Daily Kickoff
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s entourage about Netanyahu’s conversations with President Donald Trump, and report on the move to create a House Jewish Caucus in Congress. We also cover Attorney General Pam Bondi’s formation of a task force to prosecute crimes related to the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, and look at efforts to rebuild the tourism industry in Israel’s devastated south. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Itamar Graf, Mark Zuckerberg and Betsy DeVos.
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: Eying his legacy, Charles Bronfman commits $25 million to Birthright Israel Foundation; New England Patriots scion Josh Kraft wants to be Boston’s first Jewish mayor; and Jewish groups are reassessing their embrace of DEI. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today at the Capitol after their sit-down, originally scheduled for yesterday, was pushed due to Johnson’s White House meetings.
- Later today, Hamas will notify Israeli officials of the three hostages set to be released from Gaza tomorrow.
- Auburn and the University of Florida men’s basketball teams will face off tomorrow night — pitting two of the NCAA’s three Jewish coaches of top-ranked teams, Auburn’s Bruce Pearl and Gainesville’s Todd Golden, against each other.
What You Should Know
Former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant last night became the first senior Israeli official to give an in-depth, public account of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel. In an interview that aired on Israel’s Channel 12 news on Thursday evening, Gallant gave the behind-the-scenes view of some of the biggest moments of the war, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Gallant, who said he first heard on Oct. 7 that there were rocket sirens in Tel Aviv from his daughter, spoke about the shock of that day. He said he was given “not even a speck” of intelligence hinting that Hamas was planning a ground invasion, to the extent that he first heard about Hamas’ “Walls of Jericho” battle plan a month into the war.
But Gallant’s most notable insights from the hour-long interview were his remarks about the hostages.
Gallant said he felt the government had fallen short in its efforts to secure the release of the hostages, noting that Israel “could have brought home more hostages earlier and at a lower price,” elaborating that more hostages were alive in July, when a nearly identical agreement to the one reached last month was on the table. He added that, in last month’s cease-fire and hostage-release agreement, Israel agreed to free more terrorists from prison than it had in the failed summer agreement.
”It’s the same deal we had in July,” Gallant said. “What changed? [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu takes [President Donald] Trump into consideration more than [former Israeli cabinet minister Itamar] Ben-Gvir, and not [former President Joe] Biden. That’s what changed.”
At the same time, Gallant recounted that Israel’s war cabinet voted unanimously to support a similar deal last April, and while Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich publicly opposed it, it was Hamas that pulled out of the agreement. When asked if he agreed with former Secretary of State Tony Blinken and other U.S. officials who blamed Hamas and not Israel for the negotiations’ repeated collapse, he said: “Hamas is to blame, but I have no expectations from them.”
Gallant called for Israel to prioritize the hostages, and when asked if that means that Israel would give up on winning the war, he said: “An army can defeat [an enemy] but you need the political side for victory.” One of the things preventing a victory, he argued, was the lack of a “day-after” plan, and he said one of his greatest frustrations was “the fact that we didn’t build an alternative with Palestinians who are not Hamas, supported by foreign armies.”
Netanyahu was prepared with counter-programming, giving a rare interview to Israel’s right-wing Channel 14.
“At the start of the war,” Netanyahu recounted, “a very senior defense official said, ‘We have to assume that we won’t get anyone out.’ I didn’t assume that. I thought that we could work towards both aims, to eliminate Hamas and to free our hostages, that they are intertwined with each other, and we really achieved a lot.”
The idea of a “day-after” plan, Netanyahu suggested, is code for the Palestinian Authority. Though he said the Israeli “defense establishment” pushed in that direction, the prime minister maintained that Ramallah rewards terrorism and thus cannot be a viable alternative to Hamas.
Netanyahu accused some in the Israeli defense establishment of being defeatist and wanting to stop the war at various points. “‘Even if we fight in the north, it will end in a cease-fire agreement,’ they said, including Yoav Gallant …’So why should we fight a war?’” Netanyahu explained. “I and others in the cabinet said there is a huge difference between reaching a cease-fire in the north after killing a large part of Hezbollah’s forces, including its leadership.”
scoop
Netanyahu and Trump ‘see eye to eye on Iranian threat’ – Israeli official
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports President Donald Trump’s return to a maximum-pressure sanctions campaign and an attempt to reach a nuclear deal with Iran, as long as there is a credible military threat if Iran does not comply, an Israeli diplomatic source told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov following the leaders’ meeting in the White House this week.
