Former Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is launching the Dermer Consulting Group (DCG), a Jerusalem-based strategic advisory firm focusing on the U.S., Israel and the Middle East, Jewish Insider has learned.

Dermer, who has long been a part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner circle, officially departed the Israeli government in November, after twice extending his tenure. He returned earlier this year for what one official in the Prime Minister’s Office described as “reserve duty” amid the renewed fighting between Israel and Iran that began in late February.

Dermer previously served as Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., leaving the posting in 2021 after eight years. He was named strategic affairs minister the following year.

Yarden Golan, who previously served as Dermer’s chief of staff, is a cofounder of the firm and will serve as managing director. Golan, who is based in New York, has his own consulting firm, Golan Consulting, and joined deep-tech investment firm Deep33 Ventures as a venture partner earlier this year.

NGO Monitor President Gerald Steinberg is set to step down in January, 25 years after founding the Jerusalem-based watchdog group focused on scrutinizing nonprofit organizations critical of Israel and their funding sources, Jewish Insider has learned.

Olga Deutsch, 47, currently NGO Monitor’s vice president, will succeed Steinberg following a months-long transition process at the organization, which since its inception has been closely associated with its founder.

Steinberg, 74, who resigned from his position as a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University seven years ago, told JI, “There is a point in one’s life where one has to decide the different priorities. And I’ve done this long enough, and other people can have more energy and can take over.”

Deutsch joined NGO Monitor more than a decade ago, heading the Europe department before becoming VP seven years ago. Deutsch told JI that she hopes to “open the next exciting chapter,” while preserving the “character of the organization that Gerald created, which is serving as pioneers and continuing to flag the new fronts through which the Jewish state and the Jewish people are being attacked or put in danger.”

“No one can step into [Steinberg’s] shoes — I would not dare try that,” Deutsch told JI, describing Steinberg as a trailblazer who “identified 25 years ago what will be — and are — the tactics and the method in which the Jewish state and the Jewish people are being attacked, and that is weaponization and abuse of the language of human rights.”

Steinberg had previously been set on a purely academic career path. But the World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, which he said was “hijacked months or even years before as a platform for revitalizing the ‘Zionism as racism’ theme,” changed his trajectory, particularly as he observed the role of NGOs in that drive.

Reflecting on the achievements of the organization he subsequently built, Steinberg said, “I can certainly look back and say that both in the academic realm and in the political realm, NGOs are now recognized as important political actors.” 

Steinberg argued that there is greater understanding that NGOs can have malign impacts and can contribute to conflict and antisemitism, despite presenting themselves as human rights organizations.

When he started working on the subject, Steinberg recounted, “People said to me, ‘Why are you bothering with this? They are so unimportant in international politics.’ That’s no longer the case.”

Steinberg said that a challenge for the team going forward “is this tremendous increase in antisemitism as it’s reflected in and fueled by NGOs in a broad sense and how do you prioritize … in the activities of NGO Monitor? I think that that’s a very difficult challenge, because there’s a temptation to be everywhere.”

The group has long drawn criticism from human rights organizations and left-leaning activists who accuse it of seeking to delegitimize NGOs critical of Israeli policy and disproportionately targeting left-wing, pro-Palestinian groups, while aligning itself with Israeli government positions and broader pro-Israel advocacy efforts.

Deutsch rejected those accusations, telling JI, “We have a very, very clear definition of what it is that we research: We focus on NGOs that define themselves as human rights and humanitarian NGOs.” 

Deutsch was born in Serbia and lived in Germany and Belgium before moving to Israel. She brought to NGO Monitor expertise in Europe and the European Union, which she highlights as “the single largest aid donor in the world.” 

“We try to follow the money, because we understand that understanding the financial streams and who’s behind these organizations can be — and oftentimes is — quite telling,” Deutsch said. She argued that many of the organizations scrutinized by NGO Monitor receive European government funding and that some Palestinian NGOs highlighted in the group’s reports have ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU. 

Last month, the Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) closed its doors, citing “Israel’s targeted criminalization of Palestinian human rights organizations.”

Steinberg said NGO Monitor’s research into alleged ties between DCIP officials and the PFLP led to increased scrutiny of the group and subsequent funding cuts. “We are blamed for that,” he said.

NGO Monitor research has regularly been presented in parliaments in Europe and offers specific policy recommendations in the region, as well as North America and Australia. Deutsch said the group seeks to “inspire that policy conversation with elected officials in how do you prevent aid going directly and indirectly to Hamas again” — a pertinent consideration in the rebuilding of postwar Gaza.

Most recently, the European Parliament in April passed a budgetary resolution citing an NGO Monitor report on internal suspected Hamas documents that “allegedly indicate attempts of Hamas’ infiltration and monitoring through so-called ‘guarantors’ of international NGOs including within Union-funded humanitarian projects in the Gaza Strip.”

The resolution “urges the Commission to investigate all allegations of any type of undue infiltration and influence within Union-funded humanitarian projects and to suspend or recover Union funding where breaches are confirmed.”

“Before Oct. 7, [2023,] it was not always easy to explain why the activities of these non-governmental organizations are dangerous,” Deutsch said. “But after Oct. 7, I think the magnitude and the volume and how publicly it was displayed, of the hatred done in the name of human rights, has made everyone understand why the work that NGO Monitor does is  crucial.”  

After Steinberg passes the mantle to Deutsch, he will remain involved with the organization’s 20-person team as president emeritus and continue leading its academic activities and research initiatives.

