Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Friday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look ahead to the Israeli High Court’s upcoming review of challenges to recently passed judicial reform legislation, and report on House GOP concerns that the Department of Homeland Security may end funding for two cooperative programs with Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Ben Judah and Dan Doctoroff.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: Delaware congressional candidate Sarah McBride casts herself as a staunch supporter of Israel; On Loop, an ancient matchmaking tradition becomes modern; Meet the Israeli actress telling the story of Israel’s creation – on Netflix. Print the latest edition here.
Justice Democrats, the far-left group founded by staffers from Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) 2016 presidential bid that has backed candidates to primary moderate Democrats, is facing mounting challenges, HuffPo’s Daniel Marans writes.
Justice Democrats laid off nearly half of its 20-member staff earlier this summer — several of whom worked on legislative issues — an indication, Marans suggests, that the group is moving away from its efforts on Capitol Hill and refocusing on electing progressive candidates. But the group has not yet announced its slate of endorsements for primary challengers or for candidates making bids for open seats, five months before the nation’s first primaries.
The group is expected to throw its weight behind Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who has emerged as one of the leading critics of Israel since he was first elected in 2020 after ousting longtime Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) in the primary. Westchester County Executive George Latimer, a former state senator, has met with AIPAC to discuss entering the race.
The effort by pro-Israel groups to find a challenger to Bowman and other prominent critics of the Jewish state in Congress reflects a broader response to the activist left’s outsized focus on Israel. Marans spoke to one progressive senior House aide who said that policy discussions with Justice Democrats-backed incumbents were rare — except on one issue.
“Other than some Israel bills, we never talked about legislation,” the senior aide told Marans.
In another sign of Justice Democrats’ waning influence, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), who narrowly won his last two primaries against an activist-left opposition, released a list of endorsements from House Democratic leadership yesterday. It was a marked change for Cuellar, the Democratic caucus’ sole anti-abortion member, who “was left to fend for himself,” Politico’s Sarah Ferris wrote yesterday, “after getting exiled by most of his party in 2022.”
Cuellar’s endorsements underscore the degree to which House Democrats — and Democratic donors — are focused on retaking the House in 2024, and simply not, as one Democratic congressional aide told HuffPo’s Marans, prioritizing moving the party leftward.
In other news, the PAC Pro-Israel America (PIA) is shutting down and has filed a termination report with the FEC. The grassroots bipartisan pro-Israel PAC, launched in 2019 by former top AIPAC officials, will not be operating in the 2024 campaign cycle, its former executive director, Jeff Mendelsohn, told Jewish Insider.
PIA, which operated in the 2020 and 2022 cycles, said it had 150,000 supporters and raised $7 million for candidates in the 2020 and 2022 cycles from more than 8,000 donors.
But it was overshadowed in 2022 by AIPAC launching its own PAC and super PAC for the 2022 cycle that operated with similar goals. AIPAC PAC raised more than $18.5 million last cycle.
Mendelsohn told JI’s Marc Rod, “As we move into the 2024 cycle, Pro-Israel America PAC has closed its doors, but our donors and activists are continuing to support pro-Israel candidates on both sides of the aisle through other pro-Israel channels.”
balance of power
High Court hearing on controversial government legislation looks set to deepen Israel’s constitutional crisis
On Monday, one week after the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu passed its controversial “reasonableness clause” curtailing the Supreme Court’s judicial review, Israel’s Supreme Court President Esther Hayut announced that the High Court of Justice would convene a full panel of 15 judges next month to hear and review a slew of legal petitions challenging the legislation’s legitimacy. The government’s legislation, and the High Court’s review of that legislation, which limits the power of the court to overrule government decisions, is leading Israel into unchartered constitutional territory. It is also setting the Jewish state up for a seismic clash between the government and the legislature on one side, and the judiciary on the other, according to analysts and legal experts interviewed by Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash this week.
Fateful decision: Immediately following the passage of the legislation, several organizations and individuals submitted legal petitions calling on the Supreme Court, which becomes the High Court when debating constitutional matters, to strike down the law. The hearing for those petitions, which is expected to be broadcast live, is now set for Sept. 12. “It will be by far the most fateful, most dramatic and the most contentious legal hearing ever held in Israel,” Amotz Asa-El, a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, told JI.
