• We’ll be reporting on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House, slated for next week. More below.
• New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in on Jan. 1. New York Attorney General Tish James will conduct the official swearing-in at midnight, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will perform the ceremonial swearing-in during the day.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV’S HARKOV

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President Donald Trump next week, the Iranian threat will be at the top of the agenda. That’s a sentence that could have been written countless times in the past – but this time, after the degradation of Iran’s nuclear program, was supposed to be different.

We’re six months out from Operation Midnight Hammer, when the U.S. and Israel worked together to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, and the 11 days of Israeli airstrikes on Iran that preceded it.

But much of the public conversation following that 12-day war focused on the damage done to Iran’s nuclear program – which is likely significant, but still hard to measure precisely – and less on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missiles and air defenses.

Israel destroyed hundreds of missiles, launchers and production sites, and boasted about its control of the airspace over Tehran a day into the war as testament to its military prowess. But Jerusalem is now deeply concerned that Tehran has managed to recoup, with help from China, much of its losses.

In that vein, Netanyahu and his team are preparing to brief Trump on Israel’s concerns that Iran is expanding its ballistic missile program.

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

• Turning Point USA’s AmFest kicks off today in Phoenix, Ariz., and runs through Sunday. Speakers at the conference, the group’s first major gathering since the assassination of its founder, Charlie Kirk, in September, include Vice President JD Vance, Erika Kirk, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump Jr., Ben Shapiro, Jesse Watters, Megyn Kelly, Glenn Beck, Vivek Ramaswamy, Matt Walsh, Russell Brand, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Roger Stone, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Jack Posobiec and Reps. Byron Donalds (R-FL), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Mike Collins (R-GA).
• The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington is holding the last in its series of “Lox and Legislators” events. This morning’s gathering will feature remarks from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, as well as panel discussions with local councilmembers and nonprofit leaders.
• In New York, the Brooklyn Nets, who face off against the Miami Heat tonight, will pay tribute to those killed in the terror attack on Sunday in Sydney, Australia. A nephew of slain Chabad Rabbi Eli Schlanger will participate in the tribute.
• German and Israeli defense officials are signing an expanded agreement today that will see Berlin purchase an additional $3.1 billion worth of Arrow 3 interceptors and launchers.
• We’re tracking events in Sydney, Australia, after police in the New South Wales capital detained seven men earlier today who were believed to be connected to what a police department spokesperson said was “information received that a violent act was possibly being planned.”
  
  

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MATTHEW KASSEL

Norman Podhoretz, the pugnacious editor and neoconservative pioneer who died on Tuesday at the age of 95, charted a protean trajectory through American politics and intellectual discourse, rising to prominence as a leading champion of a muscular foreign policy vision conjoined with a fierce support for Israel that influenced such presidents as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Despite his early political conversion from staunch liberal to conservative trailblazer, Podhoretz — the always-ambitious son of a Yiddish-speaking milkman from Eastern Europe who was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn — remained consistent in his commitment to defending Israel as well as promoting the Jewish ideals that guided his social and professional ascent.

During his 35-year tenure helming Commentary — from 1960 to 1995 — he established the periodical as a lightning rod of disputatious ideas that helped drive the conservative movement, while at the same time building his reputation as an estimable thinker in Jewish American debate of the mid-20th century. 

Under his editorial stewardship, Podhoretz transformed the magazine — then published by the American Jewish Committee — into a pro-Israel force that significantly shaped American foreign policy in the Middle East while helping steer the GOP to a more instinctive embrace of the Jewish state as a key ally.

“The neoconservatives played a pivotal role in providing the intellectual firepower for the case for Israel,” Jacob Heilbrunn, the author of a book about the movement Podhoretz founded, They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, told Jewish Insider in an interview on Wednesday. “They did that not only by arguing that Israel was a vital outpost in opposing the spread of communism in the Middle East, but also in forging and defending the rise of the evangelicals who supported Israel.”

Absent Podhoretz and his ideological comrades including Irving Kristol, another neoconservative leader, “I don’t think that you would have had the intellectual justification for defending Israel inside the GOP,” Heilbrunn said, noting that the party had previously been “hostile to Israel.”

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

The Dem Divide: In The Atlantic, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro warns about elements of the Democratic Party that are shifting toward the fringe left’s stance on Israel, citing recent criticism of the party’s position on Israel by his former colleague, Obama administration official Ben Rhodes. “But there is a darker danger to the approach that Rhodes and others endorse. Nearly by definition, calls for ending all U.S.-Israel security cooperation draw those making them into alignment with others on a much more extreme fringe—those for whom it is not enough to end U.S. military assistance to Israel, who fundamentally believe that there is no legitimacy for Israel to exist as a Jewish state. They have found their voice and are making it heard. If the test of fealty for the Democratic Party becomes supporting international efforts to pressure Israel to define itself out of existence, or expressing indifference to the campaign of Israel’s enemies to destroy it, we will be in a much uglier place.” [TheAtlantic]

No-show of Support: In The Washington Post, Alon Meltzer, the associate rabbi of Sydney’s Bondi Mizrachi Synagogue reflects on the lack of mass gatherings opposing antisemitism and showing support for the Jewish community, compared to large-scale shows of support for Palestinians. “In August, an estimated 100,000 people marched across the Sydney Harbor Bridge to protest a conflict thousands of miles away. Many marched out of genuine concern for human suffering. … If 100,000 people can mobilize for a distant war, surely a million could rise up today and say: enough. Not with flowers alone. Not with thoughts and prayers. But with action. With a collective demand that antisemitism — in all its forms — is wrong and must stop now. This needs to occur in every country claiming to live by Western democratic values. We need to hear your voice! I fear that such a vision exists only in my imagination.” [WashPost]

The Senate confirmed Jared Isaacman to be the administrator to NASA in a 63-30 vote; read our profile of Isaacman here…

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino announced that he will depart the agency next month…

A spokesperson for Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), a co-chair of the Senate antisemitism task force, told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod on Wednesday that the Coast Guard had assured Lankford that the service would be correcting its policy to make clear that swastikas would be banned — before reverting this week to a previous policy that had prompted criticism from Lankford and other lawmakers…

The Qatar Investment Authority is purchasing part of philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs’ stake in Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Washington Wizards, the Washington Mystics, the Washington Capitals and the G League’s Capital City Go-Go…

Elliott Investment Management has amassed a stake of more than $1 billion in Lululemon Athletica as it works to position former Ralph Lauren senior executive Jane Nielsen as a potential successor to the athleisurewear company’s CEO Calvin McDonald, who is stepping down next month…

Police in San Francisco arrested a man in connection with a suspected arson attack at San Francisco Hillel earlier this month that significantly damaged the structure…

Time interviews U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner about Paris’ response to antisemitism in the country… 

In the wake of the Bondi Beach attack, popular Sydney bagel shop Avner’s, owned by Australian Jewish celebrity chef Ed Halmagyi, announced its closure, citing “two years of near constant antisemitic harassment”; a note posted to the door of Avner’s said that “[i]n the wake of the pogrom at Bondi, one thing has become clear – it is no longer possible to make outwardly, publicly, proudly Jewish places and events safe in Australia”… 

Pope Leo XIV spoke by phone with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on the occasion of the holiday season; a readout from the Vatican said the pontiff restated the “Catholic Church’s firm condemnation of all forms of antisemitism, which, throughout the world, continues to sow fear in Jewish communities and in society as a whole”…

The police forces of London and Manchester, U.K., announced their officers would arrest demonstrators who use the term “globalize the intifada,” saying in a statement, “Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed — words have meaning and consequence”… 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed off on a $37 billion deal with Cairo that will see Israel supply natural gas to Egypt…

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Israel plans to open an embassy in Fiji next year, months after the Pacific island nation opened an embassy in Jerusalem…

Israel denied entry to the West Bank to a delegation of Canadian officials whom Israeli officials said were linked to the NGO Islamic Relief Worldwide, which Jerusalem classifies as a terror group…

Sweden confirmed Iranian reports that a Swedish national had been arrested in Tehran on suspicion of spying for Israel…

The Washington Post does a deep dive into Israel’s Operation Narnia, the June 2024 effort to assassinate top Iranian nuclear scientists…

The New York Times reports on recent speeches by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledging that he is unable to fix the country’s mounting problems, including a struggling economy, water-deficit issues and corruption…

Benjamin Lee has been tapped to serve as the international media advisor for Israeli President Isaac Herzog; Lee succeeds Jason Pearlman, who is concluding his second stint in the position…

Rabbi Levi Shemtov spoke at yesterday’s Capitol Hill Hanukkah event hosted by Jewish legislators. Behind Shemtov, from left to right: Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Craig Goldman (R-TX) and Steve Cohen (D-TN).

