Plus, Platner’s tattoo trouble doesn’t fade
WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 15: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks during a press conference on healthcare with other House Democrats, on the East steps of the U.S. Capitol on the 15th day of the government shutdown in Washington, DC on October 15, 2025. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Jewish Democrats about their efforts to reengage the party’s rank-and-file on supporting Israel as the war in Gaza winds down, and report on the mounting evidence that Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner knew the origins of his tattoo of a Nazi symbol prior to national coverage of the body art and his related social media postings. We spotlight a new PAC in Washington state that is backing “pro-Jewish candidates” in Seattle’s upcoming school board elections, and report on a new initiative from the Jewish Book Council aimed at boosting Jewish and Israeli authors. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Alyza Lewin, Brian Romick and Jon Finer.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- We’re keeping an eye on efforts to locate and repatriate the bodies of the 13 remaining Israeli hostages, following President Donald Trump’s warning to Hamas on Saturday that the terror group had 48 hours to begin resuming the transfer of bodies. Teams from Egypt and the Red Cross also joined the effort over the weekend.
- Delegates from around the world are arriving in Israel today ahead of the start of the World Zionist Congress, which begins tomorrow in Jerusalem.
- Members of Pittsburgh’s Jewish community are marking the seventh anniversary of the deadly attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in which 11 congregants were killed.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S GABBY DEUTCH
As a fragile cease-fire holds in Gaza, Jewish Democrats see an opportunity to reengage party Democratic activists and elected officials who have grown frustrated with Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Jewish Insider spoke to more than a dozen fundraisers, activists and professionals in the pro-Israel space, most with a long history of involvement in Democratic politics. Their pitch to Democrats at this precarious moment involves two parts: First, push to make President Donald Trump’s peace plan a reality. Second, ensure that Democrats understand that the value of America’s relationship with Israel is independent from the leader of either country — and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who remains broadly unpopular with the American left, won’t be in power forever.
Unlike naysayers on the right who suggest Democrats have abandoned Israel — a claim made frequently by Trump — the Jewish activists and communal leaders who advocate for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship and for U.S. aid to Israel still insist that support for the Jewish state remains bipartisan, and that congressional Democrats remain broadly pro-Israel. That proposition faced its toughest test during a two-year war, when Democrats became increasingly sympathetic to the Palestinians as Israel’s effort to eradicate Hamas left the Gaza Strip in ruins and claimed thousands of lives.
“I think ending the war turns the temperature down pretty dramatically,” said Brian Romick, CEO of Democratic Majority for Israel. “Right now, what we’re saying is, no matter where you were in the previous two years, we all need the deal to work, and so being for the deal [and] wanting the deal to work is a pro-Israel position right now, and then you build from there.”
At the start of the war, 34% of Democrats sympathized more with Israel, and 31% sympathized more with Palestinians, according to New York Times polling. New data released last month shows that 54% of Democrats now sympathize more with the Palestinians, compared to only 13% with Israel. That stark shift in public opinion corresponded to more Democratic lawmakers voting to condition American military support for Israel than ever before.
“I do think that there is room to build forward,” said Jeremy Burton, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, which works closely with Democratic lawmakers in deep-blue Massachusetts. “We have to be secure enough in our own belief in the future and our hope for the future to say ‘OK, if your point was that you’re committed to the long-term project of Israel’s security and safety, and you were looking for short term ways to pressure the government of Israel, then let’s move forward with the long-term project, even if we disagreed with you in the short term.’”
TATTOO-GATE
Graham Platner’s credibility under fire in Maine Senate campaign
Graham Platner, the scandal-plagued Democrat running for Senate in Maine, continued to insist he only recently became aware that a black skull tattoo on his chest resembles a Nazi SS symbol, even amid mounting evidence suggesting he was aware of what the image represented long before he announced his campaign this summer, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. A new investigation published on Friday by CNN confirmed JI’s earlier reporting that Platner had on at least one occasion identified the tattoo as a Nazi SS symbol, known as a Totenkopf, to a former acquaintance more than a decade ago.
New evidence: The former acquaintance spoke with CNN, which also interviewed a second person who said that the acquaintance had mentioned Platner’s tattoo years ago. In addition, CNN reviewed a more recent text exchange from several months ago in which the acquaintance discussed the tattoo, before Platner himself revealed he had the tattoo in an interview last week, in an effort to preempt what he described as opposition research seeking to damage his insurgent Senate campaign. Both JI and CNN also cited deleted Reddit posts in which Platner, a 41-year-old Marine veteran and an oyster farmer, defended the use of Nazi tattoos, including SS lighting bolts, among servicemembers. In one thread, a user had mentioned the Totenkopf, further indicating that Platner had been aware of its symbolism before he entered the race in August to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).
ONLINE APPEARANCE
CAIR-Ohio leader moderated event featuring designated terrorist
The executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Ohio branch moderated an online event last week featuring a Hamas official designated as a terrorist by the Treasury Department, as well as other Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad members. The Beirut-based think tank Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations hosted an event in Arabic last week titled “Palestinians Abroad and Regional International Strategic Transformations in Light of Operation Al-Aksa Flood,” using Hamas’ name for its Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Terror talk: Among the speakers at the web conference was Majed al-Zeer, who was designated by the Treasury Department in October 2024 as “the senior Hamas representative in Germany, who is also one of the senior Hamas members in Europe and has played a central role in the terrorist group’s European fundraising.” Al-Zeer said that “the resistance” is key to maintaining the momentum of a “strategic shift” in how Europe and the world views the Palestinian issue.
SLATE OF ENDORSEMENTS
New PAC in Washington state backs ‘pro-Jewish candidates’ on Seattle school board
With eyes on several high-profile races across the country featuring candidates antagonistic to Jewish interests, activists in one of the most progressive parts of the country are raising the alarm on local seats that act as a “rung on a ladder” to higher office, saying the problems the Jewish community face “start further upstream,” Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports. The Kids Table, a new PAC in Washington state supporting “pro-Jewish candidates” and led by “Millennials and moms, public affairs experts and gymnastics dads,” unveiled a slate of endorsements this month in races for the board of directors of Seattle Public Schools, a school district that has seen several major antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel and subsequent rise of antisemitism across the country, including in K-12 classrooms, amid the two-year war between Israel and Hamas.
Eye on education: “We need help in the school districts now,” Sam Jefferies, co-chair of The Kids Table, told JI. “We also know that school boards can be a rung on a ladder as [candidates] seek higher office, and we want to make sure that we are building relationships with them early, providing them critical context and education around our issues, and then carry that forward, whether it’s on the school board or elsewhere.”
PEOPLE OF THE BOOK CLUB
As Jewish writers face boycotts and bias, new initiative aims to boost their books
For Jewish and Israeli authors and the people who enjoy their books, the publishing industry has been a decidedly depressing place over the last two years, with boycotts against the works of authors deemed to be Zionists. A new initiative from the Jewish Book Council, a 100-year-old nonprofit dedicated to promoting Jewish literature, aims to fight back against the torrent of bad news for Jewish writers. This month, JBC unveiled Nu Reads, a subscription service that will deliver selected Jewish books to subscribers bimonthly, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. The first book, Happy New Years, a novel by the Israeli author Maya Arad, has already shipped to Nu Reads’ inaugural subscribers.
Caring for the community: “There’s a chill for our community across the industry,” JBC CEO Naomi Firestone-Teeter told JI in an interview this month. “If we care about Jewish literature and we care about these authors and ideas, we need to buy these books. We need to invest in them and support them.” More than 230,000 Jewish families in the U.S. and Canada receive children’s books each month through PJ Library, a program modeled on Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. It was PJ Library — which has transformed young Jews’ experience with Jewish books in the two decades it has existed — that served as an inspiration to JBC.
FLIGHT TRACKER
American Airlines to resume direct flights to TLV in March
American Airlines announced plans on Friday to resume direct flights to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport starting in March, marking the first time since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks that the carrier will fly directly to Israel, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
On the calendar: Flights to Tel Aviv are scheduled to resume on March 28, 2026, just days ahead of the Passover holiday, when Israel typically sees an influx of tourism. Tickets will be available for purchase beginning Monday. The announcement comes weeks after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in the Gaza war. American is the last of the major U.S. carriers to resume flights to Israel.
TRANSITION
Constitutional lawyer Alyza Lewin tapped to lead Combat Antisemitism Movement’s U.S. advocacy
The Combat Antisemitism Movement tapped constitutional lawyer Alyza Lewin on Monday to lead its revamped U.S. affairs department, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen has learned. Lewin steps into CAM’s newly established role of president of U.S. affairs following eight years at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, where as president she spearheaded legal and advocacy efforts protecting the civil rights of Jewish students and employees nationwide.
New role: At CAM, Lewin, an attorney who co-founded Lewin & Lewin, LLP, will “help broader audiences recognize and understand the antisemitism that’s plaguing the United States today,” she told JI. The six-year-old advocacy organization “has developed relationships with so many communities and audiences that need to understand how to recognize contemporary antisemitism,” said Lewin. In her new position, Lewin will oversee coordination and engagement with those groups. “These broader audiences need to understand the tools at their disposal and utilize them to address discrimination that’s taking place,” she said, adding that she plans to educate about the implementation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.
