Daily Kickoff
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on yesterday’s Capitol Hill meeting between legislators, major CEOs and Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin and interview Hapoel Jerusalem owner Matan Adelson. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Barbara Leaf, Safra Catz and Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt and Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) is slated to host a gathering of big-name GOP donors today in Washington, D.C., as the South Carolina Republican competes to be tapped as former President Donald Trump’s running mate. The private fundraiser and policy summit, sponsored by Scott’s political advocacy group, Great Opportunity Policy, will reportedly focus on such topics as campus antisemitism and tax policy.
Among the speakers are several financial executives who have yet to commit to backing Trump, such as Citadel’s Ken Griffin, Apollo’s Marc Rowan and Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman. The event will also feature donors who have already contributed to Trump’s campaign, including Jacob Helberg, a top Silicon Valley donor who has previously supported Democrats and serves as a senior policy adviser to Palantir CEO Alex Karp.
In his remarks to the summit, Helberg, an outspoken China hawk, will weigh in on rising tensions with China while invoking his personal background as the Jewish grandson of Holocaust survivors, according to an excerpt of his comments shared exclusively with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel on Tuesday.
“In many ways, the global crisis in leadership is the greatest threat to opportunity not just in America, but across the free world, in at least a generation,” Helberg is expected to say. “And as the grandson of two people that were liberated from Auschwitz nearly 80 years ago, this threat hits close to home.”
Elsewhere in Washington, meetings between Israeli officials and senior Biden administration officials have been pushed off, following the release on Tuesday of a video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chastising the Biden administration for withholding a weapons shipment to Israel, which the White House largely brushed aside with a confused, “Huh?” JI’s Gabby Deutch and Lahav Harkov report.
“When Secretary [of State Tony] Blinken was recently here in Israel, we had a candid conversation. I said I deeply appreciated the support the U.S. has given Israel from the beginning of the war,” said Netanyahu. “But I also said something else, I said it’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel.”
But, Netanyahu continued, “Secretary Blinken assured me that the administration is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not specifically comment on Netanyahu’s telling of the events, instead questioning his entire premise: “We generally do not know what he’s talking about. We just don’t,” Jean-Pierre told reporters.
She confirmed that one shipment of weapons had been paused — the 2,000-pound bombs that President Joe Biden announced in May would be held back over concerns about a major Israeli operation in Rafah.
“There was one particular shipment of munitions that was paused,” Jean-Pierre said. “We continue to have these constructive discussions with Israelis for the release of that particular shipment that I just mentioned and don’t have any updates on that. There are no other pauses.”
Speaking at a press conference alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Blinken also made clear that the weapons shipment remained paused, contrary to Netanyahu’s claims and reports in Israeli media. But Blinken also tried to underplay the significance of the pause, noting it is just one part of the U.S. defense relationship with Israel.
“That remains under review. But everything else is moving as it normally would move, and again, with the perspective of making sure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself against this multiplicity of challenges,” Blinken said.
The Biden administrationhas not yet moved forward on the sale of 50 F-15 fighter jets to Israel, nearly a month after senior legislators removed their hold on the deal.
Israeli sources told JI that there are more delayed shipments, without specifying what they are. Netanyahu’s office reached out to Washington behind the scenes to try to move the arms deliveries forward, and was told that they are going through the bureaucratic process. The prime minister made the video because he felt the quiet diplomacy of recent months was not working, according to a source.
The back-and-forth between Washington and Jerusalem comes ahead of expected meetings between senior Biden administration officials and Netanyahu’s top advisors this week. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi arrived in Washington on Tuesday for high-level meetings at the White House.
Following a report in Axios that one of the central meetings, a strategic dialogue on Iran, was canceled due to anger in the Biden administration over Netanyahu’s video, a source on the Israeli side said it was postponed, not canceled. But the source also emphasized Israel’s gratitude for American aid — the lack of which, a U.S. official told Axios, angered the Biden administration.