Film critic, historian and author of 15 books on cinema, Leonard Maltin turns 75…

Founder of supply chain firm HAVI, active in over 100 countries, in 2019 he and his wife Harriette pledged $25 million to BBYO, Theodore F. Perlman turns 89… Professor emeritus of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at the Hebrew University, Moshe Sharon turns 88… Winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Medicine, he served as director of NIH for seven years and then director of the National Cancer Institute for 15 years, Harold Eliot Varmus turns 86… Office manager in the D.C. office of Kator, Parks, Weiser & Wright, Ramona Cohen… Co-founder of DreamWorks Studios, Academy Award-winning director of “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan” plus many other box-office record-setters including “E.T.” and “Jaws,” Steven Spielberg turns 79… Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (R-FL) from 2009 until 2025, William Joseph “Bill” Posey turns 78… Former CFO of the Pentagon in the Bush 43 administration, he is presently a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Dov S. Zakheim turns 77… Winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in economics, he is a professor at Stanford and professor emeritus at Harvard, Alvin Eliot Roth turns 74… Network engineer sometimes called “the mother of the Internet” for her inventions of the spanning-tree protocol (STP) and the TRILL protocol, Radia Joy Perlman turns 74… Diplomat and ambassador, David Michael Satterfield turns 71… Television writer, producer and director, best known as the co-creator and executive producer of the award-winning series “24” which ran for eight seasons on Fox, Joel Surnow turns 70… Labor leader and president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten turns 68… Founder and chief executive of Third Point LLC, Daniel S. Loeb turns 64… Retired editor of The Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard turns 61… Member of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Gael Grunewald turns 61… Associate director of development at Ohel Children’s Home, Erica Skolnick… Partner at the communications firm 30 Point Strategies, Noam Neusner… Former special envoy of Israel’s Foreign Ministry to combat antisemitism and member of the Knesset, Michal Cotler-Wunsh turns 55… Motivational speaker and teacher, his book about his own coping with Tourette syndrome was made into a Hallmark movie, Brad Cohen turns 52… Member of the House of Representatives (D-FL), Jared Moskowitz turns 45… Director of policy for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul until earlier this year when he successfully ran for the state Assembly, now running to succeed his former boss, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Micah Lasher turns 44… Manager of public policy and government relations for Wing, Jesse Suskin… Executive producer at CNN’s “State of the Union,” Rachel Streitfeld… Multi-instrumentalist, composer and educator, known for his double bass performances, Adam Ben Ezra turns 43… Winner of four straight NCAA Women’s Water Polo Championships while at UCLA, Jillian Amaris Kraus turns 39… AVP of external affairs at the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, Marc Ashed… Eliezer H. “Elie” Peltz… Consultant at Brussels-based Trinomics, Jessica Glicker… Intelligence lead at ActiveFence, Emily Cooper…

Belated birthday (was last week): Founding national campaign director for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, he was a presidential appointee to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council from 2008-2013, Joe Brodecki turned 78 last Friday…

• President Donald Trump is slated to deliver remarks at today’s U.S.-Saudi investment summit in Washington, being hosted by Saudi Arabia during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the capital. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Saudi Investment Minister Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih will kick off the daylong summit at this morning’s plenary. Others slated to speak today include Elon Musk, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, IBM’s Gary Cohn, Alphabet and Google’s Ruth Porat, Andreessen Horowitz’s Benjamin Horowitz, Pfizer’s Albert Bourla, Palantir’s Alex Karp and Anduril’s Matthew Steckman.
• Following his White House sitdown and dinner yesterday (more below), MBS is slated to meet with House members today on Capitol Hill.
• Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is holding confirmation hearings this morning for Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the Trump administration’s nominee to be antisemitism envoy, and former State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce to be deputy U.N. ambassador. Kaploun was a last-minute addition to the SFRC’s schedule, first appearing yesterday afternoon, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
• Tonight in Washington, the Endowment for Middle East Truth is hosting its 16th annual Rays of Light in the Darkness awards dinner. This year’s honorees include Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), the Justice Department’s Leo Terrell, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, Hungarian Ambassador to the U.S. Szabolcs Takacs and Pakistani American journalist Anila Ali.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S GABBY DEUTCH

As 2,000 Jewish philanthropists, activists and professionals prepared to leave Washington on Tuesday as the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly wrapped up, they heard a stern warning from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Americans must confront antisemitism on both sides, including the right; if they don’t, the nation will face an “existential crisis.” 

“I do not want to wake up in five years and find that both major parties in America have embraced hatred of Israel and have tolerated, if not embraced, antisemitism,” Cruz said. Read JI’s coverage of his remarks here. 

Cruz has become the most prominent Republican elected official speaking out against a rising tide of right-wing antisemitism. But the weeks following podcaster Tucker Carlson’s interview with neo-Nazi provocateur Nick Fuentes have sparked a reckoning for Republicans, including some who until recently considered antisemitism to be primarily a left-wing phenomenon.

That internal tension was on full display at a Tuesday afternoon conference hosted by the conservative National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism. The group was until recently affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, until the conservative think tank’s president came to Carlson’s defense. Earlier this month the task force members voted to cut ties with Heritage.  

The NTFCA gathering, arranged in less than two weeks after the group’s split from Heritage, took place in a basement ballroom at The Line Hotel in Washington. About 100 people were in attendance, among them representatives from Jewish advocacy groups including the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Federations of North America and Combat Antisemitism Movement.

The event’s organizers — NTFCA co-chairs Ellie Cohanim, who served as deputy antisemitism special envoy in the first Trump administration; Mario Bramnick, a Florida pastor and president of the Latino Coalition for Israel; and Luke Moon, a pastor and executive director of the Philos Project — took the opportunity to forcefully reject Carlson and other far-right media figures who are gaining clout among conservatives by attacking Israel and its backers, and to issue a call for conservatives to join them in calling out growing animosity toward Jews. They don’t think enough people are doing so. 

“I remember Luke, early on, said, ‘Mario, keep your eye on the right.’ I said, ‘Well, look, that’s a fringe. It’s not really important,’” Bramnick said. “But now we’re seeing a very troubling development during President Trump’s second administration within the MAGA movement: antisemitic acts coming from MAGA movement leaders.” The Project Esther report that the task force developed with Heritage last year was focused solely on left-wing antisemitism. 

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

• Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar is in Washington this week for meetings with senior U.S. officials. Sa’ar will meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials, as well as Jewish communal leaders from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
  
• World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain is in Israel this week. More below.
  
• We’re keeping an eye on diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and France following a Wall Street Journal op-ed by U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner in which Kushner wrote that, “not a day passes without Jews assaulted in the street, synagogues or schools defaced, or Jewish-owned businesses vandalized” in the country. France’s Foreign Ministry summoned Kushner following the op-ed’s publication yesterday. More below.
  
