Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

UJA-Federation of New York has tapped longtime Jewish educator Michael Kay as its next CEO, the country’s largest Jewish federation shared exclusively with Nira Dayanim for Jewish Insider, marking a generational change that signals the growing importance of day schools on the Jewish communal agenda.

Kay, 46, currently serves as head of school at The Leffell School in Westchester County, N.Y., and will step into his new role on Oct. 5, succeeding Eric Goldstein, 66, a former Wall Street lawyer who will step down after 12 years in the role…

President Donald Trump continued to hedge today on resuming military action in Iran while keeping open diplomatic options: “We’re either going to make a deal or they’re going to be decimated,” he said of Iran while departing for his state visit to China. “So one way or the other, we win.”

Earlier in the day, Trump told the “Sid & Friends in the Morning” radio show that he’s anticipating Iran’s economic collapse due to the U.S. blockade of its ports. “It’s just a question of time, we don’t have to rush anything,” the president said…

Kuwait accused Iran of attempting to invade its Bubiyan Island today, claiming six members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps attacked soldiers on the strategic piece of Kuwaiti territory where the Gulf state, with assistance from China, is building a large port…

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) expressed frustration with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing as they declined to comment on a report that Pakistan harbored Iranian military aircraft from U.S. strikes.

Asked, if the report were to be accurate, if the U.S. should reconsider Pakistan’s role as mediator between the U.S. and Iran, Hegseth and Caine said they “didn’t want to get in the middle of ongoing negotiations.” Graham replied, “Well I do! I want to get in the middle of these negotiations. I don’t trust Pakistan as far as I can throw them … No wonder this damn thing is going nowhere”…

Jay Hurst, the Pentagon’s comptroller, testified that the cost of the war has risen to $29 billion — up from the $25 billion figure the Pentagon cited just two weeks ago…

Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem wrote in a letter to terror group operatives that a deal between the U.S. and Iran is “the strongest card” for “stopping [Israel’s] aggression” in Lebanon, while slamming the Lebanese government for engaging in direct talks with Jerusalem, the third round of which are slated to take place this week in Washington…

Asked at the Politico Security Summit in Washington if she still calls herself a Zionist, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said, “I believe in a Jewish State of Israel, yes. And that to me isn’t a radical thing to say and I always have. I can say that in the same breath that I criticize the military policy of Bibi Netanyahu.”

Slotkin said that “as someone who served three tours in Iraq” she has “concerns with the way the Israelis are organizing military policy right now. … What I can’t accept, though, is collective punishment that comes from saying, ‘well, I don’t like Bibi Netanyahu’s military policy so Jews in America’s synagogues should be attacked,’” she continued…

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told the Washington Examiner he’s open to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to wind down U.S. aid to Israel over the next decade: The proposal “has been sort of a given, I think, in our foreign aid budget” for “a long time,” he said, “but if that’s how the Israeli leader feels about it — feels like they’re able to deal with their national security threats with their own resources — then I guess I would listen to what he has to say”…

Two weeks ahead of the Texas Senate Republican primary runoff, Thune said he “still [doesn’t] know where [Trump] is headed” in his intent to endorse either Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) or Attorney General Ken Paxton, but “someone would clearly benefit from it.”

Cornyn, meanwhile, told reporters he doesn’t expect Trump to make an endorsement at all. “We can’t wait, and we’re not waiting. We’re getting prepared, and we are optimistic,” he said. (Still, in what may be a last-ditch effort to secure the president’s support, Cornyn introduced a bill yesterday to rename U.S. Route 287 as Interstate 47 in honor of Trump, the country’s 47th president)…

Politico cast doubt on Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s claim and campaign talking point that he is a practicing physician, finding that “there’s overwhelming evidence that he’s had no experience as a licensed medical doctor.”

While El-Sayed did attend prestigious medical schools and served as executive director of the Detroit Health Department, he was never granted a medical license in either Michigan or New York, where he says he has practiced, and appears not to have treated patients since his schooling days, despite claiming repeatedly in campaign pitches that he is a physician…

AIPAC denied accusations by El-Sayed and others that it is behind the Center for Democratic Priorities super PAC, a new group supporting Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in the Michigan Senate Democratic primary, and also noted it “isn’t funding any group’s efforts” in Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District, where critics have alleged the pro-Israel group is behind efforts to support candidate Ala Stanford…

Speaking on a webinar with other Washington-area Jewish leaders today, Ron Halber, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, excoriated the Democratic Socialists of America as an “evil” organization committed to driving Jews out of society, JI’s Marc Rod reports.

“I think they’re a fringe, radical, antisemitic organization,” Halber said, adding that the group wants to make Jews feel “isolated” and force them to “renounce Zionism” and their connection to Israel in order to participate in the political process…

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released his city budget proposal this afternoon, which includes $26 million annually for the Office to Prevent Hate Crimes, a significant increase from its current budget of around $3 million…

Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg hosted a lunch at the State Department with officials from Gulf Cooperation Council countries as well as Jordan to discuss technology supply chains and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor…

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for coverage of tonight’s forum of New York 12th Congressional District Democratic candidates moderated by JI Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar.

The Israeli Embassy in Washington will host its belated Yom Ha’Atzmaut reception.

The Jewish Democratic Council of America’s conference in Washington continues, with speakers including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, diplomat Dennis Ross, The Washington Institute’s Dana Stroul and former national security officials Jake Sullivan, Jeremy Bash and Jon Finer.

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

President Donald Trump sounded a pessimistic note today about the state of the ceasefire with Iran, telling reporters in the Oval Office it’s “unbelievably weak” and on “massive life support” while calling Iran’s proposal to end the war, which he rejected yesterday, a “piece of garbage.”

The president was set to meet this afternoon with his national security team to discuss next steps with Iran, including a potential return to military action and resumption of Project Freedom in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Axios.

A number of hawkish Republican lawmakers are encouraging the president to resume military operations, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI)…

The UAE has secretly carried out military attacks on Iran during the course of the war, The Wall Street Journal reports, after being on the receiving end of the majority of Iran’s ballistic missile and drone attacks. Abu Dhabi’s targets have included an Iranian oil refinery, struck in early April as Trump was announcing the ceasefire…

Graham called for a potential “complete reevaluation” of Pakistan’s role as mediator between the U.S. and Iran following a CBS News report that Islamabad had permitted Iran to shelter some of its military aircraft from U.S. strikes in Iran. “Given some of the prior statements by Pakistani defense officials towards Israel, I would not be shocked if this were true,” Graham said…

Democratic Majority for Israel PAC is mounting a six-figure mail campaign to boost Bexar County sheriff’s deputy Johnny Garcia in his Democratic primary runoff against activist and conspiracy theorist Maureen Galindo. The campaign is slated to start tomorrow, exactly two weeks from primary day in Texas’ newly redrawn 35th Congressional District…

Axios spotlights the increasingly heated primary between Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Navy veteran Ed Gallrein, who is backed by Trump. The race, scheduled for May 19, has already seen $25.6 million in outside spending — including an ad from a pro-Massie group featuring antisemitic tropes targeting Jewish GOP donor Paul Singer — making it the most expensive U.S. House primary in history…

The New York Times highlights Nebraska’s contentious Senate race, where several candidates have been accused of acting as “plants” intending to siphon votes for the other party (and one candidate isn’t intending to run for Senate at all), as Democrats largely line up behind independent Dan Osborn, realizing their party brand has been tainted in the Midwest…

A new poll by New Jersey congressional candidate Adam Hamawy, who has made criticism of Israel a centerpiece of his campaign, found him leading the crowded Democratic primary field for the 12th District with 19% of likely voters, up from a March poll by his campaign that found him winning just 5%. His surge coincided with a spending blitz by the anti-Israel super PAC American Priorities, which poured $1 million into pro-Hamawy ads in the district…

New York state Assemblymember Alex Bores released his first ad of the Democratic primary for New York’s 12th Congressional District, highlighting his advocacy for AI regulation and involvement in workers’ rights as positioning him to take on Trump. Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), citing Bores’ AI focus, endorsed the former Palantir employee today…

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice David Wecht announced today that he is changing his party registration from Democrat to independent, citing increasing antisemitism in the Democratic Party. In his statement, Wecht said Democrats have changed since he served as vice chair of the state party 25 years ago: “Nazi tattoos, jihadist chants, intimidation and attacks at synagogues, and other hateful anti-Jewish invective and actions are minimized, ignored, and even coddled,” he said.

“Acquiescence to Jew-hatred is now disturbingly common among activists, leaders and even many elected officials in the Democratic Party. I can no longer abide this. So, I won’t,” he wrote…

Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chickli prohibited anti-Israel influencer Tyler Oliveira from entering the country as he landed in Ben Gurion Airport today; Chikli told right-wing influencer Laura Loomer that Israel “has strong immigration policies, and if you come to Israel with the intent on inciting violence and hatred against Jewish people, you will not be allowed entry into our country.”

Oliveira has recently released videos purporting to expose welfare fraud among ultra-Orthodox communities in Kiryas Joel, N.Y., and Lakewood, N.J., widely denounced as antisemitic, which he discussed at length on Tucker Carlson’s podcast last week while again invoking antisemitic conspiracy theories…

Trump tapped Kari Lake, former far-right Arizona gubernatorial candidate and short-lived head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, as ambassador to Jamaica, seen as a step down for the one-time close Trump ally. He also named far-right Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano as ambassador to Slovakia…

Trump has invited several business leaders to join him on his trip later this week to China, including Elon Musk, outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick, Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon, Citi’s Jane Fraser and Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, among others…

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for a look at the race to succeed Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), where state Sen. Scott Wiener is testing whether progressive Jews can still win among the Democratic left.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine will testify before the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee as well as the Senate Appropriations Committee for Pentagon budget hearings. Later, FBI Director Kash Patel is also scheduled to appear before Senate Appropriations for a separate budget hearing.

Politico will host its Security Summit in Washington — speakers at the confab will include exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi; former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas; Sens. Deb Fischer (R-NE) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Reps. Adam Smith (D-WA), Jim Himes (D-CT) and Mike Turner (R-OH).

Elsewhere in Washington, the Anti-Defamation League will hold a reception to celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month.

In New York, the funeral for longtime ADL head and storied Jewish leader Abe Foxman, who died on Sunday at 86, will be held at Park Avenue Synagogue.

Democratic primary candidates for New York’s 12th Congressional District including Bores, George Conway and Micah Lasher will take part in a forum at West Side Institutional Synagogue moderated by JI Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar.

Across the river, Democratic candidates seeking to unseat Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District — including Rebecca Bennett, Michael Roth, Tina Shah and Brian Varela — will participate in a debate moderated by the New Jersey Globe.

Israeli singer Noam Bettan will represent the Jewish state in Vienna for the first semifinal of the international singing competition Eurovision; Israel’s participation in the contest has been marked by protests and boycotts of several European countries, as well as accusations of Israel’s meddling in voting processes that have been dismissed by Eurovision organizers.

