FlyDubai hero credits TV crash course
Plus, Nithya Raman's rocky relationship with LA Jews
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In today’s Daily Kickoff, we have the latest on yesterday’s midair attack on a FlyDubai flight to Israel, look at tensions between Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman and the city’s Jewish community as the democratic socialist mounts a bid for mayor, and report on new federal data indicating that fewer than one-quarter of Nonprofit Security Grant Program applications were fulfilled this year. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Elisha Wiesel, Ivy Wolk and Ynon Kreiz.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
The United Arab Emirates has opened an investigation into yesterday’s attack on a FlyDubai flight from the UAE to Israel in which an Indian pilot was stabbed by his co-pilot, prompting the plane to plummet 17,000 feet before Israeli passengers on the flight, assisted by two off-duty pilots, regained control of the aircraft and safely landed it in Saudi Arabia.
The UAE’s attorney general said in a statement that investigators would “collect information and evidence, to determine the truth of the incident, its circumstances, details, and motives, and to verify the extent of its connection to any terrorist activity or purpose, or the existence of prior planning or direction for it.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s office said this morning that he planned to recommend five of the plane’s passengers for the Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism, whom Herzog said in a statement “acted with extraordinary heroism” in alerting passengers and crew to the attack in the cockpit and overpowering the assailant co-pilot.
In Washington, the two-day Nixon Foundation Grand Strategy Summit wraps up today. Speakers include the White House’s Seb Gorka, Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), former Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Riley Moore (R-WV), Rich Goldberg and Walter Russell Mead.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s markup of the bipartisan, bicameral Right to Worship Act — which would create buffer zones outside of religious institutions during services — was canceled after the Senate ended its work week early, sending legislators home until after the midterms. Read more from JI’s Marc Rod here.
One Thing To Know
L.A. rift
By Matthew Kassel
Nithya Raman, a democratic socialist mounting a formidable bid to unseat Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass next month, faced a particularly hostile crowd on Tuesday night at a Jewish community candidate forum, where the city councilwoman fielded several tough questions about Israel.
Her answers drew audible groans from the audience members at the Skirball Cultural Center as she reiterated her view that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and defended her decision to sit for an interview with the Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who regularly espouses antisemitic rhetoric.
The event illustrated how Raman has continued to gain momentum in the final stretch of the race even as she has doubled down on her anti-Israel stances while courting voters in a city that is home to the second-largest Jewish population in the country. Her harsh positions on Israel — coupled with recent efforts to distance herself from some former allies in the Jewish community — suggest Raman has made a strategic calculation she can win without meaningful Jewish support.
The Big Reads
museum moment
Elisha Wiesel urged the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday to speak up against what he called the false accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, arguing that the institution his father helped create has a “unique responsibility” to address the issue, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Wiesel, the son of Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, made the appeal while delivering special remarks at an event honoring his late father on what would have been his 98th birthday. “You made your own findings for Darfur, the Yazidis, Rohingya,” he said in remarks directed at the institution. “You have the scholars, the credibility and the mandate to do the same hearing to explain with the rigor you applied to Burma why the genocide label does not fit Gaza and what the misuse of Holocaust language does to Jews around the world.”
planning for power
Senate Democrats say that they’d plan to use federal funding authorities to force the Trump administration to negotiate with the Iranian regime and end the Iran war if their party regains the majority in the next Congress, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told JI, with President Donald Trump continuing to ignore war powers votes from Congress that have attempted to force an end to the conflict, “we would use approp[riations] levers — either to put guardrails, not allowing funds unless or until there was an authorization [for use of military force passed by Congress].” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), meanwhile, said that he thinks lawmakers would be more likely to withhold funds for White House operations, while noting that the administration has asked for a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget for 2027.
On the other side of Capitol Hill: A group of more than 40 House Democrats introduced the Stop the Settlements Act on Wednesday, which would place sanctions on anyone involved in further settlement expansion in the West Bank or Gaza and ban imports from Israeli settlements, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
security shortfall
In a year when the Jewish community was rocked by a terror attack at a Detroit-area synagogue alongside other antisemitic threats, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program fulfilled less than 23% of applications submitted for funding in 2026, according to new data obtained by Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod. The majority of the funding will be provided to houses of worship from various denominations, according to a source familiar with the situation, but other recipients include schools, medical facilities, senior centers, camps, museums, shelters and community centers. Application numbers and total funding requested seem to be down somewhat from 2025, when the program received in excess of 8,000 applications, with an acceptance rate of just 20%. Even so, the amount of funding requested was higher and the acceptance rate was lower than in any year in documented program history other than 2025.
