Plus, RJC celebrates 40th anniversary in Vegas
PHOENIX, ARIZONA - OCTOBER 31: Tucker Carlson speaks at his Live Tour at the Desert Diamond Arena on October 31, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. With less than a week until Election Day, Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Carlson in the battleground state of Arizona. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on Heritage Foundation head Kevin Roberts’ decision to stand by “close friend” Tucker Carlson, and cover the advancement of a graduate student government resolution at Cornell accusing Jews of “weaponizing antisemitism.” We look at the frequently ignored role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the conflict in Sudan, and talk to legislators on Capitol Hill about recent Iranian moves to rebuild the country’s ballistic missile program with support from China. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Elise Stefanik, Morris Katz and Rebecca Taibleson.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve. 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: Scott Wiener, looking to succeed Pelosi, balances progressive politics with Jewish allyship; The highest ideals and pettiest politics of the World Zionist Congress; and Ackman sees Gaza truce easing Saudi path to Abraham Accords. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- The Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit kicks off today in Las Vegas. Attending the conference? Keep an eye out for JI’s Matthew Kassel.
- In Detroit, Yeshiva Beth Yehudah is hosting its annual dinner on Sunday evening. This year’s featured speakers are Detroit Pistons vice chairman Arn Tellem and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear.
- The IISS Manama Dialogue kicked off in Bahrain earlier today. Speakers at the weekend-long confab include U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper and senior Emirati official Anwar Gargash.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MATTHEW KASSEL
The Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit kicks off tonight at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas with much to celebrate.
President Donald Trump’s recently brokered ceasefire and hostage-release agreement is certain to be among the administration’s accomplishments touted by a range of high-profile speakers including Cabinet officials, congressional leaders, pundits and media figures.
The RJC is also celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and the proceedings will feature “content about where we came from and where we are today,” said Sam Markstein, the group’s national political director.
“It’s come a long way from its humble beginnings,” Markstein told Jewish Insider in an interview on Thursday.
Hanging over the three-day conference, however, is the specter of rising antisemitism on the party’s far right, an issue that Markstein said the RJC does not intend to avoid.
It’s a particularly timely, and urgent, subject as the RJC prepares to convene days after Tucker Carlson hosted the neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes on his podcast for a friendly interview. Carlson has faced backlash for not only inviting Fuentes onto his show but for failing to challenge any of his viciously antisemitic views — including admiration for Adolf Hitler and Holocaust denial.
During the interview, Carlson himself also expressed his disdain for Christian Zionists including Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, whom he accused of being “seized by this brain virus.” (More below on the Heritage Foundation’s defense of Carlson and the subsequent response from the RJC.)
Huckabee, for his part, is slated to give remarks, via livestream, during the RJC’s confab. Other outspoken critics of Carlson’s antisemitic turn, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Fox News host Mark Levin, will also be in attendance.
The summit will also feature House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Sens. Dave McCormick (R-PA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, among others. The four Jewish Republicans serving in the House are joining as well: Reps. Craig Goldman (R-TX), Randy Fine (R-FL), Max Miller (R-OH) and David Kustoff (R-TN).
team tucker
Heritage Foundation president refuses to disavow ‘close friend’ Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes over antisemitism
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts doubled down on the influential conservative group’s support for Tucker Carlson, who has been leaning into increasingly explicit antisemitism and opposition to Israel on his podcast, and expressed unwillingness to “cancel” neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Chain of events: Roberts’ comments come after a friendly Carlson interview with Fuentes, in which Carlson described Christian Zionists as infected by a “brain virus.” Carlson said he dislikes Christian Zionists “more than anybody. Because it’s Christian heresy, and I’m offended by that as a Christian,” pointing to conservatives including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has repeatedly sparred with Carlson over Israel and antisemitism, and Ambassador Mike Huckabee. On Wednesday, reports arose that Heritage had scrubbed references to Carlson from one of its donation pages. Roberts, in a video posted on X on Thursday amid online discussion of Heritage’s relationship with Carlson, said he refused to cancel Carlson or Fuentes and that the group would “always” defend Carlson from the “pressure” of the “globalist class.”
