Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Thursday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at European efforts to combat antisemitism, and interview Formula One driver Robert Shwartzman about his recent promotion to league reserve driver. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Robert Zimmerman, Gali Baharav-Miara and Ron Klain.
President Joe Biden will meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II today for a private lunch at the White House. The Jordanian leader met with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill yesterday. Read our article from earlier this week on why Jordan is not embracing the Abraham Accords.
Republicans’ two-year-long effort to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee will come to a head today with a vote on the House floor scheduled for midday. The measure is expected to pass. The House approved a procedural motion yesterday along party lines setting up Thursday’s vote; that procedural vote may not be reflective of the final vote tally.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) has said she intends to vote against removing Omar, and some Democratic critics of Omar are still publicly undecided. Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), who previously opposed removing Omar, now plans to vote “yes,” according to The Washington Post, following promises that Republicans would make it more difficult to remove members from committees moving forward.
When the resolution on Omar comes to the floor, it won’t bear the name of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) or other leading Republicans who’ve pushed the measure for years, but rather that of Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), a Jewish member who entered the House less than a month ago.
Omar’s “track record of her consistent rhetoric and behavior toward the Jewish people,” Miller told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod yesterday, “are very detrimental to not only our country, but the entire world.” Given the Foreign Affairs Committee’s global profile and extensive foreign travel, “she, in essence, is an ambassador for every single American inside the United States of America,” Miller argued.
Miller also tied his involvement with the resolution to his own Jewish heritage, telling JI, “I’d like to know what she’s learned about the Jewish people and the strife that we’ve continued to have into this day in modern history, when we just faced a genocide in the ‘30s and ‘40s. We are continuously persecuted non-stop by individuals like her. As someone who is very Jewish and very connected to the Jewish community, I cannot sit idly by,” Miller continued, “and watch someone spew this type of rhetoric who wants to sit on Foreign Affairs, and has already said nasty things about Israel, when it’s already a tenuous situation and has been in the Middle East since [Israel’s] inception.” Read the full interview here.
The National Prayer Breakfast — a scaled-down event this year, following the takeover of the gathering by the National Prayer Breakfast Foundation, amid concerns that the original convening had become too politicized — will take place this morning at the Capitol Visitor’s Center, and is expected to draw between 200-300 people.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Paris today, where he’ll meet with French President Emmanuel Macron at 3 p.m. local time. Netanyahu is also slated to meet with leaders of Paris’ Jewish community tomorrow, and will return to Israel on Saturday evening.
TRANSATLANTIC TALK
At former SS HQ in Berlin, European leaders teach the U.S. a lesson on antisemitism
For decades, American Jews generally regarded Europe with a feeling of superiority on matters of antisemitism. When Jeffrey Goldberg asked, “Is it time for the Jews to leave Europe?” in a prescient 2015 Atlantic cover story, written in the wake of the deadly attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris, many Jews in America read the article with fascination, but not yet understanding — a vast gulf separated the two communities in their experience of antisemitism. That has changed in recent years as antisemitism in the U.S. has risen to levels not seen in decades. The result is that 80 years after the Holocaust, the U.S. finds itself in the slightly ironic position of turning to Europe for guidance in how to combat antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Heavy history: Antisemitism envoys from across Europe gathered in Berlin on Monday for a meeting with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Deborah Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. The convening took place in the Topography of Terror museum located at the former SS headquarters, on the 90th anniversary of Hitler’s appointment as chancellor. The meeting followed a White House announcement in December that the Biden administration plans to create a national strategy on antisemitism. Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Commission coordinator for combating antisemitism and fostering Jewish life, told JI after the roundtable that she believes Emhoff’s involvement with the issue “will have a real impact” as the U.S. begins to put together its action plan.
Strategy session: In 2021, the European Union released its own antisemitism strategy after years of careful research, planning and brainstorming. The process was a diplomatic and logistical feat, involving representatives from each of the 27 EU governments and each country’s Jewish community. An efficiency-minded German with an eye for both organization and the big picture, von Schnurbein was the mastermind behind the strategy.
