Daily Kickoff: How Israel heard Trump’s warning to Hamas
Good Tuesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we interview incoming Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman about how he plans to approach antisemitic hate crimes, and look at where the Antisemitic Awareness Act stands in the final weeks before Congress goes on winter recess. We talk to incoming Senate Democrats about how they would have voted on recent legislation suspending arms sales to Israel, and look at a new Anti-Defamation League report on the sharp rise in Islamic terror in the U.S. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Candida Gertler, Omri Casspi and Sasson Shaulov.
What We’re Watching
- A funeral for Omer Neutra will take place today in Long Island, a day after the IDF confirmed that the Israeli-American hostage was killed on Oct. 7, 2023, and his body taken to Gaza, where it remains.
- The American Jewish Committee and the Austrian Embassy in Washington are hosting their annual joint Hanukkah party tonight.
What You Should Know
President-elect Donald Trump’s statement yesterday calling for an immediate release of the remaining 101 hostages in Gaza is being met with enthusiasm — and questions — in Israel, Jewish Insider‘s Lahav Harkov reports.
“If the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY,” Trump posted on his Truth Social site. “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”
Trump’s remarks came days after the restarting of cease-fire and hostage-release negotiations in the wake of last week’s announced cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah. Egypt, backed by the U.S., is leading the effort this time, with Qatar and Turkey involved, but an Israeli official told JI that no real progress has been made.
Trump’s statement came hours after the IDF announced that U.S. citizen Omer Neutra, who was thought to have been alive and taken hostage by Hamas, was killed on Oct. 7. Hamas is believed to be holding his body. Over the summer, Neutra’s parents addressed the Republican National Convention, pleading for their son’s freedom.
In addition, Hamas released a video on Saturday of another American hostage, Edan Alexander, who called on Trump to “use [his] influence and the full power of the United States to negotiate for our freedom.”
Trump’s remarks also came a day after Sara and Yair Netanyahu met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and discussed “the inhumanity of Hamas terrorists holding our citizens hostage under harsh conditions,” according to a post the wife of the Israeli prime minister made on Instagram. “I emphasized the urgent need to act for their release and swift return.”
Families of the hostages welcomed Trump’s statement, but most leading Israeli political figures kept quiet. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar thanked Trump on Tuesday. Behind the scenes, Israeli officials expressed hope to JI that if the current round of talks is unsuccessful, there could be a situation similar to Iran’s release of American hostages, which came immediately after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1980.
It’s no secret that Trump wants a cease-fire before he enters office so that he does not have to deal with a major conflict in his first months in office. The question remains: How does Trump plan to secure the release of the 101 hostages still in Gaza, at least half of whom Israeli officials, citing intelligence, believe are still alive?
After all, much of Gaza is rubble and Israel has significantly degraded Hamas as a fighting force, but no hostages have been released through diplomatic efforts in more than a year.
Some avenues of pressure on Hamas may be via Qatar and Iran, the Palestinian terrorist group’s main funders. Trump has talked about restoring a maximum-pressure sanctions campaign targeting Iran, but when it comes to Qatar, the president-elect has been friendly, including hosting the Qatari emir in Florida in September and appointing former Qatar lobbyist Pam Bondi as attorney general and Steve Witkoff, who has financial ties to Doha, as Middle East envoy.
What remains is Hamas’ current source of power – humanitarian aid. The Biden administration has insisted that Israel allow in hundreds of trucks of aid each day, some of which is commandeered by Hamas and local gangs. UNRWA, the U.N. agency providing aid to the Palestinians, suspended deliveries this week because of violent looting. Reducing the aid could put pressure on Hamas, as retired IDF Maj.-Gen. Giora Eiland has suggested. At the same time, that plan could leave Israel vulnerable in other ways, for instance in the International Criminal Court – which Republicans have vowed to hit hard with sanctions – and among other international institutions and Western states.
attorney interview
Newly elected Los Angeles DA vows to crack down on antisemitic hate crimes
When Nathan Hochman is sworn in today as Los Angeles’ district attorney, after defeating incumbent George Gascón by nearly 20 points, the longtime criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor will be wearing a suit with a yellow ribbon pinned to it. “The minute you stop thinking about the hostages in Gaza is the minute that you’ll start thinking about a whole lot of other things, and then they will be forgotten,” Hochman told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch in a recent interview.
