President Donald Trump has a border czar, a government official leading the crackdown on undocumented immigrants — whom the White House calls “illegal aliens” — crossing the southern border. The president, who likes to go big, now also has a UFO czar, a Harvard astrophysicist who is scanning the cosmos in search of aliens of the science-fiction variety.

It’s a stunning if improbable career highlight for Avi Loeb, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor who fled Nazi Germany and settled in a moshav, a cooperative agricultural community, in central Israel. As a child, Loeb had a lot of time alone with his thoughts — walking around to collect eggs from the chickens, or driving a tractor to the surrounding hills, where he would sit and read philosophy books. 

“I was deeply interested in the most fundamental questions of our existence,” Loeb told Jewish Insider in a recent interview. 

Loeb still studies life’s big questions, but from a different perspective. A series of small but ultimately life-changing pivots led him to study astronomy instead of philosophy, setting him on the path toward becoming one of America’s best known, and most controversial, scientists. 

He now has a new benefactor supporting his quest to discover whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe: Trump, who tapped him in June to lead the White House’s new effort on the issue.

“That’s why I’m doing astrophysics, because I was offered things that I couldn’t decline, but at the end of the process it’s like an arranged marriage, and I realized that I’m married to my true love,” Loeb said. “Because in astrophysics we can ask fundamental questions about the universe, which was pretty much what I was aiming to do in philosophy. But I can address it with the scientific method.” 

Decades before Loeb would be tapped to lead the Trump administration’s unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) science advisory council — an updated scientific term for what are colloquially known as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs — he got his start in the Israeli military. 

Loeb served in the Israel Defense Forces’ elite Talpiot unit, where he pursued a doctorate in astrophysics in order to advance Israel’s scientific research and development needs. After earning his doctorate at Hebrew University, a project he pursued in the 1980s through his military service led him on a trip to Washington, where he met someone who helped him get a job at Princeton. A position at Harvard opened up a few years later. He has been there for 34 years. 

At Harvard, Loeb was granted tenure after just three years and spent more than two decades researching major cosmological questions, seeking to understand the formation of the universe and early stars and galaxies. He was named to a Time magazine list of the 25 most influential people in space in 2012. Loeb chaired Harvard’s astronomy department for nine years. 

The last decade of Loeb’s career has been less straightforward. His public appearances skyrocketed, even as other astronomers sought to keep him closer to earth. In 2017, an interstellar object — meaning an object that was believed to have come from another solar system — was captured on astronomers’ telescopes for the first time. It had an unusual shape and exhibited motion unlike asteroids or comets. No one seemed able to explain what the object was or where it had come from. 

One year later, Loeb and a Harvard colleague argued in a scientific journal that the object was “humanity’s first contact with an artifact of extraterrestrial intelligence.” 

Loeb believed the interstellar object was likely an alien craft, a UFO of the science-fiction variety. Except he argued that it was real — or, at least, it could be. The argument he has honed over the past decade, which has now launched him into the president’s orbit, is that astronomers have a duty to explore the possibility that extraterrestrial life might exist, and that scientists should not preemptively shut down the debate. Many other astronomers say he’s tilting at windmills, pursuing a quixotic quest for answers when no evidence exists for his attention-grabbing claims. 

“I get attacked from both sides, from people who are skeptics who say we don’t want to look at the data, because there is nothing there. They ridicule the actual dealing with the anomalies that the government talks about,” said Loeb. “Then you have people on the other side who say, ‘We already know the answer, he’s wasting his time, and how dare he even consider other possibilities other than we are being visited by aliens.’” 

After decades of silence from the federal government on extraterrestrial matters, Congress held a hearing on UAP in 2022. It came after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report that found that UAP posed a risk to national security. 

At the hearing, lawmakers explored whether the unidentified objects were drones or weapons from adversaries like Russia or China; whether they were the result of American pilots observing other American technology they did not know about; whether the UAP were really just glitches on radar or camera screens; and, lastly, whether the UAP were extraterrestrial in nature. Scientists have not seen any evidence of aliens.

Whether life exists outside of earth has long been one of the most energizing and heretofore unanswerable questions facing scientists. It has spurred movies and TV shows and books and Reddit rabbit holes. And it has captured Trump’s attention. Earlier this year, he directed the government to release files related to the unexplained objects that have been spotted by military craft. 

Loeb thinks that the advisory body he now leads, composed mostly of his Harvard colleagues, stands the best chance of definitively identifying the UAP once and for all. He sees two options: either the group determines that the UAP are a national security threat, which would further American interests — or the body finds that UAP are evidence of an alien civilization. Loeb is not modest about the stakes.

