When voters on Chicago’s South Side head to the polls later this month for the state’s first-ever June congressional primaries, they’ll face several changes: warm weather, newly drawn congressional boundaries and the first election in 30 years without retiring Rep. Bobby Rush’s (D-IL) name on the ballot. The result is a Democratic free-for-all ahead of the June 28 primary, with 17 Democrats set to appear on the ballot to represent the heavily blue 1st Congressional District. Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch talked to the four candidates who are leading in the polls.

Set the stage: Rush attempted to anoint a successor by endorsing Karin Norington-Reaves, a lawyer and the CEO of the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership. But the limited polling in the race has shown Norington-Reaves, who is endorsed by the Chicago Tribune, trailing three candidates: Jonathan Jackson, an activist who is the son of the civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson; Pat Dowell, a Chicago alderperson and a former nonprofit administrator; and Jacqui Collins, who has served in the Illinois state Senate for two decades.

Depth of history: Jackson has extensive experience in foreign policy. Jackson, who traveled to Israel with his father in 2006 in an attempt to secure the release of two Israeli pilots from Lebanon, told JI that he opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. “I respect the depth of history in other parts of the world, from my travel and from the architecture and the language and the traditions and customs,” he explained. “We have to educate some members of our own Congress that there’s a history here.”

Tikkun olam: Born in segregated Mississippi, Collins, who is 73, said, “I came out of the ‘60s, that generation very much influenced by Dr. King and Robert Kennedy. Faith informs my public policy. So I come out of that tradition of wanting to give voice to the marginalized.” She called Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel a role model, and said her admiration for him inspired her to earn a master’s at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership in Chicago “to study the origins of social justice, which is in the Torah.”

Do the work: Dowell pointed to her time as chair of the budget committee as an experience that prepared her well for the ideological divisions both across the aisle and within the Democratic Party. As budget chairman, Dowell explained, she has to work “across the various ideologies within the city council, from the regular Democrats and the progressives to the Democratic Socialists to the Republicans to pass a budget that supports every community in Chicago. That’s not an easy feat to get the required votes. But I’ve always tried to create a win-win situation.”

Not Wakanda: Norington-Reaves offered a recent conversation with a friend to explain why she opposes BDS. “He said, ‘Israel is to Jewish people what Wakanda is to Black people,’” recalled Norington-Reaves, referring to the fictional African nation home to the superhero the Black Panther. “I said, ‘Yeah, only Israel is real.’ Wakanda is this fictionalized, beautiful society where you can defend yourself, and you can be safe, and your culture can flourish. And Israel is a real place in which that can happen as an ancestral homeland for practitioners of the Jewish faith. And if BDS is rooted in the premise that Israel should not exist as such, then that’s a problem.’”

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Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) speaks with reporters following a news conference after a policy luncheon with Senate Democrats in the U.S. Capitol Building on June 14, 2022, in Washington, D.C.

A classified briefing on Wednesday between Biden administration officials and members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee left many legislators pessimistic about the state of the Iran nuclear talks, which have been stalled for several months, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

No deal: Committee Chair Bob Menendez (D-NJ), who has grown increasingly blunt in recent weeks in his calls for the administration to end the talks, said that he does not feel that the administration is coming around to his point of view, and called the administration’s efforts to address his concerns “a work in progress.” Menendez told reporters to “stay tuned” when asked whether the administration plans to impose additional sanctions on Iran targeting its nuclear program. Politico reported Wednesday afternoon that officials said in the briefing they are considering increasing sanctions on the regime.

At the table: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), one of Congress’ loudest proponents of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), appeared increasingly pessimistic about the chances for the U.S. to reenter the deal. “Obviously the chances of a breakthrough are much smaller today than they were six months ago,” Murphy told JI, when asked if he felt the administration remains committed to the talks. “I still don’t see any path to protecting the region from a potentially nuclear-armed Iran other than diplomacy.”

Inevitable: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told reporters that he feels that Iran will eventually become a nuclear power regardless of whether an agreement is reached. “I think the question with a deal is whether they’ll have more money to do it faster,” Rubio said. “There may not be a way to keep a government that’s determined to build a nuclear capability from acquiring it eventually. Unfortunately, that’s the real world that we live in.”

