As the Democratic Party lurches left in the run-up to the midterms — and amid the rise of high-profile, far-left Senate candidates such as Graham Platner in Maine and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan — candidates affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have gradually been making inroads and positioning themselves to win nominations in several key House races. 

This has happened without much protest or opposition from Democratic Party leadership. And given that the urban districts where the DSA-endorsed candidates have the most support are so heavily Democratic, there hasn’t been much incentive for party groups to set red lines against radicals looking to disrupt the party in these lower-profile races. 

One of the most insidious aspects of the advocacy of many DSA chapters is the demand that its endorsees cut ties with any Jewish group that recognizes the State of Israel. Some chapters celebrated or justified Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks against Israel. 

“They are trying to do in America what [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] seems to do internationally, which is to make being Jewish unacceptable in polite society,” Ron Halber, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, recently said on a webinar of D.C-area Jewish leaders. 

But despite the group’s radical views, DSA-endorsed candidates have a real shot at prevailing in several upcoming Democratic primaries in major cities. 

Pennsylvania state Rep. Chris Rabb, one of several Democrats looking to succeed retiring Rep. Dwight Evans (D-PA) in his Philadelphia district, has the notoriety of recirculating an Instagram post blaming the Bondi Beach terrorist attack that killed 14 Jewish Australians on “Zionists,” insinuating the terror attack was a false flag. (His campaign later blamed a former staffer for reposting the item.)

Rabb, who has been endorsed by many of the leading anti-Israel progressives in Congress, also recently campaigned with antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker. His far-left views and virulent criticism of Israel has alarmed Gov. Josh Shapiro, according to Axios, and the popular Pennsylvania governor has worked behind the scenes to oppose his campaign. 

Democratic sources familiar with the primary, however, suggest that any behind-the-scenes efforts aren’t having much effect in derailing the DSA candidate’s campaign. Rabb’s two leading opponents — surgeon Ala Stanford and state Sen. Sharif Street — are both mainstream Democrats and may potentially split the more-moderate vote. The primary is on Tuesday.

Next month, a similar clash between the Democratic mainstream and socialist wing of the party is taking place in New York City, where state Assemblymember Claire Valdez, who is backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York’s DSA chapter, is squaring off against Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, the progressive establishment’s favorite. 

The race, in one of the most left-wing districts in the city, which covers part of Brooklyn and Queens, will mark a major test of Mamdani’s political capital — and whether the DSA brand is more compelling to progressives than the endorsement of Reynoso by retiring liberal stalwart Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY).

Reynoso, in an interview with The New York Editorial Board, proclaimed himself the underdog in the race despite boasting endorsements from organized labor, the outgoing congresswoman, state Attorney General Letitia James and the left-wing Working Families Party line. “Zohran Mamdani is a celebrity-status, inspiring figure at the levels of AOC and Bernie Sanders. He is a movement and is deeply important,” Reynoso said.

Meanwhile, in Denver, another DSA hotbed, Rep. Diane DeGette (D-CO) faces a primary threat from DSA-backed challenger Melat Kiros, a 28-year-old attorney. Kiros has made criticism of Israel a centerpiece of her campaign, accusing Israel of genocide, and she supports an arms embargo against the Jewish state. Kiros dominated DeGette at a districtwide party convention filled with activists in March, and the congresswoman has been airing ads touting her progressive record, in anticipation of a competitive June primary.

And in St. Louis, the local DSA chapter is again backing former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), who was one of the most extreme anti-Israel lawmakers when serving in Congress, in her attempt at a comeback against Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO).

(The other major contest featuring a DSA-endorsed contender is next month’s D.C. mayoral primary, where Jewish groups have been alarmed by Janeese Lewis George’s rhetoric around Israel and antisemitism.)

All told, there could be at least four Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed lawmakers in the next Congress, with limited party efforts to marginalize the extremists from within. It underscores how fast the Democratic Party is evolving, and how quickly the guardrails that kept the party centered — and largely free of antisemitism — are falling out of place.

When a group of Jewish Democratic activists and donors convened in Washington this week for the annual leadership summit of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, the message seemed to be one of defiance: defiance against President Donald Trump, to be sure, but also a defiant attitude pushing back against some of the recent shifts within the party. 

JDCA’s primary objective is to elect Democrats. But as more Democrats have taken positions critical of or outright hostile to Israel, JDCA’s top activists made clear this week that another major concern is making sure pro-Israel Jews continue to be welcome in the party. 

“We are fighting to ensure that the views and values of Jewish Americans continue to find their political home in the Democratic Party in Michigan and beyond, and we have work to do,” Halie Soifer, the group’s CEO, said on Tuesday night. She noted that the JDCA hopes to help defeat Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a far-left candidate who appears to be rising in the polls. 

“It’s clear there’s one candidate whose views are antithetical to ours, and we want to ensure he’s defeated,” said Soifer, though she did not name El-Sayed directly. JDCA has not endorsed either of his opponents, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow or Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI). 