• The U.N. Security Council is set to vote today on a French proposal to extend the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which has operated for decades in the border region between Israel and Lebanon and long faced criticism over its inability to prevent Hezbollah from amassing significant weapons stockpiles in the area. At his confirmation hearing last month, Michel Issa, the Trump administration’s nominee to be ambassador to Lebanon, dodged a question on whether the mandate should be extended, saying that the force’s role was likely to change as Beirut pushes Hezbollah to disarm.
  
• Nuclear talks between Iran and the U.K., Germany and France are expected to take place this week, ahead of next week’s deadline for the imposition of snapback sanctions on Iran.
  
• Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency officials are in Washington this week for talks regarding Iran’s nuclear program.
  
• In Minneapolis, the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting kicks off today. The DNC delegates will be considering two Israel-related resolutions — an anti-Israel measure that calls for an arms embargo and a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel and a more balanced resolution calling for a ceasefire and the immediate return of hostages, which has the backing of DNC Chair Ken Martin.
  
• The Zionist Rabbinic Coalition is hosting a seminar today for rabbis navigating topics around Israel and antisemitism in High Holiday sermons.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

After a tumultuous decade in American politics, both major parties are undergoing ideological and generational shifts that are likely to redefine America’s standing in the world — and its relationship with Israel.

On the left, a new generation of lawmakers from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, many with more critical views of Israel than those who came before them, is making gains in major cities, state capitals and on Capitol Hill. On the right, the ascendance of the isolationist MAGA movement and the decline in support for Israel among younger evangelical Christians, traditionally a bastion of support for the Jewish state, is challenging what has long been traditional, strident GOP support for Israel.

Longtime observers of the U.S.-Israel relationship with whom JI spoke over the weekend expressed concern that Jerusalem has not developed a strategic long-term approach to deal with the emerging political realities in the U.S.

When asked if he believed there’s a serious effort in Jerusalem to address the longterm political challenges in the U.S., former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren was succinct: “I do not.”

The U.S.-Israel relationship, Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, told JI on Sunday, “has never been in bigger trouble.” What’s so significant about this moment, he said, is that “the erosion is happening in both parties.”

In the past, Halevi explained, “we could always rely on one party or the other to bail us out. And of course, in the past, it was usually the Democrats, and the fact that the erosion is now beginning in the Republican Party should be sending major, major alarms in Jerusalem, but I don’t see any indication of that.” 

Former Knesset member Einat Wilf told JI that the warning signs had been evident for years, and that she had pushed for conversations on the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship when Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) began to criticize Israel. “I remember at the time I started talking with people,” Wilf recalled, “And I told them, ‘Look, if I’m Israel, then I’m putting a team now. Doesn’t have to be overt, but I’m putting a team now that begins to plan for a world where we don’t have such strong support.’”

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

Statehood Trap: The Washington Post’s editorial board pushes back against recent efforts by Paris, Ottawa, London and Canberra to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state, arguing that the eradication of Hamas must be a prerequisite for statehood. “At the core, the future Palestinian state must recognize Israel’s right to exist and renounce violence and terrorism. That means removing from any government role groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whose calling cards are the elimination of the Jewish state. It means erasing from the education of young Palestinians in schools and mosques that insidious hatred of Israel and the Jewish people. And it means standing up a reformed Palestinian Authority with the credibility and resources to govern the new entity. The rush to recognize a Palestinian state by some of Israel’s staunchest allies such as France, Britain, Canada and Australia is born of an understandable frustration: mainly their inability to sway Netanyahu’s government to cease its destructive war on Gaza and alleviate the human suffering. Recognizing a Palestinian state is a diplomatic way of kicking over the table to try to restart peace talks from scratch.” [WashPost]

Journalists or Terrorists?: In The Wall Street Journal, Jamie Kirchick reflects on the decision by activist groups to classify Palestinians working for terror-aligned and Qatari-financed media outlets as journalists. “What these men did wasn’t journalism, and claiming otherwise dishonors the real journalists who risk and sometimes lose their lives endeavoring to bring us the truth. To put people who celebrated or participated in the Oct. 7 attacks in the same category as journalists Daniel Pearl, Marie Colvin and James Foley is a disgrace. What’s being hyped as an unprecedented attack on journalists is actually a cynical salvo in an information war. By claiming that Israeli brutality is responsible for the deaths of a ‘record’ number of ‘journalists’ in Gaza, international press-freedom groups have committed a category error. The figure is high because the world has never seen a conflict in which so many people working on behalf of terrorist organizations have been disingenuously characterized as journalists by once-respected watchdog groups. The cause of international press freedom is undermined when its leading institutions launder jihadist martyrdom into journalistic sacrifice.” [WSJ]

Beauty Marks: Puck’s Rachel Strugatz looks at the fallout following beauty influencer Huda Kattan’s posting of a video blaming Israel for both world wars and the 9/11 attacks; Sephora dropped Kattan from its upcoming campaign in response, but didn’t sever all ties. “Kattan’s video and posts were so disturbing, and her apology so insufficient, that Sephora had a moral imperative — and given the current political environment, a fiduciary obligation — to respond. (In Kattan’s apology video, she said her post was ‘misinterpreted and completely misused,’ and denied any allegations of antisemitism.) But Sephora’s business will be impacted, and sales will probably suffer, whether the retailer continues its partnership with Kattan or decides to cut ties with the brand. (Cue the social media boycott on both sides.) Surprisingly, Sephora hasn’t faced this level of backlash and criticism regarding one of its important partners before, and how it handles Huda Beauty will reveal a lot about its priorities and reliance on top brands with bright futures.” [Puck]On the Fringes: In the Jerusalem Journal, Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks argues that both major parties should distance themselves from their fringe elements that call for decreased U.S.-Israel ties. “We know that there is a vast difference between criticizing an Israeli policy or politician and calling for the destruction of the one Jewish state in the world, the one democracy in the Middle East. That is a distinction that we must keep making, clearly and loudly. Likewise, we must hold accountable the people who educate, inform, and influence Americans — from universities to news outlets to social media influencers — and not let lies go unrefuted. … It is possible to push extreme ideas and their advocates back to the fringes. The GOP and the conservative movement have done it before. It is possible to hold people accountable and call out anti-Israel and antisemitic words and actions when we see them. It is possible to use every means at our disposal to fight the information war being waged against Israel. It is possible, and it is imperative.” [JerusalemJournal]

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, weeks after a leaked preliminary DIA report on the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June that suggested that the military action did not fully incapacitate Iran’s nuclear program…

FBI agents raided the home of former National Security Advisor John Bolton as part of a federal security probe…

The Department of Homeland Security, citing “terrorist ties,” canceled dozens of grants issued to Muslim organizations primarily through the Nonprofit Security Grant Program…

The New York Times spotlights the business pursuits of Michael Boulos, the son-in-law of President Donald Trump, following his 2021 engagement to Trump’s daughter Tiffany, as Boulos sought to benefit from his in-laws’ professional connections; in one such deal, Boulos, while working for his cousin’s yacht brokerage, overcharged his future brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, for a stake in a superyacht…

Kent Fuchs, the interim president of the University of Florida, said that the school’s search for a new president had become “more challenging” following the UF Board of Governors’ rejection of former University of Michigan President Santa Ono, who had been the only finalist in the previous search; Fuchs is leading the school until the end of the month, when a new interim leader will rotate into the position…

A Georgia man was fired after he and his wife were filmed shouting antisemitic insults at a neighbor whose daughter, an Israeli police officer, was killed in a terror attack in 2023…

Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp, who had previously served as The Netherlands’ ambassador to Israel, resigned after he was unable to bring sanctions against Israel; members of Veldkamp’s New Social Contract party followed his exit, throwing the existing caretaker government into disarray ahead of October elections…

Israel struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday; the strikes followed the Houthis’ firing on Friday of a ballistic missile with a cluster bomb attached, the first such warhead that has been fired by the Iran-backed terror group…

