Daily Kickoff: Schumer’s tough sell to Jewish leaders
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the meeting between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Conference of Presidents leaders and highlight the threats and boycotts faced by Jewish and Israeli artists in the U.S. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Rep.Virginia Foxx and South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor.
The discontent from top Jewish communal organizations over Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) Israel speech last week hasn’t subsided. After Schumer spoke with the leadership of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on Tuesday afternoon, the group put out a tough statement criticizing his Senate speech that, it argued, ended up empowering Israel’s enemies.
“The pro-Israel community and our membership continue to have deep reservations about Senator Schumer’s speech on the Senate floor last week regarding impediments to peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” the group’s CEO, William Daroff, and its chair, Harriet Schleifer, said in a statement.
“We believe that at a time when Israel is fighting an existential war, on the embers of the 1200 innocents massacred on October 7th, it is not a time for public criticisms that serve only to empower the detractors of Israel, and which foster greater divisiveness, when unity is so desperately needed.”
One specific concern that the statement raised about Schumer’s speech was his warning that the United States could use “leverage” against Israel during the Jewish state’s time of need.
A source close to the Conference of Presidents told JI that the group intended to put out a statement last Friday but at Schumer’s request waited until after Tuesday’s call. The tenor of the meeting “emphasized the need to speak out,” the source said.
A source familiar with the meeting between Schumer and the Conference of Presidents told JI that Schumer discussed why he decided to give the speech and elaborated on his views. He told the group that “you can still love Israel and feel strongly about Israel, and totally disagree with Bibi Netanyahu and the policies of Israel” and that “this is part of my core, my soul, my neshama.”
Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, who joined the call, said she’s been concerned by the “lack of nuance in the reaction” to Schumer’s speech, including from the conference, “and the fact that there are so many who are so quick to dismiss his points, and to effectively now argue that someone like Sen. Schumer, who has been, without a doubt, the stalwart of pro-Israel voices in Congress for decades, is now somehow outside of the pro-Israel tent, because he disagrees with the Israeli government.”
Meanwhile, the White House and the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office have both acknowledged that a delegation from Jerusalem will travel to Washington next week to discuss next steps in the war against Hamas, but they seem to have different ideas of the meeting’s baseline, Jewish Insider senior political correspondent Lahav Harkov reports.
President Joe Biden posted on X following his call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday that he asked the prime minister “to send a team to Washington to discuss ways to target Hamas without a major ground operation in Rafah.”
Netanyahu, however, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday that he “clarified to the president in our conversation, in the clearest way, that we are determined to complete the elimination of [Hamas’s remaining] brigades in Rafah and there is no way to do it other than entering by land.”
Netanyahu acknowledged the differences between his view and the president’s saying that “we have a dispute with the Americans about the need to enter Rafah. Not about the need to eliminate Hamas — the need to enter Rafah…We are determined to do it.”
The Prime Minister’s Office announced on Tuesday evening that the delegation to Washington will be made up of Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and a representative of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Defense Ministry unit handling humanitarian aid. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant will also fly to Washington next week, at the invitation of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken will be in Israel for several hours on Friday, according to Israel’s Channel 13, in addition to the announced stops in Egypt and Saudi Arabia on his sixth Middle East trip since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. On the agenda are Israel’s plan to invade Rafah, a hostage deal and humanitarian aid to Gaza. An Israeli diplomatic source said the visit has not yet been finalized.
In campaign news, Trump-endorsed businessman Bernie Moreno comfortably won the Ohio Senate GOP primary, and will face Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in a bellwether Senate race in November. It’s another sign of the dominance of MAGA forces within a changed Republican Party.
In Illinois, Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) easily won the Democratic primary, fending off two primary challengers. AIPAC’s super PAC cheered the defeat of anti-Israel progressive Kina Collins, who the group spent money against. Collins finished in third place, only winning 18% of the vote.
ire against artists
Israeli and Jewish artists face threats, boycotts at U.S. shows
Inside a hotel ballroom in Atlanta last month, the Israeli pop star Netta Barzilai played a private show at a conference for pro-Israel college students. Audience members screamed gleefully as Netta — the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest winner is a first-name-only kind of musician — took the stage. A few floors below, one of Netta’s crew members faced a different kind of reception as they checked in. When her staff member handed their Israeli passport to the hotel employee working at the front desk, the receptionist asked: “How does it feel that your country is killing babies?” The incident reflects the atmosphere of intimidation that increasingly surrounds Israeli and Jewish artists performing in American venues. In Netta’s case, the show went on without a hitch. But other performers have faced boycotts and cancellation, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Canceled concerts: Matisyahu, a Jewish singer and rapper, has had shows canceled in Arizona, New Mexico and Illinois on his current tour — instances that he alleged were motivated by antisemitic protests. Many of his other performances took place while protestors marched outside. On Saturday, protestors gathered outside Paradise Rock Club in Boston and chanted, “Paradise, Paradise, you can’t hide, you’re supporting genocide.” Matisyahu is not Israeli.