“We at JDCA only support Democrats, but we do not support them all,” Soifer told the summit. “We understand it’s not just about electing Democrats. It’s about electing Democrats who align with us, and this includes efforts to ensure that candidates who have espoused anti-Israel and/or antisemitic views are defeated before November.” 

Over the two-day gathering, a parade of high-profile speakers from Democratic leadership — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), along with Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD), respectively the former House speaker and majority leader — addressed the convening. Their appearances seemed designed to affirm that Democrats remain pro-Israel and committed to fighting antisemitism. 

“We have to decisively confront antisemitism from wherever it comes from,” said Jeffries. “I will always hold firm in my support for the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and eternal homeland for the Jewish people.” 

Schumer did not specifically discuss Israel but raised concerns about the increasing use of the word “Zionist” as a slur. 

“I’ve long said we must fight antisemitism wherever and whenever it appears, even if it’s in our own party. I’ll continue to do so,” said Schumer. “Today, antisemitism takes all different forms: Holocaust denialism, conspiratorial delusions of Jewish or Zionist control of the world, replacing the word ‘Jewish’ with the word ‘Zionist’ to demonize Jewish communities.”

The outgoing Democratic leaders were not as sanguine, instead offering a note of caution about how the dynamic towards Israel has shifted within the Democratic Party. 

“Always, but right now, we really have to work together to make sure that support for Israel is, without question, bipartisan,” Pelosi said. “It doesn’t mean we don’t have our differences of opinion … but it should not weaken the fact that we have bipartisan support. That has always been the tradition, and we must make sure we get through this place where we are, where there may be some doubt in people’s minds as to whether that is a value.” 

Pelosi is retiring at the end of this year, as is Hoyer, who was even more blunt: “How many of you have been anxious yourselves about rhetoric heard from some Democratic officials and candidates? We ought to be,” he said. 

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said he hoped to prove that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) does not speak for the party on matters related to Israel, though he noted with worry that Sanders’ attitude — one that is deeply critical of Israel — appears to be on the rise.

“It’s clearer and clearer to me that there is real alarm about a fundamental break between Democrats as a party and Israel as a nation, and I’m going to do everything I can to resist and oppose that break, while criticizing [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his values and decisions,” said Coons. “I’m trying to be an effective and engaged voice with a perspective that you just heard and not have Bernie Sanders be the only senator whose perspective and attitude is heard across the country.” 

Forty Senate Democrats voted last month for a Sanders-authored resolution attempting to block some arms sales to Israel, a record high. Coons said he knows those senators still support Israel’s right to exist, but cautioned that being too critical of Netanyahu can give cover to people who are actually anti-Israel. 

“I strongly support Israel’s right to exist, its right to be a Jewish homeland and a democracy, and its value to the American people as a partner and ally,” said Coons. “I think we are at risk of some of my colleagues, in trying to send a message to Netanyahu or in opposition to his policies and stances, to be misunderstood as abandoning that commitment.” 

Coons said that on the campaign trail, and on recent trips around the country, he hears “profound concern about where’s the Democratic Party going on Israel.” Some Jewish politicians who addressed the JDCA summit expressed a deeper sense of unease and discomfort about their Jewish identity, against the backdrop of rising antisemitism. 

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who spoke at a cocktail reception Tuesday evening, talked about how challenging it is to be a Jewish elected official in the current environment.

“It has become deeply, deeply complicated to be a Jew in America,” said Slotkin. “There’s not a single day that goes by for myself representing the state of Michigan that I am not feeling torn.” 

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey delivered a jolt of energy to the room with an impassioned speech about his community’s support for immigrants in the face of ICE enforcement activity, which resulted in the killing of two American citizens by ICE agents in his city in January. When a JDCA member asked him for advice on how to respond to others in the Democratic Party who have made anti-Zionism a political litmus test, he expressed concern. 

“It has been deeply concerning for me personally, as a proud Jew,” Frey said. “I am a great supporter of the endurance of our American Republic, a big believer that America should continue to exist, and an adamant opponent of Donald Trump. The same thing can apply to Israel.”

Ultimately, though, the gathering was a political pep rally — a chance for Democratic activists and donors to hear from politicians at all levels of government and gin up excitement ahead of this year’s midterm elections. Everyone who addressed the gathering all but guaranteed that Democrats would take back control of the House and Senate. 

The conversations seemed meant to ressure Jewish Democrats about both the party’s fortunes for November and its treatment of pro-Israel Jews. One JDCA activist described the group’s work as “grasstops,” which was demonstrated by the appearances from top party leaders. 

But the anti-Israel sentiment that has steadily grown within the party over the past three years is not coming from party leaders; it is driven by far-left activists. Whether JDCA has a plan to counter that grassroots energy remains to be seen — and the answer will only come at the ballot box later this year. 

An activist at this month’s Michigan Democratic Party convention in Detroit screamed an antisemitic slur at the husband of Michigan Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow, in front of the couple’s 5-year-old daughter, McMorrow revealed in a radio interview airing Wednesday.

