Daily Kickoff
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report from a cross-denominational convening in Miami of Zionist rabbis, and have the scoop on a letter from a bipartisan group of House members pressing the Trump administration on frozen nonprofit security funds. We also report on the upcoming Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on antisemitism, slated for next week, and talk to legal experts about the implications of the Trump administration’s shuttering of the Department of Education on Office for Civil Rights investigations into campus antisemitism. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Arielle Zuckerberg, Riley Weiss and Michael Eisenberg.
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: Dubai-based Augustus Media pushes Shopify boycott over president’s tweet supporting fair reporting about Israel; Amazon hit series ‘House of David’ portrays biblical King David as an ‘underdog’ with a ‘message of resilience’; and Jewish community mourns Nita Lowey, pro-Israel congressional champion. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth are slated to make remarks from the Oval Office at 11 a.m. ET today.
- Today is the deadline for Columbia University to meet a series of demands put forward by the Trump administration as a first step toward reinstating federal funding to the school, $400 million of which was cut earlier this month.
- The U.N. Security Council is meeting this morning to discuss Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
- The Jewish Funders Network will hold its annual confab beginning on Sunday in Nashville, Tenn. eJewishPhilanthropy will be covering the convening — say hi to eJP’s managing editor, Judah Ari Gross, if you see him, and sign up for eJP’s Your Daily Phil newsletter here.
- The Central Conference of American Rabbis is holding its annual conference starting Sunday in Chicago.
What You Should Know
The news out of Israel in the last few days has been disorienting: On one side of the metaphorical split screen, tanks rolled into Gaza as Israel’s leaders expressed determination to release the remaining 59 hostages and defeat Hamas; on the other, demonstrations about democracy and rule of law blocked significant arteries. Post- and pre-Oct. 7 Israel are colliding, with potentially explosive results, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet voted to dismiss Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar late Thursday night, hours after tens of thousands of protesters blocked roads in Tel Aviv and near the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem. They clashed with police, who took a heavy hand against them, under the guidance of Itamar Ben-Gvir, once again national security minister.
Bar’s dismissal on the grounds of Netanyahu’s “continuing lack of trust” in him was predictable after months of mutual recriminations between the men, filtered through proxies in the media. The Shin Bet chief and prime minister had divergent approaches to the negotiations to free hostages from Gaza. Netanyahu allies also blamed Bar for much of the failure to prevent or immediately respond to the Oct. 7 attacks because the Shin Bet knew of suspicious activity in Gaza that morning but didn’t flag it for the prime minister.
The tensions come to a boil at a time when Netanyahu’s government is also trying to remove Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara over her blocking of a record-breaking proportion of Cabinet decisions, including an attempt to stop Bar’s termination. Earlier this week, the Knesset advanced a pared-down version of the 2023 judicial reform changes to how judges are selected.
Adding fuel to the fire was Netanyahu’s post on X earlier this week, stating that “in America and in Israel, when a strong right wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people’s will.” All of the above brought out many of the recognizable slogans about democracy and the rule of law from the first nine months of 2023, though the protests were smaller.
Netanyahu critics have since late 2023 been questioning his motives for continuing the war, but when Israel renewed fighting in Gaza this week, the accusation that he was doing it to stay in power seemed to reach a new level of acceptance. That Ben-Gvir immediately rejoined the government after having quit in January over the ceasefire, enabling the coalition to pass part of the budget bill, didn’t help.
That being said, Hamas’ refusal to release more hostages for weeks, after the first phase of the ceasefire agreement was completed, meant that it was getting a ceasefire without any concessions, allowing it to regroup (including the launching of a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv yesterday). In addition, Netanyahu warned, when Israel started blocking the entry of goods into Gaza on March 2, that the IDF would ramp up the “consequences” if Hamas did not free hostages, which is exactly what happened.
IDF tanks advanced on the Netzarim Corridor, bisecting Gaza and allowing Israel to stop the flow of terrorists, arms and anything else between the northern and southern Strip on Wednesday – the same day that Netanyahu made his Trump-esque remark about the “deep state.” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Friday that the IDF will widen its buffer zone in Gaza, including moving the population out of the way, saying that “the longer Hamas continues to refuse to release hostages, it will lose more and more territory that will be attached to Israel.”
