Daily Kickoff
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the appointment of a controversial academic to head Harvard’s antisemitism task force, and look at how a Knesset committee is approaching potential future military tribunals of perpetrators of the Oct. 7 attacks. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Dr. Albert Bourla, Rabbi Sharon Brous and San Francisco Mayor London Breed.
When American pro-Israel politicians talk about their desire for a “two-state solution” between Israel and the Palestinians, they’re usually speaking about support for an aspirational goal — even when there’s no realistic partner for peace on the Palestinian side.
That was true before Oct. 7, and Israeli leaders typically went along with the formulation, knowing both sides understood the realities of the region. But since the Hamas massacre, officials across much of the Israeli political spectrum are rejecting any imminent discussion of two states — even as the Biden administration has been pushing harder for a Palestinian state as part of a post-war resolution, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov writes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call with President Joe Biden took place on Friday, the day after a press conference in which Netanyahu rejected a Palestinian state. When asked about the prime minister’s position, Biden didn’t dwell on the differences, saying: “I think we’ll be able to work something out.”
With Hebrew media accusing Netanyahu of telling Biden the opposite of what he said to the Israeli public, the prime minister took the unusual move of releasing a statement on Shabbat, saying that, in his call with the president, he “repeated his consistent position for years … After the elimination of Hamas, Israel must remain in full security control of the Gaza Strip to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel — and this conflicts with demands for Palestinian sovereignty.”
Netanyahu and Biden’s statements may not be as contradictory as they may seem. Since his 2009 Bar-Ilan speech, the Israeli prime minister has envisioned a demilitarized Palestinian state with full Israeli security control. Netanyahu has described it as a Palestinian “state-minus” in the ensuing years, and he has repeatedly recounted, including in his memoirs, that then-Vice President Biden was skeptical about the plan. Yet on Friday, Biden was willing to entertain “a number of types of two-state solutions,” noting that “there’s a number of countries that are members of the UN that…don’t have their own militaries.”
Netanyahu’s more outspoken resistance to the two-state formulation has emboldened criticism of Israel from Democrats on Capitol Hill. Five additional Senate Democrats signed onto legislation that would add more conditions to aid to Israel, and even some stalwart pro-Israel backers have been speaking out more aggressively against Netanyahu. Read more below.
It’s convenient for Americans to think that Bibi is the obstacle to their vision coming to fruition, but his position reflects widespread Israeli public opinion that now is not the time to talk about peace, a view shared across a large swath of the ideological spectrum — including by Netanyahu’s more-liberal rival Yair Lapid and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, the former leader of Israel’s Labor Party.
Herzog said at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday: “If you ask an average Israeli now about his or her mental state, nobody in his right mind is willing now to think about what will be the solution of the peace agreements, because everybody wants to know, can we be promised real safety in the future?”
Referring to Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, Herzog said Israelis saw that “When you pull out [of territory] you get terror…I think that when nations come forward and say ‘two-state solution,’ they have to first deal with a preliminary question…Are we offered real safety?”
Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud, speaking on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” over the weekend, said declaratively that the creation of a Palestinian state was a prerequisite to normalization between Riyadh and Jerusalem. “We need stability,” he said, “and only stability will come through resolving the Palestinian issue.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), one of Israel’s strongest allies on Capitol Hill, expressed the view of those seeking to balance national security reality on the ground in Israel and the political reality in the U.S.: “I am under no illusion that a two-state solution will happen in the immediate future but to assert that it should NEVER happen — that either Jews or Palestinians should never have self-determination — is morally wrong,” Torres said.
This rhetoric effectively summed up the challenge that Jerusalem and its strongest supporters on the Hill face, with Washington’s vision for the region becoming more politically untenable in Israel than it has been in decades.
bibi backlash
After Netanyahu’s rejection of two-state solution, five new Senate Democrats support conditioning Israel aid
A day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly rejected the prospect of a two-state solution following the war in Gaza, five additional senators announced their support for an amendment conditioning emergency supplemental aid to Israel and other allies, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
New supporters: Sens. Tina Smith (D-MN), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Laphonza Butler (D-CA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Jon Ossoff (D-GA) joined the 13 senators already supporting the amendment, bringing its support to 18 lawmakers, more than a third of the Democratic caucus.
