Daily Kickoff
| Good Wednesday morning. In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover the arson attack at the residence of Gov. Josh Shapiro on the first night of Passover, and report on Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff’s waffling position on the Iranian nuclear talks. We spotlight DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s recent hiring of a senior intelligence official who opposes the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign against Iran, and talk to Jewish students and officials at Harvard about the school’s clashes with the White House. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: David Petraeus, Mélanie Laurent, Romi Gonen and Emily Damari. |
What We’re Watching
- Reps. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) are set to reintroduce legislation today that would bar federal agencies from contracting with companies engaged in boycotts of Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
- We’re keeping an eye on plans to hold a second round of U.S.-Iran nuclear talks over the coming weekend, after Italian officials signaled that the next talks would take place in Rome. Iran has since insisted that the next talks will take place in Oman.
- In California, the Pajaro Valley Unified School Board will vote on how ethnic studies is taught in the district, which is near Santa Cruz, potentially laying the groundwork for other school districts to follow suit.
What You Should Know
The news of a devastating arson attack at the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion on the first night of Passover — which prompted the swift evacuation of the state’s Jewish governor, Josh Shapiro, and his wife and daughters just hours after they had hosted a Seder — struck fresh fear into American Jews amid already heightened concerns about rising antisemitism, Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss writes.
The attack, which badly damaged portions of the residence, was felt especially acutely in Pennsylvania, where seven years ago 11 Jews were killed in the Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh — to date the deadliest attack on the American Jewish community in history.
The remnants of the previous night — plates covered in ash that had been stacked on a banquet table at the Seder, a tattered and burnt Haggadah — invoked the memories of dark and deadly chapters in Jewish history.
Shapiro himself has already faced outsized attention over his Jewish faith — which he frequently invoked on the campaign trail in 2022 — and support for Israel. When he was short-listed as former Vice President Kamala Harris’ potential running mate, far-left activists fixated on Shapiro’s positions on Israel, turning him into a bogeyman of sorts in an effort to tank his chances of being selected for the ticket.
And from the right, Shapiro has been attacked for his faith — most notably by his gubernatorial rival, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, for sending his children to a “privileged, exclusive, elite” Jewish day school. Mastriano at one point suggested that Shapiro’s decision to send their children to the school demonstrated his “disdain for people like us.”
A warrant obtained by The Patriot News indicated that the suspect, Cody Balmer, targeted Shapiro over, Balmer said, what the governor “wants to do to Palestinian people.”
In the wake of the attack, the fear felt by many Jews was a fear that has become too familiar in recent years.
It is the same fear many felt after the Tree of Life attack, and six months later after a deadly shooting at Chabad of Poway, Calif. It is the same fear felt with every new release of cellphone or CCTV footage showing a visibly Jewish person targeted on the streets of New York. It is the same fear felt as a gunman rampaged through Jersey City after killing four people in a kosher supermarket in 2019, and the same fear that manifested in the 12 hours that four men were held hostage in a Texas synagogue on a Shabbat morning in January 2022.
It is a fear that strikes even deeper in the year and a half since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks and ensuing war in Gaza, as American Jews find themselves feeling more and more vulnerable.
A survey conducted last fall by the American Jewish Committee as part of its annual “State of Antisemitism in America” report found that nearly three-quarters of American Jewish adults believed that Jews in the U.S. were less secure than they were a year prior, with 43% believing that they would be a victim of antisemitism in the coming year.
Shapiro addressed the violence head-on in a speech the day after the attack. “This kind of violence is becoming far too common in our society,” Shapiro said, “and I don’t give a damn if it’s coming from one particular side or the other, directed at one particular party or another, or one particular person or another.”
Within hours of the arson attack over the weekend, the social media echo chamber was already speculating, as it does in the wake of most attacks of this scale, about Balmer’s political affiliation and ideology — with the ability to pin the crime on an opposing group being the ultimate goal.