Thousands of reservists have been called up in recent weeks and the IDF is preparing to call more. As the war grinds on, fewer reservists report for duty, struggling to keep their jobs and their families together after hundreds of days serving. When reservists called to refuse to serve in light of the political situation, new IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir acted quickly to dismiss them, in contrast to his predecessor’s actions two years ago.
Netanyahu does not seem to be considering the need for motivation and unity among reservists that the IDF needs badly. When former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak said this week that he feared a civil war, he was condemned by many, including Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who quoted former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who famously said “there will be no civil war.”
Yet, even if that outcome is unlikely, the mixture of pre- and post-Oct. 7 news has dangerous potential. If Netanyahu insists that an investigation into the government’s failings ahead of the Hamas attack can wait until after the war, perhaps the major domestic political moves can wait for a different week than the one when Israeli tanks moved into Gaza.
Miami meetup
Inside the Miami conference giving rabbis a safe space to be Zionists
Shayna Burack, a joint cantorial and rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College, the Reform movement’s seminary in New York, came out as a Zionist in her senior sermon before her classmates earlier this year. She paid a price. “I almost lost a friend over the sermon, just because he had such a hard time being friends with a Zionist,” Burack told Jewish Insider‘s Gabby Deutch. “I wish it didn’t take courage to get up and say I’m a Zionist or I support Israel.” Burack also shared the story at the opening session on Sunday night of an exclusive convening of Reform, Conservative and Orthodox rabbis at a glitzy Miami resort to discuss how to bring their love for Israel to the pulpit — and to strategize about how to fight what they see as waning support for Zionism among some young rabbis.
Making waves: Burack’s remarks landed hard among the attendees at the gathering, called “Zionism: A New Conversation.” It was organized by the Leffell Foundation, with support from The Paul E. Singer Foundation and the Maimonides Fund. Many of the 125 rabbis in the room have decades of experience in the field and lead congregations where expressing support for Israel is expected from congregants. Learning that there are students who identify as anti-Zionist at HUC came as a shock to some. “I do think that most rabbis are Zionist rabbis,” said Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi at the Reform Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in Manhattan. “The younger you go, the less true that is.”
scoop
House members demand answers from Trump administration on freeze of nonprofit security grants
A bipartisan group of 79 House members wrote to the Trump administration on Friday seeking answers about the pause in funding disbursements for a program that provides security grants to vulnerable nonprofits, just one of many grant programs affected by an across-the-board funding freeze at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Critical program: The lawmakers, led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), called it “critical” for all institutions that have been awarded a grant from the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to receive their funds. “The NSGP is one of the most effective and critical programs for protecting the Jewish community and all faith-based communities from attack,” wrote the signatories. Gottheimer’s co-authors include Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Gabe Amo (D-RI), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Max Miller (R-OH).
scoop
Bipartisan House members set to reintroduce U.S.-Israel energy cooperation legislation
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers will reintroduce legislation on Friday reauthorizing the Binational Industrial Research and Development Energy program, an initiative aimed at boosting the energy partnership between the U.S. and Israel, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs has learned.
Continued collaboration: Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Buddy Carter (R-GA), Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Joe Wilson (R-SC) will reintroduce the BIRD Energy and U.S.-Israel Energy Center Reauthorization Act during Friday’s pro forma session. The legislation “extends and expands the successful U.S.-Israel energy partnership through 2034, ensuring continued collaboration on clean energy innovation, energy security, and economic growth in both nations,” according to a release set to go out on Friday. The BIRD Energy program, an initiative established in 1977 and aimed at promoting collaboration between U.S. and Israeli companies, has spurred numerous clean energy projects in recent years, including the breakthrough development of flexible solar panels for wireless electronics and solar energy production systems that can operate over bodies of water.