Citing an “unprecedented and escalating threat environment facing religious communities and institutions” across the country, a coalition of Jewish groups, joined by organizations representing a range of other faiths, is urging Senate and House leaders to significantly expand funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program.

“We write as a broad coalition of faith-based and cultural organizations to express our deep concern about the unprecedented and escalating threat environment facing religious communities and institutions across the United States. This threat is not abstract; it is very real and felt by the communities we represent on a daily basis,” the groups wrote in a letter, led by the American Jewish Committee, to the top leaders of each chamber.

They said that faith-based institutions “should be able to solely focus on serving and strengthening their communities, but in this heightened threat environment, they instead must also worry about the next attack and whether they have the resources to stay safe,” and that members of targeted religious communities are forced to “weigh the risk of violence against the act of worship.”

The letter urges Congress to provide “up to $1 billion” for the NSGP — a significant expansion of funding from its 2025 funding level of $274.5 million, and the proposed 2026 funding level of $300 million.

“Previous funding has not kept pace with demand,” the groups wrote. “More must be done to bolster this program; therefore, we encourage you to engage with communities in your district and to encourage the same of your respective caucuses. We have no doubt you’ll hear about the fear and threats our communities are facing at this moment, and therefore, we urge you to allocate appropriate resources to address this threat.”

The religious organizations also urged swift passage of the long-gestating Pray Safe Act, which would create a centralized federal clearinghouse to provide security guidance to religious institutions, including training resources and information about available grant opportunities.

Additional Jewish organizational signatories included the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Hillel International, the JCC Association of North America, the Jewish Federations of North America, the Rabbinical Assembly, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Orthodox Union and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

They were joined by groups representing the Muslim, Lutheran, Greek Orthodox, Hindu, Evangelical, Seventh-day Adventist, Sikh and Catholic communities.

Rabbi Shalom Landau, a Satmar Hasidic leader who posts online videos offering practical, Torah-based advice, has found unlikely supporters in a prominent Jordanian-American tech founder who is outspokenly critical of Israel and within white nationalist online subcultures.  

“Rabbi putting out the best self-help content on the internet rn,” tweeted Amjad Masad, the Dubai-based founder and CEO of Replit, an AI-powered platform for building, coding and deploying web applications. Masad shared one of Landau’s latest videos on Tuesday, which offers advice for dealing with abuse by quoting the Book of Jeremiah: “Cursed is a man who puts his trust in people.”  

Masad has frequently smeared Israel in online posts. On Jerusalem Day last year, he accused Israelis celebrating as “go[ing] around Jerusalem hunting Palestinians to torture and abuse. Think Spanish ‘running the bull’ with all its cruelty but directed at humans. This event is supported by their government and police (and of course US taxpayer).” After Israel carried out strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, Masad called the Jewish state “the single most destabilizing force in the world.”

Landau’s approach of providing Jewish wisdom without mentioning Israel has elicited praise from male-dominated, right-wing Internet subcultures as well, where white nationalist ideology and antisemitism are typically rampant. Comments from anonymous accounts on his posts state, “say what you want about them [Jews], but they have a good track record with marriages lasting” and “Why are Christian pastors unwilling to speak this way?”

Some comments are supportive but still carry antisemitic undertones, “When a guy called rabbi shalom gives you money advice, you just listen.” Others have scrutinized Landau’s videos for sexist ideology, such as one about marriage that states, “No woman wants to speak to a husband who gets as weak as she is when she speaks to him… sure she wants empathy but the one that comes from you[r] logic not you[r] feelings.”

Landau, whose videos on marriage, responsibility and financial stability are widely circulated on X and TikTok (where he has 34 thousand followers), was condemned by some Jewish communities when — just weeks before the New York City mayoral election — he hosted then-candidate Zohran Mamdani in his Williamsburg sukkah.

The meeting was part of the mayor-elect’s bid to win over Orthodox Jewish support amid his frequent criticism of Israel. At the time, Landau defended his ties to Mamdani by saying, “We think our voices decide who wins. That’s wrong. God does. We have a mission in exile to live among the nations. Our strength in exile isn’t protest. It’s the Torah.”

The Satmar sect of Judaism, to which Landau belongs, is typically anti-Zionist, believing only the Messiah is supposed to bring about a Jewish state. 

Still, Landau’s Torah videos have also inspired a prominent pro-Israel and modern Orthodox rabbi, Mark Wildes, the founder and director of Manhattan Jewish Experience.

Wildes wrote in a Dec. 2 post, “Every so often, something unexpected happens online that reveals a larger truth about who we are meant to be. Recently, a rabbi named Shalom Landau has become an unlikely voice within corners of the internet that are anything but friendly to Jews.” 

“His Torah videos have received widespread praise among young men from the ‘groyper’ and ‘manosphere’ movements — subcultures laced with grievance and overt antisemitism. People who have spent years resenting Jews are suddenly listening to a Jew, a rabbi no less, teach Torah because they sense wisdom there,” continued Wildes. 

“They are responding not to the endless Hasbara that Israel is ‘just like every Western democracy,’ but to Torah messages about building a life of meaning and responsibility. If we want to be a ‘light unto the nations,’ we must first reclaim our own light and resist becoming defined by whatever the algorithm rewards. We must speak from our Torah tradition, not from insecurity. When we share a message grounded in confidence rather than defensiveness, even the most unlikely audiences notice.”

“With Chanukah on the horizon, maybe that’s the beginning of understanding what it truly means to be a nation that carries light.”