🇮🇶 Held in Iraq: In The New York Times, Rachel Sharansky Danziger, the daughter of Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky and a friend of kidnapped Russian-Israeli researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov, questions whether the international community will fight for Tsurkov’s release from Iraq, where she is being held by the Kataib Hezbollah Shiite militia group. “I first met Liza in 1991, when I traveled with my family from Jerusalem to Kibbutz Nir David in northern Israel. ‘This family just made it here from Russia,’ my mother told my sister and me. ‘Their father shared a cell with me in prison,’ my father said…She [Tsurkov] intended to research the way Iraqis, and women in particular, were living after ISIS and in the shadow of sectarianism — not, as some online critics have said, to spy for the Israeli government. In a region where the coverage is often male-centric and shaped by the narratives of military groups and political factions, Liza wanted to hear from regular people to better understand the challenges they face. Like the institutions that supported her work, Princeton and the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington, Liza was committed to this goal. And like her parents in the Soviet Union of the 1980s, she went to Iraq in service of the values that are the very bedrock of the liberal worldview: truth, human rights, knowledge and freedom…Liza is not the same kind of freedom fighter as our parents were, but she has made a similar gamble. With her university’s support and that of several human rights groups, she took risks in pursuit of knowledge and information, trying to do what she felt was right. Will the liberal world stand up for her, as it did for her parents, and fight for her release?” [NYTimes]

⛰️ Paved With Good Intentions: In The Washington Post, Gordon F. Sander delves into the history of a five-star French resort, Evian les Baynes, where 85 years ago President Franklin D. Roosevelt convened an international conference with the aim of saving Jews from the Nazis. “The United States and other Western powers beckoned as potential safe havens. Instead, the fateful Evian conference, now largely forgotten, failed disastrously. It remains, today, ‘an indelible stain on American and world history,’ said David Harris, the former longtime leader of the American Jewish Committee and son of an Austrian Jewish refugee. ‘At a time before Auschwitz, when Adolf Hitler teased other nations, saying, in effect, if you care so much about Jews, why not open your doors to them, the response from the countries in attendance, with the notable exception of the Dominican Republic, was a resounding ‘no,’’ Harris wrote in an email.” [WashPost]

👩 Cohen’s Chances:STATassesses whether Mandy Cohen will be able to find consensus in her new position as director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “‘I think the job interview was the first time she’d been here,’ said [North Carolina] Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who appointed her [as the state’s secretary of health and human services]. (Actually, Cohen had visited Asheville once on a vacation.) Cooper said a lot of Republican lawmakers came to believe her word was good. ‘She is relatable, even though she is brilliant,’ the governor said. ‘She has a boatload of common sense. And she’s a likeable person.’ That likeability was apparent during the pandemic, as she sought to be as honest and clear about the unknowns as the knowns. One health policy expert in the state, who comes from a quite conservative family, said his mother kept calling him after Cohen’s TV appearances and reminding him ‘to do what that nice Mandy Cohen says.’ Cohen, who is petite and looks younger than her 44 years, wears a gold necklace spelling out the word for ‘life,’ in Hebrew, a gift from her mother when she started med school. She was raised in Long Island, trained at Yale and Harvard, and held several posts in the Obama administration, which is how Cooper heard about her. Not only did she work for the Obama administration, she helped implement Obamacare.” [STAT]

💲 Altman’s Acumen:The Information’s Natasha Mascarenhas explores why OpenAI CEO Sam Altman didn’t take equity in his own startup and digs into the many investments he has made in other companies. “While Altman was already one of the best-connected investors around, his leadership of OpenAI, where he is CEO, has made founders even more eager to get him involved in their startups. With the explosive growth of ChatGPT, OpenAI has rocketed to a $29 billion valuation and triggered an artificial intelligence arms race among startups and the world’s largest tech companies, including Alphabet’s Google and Microsoft, a major OpenAI investor and partner. That has enhanced Altman’s stature as a visionary, someone many founders want involved with their companies. ‘There are very few people in the world now who don’t know about GPT…and that means his ability to back a startup at a great valuation has gone up considerably, and so there is a sort of indirect financial upside for him,’ said Seth Bannon, a founding partner of venture firm Fifty Years, which backed Worldcoin, a crypto project Altman founded. [The Information]

😐 No Surprise: On the heels of  Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s comments regarding COVID-19 and ethnicity, The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg argues that antisemitism is an inevitable outcome of belief in conspiracy theories. “Because anti-Semitism has produced centuries of material pinning humanity’s problems on its Jews, a person convinced that an invisible hand is conducting world affairs will eventually discover that it belongs to an invisible Jew. For this reason, it is impossible to circulate on the conspiratorial fringe and not encounter anti-Semitism. This is why Kennedy has constantly found himself in the company of those who believe and express anti-Jewish ideas. Last week, he trumpeted his meeting with the rapper Ice Cube, a fellow conspiracy theorist who has a long history of bizarre anti-Semitic tweets and song lyrics. In the past, Kennedy has also made common cause with the hate preacher Louis Farrakhan, who regularly rails against alleged Jewish control of media and government.” [The Atlantic]

😷 COVID Conspiracy: Jewish groups denounced comments by Democratic presidential contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggesting that COVID-19 may have been ethnically “targeted” and Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people are “most immune.” 

🎙️ On Air with Tapper: CNN’s Jake Tapper will interview Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday, after the Republican presidential contender decided to shift his media strategy and grant more mainstream interviews. 

