Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Monday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s address to the J Street National Conference, and cover a new initiative by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Sagol family to train municipal officials across Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Tamara Cofman Wittes, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Dubai Multi-Commodities Centre CEO Ahmed Bin Sulayem.
The White House will host Jewish leaders for a roundtable discussion about antisemitism on Wednesday, according to an invitation obtained by Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch. The invitation, which says that unnamed “senior White House officials” will be in attendance, was sent by White House Jewish Liaison Shelley Greenspan.
The agenda, according to the invitation, will include a discussion of the Biden-Harris administration’s work on combating antisemitism and “how we can best work with your organizations to confront the rise of antisemitism.” The meeting is meant to be a follow-up to the United We Stand summit that the White House hosted in September, one person with knowledge of the meeting told JI. Read more here.
On Friday, President Joe Bidenissued a tweet specifically addressing antisemitism and Holocaust denial, days after Kanye West, who legally changed his name to Ye, appeared on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ show and praised Nazis and Adolf Hitler. “I just want to make a few things clear: The Holocaust happened. Hitler was a demonic figure. And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides,” Biden tweeted.
Hours later, Vice President Kamala Harris tweeted, “Praising Hitler and denying the Holocaust is vile, appalling, and must be condemned. Our Administration will continue to stand up against antisemitism and the epidemic of hate.”
Also on Friday, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who posted his own tweet on antisemitism, spoke about his concerns during a fireside chat at the NewDEAL Leaders conference in Washington. “It’s painful,” Emhoff said, according to excerpts of the conversation obtained from a White House official. “It hurts.”
“So I don’t want it to feel normal,” Emhoff, who is Jewish, continued. “I don’t want people to think, ‘Well, it’s just words, it’s just Kanye.’ No — this matters. This is important. We have to all step up and speak out about this as leaders in your communities. So as long as I have this microphone, I’m going to keep speaking up, speaking out, and again, not just about antisemitism but about hatred and bringing everyone else together. This is not OK. It’s not OK. We cannot be silent. We gotta push back. We gotta speak up. And we cannot make this normal. We cannot.”
Emhoff also addressed the responsibility he’s felt as the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president. “And coming in as Second Gentleman, I thought being the first man in this role would be the headline, and it was. But like, the one thing was being the first Jewish person of any of the four. There’s never been a Jew married to a president, or vice president, or has been president or vice president. As it turns out that has become a very big deal in the Jewish community and in other communities that aren’t represented. And I felt it was very important to kind of take that on, accept that responsibility, and really lean into it. And live openly as a Jew as I had in my normal life but do it in this public life, which meant Passover, virtual Passover, live Passover, mezuzahs on the doors, menorahs.”
Conversations about increasing antisemitism continued through the weekend. Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu weighed in during an appearance on “Meet the Press” yesterday, telling host Chuck Todd that antisemitism is “the oldest disease” that has “accompanied our history with horrific results over the centuries, and it’s not going to go away.”
“I think free societies have to take a consistent position to condemn antisemitism, to stand up against it, and to do so consistently,” Netanyahu added. “What is driving it is one of the unfortunate effects of the internet age…is polarization. In the case of antisemitism, it’s the melding, the fusion of the antisemitism from the extreme radical left with the extreme radical right.” Watch the full interview here.
heard yesterday
Blinken: U.S. will gauge new Israeli gov’t ‘by the policies it pursues rather than individual personalities’
Secretary of State Tony Blinken addressed J Street’s National Conference on Sunday, delivering a 30-minute speech that laid out the Biden administration’s commitment to a two-state solution, Israel’s security and expanding the Abraham Accords and included the most detailed comments yet on how the administration will deal with the new right-wing Israeli government, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Respect democracy: “We fully respect the democratic choice of the Israeli people. We again congratulate Bibi Netanyahu,” Blinken said. He pledged to “gauge the government by the policies it pursues rather than individual personalities,” and also expressed a commitment to support “core democratic principles, including respect for the rights of the LGBT community and the equal administration of justice for all citizens of Israel.”
