Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wrote to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani today voicing “serious concerns” about Mamdani’s “rescission of executive orders related to antisemitism and boycotts of Israel.” 

Cassidy said the New York City Department of Education’s $2.2 billion in federal funding could be rescinded “contingent on compliance with federal civil rights laws and applicable executive orders designed to protect students”…

New York City councilmembers on both sides of the aisle denounced a new working group established by employees of the city’s Department of Health on “global oppression,” Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports, which a presenter at its first meeting on Tuesday acknowledged was “really developed in response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine.”

City Council Speaker Julie Menin called for a probe into the working group at DOH, which operates under Mamdani’s administration, telling the New York Post, “Our health care officials should be fighting infectious diseases and addressing skyrocketing health care costs instead of spending public time debating geopolitics”…

Moshe Davis, the former executive director of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism in New York City, told The Free Press upon being ousted from the role by Mamdani, “I don’t think the priority of the administration has been to combat antisemitism.”

Davis, who was a political appointee of former Mayor Eric Adams, said a Mamdani staffer told him they were “looking to go in a different direction” in replacing him with Phylisa Wisdom, a progressive Jewish activist. “Look, I’m a loud, proud Jewish person with a kippah on my head, a proud Zionist. This administration maybe felt that was too much for them,” Davis said. He noted that his requests to meet with the mayor and the memos he produced on rising antisemitism in the city had gone ignored…

Mamdani officially endorsed New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in an anticipated move, boosting her reelection prospects while also dealing a blow to her lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, who is running to oust Hochul from her left…

Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) and businessman Nate Morris, two of the leading Republican candidates for Kentucky’s Senate seat, today endorsed Ed Gallrein, the GOP challenger to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), one of the leading Republican critics of Israel in Congress, JI’s Marc Rod reports.

“Ed will never side with AOC or the radical-left against President Trump. He is exactly the kind of conservative warrior we need in Congress, and I’m proud to endorse him,” Barr said in a statement, referencing Massie’s pattern of breaking with various elements of Trump’s agenda, which has included voting against support for Israel.

The endorsements came amid an ongoing series of attacks by Trump on Massie, which included calling Massie a “moron” in remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning, as well as attacks on Truth Social this week targeting Massie’s wife…

Daniel Flesch, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation who led the drafting of the organization’s Project Esther report on combating left-wing antisemitism, has parted ways with the conservative think tank, according to Heritage’s website.

Flesch had raised the alarm on right-wing antisemitism after Heritage President Kevin Roberts released a video defending Tucker Carlson for hosting neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes on his podcast, telling the Young Jewish Conservatives in December that, “Now, in some ways, the call is coming from inside the house.” Flesch had also been Heritage’s point person for the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, a coalition of conservative groups that disaffiliated from the think tank after the incident…

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed today that Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will be traveling to Oman for negotiations with Iran tomorrow, saying at a press conference this afternoon that the president is “standing by for an update from them.”

“The president has obviously been quite clear in his demands of the Iranian regime — zero nuclear capability is something he’s been very explicit about and he wants to see if a deal can be struck. And while these negotiations are taking place, I would remind the Iranian regime that the president has many options at his disposal aside from diplomacy as the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the history of the world,” Leavitt added…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told lawmakers at a closed-door meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that U.S.-Israel coordination is “as high and as close as possible” ahead of the nuclear talks tomorrow, Israeli media reports, but that he still doesn’t know if President Donald Trump will choose to take military action…

Middle East countries that were originally meant to participate in the talks, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Oman, the UAE and Pakistan, drafted a potential agreement for the U.S. and Iran, including a nonaggression pact, diplomats told The Times of Israel…

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized two foreign oil tankers in the Persian Gulf today, Iranian state media reported, days after attempting to stop and board a U.S.-flagged oil tanker. Reports did not provide the country of origin of the tankers seized today…

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) expressed frustration with the Lebanese government’s stance toward Hezbollah amid struggling disarmament efforts, describing on X a meeting he’d had with Gen. Rodolphe Haykal, the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces. “I asked him point blank if he believes Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. He said, ‘No, not in the context of Lebanon.’ With that, I ended the meeting.”