In the states: Von Schnurbein, who is not Jewish, believes the EU’s antisemitism strategy could offer useful guidance to Washington. The EU’s approach is country-specific, and its recommendations for each member state — such as its insistence that each EU country appoint its own antisemitism envoy and craft its own antisemitism strategy — could also correspond to actions in each American state, rather than just at the federal level.
Trickle down: “Why not see this also with regards to the U.S.? You have a federal level and then 50 states,” von Schnurbein explained. “There needs to be ownership from the member state side, from the civil society, from businesses, from schools and universities and political parties and so on, and translate this into the respective contexts. And that’s important, too, for it to, let’s say, trickle down.”
Bonus: The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin suggests that Emhoff “personified the link between the unimaginable horrors of the past and their present echoes” and could cement his legacy by “[energizing] a national reckoning with all forms of hate.”
on track
Robert Shwartzman is inching his way closer to a spot on the Formula One starting grid
The Fiorano Circuit was wet, so much so that Robert Shwartzman, Scuderia Ferrari’s newly promoted reserve driver, had to start the morning late in order to give the ground some extra time to dry. It didn’t help much, but Shwartzman was just happy to get behind the wheel of his Formula One race car. Decked out in Ferrari’s signature red, he sped around the course in a blur of scarlet, the only color contrasts coming from a handful of sponsorship logos, his golden-hued helmet and the small Israeli flag stitched on his waist. Despite the less-than-ideal conditions, the Russian-Israeli racer ended the afternoon last Tuesday having completed 87 laps equalling a total of nearly 161 miles. Shwartzman’s ride marked the first of three season-opening test days for Ferrari, which took place last week at the team’s private development track in Fiorano Modenese, Italy, in preparation for the first official race of 2023 in early March, Jewish Insider’s Tori Bergel reports.
Moving on up: “It was a bit more challenging because of the wet conditions of the track…but still just a good experience, because I’ve never experienced driving an F1 car in the rain,” Shwartzman, 23, told JI of his first drive since his promotion. “Overall, I think it was a very positive test for me to learn new stuff, new things.” Since the instant he jumped into the driver’s seat at age 4, Shwartzman loved to race, a passion he’d inherited from his father, Mikhail, who died in April 2020 after contracting COVID-19. Only a few months later, Shwartzman would debut in Formula Two, where he would go on to end the season in second place. “Basically, from the moment I [was] born I got that passion too, and [then] it was just me and him,” Shwartzman recalled. “We were fully dedicated and fully obsessed [with racing], me and my dad, no one else from the family.”
Eye on the prize: Three years later, Shwartzman has kept pushing in his pursuit of their shared dream — to become a competitive Formula One driver. He took one step closer to that goal on Jan. 19, when Scuderia Ferrari, the luxury brand’s F1 team, announced that Shwartzman had been promoted to reserve driver, a role he shares with Italian driver Antonio Giovinazzi. “I’m very happy and honored that this year I became a reserve driver for Ferrari,” Shwartzman said of his promotion. “I’m very thankful for Ferrari, and also for the part of [the Ferrari Driver Academy] for pushing and giving their experience and everything they could to me to develop and to grow… It’s a very important role I have for this year, so my target is just to do my best and to deliver the best job as possible.”
Dual citizenship: In order to meet new regulations set last year by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile — the governing body of F1 racing — Shwartzman, who holds Russian and Israeli citizenships, began operating under an Israeli racing license ahead of the 2022 season. He had previously been driving under a Russian license, but in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the FIA began requiring all competitors to “run under a neutral flag.” The change felt natural to Shwartzman, who was born in Tel Aviv and spent the first three years of his life in Israel, before moving to Russia for six years. He moved to Italy when he was 9, where he has spent most of the last decade. “I knew, always, that I was born in Israel and that I have Jewish blood inside me… I never said I’m only this or only that,” Shwartzman said. “[Switching to an Israeli license] just gave me a good feeling… It felt comfortable, like it was always there.”