Fragile system: Professor Suzie Navot, vice president of research at the Israel Democracy Institute, told JI that because Israel has no formal or written constitution, with only a handful of Basic Laws that have been granted constitutional status by the Supreme Court and are very easy to enact and easily amended, the system is fragile and cannot be compared to the U.S.
Elsewhere: Arthur Dantchik, one of the Kohelet Policy Forum’s primary backers, reportedly announced that he is halting his donations to the Jerusalem-based think tank said to be the architect behind the Israeli government’s judicial reform push, eJewishPhilanthropy reports.
exclusive
GOP lawmakers caution DHS could defund cooperative programs with Israel
In a letter sent to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas earlier this week, a group of House Republicans alleges that the Department of Homeland Security may not provide funding this year for cooperative cyber and homeland security grant programs with Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Signatories: The letter was signed by Reps. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Nancy Mace (R-SC), Nick Langworthy (R-NY), Nick LaLota (R-NY), Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) and Mike Lawler (R-NY). It cites unspecified “reports” about DHS’ plans, which Garbarino’s office said originated from individuals with direct knowledge of the programs’ funding levels. DHS did not respond to requests for comment.
Funding: The letter notes that the 2023 appropriations bill does not specify funding levels for the programs — the U.S.-Israel Cybersecurity Cooperation grant program and the U.S.-Israel Binational Industrial Research and Development Homeland Security (BIRD HLS) program — but urges the department to “consider funding” for both programs. According to the DHS website, BIRD HLS grants are set to be announced by September and cybersecurity grants were set to be announced in March. It’s unclear if that announcement occurred. Per the BIRD website, just one grant was approved through BIRD HLS in 2022. The cybersecurity grant program first launched in June 2022 and no awarded grants appear on the BIRD website.
in attendance
Baldwin appears with activist critical of Israel at fundraiser
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) was pictured at a San Francisco fundraiser over the weekend alongside Nadia Rahman, a Bay Area activist who has expressed strident criticisms of Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Baldwin is up for re-election in 2024 in one of the country’s biggest political battlegrounds and could be a top GOP target — although the party has yet to field a strong challenger.
Background: Rahman has accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” “apartheid” and a “pogrom” targeting Palestinians, and described Gaza as “an open air prison.” She has also accused U.S. officials of ignoring and being complicit in Israeli “war crimes & apartheid to ensure they win their next election.”
Inside the event: It’s unclear whether Rahman was involved in organizing and hosting the event, and an email to the group responsible for the fundraiser, Electing Women San Francisco, went unreturned. In one Twitter post, Rahman credited other individuals for hosting, but another attendee said she had invited them to the event.
In response: “This event was built by Electing Women’s Bay Area chapter. Tammy Baldwin is a strong supporter of Israel and is committed to strengthening the bond between our two nations. Tammy has spent significant time in Israel, first visiting with her grandfather in 1968,” the campaign said in a statement. “She has returned many times as a Member of Congress and as a U.S. Senator. Her visits have included meetings with Israeli officials at the highest level, including several meetings with Prime Minister Netanyahu.“
podcast playback
In ‘This is Europe,’ Ben Judah defies today’s landscape of books
British-French author and journalist Ben Judah, who sat down with Jewish Insider last month to discuss the launch of his third book, This Is Europe: The Way We Live Now, joined JI podcast co-hosts Rich Goldberg and Jarrod Bernstein to delve deeper into his new book, which traces the impact of immigration throughout Europe, and discuss his writing process and the ever-changing landscape for Jews on the continent.
Writer’s fatigue: “I wrote this book sort of in defiance of the fact that when I go into the bookshop these days, I’m just so depressed,” Judah said. “I see all these incredibly thin books written in like two weekends in the Hamptons that are basically just campaigns, they were written by kind of grifting journalists in order to, you know, give talks, give speeches or do consultancy for x and y. And then when I look at the fiction table, I’m even more depressed, because it’s millennials writing these kind of MFA novels that are stuck in the dead-end of modernism…And I think that both this kind of decline in journalism, this decline in novel writing, has abandoned, the great social endeavor of nonfiction and fiction.”