Pressure push: In the meeting, Netanyahu conveyed to Trump that Israel may take “action” against Iran “if and when there won’t be a choice,” the source said on Thursday. “The prime minister thinks that we need to bring back the policies of the first Trump administration, the maximum-pressure strategy,” the source said. “We are in favor of putting as much pressure as possible on Iran.”
AG ACTION
Attorney General Pam Bondi establishes task force to prosecute Oct. 7 crimes
In one of her first official acts after being sworn in on Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi established a joint task force dedicated to investigating the perpetrators of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and seeking justice for their victims. The scope of the body’s work goes beyond the attacks that took place more than a year ago, with Bondi describing a need to address “the ongoing threat posed by Hamas and its affiliates, both domestically and abroad,” Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
DOJ directives: Another directive is likely to result in a major shake-up of enforcement of laws meant to prohibit undue foreign influence in the American political system. Bondi limited the ability of prosecutors to bring charges related to violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires people engaged in advocacy for foreign governments to disclose their employer and their compensation. The Foreign Influence Task Force, a body created in 2017 in response to Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, will be disbanded, according to one memo.
Read the full story here.
candid convos
Netanyahu presses Senate lawmakers to pass ICC sanctions legislation
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Senate leaders to pass legislation sanctioning the International Criminal Court for issuing arrest warrants against him and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, which was blocked by Senate Democrats, in a private meeting on Thursday morning, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report.
Readout: President Donald Trump also signed an executive order implementing sanctions against the ICC unilaterally later in the day on Thursday. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said that the group did not discuss Trump’s calls for a new nuclear deal with Iran. “I think there is, very impressively, a unified feeling that Iran is the main obstacle to peace and stability in the Middle East and the world,” Blumenthal added. Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told JI, “It was a very candid meeting. We talked about both the generalities of the situation and also the specifics of the situation. I think everybody, both sides, came away with a better understanding of where we are now.”
icc sanctions
Schumer says Trump’s ICC executive order removes provisions Democrats objected to
A spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Thursday that the International Criminal Court sanctions that the White House implemented by executive order remove provisions Democrats objected to during Senate negotiations on the sanctions that fell apart last week, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Status update: Democrats had been demanding changes to the House-passed ICC sanctions bill to protect U.S. companies, especially technology companies and their foreign subsidiaries, and U.S. allies, from sanctions. They also said they wanted to protect the ICC’s investigation into Russian President Vladimir Putin, which the Biden administration had supported. “Leader Schumer has been crystal clear that the ICC needs to be reformed and reshaped due to its deep bias against Israel,” Schumer spokesperson Angelo Roefaro told JI. “This EO seems to include the strong provisions that go after the ICC on Israel, but does not include the problematic extraneous provisions unrelated to Israel included in the Republican ICC bill that the Democratic offer sought to fix to protect the ICC’s work against Putin.”
caucus coalesces
House lawmakers vote to organize a formal Jewish caucus founded by Nadler, Wasserman Schultz, Schneider
Democratic House lawmakers voted on Thursday, in a long-gestating but still unexpected move, to create a formal Jewish caucus for the first time, launching an official forum for long-standing informal work and discussions among Jewish members of Congress, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Timely move: The caucus’ formation comes at a time of, and partly in response to, record-high antisemitism in the United States. Leaders say it will help give members a greater and collective voice, as well as a seat at Democratic leadership meetings with other caucuses. The group was organized through negotiations between Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) — a driving force behind the group — and Jerry Nadler (D-NY) — the senior-most Jewish member in the House and initially a skeptic of forming the caucus. It will be chaired by Nadler and Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), leaders among progressive and moderate Jewish members, respectively.