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his first public address since the 12-day war with Israel in June, effectively ruled out nuclear talks with the U.S., accusing President Donald Trump of wanting Tehran to “surrender”…

Iran’s defense minister said the country was planning to manufacture weapons outside of Iran, with factories being built in several countries…

Hundreds of inmates have been returned to refurbished areas of Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, which was damaged in the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June… 

NPR’s Ari Shapiro is departing the public broadcaster, where he has co-hosted “All Things Considered” for a decade, next month; the departure by Shapiro, who joined NPR 25 years ago, comes amid a number of exits by other high-profile NPR staffers…

The New York Times’ “Vows” section spotlights the nuptials of Camp Social founder Liv Schreiber and Kyle Sidi Shaub…

Anne Neuberger, who served as deputy national security advisor for cybersecurity and emerging tech in the Biden administration, is joining Andreessen Horowitz as senior advisor focused on AI and cyber…

JI senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod and Olivia Truesdale, a program manager at FMC (Former Members of Congress), got engaged while vacationing in Venice, Italy. Marc proposed during a private breakfast at their hotel. They met in 2018 while they were editors for the Claremont Colleges’ student newspaper, and began dating shortly after…

Television and theater actor Jerry Adler, whose credits included “The Sopranos” and “The Good Wife,” died at 96…

Shelly Zegart, a founder of the Kentucky Quilt Project who sought to connect the craft to the American experience, died at 84…

Chairman of the National Credit Union Administration from 2009 until 2016, she now serves on the board of directors of Stewart Title Co., Deborah “Debbie” Matz turns 75… 

British novelist, he is known for writing comic novels that revolve around the dilemmas of Jewish characters, Howard Jacobson turns 83… Bass guitarist and co-lead singer of Kiss, his birth name is Chaim Witz, known professionally as “The Demon” and Gene Simmons, he turns 76… Chairman of the board emeritus at the Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, Lorin M. Fife… CEO of The Joel Paul Group, a division of Merraine Group, specializing in executive recruitment for the nonprofit sector, William Seth Hochman turns 70… Former member of the Knesset for the Blue and White party, he is a retired major general in the IDF, Elazar Stern turns 69… Former program director at the St. Paul, Minn., JCC, Manfred “Fred” Haeusler… Former Trump fixer, he was the key prosecution witness in the 2024 Trump criminal trial brought by the Manhattan DA, Michael D. Cohen turns 59… Professor of mathematics at Harvard University (tenured at age 26, the youngest ever), pianist and chess national master, Noam David Elkies turns 59… U.S. senator (R-Ohio), appointed in January to fill the seat of VPOTUS JD Vance, Jon Husted turns 58… Musician, singer songwriter, author and record producer best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the band Wilco, Jeffrey Scot Tweedy turns 58… Former Canadian MP, now VP for external affairs and general counsel at Canada’s Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Richard Marceau turns 55… Regional marketing director at UJA-Federation of New York, Suzanne Schneider… Executive director at the Religious Zionists of America, Alicia Post… Actress and musician best known for playing Melanie “MelRose” Rosen on the Netflix series “Glow,” Jaclyn Tohn turns 45… Director of development for South Florida’s JVAC – Jewish Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Sarah Schreiber… Founder and managing partner at Commonweal Ventures, Nathaniel Loewentheil… Director of state and local government relations at multinational conglomerate Philips, Evan Hoffman… Managing director in the D.C. office of SKDK, Daniel Barash… Canadian actress, Stacey Farber turns 38… Director of product marketing at LinkedIn, Sam Michelman… Founder and CEO of DLP Labs, Ryan Kuhel… Founder and CEO at the Center for Intimacy Justice, Jackie Rotman… Senior director of editorial strategy and operations at Axios, Neal Rothschild… Jane Wasserman… Investigative counsel for the House Education and the Workforce Committee, Jenna Lifhits Berger… Operations and accounting specialist at HealthSource Distributors, Adam Aryeh Friedman… Israeli singer-songwriter, Eden Hason turns 31… Carina Grossmann… Robert Cohen…

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Just before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his Security Cabinet to discuss a full IDF takeover of the Gaza Strip, he told Fox News’ Bill Hemmer that Israel “intends to” take over Gaza but “doesn’t want to keep” the territory or “be there as a governing body.” Rather, Netanyahu said, Israel’s ultimate goal is to have a “security perimeter” around the enclave and to “hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly.”

Asked if President Donald Trump had given him a “green light” for the plan, Netanyahu said Trump “understands that it’s Israel who’s going to do the fighting” but that the two “haven’t gone into that kind of discussion.” Netanyahu added that the two leaders had agreed to a “humanitarian surge” to take place before what Netanyahu called “our final military action.”

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, speaking to Fox later in the day, said that Trump “has made it clear that he respects that Israel has to make the decision that is best for them. … The president is not going to try to second guess what Israel is doing”…

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday regarding the filing of federal hate crimes charges against Elias Rodriguez, the alleged perpetrator of the fatal Capital Jewish Museum shooting in May, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said the indictment “begins the statutory process on whether to seek the death penalty” and that Attorney General Pam Bondi “will determine whether or not to authorize my office to seek death.”

According to the filing, Rodriguez wrote in a document the day before the shooting, “Those of us against the genocide take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity.” Reid Davis, the special agent in charge for the FBI Washington field office’s criminal division, said investigators “believe [Rodriguez] was a lone-wolf actor motivated by anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian ideology, with the goal of conducting a mass shooting to call attention to his political agenda”…

Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for governor of Virginia, belatedly acknowledged antisemitic social media posts from state Del. Sam Rasoul, who chairs the Education Committee in the House of Delegates, after her campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the issue from Jewish Insider. 

Spanberger told the local political outlet Virginia Scope, “This war continues to unleash heartbreak and tragedy as we witness civilian deaths, starving families, and hostages still held by Hamas. … However, one can and must denounce these tragedies without using antisemitic language, whether intentional or not.” Notably, Spanberger did not specify whether she identified Rasoul’s rhetoric specifically as antisemitic…

Axios scooped the launch of a new podcast from Katie Miller, a former Trump administration aide and Elon Musk staffer married to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. After ending her tenure at DOGE along with Musk in March, Miller is kicking off “The Katie Miller Podcast,” aimed at conservative women, with an interview with Vice President JD Vance, among others…

David Ellison, CEO of Skydance Media, and George Cheeks, CEO of CBS, attended a morning editorial meeting at CBS News today, shortly after the $8 billion merger between Paramount, the parent company of CBS, and Skydance officially closed, per Puck News. The merger marks the end of a yearslong struggle between controlling shareholder Shari Redstone and other investors as well as Trump, with whom Paramount had to settle a $16 million lawsuit before the FCC approved the deal…

U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner called the vandalization of El Al’s Paris office — which was splattered with red paint and graffiti that read “genocide airline” — “vile,” “cowardly” and “antisemitic.” He called for the French government to “fully prosecute this crime and bring the perpetrators to justice”…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider for reporting on a new Orthodox Jewish community emerging in the unlikeliest of places, an interview with Rich Goldberg reflecting on his service with the White House National Energy Dominance Council and a dive into how pro-Israel lawmakers are reacting to Netanyahu’s Gaza takeover plans.

Going into the weekend, we’ll be watching the outcome of the Israeli Security Cabinet vote and its ripples in Washington, including in the White House, among Israel’s allies in Congress and within the American Jewish community.

We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom!

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro spoke out on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza today, telling a local news channel, “The fact that kids are starving in Gaza is not OK. It is not OK. And I think everyone has a moral responsibility to figure out how to feed these kids. It is true that Hamas intercepts aid. It is true that the aid distribution network is not as sophisticated as it needs to be, but given that, I think our nation, the United States of America, has a moral responsibility to flood the zone with aid. … It is awful, what is happening in Gaza.” 

