Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Monday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we interview Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff in Krakow about his approach to combating antisemitism, and look at Jordanian hesitations toward joining the Abraham Accords. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Anita Dunn, Zvi Schreiber and Tony Blinken.
In major population centers across Israel this weekend, an escalated police presence could be felt — and seen — from shopping centers to tourist sites and religious institutions, following a Palestinian terror attack outside a northeast Jerusalem synagogue on Friday night that killed seven Israelis, and a subsequent attack the following morning in Jerusalem’s Old City in which a father and son were shot by a Palestinian assailant. The shooter in the Old City attack, a teenager from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, left a note for his family that read in Arabic, “God, or victory, or martyrdom. Forgive me, mother, you’re going to be proud of me.”
Among those killed in the Friday night attack in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood, which took place as evening prayers concluded, were a 14-year-old boy and a married couple who ran toward the gunshots to assist others who’d been struck. The attacks in Jerusalem followed a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin, where Israeli security forces carrying out a counterterror raid engaged in a firefight with Palestinian militants in which seven gunmen and two civilians were killed.
The Friday night terrorist attack was condemned by the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, both of whom were subsequently condemned by Hamas.
Jewish organizations including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Jewish Federations of North America and the Anti-Defamation League expressed their shock and outrage following the attack.
Pope Francis on Sunday called on Israel and the Palestinians to engage in dialogue, saying, “It is with great pain that I hear of the news coming from the Holy Land… The spiral of death which is growing every day does nothing but kill the little trust that there is between these two peoples.”
The uptick in tensions is expected to be a topic of conversation for Secretary of State Tony Blinken when he arrives in Israel this afternoon. Blinken, who was in Egypt earlier today, will first meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, followed by meetings with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Israeli President Isaac Herzog later today. Blinken will also meet with Opposition Leader Yair Lapid tomorrow.
Stateside, dozens of U.S. law professors signed a letter about proposed judicial reforms in Israel, saying they are “deeply worried that the speed and scale of the reforms will seriously weaken the independence of the judiciary, the separation of powers and the rule of law.”
Harvard Law School professor Jesse Fried, who led the statement along with Harvard professor Oren Bar-Gill and the University of Utah’s Amos Guiora, told JI that the goal of the statement was “to provide support to Israelis arguing that the reforms go too far. My own view is that the Israeli Supreme Court has over-reached in various respects, and its power needs to be curtailed. But I’m concerned about the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction.”
The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalemannounced today that Israel meets the non-immigrant visa refusal rate requirement of being below 3% in order to qualify for the Visa Waiver Program. It emphasized, however, that Israel still needs to take additional steps, including passing three laws and setting up the technical requirements in order to join the program.
Among the attendees at this weekend’s annual Alfalfa Club dinner held annually on the last Saturday in January in D.C., per Politico Playbook: David Rubenstein, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba, Dina Powell McCormick and David McCormick, David Solomon, Mike Bloomberg, Ron Klain, Howard Friedman, Karen Friedman, Jamie Diamond and Michael Milken.
postcard from poland
Tracing his family history in Poland, Emhoff explains his approach to antisemitism
On a cold Sunday morning, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff sat in Krakow’s historic Jewish quarter at a trendy coffee shop called Cheder, the Hebrew word for a traditional Jewish primary school. Bookshelves crammed with Jewish volumes in Polish, English and Hebrew covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Poland was for centuries the beating heart of Jewish life in Europe, and half of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust were Polish. Fewer than 10,000 Jews live in this country that once was home to one of the most vibrant and diverse Jewish communities in history. So there was no better place for Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president, to visit in order to viscerally understand what happens when antisemitism is taken to its most extreme, brutal manifestation. “This happened. This is real. If you don’t believe me, go — go see what I saw,” Emhoff told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch, two days after an emotional visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on the 78th anniversary of its liberation.