“Altogether I think the partnership between science and government is a blessing. It will bring us to a better place: either improve national security in this context of UAP, or reveal the most important discovery ever made,” he told JI. “This may be a naive expectation, but it could bring cooperation among all humans on earth, and in that sense it will reflect the new messianic era of more peace on earth, but the messiah will not arrive from earth. It will arrive from another star.” 

Loeb’s dramatic claims may put him at odds with many of his peers in academia. But he says their immediate skepticism toward his conclusions is “not in tune” with the interests of the public, which he sees as just one area of many where he believes academia is failing the American people. He has also been frustrated to see Harvard tilt towards “a particular political direction,” which he thinks is a mistake. And after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel, Loeb watched the university “allow protests to disrupt scholarship,” some of which were antisemitic in nature. 

“Definitely something is wrong within academia,” said Loeb.

Despite his frustrations, Loeb remains at Harvard. He publishes fewer academic papers now, and focuses more on blog posts on Medium, but his research has not slowed down. He oversees the Galileo Project, which searches for evidence of extraterrestrial technology. His work has made its way to the highest reaches of the American government. 

Next month, he’ll face his biggest audience yet: a Major League Baseball game. He’ll be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a Houston Astros game in Space City, U.S.A.

Abraham “Abe” Foxman, a towering figure in Jewish communal life who led the Anti-Defamation League for nearly three decades, and whose personal story as a hidden child during the Holocaust gave him a unique gravitas in dealing with issues of Holocaust memory and anti-Jewish bias, died on Sunday, the ADL confirmed. He was 86.

Foxman was born to Polish Jewish parents in present-day Belarus in 1940. As a toddler, his parents placed him in the care of his Catholic nanny, who had him baptized and raised him in the church. After being reunited with his parents at the end of World War II, the family moved into a displaced persons camp in Austria. In 1950, when he was 10 years old, the family immigrated to the U.S. 

His early childhood experiences shaped the trajectory of his life. Foxman joined the ADL in 1965 as a legal assistant, becoming the organization’s national director in 1987, a post he held until his retirement in 2015. He was succeeded by Jonathan Greenblatt, who serves as the group’s CEO. 

Foxman was named to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s council by President Ronald Reagan in 1987, a role he was reappointed to by Presidents George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. In recent years, Foxman was the only Holocaust survivor to serve on the board, which now includes a number of children and grandchildren of survivors.

Met Council CEO David Greenfield, who met Foxman while serving on the New York City Council, said the longtime ADL head “really shaped modern Jewish leadership today.”

Foxman, Greenfield said, “was the kind of leader that all of us aspire to be. … I really believe he set the standard, and everyone is still chasing that standard. There was only one Abe Foxman.”

In his years at the ADL, Foxman built deep relationships with his staff. Jay Kaiman, the president of the Marcus Foundation, was hired by Foxman to head the group’s operations in the Southeast. That relationship endured long after Kaiman left the organization, he told JI. 

“He was my compass,” Kaiman said. “He was invaluable to me as a resource all those years, and he had a lot to offer.” Foxman, Kaiman added, “really was a mentor to so many people.”

After stepping down from the ADL, Foxman remained active in Jewish communal life. “He really did love his work,” Kaiman said, “and he never stopped working, even if he wasn’t the ADL director. He was the epitome of being the professional’s professional.” 

Once he was no longer the head of a nonpartisan organization, Foxman began to endorse candidates and policies, while speaking out against the mainstream media’s coverage of Israel and antisemitism. He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential bid, but became increasingly critical of the Democratic Party’s leftward shift on Israel.

Foxman was also critical at times of Republicans and the Trump administration. 

Delivering an address last spring at the Capitol to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, Foxman said, “As a [Holocaust] survivor, my antenna quivers when I see books being banned, when I see people being abducted in the streets, when I see government trying to dictate what universities should teach and whom they should teach. As a survivor who came to this country as an immigrant, I’m troubled when I hear immigrants and immigration being demonized.”

In the same address, he gave credit to both the Biden administration and the second Trump administration for their commitments to addressing antisemitism.

“What made him so unique was he wasn’t a Democrat or Republican. He called balls and strikes like he saw them,” Greenfield told JI. “He was really one of the few leaders to call out both sides and say, ‘Hey, a pox on both of your houses. You both have increasing levels of antisemitism, to new levels never seen before.’”

Deborah Lipstadt, who served as the Biden administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, knew Foxman for decades. When she was being sued for libel by Holocaust denier David Irving, Foxman was a source of support, she told JI, even bringing a group to the trial in a London court.

