Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Thursday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the rise of Israel’s under-20 soccer team ahead of its match today against Uruguay in the World Cup semifinal, and report on efforts to deepen maritime cooperation between the U.S. and signatories to the Abraham Accords. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Lynn Schulman, Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al Thani and Masih Alinejad.
Pressure continues to mount on CUNY Law School following last month’s commencement ceremony in which the keynote speaker, Fatima Mohammed, used her speaking time to rail against Israel, as another lawmaker joined calls for the Department of Education to reassess CUNY’s receipt of federal funds, as well as whether the school ran afoul of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which, following a 2019 executive order, prohibits “forms of discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism.”
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) wrote a letter to Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, calling last month’s commencement “but one example of pervasive anti-Israelism designed to stoke hatred.”
Gottheimer called on the DoE and its Office of Civil Rights to review whether CUNY has violated Title VI and “whether they have forfeited their right to receive federal funding,” reminding Lhamon of the department’s “solemn obligation to enforce Title VI and Executive Order 13899 to protect Jewish students against antisemitism.”
New York City Councilmember Inna Vernikov, an attorney licensed to practice in New York, called on the state bar’s Character and Fitness committee to find Mohammed “unfit to practice law” and “deny her admission to the bar.”
Meanwhile, the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relationssaid that the speech, which has drawn criticism from Jewish groups and the CUNY administration in addition to federal lawmakers, had been “submitted, examined, and pre-approved by CUNY in written form and a verbal recording” ahead of the ceremony.
And in Washington, Israeli MK Simcha Rothman, an architect of Israel’s judicial reform effort, was spotted by JI’s Marc Rod at the Capitol yesterday, heading toward the Senate office buildings. Washington marked Rothman’s last stop in the U.S. before returning to Israel — flying in coach, according to an eagle-eyed fellow passenger.
the beautiful game
Inside Israel’s Cinderella story at the youth World Cup

For decades, Israelis have loved the “beautiful game,” a term for soccer popularized by Brazilian footballer Pelé. But soccer has not always loved them back. Before last month, the country’s national team only had one FIFA World Cup appearance, in 1970. Fast-forward more than half a century, and Israel’s youth soccer league is on a Cinderella run in the FIFA under-20 World Cup, the most important global sporting event for young soccer players. Today, Israel plays Uruguay in the tournament’s semifinals after defeating Brazil 3-2 in a major upset last weekend that delighted Israelis and Jews worldwide and shocked soccer fans at the stadium in Argentina and beyond, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Major investments: “It’s the biggest thing in Israeli sports in the last 30 years at least,” said Eitan Dotan, the spokesperson for Israel’s team. Close watchers of Israeli soccer say the team has been carefully building to this moment for years, with investments in high-power coaches and youth soccer programs.
From improbable to possible: Everything about Israel’s run has been improbable, starting with the fact that the country’s players were almost not allowed to participate. The tournament was supposed to be hosted in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, a country that most Israelis are unable to visit without a particular type of visa. But in March, FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, stripped Indonesia of its hosting duties after prominent government officials in the country said they would refuse to host the Israeli team.
Blended society: That two of Israel’s three goals against Brazil were scored by Arab Israelis seemed almost like a taunt to Indonesia. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman described it this week as “Israel’s emerging blended society … on full display.”
Read the full story here.
Set a reminder: The match against Uruguay kicks off at 1:30 p.m. ET in La Plata, Argentina.