Communal concern: Jewish conservatives, including the CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, condemned Roberts’ defense of Carlson. RJC CEO Matt Brooks said that Heritage’s defense of Carlson and Fuentes “is a total abrogation of their mission and what it means to be a conservative today.” Brooks said there will now be a “reassessment” of the RJC’s relationship with the Heritage Foundation.
WEAPONS WORRIES
Iran’s moves to rebuild missile program, supported by China, raise concerns on Capitol Hill
Iran’s recent moves to rebuild its ballistic missile program, with materials imported from China in circumvention of international sanctions, are prompting concerns on Capitol Hill, with multiple lawmakers saying that the efforts should be met with a strong response from the United States, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, during which he agreed to cut U.S. tariffs on Beijing in exchange for a series of steps by China, including pausing export controls on rare earths and agreeing to a sale of TikTok. Trump also halted the implementation of a measure that would have banned Chinese firms that are partly owned by sanctioned companies from obtaining U.S. technologies.
Hill reactions: No measures relating to China and Chinese firms’ continued evasion of Iran sanctions — either in supplying materials to Iran or receiving a majority of Iran’s oil exports — were announced by either side. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said they had not seen the CNN reporting, which cited European intelligence that Iran was importing components of ballistic missile fuel from China, on the issue, but expressed concerns. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said he’s “not surprised” by the news because “we all have to understand that Russia, Iran, China, North Korea — they’re all working together to demolish our way of life.” He said that he expects that the U.S. and Israel are going to have to take further military action against Iran in the future.
Read the full story here with additional comments from Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Sens. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), James Lankford (R-OK), John Cornyn (R-TX), Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).
SELECTIVE SUDAN OUTRAGE
Anti-Israel activists, lawmakers ignore Muslim Brotherhood, Iran links to Sudan’s SAF
In recent days, a chorus of left-wing lawmakers in Congress has ramped up its ire towards the United Arab Emirates, accusing the Gulf country of helping fuel the yearslong civil war in Sudan by reportedly backing the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the non-Islamist Arab force fighting the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. The U.S. government, under former President Joe Biden, determined the RSF was committing genocide and found both the RSF and SAF guilty of committing war crimes.
SAF supporters: Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood’s growing influence with the Sudanese Armed Forces has alarmed experts, who warn that the SAF’s deepening ties to Islamist networks threaten regional stability and could pose a risk far beyond the eastern African nation. “The Muslim Brotherhood has had a strong presence in Sudan since the 1940s and that presence has evolved over the years,” Norman Roule, a former senior U.S. intelligence official, told JI. “It’s important to note that this presence is also why Iran is such a strong supporter of the Burhan [head of SAF] government.”
Read the full story here.
new approach
NAVI’s Bernstein calls for reclaiming classical liberal values as a bulwark against antisemitism
The current level of antisemitism in the U.S “is a political problem, not an educational problem” that “requires a new set of organizations” to solve, David Bernstein, founder of the North American Values Institute, said on Thursday. “A group of radicals have seized control over some of the key institutions, from higher education to K-12. It didn’t happen overnight, it happened over a number of years, but it sort of reached a tipping point,” in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks, Bernstein said during an online conversation hosted by Tikvah Ideas, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Community challenges: The discussion addressed the reemergence of antisemitism in American life, the Jewish community’s efforts to confront it and the effectiveness of legacy organizations trying to do so. The event also featured historian Jack Wertheimer — who earlier this month published a Mosaic essay on the rise of antisemitism in America, in which he interviewed some 40 Jewish community professionals. The talk was moderated by Mosaic‘s editor, Jonathan Silver. Bernstein continued, “In order to fight against radical ideology, we have to ask, what’s the opposite of that? And to me, that’s Western values, enlightenment values, classical liberal values. We like to call them American civic values, right? These are the values of pluralism, free expression of ideas, or in Jewish terms, it would be machloket l’shem shamayim, arguments for the sake of heaven. Equality of opportunity, the rule of law. This is the core of the American creed. And I believe it is that core has kept America safe and has sort of pushed the radicals to the margins of society.”
