Mnookin’s mixed record at Wisconsin
Plus, in new memoir, Shapiro leans into his faith
Add JewishInsider on Google👋 Good Tuesday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the central role that Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s faith plays in his life, according to his new memoir, out today, and look at incoming Columbia President Jennifer Mnookin’s record as the University of Wisconsin chancellor prepares to become Columbia’s first Jewish president in decades. We break down the tensions between the University of Pennsylvania and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as the Trump administration seeks to get contact information for the school’s Jewish faculty, and report on concerns from leading Jewish organizations over Saudi Arabia’s recent Islamist turn. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Deni Avdija, Amer Ghalib and Edi Rama.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Across the world, memorial events will be held commemorating the day, chosen to coincide with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Over the weekend, the Claims Conference released the results of a new demographic study that found that fewer than 200,000 Holocaust survivors are still alive.
- In New York, Holocaust survivor Sara Weinstein will address the U.N. General Assembly at 11 a.m. ET today in a special session. Later in the day, Weinstein will join three other survivors in ringing the closing bell of the New York Stock Exchange.
- In Washington, the Counter Extremism Project’s ARCHER at House 88 is putting on a concert at the Kennedy Center titled “Enduring Music: Compositions from the Holocaust,” which will feature performances of works that were written in the ghettos and concentration camps of World War II Europe.
- Elsewhere in Washington, the Washington Wizards are celebrating Jewish Heritage Night during their game tonight against the Portland Trail Blazers. More below.
- In Israel, the Diaspora Ministry’s second annual conference on antisemitism wraps up today in Jerusalem.
- Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat is speaking today at the 17th annual WELT Economic Summit, being held this year at Axel Springer’s offices in Berlin.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S GABBY DEUTCH
Each time Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro gets on a plane to visit different communities as he begins his reelection campaign, he’ll silently recite Judaism’s foundational prayer, the Shema, before takeoff, according to his new memoir.
Shapiro has always kept his Jewish faith at the center of his public identity. But in Where We Keep the Light, which comes out today, the swing-state Democrat provides the most intimate look yet at the centrality of Judaism to his understanding of the world. Widely expected to be eyeing a bid for the White House in 2028, Shapiro makes clear in his new book that he will not back away from his Jewish identity as his national profile grows.
“My faith has never been something I thought about doing a whole lot. Not because it’s not important. The opposite, really. It’s elemental,” Shapiro writes. “It’s why I sometimes sound a little vague when I get asked about my religion in interviews or when I try to put it into words. Kind of like when you get asked to explain how you fall asleep or blink. You just know to do it. It’s part of you, without thinking. All essence and instinct.”
The book begins with the story of the arson attack on the governor’s residence in Harrisburg last year, hours after Shapiro hosted a Passover Seder there. It’s clear that the incident, in which the assailant said that he targeted the governor because of what Shapiro “did to the Palestinians,” impacted him deeply.
“No one will deter me or my family or any Pennsylvanian from celebrating their faith openly and proudly,” Shapiro writes.
The next night, his family began their Seder by reciting Birkat Hagomel, which he described as “a prayer expressing gratitude for surviving a dangerous situation.” Shapiro again sought comfort in those days in the Shema, and its straightforward declaration of faith in God.
Along with his deep identification with Judaism, Shapiro doesn’t shy away from his support for Israel in his memoir.
The Democratic Party has become more critical of Israel in recent years, and it is easy to imagine Shapiro deciding that the politically savvy move would be to talk less about his connection to the Jewish state.
Instead, Shapiro appears to have decided that the right move — a result, surely, of both political and moral calculations — is to reveal exactly what role Judaism and Israel have played in shaping him.
