Last Friday, we laid out how American Jewry is facing a fork in the road in the aftermath of the Gaza war and release of hostages, and that the coming months will be crucial in assessing whether Jews will experience a renewed period of normalcy or whether the rising tide of anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism will continue unabated. 

There are a number of upcoming key elections that will test the power of the mainstream against extremist forces. Here are the developments we’ll be watching most closely.

Will Zohran Mamdani win a majority of the New York City vote, and how will he govern if elected as mayor? Right now, without any surge in funding and organization among anti-Mamdani forces in Gotham, it’s looking very likely that the far-left candidate will prevail. But polls still show him consistently under 50%, without gaining any real momentum since winning the Democratic primary. And half of the six most recent public polls in the race (as tracked by RealClearPolitics) show the anti-Mamdani candidates collectively winning more of the vote than the front-runner. This race doesn’t at all look like a mandate for the far left.

If Mamdani wins, the next big question is whether he’ll govern more pragmatically than his past record would suggest. Will he try to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York City, as he has consistently said he would do on the campaign trail? Will he threaten the tax-exempt status of Jewish groups because they support Israel? Will he reappoint Jessica Tisch, the effective NYPD chief, as a signal of his willingness to moderate?

He’s been wooing business leaders and working to spin reporters that he’s not as ideological as his political career suggests, but that may be more wishful thinking than anything based on a careful scrutiny of his comments and record.

Will Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) or Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) receive a serious primary challenge? Massie and Greene are the two members of the small but loud faction of the anti-Israel and increasingly antisemitic crowd among House Republicans. Not coincidentally, they also are the two Republicans that are most antagonistic towards President Donald Trump — from calling for a release of the government files on Jeffrey Epstein to, in Greene’s case, agreeing with some Democratic health care demands during the government shutdown. 

Massie looks more politically vulnerable, with Trump and his allies actively recruiting a challenger to run against him and releasing internal polling showing he can be defeated. Former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, who ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Kentucky Senate last year, looks like Trump’s favored candidate. But no one has yet announced a challenge, with the filing deadline less than three months away (Jan. 9). 

Greene looks safer, but her increasing Trump criticism could change that dynamic. The filing deadline in Georgia isn’t until March 2026.

How credible a threat will Graham Platner pose to Gov. Janet Mills in Maine’s Democratic Senate primary? Under normal political circumstances, an established two-term governor would hold a commanding advantage over an oyster farmer without any elective experience in a race for the Senate. That’s especially true given that the challenger has a long paper trail of comments calling himself a communist and embracing a laundry list of radical views.

Yet Platner has parlayed his rough-and-tumble biography and anti-establishment authenticity into media buzz, and raised an impressive $4 million for the race since announcing his candidacy over the summer. 

Mills, who is 77 and the favorite of Democratic Party leaders, starts out as the favorite to win the nomination. Platner has lately been facing scrutiny over his lengthy string of social media posts where he identified as a communist, called all police “bastards” and said rural Americans are racist and stupid, among other incendiary comments. He also downplayed concerns of sexual assault in the military in online forums.

Normally, those types of views and comments would be political career-enders. But in this anti-establishment, populist moment, it’s hard to be confident in assuming the traditional rules of politics apply. After all, Mamdani has weathered scrutiny of his own radical affiliations without suffering outsized political consequences.

In addition to holding down-the-line progressive views on the economy, Platner is also uniquely hostile to Israel, even to the point of releasing a digital attack ad against the pro-Israel advocacy group AIPAC. Shortly after launching his campaign for the Senate, Platner labeled Israel’s war against Hamas a genocide. 

Mills, as governor, doesn’t have much of a foreign policy record but has spoken out against Israel boycott measures embraced by municipal leaders in Portland. But as the candidate representing more-mainstream Maine Democrats, it’s likely she will adopt a more-moderate posture when it comes to Middle East policy.

Will Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares be rewarded for his work against antisemitism? For a while, it looked like there would be a sizable blue wave in this November’s Virginia statewide elections, with Trump unpopular in the state and the DOGE-fueled government layoffs juicing up Democratic engagement.

That leaves Miyares, the state’s Republican attorney general who has targeted terrorist funding from anti-Israel groups in the state and called on Virginia’s universities to aggressively confront antisemitism, in a precarious political position. 

But a shocking scandal involving his Democratic opponent, former state legislator Jay Jones, has upended the race and given Miyares a good chance to win reelection. The revelation of text messages from Jones wishing violence against one of his GOP colleagues has drawn bipartisan outrage, and led some Democrats to distance themselves from him. Public polling has been sparse, but recent surveys have shown Miyares pulling ahead in the race after trailing throughout the year.

One nonpartisan Jewish leader in Virginia told Jewish Insider that Miyares was one of the most effective and engaged elected officials in countering antisemitism, and the race was emerging as a key bellwether of whether Jewish voters would reward GOP officials for their allyship.

One example of Miyares’ bipartisanship: the Virginia attorney general played a key role in working to remove the anti-Israel protest encampment outside former Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s Northern Virginia home after progressive local government officials declined to do so.  

Can Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) prove anti-Israel activists on social media are more bark than bite? The other big Democratic Senate showdown is taking place in Michigan, the state with a sizable Jewish constituency but also the largest share of Arab voters in the country.  

Stevens starts out as the front-runner, thanks to her record of winning tough elections, successful fundraising and backing from many national Democratic leaders. She has also been a stalwart supporter of Israel, easily toppling an anti-Israel Democratic challenger in a closely watched 2022 Democratic primary against another sitting member of Congress. She’s a favorite of the politically engaged Jewish Democratic community, many of whom have championed her candidacy.

But with the political winds on Israel in the Democratic Party shifting, Stevens will be facing her fiercest test against two challengers running campaigns that are decidedly more hostile towards Israel. Abdul el-Sayed, an acolyte of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has long been an opponent of the Jewish state, and is likely to win over many Arab-American voters with anti-Israel views. 

State Sen. Mallory McMorrow began her campaign sounding more in the pro-Israel camp, but has grown steadily more hostile as Democratic voters have turned more critical of the Jewish state. This month, she said she considered Israel’s war in Gaza to be a genocide.

Stevens is still widely viewed as a favorite, and led the pack in fundraising in the just-completed third fundraising quarter. She also benefits from the possibility that McMorrow and el-Sayed split the progressive, anti-Israel vote, leaving more-mainstream Democratic voters in her camp.

But if anti-Israel sentiment becomes a litmus test for more Democratic primary voters, Stevens could face headwinds down the road. This primary, taking place next August, is as clear a test as there is of the size and depth of hostility towards Israel in the Democratic Party.

Will socialist, anti-Israel candidates prevail outside of New York City? While Mamdani’s Democratic Socialists of America-aligned mayoral campaign has gotten outsized attention, socialist candidates in the mold of Mamdani are running for mayor of other big cities across the country. 

In Minneapolis, the city’s liberal Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey (who is Jewish), is facing a DSA-backed challenge from Omar Fateh. Fateh, a state senator, is a BDS supporter and hired senior staffers who defended the Oct. 7 terror attacks, and have called for the dismantlement of Israel. This race is expected to be close, according to in-state analysts.

The other notable contest is in Seattle, where Mayor Bruce Harrell finished in second place in an August primary to a self-declared socialist challenger, Katie Wilson. The two candidates are facing off in the general election, where Harrell is now seen as an underdog. Wilson has spoken out less about Israel and the war in Gaza than many of her socialist counterparts, but many Jewish leaders in Seattle are concerned about her overall record.

Pomona College opened an investigation on Thursday after an on-campus event held Wednesday commemorating the second anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks was disrupted by four masked and keffiyah-clad individuals who barged in chanting “Zionists not welcome here.”

“While we have not yet identified the individuals, we are examining video footage taken during the event, as well as security footage to determine how access could have been gained,” Gabrielle Starr, the college’s president, wrote in a campus-wide email. “We are also reviewing our security protocols for on-campus events.” 

“Antisemitic hate cannot be tolerated here,” Starr wrote. 

The memorial, sponsored by Hillel in a university building and scheduled on the Hebrew calendar anniversary of the attacks, featured a talk by Yoni Viloga, who survived the attack on his family’s home in Kibbutz Mefalsim. 

“The event was meant to be an opportunity for students to reflect on what happened two years ago. The disruption was very unsettling, I saw students with tears in their eyes,” Bethany Slater, director of Pomona Hillel, told Jewish Insider. The disruption, which also included chants of “Zionism is still a colonial ideology” and “You’re all complicit in genocide,” lasted about two minutes, until campus safety officers arrived. 

While the liberal arts college in Claremont, Calif., has faced several anti-Israel demonstrations since the Oct. 7 attacks, Wednesday evening’s protest was the first to occur in an expressly Jewish space on campus. It also came days after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire and hostage-release deal. 

“This is the first time Hillel has been targeted. Demonstrations have always been directed at the [university] administration because they were calling for [Boycott, Divest and Sanctions measures],” said Slater. “This is the first time a Jewish event has been targeted at all, which is just shocking that it would happen now in the context of the ceasefire agreement.” 

Pomona College is among the dozens of universities currently under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for its alleged failure to address campus antisemitism.

Pomona administrators have responded quickly to a number of anti-Israel incidents that have occurred on campus in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks and ensuing war in Gaza. In April 2024, police officers dressed in riot gear arrested at least 20 masked students after some 150 people stormed the university president’s office and refused to leave for more than three hours. Organized by the student-led group Pomona Divest Apartheid, the demonstrators from Pomona, as well as the affiliated Scripps and Pitzer Colleges, were protesting the removal of an anti-Israel “mock apartheid wall” on campus. 

The following October, when an on-campus demonstration — which involved anti-Israel students taking over and shutting off access to a campus building — took place on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, Pomona suspended 10 involved students through the end of the 2024-25 academic year. 

Speaking on a Jewish Democratic Council of America webinar on Thursday, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) outlined a plan of action on antisemitism she said she would implement statewide if she wins next month’s gubernatorial race in the Garden State.

Sherrill is running against Republican Jack Ciattarelli in a race that polls show is tightening ahead of Election Day on Nov. 4.

“We have seen a really terrible rise in antisemitism,” Sherrill said, emphasizing the need for everyone in the state to “double down that religious hatred is always unacceptable, that we are going to make sure that here in New Jersey, we can chart a path forward that protects all of our constitutional rights, including religious freedom and free speech. And we can do both, and we can be a really strong state that models that for the rest of the nation.”

Sherrill said she’s heard disturbing stories from constituents of antisemitic hate in schools and online, in addition to attacks on synagogues in the state, highlighting that she plans to implement a state plan of action on antisemitism, based on the Biden administration’s 2023 national antisemitism strategy.

She emphasized her willingness to call out antisemitism among her political allies, pointing to the example of an employee of the New Jersey Educational Association — which endorsed Sherrill — who had made “horrible antisemitic [comments] online.” Sherrill said she had condemned the individual and demanded she be fired.

“I’m going to call out anybody in this space that is promoting hate in any way against all of our citizens, but especially our children,” Sherrill said.

Addressing recent revelations of antisemitic messages in a Young Republican leadership group chat, Sherrill said, “I don’t think that should have been a surprise to anyone because we’ve seen it starting at the top with President [Donald] Trump and the antisemitism that he promotes, and I will continue to fight against that.”

Sherrill said her statewide plan will include mandating comprehensive reporting of hate crimes, directing the attorney general to “aggressively combat and prosecute antisemitism,” a “stronger interfaith advisory council” and holding state universities accountable.

The New Jersey congresswoman also expressed her joy and relief at the release of the remaining living hostages from Gaza this week. She said she is hopeful that the ceasefire deal leads to “real peace” and that the effort remains nonpartisan.

“I think we have to hope that this agreement holds, that Hamas is demilitarized, that humanitarian aid is surged into Gaza because the famine there is preventable and we’ve got to address that and then achieve a lasting peace in the region,” Sherrill said.

She added that she felt the region was on a path toward peace with the Abraham Accords before Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, and can continue to pursue that path with rebuilding and a new government in Gaza, with Israel taking a leading role in strengthening the region economically and militarily.

One Jewish leader in New Jersey said that the community appears split in the gubernatorial race — committed Democrats are sticking with Sherrill but Ciattarelli has gained some steam among undecided Jewish voters.

The leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, said multiple people have told them they’re voting for Ciattarelli because of recent comments by Sherrill about state legislation codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. Sherrill previously said she supports the bill and would sign it, but has recently offered some caveats to that stance, according to the source.

Another local source familiar with the Jewish community said they expect the Orthodox Jewish population to support Ciattarelli by a wide margin.

Good Thursday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the evolving situation in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas forces are violently attacking rival clans following the implementation of the first phase of the Trump administration’s ceasefire plan, and look at how the White House’s moves to address campus antisemitism have morphed into broader efforts to regulate bias in academia. We report on the passing of the Orthodox Union’s Rabbi Moshe Hauer, and cover Gov. Josh Shapiro’s comments this week that antisemitism was a “motivating factor” in the Passover arson attack at the governor’s residence. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Joshua Kushner, Joel Mokyr and Amb. Sammy Revel.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Tamara Zieve with assists from Marc Rod and Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

• White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, former Israeli hostage Almog Meir Jan and Yehuda Kaploun, the Trump administration’s nominee to serve as antisemitism envoy, are slated to speak tonight at an event at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington commemorating the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks.
• In New York City, the Consul General of Israel is hosting its own commemoration ceremony this evening.
• Elsewhere in New York City, mayoral candidates Zohran Mamdani, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa will participate in a debate hosted by Politico, NBC 4 New York/WNBC and Telemundo 47/WNJU.
• In Israel, we’re monitoring the implementation of the Trump administration’s 20-point ceasefire plan, amid violations by Hamas over the release of bodies of deceased captives. Last night, Hamas returned the bodies of Inbar Haiman, the last remaining female hostage, and Muhammad el-Atrash, who was killed on Oct. 7 while serving in the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade.
• The Jewish Democratic Council of America is hosting a meet-the-candidate event tonight with New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ).

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV

Following the joy in Israel over the return of the remaining living hostages on Monday and President Donald Trump’s declaration that “the long and painful nightmare is finally over” came the letdown: Hamas, as of this morning, had returned only nine out of 28 bodies of the deceased hostages and started to execute rivals and reestablish itself in the areas of Gaza from which the IDF withdrew. 

While Trump has repeatedly said the war in Gaza is over, when asked by CBS News if that’s the case, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel “agreed to give peace a chance,” and later in the interview said it still needs to “finish the war as speedily as possible.”

The future of Gaza remains unclear, despite Israel agreeing to Trump’s 20-point plan for the region. Hamas only agreed to the immediate steps in the plan: stopping the war, freeing the hostages in exchange for 1,950 prisoners, including those who killed Israelis in terrorist attacks, and Israel withdrawing to a specified line within Gaza. 

Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday that the plan’s second phase, which entails Hamas’ disarmament and demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, “begins right NOW!!!” Yet, an Israeli official confirmed to Jewish Insider a report that, with Hamas withholding most of the remaining hostages’ bodies, negotiations to continue to the next phase of the plan are on hold.

Disarming Hamas and the demilitarization of Gaza are meant to take place “under the supervision of independent monitors,” but those monitors have yet to be selected and sent to the region. The Peace Board announced — and led — by Trump, with the involvement of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair that is meant to oversee Gaza’s administration by Palestinian technocrats has not yet been formed, nor has the temporary International Stabilization Force meant to train Palestinian police and be part of the “long-term internal security solution” for Gaza and Israel. 

Meanwhile, Hamas has entered the vacuum and, in recent days, has tried to consolidate its power by killing members of clans that it accused of collaborating with Israel. 

Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.

EDUCATION CONSTERNATION

With new higher ed compact, Trump’s antisemitism crusade broadens to fight academic bias

As the Trump administration ratchets up its efforts to influence higher education, the latest White House proposal for colleges and universities is being met with skepticism from academics — even as its authors say its implementation should be a no-brainer. That’s in reference to a White House document called the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” a 10-point plan that the federal government is asking universities to sign in order to get preferential treatment for the federal funds upon which research universities rely. If they don’t agree to the terms in the compact — which include commitments to end race-based hiring and admissions, limits on foreign enrollment and a pledge to foster greater ideological diversity — they risk losing billions of dollars. Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch talked to professors from across the country about the compact, which says next to nothing about antisemitism.

Missing link: The compact reflects an evolution of a familiar Trump administration argument: that America’s preeminent educational institutions have strayed from their mission, letting politics interfere with their raison d’etre as centers of academic excellence. Combating antisemitism on college campuses — a cause the Trump administration has prioritized this year — provided President Donald Trump a foray into greater oversight of higher education. But there appears to be no direct line from that fight against antisemitism to the broad ideological framework in this compact, which makes only a passing reference to antisemitism.

Read the full story here.

Bonus: More than 450 employees of the Department of Education were laid off on Friday as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on the agency; among the offices most affected was the Office for Civil Rights, which has investigated dozens of antisemitic discrimination complaints.

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MASSACHUSETTS MATCHUP

Seth Moulton challenging Markey, one of Israel’s leading Senate critics, in high-stakes Dem primary

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) announced Wednesday that he plans to challenge Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) for his Senate seat, grounding his campaign in an argument for generational change, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Differences: But unlike many of the younger challengers taking on older Democratic incumbents in the current election cycle, Moulton is generally more moderate, including on foreign policy issues, than Markey, an outspoken progressive. While Moulton has been strongly critical of Israeli operations in Gaza, his record as a whole leans more pro-Israel than Markey’s.

Read the full story here.

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MTG MOMENTUM

As she emerges as populist GOP critic, Marjorie Taylor Greene amplifies antisemitic rhetoric

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) first became a household name for her embrace of a range of wild conspiracy theories — including antisemitic claims about the Rothschild family like the idea that space-based weapons controlled by the Jewish banking family were the cause of California wildfires. But as the congresswoman has emerged as an unlikely star in liberal circles and mainstream media after breaking with her party on the government shutdown, health-care funding and the Jeffrey Epstein files, her erstwhile critics have all but ignored her increasingly frequent use of antisemitic tropes and embrace of conspiracy theories targeting Jews, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What she’s saying: Earlier this week, the controversial Georgia congresswoman vowed on X, “No bar codes on me. I’ll never take 30 shekels. I’m America only! And Christ is King!” She has also repeatedly boosted claims that Israel and Jewish people were involved in last month’s killing of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and are seeking to co-opt his organization. And she has accused Israel of “meddling in campaigns and elections” and of “meddling in government policy — government of the United States policy — as well as dictating what America does in foreign wars.”

Read the full story here.

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GUILTY PLEA

Gov. Josh Shapiro now says antisemitism a ‘motivating factor’ in arson attack at residence

Hours after the man accused of an arson attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion in April pled guilty to the attempted murder of Gov. Josh Shapiro, the governor appeared to publicly acknowledge for the first time that the attacker targeted him for his faith, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. Cody Balmer was sentenced to 25-50 years in prison for the attack, which took place hours after Shapiro and his family hosted a Passover Seder at the governor’s residence in Harrisburg. Balmer said after his arrest that he was motivated by the war in Gaza, and that he wanted Shapiro to know that Balmer “will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.” Shapiro has avoided calling the attack a hate crime. 

What he said: In a CNN interview on Tuesday, Shapiro was asked by anchor Jake Tapper if he believed he was “targeted just because you’re Jewish.” Shapiro responded: “Look, obviously, as governor of Pennsylvania I don’t have foreign policy in my job description. But clearly, the district attorney thought that this was a material fact. “Clearly this was a motivating factor.” Balmer did not face hate crime charges in the case. “Whatever is motivating this political violence in this country, it needs to stop. Whether it’s targeting me because of my faith, whether it’s targeting someone else because of their ideology, it is not OK,” Shapiro said on CNN. 

Read the full story here.

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IN MEMORIAM

Congressman blames ‘vandalism’ after swastika flag spotted at staffer’s desk

Rep. Dave Taylor (R-OH) blamed “vandalism” and requested a Capitol Police investigation after a flag showing a swastika overlaid onto the American flag was spotted in a staff member’s cubicle during a virtual meeting, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What happened: The flag was pinned up on the wall of the staffer’s cubicle alongside various other memorabilia including a copy of the U.S. Constitution and a congressional calendar. The incident was first reported by a local outlet. “I am aware of an image that appears to depict a vile and deeply inappropriate symbol near an employee in my office,” Taylor said in a statement issued Wednesday. “The content of that image does not reflect the values or standards of this office, my staff, or myself, and I condemn it in the strongest terms. Upon learning of this matter, I immediately directed a thorough investigation alongside Capitol Police, which remains ongoing. No further comment will be provided until it has been completed.”

Read the full story here.

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in memoriam

Orthodox Union’s Rabbi Moshe Hauer remembered as ‘master teacher’ and ‘voice of Torah’

Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, died suddenly on Monday evening after suffering a heart attack, his organization said, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. He was 60. Jewish communal leaders remembered Hauer as a friend, a faithful and committed leader and a source of wise counsel.

Remembering: “Rabbi Hauer was a true talmid chacham, a master teacher and communicator, the voice of Torah to the Orthodox community and the voice of Orthodoxy to the world. He personified what it means to be a Torah Jew and took nothing more seriously than his role of sharing the joy of Jewish life with our community and beyond,” OU President Mitchel Aeder and Chief Operating Officer Rabbi Josh Joseph said in a joint statement.

Read the full obituary here.

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Worthy Reads

The Other Kushner: Colossus‘ Jeremy Stern profiles Thrive Capital’s Joshua Kushner, doing a deep dive into the Kushner family’s history, stemming from the survival of Kushner’s grandmother during the Holocaust. “Despite his success as an entrepreneur, his proximity to political power, his marriage to an American beauty icon, and his mastery of the nexus between capital and technology, there is in Joshua Kushner an enduring sense of Jewish apartness, and an inability to forget that he is two generations from Novogrudok. It shows itself in his compulsion to succeed, in his need to test himself, in the obvious ambivalence he feels about how he comes off, and perhaps in a determination to re-earn a right to a place in America for himself and his family—qualities also visible in the other first- and second-generation Americans who have built, alongside him, one of the more increasingly influential institutions in the country.” [Colossus]

Media Matters in Gaza: In The Wall Street Journal, Rob Satloff, the executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, raises concerns about the potential for unfettered media access to Gaza, which has been tightly regulated by Israel since the start of the war. “Many will seek out a local fixer to translate, arrange interviews, navigate the war zone and secure food and lodging. The bigger outlets will hire huge teams of local crew, including drivers and technicians, in addition to the support staff needed to care for star correspondents who will want to make a Gaza appearance. Even with the best intentions and oversight from headquarters, this will be a bonanza for Hamas’s well-oiled media operation, which has controlled virtually every word written or broadcast in Gaza since 2007. One can be sure Hamas is preparing for what will be both a huge jobs program and a chance to mold the message of powerful media operations.” [WSJ]

What Genocide?: The Free Press’ Eli Lake posits that accusations that Israel was committing a genocide were disproven by the ceasefire agreement inked earlier this week that resulted in the release of the hostages and an Israeli withdrawal from parts of Gaza. “This movement insisted for the duration of the war that Israel was not, in fact, conducting a war of defense to liberate its hostages, but committing a genocide to wipe out the Palestinian people. Sadly, once-credible institutions (and far less credible ones) latched on to the charge, providing the lie with the appearance of truthfulness. … The nation accused of wanting to wipe out — in whole or in part — the Palestinian population of Gaza was willing to end the war in exchange for 20 people. And when the fighting stopped and the hostages came home, the jubilation in Israel was palpable.” [FreePress]

The ADL’s New Fight: In eJewishPhilanthropy, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt explains the ADL’s approach to a post-Oct. 7 world and how the organization plans to address the antisemitism that exploded in the wake of the attacks. “It is affecting people of every denomination and every segment of our community — from the kippah-wearing grandfather walking to synagogue on a Saturday morning, to parents working in white-collar jobs at public companies, young adults enrolled in college, and teens simply watching videos on social media. … The issue is whether we can continue to live openly and proudly as Jews who support the existence of the Jewish state, or face the same fate of our ancestors in so many previous generations. Confronted by this metastasizing threat, the ADL will strive to remain true to our centennial mission statement: to stop the defamation of the Jewish People and secure justice and fair treatment to all.” [eJP]

Word on the Street

Vice President JD Vance has repeatedly rejected the idea of condemning a Young Republicans group chat where members praised Adolf Hitler and joked about the Holocaust. He described the response as “pearl clutching” and those involved as “kids” who “do stupid things” and were telling “edgy, offensive jokes.” Several of the individuals involved were well-established professionals in their 30s…

In the New York Post, Alex Witkoff reflects on how his father, White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, “found purpose” following the 2011 death of his son Andrew, saying that “[e]very time he comforts a grieving parent or reunites a hostage with loved ones, he carries Andrew’s memory and President Trump’s directive with him”…

A Washington Post poll conducted last month found that nearly half of Jewish Americans perceive there to be “a lot” of antisemitism in the U.S., while 42% said that they had avoided wearing public clothing or items in the last year that would identify them as being Jewish…

U.S. Border Patrol posted and deleted an Instagram reel of agents on patrol set against antisemitic lyrics from Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us”…

JPMorgan Chase announced plans to contribute $10 billion over the next decade as part of a broader, $1.5 trillion effort to invest in companies “critical to national economic security and resiliency”…

The Wall Street Journal reports on efforts by Paramount CEO David Ellison to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery ahead of CEO David Zaslav’s implementation of a plan to split the company in two…

Rama Duwaji, the wife of New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, shared social media posts mourning the death of Palestinian influencer Saleh al-Jafarawi, who posted content celebrating the Oct. 7 attacks, who was killed in clashes earlier this week between Hamas and local Palestinian groups…

Cornell University professor Eric Cheyfitz, who was suspended following the filing of a complaint alleging that the English professor asked an Israeli student to leave his course that covered Gaza, will retire amid a probe into the incident…

The New York Sun, which was acquired by Dovid Efune in 2021, will return to publishing a print edition for the first time since 2008…

The New York Times spotlights Vienna’s Café Centropa and its founder, photographer and archivist Edward Serotta, who for decades has worked to preserve the history of European Jews…

The Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected the Israel Gymnastics Federation’s appeals to be allowed to compete in the upcoming International Gymnastic Federation championship in Indonesia; Jakarta refused to grant visas to members of the Israeli delegation, effectively banning them from competition…

Eurovision Song Contest organizers postponed an upcoming vote on Israel’s participation in next year’s competition, citing “recent developments in the Middle East”…

Israeli-American economist Joel Mokyr was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics alongside Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt for their work linking innovation to economic growth…

The Washington Post looks at the limited impact that some European governments’ banning or limiting of weapons sales to Israel have had on the country’s military capabilities…

Israeli diplomat Sammy Revel presented his credentials to Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in Manama following his appointment to serve as Israel’s envoy to the Arab nation, with which Jerusalem normalized relations in 2020…

A 76-year-old Israeli man injured in an Iranian ballistic missile attack during the 12-day June war died of his injuries this week…

A French man and his partner who were arrested in Iran in 2022 on charges of spying on behalf of France and Israel were both given lengthy prison sentences…

Beth Oppenheim was named CEO of the Jewish refugee aid organization HIAS after previously serving as the organization’s chief advancement officer and chief external relations officer…

The International Legal Forum named Michal Cotler-Wunsh, the former Israeli envoy to combat antisemitism, as its new CEO, effective Nov. 1; Cotler-Wunsh succeeds outgoing CEO Arsen Ostrovsky, who is taking up a senior leadership role at the Australia & Israel Jewish Affairs Council in Sydney…

British clothier Derek Rose, whose eponymous luxury pajama company attracted a celebrity following, died at 93…

Pic of the Day

Matan Angrest, who was released from Hamas captivity on Monday, spoke on Wednesday during the funeral of his tank commander, Daniel Peretz, who was killed on Oct. 7, 2023, and whose remains were returned to Israel this week, at Mount Herzl National Cemetery in Jerusalem, Israel. 

Writing in eJewishPhilanthropy earlier this month, Peretz’s father, Rabbi Doron Peretz, the executive chairman of the World Mizrachi movement, reflected on the loss of his son, the anniversary of the attacks on Israel and the country’s display of “courage, clarity and unmatched self-sacrifice and heroism” on that day.