Diplomacy first: Blinken’s wide-ranging address, the keynote of Sunday’s programming at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, underscored the Biden administration’s preference for diplomacy in the Middle East — in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and stopping Iran’s nuclear program. He expressed support for the women-led protests in Iran but did not describe a change in U.S. policy vis-a-vis nuclear negotiations. “The regime’s actions have only deepened our conviction that Iran must never be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon,” said Blinken. “We continue to believe that the best way to ensure this is through diplomacy.”
Horizon of hope: Blinken received the most applause when discussing the two-state solution, long a cornerstone of J Street’s advocacy and U.S. policy. “Anything that takes us away from two states is detrimental to Israel’s long-term security and its long-term identity,” said Blinken. “The prospects of a two-state solution feel remote” at the moment, he added, so Washington’s goal is “preserving a horizon of hope.”
Different approach: J Street, a vocal critic of former President Donald Trump, celebrated President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. But the advocacy group and the Biden administration differ in their approach to some Israel-related issues. Blinken praised the Abraham Accords, the 2020 Trump-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan. J Street has only tepidly embraced the Accords, and Blinken’s comments on pursuing normalization were met with little applause.
mayors meet
Program for Israeli mayors finds unity where national politics has failed
With Israel’s national political system increasingly polarized after five general elections in less than four years, a recently launched program to train local-level political leaders aims not only to bring together mayors and municipal heads from Israel’s various sectors, but give them the tools and skills needed to soothe social divisions, deliver more equitable public services and provide a crucial link between citizens and the national government, Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash reports.
Direct impact: “In Israel, the [national] government does not have a direct impact on the individual, it creates policy on a national level, but the bottom line is that local leaders such as mayors are the contact between the citizen and the government,” professor Moshe Zviran, head of the Bloomberg-Sagol Center for City Leadership at Tel Aviv University, told Jewish Insider.
Leadership goals: Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Sagol family launched the new center at the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University earlier this year with the aim of strengthening local leadership across Israel. The yearlong program was inspired by a similar initiative run by Bloomberg Philanthropies at Harvard University, and culminates in a trip to Boston and New York City.
Diverse representation: Out of some 257 mayors and local municipal leaders in Israel, the program selected 20 whom it felt would best represent the country’s diverse population groups and their vastly different geographical locations – Jewish, Arab, religious, secular, central, periphery, rural and urban. The diversity, explained Zviran, “is by design,” with a main element of the program being the emphasis on providing more equitable services for all of Israel’s different populations and learning to work better together.
bed & breakfast
A luxury Golan Heights hotel is preserving history, layer by layer
It’s not very often in Israel that you wake up to the sight of more than a dozen gleaming Ferraris, but then again, there aren’t too many places far enough from the country’s bustling center to warrant a serious road trip for the Italian power rides – or exclusive enough to draw in the owners of such luxury. That’s why, on a recent weekday morning, the Ferrari Owners Club of Israel roared onto the grounds of the Pereh Hotel – the year-and-a-half-old luxury resort that sits quietly tucked away on the majestic Golan Heights – and parked their colorful cars for a rich and pampering breakfast in the hotel’s sweet-tasting Rouge restaurant, Ruth Marks Eglash reports for The Circuit from Israel’s Golan Heights.
Good view: With sweeping views of the Galilee, the Pereh Mountain Resort sits on an expansive plot of Israel’s most northern plateau. Far from the country’s obvious tourist spots in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, Pereh, which literally means wild in Hebrew, captures the raw and thorny beauty of the Golan Heights, while at the same time offering a tranquility that puts visitors immediately at one with nature. It also captures a unique slice of history for Israel in particular and the broader region in general, with the hotel’s owner and an array of local designers working hard to preserve the past, while at the same time carefully adding a new layer of comfort and opulence.
