Plus, Tirana points the finger at Tehran
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Vice President JD Vance and former President Barack Obama
Add JewishInsider on Google👋 Good Friday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we have the latest on the scrapped U.S.-Iran talks that had been slated to begin this weekend in Switzerland and on the overnight attack by Hezbollah, in violation of the just-signed memorandum of understanding, in which four Israeli soldiers were killed. We look at how Vice President JD Vance’s rhetoric around the MOU mirrors how Obama administration officials talked about the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and look at the divide among Jewish communal groups over the potential merger of the State Department’s antisemitism and Holocaust affairs offices. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, Yoav Gallant and Hillary Clinton.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: A Lebanese Zionist’s longshot bid to reshape the Middle East; ‘The single best diaspora experience’: Jewish leaders mark America’s 250th with open letter; and Ivanka Trump unveils Meta initiative to distribute AI glasses to visually impaired veterans. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- Four Israeli soldiers were killed in a Hezbollah attack on an IDF tank in southern Lebanon overnight and five others injured in an additional attack in violation of the newly implemented memorandum of understanding, prompting dozens of retaliatory Israeli strikes in the area. The incident, which was the deadliest attack on Israeli troops by Hezbollah in months, came hours after Vice President JD Vance assailed Israeli government officials — one of whom, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, warned that the Iranian-backed group would exploit the diplomacy between Tehran and Washington to attack Israel — for their opposition to the deal. Read more here.
- The escalation comes as Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) circulate a resolution among lawmakers condemning Hezbollah for its “repeated violations of ceasefire agreements” through its attacks against Israel and calling for the terrorist group to be disarmed, Jewish Insider‘s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs have learned.
- Vance had been scheduled to travel today to Switzerland, where he was set to begin talks with Iran, following the signing this week of the MOU between the countries. But the trip was scrapped overnight, with a White House spokesperson saying that “the logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable.”
- Elsewhere in Washington, Bill Pulte, the Trump administration’s housing-finance regulator, takes over as interim director of national intelligence today, days after President Donald Trump postponed DNI nominee Jay Clayton’s confirmation hearing, drawing the ire of senators from both sides of the aisle concerned over Pulte’s potential access to classified documents.
- FII Priority Europe wraps up today in Rome. On the main stage yesterday, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama blasted Iran for stoking protests in the Balkan nation tied to efforts by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump to develop a new real estate project in the country. More below.
- In New York, the Jewish Food Society’s Great Nosh will take place on Sunday on Governors Island.
- The Jewish News Syndicate’s annual policy summit begins on Sunday in Jerusalem.
- Also Sunday, Orthodox Union Advocacy’s annual Attorneys Conference kicks off in Washington.
- We’ll also be keeping an eye on Colombia on Sunday, where far-right attorney Abelardo de la Espriella and far-left activist Iván Cepeda, backed by current President Gustavo Petro, will face off in a presidential runoff. De la Espriella, who has the endorsement of Trump, has also gotten support from Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, with whom he met last year in Argentina. After the votes from the first round of voting were tallied, Sa’ar posted a photo of the two and congratulated de la Espriella.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH GILI COHEN
The long love affair between Israelis and President Donald Trump, on the rocks over the last few weeks as the U.S. and Iran hammered out an end to the war, appears to be over, with humiliations mounting for Jerusalem. “I call all the shots,” not Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said earlier this month. More recently, the Israeli leader’s bombing campaign in Beirut was “vicious,” Trump said. And perhaps most humiliating of all, Trump suggested that Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa could better take care of Hezbollah than the IDF.
The Israeli public — the spurned lover who once hailed the U.S. president with billboards hung in the center of Tel Aviv reading “Thank you God & Donald Trump” — is not taking it well. Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog told JI, “President Trump, who has been a hero to many Israelis, is now openly criticized from within the Israeli government, including Netanyahu’s close circle.”
And this criticism is not only expressed behind closed doors. Channel 14, the popular right-wing outlet that promotes Netanyahu, has been criticizing Trump resolutely, with some of its anchors publicly cursing Vice President JD Vance and the president’s close advisors, White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
It was not always this way. For most of the time since Trump reentered the White House in January 2025, he has been popular in Israel, with polls consistently showing high ratings for the American president.
For Israelis, Trump is the one who brokered the hostage-release agreement with Hamas; Trump is the one who made the strikes in Iran and the bombing of the nuclear enrichment facilities in Fordow and Natanz a reality; and Trump is the one who established the Abraham Accords and is willing to expand them, giving Israelis the chance to sunbathe in the UAE, and perhaps in other countries in the Gulf in the near future. And although some won’t admit it, many Israelis also like his tendency to speak very bluntly, and crudely: a president born in Queens, full of Israeli chutzpah.
NEW DEAL, SAME LYRICS
As Vice President JD Vance takes on the role of chief defender of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding and forthcoming talks, he has begun to sound a lot like someone whom the Trump administration has lately spent a lot of time attacking: former President Barack Obama, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. Vance and President Donald Trump have both made clear that they view the MOU as fundamentally different from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Sounds familiar: But as the White House faces criticism from hawkish members of the Republican Party, the language Vance is using to defend the burgeoning deal closely resembles the arguments made by Obama 11 years ago. “If you think this is a bad deal, what is your alternative?” Vance said in an interview this week with New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. Flashback to a 2015 press conference at the White House soon after the JCPOA was announced. “I’m hearing a lot of talking points being repeated about ‘this is a bad deal,’” Obama said. “What I haven’t heard is, what is your preferred alternative?”