“They have been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by both Republican and Democrat administrations since 1997 — for good reason. As long as this attitude exists from the Lebanese Armed Forces, I don’t think we have a reliable partner in them,” Graham continued. The U.S. has provided over $3 billion to shore up the LAF in the last 20 years, including $230 million approved by the Trump administration as recently as October…

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for whether AIPAC’s active role in the New Jersey 11th Congressional District Democratic primary — opposing former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) — paid off. Polls in the district close at 8 p.m.  

We’ll be watching for readouts from the meeting between White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, advisor Jared Kushner and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Oman at 10 a.m. local time tomorrow, including whether issues beyond Tehran’s nuclear program are discussed.

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

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

U.S. officials reportedly backtracked on their rejection of Iranian demands to change the format and venue of nuclear negotiations, set for Friday, after several Middle East leaders intervened to keep the U.S. from walking away, according to Axios. “They asked us to keep the meeting and listen to what the Iranians have to say. We have told the Arabs that we will do the meeting if they insist. But we are very skeptical,” one U.S. official told the outlet.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed on X that “nuclear talks … are scheduled to be held in Muscat” at 10 a.m. on Friday, indicating the U.S. agreed to move the venue from Turkey to Oman…

But Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated today that the Trump administration is seeking a comprehensive deal with Iran to address more than just its pursuit of nuclear weapons — including its ballistic missiles program, support for terror proxies and internal repression as well. Iran has traditionally been resistant to discussing anything beyond its nuclear program.

Asked if Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei should be worried right now, President Donald Trump told NBC News today, “I would say he should be very worried, yeah, he should be.” Trump said he was interested in negotiations again as he understood Iranian officials were considering restarting their nuclear program, “and if they do, we’re going to send” B-2 bombers “right back to do their job again,” referencing the U.S.’ June strikes…

Israeli officials have voiced skepticism over the prudence of negotiating with Iran at all, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff yesterday that Iran’s “promises cannot be trusted,” Energy Minister Eli Cohen told Israeli radio, “Our message to the U.S. is that negotiations with Iran are a waste of time”…

Sam Brownback, the former U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom and a former GOP senator from Kansas, warned at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing today that, unless Syrian minority groups are allowed to maintain their own security forces, they face a likely genocide by government-aligned forces, JI’s Marc Rod reports. 

“The new administration in Syria is purging religious minorities, threatening and killing them,” Brownback said. “These groups must be allowed to maintain their own security forces, or I guarantee you today, a genocide will happen in Syria like happened in Iraq to the Yazidis and Christians.”

The Trump administration has remained largely supportive of the al-Sharaa government, and critics have accused the White House of essentially abandoning the U.S.’ longtime Kurdish allies to the Syrian government onslaught…

First Lady Melania Trump welcomed freed Israeli hostages Aviva and Keith Siegel to the White House today, JI’s Gabby Deutch reports, one year after Aviva met the first lady for the first time and pleaded for help in securing her husband’s release. 

“Aviva is a warrior. She’s a warrior. She was fighting very hard for Keith, and I know he suffered a lot,” Trump said at the meeting. “I’m happy to see you healthy at home with your children, with your grandchildren, with your family, and I know you’re giving back your time, your energy, to other people”…

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani tapped Phylisa Wisdom, the executive director of the progressive group New York Jewish Agenda, to lead the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, the Forward reports.

Wisdom told JI last month that tackling the “scourge of antisemitism” in the city will require a comprehensive strategy,” noting that the office she will now lead “can play a key role, coordinating between long-standing offices and agencies tasked with combating hate, and input from the diversity of New York’s Jewish community.”

The appointment of the left-wing activist indicates Mamdani’s administration isn’t looking to placate the mainstream Jewish community. Wisdom, while well-known in the New York Jewish community, has traditionally opposed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and at times vocally opposed Israel’s war in Gaza after the Oct. 7 attacks…

Meanwhile, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul selected former New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams as her running mate in her reelection race this year — a pick that provoked both applause and consternation among leaders of the state’s Jewish community, JI’s Will Bredderman reports. 

Adams was the first council speaker not to lead a delegation to Israel — although she denied that she was boycotting the country, she raised concerns in 2024 when her office drafted an ultimately abandoned resolution urging a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that one Jewish community leader described to JI as “one-sided” and “inflammatory”…

A pair of well-financed groups, whose origin is currently unknown, is set to begin running ads boosting moderate pro-Israel candidates in a series of open House seats in Chicago, each of whom is facing off against vocal anti-Israel opponents, JI’s Marc Rod reports.

