Daily Kickoff
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we have the scoop on an ad buy from the United Democracy Project targeting Rep. Jamaal Bowman, and report on a spate of attacks targeting Jewish-owned businesses in New York City. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Bridgewater’s Nir Bar Dea, NYC Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and IAEA head Rafael Grossi.
A coalition in crisis? Days after marking the country’s 76th Independence Day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself at odds with the two other members of his war cabinet over different issues.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant delivered his harshest public remarks since the start of the war more than seven months ago, demanding that Netanyahu deliver a “day-after” plan for Gaza. Gallant said that “the key” to dismantling Hamas “is military action and the establishment of a governing alternative in Gaza.”
“In the absence of such an alternative, only two negative options remain: Hamas’ rule in Gaza or Israeli military rule in Gaza. The meaning of indecision is choosing one of the negative options. It would erode our military achievements, lessen the pressure on Hamas and sabotage the chances of achieving a framework for the release of hostages,” Gallant stated.
The prime ministerrejecteda similar demand from the U.S. on Wednesday, saying in a video message, “There is no alternative to military victory. The attempt to bypass it with this or that claim is simply detached from reality.”
What we’re reading today: The Washington Post’s David Ignatius talked to Gallant this week about his call for a “day-after” plan.
Netanyahu isalso at odds with Benny Gantz, formerly the country’s defense minister and now the third member of the war cabinet, over Israel’s contentious draft laws that have until now exempted the country’s Haredi population. Netanyahu agreed to back Gantz’s 2022 proposal for Haredi enlistment, but Gantz countered, saying that the 2022 legislation does not adequately address Israel’s needs in a post-Oct. 7 world. More on both Gallant and Gantz below.
Meanwhile on the battlefield, five Israelis soldiers were killed, and several others injured on Wednesday evening in the Jabalya area of Gaza, apparently in a case of mistaken identity when an IDF tank fired at a building in which they believed terrorists were hiding, Jewish Insider’s senior correspondent Ruth Marks Eglash reports. In a briefing this morning, IDF international media spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said it was “a tragic case of friendly fire but the result of fighting in a dense and complicated area.”
“The incident is under review,” Shoshani said, explaining that it took place in an area that had previously been cleared of terrorists but where in recent weeks they had begun regrouping. He said the the army is currently operating in three main arenas in Gaza: the area in and around Jabalya; northern Gaza and the eastern flank of Rafah, “in specific target locations.”
Additionally, Shoshani said that CENTCOM’s long-anticipated Gaza pier project is set to begin operations in the next day or so. The so-called JLOTS (Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore) floating pier has now successfully been anchored underwater, he said, and the IDF will work together with CENTCOM troops to secure the aid arriving to the enclave from Cyprus via the sea. The U.N.’s World Food Program will be tasked with distributing the aid inside Gaza, he said.
A new Fox News poll shows widespread support and sympathy for Israel as it continues to defend itself against Hamas, while underscoring that most Americans disapprove of the anti-Israel protests taking place across college campuses.
The survey finds 57% of respondents “side” more with the Israelis, while just 28% favor the Palestinians. Even those under the age of 35 narrowly favor the Israelis by a five-point margin (47-42%). Democrats are more narrowly divided, backing Israel over the Palestinians, 43-39%, while Republicans overwhelmingly favor the Jewish state, 75-15%.
Fewer than one-third (32%) surveyed said they thought the U.S. was too supportive of Israel, while 63% either thought the United States isn’t supportive enough of Israel (30%) or just right in its support (33%).
Opposition to the campus protests against Israel were also widespread in the survey, with 59% viewing them negatively and just 33% supporting them. Democrats, however, narrowly viewed the protests favorably by a nine-point margin (50-41%). While most white voters (64%) opposed the protests, an outright majority of Black respondents and a plurality of Hispanic respondents viewed them favorably.