The Democratic governor called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that there is no starvation in Gaza “quite abhorrent,” and said Netanyahu’s language and support of “occupying” Gaza is “not only reckless … but what it does is it further isolates Israel in the world, and that’s a dangerous place for Israel to be.” It’s a sign of the rhetorical tightrope even pro-Israel Democrats are walking, as the party’s voters turn more critical towards the Jewish state… 

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), another moderate-minded Jewish Democrat, who recently said she supported resolutions led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) last week to block some arms sales to Israel, told Semafor that Israel’s moves to airlift increased aid into Gaza are “a start, but you can’t possibly get the volume of food in there that you need via an airlift.”

However, asked if she would support recognition of a Palestinian state, Slotkin said, “I just don’t believe that we should be recognizing a new state in the middle of an active hot war”…

After sources in the Prime Minister’s Office briefed reporters yesterday that IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir can step down if he doesn’t agree with Netanyahu’s move to expand the war in Gaza, the PMO released a statement that “the IDF is prepared to enact any decision made by the Security Cabinet.” The statement came after a three-hour meeting of senior security officials in which Zamir presented “possibilities to continue the campaign in Gaza.” Netanyahu plans to convene the full Security Cabinet on Thursday, according to Israel’s Channel 12 news…

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) trip to Israel continues, including a meeting last night in Shiloh — the second West Bank settlement Johnson has visited since his arrival — with Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, as well as U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and his wife, Janet. Johnson’s delegation also met with Ditza Or, mother of hostage Avinatan Or…

The FBI released its 2024 Hate Crime Report this morning, which found that nearly 70% (1,938 incidents) of all religiously motivated hate crimes in the U.S. last year were committed against Jews, including terrorist threats, assault, vandalism, harassment, burglary, false bomb threats and swatting. It’s the highest number of anti-Jewish hate crimes ever recorded by the bureau since it began collecting data in 1991…

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) sent a letter to the IRS yesterday asking the agency to investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based on “substantial evidence” that “confirms CAIR has deep ties to terrorist organizations”…

U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner met yesterday with Saudi Ambassador to France Fahd bin Mayouf Al-Ruwaili. Kushner said the two discussed “the ways that our two countries can each contribute to peace and stability in the Middle East,” just one week after Saudi Arabia and France co-chaired a U.N. conference on the two-state solution which the U.S. and Israel boycotted…

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency, quietly removed a requirement for grant applicants to certify they will not engage in a commercial boycott of Israel in order to be eligible for funding. The requirement had been included in notices published by FEMA on Friday for a tranche of at least $1.9 billion in natural disaster preparedness grants…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider this week for reporting on Rep. Maxwell Frost’s (D-FL) anti-Israel turn since coming into office as the first Gen-Z lawmaker, the University of Maryland’s decision to settle a lawsuit with CAIR for a six-figure sum and the Democratic Navy veteran, Rebecca Bennett, looking to unseat Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District. 

Tomorrow, the New Jersey Jewish Business Alliance will host its 11th annual Legislative and Business Luncheon featuring gubernatorial candidates Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and former Republican state Rep. Jack Ciattarelli. The two will face off in the Garden State’s November general election, with recent polling showing Sherrill with a comfortable lead.

• Attendees of this year’s Aspen Security Forum are making their way to Colorado today, ahead of the start of the gathering tomorrow. Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod will be on the ground in Aspen — drop us a line if you will be as well.
• We’re also keeping an eye on stalled Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks amid reports that President Donald Trump and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani were set to meet on the sidelines of yesterday’s FIFA finals in New Jersey. Read more here.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

School may be out of session for the summer, but officials from Georgetown University, the University of California, Berkeley and the City University of New York will be in the hot seat this week when they testify on Tuesday before the House Education and Workforce Committee.

This is not the first time that university officials have appeared in front of Congress to account for the situations on their campuses, but this week’s hearing aims to focus on more than just the anti-Israel activism that has permeated many campuses since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza to focus on root issues, including foreign funding in higher education as well as faculty anti-Israel organizing efforts.

With that as the backdrop, Georgetown’s interim president, Robert Groves, is likely to face hard-hitting questioning about the school’s donations from authoritarian regimes. 

Nearly a decade ago, Georgetown took a $10 million donation from an organization connected to Beijing’s ruling Chinese Communist Party — more specifically, according to The Washington Post, to “the specific CCP organizations that manage overseas influence operations” — to establish the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues.

But that $10 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money Qatar is alleged to have sent to Georgetown. According to a study by the research institute ISGAP — which primarily focuses on progressive and Islamist antisemitism — Qatar has donated more than $1 billion dollars to the Jesuit school in recent decades. In addition, Qatar has long had a partnership with Georgetown that includes an outpost of the school in Doha. Earlier this year, the school extended its contract with Doha for another decade.

There’s a saying that has floated around many a conference, Jewish organizational board meeting and Shabbat dinner table in recent years: Jews endow buildings, their enemies endow what happens inside of them. Tomorrow’s hearing will see just how deeply those efforts have permeated.

R&D Nation: In the Financial Times, Ruchir Sharma observes Israel’s rise as a regional economic superpower despite nearly two years of war. “Perhaps the most telling sign of its dynamism is that Israel now spends more than 6 per cent of GDP on research and development — more than any other nation and over double the global average. An unusually high share — about half — of that R&D funding comes from foreign multinationals, many involved in defence-related industries. … To many observers, the geopolitical situation in the Middle East still seems precarious. But the market’s optimistic take on Israel’s tech-driven economy is now showing up in economists’ forecasts, which are projecting growth at nearly 4 per cent in coming years. That’s relatively strong for a developed nation. It validates the market view that Israel is cementing its status as the region’s dominant economic force.” [FT]

FIDF Scandal Fallout: eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross looks at how recent concerns over alleged mismanagement and financial impropriety at Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces has “provided ample ammunition” to observers critical of legacy Jewish organizations. “Though always present in communal discourse, the tear-it-all-down-and-start-again voices have gained strength since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and the subsequent rise in global antisemitism, and not without cause. … Legacy institutions, with their galas and boards and committees and well-paid executives, are an easy target. These established organizations have often failed to defend their size and bureaucracy, or even acknowledge that alongside the stability and internal checks that they provide, those things do make them slower to react and pivot in an emergency.” [eJP] 

The World to Come: In his “Jerusalem Journal” Substack, Avi Mayer considers the possibility of a post-Zionist America. “Critiques of Israeli policy, no matter how strident or widespread, do not automatically lead to the wholesale rejection of Israel or the negation of Jewish self-determination. But if current trends continue, and if voting patterns start to reflect the shifting views of the electorate, we may find ourselves in uncharted territory. The ramifications of a changed America could be wide-ranging, deeply impacting both American Jewish life and Israeli national security. An America that is intolerant of a core element of contemporary Jewish identity would be a place in which American Jews would feel — and be made to feel — increasingly uncomfortable. From the Soviet Union to the Middle East to western Europe, hostility to Zionism on the part of national leaders and elites has always precipitated societal antisemitism, forcing Jews to confront painful dilemmas.” [JerusalemJournal]

Speaking at a Turning Point USA student conference in Florida over the weekend, far-right commentator Tucker Carlson suggested that Americans who served in the Israeli Defense Forces “should lose their citizenship,” adding that he believed a person “can’t fight for another country and remain an American, period”…

A hacker took over the X account of “Sesame Street” character Elmo, posting a series of profane, racist and antisemitic comments; the posts included a message to “kill all Jews” and another that described President Donald Trump as a “puppet” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…

xAI, the AI company affiliated with X owner Elon Musk, said that its Grok chatbot had undergone a coding update that modified what information it was taking in, making Grok “susceptible to existing X user posts; including when such posts contained extremist views”; the chatbot had spewed a series of antisemitic and sexually explicit posts over a period of several days last week…

A new survey from the Anti-Defamation League found that 1 in 4 Americans consider recent antisemitic attacks in the U.S. to be “understandable,” while three-quarters of those surveyed want the government to take more action against antisemitism…

Pennsylvania Democrat Jenelle Stelson is mounting a second congressional bid against Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), to whom she lost by less than a percentage point in the 2024 election; read our interview with Stelson during her campaign last summer…

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names approved the renaming of an Alaskan waterway that had been named Nazi Island by the U.S. Air Force during World War II…

The Financial Times reports that the Boston Consulting Group was paid more than $1 million for its work on a Qatari-backed project led by former American military veterans to bring aid into Gaza by sea… 

French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are not expected to attend an upcoming rescheduled conference on Palestinian statehood; the initial conference had been canceled following the onset of the Israel-Iran war.