She praised Foxman’s lifelong commitment to fighting antisemitism. “We’ve got too many voices that carry with them an agenda,” she said. “His agenda was, ‘I hate the Jew-haters.’ And he had no patience for the Jew-haters: right, left, center. He had no patience for people who use their position for self-aggrandizement.”

Citing record-high levels of antisemitism, Lipstadt called Foxman’s death “a big loss for the Jewish people at a particularly crucial moment.”

“At a time like this, we have very few voices like that that spoke with a personal and professional authority, a personal and professional commitment, and he shall be deeply missed,” Lipstadt said.

Greenblatt said that Foxman was “an iconic Jewish leader who embraced the ideal of an America free from antisemitism and hate and who strongly believed that these scourges could be defeated if good people opposed it.”

“In his storied career, Abe transformed ADL while confronting antisemitism and hate (from both left and right), opposing the global rise in antisemitism, holding world leaders accountable and working to ensure that Israel was Jewish, secure and democratic,” Greenblatt continued. 

“Abe’s voice was heard — and listened to — by popes, presidents, and prime ministers, a voice he used wherever Jews were at risk. Abe Foxman spoke on the global stage with moral authority and clarity and was relentlessly dedicated to his pursuit of a world without hate.”

William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, called Foxman “a mentor, a guide, and a towering presence in Jewish communal life” who “showed a generation of leaders that fighting antisemitism demands clarity, courage, and the willingness to stand firm under pressure.”

In a statement, Israeli President Isaac Herzog praised Foxman as a “passionate Zionist, a humanist, and an outspoken, [and] wise friend.”

“Coming into a world at war, the Holocaust shaped Abe’s character and defined his mission: Combating antisemitism and hypocrisy, calling out racism and bias, speaking up for the Jewish people and the Jewish democratic Israel,” Herzog said. “His story, of rising from the ashes, is our story, the story of our people.”

Foxman met his wife, Golda Bauman, while attending Camp Herzl in Webster, Wisc. The couple was engaged in Mexico and married in 1967, the same year he joined the ADL. 

He is survived by his wife and two children, Michelle and Ariel.

Keith Sonderling’s path to leading the Department of Labor, a role he assumed last week, was relatively straightforward, professionally speaking — an upward climb from employment lawyer to government service, in a series of increasingly senior roles.

But for Sonderling, working to set American labor policy has a more personal resonance, too. He said in his Senate confirmation hearing to serve as deputy secretary that his Jewish grandparents faced religious discrimination at work once they arrived in the United States, after surviving the Holocaust. 

“Although more than willing to work, my grandparents lost employment opportunities based solely on their religious beliefs and life circumstances,” Sonderling, 43, said last year. “It was only through their tenacity and relentless hard work that they overcame the barriers put before them, ultimately paving the path for me to appear here, before you, today.”

For the past year, since the Senate voted him in as deputy secretary, Sonderling has managed the day-to-day operations of the department’s $14 billion budget and its 16,000 employees. Now Sonderling finds himself somewhat unexpectedly leading the department, which has vast reach over employment policies and labor issues, after Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned last week amid an investigation into allegations of misconduct. 

Sonderling’s promotion to acting secretary elevates a relatively young policy wonk with traditional conservative bona fides, though Sonderling has also earned the respect of some liberals who view him as less rigidly ideological, even as he generally hews to the pro-employer positions of the modern Republican Party. 

“I got the impression that throwing bombs against plaintiffs lawyers and against workers is not his style,” Matt Scherer, an employment lawyer who is a fellow at the center-left Open Markets Institute, told Jewish Insider. “I think he is, in many ways, kind of a traditional Republican, in the sense that he wants there to be free markets. He wants employers to have a certain amount of leeway with their employees. But he also seems sincere in wanting to help workers.”

Sonderling, who grew up in Boca Raton, Fla., got his start in Republican politics not through the world of Mar-a-Lago but rather a more traditional GOP path: through the world of Jeb Bush. Sonderling was on the national Jewish leadership committee for the former Florida governor’s 2016 presidential campaign. It was at a Jewish outreach event for Bush that Sonderling met his wife, Fara, a lobbyist. The pair were married in 2019 in Jerusalem. 

The Labor Department is not the splashiest government posting, or at least is not the federal body that usually garners the most headlines. But its policy guidance affects millions of American workers, meaning the person who leads it has the capacity to be incredibly influential. (Sonderling declined a request for comment from JI.) 