A 58% majority of respondents characterized the protests as “anti-Israeli” while 34% rejected the characterization. A bare 46% plurality thought they were antisemitic, while 45% didn’t think so. Nearly half (49%) of respondents said they wouldn’t characterize the protests as “pro-Hamas,” while 42% said they would describe them that way.
And 29% of respondents said the protests make them hold a less sympathetic view towards the Palestinians, while 16% said it makes them view the Palestinians more sympathetically. A 52% majority said it makes no difference.
scoop
Long-anticipated AIPAC blitz against Bowman begins with $2 million, one-week ad buy
AIPAC’s United Democracy Project launched two ad campaigns yesterday, one attacking Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and supporting Westchester County Executive George Latimer, and another attacking Brandon Herrera, the social media influencer challenging Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Money moves: UDP is making an initial buy of $2 million in the New York race — $1 million each for an anti-Bowman and a pro-Latimer ad. New York’s primaries aren’t until June 25, suggesting UDP is planning to spend a significant amount in the Bowman/Latimer race. The campaign against Herrera is $1 million for two weeks of air time.
Bowman challenge: The anti-Bowman ad focuses primarily on Bowman’s voting record against bills backed by President Joe Biden, including the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the debt limit deal. “Jamaal Bowman has his own agenda and refuses to compromise, even with President Biden,” the ad’s narrator intones. “He’s hurting New York.”
Supporting Latimer: The ad supporting Latimer creates a direct contrast between Latimer and UDP’s characterization of Bowman, stating that Latimer “is putting people ahead of personal agendas and delivering real progressive results.” The ad continues, “in Congress, George Latimer will take on MAGA extremists and he’ll work with President Biden to keep delivering progressive results.”
Herrera hit: UDP’s anti-Herrera ad condemns a joke that Herrera made on a podcast appearance about veteran suicide, and states that he “glorifies Nazis and mocks the Holocaust,” highlighting a video first reported by JI. “Now, Brandon Herrera is running for Congress?” the ad’s narrator says, over the sound of laughter from the podcast appearance. “That joke would be on all of us.” Herrera has said he opposes any further foreign aid.
on his doorstep
Masked anti-Israel protester shows up at UMich Regent’s home in middle of night
When Jordan Acker woke up at 6 a.m. on Wednesday in his home in Huntington Woods, a heavily Jewish suburb of Detroit, he saw several alarming notifications on his iPhone. Photos and videos from his doorbell app showed a disturbance outside his front door around 4:40 a.m., while he, his wife and their three daughters were asleep. A stranger wearing a red keffiyeh over his face walked up to Acker’s front door and stood there for several moments. He placed papers on the doors and took photographs before leaving. The document, a list of demands for the leadership of the University of Michigan, was signed: “In liberation, the UMich Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Next level: Acker, an attorney and former Obama administration official, sits on the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, a statewide position he was elected to in 2018. He ran for the seat as a way to promote a safe campus environment and protect students from sexual misconduct. A Jewish Michigan alumnus, Acker knew Israel issues might come up — the school has been dealing with staunchly anti-Israel activists for years — but he never expected anything like the uproar of the last seven months. The disturbance at his home escalated things to a new level.
‘Enormously undemocratic’: “It’s not a way that we handle disputes in this country, by trying to scare elected officials. I think that is something that is enormously undemocratic,” Acker told JI on Wednesday afternoon. “I found it extremely disturbing and very menacing in thinking that someone would dress like that to come to my house at 4:40 a.m. It’s really surreal, and it’s very, very scary.” He compared the incident to something that happened in December 2020, when two dozen protesters showed up at night outside the home of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to protest the results of the 2020 election.