The BBC spotlights Punjabi businessman Kundanlal Gupta, who during World War II saved more than a dozen Austrian Jews by creating fictitious job offers in India, providing those “hired” with a way to escape Nazi Europe…

New satellite images indicate that Iran struck an American storage facility that contained secure communications equipment on the Al Udeid base in Qatar during its attack on American targets last month…

Iranian state media alleged that Israel attempted to assassinate Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during last month’s war; Pezeshkian reportedly suffered a leg wound in the Israeli strike on a meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council…

Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly told leaders in Washington and Tehran that Moscow backs a nuclear deal with Iran that forbids the Islamic Republic from enriching uranium…

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday that Tehran would be open to returning to nuclear talks in exchange for the guarantee that it would not face further attacks; Iran also said it would be open to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections, days after the country’s parliament passed a law tightening restrictions around international inspections…

A Palestinian-American man from Florida who was visiting family in the West Bank was killed in clashes with settlers…

A Filipino woman who worked as a caretaker in Rehovot, Israel, died as a result of injuries sustained in an Iranian ballistic missile strike last month; Leah Mosquera’s death brings the number of fatalities in Israel as a result of the 12-day war to 29…

Israel’s Transportation Ministry estimated that Ben-Gurion Airport will see 3.4 million travelers over the course of this summer, a drop of nearly 2 million passengers from the summer before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks and ensuing war…

Charles Reinhart, the former director of the American Dance Festival, died at 94… B Lab founder Andrew Kassoy, who pushed the concept that capitalism could promote social good, died at 55… Physicist Daniel Kleppner, whose work on atomic clock accuracy helped shape the use of GPS systems, died at 92… Sports journalist Samuel Abt, who covered the Tour de France for more than three decades, died at 91…

U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner visited the Memorial de la Shoah in Paris last week in what he said was his “first stop” after arriving in the country.

MLB pitcher for 11 seasons, now a sportscaster and author, he won the Cy Young Award and was an MLB All Star in 1980, Steve Stone turns 78…

Architect and urban designer, Moshe Safdie turns 87… Los Angeles resident, Susan Farrell… Film producer, best known for the Lethal Weapon series, the first two “Die Hard” movies and the Matrix trilogy, Joel Silver turns 73… Film and theatrical producer, in 2012 he became the first producer to have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award, Scott Rudin turns 67… Co-founder and managing director of Beverly Hills Private Wealth, Scott M. Shagrin… United States secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick turns 64… Venture capitalist at Breyer Capital, James W. Breyer turns 64… Media columnist for the Chicago Tribune until 2021, Phil Rosenthal turns 62… U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council during the last three years of the Biden administration, she is the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Ambassador Michèle Taylor turns 59… Illustrator and author best known as the writer of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick turns 59… Principal at Full Court Press Communications, Daniel Eli Cohen… Member of the Washington state Senate until 2023, David S. Frockt turns 56… President and CEO at the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, Renee Wizig-Barrios… Rapper and record producer from Brooklyn known as “Ill Bill,” he is the producer, founder and CEO of Uncle Howie Records, William “Bill” Braunstein turns 53… Professor in the department of genetics at the Harvard Medical School, David Emil Reich, Ph.D. turns 51… Chief operating officer at Aish Global, Elliot Mathias… Fashion designer and cast member on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” Dorit Kemsley turns 49… Retired mixed martial artist, now a life coach, Emily Peters-Kagan turns 44… Co-founder and executive chairman of Pinterest, Ben Silbermann turns 43… Editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, Eliana Yael Johnson… Interior designer and owner of Tribe By Design, Tehillah Braun… Professional golfer with four tournament wins in the Asian and European tours, David Lipsky turns 37… Founder at Bashert Group and head of a NYC-based family office, Daniel B. Jeydel… AVP for grantmaking at Hillel International, she recently joined the board of the Siegel JCC of Delaware, Rachel Giattino… Reporter covering housing and the home building industry for The Wall Street Journal, Nicole Friedman… Director of Chabad Georgetown, Rabbi Menachem Shemtov… Creator of the Instagram feed called Second Date Shadchan, Elizabeth Morgan (Lizzy) Brenner… Collegiate basketball star for Princeton and Maryland, now playing for Maccabi Bnot Ashdod of the Israeli Women’s Basketball Premier League, Abby Meyers turns 26…

• President Donald Trump wraps up his three-country trip to the Middle East today in the United Arab Emirates. Earlier today, the president visited the Abrahamic Family House. More below.
• Former Israeli-American hostage Keith Siegel is in New York City today, where he is hosting a pancake pop-up at 12 Chairs Cafe’s Soho location. All proceeds from the pop-up will go to the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
• The two-day FII PRIORITY Europe 2025 begins today in Tirana, Albania. Speakers include French President Emmanuel Macron, Richard Attias and Goldman Sachs’ Jared Cohen. 
• Iran’s deputy foreign minister is in Istanbul today for meetings with senior diplomats from France, the U.K. and Germany.
• The Eurovision finals are taking place tomorrow in Basel, Switzerland. Israeli singer Yuval Raphael advanced out of Thursday’s semifinals and will perform her “New Day Will Rise” on Saturday night.
• On Sunday, the Center for Jewish History is hosting “The End of an Era? Jews and Elite Universities.” The symposium will feature speakers including Rabbi David Wolpe, Jamie Kirchick, Eli Lake, Steven Pinker, Bill Ackman and Deborah Lipstadt.
• Also Sunday, the National Council of Jewish Women’s two-day Washington Institute kicks off in the nation’s capital.
• In New York, the Jewish Community Relations Council-NY is hosting its annual Israel Parade on Sunday.
• And in Paris, ELNET’s International Policy Conference begins Sunday.
• The World Jewish Congress kicks off in Jerusalem on Sunday evening.
• Pope Leo XIV will be inaugurated on Sunday at the Vatican. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Israeli President Isaac Herzog will be among the dignitaries and officials traveling to Italy for the inauguration. 

A QUICK WORD WITH JOSH KRAUSHAAR

In our hyperpartisan times, it’s often hard to appreciate how often the Trump administration — on issues ranging from health care to abortion to trade — is taking liberal-to-left positions, yet can still rely on support from nearly all of the GOP base, Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar writes. 

President Donald Trump can call for implementing price controlson pharmaceutical companies, without generating even a peep of opposition from rank-and-file conservatives. The White House can defend federal regulations allowing abortion pills to be available online and by mail without facing much backlash from pro-lifers. It can slap punitive tariffs on allies and rivals alike, raising the risk of economic chaos, only backing down after mayhem in the markets, and not because of public pushback from lawmakers.

But perhaps the most consequential divergence of the Trump administration from conventional conservative views is on foreign policy, most recently its seemingly growing disconnect from Israel on issues ranging from Iran nuclear negotiations to the war against the Houthis in Yemen and the state of the war in Gaza. Trump’s views are apparently at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on all those issues, to the point where the president didn’t even schedule a stop in Israel this week on his Middle East trip. 