Read the full story here and watch a side-by-side video comparison here.
Bonus: In The Washington Post, the Hudson Institute’s Douglas Feith, who served in the George W. Bush administration, posits that Vance’s defense of the agreement resembles “the standard reassurance Western leaders over the past century have offered when they make deals of this kind with bad actors — but it has generally proved hollow.”
DEAL DISCONTENT
Jewish Republican donors and activists are voicing their strong disappointment with President Donald Trump’s newly announced memorandum of understanding with Iran, which has been met with criticism from GOP lawmakers as well as influential hawkish conservatives, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Flagging concerns: In interviews with JI on Thursday, several Jewish conservatives who supported the war expressed misgivings about the deal that reopens the Strait of Hormuz, saying that it had granted too many concessions to a weakened Iran — including waiving sanctions on oil exports — while neglecting to broach the regime’s funding of terror proxies and its ballistic missile arsenal. They also raised concerns that the memorandum of understanding with Tehran had not been favorable to Israel, a U.S. partner in the war, pointing to a term of the preliminary agreement that calls for a permanent end to military operations in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Hezbollah, a key Iranian ally.
MOU blues: Senate Republicans continued on Thursday to air concerns about the U.S. memorandum of understanding with Iran, in some cases fueled further by Vice President JD Vance’s comments dismissing the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions and lambasting Israeli government officials who have objected to the deal, JI’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report.
TEHRAN STIRRING TIRANA
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama on Thursday blamed Iran for what he described as “ruthless” cyberattacks, warning that Tehran has sowed unrest and amplified false information about environmental protests over a new luxury development project in the country from President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
Details: The project, which has been preliminarily approved, has not obtained building permits, but has drawn fierce backlash and sparked daily protests from thousands of demonstrators outside Rama’s office due to environmental concerns. “The amount of posts that have been entering there from our enemy, we have only one enemy, which is the [Islamic] Republic of Iran, and they are engaged in three years in a ruthless cyber-attack against Albania,” Rama said. “They [Iran] entered also in this game…freedom of reach is what every regime, through every propaganda, has done to go in every brain and to put the lie in the brain.”
OFFICE SPACE
Jewish communal groups are at loggerheads over the possibility of merging two related but distinct State Department offices: the special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism and special envoy for Holocaust issues. Some Jewish groups recently sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio in support of the concept of merging the two offices, while others have sent letters in recent months opposing such a move,Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
For and against: Proponents of combining the two offices say that doing so consolidates linked issues under the authority of one envoy with ambassador-rank status, while maintaining the work of both offices. Opponents say that combining the two teams would undermine and diminish the work of the Holocaust affairs envoy and risk politicizing critical work on Holocaust restitution. The reexamination of the two roles comes ahead of the expected retirement of Ellen Germain, who has served as special envoy for Holocaust issues since 2021.
PAC CONTRADICTIONS
American Priorities, a new super PAC created as a progressive counterweight to pro-Israel spending in Democratic primaries, has drawn scrutiny in recent weeks for accepting contributions from donors who have given to Republicans — even as its allies on the far left have accused AIPAC, a chief rival, of serving as a Trojan horse to advance GOP-linked interests in safe blue districts, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Follow the money: Meanwhile, filings show that the anti-Israel group has received $250,000 from a tech executive whose firm is developing AI data centers in New York State. That money has boosted two democratic socialist House candidates in New York City who oppose efforts to expand data centers. Claire Valdez, a state assemblymember running to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), and Darializa Avila Chevalier, an anti-Israel activist who is challenging Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), have benefited from over $2 million in estimated support from American Priorities in the final stretch of their closely contested primaries set for next Tuesday.
OFFSHORE ALLIANCE
The Department of Energy is leaning on Israel’s offshore gas resources and cybersecurity prowess to help an emerging Eastern Mediterranean energy alliance, with officials telling Jewish Insider’s Matthew Sheathat Israeli participation uniquely “strengthens” the newly formed coalition. Earlier this month, the U.S., Cyprus, Greece and Israel formalized the partnership, announcing the establishment of the Eastern Mediterranean Energy Center (EMEC) on the campus of Rice University in Houston.
Aims: The center will serve as a permanent hub for research, policy dialogue, technical cooperation, and public‑private partnerships focused on infrastructure, investment, emerging technologies, and regional connectivity, according to the department. A spokesperson for the Department of Energy told JI that the agreement was part of a “longstanding effort to deepen cooperation” and that Israel’s involvement in the newly established EMEC partnership is vital to the coalition’s geopolitical objectives.