The crutch of mindless partisanship makes it harder to forge broad, bipartisan coalitions that agree that antisemitism is a growing threat in this country. Whether it is squabbling and stunts around antisemitism and Israel legislation on Capitol Hill and in statehouses across the country, podcast hosts “just asking questions” about the Holocaust to mass audiences or the normalization of antisemitic tropes, the Jewish community is the one that pays the ultimate price.
As Shapiro said on Sunday, standing in front of the ransacked residence, “It is not OK, and it has to stop.”
witkoff’s way
Witkoff sends mixed messages on Iranian nuclear enrichment
The Trump administration’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, appeared on Tuesday to walk back a suggestion made the day prior that the U.S. is willing to allow Iran to maintain some level of nuclear enrichment, as it did during the original 2015 nuclear deal. On Tuesday, Witkoff, who is leading the negotiations for the U.S., said that the U.S. is demanding that Iran eliminate its enrichment and weaponization programs, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
The latest: “The conversation with the Iranians will be much about two critical points: One, enrichment. As you mentioned, they do not need to enrich past 3.67%,” Witkoff said on Fox News on Monday. “You do not need to run a civil nuclear program where you’re enriching past 3.67%. This is going to be much about verification on the enrichment program. And then ultimately verification on weaponization. That includes missiles.” But Witkoff offered a different position on Tuesday in a post on X. “Any final arrangement must set a framework for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East — meaning that Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program,” Witkoff wrote. Witkoff’s initial comments on Fox set off a wave of concerned reactions from the U.S. and Israel.
Bonus: President Donald Trump held a meeting on Tuesday morning in the Situation Room to discuss the administration’s negotiations with Iran.
the koch pipeline
Tulsi Gabbard taps another Koch-affiliated official to key intelligence post
William Ruger, a Koch-affiliated foreign policy analyst and an outspoken opponent of military efforts to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, has been named to a key intelligence post in the Trump administration — just before the U.S. engaged in high-stakes negotiations with the Islamic Republic over the future of its nuclear program, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Background: Most recently, Ruger was the president of the libertarian American Institute for Economic Research, which has staunchly opposed President Donald Trump’s global tariffs. Ruger has also been a longtime critic of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, which Ruger has said “promises further conflict” between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic, even as he has blamed the effort on misguided advice from the president’s advisors. “Need to remember that even if both sides are hitting the brakes, the ‘maximum pressure’ campaign is going to continue to create problems” between the U.S. and Iran, Ruger warned in a social media post published in January 2020, shortly after Trump approved the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The president, he said, should “pivot to more serious diplomacy” with Iran.
Bonus: Senior Pentagon advisor Dan Caldwell, who previously served as a senior fellow at a Koch-backed think tank, was placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of department information. Darin Selnick, the Pentagon’s deputy chief of staff, was also placed on leave.
attack on the academy
Leading voices against antisemitism at Harvard decry Trump’s overreach, but urge reforms
Jewish faculty, alumni and students at Harvard — including some who have been outspoken against Harvard’s handling of antisemitism over the past year and a half — are watching with concern as the White House targets the Ivy League institution and the university prepares to do battle with the Trump administration. The administration announced on Monday that it would be canceling $2.2 billion in federal funds to Harvard University after President Alan Garber said he would not cede to demands from Trump. Many Jewish Harvard affiliates are wary of the president’s aggressive intrusion into academia, while also calling for Harvard to take stronger action to address antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch and Haley Cohen report.
Trump effect: “The second Trump letter had demands that could charitably be called ridiculous, and the Trump administration must have known that Garber would have no choice but to reject them,” Jesse Fried, a Harvard Law School professor who has spoken publicly about increasing antisemitism and anti-Zionism at Harvard after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, told JI. “They say that Trump is the great divider, but I’ve never seen anybody unify the Harvard faculty as successfully as he has.”
