In the early fall of 2021, Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor and GOP megadonor, was holding court in a private dining room at a San Francisco hotel. The occasion was an exclusive dinner reception for a group of young conservative activists, and soon enough, their conversation turned to a speculative game of geopolitical matchmaking.

Gathered around the dinner table, the attendees had been wondering if they could identify a real-world “promised land” where the tenets associated with an emerging movement known as national conservatism, which promotes a confrontational style of right-wing populism now gaining traction in the Republican Party, might find the best chance of flourishing, according to a person who was present for the discussion.

Thiel, who is sympathetic to the movement, weighed in with a series of quick judgments as his dinner guests put forth a few possible destinations ranging from Europe to the Middle East and beyond. When the search eventually landed on Israel, which is recognized as a fountainhead of national conservative sentiment, Thiel was dismissive and “blew it off,” recalled the attendee, who spoke with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel on the condition of anonymity to describe the private exchange. The country, Thiel reasoned, was just too precariously situated.

In some ways, the emphasis on self-preservation was fitting for an eccentric Silicon Valley mogul so consumed with his own mortality that he has quixotically vowed to “fight” death. Born in Germany more than two decades after the destruction wrought by World War II, Thiel, who is now based in Los Angeles, holds at least three passports and helped found a libertarian nonprofit that aspires to build floating cities in international waters. He has long been fixated, it seems, on outsmarting the apocalypse.

It would not be surprising, then, if Thiel had expressed reservations over the prospect of relocating to a small Middle Eastern country in a region of hostile enemies openly seeking its destruction. Despite a personal sensitivity to security concerns in the region, however, Thiel’s candid assessment of Israel raised some broader questions over Middle East policy that he has not addressed publicly, even as his views on a range of issues have become increasingly relevant following an election in which the venture capitalist invested more heavily than ever before.

He did so while backing a handful of like-minded federal candidates who, by varying degrees, embraced somewhat outré approaches to international engagement that embody a sharp break from the traditional Republican foreign policy order — which Thiel seems particularly eager to disrupt.

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House lawmakers are circulating a letter condemning Amazon and urging the online shopping company to take down an antisemitic book and film promoted by NBA star Kyrie Irving, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod learned on Tuesday.

Background: The material in question, a book and film titled Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America, shot to public attention after Irving linked to the movie on Twitter. The material is replete with antisemitic tropes, including Holocaust denial and extremist Black Hebrew Israelite ideology that alleges that present-day Jews are not really Jewish. The letter, circulated by Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Brad Sherman (D-CA), is expected to remain open for signatures through the Thanksgiving holiday, according to a source familiar with the letter. It is addressed to Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy and Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos.

Money moves: “Your company’s decision to profit from the promotion of this dangerous hate speech has substantial real-world costs and consequences for the Jewish community and the greater society,” the letter reads, noting that the book and film have shot up in popularity on Amazon’s charts since Irving’s tweet.

Policy problem: The letter also quotes from Amazon’s own policies regarding review of films, which prohibit “derogatory comments, hate speech, or threats specifically targeting any group or individuals.” “It is alarming that this antisemitic film and book would not immediately qualify as hateful content,” the letter reads. “Amazon should not amplify and profit from this promotion of hate. Pulling this hateful content from your offerings should be a value [judgment] we believe your company should be comfortable making.”

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When venture capital firm Collide Capital launched last month with the announcement of a $66 million fund, its managing partners could’ve pointed to any number of business successes between the two of them when explaining why they decided to get into the VC world: Harvard and Stanford MBAs, stints at Bain and Goldman Sachs, and founding and leading a media company. But for Aaron Samuels, the real answer to where he started his career is not in the pages of an economics textbook or a business school case study. It’s poetry — and, in particular, his writings about his experience as a Black Jew, Samuels told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch in a recent Zoom interview from his Los Angeles home. 

In his tool belt: “I think from a young age, community was always the most important thing to me, and it was specifically the communities that I came from, which was the Black community, the Jewish community and specifically the Jews of color community,” Samuels said. “So if you asked me at age 13, ‘Aaron, would you be working on something that involved the empowerment of communities you care about?’ I would have said, ‘Absolutely,’ whether it’s through using creativity, through using art or through using the tools of business or the tools of capital.”

Community comes first: Samuels is best known for co-founding Blavity, a media company geared toward Black millennials, and AfroTech, a networking platform and conference for Black entrepreneurs and tech workers. (This year’s conference, which took place earlier this month in Austin, Texas, drew more than 25,000 attendees.) At gatherings like AfroTech, Black founders kept approaching Samuels with the same question: How could they get VCs to invest in them? Unusual for a new and unestablished fund, Collide’s $66 million fund has the backing of several major institutional investors. It is anchored by the University of California’s endowment, and it also received significant investments from Amazon, Alphabet and Twitter. Other limited partners in the fund include Bank of America, Citi and Northwestern Mutual. 

Poetry slam: Samuels collaborated with Reboot and Hillel International to produce a reading of his 2021 poem “Forgiveness,” about experiencing Yom Kippur, and the elaborate security common at many American Jewish synagogues, as a Black Jew. The short film toggles between brief recordings of Black Jews of all ages as they showcase their Jewish identity, with Star of David necklaces, yarmulkes or prayer shawls, as Samuels recites his poem. “I walk, covered in white, to the temple steps. I walk past four police officers. I see their weapons. How they make the community feel safe. I ready my body to pray,” Samuels reads, his voice strong and solemn, warm and inviting. “I walk through the metal detector, and I am buying candy in a new neighborhood. I exit the metal detector and I am asleep in my own bed. This is my place of worship. These are my people.”

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