Not happening: In the letter pasted to Acker’s door, the encampment protesters demand a meeting with Michigan’s Board of Regents, the university’s governing board. The letter and the middle-of-the-night visit do not make Acker more likely to meet with the group. He has said in the past divestment is “not really a negotiable one” for him. “I am not interested in meeting with a group led by someone who has posted that anyone who supports the Zionist state should die,” Acker said, referring to a social media post by the president of SAFE, the anti-Israel group that led the encampment.
night of broken glass
Vandals attack, break glass of Jewish-owned businesses in Manhattan overnight
Three Jewish-owned businesses in close proximity to one another on Manhattan’s Upper East Side were broken into early Wednesday morning, their glass doors smashed, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Haley Cohen reports for Jewish Insider. The Level 78 barber shop on 78th Street and Third Avenue, kosher restaurant Rothschild TLV on Lexington Avenue and 79th Street and The Nuts Factory candy shop on Third Avenue and 74th Street all had their glass windows or doors shattered at around 2 a.m. on Wednesday, the night of Israel’s Independence Day. The stores are all within blocks of the Moise Safra Center on Lexington and 82nd, which has attracted a number of kosher restaurants since it opened.
City statement: “The NYPD is aware of a series of incidents that took place at several businesses on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and is investigating. We are also aware that many of these sites are visibly Jewish-run businesses, and we understand how unsettling this news may be for a community that is already on edge,” a City Hall spokesperson told JI. “As part of the investigation, the NYPD is looking into whether these were biased attacks, and if found to be true, will not hesitate to arrest and charge the individuals responsible accordingly.”
Midnight call: Rami “Richie” Yagudayev, owner of Level 78, told JI that he received a call in the middle of the night from a client who lives in the neighborhood. While walking his dog, the client noticed that the shop’s glass front door had been smashed and called the police. Yagudayev, who is from Israel and has owned the barber shop for 10 years, said that a phone that the store used to play music was stolen, but no money was taken from the register. “I think all the blessings saved my shop,” Yagudayev told JI, pointing to the mezuzah on the front door and photos of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the late Menachem Mendel Schneerson, scattered throughout the store.
Familiar phenomenon: “History doesn’t repeat but it definitely rhymes,” Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, the rebbetzin at Altneu Synagogue on the Upper East Side, told JI, referring to Kristallnacht, or “night of broken glass,” the widespread pogroms in 1938 that targeted Jewish-owned businesses in Germany. Chizhik-Goldschmidt emphasized that the Upper East Side attacks were “clearly an effort by thugs to intimidate the local Jewish community.”
horseshoe theory
Vance, Paul, Ramaswamy to address Quincy Institute, American Conservative magazine conference
Key Republican officials advocating to limit American engagement in international affairs — including Sens. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Rand Paul (R-KY), former presidential candidate and potential vice presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy, and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) — are set to address a conference co-organized by Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative later this month, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The conference on Capitol Hill, and the GOP figures’ planned appearances, constitute a further reflection of “horseshoe” trends in foreign policy that have united the far right and far left in support of a more isolationist U.S. posture.
What they’re saying: According to an announcement circulated by the Quincy Institute, the conference aims to focus on “what does a foreign policy for the Middle Class look like?” The promotion declares that “Americans have tired of sending their money and their family members to fund and fight foreign conflicts not vital to their own safety and security” and questions why U.S. manufacturing jobs have moved overseas and “why government officials and media titans are so slow to address their concerns and so quick to label them ‘isolationists’ for asking.”
On the schedule: Other announced speakers include The American Conservative senior editor Helen Andrews, the Quincy Institute’s George Beebe, conservative journalist Saagar Enjeti and Branko Marcetic, reporter for the far-left Jacobin magazine, who wrote a book making “the case against Joe Biden.”
Elsewhere in Washington: House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch (R-ID) wrote to President Joe Biden raising concerns that lawmakers “still don’t have basic answers” to key questions about the paused weapons sales to Israel. They said they’re worried that the administration is hiding “the de facto conditioning of our assistance” to Israel and that Biden is clearly violating congressional intent and deliberately “obscuring congressional oversight.” They warned that the moves against Israel could prompt partners caught between the U.S. and Russia or China to side with U.S. adversaries.
cabinet criticism
Gallant calls on Netanyahu to formulate day-after plan for Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must commit to immediately seek an alternative to Hamas governance of the Gaza Strip without Israeli civilian control, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. “Hamas no longer functions as a military organization,” Gallant said in a statement. “Most of its battalions have been dismantled … However, as long as Hamas retains control over civilian life in Gaza, it may rebuild and strengthen [itself], thus requiring the IDF to return and fight in areas where it has already operated.”
