Daily Kickoff
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on Lebanon’s election of a new prime minister and cover the House of Representatives’ vote on legislation sanctioning the International Criminal Court over its issuance of warrants for Israeli officials. We report on efforts by New York City Councilmember Shahana Hanif to scrub her website and social media of some of the far-left positions she has taken, and cover Stuart Eizenstat’s eulogy for President Jimmy Carter. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Nate Shapiro, Rep. Tim Walberg and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: Jewish community in Los Angeles unites amid devastating fires; A look at the right-wing lawmakers that could constrain pro-Israel legislation in the new Congress; and A mountaintop kibbutz, battered by Hezbollah missiles, eyes a lengthy — and costly — rebuilding path. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- We’re keeping an eye on the 1 Billion Followers Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, this weekend, where Tucker Carlson is slated to speak tomorrow. The former Fox News commentator has faced heightened scrutiny since leaving the network in 2023 for his platforming of Holocaust revisionists and antisemitic conspiracy theorists.
What You Should Know
Lebanon elected a new president after more than two years during which Beirut foundered under caretaker governments, worsening economic crises and devastation across parts of the country as Hezbollah waged war against Israel, Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss reports.
The election of Army chief Joseph Aoun, the former head of the Lebanese Armed Forces, is being met with cautious optimism across much of the region — including Saudi Arabia, which backed his candidacy — and in Washington. Aoun failed to garner the necessary number of parliamentary votes in the first round of balloting, but secured victory after a second round of voting.
Aoun had the support of the White House — specifically with senior envoy Amos Hochstein — which coordinated its efforts with the incoming Trump administration. President Joe Biden, speaking Thursday, called Aoun “a first-rate guy.”
“This is a good thing,” Matthew Levitt, the Fromer-Wexler Senior Fellow and director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told JI on Thursday. “Lebanon needs leadership at a time of deep economic, political, social crisis, and, of course, the cease-fire agreement [with Israel]. It needs a country that can coordinate Lebanon and the LAF in particular living up to its side of the agreement, and who better than the former commander of the LAF.”
The election itself was announced a day after Israel and Lebanon inked a cease-fire agreement that halted the cross-border exchanges of fire that began on Oct. 8, 2023.
Aoun’s election was met with hope in Jerusalem, where Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar welcomed Aoun’s victory, saying he hoped “that this choice will contribute towards stability, a better future for Lebanon and its people and to good neighborly relations.”
In a speech shortly after his election, Aoun pledged to, among other things, “ensure the state’s right to hold a monopoly on weapons, and to invest in the army to monitor the borders [and] maintain their security in the south” — seen as an effort to distance the new government from Hezbollah.
“Now, he’s going to have to live up to that,” Levitt said, “but the fact that he’ll want to stand up and basically, as his first presidential statement, say this is a very positive development.”
The question now,Levitt noted, is “the nature of the horse-trading that clearly went on between the first and second rounds of voting,” adding that Aoun was spotted huddling with members of Hezbollah and the Amal movement between rounds of voting.
But, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ David Daoud warned on X shortly after the election, Aoun’s pledge to disarm Hezbollah is “[m]uch ado about nothing.” Daoud suggested that while Aoun fell short in the first round of voting, Hezbollah members in the country’s parliament agreed to back him in the second round “after they received a green light from Iran, assurances from Saudi Arabia, and discussions with Aoun himself. They’re not going to vote for someone they know will disarm them.”
Aoun’s election itself was a result of Hezbollah’s heavy losses over the last year — similar to the collapse of the Assad regime in neighboring Syria last month — which Levitt attributes to Israel’s military strategy. “The only reason [Aoun’s election] is possible,” he said, “is because Hezbollah has been so severely cut down to size.”
Hezbollah, Levitt added, “has been a disrupter across the region, but certainly at home in Lebanon and next door in Syria. And the Israeli strikes, a series of efforts that have so degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities, so decimated its leadership, have created an opportunity where the group is no longer in a position to play that role of disruptor and implementer of Iran’s agenda.”
sanctions support
House passes bipartisan ICC sanctions for a second time
The House passed a bill sanctioning the International Criminal Court for issuing arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant by a 243-140-1 vote, with 45 Democrats in support. The outcome was similar to the vote by which the bill passed last year, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
New in town: The legislation was the first Middle East policy test for newly elected members of Congress. Ten freshman Democratic lawmakers — Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ), Wesley Bell (D-MO), Gil Cisneros (D-CA), Shomari Figures (D-AL), Laura Gillen (D-NY), Adam Gray (D-CA), George Latimer (D-NY), April McLain Delaney (D-MD), Josh Riley (D-NY) and Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) — supported the bill. Twice that number, 20 first-term Democrats — including Reps. Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Eugene Vindman (D-VA), Sarah Elfreth (D-MD), Johnny Olszewski (D-MD) and Maxine Dexter (D-OR) — voted against it. Two Democrats who voted against the bill last year, Reps. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) and Haley Stevens (D-MI) voted for it on Thursday, as did Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ), who was absent last year.