Worthy Reads
Peace Dividends: In The Washington Post, Yuval Noah Harari posits that Israel’s peace treaties with its neighbors have been critical to the country’s survival since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and ensuing war. “Hamas hoped that its attack would trigger an all-out Arab onslaught on Israel, but this failed to materialize. The only entities that undertook direct hostile actions against Israel were Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran and various Iranian-backed militias in Syria and Iraq — none of which had ever recognized Israel’s right to exist. In contrast, Egypt did not break the peace treaty it signed with Israel in 1979; Jordan did not break the peace treaty signed in 1994; and the gulf states did not break the treaties signed in 2020. … As we reflect on the terrible events of the past two years, we should not let the silent success of Middle Eastern peace treaties be drowned out by the echoes of violent explosions. The peace treaties Israel had signed with its Arab neighbors have been put to an extremely severe test, and they have held. After years of horrific war, this should encourage people on all sides to give another chance to peace.” [WashPost]
Filling the Void: In The New York Times, James Rubin, an advisor to former Secretaries of State Tony Blinken and Madeleine Albright, considers the elements that could foster long-term calm in the Gaza Strip. “The linchpin of any lasting peace will be the creation and deployment of an international force, a feature of the U.S. peace plan that was announced by President Trump and endorsed by world leaders in Egypt earlier this month and that spawned the cease-fire. The force would create conditions to realize other aspects of the plan: filling the growing security vacuum in Gaza, allowing for Palestinian self-governance and ensuring that Israel will not be threatened. … With a clear plan, a U.N. resolution and a main troop contributor identified, it would then be much easier to fill out the force with actual commitments of personnel and expand the training of a Palestinian contingent, which would ideally over time replace the international forces, as envisioned in the Trump plan.” [NYTimes]
Annexation Angst: The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg reflects on potential conflicts between far-right elements of the Israeli government and the Trump administration, on the heels of two Knesset votes regarding West Bank annexation that took place during Vice President JD Vance’s trip to Israel last week. “The more political and economic influence the Gulf states have over Trump and Israel, the more demands they will be able to make of both. Heading off formal annexation of the West Bank is the first ask, but it won’t be the last. Ultimately, the far right’s program of unfettered settler expansion and violence, unending war and eventual settlement in Gaza, and no negotiations with the Palestinian Authority is irreconcilable with a more regionally integrated Israel and an expanded Abraham Accords. In practice, this means that as long as Israel’s settler right holds power over Netanyahu, it will continue to threaten the Trump administration’s agenda.” [TheAtlantic]
The Next British Invasion: In The Wall Street Journal, Rabbi Pini Dunner suggests that the U.S. accept British Jews as refugees, citing antisemitism in the U.K. that is “marching down the high street, waving flags, shouting slogans,” as well as the recent precedent set by the Trump administration in granting some South Africans a pathway to refugee status. “Let’s offer a lifeline for Jews who can no longer walk the streets of London, Manchester or Birmingham without looking over their shoulders. America has always been a haven. We can open our doors to Jews who no longer feel safe in the country that once promised them safety. Yes, the U.S. refugee system is overwhelmed. Yes, immigration is politically toxic. But this is different. This is moral clarity. Every year, the U.S. admits thousands fleeing persecution because of race, religion or politics. British Jews now fit that category. Their persecutors aren’t warlords or terrorists. They’re neighbors, coworkers, teachers, even police officers — and Jews feel unsafe. When a Western democracy fails to protect its Jews, other countries must act. That isn’t interference, it’s conscience.” [WSJ]
Word on the Street
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who had held off endorsing a candidate in New York City’s upcoming mayoral election, announced his backing of Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani on Friday, the day before early voting began in the city…
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul appeared at a Sunday rally for Mamdani in Queens, the first time the governor campaigned for Mamdani since endorsing him last month…
The Lakewood, N.J., Vaad endorsed GOP gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli, a week and a half ahead of Ciattarelli’s general election matchup against Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), who in recent weeks has stepped up her outreach efforts to the state’s Jewish community…
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said that he would make a decision about the 2028 presidential election after the 2026 midterms, amid speculation that he is preparing for a run…
Northwestern University announced that Provost Kathleen Hagerty will depart the Illinois school by the end of the academic year; the announcement comes a month after the resignation of President Michael Schill amid clashes with the Trump administration over the school’s handling of antisemitism…
British journalist Sami Hamdi, who praised the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, had his U.S. visa revoked during a speaking tour and will be deported over his comments…
A new report from the United States–Israel Business Alliance found that Israeli-founded companies in New York State generated $19.5 billion in gross economic output in 2024…
The Washington Post spotlights the Jewish bubbes who doled out “life advice from a nice Jewish grandma” from a table outside Washington’s Sixth and I Synagogue…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told members of his Cabinet that Israel will determine which countries are “unacceptable” to send troops to Gaza to join an international stabilization force, as The New York Times looks at how tensions between Israel and Turkey are affecting Ankara’s participation in efforts to administer and rebuild postwar Gaza…
British Airways paused its sponsorship of Louis Theroux’s podcast, following an episode that featured an interview with punk musician Bob Vylan, who led cheers of “death to the IDF” at the Glastonbury music festival over the summer; in the interview, Vylan said he would lead the chant “again tomorrow, twice on Sundays”…
Hard-left independent Irish presidential candidate Catherine Connolly, who has called Israel a “terrorist state,” won the country’s election on Friday; read our profile of Connolly here…
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas designated longtime aide Hussein al-Sheikh as his temporary successor should he vacate his leadership role…
Qatar inaugurated its new embassy in Washington, in the 16th Street NW building that housed the Carnegie Institution for Washington until its sale in 2021…
Israel’s Mossad alleged that a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps official oversaw a network of more than 11,000 operatives that was behind at least three Iranian plots against Jewish and Israeli targets in Western countries…
Iran’s Ayandeh Bank is closing and being folded into the state-run Bank Melli; the shuttering of one of the country’s biggest lenders comes amid a growing economic crisis in the Islamic Republic resulting from crippling international sanctions…
The Financial Times profiles Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir, who President Donald Trump has described as his “favorite field marshal,” as the military leader aims to consolidate power in the central Asian country…
Jon Finer, who served as deputy national security advisor during the Biden administration, is joining the Center for American Progress as a distinguished senior fellow on CAP’s National Security and International Policy team…
Journalist Sid Davis, who covered the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and was one of just three reporters on Air Force One during the swearing-in of President Lyndon B. Johnson, died at 97…
Pic of the Day
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar (left) met earlier today with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto in Budapest. Sa’ar was joined on the trip by a delegation of several dozen Israeli business leaders.
Birthdays
Author, actress and comedian, Fran Lebowitz turns 75…
Treasurer of the Pacific Palisades Residents Association, Gordon Gerson… Senior U.S. district judge in Maine, he was born in a refugee camp following World War II, Judge George Z. Singal turns 80… Rabbi emeritus at Miami Beach’s Temple Beth Sholom, Gary Glickstein turns 78… SVP at MarketVision Research, Joel M. Schindler… President emeritus of Jewish Creativity International, Robert Goldfarb… Co-chair of a task force at the Bipartisan Policy Center, he is a former U.S. ambassador to Finland and Turkey, Eric Steven Edelman turns 74… Television writer, director and producer, best known as the co-creator of the 122 episodes of “The Nanny,” Peter Marc Jacobson turns 68… Senior advisor and fellow at the Soufan Group following 31 years at the Congressional Research Service, Dr. Kenneth Katzman… Co-owner of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and English soccer club Manchester United, Bryan Glazer turns 61… New York state senator from Manhattan, he serves as chair of the NYS Senate Judiciary Committee, Brad Hoylman-Sigal turns 60… Creator and editor of the Drudge Report, Matt Drudge turns 59… Hasidic cantor and singer known by his first and middle names, Shlomo Simcha Sufrin turns 58… Managing partner of the Los Angeles office of HR&A Advisors, Andrea Batista Schlesinger turns 49… Sportscaster for CBS Sports, Adam Zucker turns 49… Music composer, he is a distinguished senior scholar at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, Yotam Haber turns 49… Member of the Netherlands House of Representatives, Gideon “Gidi” Markuszower turns 48… Television meteorologist, currently working for The Weather Channel, Stephanie Abrams turns 47… Writer, attorney and creative writing teacher, she has published two novels and a medical memoir, Elizabeth L. Silver turns 47… Israel’s minister of environmental protection, Idit Silman turns 45… Chair of the Open Society Foundations, founded by his father George Soros, Alexander F. G. Soros turns 40… Israeli actress best known for playing Eve in the Netflix series “Lucifer,” Inbar Lavi turns 39… Senior foreign policy and national security advisor for Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Elizabeth (Liz) Leibowitz… Executive producer of online content at WTSP in St. Petersburg, Fla., Theresa Collington… Senior social marketing manager at Amazon, Stephanie Arbetter… Senior director of sales at Arch, Andrew J. Taub… Co-founder of Arch, Ryan Eisenman… Real estate agent and co-founder and president of Bond Companies, Robert J. Bond…
More than a dozen Democratic operatives told JI that the party’s support for Israel has declined, but hope that the end of the war will create space for skeptics to reengage with the Jewish state
Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Representative Katherine Clark, a Democrat from Massachusetts, center left, and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, center right, arrive for a news conference with House Democrats outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025.
One thing Betsy Sheerr knows for sure is that most Democratic lawmakers still believe in Israel’s right to exist. She also knows that needing to reestablish this basic fact may not be a good sign for her party, and, more broadly, for American support for Israel.
“I can’t believe the bar is so low that that’s where we have to start,” said Sheerr, a longtime Democratic activist and a board member of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
That’s the position in which many pro-Israel Democratic advocates find themselves as they begin to take stock of the domestic political damage wrought by Israel’s two-year war with Hamas that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks.
Unlike naysayers on the right who suggest Democrats have abandoned Israel — a claim made frequently by President Donald Trump — the Jewish activists and communal leaders who advocate for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship and for U.S. aid to Israel still insist that support for the Jewish state remains bipartisan, and that congressional Democrats remain broadly pro-Israel. That proposition faced its toughest test during a two-year war, when Democrats became increasingly sympathetic to the Palestinians as Israel’s effort to eradicate Hamas left the Gaza Strip in ruins and claimed thousands of lives.
As a fragile ceasefire holds, Jewish Democrats see an opportunity to reengage party activists and elected officials who have grown frustrated with Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Jewish Insider spoke to more than a dozen fundraisers, activists and professionals in the pro-Israel space, most with a long history of involvement in Democratic politics. Their pitch to Democrats at this precarious moment involves two parts: First, push to make Trump’s peace plan a reality. Second, ensure that Democrats understand that the value of America’s relationship with Israel is independent from the leader of either country — and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who remains unpopular with the American left, won’t be in power forever.
“I think ending the war turns the temperature down pretty dramatically,” said Brian Romick, CEO of Democratic Majority for Israel. “Right now, what we’re saying is, no matter where you were in the previous two years, we all need the deal to work, and so being for the deal [and] wanting the deal to work is a pro-Israel position right now, and then you build from there.”
At the start of the war, 34% of Democrats sympathized more with Israel, and 31% sympathized more with Palestinians, according to New York Times polling. New data released last month shows that 54% of Democrats now sympathize more with the Palestinians, compared to only 13% with Israel. That stark shift in public opinion corresponded to more Democratic lawmakers voting to condition American military support for Israel than ever before.
This summer, 55 Democrats in the House co-sponsored legislation that would significantly restrict arms sales to Israel. Twenty-seven Democratic senators voted in July to support a bill put forward by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that aimed to reject Israeli arms sales. The bill failed, but it marked a watershed moment for the party, with more than half of all Democrats voting in support of the measure. Not long ago, voting to condition aid to Israel would have been seen as a red line by pro-Israel groups. But with a growing number of Democrats who have already done so, such threats could ring hollow.
“I do think that there is room to build forward,” said Jeremy Burton, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, which works closely with Democratic lawmakers in deep-blue Massachusetts. “We have to be secure enough in our own belief in the future and our hope for the future to say ‘OK, if your point was that you’re committed to the long-term project of Israel’s security and safety, and you were looking for short term ways to pressure the government of Israel, then let’s move forward with the long-term project, even if we disagreed with you in the short term.’”
The pro-Israel lobby AIPAC maintains that it is committed to bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, even as the group has faced sharp criticism from progressive activists — including some who have pressured political candidates to swear off donations from the group. A spokesperson for the organization downplayed the shifting political headwinds, noting that American military aid to Israel continued throughout the war.
“It is important to separate the noise from anti-Israel extremists of the right and left and actual impact,” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told JI. “For example, time and time again Congress has resoundingly rejected the efforts of those extremists to cut defense assistance to Israel.”
AIPAC has a long-standing policy of not criticizing the Israeli government no matter who is in power, and that isn’t shifting. But other pro-Israel advocates believe that approach may not work with Democrats who are fed up with Netanyahu’s governance.
“We know that can one be critical of certain Israeli government policies and still be pro-Israel, and we also know that’s increasingly the case for many Democrats, just as it is for a majority of Jewish Americans,” said Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
“The vast majority of Democrats are far more sympathetic to the people of Israel than its current leadership,” echoed Tyler Gregory, who leads the Bay Area JCRC and works closely with progressive leaders in San Francisco. “We need to bring it to a human level.”
Andrew Lachman, president of California Jewish Democrats, was more overt in his hope that Israel elects a new leader in its next election, set to take place next October, unless it’s called sooner.
“If there’s a new change in leadership in Israel, that has the opportunity to be able to reset some of those relationships,” Lachman told JI.
It’s a sentiment echoed by Sheerr, who regularly interacts with Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill. “I think a lot of people, both lawmakers and others, are looking forward to the next Israeli elections, frankly, and life after Bibi,” she said. That is, of course, assuming that Netanyahu isn’t reelected — a risky bet given that Netanyahu has held the role through multiple elections since 2009, except for one 18-month stretch.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), who is challenging Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) in Massachusetts’ Senate primary next year, said this month that he would return donations from AIPAC, an organization that has previously endorsed him. He told JI last week that he took issue with the group’s “steadfast support for the Netanyahu government.”
“My views on Israel as an essential partner of the United States and our most important ally in the Middle East have not changed,” Moulton said.
Markey, for his part, has been one of Israel’s leading critics in the Senate, making next year’s Democratic primary one between a candidate who condemns the leading U.S.-Israel advocacy group and a candidate with a record of voting against military aid to Israel.
Ron Halber, who leads the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and maintains close ties with Democratic lawmakers in Maryland and Virginia, said that Israeli leaders also have a responsibility to repair ties between Democrats and the Jewish state.
“For Israel to align itself, or for the current government or for advisors to think that working with the Republican Party is the way to the future, is about the dumbest strategic mistake I can imagine,” said Halber. “The bipartisan nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship is the fundamental blanket of Israel’s support in the world.”