Beyond the pale: “He is just a Jewish artist that is getting attacked as if he is Israeli, as if he was an IDF soldier,” said Ari Ingel, director of Creative Community for Peace, a nonprofit that works to spread support for Israel in Hollywood and among musicians. “That is really beyond the pale. That is when, quintessentially, anti-Zionism becomes antisemitism.”
Other events: The trend does not stop with musicians. In January, anti-Israel protestors disrupted an event with the author Moshe Kasher, who was speaking about his new book in conversation with the actress Mayim Bialik, an outspoken supporter of Israel. Kasher’s book, a chronicle of American subcultures, had nothing to do with Israel; Bialik was only the moderator of the event. The Jewish actor Brett Gelman, known for his role in “Stranger Things,” said a West Hollywood bookstore canceled his planned book talk due to “antisemitic intimidation.”
Bonus: Washington Post columnist Charles Lane interviewed Matisyahu ahead of his show tonight at the 9:30 Club in Washington, where protests are expected. “Poetic, original, defiant — Matisyahu is a complicated soul who has something to say and seems determined to say it,” Lane writes. “Even those trying to ostracize him might learn from listening to his music. Certainly, they have no right to prevent others from doing so.”
campus beat
Harvard Law group to host NYU Law student leader who blamed Israel for 10/7 attack
A Harvard Law School student group is hosting a conference this week that will feature a public conversation with Ryna Workman, the former president of NYU Law’s student government who lost their job at a law firm and was removed from student government after sending a campus-wide email in October blaming Israel for the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
In their words: “This week, I want to express, first and foremost, my unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression toward liberation and self-determination,” Workman wrote in an Oct. 10 email to the NYU Law student body. “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.” Workman has stood by this statement and refused to condemn Hamas. A Harvard spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
On stage: Workman will speak on a Wednesday panel at the annual conference hosted by the Bell Collective for Critical Race Theory, a student group at Harvard Law School. Workman’s event is called “The Palestine Exception: A panel on repression and resistance.” Workman will appear alongside Rabea Eghbariah, a Harvard doctoral student who has claimed the Harvard Law Review censored a piece he wrote about Gaza; Fatema Ahmad, executive director of the Muslim Justice League; and Yipeng Ge, a Canadian physician who was suspended from his medical residency at the University of Ottawa after making a series of anti-Israel posts on social media.
facts on the ground
Palestinian Authority taking a secret role in Gaza, expert says
While Israel has persistently rejected the Palestinian Authority as an option for post-war governance of the Gaza Strip, the facts on the ground are starting to indicate some involvement from Ramallah, nonetheless. The “day after Hamas” plan Netanyahu presented to his security cabinet in late February describes, in broad terms, how Israel views the period after it reaches its war aims of destroying Hamas and ensuring the terrorist group will not be a threat, as well as freeing the hostages. The part of the plan dealing with civilian matters states that “the responsibility for public order in the Gaza strip will be based on local factors” — a reference to the Palestinian clans that wielded power before the establishment of the PA — “with managerial experience. These local factors will not be identified with countries or bodies that support terror and will not receive salaries from them.” In addition, the document proposes a de-radicalization plan, including shutting down UNRWA due to its support for terror. According to Palestinian affairs expert and Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Fellow Khaled Abu Toameh, “the clans are making a comeback,” Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Clan connections: Clans were the power centers in Palestinian society before the Palestinian Authority took root, and began to view them as a parallel government that threatened them. Israel has already reached out to some of these ostensibly unaligned Palestinian clans. However, Abu Toameh explained that no one in Gaza can safely be totally unaffiliated. Anyone coordinating humanitarian aid needs the protection of either Hamas or the PA, he added.