Seeking an endgame: Gallant’s remarks come as the U.S. continues to raise concerns about Israel’s lack of a “day-after” plan, with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan saying on Monday that “military pressure is necessary but not sufficient to fully defeat Hamas … So we were talking to Israel about how to connect their military operations to a clear strategic endgame … a better alternative future for Gaza and for the Palestinian people.”
Growing chorus: IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi also reportedly criticized Netanyahu for the lack of a day-after strategy for Gaza, saying, according to Israel’s Channel 13, that “as long as there’s no diplomatic process to develop a governing body in the Strip that isn’t Hamas, we’ll have to launch campaigns again and again in other places to dismantle Hamas’s infrastructure. It will be a Sisyphean task.”
Draft Dodge: War cabinet Minister Benny Gantz rejected Netanyahu’s backing of a Haredi enlistment bill he proposed in 2022, saying that it does not go far enough to address Israel’s post-Oct. 7 needs.
speaking out
Marc Rowan: It’s time to ‘exact a price’ for antisemitism
Marc Rowan, the CEO of Apollo Global Management who has emerged as a leading voice of the donor-class against antisemitism on college campuses, described the anti-Israel protests at universities across the country as having less to do with Israel and the Jews than with “anti-Americanism,” eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports. “It’s not antisemitism. It is anti-Americanism,” Rowan said on the Aleph venture capital firm’s latest podcast, which aired Wednesday. “We are in the middle of a takeover of our elite academic institutions by a dominant narrative that you can call post-colonial education: Oppressed versus oppressor, powerful or powerless.”
Rowan’s call: In the hour-long interview, which also focused on Rowan’s philanthropic interests, his views on Israel and its relationship with the United States and his investment ideologies, the CEO and chair of UJA-Federation of New York called for the Jewish community to “exact the price” for antisemitism. “There’s been no price to pay for being an antisemite,” he said. “These kids who are marching [at anti-Israel demonstrations], they don’t think about it because there’s been no price to pay. But if you come to Apollo, I would not hire you if you were anti-Black. I wouldn’t hire if you were anti-gay. I wouldn’t hire you if you were anti-anything. Why would I hire an antisemite?”
Naming and shaming: Rowan called for the Jewish community to “call out the 20 worst universities, the 20 worst civic organizations and the 20 worst philanthropic institutions. We should make it embarrassing to serve as a director on these boards and trustees.”
Read the full story here and sign up for eJewishPhilanthropy’s Your Daily Phil newsletter here.