During President Donald Trump’s first term, Sonderling was best known for a major decision governing gig workers, like Uber and Lyft drivers. The Trump administration deemed these workers to be contractors, rather than full-time employees, when Sonderling led the department’s division governing wage and working-hours laws. 

He is best known in recent years for his foresight in weighing in on artificial intelligence and the disruption it is expected to cause in the workplace. Sonderling was appointed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2020, a role he held until his term expired in 2024 — and used his perch at the federal anti-discrimination agency to warn about how AI technology could lead to discrimination in hiring and other workplace decisions if employers aren’t careful. 

He also used his time on the EEOC to educate the public about antisemitism. As part of the Biden administration’s 2023 national strategy to counter antisemitism, Sonderling helped author an EEOC informational flier about what an employer should do if they have experienced antisemitism at work. (Before moving to Washington in 2017, Sonderling had been involved with the Jewish Federation in Palm Beach County.)

“Unfortunately, people don’t check their anti-Jewish attitudes at the door when they enter work,” Sonderling said at a November 2023 webinar hosted by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. “There are so many people who believe … that there can’t be antisemitism in the workplace because Jewish people ‘control’ all these industries, whether it’s Hollywood, whether it’s the bank, whether it’s government, finance. You see it across the board. But that is still workplace harassment.” 

Trump has not yet said whether he will formally nominate Sonderling to serve as labor secretary. 

“Keith Sonderling will do a really great job as acting secretary and would be a great pick to handle the job permanently as well,” said Ken Marcus, a former Trump administration official who hosted Sonderling on a 2022 webinar for the organization he founded, the Louis D. Brandeis Center, which uses litigation to combat antisemitism at schools and universities. 

Sonderling could conceivably stay in the role even without receiving Senate approval —  under former President Joe Biden, Julie Su served as acting labor secretary for nearly two years when her nomination stalled in the Senate. And unlike some of Trump’s other Cabinet secretaries, Sonderling has so far avoided drama in his years in the government. 

“He’s a very important person and someone that the president trusts with an incredibly important agency like the Department of Labor, and yet, relatively speaking, he’s kind of young by Washington standards,” said Gerald L. Maatman, Jr., a Chicago-based employment lawyer at the law firm Duane Morris. “I would think people would say that is a person to keep an eye on.”

Sonderling said in his confirmation hearing last year that his guiding principle is to help American workers achieve the American dream. It’s a view shaped by his grandparents’ post-Holocaust journey.

“My interest in protecting all Americans’ rights in the workplace is undoubtedly shaped by my grandparents,” Sonderling said, “who, despite suffering unspeakable tragedies, were able to achieve the American Dream.”

Prominent Jewish figures and senior Trump administration officials gathered at the White House on Monday afternoon for an event hosted by President Donald Trump commemorating the Passover holiday.

Administration officials in attendance at the event, which was closed to the press and took place in the Indian Treaty Room, included Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick; White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf; James Blair, the White House deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs; Jacob Reses, chief of staff to Vice President JD Vance; Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin; Martin Marks, the White House Jewish liaison; and Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the Trump administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.

Marks delivered comments to the crowd remarking on the holiday and the Trump administration’s record of support for Israel, according to an attendee. 

Others spotted at the event were Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, president of the Tzedek Association; Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition; William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Jeff Miller, chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council; Jonathan Burkan, United States Holocaust Memorial Council member; Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad); Paul Packer, the former chairman of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, member of the Religious Liberty Commission and vice chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Jerry Wartski, a Holocaust survivor, and freed Israeli American hostage Edan Alexander were also in attendance. 

Prior to the official reception, Trump invited about 20 guests to join him in the Oval Office. During the brief gathering, the president called Jared Kushner, an informal advisor to the White House and his son-in-law, and his daughter Ivanka. Kushner, who is Jewish, and Ivanka Trump, who converted to Judaism, spoke to attendees over speakerphone, one guest told Jewish Insider. 

Benjamin Landa, a New York businessman and the son of a Holocaust survivor, was nominated in October to be the U.S. ambassador to Hungary — a delicate assignment given tensions over the U.S.’ relationship with the country.

Landa, 69, is a yeshiva graduate and well-known philanthropist supporting Jewish, Israeli and other causes, including as founder of the Chabad of Port Washington. His father, Yehoshua Boruch Landa, served as a rabbi in prewar Czechoslovakia and survived the Nazi regime, but most of his family, who resided in Hungary, were killed in the Holocaust, according to Newsday. 

“My father, despite all the horrors he went through, he never lost his humanity, he never lost his sense of humor,” Landa told the New York Post. “It taught me the idea of resilience and starting from scratch – starting all over from the depths of hell to rise like a phoenix and that was my father – he never gave up.”

