Plus, no gala for Galliano
Jim Watson - Pool/Getty Images
U.S. Vice President JD Vance gives remarks following a roundtable discussion with local leaders and community members amid a surge of federal immigration authorities in the area, at Royalston Square on January 22, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Add JewishInsider on GoogleGood Tuesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover Vice President JD Vance’s speech yesterday to the Republican Jewish Coalition, as well as his campaign rally in Michigan, where he called the state’s Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed “very, very evil.” We report on Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s call for Jewish voters to put “the needs of the world” above their own survival, and talk to pollsters about voters’ considerations in the upcoming Israeli election. We also speak with former White House officials and regional analysts about whether Washington’s economic campaign and naval blockade against Iran are yielding dividends. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Leo Terrell, Josh Kushner and Ambassador Marcy Grossman.
Curated by Israel Editor Tamara Zieve and U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
It’s primary Election Day in Massachusetts, where Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is hoping to fend off a challenge from Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), who has called for generational change in the race.
This morning, a House Foreign Affairs Committee subcommittee is holding a hearing on the threat posed by the Houthi terror group to U.S. interests in the Red Sea.
Finance ministers from the G-20 countries are wrapping up a summit in Asheville, N.C., where Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters yesterday he’s aiming in his meetings to shore up support for the U.S.’ economic isolation campaign against Iran.
Meanwhile, the leaders of China, Russia, India, Iran and several other countries are in Kyrgyzstan wrapping up their own meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a group meant to counter U.S. global influence.
From there, Chinese President Xi Jinping is headed on a three-day state visit to Cairo, his first in a decade, as the two countries mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations and as Egypt increasingly balances its long-standing ties to Washington against a deepening partnership with Beijing, now its largest trading partner.
One Thing To Know
ANALYSIS
Netanyahu wants Israeli voters to judge him by the war’s end, not its beginning
By Gili Cohen
The countdown to Israel’s October elections has begun, bringing with it a central question: Will Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who, against all odds, remains in office three years after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks took place under his tenure — remain Israel’s leader?
Israeli governments have often faced political upheaval after major wars or security crises, but Netanyahu’s current government completed a full term — the first time a government has done so in nearly four decades. But Netanyahu is not out of the woods yet.
“Oct. 7 serves primarily as a reminder that the stakes are genuinely high. Israel is a country where elections are fought over matters of life and death in the most literal sense,” Shmuel Rosner, a pollster and analyst for Israel’s Channel 13, told Jewish Insider.
The Big Reads
COURTING SKEPTICS
Vance speaks out against antisemitism, avoids controversy in RJC remarks
Vice President JD Vance stuck to a pro-Israel line and rejected antisemitism in remarks on Monday to the Republican Jewish Coalition, avoiding any new controversies while not being pressed directly about some of his past comments and affiliations, including with Tucker Carlson, that have most concerned Jewish Republicans, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports from the conference in Las Vegas. Attendees at the closed-door meeting, with some exceptions, largely said that the speech helped Vance reassure skeptical Jewish and pro-Israel Republicans and boost his support with the RJC crowd ahead of a potential 2028 presidential bid.
Also at the RJC: Ron Dermer, Israel’s former strategic affairs minister and close advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, praised Vance on Monday, saying he had played a “critical role” in the 12-day war against Iran in June 2025, “and particularly the first day, where that element of surprise was so critical to our success. And I will be forever grateful for the role that he played at that critical moment.”
DAMAGE CONTROL
Vance slams Senate hopeful El-Sayed as ‘very, very evil’ at Michigan rally
Vice President JD Vance laid into Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed on Monday during a campaign rally held in the state, calling him “very, very evil” and an apologist “for the worst people in the world and America’s enemies all over the globe,” Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. Speaking at the event in Sterling Heights organized by a pro-Trump super PAC, Vance accused El-Sayed of sympathizing with the assailant who carried out a terrorist attack against a synagogue outside of Detroit in March and associating with the antisemitic Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who had claimed that America deserved 9/11. In a statement after the rally, El-Sayed said in response: “Evil is ripping healthcare away from working people in exchange for tax breaks for billionaires. Evil is making people pay more for groceries and gas while pushing for trade wars and actual war. Evil is dividing people for your own gain. Evil is selling out your morals for a little bit of power.”
Safety aside: Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Jewish Democrat, encouraged Jewish voters on Sunday to put aside concerns about their safety “in exchange for the opportunity to save the rest of humanity,” in a stark reference to the choices facing Jewish Democrats in the closely contested Senate election this November.
MONEY MATTERS
Six months into the Iran war, is Trump’s economic pressure campaign yielding dividends?
As the conflict between the United States and Iran passes the six-month mark, former White House officials and regional analysts remain divided over whether Washington’s economic campaign and naval blockade are meaningfully changing the strategic landscape, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Alexander Gray, former chief of staff on the National Security Council during President Donald Trump’s first term, expressed confidence in the administration’s trajectory, arguing U.S. leverage is “only growing.” However, other former White House officials warned that Iran could turn the tide. “His policy is working right now, but the enemy gets a vote,” Elliott Abrams, a former U.S. special representative for Iran during the first Trump administration, told JI.
The Rundown
PERSONAL PRIVILEGE
DOJ’s Leo Terrell confirms frictions with Dhillon, previews plans for national tour
OVAL OFFICE OUTREACH
Trump to host Hasidic rabbis at the White House on Thursday
BRUSHING IT OFF
Lander ‘honored to be invited’ to rally where he got heckled as a Zionist
UNLIKELY ALLIES
Sheehy warns of ‘red-green alliance of convenience’ between left and Islamists
QATAR QUANDARY
Huckabee calls out Qatar, Muslim Brotherhood for influencing U.S. universities
ADDRESSING ANTISEMITISM
Ramaswamy: Antisemitism is an attack on success, meritocracy and capitalism
ADDRESSING ANTISEMITISM
Met cancels planned Galliano tribute exhibit amid backlash over his antisemitic history
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll submitted his resignation to President Donald Trump and is expected to step down in the coming days,which will leave the Army without any Senate-confirmed civilian or military leadership…
Trump told Fox News on Monday that the U.S. will respond to Iran’s attacks on U.S. forces in Jordan on Sunday: “We’re going to hit them hard. There will be a response,” he said…
CENTCOM and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have proposed to Trump a campaign of limited strikes around the Strait of Hormuz to prevent Iran from rebuilding its radar and missile capacities, U.S. officials told Axios, a plan that may draw the president’s approval following the renewed hostilities over the weekend…
A new alliance between the Houthis and the al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabaab group, brokered in part by a Somali arms fixer killed in a U.S. airstrike in February, is now working to disrupt Israel’s presence in Somaliland, whose independence Jerusalem recognized last year, according to The Wall Street Journal…
The campaign of Michigan Senate Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed is working to hire a Jewish community liaison, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports, as he seeks to make inroads with the state’s Jewish community following his apology for equivocating on a violent terrorist attack targeting a Michigan synagogue in March…
Jewish Democratic Council of America CEO Halie Soifer, whose organization has not endorsed El-Sayed, said in a statement that the candidate’s apology to the Jewish community was “a good first step” but added that “building trust with Jewish voters will take additional work.” She said El-Sayed will have to show a commitment to Jewish security that goes beyond rhetoric and denounce antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker to have a shot at winning the group’s support…
Politico speaks with Detroit-area Arab American leaders who helped rally their community to support Trump in the 2024 campaign, many of whom are now souring on the GOP amid the war in Iran and his attacks on El-Sayed…
San Francisco congressional candidate Connie Chan endorsed the “Oakland People’s Arms Embargo,” an activist movement seeking to halt what it claims are arms shipments out of Oakland Airport heading to Israel, as she seeks to best state Sen. Scott Wiener in the Democrat-on-Democrat race with the backing of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)…
Thrive Capital founder Josh Kushner broke his silence about his unsuccessful bid to help launch FIFA Forward Enterprise, a proposed commercial subsidiary of soccer’s global governing body, telling Axios in a statement: “While we stand behind the motivations of FFE, we failed to appreciate the political dynamics of global football, and the lengths some would go to … Had we known what this would devolve into, we would not have gotten involved”…
The Israeli government has launched a NIS 5 million ($1.67 million) program to recruit AI experts and entrepreneurs from abroad…
Israeli Arab party Ra’am announced on Monday that former police commander Yoav Segalovitz, who recently left the Yesh Atid party, will run on its Knesset slate, making him the first Jewish candidate to be included on the Islamist party’s list. Segalovitz is expected to be given the No. 2 slot, behind MK Mansour Abbas…
The IDF said it carried out strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday “in order to remove threats to the security forces,” following local reports that an Israeli-backed anti-Hamas Palestinian militia conducted a raid in Gaza City. Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel arrested a senior Hamas terrorist, while Hamas-run media reported three were killed in the strikes, including a woman and a child, and several others were wounded…
The American Jewish Committee announced on Tuesday that Ambassador Marcy Grossman is the new director of AJC Abu Dhabi. Grossman served as Canada’s ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from 2019 to 2022, during which the Abraham Accords were signed…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Rooting for Rogers: Rabbi Asher Lopatin, director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, writing in his personal capacity in The Forward, urges Jewish Democratic Michiganders to vote for GOP nominee Mike Rogers over his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, in the upcoming Senate race. “For me, the disdain that El-Sayed has shown for the Jewish community, especially in his continuing refusal to disavow his relationship with Piker, puts him in the same category as candidates who are openly racist and homophobic. Even the most loyal progressive would reject a racist, even if that meant risking a Republican Senate. To show the Democrats that such candidates should never be nominated, we must show them that such candidates can never win. Such a candidate winning would be a disaster for the most fundamental requirements we have for any candidate of any party.” [Forward]
Out of Bounds: In eJewishPhilanthropy, Menachem Z. Rosensaft, a visiting professor of the practice at Cornell Law School and lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School, condemns Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s statement that the Jewish community has “a moral imperative” to place the needs of the world above its own survival. “Let’s be clear: Jewish safety is not and can never be negotiable or sacrificed for any reason. Jewish survival even less so. Moreover, this is not and should not be a Jewish issue. No group’s safety and no people’s survival should ever be turned into a pragmatic political bargaining chip. Can you imagine the outrage if anyone suggested that Black survival, or Muslim survival, or any other group’s survival, should be put at risk? Nessel’s remarks constitute a new low in contemporary political discourse.” [eJP]
Schumer’s Silence: The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board calls on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to publicly condemn Hasan Piker, the Twitch streamer who campaigned for El-Sayed and who suggested American Jews will invite attacks on themselves if they keep signaling support for Israel. “It’s worth watching how Democrats handle Mr. Piker, whom they once thought was their answer to Joe Rogan, but who as a political matter represents the serrated edge of the party’s antisemitic wing. Mr. Schumer has embraced Mr. El-Sayed, though the Michigan nominee has said he won’t vote for Mr. Schumer for Senate leader. Mr. Schumer has taken great pride across his career as an opponent of antisemitism and a (less and less reliable) supporter of Israel. With Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez looking over his shoulder in his 2028 re-election year, Mr. Schumer’s political career may be nearing its end. Why not publicly say Mr. Piker’s brand of antisemitism has no place in the Democratic Party and stand with some honor?” [WSJ]
Picture of the Day
Israeli children attended the first day of the new school year on Tuesday at Shahar Eshkol Elementary School in the Eshkol Regional Council, near the Gaza border in southern Israel. Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90
Birthdays
Rachel Zoe Rosenzweig, fashion designer, businesswoman and writer, she uses only her first and middle names professionally, turns 55
Alan Dershowitz, retired Harvard Law School professor and constitutional scholar, turns 88
Leonard Slatkin, conductor, author and composer, turns 82
Shalom Hanoch, Israeli rock singer, lyricist and composer, he is often referred to as “The King of Israeli Rock,” turns 80
Esther Safran Foer, former director of Sixth & I historic synagogue, she is the matriarch of a literary family (her sons are Franklin, Jonathan and Joshua), turns 80
Linda Feldman, turns 77
Nadia Ficara, director of donor travel programs at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, turns 70
Susan Berry Miller, national president of NA’AMAT USA, turns 69
Joe Straus, former member and speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, the first Jewish House speaker in Texas, turns 67
Eric Adams, former mayor of New York City, turns 66
Dee Dee Myers, White House press secretary during the first two years of the Clinton administration, turns 65
Rabbi Asher Lopatin, director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor and rabbi of Kehillat Etz Chayim synagogue, turns 62
Malca Resnick, former clinical sciences group lead in the global product development group at Pfizer, turns 62
Charlotte Fonrobert, associate professor of religious studies at Stanford specializing in Talmudic literature, turns 61
Elana Broitman, former SVP of public affairs at the Jewish Federations of North America, now principal at the Roosevelt Group, turns 60
Craig Caplan, Capitol Hill producer for C-SPAN, turns 59
Harris Vederman, VP of programs at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, turns 56
Jesse Kellerman, novelist and playwright, his parents, Faye Kellerman and Jonathan Kellerman, are both best-selling authors, turns 48
Samuel Salkin, turns 40
Shauna Ruda, Denver-based therapist, turns 39
Lauren Kiel, head of Bloomberg Media’s global community innovation team, turns 37
Itay Milner, spokesperson and consul for media affairs at the Israeli Consulate in New York
Plus, El-Sayed’s state of sorry
screenshot
Vice President JD Vance speaking in an episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience" released on July 15, 2026.
Good Monday morning.
IIn today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover comments by Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit in Las Vegas and preview Vice President JD Vance’s fireside chat at the event tonight. We talk to Jewish Democrats in Michigan about Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s apology for equivocating in response to a terrorist attack against a Michigan synagogue in March, and spotlight New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin and City Comptroller Mark Levine’s upcoming appearances on the Style Across the Aisle runway at the Metropolitan Opera House next week. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Brian Poindexter, Eyal David and Brett McGurk.
Curated by Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
We’re watching developments in the Middle East after hostilities briefly renewed between the U.S. and Iran on Sunday: After CENTCOM targeted two Iranian launchers on Larak Island that it said were preparing to deploy mines in the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran fired missiles at U.S. forces in Jordan and a drone at the UAE, most of which were intercepted. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the U.S. strike killed and wounded “several of our fighters and compatriots.”
Later Sunday, President Donald Trump posted AI-generated footage to Truth Social, claiming it showed “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens,” a statement dismissed by an Iranian official as “laughable,” according to Reuters.
The Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit continues today in Las Vegas. This morning’s plenary will feature remarks from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA); acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling; Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee; Sens. Dave McCormick (R-PA) and Tim Sheehy (R-MT); former Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer; Ohio GOP gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy; Michigan GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers; DOJ Task Force to Combat Antisemitism Chair Leo Terrell; Kentucky GOP congressional nominee Ed Gallrein; former Auburn University men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl; and Magen David Adom Global President Gilad Erdan, among others.
In the evening, Vice President JD Vance will speak at a closed-door VIP gala, where President Donald Trump will deliver videotaped remarks as part of a memorial and tribute to the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Read more below.
The House Rules Committee will consider the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act, which requires universities to certify annually that they are not engaged in a non-expressive commercial boycott of Israel in order to be eligible for federal student aid.
One Thing To Know
ANALYSIS
Vance faces key test at Republican Jewish Coalition summit
By Marc Rod
LAS VEGAS — The Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit kicked off in the blazing heat of Las Vegas on Sunday, with a series of speeches by pro-Israel House members and Senate candidates, including Georgia GOP Senate nominee Mike Collins, North Carolina GOP Senate nominee Michael Whatley and senior GOP lawmakers including Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Lisa McClain (R-MI).
The program is set to continue on Monday with video remarks by President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and in-person speeches by other major Republicans in pro-Israel politics.
But the most anticipated remarks of the day will be one the public won’t be able to see, a closed-door appearance by Vice President JD Vance at a Monday night VIP gala. It will be Vance’s first address to the group as vice president.
The Big Reads
TOO LITTLE TOO LATE?
El-Sayed’s apology to Jewish Democrats draws mixed response
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, expressed regret for equivocating in response to a terrorist attack against a synagogue outside Detroit in March, while speaking at the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus’ annual “Summer Simcha” event on Sunday, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. El-Sayed reiterated his recent comments in which he said he had “made a mistake” in his initial statement on the violent attack targeting Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield. Joan Lowenstein, a caucus member, said that Jewish Democrats remain divided after the event. “No one I spoke to had changed their mind as a result of his speech yesterday or today,” she told JI. “I think we are evenly divided.”
DAMAGE CONTROL
Rep. Mike Collins calls former staffers’ antisemitic views ‘abhorrent,’ offers no vetting changes
Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) on Sunday disavowed the antisemitic views and white nationalist affiliations of several former staffers and said that he understands why Jewish voters are concerned, but also suggested there was little he could have done to identify those red flags in the hiring process, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports from the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit in Las Vegas. Collins, the GOP nominee for Georgia’s Senate seat, has been mostly quiet publicly about the repeated disclosures concerning his former staffers — as well as his son-in-law — and is working to court Jewish voters concerned about Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) record of voting against aid to Israel on multiple occasions. “Those staffers — those views are abhorrent, and they don’t represent my values,” Collins told reporters. “And you can look at my voting record.”
THREADING THE DIVIDE
Style Across the Aisle puts Jewish pride on the runway
When New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin walks the runway at the Metropolitan Opera House next week, she will be dressed by Israeli American designer Elie Tahari. The pairing is driven by their shared history of entrepreneurship and building success from the ground up, but amid heightened antisemitism, the moment also spotlights two proud Jewish and Zionist New Yorkers, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. Now in its third year, Style Across the Aisle — set to coincide with New York Fashion Week — pairs 30 local and state elected officials with New York City designers based on shared geography, heritage or life experience.
Read the full story →
Fashion faux pas: The Metropolitan Museum of Art is facing mounting backlash over its plans to honor British fashion designer John Galliano — who was convicted more than a decade ago of a hate crime in France for antisemitic remarks.
The Rundown
EXCLUSIVE
Brandeis Center presses Education Department over repeated delay in foreign funding reports
OHIO HOT SEAT
As Brian Poindexter surges against Miller in Ohio, his Israel stance remains unclear
ON THE HILL
Gallego leads Senate Democrats calling for halt to E1 settlement construction plans
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
President Donald Trump is reportedly set to meet with a delegation of prominent Hasidic rabbis and heads of rabbinical schools at the White House on Thursday. Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum, the Satmar rebbe of Kiryas Joel, confirmed that he had received an invitation to the meeting, according to Arutz Sheva…
Democratic Majority for Israel CEO Brian Romick on Sunday condemned Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank villages of Qusra and Jalud as “appalling and indefensible,” welcoming the Israeli government’s condemnation of the attacks but stating that “words must be followed by actions”…
Asked by CNN whether he would welcome AIPAC’s support in the New Hampshire Senate race, Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) said: “Well, look, I welcome the support of individuals. And I’ve shown I’m willing to take on the Netanyahu government, to support legislation and to support efforts to restore stability and an opportunity for peace and a two-state solution in the Middle East”…
Former Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday endorsed Pappas, who is facing a primary challenge on his left from progressive activist Karishma Manzur…
New York City congressional nominee Brad Lander, who defeated Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in a primary where he criticized the incumbent’s support for Israel, was accosted with antisemitic vitriol by protesters at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. The protest was held to rally opposition against an event of Indian Hindu nationalists; several told Lander they didn’t want any “Zionists” supporting their cause…
Potential 2028 presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel told “Fox News Sunday” that he doesn’t consider the Democratic Socialists of America part of the Democratic Party…
Emanuel and his brothers, Ezekiel and Ari, are donating $500,000 to fund the training of 11 pediatric doctors and 36 pediatric nurses from An-Najah University Hospital in Nablus at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov), according to Politico’s “Playbook”…
Semafor interviews Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who recently suggested that American Jews who express support for Israel are inviting violence against themselves. Following backlash from Democrats, Piker defended his comments as misunderstood…
A new poll conducted by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that 54% of connected American Jews want Israel’s current opposition to win the coming election, compared with 14% who favor the governing coalition…
The U.K.’s Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council warned that the British government’s anticipated ban on trade with West Bank settlements could further strain U.K.-Israel relations and may have harmful consequences for British Jews…
Trump amplified a proposal — pushed by the National Association of Christian Lawmakers — to create an expedited legal pathway for Jewish Canadians to relocate to the U.S. amid what the group calls a disproportionate surge in antisemitism in Canada…
U.S. officials are concerned that America’s ability to deter China and Russia has been diminished after the war with Iran drained munitions stockpiles in Europe and Asia — including PAC-3 Patriot interceptors and ATACMS missiles, now at levels officials call “beyond critical” — that could take years to replenish, The Wall Street Journal reports. The White House and Pentagon have denied any shortage…
The Daily Mail spotlights French Israeli former hostage Mia Schem, the tattoo artist abducted from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, and released after 54 days in Gaza, and the modeling career she’s built since…
Eyal David announced on Sunday that he has begun a new position as deputy consul general of Israel in New York, having concluded a term of a year and nine months as policy advisor in the Foreign Minister’s Bureau. David previously served as deputy chief of mission in Rabat, Morocco, and Nairobi, Kenya…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Detroit Defectors: The Detroit News’ Nolan Finley spotlights Metro Detroit Jewish Democrats lining up behind Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers in his race against his opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, whom they see as a threat to Israel and to the safety of the Jewish community. “Amid reports of a rift between Rogers and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which supported El-Sayed’s Democratic primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, with $60 million in spending, local Jews are committing to a major effort to elect Rogers. And the push is largely led by those who, in the past, have been generous donors to the Democratic Party. ‘A party has to understand that there are consequences when it moves away from the values that brought us to it,’ [Brian] Hermelin said in an email about the fundraiser. ‘For me, this Senate race is that point.’” [DetroitNews]
Winning the War?: On CNN, Brett McGurk, who formerly served in senior national security positions, challenges the narrative that Iran has won the war with the U.S. “The earlier acts in this war were mired from the US side by shifting and ill-defined objectives, widely careening positions, and inconsistent statements. But Act Four seems different. The US military has a clear objective as outlined this week by the commander of CENTCOM, Admiral Brad Cooper. It is enforcing the blockade on Iran and facilitating the movement of commercial traffic. The objective for the US should be similarly well-defined. Iran must abandon claims on the Strait and give up the nuclear enrichment program. Until then, this will be the new status quo. And that status quo — perhaps for the first time since the war began — now favors Washington, not Tehran.” [CNN]
Patience is a Virtue: Adolfo Franco, a Republican strategist who served as a surrogate for President Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2024 presidential campaigns, argues in Al Jazeera that the president’s pressure campaign against Iran is working to weaken the regime. “The lesson of the past six months is not that pressure has failed to produce capitulation. It is that pressure takes longer than a news cycle to produce capitulation from a radical theocratic regime that is willing to reduce its populace to bare subsistence rather than compromise. … Six months into the conflict, the US has not won this war. But it has made winning it, at last, a realistic prospect rather than a forlorn hope, a hard-earned, bitter lesson after decades of failure by successive US administrations too eager for compromise and agreements with a regime that had no intention of honouring them.” [AlJazeera]
Picture of the Day
Defense Ministry Director General Amir Baram (left) and his Greek counterpart, Ioannis Bouras, signed an approximately €3 billion “Achilles Shield” defense export agreement on Monday in a ceremony at the ministry’s headquarters in Tel Aviv. According to the ministry, this is the largest defense export deal in the history of Israel-Greece relations, and will see Jerusalem build Athens a multilayered air-defense array based on Israeli systems architecture. In addition, a supplementary deal valued at €26 million was signed during the meeting for Greece to purchase Rafael’s Drone Dome systems. Israeli Ministry of Defense
Birthdays
Itzhak Perlman, world-renowned violinist and conductor, turns 81
Joseph Rafalowicz, attorney and a member of the boards of UJA-Federation of New York and JCRC-NY
Lowell Ganz, screenwriter for theater, television and film, turns 78
Steve Soboroff, former Los Angeles police commissioner, turns 78
David Blumenthal, healthcare policy expert, his brother is Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), turns 78
Hugh Politzer, 2004 Nobel laureate in physics and professor at California Institute of Technology, turns 77
Iris Krasnow, professor emerita of journalism and women’s studies at American University and author of seven books on marriage and relationships, turns 72
Rabbi Jonathan I. Rosenblatt, former rabbi of the Riverdale Jewish Center in New York, turns 70
Ahmed Zayat (a/k/a Ephraim David Zayat), owner of thoroughbred racehorses including the 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, turns 64
Mark L. Walberg, television host including “Antiques Roadshow” and “Temptation Island,” turns 64
Yossef “Joseph” Cedar, Israeli American film director and screenwriter, turns 58
Shaney Fink, gold medalist in volleyball at the Maccabiah Games in 1997, she is currently the VP for athletics at Seattle University, turns 54
Lyudmila Milman, physician assistant now serving as a senior clinical director at NYC’s Mount Sinai Medical Center
Sam Little, English golfer, he won five tournaments on the PGA European Challenge Tour, turns 51
Sivan Beskin, Israeli poet, translator and literary editor, turns 50
Jessica Raimundo, communications director at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union
Nick Horowitz, group director at Real Chemistry
Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, crown prince and prime minister of Saudi Arabia, colloquially known as MBS, turns 41
Bennett E. Resnik, SVP for critical infrastructure at Venn Strategies
Thomas Kaplan, standards editor at The New York Times
Asaf Zamir, deputy mayor of Tel Aviv, turns 46
Deryn Sousa, AIPAC’s national spokesperson
Laura Adkins, director of content and editorial strategy at the Anti-Defamation League
Plus, Trump's Saudi deal sets up clash in Congress
Annabelle Gordon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) during a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we explore the fight brewing on Capitol Hill over the Trump administration’s civilian nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia, and look at how Rep. Jamie Raskin’s probe of campus antisemitism investigations is drawing criticism from some in the Jewish community. We report on Turkey’s retention of Ballard Partners and Rep. Robert Wexler to represent Ankara’s defense interests in Washington, and cover Sen. Jon Ossoff’s repudiation of Hasan Piker’s recent antisemitic comments. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Mijal Bitton, Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader and Elkana Bohbot.
Curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: From Beirut to Riyadh, Assouline’s luxury book collection has yet to spotlight an Israeli city; The moderate Michigan Democrat holding the line against Hasan Piker; and ‘Recognize our humanity and our fear’: Jewish employees’ 2023 plea to Vox Media went unanswered. Print the latest edition here.
Today’s Agenda
Jewish Republicans are making their way to Las Vegas ahead of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit, which kicks off on Sunday. Vice President JD Vance is expected to address the gathering, as are Sens. Dave McCormick (R-PA), Jim Banks (R-IN) and Tim Sheehy (R-MT); Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Lisa McClain (R-MI), Brandon Gill (R-TX), David Kustoff (R-TN), Randy Fine (R-FL), Craig Goldman (R-TX) and Brian Jack (R-GA), former Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter. JI’s Marc Rod will be on the ground at the RJC summit — send him a note if you’ll be there.
In Washington today, the Religious Action Center is marking the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington.
The World Council of Religious Leaders is holding its One World: One Humanity gathering in New York City this weekend. Rabbi Noam Marans, the American Jewish Committee’s director of interreligious affairs, is set to give one of the keynotes at the daylong confab.
In Massachusetts on Saturday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is slated to headline a rally for Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) alongside Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), as Markey faces a primary challenge from Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA).
On Sunday, the Michigan Jewish Caucus is holding its annual Summer Simcha. This year’s event, which Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is slated to attend, will honor Attorney General Dana Nessel. The event comes days after Nessel, appearing on “The David Frum Show,” accused El-Sayed of “making excuses” for domestic terrorism in his response to the March attack at a suburban Detroit synagogue by a Hezbollah sympathizer.
Elsewhere on Sunday, the Jewish American Summit 2026 is taking place in Los Angeles. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Leiter and University of California Regent Jay Sures are among those slated to speak.
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet on Sunday with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — respectively the leaders of the Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties — as he pushes for the far-right officials to unite their parties ahead of the Oct. 27 election. The meeting comes after new polling showed former IDF Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter’s People of Israel party gaining seats and potentially knocking Smotrich’s party below the threshold to enter the Knesset.
One Thing To Know
analysis
Trump administration tees up Capitol Hill fight over Saudi nuclear deal
By Marc Rod
The Trump administration this week submitted the civilian nuclear deal it signed with Saudi Arabia to Congress for a legally mandated review period — during which time Congress could, theoretically, vote to block the deal.Of most concern for lawmakers, the agreementwould reportedly allow for nuclear enrichment inside Saudi Arabia, which critics warn could provide a path toward a Saudi nuclear weapon and set off a race for nuclear enrichment and arms around the region or even the world, with other U.S. allies demanding similar privileges.Once the administration submits the deal to Congress, it is subject to a 90-day consultation and review period, during which the House and Senate foreign relations committees are expected to hold hearings and recommend to the full Congress whether to approve the deal.
Bottom line: There’s likely to be an intense fight on Capitol Hill over this deal leading into the midterms and the end of the congressional session. But if the Trump administration wants it to go into effect, it probably will.
Are you a member of Congress or a congressional staffer? Do you have a copy of the agreement? Reach out to [email protected].
The Big Reads
communal concern
Raskin’s probe of campus antisemitism investigations draws criticism from Jewish community
For years, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has been viewed by his Jewish constituents as an ally in fighting antisemitism and as generally supportive of Israel, despite his deep disagreements with the Netanyahu government and current U.S. policy in the Middle East, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. But a recent broadside against the Trump administration’s investigations into campus antisemitism, in which Raskin cited whistleblower reports to describe the investigations into Harvard, Brown and Columbia universities as fabricated and predetermined, is generating new tensions with some community members. Raskin also spent Wednesday on the campaign trail boosting Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, whose virulent anti-Israel views and associations with an antisemitic streamer have made him persona non grata throughout much of Michigan’s Jewish community.
turkey’s trump card
Turkey retains Trump-tied lobbying firm in Washington
The Turkish government has retained Ballard Partners — a lobbying firm with deep ties to President Donald Trump — to represent Ankara’s Ministry of National Defense in Washington, as Turkey and the U.S. continue to improve ties under the Trump administration despite growing animosity between Ankara and Jerusalem, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. The firm’s team on the contract includes former Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL), a pro-Turkey and pro-Israel voice on Capitol Hill who co-founded the Congressional Caucus on U.S.-Turkey Relations in 2001. Speaking with JI on Thursday, Wexler framed the partnership as aiming to strengthen U.S.-Turkish ties while also attempting to mend severely strained relations between Ankara and Jerusalem.
ossoff on record
Ossoff ‘unreservedly rejects’ Piker’s comments on Jewish support for Israel
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) joined the growing list of Democrats condemning far-left streamer Hasan Piker’s recent comments suggesting American Jews bear responsibility for inciting antisemitic attacks due to their support for Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. An Ossoff spokesperson told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the Georgia senator “unreservedly rejects reckless and dangerous rhetoric suggesting that policy advocacy invites violence against the Jewish community or any community” and that “American Jews and all Americans must have the freedom and security to speak out and petition their government without fear of reprisal.”
On the flip side: Ossoff’s GOP opponent, Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), is again facing criticism over the extremist activity of an associate, following a Washington Post report that a former staffer shared images of a swastika and of himself in a KKK robe.
The Rundown
manhattan meeting
After clashing over Bibi arrest, Mamdani meets with U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz
progressive push
Van Hollen, Kaine, Sanders plan to force vote on Israeli policy in West Bank
bad apples
Over 70% of Jewish educators in teachers unions fear speaking out about antisemitism, ADL report finds
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
CENTCOM head Adm. Brad Cooper confirmed in a video update on Thursday night that the U.S. military had cleared the Strait of Hormuz’s shipping lanes of sea mines, and announced that U.S. forces helped nearly 1,500 commercial vessels carrying nearly 750 million barrels of oil transit the strait over the past several months…
The Associated Press reports that the U.S. is facing a “beyond critical” shortage of advanced missile interceptors — including Patriot missile interceptors — in Europe, owing to their use in the war against Iran; the report comes days after CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow to advise Russia against attacking NATO territory and to end its support for Iran…
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said following a meeting on Thursday with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani that resuming diplomatic efforts with the U.S. “isn’t impossible” but that Washington should come to the table with an “understanding of one simple fact: pressure doesn’t work.”
