Plus, candidates woo Jewish voters in bid to win Nadler's seat
A June morning at the US Capitol in Washington, DC.
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In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on how candidates are responding to the pro-Israel vote in the seat of retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), examine the shifts in the Democratic primary field in the race against Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and preview Tuesday’s meeting between President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. We also look at the latest resignation at the Heritage Foundation as its president refuses to disavow the institution’s relationship with Tucker Carlson. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: State Rep. Esther Panitch, Harriet Schleifer and Jonah Platt.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider Israel Editor Tamara Zieve and U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik with an assist from Matthew Kassel. 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: After Mamdani win, socialists look to challenge Democratic incumbents in NYC; Israel’s neighbors have banned the Muslim Brotherhood, but Israel hasn’t. Why not?; and Black and Jewish college students explore shared adversity and allyship at DC-area ‘Unity Dinner.’ Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- Some 2,000 Jewish communal leaders, philanthropists and nonprofit officials from North America, Israel and beyond will gather in Washington on Sunday for the Jewish Federations of North America’s annual General Assembly. The opening plenary will include former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, authors Sarah Hurwitz and Micah Goodman, CNN contributor Scott Jennings and Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, senior rabbi at Central Synagogue in New York City. Read more here from eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim and Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch.
- New York City Mayor Eric Adams is traveling to Israel today for a five-day trip where he plans to meet with government officials and economic development and high-tech leaders.
- The Texas Tribune Festival, taking place this week in Austin, continues today with speakers including former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), Democratic Texas Senate candidates James Talarico and Rep. Colin Allred, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), comedian John Mulaney, former Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV), venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Tomorrow, Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) are slated to speak.
- MSNBC is launching its rebrand tomorrow as MS NOW, part of its separation from NBCUniversal, with dozens of veteran journalists recruited as part of its expanded newsroom.
- On Sunday, the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust will present its fourth annual New York Jewish Book Festival.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S Josh Kraushaar
Given the GOP’s sturdy 53-seat majority in the Senate, combined with the increasing rarity of split-ticket voters, the Republican Party’s hold on the upper chamber looked nearly guaranteed, with a map featuring very few true swing-state pickup opportunities for the Democrats.
Indeed, the unlikely pathway for Democrats to win back control of the Senate in 2026 runs through states that have been reliably Republican in recent years — Ohio, Iowa, Texas, Florida and Alaska. To win back a majority, the party would need to win at least two of these red-state races, reversing the yearslong Democratic drought in many of these states — along with winning GOP-held seats in battleground Maine and North Carolina, which is far from assured.
But given the dominant Democratic outcomes from the off-year elections, there’s been renewed attention to the possibility of some red-state upsets in 2026. Already, political strategists from both parties are mulling over which seats are the most likely to get competitive, in preparation for an unpredictable midterm election.
On paper, Ohio looks like it’s the best opportunity for Democrats to play offense. Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a populist, battle-tested Democrat won three statewide elections in Ohio even as the state trended in a more conservative direction. He eventually lost in 2024 to Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) by five points, but ran well ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’ double-digit defeat in the state.
With the national environment tilting back in the Democrats’ favor, Brown is seeking a comeback against appointed Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), Ohio’s former lieutenant governor. A September poll of the race conducted by the respected Democratic firm Hart Research found Brown narrowly ahead over Husted, 48-45%. Among independents, Brown held a substantial 25-point lead (56-31%).
Of all the five “reach” states for Democrats, Ohio was the closest in the presidential race, with President Donald Trump winning by 11 points. That should make it the best opportunity for Democrats to win a third seat — even as it underscores how many Trump voters Democrats will need to convert in order to win.
MANHATTAN MOMENTUM
Crowded field of Democrats seeks to win over Jewish voters in race to succeed Nadler
An increasingly crowded race for a coveted House seat in the heart of Manhattan is shaping up to be among the most vigorously contested Democratic primary battles in next year’s midterms, with half a dozen — and counting — contenders now jockeying for the chance to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY). In a district home to one of the largest Jewish constituencies in the country, the open primary next June is likely to center in part on Israel as the candidates signal where they stand on an issue that has grown intensely charged over the war in Gaza, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Exception to the rule?: Even as the far left now seeks to ride momentum from Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory — which elevated an unabashed socialist to executive office — experts suggested the primary could largely serve as an exception to the anti-Israel sentiments that became a trademark of his stunning rise. The district, which includes the Upper East and West Sides of Manhattan, “is more moderate and pro-Israel than” another heavily Jewish House seat in Brooklyn where Mamdani performed well, Chris Coffey, a Democratic strategist who is not involved in the race, told JI on Thursday.
PRIMARY POSITIONS
Military veteran, Rockland County pol emerge as front-runners in Dem primary against Rep. Lawler
The withdrawal of nonprofit executive Jessica Reinmann from the Democratic primary in New York’s 17th Congressional District — a top-targeted swing seat currently held by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) — is bringing the top contenders in the wide field into focus. Reinmann, who endorsed military veteran Cait Conley upon her exit from the race, was one of eight — now seven — challengers aiming to take on Lawler in next year’s midterms. A Democratic strategist in the district said he believes Conley, along with Rockland County Legislator Beth Davidson and potentially former Briarcliff Manor Mayor Peter Chatzky, comprise the top rung of candidates in the crowded race, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Top three: Those three candidates also led the field by a wide margin in fundraising as of the end of September. Conley had raised $1.3 million, Davidson $1.2 million and Chatzky $1 million. However, the vast majority of Chatzky’s war chest — $750,000 — comprises a personal loan to his campaign. Davidson and Conley were invited to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Candidate Week event in Washington earlier this month, where they received additional training and media preparation — a sign the national party sees the two women as the strongest contenders to take on Lawler.
SAUDI SIGHTS
Trump-MBS meeting poised to advance defense pact and F-35 deal as Israel normalization stalls
President Donald Trump is slated to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday in a meeting that experts told Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea is expected to move forward a U.S.-Saudi defense pact and sale of F-35 fighter jets to the kingdom — yet normalization with Israel, once tied to the prospect of such deals, remains elusive. U.S. and Saudi officials have been holding intense negotiations to finalize a defense agreement ahead of the visit, according to reports.
Security assurances: Since an Iranian attack on Saudi oil refineries in 2019, Riyadh has sought to formalize American security guarantees, according to Ghaith al-Omari, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Saudi Arabia is an important American security partner,” said Brad Bowman, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The United States and Saudi Arabia have been working toward a regional security architecture for years.” The agreement is expected to be modeled after the assurances Trump gave to Qatar in a September executive order, which stated that the U.S. will regard “any armed attack” on Qatar “as a threat to the peace and security of the United States.”
BOWING OUT
Heritage Foundation legal expert resigns in continued fallout over antisemitism
Adam Mossoff, a law professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, resigned on Thursday from his position as a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation in response to the organization’s president refusing to disavow Tucker Carlson for his platforming of neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Tipping point: In an email to Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and John Malcolm, director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at Heritage, Mossoff cited Roberts’ Oct. 30 video lashing out at Carlson’s critics and his “subsequent interviews, videos, and commentary” on the subject as the reason for his resignation from the Meese Center. Mossoff wrote in the email, obtained by JI late Thursday, that the video, in which Roberts called out the “venomous coalition attacking” Carlson, and the Heritage president’s comments after the fact “reflects a fundamental ethical lapse and failure of moral leadership that has irrevocably damaged the well-deserved reputation of Heritage as ‘the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement’ (your words in your October 30 video).”
TRANSITION
Paul Ingrassia tapped for new role after withdrawing nomination over antisemitic, racist text messages
Paul Ingrassia, the Department of Homeland Security’s White House liaison who withdrew his nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel late last month after antisemitic and racist text messages of his were unearthed, has been appointed to serve as deputy general counsel at the General Services Administration. Ingrassia, 30, has served in multiple roles in the second Trump administration. Prior to his most recent role at DHS, Ingrassia briefly served as the liaison to the Department of Justice but was reassigned after clashing with the DOJ’s chief of staff, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
New role: The “far-right” activist revealed his new position in an email to fellow DHS staff on Thursday announcing his departure. Ingrassia wrote in the email, obtained by Politico, that Trump had called him into the Oval Office on Wednesday evening to offer him the job. Reached by JI, a White House official confirmed that Ingrassia had taken on the deputy general counsel role at GSA, but did not provide additional comment. The official told Politico that Ingrassia was a “very helpful addition to GSA and will successfully execute President Trump’s America First policies.”
UNION BLUES
Brandeis Center wins settlement over anti-Israel union activity
The Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, a union representing over 3,000 legal workers, has acknowledged “inappropriate” communication around Israel and antisemitism as part of a settlement reached on Thursday brought on behalf of three union members who sued to block an anti-Israel resolution proposed weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Under the agreement: ALAA, part of Local 2325 of the United Auto Workers, will pay the plaintiffs $315,000 in monetary damages and will refer all disciplinary charges brought against members to the union’s outside counsel for review. The union also agreed to implement mandatory training for its executive board to understand its obligation to ensure its members rights are being protected. “The training is not on antisemitism per se, but the expectation is that there will be discussions about how discriminatory animus could motivate violations of union members’ bill of rights,” Rory Lancman, director of corporate initiatives and senior counsel at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told JI.
Scoop: More than 60 attorneys and heads of Jewish legal organizations gathered on Monday in Manhattan for an inaugural legal summit, hosted by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, to discuss questions including: how to effectively present a case to a judge that may not have experience with antisemitism or anti-Israel issues; how to determine when free speech turns into harmful conduct; and how lawsuits might change now that the Israel-Hamas war has ended, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Worthy Reads
MBS in the Oval: Jason Greenblatt, Middle East envoy in the first Trump administration, writes in Newsweek that the upcoming White House visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a “pivotal moment for U.S.–Saudi relations and the future of the Middle East.” “Together, [the U.S. and Saudi Arabia] safeguard the Red Sea and Arabian (Persian) Gulf, counter drone and missile attacks from Iran-backed militias and help prevent nuclear proliferation. A formal defense pact — linking U.S. technology and intelligence with Saudi reach and resources — would cement this cooperation for the long-term. It would show that Riyadh is ready to share the burden of regional security and that Washington remains a reliable ally. … For Israel, a secure and forward-looking Saudi Arabia is especially significant. It reduces tensions and opens the door to deeper cooperation in intelligence, missile defense and maritime security. For the rest of the region, it helps maintain balance and sustain diplomatic and economic progress. When the U.S.–Saudi partnership is strong, the entire region benefits.” [Newsweek]
Tending Your Garden: Conservative Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen argues that conservatives must “keep our own house in order” and reject figures like neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes to constitute an effective opposition to the political left. “As for the argument that we should focus our attention on the left, we can’t effectively oppose the left if we don’t keep our own house in order. Conservatives can’t complain that Democrats call us fascists if we let actual fascists into our movement. If we want to persuade the American people to support our cause, then we need to be clear about what conservatism stands for — and what it does not. That requires we keep out Nazis, along with their enablers. These cranks want to hijack the MAGA movement for their own vile purposes. We need to stop them from doing so. There can and should be vigorous debate among different factions inside the conservative tent. But we must draw a line somewhere — and it should be self-evident that fascism is over that line. If conservatives can’t agree on that, then we will end up like the left — beholden to antisemites in our midst.” [WaPo]
Fever Pitch: Times of Israel founding editor David Horovitz draws the connection between antisemitism and anti-Zionism through antisemitic rhetoric used by protesters at last week’s soccer match in Birmingham, England, between Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv. “The fact is, however, that if the prime, or in most cases the only, focus of your human rights activism is to target Israel — if you don’t take to the streets in support, for instance, of Gazans being murdered by Hamas, or masses being slaughtered in Sudan or any other of the world’s innumerable combat zones, and, needless to say, would not dream of taking a placard onto the streets in support of Jews and other Israelis being slaughtered by Hamas — then, that’s antisemitism. … The ‘If you see a Zionist, call the anti-terror hotline’ slogan does more than equate Zionism with terrorism; it seeks to legitimize the targeting of all who live in and love Israel, by branding us all terrorists. Its dissemination, largely unremarked upon, its malevolent, incendiary rebranding of Zionism as a force of evil, crosses yet another red line in the international effort to achieve Israel’s demise. And it will doubtless reappear along with ever more vicious anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, and, yes, antisemitic words. And deeds.” [TOI]
Word on the Street
Israel is seeking a new 20-year memorandum of understanding with the U.S. when the current 10-year one expires in 2028, U.S. and Israeli officials told Axios, including new propositions meant to emphasize U.S.-Israel cooperation and make the deal more attractive to the “America First” GOP…
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post that Israel “prefer[s] that Turkey not receive F-35 [fighter jets]s from the U.S,” but said that “there’s no indication that Israel’s qualitative edge will be compromised” if Saudi Arabia were to acquire them…
George Soros’ Open Society Foundations philanthropic organization gave the left-wing media organization Drop Site News $250,000 last year, the Washington Free Beacon reports, for it to establish a Middle East desk to “bridge a critical information gap in independent journalism”; over the past year, Drop Site has repeatedly produced anti-Israel coverage, including a series of interviews with Hamas leaders to provide “deeper insight” into the terror group’s decision to launch the Oct. 7 terror attacks…
A group of 25 Senate Republicans led by Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) urged the State Department to “ensure that [the U.N. Relief and Works Agency] play[s] no role in any efforts to stabilize, govern, and rebuild Gaza,” given UNRWA’s ties to terrorism, and urged the U.S. to work instead with trusted international and regional partners and NGOs…
Indonesia’s defense minister said the country has trained up 20,000 troops for health and construction-related tasks as part of the proposed international stabilization force for postwar Gaza…
The body of Meny Godard, who was killed and kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri by Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, was returned to Israel on Thursday night…
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) was hospitalized after suffering a “ventricular fibrillation flare-up” and subsequent fall and face injuries, but is doing well, his spokesperson reported…
The anti-Israel IMEMU Policy Project organization is running an ad targeting Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who is visiting New Hampshire today, criticizing him for appearing alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this year and for voting against blocking arms sales to Israel…
A federal jury recently convicted a neo-Nazi for hate crimes after he mailed antisemitic threats to Georgia state Rep. Esther Panitch, the state’s only Jewish legislator, and Rabbi Elizabeth Bahar of Temple Beth Israel after both women publicly supported the passage of legislation codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism…
Puck profiles Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, Vice President JD Vance’s longtime friend and Pentagon reformer, as he navigates Washington politics while building a reputation as a rising star…
The New York Times reports that Pakistan spent millions on Trump‑linked lobbyists — including his former business partners and bodyguard — in a high-stakes effort to influence U.S. policy…
Venture capitalist Elad Gil has doubled the target size of his new fund to nearly $3 billion, which, if successful, would be the largest known fund raised by a solo general partner, according to the Information…
Harriet Schleifer, former chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, was elected to the board of directors of Democratic Majority for Israel, the group announced…
Pic of the Day
Some 400 people gathered on Wednesday evening at a private estate in Beverly Hills, Calif., for the American Friends of Magen David Adom gala, celebrating the work of MDA — Israel’s national emergency services organization. Actor, singer and writer Jonah Platt hosted the evening’s program, which honored Elizabeth Goldhirsh-Yellin with the Humanitarian Award for her leadership and commitment to the cause of saving lives in Israel. An ambulance was dedicated in memory of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, the two Israeli Embassy staffers who were killed in a terror attack in May outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. Their parents, Nancy and Robert Milgrim and Ruth and Daniel Lischinsky, delivered remarks honoring their children. A second ambulance was dedicated in memory of Sami Liber, a member of the Brentwood community. Carla and Rodney Liber, Sami’s parents, honored her with remarks.
