Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Wednesday morning from Washington!
Ed note: In an effort to bring you, the readers, closer to what our team is seeing and hearing, on occasion we’ll be handing over the pen to individual reporters to lead off the Daily Kickoff.
This is Gabby Deutch, Jewish Insider’s Washington correspondent. Washington is abuzz with events and celebrations in the two weeks before Rosh Hashanah. This evening, Jewish politicos will gather at the residence of Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog for the Israeli Embassy’s first in-person Rosh Hashanah soirée since 2019 — two ambassadors and one presidential administration ago.
Last night, I walked down the temporary red carpet — yes, really — outside Washington’s Union Station into the Lamplighter Awards, a gala dinner hosted by American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad). This year, the ceremony honored Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Norm Brownstein, a founding member and chairman of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP, one of Washington’s most prolific and prestigious lobbying firms. Brownstein is known affectionately around Capitol Hill as “America’s 101st Senator,” an honorific first given to him by former Sens. Ted Kennedy and Hank Brown.
During a cocktail hour with a “sizzling shawarma” station, a sushi bar, a kosher charcuterie table and passed platters offering racks of lamb, lawmakers addressed the hundreds of attendees who were gathered inside the ornate banquet room. When attendees moved into the ballroom to start the event, American Friends of Lubavitch’s executive vice president, Rabbi Levi Shemtov, had to interrupt the first speaker — event chair Jeffrey DeBoer, president and CEO of the Real Estate Roundtable — to shush the schmoozing guests.
Speakers included Herzog and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD). Shelley Greenspan, who assumed the role of White House liaison to the Jewish community over the summer, read a message from President Joe Biden in which he praised the honorees “for their significant contributions to our nation” and lauded Chabad for its “commitment to strengthening the Jewish community.”
Lawmakers representing both parties and dozens of states stopped by. Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), John Boozman (R-AR), Michael Bennet (D-CO), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Ed Markey (D-MA), John Hoeven (R-ND), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Bob Casey (D-PA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mark Warner (D-VA), Joe Manchin (D-WV), John Barrasso (R-WY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also showed up. Several House members also came, including Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Ritchie Torres (D-NY). Former members of Congress Jane Harman (D-CA) and Ed Royce (R-CA) and former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) also attended.
Follow @GSDeutch for more Washington updates.
taking care of biz
Bahrain’s business booster in the U.S. is a Jewish woman from Manama

Rose Sager
Rose Sager rarely leaves home without what she calls her “Bahrain bag.” It’s a tote bag that says “Bahrain,” something a tourist might bring back from the tiny Persian Gulf nation. It was, for Sager, a conversation piece: As Bahrain’s trade representative in the U.S., her job is to convince American companies to do business in her home country. Even in the unfriendly underground world of the New York City subway, people sometimes ask her about it. Usually, they’re just wondering what Bahrain is. One time, she stayed in touch with a person who asked her about Bahrain and, after hearing from Sager about it, went to visit on vacation. “I find that fascinating to this day,” Sager explained to Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch recently, in her first interview with an American publication.
Blending in: Being Bahrain’s biggest booster is part of Sager’s job description. But unlike nearly three-quarters of her fellow Bahrainis, Sager is not Muslim. As a member of the country’s Jewish community, she is not just in the minority; the country has roughly three dozen Jews out of a population of 1.7 million people. “We just blended into the country like every other religious affiliation. There were no differences,” said Sager. “It was just another group of people.”
New knowledge: When the oil-rich nation normalized ties with Israel two years ago as part of the Abraham Accords, the country came on the radar of many American Jews for the first time. It was not just Bahrain’s Jewish community that many Americans were now discovering; for many, Bahrain itself was an unknown, a little country in a far-flung part of the world. “We’ve started spreading the word, and I feel like that made an impact,” said Sager. “You can go not to every state in the U.S. but to many, and they are now, I feel, more familiar with Bahrain than ever, especially after the Abraham Accords.”
Not always easy: Bahrain was once home to some 1,500 Jews. But after Israel was established in 1948, most of the country’s Jews left for Israel or England due to antisemitic violence in the country. By 1967, when another round of riots broke out following the Six-Day War, just a few dozen Bahraini Jews remained — Sager’s family among them.
Pushing tolerance: The country’s diplomats emphasize the kingdom’s commitment to tolerance and openness, which sets it apart from other Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, a close ally. “In some ways, it is more surprising to non-Bahrainis that Bahrain appointed a Jewish ambassador and a trade representative,” said Houda Nonoo, a Jewish woman who served as Bahrain’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2008 to 2013. “It does not stick out to Rose or me or Bahrainis in general that we would be appointed to our roles.” The two women are cousins.
Pleasant surprise: Despite the country’s acceptance of Jewish Bahrainis, for many years Bahrain and Israel did not have a diplomatic relationship. When Sager heard the news about the Abraham Accords, “it was a major surprise — a pleasant surprise,” noted Sager, who said the news came as a relief. “I never thought I would have a flight going from Manama to Tel Aviv, that was never in my wildest dreams,” she said.