Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Thursday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to attendees at yesterday’s White House antisemitism roundtable, and interview Bhavini Patel, a local official in Pennsylvania who is looking to succeed Summer Lee in Harrisburg. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ivanka Trump, Rep. Kathy Manning and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Aspen Security Forum’s Washington confab kicks off this morning at the InterContinental Hotel at The Wharf. Among the featured speakers are Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk and Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Todd Young (R-IN).
In the afternoon, Ambassador Dennis Ross will speak on a panel moderated by Politico’s Dafna Linzer titled “Beyond the World Cup: Triumphs and Challenges in the Middle East.”
Co-chairs of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism are hosting counterparts from the United Kingdom on Capitol Hill today to discuss possible avenues of cooperation on fighting antisemitism, Jewish Insider has learned.
Reps. Kathy Manning (D-NC), Grace Meng (D-NY) and Randy Weber (R-TX) will be joined by Members of Parliament Sarah Jones and Andrew Percy — members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism — as well as Danny Stone and Nina Freedman, the CEO and external affairs officer at the Antisemitism Policy Trust, a U.K. group that seeks to educate members of parliament and policymakers on antisemitism.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved resolutions yesterday expressing support for Iranian protesters and condemning the violent crackdown on them, and honoring the victims of the bombings of the Israeli Embassy and the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Argentina, both linked to Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists. The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to advance an identical resolution on the Iran protests.
Elsewhere on the Senate side of the Capitol, Senate Democrats will elect their caucus leadership this morning. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is expected to hold onto the top position.
Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu made further progress with his government formation efforts overnight, when his Likud party signed a deal with the Orthodox Shas party — the fifth and final coalition party expected to ink an agreement with Likud. Shas chairman Aryeh Deri is set to be interior minister and health minister for the first two years of the government’s four-year term, after which he will replace Religious Zionism chairman Bezalel Smotrich as finance minister. Deri will also serve as deputy prime minister for the full term.
The deals are all interim agreements, and Netanyahu is expected to spend the coming days finalizing details both with his coalition partners and with members of his own party to whom he still has to hand out portfolios. Netanyahu’s deadline to form a government will expire on Sunday at midnight, and he is expected to ask President Isaac Herzog for an extension.
At a climate-focused investing conference held today in Ramallah, a senior official with the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation pledged to commit American investment dollars and financing toward private-sector entities in the West Bank and Gaza that are working to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change.
There are “pressing challenges in the region,” Jake Levine, the DFC’s chief climate officer, said in Ramallah at the event hosted by the Bank of Palestine, but also “tremendous opportunities for business development” in areas like clean energy, electric vehicles and agriculture.
The commitment is part of a broader push by the DFC, which invests in development projects in lower-income nations, to promote private sector development in the Palestinian Territories as a priority. It’s been a goal for the agency since the 2020 passage of the Nita M. Lowey Middle East Partnership for Peace Act (MEPPA), which aims to strengthen on-the-ground ties and cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians, one person with knowledge of the work and the Ramallah event told JI.
the room where it happened
National strategy and campus antisemitism top of mind during White House roundtable

A first-of-its-kind White House summit on antisemitism highlighted a growing push inside the organized Jewish community for a national strategy to combat antisemitism — alongside long-standing concerns like antisemitism on campus — according to Jewish community leaders who attended the meeting. Senior White House and Biden administration officials, led by the Jewish second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, convened a roundtable Wednesday with leaders from 14 Jewish community groups, where each offered suggestions on strategies, policies and programs for combating antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
General consensus: According to those present, a push for a formalized interagency strategy to combat antisemitism domestically — also highlighted in a congressional letter this week — came up frequently in remarks from Jewish community representatives. And in interviews with JI following the meeting, nearly every one of the attendees expressed support for such a move.
Connecting the dots: “We think tying all these efforts together, both from security and non-security agencies, to develop a comprehensive strategy that doesn’t just securitize the issue of antisemitism, but also allows for innovation, new data sets and an opportunity to combat it and all its forms,” George Selim, the Anti-Defamation League’s senior vice president for national affairs, explained. “We think that’s where the future lies on this issue.”
Campus cause: Antisemitism on campuses was also a significant focus among speakers. Among the attendees was Julia Jassey, the CEO of Jewish on Campus, who is also a student at the University of Chicago. “Students are the ones on the ground experiencing it,” Jassey emphasized to JI. “As a college student, as a 21-year-old woman, having the opportunity to have my voice valued by the administration is very, very impactful, and I think something that wasn’t just moving to me but affected a lot of young Jews in the community.”
Carrying the torch: Attendees offered high praise for Emhoff, who has become a leading voice in the White House’s efforts to combat antisemitism and support the Jewish community. “We’re all in pain right now,” Emhoff said in opening remarks, the only part of the meeting open to the press. “Our community is in pain. It hurts. It hurts me to see what we’re going through right now. What all people are going through right now. Antisemitism is dangerous. We cannot normalize this. We all have an obligation to condemn these vile acts. We must all — all of us — cannot stay silent.”
Elsewhere: The Anti-Defamation League’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt appeared on yesterday’s episode of “The Breakfast Club” radio show with DJ Envy and Charlamagne tha God to discuss the recent rise in antisemitism and incidents with Kanye West and Kyrie Irving.