Close to home: The homage to the hostages still held in Gaza 14 months after the Oct. 7 terror attacks comes from a place of genuine concern from Hochman, 61, who grew up steeped in the Los Angeles Jewish community. It also hints at how the war in Gaza, thousands of miles from L.A., played an unlikely but important role in this race. Following months of raucous anti-Israel activity in which protesters faced few consequences, Hochman had an easy pitch to Jewish voters — that he’ll take rising antisemitism seriously.
Safety first: Hochman’s message to voters was that Gascón, a self-described progressive prosecutor elected in 2020 amid a groundswell of anti-police sentiment on the left, was out of touch with the everyday concerns of mainstream Angelenos. “Safety is probably the crossover issue of 2024,” Hochman said.
black Friday shopping
The mystery of Biden’s anti-Israel book purchase
President Joe Biden left a Nantucket, Mass., bookstore on Friday holding a copy of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, a controversial book by the Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi, an anti-Israel scholar who recently retired from Columbia University. The purchase drew immediate ire from pro-Israel advocates, and it sparked fury among anti-Israel activists as well. What’s not clear is how the book found its way into the hands of Biden, who has often described himself as a Zionist,Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
What happened?: A Nantucket Bookworks employee who answered the phone on Monday declined to say if Biden picked up the book himself or if someone — a family member, an employee or someone else — suggested it to him. John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, told reporters on Monday that Biden’s purchase of the book reflects only an interest in reading and learning about history. A White House spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment about why Biden picked up the book.
Read the full story here.
on the hill
Antisemitism Awareness Act remains stalled as lawmakers work to finalize defense bill
Talks over the future of the Antisemitism Awareness Act remain largely where they stood prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, with a fast-approaching deadline for the defense and national security bill to which the legislation could be attached, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
No movement: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had proposed adding the legislation to the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, rather than holding a stand-alone vote on the Senate floor on the bill. But House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) rejected that proposal, insisting on a stand-alone vote for the legislation that passed the House with bipartisan support months ago. Both sides are sticking to their guns, with still no clear path forward; the final NDAA text could be released as soon as this week.
Pressure push: In recent days, a mobile billboard truck was spotted outside Schumer’s apartment in Brooklyn and outside his Manhattan office with a countdown to how many legislative days Schumer has left “to keep his word,” to pass the legislation. According to a disclaimer at the bottom of the sign, the truck was paid for by the same group of unknown backers, calling itself the Florence Avenue Initiative, that has spent millions on advertisements pressing Schumer to bring the bill up for a vote.
voting patterns
How would incoming Senate Democrats have voted on Sanders’ anti-Israel resolutions?
A new group of six Democrats will soon enter the Senate — a shift that could impact the level of support for measures like those Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) led last month to halt certain U.S. weapons shipments to Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Where they stand: JI reached out to each of them multiple times to ask how they would have voted on Sanders’ legislation. Just two responded. Nineteen senators — all Democrats — voted for at least one of Sanders’ resolutions. A spokesperson for Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D-CA) said unequivocally that he would have opposed the resolutions. A spokesperson for Sen.-elect Andy Kim (D-NJ) said that Kim wouldn’t “conjecture on the vote.”
Read the full story here.
Elsewhere: In the Washington Post, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) calls on President Joe Biden to take tangible action against Israel in his final weeks in office, including the sanctioning of far-right Israeli government ministers and the pausing of offensive military weapons to Jerusalem.
rising hate
Islamist terror incidents targeting U.S. rose sharply in 2024, ADL finds
Islamist terror incidents targeting the U.S. rose sharply in 2024, the Anti-Defamation League said on Monday, noting a “troubling” recent uptick that follows several years of “reduced activity” within the country. Among the seven incidents tracked by the ADL’s Center on Extremism were five foiled terror plots and two successful attacks, including the shooting in October of a Jewish man in Chicago walking to synagogue, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
ADL statement: “The surge in Islamist extremist terror incidents in 2024 is troubling,” the ADL said in a statement, “especially as the terrorist threat from other forms of extremism, such as accelerationist white supremacists, has not decreased.” The group warned that “U.S. authorities must be sure to guard against the threat of terrorism from all potential sources, whatever the cause or ideology.”
the man who disappeared
New Kafka exhibit at Israel’s National Library offers rare glimpse into the author’s personal life, including his Zionism
Franz Kafka worked hard to remain elusive and mysterious, burning most of his unfinished manuscripts and asking for all of his writings to similarly be destroyed after his death. But the Czech-Austrian Jewish author’s posthumous wishes were not fully honored, and a new exhibition — “Kafka: Metamorphosis of An Author” — made up of some of his notebooks, letters and manuscripts will open on Wednesday at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, offering a personal glimpse into Kafka’s life, including his little-discussed connection with Judaism and Zionism, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judith Sudilovsky reports.
