A bipartisan group of House members will urge the administration to request a significant funding increase in its 2024 budget proposal for the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Moving on up: In a letter obtained by Jewish Insider, the group urges Secretary of State Tony Blinken to request $2 million for the office in 2024, up from $1.5 million in 2023, an increase of 33%. The 2023 funding level itself represented a 50% increase from the year prior.

Signatories: “Antisemitism is on the rise across the globe and we must ensure our government provides adequate resources to address this ongoing challenge,” Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Kathy Manning (D-NC), Maria Salazar (R-FL), Grace Meng (D-NY) and Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN) wrote.

Continuation: The letter suggests that a $2 million funding request would “build upon” Congress’ “progress” in its 2023 funding bill and “make clear to the world the United States’ steadfast commitment to combating this hate and will help the Special Envoy continue to address the alarming rise in antisemitism while advancing partnerships and opportunities to engage with like-minded international partners.”

Flip side: The request comes just a week after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) promised House conservatives that he would seek significant cutbacks in federal spending, with the aim of rolling back to fiscal year spending levels.

Read the full story here.

Members of the congressional Abraham Accords Caucus are urging the State Department to launch new programming to facilitate interfaith dialogue among countries that are signatories to the Abraham Accords, potential signatories and the United States, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Letter writing: The lawmakers — Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and James Lankford (R-OK), as well as Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Brad Schneider (D-IL), David Trone (D-MD) and Ann Wagner (R-MO) — note in a letter to U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain that the September 2020 agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which Morocco and Sudan later joined, include language encouraging interfaith and intercultural dialogue. The letter was sent on Wednesday.

Moving forward: “We applaud the efforts initiated by a number of U.S. partners in the Middle East who are pursuing religious freedom initiatives and which are seeking cultural understanding across faith traditions. However, persecution and discrimination of religious groups persist throughout the region,” the letter reads. “The Abraham Accords have the potential to anchor Middle Eastern security cooperation, economic prosperity, and cultural exchange grounded in mutual understanding.”

Next steps: The lawmakers urged Hussain to launch a grant program to support dialogue among Christians, Muslims and Jews in the nations that signed onto the Abraham Accords and “potential signatory countries,” as well as brief the caucus on the State Department’s work on the subject by March 1.

Read the full story here.

Bonus: Rosen and Lankford are leading a bipartisan delegation to Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco this weekend, joined by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Ted Budd (R-NC). Rosen said that the trip will include meetings with government and business leaders and civil society to discuss strengthening and expanding the Accords. “This time will be invaluable for members of the Senate Abraham Accords Caucus as we continue to strengthen relationships throughout the region through reconciliation and common goals,” Lankford said in a statement. “In the days ahead, we will continue to bring nations together for the future of U.S. national interest and for our allies.”

Amid the drawn-out, days-long process to elect a new House speaker last week, Rep. John James (R-MI), a freshman from suburban Detroit, stood before Congress to deliver his first floor speech as he exhorted his colleagues to end the stalemate. In an impassioned address prior to the seventh speaker vote, the newly elected Michigander invoked his personal biography as the Black son of parents who faced discrimination under Jim Crow, upbraided hard-right Republicans for stalling the election and concluded with an enthusiastic endorsement of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who had recruited James to run for Congress after two failed Senate bids, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

Breaking the mold: The newly elected congressman became Michigan’s first Black Republican congressman when he assumed office earlier this month, and he has frequently spoken of his experience as a Black conservative who, by dint of his own family history and upbringing, is attuned to issues of racial injustice. His election alongside freshman Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), a fellow Apache pilot and West Point alumnus, helped double the number of Black Republicans in Congress. In a statement to JI, Hunt described James as a “friend” and “conservative fighter” who will “make an excellent congressman for Michigan’s 10th Congressional District,” which covers parts of Macomb and Oakland counties. The feeling is mutual. In an interview with JI last spring, James said he was eager to serve with his “buddy Wes,” noting that he and Hunt would be the first Black West Point graduates elected to Congress. “The fact that he and I went to West Point together, we went to flight school together, we went to war together — to go to Congress together, we represent more than just ourselves,” James said. “To make it about red, white and blue, not just Black and white.”