Growing discontent: The announcement from the amendment’s sponsors comes amid growing criticism of Netanyahu’s comments from pro-Israel Democrats. Fourteen Jewish House Democrats — including some staunchly pro-Israel members and others who have been more critical of Israel’s military operation or have called for a cease-fire — rejected Netanyahu’s comments in a curt, two-sentence statement. “We strongly disagree with the Prime Minister. A two-state solution is the path forward,” Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Becca Balint (D-VT), Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Seth Magaziner (D-RI), Mike Levin (D-CA), Dean Phillips (D-MN), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Kim Schrier (D-WA), Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said in the statement.
Close allies: Another group of Jewish Democrats, including some of the most outspoken pro-Israel lawmakers in the House — Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Kathy Manning (D-NC), Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) — issued a separate statement which avoided mentioning Netanyahu directly. “Once [the hostages are released], and Hamas is defeated, it will be critical to work toward a lasting peace and a two-state solution — a truly safe and secure, democratic Jewish state of Israel and a state for the Palestinian people. That will ensure a better future for everyone in the region.”
Elsewhere on the Hill: The House Judiciary Committee approved a bill last week making any individuals affiliated with Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or involved with the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, ineligible for immigration to the U.S. Both Hamas and PIJ are already designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, making their members ineligible for entry into the U.S., although some unaffiliated Gaza civilians are believed to have joined the attack as it was underway.
seeing crimson
New Harvard antisemitism task force under fire for controversial co-chair
Harvard has faced calls to do more to address antisemitism. Now critics are questioning its choice of who will lead those efforts. After interim President Alan Garber on Friday announced the creation of two new “presidential task forces,” one focused on combating antisemitism and another focused on Islamophobia, the antisemitism-focused group came under immediate scrutiny for naming Derek Penslar, a historian and the director of Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies, as co-chair, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Red flags: Penslar’s appointment drew the ire of Jewish communal leaders and prominent figures at Harvard over comments he made in recent weeks minimizing concerns over antisemitism at Harvard, and for past statements he has made about Israel.
Exaggerated scope: “Yes, we have a problem with antisemitism at Harvard, just like we have a problem with Islamophobia and how students converse with each other,” Penslar told JTA earlier this month. “The problems are real. But outsiders took a very real problem and proceeded to exaggerate its scope.”
Israel attitudes: Penslar faced pushback for signing a letter in August that accused Israel of ethnic cleansing and of implementing “a regime of apartheid” against Palestinians. He has also sharply criticized the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, a tool that has been widely adopted by dozens of countries, including the United States, and the mainstream Jewish community. Pensler signed on to the “Jerusalem Declaration,” which offered an alternate definition of antisemitism.
No progress: Former Harvard President Larry Summers called for Penslar to step down. “I also hope Harvard’s leadership will recognize that they have exacerbated Harvard’s credibility problems on anti-Semitism with the Penslar appointment and take steps to restore their credibility,” Summers said in a post on X on Sunday. “As things currently stand, I am unable to reassure Harvard community members, those we are recruiting or prospective students that Harvard is making progress in countering anti-Semitism.”
art imitating life
‘Law & Order’ takes on campus antisemitism — with a violent twist
A pro-Palestine professor accused of indoctrinating students to hate Israel. A university president facing plagiarism accusations and juggling how to handle free speech in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel. Graffiti, torn-down hostage posters and a brawl between pro- and anti-Israel activists. No, this isn’t Harvard. All of these scenes appeared in the 42-minute season premiere of “Law & Order,” which aired on NBC last Thursday, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Battle raging: The popular crime drama, which just kicked off its 23rd season, has long been known to spin headlines into story arcs. Thursday’s episode, titled “Freedom of Expression,” was particularly striking because the heated atmosphere it depicted still rages on university campuses across the United States. “When did expressing your beliefs become so fraught?” one detective asked another as they were investigating a series of violent incidents stemming from the conflict overseas. “When it comes to Israel and Palestine,” his colleague responded, “forever.”