Unique insight: The exhibition presents a very personal and accessible Kafka behind his often-cryptic writing, revealing the man behind some of the 20th century’s greatest literary works. This includes his original last will in which he expressed the wish for all his writings to be burned after his death. There are also exercise notebooks filled with pages of Hebrew words written in childish handwriting and translated meticulously into his native German; one of the hundreds of letters Kafka wrote to the first of his four fiancées, Felice Bauer, in which he beseeches that they never write to each other again; and the original 1919 manuscript of his Letter to His Father, in which the young Kafka rails against his father who had forbidden his marriage to his second fiancée, Julie Wohryzek.
Read the full story here and sign up for eJewishPhilanthropy’s Your Daily Phil newsletter here.
Worthy Reads
Rules of Engagement: In The New Yorker, Jeannie Suk Gersen, who is currently converting to Judaism, looks at how rabbinates and prospective converts have approached the process in the wake of last year’s Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks. “Around the world, anti-Israel protests erupted, and antisemitism spiked; many Jews faced a fresh reckoning with the relationship between Israel and Jewish identity. It was a time of fear and dread and painful fractures within the Jewish community — it was no longer, as [Central Synagogue Rabbi Angela] Buchdahl had suggested, a moment when Jews widely felt at ease. Yet rabbis from a broad range of Jewish institutions observed something they hadn’t anticipated: a surge of interest in Judaism. Elliot Cosgrove, a Conservative rabbi and the author of the new book For Such a Time as This: On Being Jewish Today, told me that since October 7th he’s seen engagement from ‘within and beyond the boundaries of the conventional Jewish community’ at a level he’s never before witnessed. This has included increased synagogue membership, expanded enrollment in Hebrew-school programs, full houses at Shabbat services — and oversubscribed courses for people interested in becoming Jewish. Suddenly, my own halting path to conversion was meeting a larger movement.” [NewYorker]
Israel and Aleppo: The Wall Street Journal’s Walter Russell Mead considers how the renewed Syrian civil war could affect U.S.-Israel relations and U.S. efforts to constrain Russia in the region. “In the Middle East, the enemy of my enemy isn’t necessarily my friend. The strongest of the rebel groups around Aleppo are forces formerly linked to al Qaeda and separate factions supported by Turkey’s Islamist-leaning President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. An Islamist Syria under Turkish protection could be an even more dangerous neighbor for Israel than Mr. Assad’s Syria has been. As has been the case since its 1948-49 War of Independence, Israel can defeat its enemies, but it can’t conquer its way to peace. There are two other lessons that Washington needs to take in. The first is that Israel is an excellent ally, and the U.S. benefits when we support it. Overall, the Biden administration has given Israel the weapons it needed to prevail in Gaza and Lebanon. As a result, a weakened Iran is ready to offer more concessions to both Israel and the U.S. than it was a year ago.” [WSJ]
Word on the Street
Secretary of State Tony Blinken met with Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer in Washington; the two discussed potential avenues to reach a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas…
The Wall Street Journal looks at concerns among tech CEOs who have clashed with Elon Musk as the Tesla founder and X owner appears poised to play a prominent role in the incoming Trump administration…
The Washington Post spotlights the relationship between the Evangelical Christian community and Israel, following the announcement that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was selected as the Trump administration’s ambassador to Israel…
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) announced his intention to challenge Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) for the top Democratic spot on the House Judiciary Committee…
Former basketball player-turned-venture capitalist Omri Casspi announced the launch of Swish Ventures, which he said aims “to be concentrated in both people and ideas, and build generational companies”…
TechCrunch spotlights e-bike startup Joco, founded by two men, both named Jonathan Cohen, which is turning a profit after facing a series of legal and financial hurdles after its debut in 2021…
Temple University reached an agreement with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to provide anti-discrimination training to all students and faculty and review its responses to bias complaints in response to an OCR investigation into the school’s handling of antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus…