Commemorating carter
Stuart Eizenstat eulogizes Jimmy Carter: 39th president ‘laid the building blocks for a better world’
Stuart Eizenstat, who served as chief domestic policy advisor to President Jimmy Carter, touted the 39th president’s outreach to American Jews and called his “most lasting achievement” the negotiation of the Camp David Accords and 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in a eulogy delivered on Thursday morning at Carter’s funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Brokering peace: “Jimmy Carter’s most lasting achievement, and the one I think he was most proud of, was to bring the first peace to the Middle East through the greatest act of personal diplomacy in American history, the Camp David Accords,” Eizenstat, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the Carter White House, said at the funeral. “For 13 days and nights, he negotiated with [Israeli Prime Minister] Menachem Begin and [Egyptian President] Anwar Sadat, personally drafting more than 20 peace proposals and shuttling them between the Israeli and Egyptian delegations.”
Seen in Washington: Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian Authority’s envoy to the United Nations, attended the funeral, where he was photographed with Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).
EDUCATION CONSTERNATION
New House Education committee chair blasts last-minute campus antisemitism settlements
Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), the new chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, blasted the Biden administration’s Department of Education for a series of recent settlement agreements with colleges and universities over antisemitism complaints — and suggested that the incoming Trump administration should seek to alter those agreements, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Quotable: “It’s disgraceful that in the final days of the Biden-Harris administration, the Department of Education is letting universities, including Rutgers, five University of California system campuses including UCLA, and Johns Hopkins, off the hook for their failures to address campus antisemitism,” Walberg, who took over leadership of the committee this year, said. “The toothless agreements shield schools from real accountability.” The statement described the agreements as “an obvious effort to shield universities from real accountability by the incoming Trump administration.”
CONTROL X
Anticipating primary, anti-Israel New York City councilwoman scrubs her campaign site of far-left positions
Shahana Hanif, a far-left city councilwoman in Brooklyn, has been scrubbing her campaign site and social media of past comments calling to defund the police — as she prepares to face a new Democratic primary challenger who has criticized her approach to public safety and handling of rising antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Policy cleanse: In recent weeks, Hanif’s campaign site has been purged of a detailed policy page that had featured a pledge to “defund the police and reduce our police force to zero,” while vowing to “disband the use of jails and prisons,” among other extreme measures. The page, which includes policies that Hanif had touted during her first campaign in 2021, had been publicly viewable as recently as Dec. 12, according to archived screenshots on the WayBack Machine, shortly after her challenger had entered the race.
scoop
American-Israelis hit with sanctions sue Biden administration
Two American-Israeli dual citizens filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration on Thursday after they faced sanctions meant to apply to “foreign persons” who engaged in extremism in the West Bank, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. Issachar Manne and Yitzhak Levi Pilant — called “Filant” in the State Department’s August announcement — were sanctioned under Executive Order 14115, signed in February, against “persons undermining peace, security and stability in the West Bank,” which states explicitly that it applies to a “foreign person” engaged in such activities.
Lawsuit: Attorneys with the National Jewish Advocacy Center, as well as with the Jerusalem-based law firm Zell, Aron & Co. and Marcus & Marcus in Pennsylvania filed suit in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia asking that the designations be canceled and claiming that they violate the constitutional rights to due process and equal protection under the law. They also argue that the charges against their clients are false.