Worthy Reads
Moran’s Memories: In Tablet, Rachel Shalev interviews released hostage Moran Stella Yanai about her time in captivity, during which she was held with Noa Argamani, who remains a hostage in Gaza, and Itay Svirsky, who was killed by Hamas. “Somehow, I managed to get a deck of cards and hide them. They were with me in every house I’d been through until they confiscated it from me in the fourth and last house. It broke my spirit; it was the only thing I had. I imagined myself like the Jewish woman who plays with the Germans to get food. I played cards with them and talked, trying to make them laugh, so we would get as much as possible and suffer as little as possible. But at some point, a bitter reality set in. Once, we all sat in the same room playing cards, and everyone was laughing. I probably said something—whatever it was, I did something that wasn’t acceptable to them, I did it jokingly, the terrorist didn’t understand, so he left the room, everyone stopped laughing. He came back with a gun, and he put it to my head. He said that if I did it again, he would shoot me in the head. This was already very realistic—a cold barrel pressed against your head.” [Tablet]
Tough Talk: In the Washington Post, Roger Zakheim calls for the U.S. to take a more aggressive approach to free the remaining hostages in Gaza. “Yet the mediator approach has applied equal, if not more, pressure on U.S. ally Israel to make concessions than it has on Hamas, the original aggressors, and its principal backer, Iran. This has hardened Hamas’s negotiating stance and imperiled American hostages. Other than the week-long pause in fighting at the end of 2023, during which 105 hostages (only two Americans) were released, U.S. mediation has achieved little. Hamas’s recent video of American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin is a harrowing reminder of how badly we have failed our citizens. It is long overdue for the United States to shift the paradigm. Over the past 20 years, the United States has developed an array of intelligence, economic, and military tools and techniques that can pressure and destroy terrorist networks. They should be deployed against Hamas.” [WashPost]
Left-turn Lane:The New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg and Michael Grynbaum look at how MSNBC’s leftward shift has driven tensions between the cable network and NBC executives who prefer sticking to straight news over opinion and commentary. “But MSNBC’s success has had unintended consequences for its parent company, NBC, an original Big Three broadcaster that still strives to appeal to a mass American audience. NBC’s traditional political journalists have cycled between rancor and resignation that the cable network’s partisanship — a regular target of Mr. Trump — will color perceptions of their straight news reporting. Local NBC stations between the coasts have demanded, again and again, that executives in New York do more to preserve NBC’s nonpartisan brand, lest MSNBC’s blue-state bent alienate their red-state viewers. Even Comcast, NBC’s corporate owner, which is loath to intervene in news coverage, took the rare step of conveying its concern to MSNBC’s leaders when some hosts and guests criticized Israel as the Hamas attack was unfolding on Oct. 7, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions. An abrupt course correction to that coverage followed.” [NYTimes]
Security Matters: In The Jerusalem Post, former Israeli National Security Advisor Jacob Nagel, now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, cautions against a Saudi-Israel normalization deal that does not prioritize Israeli security interests, as National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan travels to Israel and Saudi Arabia for negotiations. “Sullivan arrives as President Biden’s envoy, driven not by Israeli interests but by American interests ahead of the November elections. Much of the recent government actions aim to prevent Israel from achieving a victorious end in Gaza and securing the return of all hostages while dangling the ‘carrot’ of normalization with Saudi Arabia and an American-Israeli ‘defense pact.’ This approach does not align with Israel’s National Security Strategy perception, especially when some agreements come at the cost of preventing Iran’s nuclear advancement. A fundamental principle of Israel’s National Security Strategy is self-reliance in defense without external assistance, including from the US. While the prospect of normalization with Saudi Arabia is of utmost importance and justifies taking risks to seize the opportunity, it should not come at any cost. The discussions Sullivan is advancing towards a potential agreement, after his and Secretary of State Blinken’s diplomatic shuttles to Saudi Arabia, raise significant concerns about the foundations of Israel’s National Security Strategy and the price the Americans are demanding Israel to pay.” [JPost]
Around the Web
Debate Decision: President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump accepted an invitation for debates hosted by CNN on June 27 and ABC on Sept. 10; third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was not invited to participate.
Cancellation Call: Former Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), who mounted a short-lived primary challenge to Biden, suggested that the Democratic National Convention in Chicago slated for August be canceled, citing the chaos that enveloped the 1968 convention, also held in Chicago.
Breaking with Biden: In The Free Press, Eli Lake explores the rise of the “Never Bidens” — voters who are increasingly disenchanted with the president over the more adversarial position his administration has taken toward Israel in recent months, including the halting of some military aid last week; among those interviewed were Michael Granoff, Cliff Asness and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.
Election Deepfakes: Iranian and Chinese government operatives created — but didn’t deploy — AI content and so-called “deepfakes” ahead of the 2020 presidential election in the U.S.
Day After: The U.S. is pushing a plan that would see Arab states send troops to act as a peace-keeping force ahead of the creation of a more formal governing body in Gaza; Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco are mulling participating in the effort.
Caught on Tape: The IDF is calling for an investigation into recently released video showing several armed militants at an UNRWA facility in Rafah.