The Rundown
busy in beirut
mile-high miracle
playing defense
bookshelf showdown
party outreach
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Iran said it received a formal response from the U.S. regarding its proposal to end the ongoing war, but did not elaborate on the contents of the response; President Donald Trump, who publicly rejected Tehran’s proposal earlier this week, said on Wednesday that a decision on Iran — either to “blow them up” or “make a deal” — was coming “very soon”…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered the immediate removal of Iran’s delegation to the U.N. General Assembly, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, from the U.S. earlier this week after Qatar-mediated talks again reached an impasse…
U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said London believes that Iran “played a part” in a weekend incident in which five men were arrested on suspicion of explosives violations and terrorism near the RAF Fairford base, which was used by the U.S. to conduct strikes on Iran during the height of hostilities earlier this year…
Politico looks at the efforts of Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang to pitch the White House on a voluntary but binding “AI accords,” the basis for which originated at last week’s state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping, during which Zuckerberg pitched House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and then Huang on the idea…
Maine Democratic Senate candidate Troy Jackson apologized for comments made earlier this week in which he suggested that it was “unfortunate” that Jewish residents in the state were uncomfortable using the term genocide to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza and that they “don’t like to use that term only because they’re Jewish”…
A former bodyguard for former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), with whom the former lawmaker was romantically involved, said that he caused $200,000 worth of damage to Sinema’s home and tried to force the former senator to post a decades-old video from one of his deployments to Iraq because he was angry about her post-Senate work with companies he believed contributed to the wars in Gaza and Iran…
The head of the University of Oregon’s Hillel said that a sukkah that had been constructed in front of the building was taken from the property earlier this week, adding that he was unsure if the incident was “common theft” or something “more hostile and antisemitic in nature”…
Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz was named co-CEO of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, serving alongside CEO David Ellison, after a judge on Wednesday issued an order allowing Paramount’s acquisition of WBD to proceed…
The Wall Street Journal spotlights efforts by Nathan Kirsh, the 94-year-old philanthropist and businessman, to build out what is likely to be one of the largest family offices established in recent years, following the sale earlier this year of Kirsh’s Jetro Restaurant Depot to Sysco for $29 billion…
The New York Times profiles actress and comedian Ivy Wolk, whose provocative social media videos have elicited negative responses that have propelled her to stardom…
Authorities in Texas said they foiled an imminent terror plot targeting the Texas State Capitol in Austin; a friend of the individual arrested in connection with the threat said Benny Caldera Jr. had told the friend he was angry with AIPAC and that “these people have to be exterminated”…
Israel’s Supreme Court cleared for publication the name of the senior Israeli intelligence official believed to be involved in the army’s intelligence failures leading up to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks; Lt. Col. Aryeh Amidror, the son of former National Security Advisor Yaakov Amidror, was identified as the Gaza Division’s intelligence officer during and before the attacks…
British broadcaster and philanthropist Dame Esther Rantzen, the longtime host of “That’s Life!” — one of the most popular episodes of which featured Sir Nicholas Winton and several dozen of the adults he saved when they were children during the Holocaust — died at 86…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Midair Melee: The Atlantic’s Graeme Wood considers the political implications of yesterday’s attack on a FlyDubai flight to Israel. “The next step will involve determining whether the pilot acted alone — not a good look for Flydubai, to have suicidal or terrorist pilots — or at someone’s behest. The latter possibility could, if confirmed, have serious implications, depending on who directed the attack. Many have a motive: Sunni jihadists (al-Qaeda or the Islamic State), Hamas, and of course Iran and its proxies.” [TheAtlantic]
Strait Man: Bloomberg’s Alex Dooler, Dinesh Nair and Laura Gardner Cuesta spotlight Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed Al Nahyan as the Emirati official, who helms a $300 billion sovereign Abu Dhabi wealth fund, looks to find alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz amid tensions with Iran. “He is known to lean heavily on a small group of Emirati officials, some childhood friends and others who have steered Abu Dhabi’s economy for decades. … According to one former teacher, a young Sheikh Khaled was at ease even in a class of students who went on to become top political scholars in Middle Eastern geopolitics. He’s known to prefer to observe before offering careful interventions.” [Bloomberg]
Picture of the Day
Yaniv Hayoun (center), one of the passengers who helped incapacitate the attacker on the FlyDubai aircraft bound for Israel from the United Arab Emirates, was welcomed after arriving at the Ben Gurion International Airport on Wednesday night, still wearing the blood-stained shirt from the attack. Jamal Awad/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
Birthdays
Rod Carew, former MLB second baseman and Hall of Famer who appeared in 18 straight All-Star Games, he is immortalized as Jewish in Adam Sandler’s “Chanukah Song,” turns 81
Lynn Steven Adelman, U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, turns 87
Andrew David Hurwitz, senior judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, turns 79
Aaron Ciechanover, professor at the Technion, he won the 2004 Nobel Prize in chemistry, turns 79
Lynn Ahrens, Tony Award-winning writer and lyricist for the musical theater, television and film, turns 78
Bruce Levenson, former co-owner of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and founding board member of the publicly traded TechTarget, turns 77
Israel Jacob Yuval, professor emeritus of Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, turns 77
Andrew Goodwin, copy editor at Politico since 2009
Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, a native of Scranton, Pa., turns 67
Steven C. González, the first-ever Jewish chief justice of the Washington State Supreme Court, now serving as an associate justice, turns 63
Cynthia Dawn “Cindy” Margolis, reality television personality, model and actor, turns 61
Adam Bennett Frisch, member of the Aspen City Council from 2011 to 2019, turns 59
Robert A. Rosen, founder of Peak Impact Advisors after 17 years at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Stacie Passon, film director, screenwriter and producer, turns 57
Rob Seidman, partner at FGS Global, specializing in telecommunications, technology, consumer protection and privacy for companies in regulated industries
Michael J. Koplow, chief policy officer at Israel Policy Forum
Rebecca L. Taibleson, former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, now a judge on the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, turns 43
Samantha J. Weinberg, director of investor relations and strategic engagement at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Yossi Raskas, account manager at Fiserv
Scott Rosenthal
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