Birthdays

Retired basketball player for the Seattle Storm of the WNBA, she has five Olympic gold medals, Sue Bird turns 45…

Israeli attorney, chairman of Maccabi Tel Aviv Basketball, Shimon Mizrahi turns 86… Retired CFO of Amtrak, Midway Airlines and Airlines Reporting Corporation, Alfred Samuel Altschul turns 86… National president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), Morton A. Klein turns 78… Film director, producer, screenwriter and creator of “The Naked Gun” franchise, David Zucker turns 78… Professor emeritus of economics at Smith College and author of 28 books, Andrew S. Zimbalist turns 78… Director of strategy in the policy and government affairs department at AIPAC, Dr. Marvin C. Feuer… Novelist, short story writer and essayist, Elinor Lipman turns 75… Chairman of Sela Capital Real Estate Ltd., he previously served as the director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Finance, Shmuel Slavin turns 72… Executive director of Clark University Hillel, Jeff Narod… Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives since 1999, David Linsky turns 68… Best-selling French novelist, one of whose books was made into Steven Spielberg’s “Just Like Heaven,” Marc Levy turns 64… President of the American Academy in Berlin, he was the coordinator for counterterrorism during the Obama administration, Daniel Benjamin turns 64… Otolaryngologist who also specializes in facial and reconstructive surgery, Howard David Krein, M.D. turns 59… Senior partner at Battery Ventures Israel’s office, Scott Tobin… Attorney in North Palm Beach, Fla., he served in the Florida House of Representatives, Adam M. Fetterman turns 55… Filmmaker, best known for directing “Monster House” (2006), Gil Kenan turns 49… Actress Kala Lynne Savage turns 47… Founder and chief strategy officer of BrightPower, Jeff Perlman turns 46… Founder and CEO at Social Studies, Inc., he is also the founder of The Gramlist, Brandon Jared Perlman… Three-time U.S. Army light-middleweight boxing champion, he boxed with a Star of David on his trunks, Boyd “Rainmaker” Melson turns 44… Group product manager for data and AI at The Washington Post, Jason Langsner… West Coast regional director at Foundation for Jewish Camp, Margalit C. Rosenthal… SVP for financial planning and analysis at Vibrant Emotional Health, Avi Fink… Senior director of communications at Mark43, Devora Kaye… Business analyst at LWF Group and project manager at Aqualinq, Sam Ginsberg…

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) first became a household name for her embrace of a range of wild conspiracy theories — including antisemitic claims about the Rothschild family like the idea that space-based weapons controlled by the Jewish banking family were the cause of California wildfires.

But as the congresswoman has emerged as an unlikely star in liberal circles and mainstream media after breaking with her party on the government shutdown, health care funding and the Jeffrey Epstein files, her erstwhile critics have all but ignored her increasingly frequent use of antisemitic tropes and embrace of conspiracy theories targeting Jews.

Earlier this week, the controversial Georgia congresswoman vowed on X, “No bar codes on me. I’ll never take 30 shekels. I’m America only! And Christ is King!”

Her rejection of “30 shekels” appears to be a reference to the pieces of silver paid to Judas Iscariot to betray Jesus, and the currency of Israel. Greene’s mention of “bar codes” refers to claims by former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) about AIPAC fundraising events, which AIPAC has denied.

She has also repeatedly boosted claims that Israel and Jewish people were involved in last month’s killing of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and are seeking to co-opt his organization.

“Do not allow a foreign country, foreign agents, and another religion tell you about Charlie Kirk,” Greene said on X. “And I hope a foreign country and foreign agents and another religion does not take over Christian Patriotic Turning Point USA.”

Last week, Greene reposted an X post by Holocaust denier Evan Kilgore, in which Kilgore shared a video of Candace Owens — a primary propagator of Israel-related conspiracy theories about Kirk’s death — claiming that Kirk had announced prior to his death that he was abandoning his support for Israel.

And she lauded a eulogy delivered by far-right commentator Tucker Carlson at Kirk’s funeral, in which Carlson compared Kirk’s killing to the death of Jesus.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that no matter which party is in charge, the secular government of Israel always gets its way,” Greene wrote on X.

Greene has been one of the few Republican lawmakers to attack AIPAC and other pro-Israel advocacy groups, accusing them of exercising malign influence over the U.S. government and demanding they register as foreign agents. AIPAC is funded and led by American citizens, not the Israeli government.

She has accused Israel of “meddling in campaigns and elections” and of “meddling in government policy — government of the United States policy — as well as dictating what America does in foreign wars.”

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that no matter which party is in charge, the secular government of Israel always gets its way,” Greene added on X.

Regarding the war in Gaza, Greene has employed language sometimes indistinguishable from that of far-left Israel opponents, accusing Israel of committing genocide and of deliberately killing innocent people and children, particularly Christians. She led an effort in the House to cut off U.S. missile defense aid to Israel, which failed overwhelmingly.

She also shared posts suggesting that Israel had foreknowledge of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and chose to delay its response, and claimed that “Most of America has Israel fatigue” because politicians ignore domestic problems in order to “talk about Israel all day” and that a GOP colleague is “fighting for his life to maintain his pro Israel money.”

“I am not suicidal and one of the happiest healthiest people you will meet. I have full faith in God and Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. As a sinner, I am only saved through His grace and mercy,” Greene said. “With that said, if something happens to me, I ask you all to find out which foreign government or powerful people would take heinous actions to stop the information from coming out.”

Greene described the Anti-Defamation League as a “dangerous hate group that targets Christians,” praising the FBI for recently cutting ties with the group.

Amid her escalating social media campaign against the pro-Israel world and her advocacy for the release of files related to the Epstein investigation, Greene suggested last month on X that a foreign government or other powerful individuals were planning to assassinate her.

“I am not suicidal and one of the happiest healthiest people you will meet. I have full faith in God and Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. As a sinner, I am only saved through His grace and mercy,” Greene said. “With that said, if something happens to me, I ask you all to find out which foreign government or powerful people would take heinous actions to stop the information from coming out.”

The post was widely interpreted — including by at least one fellow lawmaker — as a suggestion that Israel or Jewish people were targeting Greene.

“Why do crazy people keep thinking ‘the Jews’ are trying to kill them?” Rep. Ted Cruz (R-TX) replied.

Greene has also claimed Israel is operating a social media campaign targeting her.

Outside of Israel policy and the Jewish community, Greene has also continued to lean into other conspiracy theories, such as posting in August that it is “oddly consistent and strange” that several mass shooters have authored manifestos, asking, “who tells them to do that?” In the past, she has repeatedly spread conspiracy theories about mass shootings, speculating that demonic possession or military mind control may be responsible for school shootings.

Last month, she also shared a Carlson documentary claiming the truth of the 9/11 attacks had been covered up and convened a congressional hearing on weather modification that heavily featured conspiracy theories and false and misleading claims.

“The RJC has endorsed multiple GOP primary challengers to Marjorie Taylor Greene. She is out of step with the Republican Party, and with President Trump. The people of Georgia deserve better — and we are determined to do what we can to retire her,” RJC CEO Matt Brooks said.

“While the president and congressional Republicans back our ally, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is aligned with Reps. Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to demonize Israel and weaken a partnership that makes America safer, strong and more prosperous,” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told Jewish Insider. “Our 5 million members will not be deterred by her rancid anti-Israel and unhinged raving.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition, which has repeatedly opposed Greene, said it continues to support efforts to defeat her.

“The RJC has endorsed multiple GOP primary challengers to Marjorie Taylor Greene. She is out of step with the Republican Party, and with President Trump. The people of Georgia deserve better — and we are determined to do what we can to retire her,” RJC CEO Matt Brooks said.

Greene did not respond to a request for comment.

Greene has recently been a thorn in the side of GOP leadership for a number of reasons, including criticizing the party’s approach to a health care tax credit central to the current government shutdown, critiquing the Trump administration’s mass deportation strategy and Middle East policy, backing an effort to force a House vote on the release of documents related to the Epstein investigation, accusing the party of blocking women from leadership roles and voting against other elements of the House Republican leadership’s agenda.

Her disputes with the Trump administration could create an opportunity for a Republican primary challenger to make a run against her — though Trump hasn’t personally spoken out against Greene as he has against Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), another anti-Israel House GOP colleague, and Greene has continued to profess her loyalty to Trump and his movement.

She does not yet face any serious primary competition.

Greene previously accumulated influence in the House as a close ally of Trump and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) but has found herself increasingly sidelined. National Republican Party leaders did not back her as she considered a run for Georgia’s Senate seat against Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) or the state’s governorship.

Good Monday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the release this morning of the 20 remaining living Israeli hostages, and preview President Donald Trump’s speech to the Knesset. We talk to historian Pamela Nadell about her new book about antisemitism, and look at the race taking shape in Tennessee between Rep. Steve Cohen and state legislator Justin Pearson. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Patrick Dumont, Zeev Buium and Ben Shapiro.

Ed. note: The next Daily Kickoff will arrive in your inbox on Thursday. Chag Sameach!

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Tamara Zieve with assists from Marc Rod and Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

• We’re following today’s events as they unfold in Israel, following the release this morning of the remaining living hostages and President Donald Trump’s arrival in the country. Trump will travel to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, later today for a signing ceremony that will be attended by officials from around the world. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined an invitation extended earlier today by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, citing the Simchat Torah holiday, which begins this evening in Israel.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH MELISSA WEISS AND TAMARA ZIEVE

It was the day that Israelis have waited for after more than two years — or two years exactly by the Hebrew calendar. Thousands had already assembled by dawn at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, where some had slept overnight, for the release of the last remaining hostages known to be alive. Shortly after 8 a.m., the first seven hostages — Omri Miran, Matan Angrest, Ziv Berman, Gali Berman, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, Alon Ohel and Eitan Mor — were released to Red Cross custody.

The song “Habayta,” meaning “home,” the unofficial anthem of the hostage families, played over a montage of photos of the 47 men and one woman who have spent the last 738 days in captivity — a scene that has repeated itself in the square every Saturday night for two years.

Israeli networks split coverage between the live festivities across the country, in-studio reporting and interviews with hostage families and former hostages. Former hostage Emily Damari called into Israel’s Channel 12 upon the release of her neighbors and friends, twins Zvi and Gali Berman, and said the Shehecheyanu prayer giving thanks — a prayer also recited by the thousands thronging in and around Hostages Square. The crowd erupted in joy at the sight of the two brothers being reunited. 

By midday, the 20 living hostages — also including Avinatan Or, Bar Kupershtein, Ariel and David Cunio, Eitan Horn, Elkana Bohbot, Evyatar David, Maksym Harkin, Matan Zangauker, Nimrod Cohen, Rom Braslavski, Segev Kalfon and Yosef-Chaim Ohana —  were on Israeli soil.

The first images of the men trickled out over the course of the morning: Miran, flanked by his wife and father, wearing a shirt with artwork by his two young daughters; the Berman twins in Maccabi Tel Aviv jerseys; Ohel, pale but smiling and standing on his own, with sunglasses to protect his damaged eyes.

In contrast to previous hostage release, as dictated by the agreement, there were no propaganda ceremonies staged by Hamas as they handed over the captive Israelis. Instead, Hamas made video calls to the hostages’ relatives, who spoke to their loved ones as they stood beside their masked and uniformed captors.

Amid the hostage releases, President Donald Trump descended from Air Force One to the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport on Monday morning, where he was greeted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog. White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump — who spoke at Saturday night’s hostage rally in Tel Aviv. Read our coverage of their speeches at the rally here.

Signing the Knesset’s guestbook after his arrival, Trump wrote, “This is my great honor — a great and beautiful day, a new beginning.” 

With the release of the last living hostages, and later today the remains of  four of the 28 deceased hostages, Israel will begin the process of releasing close to 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in accordance with the first phase of the deal. After that, attention will turn to negotiations surrounding the deal’s second phase. 

After addressing the Knesset, Trump will travel to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for a signing ceremony that will also include Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas. Trump’s speech was delayed due to a call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who extended an invitation to Netanyahu to join the ceremony. Netanyahu’s office released a statement saying that the prime minister thanked Trump for the invitation, but won’t be able to participate due to the close timing with the beginning of the Simchat Torah holiday this evening.

In Israel, it has been a day of celebration after two years of pain, longing, fear, anxiety. It was the first time in two years that Israelis were able to wholeheartedly greet each other with ‘chag sameach‘  — a greeting that took on a double meaning on the eve of Simchat Torah, which begins this evening. 

But the day will take a heavier turn this afternoon when the remains of just four of the deceased hostages are expected to be returned to Israel, bringing a combination of pain and closure to their loved ones who will finally be able to give them a proper burial. Meanwhile, the 24 other hostage families — who were shocked to learn this afternoon of the low number of bodies that will be released — will be left waiting for the remains of their loved ones to be located and returned home. The Hostages Families Forum called the development a “blatant breach of the agreement by Hamas,” and called on the Israeli government and the mediators to “take immediate action to rectify this grave injustice.” 

Read ‘What You Should Know’ here.

TRUMP’S TALK

President Trump receives hero’s welcome as hostages return to Israel

President Donald Trump gave a victory speech in the Knesset as the final 20 living hostages returned to Israel from Gaza on Monday, in accordance with the first phase of his plan to end the war, Jewish Insider‘s Lahav Harkov reports.

Live from Israel: Israeli television stations showed a live screen, with Air Force One landing at Ben Gurion Airport on one side, and IDF vehicles carrying freed hostages Eitan Mor, Gali and Ziv Berman, Matan Angrest, Omri Miran, Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel to their families on the other. Trump was given a hero’s welcome in the Knesset, where he was met with an honor guard and current and former lawmakers gave him a lengthy standing ovation. “The hostages are back – it feels so good to say it!” Trump said.

Read the full story here.

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Tennessee tackle

Rep. Steve Cohen draws younger, far-left challenger hostile to Israel in primary

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), a 10-term congressman from Memphis, Tenn., has long occupied a unique position in U.S. politics. The 76-year-old lawmaker, who became Tennessee’s first Jewish member of the delegation when he took office in 2007, is the only Democratic House member in his solidly conservative state. And as the lone white member of either party to represent a majority-Black district, Cohen has also managed to deftly navigate a delicate racial dynamic in his district, only facing occasional primary challenges from Black challengers. Through it all, he has been a political powerhouse in Memphis, holding onto his seat by building a broad and diverse coalition of support. Now, he is facing what could be his biggest test in years as he prepares to go up against a formidable new challenger in the 2026 primaries, at a moment when some veteran Democratic House members are under growing pressure from a crop of younger opponents who are pushing for generational change to revive the party’s declining image among younger, disillusioned voters, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

New competition: Justin Pearson, a Democratic state legislator from Memphis who rose to national prominence in 2023 when he and a fellow Black colleague were expelled from the Tennessee General Assembly for leading a gun control protest on the House floor, announced last week that he would challenge Cohen in what is shaping up to be a bitterly contested and expensive primary, highlighting differences over identity as well as hot-button issues such as Israel and the war in Gaza. 

Read the full interview with Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) here.

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BOOKSHELF

Jewish studies scholar argues modern-day antisemitism akin to 1950s-era discrimination in new book

Historian Pamela Nadell is very familiar with the rituals of publishing a book, as she has written nine of them: Secure a release date, present at academic conferences, maybe headline a handful of general-public events. Although she is at the forefront of her field at American University — chair in Women’s and Gender History, director of the Jewish studies program and former president of the American Jewish Historical Society — Nadell knows that success in academia does not often translate to strong book sales. Things appear to be different for her latest book, Antisemitism: An American Tradition, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. 

Pertinent timing: Nadell began to understand how much interest a book on antisemitism would generate when her publisher assigned a full-time publicist to promote the book, which will be published on Oct. 14. Nadell is booked at speaking engagements across the country into 2027, starting with an event at the Washington bookstore Politics and Prose next week. The book that she began researching six years ago will now appear on bookshelves at a time when antisemitism has reached record levels since the Anti-Defamation League began tracking data in 1979. “I had hoped, frankly, that the subject would be seen as a historic subject by the time [the book] came out into the world,” Nadell told JI in a recent interview. “And that’s absolutely not the case.” 

Read the full story here.

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DOHA DEALINGS

Hegseth signs deal to open Qatari Air Force facility in Idaho

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, in a Pentagon meeting with Qatari Defense Minister Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Friday, signed a deal to open a Qatari Air Force facility at the U.S. Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Facing swift backlash, Hegseth clarified that under the terms of the agreement, “Qatar will not have their own base in the United States — nor anything like a base. We control the existing base, like we do with all partners.”

Broad opposition: The deal has elicited criticism from voices as wide-ranging as Trump ally and far-right influencer Laura Loomer and Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin. “An economic bailout for Argentina. An air force base for Qatar. This guy is doing everything but putting America first,” Martin said, a sentiment echoed by the DNC’s vice chair, Malcolm Kenyatta. Loomer wrote a spree of X posts lambasting the deal, framing it as the vanguard of a Muslim Brotherhood invasion of Idaho and the United States, a threat to national security, a precursor to a potential terrorist attack and the harbinger of the downfall of Western civilization. “Now that the GOP has decided to literally harbor Islamic terrorists on US soil, I don’t really care about fighting for Republicans as much as I did yesterday. I have lost hope for 2026 and 2028 to be totally honest,” Loomer said. 

Read the full story here.

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ROLE REALIZED

Senate confirms Trump pick to lead civil rights division at Education Dept.

The Senate voted this week to confirm Kimberly Richey as the assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, eight months after President Donald Trump named her to the role. The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which Richey will lead, is responsible for overseeing investigations into antisemitism at American schools and universities. The Trump administration laid off more than half of the division’s investigators earlier this year, sparking sharp criticism from congressional Democrats, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Background: Richey previously served in the same role on an interim basis for the final months of Trump’s first term. For much of that administration, she was deputy assistant secretary of the office that oversees special education issues. She first worked at the Education Department in the George W. Bush administration after being hired by Ken Marcus, now the chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. Richey comes to Washington from Florida, where she had been serving as senior chancellor for Florida’s Department of Education. Before that, she was deputy superintendent of the Virginia Department of Education.

Read the full story here.

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HILL TALK

Senate moves toward repeal of Caesar Act Syria sanctions in defense bill

The Senate approved the repeal of strict sanctions legislation targeting the now-deposed Assad regime in Syria, as part of its version of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

State of play: The chamber also passed, as part of a bipartisan package of amendments, an amendment led by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) — opposed by some Syrian-American activists — that requires regular reports to Congress certifying Syria’s compliance with a variety of U.S. priorities and urges the administration to reimpose sanctions if such verification cannot be completed. The House version of the NDAA does not include a similar provision, so whether the sanctions repeal is included in the final bill, and in what form, will be subject to negotiations between the two chambers.

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

The Families’ Fight: The Free Press’ Matti Friedman reflects on the successes of the movement to free the hostages juxtaposed with the realities of war. “On the day of the Hamas massacres, which ravaged swaths of southern Israel and killed nearly 1,200 people, Israelis saw their feeling of security shattered, along with their faith in their leadership and army and in the basic promise that the helpless chapters of Jewish history had ended conclusively with the founding of the state of Israel. This rupture required psychological repair, and this became inseparable, for some, from the hostages’ return. ‘The slogan ‘Bring Them Home,’ rather than ‘Give Them Back,’ the fact that it’s directed inward, gets at the idea that this is really about restoring our own place and our own agency, which is at the heart of Zionism,’ [Tal] Becker said when we spoke again Sunday. Another popular slogan, seen on bumper stickers and protest signs, reads Nachzir, nakum: ‘We’ll return them and rise.’ Those two acts are linked, the second predicated on the first.” [FreePress]

Sharabi’s Survival: The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer considers what he calls the “existential heroism” of the released Israeli hostages. “Unlike Sharabi, some of the hostages already surmised that they had lost their families in the massacre, shattering the most compelling why of them all. Yet that didn’t diminish their will to live. Despite being secular, they found solace in listening to an observant hostage, the son of a rabbinical scholar, recite the Jewish grace after meals. Like Odysseus, they trained their minds to relentlessly focus on home. ‘There is no more regular Eli,’ Sharabi told himself in his first days in Gaza. ‘From now on, I am Eli the survivor.’ That he clung to optimism in the face of despair wasn’t inevitable.” [TheAtlantic]

Campus Beat: In The New York Times, Danielle Sassoon, who resigned as interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York earlier this year after she refused to drop charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, raises concerns about free speech and civil rights on college campuses. “Universities, no less than the professionals they teach, have an obligation to uphold civil dialogue as the bedrock of a functioning democracy. Administrators continue to overlook that this obligation means they must guarantee forums to explore a diversity of ideas safely and openly. … Students who object to policies of the Trump administration or oppose Israel’s war in Gaza or who advocate abortion rights rarely have to worry that their campus speakers will be disrupted by protesters or generate security concerns related to the backlash of a student mob. Security concerns, real or fabricated, arise when a speaker promises to buck campus orthodoxy. And that is precisely when universities need to stand up for debate rather than surrender to those who would stifle it.” [NYTimes]

What’s Next: In The Times of Israel, Alan Gross, who was held as a political prisoner in Cuba for five years and now lives part-time in Israel, considers how Israelis and Palestinians can rebuild in a post-war era. “Healing will not come from slogans or ceremonies. It will come — slowly, painfully — through remembrance, accountability, and the rebuilding of trust where it has been shattered. It requires rejecting the easy narratives that divide “us” from “them,” and insisting instead on empathy — for our own people, yes, but also for those on the other side who have also lost children, parents, and homes. Too many of us already know what it means to wake up each day in a world changed by violence. Yet it is precisely in that fragile act of continuing — of refusing to surrender our humanity — that recovery begins.” [TOI]

Word on the Street

Leaked U.S. documents indicate that Arab countries quietly expanded their military cooperation with Israel in the last three years in what the U.S. called a “Regional Security Construct”…

The New York Times reports on a recently discovered handwritten memo from slain Hamas leader and Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar authored weeks before the 2023 attacks that directed Hamas members to set fire to and destroy residential neighborhoods and communities; the memo contradicts claims by other senior Hamas officials that the terror group did not plan to attack civilian areas…

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro raised concerns about the rise of “a conspiratorial right,” noting that social media users “get a lot more likes and clicks if you are promoting an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish agenda than if you are doing the opposite”…

The Atlantic published an excerpt from Rabbi Angela Buchdahl’s upcoming memoir detailing her conversations with a gunman who held a Texas synagogue hostage in January 2022…

The New York Times looks at the effort by Patrick Dumont, the son-in-law of Sands owner Miriam Adelson, to restore the relationship between the NBA and China, two years after relations soured following NBA executives’ pro-democracy social media posts…

The U.K. government directed universities in the country to crack down on campus antisemitism, with Education Minister Bridget Phillipson saying university administrators “have my full backing to use their powers” in “ridding their campuses of hate”… 

French President Emmanuel Macron reappointed Sébastien Lecornu, who until last week served a brief stint as prime minister before resigning, to his role amid political and economic deadlock that has paralyzed the country… 

Israeli American hockey player Zeev Buium scored his first NHL goal on Saturday against the Columbus Blue Jackets; Buium, a defenseman for the Minnesota Wild, is believed to be the first Israeli hockey player to ever score a goal in the NHL…

Pic of the Day

People celebrate in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square on Monday morning as they watch a livestream of the release. 

Birthdays

Emmy Award-winning film director, producer and screenwriter, Amy J. Berg turns 55…

Former deputy assistant secretary at the USDA, he retired in 2024 as an attorney working on organic food law, Richard D. Siegel turns 86… Musician, singer, songwriter, best known for his lead role in the Simon & Garfunkel duo, Paul Simon turns 84… Past chair of the Anti-Defamation League, Esta Gordon Epstein… Founder of PublicAffairs Books, an imprint of Perseus Books at Hachette Book Group, Peter L.W. Osnos turns 82… Author of 12 cookbooks, Mollie Katzen turns 75… U.S. senator (D-WA), Maria Cantwell turns 67… President of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Rabbi Donniel Hartman turns 67… Former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, now a media consultant and Fox News contributor, Ari Fleischer turns 65… Partner at FGS Global until 2024, Jack Krumholtz… Former Associated Press bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories, now a home builder in the Indian state of Goa, Steven Gutkin… Second gentleman of the United States in the Biden-Harris administration, Douglas Emhoff turns 61… Co-chairman of Disney Entertainment where she is responsible for television and streaming, Dana Freedman Walden turns 61… Richard Lamke… Attorney general for England and Wales for parts of 2021 and 2022, he was a member of the U.K. Parliament for 14 years until 2024, Michael Ellis turns 58… Award-winning actor, comedian and screenwriter, Sacha Baron Cohen turns 54… Israeli fashion model, Shiraz Tal turns 51… Offensive lineman in the NFL for ten seasons (Broncos, Redskins, Bears and Browns), now the COO of Raleigh-based VetOvation, Leonard Lebrecht Friedman turns 49… Adjunct professor of Jewish studies at Ohio University and director of member engagement at the Academic Engagement Network, Sarah Livingston… Emily Gould… Jerusalem bureau chief for CNN, Oren Liebermann turns 43… Land-use attorney at Seattle-based firm of Hillis Clark Martin & Peterson, Joshua E. Friedmann… Political reporter for NBC News, Rebecca Shabad… Film director, producer and screenwriter, Jordan David “J.D.” Lifshitz turns 33…

Historian Pamela Nadell is very familiar with the rituals of publishing a book, as she has written nine of them: Secure a release date, present at academic conferences, maybe headline a handful of general-public events. Although she is at the forefront of her field at American University — chair in Women’s and Gender History, director of the Jewish studies program and past president of the Association of Jewish Studies — Nadell knows that success in academia does not often translate to strong book sales. 

Things appear to be different for her latest book, Antisemitism: An American Tradition. 

Nadell began to understand how much interest a book on antisemitism would generate when her publisher assigned a full-time publicist to promote the book, which will be published on Oct. 14. Nadell is booked at speaking engagements across the country into 2027, starting with an event at the Washington bookstore Politics and Prose this week. 

The book that she began researching six years ago will now appear on bookshelves at a time when antisemitism has reached record levels since the Anti-Defamation League began tracking data in 1979.

“I had hoped, frankly, that the subject would be seen as a historic subject by the time [the book] came out into the world,” Nadell told Jewish Insider in a recent interview. “And that’s absolutely not the case.” 

Nadell argues in her book that antisemitism is not an aberration in the United States. Instead, she writes, it is intricately woven into the American experience — as American as, say, apple pie. 

Jews came from Europe seeking freedom from religious persecution, and while they escaped the pogroms that had haunted them overseas, they did not arrive in a world magically free from antisemitism. She traced the history of anti-Jewish sentiment in America from colonial days to the present, identifying the aftermath of the Civil War as the moment it really gained a foothold in American society. 

“America is different [from Europe] in that we never had state sponsored violence against American Jews,” Nadell said. “But the roots of anti-Judaism in America start immediately … the roots of anti-Judaism in America rest on traditional Christian ideas about who the Jews are and what they did to Jesus.”

While antisemitism has always been present in America, the tenor and intensity of it has ebbed and flowed. “We’re in a moment,” she said, “where it’s really bad.” 

The reason she is most concerned about the state of antisemitism in America is not just the frequency of antisemitic incidents or the toll of violent attacks on Jews. According to a study published this week by the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Federations of North America, more than half of American Jews now say antisemitism is a normal part of the Jewish experience. 

It’s that doors are once again closing to Jews in a way that reminds her of the quotas, housing covenants and employment restrictions that were baked into American life until the 1950s and 1960s. 

“The perception that [antisemitism] was over was because of how much American Jews ascended into American life as those structural barriers fell,” Nadell said. “The doors to corporations opened up, the doors to the colleges opened up. But antisemitism — it’s like it was a nagging factor.” 

America is now experiencing another period “where Jewish life once again seems to be constricting,” Nadell argued. “Not in exactly the same ways that it did in those years between World War I and World War II, when there were so many structural limitations. But the closing off of spaces to Jews today is happening once again.” 

She pointed to boycotts of Jewish and Zionist writers in the publishing industry, and antisemitic litmus tests appearing in unexpected places like the mental health profession. 

“Being told that you have to denounce Israel in order to join a student club? Those students are going to carry those memories forward into their future,” said Nadell. 

In recent years, and particularly following the wave of antisemitism that was unleashed after the Oct. 7 attacks two years ago, several Jewish thinkers have posited that the American Jewish community’s best days are behind it. Franklin Foer wrote an Atlantic cover story under the alarming headline, “The Golden Age of American Jews is ending.”

Nadell argues that the notion that there ever was a “golden age” is a myth. “The idea that there was a golden age of Jews in Spain actually emerges during the Dreyfus Affair [in 1894], when things are so terrible in Europe,” she noted. Similarly, Nadell argues that the supposedly now-over golden age for American Jews after the end of quotas and de jure discrimination is not really so straightforward. 

