Daily Kickoff
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the rise of left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who is increasingly gaining a national profile despite his incendiary comments about the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and Israel, and spotlight the shift by a number of New York politicians away from the Democratic Socialists of America. We also cover the funeral of Israeli-American hostage Omer Neutra and talk to Senate Republicans about President-elect Donald Trump’s call for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas ahead of Inauguration Day. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Donald Sussman, Larry Ellison and Jonathan Freedland.
What We’re Watching
- The Milken Institute’s annual Middle East and North Africa Summit kicks off later today in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Featured speakers at this year’s confab include First Lady Jill Biden, H.E. Sheikh Shakhboot Nahyan Al Nahyan, H.E. Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Michael Milken, Amb. Eric Garcetti and Arthur Brooks. Sign up for The Circuit’s Milken edition newsletter here.
- The Aspen Security Forum is taking place today from 1-5 p.m. ET in Washington, D.C. Speakers include Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice and former Bush National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.
- The New York Times is holding its annual DealBook summit in New York today. OpenAI’s Sam Altman, former President Bill Clinton, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, CNN’s Van Jones, Rabbi Sharon Brous, Katie Couric, author Adam Grant, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, Karlie Kloss and former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren are among those slated to speak at the confab.
- Amazon Web Services is hosting its re:Invent 2024 conference this week in Las Vegas. Among those slated to speak is Ruba Borno, AWS’ vice president of global specialists and partner organizations, who wore a necklace erasing Israel’s existence in a since-deleted video posted by the company. Sasha Troufanov, who works for an Amazon affiliate based in Tel Aviv, is one of the remaining 101 hostages in Gaza.
What You Should Know
As Democrats assess what went wrong in the 2024 elections, they’re already facing a trifecta of key contests next year that will signal whether party leaders are serious about moderating their message — or whether the activist base will continue to wield outsized influence, Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar writes.
The three high-stakes elections taking place next year are the Virginia governor’s race, New Jersey governor’s race and the New York City mayoral campaign. The latter two contests are expected to feature heated Democratic primary fights featuring candidates from both sides of the party’s ideological divide.
And in Virginia, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) is expected to be the Democratic gubernatorial nominee without facing serious primary competition, but how she positions herself in preparation for the battleground state showdown will be an indicator of whether the center of political gravity has truly shifted within the Democratic Party.
All three jurisdictions are varying shades of blue, but all swung noticeably to the right in the presidential election.
New Jersey’s shift was the most surprising, turning the state from one President Joe Biden carried by 16 points in 2020 to a six-point winning margin for Vice President Kamala Harris. The GOP’s gains were fueled by inroads in the state’s diverse, working-class neighborhoods, especially among Hispanics (which voted 71% for Biden but only 58% for Harris, according to the AP/Fox News voter analysis).
Likewise, in New York City, President-elect Donald Trump won 30% of the citywide vote — the highest vote share of any Republican since 1988 — and a seven-point improvement from his vote share in 2020. Like in New Jersey, Democrats lost ground with working-class voters across the city — but also lost significant ground with Orthodox Jewish constituents. The biggest decline in the Democratic vote from 2020-2024 took place in Borough Park, Brooklyn, a predominantly Haredi neighborhood.
And in Virginia, which has been viewed as solidly Democratic since 2008, Trump came within six points of Harris — after backing Biden by 10 points four years earlier.
The battle lines in these contests are already shaping up. In New Jersey, the full ideological divide within the Democratic Party is on display, featuring moderates such as Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), a stalwart pro-Israel lawmaker; Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), a center-left pragmatist; Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, a rising star in the party; and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney. There are also two prominent left-wing contenders: Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Sean Spiller, president of the state’s teachers’ union.
The issue of rising antisemitism and candidates’ support for Israel is likely to be a major issue in the New Jersey race — in a state with one of the largest Jewish constituencies in the country. Gottheimer, who is Jewish, is one of the most pro-Israel Democrats in Congress, and devoted a section of his campaign announcement to speak out against antisemitism.