The leftward shift of Democratic lawmakers has come despite advocacy campaigns by major Jewish groups who urged senators to vote against Sanders’ resolutions restricting aid to Israel. But some within the mainstream Jewish community recognize that the longtime approach of offering unequivocal support to Israel’s government is not sustainable.
“My opinion is that this government is harmful,” said Sam Lauter, a public affairs consultant in San Francisco and Democratic fundraiser who helped create DMFI in 2019. “I used to be one of those people who would be sort of silent about that, because ‘I’m a diaspora Jew, and I don’t get a say.’”
Halber said he believed that many Democrats supporting Sanders’ bill “did so symbolically,” because they knew it was going to fail. “They were trying to send a message to Israel that this is a bridge too far, when they believed humanitarian aid [to Gaza] was being cut off,” he added.
The “million-dollar question,” according to Ilan Goldenberg, J Street’s vice president of policy, is whether lawmakers’ support for conditioning military assistance to Israel will continue after the war, when they have to vote to approve the annual $3.8 billion security package to Israel.
“I think it’s going to be, ‘We need accountability, and we need certain behavior that we would like to see,’ and if you’re not getting that out of the Israelis, then a willingness to use more leverage and pressure and accountability,” said Goldenberg, who served as Jewish outreach director on Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign last year. “I think that is where the center of the Democratic Party is likely to settle, which is a very different place from where we were before the start of the war.”
J Street has supported Sanders’ resolutions restricting arms sales to Israel.
If any of the support for the bills that sought to reject certain weapons sales carries over into the regular appropriations process, it would mark a significant shift.
“It seems indisputable that the Overton window has shifted dramatically over the last two years in terms of what ‘the left’ broadly deems acceptable about Israel, Zionism and even the Jewish American community,” said Amanda Berman, CEO of the progressive group Zioness. “This kind of rhetoric doesn’t just disappear when the news cycle moves on. That said, the vast majority of liberals and progressives are not uniquely obsessed with Jews or Israel, and have any number of urgent issues of concern.”
Even as pro-Israel activists seek to rebuild frayed ties with erstwhile allies, they recognize that not everyone should be welcomed back into the tent, even if the tent is bigger than it was before.
“We don’t need to be forgiving or ignoring those who chose to just demonize and be dismissive of our anxieties, our fears, our hopes over the last two years,” said Burton.
The dust has hardly settled in Gaza, and it is too soon to know what the lasting impact of the war will be. But given that this was Israel’s longest war, and that it played out under scrutiny of the traditional media and social media, “it’s going to be a lot harder to put the genie back in the bottle than previous times,” as one person involved in Jewish philanthropy and Democratic politics quipped.
Democratic insiders told JI that DNC chair Ken Martin withdrew his Israel resolution largely to avoid a disruptive floor debate over Israel on Wednesday
Audrey Richardson/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee , speaks during a news conference in Aurora, Ill., on Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025.
Pro-Israel Democrats expressed cautious optimism about the unexpected decision by Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin to withdraw his resolution pressing for humanitarian aid to Gaza and for the release of hostages held by Hamas, which was unanimously approved by party members on Tuesday at the DNC’s annual summer meeting held in Minneapolis.
Martin, in a sudden reversal, announced he would pull the resolution after DNC members rejected a dueling measure, opposed by pro-Israel groups, that had endorsed an arms embargo and a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel. Instead, he said he would create a task force “comprised of stakeholders on all sides” of the Israel debate to pursue what he called a “shared dialogue” on an increasingly divisive issue.
“This was a surprise ending to this meeting,” Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, which helped draft the pro-Israel measure and privately advocated for its passage, told Jewish Insider on Tuesday.
Despite Martin’s 11th-hour reversal, Soifer said she was satisfied with the outcome, noting the DNC also passed a resolution condemning antisemitism that, coupled with its rejection of the arms embargo proposal, “reflects where the party stands” on major issues concerning Israel and the Jewish community.
“It’s my sense,” she added of Martin, “that he introduced and ensured passage of this resolution to defeat the other resolution,” which she said “was completely out of step with the views of the party.”
Soifer said she hopes to join the proposed task force “to discuss the path forward” on approaching Israel, acknowledging internal tensions that have roiled the party in recent years. Martin “clearly recognized that there are a range of strongly held views on this matter, and he wants to make sure that those voices are heard,” she told JI.
Martin has not yet shared additional details on the task force, and the DNC did not return a request for comment from JI. Latonya Reeves, a DNC member in Minneapolis, told JI on Tuesday that she had not been further informed of the task force — which she called “the best way to move forward” on the issue.
Sara Forman, who leads the New York Solidarity Network, a local pro-Israel group that aligns with Democrats, said she was broadly “encouraged” that the DNC had chosen “not to recommend” what she dismissed as a “one-sided resolution against Israel,” arguing that the party “represents far more than its progressive base.”
“I’m always one for conversation, and think that talking about things is an important step, so I’m going to offer grace to Martin in this regard,” she said of his announcement. Still, she added of the failed resolution, “I think it’s a bigger concern overall that the Democratic Party seems to be uniquely singling out Israel for rebuke or scrutiny in a way that no other U.S. ally is rebuked or scrutinized.”
A spokesperson for Democratic Majority for Israel, which released a statement praising the DNC’s votes before Martin revealed he would pull the resolution, said it was “pleased that the anti-Israel measure was decisively defeated by the committee,” but declined to comment more broadly on what transpired at the end of the meeting.
Brian Romick, DMFI’s president and CEO, said in an interview with JI that he viewed the outcome on Tuesday as “a win” for the pro-Israel community, in light of the potential for a more hostile debate. “The bad resolution was rejected and Ken’s compromise resolution also passed the committee,” Romick said. “That all happened publicly” and “reaffirmed where the party stands on Israel,” he said. “Anything else beyond that is just inside baseball.”
Some Democratic insiders familiar with internal party dynamics indicated that Martin had chosen to change course because he anticipated a disruptive floor debate over his resolution, which was poised to face broader scrutiny during the DNC’s general session on Wednesday.
“He’s worried about what would happen at the meeting,” one party source informed of the matter said on Tuesday. “On one hand, viewed from there, it makes sense and seems like a rational move,” the source reasoned, while also noting that it has “some real downsides.”
On the other hand, “when you punt something to a task force you actually continue the debate, because now it’s going to be a big fight” over who is included in the committee, the source said. “Then it becomes hard to move past.”
Manny Houle, a Democratic pro-Israel strategist in Minneapolis, said Martin’s maneuver was tactically smart — as DNC leadership seeks to avoid “internal proxy fights and focus messaging on pushing back against” the Trump administration in advance of the upcoming elections. “It is often a tactic to give your most ardent detractors busy work so you can focus on the work that matters,” he explained.
The party’s pro-Israel wing knows it has “the power to push back,” Houle told JI. “It’s not worth giving more air to the extremist factions.” The debate over Israel “is not going away anytime soon,” he added. “But we’ve shown where we stand and hopefully there are more pressing things that we need to give oxygen to.”
Whatever Martin’s intentions, Susan Turnbull, a former DNC vice chair, said she was excited by the prospect of a task force, suggesting that it would be well-timed to take place between the conventions.
“What I think is the case is that this, of all issues, needs to have consensus and that what he wanted in his first meeting is not to have winners and losers,” she told JI. “He wanted to come to a good result for collaboration.”
“I’m giving him a lot of credit because we have a hard enough time within the Jewish community dealing with this issue,” she said, adding that it will be “important that every perspective be considered” as the DNC hones its approach to the Middle East.
It remains to be seen if Martin, who on Tuesday acknowledged a “divide” in the party over Israel, will find partnership on the opposing end of the issue. Allison Minnerly, the 26-year-old DNC member who had introduced the failed measure on Gaza, which faced criticism for not mentioning Hamas, voiced disappointment with his decision and said he was “prolonging” the conversation rather than taking a position to align the party with a base she views as amenable to her views on Israel.
Still, as the DNC moves to reach a tenuous detente on Israel, some pro-Israel Democrats said that any future resolution on the issue should reflect values that have long been espoused by the party, even as they have faced ongoing pushback from the activist left.
“The vast majority of American Jews, and Americans more broadly, understand the complexity of the conflict — wanting to see Israel’s security protected and the remaining hostages released, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza truly addressed, and all parties work toward a future in which both Israelis and Palestinians are safe and free,” Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the nonpartisan Jewish Council for Public Affairs, told JI. “Any resolution on Gaza should reflect those widely-held values.”
Amanda Berman, CEO of the Zioness Action Fund, a progressive pro-Israel advocacy group, said on Tuesday that “there is legitimate critique and concern about this devastating war dragging on — and Democrats should stand staunchly with the Israeli public as it models dissent, protest and a pro-democracy movement the American left should emulate.”
“To the extent that any fringe element of the Democratic Party is willing to abandon Israel and the American Jewish community,” Berman said, “they will be abandoning true progressive values, liberation for persecuted minority communities, our historic alliances and America’s national security.”
Plus, Cotton calls on IRS to crack down on CAIR
Margo Wagner /Richmond Times-Dispatch via AP
Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, talks to a staffer Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Richmond, Va.
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff we talk to Jewish Democrats in Virginia concerned by the anti-Zionist rhetoric espoused by Virginia state Del. Sam Rasoul, who chairs the Education Committee in the state’s House of Delegates, and report on Republican Derek Dooley’s outreach to the Jewish community as he’s entered the Georgia Senate race. We also cover comments by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and interview Democrat Jeff Grayzel, a leader in northwest New Jersey Jewish communal organizations and deputy mayor of Morris Township, N.J., who launched his congressional campaign this week. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sen. Tom Cotton, Ted Deutch and Robert Kraft.
What We’re Watching
- The Department of Justice is reportedly seeking hate crime charges and the death penalty against Elias Rodriguez, who has been charged with the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in May.
- A group of House Intelligence Committee members including Chairman Rick Crawford (R-AR) and Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Ronny Jackson (R-TX) is visiting Israel, joining several other congressional delegations currently in the country.
- The New Jersey Jewish Business Alliance will host its 11th annual Legislative and Business Luncheon today, featuring gubernatorial candidates Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and former Republican state Rep. Jack Ciattarelli. The two will face off in the Garden State’s November general election, with recent polling showing Sherrill with a comfortable lead.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV
Israel’s Security Cabinet is set to vote this week on occupying the remaining parts of Gaza that it does not currently control, after Hamas refused last month’s ceasefire and hostage deal proposal and did not return to negotiations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir and Defense Minister Israel Katz held a three-hour meeting on Tuesday, which was reportedly very tense due to disagreement over the plan, though Zamir ultimately said he will follow through with the government’s decision.
Zamir argued that the IDF should surround the areas in Gaza in which it currently does not have a presence, including Gaza City and towns in the center of Gaza in which hostages are believed to be held. Entering those areas, Zamir warned, would endanger the lives of the 20 hostages who are thought to be alive. Hamas has threatened to kill hostages if the IDF approaches, as it had executed six hostages a year ago.
Beyond the fraught issue of the hostages, there is the matter of what “occupation” means.
While “occupation” is the correct military term for what Israel would be doing by taking control of territory, the connotation of the word in the Israeli context tends to be the West Bank, which Israel has controlled since 1967 and where over half a million Jewish citizens of Israel live.
Some Cabinet ministers have advocated for allowing Israelis to move to Gaza, where 21 Israeli settlements were forcibly evacuated in 2005; Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected such a plan.
What senior Israeli officials have long said is that, while Israel seeks to have other countries and some Palestinians administer Gaza, they will not do so until it’s clear that Hamas has been ousted. As such, Israel may have to take control for some time until other arrangements are made.