CAMPUS BEAT
Jennifer Mnookin takes over Columbia presidency with mixed record on dealing with antisemitism at Wisconsin
Columbia University tapped University of Wisconsin-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin this week as the school’s fourth president in two years — and first Jewish leader in three decades. While the New York City campus, which was roiled by antisemitic turmoil for nearly two years following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, has been quieter in recent months, Jewish student leaders who worked closely with Mnookin at Wisconsin expressed optimism that she could help Columbia repair its strained relationship with the federal government and ongoing division among students and manage the implementation of recent recommendations made by the school’s antisemitism task force, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
But: Mnookin, a legal scholar who served as dean of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law before moving to Wisconsin in 2022, faced some criticism over concessions she made with Students for Justice in Palestine protesters during an anti-Israel encampment on the Madison campus in April 2024. Mnookin initially sent law enforcement to shut down the student encampment — resulting in the arrest of roughly three dozen demonstrators — then negotiated with protesters after they established a new encampment.
Bonus: Jonathan Dekel-Chen, who gained international attention for his efforts to secure the release of his son, Sagui, who was taken hostage during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, is joining the faculty of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, where he will teach classes on Jewish legacies in Europe and modern Israeli history.
CATALOGING CONCERNS
Why UPenn and the federal government are battling over lists of Jewish faculty members
A burgeoning legal battle between the University of Pennsylvania and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission escalated last week when the Ivy League university called the agency’s methods of investigating whether the school permitted an antisemitic work environment “extraordinary and unconstitutional.” The EEOC subpoenaed the university to turn over lists of Jewish employees and members of Jewish organizations, along with detailed identifying and contact information, saying the information is needed for the agency to contact potential victims of antisemitic discrimination, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
University’s response: The university’s president and trustees — with the support of Jewish campus organizations Hillel, Chabad and Meor, as well as the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia — refused to do so. Handing over those names would disregard “the frightening and well-documented history of governmental entities that undertook efforts to identify and assemble information regarding persons of Jewish ancestry,” the university asserted in a legal filing last Tuesday.
PROBLEMATIC POST
Top Michigan Democratic fundraiser shared Veterans Day post honoring Nazi officer grandfather
Kelly Neumann, a prominent Michigan Democratic fundraiser who is supporting several major Democratic candidates in the state, shared a social media post on Veterans Day in 2024 honoring her grandfather, who served in the Nazi regime’s army in World War II, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The post includes multiple photos of Neumann’s grandfather in Nazi regalia, including what appears to be an officer’s uniform.
What she said: “Happy Veterans Day to all my family and friends who serve/served! Without you, America would not be here today,” the post, shared on Facebook and Instagram by Neumann, a local attorney, reads. “Interesting story, I do not talk much about but my Grandfather, Albert Neumann was on the German side in WWI & WWII. He escaped to Brazil with my Father after Germany lost in WWII.” Neumann is serving as a co-chair of the finance committees for state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, running for U.S. Senate, and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who is running for governor, and has also hosted fundraisers for Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), prior to her Senate run, Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI) and state Sen. Jeremy Moss, a House candidate.
NEBRASKA NOS
Most Democratic candidates in key Nebraska swing seat say they’ll reject pro-Israel support
A majority of the Democratic candidates running in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, a key swing seat centered in Omaha that Democrats hope to flip in November, said at a candidate forum hosted by the Nebraska Young Democrats last week that they would reject support from pro-Israel groups, based on video of the event obtained by Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod.
What they said: Asked whether they would accept support from AIPAC or Democratic Majority for Israel, state Sen. John Cavanaugh committed to not taking any funding from either group, while activist Denise Powell said that she would not accept any funding from any special interest groups. Navy veteran Kishla Askins offered a less definitive answer, saying she is “right now … not taking” funding from J Street, AIPAC or DMFI, while also noting that she had been to Israel and served alongside the IDF while she was in the military and understands how dangerous the region is. James Leuschen, a longtime former senior staffer for Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) — a staunch Israel supporter — was the only candidate to definitively say he would not commit to turning down support from the groups.