Pictured, from left: Platt, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. and MDA’s Global President Gilad Erdan, AFMDA CEO Catherine Reed and MDA Director-General Eli Bin.
Birthdays
After 15 seasons in the NBA, he became an owner and player for Hapoel Jerusalem and led the team to an Israeli League championship, Amar’e Yehoshafat Stoudemire turns 43 on Sunday…
FRIDAY: Cellist, Natalia Gutman turns 83… Former professional bodybuilder who played for two seasons with the New York Jets, Mike Katz turns 81… Los Angeles businessman, community leader and political activist, Stanley Treitel… Retired member of the U.K.’s House of Lords, Baron Jeremy Beecham turns 81… Former British Labour party MP who resigned in 2019 in protest of Jeremy Corbyn, Dame Louise Joyce Ellman turns 80… Television director and producer, her neurotic text messages to her daughter are the subject of the CrazyJewishMom Instagram page, Kim Friedman turns 76… Editor-at-large for Bloomberg View, Jonathan I. Landman turns 73… Former Democratic member of the New York state Assembly from Brooklyn, his 22-year term was completed at the end of 2022, Steven H. Cymbrowitz turns 72… U.S. secretary of state during the last four years of the Bush 43 administration, now on the faculty of Stanford University and the director of the Hoover Institution, Condoleezza Rice turns 71… Senior advisor to President Barack Obama throughout his eight-year term in the White House, she is now CEO of the Obama Foundation, Valerie Jarrett turns 69… Detroit-based communications consultant, Cynthia Shaw… President of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Laurie L. Patton turns 64… Partner at the Santa Monica-based law firm of Murphy Rosen, Edward A. Klein… Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and professor of political science at George Washington University, Sarah A. Binder… Vice chairman of The Atlantic and managing director of media at Emerson Collective, Peter T. Lattman… and his twin brother, SVP at Forman Mills, Brian Lattman, both turn 55… Businessman with interests in real estate, gambling software, payments processing and digital advertising, Teddy Sagi turns 54… Member of the Colorado House of Representatives until last year when she became a Colorado state senator, Dafna Michaelson Jenet turns 53… Former deputy national security advisor for President Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes turns 48… Head of public policy and government affairs for Lime, Joshua Meltzer… Actress and comedian best known for her eight years as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live,” Vanessa Bayer turns 44… Senior advisor at Clarion Strategies, Jacob Freedman turns 43… Rabbi of the Sha’ar Hashamayim Synagogue in Indonesia, Yaakov Baruch turns 43… Israeli conductor and pianist, he is a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Nimrod David Pfeffer turns 41… Executive director of the One Percent Foundation, Lana Talya Volftsun Fern… Actress and producer, she is a daughter of Bette Midler, Sophie von Haselberg turns 39… First baseman and second baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball, he played for Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Spencer Elliott Horwitz turns 28…
SATURDAY: Author of dozens of children’s books and young adult fiction, frequent NPR guest, Daniel Pinkwater turns 84… Pianist and conductor, formerly music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim turns 83… Boca Raton, Fla., resident, Stephen Wolff… Former Chairman and CEO of Film and Music Entertainment, Lawrence (Larry) Lotman… NYC-based consultant for nonprofit organizations, Perry Davis turns 77… Retired immigration and nationality attorney in Southern California, Michael D. Ullman… Past president of Gratz College in Melrose Park, Pa., he is the author or editor of more than 50 books, Paul Finkelman turns 76… Executive vice president at Aish and former executive director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Museums of Tolerance, Rabbi Meyer H. May turns 73… Executive producer and director of television programs, including “Friends,” one of the most popular TV programs of all time, Kevin S. Bright turns 71… Member of the Knesset for the Yesh Atid party, Meir Cohen turns 70… Partner in Toronto-based accounting firm Fuller Landau, he is a past president of Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto Congregation (BAYT), Jeffrey M. Brown… Senior project manager at T-Mobile, Michael A. Lewine… Member of the Florida House of Representatives, Michael Alan Gottlieb turns 57… Former member of Knesset for the Likud party, Nava Boker turns 55… Founder and chairman of Perilune Capital and co-founder of Harspring Capital Management, Carey Robinson Wolchok… Mortgage executive, Joshua Shein… CEO of the Riverdale Y in the Bronx until 2022, she is now a leadership coach, Deann Forman… As a 12-year-old baseball fan in Yankee Stadium, he interfered with a ball batted by Derek Jeter in the 1996 ALCS that was ruled to be a game-tying home run, Jeffrey Maier turns 42… Professional golfer, he won the gold medal at the 2013 Maccabiah Games, Ben Silverman turns 38… Deputy Washington bureau chief for The Associated Press, Zeke Miller… Press secretary for Maine Gov. Janet Mills, Ben Goodman… Talent Acquisition Partner at Engine, Alison Borowsky… Recent graduate at Harvard Law School, now serving as judicial law clerk for a federal judge in California, Micah Rosen… Military legislative assistant in Rep. Wesley Bell’s (D-MO) office, Ethan Sorcher…
SUNDAY: Justice on the Supreme Court of Canada until he retired in 2013, Morris Jacob Fish turns 87… Professor of mathematics and statistics at Concordia University in Montreal, Abraham J. Boyarsky, Ph.D. turns 79… Milwaukee-based founder and co-managing director of A.B. Data, Ltd, he is the past chair of the Pincus Fund for Jewish Education, Bruce A. Arbit turns 71… Director of programs at IKAR, Susan Brooks… Writer and producer for television and film, Jeff Pinkner turns 61… CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Jewish Policy Center, Matt Brooks turns 60… TV producer and president of Keshet Studios, Peter Traugott turns 55… Former senior vice president at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, Rabbi Justus Baird turns 53… Israeli singer-songwriter, author and travel documentarian, known professionally as “Passerby,” Gilad Segev turns 51… Author of several novels, he was the science fiction and fantasy book columnist for The Washington Post until 2022, Lavie Tidhar turns 49… SVP at The D. E. Shaw Group, he was previously a special assistant to President Obama for energy and economic policy, Michael A. Levi turns 48… 1994 Olympic gold medalist in figure skating, she first discovered that she was Jewish when she was 25 years old, Oksana Baiul turns 48… Stage, film and television actress, Margalit Ruth “Maggie” Gyllenhaal turns 48… Israeli actress, model, film producer and TV host, Adi Ezroni turns 47… VP at Jetro Restaurant Depot, he is a former NFL placekicker and punter, Hayden Scott Epstein turns 45… Snowboarder for the U.S. Olympic team in 2014 and 2022, he competes in the halfpipe, Taylor Gold turns 32… Chief of staff at Lightricks, Aaron Kalman…
Andrew Cuomo carried the district in the NYC mayoral race, underscoring its pro-Israel constituency
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) arrives to view proceedings in immigration court at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building on June 18, 2025 in New York City.
An increasingly crowded race for a coveted House seat in the heart of Manhattan is shaping up to be among the most vigorously contested Democratic primary battles in next year’s midterms, with half a dozen — and counting — contenders now jockeying for the chance to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY).
In a district home to one of the largest Jewish constituencies in the country, the open primary next June is likely to center in part on Israel as the candidates signal where they stand on an issue that has grown intensely charged over the war in Gaza.
Even as the far left now seeks to ride momentum from Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory — which elevated an unabashed socialist to executive office — experts suggested the primary could largely serve as an exception to the anti-Israel sentiments that became a trademark of his stunning rise.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent in the mayoral election this month, won the district by five points with 50%, indicating that a potentially meaningful share of Jewish voters were resistant to Mamdani’s hostile views on Israel and refusal to condemn rhetoric seen as antisemitic.
The district, which includes the Upper East and West Sides of Manhattan, “is more moderate and pro-Israel than” another heavily Jewish House seat in Brooklyn where Mamdani performed well, Chris Coffey, a Democratic strategist who is not involved in the race, told Jewish Insider on Thursday.
So far, however, most of the declared candidates have been relatively cautious about sharing their positions on Israel — underscoring the hazards of addressing a subject that has fueled deep divisions within the Democratic Party. “I would be surprised if they want to lead on this,” Coffey speculated. “It’s a contentious issue.”
With the exception of Alex Bores, an assemblyman who represents the Upper East Side, none of the top candidates who have launched bids in recent weeks answered a question from JI on Thursday asking whether they would support an embargo on offensive weapons to Israel, a measure backed by Nadler after he revealed in September that he would step down at the end of his current term.
“There are laws on the books about this and they should be applied across the board,” Bores said in a statement indicating he would oppose such efforts if elected. “There is no singling out or exemptions for any one country.”
Privately, Bores has been “clear” that an arms embargo is not “negotiable for him,” according to a person familiar with his thinking. Former Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), a pro-Israel Jewish Democrat, endorsed the assemblyman on Tuesday but was not available to comment about his decision.
Alan Pardee, a former financial executive who is also seeking the nomination, was more direct in a statement shared with JI. “I believe that Israel has the right to defend itself, and that the United States is a critical ally in that regard. I do not support the proposed embargo,” he said.
Micah Lasher, a Jewish assemblyman on the Upper West Side and a protégé of Nadler who is viewed as traditionally pro-Israel, has yet to publicly confirm his own stance on the matter, even as he is expected to reject an embargo. Lasher also dodged a question about the issue while speaking at an Assembly town hall in September before he launched his House bid, saying he was unwilling to discuss topics outside his state legislative purview, according to audio shared with JI.
A poll that circulated in the district in September, which some observers suspected was affiliated with Lasher or allies of his campaign, asked respondents whether they supported Congress blocking “the sale of weapons to Israel” in order to “send a message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” a sign of the significance of such questions to voters in the race.
Like Nadler, a veteran Jewish lawmaker who has long sought to balance his progressive politics with support for Israel that dwindled during the war in Gaza, Lasher had faced backlash from some Jewish community leaders in the district for having endorsed Mamdani, though he has clarified they are not aligned on Israel issues.
Other candidates in the primary who backed the mayor-elect have similarly distanced themselves from his positions on Israel. Erik Bottcher, a city councilman from Chelsea who joined the primary on Thursday, has confirmed that, unlike Mamdani, he supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Jack Schlossberg, an influencer and the grandson of John F. Kennedy, who also entered the primary this week, has said he disagrees with Mamdani’s pledge to arrest Netanyahu if he steps foot in the city. The political scion was raised Catholic but identifies as Jewish.
Bores, who endorsed Mamdani in September, has objected to a failed bill the mayor-elect introduced as an assemblyman to strip nonprofit groups of their tax-exempt status for “engaging in unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity.” Bores has said he viewed the bill as “immediately suspicious” because it “singularly applies to organizations providing aid to a specific country and its people.“
And Liam Elkind, a Jewish former nonprofit leader who had launched a primary challenge to Nadler before he announced his plans to retire, has expressed his concern that Mamdani has refused to denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada” — seen by critics as a call to violence against Jews. Mamdani has, instead, pledged to “discourage” usage of the phrase.
Rounding out the primary field is Jami Floyd, an attorney and journalist who is seeking to occupy a centrist lane and has said that she did not vote for Mamdani.
The field could grow as other potential candidates are said to be mulling campaigns, including George Conway, a lawyer and outspoken critic of President Donald Trump who is an independent, and Nathalie Barth, former president of Park Avenue Synagogue.
Cameron Kasky, a young gun-violence prevention activist, has filed to run and said on Thursday he is now exploring a bid. He is expected to soon join the race, according to a person familiar with the matter. He would be one of the lone anti-Israel voices in the current primary field, testing the resonance of such views among an electorate that denied Mamdani the majority of the vote.
Kasky, who is Jewish, has frequently criticized Israel on social media and is in favor of an arms embargo. “If you are a Democrat running in 2026 and do not fully support an arms embargo to the to State of Israel amidst their ongoing genocide in Gaza despite Trump’s fake ‘ceasefire,’” he said in a recent post, “Stop wasting everybody’s time. It’s over. The people have spoken. Moral clarity is winning.”
Despite his recent loss, Cuomo, a staunch defender of Israel, is also exploring a campaign and has been making calls to donors who backed his mayoral bid, though it was unclear how seriously he is considering the move, people familiar with the matter told JI. Cuomo, who was once married to a Kennedy, has suggested that he can pull support from Schlossberg and told people he “already has the Kennedy voters,” one of the sources told JI. A spokesperson for Cuomo has dismissed speculation that he has been considering a House campaign.
The primary is also expected to attract outside spending from super PACs and major Democratic donors, including Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn who has reportedly committed to backing Elkind. One person familiar with the race suggested Lasher could claim support from a powerful former boss, Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, for whom he once worked as a legislative director.
AIPAC, the pro-Israel advocacy group that has actively engaged in recent primary cycles, did not respond to a request for comment about how it is assessing the race.