“By the time we get to the late ‘60s and on in the 20th century, American Jews feel really secure. The places that used to be closed to us have now opened, and that’s what leads to the perception of the golden age,” said Nadell. “The problem … is the assumption that antisemitism disappeared, but it didn’t.”

Still, Nadell considers herself an optimist. Antisemitism is part of the American fabric. And while that might be a demoralizing conclusion, she views it the other way: Jews have thrived in this country despite antisemitism, and they will continue to do so. 

“The reality is that it is part of the normative Jewish experience to experience antisemitism,” said Nadell. “But I think ultimately, American Jews will be okay in the United States.”

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism is rebranding under the name Blue Square Alliance Against Hate and launching a new advertisement focused on antisemitism that’s slated to debut on “Sunday Night Football” this weekend, Jewish Insider has learned. 

The rebranded group, whose blue square pins have become a ubiquitous symbol in the fight against antisemitism, is airing the “Sunday Night Football” ad as part of a $10 million media campaign designed to redouble awareness of the steep rise of anti-Jewish hate.

The new ad campaign, titled “When There Are No Words,” will be airing on one of the most watched shows on broadcast television — during a game between the AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs and Detroit Lions. Taylor Swift, engaged to Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, is also expected to be in attendance and to draw her own fans to the broadcast, expanding the audience for the advertisement’s debut.

“What do you say when a Jewish boy is kicked on a New York city sidewalk?” a voice asks as the 30-second commercial begins. “What do you say when a Holocaust survivor is firebombed in the streets of Colorado? What do you say when one in three Jewish Americans were victims of hate last year? When there are no words, there’s still a symbol to show you care. The blue square.” 

The name change and advertisement campaign — which will be supplemented by billboards and social media posts — are an extension to the foundation’s “Blue Square” campaign, which launched in March 2023, aiming to turn the blue square into the symbol for Jewish solidarity and opposition to hatred against Jewish people. The organization has since debuted a blue square pin and bracelet for allies against Jewish hate to wear publicly. 

“This campaign is laser-focused on building recognition and appreciation for what the Blue Square represents and the importance it has in cultivating allies against antisemitism,” Adam Katz, the organization’s newly minted president, told Jewish Insider. 

Katz said a primary goal of the campaign — and the organization overall — is “to awaken people” to antisemitism, particularly to those outside of the Jewish community. While the foundation is not maintaining  “antisemitism” in its name, it spotlights in its commercial the rate of antisemitic incidents that have spiked around the U.S. in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks in Israel. That focus on violence against Jews is distinct from some of its previous, high-profile ads. 

“[The name change] is meant to be inviting and bring people in and also not to feel off-putting to someone who is not part of the Jewish community but wants to participate — that’s who our target audience is, the 47% of Americans who are apathetic on the topic of antisemitism. They’re not doing anything of substance either positive or negative. This is about reaching them,” Katz said.

“The purpose of it is to raise broader cultural awareness about the magnitude and severity of antisemitism. I wish every person in this country knew [about the shooting of Israeli Embassy staffers] in D.C. in May or knew about [the firebombing at a walk advocating for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas] in Boulder a few weeks later. Even more than that, I wish they knew about the smaller but much more frequent transgressions that take place every day.” 

Most recently, the organization’s 30-second commercial titled “No Reason to Hate,” sparked criticism from some Jewish activists for not focusing on — or even mentioning — antisemitism when it ran during the Super Bowl earlier this year. The ad featured rapper Snoop Dogg and NFL legend Tom Brady exchanging deliberately vague insults. 

“The challenge is that we just can’t explain the complexity of Judaism or antisemitism in a 30-second ad. But what we can do is invite Americans into a conversation about something they do have experience with: hate,” Kraft told JI at the time.

But Katz, who in May was tapped to lead the organization, said that the group is trying something different now to ensure that awareness of rising antisemitism is widespread, while still attempting to appeal to a wide audience. “It’s different from our other television work in that it’s a little bit more emotionally raw and jarring,” he said. “We need the wake up call.”

“Our mission of ultimately creating allies against antisemitism has not changed,” Katz told JI. “That’s why it was so important with this campaign and future campaigns to make antisemitism as prominent as it should be.” 

“We’re trying to bring people in with a low-barrier-to-entry activity. That’s what digitally sharing the blue square is. When there are no words, at a minimum, you can show your support with a blue square.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) distanced himself from antisemitic influencer Ian Carroll after the congressman posted to social media an excerpt from a YouTube documentary that featured separate clips of himself and Carroll.

Carroll, described in the documentary as a researcher, is an antisemitic conspiracy theorist who has engaged in Holocaust distortion. He has claimed that Israel and Jewish people are involved in a malign global conspiracy, control the U.S. government and were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. He has also asserted that pedophile and financier Jeffrey Epstein was a “clearly a Jewish organization working on behalf of Israel and other groups.”

In the excerpt shared by Khanna alongside his own comments, Carroll stated that recipients of pro-Israel support are “operat[ing] our government on behalf of someone else,” referring to AIPAC and Israel. Khanna himself discussed his concerns about interest group spending in U.S. elections.

“This was a documentary made by Tommy G who interviewed me. I did not speak to or meet Ian Carroll. I stand by my words and should be judged by them,” Khanna said in a statement to Jewish Insider. “I vehemently disagree and reject any views blaming Israel for 9/11, denying the Holocaust, or conspiracies about a Jewish syndicate exerting control.”

In the documentary, Khanna described the U.S. as “complicit” in the destruction in Gaza and stated that Israel has committed war crimes in the enclave and that the International Court of Justice should examine and adjudicate the issue.

“The Hamas terrorist attack was awful, and I said that people who committed those crimes had to be brought to justice and the hostages had to be released,” Khanna said. “But that happened months in. Netanyahu has been bombing for 2 years.”

“Who says, ‘We’re going to starve the people so much that they suffer that we’re going to force the surrender?’ It’s sick, and your tax dollars, my tax dollars, are funding them,” Khanna added.

The documentary itself, posted by a YouTube videomaker with the handle Tommy G, is filled with antisemitic tropes. The thumbnail for the video frames Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a puppetmaster with strings controlling several men in suits, posed in front of the White House, flanked by Israeli and AIPAC flags. There are also several dollar bills superimposed over the image.

The documentary highlights anti-Israel arguments — including some conspiracy theories — and repeatedly brushes off or attempts to rebut arguments from pro-Israel voices featured in it. Anti-Israel voices receive the majority of the screen time in the video.

The narrator, Tommy G, opens the documentary by highlighting claims of a coverup or Israeli foreknowledge of the Oct. 7 attack, and plays up alleged Israeli abuses in Gaza.

While condemning Hamas’ actions, he suggests that the terrorist group’s actions could be seen as reasonable or provoked by Israel’s own actions, framing the group — as well as the Taliban in Afghanistan — as “freedom fighters” and “resistance movements.”

Tommy G also makes passing mention of — and does not interrogate — baseless claims that Israel may have been involved in the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

The documentarian describes Carroll as “one of the internet’s top conspiracy analysts,” who critics “label an antisemite … but to others he is a fearless journalist that speaks on what some perceive as an extremely strong Zionist pressure on our government.”

He also suggests that it is inherently suspicious that many lawmakers have traveled to Israel.

And he concludes the documentary by stating, “A lot of us feel deep in our gut something is off here, something is wrong here and I will not be intimidated into not asking questions.”

Carroll himself suggests in the documentary a connection between the pro-Israel cause and the John F. Kennedy assassination, that Israel had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attack and that Israel dispatched Jeffrey Epstein to cultivate relationships with U.S. leaders and blackmail them.

Another anti-Israel voice in the documentary is Anthony Aguilar, a former Gaza Humanitarian Foundation contractor whose key claim of Israeli and GHF abuses has been disproven.

Aguilar states in the documentary that American politicians aren’t allowed to talk about Israel and that shows “who controls you.”

Other featured guests include Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Hank Johnson (R-GA), as well as Code Pink leader Medea Benjamin, an IDF reservist and a U.S. doctor who volunteered in Gaza. 

Mace, Johnson and the IDF reservist all spoke in defense of Israel. 

The video includes a clip of Norman Finkelstein, an antisemitic scholar who has voiced support for Hezbollah and accused Jews of exploiting the Holocaust.

In the documentary, Paul suggests, falsely, that the U.S. has created “easier” rules around lobbying disclosures for countries the U.S. considers to be allies and that many pro-Israel activists are dual-citizens, part of a segment of the documentary that attempts to interrogate why AIPAC is not registered as a foreign lobbying group.

The group’s members and leaders are American citizens who act on their own recognizance, rather than at the instruction of the Israeli government.

Khanna, pushing back on the narrative framing AIPAC supporters as foreign agents, states in the documentary, “They’re American citizens. If you’re an American citizen and you’re articulating a point of view, that’s your right. … They’re American citizens. They’re lobbying for their interests. They’re lobbying for the Netanyahu government’s interests because they think that’s what benefits America. And they’re paying millions of dollars, which under Citizens United is legal.”

Khanna argues in the documentary that spending from outside super PACs on behalf of favored candidates should be outlawed.

The California congressman, rumored as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, has also recently faced scrutiny for his appearance at ArabCon, where other speakers defended Hamas and laughed off the idea of condemning its Oct. 7 attacks.

Several key Minnesota political leaders across the ideological spectrum condemned the vandalism of a synagogue in Minneapolis on Wednesday as an act of antisemitism.

Temple Israel, which had been vandalized previously, was spray-painted with the message “watch out Zionists” as well as red triangles — a symbol used by Hamas to mark Israeli targets.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) told Jewish Insider, “This is an unacceptable act of antisemitism that must be unequivocally condemned. After a summer marked by political violence in our state, we must all stand up, speak out, and act to combat hate.”

Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) told JI that the vandalism “was a horrific thing for the congregants of Temple Israel and the Jewish community in Minneapolis to have to experience.” 

“We need to call out these brazen acts of antisemitism and come together to make sure our friends and neighbors know they are safe and supported,” she continued.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, running in a competitive race for reelection, said, “This morning, Temple Israel woke up to anti-Semitic threats — a reminder that hate still tries to find a foothold. It won’t find one here. Minneapolis stands with our Jewish neighbors. Hiding behind hate to spread fear against any religion is cowardly and unacceptable in our city.”

Frey’s primary challenger, state Sen. Omar Fateh, said in a statement to JI, “Anti-Semitism has no place in our city, and the hate speech found at Temple Israel this morning is unacceptable. Minneapolis cannot and will not tolerate violence against our communities, and we stand with our Jewish neighbors.”

Fateh has staked out anti-Israel positions, and some of his associates have endorsed the Oct. 7 attack.

Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), who is running for Senate, said that the incident was “alarming and unacceptable. And it’s a sobering reminder that antisemitism is on the rise.”

“This is not who we are as Minnesotans. We must stand with our Jewish neighbors in the face of this blatant antisemitism and reject all hatred in our communities,” Craig continued.

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who is also running for Senate, described the vandalism as “anti-Semitic hate.”

“My heart is with the congregants of Temple Israel and our entire Jewish community. Hate has no home in Minnesota, and every house of worship should be a safe place to pray,” she continued. “Hate attacks against all faith communities have reached historic highs, and Minnesota is not an exception.”

She went on to highlight the recent shooting at Minneapolis’ Annunciation Catholic Church, a fire and break-in at an Islamic center and attacks on the Somali community.

“Threats, hate, and destruction don’t put us on a path to peace — they make us all less safe. In this moment, it is up to us to stand up against hate, lead with kindness, and find a way to draw all our communities closer,” Flanagan concluded.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who represents the district in which Temple Israel is located, did not respond to a request for comment and does not appear to have addressed the vandalism publicly.

Speaking at a press conference on the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel alongside a former hostage and the family member of a U.S. citizen still held in Gaza, Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Jewish organizational leaders slammed critics of Israel and emphasized that the responsibility for the continuation of the war in Gaza lies with Hamas.

“To all of the critics and naysayers who haven’t missed a chance to scream, yell and slam Israel, I say to them, ‘Where are your voices today? Where are your voices for peace?’” Gottheimer said. “You must push Hamas and take the deal that Israel has already accepted and that the Arab states and the U.S. support.”

He also emphasized the need to counter “social media cooked-up fiction” that has attempted to distort the memory of the attacks.

Hoyer, the former Democratic majority leader, condemned as outrageous the antisemitism that has targeted the Jewish community — whom he called “the victims” of the Oct. 7 attack — and emphasized repeatedly that Hamas is responsible for the attacks two years ago and everything that has followed.

“[The] trauma has grown with every hostage executed, every missile launched and every day this war has been drawn out — by Hamas,” Hoyer said. “Hamas’ crimes on Oct. 7, tragically have also led to the deaths, injury and displacement of thousands of Palestinians as well. Hamas has their blood on their hands.”

Hoyer, emphasizing the millenia-long history of antisemitism, said that people and leaders must speak up and take action against it.

“To young people: Do not fall into the trap of believing misinformation. Focus on who attacked, who abused,” Hoyer said. “America responded to the Japanese, we responded to Hitler’s actions in Europe. It was very tough: hundreds of thousands, indeed, millions of lives were lost. We thought perhaps that we may have, as mankind, learned a lesson of the cost of hate, the cost of bigotry, the cost of prejudice.”

Former Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), the CEO of the American Jewish Committee, offered his thanks to Gottheimer and Hoyer for their clear stances in support of Israel and the hostages.

“In a world swimming in moral confusion, I want to extend our deep gratitude for the moral clarity with which you have consistently approached the events of Oct. 7, the need to speak up, the need to be clear about what happened and the need for us to always remember,” Deutch said.

He added that leaders have a responsibility to condemn antisemitism and Hamas unequivocally, and that their choice of rhetoric has “life or death consequences.”

“We’ve seen a terrifying surge in antisemitism, and in this upside-down world that we live in, Hamas is so often praised while its hostage-taking, atrocities and war crimes are ignored. Today is a reminder that we need to reset the truth,” he continued. “Words matter, and leadership matters. And when public figures slander Israel would normalize calls for violence, chants of globalizing the intifada, when there is open praise for Hamas — then they help to create the conditions for violence from Washington to Boulder to Manchester.”

Deutch also highlighted that, immediately after Oct. 7, before Israel had even begun its counterattack, people around the world marched in the streets in support of Hamas.

On the second anniversary, he continued, “there are some marches taking place around the world of the same people who were not interested in peace two years ago, when they supported Hamas. If they were serious about peace now, they will be marching to force Hamas to accept the terms of this deal. This is a moment when all of the people who claim to support peace have to be held accountable.”

Meredith Jacobs, the CEO of Jewish Women International, contrasted the sense of belonging she felt during a High Holy Days event at the White House in October 2022 with the widespread denial and ostracization that Jews and Israeli victims of Oct. 7 faced from the world following the attacks.

“October 2022 I was secure in my place in the world, secure in my safety and acceptance,” Jacobs said. “A year later, October 2023, that sense of belonging and safety was shattered. … I remember sitting with horror in the silence of the world and in the silence of other feminist organizations, and I remember what came after the silence, the effective malicious campaign of disinformation and denial.”

“When it came to Israeli women, those who were supposed to stand with us delegitimized the evidence, dehumanized Israeli bodies and applied a double standard when responding to the rape and mutilation of Israeli women,” she continued.

Former hostage Ilana Gritzewsky recounted the trauma she underwent in Gaza: “I was beaten … taken to Gaza on a motorcycle, with sexual abuse. For 55 days, I was held in captivity, living in fear and hunger, and deprived of all basic human grace. No fresh air, no sunlight, no showers, very little food or water. I lost 24 pounds. I lost hearing in my left ear. My hip was broken. My leg was burned. My jaw was dislocated and they took my soul.”

She said that she cannot heal until the other hostages, including her partner, Matan Zangauker, are released. And she emphasized that this is “a fight for all of us” — that the same terrorism could come for “any country.”

Speaking on behalf of deceased American hostage Omer Neutra’s parents, Neutra’s cousin Yasmin Magal said that the Trump plan has appeared to usher in a true shift.

“Today, two years later, we sense a shift for the first time. There is a real alignment. Recognition that the moral center of the war is not territorial politics but the fate of the hostages. We have seen bold leadership in recent days,” Magal said. “Willing to act with clarity, urgency and strength, President [Donald] Trump has demonstrated that kind of courage, understanding that resolving the hostage crisis is not just a humanitarian necessity, but the key to stability and peace. We need the same moral clarity from all leaders around the world, because peace cannot begin until the hostages come home.”

At the press conference, Gottheimer announced a series of pieces of bipartisan legislation aimed at commemorating the Oct. 7 anniversary. 

One, cosponsored by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), would bestow a Congressional Gold Medal, Congress’ highest honor, on the American hostages and victims of Oct. 7. 

The second, cosponsored by Reps. Lois Frankel (D-FL), Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Young Kim (R-CA), would condemn the Oct. 7 attack, call for the release of hostages, reaffirm Israel’s right to self-defense, advocate for humanitarian aid and condemn antisemitism.

The third, cosponsored by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), would direct the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to create a model curriculum about the Oct. 7 attacks, the history of antisemitism and its role in the attacks and the denial and distortion of the attacks that followed Oct. 7.

Each of the pieces of legislation is supported by a range of Jewish ådvocacy groups.

Separately, in the Senate, Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and John Fetterman (D-PA) and every Senate Republican introduced a resolution condemning the Oct. 7 attacks and “destructive and antisemitic protests in the United States” and supporting the ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations brokered by the Trump administration.

Freed hostage Eli Sharabi’s new book, Hostage, ends with him visiting the graves of his wife, Lianne, and his daughters, Noiya and Yahel, for the first time after being released from nearly a year and a half of captivity in Gaza, during which he had hoped they were still alive following the Hamas attack on their home in Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7, 2023.

“This here is rock bottom. I’ve seen it. I’ve touched it,” Sharabi writes. “Now, life.”

The memoir tells a horrific story of 491 days of violence, deprivation and starvation. 

That final sentence of Sharabi’s memoir — “Now, life” — could sum up his post-captivity self. In an interview with Jewish Insider last month, Sharabi said he was determined to reassert his agency, take action on hostage advocacy and move forward in his life.

Sharabi seemed cheerful speaking about his recovery. He was still slimmer than his pre-captivity self, but no longer as gaunt as he was emerging from the tunnels in Gaza in which Hamas starved him, giving him only a stale pita to eat each day, at most.

“I’m getting stronger every day,” Sharabi said. “I make sure to exercise and have weekly therapy sessions and make sure to take care of myself. I am strong and positive and facing forward.”

Sharabi’s days are filled with meetings around Israel and the world advocating for the remaining hostages to be freed.

“From the moment I got out of Sheba [Medical Center], 10 days after being freed, it has been non-stop action,” he said. “I have a lot of trips abroad, meeting with government officials — presidents, prime ministers, members of parliament, foreign ministers — and a lot of lectures in Israel and around the world, to a lot of Jewish communities. … It’s non-stop, morning to night.” 

In his book, he recounts reassuring hostages Alon Ohel, who is still in Gaza, and Eliya Cohen and Or Levy, who have since been released, that he was sure their families were protesting and advocating for their release.

“It was important for Eliya and me to tell Or and Alon, who were more pessimistic about our chances, to get out and thought ‘maybe they forgot us,’” Sharabi recalled. “Eliya and I were very positive and said we had no doubt our families and good friends are not resting for a moment and doing all they could to free us.”

Sharabi said that when his captors would tell him about protests in the streets of Israel, they would say the demonstrations were against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but he and his fellow hostages saw it as “the nation going out to fight for us. It gave us hope.”

When Sharabi was released, he saw that the scale of the hostage advocacy movement was beyond what he had imagined.

“When I got out and understood that it was masses of people in Israel, it excited me,” he said. “I met members of Jewish communities in New York, Chicago, Miami, London, Mexico. I meet Israelis and Jews all around the world and understand what they did all this time. It is very touching. I didn’t expect it at all. I expected my friends and family. I didn’t think that people would have posters of me at their holiday table. It’s heartwarming.” 

At home in Israel, however, there have been sharp political divisions about the looming deal to release the hostages in exchange for ending the war in Gaza. Some far-right ministers in Netanyahu’s government oppose President Donald Trump’s plan, which calls to free all 48 remaining hostages — 20 of whom are thought to be alive — within three days, because they call to prioritize defeating Hamas.

“In Israel, everything is political,” Sharabi lamented. “It’s terrible. All of our elected officials, with no exception, are partners in this terrible thing. I think all the people of Israel are sick of everything being political. I think most people in Israel hate this.”

The hostages, Sharabi said, “are not about right and not about left.” His brother, Yossi, was also taken captive and was killed while in Hamas captivity, which the IDF found may have been caused by an IDF airstrike.

Sharabi had an almost paternal relationship with Ohel when Hamas held them captive together in the tunnels under Gaza, and he expressed relief to have seen Ohel in a new hostage video released by the terror group last month.

“He’s amazing,” Sharabi said. “If you told me a week after I met him that he would survive six or seven months alone, after I left him, I would have doubted it. I left him after a very positive process during which he strengthened himself and learned how to survive, that you can’t be nice all the time and can’t be naive. He developed resilience and isn’t shaken by every change and every fear.” 

Sharabi emphasized that, while in captivity, it is crucial to “understand that not everything is in our control, but we have the ability to choose how we respond.” 

“I’m optimistic that soon we will see [Ohel] united with his family, and soon after, I will reunite with him. I am looking forward to it,” he said. 

Sharabi describes his captors in detail in the book. Some were always cruel, while others snuck the hostages extra scraps of food. Some were true extremists, while others appeared to be in Hamas for the money. 

“There are no innocent people in Gaza,” he said, “not civilians and certainly not the people in Hamas. In the 52 days that I was aboveground, not in tunnels but with a family in a house, they made sure people outside would not hear or see me, because they thought people would come in and kill me.”

“I recognize that even within Hamas, after spending 24/7 with them for many months and having different conversations with them, I understand who is ideological and who stumbled into it because Hamas controls the financial faucets in Gaza,” Sharabi added. “Does that make them innocent? Of course not. The moment they got the order, I was shackled around my legs. If they were told to shoot me, they would have shot me. … Some did it for money, not ideology, but they starved me, humiliated me and beat me. It doesn’t make them innocent.”

Sharabi also called on the Western world to recognize that Hamas is part of a broader ideology that threatens them, as well.

“I recently got back from 10 days in Australia,” he recalled. “We flew to Canberra to meet the deputy prime minister and foreign minister, both of whom are, at the very least, not pro-Israel. It was important for me to tell them two things.” 

“First, disagreements with Israeli policy are fine. I, too, as a citizen, don’t always agree with Israeli policy. That’s what’s good about a democracy… We can say our opinions and disagree. But at the same time, even if they don’t think like Israelis and don’t have to care about me as an Israeli, they are part of the Commonwealth, and my wife and daughters were British and murdered in their homes with their British passports in their hands — the Hamas terrorists knew.”

Sharabi said his captors said to him time after time that “after Israelis and Jews, they will get to France, Britain, America and Spain. The whole world will be Islam.”

Second, Sharabi said he speaks out against antisemitism in his meetings with leaders.

“It cannot be that in 2025, Australian Jews are afraid to go out into the streets. It’s 2025, not 1940. That is [the leaders’] responsibility. They are not speaking out clearly enough against antisemitism. I’m not a politician or a diplomat, so I can say that each one of them is responsible. … Every Jew today is affected by the hate crimes in the world, and that is the responsibility of the government and elected officials,” he said.

Sharabi said his constant activity, including writing his memoir, “has a therapeutic side to it, to deal with [the experience] and not leave it all inside.”

“I don’t like to compare it to the Holocaust, but a lot of survivors didn’t talk, not even to their children,” he noted. “My psychologists, from the beginning, said … they never saw such a huge trauma. It’s not just the captivity, but also the huge loss of my wife, daughters and brother. It’s important to talk. It helps me a lot.”

As to why he doesn’t like to make comparisons between Oct. 7 and the Holocaust, when some Israelis have done so, Sharabi said that during the Holocaust, Jews were “a stateless people, a homeless people, with no government to take care of them.”

“There is a lot of anger in Israel in part because there is a country, there is an address that was supposed to take care of us and our security, and it failed,” he added. “It’s not like the Holocaust, so I don’t like the comparison. There were horrors there that we didn’t see here, like the gas chambers; instead there is a murderous terrorist organization.”

At the same time, Sharabi noted that in the months since his release in February, he has not been exposed to a lot of the details and footage of the Oct. 7 attacks, in which his wife and daughters were among the 132 Israelis murdered in his hometown, Kibbutz Be’eri: “I am being protected like a safe. I haven’t turned on the TV; I don’t watch my own interviews.”

“I have trouble grasping it,” he added.

Even without exposure to the horrors of Oct. 7, speaking and writing about his captivity means going back to the darkest moments of his life, repeatedly.

“I am connected to the pain. I recognize it; I have words for it. Not a day goes by that I don’t cry over it. I hear music on the radio in the car that reminds me of the girls,” he said. “But I also remember them with a lot of smiles, and when I cry, it’s about longing for them, not sadness. I am emotional about the good, when I remember my wife and my girls and their smiles.”

“It’s good for me to talk all the time. It’s important to me. I’m freeing it from my system, instead of leaving it inside,” he added.

A majority of Jewish Americans see antisemitism as a common Jewish experience, according to a new joint study, released on Monday, commissioned by the Jewish Federations of North America and Anti-Defamation League.  

According to the “Portrait of Antisemitic Experiences in the U.S.,” which relied on two nationally representative surveys of Jewish Americans and was conducted in partnership with Columbia University researchers, 55% of those surveyed experienced at least one form of antisemitism over the past year. Over half (57%) also said antisemitism is now a normal Jewish experience. 

The immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel and the start of the war in Gaza fueled a record-breaking wave of antisemitic incidents. Such incidents increased by 5% in 2024, according to the ADL’s tally. The results mark an 893% increase over the past decade.

Over one-third (36%) of those surveyed witnessed actual or threatened antisemitic violence, and 44% had experienced exclusion or minimization based on their Jewish identity. One in five respondents (21%) who have witnessed an antisemitic attack reported signs of depression. 

Forty-one percent of Jews reported having experienced online antisemitism. Other contexts where antisemitism was found included: public spaces (reported by 21% of Jews), educational institutions (13%), near Jewish institutions (9%) and the workplace (9%). 

Nearly four-fifths of Jews (79%) expressed concern about antisemitism, and 48% have taken actions to increase their personal security. (As part of that group, 14% of Jewish respondents said they had made plans to leave the country, while nine percent said they had purchased a gun.) 

The JFNA study surveyed 1,877 Jewish Americans by text message in six geographic areas between March 5-March 25, 2025, with a +/- 2.26% margin of error.

The ADL study surveyed 2,982 Jewish Americans by text message in 12 geographic and age categories between May 27-July 6, 2025, with a +/-3.2% margin of error.  

The ADL’s audits have been criticized for changing its methodology of what constitutes an antisemitic incident while still comparing data year-to-year in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack. After Oct. 7, the organization began including “expressions of opposition to Zionism, as well as support for resistance against Israel or Zionists” — for instance, spray-painting “Free Gaza” graffiti — which resulted in a significant increase in the number of incidents in the 2023 audit. But even without the inclusion of anti-Zionist messaging as antisemitism, antisemitic incidents still would have doubled from 2022 to 2023. 

“It is so profoundly sad that Jewish Americans are now discussing worst-case scenarios,” Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO, said in a statement. “When American Jews – who have built lives, careers and families here for generations – are making contingency plans to flee, we must recognize this as a five-alarm fire for our entire country. This is not just a Jewish problem; it’s an American problem that demands immediate action from leaders at every level.”

A trend that Jewish Federations dubbed “the Surge” — a significant increase in Jewish engagement that was brought on by the Oct. 7 attacks — continues, according to the study, but at slightly lower levels than in 2024. Nearly one-third (31%) of American Jews reported increased participation in Jewish life, down from 43% last year. A survey from JFNA last month showed that ​​the impact of “the surge” is waning more quickly among Jews from minority populations, including LGBTQ Jews, Jews of color, Jews with disabilities and financially vulnerable Jews, than it is among the broader Jewish community. 

Eric Fingerhut, CEO of JFNA, lauded the nearly two-thirds of those surveyed who directly experienced antisemitism but “are responding by deepening their Jewish involvement.”

That “demonstrates the extraordinary resilience of our people,” said Fingerhut. “Rather than retreating in fear, American Jews are choosing to stand together, strengthen their bonds and affirm their identity.” 

Former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), one of the most virulently anti-Israel members of Congress during her tenure in Washington, is expected to launch a rematch against Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO), who defeated her in 2024, according to political observers in St. Louis.

