Annette Taddeo speaks during her campaign for Congress on August 14, 2022, in Miami Springs, Florida.

Florida state Sen. Annette Taddeo, mounting her third bid for Congress, is convinced that she is uniquely capable of defeating her Republican rival, freshman Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), in Florida’s newly drawn 27th District, which covers a sizable portion of Miami-Dade County. Even as the updated House map gives Republicans an edge in November, Taddeo argues that her personal story and no-nonsense demeanor — not to mention a recent track record of performing well in red-leaning territory — will help fuel an upset. “I’m known for being very straightforward, no BS and trustworthy,” Taddeo told Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel, emphasizing that she has never hesitated to buck party lines while in office.

Keeping the faith: Taddeo, who was raised Catholic, began to question her faith at age 12. “There were a lot of contradictions between one part of the Bible and another part of the Bible,” she recalled. “My dad said to me, ‘Well, go see the priest and ask him those questions.’” His suggestion, however, proved less productive than Taddeo had hoped. “The priest says, ‘Oh, honey, you’re not supposed to read the Bible. That’s for us to read and for us to tell you what it means.’” Her father’s response, by contrast, was far more encouraging. “He just said, ‘You keep reading whatever you want to read and you keep asking questions of whatever you want to ask,’” Taddeo explained. So began a yearslong process of religious discovery that would culminate in Taddeo’s conversion to Judaism about a decade later. “It was all women in the class, but I was the only woman without a fiancé,” Taddeo recalled, chuckling proudly at the memory. “The more I learned, the more I realized that this is who I was, this is where I felt at home and this is what I truly believed.”

Middle East views: Taddeo said she does “not profess to be an expert” on Middle East affairs “by any means,” but nevertheless hopes to serve as a bulwark against some Democrats in the House who have grown more critical of Israel in recent years. “I do see, as part of my responsibility, not allowing our party to go too far, like the Republican Party has gone on so many issues that are completely unacceptable,” she told JI. “I do believe that part of my role there is going to be making sure that we have that voice and have someone that understands the needs of our community and the desire for our community to support Israel and Israel’s right to defend itself against.” The Jewish Democratic Council of America seems to appreciate Taddeo’s approach. Its political arm will announce on Wednesday that it is endorsing her House campaign, the group confirmed to JI. “Annette is known as a fighter,” said Ron Klein, a former Florida congressman who chairs the JDCA. “She’s a Jewish Latina woman who, I think, can follow in [former Rep.] Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s footsteps.”

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Israeli President Isaac Herzog (C) and Emirati Ambassador to Israel Mohamed al-Khaja (C-R), Emirati Minister of State for Food and Water Security Mariam al-Muhairi and former minister Gabi Ashkenazi, open the Israeli stock market in Tel Aviv on July 14, 2021, on the same building of the new UAE embassy.

Emirati bankers, oil traders and tech entrepreneurs came to downtown Tel Aviv on Tuesday, signing a series of agreements and predicting that business connections would continue to strengthen as open Israeli-Emirati relations enter their third year, The Circuit’s Jonathan Ferziger reports. The Emiratis were welcomed at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange by Israeli business leaders eager to develop new partnerships in the United Arab Emirates and use the tiny Gulf state as a springboard to markets across the Middle East and Asia.

Trip priorities: The two-day trip was a chance for “high-profile networking,” said Ahmed Jasim Al Zaabi, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Global Market, which organized the forum with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. He expressed a desire to “foster stronger ties between the two nations” and said the corporate leaders with whom he was traveling saw “abundant business opportunities.”

Getting inked: While in Tel Aviv, representatives from three of the Emirati organizations signed a series of memorandums of understanding with Israeli partners. Those included a cooperation agreement between ADGM and Israel’s Start-Up Nation Central, to work together in supporting the growth of new companies in both countries; an agreement to increase cybersecurity literacy signed by the ADGM Academy and Israel’s Avnon Group Middle East; and an agreement on strengthening data privacy, signed by regulatory offices from both countries.

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In this photo illustration a person holding a smartphone displaying the Morningstar logo on a screen. (Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

A New York state lawmaker is urging the state’s attorney general to probe potential anti-Israel bias in investment firm Morningstar’s environment, social and governance (ESG) ratings system, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Assemblymember Daniel Rosenthal, a Democrat who represents the heavily Jewish Queens neighborhoods of Kew Gardens Hills, Kew Gardens and parts of Forest Hills, sent a letter on Aug. 31 to Attorney General Letitia James, the latest effort to urge state officials to probe the investment firm, which is facing accusations that its subsidiary, Sustainalytics, is biased against Israel. The letter cites New York’s anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions policy, established by a 2016 executive order.

Report card: Morningstar has repeatedly denied that it supports the BDS movement, and has agreed to implement reforms proposed in an outside review commissioned by the firm. Rosenthal wrote that he “remain[s] skeptical” of the conclusions of the outside report, which identified “latent, disproportionate focus on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict which results in biased outcomes” within “one siloed product,” but denied “pervasive [or] systemic bias against Israel in Sustainalytics’ products or services.” He points to a Foundation for Defense of Democracies report that alleged “pervasive and systemic” anti-Israel bias.

Pro-ESG: Some of the recent state-level criticism of and action against Morningstar has been driven by Republican officials who are broadly critical of ESG investment practices in general. Rosenthal, by contrast, emphasized that he seeks to support ESG investing. “Beyond the paramount goal of ensuring financial services firms operating in New York remain free from the influence of the anti-Semitic BDS movement, the ESG component of this investigation is critical,” he wrote. “New York State cannot allow the BDS movement to damage the credibility of Israeli-based companies anymore than we can afford to delay private investment in socially conscious companies building a better world.”

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