Netanyahu’s video received criticism from one of Israel’s staunchest supporters on Capitol Hill — Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), who posted on X that “even the appearance of a ruptured relationship” would embolden Hamas. “If you are looking to undermine the bipartisanship of the US-Israel relationship, then release a public video attacking the Biden Administration, which, despite hysterical opposition from the far left, has held firm in support of Israel for eight months and counting,” Torres wrote.
action plan
CEOs, senators strategize with hostage’s parents on Capitol Hill
A bipartisan group of Senate lawmakers met on Tuesday on Capitol Hill with U.S. business leaders and Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin, whose son, Hersh, is being held in Gaza — an unusual group that came together to strategize on potential paths forward amid stalled hostage-release negotiations. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a lead organizer of the meeting, said he was hopeful that the private sector leaders would apply pressure for stronger action against Iran and the International Criminal Court. He said that the executives who attended the meeting were largely interested in focusing on the hostages, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Graham’s goals: “I told that group to do two things: help us get an ICC sanctions bill across the table in the Senate, and let’s come up with an Iran sanctions effort that will hit the Ayatollah [Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader] in its pocketbook,” Graham said. “You’re never going to get the hostages out until Iran feels it in the pocketbook.” Graham added that the subject of holding certain weapons transfers to Israel — a shipment of 2,000- and 500-pound bombs was delayed due to concerns they would be used in Rafah and the Biden administration threatened additional freezes — was also a topic of discussion.
In the room: Palantir CEO Alex Karp, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, Oracle CEO Safra Catz and Booz Allen Hamilton CEO Horacio Rozanski were in attendance, according to an individual familiar with the meeting. Lawmakers who attended included Graham and Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), John Cornyn (R-TX), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Katie Britt (R-AL).
basketball diaries
Matan Adelson’s hoop dreams for Hapoel Jerusalem
On a recent Friday afternoon, thousands of Jerusalemites made their way through the oppressive summer heat to the city’s Pais Mivtachim Arena for a pivotal semifinal game between Hapoel Jerusalem and the Israeli Basketball Super League’s flagship team, Maccabi Tel Aviv. A few hours from the arena to the north and south, IDF soldiers continued to battle Islamic terror groups Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, but inside, Hapoel fans cheered, chanted and sang passionately as their beloved team battled up and down the court. It was this unwavering support and thrilling environment that drew Matan Adelson – youngest son of Miriam and Sheldon Adelson – to buy out the team’s previous owners a year ago and take on the unique challenge of turning Hapoel, which has all the charm of a community team, into the face of Israeli basketball and, he hopes, an international brand, as he told Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash in a rare interview.
NBA dreams: As well as Hapoel, the Adelson family, now headed by Miriam, acquired the majority stake in the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks last November, in an agreement worth some $3.5 billion. “My goal from when I was a very little kid was to buy an NBA team one day, specifically the Lakers,” Adelson, 25, told JI.
A father’s wisdom: “But when I turned 18, my dad sat me down and said, ‘If you ever have the chance to buy the Lakers, don’t do it.’” When the younger Adelson asked why, his father replied: “Because the Lakers will always be the Lakers, they’re always going to be in the biggest market with the most championships and the sexiest brand, and you’ll have very little room to create value with the Lakers.” Adelson continued, “He told me to ‘buy a team that’s down here and build it up to here,’” lowering his hand and then raising it up. “By creating value, you’re going to learn a lot and you’re going to be very personally fulfilled.”
Bonus: The Jewish Telegraph Agencyspotlights NBA basketball reporter and commentator Malika Andrews, who is the host of ABC’s “NBA Countdown” pregame show as well as ESPN’s marquee “NBA Today.” Andrews is Jewish.
french twist
Israelis allowed back into French arms exhibit after court reverses ban
A French court on Tuesday overturned a ban that had blocked Israeli companies from participating in the Eurosatory defense exhibition, on the second day of the event, which ends on Friday. The Paris Commercial Court reversed all bans on the entry of Israelis to the event, determining that they are discriminatory, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. Patrick Klugman, a lawyer on behalf of the Israel-France Chamber of Commerce, which petitioned the Commercial Court, posted the ruling on X, saying that the ruling “set the law straight on the matter.”
High-profile event: As of Tuesday afternoon, the Israeli delegation did not have plans to go to France, but the Defense Ministry said it is assessing what can be done. Eurosatory is one of the highest-profile exhibitions in the defense industry, and 74 Israeli companies had planned to participate, the vast majority of which planned to show their wares in an Israeli Defense Ministry booth.