Strategy session: Over the past several months, Emhoff has emerged as a visible advocate for the Jewish community and a figurehead in the national fight against antisemitism. But while in Poland, Emhoff was careful to only characterize his role as that of a listener, maybe even a catalyst or a cheerleader, but certainly not that of a policymaker. Instead, he offered a window into his approach to the issue, articulating a big-tent vision for combating antisemitism that requires building a broad base of support across party lines while avoiding some of the more contentious questions around antisemitism, like the place of anti-Zionism or Islamist extremism. “This whole thing is to listen and bring back good ideas that we can use as we’re building out our national plan,” he said. “We’re not that granular yet,” he said, when asked whether he intends to focus on more specific forms of antisemitism like jihadism or anti-Zionism. “There are certain aspects that we’ve discussed in terms of security, funding and how to address particular issues, but I’m really right now just focused on listening, gathering information, bringing it back, and then trying to figure out the best way to deal with it.”
Fine line: Emhoff has been reluctant to speak about where Israel fits into the White House’s approach to antisemitism, even as many Jewish leaders have argued more forcefully in recent years that anti-Zionism often veers into antisemitism. Still, the topic was impossible to avoid, even while in Poland. Hours after Emhoff wrapped up his visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Palestinian terrorist killed seven Israelis as they were leaving a Friday night prayer service in Jerusalem. The next morning, after a Saturday morning tour at the Oskar Schindler Enamel Factory in Krakow, Emhoff addressed the incident. He said he had spoken about it with his wife on the phone. “This is a terrorist attack. This is murder. This is something that’s horrible. These were people who were just praying in a temple, living their everyday lives, and were murdered in cold blood,” he told reporters. “It’s something that we need to just stop. And that’s why we’re doing this work. And that’s why I’m gonna continue to do this work. But it’s also — we stand with the people of Israel on this. We’re committed to the security of Israel.”
Coming home: After a two-hour drive through winding roads in the Polish countryside, blanketed by snow, Emhoff’s motorcade pulled up to the town hall in Gorlice, the town where his great-grandmother was believed to have lived before she fled to the U.S. roughly 120 years ago. A mural was painted on the wall, dated 2005, marking Gorlice’s 650th anniversary. Before World War II, the town’s population was more than half Jewish. Now, none remain. (Many were killed in an August 1942 massacre memorialized in a forest outside town, where a mass grave marks the site of the tragedy.) “Everyone wants to know where they come from. I think that’s important to know, and to see this beautiful place, to see how it was, but to see the violence that happened here, and all over Europe to disrupt what were ordinary lives,” Emhoff told reporters. “These were ordinary people just living their lives but because of propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, antisemitism and hate, it led to mass murder. And that’s why we have to do this work. And that’s why I’m doing everything I can on behalf of our administration, with our partners and friends in Europe, to make sure that we push back so this does not happen again.”
League of nations: On the next leg of his trip, Emhoff attended a convening on Monday of antisemitism envoys in Berlin, alongside Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism. There, he heard from representatives from European nations, including Germany, Romania, Austria, Croatia and the United Kingdom, that have been dealing with surging antisemitism for many years. Earlier in the trip, he also met in Krakow with Jewish and interfaith leaders about tolerance and antisemitism. “It was a real good lesson,” Emhoff told JI of the Krakow roundtable, that “no matter where you land politically, on a religious spectrum, it’s committed towards [fighting] the scourge of antisemitism.” He pointed to specific ideas that they discussed, like engaging young people, dealing with legal issues, involving the private sector and NGOs, and mobilizing educators and historians.
Read the full story here.
Bonus: At Monday’s meeting of international antisemitism envoys, Felix Klein, the German federal commissioner for Jewish life in Germany, announced that an expanded version of the group will meet with the White House Interagency Antisemitism Task Force and members of Congress in Washington at the end of February, at the invitation of the American Jewish Committee.
cool peace
Why Jordan is not embracing the Abraham Accords
Last week, Israel’s recently reinstalled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a surprise visit to Amman, Jordan, where he met with King Abdullah II. Readouts from the meeting sent out by each leader’s office struck a similar tone. Both emphasized maintaining stability in a volatile region. Yet, while Israel’s statement highlighted the “strategic, security and economic cooperation between Israel and Jordan,” Jordan’s was focused on respecting the status quo at Jerusalem’s holy Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount, and support for Palestinian sovereignty, Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash reports.
