the type of work happening in the antisemitism envoy’s office. “I certainly get the feeling that this administration at the highest levels has been quite clear, too, that openings have been generated or presented by the Abraham Accords that allow for discussions about issues my office cares about in ways that were unthinkable up until a couple years ago,” said Hood.
It’s personal: Hood has a particularly personal understanding of those changes. More than a decade ago, he was a political officer serving in Bahrain during the Arab Spring. He and his family had to leave the country quickly due to antisemitic threats directed at him and his wife, who is Jewish, following a diplomatic controversy. “I think having served in the Middle East and on Middle East issues, and with a Jewish wife and daughters who have lived with me in three conservative Muslim majority countries, has all contributed to how I think about these issues,” noted Hood.