Sherrill, an early front-runner, has generally been a reliable ally of Israel in Congress, but has made severalstatements since Oct. 7 offeringmore measured support of the Jewish state and its war against Hamas and Hezbollah. Last December, she joined progressives in voting “present” on legislation condemning antisemitism — and describing anti-Zionism as antisemitism. (It passed 311-14.)
Republicans also hope to win back the governor’s mansion, with 2021 gubernatorial nominee and former state Rep. Jack Ciattarelli looking like the early GOP favorite.
In New York City, the big question is whether the scandal-plagued Mayor Eric Adams ends up running for reelection, and who fills in the moderate lane that is currently wide open (especially if Adams bows out). Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo looks prepared to fill that role, but it remains to be seen if his own personal baggage will trip up his expected bid.
In Virginia, Spanberger showed signs of political strength by clearing the primary field of serious opposition, but it’s unclear if she’ll use the opportunity to campaign to the center. The swing-district congresswoman has been known to speak out against the excesses of her party’s left — she was one of the most outspoken critics of the “defund the police” activists after the 2020 election — but actions speak louder than words in politics.
Spanberger’s likely GOP opponent is Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the first woman to hold the position in the state. She avoided a serious fight for the nomination when state Attorney General Jason Miyares opted to run for reelection for his current job.
The most encouraging omen for Spanberger? History. Virginia almost always votes for a governor of the opposite party of the president who was elected the year prior. Trump’s victory suggests the race is the congresswoman’s to lose.
piker problems
The left’s answer to Joe Rogan has an antisemitism problem
As Democrats recover from their bruising defeat last month, one voice looking to help liberals make sense of their loss to President-elect Donald Trump is Hasan Piker, a left-wing streamer with 2.8 million followers on Twitch, a video-game streaming platform. More than 7.5 million people tuned in to his election night livestream, more than the number of viewers for either MSNBC or CNN that night. Some on the left and in the media have identified Piker, an internet-savvy guru with a loyal left-wing following, as offering something of a solution for the Democratic Party. But despite his cachet among a Gen Z constituency that lives online, Piker comes with his own hate-filled baggage, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Platforming hate: Known as Hasanabi on Twitch, Piker has a history of invoking antisemitic tropes when he discusses Israel and the Jewish community. A staunch opponent of Israel’s right to exist, Piker offered justifications for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks just one day later. He has also mocked people concerned about rising antisemitism worldwide. Yet in recent weeks, Piker has been profiled by national outlets including CNN and NBC News, and New York Times political reporter Astead Herndon appeared on his stream as a guest. He guest-hosted the popular liberal podcast “Pod Save America” last month.
messaging modifications
The Democrats’ DSA dilemma in New York City
Even before President-elect Donald Trump’s strong electoral performance in New York City last month, where he claimed particularly pronounced support from working-class voters across the five boroughs, some of the leading progressive mayoral candidates had already begun to moderate their messaging on a variety of issues. But in the wake of Trump’s historic showing in his native city, many left-wing candidates seeking the mayorship appear to be reevaluating their outreach to voters who had traditionally been a core part of the Democratic coalition, political observers say, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Strategy shift: In contrast with the previous mayoral election in 2021, when several candidates swung dramatically to the left, the primary field is now predominantly populated by progressives focusing on such quality of life issues as affordability, childcare and public safety, among other mainstream concerns. But even as some of the furthest-left candidates in the race use more populist messaging to soften their rhetoric while targeting working-class New Yorkers, some strategists say they could face skepticism from voters over their ties to radical activist groups such as the Democratic Socialists of America, which has staked out increasingly extreme anti-Israel stances in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza. “In this race for mayor, depending on the field, a candidate trying to conduct an ideological makeover may be too cute by half,” Jake Dilemani, a veteran Democratic strategist, told JI.
Read the full story here.