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio is slated to brief reporters from the White House at 3 p.m. ET today, amid rising tensions with Tehran following yesterday’s launch from Iran of several missiles and drones at the United Arab Emirates. More below.
• Vice President JD Vance is in Iowa, where he’s campaigning with Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA) as the Des Moines-area Republican attempts to hold his seat in the midterms.
• The Manhattan Jewish Historical Initiative is holding its 2026 Hall of Fame induction ceremony today in Bryant Park. Those being inducted this year include Ari Ackerman, Michael Fuchs, Michael Hershman, Melissa Manchester, New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, David Milch, Richard Price, Josef and Devora Wilhelm, Tanya Zuckerbrot and Ariel Zwang.
• In Washington, Hostages and Missing Families Forum U.S. co-founders Matan Sivek and Bar Ben Yaakov are being honored tonight with the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation’s humanitarian award. The foundation will also honor Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed Al-Khulaifi with its “2026 American Hostage Freedom Award.”
• The Milken Institute Global Conference continues today in Los Angeles. Speakers today include Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former First Lady Jill Biden, former Biden administration senior official Amos Hochstein, World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Citadel’s Ken Griffin, KIND Snacks’ Daniel Lubetzky, Palantir’s Josh Harris, Altérra’s Majid Al Suwaidi, ADGM’s Ahmed Jasim Al Zaabi, FIFA President Gianni Infantino and the Center for American Progress’ Neera Tanden.
• One of the day’s first sessions is a panel hosted by the Milken Family Foundation’s Richard Sandler focused on antisemitism. Speakers on the panel include American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch, the University of Pennsylvania’s Steven Weitzman, Pepperdine Dean Pete Peterson, Sinai Temple Senior Rabbi Nicole Guzik and journalist and philanthropist Jacki Karsh.
• Later in the morning, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel and former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin will sit with The Wall Street Journal’s Gerard Baker for a conversation about the future of U.S. politics.
• In the afternoon, Emirati and Qatari officials will sit for separate conversations about economic growth among Gulf Cooperation Council countries.
• A panel later in the afternoon will focus on higher education, with the leaders of the University of Southern California, Dartmouth, Arizona State University and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
• Indiana and Ohio voters are headed to the polls to vote in primary elections. In Indiana, the state Senate primaries will offer an early test of President Donald Trump’s clout within the party, as he has worked to defeat seven GOP state lawmakers who successfully opposed his redistricting push. In Ohio, Republicans will nominate a challenger to Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH), one of the most stalwart pro-Israel Democrats in the House who is running for reelection in a Trump district.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

The tenuous ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran came close to collapsing overnight after the Islamic Republic fired 15 missiles and four drones at the United Arab Emirates. The question now is whether hostilities will resume in the coming days — just before next week’s major summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, slated to take place in Beijing.

Monday’s Iranian missile fire came amid ramped-up rhetoric from both Tehran and Washington over the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and as the U.S. launched “Project Freedom” to assist vessels attempting to transit through the waterway. One of the drones fired yesterday by Iran hit the UAE’s Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, sparking a fire that injured three Indian workers. 

CENTCOM head Adm. Brad Cooper touted the initial success of the Project Freedom naval effort, which on its first day protected two U.S.-flagged ships traveling through the strait. It’s unclear the degree to which the endeavor will help with the resumption of normal activities in the waterway, which normally sees some 120 vessels passing through each day.

Later Monday, two U.S. naval ships came under heavy fire from Iran as they navigated through the passage. Iran claimed to have hit a warship, which CENTCOM denied. Trump told Fox News’ Trey Yingst that Iran would be “wipe[d] off the face of the earth” if it targeted ships being escorted through the strait. The Wall Street Journal reported that the president “for days has toggled between two competing impulses: severely punishing Iran for failing to abandon its nuclear work, and avoiding a significant escalation that could draw the U.S. deeper into a Middle East conflict.”

The bigger question is what will happen next week, when Trump is slated to meet with China’s Xi Jinping in Beijing — a summit already delayed once due to the war. Over the weekend, Beijing told Chinese firms to ignore U.S. sanctions on five Iran-linked oil refiners in the country.

Beijing has attempted to play both sides of the conflict, encouraging Iran to pursue diplomacy while also providing the Islamic Republic with commercial support for use in the event of a resumption of hostilities. Should the summit take place, all eyes will be on Xi to see if he attempts to play Trump, as well.

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

What Rachel Represents: In the Jewish Review of Books, Dara Horn reviews Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s When We See You Again. “As we face an ongoing barrage of anti-Jewish attacks worldwide — the massacres of October 7 and the subsequent torture and murder of hostages, missile hailstorms, maniacs murdering Jews in synagogues and museums and on beaches and sidewalks, and nonstop calls from all sorts of influencers cheering for more of the same, or explaining why we deserve it — our responses have oscillated between confusion and outrage, with little room for sorrow. [Goldberg-Polin’s book] is a reminder that beneath all the armor each of us must now wear in public, we are actually wounded, grieving mothers and fathers and daughters and sons, and we are allowed to weep.” [JewishReviewofBooks]

Dems Should Fear Keir: In The New York Times, Samuel Earle suggests that U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plummeting popularity among Labour party members serves as a warning to Democrats ahead of the midterms. “For Democrats, there are lessons in Mr. Starmer’s plight. To name a few: A leader without a base will soon find the floor falling out from beneath them; a campaign that relies on voter apathy will foment the political forces it purports to fight; and an offer of competence, pragmatism and decency is no longer enough. These dynamics have played out in Maine, where an unconventional, unpolished outsider with a radical message galvanized Democratic voters so much more than the state’s experienced and moderate governor that the governor dropped out of the race.” [NYTimes]

End of an Era: In The Independent, Ben Judah posits that the “golden age” of Jewish life in the Diaspora has ended. “Today, with the Jewish community feeling that many spaces, from social media platforms to pro-Palestine marches on the streets of London, or the arts, have normalised a kind of attitude to Israel they find antisemitic, demonised any connection to it and rolled their eyes at the attacks they are under, there is a profound Jewish alienation instead of the old enthusiasm. There will be less Jewish energy powering these cultural and political engines of the West going forward.” [TheIndependent]

President Donald Trump issued a proclamation for Jewish American Heritage Month, calling on Jewish Americans to observe a “national Sabbath” May 15-16, in “special honor of 250 glorious years of American independence and on the weekend of Rededicate 250 — a national jubilee of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving”…

The Financial Times reports that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent clashed with U.K. Chancellor Rachel Reeves over Reeves’ comments, made last month while she was in Washington for International Monetary Fund meetings, critical of the Iran war…

Palantir announced record-high first quarter earnings of $1.63 billion in sales amid the company’s entry into the AI space and efforts to make inroads in Washington; CEO Alex Karp said that the company’ “biggest problem currently is demand in the U.S.,” adding, “We just cannot meet demand”…

The Egyptian national accused of firebombing participants in a Boulder, Colo., march to raise awareness for the Israeli hostages last year, killing an elderly woman and injuring a dozen others, will plead guilty to a series of charges including murder; Mohamed Sabry Soliman pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges, which can carry the death penalty, but last year offered to plead guilty to the charge in exchange for life in prison…

eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher spotlights the celebrations around the third annual National Challah Day, which fell on May 2…

During its second day of public testimony, Australia’s royal commission into the circumstances that led to the December terror attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach heard from Jewish parents who described ongoing, “normalized” antisemitism in Australian society; the commission also listened to testimony from a paramedic who faced antisemitism from both patients and other emergency responders, one of whom threatened to “skin you the way my family skinned yours in the camps”…

The U.K.’s Metropolitan police are investigating a suspected arson attack at a former synagogue in the Whitechapel district of London…

Former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party announced that Sharon Sharabi, the brother of hostages Eli and Yossi Sharabi, the latter of whom was killed in captivity, was joining the party; the announcement came amid reports that the right-wing opposition party was considering a merger with Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party…

Israel’s Defense Ministry said that the first of six new Boeing KC-46 refueling planes that Israel ordered from the U.S. completed its first flight test…

The New York Times looks at the rise in settler violence targeting Palestinians in the West Bank…

Kan reporter Suleiman Maswadeh is joining Israel’s Channel 13 as the network’s Washington correspondent…

Elliot Cohen is joining the Trump administration’s Board of Peace after being detailed to the Office of Special Envoy for Peace Missions through the Department of the Interior; he was previously at the Department of Government Efficiency and Blackstone…

Doris Fisher, who with her husband, Don, started The Gap in 1969, died at 94…

Noam Bettan, Israel’s entrant to the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest, began rehearsals earlier this week in Vienna ahead of the competition’s semifinals next Tuesday.

Head coach of the football team at the University of Washington, Jedd Ari Fisch turns 50…

Senior U.S. district judge for the Northern District of Illinois, Robert W. Gettleman turns 83… Best-selling author of 20 novels featuring fictional Manhattan prosecutor Alexandra Cooper, written by the former head of the sex crimes unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Linda Fairstein turns 79… Retired chief judge on the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, he was once president of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, Peter B. Krauser turns 79… Docent at NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ruth Klein Schwalbe… Gayle Weiss Schochet… Member of the Knesset, almost continuously since 1988, leader of the Ashekazi Haredi party United Torah Judaism, Moshe Gafni turns 74… South African-born former president of American Jewish World Service, Robert Bank turns 67… David Shamir… Pulitzer Prize-winning author of three nonfiction books, historian and journalist, Tom Reiss turns 62… Senior managing director of Jewish Funders Network, he is a graduate of Yeshiva College and Yale Law School, Yossi Prager… Emmy Award-winning television writer and producer, known for “The Simpsons,” Josh Weinstein turns 60… Special education consultant, Nancy Simcha Cook Kimsey… EVP of BerlinRosen, Nicole Rosen… Executive director of public relations at UJA-Federation of New York, Emily Kutner… Executive director of Micah Philanthropies, Deena Fuchs… President of Charleston, S.C.-based InterTech Group, a global holding company, Jonathan M. Zucker turns 48… Television news correspondent, print journalist, stage and film actress, entrepreneur and pro-Israel activist, Lara Berman Krinsky turns 46… Former Israeli national soccer team captain, he also played for Chelsea, West Ham United and Liverpool in the English Premier League, Yossi Benayoun turns 46… Mayor of Bat Yam, Israel, Tzvika Brot turns 46… Member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives since 2013, Michael H. Schlossberg turns 43… Former professional golfer, now an orthopedic surgeon, David Bartos Merkow, MD turns 41… Partner at New Enterprise Associates and a member of the inaugural class of the Schwarzman Scholars program, Andrew Adams Schoen… Maxine S. Fuchs… Blake E. Goodman… Basketball player selected 27th overall by the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the 2025 NBA draft, Danny Wolf turns 22… 

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio will oversee talks in Washington this morning with Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh. U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa and State Department Counselor Michael Needham will also join the talks, slated to start at 11 a.m. Read more here.
• Ahead of the talks, a senior Hezbollah official said the Iran-backed group would not abide by any agreement reached between Beirut and Jerusalem. Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has continued since the implementation of the Iran ceasefire, but has largely occurred in southern Lebanon and northern Israel following pressure from the White House for Israel to scale back its attacks in Beirut.
• A second round of in-person negotiations between the U.S. and Iran could take place as soon as this week — days before the April 21 expiration of the current ceasefire — following President Donald Trump’s comments yesterday that “we’ve been called by the other side,” who would “like to make a deal very badly, very badly.”
• The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is hosting its annual Yom HaShoah commemoration on Capitol Hill this morning, with more than 30 Holocaust survivors slated to attend. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Lois Frankel (D-FL) and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick will participate in the ceremony, during which Ben Ferencz, who served as the U.S.’ chief prosecutor in Nuremberg, will be posthumously honored.
• The Atlantic Council is hosting Jacob Helberg, the State Department’s under secretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment, this evening for a discussion on U.S. economic leadership in the Middle East.
• Semafor’s World Economy Summit continues today in Washington. Speakers include Helberg, Sens. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) and Gary Peters (D-MI), former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, Michael Dell, Reid Hoffman, Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick, Forum AI’s Campbell Brown and Citadel’s Ken Griffin.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

Tomorrow (April 15) isn’t just Tax Day, but it’s also the deadline for candidates vying in the pivotal midterms to report their latest fundraising figures — an important marker on the political calendar in determining which candidates are raising enough money to run credible campaigns and which will be left financially behind. 

Historically, having a critical mass of prominent, well-heeled supporters was a prerequisite for a congressional candidate being able to get their message out to the public. 

Not long ago, candidates with extreme or exotic views — such as those affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America on the left or those embracing conspiracy theories on the far right — would have a hard time being taken seriously by rank-and-file donors, who typically want a back a winner and would shy away from those with far-out-of-the-mainstream views. 

