Daily Kickoff
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at how United Airlines’ canceled flights to Israel are impacting Passover travel, and talk to Sen. Angus King about how Iran’s weekend strike has affected his opposition to military aid to Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Zach Hyman, Shomari Figures and Amb. Mohamed Abushahab.
The president and board chairs of Columbia University are set to testify before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce this morning, in a much-anticipated sequel to last year’s heated hearing with the leaders of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which led to the resignations of two of those presidents.
In the interim, the committee has sent document requests to six schools, including Columbia, and issued a subpoena to Harvard, which it accused of violating, as part of a broader investigation into antisemitism at U.S. universities.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the committee chair, told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod on Monday that she’s “anxiously awaiting getting more material from them so we can handle our investigation properly” and added that the committee will be issuing an interim report “fairly soon.” Read The New York Times’ profile of Foxx ahead of today’s hearing.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Columbia President Minouche Shafik said she’s hoping to “begin to find common ground in finding solutions to antisemitism” at the hearing, adding that it is “a job for all of us” to fight antisemitism.
Anticipating a likely question from committee members, Shafik said that calling for the genocide of any people, including Jews, “has no place in a university community. Such words are outside the bounds of legitimate debate and unimaginably harmful.”
She also said that protesters’ “passion, as long as it doesn’t cross the line into threats, discrimination or harassment, should be protected speech on our campus, especially if it reflects diplomatic, political, historical or policy beliefs,” even if “discomforting to some.” She said drawing a line between allowed and prohibited speech is “enormously difficult.”
Shafik added that going forward, she thinks university presidents’ and official university statements “should be limited to issues that speak directly to life on campus” and that schools “should return to [their] core mission.”
There’s another top talker on Capitol Hill this week, but away from the hearing rooms, as first-quarter fundraising reports begin to roll in. Both pro-Israel and anti-Israel lawmakers brought in significant sums of money, according to the latest reports filed Monday. But the numbers illustrate that two Squad-affiliated lawmakers are in deep political trouble, even as other anti-Israel members look in better shape.
Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) were easily outraised by their pro-Israel Democratic challengers, even as both incumbents brought in healthy amounts of campaign cash.
In Bush’s race, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell brought in nearly $1 million ($960,000) in the first three months of 2024, while Bush raised $678,000 during the same period. Bush is under investigation over allegations that she profited over her own extensive personal security arrangements.
In New York, Bowman raised over $1 million ($1.3 million) in the quarter, but was still easily outpaced by popular Westchester County Executive George Latimer, who brought in over $2.2 million in the first quarter of 2024. Latimer now has more than twice as much cash on hand as the incumbent.
Other Squad-aligned members fared better. Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) raised more than three times as much money ($909,000) as her Democratic primary rival Bhavini Patel ($291,000) in the run-up to the state’s approaching April 23 primary.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) brought in a whopping $1.7 million, easily outpacing her opponent, Don Samuels, who brought in a respectable $400,000 for the quarter. Samuels came close to defeating Omar in the 2022 Democratic primary.
And Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), who isn’t facing credible primary opposition, nonetheless brought in over $1.9 million — a sign that hard-left small-dollar donors are becoming a financial lifeline for the most prominent Squad lawmakers.
Meanwhile, AIPAC’s PAC announced new endorsements of three Democratic congressional candidates: Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, former Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-CA) and Laura Friedman, who is all but guaranteed to succeed Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in the House.
Yesterday’s Inside the Newsroom webcast featured an eye-opening conversation between JI Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar and Stanford University student journalist Theo Baker, who authored a seminal feature in The Atlantic last month about the scourge of antisemitism on his campus.
One telling quote from the show: Baker said he estimated roughly 95% of Stanford students hold anti-Israel beliefs, and that the ubiquity of antisemitism at the elite university was a revelation for him when he enrolled. Watch the whole interview here.
flight decisions
United flight cancellations stymie Passover travel plans

While Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport is open again after temporarily shutting down in light of Iran’s weekend attack, United Airlines, the sole U.S. carrier that had been operating in Israel, has canceled all flights until further notice. Its decision has upended travel plans for thousands of people who had flights booked to Israel ahead of Passover next week. Delta Airlines, which suspended flights to Israel after Oct. 7, has announced plans to resume flights from New York’s JFK Airport to Tel Aviv in June, which a spokesperson said is still the plan, though the airline reserves the right to change its mind depending on current events. Lawmakers, a number of whom criticized the U.S. airlines’ decisions, largely don’t see a role for congressional action to push for restarting flight routes to Israel, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch and Emily Jacobs report.
Delayed decisions: A United spokesperson told JI on Tuesday that flights into Tel Aviv and Amman, Jordan, were canceled that day, but declined to share future plans. “We continue to closely monitor the situation and will make decisions on upcoming flights with a focus on the safety of our customers and crews,” a United spokesperson said.
‘Furious’ customers: Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) told JI that he spoke to Americans and Israelis in recent months who switched from United to El Al as their carrier of choice over the cancellations. “Obviously, all those different executives are going to make their own decisions on it, but the passengers will as well,” Lankford said. “When I was in Israel, it was interesting to me to talk to some folks that are multi-year, whatever level, platinum United folks or others that are now flying El Al,” Lankford continued. “They are saying that even when they [the airlines] were flying again, they [the customers] were furious that they stopped flying, and so they’ve chosen to be able to fly El Al.”
Heard on the Hill: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said that while he wasn’t sure if the Federal Aviations Administration could address insurance or security risks involved in conducting those flights, “You’d hate to see the ability to travel back and forth stymied or reduced in any way.” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a former Navy pilot, said, “I think private companies and also the U.S. government have to be considering the safety of our population. And you have Americans that are flying to Tel Aviv. I think it’s a concern and it sounds like these two airlines think it’s a concern as well,” Kelly said of United and Delta. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told JI that he would “do anything within reason to give them [U.S. airlines] the incentives to fly to Israel,” calling Iran’s strike on Israel over the weekend “another sign of” Tehran’s efforts to “isolate” the Jewish state.