But Trump administration officials have indicated that the White House does not want to return to the memorandum of understanding it previously had with Tehran, opting instead to pursue its economic pressure campaign…
President Donald Trump responded to a question about Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) potential entry into the 2028 presidential race, saying, “He’s very talented, he’s a very good friend of mine. I think he might do that, yeah”…
The New York Times looks at the response among Democrats to the decision by House Democratic leaders to name Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) to the party’s top role in the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Middle East subcommittee…
Meta said it shut down a network of accounts on its Facebook and Instagram platforms tied to an Iranian effort to use AI to target American users with content about U.S. politics; the content, which reached thousands of accounts, also including messaging about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict…
The Justice Department is appealing the dismissal by a district court in Massachusetts of its antisemitism lawsuit against Harvard University, in which the presiding judge ruled that the instances of campus antisemitism were “too isolated and episodic” to constitute a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act…
The New York Times previews the Broadway production of Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich’s play “Here There Are Blueberries,” the Pulitzer Prize finalist based on the true story of the response of U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum officials to a photo album gifted to the museum that contained photos depicting the off-duty lives of SS officers at Auschwitz…
Prosecutors in Scotland are pursuing terrorism-aggravated charges against seven Palestine Action members who in March 2025 vandalized the Trump Turnberry golf resort…
Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader said at the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s conference in Santo Domingo this week that the country would adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, becoming the 48th country to do so…
An Israeli court acquitted a man who had been filmed spitting on a nun in Jerusalem’s Old City — an incident that prompted widespread outrage at the time — citing the man’s mental illness; the man, who was determined to be in a psychotic state during the April incident, was ordered to spend the next six years in a psychiatric hospital…
Former Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot, who was released from captivity in Gaza last October, announced the birth of his second child, a girl, with his wife, Rebecca…
Mijal Bitton was tapped by Maimonides Fund to serve as dean of the Maimonides Jewish Leadership Institute, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim reports…
Venture capitalist and finance analyst Benjamin Rosen, who was one of the first to push for private investments in the technology industry, died at 93…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Enemy Lines: In Tablet, Elliott Abrams reflects on Jared Kushner’s meeting earlier this month with senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya. “The Trump administration’s policy of meeting with terrorist leaders does more than legitimize their aims and tactics. It also establishes a ruinous precedent for future administrations that find deeper sympathies with organizations that murder Western civilians while proclaiming, ‘Death to America.’ … The Kushner-al-Hayya meeting is in fact the latest in decades of such mistakes, and the interesting question is why the U.S. officials making them did not see them as errors that would undermine U.S. interests.” [Tablet]
Lurie’s Allure: The Washington Post’s Kate Andrews spotlights San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, a Democrat, who has largely focused his time in office on addressing local challenges. “‘I think it is radical for an elected official to think about his or her city and just stay focused on that,’ Lurie, 49, tells me … The mayor is having a moment in America, in large part because of attitudes like [progressive Seattle Mayor Katie] Wilson’s and grocery store stunts like [New York City Mayor Zohran] Mamdani’s. Such politicking has captured the nation’s attention, but Lurie isn’t interested in weighing in on any of it. ‘I don’t really think about parties and ideology,’ he says.” [WashPost]
High Holy Day Appeal: In the Jerusalem News Syndicate, Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, calls on Congress to increase funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. “With the High Holidays around the corner, millions of American Jews will attend synagogue with a sense of trepidation — not because Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish Day of Judgment, but because sitting in synagogues for hours at a time makes us think about the attacks that have occurred. … This security crisis strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. American society cannot function without flourishing religious life. And there is no true freedom of religion without freedom from fear.” [JNS]
Picture of the Day
Former Israeli hostage Emily Damari, who was held in Hamas captivity in Gaza for more than 15 months, on Thursday night married food influencer Danielle Amit in a ceremony in Tel Aviv.
Birthdays
Lea Michele Sarfati, actor, singer and songwriter, known professionally by her first and middle names, turns 40 on Saturday
FRIDAY
Tibor Spitz, artist and chemist, he survived the Holocaust by living with his family in a hole in the ground for seven months, turns 97
Bernard Kupferschmid, independent international trade and development professional, turns 95
Yakir Aharonov, professor emeritus of quantum physics at Tel Aviv University, now on the faculty of Chapman University in Southern California, turns 94
Robert Elman, honorary president of the Israel Policy Forum and past president of the American Jewish Committee
Robert Greenwald, filmmaker and the founder of Brave New Films, turns 81
Jane Denkensohn, retired general counsel of Queens College of the City University of New York
Heather Maxine Reisman, founder and CEO of retail chain Indigo Books & Music and co-founder and past chair of Kobo, turns 78
Susan Mailer, psychoanalyst and author of a 2019 memoir about her father, Norman Mailer, turns 77
Merryl H. Tisch, chair of the SUNY Board of Trustees and former chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, turns 71
Gary J. Shapiro, executive chair of the Consumer Technology Association and author of several books on business and innovation, turns 70
Rabbi Jose Rolando Matalon, rabbi emeritus of B’nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side of Manhattan
Daniel Jacob Stern, actor, best known for his roles in two “Home Alone” films and two “City Slickers” films, turns 69
Emma Elizabeth Wylie Samuelson, British actor, known professionally as Emma Samms, she is best known for her soap opera roles, turns 66
Jonathan G. Cedarbaum, professor of practice at The George Washington University, he was deputy counsel in the Biden administration and the National Security Council legal advisor, turns 65
David J. Zuckerman, television writer and producer, he is best known as the original showrunner and executive producer of the animated comedy series “Family Guy,” turns 64
Jonathan Steven Adelstein, FCC Commissioner from 2002 to 2009, then CEO of the Wireless Infrastructure Association, turns 64
Naomi Fried, Ph.D., managing partner and co-founder of PharmStars and managing partner and co-founder of Ambit Health Ventures
Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Meta/Facebook from 2008 to 2022, turns 57
Thomas Jacob “Jack” Black, actor, comedian and musician, in 2018 he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, turns 57
Richard Recht, early pioneer of contemporary Jewish rock music, turns 56
Kai Falkenberg, general counsel of The Guardian US and a lecturer at Columbia Law School
Daniel “Doni” Greenwald, first VP in the Baltimore office of Newmark Valuation & Advisory
Steven Michael Mesler, Olympic gold medalist in four-man bobsleigh in 2010, he is the co-founder and CEO of Classroom Champions, turns 48
Gilad Shalit, Israeli soldier held captive for over five years by Hamas, released in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange deal, turns 40
Michael Dunn, offensive lineman for six different NFL teams since 2017, turns 32
Ari Willner
SATURDAY
Elliott Gould, longtime movie and television actor, born as Elliott Goldstein, turns 88
Robert Rubin, secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration, turns 88
Amnon Reshef, retired IDF major general, he is the founder of Commanders for Israel’s Security, which he led from 2014 to 2020, turns 88
Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Hillel, head of Yeshiva Ahavat Shalom in Jerusalem, turns 81
Connie Milstein, hotel and real estate mogul, she was the U.S. ambassador to Malta, turns 80
David F. Levi, former dean of Duke Law School following 17 years as a U.S. District Court judge, turns 75
Uri Lupolianski, founder of Yad Sarah and former mayor of Jerusalem, turns 75
Warren Stern, Los Angeles resident
Jacob Joseph “Jack” Lew, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, he was the secretary of the Treasury during the Obama administration, turns 71
Amy Nathan, former senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission for 23 years
Richard E. Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation since 2017, turns 67
Laura Kamer-Israel, director of operations at Kesher Israel: The Georgetown Synagogue
Ariel Zwang, CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the first woman in JDC’s history to hold the position
Lisa Frydman Barr, journalist, author and blogger, turns 62
Melinda R. Katz, district attorney of Queens since 2020, turns 61
Neil Gorsuch, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 2017, turns 59
Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, director, screenwriter and editor, turns 57
Nicola Mendelsohn, head of the global business group at Meta, turns 55
Jerr Rosenbaum, partner at Penn Avenue Partners
Charlie Spies, election law guru at Dickinson Wright PLLC
Marc Ecko, hip-hop fashion designer, entrepreneur and artist, born in Lakewood, N.J., as Marc Milecofsky, turns 54
Gal Beckerman, author and staff writer at The Atlantic
Rabbi Seth Grauer, rosh yeshiva and head of school at Bnei Akiva Schools in Toronto
Ehud Tenenbaum, Israeli computer hacker, known as “The Analyzer,” turns 47
Rabbi Michael Davies, rabbi of Congregation Sons of Israel in Cherry Hill, N.J.
Dylan Paul Reese, former ice hockey defenseman for 18 seasons, turns 42
Lauren Collins, television and film actor, turns 40
Bracha “Beatie” Deutsch, winner of the Tiberias Marathon and the Jerusalem Marathon, Haredi mother of five children, turns 37
Robin Rubin
Adam Shapiro
SUNDAY
Judith R. Frazin, author and genealogist, she served on the board of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies, turns 84
Tal Brody, basketball star in both the U.S. and Israel, he was a first-round pick of the Baltimore Bullets in the 1965 NBA draft, turns 83
Miri Fabian, Israeli actor known for her role as Chaja Dresner in “Schindler’s List,” turns 83
Daniella Weiss, Israeli settlement movement activist and a former mayor of Kedumim, turns 81
Lewis Black, stand-up comedian (known for his angry face), turns 78
Rabbi Yitzhak Aharon “Ira A.” Korff, Hasidic rebbe of Zvhil-Mezhbizh, based in Boston, Miami and Jerusalem, previously married to Shari Redstone, turns 77
Murray Weiss, producer for CBS News
Shlomi Shabat, Israeli vocalist who sings in Hebrew, Turkish and Spanish, he was a judge in the inaugural season of “The Voice Israel” on Israeli television, turns 72
David Paymer, actor, comedian and television director, turns 72
Rabbi Yehuda Gilad, rosh yeshivah at Yeshivat Maale Gilboa and the rabbi of Kibbutz Lavi, he served as a member of the Knesset for the Meimad party, turns 71
Thom Tillis, U.S. senator (R-NC), he is retiring at the end of this term, turns 66
Deborah Swartz, co-founder of Maoz (a leadership network in Israel)
Herschel Chomsky, business manager of the Perth Amboy (N.J.) Free Public Library
Richard Rubenstein, judge for New Jersey’s courts of workers’ compensation
Mauricio Karchmer, computer science professor at Yeshiva University, he resigned from MIT over antisemitism issues on campus, turns 66
Gary Ginsberg, corporate strategist and author of best-selling First Friends: The Powerful, Unsung (and Unelected) People Who Shaped our Presidents, turns 64
Daniel Finkelstein, member of the U.K.’s House of Lords, former executive editor of The Times of London where he remains a weekly political columnist, turns 64
Elie Wurtman, Israeli venture capitalist and social entrepreneur, turns 57
Eldad Yaron
Tal Mosseri, Israeli television presenter, actor and singer, turns 51
Mitchell Schuler, director of search and analytics for Politico
Laura Moser, author who founded the anti-Trump resistance movement Daily Action, turns 49
Simon Marciano, principal with Baltimore’s Neuberger, Quinn, Gielen, Rubin & Gibber
Julia Hoffman, political fundraiser in Massachusetts
Max Hoffman, actor, following in the footsteps of his father, Dustin Hoffman
Inna Vernikov, member of the New York City Council representing a portion of Brooklyn, turns 42
Margy Levinson, director of external affairs at Upstream USA
Mati Cohen, project manager at Shalom Bayit Construction in Beverly Hills
Plus, the donors behind Bilzerian’s hate campaign
Mahmud HAMS / AFP via Getty Images
Motorists drive past a plume of smoke rising from a reported Iranian strike in the industrial district of Doha on March 1, 2026.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we spotlight Rep. Hillary Scholten, one of the few Democratic lawmakers in Michigan taking a public stance against the rhetoric of Hasan Piker and Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, and look at the anti-Israel donors who contributed to far-right antisemitic candidates ahead of last week’s primaries in Florida. We report on new U.S. sanctions targeting the U.K.-based Palestine Action group, and cover the 96% drop in liquefied natural gas exports out of Qatar since the start of the Iran war. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rabbi Shmuel Silber, Matt Little and Dana Nessel.
Curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
The Milken Institute Hamptons Dialogues kicks off today and runs through Sunday.
Elsewhere in New York, Israeli singer Ishay Ribo is slated to perform tonight with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra at Radio City Music Hall.
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani is in Iran today, the latest senior official from the region to travel to the Islamic Republic this week, following Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir’s trip on Monday and Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi’s visit the following day.
Iran and Oman have reached a potential agreement that, according to Iran’s deputy foreign minister, would forbid military ships from transiting through the Strait of Hormuz. The news comes amid reports of a run on supplies inside Iran, where mounting economic pressure sunk the rial to a new record low earlier this week.
In Washington, a group of Senate Democrats led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is expected to introduce a resolution forcing the Trump administration to provide an accounting of Israeli human rights practices in the West Bank.
One Thing To Know
analysis
Meet the anti-Israel donors backing a neo-Nazi’s GOP congressional campaign
Examining the campaign finance reports of neo-Nazi influencer Dan Bilzerian prompts the question of who exactly would want to be associated with the hate-mongering candidate, who was badly defeated last week in his primary bid against Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL), who is Jewish. The next question is who would want to be associated with his associates.
In an age of dog whistles, Bilzerian leads a blaring Wagnerian orchestra of antisemitism. He made his name as an online influencer who dabbled in Holocaust denial and conspiracy theories about a Jewish role in everything from the John F. Kennedy assassination to 9/11. He capped his congressional campaign with an ad praising Adolf Hitler and featuring AI images of his opponent “the fat Jew Randy” sprouting horns.
The donor list of the campaign and two supporting committees reveal the “America First, Israel Never” candidate enjoyed a kind of crossover appeal: not so much across the aisle as around the political horseshoe.
The Big Reads
standing firm
The moderate Michigan Democrat holding the line against Hasan Piker
Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) has emerged in recent weeks as one of the Democratic Party’s most outspoken voices against antisemitic influencer Hasan Piker — but Jewish Michiganders who have worked with her say she’s long been close with and supportive of the community, and that she’s been deeply and personally disturbed by rising antisemitism and rhetoric from Piker and Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. David Kramer, a prominent Jewish Democratic leader in the Detroit area, said Scholten is “someone who has a very strong sense of self and what she thinks is right and wrong, and she has a history of speaking up, even if it’s unpopular.” At an event earlier this week, Scholten said that Piker’s antisemitic comments “don’t have any place in the Democratic Party or in the United States of America,” while a day later, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) accused Republicans of stoking Democratic divisions over Piker.
Worthy listen: Appearing on The Atlantic’s “David Frum Show,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, addressed concerns among Jewish Democrats in the state over El-Sayed’s rhetoric and refusal to withdraw his equivocal comments responding to a violent attack in March on a synagogue in suburban Detroit.
terror tag
U.S. sanctions Palestine Action, PFLP-linked group as global terrorists
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned several far-left organizations on Wednesday, including the U.K.-based Palestine Action and transnational group Masar Badil, which is linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. The designation — the first known case of British left-wing activist groups being targeted by American counterterrorism sanctions — places the entities in the same category as Hamas, al-Qaida and ISIS, and could bar foreign supporters from entering the United States.
gas pains
Qatar’s LNG exports plunge 96%, costing Doha $24 billion
Six months into the military conflict between the U.S. and Iran, a Reuters analysis found that Qatar’s liquefied natural gas exports have plunged 96%, resulting in approximately $24 billion in lost revenue, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Doha has been forced to halt much of its LNG production — its primary driver of export earnings — due to attacks on energy infrastructure and inability to physically move it to customers, wiping out the equivalent of roughly five months of Qatari government revenue and establishing the state as one of the chief economic casualties of the war.
The Rundown
in it to win it
Republican state senator aims to be ‘boring enough to win’ Rep. Angie Craig’s seat
on the hill
Senate Democrats call on Netanyahu to crack down on West Bank settler violence
germany’s ghosts
AJC report calls out systemic antisemitism in far-right German AfD party
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner reportedly visited CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa, Fla., on Wednesday for briefings on Iran…
The U.S. is planning to resurrect Civil War-era prize courts that would allow the government to fast-track efforts to seize and claim oil and other cargo taken from enemy vessels…
The New York Times does a deep dive into the operations of Iran’s largest bank — Bank Melli — after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said each of its branches around the world “must be shuttered and dark”…
Politico spotlights the increasing calls from lawmakers from both parties for the Trump administration to impose sanctions on Chinese financial institutions that do business with Iran…
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) announced her engagement to attorney Jason Turkish; the couple got engaged while vacationing in Italy and will travel to Israel, where Turkish’s father was born…
Jewish officials in Colorado are calling for Democratic congressional nominee Melat Kiros, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America who has accused Israel of apartheid and genocide, to engage with the community over their concerns about rising antisemitism…
Ben & Jerry’s is planning to name three independent directors to its board after Magnum, which owns the ice cream company, imposed term limits on the board, forcing out several members…
Puck is in advanced talks for an investment by RedBird Capital Partners in a deal that values the news company at $250 million…
CNN interviews former Israeli hostage Evyatar David, nearly a year after he was released from Gaza, about his time in captivity and post-captivity trauma…
Israel is reportedly mulling the expulsion of British officials from the International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat who have been involved in oversight of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas over London’s criticism of Israeli policies in the Palestinian territories…
Bloomberg looks at Israel’s plans to bolster its Navy, following nearly three years of warfare in which the country’s naval defenses struggled to tackle maritime threats and the inexpensive Houthi drones that largely cut off Israeli shipping routes…
Saudi Arabia is working to reroute its oil exports once again, this time through the costlier Suez Canal, as its ships in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — itself a backup route to the Strait of Hormuz — have come under attack by the Houthis…
Iranian lawmakers are mulling legislation that would criminalize contact with media organizations considered hostile to the Islamic Republic, with those found guilty facing up to two years in prison…
Rabbi Shmuel Silber was named the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, nearly a year after the sudden death of Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the OU’s former executive vice president, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim reports
Rabbi Josh Joseph, who had served jointly with Hauer as OU’s executive vice president as well as separately as chief operating officer, will assume the newly created role of chief executive officer…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
What Iran War?: The Atlantic’s Jonathan Lemire and Nancy A. Youssef posit that President Donald Trump is forgoing short-term military action in Iran out of concern that Republicans could lose both chambers of Congress in the midterms. “If nothing else, the new approach allows the White House to say it’s trying something and then — importantly — to stop talking about the war. Part of the plan, Trump advisers and allies tell us, is to try to push Iran to the background, while hoping that gas prices come down even a little and that Republicans can shift the nation’s focus to more politically palatable topics ahead of the midterms.” [TheAtlantic]
Holding Up a Mirror: In The Guardian, Michael Visontay reflects on Australia’s royal commission to investigate antisemitism in the country as the monthslong hearing concludes this week. “The commission’s signal achievement has been to hold a mirror to the broader Australian community about the breadth and intensity of hostility that has been directed at Jews since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 and the following war in Gaza. The testimony of lived experience highlighted the extent to which intimidation and victimisation of Jews has permeated virtually every corner of life in this country, from children’s sporting fields to schools and universities, the public service, union movement, arts and entertainment, politics and even the healthcare system.” [TheGuardian]
Palling Around with Piker: Bloomberg Opinion’s David Drucker explores the degree to which antisemitism has permeated the Democratic Party. “Major candidates for Congress have paraded around with [Hasan] Piker, a Twitch streamer with over 3 million followers on the platform, and Democratic voters have nominated primary candidates who are aggressively critical of Israel — and only Israel — and traffic in antisemitic tropes. Their rise is jeopardizing the Democrats’ historically strong bond with Jewish voters, a key component of their liberal coalition.” [Bloomberg]
Picture of the Day
Ambassador Yehuda Kaploun (right), the State Department’s antisemitism envoy, met with Colombian Foreign Minister Omar Bula Escobar this week in Bogota. Bula was appointed to the position last month following the victory of Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella. Credit: X
Birthdays
Danielle Weisberg, co-founder of theSkimm, turns 40
Ruth Ann Hapner, Chatsworth, Calif., resident
Mark Freedman, board chair for North America at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, turns 75
Michael Wolff, author, essayist and journalist, turns 73
Moshe Shlomo “Vladimir” Sloutsker, co-founder of the Israeli Jewish Congress, he is a former senator in the Russian Federation, turns 70
Martha E. Pollack, president of Cornell University until June 2024, turns 68
Kathy Hochul, governor of New York since 2021, turns 68
Anna Azari, Israel’s ambassador to the Czech Republic, turns 67
Gary Cohn, vice chairman at IBM and lead independent director on the board of Apollo Global Management, he was previously the president and COO of Goldman Sachs, turns 66
Nadav Tamir, executive director of J Street Israel, he served as Israel’s consul general to New England from 2006 to 2010
Steve Clemons, editor-at-large at The National Interest and the founding editor of Semafor, he is also chairman and CEO of Widehall, turns 64
Neil A. Wallack, private equity investor and a trustee of the Jewish Federations of North America’s board
Daphne Koller, Israeli-born CEO of Insitro, she was a professor at Stanford for 18 years and a 2004 winner of a MacArthur genius fellowship, turns 58
Avril Haines, director of National Intelligence throughout the four years of the Biden administration, she was the first woman to ever hold the DNI position, turns 57
Vanessa Wruble, co-founder of the 2017 Women’s March which she eventually left citing concerns over antisemitism, turns 52
Joshua Goldberg, managing partner and founder of NYC-based G2 Investment Partners
Shai Babad, former director-general of the Israeli Ministry of Finance, now CEO of the Strauss Group, turns 50
Daniel Biss, mayor of Evanston, Ill., he is the Democratic congressional nominee in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, turns 49
Richard Goldberg, senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, turns 43
Nelson France, outreach manager at the Middle East Forum
Adam Metzger, member of AJR, an indie pop multi-instrumentalist trio, together with his two brothers, turns 36
Michael Weiss
Yuval Sapir, director of the Botanical Garden and senior lecturer, both positions at Tel Aviv University
Talia Rubin
Plus, Omer Adam finds his love in Portofino
Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) speaks at a press conference on Capitol Hill on Sept. 8, 2025.
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at growing condemnation of antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker among moderate Democrats, report on the tapping of Rep. Jared Moskowitz to serve as the top Democratic official on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Middle East subcommittee and cover a new poll that found that nearly half of Pennsylvania voters approve of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s approach to Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Omer Adam, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Rabbi Mitchel Malkus.
Curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
First in JI: In a letter sent to Attorney General Todd Blanche this morning, The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law is calling on the Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration Act Unit to investigate whether Northwestern University’s long-standing ties to Qatar violate FARA. Read more here.
We’re keeping an eye on the situation at 10 Downing St., amid U.K. media reports that Prime Minister Andy Burnham could announce in the coming weeks a full ban on trading products from West Bank settlements.
Australia’s monthslong royal commission investigating antisemitism in the country — prompted by the December terror attack at a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach — concluded today in Sydney after the panel heard from nearly 350 witnesses. Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, the director of Chabad of Bondi whose son-in-law was one of 15 people killed in the attack, was among the final witnesses to address the panel today.
One Thing To Know
analysis
Darline Graham, boosted by Trump backing, wins South Carolina Senate race
Boosted by an endorsement from President Donald Trump and a preelection rally from the state’s leading Republican figures, Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) survived a challenge from Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) to win the GOP nomination for her late brother’s Senate seat.
“I continue to miss Lindsey every day, and there is still a big hole in my heart, but I know he’s looking down right now, very proud of all of everyone in this room,” Graham said in her victory speech Tuesday night.
Graham prevailed narrowly (52%-48%) despite facing serious questions about her experience and readiness for a full term in the Senate during the compressed campaign. She expressed ignorance about foreign policy in the race’s lone debate when asked about her thoughts about Taiwan’s security. She had also said she wouldn’t be as focused on foreign policy as her brother, whose hawkish national security record defined his political legacy.
The Big Reads
piker pile-on
More Democrats speak out against El-Sayed’s relationship with Hasan Piker
As more Democratic lawmakers join the chorus calling out influencer Hasan Piker over his comments that Jews’ support for Israel invites antisemitic violence, a growing number of moderate Democratic lawmakers — including Sens. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL), Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Greg Stanton (D-AZ) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) — said that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s efforts to distance himself from Piker, a campaign surrogate, haven’t gone far enough, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. “It is disingenuous for El-Sayed to try to distance himself from Piker without specifically condemning, refuting or even just rejecting Piker’s hateful rhetoric,” Schneider said.
On the other hand: El-Sayed, meanwhile, doubled down on his anti-Israel rhetoric at an event in Dearborn on Tuesday, JI’s Matthew Kassel reports. While reiterating his opposition to antisemitism and appreciation for Judaism, El-Sayed said that his support for ending aid to Israel is “about making sure that in our foreign policy, we substantiate equal rights to peace, dignity and self-determination for Palestinian folk.”
on the hill
Moskowitz to take over as top Democrat on Middle East subcommittee
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) was named on Tuesday as the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Middle East Subcommittee, succeeding Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Two sources familiar with the situation explained that, since Sherman, who took over as ranking member last year after Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick’s (D-FL) indictment, would have been unable to remain in the post next year owing to a rule that prohibits lawmakers from holding multiple subcommittee leadership roles, he decided to give up the position early to help support Moskowitz in his reelection race and to pass off the committee leadership to a pro-Israel successor.
survey says
New poll shows Pa. voters approve of Shapiro’s centrist, pro-Israel approach
A new poll found that nearly half of voters in Pennsylvania view Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Jewish Democrat mulling a presidential bid in 2028, as “about right on support of Israel,” even as he has faced skepticism from the far left over his positions on the Jewish state, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. The results of The New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena University survey indicate that Shapiro, a popular centrist who led his Republican gubernatorial rival, Stacy Garrity, by 16 points in the poll, could be well positioned as he mulls a presidential campaign.
The Rundown
off the shelf
From Beirut to Riyadh, Assouline’s luxury book collection has yet to spotlight an Israeli city
threat thwarted
Man arrested for threatening to kill Rep. Randy Fine
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
President Donald Trump submitted his administration’s nuclear accord with Saudi Arabia to Congress for review; the agreement, a senior White House official told The Wall Street Journal, remains contingent on Riyadh’s normalization of ties with Israel…
The Secret Service confirmed that Iranian state media aired a video threatening the life of Barron Trump; the video is the first from Iran that appeared to target the president’s youngest son…
An American law enforcement official told Newsmax that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s son Yair was the target of a recent Iranian assassination plot, days after the prime minister indicated that one of his sons had been targeted by the Islamic Republic…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reportedly told several counterparts from allied countries that the U.S. plans to halt strikes targeting Iran “for the time being” as the Trump administration pursues other avenues, including economic sanctions, to pressure the Islamic Republic…
CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Moscow on Tuesday to meet with senior officials, marking his first known trip to Russia since assuming the role days into the second Trump administration…
The New York Times does a deep dive into the Army’s leadership vacuum following a series of high-level dismissals and staff purges by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, finding that the number of four-star Army generals has dropped by 50% since Hegseth took the helm of the Pentagon…
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) led six Senate Democrats and 34 House Democrats on a letter calling on Rubio to work to release from Israeli custody Sama Safi, a U.S. citizen arrested in June by Israeli authorities who accused Safi and other Birzeit University students of activities supporting terrorism…
An official from the Trump administration’s Board of Peace called for a halt to “all militant activity in Gaza … including the flying of kites”; the warning came after a series of kites were flown out of the enclave and into southern Israeli communities, renewing concerns that the kites could be connected to incendiary devices as they had been in the past…
Reps. Greg Meeks (D-NY) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) demanded answers from the Trump administration about the structure and funding plans for the Board of Peace, how it will function and what Trump’s role in leading the organization will be…
In an Instagram post featuring a photo of Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd’s “Knotted Gun” sculpture outside the United Nations, Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, wrote, “Barrels do not knot themselves. It takes hands, and the will to use them. #Peace requires hard work. It is won slowly, through negotiations that run for months and rarely end exactly as anyone wanted. Then it rests on commitments that must be kept every day, usually without praise and without credit. No one applauds an obligation honoured. Only the broken ones are noticed”…
New York magazine profiles Fight Agency co-founder Rebecca Katz, whose clients have included Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) and former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), finding that Katz “doesn’t much want to talk about what has gone wrong with some of her candidates. She thinks October 7 had something to do with it in two cases — it pushed Fetterman right and Bowman further left while also making the latter less responsive to the concerns of his constituents”…
Following the failed primary campaigns of several far-right, antisemitic candidates in Florida, The New York Times’ Yair Rosenberg explores how the “campaigns exposed the continued mainstreaming of anti-Jewish ideas and unsettled one of the largest Jewish populations in the country”…
New York magazine Editor-in-Chief David Haskell invited 14 Sephardic and Mizrahi organizations to meet next month after the groups collectively sent an open letter to the magazine’s leadership regarding its recent edition focused on Southwest Asian and North African culture in New York City; the magazine’s “Habibi City” package had been met with extensive criticism from Jewish community leaders over the magazine’s erasure of Middle Eastern Jewish culture as well as its description of the Jewish state as the “land mass currently called Israel”…
Call Your Mother is opening a shop in Coral Gables, Fla., as the Washington-area bagel chain expands to the Sunshine State…
The Atlantic’s Timothy Ryback considers the fate of Nazi sympathizer Max Naumann, a Jewish German who defended the actions of the Reich even as the Nazi regime increasingly cracked down on Jews in the country…
A Sydney man convicted of vandalism for scrawling anti-Israel graffiti on a car and setting another vehicle on fire was denied parole for a second time after the parole authority of New South Wales determined the man, who has a Hezbollah tattoo on his neck, was an adherent of “extremist ideology of antisemitic character”…
Rabbi Mitchel Malkus, former head of school at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, is now the executive vice president at Legacy Heritage Foundation…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Squeeze Play: In The Washington Post, Ludovic Hood, who served decades in the Foreign Service before joining the Hudson Institute earlier this year, praised the Trump administration’s recently announced economic sanctions on Iran. “Twenty years of experience as an American diplomat has made me realize that no amount of diplomatic ingenuity can contain Iran. The United States should keep pushing until it gets the best outcome for American interests, the region and the Iranian people: the shattering of the illegitimate regime in Tehran. … Iran’s rulers have shown time and again they will not accede to an arrangement that constrains their hegemonic aspirations.” [WashPost]
The Crumbling of Qatar: The Atlantic’s Shane Harris considers the relationship between Doha and Washington as Qatar, which gifted President Donald Trump a luxury jet earlier this year, finds itself in the crosshairs of the administration’s war with Iran. “In Trump, the Qataris had met a man who could not be bought. He could be paid, and expected to be. But the security the Qataris hoped for turned out to be a protection racket. … The lifeblood of [Doha]’s ambitions, plans, and influence is drying up. And Qatar’s global strategy, premised on so many contradictory bets, is crumbling.” [TheAtlantic]
Dolly’s Parting Gift: In eJewishPhilanthropy, The Bronfman Fellowship’s Laura Liebman reflects on the ethos of Dolly Parton following the singer and philanthropist’s death on Tuesday. “When American Jewish life can feel defined by fear, division and questions about who belongs, Dolly reminded me that there is another model: Know who you are, holding fast to your values and where you come from; and be brave enough to try something new, give generously and keep the tent wide enough for people who see the world differently.” [eJP]
Picture of the Day
Israeli singer Omer Adam married Milan native Sacha Israelovich on Monday in a small, family-only civil marriage ceremony in Portofino, Italy. The couple will hold a larger religious ceremony today at a former 13th-century abbey for a few hundred attendees, which will include gender-segregated seating at the chuppah in accordance with the request of Hasidic singer Motty Steinmetz, who will perform for the couple.
Birthdays
Rami Matan Even-Esh, rapper known professionally as Kosha Dillz, turns 45
Rabbi Emanuel Feldman, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Jacob of Atlanta, turns 99
Alan Siegel, CEO of Siegelvision, a brand identity consultancy, he is also the co-founder and chairman emeritus of global brand strategy firm Siegel+Gale, turns 88
Martin J. Portnoy, president of You Save On Meds
Ron Huldai, mayor of Tel Aviv since 1998, turns 82
Irving Slosberg, former Democratic member of the Florida House of Representatives, turns 79
Jay Caplan, sales representative for ADT Security
Avner Eisenberg, vaudeville performer, clown, mime, juggler and sleight of hand magician, known by his stage name “Avner the Eccentric,” turns 78
Jane August, co-owner of Rochester, N.Y.-based August Moon Imports and World Tae Kwon Do Center
Roger Karoutchi, member of the French Senate, turns 75
Freada Kapor Klein, venture capitalist, social policy researcher and philanthropist, turns 74
Robert J. Fisher, director of Gap, a retail chain founded by his parents, turns 72
Michael J. Bloomfield, EVP and managing director of The Mellman Group
Julian Epstein, CEO of LawMedia Group (LMG Inc.), turns 65
Doug Korn, founder and managing partner of Victor Capital Partners, turns 64
Stephen Dubner, journalist and co-author of the Freakonomics series, turns 63
Shelly L. Hettleman, member of the Maryland Senate since 2020, turns 62
Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America until 2021, turns 57
Perry Wallack, former CFO at Cornerstone OnDemand
Lorne Abony, managing partner of Austin-based Texas Venture Partners, turns 57
Robert Sacks, managing partner of RNS Strategies based in Portland, Ore.
Steve Malter, professor at the Olin Business School of Washington University in St. Louis, turns 53
Samantha Eisner, deputy general counsel at ICANN, the coordinator of the internet’s naming system
Ariel Maurice “Ari” Ratner, co-founder and CEO of Danari Global, a strategic communications and policy advisory firm
Yanni Hufnagel, founder and CEO of The Lemon Perfect Company, maker of the enhanced water brand Lemon Perfect, turns 44
Meirav Cohen, member of the Knesset for Yesh Atid, she served in the previous government as minister for social equality and minorities, turns 43
Rob Cantor, singer-songwriter, vocalist, guitarist and co-writer for the indie rock band Tally Hall, turns 43
Brielle Joy Applebaum, principal and founder of Inspire Capital and Development
John Train
Carrie Shapiro
Plus, Preakness Shabbats no more
Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
Vice President JD Vance
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the reaction by Jewish conservatives to a fundraiser for Vice President JD Vance hosted by Tucker Carlson ally Omeed Malik, we report on pleas by a group of Jewish staffers at Vox Media to address anti-Israel bias at the company and its subsidiaries that have largely gone unheeded and talk to observant Jews in Baltimore who, following the decision to move the Preakness from Saturday to Sunday, will for the first time be able to attend the annual horse race at Pimlico Race Course. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Mary Peltola, Amy-Jill Levine and Alex Luxenberg.
Curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: X. Print the latest edition here.
Today’s Agenda
President Donald Trump is traveling to Myrtle Beach, S.C., today for an evening rally with Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) ahead of Tuesday’s runoff that will pit Graham against Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC). The rally comes days after a debate in which Graham’s answers on foreign policy — in which she acknowledged being “not that informed on national security” — were widely panned, including by GOP operatives.