Tackling antisemitism
Despite nixing of Education Department, legal experts optimistic about efforts to combat campus antisemitism
Just hours before President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to start dismantling the Department of Education, the department’s Office for Civil Rights opened its latest batch of antisemitism investigations into several universities. Jewish legal and education experts were left divided over how the cuts will impact the newest Title VI complaints — and the government’s ability going forward to hold schools accountable for rising antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Open investigations: “We have heard directly from OCR that complaints that we have filed — some of them a while ago and some of them more recently — are being opened for investigation,” Denise Katz-Prober, director of legal initiatives at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told JI. “The opening of these investigations does signal that the Department of Education and OCR are being active and forceful in addressing the antisemitism that’s plaguing so many campuses,” she said. But Matt Nosanchuk, who served as deputy assistant secretary for operations and outreach in the OCR during the Biden administration, lambasted the executive order. “Our view [in the Biden administration] was that withdrawing funds is something for which there’s a process,” Nosanchuk said, calling Trump’s cuts a move to “weaponize antisemitism to further an agenda that is anti-higher education” as well as “silencing freedom of speech.”
Read the full story here.
committee spotlight
HELP Committee holding hearing on campus antisemitism next week
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing on the surge of campus antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on March 27, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the committee’s chairman, announced. The hearing, scheduled for 10 a.m. ET, is titled, “Antisemitic Disruptions on Campus: Ensuring Safe Learning Environments for All Students,” according to an announcement from Cassidy. Witnesses’ names have not been made public yet, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Background: Cassidy has been pushing for a hearing on the issue of antisemitism on college campuses since November 2023. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the committee’s chairman in the last Congress, declined those requests. The Louisiana senator, who is up for reelection this cycle, organized a bipartisan roundtable on the issue that month as a result of Sanders’ refusal to allow for a full committee hearing.
housing assistance
ReHome offers loans, mortgage help to ‘hardest-hit’ survivors of Oct. 7 massacre who won’t or can’t return home
Rachel “Cheli” Baram will not — cannot — go back to Kibbutz Kfar Aza. It is the place where her husband, Aviv, was killed as he and the other members of the community’s emergency response team tried to prevent the infiltration of hundreds of terrorists from the Gaza Strip. And it is a place she believes that even after 17 months of war against Hamas remains fundamentally unsafe, as seen in today’s early morning rocket attack. “I won’t bring my children back to Kfar Aza because of the dangers inherent to it,” she told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross. And Baram is not alone.
Stepping into the void: An unknown number of survivors of the Oct. 7 massacres refuse to return to their homes. And yet despite the need of many Oct. 7 survivors, particularly those who experienced the worst horrors of the attacks, to relocate in the wake of the atrocities, there is currently no government program to facilitate such a move. Israeli authorities — as well as nonprofits — are primarily focused on rebuilding their communities and sending them home. Into that vacuum has stepped a new initiative, ReHome, which is offering bridging loans, financial advice and mortgage assistance, to “the hardest-hit victims” of the Oct. 7 attacks, the organization’s co-founder Dalia Black, told eJP.
Read the full story here and sign up for eJewishPhilanthropy’s Your Daily Phil newsletter here.
Worthy Reads
Eye of the Storm:The Wall Street Journal’s Sara Randazzo and Doug Belkin spotlight interim Columbia University President Katrina Armstrong as the school attempts to reach an agreement with the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, which was withheld over the school’s handling of antisemitism on campus. “In near daily emails to the Columbia community since Trump first pulled the funds, Armstrong has walked a fine line between acknowledging that some aspects of the university need to change while also asserting the importance of the school’s academic independence. Those who know her say she has a steadying temperament that has helped her lead during a crisis as well as the humility and fortitude to make unpopular decisions. But she has drawn criticism from those who say she didn’t do enough to rein in protesters and from those who say she isn’t doing enough to stand up to Trump. ‘She’s in a situation now where every minute, every hour, there’s no way she’ll be able to do anything that pleases everybody,’ said Charles Wiener, president of Johns Hopkins Medicine International, the medical system’s global ambassador, who worked with Armstrong in the 1990s.” [WSJ]
Punching Back: The Atlantic’s Gal Beckerman posits that the Democratic Party is looking for candidates and party leaders who will take a tougher approach to dealing with the Trump administration and Republicans. “To crib Isaiah Berlin’s famously overused metaphor, Democrats are foxes and Republicans (especially MAGA ones) are hedgehogs. The hedgehog’s advantage is to have one core narrative that explains everything, and hammer it with force, whereas the fox knows many things, and can think a few steps ahead. In politics, being a fox is not always preferable or easy, especially in a media environment that loves itself a hedgehog. But it has also proved to be a winning approach before. Bill Clinton and [Barack] Obama were, let’s remember, successful foxes; they knew how to juggle priorities, how to code switch, how to parry a punch. It’s precisely in such a fallow moment that it makes sense for Democrats to rediscover this other kind of toughness.” [TheAtlantic]