Bonus: The Wall Street Journal editorial board cautions that the Trump administration is “overstepping its authority” in its dealings with Harvard.
deportee details
Trump’s latest deportee: Mohsen Mahdawi, Columbia’s anti-Israel protest ‘ringleader’
The arrest on Monday of a Palestinian student at Columbia University who helped organize campus anti-Israel demonstrations was the latest front in the Trump administration’s closely scrutinized crackdown on foreign activists who have expressed sympathy for Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups. Mohsen Mahdawi, a 34-year-old green card holder born and raised in the West Bank, was arrested and detained by federal immigration officers after he appeared at a U.S. citizenship interview in Vermont, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Campus ‘ringleader’: Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, said in an email to JI on Tuesday that Mahdawi “was a ringleader in the Columbia protests,” sharing a New York Post article citing anonymous State Department sources claiming he had used “threatening rhetoric and intimidation” against Jewish students. “Due to privacy and other considerations, and visa confidentiality, we generally will not comment on Department actions with respect to specific cases,” a State Department spokesperson told JI on Tuesday.
texas tussle
Sen. John Cornyn fighting to fend off insurgent primary challenge from Texas AG
The decision by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to challenge Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in the GOP primary is not only setting up a blockbuster contest between two Texas heavyweights, but is testing what it means to be a conservative Republican at a time when the party’s principles and values are rapidly shifting. The contest pits Cornyn, a fixture in Texas politics for nearly four decades and a senior Republican on Capitol Hill, against Paxton, the state’s scandal-plagued attorney general and a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, in what is expected to be one of the highest-profile intra-party fights this cycle, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
What to expect: “It’s going to be really nasty and really expensive,” Matt Mackowiak, a Republican political consultant and the former chairman of the Travis County GOP, told JI of the race. “Any race like this that has a challenge to the incumbent, the challenger has to convince the electorate that the incumbent needs to be fired. That’s really what the race ends up being about. So Paxton is going to have to prosecute an intense, negative case that resonates with primary voters, but Cornyn is going to also prosecute a negative case with primary voters too.”
gaza saga
Israel says pressure in Gaza will continue as Hamas rejects hostage deal
Israel vowed to ramp up pressure on Hamas as the terror group rejected a proposal backed by Israel and the U.S. for a six-week ceasefire and hostage deal, which Israel supported, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Deal denied: Hamas rejected the proposed six-week ceasefire requiring the terrorist group to disarm, the BBC reported on Tuesday. Following a meeting between Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya and Egyptian intelligence officials in Cairo, a Palestinian official told the BBC that Hamas would not accept a deal that does not include an Israeli commitment to end the war. The deal would have also included the release of Israeli American Edan Alexander as well as nine other living hostages being held captive in Gaza in exchange for Israel freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including the perpetrators of deadly terror attacks.
Bonus: Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) responded on Monday to claims by a Hamas spokesperson that the terror group had lost contact with the group holding Alexander, who is from New Jersey, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Worthy Reads
The Ties That Bind, in Captivity: The Daily Mail’s Andy Jehring spotlights released hostages Romi Gonen and Emily Damari, who formed a close bond in captivity and now support each other in their respective recoveries. “In captivity, trained medic Romi would bandage Emily’s wounded hand and help her with physiotherapy to try to ease her pain. Together, they learned to perform daily tasks using one another’s working limbs as they whiled away the lonely hours telling stories of their families and friends. ‘When we washed clothes, it was one of her hands and one of mine,’ said Emily. ‘When we washed the dishes, it was one of her hands and one of mine. When we let off steam by kickboxing with each other, it was one of her hands and one of mine until it ended in tears because we hit the sore hand. Romi is like a twin to me. Like they say, twins feel everything; the same goes for us, when she’s not feeling well, I feel it and vice versa.’” [DailyMail]