Similarly, the pro-Israel community historically benefited from the presence of strong organizations like AIPAC that helped pool supporters’ money to favored candidates, giving them outsized impact within both parties. More recently, AIPAC’s super PAC has led the way in engaging directly in political campaigns, directly spending money on behalf of favored candidates and attacking some of the most radical candidates on the ballot.

But in our brave new decentralized world of politics and media, where a critical mass of small-dollar donations from passionate individuals can easily be amassed online (especially through an incendiary video clip or well-timed fundraising appeal), the comparative advantage of having a defined group of reliable donors can be neutralized by an online feeding frenzy that galvanizes enough individuals to give to a radical cause or candidate. 

At the same time, the social media-driven public conversation — without any guardrails and few standards — has totally transformed what is viewed as normal. One recent example: 27-year-old Kat Abughazaleh, a far-left social media influencer without any roots in the Chicago-area district she was running in, raised well over $3 million for her (unsuccessful) primary campaign, fueled by high-volume, low-dollar, largely out-of-state contributions. 

If former House Speaker Tip O’Neill once said all politics is local, the opposite is true today. All politics is now nationalized, with the most outlandish hot takes and incendiary commentary most likely to go viral. 

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

• Israel said it targeted Alireza Tangsiri, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ navy, overnight. Iran has fired more than half a dozen missile barrages at Israel since 6:30 a.m. Israel time, the largest number of salvos launched in a five-hour period since the first days of the war.
• The continuing attacks come amid a report from The Wall Street Journal that President Donald Trump wants the war to wrap up in the next 4-6 weeks. 
• FII PRIORITY continues in Miami today. Jared Kushner is slated to speak this morning about the U.S.-Gulf investment relationship. Meta’s Dina Powell McCormick and World Liberty Financial’s Zach Witkoff, a son of White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, will join panels later in the morning on AI infrastructure and stablecoins, respectively.
• In Washington, the Atlantic Council’s Syria Project and the U.S.-Syria Business Council are jointly holding a symposium this morning focused on Syria’s energy landscape.
• Fourteen Senate Republicans are sending a letter today to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, calling on the officials to provide a congressional briefing on the “progress and future priorities” of the joint task force to investigate the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks and antisemitism in the U.S., following reports that a number of members of the task force have been reassigned, Jewish Insider’s Matt Shea reports.
• The House Ethics Committee is beginning proceedings against Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), who is facing allegations of misusing campaign and FEMA funds.
• The House Committee on Education and Workforce is holding a hearing on foreign influence at American universities.
• The New York City Council is expected to vote today on two pieces of legislation advancing the creation of buffer zones around places of worship and educational centers. While Mayor Zohran Mamdani has not signaled his position on the bills, the legislation — which, with 35 co-sponsors, has secured veto-proof support — is opposed by some of the mayor’s key allies, including the Democratic Socialists of America.
• CPAC continues today in Dallas.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MATTHEW KASSEL

A nasty intraparty divide intensified this week as Democrats publicly debated whether to associate with Hasan Piker, the far-left streamer who has faced criticism for antisemitic commentary and pro-Hamas rhetoric, among other extreme remarks.

The dispute erupted Tuesday after Piker revealed that he would join Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, for two upcoming rallies in the state, marking the Twitch streamer’s first major campaign appearance of the midterms.

For mainstream Democrats increasingly troubled with Piker’s rising influence on the left, El-Sayed’s decision was particularly alarming. In a statement on Tuesday, Jonathan Cowan, president of the centrist Democratic think tank Third Way, said Democrats’ associations with Piker are “morally repugnant and strategically self-defeating,” and alleged that candidates “eager to campaign with” him are, “at best, comfortable overlooking his antisemitic and anti-American extremism and, at worst, endorsing it.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), a top moderate voice in the House, became one of the first prominent Democratic officials to speak out against Piker in comments on Tuesday, calling on the party to reject and distance itself from a figure he characterized as “an unapologetic antisemite.”

In a statement to social media, Schneider said Democrats “cannot allow those who preach hate and seek division to find safe harbor among us,” urging his colleagues to “call out hate and reject those who champion ideologies of exclusion and demonization.”

On Wednesday, El-Sayed faced further blowback from high-profile Michigan Democrats, including Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a top rival in the Senate race, who said “choosing to campaign with someone who has a history of antisemitic rhetoric” would not be a winning formula in the swing state. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) echoed that sentiment, saying Piker “sounds deeply antisemitic” and he is “not someone that should be helping anybody out in the Michigan political environment.”

A spokesperson for El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment asking if he had weighed Piker’s antisemitic rhetoric in choosing to appear with him. The Senate candidate has said he is unconcerned with backlash to his decision, while arguing that his “politics resonates with people who have been locked out.”

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

Once and For All: In The Wall Street Journal, Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates’ envoy to the U.S., called for a “conclusive outcome” to the war against Iran, rather than a “simple ceasefire” that would allow for future conflict. “The U.A.E. is the argument Iran can’t win, the idea it can’t accept … We want Iran as a normal neighbor. It can be reclusive and even unwelcoming, but it can’t attack its neighbors, blockade international waters, or export extremism. Building a fence around the problem and wishing it goes away isn’t the answer. It would simply defer the next crisis.” [WSJ]

The Kharg Conundrum: The Financial Times’ Steff Chávez and Charles Clover look at what a U.S. takeover of the strategically positioned Kharg Island could mean for the future of the conflict. “Such a move would give the US control over virtually all of Iran’s oil exports, allowing Washington to choke off revenue without destroying the facility and potentially triggering chaos in global oil markets. It would also give the U.S. a bargaining chip in any effort to force Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with other options including capturing strategic islands in the strait in order to exert control over the waterway.” [FT]

Two Sides of One Coin: In The Free Press, Adam Louis Klein posits that recent legal decisions underscore the connection between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. “When neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes bumped heads with leftist Hasan Piker, both saw Jews or Israel as responsible for social problems in the United States. Piker sees ICE crackdowns on immigration as ‘Zionist’; Fuentes views mass immigration as ‘Jewish.’ … They are distinct and symmetrical ways of scapegoating and libeling Jews. For this reason, it’s imperative that organizations and institutions committed to protecting Jews and fighting the scourge of Jew-hatred start condemning — clearly and without apology — antisemitism and anti-Zionism. The addition of that and makes all the difference, bringing anti-Zionism into the field of perception and marking it for condemnation.” [FreePress]

Quiet on the Quad: The Atlantic’s Rose Horowitch looks at the lack of campus protests around the war with Iran, in contrast to the protests that swept college campuses in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks and ensuing war in Gaza. “This might seem like an abrupt and mysterious reversal in campus culture. In fact, it’s a sign that student protest was never a fact of nature, but rather an administrative choice. Universities chose to let campus demonstrations get out of control; now they’re choosing to suppress them. This is why, even as legal challenges have blocked the Trump administration from enacting much of its higher-education agenda, the president has clearly achieved his aim of ending the protest movement.” [TheAtlantic]

The Next Crackdown: In The Washington Post, the Center for Human Rights in Iran’s Karen Kramer and Esfandiar Aban warn that the Iranian regime is likely to again target its own citizens. “With armed agents roaming the streets, arrests mounting, tens of thousands behind bars, an internet shutdown to obscure the regime’s actions, and executions already underway, the Islamic Republic appears poised to pick up where the security forces left off in January. The international community should not allow this to happen. It should demand that detainees and political prisoners be released and make clear that any further violence against civilians will carry severe consequences that cannot be offset by concessions elsewhere.” [WashPost]

President Donald Trump named Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Ellison to the newly created President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology; the group will be co-chaired by White House AI czar David Sacks and tech advisor Michael Kratsios…

Jewish leaders in Chicago are raising concerns about the resignation of Nancy Andrade, who until this week served as the city’s commissioner on human relations, shortly after her commission released a report on how to address antisemitism in the city; the report, which was submitted last month along with recommendations for action, was then heavily revised by an outside firm hired by Mayor Brandon Johnson…

The campaign website home page for Michael Blake, a far-left challenger to Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) who has made his criticism of Israel a centerpiece of his campaign, features a picture of Blake in Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

Semafor looks at the shifting priorities of climate justice activists, who have increasingly focused attacking Israel and AIPAC…

Jonathan Amiel, the head of McGill University’s faculty advisory board and a donor to the school, resigned from his position and is pulling his donations, citing the law school’s passage of a recent referendum calling on the school to boycott Israeli universities… 

Puka Nacua is being sued by a Jewish woman who claims the Los Angeles Rams wide receiver made an “unprovoked antisemitic statement” and forcibly bit her; the lawsuit comes months after Nacua faced criticism for making an antisemitic gesture on an internet livestream…

A Paul Klee print normally housed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem has been unable to be transported to New York, where it was set to be included in an exhibition of the modernist artist’s work at the Jewish Museum, due to flight restrictions in place in Israel…

Delta announced the suspension of nonstop flights to Israel from Atlanta and New York through Sept. 5…

Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the head of Uganda’s military, said the country wants the war with Iran to end but added that “any talk of destroying or defeating Israel will bring us into the war. On the side of Israel”… 

Jason Isaacson, the American Jewish Committee’s chief policy and political affairs officer, sat in conversation with Iranian American writer Roya Hakakian last night at the AJC’s annual Ambassadors’ Seder in Washington.

Argentine-born, Israeli clarinetist who specializes in klezmer music, Giora Feidman turns 90…

President of the Palestinian Authority since 2005, known as Abu Mazen, Mahmoud Abbas turns 91… Former member of the Knesset for eight years, he held several ministerial portfolios, Rabbi Yitzhak Haim Peretz turns 88… Award-winning novelist and poet, her debut novel in 1973, Fear of Flying, has sold over 37 million copies, Erica Jong turns 84… Philanthropist active in the U.K. and in Israel, she is the founder of London’s Jewish Community Centre which opened in 2013, Dame Vivien Louise Duffield turns 80… Southern California resident, Martin J. Rosmarin… Retired ENT surgeon, author of five books and former medical correspondent at ABC News and NBC News, Nancy Lynn Snyderman, MD turns 74… Molecular biologist and winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in medicine, Gary Bruce Ruvkun turns 74… Chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary, she announced she will step down at the end of the 2025-26 academic year, Dr. Shuly Rubin Schwartz turns 73… Former president and CEO of the Ottawa-based Public Policy Forum, now an executive advisor at Deloitte, Edward Greenspon… Actress who has appeared in many movies over a 30-year career, in 2010 she was the winner of Season 11 of “Dancing with the Stars,” Jennifer Grey turns 66… Lori Tarnopol Moore… Patent attorney from Detroit, she currently serves on the Michigan State Board of Education, Ellen Cogen Lipton turns 59… Englewood, N.J., resident, Deena Remi Thurm… Co-founder of Google along with Sergey Brin, Larry Page turns 53… Founder, president and CEO of Waxman Strategies, Michael Waxman turns 52… Israeli actor and model, Yonatan Uziel turns 51… Curator and historian of Jewish art and history, Dr. Ido Noy turns 47… Talk show host who founded Israel Sports Radio, Ari Louis turns 43… Actress best known for her roles in ABC’s sitcom “Suburgatory” and the USA Network’s drama “Mr. Robot,” Carly Chaikin turns 36… Judoka in the under 52 kg weight category, she competed for Israel in the 2024 Olympics, Gefen Primo turns 26… Rapper and Internet personality, known professionally as Bhad Bhabie, Danielle Peskowitz Bregoli turns 23…

• Israel confirmed Iranian state media reports this morning that Ali Mohammad Naini, the spokesperson for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, had been killed in a strike, hours after he rebuffed a claim by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran was no longer able to manufacture ballistic missiles.
• Meanwhile, the U.S. is kicking off what is expected to be a multiweek operation to open the Strait of Hormuz. In a joint statement released last night, the U.K., France, Japan, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, joined later by Canada, said they backed the American effort to restore freedom of movement through the crucial waterway.
• In New York City, the House Appropriations Committee is holding a field hearing today on accountability and reform at the U.N.
• The Fanatics Flag Football Classic is taking place tomorrow in Los Angeles after being moved from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, due to the ongoing war.
• Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter will appear on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
• The Leffell Foundation’s third annual rabbinical conference kicks off on Sunday in Florida.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV

Over the last three weeks, Qatar’s leadership has woken up to a reality it had long seemed determined to disprove: that money will only take you so far. And so Doha has fallen back on a longstanding Middle Eastern tradition of blaming Israel for its problems.

