Daily Kickoff
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at primary election results in New York, Colorado and Utah. We also report on the anonymous effort to blacklist the Anti-Defamation League from being used as a Wikipedia source on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, interview Ford Foundation President Darren Walker on the sidelines of the Aspen Ideas Festival about Jewish-Black relations and spotlight a new women-only coworking space in Haifa. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Yair Zivan, Robert Kraft and House Speaker Mike Johnson.
What We’re Watching
- Today at the Aspen Ideas Festival, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides and Jordanian Ambassador to the U.S. Dina Kawar will speak in conversation with the Washington Post’s David Ignatius in a session titled “The Future of the Middle East: Diplomatic Perspectives.” Tonight, actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus will sit for a live recording of the podcast “Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso.”
- The House Education Committee‘s Subcommittee on Workforce Protections is holding a hearing this morning on protecting employees from antisemitic discrimination on campus. Speakers include The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty’s president and CEO, Mark Rienzi; University of California, San Diego physics professor Brian Keating; Melissa Emrey-Arras, the director of education, workforce and income security at the U.S. Government Accountability Office; and Mt. San Antonio College professor Dafna Golden.
- The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and local chapters of the Anti-Defamation League and Community Security Service are holding a briefing tonight with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and local security and law enforcement leaders following the weekend clashes outside of a Pico-Robertson synagogue.
- The Bloomberg Invest conference wraps up today in New York City. Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris is slated to speak this morning in conversation with Bloomberg’s Jason Kelly.
- Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) arrived in Israel last night for a two-day trip that he began with a meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
What You Should Know
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) lost decisively against Westchester County Executive George Latimer in a primary last night that served as a proxy battle over the Democratic Party’s views on Israel and antisemitism. Latimer’s double-digit margin of victory served as a historic rebuke against a sitting incumbent, Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar writes.
Bowman becomes the first lawmaker to lose a primary this year, and is the first Squad-aligned member to get ousted from Congress. Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), another scandal-plagued anti-Israel lawmaker, is at risk of losing her primary in August.
The debate over the race’s results centered over how significant a role Bowman’s anti-Israel views and antisemitic rhetoric played in his defeat. Put simply, it mattered a great deal. Bowman, despite representing a district with one of the largest number of Jewish voters in the country, gratuitously alienated his own constituents by focusing his campaign on attacking Israel and its war against Hamas — and didn’t even attempt outreach towards the district’s Jewish community.
The disconnect between Bowman and his district was especially glaring after Oct. 7. His extreme rhetoric lost him the endorsement of the progressive Middle East advocacy group J Street, which had previously backed him. By the end of the campaign, he made his anti-Israel views at the center of the campaign, even reaching out to the far-left Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for support.
But it’s also a reality that many of the lawmakers with flagrantly anti-Israel views, unsurprisingly, have lots of additional political baggage. Before being elected to Congress, Bowman promoted 9/11 conspiracy theories on a personal blog. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for pulling a fire alarm to delay a House vote averting a government shutdown. Many of the AIPAC ads in the district targeted his vote against President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law as a sign he’s not a mainstream Democrat.
Last night’s New York results were also favorable for pro-Israel Democratic candidates running for the New York state Assembly. In the nine races where the pro-Israel Solidarity PAC endorsed, six candidates won, including all of the incumbents. The biggest victory came in a central Brooklyn seat, where incumbent Stefani Zinerman held off a DSA-backed challenge from Eon Huntley. But the group failed to unseat two DSA-aligned incumbents it was targeting.
Former CNN commentator John Avlon comfortably defeated his more-progressive primary challenger Nancy Goroff in New York’s 1st District Democratic primary by 40 points. He will face Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) in the general election.
Mainstream Republicans also had a fairly successful night over right-wing opponents in Colorado and Utah’s primaries. Rep. John Curtis (R-UT), a pragmatic lawmaker in the mold of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), won the GOP primary and is expected to succeed the retiring senator. And in Colorado, establishment-backed candidates prevailed over right-wing challengers in three key primaries, though controversial Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) comfortably won the nomination in a new district.