The USS Abraham Lincoln and the 5,000 servicemembers aboard are en route back to San Diego, having departed their position in the Gulf following a nine-month deployment in the Pacific and the Middle East. The aircraft carrier was relieved earlier this week by the USS George Washington.
One Thing To Know
tucker ties
Vance fundraiser with Tucker Carlson backer Omeed Malik raises eyebrows
By Matthew Kassel
A fundraiser hosted by Vice President JD Vance in the Hamptons on Wednesday is raising red flags among some Jewish Republicans who continue to harbor concerns over his likely intention to run for president in 2028.
The event, first reported by Axios, was notably held in the home of Omeed Malik, the Iranian American investor who was an important early backer of Tucker Carlson’s media company. The fundraiser highlights Vance’s ongoing ties to Carlson’s network — even as the far-right commentator has faced backlash for his regular promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jews and Israel.
The event underscores the anxieties among some traditional Republicans who are skeptical of Vance’s indulgence of antisemitic forces on the far right and commitment to a strong relationship with Israel that has long been a key GOP value but is now waning among the party’s younger voters. Jewish conservatives voiced their concerns about the fundraiser on social media as the invitation surfaced online Thursday.
The Big Reads
media moment
‘Recognize our humanity and our fear’: Jewish employees’ 2023 plea to Vox Media went unanswered
Not long after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, members of a Jewish employee resource group at Vox Media, known as the Tribe, circulated a lengthy memo alleging several instances of bias against Israel in coverage by New York magazine, which was then a subsidiary, and Vox, the explanatory journalism site, and offering editorial guidance for staffers writing about the attack and ensuing war in Gaza, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. The pleas went unheeded, as New York magazine now faces fresh outside scrutiny from critics who say its recent cover issue, dedicated to celebrating New York City’s burgeoning Middle Eastern cultural scene, erased the Jewish perspective from its narrative, suggesting the Tribe memo likely faded from institutional memory.
NORTHERN EXPOSURE
Peltola campaign mum about whether she stands by her pro-Israel record in the House
Alaska’s closely watched Senate race, which will help determine the balance of power in the Senate, is set to pit a consistent — if rarely prominent — Democratic supporter of Israel against a prominent Republican national security hawk. Unlike in some other battleground races, the issue of Israel has rarely come up in the campaign, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Though she was a reliable supporter of Israel in the House, even breaking with most Democrats at times, Peltola’s campaign did not provide comment in response to repeated inquiries from JI about whether her stance has changed since leaving the House.
Bonus: The Cook Political Report, which already rated the Alaska Senate race as a “Toss Up,” on Thursday moved the Texas and Iowa Senate races from “Lean Republican” to “Toss Up.”
Ain’t Gonna Race on Saturday
As Preakness moves to Sunday, the 153-year-old race could see first-time Orthodox attendees
For more than 150 years, Baltimore’s Orthodox Jews have walked to synagogue on Preakness Saturday and listened to the roar of the Pimlico Race Course crowd less than a mile away, never able to join it. That will change next year, following an announcement from Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and the Maryland Jockey Club that the 152nd Preakness Stakes will run Sunday, May 23, 2027, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. “Growing up, I would walk to synagogue every Shabbat of Preakness and I’d be able to hear the crowd roaring. I always felt like I was missing out,” Alex Friedman, a member of the Baltimore City Democratic State Central Committee, told JI.
The Rundown
PROGRESSIVE PREVAILS
AIPAC-backed Hernandez loses to progressive Wahab in California special election
DEBATE NIGHT
At Massachusetts Senate debate, Markey touts early call for blocking Israel arms sales
DONOR CLASH
N.H. congressional candidate Shaheen attacks Dem opponent over pro-Israel support
ROAD TO DAMASCUS
Israel’s Syria strikes shine light on growing divide with U.S. over Middle East policy
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
A U.S. official said that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will be barred from attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York next month, a year after he was first denied a visa over U.S. claims that the PA had engaged in efforts to undermine peace efforts…
Michigan Democratic congressional nominee Jeremy Moss declined to endorse his party’s Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, in an interview with Slate: “Abdul’s going to have to demonstrate some serious outreach to Oakland County’s Jewish community,” Moss said. The two candidates have “had an ongoing dialogue,” Moss added, as he said Democrats must ensure that “the liberal Jewish community is not politically homeless”…
Our Time NYC, a nonprofit founded by allies of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to back the mayor’s policies, will close down following the departure of all of its staff, nine months after the group launched…
In Newsweek, former White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt lauds Jared Kushner’s diplomatic efforts, noting that Kushner operates “knowing the region’s leaders, and the ground beneath them, better than almost anyone else Washington could send”…
German investigators said they had identified the alleged perpetrator of a 1970 arson attack on a Jewish community center in Munich in which seven Holocaust survivors were killed; the man, who was not named, was a German neo-Nazi who died in 2020…
A researcher testifying before Australia’s royal commission into antisemitism in the country clashed with a commissioner after saying she did not consider Israel to be a “legitimate state” and believed Zionism to be a “violent extremist” movement…
The Israeli government advanced plans to build an additional 1,200 housing units in the West Bank, prompting the U.K., France, Germany, Canada and Italy to condemn the move…
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee warned against efforts by Israeli settlers to take property owned by Palestinian Americans, telling Reuters such moves constituted “a violation of God’s law” and could be met with U.S. sanctions…
The Catholic Biblical Association of America elected Old and New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine, who is Jewish, to serve as the body’s next president; Levine, who previously served as the CBA’s vice president, is the first Jewish person to lead the group…
Meta’s Alex Luxenberg was named the next CEO of Sefaria, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Houthi Havoc: In The New York Times, RAND’s Alexandra Stark posits that the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen are likely to continue to pose a challenge to Western interests in the region, regardless of the situation between the U.S. and Iran. “Highly attuned to their own interests and pragmatic in the international arena, the Houthis have proved savvy at choosing when to enter or escalate conflicts. … While the United States looks to wind down the war with Iran, the Houthis are threatening to resume their war in Yemen, which would likely draw in Saudi Arabia, menace the global oil trade and keep the region unstable.” [NYTimes]
On Guard in Gotham: In The Wall Street Journal, Queens native Tevi Troy reflects on the increasing threats facing Jewish New Yorkers amid rising antisemitism. “In my weekly teaching visits to New York from Maryland, I choose — for now — to continue taking the subway, going to synagogue, eating at kosher restaurants. But other Jews may make different choices. They may stop being observant, or may stop doing things that identify them as Jewish. They may move to Florida or Texas or out of a Jewish neighborhood. Put all those individual choices together and we lose the things that for more than a century made New York such a Jewish city.” [WSJ]
Wine of the Week
JI wine columnist Yitz Applbaum reviews the Noah Estate Cabernet:
Once a year, a few of us from our Oakland, Calif., synagogue fly somewhere far removed from our weekly routines. This week it was Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I arrived with the ambition to find a great malbec. What came to the table instead was a rack of asado de tira, charred dark at the edges and rendered gold along the bone, with bife de chorizo and matambre behind it. Standing equal to all of it, in the end, was not a malbec but the Noah Cabernet 2023, a wine from the Judean foothills outside Jerusalem.
It is 100% cabernet sauvignon, and it opens with the muskiness of aged tobacco leaf. The mid-palate is deep cherry, dark and unhurried, with tannin enough to cut the fat without ever talking over the meal. The finish, carried on the tango from the next room, is lively and stays with you well after the plates are cleared. A wine for the Shabbat table, and no less at home on a Tuesday night. Pour it alongside short ribs, a rib roast, or anything that has spent hours over coals.
Birthdays
FRIDAY
Irwin Wecker, retired owner of Effective Strategy Consultants, South Florida resident
Ilana Rovner, senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, turns 88
L. Rafael Reif, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology until the end of 2022, turns 76
Eric S. Brown, former chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, he was the first Jewish chief justice in Ohio history, turns 73
Yossi Dina, Israeli-born pawnbroker and star of the reality television series “Beverly Hills Pawn,” turns 72
Sabina Berman Goldberg, Mexican writer, playwright and journalist, turns 71
Mitchell Rales, businessman and collector of modern and contemporary art, he is the owner of the NFL’s Washington Commanders, turns 70
Jon Tester, former U.S. senator (D-MT), turns 70
Yehiel Lasri, Israeli physician who was a member of the Knesset, he now serves as mayor of Ashdod, turns 69
Jerry Avenaim, photographer best known for his fashion and celebrity images, turns 65
Ido Aharoni, Israeli career diplomat who served for six years as consul general in New York, turns 64
Scott Bessent, secretary of the Treasury, turns 64
Mark Stuart Charendoff, president at Maimonides Fund
Jack Weiss, co-founder of BlueLine Grid, he was previously an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles and a member of the Los Angeles City Council, turns 62
Chavie Kahn, member of the philanthropic leadership group for the UJA-Federation of New York
Ken Mehlman, global head of public affairs at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts-KKR, turns 60
Rachel Hirschberg Light, president of Berger Hirschberg Strategies
Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, both Bloomberg and Forbes rank him as one of the ten wealthiest people globally, turns 53
Jason Marquis, former MLB pitcher for nine teams, he was the starting pitcher in three of Team Israel’s first four games in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, turns 48
Chesa Boudin, former district attorney of San Francisco, turns 46
Adam Fisher, head coach of the Temple University Owls men’s basketball team, turns 42
Adam Rosenblatt, founding partner of Bold Decision, turns 41
Erica Miller, missions manager for domestic and overseas travel at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia
David Abadian Heifetz, communications director at Breakthrough Energy
Madeline Fuhrman, pop singer and songwriter, turns 33
Tzippy Baitch, associate editor at Simon & Schuster
Noa Rakel Perugia, an Argov fellow at Reichman University
Lynn Sharon
James Barton
SATURDAY
Morton Dean, Emmy Award-winning television news journalist, formerly the weekend anchor of “CBS Evening News,” turns 91
Margie Berkowitz, former director of Prozdor, the high school program of the Hebrew College in Newton, Mass.
Paul Singer, founder, president, co-CEO and co-chief investment officer of Elliott Management Corporation, turns 82
Joyce Fox, dermatologist in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Eli Capilouto, president of the University of Kentucky since 2011, he traces his heritage to a small Sephardic community on the island of Rhodes, turns 77
Steven Brill, founder of the magazine American Lawyer and the cable channel Court TV (now TruTV), he also co-founded NewsGuard, turns 76
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to VPOTUS Dick Cheney, turns 76
Yitzhak Aharonovich, chairman of Mekorot (Israel’s water company), he was a member of the Knesset for the Yisrael Beiteinu party, turns 76
Mark Gilbert, former MLB outfielder, then investment banker, he was the U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and has served as president of B’nai Torah Congregation in Boca Raton, Fla., turns 70
Adlai W. Wertman, former investment banker who left his job to run a Los Angeles-based homeless service provider, he was also a professor at USC, turns 67
Ofra Strauss, chairwoman of Israel’s Strauss Group, conducting business in 20 countries, turns 66
Jesse Itzler, co-founder of Marquis Jet and part owner of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks, turns 58
Ed Miller, SVP of political campaigns and strategy at AIPAC, turns 55
Deborah Hochberg, director of strategic partnerships at the Paul E. Singer Foundation
Michael Fragin, senior advisor to the county executive in Nassau County, N.Y.
Craig Greenberg, mayor of Louisville, Ky., since the start of 2023, turns 53
Rachel Saifer Goldman, director of operations at the University of Pennsylvania Hillel
Stuart A. Graiwer, partner in the Century City office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
Shari Dollinger Magnus, co-executive director of Christians United for Israel
Shana Knizhnik, attorney and author, best known for her NYT best-selling book, Notorious R.B.G.: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, turns 38
Claire Stein-Ross, chief of staff and development director at Protect Borrowers
Ari Stidham, actor known for his role as statistical genius Sylvester Dodd in the television series “Scorpion,” turns 34
Braden Adam Bishop, professional baseball player for nine years, he is now a player agent and he also manages a foundation for families affected by Alzheimer’s, turns 33
SUNDAY
Norman Braman, owner of many car dealerships, art collector and former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, turns 94
Ron Blomberg, former MLB player, he was the first designated hitter in MLB history and was the manager of the Bet Shemesh Blue Sox in the Israel Baseball League, turns 78
Reuven Amitai-Preiss, director of the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of the Jewish Communities of the East, turns 71
David Alexander Wolf, astronaut, medical doctor and electrical engineer, he brought a dreidel, a yad and a small menorah into space, turns 70
Richard Zeskind, retired SVP and general counsel of Eastern Savings Bank in Hunt Valley, Md.
Eitan Cabel, former member of Knesset for 23 years representing the Labor party and Zionist Union party, turns 67
Bracha Radin, owner of A&A Wholesale
Anna Kaplan, first Iranian-American member of the New York State Senate, her term ended in 2022, turns 61
Marc Swatez, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis
Elise Rosenstock, jewelry designer
Kimberly Merle Schrier, member of the House of Representatives since 2019 (D-WA), she served as a physician prior to entering politics, turns 58
Errol Damelin, founder and CEO of Wonga, a British financial technology company (one of the first fintechs in the world), turns 57
Jeremy Schaap, ESPN host and one of the network’s longest-tenured personalities, he has won 11 Emmy Awards, turns 57
Rabbi Josh Kohl, teacher at Politz Hebrew Academy in Philadelphia, known by his students as “Rabbi Science”
Lawrence Frank, former NBA head coach (Pistons and Nets), now president of basketball operations for the LA Clippers, turns 56
Craig Silverman, national reporter for ProPublica, turns 49
Mor Katzir, Israeli model, born in Haifa, turns 46
Avigail Goldgraber, managing director in the hospital and healthcare practice of Accenture
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor, turns 41
Isabella Tobias, retired ice dancer who competed for Georgia, Lithuania and Israel, turns 35
Plus, Rial pain for Tehran
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago club on December 29, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at how Sen. Darline Graham’s shaky debate performance earlier this week is prompting questions in the GOP about her electability, do a deep dive into efforts by the Democratic Socialists of America to win local and state-level races and report on Rep. Ryan Zinke’s advertised participation in an event hosted by the Turkey-linked group involved in the Eric Adams bribery scandal. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Marc Brown, Lauren Sherman and Eliya Cohen.
Curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod.
Today’s Agenda
We’re monitoring the situation in the Middle East following President Donald Trump’s announcement yesterday that the U.S. was launching a campaign of “economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale” targeting Iran. The president called the move the “MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY,” and warned that efforts to assist Tehran would be met with “economic consequences.” Read more here.
In Massachusetts, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) will face off in the last debate before the Sept. 1 Senate primary. A WCVB/University of Massachusetts Amherst poll released earlier this week showed Markey with a significant lead over Moulton in the race.
One Thing To Know
JINSA calls for change in U.S.-Israel military alliance
By Matthew Shea
As Israel and the Trump administration negotiate the next U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding, a new report from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America demonstrates how even among hawkish experts in Washington, the question is increasingly not how to preserve the traditional military aid model, but what should replace it.
The report, titled “Shifting the Center of Gravity: Transforming the U.S.-Israel Security Partnership,” recommends that the two countries sign one final 10-year MOU — a sea change for Israel supporters who previously wouldn’t have dreamt to advocate for the end of these kinds of agreements between Jerusalem and Washington, though they largely hope for it to be replaced with cooperative and enduring programs.
The report comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has himself championed the eventual end of direct U.S. aid to Israel and as elements of both parties become resistant to defense spending overseas, a new reality that is forcing a reassessment of how Washington can sustain its commitment to Israel without relying on the traditional aid model.
The Big Reads
palmetto state politics
Darline Graham’s foreign policy flub rattles GOP ahead of S.C. Senate runoff
Sen. Darline Graham’s (R-SC) stumbling performance at the final GOP primary debate on Tuesday has prompted questions about her prospects in next week’s runoff against Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports. “The debate seems fairly consequential for a number of reasons,” said GOP campaign veteran Colin Reed. He predicted that Graham’s inability to sound articulate on foreign policy — all but taking a pass on a consequential national security question — was likely to have an impact on the outcome of the race because of the importance of national security issues to South Carolina’s “heavy military presence and large veteran community.”
GOING LOCAL
Socialist surge happening in under-the-radar local and state legislative races
Even as attention has focused on the Democratic Socialists of America’s victories in Senate and House primaries, many of the group’s more overlooked victories have happened at the state legislative level, where the DSA members are poised to wield significant power if they win, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. A new study by the Brookings Institution, released Wednesday, found that of the 104 state legislative candidates endorsed by national or local DSA chapters in 2026, 76 have won their primaries or advanced to the general election without a primary. At the local level, another 64 of the 99 DSA-endorsed candidates are moving on to the general election.
COLD TURKEY
Turkey-linked group in Eric Adams bribery scandal advertising event with Ryan Zinke
A Turkish-tied organization that launched in 2023 with an alleged straw-donor fundraiser for former New York City Mayor Eric Adams has spent recent weeks selling tickets for a Sept. 20 gathering listing Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) as a “featured speaker” — even as Zinke’s office insists he’s not attending the event, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports. The CEO Club New York and Turkish-American Business Association have posted materials online and created a listing on Eventbrite advertising the “World Business Summit New York & Award Ceremony 2026” next month, with the name and photo of the retiring Montana congressman, who served as secretary of the interior during the first Trump administration, prominently displayed.
The Rundown
EAST BAY SHOWDOWN
Wahab holds narrow lead over AIPAC-backed Hernandez in East Bay congressional runoff
CLOSE TO HOME
N.J. Jewish bridal shop owner detained by ICE
moving for mike
Michigan Jewish Dems circulate letter endorsing Republican Mike Rogers for Senate
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
The U.S. has reportedly quietly established in recent weeks a shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz that has allowed between 15-20 tankers to transit through the waterway nightly, allowing some 10 million barrels of oil to move out of the region each day…
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack doubled down on his criticism of Israeli strikes on a Syrian air base earlier in the week, which Israel said had been prompted by Turkish involvement at the base…
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met on Wednesday in Doha with Hamas leaders including Khalil Al Hayya; Al Thani praised the terror group for accepting the Board of Peace’s disarmament road map, which analysts told JI Hamas likely has no intention of abiding by, and called on the international community to “pressure Israel to fulfill its obligations”…
Reps. Greg Meeks (D-NY) and Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA) pressed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over his decision to loosen export controls on the United Arab Emirates, arguing he had failed to provide “justification or evidence that proliferation or diversion risk had been mitigated” and questioning whether the moves were driven by political or financial interests…
U.S.-based missile manufacturer Castelion closed a more than $1 billion round of funding co-led by Carlyle, JPMorgan Chase and Andreessen Horowitz to boost production of hypersonic missiles…
Fortune looks at ServiceNow’s acquisition of Yevgeny Dibrov’s Armis earlier this year, as the company — which was bought from Dibrov and cofounder, Nadir Izrael, for nearly $8 billion — becomes a core component of ServiceNow’s pushback against the AI-driven “SaaSpocalypse”…
The New York State Department of Financial Services issued a notice warning Holocaust survivors and their families about potential fraud by an organization calling itself the “Jewish Holocaust Claims Center” that is contacting such individuals about their eligibility for compensation…
Author and illustrator Marc Brown, the creator of the “Arthur” series, sold his Martha’s Vineyard home for $6.4 million…
The New York man accused of assaulting two people at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue last week is facing federal hate crimes after initially being charged with state-level hate crimes related to the incident…
L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman’s mayoral campaign confirmed plans to work with Fight Agency, as the consulting firm faces criticism from elements of the Democratic Party over its work with former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who dropped his bid following a rape allegation made by a former romantic partner…
Vanity Fair spotlights Puck’s Lauren Sherman, the lead author of the online publication’s “Line Sheet” newsletter, described as “one of the most influential — and polarizing — figures in fashion media”…
U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said London was preparing targeted sanctions against Israelis engaged in “illegal settlement expansion,” and summoned Israel’s chargé d’affaires in the country over the issue…
The IDF said it was opening an investigation into the death of 5-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza in January 2024 after finding that Israeli troops had fired at her family’s vehicle as it was traveling opposite the direction of an evacuation route; the IDF had previously denied responsibility for the incident, which drew global attention and inspired an Oscar-nominated film titled “The Voice of Hind Rajab”…
Australia summoned Israel’s ambassador in Canberra following the IDF’s announcement that it would not move forward with criminal proceedings regarding a 2024 IDF strike in Gaza in which seven World Central Kitchen workers, including an Australian citizen, were killed…
The Dubai-based DP World is moving forward with an $800 million plan to redevelop the Syrian port of Tartous on the Mediterranean…
Former Israeli hostage Eliya Cohen married his longtime girlfriend, Ziv Abud, on Wednesday night; the couple, who attended the Nova music festival along with Abud’s nephew and his girlfriend, survived a siege on the bomb shelter in which they were hiding during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks before Cohen was taken captive and held for more than 500 days…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Iran’s Best Friends: In The Washington Post, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Bradley Bowman and Cameron McMillan call on the U.S. to address continued Russian and Chinese support for Iran. “Perhaps most startlingly, Russia reportedly provided Iran with satellite imagery and other forms of intelligence to enable Iranian attacks on American military positions in the region, likely improving Tehran’s ability to target U.S. forces and high-value assets — such as radars and command-and-control sites — with drones and ballistic missiles. … Beijing has long provided Tehran with dual-use support, meaning items that can be used for civilian and military purposes. This is perhaps most evident in Iran’s ballistic missile program.” [WashPost]
Village People: In The Wall Street Journal, David Cohen, the CEO of Algemeiner, reflects on the communal response to the recent death of his brother, Jonathan. “The people filling the mourning house weren’t merely responding to Jonathan’s death. They were responding to Jonathan’s life. A few weeks later, my wife put it succinctly: ‘To have a village, you have to be a villager.’ We talk about the disappearance of community. Americans report loneliness despite technology that lets us reach anyone, anywhere, instantly. … Perhaps we have the equation backward. A village isn’t something we find when we need one. It’s something we build long before that.” [WSJ]
Picture of the Day
The IDF’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, visited Israeli troops in Syria on Wednesday, days after an Israeli strike targeted an air base in northern Syria meant to deter Turkish troops from deploying in the area. Credit: IDF
Birthdays
Mark Levin, film director, television producer and screenwriter, turns 58
Phoebe Bryan, Laguna Hills, Calif., resident
Connie Chung, news anchor and reporter for ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC, turns 80
Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council during the Trump 45 administration, now a commentator for Fox Business, turns 79
Lana Gordon, former Kansas secretary of labor, turns 76
Steven Klinghoffer, immediate past chair of the Golda Och Academy in West Orange, N.J.
Sam Katz, mayor of Winnipeg, Manitoba, from 2004 to 2014 and the owner of minor league baseball’s Winnipeg Goldeyes, turns 75
Jay Knopf, managing director of equity derivatives at Rice Financial Products
Bradley Schneider, U.S. representative (D-IL), turns 65
Suzanne Grant, Wilmington, Del., resident and former treasurer of the board of the Jewish Federations of North America
Michael Froman, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, he was the U.S. trade representative during the Obama administration, turns 64
Steve Daines, U.S. senator (R-MT), turns 64
Patrick Drahi, founder and controlling shareholder of the Altice Group, he acquired Sotheby’s during 2019, turns 63
Etgar Keret, Israeli writer known for his short stories and graphic novels, turns 59
Matthew Gould, British ambassador to Israel from 2010 to 2015, the first Jewish U.K. ambassador to be posted to Tel Aviv, and former CEO of the Zoological Society of London, turns 55
Asher Fentahun Seyoum, Ethiopian-born, former member of the Knesset for Kulanu, turns 55
Ari Goldberg, chief communications officer at Nova Ukraine
Abigail Michelson Porth, executive director of Lisa Stone Pritzker’s LSP Family Foundation
Karen Brunwasser, co-CEO and one of the founders of the Jerusalem Season of Culture, a summer music festival that showcases Jerusalem
Rachel Fish, co-founder of Boundless Israel
Elhanan Miller, Israeli teacher and writer, he is the founder of People of the Book focused on communicating about the Jewish faith with the Arab world, turns 45
David Adelman, partner in the Iowa office of Cornerstone Government Affairs and foundation president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines
Meghan Ory, Canadian television and film actor, turns 44
Josh Flagg, real estate agent, author and television personality as an original cast member on the show “Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles,” Josh Flagg, turns 41
Simon Shnapir, ice skating professional at The Skating Club of Boston, turns 39
Gianmarco Soresi, stand-up comedian, actor, podcaster and internet personality, turns 38
Roy Ziv, Canadian guitarist, YouTuber, producer and music teacher, turns 35
Sella Sharlin, triathlete and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss Israel 2019, turns 30
Plus, Darline Graham says natsec 'not my thing'
Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) speaks at a press conference on Capitol Hill on Sept. 8, 2025.
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we break down the results of yesterday’s primaries in Florida, and talk to foreign policy officials wary of the Trump administration’s Gaza diplomacy. We report on Sen. Darline Graham’s admission during last night’s South Carolina Senate debate that national security was “not my thing,” and cover a new report from the Anti-Defamation League and the Academic Engagement Network about anti-Israel activists’ efforts to exert control over higher education unions. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ehren Stenzler, Jeremy Moss and Yossi Cohen.
Curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
We’re keeping an eye on the remaining races to be called in yesterday’s primaries in Florida and special election runoff in California’s 14th Congressional District, where state Sen. Aisha Wahab maintains a 1,300-vote lead over Melissa Hernandez with 62% of precincts reporting.
A number of the Florida races were called shortly after polls closed, with Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Randy Fine (R-FL) fending off challengers from the more extreme wings of their respective parties. More below.
One Thing To Know
Florida voters reject political extremes
Florida Democrats and Republicans fended off extreme challengers against pro-Israel incumbents in Tuesday night’s primaries, indicating that the state’s older, moderate and notably Jewish electorate was uniquely inhospitable towards the anti-Israel left and the antisemitic right.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) handily defeated socialist challenger Oliver Larkin by nearly a 2-to-1 margin (64-36%), while Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) easily prevailed in a newly drawn district against a crowded field of challengers. Elijah Manley — the candidate running against Wasserman Schultz on the Democratic Socialists of America, anti-Israel platform — lagged in third place, with just 13% of the vote.
On the Republican side, Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) dominated over a neo-Nazi podcaster who made hatred of Jews the central message of his campaign. Fine won renomination with 57% of the vote, while the antisemitic Dan Bilzerian tallied 17% of the GOP vote. And in the governor’s race, James Fishback, who used racist and antisemitic messages as part of his campaign, lagged well behind the Trump-endorsed winner, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), finishing in third place with just 10% of the vote.
The Big Reads
DISARMAMENT DOUBTS
Pro-Israel foreign policy officials wary of Trump administration’s Gaza diplomacy
A diplomatic push by Jared Kushner to revive the stalled Gaza peace plan was met with widespread skepticism from Middle East analysts, who warned that the envoy’s timeline for Hamas disarmament is unrealistic, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. “What Hamas wants is what Hezbollah has had in Lebanon: someone else runs schools and collects garbage, while they remain in charge behind the scenes. In my view, Kushner’s meeting with Hamas was a terrible mistake that helps to legitimize them,” said Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy for Iran during the first Trump administration.
game changer
Sen. Darline Graham, at debate: ‘National security is not my thing’
Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) said at the final GOP primary debate on Tuesday to replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that she is “not that informed on national security,” Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports. Graham made the comments after being asked at Tuesday’s debate if she believed Taiwan and the South China Sea were national security issues for the United States. “My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years, so I will do everything I can to support the military. My dad was in the army. I’m not a polished politician up here. National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise,” Graham said.
campus beat
ADL-AEN report highlights unions being hijacked by anti-Israel activists
Dysfunctional union governance is leaving some Jewish faculty and graduate students marginalized and unrepresented by the labor organizations meant to advocate for them, a report released Wednesday by the Academic Engagement Network and the Anti-Defamation League documents. The report, “A Crisis of Representation: Antisemitism and Inclusion in Higher Education Unions,” highlights how activist factions have used low-turnout union elections to push anti-Israel positions without broad member buy-in — often at the expense of Jewish members who say they have faced targeted attacks, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
The Rundown
sunshine state socialism
Florida Democrats nominate DSA candidate for Senate race
a whole new ballgame
Amar’e Stoudemire details journey to Israel and Judaism in Hall of Fame induction speech
investigating the investigators
Raskin claims administration’s campus antisemitism probes were ‘fake,’ schools were framed
wolverine warriors
Democrats can retake the Senate without winning Michigan, Schumer suggests
campaign controversy
Michigan Dem nominee Jeremy Moss denounces ‘disinformation’ peddling dual loyalty tropes
sephardi spotlight
Sephardic leaders argue their tradition serves as a model for the future of diaspora Jewry
mixed messages
U.S. accuses Israel of striking Syrian air base
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
The State Department announced sanctions against Tomoko Akane, president of the International Criminal Court, and Abdoulaye Seye, a senior trial lawyer at the court, as part of the Trump administration’s recently announced campaign to target the body; Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the two individuals “have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction”…
The Department of Defense is demanding that 30 U.S. academic institutions, including Georgetown, UC Berkeley, Harvard, UCLA, USC, Cornell, Duke, Johns Hopkins and NYU, conduct comprehensive reviews of their ties with “foreign entities of concern,” threatening future Pentagon funding for research projects…
A new Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll found Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) with a 14-point lead over his primary opponent, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), among likely voters…
Former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is facing misdemeanor charges tied to her participation in an anti-Israel protest at Washington University in St. Louis in April 2024, during which she allegedly assaulted a police officer…
LionTree co-founder Ehren Stenzler is joining Moelis as a managing director, alongside Jake Donavan, who served as LionTree’s president of Europe…
Lawyers for Los Angeles Lakers Governor Jeanie Buss are contesting efforts to sell the Buss family’s stake — approximately 17.8% — in the team to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger; Kushner and Iger are still proceeding with their purchase of Mark Walter’s majority stake in the team…
Senior German lawmakers are calling on the EU to sanction Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir over his comments earlier this week that Israel should conduct “targeted killings” to “remove 30, 40 [people] every night” in Gaza…
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the country will expel two Iranian diplomats after members of the Islamic Republic’s security service interrogated and allegedly assaulted two French Embassy employees, including the cultural attaché, who were posted in Tehran…
The Israel Football Association withdrew its support for FIFA head Gianni Infantino in what IFA President Moshe Zuares, citing an “unprecedented crisis of confidence” in the FIFA chief, said was a unanimous vote; the move came after Infantino fired FIFA’s COO over his opposition to Infantino’s proposal to sell off portions of the World Cup…
Azerbaijan is suing CNN for defamation, accusing the network of endangering the country by falsely reporting that Baku had allowed Israel to operate from Azerbaijani territory as it mounted attacks against Iran during the war earlier this year…
The United Arab Emirates said it would be cutting off all trade and commercial ties with Iran due to “regional escalations that undermine regional and international peace and security,” after Tehran fired two ballistic missiles at the Gulf state on Tuesday…
Lebanon transferred an Assad-era Syrian military official to Damascus after he was questioned in Beirut earlier this month over crimes he allegedly committed in Syria in 2011; Maj. Gen. Adel Issa, who fled to Lebanon after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, is expected to face trial in Syria…
Former Mossad head Yossi Cohen, who joined SoftBank in 2021 as head of the company’s Israel operations, was appointed to the additional role of senior advisor to SoftBank founder, chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son…
Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch and The Forward’s Talia Zax are joining The Atlantic as a staff writer and senior editor, respectively…
Israeli businessman and investor Shmuel Harlap, the former chairman of Israeli auto importer Colmobil, died at 82…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Damage Control: In The Times of Israel, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew considers how Jerusalem can strengthen its relations with Washington amid a generational shift in the U.S. that threatens to derail the decades-long ties between the countries. “As a powerful but small country, Israel’s security depends on continued strategic cooperation with the United States. After fall elections in both countries, it will be urgent for a new government in Israel to take quick action to begin repairing this vital relationship. … This requires difficult decisions, and at least some humility, not a trait typically rewarded in Israeli political life.” [TOI]
Vilified on the Vineyard: The Atlantic’s Marc Leibovich travels to Alan Dershowitz’s home in Martha’s Vineyard to see how the lawyer has adjusted to life in the enclave after his public fallout with Larry David and what he alleges is ostracization from local events over his politics. “The week before our conversation, he had returned to the hallowed cultural battleground of the Pierogi Wars, the West Tisbury farmers’ market. He was wearing his U.S.-Israel shirt (or ‘my Zionist T-shirt,’ of which he has two — one red, one blue) and saw a guy wearing a Free Palestine shirt. ‘I walked up to him. I said, “Can we take a picture together?”’ The man refused. ‘He said, “No, no, no Israel,” and he walked away.’” [TheAtlantic]
EEOC Woes: In The Wall Street Journal, Ken Marcus, the founder of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, argues in favor of a proposal to end a requirement for large employers to submit race, sex and ethnicity employment data to the federal government. “Many employers and institutions have leaned on demographic frameworks to drive diversity and inclusion programs, sorting employees into broad categories of advantage and disadvantage. Within this schema, Jewish Americans are often folded into racial categories that have little or nothing to do with Jewish identity, meaning they are excluded from conversations about workplace discrimination entirely, even as antisemitic harassment has surged.” [WSJ]
Picture of the Day
Tadesse Getahon, Haimro Alame and Gashau Ayale — members of the Israeli men’s marathon team — showed off their gold medals (with Ayale also holding his individual bronze medal), after arriving at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport in Lod following the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, England.