We write a lot about the horseshoe theory, which has the far left and far right coming together to mainline views once considered beyond the political pale. On Middle East policy, it’s increasingly looking like there’s a different type of horseshoe, tying together Obama-era foreign policy advisors looking to attack the foreign policy establishment of their time as a “blob” along with isolationist-minded Trump advisors aiming to discredit mainstream conservative policymakers as part of an “interventionalist” cadre.

Just look at the stunning quotes from Obama and Biden-era foreign policy officials responsible for what some saw as unpopular national security decisions now praising the new Trump playbook in the Middle East. 

Obama Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told Axios, reprising his Blob dig for Trump critics: “One thing you will say is he’s not tied to this constant fear of some bad faith right-wing attacks or stupid Blob-type, ‘we don’t do this, we must leverage the sanctions for blah blah blah.’ No! Sometimes you just have to try something different.”  

Rob Malley, Biden’s Iran envoy whose security clearance was suspended over alleged misconduct, also backhandedly praised Trump’s new approach in the Middle East. “It’s hard not to be simultaneously terrified at the thought of the damage he can cause with such power, and awed by his willingness to brazenly shatter so many harmful taboos,” Malley told Axios. 

The Axios story follows our own reporting last month, quoting numerous Obama and Biden-era officials finding common ground with Trump on trying to reach a diplomatic agreement with Iran, even if it requires major concessions. Phil Gordon, Vice President Kamala Harris’ national security advisor, told JI the Trump negotiating team is “gonna have to accept some of the same imperfections that the Obama team did.” 

The big potential question to come is if Trump’s negotiators strike a nuclear deal with Iran that looks awfully similar to Obama’s 2015 deal, short of a dismantlement of the Islamic regime’s nuclear program, will Republicans fall in line or stand their ground on an issue many have spoken out against since the original JCPOA? Only time will tell what transpires, but given the trajectory of our politics, principles tend to bow to power.

Plane Wrong: The Atlantic’s Jonathan Lemire and Russell Berman look at how Republicans are responding — or not addressing — President Donald Trump’s intentions to accept a luxury plane from Qatar. “But in a rare moment of defiance, some of the loudest cries of protest about the possible gift are coming from some of Trump’s staunchest allies. ‘I think if we switched the names to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, we’d all be freaking out on the right,”’ Ben Shapiro, a Daily Wire co-founder, said on his podcast. ‘President Trump promised to drain the swamp. This is not, in fact, draining the swamp.’ Even in Washington, a capital now numbed to scandals that were once unthinkable, the idea of accepting the jet is jaw-dropping. Trump’s second administration is yet again displaying a disregard for norms and for traditional legal and political guardrails around elected office — this time at a truly gargantuan scale. Trump’s team has said it believes that the gift would be legal because it would be donated to the Department of Defense (and then to the presidential library). But federal law prohibits government workers from accepting a gift larger than $20 at any one time from any person. Retired General Stanley McChrystal, who once commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told us that he couldn’t ‘accept a lunch at the Capital Grille.’” [TheAtlantic]

Acceptance Rates: In The Wall Street Journal, Alison Leigh Cowan proposes that universities ask questions of their applicants similar to the questions that green card applicants are required to answer on issues regarding violence and behavior. “Foreigners seeking green cards or nonresident visas must answer dozens of yes-or-no questions from the U.S. government. False statements can be grounds for deportation. They are also asked if they have any affiliation to communist or other totalitarian parties, and, in some instances, whether they intend to give financial or other support to terrorists or engage in activity intended to oppose, control or overthrow the U.S. government. American-born university applicants shouldn’t get a free pass. Plenty of them have been on the front lines of the rankest campus spectacles. This extra layer of diligence won’t solve the separate problem posed by tenured faculty who radicalize students once they arrive. But it’s a good place to start: University presidents have more sway over their admissions offices than they do over entrenched faculty members.” [WSJ]

President Donald Trump said on Thursday in the United Arab Emirates that American negotiators are “getting close to maybe doing a deal” with Iran over its nuclear program…

In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News, UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan spoke about the UAE-U.S. relationship, the Israel-Hamas war and nuclear talks with Iran; regarding Gaza, he called for “an authority that’s not Hamas that controls Gaza”…

During the president’s trip to the UAE, the countries inked an agreement to boost Abu Dhabi’s chip-making capabilities, the first such AI-related deal the U.S. has made since Trump entered office; the deal includes the creation of a 10-mile AI campus in Abu Dhabi supplied by U.S.-made chips…

Secretary of State Marco Rubio met on Thursday with his Syrian counterpart, Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani, in Turkey as the U.S. moves toward removing sanctions on Damascus following a directive from Trump…

Trump reportedly shared polling with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) that showed lagging numbers ahead of her decision not to move forward with a Senate bid challenging Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA)…

Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) introduced the Persian Gulf Act, to prohibit the administration from changing the name of the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Gulf, as some in the Trump administration have reportedly considered…

A bipartisan group of 13 House members led by Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI) introduced a resolution expressing support for continued and expanded U.S. defense cooperation, particularly in advanced research areas…

A group of nine Democratic legislators, including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Summer Lee (D-PA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Lateefah Simon (D-CA), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Delia Ramirez (D-IL) and Andre Carson (D-IN) introduced a resolution accusing Israel of genocide and calling for the U.S. to “ensure the United States ends its complicity in Israel’s ongoing Nakba against the Palestinian people”…

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations voted unanimously to admit the Iranian American Jewish Federation, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports…

NYU is denying a diploma to a student speaker who railed against American “complicity in this genocide” in Gaza during a commencement ceremony at NYU’s Gallatin School…

Writer Salman Rushdie withdrew as the commencement speaker for Claremont McKenna College ahead of this weekend’s ceremonies…

Former Harvard Divinity School student Shabbos Kestenbaum settled his ongoing lawsuit against Harvard; the settlement comes days before a deadline for Kestenbaum to produce a range of documents that included his communications with President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign and messages from WhatsApp groups…

The Justice Department told Harvard it is looking into whether the school is complying with a Supreme Court ruling ending affirmative action in college admissions processes…

A Pittsburgh woman pleaded guilty for her role in the vandalism of two Jewish institutions in the Pennsylvania city; Talya Lubit, who is Jewish, was ordered to pay nearly $11,000 in restitution to Chabad of Squirrel Hill, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and the City of Pittsburgh and will face a parole board’s recommendation at her June sentencing… 

Officials in southern Nevada are investigating a string of threatening letters sent to Jewish organizations in the Las Vegas area…

The BBC is investigating whether a frequent guest on BBC Arabic who has been billed as both a “journalist” and “foreign policy analyst” served as editor-in-chief of the Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV until last September…

Vanity Fair profiles Axios reporter Barak Ravid, whose coverage since moving from Israel to Washington in mid-2023 has focused on the 2024 presidential election, U.S.-Israel relations and the Israel-Hamas war…

Israel carried out overnight strikes across the Gaza Strip, targeting what the IDF said was Hamas infrastructure, amid a broader escalation targeting the terror group in the enclave…

Trump addressed food shortages in Gaza on Friday, saying that “a lot of people are starving” but the U.S. is “going to get that taken care of”…

The New York Times reports on Hamas’ celebrations over the killing earlier this week of a pregnant Israeli woman in the West Bank…

Members of the Israeli branch of the Masorti/Conservative movement’s Mercaz Olami paid to publish and distribute posters in Haredi neighborhoods in Israel that equated Zionism with idolatry and heresy as part of an influence campaign aimed at driving a wedge between the Israeli Haredi public and the Haredi officials involved in the World Zionist Organization, eJewishPhilanthropy‘s Nira Dayanim reports…

Several dozen people participated in an annual pilgrimage to the Ghriba synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, amid security concerns; two years ago, five people were killed in a terror attack targeting pilgrims, who previously numbered in the thousands…

President Donald Trump toured the Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue during his visit to the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, this morning, the first American presidential visit to the interfaith institution since its inauguration in February 2023, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen reports.