Local Jewish leaders expect the primary campaign to be a bitter repeat of the 2024 campaign, which focused heavily on Israel. Bell, who garnered substantial support from the Jewish community locally and pro-Israel groups nationally, has remained a strong supporter of Israel in office, even amid criticism from local progressive activists.

Braxton Payne, a St. Louis-based political strategist, described Bush’s intentions as “the worst-kept secret” and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported she may launch as early as this week, citing sources close to her campaign.

Payne said that this cycle, when Bell is still a freshman, would be Bush’s best chance of ousting Bell and reclaiming her seat.

“Her strongest place is inside the city [of St. Louis] and you’re seeing… a strong pendulum swinging in regards to the conflict in Gaza and Palestine, and I think that is going to be probably one of her main narratives that she’ll lead with,” Payne told Jewish Insider. “Among some of the progressive votes, especially among her base in St. Louis City, I think she’s going to do fairly well with those people.”

But one of Bush’s biggest vulnerabilities, he continued, is that she failed, once in office, to engage with or show up for major local groups and organized labor. 

“That still seems to be the case. … And Wesley has made a conscious effort to do so, not only with organized labor that may have backed him, but people and organizations that did not back him,” Payne continued, “which I think is obviously important to currying favor among voters — and obviously large groups that have power, influence and, of course, money.”

Payne said that the race is likely to be close, and that there will likely be similar interest in the race from outside groups, like AIPAC, that invested heavily in 2024. Primary turnout could be impacted by other referenda on the ballot, which could fuel Democratic primary turnout.

Missouri recently redrew its congressional maps and, while Bell’s district was not changed significantly, the redrawn map includes a few additional precincts that may be more favorable to Bell, according to Payne, though the impacts will likely be minor. The maps also face various legal challenges.

Bush’s campaign is also $13,000 in debt, and she’ll need significant grassroots support and/or backing from a group like Justice Democrats to fill her coffers, Payne noted. 

Her husband is facing a federal indictment for COVID relief aid fraud, a controversy Payne said has garnered public attention. Bush herself faced House Ethics Committee and Department of Justice investigations during her time in office.

At the same time, Payne noted, the strategy for groups backing Bell, including organized labor and AIPAC, is unknown. If AIPAC gets involved in the race, “even if they spend a bunch of money, does that actually end up hurting him with voters more than it does helping him?”

Bell’s supporters are signaling that they’re ready for a fight.

“Cori Bush spent her scandal-ridden time in Washington looking out for herself, while hiding from her constituents and ignoring their needs,” a Democratic strategist familiar with the Bell campaign’s thinking said. “As a result, Missouri voters kicked her out of office, and elected Wesley Bell, who promised to deliver better and more accountable representation. St. Louis is better off with a congressman who is focused every day on delivering for them, than someone who is more interested in furthering her personal agenda.”

Jewish leaders who supported Bell’s campaign also say that they are preparing for the campaign ahead, and a retread of the ugly 2024 race.

“The mainstream Jewish community is very much united in supporting Wesley Bell, and obviously not supporting Cori Bush for all of the same reasons we were not going to support her last time,” Rabbi Jeffrey Abraham, who helped organize a coalition of rabbis to oppose Bush in the previous campaign, told Jewish Insider. “The Jewish community, I’m confident, is going to rally again to support Wesley and hopefully make sure that he wins.”

He said he’s hopeful that leaders who did not get involved in the previous race might get involved to back Bell this time. “Jewish community leaders are ready to jump back in however we’re needed.”

Stacey Newman, a former state lawmaker who led Jewish outreach on Bell’s campaign team, agreed that the “mainstream Jewish community has remained organized and united” — in addition to feeling the impacts of antisemitism hit home in a recent firebombing incident.

“We won’t have to start from scratch,” Newman continued. “We still have 30-plus rabbis willing to go to work. I know the Orthodox community who typically do not vote Democrat are very thankful for Wesley’s leadership. He’s one of the few Democrats in St. Louis who are willing to support our community publicly.”

As progressives have gained traction in local races across the country, Katie Wilson, a self-described socialist now mounting a formidable bid for mayor of Seattle, has increasingly drawn comparisons to Zohran Mamdani, the far-left Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City whose primary upset in June stunned the national political establishment.

Like Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist and state assemblyman, Wilson, the co-founder and executive director of Seattle’s Transit Riders Union, took political observers by surprise when she handily led the August “jungle” primary with just over 50% of the vote — defeating the moderate incumbent mayor, Bruce Harrell, by a nearly 10-point margin.

Wilson, in her early 40s, is preparing to face Harrell once again in the Nov. 4 election, where analysts say she is now well-positioned to oust the first-term mayor. Harrell has struggled not only to land on a vision that resonates with voters but to effectively articulate an argument against his upstart challenger, who has focused on a populist message of affordability that Mamdani has also championed throughout his own campaign.

But while her record of commentary on Israel and the war in Gaza is far more limited than Mamdani, who has long been an outspoken critic of the Jewish state, many Jewish leaders in Seattle are expressing concern over Wilson’s statements about the conflict amid what they describe as a lack of outreach from her campaign with just five weeks until the election.

In a handful of recent remarks, Wilson has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza — a characterization that Jewish leaders and community activists have found troubling as voter sympathy for the Jewish state, especially in the progressive Seattle area, has sharply declined.

“I am strongly opposed to the genocide in Gaza,” Wilson said in a comment posted to social media in August. “As mayor of Seattle, my ability to end the violence is limited, but I will do everything I can to end the suffering of Palestinians and guarantee the safety of Muslims, Jews, and people of all faiths and backgrounds in Seattle.”

Meanwhile, Wilson has suggested that she is “open to divestment” if Seattle “has investments that are indirectly supporting Israel’s actions,” according to an email response to a person who asked about her stances on Israel that was posted to social media in July. 

Elsewhere in the note, Wilson said that she was “familiar with the ‘end the deadly exchange’ efforts of a few years ago and think that’s something that could be done through executive action,” referring to a movement seeking to prohibit American police officers from training with Israeli law enforcement officials. The American Jewish Committee has accused the campaign of helping to fuel an antisemitic trope suggesting Israel is responsible for American police brutality.

Regina Sassoon Friedland, regional director of the American Jewish Committee’s Seattle office, echoed a range of Jewish community leaders in taking issue with Wilson’s rhetoric on Israel.

“While AJC does not endorse or oppose candidates, it should be noted that claims of genocide against Israel lack factual or legal foundation,” Friedland told Jewish Insider on Tuesday. “Not only are such accusations baseless, but they distort realities on the ground when no mention is made of Hamas, whose announced purpose is annihilating Israel.”

In addition to her comments, some Jewish community leaders say they are discouraged by Wilson’s relationships with anti-Israel activists including Kshama Sawant, a former far-left Seattle city councilmember who has faced accusations of stoking antisemitism. Wilson also claimed an endorsement from CAIR Action, a political advocacy group affiliated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose executive director has drawn condemnation for praising Hamas.

A recently established political action committee called The Kids Table, which seeks to promote “pro-Jewish candidates for state and local office” in Washington state and is led by a group of Jewish millennial activists, claimed that Wilson has “allied herself with vitriolic anti-Jewish candidates” and “talked about focusing city resources on foreign affairs issues, rather than on local ones, including the urgent problem of Jewish safety and security in Seattle.”

“Time and time again we hear deep concern about Katie Wilson’s candidacy,” the group told JI of its conversations with the Jewish community, adding she did not respond to a “candidate questionnaire about antisemitism and extremism” that had been sent to her campaign and was filled out by Harrell.

Even as Wilson has only glancingly weighed in on Israel throughout the race, where strategists say it has not been a prominent issue for many voters, the broader organized Jewish community has otherwise observed a distinct absence of engagement from her campaign. 

The Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, for one, has not heard from her, several members told JI.

Scott Prange, an at-large member of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Seattle, said he was “not personally aware that Wilson has made any outreach to the Jewish community in Seattle.”

“And at a time when, especially in Seattle, antisemitism runs rampant amongst the left in the wake of post-Oct. 7 rhetoric and propaganda,” he told JI on Tuesday, “she has only fanned the flames by echoing hollow narratives about Israeli genocide in Gaza and calling for divestment of any city funds invested in Israel.”

Jack Gottesman, president of Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation, an Orthodox synagogue in Seattle that includes around 300 families, said he “would welcome the opportunity to meet with Katie Wilson, but to date I have not seen meaningful outreach from her or her campaign to the Jewish community.”

“Jews have been part of Seattle’s fabric for well over 100 years, and it is important that candidates engage respectfully with all communities,” he told JI this week. “Her description of the situation in Gaza as a genocide was a mischaracterization. These are complex issues that demand depth, not slogans. I hope she recognizes the weight of her words.”

Wilson’s campaign did not respond to numerous interview requests from JI over several weeks.

In contrast with Wilson, Harrell, who was elected in 2021, has maintained what Jewish leaders largely called a strong voice in support of Israel and against rising antisemitic violence. Nevet Basker, a co-chair of Washingtonians for a Brighter Future, a separate pro-Israel PAC that has endorsed Harrell, said that the local Jewish community “appreciates” his “clear opposition to antisemitism.”

“We recognize the immense challenges the mayor has faced” and “applaud his commitment to ensure that all Seattle residents and visitors are safe and welcome,” Basker told JI in a statement. 

Rob Spitzer, the president of B’nai B’rith International and a vice chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, said Harrell “has reached out” and “is generally supported by the community,” while recalling “meetings with him and his police and security team about protecting the Jewish community and our institutions.”

The Kids Table, for its part, countered that Harrell “has failed to meet this moment of crisis for the Jewish community,” noting that “pro-Palestinian protestors blocked the interstate for six hours and weren’t cleared or charged, and ‘kill your local colonizer’ was spraypainted on statues at the mayor’s alma mater, with zero comment from his office.”

Still, the group told JI in a statement, “Wilson’s candidacy, alliances with anti-Jewish figures and organizations, and lack of engagement have many Seattle Jews very worried about the next four years.”

Harrell’s campaign also did not respond to requests from JI for an interview.

While he has sought to connect Wilson to the movement to defund the police, which she says is not her goal, Harrell has avoided commenting on her approach to Israel, underscoring the shifting political dynamics around views that until recently would likely have been seen as too extreme for the Democratic Party but have now become acceptable to many voters.

Despite concerns from Jewish community leaders, Israel “hasn’t been front and center” in the race as a “topic of discussion or debate,” Sandeep Kaushik, a political consultant in Seattle who is not involved in either campaign, told JI. 

Kaushik attributed Wilson’s unexpected rise in part to what he called the “Mamdani effect” and said she is the “front-runner,” even as he expects “the general election war is about to start” as pro-Harrell outside spending flows into the race and attacks ramp up in the final weeks.

“I think the mayor is now fighting for his political life,” Kaushik said.

Antisemitism is “thriving in plain sight” on Elon Musk’s social media platform X (formerly Twitter), according to a new study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. 

The study, first shared with CNN, conducted an analysis of over 679,000 antisemitic posts made over a year on the site and found that, despite the platform’s own anti-hate policies and commitment to reduce visibility of hateful content, X “not only tolerates” antisemitic conduct “but allows users to monetize it, giving antisemitic influencers both reach and revenue.”

With the assistance of ChatGPT, the study categorized the posts into Jewish control or power conspiracies, Jewish satanic conspiracies and Holocaust denial, with control or power conspiracies accounting for the plurality (44%) of the total likes and views. All posts included were viewed 193 million times in total.

Musk has touted the platform’s “community notes” feature — where users can add context to false or misleading posts that remain attached to the post if enough verified users vote them as “helpful” — as an antidote to conspiratorial and harmful content instead of increased content moderation. But of the 300 most viewed posts — 100 from each category — only four of them were given a publicly visible community note. Compounding the issue, only 22% of users who viewed the original post viewed the attached community note, likely due to the delay in writing and voting on the note before it was made widely visible.

X says it may restrict posts that violate its policies, which include attacking others on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin or religion, “inciting behavior,” reinforcing stereotypes, dehumanizing a group of people and denying mass casualty events like the Holocaust. But the study found X took action — including limiting visibility, removing the post, displaying a community note or deleting or suspending the account — on only 36 out of the 300 most-viewed posts.

Individual “antisemitism influencers,” as the study refers to them, find unique success on X. Thirty-two percent of the total likes among all the posts included in the study came from only 10 accounts; for nine of these influencers, their X accounts have the largest number of followers of all their social media platforms. Three of these accounts offer paid subscriptions to their followers, meaning they can profit from their content. 

Despite their posts violating X’s own hate speech policies, six of the 10 are subscribed to X Premium and have a verified checkmark next to their name, providing them increased visibility on the site and more opportunities to monetize their messages. 

Amy Spitalnick, CEO of JCPA, told Jewish Insider, “Antisemitic conspiracy theories and hate that were once fringe have been wholly normalized — thriving in plain sight and amplified by X’s failure to live up to its own policies. At a time when polarization, extremism, and violence are rising at home and abroad, the unchecked spread of antisemitism online is a direct threat not only Jewish safety, but to the safety of all communities and our core democratic values.”

In Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the United Nations General Assembly on Friday morning, he painted a picture of a nation abandoned by its allies, who he said had caved to “radical Islamist constituencies and antisemitic mobs” — a message underscored by the backdrop of a mostly empty General Assembly room, following the walkout of dozens of diplomats at the start of his speech. 

Netanyahu began with a victory lap, hailing Israel’s military successes against Hezbollah, Iran and even Hamas over the past year. But much of the speech was defensive in nature, relying on rhetoric he has invoked frequently over the last two years. He articulated the reasons why Israel is still fighting Hamas, despite the fact that Israel “crushed the bulk of Hamas’ terror machine.” And he attacked the U.N. and the countries that he said had shown up for Israel in the days after the Oct. 7 attack but that have since changed course. 

“In the days immediately following Oct. 7, many of them supported Israel. But that support quickly evaporated when Israel did what any self-respecting nation would do in the wake of such a savage attack: We fought back,” he said. 

He defended Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza as moral and appropriate, saying the nation faces “the false of charge of genocide.” 

“The truth has been turned on its head. Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization whose charter calls for the murder of all Jews on the planet. This genocidal organization is given a pass while Israel, which does everything it can to get civilians out of harm’s way, Israel is put in the dark. What a joke,” said Netanyahu. 

Known for his theatrics in his annual U.N. address, Netanyahu wore a large button with a QR code that linked to a website featuring gruesome videos of Hamas’ attack on southern Israel two years ago. He also told the crowd that he had directed the IDF to set up loudspeakers to broadcast his speech out loud on the Gaza border, a measure he said was meant as an attempt to reach Israeli hostages still held in Gaza — and that the remarks were being carried live on the cell phones of Gazans, to convince Hamas to “lay down your arms.”

Netanyahu repeatedly invoked the Sept. 11 terror attacks and the global war on terror as proof of the depravity Israel is fighting in Gaza.

“Giving the Palestinians a state one mile from Jerusalem after Oct. 7 is like giving Al-Qaida a state one mile from New York City after Sept. 11. This is sheer madness. It’s insane, and we won’t do it,” said Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister has doubled down in his pledge to never allow the creation a Palestinian state after France, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada unilaterally recognized a Palestinian state this week.

He slammed those nations, saying their move “reward[s] the worst antisemites on earth.” They chose to recognize a Palestinian state, Netanyahu said angrily, even though “nearly 90% of Palestinians supported the attack on Oct. 7 …  just the way they celebrated another horror, 9/11.” 

Netanyahu offered little to those who want to see Israel present a plan for the end of the war and for the governance of Gaza without Hamas, though he said Israeli “victory” would open opportunities for peace in the region. 

“Victory over Hamas will make peace possible with nations throughout the Arab and Muslim world. Our victory would lead to a dramatic extension and expansion of the historic Abraham Accords, which President Trump brokered between Arab leaders and myself five years ago,” said Netanyahu. He did not address whether he would move to annex parts of the West Bank, which Saudi Arabia — Israel’s top target for normalization — said earlier this week would be a “red line,” and that President Donald Trump said yesterday he will not allow. 

He closed with a prayer for a speedy victory, even if Israel has to achieve it alone.

“The rise of Israel did not mean that the attempts to destroy us would end. It meant that we could fight back against those attempts, and that is exactly what Israel has done since Oct. 7,” said Netanyahu. “Two years later, the resolve of Israel and the strength of Israel burn brighter than ever. With God’s help, that strength and that resolve will lead us to a speedy victory into a brilliant future of prosperity and peace.”

Good Thursday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we interview Shari Redstone about her mission to fight antisemitism after selling Paramount, and talk to diplomatic sources in Jerusalem about the Qatari and Egyptian officials poised to take over key roles at UNESCO. We highlight a letter by House Democrats warning Israel against unilaterally annexing territory in the West Bank or Gaza, and talk to a Syrian Jewish community leader about his opposition to leaving sanctions against Damascus on the table. We also report on a call by a bipartisan group of House lawmakers for President Donald Trump to “be very careful” in negotiations with Turkey today. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Reps. Jared Moskowitz, Maria Elvira Salazar and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, Israel Editor Tamara Zieve and U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik, with an assist from Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

• President Donald Trump is hosting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan today at the White House. More below.
• On the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, MILE and Pillsbury’s Climate Week is holding a daylong event focused on energy tech and development in the Middle East. Speakers include Rich Goldberg, Mark Donig and former Israeli chief scientist Dr. Gideon Friedmann.
• The American Jewish Committee is holding its annual Global Jewish Diplomacy Reception this evening on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Attendees include: former Ambassador Daniel Shapiro, former White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, and Ambassador Serge Berdugo, president of the Council of Jewish Communities of Morocco.
• Elsewhere in New York, the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan is holding a screening tonight of the first episode of the second season of “House of David.”

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’s gabby deutch

By calling the United Nations “useless” and saying many countries were “going to hell” by pursuing liberal governance, President Donald Trump was his usual provocative, impolitic self in his Tuesday speech at the United Nations General Assembly. Where other nations and the U.N. itself have promoted a vision of greater global cooperation in an interconnected world, Trump doubled down on a call for national sovereignty and closed borders. Where nearly all U.N. member states have pledged to make tackling climate change a priority, Trump took issue with the very concept of sustainable energy.

“Immigration and the high cost of so-called green renewable energy is destroying a large part of the free world and a large part of our planet,” Trump said at the close of his address. “Countries that cherish freedom are fading fast because of their policies on these two subjects.” 

But it was Trump’s continued support of Israel, even in the face of growing hostility from European countries and other Western allies to the Jewish state, that stood out the most. Trump, in his General Assembly speech, blasted the European nations that this week formally recognized a Palestinian state.

“Now, as if to encourage continued conflict, some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state,” he said. “This would be a reward for these horrible atrocities, including October 7th, even while they [Hamas] refuse to release the hostages or accept a ceasefire.” 

The U.S. also joined Israel in boycotting the two-state solution conference on Monday, which was hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, and was joined by several major nations, including the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.

But even while Trump used his nearly hourlong address to place himself firmly on Israel’s side in its nearly two-year-long war with Hamas, reports indicate that he is privately advocating for restraint. During a meeting Tuesday with Arab and Muslim leaders where U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff proposed a 21-point plan to end the war in Gaza, Trump promised the world leaders in attendance that he would not allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the West Bank, Politico and The Times of Israel reported.

Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here. 

Q&A

Post-Paramount sale, Shari Redstone is ‘full speed ahead’ on addressing antisemitism

Shari Redstone, 71, has been busier than she had expected after selling Paramount, where she served as chair, to Skydance Media in a widely scrutinized merger this summer. The Jewish media mogul recently joined the Israeli entertainment studio Sipur as chair, and in leading the Redstone Family Foundation, she is involved in a range of projects fostering cultural ties between the Black and Jewish communities and combating the rise in antisemitism, among other initiatives. In an interview with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel on Friday, Redstone explained how her current efforts underscore a renewed commitment to fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, an event she cites as accelerating her decision to finally agree to offload Paramount in an $8 billion deal with Skydance, the Hollywood studio led by David Ellison.

Oct. 7 impact: “I was in Israel years and years ago. My kids studied there, and Israel was always important. But after Oct. 7, it was the first time I thought about what my life would be without Israel, and how in so many ways, we’ve taken for granted the existence of Israel and everything that they do, frankly, for peace in the Middle East. You know, to give Jews a place that they know they will always have a home, which has become even more important in the past several months. It took on a new energy for me, and a new desire to really be supportive of Israel in every way I can,” Redstone told JI. 

Read the full interview here.

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EYE ON UNESCO

Concern mounts in Jerusalem as Qatar, Egypt set to take key roles in UNESCO

Israel is eyeing the upcoming United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization executive board meeting with concern, with Egypt and Qatar poised to take influential roles in the body. Qatar is set to take the body’s chairmanship, and former Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Minister Khaled el-Enani is considered a leading candidate for the organization’s director general. The UNESCO Executive Board Meeting will begin on Wednesday in Paris and continue for two weeks, during which the new board chairperson and director general will be selected. The director general must receive a majority vote on Oct. 6, while the executive board chairmanship rotates between geographic blocs and the Middle East bloc agreed to put Qatar in the role, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.

Israel angle: With two Arab countries expected to assume UNESCO’s leading positions, some observers have expressed concern that Israel may again face disproportionate scrutiny and criticism — a pattern seen in other U.N. bodies where geopolitical tensions often surface. The potential new leadership of UNESCO is “bad for Israel and bad for America,” an Israeli diplomat told JI this week. Another Israeli diplomatic source said that it is an “unusual combination to have a director general and chairman of the executive board from Arab countries. It puts Israel at a disadvantage. … Israel is not a member of the executive board and has no influence on who will be chairman.”

Read the full story here.

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WORDS OF WARNING

Majority of House Democrats warn Israel against West Bank, Gaza annexation

Most House Democrats, including all of the current and former top Democratic leaders, signed onto a letter on Thursday to Israeli leaders warning them against unilaterally annexing territory in the West Bank or Gaza, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. At a time when Democrats are increasingly divided over the U.S.-Israel relationship and its direction, the letter highlights a strong degree of unanimity within the party against annexation, among both Democrats who largely remain supportive of Israel and those who have become more critical over the war in Gaza.

What they said: “As long-standing supporters of the U.S.-Israel relationship, Israel’s security, and Israel’s future, we are deeply opposed to proposals for unilateral annexation of territory in the West Bank,” the 178 lawmakers, led by Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD), said. “Such a move would not only violate international law but undermine decades of bipartisan U.S. policy and threaten the progress of the Abraham Accords, which offer Israel and its neighbors the opportunity to build a more secure, cooperative, and prosperous regional future. Unilateral annexation of the West Bank would plunge the region, already reeling from tens of thousands of deaths in the horrific Gaza war, into further chaos and violence.”

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DAMASCUS DEALINGS

Syrian Jewish community leader urges Senate to reject conditions on Syria sanctions relief

A debate is quietly simmering in Washington over the prospect of repealing congressionally mandated sanctions on Syria, an effort that has bipartisan support — but is not without its opponents, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. As part of the Senate’s consideration of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, a provision is moving forward to fully repeal the Caesar Act, which placed strong sanctions on the Assad government in response to human rights violations. But other lawmakers are attempting to place conditions on the repeal of those authorities.

Community concerns: Some, like Rabbi Yosef Hamra, the nephew of the last chief rabbi of Syria, have argued that leaving the sanctions on the books in any capacity would cripple rebuilding efforts. But others say that the U.S. must maintain that tool as leverage to prevent future sectarian and human rights issues. Hamra, in a letter to congressional offices on behalf of the Jewish Heritage in Syria Foundation that was shared with JI, said, “Lifting the Caesar sanctions is essential to restore synagogues and cemeteries, safeguard irreplaceable Jewish heritage and re-establish a mutli-faith community in Syria after more than 30 years in exile. Simply put, this amendment would be devastating to the Jewish community in Syria.”

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TALKING TURKEY

Bipartisan group of House lawmakers urge Trump to be ‘very careful’ in Erdogan talks

A bipartisan group of House members urged the administration to “be very careful” in negotiations with Turkey about its potential reentry into a program allowing it to acquire and potentially co-produce F-35 fighter jets, ahead of a White House meeting today between President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Background: Trump said Friday that he would host Erdogan at the White House for trade and military talks, “including the large-scale purchase of Boeing aircraft, a major F-16 Deal, and a continuation of the F-35 talks, which we expect to conclude positively.” Lawmakers have been pressing for months for the administration to be cautious in allowing Turkey to acquire the advanced fighter jets, something it has been banned by law from doing since it purchased a Russian S-400 missile defense system. By law, Turkey must dispense with that system before it can be readmitted into the F-35 program, but some lawmakers have pushed for additional conditions, given various conflicts with Turkey, including its hostile posture toward Israel.

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COLOMBIA CONCERNS

House members urge State Department to counter Bogota antisemitism

A bipartisan group of 18 House members is urging the State Department to pressure Colombia’s government to change course on what the lawmakers describe as a dangerous pattern of antisemitic rhetoric and policies by government officials, including the country’s president, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Call to action: “As U.S.-Colombia relations continue to be strained by numerous issues, including the increasingly troubling antisemitic rhetoric and discriminatory policies from Colombian President Gustavo Petro, which are directly threatening the safety and well-being of Colombia’s Jewish community, we write to urge the administration to consider even stronger actions, including leveraging U.S. assistance to push for meaningful change in President Petro and his government,” the lawmakers, led by Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), said in a letter sent on Monday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

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Worthy Reads

Pompeo’s Point: In The Free Press, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticizes recent moves by European nations, as well as the U.K., Australia and Canada, to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. “The move to recognize a Palestinian state where none exists did not just reward terror groups. It was also a boon to a faltering regime in Tehran desperate to repair its standing among Iranians after its decisive defeat in June’s 12-Day War. Any leader who genuinely desires peace should instead seize the historic opportunity to continue to diminish the Iranian regime and empower the forces across the region that seek a constructive relationship with Israel. History shows that peace has never been secured through appeasement—a lesson one would have thought our European and Anglosphere allies would keenly appreciate. Israel does not have the luxury of forgetting that lesson, and so they will continue to hold the line against barbarism, even if their supposed friends in the West will not.” [FreePress]

Awkward Alliance: The Atlantic’s Helen Lewis details how the rapid demise of the far-left Your Party — born from tensions between its “Gaza left” and “gender left” wings — illustrates the deeper challenges facing the left in Britain and beyond. “… the alliance of ‘rainbow and crescent’—as the historian James Orr, a friend of J. D. Vance, has described it—is extremely fragile. Gay marriage, abortion, and transgender rights are obvious flash points, but other issues can be equally divisive. For instance, many British Muslims support fee-paying schools, which can offer students a more religious curriculum than government-run institutions. The traditional left-wing position, however, is that private schools are engines of privilege and should be abolished. Can these groups happily coexist in a left-wing movement in the long term? The experience of Your Party suggests not.” [TheAtlantic]

Word on the Street

In her new book, former Vice President Kamala Harris writes that concerns about Gaza war protests factored into her decision not to select Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate last year…

At her first book event in New York on Wednesday, Harris was interrupted by anti-Israel protesters, and said later, “I was the first person at the highest level of our United States government or administration to talk about the fact that the people in Gaza were starving. … I was not the president, I couldn’t make the decision, but I made my position clear”…

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) is reportedly preparing to mount a primary bid against Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), hiring campaign staff with a potential campaign kickoff slated for October…

Several countries including the U.S. are looking to develop copycats of Iran’s Shaheed drones, after seeing Russia’s success in using the low-cost, long-range model in its war in Ukraine…

Right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson is among the public figures set to tour U.S. college campuses with Turning Point USA, following the assassination of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk earlier this month during the first stop of his campus tour. Carlson will speak at the University of Indiana on Oct. 21…

Federal prosecutors agreed to move faster in providing discovery evidence in the case of the alleged Capital Jewish Museum shooter, as the Department of Justice considers whether it will seek the death penalty in the shooting of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the museum in May…

Two Syracuse University students are facing hate crimes charges and disciplinary actions for throwing a package of pork products into a Jewish fraternity house during Rosh Hashanah…

The U.S. is mulling sanctions against the entire International Criminal Court, with a State Department spokesperson saying that the body poses “a threat to our national interests”; previously the Trump administration had imposed sanctions on individuals tied to the court, including its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan…

Queen Rania of Jordan and First Lady Melania Trump met at an event launching the first lady’s Fostering the Future Together initiative on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, the fourth time the women have met…

More than 20 people were injured, including two seriously, in a Houthi drone attack on the Israeli port city of Eilat…

Archeologists in northern Israel discovered a trove of coins dating back to the fourth century…

New satellite images indicate that Iran is beginning to rebuild the missile-production sites that were degraded by Israel during the 12-day war between the countries in June…

The Iranian rial fell to an all-time low of 1.1 million rials to the dollar hours before Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s address to the United Nations General Assembly, during which he pledged that Tehran “has never sought and will never seek to build a nuclear bomb”…

Iranian diplomats traveling to the U.S. for the UNGA were banned by the Trump administration from shopping at Costco and other big-box stores…

Jailed Egyptian-British pro-democracy activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah was pardoned and released after serving 12 years in an Egyptian prison for his role in anti-government protests…

The debut of Apple TV+’s “The Savant,” which stars Jessica Chastain as a woman who attempts to foil domestic terror attacks, was postponed; Chastain said in a social media post that she disagreed with Apple TV+’s decision, citing “an unfortunate amount of violence” since the show began filming that “illustrate[s] a broader mindset that crosses the political spectrum and must be confronted.” The series is based on an Anti-Defamation League staffer profiled in a 2019 Cosmopolitan article…

Abdulaziz Al Asheikh, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, died on Tuesday…

Pic of the Day

Oyster Bay (Long Island) Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino and members of the Town Board were joined on Sunday by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, District Attorney Anne Donnelly, community leaders, clergy, students and residents to dedicate a parklet in Plainview in memory of Omer Neutra, who grew up in the community and was killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel while serving in the IDF.

