Pro-Israel Republicans who have previously voiced concerns about Vice President-elect J.D. Vance over his approach to foreign policy say that they are encouraged by a recent photo in which he appeared alongside Miriam Adelson, the GOP megadonor, for a New Year’s Eve party at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.

In the photo, Vance is pictured seated at a table with Adelson, who is smiling with her arm around his wife, Usha. The photo was among a handful of images recently shared by the Trump campaign on social media to highlight the New Year’s gathering in south Florida, where guests included Elon Musk, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and incoming Trump National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, among several others.

Adelson, a billionaire supporter of pro-Israel causes, emerged as one of President-elect Donald Trump’s top donors in the election and frequently spoke at Jewish campaign events to promote his candidacy — even as he had reportedly expressed frustration with the stewardship of her super PAC, into which she poured $100 million of her own money.   

Her feelings about Vance, a junior senator from Ohio who has faced skepticism from some Jewish Republicans over his non-interventionist rhetoric, have been less clear. 

During the election, Vance drew scrutiny for past text messages in which he privately shared callous remarks about Adelson’s late husband Sheldon, the casino magnate who died in 2021. A spokesperson for Adelson, who previously contributed to Vance’s Senate campaign, said in a statement in August that she was “unfazed” by the texts and “will continue to have a good relationship with” the incoming vice president.

The spokesperson, Andy Abboud, did not respond to a request for comment about Adelson’s recent photo with Vance. A representative for Vance also did not return a request for comment on Thursday. 

The photo suggests that such issues are no longer a source of tension, while also helping to validate the vice president-elect among pro-Israel Republicans who have raised concerns about his positions and statements on foreign policy. “If Miri is smiling, I’m smiling,” Fred Zeidman, a top GOP donor and longtime friend of the Adelson family who backed Nikki Haley for president, told Jewish Insider on Thursday.

“Knowing Miri’s devotion and passion for Israel, if she’s sitting with him and smiling, then I think that she’s very comfortable with his position on Israel,” Zeidman, who sits on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition, added. “She’s so tough on that issue.”

Vance, a leading critic of aid to Ukraine, has sought to differentiate his views on Russia’s invasion and other foreign conflicts from his policy stances on the Middle East, reiterating that he remains committed to supporting Israel in its ongoing war with Hamas amid threats from other Iran-backed proxy groups in the region. 

Despite such claims, some recent comments have provoked reservations among hawkish Republicans who have cast doubt on the tenability of his foreign policy vision. Shortly before the November election, for instance, Vance said that pro-Israel Americans had responded in a “much more militaristic” way to the Oct. 7 terror attacks than Israelis, while arguing that Israel’s interests “sometimes” conflict with the U.S.

He also said that it would be “a huge distraction of resources” to pursue direct military action against Iran, even as he had laid out an aggressive approach to countering the Islamic Republic not long after he had been picked as Trump’s running mate just a few months earlier. 

Eric Levine, a leading GOP fundraiser and RJC board member, has openly expressed discomfort with Vance’s foreign policy vision, claiming that his general aversion to American engagement abroad is “antithetical” to pursuing a pro-Israel agenda.

“The concern with J.D. Vance is not that he is anti-Israel like the progressive left,” Levine clarified in an email to JI on Thursday. “The concern is that the American-Israel alliance is simply not a priority for him.”

Still, he said it was “encouraging to see” that Vance had “gone out of his way to spend New Year’s Eve and have his picture taken with” Adelson, calling it “a welcome statement.”