RASOUL RHETORIC
Virginia Democrat under fire for calling Zionism ‘evil’ while leading Education Committee
Since soon after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, Virginia state Del. Sam Rasoul, a Democrat who chairs the Education Committee in the House of Delegates, has used his social media accounts to attack Israel and decry American support for the Jewish state. But Jewish Democrats in the state fear that a series of recent posts from Rasoul vilifying Zionists has taken his anti-Israel rhetoric to a new level, prompting concerns about his leadership of the committee that is tasked with reviewing the education-related legislation that comes before the Statehouse, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Speaker says: “Zionism has proven how evil our society can be,” Rasoul wrote in a July 26 Instagram post that described Zionism as a “supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way.” Former Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, a Democrat from Northern Virginia, told JI on Tuesday that Rasoul’s rhetoric is “fueling one of the oldest forms of hatred in the world, repackaged in the language of activism.”
peach state politics
Derek Dooley, Georgia GOP candidates aim to pick up Jewish support against Ossoff
With the entry this week of Derek Dooley, a friend of Gov. Brian Kemp who hails from college football royalty in Georgia, the Republican field in the Georgia Senate race is taking shape, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
State of play: With Kemp’s help, Dooley could potentially peel off support from moderate Jewish Democrats still frustrated by controversial votes on arms sales to Israel by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), though Jewish leaders in the state told JI last week that they’re not yet making any commitments in the race. Dooley, for his part, is wasting little time in courting their votes, and has already met with some Jewish leaders and is preparing a pro-Israel position paper.
AID ADVOCATE
Shapiro says U.S. has ‘moral responsibility’ to provide aid to Gaza
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro called the humanitarian crisis in Gaza “awful” and said the U.S. has a “moral responsibility” to “flood the zone with aid,” while speaking to the central Pennsylvania Fox34 news channel on Tuesday, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports.
What he said: “The fact that kids are starving in Gaza is not OK. It is not OK. And I think everyone has a moral responsibility to figure out how to feed these kids. It is true that Hamas intercepts aid. It is true that the aid distribution network is not as sophisticated as it needs to be, but given that, I think our nation, the United States of America, has a moral responsibility to flood the zone with aid. It is awful, what is happening in Gaza,” the Democratic governor continued. He also called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that there is no starvation in Gaza “quite abhorrent.” Shapiro said, “He is wrong. He is wrong.”
GARDEN STATE RACE
N.J. Jewish leader Jeff Grayzel running for Congress as a ‘proud Jew and a proud Zionist’
Democrat Jeff Grayzel, a leader in northwest New Jersey Jewish communal organizations and deputy mayor of Morris Township, N.J., formally launched his congressional campaign this week, running as a staunchly pro-Israel candidate in the seat that will be vacated by Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) if she wins the state’s gubernatorial race, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Notable quotable: “I am a proud Jew and a proud Zionist, and I plan to run this race for Congress as such, as a proud Jew and as a proud Zionist. I am not going to shy away from it and everybody will know,” Grayzel said in an interview with JI last week. “I think we need leaders that are going to be more bold in addressing antisemitism in our country, and we need leaders who are going to push harder for a comprehensive solution in the Middle East, so that Israel can once and for all live in peace.”
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
Sen. Cotton urges IRS to investigate CAIR, consider revoking its tax-exempt status
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is urging the Trump administration to investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) alleged “ties to terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood” and consider revoking the group’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. Cotton, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, announced on Tuesday that he had sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Billy Long requesting he look into “recent news and longstanding evidence” demonstrating CAIR’s reported terrorist connections, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Cotton’s call: “CAIR purports to be a civil rights organization dedicated to protecting the rights of American Muslims. But substantial evidence confirms CAIR has deep ties to terrorist organizations,” Cotton wrote. The Arkansas senator pointed to CAIR being “listed as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee” in the “largest terrorism-financing case in U.S. history,” as well as the group’s executive director Nihad Awad saying he was “happy to see” the Oct. 7 terror attack in a November 2023 speech.
Maryland move: The University of Maryland, College Park and Maryland’s attorney general have asked the state to approve their joint request to settle a First Amendment lawsuit brought by the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, JI’s Emily Jacobs and Haley Cohen report.
DATA DRIVEN
FBI report: American Jews remain the most targeted religious group
The FBI reported on Tuesday that the American Jewish community remains the most targeted religious group, accounting for nearly 70% of all religiously motivated hate crimes in 2024, even as overall hate crimes in the country have decreased, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
By the numbers: Hate crimes targeting Jews had plateaued following a sharp increase immediately after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack. In 2024, 1,938 anti-Jewish hate crimes were reported to the FBI’s data collection program out of 3,096 reported religiously motivated hate crimes. The year 2024 saw the highest number of anti-Jewish hate crimes ever recorded by the bureau since it began collecting data in 1991 — and an increase compared to 1,832 incidents the year prior, which accounted for 67% of all religiously motivated hate crimes that year.
Worthy Reads
‘Middle Path’ to War’s End: The New York Times’ Bret Stephens considers the path forward in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. “Those who think of themselves as well-wishers of the Palestinians may want to forever put the moral onus on Israel for all of Gaza’s tragedies. But Gaza would not be where it is now had it not been for Hamas, and Gaza cannot be more than it is now so long as Hamas retains effective control. No thoughtful person can be pro-Palestinian without also being anti-Hamas. At the same time, being pro-Israel means looking at Gaza through the wider lens of Israel’s overall interests: the return of the hostages to heal Israel’s heart; the relief of Gaza to rehabilitate Israel’s reputation (above all among wavering friends); the resumption of regional diplomacy to take advantage of Israel’s temporary victories over Hezbollah and Iran; and the restoration of deterrence against Israel’s larger and still-menacing enemies. If Netanyahu makes the colossal mistake of trying to reoccupy Gaza for the long term, then no thoughtful person can be pro-Israel without also being against him.” [NYT]
The Gaza Images Now Haunting Israelis: The New Yorker’s Ruth Margalit examines a shift in Israeli public discourse about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. “Two weeks ago, Israel’s most-watched news broadcast, on the mainstream Channel 12, aired a series of startling images from Gaza. There were photographs of emaciated babies, and of children being trampled as they stood in food lines, holding out empty pots; there were pictures of mothers weeping because they had no way to feed their families. At the end of the segment, Ohad Hemo, the network’s correspondent for Palestinian affairs, concluded, ‘There is hunger in Gaza, and we have to say it loud and clear.’ He was careful to note that his assessment was not influenced by foreign reporting: ‘I speak to Gazans daily. These are people who haven’t eaten in days.’ He went on, ‘The responsibility lies not only with Hamas but also with Israel.’ In much of the world, this sentiment would seem incontrovertible, even obvious. In Israel, it represented a drastic change.” [NewYorker]
Empty Gesture on Statehood: Daniel Samet, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, argues in the Wall Street Journal that Western countries deciding to recognize a Palestinian state are committing “an unnecessary and dangerous faux pas” and risk alienating the U.S. “What they have to gain from recognizing a Palestinian state is unclear. President Trump said it best when he remarked that French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement “doesn’t matter” and “doesn’t carry weight.” He’s right. Recognition by France can’t make a Palestinian state a reality. Ditto for the U.K. and Canada. What it can do is inflame tensions with Washington. … The three countries’ posturing comes when they can ill afford to push away the American right. The Republicans who control the House, Senate and White House remain overwhelmingly pro-Israel. A subset of them support the trans-Atlantic alliance and favor robust assistance for Ukraine. If France and the U.K. believe that ‘Ukraine’s security is inseparable from Euro-Atlantic security’ and Canada is committed to ‘unwavering support for a secure, a free and sovereign Ukraine,’ why are they alienating those Republicans through this empty gesture?” [WSJ]
Allies Wanted: Brian Strauss, senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Yeshurun in Houston, the largest Conservative synagogue in the country, writes in Time about the “palpable anxiety” in Jewish communities amid rising antisemitism. “We cannot confront this threat alone. After each attack, we hear heartfelt declarations of solidarity — statements of support, thoughts, and prayers. These gestures are meaningful, but passive concern will not protect us. What we need now is courage. If you must protest Israel’s policies, you are of course free to do so. But stay away from our synagogues, our schools, and our community centers. That’s not activism — that’s intimidation. … We also need the faith leaders, public officials, and allies who stood with us after Oct. 7 to stay with us now. We know there’s no shortage of hatred to confront in the world. But we are still here, and we are still hurting.” [Time]
Word on the Street
President Donald Trump said yesterday that an Israeli decision to occupy the entire Gaza Strip is“pretty much going to be up to Israel,” when questioned by reporters at the White House…
The American Jewish Committee ran a full-page ad in The New York Times on Wednesday with images of hostage Evyatar David — a photo taken before his capture opposite a still from the recent video released by Hamas showing David over 660 days into captivity, looking severely emaciated and haggard. AJC CEO Ted Deutch said the organization chose to take out the ad due to “selective coverage from media outlets” that “continues to feed a biased narrative that too often ignores Israeli and Jewish suffering.” The ad will also run in the paper’s Sunday edition…
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) told Semaforthat Israel’s moves to airlift increased aid into Gaza are “a start, but you can’t possibly get the volume of food in there that you need via an airlift.” Asked if she would support recognition of a Palestinian state, Slotkin said, “I just don’t believe that we should be recognizing a new state in the middle of an active hot war”…
A Wall Street Journal editorial titled “Kill Jews, Get Your Own State,” slams efforts by France, Canada and the U.K. to recognize a Palestinian state following comments made by Ghazi Hamad, a member of the Hamas politburo, who said the push is an “achievement” stemming from the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel…
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told Bloomberg he understands now that New York Democrats are viewing Israel differently, since his defeat in the Democratic mayoral primary to Israel critic Zohran Mamdani. Cuomo, still running for mayor as an independent, said he would speak about Israel’s war in Gaza and antisemitism in a more nuanced way moving forward, instead of what he called a “binary” conversation…
Columbia University protest leader Mahmoud Khalil appeared on “The Ezra Klein Show” podcast yesterday, where he said that Hamas carried out the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel as “a desperate attempt to tell the world that Palestinians are here” and that “unfortunately, we couldn’t avoid such a moment.” Khalil also said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “thrives on the killing of Palestinians”…
Leo Terrell, head of the Department of Justice’s antisemitism task force, said he was notified by the Israeli Embassy on Tuesday of an antisemitic attack in St. Louis where a Jewish family had their vehicles set on fire and home vandalized after their son returned from serving in the IDF. Terrell said the FBI is involved and he had alerted Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office…
Hillel International and Secure Community Network in a joint statement urged all universities to follow Harvard’s lead in covering security costs for their campus’ Hillel …
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and a group of House Republicans toured the city of Hebron, in the West Bank, yesterday together with Israeli Minister of Economy and Industry Nir Barkat…
U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner met on Monday with Saudi Ambassador to France Fahd bin Mayouf Al-Ruwaili. Kushner said the two discussed “the ways that our two countries can each contribute to peace and stability in the Middle East,” just one week after Saudi Arabia and France co-chaired a U.N. conference on the two-state solution which the U.S. and Israel boycotted…
British officials told The Times that the U.K. is continuing to conduct reconnaissance flights over Gaza with Royal Air Force planes to help Israel try to locate the hostages, despite frosty diplomatic relations…
Arash Azizi reviews Scott Anderson’s new book, King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion, and Catastrophic Miscalculation, in The Atlantic…
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency, quietly removed a requirement for grant applicants to certify they will not engage in a commercial boycott of Israel in order to be eligible for funding …
The NFL struck a major deal with Disney for a 10% stake in ESPN, the companies announced on Tuesday. Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and chair of the NFL’s media committee, said in an interview that the equity piece of the deal is “really a commitment beyond whatever the contract is” and could allow the league to raise the salary cap for players…
Organizers of the Montreal Pride parade re-invited Ga’ava, a Jewish LGBT organization, and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) to march in Sunday’s parade, after initially excluding Ga’ava due to controversy over the organization’s social media posts. The backtrack came a day after Montreal Pride’s board chair stepped down amid the controversy…
A man named Christopher Robertson made his first appearance in court in Atlanta on Monday since he was arrested for making threatening and derogatory remarks at the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, a nearby synagogue and Chabad as well as on social media…
Pic of the Day
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar (front row center with red tie) met with some two dozen American Jewish leaders in New York City on Tuesday, briefing them on developments in Israel and hearing their concerns, ahead of a speech in the United Nations about the plight of Israeli hostages being held in Gaza, participants told eJewishPhilanthropy.
