Daily Kickoff
Good Tuesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report from last night’s “In Concert Against Hate” event hosted by the Anti-Defamation League at Washington’s Kennedy Center, and profile Israel’s new defense minister, Israel Katz. We talk to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer about the potential avenues to pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act and report on how Senate Democrats are voting on resolutions tomorrow that would limit arms sales to Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Mikie Sherrill, Irwin Cotler and Douglas Murray.
What We’re Watching
- Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Peter Welch (D-VT) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) are holding a press conference on Capitol Hill at noon today to discuss tomorrow’s expected votes on resolutions banning arms sales to Israel.
- White House senior advisor Amos Hochstein landed in Beirut this morning for meetings aimed at ending Israel’s war with Hezbollah. Last night and this morning, the Iran-backed Lebanese terror group fired missiles at central Israel. Five people in the city of Bnei Brak, just east of Tel Aviv, were injured by shrapnel from a missile interception. Also last night, Israeli airstrikes hit central Beirut in an area where U.N. and Lebanese government buildings are located, Lebanese state-run media reported.Meanwhile, a senior Lebanese official said that both Beirut and Hezbollah had accepted the terms of a U.S. proposal to end the conflict.
- The G20 concludes in Rio de Janeiro today. Speaking at the confab yesterday, President Joe Biden called on member nations to pressure Hamas to accept a cease-fire agreement to end the conflict with Israel, saying that the Gaza terror group “is currently refusing this deal.”
What You Should Know
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts rolled out the red carpet — or rather, blue carpet — as celebrities and Jewish activists traveled to the nation’s capital Monday night for a star-studded evening in support of the Anti-Defamation League’s 30th annual “In Concert Against Hate,” Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports from the event, where tunes from “Fiddler on the Roof” and a rendition of “Oseh Shalom” by the National Symphony Orchestra echoed through the halls.
Ahead of the sold-out concert — which featured performances by Israeli Eurovision star Eden Golan and nine-time Grammy Award-nominated singer Sia — celebrities, event honorees, philanthropists and Jewish leaders appeared on the blue carpet where several chatted with JI. Ben Stiller, who emceed the evening, said that times are “frightening,” with “antisemitism being at such an all-time high.
“It’s something I never thought I’d experience in my life. I grew up pretty sheltered from that in New York City,” Stiller told JI. “Right now we have to be positive and work toward unifying together, reaching out to people we disagree with and calling out hate when it happens.” While many other Jewish figures in Hollywood have remained silent about rising antisemitism, Stiller said he is not disappointed in his colleagues. “Everyone has their own personal journey and has to figure it out for themselves,” the “Zoolander” actor said. “For me, it is important.”
In a separate conversation on the blue carpet, music executive Scooter Braun, who was honored last night with the ADL’s Spotlight Award for his efforts in bringing the Nova Music Festival exhibition to U.S. audiences, told JI, “It’s important to be here because we have to be a voice that’s louder than the people trying to divide us.” Braun has frequently condemned the silence from the music industry after more than 400 people were murdered at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7, 2023.
“My message is hate never wins … all it takes is good people coming together,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said on the blue carpet.
Inside the concert hall, 2,400 attendees looked on as several honorees were presented awards for taking a stand against hate. In addition to Braun, the awardees were: Mehnaz Afridi, director of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College; Charles Chavis, a civil rights activist whose work focuses on Black-Jewish relations; and Holocaust survivor Rosette Goldstein. The event also honored four survivors of the Nova Music Festival — Ofir Amir, Danielle Gelbaum, Tomer Meir and Daniel Dvir — and three U.S. college students who have been on the front lines of combatting rising campus antisemitism: Noa Fay (Columbia University), Luda Isakharov (University of Oregon) and Einav Tsach (University of Maryland).
VIPs spotted in the audience included Uri Levine, co-founder of Waze (Levine told JI he traveled from Israel specially for the event); Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism; Josh Kadden, CEO of the Nova Exhibition; Ari Ackerman, co-owner of the Miami Marlins; Katherine Kallinis, co-founder of Georgetown Cupcake; and CNN journalists Dana Bash and Wolf Blitzer.
Also in attendance was a group of members of Congress that included Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Kathy Manning (D-NC), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Joyce Beatty (D-OH) and Don Bacon (R-NE). Several members of The Hostage and Missing Families Forum were in the crowd, representing the 101 Israelis who remain in Hamas captivity in Gaza.
on the hill
Many Senate Democrats decline to preview their votes on Sanders’ Israel resolutions
A number of Senate Democrats are declining to preview how they plan to vote on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) resolutions blocking more than $20 billion in U.S. aid to Israel when they come up for votes, anticipated on Wednesday, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report.