The NYC mayoral front-runner has said that, if elected mayor, he may displace the campus, a joint project of Cornell University and Israel’s Technion, from Roosevelt Island
Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
A view of Tata Innovation Center at the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island on July 23, 2022 in New York City. Cornell Tech is joint academic venture between Cornell and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
If elected mayor, Zohran Mamdani has said he would reassess the partnership between Cornell University and Israel’s Technion, potentially kicking the joint Cornell Tech campus out of its home on Roosevelt Island in New York City.
But two Jewish Mamdani backers who represent Roosevelt Island and have supported the project have been silent about his plans.
Cornell and Technion were selected by city officials under Mayor Mike Bloomberg in 2010 to build the campus on city-owned land and received $100 million in other incentives. It opened in 2017.
Mamdani’s campaign told The New York Times and Ynet that he would reassess the partnership if elected. As mayor, Mamdani would have the authority to appoint new members to Roosevelt Island’s governing board, giving him influence over management of the island.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and state Sen. Liz Krueger, both of whom have been supporters of Mamdani, as well as active backers of the Cornell Tech campus, did not respond to requests for comment. Both have appointees on the community task force that supported the construction of the campus, which is within their districts.
Mamdani called for a boycott of the campus shortly after being elected to the state Senate in 2020, and said that “Technion University is an Israeli University that has helped to develop a lot of weapons technology used by the IDF” and that the campus should be assessed through “the lens of BDS” — the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign targeting Israel — according to the New York Post.
Mamdani’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on his stance or plans for the campus.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro, now a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, said Mamdani’s plans were “terrible.”
“It smacks of an academic boycott of a respected Israeli university,” Shapiro said. “It also is a great way to drive innovation jobs out of the city. Both wrong in principle and self-defeating in practice.”
Mamdani is also expected to attempt to block further investment in Israel bonds in the city’s pension fund and has said he would shut down the New York City-Israel Economic Council launched by Mayor Eric Adams.
Plus, new study suggests X is safe harbor for antisemitism
Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images
President Donald Trump, right, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, during a news conference in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Sept. 29, 2025.
Good Monday afternoon.
This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.
I’m Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime briefing. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
In a press conference this afternoon at the White House, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel had agreed to sign onto the White House’s 20-point peace plan to end the war in Gaza.
The plan, which has not yet been agreed to by Hamas, would see the release of all of the remaining hostages in Gaza in exchange for an immediate end to the war and the release of 2,250 Palestinians in Israeli jails, including 250 serving life sentences. Hamas would be removed from power in Gaza with its members offered amnesty if they “commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons.”
Netanyahu and Trump weren’t in lockstep on the future of Gaza, though. The Israeli PM said in his remarks that “Gaza will have a peaceful civilian administration that is run neither by Hamas nor by the Palestinian Authority,” while the White House’s plan says that the PA will control Gaza once the body has reformed (a process that could take years).
Even if Hamas rejects the plan, humanitarian aid operations will continue to be scaled up, and terror-free areas of Gaza will be handed over from the IDF to an international stabilization force. But Trump said that Israel will have the “full backing” of the U.S. to resume fighting in Gaza if Hamas does not accept.
“If Hamas rejects the deal — which is always possible, they’re the only one left. Everyone else has accepted it. But I have a feeling that we’re going to have a positive answer. But if not, as you know, Bibi, you’d have our full backing,” said Trump. Read JI’s coverage of the press conference here…
During their meeting beforehand in the Oval Office, Netanyahu and Trump held a phone call with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, where Netanyahu apologized for killing a Qatari serviceman in an attempted strike on Hamas leadership in Doha and promised not to violate Qatari sovereignty again.
The conversation came after Trump has repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction with Israel’s decision to strike a major non-NATO U.S. ally without providing sufficient notice to the White House.
The apology was met with frustration and scorn from Netanyahu’s right-wing political allies and left-wing opponents in Israel. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich compared the apology to U.K. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler during World War II. Netanyahu’s “groveling apology to a state that supports and funds terror is a disgrace,” Smotrich said on X…
A New York Times/Siena College poll released today found dramatic declines in American support for Israel, with slightly more American voters saying they sympathize more with Palestinians (35%) than with Israelis (34%) for the first time since the Times started asking the question in 1998, though there remains a large segment of the population that is unsure or that sympathizes with both equally (31%).
Around 60% of voters said that Israel should end the war in Gaza “in order to protect against civilian casualties” even if the remaining hostages are not released and even if Hamas is not fully eliminated. Among Democrats, that figure is an overwhelming 81%.
The majority of the shifting sentiment against Israel comes from Democrats: 59% also think that Israel is intentionally killing Gazan civilians. Within the party, the biggest shift is coming from white, college-educated, older voters. In a similar poll two years ago, Democrats ages 45 and older “sympathized with Israel over Palestinians 2-to-1. That is now reversed, with 42% saying they sympathize more with Palestinians, compared with 17% who feel more sympathetic toward Israel”…
Among Israel’s detractors, New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani declined to denounce Hamas on Friday, when asked if he agreed with Netanyahu’s remarks at the U.N. General Assembly that Hamas is a terrorist group that needs to be destroyed.
“I’m not going to echo the words of Benjamin Netanyahu,” Mamdani said. “I can, however, share my own words and say them right here, which is that my politics is built on a universality. I can think of no better illustration of that than from the words of the hostage families themselves: Everyone for everyone.”
“What has been so infuriating to me and so many New Yorkers, frankly, is Benjamin Netanyahu’s use of the hostages as a justification to continue a war that has only continued to endanger the lives of those very hostages, as well as of so many Palestinians,” Mamdani said…
A new study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs found that antisemitism is “thriving” on the social media platform X in an analysis of over 679,000 posts. The study found that X took action on only 36 out of the 300 most-viewed posts espousing antisemitic conspiracy theories and only four of them received community notes, which X owner Elon Musk has touted as the antidote to harmful content instead of increased moderation…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for the latest reporting and analysis of the White House’s Gaza peace plan and a breakdown of the anti-Israel candidates running for all four open Chicago-area House seats in hotly contested Democratic primaries.
Tomorrow evening, Democratic Majority for Israel will host a virtual briefing with Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) and Jacob Magid, The Times of Israel‘s U.S. bureau chief, on the implications of today’s White House meeting, the status of the war, political developments in Jerusalem and Landsman’s reflections from his recent trip to Israel.
Stories You May Have Missed
BOWING OUT
Eric Adams’ campaign suspension may come too late to block Mamdani’s path to victory
Individuals involved in the race told JI impediments remain to consolidating support behind Andrew Cuomo
INFLUENCER INSIGHTS
TikTok sale could be ‘consequential’ for Israel, Jews, Netanyahu tells influencers
‘We have to fight the fight’ on social media, shore up support on American right, Netanyahu says
Plus, Mamdani rings in new year at anti-Zionist synagogue
President Donald Trump (R) delivers remarks during a meeting with President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Oval Office at the White House on September 25, 2025 in Washington, DC (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Good Thursday afternoon.
This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.
I’m Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime briefing. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Asked about reports that he had told Arab leaders this week he will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, President Donald Trump confirmed to reporters in the Oval Office this afternoon, “I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, nope, I will not allow it. It’s not gonna happen.”
Pressed if he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the issue, Trump said, “Yeah, but I’m not going to allow it. Whether I spoke to him or not — I did — but I’m not allowing Israel to annex the West Bank. There’s been enough, it’s time to stop now”…
The comments came shortly after Trump met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House today, where Trump suggested that he may permit Ankara to purchase F-35 fighter jets, which it has been prohibited from doing since it acquired a Russian S-400 missile defense system in 2017.
Trump said without mentioning the F-35s or the less-advanced F-16 jets by name that he expected Erdogan would “be successful with buying the things” he would “like to buy.” “He needs certain things, and we need certain things, and we’re going to come to a conclusion. You’ll know by the end of the day,” Trump said.
The prospect of the sale has sparked concern from lawmakers: Bipartisan groups have urged the administration on several occasions not to change policy on the issue, including in a new letter today…
Elsewhere in the White House, one of the architects of the Trump administration’s negotiations with universities said that the large financial sums being extracted in the settlements are meant to bring attention to the administration’s aggressive approach to tackling discrimination in higher education, rather than punish the schools financially.
May Mailman, a conservative attorney who until last month served as a senior White House strategist, told The New York Times that “These are small dollar figures compared to the amounts that they are getting every year from the federal government and from their donors — but I think it provides a seriousness and a focus on these in ways that promises only wouldn’t.”
“When you see numbers like that, then you pay attention, and you look, and then you’re able to learn a little bit more, something maybe you wouldn’t normally learn,” Mailman said…
Getting in the holiday spirit, New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani joined Rosh Hashanah services on Monday night at Kolot Chayeinu, a Brooklyn synagogue known for its anti-Zionist activism, where the rabbi spoke extensively about Israel carrying out a “genocide” in Gaza.
The congregation, one of the first to call for a ceasefire just weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks, faced criticism last year for promoting anti-Israel views in its Hebrew school curriculum. One of its rabbis, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace’s Rabbinical Council, was kicked out of a White House event for disrupting former First Lady Jill Biden to call for an arms embargo on Israel.
Two of Mamdani’s challengers also spent time in NYC synagogues over the holiday: Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo joined the Park East Synagogue for its services and Mayor Eric Adams spoke to the Sephardic Lebanese Congregation.
Mamdani also plans to join Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) for Yom Kippur services next week, where Nadler said some of the congregants will be “frankly very upset to see” Mamdani. It remains unclear which synagogue they will attend; the B’nai Jeshurun synagogue on the Upper West Side, which Nadler frequents, told Jewish Insider that Mamdani “will not be joining services with our community”…
Also in New York, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the U.N. General Assembly by video today after the Trump administration revoked his visa to attend in person. He called Israel’s actions in Gaza “war crimes” and said the PA would be willing to govern the enclave, which he said is an integral part of a future Palestinian state…
Elon Musk’s xAI announced today it has reached a deal with the Trump administration to allow federal agencies to use its AI chatbot Grok, just months after the bot went rogue on X proclaiming itself to be “MechaHitler” and espousing extreme antisemitic rhetoric…
Over 1,200 celebrities including Mayim Bialik, Debra Messing, Sharon Osbourne, Howie Mandel, Haim Saban, Gene Simmons and Liev Schreiber have signed on to an open letter urging over 4,000 of their Hollywood colleagues to reconsider their signatures on a recent pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions. “We cannot stay silent when a story is turned into a weapon, when lies are dressed up as justice, and when artists are misled into amplifying antisemitic propaganda,” the letter reads…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye on Jewish Insider for reporting on Microsoft’s decision to restrict the IDF’s use of its software after repeated protests by its employees and on what the sale of TikTok’s U.S. business may mean for the platform’s algorithm, which has been accused of promoting antisemitic and anti-Israel content.
This evening, UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk will speak on Jews United for Democracy & Justice’s “America at a Crossroads” series about President Donald Trump’s approach to higher education. Read JI’s interview with Frenk here.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be the first world leader to speak at the U.N. General Assembly tomorrow morning, after many of the week’s speeches by world leaders included condemnations of Israel and recognition of a Palestinian state. On Monday, Netanyahu will meet with Trump at the White House.
Also tomorrow, the Nova Music Festival Exhibition opens in Boston.
We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom!
Stories You May Have Missed
Q&A
Post-Paramount sale, Shari Redstone is ‘full speed ahead’ on addressing antisemitism
The media mogul told JI she’s excited to show the world a different view of Israel through the Sipur production company, which she joined as chair
EYE ON UNESCO
Concern mounts in Jerusalem as Qatar, Egypt set to take key roles in UNESCO
‘It’s bad for Israel and bad for America,’ an Israeli diplomat told JI this week
Plus, UAE warns Israel against annexation
Sean Zanni/Getty Images for National Alliance for Eating Disorders
Chelsea Clinton speaks onstage during the World Eating Disorder Action Day Summit 2025 at United Nations on June 02, 2025 in New York City.
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s upcoming trip to Israel, and look at the primary field already taking shape in New York’s 12th Congressional District following Rep. Jerry Nadler’s retirement announcement. We report on Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s campaign ads, all of which mention AIPAC, and talk to a former board member of the International Association of Genocide Scholars about the organization’s “deeply flawed” passage of a resolution accusing Israel of genocide. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Deni Avdija, Lana Nusseibah and Yael Lempert.
What We’re Watching
- Senior Emirati diplomat Lana Nusseibah warned in a just-published interview that Israel’s potential annexation of the West Bank would constitute a “red line” for Abu Dhabi that would “end the vision of regional integration.” We’re keeping an eye on the diplomatic dynamics following Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich‘s announcement earlier today that Israel plans to annex approximately 82% of the West Bank.
- This morning, the Middle East and North Africa subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee will sit for a closed-door, member-only roundtable with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee “on key issues facing the bilateral relationship as it relates to Judea and Samaria,” the biblical term for the West Bank.
- We’re monitoring Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s upcoming trip to Israel, first reported yesterday. Rubio is slated to attend the inauguration of the Pilgrims’ Road at the City of David in Jerusalem on Sept. 15. Read more here from JI’s Melissa Weiss.
- We’re also keeping an eye on Sacramento, where California legislators are days from the end of the legislative year and have yet to take up a bipartisan antisemitism bill. Jewish groups in the state have voiced support for the legislation, which has faced pushback from the California Teachers Association.
- Tonight in New York, journalist Yaakov Katz will speak in conversation with The New York Times’ Bret Stephens about Katz’s new book, While Israel Slept, written with Amir Bohbot.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS
As Israel calls up tens of thousands of reservists ahead of a planned takeover of Gaza City and rejects ceasefire proposals that fall short of a comprehensive deal to end the war and release all of the hostages, Jerusalem finds itself facing calls both at home and abroad against further entrenchment in Gaza.
At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing pressure from Washington to end the war — with a decisive victory over Hamas.
President Donald Trump signaled his growing weariness with a protracted war in an exchange with The Daily Caller, published earlier this week, in which he said Israel is “gonna have to get that war over with,” noting that Israel “may be winning the war, but they’re not winning the world of public relations.” Netanyahu said at his weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday that Trump had instructed Israel to go into Gaza City with “full force.”