The ads — being run by newly formed super PACs Elect Chicago Women and Affordable Chicago Now — boost state Sen. Laura Fine, running in the 9th Congressional District, former Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL), running in the 8th District and Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, running in the 2nd District.

The ad buys for the two groups add up to millions of dollars across the three races. Given that the groups were just launched, FEC filing policies will not require them to disclose their donors until close to Election Day. But the ads, which do not focus on Israel policy, are widely rumored to be connected to United Democracy Project, the AIPAC-affiliated super PAC…

PEN America, an organization promoting free expression for artists and journalists, said today it would retract its Jan. 29 statement expressing concern about the abrupt cancellation of Israeli comedian Guy Hochman’s shows in New York and Los Angeles. The organization, which alleged Hochman “has been accused by advocacy organizations of incitement to genocide in Gaza,” said it would “remain committed to open and respectful dialogue about the divisions that arise in the course of defending free expression”…

The Washington Post announced mass layoffs of one-third of its staff today, including closing its sports section, reducing its local coverage and letting go all of its Middle East correspondents. The outlet has faced repeated criticism for major factual errors and alleged institutional and reporter bias related to its coverage of Israel and the war in Gaza…

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for a profile of Alphabet’s Israeli-American chief financial officer, Anat Ashkenazi, who got her start at Israel’s Bank Hapoalim more than two decades ago.

It’s primary day in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, as candidates vie for the Democratic nomination to fill Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s House seat. The race has attracted attention for the more than $2 million the AIPAC-linked super PAC United Democracy Project has spent targeting former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), who is attempting to beat out others including Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way, far-left activist Analilia Mejia and Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill. 

The Hudson Institute will host Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, for a conversation on the Trump administration’s strategy in confronting the rise of antisemitism.

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio is testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this morning about the Trump administration’s actions in and plans for Venezuela following the arrest of former President Nicolás Maduro.
• In the afternoon, Rubio will meet with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado at the State Department. The meeting between Rubio and Machado comes as Reuters reports that U.S. intelligence is questioning whether the country’s interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, will acquiesce to the Trump administration’s demands that Caracas cut ties with U.S. adversaries.
• In Washington tonight, the Kennedy Center is holding a one-day showing of “October 7: In Their Own Words,” a play whose script comes from testimonies of survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks. Read our interview with playwrights Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney here.
• New York City’s Center for Jewish History is hosting a panel discussion this evening about contemporary antisemitism, related to the The Routledge History of Antisemitism, featuring the book’s co-editor, Mark Weitzman, and contributors Susannah Heschel and Maurice Samuels.
• The Jewish Federation Los Angeles will remove the yellow ribbon that was painted on the side of its building — the largest such display in the country, according to the organization — this afternoon in recognition of the return of all 255 hostages to Israel this week.
• In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin is holding talks today with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, a day after the Syrian leader spoke by phone with President Donald Trump, who praised Damascus’ efforts to take control over Kurdish-held areas of the country.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV

A major chapter has ended in the war that began when Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, with the burial of Ran Gvili, the final hostage whose remains were returned earlier this week from Gaza and buried today in his southern Israel hometown of Meitar.

Yet thousands of Israelis continue to be called up for reserve duty and the final aim of the Gaza war — disarming Hamas and demilitarizing Gaza — has yet to be achieved. 

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, President Donald Trump said that “many countries say we really want to” disarm Hamas, and his advisor Jared Kushner presented the administration’s plan for the next steps in Gaza, which include the destruction of “heavy weapons, tunnels, military infrastructure, weapons production facilities and munitions” in Gaza in the next 100 days. Under the plan, only members of the police appointed by the Palestinian technocratic committee would be able to hold weapons, but Hamas is reportedly seeking to have 10,000 of its members, whom Israel regards as terrorists, remain in the police force. 

At the same time, Kushner’s slide deck was much more focused on the “New Gaza,” complete with Dubai-esque futuristic skyscrapers, than it was on the details of how to get Hamas to give up its weapons. “There is no Plan B,” Kushner said regarding Gaza’s future.

In Jerusalem and in Washington, officials expressed skepticism about the prospect of Hamas voluntarily relinquishing its weapons, and whether the International Stabilization Force described in the Gaza ceasefire deal will be up to the task of confiscating those weapons.They view Israeli military action in the Hamas-controlled half of Gaza as the likely scenario.

Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen, who sits on the Security Cabinet, told Kan Bet radio that while Israel is heaving “a great sign of relief with the return of the hero Ran Gvili … the central thing in stage two [of the Gaza ceasefire] is disarming Hamas and demilitarizing Gaza.” 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called in a post on X for Trump to “allow Israel to finish the job,” saying that “as to Hamas, nothing has changed. … They don’t seek peace. They only seek destruction. … This has gone on too long.”

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

‘Never Again’ Tested in Iran: The New York Times’ Bret Stephens weighs the White House’s options in Iran against the backdrop of a climbing death toll from the country’s anti-government protests and previous assurances from the Trump administration that it would come to the defense of the demonstrators. “So it’s left to the United States to impose meaningful consequences on the Iranian regime for one of the worst atrocities of this century. Donald Trump told Axios Monday that the Iranians ‘want to make a deal’ that would forestall a military strike. … Do we really want to live in a world in which people like Mohseni-Ejei, the judicial leader, can terrorize people with utter impunity? Have decades of vowing ‘Never again’ — this Tuesday marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz — taught us nothing more than to offer pro forma condemnations when thousands of protesters are gunned down by modern-day Einsatzgruppen?” [NYTimes]

Endgame for Bibi?: In The Wall Street Journal, William Galston talks to Israeli American writer Yossi Klein Halevi about Iran, Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chances in this year’s election. “Public-opinion surveys suggest that Mr. Netanyahu’s effort to evade responsibility for the national-security failings that made possible the massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, has shored up support in his base but not persuaded the voters who will determine the next majority. Most Israelis don’t trust him. If elections were held tomorrow, his coalition would lose. … Mr. Klein Halevi says that Mr. Netanyahu has run out of Houdini-like escapes from political peril and will soon be forced out of office. I hope he’s right. Mr. Netanyahu’s re-election this year would convince many Americans — including American Jews — that the Israel they’ve long cherished has given way to a new Israeli majority that they can neither understand nor support.” [WSJ]

Road to Damascus: In The Washington Post, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo raises concerns about the Trump administration’s support for Damascus following recent moves by Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa to wrest control of Kurdish-held areas from the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces. “Make no mistake: These developments could precipitate a major crisis, not just for minority groups such as the Druze and the Kurds, but for the entire region. If unchecked, we could soon see mass displacement, ethnic cleansing and the possible reemergence of ISIS as a powerful player inside Syria and a global terrorist threat. … If the U.S. doesn’t act fast, the achievements of the first Trump term could be reversed just as the president stands on the verge of realizing his goal of a new era of peace in the Middle East.” [WashPost]

What Gvili’s Return Means: In his Substack “Between Us,” Nadav Eyal considers the political implications of Israel’s retrieval of the body of the final hostage in Gaza. “The return of the last fallen soldier allows the parties to move forward in Gaza. First and foremost, this involves opening the Rafah Crossing, followed by the possibility of further IDF withdrawal from the Strip. At the same time, a technocratic Palestinian government is expected to begin administering the Strip. President Trump has repeatedly made clear — including this week — that Hamas must be disarmed. Israel will not want to carry out any withdrawal before a genuine process of dismantling Hamas begins. … The return of the last fallen Israeli is deeply meaningful, but any Israeli government will struggle to accept any reality in which an armed Hamas continues to rule Gaza, even from behind the scenes.” [BetweenUs]

The U.S. military is planning to conduct a multiday air exercise in the Middle East amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran, and as the U.S. moves military assets to the Gulf…

A draft resolution by President Donald Trump’s newly formed Board of Peace that was obtained by The New York Times lays out the group’s operations and gives the president significant say in the naming of senior officials who will oversee the reconstruction and administration of the Gaza Strip; the draft, dated last week, had not been signed by Trump…

Trump warned on his Truth Social site that U.S. aid to Iraq would cease if Nouri al-Maliki was selected to be the country’s next prime minister, citing differences in ideology and policies between Washington and the Shiite politician, who previously served as prime minister from 2006-2014…

Queen Rania of Jordan shared photos from her meeting with Second Lady Usha Vance during her trip to Washington earlier this week…

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that three of the 14 Iranians deported from the U.S. earlier this week had been members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; the three men are all believed to have illegally crossed the U.S.’ southern border in late 2024…