Birthdays

Director and co-creator of the award-winning HBO series “Game of Thrones,” known professionally as David Benioff, David Friedman turns 55…

Member of the U.K.’s House of Lords, Baroness Vivien Helen Stern turns 84… Former member of Knesset, he also served as Israel’s ambassador to France and then the United Nations, Yehuda Lancry turns 78… Lakewood Ranch, Fla., resident, Dvora Millstone turns 77… Israeli television anchor and popular singer, Yardena Arazi turns 74… Founder of ALMA, she served as a member of Knesset for Yesh Atid from 2013-2015, Ruth Calderon turns 64… President and CEO of Israel Aerospace Industries, Boaz Levy turns 64… Founder, chairman and CEO of Salesforce, Marc Russell Benioff turns 61… Best-selling author and serial entrepreneur, Marissa Levin… Son and grandson of leading British rabbis, he is the senior rabbi at the Beverly Hills Synagogue, Pinchas Eliezer “Pini” Dunner turns 55… Former member of the Knesset for Likud, she has appeared on multiple Israeli reality television shows, Inbal Gavrieli turns 50… White House correspondent for NPR, Tamara Keith turns 46… Member of the California State Assembly where he serves as co-chair of the Legislative Jewish Caucus, Jesse Gabriel turns 44… VP of government relations at the ADL, Carmiel Arbit… Features writer at New York magazine and its culture magazine Vulture, Lila Shapiro… Actor and comedian, best known for his role as Gabe Lewis on the NBC sitcom “The Office,” Zach Woods turns 41… Videographer and virtual program producer for the U.S. State Department, Mitchell Israel Malasky… Assistant appellate federal defender at Federal Defenders of San Diego, Daniel Yadron… Former center and power forward for Maccabi Tel Aviv of the Israeli Basketball Premier League and the EuroLeague, Jacob Greer (Jake) Cohen turns 35… Asset manager for Capital Realty Group, Yanky Rodman… Senior director of Next Gen at Christians United for Israel, Destiny Albritton… Strategic director at Laurel Strategies, Adam Basciano…

A bipartisan group of 18 House members is urging the State Department to pressure Colombia’s government to change course on what the lawmakers described as a dangerous pattern of antisemitic rhetoric and policies by government officials, including the country’s president.

“As U.S.-Colombia relations continue to be strained by numerous issues, including the increasingly troubling antisemitic rhetoric and discriminatory policies from Colombian President Gustavo Petro, which are directly threatening the safety and well-being of Colombia’s Jewish community, we write to urge the administration to consider even stronger actions, including leveraging U.S. assistance to push for meaningful change in President Petro and his government,” the lawmakers, led by Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), said in a letter sent on Monday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The lawmakers said that Petro’s antisemitic comments on social media and anti-Israel posture “have contributed to an increasingly hostile environment for Colombian Jews,” raising particular concern about the appointment of Richard Gamboa, “a self-proclaimed ‘rabbi’ with anti-Zionist views and dubious credentials who lacks ties with Colombia’s Jewish institutions,” to be the Ministry of Interior’s director of religious affairs.

The letter characterizes Gamboa’s appointment as “a deliberate provocation aimed at legitimizing antisemitic perspectives within government institutions” and a “calculated effort by President Petro to normalize anti-Jewish hatred for political gains.”

“There is genuine concern that Mr. Gamboa will continue to accelerate the deteriorating situation facing Colombian Jewry,” the letter continues.

Gamboa, the lawmakers, noted, has gone on antisemitic “tirades” on social media, writing, “Zionists ARE NOT JEWS,” “true rabbis are not Zionists,” and “The full weight of the law should fall upon … defenders of a genocidal regime that usurps and profanes the name of Judaism.”

They also pointed to media reports that indicate that the government may seek to use Gamboa as its official liaison to the Jewish community, sidelining the Confederation of Jewish Communities of Colombia.

The letter was co-signed by Reps. Laura Gillen (D-NY), Buddy Carter (R-GA), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Gary Palmer (R-AL), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Pat Harrigan (R-NC), Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Pete Stauber (R-MN), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Frederica Wilson (D-FL), Don Bacon (R-NE), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ). 

Carter and Stevens are running for the Senate in Georgia and Michigan, respectively.

The American Jewish Committee supported the effort and “remains deeply concerned by the antisemitic rhetoric and discriminatory policies emanating from Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his Administration, which poses a direct threat to the safety and well-being of Colombia’s Jewish community,” Dina Siegel Vann, the director of AJC’s Arthur and Rochelle Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs, said in a statement.

“These actions by the highest levels of government in Colombia must not become normalized,” Siegel Vann continued. “We commend Representatives Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and María Salazar (R-FL) for their principled leadership in urging Secretary of State Marco Rubio to make clear to President Petro that his government’s continued provocations and embrace of antisemitic rhetoric and policies are inconsistent with our shared values and interests.”

Petro has a long history of anti-Israel and antisemitic comments and accused the Jewish state of genocide, severing ties last year. He declined to condemn the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, instead comparing Israel to the Nazi regime — something he has done for years, including prior to his time in office.

Right-wing political commentator Tucker Carlson, who has hosted Holocaust deniers and antisemitic influencers on his podcast, used his address at the memorial for conservative influencer Charlie Kirk in Arizona on Sunday to compare Kirk’s assassination to the killing of Jesus. 

The former Fox News host began his remarks to the more than 70,000 people in attendance at State Farm Stadium in Glendale by noting that the political engagement brought on by Kirk’s killing “actually reminds me of my favorite story ever,” before offering an account of how Jesus was killed in Jerusalem. While he never brought up the Jewish people by name, he made references to Jewish culture to suggest that he was referring to the antisemitic trope that Jews were responsible for the killing of Jesus. 

“It’s about 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem and Jesus shows up, and he starts talking about the people in power, and he starts doing the worst thing that you can do: just telling the truth about people, and they hate it, and they just go bonkers. They hate it, and they become obsessed with making him stop. ‘This guy’s got to stop talking. We’ve got to shut this guy up,’” Carlson said.

“I can just sort of picture the scene in a lamp-lit room with a bunch of guys sitting around eating hummus, thinking about, ‘What do we do about this guy telling the truth about us? We must make him stop talking.’ There’s always one guy with the bright idea, and I can just hear him say, ‘I’ve got an idea. Let me just kill him. That’ll shut him up, that’ll fix the problem.’ It doesn’t work that way,” he continued.

Carlson, who spoke for just under six minutes, then quoted the beatitude from Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” He connected the passage to Kirk’s political message, making the argument that the slain conservative activist “was bringing the gospel to the country. He was doing the thing that the people in charge hate most, which is calling for them to repent.”

“How is Charlie’s message different? Charlie was a political person who was deeply interested in coalition building and getting the right people in office, because he knew that vast improvements are possible politically, but he also knew that politics is not the final answer. It can’t answer the deepest questions, actually, that the only real solution is Jesus,” Carlson said. “Politics at its core is a process of critiquing other people and getting them to change. Christianity, the gospel message, the message of Jesus, begins with repentance.”

Carlson went on to praise Kirk for not having “hate in his heart” and being able to “forgive other people” by following “a call to change our hearts from Jesus,” before acknowledging his own shortcomings.

“Charlie was fearless at all times, truly fearless. To his last moment, he was unafraid. He was not defensive, and there was no hate in his heart. I know that because I’ve got a little hate compartment in my heart, and I would often express that surely about various people,” Carlson said. “He would always say, ‘That’s a sad person, that’s a broken person, that’s a person who needs help, that’s a person who needs Jesus’. He said that in private, because he meant it.” 

Authorities said on Sunday that they believe the suspected gunman in the fatal shooting at a country club in New Hampshire on Saturday night shouted “Free Palestine” in order to “create chaos” at the scene, suggesting they do not view the case as motivated by antisemitism. 

Hunter Nadeau, a 23-year-old Nashua, N.H., resident, was apprehended and taken into custody near the Sky Meadow Country Club on Saturday. Shortly before, Robert Steven DeCesare, 59, was killed in the shooting while attending dinner at the club, located about 40 miles north of Boston, and two other adults, another restaurant patron and an employee were injured. The employee was in stable but critical condition as of Sunday, Nashua Police Chief Kevin Rourke said. 

Four other restaurant patrons were wounded as a result of the chaos as people tried to escape the shooting.

According to local reports, as a wedding was taking place at the club, gunfire rang out as guests were gathering around the dance floor for the bride and groom’s first dance, which was set to include some individuals breaking dishes, a traditional custom in Greek weddings. Attendees quickly scattered amid the realization of gunfire, with some hiding inside the event room and others running into the kitchen and the club’s restaurant, located directly next door. 

Several witnesses reported hearing the suspect shout “Free Palestine,” including Tom Bartelson, the groom’s uncle, who told WCVB that the shooter also shouted: “The children are safe.”

“It looked like a target, that he was going right for this person. I feel terrible for him,” Bartleson later told WMUR.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella said that the suspect made a series of statements during the shooting, and that authorities did not currently have evidence of the attack being motivated by antisemitism or other hate-based reasons. 

“He was making a lot of different statements, and it appears to us that it’s more likely that those statements were intended to create chaos during the event and that they don’t really give us much of a sense of his motive,” Formella said at a news conference.

Formella said Nadeau had been charged with one count of second-degree murder for knowingly shooting DeCesare, whose mother told CNN her son lunged at the gunman in an attempt to stop the shooting when he was killed. While police originally believed there to be two suspects, prompting a local shelter in place order to be issued temporarily, they reversed course later Saturday after apprehending Nadeau, who is expected to face additional charges relating to the victims with non-gunshot wounds.

The state attorney general revealed that Nadeau was a former employee of the club, but had not been employed there in about a year.

Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. on Thursday compared congressional efforts to block U.S. weapons transfers to Israel to the antisemitic “blood libel,” the false accusation that medieval Jews used the blood of Christian children to cook Passover matzah — and he took aim at Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for leading the charge.

Speaking at a Rosh Hashanah reception at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Ambassador Yechiel Leiter said in a fiery speech that Democratic proposals in Congress to restrict military aid to Israel during its ongoing conflict amounted to “a modern-day blood libel,” and warned that the rhetoric could have deadly consequences.

“I was told that if we really wanted to, we would feed the Gazans appropriately,” Leiter said of a recent conversation with a lawmaker. “I said, ‘Do you put blood in the matzos that you eat on Passover?’ There is no distinction between the two. This is a blood libel. Blood libels cost lives.”

Leiter did not refer to Sanders by name, but the Jewish Independent from Vermont has been at the forefront of a series of recent Senate resolutions calling on Congress to block certain arms sales to Israel. The most recent, in August, did not pass, but 27 Democrats, the majority of the caucus, voted for it. 

“Somebody claiming the mantle of Jewish pedigree actually leads the charge — an embargo on Israel, an embargo on weapons to Israel at a time of a seven-front war,” he said. “Where is the outrage? Where are we being called to order that this is no different than putting blood in the matzos on Passover?”

The ambassador’s speech, delivered to a group that included Democratic and Republican lawmakers, Trump administration officials and Jewish communal leaders, came hours after two Israeli soldiers were killed at the Allenby Crossing from Jordan into the West Bank by a Jordanian driving a Gaza-bound truck of humanitarian aid, and after four Israeli soldiers were killed by a bomb in Gaza. 

Leiter warned that Israel is “facing something now that we haven’t faced perhaps since the 1930s.”

“It’s a contagion of lies that we have to battle together, because if you don’t battle lies, you end up battling for your life,” said Leiter. “This era of Rosh Hashanah, please be aware: the Protocols of the Elders of Zion 2.0 are being written right now.”

He castigated European governments for moves toward recognizing a Palestinian state, calling it “an award for terrorism” and accusing France and Britain of “moral depravity.” He also directed his ire at the Jewish actress Hannah Einbinder, who in an Emmy acceptance speech last week said “F*** ICE, free Palestine.”

“Maybe you deserve an Emmy, but what you don’t deserve is a platform to libel your own people and to libel people standing opposed to moral depravity on the international stage,” said Leiter, who did not mention Einbinder by name. 

“Israel is standing alone in the world,” the ambassador said — except for “with our dearest friends in the Congress of the United States and the Senate of the United States and the administration of President [Donald] Trump, the best friend Israel ever had in the White House.”

Citing New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s stated plans to revoke the city’s use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) called on Thursday for the House to pass the long-stalled Antisemitism Awareness Act.

The bill has seen no movement in the current congressional session in the House and faces significant hurdles in the Senate after a series of poison-pill amendments were added to the legislation. But Jewish groups are continuing to push for the bill’s passage, a top priority issue since Oct. 7, including in lobbying efforts this week.

“Zohran Mamdani’s reckless attempt to roll back New York City’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism is shameful, dangerous, and completely disgusting,” Lawler and Gottheimer said in a joint statement.

They went on to condemn as antisemitic the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which Mamdani supports, “efforts to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist” and Mamdani’s refusal to “outright condemn the violent call to ‘globalize the intifada.’”

“Given the sharp spike in antisemitic violence, families across the Tri-State area should be alarmed. Leaders cannot equivocate when it comes to standing against antisemitism and the incitement of violence against Jews,” Lawler and Gottheimer said. “This is exactly why Congress must pass our bipartisan Antisemitism Awareness Act.”

The two vowed to “continue working together, across party lines, to make sure our communities are safe, our values are clear, and antisemitism is confronted head-on.”

As Jewish leaders reckon with the increasing likelihood that Zohran Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York City, many who have voiced anxiety over his avowedly anti-Israel policies are reacting with a mix of fear and resignation.

Their concerns have been mounting as Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, has continued to hold a comfortable lead in the race, where polling shows him handily prevailing over the divided field. The 33-year-old democratic socialist and Queens state assemblyman has recently claimed endorsements from prominent party leaders including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who clarified she does not agree with him on Israel issues but said she appreciated his commitment to combating antisemitism as well as his efforts to meet with Jewish community members to address “their concerns directly.”

But multiple Jewish leaders said in interviews with Jewish Insider on Wednesday that they remain deeply skeptical of his campaign’s outreach and pledges to confront rising antisemitism, citing a string of recent statements in which he has doubled down on his hostile approach to Israel — as well as an ongoing refusal to explicitly denounce extreme rhetoric espoused by his allies on the far left.

While Mamdani has, since winning the primary in June, walked back some of his polarizing views on key issues such as policing, he has otherwise made an exception for Israel, of which he has long been a fierce critic. In a series of interviews published last week, for instance, he reiterated a campaign vow to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if elected, even as legal experts cautioned such a move could violate federal law. 

A vocal supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel — which some critics deem antisemitic — he said he would end a program established by Mayor Eric Adams, who is now running as an independent, to foster business partnerships between companies in Israel and New York City. He also said he would stop relying on the working definition of antisemitism promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance — which labels some criticism of Israel as antisemitic — as was adopted by Adams in a recent executive order.

And although he has said he would discourage activists from invoking the slogan “globalize the intifada,” which he himself has not used publicly, Jewish leaders have noted that Mamdani has still not condemned the phrase itself, fueling suspicion that he tacitly approves of the chant critics interpret as a call to antisemitic violence.

“I believe that he will genuinely work to drive a wedge between Jews and their neighbors as long as he serves in public office,” Sara Forman, executive director of New York Solidarity Network, a group that supports pro-Israel Democratic candidates for state and local office, told JI. “To this date,” she said of Mamdani, “his actions certainly have given us no indication they match his words.”

Andres Spokoiny, who leads the Jewish Funders Network but emphasized that he was speaking only in his personal capacity, said that he was “extremely concerned and extremely fearful” about what he regards as a likely Mamdani mayoralty. “His views make the majority of Jews unsafe and unwelcome,” he told JI.

More broadly, Spokoiny said his worries had less to do with particular policies than what he called “the breaking of a taboo” around anti-Zionist sentiment that did not ultimately serve as an “impediment” to Mamdani’s rise, even in a place that is home to the largest Jewish community of any city in the world. “That fact that it is in New York is highly symbolic,” he said. “It shows that our society doesn’t have the antibodies to reject somebody with a very divisive message.”

He also voiced regret about a lack of unity in the organized Jewish community to collectively oppose Mamdani and coalesce behind one candidate in the race, which includes former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running on an independent line, and Curtis Sliwa, the GOP nominee. “I think it asks for a deep rethinking in the Jewish community about how we face this challenge,” he said. 

While Mamdani has won backing from some Jewish elected officials in New York, notably Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), others have continued to keep the nominee at a safe distance with just weeks until November. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has withheld an endorsement of Mamdani despite meeting privately with him, as has Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who said last month he is waiting for the nominee to take “concrete steps” to address antisemitic hate crimes. 

“Typically during a general election you’ll see candidates moderate their positions either in a dishonest attempt to bridge the gap between themselves and uncomfortable voters or in a genuine extension of the olive branch,” said Sam Berger, an Orthodox Democrat who represents an Assembly district in Queens. “Indeed, we’ve seen Zohran do this with the business world as well as with the NYPD.”

Simone Kanter, a spokesperson for Goldman, said on Wednesday that the congressman had “nothing new to add yet beyond what he’s already said” about Mamdani.

During his campaign, Mamdani has more actively aligned with groups on the far left including Jewish Voice for Peace, which is anti-Zionist, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, which hosted a recent gala at which the nominee was celebrated alongside Brad Lander, the Jewish comptroller with whom he cross-endorsed in the primary.

Even as Mamdani has engaged in outreach to the Jewish community to address concerns about his platform, among other issues, some Jewish leaders indicated they did not anticipate there would be any common ground on which to develop a relationship with a potential Mamdani administration.

“Typically during a general election you’ll see candidates moderate their positions either in a dishonest attempt to bridge the gap between themselves and uncomfortable voters or in a genuine extension of the olive branch,” said Sam Berger, an Orthodox Democrat who represents an Assembly district in Queens. “Indeed, we’ve seen Zohran do this with the business world as well as with the NYPD.”

By contrast, Berger argued of his colleague in the state legislature, Mamdani “hasn’t done the bare minimum with long-recognized Jewish institutions and leaders, instead relying on his support from the fringe of the fringe,” which he called “a major red flag.”

“Fixing potholes is typically apolitical,” he told JI, “but [when] the point of contention is the uplifting of baseless hatred against the Jewish people there is no common ground to be had.”

Kalman Yeger, an Orthodox assemblyman in Brooklyn who has been among Mamdani’s most outspoken critics, said the nominee’s “inability to get his brain around the notion that globalizing the intifada is a bad thing is terrifying.”

Simcha Eichenstein, a Democratic assemblyman from the Hasidic neighborhood of Borough Park in Brooklyn, was equally pessimistic about Mamdani. 

“We can agree to disagree when it comes to policy matters, but as a visible Jew, I should be able to walk the streets of New York City safely, without fear of harassment,” he told JI on Wednesday. 

“The inability and unwillingness of a candidate running to represent nearly a million Jews to denounce radical, extreme and antisemitic groups have many within the Jewish community wondering whether we have a future in New York at all,” Eichenstein added, citing as an example the radical pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, which has led at least one protest that was attended by Mamdani in 2021. 

Kalman Yeger, an Orthodox assemblyman in Brooklyn who has been among Mamdani’s most outspoken critics, said the nominee’s “inability to get his brain around the notion that globalizing the intifada is a bad thing is terrifying.”

“His lunatic threat to arrest Netanyahu, when he is surely not stupid enough to believe he has that power, is a sign to the Jew haters that he stands with them,” Yeger added, claiming Mamdani “will, by his words, his actions and his inactions, cause continued increasing antisemitism” in New York City.

Mamdani has forcefully rejected accusations he has fomented antisemitism, vowing to increase funding to counter hate crimes by 800%. A spokesperson for his campaign did not return a request for comment from JI on Wednesday.

Daniel Rosenthal, vice president of government relations at UJA-Federation of New York, said his organization, a nonprofit forbidden from making political endorsements, “will strongly oppose any actions that alienate or marginalize Jews, including attempts to delegitimize Israel and support BDS. As always, we will work to ensure that the needs and concerns of Jewish New Yorkers are heard and addressed.”

Leon Goldenberg, a Brooklyn real estate executive who is an executive board member of the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition, said his group had no interest in meeting with Mamdani — despite that he expects him to win the election. “What I really have a problem with is ‘globalize the intifada,’” he told JI on Wednesday. “You can’t condemn it. ‘Globalize the intifada’ is murder Jews on the streets.”

Goldenberg, who endorsed Adams in the general election but now believes he has no chance, said he was considering moving his permanent residence to Florida, where he keeps an apartment, if Mamdani prevails this fall. “He’s bright. I’m not going to take that away from him,” he said of the nominee. “But there’s very little that qualifies him to be mayor. If he had a different mindset, he’d be a great mayor.”

Despite their concerns about a potential Mamdani administration, few Jewish leaders were ready to speculate about working with him. 

Daniel Rosenthal, vice president of government relations at UJA-Federation of New York, said his organization, a nonprofit forbidden from making political endorsements, “will strongly oppose any actions that alienate or marginalize Jews, including attempts to delegitimize Israel and support BDS.” 

“As always, we will work to ensure that the needs and concerns of Jewish New Yorkers are heard and addressed,” Rosenthal told JI.

Other Jewish leaders pointed to ongoing voter registration efforts to boost Jewish turnout in the election. Josh Mehlman, who chairs the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition, said his group had helped register more than 5,000 new Democratic voters in the Orthodox community in the last week alone. He did not respond when asked if he felt the increase in registrations would have any discernible impact on the outcome of the mayoral race.

Joel Rosenfeld, a representative of the influential Bobov Hasidic sect, also stressed his community “is fully focused on voter registration” in the lead-up to the election. Asked if he had anything else to add on the matter, Rosenfeld said, “A blessed new year,” ahead of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

Still, there are signs that some Hasidic groups may now be cautiously — and quietly — warming up to a potential future Mamdani administration, even if it remains unlikely that any groups will endorse him, community members say. 

“The Hasidim are a very practical bloc of voters, particularly the leadership,” said one Democratic consultant who has worked with the community. “Results matter more than ideology for them. If they think Mamdani will win, that’s where they’ll go.”

One Jewish community activist familiar with the matter said that “there are some groups secretly talking to” Mamdani “or his top people,” though he added it was “hard to believe any groups will openly endorse him, especially if Adams is still in the race.”

“The feeling is that like it or not he is most likely going to be the next mayor so we might as well begin a dialogue now rather than after the election,” he told JI.

Another activist familiar with a Satmar faction in Williamsburg, which represents the largest Hasidic voting bloc in New York City, said that Mamdani’s team is “aggressively courting” the community and has been in dialogue with leadership. “They want to work with us and we want to work with them,” the activist said in summarizing the dynamic, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive situation. 

“The Hasidim are a very practical bloc of voters, particularly the leadership,” said one Democratic consultant who has worked with the community. “Results matter more than ideology for them. If they think Mamdani will win, that’s where they’ll go.”

Members of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center met with Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Wednesday to discuss federal efforts to counter antisemitism and new legislation promoting school choice.

The meeting came amid a backdrop of concern from inside and outside the administration that negotiations with colleges and universities will prioritize hefty financial settlements rather than lasting reforms on antisemitism.

“We … spent time talking about combating antisemitism at universities, and — while expressing appreciation for the aggressive approach the department has taken — urging them to keep doing things that are going to make for lasting changes, and not things that could get rolled back when another administration comes into office,” Nathan Diament, executive director of public policy for the OU, said.

Diament said that OU is pushing for concrete policy changes at universities including “enforcement of policies protecting the rights of students, more careful scrutiny of faculty hiring and curriculum content.” He said that the issues on some campuses have “abated, but that could easily be reversed.”

Diament said that McMahon was “very much in agreement” with the OU group and conveyed that “that’s [the department’s] goal.”

The group also discussed the implementation of the Educational Choice for Children Act, which creates a national tax credit for donations to scholarship programs that can be used for a range of purposes including religious schooling.

Though the program is being primarily implemented through the Treasury Department, Diament said that the Department of Education has an important role to play and that the administration will need to make some key policy decisions on how it will carry out the program.

He said the OU wants to ensure that state governments, which need to approve scholarship programs on a state-by-state basis under the law, will not seek to limit or condition the eligibility of certain types of scholarship programs for funding.

Diament said that the OU leaders also met with lawmakers including Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) about Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding.

“The good news, so to speak, is that they all agree with the need to increase the funding of NSGP significantly above where it’s currently funded,” Diament said. “They recognize the need of the Jewish community. … On the other hand, it’s a very challenging appropriations environment, but these were very important discussions with key people to try to keep the ball rolling in the direction of funding this program.”

He added that a significant increase in the number of Catholic organizations applying for the grants is expected next year, in light of the Annunciation Church shooting in Minneapolis in August.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), speaking to a gathering of Jewish activists on Capitol Hill, highlighted concerns about rising left-wing antisemitism and the ways that antisemitic narratives are being spread to and by college students.

“We’re used to the right-wing side. What is new and what I think has so many in the Jewish community on our heels is that new left-wing antisemitism and how to approach it,” Slotkin said at a pre-High Holidays security briefing organized by several Jewish communal organizations. “How do we counteract it? How do we protect against it? How do we educate?”

“And certainly, we’re watching, on many college campuses, a lot of young people who actually maybe didn’t grow up with the Jewish community at all, get to campus and maybe repeat what they’re hearing, sometimes not even understanding or knowing,” she continued. “I would just say that one of our responsibilities as Jewish leaders and Jewish activists is to try and really parse through how to deal with antisemitism on the left, since antisemitism on the right isn’t good, but it’s more of a well-known threat.”

The freshman Michigan senator, who is working to establish herself as a leader in the chamber on national security issues, recently backed efforts to stop at least some offensive weapons shipments to Israel and emphasized that she hadn’t accepted endorsements from “Jewish group[s],” naming AIPAC and J Street.

Slotkin said at the Wednesday event that she “[doesn’t] think there’s been a more complicated and dicey time to be Jews in America, period, maybe since World War II.”

Speaking in support of the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, Slotkin said that one of the “most powerful moments that I had” during her time as a member of Congress was when a mosque in her district faced threats, and she worked with the local Jewish federation and her synagogue to help the mosque apply for an NSGP grant.

An emotional Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) referenced the killing of her friend, Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, and the mass shooting at the Annunciation Church in Minneapolis as she discussed the rise of violent extremism across the country, including various incidents targeting the Jewish community.

“We have been through this each and every time, but the babies keep dying,” Klobuchar said.

Klobuchar said that in conversations with administration officials immediately after the Annunciation shooting, her top priority was pushing for increased NSGP funding, in addition to gun control measures and action to address extremism and incitement on social media platforms.

She highlighted that the Annunciation Church shooter had left a manifesto spreading hate against a range of targets including Jews, Muslims, Black people and Hispanic people, and emphasized that he and other mass shooters have been “performing for the internet.”

While she noted that data shows that political violence has been coming more from the right than the left, “I don’t want to go tit-for-tat. I care about what we’re doing now and going forward, and words matter right now for bringing America together,” Klobuchar said.

Speaking about threats to the Jewish community specifically, Klobuchar noted the rise in antisemitic hate crimes nationally, saying that “something is seriously wrong in our country.” She said that 25 Jewish facilities had received bomb threats in Minnesota in the past year.