Post-COVID politics: In the interview with JI before he had clinched the Republican nomination, James was particularly energized as he stood well poised to win the primary and claim the open House seat in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. He said he was simply having “more fun” than his previous Senate bid, which had overlapped with the beginning of the pandemic. “I couldn’t look people in the eyes, I couldn’t hug them, I couldn’t reassure them when they were crying,” he said. “I couldn’t do that from behind a Zoom link.” “I’m having more fun talking and engaging with people, whether it’s on a shop floor or in a park or in a diner,” James said. “There’s no substitute for being able to look someone in the eye and be able to earn their trust.”

Israel position: Sheldon Yellen, a business executive and pro-Israel activist in Detroit who has long supported James, said the congressman has a “charisma about him that just invites you in.” “He came up to me one day, I was at a basketball game,” Yellen recalled in an interview with JI. “He comes up from behind me and grabs me and gives me a kiss on the cheek. That’s what we need, someone who puts it on the sleeve. That’s a real guy.” The first-term Republican cast himself as a strong supporter of Israel and said he would stand with the country while in Congress. “There must be no public space between the United States of America and Israel,” he told JI. “We need to make sure that Israel maintains its economic and military dominance in the region. That is without question.”

What’s next: The same day he delivered his floor speech late last week, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) — whom James had challenged in 2018 — announced that she would not seek reelection next cycle, setting the stage for a potentially crowded race to succeed her. Among the names floated as possible candidates was James. He has not commented on whether he will run for the seat. “I’ve only been here for a couple of days, but I’ve heard a lot of D.C. politicians tell me about how broken D.C. is,” James said in his address to Congress last Thursday. “I don’t need D.C. politicians to tell me how broken D.C. is. The American people have already told us how broken D.C. is by giving Republicans the majority so we can fix this mess.”

Read the full story here.

In the year since he and three of his congregants survived an hours-long hostage crisis in Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker has testified before Congress, was published in national news outlets, took a new pulpit in Winston-Salem, N.C., became a special adviser to the Anti-Defamation League and has served as a role model for how synagogue clergy should respond to violent antisemitism. But, he told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Ben Sales, as he approaches the anniversary of the attack, which falls on Sunday, he’s just grateful to be alive.

Being prepared: “[The attack is] a part of my life, but I don’t dwell on it,” Cytron-Walker said. “And it really depends on which moments. There were moments of absolute terror. There were moments of even laughter, and there were so many moments in between. But I don’t dwell on it. I haven’t had any symptoms of PTSD that I’m aware of. It’s not something that plagues me. However, it’s very much a part of my life. It’s the kind of thing that, when I do think about it, it makes me renew the call for advocacy to educate ourselves in the Jewish community, to make sure that we have proper training and procedures. Not because we expect something bad to happen — because the chances are very low that something would happen in any one given synagogue or institution. However, just like you don’t take CPR expecting people standing in line next to you to have a heart attack, you don’t take a civilian response to an active shooter event expecting that someone’s going to walk into your institution with a gun.”

Sharing knowledge: “It’s really important that not just the Jewish community, but that all communities really get to experience [security training],” Cytron-Walker noted. “One thing that I think is important for the Jewish community to hear Is that when we do something like an active shooter training, I’ve been encouraging people to invite other religious organizations to participate In that training. Because in those moments, those are vulnerable moments. An active shooter training is not fun. It’s not easy. And when other religious institutions — because it can happen anywhere in today’s world — when people from other religious institutions experience that with us, it really does create more of a bond, it really elevates our common humanity.”

Marking the day: “My family and I are planning to do something that is life-affirming. Ice cream may be involved,” he said. “The way that I’m commemorating is by trying to speak out, raising awareness about the current rise in antisemitism and the ways that we as a Jewish community can respond. To work towards building relationships with others, to put the time and the energy and the effort into building those relationships, and giving our clergy and our community leaders the opportunity to really develop real relationships. Because those relationships are at the heart of a broader communal response.”

Read the full interview hereand subscribe to eJewishPhilanthropy’s Your Daily Phil newsletter here.

New survey: A new ADL survey of 4,000 Americans found a resurgence in what Matt Williams, the vice president of the ADL’s Center for Antisemitism Research, described as “antisemitism in its classical fascist form.”