Qatar is the top foreign contributor to American universities, World Cup host, patron of the arts and donor of the new Air Force One, and the influence that comes with philanthropy led much of the world to turn a blind eye to the dark side of the Al Thani royal family’s generosity: Funding perhaps the world’s most effective propaganda arm for radical Islam, Al Jazeera, hosting the leaders of Hamas and other terrorist groups, and more. 

With a massive real estate portfolio that includes properties in London and Manhattan, its efforts to bail out White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in 2023 and 2025, and its work with former lobbyists now in the Trump administration — such as Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel — Doha appeared to have built a winning strategy to ensure its voice was heard in the White House.

Despite public opposition from Qatar and other Gulf states, the U.S., alongside Israel, went to war with Iran. Now, Doha finds itself on the receiving end of attacks from the Islamic Republic. Tehran’s attacks on Qatari gas facilities have led to a loss of 17% of Qatar’s capacity to export liquefied natural gas and an estimated $20 billion loss of annual revenue for the next three to five years, QatarEnergy CEO Saad al-Kaabi told Reuters. 

The latest Iranian assault on Doha’s gas industry came after Israel struck the Iranian side of the South Pars gas field, shared with Qatar. In a message that appeared, at least in part, an attempt to appease Doha, President Donald Trump blamed Israel — in mild terms by Trump standards — and said he had no idea about the attack, a claim experts and former Israeli and U.S. officials have said is unlikely to be true. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Thursday night press conference that Israel “acted alone” and will respect Trump’s request that Israel not bomb the gas field again.  

In addition, Trump threatened that if Iran attacks “a very innocent, in this case, Qatar,” the U.S. will “massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before.”

Ariel Admoni, a Qatar expert at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), said Trump’s statement shows “great anger” in Doha “expressed through pressure on Trump and a demand to clarify that he wasn’t part of this, in order not to hurt [Qatar’s] image” of being well-connected to the administration.

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

Target on His Back: Roll Call’s Ryan Tarinelli interviews Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) about having been a target of a foiled terror plot. “‘In any of his writings that they discovered, he wasn’t mad about any of my policy positions or votes. It was simply the fact that I was Jewish [and] my support for Israel,’ Moskowitz said. Efforts to dehumanize Jewish people appear in normal life, Moskowitz said, but even more so online, where it can reach younger people.” [RollCall]

Too Close For Comfort: In The Wall Street Journal, Third Way’s Jonathan Cowan and Lily Cohen call on Democrats to distance themselves from far-left streamer Hasan Piker, who has increasingly been embraced by elements of the left. “Mr. Piker is anti-American, antiwomen, anti-Western and antisemitic. No Democrat should engage with him. All should seek to push him to the fringe, where he belongs. This isn’t happening. … There’s no excuse for putting political tribalism before Jewish safety. Or for overlooking hatred to generate likes online. Or for failing to act against the surge of antisemitism, spread by the Hasan Pikers of the world and normalized by too many on the Democratic side.” [WSJ]

The Rhodes to Ruin: In The Hill, American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch raises concerns about comments made this week by Obama administration official Ben Rhodes calling for the Democratic Party to ostracize lawmakers in the party who support military action in Iran. “Disagreements about war and peace are as old as American democracy itself. They should be debated vigorously, examined carefully, and decided with the seriousness that questions of life and death demand. But declaring that those who reach a different conclusion simply don’t belong crosses a very different line: It replaces debate with ideological exclusion. Rhodes’s comment reflects a broader and troubling shift in political discourse. Increasingly, foreign policy disagreements are treated not as differences in judgment but as evidence of moral failure. The expectation is no longer that leaders will argue their case and persuade others. It is that those who dissent should be pushed outside the bounds of legitimate debate.” [TheHill]

The Treasury Department is mulling lifting sanctions on 140 million barrels of Iranian oil currently at sea in an effort to lower oil prices, which hit $119 a barrel on Thursday…

Israel struck Syrian infrastructure on Friday, which Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said was in response to attacks on the Druze minority near the border with Israel, adding, “Israel will not stand by and will not allow anyone to harm the Druze under the cover of our war against the Iranian terrorist regime and against the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon”…

Bazan Group reported to investors on Friday that vital infrastructure at its oil refinery in Haifa had sustained damage in an Iranian missile attack on Thursday, but it is expected to return to regular operations within a few days… 

The Wall Street Journal looks at how President Donald Trump has narrated his version of the Iran war and communicated U.S. policy on Iran through scores of Truth Social posts…

Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, criticized the administration for bypassing normal congressional review procedures to approve $20 billion in arms and military equipment sales to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan…

The New York Times does a postmortem on AIPAC’s spending in the recent Illinois primaries, as the group — and Israel — faces diminishing support from Democrats…

The University of California Board of Regents reached a settlement with the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights over what Jewish students said was the University of California, Berkeley’s failure to address campus antisemitism; under the terms of the settlement, the school will implement mandatory campus-wide antisemitism and anti-discrimination training, and hire a Title VI coordinator…

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is surveying Cornell University employees about antisemitism they have experienced or observed on the campus as the Trump administration pursues a civil rights case against the Ivy League school…

Palestinian American author Susan Abulhawa criticized American Jews and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — who last week distanced himself and his wife, who illustrated one of Abulhawa’s books, from the author over her numerous antisemitic comments — saying that “Jewish Americans are the most privileged demographic in this country … no terrible words should be spared for these monsters, because they are monsters”…

In the 24 hours before a fringe Catholic political group planned to host a gala in Washington honoring a number of public figures who have faced accusations of antisemitism, including Candace Owens and Joe Kent, several prominent members of the American Catholic Church stated unequivocally that antisemitism is not a part of their religious doctrine, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports…

The Lebanese American man who attacked Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., sent a photo of himself with the rifle he used to a family member on the day of the attack…

Temple Israel released photos of the extensive damage caused during last week’s attack, saying that unauthorized photos that have been published “have caused considerable harm to the survivors of last week’s attack” and that the congregation was sharing their own photos “to take back control of our narrative”…

The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco announced plans to sell its building in the city’s downtown Yerba Buena district after temporarily shuttering in late 2024 over financial challenges…

The Wall Street Journal reviews “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man,” the feature-length continuation of the popular TV series that centers around a Nazi plot to destabilize the British economy…

The Washington Post spotlights the northern Israel residents who are staying in the area rather than evacuating amid constant fire from Hezbollah in Lebanon…

Israeli President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal Herzog visited the Israeli Arab town of Kfar Qasem, where several homes and businesses were hit by missile shrapnel earlier this week.

Stage and screen actor, television director and musician, best-known for his role as the title character in the television comedy series “Barney Miller,” Hal Linden (born Harold Lipshitz) turns 95…

FRIDAY: Retired consultant on public policy issues to IBM, Ford and Citicorp, among others, he was the chair of the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights, Norman Ira Gelman turns 97… Rabbi and human rights activist, he has served for over 60 years as the senior rabbi of NYC’s Park East Synagogue, Arthur Schneier turns 96… Pioneer of financial futures, he is the chairman emeritus of CME Group (formerly the Chicago Mercantile Exchange), Leo Melamed turns 94… Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences as a geologist and oceanographer, but known popularly as poet and performer, Alexander Gorodnitsky turns 93… Australian award-winning writer of Portuguese Sephardi descent, author of fiction, nonfiction, screenplays and poetry collections, David George Joseph Malouf turns 92… Senior advisor to the family office of Charles Bronfman, he was previously SVP and COO of UJA-Federation of New York, Dr. Jeffrey R. Solomon turns 81… Senior lecturer of Talmud at Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore, Rabbi Tzvi Berkowitz turns 75… Award-winning author of 26 children’s books, Louis Sachar turns 72… Owner of Baltimore-based Diamond Point Metals, Jack Zager… Former professional tennis player, Bruce Manson turns 70… Philanthropist and pioneer in corporate social responsibility, formerly CEO of family-owned Timberland, Jeffrey Swartz turns 66… Retired as Israel’s chief of police in 2018 after a 27-year prior career at the Shin Bet, Roni Alsheikh turns 63… Host of “Time Team America,” a PBS program, she also produced and directed a feature-length documentary titled “Our Summer in Tehran,” Justine Shapiro turns 63… Chilean businessman with substantial mining interests, in 2014 he donated seven newly written Sefer Torah scrolls to synagogues on six different continents, Leonardo Farkas turns 59… Former member of the Knesset for the Blue and White alliance, he served as minister of justice, Avraham Daniel “Avi” Nissenkorn turns 59… Journalist, author and lecturer, he is an editor-at-large for Esquire, Arnold Stephen “A.J.” Jacobs turns 58… Actor, podcast host, director, comedian and advocate for Israel, Michael Rapaport turns 56… First-ever Jewish mayor of Lansing, Mich., now in his second term, Andy Schor turns 51… Award-winning Israeli actress, her credits include a role in “Fauda,” Netta Garti turns 46… Actor, music video director and writer, he is the son of Dustin Hoffman, Jake Hoffman turns 45… Head of global strategic partner sales within the financial services group at Amazon Web Services, Daniel M. Eckstein… Senior writer and messaging strategist for Apple, Matt Finkelstein… Senior editor of politics, policy and ideas at Vox, Benjamin “Benjy” Sarlin… Director of real estate development for a N.Y.-based hedge fund, Jason Lifton… Comedian, writer and actress who gained popularity through her comedy videos on YouTube, Joanna Hausmann turns 37… New York City-based comedian, his most recent show centers on a meeting of neo-Nazis that he attended incognito in Queens, Alex Edelman turns 37… Talmud teacher and secretary of the committee of Jewish law and standards at the Rabbinical Assembly, Max Buchdahl… Technical program manager at Bugcrowd, Tatiana Uklist turns… Ehud Lazar…

SATURDAY: Rabbi emeritus of Manhattan’s Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun and former principal of the Ramaz School, Rabbi Haskel Lookstein turns 94… Harvard professor, biochemist, physicist, molecular biology pioneer and winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Walter Gilbert turns 94… Scholar of Jewish mysticism and a retired dean at the Hebrew College in Boston, Arthur Green turns 85… Far Rockaway, N.Y., resident, Samuel Gross… First Jewish member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Hampshire until 2011, he is of counsel to the law firm of Shaheen & Gordon, Paul Hodes turns 75… Former executive director of The Charles Bronfman Prize, Jill Collier Indyk… Chabad rabbi, martial artist and chaplain for 13 years in the Israel Prison Service, Fishel Jacobs turns 70… President of NYC- and Singapore-based KWR International, Keith W. Rabin… Retired director general of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he was previously Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Yuval Rotem turns 67… Istanbul-born entrepreneur, hotelier and real estate developer, he is president of NYC-based Alexico Group LLC, Izak Senbahar turns 67… Co-founder of Wynnefield Capital Management, Joshua H. Landes… Award-winning film, stage and television actor and singer whose roles include the title role in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” Matthew Broderick turns 64… Israeli rock musician and record producer, he is best known for being the guitarist and one of the songwriters in the rock band Mashina, Shlomi Bracha turns 64… Hedge fund manager, philanthropist and former chairman of the board of the New York City Opera, Roy Niederhoffer turns 60… Partner in the Los Angeles office of Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, Michael Blacher… Founding editor of The Dispatch and author of three NYT bestsellers, Jonah Goldberg turns 57… James Beard Foundation Award-winning chef from Miami, Michelle Bernstein turns 56… Emmy Award-winning CNN anchor, John Berman turns 54… IDF general, he is one of the highest-ranking Druze ever in the IDF, Ghassan Alian turns 54… President and founder of Bully Pulpit International, Andrew Bleeker… Stage and voice actress, Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld turns 39… Board member at Shefa: Jewish Psychedelic Support, Hadas Alterman… Staff attorney at Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services in Cleveland, Addison Caruso…