Elsewhere in New York: On a promotional webinar with the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America on Tuesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) boasted of taking the lead role in organizing opposition to supplemental U.S. aid to Israel earlier this year, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
tough talk
Republican senators applaud Trump’s demand for immediate release of hostages
Senate Republicans are praising President-elect Donald Trump’s demand for the release of the hostages in Gaza by Inauguration Day or “there will be ALL HELL TO PAY,” while expressing doubt that his desire for a cease-fire ahead of his swearing-in is realistic or the best course of action, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Enthusiastic response: Republican senators argued that the statement was a sign of the president-elect’s commitment to Israel’s security. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called the comments “fantastic” and “exactly right,” arguing that there is historical precedent to believe that “we’re at a moment in time where there’s a real opportunity to bring the hostages home. I hope we are at a similar moment in time to the end of the Jimmy Carter administration, before [former President Ronald] Reagan was coming in, and obviously in that instance, the Ayatollah released the hostages on Jan. 20.” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told JI, “We’re going to settle a lot of the ambiguity that the current administration’s had with Israeli security, and I think that this is one of several examples where President Trump’s gonna make it pretty clear that it’s a top priority.”
Read the full story here with additional comments from Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ted Budd (R-NC), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Pete Ricketts (R-NE) and John Kennedy (R-LA).
in memoriam
Mourners grieve slain hostage Omer Neutra in packed Long Island memorial service
In the same sanctuary where Omer Neutra was bar mitzvahed less than a decade ago, a standing-room-only crowd of more than 1,000 people packed the pews at the Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, N.Y., on Tuesday morning for Neutra’s memorial service. The 21-year-old Long Island native, an IDF tank commander, was among the first soldiers to respond to the Oct. 7 attack, serving near the community of Kibbutz Nahal Oz. He was thought to have been captured alive in the attacks and taken into the Gaza Strip. In the 14 months since, Neutra’s parents mounted a determined, emotion-laden effort to get their “lone soldier” son released — including speaking at the Republican National Convention in July. But their tireless fight came to an end on Monday when Israel’s military announced that it had determined that Neutra was killed on Oct. 7, and his body taken to Gaza, where it remains, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Remembering: Eulogies were delivered by Midway Jewish Center’s Rabbi Joel Levenson and Cantor Adam Frei; Neutra’s friends Alyssa Mendelowitz and Hayden Roth; friends of the Neutra family, Iona Gar, Smadar Chen and Rachel Cronin; and Neutra’s parents, Ronen and Orna, and brother Daniel. “We envisioned images of your reunion, focusing on doing, on our fight for your release and for some clarity in the face of the unknown. And now things are clear, but not as we hoped,” Orna said, referring to Neutra as her “strong, 6-foot-2-inch, big, smiley son.”
A community mourns: A Long Island native, Neutra spent his youth within the folds of of the Conservative movement and its institutions, studying at Solomon Schechter School of Long Island, attending Young Judaea’s Sprout Lake in the summers, working as a lifeguard at Ramah’s Nyack camp and being active in the United Synagogue Youth, eventually becoming the president of its Metropolitan New York (METNY) region. With this background, for the past 14 months, and now in his death, Neutra represented someone that Conservative Jews could connect with personally based on shared experiences, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim reports.
a rock and a hard place
Israel looks to ‘shape deterrence regime’ in Lebanon after cease-fire
The cease-fire agreement between Israel and Lebanon last week has put Jerusalem in a no-win situation: When Israel has struck Hezbollah targets violating the cease-fire, it was accused of breaking the agreement – even though Israeli enforcement is stipulated in the deal. But if Israel does not strike back, Hezbollah will have carte blanche in southern Lebanon to threaten Israel. So far, Israel has gone with the first option, trying to maintain its deterrence after significantly degrading the Iran-backed terror group in recent months. Despite the cease-fire — which has stopped the ongoing rocket and missile fire from Lebanon that began on Oct. 8, 2023 — there have been ongoing cross-border exchanges. In recent days, the Israeli Air Force has launched airstrikes on southern Lebanon targeting Hezbollah military infrastructure and vehicles, Hezbollah shot two mortars into Israel and the IDF battled Hezbollah terrorists in a tunnel close to the border with Israel, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
‘Armed negotiations’: Dan Orbach, a military historian at Hebrew University, called the state of affairs “armed negotiations.” In an interview with JI, he said, “You don’t have total war, where each side wants to destroy the other … but we don’t agree on the details, so they negotiate through armed force, not only with words. This is what’s happening between Israel and Hezbollah. Both understand the war has to end and don’t want it to continue at full scale, yet they have different visions of what the new situation should look like. … It’s an attempt by Israel and Hezbollah to shape the regime of deterrence between them.”