Nothing in Reserve: The Financial Times’ Neri Zilber looks at the strain that a resumption of fighting is putting on Israeli reservists “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and new IDF chief Eyal Zamir have threatened to follow up their air campaign in Gaza with a ferocious new ground offensive if Hamas refuses to release more Israeli hostages. Yet it is unclear how much more Israel’s armed forces can take. For much of its history, Israel chose to fight short and decisive wars, with most campaigns measured in days and weeks, to minimise the burden on the reservists it would call up to augment the regular army. With no end in sight, defence analysts and reservists have begun to warn of growing attrition on the fighting force, with jobs, families and lives put on hold. They also point to signs of disillusionment with the aims of Netanyahu and his far-right cabinet, who have ruled out ending fighting despite public pressure for a deal to bring home the remaining hostages held by Hamas.” [FT]
Word on the Street
A high-level Israeli delegation led by Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi is slated to travel to Washington early next week for discussions on Iran with Trump administration officials, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz; the meetings will be the first time the U.S.-Israel Strategic Consultative Group has assembled under the Trump administration…
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi said that Tehran would weigh the “opportunities” presented in a letter from President Donald Trump to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, days after the supreme leader rejected the contents of the letter…
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is holding a series of rallies this week in part to encourage potential candidates to run as independents, rather than as Democrats…
Trump will drop his executive order targeting the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, after meeting with Paul, Weiss head Brad Karp; Karp made a number of commitments in the meeting, including the contribution of $40 million in legal services to White House-supported causes, including a federal task force created to combat antisemitism…
A Manhattan jury convicted two men of plotting to kidnap and kill Iranian dissident writer Masih Alinejad on behalf of the Iranian regime…
Hundreds of Harvard affiliates and alumni are calling on the school’s president to suspend the campus’ Palestinian Solidarity Committee over its recent event with anti-Israel activist Mohammed El-Kurd that they say violated the school’s antisemitism policies…
A federal judge ordered that the Georgetown University researcher detained by immigration officials be allowed to remain in the U.S. pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed on his behalf…
Yeshiva Universitywill recognize a campus LGBTQ group following a yearslong legal battle…
The founders of Ben & Jerry’s called on Unilever, its parent company, to reinstate David Stever, whom Ben & Jerry’s said was removed over his support for the company’s political activism…
Nearly three dozen anti-Israel activists are suing UCLA, alleging that the school failed to stop pro-Israel activists from acting to remove the encampment set up on the campus last year; the confrontation set up a series of clashes between the groups that lasted several hours…
eJewishPhilanthropy spotlights an emerging liberal Zionist network, The London Initiative, which is bringing together 360 philanthropists, executives and thought leaders from Israel and the Diaspora…
Cyan Banister, Lee Jacobs and Arielle Zuckerberg’s Long Journey Ventures raised nearly $181.818 million — considered to be a lucky number in Judaism — as it looks to back quirky and innovative ideas and startups across a range of sectors…
The Wall Street Journal looks at how an initial $3.5 million investment into Wiz by Index Ventures in 2020, followed by subsequent investments, transformed into a $4.3 billion windfall following Alphabet’s acquisition of the Israeli startup…
Aleph co-founder Michael Eisenberg told CNBC that Wiz’s acquisition by Alphabet is “an answer to Hamas and all of the haters, the people who hate the United States and hate Israel, that we want to build and our economy is very resilient”…
A new exhibit at the Musée Picasso in Paris’ La Marais neighborhood spotlights Nazi-designated “degenerate art” that was reviled by the Reich…
The BBC apologized to the Israeli Embassy in London after requesting a speaker who would criticize the Israeli government and IDF operations in Gaza…
Recently released Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi recounted his time in captivity during a meeting of the U.N. Security Council…
Hamas fired rockets at Tel Aviv on Thursday as IDF troops expanded their ground operations in Gaza…
A spokesperson for Argentinian President Javier Milei said that Milei’s upcoming trip to Israel, slated for this weekend, has been indefinitely postponed…
The New York Times reports on the Syrians who were wanted by the Assad regime and are now free to return to their homes — wearing their former statuses on Assad-era wanted lists as a badge of honor…
Comedian Lenny Schultz, who was known for his self-described “zany” acts and characters, died at 91…
Pic of the Day
Columbia University women’s basketball player Riley Weiss moved past a University of Washington player during Thursday’s matchup in the first round of the women’s NCAA tournament. Weiss, a Maccabiah Games gold medal winner, led the Lions’ comeback from a 13-point halftime deficit to beat Washington 63-60 for its first-ever March Madness win.