SUNDAY: Professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia, E.D. Hirsch turns 98… “Star Trek’s” Captain Kirk, in 2021 he flew to space aboard a Blue Origin sub-orbital capsule, William Shatner turns 95… Born in Iran, twice elected as mayor of Beverly Hills, he is a past president of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, Jamshid “Jimmy” Delshad turns 86… Dentist, born in Tel Aviv and raised in NYC, he practiced in Norwalk, Conn., Murray Bruckel, DDS… Academy Award-winning screenwriter, his work includes “Forrest Gump” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Eric R. Roth turns 81… Israeli viola player and teacher, she has performed as soloist with many orchestras worldwide, Rivka Golani turns 80… Senior principal of the law firm of Neuberger, Quinn, Gielen, Rubin & Gibber, Isaac M. Neuberger turns 79… One of the principal anchors for CNN, Wolf Blitzer turns 78… Aviation and aerospace professional, Mike Orkin… Founder and executive director at WomenStrong International, Susan Morton Blaustein turns 73… Mayor of the 16th Arrondissement of Paris until 2023, now a member of the upper house of the French Parliament, Francis Szpiner turns 72… Popular musical entertainer in the Orthodox Jewish community, his stage name is Avraham Fried, Avraham Shabsi Friedman turns 67… Director of marketing and communications at Dorot, Andrea Glick… SVP and general counsel at Hertz Corporation until 2014, J. Jeffrey Zimmerman… Chabad rabbi in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, he is a frequent guest on “Fox News at Night,” Chaim Mentz… Hedge fund manager, he sold a majority stake in the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning during 2024 but he continues to control the team, Jeffrey N. Vinik turns 67… Retired Israeli basketball player, she is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most points (136) ever scored in a women’s professional game, Anat Draigor turns 66… Author, journalist, soldier and award-winning defense correspondent who has covered Israel and the Middle East, Arieh O’Sullivan turns 65… Journalist and author, Debra Nussbaum Cohen… Head of real estate for Mansueto Office, Ari Glass… Member of the U.K. Parliament until 2024 as a member of the British Conservative Party, Robert Halfon turns 57… Partner at Mercury Public Affairs, Jonathan Greenspun… SVP at HCA Healthcare, Jeff E. Cohen… Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, she is a member of Adas Israel, a Conservative Washington synagogue, Judge Neomi Rao turns 53… Internet celebrity, pizza reviewer, blogger and founder of Barstool Sports, David Portnoy turns 49… Visuals editor at The City (dedicated to in-depth local reporting in NYC) and adjunct professor at CUNY, Ben Fractenberg… VP of communications and public policy at Antora Energy, Adam Perecman Frankel… Founder and CEO of beauty and cosmetic firms Into The Gloss and Glossier, Emily Weiss… Creator of the Yehi Ohr program at Jewish Community Services of South Florida, now a real estate agent, Zisa Levin… Retired MLB first baseman after seven seasons, he starred for Team Israel in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, Isaac Benjamin “Ike” Davis turns 39… Communications director for then-Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), Sarah Alice Frank Feldman… Energy policy and climate change reporter for Politico, Joshua Adam Siegel… Director of the Dan David Prize (an international award headquartered at Tel Aviv University), Charlotte Hallé… Director of communications at the U.K.’s Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, James Sorene… Beatrice Stein…

• Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed “significant surprises” in Iran and Lebanon that “will escalate the war,” a day after Israel assassinated Iranian National Security Council head Ali Larijani. Katz also said that Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib had been killed in overnight strikes. More below.
• The Senate Intelligence Committee is holding a hearing on worldwide threats this morning, with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel set to testify.
• Gabbard’s appearance comes a day after Joe Kent — whom Gabbard had reportedly refused orders from the White House to fire — stepped down as head of the National Counterterrorism Center (more on Kent’s resignation below). President Donald Trump, for his part, reupped a 2020 tweet of Kent’s in which the former Green Beret said, “We shouldn’t sit and wait for the next attack, wipe Iran’s ballistic capability out.”
• Less than 24 hours after news broke of his resignation, which he tendered to Vice President JD Vance on Monday, Kent is expected to sit for a live interview today with Tucker Carlson as the commentator further locks in his position as the go-to first interview for recently departed Trump officials following Carrie Prejean Boller‘s appearance on “The Tucker Carlson Show” following her ouster from the Religious Liberties Commission over her support for Candace Owens and comments about Israel.
• Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are attending a closed briefing today on the situation in the Middle East with senior officials from the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
• The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will have its confirmation hearing this morning for Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) to be Homeland Security secretary, following Kristi Noem’s departure last week from the role.
• The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is holding a virtual hearing on the rise of global antisemitism.
• Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told JI that Senate Democrats are likely only planning to force a vote this week on one of the half-dozen war powers resolutions that they’ve introduced to halt the war in Iran. Meanwhile, Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY) reiterated that he’s planning to force further action on war powers resolutions in the House.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

Reports of the demise of AIPAC’s political clout in Democratic primaries, it turned out, were greatly exaggerated.

Pro-Israel candidates who received backing from AIPAC or AIPAC-aligned groups won two of the four targeted Democratic primaries in Illinois — and helped block all the Squad-aligned far-left candidates from winning nominations in all of the races. It was a respectable, if not dominant showing, but one consistent with making an impact with the $22 million pro-Israel groups spent in the four open congressional races.  

In the 8th District, former Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL) came out ahead of anti-Israel activist and businessman Junaid Ahmed, and looks like a lock to hold onto the suburban district as long as she wants.

Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, who benefited from about $4.5 million in outside spending from a pro-Israel group, comfortably outdistanced former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) in the 2nd District by a double-digit margin (41-29%) — even though Jackson entered the race as the favorite. The anti-Israel candidate in the field, state Sen. Robert Peters, finished in a distant third place, with only 12% of the vote. 

AIPAC’s biggest setback came in the affluent Chicago lakefront seat of retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), where Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss prevailed over pro-Israel state Sen. Laura Fine despite facing a barrage of attacks from an AIPAC-aligned group. But pro-Israel voters also dodged the worst-case outcome in the 9th District, with anti-Israel social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh finishing in second, and trailing badly in the district’s suburban precincts. All told, Biss won with 30% of the vote, Abughazaleh finished with 26% and Fine tallied 20%. 

And despite AIPAC’s super PAC spending nearly $5 million in positive ads to boost Chicago city Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin in the 7th District, state Rep. La Shawn Ford narrowly prevailed in the crowded primary, 24-20%. Ford was backed by retiring Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), with the congressman’s political machine ultimately making a bigger difference than the money spent on behalf of Conyears-Ervin.

Anthony Driver, Jr. and Kina Collins, the two candidates running on anti-Israel platforms, lagged well behind in third and fourth place, tallying a combined 20% of the vote. 

AIPAC managed to block all six of the far-left candidates it viewed as potential Squad-aligned lawmakers, which a source close to AIPAC told JI was the group’s top goal in the home stretch of the campaign — once it backed off of anti-Biss attacks that failed to dislodge him as the front-runner and Abughazaleh closed in in second place. AIPAC is treating that as a win as well.

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

Iran in North Africa: In Semafor, former White House Middle East Envoy Jason Greenblatt raises concerns about the expansion in North Africa of the Iran-backed Polisaro Front, with which Tehran has been building ties for decades. “By building ties with the Polisario, Iran gained a foothold in North Africa and a means of pressuring Morocco, one of Washington’s most reliable regional partners. Morocco’s cooperation with the United States includes counterterrorism coordination and broader regional security efforts. Undermining Morocco therefore undermines American interests.” [Semafor]

What Tulsi Believes?: The Atlantic’s Shane Harris considers the questioning Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has in the past opposed U.S. military action in Iran, may face on Capitol Hill today following the resignation of National Counterterrorism Center head Joe Kent over the Trump administration’s Iran strategy. “The entry of the United States into the very war that Gabbard has long opposed raises uncomfortable questions. How does Gabbard herself feel about the decision to go to war? Does she share Kent’s view that he could not ‘in good conscience’ support a war that, by his account, was predicated on misleading information? These are narrow versions of the big question that has dogged Gabbard for weeks: Why is someone who built her political identity on opposition to ‘regime-change wars’ still serving in this administration?” [TheAtlantic]

Angst in Amsterdam: In Tablet, Rabbi Pini Dunner reflects on recent attacks on Jewish institutions around the world, including a Jewish school (cheidar) in Amsterdam founded by his late grandfather, a Holocaust survivor who fought with the Dutch Jewish resistance. “My grandfather believed that the only answer to hatred was to double down on Jewish life — to strengthen it, expand it, and refuse to allow intimidation to succeed. The history of the Cheider proves that he was right. The school began at a moment when many believed traditional Jewish life in the Netherlands might never recover from the devastation of the 20th century. One man disagreed. He cleared a table in his apartment and gathered five children around it. That was how the Cheider began.” [Tablet]

President Donald Trump warned that NATO allies were making a “foolish mistake” in not assisting in efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but said the U.S. did not “need or desire” assistance to do so…

The USS Ford carrier group, which has been plagued by a series of issues, including fire damage and plumbing problems, during its nine months at sea,is expected to depart the Red Sea to travel to Crete for repairs…

The Wall Street Journal reports on Israel’s systematic targeting of Iranian regime officials, an effort that includes “chasing security forces from their headquarters to muster points then on to hide-outs under bridges in an effort to disrupt their activity and show Iranians that the enforcers are being taken out”…

Iran’s judiciary said it executed a man charged with spying for Israel…

The New York Times looks at how U.S. Gulf allies under attack from Iran are increasingly looking to Europe and Australia to fulfill their defensive weapons needs, while those countries push for the Iranian regime to be, per The Wall Street Journal, “neutered, if not dismantled,” in the U.S.-Israel strikes…

Dr. Anwar Gargash, a top advisor to president of the United Arab Emirates, told Bloomberg that Iran erred in attacking the UAE and other Gulf nations, saying the attacks have pushed moderate Arab states toward Israel and the U.S. and away from Tehran…

Major U.S. airlines, including United and Delta, are extending suspensions of direct flights to Israel, upending travel plans for thousands hoping to visit the country for Passover, when the country typically sees a surge in visitors, and beyond, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…

Albania’s parliament adopted a resolution declaring Iran to be a “state sponsor of terrorism,” a week after Iran-linked hackers coordinated a cyberattack and reportedly stole personal data of lawmakers in Tirana…

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) on Tuesday urged the administration to work to free one of his constituents, Kamran Hekmati, from prison in Iran. Hekmati, who is Jewish and a U.S. citizen, has been held by the regime for nearly a year for visiting Israel for his son’s bar mitzvah more than a dozen years ago, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

Nearly all Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the administration’s “seeming lack of preparedness for the war it initiated with Iran and its foreseeable risks to American citizens and U.S. government personnel”…

Administration officials dodged questions about weapons sales to Turkey during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday, despite calling antisemitic statements from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan “atrocious,” JI’s Matthew Shea reports…

The Wall Street Journal spotlights Jonathan Gould, the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, who is shaking up the banking industry by giving the green light to crypto firms to build national trust banks…

Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who is mounting a bid for Senate, released her first ad attacking Graham Platner over past comments he made regarding sexual assault as the two engage in a heated primary to take on Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in November…

A federal judge ordered the reinstatement of more than 1,000 Voice of America employees who were laid off nearly a year ago, determining that Trump administration official Kari Lake’s efforts to dismantle VOA parent U.S. Agency for Global Media were unlawful…

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took the occasion of St. Patrick’s Day and the presence of former Irish President Mary Robinson in New York to talk Middle East politics and praise Robinson’s controversial tenure as the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, JI’s Will Bredderman reports… 

Canadian businessman Stephen Smith will make his first foray into the media market and acquire a nearly 27% stake in The Economist Group from Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild in a deal worth roughly $400 million…

The New York Times talks to members of the Dutch Jewish community about antisemitism in the Netherlands following attacks on a religious school in Amsterdam and a synagogue in Rotterdam in the last week…

Former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll is joining Code for Israel as the group’s new CEO; read our 2023 interview with Roll here…

Ben Wieder is joining the Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau…

Literary agent Albert Zuckerman, whose Writers House worked with Ken Follett, Stephen Hawking and others, died at 94…

Israeli Ambassador to Argentina Eyal Sela (center), flanked by Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno (second from left) and Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan (right), a native of Argentina, spoke on Tuesday at a ceremony commemorating the 34th anniversary of the bombing of Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires, in which 29 people were killed and 200 injured.

