
McCormick takes on Norwegian fund’s Israel divestment
Plus, Khanna to attend conference featuring antisemitic speakers
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the campus climate at Columbia, where classes resumed for the fall semester this week, as well as the university’s hiring of an assistant dean who backed the Palestinian “indigenous resistance movement confronting settler colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing.” We report on Rep. Ro Khanna’s upcoming appearance at a conference that features an array of antisemitic speakers, and cover Sen. Dave McCormick’s call for the Trump administration to respond to the recent decision by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund to divest from Caterpillar and other Israel-linked companies. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Robert Kraft, Mia Ehrenberg, Warren Bass and Sam Sussman.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Marc Rod, Lahav Harkov and Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.
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: Amb. Leiter: Nature of U.S.-Israel aid may change in coming years; New Humash features Rabbi Sacks’ posthumously published translation; and Negotiations for next U.S.-Israel aid deal faces uphill battle with changing political tides. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- President Donald Trump is signing an executive order today to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War, the name used through the first half of the 20th century until its renaming in 1949 as part of the implementation of the National Security Act of 1947.
- Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, are endorsing Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) today in her bid to succeed Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA). Read more from JI’s Emily Jacobs here.
- We’re continuing to monitor the situation in California, where members of the state’s Jewish Caucus are moving toward watering down antisemitism legislation that has faced significant pushback from the California Teacher’s Association. Proposed concessions on the legislation — which has until the end of the legislative session next Friday to pass — include the removal of penalties against schools that foster antisemitic learning environments and a provision setting guidance for teaching subjects that could be considered controversial.
- We’re also keeping an eye on the situation in Israel, following the IDF’s announcement that it was in control of 40% of Gaza City amid continued calls this week from senior Israeli officials including IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and Mossad head David Barnea for Jerusalem to accept a temporary ceasefire. Earlier today, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced the beginning of an aerial campaign targeting Hamas operatives in Gaza City. As Israel marks 700 days since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, the terror group released a video of Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel.
- Looking ahead to the weekend, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is bringing his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour to New York City on Saturday, where he’ll campaign with Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
- On Sunday, the Jewish Theological Seminary kicks off its inaugural storytelling festival. Etgar Keret, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jodi Kantor, Shalom Auslander, Alex Edelman and Deborah Treisman are all slated to speak at the event, which runs through Tuesday.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
Just when it looked like far-left New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani was on track to become mayor, in part thanks to persistent divisions among his opposition, there are signs of a possible consolidation of the crowded field.
The New York Timesreported that embattled Mayor Eric Adams is considering a job offer from the Trump administration — a position at the Department of Housing and Urban Development or an ambassadorship have been floated — that would entice him to withdraw from the race. The paper is also reporting that Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa has also been approached by Trump allies, but Sliwa has remained adamant that he is sticking in the race.
All told, Trump’s team is doing everything it can behind the scenes to eliminate the structural hurdles for a successful anti-Mamdani coalition, without publicly putting its finger on the scale for the leading Mamdani challenger, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. (It’s also notable that Trump, even though it would be in his political interest to use a Mamdani mayoralty as a battering ram against Democrats, is more concerned about the policy consequences of a socialist mayor in his hometown.)
A one-on-one Mamdani-Cuomo general election showdown is still far from a sure thing, but it’s worth noting that the matchup would be quite competitive, according to the available public polling. Even the pro-Mamdani pollster Adam Carlson found in July that Mamdani only led Cuomo by three points among registered voters in a head-to-head matchup, though the lead expanded to double digits when the most likely voters were polled.
campus beat
Columbia’s new school year starts quietly, but antisemitism still present

The first day of the new school year on Tuesday at Columbia University was met with a wary sense of relief from Jewish students and faculty, who returned to campus unsure whether recent reforms aimed at combating campus antisemitism would make any difference. Scenes that have become commonplace on Columbia’s campus over the past two years — masked anti-Israel demonstrators barging into classrooms and the library banging on drums and chanting “Free Palestine” or hourslong demonstrations in the center of campus of more than 100 students calling for an “intifada revolution” — were nowhere to be seen. Still, in quieter ways, there were moments behind the tall iron entrance gates reminiscent of the antisemitic turbulence that grew commonplace on the Morningside Heights campus since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
What went down: Three members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of over 80 university student groups that Instagram banned earlier this year for promoting violence, protested Columbia Hillel’s club fair, distributing fliers urging Jewish students to “drop Hillel” because it “supports genocide.” Elsewhere on campus, an organizer of the 2024 anti-Israel encampment movement, Cameron Jones, paraded a sign that read, “some of your classmates were IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces] criminals committing genocide in Palestine.” Within hours, Columbia announced it had “initiated investigations into incidents that involve potential violations of the University’s Student Anti-Discrimination and Discriminatory Harassment Policies and University Rules.”