Long Ro to Hoe: The Washington Post’s Maeve Reston and Hannah Knowles profile Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who is believed to be mulling a 2028 presidential bid with the Democratic Party at a crossroads as it mulls its future direction. “Khanna’s thirst for publicity sometimes draws eye rolls from fellow Democrats — and as a little-known House member, he is hardly at the top of pundits’ presidential lists for 2028. Some strategists bluntly dismissed his chances and suggested his Silicon Valley ties and embrace of liberal ideas such as Medicare-for-all could be political liabilities. But with liberal voters hungry for leadership, strategists said, there are also many opportunities for Democratic politicians of all stripes to jump in and shape the party — even if they might seem to be a long shot for 2028. ‘We as a party are in between leaders … still struggling to figure out where we’re going and how we’re going to get there,’ said Jim Manley, a longtime aide to the late Democratic Senate leader Harry M. Reid. ‘And that’s going to allow anyone who’s interested to try and figure out whether they have what it takes to run for president — or at least raise their profile.’” [WashPost]
A Normal Iran: The New York Times’ Bret Stephens argues in favor of a diplomatic agreement with Iran that goes beyond its nuclear efforts and defangs Iran’s proxy network, protects Iranian citizens and restores diplomatic ties between Washington and Tehran. “France and Britain also have nukes, but not many people lie awake at night worried about them. The Iranian regime is different not because it might acquire nuclear weapons. It’s different because its ideological character, geopolitical ambitions and raging anti-Americanism and antisemitism, as well as its long record of supporting terrorism, might dispose the regime to brandish or even use them. … If Iran wants to solve its pressing economic and strategic problems — a cratering currency, energy shortages, widespread popular opposition and the decimation of its regional allies — all it has to do is change its own behavior. If Trump wants his own Reaganesque “Tear down this wall” moment, proposing normal for normal in an Oval Office address would be a good way to do it.” [NYTimes]
Word on the Street
The Trump administration is mulling an effort to press Congress to cut the FY 2026 budgets of the State Department and USAID by nearly half…
The State Department approved the potential sale of Eitan PowerPack engines to Israel for $180 million…
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) met earlier this week with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp as Senate Republicans encourage Kemp to mount a challenge to Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) next year…
Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), who lost last year’s Senate race against Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), formally announced his bid for the Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) in 2026…
Former Michigan state Sen. Adam Hollier, a Democrat, announced a primary challenge to Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI); Hollier had previously mounted congressional bids in 2022 and 2024…
DNC Vice Chair David Hogg is planning to spend $20 million through his Leaders We Deserve organization to back primary challengers to sitting Democratic legislators in solid-blue districts…
KKR & Co. announced the appointment of former CIA Director David Petraeus as chairman of the firm’s Middle East branch; Petraeus, who was already an executive at the firm, previously served in Iraq and Afghanistan and led U.S. Central Command from 2008-2010…
The Wall Street Journal spotlights the government task force investigating antisemitism at dozens of universities…
A State Department memo issued last month found that the Trump administration failed to produce evidence for its claim that a recently detained Tufts student from Turkey whose student visa was revoked had engaged in antisemitic activity and support for a terror group…
Northwestern University officials are investigating an incident of antisemitic vandalism on the campus that occurred on the second day of Passover…
Georgetown University postponed a campus-wide BDS referendum that was set to take place during Passover, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports…
Days after identifying swaths of suspect votes in the ongoing World Zionist Congress elections tied to seemingly randomly generated emails, prepaid credit cards and other irregularities, the organization’s US Area Election Committee will be tossing out the nearly 2,000 votes in question and is working to identify those behind the apparent fraud, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim reports…
The New York Times reviews I Seek a Kind Person: My Father, Seven Children, and the Adverts That Helped Them Escape the Holocaust, a book by British journalist Julian Borger recounting the escapes from Nazi-occupied Austria of eight Jewish children, including his own father, through ads placed in British newspapers…
French-Jewish actress Mélanie Laurent is joining the fifth season of “Fauda” in a yet-to-be-disclosed role; Laurent, who will appear in seven of the season’s nine episodes, previously starred in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds”…
The Washington Post spotlights efforts by Hamas to stifle dissent among Palestinians in Gaza, following demonstrations in recent weeks protesting the terror group’s continued reign over the enclave…