And in South Carolina’s 3rd District, Mark Burns, a right-wing pastor who said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) should be tried for treason, narrowly lost to nurse practitioner Sheri Biggs in a runoff. Burns was backed by former President Donald Trump.
wiki-warriors
Inside the war over Israel at Wikipedia
After Wikipedia’s editors voted earlier this month to rate the Anti-Defamation League as an unreliable source on matters related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a group of online activists celebrated the news in a pro-Palestine channel on the messaging app Discord. The exchange, which took place in an online community dedicated to editing Wikipedia articles to better reflect a pro-Palestinian narrative, offers a glimpse at how ideologically motivated actors operate behind the scenes to shape the knowledge shared on Wikipedia, one of the most visited websites in the world, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Editors’ backgrounds: Central to Wikipedia’s mythology is the notion that its editors have no hidden motive besides expanding access to knowledge. But the decision by several dozen Wikipedia editors to deem the ADL an unreliable source raises questions about the motivations driving editors on the platform and the far reach of a handful of highly active, ideologically driven users. “I appreciate the fact that Wikipedia is this amazing, extraordinary example of the democracy of the internet in many ways,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told JI last week. “At the same time, the process is fairly inscrutable to me, at least, and I think most people are unclear about, Who are the editors? What’s their scholarship? How do they have demonstrated expertise? We don’t know.”
post-war plan
The day-after plan for Gaza on Israeli leaders’ desks
With continuing pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to present a postwar plan for Gaza, a document has been circulating around the upper echelon of Israel’s government and security establishment. “From a murderous ideology to a moderate society: transforming and rebuilding Gaza after Hamas” is a 28-page paper, obtained by Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov, outlining four academics’ recommended dos and don’ts for ensuring Hamas and Gaza are no longer a threat to Israel.
The team: Israeli academics Netta Barak-Corren of Hebrew University, who is currently at Princeton University, Danny Orbach of Hebrew University, Netanel Flamer of Bar-Ilan University and Harel Chorev-Halewa of Tel Aviv University teamed up in November, on a volunteer basis, to combine their expertise in law, military history and the Middle East and compile their recommendations, which they have said all members of Israel’s now-defunct war cabinet read.
building bridges
Why Ford Foundation President Darren Walker thinks more people need to talk about antisemitism
When you run an organization focused on promoting social justice, but with the namesake of one of the most virulent antisemites in American history, you have to talk about the uncomfortable history. Or at least, that’s the attitude taken by Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, who published a blog post reckoning with Henry Ford’s antisemitism just weeks before the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks. Since then, Walker has spoken out against rising antisemitism — at times, sparking clashes with his left-leaning staff, he told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch in an interview at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
Walker’s work: “I’m mindful of the history of the Ford Foundation, and our donor who was most certainly the archetype of the 20th-century American antisemite,” Walker said. “That history absolutely informs my work. But just as important is my own view, this idea that every person ought to live with dignity.” Walker has helmed the Ford Foundation, which has an endowment of $16 billion, since 2013. Its grantees include Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League. He was in Aspen to speak on a panel about modern antisemitism alongside Carole Zawatsky, CEO of Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life, which recently broke ground on a new synagogue, memorial and museum.
community outreach
Johnson, House Republicans meet with Hasidic leaders in New York
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) met on Sunday with Hasidic leaders in New Square and Monsey, N.Y., alongside local GOP congressmen, and delivered a speech addressing the fight against antisemitism, support for Israel and school choice, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Eye on Turnout: Johnson is following in former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) footsteps, helping local Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Marc Molinaro (R-NY) rally support in ultra-Orthodox enclaves in heavily contested Rockland County districts. White in New York, Johnson also attended a fundraiser lunch with NORPAC, a grassroots pro-Israel group.
Read the full story here.
On the calendar: Johnson is slated to give a speech addressing global threats at the Hudson Institute next month.
center fold
New book explores how political centrism can provide the answers to extremism
If there’s one person who could successfully pull together a book about the future of centrist politics, it’s Yair Zivan, the longtime senior foreign policy adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister and current Opposition Leader Yair Lapid. Zivan, who has worked with Lapid for nearly 10 years, was among those who assisted him in setting up – and managing – the most complex and broadest government Israel has ever experienced, a coalition that included eight political parties spanning the political spectrum, among them, for the first time ever, an Islamist faction. In an interview with Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash, Zivan explained how his experiences inside Israel’s political center and the connections he made with other centrist politicians around the world prompted him to seek out prominent voices to help him lay out a vision for why, and how, centrism can provide the antithesis to extremism and polarization.
Work in progress: Zivan, who spent his formative years in the U.K. before moving to Israel in 2009, told JI that throughout his years working with Lapid, helping the journalist-turned-politician build connections with centrist legislators elsewhere, he’d also been trying to “sharpen” the definition of centrist politics. Zivan sought not only to push back at critics who often claimed the political center is merely the wishy-washy middle ground between the extremes, but also to enable it to move forward and attract more supporters.
better together
In Haifa, new coworking space for women shows that it takes a Village
When Ann Levy-Antar tested the waters for her dream of creating a women-only coworking space, she was blown away by the response in an online female community. Some 400 women contacted her, enthusing over the idea and eager to get involved. “It was horrifying,” Levy-Antar laughs, during a recent interview with Jewish Insider’s Tamara Zieve at The Village, located in a renovated old stone building in the heart of the Talpiot market in the Hadar neighborhood in Haifa. “It was moving really fast,” Levy-Antar explains, noting that she had intended to develop the project at a slower pace, using the first donation she had received from Brazilian angel investors.