McMorrow, a state senator seeking the Democratic nomination for an open U.S. Senate seat, is not Jewish, but her husband is and their daughter attends a Jewish preschool. The incident occurred at a convention where far-left activists also booed one of her primary opponents, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a moderate pro-Israel lawmaker. 

The third candidate in the race is physician Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive who has a longstanding hostile record towards Israel.

“At the convention a few weeks ago, there was a mood,” McMorrow said in an interview with WHMI, a radio station in metro Detroit. “They booed Haley, but there was a man who walked up to my husband and my daughter — I was not there, just my husband and my daughter, and screamed an antisemitic slur at him in his face, in front of my 5-year-old.” 

On the campaign trail, McMorrow has made a point of trying to cater to both the state’s sizable Jewish population and its large Arab population. She described herself in the interview as trying to be “the bridge,” while navigating conflicting views that she hears from voters.

“I got in an Uber the other day and unprompted, the man said to me, ‘Why is it that this country can afford to drop bombs on other countries, but we can’t feed our kids?’ There is a truth in that anger that we as a country have to figure out how we solve that,” McMorrow said.

But she cautioned that politicians and activists who are unhappy with American policy in the Middle East need to ensure their criticism does not veer into antisemitism.

“I will be the first to say, and I’ve taken a lot of heat for it — when it crosses the line into antisemitism, I will be the first to say so,” said McMorrow. “We have to make space for you to be angry and do so in a way that does not make people feel scared, truly scared, to just exist as a Jewish person in this country.” 

McMorrow has been endorsed by J Street and pledged not to accept any funding from AIPAC. But she has also taken aim at El-Sayed for his approach to the Middle East. After he announced that he would hold campaign rallies with the far-left, antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker, McMorrow slammed El-Sayed in an interview with Jewish Insider last month.

She reiterated that position to WHMI, although she said she has “no problem” with people who appear on Piker’s show if they want to try to reach his audience and push back on his point of view. 

“Bringing somebody in to campaign for you implies that you endorse that person’s point of view, and it tells your audience that this messaging is who I am,” said McMorrow, noting that the timing of Piker’s appearance in Michigan was particularly striking, just weeks after the attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield. 

Asked whether she believes Piker to be antisemitic, McMorrow said no — but added that it almost doesn’t matter.

“I don’t think that he is. I think he gets dangerously close,” she said. “I think there is justifiable anger at the ongoing war. I think a lot of what he says is uninformed and hurtful. I can’t purport to speak for what he believes in his heart, but I can tell you, for my family, a lot of what he says is really hurtful.”

Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has taken donations from a deep-pocketed activist whose group spearheaded the pro-Hamas protests that targeted a Queens synagogue in January — while the far-left candidate has at the same time paid tens of thousands in campaign funds to her son, Jewish Insider has found.

The latest Federal Election Commission filings show El-Sayed has received a total of $7,000 from Amani Barakat, the chair of Al-Awda-Palestinian Right of Return Coalition and a promoter of antisemitic conspiracy theories linking Jewish people to the Illuminati. 

It’s part of $33,550 that El-Sayed has taken in total from the Barakat family, a Palestinian-American real estate dynasty based in Southern California.

But records show the money has flowed both ways, as El-Sayed’s committee has given $10,000 a month since December to a newly formed consulting firm belonging to Barakat’s son, a philanthropy advisor with no apparent background in campaign work.

As Jewish Insider previously reported, Amani Barakat chairs the group Al-Awda, which also uses the names Palestinian Right of Return Coalition and Palestinian Assembly for Liberation. 

The group greeted Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks with a statement sending “their highest salutations to the Palestinian Resistance, the Freedom Fighters and Defenders of the indigenous Palestinian people,” and it has collaborated with numerous radical groups, including the People’s Forum, CODEPINK and Samidoun — the latter of which the Treasury Department has identified as “a sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization.”

Amani Barakat’s social media history is consistent with her organization’s extremism. She shared her organization’s Oct. 7 statement on her personal Facebook account, and made multiple celebratory posts on the day of the atrocities, including one in English reading, “When people are occupied, Resistance is justified” accompanied by the hashtags “#longlivetheresistance” and “#feepalestine” [sic].

Another in Arabic translates to “Hail, my people! My people, hail!” A third English language post declares, “This is a fight for freedom.” 

Also on Oct. 7, Amani Barakat shared a video of since-killed Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh justifying the attack, and a drawing celebrating the assault as a battle between a Palestinian David and Israeli Goliath. 

Amani Barakat also has an extensive history of social media posts amplifying or applauding terrorist leaders and activities: she has repeatedly shared videos by a Beirut-based TikTok user named Muhammad Kawtharani, who has served as a Hezbollah spokesman (though is distinct from the group’s commander of the same name); posted PFLP-branded content and celebrated its founders; and shared memes and material supportive of Hamas officials and fighters.

She has also repeatedly defended and applauded Khaled Barakat, the Canadian-based co-founder of Samidoun who was identified by both the U.S. and Canada as part of the leadership of the PFLP, which pioneered skyjacking in the 1970s and participated in the Oct. 7 assault, among other massacres. Amani Barakat and Khaled Barakat have exchanged greetings on Facebook, with Amani Barakat even suggesting they might meet up in the West Bank.