Shattering illusions: Udi Dekel, head of the Institute for National Security Studies Palestinian research program, argued in a paper published this week that PA involvement needs to be deeper and out in the open, saying that the government needs to “sober up from the illusions” — meaning Netanyahu’s “day after” plan — and that “any solution that does not include the Palestinian Authority is irrelevant.”
bear necessities
House antisemitism investigation targets University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley on Tuesday became the fifth target of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s expanding investigation of antisemitism on college campuses. In a letter to Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ, University of California President Michael Drake and University of California Board of Regents Chair Richard Leib, Rep.Virginia Foxx (R-NC) requested documents relating to the school’s handling of incidents and reports of antisemitism, and internal communications and meeting notes relating to antisemitism and Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Paper trail: It also requests documentation relating to the school’s equity and inclusion office and related programs, as well as foreign donations to the school. The letter highlights a number of antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents on Berkeley’s campus, including a riot targeting Jewish students that shut down a recent speaking event; multiple incidents of assault, harassment, vandalism and robbery; an ongoing blockade of a campus gate that the school has declined to break up; an incident when students were offered extra credit for attending a pro-Palestinian protest; a public statement by a pro-Palestinian student group praising the Oct. 7 attack; anti-Israel and antisemitic comments by faculty; and the college’s own response to Oct. 7.
‘Pervasive antisemitism’: It also notes that in August of 2022 — months before the Oct. 7 attacks — nine Berkeley Law School student groups adopted bylaws committing to boycotting speakers who support Zionism or Israel. “An environment of pervasive antisemitism has been documented at UC Berkeley dating back to well before the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack,” Foxx wrote. She also referenced several instances of internal criticism from students and faculty, as well as condemnation from the California Legislative Jewish Caucus. Foxx gave the school until April 2 to respond to the request.
Read the full story here.
pandor-ing to iran
‘I don’t know’ if Iran is an authoritarian regime,South Africa’s foreign minister says
South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor said on Tuesday that she did not know whether Iran is an authoritarian regime, pushing back repeatedly on characterizations of it as a dictatorship, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Context: The comments come as South Africa is under increased scrutiny over its relationships with regimes like Iran, Russia and China, as well as Hamas, as it simultaneously pursues a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. These factors have prompted the House Foreign Affairs Committee to consider legislation on Wednesday on reassessing the U.S.-South Africa relationship.
Tripling down: Pandor, speaking at an event hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was asked about the BRICS economic bloc’s decision to welcome four authoritarian governments — Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt — into the group. She disputed the characterization, questioning “who makes these judgments? Because I don’t know, this assessment, that you’re making.” Pressed on whether Iran is authoritarian, she responded, “I don’t know whether they are an authoritarian regime.” She repeated a similar answer when pressed again.
Legislative action: Pandor decried the legislation that’s scheduled for a markup in the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday. The bill, led by Reps. John James (R-MI) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), would instruct the State Department to reassess the bilateral relationship. “It will reduce, firstly, sovereign independence and also curtail honest reflection on policies of countries and cause everybody to pretend to hold a view which they may not truly believe in because they’re trying to pacify,” she said.
Responding: “Well, if she’s defending Iran, I have nothing more to add on that,” Moskowitz said in a statement to JI on Pandor’s comments at the Carnegie event.
Read the full story here.
exclusive
Lawmakers introduce House companion to Cassidy-Fetterman campus antisemitism bill
Reps. Kathy Manning (D-NC) and Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR) on Wednesday are expected to introduce a House version of the Protecting Students on Campus Act, a bill originally introduced in the Senate by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and John Fetterman (D-PA) earlier this year, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Publicizing: The bill would instruct the Department of Education to produce a public awareness campaign about students’ rights under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Any school receiving federal funds would be required to advertise these resources in a high-traffic physical location on campus and on its website, including a link to the webpage for submitting complaints.
Audits: Colleges and universities receiving federal funds also have to provide an annual report to the Department of Education’s inspector general on the number of complaints of discrimination based on race, color or national origin that they received and how the institutions addressed them. Institutions receiving the most complaints would be subject to audits.
Oversight: It further mandates, for one year, monthly briefings and reports to Congress on the discrimination complaints the department has received, its plans for addressing them and the duration of investigations.