Managing partner at Accretive LLC, a private equity firm, he is also executive chairman of Fubo TV, Edgar Bronfman Jr. turns 70… 

FRIDAY: Scholar, author and rabbi, he is the founding president of CLAL: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Irving “Yitz” Greenberg turns 92… Retired judge of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, she has served as president and chair of The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Ellen Moses Heller turns 84… Senior official in the Carter, Bush 41, Clinton and Obama administrations Bernard W. Aronson turns 79… Member of the New York State Assembly for 52 years (longest tenure ever), his term ended in 2022, Richard N. Gottfried turns 78… Chairman of NBC News and MSNBC from 2015 until 2020, Andrew Lack turns 78… Member of the House of Representatives since 2013 (D-FL), she was previously the mayor of West Palm Beach, Lois Frankel turns 77… Harvard history professor, a member of the Rothschild banking family of England, Emma Georgina Rothschild turns 77… Proto-punk singer, songwriter and guitarist, Jonathan Richman turns 74… Radio voice of the Texas Rangers baseball organization since 1979, Eric Nadel turns 74… Rochester, N.Y., resident and advisor to NYC-based Ezras Nashim volunteer ambulance service, Michael E. Pollock… Real estate developer and mechutan of President Trump, his nomination to be U.S. ambassador to France is pending in the Senate, Charles Kushner turns 71… Film and stage actress, noted for “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “Terms of Endearment,” Debra Winger turns 70… President of Tribe Media and editor-in-chief of the Jewish Journal, David Suissa… Real estate mogul and collector of modern and contemporary art, Aby J. Rosen turns 65… Executive assistant at Los Angeles-based FaceCake Marketing Technologies, Esther Bushey… U.S. ambassador to the European Union in the Obama administration, he had a bar mitzvah-like ceremony in Venice in 2017, Anthony Luzzatto Gardner turns 62… Social entrepreneur and co-founder of nonprofit Jumpstart, Jonathan Shawn Landres turns 53… Actress, television personality and author, Victoria Davey (Tori) Spelling turns 52… Host of programs on the Travel Channel and the History Channel, Adam Richman turns 51… VP and associate general counsel at CNN, Drew Shenkman… Managing director at FTI Consulting, Jeff Bechdel… Chef and food blogger, Jamie Neistat Lavarnway… Composer, conductor and music producer known for his film and television scores, Daniel Alexander Slatkin turns 31… 

SATURDAY: President of the Philadelphia-based Honickman Foundation, Lynne Korman Honickman turns 89… Annapolis, Md., attorney, Robert M. Pollock… News anchor for 45 years at WPVI-TV (ABC Channel 6) in Philadelphia until he retired in 2022, known professionally as Jim Gardner, James Goldman turns 77… Canadian philanthropist and the first woman to serve as lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia, Myra Ava Freeman turns 76… Corporate and securities attorney at NYC’s Eilenberg & Krause, he serves as counsel for Israeli technology companies doing business in the U.S., Sheldon Krause turns 70… Comedian, puppeteer and actor, Marc Weiner turns 70… Founder and president of ENS Resources, a D.C.-based consulting and lobbying firm focused on natural resources and sustainable energy, Eric Sapirstein turns 69… Host of “Marketplace Morning Report” on public radio, David Brancaccio turns 65… Author of the 2005 book Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish and a 2017 book about Jewish holidays, she is an honorary president of NYC’s Central Synagogue, Abigail Pogrebin… and her identical twin sister, Robin Pogrebin, reporter on the culture desk for The New York Times, both turn 60… Former general manager for corporate strategy at Microsoft, she was also an EVP at Hillel, Kinney Zalesne turns 59… CPA and founder of the Baltimore Hunger Project, it provides food packs for the weekend that are discretely slipped into over 2,200 poverty-stricken public-school children’s backpacks each Friday, Lynne Berkowitz Kahn… Israeli author and playwright, Sarah Blau turns 52… Reporter for The New York Times covering politics, campaigns and elections, Reid J. Epstein… Former member of Knesset, when elected in 2013 she became the youngest female Knesset member in Israel’s history, Stav Shaffir turns 40… Executive director of Informing Democracy and digital strategy adviser to Democratic organizations and candidates, Jenna Ruth Lowenstein… Digital and social media strategist at AARP, Sarah Sonies… Senior writer at Microsoft’s Future of Work group, Rebecca Rose Nelson Kay… Israeli judoka, he was the 2019 World Champion and won a team bronze medal at the 2020 Olympics, Sagi Aharon Muki turns 33… Director of congregational engagement at Mount Zion Hebrew Congregation in St. Paul, Minn., Heather Renetzky… Senior media relations manager at Rystad Energy, Katherine (Katie) Keenan…

SUNDAY: Leader and rebbe of the Hasidic dynasty of Ger since 1996, Rabbi Yaakov Aryeh Alter turns 86… Chairman and co-founder of K2 Intelligence and Kroll Bond Rating Agency, Jules B. Kroll turns 84… Best-selling author of nine spy thriller novels, Andrew Gary Kaplan turns 84… Ruth Madoff turns 84… Retired New York Times columnist and editorial writer, he was the NYT’s Jerusalem correspondent for four years in the early 1990s, Clyde Haberman turns 80… President of Everest Management and trustee of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, Gary Kopff turns 80… Los Angeles-based attorney and board member of American Friends of Nishmat, Linda Goldenberg Mayman… Longtime Washington correspondent for Newsweek, now writing for SpyTalk, Jonathan Broder turns 77… Longest-serving member of the Maryland House of Delegates, starting in 1983, Samuel I. “Sandy” Rosenberg turns 75… Chair of the executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel, a former IDF major general and leading activist for the disability community, Doron Almog turns 74… Senior advisor at Moelis & Company, a former IDF major general, then CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Shlomo Yanai turns 73… Director of nutrition and hospitality at Philadelphia’s Temple University Hospital, Nancy Baumann… Attorney in Atlanta, he was the director of congregational engagement at the Union for Reform Judaism for nine years, Alan Kitey… Film producer, he is the CEO of Miramax since one year ago, Jonathan Glickman turns 56… Venture capitalist and author of a book on business principles derived from the Book of Genesis, Michael A. Eisenberg turns 54… CEO at Waze from 2013 to 2021, Noam Bardin… VP for communications strategy at Strategic Marketing Innovations (SMI), Bryan Bender turns 53… Head of development until earlier this year at NYC charter school system, Uncommon Schools, Sarah Danzig… Author of Substack-based newsletter and blog, “Slow Boring,” he was a co-founder of Vox, Matthew Yglesias turns 44… Founder of London-based Tech With Intention, Eliza Krigman… Senior director for the Middle East and North Africa on the White House’s National Security Council, Eric Trager… Founder of Satori Global Media, Joshua Lederman… Former acting under secretary of defense for intelligence and security, then a member of the National Archives Public Interest Declassification Board, Ezra Asa Cohen turns 39… Tech entrepreneur in the AI and gaming space, Dan Garon… Co-founder of Rebel (formerly known as Rebelmail) then acquired by Salesforce, Joe Teplow… Managing associate in the D.C. office of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, Lauren DePinto Bomberger… Executive producer of the Net Zero Life Podcast, Netanel (Tani) Levitt… Director of communications at Anduril Industries, Sofia Rose Gross Haft… Five-time member of the U.S. Women’s National Gymnastics Team, now a business manager in the office of the CIO at Citadel, Samantha “Sami” Shapiro turns 32… Chief development officer at TAMID Group, Rachel Philipson Marsh…