France’s future: “You know, France has been in a cycle, where you get a cycle of people who don’t have any jobs in the suburbs, they’re angry and upset, they’ve been policed by people who are very violent and racist, you know, then you get explosions of anger, the police crack down even harder, this spirals up and up and up,” Judah said. “In various of these spirals that have been going on since about 2005, various synagogues have been attacked and Jews have been accused or viewed as like metaphors for the state, for the elites, for money, for banking, you know, and whenever things go wrong in the Middle East, because you’ve got predominantly Sephardic Jewish communities in these areas very close to Israel, abutting North African, Arab Berber communities, you get a lot of tension that rises very quickly there. So that’s sort of the big thing that’s going on.”
Worthy Reads
🏢 Master Builder: New York magazine’s Justin Davidson sits down with former Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff, who stepped down from his role in 2021 amid a diagnosis of ALS. “Every time someone sees a show at the Whitney, scans a brain in Columbia’s Greene Science Center, runs a mile at the Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex on Staten Island, buys a saw at the Home Depot in Bronx Terminal Market, watches the Mets play at Citi Field, commutes by subway to Hudson Yards, boards a ferry to Governors Island, or watches the sunset from Brooklyn Bridge Park, that person is animating parts of the city that once existed only as documents on Doctoroff’s desk. His stint in government lasted from 2002 to 2008, surely among the most consequential half-dozen years of any city builder’s term in New York history. He wasn’t, as some have claimed, the 21st-century Robert Moses; he was Moses in a hurry… It was always difficult to separate Doctoroff’s ideas from his personality. Those who opposed him found him high-handed and arrogant; those who joined him thought he was flexible and forward looking. ‘I was prepared not to like Dan at all,’ the urbanist scholar Richard Florida says. ‘My image of him was a Machiavelli in a suit. When I met him, though, I thought, I really like this guy. He’s smart, and he cares about cities. Dan was two steps ahead of his time. When you look at his quote-unquote failures, they’re because he was pushing too much and too far.’” [NYMag]
🦌 Nomads No More: For Smithsonian Magazine, Matti Friedman visits Ein Gev, an archeological site near the Sea of Galilee that 12,000 years ago was a village some experts believe was settled by the ancient Natufians in an era in which most societies were still nomadic. “From Ein Gev, we can see that prehistoric people like our Natufians had to get up every morning to hunt gazelle, haul water, spin thread and grind grains, all while fending off wild animals and burying their 3-year-olds. They had more than enough to do without being forced to perform the ideological labor of their 21st-century descendants. Telling a story about origins and endings is what humans do, but our innate fondness for narrative can get in the way of understanding. We might be better advised to do as [archeologist Leore] Grosman does and simply consider the little we can know of these people from what they left behind. The ancients of Ein Gev hint at a complicated movement toward farming and settlement, one suggesting a relationship between cause and effect that is messier than storytellers tend to want.” [Smithsonian]
🗳️ Pritzker’s Priorities: New York magazine’s Gabriel Debenedetti explores the role that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, whose state is hosting the 2024 Democratic National Convention, will play ahead of next year’s election. “Pritzker was raised largely by an activist mother, Sue Sandel Pritzker, after his father, Donald, who’d been a major political financier, died of a heart attack when J. B. was 7. His mother died only a decade later following a turbulent and protracted fight with alcoholism. In rare quiet moments, Pritzker reminisces about going with her to LGBTQ+ and abortion-rights strategy meetings, door-knocking sessions, marches, and rallies. ‘Just the impression of your mother as somebody who’s carrying the room,’ he recalled, ‘had a big effect on the way I view the world and the idea that I have a responsibility like my mother did.’ Those who know him best occasionally posit that this sense of responsibility explains his lack of preciousness when it comes to using his abundant resources for political causes. He is unapologetic about the political headway his donations and suggestions can make — electing Democrats is important, he says, so he’s doing what he can to help — and though he has yet to decide exactly what form his 2024 spending will take, he’s already been inundated with pitches from committees and super-PACs and from people suggesting he consider funding turnout-juicing projects like abortion referenda on swing-state ballots. Multiple people who’ve talked to him about the coming presidential election independently said that ‘he’ll do whatever it takes’ to keep Trump (or a Trumpist) from winning.” [NYMag]
