• President Donald Trump is convening the National Security Council at 11 a.m. as senior U.S. officials mull American involvement in what has been to date a conflict between Israel and Iran.
• Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is meeting for nuclear talks today in Geneva with his counterparts from France, Germany and the U.K. The European delegation is also set to meet with the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas.
• The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Anna Borshchevskaya, Michael Knights, Farzin Nadimi and Assaf Orion are headlining a virtual event this afternoon focused on the Israel-Iran war.
• The Jewish Democratic Council of America is hosting a briefing on the Israel-Iran war with Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Adam Smith (D-WA) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).
• Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter is appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S melissa weiss

On Thursday, NBC News reported a claim from Iran’s Ministry of Health that “over 2,500 injured people were treated in public and university hospitals, with 1,600 discharged and about 500 still hospitalized.” Earlier this week, CBS News reported 224 Iranians were dead from Israeli airstrikes, also attributed to Iran’s Ministry of Health.

There is no free press in Iran, and journalists have been arrested and imprisoned simply for practicing journalism in the Islamic Republic. There is no real way to verify the Iranian Health Ministry’s numbers, and so many journalists report them, unscrupulously.

In a fast-paced, constantly evolving news environment, accuracy is paramount. The ability to try to authenticate a statistic by attributing it to an official government source, while knowing that the source is unreliable, can serve as the basis for an inaccurate narrative with wide-ranging effects.

An ABC News report from earlier this week on violence near humanitarian aid distribution sites in Gaza leads with the headline “More than 30 killed at controversial foundation’s aid distribution sites in Gaza: Health officials,” giving an air of legitimacy to the claim — even though a reader would have to move down to the story before learning that those health officials came from the “Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health.” And nowhere in the story does ABC News note that the Gaza Health Ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.

The inclination to publish talking points and statistics from terror groups and regimes incentivizes a playbook for malign actors — from Iran to the Houthis to Hamas — to provide misleading casualty figures for the media to carry that lack the intricacies and nuances necessary in such reporting.

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

Battle of Wills: The Atlantic’s Eliot Cohen considers the implications of Israel’s preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear program. “Israel’s current campaign is built around two realities often missed by so-called realists: first, that the Iranian government is determined to acquire nuclear weapons and cannot be deterred, bought off, or persuaded to do otherwise, and second, that Israel reasonably believes itself to be facing an existential threat. …  It takes a particular kind of idiocy or bad faith to disregard the speeches, propaganda, and shouts of ‘death to Israel.’ The Israeli lesson learned from the previous century — and, indeed, the Jewish one learned over a much longer span of time — is that if someone says they want to exterminate you, they mean it.” [TheAtlantic]

The Case for a U.S. Attack: In The Free Press, Niall Ferguson and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant posit that the U.S. should help Israel destroy the Fordow nuclear facility in order to “shorten the war, prevent wider escalation, and end the principal threat to Middle Eastern stability” posed by Iran. “A nuclear-armed Iran would pose more than a threat to the Israeli people and their state. Its missiles could reach Gulf capitals and Europe. Those missiles could allow Iran to sponsor terror and wage conventional war with impunity. The result would be a nuclear arms race in the Gulf. By destroying Fordow, President Trump would create a new equilibrium in the Middle East and reestablish American leadership. The strike would focus solely on eliminating Iran’s nuclear arms program, but it should be accompanied by a clear message: If Iran attempts to target the United States or its Gulf allies, it will risk the elimination of its regime.” [FreePress]

Back to Begin: In The Wall Street Journal, Amit Segal considers how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has employed the “Begin Doctrine” established four decades ago that seeks to keep bad actors from acquiring nuclear weapons. “Persuading the Trump administration to support the attack was a historic diplomatic success. The ayatollahs spread their tentacles throughout the Middle East, but now Iran stands completely vulnerable. If only the free world had adopted its own Begin doctrine against countries like North Korea and Pakistan, so that a dictator’s temper tantrum couldn’t lead to nuclear winter. At least Israel has become the world’s bomb squad, a stroke of good fortune for which we can thank Menachem Begin.” [WSJ]

The FBI is increasing its surveillance of Iran-backed operatives and suspected sleeper cells in the U.S….

U.S. carriers including United and American Airlines are suspending service to parts of the Middle East, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, amid heightened tensions in the region around the Israel-Iran war…

Bloomberg reports on the surprise of Arab states by the timing and speed of Israel’s attack on Iranian nuclear facilities last week; one Gulf official told the publication that it was “beneficial for his own country and the wider region to see Iran’s nuclear program set back or destroyed.” Satellite imagery indicates that Iran has made a concerted push to export oil since the eruption last week or war with Israel…

The Wall Street Journal looks at the rising financial cost of the Israel-Iran war, finding that the costs of interceptors alone can cost Israel hundreds of millions of dollars a day…

Iran is reportedly using Israeli home-camera systems to spy inside Israel and obtain better information about its missile targets…

The Washington Post spotlights Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) as the trio seek to lead the Democratic Party into the next generation; the Post describes the three as “centrist women with national security backgrounds who helped retake the House in 2018 and this year hope to steer their beleaguered party back toward winning”…

Edan Alexander, the Israeli-American citizen who was held hostage in Gaza for more than 580 days, returned on Thursday to his family’s home in Tenafly, N.J….

Josh Kesselman, the founder of the Raw rolling paper company, purchased the cannabis magazine High Times this week for $3.5 million…

The Wall Street Journal reports on the behind-the-scenes efforts that go into planning luxury weddings, ahead of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s upcoming nuptials; luxury event planner Ruth Minkowitz, whose Elite Kosher Events company works with clients in Italy, told the WSJ, “Food, plates, material, everything, it all goes by boat … You need a lot more personnel, just to schlep.” 

Rabbi Leo Dee, whose wife and two daughters were killed in a terror attack in the West Bank in 2023, announced his engagement to Aliza Teplitsky…

A view of the Khatib family home yesterday in the northern Israeli village of Tamra that was destroyed in an Iranian missile strike, killing four women inside. During a solidarity visit to the family, Jewish Agency Chair Doron Almog said he hoped to connect the Arab town to a Jewish community in the United States, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross from Tamra. “We have come here to be in pain together with the Khatib family. We are in pain with you,” Almog said, speaking at a mourning gathering with the family. “There is great pain and loss here. And from that pain, I want us to cultivate partnership, to cultivate love, to cultivate hope.”

Writer, director and film producer, he is a two-time Israeli Academy Award winner and the founder of Hey Jude Productions, Dani Menkin turns 55 on Sunday… 

FRIDAY: Weston, Fla., resident, Harold Kurte turns 96… Former member of Knesset for the Ratz party, Ran Cohen turns 88… Owner of Schulman Small Business Services in Atlanta, Alan Schulman… Detroit-based pawnbroker, reality TV star, author and speaker, Leslie “Les” Gold turns 75… Chef, baker and author of eight books, she popularized sourdough and artisan breads in the U.S., Nancy Silverton turns 71… Host of “Bully Pulpit from Booksmart Studios,” Bob Garfield turns 70… Former assistant managing editor for politics at NBC News, now an adjunct professor at the University of Florida and FIU, Gregg Birnbaum… Federation leader, co-founder of Brilliant Detroit (helping children out of poverty) and of Riverstone Communities (it owns and operates over 80 manufactured housing communities in 12 states), James Bellinson… EVP of the Orthodox Union, Rabbi Moshe Hauer turns 60… Professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University and rabbi of Congregation Ohr HaTorah in Bergenfield, N.J., Rabbi Zvi Sobolofsky turns 60… Israeli-American screenwriter, film director, writer and producer of 20 films, Boaz Yakin turns 59… Senior legal affairs reporter at Politico, Josh Gerstein… Governor of Pennsylvania, Joshua David Shapiro turns 52… U.S. senator (R-MI), Eric Stephen Schmitt turns 50… Singer, songwriter and hazzan, he is a co-founder of the band Moshav, Yehuda Solomon turns 48… Senior program director of civic initiatives at The Teagle Foundation, Tamara Mann Tweel, Ph.D…. Israeli author of crime and thriller books, Mike Omer turns 46… Journalist, blogger and EMT in NYC, Maggie Shnayerson turns 44… EVP of Moxie Strategies, Pearl Gabel… French-Israeli singer and songwriter, Amir Haddad turns 41… Deputy communications director in the Trump 45 White House, now head of external affairs at Standard Industries, Josh Raffel… Jennifer Bernstein… Photographer, producer and digital strategist, she is a supervising producer at HardPin, Sara Pearl Kenigsberg… Writer, director, comedian, YouTuber, podcaster and mental health advocate, Allison Beth Raskin turns 36… Team captain of Maccabi Tel Aviv of the Israeli Basketball Premier League and the EuroLeague, John DiBartolomeo turns 34… Chief campus officer at Hillel Ontario, Beverley Shimansky… Director of advocacy initiatives at The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Jaime Reich… 

SATURDAY: Former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Marjorie Margolies turns 83… Investment banker, he was the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador in the Bush 43 administration, Charles L. Glazer turns 82… Philanthropist, she is vice-chair of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Ingeborg Hanna Rennert… British businessman, co-founder with his brother Charles of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, appointed to the House of Lords in 1996, Baron Maurice Saatchi turns 79… U.K. cabinet minister in both the Thatcher and Major governments, Sir Malcolm Leslie Rifkind turns 79… Retired creditors rights attorney in the Chicago area, David Stephen Miller… Retired managing editor and writer at The Washington Post for 33 years, now chief editor at The Reis Group, Peter Perl… Member of the Knesset since 2013 for the Yesh Atid party, Mickey Levy turns 74… Susan Gutman… CEO of Amir Development Company in Beverly Hills, Keenan L. Wolens… Punk rock singer and songwriter, known as the Gangsta Rabbi, Steve Lieberman turns 67… Washington Institute distinguished fellow and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, David Makovsky turns 65… Chief communications officer at Minerva University until last month, he is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, David L. Marcus… Co-founder and executive editor of Axios, Mike Allen turns 61… National education policy reporter for The Washington Post, Laura Meckler… Founder and leader of Beautifully Jewish, Tanya Rebecca Singer… Actor, singer and entrepreneur known for his work on Broadway, television, film and concerts, Aaron Scott Lazar turns 49… Journalist and author, Abigail Krauser Shrier turns 47… Public affairs consultant based in Manhattan, Sam Nunberg turns 44… Co-founder and former CEO of Kaggle, a data science platform acquired by Google in 2017, Anthony Goldbloom turns 42… Former member of the Knesset where she was the first-ever Druze woman, she then became a Jewish Agency shlicha to Washington, Gadeer Kamal Mreeh turns 41… Communications executive at Netflix, she was previously a communications officer at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Jacqueline (Jackie) Berkowitz… Chief of staff to the chairman and CEO at Saban Capital Group, Amitai Raziel… Award-winning Israeli classical pianist, Boris Giltburg turns 41… Executive director at Hunter Hillel, Merav Fine Braun… Editor for the global programming team at CNN, Madeleine Morgenstern… Singer-songwriter known as Jeryko, Yaniv Hoffman turns 34… Singer-songwriter and actor, known by his mononym Max, Maxwell George Schneider turns 33…

SUNDAY: A leading securities, corporate and M&A attorney, he is a founding partner of the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, Martin Lipton turns 94… D.C.-based VP of Israel Aerospace Industries from 1969 until 2017, Marvin Klemow turns 88… Jerusalem-born 2009 winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry, she is the director of a research center at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Ada Yonath turns 86… Retired U.K. judge, who chaired high-profile hearings on ethics in the media, prompted by the 2011 News of the World phone hacking affair, Sir Brian Henry Leveson turns 82… Winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for physics, he is a professor at Brown University, J. Michael Kosterlitz turns 82… Justice on Israel’s Supreme Court until 2014, she was previously the Israeli State Prosecutor for eight years, Edna Arbel turns 81… U.S. senator (D-MA), Elizabeth Warren turns 76… Member of the California State Assembly until 2022, now a judge on the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Richard Hershel Bloom turns 72… Partner at Shibolet & Co., one of Israel’s largest corporate law firms, Yoram Raved turns 69… AIPAC director for Greater Washington, Deborah Adler… Chair of the kindergarten and pre-K division of Bowman Ashe Elementary in Miami, Fla., Cynthia Rosenbluth Huss… Past president of the UJA-Federation of New York, Alisa Robbins Doctoroff… U.S. senator (D-CA), Adam Schiff turns 65… Former member of the Knesset for the Hatnuah and Zionist Union parties, Robert Tiviaev turns 64… Creator of the Android operating system which he sold to Google, Andy Rubin turns 63… Member of the Knesset for the Likud party, now serving as deputy prime minister and minister of justice, Yariv Gideon Levin turns 56… SVP at Red Banyan PR, Kelcey Kintner… Program director at the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Rafi Rone… The Economist‘s Israel correspondent and author of a biography of PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Anshel Pfeffer turns 52… Israeli jazz vocalist and composer, Julia Feldman turns 46… COO of TR Capital Management, Ahron Rosenthal… Retired MLB second baseman, he played for Team Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics and managed the team at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Ian Kinsler turns 43… Russian-Israeli Internet entrepreneur, co-founder of Russia’s largest social network VK[dot]com and Selectel network centers, Lev Binzumovich Leviev turns 41… Baltimore-based endodontist, Jeffrey H. Gardyn, DDS… Israeli Muay Thai kick boxing champion, Ilya Grad turns 38… Israeli-born basketball player with 11 NBA seasons, Omri Casspi turns 37… Former outfielder for Team Israel in the 2016 World Baseball Classic qualifier round, now a real estate investor based in Nashville, Rhett Wiseman turns 31…

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine are testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning on the Pentagon’s 2026 fiscal year budget.
• Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) will appear in a new interview with Tucker Carlson, slated to be released later today. Clips released ahead of the full interview show clashes between the Texas Republican and conservative commentator, whose policy positions on Iran and Israel are increasingly at odds with the Trump administration.
• The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York is holding a memorial event tonight for Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

While the last two months have been an exercise in diplomacy for Trump administration officials, who have crisscrossed the Middle East and Europe in an attempt to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program, the last 24 hours have seen a sharp pivot from President Donald Trump to a more hard-line approach to Tehran.

“UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” the president posted on his Truth Social site on Tuesday afternoon, understood to be a message to Iran after more than five days of Israeli attacks meant to degrade Tehran’s military and nuclear infrastructure. Iranian reprisals that have paralyzed Israel, but resulted in damage that has fallen far short of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s threats. (Khamenei responded on Wednesday that “the Iranian nation will not surrender.”)

Trump’s latest comments underscore his shift away from the isolationist elements of the GOP that have dominated his administration since a purge of more traditional foreign policy-minded Republicans, including former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. As The New York Times’ Ross Douthat wrote on Tuesday, Trump’s isolationist supporters “imagined that personnel was policy, that the realists and would-be restrainers in Trump’s orbit would have a decisive influence. That was clearly a mistake, and the lesson here is that Trump decides and no one else.”

On Capitol Hill, while Republicans appear publicly split on the level of involvement that the U.S. should have in the conflict — from working with Israel to destroy the Fordow nuclear facility to forcing Iran’s hand in diplomatic talks — JI’s conversations with legislators indicate a different approach behind the scenes. One senior Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss internal conference dynamics estimated that nearly the entire GOP conference is privately united on the issue of the U.S. supporting Israel in bombing the Fordow facility if Israel needs such support. Read more from JI’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod here.

“I think the president has struck the right position,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told JI, “which is supportive of Israel’s right of self-defense, which is what this really is, and supporting them publicly while they defend themselves. I think that’s the right position to stick on.” Read more of Hawley’s comments here.

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

From Hands-Off to Hands-On: The New York Times looks at how President Donald Trump’s approach to the Israel-Iran war shifted as the war has unfolded. “When he woke on Friday morning, his favorite TV channel, Fox News, was broadcasting wall-to-wall imagery of what it was portraying as Israel’s military genius. And Mr. Trump could not resist claiming some credit for himself. In phone calls with reporters, Mr. Trump began hinting that he had played a bigger behind-the-scenes role in the war than people realized. Privately, he told some confidants that he was now leaning toward a more serious escalation: going along with Israel’s earlier request that the United States deliver powerful bunker-busting bombs to destroy Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordo[w].” [NYTimes]

Axis of Illiberality: In The Washington Post, Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Israel’s special envoy for combating antisemitism and a former member of Knesset, considers the role of China, Russia and North Korea alongside Iran in advancing antisemitism around the world. “While ‘intersectionality’ once was intended to advance the foundational principles of life and liberty, it can now be applied to a contemporary target: authoritarian and illiberal regimes’ efforts to tear apart those very foundations. The declared intention is destroying liberal democracies. … There are many ties that bind Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Oil, arms and food bring them together; stoking global antisemitism is a useful tool in a divide-and-conquer strategy. These regimes pursue their agendas in ways that may outwardly vary, but they share a common goal: the West’s downfall. They all recognize that the liberal principles of democracies and the international rules-based order can be exploited to sow fear, despair and distrust.” [WashPost]

President Donald Trump, traveling back to Washington from the G7 in Canada, dismissed a public assessment by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard made earlier this year that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports; Politico looks at the “widening gap” between Trump and Gabbard as the two clash on Middle East policy issues…

A new bipartisan resolution introduced by Reps. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and Brad Sherman (D-CA) and 14 co-sponsors on Tuesday praises Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear and military facilities and condemns Iran’s retaliatory missile attacks on Israeli civilian targets, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

An Army general who served as the Levant and Egypt branch chief at the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s J5 planning directorate was removed from the joint staff amid an investigation into his social media posts, which included a reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Netanyahu and his Judeo-supremacist cronies” and allegations that American pro-Israel activists are prioritizing “support for Israel over our actual foreign interests”…

Tablet interviews the Institute for Science and International Security’s David Albright, a former International Atomic Energy Agency inspector, about the state of the Iranian nuclear program and Israeli capabilities to target the Fordow facility without U.S. assistance…

Former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) said he would consider a bid for the House seat held by Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) if Sherrill prevails in the November gubernatorial election…

Colorado’s two Democratic senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, wrote to Senate leaders on Tuesday calling for funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to be increased to as much as $500 million following the antisemitic attack on a hostage awareness march in Boulder, Colo., Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports; they also urged lawmakers to ensure that the funding can be used to “pay permanent security guards and other critical personnel”…

Oracle announced a new program, Oracle Defense Ecosystem, to help smaller vendors sell technology to the Pentagon, including artificial intelligence; participating vendors will be able to utilize Oracle’s office space and expertise with the Defense Department’s procurement system, as well as receive a discount for Palantir’s cloud and AI services…

Warner Bros. Discovery is cutting CEO David Zaslav’s pay when the company divides in two next year, though it will provide him with extra stock options that will pay out if the company hits share-price targets, in order to better tie pay to performance…

A Bay Area man is facing federal hate crimes charges for his participation in what the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office called an “antisemitic group beating” of two people, one of whom was Jewish; a physical confrontation escalated after members of the group reportedly shouted “free Palestine” and “f–k the Jews”…

A Maryland man was charged with allegedly sending numerous threats to Jewish organizations in Pennsylvania over a period of more than a year, from April 2024 to May 2025…

The Birmingham City Council became the first in the U.K. to recognize the Jewish identity of residents when collecting demographic data…

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Israel was doing the “dirty work” of striking Iran “for all of us”…

A new poll from the Council for a Secure America found overwhelming support (79%) among the Israeli public for Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities…

The Wall Street Journal speaks with Israeli entrepreneurs about how the war between Israel and Iran is impacting Israeli startups — destroying homes and offices, calling up reservists, canceling conferences, halting business travel and affecting productivity…

The U.S. withdrew troops from two bases in northeastern Syria, amid concerns from U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces in the region that the vacuum could provide an opening for extremist groups…

Turkey is ramping up its production of medium- and long-range missiles amid the escalation between Israel and Iran…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) met on Tuesday with Yair Lapid, the opposition leader, the first time the two have met for a security briefing in more than a month.

Music mogul, Scott Samuel “Scooter” Braun turns 44…

Chicago-based attorney, he is the only ordained rabbi to have served as an alderman on the Chicago City Council, Solomon Gutstein turns 91… Former Washington Post editor and reporter, Fred Barbash turns 80… Retired IT management advisor at Next Stage, Steven Shlomo Nezer… Croatian entrepreneur, he was previously the minister of economy, labour and entrepreneurship in the Croatian government, Davor Stern turns 78… Rabbi at Or Hamidbar in Palm Springs, Calif., he previously led congregations in Israel and Stockholm, Rabbi David James Lazar turns 68… Rebecca Diamond… Best-selling author and journalist, she was editor-in-chief of USA Today, Joanne Lipman turns 64… Retired professor of English at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, Helene Meyers… Executive of the William Pears Group, a large UK real estate firm founded by his father and grandfather, Sir Trevor Steven Pears (family name was Schleicher) turns 61… Vice chairman and president of global client services at BDT & MSD Partners, she recently joined the board of Meta/Facebook, Dina Powell McCormick… White House senior aide during the Trump 45 administration, he is a principal of Cordish Companies, Reed Saunders Cordish turns 51… Film director and screenwriter, Jonathan A. Levine turns 49… Actor, comedian, satirist and writer, known professionally as Ben Gleib, Ben Nathan Gleiberman turns 47… Television producer and writer, Jeremy Bronson turns 45… Baseball pitcher for Team Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics, he is now the director of pitching development for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Jeremy Bleich turns 38… Of counsel at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Esther Lifshitz… Israeli musician, producer, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by his stage name Dennis Lloyd, Nir Tibor turns 32… Investor at Silver Point Capital, Jacob E. Best… Rachel Hazan…

• The House Appropriations Committee will conduct its full committee markup of the 2026 defense and homeland security funding bills.
• The House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on the Department of Defense’s 2026 budget request with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine.
• The Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs will hold a hearing on the nomination of Sean Plankey to be director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
• The Zionist Organization of America is holding its annual legislative lobbying day at the Capitol.
• Argentine President Javier Milei is being presented with the Genesis Prize today at Jerusalem’s Museum of Tolerance.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV

Since the Israeli strike on Iran’s air defenses in October, Jerusalem has sought a green light, or something close to it, from Washington to strike the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites. President Donald Trump, however, repeatedly told Israel to hold off as he pursued a diplomatic agreement with Tehran to stop its enrichment program. 

Now, after the Iranian nuclear program has continued apace and Trump has voiced frustration over Tehran’s intransigence, it seems that Jerusalem’s patience for diplomacy is running out.

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Mossad chief David Barnea will be meeting Trump’s top negotiator Steve Witkoff on Friday ahead of the sixth round of talks with Iran in Oman on Sunday “in an additional attempt to clarify Israel’s stance,” an official in Jerusalem said, amid persistent reports and strong indications that Israel is prepared to strike Iran.

After a call with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu last week, Trump said that if Tehran does not agree to give up uranium enrichment, the situation will get “very, very dire.” On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that “there have been plenty of indications” that Iran is moving towards weaponization of its nuclear program, and Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, the chief of CENTCOM, said that he presented Trump and Hegseth with numerous options to attack Iran if nuclear talks break down. 

Hours later, the State Department began to move some personnel out of Iraq and the military suggested that servicemembers’ families depart the Middle East, while the U.K. warned about a potential “escalation of military activity” in the region. Such evacuations are often the first step to reduce risk ahead of a large-scale military operation. 

Trump told reporters that the evacuations are happening because the Middle East “could be a dangerous place, and we’ll see what happens.” More on this from Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod here.

Kurilla postponed his testimony before the Senate planned for Thursday. Staff at U.S. embassies and consulates throughout the Middle East were told to take safety precautions, and those stationed in Israel were told not to leave the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, Jerusalem or Beersheva.

Multiple news outlets published reports citing anonymous American officials that Israel is ready to strike Iran without help from the U.S. One possible reason for the timing — moving forward even as Washington and Tehran are set to enter a sixth round of talks on Sunday — is that Iran has reportedly begun to rebuild the air defenses that Israel destroyed last year. Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri reportedly said last month: “We are witnessing a remarkable improvement in the capability and readiness of the country’s air defense.” 