UNRWA Concerns: Fifty-one House lawmakers raised concerns on Thursday about the U.S.’ lack of action to sanction the 12 employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency fired for their participation in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Patently Wrong: Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) wrote to the director of the Patent and Trademark Office raising concerns about a self-described patent examiner who said on Reddit they were considering denying a patent for Israeli military technology because of the war in Gaza.
Weapons Hold: Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) wrote to administration officials requesting additional information about the administration’s withholding of aid from Israel and its threats to withhold further aid.
Exclusive: A group of Idaho Republicans is seeking answers from Education Secretary Miguel Cardona about how his department is shielding Jewish students from harassment on college campuses following months of protests against the war in Gaza, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Combating Antisemitism: A bipartisan group of 36 senators called on Monday to nearly double funding for the State Department Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism in 2025, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Scoop: A new resolution introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) endorses the right of return for Palestinians to Israel and accuses Israel of genocide and ongoing ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians since before its inception. It also suggests Palestinians are the only group indigenous to the area, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
On the Hill: Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Jack Reed (D-RI) and Mark Warner (D-VA), who respectively chair the powerful Senate Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Intelligence Committees, urged Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to “continue to increase efforts” to sanction individuals and entities involved with settler violence in the West Bank, including construction companies and charities. They said the U.S. should “follow the money” and “pursue full enforcement by the U.S. and Israeli banking sectors.”
New Gig: Former Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) is joining the Hudson Institute as a distinguished fellow.
Mark Your Calendar: Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is slated to make her first public appearance since ending her presidential bid next week, when she will give a foreign policy-focused address at the Hudson Institute.
NPR Moves: NPR announced the creation of “The Backstop,” an additional layer of editorial oversight, as well as the expansion of the outlet’s Standards & Practices team and formalized editorial briefings on key issues, following an uproar over an essay written by an NPR business editor who accused the outlet of bias.
Council Crackdown: New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams issued a notice calling for city council members to remove signs calling for a cease-fire and for the release of the hostages from their desks, noting that the signs “disrupt the order” of city council meetings and damage the desks.
Résumé Review: Law firm Sullivan & Cromwell said it will be “more vigilant” in examining job applicants and will “review resumes for participation in pro-terrorist groups and other similar activities” as well as request lists of campus organizations that applicants had belonged to.
Charges Filed: Two Harvard students, including a Harvard Law Review editor, are facing misdemeanor assault and battery charges and violations of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act after they were filmed accosting a Jewish student near a campus protest in the days after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks.
On Leave: Sonoma State University President Mike Lee was placed on leave after he reached an agreement with campus anti-Israel protesters that included an academic boycott of Israel; the chancellor of the California State University system cited Lee’s “insubordination and consequences it has brought upon the system” in a statement announcing his status.
Union Pacific: A union representing employees in the University of California system authorized a strike for its nearly 50,000 members following administrative crackdowns on protesters at several UC schools.
Badger State Bluster: The president of the Universities of Wisconsin slammed the agreement reached between anti-Israel protest leaders at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the school’s administration calling for a cease-fire and agreeing not to punish student demonstrators for violating school policies.
Suiting Up: Jewish students at Haverford College filed a lawsuit against the university, alleging that the school promoted a hostile environment for Jewish students.
Study Abroad: In a letter to The Wall Street Journal, Technion President Uri Sivan extends an invitation to “those researchers, teachers and students who feel unwelcome in their communities and share our commitment to scientific advancement” to come to study at the Israeli university.
Princely Estate: Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi listed his Potomac, Md., estate for $3.1 million; Pahlavi, who has lived in exile for decades, purchased the home for $1.25 million in 1996.
Live From Tel Aviv: Israeli satire TV show “Eretz Nehederet” took on the Columbia encampment protesters in this week’s episode.