💥 Beirut Blast: In the Washington Post, Lina Mounzer reflects on the three years since a deadly explosion at the Port of Beirut in Lebanon — the result of improperly stored ammonium nitrate — for which nobody has been held responsible. “Now, three years since the port explosion, the losses are well known: some 220 dead; more than 7,000 injured, many with long-term disabilities; about 70,000 homes destroyed and 300,000 people left homeless. Yet this litany sanitizes the extended horror, leaving out: the rescue and cleanup efforts left to ordinary citizens, the people with destroyed homes who couldn’t access their own money for repairs, the homeless who couldn’t afford to feed themselves, the hospitals that had too little medicine or electricity to treat the wounded, the people viciously beaten and detained during protests demanding justice. It leaves out how, last summer, the rotting grain left in the destroyed silos was left to burn for a month, so that again the city had to witness the sight of smoke pouring from the port. There’s also the severe psychological injury we’ve incurred, traceable through the staggering rise of psychiatric disorders over the past few years. And it leaves out perhaps the most painful truth: that the perpetrators of this atrocity have yet to answer for it.” [WashPost]
🌎 Readiness Review: In The Hill, Eric Mandel suggests that the U.S. is not adequately prepared for the political realignments taking shape in the Middle East. “America seemed unprepared for the Chinese mediation of a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, just as it was clueless about the Arab winter that followed the Arab Spring. For examples of American cluelessness, we can even go back to 1979, when President Jimmy Carter called Iran ‘an island of stability,’ only to have the Islamic Revolution begin a month later. Did the U.S. anticipate the rift between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan? Are we strategizing how to use this to our advantage, or at least to minimize its negative consequences affecting our interest in shared intelligence and the joint anti-missile defense against their common enemy, Iran?” [TheHill]
Around the Web
🛌🏻 On the Mend: Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC) and a staffer were released from the hospital after a car accident in her North Carolina district.
⚾ Mets Moves:The Wall Street Journallooks at Mets owner Steve Cohen’s recent strategic moves, including the trades of pitching aces Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander for minor league prospects, which saddled Cohen with the responsibility of paying the bulk of both players’ salaries as they play for other teams.
🍗 Trailblazer: José Andrés’ China Chilcano restaurant in Washington, D.C., is among the first restaurants in the country to offer cell-cultivated chicken on its menu, following federal approval of a California supplier’s product in June.
🧑🎤 Bouncing Around the Concert Hall:The New York Timesspotlights longtime Phish lighting designer Chris Kuroda, who for more than three decades has worked with the jam band during their unpredictable, unscripted performances.
🎤 Mic Drop: Shortly after Cardi B’s lawyers announced she will not face charges for throwing a microphone at a fan during a concert after being hit with a drink, the rapper tweeted and then deleted a picture of two Orthodox Jewish men with the caption “Remember …..,” as fans pointed out the lyrics to her 2018 song “Bickenhead” included the line, “Lawyer is a Jew he gon’ chew up all the charges.”
🇮🇱 Foggy Forecast: Investment bank Citigroup cut its forecast for Israel’s medium-term potential GDP growth from 4.0% to 3.4% in light of turmoil in the country caused by the government’s judicial overhaul plans.
🪖 Skipping Service: The Wall Street Journal highlights the IDF reservists who are refusing to report for duty in reaction to the government’s recent passing of a judicial overhaul bill.
🛳️ Marine Moves: The U.S. military is mulling manning commercial ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz with armed marines and sailors in an effort to prevent Iran from seizing vessels.
🛬 Iranian Invitation: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi invited UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed to visit, an invitation delivered on the same day the Islamic republic conducted a naval drill on an island disputed by Tehran and Abu Dhabi.
🇮🇷 Iranian Incitement: At least eight senior commanders from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have addressed student audiences in the U.K. in the last three years via a London-based organization, disseminating antisemitic propaganda and inciting violence in British universities.