Worthy Reads
Summers Says: The American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka interviewed former Harvard University President Larry Summers about the rise of antisemitism on university campuses. Summers said: “When so many people are so elaborately concerned with what they see as Israeli injustice towards Palestinians, and are so ostentatiously unconcerned with Palestinian suffering at the hands of other Arab states, when they’re so unconcerned about suffering of other minority groups in Africa, in Asia, in other continents. And so much of the focus is on only the Jewish state that I think one does have to see, as I said many years ago, that a lot of what thoughtful and reasonable people are advocating is antisemitic in what its effect would be, if not perhaps in their intent. And I think the leaders of great universities have fallen way short of being willing to make that point in a clear way.” [AEI]
Isolationist Nation: Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Stephen Cook writes in the Liberal Patriot: “Washington’s trepidation-fueled foreign policy stems from over-learning the lessons of America’s ambitious efforts to transform the Middle East in recent decades. That searing experience combined with the politics of the social media age, which political entrepreneurs of neo-isolationist Right and Left have leveraged to great effect, have contributed to the making of a self-deterred superpower. Even though Washington’s foreign policy community remains overwhelmingly liberal internationalist in orientation, an influential narrative has emerged that frames the United States as a heedless power that does more harm in the world than good.” [LiberalPatriot]
Gaza Anarchy: In the Dispatch, Charlotte Lawson reports on Hamas’ campaign to exacerbate the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza. “Widespread looting and lawlessness have already forced some aid groups to suspend operations in the enclave, as Israel struggles to secure safe passage for private contractors to reach civilians in need. Meanwhile, the U.S., Israel, and other regional partners have begun to flood the Strip with aid — from the land, sea, and air — in an effort to bypass the distribution issues inside Gaza… But Israel says the challenge isn’t in the volume of aid going into Gaza but in its distribution to civilians in the combat zone — a role traditionally left to humanitarian organizations like the U.N. World Food Program (WFP), which last month halted its operations in Gaza, citing the dangers posed by the “collapse of civil order” within the Strip. Gazans are now increasingly reliant on private contractors for incoming supplies. The U.N. delivered less than 10 percent of aid shipments to northern Gaza this month, compared to 25 percent last month, even as the U.N. children’s agency said Friday that nearly one-third of children under 2 in northern Gaza have acute malnutrition. This reduced U.N. involvement has led to bottlenecks on the Gazan side of the border, where rows of white pallets containing tons of humanitarian aid waiting to be collected and delivered were visible from the Israel-run checkpoint on Thursday.” [TheDispatch]
Around the Web
Rebutting Schumer: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to speak virtually to Senate Republicans at their lunch today — less than one week after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) criticized the Israeli prime minister, while calling for new elections in Israel.
Donor Daze: Progressive Democratic donors and activists wrote a letter to President Biden warning that left-wing activists’ anger over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza is “increasing the chances of a Trump victory.”
Spokesman Sacked: Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy was suspended by the Prime Minister’s Office, allegedly over a tweet that said there were no problems with the capacity of aid trucks entering Gaza in response to U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s call for Israel to allow more trucks into the region.
Team of Allies: Former President Donald Trump is considering Sens. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) as candidates to sit on the national security cabinet if he wins another term as president, Semafor reports.
Fighting Words: Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff called former President Donald Trump’s recent accusation that Jews who support Democrats hate their religion and Israel, “a disgusting, toxic, antisemitic thing to say.”
Moskovitz’s Moment: Puck profiles billionaire philanthropist and co-founder of Facebook Dustin Moskovitz and his efforts to defeat Trump.
Roll Tide: Alabama Republican lawmakers passed a bill yesterday that would cut funding for DEI programs at public colleges and limit teaching about “divisive concepts” connected to race, gender and identity.
Series of Firsts: Nicole Berner, confirmed by the Senate yesterday, became the first Israeli-American, the first openly gay judge and the first labor lawyer to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.
Liberal Lament: Reform Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, who leads the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, condemned progressive movements for supporting Hamas and betraying liberalism in a recent sermon.
Declaration About Balfour: Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby delves into the symbolism of the recent slashing of a portrait of Arthur James Balfour by a pro-Palestinian group at the University of Cambridge.
Happy and You Know It: Israel ranks as the fifth-happiest country in the world, according to the new Gallup World Poll for the World Happiness Report 2024. Finland, Denmark and Iceland are in the top three; the U.S. ranks 23rd.
Shocking, Positively Shocking: Actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson was reportedly “formally offered” the role of James Bond for the upcoming film — making him the first Jewish 007.
Banner Year: Bob Cohn’s nonprofit digital news publication The Baltimore Banner announced plans to expand its editorial coverage beyond Charm City.
Farewell to Arms: Canada plans to halt arms sales to Israel, its Foreign Minister Melanie Joly announced yesterday. Language calling to recognize a Palestinian state was dropped from the bill following a phone call between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz on Monday, a spokesman for Gantz told JI’s Lahav Harkov.