baruch dayan emet
Nate Shapiro, philanthropist and activist who went the distance for Ethiopian Jewry, dies at 88
Nathan “Nate” Shapiro, the Chicago-based philanthropist and activist who died on Dec. 31 at 88, was a long-distance runner — in body and spirit, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim reports. According to those who knew him, Shapiro approached his life with his eye on the next mile: energetic, determined, humble and stoic — traits that were highlighted as he helmed the American Association for Ethiopian Jews beginning in 1983, serving as president of the organization until it voted unanimously to shutter its doors in 1993, with nearly $1 million in the bank, after Operation Solomon transported thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
Legacy: “[Shapiro was] a marathon runner across the board. With [AAEJ] it was running uphill,” William Recant, who served as AAEJ’s executive director starting in 1986, told eJP. “He took seriously that a Jewish community in peril should not be ignored or neglected,” Susan Pollack, who worked as AAEJ’s representative within Ethiopia and is now president of the American Friends of Ethiopian Jews, told eJP. “He was very idealistic.” Shapiro started by supporting AAEJ with donations, later becoming a board member of the organization, and, in 1983, president of the organization.
Read the full obituary here and sign up for eJewishPhilanthropy’s Your Daily Phil newsletter here.
Worthy Reads
Moonshots for the Post-Oct. 7 Age: In The Times of Israel, Saul Singer posits that there are many opportunities in a post-Oct. 7 world for big, game-changing projects to grow Jewish communities in Israel and the Diaspora. “The phenomenon of PTSD has a lesser-known sibling: Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG). If resilience is bouncing back to a pre-trauma state, PTG is actually becoming stronger from trauma. Signs of PTG include better relationships, greater appreciation of life, and a renewed sense of meaning. Societies can also experience something akin to PTG. For decades, we did not need to exercise our dormant strengths. Now we do. We can set our sights beyond resilience. Growing from catastrophe is not only possible, it’s what we have done time and time again in Jewish history. The Jewish answer to October 7 should not only be a safe and flourishing Israel, but a new golden age of Diaspora Jewish identity. The two are intimately linked.” [TOI]
Trudeau’s Tumble: In The New York Times, Stephen Marche considers the circumstances that led to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation. “In 2015, Mr. Trudeau was at the forefront of a new kind of politics, both in terms of how he came to power and how he chose to use it. He harnessed the emerging force of social media with his easygoing celebrity to win his first election. Once in office, he stressed the gender and ethnicity of the people he put in important positions as much as what they planned to do with the power they possessed. Now, identity politics have helped bring about his downfall, and social media networks have soured on him. … At times, Mr. Trudeau seems to embody virtue signaling without effective policymaking, the worst feature of progressive politics as they have devolved over the past decade. During his time in office, land acknowledgments became common practice across Canada, while Indigenous life expectancy rates plummeted. I might add that virtue signaling is now, and has always been, a Canadian affliction, not just Mr. Trudeau’s. What Canadians have come to hate about Mr. Trudeau they have come to hate in themselves, which explains, at least in part, the intensity of the hatred.” [NYTimes]
Fire Fight: The editors of The Free Pressweigh in on the handling of the Los Angeles wildfires by state and local officials in California. “A great city can survive a bad mayor, or even a series of bad mayors. This is a story about the failure of California to prevent, or capably mitigate, a long-predicted catastrophe, and how a state that was once a model of good governance came to prioritize the boutique concerns of ambitious politicians over the basics of what government must do. There are always excuses in moments like these, some more valid than others. California is, in a sense, built to burn: Its warm climate and vast woodlands can, and often are, a deadly combination. Any city, regardless of who’s running it, would struggle with winds reaching 100 miles per hour, especially one sitting on a tinderbox of dry vegetation. Climate change exacerbates the issue. But none of that explains how one of America’s great cities — the biggest in the fifth-largest economy in the world — is burning to the ground. The failure here, at heart, is an entirely human one.” [FreePress]
Word on the Street
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), the incoming Trump administration’s nominee to be national security advisor, said he was hopeful that Saudi Arabia would join the Abraham Accords “relatively soon”…
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) accepted an invitation from President-elect Donald Trump to meet at his Mar-a-Lago resort; the meeting will be the first time a Democratic senator has met with Trump in Florida since the election…