“This has completely shattered people, kids are scared,” Klobuchar said.

Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) said, referring to a string of recent antisemitic attacks, “I don’t care what fringe it comes from. This kind of extremism, hate and violence is unacceptable and needs to be condemned. … Foreign policy debates are complicated. Condemning antisemitism is not.”

She added that, as the generation that survived and witnessed the Holocaust shrinks, “we have to decide as a country if we will let their lessons pass.”

Hassan continued, “We can’t afford inaction. We can’t afford indifference, nor should we feel the need to offer qualification or apology, to simply say that the world’s oldest hate should be denounced as loudly as any other.”

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) also delivered remarks at the event, as did Rev. Russ McDougall, a member of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who was invited in part to discuss the Annunciation Church attack. Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) delivered video remarks.

The session also featured a panel with Jewish Federations of North America CEO Eric Fingerhut, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations CEO William Daroff, Secure Communities Network CEO Michael Masters, Orthodox Union Executive Vice President Moshe Hauer and Anti-Defamation League director of government relations Carmiel Arbit.

Fingerhut told Jewish Insider there is “a domestic terror crisis” in the country “and we need comprehensive, strong action.”

“[Members of Congress] didn’t create the COVID problem either, but they responded with a crisis-level response, and that’s the level of response we need,” Fingerhut said.

He emphasized the need not only for increased NSGP funding but stronger funding for local law enforcement, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to fight domestic terrorism. He said that resourcing and funding at those agencies for the counterterrorism mission isn’t sufficient.

“We’re in an era now of a trillion-dollar defense budget that is aimed at fighting terror and protecting America all over the world,” Fingerhut said. “We have a domestic terror crisis here, and it needs the level of attention and coordinated leadership by the federal government that we get in national defense.”

Advocates with the Anti-Defamation League are set to lobby lawmakers this week on a series of actions related to antisemitism, including pushing to jump-start the stalled Antisemitism Awareness Act.

In connection with the start of the school year, the ADL is bringing a group of around 30 volunteers to the Hill, hailing from 13 states, for meetings with 11 Senate and 11 House offices, including seven Republicans and 15 Democrats, a spokesperson told Jewish Insider.

The group’s agenda for the House includes the Antisemitism Awareness Act, the top-priority legislation for major Jewish groups since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, that failed to pass Congress in 2024 and has again stalled in 2025, after a contentious Senate committee markup earlier this year. The House has yet to take action on the bill.

“Antisemitism is showing up in classrooms, on campuses, and in the daily lives of Jewish students in ways we have not seen in generations,” Lauren Wolman, ADL’s senior director of government relations and strategy, told JI. “Our Back-to-School Lobby Day is about ensuring that Congress takes this threat seriously — not tomorrow, not next year, but now. Every student deserves to learn in a safe and inclusive environment, and that requires action.”

The ADL advocates are also set to lobby in support of the HEAL Act, which would order an audit of national Holocaust education programs; for “robust funding” for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which House Republicans and the Trump administration have aimed to cut significantly; and for lawmakers to send letters to elementary and secondary schools in their districts, calling on the schools to implement clear policies on antisemitic harassment.

In the Senate, the advocates are set to push for the passage of the Protecting Students on Campus Act, which aims to make it easier for students to file discrimination claims, requires schools to report annually on instances of discrimination on campus and requires the Department of Education’s Inspector General to audit schools with high levels of discrimination complaints.

The Senate agenda does not include the Antisemitism Awareness Act, the passage of which in the upper chamber has been complicated by a series of poison-pill amendments added during the committee markup.

The version of the Antisemitism Awareness Act in the House remains unamended and could be passed with bipartisan support as-is, if brought to the floor, whereas additional procedural steps would be needed to bring forward a clean version of the bill in the Senate.

In meetings with Senate offices, the ADL activists are also set to support the HEAL Act, OCR funding and letters to local schools. The ADL will offer a letter template to lawmakers with recommendations including adopting a definition of antisemitism.

“Bringing together advocates from 13 states to meet with both Democrats and Republicans demonstrates the breadth of concern and the urgency of this issue,” Wolman continued. “From first-time volunteers to seasoned ADL leaders, our message is the same: protecting Jewish students is not partisan, it’s a matter of basic safety and civil rights.” 

According to ADL data, there were more than 850 incidents of antisemitism at elementary and secondary schools in 2024, in addition to 1,700 incidents on campus. In total, the two categories account for nearly 30% of antisemitic incidents nationwide.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp called for the Jewish community to step outside its “comfort zone” and look for new strategies to defend itself amid rising antisemitism, during a speech on Tuesday at the American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) annual Lamplighter Awards in Washington.

Karp, who was honored at the Chabad gala, also framed the battle against antisemitism as part of a broader fight for Western civilization and societies.

“Lessons that we’ve learned at Palantir … might be valuable for defending the West, in this particular case a particular tribe of people that are equally associated with the West, the Jewish people,” Karp said. “Palantir is a metaphor for working when there’s no playbook, and currently there is no playbook because institutions that have historically effectively defended people who’ve been discriminated against, especially Jewish people, are kind of not working.”

“If we’re going to have a meaningful chance of fighting, everybody’s going to have to leave their comfort zone a couple times a year,” Karp said. “It’s our job and my job to remind people [of] that, especially younger people here.”

He said that he’s “deeply, deeply grateful” for the Chabad award, “but I think we need a world where I don’t win this award, and there’s huge competition for it. … Why are so few people speaking up? There are very, very few people speaking up.”

“I should not be winning this award,” Karp continued. “I’m the least likely person to win this award, and any award in the Jewish community, ever.”

He said that he sees some who oppose the Jewish community as suffering from “Jewish derangement syndrome” and attacking Jews who are “a metaphor for agency and meritocracy” as part of a broader effort at “annihilating our societies.”

“We have to fight for a rule of law, meritocratic, high-agency society, and everybody’s going to have to help out, and that includes people who don’t like to ever speak out — finance, Hollywood, all sorts of other people,” the Palantir CEO continued.

He said that the Jewish community should focus on building alliances with people “who may not  [already like you]” and that building alliances with non-Jews is crucial — ”this is about higher values in our society.”

Karp also suggested that some Jewish nonprofits are failing to work effectively.

“One of the things we have in corporate America, is when institutions fail, they disappear,” Karp said. “We don’t have that in nonprofits. We’ve got to recognize that what’s [happening] now is not working.”

Karp was introduced onstage by Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American citizen taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and killed by the terrorist group in Gaza.

Goldberg-Polin said that she and her husband Jon had connected with Karp during their efforts to free their son, and that he had worked with the couple to strategize on ways to free the hostages. She said Karp and the Palantir team had offered “access, ideas, contacts, advice [and] connections,” as well as their support on a personal level.

“There were concepts that we had not heard anyone else suggest in the previous 95 days,” Goldberg-Polin said, recounting their first meeting. “This was the beginning of my glimpse into the creative, fearless and independent workings of the exquisitely complex mind of Alex Karp.”

Since Oct. 7, she continued, Karp had “showed up for Israel,” and Goldberg-Polin offered her gratitude on behalf of all of the hostage families.

“You spoke and continue to speak an unpopular truth and to chase justice. You are a righteous man. You are not afraid to jump,” she continued. “To all the people in this room with access to our decision-makers, history will remember all of us, and we will all be judged not based on equities, nor interests, nor politics, but on having the courage and integrity to do the right thing. To jump, even when it feels like there is no way forward.”

Karp, who has a doctorate in philosophy, was presented with a menorah and a signed first-edition copy of Man’s Search for Meaning, a book by philosopher Viktor Frankl about his experience in Nazi concentration camps. Frankl inscribed the book to a fellow survivor of Dachau.

One of the freed hostages who was held with Hersch Goldberg-Polin recounted that Goldberg-Polin had quoted Frankl while urging him to keep fighting to stay alive, speakers said.

Karp and other honorees were also honored with letters inscribed in a Torah scroll that the Chabad movement has been writing in significant locations throughout Washington, D.C.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was honored at a pre-ceremony reception, and delivered remarks. White House Jewish liaison Martin Marks delivered a message on behalf of President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.

Attendees from Capitol Hill included Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY), House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Michael Bennet (D-CO) and John Cornyn (R-TX) and Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Rob Menendez (D-NJ), Glenn Ivey (D-MD) and Greg Landsman (D-OH).

Antisemitism envoy-designate Yehuda Kaploun, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, undersecretary of state-designate Jacob Helberg, former Sen. Kirsten Sinema (I-AZ), former Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), who is now head of defense at Palantir, former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and diplomats from close to 20 countries were also in the crowd.

John Fish, the chairman and CEO of Suffolk, served as the event chairman, and Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck founder and chairman Norm Brownstein, Real Estate Roundtable president and CEO Jeff DeBoer and Palantir Executive Vice President Josh Harris served as co-chairs.

Rocky Zislin, the president of Chabad at George Washington University, and Conference of Presidents CEO William Daroff also delivered remarks at the event.

Like most social workers, Jennifer Kogan went into the field to help people. A therapist who works in Ontario, Canada, and Washington, she markets her private practice as “compassion-focused counseling.” Everyone is welcome here, a banner on her website states. 

But Kogan’s understanding of her profession has radically shifted in the two years since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. Despite its focus on compassion, the field of social work has been engulfed by antisemitism, according to a new report authored by Kogan and Andrea Yudell, a licensed clinical social worker in Washington and Maryland. 

“Since Oct. 7, Jewish social workers have experienced unprecedented silencing, gaslighting, exclusion, isolation and public targeting in professional spaces,” states the report, which was published on Monday by the Jewish Social Work Consortium, an organization founded shortly after Oct. 7. 

Accusations of antisemitism have roiled the mental health field over the past two years. In April, the state of Illinois formally reprimanded a therapist who had created a list of “Zionist” therapists and encouraged colleagues not to refer clients to them. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) warned the American Psychological Association in May to respond to “persistent and pernicious” antisemitism among its members. 

The report describes Jewish social workers being targeted on industry-wide email listservs, doxed and publicly called out during academic courses and lectures. Many of the allegations took place in academic settings related to diversity, like a panel on “whiteness” at Catholic University’s National Catholic School of Social Service that reportedly called Jewish students “racist” and “white supremacists.” 

“While we are concerned with systemic oppression or bias against all other minorities, I believe the social work profession perpetrates it on the Jews,” said Judith Schagrin, the retired administrator of a municipal foster care agency in Maryland. “I never dreamt that there would be this level of hostility and ignorance. On the other hand, I have believed for many years that just like institutional racism against Black folks lingers right beneath the surface, I firmly believe that institutional antisemitism does as well.” 

Social work is a massive field, referring broadly to a profession that can encompass therapists in private practice, people working in public sector social services organizations, school counselors, religious leaders, administrators, social justice advocates and more. 

The report’s authors claim that antisemitic rhetoric — and, in particular, anti-Israel litmus tests foisted on Jewish practitioners — has become endemic in the field. 

Jewish social workers view this discrimination and disrespect as anathema to a key guiding principle of social work: the idea that empathy, and understanding individuals’ personal stories, is critical to “address life challenges and enhance wellbeing,” according to a global definition of social work adopted by the International Federation of Social Workers. They see a double standard applied to Jews, who are often expected to disavow Israel’s actions in Gaza before their concerns are taken seriously. (In January, the IFSW issued a formal “censure” against the Israeli Union of Social Workers because of its members’ history of service in Israel’s military, prompting a rebuke signed by nearly 4,000 Jewish therapists.)

“You’re supposed to extend cultural humility to various different groups, and I saw it extended to so many other groups. There’s Black Lives Matter, and then Asians that were experiencing anti-Asian hate. We were left out of that conversation, even though there were growing statistics that Jewish people were facing antisemitism in many contexts,” said Jodi Taub, a New York-based clinical social worker.

“The whole purpose of the field is, we’re there to support other humans,” added Taub. “Our job is to be supportive individuals, and social justice is supposed to be social justice for all. No one should have to go into graduate school and experience harassment and discrimination.” 

Many of the complaints in the report target the National Association of Social Workers, the field’s leading professional body, with 110,000 members. 

“The silence and negligence of NASW has been especially egregious,” the report’s authors write, referencing the group’s two-month delay in publicly addressing the events of Oct. 7 and its alleged reticence to strongly denounce antisemitism in the nearly two years since. An NASW spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

Debates about the war in Gaza have caused turmoil in an NASW listserv, where rhetoric condemning Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza and calls for boycotts of Israel have become increasingly common. Jewish social workers who wrote in the listserv to raise awareness about the hostages in Gaza or to respond to inaccurate messages about Israel often faced harassment.  

Taub said that after posting about the Israeli hostages in Gaza, she was targeted by someone she did not know who shared a screenshot of Taub’s business profile with the word “PROHIBITED” over it in red text, urging people to avoid her. (That social media post was quickly taken down.)

These experiences have colored the way Jewish social workers engage with their colleagues, casting an air of suspicion to interactions between them.

“It’s hard to know who’s safe, like who is someone that basically hates you, or someone who just doesn’t have an opinion whatsoever, or someone that is behind you,” said Kogan. “It’s very dehumanizing to read what people are writing.”

Carole Cox, a professor at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, has worked in the field for decades, with a particular focus on Alzheimer’s caregivers and on grandparents raising grandchildren. Now, she’d think twice about telling a young Jewish person to enter the field.

“”It’s difficult to tell a Jewish person, ‘Yes, go into social work, you will love it,’” Cox told JI. “There were so many Jewish pioneers in the profession, and now many social workers are actually hiding their Jewish identity.” 

Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) blasted New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for endorsing Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, citing Mamdani’s record on antisemitism.

Gillen joins Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), a fellow Long Island swing district representative, in reaffirming her strong opposition to Mamdani at a time when other New York leaders, including Hochul and Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), are warming to the controversial nominee.

“I completely disagree with the Governor’s endorsement of Mr. Mamdani,” Gillen told Jewish Insider. “At a time of skyrocketing antisemitism, his views are far too extreme and would fuel hate and threats against our Jewish community. His antisemitic views deserve to be condemned, not endorsed.” 

Mamdani recently said he would revoke Mayor Eric Adams’ executive order implementing the use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in the city, as well as repeated his vow to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the behest of the International Criminal Court, for committing war crimes if he visits the city.

Over the weekend, the California State Assembly passed a bill that is intended to address what Jewish community advocates describe as crisis levels of antisemitism in the state’s K-12 schools. 

The bill passed despite the objections of the powerful California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, which had stalled the legislation in July, claiming that efforts to combat antisemitism could impinge on teachers’ academic freedom when it came to discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

It was just one of several examples of influential state and national teachers’ unions presenting a roadblock against efforts to fight antisemitism in public schools, where discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students has skyrocketed over the past two years — even though many of those efforts have broad support from within the Jewish community, and from outside it, too. 

In California, the CTA and anti-Israel groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations were on one side of the issue, facing a diverse coalition of the bill’s backers that included the legislature’s Jewish, Black, Latino and Asian American and Pacific Islander caucuses. In an effort to appease the CTA during negotiations, some parts of the bill were removed, including language that would’ve defined what constituted an antisemitic learning environment. 

But the union never changed course. 

The CTA debacle began in July, just days after the representative body of the National Education Association — the national union to which CTA belongs — voted to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a move that shocked many Jewish educators. And last December, an American Jewish Committee report accused the Massachusetts Teachers Association of promoting anti-Israel educational materials to its members. These developments have come amid a steady trickle of news reports over the last two years showcasing educators bringing controversial and at times antisemitic views into the classroom. 

All of which raises an uncomfortable question for many Jewish parents: Why are unions that are committed to equity and representation often resistant to incorporating protections that Jewish families say will keep their kids safe and supported at school? 

In California, the CTA said that a bill focusing only on antisemitism “might be seen as prioritizing one form of discrimination over others, potentially alienating groups facing other forms of systemic discrimination, such as Islamophobia, ableism or xenophobia.” But a companion bill passed by the legislature this weekend that takes aim at racism, gender discrimination, religious discrimination and homophobia in schools should render that argument moot. A CTA spokesperson declined to comment last week. 

So far, though, the teachers unions have not been successful in their efforts to marginalize Jewish organizations and counter antisemitism measures. 

The NEA’s top leadership quickly backtracked on the anti-ADL resolution (although they took a swipe at the organization in the process). In Massachusetts, a statewide antisemitism committee said in August that K-12 schools should implement the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. In California, the 300,000-member CTA was not able to muster the political capital to quash the antisemitism bill. Gov. Gavin Newsom now has a month to decide whether to sign it.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” the ADL’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, told Jewish Insider in July, to ensure “our community is respected for who we are.” 

When Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland took the stage on Sunday evening at the Capital Jewish Museum’s gala in Washington, he won over the crowd instantly with his opening line: “Shalom, friends.” 

But as he continued his speech, Moore used the occasion — an introduction of the philanthropist David Rubenstein, one of the dinner’s honorees — to decry rising antisemitism in the United States and, in particular, the murder of Israeli Embassy staffers Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky outside the museum in May. 

“We received, once again, a very unneeded reminder of the fact that this nation still has wounds. That the level of antisemitism that we see in our society is not just intolerable, it’s heartbreaking,” said Moore. “I’m a person of deep faith, and while I might not have shared faith with them, Yaron was my brother and Sarah was my sister.” 

“I know that in their name and in their lives, we are committed in the state of Maryland to making sure that Maryland can be a true safe haven for everybody to know that they should always and will always feel comfortable in their own neighborhoods, comfortable in their own environments, comfortable in their own skin, comfortable in their homes of worship, and comfortable in the thing that gives them peace and joy,” said Moore. 

“In the state of Maryland,” Moore continued, “we will make sure that hate will never find oxygen.”

Moore, a popular Democrat who has been floated as a potential Democratic presidential contender, said on Meet the Press last week that he plans to seek reelection in 2026 and serve his full term — effectively ruling out a 2028 White House run.

When several hundred people gathered on Sunday evening at the French Embassy in Washington for the Capital Jewish Museum’s second annual gala, they did so in service of a simple theme: “preserving history and building bridges.”

That message was particularly resonant as the evening’s honorees and organizers paid tribute to a tragic moment in recent history that will be part of the story of Washington’s Jewish community forever: the murder of Israeli Embassy staffers Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky outside the museum in May.

“It was a horrific, brazen act of antisemitic violence, a wrenching reminder of the importance of what the museum does every day of its existence and the fact that it collects artifacts, but it is a living, breathing place for a viable Jewish community to go, and that’s what was happening that day,” CNN anchor Dana Bash, who emceed the gala, said at the start of the event, as she introduced a moment of silence for Milgrim and Lischinsky. 

The Capital Jewish Museum opened in downtown Washington in 2023 with a commitment to teaching the history of the District’s local Jewish community, in the context of the city’s unique role as a nexus for civic-minded Americans. Speakers throughout the evening, including Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, touted the diversity and warmth of Washington while taking not-so-subtle jabs at President Donald Trump’s recent takeover of the city’s police force. 

“You know that the real D.C. is 700,000 people that actually live here, go to work, raise their families and are tax-paying Americans,” Bowser said. “While we are diverse, we are also a connected city, and so we know in our honorees tonight that they have followed their faith [and] invested in their families, their city and their nation.” 

The Sunday evening gala honored the investor and philanthropist David Rubenstein and Esther Safran Foer, the former longtime CEO of Sixth & I Synagogue and the Capital Jewish Museum’s founding board president. The two were asked, in conversation with Bash, where each traces their love of history.

For Rubenstein, the co-founder of the private equity giant Carlyle, who has supported major American institutions like the National Archives and the Kennedy Center, the answer was a sixth grade teacher who encouraged him to watch President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, sparking a lifelong love of American history. He used historical reference points — immigration quotes from 1915 and the doomed voyage of the MS St. Louis, a European ship with Jewish refugees on board that was turned away by the U.S. — to bemoan antisemitism as “at a level I’ve never seen before in my lifetime.” 

Foer described a lifelong search for answers about her family’s story in Ukraine, which they fled after the Holocaust. She detailed that quest in her 2020 memoir, I Want You To Know We’re Still Here. 

“Pulling together the family history and the context of the history of the times has been kind of a lifelong obsession for me,” said Foer, who was born in Poland in a displaced persons camp soon after World War II ended. 

“My background is a Holocaust background, but when I wrote my book and I was working on the title, my working title was, ‘I Want You To Know We’re Still Here,’ and it ultimately became a title, because that’s our story. The Holocaust happened at a terrible time, a terrible place, but there’s a vibrant Jewish life here, in other countries. We need to celebrate that, and a museum is a way to celebrate that, to keep telling the stories.” 

Desmond Holly, the suspected shooter who critically injured two students at Evergreen High School in Colorado on Wednesday, shared antisemitic and white nationalist views online, according to the Denver Post and the Anti-Defamation League.

Local authorities said Thursday that Holly had been “radicalized by some extremist network,” without specifying further.

According to the Denver Post, one of Holly’s online accounts used a coded slogan for Holocaust denial and reposted antisemitic videos and other videos showing individuals in Nazi uniforms.

The ADL’s Center on Extremism said Friday that Holly’s TikTok accounts were “filled with white supremacist symbolism,” including a reference to the white nationalist “14 words” slogan, and utilized a neo-Nazi symbol in his profile photo.

The ADL reported that Holly, in online interactions, shared photos of patches he had created featuring neo-Nazi symbols, similar to those used by prior mass shooters. He also shared a photo of himself in a mask that featured multiple white nationalist symbols and slogans, including “TJD” — standing for “Total Jew Death.”

According to the ADL, Holly collected tactical gear — inspired in some cases by past mass shooters — which he decorated with extremist symbols, posted internet content mimicking prior shooters and suggested in online comments that he was preparing to carry out an attack. 

His accounts included numerous references to Brenton Tarrant, the far-right killer who murdered 51 at two mosques in New Zealand, among other mass killers.

Holly also maintained an account on an internet forum where users share images and footage of various deaths and murders, and commented on posts about past mass shootings, according to the ADL research. The platform has been used by multiple prior mass shooters.

Similar fascinations with extremist and antisemitic views and prior school shooters, as well as apparent interactions with online extremist networks, have been a feature of several recent mass attacks.

“The deeply disturbing specifics of this case follow a pattern recently discovered by ADL Center on Extremism, which its analysts have found in at least three school shootings committed by young people over the past year,” the ADL report stated, including engagement with some of the same online forums.

The Colorado shooting took place shortly after the killing of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk in Utah.

A key California Senate committee voted on Wednesday to advance an amended bill targeting antisemitism in K-12 schools, following two months of closed-door negotiations that came after the state’s largest teachers’ union announced its opposition to the bill and stalled its passage. 

The version of the bill that came before the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday night was markedly different from an earlier version that had been approved unanimously by the State Assembly in May. But when the 300,000-member California Teachers Association came out against the bill in July, arguing that its targeting of antisemitism could affect teachers’ “academic freedom,” lawmakers scrapped a planned hearing in order to take time to try to assuage the powerful union. 

The CTA never withdrew its opposition to the bill, and the group’s chief lobbyist urged senators to vote against it at a Wednesday hearing that saw more than 500 people testify about the legislation. Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Bay Area, said the union had been “negotiating in bad faith.” A CTA spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

“I am disappointed that they’re still opposing the bill so aggressively. We’ve worked so hard to address their concerns,” state Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who chairs the Legislative Jewish Caucus, told Jewish Insider. “It’s a narrower and more focused bill than it was before, but it’s still quite impactful and it sets some clear standards, and creates an antisemitism coordinator, so it’s a good bill.” 

The bill would create a statewide Office of Civil Rights, where a new antisemitism prevention coordinator would be located. If the bill passes, that office will track antisemitism in California schools and provide antisemitism education to California teachers and administrators to help prevent and combat discrimination. 

Although the legislation would provide educational materials about antisemitism to school personnel, the biggest change from the prior draft was the removal of a section that defined antisemitism and provided examples of what would constitute an “antisemitic learning environment.” 

These examples included “assertions of dual loyalty directed at Jewish individuals or communities,” “equating Jews or Israelis with Nazis or Nazi Germany,” “denial, erasure, or distortion of Jewish history, ancestry, identity, or culture” and “language or images directly or indirectly denying the right of Israel to exist, demonizing Jewish people, or saying that Jewish people do not belong in a country or community.” 

Instead, the plan endorsed a 2024 antisemitism strategy authored by Gov. Gavin Newsom and the 2023 plan released by the Biden White House. 

“There was a lot of discussion about how antisemitism should be defined, and ultimately there wasn’t sufficient consensus for that to be a part of the bill,” said Robert Trestan, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s western division. “There are sufficient effective provisions of the bill that will make a difference for Jewish students in California, and if we didn’t think it’s going to be effective, we wouldn’t support it.” 

A CTA board member wrote in an August op-ed that the bill’s sponsors “are trying to bring right-wing, Trump-style censorship to California schools while undermining legitimate efforts to fight antisemitism.” 

Wiener said Trump’s heavy-handed approach to antisemitism at U.S. universities has complicated efforts for California lawmakers to address the issues. 

“It’s made our lives harder. I understand the sensitivity given the current political environment,” said Wiener. “That said, when you have a large number of Jews, including Jewish parents and Jewish students, coming forward and saying, ‘We have a problem and we need to solve it,’ you shouldn’t just dismiss that or say, ‘Oh, well, it’s too harsh because of academic freedom.’”

He suggested there’s a double standard at play when it comes to arguments about academic freedom and its connection to antisemitism. 

“If a teacher started teaching that there were good sides of slavery, I am confident that the school would shut that down immediately and that no one would argue,” Wiener said. “But when it comes to Jews, well, then it’s about academic freedom.”

The Senate Education Committee voted the bill out of committee unanimously, and it was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday night. It still needs to be passed by the full state Senate and then go back to the Assembly, all by the end of the week, when the legislative session ends, in order to make it to Newsom’s desk for his signature. A spokesperson for Newsom declined to comment. 

A delegation of 13 senior police officials from the New York area returned to the U.S. on Friday fresh off an intensive week in Israel designed to increase their counterterrorism training and understanding of antisemitism.

Organized by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora and Combating Antisemitism, along with U.S. Jewish security groups Community Security Initiative and Community Security Service, the trip included a tour of Mabat 2000, the visual surveillance system deployed by Israel Police and visits to the Nova music festival massacre site and several kibbutzim attacked on Oct. 7, 2023. 

“These are all things that these police commissioners will all relate to,” said Mitch Silber, executive director of CSI. 

“This trip has enhanced my understanding of Jewish culture, enabled me to observe firsthand the challenges Israeli law enforcement faces and will help us better protect the Jewish community and the county as a whole,” Kevin Catalina, the police commissioner of Suffolk County on Long Island, told Jewish Insider. “The knowledge and experience gained during this trip will no doubt prove invaluable.” 

Silber reflected on a tour of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum and memorial — describing it as one of the most meaningful parts of the trip. 

“You’ve got American police chiefs from the greater New York area walking through Yad Vashem, hearing about the origins of the Nazi regime and how the Holocaust happened.”

“The goal is to bring New York-area law enforcement and local security partners to Israel for training on antisemitism, how Israel encounters terrorism and [to learn about] the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Silber told JI. “How do you sensitize a police department that’s probably not particularly Jewish and to understand, why is it that they need to have a police car outside of a sukkah? What even is Sukkot? What is Yom Kippur? By helping them to understand the Jewish experience and why Jews seem to be disproportionately the target.”

The delegation was made up of senior police executives, chiefs and commissioners from Long Island, Westchester and Rockland counties and Connecticut. Many were returning to the Jewish state for their second time — following a similar trip that ran in early October 2023, but was cut short due to the Oct. 7 attacks. 

“I was on the CSI/CSS trip that experienced Oct. 7 in Ashdod and had to be evacuated,” Mike Kopy, public safety commissioner of Rye, N.Y., told JI. “Even as we headed to the airport that day I saw the resilience of ordinary Israelis as they headed to their bases. I thought it was important to return now in order to better understand the current situation and take what we have learned about antisemitism and counterterrorism home to New York to better protect our Jewish community and residents.” 

This trip also provided a firsthand glimpse into some of the challenges Israel Police confront. On Monday, six Israelis were killed when two terrorists opened fire at a bus stop in Jerusalem. 

At the time of the shooting, “we were on our way to the Israel National Police Jerusalem command center,” said Silber. “We met with senior Jerusalem police officials to learn how you police a multiethnic, multireligious city like Jerusalem.” 