The Jewish Museum in New York acquired an art installation by Israeli artist Ruth Patir that was initially meant to debut at the Israeli pavilion at the Venice Biennale; the exhibition, which will now debut at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in March, remained closed for the duration of the Venice Biennale at the insistence of Patir and the pavilion’s curators, who decided not to open it until a cease-fire and hostage-release deal was reached…
British philanthropist Candida Gertler announced her resignation from her voluntary positions at a range of U.K. art institutions following the decision by the arts center at the University of London to remove the names of Gertler and her husband from a gallery and donor board; the center had faced a monthslong protest from anti-Israel activists…
The Jerusalem Post looks at how Sasson Shaulov’s “Tamid Ohev Oti” (“Always Loves Me”), whose tune and lyrics were inspired by Breslov Hassidism and Rabbi Shalom Arush, has gained widespread popularity…
Iran released dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi from prison, more than two years after Salehi was arrested for his public support for the Woman, Life, Freedom movement following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody…
Russia and Iran pledged to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against rebel forces, as Iranian-backed militias from Iraq entered Syria to provide additional support to the Assad regime, following significant rebel gains over the weekend…
The U.S. and the United Arab Emirates are mulling the possibility of removing sanctions on Assad in exchange for the Syrian leader distancing himself from Iran and cutting off weapons-transport routes to Hezbollah…
The Wall Street Journal spotlights Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, the Syrian rebel who led Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s offensive into Aleppo…
Longtime New York Stock Exchange fixture Art Cashin died at 83…
Pic of the Day
Mandy Damari, mother of 28-year-old British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari, met on Monday with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at a Labour Friends of Israel lunch in Westminster, London. At the event, Damari appealed to the British government to act for the “immediate and unconditional release of all of the hostages.” Foreign Secretary David Lammy was also among the 550 attendees at the event.
Birthdays
French journalist, author, television and radio personality, Marie Drucker turns 50…
One of the closest associates of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and a leader within the Chabad movement, Rabbi Chaim Yehuda (“Yudel”) Krinsky turns 91… Malibu resident, she is the founder of a successful wedding gown business and a lifestyle coach, Sandy Stackler… 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winner for his book on Arabs and Jews in Israel, he was a long-serving foreign correspondent and Washington bureau chief for The New York Times, David K. Shipler turns 82… Member of the New York State Assembly since 1994, Jeffrey Dinowitz turns 70… Argentina’s minister of foreign affairs, Gerardo Werthein turns 69… Miami-based criminal defense attorney whose clients have included O.J. Simpson and Charlie Sheen, Yale Lance Galanter turns 68… Painter and art teacher residing in Maryland, her teaching career started in Petach Tikva, Heidi Praff… Former editorial page editor at USA Today, William (Bill) Sternberg… Member of the House of Representatives (D-NC) until her term ends in January, she was the founding chair of Prizmah and former chair of JFNA, Kathy Manning turns 68… President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since January 2023, Sally A. Kornbluth turns 64… Aerospace and technology executive, entertainment attorney and media mogul, Jon F. Vein turns 61… Former member of the Knesset for the Yisrael Beytenu party, Eli Avidar turns 60… Member-elect of the House of Representatives, she won Adam Schiff’s House seat, Laura Friedman turns 58… First VP at Adat Ari El Congregation in Valley Village, Calif., Malinda Wozniak Marcus… Cellist and associate professor at McGill University, Matt Haimovitz turns 54… SVP of strategic initiatives at NBC News until earlier this year, Alison “Ali” Weisberg Zelenko… Associate professor of Jewish history and chair of Jewish studies at Yeshiva University, Joshua M. Karlip, Ph.D. turns 53… Emmy- and Grammy Award-winning comedian and actress, she discovered her Eritrean Jewish roots as an adult, Tiffany Haddish turns 45… Financial trader and founder of XTX Markets, Alex Gerko turns 45… CEO of Solar One, he was a member of the New York City Council through 2021, Stephen T. Levin turns 43… Founding partner and head of business strategy at Triadic, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Edelman… Professional tennis player with a WTA doubles ranking that reached as high as 21, she won the gold medal in women’s singles at the 2005 Maccabiah Games, Sharon Fichman turns 34…
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