Fetterman’s communications director, Carrie Adams, is leaving his office; Adams was quoted last year in The Free Press expressing disagreement with Fetterman’s stalwart support for Israel…
Fetterman called for “[w]hatever remains of Iran’s nuclear program” to “be destroyed”…
In a new episode of the “Nothing But the Truth” podcast, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)called on American airlines to resume direct flights to Israel…
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomois considering announcing his entry into New York City’s mayoral race next month; Cuomo is expected to hire Mercury Public Affairs’ Charlie King to work on the campaign…
Elon Muskheld an X Spaces conversation with Alice Weidel, one of the leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany party…
The Washington Post reviews“September 5,” a new movie about the media coverage surrounding the kidnapping and murders of members of Israel’s Olympic team during the 1972 Munich Games…
A synagogue in Sydney, Australia, was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti overnight…
The Polish governmentpassed legislation ensuring the “safe participation” of Israeli leaders in events commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz later this month; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has not confirmed his participation, faced potential arrest in the country over a recently issued warrant by the International Criminal Court…
Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’arannounced a package of new judicial reforms, all of which would come into effect after the next Israeli election…
The IDF confirmed the death of hostage Hamzah Ziyadne, whose remains were found near those of his father, who was also killed while in Hamas captivity in Gaza; the two were taken hostage along with two of Ziyadne’s siblings, who were released in November 2023…
A Swiss national being held in an Iranian prison on charges of spying died by suicide in the Semnan prison outside of Tehran…
U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas BurnsblastedBeijing for aligning itself “with the most unreliable agents of disorder in the international system” and called on the Chinese government to pressure Iran to stop ongoing Houthi attacks on vessels transiting through the Red Sea…
Television news producer Richard Cohen, who authored several books about his battle with multiple sclerosis, died at 76…
Pic of the Day
Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) met this week in his Senate office with Ronen and Orna Neutra, the parents of American-Israeli hostage Omer Neutra who was killed by Hamas on Oct. 7 and taken to Gaza; released hostage Noa Argamani; and Leat Unger, cousin of hostage Omer Shem Tov.
Birthdays
Professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, he taught his last class in December, Jonathan D. Sarna turns 70…
FRIDAY: Conservative columnist and author, David Joel Horowitz turns 86… Physician and medical researcher, Bernard Salomon Lewinsky turns 82… Executive editor of Denver’s Intermountain Jewish News, historian and teacher, Rabbi Hillel Goldberg turns 79… Past president of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston for 30 years, now a professor at Brandeis, Barry Shrage turns 78… Former president of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Baron David Edmond Neuberger turns 77… Musician, singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band “Steely Dan,” Donald Fagen turns 77… World renowned Israeli cellist, he has over 50 recordings on the Deutsche Grammophon label with many top orchestras, Mischa Maisky turns 77… Former U.S. senator (R-MO) from 2011 until 2023, Roy Blunt turns 75… Longtime editor at Bantam Books, Simon & Schuster and Crown Publishers, Sydny Weinberg Miner… Retired executive director at Beta Alpha Psi, Hadassah (Dassie) Baum… Founder and CEO at Los Angeles-based Quantifiable Media and Tel Aviv-based Accords Consulting, Rose Kemps… Executive director of the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists after 33 years at AJC Global, Richard Thomas Foltin… Principal of the Nellis Corporation and past president of The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, Mark A. Levitt turns 69… Majority owner of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, Joe Lacob turns 69… Member of the Knesset for the United Torah Judaism party, Uri Maklev turns 68… U.S. senator (D-MD), Chris Van Hollen turns 66… Member of the U.K.’s House of Lords and advisor to the government on antisemitism, Baron John Mann turns 65… Actor with a recurring role in “Sex and the City” and author of two books on his recovery from acute myeloid leukemia, Evan Handler turns 64… Theatrical producer, playwright and director, Ari Roth turns 64… Vice chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Naples, Beth Ellen Wolff… Author and journalist best known for his novels Gangster Nation, Gangsterland and Living Dead Girl, Tod Goldberg turns 54… Member of the Knesset for Likud, Galit Distel-Atbaryan turns 54… Film director and screenwriter, Joe Nussbaum turns 52… Caryn Beth Lazaroff Gold… Founder of Affinity Partners, Jared Kushner turns 44… Communications manager for Ford Motor Company, Adam David Weissmann… Former senior spokesperson on terrorism and financial intelligence at the U.S. Treasury until last September when she joined Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, Morgan Aubrey Finkelstein… Israeli rapper, singer and songwriter, Michael Swissa turns 29… Andrew Tobin… Debbie Seiden…