According to data from early 2025, Jews were the target of 62% of all hate crimes in New York City. “Why is that?” Silber said. “Some of the lectures we’ve gotten are about the history of Jewish people in European countries and the trend of at some point a government deciding it’s not worthwhile protecting those communities and those communities have to move. It all depends on whether law enforcement wants to protect them or not.” 

As The New Yorker refrains from addressing its controversial decision to invite an antisemitic speaker to join its upcoming festival, the magazine has otherwise exhibited a notably hostile emphasis on Israel and related issues over the past few months.

Isaac Chotiner, a staff writer for The New Yorker well-known for conducting blunt and aggressive Q&As on a variety of news-related topics, has recently been fixated on Israel — focusing almost exclusively on the subject in what have often been combative interviews with defenders of Israel who span the political spectrum.

From late July to late August, Chotiner published six consecutive interviews concerning Israel, and conducted nearly a dozen more over the preceding three-month period. His two most recent interviews on the subject featured particularly contentious discussions with Jack Lew, former U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Biden administration, and Norman J.W. Goda, a professor of Holocaust studies at the University of Florida.

Speaking with Lew last month, Chotiner repeatedly challenged the Biden administration’s approach to Israel’s war in Gaza — using a relentlessly skeptical tone that the interviewer has not shown in his questioning of anti-Israel interlocutors. 

In one illustrative exchange, Lew insisted that Chotiner was “putting words in my mouth” on a  point about the Biden administration’s diplomatic engagement with Israel over the course of the war, with the former ambassador calling the issue more complex than he believed their conversation was permitting.

For his part, Goda, who has prominently argued against labeling Israel’s military conduct in Gaza a genocide, sounded frustrated with Chotiner’s line of questioning as they debated the issue during a Q&A conducted in August. At one point, Chotiner said he was “surprised” that Goda, who is widely respected in his field and had characterized “the relationship between Holocaust studies and the war in Gaza” as “very fraught,” would choose to focus on the semantics around allegations of genocide instead of “the actual situation going on in Gaza today.”

“You’re acting like I’m splitting hairs over the word ‘genocide,’” Goda replied, pushing back against the framing. “The word ‘genocide’ has been ricocheting around the internet and around social media.”

Chotiner, whose interviews often feature lengthy, bracketed responses added after his discussions have taken place, has previously engaged in tense conversations about Israel. The New Yorker writer has won praise for his prosecutorial approach on a range of issues — and his consistent ability to push his targets into uttering exasperated or unflattering remarks.

Some of his interviewees have seemed to regret speaking with him, including Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, who took part in a heated debate three years ago about whether anti-Zionism equates to antisemitism. Asked by Chotiner if he would agree that “the debate over Zionism has not necessarily had this ‘anti-Semitic veneer’ for centuries, right? There are a lot of Jews who were anti-Zionists before,” Greenblatt responded: “Give me a—Isaac. Sure, there were Jews who were worried that it would create more anti-Semitism directed against them in America. When you ask me these questions, it suggests to me that you’re coming at this from a particular editorial perspective.”

In 2019, Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., abruptly ended what he criticized as a “hostile” interview with Chotiner as they discussed Israel’s disputed territorial claims to the West Bank. “I don’t think you are actually interested in anything I have to say,” Oren said to Chotiner before hanging up on their call.

But in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and ensuing war in Gaza, Chotiner has taken a hostile approach to interviewing pro-Israel voices who have been sharp critics of the Israeli government, from the Israeli-American author Yossi Klein Halevi to The Atlantic’s contributing writer Eliot Cohen.

Owing to the preponderance of such interviews, media watchers will be scrutinizing The New Yorker over how it handles its upcoming rountable conversation with Hasan Piker, the far-left streamer who has gained notoriety for a range of extreme comments about Israel and Jews, including remarks that have justifed the Oct. 7 attacks and denied reports of sexual violence committed by Hamas.

The magazine’s decision to invite the controversial influencer to speak at its festival next month, where he will join a discussion about how the internet has reshaped politics, has spurred speculation among critics that he will likely continue to receive friendly or nonconfrontational treatment by the mainstream media, which has largely ignored his extreme views as his popularity has risen in recent years.

In an extensive profile of Piker published in The New Yorker in March, for instance, the reporter Andrew Marantz, who will moderate the festival’s upcoming roundtable, only lingered briefly on the streamer’s “relentless” criticism of Israel and his sympathetic remarks about Hezbollah and other terror groups.

The New Yorker has so far avoided commenting on Piker’s upcoming appearance, even as it has drawn condemnation from the ADL as well as the attorney Gloria Allred, among other critics. Chotiner did not return a request for comment.

Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old Trump ally and conservative campus advocacy leader who was fatally shot at an event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday, was seen as a crucial bulwark against rising antisemitism and anti-Israel antagonism on the far right, friends and acquaintances told Jewish Insider.

While he was best known as a fierce and unyielding critic of what he assailed as the excesses of left-wing culture, Kirk, the founder of the youth activist group Turning Point USA, also cautioned against the risks of young conservatives embracing antisemitism and online conspiracy theories about Jews and Israel.   

“There is a corner of the internet, of people that want to point and blame the Jews for all their problems,” he said at a recent event. “Everybody, this is demonic and it’s from the pit of hell and it should not be tolerated.”

Jewish conservatives who were close with Kirk both personally and professionally lamented his death as a major loss for the long-term standing of pro-Israel sentiment in the MAGA movement, citing his continued defense of Israel and recent commentary warning against the embrace of antisemitism on the far right while visiting college campuses nationwide with TPUSA.

Kirk’s impact on the online right’s discourse was significant, and his views on Israel were closely watched as other right-wing podcasters turned more critical of the Jewish state. In the runup to the U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Kirk drew outsized attention for cautioning the Trump administration against attacking Iran, citing the fallout from young conservatives, who supported the president over his promise to end foreign wars.

But after the attack was successful, Kirk praised Trump’s decision after the strikes degraded Iran’s nuclear threat without the U.S. getting involved in a wider war.

Rabbi Pesach Wolicki, executive director of Israel365 Action, a subset of Israel365, the advocacy group that describes itself as an “Orthodox Jewish institution that believes that Jews and Christians must respect one another,” spoke to Kirk on Tuesday evening for what he referred to as a “work meeting.” Wolicki said he could not get into details of the call, but noted that the two began communicating regularly as Kirk began facing pushback from the far right for refusing to abandon his support for Israel. 

“The fact is, Charlie didn’t agree with every decision that the Israeli government made, but he was one of the most avid defenders of Israel out there,” Wolicki told JI. “Most people’s exposure to Charlie visiting campuses is those viral clips they would release, but 40 to 50% of the questions Charlie would get on campuses for the last year and a half were about Israel. He didn’t go to those campuses to talk about Israel, but that’s where the students would always bring it to. Half the time he was on those campuses, he was defending Israel.”

While he and Kirk did not always align in their conversations about Israel, the GOP activist “was always wanting to learn, wanting to know what the truth is and what are the right ways to answer these questions,” Wolicki said. 

“All I saw in every conversation was sincerity and concern and just a love for Israel, even when he disagreed with Israel, even when Israel frustrated him,” he told JI. 

Even as Kirk faced criticism for defending Elon Musk after the billionaire tech mogul came under scrutiny for amplifying an antisemitic conspiracy theory, his allies said he had a strong connection to Israel and the Jewish community that motivated his advocacy.

Josh Hammer, a conservative political commentator and a personal friend of Kirk’s, argued that Kirk’s affinity for the Jewish people was grounded in his evangelical Christian faith and the fact that some of his earliest professional mentors were conservative pro-Israel champions like David Horowitz and Dennis Prager. 

Hammer said he and Kirk engaged regularly on the best ways to address rising antisemitism within the GOP, and that he was concerned about how Kirk’s absence going forward would impact that surge.

“He was a young conservative leader, and he very much had his thumb on the pulse of the fact that Gen Z is trending in a not so healthy direction on the Israel issue and on antisemitism in general,” he told JI. 

“We would talk about how to turn back the tide against that,” Hammer added. “He was really holding back some really nasty stuff in some very young, far-right online circles. He was doing more than maybe anyone in the country to fight that. Part of me kind of worries, frankly, about what that energy does from here in his absence.”

Kirk, an evangelical Christian, had been working on a book about the Sabbath that is set to be published in December, called Stop, in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life. 

“He would turn his phone off and generally disconnect for 24 to 25 hours,” Hammer told JI. “He was someone who genuinely believed not just in the New Testament and part of the Christian Bible, but he genuinely believed in the Hebrew Bible as well. He had a very special place in his heart for those who were called upon to be God’s chosen people in this world. He was of genuine conviction that the land of Israel was promised to the Jewish people.”

Jewish American and Israeli leaders expressed appreciation on Wednesday for Kirk’s support for the Jewish community and Israel, which he visited at least twice on trips he recounted as personally meaningful.

“Charlie Kirk was murdered for speaking truth and defending freedom,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on social media. “A lion-hearted friend of Israel, he fought the lies and stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization.”

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a former White House advisor, called Kirk “a close friend and a special human being,” saying he “represented the best of MAGA. Firm in his beliefs, compassionate, curious, and respectful.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition, in a statement on Wednesday, said that Kirk had been “a shining light in these troubled times for the American Jewish community, and we are deeply saddened at his passing.”

“Charlie was a fearless advocate for freedom, a supporter of Israel and the Jewish people, and a friend,” the RJC said. “He was cut down while doing what he loved to do, communicating with the next generation of American leaders on college campuses about the issues that affect us all.”

Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said she was “devastated by the horrific, unconscionable, depraved murder of Charlie Kirk,” adding: “Political violence should have no place in this country, and it’s incumbent on political leaders on both sides of the aisle to make that clear.”

Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Jewish pro-Trump activist and outspoken opponent of campus antisemitism, said that Kirk’s death leaves a vacuum on the right as antisemitic figures including Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes find growing audiences. 

“Charlie repeatedly referred to antisemitism as ‘demonic’” and “hated it viscerally,” Kestenbaum told JI.

“Behind the scenes, Charlie was working with prominent Jewish individuals here in America to change the narrative surrounding Israel,” he said. “He was a mentor to me and millions all over this country. I fear for the future of the conservative movements’ attitudes towards Israel without Charlie.”

Much of the antisemitism on college campuses is fueled by faculty and staff — both on campus and within professional academic organizations — according to a survey released on Wednesday by the Anti-Defamation League and the Academic Engagement Network. 

Seventy-three percent of the 209 Jewish faculty members polled from universities around the U.S. reported observing antisemitic activities or statements from faculty, administrators or staff on campuses, including calls to boycott Israel and doxxing campaigns. Forty-four percent said they were aware of an organized Faculty for Justice in Palestine chapter on their campus.

“My chair is pro-Hamas (explicitly so) and has turned our department into an encampment, full of ‘river to the sea’ slogans and propaganda,” an anonymous faculty member shared in the survey. “When I and a few other Jewish faculty objected, the chair organized about 50 people to verbally attack us, including one who told me that we had all the money and power. Consequently, my department is a hostile work environment, and I can no longer attend events or participate in departmental life there.”

Another wrote that they are “attacked in all directions” and “no longer feel safe on campus.”

Due to these experiences, more than one-third of all of the surveyed respondents (38%) reported having felt a need to hide their Jewish and/or Zionist identity from others on campus. Twenty-five percent of those who are members of academic associations said they feel pressure to hide their identity in those groups. 

The study comes as calls for the adoption of academic boycotts of the Jewish state have gained momentum in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war, within several professional associations and among some prominent classroom professors. 

Last month, the American Association of Geographers faced pressure from its members to adopt a boycott of Israel, and shortly after, the head of the American Association of University Professors said that the United States should not send defensive weapons to Israel amid its war against Hamas, which he called a genocide in Gaza. 

“What we’re seeing is a betrayal of the fundamental principles of academic freedom and collegiality. Jewish faculty are being forced to hide their identities, excluded from professional opportunities, and told by their own colleagues what constitutes antisemitism — even as they experience it firsthand. This hostile environment is driving talented educators and researchers  away from careers they’ve dedicated their lives to building,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement about the survey.  

“Colleges and universities are meant to be open, safe learning environments where faculty and students alike feel comfortable sharing ideas and having open discourse,” said Miriam Elman, AEN’s executive director. “It’s disturbing, but perhaps unsurprising, that Jewish and Zionist faculty on campuses across the country are experiencing antisemitic hostility and retaliation for their beliefs.” 

“What’s even more alarming,” Elman continued, “is that much of this animosity is driven by the faculty and staff themselves, creating an unsafe work environment for their colleagues and an unwelcoming learning environment for their students. Administrators must address these issues head-on and take meaningful action to protect the flow of free ideas and open inquiry on their campuses, or their institutions will suffer for generations to come.”

Over the weekend, The New York Times published a story contending that the momentum for settlements with elite universities was stalling amid divisions between those in the Trump administration looking to make a deal and those looking for more meaningful reforms in combating antisemitism. 

The story glossed over the related development we’ve been hearing from officials involved in the negotiating process: that a zeal for dealmaking from some officials is overshadowing the main reason the Trump administration was playing hardball with these schools in the first place — the rampant antisemitism that has been festering on campus.

In fact, the word “antisemitism” was hardly mentioned in the lengthy NYT story, a sign in itself of the administration’s flagging focus.

Indeed, many of the deals struck — along with the outlines of potential future deals — have focused on the dollar amounts in the settlement, without requiring many significant reforms that would deal with antisemitism at the elite schools.

Columbia University agreed in July, following a lengthy legal battle, to pay a $200 million settlement over three years to the federal government. In addition to the legal penalty, the Ivy League school — which did not admit to wrongdoing in the resolution agreement — pledged to implement a series of commitments aimed at protecting Jewish students. 

These include further incorporating the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism by requiring its Office of Institutional Equity to embrace the definition; appointing a Title VI coordinator to review alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act; requiring antisemitism training for all students, faculty and staff; and refusing to recognize or meet with anti-Israel student coalition Columbia University Apartheid Divest.

On Columbia’s campus, some pro-Israel students expressed disappointment over those “largely symbolic” commitments, which diverged from a list of reforms initially demanded by the Trump administration. 

Soon after Columbia, Brown University entered into an agreement with the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding. The settlement also primarily focused on money rather than reform, although unlike Columbia, Brown was not required to pay a fine directly to the federal government. The university instead agreed to pay $50 million over 10 years to workforce development organizations in Rhode Island. It also agreed to launch a third-party campus climate survey in an effort to protect Jewish students. 

Meanwhile, the conversation surrounding a possible settlement with Harvard has increasingly centered on the significant size of the potential payment — a whopping half-billion dollars — over any of the institutional changes the university will need to make. Sources familiar with the dealmaking confirm to Jewish Insider that President Donald Trump himself is increasingly enamored with the size of the payment, which has led some of his advisors to focus less on reforms and more on the money.

“There’s growing dissatisfaction with the White House letting universities buy their way out of accountability with no meaningful change. It’s clear they’ve been totally out-negotiated,” said one source familiar with the negotiations. 

Reading the Times story, the administration officials working to fight against the universities’ harassment of their Jewish students were caricatured as “ideologically driven aides,” whereas those looking to cut lucrative financial deals were portrayed as the pragmatists. 

The reality is the opposite. Securing government payouts as the primary achievement for using state power to freeze a private university’s funds makes the whole enterprise seem like extortion. Putting in the work to make sure these abuses don’t happen again is what would make the exertion of government power more justifiable.

Indeed, the outcome of this showdown with elite universities — with negotiations with Cornell and Northwestern taking place now — will be a test of whether many of the systemic abuses that led to the extraordinary freeze on research funding will be rolled back, or whether the tolerance of anti-Jewish discrimination on campus could become the new normal.

Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) is asking the presidents of the largest colleges and universities in Ohio to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and ensure that their respective institutions have plans in place to combat campus antisemitism during the upcoming school year, Jewish Insider has learned.

Moreno sent letters on Tuesday to the presidents of The Ohio State University, Miami University, Kent State University, Cleveland State University, Youngstown State University, the University of Cincinnati, Central State University, the University of Toledo, Bowling Green State University, Akron University, Ohio University, Wright State University, Northeast Ohio Medical University and Shawnee State University. 

In the letters, the Ohio senator requested information on how each school was responding to “the unacceptable and disgusting rise in antisemitism” and the ways each plans to “protect students’ safety while on campus from antisemitism and/or other religiously motivated crimes.”

Moreno also urged the schools to adopt the IHRA definition, which he argued “provides clarity on what constitutes antisemitism and can serve as a tool on campus to help combat hate crimes and foster a safer environment for Jewish students.”

“I want to make sure that university leaders are doing all they can to ensure students are free not only to learn on college campuses but also to feel safe while doing so, regardless of their religion,” Moreno wrote.

Moreno praised the Trump administration’s efforts to combat antisemitism in the letters, writing that the White House was “taking strong and necessary action” on the matter.

“Jewish Americans are under attack in this country. Americans have witnessed the manifestation of rampant antisemitism on college campuses all over the country,” Moreno wrote. “Horrifyingly, hate crimes and domestic terrorism have plagued the Jewish community. Recently, in this country, Jewish Americans have been murdered in cold blood and burned alive. These attacks are reminiscent of 1939. It is 2025 – the violence against Jews must stop.”

Growing up at a Reform temple in suburban Boston, Sarah Hurwitz learned that Judaism is just “four holidays, two texts and a few universalistic values.” 

When she left home, she largely eschewed all Jewish observance for two decades, she reflected in a recent interview with Jewish Insider. In that time, she got two degrees at Harvard and reached the pinnacle of Washington success, serving as a senior speechwriter, first to President Barack Obama and then to First Lady Michelle Obama. If she engaged with Judaism at all, it was with a light touch — she was merely a “cultural Jew,” as she usually called herself. 

“I just didn’t realize there was Jewish culture. I just meant, ‘Oh, I’m anxious and kind of funny,’” Hurwitz told JI last month. 

Approaching a midlife crisis, Hurwitz found her way to an intro to Judaism class at a Washington synagogue nearly a decade ago. She embarked on a journey of learning Jewish traditions and studying Jewish texts that sparked her first book, the 2019 Here All Along, a joyful and accessible primer to Judaism. 

“Its thesis was, ‘Isn’t Judaism amazing?’ Not a lot of Jews are going to disagree with that thesis,” Hurwitz said. 

She is doing something different with her new book, As A Jew: Reclaiming Our Story From Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us, which was published this week. 

“This is definitely a book with an argument. It is definitely edgier than my first book,” Hurwitz said. 

That’s because in As A Jew, Hurwitz is grappling with a question that struck at the core of who she is, or at least who she was until a decade ago. Why, she asks, was she always qualifying her Judaism? She was always a “cultural Jew,” an “ethnic Jew,” a “social justice Jew,” she writes. Hurwitz was never simply a Jew, one word, proud, head tall. 

In her new book, as she tackles the millennia of antisemitism that led her to unwittingly minimize her own identity, she is asking questions that others who similarly distort or diminish their Jewish identity may not want to face. 

“I was really trying to make others comfortable with me, right? I didn’t want them to think I was one of those really Jew-y Jews, which … why would that be bad, again?” Hurwitz said. “Why did social justice have to be my Judaism? Why couldn’t Judaism be my Judaism?”

This doesn’t mean Hurwitz is criticizing people who engage with Judaism through a social justice lens, or through culture, or any other avenue besides religious observance. Her own personal Jewish learning journey has not made her an Orthodox Jew. The argument she’s making is that Jews should engage with Judaism … well, Jewishly — by learning what Jewish texts have to say about social justice, rather than taking some universal values like “care for the vulnerable” and calling that your Judaism.

“Social justice is also a gorgeous way to be a Jew when you actually know what Judaism says about social justice,” said Hurwitz. “When I was this kind of contentless Jew, I don’t really know what I was doing. I was often just articulating my own views and opinions and kind of attributing them to Judaism.” 

She begins with a basic question: The Holocaust happened because the Nazis hated the Jews. But why did they hate the Jews? OK, the Jews were the scapegoat after World War I. But why the Jews? That unanswered question makes it hard for anyone to identify modern-day antisemitism, Hurwitz argues.

“These poor kids, it’s very confusing, because they’ve gotten Holocaust education, and they’re like, ‘That’s antisemitism education,’” said Hurwitz. “And then you get to campus and there are no Nazis, and you’re like, ‘What is this?’”

To answer that, she goes back thousands of years. The book examines Judaism in the context of the historical movements that have tried to crush it, or at least confine it: early Christianity, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Enlightenment, the Holocaust. Not each of these eras sought to eliminate Judaism, but each one presented a particular idea of the good kind of Jew. 

Throughout history, some Jews always tried to adapt to the mores of the day and disavow essential parts of Judaism in order to fit in. The only problem, writes Hurwitz, is it didn’t work. You can be Jewish, but not too Jewish. Like when modernity swept across Western Europe in the 19th century, and Jews could suddenly become citizens of France and Germany — so long as they placed their country’s identity above their Jewish identity.

“This book was very much my journey to stripping away all those layers of internalized antisemitism, anti-Judaism, all of that internalized shame from so many years of persecution, and just saying, ‘You know what, no, I’m a Jew,’” said Hurwitz.

Hurwitz pitched this book before the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that sparked a wave of global antisemitism. But she says the events of the last two years have only furthered her argument that Jews throughout history have felt the need to separate from parts of their community to earn the approval of the rest of society.

“Oct. 7 did not change the overall argument at all. It unfortunately, in many ways, gave this devastating, heartbreaking, new evidence from the argument,” Hurwitz said. 

Hurwitz hopes to reach a broad audience. But she spent a decade and a half enmeshed in Democratic politics professionally, and she particularly hopes to can reach Jews on the left who have distanced themselves from Zionism partly as a condition of their belonging in progressive spaces. 

“I am hoping that I can speak particularly to Jews who maybe have identified as Democrats, who are a little bit more on the left, and I can tell them why I am a Zionist. I can tell them why I think it is so important that Israel exists,” Hurwitz said. “I can make that argument, and I’m hoping that it will be credible coming from me, in a way that maybe it wouldn’t from others.”

Good Monday afternoon.

This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.

I’m Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime briefing. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

We’re watching developments in ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations after President Donald Trump called for Hamas to accept the latest U.S.-sponsored deal over the weekend, which would see all the hostages, living and dead, released on the first day of the ceasefire. 

Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and former Trump Mideast advisor Jared Kushner met with Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer in Miami today to discuss developments in Gaza, Axios’ Barak Ravid reports.

Hamas had claimed it was ready to “immediately sit at the negotiating table” in response to Trump’s statement, but sources for the terror group told a Saudi newspaper today that a complete hostage release would not be possible immediately, claiming a ceasefire would have to go into effect first to reach all the bodies…

In other national security news, The New York Times spotlights the race between defense firms to develop technologies for a future “Golden Dome” missile-defense system.

“Companies chosen for Golden Dome are likely to become the new cornerstones of U.S. defense, military officials involved in the project said,” and firms including Palantir and Anduril as well as innovative startups have been in discussions with the Trump administration, the Times reports. 

Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center for Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said, “There are more than 100 companies out there with a sensor, satellite or other devices they want to sell to Golden Dome. This is the Wild West, and this is a massive opportunity for whoever is selected”…

Diplomatic tensions are rising between Israel and Spain after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced today that his country would be formalizing an existing de facto arms embargo against Israel and banning anyone who has participated in “genocide” in Gaza from entering Spain as well as ships carrying fuel for the IDF from Spanish ports. 

“This is not self-defense, it’s not even an attack — it’s the extermination of a defenseless people,” Sanchez said of Israel’s war in Gaza.

In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced that Israel had banned two anti-Israel Spanish ministers from entering the country; Spain then summoned its ambassador in Tel Aviv, all shortly after a young Spanish immigrant to Israel was killed in this morning’s terror attack on a bus stop in Jerusalem…

The U.K. has come to a different conclusion about Israel’s actions in Gaza, according to a letter sent last week by former Foreign Secretary David Lammy before he was replaced in a reshuffling of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Cabinet. 

Lammy wrote to the chair of the U.K.’s international development committee that the Foreign Office had found in an assessment that Israel was not committing a genocide as it was missing “intent” to do so. It’s the first time the U.K. has said so explicitly, previously holding that the matter of genocide was up to international courts to determine, just weeks before the country is expected to recognize a Palestinian state…

Former Hudson Institute CEO and President Kenneth Weinstein will serve as CBS News’ ombudsman, a new role that oversees editorial concerns from employees and viewers, Paramount announced Monday. Alongside reports that Paramount is expected to purchase Bari Weiss’ Free Press and bring her into an editorial role at CBS, the moves mark a new era for the network that has been accused of systemic anti-Israel bias…

Embracing their anti-Israel bona fides, hundreds of actors, filmmakers and film industry workers recently signed a pledge to boycott Israel, which says it was inspired by filmmakers who refused to screen their films in apartheid South Africa.

The signatories, including Hollywood stars such as Alyssa Milano, Mark Ruffalo, Anna Shaffer, Ayo Edebiri, Cynthia Nixon, Hannah Einbinder and Ilana Glazer, promised “not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli film institutions — including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies — that are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people”…

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said in comments to Jewish leaders in New York City today that some of her fellow Democratic lawmakers are inadvertently fueling antisemitism through the rhetoric and slogans they use, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

“When they say words like ‘river to the sea,’ whey they say words like ‘globalize the intifada,’ it means end Israel. It means destroy Jews,” Gillibrand said. Intifada, she continued, is “not a social movement. It’s terrorism, it’s destruction, it’s death.”

The New York senator had previously offered strong condemnation of NYC Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani for his refusal to condemn the “globalize the intifada” slogan and has not endorsed his bid for mayor…

Mamdani’s opponent, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, meanwhile, officially dropped the ballot line “EndAntiSemitism,” running only on the “Safe & Affordable” line, after the New York City Board of Elections said he couldn’t run on both. Adams’ campaign spokesperson said he intends to pursue legal options over the issue…

Graham Platner, an anti-Israel Democratic Senate candidate in Maine, wrote in a high school op-ed shortly after 9/11, during the Second Intifada in Israel, that the media provides an “incomplete story” of terrorist acts and writes “incomplete coverage” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “where a sometimes-oppressive Israeli state can be, and often is, portrayed as a victim.” 

Platner and his co-authors argued in the article in a local Maine outlet, unearthed by the Free Beacon, that ending terrorist acts would be “best achieved by understanding the circumstances under which they were committed”…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for an interview with former Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz, whose new book As A Jew: Reclaiming Our Story From Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us, comes out Tuesday. 

It’s a busy week in Washington, where the 2025 MEAD Summit will kick off tomorrow. The high-profile but elusive gathering will bring together top American and U.S. security officials, diplomats, lawmakers, philanthropists, CEOs and journalists. If you’re attending, make sure to say hello to JI’s Josh Kraushaar and Gabby Deutch!

The Iran Conference, hosted by the National Union for Democracy in Iran, will also begin in Washington tomorrow for analysts, policymakers and activists to discuss Iran policy, just two months after U.S. and Israeli strikes decimated Tehran’s nuclear and military infrastructure.

On the Hill, the House Education and Workforce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions will hold a hearing on “unmasking union antisemitism.”

Virginia’s 11th Congressional District is holding its special election tomorrow to fill the seat of the late Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA). James Walkinshaw, Connolly’s longtime former aide, is the heavy favorite to win. Read JI’s interview with Walkinshaw here. 

Looking to New York City, The MirYam Institute will hold an international security benefit briefing tomorrow featuring former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett; nearby, the Soufan Center will begin its Global Summit on Terrorism and Political Violence, meant to honor the memory of 9/11 victims and address emerging global threats.

The Florida Holocaust Museum is reopening tomorrow with a ribbon-cutting ceremony after an extensive period of renovation.

Abroad, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem will host its belated July 4 party tomorrow, and the Hili Forum will convene its last day in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, covering trade, tech and governance. DSEI U.K., a large defense trade show, is starting up in London, where protests are expected against the dozens of Israeli firms that are participating.  

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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said in comments to Jewish leaders in New York City on Monday that anti-Israel protesters and, in some cases, fellow Democratic lawmakers are fueling antisemitism through the rhetoric and slogans they use, though she said that in many cases it is unintentional.

“Some of the rhetoric that comes out of various protests globally, various protests on college campuses is so damaging. When they say words like ‘river to the sea,’ whey they say words like ‘globalize the intifada,’ it means end Israel. It means destroy Jews,” Gillibrand said in a video from a roundtable with Jewish leaders in Borough Park shared by The Forward. “No matter what words they intend to be saying, that is the meaning of these simple phrases.”

Intifada, she continued, is “not a social movement. It’s terrorism, it’s destruction, it’s death.”