Tense times: The meeting, and contrasting messaging, come at a time of heightened tension between the two countries, which have maintained a cool and shaky peace for more than 30 years. While the two neighbors cooperate closely in the fields of security, water and energy, disagreements between Israel and Jordan – and between Netanyahu and Abdullah in particular – have dominated the diplomatic and political arenas for years. As the process of normalization with Israel – sparked by 2020 signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, followed by separate agreements with Morocco and Sudan – continues to be deepened with meet-ups such as last March’s Negev Forum, tensions between Israel and Jordan has been brought into even sharper focus.
Key country: “Netanyahu’s visit to Amman is very important,” Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Dayan Center in Tel Aviv University, told JI. “Netanyahu understands that in order to maintain calm in Jerusalem and the West Bank, especially during the upcoming Ramadan period, he has to improve his own image in the eyes of the Arab world. He also understands that he cannot really promote any moves toward the Arab world, as long as the issue of Jerusalem is still in a very high tension,” Milshtein continued. “In many ways, the path to Riyadh is via Amman.”
Broken promises: Daoud Kuttab, a Jordanian columnist with Al-Monitor and Arab News, told JI, however, that the Abraham Accords does not hold great significance for Jordan because “there is already a peace treaty with Israel and that is more advanced than normalization.” What bothers the Jordanians, he said, is that they constantly feel belittled by Israel and see many of the Jewish states’ promises to its neighbor being broken. “Jordanians feel that Israel looks down on them, that it does not take Jordan seriously,” Kuttab continued, listing multiple promises and guarantees made during previous meet-ups and summits between Abdullah and Netanyahu that were not fulfilled or kept.
Read the full story here.
on the hill
House Democrats finalize committee assignments, including Omar on HFAC
House Democrats announced finalized committee assignments for returning members on Friday, including formally selecting Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has promised to hold a vote to remove Omar from the committee.
Up in the air: The fate of that vote may be teetering, however, following Rep. Ken Buck’s (R-CO) announcement over the weekend that he won’t support removing Omar from the committee, arguing that Republicans “should not engage in this tit for tat.” With Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) absent as he recovers from an injury, McCarthy cannot afford to lose any more GOP votes unless he picks up Democratic support.
No timetable: McCarthy did not comment on when a vote on the issue will be held and it did not appear on Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s (R-LA) weekly schedule released on Sunday, but it could happen as soon as this week.
On air: Omar said yesterday on CNN that she had “used words at the time that I didn’t realize were trafficking in antisemitism,” referring to old tweets claiming that Israel had “hypnotized the world” and that support for Israel is motivated by money. The Minnesota congresswoman said she has apologized for those statements and continues “to work with my colleagues and my community to fight against antisemitism.”
Quotable: “My work is clear, the collaboration and work that I do with my Jewish colleagues is very clear,” she said. “The reason that the Democratic caucus has not removed me and will not support my removal on the Foreign Affairs Committee is because I have done the work to make sure that I do not support any bigotry.”
Read more and see who’s joining and leaving key committees here.
setting sail
Freightos’ $80 million IPO funds shipping platform’s expansion
Freightos, an online platform for shipping goods around the world, will use some $80 million raised in a Wall Street public offering to upgrade its booking technology and expand operations globally, particularly in Asia, founder and CEO Zvi Schreiber told The Circuit’s Jonathan Ferziger. The Jerusalem-based company sold shares for the first time on Thursday through a merger with Gesher, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, which enabled Freightos’ listing on the Nasdaq exchange. The new stock, bearing the ticker symbol CRGO, rose as high as $30 a share in early trading before closing at $10.49. It dropped 22% on Friday to $8.20.
Expedia for cargo: “It’s all about expanding the product and expanding the customer footprint,” Schreiber, 53, said in an interview from New York, where he rang Nasdaq’s opening bell surrounded by cheering Freightos executives. “We’re already in a fast-growth trajectory, which is great, and we want to carry that on.” Founded in 2012, Freightos disrupted the international shipping industry by allowing businesses to shop online for the best prices to move goods by sea and air – similar to comparing flight and hotel costs on sites like Expedia and Booking[dot]com. Sales revenue boomed last year as Freightos benefited from high cargo prices amid world shipping delays. Prices have since declined.