Birthdays
Former boxing commentator and co-host of ESPN’s “This Just In,” he is soon to host a major boxing match on Netflix, Yiddish-speaking Max Kellerman turns 52…
Los Angeles-based partner at the Jaffe Family Law Group, Daniel J. Jaffe turns 88… E-sports executive and casino owner, he is a three-time bracelet winner at the World Series of Poker, Lyle Berman turns 84… Professor emerita and former dean at Bar-Ilan University, Malka Elisheva Schaps turns 77… Film director, television director, producer and screenwriter, Brian Michael Levant turns 73… Austrian businessman Martin Schlaff turns 72… Former state treasurer of Virginia and then Virginia secretary of finance, she is now a gourmet popcorn manufacturer, Jody Moses Wagner turns 70… Professor of public diplomacy at The Fletcher School of Tufts University, she was formerly undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, Tara D. Sonenshine turns 66… Professor of psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center, Alan J. Lipman, Ph.D. turns 65… Israeli diplomat, he served as Israel’s consul general in NYC between 2000 and 2004, Alon Pinkas turns 64… NASA astronaut who spent 198 days on the International Space Station, he brought 18 bagels from his family’s bagel store in Montreal into space, Gregory Chamitoff turns 63… Chair of White & Case’s white collar practice group, Joel M. Cohen… Executive director of public affairs and policy communications at the American Council on Education, Jonathan Riskind… CEO of Elluminate (formerly known as the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York), Melanie Roth Gorelick… Vice chair of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California and a trustee of JFNA, Susie Sorkin… Television and radio sports anchor on ESPN and ABC, he was one-half of the “Mike & Mike” team but now hosts his own ESPN morning program, Mike Greenberg turns 58… Chief economist at The Burning Glass Institute, Gad Levanon Ph.D…. Law professor and associate dean at Michigan State University College of Law, David Blankfein-Tabachnick turns 54… Co-founder and former CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick turns 49… Founder and CEO at Climb Together which helps prepare people from low-income backgrounds for entry level jobs, Nitzan Pelman… Actress, director, producer and screenwriter, Soleil Moon Frye turns 49… Screenwriter and television producer, he is best known for creating and executive producing the Fox teen drama “The O.C.,” Joshua Ian Schwartz turns 49… PR consultant and managing director at Actum, Jeffrey Lerner… Chief creative and culture officer at an eponymous firm, Rachel Gogel… Member of the New York State Assembly, Simcha Eichenstein turns 42… Winner of two gold medals in swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, he is now CEO of Gather Campgrounds north of Austin, Texas, Garrett Weber-Gale turns 40… Director of strategy and policy at K2 Space Corporation, he is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, Corey A. Jacobson… Communications and leadership consultant, company trainer and international speaker, Jessica I. Goldberg… Reporter at San Antonio Express-News, Elizabeth Teitz… School safety activist and former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Hunter Pollack turns 28…
In a letter to Defense Secretary Hegseth, the lawmakers warned of ‘the risk to American national defense from using a compromised product subject to the whims of an unaccountable CEO’
Cheng Xin/Getty Images
A person holds a smartphone showing the Grok 4 introduction page on the official website of xAI, the artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk, with the Grok logo visible in the background on July 16, 2025 in Chongqing, China.
A group of Jewish House Democrats raised questions on Friday about the Pentagon’s decision to announce a $200 million contract with Elon Musk’s company xAI to utilize a version of its Grok artificial intelligence, days after the chatbot posted antisemitic and violent screeds on X. The legislators said they’re concerned about Musk’s potential influence on the program and lingering issues linked to the antisemitic outburst.
“These posts were not isolated but widespread, repeated, and shockingly detailed. They appeared immediately after Mr. Elon Musk, CEO of xAI, publicly stated on July 4 that Grok had been ‘significantly improved,’” the lawmakers said in a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. “The proximity of these events raises grave questions about Mr. Musk’s potential direct influence over the output of ‘Grok for Government,’ and the risk to American national defense from using a compromised product subject to the whims of an unaccountable CEO with clear extremist predilections.”
They said the contract also fits with “a broader and increasingly visible pattern of the Department turning a blind eye to antisemitism in its own ranks,” including Hegseth’s defense of Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon’s press secretary, against accusations of antisemitism.
“If Mr. Musk retains the ability to directly alter outputs from ‘Grok for Government,’ it poses a serious and unacceptable risk to national security and American constitutional values,” the letter adds.
The lawmakers asked whether Musk can “unilaterally access, modify, or influence” the Grok application to be used by the Pentagon to change outputs or access classified information, what safeguards are in place to prevent unauthorized changes to the Pentagon’s Grok platform and whether the Department of Defense has audited Grok to ensure that issues similar to the incident of the antisemitic remarks will not occur in its own use of the program.
“Without clear guardrails, there is no reason to believe the behavior of ‘Grok for Government’ in military applications will remain stable or aligned with DoD security and ethics standards,” the lawmakers said. “Mr. Musk’s personal disregard for basic safeguards, combined with the Department’s own recent appalling tolerance for antisemitism, require the creation of far more technological and institutional transparency than we have seen to date.”
The letter, led by Rep. Laura Friedman (D-CA), was co-signed by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Seth Magaziner (D-RI), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Sara Jacobs (D-CA) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).
Martin said the Democratic Party should be a ‘big tent’ that includes ‘new’ leftists
Rod Lamkey, Jr./AP
Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin speaks after winning the vote at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Md., Feb. 1, 2025.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin declined on Wednesday to criticize New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the “globalize the intifada” slogan. The DNC chair, who was elected earlier this year, praised the party for being a “big tent” comprising different ideologies, including “leftists” such as Mamdani.
Asked during a “PBS NewsHour” interview about concerns from Jewish Democrats regarding Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the phrase, Martin replied, “There’s no candidate in this party that I agree 100 percent of the time with, to be honest with you. There’s things that I don’t agree with Mamdani that he said.”
Martin said that he had learned through his 14 years as chairman of the Minnesota Democratic Party and his tenure at the DNC “that you win through addition. You win by bringing people into your coalition. We have conservative Democrats. We have centrist Democrats. We have labor progressives like me, and we have this new brand of Democrat, which is the leftist.”
“We win by bringing people into that coalition. And at the end of the day, for me, that’s the type of party we’re going to lead. We are a big tent party. Yes, it leads to dissent and debate, and there’s differences of opinions on a whole host of issues. But we should celebrate that as a party and recognize, at the end of the day, we’re better because of it,” Martin said.
Martin also argued that national Democrats could learn from Mamdani’s primary campaign performance in terms of focusing their message away from President Donald Trump and toward a forward-looking vision.
“He campaigned for something. And this is a critical piece. We can’t just be in a perpetual state of resisting Donald Trump. Of course, we have to resist Donald Trump. There’s no doubt about it for all the reasons we just talked about. But we also have to give people a sense of what we’re for, what the Democratic Party is fighting for, and what we would do if they put us back in power,” Martin said.
“One of the lessons from Mamdani’s campaign is that he focused on affordability. He focused on a message that was resonant with voters and he campaigned for something, not against other people or against other things. He campaigned on a vision of how he was going to make New York City a better place to live,” he continued.
Martin praised the methods by which Mamdani’s campaign got its message out.
“The other lessons, of course, is the tactics he used to get his message out, both a very aggressive in-person campaigning, meeting voters where they’re at, and then also in those digital spaces, using very creative messaging to cut through the noise and to get to voters in an inexpensive but authentic way,” he said.
Plus, D.C.’s new kosher sushi spot
DigitalGlobe via Getty Images
This is a satellite image of the Fordow facility in Iran.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on how Zohran Mamdani’s supporters and staffers, as well as New York lawmakers and GOP strategists, are responding to the Queens assemblyman’s presumed win in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, and assess how Jewish Democrats are feeling about the direction of the party in the wake of Mamdani’s electoral success. We also cover President Donald Trump’s announcement of a U.S.-Iran meeting taking place next week and the Department of Justice’s continued concern that American Jews may face increased threats in the wake of the U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran’s nuclear program. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Mike Pompeo, Danny Wolf and Yossi Cohen.
What We’re Watching
- Senior administration officials will brief the Senate today on U.S. operations in Iran and the Israel-Iran war. The White House will reportedly limit the classified information shared with legislators in the briefing, amid concerns over leaks such as the limited intelligence assessment reported by CNN earlier this week. Absent from the briefing will be Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who had previously been slated to brief legislators alongside CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is holding a press conference at 8 a.m. at the Pentagon to discuss the U.S.’ weekend strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
- The Aspen Ideas Festival continues in Colorado. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Rabbi Shira Stutman are slated to speak on panels today. At 6 p.m. ET, former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will speak in conversation with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.
- The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Federations of North America conclude their two-day leadership fly-in to Washington today. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) told the group on Wednesday that funding for the National Security Grant Program — including grants applied for in 2024 and new grants for 2025 — should move forward “very, very quickly.”
- Elsewhere in Washington, Reps. Tim Walberg (R-MI) and Shri Thanedar (D-MI) are slated to speak at the March on Washington for Jewish Civil Rights on the Capitol grounds.
- In Venice, Italy, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez‘s wedding weekend kicks off today. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, Oprah Winfrey and the Kardashian family are among the attendees; Jordanian Queen Rania is rumored to have received an invite to the nuptials as well.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV
Israel is feeling victorious after its 12-day war with Iran, which culminated in the U.S. strikes on underground nuclear sites that significantly degraded and rolled back Tehran’s nuclear program. While the country is mourning 29 civilian deaths — in addition to seven soldiers killed in Gaza this week — and thousands have lost their homes in missile strikes, nearly two-thirds of Israelis, according to a new poll, think their country won the war.
But there have been some cautionary signals about the state of Iran’s nuclear program since the fighting ended, most notably a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency report from the U.S. that suggested — with reportedly low confidence — that the bombings only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months. President Donald Trump, at the NATO summit in the Netherlands on Wednesday, called the DIA intelligence report, which was based on satellite imagery, “fake news” and cited a more favorable Israeli intelligence report as being more reliable. And CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Thursday that “a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes.”
Further dampening the mood was Trump angrily and publicly pressuring Israel not to aggressively respond to a ceasefire violation that came within hours of a volley of missiles that killed several Israelis right before the ceasefire went into effect.
But as Israeli officials and national security experts have taken the time to assess the geopolitical landscape, the overall picture is one of significant military success.
The Trump administration and Israeli officials have an interest in presenting the mission in Iran as successful, which may lead some to trust the intelligence leaks over their statements. However, their assessment of the DIA report as “flat-out wrong,” as the White House put it, is backed up by several experts surveyed by Jewish Insider – though most cautioned that it’s unlikely anyone knows the full extent of the damage yet.
Israel “attacked and had aerial superiority in Iran for nearly two weeks and could have continued for as long as [it] wanted, had international legitimacy and not just American support, but involvement,” IDF Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and the former head of the research division of the Israel Defense Forces’ Intelligence Directorate, said. “The change in mindset is more important than the physical damage. Iran can build a new Fordow in three or four years; they were already working on more underground facilities, but what is the point if they know that the U.S. has an unlimited number of bombs that they can drop anywhere and are willing to use them?”
In a televised message on Thursday, Iranian Supreme Leader Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised “Iran’s victory over the U.S. regime” and claimed that the “Zionist regime was practically knocked out and crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic.”
EXTREMISM EMPOWERED
Mamdani’s radical supporters, staffers under the spotlight after victory
Zohran Mamdani’s commanding performance in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday night underscored how the 33-year-old assemblyman, a democratic socialist from Queens, successfully built a coalition extending well beyond his far-left base of support. But while his focus on affordability resonated with many voters across the five boroughs who rejected former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani’s all-but-certain victory has also empowered some of his more extreme supporters to espouse incendiary rhetoric that his critics say has helped fuel a rise in antisemitism in the city, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Online incitement: In celebrating the presumed upset by a candidate with a long record of anti-Israel activism, many of Mamdani’s allies on the far left have promoted calls to “globalize the intifada,” a motto he had refused to condemn in the final stretch of the campaign, while attacking “Zionists” and using threatening language that has raised alarms within the city’s mainstream Jewish community. “Consider the intifada globalized,” one prominent Mamdani supporter wrote on social media, using a phrase that critics interpret as violent incitement against Jews — and echoing a number of comments invoking similar language in the wake of the bitterly contested primary. “The last 24 hours will be an inflection point in history for Zionism and the entity,” said another backer with a relatively sizable following on social media. “Tonight we celebrate,” a like-minded Mamdani enthusiast added in an ominously worded post. “Tomorrow we get the lists from Zohran and the round up begins.”