Slice of history: Pereh stands along the old Haifa-Damascus Road at the site of what is known as the Upper or French Customs House. It was here in 1916 that the British and French diplomats, Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot, signed a secret treaty at the end of World War I carving up the former Ottoman Empire to create the borders of the countries we know today: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and what was British Mandated Palestine, now Jordan, Israel and the West Bank. At the heart of the sprawling property, inside a ragged building that remains largely untouched, is a rudimentary museum paying homage to this game-changing agreement and to the creation of the hotel that now sits here.
Origin story: An antique map with the demarcation lines and the original colonial contract hang without commentary high on scorched and peeling walls alongside black-and-white portraits of Sykes and Picot, as well as an ominous photograph of the handshake that essentially sealed the fate of the entire Middle East. Nearby is a color photograph of Leo Glaser, Pereh’s founder and owner. A defense and security consultant, Glaser apparently became enchanted with the Golan Heights as a teenager in his native Buenos Aires after hearing the news that the notorious Israeli spy Eli Cohen had been hanged in Damascus, Syria. Cohen – who succeeded in infiltrating to the highest levels of the Syrian military before his execution in 1965 – quickly became Glaser’s hero and the impetus for his subsequent aliyah, and later a long military and secret service career.
Tree talk: It was also what pushed Glaser to purchase this parcel of land in 2014. According to legend, Cohen had succeeded in convincing the Syrian army to plant eucalyptus trees at army bases across the Golan, which was then in Syrian hands; he said it would keep the soldiers shielded from the sun. However, it is believed that knowing the location of these trees is what assisted the Israel Defense Forces in identifying Syrian military targets, allowing it to capture the area during the 1967 Six-Day War. A cluster of Cohen’s eucalyptus trees, as well as several abandoned Syrian army bunkers beneath them, now stand on the horizon not far from the young grapefruit, pomelo and lemon trees in Pereh’s newly planted garden. Below their swaying branches is a small plaque that stands as a tribute to Cohen.
Read more here and subscribe to The Weekly Circuit newsletter here.
crossing borders
Dubai’s Ahmed Bin Sulayem reaches out to Tel Aviv
Ahmed Bin Sulayem, who runs diamond, gold and coffee exchanges in Dubai, has a hard time sitting still. Courting business owners at a seminar in Tel Aviv last week, the 44-year-old CEO of the mammoth Dubai Multi-Commodities Centre repeatedly left his chair up front to take phone calls, visit the espresso bar, snap pictures, send WhatsApp messages, view YouTube videos, play e-games and work the lobby, Linda Gradstein reports for The Circuit. He conveys the enthusiasm and frenetic air of a man who spends a great deal of time taste-testing the products at the global coffee center he established among 22,000 businesses that operate at the DMCC, Dubai’s largest free-trade zone.
Covert trips: Decades before the Abraham Accords normalized diplomatic ties between the United Arab Emirates and Israel in 2020, Bin Sulayem regularly slipped into Tel Aviv to meet with traders at the Israel Diamond Exchange, discuss investments in tech startups and surf on the Mediterranean beaches. Now he’s coaxing many of the friends he’s made to set up shop in Dubai and sell to neighboring Arab countries that were previously off limits to Israelis. “Israel’s just an amazing market to bounce ideas back and forth and connect with,” Bin Sulayem told The Circuit in an interview after leading the DMCC’s three-hour “Made for Trade Live” road show on Nov. 29 at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. “There are so many opportunities that have been uncovered.”
Global intrigue: Besides being home to the Dubai Diamond Exchange, the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange and the DMCC Coffee Centre, Bin Sulayem has sought to make the free-trade zone a home for cryptocurrency and e-gaming businesses. The coffee operation, which has facilities for roasting, storage and exporting the commodity around the world, also features a school for baristas. Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, established a regional office at DMCC and Bin Sulayem says he’s friendly with CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who has been living in the zone amid the crash of FTX, its biggest rival.