Worthy Reads
Getting Going in Gaza: In the Financial Times, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton posits that the West should embrace the Trump administration’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza and the Board of Peace’s efforts in the enclave, arguing that they offer the most viable opportunity for progress. “The gleeful anticipation of failure is not just unhelpful. It is strategically self-defeating. The Board of Peace is an improbable vehicle, and the 20-point plan leaves many legitimate concerns unresolved. Governments will continue to disagree with important elements of both. But diplomacy rarely offers a choice between good options and bad ones. The international community cannot claim concern for Palestinian civilians while refusing to engage with the only mechanism currently capable of shifting conditions on the ground.” [FT]
Wrong on U.S. Aid: In The Free Press, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant clarifies the contours of U.S. military aid to Israel. “No matter where you fall on this issue, almost everyone seems to agree on the premise that American support for Israel is a donation, and that the only remaining question is how generous the benefactor should be. But that premise is wrong. It has been wrong for a long time. And because it is wrong, the debate built on top of it misrepresents to the American people what their money has actually been doing for the past half-century. … But U.S. aid to Israel is not charity. American dollars flow into American factories; American assistance frees Israeli capital for innovation; and American forces eventually receive Israeli-developed capabilities refined in real combat.” [FreePress]
Strait Jacket: In The New York Times, Ed Fishman warns that other countries will use Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz as a blueprint for exacting economic and military concessions of their own. “Even if the deal holds, Iran is poised to emerge from the war battered militarily and economically but strengthened strategically, the newly empowered gatekeeper of the world’s most important energy chokepoint. Other countries will take note — and seek their own chokepoints to exploit. … The irony is that Iran’s success at the Strait of Hormuz may set off a different kind of arms race — one in which every country searches for chokepoints to convert into money and power.” [NYTimes]
Wrong Turn for the Left: In The Atlantic, Adam Louis-Klein argues that anti-Zionism runs counter to progressive values. “How can it be that an ideology that has produced repeated acts of discrimination, dispossession, and violence now bears the mantle of progressivism in the West and has been normalized within the Democratic Party? Like Stalinism or the Khmer Rouge, anti-Zionism represents a wrong turn for the left. Anti-Zionism claims to be concerned with rights of minorities, opposition to racism, and universal justice. In truth, though, it has appropriated the language of anti-colonial liberation to justify oppression, transformed anti-racism into a racist accusation, and turned hatred of Israel into a global ritual.” [TheAtlantic]
Word on the Street
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee responded rhetorically to French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot’s comments that Israel should halt its attacks on Hezbollah by asking, “Does France get all its info from Hezbollah?” adding that “Ceasefire happens when Hezbollah stops shooting & killing”…
The New York Times spotlights the “last-minute scramble” that produced the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran; at one point last weekend, the Times reports, President Donald Trump “placed a call to a New York Times reporter to explain the deal, even as, he said, his ‘wonderful family’ was waiting for his birthday dinner to begin”…
Spotted at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago on Thursday: Former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Joe Biden; former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Tony Blinken, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff; Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, former U.S. Ambassadors to Israel Dan Shapiro, Jack Lew and Tom Nides; former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel and Karlie Kloss…
J Street is slated to host a virtual briefing for congressional staff on the Trump administration’s memorandum of understanding with Iran featuring former Biden administration special envoy for Iran Rob Malley, who was suspended from his State Department role amid an investigation over his handling of classified materials, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
The Associated Press projected Washington, D.C., Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, a democratic socialist, to win the city’s Democratic mayoral primary, shortly after former Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie conceded…
A federal grand jury indicted a Florida man facing hate crime charges over a foiled plot to attack Jewish employees of a pro-Israel nonprofit organization…
Lion Raisins condemned the recent antisemitic and racist behavior by Bruce Lion, one of the company’s heirs, who was arrested last week on charges of making criminal threats targeting a neighbor in his Pacific Palisades, Calif., community who is a rabbi; Lion, who was charged with three felony hate crimes, faces up to nine years in prison if convicted…
The New York Times Magazine does a deep dive into the term “goyslop,” which was popularized as an antisemitic trope by the far right and has increasingly become part of the discourse among the Zoomer generation…
Police in Canada arrested a 19-year-old man in connection with a shooting in March targeting the U.S. consulate in Toronto…
The U.K. government is pledging £1 million to support the Jewish Museum London; U.K. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the funding would go to sharing the “stories, the connections and the understanding that are the basis of a cohesive society and the future of our country”…
U.K. Labour party member Andy Burnham won a special parliamentary election, positioning the Greater Manchester mayor to mount a challenge to Prime Minister Keir Starmer…
The Koum Family Foundation donated $36 million to Los Angeles’ Milken Community School, one of the largest non-Orthodox Jewish day schools in the country, as part of a major capital campaign, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports…
Shalev Hulio and Sebastian Kurz’s Israeli AI cybersecurity firm Dream, whose technology works to protect governments against cyberattacks, raised $260 million, at a $3 billion valuation, in a private round of funding…
Pic of the Day
Tens of thousands of people participated in this week’s annual pilgrimage to the grave of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, in Queens, N.Y., to mark the 32nd anniversary of his death yesterday.