Central drama: The central drama is the murder of a president at a fictional New York City university. Although he is Jewish, the president took a stridently pro-free speech line in the wake of the Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,200 people in Israel and declined to weigh in on the growing war in the Middle East.
extremism watch
Rep. Jamaal Bowman praises speaker who celebrated Oct. 7 Hamas attacks
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) introduced a controversial anti-Israel scholar, Norman Finkelstein, who has accused Jews of exploiting the Holocaust to legitimize Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, at a panel discussion on the Israel-Hamas war last Sunday in Westchester County, where the congressman expressed his admiration for the polarizing author and activist. “I’m a bit starstruck,” Bowman said of Finkelstein, whose 2000 polemic, “The Holocaust Industry,” has faced allegations of promoting conspiracy theories about Jewish extortion, and the other guests who participated in the discussion at the Andalusia Islamic Center in Yonkers, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Background: Finkelstein, a political scientist who in 2007 was denied tenure at DePaul University amid charges of antisemitism, which he dismissed as politically motivated, has long been a divisive figure for his comments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Jewish son of Holocaust survivors has voiced support for Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terror group in Lebanon, and compared Israel to Nazi Germany, among other incendiary remarks. Following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks, Finkelstein also celebrated the massacre as a “heroic resistance” akin to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, writing that “it warms every fiber of my soul.”
Bowman’s introduction: In his introductory remarks, Bowman made no allusion to those comments as he thanked the scholars who had joined the panel “for being here and coming to Yonkers and delivering the truth to us.” A spokesperson for Bowman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Apology: Bowman took to X yesterday to address backlash to the event. “I had seen a few interviews but was unaware of Norman Finkelstein’s completely reprehensible comments before this event,” he wrote. “And when he made comments on October 7th at this event, I strongly condemned his language and will always continue to do so. I apologize deeply to any of my friends and neighbors hurt by my comments and will continue to fight the scourge of antisemitism in our country and across the world.”
trial tribulations
Knesset considering military tribunals, death penalty for Oct. 7 terrorists
Over 100 days after they massacred Israelis in kibbutzim and cities near the Gaza border, hundreds of Hamas terrorists who participated in the Oct. 7 attack remain in Israeli prisons. The terrorists are in administrative detention, and a recent Knesset amendment extended the period in which the state can bar them from seeing a lawyer until April, as they await trial. But the kind of trial they will face remains an open question — one that the Justice Ministry began to consider shortly after the attack, and one that will likely require legislation. The Knesset Law, Constitution and Justice Committee has established a confidential subcommittee meeting to discuss prosecuting Hamas terrorists who are part of the group’s special forces unit, Nukhba; the subcommittee held its second meeting on Sunday. Committee Chairman Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionist Party told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov that “the Justice Ministry already understands that we need an amendment to the law, because current criminal law does not fit the events of Oct. 7.”
Challenges: Regular courts would likely be overwhelmed by the number of terrorists who would need to be put on trial, creating a backlog and long delays, Chagai Vinizky, a military judge and candidate for the Supreme Court in 2021, noted in a paper for The Begin Institute for Law and Zionism submitted to the subcommittee. Rothman expressed concern that such lengthy regular criminal proceedings “would be taken advantage of to disrupt investigations and coordinate between [the Nukhba terrorists].”
Additional obstacles: There are also difficulties in finding evidence to tie individual terrorists to specific victims beyond a reasonable doubt, as required in a murder trial. DNA samples were not collected according to usual procedure in light of the scale of the attack — 1,200 killed and thousands injured — and the need to collect the bodies in what remained an active combat zone for days. Other than the attack on the Nova music festival, the vast majority of the survivors hid and were unable to provide eyewitness descriptions of the killers. In addition, the terrorists burned many structures and bodies that could have carried evidence.