CAMPUS BEAT
BDS resolution accusing Jews of ‘weaponizing antisemitism’ advances in Cornell grad student union
A BDS resolution that accuses Jewish students of “weaponizing antisemitism” and blames labor disputes on “Zionist interests” is advancing in the Cornell University Graduate Student Union — where unlike many other unions, dues are mandatory, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
What it says: The draft resolution, which was published earlier this month and obtained by JI, states that “the dismantling of unions in higher education based on Zionist interests is not only to the detriment of graduate worker unions — it threatens the working class and labor unions nationwide.” The resolution also says that a September Senate Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Committee subcommittee hearing focused on antisemitism within unions “succinctly crystallizes how autocrats are weaponizing antisemitism charges against unions in higher education to undermine labor unions nationwide.”
show of solidarity
Overhauled Kennedy Center takes on the mantle of combating antisemitism
Artist and curator Josef Palermo has lived in Washington for nearly two decades, but he wasn’t aware that the Kennedy Center had an Israeli lounge until he joined the venerable cultural institution as its curator of visual arts and special programming this summer. The Israeli Lounge has been underutilized in recent decades and largely unknown, even among the many Jewish patrons of the arts at the Kennedy Center. Yitzhak Rabin, then Israel’s ambassador to the United States, dedicated the lounge — a small room designed to visually tell the history of Jewish and Israeli music — as Israel’s gift to the United States in 1971, when the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opened its doors alongside the Potomac River. Now, in the wake of President Donald Trump’s takeover of the institution, the walls of the Israeli Lounge are covered with paintings by American-Israeli artist Marc Provisor as part of a special monthlong exhibit commemorating the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel. Provisor’s son survived the Nova music festival, and the paintings are meant to bear witness to the brutality of what happened there, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
A picture’s worth: The exhibit, the opening of which was tied to the two-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, marks the beginning of what Kennedy Center leaders say is an institutional commitment to combating antisemitism through the arts, first and foremost by spotlighting the works and contributions of Jewish artists. “This will not be the last time that we see some work related to antisemitism, or just celebrating the Jewish American community experience,” Palermo, who curated the Oct. 7 exhibit, told JI in an interview last week.
Worthy Reads
Battering Rahm: The Atlantic’s Ashley Parker profiles former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel as he mulls a 2028 presidential bid. “The case against Rahm Emanuel, according to critics: He’s not progressive enough. His only ideology is winning. He’s more of a tactician, less of a principal (though he’s long exuded main-character energy). He’s too short (he claims 5 foot 8) or too old, at least for voters who want to get away from septuagenarian presidents (he’ll be 69 on Inauguration Day 2029). He has a problem with Black voters, stemming from his mayorship (more on that in a bit). He’s too Jewish; his middle name is Israel, though he has called Benjamin Netanyahu’s ‘collective punishment’ of Gazans morally and politically ‘bankrupt’ and previously confronted the prime minister over Israeli settlements (Haaretz reported that Netanyahu dubbed Emanuel a ‘self-hating Jew,’ though the prime minister has denied this).” [TheAtlantic]
Losing Our Voice: In The Washington Post, Ilan Berman, the senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, raises concerns about the Trump administration’s gutting of the U.S. Agency for Global Media and its sub-agencies and outlets. “And the situation is significantly worse at present: China, Russia and Iran are ramping up informational activities in places where the United States is now noticeably absent, like Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. … The Trump administration is not even acknowledging this trend, far less ramping up a strategy to counter it. Nine months in, the White House remains focused simply on dismantling USAGM and its functions. There is little evidence that any administration official has thought deeply about how to best promote core U.S. information priorities: honestly telling America’s story and explaining its priorities and policies while effectively countering the distortions and falsehoods being spread by others.” [WashPost]
Word on the Street
The U.S. plans to present a plan in the coming weeks for an international stabilization force in Gaza, with U.S. Central Command taking the lead in drafting the plan…