Lead vocalist for the pop rock band Maroon 5, Adam Levine turns 47… 

Screenwriter, actor, comedian and film executive, he is best known for co-writing the screenplay for “Jaws” and its first two sequels, Carl Gottlieb turns 88… U.S. special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism during the Biden administration, Ambassador Deborah Esther Lipstadt turns 79… National columnist with Creators Syndicate and contributor to CNN Opinion, Froma Harrop turns 76… One-half of the eponymous Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (Jerry is four days older), Bennett “Ben” Cohen turns 75… Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Howard E. Gendelman, MD turns 72… French businessman, he was the CEO and chairman of Électricité de France from 2014-2022, Jean-Bernard Lévy turns 71… Former crisis response team manager for the City of Los Angeles and now a consultant for nonprofit organizations, Jeffrey Zimerman, MSW… Former head coach of the Auburn Tigers men’s basketball team, his Hebrew name is Mordechai as he was born in the week of Purim, Bruce Pearl turns 66… Senior rabbi-elect at the New North London Synagogue, Rabbi Daniel S. Nevins turns 60… Filmmaker, writer and stand-up comedian, Jake David Shapiro turns 57… Identical twin brothers and former yeshiva students, both singers and songwriters who recorded as “Evan and Jaron,” Evan Lowenstein and Jaron Lowenstein turn 52… Actor, comedian and writer, Adam Pally turns 44… COO at Roofmart, Ariel Koschitzky… Actor known for his roles in “24” and “House of Sand and Fog,” Jonathan Ahdout turns 37… COO and chief of staff at the Jewish Democratic Council of America, Samuel Crystal… Senior business transformation consultant at EY, Michael Schapiro… Actor and television producer, best known for his role on the Netflix original series “Orange Is the New Black,” Alan Aisenberg turns 33… Israeli actor, singer and television presenter, Shahar Tavoch turns 27…

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

President Donald Trump praised Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for assisting the members of Iran’s women’s soccer team, who are in Australia competing in the Women’s Asian Cup, amid fears for their persecution should they be forced to return home.

The president had called for Albanese to grant the athletes political asylum, saying they would “most likely be killed” if they were repatriated to Iran, and later commended him for “doing a very good job having to do with this rather delicate situation,” with five athletes “already taken care of, and the rest are on their way”… 

Trump disputed reports that the U.S. is preparing to deploy ground troops to secure nuclear material at the Isfahan enrichment site in Iran, telling the New York Post, “We haven’t made any decision on that. We’re nowhere near it.” He also told CBS News that “the war is very complete, pretty much,” and the U.S. is “very far” ahead of his initial four-to-five-week timeline…

Trump has communicated to aides that he would support the assassination of Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new supreme leader, if Khamenei does not acquiesce to U.S. demands, including ending Iran’s nuclear program, U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal…

The Lebanese government has requested direct negotiations with Israel, sending the message through U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, Axios reports. Washington and Jerusalem were reportedly skeptical about the idea, with Beirut thus far failing to disarm or rein in Hezbollah activities as the terror group continues to launch missiles into Israel…

NATO missile defense systems intercepted another Iranian missile heading for Turkey, a spokesperson announced today, the second time Iran has attempted to strike the NATO country’s territory…

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) threatened to impose “consequences” on Saudi Arabia for its unwillingness to join the U.S. campaign against Iran, as the U.S. evacuates its embassy in Riyadh and the kingdom continues to endure Iranian attacks, which have so far resulted in the deaths of two civilians and one U.S. servicemember. “Question — why should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest?” Graham wrote on X…

Talks to advance Trump’s 20-point peace plan in Gaza, including the issue of Hamas’ disarmament, have been at a standstill during the campaign against Iran, Reuters reports, as Gulf countries that pledged funds to help rebuild the enclave have come under fire and flight disruptions have prevented mediators from traveling…

The criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of New York today against the two Pennsylvania men who allegedly hurled improvised explosive devices toward a protest against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Saturday stated that both men explicitly identified ISIS as their inspiration, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports.

“This isn’t a religion that just stands when people talk about the blessed name of the Prophet [Muhammad],” Emir Balat, 18, told police, according to the charging documents. He also said he had hoped to pull off something “even bigger” than the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, which he noted had caused “only three deaths”…

The White House moved today to designate the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity and announced plans to impose a Foreign Terrorist Organization designation on March 16, JI’s Matthew Shea reports, in the Trump administration’s latest crackdown against Muslim Brotherhood affiliates…

A new poll from the campaign of Rushern Baker, former executive of Maryland’s Prince George’s County, found him leading the crowded Democratic field seeking to succeed retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD). Though a plurality of likely primary voters (28%) said they’re still undecided, Baker polled at 22% compared to former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn’s 15% and Hoyer-endorsed state Del. Adrian Boafo’s 3%…

Rep. Kevin Kiley of California officially switched his party affiliation from Republican to independent — he had filed for reelection as an independent, but said today he would leave the party for the rest of his term as well. The move narrows the GOP majority even further, 217-214, but Kiley said he’ll continue to caucus with Republicans, blunting the impact…

Politico looks at the flurry of independent candidates seeking to unseat congressional Republicans in GOP-leaning districts, clashing with local Democratic establishments in the process…

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider — we’ll have a profile of Dario Amodei, the Jewish CEO of Anthropic, which sued the Pentagon today over its decision to label the AI company a “supply chain risk.”

The Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to receive a classified briefing on the status of the U.S. and Israeli campaign against Iran.

The Republican Jewish Coalition and conservative magazine National Review will hold a daylong symposium on antisemitism, with remarks from Sens. Jim Banks (R-IN), Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Ted Cruz (R-TX); Noah Pollak, senior advisor at the Department of Education; Kenneth Marcus, founder of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law; Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the State Department’s antisemitism envoy; Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights; and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

Georgia’s 14th Congressional District will hold its special election to fill the seat vacated by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), with more than a dozen candidates on the all-party ballot. The district leans strongly Republican but the GOP field is split among nine candidates, raising the possibility that the Democratic front-runner — retired Army Brig. Gen. Shawn Harris — could slip into the April runoff.

• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Israel earlier today. He is set to speak at the Knesset this afternoon before having dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the King David hotel in Jerusalem.
  
• The New York City Council is holding a hearing today on the potential creation of a buffer zone around places of worship. Read our story about the proposed legislation here.
  
• Fox Chicago is hosting a debate for the leading Democrats running in IL-9, where outside spending linked to pro-Israel groups is increasingly playing a role in the lead-up to next month’s primary as state Sen. Laura Fine, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and far-left activist Kat Abughazaleh jockey for the nomination.
  
• Israeli President Isaac Herzog is in Ethiopia today for a one-day visit. While in Addis Ababa, Herzog met with President Taye Atske Selassie.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MARC ROD

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Donald Trump maintained his tough talk against Iran, reiterating that he will use force to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, even though he’s willing to explore diplomatic options to resolve the standoff.  

Trump did not — as some online had predicted — make a grand televised announcement of United States strikes on Iran during the speech. Nor did he elaborate further on his plans for the growing U.S. military might in the region, or what specifically would trigger the U.S. to utilize that military power.

”They want to make a deal, but we haven’t heard those secret words, ‘We will never have a nuclear weapon,’” Trump said about Iran. “My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terror — which they are by far — to have a nuclear weapon. Can’t let that happen.”

A number of moderate House Democrats — around a third of the Democrats in the chamber — as well as the majority of Republicans stood to applaud those comments from the president. Democrats remained largely passive through much of the rest of Trump’s nearly two-hour speech.

Negotiations between the U.S. and Iran are set to resume in Geneva later this week.

Trump also insisted again that the U.S. had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program in its strikes last June, and had warned the regime in Tehran not to attempt to rebuild its weapons programs, including its nuclear program, but it has continued those efforts anyway.

“As president, I will make peace wherever I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever we must,” Trump said. “And no nation should ever doubt America’s resolve. We have the most powerful military on earth. … It’s really called ‘peace through strength’ and it’s been very, very effective.”

In addition to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Trump highlighted the Islamic Republic’s manufacture of ballistic missiles, threatening U.S. allies, troops and potentially the U.S. homeland, and its sponsorship of terrorism.

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

AI in the Gulf: In Foreign Policy, Steven Cook examines the geopolitical calculus being made by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar as the Gulf nations increasingly lean into the AI space. “If they become critical partners with some of the United States’ biggest tech companies in artificial intelligence, it is a lock that the United States will guarantee their security. The folks in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Doha will not need formal U.S. security guarantees. AI is the mother of all insurance policies. … By making themselves essential in the U.S. effort to win the artificial intelligence competition, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar ensure that their own adversaries become Washington’s adversaries as well. No geopolitical competitor is going to mess with these countries so long as the United States has a vested interest in the preservation of their current leaders. It is good to be on Team America.” [FP]

Go Slow on Iran: In The Atlantic, Thomas Wright, who served as senior director for strategic planning in the Biden administration’s National Security Council, posits that the U.S. can slow-walk its decision on whether to move forward on a deal with Iran. “The United States does not need a comprehensive deal with Iran now. In fact, such an agreement could be counterproductive. The more ambitious the nuclear concessions demanded of Iran, the greater the economic relief required to secure them. A comprehensive nuclear deal that requires Iran to abandon enrichment entirely would almost certainly involve sweeping sanctions relief. That would unlock tens of billions of dollars, reopen global markets, and offer the regime a path out of isolation. Paradoxically, it could provide a lifeline just as internal pressures are mounting. A ‘zero enrichment’ deal could have the unintended effect of prolonging the very system it seeks to constrain.” [TheAtlantic]

Not Very Catholic of Them: The Free Press’ Peter Savodnik, reflecting on his conversations at the recent convening of the newly created Judeo-Christian Zionist Congress, raises concerns about the rise in antisemitism among younger members of the Catholic Church. “The new antisemitism, Catholics I spoke with said, seemed to be a function of the new digital meme culture — fractured, algorithmic, always blurring the dotted line between the earnest and the faux-earnest. And it had a way, with all that content, all those words and unverifiable statements and carefully edited clips, of making the uninitiated feel as if they knew something, had been granted access to some eternal truth that had somehow eluded the older, wiser, more knowledgeable.”[FreePress]

The U.S. sent a deployment of a dozen advanced F-22 Raptor jets to Israel as part of the buildup of American aerial assets in the region; meanwhile, Iran is nearing a deal to purchase CM-302 anti-ship missiles from China…

Jacob Helberg, the under secretary of state for economic growth, energy and environment, told House lawmakers on Tuesday that the administration’s Pax Silica initiative could help pave a path toward normalization between Israel and Qatar, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports…

Somaliland’s U.S. mission praised the “warm welcome” its representative received this week at the AIPAC Congressional Summit in Washington…