PARTY CRASHER
After Mamdani victory, Jewish Democrats alarmed by party’s tolerance of antisemitism and anti-Israel extremism
Many Jewish Democrats are questioning where their party is heading after a dynamic young socialist with radical anti-Israel politics is on track to become mayor of the largest city in America, which has the largest Jewish population of any city in the world. Coupled with Democrats’ reluctance to offer support for President Donald Trump’s targeted strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, which drew support from major Jewish groups, Zohran Mamdani’s ascension has some pro-Israel Democrats concerned about the future of their party, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Good ol’ days: “[President Joe] Biden was elected running a campaign in 2020 premised on combating antisemitism. That was the animating feature that got him into the race. So the politics of this have really moved,” said a former White House official. “This is all about language and people using their microphones, and the fact that someone could feel empowered to double down on these ideas and win a mayoral race in New York City, that doesn’t happen by accident. It takes years of moving the goalposts on this language, on what it means to be antisemitic in America in 2025.” Put more bluntly by another senior Biden administration official: “I feel like a person without a party.”
Toeing the waters: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) congratulated Mamdani on Wednesday for his presumed victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary but stopped short of endorsing the far-left state assemblyman’s candidacy in the general election, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
REPUBLICAN PLAYBOOK
GOP strategists, lawmakers seek to tie vulnerable Dems to Mamdani following NYC primary win
Republican campaign operatives say they intend to tie vulnerable Democratic candidates to Zohran Mamdani, the presumed winner of New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, over his far-left policies, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports. GOP operatives told JI they expect Mamdani to prominently feature in future ads and broader messaging targeting Democrats nationwide.
Never look a gift horse in the mouth: “From a political standpoint, this takes the party’s most polarizing progressive and puts them on a national stage. It’s a big opportunity for us. There’s gonna be massive ramifications on the national level. It’s a real gift for Republicans,” a longtime GOP campaign operative told JI.
Keeping distance: Other New York lawmakers, including Reps. Laura Gillen (D-NY), Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and George Latimer (D-NY), declined to support Mamdani, citing ongoing concerns about his ideological record. Both Gillen and Suozzi represent Long Island-based swing districts, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
THE ART OF NO DEAL
Trump announces meeting with Iran but says a nuclear agreement ‘is not necessary’
President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that the U.S. and Iran will hold a meeting next week, but said that he doesn’t think reaching a nuclear agreement with the country is necessary in the aftermath of U.S. strikes on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen reports. Speaking at a press conference before leaving the NATO summit in the Netherlands, Trump said, in response to a question asking if he was interested in restarting nuclear negotiations with Iran, “I’m not.”
Done and dusted: “The way I look at it, they fought, the war is done,” Trump continued. “And you know, I could get a statement that they’re not going to go nuclear. We’re probably going to ask for that, but they’re not going to be doing it anyway.” He said he had asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to draw up a “little agreement for them to sign, because I think we can get him to sign it. I don’t think it’s necessary.”
Case closed: Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter told a gathering of American Jewish leaders on Wednesday that the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz had “destroyed” the sites, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
ON ALERT
AG Bondi says DOJ is keeping a close eye on potential threats to Jewish community
Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Wednesday that the Department of Justice was keeping a close eye on potential homeland threats to the Jewish community that may be motivated by the American and Israeli military strikes on Iran. Bondi’s comments followed recent administration warnings about potential Iran-linked “sleeper cells” in the country or radicalization of individuals domestically by Shia or Iranian propaganda, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod report.
What she said: Bondi, asked by Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) about potential threats to the Jewish community, highlighted the Capital Jewish Museum attack, the firebombing of activists at a hostage-awareness march in Boulder, Colo., and the arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home as a series of connected incidents. “We are all over these cases, working hand in hand with the FBI, with Homeland Security, all of our agencies are working so well together to try to combat this throughout our country,” Bondi said. “Without getting into detail in this setting, Iran, of course, is a threat. They have been a threat, and they always will be a threat to our country. And we are working hand in hand with all of our agencies to protect Americans and to keep us safe. We have a 24/7 command center at the FBI set up for situations just like you described, senator.”
Better protection: Bob Milgrim, father of Sarah Milgrim, one of the two Israeli Embassy employee who were killed last month at the Capital Jewish Museum, told a group of Jewish leaders on Wednesday that better security at the event where his daughter was slain might have prevented the attack, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
POMPEO’S PRAISE
Mike Pompeo says nuclear strikes restored deterrence against Iran, North Korea
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised President Donald Trump on Wednesday for his decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend, pushing back on criticism from the isolationist right that the attack would embroil the U.S. in another prolonged conflict in the Middle East, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports. Pompeo appeared at the World Affairs Council of New Hampshire, a part of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, for “Building Back American Deterrence and Strength in a Dangerous World.”
What he said: The former secretary of state said during a moderated conversation with Tim Horgan, WACNH’s executive director, that the U.S. strikes served to prevent war rather than cause it. “Make no mistake, President Trump’s decision to act … delivered more security for our friends in Israel and made the world safer. America reasserted its global leadership. We didn’t send the 82nd [bomb squadron] — we sent America,” Pompeo said. Pompeo said that he believed the strikes by Israel and the U.S. on Iran’s nuclear facilities had restored deterrence in regard to both Iran and North Korea. “I do know this: [North Korean] Chairman Kim [Jong Un] is sitting a little less comfortably on his throne today,” he said.
Worthy Reads
Going to Extremes: In the New York Post, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt raises concerns about the ‘horseshoe theory’ that has united the far right and far left around the U.S. strikes on Iran. “From radical-left activists claiming America lives ‘under a Zionist regime’ to far-right conspiracy theorists pushing tropes about Jewish foreign-policy manipulation, the extremes of American politics are perverting healthy democratic debate and corrupting legitimate policy disagreements about foreign intervention. … Today, as Americans debate Trump’s military action against Iran, the same dangerous patterns are emerging. Whether dressed up as ‘anti-Zionism’ or presented as high-minded foreign policy analysis in coded language, legitimate policy debates have become vehicles to spread antisemitism.” [NYPost]
A Striking Change: In The Wall Street Journal, Elliott Abrams considers the shift in American policy and the U.S. approach to the Middle East over the four decades between Israel’s attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor and this month’s joint Israeli-American efforts to neutralize the Iranian nuclear program. “So the U.S. moved in 26 years from condemnation of a surprise Israeli attack on the Iraqi reactor to knowledge and effective approval of the Israeli strike on the Syrian reactor. Another 18 years later, the U.S. actually joined the effort to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. What explains this progression? Relations between the U.S. and Israel grew closer in those four decades, except in the Obama years. American officials and analysts more broadly understood Israel’s value as an ally. U.S. aid budgets grew. Israel joined the U.S. Central Command and began to coordinate through it with Arab armed forces. It became increasingly obvious that Iran was a deadly enemy of the U.S. and the greatest state supporter of terrorism, and its growing alignment with Russia and China made it more dangerous.” [WSJ]
It’s the Economy, Stupid — Again: In The Washington Post, James Carville and Stan Greenberg predict an “earthquake” in the 2026 midterm elections as focus shifts to voters’ economic concerns. “In primaries this month in New Jersey and Virginia, Democratic voters nominated moderate and progressive candidates for governor with broad appeal. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, a retired Navy helicopter pilot, and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, a former CIA officer, each flipped Republican-held House seats in 2018. They made affordability their top priority. … In the past two years, no mainstream statewide candidate has lost to a challenger from the Bernie Sanders wing. In fact, two members of ‘the Squad’ — Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri — lost their House seats in Democratic primaries last year. The reason is the great majority of Democratic voters hate the activist, elite agenda that dominated the Democratic Party under President Joe Biden.” [WashPost]
In the (Think) Tank: In Politico, Tevi Troy considers the challenges facing newly created Democratic think tanks at a time when the party appears reluctant to embrace new thinking. “Think tank history tells us that this latest iteration can play an important role in the Democratic Party’s climb back to relevance. But the institution only works if a party is aiming for a reboot or a new direction. And it’s not clear Democrats are ready or willing to do that. … New think tanks arising out of election defeats are only useful if they can create a permission structure for changing what isn’t working. It’s not the 501(C)(3) tax status of think tanks that have enabled them to help parties recover from crushing defeats in the past. It’s the willingness to rethink, reexamine and challenge the accepted precepts of a party that has been failing to appeal to voters.” [Politico]
Word on the Street
In a post on his Truth Social site, President Donald Trump called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be given a pardon — or have corruption charges against him dropped entirely — alleging that Netanyahu, with whom Trump said he “went through HELL,” was facing a “ridiculous Witch Hunt”…
Trump is considering naming a successor to Fed chair Jerome Powell as soon as September; those in consideration for the role include former Fed governor Kevin Warsh, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, former World Bank President David Malpass and Fed governor Christopher Waller…
Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff suggested in a Fox News interview that the U.S. “will have big announcements on countries that are coming into the Abraham Accords,” a month after making similar comments at an Israeli Independence Day celebration in Washington…
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was briefly hospitalized on Wednesday for dehydration…
Former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), who served as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa during the first Trump administration, announced his bid for Senate in New Hampshire, setting up a potential matchup against Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH); Brown previously mounted a Senate bid in the state in 2014, where he narrowly lost to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)…
AIPAC’s PAC is reportedly searching for a potential candidate to run against Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has repeatedly opposed legislation to combat antisemitism and support Israel…
Marc Andreessen and Mark Levin were among those named to the Trump administration’s Homeland Security Advisory Council…
White Plains, N.Y., Common Councilman Justin Brasch declared victory over former Councilwoman Nadine Hunt-Robinson in the city’s Democratic primary for mayor…
The Justice Department charged the man accused of firebombing a hostage-awareness rally in Boulder, Colo., last month with committing hate crimes…
A mediator proposed that Trump and Paramount Global settle Trump’s lawsuit against the company for $20 million, with some of that money going to PSAs on Paramount’s networks to combat antisemitism; the lawsuit stems from an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris on CBS’ “60 Minutes” program that the president alleged was selectively edited…
The Brooklyn Nets selected Israeli-American basketball players Danny Wolfand Ben Saraf in the first round of Wednesday night’s draft…
Goldsmiths College issued an apology to Jewish students and faculty for having allowed a “culture” of antisemitism to permeate the London university in recent years…
Xero will acquire Matan Bar and Ilan Atias’ bill-pay startup Melio for $2.5 billion, the largest acquisition in the New Zealand-based accounting-software provider’s history…
Former Mossad head Yossi Cohen is working on a book on his five years leading the agency, deepening speculation that Cohen is poised to enter politics…
Pic of the Day
Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad), hung a mezuzah on the doorpost at the grand opening on Wednesday of Oro Nami, a new kosher sushi restaurant in the West End neighborhood of Washington.