Days earlier, the president held a White House meeting that included Jared Kushner and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss a “day-after” plan for the Gaza Strip. Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer scrapped a planned meeting with World Food Program head Cindy McCain to fly to Washington for consultations.
Taken together, Trump’s comments and last week’s gathering underscore the president’s dwindling patience with the ongoing war — concerns that have been highlighted in Israeli media reports in recent days.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported over the weekend that Trump, frustrated by Hamas’ intransigence, is pushing Netanyahu to move more quickly to decisively defeat Hamas. That could pose a challenge for Israel, which has not been able to declare “total victory” against Hamas in nearly two years but now faces White House pressure to end the war in a short amount of time — “perhaps even within two weeks,” according to Channel 12.
SUCCESSION IN MANHATTAN
Nadler’s favored successor drawing scrutiny over Mamdani endorsement
Rep. Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY) surprise decision on Monday to retire at the end of his current term has set off what is expected to be a crowded primary to succeed the long-serving Jewish Democrat — with a growing number of candidates weighing bids for the coveted Manhattan House seat he has held for more than three decades. The looming open-seat primary has also raised questions about whether candidates will embrace Nadler’s increasingly skeptical views on Israel, and how the issue will shape the race. The 78-year-old lawmaker, who represents one of the largest Jewish constituencies in the nation, has long identified as a pro-Israel progressive, even as he has vocally criticized Israel’s conduct during its ongoing war in Gaza and drew scrutiny from some Jewish community leaders over his early endorsement of Zohran Mamdani, the far-left Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Looking at Lasher: Potential candidates include New York state Assemblymember Micah Lasher, Chelsea Clinton, Jack Schlossberg and former FTC Commissioner Lina Khan. Lasher, a former aide to Nadler who is expected to claim the congressman’s blessing, according to people familiar with the situation, has built strong ties to the pro-Israel community, but he faced backlash from local rabbis over his similarly quick choice to support Mamdani, in spite of the nominee’s hostile views on Israel. One Jewish leader said it was premature to draw conclusions about Lasher’s positions on Israel, while voicing confidence that he “makes up his own mind” on tough issues, regardless of where his allies may stand. “Lasher is center-left but has always been relatively moderate on Israel,” a pro-Israel strategist added in assessing the assemblyman’s stances on the Middle East.
ONE TRACK MIND
Graham Platner’s anti-Israel fixation in the Maine Senate race
Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner is putting anti-AIPAC and anti-Israel messaging front and center in fundraising appeals he’s circulating on social media, Jewish Insider‘s Marc Rod reports.
Ad attack: “My opponent has already been endorsed by AIPAC — an endorsement I will never get. Because what is happening right now in Gaza is a genocide,” Platner says in one direct-to-camera video ad focused specifically on his opposition to AIPAC. “I need your help because we refuse to take money from AIPAC, and we refuse to take money from the billionaires who support it.” Every one of the eight active ads that Platner is running on Facebook and Instagram, according to Meta’s political advertising library tool, includes a repudiation of AIPAC, and around half accuse Israel of genocide.
Notes from the field: Maine Beer Company co-founder and political neophyte Dan Kleban is entering the growing primary field of candidates hoping to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
MILITARY MUSCLE
China uses WWII memory to project power in military parade and international diplomacy
China showcased its growing aggressiveness on the world stage in a major military parade on Wednesday, showing off missiles and fighter jets to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II with Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in attendance. The parade was an example of how Beijing has used WWII not only to encourage nationalism, but to project power internationally, from Jerusalem to Taipei and beyond, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Zoom out: The parade came shortly after China hosted a summit with Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other Eurasian leaders, deepening ties among major powers not aligned with the West. The attendees issued a communique last week strongly condemning “the military aggression launched by Israel and the United States against Iran” in June. China has also used World War II and Holocaust terminology in recent weeks as it continues its hostility against Israel, calling Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide,” even as the Chinese Embassy in Israel held an event highlighting Beijing’s positioning with the Allies in World War II. The recent statements reflect a broader double game China has played in its relations toward Israel, consistently showing hostility to Israel on the international stage since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, while within Israel, the Chinese ambassador has pursued a friendlier posture.
SPEAKING OUT
Genocide scholars’ resolution accusing Israel ‘deeply problematic,’ member says
A longtime former board member of the International Association of Genocide Scholars criticized the group’s passage of a resolution on Monday accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, calling the move deeply flawed and the result of a politicized process. Sara Brown, the American Jewish Committee’s regional director in San Diego who has a Ph.D. in genocide studies, argued that “the whole premise and tenor of the resolution is deeply problematic.” In an interview with Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov on Tuesday, Brown, who maintains her membership in IAGS, also pushed back against the narrative that most genocide scholars are accusing Israel of genocide.
How it played out: The resolution passed with only 129 out of over 500 IAGS members voting, 108 in favor, 18 opposed and three abstaining. All paid members have the right to vote, and membership is not restricted to academics; its ranks include artists, activists and others interested in the field of genocide studies. As a result, some pro-Israel figures paid to join the IAGS following the resolution’s approval. Under normal circumstances, Brown said, any member can propose a resolution, which goes before a committee for comments and feedback. Controversial or high-stakes resolutions are brought before a virtual town hall to discuss the text. This time, when the resolution was proposed on an IAGS listserv, Brown said that she and others attempted to publish a dissent that was deleted by the moderators.
CLASSROOM CONTROVERSY
D.C. suburb stirs controversy by mandating Palestinian folktale as required first grade reading
A book that centers on Palestinian identity is drawing controversy from some Jewish parents in the Montgomery County, Md., public school system after it was assigned to first grade students as required classroom reading, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen has learned. The book, Tunjur! Tunjur! Tunjur! A Palestinian Folktale, written by Margaret Read MacDonald, aims to convey a message to children that there are consequences for taking things that don’t belong to them. It tells the story of a woman who “prayed to Allah” for a child and received a pot as her child. The pot, too young to know right from wrong, had a tendency to steal honey from the marketplace and jewels from the king — until she got caught.
Voiced concerns: While the book does not mention Israel, local Jewish leaders and parents voiced concern that the required book’s subtext sends an anti-Israel message to elementary schoolers and that the reference to “Allah” does not belong in a public school setting. A syllabus notes that students can receive supplemental reading materials if “any instructional material conflicts with your family’s sincerely held religious beliefs.” The book’s lesson that “‘you cannot take things that do not belong to you’ echoes activist rhetoric that falsely casts Israel as an oppressor and the Jewish people as imperialist rather than indigenous,” Dana Stangel-Plowe, chief program officer at the North American Values Institute, a nonprofit that monitors antisemitism in K-12 schools, told JI.
But: Not all Jewish communal leaders agreed that the book was problematic. Guila Franklin Siegel, chief operating officer of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, argued that Jewish families should embrace the book. “If the only complaint about this book is that it’s sharing a Palestinian folktale that teaches children not to take things that don’t belong to them, I can’t see what the problem with the book is,” Franklin Siegel told JI. “It will be a shame if Jewish people wind up objecting to books only because they have protagonists who happen to be Palestinian.”
money matters
House Appropriations bill would ban funding to schools that fail to address antisemitism
The House Appropriations Committee’s proposed funding bill for the Department of Education includes sweeping new provisions cutting off funding for colleges and universities that fail to address campus antisemitism, but would also cut $49 million in funding for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in 2026, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
New language: New language included in the bill states that no federal funding may be provided to institutions of higher education “unless and until such institution adopts a prohibition on antisemitic conduct that creates a hostile environment in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in all documents relating to student or employee conduct.” The bill also bans funding to schools that have “failed to take administrative action against any student, staff member, or student group that commits acts of antisemitism while utilizing the facilities, grounds, or resources of such institution.” At the same time, the bill would provide $91 million in funding for the Office for Civil Rights, which pursues complaints of antisemitism lodged by Jewish students, down from $140 million provided in several previous years.
Elsewhere on the Hill: With the 2025-26 school year kicking off, Sens. Dave McCormick (R-PA) and John Fetterman (D-PA) wrote to the presidents of five Pennsylvania universities urging them to work with their Jewish communities to ensure Jewish students’ safety and ability to participate in campus life, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Worthy Reads
Hitting the Houthis: The Wall Street Journal’s Dov Lieber and Saleh al-Batati spotlight Israel’s efforts to target Houthi leadership, following a strike last week that killed the terror group’s prime minister and nearly a dozen other senior officials. “The strike also reflects an aggressive Israeli security posture in which Israel wants its adversaries to know it will hit back hard against any potential threat, say military analysts. The new doctrine is referred to among soldiers as FAFO, an acronym for f— around and find out, according to one of the security officials. … After escalating its fight against the Houthis, Israel hopes its strikes will have a deterrent effect on the group and other potential enemies in the region, one of the Israeli security officials said. The official said there is hope in Israel that the Yemeni people opposed to the Houthis will once again take up arms against them. ” [WSJ]
Inspection Time: The editorial board of The Washington Post calls on Iran to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors back into the country and to resume nuclear talks with the U.S. “The only way to know for certain what’s left is for the inspectors to fully return and for the Iranian government to come clean about what, if anything, it still has. To prevent further conflict, Iran also needs to reenter negotiations with the United States over any future nuclear program for civilian-only use. The United States says it is ready to talk, but Iran has insisted as a precondition, among other things, that Trump commit to no further strikes. That would give away too much leverage. … If Tehran takes any lesson from June, it should be that the United States is not afraid of using military force to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Trump resisted pressure from the vocal isolationist faction in his base, and he could do so again if he feels it is necessary to protect the nation’s security.” [WashPost]
Higher Ed’s Real Problem: In The Atlantic, Boston University professor E. Thomas Finan posits that the Trump administration’s legal efforts against top-tier universities should serve as a “wake-up call” that pushes schools to meaningfully address deep-seated issues. “Strong free-speech protections for students and faculty combined with a commitment to intellectual diversity can help foster open inquiry and rigorous analysis. Colleges and universities should also consider remaining neutral on more political issues: Constant interventions can sap the academy’s credibility and make students who take opposing views feel unwelcome. … Colleges cannot assume that the public consensus that has sustained them will simply remain in place, nor should they assume that reaching financial settlements will mend the structural weaknesses that have made them so vulnerable in the first place. The surest protection for the academy is to forge a new political compact — to prove, once again, that America’s higher education is indispensable to its democracy.” [TheAtlantic]
New War Footing: In his “Clarity” Substack, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren considers the ways in which the Israeli approach to the country’s military has shifted in the post-Oct. 7 era. “Never will we forfeit the need for deep buffer zones along all our frontiers. Never again will the IDF favor a defensive over an offensive strategy — Iron Dome over tanks and armored personnel carriers — and rely almost exclusively on technology rather than soldiers to guard our land. Never again will our reservists go years without training or go into battle without even the most basic gear. … If, before the war, the questions of Haredi military service and integration into the economy were important but still open to debate, today that discussion has ended.” [Clarity]
Word on the Street
The Treasury Department announced sanctions on Iraqi businessman Waleed al-Samarra’i, who also holds citizenship in St. Kitts and Nevis, over his efforts to help Iran evade restrictions on oil exports…
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) announced she will not seek reelection in 2026, setting up a potential primary clash between the establishment and MAGA wings of the GOP; Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), an ally of Ernst, launched her bid shortly after Ernst’s announcement…
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, Disney CEO Bob Iger and Thrive Capital’s Josh Kushner were spotted sitting together in the first row at last night’s U.S. Open match in Queens, N.Y., between Novak Djokovic and Taylor Fritz; Jeffrey Katzenberg was also spotted attending the same match…
Elliott Investment Management, which has a $4 billion stake in PepsiCo, is pushing for changes at the food and beverage conglomerate, including re-franchising its bottling network and pulling low-selling products…
Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio cautioned that the U.S. risks falling into pre-WWII-era autocratic politics…
In The Wall Street Journal, stock trader Peter Tuchman, who has been photographed more than 1,000 times on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, reflects on his 18-year “15 minutes of fame as the Einstein of Wall Street” after the New York Daily News ran a front-page photograph of Tuchman in 2007…
New York mayoral candidate Jim Walden, who had been polling in single digits, dropped out of the race and called on the remaining candidates who are polling low to consider exiting the race, citing concerns over Democratic nominee and front-runner Zohran Mamdani’s “extreme bigotry toward police, his authentic commitment to communism, his antisemitic obsessions, and his sympathies for terrorists”…
Police in Los Angeles are investigating the vandalism of a Jewish supplies store in the city’s Encino neighborhood; security camera footage captured the vandal spray-painting antisemitic graffiti on the side of the Mitzvahland goods store on Shabbat…
Palantir co-founders Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale, as well as Elad Gil and Keith Rabois,were in Israel this past weekend for the wedding of Zach Frenkel, an investor in Thiel’s VC firm; some of the high-profile wedding attendees, including Blackstone and Palantir executives, reportedly met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the trip…
French President Emmanuel Macron announced that the upcoming Conference on the Two-State Solution, which Paris is co-hosting with Saudi Arabia, will be held in New York on Sept. 22; Macron called for a “reformed and strengthened” Palestinian Authority, a “fully reconstructed” Gaza Strip and the disarmament of Hamas…
Pope Leo XIV is slated to meet with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday at the Vatican…
UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed hosted Larry Fink in Abu Dhabi, where he congratulated the BlackRock CEO on his new position as co-chair of the World Economic Forum…
Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said that U.S. demands that Tehran curb its missile program were hindering potential nuclear talks…
Former U.S. Ambassador to Jordan Yael Lempert was named vice president for outreach at the Middle East Institute…
Pic of the Day
Israel’s national basketball team, led by Deni Avdija (pictured, in blue), secured a Sweet 16 spot in the EuroBasket tournament for the first time in more than a decade. The team beat Belgium 92-89 on Tuesday in Katowice, Poland.