Worthy Reads
🪑 Klain to Fame: The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos looks at how Ron Klain navigated the challenges of the White House and Democratic infighting during his tenure as White House chief of staff. “For the first two years of the Biden Administration, the chief of staff’s office — it’s the corner office of the West Wing — has belonged to Ron Klain, a lawyer and suburban father of three with limited celebrity but an uncanny command of how to wield power in Washington. Mike Donilon, a longtime Biden aide who is currently a senior adviser in the White House, told me that Klain ‘has an ability to make the levers of government work that I certainly don’t have, and I don’t know how many others do.’ Klain’s involvement across the full spectrum of Biden’s Presidency — the grappling with Congress, Trumpism, Afghanistan, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — was so extensive that Republicans referred to him as the Prime Minister.” [NewYorker]
🇮🇷 Inside Iran: The Washington Post’s Jason Rezaian dissects Iran’s use of executions as a tool to strike fear into the hearts of protesters demonstrating against the regime in Tehran. “In the days and weeks that followed my arrest, I was shuttled from my solitary confinement cell to an interrogation room, always blindfolded. I was regularly told in these violent sessions that I would in all likelihood be beheaded. More than once, that message was delivered directly by Hossein Taeb, who was the long-serving head of the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence organization. The shadowy Taeb is known to be one of the architects of Iran’s policy of taking foreign nationals hostage, as well as exterminating all potential political opponents of the regime… The terror is the point. These ‘trials’ are meant to send a message to the condemned and to anyone else who might be paying attention, from the complicit bureaucrats tasked with carrying out the orders, to the public at large — and abroad.” [WashPost]
👨👨 Sam’s Sib: Puck’s Teddy Schleifer looks at how Gabe Bankman-Fried, the brother of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, built relationships in Washington and how he is weathering the collapse of his brother’s cryptocurrency empire. “Gabe became an unexpected power player in Washington — popular in part because people genuinely liked him, but also, of course, because people genuinely loved his money. He was also not naive about his privileged position. He was well-aware there was no way he would have run a well-funded, well-known lobbying group in his mid-20s if he was not lucky enough to be born as Sam’s brother. ‘G.B.F.,’ as some called him (yes, he approached coveted D.C. initialism status), was welcomed alongside S.B.F. at congressional policy retreats. He had an executive assistant. He hosted congressmen at fundraisers with friends and spoke at ideas summits on pandemic-prevention topics. He was invited to a White House correspondents dinner weekend party (as a guest of Semafor, which launched with a $10 million investment delivered by Gabe) and to the White House itself, accompanying his brother for multiple lobbying meetings with senior Biden staff.” [Puck]
👨 Post Mortem: The Washington Post’s Dan Zak travels around New York’s 3rd Congressional District with former congressional candidate Robert Zimmerman, who is considering his next political move following his November loss to Rep. George Santos (R-NY). “‘I carry the pain and frustration of the loss with me,’ Zimmerman said earlier Friday, standing at Grace Avenue and Bond Street in Great Neck. He wore a belted overcoat in herringboned earth tones. In the winter sun, he looked very much like a congressman. ‘But you can’t let it get you down. You let it motivate you.’ While George Santos seems to be nowhere, Robert Zimmerman seems to be everywhere. Santos is running from the media on Capitol Hill; Zimmerman is running toward them in Long Island. He received an ovation last month at an interfaith service at Temple Beth El, where New York Attorney General Letitia James introduced him as the inverse of the man who beat him: ‘someone who I adore,’ ‘someone who stands up and speaks truth. And facts. Right? And honesty. A man of great integrity.’” [WashPost]
🤝 Collaborative Effort: In eJewishPhilanthropy, Linda Gradstein spotlights the joint efforts of three Israeli NGOs operating in Africa. “The lives of a group of children from South Sudan hung in the balance, the promise of heart surgery resting more than 1,700 miles away in Tel Aviv. The Israeli nonprofit Save a Child’s Heart, which offers life-saving procedures in Israel to children from all over the world, had recently identified several in the impoverished African country who were excellent candidates for the surgery. ‘We saw them and we knew we could help them, but we didn’t have the logistical support on the ground,’ said Simon Fisher, SACH’s executive director. Now, such support in Africa is fast becoming a reality. Three Israeli humanitarian nonprofits working on the continent — IsraAID, Innovation: Africa and Save a Child’s Heart — have begun collaborating on projects, with a push from the Kirsh Foundation, which donates tens of millions of dollars to the three groups. ‘This collaboration is very unique and does not happen very often between nonprofit organizations in general and the humanitarian space in particular,’ IsraAID CEO Yotam Polizer told eJP.” [eJP]
Around the Web
🙏 PA Security:Axios’ Barak Ravid reports that Secretary of State Tony Blinken pressed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to move forward on a U.S. security plan designed to help the PA reestablish control over Jenin and Nablus, which have been increasingly taken over by militants.