🤨 DeSantis Skeptics:The Washington Post spotlights the growing skepticism surrounding DeSantis’ presidential run. The story cites former advisers who raised private concerns about the Florida governor’s message, and the effectiveness and insularity of his campaign operation.

💵 Money Matters: The support of GOP mega-donors is divided between several candidates, boosting former President Donald Trump as a front runner.

📄 Policy Proposal: No Labels is set to formally release policy proposals for its centrist group in New Hampshire today. The event will be headlined by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.VA.) and former Utah GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman.

🗳️ Three’s A Crowd: Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced his candidacy for Senate against Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). He’ll be facing businessman Bernie Moreno and state Sen. Matt Dolan in the GOP primary.

🐦 Social Scheme: The first beneficiaries of a new Twitter program to share ad revenue with content creators appear to be high-profile far-right influencers.

📦 PAC Cuts: The progressive PAC Justice Democrats laid off nine of its 20 employees last week due to financial stress, according to Politico.

🏢 Milken Moves:The Wall Street Journal profiles Michael Milken, who plans next year to unveil a new complex in D.C. that will house a public exhibition space known as the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, in addition to conference and event spaces and offices for his Milken Institute think tank. 

🏥 Health Report: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was released from the hospital yesterday following an overnight stay after he lost consciousness and fell at home. Netanyahu said in a video message from the hospital that he was dehydrated after spending time outside in a heat wave without drinking water or wearing a hat.

🔥 Act of Protest: A Muslim activist who had received permission from the Swedish authorities to burn a Torah and a Bible outside the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm said he never intended to go through with it but rather wanted to draw attention to the issue to protest the recent burning of a Quran outside a mosque.

⚾ Sunday Funday: The New Jersey-based Autumn Lake Healthcare company bought 12,000 tickets for yesterday’s Orioles game against the Marlins, reserving the entire upper deck at Camden Yards for its employee family day.

🪖 What’s In A Name: In Air Mail, John Mauceri questions the decision to name the private Russian army the Wagner Group after the 19th-century German composer who was admired by Hitler.  

🇺🇦 Growing Gaps: Last week’s NATO summit highlighted divisions between the U.S. and European approaches to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

🛢️ Dodgy Deal: The agreement between Iraq and Iran to trade oil for natural gas would likely violate U.S. sanctions on Iran, according to three former U.S. officials.

🚰 Water Works: After a Saudi company has for almost a decade been pumping water from land in Arizona, the agreement — which operated within a lax framework of rules — is now in jeopardy, according to a Washington Post investigation.

🚑 West Bank Attack: An Israeli man was shot and seriously wounded, and his two daughters were lightly hurt, in a terror shooting near the Tekoa settlement in the West Bank yesterday.

➡️ Transitions: President Joe Biden appointed Susie Gelman, former Israel Policy Forum chair, to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

👰🤵 Match Made In Twitter: The New York Times Mini-Vows section features Hot 97 broadcaster Peter Rosenberg and photographer Natalie Amrossi, who got married earlier this month after meeting via Twitter in 2020.

👶 Mazal Tov: Karlie Kloss and Joshua Kushner welcomed their second child.

🕯️ Remembering: Dutch journalist and novelist Marga Minco, who wrote about Jewish life in the Netherlands during and after WWII, died at 103. Everett I. Mendelsohn, a historian of science and longtime Harvard professor, died at 91.

Israel competes in the preliminary of the women’s team technical artistic swimming event during the World Aquatics Championships yesterday in Fukuoka, Japan. 

Professor emeritus at Tel Aviv U., he served as a member of Knesset, minister of foreign affairs and Israeli ambassador to Spain, Shlomo Ben-Ami turns 80…

Founder of the Frommer’s series of travel guides, Arthur Frommer turns 94… Emmy Award-winning play-by-play announcer on radio for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Charley Steiner turns 74… Retired associate general counsel of The Hartford and former chairman of the Board of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, he is now a lecturer at UConn law school, Robert K. Yass… Rabbi emeritus at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, Pa., Lance Jonathan Sussman, Ph.D. turns 69… Managing general partner and co-founder of Pitango Venture Capital, he serves as chairman of The Peres Center for Peace & Innovation, Nechemia (Chemi) J. Peres turns 65… Chair of Samson Energy Company, co-founder of Granite Properties and co-chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Stacy Helen Schusterman… Business development team lead at Quorum, Steven Lebowitz… Television and film director, Joshua Seftel turns 55… Actress best known for playing Sharona in the television series “Monk,” Elizabeth Natalie “Bitty” Schram turns 55… Founder and CEO of Zeta Global, David A. Steinberg turns 53… Stand-up comedian, he was a finalist on the NBC reality-talent show “Last Comic Standing” in two seasons, Gary Gulman turns 53… Treasurer of Australia until 2022, he has previously served as Minister for the Environment and Energy, Joshua Anthony “Josh” Frydenberg turns 52… Blogger, journalist and science fiction author, Cory Efram Doctorow turns 52… Executive director of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, Matthew E. Berger… Public television host, Shannan Butler Adler… Member of the Knesset for the Yesh Atid party, Boaz Toporovsky turns 43… Emmy Award-winning actor, comedian, podcaster and writer, Brett Goldstein turns 43… Healthcare reporter for Barron’s, Josh Nathan-Kazis… Associate at Compensation Advisory Partners, Jared Sorhaindo… Virtual banking strategy lead and executive director at JPMorgan Chase, Melanie Ettleson…