Cutting the commute: Among the 78 Israeli companies that operate in the DMCC, Adi Zamir uses Dubai as a platform for selling diamonds in Asia, cutting travel time to his primary market in India by three hours. “Dubai is poised to become the center of the diamond trade,” Zamir told The Circuit by telephone from the UAE. “Moving here became possible because of the Abraham Accords and it is the best way to grow my business.” Nine months ago, Zamir, a trim-haired 51-year-old, packed up his business and moved with his wife and teenage daughters to the DMCC. As a second-generation dealer, he imports rough diamonds from Africa, and sells them in India and other Asian markets. “When you want to build a serious operation you need to know the mentality and to be local,” he said. “It’s impossible to create a new platform when you come and go every two weeks. It also means I don’t need to live on an airplane.”
Read more here and subscribe to The Weekly Circuit newsletter here.
Worthy Reads
👋 A Trump Exodus: The Wall Street Journal’s Aaron Zitner looks at how Jewish Republican leaders are reacting to former President Donald Trump’s recent dinner with Ye and far-right provocateur Nick Fuentes. “Dov Hikind, a prominent Jewish leader in Brooklyn, endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2020. After Mr. Trump’s recent dinner with two prominent promoters of anti-Semitic rhetoric, Mr. Hikind said he won’t support Mr. Trump again. ‘It is over, it is finished,’ Mr. Hikind, whose 36-year run as a state lawmaker ended in 2018, said of his support for the former president. ‘Right now, he’s doing so much damage. He has disqualified himself from any of us supporting him ever again.’…Many Jewish leaders, including Mr. Hikind, say a spate of anti-Semitic violence and harassment around the country has created an elevated sense of threat from hateful speech — and that the image of any political leader will suffer for failing to sever ties with Mr. Trump.” [WSJ]
🐦 Twitter Trouble: The Washington Post’s Joseph Menn talks to current and former federal officials about the possible effects of a deluge of antisemitic content on Twitter, following layoffs at the company that saw the exit of most of the staffers who addressed content containing hate speech. “But the new wave of antisemitism has reached millions of people in just days, brought new followers, and helped galvanize a broader coalition of fringe figures. ‘This type of escalation and hate and dehumanization, the hatred of the Jewish population — it’s a really directed target. Violence is inevitable,’ said Denver Riggleman, a former Air Force intelligence officer who later served as a Republican member of Congress and then on the staff of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.” [WashPost]
✈️ Under Wraps: The New York Times’ Emma Fitzsimmons reports on New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ four-day trip to Greece and Qatar, which was largely inaccessible to the press. “In Qatar, Mr. Adams also attended a [World Cup] game between Portugal and Korea and was scheduled to meet with ‘World Cup leaders’ and representatives from the Qatar Investment Authority, the country’s wealth fund that is fueled by its natural gas profits, according to his public schedule. Mr. Adams also planned to visit a museum in Qatar, but the tour was unexpectedly canceled. The mayor planned to travel with Joel Eisdorfer, a senior adviser focused on Jewish outreach, and a police detail. Bruce Revman, the managing director of partnerships and sports at NYC & Company, was also in Qatar in preparation for the [2026] World Cup in New Jersey.” [NYTimes]
🫂 The Boys from Brooklyn: Politico’s Marianne Levine and Sarah Ferris spotlight the relationship between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Democratic leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), respectively the first Jewish and Black men to hold their roles. “Jeffries, raised in working-class Crown Heights, leaned into his low-key persona to build the alliances he needed to slide into Nancy Pelosi’s job when it opened last week. Schumer is the preternaturally gregarious son of an exterminator with a more freewheeling image — a former campaign arm chief who loves talking politics. As they begin their cross-Capitol partnership next year, lawmakers close to both New York Democratic leaders say the interplay between their contrasting styles and skill sets will be critical to the party’s prospects for the remainder of President Joe Biden’s first term. With Republicans holding a paper-thin House majority and a Senate minority as big as 50 votes, Schumer and Jeffries will have to stay close and play off each other under a fiercely divided government with the 2024 presidential election looming.” [Politico]