Cutting back: Sanders has put forward six resolutions, but sources familiar with the matter told JI that only three of the six resolutions will be given floor consideration, but that the finalists had not been chosen as of Monday afternoon.
Scoop: The progressive Israel advocacy group J Street is urging senators to vote in favor of Sanders’ resolutions, a lobbying boost for Sanders’ effort and a marked shift further to the left for J Street, JI’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Bonus: Ahead of tomorrow’s Senate votes, Sanders penned a Washington Post op-ed about the resolutions.
exclusive
Dan Goldman to take over House antisemitism task force chair from Kathy Manning
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) will take over as co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism from Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC), who is leaving Congress at the end of the term, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Changing of the guard: “I am honored to be appointed Co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism – a vital Congressional institution in the fight to stop antisemitism,” Goldman said in a statement. “I will do my best to emulate Congresswoman Kathy Manning’s leadership and tireless advocacy on this issue, especially in the face of rising antisemitism following the October 7 terror attacks. We must never waver in our resolve to stamp out hate in all its forms and build a better nation for all of us.”
aaa arguments
Schumer says that defense bill is ‘the only way’ to pass Antisemitism Awareness Act
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that incorporating the Antisemitism Awareness Act into the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act is “the only way” to get the legislation passed in the Senate and sent to President Joe Biden’s desk, even though House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has publicly rejected the idea, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod report.
One path: Schumer made the comments to JI on Monday after being asked if he expects a vote on the legislation during the lame-duck session. “We want it on the NDAA, that’s where it should go. It’s the only way to get it done,” Schumer said.
dem debate, day two
AOC receives widespread criticism over AIPAC accusation
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is facing continued backlash over a post on Sunday suggesting that AIPAC was responsible in part for Democrats’ election losses, and that Democrats could be more successful in the future if they shunned the group and its positions, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Taking flak: New critics included Georgia state Rep. Esther Panitch and Arizona state Rep. Alma Hernandez. “If you are calling being pro-Israel a ‘wildly unpopular agenda,’ you have learned nothing from this last election loss. The American people REJECTED the far left’s bs claims against Israel,” Panitch said.
profile
Israel Katz, the self-proclaimed Herod of Israeli politics and Israel’s new defense minister
When Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz visited the IDF Northern Command for the first time since assuming the military’s top job last Wednesday, his spokesperson released a video of him with IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and officers, talking about the war in Lebanon. “We will not allow any arrangement that does not include achieving the war’s objectives — which are disarming Hezbollah, pushing them beyond the Litani River and creating conditions for the safe return of northern residents to their homes,” Katz said. Disarming Hezbollah, in fact, is not one of the war’s objectives as determined by the Cabinet. By the following morning, a source with knowledge of the matter told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Katz not to make such a claim again. The surprising declaration was not out of character for Katz, who has long been nicknamed a “bulldozer,” and has famously called himself Herod, after the Roman-Jewish king known for his ambitious building projects, including Caesarea and the Second Temple.
Yes-man or no? When Netanyahu dismissed former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant earlier this month and replaced him with Katz, much of the media coverage in English and Hebrew described him as someone who would be a “yes-man,” and would not clash with the prime minister in leading the war. The prevailing analysis in Israeli media was that Gallant’s sacking was about the then-defense minister’s insistence on conscripting Haredim to the IDF, whereas Katz would make sure to preserve the governing coalition, which includes two Haredi parties that oppose mandatory military service for their voter base. Yet, on Friday, Katz’s office announced that it would send 7,000 conscription orders to Haredim, seeing through a prior decision made by his predecessor; the first 1,000 draft orders were sent this week. “Yes-man” was not a term typically used to describe Katz in his 26 years in the Knesset. While Katz has not had many clashes with Netanyahu, he is known in Israel for his confrontational style.
