Daily Kickoff
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we highlight last night’s Lamplighter Awards and interview author Amir Tibon about his upcoming book about the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks. We also cover Stephanie Hallett’s confirmation hearing to be ambassador to Bahrain and spotlight former U.S. Ambassador to Costa Rica Fitz Haney’s new line of Israeli agave-based spirits. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: House Speaker Mike Johnson, Mark Zuckerberg and Robert Kraft.
What We’re Watching
- President Joe Biden is marking the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Violence Against Women Act at a White House ceremony at 5:45 p.m. Leaders from the National Council of Jewish Women, Shalom Bayit, the Jewish Coalition on Domestic Abuse, the SRE network and Jewish Women International will be at the event.
- Former President Donald Trump is making his first campaign swing since Tuesday’s debate, delivering remarks at 2 p.m. ET in Tucson, Ariz., and later traveling to Los Angeles to headline a private fundraising event.
- Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Trump’s running mate, is headlining two fundraisers in New York City today hosted by top backers in the financial industry. The first is a $10,000-a-plate-minimum breakfast hosted by investor Scott Bessent, Morgan Stanley’s Jonathan Burkan, Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and Norm Champ, a former director at the Securities and Exchange Commission. The second lunch event features investor Keith Rabois, Palantir advisor Jacob Helberg and Burkan as co-hosts.
- Vice President Kamala Harris is speaking at a campaign event in Charlotte, N.C., this afternoon at 3:40 p.m. ET.
What You Should Know
As klezmer music echoed through the Andrew Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C., last night, dozens of members of the House and Senate gathered alongside more than 100 Jewish leaders, ambassadors and politicos for the annual American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) Lamplighter Awards gala. At the cocktail reception, guests noshed on kosher charcuterie and sushi as they heard remarks from several pro-Israel stalwarts in Congress including Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Rob Menendez (D-NJ), Tim Kennedy (R-NY), and Joe Morelle (D-NY).
During dinner, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was presented with the Lamplighter Leadership Award, a menorah made from rockets fired by Hamas into Israel, for his support for the U.S.-Israel relationship.
“I stand with Israel because it’s a matter of faith for me and it always will be,” Johnson told attendees. “America’s support for Israel has been and must remain bipartisan,” he said. Johnson recalled hosting the inaugural menorah lighting inside the Capitol last Hanukkah, alongside Rabbi Levi Shemtov, who leads American Friends of Lubavitch. “I was surprised to learn that that did not happen before,” Johnson said. “I’m glad we began that tradition.”
Speaking before Johnson, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said, “There is a special relationship between the U.S. and Israel and our commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad and unbreakable,” adding that he and Johnson are committed to ensuring that support for Israel “remains bipartisan.”
In his speech, Jeffries referred to this week’s Torah portion, which concludes with the obligation to “remember what Amalek did to you on the way” out of Egypt. He said that like Amalek, “the enemy nation of the people of Israel [continues] throughout generations to rear its ugly head.”
“But the Jewish people are resilient and we will stand up for Israel’s right to defend herself. We will stand up to make sure that we crush antisemitism and bury it in the ground never to rise again,” Jeffries said to applause from the crowd.
The usually celebratory event was held against a somber backdrop this year, on the 23rd anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — and a few weeks before the first anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, while more than 100 hostages remain held in Gaza. The evening opened with a moment of silence for the victims of Sept. 11, followed by a United States Marine Corps Color Guard tribute. Several Gold Star families and members of the U.S. armed forces were in attendance.
Jeffrey DeBoer, chief executive of the Real Estate Roundtable, was also honored at the event. Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Michael Herzog, who was among nearly two dozen ambassadors in attendance last night, delivered remarks to the crowd. Speakers also included Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism; and Shelley Greenspan, the White House liaison to the American Jewish community, who delivered remarks on behalf of President Joe Biden.
bookshelf
Standing at the gates of Gaza – and telling the world what happened

If there is one book that eloquently sums up the personal, national and historical tragedies endured by the Israeli people on the darkest day since the country’s founding, it could be the forthcoming account by Israeli journalist and author Amir Tibon. In The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival and Hope on Israel’s Borderlands, out Sept. 24, Tibon, Haaretz’s diplomatic correspondent and a resident of Nahal Oz, one of Israel’s now-devastated southern border communities, captures the personal horrors he and his young family endured on Oct. 7, as well as recapping the brave efforts of his father, a retired IDF general, to reach the family. Tibon also methodically lays out the sequence of political and strategic events that brought the country to that nightmare point, as well as the grueling war that has lasted nearly a year, Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash reports.
Looking back: “I didn’t want to participate in the construction of a narrative in which the history of the Israeli communities attacked on Oct. 7 began on Oct. 7,” Tibon told JI. “These communities, including Nahal Oz, have existed on the border for decades. Nahal Oz was founded in 1953, some of the other communities that were attacked were actually created even before the State of Israel, in the 1940s. They have a long history of life alongside the Gaza border, with a lot of ups and downs, with good periods of relative quiet and coexistence and dreams of peace, and more difficult periods of war and conflict,” Tibon explained, adding, “I felt that without telling that story, you cannot really understand Oct. 7.”