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch affixed a mezuzah to the doorframe of her office at One Police Plaza, saying that the decision to do so was “a small but meaningful symbol of faith and resilience”…

The Pulitzer Board named a Harvard professor who alleged a month after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks that Israelis were “the most powerful people on the planet doubling down on their evil, deranged state-sponsored terror”…

The University of Denver announced the creation of an endowed fellowship in Holocaust and antisemitism studies that will be housed in the school’s Center for Judaic Studies…

The Isle of Man formally adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism…

The Washington Post spotlights the efforts of Czech tour guide Jiri Kluc to gather and preserve the testimonies of Holocaust survivors around the world…

Police in Azerbaijan arrested three men linked to the Afghan offshoot of the Islamic State who are suspected of plotting an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Baku…

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian that he will not allow Saudi airspace to be used for military operations against Tehran, a day after the United Arab Emirates’ Foreign Ministry said the country’s airspace could not be used for military action against Iran…

A media outlet for the Iranian judiciary said Iran had executed a man charged with spying on behalf of Israel…

The Iranian rial reached a new record low of 1.5 million to $1…

Yeshiva University announced the appointment of writer Douglas Murray to be the school’s inaugural President’s Professor of Practice…

Dan Rothem is joining Israel Policy Forum as senior policy analyst; he was previously a senior researcher at Tachlith—The Institute for Israeli Policy and CEO of Commanders for Israel’s Security…

Rabbi Motti Seligson, the media director for Chabad-Lubavich, and his wife, Shterni, welcomed a baby boy…

Former Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot (second from right) was among the former hostages to attend a ceremony Tuesday night in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square to mark the stopping of the clock that has kept the time since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks following the IDF’s retrieval of the body of Ran Gvili, the last hostage in Gaza.

Actress and singer, known for her role as Ashlyn Caswell in the Disney+ series “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series,” Julia Lester turns 26…

Inventor of many percussion instruments used in Latin and jazz music, Martin Cohen turns 87… Longtime Baltimore-area dentist now living in Jupiter, Fla., Joel Irwin Goldberg, DDS… Former chair of the political science department of the Hebrew University, Avraham Diskin turns 79… 26th national president of Hadassah, she served from 2016 through 2019, now chair of Hadassah’s magazine, Ellen Hershkin… U.S. senator (D-NH), Jeanne Shaheen turns 79… Attorney and lobbyist, Kenneth Levine… Rabbi emeritus of Kehillat Israel Reconstructionist Congregation in Pacific Palisades, Calif., Steven Carr Reuben… Chairman and founder of London-based ICM Stellar Sports, Jonathan Ian Barnett turns 76… Model, actress and singer, Barbi Benton turns 76… Elayne Z. Wolf… Former senior U.S. district judge for the Central District of California, now serving as a mediator and arbitrator at JAMS, Dean Douglas Pregerson turns 75… Freelance writer, she is a 2009 graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Rabbi Reba Carmel… NYC-based advisor and investor focusing on fintech, blockchain and emerging technologies, Donna Redel turns 73… Composer and distinguished professor at UCLA’s school of music, Richard Danielpour turns 70… Former chairman of the board of the ZOA and a retired assistant clinical professor of neurology at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, Dr. Alan Mazurek turns 70… Assistant vice provost and executive director at the UCLA Center for Community Engagement, Shalom David Staub… Angel investor and mentor for growing companies, Mark N. Schwartz… Retired after 14 years as a member of the New Jersey General Assembly, she is active in the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the Jewish Federation of Greater Monmouth County, Amy H. Handlin turns 70… Rabbi at Or Hamidbar in Palm Springs, Calif., David James Lazar turns 69… Executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Robert B. Satloff turns 64… Businessman, he is the chairman of Genesis Philanthropy Group, Gennady Gazin turns 61… Founder and CEO of Boca Raton-based Lyons Capital LLC, Jason Lyons… Associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Amy Coney Barrett turns 54… SVP at Weber Shandwick, Ariel Bashi… Israeli theatre and movie actress, Adi Bielski turns 44… Managing director at PJT Partners, Max Heller… Vice president at Goldman Sachs, Perry Bloch… Israeli windsurfer, she won a silver medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Sharon Kantor turns 23…

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

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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