Birthdays
Adam Arkin, actor and director, turns 70
Arthur Rock, one of the earliest Silicon Valley venture capital investors with positions in firms like Intel and Apple, turns 100
Gabriela Shalev, retired as president of Ono Academic College in Israel, she was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2008 to 2010, turns 85
Neal Slavin, photographer and director of television programs and movies
David Novak, professor emeritus of religion and philosophy at the University of Toronto, he is the author of over a dozen books, turns 85
Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the United States, turns 80
Miriam Baum Benkoe, retired reading teacher for the NYC Department of Education, she co-founded the kosher pantry at Bethesda Hospital in Boynton Beach, Fla.
Mark C. Rifkin, managing partner at Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz
Marc J. Rowan, chairman and CEO of Apollo Global Management, he is the board chairman of the UJA-Federation of New York, turns 64
Julius Genachowski, chairman of the FCC in the Obama administration, he is now a senior advisor at the Carlyle Group, turns 64
Joseph Kahn, executive editor of The New York Times, turns 62
Dan Aloni, managing partner and talent agent at William Morris Endeavor, he is active in the contemporary art world as a collector, turns 62
Omri Sharon, former member of Knesset, he is the son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, turns 62
Carolynn Wotman, executive administrator of Ventura, Calif., accounting firm, Morgan, Daggett & Wotman
Kyra Sedgwick, actor and producer, known for her role as Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson on the TNT crime drama “The Closer,” turns 61
Melinda R. Katz, district attorney of Queens, turns 61
Ezra Friedlander, founder and CEO of NYC-based government advocacy firm The Friedlander Group
Eric Louis Zinterhofer, private equity financier and a founding partner of Searchlight Capital Partners, he is on the board of Estee Lauder, turns 55
Yehuda Neuberger, chair of the Orthodox Union and past chair of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore
Molly Jong-Fast, writer and MS NOW commentator, turns 48
Brett Icahn, businessman and investor, he and a partner successfully managed a hedge fund for his father, Carl Icahn, turns 47
Ross Hinkle, managing partner of Handmade Capital
Nufar Edelman, laser radial sailor, she represented Israel at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, turns 44
Aaron Yechiel Hirtz, founder and principal at Aron’s Kissena Farms and Cedar Market
Isaac Gortenburg, president at Kansas City-based Eighteen Capital Group
Steven Markowitz, rapper, singer and songwriter, known by his stage name Hoodie Allen, turns 38
Cassandra Federbusz, digital marketing and PR consultant, she is a team manager at HubSpot
Plus, a Brooklyn pol blames the ‘Zionists’
Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images
California state Sen. Aisha Wahab attends a press conference in Hayward, Calif., on March 2, 2026.
Good Tuesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we preview today’s primaries in Florida and a special election runoff in California, report on comments by Brooklyn Democratic official Carmella Charrington accusing “Zionists” of being behind a personal property dispute and cover yesterday’s meeting between Jared Kushner and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Justin Ishbia, Ariel Levy and Stefan Zweig.
Curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod.
Today’s Agenda
It’s primary day in Florida. We’ll be watching a number of races around the Sunshine State, including the Democratic primaries in South Florida, where Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jared Moskowitz and Lois Frankel are facing challenges from their left.
We’ll also be awaiting the results of the state’s GOP primaries, where fringe elements of the party, including gubernatorial candidate James Fishback and congressional candidate Dan Bilzerian, are mounting bids that are unlikely to succeed but will be instructive as to the extent of the far-right’s reach in the state. More below.
In California, voters in the state’s 14th Congressional District will cast their ballots in the special election runoff between state Sen. Aisha Wahab and former Dublin, Calif., Mayor Melissa Hernandez to succeed former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) — a race in which the United Democracy Project has invested heavily. More below.
King Abdullah II of Jordan is kicking off a weeklong visit to China today, where he’s slated to meet with President Xi Jinping in Beijing and travel to Shanghai and Shenzhen.
In New York, the two-day Sephardic Rabbinic Conference wraps up this afternoon. Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York, is slated to address the gathering today.
One Thing To Know
AIPAC closes a rocky primary season with a California gamble
By Matthew Kassel
As primary election season comes to an end, AIPAC is closing out its involvement in a dramatic cycle with an unexpected foray into a low-profile California House race on Tuesday where Israel has not been among the top issues.
In the last two weeks, AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, has spent nearly $2.5 million in an effort to defeat Aisha Wahab, a progressive state senator competing in a special election runoff against Melissa Hernandez, a moderate Democrat who is the president of the Bay Area Rapid Transit board and the former mayor of the East Bay city of Dublin.
The aggressive maneuver, which appears to be AIPAC’s last investment before the general election, has raised eyebrows among some Jewish leaders and Democratic strategists in the state, who see Wahab as favored to replace disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) in California’s 14th District, despite the flood of recent attacks against her from UDP and other allied groups.
The Big Reads
READING THE RIGHT
Florida primaries pose a test for far-right candidates
Today’s Republican primaries in Florida will be a critical test for far-right candidates who have built their campaigns on open antisemitism, providing hard data on how popular those views have become in the GOP, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Neither gubernatorial candidate James Fishback nor Dan Bilzerian, who is challenging Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) in Florida’s 6th Congressional District, is expected to win. But the extent of the support they’re able to pick up will be instructive.
blame game
Brooklyn Democratic leader who promoted infamous antisemitic tract rips ‘Zionists’ in new video
Brooklyn Democratic politician and housing activist Carmella Charrington, who has a history of pushing century-old antisemitic conspiracy theories, blamed the property dispute that launched her to prominence on “Zionists” in a recent interview with an Egyptian podcaster, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports. In the interview, Charrington raged against the Jewish investors who had acquired the building at the heart of the dispute. “They’re Zionists that basically did this,” Charrington said. “Same thing that they’re doing in the West Bank, it’s the same thing.”
PEACE PROSPECTS
Israel, Board of Peace establish working groups on Gaza disarmament and public health
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced on Monday, following his meeting with Jared Kushner, that Israel and the U.S.-led Board of Peace will launch two working groups to address key issues in the board’s plan for disarming Hamas and reconstructing the enclave, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports. One group will focus on disarmament and demilitarization in Gaza, the PMO said, while the second will focus on “sanitation, clean water and other public health issues for the people of Gaza and which also impact the people of Israel.”
The Rundown
HATE BY THE NUMBERS
Nearly two-thirds of 2025 religious hate crimes in U.S. were antisemitic, FBI data finds
SPEECH CONTROVERSY
Reps. Jayapal, Goldman continue to spar over Hasan Piker speech cancellation
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
President Donald Trump threatened to “bomb the s— out of” Oman if the Gulf state’s talks with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz interfere with U.S. efforts to reach a deal with Tehran…
The U.K. Maritime Trade Operations agency said that a vessel transiting through the Strait of Hormuz earlier Tuesday was struck by a projectile; one casualty was reported in the attack, which caused damage to the ship’s engine room…
Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) said that she told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month, when the Israeli leader was in Washington for Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) funeral, that, like her brother, “I will stand with Israel as well”…
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) criticized the “ongoing siege of Palestinian homes in the West Bank by violent, lawbreaking settlers” and called on the Trump administration to “compel the Israeli government to protect the lives, property and livelihood” of residents.
Jeffries’ comments came as the Ohio-based Palestinian American owner of a West Bank property that has been targeted by settlers returned to the home on Monday night…
U.S. defense technology firm Ondas is acquiring Israeli company Aran Defense in its first acquisition of operations from a company traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange…
The Federal Railroad Administration approved more than $600 million in federal grants for Amtrak to relocate from its facility in Chicago’s South Loop to a new location in nearby Bridgeport; the 47-acre South Loop site is being considered by Chicago White Sox owner-in-waiting Justin Ishbia as the location for a possible new stadium…
The New York Post spotlights incoming Duquesne University freshman Chaim Galbut, who this fall will become the first observant Jewish player in Division I men’s basketball in 25 years…
The New York Times looks at a dispute between the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, the granddaughter of the woman who betrayed the survivor’s family and an author seeking to write about the women’s connection…
The Salzburg, Austria, home that belonged to Stefan Zweig before the writer fled the country in 1934 for England and then Brazil, where he died, was put on the market for $14.5 million…
The Banshee Labyrinth in Edinburgh, Scotland, acknowledged that it had discriminated against a Jewish performer whose stand-up show at the venue during last year’s Fringe festival was canceled over his social media posts about the Israel-Hamas war; comic Philip Simon said the venue had canceled his show “just for being Jewish”…
The IDF said that a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad who participated in the abduction of an Israeli civilian from Kibbutz Be’eri during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks was killed in a strike in southern Gaza…
Israel has located the remains of Yehuda Katz, who was declared missing after the Battle of Sultan Yacoub during the First Lebanon War in 1982; the remains of two other soldiers who were declared missing following the battle were returned to Israel in 2019 and 2025…
Six Thai migrant workers were injured, two seriously, after an old unexploded ordnance detonated near the northern Israeli town of Metula…
The New Yorker’s Ariel Levy is joining CBS’ “60 Minutes” as a contributor…
Sarah Golabek-Goldman, who served as chief of staff to the Justice Department’s Leo Terrell, is joining the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law as director of legal initiatives…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Weaponizing the Waterways: In The Washington Post, Elise Labott looks at how the Iran-backed Houthis are using their control over strategic maritime choke points in the Red Sea to disrupt global shipping lanes. “Washington long assumed that if these vulnerabilities were weaponized, it would be by China or Russia. Instead, the Houthis got there first. Washington is still treating them as a military threat and missing their strategic evolution — under the mistaken assumption that insurgent groups don’t develop interests of their own, or the patience to act on them.” [WashPost]
Two Trump Cards: In The Wall Street Journal, former State Department official Ludovic Hood, now at the Hudson Institute, considers how President Donald Trump can address the stalemate with Iran without delivering a win to the Islamic Republic. “Mr. Trump is caught between political constraints that prevent using adequate military force to change Tehran’s behavior and a defiant regime willing to risk severe economic pain to rebuff Washington’s demands. … Slicing through this Gordian Knot and arriving at a satisfactory outcome, namely a subdued or new government in Tehran, depends on two lines of effort: waging economic warfare against the regime’s revenue sources and rallying partners to undermine Iran and its proxy network in the region.” [WSJ]
Song of the Day
British-Israeli pianist Mendy Portnoy, who is one half of the Portnoy Brothers, released his new solo piano album “Elul” — a piano cover of Hanan Ben Ari’s “Hashiveinu” — six years after the release of Portnoy’s album “Introspection.”
Birthdays
Jessi Ruth Klein, writer, actor and stand-up comedian from NYC, turns 51
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP
Sonia Wolff Levitin, Holocaust survivor, novelist, artist and producer, turns 92
Barbara Bluhm-Kaul, art collector, museum trustee in Chicago, Aspen, Colo., and Orange County, Calif., and former member of Cultural Property Advisory Committee to the State Department, turns 86
Jerome Seaman, Baltimore resident
Rabbi Noam Gordon, Ph.D, retired teacher of Talmud at Jerusalem’s Yeshiva Torat Shraga
Susan G. Golding, former two-term mayor of San Diego, the first Jewish mayor of the city, turns 81
John D. Goldman, businessman and former chair of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, turns 77
Cindy Chazan, partner in Chazan-Leipzig Consulting
Gary Silow, retired judge of the Montgomery County (Pa.) Court of Common Pleas, turns 75
Winnie Holzman, dramatist, screenwriter and poet, turns 72
Raphael Schwartz, president at Wyckoff, N.J.-based Benefit Connections
Alan H. Kadish, M.D., president of Touro University, turns 70
Stuart Tochner, employment law attorney in the Los Angeles office of Ogletree Deakins
Timothy Geithner, treasury secretary in the Obama administration, now chairman of Warburg Pincus, turns 65
Jules Polonetsky, CEO of the Future of Privacy Forum, a D.C.-based think tank and advocacy group focused on issues of data privacy, turns 61
Kenneth Goldin, auctioneer, television personality and sports card collector, he is featured on the Netflix TV series “King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch,” turns 61
David Brog, executive director of the Maccabee Task Force established by Haim Saban and the late Sheldon Adelson, turns 60
Dayvid Figler, criminal defense attorney and media personality in Las Vegas, turns 59
Brian Michael Bendis, award-winning comic book writer and artist for both Marvel and then DC Comics, turns 59
Jason Furman, professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, he served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration, turns 56
Andrew Wilkow, conservative political talk radio host on the Sirius XM Patriot channel, turns 54
Gabriel Naddaf, Greek Orthodox priest, he serves as a judge in Israel’s religious court system and encourages Christians to enlist in the IDF, turns 53
Nicole Krauss, best-selling author, her novels have been translated into 35 languages, turns 52
Roger Zakheim, director of the Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, he was previously a partner in the law firm of Covington & Burling and general counsel of the House Armed Services Committee
David A.J. “Andy” Samberg, actor, comedian, writer, producer and musician, turns 48
Zachary Iscol, former commissioner of New York City Emergency Management, turns 48
Noah Slepkov, fellow at The Jewish People Policy Institute and managing partner of theMadad website
Sarah Breger, editor of Moment Magazine
Sadie Gurman, reporter for The Wall Street Journal covering the Justice Department and federal law enforcement
Laurie Segall, founder and CEO of Mostly Human, a New York-based entertainment media company, turns 41
Olga Rubin, mixed martial artist, she competes in the bantamweight and featherweight divisions, turns 37
Or “Ori” Sasson, Israeli judoka who won Olympic bronze medals at the 2016 and 2020 Summer Olympics, turns 36
Plus, Andy Baker to leave Vance's circle
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) speak to the media before a visit to the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on July 12, 2025 in Ochopee, Florida.
Good Monday morning.
Welcome to our new and fresh Daily Kickoff. Let us know your thoughts on our new and improved format by replying to this email.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at how the GOP’s generational divide over Israel has been bolstered by social media, talk to Sen. Rick Scott about antisemitism within the Republican Party and spotlight the South Florida Democratic primaries where Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Moskowitz are facing DSA-aligned opponents. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Lance Stroll, Andy Baker and Rizy Horowitz.
Curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
Today’s Agenda
Jared Kushner is in Israel today, where he is meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The sit-down comes a day after Kushner met with Hamas officials in Cairo.
Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Board of Peace High Representative Nickolay Mladenov and Board of Peace senior advisors Aryeh Lightstone and Liran Tancman, who participated in the Cairo meetings, are also attending the meeting with Netanyahu, JI has learned.
Netanyahu’s Likud party is holding its primary today to select the slate for the upcoming Oct. 27 election.
In New York, the annual two-day Sephardic Rabbinic Conference kicks off today. Read more here.
Australia’s royal commission into antisemitism in the country began its final hearings today, following weeks of testimony from hundreds of witnesses including government officials, Jewish community leaders, Holocaust survivors, college students and faculty and relatives of victims of last year’s terror attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
One Thing To Know
Florida primaries to test antisemitism’s reach in both parties
Tuesday’s Florida primaries are shaping up to be the starkest test yet of how widespread the scourge of antisemitism and extreme anti-Israel views are within both parties.
On the Democratic side, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), one of the remaining pro-Israel stalwarts within his party, and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), a pragmatic Jewish lawmaker who is running in a new district after GOP redistricting chopped up her old seat, are both facing serious primary threats from their left flank.
Moskowitz is facing the more direct threat, going up against a Democratic Socialists of America-backed challenger in Oliver Larkin, who is running as a far-left candidate hostile to the U.S.-Israel relationship in a GOP-leaning district with one of the biggest Jewish constituencies in the country.
Larkin’s decision to run on a platform hostile to the district’s Jewish voters would typically be politically problematic. Deciding to campaign with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) during the primary’s final stretch, as Larkin did on Friday, is a curious campaign choice, to put it mildly. The blowback was intense enough that several Fort Lauderdale venues declined to host the socialist shindig.
But if there is a surge of left-wing, anti-establishment anger — and latent anti-Israel sentiment from the district’s non-Jewish Democratic voters — it’s worth keeping a close eye on the election results. Even a respectable 40-45% Larkin showing, short of victory, would raise eyebrows about how widespread the far-left ideology has penetrated the party.
The Big Reads
GENERATIONAL DIVIDE
Republicans face the implications of a fractured media world
At the National College Republicans convention earlier this month in Tampa, Fla., exchanges between lawmakers and student activists captured a broader tension within the Republican Party that was on display throughout the conference, which focused on recruiting, building chapters, training leaders and working on campaigns. But lawmakers and students kept coming back to simpler questions around where young Republicans get their news and whom they trust to give it to them, Sloan Rachmuth reports from Tampa for Jewish Insider.
SENATOR SIT-DOWN
Rick Scott: We have to ‘fight, fight, fight’ antisemites running in the Republican Party
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) expressed confidence ahead of Florida’s primary elections on Tuesday that voters will reject the Republican candidates who have embraced blatantly antisemitic messages as part of their campaigns. “The Republican Party is a broad coalition of people that care about this country, but we’re not going to allow antisemites into our party, period,” he said in an interview with Jewish Insider‘s Emily Jacobs. “Our party is not run by antisemites and will never be run by antisemites as long as I have any power to stop it,” he continued. “We have to fight, fight, fight.”
red line
Randy Fine’s primary opponent pushes openly antisemitic, pro-Hitler messaging
Rep. Randy Fine’s (R-FL) primary opponent, influencer Dan Bilzerian, is pushing blatantly antisemitic and pro-Adolf Hitler messaging in the closing days of Florida’s primary season. Bilzerian has made no secret of the openly antisemitic tenor of his campaign, having said from the outset that he is challenging Fine because he is Jewish and pushing antisemitic conspiracy theories about Fine, the Jewish community and Israel, Jewish Insider‘s Marc Rod reports.
The Rundown
PRIMARY COLORS
Florida Jewish Democrats look to fend off DSA-aligned primary challengers
PALMETTO STATE POLITICS
Both candidates in S.C. Senate runoff chase the pro-Israel vote, with very different records
COMINGS AND GOINGS
Andy Baker, one of Vance’s closest foreign policy advisors, to depart White House
ON THE HILL
Lawmakers worried over NSGP’s ‘concerning new compliance requirements’
ANOTHER ANTISEMITIC ATTACK
Man charged with hate crimes for Manhattan’s Central Synagogue attack
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
In what appeared to be a contradiction to Vice President JD Vance’s suggestion last week that the White House’s “goal No. 1” in the war with Iran was lowering gas prices for Americans, President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social site Monday morning that “The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon”…
Trump said he ordered the Pentagon to scale down its joint military exercises with South Korea, citing in part Seoul’s decision not to join in the “Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran“; the president added that the scale of previous annual exercises with South Korea had sent a “signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea…
Axios reports that the Trump administration engaged in back-channel talks with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps earlier this year, using Nechirvan Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, as an interlocutor.
Meanwhile, Kurdistan’s prime minister, Masrour Barzani, said on Monday that his office in Erbil was targeted in an Iranian drone attack…
The New York Times does a deep dive into the virality of a fabricated quote from a senior Iranian official indicating that Iran intended to become a nuclear state, which appeared to originate from an anonymous Indian social media account before gaining traction, eventually being referenced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…
The Wall Street Journal looks at Iran’s “secret plan” to use the downtime of negotiations to prepare for an eventual escalation against the U.S., including expanding the powers of the IRGC and increasing production of missiles and drones…
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz marked the 14th anniversary of American journalist Austin Tice’s abduction in Syria, saying that former President Bashar al-Assad “is gone. His prisons have been opened. But Austin is still not home. President Trump has made clear that America does not forget its people”…
Jewish leaders and local officials in Philadelphia are expressing concern following the vandalism last week of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, the second time in a year that the building has been vandalized…
The Wall Street Journal spotlights Florida’s exclusive Indian Creek Country Club, where both Jeff Bezos and Jared Kushner have yet to gain membership…
The New York Times reports on the efforts of Rizy Horowitz, the program manager at Nachas Health and Family Network, as the organization assists Holocaust survivors and adapts to the evolving needs of the dwindling community…
Canadian Formula 1 driver Lance Stroll posted a photo of himself wrapped in tefillin as part of a recent Instagram roundup that also included a photo with his girlfriend, Israeli model and actress Yael Shelbia…
CF Montreal banned two fans of the soccer club following an investigation by Major League Soccer into the recent harassment of New England Revolution player Dor Turgeman, who is Israeli…
A new plan to build an apartment complex on top of a World War II-era Nazi bunker in Berlin is drawing debate over whether to continue with construction or to preserve the area as a historical site…
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, speaking on the podcast of former Israeli hostage Rom Braslavski, suggested killing “30-40 each night” in “targeted assassinations” in Gaza…
The New York Times spotlights “Azad,” an Iranian YouTube program that hosts debates on hot-topic issues in the Islamic Republic and provides a platform for both supporters and critics of Tehran’s policies…
Nuclear physicist and engineer Yehonathan Hazony died at 94…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Opportunity Knocks: In The Wall Street Journal, Lt. Col. (ret.) Or Horvitz posits that Israel is “missing a strategic window” to engage with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa as Damascus looks to reintegrate with the West. “A comprehensive peace treaty isn’t currently realistic. But Israel’s strategy need not run only through the barrel of a gun. In Mr. al-Sharaa’s Syria, an opportunity is emerging for limited cooperation against the Shiite axis, which could lay the groundwork for broader arrangements, foremost a security agreement in southern Syria.” [WSJ]
Can El-Sayed Win?: The New York Times’ Nate Cohn considers the degree to which Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is a liability for Democratic efforts to take back the upper chamber. “He may not be a self-identified democratic socialist, but he’s an unapologetic ally of democratic socialists like [Rep. Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez and the influential Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. He’s defined in part by his support for progressive causes, like opposing Israel’s actions in Gaza. To this point, he has campaigned as a firebrand, often with the language to match.” [NYTimes]
Picture of the Day
Rep. John James (R-MI), fifth from right, the GOP nominee for governor of Michigan, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), sixth from right, on Thursday visited Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich., the site of an attempted attack earlier this year, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Courtesy
Birthdays
Gail Berman, co-owner and founding partner of The Jackal Group, a television and film production firm, turns 70 Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images
Rabbi Baruch Dov “Berel” Povarsky, leader of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, Israel, turns 95
Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle Corporation, one of the wealthiest people in the world, turns 82
Millard “Mickey” S. Drexler, head of Drexler Ventures and 16-year board member of Apple until 2015, turns 82
Norm Coleman, former U.S. senator from Minnesota, his family name was originally Goldman, turns 77
Eliot Lauer, partner in Katten Muchin Rosenman, he represented Jonathan Pollard
Louise Citron, audiologist and disability activist in the Boston area
Barry Ted Moskowitz, senior U.S. district court judge for the Southern District of California, turns 76
Sharon Taksler, retired special education teacher with an interest in Holocaust studies and human rights education
Jeffery Alan “Jeff” Smisek, former chairman, president and CEO of Continental Airlines and then United Airlines, turns 72
Lee A. Solomon, associate justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey until 2024, turns 72
Jordan Levy, founder and managing partner of venture capital firm SBNY, he is a past president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Buffalo
Deborah Kessner Peskin, communications coordinator at Temple Beth El in Longmeadow, Mass.
David Harold McCormick, U.S. senator (R-PA), turns 61
Revital Swid, former member of Knesset for the Zionist Union and Labor parties, she is a leading Israeli criminal defense attorney, turns 59
Brian Kowitz, former MLB baseball player, now an insurance advisor in Baltimore, turns 57
Zvi Yehezkeli, Arab affairs correspondent on Israel’s i24 News, turns 56
Judd Milo Ehrlich, Emmy Award-winning documentary film director and producer, turns 55
Glen Caplin, special assistant for baseball operations at Major League Baseball
Hadassa Robyn Waxman, partner in the white-collar and securities litigation groups at Proskauer Rose
Jon Lovett, former Obama White House staffer, now a podcaster and comedian, turns 44
Elyse Cohen, chief impact officer at Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez
Raphael Bob-Waksberg, comedian, writer, producer and actor, turns 42
Ben Brody, technology reporter at Punchbowl News
Ari Meyerowitz, one of the Sprout Brothers from Great Barrington, Mass.
Aaron Taxy, executive director of California Jewish Action Network
Amanda Horwitz Langer, project manager of real estate at BDT & MSD Partners
Marhu Teferi, Israeli marathon and half marathon runner who represented Israel at the 2016, 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympics, turns 34
Eli Diamond
Gabriel Berger
John Kohan
Plus, Pelosi panned for silence amid ally’s anti-Israel rhetoric
Andrew Roth/Sipa USA via AP Images
Republican Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers attends President Donald Trump's rally in Warren, Mich., on April 29, 2025.
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at how Rep. Mike Rogers is calibrating his Jewish outreach as he builds a broad coalition against Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race, and report on efforts by Bay Area Jewish leaders to push outgoing Rep. Nancy Pelosi to address the anti-Israel rhetoric espoused by Connie Chan, whom Pelosi endorsed in the race to succeed her. We cover the local response to a Vermont synagogue’s fundraiser for Columbia anti-Israel activist Mohsen Madawi, and report on New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s announcement that the city plans to soon release a municipal plan to combat antisemitism. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Tamar Rothstein and Omer Shem Tov.
We also have a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: Jewish leaders build up local grassroots organizing to counter radical forces in politics; New AJC regional director looks to business community for allies in Mamdani’s New York; and ‘Shabbat with training wheels’: Sabbath app offers a modern take on unplugging. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- While Washington is quiet during the August recess, the campaign season is kicking into high gear — both for the few remaining states to hold their primaries, and for general ballot candidates who have less than three months before Election Day.
- In Nassau County, N.Y., President Donald Trump will campaign today with N.Y. GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman.
- In Florida, where voters will cast their primary ballots on Tuesday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is campaigning on behalf of several left-wing candidates, including Elijah Manley and Oliver Larkin. Manley and Larkin are respectively challenging Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), two of Congress’ most pro-Israel lawmakers, following a redistricting that has scrambled both lawmakers’ districts. Tlaib is set to participate in several events today, including a rally this evening that was relocated after the initial venue canceled the event amid pushback from area residents.
- On Sunday, voters in California’s 14th Congressional District will head to the polls for the special election to replace Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA). More below.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS
A quarter century ago, when the late Sen. Joe Lieberman was tapped by Al Gore, the Democratic nominee for president, to be his running mate on the 2000 ticket, the question around many a Shabbat table was, “Is he too Jewish to be in the White House?”
There’s a different question being asked, largely in Democratic circles, of today’s potential Jewish presidential candidates: “Is he the ‘right’ kind of Jewish candidate to be president?” — a question that is almost entirely centered around a candidate’s position on Israel and how openly he identifies with his religious faith.
A long list of Jewish candidates are considering a presidential campaign or are being touted as credible contenders, ranging from moderates including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to progressives such as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and those who straddle the ideological divide, like Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA).
In both 2026 and 2028, the debate over Israel is on the ballot: Congressional primaries are pitting pro-Israel candidates against those who don’t acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, and already a clear divide is emerging in the prospective 2028 presidential field over the issues of the U.S.-Israel relationship and dealing with rising antisemitism.
Even in races where Israel policy is not front-and-center, invoking AIPAC has become something of a catch-all slur for progressives attacking the role of outside money in Democratic primaries. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a likely 2028 hopeful, proudly proclaimed in February that he’d never taken AIPAC money — which of course he hasn’t, given that AIPAC and its affiliated super PAC historically focus on federal, not state, races.
MR. ROGERS’ NEIGHBORHOOD
Mike Rogers calibrates Jewish outreach as he builds broad coalition against Abdul El-Sayed
More than a week after Abdul El-Sayed narrowly clinched the Democratic nomination in Michigan’s bruising Democratic Senate primary, his Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), is working to fine-tune his campaign’s outreach and messaging to disaffected Jewish voters who could play a decisive role in the closely contested race, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Sign of the times: In one of the first major signs of those efforts now materializing, three prominent Jewish Democratic bundlers in Michigan are hosting a fundraiser for Rogers next Tuesday, according to an email invite sent to Jewish community members on Thursday. “This is something that none of us has ever done,” said Hannan Lis, who is leading the fundraiser with Brian Hermelin and Rob Orley. “But we feel this is a departure in the direction of the Democratic Party,” he told JI of El-Sayed’s staunch opposition to Israel and refusal to recognize its right to exist as a Jewish state. “We’re taking a stand here,” he added. “This is beyond politics.”
Survey says: Rogers starts off the Michigan Senate general election race with a narrow advantage over El-Sayed, according to a new Fox News poll, aided by a lead with independents and making inroads with a small but significant number of Democrats willing to cross party lines, JI’s Josh Kraushaar reports.
PLEA TO PELOSI
Bay Area Jewish leaders urge Pelosi to address ally Connie Chan’s anti-Israel rhetoric
Leaders in the Bay Area Jewish community are urging former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to speak out or otherwise address her endorsed successor Connie Chan’s decision to lean into Israel and AIPAC-related attacks on her Jewish Democratic opponent, state Sen. Scott Wiener, which some in the Jewish community view as antisemitic, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Weighing in: Tyler Gregory, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area and executive director of Bay Area Jewish Action, told JI he hopes Pelosi will “educate [Chan] about where the line is between criticizing the Israeli government and amplifying antisemitic tropes.” Tali Klima, a spokesperson for Bay Area Jewish Coalition-Action, a separate grassroots group, urged Pelosi to speak out publicly. Both described Pelosi as an ally of the community.
PIKER PROTECTION
Rep. Pramila Jayapal rails against university decision to cancel Hasan Piker speech
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on Thursday that she had been “communicating [her] concerns” to the University of Washington over the school’s decision to cancel a planned appearance by antisemitic influencer Hasan Piker, and pushed student groups to engage with the streamer, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
What she said: The University of Washington “informed me that they are doing an internal review to ensure this never happens again,” Jayapal wrote in a post on X. “I encourage student groups who want to hear from Mr. Piker to work with the University to ensure that they can proceed.” She linked in her post a Seattle Times article on Piker claiming he was silenced over his views on Israel.
CASE DISMISSED
Ruling for Harvard clouds picture for future campus antisemitism cases
A federal judge in Boston dismissed the Trump administration’s antisemitism lawsuit against Harvard University on Thursday, ruling that the incidents were “too isolated and episodic” to show an ongoing violation of civil rights law, Jewish Insider‘s Haley Cohen reports. Judge Richard Stearns pointed out that while the government’s amended complaint cited three March 2025 incidents, it still focused almost entirely on the 2023–2024 school year.
Pushback: The Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which filed its own lawsuit against Harvard in 2024 alleging failure to address antisemitism, said that Thursday’s ruling will make other Title VI cases harder. “This ruling, if broadly adopted by the courts, would add an unprecedented higher bar: the government now has to prove not only that the institution refused to resolve the issue at hand in an agreement with the government but also that additional subsequent violations occurred,” the Brandeis Center said in a statement.
MAYOR’S MOVE
Mamdani promises municipal plan to combat antisemitism
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani followed up his meeting with a group of rabbis earlier this week by touting a plan to battle antisemitism in the five boroughs — without committing to making changes in his rhetoric toward Israel that the group of Jewish religious leaders demanded, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports.
What he said — and what he didn’t: “I had a candid and productive conversation with rabbis representing a wide swath of New York’s Jewish communities and affiliations, and I appreciated hearing from them,” Mamdani said after an unrelated event in Manhattan on Thursday. But Mamdani did not explicitly state on Thursday that he would act on their recommendations, instead touting his increased spending on groups that run anti-hate crime initiatives and a plan his Office to Combat Antisemitism will release next month to tamp down on the anti-Jewish bias incidents that have risen on his watch.
CONGREGANTS’ CRITICISM
Vermont synagogue’s fundraiser for Columbia anti-Israel activist draws criticism
A synagogue in the capital of Vermont co-sponsored a fundraiser last Sunday for Mohsen Mahdawi, a former Columbia University anti-Israel activist who has voiced sympathy for Hamas, drawing sharp criticism from some congregants, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. The event took place at Unitarian Church of Montpelier, which co-sponsored it with Beth Jacob Synagogue, according to a flyer posted on the synagogue’s website and distributed to all members. The congregation is unaffiliated with a denomination.
Details: Some synagogue members reportedly pushed back against the fundraiser before it took place. The synagogue’s board of directors declined to comment to JI. In a statement to JI, the Jewish Communities of Vermont said the “questions surrounding Mohsen Mahdawi, including statements and actions attributed to him, have raised concerns deserving serious and rigorous consideration and prompted strong, deeply felt disagreements. We recognize that the pain is acute. At the same time, a Jewish community intending to practice tikkun olam by creating space for engagement with a specific focus does not necessarily constitute endorsement of everything that person has said or believes.”