lit crit
National Book Foundation facing scrutiny from Jewish groups over Paul Coates award
The National Book Foundation is facing criticism from several Jewish groups for its decision to move forward in presenting a lifetime achievement award to Paul Coates, the founder of Black Classic Press, at its annual reception later this week — even after he was recently found to have republished antisemitic and homophobic texts. Coates has come under scrutiny in recent months for including in his catalog an antisemitic screed called The Jewish Onslaught, published in 1993 by Tony Martin, a former professor of Africana studies at Wellesley College, who sought to uphold a widely discredited conspiracy theory alleging Jewish domination of the Atlantic slave trade, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Community reactions: Jewish advocacy groups, including some that Martin singled out in his book nearly three decades ago, voiced frustration with the decision, especially amid heightened concerns over increasing incidents of antisemitism in the literary and publishing worlds in recent months. The Anti-Defamation League took issue with the award in a statement to JI. Naomi Firestone-Teeter, the CEO of the Jewish Book Council, which launched an initiative last February to help report antisemitic incidents in the book industry, said the award “speaks to the double standard of how antisemitism, Jews and Israelis have been treated in the literary and publishing world.”
Worthy Reads
At Arm’s Length: In The Wall Street Journal, JINSA’s Michael Makovsky and Blaise Misztal call on the Biden administration to lift its hold on the deliveries of some weapons to Israel. “Although President Biden has helped Israel defend itself — deploying U.S. military assets, which have helped shoot down Iranian projectiles — he has held back from helping Israel win. Israel seeks to dismantle Hamas, degrade Hezbollah and defang Tehran’s nuclear program. The Biden administration by contrast has sought to end the war immediately, for political expedience and out of strategic shortsightedness. … Perhaps the expiration date of Mr. Biden’s policy is already dawning on the president. The State Department last week determined that it won’t carry out its threat made in a letter to Jerusalem last month to improve humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip or else be subject to an arms embargo. The administration should now go a step further: providing Israel with the weapons it needs to defeat the Iranian axis that threatens the free world.” [WSJ]
Sickening Strain: In USA Today, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt reflects on his recent trip to Amsterdam in the aftermath of a spate of antisemitic attacks targeting Israeli soccer fans in the city. “Anti-Zionist calls for Israel’s eradication have not only paved the way for antisemitism but also provide a rationale for it. That is because Zionism – supporting Israel’s right to exist – is indivisible from Jewish identity. And so, slandering the Jewish state as illegitimate or evil easily extends to the notion that all Jews, by association, are illegitimate and evil. As populations across Europe are increasingly radicalized by anti-Zionist propaganda flooding their news and social media feeds through platforms like Al Jazeera or TikTok, we shouldn’t be surprised when violent imagery explodes into real violence. In the United States, it began with campus protests. Then it extended to faux wanted posters and red triangles defacing synagogues and homes. Now, months later, what remains are the core organizations that openly embrace the hate-filled, violent ideologies of Hamas, the Iranian regime and Hezbollah. As history has shown us time and time again, antisemitism starts with the Jews – but never ends with the Jews. It is a virus that eventually will sicken entire societies. It will destroy everything in its path.” [USAToday]
Word on the Street
The Trump transition team is mulling the selection of Kevin Warsh as Treasury secretary and Scott Bessent as head of the White House’s National Economic Council; Bessent is also being considered for the Treasury role, along with transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick and Marc Rowan…
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) entered New Jersey’s gubernatorial race, days after Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) announced his candidacy…
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, who has spearheaded efforts to fight antisemitism in the commonwealth, opted against a bid for governor next year, choosing instead to run for reelection…
Asked by “PBS NewsHour” reporter Nick Schifrin about the Biden administration’s legacy in the Middle East, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that “standing up for Israel in its hour of need at a moment when its enemies were descending upon it has made a major difference for the good from the perspective of the United States”…
A group of White House staffers not directly involved in Mideast policy wrote a letter expressing their opposition to the Biden administration’s level of support for Israel…
The State Department announced sanctions on several organizations and companies involved in the construction of West Bank settlements…
President Joe Biden condemned the weekend neo-Nazi march in Columbus, Ohio…
The brother of a man who died while facing a series of arson charges stemming from 2019 fires at Jewish institutions around Boston pleaded guilty to obstructing the investigation…
Tufts University suspended the campus’ chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine through 2027, citing the organization’s repeated violations of university policy…