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

A Socialist in Gracie Mansion?: The Free Press’ Olivia Reingold considers Zohran Mamdani’s chances of beating former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to become mayor of New York City. “To a rising number of New Yorkers, particularly the young and college-educated, Mamdani is a welcome alternative to a 67-year-old member of the Democratic establishment. As canvassers broke off to start knocking on doors, 33-year-old bar owner Roberto Beltre told me he supported Mamdani because ‘the ideas that we hear at these protests are never said by any of these other politicians.’ His girlfriend, 31-year-old Mercy, chimed in: ‘He’s saying everything that I want to hear. It seems unlikely, but I hope that he can win.’ The thing is—he can. In only a few months, he’s managed to surge from polling at 1 percent, to second place in the race with the endorsement of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A new poll commissioned by a pro-Mamdani PAC shows him just two points behind Cuomo in a head-to-head race. Other recent polls show Cuomo winning—but only in the eighth or 10th round under New York City’s ranked choice voting system.” [FP]

What’s Next in Gaza?: The Times of Israel’s founding editor, David Horovitz, writes about the continued lack of clarity over Israel’s next steps in Gaza, exacerbated by a growing disconnect between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump as well as the IDF. “Some military sources speculate that the IDF may eventually be asked to oversee a controlled return of the Gaza populace to their largely ruined home areas, under a process that would necessitate screening the returnees to ensure that Hamas forces do not simply come back with them. However nice in theory, the idea is impractical. The IDF is not capable of controlling, much less screening, large masses of civilians. … At the same time, domestic and global criticism of the war is growing — especially since the government chose in March not to move ahead with the second and third phases of the January deal it had unanimously endorsed, which was intended to secure the release of all hostages and end the war, and instead resumed the military campaign. Growing, too, is US presidential impatience, in part reflecting deepening dismay from within Republican ranks, and Trump has vast weapon-supply and diplomatic leverage to exert over Netanyahu should he so choose.” [TOI]

Iranian Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh threatened on Wednesday to attack U.S. bases in the region if conflict arises, saying, “Some officials on the other side threaten conflict if negotiations don’t come to fruition. If a conflict is imposed on us … all U.S. bases are within our reach and we will boldly target them in host countries”…

Iran announced plans today to expand its uranium enrichment and install advanced centrifuges after a U.N. atomic energy agency resolution declared it in violation of nuclear obligations…

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine declined to definitively say on Wednesday whether they believed Iran would use a nuclear weapon if it acquired one, as they testified before the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports…

The Knesset on Thursday struck down a bill that would have called an election later this year, with Haredi parties agreeing to another week of negotiations on penalties for yeshiva students who avoid the IDF draft, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports…

Israeli Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, chairman of the United Torah Judaism party, resigned today and will join the opposition, but the rest of the Haredi bloc remains part of the coalition… 

Ezzedin al-Haddad, known as the Ghost of al-Qassam, has been named as the new leader of Hamas in Gaza following Israel’s assassination of his predecessor Mohammed Sinwar, and before that Yahya Sinwar…

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the U.S. and Israel-backed aid distribution mechanism, reported that a bus carrying more than two dozen members of its team were “brutally attacked” by Hamas on Wednesday night, resulting in at least five fatalities, multiple injuries and concerns of some team members taken hostage…

The IDF recovered the bodies of two deceased hostages from Gaza on Wednesday, that of Yair Yaakov and another whose name has not yet been approved for publication…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told U.S. envoy Tom Barrack that he is interested in the U.S. acting as a mediator in an updated security deal ultimately leading to a full peace agreement between Israel and Syria, Axios scooped…

Rev. Johnnie Moore, an evangelical Christian pastor and former Trump advisor, and Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa this week. On potential Israel-Syria normalization, Moore told Reuters, “I think peace is very possible, if not probable”…

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on Wednesday stating that the Trump administration cannot detain nor deport Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil. The ruling does not take effect until Friday, leaving time for the government to appeal…

At a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on antisemitism, Democrats repeatedly highlighted Trump administration delays in disbursing already allocated Nonprofit Security Grant Program funds. Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX), the subcommittee chair, argued that policy changes, aggressive prosecutions and condemnations of antisemitic ideology are equally or more important than funding…

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers wrote to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday, again demanding that Francesca Albanese, U.N. special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, be dismissed from her position, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

The DETERRENCE Act, bipartisan legislation which increases penalties on individuals who commit crimes on behalf of the Iranian regime or other foreign adversaries, passed the Senate by unanimous consent on Tuesday…

Asif Rahman, a former CIA analyst, was sentenced to just over three years in prison on Wednesday for unlawfully retaining and sharing top secret records about Israeli plans for a strike on Iran on social media…

Ira Stoll writes in the Wall Street Journal about Harvard Memorial Church, owned and operated by Harvard University, where the minister has repeatedly bashed Israel from the pulpit, calling the war in Gaza “increasingly genocidal,” saying “We know what hell looks like … it looks like Gaza today” and arguing that the anti-Israel encampment on campus was “right to lament and decry the death of so many innocent people in Gaza”…

Nathan Diament, the executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, argued in an op-ed titled “Congress must act against the American intifada” that “Congress is failing to meet the urgent demands of the moment” and must open application for the National Security Grant Program, increase its funding to $500 million for 2026 and allocate $200 million of the Department of Justice’s existing grants to local police specifically for increased patrols and police presence at faith institutions…

Leland Lehrman was named as the executive director of the MAHA Institute, a policy center that previously operated as a super PAC supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign. Lehrman has repeatedly espoused his belief in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and, speaking on a far-right radio show, argued that Jews communicate with the devil and discussed “high-level Jewish Illuminists, or Lucifer worshipers”…

Columnist and writer Miranda Devine described her experience interviewing President Donald Trump for her new podcast “Pod Force One,” calling him “a bountiful host” who will “quite literally offer you the food off his plate”…

Apollo Global Management announced that it will not interview or extend offers to the class of 2027 this year, breaking with its tradition of extending future-dated offers. CEO Marc Rowan said he agreed with criticism of hiring young recruits too early…

The trial of three teenagers accused of raping a 12-year-old Jewish girl, calling her a “dirty Jewess,” began yesterday in Paris…

Some 100 LGBTQ+ leaders from North America met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal Herzog at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem yesterday, as part of the Jewish Federations of North America’s LGBTQ+ mission to Israel. 

Founder and managing partner of the investment firm Thrive Capital and the co-founder of Oscar Health, Joshua Kushner turns 40…

Senior of counsel at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, Martin Edelman turns 84… Retired sportscaster for NBA games on TNT, has also been the play-by-play announcer of multiple Super Bowls, NBA Finals, Stanley Cup Finals and the World Series, Marv Albert (born Marvin Philip Aufrichtig) turns 84… Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit since 1991, now on senior status, Judge Andrew Jay Kleinfeld turns 80… Former solicitor of labor in the Nixon and Ford administrations, then a senior partner at Gibson Dunn, William J. Kilberg turns 79… Social psychologist, he is the director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University, Leonard Saxe turns 78… Israeli statesman and scholar who has served in multiple ministerial and leadership positions in the Israeli government including 20 years as a member of the Knesset, Yosef “Yossi” Beilin turns 77… Rabbi at Temple Beth El in Santa Cruz County, Calif., for 40 years, now emeritus, known as Rabbi Rick, Richard Litvak… British Conservative Party member of Parliament from 1992 until last year, his father was a rabbi, Sir Michael Fabricant turns 75… Professor at the University of Florida’s Hamilton Center, his 2022 book is The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People, Walter Russell Mead turns 73… Dental consultant and recruiter, Kenneth Nussen… Peruvian banker and politician, José Chlimper Ackerman turns 70… Senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and professor at Georgetown’s Center for Jewish Civilization, Danielle Pletka turns 62… Television producer and executive, he was the CEO of Showtime Networks until 2022, David Nevins turns 59… EVP of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) in Washington, D.C., Rabbi Levi Shemtov… Film and television actor, known for his role as Louis Litt in the legal drama series “Suits,” Rick Hoffman turns 55… SVP for politics at NBC, Carrie Budoff Brown… Founder of Singularity Communications, Eliezer O. (“Eli”) Zupnick… Canadian tech entrepreneur, television personality and venture capitalist, Michele Romanow turns 40… Partner at Enso Collaborative, Hanna Siegel… Co-creator of the Mozilla Firefox internet browser, he was the director of product at Facebook and then worked at Uber, Blake Aaron Ross turns 40… Associate director of health policy and the law initiative at Georgetown Law School, Zachary Louis Baron… VP at MediaLink, Alexis Rose Levinson… Multimodal transportation coordinator in the planning department of Montgomery County (Md.), Eli Glazier… Photographer and Instagram influencer, Tessa Nesis… Israeli windsurfer, he won a gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Tom Reuveny turns 25… Lead consultant at AutoNate, Joel Bond…

• It’s primary day in New Jersey. More below on the state’s gubernatorial primaries.
• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is testifying before the House Appropriations Committee this morning, alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine. It’s the first of three hearings Hegseth is slated to sit for this week, and the first since the “Signalgate” incident in which Hegseth and others, including Vice President JD Vance, discussed plans for a strike on Houthi targets in Yemen in a group chat that included journalist Jeffrey Goldberg.
• Also this morning, the House Armed Services Committee is holding a hearing on “U.S. Military Posture and National Security Challenges in the Greater Middle East and Africa” with CENTCOM Commander Gen. Erik Kurilla, while CIA Director John Ratcliffe testifies before the House Intelligence Committee.
• This afternoon, former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom and the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin will discuss human rights in Turkey at a hearing being convened by the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.
• We’re also keeping an eye on the Knesset, where Israel’s opposition is expected to put forward a vote tomorrow to dissolve the government, which would trigger new elections. The motion is likely to pass only if the Haredi parties that are part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition break with the prime minister over Haredi military conscription.

A QUICK WORD WITH MATTHEW KASSEL

As New Jersey’s competitive gubernatorial primary takes place today, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) looks like the front-runner in the crowded Democratic field but without much public polling and a late flurry of advertising, there’s still a considerable amount of uncertainty as to who will emerge as the nominee in the six-way race.  

Sherrill, a military veteran who has represented a suburban north New Jersey seat since 2018, is the favorite of many Democratic Party officials and has been leading in the limited public polling of the race. The congresswoman has also been one of the top fundraisers in the field, along with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), who has been courting support from the state’s sizable Jewish community.

“Josh has been betting on the Jewish community coming out strong, and there is a realistic possibility that if new voters emerge in places like Lakewood, which is the fifth-largest city in New Jersey now, it could play a decisive role,” one Jewish community activist, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss the primary, told Jewish Insider on Monday.

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

Tunnel Visions: The New York Times’ Isabel Kershner interviews former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov about the religious journey he experienced while in Hamas captivity in Gaza. “A few days into his captivity, he said, he began to speak to God. He made vows. He began to bless whatever food he was given. And he had requests — some of which he believes were answered. ‘You are looking for something to lean on, to hold onto,’ Mr. Shem Tov said in a recent interview at his family home in Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv. ‘The first place I went to was God. I would feel a power enter me,’ he said. … Mr. Shem Tov, who turned 22 in captivity, said he had always had faith, but had never been religiously observant. Many other released hostages have spoken of similar experiences, finding solace and the strength to survive by connecting or reconnecting with God and recalling oft-forgotten Jewish rituals.” [NYTimes]

Tug-of-War on Tehran: Politico’s Rachael Bade and Felicia Schwartz look at the behind-the-scenes efforts by both the isolationist wing of the GOP and Iran hawks to impact President Donald Trump’s final decision on how to address Iran. “The private lobbying and public sniping highlight a vast breach in the GOP over U.S. foreign policy just months into Trump’s first term. While many hawkish members of the old guard have viewed [Mideast envoy Steve] Witkoff’s diplomatic effort with skepticism, the more restrained wing of the party has been adamant about defusing tensions with Tehran. In the middle of the tug-of-war is Trump, who ran on a promise of ending what his followers see as endless U.S. foreign adventurism and war.” [Politico]

Doctor Without Borders: In The New Yorker, Eyal Press spotlights Israeli-Arab Dr. Lina Qasem Hassan, who in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks traveled to treat survivors of the massacre at Kibbutz Be’eri, about her experiences as a medical provider of Palestinian descent treating Israelis in a post-Oct. 7 environment. “But Qasem Hassan wasn’t going anywhere, even as she acknowledged feeling increasingly isolated, not only from her Jewish peers but also from some of her fellow Palestinians, including family members. Her older brother, a successful economist, and her sister, a government lawyer, have repeatedly warned her that her outspokenness could damage not only her career but theirs. … [S]he had sometimes asked herself if going to the Dead Sea after October 7th had been the right decision. She ultimately decided that she was proud of it. She told me, ‘I did it for myself, because it put to the test the idea I was raised on — that all people are equal and that human pain is universal.’” [NewYorker]

The Justice Department is suing an Oakland, Calif., coffeehouse and its Palestinian owner over a 2024 incident in which a man wearing a yarmulke was denied service and asked to leave the premises…

NBC News reports on the White House’s struggle to hire Pentagon staff to work under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, amid broader tensions between the administration and Hegseth, who was reportedly instructed to cancel a trip to the Middle East because the itinerary included a stop in Israel…

A new poll by the Pew Research Center found that the global Jewish population increased by 1 million between 2010-2020, to 15 million; Pew noted that the total number of Jews in the world is still less than the pre-World War II number of 16.5 million…

Solidarity PAC, a pro-Israel super PAC in New York City, is backing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo as its top choice for mayor and urging supporters not to rank Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani in the primary, according to a new voter guide shared first with JI…

The Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition announced it is supporting Cuomo, saying in a statement that the election “presents a stark and urgent choice for Jewish voters”…

Ken Moelis will step down from his eponymous investment bank later this year; Moelis, who launched the firm in 2007, will be succeeded by co-founder Navid Mahmoodzadegan, the bank’s co-president…

The New Yorker spotlights television writer Gertrude Berg, whose 1950s show “The Goldbergs,” about a midcentury Jewish family in the Bronx, was among the first family sitcoms…

Police in Ottawa, Canada, are investigating the vandalism of the city’s National Holocaust Monument that took place earlier this week…

The family of Israeli hostage Matan Angrest released video taken from his capture on Oct. 7, 2023; in the video, Angrest’s limp body is seen being tossed off a tank into the arms of terrorists…

The New York Times interviews former hostage Liat Beinin Atzili, who was released from captivity in November 2023 and whose husband, Aviv, was killed in the Oct. 7 attack…

Argentine President Javier Milei arrived in Israel last night, traveling to the Western Wall in Jerusalem shortly after landing…

Climate activist Greta Thunberg departed Israel on an El Al flight to France on Tuesday morning, a day after the boat she and other activists had attempted to sail to Gaza was intercepted by Israeli forces…

International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi said that Iran’s announcement that it had obtained information about an Israeli nuclear program appeared to refer to Israel’s Soreq Nuclear Research Center, which operates under the IAEA’s supervision…

Israel’s navy conducted strikes against Houthi targets in the Yemeni port of Hodeida, the first time Israel has attacked the Iran-backed group from the sea…

Iran expanded its ban on dog-walking — first instituted in Tehran in 2019 — to several major cities around the country; Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had previously called dog ownership “reprehensible”…

The Jewish Federation of Tulsa, Okla., announced a new initiative, the Elson Israel Fellowship, aimed at making the city a center for Israel-related thought. The four inaugural fellows are: World Zionist Organization advisor Avi Gamulka, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross, author and educator Sarah Sassoon and community organizer and researcher Barak Sella…

The board of trustees of the Jewish Federations of North America elected Gary Torgow, a Detroit-based philanthropist and board president of the Jewish Federation of Detroit, as the group’s chair…

Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) spoke at a ceremony on Monday to rename the Delray Beach post office after Ben Ferencz, who led post-World War II Nuremberg prosecutions of Nazis. Read more about Frankel’s yearslong effort to honor Ferencz here.

Author of award-winning books about her experiences before, during and after the Holocaust, Aranka Davidowitz Siegal turns 95… 

Journalist and author, Jeff Greenfield turns 82… Musician, producer, composer and conductor for film and television, Randy Edelman turns 78… Physical therapist at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, Andrea Sachs… Cathy Farbstein Miller… Senior director of communications for CoGenerate, Stefanie Weiss… Former attorney general and later governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer turns 66… Director of business development at Evergreen Benefits Group, Avi H. Goldfeder… Blogger and columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, Neil Steinberg turns 65… Film, television and stage actress, Gina Gershon turns 63… President and CEO of JINSA, Michael Makovsky… Actress and the older sister of comedian Sarah Silverman, Laura Silverman turns 59… Israeli film and TV actress, Avital Abergel turns 48… Veteran of nine NFL seasons as an offensive tackle, he is now the athletic director of Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, Calif., Mike Rosenthal turns 48… VP of strategic partnerships at the Birthright Israel Foundation and director of community education at NYC’s Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, Rabbi Daniel Kraus… Professor at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, Yascha Mounk turns 43… Economic commentator on Israeli television, Matan Hodorov turns 40… Publisher of The New York Sun and CEO of The Algemeiner, Dovid Efune… Actor, producer, writer and director, Joseph Paul “Joey” Zimmerman turns 39… CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco, Tyler Gregory… Singer, composer and entertainer, Simcha Leiner turns 36… CEO of Encounter Programs, Yona Shem-Tov… Belgian singer and songwriter, known as “Blanche,” Ellie Blanche Delvaux turns 26…

• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is meeting with President Donald Trump today at the White House.
• Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Randy Fine (R-FL) are speaking at a Sephardic Heritage International DC event this evening on Capitol Hill commemorating the anniversary of the Farhud pogrom that took place in Iraq in 1941.

A QUICK WORD WITH ji’s MATThEW KASSEL

With just under three weeks until New York City’s mayoral primary on June 24, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is slowly but surely securing commitments from a range of key leaders in the Orthodox Jewish community, a large and politically influential voting base whose widespread support is seen as crucial to his pathway to the Democratic nomination.

In the coming days, Cuomo is expected to garner endorsements from several prominent Orthodox leaders in Brooklyn and Queens, including major Hasidic sects in Borough Park and Williamsburg that can traditionally turn out thousands of votes, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to address private plans.

But as most top Orthodox leaders have not historically taken sides until relatively late in the primary season, some Jewish community activists are voicing anxiety about their continued delay in publicly backing Cuomo — as he increasingly faces competition to his far left from Zohran Mamdani, a Queens state assemblyman whose fierce opposition to Israel has drawn mounting accusations of fueling antisemitism.

“Now that the race has been essentially a two-man race for the past few months, what are they waiting for?” one Jewish leader, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told Jewish Insider. “Are they considering Mamdani?”

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

Full-Court Press: In the Baltimore Sun, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan calls for “moral clarity” in the face of rising antisemitism in the U.S. “When innocent people are attacked for their faith or identity, neutrality is not courage. It is cowardice. People are hungry for real leadership. Not performative outrage. Not partisan talking points. Real leadership, rooted in principle and courage. That is what communities expect from their elected officials, civic organizations, media institutions and universities. They want to know that when a synagogue is firebombed or a Jewish student is harassed, someone will speak up. When extremists target a faith community, there should not be silence or spin. There must be action.” [BaltSun]

Choppy Waters: The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Kalin and Shelby Holliday look at how the maritime warfare perpetuated by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen has reshaped the U.S. response to threats in the region. “Officials are now dissecting how a scrappy adversary was able to test the world’s most capable surface fleet. The Houthis proved to be a surprisingly difficult foe, engaging the Navy in its fiercest battles since World War II despite fighting from primitive quarters and caves in one of the world’s poorest countries. The Houthis benefited from the proliferation of cheap missile and drone technology from Iran. They fired antiship ballistic missiles, the first-ever combat use of the Cold War-era weapon, and they innovated how they deployed their weaponry. The latest technologies have transformed maritime warfare, much the way they have rewritten the script for land wars in Ukraine — forcing militaries to adapt in real time.” [WSJ]

The Show Must Go On: The Washington Post’s Marc Fisher reflects on his recent visit to a new LGBTQ exhibition at the Capital Jewish Museum, which opened on the same day the museum reopened following an attack the week prior in which two Israeli Embassy officials were killed. “Jewish museums chronicle the centuries-long tension among Jews between insisting on belonging to the culture where they live and accepting the outsider status foisted upon them by dominant forces in their society. …  The exhibit confronts contradictions, which are at the heart of Judaism. People like the shooter cannot bear such nuance; to them, it somehow makes sense to take out one’s wrath toward Israel against a Jewish American institution — one that barely mentions Israel. The museum, like all good encounters with history, cherishes clashes between past and present, but the shooter can only see the binary: us and them.” [WashPost]

President Donald Trump announced last night that citizens of 12 countries will be barred entry to the United States, while citizens of seven other countries will face restrictions. The planned executive order was scooped yesterday by Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch…

Jason Isaacman, an ally of Elon Musk who had been the Trump administration’s pick to head NASA until his nomination was pulled last month, reportedly told associates that he believes that Musk’s departure from the White House gave the administration an opportunity to rescind the nomination; White House officials said the nod was pulled over Isaacman’s past donations to Democrats, which Isaacman disputed, saying the White House was aware of the donations…

Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will release a book later this year about her time in the Biden administration and departure from the Democratic Party…

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) launched the Save New York PAC to boost GOP candidates running in local races across the state…

Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Bill Keating (D-MA), Valerie Foushee (D-NC) and Becca Balint (D-VT) are leading more than 90 Democrats on a resolution calling on the administration to “urgently use all diplomatic tools” to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza, as well as release the hostages and end the war in Gaza; Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) is leading similar legislation in the Senate with the support of nearly all Democrats…

A group of lawmakers from more than 30 countries came together on Wednesday to discuss ways that the Abraham Accords can be leveraged to address energy security issues in the Middle East, the Caspian Sea Basin and the Eastern Mediterranean, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod has learned…

Reps. August Pfluger (R-TX) and Randy Fine (R-FL) introduced a resolution condemning the antisemitic attack on a hostage awareness march in Boulder, Colo., and calling for congressional action “to secure the border and deport migrants who overstay their visas”…

The U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war without conditioning a ceasefire on the release of the remaining hostages; the other 14 members of the council voted in favor…

The IDF found and returned the bodies of U.S.-Israeli citizens Judith Weinstein-Haggai and Gad Haggai, who were killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports…

The Wall Street Journal interviews victims and witnesses of the terror attack on marchers at a Boulder, Colo., walk on Sunday to call attention to the plight of the hostages in Gaza…

A federal judge issued an order barring the deportation of the wife and children of the Egyptian national accused of attacking the Boulder hostage march…

Germany’s Federal Research and Information Point for Antisemitism said that antisemitic incidents in the country had nearly doubled between 2023 and 2024, finding 8,627 incidents of violence, vandalism and threats targeting Jews last year…

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation suspended operations for a second day, as both the foundation and Israeli officials address safety concerns tied to a series of deadly incidents near distribution sites in recent days…

Israeli officials said the country exported a record $14.8 billion in weapons in 2024, an increase of $1.8 billion from the year prior…

Stu Sandler is joining the office of Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) as chief of staff; Sandler was previously  the deputy director of the Republican Jewish Coalition…

Aaron Bandler is joining the Jewish News Syndicate as U.S. national reporter, based out of Los Angeles…

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis spoke on Wednesday at a vigil held at the site of the weekend terror attack targeting a hostage-awareness march in Boulder, Colo., in which 15 people, including a Holocaust survivor, were injured.

Actor, voice actor, comedian, writer and producer, Nicholas Kroll turns 47…

Lithuanian-born Holocaust survivor, co-founder of the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond, Va., known for his ever-present cowboy hat, Jay M. Ipson turns 90… Training director and broker associate of the Santa Monica, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services branch, Saul Bubis… Owner of the NFL’s New England Patriots, Robert Kraft turns 84… The first woman to serve as international president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Judy Yudof turns 81… Senior project manager in the AI field, Dan Yurman… Israeli politician, diplomat and businessperson, he served as consul general of Israel in Philadelphia from 1988 to 1992, Israel Peleg turns 76… VP of new business development at Maresco & Partners, Linda Greenfield… Author of 11 personal finance books, financial advisor, motivational speaker and television host, Susan Lynn “Suze” Orman turns 74… Staff member at Burbank Temple Emanu El, Audrey Freedman-Habush… Portrait photographer and visual anthropologist, she is the author of The Jews of Wyoming: Fringe of the Diaspora, Penny Diane Wolin turns 72… Former commissioner on the U.S. International Trade Commission, now a consultant, Dean A. Pinkert turns 69… Best-selling instrumental musician, the saxophonist “Kenny G,” Kenneth Bruce Gorelick turns 69… Columnist for the New York Post, Andrea Peyser turns 66… Senior associate general counsel at Compass real estate, Sam Kraemer… EVP and managing director at DC’s Burson Cohn & Wolfe (BCW), Michael Heimowitz… Member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament for eight years until 2022, Gila Deborah Martow turns 64… VP of government affairs at Invenergy, Mark S. Weprin turns 64… First-ever Jewish speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, she served from 2020 until 2022, Eileen R. Filler-Corn turns 61… Manager of the Jeff Astor Legacy Fund, Beth Astor Freeman… Member of Congress (D-PA-6), her father is a Jewish Holocaust survivor from Poland, Christina Jampoler Houlahan turns 58… Member of the British House of Commons for 15 years, now a member of the House of Lords, Baron Ed Vaizey turns 57… Entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author, he holds more than 100 granted and pending patents, Nova Spivack turns 56… Professor of Israel studies at UCLA, Dov Morris Waxman turns 51… Film and television actress, she has a recurring role in the Fox series “The Cleaning Lady,” Liza Rebecca Weil turns 48… Co-founder of BlueLabs and director of analytics for the campaigns of both Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Barack Obama in 2012, his father and grandfather were both rabbis, Elan Alter Kriegel… Research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, he was previously a member of the New Hampshire state Legislature, Jason Bedrick turns 42… Humorist, novelist and screenwriter, Simon Rich turns 41… Partner relationship manager at Voyant, Arielle Levy Marschark… Account director on the corporate PR team at M Booth, Maya Bronstein… Clara Moskowitz… Susan Stein…

• We’re keeping an eye on ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations, amid reports yesterday that Israel and Hamas were close to reaching an agreement that would have included the release of 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 deceased hostages. A senior Hamas official last night rejected the U.S.-proposed ceasefire deal that had already been agreed to by Israel.
• Fox News Channel will air a wide-ranging interview tomorrow night with Sara Netanyahu, in which she’ll discuss with Lara Trump how life in Israel has changed since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks.