Birthdays
Media personality, psychologist and socialite, also known as Dr. Estella, Estella Sneider, Psy.D. turns 75…
London-based advice columnist for the Cosmopolitan UK magazine for over 40 years, known there as an agony aunt, Irma Kurtz turns 90… Past chair of the Anti-Defamation League and later the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Robert G. Sugarman turns 86… Retired software engineer at IBM for 39 years, he persevered after many years to locate and inter the remains of the crew of a crashed WW II American B-24 in the Indian Himalayans, succeeding in 2008, Gary Zaetz turns 71… Actor best known for portraying Bobby Baccalieri on “The Sopranos,” more recently he has appeared in 146 episodes of CBS’ “Blue Bloods,” Steve Schirripa turns 68… Chair of the global sustainability platform at Apollo Global Management, Jonathan Silver… Offensive lineman for the NFL’s New Orleans Saints from 1982 to 1989, now a professional photographer, Brad M. Edelman turns 65… Producer and reporter at NBC and MSNBC, early in his career he spent eight years as a volunteer broadcaster and reader for the Jewish Guild for the Blind, Adam Reiss turns 60… Executive chairman of Time magazine, Edward Felsenthal turns 59… Historian and journalist who has written four books on the rise of the American conservative movement (focused on Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan), Eric S. “Rick” Perlstein turns 56… Mayor of Haifa until 2024, she was the first woman to lead that city, Einat Kalisch-Rotem turns 55… Executive director at the Michael Reese Research & Education Foundation, Jason Rothstein… VP of data visualization at Moody’s Corporation, Todd Lindeman… CEO of PR and communications firm Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis, Shawn Sachs… Founder of the Silverstein Group, providing strategic policy, crisis management and communications advice, Rustin Silverstein… Rabbi of The Hampton Synagogue, Avraham Bronstein turns 45… Chief advancement officer of Honeymoon Israel, Avital Ingber… Head of global public affairs marketing at Meta / Facebook, Joel Martín Kliksberg… Chief media correspondent for CNN until 2022, then a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School, now back at CNN, Brian Stelter turns 40… South Florida-based attorney, she served as the co-chair of JFNA’s national young leadership cabinet, Lindsey Tania Glantz… Comedy writer, producer and performer, Megan Amram turns 38… Fashion model and actress, Kaia Jordan Gerber turns 24…
Like the retiring congressman, New York Assemblyman Micah Lasher endorsed the anti-Israel mayoral nominee
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) speaks to the media before as closed door meeting at Capitol Hill on November 13, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Rep. Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY) surprise decision on Monday to retire at the end of his current term has set off what is expected to be a crowded primary to succeed the long-serving Jewish Democrat — with a growing number of candidates weighing bids for the coveted Manhattan House seat he has held for more than three decades.
The looming open-seat primary has also raised questions about whether candidates will embrace Nadler’s increasingly skeptical views on Israel, and how the issue will shape the race. The 78-year-old lawmaker, who represents one of the largest Jewish constituencies in the nation, has long identified as a pro-Israel progressive, even as he has vocally criticized Israel’s conduct during its ongoing war in Gaza and drew scrutiny from some Jewish community leaders over his early endorsement of Zohran Mamdani, the far-left Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City.
In an interview first announcing his retirement on Monday, Nadler, the dean of New York’s congressional delegation, told The New York Times that he believed Israel was committing mass murder and war crimes in Gaza “without question,” and said he would back efforts to withhold offensive weapons transfers to Israel during the rest of his term — in a sharp break from his previous stance on continued military aid to the Jewish state.
It remains to be seen how Nadler’s approach will influence the race. The list of potential candidates includes Micah Lasher, a Jewish assemblyman who is expected to claim Nadler’s blessing, according to people familiar with the situation. Lasher, a former aide to Nadler, has built strong ties to the pro-Israel community, but he faced backlash from local rabbis over his similarly quick choice to support Mamdani, in spite of the nominee’s hostile views on Israel.
One Jewish leader said it was premature to draw conclusions about Lasher’s positions on Israel, while voicing confidence that he “makes up his own mind” on tough issues, regardless of where his allies may stand.
“Lasher is center-left but has always been relatively moderate on Israel,” a pro-Israel strategist added in assessing the assemblyman’s stances on the Middle East.
Still, “the Zohran thing threw a lot of people off,” another Jewish leader said of Lasher, 43. “I do worry with Micah that, because of the political pressures, he could end up turning himself into a Jerry.”
Lasher did not respond to a request for comment from Jewish Insider on Tuesday.
Despite speculation about his approach, Jewish activists and some Democratic strategists broadly suggested that the pro-Israel community would, by varying degrees, likely be comfortable with Lasher, in addition to other lawmakers from state and local office who are said to be mulling campaigns of their own in Nadler’s district, which covers Manhattan’s Upper West and East Sides.
Among them are two City Council members, Erik Bottcher and Julie Menin, who are also eyeing bids for state Senate and Council speaker, respectively. Menin, a Jewish Democrat, was among some local elected officials who chose not to attend a meeting with Mamdani this summer that had been organized by Nadler, a person familiar with the matter told JI. Keith Powers, a city councilman who recently lost a bid for Manhattan borough president and is looking at another open state Senate race, is also weighing a bid, sources said, as is Alex Bores, an assemblyman on the East Side.
“I commend Congressman Nadler for his years of public service,” Bores said in a statement shared with JI on Tuesday, indicating he is exploring a bid for the open House seat. “Rep. Nadler has always led with his convictions and cared deeply about his constituents; that is the exact kind of representation that the people of the 12th Congressional District deserve.”
Pro-Israel strategists indicated that they had more urgent concerns about another possible candidate, Lina Khan, the former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission and a progressive icon who now lives in Harlem and has been “shopping around for a district for months,” according to a source familiar with the situation.
Khan, whose name has been floated as a potential candidate, could be a prolific fundraiser in a campaign, sources speculated. While she does not appear to have publicly addressed key Middle East questions, the anti-monopoly advocate has praised Mamdani’s campaign, raising early concerns that he would have a close and powerful ally in Congress if both are elected. Khan did not respond to a request for comment about her plans.
In addition to Khan, another prominent figure whose name has been privately mentioned in the days after Nadler’s unexpected announcement is Chelsea Clinton, according to people familiar with the conversations. Clinton has not confirmed her interest in the race to succeed Nadler but is actively considering a campaign after debating a run for an open City Council seat last cycle, said one person informed of her thinking. Her mother, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, voiced appreciation for Nadler in a social media post on Tuesday, after he officially announced his departure from the House.
Chelsea Clinton, 45, has been outspoken against antisemitism and would bring considerable name recognition to the race, though pro-Israel activists said they were largely unfamiliar with her views on Israel’s war in Gaza.
The primary is likely to draw outside spending from pro-Israel groups including AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel, both of which have engaged in a number of House races where divisions over Middle East policy have fueled mounting tensions amid the war in Gaza.
Brian Romick, chairman of DMFI’s political arm, DMFI PAC, said the group “will be watching closely as the field takes shape and look forward to meeting with the candidates.”
A spokesperson for AIPAC declined to comment on Tuesday.
Two potential candidates who would likely align most closely with AIPAC and are currently weighing bids include Natalie Barth, a philanthropist who has previously served as the president of Park Avenue Synagogue, and Elisha Wiesel, son of the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Elie Wiesel, people familiar with their plans told JI.
Wiesel, who has been critical of Mamdani’s approach to Israel and antisemitism, had endorsed former Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) when she ran against Nadler in a bitterly contested primary three years ago.
Whitney Tilson, a former hedge fund executive who ran a failed campaign for New York City mayor as a moderate pro-Israel Democrat, is also considering a bid to replace Nadler, writing in a social media post on Tuesday that residents of the district, which had narrowly favored Mamdani in the primary, “have a special responsibility to lead the” fight against President Donald Trump, “defend the rule of law” and “support our allies, especially Israel and Ukraine.”
Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Jewish campus activist who has celebrated Trump’s crackdown on antisemitism, also confirmed to JI on Tuesday that he is weighing a campaign, saying he has been “encouraged to run by a group of New Yorkers from a broad ideological spectrum.”
“I am actively considering it,” he said. “If I can make a positive difference to my city and community, I would be foolish not to. There is a strong desire amongst New York Democrats for a return to normalcy. The party has steered too far to the left and I will help in any way I can, including running for office.”
Some observers have suggested that Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), a moderate Jewish Democrat whose deeply progressive district includes Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, could potentially jump over to Nadler’s race — where he could face a more friendly electorate and forestall challengers to his left.
But a spokesperson for Goldman, Simone Kanter, dismissed such speculation. “No truth at all, no idea where that’s coming from,” he told JI on Tuesday.
As the field takes shape, Nadler is already facing a younger challenger, Liam Elkind, who in his launch video in July called on the veteran congressman to retire to make room for a new generation of party leadership.
But Elkind, a 26-year-old nonprofit leader who is running on a broadly pro-Israel platform, is likely to face an uphill battle with the primary now expected to draw more well-known rivals with establishment credentials.
The progressive stalwart's retirement announcement opens up a recently redrawn Manhattan district that the congressman has held for over three decades
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) arrives to view proceedings in immigration court at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building on June 18, 2025 in New York City.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), a progressive stalwart and a longtime Democratic pillar on the House Judiciary Committee, announced his retirement Sunday evening, opening up a recently redrawn Manhattan district that the congressman has held for over three decades.
Nadler, whose district has one of the largest Jewish constituencies in the country, has long positioned himself as a progressive pro-Israel advocate, even as he broke with the organized Jewish community on some issues — most notably his support for former President Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement in 2015.
But in recent months, he has emerged as being at odds with the New York Jewish community on some high-profile issues. Even as most of the leading New York state Democratic voices have held back any endorsement of far-left New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, Nadler was one of the first House Democrats to offer the anti-Israel candidate his support — and has worked to secure support from a deeply skeptical Jewish community towards Mamdani.
Nadler has also lately become a sharp critic of the Jewish state, in contrast to his pro-Israel Jewish Democratic colleagues from his home state. In a New York Times interview announcing his departure, he accused Israel of committing mass murder and war crimes in Gaza “without question.” He told the paper that when he returns to Congress, he will support legislation withholding offensive military aid to Israel, joining a growing roster of progressive Democrats in doing so — a move that could give cover for other colleagues to follow suit.
During Donald Trump’s presidency, Nadler saw his national profile grow when he led the first House impeachment hearings against the president as Judiciary Committee chairman, sharing the spotlight with then-Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). He came across as a partisan fighter during the process, and played a much more low-profile role during Trump’s second impeachment.
The impeachment fights enhanced his political profile in his solidly liberal district, helping prepare him for a heated primary in 2022 against a longtime colleague, former Rep. Carolyn Maloney, after redistricting put the two Democrats in the same district. Despite the contentious campaign, Nadler comfortably prevailed by 31 points.
And while there are plenty of ambitious New York City Democrats that could run to succeed Nadler, the congressman told the New York Times that he plans to support state Assemblyman Micah Lasher, a former aide, who represents parts of the upper West Side in the state legislature.
Former New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor this year, is also from Nadler’s district and could decide to run for Nadler’s seat.
Liam Elkind, 26, leads a nonprofit organization to deliver food and medicine to vulnerable New Yorkers
Elkind for New York
Liam Elkind
Liam Elkind, a Jewish nonprofit leader in New York City, announced a primary challenge on Wednesday to Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), calling on the veteran lawmaker to step aside to make room for a younger generation of Democratic activists who have grown impatient with the party’s largely aging leadership.
“Today, I’m respectfully asking my congressman, Jerry Nadler, to consider retiring,” Elkind, 26, said of the 78-year-old incumbent in a campaign launch video. “I appreciate his 50 years in office. I grew up voting for him. But we need new leaders to meet this moment.”
Elkind, a Yale graduate and Rhodes Scholar who leads a nonprofit organization he launched during the COVID pandemic to deliver food and medicine to vulnerable New Yorkers, is part of a new wave of Democratic primary challengers raising frustrations with the party’s elderly membership in Washington and its efforts to oppose President Donald Trump as he enacts his sweeping agenda.
Rather than positioning himself to Nadler’s left, as some political observers had expected of a primary challenger, Elkind is instead framing his campaign as a referendum on what he criticized as the party’s strategic miscalculations in confronting Trump and the congressman’s enabling of a status quo sorely in need of a fresh generational shake-up.
“The same people are using the same old tactics, but they’re losing,” Elkind argues in his campaign video. “Our leaders need to answer the call now, and they aren’t.”
Nadler, who filed a statement of candidacy just this month to run for reelection next year, has confirmed he plans to seek another term — even as some strategists speculate he could still choose to retire.
The congressman’s decision to endorse Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, a day after the primary last month, was seen by some political observers as a sign that Nadler was seeking to forestall a primary challenge from the left — though his team has rejected such claims.
Rob Gottheim, a spokesperson for Nadler, refused to comment on the new challenge, accusing Jewish Insider of having published what he dismissed as a “slanted” article this month that cited backlash from Jewish community leaders over the congressman’s support for Mamdani — whose hostile positions on Israel have continued to raise alarms among Jewish New Yorkers.
Nadler, a co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Caucus who identifies as a Zionist and has vocally criticized the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, has said he does not agree with Mamdani’s more antagonistic views on Israel and antisemitism, including his refusal to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada” and support for boycotting the Jewish state, among other points of division. Earlier in the month, Nadler organized a meeting with Mamdani and local Jewish officials to address their concerns.
A majority of voters in Nadler’s heavily Jewish district, which includes Manhattan’s Upper West and East Sides, voted in the primary for Mamdani and Brad Lander, the progressive city comptroller.
For his part, Elkind, who was unavailable for an interview with JI on Wednesday, has no apparent record of commentary on Israel or the Middle East. He plans to emphasize a message of affordability and generational change, issues that helped propel Mamdani to a come-from-behind victory last month.
In an interview with CNN published on Wednesday, Elkind said he ranked Mamdani fifth on his ballot in the June primary, noting he did not agree with the nominee on some issues, including his position on the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which critics regard as a call to antisemitic violence.
Elkind, now completing a doctoral dissertation on campaign finance reform, was a summer intern for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in 2018, according to his LinkedIn page. The nonprofit he co-founded, called Invisible Hands, was acquired by Commonpoint Queens, a human services group, where he now serves on the board.
Elkind’s newly launched campaign is reportedly expected to draw significant financial backing from Reid Hoffman, the billionaire LinkedIn co-founder and a major Democratic donor who has previously supported moderate, pro-Israel candidates, fueling online criticism from the activist left.