Worthy Reads
Pray or Prey?: In The Wall Street Journal, Moshe Davis, who served as the inaugural executive director of the New York Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism under former Mayor Eric Adams, makes the argument for the federal Right to Worship Act, which he helped to craft. “While existing laws cover harassment and obstruction, they don’t reach the organized disruption that actually makes Americans feel afraid to enter their houses of worship. Courts have repeatedly upheld buffer-zone protections for funerals, polling sites and other places where people deserve to be left in peace; a law addressing disruptive behavior at houses of worship is on solid constitutional ground.” [WSJ]
No Deal is a Good Deal: The Washington Post’s editorial board argues that a policy of containment vis-a-vis Iran is a better approach than making a deal with the Islamic Republic. “The U.S. should adapt its blockade to be more sustainable, lowering the number of ships conducting direct interdictions while sanctioning anyone who buys Iranian oil that gets through. The regime’s frozen assets should also stay frozen. And Iran’s proxies should be relentlessly suppressed in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza. Crucially, Trump needs to keep the threat of significant escalation on the table, especially if Iran takes even the smallest step toward reconstituting its nuclear program.” [WashPost]
How DSA Does It: The New York Times’ Charles Homan does a deep dive into the Democratic Socialists of America’s resurgence, as the group seeks to reshape the Democratic Party. “Offline communities built around shared interests — the sort once found in bowling alleys, all-ages punk-rock venues, church basements or radical bookstores — are rare now, and D.S.A. chapters fill this role. They offer not just a different politics but a different model for what participating in politics means. Chapter operations are heavily D.I.Y. affairs, which adds a giddy unreality to their victories, as if a group of college friends started a record label in their dorm room and somehow ended up using it to unseat an eight-term congressman.” [NYTimes]
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Word on the Street
White House advisor Jared Kushner is expected to travel to Israel next week with Board of Peace High Representative Nickolay Mladenov, where the two will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials to discuss the Hamas disarmament deal; Kushner is also expected to travel to Cairo to meet with Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators…
Vice President JD Vance told Fox News that the U.S.’ primary goal in the war with Iran is to “keep oil and gasoline cheap for Americans,” while “goal No. 2 is ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon”…
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the Trump administration planned to apply economic tactics “that have never been seen on Iran,” as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested that the U.S.’ naval blockade of Iran would remain in place “indefinitely”…
CENTCOM announced a new effort to establish the “first-ever multi-domain, multinational attack drone task force,” including consulting with and inviting regional partners to join, that will work to utilize unmanned, one-way attack drones “from above, on, and below the sea” in the Middle East…
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) penned a letter to Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao raising concerns about the deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been on extended deployment in the Middle East; Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), a former Marine, said he was seeking an oversight visit to the vessel for a bipartisan Senate delegation…
Meanwhile, the U.S. military is preparing to send the USS George Washington from the South China Sea to the region to relieve the Lincoln; the move will leave a U.S. void in the Pacific, where Beijing has positioned a carrier…
The United Arab Emirates condemned what it said was a “hostile Iranian attack” targeting two boats linked to the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company as the vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz…
Behnam Ben Taleblu, the senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Iran program, warned on Thursday of potential Iranian escalation — military or otherwise — in the run-up to the midterms, with the goal of disrupting the elections, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
Semafor looks at the U.S.’ stalled sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey as Ankara remains in possession of the S-400 Russian air-defense system, the offloading of which is a requirement to move forward with the F-35 sale…
Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC), facing a runoff special election to be the GOP nominee for her late brother’s Senate seat, announced she is co-sponsoring several bills in support of the Jewish community and the U.S.-Israel relationship, including the Jewish American Security Act, the U.S.-Israel FUTURES Act, a bill on Iran sanctions and a bill on Iranian human rights and internet access…
Politico profiles Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) as the former Democratic National Committee chair faces a challenging reelection campaign — fighting headwinds from both local activists and the Congressional Black Caucus as she runs in a historically Black district following Florida’s GOP-led redistricting effort…
Former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner is slated to headline a Labor Day rally for the Hancock County Maine Democrats next month, his first public appearance since dropping out of the race last month after he was accused of sexual assault by a former romantic partner; a state party official said the event was not a sanctioned party event but hosted by the local activist groups Hancock County Activists and Acadia Action Peacemakers…
The Wall Street Journal spotlights Hasan Piker’s rising popularity on the far left, despite concerns from moderate Democrats that the antisemitic streamer’s brand of progressivism will taint the party in the midterms…
J Street Action Fund, the super PAC affiliated with the progressive Israel advocacy group, on Thursday spent $108,000 on digital advertisements to boost progressive California state Sen. Aisha Wahab in the special election in California’s 14th Congressional District, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
The California state Legislature is considering a bill to require state agencies to include “Jewish” as an ethnicity option on all forms that collect demographic data; the move would make California the first state to officially consider Judaism as more than a religion for identification purposes…
The National Council for Jewish Women is rolling out a new strategic plan, in which local chapters who want to maintain their affiliation with the group need to align with the national organization’s shift away from community service to focus more on advocacy, eJewishPhilanthropy‘s Jay Deitcher reports…
An Illinois man who attacked two Jewish students at DePaul University in November 2024 pleaded guilty to committing a hate crime and was sentenced to 600 days in jail; a second assailant who pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges was sentenced to two years’ probation…
Tel Aviv University has removed the name of the Sackler family from its Faculty of Exact Sciences, the final department on its campus that was still named for the family tied to the U.S. opioid crisis, eJewishPhilanthropy‘s Justin Hayet reports…
Tamar Rothstein is now communications director for Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY)…
Former Air Force Secretary James Roche, a member of the advisory board of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a board member of the Friends of the Jewish Chapel at the U.S. Naval Academy, died at 86…
Former South Dakota lawmaker and philanthropist Stan Adelstein died at 94…
Find on-demand Live Briefing updates throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Wine of the Week
JI wine columnist Yitz Applbaum reviews the Charley Winery Romi 2021:
This week I marked one of the in-between birthdays. My plan had been to go about my business and let the day pass quietly, like any other. But as the morning wore on, birthday wishes began arriving from friends scattered across the world, and nearly every one carried the same question: What amazing bottle of wine will you crack open tonight to celebrate? Something in me shifted. I wanted a bottle new to me, something vibrant, something I would remember. My hand reached for the Charley Winery Romi, grown in the Judean Hills.
The Romi is a blend of cabernet sauvignon and petite sirah. The petite came out of the gate crashing into my front palate in a way I will not soon forget: bold, brash and utterly alive. The cabernet followed on the mid-palate with a beautiful infusion of berry, and the finish gathered the two into a genuinely serene moment, the kind of quiet that only a great glass of wine, in the right hour, can bring. The Romi is mevushal, and it would grace any simcha. Serve it with a rich risotto. It will hold beautifully for at least five years.
Pic of the Day
Former hostage Omer Shem Tov, who spent 505 days in Hamas captivity, escorted his sister Dana down the aisle at her wedding to Daniel Saportas on Thursday.
Birthdays
Filmmaker and producer, she is the executive director of DOC NYC, a major documentary film festival in NYC, Raphaela Neihausen turns 50 on Friday…
FRIDAY: Social media influencer, she appears regularly on both Instagram and TikTok, Dorothy Katz Wiggins turns 101… American-born British novelist, biographer, journalist and Oscar-winning screenwriter, Frederic Michael Raphael turns 95… Former attorney general of New Jersey and chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, David Samson turns 87… President of the Hampton Synagogue until 2024 and former board member of the UJA-Federation of New York, Carol Levin… Historian and VP of alumni relations for MLB’s New York Mets, the press box at Citi Field is named in his honor, Jay Edward Horwitz turns 81… Member of the New York State Assembly since 2005, Charles D. Lavine turns 79… Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, Ester R. Fuchs turns 75… Professor of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, Henry Brem, M.D. turns 74… U.S. district court judge in South Carolina, he is the co-author of a book on the early Jews of Columbia, S.C., Judge Richard Mark Gergel turns 72… Turkish-born economist and professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Dani Rodrik turns 69… U.S. senator (R-TN) since 2021, Bill Hagerty turns 67… Home fragrance and décor guru, Harry Slatkin turns 66… Lecturer at Purdue University, Martin J. Sweet turns 56… Winner of three Pulitzer Prizes as a journalist, Adam Goldman turns 53… VP at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, he was an AIPAC and Republican Jewish Coalition staffer who ran for Congress in 2018, Jeremy Scott Wynes… Professional tennis player for 15 years, primarily a doubles specialist, now an assistant athletic director, Scott Lipsky turns 45… Personal counsel to President Donald Trump, Boris Epshteyn turns 44… Ukrainian-born actor, she moved to Los Angeles at age 7 and has appeared in dozens of films, Mila Kunis turns 43… Opinion editor at eJewishPhilanthropy, Rachel Kohn turns 42… Internet entrepreneur and former CTO at Facebook, he is the co-founder and CEO of Quora, Adam D’Angelo turns 42… President of Anthropic, sister of the CEO, Daniela Lily Amodei turns 39… Retired lacrosse player, he played for ten seasons in Major League Lacrosse and for Team Israel in 2018, Maxwell “Max” Oren Seibald turns 39… Managing director at Marcus & Associates Executive Recruiters, Jacob Lefkowitz… Member of Knesset for Otzma Yehudit, he serves as the minister for the development of the Periphery, the Negev and the Galilee, Yitzhak Shimon Wasserlauf turns 34… Ryan Smith… Dylan Cooper… Tim Carney…
SATURDAY: Philadelphia resident, Irvin Farber… Retired associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Stephen Breyer turns 88… Former CFO of The Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg turns 79… Founder and chairman of the Executive Committee of Limmud FSU, he has also served as treasurer of the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization, Chaim Chesler turns 77… Professor emeritus of Jewish education and leadership development at Hebrew Union College, Rabbi Samuel K. Joseph turns 76… Economist, CPA, investment advisor and founding member of wealth advisor RVW Wealth LLC, Selwyn Gerber… Colorado resident, he is an artist and avid mountain biker, William Crary “Bill” Weidman… Chairman of Benj. E. Sherman & Sons, he is the immediate past chair of Israel Policy Forum, David A. Sherman turns 66… Orthopedic and trauma surgeon in Rome, Dr. Dario Perugia turns 64… Co-founding rabbi of Congregation Or Hadash in Sandy Springs, Ga., Rabbi Mario Karpuj… Emmy Award-winning actor, she played Grace Adler on the 11-season sitcom “Will & Grace,” Debra Messing turns 58… Immediate past board chair of Holocaust Museum Houston, Elyse Spector Kalmans turns 57… Chief development officer for the Birthright Israel Foundation, Margot Ettlinger… U.S. senator (D-PA) since 2023, John Fetterman turns 57… Co-CEO and chairman of the entertainment production company Propagate, Benjamin Noah Silverman turns 56… Associate justice of the California Supreme Court since 2019, Joshua Paul Groban turns 53… Member of the House of Representatives (D-VA) for four years ending in 2023, Elaine Goodman Luria turns 51… Real estate and business law attorney in the Baltimore law firm of Rosen Neuberger Lehmann, Meir Neuberger… Senior director at Teva Pharmaceuticals, he was an international model for Armani and appeared in the Israeli versions of “The Amazing Race” and “Dancing with the Stars,” Raz Meirman-Baruch turns 49… National college football reporter for ESPN, Adam Rittenberg turns 45… Chief of staff at Los Angeles-based Bedrock, Rachel Sterne Haot turns 43… Computer scientist at MIT and podcaster, he interviews notable figures from science, technology, sports and politics, Lex Fridman turns 43… Career counselor, Rachel Spekman… Member of the Alaska House of Representatives until 2023, now mayor of the Fairbanks North Star Borough, Grier Hayden Hopkins turns 43… Chief communications officer at AI-native cybersecurity company Tenzai, Yael Wissner-Levy… Contemporary jazz and classical recorder player, vocalist, composer and educator, Tali Rubinstein turns 42… Co-founder of Irenic Capital Management, Adam Jason Katz… Freelance designer, Talia Siegel… MLB pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds in 2015 and 2016, he played for Team Israel in the 2020 Summer Olympics, he is now a VP at a private equity firm, Jon Moscot turns 35… VP of technology policy at Retail Industry Leaders Association, Justin Goldberger… Founder and managing partner at Ezra Venture Group, Ezra Mosseri… Joe Farry… David Summer…
SUNDAY: Solicitor general of New York, Barbara Dale Underwood turns 82… Retired judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, she is currently of counsel at Boies Schiller Flexner, Shira Ann Scheindlin turns 80… Sportscaster known as the “voice of the Dallas Cowboys,” Brad Sham turns 77… President and CEO of the Business Roundtable, he was previously the White House chief of staff in the Bush 43 administration, Josh Bolten turns 72… Secretary of the Maryland Department of Aging from 2015 to 2023, Rona E. Kramer turns 72… Gerald Platt… Media consultant, Sol Levine… Former commander of the Israeli Air Force and later CEO of El Al, Eliezer Shkedi turns 69… Shareholder in the Denver office of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and an AIPAC board member, Steven C. Demby… Founder of Value Retail Plc and co-owner of the NHL’s New York Islanders, his sister is married to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Scott David Malkin turns 68… Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Associated Press, Martha Mendoza turns 60… Founder of Walk Swiftly Productions, she spent 17 years on-air at ESPN/ABC and CBS covering the Super Bowl, NBA playoffs and MLB playoffs, Bonnie Bernstein turns 56… Johannesburg, South Africa-born model, actor and singer-songwriter living in NYC, Caron Bernstein turns 56… Award-winning journalist, currently an opinion columnist for The New York Times, Michael Grunwald… Former lieutenant governor of Vermont, David E. Zuckerman turns 55… Member of the Knesset for the Yesh Atid party, Vladimir Beliak turns 53… Mayor of Ramat Gan, Israel, he served as a member of the Knesset and as Israel’s ambassador to the OECD, UNESCO and the Council of Europe, Carmel Shama-HaCohen turns 53… Board member of the Torah School of Greater Washington, Kami Troy… Senior advisor at Boston Consulting Group, Sarah Hofstetter… Co-founder and co-CEO of The Creative Counsel, South Africa’s largest advertising agency, Gil Oved turns 51… Political and public relations consultant based in Albuquerque, N.M., Jonathan Lipshutz… Producer with Reuters News Agency, Matthew J. Silverstein… Chief political analyst for “The Upshot” at The New York Times, Nathan David “Nate” Cohn turns 38… VP at BlackRock, Julian Olidort… Studio manager at Barre3 Bethesda and founder of Atom, LLC, Anna Dubinsky… Founder and CEO at Project Healthy Minds, Phillip Schermer… Argentine former professional tennis player, he has ranked as high as No. 8 in the world, Diego Schwartzman turns 34… Rachel Berman… Associate in the D.C. office of Eversheds Sutherland, Katherine Dolgenos O’Donnell… Member of AJR, an indie pop multi-instrumentalist trio, together with his two brothers, Jack Metzger turns 29… VP at Tier One Rankings, she was the executive assistant to the ambassador at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Galit Tassi Imbo… Director of public affairs at J Street, Cooper Boyar… Ellen Weissfeld… Marshall Cohen… Dave Jacobsen…
Plus, Jewish leaders go grassroots to fight political extremes
(Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
Commissioner of the NBA Adam Silver, Joshua Kushner and CEO of Disney Bob Iger attend the Men's Quarterfinal match between Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Taylor Fritz of the United States on Day Ten of the 2025 US Open at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 2, 2025 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Jewish leaders about their efforts to build up local grassroots organizing to counter extremist political forces, and report on Bob Iger and Josh Kushner’s purchase of a controlling interest in the Los Angeles Lakers. We interview Andrew Gross, the incoming head of the American Jewish Committee’s New York/New Jersey office, and spotlight Scouting America’s efforts to provide a welcoming environment for Jewish and Israeli scouts. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Yuval Ben Neriah, Rabbi Ben Berger and Nelson Peltz.
We also have a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- We’re monitoring the situation in Israel and Lebanon after Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam slammed “attacks, incursions, demolitions and the systematic destruction of homes” in parts of southern Lebanon.
- Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, meanwhile, said the IDF was “destroying all the houses” in the established buffer zone between the countries as it prepares for a “long-term presence” in the area, prompting a rebuke from a State Department official, who said, without naming Katz, that a “permanent military presence in south Lebanon is not consistent with the commitments made in the framework or the long-term peace and security of both states.”
- We’re also keeping an eye on developments in the West Bank, as extremist settlers attempt a siege on a home owned by a Palestinian American family in the village of Qusra. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee criticized the “horrific act of terror” targeting the home and its residents, who according to a relative in the U.S. were evacuated by the IDF.
- In Washington, the Hudson Institute is holding an event this morning looking at the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran nearly six months after the launch of Operation Epic Fury. Speakers include the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Behnam Ben Taleblu, the Hudson Institute’s Michael Doran and Zineb Riboua, and former State Department official Ludovic Hood, who recently joined Hudson’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East as a senior fellow.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who is openly considering a presidential campaign in 2028, made waves over the weekend when she declared that “Woke 1.0 was crazy” in a nationally televised ABC News interview where she distanced herself from the most unpopular elements of the progressive movement.
Left unsaid during the conversation is what specific policies in the party’s last activist wave does she think were crazy, and does she still agree with any of them? After all, the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America currently outlines many of the same issues that played a role in Democrats’ defeat in 2024 — from progressive candidates’ support for defunding the police to the Biden administration’s open-ended immigration policy that led to the second Trump administration’s harsh crackdown on refugees and undocumented immigrants.
Presumably, she’ll be asked to answer more of the specifics in subsequent interviews. But the implication of her comments was that it’s hard for Democrats to publicly embrace the panoply of left-wing issues that became liberal conventional wisdom around the time of the pandemic without suffering a significant political penalty. Democrats aren’t exactly speaking the language of climate change activists or transgender advocates or supporting watering down penalties for criminals anymore, as was commonplace in 2020.
But they aren’t confronting the far-left forces that drove these issues to the forefront of the conversation for much of the last decade, either. The scandal surrounding Francesca Hong’s view of Thanksgiving as a “colonizer holiday” and Abdul El-Sayed’s comments bashing football, July 4 fireworks and Mackinac Island only underscore the impression that their deeply-held views are at odds with a majority of Americans.
And meanwhile, the DSA faction is as influential as ever in Democratic Party politics. How did that happen, even as a prominent progressive like AOC now acknowledges the excesses of the far left? It’s because the activists have refocused their attention away from their (still deeply held) unpopular social and cultural positions, and are now singularly focused on demanding candidates label Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza as a genocide. That’s the biggest litmus test right now. And their efforts are aided by the overall decline in support for Israel within the Democratic Party that’s accelerated in the last year.
MOVERS AND LAKERS
Josh Kushner, Bob Iger purchase Los Angeles Lakers for record $12.5 billion
Josh Kushner, managing partner of the venture capital firm Thrive Capital, and former Disney CEO Bob Iger have agreed to purchase a controlling interest in the Los Angeles Lakers for a record-breaking price of $12.5 billion, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
Announcement: “As lifelong NBA fans, we are deeply honored for the opportunity to become stewards of the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most iconic sports franchises in the world. We have immense respect for the leadership and vision of Jerry and Jeanie Buss,” Kushner and Iger said in a statement, referring to Jeanie Buss, governor and minority owner of the Lakers, and her late father, longtime Lakers owner Jerry Buss. “Our long-term commitment is to build on that foundation, compete at the highest level, and serve this extraordinary team, its fans, and the city of Los Angeles.”
NEW BATTLEGROUND
Jewish leaders build up local grassroots organizing to counter radical forces in politics
Until recently, the political strategy of the American Jewish establishment could be summed up in two ways: Elect pro-Israel lawmakers to Congress and, at a much smaller scale, educate state and local officials about Jewish values and causes. But a new model of Jewish political engagement is emerging to counter growing populist angst and surging antisemitism across the political spectrum: local efforts focused on school boards and city councils and statehouses, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Door-to-door: These Jewish activists are not shying away from the messy reality of politics: They aren’t here to make friends with everyone, acknowledging that not everyone is an ally. Their goal is to offer support — through door-knocking, organizing and their checkbooks — to candidates who have stood by the Jewish community in the post-Oct. 7 political firestorm, and to try to unseat those who have not. “All of these groups are starting to pop up because we realize that the infrastructure that the community has had in the past isn’t enough and isn’t working,” said Stefanie Clarke, a political strategist in Colorado who co-founded the Colorado Jewish Action Alliance.
EYE ON THE BALL
New AJC regional director looks to business community for allies in Mamdani’s New York
Andrew Gross arrived in his new role as the American Jewish Committee’s New York regional director on Monday with memories from the other side of the Hudson River — memories of the shattered JC Kosher Supermarket in Jersey City, where in December 2019 antisemitic gunmen murdered three people before themselves dying in a firefight with police. “I remember seeing the bullet casings and glass fragments on the ground,” Gross, who had become executive director of the New Jersey-Israel Commission under then-Gov. Phil Murphy just a few months before, told Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman.
Wide net: “As I do my job here at the AJC, I’m going to work with everyone to make sure that exact type of scenario does not happen again,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with JI. “Everyone,” as he described it, extends from the NYPD to New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin to AJC’s long-standing network of Jewish and non-Jewish civic allies, and even friendly interests out of the Persian Gulf. Gross said he also plans to draw on another set of experiences from Murphy’s administration as he looks now to forge stronger ties with Big Apple business leaders: his time at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.
COMMUNITY CONCERN
Atlanta Jewish Times publisher accuses Ossoff of ‘lying’ about Israel support
The publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times penned an open letter to Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) on Wednesday pressing the senator over his repeated votes to block U.S. military sales to Israel, accusing Ossoff of failing to support Israel and of misrepresenting his positions to his Jewish constituents, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Notable quotable: “I apologize for being blunt, but please, stop lying to me and your constituents. I hear you claim, over and over again, that you support Israel — that your support is ‘ironclad,’” Michael Morris wrote in the letter. “It is not. You vote against Israel on the Senate floor in Washington, then come home to Georgia and make this untruthful claim.” He argued that, by contrast, Ossoff’s “antagonism toward Israel has remained steadfast,” pointing to his repeated votes for efforts to block arms sales.
FOLLOW THE MONEY
Nevada GOP candidate took max-out contribution from ‘Protocols’-promoting activist
David Flippo, the Republican nominee in Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District, accepted a max-out donation from Robert Beadles, a prominent local GOP donor and commentator who has repeatedly promoted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other antisemitic conspiracy theories, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Paper trail: Flippo, a military veteran who is running in a district that strongly favors Republicans to replace Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV), has positioned himself as a close ally of the Jewish community. But according to FEC records, he has received $7,000 in donations from Beadles — the legal allowable limit — in May and June of 2026, the only donations Beadles has made thus far this election cycle.
SCOUT’S HONOR
Scouting America offers ‘safe space’ for Jewish campers to hold Shabbat services
Clad in khaki uniforms and merit badges, hundreds of scouts gathered on a Saturday morning for a sight that has become increasingly rare in America: a Jewish prayer service without security and where nobody felt the need to look over their shoulder, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Sense of security: At a moment when Jewish students contemplating the upcoming school year are weighing whether to wear or hide their Star of David necklaces as they return to the classroom, this summer’s Scouting America national jamboree in West Virginia offered a different message — holding a full, public Shabbat service for its Jewish scouts as part of an event organizers describe as one of the last unapologetically inclusive spaces for religious minorities in youth culture. “I’ve had the privilege of going to synagogue services around the world for the past 20 years. [The jamboree] was the only one I’ve been to, other than in Israel, where there was no need for security around the service,” Ricky Mason, chair of Scouting America’s national executive board, told JI.
Worthy Reads
Not Very Christian: For Fox News, George Deek, Israel’s special envoy to the Christian world, reflects on the “double standard” applied to Israel amid reports of attacks by Israeli extremists targeting Christians in the country. “Extremism exists in every democratic society. Sometimes it grows dangerously. Governments must confront it. But serious people understand the difference between extremists within a society and the character of the society itself. Except, increasingly, when that society is Israel. An extremist in Boston, Madrid or London attacks a Jew, and we correctly call him an antisemite. A fanatic spits at a Christian in Jerusalem, and suddenly we are invited to diagnose Israeli society. That is not analysis. It is a double standard. If you genuinely want to know whether Christians are flourishing in a country, there are better measures than the behavior of its worst citizens.” [FoxNews]
Trouble Back Home: The Wall Street Journal’s Sadanand Dhume looks at the challenges facing Pakistani Field Marshal Asim Munir as he notches a series of high-profile diplomatic wins but struggles with domestic constraints. “Over the past year and a half, the army chief and Pakistan’s de facto leader, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has pulled off a high-wire act: He has raised Pakistan’s international standing even as domestic challenges have mounted. But unless Gen. Munir can revive the country’s stagnant economy and calm its restive population, his diplomatic gains will likely prove evanescent. … Unfortunately for Pakistan, neither Gen. Munir’s diplomatic feats nor his consolidation of power offers solutions to the country’s domestic crises.” [WSJ]
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Word on the Street
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was spotted at a joint practice between the Washington Commanders and the Miami Dolphins in Virginia alongside Commanders owner Josh Harris and Dolphins CEO Daniel Sillman…
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is stepping away from her role at the end of the month; President Donald Trump, who announced Leavitt’s upcoming departure from the White House, said she will now serve as “one of my top outside advisors”…
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) dismissed the notion on Wednesday that campaign spending in her favor by AIPAC’s super PAC backfired in her failed bid for U.S. Senate, and defended the pro-Israel group as Jewish Americans participating in the democratic process, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports…
Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management is preparing, as part of a consortium of investors it organized that includes Abu Dhabi-based BlueFive Capital, to make a bid for Wendy’s that would take the fast food chain private…
TheWrap’s media editor looks at the pushback to New York magazine’s recent edition that focused on New York City’s Middle East culture scene while denigrating Israel, including the characterization of the Jewish state by one reporter as “the land mass currently called Israel” and lumping Zionism together with Islamophobia and xenophobia…
Israeli chef Yuval Ben Neriah is opening a chain of Japanese fast casual restaurants across Europe in a $10 billion venture; the first branch of the yet-to-be-named chain is set to open in Vienna…
Israel Police announced a monthlong gag order on details related to an Israeli mother-daughter pair who disappeared last week in Austria; the request for the order came from the Lahav 433 major crimes unit, which took over the case…
A new report from the Israeli think tank IMPACT-se, which monitors educational materials around the Middle East, found that most of the “problematic themes” in Saudi curricula targeting Jews and Christians had been addressed, noting that the materials indicated a shift “toward greater moderation, inclusivity, and alignment with the broader reform objectives of” Riyadh’s ambitious Vision 2030 project…
The European Broadcasting Union announced changes to next year’s Eurovision Song Contest in which a winning country would “automatically be ineligible to host” if it was involved in an “armed conflict” or a “sensitive geopolitical situation” at the time…
More than 25 European countries signed on to a joint statement condemning Iran’s use of the death penalty to “silence dissent, intimidate communities, and punish individuals” tied to the Islamic Republic’s anti-government protests…
The governor of Iran’s central bank said the country would soon join BRICS’ New Development Bank, two years after Tehran joined the growing consortium whose founders include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa…
Yeshivat Chovevei Torah announced that Rabbi Ben Berger will serve as the Modern Orthodox seminary’s president and CEO, after eight years at Hillel International, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports; Berger succeeds Rabbi Dov Linzer, who served as president and rosh yeshiva for seven years and will continue in the latter role…
Rachel Nielsen is joining the Milwaukee Jewish Federation as chief operating officer…
Israeli journalist Oren Nahari died at 70 of complications from ALS, a year after announcing his diagnosis and days after his last radio broadcast…
Find on-demand Live Briefing updates throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Pic of the Day
Israeli President Isaac Herzog was honored with an honorary degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary on Wednesday in a special ceremony with JTS Chancellor Emerita Shuly Rubin Schwartz at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem.
Birthdays
Co-chair and CEO of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, Michael De Luca turns 61…
Member of the New York State Assembly for 24 years, since then she is the county clerk of Queens County, Audrey I. Pheffer turns 85… Retired CPA and senior executive in Los Angeles, Morton Algaze turns 83… Treasury secretary through all four years of the Biden administration, Janet Yellen turns 80… Documentary still photographer of the American and international Jewish communities since 1970, Robert A. Cumins turns 78… Beverly Hills, Calif., resident, Ruth Fay Kellerman… VP and chief of staff at The Aspen Institute, James M. Spiegelman turns 68… Film producer, writer and director, Susan Landau Finch turns 66… Founder of the Council of Orthodox Jewish Organizations of Manhattan, he is also the executive chairman of LifeHealth Network, Michael Landau… Storyteller, producer and writer, Jeffrey Mark “Slash” Coleman turns 59… Editor-in-chief of the Hollywood Reporter, Maer Roshan turns 59… Co-founder and managing director at Beacon Global Strategies, he was chief of staff at the CIA and the Pentagon during the Obama administration, he is a graduate of CESJDS, Jeremy B. Bash turns 55… President of Accessibility Partners, a Maryland firm that hires people with disabilities for tech jobs, she is also the founder of a nonprofit I Support the Girls, Dana Marlowe… Three-time Olympian water polo player, now head coach at Pepperdine University, Merrill Marc Moses turns 49… Professor of government at Harvard University, he was the director of the Harvard Center for Jewish Studies, Eric Matthew Nelson turns 49… Professor of law at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, Joshua Michael Blackman turns 42… Deputy general counsel and global head of contracts and litigation for Tower Research Capital, Matthew Weiss turns 40… Weekend editor for The Washington Post, Sara Sorcher… Israeli Olympic long-distance runner, she ran the marathon for Israel at the Paris Olympics in 2024, Maor Tiyouri turns 36… Counsel at CD&R, Nathan Jablow… Senior account supervisor at Edelman, Jodie Michelle Singer… VP of business development at Azul Hospitality Group, Adam Dahan… Head of investor relations at Israel Legacy Partners, David Angel… Elaine Hall… Jonathan Gerber…
Plus, Kaploun's restitution vow draws doubters
Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for WisDems
Gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong speaks on stage during Wisconsin Democrats 2026 Convention on June 14, 2026 in Madison, Wisconsin.
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we break down the results of yesterday’s primaries in Connecticut, Minnesota, South Carolina and Wisconsin, and talk to New York Jewish leaders who attended a meeting with Mayor Zohran Mamdani to discuss concerns over his inflammatory Israel rhetoric. We report on antisemitism envoy Yehuda Kaploun’s recent pledge, which drew skepticism, to resolve all Holocaust restitution claims in the final years of the Trump administration, and have the scoop on New Jersey congressional candidate Rebecca Bennett’s efforts to distance herself from fellow N.J. Democratic candidate Adam Hamawy. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ken Marcus, Ari Emanuel and Michal Slawny Cababia.
We also have a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- We’re keeping an eye on the last races to be called after last night’s primaries in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Vermont, as well as the special election primaries in South Carolina and Alabama. More below.
- President Donald Trump asserted late Tuesday that the U.S. has “total control over the Hormuz strait right now,” even as Oman and Iran engage in talks over control of the waterway. More below from our conversations with Iran experts and observers about the talks and likely outcomes.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
In Tuesday’s newsletter, we wrote that four major Democratic primary races — in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Connecticut — would be key tests of the depth of the anti-establishment, anti-Israel left’s staying power.
So far, the left of the party won three of the four contests, with the notable exception of Democratic Socialists of America-affiliated Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, who fell short against Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley — in the night’s most high-profile race testing whether a socialist can win the Democratic nomination for an executive role in a pivotal battleground state.
Hong, who drew criticism from leading Democrats over her record of comments attacking Thanksgiving, support for defunding the police and overall embrace of the DSA’s radical platform, underperformed the primary polls showing her with a substantial lead in the race. But as Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and leading Democratic officials warned that her nomination could cost Democrats the governorship, her lead dissipated amid concerns about her electability come November.
Of note: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the two leading members of the ideological left in Congress, declined to endorse Hong’s campaign.
The establishment’s unified — and effective — show of force against Hong offered a stark contrast to party leaders’ efforts in Michigan to stop far-left candidate Abdul El-Sayed from winning the nomination. In that race, party leaders were more equivocal in their support of Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), with Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) declining to support Stevens’ candidacy despite their similar political backgrounds. Even Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who offered a late endorsement to Stevens, didn’t go after El-Sayed’s electability like Evers has in his comments speaking out against Hong.
The socialist speed bump in Wisconsin, however, was seemingly the only exception to an overall dominant showing from progressive candidates, highlighted by the left’s successes in Minnesota.
Trust, but verify
Rabbis hope ‘open, honest dialogue’ with Mamdani brings belated change in Israel rhetoric
A roundtable with New York City rabbis held at City Hall on Monday gave participants a chance to voice growing concerns about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Israel rhetoric they felt had before gone unheard — with several attendees telling Jewish Insider the strong collective message, and Mamdani’s reaction, gave them hope he would change tack, JI’s Will Bredderman and Matthew Kassel report.
Airing concerns: Multiple attendees of the meeting told JI they viewed the gathering as an opportunity to bring their fears directly to the mayor and to demonstrate communal unity amid a period of spiking antisemitic hate crimes. “People talked about their own concerns, their families’ concerns, their congregations’ concerns. I think he heard them,” said one participant, who requested anonymity to speak freely about their ongoing contact with Mamdani’s antisemitism czar, Phylisa Wisdom, and her deputy, Josh Binderman. “When they framed the meeting, they said it was going to be an ‘open, honest dialogue.’”
Bonus: The Wall Street Journal reports that Mamdani is facing both “growing discontent from New Yorkers upset with his anti-Israel rhetoric and slights against the business community,” as well as a “fraying” relationship with the New York City Council.
SCOOP
Kaploun vows to resolve all Holocaust restitution issues by end of Trump term, drawing skepticism
Ambassador Yehuda Kaploun, the State Department’s antisemitism envoy, said last month that he would be able to resolve all remaining Holocaust restitution issues within the next two and a half years, before the end of the Trump administration, two sources with knowledge of the remarks told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod.
Response: The assertion — made during the July annual meeting of the board of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, better known as the Claims Conference, in New York — has left experts in the field skeptical. The U.S. has been pursuing Holocaust restitution issues for decades. “The tone … was basically, ‘I’m coming in, and I know what needs to be done, and I’m going to do it my way despite whatever anybody else feels or does because I have the backing of the administration,’” one source, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the meeting, explained.
SCOOP
N.J. Dem nominee Rebecca Bennett will not endorse Hamawy, campaign says
Rebecca Bennett, the Democratic nominee in New Jersey’s swing 7th Congressional District, distanced herself from a fellow Democratic nominee, Adam Hamawy, who is running in a neighboring district, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Notable quotable: “Rebecca Bennett is not going to campaign with or endorse Adam Hamawy this fall, as she is laser focused on flipping New Jersey’s seventh district, lowering costs, and getting corruption out of Washington,” a Bennett campaign spokesperson told JI.