A QUICK WORD WITH JOSH KRAUSHAAR

Pore over the latest round of polling in the New York City mayoral primary, and it is something of a political analyst’s Rorschach test. The question is what will be a bigger turnoff for Gotham voters: extremism or personal scandal?

Will Zohran Mamdani’s radicalism make it difficult for the DSA-affiliated assemblyman — polling in second place — to win an outright majority of the Democratic vote? Candidates from the far-left wing of the party typically have a hard ceiling of support, but the latest polls suggest he’s not yet facing the elevated negative ratings that candidates in his ideological lane typically encounter. There hasn’t yet been a barrage of attack ads reminding voters about his record, as he slowly inches closer to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. 

Will Cuomo’s personal baggage ultimately be a bigger factor for Democratic voters? Cuomo has been leading the race since jumping in, but holds elevated unfavorability ratings, predominantly stemming from the scandal over sexual misconduct allegations, which he continues to deny, that forced him to resign as governor. 

The city’s ranked-choice voting system requires the winner to receive an outright majority of the vote, and build a broader coalition than would be necessary if one only needed a plurality to prevail. In theory, that would advantage Cuomo, given his high name identification, moderate message and ample fundraising resources. In nearly every contest held under a ranked-choice system across the country, moderates have gotten a significant boost, including in the 2021 NYC mayoral primary, when Eric Adams prevailed. 

But if there’s a broad antipathy to Cuomo that goes beyond ideological lines, it’s plausible that any alternative to Cuomo could benefit, simply because they’re running as a candidate of change. It’s hard to overlook Cuomo’s underwater favorability rating among primary voters; a new Emerson poll found a near-majority (47%) of NYC Democrats viewing Cuomo unfavorably, with 40% viewing him favorably.

Cuomo’s lead over Mamdani in the final round of ranked-choice voting, according to the poll, stood at eight points (54-46%). It’s a lead that is outside the margin of error, but a little too close for comfort considering Cuomo’s other advantages. The poll found Mamdani winning more of the votes from the third-place finisher (Comptroller Brad Lander) in the final round, suggesting that Cuomo could be vulnerable to opponents framing their campaigns as part of an anti-Cuomo coalition.

Cuomo’s strongest support comes from the Black community (74% support over Mamdani), voters over 50 (66%) and women (58%). Mamdani’s base is among younger white progressives, leading big over Cuomo with voters under 50 (61%). 

Cuomo’s margin for success could end up coming from the city’s sizable Jewish community — many of whose members view Mamdani’s virulently anti-Israel record and pro-BDS advocacy as a threat — even though he’s currently winning a fairly small plurality of Jewish votes, according to a recent Homan Strategy Group survey.  

Cuomo only tallied 31% of the Jewish vote, according to the poll, but has a lot of room for growth, especially since he still has potential to make inroads with Orthodox Jewish voters, many of whom became disenchanted with him as governor due to his aggressive COVID restrictions. (For instance: A significant 37% share of Orthodox Jewish voters said they were undecided in the Homan survey; 0% supported Mamdani.)

If those Cuomo-skeptical Orthodox voters swing towards the former governor in the final stretch, especially as the threat of Mamdani becomes more real, that may be enough for Cuomo to prevail. But it’s a sign of the times — and the state of the Democratic Party — that this race is as competitive as it is, given the anti-Israel record of the insurgent.

Gaming Out the Jewish Future: eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross spotlights an initiative launched by philanthropist Phil Siegel using “war games” that simulate potential future scenarios facing the American Jewish community to get leaders to think more about long-term planning. “The Jewish community may not have direct control over nuclear war, global demographic trends or international trade wars, for instance, even though these have a profound influence on the Jewish community. (Most of the scenarios include a geopolitical element as well, such as peace in the Middle East in the first one or an acute housing crisis in Israel that prevents American Jews from emigrating despite harsh conditions in the U.S. in the third scenario.) However, the Jewish community does have control over creating new organizations and initiatives or coordinating existing ones. ‘The game itself and the scenario itself were less important. It was more about how people think — What types of things influence us? Do we have more or less agency over them?’ [Israeli educator Barak] Sella said. ‘Is there an optimal scenario and does the Jewish community have a 2050 outcome that we are working toward?’” [eJP]

Delay of (End) Game: The Washington Post’s David Ignatius calls for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, positing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for a year rejected subordinates’ suggested strategies for winding down the conflict. “What’s agonizing is that Israeli military and intelligence leaders were ready to settle this conflict nearly a year ago. Working with U.S. and Emirati officials, they developed a plan for security ‘bubbles’ that would contain the violence, starting in northern Gaza and moving south, backed by an international peacekeeping force that would include troops from European and moderate Arab countries. … The Israeli-Palestinian dispute might seem intractable, but ending this conflict would be relatively easy. I’m told that Israeli military officials keep working on ‘day after’ plans, honing details as recently as this week. But they have had no political support from Netanyahu. ‘The “exit ramp” has been staring us in the face for a long time,’ argues Robert Satloff, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It’s a mix of Arab states and Gaza Palestinians, operating under a Palestinian Authority umbrella, he explains. “It is messy, with overlapping responsibilities and lots of dotted lines. But it checks all the boxes to enable the process of reconstruction and rehabilitation to get off the ground.’” [WashPost]

Mumbai Makeover: In The Wall Street Journal, Howard Husock interviews Rabbi Yisroel Kozlovsky of the Chabad House of Mumbai, India, about the city’s Jewish revival since the terror attack in 2008 in which Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife and unborn child were killed. “Now in his 12th year in Mumbai, the rabbi recalls his unease upon receiving the assignment from Chabad’s headquarters in New York. He arrived in 2013 to find the building untouched since the terror attacks, its walls still bloodstained. His successor had been forced to live and hold services in rented apartments for the Jewish visitors and expats. (There are reportedly no more than 5,000 ethnic Indian ‘Bene Israel’ Jews in the country.) ‘Imagine our feelings when we walk in and see the destruction firsthand. It was still one big mess,’ Rabbi Kozlovsky says. ‘We knew immediately, though, we wanted to bring life back to the building.’ … Rabbi Kozlovsky has nevertheless decided not to shy away from the events of 26/11, as the locals refer to the attack, but to make it the basis of a mission. He has set out to build an artistic multimedia memorial to educate the hundreds of visitors, almost all non-Jewish Indians, who come here each week, mainly through class trips. ‘Restoration and resilience are not good enough responses to terror,’ he says of the project. ‘We are building a memorial and museum to teach history, to be a beacon of light.’” [WSJ]

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Thomas Barrack, who is also serving as Syria envoy, said in Damascus on Thursday that relations between Syria and Israel are a “solvable problem” that “starts with a dialogue”; Barrack also raised the U.S. flag over the ambassador’s residence in Damascus for the first time since the embassy’s closure 13 years ago…

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that any nuclear agreement with the U.S. must include the full lifting of sanctions and preservation of Tehran’s enrichment capabilities…

Saudi, Qatari and Emirati leaders reportedly told President Donald Trump during his trip to the region last week that they opposed military strikes on Iran’s nuclear program…

The Wall Street Journal reports on Israeli concerns over Washington’s ongoing nuclear talks with Iran, positing that a deal could put Israel “in a bind with its most important ally on its most pressing national security question”…

Columbia University reached a settlement with a Jewish social work student who had filed a lawsuit against the school alleging antisemitic discrimination…

California’s state Assembly unanimously advanced antisemitism legislation backed by Jewish groups in the state; AB715 would improve the process for making discrimination complaints, as well as create an antisemitism coordinator position for the state’s K-12 schools…

A Yonkers, N.Y., man was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to attacking a Jewish barber last year…

A Michigan man who in 2022 threatened parents and students at a synagogue preschool pleaded guilty to a federal gun charge…

The Wall Street Journal reports on the efforts of small wine importer and distributor Victor Owen Schwartz to challenge the Trump administration’s tariffs in court…

The board of Ben & Jerry’s issued a statement labeling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide, setting up another battle with parent company Unilever, which has for years clashed with the ice cream company’s independent board over its approach to social issues, including Israel…

CBS News profiles Karin Prien, the first Jewish federal cabinet member to serve in post-WWII Germany; the daughter of Holocaust survivors who was born in the Netherlands, Prien moved to Germany with her family when she was 4 and now serves as the country’s minister for education, family affairs, senior citizens, women and youth…

Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg met with United Arab Emirates National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan for a conversation largely focused on the opportunities presented by AI technology…

The Associated Press reports on efforts to free Israeli-Russian Princeton researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov, who was kidnapped by an Iranian-backed militia group in Iraq in 2023…

Iran’s embassy in India said it is investigating the disappearance of three Punjabi men who went missing earlier this month in Tehran while transiting through Iran en route to Australia, where a local travel agent had promised them jobs…

An increasing number of oil tankers are turning off their transponders as they near Malaysia, an area used to transfer Iranian oil bound for China, as Tehran continues to work to evade U.S. sanctions…

Missouri philanthropist Bud Levin died at 88…

Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who headed the NYPD during the 9/11 terror attacks, died at 69…

Dr. Robert Jarvik, who oversaw the design of the first artificial heart, died at 79…

Following her return to Israel, Mia Schem — who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and spent 55 days in Hamas captivity — famously had the phrase “We will dance again” tattooed on her arm. On Thursday night, approximately 800 New Yorkers joined Schem in dancing again at the sold-out inaugural Tribe of Nova Foundation benefit held at Sony Hall, a concert venue in Times Square.

The event was held with the goal of raising at least $1 million to aid families of victims and survivors of Nova, where 411 festivalgoers, mostly young people, were killed and 44 were taken hostage, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. 

Medical director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Ethiopia spine and heart project, Dr. Richard Michael Hodes turns 72… 

FRIDAY: Santa Monica, Calif.-based historian of Sephardic and Crypto-Jewish studies, Dolores Sloan turns 95… Real estate developer, landlord of the World Trade Center until 9/11, former chair of UJA-Federation of New York, Larry A. Silverstein turns 94… Partner in the NYC law firm of Mintz & Gold, he is also a leading supporter of Hebrew University, Ira Lee “Ike” Sorkin turns 82… Board member of the Collier County chapter of the Florida ACLU and the Naples Florida Council on World Affairs, Maureen McCully “Mo” Winograd… Cape Town, South Africa, native, she is the owner and chef at Los Angeles-based Catering by Brenda, Brenda Walt turns 74… Former professional tennis player, he competed in nine Wimbledons and 13 U.S. Opens, now the varsity tennis coach at Gilman School in Baltimore, Steve “Lightning” Krulevitz turns 74… Former chief rabbi of France, Gilles Uriel Bernheim turns 73… Encino, Calif.-based business attorney, Andrew W. Hyman… Literary critic, essayist and novelist, Daphne Miriam Merkin turns 71… Israeli physicist and philosopher, Avshalom Cyrus Elitzur turns 68… Former member of Congress for 16 years, since leaving Congress he has opened a bookstore and written two novels, Steve Israel turns 67… Former science editor for BBC News and author of six books, David Shukman turns 67… Founder of Krav Maga Global with 1,500 instructors in 60 countries, Eyal Yanilov turns 66… Editorial writer at The New York Times, Michelle Cottle… Film, stage and television actress; singer and songwriter, she sang the national anthem at Super Bowl XLIX in 2015, Idina Menzel turns 54… Writer, filmmaker, playwright and DJ, known by his pen name Ithamar Ben-Canaan, Itamar Handelman Smith turns 49… Member of Knesset who served as Israel’s minister of agriculture in the prior government, Oded Forer turns 48… Director of engagement and program at NYC’s Congregation Rodeph Sholom, Scott Hertz… Chief of staff for Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), Reema Dodin turns 45… Tsippy Friend… Israeli author, her debut novel has been published in more than 20 languages around the world, Shani Boianjiu turns 38… Rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer, known professionally as Hebro, Raphael Ohr Chaim Fulcher turns 38… Senior counsel at Gilead Sciences, Ashley Bender Spirn… Ice hockey defenseman, he has played for four NHL teams and is now in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga, David Matthew Warsofsky turns 35… Deputy chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Miryam Esther Lipper… Senior reporter for CNN, Eric Levenson… Challah baker, social entrepreneur and manager at Howard Properties, Jason Friend… 