💸 Backing Birthright: In eJewishPhilanthropy, the Orthodox Union’s Rabbi Moshe Hauer calls for increased philanthropic support to Birthright, following the announcement that Miriam Adelson, the largest donor to the program, which provides free 10-day trips to Israel for young Jews, is decreasing her annual gift. “We have one formula, one project most of the Jewish community can and does line up behind, that has shown some modest promise in addressing the issue that is really harming us. And we are allowing it to shrink. It is unconscionable that the Jewish community, with its massive resources and incredible philanthropy, could allow that. It is unimaginable that the State of Israel, with its renewed and inspiring commitment to dedicate its resources to securing the Jewish identity of Diaspora Jewry, could watch this happen. Our organization and others, including Hillel and Chabad, have worked with collegiates for decades and are privileged to serve as Birthright Israel providers. Birthright trips are not a profit center for us but a gift and an opportunity to partner with the broader Jewish community in deploying a tool that really works to address the existential Jewish challenge of our time. It is our chance to do something tangible to stop the hemorrhaging and build a stronger Jewish future.” [eJP]
Around the Web
🗳️ Palmetto State Primary: The Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to strip Iowa, which has since 1972 held each cycle’s first Democratic presidential primaries, from its first-in-the-nation status, giving the honor to South Carolina, a move favored by President Joe Biden.
👩 Foggy Bottom Foray: Tamara Cofman Wittes joined the State Department as a senior advisor to sanctions policy coordinator Ambassador Jim O’Brien, as her nomination to be assistant administrator of USAID remains stalled in Congress.
🇮🇷 Loud and Clear: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. should not be engaging in nuclear talks with Iran and should give protesters in the Islamic republic “our full-throated support.”
Ξ SBF Updates: Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, said she invited FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to testify at a hearing next week on the collapse of the cryptocurrency company. Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried told The Wall Street Journal he couldn’t explain what happened to billions of dollars that customers sent to the bank accounts of his trading firm, Alameda Research.
🪑 Capitol Intrigue: Politico reports on the quiet race to succeed Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) should she choose not to run for reelection in 2024, with California Reps. Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna considering running for the seat.
👨 Securing the Speakership: CNN looks at the challenge facing House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as he works to get 218 backers for his bid for the House speakership, and considers the possibility that the contest will have to go to multiple ballots for the first time in a century.
👍 Battleground Booster: The New Democrat Coalition is backing Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) for the position of battleground leadership representative, days after a group of centrist Democrats endorsed the Virginia congresswoman for the newly created role.
🛢️ No Action: The White House is not considering taking action against Saudi Arabia for slashing its oil production earlier this fall, as House Republicans launch an investigation into reports that the Biden administration sought to make a deal with Riyadh to boost oil production ahead of the midterms.
🇮🇷 A Holistic Look: The Atlantic Council is launching a new program, sparked by recent protests in Iran and Tehran’s support of Russia, to focus on all facets of the Islamic republic, while winding down its Future of Iran Initiative, led by Barbara Slavin, who will join the Stimson Center.
🏃♂️ Brooklyn Ballot: New York City Councilmember Ari Kagan, a Democrat, is switching parties, and plans to challenge Democrat Justin Brannan for his South Brooklyn seat, which he has held since 2018.
🍨 Sloppy Sales: Unilever asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by its subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s over the conglomerate’s sale of its Israel-based operations to a local operator, saying the decision by the board of the ice cream company’s “on taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict created an untenable situation.”
🖼️ Ron’s Pad: New York’s Neue Galerie New York opened an exhibit designed to reflect the home of Ronald Lauder, who has amassed an art collection spanning 17 centuries.
🇬🇧 Across the Pond: U.K. Labour leader Keir Starmer said that his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, who was ousted in 2020 due to his response to an antisemitism scandal within the party, will not run with Labour in the next elections.
🚓 Held in London: Russian businessman Mikhail Fridman, who is the subject of E.U. sanctions, was detained in London on Thursday on suspicion of money-laundering.
🖋️ Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Israeli Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman signed an order canceling customs duties on agricultural and industrial imports from South Korea, part of a free-trade agreement inked earlier this year that went into effect this month.