STRAIT TALK
As Hormuz talks stall, experts see economic pressure — not war — as Trump’s likely path
Talks to reopen the Strait of Hormuz appear unlikely to produce an agreement, analysts told Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea this week, with little sign that Washington and Tehran can bridge their competing demands over the waterway. The Trump administration is more likely to pursue continued economic pressure than return to military confrontation, the experts suggested — but that strategy may not be enough to force Tehran to back down.
Trump’s options: “Given the extreme unlikelihood of any successful negotiation between the U.S. and Iran, the two plausible scenarios are either a continuation of the status quo, or Trump using an Iran-Oman agreement on Hormuz to declare victory and extricate himself from the situation altogether,” Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at the Israel Policy Forum, said. “Trump’s preferred option is economic pressure … The economy has priced in the Hormuz closure, so if the U.S. keeps up economic pressure without returning to war, Trump can at least count on no drastic changes on inflation or public opinion, even if neither improves before the election.”
EDUCATION CONSTERNATION
ADL reports find professors pushing anti-Israel bias, antisemitism in university classrooms
Even as student-driven protests against Israel and the war in Gaza have quieted down on college campuses, two new Anti-Defamation League reports reveal rising levels of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in university classrooms nationwide driven by faculty, noting that some instructors are still presenting one-sided views on Israel as fact, assigning readings by terrorist groups and offering extra credit for attending anti-Israel protests, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Findings: “The Faculty Factor: Inside the Networks Driving Anti-Israel and Anti-Zionist Activism on Campus,” published on Wednesday, documents how faculty groups, unions and networks drive anti-Israel and anti-Zionist actions at universities. The report claims that faculty networks such as Faculty & Staff for Justice in Palestine and the American Association of University Professors have shielded anti-Israel student groups from discipline since the 2024 campus anti-Israel encampments, detailing methods used by influential organizations to provide institutional cover. A second report, “Antisemitism Among Faculty and in the Classroom: Trends, Patterns and Institutional Dynamics,” highlights anti-Israel narratives presented to students through regular course study since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks and the ensuing Gaza war.
DATA DEBATE
Brandeis Center president urges EEOC to repeal employer data collection requirements
Kenneth Marcus, the chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, urged the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Tuesday to repeal a long-standing rule requiring large employers to keep and report data on the racial, ethnic and sex makeup of their workforce, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
The argument: Marcus was one of a slew of speakers who appeared before the commission to testify for and against the rule, which the commission has proposed repealing. He argued that the reporting requirements have resulted in employers feeling pressure to make hiring decisions based on race, rather than encouraging equal treatment. He said that the Jewish community’s experience “illustrates both the promise and the peril of demographic data collection.”
Worthy Reads
Youth Movement: The New Yorker’s Bernard Avishai profiles Israeli satirist and Netanyahu government critic Lior Schleien, who through his “Free Israel” movement engages in dialogue with right-leaning young Israelis that is filmed and shared online. “Relevant closed in late 2024, but last November Schleien launched an online movement, called Free Israel, a play on the slogan ‘Free Palestine,’ and released videos, he told me, aimed at influencing public opinion so that Israel can ‘free itself first from Netanyahu’s rule.’ … Since then, Schleien has continued his campaign, which he and a few friends have financed, to meet with dozens of groups of Israeli youth — some seven hundred thousand of whom will be voting for the first time in the fall and who, in their majority, identify as ‘right wing.’” [NewYorker]
Rationing the Islamic Republic: The Wall Street Journal’s Georgi Kantchev, Henna Moussavi and Summer Said look at how Iran is becoming a “survival economy” that rations its limited resources in an effort to buy time until the current conflict ends. “Tehran is rationing scarce goods, limiting access to foreign currency, slashing investment and shifting more of the burden onto households while preserving strategic imports and the essential machinery of the state, analysts say. The result will be a deepening economic malaise that leads to rising poverty and dysfunction, but also more room for Iran’s leaders to stall talks with the U.S.” [WSJ]
Word on the Street
Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Craig Goldman (R-TX) and Haley Stevens (D-MI) wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. International Development Finance Corporation CEO Ben Black urging them to prioritize the Great Sea Interconnector linking the Greek, Cypriot and Israeli energy grids as part of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor…
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law urged House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) to call up the No Antisemitism in Education Act for a full House vote when the chamber returns in September…
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said he would continue to accept AIPAC money, telling Politico, he’s “not going to exclude any person, faith, organization”…
Police in San Diego are investigating a weekend incident at the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity house at the University of California, San Diego, in which the building was vandalized with antisemitic and racist graffiti…
The NYPD denied that its officers will be accompanying New York City First Lady Rama Duwaji on a trip to Lebanon and Syria next month after City Hall said that her security detail would join the trip, saying the “NYPD does not send officers to countries with level four travel advisories for discretionary reasons”; Mayor Zohran Mamdani later said the diverging statements stemmed from a “miscommunication,” and that when his wife makes the trip “it will be without any NYPD detail”…
Yankee Global Enterprises announced a new $2.6 billion strategic investment partnership with Apollo Sports Capital…
Ari Emanuel’s Mari reached a $6 billion deal to acquire the U.K.-based theater company ATG Entertainment, whose portfolio includes dozens of theaters, including on Broadway and London’s West End…
Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia was forced to cede board seats and key control of his United Wholesale Mortgage to debt firm Oaktree Capital in exchange for a $1.5 billion rescue, after UWM suffered a $600 million loss…
The Wall Street Journal interviews actor Jon Lovitz, whose films “Redemption” and “Don’t Say Good Luck” are set to be released this week, about his entry into comedy (and his childhood friendship with Lisa Kudrow)…
Yemeni officials said that six people were killed in a Houthi strike on a vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb strait; elsewhere in the region, CENTCOM said it disabled a Panama-flagged cargo ship sailing toward Iranian ports by firing two Hellfire missiles into the vessel’s engine room, the third such incident since the U.S. blockade began…
The Palestinian technocratic committee meant to govern Gaza convened a joint coordination meeting in Cairo with several U.N. agencies — including the World Food Program, UNICEF and the World Health Organization — as well as representatives from the Board of Peace and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Institute for Global Change, to coordinate on humanitarian aid and reconstruction issues…
The Wall Street Journal’s William Galston considers the evolution of U.S. support for Israel stemming back to its Six-Day War victory…
LinkedIn is shutting down its research and development facility in Tel Aviv and laying off nearly all of the 50 staffers who work there, four years after establishing the center following its acquisition of analytics startup Oribi…
Teddy Sagi’s Layam and Adel Mardini’s Jetex opened a new VIP lounge in Ben Gurion Airport’s Terminal 3 this week…
Michal Slawny Cababia, the World Zionist Organization’s representative for North America, was sworn in to Israel’s Knesset as a member of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party; in an X post announcing the news, Lapid praised Slawny Cababia’s efforts to help new immigrants assimilate into Israeli society…
The New York Times spotlights concerns among the Druze residents of the Syrian province of Sweida who fear what they believe is a looming government takeover of the region, a year after hundreds were killed in a wave of sectarian violence…
Pic of the Day
A toast was held by the Aner Shapiro Association during the VERSE Festival on Tuesday, honoring the memory of the Jerusalem artist and Nova music festival attendee who saved the lives of dozens of people on Oct. 7, 2023, when he repeatedly caught and threw back grenades hurled by terrorists into a bomb shelter before he was killed.
Birthdays
Award-winning writer of fiction and nonfiction and the author of several novels and a novella, Rachel Kadish turns 57…
Hungarian American investor, currency trader and political activist, born György Schwartz, George Soros turns 96… Retired Beverly Hills, Calif., attorney, Sheldon Stanford Ellis… Emmy Award-winning television screenwriter, television producer and author, Gail Parent turns 86… Professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and author of many self-help books, Martin Elias Peter Seligman turns 84… Attorney in Ontario, Canada, who served as president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Lester Scheininger turns 79… Co-founder and chairman of the film and television company Beacon Pictures, Barry “Armyan” Bernstein turns 79… U.S. diplomat, Karyn Allison Posner-Mullen turns 75… Member of Houston’s Congregation Emanu El, she worked for more than 40 years at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Fredi Bleeker Franks… Sales manager of Illi Commercial Real Estate in Woodland Hills, Calif., Stuart Steinberg… Israel’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Albania, Noah Gal Gendler turns 69… Former member of Knesset from the Yesh Atid party, Haim Jelin turns 68… Founding editor of The Times of Israel and formerly the editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, David Horovitz turns 64… Former chairman of Goldman Sachs International, now CEO of Ki Corporation, Sir Bradley Fried turns 61… Senior rabbi at Brookline’s (Mass.) Temple Beth Zion, Claudia Kreiman… Chief strategy officer at NYC’s Educational Alliance, Anya Hoerburger… Scottsdale, Ariz.-based real estate investor, Jay Chernikoff… Co-founder at Understory, David Fine… Head of strategy and innovation at EquipmentShare, Ariel Applbaum…
Plus, 'Shabbat with training wheels'
GETTY IMAGES
Dinner
Good Tuesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we preview today’s primaries in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut and Vermont, and do a deep dive into D.C.’s status as a kosher food desert. We report on calls from Ambassadors Mike Huckabee and Yehuda Kaploun for Jordan-based Sbarro bombing terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to face justice 25 years after the deadly Jerusalem attack she took part in, and talk to Ben Springwater, the founder of a new app that helps people unplug for Shabbat. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Randy Fine, Dana Nessel and Josh Frydenberg.
We also have a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- Voters in Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont and Wisconsin head to the polls today for party primaries. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the Senate and gubernatorial Democratic primaries in Wisconsin and Minnesota as the far left makes gains in the party. More below on the races we’re watching.
- In addition, South Carolina and Alabama are holding special elections. In the Palmetto State, Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) is running for a full term, which she announced after being tapped to serve out the remainder of her brother’s term following his death last month.
- In Washington, Ken Marcus, the founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, is slated to testify before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for a hearing about rules requiring employers to provide yearly reports breaking down their workforce by race, sex and ethnicity.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
Today’s Democratic primaries in Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont and Wisconsin won’t have the same shock value as previous contests that underscored the strength of the anti-establishment, anti-Israel forces within the party.
But the possibility of Minnesota Democrats nominating a true-blue progressive over a battle-tested moderate lawmaker as their Senate standard-bearer, along with the growing likelihood suburban voters will reject a pragmatist for a left-wing candidate, may well demonstrate just how far left the party has swung in the past year.
Add to that the likelihood that Democratic Socialists of America-aligned candidate Francesca Hong will emerge as the party’s gubernatorial nominee in Wisconsin — providing a spotlight for the socialist group’s governing philosophy in the biggest of battleground states — and the stakes remain awfully high for the Democratic Party tonight.
There’s also a fascinating contest in Connecticut, where Rep. John Larson (D-CT), a former member of House leadership, is facing a real threat from former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin. The primary isn’t as neatly driven by ideological differences as it is along generational lines (Larson is 78, Bronin 47), but Larson has been a reliable supporter of Israel during his congressional career, while Bronin has tacked to his left on the issue during the campaign.
It’s very possible that the left wing of the party ends up with a clean, four-race sweep in these contests.
CAPITAL CONUNDRUM
D.C. has a kosher restaurant problem. Owners say to blame the math
Less than a year after kosher sushi restaurant Oro Nami launched its grand opening in Washington, it closed down in May, leaving meat restaurant Char Bar as the only sit-down kosher restaurant with a liquor menu in the nation’s capital. The closure of yet another kosher restaurant in the District has reignited one of Jewish Washingtonians’ favorite conversation topics: Why aren’t there more kosher restaurants in a city as important as the nation’s capital? Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
It’s the economy, stupid: People with knowledge of the restaurant business say that the answer is straightforward, if unsatisfying: economics. The Washington metro area has more than 300,000 Jews, according to a community-wide study completed in 2017. Just 5% of them are Orthodox, and most of the Orthodox Jews live in Maryland. “Kashrut in general in D.C. I think is tricky, because from a real estate perspective, everything is priced like a normal restaurant,” said Rabbi Charlie Schwartz, the director of Lehrhaus, a kosher restaurant outside Boston that plans to expand to Washington. “It’s assuming that you’ll do a high volume of business on Fridays and Saturdays, and for larger restaurant spaces that you’ll have pretty high alcohol sales, and kosher restaurants just don’t operate that way.”
PACT PRAISE
Rep. Joe Wilson praises Saudi, Turkey, Pakistan defense pact as Trump ‘achievement’
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) on Sunday praised the new mutual defense pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan as an accomplishment by President Donald Trump. The pact has been seen by many in pro-Israel circles as a sign that some of the U.S.’ Gulf allies are attempting to hedge against the U.S. and Israel, creating an alternative to the Abraham Accords and empowering those hostile to Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Wilson’s words: “The mutual defense pact of Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan is another achievement of [Trump] promoting stability, peace, and prosperity in the Middle East,” Wilson, a vocal supporter of Israel who has also been strongly supportive of Turkey, said in a post on X. “With our prosperous Gulf allies, a liberated Syria, and Lebanese-Israeli negotiations, it is clear the murderous regime in Iran is isolated and the people of Iran can regain a new government worthy of Iran’s rich history.”
Tehran’s take: Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that Tehran was not concerned about the pact inked by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey.
ANTISEMITISM ON THE TRAIL
Rep. Randy Fine campaign sign vandalized with a swastika
A lawn sign for Rep. Randy Fine’s (R-FL) reelection campaign outside an early voting site in Flagler Beach, Fla., was spray-painted with a swastika over the weekend, local news outlets reported on Monday. Fine is one of the few Jewish Republicans in Congress and has been vocal about his Jewish identity and advocating for Israel and against antisemitism. He’s being challenged in his primary race by Dan Bilzerian, an openly antisemitic online influencer, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Fine’s reaction: “I was a lot more upset than I expected to be,” Fine told Fox 35. “It’s really really affected me and — I’m not going to lie — I’m pretty upset about it. … It upsets me that I live in a world where Jewish kids, let alone any kid, had to see that, and that there’s someone with so much hate in their heart that they were willing to go onto government property and do this.”
JUSTICE, JUSTICE YOU SHALL PURSUE
Two U.S. envoys call for Sbarro bombing terrorist Tamimi to face justice
Two U.S. ambassadors highlighted ongoing U.S. efforts to bring Ahlam Tamimi — who was convicted by Israeli courts for her involvement in the 2001 bombing of a Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem that killed 16 people, including three Americans — to face trial in the United States around the 25th anniversary of the terror attack, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Ambassadors’ push: Ambassador Yehuda Kaploun, the State Department’s antisemitism envoy, on Sunday called on X for Tamimi to face justice. Kaploun’s post was shared by the U.S. Embassy in Jordan, which is the body best poised to push the Jordanian monarchy to extradite Tamimi. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee also posted on Sunday about Tamimi, sharing a link to the Department of Justice page offering up to $5 million for information that could assist in her capture.
SHABBAT REIMAGINED
‘Shabbat with training wheels’: Sabbath app offers a modern take on unplugging
A new app called Sabbath is selling an ancient pitch to a modern, phone-addicted crowd: lock technology away for one sacred day a week. The app, launched earlier this month by Dig Wells — the makers of the reading app Matter and the habit tracker Halo — is designed to help users unplug from sundown to sundown on either Saturday or Sunday. Users pick the apps they wish to block at no cost, while a paid tier adds custom weekday blocks, such as a daily 5-7 p.m. family time or an hour for morning meditation, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Founder’s inspiration: Founder Ben Springwater told JI the app draws inspiration from Shabbat. “I’m Jewish and I grew up celebrating Shabbat with my family,” he said. His family didn’t keep a strict Sabbath — they drove and used electronics — but Friday night dinner and prayers was “a cornerstone of my life growing up” and “a way to anchor the week,” he recalled. Springwater has since built a similar Shabbat practice with his wife and two young children.
PIKER SPIKED
University of Washington cancels Hasan Piker appearance
The University of Washington on Friday reversed its decision to host far-left, antisemitic influencer Hasan Piker, citing a flawed planning process. Piker, who has an extensive history of antisemitic rhetoric — including justifying Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, calling Orthodox Jews “inbred” and asserting that America deserved 9/11 — was scheduled to appear in January as part of the school’s 2026-27 Speaker Series, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
University statement: On Friday, however, the public university in Seattle said that “it was determined that the process for organizing this event did not meet the necessary level of rigor for University-hosted events in the Speaker Series. As a result, this event will not be held.” The statement continued, “Going forward, procedures will be updated to ensure the standards we have for University-hosted events like the Speaker Series are met, particularly so that we can help elevate the level of dialogue on divisive topics during a polarized time in our country.”
Worthy Reads
Reality Bites: The New York Times’ Anton Troianovski looks at the challenges facing President Donald Trump as he tries to wind down the wars in both Iran and Gaza. “The two Middle East conflicts have underscored Mr. Trump’s eagerness to declare success and his inability to impose his will on them, despite the enormous military firepower that he has been able to deploy. Mr. Trump is ‘clearly trying to find a pathway as the midterms approach to downgrade all of this,’ said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank. Instead, Mr. Katulis went on, ‘reality is slapping him in the face.’” [NYTimes]
August Recess: In The Wall Street Journal, presidential historian Tevi Troy explores the history of presidents seeking refuge from the humid August weather in Washington. “These and other instances remind us that even though August is a time to relax, it can also be a time of peril, for presidents and their staff alike. In his memoir of his time in Jimmy Carter’s White House, aide Stuart Eizenstat grumbled on multiple occasions about people being off in August during important events. …On another occasion, U.S. Ambassador to Iran William Sullivan took a long summer vacation in 1978, when Iran was on the path to a revolution against the shah, an important American ally.” [WSJ]
Brothers in Arms: In The Washington Post, singer John Ondrasik, known as Five for Fighting, expresses solidarity with Boy George after the artist received backlash over his new song supporting Israel. “What makes Boy George so enraging to the haters is that he, like me, is not Jewish. That fact sends a signal: This is not a religious battle but a moral one. One of good versus evil, without relativity or equivocation. To the haters, that means Boy George must be ridiculed, marginalized or intimidated, lest he give license to others who might have been cowed into not voicing their support for the Jewish people. In 1982, Boy George, with Culture Club, released the hit song ‘Do You Really Want to Hurt Me.’ In this battle for civilization, the answer is, indisputably, yes.” [WashPost]
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Word on the Street
The Washington Post reports that President Donald Trump was clandestinely flown out of Turkey on a small military jet following last month’s NATO summit in Ankara; the president had previously been filmed entering an older Air Force One plane — moving to the smaller plane via catering truck after photos were taken — after the recently gifted Qatari luxury jet he flew on to Turkey was not deemed to have the requisite security features…
The International Atomic Energy Agency will remove nuclear material stored at a secret site in Syria tied to the fallen Assad regime per an agreement reached between the U.S., Jerusalem and Damascus…
The Wall Street Journal reports that Gulf states are resigned to the idea that Iran will have permanent control over the Strait of Hormuz as part of a deal with the U.S., preferring that outcome to war…
Responding to a recent demand from Iran that the U.S. fully compensate it for its war costs in order to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Trump issued his own demand on Monday that Tehran compensate the U.S. “for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts,” as well as pay reparations to the “families of the hundreds of thousands of innocent protestors that Iran has killed over the last 50 years”…
The Defense Department renamed a South Carolina military base in honor of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who died last month; Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attended the ceremony at the Charleston base to honor Graham, who served in the Air Force JAG Corps before retiring as a colonel…
The Cook Political Report switched its rating of the congressional race in Ohio’s 7th District to a “toss-up” from “likely Republican” after Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), who is facing allegations of domestic violence, passed the deadline to withdraw from the race; Miller denies the accusations from his ex-wife, whose father, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH), has called for Miller to resign…
Politico reports that White House officials, convinced Miller would not drop his reelection bid, dissuaded Ohio Republican leaders from launching a public campaign against Miller; the report comes as national Democrats step up support for Miller’s general election challenger, Brian Poindexter…
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said that Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed should “tone down his rhetoric” about Israel and AIPAC in order to help combat antisemitism within the party…
Two hundred Jewish community activists, rabbis, professionals and academics have signed a petition to the chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, urging him to take security measures to protect Jewish delegates at the upcoming party convention; Nessel said last month that antisemitism in the state — and in the statewide Democratic Party — had gotten so bad that she will not attend the convention this month…
A national co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America said last week that she would have attended an anti-Israel rally in Times Square one day after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks had she been in New York City at the time, describing the terror group’s slaughter of more than 1,200 people across southern Israel as “inevitable,” JI’s Gabby Deutch reports…
A group of rabbis from several denominations urged New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday to dial down his rhetoric on Israel, warning him about the impact it is having on the safety of the city’s Jews, during a private meeting at City Hall…
The family of journalist Cara Trager, who was killed in a hit-and-run crash in Queens by a driver who weeks earlier had vandalized a Jewish-owned bagel shop, is calling on elected officials to make greater efforts to address hate crimes…
Apple reached a $150,000 settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over a complaint filed on behalf of a Jewish employee who said his request to take time off for Jewish holidays was denied and he was fired shortly after making the ask…
Former Australian Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who is Jewish, said he was not called to testify before the country’s royal commission into antisemitism, despite being a leader of the country’s Jewish community and a major advocate of the commission’s creation…
A Syrian court sentenced former President Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher to death in absentia for war crimes and crimes against humanity; both men are living in Russia, where they fled as the Assad regime fell in late 2024…
Colombia’s Foreign Ministry announced Bogota’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, days after conservative President Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn in; the announcement came shortly after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake shook the western part of the country, killing more than 100 people and prompting messages of condolences from Israeli officials…
On Sunday night, mental health nonprofit Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, Inc. agreed to hand its winning bid for Camp Lavi in Lakewood, Pa., to the second-place bidder, ensuring that the Modern Orthodox camp would continue operating in its current format. But just before the tentative agreement was to be legally recognized on Monday morning, the second-place bidder said he would not offer his original bid, scuttling the deal and throwing the fate of the camp into limbo, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher has learned…
Miriam Belsky has been appointed executive vice president of the TruBob Fund, a new national initiative supporting Jewish day schools established by philanthropists Trudy Elbaum Gottesman and Robert W. Gottesman…
Find on-demand Live Briefing updates throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Pic of the Day
The U.K.’s Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council met on Monday with Ed Miliband, who was appointed last month as foreign secretary under Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
Birthdays
Co-founder and CEO of Israeli interactive video firm Eko, Yoni Bloch turns 45…
Longtime Democratic Party activist in N.Y.’s Orange and Rockland counties, Doris Feder turns 94… Architect best known for the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin and the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., Peter David Eisenman turns 94… Former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, she also served as Brooklyn DA and NYC comptroller, Elizabeth Holtzman turns 85… Principal of Investors Research Group based in Los Angeles, Jacob S. Segal… Former SVP for international affairs at the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, Lois Weinsaft… Co-founder of The Carlyle Group, in 2024 he became the principal owner of MLB’s Baltimore Orioles, David Rubenstein turns 77… U.S. trade representative during the Clinton administration, she is chair of Parkside Global Advisors, Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky turns 76… Senior counsel for benefits and employment at the Wagner Law Group, Linda E. Rosenzweig… Lenore Solomon… Artistic director and choreographer of an eponymous dance company based in Union, N.J., Carolyn Dorfman… CEO, chairman and major shareholder of the Russian gas company Novatek, Leonid Mikhelson turns 71… Board member emeritus of AIPAC, Jeffrey Snyder… Former member of the Massachusetts Senate, he is the founder of Cape Air, Daniel A. “Dan” Wolf turns 69… Publisher of Yated Ne’eman, a weekly English-language Haredi newspaper and magazine based in New Jersey, Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz turns 68… Israeli minister of regional cooperation, David “Dudi” Amsalem turns 66… Co-founder and partner of MizMaa Ventures and wine columnist for Jewish Insider, Isaac “Yitz” Applbaum… Chairman at Duty Free Americas, his family owns Israel’s Psagot Winery, Simon Falic… Former chief of the Shin Bet/Shabak, Nadav Argaman turns 66… Staff writer at The Atlantic, David Brooks turns 65… Host of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Joe Rogan turns 59… Senior advisor at The Aspen Institute, Ilana Marcus Drimmer… Clarinetist who performs internationally as a soloist, Sharon Kam turns 55… MLB pitcher for seven teams, he has also been the pitching coach for Team Israel, Andrew Lorraine turns 54… NFL offensive lineman for four seasons, he is now the managing partner of Oakland, Calif.-based North Venture Partners, Alex Bernstein turns 51… Chief investment officer and CEO of Toronto-based investment firm Murchinson, Marc Bistricer… NFL punter for seven seasons with the Jaguars and Bears, he was then a financial advisor in the Jacksonville office of Merrill Lynch, Adam Podlesh turns 43… Reporter for Mishpacha Magazine, known as Turx, Avraham Yaakov Tarkieltaub turns 40… Ukrainian-born and San Francisco-raised journalist and copywriter, Yelena Shuster… Complex general surgical oncology fellow at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Sara Ginzberg, M.D…. Daniel Weitz…
Plus, Larry David's fashion advice for Obama
Ilia YEFIMOVICH / POOL / AFP via Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a ceremony commemorating Israel's Remembrance Day on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on April 21, 2026.
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the split between Washington and Jerusalem over the White House’s 15-point plan to disarm Hamas, and spotlight the House and Senate primaries in Minnesota that are testing the power of the state’s far-left activists. We look at the congressional primary taking shape in Hartford, Conn., where Rep. John Larson aims to hold his seat against a challenger calling for generational change, and report on the American Psychological Association’s decision to table a vote to recognize a Jewish group within the organization. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Will Scharf, Noach Hacker and Dario Amodei.
We also have a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- Todd Blanche will be sworn in as attorney general this afternoon, following last week’s 50-49 Senate vote to confirm him.
- We’re keeping an eye on the talks between Iran and Oman to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, after the weekend yielded little progress toward reopening the waterway. President Donald Trump told Axios on Sunday that, despite Iran issuing new demands to the U.S. in order to reopen the strait, Washington is “only semi-negotiating with them” and is “low-keying it,” relying on Tehran’s economic crisis to bring it to an agreement.
- In Tehran, Mohsen Rezaei, the newly tapped head of the Islamic Republic’s national security body who led the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the 1980s and ’90s, issued new demands, including the end of efforts to target Iranian proxies in the region and the cessation of U.S. threats to Iran.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S mELISSA WEISS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said Jerusalem “does not accept the 15-point document” agreed to last month by the U.S.-led Board of Peace and Hamas that would see the eventual disarmament of the terror group and withdrawal of the IDF from the Gaza Strip — a rare public break with the White House, which has touted the plan since it was announced.
In comments to his Cabinet on Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel “would not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed.”
The White House and Jerusalem have largely been in lockstep on issues related to Gaza. The rupture over Hamas’ disarmament is one of the more significant policy breaks between President Donald Trump and Netanyahu.
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesperson who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JI that the mediating countries benefit from Hamas’ continued rule in the Gaza Strip and have no urgency to press for the terror group’s disarmament.
That lack of seriousness, he added, makes it unlikely that Hamas will take the necessary steps to disarm. “It’s all a show, it’s a charade, a spectacle,” Conricus said. “The only way that Hamas really ceases to control the Gaza Strip is if all of their weapons are handed in — not stored, not temporarily safeguarded somewhere else, but actually handed in, and if that is verified. As long as we won’t see that happening, I don’t think that Israel is going to agree with any charade.”
GOPHER BROKE
The latest Senate showdown between the center and the left set in Minnesota
In an echo of Michigan’s bruising Democratic Senate primary last week, the bitter Democratic primary for an open Senate seat in battleground Minnesota this week is pitting a moderate House member with a long-standing pro-Israel record, Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), against an outspoken progressive, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, whose attack lines have frequently centered on AIPAC, which spent over $30 million in its unsuccessful effort to help Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in Michigan, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Neck-and-neck: Recent independent surveys have shown a statistical dead heat in the final weeks of the primary, with each candidate garnering around 40% of the vote. The candidates’ equivocations over AIPAC and individual ties to the group have also emerged as fault lines in recent weeks, complicating the ideological divisions that have shaped other primaries in which Israel and Middle East policy have featured prominently. In a reflection of the extent to which AIPAC is now viewed as a liability in Democratic primaries, Craig has distanced herself from the group, which has not officially made an endorsement in the race even as its donor network has contributed to her campaign.
ISRAEL ANGLE
Democratic primary for Craig’s House seat in Minnesota showcases Israel divide within party
The three major Democratic candidates vying to replace Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) are charting distinct lanes on Israel policy but only one of them, at a recent debate, offered support for Israel. The front-runner, former state Sen. Matt Little, is the Democrat positioning himself as most hostile to Israel in the race, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
The split: At a July 19 debate, Little called not only for the U.S. to stop sending military aid to Israel but also to impose an arms embargo “on the sale of all weapons to Israel,” preventing Israel from buying U.S. military systems — its primary source of armaments — with its own funds. He said he would have voted for the amendment, sponsored by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to cut all U.S. aid to Israel and would have offered it himself if he had the opportunity. State Sen. Matt Klein, running as a moderate and seen as most closely aligned with Craig’s own record, was the only one of the three candidates who did not express support for the Massie amendment at the debate. State Rep. Kaela Berg charted out something of a middle position, criticizing but supporting the Massie amendment and calling for a complete halt to U.S. taxpayer funding to Israel.
CONNECTICUT COMPETITION
Longtime Connecticut congressman faces primary challenger making generational case for change
Longtime Rep. John Larson (D-CT) is facing a serious challenge to his political survival from former Hartford, Conn., Mayor Luke Bronin, the latest in a wave of challengers to make the argument for generational change in the House of Representatives. Larson, 78, has held his House seat since 1999, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Divide: Larson was among the House Democrats who voted last month against an amendment to cut off all U.S. aid to Israel, and is endorsed by AIPAC. At the same time, he’s been critical of the human rights situation in Gaza and opposed the Iran war. The district is home to the largest concentration of Jews in the state, largely in the Hartford area. Bronin, 47, criticized Larson for his vote, adding that if elected, he would not support any further offensive aid to Israel, though he said he supports defensive systems that protect civilians such as the Iron Dome.
TALKING TURKEY
New defense pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan concerns U.S. national security experts
A coalition of Sunni regional powers signed a historic joint defense pact on Friday, but national security experts expressed deep unease over the arrangement, arguing that it reflects U.S. shortcomings in the Middle East while raising serious questions about its practical military feasibility, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. The agreement, dubbed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, was signed in the Saudi holy city of Mecca by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Raising concerns: Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former British diplomat and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, emphasized that the pact poses strategic complications for both Jerusalem and Washington, while raising alarms for regional actors. “For Israel, it is further confirmation of Turkish ambitions, which are explicitly directed against Israeli interests,” Fitton-Brown said. “For the U.S., it is questioning how reliable or permanent it is viewed as a player in the region. Stirring up a hornet’s nest in the Gulf and then appearing unsure about an endgame, or even clear red lines, has left American allies uncertain about the future and willing to hedge their bets.”
TRANSITIONS
Trump taps Will Scharf as White House counsel
President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf will replace David Warrington as White House counsel effective Sept. 1, Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports.
Trump’s announcement: In a Truth Social post, Trump praised Scharf, whom he said has done “an amazing job” as staff secretary, as “Tough, Strong, and Smart! He also loves our Country, and respects the Law.” Scharf, who is Jewish, has served as White House staff secretary, a lower-profile role that includes managing the paper flow to the president, since early 2025. At the time of his appointment to the position, Trump described Scharf as “a highly skilled attorney who will be a crucial part of my White House team.”
IN LIMBO
American Psychological Association postpones vote recognizing Jewish representation
The American Psychological Association delayed its vote on Friday to recognize the Association of Jewish Psychologists within its organization, marking the second time this year the organization has postponed the decision to recognize Jewish representation in the organization, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
State of play: The APA has six official ethnic associations, representing Arab Americans, Black psychologists and Asian Americans, among other minority groups. Proponents of the proposed Jewish group within the APA argue that Jewish psychologists deserve to be included as well, especially given the rise of antisemitism within the organization. On Friday, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Medical Association condemned APA’s decision to postpone the vote again.