ALARM BELLS
Leading Jewish organizations disturbed by Saudi Arabia’s Islamist turn
Several leading Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy groups are expressing concerns about the impact of the recent rise in antisemitic and Islamist messaging out of Saudi Arabia, as the Gulf kingdom’s rhetoric is increasingly raising questions about its standing as a reliable U.S. ally in the region. The new posturing, part of a broader pivot from what national security experts had seen as Saudi Arabia’s moderating influence in the region, has fueled surprise and frustration among Jewish American advocacy organizations that have pushed for the kingdom to normalize relations with Israel, an objective now regarded in some circles as unlikely for the foreseeable future, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
ADL alarm: Last week, the Anti-Defamation League said in a sharply worded social media statement that it was “alarmed by the increasing frequency and volume of prominent Saudi voices — analysts, journalists and preachers — using openly antisemitic dog whistles and aggressively pushing anti-Abraham Accords rhetoric, often while peddling conspiracy theories about ‘Zionist plots.’” The statement continued, “This is harmful on many levels, diminishing the prospect of peaceful coexistence in the region and weakening regional initiatives promoting tolerance, understanding and prosperity.”
Bonus: Saudi Arabia is suspending work on its Mukaab skyscraper project in Riyadh as the Gulf state faces mounting financial issues.
SABRA SLAM
Deni Avdija to make triumphant DC return as star NBA player
On Tuesday night, the Washington Wizards will host the Portland Trail Blazers for Jewish Heritage Night in a game that carries significance beyond the standings. The matchup coincides with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, giving it added weight amid heightened antisemitic sentiment across the political spectrum. But despite that backdrop, the evening’s focal point for the local Jewish community may actually be what transpires on the court. Deni Avdija, the 6-foot-8 small forward from Beit Zera, Israel, returns to Capital One Arena, where his NBA career began, no longer as a developing young player, but as one of the NBA’s breakout sensations, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
Higher profile: Selected ninth overall by Washington in the 2020 NBA Draft, Avdija spent the first four seasons of his NBA career with the Wizards before being traded to Portland in July 2024. This season, he has found his footing in the league, making a dramatic leap that has drawn attention from fans and NBA stars alike. With that higher profile, however, has come online backlash — “hate,” he has called it — focusing on his Israeli roots.
Worthy Reads
Back the Protesters Now: In The New York Times, Iranian dissident and writer Masih Alinejad calls on the U.S. to take action in support of Iranian anti-government protesters. “Too often, the argument about the dangers of intervention is less about prudence than paralysis. It turns failures into a permanent permission slip for every dictator watching: Kill enough people and the world will be too afraid of past mistakes to stop you. The argument is dishonest because it pretends that intervention means invasion. Iranians are not asking for foreign tanks to roll down the streets of Tehran. They are asking for the world to stop acting as if the only options are occupation or indifference. Inaction gives a regime time to regroup, rebuild its machinery of repression and return with a cleaner narrative and a longer list of prisoners.” [NYTimes]
How to Disarm Hamas: In Foreign Affairs, Elliott Abrams, Eric Edelman and Rena Gabber suggest that private security contractors could serve as a stabilizing force in the Gaza Strip in the absence of countries willing to contribute troops to an international stabilization force. “Top-level security contractors are a viable but overlooked option for ridding postwar Gaza of Hamas. They are staffed by well-trained, highly capable military personnel with experience serving in elite units. They will not shy away from potential conflict with Hamas terrorists. In fact, they are perhaps the only force besides the IDF itself willing to directly confront Hamas and do the hard work of demilitarizing Gaza. A demilitarizing force composed of private contractors could also come together quickly, particularly compared to the ISF. That would allow it to push Hamas back before the group gains even more power.” [ForeignAffairs]
What Elie Wiesel Taught Me: In The Free Press, German-born physician Suzanne Lentzsch reflects on her time treating Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel in the final years of his life. “I thank fate that Wiesel’s and my own paths crossed for a time; that I, a German, could for even a brief time help the man who had been the voice of the German-murdered Jews of this world. I still feel the guilt of my home’s history like a weight on my shoulders. But Wiesel taught me there is a choice in how one carries that burden. I spent the first 25 years of my life trapped voiceless behind the wall of a dictatorship that surveilled and murdered its own citizens. Wiesel dedicated his life to testifying against the depravity that results when human decency collapses. As democracy again seems to teeter, his story and the history of my country ought not to be carried like a burden but as a covenant. They warn against the numbing indifference that allowed my neighbors to look on as starving children were marched past their houses from Sachsenhausen.” [FreePress]