Open to all (women): In early March, The Village, which Levy-Antar co-founded with Carmit Holzman and Odelia Rosenfeld, first opened its doors. Levy-Antar describes The Village as an “impact members club — a community-based initiative to promote leadership of women in all aspects of life.” Any woman can join the club and membership costs 150 NIS ($40) a month, which gives unlimited access to the coworking space and access to a variety of workshops (which costs 30-50 NIS [$8-$13) and community events (which are free). On Tuesdays, the apartment is reserved for companies to rent for off-site days, work sessions, company events, meetings and lectures, which help compensate for the low fee for members and contribute toward scholarships for women from the neighborhood who can’t afford the membership fee and are connected to The Village via a social worker.
Worthy Reads
Campus Conundrum: The New York Times’ Bret Stephens considers the source of anti-Israel organizing at elite American universities — and what Jewish students, parents and alumni can do in response. “But the real problem lies with some of the main convictions and currents of today’s academia: intersectionality, critical theory, post-colonialism, ethnic studies and other concepts that may not seem antisemitic on their face but tend to politicize classrooms and cast Jews as privileged and oppressive. … Not even the most determined university president is going to clean out the rot — at least not without getting rid of the entrenched academic departments and tenured faculty members who support it. That could take decades. In the meantime, Jews have a history of parting company with institutions that mistreated them, like white-shoe law firms and commercial banks. In so many cases, they went on to create better institutions that operated on principles of intellectual merit and fair play — including many of the universities that have since stumbled.” [NYTimes]
How the West Was Won Over: In Tablet, Neetu Arnold suggests that foreign governments are using their influence on American academia to impart anti-Western values to students. “Middle East and Islamic studies centers became avenues for foreign governments to purchase influence and prestige a long time ago. But today, these centers play a much broader role in national politics, law, scholarship, and culture. And the drivers are no longer just foreign political actors, but increasingly domestic ones, too. In this context, student activists’ apparently spontaneous demands to establish more Middle East studies departments, to hire more Palestinian and Middle East faculty, and to integrate Palestine into DEI and ethnic and race-based curricula should be viewed instead as the intentional expansion and consolidation of leftist institutional power. This has meant the creation of jobs and patronage for a new phalanx of progressive sectarian foot soldiers under the umbrella of ethnic studies.” [Tablet]
Bibi’s Hubris: Matti Friedman writes in the Free Press about how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has avoided taking accountability for his mistakes: “This faith in his own brilliance and disdain for others is what has given Netanyahu the tenacity and drive to survive at the top as long as he has. But it also helps explain why Israelis have fragmented and polarized around his personality in a way that threatens the future of our society, and why he seems incapable of seeing what’s going on. Netanyahu prides himself on seeing every threat to Israel, but because his fatal flaw is hubris, the threat he can’t see is himself.” [FreePress]
War Worries: In The Wall Street Journal, Seth Cropsey suggests that a war between Israel and Iran is inevitable, despite unfavorable conditions. “Since the mid-2000s, Israel’s Iran policy has been one of deferred confrontation. Israel built the Iron Dome air-defense system to destroy low-tech rocket and mortar salvos from the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon, mitigating the need for ground operations in all but the worst circumstances. Throughout the 2010s, Israel executed a persistent air campaign in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq to interdict Iranian supply lines. Israel also conducted cyberattacks, sabotage efforts and assassinations in Iran to hamper Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Nothing worked to eliminate the threat, but the strategy bought time and established a balance of forces that discouraged aggressive action. This balance was upended on Oct. 7. The only way to reset it is by eliminating one of Iran’s threats. The obvious candidate is Hezbollah.” [WSJ]
Word on the Street
An Israeli delegation led by National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer will travel to Washington next month for high-level meetings focused on Iran, after the initially scheduled meeting, slated for earlier this month, was canceled by Biden administration officials following the release of a video by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accusing Washington of slow-walking some weapons deliveries…
The Treasury Department announced sanctions on dozens of individuals and entities across Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and the Marshall Islands that have helped Iran circumvent international sanctions and gain access to the global banking system…
The Wall Street Journal reports that the slowdown in weapons shipments to Israel has been in part because of a decreased number of orders from Israel…
Aid packages are mounting at the U.S.’ pier off the coast of Gaza and at other entry points to the enclave amid humanitarian organizations’ inability to deliver the aid, which they attribute to security issues in Gaza…
The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus considers how the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza contributed to an Israeli court ruling mandating conscription of Haredi men…