Since the start of the U.S.-Israeli military conflict with Iran, Amani Barakat has openly cheerleaded the regime in Tehran, posting an “I Stand with Iran” image, an image eulogizing assassinated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with a Quranic verse and news of a defiant statement from the Iranian foreign minister with emojis illustrating her support.

She has also lauded antisemitic podcaster Tucker Carlson for his “brave, principled journalism,” and signal-boosted antisemitic conspiracy theories claiming “Zionists” are responsible for wildfires in Argentina and naming “Illuminati and other secret Jewish and Zionist societies as the real powers running the world and fueling the ongoing war in Iran.”

The Al-Awda leader, who did not respond to requests for comment for this story, has also shared multiple posts from El-Sayed. Her $7,000 in contributions amounts to a small portion of the total funds the wealthy and sprawling Barakat family has mobilized for the Senate contender — a financial effort that also includes $4,300 from her son, Jamal. 

But records suggest that the younger Barakat has received far more from the El-Sayed campaign than he or his mother have given. The disclosures show that El-Sayed has paid at least $40,000 since December for “political consulting” to The Commonwealth Project, a firm formed in late November 2025 in Wyoming.

State incorporation documents show that Jamal Barakat created this firm in conjunction with education technology entrepreneur John R. Hall, with whom he serves as an executive at Bayan Islamic Graduate School, a theological institution with campuses in Los Angeles and Chicago.

There is no record of any other campaign ever hiring the newly formed Commonwealth Project, and Jamal Barakat’s LinkedIn profile shows extensive background in the education and philanthropy sectors — but no experience in politics.

Jamal Barakat and Hall did not respond to emailed questions from Jewish Insider about how they came to work for the El-Sayed campaign. Hall also did not respond to any queries, while Jamal Barakat hastily said “no comment” and hung up when a JI reporter introduced himself.

El-Sayed, who has labeled both the Israeli government and Hamas as equally “evil,” did not respond to questions about his relationship with the Barakat family, or he came to hire their scion’s firm.

This contrasts with how El-Sayed reacted when JI notified him that a donor and self-identified fundraiser for his campaign posted antisemitic sentiments and shared tweets on X including denial of the Holocaust.

User @Niavaran555 described themselves as a fundraiser for El-Sayed and invited Jenin Younes, the national legal director for the Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, to join a fundraiser for El-Sayed in Washington in the coming weeks or months. Niavaran said separately that they gave the “max” to El-Sayed.

After JI inquired to El-Sayed’s campaign about the Niavaran account, the user made his posts private.

“Abdul’s campaign had no knowledge of this person’s anonymous online account. Abdul condemns any and all antisemitic or racist comments made, no matter who or where they come from,” spokesperson Sophie Pollock told JI, and said that the campaign refunded in full a donation from the apparent owner of the account.

They shared a post that appeared to question whether the Nazis used gas chambers to kill Jews during the Holocaust. “1944 Hitler introducing a ‘gas chamber’…. (Topic forbidden to question/debate)….” the post reads, in reference to Israel’s new death penalty law for Palestinian terrorists.

They reposted an X post saying that “Jewish n***** treating genocide like New Years Eve,” referencing a countdown on an Israeli television news channel for a deadline Trump provided to Iran.

Niavaran also reposted a meme urging now-deceased Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to “BUILD THE NUKE RETARD.”

Numerous biographical details shared by Niavaran online point to the account being owned by Sam Zia, a travel consultant based in Washington, D.C. Niavaran said they “ran a speaker series in oxford (OxSpeaks)” and Zia was a co-founder of the group in 2023. Zia is also based in Washington, D.C., based on his LinkedIn profile.

Niavaran also said he wrote his thesis on former Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh; Zia used a picture of Mossadegh as his Instagram profile picture. Zia had donated $2750, to El-Sayed’s campaign as of the most recent FEC filings.

Good Wednesday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the state of the State of Israel as the country celebrates the 78th anniversary of its founding, and talk to Jewish Democrats in Michigan who plan to continue engaging politically, even as the state party increasingly backs radical, anti-Israel candidates. We report on a statement by the University of California, Los Angeles student government condemning a recent on-campus event featuring former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov, and talk to Sens. Adam Schiff and Mark Kelly about the future of U.S. arms sales to Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Gov. Ron DeSantis, Mark Cuban and Michael and Susan Dell.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