educational opportunities
In Sderot, local Israelis push youth travel groups to aid in rehabilitation of country’s war-struck south
Ofir Libstein, who served as mayor of the Gaza-adjacent Sh’ar HeNegev Region, was killed on Oct. 7 while defending his family’s kibbutz, Kfar Aza, as was his son, Nitzan. The elder Libstein, in (relatively) more peaceful years, had dedicated himself to transforming the image of the Gaza Envelope from that of a rocket-battered war zone into an attractive area for locals and tourists to visit, founding, together with his wife, the now-famous Darom Adom (Red South) festival, attracting hordes of Israelis to gawk at the carpets of blooming kalaniyot — red anemone flowers — that blanket the Western Negev. Today, Libstein’s mission is more relevant than ever, and is being carried forward by others. Doron Moshe, program director at the Hallelujah Project, which was also founded by Libstein, met with dozens of members of the Israel Educational Travel Alliance last month in Sderot and explained to them how they could be part of the effort to rehabilitate Israel’s south, Jewish Insider’s Tamara Zieve reports for eJewishPhilanthropy.
What was and will be: “In the past year everyone has been looking for ways to help this region and state bounce back, and when we spoke with the kids we felt that they were done with people relating to them as victims, and [that] the best remedy is to give them a platform to lead, be activist and make this place bloom again,” said Moshe, whose organization conducts educational workshops and activities that aim to strengthen ties between Israel and the Diaspora. Sderot, where the group met with Moshe, has not historically been a common stop on North American Israel travel experience itineraries. The Hallelujah Project seeks to, Moshe told them, “invite people from Israel and the world to discuss the revival of this area from a war zone to a place of red flowers blossoming.”
Read the full story here and sign up for eJewishPhilanthropy’s Your Daily Phil newsletter here.
Worthy Reads
Keeping the Faith: In The Wall Street Journal, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik reflects on former hostage Agam Berger’s decision to keep Shabbat and avoid nonkosher meat while in captivity. “Agam is Hebrew for a small pool in the desert. Psalm 114 describes the wonders of God, who ‘turned the rock into water,’ agam, ‘the flint into a fountain.’ Remarkably, as Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Daniel Feldman noted, Jews around the world recited this psalm as part of their liturgy on Jan. 30, the day Ms. Berger was released. Her testimony offers a magnificent metaphor. For religious Jews, the story of modern Israel is one of Jewish courage, as well as an unfolding providential plan of which they are a part. This was precisely the message Ms. Berger delivered to her people on attaining freedom. As an Israel Defense Forces helicopter brought her home, she held aloft a white board, on which she had written a series of Hebrew phrases: ‘In the path of faith I have chosen / and on the path of faith I have returned. Thank you to all of the people of Israel, and to the heroic soldiers of the IDF / There is no one like you in the world.’” [WSJ]
Newsroom Reflections: In his Substack, Ron Kampeas, who retired in December as Washington bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraph Agency, reflects on the challenges of Jewish media reporting. “This is the perpetual dilemma of the Jewish media: How alarming should we be in our copy? ‘We had to face the clear dilemma of what to present to the Jewish public, how to prepare our readers for yet more trying times to come,’ Arno Herzberg, JTA’s Berlin editor from 1934 to 1937, wrote in an article reprinted in JTA’s 1997 80th anniversary retrospective. ‘The question of how a story might affect the morale and mental stability of our readers was a decisive factor in editorial presentations.’ At JTA, we have a version of this conversation three times a week in our staff meetings, although, reader, we may be a little less preoccupied with your ‘mental stability’ than our 1937 antecedents. Does this report on antisemitism statistics stand up? Was this an antisemitic attack — or just an attack? Is this statement antisemitic? Is it causative or correlative to the violence that ensues? And there’s a factor that JTA in the 1930s did not have to contend with: a collective Jewish entity, Israel, that has agency. A Jewish nation-state that has shucked millennia of passivity and vulnerability now also must contend with accountability.” [Substack]
Word on the Street
President Donald Trump nominated Tom Rose to serve as U.S. ambassador to Poland; Rose, who served as a senior advisor to former Vice President Mike Pence, was the publisher and CEO of The Jerusalem Post from 1997-2005…
Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington yesterday, Trump welcomed several American hostage families in attendance; “We’re joined today by several brave families whose loved ones were taken hostage during the Oct. 7 horrible attack 16 months ago. And I know I speak for everyone here today when I say we’re keeping you in our hearts and our prayers,” the president said…
Trump is slated to meet next week with Jordanian King Abdullah II and Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa when the two travel to Washington on separate visits…
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with administration officials at the White House yesterday to discuss global tech leadership…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is slated to make his first Middle East visit in his capacity as the top U.S. diplomat in mid-February; Rubio is scheduled to be in Israel on Feb. 16-17 before traveling on to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar…
The Washington Post talked to Oubai Shahbandar, a former Defense Department intelligence officer who backed Trump during the election, about the president’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his recent comments on Gaza…
A staffer in the newly created Department of Government Efficiency resigned after the resurfacing of posts from a since-deleted social media account advocating for racism and eugenics…
In The Free Press, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos calls for the shuttering of the Department of Education, suggesting that the department she once ran “shuffles money around; adds unnecessary requirements and political agendas via its grants; and then passes the buck when it comes time to assess if any of that adds value”…
Roll Call reports on Senate GOP concerns over the Trump administration’s emerging Defense Department senior team…
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee stalled the committee vote on advancing Kash Patel’s nomination to lead the FBI; the vote is now slated to take place next week…
No. 2 Senate Republican John Barrasso (R-WY) said that the Senate will vote on confirming Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence next week, adding that the timing to confirm Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) as United Nations ambassador is still uncertain — due to Stefanik’s voting power in the House, where Republicans have a slight majority — but that he is working with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on the issue; Barrasso said that Senate Republicans are ready to proceed with Stefanik’s confirmation and can move quickly…
Sens. Jim Risch (R-ID), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), John Cornyn (R-TX), Ted Cruz (R-TX), John Curtis (R-UT), Steve Daines (D-MT) and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) urged the State Department to sanction Chinese entities that are expected to transfer 1,000 tons of missile propellant to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps…
The Treasury Department announced sanctions on individuals and tankers involved in shipping Iranian crude oil to China…
William Lauder will sell two adjacent beachfront properties in Palm Beach, Fla., for just under $200 million; Lauder first listed the vacant parcels in 2023…
The Real Deal looks at the collaborative efforts of Chicago Bulls President and CEO Michael Reinsdorf and Chicago Blackhawks owner Danny Wirtz to build a megadevelopment in the city’s West Side…
Officials in Chicago are facing mounting pressure to remove a controversial art display titled “U.S.-Israel War Machine” that features images of Uncle Sam and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…
The “Documenta” German art exhibition adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism into its code of conduct, three years after the art show, which occurs every five years, displayed an outdoor mural with antisemitic caricatures of Jews…
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz tapped Defense Ministry Deputy Director Itamar Graf to be the ministry’s acting director-general until a permanent replacement is chosen for outgoing Director-General Eyal Zamir, who will assume the role of IDF chief of staff next month…
Egypt is engaging in a behind-the-scenes diplomatic effort pushing back against Trump’s proposal to relocate the entire Gaza population…
Iran inaugurated its first drone-carrier warship, which it said has the ability to travel up to 22,000 nautical miles without needing to refuel…
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled out diplomatic talks with the Trump administration on Friday, citing the first Trump administration’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018…
Pic of the Day
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) on Capitol Hill yesterday.