Background: Last month, the French Defense Ministry announced that “conditions are no longer met to host Israeli companies at the show at a time when the President [Emmanuel Macron] is calling for Israel to cease operations in Rafah.” The ministry ordered the organizer, Coges Events, to ban Israeli companies from presenting. Russia and Belarus were also banned from participating.
the day after
Barbara Leaf says that ‘reality’ might force Israel to allow PA to govern Gaza
A senior State Department official suggested, in testimony before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee subcommittee hearing on the Middle East on Tuesday, that circumstances might force Israel to accede to the Palestinian Authority becoming the new governing authority in Gaza despite its strong objections, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Hamas projections: Barbara Leaf, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, also denied that Hamas had fully rejected a cease-fire proposal put forward by the U.S. and Israel and said the terrorist group cannot be fully defeated through military means, while pushing back against accusations that Israel is blocking humanitarian aid from moving into Gaza.
PA prospect: Leaf criticized the Israeli government for “insufficient planning” for the day after the war, but said that the U.S. has put together, and discussed with Israeli and Arab partners in the region, “concepts … we will be prepared to share with partners here shortly.” She suggested that despite Israeli resistance to the prospect of reinstalling the Palestinian Authority as the governing power in Gaza, the body might end up as the authority anyway. “I think reality has a way of pushing even those who can’t imagine a concept, such as the PA returning to Gaza,” Leaf said. “Reality has a way of intruding.”
primary colors
Running down the results of Tuesday’s primaries in Virginia, Oklahoma
The Republican primary in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District remained too close to call this morning, with state Sen. John McGuire leading Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) by just a few hundred votes. McGuire, however, declared victory shortly before midnight. If Good loses, he would be the first incumbent to face a successful primary challenge this cycle, and could request a recount, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Tuesday’s most-watched primary race: McGuire was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Good, the House Freedom Caucus chairman, was one of the few congressional Republicans who endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP presidential primary. He also made an enemy of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) last year when he backed McCarthy’s ouster. McGuire received support from AIPAC’s United Democracy Project super PAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition. Good had repeatedly voted against aid to Israel and rallied other Freedom Caucus members to do the same — making him a top target, especially for the RJC.
Virginia’s 10th Congressional District:State Sen. Suhas Subramanyam beat a large, divided field of candidates with 30.4% of the vote, besting two outspoken pro-Israel Jewish Democrats — Del. Dan Helmer and former House of Delegates Speaker Eileen-Filler Corn. Subramanyam was endorsed by outgoing Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA). Helmer came in a close second with 26.7% of the vote, while the Democratic Majority for Israel-backed Filler-Corn underperformed, coming in fourth with 9.3% of the vote, falling short of Atif Qarni, the former Virginia secretary of education who is an outspoken critic of Israel. Filler-Corn narrowly outperformed state Sen. Jennifer Boysko, another vocal Israel critic.
Virginia’s 7th District: A general election matchup is set between Eugene Vindman, a former Army colonel, international law expert and whistleblower, and former Navy SEAL Derrick Anderson. Anderson fended off a challenge from Cameron Hamilton, another former SEAL aligned with the Freedom Caucus who flip-flopped on support for aid to Israel. The 7th District is rated by the Cook Political Report as “Lean Democratic” in November. Vindman has proven a formidable fundraiser, pulling on a national network of anti-Trump donors.
Oklahoma: Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, easily fended off a challenge from businessman Paul Bondar, who spent over $5 million of his own money on his campaign.
membership drive
The Modern Orthodox shul that’s attracting a young crowd, especially post-Oct. 7
Polls in recent years show that synagogue attendance is dwindling for the majority of American Jewish young adults — especially those unmarried and without children — who either don’t attend regularly, or hop around between different synagogues without joining and paying dues. Yet people under 36 are increasingly flocking to the Upper East Side Orthodox synagogue Altneu — and committing to the $1,200 per person, per year price tag, which increases to $1,800 per person, per year for those over 36, eJewish Philanthropy’s Haley Cohen reports.
Broader rise in engagement: The synagogue’s leaders attribute this both to their own efforts to develop a welcoming, attractive community and to the broader rise in engagement that is being seen throughout the Jewish world after the Oct. 7 terror attacks and accompanying rise in global antisemitism, what the Jewish Federations of North America has referred to as “The Surge.”
