The screening of “The Survivor”

At a somber and emotional 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. last night, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden hosted their first film screening in the White House theater: a showing of HBO’s “The Survivor,” a new biopic of Auschwitz survivor and boxer Harry Haft, who was forced to fight while a prisoner and went on to a short-lived boxing career in the U.S. after his liberation, reports Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss.

Poignant remarks: The event, which coincided with Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, featured remarks from the president, who, according to those in attendance, took time to talk with many of the attendees at reception before the screening, held in the ​​Jacqueline Kennedy Garden outside the East Wing. “The president said he learned about the horrors of the Holocaust from his father, and then instilled those lessons in his children and grandchildren, taking them to see a concentration camp,” one attendee told Jewish Insider. “He also spoke of the importance of combating Holocaust denial and the importance of vigilance, saying it could happen again.”

Proclamation: Earlier in the day, Biden had issued a presidential proclamation. “Today and every day, we stand against antisemitism and all other forms of hate and continue our work to ensure that everyone can live in a world that safeguards the fundamental human dignity of all people,” he announced.

Spotted: Those in attendance included Haft’s son, Alan Haft, film producers Matti Leshem and Jason Sosnoff, HBO’s Chief Content Officer Casey Bloys, Discovery Corporate Affairs Officer David Leavy, Francesca Orsi, Tara Grace, Tammy Haddad, Stu Eizenstat, Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), Susie Gelman, Michael Gelman, Eric Goldstein, Rabbi Moshe Hauer, Darcy Hirsh, Allan Holt, Jason Isaacson, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, Adam Lehman, Ann Lewis, Deborah Lipstadt, Daniel Lubetzky, Benjamin Sax, Halie Soifer, Jason Sosnoff, Susan Stern, Angela Tarantino, Ambassador Michele Taylor, Debbie Yamada, Steve Rabinowitz, Matt Dorf and Susan Wojcicki.

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An Israeli border guard stands next to the “Light Blade” laser defense system, designed to intercept airborne incendiary threats launched from the Gaza Strip, in the Israeli kibbutz of Kissufum, along the border with the Palestinian enclave on August 30, 2020.

Earlier this month, Israel’s Ministry of Defense made a dramatic announcement – the successful test of a high-powered, ground-based laser interceptor system, able to defend Israel against UAVs, mortars, rockets and anti-tank missiles. Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash reports on the strengths and weaknesses of the new system.

Cautious optimism: Smart lasers defending against the salvos of rockets that have become so familiar in recent years in Israel’s conflicts with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon would appear to be revolutionary. Yet, those paying close attention to missile weaponry and defense systems sounded a note of caution. Lasers, analysts and experts interviewed by JI said, are particularly sensitive. They are severely weakened in certain weather conditions and until they are put into a real-life battle situation, it is premature to determine if they will be able to change the future of conflicts across the globe.

More time: “It’s not a game-changer yet,” Seth Franzman, a Jerusalem-based analyst and author of Drone Wars Pioneers, Killing Machines, Artificial Intelligence, and the Battle for the Future, told JI. “It’s technology that has been worked on for many years, usually without success.” He continued: “Once it’s operational and if they can put the technology on long-endurance drones, then we will see if it works on the battlefield.” That, he said, would most likely take a few more years.

Laser-wall: Both Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a former defense minister, have been touting Israel’s “laser-wall” building efforts for some time. Last June, following the successful test of the aerial laser system, Gantz said it was a “technological breakthrough” and a “milestone in the development of the multi-tier defense array of the State of Israel.” Bennett also emphasized such a defense would be attractive to Israel’s new regional allies – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and even Saudi Arabia – who also face threats from Iran and its proxies. “This is another way in which we will create assets, use them and give what we have to the world in order to gain support, create alliances and become even stronger,” he said.

Sensitive lasers: Uzi Rubin, the founder and former director of Israel’s Missile Defense Organization and a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute of Strategy and Security, said Bennett was being “over-optimistic” about the prospects of a wall of lasers to seal Israel’s borders. “Lasers have limitations,” he said, explaining how weather degrades their performance because they cannot penetrate clouds. “People think this is a country of eternal sunshine, but we have between 60 and 80 days of rain and cloud coverage and that renders this kind of weapons system unoperational.”

Lowering costs: Dore Gold, president of Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations who has worked with Israel and the United States on developing laser defense systems in the past, said, however, that Bennett and Gantz’s “game-changer” assessment was not far off the mark. “The main thing is to compare this laser tech with the previous technology that was tested, and what really stands out in this case is the incredibly reduced cost of each interception – it can make laser defense something which any defender can afford,” he told JI.

Read the full story here.

Lessons are taught simultaneously in Hebrew and Arabic to both Jewish and Arab Israeli children at the Wadi Ara Hand in Hand School on October 15, 2016, in Kafr Quara, Haifa District of Israel.

A generation after the collapse of the Oslo process, and with the gaps between Israelis and Palestinians having grown into a chasm, a veteran Jewish legislator stepped into the breach. At the end of 2020, former Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) spearheaded the bipartisan passage of the Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act (MEPPA), which allocated $250 million over five years to support grassroots organizations working to build relationships between Israelis and Palestinians. The legislation was signed into law by former President Donald Trump, and the newly created Partnership for Peace Fund, operated by USAID, began awarding its first grants last month, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Status update: “I am an optimist, and I am not — I keep my eyes open. I know the reality of what’s happening there. But I think programs like this do create opportunities for people to know each other, work together and work towards peace,” Lowey, who retired last year after representing New York City’s northern suburbs for more than 30 years, told JIon Thursday.