Birthdays
Singer-songwriter known as Jeryko, Yaniv Hoffman turns 35 on Sunday…
FRIDAY: Attorney, investment banker, film producer and former deputy mayor of NYC, Kenneth Lipper turns 85… Rabbi emeritus of Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick, N.J., Rabbi Bennett F. Miller… Historian of the Jews in Muslim lands in the modern era, he won the Israel Prize in 2025 for Jewish history, Yaron Tsur turns 78… Retired president and CEO of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, he is now the president of American Jewish University, Jay Sanderson turns 69… Inna N. Zalevsky… Former director of communications for Kings Bay Y, Adrienne M. Knoll… Member of the European Jewish Parliament for Latvia, Valery Engel, Ph.D. turns 65… Physician specializing in reproductive endocrinology and infertility, Jessica Rosenberg Brown, MD… Co-founder of Centerview Partners, a boutique investment bank based in NYC, Blair Effron turns 64… Singer-songwriter, actor and television personality, she was a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers at the age of 18, Paula Abdul turns 64… Former member of Knesset for the Zionist Union party, in the 1990s she was an assistant legal advisor to then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin turns 56… Human rights activist and advocate for women and minorities in Iran, Marjan Keypour Greenblatt… Co-founder of nine venture-backed companies in the telecom, high-tech, pharmaceuticals, energy, water and biotechnology industries, Andrew T. Perlman turns 51… Consul general of Israel to the Southeastern United States, Eitan Weiss… Staff writer at The New Yorker, Isaac Chotiner… Director of affinities and major gifts at the Minneapolis Jewish Federation, Tslil Shtulsaft… Founder of JSwipe, a Jewish dating app created in 2014, David Austin Yarus… Retired rhythmic gymnast from Israel who competed in the 2008 (Beijing), 2012 (London) and 2016 (Rio) Olympics, Neta Rivkin turns 35… VP at Jewish Federations of North America, Anna Langer… COO at Lightning Inspiration, Alex Jakubowski… Organization director at Senate Leadership Fund & One Nation, Cydney Couch… Singer, popular on video and streaming services, known as Skye for short, Daniel Skye turns 26… Vice president for education at the American Jewish Committee and director of its Center for Education Advocacy, Laura Shaw Frank…
SATURDAY: Weston, Fla., resident Harold Kurte turns 97… Former member of Knesset for the Meretz party, Ran Cohen turns 89… Owner of Schulman Small Business Services in Atlanta, Alan Schulman… Detroit-based pawnbroker, reality TV star, author and speaker, Leslie “Les” Gold turns 76… Chef, baker and author of eight books, she popularized sourdough and artisan breads in the U.S., Nancy Silverton turns 72… Writer of the “Bully Pulpit” Substack from Booksmart Studios, Bob Garfield turns 71… Former assistant managing editor for politics at NBC News, now an adjunct professor at the University of Florida and FIU, Gregg Birnbaum… Co-founder of Brilliant Detroit (helping children out of poverty) and owner of Riverstone Communities, James Bellinson… Rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University and rabbi of Congregation Ohr HaTorah in Bergenfield, N.J., Rabbi Zvi Sobolofsky turns 61… Israeli-American screenwriter, film director, writer and producer of 20 films, Boaz Yakin turns 60… Senior legal affairs reporter at Politico, Josh Gerstein… Governor of Pennsylvania, one of three current Jewish governors that are named Josh, Joshua David Shapiro turns 53… U.S. Sen. Eric Stephen Schmitt (R-MO) turns 51… Singer, songwriter and hazzan, he is a co-founder of the band Moshav, Yehuda Solomon turns 49… Senior program director of civic initiatives at The Teagle Foundation, Tamara Mann Tweel, Ph.D…. Israeli author of crime and thriller books that have sold more than 2.5 million copies in more than 20 languages, Mike Omer turns 47… Journalist, blogger and EMT in NYC, formerly editor for Gawker and director of public relations for the Village Voice, Maggie Shnayerson turns 45… EVP of Moxie Strategies, Pearl Gabel… French-Israeli singer and songwriter, Amir Haddad turns 42… Deputy communications director in the Trump 45 White House, now head of corporate affairs at Standard Industries, Josh Raffel… Jennifer Bernstein… Photographer, producer and digital strategist, she is a supervising producer at HardPin, Sara Pearl Kenigsberg… Writer, director, comedian, YouTuber, podcaster and mental health advocate, Allison Beth Raskin turns 37… Team captain of Maccabi Tel Aviv of the Israeli Basketball Premier League and the EuroLeague, John DiBartolomeo turns 35… Chief campus and culture officer at Hillel Ontario, Bev Shimansky Ades… Development Director at Ashkenaz Foundation, Jaime Reich…
SUNDAY: Former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, she is the mother-in-law of Chelsea Clinton, Marjorie Margolies turns 84… Investment banker, he was the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador in the Bush 43 administration, Charles L. Glazer turns 83… Philanthropist, she is vice chair of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Ingeborg Hanna Rennert… British businessman, co-founder with his brother Charles of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi which became the largest in the world, appointed to the House of Lords in 1996, Baron Maurice Saatchi turns 80… U.K. Cabinet minister in both the Thatcher and Major governments, Sir Malcolm Leslie Rifkind turns 80… Retired creditors rights attorney in the Chicago area, David Stephen Miller… Retired senior editor and writer at The Washington Post for 33 years, now chief editor at The Reis Group, Peter Perl… Member of the Knesset since 2013 for the Yesh Atid party, Mickey Levy turns 75… Susan Gutman… CEO of Amir Development Company in Beverly Hills, he is a member of the national council of AIPAC, Keenan L. Wolens… Punk rock singer and songwriter, known as the Gangsta Rabbi, Steve Lieberman turns 68… Washington Institute director and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, David Makovsky turns 66… Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, David L. Marcus… Co-founder and executive editor of Axios since 2016, Mike Allen turns 62… National education writer for The Washington Post, Laura Meckler… Founder and leader of Beautifully Jewish, Tanya Rebecca Singer… Actor, singer and entrepreneur, who now raises awareness about amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Aaron Scott Lazar turns 50… Yale Law School graduate, journalist and author, Abigail Krauser Shrier turns 48… Public affairs consultant based in Manhattan, Sam Nunberg turns 45… Co-founder and former CEO of Kaggle, a data science platform acquired by Google in 2017, Anthony Goldbloom turns 43… Former member of the Knesset where she was the first-ever Druze woman, she then became a Jewish Agency shlicha to Washington, Gadeer Kamal Mreeh turns 42… Head of Communications for Paramount+, Jacqueline (Jackie) Berkowitz… Chief of staff to the chairman and CEO at Saban Capital Group, Amitai Raziel… Award-winning Israeli classical pianist, Boris Giltburg turns 42… Executive director at Hunter Hillel, Merav Fine Braun… Editor for the global programming team at CNN, Madeleine Morgenstern… Singer-songwriter and actor, known by his mononym Max, Maxwell George Schneider turns 34…
Plus, CNN terms 'Palestinian-Israeli towns'
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
CIA Director John Ratcliffe arrives to the U.S. Capitol for a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense closed hearing titled "A Review of the President's FY2026 Budget Request for the Intelligence Community," on Tuesday, June 17, 2025.