SATURDAY: Psychologist and the author of 27 books, he lectures at NYU, Michael Eigen turns 89… Retired judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago, author of 40 books on jurisprudence and economics, Richard Posner turns 86… Violinist and music teacher, Shmuel Ashkenasi turns 84… Film, television and theater director, best known for his TV series “Full House” and “Family Matters” and his films “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and “Fat Albert,” Joel Zwick turns 83… Las Vegas resident, Stephen Norman Needleman… Economist and professor of banking at Columbia University, he was a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (2006-2008), Frederic Stanley “Rick” Mishkin turns 74… Noted gardener and florist, she has been married to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer since 1973, Lynn Blitzer… Professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of experimental medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, he is the author of five books, Dr. Jerome E. Groopman turns 73… Former member of the Canadian House of Commons, Susan Kadis turns 72… Former director general of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Avi Gil turns 70… CEO of Sense Education, an AI company, Seth Haberman turns 65… Attorney, author, speaker and activist, he is the younger brother of Mark Cuban, Brian Cuban turns 64… Partner at Magnolia Marketing LLC and national board member of AIPAC, Alan Franco… Rabbi at Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto (BAYT), Rabbi Daniel Korobkin turns 61… Former National Hockey League player for 12 seasons with the Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames and San Jose Sharks, Ronald “Ronnie” Stern turns 58… Actress, socialite and reality television personality, she converted to Judaism in her 20s, Kyle Richards Umansky turns 56… Defensive tackle in the Canadian Football League for twelve seasons, he is a co-owner at Vera’s Burger Shack based in Vancouver, B.C., Noah Cantor turns 54… Film, stage and television actress, she authored a book about a Jewish girl during the Christmas season, Amanda Peet turns 53… Hockey coach, he is a former goaltender with the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes, he also played in six other leagues, Josh Tordjman turns 40… Member of the Knesset for the Labor Party, Naama Lazimi turns 39… Executive chef and restaurateur, Yehuda Sichel… VP and head of strategic partnerships at Penzer Family Office, she is also a recruiter at The Bachrach Group, Michal (Mickey) Penzer… French-American actress, Flora Cross turns 32… Director of football strategy and assistant quarterbacks coach for the Baltimore Ravens, Daniel Stern turns 31… Founder when she was just 12 years old of Nannies by Noa, Noa Mintz turns 24…
SUNDAY: Real estate and casino magnate, he is a minority owner of the Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox, Neil Gary Bluhm turns 87… U.S.-born biochemist, he moved to Israel in 1973, winner of the Israel Prize (1999), professor (now emeritus) at Hebrew U, Howard “Chaim” Cedar turns 82… Stephen Moses… Israel-born jewelry designer, editor and businesswoman, she was the first lady of Iceland from 2003 until 2016, Dorrit Moussaieff turns 75… Author of over 40 books, most widely recognized for his crime fiction, Walter Ellis Mosley turns 73… NYC-based psychiatrist and the medical director of the Child Mind Institute, Harold S. Koplewicz, MD turns 72… Radio personality on Sirius XM, Howard Stern turns 71… British novelist and grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien (one of the latter’s two Jewish grandchildren), Simon Mario Reuel Tolkien turns 66… Senior director of philanthropic engagement at the Jewish Funders Network, she was a consultant for DreamWorks on the film “The Prince of Egypt,” Tzivia Schwartz Getzug… Midday news anchor at Washington’s WTOP Radio, Debra Feinstein turns 63… Board member and former chair of Hillel International, she is also a vice-chair of Moishe House, Tina Price… Member of the Maryland House of Delegates, he is the nephew of recently retired U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, Jon S. Cardin turns 55… Identical twin comedians and actors, Randy Sklar and Jason Sklar, turn 53… Filmmaker known for parody films, Aaron Seltzer turns 51… First-ever woman to be an MLB coach, in 2024 she was a co-founder of a women’s pro baseball league, Justine Siegal, Ph.D. turns 50… Rabbinical advisor of Shabtai, the Jewish society at Yale University, Shmully Hecht turns 50… Recording artist and musical entertainer, Yaakov Shwekey turns 48… Professional golfer, Rob Oppenheim turns 45… Two-time Olympian (2012 and 2016) in beach volleyball, now a chiropractor and performance coach, Josh Binstock turns 44… Founder of The Jewish Majority, Jonathan Schulman… Director of major gifts in the Mid-Atlantic region for American Friends of Magen David Adom, Ira Gewanter… Executive director of the Hillel at Virginia Tech, Amanda Herring… VP of finance and operations at NYC-based Hornig Capital Partners, Daniel Silvermintz… Israeli tennis player, Lina Glushko turns 25…
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