Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Thursday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the American Jewish Committee’s call for the Justice Department to seek the extradition from Jordan of a terrorist involved in the 2001 Sbarro bombing, and preview the debate over an amendment introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz over the Biden administration’s recent guidance against backing projects in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Mark Robinson, Mark Esper and Judy Rakowsky.
Last month, when we reported on the Biden administration’s national antisemitism strategy, a White House official told us that the report “continues the approach of the United States government on the definition of antisemitism.”
What remained unclear was to what extent that statement applied to a 2019 executive order issued by former President Donald Trump that dealt with antisemitism. The executive order requires federal agencies to consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism when enforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Communications from the Department of Education to university administrators suggest that the Trump executive order had not been revoked, but the White House did not yet address it directly. On Wednesday, a White House official confirmed that it remains in place.
“The Trump EO is still in effect. No change in approach to IHRA,” the official told JI.
Alyza Lewin, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, said the recent settlement of an investigation at the University of Vermont and the opening of a new investigation at SUNY New Paltz in New York — the latter of which occurred after the release of the administration’s national strategy to combat antisemitism — demonstrate that the Biden administration is continuing to use the executive order, noting that both cases “deal overwhelmingly with anti-Zionism.”
“What’s interesting about the UVM resolution,” Lewin told JI’s Melissa Weiss, “is how do they describe what this kind of antisemitism is? They say you have to make sure your university policies address antisemitism, including when it manifests as national origin discrimination on the basis of shared ancestry… Title VI makes clear that you have to protect the basis of race, color [and] national origin.” Read the full story here.
Ahead of a trip to Washington next week, Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday discussed the U.S.-Israel relationship at an IDF event. “In just a few days, I will pay an important visit to the United States, to mark 75 years of Israeli independence, and 75 years of our solid alliance, which lies above and beyond any and all disagreements,” he said.
Herzog is set to land in Washington on Tuesday morning for a busy two days. He will meet with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and other senior White House officials. On Wednesday, he will deliver an address to a joint session of Congress, before departing to New York, where he will participate in an event with the Jewish community.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) declared on Wednesday that there is “no way in hell” she will attend Herzog’s speech at the Capitol. The Minnesota legislator also boycotted an address by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month.
The Congressional Caucus on Black-Jewish Relations will hold a relaunch event this evening. The caucus is being chaired by Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Nikema Williams (D-GA) and Wesley Hunt (R-TX). Former Reps. Brenda Lawrence (D-MI) and Lee Zeldin (R-NY) were previously co-chairs. The American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, and National Urban League are also participating in the relaunch.
public call
AJC calls on Justice Department to pursue Ahlam Tamimi extradition

The American Jewish Committee is for the first time publicly calling on the Justice Department “to exert every effort” to push Jordan to extradite Ahlam Tamimi, a Palestinian terrorist convicted in an Israeli court for her role in the 2001 bombing of a Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem in which 16 people, including three Americans, were killed, Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports. Tamimi, who received 16 life sentences for escorting a suicide bomber to the restaurant, was freed in a 2011 exchange with Jordan along with more than 1,000 prisoners, most of them Palestinian.
Unrepentant: In a letter addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland, AJC CEO Ted Deutch writes that Tamimi is “unrepentant” and has “enjoyed celebrity status since returning to Jordan, glorifying and inciting terrorism and for five years hosting a program on the Hamas-affiliated Al-Quds TV, beamed throughout the Arabic-speaking world.”
Ten years on: The letter comes ahead of the 10th anniversary of Tamimi’s indictment — done under seal — by the Department of Justice. After the charges were made public in 2017, Jordan rejected the premise of a long-standing extradition treaty between Washington and Amman. “There is no ambiguity regarding the U.S.-Jordan extradition treaty,” the letter says. “Legal obligations between nations cannot be set aside because they are inconvenient to enforce.”
Victims’ response: Frimet and Arnold Roth, the parents of Malki Roth, who was killed in the blast at age 15, welcomed the letter, telling JI that “in urging the DOJ to press for extradition by a valued treaty partner, the AJC is backed by justice, American law and Judaism’s profound respect for the sanctity of human life,” adding that “Ahlam Tamimi calls the Sbarro atrocity ‘a crown on my head.’ The obscenity of her being free to inspire admiring crowds in Jordan and beyond with her savagery should have ended years ago in a Washington courthouse. We pray it will now.”