SATURDAY: Investment advisor at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, Alfred Phillip Stern turns 92… Businessman and philanthropist, Ira Leon Rennert turns 91… Professor at Yale University and the 2018 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, William Dawbney Nordhaus turns 84… Food critic at Vogue magazine since 1989 and judge on “Iron Chef America,” he is the author of the 1996 award-winning book The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten turns 83… Founder and retired CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council, Alvin “Al” From turns 82… Author, political pundit and a retired correspondent for HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” he has won 14 Emmy Awards during his career, Bernie Goldberg turns 80… Comedian, actress and TV producer, Susie Essman turns 70… Founder and chairman of the Katz Group of Companies with operations in the pharmacy, sports (including the Edmonton Oilers), entertainment and real estate sectors, Daryl Katz turns 64… Reality television personality, best known for starring in and producing her own matchmaking reality series, “The Millionaire Matchmaker” on Bravo TV, Patti Stanger turns 64… Jerusalem-born inventor, serial entrepreneur and novelist; founder, chairman and CEO of CyberArk Software, one of Israel’s leading software companies, Alon Nisim Cohen turns 57… Entrepreneur, best known as the co-founder of CryptoLogic, an online casino software firm, Andrew Rivkin turns 56… Former Democratic mayor of Annapolis, Md., now head of policy at SWTCH, Joshua Jackson “Josh” Cohen turns 52… Program director of synagogue and rabbinic initiatives at the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, Melissa York… Israeli actress, singer and dancer, she played a Mossad agent in the espionage TV series “Tehran,” Liraz Charhi turns 47… Author of the “Money Stuff” column at Bloomberg Opinion, Matthew Stone Levine turns 47… Freelance writer in Brooklyn, Sara Trappler Spielman… Attorney and NYT best-selling author of the Mara Dyer and Shaw Confessions series, Michelle Hodkin turns 43… Senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Commerce until earlier this year, Bert Eli Kaufman… Senior product manager at Tel Aviv-based Forter, Zoe Goldfarb… Stephanie Oreck Weiss… Chief revenue officer at NOTUS, Brad E. Bosserman… Senior rabbi and executive director of Jewish life at D.C.’s Sixth & I, Aaron Potek… Managing editor at Allbritton Journalism Institute, Matt Berman… Medical student in the class of 2027 at the University of Nicosia Medical School, Amital Isaac… Brad Goldstein… Basketball player in Israel’s Premier League until recent years, while at Princeton he won the Ivy League Player of the Year award, Spencer Weisz turns 30… Professional golfer on the PGA Tour, Max Alexander Greyserman turns 30… Rapper, singer, songwriter and producer, known by his stage name, King Sol, Benjamin Solomon turns 27…

SUNDAY: Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, pianist and conductor, he has taught at Yale, SUNY Purchase, Cornell, Brandeis and Harvard, Yehudi Wyner turns 96… Holocaust survivor as a child, he served as the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel for 10 years and twice as Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv for 16 years, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau turns 88… NYC-based attorney, author of two books regarding the history and operations of El Al, owner of 40,000 plus pieces of memorabilia related to El Al, Marvin G. Goldman turns 86… Grammy Award-winning classical pianist, Richard Goode turns 82… Former member of the Knesset for the Yisrael Beiteinu party, Shimon Ohayon turns 80… Retired attorney in Berkeley, Calif., Thomas Andrew Seaton… Pediatrician in the San Francisco Bay area, Elliot Charles Lepler, MD… Former member of the Knesset for the Shinui and the Hilonit Tzionit parties, Eti Livni turns 77… Founding editor of The American Interest, Adam M. Garfinkle turns 74… Former editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News and co-author with Michael Bloomberg of Bloomberg by Bloomberg, Matthew Winkler turns 70… Contributing editor at The Free Press, Uri Paul Berliner… Founding rabbi of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, N.Y., Rabbi Moshe Weinberger turns 68… Former IDF officer and now a London-based political scientist and journalist, Ahron “Ronnie” Bregman turns 67… Member of the Knesset for the Shas party for 16 years ending in 2015, Amnon Cohen turns 65… Owner of MLB’s Athletics (temporarily playing in Sacramento), he is the chair of Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) Foundation, John J. Fisher turns 64… Poet, performance artist and essayist, Adeena Karasick turns 60… Founding editor and publisher of the Dayton Jewish Observer, Marshall J. Weiss… Television personality and matchmaker, Sigalit “Siggy” Flicker turns 58… Actress, voice actress and film director, Danielle Harris turns 48… Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and writer, Spencer J. Ackerman turns 45… Comedian, writer, actress, director and producer, Amy Schumer turns 44… Partner in Oliver Wyman, a global management consulting firm, Daniel Tannebaum… President and CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Yael Eckstein turns 41… Musician, songwriter, author, actor and blogger, Ari Seth Herstand turns 40… CEO of The Good Food Institute, Ilya Sheyman turns 39… Political reporter for NBC News and MSNBC until earlier this year, now a newspaper editor in Maine, Alex Seitz-Wald… Senior writer at Barron’s covering the Federal Reserve, Nicole Goodkind… Former engineering lead at Palantir Technologies, now in a MPP program at Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, Naomi S. Kadish… Executive business partner at Lyft, Isabel Keller… NYC-born Israeli pair skater, she competed for Israel at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Hailey Esther Kops turns 23…

• Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Mossad Director David Barnea are in Washington this week for meetings on Iran with senior Trump administration officials.
• Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser and senior Justice Department officials are slated to speak at a Jewish solidarity event this evening in Washington.
• In New York, the American Jewish Committee, the Consulate General of Israel in New York and Israel’s diplomatic mission at the U.N. are hosting a memorial event this afternoon for the two Israeli Embassy staffers killed outside an AJC event in Washington last week. AJC CEO Ted Deutch, Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon and John Kelley, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. mission to the U.N., are among the event’s speakers.
• Elsewhere in New York, a Jewish American Heritage Month reception slated to be hosted tonight at Gracie Mansion by New York City Mayor Eric Adams was postponed to July.
• The IHRA International Conference on Combating Antisemitism at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs concludes today. Earlier today, Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered remarks via video in which he said he prayed “for the day when the entire world will recognize the futility of antisemitism — when leaders will abandon self-destructive hatred and forge a new future in partnership with Israel. By building on the Abraham Accords. Under President Trump’s leadership, there are signs that the future may be closer than we dare dream.”
• Today marks 600 days since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks. Communities in Israel and around the world are marking the day with ceremonies and events. Earlier today, released hostages, including Arbel Yehoud, Luis Har and Yocheved Lifshitz, held a press conference in Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square calling for the release of the remaining 58 hostages in Gaza.

A QUICK WORD WITH JOSH KRAUSHAAR

The next month will give political observers an important read on which faction of the Democratic Party — the grassroots left or the pragmatic middle — is ascendant in the early months of the Trump administration. These battles, not coincidentally, are also proxy fights between those serious about fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel against those representing a more radical anti-Israel element.

The first big contest, Pittsburgh’s mayoral primary this month, marked a big win for mainstream Democrats. Challenger Corey O’Connor, the Allegheny County controller, defeated Mayor Ed Gainey, dealing a major blow to the activist left in a city where it had recently been on the rise. O’Connor won, in part, by building a strong relationship with the sizable Jewish community in the city that was turned off by Gainey’s record on antisemitism and frequent anti-Israel commentary.

There are four more big clashes coming up next month in New York and New Jersey. The biggest clash is between former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani and other challengers in the New York City mayoral race. Cuomo, running as a stalwart champion of the Jewish community, currently holds a comfortable lead, but faces elevated unfavorable ratings from his time as governor. Mamdani is polling in second place as a far-left candidate who doesn’t acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and supports the BDS movement. 

A Cuomo victory would underscore that maintaining close ties to the city’s Jewish community — the largest in the Diaspora — is still the time-tested formula for success in Gotham politics. Recent polling suggests the Jewish electorate in New York City is unusually divided, with Cuomo holding a plurality of support.

Two other downballot contests in New York City are also worthy of attention: a City Council primary clash in Brooklyn between anti-Israel Councilwoman Shahana Hanif and Maya Kornberg, the latter of whom is running as a pro-Israel progressive; and a comptroller battle between Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and Councilman Justin Brannan, who has been courting support from anti-Israel activists on the campaign trail.

Two weeks before New York’s June 24 primaries, New Jersey will hold its gubernatorial primaries — with the Democratic side of the field featuring a stalwart of Jewish interests in Congress (Rep. Josh Gottheimer), a center-left candidate with a generally supportive but less reliable record on Israel and antisemitism (Rep. Mikie Sherrill), a progressive-minded Jewish candidate (Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop) and a pair of left-wing candidates with close ties to the activist base (Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and New Jersey Education Association head Sean Spiller).

While the New Jersey governor’s race is less binary than the New York City contests, Gottheimer’s showing will be a useful indicator of the clout of the organized Jewish community in the state, while the performance of the left-wing candidates would indicate whether there’s much of a market for undiluted activism. 

The Democratic nominee is expected to face former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, the front-runner for the GOP nomination. In a surprise, Ciattarelli came within three points of defeating Gov. Phil Murphy in the 2021 governor’s race. 

These four contests will be a valuable bellwether of the Democratic Party’s ideological vibe at a time when it is still trying to calibrate its message after a rough defeat in the 2024 elections. A strong showing by pro-Israel moderates would send a powerful corrective to the common assumption that the AOC wing of the party holds the upper hand.

Anton’s Tone: The Free Press’ Eli Lake spotlights Michael Anton, the White House’s director of policy planning, who played a key role in the administration’s transition phase. “His name is not known to most people outside of Washington, but inside the Trump administration Anton has emerged as one of the most important intellectuals behind the president’s foreign policy revolution. In an administration beset with, at times, bitter ideological divides and an often chaotic style that has shocked both allies and foes, Anton has risen to the top by playing his cards close to his chest and deftly navigating the right’s warring foreign policy camps. … With a mix of provocative broadsides in the media and unglamorous behind-the-scenes work in government, Anton has charted an improbable path, from the heart of the neoconservative establishment to the core of the new MAGA foreign policy establishment. Over a decade in which the American right has been defined by bad-tempered, friendship-ending fights, Anton, a Machiavelli scholar, hasn’t just survived the America First revolution, he has helped to shape it.” [FreePress]

Counting on a Trump Retreat: In The Wall Street Journal, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh consider the factors at play for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the U.S. and Tehran negotiate a new nuclear agreement. “Five months into Mr. Trump’s second term, the mullahs are no longer afraid of the unpredictable American president who killed Qasem Soleimani in 2020. ‘In matters such as the purchase of Gaza and Greenland, the imposition of new tariffs, and even negotiations related to the Ukraine War, Trump first applied maximum pressure, but ultimately left room for retreat,’ is the assessment of Nournews, the mouthpiece for Iran’s national security council. The Trump administration has convinced many in Tehran that the president doesn’t want another conflict in the region. His threats of fire and fury are becoming more recognizably Middle Eastern — words substitute for actions. Given all the advanced centrifuges and the ever-deeper bomb-proof underground enrichment sites, the military option is becoming less credible. For Israel, it’s now or never. The U.S. has patience with threats that are existential only to its allies.” [WSJ]

Bibi Digging In: The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman reflects on his recent trip to Israel, where he said he saw “signals flashing” that Israelis increasingly back an end to the war, even as the government and Hamas choose to prolong the fighting. “As a result of Netanyahu’s military operations, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah — not to mention Saudi Arabia — are all now much freer to join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel to a degree they never were when Iran’s regional mercenary network was so powerful. Yes, Netanyahu made that happen! But he also never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity for peace. Netanyahu today staunchly refuses to harvest what Netanyahu has sown. He will not do the one thing that would unlock the politics of the whole region: open a road, no matter how long, to a two-state solution with a reformed Palestinian Authority. … The more I would argue to Israelis that Netanyahu is making a historic mistake — trading peace with Saudi Arabia for peace with the far-right extremists who keep him in power — the more they would ask me: ‘Do you think Trump can save us?’ That question is the ultimate sign that your democracy is in trouble.” [NYTimes]