Birthdays
Television and film actress, Victoria Pedretti turns 30 on Sunday…
FRIDAY: Rabbi emeritus of Manhattan’s Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun (active from 1958 until 2015) and principal of the Ramaz School (from 1966 to 2015), Rabbi Haskel Lookstein turns 93… Harvard professor, biochemist, physicist, molecular biology pioneer and winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize in chemistry, Walter Gilbert turns 93… Scholar of Jewish mysticism and a retired dean at the Hebrew College in Boston, Arthur Green turns 84… Far Rockaway, N.Y., resident, Samuel Gross… First Jewish member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Hampshire until 2011, he is of counsel to the law firm of Shaheen & Gordon, Paul Hodes turns 74… Former executive director of The Charles Bronfman Prize, Jill Collier Indyk… Chabad rabbi, martial artist and chaplain for 13 years in the Israel Prison Service, Fishel Jacobs turns 69… President of NYC- and Singapore-based KWR International, Keith W. Rabin… Retired director general of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was previously Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Yuval Rotem turns 66… Istanbul-born entrepreneur, hotelier and real estate developer, he is president of NYC-based Alexico Group LLC, Izak Senbahar turns 66… Co-founder of Wynnefield Capital Management, Joshua H. Landes… Award-winning film, stage and television actor and singer whose roles include the title role in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” Matthew Broderick turns 63… Israeli rock musician and record producer, he is best known for being the guitarist and one of the songwriters in the rock band Mashina, Shlomi Bracha turns 63… Hedge fund manager, philanthropist and former chairman of the board of the New York City Opera, Roy Niederhoffer turns 59… Partner in the Los Angeles office of Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, Michael Blacher… Founding editor of The Dispatch and author of three NYT bestsellers, Jonah Goldberg turns 56… James Beard Foundation Award-winning chef from Miami, Michelle Bernstein turns 55… Emmy Award-winning CNN anchor, John Berman turns 53… IDF general, he is one of the highest-ranking Druze ever in the IDF, Ghassan Alian turns 53… President and founder of Bully Pulpit Interactive, Andrew Bleeker… Stage and voice actress, Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld turns 38… Director of community relations at the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, Hadas Alterman… Staff attorney at Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services in Cleveland, Addison Caruso…
SATURDAY: Professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia, E.D. Hirsch turns 97… Captain Kirk on “Star Trek,” in 2021 he flew to space aboard a Blue Origin sub-orbital capsule, William Shatner turns 94… Born in Iran, twice elected mayor of Beverly Hills, he is a past president of Sinai Temple, Jamshid “Jimmy” Delshad turns 85… Dentist, born in Tel Aviv, raised in NYC, he practiced in Norwalk, Conn., Murray Bruckel, DDS… Academy Award-winning screenwriter, his work includes “Forrest Gump” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Eric R. Roth turns 80… Israeli viola player and teacher, she has performed as soloist with many orchestras world-wide, Rivka Golani turns 79… Senior principal of the law firm of Neuberger, Quinn, Gielen, Rubin & Gibber, Isaac M. Neuberger turns 78… One of the principal anchors for CNN, Wolf Blitzer turns 77… Aviation and aerospace professional, Mike Orkin… Founder and executive director at WomenStrong International, Susan Morton Blaustein turns 72… Mayor of the 16th Arrondissement of Paris until 2023, now a member of the upper house of the French Parliament, Francis Szpiner turns 71… Hedge fund manager, he sold a majority stake in the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning in 2024 but he continues to control the team, Jeffrey N. Vinik turns 66… Popular musical entertainer in the Orthodox Jewish community, his stage name is Avraham Fried, Avraham Shabsi Friedman turns 66… Director of marketing and communications at Dorot, Andrea Glick… Corporate secretary, EVP and general counsel at Hertz Corporation until 2014, J. Jeffrey Zimmerman… Retired Israeli basketball player, she is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most points (136) ever scored in a