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on Iran’s second ballistic missile strike on Beersheba in as many days, and cover CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s suggestion that Iran is like a football team nearing the 1-yard line in its quest for a nuclear weapon. We report on a Democratic primary between a DSA candidate and a more moderate challenger in South Brooklyn, and talk to Rep. Randy Fine, the newest Jewish member of Congress. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Max Miller, Josh Kesselman and Edan Alexander.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: Persian Jews in the U.S. watch Israeli strikes on Iran and dare to hope; How a Mediterranean vacation destination for Israelis turned into a displaced persons hub; and Leonard Lauder, who supercharged his family’s cosmetics firm and became an arts patron, dies at 92. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- President Donald Trump is convening the National Security Council at 11 a.m. as senior U.S. officials mull American involvement in what has been to date a conflict between Israel and Iran.
- Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is meeting for nuclear talks today in Geneva with his counterparts from France, Germany and the U.K. The European delegation is also set to meet with the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas.
- The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Anna Borshchevskaya, Michael Knights, Farzin Nadimi and Assaf Orion are headlining a virtual event this afternoon focused on the Israel-Iran war.
- The Jewish Democratic Council of America is hosting a briefing on the Israel-Iran war with Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Adam Smith (D-WA) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).
- Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter is appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S melissa weiss
On Thursday, NBC News reported a claim from Iran’s Ministry of Health that “over 2,500 injured people were treated in public and university hospitals, with 1,600 discharged and about 500 still hospitalized.” Earlier this week, CBS News reported 224 Iranians were dead from Israeli airstrikes, also attributed to Iran’s Ministry of Health.
There is no free press in Iran, and journalists have been arrested and imprisoned simply for practicing journalism in the Islamic Republic. There is no real way to verify the Iranian Health Ministry’s numbers, and so many journalists report them, unscrupulously.
In a fast-paced, constantly evolving news environment, accuracy is paramount. The ability to try to authenticate a statistic by attributing it to an official government source, while knowing that the source is unreliable, can serve as the basis for an inaccurate narrative with wide-ranging effects.
An ABC News report from earlier this week on violence near humanitarian aid distribution sites in Gaza leads with the headline “More than 30 killed at controversial foundation’s aid distribution sites in Gaza: Health officials,” giving an air of legitimacy to the claim — even though a reader would have to move down to the story before learning that those health officials came from the “Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health.” And nowhere in the story does ABC News note that the Gaza Health Ministry doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The inclination to publish talking points and statistics from terror groups and regimes incentivizes a playbook for malign actors — from Iran to the Houthis to Hamas — to provide misleading casualty figures for the media to carry that lack the intricacies and nuances necessary in such reporting.
ISRAEL-IRAN WAR, DAY 8
An Iranian missile struck Beersheba, the largest city in southern Israel, for the second consecutive day on Friday, hours after President Donald Trump said he would decide in the next two weeks whether to join Israel in striking the Islamic Republic, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. The IDF unsuccessfully attempted to intercept the surface-to-surface missile from Iran, which injured seven and left a crater at the blast site and damage to buildings in the area of Beersheba’s HiTech Park. One of the sites reportedly damaged is Microsoft’s office in Beersheba, which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed worked in “close collaboration with the Israeli military” and was “part of the system supporting aggression, not merely a civilian entity.”
Trump’s timeline: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that Trump would take up to two weeks to decide if the U.S. will join Israel’s operation against Iran. Key components of Iran’s nuclear program are in a facility in Fordow built under a mountain, and experts said Israel does not have the capability to destroy it from the air, while the U.S. has Massive Ordinance Penetrators and B-2 heavy stealth bombers, which are thought to be have the capacity to destroy it. “I have a message directly from the president, and I quote, ‘Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,'” the press secretary said at a White House briefing.
THE RED ZONE
CIA Director John Ratcliffe has told colleagues behind closed doors he believes Iran is actively working toward building a nuclear weapon, comparing the claim that Tehran isn’t working on building a nuclear weapon to the idea that football players at the 1-yard line would not attempt to score a touchdown, per CBS News, citing an unnamed U.S. official, Jewish Insider’s Jake Schlanger reports.
Background: Ratcliffe’s reported comments function as a rebuke of other U.S. intelligence assessments that Iran is not actively developing a nuclear weapon, in spite of its accelerating efforts to amass stockpiles of highly enriched uranium in violation of nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty commitments and construction of ballistic missiles with which a nuclear weapon could be launched.
language choices
After an Iranian ballistic missile struck a home in the northern Israeli city of Tamra, killing a woman, her two daughters and her sister-in-law, news outlets faced an additional challenge beyond the sober responsibility of covering a tragic loss: choosing what language to use to describe these women and their ethnic identity, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Media matters: Tamra is an Arab town, with a history dating back hundreds of years. When Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited on Wednesday, he talked about the “shared society of Jews and Arabs” in Israel that “believe in our common life together,” and described the victims as “Muslim women.” Most news reports — in major international outlets including the Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal — referred to Tamra as either an “Arab-Israeli city” or an “Arab town in Israel.” CNN, however, chose a different word for Tamra, a city that is firmly inside Israel’s original 1948 borders: Palestinian. “Iranian strikes expose bomb shelter shortage for Palestinian towns inside Israel,” read one headline from this week. The accompanying article described Tamra’s residents as “Palestinian citizens of Israel.” Another story called Tamra a “Palestinian-Israeli town.”