Keep Hope Alive: In the Jewish Telegraph Agency, Claire Sufrin juxtaposes the tragedy of the Capital Jewish Museum terror attack with her own relationship with her husband, whose girlfriend prior to Sufrin had been killed in the 2002 Hebrew University bombing. “My story — my family’s story — is a very small piece of a much larger whole, the whole of the Jewish people, and the whole of all humanity, not just existing but persevering. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to anyone as something to replicate, were such a thing possible. And yet, at a time like this, I am standing up to say: let’s not give up, not now or not ever. We must still believe, always believe, that there is potential for something better, even in the wake of the most difficult, most painful loss and even in the hardest moments when all we want is to crawl into a tiny hole and pretend that none of this exists, not evil, not despair, not any of it. We must continue taking chances, risking our hearts and our lives, and we must nurture whatever little glimmer of potential growth we may spot, not because we know what will be — we can’t — but because we need, in a way we can’t explain, to see how it might flower.” [JTA]

President Donald Trump reportedly warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week against making any moves that could jeopardize Washington’s nuclear talks with Iran…

The State Department has paused student visa interviews as it prepares to implement a more rigid vetting process for prospective international students that includes screening social media accounts…

Leo Terrell, the head of the Justice Department’s antisemitism task force, said that the University of California system should expect “massive lawsuits” as the White House expands its crackdown on colleges and universities…

The University of Florida Board of Trustees unanimously selected former University of Michigan President Santa Ono to be the school’s next president; Ono had previously been announced as the board’s only finalist for the position, which opened following the resignation of former Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE)…

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) starts out with an early lead the Democratic primary for Senate in Michigan, according to a new poll commissioned by the Detroit Regional Chamber; Stevens leads with 34% of the Democratic vote, with former Wayne County Health Director Dr. Abdul el-Sayed winning 22% and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow in third with 14%. Nearly one-third (30%) of Democrats said they’re undecided…

International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan was moving forward with an effort to procure arrest warrants for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir before he went on leave amid an investigation into allegations that he had sexually assaulted subordinates…

Far-left Twitch streamer Hasan Piker was reinstated on the platform after briefly being banned over comments in which Piker posited that the killings of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington was a “false flag” operation…

The Overland Park, Kan., Jewish community held the funeral for slain Israeli Embassy staffer Sarah Lynn Milgrim on Tuesday under heavy security; Milgrim’s casket was draped with an Israeli flag…

In The Wall Street Journal, Nathan Lewin calls on Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute violators of a 1968 law banning violence against individuals using or benefiting from federally financed programs…

Reuters spotlights the potential effects of the Trump administration’s tariffs on a Spanish hatmaker that sells approximately 30,000 hats each year to Orthodox customers in the U.S….

The New York Times looks at how residents of a Berlin housing development that had originally been built for SS officials and their families during WWII reckon with their neighborhood’s past…

Germany is considering freezing its weapons exports to Israel, amid concerns in Berlin over Israel’s recent actions in Gaza; earlier this week, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Israeli actions “in recent days can no longer be justified by a fight against Hamas terrorism”… 

The IDF carried out airstrikes on Houthi targets at the airport in Sana’a, Yemen, in response to a series of Houthi ballistic missile attacks on Israel in recent days…

Israel and Syria have in recent weeks reportedly engaged in direct talks focused on security issues…

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said that Jakarta was open to establishing diplomatic ties with Israel on the condition that Israel recognizes a Palestinian state…

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar (center) met on Tuesday in Jerusalem with Jewish leaders, including William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (left), and U.K. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis (second from left).

Author of 14 novels and a children’s book, Millions of Maxes, Meg Wolitzer turns 66…

Founding rabbi of both Lincoln Square Synagogue in NYC and then later the city of Efrat in the Judean Hills, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin turns 85… Director of UCSF’s Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, he won the 1997 Nobel Prize in medicine, Stanley Benjamin Prusiner M.D. turns 83… Executive director of Ner Israel Rabbinical College, Jerome H. Kadden… Former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani turns 81… Former mayor of Toronto, John Howard Tory turns 71… Winnipeg-born attorney, previous campaign chair for Winnipeg’s Combined Jewish Appeal and governor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Gail Sheryl Asper turns 65… British comedian, screenwriter and singer, he is the author of a 2021 book on antisemitism titled Jews Don’t Count, David Lionel Baddiel turns 61… Secretary of state of the United States, he is also serving as national security advisor, Marco Rubio turns 54… Four-time U.S. national fencing champion and a two-time Olympian, then an attorney who clerked for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Eric Oliver “Nick” Bravin turns 54… Longtime member of the Knesset on behalf of the Likud party, now serving as Israel’s consul general to New York, Ofir Akunis turns 52… Guitarist, composer and leader of the bands Rashanim and Zion80, Jon Madof turns 51… Rabbi of Boston’s South Shore Congregation Sha’aray Shalom, Eric M. Berk… Dancer and choreographer, Brian L. Friedman turns 48… Senior manager in the executive office at The Pew Charitable Trusts since 2015, Lauren Mandelker… Singer-songwriter, artist and filmmaker, Adam Green turns 44… Entrepreneur Matthew Pritzker turns 43… Managing principal of Asher Strategies, David A. Lobl… Founder in 2015 of At The Well, a women’s wellness organization rooted in Jewish spirituality and women’s health, Sarah Michal Waxman… Founder and CEO at Vista Nexum, Adelle Malka Nazarian… Freelance journalist writing about culture, Thea Glassman… Fashion designer and the founder of WeWoreWhat, Danielle Bernstein turns 33… Harry Weinstein… Named for his father, a WSJ bureau chief who was kidnapped and murdered by Pakistani terrorists a few months before he was born, Adam Daniel Pearl turns 23… Israeli swimmer, she competed in the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympics, Aviv Barzelay turns 23… Irwin Weiss…

• Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is in Israel this week. More below.
• Also in Israel, but on separate visits, are Sens. David McCormick (R-PA) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV), as well as Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) and Michael McCaul (R-TX).
• The Israel Democracy Institute is hosting its annual Eli Hurvitz Conference in Jerusalem today and tomorrow.
• This evening, the Foreign Ministers’ Conference on Combating Antisemitism, hosted by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, kicks off in Jerusalem. The conference will run through tomorrow evening. Earlier today, the Foreign Ministry welcomed Jewish leaders from around the world ahead of the start of the conference.

A QUICK WORD WITH LAHAV HARKOV

Amid persistent reports of a rift with President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been seeking to reassure Israelis that everything is fine. But behind the scenes, there are continued signs that the relationship between the two leaders isn’t as close as it was during the president’s first term.

In a press conference last week, Netanyahu said Trump recently expressed his “total commitment” not only to Israel, but to Netanyahu, and that in a recent call with Vice President JD Vance, he told the prime minister, “Don’t pay attention to all the fake news spin about a rupture  between us.” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called the reports “nonsense,” Netanyahu pointed out, quoting him as saying people should “listen to what the president said and not some source who’s not up to date and pretends that he knows.”

Netanyahu took such pains to say the U.S. and Israel are in constant communication and coordination — at least on Iran and humanitarian aid to Gaza — such that one may get the idea that the prime minister is overcompensating at a time when there’s one headline after another claiming there is friction between Jerusalem and Washington.

Words like “rupture” and “break” may be too strong to describe the current dynamic between Trump and Netanyahu, though there are signs of deep disagreements on some of the most important policy issues for Israel’s national security. 

For example, on the issue of Iran’s nuclear program, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Fox News from Jerusalem on Monday that “President Trump specifically sent me here to speak with the prime minister about how negotiations are going and how important it is that we stay united and let this process play out.” That conversation, she added, was “quite candid and direct.” 

The comments imply that Trump is concerned that Netanyahu is not on the same page as he is and does not plan to wait and see how nuclear talks with Iran unfold before Israel potentially launches a strike. Noem’s comments came days after a phone call between Netanyahu and Trump, which the Prime Minister’s Office readout said included discussion of Iran, and that Israel’s Channel 12 reported was heated. Trump reportedly signaled his confidence in striking what he considers a good deal, and has signaled optimism in public comments over the holiday break that he will have “good news” on the Iranian front.

Trump also publicly pushed for an end to the war in Gaza. On Sunday, the president said “Israel, we’ve been talking to them, and we want to see if we can stop that whole situation” – aka the war in Gaza – “as quickly as possible.” Trump has made clear he wants to be seen as someone who ends wars, but the fighting in Gaza is grinding on without any indication that Hamas is ready to meet Netanyahu’s conditions to end the war: freeing all the hostages, laying down its arms, exile for Hamas leaders, demilitarizing Gaza and implementing Trump’s relocation plan. Netanyahu, however, said that the war will continue and the IDF will occupy more of Gaza to try to eliminate Hamas and pressure it to free the hostages. 

Israel is also in a situation where it needs assistance from the U.S. and isn’t making any overtures of its own at this time — certainly, none that can compare to a $400 million presidential plane or a pledge to invest $600 million in the United States. With a president who often views the world through a transactional lens, that can make things more challenging for Israel, as Trump administration sources have noted to Jewish Insider in recent weeks.

In addition, Trump had several close confidantes who were very focused on Israel in his first term. Steve Witkoff and Jason Greenblatt may share similar titles as Trump’s current and former envoys to the region, but Witkoff lacked Greenblatt’s familiarity with Israel and its geopolitical position from the start, and is also responsible for leading nuclear diplomacy with Iran and pursuing a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

Huckabee has only been in Israel for a few weeks and he doesn’t have as close of a relationship with the president as David Friedman did when he was U.S. ambassador. And Jared Kushner’s role as a close family advisor has been filled in the second term by Donald Trump, Jr. 

This term, there are also the dueling foreign policy factions within the Trump administration, the so-called “restrainers” and the more traditional Republicans.  The Trump administration’s moves to centralize its foreign policy decision-making — diminishing the role of Congress and the National Security Council — has created a situation in which some Israeli officials are uncertain of where to turn to make their case.

The restrainers look like they have the upper hand — with Mike Waltz out as national security advisor and Trump railing against the “so-called nation-builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits” in his recent speech in Saudi Arabia — and some of them hold positions on Israel and the Iranian threat that have raised concerns in Jerusalem.

Battering Rahm: The Free Press’ Peter Savodnik interviews former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel as the Democrat mulls a return to politics — and a 2028 presidential bid. “I asked him whether someone with his biography could win the Democratic nomination. It wasn’t just that he was part of the Democratic establishment. It was that he was a Jew with the middle name ‘Israel,’ and he was unequivocally supportive of the Jewish state’s right to exist. … He did not think of himself as enigmatic. ‘I’ve shown I’ve got the strength to say my views, and one of the key things about being a president is you got cojones, and you got strength,’ he told me. He added: ‘I’m not naive to antisemitism. I’m not naive to certain elements within the left.’ His point — about winning his House seat and being elected mayor — was that the people, the voters, mattered the most, and he believed that, in the end, they would be on his side. ‘There’s going to be people who try to bring up stereotypes or other types of things, and I’ve never hid my Judaism — not gonna — but I have confidence in the public.’” [FreePress]

The Future Sarah Saw: In The New York Times, Yasmina Asrarguis, a friend of Israeli Embassy staffer Sarah Lynn Milgrim, reflects on their friendship and the politicization of Milgrim’s death in the aftermath of the Capital Jewish Museum attack. “Sarah’s legacy must not be co-opted, not by the person who shot her, and not by those who now wish to brand her with their politics or make her a poster child for a cause. Sarah’s name should not become a pawn, nor a rallying cry, for those who seek to weaponize her death for political gain on either side of this conflict. … In his bullets, the killer could not have seen all that Sarah was, all that she believed in. Her Jewish identity was flattened into a target. In her murder he picked exactly the sort of person who might have altered the future. But just as the extremist misunderstood Sarah, so too do many of those who profess to weep for her loss. Those who mourn Sarah should reflect on her ideals, learn from her life’s work and aim as she did on creating the fragile groundwork for Middle East peace. It was a future she helped prepare for, one conversation, one relationship at a time.” [NYTimes]

When Violence Is Rationalized: In The Atlantic, the Manhattan Institute’s Reihan Salam and Jesse Arm consider the underlying root of American political violence following the Capital Jewish Museum attack. “What we’re witnessing is an issue not with Israel, but with America. When violence aimed at Jews — or those seen as aligned with them — is dismissed, excused, or rationalized, it undermines the civic norms that hold our society together. Elite institutions that once upheld liberal pluralism now indulge a form of identity politics that prizes grievance over justice. Some of the ugliest reactions to the D.C. shooting treated the murders as incidental — or even deserved. That’s not just moral failure. It represents a worldview that treats violence as politics by other means. Such rationalizations have been used to justify the ideological murder of a health-care executive, coordinated arson attacks on Tesla dealerships by anti-capitalist extremists, and, now, executions outside a Jewish museum in the nation’s capital.” [TheAtlantic]

