Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Wednesday morning!
With most of last night’s primary races in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Kentucky, Idaho and Oregon called, attention now turns to the general election.
The Pennsylvania governor’s race will see Democrat Josh Shapiro, the state attorney general who sailed to victory unopposed last night, face off against Doug Mastriano, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump over the weekend. Mastriano — who is not Jewish — kicked off his gubernatorial campaign with an event in which he wore a tallit and blew a shofar. Shapiro — who is Jewish — ran campaign ads showing his Shabbat dinner table. Read JI’s profile of Shapiro here.
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who has been hospitalized following a stroke last week and who spent primary day having a pacemaker implanted, was declared the winner of the state’s Democratic Senate primary shortly after polls closed on Tuesday, followed by endorsements from both President Joe Biden and Democratic Majority for Israel’s PAC. He defeated Rep. Conor Lamb (D-PA) and state Sen. Malcolm Kenyatta. In a statement, DMFI PAC President Mark Mellman described Fetterman, who outlined his Middle East foreign policy views in an exclusive interview with JI last month, as “a proud pro-Israel progressive” who “has proven he will fight fiercely to reduce economic inequality, reform our criminal justice system, advocate for women’s rights, and support a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.” Read the full Fetterman interview.
Question marks still remain in two key races in the Keystone State: the GOP primary for Senate, and Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District, where Steve Irwin and Summer Lee are separated by just a few hundred votes.
Senate hopefuls Dr. Mehmet Oz and David McCormick pulled in 31.3% and 31.1%, respectively, likely sending the race into a recount. Kathy Barnette, who experienced a late surge in the final days of the campaign, received 25% of the vote.
In North Carolina, state Sen. Valerie Foushee beat out Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam and “American Idol” star Clay Aiken for the nomination in the state’s 4th Congressional District, while next door in the 1st District, state Sen. Don Davis defeated former state Sen. Erica Smith. AIPAC’s United Democracy Project PAC spent heavily in both races — $2.1 million supporting Foushee and $2.4 million supporting Davis and opposing Smith.
In Western North Carolina, state Sen. Chuck Edwards, who had backed Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s (R-NC) 2020 bid, narrowly eked out a win against the first-term congressman. Read our profile of Edwards here.
A Republican fundraiser who supported Edwards attributed his success, in part, to an endorsement from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who turned against Cawthorn in late March, as well as “early money from sane conservatives.” Such factors, the fundraiser told Jewish Insider in a text exchange on Tuesday evening, “made the difference.”
In Kentucky, Democrat Charles Booker will advance to the general election against Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). Despite some past criticism of Israel, Booker blasted Paul last year for opposing quick passage of supplemental Iron Dome funding, telling JI that Paul “pit our allies against one another,” “made a dishonest, empty excuse” and “likes playing political games with people’s lives.”
The House will vote today on a resolution from Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Lee Zeldin (R-NY) condemning rising incidents of antisemitism across the U.S.
The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act will come to the House floor today after some of its language was tweaked in response to concerns from House progressives and outside groups. Added language emphasizes “nothing in this Act… may be construed to authorize the infringement or violation of any right protected under the First Amendment.”
Israeli Minister of Defense Benny Gantz arrives in the U.S. today for meetings with White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Iran, which Gantz said in public statements on Tuesday is closer than ever to achieving nuclear military capability, will most likely top the agenda, as well as the recent death of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
Gantz will travel to Miami and New York over the weekend to hold meetings with American-based families who have lost loved ones serving in the Israel Defense Forces. On Sunday, Gantz will take part in the annual Celebrate Israel Parade in New York.
green peace
The first UAE minister to visit Israel got her start on climate change while scuba diving

When Mariam bint Mohammed AlMheiri landed in Tel Aviv last year, she didn’t know what to expect. A serial startup founder and environmentalist, AlMheiri is used to experimenting and exploring. But as the first United Arab Emirates minister to visit Israel after the Abraham Accords normalized ties between the countries in 2020, she was taking a new — and particularly noticeable — leap of faith.
“I remember at the hotel I was staying at, they put a label on the water bottle and the chocolate, saying, ‘Thank you to the first minister of the UAE,’ with my name on it,” recalled AlMheiri, the UAE’s minister of climate change and the environment. “When I was at restaurants or cafes, they wanted me to sign a book, because they said it’s the first time we have someone from the UAE and a minister.” People asked for selfies everywhere she went.
“For us, the Abraham Accords is a historic moment for both countries,” AlMheiri told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutchin an interview with The Circuit earlier this month in Los Angeles, where she was speaking about energy and food technology at the Milken Institute Global Conference.
Move fast: AlMheiri is responsible for helping the UAE reach ambitious clean energy and sustainability goals. For a major oil-producing nation in a region that is especially susceptible to the ravages of climate change, this is a task both improbable and of paramount importance. “Things have to move faster. Our government wants to be very agile, very focused on game-changing initiatives,” AlMheiri said.
Regional relationships: During AlMheiri’s visit to Israel last July, she and Israel’s environmental protection minister, Tamar Zandberg, signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on preservation efforts and environmental protection. “Israel and the United Arab Emirates have common environmental challenges, and the right way to deal with them is regional cooperation in finding and implementing solutions,” Zandberg told JI.
Scuba savvy: AlMheiri easily alternates between savvy business language, scientific jargon and casual conversation. She was educated as a mechanical engineer, but it was a passion for scuba diving that led her, almost by accident, to work for the Emirati government. She took up deep-sea diving as a hobby while trying to find work in aeronautical engineering when she returned to the UAE, and it was while diving that she began to think about human-caused environmental problems.