The University of California, Berkeley removed from its website a course description for the upcoming spring semester that praised authoritarian governments and referred to Hamas as a “revolutionary resistance force”…
eJewishPhilanthropy interviewed Dan Tadmor following the announcement that Tadmor, previously the CEO of ANU-Museum of the Jewish People, was named the incoming CEO of Philadelphia’s Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, effective Jan. 1…
In The Atlantic, Reya Hart, whose father, Mickey Hart, played drums for the Grateful Dead, reflected on a childhood of meals on the road while her family followed her father on tour…
Canadian authorities thwarted an October plot by Iran to assassinate former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler…
The Netherlands and France held a meeting focused on antisemitism on the sidelines of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council convening; American Jewish Committee Europe Managing Director Simone Rodan-Benzaquen presented to the group…
Berlin’s chief of police said that visibly Jewish and gay people should avoid neighborhoods in the German capital with large migrant Muslim populations, citing safety concerns…
A German architecture foundation will no longer give an award to a British artist who signed onto an open letter advocating for the boycott of Israeli cultural institutions…
The Wall Street Journal looks at how Jews from Western Europe are increasingly finding safe haven in Eastern European countries…
Norway is expected to ask the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory opinion condemning Israel for its cessation of ties with UNRWA, the U.N. agency tasked with working with Palestinians…
UNRWA said that a Gaza aid convoy consisting of roughly 100 vehicles was “violently looted”; the U.N. agency did not say who was behind the incident, in which the convoy’s drivers were forced to offload items at gunpoint…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Israel struck an Iranian nuclear weapons facility in Parchin during a wide-ranging strike against Iranian military sites and aerial-defense systems…
CNN interviewed American pilots who participated in the multinational effort to shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles and drones that were fired at Israel during Tehran’s April attack…
Israeli forces operating in southern Lebanon are finding stockpiles of Russian-made weapons amassed by Hezbollah in recent years for intended use against Israel…
Writer Douglas Murray is joining the Manhattan Institute as a senior fellow and the think tank’s City Journal publication as a contributing editor…
Politico’s Daniel Lippman and his wife, Sophia Narrett, welcomed a baby girl…
Travel writer Arthur Frommer, whose Europe on 5 Dollars a Day and subsequent eponymous guidebooks revolutionized the travel industry, died at 95…
Pic of the Day
Actor Ben Stiller was the host of last night’s Anti-Defamation League “In Concert Against Hate” at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall in Washington, D.C.
Birthdays
Editor-in-chief of Time magazine, Samuel P. Jacobs…
Retired New York State Supreme Court judge, husband of “Judge Judy,” Jerry Sheindlin turns 91… Attorney, investment banker and major fundraiser for the Democratic Party, he served as U.S. ambassador to the U.K. in the Obama administration, Louis B. Susman turns 87… Professor of chemistry at Stanford University, Richard Neil Zare turns 85… Fifteen-term member in the U.S. House of Representatives (D-NY) until 2013, he is now a partner in Gotham Government Relations, Gary Ackerman turns 82… Fashion designer, Calvin Klein turns 82… Founder and president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, James J. Zogby turns 79… U.S. ambassador to Germany from 2022 until this past July, following 18 years as president of the University of Pennsylvania, Amy Gutmann turns 75… Los Angeles based real estate investor, Sydney Ilene Cetner… Owner of Patty’s Piano Studio in Santa Monica, Calif., Patricia Fiden… Cosmetic dentist and chairman of pharma company Akelos, Inc., Steven Fox, DDS… California state senator until 2022, Robert Myles “Bob” Hertzberg turns 70… Dean and professor of Jewish history, literature and law at Yeshiva University, Rabbi Ephraim Kanarfogel turns 69… Academy Award-winning screenwriter, producer, director and lyricist, best known as the writer of “Being John Malkovich,” Charlie Kaufman turns 66… President of Sunrise Financial Group, Nathan Low… Retired member of the Knesset for the Kulanu party, he served as Israel’s minister of finance for five years, Moshe Kahlon turns 64… Officer of NORPAC New York and a partner in a Brooklyn-based law firm, Trudy Stern… Co-president of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Lisa Eisen… Director of state and local government affairs for SAIC, Eric Finkbeiner… Chief impact officer at Forbes, Seth Cohen… Member of the New York State Assembly since 2005, Andrew D. Hevesi turns 51… New York Times best-selling novelist, she is also a professor at Rutgers University-Camden, Lauren Grodstein turns 49… Gymnast, she was a member of the Magnificent Seven, the women’s U.S. gymnastics team at the 1996 Summer Olympics, Kerri Allyson Strug turns 47… Associate director at Northwestern University Hillel, Rachel Hillman… Former congressional staffer, Michael Dale-Stein turns 37… Professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour, John Maxwell Homa turns 34… Managing director at Climate Power, John D. Axelrod… European deals reporter at the Financial Times based in London, Ivan Levingston…
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