New location: Altneu was founded in 2022 by Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt, 36, and his wife, journalist Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, 32. Until this spring, Altneu had no permanent location. In March, after extensive fundraising from a board that includes bankers, CEOs and a Blackstone executive, Altneu purchased a Tudor Revival townhouse on East 70th Street for $34.5 million. In an interview with eJP, Chizhik-Goldschmidt noted the significance of the new location’s timing — which she said will allow for more extensive classes and programming. “Post-Oct. 7,” she said, “there are those who are giving towards fighting antisemitism and looking outward. Now is also a time to focus inward, not just on strengthening Diaspora Jewry, but building sustainable, creative, innovative, forward-thinking communities that are not shells of themselves but real and vibrant.”
Read the full story here and sign up for eJewishPhilanthropy’s Your Daily Phil newsletter here.
Worthy Reads
Russia Redux: In The Free Press, Niall Ferguson posits that the world sits on the cusp of a second Cold War, and that the U.S. is poised to fill the role that the Soviets did last century. “We can tell ourselves that our many contemporary pathologies are the results of outside forces waging a multi-decade campaign of subversion. They have undoubtedly tried, just as the CIA tried its best to subvert Soviet rule in the Cold War. Yet we also need to contemplate the possibility that we have done this to ourselves — just as the Soviets did many of the same things to themselves. It was a common liberal worry during the Cold War that we might end up becoming as ruthless, secretive, and unaccountable as the Soviets because of the exigencies of the nuclear arms race. Little did anyone suspect that we would end up becoming as degenerate as the Soviets, and tacitly give up on winning the cold war now underway.” [FreePress]
Pressing for a Plan: Bloomberg’s Marc Champion suggests that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is running out of time to present a viable “day-after” plan for Gaza. “The prime minister says he’s doing what’s best for Israel, and make no mistake he has strong public support for insisting on Hamas’s destruction. At the same time, he has kept a door ajar for US-led mediation of a ceasefire agreement, endorsing the latest proposal while saying Israel reserves the right to return to war. Hamas, too, appears to have balked at some of the terms. This ambiguity should not hold for much longer. Protests within Israel demanding that Netanyahu secure the release of all remaining hostages and call early elections have been getting bigger. Outside Israel, blowback for the high levels of civilian Palestinian deaths and suffering is growing, too. Meanwhile, an end to the ‘hot’ phase of the war will inevitably raise questions as to Gaza’s future rule and reconstruction that, in the absence of a substantive day-after plan, Netanyahu will struggle to answer.” [Bloomberg]
Foreign Policy Shift: In The Wall Street Journal, Walter Russell Mead proposes the Biden administration reconsider its foreign policy objectives and strategy. “American foreign policy must shift out of the managerial, reactive mode and become more proactive. The revisionist powers need to spend less time planning how to discomfit America and more time worrying about what the U.S. has planned for them. The Middle East offers one option to change the momentum. Iran, racing toward nuclear weapons but not yet in possession of them, is overextended and the weakest of the major revisionist powers. Teaching Iran that supporting the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah is poor strategy would do more to stabilize the Middle East than 100 painfully negotiated Security Council resolutions about Gaza. It would also instill some healthy caution into the calculations of Moscow and Beijing.” [WSJ]
Around the Web
Bolstering Bowman: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ (D-NY) campaign committee gave $2,000 to Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s (D-NY) reelection campaign.
Brad’s Bid: New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is preparing to mount a primary challenge to Mayor Eric Adams next year, with a formal announcement expected as soon as next month.
Long Island Infighting: The New York Times spotlights recent tensions between Democratic primary rivals in New York’s 1st Congressional District, where Nancy Goroff and John Avlon are sparring for the chance to take on Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) in November.
Attorneys’ Action: New York Attorney General Tish James and the district attorneys from all 62 counties in the state signed onto a statement condemning the recent rise in antisemitism.
Campus Beat: Emerson College is planning staff layoffs for the upcoming fiscal year, citing a decline in enrollment at the Boston school; Jewish students at the school have raised concerns over safety and campus climate issues, and the president last month offered to pay bail for anti-Israel students arrested while protesting on the campus.
