Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Tuesday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the opening of the Manara Center in Abu Dhabi, a collaboration between the United Arab Emirates and the Anti-Defamation League, and talk to actor Joshua Malina about his return to Broadway as the lead of “Leopoldstadt.” Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Kathy Manning, Ben Platt and Sylvia Rafael.
More than two years after signing the Abraham Accords, Bahrain is hosting the Connect2Innovate conference with Israel this week to stoke dealmaking between the two countries, our sister publication The Circuit’s Jonathan Ferziger reports from Bahrain’s capital city Manama.
Some of the five dozen Israelis who arrived Monday afternoon in Manama on a direct Gulf Air flight from Tel Aviv rejoiced when they saw puddles on the tarmac at Bahrain International Airport. It was a rare cool and rainy day as the group cruised into town on a bus, driving past yachts anchored in the Persian Gulf to the conference site at the Wyndham Grand Hotel, a twisted, 46-story building that resembles a drill bit piercing the skyline.
In the hotel’s top-floor ballroom, the conference got underway with about 100 Bahrainis mingling with Israelis over glasses of juice – the Wyndham doesn’t serve alcohol – and spinach pastry hors d’oeuvres.
Among those greeting the participants were Bahrain’s Minister of Industry and Commerce Abdulla bin Adel Fakhro and Bahrain’s Ambassador to Israel Khalid Yusuf Ahmed Al Jalahma.
The group also watched a video address from Israeli President Isaac Herzog and was greeted by Israel’s Ambassador to Bahrain Eitan Na’eh and Avi Hasson, CEO of Start-Up Nation Central, the Israeli tech trade promotion vehicle that organized the conference. Na’eh told The Circuit that Israel is an increasingly attractive place for Bahraini business ventures. “They’re coming to visit and they’re impressed with our technology. They want to find the next thing,” Na’eh said.
Meanwhile in Abu Dhabi, Israeli and Arab government and non-government representatives are set to convene today for the start of a three-day N7 summit focused on cooperation in agriculture, water and food security.
building bridges
UAE and ADL team up to launch the Manara Center in Abu Dhabi

A new initiative launched this morning in Abu Dhabi seeks to promote region-wide coexistence and opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration and education. The Manara Center, created by the United Arab Emirates in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League, will serve as a mechanism “to interrupt intolerance before it might take root,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss from Abu Dhabi ahead of the center’s opening on Tuesday morning.
Origins: The idea was conceived, Greenblatt said, in conversations with UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba several years ago, as the Gulf nation prepared for its Year of Tolerance, a yearlong national project that in 2019 brought global religious leaders to the country, modernized aspects of the government and saw the announcement of the construction of the Abrahamic Family House, a complex that includes a mosque, church and synagogue. “What I found in Ambassador Al Otaiba is a shared commitment to fighting extremism and hate,” Greenblatt explained. “And what he recognized that really struck me was how, if you try to peel back the layers, why we have extremism, it often comes from a place of ignorance. So if we could promote people-to-people engagement, and encourage understanding, we thought that could be a pathway forward.”
Youth outreach: The center will focus its efforts in part on outreach to university students across the Arab world. “We do know from our own research,” Greenblatt said, “that anti-bias education, Holocaust education, these kinds of interventions can literally reduce instances of prejudice. So we’re going to start with student-to-student activity.” When its programming begins this summer, the center plans to engage students from across the Middle East and Southeast Asia for a variety of conferences and exchanges. The effort, Al Otaiba said, reflects the shared values of the UAE and U.S. in committing “to advancing peace and coexistence, and creating opportunities for the region’s youth.”
Regional endeavor: Greenblatt will sit on the board of the Manara Center, whose chairman is Dr. Ali Al Nuaimi, a leading member of the UAE’s Federal National Council and a global expert on extremism who heads Hedayah, Abu Dhabi’s top institution fighting extremism. The initiative, Al Nuaimi explained, “will be based in our region and for the benefit of our region.” The region-wide focus, Greenblatt said, was intentional. “It’s not for the UAE or even just for the Gulf. It’s how do we think on a broader scale?… It’s how can we help equip and support an indigenous effort from the region to combat extremism and hate? I think if we get it right, we all win.”