Label politics: “There’s a growing trend going on in the past, I want to say 10, maybe 20, years, of people who are saying, ‘We are going to reclaim our identity as Palestinians, and we’re not going to be ashamed to call ourselves Palestinians,’” said Yasmeen Abu Fraiha, a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School who is completing a fellowship at Harvard Medical School. She counts herself among that trend: She didn’t use the term “Palestinian citizen of Israel” to describe herself until her late 20s, after she studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
More from CNN: In a segment about Tucker Carlson published yesterday, one of the most vocal critics of the U.S.-Israel relationship, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan described Carlson as “a frequent supporter of Israel,” and stated that “U.S. intelligence suggests that Iran is years away from a nuclear bomb.”
ROAD RAGE
Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), one of four Jewish Republicans in the House, said on Thursday that his car was run off the road by a pro-Palestinian activist who threatened his and his family’s lives, earlier in the day, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
What happened: Miller said in the video that on his way to work in his district on Thursday morning, an “unhinged, deranged man” leaned on his car horn and ran Miller off the road “when he couldn’t get my attention, to show me a Palestinian flag, not to mention ‘death to Israel, death to me’ — that he wanted to kill me — and my family.” He explained in the X post that the man threw a Palestinian flag out of his car before driving off and threatened his life and his family’s lives. Miller did not specify what the individual said. Miller said that he had reported the incident to local and U.S. Capitol Police, and that the individual had been identified and would face consequences.
COUNCIL CLASH
In recent years, Jewish and pro-Israel activists in New York City have been successful in defending favored incumbents while boosting candidates in open-seat local races. But they have struggled to go on the offensive against far-left Israel critics on the City Council aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, which has gained prominence in some districts. Now, however, some Jewish community activists and pro-Israel strategists are expressing optimism that a competitive City Council election in southern Brooklyn could be their best pick-up opportunity in next week’s citywide primaries, delivering a possible upset that has so far proved elusive at the local level, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
The players: In one of the city’s most hotly contested local races, Alexa Avilés, a two-term councilmember backed by the DSA, is facing a formidable challenge from Ling Ye, a moderate former congressional staffer making her first bid for elective office with a focus largely on public safety. The race is playing out in a redrawn district that now includes more moderate constituents in Dyker Heights who are likely less receptive to reelecting a socialist, strategists say, fueling hopes among allies of Ye eager to pick off an incumbent whose hostility to Israel while in office has rankled Jewish leaders.
A FINE MISSION
Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) believes that he was sent to Congress, at least in part, to take a leading role in fighting for the Jewish community against antisemitism. Fine, during a lengthy interview with Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod in his congressional office earlier this month, said he sees himself as having a mostly unique ability among House members to help tackle the rise of antisemitism nationwide, as one of only four Jewish Republicans in the lower chamber.
It’s personal: “I think I can play that role. I’m willing to do it. Certainly happy to share the spotlight with the other three [Jewish Republicans] if they wish to do it, but, but this is deeply personal to me,” Fine said. “This affects my children and so I understand it better than others.” Fine added, “This must be why [I’m in Congress]. This is what He wants me to do. … I think this is one of the reasons that I am here, to solve this problem, much like we did in Florida.”
Worthy Reads
Battle of Wills: The Atlantic’s Eliot Cohen considers the implications of Israel’s preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear program. “Israel’s current campaign is built around two realities often missed by so-called realists: first, that the Iranian government is determined to acquire nuclear weapons and cannot be deterred, bought off, or persuaded to do otherwise, and second, that Israel reasonably believes itself to be facing an existential threat. … It takes a particular kind of idiocy or bad faith to disregard the speeches, propaganda, and shouts of ‘death to Israel.’ The Israeli lesson learned from the previous century — and, indeed, the Jewish one learned over a much longer span of time — is that if someone says they want to exterminate you, they mean it.” [TheAtlantic]
The Case for a U.S. Attack: In The Free Press, Niall Ferguson and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant posit that the U.S. should help Israel destroy the Fordow nuclear facility in order to “shorten the war, prevent wider escalation, and end the principal threat to Middle Eastern stability” posed by Iran. “A nuclear-armed Iran would pose more than a threat to the Israeli people and their state. Its missiles could reach Gulf capitals and Europe. Those missiles could allow Iran to sponsor terror and wage conventional war with impunity. The result would be a nuclear arms race in the Gulf. By destroying Fordow, President Trump would create a new equilibrium in the Middle East and reestablish American leadership. The strike would focus solely on eliminating Iran’s nuclear arms program, but it should be accompanied by a clear message: If Iran attempts to target the United States or its Gulf allies, it will risk the elimination of its regime.” [FreePress]
Back to Begin: In The Wall Street Journal, Amit Segal considers how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has employed the “Begin Doctrine” established four decades ago that seeks to keep bad actors from acquiring nuclear weapons. “Persuading the Trump administration to support the attack was a historic diplomatic success. The ayatollahs spread their tentacles throughout the Middle East, but now Iran stands completely vulnerable. If only the free world had adopted its own Begin doctrine against countries like North Korea and Pakistan, so that a dictator’s temper tantrum couldn’t lead to nuclear winter. At least Israel has become the world’s bomb squad, a stroke of good fortune for which we can thank Menachem Begin.” [WSJ]
Word on the Street
The FBI is increasing its surveillance of Iran-backed operatives and suspected sleeper cells in the U.S….