Letter of the law: Yet, Israeli law allows for the death penalty or life in prison for those who abetted or failed to prevent genocide, including incitement or attempted participation, which may be easier to prove. In the case of Oct. 7, GoPros and cell phone recordings provide video evidence of the presence of terrorists during the attack. In addition, genocide charges would “express the unique severity of the actions,” according to the Begin Institute paper.
Worthy Reads
Circle of Care: In The New York Times, Rabbi Sharon Brous explores the modern-day application of a passage of the Mishnah. “Buried deep within the Mishnah, a Jewish legal compendium from around the third century, is an ancient practice reflecting a deep understanding of the human psyche and spirit: When your heart is broken, when the specter of death visits your family, when you feel lost and alone and inclined to retreat, you show up. You entrust your pain to the community. … We cannot magically fix one another’s broken hearts. But we can find each other in our most vulnerable moments and wrap each other up in a circle of care. We can humbly promise each other, ‘I can’t take your pain away, but I can promise you won’t have to hold it alone.’ Showing up for one another doesn’t require heroic gestures. It means training ourselves to approach, even when our instinct tells us to withdraw. It means picking up the phone and calling our friend or colleague who is suffering. It means going to the funeral and to the house of mourning. It also means going to the wedding and to the birthday dinner. Reach out in your strength, step forward in your vulnerability. Err on the side of presence.” [NYTimes]
Gaza Dispatch:The Times of Israel’s Lazar Berman reports from inside the Gaza Strip, and interviews Col. Elad Shushan, the head of a paratrooper brigade operating in the enclave. “We drove through an open, unmanned gate in the multi-billion dollar border fence, the same barrier that barely slowed terror squads in October. Holes in the fence punched by Hamas bulldozers had been fixed, but it wasn’t hard to discern which sections were newly patched up. The nearly 30 hostages seized from Be’eri almost certainly passed this way before being taken into tunnels and hideouts inside Gaza, where many of them remain. After about 10 minutes of bouncing along muddy fields through Gaza’s agricultural border area, we pulled into the hastily built brigade bastion where the Archimedes soldiers and Shushan were based. Broken buildings surrounded the dirt plot, and feral but friendly dogs moved between the parked APCs and Hummers. Soldiers had left graffiti on the walls of some of the buildings, expressing their longing for wives and girlfriends back home, as well as cartoons with no immediately obvious meaning. ‘Play stupid games, win stupid prizes,’ read one message.” [TOI]
Davos Reflection: In Time magazine, Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla recounts his conversations at the World Economic Forum with returned hostages and relatives of Israelis still in Gaza. “These women deserve to be heard. We must heed their call for the release of the hostages. All of us. They must have our active support, and not just for a day, but until all of the captives have been freed. There should be nothing political about this issue. This is about human decency. The hostages are in dire conditions — reports of food shortages, torture, and sexual abuse. As such, every minute counts. I say this while recognizing the broader spectrum of sorrow and loss in this conflict, including the innocent families in Gaza, caught in the crossfire, who endure their own tragedies. What binds us as people should urge us to look beyond borders and divisions. This is [a] call to action for our common humanity. It is our moral duty, as global citizens, to take the necessary steps to help the hostages. To start, we can learn more about them. They are real, innocent people facing unspeakable cruelty.” [Time]
Sasse’s Scope: The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto interviews University of Florida President Ben Sasse about navigating the campus landscape at a time of heightened tensions around the Israel-Hamas war. “I didn’t come to Gainesville to talk politics, and Mr. Sasse says he ‘signed a 36-month pledge of partisan neutrality,’ following the example of Mitch Daniels, the former Indiana governor and Purdue University president. But he touches on the subject when he says he worries that ‘the collapse of a belief in classical liberalism is what’s eating up all of these institutions,’ including but not limited to universities. He blames this on both the ‘wokes’ who have managed to ‘hijack’ those institutions and the ‘super MAGA” types who would rather destroy than save them. ‘You can’t burn down every institution,’ Mr. Sasse says. ‘Lots of institutions are going to be bankrupted by the digital revolution,’ and that disruption is made more dangerous by the ‘ideological warfare about every institution.’ He would like ‘to conserve and preserve and reform and change and reorganize lots of institutions, and that requires you to have more of a public definition of what you’re there for.’” [WSJ]
