Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Friday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we preview the upcoming N7 gathering in Rabat, and look at efforts on Capitol Hill to include funding for religious institutional security and combating extremism in the 2023 NDAA. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Rep.-elect George Santos and Israeli restaurateur Eyal Shani.
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: Where is Peter Thiel on our issues?; The rabbi bringing ritual objects to Jewish refugees inside Ukraine; Drew Friedman goes underground; Observance of Sigd, a Jewish holiday long kept in Ethiopia, is spreading in the U.S.; Aaron Samuels bridges gap between ‘artist’ and ‘entrepreneur’ with new VC fund; Israelis get on board to test driverless buses; and These archivists are sifting through endless boxes of paper to preserve a century of American Jewish philanthropy. Print the latest edition here.
Just weeks after being welcomed back to Twitter by its new owner, Elon Musk, Kanye West — now known as Ye — was again booted from the platform after tweeting an image of a Star of David inside a swastika. The suspension came shortly after Ye appeared on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones “Infowars” show alongside far-right provocateur Nick Fuentes, where he repeatedly praised Adolf Hitler. “I like Hitler,” Ye said, shortly after qualifying the statement by adding, “I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis.”
At one point in the interview, after Ye had parodied Israeli Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu — the artist, donning a black mask that covered the entirety of his face, pulled out a mesh net and referred to the Israeli politician as “Net-an” while repeating antisemitic tropes about Jewish people — even Jones looked taken aback by the display.
Early Friday morning, Musk tweeted that Ye “again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.” Parler, the right-wing social medial company, said Thursday that a deal for Ye to purchase the platform had been called off.
Ye’s latest comments were soundly rejected by a range of GOP officials. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), one of two Jewish Republicans in the House, called Ye “a deranged Anti-semite” and a “lunatic,” while Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY), who is also Jewish, tweeted, “There is never a place, time or exception for anti-semitism. Any friend of Nazi-sympathizers or worse, Nazi-applauders is an enemy of freedom, liberty in America.”
The Republican Jewish Coalitionissued a statement calling Ye a “violent, repellant bigot who has targeted the Jewish community with threats and Nazi-like defamation,” and described the Infowars episode as “a horrific cesspool of dangerous, bigoted Jew hatred.”
The Twitter account belonging to the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee deleted a tweet posted in early October that read “Kanye. Elon. Trump.” that had garnered significant criticism amid Musk’s takeover of Twitter and the recent dinner between Ye and the former president.
What we’re reading: The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner interviews Zionist Organization of America head Mort Klein on former President Donald Trump’s dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes.
All eyes will be on the DNC this weekend as members of the Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee determine a new presidential nominating calendar — a move that is attracting increased attention as states including Michigan, Minnesota and Nevada jockey to become some of the first states where Democrats will cast their primary ballots, determining early frontrunners in the 2024 presidential race and beyond.
President Joe Biden, for his part, called for the committee to choose states that “reflect the overall diversity of our party and our nation — economically, geographically, demographically,” noting specifically that “voters of color” should “have a voice in choosing our nominee much earlier in the process.” The Washington Post reports that Biden asked for South Carolina — where his primary victory pushed him to frontrunner status in 2020 after a series of middle-of-the-pack finishes in the early voting states — be chosen for the first primary in the country, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada, and then Georgia and Michigan.
Biden held the first state dinner of his presidency last night, hosting French President Emmanuel Macron. Attendees at the dinner included Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Jessica Schumer, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Cabinet Secretary Evan Ryan, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Bruce Stokes, Energy Envoy Amos Hochstein and Rae Ringel, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, former SCOTUS Justice Stephen Breyer and Joanna Breyer, Amb. Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Lafayette Greenfield II, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and David Davighi, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and George Akerlof, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Tanya Mayorkas, Chief of Protocol Rufus Gifford, Chief of Staff Ron Klain and Monica Medina, Deputy National Security Advisor Anne Neuberger and Yehuda Neuberger, David and Pam Zaslav, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Mary Kathryn Pritzker, Blair and Cheryl Effron, Avram Glazer and Jill Glazer, Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis, Charles Rivkin and Susan Tolson, Jeff and Laura Shell, Jeffrey and Mary Zients, Jon and Susan Finer, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Marilyn Katzenberg, Alexander Soros and Sarah Margon, Randi Weingarten and Sharon Kleinbaum.
J Street’s national conference kicks off tomorrow night in Washington, D.C., with remarks from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and a musical performance by Israeli singer Noa. The group says 2,000 people are set to attend the conference, which concludes with a lobbying day on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Other speakers at the gathering include Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Sen.-elect Peter Welch (D-VT), and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), Mondaire Jones (D-NY), Melanie Stansbury (D-NM), Sean Casten (D-IL), Gerry Connolly (D-VA) and Jennifer Wexton (D-VA).
The conference’s theme is “Living our values, defending democracy,” which reflects a change to J Street’s official motto that was announced yesterday: The 15-year-old organization now calls itself “The political home of pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy Americans.”
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Morocco conference to address educational and cultural exchanges in Abraham Accords nations

Dozens of government officials and high-level policy experts will convene in Rabat, Morocco, on Monday for a three-day conference addressing how to increase educational and cultural exchanges between Israel and the Arab countries with which it has organized ties, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. Attendees — roughly four dozen regional experts and several observers — include education ministry officials, university administrators, academics and NGOs involved in coexistence, interfaith and people-to-people work.
Accelerating ideas: The conference will serve as something akin to a startup accelerator, where attendees will meet to generate and refine ideas that can make positive changes in the lives of citizens of each country. At the end of the three days, the goal is for stakeholders from each country — Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates — to walk away with specific policy proposals that they can continue to hone together. (Sudan’s military government is not part of the group.)
Who’s who: Observers at the event will include representatives from the countries’ embassies and other international organizations. A senior Moroccan government official is set to address the gathering at its opening dinner, and senior U.S. officials are also set to speak at various points. A small number of participants from countries that have not yet normalized relations with Israel are also expected to attend, said a person with knowledge of the event.
Real impact: The conference is part of the N7 Initiative from the Atlantic Council and the Jeffrey M. Talpins Foundation. The initiative aims to create “a community of countries and a network of experts committed to ensuring that the maximum number of people are positively impacted by the trend of normalization,” said former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, who oversees the program with William Wechsler, director of the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs and its Rafik Hariri Center. “Education, which shapes every person’s life and the opportunities they encounter, and coexistence, the approach that allows people to overcome differences to learn with and from each other, is the perfect place to start.”