• President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday afternoon that the ceasefire with Iran that was set to expire shortly would be extended “until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” even as a second round of talks between Washington and Tehran remained on pause. The president said the extension was made at the request of Pakistani army chief Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose country hosted the first talks.
• Trump said that the U.S.’ maritime blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would remain in place. The Wall Street Journal reports that ahead of the first round of talks between the U.S. and Iran earlier this month, Tehran went into the negotiations believing that its drone and UAV capabilities and control over the strait gave it leverage, but found that the U.S. blockade “has chipped away at Tehran’s advantage.”
• Shortly after Trump’s announcement, Iranian boats fired on two cargo ships off the coasts of Oman and Iran.
• Senate Democrats will make a fifth attempt to pass a war powers resolution today after the vote, which was expected yesterday, was bumped.
• TheAnti-Defamation League is hosting a fly-in in Washington today, with members of the West Bloomfield, Mich., Jackson, Miss., and Boulder, Colo., Jewish communities — all of which have been targeted in antisemitic attacks in the last year — as well as the organizer of the event last May at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington in which two Israeli Embassy staffers were killed. The community representatives will be lobbying officials on the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, the Pray Safe Act and the Safeguarding Access to Congregations and Religious Establishments from Disruption Act.
• Jonathan Burke, the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing, is slated to testify before the House Financial Services Committee this afternoon on the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions. 
• Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and the Justice Department’s Leo Terrell are slated to speak at a forum on Capitol Hill focused on terrorism and religious violence being hosted by the International Committee on Nigeria and EMET.
• Elsewhere in D.C., mayoral candidate Kenyan McDuffie is holding a meet-and-greet with young Jewish professionals.
• In Pittsburgh tonight, Robert Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance Against Hate will host a unity dinner and fireside chat — featuring Gov. Josh Shapiro — for Black and Jewish college students in partnership with the NFL, Hillel International, United Negro College Fund and the Pittsburgh Steelers. 
• In New York, the City Council’s task force on antisemitism will hold its first hearing this afternoon on antisemitic hate crimes and bias.
• This morning, New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and New York City Comptroller Mark Levine will sit in conversation at an event at 92NY focused on the future of the city’s Jewish community.
• And further uptown, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) will be interviewed by Yeshiva University President Rabbi Ari Berman about her new book, Poisoned Ivies.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV

Every year, ahead of Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics releases the latest population figures. As Israel turns 78, the country’s population stands at 10.2 million, up 1.4% from last year, which the bureau said is one of the highest growth rates in the Western world. 

In the last year, 177,000 babies were born in Israel, and 27% of the population is under age 14. 

If having a baby is an expression of hope, then clearly Israelis, with the highest birthrate by far among developed countries, are an optimistic bunch. According to the CBS, 91% of Israelis are satisfied or very satisfied with their life, 96% are satisfied or very satisfied with their family and even two-thirds of Israelis are happy with their economic situation. 

That would explain why, despite the events of recent years, Israel was ranked the eighth-happiest country in the world, according to the World Happiness Index released last month. 

You couldn’t blame Israelis if they felt differently. After all, the last year was a roller-coaster of emotions. 

This time in 2025, there were still dozens of hostages in Gaza, with weekly protests for their freedom but little by way of any plan or agreement to get them out. Fighting continued in Gaza, even though Hamas’ leadership had largely been eliminated, the Houthis were regularly launching missiles at Israel and Iran was rushing toward a nuclear weapon.

Then came the 12-day war with Iran in June, with the U.S. joining for the coda to destroy much of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities. Finally, in October, the last of the living hostages held in Gaza passed from Hamas’ hands, and they were home.

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

DEM DIVIDES

Jewish Dems vow to keep fighting in Michigan, even as they question if they belong

Jewish Democrats described a “shell-shocked” atmosphere at their statewide convention in Detroit on Sunday, which saw marked hostility to pro-Israel voices within the party that were marginalized and shouted down, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Tense climate: Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a moderate and pro-Israel candidate for Senate, faced loud, sustained boos when she spoke in front of the main convention room. One person spotted an attendee on Sunday wearing a shirt that said “Resistance until liberation,” with an image showing someone wearing a keffiyeh throwing rocks. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI), a moderate Democrat representing a swing district, who is not Jewish, on Tuesday described the scenes from the convention as “deeply troubling,” and in particular criticized the party’s nomination of Amir Makled, a Dearborn attorney with a history of social media posts praising Hezbollah, for a position on the University of Michigan Board of Regents.

Read the full story here.

Further fallout: Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) also criticized the divisive behavior by Democratic Party activists at the convention, JI’s Marc Rod reports.

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SCOOP

Ex-Democratic Socialists of America official working as top consultant to Osborn, Platner

A former Democratic Socialists of America organizer has been a top advisor to independent Nebraska Senate candidate Dan Osborn and Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Background: Daniel Moraff was a longtime DSA member, including acting as a local and national DSA organizer and leader in the mid-to-late 2010s, though he said his membership lapsed in 2019 because his local chapter became too focused on internal matters. He argued in a now-deleted 2017 article that the best way for socialists to gain political power and achieve elective office would be by running in Democratic primaries.

Read the full story here.

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CAMPUS CONTROVERSY

UCLA student government condemned Hillel event featuring former hostage Omer Shem Tov

UCLA’s student government condemned a recent campus event featuring former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov, labeling the speaker selection as “selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence” and “a troubling disregard for Palestinian life,” Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.    