women’s professional game, Anat Draigor turns 65… Author, journalist, soldier and award-winning defense correspondent who has covered Israel and the Middle East, Arieh O’Sullivan turns 64… Journalist and author, Debra Nussbaum Cohen… Head of real estate for Mansueto Office, Ari Glass… Member of the U.K. Parliament until 2024 as a member of the British Conservative Party, Robert Halfon turns 56… Managing director of Mercury Public Affairs, Jonathan Greenspun… SVP at HCA Healthcare, Jeff E. Cohen… Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge Neomi Rao turns 52… Internet celebrity, pizza reviewer, blogger and founder of Barstool Sports, David Portnoy turns 48… Visuals editor at The City and adjunct professor at CUNY, Ben Fractenberg… VP of communications and public policy at Antora Energy, Adam Perecman Frankel… Founder and CEO of beauty and cosmetic firms Into The Gloss and Glossier, Emily Weiss… Creator of the Yehi Ohr program at Jewish Community Services of South Florida, now a real estate agent, Zisa Levin… Retired MLB first baseman after seven seasons, he starred for Team Israel in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, Isaac Benjamin “Ike” Davis turns 38… Communications director for then-Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), Sarah Alice Frank Feldman… Energy policy and climate change reporter for Politico, Joshua Adam Siegel… Director of the Dan David Prize, Charlotte Hallé… Director of communications at the U.K.’s department of energy security and net zero, James Sorene… Beatrice Stein…
SUNDAY: Actor, film director, television director and producer, Mark Rydell turns 96… Former NFL referee for 23 seasons, he is the only NFL head referee to officiate four Super Bowl games (1983, 1987, 1992 and 1995), Jerry Markbreit turns 90… Together with her husband, Theodore, she pledged $25 million to BBYO in 2019, Harriette Perlman turns 85… Mandolinist and composer of acoustic, instrumental, bluegrass and newgrass music, David Grisman turns 80… Writer and producer of television series, creator of “Deadwood” and co-creator of “NYPD Blue,” David Milch turns 80… Tel Aviv native, she is a professor of music at the Juilliard School since 1993, Yoheved “Veda” Kaplinsky turns 78… Los Angeles-based psychologist and author, her first book is The Blessings of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children, Wendy Mogel turns 74… Designer of men’s and women’s footwear, clothing and accessories, Kenneth D. Cole turns 71… Former mayor of Austin, Texas, first elected in 2014 and reelected in 2018, Stephen Ira Adler turns 69… Former director of business development at Fannie Mae, she was also the president of the Jewish Federation of Howard County (Maryland), Beth Millstein… Investor, author, financial commentator and radio personality, Peter Schiff turns 62… Russian-American oil businessman and winemaker, Eugene Shvidler turns 61… Senior writer for “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” he is also the creator of 2018’s television series “Liberty Crossing,” Daniel Radosh turns 56… Managing partner of D.C.-based Stein Mitchell Beato & Missner, Jonathan Missner turns 56… French actress who has appeared in 40 films, her Holocaust survivor grandparents changed their name from Goldreich, Judith Godrèche turns 53… Client partner at Meta/Facebook working with the financial services and real estate industry verticals, Scott Shapiro… Member of the Maryland General Assembly since 2011, initially as a delegate and since 2016 as a state senator, Craig Zucker turns 50… Israeli actress, comedian and television host, Adi Ashkenazi turns 50… Three-time Grammy Award-winning record producer, audio engineer and songwriter, Ariel Rechtshaid turns 46… Writer and teacher in Los Angeles, Yehuda Martin Hausman… Staff reporter for The New York Times, Sarah Maslin Nir… Israeli singer-songwriter, actress and musician, she performs in Hebrew, French and Arabic, Riff Cohen turns 41… Chief of staff for the Commonwealth’s Attorney in Fairfax County, Va., Benjamin Shnider… Former tennis coach at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, as a player she won five singles and four doubles titles on the ITF Women’s Circuit, Julia Cohen turns 36… Former member of the National Israeli Rhythmic Gymnastics Team, she competed in the 2012 Olympic Games, Moran Buzovski turns 33…
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