Not So Kosher: The Kashruth Council of Canada and the Jewish Community Council of Montreal are suing the national government over new regulations around animal slaughter that they say harm the country’s kosher industry.
Fade to Black: The Playhouse Cinema released a statement today saying it had decided to postpone the rental of its venue this year for the Hamilton Jewish Federation’s annual Jewish Film Festival “amid security and safety concerns at this particularly sensitive time.”
Rabbi’s Warning: Conference of European Rabbis President Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt discusses the current surge in antisemitism in an interview with eJewishPhilanthropy ahead of the release of a memoir on his time in Moscow.
Eye on AI: Saudi Arabia plans to invest some $40 billion in artificial intelligence, according to The New York Times.
Pic of the Day
Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh was kidnapped on Oct. 7 from the Nova music festival, addressed the World Zionist Organization’s Heschel Conference on Jewish Peoplehood and Israel-Diaspora Relations at the National Library in Jerusalem this morning. “Now is the time for the Diaspora community to speak resolutely and with conviction to the men who are in power who will be deciding the destiny and identity of the Jewish people going forward forever more,” she said. “We stand here at a crossroads from which we can never undo this next choice. Now is the time for the Diaspora to tell the leaders of this country who are not thinking straight because they are still speaking from a place of continual, unending, throbbing, sharp, ongoing guilt-ridden trauma: This is the time to act the most holy we the Jewish people have ever acted in our history. This is the time to do something out of the ordinary, the likes of which have never been seen in any people’s history. Now is the time to save 134 innocent souls for no other reason except that it is holy, and it is the most Jewish response to October 7th that can possibly be done.”
Birthdays
NYC-based comedian, his current show centers on a meeting of neo-Nazis that he attended incognito in Queens, Alex Edelman turns 35…
He has served for over 50 years as the senior rabbi of NYC’s Park East Synagogue, Rabbi Arthur Schneier turns 94… Stage and screen actor, television director and musician, best-known role as the title character in the television comedy series “Barney Miller,” Hal Linden (born Harold Lipshitz) turns 93… Pioneer of financial futures, he is the chairman emeritus of CME Group, Leo Melamed turns 92… Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences as a geologist and oceanographer, but known popularly as poet and performer, Alexander Gorodnitsky turns 91… Australian award-winning writer of Portuguese Sephardi descent, author of fiction, nonfiction, screenplays and poetry collections, David George Joseph Malouf turns 90… Senior adviser to the family office of Charles Bronfman, Dr. Jeffrey R. Solomon turns 79… Senior lecturer of Talmud at Ner Israel Rabbinical College, Rabbi Tzvi Berkowitz turns 73… Award-winning author of 26 children’s books, Louis Sachar turns 70… Owner of Diamond Point Metals, Jack Zager… Former professional tennis player, Bruce Manson turns 68… Venture philanthropist and pioneer in corporate social responsibility, formerly CEO of Timberland, Jeffrey Swartz turns 64… Retired as Israel’s Chief of Police in 2018 after a 27-year prior career at the Shin Bet, Roni Alsheikh turns 61… Host of Time Team America, a PBS program, she also produced and directed a feature-length documentary entitled “Our Summer in Tehran,” Justine Shapiro turns 61… Chilean businessman with substantial mining interests, Leonardo Farkas turns 57… Former member of the Knesset for the Blue and White alliance, he served as Minister of Justice, Avraham Daniel (Avi) Nissenkorn turns 57… Journalist, author and lecturer best known for writing about his lifestyle immersion experiments, he is an editor-at-large for Esquire, Arnold Stephen “A.J.” Jacobs turns 56… Actor, podcast host, director and comedian, Michael Rapaport turns 54… First-ever Jewish mayor of Lansing, Michigan, now in his second term, Andy Schor turns 49… Award-winning Israeli actress, Netta Garti turns 44… Actor, music video director and writer, Jake Hoffman turns 43… Head of partner sales within a group at Amazon Web Services, Daniel M. Eckstein… Senior speechwriter and messaging strategist for Apple, Matt Finkelstein… Washington bureau chief at Semafor, Benjamin (Benjy) Sarlin… Director of real estate development for a NY-based hedge fund, Jason Lifton… Comedian, writer and actress who gained popularity through her comedy videos on YouTube, Joanna Hausmann turns 35… Secretary of the committee of Jewish law and standards at the Rabbinical Assembly, Max Buchdahl… Hacker success manager at Bugcrowd, Tatiana Uklist… Ehud Lazar…
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