The New York senator has been particularly outspoken about the “intifada” rhetoric in the context of the New York City mayoral race. She previously offered strong condemnation of Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani for his refusal to condemn the “globalize the intifada” slogan and said that Jewish constituents were alarmed by his past comments. 

Gillibrand also claimed Mamdani had made “references to global jihad,” but later apologized. She has not endorsed Mamdani’s mayoral bid.

The New York senator said she would work with Democratic colleagues “who sometimes, in my opinion, don’t use the right words or aren’t sensitive to the impact of those words” and explain to them how their comments are being received and contributing to antisemitism, and to rally them to support efforts to fight antisemitism.

“Nine times out of 10, they aren’t trying to be antisemitic or even trying to be anti-Israel. They just think they’re fighting for human rights,” Gillibrand continued, “but the words they often choose to use are very hurtful and harmful and are undermining.”

“It is very hurtful and it makes people feel like sometimes the members of our party do not have their back, and I think that’s very disruptive and damaging for our community, for our state, for our brothers and sisters,” Gillibrand said.

Gillibrand added that leaders and individuals have to “understand the impact of their words in all contexts,” including to the Muslim community and other faith and immigrant communities.

She also insisted that “nine out of 10 Democrats are pro-Israel and want peace in the Middle East,” though a majority of the Senate Democratic caucus recently voted in favor of blocking some arms sales to Israel.

Gillibrand argued that many of her colleagues’ concerns are driven by the political leadership in Israel, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right members of the Israeli government.

“They don’t know how to articulate political disagreement, and sometimes it comes out as anti-Israel,” she said. “I try very hard to explain that your intentions are one thing, but how you’re received is another, and that’s where we get the disconnect.”

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. 

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.”

“The individuals involved are being notified that the University will immediately pursue its process for disciplinary action regarding their conduct,” the school said.

Jewish students and faculty praised Columbia’s swift response, which some attributed to the recent reforms, part of a deal made in July between the university and the Trump administration to restore the school’s federal funding that was slashed over the school’s alleged failure to address antisemitism. 

Tal Zussman, a third year PhD student in computer science, called the quick investigation a “significant change from a year ago.” 

“Last year’s first day of classes was marked by a protest that completely blocked the campus entrance and vandalism of [the sculpture] Alma Mater,” Zussman told Jewish Insider. “There were a few isolated instances [on Tuesday] that the university seems to be handling, but they were minor compared to last year’s drama. Hopefully things remain calm, but the university’s clear communication and quick response is a significant change from a year ago.” He said he felt that the change was “absolutely” due to the reforms. 

Civil engineering professor Jacob Fish similarly described a “situation in and around campus [that] is much better compared to previous fall and spring.” Fish, the director of Kalaniyot, the university’s new initiative to bring Israeli researchers to the Columbia campus, lauded the program as a way to further “make a difference on campus,” he told JI. 

“More than 200 first-year students participated in joyful and welcoming on campus activities,” Columbia’s Hillel director Brian Cohen told JI. “Three students disrupted these activities. We will continue to work with Columbia University’s rules process and hope that students who violate University rules continue to be held accountable.”

Columbia’s settlement with the federal government to restore some $400 million in federal funding that was slashed in March was met at the time with cautious optimism from Jewish leaders. 

Some expressed hope that the settlement could lead to a safer environment for Jewish students following nearly two years of antisemitic protests and disruptions on campus in the aftermath of Oct. 7. Others, however, raised concerns that the settlement did not include key structural reforms to protect Jewish students. 

Lishi Baker, a senior studying Middle East history and co-chair of the pro-Israel campus group Aryeh, told JI he is “optimistic” that Columbia’s recent changes, “particularly around discipline and policymaking, will make a big difference in improving life on campus for Jewish students and in preventing campus chaos.” 

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is set to speak later this month at ArabCon, an annual convention hosted by the Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, joining a lineup that includes numerous speakers with records of support for terrorism and antisemitism.

Khanna, in recent months, has grown more vocal in his criticism of the Israeli government and the war in Gaza, and is leading an effort to call for U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state. Khanna is seen as having aspirations for higher office.

Among the controversial speakers on the ArabCon lineup are Electronic Intifada Executive Director Ali Abunimah, CAIR San Francisco Executive Director Zahra Billoo and activist Linda Sarsour.

Abunimah has repeatedly praised and supported terrorist attacks on Israel as a form of “resistance” and claimed that there is “no credible evidence of a single rape on Oct. 7.” He has also claimed that Zionism is antisemitic and a spiritual continuation of the Holocaust. 

He advocates for a one-state solution that would see Israel erased and has dismissed Palestinian Authority leaders who support peace with Israel as “collaborators.”

Billoo was voted off of the national Women’s March board over her past commentary, including praising and defending Hezbollah and Hamas for attacking Israel, and condemned Jewish federations, the Anti-Defamation League, Hillel chapters and “Zionist synagogues” as “enemies” engaged in fomenting Islamophobia, police brutality and various other issues inside the United States.

Sarsour has argued that Zionists should be excluded from progressive spaces and movements, repeatedly faced accusations of antisemitism, praised a convicted terrorist and supports a one-state solution.

“I have never been to a conference where I agree with every speaker, but speaking at ArabCon is important,” Khanna said in a statement to Jewish Insider. “I will discuss my efforts to recognize a Palestinian state without Hamas as part of a two state solution. Recognition of Palestinian statehood — alongside continued efforts to secure Israel’s safety and guarantee its future as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people — is essential to achieving peace.”

Other speakers on the ArabCon agenda include Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Dearborn, Mich. Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, Zeteo CEO Mehdi Hasan and “The Young Turks” hosts Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur.

The American‑Arab Anti‑Discrimination Committee’s newly tapped national legal director, Jenin Younes, on Thursday called journalist Bari Weiss a “modern day Goebbels” in response to reports that Paramount is closing in on a deal to acquire Weiss’ The Free Press and give her a senior editorial role at CBS News.

Congregants of a Hindu temple on Long Island that was vandalized last year and worshippers of a Methodist Church in Oklahoma City, who last year put on a musical production of “Fiddler on the Roof” to learn about Jewish culture, may not appear to have much in common. 

But this Sunday, both houses of worship — together with an expected crowd of nearly 1 million congregants around the country — will join forces for the inaugural “Stand Up Sunday,” a show of force in the fight against antisemitism and all faith-based violence. 

As part of the effort, spearheaded by Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism and the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, founded by Rabbi Arthur Schneier, organizers said each congregation “will dedicate their services to raising awareness about the sharp increase of antisemitism and all forms of hate against religious communities in the United States by standing together on September 7.” 

FCAS’ Blue Square pins will be distributed to attendees “as a visible display of solidarity across faiths,” the group said. Congregational leaders will deliver remarks on antisemitism and faith-based hate in their sermons and houses of worship will place signs and posters throughout their buildings. 

The solidarity project comes less than two weeks after a mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis, in which two students were killed and 21 others injured. Since 2021, the number of religious-based hate crimes has doubled, according to the FBI. The FBI’s 2024 crime statistics show a record number of hate crimes against Jews in particular, accounting for nearly 70% of all religious-based hate crimes.

Bawa Jain, an Indian advocate for interfaith dialogue, told Jewish Insider that the participation of 11 Hindu temples around the country was a “no-brainer.” 

“People [aren’t aware] that Hindu temples are also vandalized. The media doesn’t cover it to the extent that other acts of violence are covered,” said Jain, secretary-general for the World Council of Religious Leaders and the founder and president of the Centre for Responsible Leadership. 

As Hindu temples across the U.S. have seen a surge of vandal attacks over the past year, Jain said that “the Hindu and Jewish communities share a similar past. We are constantly targeted. Any crime against one of us is a crime against all of us,” adding that in his 35 years as a religious leader, he has “never seen a time where Hindu communities were targeted in such a way. We must stand together.”

“One of the things I hope comes out of this is that people realize other communities are being targeted too, even if you don’t hear about it,” said Jain. “When I was approached to get the Hindu community behind this, it was a no-brainer. [Sunday’s] program will focus on incidents of hate, supporting each other and how we must educate our communities. Our hope is that through this first launch, next year more than 120 temples across the country will participate in Stand Up Sunday.”  

Participants in the day-long event include the Churches of the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, New Jersey and the Diocese of Brooklyn, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Armenian Diocese of America, National Council of Churches of Christ, and numerous Christian, African Methodist Episcopal, Episcopal, Presbyterian Churches as well as the Akshardham BAPS Swaminarayan Hindu Temple USA. Synagogues are not taking part. 

For Pastor Bob Long, head of St. Luke’s Methodist Church in Oklahoma City, speaking out against antisemitism goes back to the immediate aftermath of the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, where 11 congregants were shot dead during Shabbat morning services.   

Following a visit to the synagogue with other pastors, Long reflected that he “became aware of a Catholic church in the area that put up a sign that said ‘Love your neighbor, no exception.’”

“That became a theme for us in 2020 and 2021 when we gave away thousands of shirts” with the phrase, he told JI. 

Last year, the church dedicated its annual “St. Luke’s on Broadway” musical production to learning about Jewish heritage by putting on “Fiddler on the Roof.” St. Luke’s also hosted a pilot version of Stand Up Sunday last year. 

“Every Sunday, we have banners at our welcome center that say ‘St. Luke’s stands up to Jewish hate’ and ‘St. Luke stands up to all hate.’ For us, this is something we keep in the forefront all year long,” Long said. 

But he called this Sunday “a special lift” for learning about hate and antisemitism in particular. 

“We will be talking about [antisemitism] in our worship service,” said Long. “The sermon will be dealing with how we chose to participate and reminding people of what happened at Tree of Life but also what happens all across the country [today] and around the world. We will have multiple banners all around the church about standing up to Jewish hate.” 

“Stand Up Sunday is about raising awareness, inspiring action and standing together against hate,” Robert Kraft, founder of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, said in a statement. “By uniting behind the Blue Square, faith leaders are sending a powerful message, that antisemitism and all forms of hate have no place in our communities. At a time when division and intolerance threaten to pull us apart, this initiative shows what is possible when we unite across backgrounds and beliefs, and that our shared values are greater than what divides us.”

“Sept. 7 is the moment for us to stand shoulder to shoulder as people of faith to say enough is enough. We are all God’s Children and together we can silence the voices of hate and the perpetrators of violence,” Karen Dresbach, executive vice president of Appeal of Conscience Foundation, said in a statement. “In this concerning time of rising antisemitism and faith-based hate, ‘Stand Up Sunday’ underscores our core mission to ‘Respect the Other,’ a call that is more urgent than ever.”

Good Thursday afternoon.

This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.

I’m Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime briefing. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Kicking off the new school year, embattled Northwestern University President Michael Schill announced today he is stepping down as president, remaining in an interim role until his successor is chosen.

Schill’s tenure coincided with a period of antisemitic turmoil on the Chicago-area campus and he was accused of handling the issue poorly, leading some lawmakers to call for his resignation. 

A brief recap of Schill’s troubled tenure: He acceded to several demands of an anti-Israel encampment on campus in the spring of 2024, drawing condemnation from Jewish leaders and leading several Jewish members of Northwestern’s antisemitism advisory committee to step down. He then defended the move in a heated House Education and Workforce Committee hearing as being in the interest of Jewish students and was recalled by the committee this spring due to his alleged failure to live up to his own commitments from the previous hearing.

Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) said in a statement today that “President Schill will leave behind a legacy of not only failing to deter antisemitism on campus but worsening it. … Northwestern’s next president must take prompt and effective action to protect Jewish students.”

In his resignation announcement, Schill said that “from the very beginning of my tenure, Northwestern faced serious and often painful challenges. … I was always guided by enduring values of our University: protecting students, fostering academic excellence, and defending faculty, academic freedom, due process and the integrity of the institution”…

Columbia University, meanwhile, hired Jonathon Kahn as its senior associate dean of community and culture, a new position created to “build and lead initiatives that cultivate curiosity, civic purpose and meaningful dialogue” and “reimagine what a liberal arts and sciences education can be in the next century,” Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

Kahn signed a 2021 letter supporting the Palestinian “indigenous resistance movement” and rejecting “the fiction of a ‘two-sided conflict,’” accusing Israel of carrying out “settler colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing”…

Secretary of State Marco Rubio called an Israeli proposal by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to annex parts of the West Bank “wholly predictable” in response to European countries’ planned recognition of a Palestinian state. 

Rubio said, “We told all these countries. We said, if you guys do this recognition stuff — it’s all fake, it’s not even real — if you do it, you’re going to create big problems. There’s going to be a response from Israel … and it may even trigger these sorts of actions that you’ve seen, or at least these attempts at these actions. So we’re watching it closely.”

Rubio, who was asked about the issue today at a press conference in Quito, Ecuador, continued, “What you’re seeing with the West Bank and the annexation, that’s not a final thing. That’s something that’s being discussed among some elements of Israeli politics. I’m not going to opine on that today.”

“And by the way, let me tell you something. The minute, the day that the French announced their [intent to recognize a Palestinian state], Hamas walked away from the negotiating table. … We also warned that that would happen, and it did. Sometimes, these guys don’t listen,” Rubio said.

The issue of West Bank annexation was due to be discussed in a high-level meeting convened by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today but was reportedly removed from the agenda after the UAE warned such a move would be a “red line” for regional normalization…

Israeli officials told The Wall Street Journal that Mossad Director David Barnea and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar have joined IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir in expressing hesitation to Netanyahu over the IDF’s plan to expand its offensive into Gaza City. They have also argued in favor of reaching a partial hostage-release deal with Hamas as an alternative to the comprehensive deal Israel is currently seeking…

A viral accusation that the IDF killed an 8-year-old Palestinian boy at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid site in May was proven false when the boy was found to be alive and safely extracted from the Gaza Strip. The claim had been made by Anthony Aguilar, a former GHF contractor and Green Beret, who repeated the story on far-right and far-left media outlets.

Johnnie Moore, head of the GHF, said in a statement today, “When this lie was brazenly, cravenly shared from the press to the halls of Congress, our team set out to find this little boy — whatever it took.” He attributed the success to “veterans who never stopped working to find him and bring him to safety in the most complex environment imaginable”…

A report by the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, obtained by the Associated Press, found that, as of one day before Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities began, Iran had escalated its nuclear enrichment and increased its stockpile of near weapons-grade enriched uranium to where it could soon produce at least one atomic bomb…

On the Hill, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) asked the FBI to investigate the Palestinian Youth Movement as a “threat to U.S. national security” after one of its leader, Aisha Nizar, called for Palestinian activists to “disrupt” the supply chain for F-35 fighter jets at the recent People’s Conference for Palestine in Michigan…

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA), who is running for Senate in Georgia, filed a resolution today to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) for “promoting and cheering on terrorism and antisemitism” at the same conference…

Semafor’s David Weigel reports from this year’s National Conservatism conference, which is winding down in Washington today and featured a host of high-level right-wing personalities from Trump administration officials to lawmakers and influencers. 

Conference speakers and attendees were jubilant over what they view as conservative successes in President Donald Trump’s second term, but there was one “possible future sore point that conference organizer Yoram Hazony acknowledged openly: Israel.”

“Hazony was upset by the ‘depth of the slander of Jews as a people’ that he saw in corners of the online right. The Israel critics in their fold could make the nationalist ‘revolution consume itself,’ he added, and risk everything,” Weigel wrote…

In long anticipated news, United Airlines announced today it’s restarting direct flights to Tel Aviv from Chicago O’Hare and Washington Dulles in early November…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for reporting on a new cross-faith initiative to address antisemitism led by Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism.

This weekend, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will be campaigning with New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani in the next installment of Sanders’ Fighting Oligarchy tour, after an appearance in Maine last weekend with anti-Israel Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner. 

We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom! 

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Columbia University’s new hire for senior associate dean of community and culture was a signatory of a 2021 letter supporting the Palestinian “indigenous resistance movement” and rejecting the “the fiction of a ‘two-sided conflict.’” He is tasked with leading “meaningful dialogue” in his new position. 

Jonathon Kahn signed on to the “Vassar Community Members’ Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” while a professor of religion at Vassar College. 

“We affirm that the Palestinian struggle is an indigenous resistance movement confronting settler colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing, and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” the letter read. It came amid the May 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict, in which at least 13 Israelis were killed by Hamas rocket fire. The open letter also “includes a commitment to academic BDS, which, if put into effect, would restrict the educational opportunities and academic freedom of students and faculty who want to study about or in Israel.” 

In his new role at Columbia, Kahn will “build and lead initiatives that cultivate curiosity, civic purpose and meaningful dialogue — facilitating student engagement with faculty outside the classroom, and helping reimagine what a liberal arts and sciences education can be in the next century,” Josef Sorett, dean of Columbia College and vice president for undergraduate education, said in a statement announcing the appointment on Tuesday. 

Columbia University did not respond to an inquiry from Jewish Insider asking whether the school was aware of the petition before hiring Kahn.

The senior associate dean of community and culture role is a new position, created in the wake of increased antisemitism that has plagued Columbia’s campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel.  

Kahn, who has no known social media presence, said in a statement sent to the Washington Free Beacon on Wednesday regarding the petition that he is “a Zionist” who “believe[s] deeply in Israel’s right to exist and thrive as a Jewish state” and also “deeply value[s] Palestinian life and Palestinians’ aspirations for statehood.”

“My beliefs are not fully captured in this letter that was authored more than four years ago,” he said. “I didn’t agree with every sentence then, and I still don’t. But I put my name to that letter at a time when I felt in deep disagreement with actions taken by the Israeli government and I wanted to signal my support for the Palestinian civilians who were suffering.”

Kahn’s appointment comes just over a month after Columbia reached a deal with the Trump administration, in which it has to pay a $200 million dollar settlement, to restore some $400 million in federal funding that was cut by the government in March due to the university’s record dealing with antisemitism. 

Hasan Piker, the far-left streamer who frequently stirs controversy for using antisemitic rhetoric in his commentary on Israel and Jewish issues, will join a roundtable discussion next month hosted by The New Yorker Festival, the publication announced on Wednesday in a full lineup of events.

The conversation on Oct. 26, which will focus on “how the internet has reshaped political life” and its implications “for the future of democracy,” will also feature Saagar Enjeti, a right-wing populist pundit who co-hosts the “Breaking Points” podcast. It will be moderated by Andrew Marantz, a staff writer for The New Yorker, who published a feature story last March about Piker’s popularity among an audience of young, male voters who have recently gravitated to the right.

Piker, whose videos on Twitch and YouTube reach millions of viewers, has faced criticism for justifying Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, while forcefully denying some of the terror group’s atrocities — such as widespread reports of sexual violence that he has dismissed as “rape fantasies” and “hallucinations.”

In one stream last year, Piker, 34, argued that “it doesn’t matter if rapes f***ing happened on Oct. 7 — like that doesn’t change the dynamic for me even this much,” adding that “the Palestinian resistance is not perfect.”

He has also described Orthodox Jews as “inbred,” called a Jewish man a “bloodthirsty, violent pig dog” and compared Zionists to Nazis, among other slurs seen as antisemitic.   

His festival appearance drew criticism from the Anti-Defamation League, which denounced The New Yorker’s “decision to platform Piker” as “the latest example of mainstream media normalizing his brand of antisemitism and anti-Zionism.”

The streamer’s “toxic and extreme rhetoric opposing Zionism and the Jewish state normalizes antisemitism, reinforces bigotry and launders terror — and it has no place at a conference devoted to prominent influencers,” an ADL spokesperson told Jewish Insider on Wednesday, arguing that Piker’s “extreme statements” on a range of topics “should permanently disqualify him from appearing at any major media festival.”

“His appearing at a festival alongside such notables as Salman Rushdie, who lived for decades under threat of death from the Iranian regime, is deeply ironic, considering that Iran supports Hezbollah and the Houthis, two groups that Piker has openly admired and celebrated,” the spokesperson added, referring to the British-Indian writer who is among several prominent guests now scheduled to join the event next month.  

A spokesperson for The New Yorker declined to comment when reached by JI on Wednesday. 

In his extensive online monologues, Piker has notably defended the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, compared the Houthis in Yemen to the hero of an anime show and characterized the Oct. 7 attacks as an inevitable response to “violent means of maintaining an apartheid,” among other extreme comments.

Piker, a fierce opponent of Israel’s right to exist, has more recently equated liberal Zionism with Nazism, according to a video of his remarks posted to social media last month.

“Zionism is an exterminationist ideology built around ethno-religious supremacist values,” he said in a conversation with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) at the Democratic Socialists of America’s convention earlier this month. “So when people say, like, ‘Oh, well, I’m a liberal Zionist, I want there to be a Jewish ethno-state,’ I’m like, OK, what do you mean? It’s like saying you’re like a liberal Nazi. Like, you want an Aryan majority ethno-state?”

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) has accused Piker of engaging in “textbook antisemitism” and called on Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, to cut ties with the streamer, describing his comments as a leading contributor to “an explosion of Jew-hatred on social media” in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

Piker has rejected allegations of antisemitism, while insisting his views have been misconstrued as opposition to Jewish people rather than the Israeli government, a claim his critics have interpreted as disingenuous.

The streamer has otherwise mocked widespread concerns about rising global antisemitism — calling the issue a distraction from Israel’s military conduct in Gaza.

But even as he has faced backlash for promoting antisemitic rhetoric, Piker has continued to draw friendly profiles in mainstream outlets such as The New York Times and GQ magazine, which is owned by The New Yorker’s parent company, Condé Nast. He has also hosted several high-profile lawmakers on his streaming platform, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Ed Markey (D-MA) and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA).

Piker did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday about his planned comments for the roundtable next month. 

The New Yorker Festival, an annual multiday event in New York City featuring well-known figures in arts, media and politics, previously faced backlash in 2018 for inviting Steve Bannon, a former White House chief strategist to President Donald Trump who now hosts a popular MAGA-world podcast, to headline a conversation with the magazine’s editor, David Remnick.

Following major dropouts from participants who protested Bannon’s appearance at the festival — as well as internal objections raised by the magazine’s employees — Remnick announced he had decided to pull the invitation, saying that he did not “want well-meaning readers and staff members to think” that he had “ignored their concerns” regarding the controversial Trump ally.

Good Wednesday afternoon.

This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.

I’m Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime briefing. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Advisors to President Donald Trump have discussed giving New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa positions in the president’s administration, sources tell The New York Times, in order to consolidate New York City voters behind former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent, as a bid to block far-left Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s path to Gracie Mansion. 

Adams has already been offered a position at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Politico reports.

Cuomo told a group of donors last month that he anticipated Trump would get involved in the race and help bolster his prospects…

Turning internationally, Trump appeared to support Israel’s desire for a comprehensive deal to end the war in Gaza, as he posted this morning on Truth Social, “Tell Hamas to IMMEDIATELY give back all 20 Hostages (Not 2 or 5 or 7!), and things will change rapidly. IT WILL END!”

The figure of 20 hostages likely refers to the hostages thought to still be alive; there are a total of 50 hostages being held in Gaza…

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee held a closed-door briefing for members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee this morning on issues including the hostages and developments in the West Bank, lawmakers told Jewish Insider. 

“Given the insistence on the part of the French and other Europeans to recognize a Palestinian state, I thought it was important for my colleagues to have a greater understanding of what we’re actually talking about with respect to Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank, and how it is actually governed post-Oslo,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who organized the briefing, said.

Asked whether the group had discussed a potential declaration of Israeli sovereignty in that area, Lawler responded, “No, we had a broad discussion on the entirety of the situation there”…

On the campaign trail, former Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) is considering a bid for Senate to replace retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), telling a local outlet he will make a decision by the end of the month. 

Sununu would be a formidable candidate in the race, given his name recognition and family connections. (His brother, Chris, served as the state’s popular governor from 2017-2025, and his dad was both the state’s former governor and former President George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff.) 

But in a year that’s shaping up to be favorable for Democrats, Sununu would face a challenging race against Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), the expected Democratic nominee with a history of winning tough races in a swing district.  Pappas launched his candidacy in April shortly after Shaheen announced her retirement… 

In academic news, a federal judge ruled today that the Trump administration broke the law in freezing billions of dollars of Harvard’s research funding.

The government had argued that Harvard was no longer deserving of the funds due to antisemitism on campus, but Judge Allison Burroughs wrote, “We must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights, including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed on the altar of the other … Harvard is currently, even if belatedly, taking steps it needs to take to combat antisemitism and seems willing to do even more if need be.”

The ruling strengthens Harvard’s position in settlement talks with the administration, which were expected to result in a $500 million fine for the university…

After the International Association of Genocide Scholars adopted a resolution accusing Israel of committing genocide, pro-Israel activists made a mockery of the organization by registering to become members online, highlighting that anyone could join the respected academic and professional organization by paying a nominal fee, not necessarily by having recognized expertise. 

IAGS took down its member profiles on its website and shut down its X account after the issue was made public…

Yair Rosenberg chronicles the rise of Hitler apologists among far-right media personalities, including Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, in The Atlantic, highlighting several guests on Carlson’s podcast who have sought to recast Hitler’s actions as misunderstood.

“Carlson and his fellow travelers on the far right correctly identify the Second World War as a pivot point in America’s understanding of itself and its attitude toward its Jewish citizens. The country learned hard lessons from the Nazi Holocaust about the catastrophic consequences of conspiratorial prejudice. Today, a growing constituency on the right wants the nation to unlearn them,” Rosenberg writes…

In a move exciting political junkies and congressional watchers around the nation, C-SPAN announced it will be coming to YouTube TV and Hulu this fall…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for an interview with Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter on the future of U.S. aid to Israel and reporting on a leading Democratic candidate for Senate in Iowa’s support for conditions on Israel’s fight against terror.  

Tomorrow, Israeli President Isaac Herzog is set to meet with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican (after a brief diplomatic kerfuffle over who initiated the meeting) to discuss the hostages and the war in Gaza. Herzog was meant to meet with the pope’s predecessor, Pope Francis, before his death. 

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The House Appropriations Committee’s proposed funding bill for the Department of Education includes sweeping new provisions cutting off funding for colleges and universities that fail to address campus antisemitism, but would also cut $49 million in funding for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in 2026.

New language included in the bill states that no federal funding may be provided to institutions of higher education “unless and until such institution adopts a prohibition on antisemitic conduct that creates a hostile environment in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in all documents relating to student or employee conduct.”

The bill also bans funding to schools that have “failed to take administrative action against any student, staff member, or student group that commits acts of antisemitism while utilizing the facilities, grounds, or resources of such institution.”

The former provision would require schools to specifically implement anti-discrimination policies regarding antisemitism as a precondition of federal funding, while the latter could give the Department of Education additional latitude to cut funding to schools that have allowed antisemitic conduct to go unaddressed or unpunished.

At the same time, the bill would provide $91 million in funding for the Office for Civil Rights, down from $140 million provided in several previous years. The Trump administration, in its budget request to Congress, requested the same cut, as it looks to slash the size of the Department of Education while winding down the department.

The Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Programs voted along party lines to advance the bill to the full committee on Tuesday evening.

The funding proposal sets up a clash with the Senate, which proposed consistent funding at $140 million for the office in its own appropriations legislation, which the Senate Appropriations Committee passed at the end of July. The Senate bill does not include the new language relating to antisemitism.

A large coalition of Jewish community groups across the ideological spectrum previously urged the “highest possible funding” for the Office for Civil Rights, though others in the Jewish community have argued that the office does not require additional funding, instead needing only to better-prioritize resolving antisemitism cases.

House Democrats have frequently pointed to Republicans’ efforts to cut funding for the office as evidence that Republicans are not serious about confronting campus antisemitism. Key Republicans expressed support for the Trump administration’s proposal to cut funding for the office earlier this year.

“The Office for Civil Rights is on the front lines of the fight against rising antisemitism at universities and K-12 schools. It’s absurd to cut their budget when complaints are at an all-time high,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said in a statement to Jewish Insider. “Republicans have no interest in the hard work of enforcing protections for Jewish students on campus.”

Lauren Wolman, the senior director of government relations and strategy for the Anti-Defamation League, expressed support for the new provisions on campus antisemitism while warning about the OCR cuts.

“We appreciate the committee’s focus on the crisis of antisemitism in education and commitment to ensuring there are consequences when antisemitism occurs. The Appropriations Committee underscores this point forcefully and urgently,” Wolman said. “But if Congress simultaneously defunds the very office charged with investigating and enforcing Title VI, those consequences may never be realized. Jewish students need real accountability, backed by resources, enforcement, and monitoring.”

A spokesperson for the Jewish Federations of North America said, “This is the first step in a long process of appropriations, and we look forward to working with Congress to ensure that OCR has the resources necessary to effectively fulfill its mission.”