U.S. carriers including United and American Airlines are suspending service to parts of the Middle East, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, amid heightened tensions in the region around the Israel-Iran war…
Bloomberg reports on the surprise of Arab states by the timing and speed of Israel’s attack on Iranian nuclear facilities last week; one Gulf official told the publication that it was “beneficial for his own country and the wider region to see Iran’s nuclear program set back or destroyed.” Satellite imagery indicates that Iran has made a concerted push to export oil since the eruption last week or war with Israel…
The Wall Street Journal looks at the rising financial cost of the Israel-Iran war, finding that the costs of interceptors alone can cost Israel hundreds of millions of dollars a day…
Iran is reportedly using Israeli home-camera systems to spy inside Israel and obtain better information about its missile targets…
The Washington Post spotlights Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) as the trio seek to lead the Democratic Party into the next generation; the Post describes the three as “centrist women with national security backgrounds who helped retake the House in 2018 and this year hope to steer their beleaguered party back toward winning”…
Edan Alexander, the Israeli-American citizen who was held hostage in Gaza for more than 580 days, returned on Thursday to his family’s home in Tenafly, N.J….
Josh Kesselman, the founder of the Raw rolling paper company, purchased the cannabis magazine High Times this week for $3.5 million…
The Wall Street Journal reports on the behind-the-scenes efforts that go into planning luxury weddings, ahead of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s upcoming nuptials; luxury event planner Ruth Minkowitz, whose Elite Kosher Events company works with clients in Italy, told the WSJ, “Food, plates, material, everything, it all goes by boat … You need a lot more personnel, just to schlep.”
Rabbi Leo Dee, whose wife and two daughters were killed in a terror attack in the West Bank in 2023, announced his engagement to Aliza Teplitsky…
Pic of the Day
A view of the Khatib family home yesterday in the northern Israeli village of Tamra that was destroyed in an Iranian missile strike, killing four women inside. During a solidarity visit to the family, Jewish Agency Chair Doron Almog said he hoped to connect the Arab town to a Jewish community in the United States, reports eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross from Tamra. “We have come here to be in pain together with the Khatib family. We are in pain with you,” Almog said, speaking at a mourning gathering with the family. “There is great pain and loss here. And from that pain, I want us to cultivate partnership, to cultivate love, to cultivate hope.”
Birthdays
Writer, director and film producer, he is a two-time Israeli Academy Award winner and the founder of Hey Jude Productions, Dani Menkin turns 55 on Sunday…
FRIDAY: Weston, Fla., resident, Harold Kurte turns 96… Former member of Knesset for the Ratz party, Ran Cohen turns 88… Owner of Schulman Small Business Services in Atlanta, Alan Schulman… Detroit-based pawnbroker, reality TV star, author and speaker, Leslie “Les” Gold turns 75… Chef, baker and author of eight books, she popularized sourdough and artisan breads in the U.S., Nancy Silverton turns 71… Host of “Bully Pulpit from Booksmart Studios,” Bob Garfield turns 70… Former assistant managing editor for politics at NBC News, now an adjunct professor at the University of Florida and FIU, Gregg Birnbaum… Federation leader, co-founder of Brilliant Detroit (helping children out of poverty) and of Riverstone Communities (it owns and operates over 80 manufactured housing communities in 12 states), James Bellinson… EVP of the Orthodox Union, Rabbi Moshe Hauer turns 60… Professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University and rabbi of Congregation Ohr HaTorah in Bergenfield, N.J., Rabbi Zvi Sobolofsky turns 60… Israeli-American screenwriter, film director, writer and producer of 20 films, Boaz Yakin turns 59… Senior legal affairs reporter at Politico, Josh Gerstein… Governor of Pennsylvania, Joshua David Shapiro turns 52… U.S. senator (R-MI), Eric Stephen Schmitt turns 50… Singer, songwriter and hazzan, he is a co-founder of the band Moshav, Yehuda Solomon turns 48… Senior program director of civic initiatives at The Teagle Foundation, Tamara Mann Tweel, Ph.D…. Israeli author of crime and thriller books, Mike Omer turns 46… Journalist, blogger and EMT in NYC, Maggie Shnayerson turns 44… EVP of Moxie Strategies, Pearl Gabel… French-Israeli singer and songwriter, Amir Haddad turns 41… Deputy communications director in the Trump 45 White House, now head of external affairs at Standard Industries, Josh Raffel… Jennifer Bernstein… Photographer, producer and digital strategist, she is a supervising producer at HardPin, Sara Pearl Kenigsberg… Writer, director, comedian, YouTuber, podcaster and mental health advocate, Allison Beth Raskin turns 36… Team captain of Maccabi Tel Aviv of the Israeli Basketball Premier League and the EuroLeague, John DiBartolomeo turns 34… Chief campus officer at Hillel Ontario, Beverley Shimansky… Director of advocacy initiatives at The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Jaime Reich…