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is planning to launch her bid for governor, challenging New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, soon after next Tuesday’s elections…
The Senate confirmed Rebecca Taibleson to a seat on a federal appeals court; Taibleson’s nomination had initially faced resistance from conservative groups over her and her husband’s donations to some Democrats as well as the Milwaukee Jewish Community Foundation…
Vanity Fair spotlights political strategist Morris Katz, who is a key advisor to both New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner…
Maryland state Sen. Dalya Attar was indicted on federal extortion and conspiracy charges in connection with allegations that Attar was involved in an effort to place tracking devices and record two political opponents without their knowledge…
Hamas returned the remains of Israeli hostages Amiram Cooper and Sahar Baruch; both men, residents of Kibbutz Nir Oz and Kibbutz Be’eri, respectively, were alive when taken hostage and died in captivity…
Doron Ben-David, Itzik Cohen, Marina Maximilian and Daniella Pick Tarantino are starring in “Frequency of Fear,” a thriller about Israel’s 2024 pager operation against Hezbollah that is currently in post-production…
Israel offered safe passage to Hamas members in the Israeli-controlled areas of the Gaza Strip to parts of the enclave still under the terror group’s control…
Several hundred thousand Haredi demonstrators in Jerusalem protested efforts to enforce a Haredi draft law that attempted to enlist some 80,000 members of the Haredi community…
The U.K. sanctioned Iranian businessman Aliakbar Ansari, citing the banker’s fiscal support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps…
The International Olympic Committee and Saudi Arabia nixed a 12-year deal for Riyadh to host the Esports Olympics; the cancellation comes weeks after the Saudi sovereign wealth fund inked a $55 billion deal to acquire Electronic Arts…
Al-Qaida is nearing a full takeover of Mali, amid the terror group’s push through western Africa; a U.N. report published over the summer found that jihadists affiliated with Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin looked to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who previously led an al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria, as a model…
Rabbi Meyer May is joining Aish Global as executive vice president after 47 years as the executive director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center; May will remain on as a special counsel to the CEO of the SWC…
Taiwanese singer Na Tang, a co-founder, with her husband, of the Jeffrey D. Schwartz NaTang Jewish Taiwan Cultural Association, died at 59…
Pic of the Day
Former Israeli hostage Bar Kupershtein and his father, Tal, participated in a tefillin ceremony this morning at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square.
Tal Kupershtein, who lost his voice and ability to walk following a stroke five years ago, relearned to speak in an effort to advocate for his son, who spent more than two years in Hamas captivity.
Birthdays
Founding partner at Lanx Management, former president of AIPAC and past chairman of the Orthodox Union, Howard E. (Tzvi) Friedman turns 60…
FRIDAY: Actor with a lengthy career in film, television and theatre, Ron Rifkin turns 86… British historian, born in Baghdad, emeritus professor of International Relations at Oxford, Avraham “Avi” Shlaim turns 80… CEO of Feld Entertainment, which operates the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and Disney on Ice, Kenneth Feld turns 77… Co-founder and co-chairman of Heritage Auctions, James L. Halperin turns 73… Author, historian and writer-at-large for the U.K.-based Prospect Magazine, Sam Tanenhaus turns 70… Staff writer for The New Yorker, her 1998 book was made into the award-winning movie “Adaptation,” Susan Orlean turns 70… Managing partner of Arel Capital, Richard G. Leibovitch turns 62… PAC director at AIPAC, Marilyn Rosenthal… British lawyer who has served as CEO of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and COO of World ORT, Marc Jonathan (Jon) Benjamin turns 61… Former MLB pitcher, now a managing director at Rockefeller Capital Management in Boca Raton, Fla., Steven Allen Rosenberg turns 61… Director of development for Foundation for Jewish Camp until this past April, he defined his role as a “gelt-shlepper,” Corey Cutler… Chief brand and innovation officer of Ralph Lauren, David Lauren turns 54… Founder and CEO of MercadoLibre, the eBay and Amazon of Latin America, Marcos Eduardo Galperin turns 54… Film, television and theater actor, Assaf Cohen turns 53… Film and television director and producer, Ruben Fleischer turns 51… Professor, attorney, author, political columnist and poet, Seth Abramson turns 49…Member of the California State Assembly since 2016, Marc Berman turns 45… Actor Eddie Kaye Thomas turns 45… CEO at Clarasight, he is the founder of Pencils of Promise, Adam Braun… Rabbi and outreach coordinator at the Leffell Lower School in White Plains, N.Y., she is the founder of Midrash Manicures, combining Jewish education and creative nail art, Yael Buechler turns 40… Global strategy and capability development contractor at PwC, Spencer Herbst… Director of institutional advancement at Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh, Masha Shollar… Wheelchair basketball player and social media personality, Peter Berry turns 24…