Sens. Dave McCormick (R-PA) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) introduced the Senate companion bill to the Iran Human Rights, Internet Freedom and Accountability Act, which aims to disrupt the finances of the Iranian regime and its allies and expand internet access in Iran…

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) brought Paramount Skydance CEODavid Ellison as his guest to last night’s State of the Union address…

Warner Bros. Discovery said that Paramount’s new offer — $31 per share — to purchase the media company may best the offer made by Netflix, which had been in advanced talks to acquire Warner Bros. before Paramount made a hostile takeover bid for the company…

Dovid Efune, who with Axel Springer is attempting to purchase the Telegraph Media Group, sent a letter to RedBird, which is overseeing the sale, saying that his consortium would improve its initial offer…

eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher interviews outgoing B’nai B’rith International CEO Dan Mariaschin about his nearly four decades atop the Jewish organization…

AppleTV picked up the Israeli series “Unconditional” and will begin airing the thriller series in May…

Israeli actress Shira Haas has signed onto the film adaptation of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale; Haas will star alongside Elle and Dakota Fanning in the film, which follows a pair of sisters in German-occupied France during World War II…

Israeli web intelligence firm Nimble raised $47 million in a Series B financing round led by Norwest…

Israel reportedly warned Lebanon that the country would be hit hard if Hezbollah joins any Iranian military action targeting the Jewish state…

Politico spotlights Reza Pahlavi as the exiled Iranian crown prince works to elevate his profile and draw support for potential day-after leadership of Iran should the regime collapse…

Israeli singer Yishay Ribo postponed his U.S. tour shortly before he was set to depart Israel, telling ticketholders that the postponement was due to “the situation and the high level of alert in Israel”…

A University of Haifa student swimming off the coast of Israel discovered a centuries-old iron sword believed to date back to the Crusades… 

The Netherlands summoned the Iranian ambassador in Amsterdam over an incident involving the seizure of a Dutch diplomat’s luggage at Tehran’s airport last month…

The New York Times spotlights ADNOC and its managing director, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, as the United Arab Emirates’ national energy company seeks to expand beyond oil and into natural gas, chemicals and renewables…

Cheryl Stumbo, who was injured in a 2006 shooting at the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, died at 63…

Susan Leeman, a pioneer in the field of neuroendocrinology, died at 95…

Brothers and Team USA hockey players Jack Hughes (left) and Quinn Hughes, fresh off their gold-medal victory over Canada at the Olympics over the weekend, attended last night’s State of the Union address in Washington.

Actress best known for her roles in NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” and Fox’s “Boston Public,” Rashida Jones turns 50…

Former talk show host, Sally Jessy Raphael (born Sally Lowenthal) turns 91… Owner of both the MLB’s Chicago White Sox (since 1981) and the NBA’s Chicago Bulls (since 1985), Jerry M. Reinsdorf turns 90… Former president of the Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore, EVP of the UJA-Federation of New York and first-ever CEO of United Jewish Communities, Stephen Solender turns 88… Science and medicine reporter for The New York Times and author of six books, Gina Bari Kolata turns 78… Former CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Steve Gutow turns 77… Jerusalem-based attorney and chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel, Marc Zell turns 73… Former Israeli minister of foreign affairs and chief of the general staff of the IDF, Gabi Ashkenazi turns 72… Opinion columnist for The New York Times since 2016, after serving as the paper’s editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal turns 70… Former VP of communications at CNN, Barbara Levin… Policy editor at The Bulwark, Mona Charen Parker turns 69… CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Buffalo from 2015-2024, now a senior advisor there, Rob Goldberg… U.S. ambassador to Israel from 2021-2023, Thomas Richard Nides turns 65… Mayor of Burlington, Vt., from 2012-2024, Miro Weinberger turns 56… Founder of “News Not Noise,” she was previously the chief White House correspondent for CNN, Jessica Sage Yellin… Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, she is now VP of product content engineering for Meta, Anne Elise Kornblut turns 53… Co-founder of Singapore-based Alchemist Travel, Lauren Raps… Comedian, actress and writer, Chelsea Joy Handler turns 51… Managing director of Covenant Wines in Berkeley, Calif., Sagie Kleinlerer… Former assistant director at San Francisco-based EUQINOM Gallery, Lyla Rose Holdstein… Founding partner of Parallel Capital and board chair of the Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles, Guy Lipa… Actor best known for his role in Fox’s “Malcolm in the Middle,” Justin Berfield turns 40… Born in Tel Aviv, raised in Arizona, now a business correspondent for CNN, Hadas Gold turns 38… 2013 U.S. national figure skating champion, now a VP at Franklin Templeton, Maxwell Theodore “Max” Aaron turns 34… Julie Goldman… Founder of Ramah in the Rockies and former chairman of National Jewish Health, David Engleberg…

• The Trump administration is convening its Board of Peace today in Washington. Among those attending the gathering are Argentine President Javier Milei, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Belarus Foreign Minister Maxim Ryzhenkov and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. More below.
• Jewish Federations of North America CEO Eric Fingerhut will deliver the inaugural “State of the Jewish Union” address at the organization’s Washington headquarters.
• The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is holding a daylong public briefing today on antisemitism on campus. Speakers include Jewish Council for Public Affairs CEO Amy Spitalnick, Louis D. Brandeis Center founder Kenneth Marcus, National Jewish Advocacy Center CEO Mark Goldfeder, law professor Eugene Volokh and The George Washington University Law School’s Matt Nosanchuk.
• The National Governors Association kicks off its annual Washington summit today.
• Minister of Economic Affairs at the Israel Embassy in Washington Noach Hacker is speaking at the Hudson Institute today, where he will sit with Hudson’s Mike Doran for a conversation about U.S.-Israel economic ties.
• French President Emmanuel Macron, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei are attending the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, India, that kicked off earlier today.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

High-level foreign officials, top diplomats and heads of state will gather in Washington today for the first in-person convening of the Trump administration’s Board of Peace — as U.S. military assets flow into the Middle East and President Donald Trump mulls a potentially weekslong sustained military campaign in Iran.

The gathering, ostensibly focused on the disarmament of Hamas and the establishment of a peace-aligned administration in the Gaza Strip, comes as the U.S. moves dozens of fighter jets and support aircraft to the region — reportedly the largest buildup in military air power since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

It’s a split screen befitting the president — who said at his inauguration last year that his “proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker,” and who has claimed success in negotiating an end to numerous conflicts, as well as the release of the remaining Israeli hostages from Gaza last year — even as the U.S. has used force to enact political change, such as in Venezuela.

But a U.S. operation in Iran would differ significantly from what took place in Venezuela last month. In the place of ousted President Nicolás Maduro is Delcy Rodríguez, the former vice president who is now working with the Trump administration. No such natural successor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei exists. Behind the supreme leader is a laundry list of equally — if not more — radical hard-liners eager to take the ailing Khamenei’s place. Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed shah of Iran, who has spent most of his life living in exile, has sought to return to Iran to usher the Islamic Republic into a new democratic era — but does not appear to have the on-the-ground support as well as enough legitimacy among Iran’s vast diaspora community. 

The Trump administration continues to signal publicly that it wants to find a diplomatic resolution to the situation in Iran, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying as much at yesterday’s press briefing. 

But the White House is continuing to move forward with preparations for a military confrontation, which could include anything from targeted strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities to a move toward regime change. Trump met on Wednesday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to discuss options for Iran.

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

School of Hope: The New York Times’ David Halbfinger and Bilal Shbair spotlight the Academies of Hope network of private schools operating in Gaza, the brainchild of a Palestinian American doctor that is primarily funded by Jewish donors, which provides peace-focused education for 9,000 Palestinian students across five campuses. “Operating schools in any war zone is hard enough, and schools across the enclave are struggling to rebuild. But Dr. Hasan has compounded his challenges. He revamped a much-criticized national curriculum and worked to keep Hamas from endangering his schools. He also verifies that none of his staff have ties to militant groups, a charge Israel has leveled against the United Nations agency caring for Palestinians in Gaza and some international aid groups.” [NYTimes]

Poison PEN: In Tablet, Ari Ingel, executive director of the Creative Community for Peace, raises concerns about PEN America’s commitment to free speech, weeks after the literary organization walked back its condemnation of the cancellation of an event by an Israeli comedian. “The pattern has been consistent: They listen, offer no meaningful response, and then double down on a hostile anti-Zionist and anti-Israel posture. In doing so, PEN America has helped legitimize antisemitic discrimination at a moment when antisemitism in the United States is at historic levels. This is not an isolated failure of judgment, but a structural rot in the organization, one that reflects leadership choices, institutional culture, and a governing board that has failed to intervene.” [Tablet]

Sports Talk: The Hollywood Reporter’s Steven Zeitchik reflects on the recent sports successes of Israeli NBA star Deni Avdija and Israel’s first Olympic bobsled team, juxtaposed with the pushback they’ve faced from Israel critics. “But the sight of a Jew excelling in sports is even more than a bit of representational inspiration. So much of antisemitism, historic and resurgent, is bound up with demeaning Jews as genetically inferior — at the top line with Hitler and those infamous Olympics 90 years ago but also much more casually, in easy jokes and schoolyard assumptions, in the implication that genetic makeup makes Jews less athletic.” [HollywoodReporter]

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and the Israel Airports Authority disputed Tucker Carlson‘s claim that he was detained and interrogated by Ben Gurion Airport security while at the airport for an interview with the ambassador; the IAA said that “Carlson and his party were politely asked a few routine questions, in accordance with standard procedures applied to many travelers” and that the questioning took place “in a separate room within the VIP lounge solely to protect their privacy and to avoid conducting such a discussion in public”…

Democratic Majority for Israel’s PAC announced its endorsement of 11 congressional candidates, including Cait Conley in NY-17, Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti in PA-8, Janelle Stelson in PA-10, and former Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) in VA-2; the group also announced it is backing Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller in IL-2 and former Rep. Melissa Bean in IL-8, but is staying out of the contentious IL-9 Democratic primary, where AIPAC’s super PAC is backing state Sen. Laura Fine…

A Tennessee man who saved more than 200 Jewish soldiers under his command at a Nazi POW camp in Germany will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by the White House for his efforts; Roddie Edmonds, who was taken captive during the Battle of the Bulge, famously refused to identify Jewish troops when asked by the camp’s commandant, saying, “We are all Jews here”…

An effort to expel Israel from the International Federation of Social Workers failed on Wednesday in a closed-door Zoom meeting; a second vote, on suspending Israel, also failed, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports…

American, Israeli and African officials gathered with little fanfare but big plans on Wednesday, coming together in Rwanda for the trilateral Kigali Security Summit on issues including technology, innovation and national security, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports…

MS NOW inked an agreement with Crooked Media that will create a new weekly show, titled “Crooked on MS NOW,” that will compile content from the podcast and media company’s shows, including “Pod Save America” and “Pod Save the World”… 

Bari Weiss withdrew from the University of California, Los Angeles’ upcoming annual Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture, reportedly citing security concerns…

Chicago and DePaul University police are investigating an incident that occurred at a cafe in the city’s Lincoln Park neighborhood in which students from three Chicago-area schools said they were harassed while at a meetup for Jewish students at the Olive & Oak Cafe near DePaul’s campus…

An Australian man who pleaded guilty to publicly inciting hatred for antisemitic remarks he made last month at a Sydney rally against immigration was sentenced to a year in jail, with the chance for parole in October…

The U.S. is withdrawing its remaining 1,000 troops from Syria, with plans for the U.S.’ decade-long presence to fully end over the next two months…

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz attended a Security Council meeting on Israel and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday, during which he defended President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, a day ahead of the board’s gathering.