Birthdays
Winner of 25 Emmy Awards as a broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor of ABC’s “Nightline” from its inception in 1980 until his retirement in late 2005, Ted Koppel turns 85 on Saturday…
FRIDAY: Director of training for the Bulfinch Group, Michel R. Scheinmann turns 77… Senior rabbi (now emeritus) of Beth Tzedec Congregation in Toronto, Baruch Frydman-Kohl turns 74… Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) turns 73… Majority leader of the Illinois House of Representatives, Robyn Gabel turns 72… Senior PFAS program manager at the GSI Family of Companies and part-time instructor at Carnegie Mellon University, Rick Wice… American businessman and investor arrested in Bolivia in July 2011 and held for 18 months without charges, freed through public outcry and the efforts of Sean Penn, Jacob Ostreicher turns 66… Actor, humorist, comedian and writer known for his “Saturday Night Live TV Funhouse” cartoon shorts, Robert Smigel turns 65… President of The Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC, Dr. David L. Reich turns 65… Baseball columnist for the New York Post and a baseball insider for MLB Network, Jon Heyman turns 64… Director general of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2020 to 2023, Alon Ushpiz turns 59… Professional hockey player who played in 418 regular and postseason games in the NHL spanning 13 seasons, Mike Hartman turns 58… Rabbi at Beth Chai Congregation in Bethesda, Md., and author of nine Jewish children’s books and teen novels, Deborah Bodin Cohen… Principal consultant at Saxon Strategies, Jennifer Diamond Haber… Author of 24 fiction and nonfiction books, some of which have been made into feature films, Ben Mezrich turns 56… Executive director of UJA-Federation of New York and JCRC-NY’s Community Security Initiative, Mitch Silber turns 55… Israeli actor, model and musician, he played Yonatan Netanyahu in the 2018 film “Entebbe,” Angel Bonanni turns 53… Executive director of the Aviv Foundation, Adam Simon… SVP at Material+, Jonathan Weiss… Chassidic singer and recording artist, Shloime Daskal turns 46… Former member of the Knesset for the Yisrael Beiteinu party, Mark Ifraimov turns 44… MLB pitcher from 2005 until 2017, he played for the Rangers, Cubs, Orioles, Astros, Blue Jays and Reds, he is now an angel investor in the San Francisco area, Scott Feldman turns 42… Former professional basketball player in Germany, Italy and Israel, he is now a VP at Lightspeed Venture Partners in Menlo Park, Calif., Dan Grunfeld turns 41… NFL player for six seasons until 2015, he is now the safeties coach for the Washington Huskies, Taylor Mays turns 37… Senior director of advancement field services for Hillel International, Rachael Fenton… David Israel… Michael Harris…
SATURDAY: Boston attorney, author and podcast host, his 2013 book on Jews and baseball was turned into the 2016 play “Swing, Schmendrick,” Swing, Larry Ruttman turns 94… Stage, television and film actor, stand-up comedian and singer, Robert Klein turns 83… Chair of the Morris A. Hazan Family Foundation, Lovee Arum turns 81… Therapist and life coach based in Wake County, N.C., Sheila Kay… Columbus, Ohio-born attorney and president of Schottenstein Legal Services, James Mark Schottenstein turns 78… Former CEO of the Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York (Albany), now an executive coach and nonprofit consultant in Venice, Florida, Rodney Margolis… Village justice in Red Hook, N.Y., Judge Jonah Triebwasser turns 75… CEO of NYC-based Cohen Brothers Realty Corporation, owner of more than 12 million square feet of office space and design centers, he also produces films and owns theaters, Charles S. Cohen turns 73… Active private investor and business operator, he is on the board of Tel Aviv University, Marc Lauren Abramowitz turns 72… President of NYC-based BlackRock and past Chair of the Board of UJA-Federation of New York, Robert S. Kapito turns 68… Chief rabbi of the IDF, Brig. Gen. Eyal Moshe Karim turns 68… Senior director of synagogue affiliations and operations for United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Barry S. Mael… Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Hudson Institute, Sarah May Stern… British businessman and chairman of the Premier League’s Tottenham Hotspur since 2001, Daniel Levy turns 63… Former member of the Knesset for the Jewish Home and New Right parties, Shulamit “Shuli” Mualem-Rafaeli turns 60… Chairman of Andell Inc. and co-founder and trustee of the Charles Bronfman Prize, Andrew Hauptman turns 56… Chess grandmaster, then derivatives trader, now a retirement planner, Ilya Mark Gurevich turns 53… Attorney, rabbi and New Jersey