🗳️ Reelect Rumors: At his White House goodbye party, outgoing Chief of Staff Ron Klain teased that he’d be back for President Joe Biden’s not-yet-announced reelection campaign.
📢 Big-gs Announcement: Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) announced he is filing articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
📱 Santos’ Socials: CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski chronicles the political evolution of Rep. George Santos (R-NY) through years of social media posts.
🏢 The Counterpuncher: Rolling Stone’s Kara Voght meets with Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) as the freshman lawmaker settles into both his office on Capitol Hill and his role on the high-profile House Oversight Committee.
📄 Regents Review: Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) sent a letter yesterday to New York State Board of Regents Chancellor Lester Young Jr. expressing concerns about Regents exam questions that have been criticized for “loaded” questions about Israel. Torres’ letter argues that the exam “perpetuates denial, distortion, and disinformation regarding the creation of Israel and the expansion of its borders,” that it constitutes “miseducation” and was “ahistorical and offensive.”
🤔 Mideast Matters: In Foreign Policy, the Carnegie Endowment’s Aaron David Miller and Amb. Daniel Kurtzer suggest how the Biden administration can navigate heightened tensions in the Middle East and relations with Israeli and Palestinian leadership.
🏈 Dropping the Ball: Quarterback Tom Brady announced his retirement in a video recorded at the Grand Beach Hotel in Surfside, Fla. — which Twitter user Dovi Safier noted “has quickly catapulted him into the #1 spot on the iconic ‘Greatest Moments in Yeshiva Week History’ list.” Brady’s announcement was met with a heartfelt Instagram post from former teammate Julian Edelman.
🚫 Double Standard: The international committee of the Democratic Socialists of America, which supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, published a multi-tweet thread condemning sanctions as mechanisms that “produce humanitarian catastrophes in targeted countries.”
🚓 Apprehended: Authorities in New Jersey arrested a man for attempting to firebomb a synagogue over the weekend.
📽️ Movie Upset: The new Netflix comedy “You People,” which spotlights the relationship between a Jewish man and a Muslim woman, is under fire for its portrayal of American Jews.
🔨 Shattered to Pieces: A video of a Jewish couple smashing a gravy boat that had markings from Nazi Germany went viral.
📚 Metamorphosis of Language: Ross Benjamin, who translated some of the works of Franz Kafka after learning German, considers how language differences can alter how writings and translations are understood across cultures.
🇬🇧 Across the Pond: Under pressure from U.K. Labour party leaders, MP Kim Johnson apologized for describing Israel’s new government as “fascist.”
🛬 Bruchim HaBaim: Israeli Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana told leaders from the World Zionist Organization that he opposes any changes to Israel’s “Law of Return.”
💻 AI Speech: In a recorded video greeting for the Cybertech Global Tel Aviv convention yesterday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog revealed that the first part of his speech had been written by a “special helper” — OpenAI’s ChatGPT artificial intelligence bot, which also came up with an “inspirational quote about the role of humanity in a world of superhuman technology” to round off his address.
✋ Legal Advice: Gali Baharav-Miara, Israel’s attorney general, cautioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against getting involved in the government’s plan to overhaul its judicial system due to a conflict of interest connected to his corruption trial.
