Rachel Goldberg-Polin has a moment from her childhood, sometime between 1979 and 1980, etched in her memory. She had gone to sleep, but woke up after a couple of hours. Her father was watching Ted Koppel host that evening’s edition of ABC’s “Nightline.” In the corner of the screen was a number — marking the days that dozens of Americans, including embassy personnel, were held captive in Iran after a violent coup that overthrew the Shah. “He explained to me,” she recalled, “‘Oh, these people are being held hostage’ and what it meant to be held hostage.” Forty-four years later, Rachel wears her own number, marking the days that her son, Hersh, has been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. On the day she and her husband, Jon Goldberg-Polin, spoke to Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss by Zoom from their home in Jerusalem, both wore masking tape on their shirts, the number 233 written in marker, marking 233 days since their son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was taken hostage by Hamas.

Tenth D.C. visit: The two had just returned from Washington, their 10th visit since the Hamas terror attacks of Oct. 7 turned their world upside down. Over their repeated trips to the U.S., the Goldberg-Polins have built up a number of allies in the House and Senate, a group of legislators “who are trying to be helpful to us. They know us. They’re emotionally invested,” Rachel said. Among them: Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE), Mark Warner (D-VA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Joni Ernst (R-IA). They also met with former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican running for retiring Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D-MD) seat.

Keeping politics out: Even as the war becomes increasingly divisive in the run-up to the presidential election in the U.S., and as the hostage issue becomes increasingly politicized among hostage families in Israel, the Goldberg-Polins have chosen to keep politics out of their fight. It’s a message they said they have conveyed to every American politician with whom they’ve met. “We said, ‘Don’t fall into letting this be politicized,’” Jon said. “It is an election year, it is kind of inevitable, but these are human beings. These are eight Americans.”

Meeting Biden: President Joe Biden met privately with a group of special guests, including the Goldberg-Polins, ahead of a Jewish American Heritage Month celebration in the Rose Garden. In the two minutes she had, Rachel appealed to Biden as a parent who had lost a child; the president’s oldest son, Beau, died of brain cancer in 2015. “I said to him, ‘I understand from everyone in Washington that you’re probably the most family-centric person in this city,” Rachel said. “And I said, ‘And I know that you can appreciate that Hersh changed me from being a daughter, a woman, a friend, a wife, into a mother, and that there’s a very magical thing that happens to a human being when you become a parent.’ And I said to him — and I put my hand on his chest — and I said, ‘It’s like when Beau was born for you, and he changed you from being a man, a husband, a son, into a father.’”

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Hostage talks: Negotiations between Israel and Qatari and Egyptian mediators are set to resume today, remotely, in the ongoing effort to reach a hostage release deal.

Democrats are split on how to react to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) plan to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is facing pressure on all sides over the invitation. Johnson told reporters this week that Schumer had privately indicated to him that he plans to sign off on the invite, though the Democratic leader has only confirmed publicly that he is in talks with the speaker’s office on the matter. “ While it remains unclear if Netanyahu will even accept the invitation to speak, the issue has sparked a range of reactions from congressional Democrats,Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs and Lahav Harkov report.

It’s a ‘no’ from me: Progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) have vowed to boycott the speech, and a number of their like-minded colleagues are considering following suit. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) replied with a “no,” when asked if Schumer should sign his name to the invitation. Other Democrats who have been critical of Netanyahu expressed more openness to the idea. 

Hearing him out: “Israel is an ally of ours, our only Democratic ally in the region. I’d be interested in hearing what he has to say in a joint session,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) told JI on Thursday. 

Tricky timing: Democrats across the ideological spectrum bemoaned the timing of Johnson’s invitation, noting that it would take place as Israel ramps up sensitive military efforts in Rafah, and a time when Netanyahu is facing growing criticism back home over his handling of the war. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told JI, “I’m not sure about the timing here. I don’t know, I’m not sure when the visit is supposed to be. If you think about it, it’s Israel, it’s a head of state. It’s understandable. One thing we have to be careful [about is] that we don’t get engaged in domestic politics and the Israelis don’t get involved in our domestic politics. We’ve got to be careful.”

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The International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan’s intention to seek arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant – alongside Hamas leaders — and the International Court of Justice’s demand for Israel to “immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate,” could have broader implications for Israel’s image, its diplomatic standing and its relationships with close allies, including the U.S, in both the short and long term. The decisions could also have an inverse effect on the legitimacy and status of those two international bodies, analysts and legal experts told Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash this week.

Diplomatic fallout: “The war has been quite disastrous to Israel’s diplomatic standing in the world because it has really put it on a collision course with international institutions and with large parts of the international community,” Yuval Shany, a professor in the faculty of law at Hebrew University and a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, told JI. “We are seeing diplomatic relations being cut by some countries, we’re seeing trade sanctions by some countries, we’re seeing limits on military exports, so on the whole I can say that this has not been Israel’s finest hour internationally.” 

Inverse effect: Alan Baker, the director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and Israel’s former ambassador to Canada, said that the decisions issued by these two international bodies – which were established to solve global disputes and prosecute individuals accused of committing the most heinous crimes – could end up having an inverse effect on the courts themselves. “What the Palestinians have done from the very beginning is to target the ICC as good grounds for politicization against Israel,” he said. “Because they haven’t been able to physically eliminate Israel, they found a very good way of carrying out lawfare to undermine Israel’s legitimacy and turning the ICC into their own backyard Israel-bashing tribunal.”