Worthy Reads
The Takeover of the Democratic Party: In The Free Press, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) warns of the Democratic Socialists of America’s “hijacking” of the Democratic Party, and the refusal by many colleagues to stand up against the group’s growing influence. “What’s most worrisome is not just the ignorance underlying so much of the heated, abusive, and violent anti-Jewish sentiment. It’s also the cowardly amplification and kowtowing by the political class. As a Democratic member of Congress, I can attest that for a growing number of my colleagues, being anti-Israel has now become a nonnegotiable moral litmus test.” [FreePress]
Pat’s Politics: Politico’s Jason Beeferman spotlights Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), a West Point graduate and former Army intelligence officer who has shifted leftward as the party has moved in the same direction. “Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, a Mamdani ally who trounced Goldman by harnessing voters’ anger with Israel’s war in Gaza, was invited to be one of Ryan’s five featured speakers at his campaign kickoff rally last month. ‘I’ve known Pat for 10 years, and I hate to say this,’ said one Democratic official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about their colleague. ‘But I couldn’t tell you a single thing that he genuinely, sincerely cares about or believes in, other than advancing his own political career.’” [Politico]
Failing Grade: The Washington Post’s Megan McArdle reflects on the American Association of University Professors’s decision last month to endorse Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in the state’s Democratic Senate primary. “Frankly, I’m not sure the AAUP’s endorsement even mattered. But to the extent it did, the net effect was probably a small boost for Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers. The endorsement of El-Sayed will also send a message about the AAUP to legislators in other redder states, where races are often decided in the Republican primary and El-Sayed’s flavor of politics is poison.” [WashPost]
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Word on the Street
Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) introduced the “Lebanon Sanctions, Stabilization and Support Act,” which sanctions those involved in supporting Hezbollah, provides funding for state-run infrastructure and civil services and expands aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces and Internal Security Forces, conditioned on progress in countering Hezbollah…
The Senate on Friday passed a bill championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to sanction Russia and extend existing sanctions on Iran by an 86-11 vote, with a handful of mostly Democratic lawmakers objecting over new tariff powers granted in the bill…
Rep. Ed Case (D-HI), one of the most moderate Democrats in Congress, easily fended off a primary challenge from state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole, who had argued during the campaign that the state’s 1st District was in need of generational change…
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Israel was “not aligned with U.S. national security objectives,” noting, “I want there to be a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. I support Israel. I cannot support this government’s actions”…
James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas, said he would not vote to send further military aid to an Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that aid beyond that should be conditioned on Israeli policies in Gaza and the West Bank, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
Haverford College settled a lawsuit filed by a handful of students and the group Jews for Haverford over administrators’ handling of antisemitism on the Pennsylvania liberal arts campus…
The Information profiles Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, diving into his unorthodox leadership style and his tendency to rely on a small inner circle while ignoring outside advice — as the company approaches its IPO. Also detailed: Amodei’s South Florida meeting with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who had become friends with Amodei’s wife, Camilla Clark, about potential Anthropic funding (Kushner passed).…
Chabad of the Upper East Side and Park East Synagogue announced a new partnership that will see Chabad clergy, including longtime Rabbi Ben-Tzion Krasnianski, join the leadership of Park East alongside Rabbi Arthur Schneier…
The New Yorker reviews Wendy Wasserstein’s “An American Daughter,” a revival of which is now in previews at the Pershing Square Signature Center…
The Associated Press spotlights the Jews of Cochin, India, as the last remaining members of the community — the majority of which moved to Israel in the 20th century — work to preserve remnants of the past…
The Israeli government signed off on the redirection of approximately $333 million to the Ministry of Defense — including some $283 million from the Ministry of Economy — for urgent needs; the funds had originally been earmarked for Intel’s since-frozen expansion in Kiryat Gat…
The New York Times does a deep dive into Israeli and U.S. efforts to target Hezbollah’s funding sources and financial lifelines…
The Houthis claimed responsibility for an attack on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco refinery amid increasing tensions between the Iran-backed group in Yemen and Riyadh; the Saudi Energy Ministry confirmed a fire at the site but did not say what caused it…
Apollo Global Management in recent months appointed partner Reed Rayman to lead its AI sector and develop relationships to help the firm land more large AI infrastructure financings, The Information reports…
The founders of Israeli AI startup Decart are in advanced talks to sell the company to a major international technology company for approximately $6 billion-$7 billion, Calcalist reports…
Noach Hacker is joining the Israel Democracy Institute as vice president of policy…
Bill Goichberg, the founder of the Continental Chess Association who grew the field of competitive chess, died at 83…
Pic of the Day
In the season finale of Larry David’s “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness,” former President Barack Obama joins David for a sketch about the infamous tan suit that stirred controversy during a 2014 press conference. Watch the seven-minute clip of David and Obama here.
Birthdays
Former director of the Jewish Museum of Vienna, she was a founder of the German-language magazine Nu devoted to Jewish politics and culture, Danielle Spera (middle) turns 69…
CEO at Royal Health Services in Beverly Hills, Calif., Robert N. Feldman… Professor emeritus of biochemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Shimon Schuldiner turns 80… NYC-based real estate developer, he is the founder and principal of Clipper Equity, David Bistricer turns 77… Former governor of the South African Reserve Bank, the first woman to hold that position, Gill Marcus turns 77… Conservative rabbi who served as executive director of the Interfaith Alliance, Rabbi Jack Moline turns 74… Retired co-leader of the securities litigation practice at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, he is the co-president of NYC’s Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, Joseph S. Allerhand… Certified registered nurse anesthetist for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Edward Salkind… Author, media consultant and former film critic for The New York Post and The New York Daily News, Jami Bernard turns 70… Former member of the California state Senate, Steven Mitchell Glazer turns 69… Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel and Rishon LeZion since 2024, Rabbi David Yosef turns 69… Former member of the U.S. House of Representatives (D-MI), now a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, Andy Levin turns 66… Professor of physics and astronomy at Tel Aviv University, Yaron Oz turns 62… Tech entrepreneur, he served as a Washington state senator until 2023, Reuven Michael Carlyle turns 61… Former member of the Florida state Senate, he authored a book about his time as one of the first employees of Yahoo, Jeremy Ring turns 56… Deputy attorney general of Israel, Sharon Afek turns 56… Regional chief technology officer in the South Texas office of Technologent, Jason P. Reyes… Senior director of development for the NYC-based Tikvah Fund, Eytan Sosnovich… Marketing and editorial consultant, Sophie Vershbow… SVP of commodities compliance at Citibank, Jacob Cohen…
Plus, Jewish authors write their own ending
Samuel Corum/Getty Images
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters while aboard Air Force One on June 5, 2026 en route to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at concerns that President Donald Trump is ceding oversight to Iran as issues related to the Strait of Hormuz remain unresolved, and report on the opening of several literary houses that will focus on publishing Jewish authors. We interview Ludo Hood, who retired from the State Department last week after more than two decades of service, and report on the United Democracy Project’s involvement in the special election runoff in California’s 14th Congressional District to succeed Rep. Eric Swalwell. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Gov. Mikie Sherrill, Yoav Segalovitz and Lele Yutzy.
We also have a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: Jewish Democrats in Michigan weigh crossing party lines after El-Sayed’s Senate primary win; Dara Horn’s shocking new title hides a serious argument about fighting antisemitism; and Darline Graham, backed by Trump, still faces obstacles in bid to succeed brother in the Senate. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is meeting today with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Riyadh, where the three are slated to sign a joint defense agreement.
- We’re keeping an eye out for a public statement from Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) after his primary defeat last night. The far-right lawmaker, who had the backing of President Donald Trump, was ousted by Charlie Hatcher, the state’s former agriculture commissioner. In his remarks at his victory party last night, Hatcher said Ogles had called to concede.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS
A meme circulated on social media earlier this week depicting a cartoon version of President Donald Trump addressing different stages of negotiations with Iran. In it, the president cycles between “We’re going to bomb their power plants,” “They called us begging for a deal,” “They’re giving us everything we want” and “They’re scum, you can’t negotiate with these people.”
It’s perhaps the most accurate commentary on the situation that has unfolded since early July, as the U.S. and Iran have continued to exchange fire, with Iran striking Arab states around the region. Every few days, the stage resets. The endless loop of diplomacy and military strikes has thrown the countries into a situation that is equal parts “Groundhog Day” and “The Apprentice” — military strikes on loop, with a major breakthrough soon to come.
Indeed, Trump suggested on Tuesday that “a lot of progress had been made” in negotiations that would see the Strait of Hormuz reopened and signaled a deal on the strategic waterway could be announced as soon as this week.
His rhetoric echoes comments he has made in recent weeks teasing a diplomatic breakthrough that is right around the corner, while the consistent reality is that diplomacy has been cyclical, devoid of significant progress and increasingly beneficial to Tehran, which has learned that it only needs to wait out the situation — at least until the midterms, if not until 2029.
It also raises questions about the limits of American deterrence — especially when taken alongside recent reports of dwindling American weapons stockpiles.
Trump understands optics (and markets) perhaps better than any other world leader, hence his constant claims that a major diplomatic breakthrough could be days away — whereas Iran, unburdened by looming midterms and the realities that come with living in a democracy, can afford to wait it out as Washington runs through the endless narrative loop.
Almost as cyclical as Trump’s pronouncements are Iran’s near-immediate denials of the president’s claims: the regular insistence that a deal is far off and unlikely to happen without significant American and Israeli concessions.
STRAIT TALK
Trump’s push for a Hormuz deal alarms experts over terms ceding oversight to Iran
Experts are expressing growing concern over reports that an emerging deal between Iran and Oman to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could grant Tehran unprecedented oversight over the international shipping route, ceding control to Iran that it did not possess prior to the conflict, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Under the proposed terms, inbound commercial vessels would be directed through a northern route in Iranian waters, while outbound ships would traverse a southern route in Omani waters, managed in coordination with Iran.
Waterway worries: Although a U.S. official told the Associated Press that such a deal would preclude Iran from issuing formal approvals for transiting ships, tolls or service fees, regional analysts warn that formalizing Iranian oversight over the chokepoint represents a significant strategic concession. Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told JI, “President Trump is very eager for a deal that reopens the strait, and seems inclined to accept a deal under which Iran has greater oversight of ships entering and exiting the strait. The key is denying Iran any way of monetizing the flow of traffic through this international waterway.”
REGIONAL RIFT
Key Gulf states skip Amman summit on Jerusalem as Arab bloc omits Jewish ties to the city
A coalition of foreign ministers from Arab and Muslim countries met in Jordan on Wednesday to launch a coordinated campaign against Israeli policies in Jerusalem — a gathering marked both by the notable absence of key regional players and rhetoric that dismissed Jewish ties to the city, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
The meeting brought together diplomats from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Algeria, Iraq, Tunisia, Somalia and Morocco, alongside representatives from the Arab League, Indonesia, Details: Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia. Missing from the Amman summit were several close U.S. allies including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait. In a joint statement, the group denounced what it called an “unprecedented Israeli escalation in occupied Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian holy sites,” accusing Israel of trying to alter “the Arab Islamic and Christian identity of occupied Jerusalem and its legal and demographic status” — omitting any mention of Jewish historical or religious ties to the city.
PEOPLE OF THE BOOK
New Jewish ventures aim to publish what mainstream houses won’t — Israeli stories, Jewish names and all
A number of literary professionals have announced in recent weeks the launch of their own Jewish publishing companies, aimed at fulfilling a need for frustrated authors who say they’ve hit the same wall: agents advising them to cut Jewish names and references to Israel, editors going silent on submissions that once would have been fast sales and a mounting sense that the industry’s embrace of the #ownvoices storytelling trend — a hashtag used to amplify the work of diverse and minority voices — has an unspoken exception for Jewish writers, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Elevating voices: Meg Keene, an established nonfiction author who has sold more than 150,000 copies of her two books offering tips for wedding planning, recently announced the launch of Meg Keene Books, her own imprint at Wicked Son Press, a Jewish publisher known mostly for right-leaning nonfiction. “Earlier this year I got to the point where I realized I didn’t have anything left to lose,” Keene told JI. “Jews were having all these conversations behind the scenes but it felt like whoever came forward was going to destroy their career. I felt like I was in a position — because of my past in digital publishing and connection to editors, I knew how to do it. So many authors couldn’t sell their first book.”
PAC PLAY
UDP targets progressive state senator in race to replace Swalwell
After a night of mixed results in Tuesday’s primary elections, AIPAC’s United Democracy Project super PAC is turning its eyes toward the special election runoff in California’s 14th Congressional District, where progressive state Sen. Aisha Wahab and a moderate local mayor, Melissa Hernandez, are competing to replace disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
About the race: Wahab, seen as the heavy favorite, brings a record raises concerns for some members of the Jewish community — she has not been supportive of numerous priority bills and resolutions aimed at tackling antisemitism and has been a vocal critic of Israel, including describing the war in Gaza as a genocide and championing legislation in the state Senate on the issue. But one Jewish leader in the district expressed skepticism that UDP’s spending would defeat her, and warned that it risked pushing her further left.
BILL BUFFERING
Slotkin joins Cruz, Knott, Suozzi in leading federal buffer zone bill
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) joined Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Reps. Brad Knott (R-NC) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) on Thursday in introducing the Right to Worship Act, a federal bill that would ban activity that knowingly disrupts or impedes access to scheduled religious services within 100 feet of the entrance to a house of worship during that time, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Details: The bill would ban activity that “meaningfully interferes with the ability of people to participate in the scheduled religious service, to the extent that the conduct causes a substantial interruption to the service’s normal operation” or “unreasonably hinders or deters a person from entering a house of worship, or threatens or intimidates a person, in a manner that prevents participation at a scheduled religious service.” The bill would carry escalating civil fines for repeated offenses, as well as allow impacted individuals, the U.S. attorney general or a state attorney general to commence a civil suit under the law.
LIFTING THE HOOD
After two decades in diplomacy, Ludo Hood weighs in on antisemitism, Ukraine and Washington’s foreign policy battles
After a career in the foreign service, where officers are obliged to keep their political views to themselves and promote the positions of the current U.S. administration, some retiring diplomats have a hard time getting used to speaking their minds. Ludo Hood is not one of those people. The 53-year-old retired from the U.S. Foreign Service last week after two decades of service. Hood sat down with Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch this week to reflect on a career representing the U.S. that included stints working on Iran policy during negotiations for the 2015 nuclear deal, relations with Gulf states during the fraught Arab Spring and antisemitism policy in the tense aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in 2023.
Exception to the rule: Through all those foreign postings and geopolitical flashpoints, one of the most “alarming and shocking” moments of Hood’s time as a foreign service officer came within the halls of Foggy Bottom — when, in the months after Oct. 7, the State Department hosted listening sessions for staffers to express anti-Israel views and bash the policies espoused by the federal government. “It was the only time in my career where active dissent against the elected president’s overall policy and strategic direction was allowed to be aired in the open, and was actually in many ways encouraged,” Hood told JI.
Worthy Reads
Sanders’ Sensibilities: In The New York Times, Matthew Yglesias raises concerns about the “political judgments” of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as the Vermont senator has sought to boost the insurgent left — causing damage to the Democratic Party along the way. “The very top electoral performers among Democrats — lawmakers who have a record of results in districts most liberals would lose, like Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington State, Tom Suozzi of New York and Don Davis of North Carolina — are independent thinkers who are critical of Democratic Party leaders and the establishment. The difference is that rather than positioning themselves even further left than a party that most Americans think is too left-wing, they pick issues and rhetoric that are heterodox and often more restrained.” [NYTimes]
Back to School: In Fox News Opinion, Teach Coalition CEO Sydney Altfield calls for a “whole-of-society response” to mounting antisemitism as students head back to school, following an NYPD report indicating a significant increase in antisemitic hate crimes since the start of the year. “Administrators should say plainly that antisemitism is unacceptable, whether it appears as a threat, a slur, a swastika, harassment over Jewish identity or intimidation tied to Israel or Zionism. Further, education must be more than a one-off assembly after an incident. Students should learn what antisemitism is, how it mutates across political movements, conspiracy theories and social media trends and why targeting Jews corrodes civic life for everyone.” [FoxNews]
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Word on the Street
Vice President JD Vance was pressed by Senate Republicans at a lunch on Thursday to provide more transparency into the Trump administration’s decision-making on Iran…
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he was discharged from a rehabilitation center nearly two months after he was first hospitalized following a fall…
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) demanded that U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee step down over his handling of incidents in which U.S. citizens have allegedly been injured by the IDF and other Israelis…
Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) joined Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) in calling on Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), Moreno’s former son-in-law, to drop out of his reelection race and resign from Congress amid growing scrutiny of domestic violence allegations against Miller, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said on Wednesday that he believes Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan has put the state in play for Republicans in November. “He will quickly discover a primary is a much different situation in this state [than the general election], when you’re accountable for winning the other side. I can’t wait to see him campaign for the general. I have got my popcorn for that,” Fetterman told JI’s Emily Jacobs…
El-Sayed gave an extensive interview to The New York Times, in which he declined to say whether he’d continue to campaign with antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker, with whom he had appeared during the primary…
Politico looks at Republican efforts to win over disaffected Jewish and Black voters in Michigan following El-Sayed‘s primary win as the Michigan Democrat seeks to shore up support from the party’s base; El-Sayed has already reached out to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore as he looks to make inroads with Black voters…
In her first cable news interview since her Senate primary loss on Tuesday, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) told CNN that she identifies as “a Zionist Democrat in Michigan” and suggested that voters concerned about El-Sayed’s stance on Israel and rhetoric about the Jewish state “need to make a personal and private decision” as to who to support in November…
Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and 16 Democratic colleagues introduced the Honoring the Sacrifice of Troops in War Act, which aims to prevent the administration from manipulating Iran war casualty data and protects benefits for troops involved in the effort; Fetterman, who supports the Iran war and has broken with Democrats on other measures relating to it, is supporting the bill…
The Atlantic does a deep dive into how the U.S. “squandered” its advantage in the war with Iran, as Washington finds itself facing weapons shortages…
Reps. Derek Tran (D-CA), Ami Bera (D-CA) and Salud Carbajal (D-CA) led 65 House Democrats raising concerns about Israeli restrictions they said are preventing the entry of medical supplies and other humanitarian goods into Gaza…
Jonathan Cowan, president of the center-left group Third Way, told The New York Times that the group plans to spend $15 million ahead of the 2028 presidential election to target the Democratic Socialists of America after El-Sayed’s primary win in the Michigan Senate race…
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill‘s Mission to Deliver PAC endorsed a series of Democratic candidates with national security or military backgrounds, including Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) in his primary campaign to oust Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA)…
The Education Department announced probes into anti-Israel protests at San Jose State University and San Francisco State University, citing complaints alleging the schools’ administrators failed to adequately address antisemitism on campus…
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz sold his Hawaii estate for $36 million, 11 years after purchasing the property for $25 million…
Nazi warships deliberately sunk by the Germans as they retreated from Romania in 1944 are emerging in the Danube River in Serbia as the waterway faces dropping water levels due to drought and recent heat waves…
The United Arab Emirates has successfully transported more oil through the Strait of Hormuz in the last two months than any other country despite ongoing military hostilities in the area, Bloomberg reports, by utilizing tankers that switch off their transponders during the risky crossing…
Israel charged Israeli settler activist Yinon Levy with reckless homicide following the death last month of a Palestinian activist in the West Bank who was killed in a confrontation that occurred when Levy allegedly directed settlers to enter a private property and then shot at a group of Palestinians at the site…
Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid announced that MK Yoav Segalovitz is departing the party; the announcement came amid reports that Segalovitz is considering joining the Ra’am party, a move that would make him the first Jewish official on the Arab party’s ticket. In his new Substack, former crime reporter Ben Hartman examines how Segalovitz, formerly the head of Israel’s police intelligence and investigations branch, could shake up Israeli politics if he joins Ra’am…
Longtime former Likud MKs Gilad Erdan, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.N., and Yuli Edelstein announced the creation of a new, as-yet-unnamed party; the two former MKs said that they hoped to attract Likud voters disillusioned with the party’s direction under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with a special focus on military conscription…
Israeli media reported that Mossad head Roman Gofman dismissed the agency’s intelligence directorate head as well as the head of the Mossad’s Iran division over Israel’s failure to topple the Iranian regime earlier this year…
The Yemeni Defense Ministry said the Iran-backed Houthis attacked the internationally recognized government’s military forces in several locations — reportedly killing dozens of soldiers and officers — and that the military would retaliate against the terror group “at the appropriate time and place”…
Two former members of Iran’s national women’s soccer team were granted citizenship in Australia, where they sought humanitarian asylum earlier this year during a tournament in Melbourne…
California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Lele Yutzy as the state’s first director of its Office of Civil Rights, which was created under a bill enacted last year that acknowledged the prevalence of antisemitism in the state’s public schools and pledged to tackle discrimination…
The Simon Wiesenthal Center announced that Steve Gamer was joining the organization as chief development officer…
Find on-demand Live Briefing updates throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Pic of the Day
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar met on Thursday with Colombia’s incoming president, Abelardo de la Espriella, in Barranquilla, Colombia, one day before his official inauguration. According to a readout from Sa’ar’s office, the two discussed steps to strengthen diplomatic, security and economic relations between their countries.
Birthdays
Former professional soccer player, he played for the U.S. in the 2009 Maccabiah Games in Israel, Zac MacMath turns 35 today…
FRIDAY: Brooklyn resident, Esther Holler… Former U.S. trade representative and then U.S. secretary of commerce, both positions during the Clinton administration, Michael “Mickey” Kantor turns 87… Co-founder of the world-wide chain of Hard Rock Café, Peter Morton turns 79… Retired lieutenant general in the Israeli Air Force, he also served as chief of staff of the IDF, Dan Halutz turns 78… Former PR director for the New York Yankees and author of more than 20 books, Marty Appel turns 78… President of private equity firm Palisades Associates, former CEO of Empire Kosher Poultry, Greg Rosenbaum turns 74… Former U.S. intelligence analyst, he pled guilty to espionage in 1986 and was released from prison in 2015 and moved to Israel in 2020, Jonathan Pollard turns 72… Spiritual leader of Agudas Israel of St. Louis since 1986, Rabbi Menachem Greenblatt… Founder of the Cayton Children’s Museum in Santa Monica, Esther Netter… Former comptroller of the city of Rockville Centre, N.Y., Michael Schussheim turns 68… Television cook, YouTuber, restaurateur and cookbook author, known as Sam the Cooking Guy, Samuel D. Zien turns 67… City council president of Westlake, Ohio, David S. Greenspan turns 61… Professor of computational biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Liran Carmel turns 55… CEO at Capital Camps & Retreat Center after 14 years at AIPAC, Havi Arbeter Goldscher… Governor of Virginia, Abigail Spanberger turns 47… Financial news anchor for CNBC, Sara Aliza Eisen turns 42… Emmy Award-winning political reporter for The New York Times, Jonathan V. Swan turns 41… Public address announcer for both MLB’s Athletics and the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda, Amelia Schimmel… Former MLB catcher, he batted .350 with two home runs for Team Israel at the 2020 Olympics, he is now a catching instructor for the Chicago Cubs, Ryan Lavarnway turns 39… Senior faculty at Ariel University, Anna Harwood-Gross… Product management director at Signify Health, Estee Goldschmidt… Professional Super Smash Bros. player, known as Dabuz, Samuel Robert Buzby turns 33… Founder of Love For Our Elders, a global nonprofit organization in dozens of countries, Jacob Cramer turns 26… Scott Harrison…
SATURDAY: Actor and director, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1980 for “Kramer vs. Kramer” and in 1989 for “Rain Man,” Dustin Hoffman turns 89… Arlington Heights, Ill., resident, Elizabeth Gordon… Dutch diplomat and politician, he served as the speaker of the Dutch House of Representatives, Frans Weisglas turns 80… Greenwood Village, Colo., resident, Robert M. Schwartz… Tampa, Fla., resident, Roy D. Pulliam… Retired U.S. Army four-star general, who then served as the secretary of defense during the Biden administration, Lloyd James Austin III turns 73… Vancouver, Wash., resident, Juliana E. Miles Bagherpour… U.S. ambassador to Israel throughout the Trump 45 administration, David Melech Friedman turns 68… Former CEO of BusinessGhost, a ghostwriting firm that has written and published over 700 books, Michael Graubart Levin turns 68… Former managing general partner of MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays, Stuart L. Sternberg turns 67… Chess grandmaster, once ranked 8th in the world, he is the director of the Brooklyn Chess Academy, Leonid Yudasin turns 67… White House chief of staff for the first two years of the Biden administration, Ron Klain turns 65… Film director whose works include nine Disney films, Jon Turteltaub turns 63… Former chief justice of the Nevada Supreme Court, she continues to serve as a justice, Elissa F. Cadish turns 62… Digital strategist, he is the founding partner of Fuse, a consultancy, Jonah Seiger… Former book editor of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Action magazine, Rabbi Gil Ofer Student turns 54… Lead guitarist of the mathcore band the Dillinger Escape Plan, also playing rhythm guitar with the crossover thrash band Suicidal Tendencies, Benjamin A. Weinman turns 51… Film and television actor, Lindsay Sloane turns 49… MLB pitcher for 12 seasons and now chief baseball officer of the Boston Red Sox, Craig Breslow turns 46… Author, freelance writer and editor, she is a former dancer with the New York City Ballet, Sophie Flack turns 43… Managing principal at Rocktower Capital, Bara Lane… Canadian film, television and stage actor, Jacob Benjamin “Jake” Goldsbie turns 38… Digital director at the Jewish Democratic Council of America, Sarah Garfinkel… Founder and managing partner at Avid Ventures, Addie Lerner Katz… Director of marketing and communications at Alpha Epsilon Pi, Zachary Pellish… Creative producer for Airbnb, Morgan Furlong… Internet celebrity and fitness model, Jennifer Leigh “Jen” Selter turns 33… Jack Baum… Rob Schwartz…
SUNDAY: Prominent Sephardic rabbi in Tel Aviv, he was a member of the Knesset for the Shas party, Rabbi Moshe Maya turns 88… Physicist and venture capitalist, co-founder and senior advisor at New Markets Venture Partners, Donald M. “Don” Spero, Ph.D. turns 87… Comedian, actor, writer, director and author, son of a rabbi, he appeared 140 times on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show,” David Steinberg turns 84… Romance novelist with 25 books on the NYT bestseller lists, Barbara Delinsky (born Barbara Ruth Greenberg) turns 81… Author of more than 33 Jewish-themed books, he is an ordained rabbi as are two of his daughters, Seymour Rossel turns 81… Telecommunications consultant based in Chattanooga, Tenn., Mark Shapiro turns 80… Psychologist and bestselling suspense novelist, Jonathan Kellerman turns 77… Southern California resident, Faith Schames… Brigadier general (res.) in the Israeli Air Force, Amir Abraham Haskel turns 73… Executive director of the Steinhardt Family Foundation in Israel and executive director of the Henry S. and Mala Dorfman Family Foundation, Tova Dorfman… U.S. senator (R-KS), Roger Marshall, M.D. turns 66… Member of the Minnesota state Senate since 2007, Ronald Steven “Ron” Latz turns 63… Professor of French at Yale University, he is the inaugural director of the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism, Maurice Samuels turns 58… Chief of staff for Representative Jerrold Nadler for 25 years, she started a consulting practice in 2024, Amy Beth Rutkin… Founder of Tannenbaum Capital Group, Leonard M. Tannenbaum turns 55… Two-time Grammy Award-winning operatic soprano, songwriter and actor, Hila Plitmann turns 53… Assistant secretary for inter-departmental data integration for the Maryland Department of Human Services, Kirill Reznik turns 52… Reporter in the Washington bureau of The New York Times, he covers the confluence of money, politics and influence, Kenneth P. Vogel turns 51… Democratic political strategist, Rebecca Kirszner Katz… Chair of JEWELS (Jewish Education Where Every Level Succeeds), Jules Friedman turns 51… Drummer, popular on YouTube with over 300 million views, Meytal Cohen turns 43… CEO of the Israel on Campus Coalition since 2013, Jacob Baime… Real estate investor based in Cleveland, Ohio, Amanda Isaacson… Associate at K&L Gates LLP, Isaac Lederman… Israeli actor, best known for his role as Yanky Shapiro in the 2020 Netflix miniseries “Unorthodox,” Amit Rahav turns 31… SVP at Dezenhall Resources, he was previously communications director for the Republican Jewish Coalition and an RNC alum, Fred Brown… Elise Aronson… Dan Zimerman…
Plus, Hawaii's sleeper House race
(Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Abdul El-Sayed speaks to supporters at an election-night rally at the Majestic Theatre on August 04, 2026 in Detroit, Michigan.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover the fallout from Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow victory over Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, and talk to Jewish Democrats in the state who are considering crossing party lines to vote for GOP nominee Mike Rogers in the November election. We report on the obstacles facing Rep. Ed Case ahead of a challenge from his left in Saturday’s primary in Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District, and cover a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing examining Muslim Brotherhood networks and affiliates in the United States. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Benny Stanislawski, Tom Kahn and Gianni Infantino.
We also have a new on-demand Live Briefingthat you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Israel Editor Tamara Zieve and U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- U.S.-led talks between Israel and Lebanon in Rome are slated to conclude today, after yesterday’s discussion was cut short by several hours “due to events on the ground,” the State Department said.
- The decision to pause talks came after the IDF conducted strikes in southern Lebanon over what it said were “blatant violations” of the ongoing ceasefire by Hezbollah, including an incident in which two IDF reservists were killed and four seriously wounded by an explosive device in southern Lebanon.
- Reports continue to indicate Iran and Oman are inching toward a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz after earlier agreements on the issue fell apart. An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday that Tehran and Muscat were close to finalizing an agreement, so long as “certain parties do not obstruct this process” — an apparent reference to the U.S.
- Tennessee is holding its primary elections today. In the state’s 5th District, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), a far-right lawmaker, is facing a serious primary challenge from Charlie Hatcher, a former state commissioner of agriculture.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MATTHEW KASSEL
Abdul El-Sayed’s narrow victory over Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in Michigan’s bruising Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday is forcing many Jewish leaders in the state to confront an uncomfortable decision as they now look ahead to the general election in November.
Several Jewish Democrats in the battleground state are now indicating that they will break with a party they have long called home and instead vote for the Republican nominee, Mike Rogers, in the November election, citing their continued alarm over El-Sayed’s hostile rhetoric toward Israel as well as remarks they have interpreted as indifferent to rising antisemitism, among other concerns.
“I can’t vote for El-Sayed,” Michael Horowitz, a Jewish community leader and Detroit businessman who supported Stevens, a pro-Israel moderate, told Jewish Insider. “So many things I find despicable about him, not the least of which is his close association with Hasan Piker,” the antisemitic Twitch streamer, who Horowitz said “demeans America, demeans Jews and demeans all but the most radical among us.”
Horowitz confirmed he was now “leaning strongly to Rogers,” a former congressman who narrowly lost in his bid for Senate last cycle. “And I have heard from many in the Jewish community who say they will be supporting Rogers,” he said on Wednesday.
Hannan Lis, a Democratic fundraiser and Jewish leader who splits his time between Michigan and Israel, was among those who had told JI before the primary that he would vote for Rogers in the general election if El-Sayed won the nomination, noting he knows “many” Jewish Democrats who plan to do the same.
His reservations about Republicans preserving their Senate majority by picking up the Michigan seat held by retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), he clarified, were superseded by his objections to El-Sayed’s stances on Israel and responses to antisemitism. “El-Sayed is no Democrat,” he claimed.
CASE STUDY
Generational challenge threatens Ed Case in Hawaii’s under-the-radar primary
Rep. Ed Case (D-HI), a moderate pro-Israel Democrat in Hawaii who was first elected to the House in 2002, has not drawn a serious primary threat in several years. Now, as he prepares to defend his seat in a primary on Saturday that has largely flown under the radar, some Democrats are warning that the 73-year-old could be at risk of losing to a younger challenger capitalizing on a national political environment that has proven unfavorable to Democratic incumbents amid broader calls for generational change from the party’s activist base, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
While you were sleeping: “It’s one of those sleeper races where there’s definitely an upset brewing,” said a Democratic operative who worked on the Case campaign until a few months ago, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid professional reprisals. “Ed is running a poor race,” the former staffer told JI, echoing other observers who described a sluggish approach in which Case has largely foregone campaign events and avoided debates with his opposition.
ON THE HILL
Cruz links El-Sayed’s victory to Muslim Brotherhood network in United States
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), speaking at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that he organized to examine Muslim Brotherhood networks and affiliates in the U.S., suggested that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed was tied to such networks and that his Democratic primary win represented a victory for them. “Behind El-Sayed’s political rise sits a much older and more entrenched institutional network,” Cruz asserted, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Zoom out: Kyle Shideler, a senior analyst for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, testified under questioning from Cruz that El-Sayed’s win concerned him given the nominee’s father-in-law’s ties to Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups and El-Sayed’s own relationship with groups connected to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “It shows the success of the Muslim Brotherhood network over multiple decades. It achieved what they said they were going to achieve, which was to normalize support for Hamas and normalize support for terrorism,” Shideler said.
COMMUNITY CONCERN
Jewish Dems ‘disappointed’ in Michigan Senate results, stop short of endorsing El-Sayed
Jewish groups expressed concern on Wednesday about the victory of Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, highlighting his extreme rhetoric on Israel and the broader rise of the far left, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Reactions: Jewish Democratic Council of America CEO Halie Soifer said in a statement that the group was “disappointed” by the results of the primary, in which the group had endorsed and campaigned strongly for Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI). Soifer congratulated but stopped short of endorsing El-Sayed. AIPAC, while declining to preview specific plans, indicated it intends to stay engaged in the Michigan race through November. “Our members remain determined to ensure that voters reject Dr. El-Sayed and his radical anti-Israel agenda in November,” spokesperson Deryn Sousa told JI.
Trump’s take: President Donald Trump, speaking at an event in Las Vegas on Wednesday, said al-Sayed “hates Jews and he hates Israel,” adding, “He’s a man of hate, and now he’s going around saying, ‘Oh I love everybody.’ He doesn’t love everybody. Put him in office, and you’re going to find out what he loves.”
WITHHOLDING SUPPORT
Moderate Michigan Rep. Hillary Scholten does not offer endorsement of El-Sayed
Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI), a moderate Michigan lawmaker representing a swing district, broke with most other Democratic members of the state’s congressional delegation in declining to offer an explicit endorsement of Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, after offering strident criticism of him during the primary campaign, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Matthew Shea report.
What she said: “Congratulations to everyone who participated in Michigan’s hard-fought primary elections last night, and thank you to every voter who made your voice heard. In these close elections, we want you to know — you are HEARD,” Scholten said in a statement that did not mention El-Sayed. “Now our focus turns forward. I’ve always said I’ll work with anyone committed to lowering costs, expanding affordable health care, creating more opportunity, and fighting corruption. I mean that.”
Phone a friend: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani refused to close the door on a trip to Michigan to campaign for El-Sayed, whom Mamdani praised for what he described as a focus on “the concerns of working-class Americans” — even as he tried to explain away El-Sayed’s poor performance in the areas where working-class voters live, JI’s Will Bredderman reports.