The Wall Street Journal reports on Israeli territorial gains in Gaza, where the IDF has taken over roughly one-third of the enclave in an effort to exert pressure on Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages…
The Financial Times looks at Israel’s adapted security approach and how it has shifted its strategy to build new buffer zones along its borders and eliminate potential threats from neighboring countries…
A dog that was taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks was found in Gaza and will be returned today to his owner, the ex-wife of hostage Alex Dancyg, who was killed in captivity in February 2024…
The Maldives announced it was banning Israelis from entering the island nation in what it called a display of “resolute solidarity” with the Palestinians…
Speaking on Tuesday to French President Emmanuel Macron, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Paris’ recognition of a Palestinian state — which Macron has said could happen in the coming months — would constitute a reward for terrorism…
The USS Carl Vinson carrier group has relocated to the Arabian Sea amid heightened tensions in the region and ongoing nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran…
The New York Times reports on the destruction in Syria of relics from the Assad era, including statues and portraits honoring ousted leader Bashar al-Assad and his family…
Commercial director Rick Levine, who was twice named best commercial director by the Directors Guild of America, died at 94… Cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen, known for his “Dry Bones” comics, died at 87… Publicist Marvin Levy, who represented Steven Spielberg for more than four decades, died at 96… Historian Elsa Honig Fine, who founded the Women’s Art Journal, died at 94… Art critic turned artist, Max Kozloff died at 91… Humor scholar Joseph Boskin, whose fanciful tale about the origin of April Fool’s Day became the stuff of lore, died at 95…
Pic of the Day
Israeli President Isaac Herzog (second from right) and his wife, Michal (right), met on Monday with the family of Ziv and Gali Berman, twin brothers who were taken hostage by Hamas and remain in captivity.
Birthdays
Founder of Jewish Fashion Council and journalist at Fabologie, Adi Heyman…
CEO and president of American Express in the 1990s, he now serves on many corporate and charitable boards, Harvey Golub turns 86… Chasidic singer, known by his stage name Mordechai Ben David or MBD, Mordechai Werdyger turns 74… Olympic track-and-field athlete, and survivor of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, Esther Roth-Shachamorov turns 73… Emmy Award and Tony Award-winning actress and movie producer, Ellen Barkin turns 71… Co-chair of Jordan Zalaznick International, David Wayne Zalaznick turns 71… Physician and venture capitalist focused on biotechnology and life-sciences industries, Lindsay Rosenwald turns 70… Professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, Aaron Louis Friedberg, Ph.D. turns 69… Filmmaker, he directed the 2011 documentary “Paul Williams Still Alive” and the 1997 slapstick comedy “Vegas Vacation” starring Chevy Chase, Stephen Kessler turns 65… Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School since 2016 and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf turns 63… Secretary of state of the United States throughout the Biden administration, Antony John (“Tony”) Blinken turns 63… Emmy Award-winning television producer and writer, he co-created and produced “Will & Grace” and “Boston Common,” David Sanford Kohan turns 61… Long Island native, he is a Los Angeles pharmacist since 1990, Jeffrey D. Marcus… U.S. ambassador to Egypt during the Trump 45 administration, Jonathan Raphael Cohen turns 61… Former mayor of Hoboken, N.J., Dawn Zimmer turns 57… Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S., now minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer turns 54… Member of the House of Commons of Canada since 2015, she represents the riding of Toronto-Danforth, Julie Dabrusin turns 54… Celebrity plastic surgeon, he is active on social media as “Dr. Miami” and has been on reality TV about his practice, Michael Salzhauer, M.D. turns 53… Board member of Jewish Community High School of the Bay in San Francisco, Ellen K. Finestone… Founder and president of Glass Ceiling Strategies, she is also a managing director for communications at Climate Power, Alex Glass… Pitcher in the Washington Nationals organization until two months ago, he played for Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Richard Sidney Bleier turns 38… Attorney who has served as a law clerk to three Maryland judges, now a senior associate at JPMorgan Chase, Geoffrey S. Middleberg… Senior product manager at Duolingo, Uriel Kejsefman… Singer, pianist and composer, he is best known as half of the folk-rock duo, the Portnoy Brothers, Mendy Portnoy turns 33… Climate and energy transition investor, he was a White House staffer in 2017, Matthew Saunders… Venture capital investor, Adam Gotbaum… First baseman for the Miami Marlins, he played for Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Matthew Jared “Mash” Mervis turns 27… Josh Goldstein… Sarah Wolfson…
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