Camelot to TikTok:Town & Countryinterviews Jack Kennedy Schlossberg, who in recent months has picked up a social media following for his zany and at times outlandish posts.
An Appetizing Exhibit: A traveling exhibition on the history of the American Jewish deli has opened at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.
Sister Act:The New York Timesspotlights sisters Maria and Sonia Friedman, respectively the producer and director of the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along,” which picked up four Tony Awards on Sunday.
Canadian Concern: International March of the Living and Canadian Jewish organizations are raising concerns about a summer camp hosted by the anti-Israel encampment at Montreal’s McGill University that is glorifying terrorism.
Down Under Dilemma: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned an attack this week on the office of a Jewish member of Parliament, calling the incident “an escalation of the attacks that we’ve seen.”
Hostage Speaks: Released Israeli hostage and former peace activist Ada Sagi told the BBC that her kidnapping and the Oct. 7 terror attacks destroyed her belief in the possibility of Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Jail Time: Iranian human rights activist and 2023 Nobel Peace Prize-winner Narges Mohammadi, who has been jailed since 2021, was sentenced to an additional year in Iran’s notorious Evin prison after being found guilty of “propaganda activities against the regime.”
Hezbollah Threat: Hezbollah published aerial footage of Haifa and the surrounding areas that it claimed was captured by unmanned drones surveilling the region.
Smoke Show: The Wall Street Journal looks at the cigarette-smuggling rings that have turned aid convoys into targets of armed gangs and local criminals in Gaza.
Pier Problems: Aid organizations operating in Gaza said that the U.S.-constructed pier off the enclave’s coast is likely to cease operations earlier than expected after largely failing in its goal to increase the amount of aid being brought into Gaza.
Sunken Cost: A Greek-owned merchant ship struck by Houthi militants last week in the Red Sea sunk; one crew member was believed to have been killed in the attack.
Remembering: Elinor Fuchs, a theater critic turned scholar of dramaturgy at Yale, died at 91. French actress Anouk Aimée, known for her roles in “A Man and a Woman” and “La Dolce Vita,” died at 92.
Pic of the Day
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) visited the Nova music festival exhibition in Manhattan, New York, on Tuesday.
The visit to the Nova exhibit, Jeffries said, “really brings home, in just a visceral way, how violent, how brutal and how inhumane that attack was on 10/7.”
Birthdays
Human rights activist and advocate for women and minorities in Iran, Marjan Keypour Greenblatt…
Attorney, investment banker, film producer and former deputy mayor of NYC, Kenneth Lipper turns 83… Rabbi emeritus of Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick, N.J., Rabbi Bennett F. Miller… Historian of the Jews in Muslim lands in the modern era, Yaron Tsur turns 76… Retired territory sales manager for GlaxoSmithKline, Harry E. Wenkert… Retired president and CEO of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Jay Sanderson turns 67… Inna N. Zalevsky… Overland Park, Kan., resident, Kathi Shaivitz Rosenberg… Former director of communications for Kings Bay Y, Adrienne M. Knoll… Member of the European Jewish Parliament for Latvia, Valery Engel, Ph.D. turns 63… OB-GYN physician specializing in reproductive endocrinology and infertility, Jessica Rosenberg Brown, MD… Co-founder of Centerview Partners, Blair Effron turns 62… Singer-songwriter, actress and television personality, Paula Abdul turns 62… Former member of Knesset for the Zionist Union party, Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin turns 54… Co-founder of nine venture-backed companies in the telecom, high-tech, pharmaceuticals, energy, water, and biotechnology industries, Andrew Perlman turns 49… Director of the export control department in Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Eitan Weiss… Staff writer at The New Yorker, Isaac Chotiner… Director of affinities and major giving at the Minneapolis Jewish Federation, Tslil Shtulsaft… Founder of the JSwipe dating app, David Austin Yarus… Rhythmic gymnast from Israel who competed in the 2008 (Beijing), 2012 (London) and 2016 (Rio) Olympics, Neta Rivkin turns 33… Senior program officer at Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Anna Langer… COO at P3 Technologies, Alex Jakubowski… Finance director at M/O Strategies, Cydney Couch… Singer, popular on video and streaming services, known as Skye for short, Daniel Skye turns 24…
Recent Daily Kickoff Newsletters