Two-state support: The goal of each project supported by the fund is mandated to be the advancement of a two-state solution, said a senior USAID official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss an ongoing project. “While there is some flexibility, and we are looking for creative ideas, any application must be committed to a two-state solution, and also to show how the work that they’re proposing builds that enabling environment,” the USAID official told JI.

Set it up: “If we can improve the daily lives of the Palestinian people, and get the grassroots constituencies in Israel and on the Palestinian side working together to achieve common goals, then I think we will be in a position where a two-state solution will be better realized when the time comes,” George Salem, the board chair of the Partnership for Peace Fund, said at a Jewish Council for Public Affairs conference this month.

Direct support: The grants awarded by USAID go directly to the recipients. Neither the Israeli government nor the Palestinian Authority (PA) is involved with the Partnership for Peace Fund. Sander Gerber, who was appointed to the advisory board by Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), said his motivation has been supporting Palestinian civil society in a way that bypasses the PA. “My belief is that the PA’s corruption is stealing the future from the Palestinian people, and to the extent the U.S. government can help provide a future for the Palestinian people, I like to participate,” Gerber told JI.

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives for a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing about the State Department’s FY2023 budget request in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on April 28, 2022, in Washington, D.C.

Despite high tensions and ongoing clashes between Israel and the Palestinians, Secretary of State Tony Blinken argued on Thursday that recent U.S. efforts to head off conflict have been largely successful, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Blinken — who testified at budget hearings on Thursday with the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a House Appropriations subcommittee — said the administration has been “very focused” on preventing a repeat of last May’s conflict between Israel and terrorist groups in Gaza, during which over 4,000 rockets were fired into Israel and Israel repeatedly bombed sites in Gaza.

Teamwork: “I sent a senior team to Israel to work with the Israelis, to work with the Palestinians, to work with the Jordanians and others to try to help everyone avoid taking actions that could precipitate more violence,” Blinken said. “And I think this has been largely, for now — I’m knocking on wood — largely successful.”

Aid watch: The secretary of state also said the U.S. is using aid to the Palestinians, which the Biden administration restored after it was cut by the Trump administration, “in a variety of… ways to try to make progress with the Palestinian Authority” and is “working very hard” to end Palestinian Authority payments to the families of those who conduct terror attacks against Israelis. “We think it’s vital that the Palestinian Authority — for all of its shortcomings — be supported because the alternative is Hamas,” he continued. “And that’s in no one’s interest.”

Deal watch: Amid repeated questioning on the issue, Blinken did not explicitly commit to submitting any new Iran nuclear deal in full to Congress for review, saying, “we will commit to following the law, including INARA,” referring to the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which requires the administration to submit any nuclear deal with Iran for congressional review. The secretary of state appeared to confirm that the sunset provisions in a new agreement would be the same as in the 2015 agreement, one primary concern cited by opponents of the prospective agreement.

Clarification: Blinken clarified comments from earlier in the week about Iranian demands that the U.S. lift the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ terrorist designation as part of the deal. He had said that Iran would have to take certain unspecified actions for this designation to be lifted. Asked directly if the IRGC would have to “cease support for terrorism” in order for the designation to be lifted, Blinken responded “that’s correct.”

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Bonus: In an oversight hearing on Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the Department of Homeland Security has taken various steps to tamp down on domestic extremism and hate crimes. Those include creating a domestic terrorism branch in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, which “has been disseminating an unprecedented level of information and intelligence throughout the nation,” as well as launching the Centers for Prevention Programs and Partnership to disseminate information and funding to communities to counter violent radicalization. He said he has also been in touch with Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, whose organization recently published a report indicating that 2021 was the worst year for recorded antisemitic incidents in the U.S.

On this week’s episode of Jewish Insider’s “Limited Liability Podcast,” co-hosts Rich Goldberg and Jarrod Bernstein were joined by Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the New York-based Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, for a discussion of the Jewish community’s “tent,” anti-Zionism and antisemitism and the future of Jewish-Christian and Jewish-Muslim relations. A sampling of his comments on these topics is below.

Making friends: “Both Jewish-Christian relations and Jewish-Muslim relations, as we see them at Hartman, I wouldn’t say they’re struggling in the same ways, but they, in many ways, are facing the same challenge, which is Zionism in the State of Israel. If you take Jewish-Christian relations, there was a huge industry built around Jewish-Christian relations after the Holocaust, a lot of Christian theological reckoning and rethinking of what Jewish powerlessness and Christian power resulted in for Jews.”

Controlling destiny: “I think a lot of very well-meaning and very well-intended people who believe that their actions in being critical of the State of Israel stem from the fact that Jews have the ability to shape our own destiny. There’s something inherently Zionist about it. Any Jew who believes that they actually can take some control of history and shape it and make it different, is, in some ways, influenced by Zionism. That was our great accomplishment. I think a lot of the folks who are most publicly critical of Israel are doing so because they think they have a moral responsibility at a particular time of history to help Israel to correct its flaws.”

Bonus: Favorite Yiddish word or phrase? “Goyim nachas, gentile’s delight.” Future of outfielder Aaron Judge with the New York Yankees? “I think he’s going to sign… I would say a 3% chance that he goes to Anaheim, other than that, I think it stays.” Favorite New York restaurant? Izzy’s on the West Side of Manhattan.

Read more here and listen to the full podcast here.