Some Jewish residents of the district said that they were unfamiliar with Elkind but expressed interest in learning more about his approach to key issues of concern to the community.
“It’s not hard to honor Rep. Nadler’s decades of service while also recognizing that there is a new generation of existing and potential Democratic Party voters looking for more contemporary and relatable leaders,” Amanda Berman, CEO of the Zioness Action Fund, a progressive pro-Israel advocacy group, told JI. “Democrats have been struggling to connect with voters, and it’s healthy and exciting to see young, dynamic, pragmatic progressives stepping up to reclaim our politics from both MAGA extremism and dangerous leftist populism.”
Berman said she “looks forward to hearing more about Liam Elkind and his commitment to our twin values: unabashed progressivism and unapologetic Zionism.”
Avi Lichtschein, a Jewish resident of the Upper West Side, accused Nadler of “hypocrisy” for staunchly opposing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel — which he has described as a form of “pernicious antisemitism” — while backing Mamdani, “a vocal BDS supporter.”
“So while I may not know much about Liam Elkind, I’m certain he’ll be better than Nadler,” Lichtschein told JI.
Despite a desire for new representation among some constituents, strategists say that Elkind, a first-time candidate largely unknown to voters in the district, is facing an uphill battle as he seeks to go up against Nadler, the widely respected dean of New York City’s congressional delegation.
The congressman, who has served in the House since 1992, easily fended off a handful of younger challengers in 2020, claiming nearly 70% of the vote. In 2022, he defeated former Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) in a bitterly contested intraparty fight in which the two Democratic colleagues chose to compete for a redrawn district that merged their seats.
While Elkind is the first challenger of the cycle to take on Nadler, he may not have the opposing field entirely to himself as others weigh bids of their own. Whitney Tilson, a former hedge fund executive who ran a failed campaign for New York City mayor as a moderate Democrat, has been mulling a challenge to Nadler, according to one person familiar with his thinking.
Natalie Barth, a philanthropist and pro-Israel activist who previously served as the president of Park Avenue Synagogue, has also been rumored to be considering a bid, said another person familiar with the matter, though it was unclear if she would mount a challenge or wait until Nadler steps down, as some have suggested he could do at the end of his term.
In an open-seat primary, the field could also widen considerably to include such potential candidates as Scott Stringer, a former city comptroller and Nadler protégé; Micah Lasher, an assemblyman close to the congressman; Keith Powers, a city councilman; and Liz Krueger, a state senator.
Plus, Mossad chief spotted in Queens
J. David Ake/Getty Images
The sun flares over the top of the side entrance to the U.S. Treasury Department Building on August 18, 2024, in Washington, DC.
Good Wednesday afternoon,
This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.
I’m Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider. I’ll be curating the Daily Overtime for you, along with assists from my colleagues. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Israeli Mossad chief David Barnea was spotted at the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Ohel in Queens, N.Y., this morning…
The Treasury Department just announced sanctions targeting over 115 entities involved in a “shipping empire” run by the son of a senior advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The administration is calling it a “renewed maximum pressure campaign” and the most significant action taken against Iran since 2018. Read more from JI’s Gabby Deutch here.
The move comes as the potential for renewed nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran has deteriorated, with President Donald Trump threatening last week to strike Iran again “if necessary”…
We reported earlier today on some telling comments from Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) on an anti-Israel podcast yesterday, where she said she’d be open to considering cutting off offensive weapons to Israel and claimed she was “the first Jew elected to the Senate that was not endorsed by any Jewish group.” Though she named AIPAC and J Street specifically, she was indeed endorsed by a Jewish group — the pro-Israel Jewish Democratic Council of America — in 2024. Read more from JI’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod here.
The comments from the more moderate Jewish Democrat are the latest sign of the shifting rhetoric on Israel — and on associating with pro-Israel groups — within the party…
Also of note for the future of the Democratic Party: Former Vice President Kamala Harris announced today that she won’t run for governor of California to replace term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2026, leaving open the possibility that she could run for president again in 2028…
The French- and Saudi-sponsored U.N. conference on a two-state solution produced a notable result this week, with dozens of states, including the entire Arab League, signing the “New York Declaration.” The document, along with steamrolling the U.S. and Israel in laying out a plan for Palestinian statehood, condemns the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel and calls on the terror group to release the hostages. It’s the first time the Arab League — including Hamas benefactor Qatar — has said anything of the sort. Read more from JI’s Lahav Harkov here.
But a seasoned diplomatic source in Washington told JI it’s ‘too little, too late’ and there’s much more these states could be doing: “While it’s appreciated that all these countries finally, and I mean finally, spoke the truth about Hamas’ evil acts, the statement noticeably avoided discussing the foundational issue of full Israeli integration in the region.” And a Middle East expert told us there’s “much to applaud, much to critique” about the declaration, with “positive aspects” alongside “poison pills”….
Staying in the Gulf, Daniel Silverberg, longtime former national security advisor to Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), appeared on the latest episode of the Middle East Institute’s “Taking the Edge Off the Middle East” podcast, where he argued that Democrats have miscalculated their relationships with the Gulf states.
Silverberg told host Brian Katulis that he wished Democrats would “appreciate that there’s so many dynamic developments” in the Gulf “that are so good for [the U.S.] that it would temper, somewhat, a lot of the criticisms that I’ve seen over the last couple of years.”
Silverberg said he was struck that when UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed “came to Washington a number of months ago, President Trump brought in, I think, three-quarters of his Cabinet to have a dinner with them. And when I heard that, I was just thinking to myself, damn it, why can’t Democrats play that same game?” He said Democrats thought, “‘You don’t want the U.S. appearing this close to the Saudis or the Emiratis. They have to earn that kind of dinner.’ And in my mind, just do the dinner. Just nourish the relationship.”…
Cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks announced today that it will acquire Israeli software company CyberArk for a deal valued at approximately $25 billion. It’s the second largest exit in Israeli history, after Google’s parent company Alphabet bought the Israeli cybersecurity company Wiz for $32 billion, pending regulatory approvals, just months ago…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye on Jewish Insider later this week for a profile of Audrey Azoulay, the French-Moroccan Jew heading UNESCO as the U.S. prepares to depart the U.N. cultural agency once again in protest of its purportedly anti-Israel and “globalist” agenda. Of note: Azoulay’s father, André Azoulay, is a close advisor to King Mohammed VI of Morocco.
We’ll also report on Liam Elkind, the 26-year-old Jewish community organizer backed by Reid Hoffman and Dan Doctoroff, launching a generational challenge against Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Caucus, who is 78. And we’ll interview Secure Community Network CEO Michael Masters about his sit-down last week with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
This evening, the Senate will vote on two resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) attempting to block arms sales to Israel, including one restricting assault rifles from Israel’s police force overseen by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. We’ll be keeping tabs on how many Democrats side with Sanders this time — on the resolution targeting the highly controversial Ben-Gvir, Sanders may rally more than the 15 who voted in favor of his last measure.
Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to land in Israel tomorrow for his first visit in several months, amid rising bipartisan concern about the humanitarian crisis gripping Gaza and a continued stalemate in ceasefire negotiations. We’ll see what message he brings to the Israelis from the White House and what kind of pressure he attempts to exert on Jerusalem, if any, on both issues.
Also tomorrow, the Heritage Foundation will host an event, along with the Conference of Christian Presidents for Israel, called “Peace Through Strength: U.S. Policy on Israel and the Middle East.” They’re featuring speakers including Rev. Dr. Johnnie Moore, head of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation; U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee; Ellie Cohanim, former deputy special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism; and Aryeh Lightstone, an advisor to Witkoff.
Stories You May Have Missed
MORE THAN MONEY
Pro-Israel students: University reforms must go beyond cash payments
At the Israel on Campus Coalition’s conference, some students praised Trump’s campus crackdowns — but want lasting changes over financial settlements
BILL BLOCKAGE
Congress gridlocked over legislation to crack down on antisemitism
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt: ‘I’d like to see the extremes marginalized so the vast majority of members of Congress on both sides can get the stuff done that needs to happen’
Plus, antisemitism inside the American Psychological Association
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon, Wednesday, July 2, 2025, in Washington.
Good Tuesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we preview the Aspen Security Forum, which begins today, and report on concerns from Jewish members of the American Psychological Association over the group’s approach to antisemitism and Israel. We report on the backlash facing Rep. Jerry Nadler over his support for New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and do a deep dive into Georgetown administrators’ handling of antisemitism issues on campus and the school’s financial support from Qatar ahead of today’s congressional hearing on the topics. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sen. Dave McCormick, Alex Edelman and Ron Dermer.
What We’re Watching
- The Aspen Security Forum kicks off tonight. More below.
- President Donald Trump is in Pittsburgh this afternoon for Sen. Dave McCormick’s (R-PA) inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit. More below.
- In Washington, the House Education and Workforce Committee is holding a hearing this morning on campus antisemitism — with a specific focus on the drivers of antisemitism in higher education. Representatives from Georgetown University, the University of California, Berkeley and the City University of New York are slated to testify. More below.
- Elsewhere on the Hill, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold its confirmation hearing this morning for former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to be U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Waltz’s hearing comes two months after he was removed over a series of clashes with the Trump administration on policy as well as his role in “Signalgate.”
- Tonight, the Argentine Embassy in Washington is hosting an event commemorating the upcoming anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), AMIA President Osvaldo Armoza and State Department officials are slated to speak.
- Today is the special election in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District, where Adelita Grijalva is the front-runner to succeed her father, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), who died earlier this year. Grijalva is facing off against former state Rep. Daniel Hernandez and Deja Foxx.
- In Israel, we’re keeping an eye on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, following United Torah Judaism’s decision last night to both quit the government and leave the ruling coalition over the Haredi draft law. Netanyahu will have until tomorrow evening to convince the party to reverse course before the 48-hour long resignation process takes effect.
- In Tianjin, China, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is holding talks with his counterparts from Moscow and Beijing on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S Marc rod
The 2025 Aspen Security Forum kicks off today and finds itself unexpectedly thrust into the ideological fights gripping the administration.
The Defense Department announced Monday that it would be withdrawing numerous senior military and civilian officials who had been set to speak at the conference.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told Jewish Insider: “Senior Department of Defense officials will no longer be participating at the Aspen Security Forum because their values do not align with the values of the DoD. The Department will remain strong in its focus to increase the lethality of our warfighters, revitalize the warrior ethos, and project ‘Peace Through Strength’ on the world stage. It is clear the ASF is not in alignment with these goals.” Spokesperson Kinglsey Wilson offered even more pointed criticism to right-leaning outlet Just the News, saying the conference “promotes the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country, and hatred for the President of the United States.”
It’s tough criticism of a forum that prides itself on bipartisanship and aims to foster cross-partisan dialogue and solution-making, even as those attributes are in short supply in today’s Washington. The forum said in a statement, “we will miss the participation of the Pentagon, but our invitations remain open. … The Aspen Security Forum remains committed to providing a platform for informed, non-partisan debate about the most important security challenges facing the world,” noting that voices across the political spectrum will be speaking this week.
Many had been hoping to hear Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, who was originally scheduled for a panel discussing the evolution of warfare, speak about his agency’s leaked report suggesting the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities had minimal effects, but Kruse was among the speakers withdrawn by the Pentagon.
Among the administration speakers still scheduled to appear are hostage envoy Adam Boehler, speaking on Thursday, and Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria. Barrack will be speaking on a Friday panel about the Middle East alongside former CIA Director David Petraeus and former Deputy National Security Advisor Dina Powell McCormick.
Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here, and please get in touch if you’ll be attending the Aspen Security Forum. JI’s senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod will be reporting from the gathering all week.
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
The psychology of denial: American Psychological Association struggles to confront antisemitism in its ranks
Concerns about antisemitism in the field of psychology have followed the American Psychological Association since soon after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks. With 172,000 members, it is the largest body dedicated to the study of psychology in the world. The issue has become a flashpoint again in the run-up to the APA’s flagship annual conference, which will be held next month in Denver and is set to feature several lectures — including some offering continuing education credit — that offer sharply anti-Israel narratives, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports in a new investigation.
Exclusive psychology: Several leading Jewish psychologists told JI that the APA has repeatedly failed to respond to the concerns of its Jewish members, despite a stated commitment to promoting an “accessible, equitable and inclusive psychology that promotes human rights, fairness and dignity for all,” according to the organization’s diversity mission. They say the APA has avoided taking a stand against double standards and litmus tests applied to Jewish psychologists who are vilified for their support for Israel. Instead, the organization has been almost paralyzed in the aftermath of Oct. 7, seemingly afraid to take sides between the Jewish psychologists seeking support and an increasingly vocal contingent of anti-Israel voices in the field, some of whom have described Zionism as a pathology to root out.
JI is committed to covering antisemitism. Catch up by reading our investigations on what Jewish professionals face in the mental health field and in pediatric medicine. Got a tip? Email us.
NADLER’S NOD
Nadler faces blowback from Jewish leaders for his Mamdani outreach
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) is facing backlash from some Jewish community leaders over his efforts to boost Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City whose fierce criticism of Israel and refusal to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada” have stoked accusations of antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Details: Nadler, the dean of New York City’s congressional delegation and co-chair of the House Jewish Caucus, endorsed Mamdani shortly after his stunning upset over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in last month’s primary, and he has been working behind the scenes to build support for the nominee within the Jewish community, sources told JI. The 78-year-old congressman organized a meeting on Monday between Mamdani and local Jewish elected officials, some of whom chose not to join because of Mamdani’s hostility toward Israel, according to one person familiar with the matter.
Dem divisions: The pro-Israel Democratic party group Democratic Majority for Israel issued a scathing statement on Monday criticizing the party’s progressive wing amid Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the “globalize the intifada” slogan and the North Carolina state party’s recent passage of several anti-Israel resolutions, including one endorsing an arms embargo against the Jewish state, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
On the calendar: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is slated to meet with Mamdani this week to discuss an array of issues, including Mamdani’s defense of the “globalize the intifada” slogan.