Gaza Strategy: Retired Gen. David Petraeus, speaking on Wednesday at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha, said he was privately urging Israel’s war cabinet to shift not only its tactical approach in Gaza, but also its messaging to civilians in Gaza, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
New Middle East: Bridgewater CEO Nir Bar Dea, a native of Israel, said the Middle East is “setting itself up for the next tech wave,” during a panel discussion with Dina Powell McCormick, vice chairman and president of Global Client Services and a partner of BDT-MSD, on Wednesday at the Qatar Economic Forum, Jewish Insider’s Tamara Zieve reports.
Northern Casualty: A 38-year-old Israeli civilian was killed by a Hezbollah anti-tank missile attack in Israel’s north.
Battle Tactics: The Wall Street Journal looks at how Hamas’ reliance on guerrilla warfare tactics is posing challenges to the Israeli military and prolonging the conflict in Gaza.
Memorial Vandalized: A Paris memorial honoring French citizens who saved Jews during the Holocaust was vandalized with red handprints resembling bloody hands.
Turkey Talk: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan alleged that Israel would “set its sights” on Turkey if it is successful in defeating Hamas in Gaza, adding that Ankara “will continue to stand by Hamas, which fights for the independence of its own land and which defends Anatolia,” using the term for the Turkish peninsula.
Nuke Negotiator: The New York Timesspotlights International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi, who has assumed an unofficial position as a mediator between Russia and Iran and the West.
Transitions: Aaron Weinberg is now senior foreign policy advisor to Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the senior Jewish member in the House. He is an Israel Policy Forum, DNC and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) alum.
Pic of the Day
Or Gat, whose sister, Carmel, is being held by Hamas in Gaza, met with Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) and other lawmakers this week in Washington, D.C., to discuss efforts to free his sister from captivity. Gat’s mother, Kinneret Gat, was killed by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7; his sister-in-law was also taken hostage, but released in November.
Birthdays
Composer, conductor and music producer known for his film and television scores, Daniel Alexander Slatkin turns 30…
Scholar, author and rabbi, he is the founding president of CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Irving “Yitz” Greenberg turns 91… Retired judge of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, she has served as president and chair of The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Ellen Moses Heller turns 83… Senior official in the Carter, Bush 41, Clinton and Obama administrations, Bernard W. Aronson turns 78… Member of the New York State Assembly for 52 years (the longest tenure ever), his term ended in 2022, Richard N. Gottfried turns 77… Former chairman of NBC News and MSNBC, Andrew Lack turns 77… Member of the House of Representatives since 2013 (D-FL), she was previously the mayor of West Palm Beach, Lois Frankel turns 76… Harvard history professor, Emma Georgina Rothschild turns 76… Proto-punk singer, songwriter and guitarist, Jonathan Richman turns 73… Radio voice of the Texas Rangers baseball organization since 1979, Eric Nadel turns 73… Rochester, N.Y., resident and advisor to NYC-based Ezras Nashim volunteer ambulance service, Michael E. Pollock… Real estate developer and mechutan of Donald Trump, Charles Kushner turns 70… Managing partner at Accretive LLC, a private equity firm, Edgar Bronfman Jr. turns 69… Film and stage actress, noted for “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “Terms of Endearment,” Debra Winger turns 69… President of Tribe Media, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Jewish Journal, David Suissa… Real estate mogul and collector of modern and contemporary art, Aby J. Rosen turns 64… Executive assistant at Los Angeles-based FaceCake Marketing Technologies, Esther Bushey… U.S. ambassador to the European Union in the Obama administration, he had a bar mitzvah-like ceremony in Venice in 2017, Anthony Luzzatto Gardner turns 61… Social entrepreneur and co-founder of non-profit Jumpstart, Jonathan Shawn Landres turns 52… Actress, television personality and author, Victoria Davey (Tori) Spelling turns 51… Host of programs on the Travel Channel and the History Channel, Adam Richman… VP and associate general counsel at CNN, Drew Shenkman… Managing director at FTI Consulting, Jeff Bechdel… Chef and food blogger, her husband Ryan played baseball for Team Israel, Jamie Neistat Lavarnway…
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