Kingsley Wilson, a deputy press secretary at the Department of Defense who has come under fire from Democratic and Republican lawmakers and Jewish communal organizations for promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, has been promoted to serve as the department’s press secretary, the Pentagon announced on Friday, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports…

President Donald Trump said he was “considering” taking $3 billion in grant funding to Harvard and redistributing the funds to trade schools across the country…

Trump also said on Sunday that he expected to have “good news” on the ongoing Iran nuclear talks later this week, ahead of a fifth round of talks slated for Friday in Rome…

Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC), Maggie Hassan (D-NH) and three bipartisan co-sponsors reintroduced legislation to repeal the sunset on energy sanctions on Iran first passed in 1996…

Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE) and David McCormick (R-PA) introduced legislation requiring a whole-of-government strategy to counter cooperation between Iran, Russia, China and North Korea…

A group of more than 50 House Republicans led by Rep. Addison McDowell (R-NC) introduced a resolution commemorating Israeli Embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, who were killed in an attack outside the Capital Jewish Museum last week…

The Washington Post’s Mark Lasswell reflects on “an extreme week in antisemitism,” including the murders of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, the resignation of the BBC’s Gary Lineker following his posting of an antisemitic social media image and a widely reported but false statement by a U.N. official regarding infant deaths in Gaza…

Moldova extradited to the U.S. a Georgian national and Eastern European neo-Nazi group leader who had instructed an undercover federal agent to dress as Santa Claus and distribute poison-laced candy to Jewish children…

The New York Times reports on an extensive Russian spy operation with roots in Brazil; the spies were identified and in some cases apprehended using intelligence gathered from, among other countries, the U.S. and Israel…

Dozens of prominent Jewish philanthropists from the United States, U.K., Australia and Israel sent a letter to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar decrying a proposed bill that would impose an 80% tax on foreign governments’ donations to Israeli nonprofits, ahead of a Knesset committee hearing on the legislation later this week, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports…

The Washington Post looks at the efforts by the mother of a U.S. Army soldier who was injured last year while working on the U.S.’ ill-fated humanitarian pier in Gaza and later died from his injuries to find answers to questions surrounding his death…

Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid accused the Israeli government of setting up two shell companies, backed by taxpayer money, to fund the humanitarian aid effort in Gaza; the Prime Minister’s Office denied the claim…

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operations on Monday, a day after its CEO, Jake Wood, resigned due to what he said was an inability to operate according to the “humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence”; the foundation’s chief operation officer also resigned… 

Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff slammed Hamas’ “disappointing and completely unacceptable” response to a U.S.-proposed ceasefire and hostage-release agreement that would secure the release of 10 of the remaining 21 hostages believed to be alive…

Former Israeli hostage Liri Albag was briefly detained at New York’s JFK International Airport over an outdated system note that still listed Albag as still being in captivity in Gaza… 

Far-right Israelis chanted anti-Arab slurs as tens of thousands marched through the Old City of Jerusalem to celebrate Jerusalem Day…

U.K. authorities said that an incident in which dozens of people in Liverpool were injured after a driver ploughed through a crowd of Liverpool FC supporters was not tied to terrorism…

The Financial Times reviews Uwe Wittstock’s Marseille 1940: The Flight of Literature, about the Emergency Rescue Committee’s formation and efforts to save German Jews, many of whom were writers and intellectuals, at the start of WWII…

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s “Un Simple Accident” won the Palme d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival; the film was shot clandestinely inside Iran by Panahi, who was until recently barred from leaving the country…

Filmmaker Michael Roemer, who with his sister was rescued by the Kindertransport during WWII and whose work included “Nothing But a Man” and “The Plot Against Harry,” died at 97…

German-born documentarian Marcel Ophuls, whose film “The Sorrow and the Pity” debunked the myth of a widespread French resistance to the Nazis during WWII, died at 97…

Artist and children’s book author Judith Hope Blau, who made jewelry and other works out of bagels, died at 87…

Writer Leslie Epstein, whose “King of the Jews” received widespread acclaim, died at 87…

“Fauda” actor Idan Amedi, who was seriously injured during reserve duty in Gaza last year, spoke on Saturday evening in conversation with Rabbi Marc Schneier at the Hampton Synagogue in Westhampton Beach, N.Y.

Emmy Award-winning actor, comedian and director, Richard Schiff turns 70…

MONDAY: Public speaker, teacher and author, Richard Lederer turns 87… Journalist and educator, the mother of the late Susan (former CEO of YouTube), Janet (anthropologist and UCSF professor) and Anne (co-founder of 23andMe), Esther Hochman Wojcicki turns 84… Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-IL) since 1999, Janice Danoff “Jan” Schakowsky turns 81… Former SVP of News at NPR, after a lengthy career at the New York Daily News, The New York Times and the Associated Press, Michael Oreskes turns 71… Co-founder and CEO of Mobileye which he sold to Intel in 2017, he is also a professor at Hebrew University, Amnon Shashua turns 65… NYC real estate developer, board member of The Charles H. Revson Foundation and a former commissioner on the NYC Planning Commission, Cheryl Cohen Effron… Former brigadier general in the IDF, she has been a member of the Knesset for the Likud since 2009, currently serving as minister of transportation, Miriam “Miri” Regev turns 60… Counsel in the government affairs practice of Paul Hastings, Dina Ellis Rochkind… Photographer, her work has appeared in galleries and been published in books, Naomi Harris turns 52… South Florida entrepreneur, Sholom Zeines… Program officer for media and communications at Maimonides Fund, Rebecca Friedman… Former minor league baseball player, he has become one of the leading agents for NBA players, with five contracts of over $100 million each, Jason Glushon turns 40… Executive editor of Ark Media, she is the author of a book last year on the 1929 origins of the current Israeli-Arab conflict, Yardena Schwartz… CEO and director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, Mark Goldfeder… Co-founder of Stories Abroad Tours, Arielle Gingold… Assistant professor of law at Wayne State University Law School, Benjamin L. Cavataro… Toronto-born Israeli actress and singer, best known as the protagonist of the Israeli television series “Split,” Melissa Amit Farkash turns 36… Strategic partnerships and engagement manager at U.S. Pharmacopeia, Morgan A. Jacobs… Catcher in the Philadelphia Phillies organization, he played for Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Garrett Patrick Stubbs turns 32… Eytan Merkin…

TUESDAY: Retired professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, he is the author of 80 books, Philip Kotler turns 94… Founder of Val d’Or Apparel and Cannon County Knitting Mills, Martin “Marty” Granoff turns 89… CEO of British real estate firm Heron International, he was knighted in 2024, Sir Gerald Ronson turns 86… Senior U.S. district judge for the Central District of California, Christina A. Snyder turns 78… Retired in 2014 as school rabbi and director of Jewish studies at The Rashi School, a K-8 Reform Jewish school in Dedham, Mass., Ellen Weinstein Pildis… Partner in the D.C. office of ArentFox Schiff, he wrote a book about the struggle for Jewish civil rights during the French Revolution, Gerard Leval turns 75… Analytical psychotherapist, author, and Jewish Renewal rabbi, Tirzah Firestone turns 71… Former MLB pitcher (1978-1982) who played for the White Sox and Pirates, he is now a financial advisor at RBC Wealth Management, Ross Baumgarten turns 70… Owner of a 900-acre plant nursery in Kansas, he is a former MLB pitcher (1979-1990) and was an MLB All Star in 1979 and 1982, Mark Clear turns 69… Marriage counselor, therapist and author, Sherry Amatenstein… U.S. ambassador to Argentina during the Biden administration, he served for six years as chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, Marc R. Stanley turns 68… Beverly Hills-based immigration attorney, founder and chairman of the Los Angeles Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, Neil J. Sheff… General manager of Phibro Israel and co-founder of LaKita, a non-profit crowd-funding platform for Israeli public schools, Jonathan Bendheim… Workplace and labor reporter at The New York Times, Noam Scheiber… Stage, film and television actor and producer, Ben Feldman turns 45… Director of development at the Livingston, N.J.-based Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy, Grant Silverstein… “Science of Success” columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Benjamin Zachary Cohen… Director of legislative affairs and policy at General Atomics, Katherina (Katya) Dimenstein… Assistant district attorney for Bronx County, Joshua A. Fitterman… Reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer since 2012, Andrew Seidman… Emily Cohen…

• The UJA-Federation of New York and JCRC-NY will be hosting a town hall this evening with the leading Democratic New York City mayoral candidates. Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar and New York Jewish Week managing editor Lisa Keys will be co-moderating the forum.
• The Brandeis Center will host a briefing on Capitol Hill featuring current college students and recent graduates sharing their personal experiences with antisemitism on campus. Kenneth Marcus, chairman and CEO of the Brandeis Center, Alyza Lewin, president of the Brandeis Center, and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) will also deliver remarks.
• The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Africa subcommittee will hold a hearing on the ongoing civil war in Sudan.
• The Qatar Economic Forum wraps up today in Doha. 

A QUICK WORD WITH ji’s TAMARA ZIEVE

It was an evening dedicated to humanitarian service — young Jewish professionals gathering under the theme “Turning Pain Into Purpose,” discussing interfaith collaboration and working to counter the rising tide of “us versus them” narratives. The event spotlighted efforts to respond to humanitarian crises in the Middle East and North Africa — including in Gaza.

But what was supposed to be a night rooted in shared humanity was rocked by deadly violence. Outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where the American Jewish Committee was hosting the event, an assailant opened fire on a group of four people, killing a young couple, both Israeli Embassy employees.

Eyewitness Paige Siegel, who was a guest at the event, told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod that she heard two sets of multiple shots ring out, and then an individual, who police have since identified as suspected shooter Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, entered the building appearing disoriented and panicked, seconds after the shooting ended. She said security allowed the man in, as well as two other women separately. (Police say the suspect had discarded his weapon.)

Siegel said she spoke to the man, asking him if he had been shot. He appeared panicked and was mumbling and repeatedly told bystanders to call the police. Siegel said that she felt the man was suspicious.

JoJo Drake Kalin, a member of AJC’s DC Young Professional Board and an organizer of the event, told JI’s Danielle Cohen the man appeared disheveled and out of breath when he entered the building. Kalin assumed he had been a bystander to the shooting who needed assistance and she handed him a glass of water. Siegel said that the man was sitting in the building in a state of distress for approximately 10 to 15 minutes, and she and a friend engaged him in conversation, informing him that he was in the Jewish museum.

Siegel then said that the man started screaming, “I did it, I did it. Free Palestine. I did it for Gaza,” and opened a backpack, withdrawing a red keffiyeh.

“The deep irony I felt after the guy pulled out the keffiyeh was, ‘if only you knew,’” Drake Kalin reflected. “It was Jewish professionals gathering not for a political agenda but for our collective humanity,” Kalin added. “Which I won’t let this event take from me.”

The two victims of last night’s attack, Yarón Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were due to be engaged soon — Israeli Ambassador Michael Leiter said that the man had purchased a ring earlier this week and was planning to propose next week in Jerusalem.

Milgrim’s last job before joining the embassy’s public diplomacy department was at Tech2Peace, where she researched peace-building theory and, according to her LinkedIn profile, designed and implemented a 12-person study on the role of friendships in the Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding process.

Lischinsky emigrated from Germany to Israel at age 16, where he studied government, diplomacy and strategy and served in the IDF, according to his LinkedIn profile. The last post shared on X by Lischinsky, an employee of the embassy’s political department, called out a United Nations official for “blood libel,” for spreading a false claim that 14,000 babies in Gaza would die within 48 hours without aid.

Reactions to the killings have been swift. President Donald Trump said of the shooting, “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”

Leiter said Trump vowed to him that the administration would do everything it can to fight antisemitism and demonization and delegitimization of Israel. “We’ll stand together tall and firm and confront this moral depravity without fear,” Leiter said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, updated him on the details of the incident and asked to convey her condolences to the families of the couple, according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office.

“We are witness to the terrible cost of the antisemitism and wild incitement against the State of Israel,” Netanyhau said. “Blood libels against Israel have a cost in blood and must be fought to the utmost. My heart grieves for the families of the young beloveds, whose lives were cut short in a moment by an abhorrent antisemitic murderer. I have directed that security be increased at Israeli missions around the world and for the state’s representatives.”

In a press conference in Jerusalem this morning, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the attack was “the direct result of toxic antisemitic incitement against Israel and Jews around the world that has been going on since the Oct. 7 massacre.” He pointed a finger at incitement by “leaders and officials of many countries and international organizations, especially from Europe.”

Sa’ar noted that “there is not one week without terror attacks or attempted terror attacks around the world — usually more than one.”

The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem and Israeli missions around the world will lower their flags to half-mast today to honor the memory of Milgrim and Lischinsky.

Read JI’s full report on the terrorist attack here.