EXCLUSIVE
Leading Jewish organizations, synagogues express alarm about antisemitism in teachers’ unions
Around 400 Jewish organizations and synagogues signed onto an Anti-Defamation League backed letter Monday expressing concern over the “growing level of antisemitic activity” within teachers’ unions, which recently escalated with the National Education Association’s adoption of a measure targeting the leading Jewish civil rights organization, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen has learned. Signatories include the American Jewish Committee, Jewish Federations of North America, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, National Council of Jewish Women, Orthodox Union, Rabbinical Assembly and Union for Reform Judaism.
What they said: The letter, addressed to Rebecca Pringle, president of the NEA — the largest teachers’ union in the U.S. — comes on the heels of a measure passed last week by the association that bars the union from using any teaching materials from the ADL. “The ADL has been a national leader in anti-hate education in K-12 schools for decades and is widely recognized as one of the country’s foremost experts on antisemitism,” the letter states, raising concern that, “although the measure does not explicitly say so, we understand that much of the underlying concern prompting this resolution is directed at ADL’s Holocaust education materials.”
Hoyas in the hot seat: As Georgetown University’s interim president, Robert Groves, is set to be questioned about campus antisemitism on Tuesday morning by the House Education and Workforce Committee, the university is contending with several thorny issues centered around the Jesuit school’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, one of the country’s leading centers for Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, JI’s Haley Cohen reports.
KEYSTONE CONFAB
Trump, McCormick prepare for innovation summit in Pittsburgh
A who’s who of U.S. and Gulf officials and some of the world’s leading tech and energy investors are en route to Pittsburgh ahead of Sen. Dave McCormick’s (R-PA) first-ever innovation summit on Tuesday, where he and President Donald Trump will announce $70 billion in investments aimed at turning Pennsylvania into a hub for artificial intelligence and new energy technologies, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports from Pittsburgh.
On the guest list: More than 60 CEOs and scores of top energy and AI investors are slated to be at the freshman senator’s inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University, home to one of the world’s most advanced AI programs. Among the CEOs expected to appear are BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Palantir’s Alex Karp, Bridgewater’s Nir Bar Dea, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, Amazon Web Services’ Matt Garman, Bechtel’s Brendan Bechtel, Chevron’s Mike Wirth, GIC’s Lim Chow Kiat, Brookfield’s Bruce Flatt, CPP Investments’ John Graham, EQT’s Toby Rice and ExxonMobil’s Darren Woods. (McCormick’s wife, Dina Powell McCormick, is on the ExxonMobil board of directors.) Others on the guest list include Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s president and chief investment officer; Raj Agrawal, global head of real assets at KKR; and Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, managing director and group CEO of Mubadala Investment Company.
PODCAST PLAYBACK
Ron Dermer: Israeli opposition to 2015 nuclear deal led to U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran
In a wide-ranging interview, Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer connected Israel’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to the U.S.’ 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, saying that President Donald Trump wouldn’t have pulled out of the deal during his first administration without that precedent, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports. “I believe that what Iran’s strategy was [before Oct. 7] is to surround Israel with this ring of fire,” including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and militias in Syria and Iraq. “And this is another reason why I was so opposed to the nuclear deal that was done in 2015,” Dermer said in the first installment of his interview on Dan Senor’s “Call Me Back” podcast, which dropped on Monday.
Tracing it back: “And by the way, the attack [on Iran’s nuclear facilities] that happens now does not happen if Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn’t show up and confront that deal then. People don’t make the connection. I do, because I’ve lived it every day since then,” Dermer continued. “I don’t see Trump withdrawing if Netanyahu doesn’t take a stand, because no one’s going to be more Catholic than the pope, and no one’s going to be more pro-Israel than the prime minister of Israel.”
BUDEGET BLOCKS
House Appropriations Committee aims to leverage U.N. funding for UNRWA accountability
The House Appropriations Committee’s draft 2026 National Security, Department of State and Related Programs Appropriations bill, released on Monday, aims to leverage U.S. funding for the United Nations to secure accountability for United Nations Relief and Works Agency employees’ involvement in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. It also more broadly aims to enact cuts for the U.N. system, cutting all U.S. funding for the U.N.’s regular budget and barring funding for the U.N. Human Rights Council, including its commission of inquiry investigating Israel, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
Concrete steps: The bill would ban any funding for the U.N. Secretariat, the arm of the U.N. led by the secretary-general responsible for daily management and operations matters, until several conditions relating to UNRWA accountability are met. The bill would hold the funds until the U.N. provides the State Department with a full and unredacted copy of the U.N.’s internal investigation into UNRWA affiliates’ involvement in the Oct. 7 attacks and until the findings of U.S. investigations into the situation are referred to the Department of Justice for appropriate criminal or civil action.
Exclusive: A bipartisan House bill set to be introduced on Tuesday aims to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, a step forward for an effort that gained steam following the terrorist attack in Boulder, Colo., targeting Jews advocating for the release of hostages in Gaza by a man who appeared to have expressed support for the group years earlier, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Worthy Reads
Digital Battleground: The New York Times’ Steven Lee Myers, Natan Odenheimer and Erika Solomon look at how Israel and Iran’s use of AI and deceptive social media posting during last month’s war between the countries has “ushered in” a new era of information warfare. “Over 12 days of attacks, Israel and Iran turned social media into a digital battlefield, using deception and falsehoods to try to sway the outcome even as they traded kinetic missile strikes that killed hundreds and roiled an already turbulent Middle East. … Iran, for example, sent alerts in Hebrew to thousands of Israeli mobile phones warning recipients to avoid bomb shelters because militants planned to infiltrate them and attack those inside, according to researchers and official statements. A network of accounts on X attributed to Israel spread messages in Persian trying to erode confidence in Iran’s government, including ones narrated by an A.I.-generated woman.” [NYTimes]
The MAGA Rebellion: NBC News’ Allan Smith looks at policy disagreements between President Donald Trump and the MAGA wing of the party, including commentator Tucker Carlson, who openly clashed with Trump over the White House’s approach to the Israel-Iran war. “Carlson was center stage among MAGA influencers arguing for the United States to stay out of Iran, a position that has gained popularity on the right as some right-wing influencers have increasingly viewed the U.S.-Israel alliance with skepticism. That stance is also informed by Trump’s having promoted similar anti-war and anti-interventionist views for years, even as he has used military force as president. Ultimately, Carlson said, the most important voice arguing the case to Trump for the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. ‘Turns out a head of state of an important ally has a more compelling message than I do,’ he said. ‘That seems reasonable to me. I still disagree, but I don’t think it’s like Trump has changed his views entirely.’” [NBCNews]
No Direction Home: In The Atlantic, Guy Ben-Aharon considers the challenges of his identity as an Israeli pacifist both at home and abroad. “In Israel, I’m hated for opposing a war that many say they don’t support but still fight in, defend, or explain away as necessary. Abroad, I’m no longer welcome among those who say that all Israelis are colonizers. I’m too Israeli to be a victim and too resistant to be a patriot. I’m in exile, even when I’m at home. … My own relatives question whether I belong in Israel, because I criticize the troops in Gaza for the killing and starvation of Palestinians. Abroad, a theater colleague once told me to ‘go back to where you came from’ — that I don’t belong in the land where I was born but in the lands where my ancestors faced pogroms and the Holocaust. Nuance has no currency in a world addicted to absolutes.” [TheAtlantic]
Word on the Street
The Supreme Court ordered that the Trump administration be allowed to proceed with its efforts to enact mass layoffs at the Department of Education as part of its efforts to significantly downsize the department…
The Pentagon reached an agreement with ElonMusk’s xAI to use the company’s chatbot, Grok, as part of xAI’s new “Grok for Government”; the announcement by xAI of the deal, part of $200 million agreement, came days after the Grok chatbot sent a series of antisemitic and sexually explicit replies to X users…
The Hill reports on tensions between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ric Grenell, who is serving as a special presidential envoy, as the two attempted to negotiate separate agreements to free Americans being held in Venezuela…
Politico’s “West Wing Playbook” looks at Steve Davis’ departure from the Department of Governmental Efficiency, where he reportedly dispatched Josh Gruenbaum and two other aides to assess department staffers’ loyalty…
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) is reportedly backing away from plans to mount a gubernatorial challenge to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul…
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he would continue his bid to become mayor of New York City, following his 12-point loss last month to Zohran Mamdani; Cuomo pledged to drop out of the race by mid-September if polls indicated that he was not the highest-ranked challenger to the Queens assemblymember, and called on other candidates to do the same…
Inside Higher Ed looks at how universities are increasingly hiring staff to oversee compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act following a crackdown by the Trump administration on dozens of campuses over alleged violations…
Alex Edelman will perform his new show, “What Are You Going to Do,” at the New York Comedy Festival at Carnegie Hall in November; the show is a follow-up to his award-winning “Just For Us” one-man play about attending a white supremacist gathering…
Hungarian low-cost carrier Wizz Air will end its operations at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport, effective Sept. 1; the airline’s CEO, József Váradi, cited “supply chain constraints, geopolitical instability, and limited market access” as factors that contributed to the decision, which was announced weeks after the Israel-Iran war caused travel disruptions across the region…
The Shin Bet confirmed that the Hamas terrorist who held British Israeli hostage Emily Damari captive was killed last month in an airstrike…
The IDF struck Syrian military vehicles operating in southern Syria, amid clashes between Syrian government forces and local Druze communities…
Attorney Danielle Sassoon, who previously served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, is joining the Manhattan Institute as a senior fellow; Sassoon resigned from her position weeks after being appointed to avoid carrying out a directive from the Justice Department to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams…
Israeli-American writer Sol Stern died at 89…
Song of the Day
Edan Golan recently released the music video for her single “You & I.”
Birthdays
Israeli actor, he played Boaz in Season 1 of “Fauda,” Tomer Kapon turns 40…
President and chairman of the board of the Annenberg Foundation, Wallis Annenberg turns 86… Member of the British House of Lords, he is a professor, medical doctor, scientist, television anchor and Labour Party politician, Baron Robert Maurice Lipson Winston turns 85… Israeli composer and conductor, he composed and conducted the winning entry at the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest, Kobi Oshrat turns 81… Professional sports bettor and poker player, he is a four-time winner of World Series of Poker bracelets, Mickey Appleman turns 80… Physician and life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. David Harris Lippman… Rosh Yeshiva of Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, N.J., one of the largest yeshivas in the world with more than 10,000 students, Rabbi Dovid Schustal turns 78… Longtime congresswoman from Florida for 30 years until 2019, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen turns 73… EVP at the Aspen Institute responsible for policy programs and its international partners, Elliot Gerson… Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. from 2021 until this past January, Michael (Mike) Herzog turns 73… Retired California-based appellate attorney, Feris M. Greenberger… Executive director of Friends of OU Israel, Miriam Baron (Mimi) Jankovits… Immediate past board chair of The Jewish Federations of North America, Julie Beren Platt… Professor at the UCLA School of Law, Richard Harold Steinberg turns 65… Former political news director at Bloomberg, Jodi Schneider… Member of Congress (D-RI) until 2023, his mother is Sabra née Peskin, David Nicola Cicilline turns 64… Anchorage-based attorney, a member of the Alaska House of Representatives since 2012, Andrew Lewis “Andy” Josephson turns 61… Former U.K. Labour Party MP including three years as foreign secretary, now CEO of NYC-based International Rescue Committee, David Miliband turns 60… Co-founder and chief investment officer of Toronto-based EdgeStone Capital Partners, Gilbert S. Palter… Israeli actress and singer, she is the 1991 and 1998 winner of the Ophir Award for best actress, Dafna Rechter turns 60… Senior advisor at investment bank Greif & Co., he was the CFO of Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles, David S. Felman… Senior business development representative at Atera, Sam Kalmowicz… Senior correspondent at New York magazine, she is a co-author of Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Irin Carmon turns 42… Filmmaker and co-founder of the Square Peg film production company, Ari Aster turns 39… Managing editor of the U.S. deals team at Bloomberg, Liana Balinsky-Baker… Former deputy assistant secretary for travel and tourism at the U.S. Department of Commerce, now CEO of the FIFA World Cup 26 NYNJ host committee, Alexander Lasry turns 38… VP of Israel Action and Addressing Antisemitism Program at Hillel International, Jonathan Steven (“Jon”) Falk… Director of news experimentation at Southern California Public Radio until last year, Ariel Zirulnick… Senior NFL reporter at Yahoo Sports, she is also the author of a biography of a Holocaust survivor, Jori Epstein…
The 78-year-old congressman, who co-chairs the Jewish Caucus in the House, has been working to build support for Mamdani in the Jewish community
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) arrives to view proceedings in immigration court at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building on June 18, 2025 in New York City.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) is facing backlash from some Jewish community leaders over his efforts to boost Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City whose criticism of Israel and refusal to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada” have stoked accusations of antisemitism.
Nadler, the dean of New York City’s congressional delegation and co-chair of the House Jewish Caucus, endorsed Mamdani shortly after his stunning upset over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in last month’s primary, and he has been working behind the scenes to build support for the nominee within the Jewish community, sources told Jewish Insider.
The 78-year-old congressman organized a meeting on Monday between Mamdani and state and local Jewish elected officials, some of whom chose not to join because of Mamdani’s hostility toward Israel, according to one person familiar with the matter.
Nadler’s advocacy has fueled frustration and anger among some local Jewish community activists and elected officials who oppose Mamdani and feel that the congressman is misguided in his support for the democratic socialist Queens assemblyman whose stances on Israel he has long rejected. Others suggested that Nadler chose to endorse Mamdani simply to ward off a primary challenge from his left as he plans to seek reelection next year — amid speculation he could soon retire from the House.
Nadler’s support for Mamdani stands in sharp contrast to the lack of endorsements for the Democratic mayoral nominee from some of the state’s leading New York Democratic officials, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Gov. Kathy Hochul and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).
Kalman Yeger, an Orthodox assemblyman from Brooklyn who has called Mamdani “one of the most vile antisemites in public office,” said of Nadler that “many people are disappointed that someone who considers himself a pro-Israel Democrat and fighter against antisemitism would endorse the assemblyman just a day after the primary, without addressing any of the multitude of his troubling positions.”