Put to the test: “The decision was sufficiently ambiguous to give Israel some wiggle or maneuver room, but in practical terms, I think it would be wise for Israel to continue the operation with additional measures of protection, so it can at least show the international community and the ICJ that it is taking the concerns raised by the court really seriously,” Shany said. That ambiguity could now be put to the test following Sunday’s IDF strike on Rafah, which Palestinians say killed at least 45 people, including women and children, in a tent city set up for internally displaced civilians. Hours after the attack, several humanitarian organizations sent out a petition demanding that the U.N. Security Council members enforce the ICJ ruling and pressure Israel to immediately halt all fighting in Gaza. 

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Madrid’s move: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said his government will today formally recognize a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and West Bank connected by a corridor, with east Jerusalem as its capital. Norway and Ireland are also poised to recognize a Palestinian state today.

In North Dakota, the GOP primary race for the state’s sole House seat is set to play out as another battle between the Republican Party’s traditional wing and the Freedom Caucus-aligned insurgent right wing, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

In the race: North Dakota Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak faces former state Rep. Rick Becker, a plastic surgeon, in the primary. Fedorchak is defending U.S. engagement around the world, while Becker is pushing for scaled back U.S. involvement globally and opposes most foreign aid. One of the sharpest divides between the two Republicans is over foreign policy. Fedorchak is leaning into traditional conservative views on foreign policy in her campaign — expressing staunch support for continued U.S. assistance to Israel and Ukraine — while Becker favors dramatically cutting foreign aid.

Fedorchak’s view: “I think Israel needs to have the resources necessary to properly secure its safety and stability and help reinforce the stability in the broader region as a whole and the Middle East,” Fedorchak told JI, adding that she’s “committed to ensuring the continuation of foreign aid to Israel.” Speaking more broadly about the recent foreign aid bill, Fedorchak said, “We have to support our allies around the world and help them defend their democracies and stave off the aggressors that are anti-democracy and anti-American.”

Becker’s view: When he spoke to JI, Becker said that he is “very much in favor of pulling foreign aid,” particularly from U.S. adversaries, but that “Israel should be the last place that we pull foreign aid” and he is “completely in favor” of continuing that aid in the near term.  Ultimately, he continued, he wants to see Israel in “a position where Israel no longer even desires or needs aid from the United States.”

But: Becker’s support for continued near-term aid for Israel appears different from a view he has expressed in at least one other interview. In a Feb. 17 interview with The Dakotan, Becker said, “I respect Israel and I respect Israel’s right to defend itself completely but sending billions and billions of dollars to Israel — they are less in debt than we are. I understand they may even have a surplus, I don’t know. But the point is we’re in the hurt bay. There’s no place for us to be lending money, even to our friends, Israel.”

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Ahead of next month’s primary election, the crowded Democratic field in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District looks like it’s coming down to three candidates: former State House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, state Rep. Dan Helmer and state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Key endorsement: Subramanyam’s campaign received a major boost with an endorsement from Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA), the outgoing incumbent who is retiring from Congress due to a terminal illness. The Democratic-leaning 10th District covers most of Northern Virginia’s western suburbs, including all of fast-growing Loudoun County.  

Israel views: Filler-Corn and Helmer, who are both Jewish, have been outspoken about their support for Israel in their campaigns. Subramanyam said at a recent forum that he’d “like to see a long-term two-state solution” but “one of the states can’t be Hamas — that’s the reality.” He said he’d like to see a negotiated cease-fire including the release of the hostages in Gaza, but again emphasized that “long-term peace requires that Hamas not be one of the states.”

Looking ahead: Both Bob Holsworth, a Virginia political scientist and analyst, and Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, an election handicapping newsletter, named Subramanyam, Filler-Corn and Helmer as the likely top candidates in the race, but said it’s difficult to predict beyond that. 

New attack: The race has also been roiled in recent days by a new independent expenditure campaign opposing Filler-Corn, which she and her campaign have criticized as antisemitic and sexist. The attacks accuse Filler-Corn of catering to the interests of business groups, including the pharmaceutical, tobacco and oil industries, rather than voters, citing her past work at a lobbying firm. “It is disappointing but unsurprising that I face false and baseless attacks from a dark money group,” Filler-Corn said in a statement. “These false attacks are plainly sexist and rely on vile antisemitic tropes.”

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After Deborah Lipstadt was sworn as the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism two years ago this week, she began to travel the world to ask countries how the United States could help them fight antisemitism in their borders. But something has begun to change since the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel, Lisptadt said Friday at a virtual hour-long briefing for members of the Jewish community, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Failing state: “In the past few months, especially since the turmoil on the campuses, I’ve been having countries saying to me, ‘Is your country OK? What can we do for you?’” Lipstadt recounted. “What is happening in America — it has sent a shudder through many countries, because they wonder, are we on the verge of becoming a failed state?”

Not 1939, yet: Lipstadt, who was nominated to the ambassador-level position by President Joe Biden, said the good news of the past nearly eight months has been the support of the U.S. government in fighting antisemitism. But she expressed deep concern about rising antisemitism around the world and in the U.S. “I’m often asked, as a historian, ‘Is this 1939?’” Lipstadt said. “I say, ‘No, that’s a bit of an extreme position.’ I think it’s more like the early 1930s, maybe the late 1920s, with the destabilization of society.” 

Unique hatred: Since Oct. 7, Lipstadt said the language she uses to talk about antisemitism — and where it appears on the ideological spectrum — has changed. “I talk about a horseshoe. If you think about a horseshoe, the two ends meet together and often are magnetized and attracted to one another. It’s a question of extremism,” said Lipstadt. “Very few prejudices come from different ends of the political spectrum, virtually none. They’re either one side or the other, but they’re not coming from both. And here, they come from both, they share the same template, because the antisemitic template is so old and so malleable, and they share that extremism. And that makes this harder to fight and a more frightening phenomenon.” 

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