David Harel, president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities; Tamir Pardo, a former director of Mossad; Talia Sasson, a former director of the special tasks department in Israel’s State Attorney’s Office; former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak; and Nobel laureate Aaron Ciechanover penned an essay in The New York Times calling for the revocation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s invitation to address a joint session of Congress next month…
The Washington Post’s Max Boot reflects on the “gloomy” mood pervasive in Israeli society after a recent trip to the country…
Former President Donald Trump could announce his VP pick as soon as this week, though he has said in the past he planned to announce his running mate just before or during next month’s Republican National Convention…
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) urged President Joe Biden and the Department of Justice to “conduct a manhunt” comparable to the one launched for Jan. 6 participants for the individuals involved in a demonstration outside the Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles…
Reps. Marc Molinaro (R-NY) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) introduced a bill that would require colleges and universities to report every reported antisemitic incident on campus to the Department of Education…
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation allocating $20 million to increase security at Jewish schools in the state…
The Washington, D.C., mansion owned by philanthropist and diplomat Esther Coopersmith hit the market for $18.5 million, following Coopersmith’s death in March…
Qatar listed a Manhattan townhouse near the United Nations headquarters for $32 million, more than $2 million less than it paid for the property in 2013…
The espionage trial of falsely accused Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovichbegan in Moscow today…
A 1939 letter penned by Albert Einstein urging then-President Franklin Roosevelt to invest in atomic energy research will be auctioned off this fall, and is expected to fetch upwards of $4 million…
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft donated $1 million to Yeshiva University to establish a “Blue Square Scholars” program accommodating students who transfer to the school…
Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Carlyle Group co-founder and Baltimore Orioles owner David Rubenstein said that Kraft was the sports owner he most admires, citing the Patriots owner’s efforts to combat antisemitism and relationships with his players…
The outgoing interim president of the University of Minnesota testified before the state Senate’s Judiciary and Public Safety Committee; Jeff Ettinger acknowledged that administrators “may not have always gotten it right” in regards to their handling of anti-Israel activity on the campus…
The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights opened an investigation into the Berkeley Unified School District following a complaint alleging the harassment of Arabs and Muslims in the district…
Politico’s Alex Ward and Lara Seligson are departing the publication for The Wall Street Journal, while columnist Jack Shafer is also leaving the D.C.-centric news outlet…
Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum will restitute a Henri Matisse painting to the heirs of its Jewish pre-WWII owner, who sold the work under duress before being killed in a concentration camp in 1945…
The Associated Press spotlights the six candidates vying to succeed Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Friday’s election…
French-Jewish publisher Eric Hazan died at 87…
Pic of the Day
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met on Tuesday with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Washington.
Birthdays
Founder of Grover Strategies, he was previously chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Alan Solow turns 70…
British Labour party member of Parliament for 42 years, David Winnick turns 91… Partner in the law firm BakerHostetler known for his recovery of $14.5 billion from the Madoff investment scandal, Irving H. Picard turns 83… Retired co-host for more than 30 years of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Robert Siegel turns 77… Rabbi of Congregation Chaverim in Tucson, Ariz., for more than 35 years, Stephanie Aaron… CEO of Emerging Star Capital and the author of a biography of President Bill Clinton, Robert E. Levin… Attorney and Holocaust survivors’ rights advocate, Samuel J. Dubbin turns 69… CEO of ZMC, he was previously chairman of CBS and CEO of 20th Century Fox, Strauss Zelnick turns 67… Professor of psychology at Loyola University Maryland, she is known for her work on sleep patterns and behavioral well-being, Amy Ruth Wolfson, Ph.D…. Israeli actress and comedian, Anat Waxman turns 63… Once the wealthiest of all Russian oligarchs, then a prisoner in Russia and now living in London, Mikhail Khodorkovsky turns 61… Novelist and journalist, most notable as the author of the Magicians trilogy, he was the book critic and lead technology writer at Time magazine, Lev Grossman… and his twin brother, author, video game designer and adjunct instructor at NYU, Austin Grossman both turn 55… Dean of Yeshiva University’s Sy Syms School of Business, Noam T. Wasserman turns 55… President and founder of Reut Group, Gidi Grinstein turns 54… Political commentator, YouTube personality, comedian and talk show host, Dave Rubin turns 48… Head of external communications at GEICO, Ross Feinstein… Associate in Mayer Brown’s D.C. office, Michael “Mickey” Leibner… Director of Israel and Jewish affairs at the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, Sara Fredman Aeder… Executive director at the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, David Bocarsly turns 34… Special adviser for implementation at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Asher J. Mayerson… Author and media personality, Elizabeth Pipko turns 29…
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