Actor who played the young autistic Jacob “Jake” Bohm in the Fox TV series “Touch,” later portraying a young Bruce Wayne in another Fox series “Gotham,” David Mazouz turns 25…

2004 Nobel Prize laureate in physics, he is a professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, David Jonathan Gross turns 85… Former chairman of the board and CEO of Sony Corporation, chairman of the board of trustees of the American Film Institute, Sir Howard Stringer turns 84… Retired co-founder of integrated digital marketing agency Hawkeye / Mosaic, now known as Publicis Hawkeye, Sharon Edelman… President of the Technion Israel Institute of Technology from 2009 until 2019, Peretz Lavie turns 77… Founder and president of the eponymous Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund, she is on the boards of the NFL’s NY Giants, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Aspen Institute, Laurie M. Tisch… and also the birthday of her first cousin once removed, co-founder and CEO of Atria (a private medical institute in NYC), Alan Tisch… Managing partner of Encino, Calif.-based Hager Pacific Properties, Adam Tuvia Milstein turns 74… Former Goldman Sachs partner and then a senior executive at JPMorgan Chase, he now serves on various corporate and nonprofit boards, Barry L. Zubrow turns 73… International CEO of Taglit Birthright Israel since 2008, Gidi Mark turns 70… Novelist, essayist and short story writer, he was a winner of a 2005 MacArthur genius fellowship, Jonathan Allen Lethem turns 62… Retired U.S. district court judge, he was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy (1993-1994) alongside future justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, Gary Scott Feinerman turns 61… SVP of government relations at Las Vegas Sands Corp., Andy Abboud… Co-founder of the band Phish where he is the lead drummer and frequent songwriter, Jon Fishman turns 61… Communications director for 27 years for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), now a consultant, Kevin D. Bishop… Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, Yaakov Hagoel turns 55… Canadian media personality, conservative political activist, writer and broadcaster, Ezra Levant turns 54… Partner at InfraStrategies and senior fellow at the UCLA Institute for Transportation Studies, Joshua Levi Schank, Ph.D…. Founder of The New York Times‘ “DealBook” and co-creator of Showtime’s “Billions,” Andrew Ross Sorkin turns 49… Hollywood writer and producer, best known for “The Newsroom” (2012) and “Quantico” (2015), Gideon Yago turns 48… Jewish rapper, part of the alternative hip hop group Darshan, better known by his stage name Eprhyme (pronounced “E-Prime”), Eden Daniel Pearlstein turns 46… Writer of the “In the Know” gossip column for The Hill newspaper in Washington, where she covers Congress, D.C.’s social scene, celebrities and politics, Judy Kurtz Altscher… Founder of a Middle East NGO, Regional Organization for Peace, Economics & Security (ROPES), Ben Birnbaum… Former MLB pitcher for the Phillies (2011-2012), he now runs Big League Advance, a company that invests in minor league players in exchange for a percentage of their future MLB earnings, Michael Schwimer turns 40… Samantha Zalaznick… Tight end for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, he played college football at Harvard, Anthony Firkser turns 31… Daniel Blum…

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

President Donald Trump warned U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer not to relinquish control over Diego Garcia — an island in the Indian Ocean that hosts a joint U.S.-U.K. base, as the U.K. plans to transfer sovereignty of the larger island chain to Mauritius, while maintaining a 99-year lease on the base — because it may act as the launching pad for a U.S. strike on Iran.

“Should Iran decide not to make a Deal, it may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia, and the Airfield located in Fairford, in order to eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous Regime — An attack that would potentially be made on the United Kingdom, as well as other friendly countries,” Trump wrote on Truth Social…

Iran is also signaling its readiness for military conflict, The Wall Street Journal reports, including deploying Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval units to the Strait of Hormuz, launching cruise missiles along the coast, conducting a military exercise with a Russian warship near the USS Abraham Lincoln, testing air defense systems, hardening nuclear sites and cracking down once more on dissidents…

Israel, meanwhile, is preparing for its civilian infrastructure to be “a central arena” in a potential U.S.-Iran conflict, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports, as Home Front Command chief Maj.-Gen. Shay Klapper told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee today. Committee Chairman Boaz Bismuth said, “There is not one [Israeli] who doesn’t ask himself several times a day when there will be a campaign against Iran. The entire population and home front are preparing”…

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) dispelled rumors, seemingly spread by Saudi media, that UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed was ill or even dying after meeting with him in Abu Dhabi today: “Not only is he alive, but he is also well and as sharp as I’ve ever seen him. To those powers that feel the need to attack MbZ and the UAE for doing the right thing — you do so at your own peril,” Graham said on X.

He also called MBZ’s decision to join the Abraham Accords and “to try to integrate the region with the whole world … one of the most consequential decisions any Middle Eastern leader has made.” Graham is now headed to Saudi Arabia where he will meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom he recently told publicly to “knock it off” regarding the kingdom’s destabilizing activities in the region…

Democratic Texas state Rep. James Talarico raised $2.5 million in donations for his Senate campaign in the 24 hours after his interview on Stephen Colbert’s late-night show was reportedly quashed by CBS, Politico reports, as early voting in Texas kicked off yesterday ahead of the March 3 primary. 

CBS denied it had banned the interview, saying Colbert’s show “was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled,” which Colbert derided as a statement “written by — and I’m guessing for — lawyers”…

On the GOP side of the Texas Senate ballot, Attorney General Ken Paxton looks like the front-runner in his hotly contested primary against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), despite the GOP establishment spending more than $60 million in attack ads against Paxton, Punchbowl News reports. (And the infighting goes further: Hunt said yesterday he filed criminal charges against a senior member of Cornyn’s campaign team for allegedly doxxing a member of his family.)

Trump told reporters last night that he still hadn’t decided which of the GOP candidates, if any, to endorse, saying, “I like all three of them actually. Those are the toughest races. They’ve all supported me. They’re all good. You’re supposed to pick one, so we’ll see what happens. But I support all three”…

Democratic Virginia state Del. Dan Helmer, a key architect of the state’s current redistricting effort, plans to enter the race for the 7th Congressional District that will be created if state voters approve a constitutional amendment to allow redistricting to proceed. 

Helmer, who is Jewish and the son of an Israeli immigrant, ran for the state’s 10th District in 2024 on a staunchly pro-Israel platform, telling JI at the time that calls for conditions on U.S. aid to Israel are “incredibly frustrating.” He became the target of late-stage ad campaigns, which their backers insisted to JI were unrelated to his support for Israel, and ultimately came in second in the Democratic primary…

Humain, Saudi Arabia’s state-sponsored AI company, invested $3 billion in Elon Musk’s xAI, the company announced today. The investment came just before Musk combined xAI with his SpaceX aerospace company, giving the Saudi firm a significant stake in the major U.S. government contractor…

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for a look at how the emerging scandal involving Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) — whom the San Antonio Express News confirmed yesterday was engaged in an extramarital affair with a staffer who committed suicide — could catapult an anti-Israel Republican, who has posted videos featuring Nazi imagery, to Congress.

Our focus tomorrow will be the first meeting of the Board of Peace, which will bring several heads of state and senior ministers, including Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, to Washington. Read JI’s preview of the meeting. 

Jewish Federations of North America CEO Eric Fingerhut will deliver what JFNA is calling the first “State of the Jewish Union Address,” ahead of the president’s State of the Union next week, from the organization’s Washington headquarters.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will hold a daylong hearing on antisemitism on college campuses, featuring legal experts, former administration officials, students and Jewish communal leaders, which include Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs; Kenneth Marcus, founder and CEO of the Louis D. Brandeis Center; Erin Beiner, J Street U director; and Kevin Rachlin, Washington director of The Nexus Project.

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

As the second round of U.S.-Iran negotiations wrapped up in Geneva this morning, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state media that the parties reached a “general understanding on a set of guiding principles” and will “begin working on the text of a potential agreement.”

A U.S. official sounded a more reserved note, telling Axios the talks “made progress” but “there are still a lot of details to discuss.” Iranian officials are expected to present proposals in the next two weeks “to address some of the open gaps in our positions,” the official said.

Vice President JD Vance said on Fox News this afternoon that “the United States has certain red lines. Our primary interest here is we don’t want Iran to get a nuclear weapon. We don’t want nuclear proliferation.”

On today’s negotiations, Vance explained, “in some ways it went well — they agreed to meet afterwards — but in some ways it was very clear that the president has set some red lines that the Iranians are not yet willing to actually acknowledge and work through.”

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, demonstrated that unwillingness, posting on X as talks were underway that if the U.S. insists on prohibiting Iran from enriching uranium “there is no room for negotiation.” As the U.S. sends more military assets to the region, he also threatened to “send that [U.S.] warship to the bottom of the sea”…

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani tapped Faiza Ali as commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs today, elevating the longtime activist with ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations and anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour. Ali previously served as the community affairs director for CAIR’s New York chapter, and she and Sarsour have co-led Muslim advocacy efforts, including being arrested together in 2017…

Several Chicago-era endorsees of the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC — Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, union organizer Anthony Driver Jr., state Sen. Robert Peters and activist Junaid Ahmed — held a joint press conference today slamming AIPAC as a “pro-Trump, right-wing aligned organization” that “is rooted and based in lobbying for this right-wing Israeli government.”

Driver, a candidate in the 7th District who was just endorsed by the CPC PAC today and has not previously spoken at length about his position on Israel, said, “AIPAC is not your friend. … They are in the business of buying elections”…

U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Bill White was summoned to a meeting with Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot today after White accused the country in a series of heated social media posts of a “RIDICULOUS AND ANTI SEMITIC ‘PROSECUTION’” of three mohels who are being charged with practicing medicine without a license. 

Prévot said White’s posts “and interference in judicial matters violate basic diplomatic norms” and denied accusations of antisemitism, while Ambassador Yehuda Kaploun, the State Department’s antisemitism envoy, concurred with White…

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) told BBC “Newsnight” yesterday that he will “seriously consider” a presidential run in 2028 “because we’re in some seriously challenging times.” The former astronaut, who has recently been the target of the White House’s ire over a video in which he and fellow veterans urged servicemembers to refuse illegal orders, touted his military experience and engineering certifications as part of his pitch…

Texas state Rep. James Talarico, running in a competitive primary for U.S. Senate against Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), shared an interview he conducted with late-night host Stephen Colbert that CBS declined to run. 

Colbert said in his show’s opening remarks last night that the clip would not be broadcast because “we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have [Talarico] on the broadcast,” claiming the network was threatened by the Federal Communications Commission…

Eric Trump has invested in Israeli drone maker Xtend as part of a $1.5 billion deal in which the company, which already has a multimillion-dollar contract with the Pentagon, is merging with a Florida construction firm. Xtend was also selected this month by the Department of Defense as one of 25 companies participating in its “Drone Dominance Program”…

Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s spokesperson, is leaving her post next week, Politico reports, after becoming one of the most vocal defenders of the Trump administration’s deportation efforts…

Warner Bros. Discovery announced today it will restart talks with Paramount after initially rejecting the company’s hostile takeover bid in favor of its current agreement with Netflix. Paramount has since increased its nearly $78 billion all-cash offer, including paying the $2.8 billion termination fee Warner will owe Netflix if their deal falls through…

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for an interview with Steven Fulop, the former Jersey City mayor who is making a priority of countering antisemitism in his new role as the head of New York City’s business advocacy group.

The International Federation of Social Workers will hold a vote on a contentious effort to expel the Israeli Union of Social Workers, after some European members complained that Israeli social workers had served in combat roles during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza — a move that the U.S.-based National Association of Social Workers unexpectedly said today it resoundingly opposes. 

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee will sit down with Tucker Carlson in Jerusalem for an episode of the commentator’s podcast, as the two have been at loggerheads over Carlson’s repeated criticisms of Israel.

The Kigali Forum, a conference bringing together policy leaders and think tanks from the United States, Africa and Israel to discuss “the new Middle East,” will take place in Kigali, Rwanda.

The trial of the man accused of killing Paul Kessler, a Jewish man who was beaten and died during rival pro- and anti-Israel protests in the Los Angeles area in November 2023, is set to begin in Ventura County Superior Court.