Council’s condemnation: In an undated letter to UCLA administration, as well as the organizers of the event — UCLA Hillel and the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies — and “affiliated campus stakeholders,” the UCLA Undergraduate Students Association Council wrote that it “condemns” the April 14 event, held on Yom HaShoah, which was titled “505 Days in Captivity: Omer Shem Tov’s Testimony of Resilience.” The council represents over 29,000 undergraduates at UCLA. 

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EXCLUSIVE

CUFI spends six figures on anti-Thomas Massie billboard campaign

President Donald Trump’s effort to unseat Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a longtime thorn in his side, got another big-money boost as Christians United for Israel Action Fund, the advocacy arm of the Christian Zionist group, announced that it is spending six figures to blanket Massie’s congressional district with dozens of billboards hitting the congressman over his opposition to the Iran war, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What it involves: “For one full month, CUFI Action Fund will dominate Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District outdoor advertising space by securing every available billboard in the district, creating a broad and highly visible message presence across the region,” CUFI Action Fund senior director Ari Morgenstern told JI. “The buy spans key communities across the district, ensuring the message reaches voters in both local population centers and along major commuter and travel routes.” The Kentucky primary election, where Massie is facing off against Trump-endorsed Navy veteran Ed Gallrein, is on May 19. 

Read the full story here.

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ARMS ARGUMENTS

Adam Schiff, Mark Kelly say future votes on Israel arms sales will be case-by-case

Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ), both of whom voted for the first time last week in favor of blocking some U.S. arms sales to Israel, said that their future positions on such votes would be made on a case-by-case basis, determined by the specific sales in question and the circumstances surrounding the votes. The two were somewhat surprising votes in favor of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) effort to block U.S. arms sales, having generally maintained pro-Israel records while in Congress, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What they’re saying: “I was, and am, strongly opposed to the war in Iran, and I couldn’t justify voting against our own supplemental funding bills, which I plan to, and supporting funding for the same war in a JRD,” Schiff told JI, referring to the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval to block specific arms sales to Israel. “I’ll evaluate each circumstance as they come.” Kelly disputed the notion that his vote had flipped, saying, “I make these decisions based on what is the current situation, and what is the vote on — I don’t make these [decisions] in a vacuum.”

Read the full story here.

Transatlantic tensions: Democratic lawmakers are expressing concern over Israel’s fracturing relationship with key European allies, while experts say the shifting dynamics could carry longer-term economic and political risks for Jerusalem, even if Israel weathers threats to unwind largely symbolic defense agreements, JI’s Matthew Shea reports. 

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ACROSS THE POND

London synagogue arsonist released on bail amid spate of attacks on Jewish community

The arsonist who pleaded guilty to attacking a North London synagogue on Saturday night was released on bail by the Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday. The 17-year-old boy, whose name has not been disclosed due to his age, threw a bottle containing accelerant through the window of Kenton United Synagogue, according to the Metropolitan Police, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. 

Details: The Community Security Trust, U.K.’s Jewish security organization, said that the building faced minor smoke damage but no injuries. It was the third such attack on a Jewish institution in London within a week. District Judge Nina Tempia granted the arsonist bail under the conditions that he live and sleep at his home address and not enter any synagogue, or he will be rearrested, The Independent reported. A second suspect, a 19-year-old male, was also arrested after the attack and had been released on bail earlier this week, the Met Police said. 

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

Barrack Going Rogue: The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board raises concerns that U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack is deviating from U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. “​​In 30 minutes at Turkey’s Antalya Diplomacy Forum on Friday, Mr. Barrack managed to counsel the Middle East against democracy, push cooperation with Hezbollah, mock the Lebanon cease-fire, call to include Iran in Lebanon talks, play down Turkey’s purchase of Russian air defenses, and threaten Israel on Turkey’s behalf. On each point, Mr. Barrack is undermining U.S. policy. Iran has no business in Lebanon’s affairs, and President Trump has been at pains to distance Iran from the Lebanon cease-fire.” [WSJ]

Poison For the Dems: In The Washington Post, Democratic strategist Ethan Wolf posits that efforts by some Democrats to engage with extremists, such as Hasan Piker, risk damaging efforts to expand the party’s footprint ahead of the midterms and 2028 presidential election. “Democrats have been here before. The party’s most successful leaders understood that expanding the tent and policing its boundaries are necessary complements, not contradictions. … Open the tent. Talk to more people. Take more communication risks. But do it in a way that affirms the truth. The left is culturally savvy, not aloof; it is scornful of anti-Americanism, antisemitism and bigotry, not tolerant of them.” [WashPost]

Gaza Lit: In The Free Press, Matti Friedman introduces the concept of “Gazology,” a literary genre that removes Hamas and its Oct. 7, 2023, attacks from discourse around Gaza and is powered almost entirely by authors with no firsthand experience. “And lastly, and most importantly, Gazology rests on the idea that the Gaza war is not just Israel’s fault, a bad decision, or even a crime, but the doorway to the dark workings of the world. It’s in the last point that a reader glimpses the battery powering the genre. Gazology is a literature of Jewish evil. Its origins lie not in journalism or academic inquiry but in the pseudosciences that have sprung up over the centuries to explain the problems of humanity with stories about the malevolence of this group of people.” [FreePress]