Birthdays
First Jewish federal cabinet member to serve in post-WWII Germany, she is minister for education, family, seniors, women and youth, Karin Prien turns 60…
Artist known for his Expressionist paintings, Jonah Kinigstein turns 102… British Labour party member of Parliament for 42 years ending in 2017, David Winnick turns 92… Member of the New York State Senate from Queens since 1999, she chairs the committee on higher education, Toby Ann Stavisky turns 86… Partner in the law firm BakerHostetler, known for his recovery of $14.5 billion from the Madoff investment scandal, Irving H. Picard turns 84… Retired co-host for more than 30 years of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Robert Siegel turns 78… Rabbi of Congregation Chaverim in Tucson, Ariz., for more than 35 years, Stephanie Aaron… Founder of Grover Strategies, he was previously chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Alan Solow turns 71… CEO of Emerging Star Capital and the author of a biography of President Bill Clinton, Robert E. Levin… Attorney and Holocaust survivors’ rights advocate, Samuel J. Dubbin turns 70… CEO of ZMC, he was previously chairman of CBS and CEO of 20th Century Fox, Strauss Zelnick turns 68… Professor of psychology at Loyola University Maryland, she is known for her work on sleep patterns and behavioral well-being, Amy Ruth Wolfson, Ph.D…. Israeli actress and comedian, Anat Waxman turns 64… Once the wealthiest of all Russian businessmen, then a prisoner in Russia and now living in London, Mikhail Khodorkovsky turns 62… Novelist and journalist, most notable as the author of the Magicians trilogy, Lev Grossman… and his twin brother, author, video game designer and adjunct instructor at NYU, Austin Grossman both turn 56… Former dean of Yeshiva University’s Sy Syms School of Business, now head of school at Ramaz, Noam T. Wasserman turns 56… President and founder of Reut Group, Gidi Grinstein turns 55… Political commentator, YouTube personality, comedian and talk show host, Dave Rubin turns 49… Head of external communications at Geico, Ross Feinstein… Partner since January in Mayer Brown’s D.C. office, Michael “Mickey” Leibner… VP of Israel and Jewish affairs at the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, Sara Fredman Aeder… Executive director at the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, David Bocarsly turns 35… Project leader at Boston Consulting Group, Asher J. Mayerson… Author and former RNC national spokesperson, Elizabeth Pipko turns 30…
Grace Yoon/Anadolu via Getty Images
Pro-Palestinian students at UCLA campus set up encampment in support of Gaza and protest the Israeli attacks in Los Angeles, California, United States on May 01, 2024.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the drop in anti-Israel campus activity this semester, and talk to Jewish Democrats in Georgia about Sen. Jon Ossoff’s recent votes on Israel legislation. We also spotlight the Zikaron BaSalon gatherings to commemorate Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, and cover “Borrowed Spotlight,” a project that pairs Holocaust survivors with celebrities to raise awareness about antisemitism and the Holocaust. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Abe Foxman, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Omri Miran.
What We’re Watching
- Yom Hashoah events continue in Israel and around the world today as governments and communities commemorate the Holocaust. In Poland, the International March of the Living’s ceremonies kick off this afternoon. Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid a wreath at Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial.
- The American Jewish Historical Society is hosting a virtual lunch with former Harvard President Lawrence Bacow.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS
“We have a very strong environment for Jews on campus.” It’s the kind of rhetoric often offered up by university presidents, whether they’re discussing campus climate with prospective students, journalists or members of Congress.
It’s what Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff told Jewish Insider last month, days after he was announced as the school’s president after serving in an interim role for eight months.
On Wednesday, Kotlikoff announced that the school was rescinding an invitation to R&B star Kehlani to perform at the school’s annual “Slope Day” event, citing the singer’s history of making antisemitic and anti-Israel comments. (In one of her music videos, Kehlani opens with the text “Long Live the Intifada”; in a social media post, she referred to Zionists as “scum of the earth.”)
The rapid and decisive response from Cornell, one of 60 schools that received a warning from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights over allegations of antisemitic discrimination and harassment, is not an isolated example.
At Princeton, administrators swiftly moved to open an investigation earlier this month into an event disruption during a talk by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. In addition to the anti-Israel activists who disrupted Bennett’s talk inside the auditorium, more than 150 demonstrators gathered outside the on-campus event, which ended early after a fire alarm was pulled.
And Yale, a third school included on the Department of Education’s warning list, announced an investigation on Wednesday into an unauthorized encampment on the New Haven campus, which was quickly taken down by campus security. In a statement, the university vowed “immediate disciplinary action” against students who participated in the encampment despite prior warnings and disciplinary measures, in addition to revoking the status of Yalies4Palestine as a registered student organization.
Whether it’s the threats of funding cuts and freezes from the Trump administration (which has already frozen $1 billion in grants to Cornell), or an attempt at course correction, administrators are responding to campus unrest and anti-Israel organizing more rapidly — and forcefully — than in the past.
Call it the Trump effect. The combination of executive orders targeting universities, funding freezes and federal investigations — coupled with activist fatigue and a refocusing on other issues, such as the government’s immigration crackdown and deportation efforts — have reshaped the campus landscape this semester.
At this point last year, dozens of coordinated encampments had sprung up across the country. The encampments were followed by efforts to disrupt spring graduations — a threat so significant that Columbia canceled its main commencement ceremony last year, denying the traditional pomp and circumstance to the class of 2024.
This year’s commencement ceremonies, which will take place in the coming weeks, will be the next test for administrators. If they stand up to anti-Israel disruptors, it will be another feather in the Trump administration’s cap. But if they don’t, they may again face the ire of an administration that has shown little restraint — for better or for worse — in addressing the scourge of campus antisemitism.
losing steam
Campus protests fizzle out in 2025
For a brief moment, it looked like 2024 all over again: Tents were erected at Yale University’s central plaza on Tuesday night, with anti-Israel activists hoping to loudly protest the visit of far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to campus. Videos of students in keffiyehs, shouting protest slogans, started to spread online on Tuesday night. But then something unexpected happened. University administrators showed up, threatening disciplinary action, and the protesters were told to leave — or face consequences. So they left. The new encampment didn’t last a couple hours, let alone overnight. The quick decision from administrators at Yale to shut down anti-Israel activity reflects something of a vibe shift on American campuses, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch and Haley Cohen report.
Losing steam: “In general, protest activity is way down this year as compared to last year,” Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman told JI. There is no single reason that protests have subsided. Jewish students, campus Jewish leaders and professionals at Jewish advocacy organizations attribute the change to a mix of factors: stricter consequences from university leaders, fear of running afoul of President Donald Trump’s pledge to deport pro-Hamas foreign students and the issue generally losing steam and cachet among easily distracted students. But the lack of protests does not mean that campus life has returned to normal for Jewish students, many of whom still fear — and face — opprobrium for their pro-Israel views.
REBUILDING BRIDGES
Jewish Georgia leaders say Ossoff is making amends, but still has more work to do
Jewish leaders in Georgia say that Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) reversal in early April on efforts to block U.S. aid to Israel marks an important step toward repairing relations with the Jewish community, but several said that he’ll need to do more and show he’ll remain on that track going forward to regain their trust, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
State of play: Ossoff’s votes last November in favor of resolutions led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) attempting to block arms sales to Israel shocked and frustrated Jewish Democrats in Georgia, who could help tip what could be a razor-thin margin of victory in Ossoff’s 2026 reelection campaign. The November votes prompted condemnation from a coalition of 50 Jewish organizations in Georgia and led a group of Democratic donors to offer to support Republican Gov. Brian Kemp if he runs for the seat. Jewish leaders said that Ossoff’s reversal on the aid resolutions, as well as a series of private meetings with Jewish leaders and other more public moves, have begun to rebuild trust. But some, including major donors, said they’re not yet committed to supporting him next year.
keeping their stories alive
She forgot Yom Hashoah – then created a movement that changed the way Israel remembers the Holocaust
Holocaust survivor Avigdor Neuman told his story in front of the Knesset’s Chagall tapestries, in Jerusalem. In Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, thousands gathered to hear survivor Aliza Landau recount her experiences, along with the parents of hostages speaking about their sons’ continued captivity in Gaza. Dozens of teenage volunteer EMTs gathered at a Magen David Adom ambulance station in northern Israel to hear Holocaust survivor David Peleg speak. Women gathered in a Pilates studio in central Israel to hear a fellow member share her mother’s story of survival. And in hundreds of living rooms around Israel on Wednesday evening, Holocaust survivors or their children told countless stories to small groups. One of those locations, in the central Israel city of Hod Hasharon, is the home of Adi Altschuler, the founder of Zikaron BaSalon – “memory in the living room.” In between preparations to host 40 people for her own Yom HaShoah event, Altschuler spoke to Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov about how her initiative has become a ubiquitous way for Israelis to mark Yom Hashoah, the day that Israel commemorates the Holocaust.
The spark: The idea for Zikaron BaSalon brewed slowly, beginning in 2010, when Altschuler, 38, forgot about Yom Hashoah altogether. “I don’t have a personal family connection to the Holocaust,” she recounted. “I felt that I couldn’t connect to the topic … I was scared of it and deterred from it.” Altschuler heard sad music on the radio one day, and then talked to her mother on the phone and asked if something tragic had happened – because in Israel, when there is a terror attack, the music stations only play sad songs. Her mother reminded her that Yom Hashoah was beginning in a few hours and asked her how she planned to commemorate the day. “I said, I don’t know, maybe I’ll watch ‘Schindler’s List,’” Altschuler said. “My mother was angry with me, so I went with her to a ceremony in Tel Aviv. I was 24 years old and I was the only one there who was under 60. That was when it occurred to me that I am part of the last generation who will meet Holocaust survivors … I said to myself, what will Yom Hashoah look like in 30 years? … What will happen when there aren’t survivors anymore?” she asked.
MIXED MESSAGING
Rubio suggests Iran can maintain civil nuclear program in new nuclear deal
Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested he was open to Iran maintaining a civil nuclear program and did not explicitly rule out allowing the Islamic Republic to enrich uranium itself, even as he expressed concern about such activity in an interview with The Free Press’ Bari Weiss on Wednesday, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
On the record: “If Iran wants a civil nuclear program, they can have one just like many other countries in the world have one, meaning they can import enriched material,” Rubio told Weiss on the Free Press’ “Honestly” podcast. “But if they insist on enriching uranium themselves, then they will be the only country in the world that ‘doesn’t have a weapons program’ but is enriching,” he added. “I think that’s problematic.” His comments came as the Trump administration faces scrutiny over its mixed messaging amid ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran.
SOUNDING THE ALARM
Abe Foxman criticizes Trump administration in Holocaust Remembrance Day speech
Abe Foxman, the former Anti-Defamation League national director, offered pointed criticism of the Trump administration in a Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration at the Capitol on Wednesday. “As a [Holocaust] survivor, my antenna quivers when I see books being banned, when I see people being abducted in the streets, when I see government trying to dictate what universities should teach and whom they should teach. As a survivor who came to this country as an immigrant, I’m troubled when I hear immigrants and immigration being demonized,” Foxman said, to sustained applause from the audience, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
More from his speech: Foxman, who led the ADL for nearly three decades, made the comments while delivering an address at the 2025 Days of Remembrance, which was organized by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Foxman also praised the Biden administration and the second Trump administration for each committing to addressing antisemitism. “We live in very chaotic times, where our values, our history, our democracy are being tested. As a survivor, I’m horrified at the explosion of antisemitism — global and in the U.S. I’m appreciative of President Biden’s historic initiative on antisemitism and thankful to President Trump’s strong condemnation of antisemitism and his promise to bring back consequences to antisemitic behavior,” Foxman said.
COUTURE MEMORY
Fashion photographer Bryce Thompson pairs Holocaust survivors with celebrities in new collection
Someone you recognize and someone you don’t. Someone who lives in the spotlight and someone who doesn’t — Hollywood A-listers posing with Holocaust survivors. That was the premise fashion photographer Bryce Thompson conjured up in an effort to amplify the stories of the last living generation of Holocaust survivors. The idea was initially fueled by antisemitism that Thompson, who is not Jewish, saw his friends, neighbors and mother, who converted to Judaism, facing in recent years. But the project — which took three years to complete — assumed even greater relevance after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks, the ensuing war in Gaza and the record high levels of anti-Jewish incidents in the U.S. that followed, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Behind the scenes: A new collection of photographs shot by Thompson, called “Borrowed Spotlight,” debuted on Tuesday to coincide with Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, with the release of a coffee-table book and weeklong exhibition at Detour Gallery in Manhattan. It features Hollywood heavyweights including Cindy Crawford, Jennifer Garner and Chelsea Handler. With years of experience photographing high-profile shoots for publications including GQ, ELLE and Glamour, Thompson initially expected that the photos would speak for themselves. But he told JI that the most impactful moments were the ones between shots. “Those were the moments they interacted the most,” he said of his photography subjects.