SATURDAY: French economic and social theorist, he is the author of The Economic History of the Jewish People, Jacques Attali turns 82… Rabbi-in-residence of Baltimore’s 3,500-member Beth Tfiloh Congregation after more than 43 years as senior rabbi, Mitchell Wohlberg turns 81… Pioneering investor in the personal computing industry, founder of Lotus and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mitch Kapor turns 75… Founding rabbi, now emeritus, at Beit T’Shuvah, a nonprofit Jewish addiction treatment center and synagogue community in Los Angeles, Mark Borovitz turns 74… Retired management analyst at the U.S. Department of Energy, Les Novitsky… Serial entrepreneur, Warren B. Kanders turns 68… Philanthropist and Canadian real estate developer living in Israel, Sylvan Adams turns 67… Special assistant to New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, Pinchus Hikind… President of an eponymous auctioneering firm specializing in the appraisal and sale of antique Judaica, Jonathan Greenstein turns 58… CEO at AIPAC, Elliot Brandt… Actress, best known for her roles on “All My Children” and “General Hospital,” Alla Korot turns 55… Principal at Calabasas, Calif.-based CRC-Commercial Realty Consultants, Brian Weisberg… Israeli director, screenwriter and actress, Dikla Elkaslassy turns 46… Member of the Knesset, she is the first Ethiopian-born woman to hold a Knesset seat and the first to serve as a government minister, Pnina Tamano-Shata turns 44… Associate in the D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Clare F. Steinberg… Israeli video blogger, journalist and business executive, Idan Matalon turns 37… Chief advancement officer at The Leffell School in Westchester County (N.Y.), Annie Peck Watman… Reporter for CNN, Marshall J. Cohen… Associate at Katten Muchin Rosenman, Mitchell Caminer… Pitcher for Team Israel, Gabe Cramer turns 31… Derek Brody… Actor since childhood, Max Burkholder turns 28…
SUNDAY: Former NASA astronaut who made five flights in the space shuttle and is currently a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, he was one of NASA’s first two Jewish astronauts, Jeffrey A. Hoffman turns 81… County Executive of Montgomery County, Md., Marc Elrich turns 76… Chairman and CEO of BlackRock, Larry Fink turns 73… Former chair of the Maryland Democratic Party and vice chair of the DNC, Susan Wolf Turnbull turns 73… Professor emerita of Jewish studies at the University of Virginia, Vanessa L. Ochs turns 72… Research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Alan D. Abbey… CNN special correspondent, Jamie Sue Gangel turns 70… Former head of school for 29 years at Weizmann Day School in Los Angeles, Lisa Feldman… Professor of Jewish history at UCLA and immediate past president of the board of the New Israel Fund, David N. Myers turns 65… Deputy commissioner of Maine’s Department of Professional and Financial Regulation, Joan F. Cohen turns 63… Financial planner at Grant Arthur & Associates Wealth Services, he is the author of a book on the complicity of Lithuania in the Holocaust, Grant Arthur Gochin… President of global content at Viva Creative, Thomas Joseph (Joe) Talbott… Marc Solomon… Head of U.S. public policy at Workday, John Sampson turns 59… Actor, director and producer, best known for playing Ross Geller in the sitcom “Friends,” David Schwimmer turns 59… Assistant attorney general for antitrust at the Justice Department during the Trump administration, now a partner at Latham & Watkins, Makan Delrahim turns 56… Professor of economics at MIT, she won a MacArthur “Genius” fellowship in 2018, Amy Nadya Finkelstein turns 52… Founder and CEO of Spring Hills Senior Communities, Alexander C. Markowits… Journalist and bestselling author, he is the publisher of The Lever and a columnist at The Guardian, David Sirota turns 50… U.S. executive vice president of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, Michael Cohen… Former member of the Knesset for the Yisrael Beiteinu party, Alexander Kushnir turns 47… Deputy editor of “The Morning Newsletter” at The New York Times, Adam B. Kushner turns 45… President and CEO of Birthright Israel Foundation, Elias Saratovsky turns 45…Marc B. Rosen…Former director of government relations at the Israel Policy Forum, now a staffer on Capitol Hill, Aaron Weinberg… Two-time Emmy Award-winning video producer, now working as a messaging editor for The New York Times, Celeste B. Lavin turns 35…