🕯️ Remembering: Architect Myron Goldfinger, known for his monumental modernist homes during the 1970s and 80s, died at 90.
Wine of the Week
JI wine columnist Yitz Applbaum reviews the Psagot Sinai M Series 2021:
“I recently visited Cabo with some old friends and we enjoyed dinner at the new kosher restaurant in the Jewish center. The menu was full of the regional delicacies we all craved. To complement the food, we needed something bright and refreshing, so we selected the Psagot White M Series. The Psagot Sinai M Series 2021 is mostly Gewurztraminer, with enough viognier, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc to create a very well-balanced wine. The wine has a sweet demeanor. It opens with apricot, the mid-palate engrosses you with citrus sweetness and the sauvignon blanc on the finish engulfs your gullet in gooseberry tartness. Enjoy this wine with enchiladas and drink it soon.”
Pic of the Day
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff visits NYJ Camps in Pennsylvania on Thursday, where a soccer field at Cedar Lake Camp was named after him. Emhoff, who attended the camp as a teenager, had been voted “most athletic” camper in 1978.
Birthdays
Historian, Nazi hunter and director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, Efraim Zuroff turns 75 on Saturday…
FRIDAY: Professor emerita of American history at Yeshiva University and Stern College, she is an expert on the history of McCarthyism, Dr. Ellen Wolf Schrecker turns 85… Talmudic scholar and a leader of New York’s Sephardic Jewish community, Rabbi Eliyahu Ben Haim turns 83… President at Salco Mechanical, Michael Salzberg… Philanthropist and board chair of the Jewish Funders Network, Marcia Riklis… SVP and chief growth officer at the NYC HQ of the Anti-Defamation League, Frederic Lewis Bloch… Former Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yona Metzger turns 70… Retired professor in Memphis, Sheldon Dan… Longtime member of the Knesset for Likud including multiple ministerial positions, Silvan Shalom turns 65… Executive producer of “Live with Kelly and Ryan,” Michael Gelman turns 62… 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama turns 62… Mayor of Chicago until three months ago, Lori Lightfoot turns 61… Attorney general of Minnesota, Keith Ellison turns 60… Administrative manager at Edelman, Helen Lapkovsky… Global editorial director for PwC and editor-in-chief of PwC’s management magazine strategy+business, Daniel Gross turns 56…
Editor-in-chief of Cuepoint at Medium, he is known as Shecky Green, Jonathan Miles Shecter turns 55… U.S. representative (D-NY) and the minority leader of the House, Hakeem Jeffries turns 53… Chief political correspondent for Fox News, Bret Baier turns 53… Broadcast meteorologist at WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., Steven Rudin… Washington director of Bend the Arc Jewish Action, Rabbi Jason Kimelman-Block… Director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Audrey Azoulay turns 51… Columnist and senior editor at Politico, Michael Schaffer… Founder and president of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, and former White House speechwriter, Andrei Cherny turns 48… SVP and head of the D.C. office of Team Lewis, Caren Beth Auchman… CEO of Something Major, a leadership coaching and advisory firm, Randi Braun… Assistant director in the geostrategic business group at EY-Parthenon, Ben-Ari Boukai… CRO and co-founder at Riverside[dot]fm, Jonathan Keyson… Placekicker for the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, Greg Joseph turns 29… Natalie Roberts… Evelyn Murphy…
SATURDAY: Former New York State senator for 34 years, now of counsel at Ruskin Moscou Faltischek, Manfred Ohrenstein turns 98… Chairman of Delphi Capital Management, Robert Rosenkranz turns 81… Former Israeli ambassador to France, Yael German turns 76… Author of many nonfiction books, including The Portable Curmudgeon, Zen to Go and Advice to Writers, Jon Winokur turns 76… Banker, once known as “Austria’s woman on Wall Street” and founder of Bank Medici, Sonja Kohn turns 75… Former Soviet refusenik, he served as speaker of the Knesset for seven years, Yuli-Yoel Edelstein turns 65… Intellectual property and entertainment attorney based in Ithaca, N.Y., Howard Leib… Member of the British House of Lords, he was chief executive of the Office of the Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks and then chief executive of the United Jewish Israel Appeal, Baron Jonathan Andrew Kestenbaum turns 64… Songwriter, author, political columnist and noted baseball memorabilia collector, Seth Swirsky turns 63… Murray Huberfeld… Chair of the Department of Jewish History at Baltimore’s Beth Tfiloh Dahan High School, Neil Rubin, Ph.D…. Actor who starred in “Weekend at Bernie’s,” his father and grandfather were both rabbis, Jonathan Elihu Silverman turns 57…