Biding Time: In The New York Times, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh examine why Iran has been hesitant to become more involved in its proxies’ wars across the Middle East. “At the heart of Iran’s aversion to a major conflict are the domestic issues that have been preoccupying the regime. The elderly supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is seeking to secure his legacy — by overcoming political headwinds to install a like-minded successor, pursuing a nuclear weapon and ensuring the survival of the regime as an Islamist paladin dominating the Middle East — and that means not getting dragged into a wider war. … As he oversees the succession search and Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Mr. Khamenei appears to be content, for now, to let the Arab militias across the Middle East do what Tehran has been paying and training them to do. Iran’s so-called ‘axis of resistance,’ which includes Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, is at the core of the Islamic Republic’s grand strategy against Israel, the United States and Sunni Arab leaders, allowing the regime to strike out at its adversaries without using its own forces or endangering its territory. The various militias and terrorist groups that Tehran nurtures have allowed it to indirectly evict America from Iraq, sustain the Assad family in Syria and, on Oct. 7, help inflict a deeply traumatizing attack on the Jewish state.” [NYTimes]
Around the Web
And Then There Were Two: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ended his 2024 presidential bid, two days before voters in New Hampshire cast their ballots in the state’s primary.
U.N. Probe: Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres requesting an investigation into why UN Women took nearly two months to acknowledge and condemn Hamas’ sexual violence on Oct. 7.
Qatar in Congress: Fox News Digital obtained documents indicating that Qatar mounted a campaign to discredit GOP lawmakers who opposed the Muslim Brotherhood.
Campus Beat: Biden administration Iran envoy Rob Malley, who has been on leave from the State Department since the summer pending an investigation into whether he mishandled classified information, will be teaching a course titled “Contending with Israel-Palestine” at Yale this semester.
Crimson Content: Administrators at Harvard have asked social media platform Sidechat, which allows the posting of anonymous content, to more strictly enforce its content moderation policies, amid an uptick of antisemitic postings targeting Harvard students.
No to Cease-fire: San Francisco Mayor London Breed opted not to act on a controversial resolution passed by the city council calling for a cease-fire; in a letter explaining her decision, Breed, who visited Israel last year, slammed the decision by local officials to move forward with the resolution, saying their efforts “only inflamed division and hurt.”
Netanyahu’s No: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a Hamas proposal that would end the war and release all the hostages, but would leave the terror organization intact and operational.
Release Time: A judge in New York granted the release of the last imprisoned co-defendant of the “Newburgh Four,” a group of men convicted of planning to attack synagogues after a faulty police investigation.
B.Y.-Jew: Haaretzprofiles Brigham Young University starting quarterback Jake Retzlaff, the school’s first Jewish football player.
History Lesson: The Atlantic’s Peter Wehner counters the widespread rejection of historical Jewish ties to the land of Israel.
Evicting Eylon?: Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Sara Netanyahu is pushing for the ouster of Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy over his participation in last year’s anti-judicial reform protests.
Ein Li Eretz Acheret: The Washington Postspotlights Israelis who contemplated leaving Israel during last year’s protests, but have since Oct. 7 decided to stay.
Tunnel Vision:The New York Times, embedded with IDF troops in Khan Younis, reports from an underground compound where Israeli hostages were held by Hamas.
Lost in Translation: The Atlantic‘s Yair Rosenberg looks at the ways in which Israeli war officials’ statements are being mistranslated and misreported by the international media.
Held in Gaza: The IDF announced the death of 19-year-old Staff Sgt. Shay Levinson, who was killed on Oct. 7 and whose body was taken to Gaza, where it remains.
Syria Strike: Five Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials, including the Iranian group’s intelligence chief in Syria, were killed in a strike in Damascus that Iranian state media blamed on Israel.