🚀 Tit-for-Tat: Israeli forces targeted a chemical production site and a weapons manufacturing facility in Gaza following a rocket interception over southern Israel.
👀 Policy Review: Israel is conducting a review of its policies regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is considering providing defensive weapons systems to the Ukrainian government. Moscow warned Israel against such a move, suggesting that such assistance to Kyiv would “lead to an escalation of this crisis.”
✍️ In the News: Yossi Klein Halevi, Daniel Gordis and Matti Friedman jointly penned an op-ed expressing concerns over Israeli government proposals, a day after a similar letter was published by more than 150 current and former liberal Jewish leaders in the U.S.
🇮🇷 Undeclared Change: The International Atomic Energy Agency slammed Iran for making a change at its Fordow facility, which was discovered during an unannounced visit by the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
🚢 Military Matters: U.S. officials are tracking reports from Iran that it is sending two warships to Brazil and Panama.
☢️ Nuclear Concerns: Following a weekend attack on a facility in Isfahan, Iran, The New York Timeslooks at international concerns surrounding the country’s nuclear program.
🏦 Growing Alliance: Moscow and Tehran are moving toward linking their banking systems in an effort to evade Western sanctions.
🇹🇷 Erdogan Intransigence: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he will continue to block Sweden’s efforts to join NATO as long as it continues to permit the burning of the Quran.
🏠 Far From Homs: In The New York Times, Ammar Azzouz, who has lived in the U.K. since 2011, pens a tribute to his native Homs, which he left at the start of the Syrian civil war.
🕯️ Remembering: Attorney Allan Ryan, who led the Justice Department branch that prosecuted Nazis living in the U.S., died at 77.
Pic of the Day
Chadian President Gen. Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Wednesday, a day before opening the country’s embassy in Ramat Gan.
Birthdays
Host of the Food Network program “Barefoot Contessa,” and former OMB staffer for Presidents Ford and Carter, Ina Rosenberg Garten turns 75…
Chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp and Expedia, he was previously CEO of Paramount Pictures and CEO of Fox, Barry Diller turns 81… Former mayor and current city councilman of Irvine, Calif., Larry Agran (family name, Agranowsky) turns 78… Actor, comedian and singer, he is best known for his portrayal of the android, Lieutenant Commander Data, in the “Star Trek” television series and four subsequent films, Brent Spiner turns 74… Journalist, novelist and author (four novels and fourteen nonfiction books), he has written more than 2,500 magazine and web articles, Michael Zelig Castleman turns 73… U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) turns 71… Washington Secrets columnist at the Washington Examiner, Paul Bedard… Science fiction publisher and author, Selina A. Rosen turns 63… Rabbi at the Pacific Jewish Center (the Shul On The Beach) in Venice, Calif., he is also a practicing attorney, Shalom Rubanowitz… Sportscaster who currently does play-by-play for all four major professional sports leagues, Kenny Albert turns 55… Movie and theatre actress and screenwriter, Jennifer Westfeldt turns 53… Tony Award-winning actress and a semi-finalist on Season 6 of “Dancing With the Stars,” Marissa Jaret Winokur turns 50… Jerusalem-born assistant coach for Olimpia Milano in the Italian Basketball League, Dan Shamir turns 48… Actress and comedian, Lori Beth Denberg turns 47… Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose stage name is Mayer Hawthorne, Andrew Mayer Cohen turns 44… Assistant professor at Clemson University, Rebecca Shimoni Stoil, Ph.D. turns 43… Engagement editor for Government Executive Media Group, Ross Gianfortune… U.S. Senator Katie Boyd Britt (R-AL) turns 41… Television and radio host, David Pakman turns 39… U.S. deputy special envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism, Aaron Keyak… Actress and musician, Zosia Russell Mamet turns 35… Former Team Israel baseball catcher, he is now a minor league coach in the Milwaukee Brewers organization, Nicholas Jay “Nick” Rickles turns 33… Avi Katz…
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