Plan B: At a public hearing earlier this month, senators pressed Iran Special Envoy Rob Malley for more details on the administration’s fallback strategy if nuclear talks fail. Legislators were divided over whether the administration had articulated such a plan. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), who is opposed to JCPOA reentry, called the briefing “one of the more informative and significant classified briefings” and said that the committee “got information as to the different options that are available.” Van Hollen, citing public reports, argued that a so-called Plan B “always included lots of different elements,” including a military option. But Rubio told JI, “I don’t think they have a Plan B, certainly not one that’s been shown to us,” a sentiment echoed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

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Feda Abdelhady Nasser

A United Nations briefing on antisemitism became politically charged yesterday when a Palestinian representative to the world body criticized the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism for conflating criticisms of Israel with antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Jacob Miller reports. Palestinian Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.N. Feda Abdelhady Nasser’s remarks occurred at the end of a three-hour U.N. Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) briefing on antisemitism, which featured a new proposal to tackle European antisemitism from the European Union’s coordinator on combating antisemitism, Katharina Von Schnurbein.

Definition disagreement: “It is an undeniable fact that seven of its 11 examples appended to the definition wrongly conflate criticism of Israeli policies and practices in occupied Palestine with antisemitism,” Abdelhady Nasser said. The definition’s examples of antisemitism include Holocaust denial behavior and offensive stereotypes of Jews, in addition to methods of criticizing Israel, including “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination”; “applying double standards”; “using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism… to characterize Israel or Israelis”; “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis”; and “holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.” Abdelhady Nasser did not specify which parts of the definition she opposed.

EU view: During the briefing, Von Schnurbein unveiled a proposal to combat European antisemitism by stopping anti-Jewish hate, bolstering Jewish life in Europe and promoting Holocaust education. “Europe has a responsibility to act with regards to its history, with regards to the fact that the Holocaust happened on our continent,” she explained, introducing her program. The three-pronged approach, she said, is grounded in the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism. “The definition itself says very clearly that — and this is always the crux and the elephant in the room — that criticism of Israel like that against any other country cannot be considered antisemitism,” she said. “This is part of this definition, and therefore it is no impediment to freedom of speech.”

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Leon Avigad, founder and Co-CEO of Brown Hotels Group.

CORINTHIA, Greece – As a child, Leon Avigad was sure he would be one of two things when he grew up: a spy or a hotelier. While a life undercover still hasn’t panned out, Avigad has fulfilled his other dream as a co-owner of Brown Hotels, one of Israel’s fastest-growing hotel groups. Together with partners Nitzan Perry (his husband) and Israeli businessman Nir Waizman, Avigad appears to have hit on a winning formula: purchasing old, neglected buildings in down-and-out locations and reimagining them as fun and funky travel destinations aimed at entertaining and pampering, Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash reports from Greece.

Retro style: In a retro style – think throwback lighting, rotary phones, record players and other knick-knacks for in-room decor – each of Brown’s hotels tells a story and offers the visitor a distinct vibe, ranging from party-all-night to Paris chic. With 21 boutique lodgings already in Israel (and several more on the way), the group is now shaking up Greece’s tourism industry as it expands from five currently operating urban hotels, the bulk of which are in a less desirable section of Athens, to resort destinations beyond the country’s existing tourism hubs. “We like to stay away from the obvious places,” Avigad, 50, told JI in an interview last week. “Greece is so much more than its islands, and Athens should not only be a stepping-stone for tourists to those islands.”

Rapid expansion: Avigad, whose business card describes him as “founder/storyteller/impresario,” told JI the company currently owns around 40 more properties in Greece that are just waiting to be “Brownized.” And, he said, the company is eying other European destinations such as Croatia, where it already runs one hotel. Such rapid expansion is ambitious for any business but especially risky in the hospitality sector, where the global tourism industry is only just beginning to rebound from two years of COVID-19 restrictions, which saw flights grounded, a steep decline in tourism and in some places, the banning of large gatherings in places such as hotels.

Pandemic opportunity: “We were always very optimistic,” Avigad said of the challenges brought on by the pandemic. He explained that the Brown group took advantage of the shutdowns to begin “rooting” itself in its chosen country, purchasing and renovating defunct former hotels and other structurally interesting buildings, such as the former headquarters of the Greek Communist Party – now a boutique hotel named “Dave Red Athens – son of Brown.” The hotel includes a dungeon-dive bar and leftover graffiti from its more socialist days.

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