Reform Holocaust Ed: In The Wall Street Journal, Casey Babb and Naya Lekht argue that existing Holocaust education must undergo reforms to more effectively address antisemitism. “In most school curricula, the Holocaust serves as the primary, often exclusive, lens through which the demonization of Jews is understood. Within this framework, Jews are recognized as victims only when their oppressors depict them as subhuman, racially inferior or treasonous. … Until Jewish institutions, schools and Holocaust educators update their curricula and language, meaningful progress in protecting Jewish students and families from antisemitism will remain limited. What’s needed is a pragmatic and courageous paradigm shift, one that begins with naming and recognizing the contemporary libels used to demonize Jews.” [WSJ]
Word on the Street
The IDF announced on Monday that it had uncovered the remains of deceased hostage Ran Gvili at a Muslim cemetery in eastern Gaza City and brought them back to Israel for burial — recovering the final hostage of the Gaza war and marking the first time since 2014 that no Israeli captive, alive or deceased, is being held in the enclave, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports…
Jewish groups welcomed the return of Gvili’s remains, offered their condolences, thanked political figures involved in hostage negotiations and expressed a sense of closure, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim reports…
President Donald Trump said on Monday that the situation with Iran is “in flux” and that a “big armada” was headed to the Gulf, but that Tehran had expressed willingness to engage in talks; the president had reportedly received multiple intelligence reports indicating that the Iranian government’s position is at its weakest since the 1979 overthrow of the shah…
Trump’s comments come as the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group arrived in the Indian Ocean, positioning it to potentially assist in any military action in Iran…
Queen Rania of Jordan, who has downplayed the role of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in the ensuing war in Gaza, attended the White House’s private screening of the new film “Melania” hosted by the president and First Lady Melania Trump…
The Trump administration deported roughly a dozen Iranians to the Islamic Republic as part of a broader illegal immigration in the U.S.; the deportation flight was the first to Iran since protests erupted across the country last month…
Hamtramck, Mich., Mayor Amer Ghalib, whose nomination to be U.S. ambassador to Kuwait had been stalled over concerns regarding his past promotion of antisemitic ideas, is joining AmeriCorps as the organization’s senior advisor for strategic partnerships…
The New York Times reports that the Department of Justice under the Biden administration began an investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) finances and ties to an unnamed foreign citizen; the case stalled shortly after it was opened in 2024 for a lack of evidence…
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum warned against “making false equivalencies to [Anne Frank’s] experience for political purposes,” days after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz invoked the young author and Holocaust victim as he compared the ICE raids in his state to Nazi actions during World War II…
Far-left operative Waleed Shahid announced on Monday morning he would assume a newly created role of deputy communications director of economic justice in New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports…
Kanye West, now known as Ye, took out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal to apologize to the Jewish community for past antisemitic comments, including praise for Adolf Hitler, days before the release of his new album; the rapper said he suffered a brain injury in a car accident 25 years ago that damaged his frontal lobe, resulting in his erratic behavior…
Los Angeles’ Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills apologized for the cancellation of a show by Guy Hochman after demanding the Israeli comic condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza; Hochman rejected the apology from Michael Hall, the theater’s president, saying it came only after pushback from the Jewish community…
The Washington Post reviews Alex Gibney’s new documentary “Knife,” about the attempted assassination in 2022 of writer Salman Rushdie, which premiered at Sundance earlier this week…
The Wiener Holocaust Library in London recently received a donation of artwork and writing from Czech Jewish artist Peter Kien, who passed on the works before he was transported to Auschwitz, where he died in 1944; the trove of artwork had been confiscated by Czech officials in the 1970s and recently recovered by the daughter of a friend of Kien’s….