President at ConservAmerica, Jeffrey Kupfer… Former member of the Knesset for the Kulanu party, Roy Folkman turns 48… Director of the Center for Middle East Policy at The Brookings Institution, Natan Sachs… Investment and foundation manager at Denver-based Race Street Management and a board member of JFNA, Cintra Pollack… VP of government affairs at WISPA, Matt Mandel… Chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of The New York Times, Arthur Gregg (A.G.) Sulzberger turns 43… Former director of responsible innovation at Meta / Facebook, now a congregational rabbi, Zvika Krieger… Member of the comedy duo Jake and Amir, Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz turns 38… Longtime member of the Israeli national soccer team who also played in Europe’s UEFA Champions League, Gil Vermouth turns 38… Senior manager of validation at Menlo Labs, Lila Cohn… Product engineer at Platform[dot]sh, Abby Milberg… Recent graduate of Harvard Law School, Michael E. Snow… State affairs advisor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, Lisa Geller… Leslie Saunders… Program officer, Schusterman Fellowship at Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Anyu Silverman… National director of communal relations at J Street, Sam Berkman…
SUNDAY: Century City-based partner at the Jaffe Family Law Group, Daniel J. Jaffe… E-sports executive and casino owner, he is a three-time winner of the World Series of Poker, Lyle Berman turns 82… Founder and spiritual leader of The Elijah Minyan in San Diego, Wayne Dosick… Professor emerita and former dean at Bar Ilan University, Malka Elisheva Schaps turns 75… Austrian businessman with many U.S., Israeli and Eastern European investments, Martin Schlaff turns 70… Former state treasurer of Virginia and then Virginia secretary of finance, Jody Moses Wagner turns 68… Professor of public diplomacy at The Fletcher School of Tufts University, she was formerly under secretary of state for public diplomacy, Tara D. Sonenshine turns 64… Professor of psychiatry at The George Washington University Medical Center, Alan J. Lipman, Ph.D. turns 63… Israeli diplomat who previously served as Israel’s consul general in NYC, Alon Pinkas turns 62… NASA astronaut who spent 198 days on the International Space Station, he brought bagels from his family’s bagel store in Montreal into space on his first mission into orbit, Gregory Chamitoff turns 61… Chair of White & Case’s white collar practice group, Joel M. Cohen… VP of public affairs and strategic communications at the American Council on Education, Jonathan Riskind…
CEO of Elluminate since last month (formerly known as the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York), Melanie Roth Gorelick… Recent vice-chair of the board of directors at the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, Susie Sorkin… Television and radio sports anchor on ESPN and ABC, Mike Greenberg turns 56… Chief economist at The Burning Glass Institute, Gad Levanon, Ph.D…. Former boxing commentator and co-host of ESPN’s “This Just In,” Yiddish-speaking Max Kellerman turns 50… Co-founder and former CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick turns 47… E-sports executive and casino owner, he is a three-time winner of the World Series of Poker, Lyle Berman… Actress, director and screenwriter, Soleil Moon Frye turns 47… PR consultant, Jeffrey Lerner… Chief creative and culture officer at an eponymous firm, Rachel Gogel… Winner of two gold medals in swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Garrett Weber-Gale turns 38… Special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense for space policy, Corey A. Jacobson… VP and head of content at Embodied, Jessica I. Goldberg… Reporter at the San Antonio Express-News, Elizabeth Teitz… School safety activist and former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Hunter Pollack turns 26…
BIRTHWEEK: Journalist and former congressional candidate, Matthew Foldi (was Thursday)…