📽️ Netflix News: Netflix blocked the Jordanian film “Farha” for Israeli viewers, after many Israelis cancelled their subscriptions in outrage over the portrayal of Israeli soldiers executing a Palestinian family in 1948.
⚽ Fan Fury: CNN’s Hadas Gold spotlights the reactions of Arab soccer fans to Israeli reporters covering the World Cup in Qatar, which range from ignoring them to verbal attacks.
🚢 Nabbed: A U.S. warship confiscated 50 tons of weapons, including ammunition and rocket components, being smuggled to Yemen, an effort American officials pinned on Iran.
👨⚖️ Death Penalties: Iran executed four men sentenced for allegedly working with the Mossad, after the men were arrested earlier this year.
🪧 Pressing On: Iranian protestors called for a three-day economic strike, beginning today and culminating with a rally on Wednesday in Tehran.
📰 Transition: Joyce Karam, formerly the senior U.S. correspondent at The National, is joining Al-Monitor as a senior news editor.
🕯️ Remembering: Advertising executive Allan Kay, who came up with the slogan “If you see something, say something” in part as a result of research done in Israel, died at 77.
Pic of the Day
Israeli President Isaac Herzog (left) meets with Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa at Al-Qudaibiya Palace in Manama, Bahrain, on Sunday. Herzog’s trip to the Gulf nation was the first visit by an Israeli president in either country’s history.
A Bahraini military band played “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem, at a ceremony welcoming the Israeli delegation. “Deeply moving to hear Hatikvah, our national anthem, in Bahrain next to His Majesty the King,” Herzog tweeted along with a video of the performance. “We must strengthen our alliances for peace and bring more states and nations into the circle of peace in our region. Inshallah!”
Birthdays
Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist and professor, Sheldon Lee Glashow turns 90…
St. Louis-based luxury senior living developer, Charles J. Deutsch turns 73… Mount Pleasant, S.C., resident, Betti Greenstein… Professor at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Stuart Neil Brotman turns 70… Former U.S. ambassador to France and Monaco, Jamie Luskin McCourt turns 69… Southern California resident, Esther Gluskin Winard… Mediator and arbitrator for JAMS, Michael D. Young… Golfer on the PGA Tour and later a golf teaching professional, Anthony Irvin (Tony) Sills turns 67… Venture capitalist, speaker and investment advisor, Pascal Norman Levensohn turns 62… NYC-based author and clinical psychologist with specialties in aging and cancer, Mindy Greenstein, Ph.D…. Film and television actress, Ilana Levine turns 59… Counsel for DOJ’s antitrust division, Eric A. Posner turns 57… Former manager of the Israel national baseball team including at the 2020 Olympics, Eric Holtz turns 57… Professor and dean emeritus of Columbia Law School, former CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, David M. Schizer turns 54… Ontario-born supermodel and actress, Shalom Harlow turns 49… Urologist at Westchester (N.Y.) Medical Group, Judd Boczko, M.D…. President of The LS Group and political fundraiser, Lisa Spies… Co-founder and president of Axios, Roy Schwartz… Israeli-born acclaimed video game developer, Neil Druckmann turns 44… Musical songwriting and producing duo, identical twins Ryan and Dan Kowarsky turn 43… Communications and marketing consultant, Adam S. Rosenberg… Senior managing director at Liberty Strategic Capital, Eli H. Miller… Emmy Award-winning senior personal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Joanna Stern turns 38… Media correspondent for The New York Times, Michael Mendel Grynbaum… Israeli film and television music composer based in Los Angeles, Naama “Nami” Melumad turns 34… Reporter on the obituary desk of The New York Times, Alexander E. Traub… Associate director of government affairs at VNS Health, Jonathan Shabshaikhes… Israeli model, she represented Israel at the 2017 Miss Universe pageant where her selfie with Miss Iraq sparked international headlines, Adar Gandelsman turns 25… Fundraising consultant, Abe Wasserberger…