“I have no idea why the congressman felt the need to make his endorsement, but it’s certainly fair to question his judgment and commitment to standing up for the safety of Jewish New Yorkers,” Yeger, a former city councilman who shared representation with Nadler of the Hasidic enclave of Borough Park in Brooklyn, told JI on Monday.
Nadler, for his part, has said he has spoken to Mamdani “about his commitment to fighting antisemitism,” but the congressman has remained relatively quiet with regard to their differences on Israel. While Mamdani has long backed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, for instance, Nadler has characterized BDS as a form of “pernicious antisemitism” and touted his “opposition to efforts legitimize and expand” the movement “within New York’s higher education institutions.”
Mamdani, 33, has also repeatedly declined invitations to speak out against the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which critics view as a call to antisemitic violence.
Nadler’s congressional colleagues in New York who have so far refrained from backing Mamdani — including Schumer and Jeffries — have indicated that Mamdani’s continued refusal to condemn the slogan remains a key sticking point in their evaluation of the nominee as he seeks to shore up Democratic support.
Mamdani, who is facing a crowded general election field including Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams, both running as independents, has rejected accusations of antisemitism, while pledging to protect the safety of Jewish New Yorkers amid a rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes.
A spokesperson for Nadler said the congressman has “reiterated” to Mamdani that he is “a strong Zionist and that he believes in a democratic Jewish state,” which the nominee has declined to support.
“We are working with him to inform him about concerns within the Jewish community,” the spokesperson told JI, noting that the meeting with Jewish leaders on Monday was a part of such outreach and that the nominee “is listening.”
Mamdani’s team did not respond to a request for comment about the meeting with Jewish officials brokered by Nadler.
Some Jewish community activists expressed anger that Nadler has helped validate Mamdani among Jewish voters without first having sought public reassurances other Democratic leaders seem to be awaiting.
“There’s definitely a frustration that Jerry just endorsed him for free, so to speak,” said one Jewish leader who asked to remain anonymous to speak candidly, claiming that Nadler had “thrown the Jewish community under the bus” to protect his seat in Congress.
Jeff Leb, a political consultant involved in Jewish causes who is helping to organize a newly created anti-Mamdani independent expenditure committee, said Nadler had “sold out” the Jewish community in backing the nominee, adding that the congressman is “clinging to his seat.”
“He is very, very nervous about having a progressive opponent backed by Zohran if he makes the bad decision to run again,” Leb told JI on Monday.
Nadler’s team insisted that he is not concerned about a challenge, even as the congressman’s district — which covers Manhattan’s Upper East and West Sides — voted overwhelmingly in favor of Mamdani and Brad Lander, the Jewish comptroller who cross-endorsed with the nominee during the primary.
Critics and Iranian dissidents accuse NIAC of being tied to the Iranian regime
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who was released from ICE detention, speaks during a rally on the steps of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan on June 22, 2025 in New York City.
One day after former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was released from the immigration detention center where he had been held for three months, the anti-Israel activist appeared at a rally in New York City organized by a group accused of ties to the Iranian regime protesting the U.S.’ weekend airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“Mahmoud Khalil is a freedom fighter … who refuses to remain silent while watching a genocide in Palestine,” Khalil told a cheering crowd on Sunday, where he led anti-Israel chants including, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free,” at the People’s Forum protest, a demonstration organized by the National Iranian-American Council to protest the U.S. military strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites.
Iranian dissidents and critics of NIAC, a U.S.-based Iranian-American advocacy group that calls for diplomacy with the Iranian regime and was critical of the Biden administration’s approach to Israel and the Middle East, accuse the group of being tied to the regime.
Khalil, who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent and living in the U.S. on a green card, led last year’s anti-Israel campus protests at Columbia against the war in Gaza and subsequent negotiations with university administrators. He was detained in March and released on Saturday after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence.
Khalil’s release was met with support from some left-wing lawmakers.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who met Khalil at New Jersey’s Newark-Liberty International Airport a day after he was freed from a federal immigration facility in Louisiana, said that his detention by the Trump administration violated the First Amendment and was “an affront to every American.”
“He has been accused, baselessly, of horrific allegations simply because the Trump administration and our overall establishment disagrees with his political speech,” Ocasio-Cortez added.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) wrote on X that he welcomed the decision to release Khalil. “As I have said before, his prolonged detention — without charges — is a chilling, McCarthyesque action in response to the exercise of First Amendment rights to free speech and raises serious constitutional concerns,” Nadler said.
Some lawmakers have honed in on threats to colleges and universities’ federal funding, but pulling funding requires a yearslong litigation process under current federal statute
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Catherine Lhamon, nominee to be assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, testifies during a Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing in Dirksen Building on Tuesday, July 13, 2021.
Catherine Lhamon, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights, told lawmakers on Friday that existing federal law and procedures make it unlikely that any schools will lose their federal funding over antisemitic activity on their college campuses in the near term.
Some lawmakers have honed in on threats to colleges and universities’ federal funding as a method of pressuring or penalizing them over their failure to protect Jewish students. But Lhamon explained at a roundtable with congressional Democrats that pulling funding requires a yearslong litigation process under current federal statute.
Before seeking to revoke funding, Lhamon said that her department, the Office of Civil Rights, must first investigate and communicate a finding that the subject of an investigation has violated civil rights law, at which point she’s required to give schools the opportunity to voluntarily come into compliance.
If a school refuses, then the DOJ can take the matter to an administrative law judge. If the judge rules that the school is in violation, the subject can still appeal the ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Only at the end of that process — which Lhamon acknowledged could take years — can funds actually be revoked, Lhamon said.
But, she added, most schools will agree to voluntarily take action — OCR is currently taking a discrimination case, related to disability issues, to a judge for the first time in 27 years.
Lhamon also acknowledged another gap in her office’s enforcement ability — she does not have the authority to require schools to dismiss problematic faculty.
Addressing the antisemitism that has pervaded campuses across the country over the past 11 months, Lhamon described herself as “shocked” by the comments she hears from school leaders professing to be unaware of their responsibilities to protect Jewish students from discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, a situation she described as unacceptable.
“We are seeing kids assaulted. We are seeing kids stopped from going to class,” Lhamon said. “These are not close calls about whether a university should be responding to them, and yet our universities are treating them like there’s maybe something they don’t need to do, or there’s a byzantine process that a student needs to follow before they can get a university response. That’s not the law.”
Lhamon’s presentation to the lawmakers focused heavily on her office’s need for additional funding; she said that Congress “has never” provided sufficient funding.
The lawmakers who attended the event, Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Kathy Manning (D-NC), Grace Meng (D-NY), Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Wiley Nickel (D-NC) and Kim Schrier (D-WA), are supporting a Goldman-sponsored bill that pushes for increased funding for OCR.
Lhamon said her office has around 400 investigative staff, the same number it has since the Bush administration. Complaints, especially in the wake of Oct. 7, have surged, however, from 6,000 per year to 19,201 in 2023, a record it is set to easily surpass this year, with around 24,000 so far.
Four hundred of those complaints were related to discrimination based on shared ancestry or national origin, some of those being antisemitism complaints. OCR currently has 162 such cases under investigation and many more go unreported, Lhamon said.
“I cannot manage that complaint volume with the staff that I have,” Lhamon emphasized, warning that talented and experienced investigators could leave the office. “Our staff are now carrying about 51 cases per person, and you cannot do civil rights work effectively with a caseload that is that high.”
Lhamon said that staff shortages are causing cases to drag on, leaving students to wait, in some cases until after they’ve graduated, for their cases to be resolved.
“That’s not protecting civil rights in the way Congress intended,” Lhamon said.
Lhamon said that the administration’s requested budget increase would allow the office to add 77 new investigators. She said that the ideal target would be 20 or fewer active cases per investigator. But it appears unlikely that Congress will fulfill the administration’s request.
“We don’t have any more efficiencies we can bring to this problem,” Lhamon added. Some lawmakers have argued the case backlog is an issue of improper procedures or prioritization at OCR.
She explained that there is a low bar to opening a formal investigation, which includes extensive document requests and interviews and often surfaces additional instances of examples of discrimination.
Even once cases are resolved, OCR staff are responsible for continued monitoring of schools that have settled with the office. For instance, schools entering into agreements relating to antisemitism are now being required to report every complaint of antisemitism they receive to OCR, so that federal officials can monitor how the schools respond.
Pressed by lawmakers on why her office does not provide specific detail about the nature of the shared ancestry cases it is investigating — such as how many relate to antisemitism — Lhamon said that most antisemitism cases ultimately grow to involve other areas of discrimination as well.
“Here’s maybe an ugly answer to that, but if a university is not handling antisemitism, it’s also not handling anti-Islam,” Lhamon said. “What we’re finding is, if a school doesn’t know or isn’t fulfilling its obligations under Title VI, it’s not doing it for people in general.”
Lhamon also lamented what she characterized as a failure on behalf of schools to take steps to inform students of the rights and protections they are entitled to and how to report cases of discrimination.
She offered, as an example, that she frequently sees information sheets inside bathrooms on campuses about how students can report sexual harassment and sex discrimination, but not similar information sheets about other forms of discrimination.
Lhamon suggested Congress could consider legal changes to address such gaps.
Bipartisan letter argued that not removing the presidents from their positions would constitute an ‘endorsement’ and ‘act of complicity’ in the presidents’ ‘antisemitic posture’
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Claudine Gay, president of Harvard University and Liz Magill, president of University of Pennsylvania, testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building on December 05, 2023, in Washington, D.C.
Seventy-four House lawmakers wrote to the boards of Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania on Friday demanding that they immediately fire their presidents in response to widely criticized congressional testimony they delivered on antisemitism on their campuses earlier this week.
The presidents of the three schools have come under increasing scrutiny this week amid growing speculation that their jobs could be on the line following their refusal to say earlier this week that calls for Jewish genocide would violate their schools’ codes of conduct.
“Testimony provided by presidents of your institutions showed a complete absence of moral clarity and illuminated the problematic double standards and dehumanization of the Jewish communities that your university presidents enabled,” the letter reads. “Given this moment of crisis, we demand that your boards immediately remove each of these presidents from their positions and that you provide an actionable plan” to ensure the safety of the Jewish community on campus.
“Anything less,” than the steps they requested, the lawmakers continued, “will be seen as your endorsement… and an act of complicity in their antisemitic posture.”
The letter was led by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who questioned the presidents on the genocide issue, and Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL). Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) is the only other Democrat who signed the letter; the rest are Republicans.
The lawmakers said that the testimony makes it “hard to imagine” any Jewish or Israeli person feeling safe on their campuses when the presidents “could not say that calls for the genocide of Jews would have clear consequences on your campus.”
It adds that subsequent social media statements seeking to clarify or walk back those comments “offered little clarification on your campus’ true commitment to protecting vulnerable students in this moment of crisis,” describing them instead as “desperate attempts to try and save their jobs” and “too little too late.”
Shortly before the Stefanik-Moskowitz letter was released, a group of thirteen House Democrats wrote to the boards of the three schools urging them to re-examine their codes of conduct to make clear that calls for the genocide of Jews are not acceptable.
This second letter, led by Reps. Kathy Manning (D-NC), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) and Susan Wild (D-PA), includes similar language to the bipartisan letter regarding the presidents’ testimony and how it would make Jewish campus members feel unsafe, but stops short of directly calling for the presidents to be fired.
The lawmakers wrote that they felt “compelled to ask” if the presidents’ responses “align with the values and policies of your respective institutions.”
“The presidents’ unwillingness to answer questions clearly or fully acknowledge appalling and unacceptable behavior — behavior that would not have been tolerated against other groups — illuminated the problematic double standards and dehumanization of the Jewish communities at your universities,” the letter continues. “The lack of moral clarity these presidents displayed is simply unacceptable.”
The lawmakers requested that the schools update their policies to “ensure that they protect students from hate” and describe their plans for protecting Jewish and Israeli community members.
“There is no context in which calls for the genocide of Jews is acceptable rhetoric,” the letter reads. “While Harvard and Penn subsequently issued clarifying statements which were appreciated, their failure to unequivocally condemn calls for the systematic murder of Jews during the public hearing is deeply alarming and stands in stark contrast to the principles we expect leaders of top academic institutions to uphold.”
The letter notes that federal civil rights law prohibits discrimination against Jews on campus, and that criminal law bans hate crimes, violence and incitement to violence.
“Students and faculty who threaten, harass, or incite violence towards Jews must be held accountable for their actions,” the lawmakers wrote. “If calls for genocide of the Jewish people are not in violation of your universities’ policies, then it is time for you to reexamine your policies and codes of conduct.”
Signatories to the Democratic letter include Manning, Wild, Auchincloss, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Greg Landsman (D-OH), Grace Meng (D-NY), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Donald Norcross (D-NJ), Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI).
All of the signatories to the Democratic letter are either Jewish or deeply involved with Jewish community issues on the Hill.
Earlier this week, a third letter by six House Republicans from Pennsylvania — Reps. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), alongside Congressmen John Joyce, M.D. (R-PA), Mike Kelly (R-PA), Lloyd Smucker (R-PA), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), and Dan Meuser (R-PA) — called for University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill specifically to be fired.
New Report on Jewish Voters – Jewish Maps of the United States by Congressional Districts: “A new survey, titled “Jewish Maps of the United States by Congressional District,” shows that the American Jewish population is more heavily clustered than the overall population and also very geographically diverse.
“There are 13 CDs with 100,000 or more Jews, nine in New York and two each in California and Florida—the three states with the highest total Jewish populations. In general, the most-Jewish CDs are in the northeastern states, California, Florida, and a few other large urban areas such as Chicago and Atlanta. The least-Jewish CDs are mostly in the rural parts of southern states.”
–Rep. Jerry Nadler represents the largest Jewish district in the United States. Rep. Nadler’s district, the 10th, includes New York City, Borough Park, and Bensonhurst – an area with 197,000 Jews, for an estimated 27.4 percent of the general population. The 11th district, led by Congressman Michael Grimm, contains the largest Jewish population that is represented by a Republican. According to the report, 129,000 Jews (18%) reside in that district. The survey’s release comes amid a competitive race between the incumbent and his Democratic challenger Dominic Recchia. The study was commissioned by the Berman Jewish Data Bank, a project of the Jewish Federation of North America.” [JewishDataBank]