political consultant, Benjamin G. Kelsen… Popular Israeli musician, singer and songwriter, Eviatar Banai turns 52… Actor and filmmaker, Seth Benjamin Green turns 51… Member of the Knesset for the Labor party until 2021, he is now director-general of the Israeli office of UJA-Federation of New York, Itzik Shmuli turns 45… Founder of DC-based JTR Strategies, she is the former head of aviation and international affairs at USDOT under President Obama, Jenny Thalheimer Rosenberg… Senior advisor in the Office of the Inspector General at USAID, Adam Kaplan… Partner at Sidley Austin, he was previously chief of staff to then-Attorney General Bill Barr, William Ranney Levi… Retired professional ice hockey center for five NHL teams, now a real estate executive, Trevor Smith turns 40… Synchronized swimmer on behalf of Israel at the three Olympic games: 2004, 2008 and 2012, Inna Yoffe turns 37… Yale Law School graduate, she clerked for Judge Marsha S. Berzon on the Ninth Circuit and is now a senior attorney at Public Justice, Alexandra Brodsky… Deputy director of policy and government affairs for AIPAC, Celia Glassman… Canadian jazz-pop singer-songwriter, who performed at the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, Nicole “Nikki” Rachel Yanofsky turns 31… Pitcher for Team Israel in the 2020 Olympics as well as the 2017 and 2023 World Baseball Classics, Jake Layton Fishman turns 30… Associate attorney in the NYC office of Heidell, Pittoni, Murphy & Bach, Samantha Grosinger… Director of global brand and marketing at Olami, Michal Nordmann…
SUNDAY: Grammy Award-winning songwriter of over 150 hits including Somewhere Out There from the movie “An American Tail,” in partnership with his late wife Cynthia Weil, Barry Mann (born Barry Imberman) turns 86… Singer-songwriter, she wrote 118 songs that made it to the Top 100 between 1955 and 1999 and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Carole King (born Carol Klein) turns 83… Professor of economics at Columbia University, Nobel laureate in 2001, former SVP and chief economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz turns 82… Three-time Tony Award and three-time Emmy Award-winning actress, Judith Light turns 76… Professor of history and modern Jewish studies at UCSD, Deborah Hertz turns 76… Israeli singer Shimi Tavori (born Shimshon Tawili) turns 72… Former governor of Virginia, chair of the DNC, chair of two Clinton presidential campaigns (Bill’s in 1996, Hillary’s in 2008), Terry McAuliffe, a/k/a “the Macher,” turns 68… Creator of the HBO series “The Wire” and NBC’s series “Homicide: Life on the Street,” winner of a 2010 MacArthur genius fellowship, David Simon turns 65… Theoretical physics professor at Columbia University since 1996, author of multiple books written for the general public such as Icarus at the Edge of Time, Brian Greene turns 62… Isaac Lieberman… Managing director with the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, he was the lieutenant governor and then attorney general of Delaware, Matthew P. Denn turns 59… Play-by-play announcer for ESPN’s men’s college basketball and for the Toronto Blue Jays, Dan Shulman turns 58… British broadcasting executive who is currently chief content officer at the UK’s Channel 4, Ian Katz turns 57… President of the U.S. Education portfolio at the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Julie Mikuta… Sports announcer for NBA, NFL and college basketball games on CBS, TNT and TBS, as well as Brooklyn Nets games on the YES Network, Ian Eagle turns 56… Assistant adjunct professor of journalism at UCLA, she was a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the LA Times for 16 years, Abigail Helaine (“Abbe”) Goldman turns 55… Managing director of AlTi Tiedemann Global, Jeffrey L. Zlot… Charleston, S.C., resident, Ellen Miriam Brandwein… Television and film actress, Margarita Levieva turns 45… Member of the Minnesota State Senate since 2011, Jeremy R. Miller turns 42… Director of public policy and strategy for Christians United for Israel Action Fund, Boris Zilberman… Director of development for Ben-Gurion University, Jason Pressberg… Member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives (D-182) since 2023, Benjamin R. Waxman turns 40… Managing partner of Precision Infrastructure Management, Thomas Szold… Brazilian chess grandmaster, André Diamant turns 35… Associate director at Merck Research Laboratories, Carly Abenstein Myar… Israeli judoka, he competed for Israel at the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympics, Baruch Shmailov turns 31… Offensive tackle for the NFL’s Chicago Bears, Jake Curhan turns 27…
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