Suez blocked: “People were sort of lazy when supply chains were all running smoothly,” said the London-born Schreiber, who lives in Israel. “Now it’s clear that because of [factors such as] the pandemic, increasingly erratic weather, labor disputes, things are changing all the time. That just underlines the need to have a booking platform that is digital.” Freightos also brought a wealth of data analytics to the freight industry, introducing real-time information on pricing, vessel location and available cargo space that were historically held tightly by shipping lines. “Now when a port goes down, you just go to a website and find the alternative,” Schreiber said. “ If the Suez Canal is blocked, you can go to the website and find the ship that would sail through the Pacific route.”
Qatar on board: Of the $80 million raised in the IPO, $10 million came from Qatar Airways, the world’s largest air cargo carrier, and $60 million from M&G Investments and Prudential Assurance Co., both based in London, according to a Freightos statement. Shareholders include the Israeli venture capital firms Aleph, OurCrowd and Sadara; Singapore’s SGX Group; FedEx Logistics; and Bob Mylod, chairman of Booking Holdings, which owns Booking.com and Priceline.com. While Freightos is registered in the Cayman Islands, Schreiber said its Israeli roots have not presented a barrier to its close connections with Qatar Airways, whose chief cargo officer, Guillaume Halleux, sits on the company’s board.
Leaning in: Freightos also does significant business with the Dubai-based carrier, Emirates. The new funds will help Freightos grow and extend the company’s influence in a variety of ways, said Michael Eisenberg, co-founder of Aleph, which co-led the first investment round in Freightos a decade ago. “The infusion of capital allows Freightos to lean in when so many other companies are leaning back,” Eisenberg told The Circuit.
Read the full story here and subscribe to The Weekly Circuit newsletter here.
Worthy Reads
🇸🇦 Saudi Sights: In Foreign Policy, Middle Eastern studies scholar Talal Mohammad argues that Saudi Arabia doesn’t want Iran’s regime to fall, but rather seeks to leverage the anti-regime protests for geopolitical concessions from Tehran. “Riyadh has so far responded to Iran’s accusations of meddling in the protests with cautious silence. Meanwhile, the kingdom’s state-controlled media arm has given the demonstrations generous airtime. The Saudi-funded, London-based channel Iran International has broadcast videos and images from within Iran as well as hosted opposition figures, members of anti-government militias, and Azeri and Kurdish separatists. In this context, one might assume that Saudi Arabia ultimately seeks the demise of Iran’s clerical regime. After all, Saudi King Abdullah, before his death in 2015, reportedly asked the United States to ‘cut off the head of the snake,’ referring to Iran’s nuclear program. But all this may be a verbal facade: There is ample evidence that the current Saudi administration is rational — and does not actually wish for the Islamic Republic to fall. Instead, Riyadh seeks to weaken Tehran enough to extract key geopolitical concessions. These might include Iranian compromises on its nuclear program, noninterference in Arab affairs, and cessation of support to its regional allies such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas.” [ForeignPolicy]
👂 Biden Whisperers: NBC News’ Jonathan Allen and Natasha Korecki spotlight Washington “power couple” Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn, who are both key players in the Biden administration. “Since early November, they have been at the center of Biden’s strategy for handling the discovery of classified documents among his papers from past jobs. That strategy kept the story hidden from the public for more than two months, demonstrating the tension between the areas in which Bauer and Dunn, respectively, are Biden’s most trusted advisers: law and public relations. And it is a rare moment that has shined a light on a power pair that usually operates behind the scenes with little fanfare and even less criticism. ‘If it’s a room of five people, Anita and Bob are two of them,’ said a former White House aide, who asked to remain anonymous because this person was not authorized to speak on the record about White House business.” [NBCNews]