RACE RHETORIC
El-Sayed calls Israel ‘bloodthirsty’ in first post-primary TV interview
Appearing on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, Abdul El-Sayed doubled down on his criticism of Israel, calling the Jewish state “bloodthirsty” and saying his critiques go beyond the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports.
What he said: “I think we’ve seen the worst of what the Israeli government has done [under Netanyahu] but don’t forget that we’ve been talking about an illegal apartheid regime for a very, very long time, and that supersedes Netanyahu himself,” El-Sayed said. “I understand that Netanyahu is a big reason why they’ve gotten so aggressive and frankly so bloodthirsty under his reign, but I also understand that it’s impossible for us to say we want a two-state solution while we’ve been aiding, arming and abetting the very people who have been trying to foreclose on the possibility of a Palestinian state.”
It’s all over: Democrats quickly coalesced behind El-Sayed after the far-left candidate narrowly clinched victory in Michigan’s Democratic primary on Wednesday morning, while Republicans quickly pounced on his extremist history and ties, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
Worthy Reads
Reassessing Reality: The Atlantic‘s Jonathan Chait contends that, in order to wrest back their party from the far left, moderate Democrats will have to reevaluate some of their core stances, including support for AIPAC and Israel. “Fending off a leftist insurgency will be all but impossible unless Democrats reject AIPAC’s endorsements and stop supporting unconditional aid for an Israel that no longer works toward a two-state solution. Democrats also have to stop passively allowing multiple candidates to split the mainstream vote while the leftist vote consolidates behind a single candidate, as occurred in Michigan’s Seventh District and the Wisconsin governor’s race. But the greatest challenge for mainstream liberals is to find a way to engage in and win the substantive argument with the left.” [TheAtlantic]
Lemons into Lemonade: Tablet‘s Jacob Siegel argues that the U.S.-Israel alliance is loosening, and that the moment presents an opportunity for Israel to reduce its dependence on Washington and diversify its alliances. “A greater degree of separation between the United States and Israel is not only inevitable, it is desirable. Many supporters of Israel seem to be aware only of the significant challenges that this will create for the small country. They overlook the significant opportunities it presents for Israel’s growth. … With the chapter closing on its role as an outsize client state, Israel needs to develop itself as an independent regional power that is a desirable partner by virtue of its ability to innovate technologies and project force.” [Tablet]
Fashion Faux Pas: In The New York Times, John Galliano biographer Dana Thomas cautions against the decision by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to honor the designer, who was convicted of antisemitic abuse after praising Adolf Hitler. “Not all great creators deserve a retrospective, and someone as incendiary as Mr. Galliano certainly shouldn’t be the subject of one during his lifetime, when he stands to profit from the honor personally. With ‘John Galliano: Horizons,’ the Met and Ms. Wintour are selling the idea that they can tell the rest of us how to think about a difficult and divisive figure. Maybe they didn’t notice that idea has gone badly out of fashion.” [NYTimes]
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Word on the Street
Asked about an Axios report that claimed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “confronted” him over their diverging policy views during his visit to Washington last week, Vice President JD Vance said in an interview on Fox News on Wednesday, “He didn’t confront me. We had a nice and frank conversation. … I would describe it as a pleasant but direct conversation”…
The White House denied a Washington Post report that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth clashed last week at Camp David over the war in Iran; the Post reported that the president asked why he had been misled about a shortage of munitions…
A group of far-right figures, including Tucker Carlson, outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and former National Counterterrorism Center head Joe Kent — who gathered over the weekend at Carlson’s Maine home — are considering launching a third-party political organization…
The Israeli Foreign Ministry denounced a joint statement adopted by Arab states — including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt, among others — whose foreign ministers convened in Jordan on Wednesday to discuss Israel’s policies in Jerusalem and said that Israel, which the statement claimed “has no sovereignty” over the city, had “alter[ed] the Arab Islamic and Christian identity of occupied Jerusalem”…
The IDF is investigating a reported arson attack by Israeli settlers in a Palestinian village in the West Bank overnight in which suspects allegedly set fire to homes and attacked residents, including children…
A new Israel Democracy Institute survey found that a majority of Israelis believes the integrity of the October election is in danger…
The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen said on Wednesday that they struck a Saudi oil tanker in the northern Red Sea, escalating the group’s stated blockade against Riyadh and strikes on Saudi ships that have thus far been focused in the southern Red Sea, near the Bab el-Mandeb strait…
James Stavridis, former supreme allied commander of NATO, argues in Bloomberg that a Saudi-led naval coalition could help protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea from Houthi attacks, though it would likely still require U.S. and European intelligence and logistical support to be effective…
An Azerbaijani official said on Turkish TV that Baku lobbied Israel to stop the Knesset from voting to recognize the Armenian genocide…
FIFA officials gathered in Morocco this week reaffirmed their support for Gianni Infantino, days after the FIFA president faced widespread criticism from within the organization over a plan to privatize elements of the World Cup…
The Atlantic investigates whether al-Qaida, 25 years after the 9/11 attacks, is quietly rebuilding or if its core organization is effectively defunct…
A new poll shows left-wing Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva‘s lead over conservative challenger Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, narrowing ahead of the country’s October elections…
Benny Stanislawski, previously the communications director for Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), is joining Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Brooks‘ congressional campaign as communications director…
American University’s School of Public Affairs named Tom Kahn as director of its Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies; Kahn, who served as acting director for the past year, was the longest-serving staff director in history for the House Budget Committee…
Find on-demand Live Briefing updates throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Pic of the Day
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law hosted 34 law students from leading law schools, including Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, NYU and Vanderbilt, for its three-day Law Student Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., this week. The students received training in civil rights law, Title VI, free speech and advocacy on behalf of Jewish students from a range of experts, including Brandeis Center founder Ken Marcus, pictured here addressing attendees.
Birthdays
Actor, director, producer and screenwriter, Soleil Moon Frye turns 50…
Retired founding partner of the Jaffe Family Law Group, Daniel J. Jaffe turns 89… Esports executive and casino owner, he is a three-time bracelet winner at the World Series of Poker, Lyle Berman turns 85… Professor emerita and former dean at Bar Ilan University, Malka Elisheva Schaps turns 78… Film director, television director, producer and screenwriter, Brian Michael Levant turns 74… Austrian businessman with many U.S., Israeli and Eastern European investments, Martin Schlaff turns 73… Former state treasurer of Virginia and then state secretary of finance, she is now a gourmet popcorn manufacturer, Jody Moses Wagner turns 71… Professor of public diplomacy at The Fletcher School of Tufts University, she was formerly undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, Tara D. Sonenshine turns 67… Professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at The George Washington University Medical Center, Alan J. Lipman, Ph.D. turns 66… Israeli diplomat, he served as Israel’s consul general in NYC between 2000 and 2004, Alon Pinkas turns 65… NASA astronaut who spent 198 days on the International Space Station, he brought 18 bagels from his family’s bagel store in Montreal into space, Gregory Chamitoff turns 64… Chair of White & Case’s white collar practice group, Joel M. Cohen… Executive director of public affairs and policy communications at the American Council on Education, Jonathan Riskind… CEO of Elluminate (formerly known as the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York), Melanie Roth Gorelick… Vice chair of Jewish California and a board member of JFNA and JCRC Bay Area, Susie Sorkin… Television and radio sports anchor on ESPN and ABC, he was one-half of the “Mike & Mike” team but now hosts his own ESPN morning program, Mike Greenberg turns 59… Chief economist at The Burning Glass Institute, Gad Levanon, Ph.D…. Law professor and associate dean at Michigan State University College of Law, David Blankfein-Tabachnick turns 55… Former boxing commentator and co-host of ESPN’s “This Just In,” Yiddish speaking Max Kellerman turns 53… Co-founder and former CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick turns 50… Founder and CEO at Climb Together which helps prepare people from low-income backgrounds for entry level jobs, Nitzan Pelman… Screenwriter and television producer, he is best known for creating and executive producing the Fox teen drama “The O.C.,” Joshua Ian Schwartz turns 50… Former comms director for Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral general election campaign, Jeffrey Lerner… Creative director and visual strategist, Rachel Gogel… Member of the New York State Assembly, Simcha Eichenstein turns 43… Winner of two gold medals in swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, he is now CEO of Gather Campgrounds north of Austin, Garrett Weber-Gale turns 41… Director of strategy and policy at K2 Space Corporation, he is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, Corey A. Jacobson… Reporter at San Antonio Express-News, Elizabeth Teitz… Special advisor at the Department of Homeland Security and former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Hunter Pollack turns 29…
Plus, Dara Horn's provocative new title
Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images)
St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell gives remarks during the Ferguson mayoral inauguration ceremony for Ella James at the Urban League Empowerment Center on June 17, 2020 in Ferguson, Missouri.
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover the results so far of yesterday’s key primary races in Michigan and Missouri and speak to experts about concerns over the U.S.’ dwindling stockpiles of long‑range missiles and air-defense interceptors. We talk to lawmakers about their views on the U.S.-led Board of Peace’s Hamas disarmament framework and report on plans by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Federal Courts subcommittee to boycott a hearing today set to examine Muslim Brotherhood networks in the U.S. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Omer Shem Tov, Dara Horn and Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun.
We also have a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- In one of the first primary races to be called last night, Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) soundly defeated Cori Bush as the far-left former congresswoman attempted to reclaim her St. Louis-area seat two years after she was ousted.
- Abdul El-Sayed holds a narrow lead in the Michigan Senate primary against Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), with results expected to be called later today.
- Meanwhile, Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI), seen as a reliable pro-Israel ally, is trailing against DSA-aligned challenger state Rep. Donavan McKinney, who ran on an anti-Israel platform.
- And in the battleground Michigan 7th District, left-wing activist William Lawrence prevailed with a plurality of the vote, largely because of a split between his two moderate challengers. More below.
- The U.S. is hoping to announce a deal with Iran and Oman over the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, Axios reports, which would see Tehran gain greater control over the key waterway than it had before the war. No fees or tolls could be charged under the 60-day temporary agreement, but inbound traffic would be required to transit through Iranian territorial waters.
- On the Hill this afternoon, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is holding a classified briefing on the situation in Sudan.
- Jordan is convening foreign ministers from Muslim countries today to formulate a plan to combat what Amman said were “escalatory and illegitimate Israeli measures that target the identity of Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian sanctuaries.”
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
Rumors of the demise of the mainstream, pro-Israel wing of the Democratic Party turned out to be somewhat exaggerated: The Michigan Senate race between Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Abdul El-Sayed is a lot closer than polls suggested, while Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) romped to victory over his anti-Israel opponent, with the help of pro-Israel, Jewish supporters.
Bell’s sweeping 22-point victory in a rematch over former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) was an early election night highlight for Jewish and pro-Israel groups, which poured money and organizing efforts into ensuring the virulently anti-Israel Bush didn’t get a chance to return to Congress. AIPAC’s super PAC spent over $3 million on ads attacking Bush as corrupt and extreme, resources which likely played a key role in Bell’s landslide margin.
There were some other silver linings for the moderate side of the Democratic Party on Tuesday night: Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss won comfortably to succeed Stevens despite facing attacks over his pro-Israel record from his opponents. And Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the moderate ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee who faced harassment and threats over his longstanding pro-Israel record, won a clear majority of the vote against far-left challengers in Washington state’s all-party primary.
But there were plenty of warning signs about the changing ideological direction of the Democratic Party, as we’ve previously seen in deep-blue congressional districts across the country. Despite Stevens’ closer-than-expected showing, she still trails El-Sayed even after winning endorsements from top Democratic officials (including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer) and being the beneficiary of tens of millions in outside spending led by AIPAC’s ad blitz.
The results paint a picture of a Democratic Party deeply divided, with older voters, Black voters and Jewish voters forming the centrist coalition, which is facing an insurgency from the left made up of younger voters, white progressives and Arab Americans.
MISSILE MATH
As Iran war depletes U.S. missile stocks, experts warn deterrence is at risk
Experts are warning that the United States’ dwindling stockpiles of long‑range missiles and air-defense interceptors following the war with Iran could complicate Washington’s ability to deter adversarial aggression and maintain military readiness in other theaters, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Reuters first reported that the U.S. has expended much of its inventory of highly accurate long‑range missiles during the conflict, while significantly drawing down stocks of Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors used to defend against ballistic missile attacks.
State of stockpiles: “The United States has a longstanding defense industrial crisis, whether it’s in munitions, missiles, shipbuilding or other areas,” Alexander Gray, who served as chief of staff on the National Security Council during President Donald Trump’s first administration, told JI. “It has constrained the ability to replenish our war fighters but also to make sure our partners and allies get what they need. Sustained operations against Iran are showing just how challenging this industrial base capacity problem is.”
DEAL IN DOUBT
Lawmakers from both parties pessimistic Trump’s Hamas disarmament deal will hold
U.S. lawmakers expressed deep skepticism on Tuesday over the Board of Peace’s newly announced Hamas disarmament framework, pointing to violations already taking place in Gaza and a lack of indications that Hamas is serious about honoring a deal as evidence that the ambitious peace proposal faces near-insurmountable hurdles, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea and Marc Rod report.
“There will be no real peace for Gaza or Israel as long as Hamas has weapons and is allowed to ruthlessly rule over innocent Palestinians,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) told JI. “I’m cautiously encouraged by this plan, but let’s not kid ourselves — Hamas has a long record of lying, and they’ve broken their word before, over and over. I’ll be watching every step of this until Hamas is fully disarmed.” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told JI, “I suspect that while this may have good intentions to it, I’ll believe it when I actually see it happening.”
Read the full story here with additional comments from Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and John Kennedy (R-LA).
Israeli response: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affirmed on Tuesday that the IDF will “not withdraw from the current lines in Gaza until Hamas is completely disarmed.” President Donald Trump “thinks, and his team thinks, that Hamas can be totally disarmed and Gaza demilitarized. We’re looking into it,” Netanyahu continued in a video posted to Facebook in Hebrew. “They sent us a draft, we didn’t agree. It wasn’t our draft. We sent our responses.”
HEARING HAVOC
Democrats plan to boycott Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on Muslim Brotherhood
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Federal Courts subcommittee said on Tuesday that they plan to boycott a subcommittee hearing on Wednesday set to examine Muslim Brotherhood networks in the United States. The Democrats — Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Peter Welch (D-VT) — dismissed the hearing as an effort to attack Muslims broadly, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
What they said: “Scapegoating Muslims may be a Texas Republican strategist’s idea of ‘solid gold’ to whip up their voters, but Democrats have no intention of indulging this political creepshow, particularly after the recent violence targeting places of faith,” the lawmakers said in a statement. “Our focus is the costs families face thanks to rampant, non-stop Trump corruption.”
DIGITAL FOOTPRINT
Florida synagogue vandal shared Mamdani’s anti-Netanyahu video
A Florida man accused of hurling a brick through the front window of a Sarasota Chabad House shared New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s video labeling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal” just days before the crime, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports.
Details: Local police arrested 30-year-old Brayton Laschinger on July 31 and charged him with felony criminal mischief for the attack two days prior on the Lubavitch Chabad of Downtown SRQ. The Sarasota Police Department stated that Laschinger had admitted to targeting the synagogue “because it was a Jewish place of worship” — and had blamed “propaganda on social media” for enraging him in the hours before the vandalism.
HORNS AND HATE
Jewish Colorado AG targeted with campaign poster depicting him with devil horns
A campaign poster circulating among Colorado Republicans depicts Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is Jewish and whose family members are Holocaust survivors, with devil horns, which critics say invokes a classic antisemitic trope, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Weiser is the Democratic nominee for governor of Colorado.
Background: The poster promotes, but was not created by, Victor Marx, the GOP gubernatorial nominee, who has a bizarre and extremist history, including claiming to have killed and exorcised several people. It describes Weiser, depicted in front of a menacing background, as “the next threat to Colorado” and “radical,” “extreme” and “dangerous.” Marx responded supportively to an X post by the image’s creator calling for unity among Colorado Republicans, which included a version of the devil horns image.
BOOKSHELF
Dara Horn’s shocking new title hides a serious argument about fighting antisemitism
If you thought People Love Dead Jews — Dara Horn’s 2021 essay collection examining society’s reverence for remembering deceased Jews while failing to support the living ones — was an awkward book to read in public, just wait until you get your hands on Horn’s newest title: The Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Horn is in on the joke; she likes to say that both titles make great beach reads because no one will dare sit within several feet of you, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Author’s intention: But despite borrowing its title from the name of the Nazis’ infamous plan to rid Europe of its 11 million Jews during World War II, Horn’s latest book, which will be published on Sept. 1, is not a Nazi manifesto. Instead, the title of Horn’s new book serves as an eye-catching, subversive dog whistle that is meant to pique the interest of antisemites — while also serving as a cheeky summary of Horn’s goal of actually trying to come up with a solution to the wave of antisemitism that has swept the world in recent years. “I am providing a solution. Not a solution in terms of, like, ‘Here’s 10 policy points we should implement,’” Horn told JI. “It’s, ‘Here’s the story we need to be telling about who we are, to ourselves and to everyone else,’ and this is the story that is going to inspire people to imagine a better future.”
Worthy Reads
The Subaru Socialists: In The New Yorker, Jay Caspian Kang writes that a rising bloc of young, college-educated and downwardly mobile Democrats — for whom the war in Gaza has become a defining political litmus test — is remaking the party in the image of far-left Democrats such as Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed and Melat Kiros. “The future of the Democratic Party involves a synthesis of Subaru Socialism’s disillusionment with the American promise and the polarized, hard-line moralizing of Gen Z. Young voters aren’t the only angry ones, of course; older Democrats are still understandably furious at a party that lost to Donald Trump twice and seems to have done precious little to stand in his way during the past year and a half. But it’s younger voters who have begun to give a political form and shape to that reactionary anger.” [NewYorker]
The Trouble with the Tent: In The Spectator, Alex Castellanos warns of the dangers of the Democratic Party’s “Big Tent” policy. “The Big Tent is the party’s latest dance craze. They thought they’d found a clever dodge: a Democrat in a swing district could say he did not personally favor abolishing prisons or nationalizing large industries. His party simply contained many different opinions. But voters see something more frightening: the Big Tent is the Democratic party’s public invitation to socialism. It lays out a welcome mat for communism to enter the Democratic party’s home. Establishment Democrats know that such views have moved aggressively into their coalition, but they refuse to say they are disqualifying.” [Spectator]
Memorandum of Misunderstanding: Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren contends in his Substack, “Clarity,” that the Hamas disarmament deal is likely to go the way of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding and become muddled in the parties’ different interpretations of their obligations. “The question is: Will Hamas really give up its guns? A closer reading of the agreement reveals that Hamas will not initially turn over its weapons but only put them in NCAG storage. Further ambiguity surrounds the definition of the word ‘weapons’ — whether it refers only to rockets and rocket-propelled grenades, as Hamas prefers, or to all small arms as well. Added to those uncertainties is the matter of reciprocity. … As in the case of Iran, an MOU can be open to widely divergent interpretations and radically altered circumstances. In the Gaza Strip, no less than in the Strait of Hormuz, an MOU may lead not to peace but to further upheaval.” [Substack]
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Word on the Street
State Department antisemitism envoy Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun criticized Canadian officials’ “muted” response to a series of recent antisemitic attacks around the country, suggesting that Ottawa put in place visa restrictions and terrorism listings to restrict entry to those who seek “to sow discord”…
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) blasted Stony Brook University over its failure to take action against a professor who has been involved in anti-Israel activism, including reportedly harassing and accosting patrons at a Long Island restaurant, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, urged pro-Israel college students to distinguish between protected speech and actionable discriminatory conduct — “people literally interfering with your ability to get an education” — when facing antisemitism on campus. Dhillon made the comments on Tuesday at the conclusion of the Israel on Campus Coalition’s National Leadership Summit in Washington, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…
Days before he was confirmed as director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, who was still serving as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, wrote a letter to the mother of slain Jewish teenager Ari Halberstam, who was killed in a 1994 terror attack targeting a bus of yeshiva students on the Brooklyn Bridge, saying that the office he was exiting was “prepared to pursue” any additional evidence in the case “to the fullest extent of the law”…
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro makes an appearance alongside rapper Meek Mill in the Philadelphia native’s latest music video, “Nightmares to Dreams”…
A Michigan cider brewery where Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) hosted a campaign event the night before the state’s Senate primary election issued a statement saying it regretted hosting the event, citing Stevens’ support for Israel, JI’s Gabby Deutch reports…
In a debate between CNN commentators David Axelrod and Van Jones about Michigan’s Senate primary, Axelrod described AIPAC asa foreign agent, saying, “Should essentially an agent of any foreign government, whether it’s Israel or any other, be able to spend … $30 million in a race like this to influence the outcome of that race?” Van Jones responded, “I don’t think that they’re an agent of a foreign power. I think they’re American Jews”…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani disbanded the entire business-led advisory board of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City as he reshapes the nonprofit’s donor network amid deepening friction with the city’s corporate establishment…
U.K. Conservative Party head Kemi Badenoch defended her backing of a local election candidate who had previously been imprisoned for racially aggravated harassment against a Jewish member of Parliament…
Antisemitic assaults across the United Kingdom jumped 82% in the first half of 2026, according to data from the Community Security Trust…
The Financial Times spotlights an “Election War Room” led by Israeli activists who fear that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government will try to manipulate or delegitimize October’s election…
Former Mossad head David Barnea was named global president and chairman of Florida-based defense technology firm Ondas…
X, the social media platform, announced on Tuesday that it is complying with a Turkish court order restricting access within the country to the presidential candidacy account of imprisoned Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, though the company is legally challenging the order…
The Wall Street Journal examines Iran’s hardline approach to maintaining control over the Strait of Hormuz in its negotiations with the U.S…
Longtime U.S. diplomat Ludovic Hood, who previously served as a senior advisor in the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism under Amb. Deborah Lipstadt, is joining the Hudson Institute as a senior fellow at the think tank’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East…
In The New York Times on Tuesday, Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison defended his bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, casting the merged company as a modest player against tech giants and vowing to keep CNN and CBS News ideologically independent…
Appearing on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” the same morning, TKO Group CEO and WME executive chairman Ari Emanuel proposed putting an editorial board in place to run CNN, to ease fears that Ellison could end up controlling the network and CBS…
Shoham Nicolet was announced as the next president of the Adelson Family Foundation, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports…
Find on-demand Live Briefing updates throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Pic of the Day
Omer Shem Tov, who was held hostage by Hamas in Gaza for 505 days, addressed the Israel on Campus Coalition’s National Leadership Summit in Washington on Tuesday.
Birthdays
Actor who starred in “Weekend at Bernie’s,” his father and grandfather were both rabbis, Jonathan Elihu Silverman turns 60…
Chairman of Delphi Capital Management, he is the founder and chairman of Open to Debate, a public policy debate series, Robert Rosenkranz turns 84… Former chairman of the World Zionist Organization who later served as chairman of the Jewish National Fund, Avraham Duvdevani turns 81… Former Israeli ambassador to France following seven years as a member of the Knesset, Yael German turns 79… Author of 25 nonfiction books, including The Portable Curmudgeon, Zen to Go and Advice to Writers, Jon Winokur turns 79… Historian, Nazi hunter and director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem until 2024, Efraim Zuroff turns 78… Banker, once known as “Austria’s woman on Wall Street” and founder of Bank Medici in 1994, Sonja Kohn turns 78… Former Soviet refusenik, he served as speaker of the Knesset for seven years, Yuli-Yoel Edelstein turns 68… Intellectual property and entertainment attorney based in Ithaca, New York, he is an adjunct professor of law at both Cornell, Syracuse and Touro, Howard Leib… Member of the British House of Lords, he was chief executive of the Office of the Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks and then chief executive of the United Jewish Israel Appeal, Baron Jonathan Andrew Kestenbaum turns 67… Former hedge fund executive, Murray Huberfeld… Songwriter, author, political columnist and noted baseball memorabilia collector, Seth Swirsky turns 66… Chair of the Department of Jewish History at Baltimore’s Beth Tfiloh Dahan High School, Neil Rubin Ph.D…. President at ConservAmerica, he is an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Jeffrey Kupfer… President of the Center for Jewish History in NYC and professor at Fairfield University, Gavriel David Rosenfeld turns 59… Former member of the Knesset for the Kulanu party, Roy Folkman turns 51… Former director of the Center for Middle East Policy at The Brookings Institution, now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, Natan Sachs… Investment and foundation manager at Denver-based Race Street Management and a board member of JFNA, Cintra Pollack… VP of federal affairs at the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Matt Mandel… Chairman of The New York Times Company and publisher of The New York Times, Arthur Gregg “A.G.” Sulzberger turns 46… Professional boxer who held the WBA super welterweight title from 2009 to 2010, in 2014 he was ordained as a rabbi and then known as the “Boxing Rabbi,” Yuri Foreman turns 46… Former director of responsible innovation at Meta/Facebook, now a consultant, he is also the spiritual leader of Chochmat HaLev, a progressive spiritual community in Berkeley, Calif., Zvika Krieger… Member of the comedy duo Jake and Amir, Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz turns 41… Longtime member of the Israeli national soccer team who also played in Europe’s UEFA Champions League, Gil Vermouth turns 41… Co-founder of Cadence, an AI-driven performance nutrition platform designed specifically for active women, Lila Cohn… Website manager at Upsun, Abby Milberg… 2023 graduate of Harvard Law School, now an assistant corporation counsel for New York City, Michael E. Snow… Senior practice associate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Lisa Geller… Leslie Saunders… Senior director of bridge building at Repair the World, Anyu Silverman…
Plus, NYPD says antisemitism surged under Mamdani
(Robin Buckson/Detroit News via AP, Pool)
Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed, left, and Rep. Haley Stevens participate in a televised debate moderated by Roop Raj, Monday, July 27, 2026, in Southfield, Mich.
Good Tuesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover former Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer’s observations on the U.S.-Israel relationship, and report on new statistics from the NYPD that indicate a rise in antisemitic hate crimes since New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took office at the beginning of the year. We look at the challenges facing Sen. Darline Graham in the GOP primary as she makes a bid for a full Senate term, and cover the more than $1.3 billion in security aid requested by nonprofits in 2026. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Zach Dell, Iranian Chief Rabbi Yehuda Gerami and Christina Paxson.
We also have a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- It’s primary day in Michigan, Kansas, Missouri, Virginia and Washington state.
- In Michigan, Democrats will head to the polls to cast their ballots in the heated Senate race between Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Abdul El-Sayed that has become the latest flashpoint in the party’s debate over its ideological future.
- Among the House primaries we’re watching in Michigan: Rep. Shri Thanedar’s (D-MI) effort to hold onto his seat amid a formidable primary challenge from far-left former state Rep. Donavan McKinney; the Democratic primary to take on Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI) in which a leading candidate said it was a “moral necessity” to end aid to Israel; and the race for Stevens’ House seat that has been marred by allegations of antisemitism.
- In Missouri, Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) is facing a rematch against former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), whom he unseated two years ago. Read more about the race here.
- Israeli and Lebanese officials are meeting today in Rome for the latest round of U.S.-brokered talks aimed at calming tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border and demilitarizing Hezbollah as the Iran-backed group continues to operate in southern Lebanon.
- Iran and Oman are reportedly nearing an agreement on administering the Strait of Hormuz that would see Iran have control over incoming traffic and be able to charge vessels a “service fee” to be split between Tehran and Muscat.
- The Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to vote this morning on Todd Blanche‘s nomination to be U.S. attorney general after Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) dropped their opposition following an announcement Sunday night from Blanche terminating the administration’s controversial anti-weaponization fund that had raised some GOP concerns.
- The Israel on Campus Coalition’s annual National Leadership Summit concludes this afternoon in Washington. Justice Department Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) are slated to speak today. More below.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
One of the unsettling realities that American Jews have been learning throughout this election cycle is that antisemitic behavior and virulently anti-Israel rhetoric has become so normalized that it doesn’t register all that much politically anymore.
The early tell was discovering that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s involvement throughout his life in extreme anti-Israel activism didn’t impact his ability to win an election in the city with the largest Jewish population in the world.
Then we learned that disgraced former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s Nazi tattoo — which he later covered up — made very little difference in his political standing in the battleground Senate race. It wasn’t until he was accused of rape that rank-and-file Democrats began to reconsider their support of him.
And today we’re grappling with the possibility that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who won’t acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state (like Mamdani before him), could prevail in a Democratic primary in a swing state.
Jews find themselves in the news often these days, and for that reason it makes sense to want to dwell on the extreme, often-antisemitic positions that these radical candidates have espoused.
But as we head into a general election where several far-left candidates will be testing their political viability in competitive states and districts against strong Republican challengers, it’s important to remember that their biggest vulnerabilities are on issues that don’t directly impact the Jewish community.
The reality is that these candidates are politically problematic to the overall public for reasons that go far beyond their views on Jews or Israel. The same Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) platform that rejects a Jewish state and condones terrorism also is one that envisions abolishing prisons and defunding the police and backs open borders.
CONFERENCE CIRCUIT
Interests, not values, drive U.S.-Israel alliance, Ron Dermer says
Israel’s relationship with the U.S. depends on mutual interests, not shared values, Ron Dermer, Israel’s former minister of strategic affairs, said on Monday at the Israel on Campus Coalition’s conference in Washington. “The problem people have is they romanticize the U.S.-Israel relationship. People think the U.S. has always been a strategic ally from day one,” Dermer said, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
What he said: “Don’t get me wrong, Israel has shared values with the United States. But that’s not what drives relations between states,” said Dermer. “So you ask me, ‘What’s going to be with the U.S.-Israel alliance long-term?’ Values is not what drives the alliance — It’s actually the interests that make the difference,” Dermer said.
MEETING ADJOURNED
Sen. Darline Graham, backed by Trump, still faces obstacles in bid to succeed brother in the Senate
Sen. Darline Graham’s (R-SC) bid to succeed her late brother in the Senate is facing growing skepticism from Republican operatives and lawmakers who say President Donald Trump’s endorsement is unlikely to spare her from a runoff in South Carolina’s special GOP primary next week, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Special election forecast: Over the last week, six senior GOP campaign operatives and Republican lawmakers told JI that they believe a runoff is all but certain after the Aug. 11 special election primary, with most predicting Graham will not be able to clinch a majority of the vote to avert one as her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), did with his June primary victory. “The sense that this is going to go to a runoff seems pretty clear,” Doug Heye, a Republican strategist who served as communications director for the Republican National Committee and a deputy communications official for former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), said. “What happens after that is anyone’s guess.”
CENTER STAGE
Trump official and Brookings scholar clash over campus antisemitism crackdown
A senior Trump administration official and a journalist clashed during a Monday debate over whether the White House’s crackdown on campus antisemitism protects or threatens America’s liberal norms. The debate, held at the Israel on Campus Coalition’s National Leadership Summit in Washington, featured Noah Pollak, a senior advisor at the Education Department, who argued that the controversial crackdown is good for the country, and Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and contributing writer for The Atlantic, who made the counterargument, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
The arguments: After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel, “university leaders chose not to enforce the rules for one group of people,” said Pollak. “As long as it was leftists and pro-Palestine people [leading protests], it was considered fine.” Rauch said, “Noah and I agree on the use of legitimate legal process by this or any administration to ensure that everyone’s civil rights are protected. Where we disagree is that the line has got to be due process. They must not go beyond that. It’s bad for Jews because we of all people know the importance of law.”
GROWING THREAT
Anti-Jewish hate crimes on the rise under Mamdani, NYPD stats show
Hate crimes — particularly against Jews — have spiked in New York City during the first seven months of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration, new data from the NYPD shows. The police department’s July statistics show general declines thus far in 2026 shootings and murders, and even in hate crimes against certain ethnic groups. But bias offenses were up overall last month, and during the entire period since Mamdani took office on the first of the year, with hate crimes targeting Jewish New Yorkers continuing to make up the majority of such incidents, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports.
Breaking it down: “More than half of the confirmed hate crimes for the first seven months of the year, or 56.9%, were anti-Jewish hate crimes, despite Jewish New Yorkers making up only 10% of the city’s population,” the NYPD’s report states. There were 23 confirmed hate crimes against Jewish people in July of this year, compared to 15 in July 2025. To date, the Jewish community has suffered 205 confirmed criminal antisemitic incidents during Mamdani’s first seven months at City Hall, compared to 189 such transgressions up to this point in the final year of Mayor Eric Adams’ tenure.
MONEY MATTERS
Nonprofit groups requested more than $1.3 billion in security aid in 2025, five times the amount available
Nonprofit groups, including religious institutions, requested more than $1.3 billion in funding from the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in 2025, around five times the $266 million that was ultimately available, a Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesperson told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod.
By the numbers: In total, more than 8,000 institutions applied for funding, of which around 1,600 received funding — an acceptance rate of around 20%. FEMA initially disclosed in a press release last week that state-level administrative agencies had forwarded 6,000 applications to FEMA for federal review, but the spokesperson told JI that the state level agencies had received more than 8,000 total applications.
TEHRAN TALK
Iranian regime ‘won’t make it’ to the end of Trump’s term, former NSC official predicts
Robert Greenway, who led the Middle East and North Africa portfolio on the National Security Council during President Donald Trump’s first administration, predicted to Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod in an interview last month that the Iranian regime would not “make it” to the end of Trump’s time in office.
Notable quotable: “We’ve really put ourselves in a position where we’ve got massive leverage. Their economy is virtually non-existent. I think it’s dead. We’re just waiting for the funeral, I think their political leadership is in turmoil,” Greenway said in an interview on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum. “The military has been decimated, and very little capacity remains to threaten the United States and our interests. That’s the reality of it. Despite claims to the contrary — those are not serious claims. They’re not supported by the facts.”