He’s also been a prominent donor to Republican political causes, and met in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump and advisor Roger Stone earlier this year. Landa was reportedly actively pursuing the role during that White House meeting.

He also met with right-wing Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir during the Israeli official’s visit to the United States in April.

But Landa’s confirmation process could be a tricky one — for multiple reasons. 

Landa and his business, SentosaCare, have been dogged by a series of scandals. Nursing homes affiliated with Landa’s company have repeatedly faced fines, violations and complaints over allegations of insufficient care, among other issues. A federal judge ruled in 2019 that Landa and his business partner had violated human trafficking laws, using threats to coerce more than 200 nurses to remain in their jobs. 

In 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Landa, various business partners and a nursing home of which he was a part owner for “repeated and persistent fraud and illegality … including but not limited to violating several laws designed to protect nursing home residents and cutting necessary staffing in order to further enrich the owners and their families.”

Landa has disputed such allegations and sued media outlets that have alleged wrongdoing or mistreatment of patients in the past. Some lawmakers may bring up the scandals at Landa’s as-yet-unscheduled confirmation hearing.

Additionally, while the Trump administration and other conservatives have forged close relationships with Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, other Republicans have been deeply critical of Orbán and his government, particularly due to the Hungarian leader’s hostility to NATO and the Ukraine war.

In 2023, Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, blocked arms sales to Hungary over its refusal to approve Sweden’s entry into NATO.

Landa could face questions at his hearing on how he’ll navigate that relationship and work to persuade Hungary to cooperate with the U.S. on Ukraine and other priorities.

Former Minnesota Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, who turns 95 today, isn’t necessarily a household name — but is one of the more consequential figures in Jewish political history, as the first Holocaust refugee elected to Congress and one of the most prominent Jewish Republicans during a golden period of Jewish representation on Capitol Hill.

Boschwitz now holds the distinction of being the oldest living elected senator, and remains active in political and business life from his home in Plymouth, Minn. He spoke on the phone to Jewish Insider this week about his life story, legacy and thoughts about our current political moment.

Boschwitz was born in Berlin in 1930. On the day that Hitler took power in 1933, Boschwitz’s father came home and told his family they would be leaving Germany forever. He arrived in the United States in 1935 with his family, completed college at the age of 19, started a retail lumber business and quickly made a career in business and, later, politics. 

He was elected as a Republican to the Senate in 1978, scoring an upset against the state’s former Gov. Wendell Anderson. He served there for 12 years, eventually losing reelection in 1990 to Democrat Paul Wellstone.

“When I came to the Senate, I was really the first Jewish conservative that many of my colleagues really met. They hadn’t met many Jewish Republicans at all. I think we had a hand in building some of the pro-Israel feelings now,” Boschwitz told JI. (During the 1980s, four other Jewish GOP senators would end up serving alongside him.)

In the Senate, Boschwitz served in GOP leadership, including as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, where he helped raise money and lead the campaign to elect GOP senators. He held seats on the influential Budget Committee, Foreign Relations Committee and Agriculture Committee, which helped him build support in a big farming state like Minnesota.

“The highlights of my career: I voted for the Reagan defense budgets and for lower taxes that resulted in a strong economy and winning the Cold War without a shot,” Boschwitz said.

After leaving the Senate, Boschwitz was named as President George H.W. Bush’s emissary to Ethiopia, where he led the American delegation to negotiate the release of Ethiopian Jews to allow their migration to Israel in what became known as Operation Solomon. Earlier as a senator, Boschwitz led an Ethiopian Jewish caucus that featured dozens of senators from both parties. 

Aside from his legislative work, Boschwitz was also known as something of a matchmaker for young Jewish professionals on Capitol Hill, sponsoring parties for Jewish singles who worked around Washington.

“I was very active in the Jewish community… I wanted young Jewish members of the congressional staff to know that there was a Jewish senator who was interested in them,” Boschwitz told JI.

Despite Minnesota’s relatively small Jewish population, Boschwitz held a Senate seat that, famously, was represented by four different Jewish senators over four decades — with Wellstone, current Republican Jewish Coalition National Chairman Norm Coleman and comedian Al Franken all holding the same Senate seat from 1978 until Franken’s resignation in 2018.

Asked in closing how concerned he was about the rise of antisemitism in this country, Boschwitz simply said: “Yes, there has been a rise in antisemitism. But I think that the U.S. is not a country where the Jews have to be careful or look for another place to go. I’m a fan of magnificent America.”