Read the full story here.
labor pains
New ADL study finds American Jews are facing rising discrimination applying for jobs
Jewish Americans and Israeli Americans have a significantly harder time getting a first response from an employer when applying to jobs, according to new research published this morning by the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. The report highlighted that since the Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel Jews in America may be missing out on job opportunities “just because of their identity.”
Craigslist catch: The study involved a field experiment independently conducted by Bryan Tomlin, a leading labor economist, who applied via Craigslist.org for 3,000 administrative assistant job postings between May 2024 and October 2024 using resumés that were identical except for certain characteristics specific to Jewish identity — including a “female sounding” name that signals if the applicants were Jewish American (Rebecca Cohen), Israeli Americans (Lia Avraham) or American with Western European backgrounds (Kriste Miller). Tomlin found substantial discrimination, with Jewish American job candidates needing to send 24% more applications to receive the same number of positive first responses from prospective employers as Americans with Western European backgrounds when applying to the same role; Israeli Americans — who were clearly marked as American citizens in the study — needed to send 39% more applications.
Worthy Reads
No Damascus Deal: The Washington Post’s David Ignatius reports that prior to an offensive by Syrian rebels, senior officials in Damascus had been in discussions with the U.S. and some Arab countries over the possibility of some sanctions relief in exchange for Syria blocking Iranian weapons deliveries to Hezbollah. “The first proposal floated to Assad by Arab mediators was that he expel Hezbollah from Syria entirely, according to a knowledgeable Arab source. Assad is said to have balked at that, so intermediaries instead requested Syrian help in blocking Iranian weapons, the source said. American and Arab sources didn’t describe details of how the United States might ease Syria sanctions, most of which were imposed in 2011 when Assad began brutally suppressing an uprising against his regime during the ill-fated Arab Spring. The Assad regime had seemed to be recovering its balance over the past several years. But that stability was fragile, dependent on Russia, Iran and Hezbollah’s military muscle. Those props didn’t stop the rebels from seizing Aleppo, and Assad now faces a bloody assault to recapture the city. It’s sadly characteristic of the Middle East that as soon as one war ends, another starts.” [WashPost]
Building Back Better: In his Substack “Vahaviotim,” Daniel Swartz reflects on how the Jewish community could address its internal divisions. “Two thousand years later and the Jewish people are still living under siege and under fire. And though the technology may have been updated, we’re still relying on the same basic strategies. If my ancestors depended on well-stocked granaries, my family and I are protected by Iron Dome, bomb shelters, and the like. I thank God for that. American Jews can likewise look to security guards, bulletproof glass, and a wide range of institutions and programming that make it harder for people to hurt Jews. I thank God for that too. But instead of using this hard-earned margin of safety productively and for high purpose, we’d prefer to tear ourselves to pieces, even as our enemies sharpen their literal knives. The contemporary Jewish community — whether in Israel or in America — makes first century Judaea look like a model of civic harmony: We have Jews resorting to violence against other Jews. We have Jews actively trying to sanction other Jews. We have Jews trying to cancel and exclude other Jews. We have Jews who are keen to sacrifice other Jews for political advantage. We have Jewish politicians who are gleefully setting their own countries on fire.” [Vahaviotim]
Word on the Street
President-elect Donald Trump is considering replacing Pete Hegseth, his nominee for secretary of defense, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as Hegseth faces a slew of allegations about his personal life…
Kash Patel, who was announced last month as Trump’s choice to lead the FBI, was targeted by an Iranian hacking effort…
The New York Times’ Bret Stephens talks to outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, who is considering a bid to lead the Democratic National Committee, about his party’s future…
Incoming Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter met with former Deputy National Security Advisor Victoria Coates and Heritage’s Rob Greenway at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on Tuesday…
George Mason University suspended its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine…