What War Goals?: Puck’s Peter Hamby looks at recent polling indicating that Americans are confused about the Trump administration’s goals in the Iran war. “The takeaway from that thicket of answers is that there is no consensus view among voters as to what the war is for. … Taken together, it’s an ugly messaging failure for the president and his team at the White House. An imperfect comparison: After the invasion of Iraq, regardless of whether they supported the war or not, almost 90 percent of American voters agreed that the United States would find weapons of mass destruction there. Dubya and his crew of neocons might have cooked up the evidence, but at least they sold it.”[Puck]

Word on the Street

The University of Texas’ Dell Medical Center announced a $750 million gift from Michael and Susan Dell to fund what UT officials are calling the country’s first “AI-native” medical campus. The Dells are now the first UT donors to surpass over $1 billion in donations…

Kanye West was spotted leaving the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles as the singer faces the cancellation of numerous stops on his upcoming European tour; some countries, including the U.K. and France, have revoked his entry permit, while in others, the venues and organizers themselves canceled shows due to West’s past antisemitic comments…

The Treasury Department announced sanctions targeting more than a dozen individuals and companies in Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates that assisted Iran in procuring and transporting weapons and aircraft… 

The U.S. suspended cash transfers to Iraq — including a delivery of $500 million in U.S. currency — with Treasury officials pressing Baghdad to dismantle Iran-backed militias in the country…

Half an hour before Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) was set to face a House Ethics Committee hearing recommending sanctions for a range of financial crimes, the Florida Democrat stepped down from Congress…

Representatives from the Board of Peace have reportedly met with officials from DP World to discuss the United Arab Emirates-owned company’s potential overseeing of humanitarian aid distribution in the Gaza Strip…

President Donald Trump has reportedly told aides that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is “begging” for a job in the administration — including potentially secretary of defense or being named a Supreme Court justice — when his term ends in early 2027…

Speaking at a health care summit on Tuesday, Mark Cuban, who had backed Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, said he would not support her in a future bid as she mulls entering the 2028 race… 

A number of private-equity firms and investors are expressing interest in acquiring Casey Wasserman’s talent and marketing agency, which could be valued at $3 billion, as Wasserman looks to sell the company after the release of emails earlier this year between him and Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell…

The Department of Justice announced an investigation into the University of Washington’s handling of antisemitism, citing an event by an anti-Israel group that aimed to raise funds for Lebanon; the university distanced itself from the group, SUPER UW, saying that its status as a registered student organization was revoked last year, though the group’s membership is comprised of current students…

Two IDF soldiers involved in the desecration of a statue of Jesus in a southern Lebanese Christian town were sentenced to 30 days in military detention and will be removed from combat duty; six others who witnessed the incident, a photo of which went viral earlier this week, will be summoned for further discussions…

U.N. officials convened representatives from Saudi Arabia and the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in Amman, Jordan, for a meeting aimed at de-escalating tensions…

New York magazine profiles Rabbi Eliezer Lawrence, New York City’s “most in-demand mohel,” who has built a full-time practice performing hundreds of ritual circumcisions each year across the tri-state area…

Pic of the Day

Argentine President Javier Milei (left) joined in singing the Spanish song “Libre” onstage at the 78th anniversary Independence Day ceremony, held at Mount Herzl, Jerusalem, on Tuesday. Milei also lit a torch, one of Israel’s highest honors, at the ceremony.

Birthdays

Former chief economist at the World Bank, Sir Nicholas Herbert Stern turns 80… 

Calgary-based CEO of Balmon Investments, Alvin Gerald Libin turns 95… Co-founder of Human Rights Watch, formerly national director of the ACLU and then president of George Soros’ Open Society Institute, Aryeh Neier turns 89… English journalist and former anchor of BBC Television’s “Newsnight,” Adam Eliot Geoffrey Raphael turns 88… Conductor and professor of music at Boston University, Joshua Rifkin turns 82… Former mayor of Madison, Wis., he has served as mayor three times for a total of 22 years, Paul R. Soglin turns 81… Managing director emeritus of Kalorama Partners, D. Jeffrey “Jeff” Hirschberg… Real estate developer and principal owner of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, Zygmunt “Zygi” Wilf turns 76… President and chief investment officer of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google, Ruth Porat turns 69… Four-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The Washington Post, Sari Horwitz turns 69… NYC-area accountant, he is chief financial officer at Melar Acquisition Corp, Edward Lifshitz… Chicago-based philanthropist and immediate past board chair of Ramah Camping Movement, Arnie Harris… New Zealand native now serving as the CEO of Australian-based job-board SEEK, Ian Mark Narev turns 59… Founder and editor of the data-journalism and research initiative themadad, Shmuel Rosner turns 58… NYC-based attorney, co-founding partner of Kriss & Feuerstein LLP, Jerold C. Feuerstein turns 58… Senior writer at The Forward and the author of My Jesus Year: A Rabbi’s Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith, Benyamin Cohen turns 51… Russian and Israeli public figure, media manager and an art dealer, Yegor Altman turns 51… Member of the Knesset for the National Unity party, Yehiel Moshe “Hili” Tropper turns 48… Tel Aviv-based deputy bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, Shayndi Raice… Associate VP of external communications for the Jewish Federations of North America, Niv Elis… Former president of Y Combinator and now the CEO of OpenAI, Samuel H. “Sam” Altman turns 41… Associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Zachary Krooks… Retired competitive ice dancer, Elliana Pogrebinsky turns 28…