Former U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman is joining Nigel Farage’s Reform party, saying she had felt “politically homeless for the best part of two years” as a member of the Conservative party, citing Conservatives’ stances on immigration and Brexit…
The Financial Times talks to Brig. Gen. Gil Pinchas, the outgoing chief financial advisor to the IDF and Israel’s Defense Ministry, about Israel’s plans to negotiate a new memorandum of understanding with Washington that will see less reliance on U.S. military aid…
Reuters reports on Iranian efforts to ship jet fuel to Myanmar’s military in violation of international sanctions for use against civilians in the Southeast Asian nation that has been mired in civil war for five years…
Iranian banking tycoon Ali Ansari, who is sanctioned by the U.K. for sending money to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has reportedly amassed a real estate portfolio worth more than 400 million Euros ($475 million) that includes properties across Europe, including multiple Hilton properties in Germany and a resort in Mallorca…
Calgary, Canada, philanthropist Al Osten died at 95…
Shelley Holt, who with her husband, Allan, the vice chair of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, was a major donor to the USHMM as well the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and a range of medical causes and institutions, died at 72…
Pic of the Day
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama delivered an address at Israel’s Knesset on Monday during a two-day visit to the country. In his speech, Rama blasted “well-meaning international public figures or associations who rightly described Gaza as an open air prison, but failed to identify the true jailer of the people of Gaza. They mistook the finger for what it was pointing at and, in doing so, failed to recognize that the jailer of Gaza is Hamas, no one else but Hamas: its ideology of terror against its own people and toward the Jewish nation, its totalitarian dogma that no Palestinian life is worth living until the State of Israel is annihilated and the last Jew is wiped out from the Holy Land.”
Birthdays
Television writer and producer best known as the creator of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” more recently he stars in the Netflix series “Somebody Feed Phil,” Philip Rosenthal turns 66…
Businessman and real estate investor, Paul Sislin turns 91… Winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics, he is a professor emeritus at California Institute of Technology, Barry Clark Barish turns 90… Builder and operator of luxury casinos and hotels, Steve Wynn (born Stephen Alan Weinberg) turns 84… Corporate venture capitalist and scientist, he served as VP at Intel Corporation where he co-founded Intel Capital, Avram Miller turns 81… Topanga, Calif. resident, Joseph Helfer… Columbia, S.C., resident, Charles Geffen… VP at Elnat Equity Liquidity Providers, following 20 years as COO at the Orthodox Union, Eliezer Edelman… Professor of medieval Judaism and Islam at the Los Angeles campus of HUC-JIR, Reuven Firestone turns 74… Cookbook author and attorney, she is a co-founder of Foundation for Jewish Camp, Elisa Spungen Bildner… Chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts turns 71… Member of the Missouri state Senate until 2023, Jill Schupp turns 71… President and CEO at MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, Abby Jane Leibman… Founder, chairman and former CEO of Och-Ziff Capital, now investing through Willoughby Capital, Daniel Och turns 65… Communications director at C-SPAN and author in 2020 of When Rabbis Bless Congress, a history of rabbinical invocations in Congress, Howard Mortman… Founder and managing member of Liberty Peak Capital and co-founder and lead investor of Multiplier Capital, Ezra M. Friedberg… Chief growth officer at Coordinated Care Services after five years as CEO of the JCC of Greater Rochester, Josh Weinstein… Editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk, Lisa Daftari… Jerusalem-born rapper and YouTuber with 502 million views, Rucka Rucka Ali turns 39… English fashion model, Daisy Rebecca Lowe turns 37… Former basketball point guard, including for the Israeli women’s national basketball team, she is now a coordinator at Herzl Camp in Wisconsin, Jacqui Kalin turns 37… Community engagement coordinator at the Raleigh-Cary (NC) JCC, Grace Fantle Kaplan… Managing partner of Netz Capital, Lia Michal Weiner Tsur… Manager at Deloitte, Joshua Henderson…
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