💻 Digital Diplomacy: In the New York Post, David Saranga, the director of Israel’s Digital Diplomacy Bureau, explains the country’s efforts to engage with Iranians online. “For more than a decade, Israel’s digital diplomacy team has maintained channels in more than 50 languages which reach some 2 billion people each year. But somehow Farsi has become the most popular language of all – even more than Hebrew and English combined. How did this happen? For one thing, unlike in other, more digitally cautious nations, Israeli diplomats can post both personal and professional content with relatively few restrictions. This openness suits a country where technology and innovation are our greatest competitive edges. And the digital sphere is no exception – particularly when it comes to dealing with our enemies…The woman behind our Israel in Persian accounts on Twitter and Instagram escaped Iran as a teenager and moved to Israel where she lives today. Persian food, holidays and Farsi are not just hobbies for her, they’re core components of her identity and Iranians following @IsraelinPersian can see themselves in the content she produces on Twitter and Instagram.” [NYPost]
⚽ Good Game: The Los Angeles Times’ Kevin Baxter looks at how the State Department’s sports diplomacy program operates around the world to achieve diplomatic successes. “Toward that end the State Department’s sports diplomacy program has sent surfers to Papua New Guinea, taken ambassadors such as Shaquille O’Neal to Cuba and organized sports camps in which Israelis and Palestinians both have taken part. It also brought hundreds of leaders from grassroots sports organizations from around the world to the U.S. as part of a mentoring program designed to encourage and empower leaders while expanding athletic opportunities for young athletes back home. And it does all that on an annual budget of about $6 million — so small that even in the hyper-partisan political climate in Washington, sports diplomacy has remained beneath the fray, finding fans on the blue and red teams.” [LATimes]
Around the Web
👩🏫 Education Action: Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Kathy Manning (D-NC), Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) reintroduced the HEAL Act, calling for an audit of Holocaust education efforts in public schools, with more than 60 co-sponsors from both parties. The new version of the legislation directs the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, rather than the Department of Education, to conduct the audit.
🙏 Power of Prayer: The annual National Prayer Breakfast, scheduled for this Thursday, is being overseen by the National Prayer Breakfast Foundation after previously being put on by the International Foundation, a private religious group.
👎 RNC Rebuke: The Republican National Committee approved by voice vote a resolution condemning “all forms of antisemitism, antisemitic statements and any antisemitic elements that seek to infiltrate the Republican Party,” making specific mention to Ye, the artists formerly known as Kanye West, and right-wing provocateur Nick Fuentes.
👋 Santos Sanction: New York City Mayor Eric Adams called on Rep. George Santos (R-NY) to resign from Congress.
🚓 Nabbed: U.S. prosecutors charged three men with attempting to assassinate a journalist and prominent critic of the Iranian government. Attorney General Merrick Garland did not name the target, but it is believed to be Masih Alinejad.
🏨 Old City Opulence: The Circuit explores the history behind Jerusalem’s luxury Mamilla Hotel.
🛀 Bed, Bath and Bomb: The Wall Street Journal talks to Warren Eisenberg and Leonard Feinstein, co-founders of Bed Bath & Beyond, about the rise and fall of the company.
🏢 Faith in the Workplace: Former New York Times’ Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse observes the court’s decision to revisit the debate over religious accommodations in the workplace.
🏠 Homeschool Hate: Vicespotlights a neo-Nazi homeschool network that distributes lesson plans to its 2,400 members.
🕍 Synagogue Attack: Police in Bloomfield, N.J., are searching for a man who threw a Molotov cocktail at a local synagogue. The synagogue was not damaged in the attack.
⏲️ The Last Nazis: Reuters interviews German Nazi hunter Thomas Will, who is running out of time to identify and bring to justice the remaining individuals who bear some responsibility for their actions during the Holocaust.
✡️ Never Forget: The New York Times spotlights efforts to draw attention to the Jews who died in the Jungfernhof concentration camp near Riga, Latvia, during the Holocaust.
🖊️ Poisoned Pen: Kentucky’s Courier-Journal is facing blowback for publishing an opinion piece published on International Holocaust Remembrance Day that said “Jews do not have a monopoly on persecution.”