SATURDAY: Former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Marjorie Margolies turns 83… Investment banker, he was the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador in the Bush 43 administration, Charles L. Glazer turns 82… Philanthropist, she is vice-chair of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Ingeborg Hanna Rennert… British businessman, co-founder with his brother Charles of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, appointed to the House of Lords in 1996, Baron Maurice Saatchi turns 79… U.K. cabinet minister in both the Thatcher and Major governments, Sir Malcolm Leslie Rifkind turns 79… Retired creditors rights attorney in the Chicago area, David Stephen Miller… Retired managing editor and writer at The Washington Post for 33 years, now chief editor at The Reis Group, Peter Perl… Member of the Knesset since 2013 for the Yesh Atid party, Mickey Levy turns 74… Susan Gutman… CEO of Amir Development Company in Beverly Hills, Keenan L. Wolens… Punk rock singer and songwriter, known as the Gangsta Rabbi, Steve Lieberman turns 67… Washington Institute distinguished fellow and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, David Makovsky turns 65… Chief communications officer at Minerva University until last month, he is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, David L. Marcus… Co-founder and executive editor of Axios, Mike Allen turns 61… National education policy reporter for The Washington Post, Laura Meckler… Founder and leader of Beautifully Jewish, Tanya Rebecca Singer… Actor, singer and entrepreneur known for his work on Broadway, television, film and concerts, Aaron Scott Lazar turns 49… Journalist and author, Abigail Krauser Shrier turns 47… Public affairs consultant based in Manhattan, Sam Nunberg turns 44… Co-founder and former CEO of Kaggle, a data science platform acquired by Google in 2017, Anthony Goldbloom turns 42… Former member of the Knesset where she was the first-ever Druze woman, she then became a Jewish Agency shlicha to Washington, Gadeer Kamal Mreeh turns 41… Communications executive at Netflix, she was previously a communications officer at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Jacqueline (Jackie) Berkowitz… Chief of staff to the chairman and CEO at Saban Capital Group, Amitai Raziel… Award-winning Israeli classical pianist, Boris Giltburg turns 41… Executive director at Hunter Hillel, Merav Fine Braun… Editor for the global programming team at CNN, Madeleine Morgenstern… Singer-songwriter known as Jeryko, Yaniv Hoffman turns 34… Singer-songwriter and actor, known by his mononym Max, Maxwell George Schneider turns 33…
SUNDAY: A leading securities, corporate and M&A attorney, he is a founding partner of the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, Martin Lipton turns 94… D.C.-based VP of Israel Aerospace Industries from 1969 until 2017, Marvin Klemow turns 88… Jerusalem-born 2009 winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry, she is the director of a research center at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Ada Yonath turns 86… Retired U.K. judge, who chaired high-profile hearings on ethics in the media, prompted by the 2011 News of the World phone hacking affair, Sir Brian Henry Leveson turns 82… Winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for physics, he is a professor at Brown University, J. Michael Kosterlitz turns 82… Justice on Israel’s Supreme Court until 2014, she was previously the Israeli State Prosecutor for eight years, Edna Arbel turns 81… U.S. senator (D-MA), Elizabeth Warren turns 76… Member of the California State Assembly until 2022, now a judge on the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, Richard Hershel Bloom turns 72… Partner at Shibolet & Co., one of Israel’s largest corporate law firms, Yoram Raved turns 69… AIPAC director for Greater Washington, Deborah Adler… Chair of the kindergarten and pre-K division of Bowman Ashe Elementary in Miami, Fla., Cynthia Rosenbluth Huss… Past president of the UJA-Federation of New York, Alisa Robbins Doctoroff… U.S. senator (D-CA), Adam Schiff turns 65… Former member of the Knesset for the Hatnuah and Zionist Union parties, Robert Tiviaev turns 64… Creator of the Android operating system which he sold to Google, Andy Rubin turns 63… Member of the Knesset for the Likud party, now serving as deputy prime minister and minister of justice, Yariv Gideon Levin turns 56… SVP at Red Banyan PR, Kelcey Kintner… Program director at the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Rafi Rone… The Economist‘s Israel correspondent and author of a biography of PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Anshel Pfeffer turns 52… Israeli jazz vocalist and composer, Julia Feldman turns 46… COO of TR Capital Management, Ahron Rosenthal… Retired MLB second baseman, he played for Team Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics and managed the team at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Ian Kinsler turns 43… Russian-Israeli Internet entrepreneur, co-founder of Russia’s largest social network VK[dot]com and Selectel network centers, Lev Binzumovich Leviev turns 41… Baltimore-based endodontist, Jeffrey H. Gardyn, DDS… Israeli Muay Thai kick boxing champion, Ilya Grad turns 38… Israeli-born basketball player with 11 NBA seasons, Omri Casspi turns 37… Former outfielder for Team Israel in the 2016 World Baseball Classic qualifier round, now a real estate investor based in Nashville, Rhett Wiseman turns 31…
Scene Last Night: The Becket Fund honored Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks at its Canterbury Medal dinner for defending religious freedom. Some highlights from Rabbi Sacks’s speech – “Every persons faith is a flame – your flame doesn’t take from mine – and together we can light the world.” — “Secular societies are much less tolerant than the religions they accuse of intolerance.” — “Religion is the root of America… Don’t believe that when you sever these roots, the tree will survive.” — “America’s great contribution was to make faith into a force for liberty.” Cardinal Tim Dolan also spoke and said, “Rabbi Sacks reminds us that “a world without religion is a world condemned to violence and tyranny.” Mark Kellner profiled Rabbi Sacks for [DesertNews]…. Chelsea Clinton’s Jewish Mother-in-law skipped her own fundraiser headlined by Hillary Clinton: Congressional hopeful, Marjorie Margolies, instead attended a local Montgomery County Democratic Party dinner in her district. It didn’t matter too much as most donors were clearly only there to show early support for a likely Hillary 2016 campaign. The event marked Hillary’s first campaign appearance of 2014. Last night’s host, Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, supported Hillary in the 2008 primary but then switched to support McCain in the general election. (more…)
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