Worthy Reads
Northern Exposure: In Foreign Affairs, Shira Efron and Danny Citrinowicz posit that Israel has an opportunity to combine diplomacy with military action to secure the border and prevent malign forces from retaking power in Syria. “If the new Syrian government remains moderate and can consolidate its authority, the upside for Israel would be huge. It would have a stable neighbor not beholden to Iran — one that possesses an effective military that can do its own work to address threats from extremist groups. Israel is not a passive bystander to the trajectory of Syrian politics. It can encourage Shara’s moderation by welcoming Damascus’s overtures, such as the arrest, on April 21, of two senior leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group. Further, Israel should articulate publicly that its territorial advances are designed to be temporary until a responsible force can secure the other side of the border. Until Damascus has such capabilities, Israel should minimize friction with Syria’s population and its new government by reducing its visible military footprint and communicating with Shara’s team through back channels. At the same time, Israel should capitalize on the gains it has made to secure the Israeli-Syrian border by demanding a diplomatic agreement to ensure the protection of Syria’s Druze community and to demilitarize the Golan Heights.” [ForeignAffairs]
Farewell to Arms: In Newsweek, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Sinan Ciddi and Jonathan Schanzer argue against the U.S.’ potential sale of weapons to Turkey, spotlighting Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan’s ties to terror regimes and anti-American forces. “Before becoming foreign minister, Fidan headed Turkey’s intelligence agency (MIT) from 2010 to 2023. During that time, Fidan steered Turkey away from its Western alliances, aligning it instead with Islamist regimes and extremist movements. Fidan was central to making Turkey a safe haven for Hamas. Beginning in 2011, he enabled the group to operate on Turkish soil — raising funds, recruiting, and coordinating attacks against Israel. Hamas reportedly received a Turkish pledge of $300 million in 2011, and today maintains offices in Ankara and Istanbul with access to Turkish leadership, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. On October 7, as Hamas carried out its slaughter of 1,200 Israeli civilians, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh reportedly celebrated from Turkey. Fidan’s record extends beyond Hamas. Turkey became a strong advocate of the Muslim Brotherhood, allowing the Islamist movement to establish institutional presence in Turkey. Ankara championed the Muslim Brotherhood government under Mohamed Morsi in Egypt before its downfall in 2014.” [Newsweek]
Sounding the Alarm in Europe: In The Free Press, Haviv Rettig Gur considers how early Zionists understood the looming peril that awaited Europe’s Jewish community at the start of the 20th century. “At the start of the twentieth century, only a minority of Jews were political Zionists. Most Jews still clung to the hope that, despite pogroms and oppressive laws, European liberalism would ultimately win out; or to the promise of universal equality trumpeted by the communists; or to the ultra-Orthodox call for a return to the physical, cultural, and spiritual safety of a renewed ghetto. The Zionists were a minority. Right up until they weren’t. Right up until Europe itself left Jews with no other choice. Put very simply: Zionism, alone among Jewish movements and cultural worlds of the diaspora in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, knew what was coming. The early Zionists saw only dimly, vaguely, the bloodletting that would come. But this foreknowledge rested on serious analysis and theory, and recommended clear action. This was true across the political spectrum of the Zionist movement, from socialists to liberals to right-wing Revisionists.” [FreePress]
Word on the Street
White House senior official Seb Gorka said that the Trump administration’s counterterrorism plan, which he said would be “utterly, completely” different from the Biden administration’s approach, will likely be ready in a month…
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had the Signal messaging application, which was linked to the same application on his cell phone, installed on his desktop computer in the Pentagon in an effort to work around the building’s poor reception and communicate with senior administration officials…
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) called on the Trump administration to drop its nuclear talks with Iran and mount an attack on its nuclear program, saying, “You’re never going to be able to negotiate with that kind of regime that has been destabilizing the region for decades already, and now we have an incredible window, I believe, to do that, to strike and destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities”…
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will hold a vote on the Antisemitism Awareness Act and another piece of antisemitism legislation next Wednesday, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) announced, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports…
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the Senate Democratic whip, announced on Wednesday that he will not seek reelection to a sixth term, setting up a competitive primary contest to fill his seat and his leadership role, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports…
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) said she will make an announcement about her political plans in early May, following reports that she had told colleagues she intends to retire at the end of her current term…
The Department of Justice canceled hundreds of what Attorney General Pam Bondi called “wasteful grants” to community and local organizations, including funds for programs that were intended to decrease hate crimes against American Jews…
A Pennsylvania Air National Guard member and self-described “Hamas operative” who was already facing charges tied to the vandalism of a synagogue and Jewish federation office in Pittsburgh was charged this week with making false statements about his loyalty to the U.S. and building pipe bombs…
The FBI conducted several raids on homes in the Ann Arbor, Mich., area; an anti-Israel activist group in the area said that the raids were targeting protesters…
Harvard is delaying the release of reports from the school’s antisemitism and Islamophobia task forces, which were initially slated to be released in early April, amid its broader fight with the Trump administration over campus antisemitism and federal funding…
President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring universities to disclose foreign funding in excess of $250,000…
Current and former Barnard College employees received a text message survey from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that asked whether the recipients had Jewish or Israeli ancestry and probed recipients’ experiences with antisemitism on the campus; the move is part of the government’s efforts to investigate discrimination at the New York City school…
A judge in New York ruled that the Art Institute of Chicago must return a 1916 drawing by Egon Schiele to the heirs of an Austrian Jewish art collector who was killed in the Holocaust…
Hamas released a video of Israeli hostage Omri Miran; the video was the first sign of life from the Kibbutz Nahal Oz resident since July, when hostages who were released earlier this year last reported having seen him in Gaza…
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages, referring to the terror group as “sons of dogs” who had given Israel “excuses” to prolong the war in Gaza…
Jordan announced its planned enforcement of a ban on the Muslim Brotherhood’s operations in the Hashemite Kingdom, five years after a court ruling approving the group’s disbandment and nine years after shuttering the group’s headquarters in Amman; 16 people were arrested in Jordan earlier this month on charges that they planned to launch attacks in the country…
The New York Times interviews Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara about his first months leading the country following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, as well as his approach to relationships with the West…
A new report from the Institute for Science and International Security found that Iran is fortifying the areas around two of its nuclear facilities, which it has refused to allow international inspectors access to…
Pic of the Day
Released Israeli hostage Agam Berger stood with Holocaust survivor Gita Kaufman at the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Oświęcim, Poland, on Wednesday. Berger is part of a delegation of released hostages participating in the annual International March of the Living program alongside Holocaust survivors from around the world.
Birthdays
Former president of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards of the NBA for 16 seasons, himself an NBA player for 9 seasons, Ernest “Ernie” Grunfeld turns 70…
Rabbi emeritus at Washington’s Adas Israel Congregation, Rabbi Jeffrey A. Wohlberg turns 84… Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony and Peabody Award-winning singer and actress, Barbra Streisand turns 83… Delray Beach, Fla. resident, Phyllis Dupret… Distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, College Park, Jeffrey C. Herf turns 78… Former president and publisher of USA Today, then chairman of theStreet, Lawrence S. Kramer turns 75… Israeli designer, architect and artist, Ron Arad turns 74… President of Cincinnati-based Standard Textile, Gary Heiman… Israeli singer descended from the Jewish diaspora in Kurdistan, Ilana Eliya turns 70… Columnist for Foreign Policy, Michael Hirsh turns 68… Author of books for children and teens, Deborah Heiligman turns 67… Managing director at global consulting firm Actum, and author of books about Bernie Madoff and Rudy Giuliani, Andrew Kirtzman turns 64… CEO and President of Wells Fargo since 2019, he was previously the CEO of Visa, Charles Scharf turns 60… President of sales and marketing at Pimlico Capital, and rabbi of Baltimore’s Shomrei Mishmeres HaKodesh, Carl S. (Rabbi Chaim) Schwartz turns 55… Deputy chief of staff for Montgomery County (Md.) Councilmember Sidney Katz, Laurie Mintzer Edberg… Emmy Award-winning television writer, producer and film screenwriter, known as the co-creator and showrunner of the television series “Lost,” Damon Lindelof turns 52… National political director at AIPAC, Mark H. Waldman… Israeli model, actress, entrepreneur, lecturer and activist, Maayan Keret turns 49… Film and television actor, Eric Salter Balfour turns 48… Brandon Hersh… Partner at Apollo Global Management, Reed Rayman… Special assistant to POTUS and senior speechwriter in the Biden administration, Aviva Feuerstein turns 38… Tech and innovation reporter at Automotive News, Molly Boigon…
BIRTHWEEK: American Jewish Committee ACCESS New York board member, Sam Sorkin (was yesterday)…
Rep. Seth Magaziner initiated the joint statement condemning Tucker Carlson’s interview with a Holocaust revisionist
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Rep. Seth Magaziner, D-R.I., leaves a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus about the candidacy of President Joe Biden at the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday, July 9, 2024.
Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI) was home in Rhode Island during the congressional recess late last week, “stewing” about Tucker Carlson’s widely viewed interview with a vocal Holocaust revisionist.
In response, he sent a text to a group chat of Jewish Democratic members of the House suggesting they speak out, which led, in a matter of days, to a joint statement from all 24 Jewish House Democrats, a rare example of unanimity from a group including members from both ends of the Democratic Caucus.
“My concern was that this kind of embrace of literal fascism is happening in plain sight on the far right, and people have become so desensitized to it that they are treating it as normal, and we cannot let it become normal,” Magaziner told Jewish Insider on Tuesday.
He emphasized that he was concerned not only about the interview itself, which garnered millions of views, but also that it was promoted by Elon Musk and that Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) refused to condemn it.
Magaziner said he drafted a statement on Friday and his colleagues were eager to join the statement.
“I’m very pleased that we were able to come together as a group, because it is an extremely ideologically diverse group, even when it comes to matters related to Israel, related to antisemitism, related to what it means to be Jewish in America,” Magaziner said. “It’s a very diverse group with often diverging opinions. But I’m glad that we were able to come together on this and come together quickly.”
Magaziner said there had been some discussion among the members of whether to mention Musk in the statement, given that the X owner deleted his post promoting the interview, but said the lawmakers ultimately decided to include the tech billionaire because he “never disavowed what Carlson and Cooper said” and “this is — just to be blunt — not the first time that Musk has dabbled with antisemitic ideas and statements.”
Magaziner acknowledged that Jewish House Democrats haven’t spoken in a similar unified voice to condemn antisemitism on the left, explaining that it was “easier in this case to find language that all members were comfortable with.”
But he said that he believes each of the Jewish Democrats has condemned antisemitism on the left “in the way that they felt was appropriate,” although there are differences of opinions of when and how to do so, and “what rises to the level of antisemitic versus perhaps misguided.”
Magaziner said, “we hope we can get our colleagues on the other side of the aisle” to speak out about Carlson and the interview, but noted that the Democrats didn’t reach out to their Jewish Republican counterparts about joining the statement.
“I thought it was important that J.D. Vance be included in the statement because he is running to be vice president,” Magaziner said. “And the reality is that our Republican colleagues were not going to sign on to a statement that was critical of J.D. Vance.”
Reps. David Kustoff (R-TN) and Max Miller (R-OH) declined to comment last week on the Carlson interview, and didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment about the statement.
Magaziner, when running for Congress, said he does not practice Judaism and highlighted his mixed heritage — his father is Jewish and his mother is Catholic. But he’s been involved with various efforts by Jewish House Democrats, particularly since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. His office described the statement on Carlson as a “statement from Jewish members of the House.”
The Rhode Island Democrat explained that other Jewish Democrats approached him early in his term about joining regular informal meetings and discussions among Jewish Democrats.
“I said to them, ‘I don’t know whether or not it’s appropriate for me to be a part of that,’” but the lawmakers “were very welcoming, and they recognized that even though I don’t practice, that I do have Jewish heritage, that my family has experienced the antisemitism and the many traumas that have come with being Jewish through the years and and they welcomed me into those discussions.”
He said he would have deferred to a more senior member if they had wanted to lead the Carlson statement, but the lawmakers asked him to draft it.