🔑 (Looted) Gold Rush: The Dutch village of Ommeren has attracted widespread attention following the declassification of a map indicating a spot in the municipality where Nazis supposedly buried boxes of gold and jewelry near the end of WWII.
🇩🇪 Military Might: The New York Times Magazine examines Germany’s potential to be a great military power again.
📜 Surviving Scroll: A museum in the UAE on Saturday unveiled a Torah scroll that survived the Holocaust.
🛫 Man on a Mission: Brian Nelson, the U.S. Treasury Department’s top sanctions official, will travel to Oman, the UAE and Turkey and will warn countries and businesses against attempts to evade sanctions on Russia and Iran.
🪖 Joint Exercise: CNN was granted access to the joint military exercise between Israel and the United States, intended to demonstrate the strong partnership between the pair.
🏭 Factory Strike: Israel carried out a drone attack on an Iranian defense factory in the city of Isfahan on Saturday night, according to U.S. officials and people familiar with the operation cited by the Wall Street Journal.
📞 Reaching Out: Bahrain’s crown prince called the Qatari emir last week in an apparent sign of warming ties between the two countries, two years after an Arab boycott on Qatar ended.
➡️ Transition: Journalist Noah Rothman is joining the National Review from Commentary.
🕯️ Remembering: Photographer George Zimbel, whose subjects included John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, died at 93. Avi Poster, a Jewish activist from Tennessee who helped strengthen ties between Nashville’s different religious communities, died at 77. Artist Mira Lehr, whose work was featured by Jewish Insider last month, died at 88.
Pic of the Day
Holocaust survivor Ruth Cohen (seated at right) meets with Egyptians at Cairo’s Adli Synagogue, where she told her story of surviving Auschwitz.
Birthdays
Teacher and national community leader, holder of a Ph.D. in modern Jewish history from New York University, Judith Friedman Rosen turns 71…
Chairman of The Cordish Companies, David S. Cordish turns 83… Upton, Wyo., resident, Heather Graf… VP of corporate engagement at the Parker Jewish Institute for Health Care and Rehabilitation in New Hyde Park, N.Y., Linda Scacco… CEO of Jewish National Fund, Russell F. Robinson turns 67… Former member of the California State Senate, Jeffrey Earle Stone turns 67… Philadelphia area psychologist, Dr. Rachel Ginzberg… Managing partner of lobbying and law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, Richard B. Benenson… Director of public relations for the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, Zalman Shmotkin turns 54… Associate professor in the electrical engineering department at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Guy Gilboa turns 52… Publicist, manager and socialite, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Grubman turns 52… Special projects editor at The Week Junior, Bari Nan Cohen Rothchild… President of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Council, Evan M. Glass turns 46… Dallas resident, Gisele Rogers… Executive director of Middle East Affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Joshua M. Kram… Former member of Congress (R-NY), he was a candidate for governor of New York in 2022, Lee Zeldin turns 43…
White House correspondent for CBS Radio News, Steven Portnoy… Israeli actor, director, writer and television presenter, he is known for starring in “Shtisel, Out in the Dark” and as the host of the popular reality TV show, “The Voice Israel,” Michael Aloni turns 39… CEO at Harvesting Media, Eli Langer… Media professional and communications strategist, Alyona Minkovski turns 37… Member of the Connecticut House of Representatives since 2019, he is the eldest son of U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Matthew S. Blumenthal turns 37… Partner in Avalanche VC, Eric Scott Lavin… Deputy National Security Advisor to VPOTUS Kamala Harris, Rebecca Friedman Lissner turns 36… Sports Illustrated swimsuit model since 2013, Kate Lynne Bock turns 35… Project leader at Boston Consulting Group, Max Delahanty… Professional ice hockey defenseman, he played on Team USA at the 2018 Winter Olympics and is currently playing with EHC Red Bull München, Jonathon Blum turns 34… VP at Blue Wolf Capital Partners, Jared Isenstein… Ice hockey forward for four seasons at Northeastern University and then played in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, Chelsey Goldberg turns 30… Marketing manager at Resorts World Bimini, Alexa Smith…