The University of Michigan is mulling an overhaul of the school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program…
The Wall Street Journal does a deep dive into the University of Michigan’s efforts to recruit standout high school quarterback Bryce Underwood — with a financial boost from Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who quietly married a Michigan alumna in recent years…
Donald Sussman’s Paloma Partners is seeing a flood of fleeing investors and offering IOUs because it does not have enough easily sellable assets on hand to meet the redemption requests…
NBC4 in Washington spotlights Sunflower Bakery, the Montgomery County, Md., kosher bakery that employs and provides culinary training to adults with learning disabilities…
The Lower Merion, Pa., school board delayed the release of a plan to introduce antisemitism awareness training in the district amid disagreement from school board members over equity issues…
The New Yorker takes a tour of the Manhattan townhouse that housed the Friars Club for decades, now up for sale…
eJewishPhilanthropy reports on a new study by Shefa into the Jewish community’s approach to psychedelic drugs…
British political columnist Jonathan Freedland reflects on his effort to modernize and publish a children’s book written by a German-Jewish refugee who was killed during WWII…
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund divested from Bezeq over the Israeli telecom company’s operations in the West Bank…
Reuters spotlights an Israeli farmer whose son was killed by a Hezbollah rocket who is working to restore the apple orchard in Metula where his son and four Thai workers were killed in October…
French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will co-chair a conference, slated for June 2025, focused on the establishment of a Palestinian state…
Iran is reportedly engaging in a fuel-smuggling scheme that has generated more than $1 billion for Tehran and its proxies…
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Tehran would “consider” any request to send troops to back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as the embattled leader faces advancing rebel forces…
Bloomberg interviewed the captain of an oil tanker that was struck by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen earlier this year…
Longtime diplomat Morton Abramowitz, who served as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace following ambassadorial postings in Turkey and Thailand, died at 91…
Pic of the Day
Orna Neutra and Rachel Goldberg-Polin clasped hands at the funeral in Long Island on Tuesday of Neutra’s son, Omer, who was determined by the IDF to have been killed on Oct. 7, 2023. Neutra’s body remains in Gaza.
Birthdays
Comedian and former host of the ChangeUp baseball program for DAZN, one of his viral videos was “10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Jew,” Scott Rogowsky turns 40…
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, author of six books and winner of the 1980 National Book Award, A. Scott Berg turns 75… Television director and producer, Dan Attias turns 73… Tony Sarif… Dermatologist in the Philadelphia area, Merle M. Bari Shulkin, MD… Founder and lead guide of the Adventure Rabbi program based in Boulder, Colo., she is the author of 11 books, Jamie Korngold… Fashion director and chief fashion critic at The New York Times since 2014, Vanessa Victoria Friedman turns 57… Publisher and founder of FlashReport on California politics and principal of the Fleischman Consulting Group, Jon Fleischman… Actor best known for playing Stuart Bloom on the CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory,” Kevin Sussman turns 54… Co-founder and co-chairman of Manhattan-based hedge fund Knighthead Capital Management, Ara D. Cohen… Screenwriter and producer, he co-created ABC’s “Once Upon a Time,” Adam Horowitz turns 53… National security advisor of the UAE, Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan turns 53… Principal at Proxima Media and founder of Relativity Media, Ryan Kavanaugh (family name was Konitz) turns 50… Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-OH), Gregory John Landsman turns 48… Childhood chess prodigy, martial arts competitor and author, the film “Searching for Bobby Fischer” is based on his early life, Joshua Waitzkin turns 48… Born in Ramat Gan, now living in New Jersey, Grammy Award-winning violinist, Miri Ben-Ari turns 46… Israeli composer of stage works, orchestral works, ensemble works and classical music, Amir Shpilman turns 44… Assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Sam Adelsberg… Former senior campaign director at The Hub Project, Sarah Baron… First round pick in the 2016 National Hockey League draft, he is a center for the NHL’s San Jose Sharks, Luke Kunin turns 27… Israeli fashion model, Sofia Mechetner turns 24…
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