SEAL Saga: Two Navy SEALs who fell into the Arabian Sea off the coast of Somalia while attempting to intercept weapons headed from Iran to Houthi militants were declared dead after 10 days missing at sea; meanwhile, new U.S. intelligence indicates that the Iran-backed group is stepping up efforts to procure weapons from Tehran.
New Heights: Iran announced the successful launch of a satellite into its highest orbit to date.
Wavy War: The U.S. is gearing up for a sustained fight against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, who have not curbed their attacks on ships transiting in the Gulf of Oman despite U.S.-led strikes on their facilities.
Remembering: Tanya Berezin, the former artistic director of the Circle Repertory Company, died at 82. Filmmaker Menachem Daum, the co-producer of “A Life Apart: Hasidism in America,” died at 77. Social psychologist Robert Rosenthal died at 90. Plastic surgeon Berish Strauch, who pioneered advances in the field of limb reattachments and replacements, died at 90.
Pic of the Day
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff met with released hostages and the relatives of Israelis still being held captive in Gaza while in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum.
The New York Times’ Bret Stephens, in Davos for the summit, wrote about his conversations with the hostage families.
Birthdays
Actress, best known for her role as Nicky Reagan-Boyle in the CBS series “Blue Bloods,” Sami Gayle turns 28…
Professor at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, she is regarded as a founder of cancer immunology, Eva Klein turns 99… Co-founder in 1965 of the Japanese video game company Sega, David M. Rosen turns 94… Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry in 2000, he is a professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Alan J. Heeger turns 88… Los Angeles resident, Ruth Lynn Kopelove Sobel… Managing director and founder of Brave Warrior Advisors, he is the son of Hall of Fame baseball star Hank Greenberg, Glenn H. Greenberg… Rabbi Mark Samuel Hurvitz… Brooklyn-born conductor, who during his tenure as artistic director of the Kraków Philharmonic became friends with Pope John Paul II for whom he later conducted multiple Papal concerts, Gilbert Levine turns 76… Senior political law counsel and consultant at Akin Gump, Kenneth A. Gross turns 73… Founder and executive director of the Brooklyn-based Bridge Multicultural and Advocacy Project, Mark Meyer Appel… Publisher at Chicago Public Square, Charlie Meyerson… Partner in the Cleveland law firm of Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis, Lisa Arlyn Lowe… Former director-general of the Israeli Defense Ministry, he is a retired Major General in the IDF, Ehud “Udi” Adam turns 66… Member of the Knesset for Likud, Katrin (Keti) Shitrit-Peretz turns 64… Justice on the Supreme Court of Israel since 2012, Noam Sohlberg turns 62… Michael S. Marquis… President of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, Gideon Taylor… American-Israeli composer, pianist and music producer, Roy Zu-Arets turns 55… Actor best known for his role as Harvey Specter on the series “Suits,” Gabriel Macht turns 52… Play-by-play broadcaster for the Washington Commanders, Bram Weinstein turns 51… Rabbi at the Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, N.Y., Joel Mark Levenson… Director of the Chabad House in Kathmandu, Nepal, Rabbi Yechezkel “Chezki” Lifshitz… News editor at Mishpacha Magazine, Yochonon Donn… Senior project specialist for the International Rescue Committee, Heidi Rosbe… Managing director at SKDKnickerbocker, Kendra Barkoff Lamy… Financial services editor at Politico, Zachary Warmbrodt… Houston native and philanthropist, Serena Hines… Music composer, Justin Hurwitz turns 39… Corporate associate at Covington & Burling LLP, Mark Donig… NYC-based managing director at Politico, Jesse Shapiro… Tax reporter for the Washington Post, she is also a professional balloon twister and was a 2018 contestant on “Jeopardy!”, Julie Zauzmer Weil… Israeli singer known by the mononym Netta, Netta Barzilai turns 31… Jewish hockey player most recently playing for a Russian team, he was a first-round pick of the New York Islanders in 2014, Josh Ho-Sang turns 28… Banking and finance associate in the Chicago office of Mayer Brown, Matthew Lustbader…
Recent Daily Kickoff Newsletters
