Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Friday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the shifts on the Hill as Rep. Ted Deutch leaves Congress to helm the American Jewish Committee. With pressure on ahead of Israeli elections, we look at U.S. efforts to reach an agreement with Israel and Lebanon over disputed maritime gas fields. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ken Marcus, Rep. David Cicilline and Rep. Kathy Manning.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent JI stories, including: Amb. Mike Herzog uses his peace negotiating skills to break D.C.’s partisan divide; Lakewood’s Yehuda Tomor is reinventing the frozen cocktail; In new museum exhibit, a rare journey into Samaritan life and religious practice; Gulf-Israel train project chugs into political, financial obstacles; ‘Thinking of Polishness in different terms’: New book examines Poland’s Jewish revival; This group wants to make Tulsa a hub for young Jews; and Meet the cycling activists taking on Jerusalem’s hills. Print the latest edition here.
Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC) named campus antisemitism as a priority in an interview with Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod yesterday as she prepares to take over Rep. Ted Deutch’s (D-FL) role as the lead Democrat on the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, a move that was announced on Thursday ahead of Deutch’s upcoming retirement.
“I have big shoes to fill with the retirement of Ted Deutch,” Manning told JI, adding that she was “extremely excited” about taking on the role. “But I have spent the last probably 25 years working in various capacities to combat antisemitism. And it’s really an honor to be able to continue that work from the U.S. Congress.”
Manning said she hopes to work with State Department antisemitism envoy Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden administration, colleagues in the House and Senate and the nonprofit community to “come up with innovative solutions and create a very strong, cohesive front on this issue.”
“We need to educate students, and we frankly need to educate members of Congress, about what these issues are, and what a terrible impact they have on our students,” said Manning, whose district includes Greensboro and Winston-Salem and is home to a number of universities.
Throughout Manning’s first term in Congress, lawmakers on both ends of the political spectrum have faced accusations of antisemitism, sometimes from their own colleagues. Manning hopes to bring in speakers, including Lipstadt, to educate her colleagues on antisemitism, focusing on the history and roots of antisemitism, its evolution throughout history and the “devastating impact” it has had on both the Jewish community and other communities. There are also, she added, “opportunities to talk member-to-member to try to explain things to people, to change their way of viewing things and certainly change the way they articulate their issues.”
masters plan
Blake Masters: ‘Israel’s future is tied to our elections’

Republican U.S. senatorial candidate Blake Masters speaks during his election night watch party on August 2, 2022, in Chandler, Arizona.
Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Arizona, takes a characteristically partisan position while arguing in a new Middle East position paper that Israel can no longer count on bipartisan support from Congress. Laying the blame before his political rivals, Masters accuses “zealots like ‘the Squad’” — as well as, he suggests, most other Democrats — of contributing to an unfortunate dynamic that only his party can ameliorate. “It is a shame to say, but support for Israel has become a partisan issue,” Masters writes in his recently finished policy paper, which was obtained by Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel on Thursday. “That means that Israel’s future is tied to our elections — to making sure that our representatives are true friends and supporters of Israel,” the 36-year-old political newcomer adds, before referring to himself in the third person. “In this race, that is Blake Masters.”
Shared values: In the first section of the paper, Masters declares that Israel and the U.S. “share a powerful and strategic relationship that must be championed and safeguarded, for the good of all freedom-loving peoples across the globe.” He describes Israel as a “key partner in diplomacy, intelligence, and technological innovation” that “deserves continued and expanded American support.” The U.S. “benefits directly from countless Israeli efforts,” he says, adding a patriotic flourish: “But our nations share a philosophical and moral vision as well: one of peace, of freedom, and of religious tolerance. Israelis and Americans share the fundamental belief that you have a right to defend yourself, to fight for your family, to defend your nation, and to practice your faith free of persecution.”
International agenda: On the second and final page of his policy paper, Masters, who is challenging Democratic Majority for Israel-backed Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), runs through six “key issues,” starting with a vow to oppose BDS, promote trade with the Jewish state and uphold the $38 billion in U.S. aid to Israel that is guaranteed in a 10-year memorandum of understanding between the two countries, signed during the Obama administration. Perhaps unexpectedly, owing to his broader aversion to providing foreign aid to countries beyond Israel, Masters suggests that he will work “to build” on such “financial commitments” in “the future.” Elsewhere, Masters extols the Abraham Accords as an “incredible success” that set a “powerful precedent” for regional cooperation between Israel and a number of Arab nations that are aligned in their mutual concerns over Iran.