When thousands of Michigan’s most ardent Democratic activists gathered in Detroit on Sunday for the party’s nominating convention, Decky Alexander was thrilled: 200 people were in the room for a Jewish Democratic Caucus meeting, more than double the 70 people who showed up last year in its first official gathering. 

Candidates for statewide office, from the U.S. Senate to attorney general, came by to pitch voters as activists schmoozed over bagels.

“It was incredibly energizing and affirming. That’s how the day began,” Alexander, who chairs the caucus, told Jewish Insider in an interview on Tuesday. “It didn’t end that way.”

As the day went on, Jewish Democrats were alarmed to see pro-Israel voices within the party marginalized and shouted down. 

“Our Jewish caucus brought a lot of people to the convention, and I was with many of those people who were first-time conventiongoers. They were — I would use the term shell-shocked,” said Joan Lowenstein, a lawyer and former Ann Arbor city councilmember.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a moderate and pro-Israel candidate for Senate, faced loud, sustained boos when she spoke in front of the main convention room. One person spotted an attendee on Sunday wearing a shirt that said “Resistance until liberation,” with an image showing someone wearing a keffiyeh throwing rocks. 

The main reason that activists gathered that day was to vote to nominate candidates for a range of positions, including attorney general and secretary of state, distinct from other states where voters directly elect their party’s primary nominees. 

The outcome of one relatively low-level race generated the most headlines: delegates’ decision to nominate Amir Makled, a Dearborn attorney with a history of social media posts praising Hezbollah, for a position on the University of Michigan Board of Regents. He unseated incumbent Jordan Acker, who is Jewish and was in part targeted due to his calls to discipline anti-Israel student protesters during the 2024 encampment at the Ann Arbor campus.

Acker told The Detroit News afterward that the level of antisemitism among Michigan Democrats is “extensive.”

“The question we have to ask as Jews is whether we still belong here,” said Acker, a Democrat. 

The Democratic Party congratulated Makled in social media posts. What remains unclear is just how far party leaders will go to support Makled as he proceeds to the general election. Curtis Hertel, the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, did not respond to a request for comment. 

But Makled’s nomination is cause for concern among many Jewish Democrats. 

“I certainly cannot vote for somebody who praises Hezbollah and uplifts posts that use ‘Jew’ as a slur. This was an unacceptable nomination, and I simply cannot affiliate with somebody who harbors those views,” Jeremy Moss, a state senator who is running for Congress in the Detroit suburbs, told JI on Tuesday. 

Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI), a moderate Democrat representing a swing district, who is not Jewish, on Tuesday described the scenes from the convention as “deeply troubling,” and in particular criticized the party’s nomination of Makled. 

For Jewish Democrats who are not willing to disavow Israel, the question of what to do in a race like the Board of Regents is uncertain. Lowenstein, the Ann Arbor activist, said she would “never” support Makled, but that she also would not vote for a Republican. 

“I think Jewish voters are now in a position where we have to look at each person, and not look at their party, but look at what they stand for,” she said. 

“I need to create the table, not just always be invited to the table. I just don’t know what that looks like,” said Decky Alexander, the Jewish caucus chair. “It’s a heartbreak. I felt, in moments, is this going to be a breakup? I don’t think so, but we’ve been feeling this way, a lot of us, for a long time.” 

The Jewish voters who attended the convention on Sunday are among the most committed Democrats in the state, which makes it more notable that some were left questioning their place in the party. 

“They think that there’s shrinking room for them in spaces that claim to be inclusive,” said Elyssa Schmier, the Anti-Defamation League’s Michigan director. “That’s kind of the saying of the Democratic Party: ‘We have a big tent, big-tent politics.’ It did not feel that way at the convention.” 

Even the activists most disillusioned by Sunday’s events acknowledge that the convention attendees are not necessarily representative of the state’s Democratic electorate. All it took to attend the convention was registering as a party member a month beforehand and paying a nominal fee. 

“I don’t know that it was an accurate representation of where the broader Democratic electorate would be, say, in a primary,” said Moss. “But there’s no question, there was incivility at best [and] displays of Jewish antagonism at worst in the convention hall.”

Jewish activists hope this moment of upheaval can be a chance for Jewish Democrats to reassert their place in the party, even if things feel tenuous and difficult at present.

“I need to create the table, not just always be invited to the table. I just don’t know what that looks like,” said Alexander, the Jewish caucus chair. “It’s a heartbreak. I felt, in moments, is this going to be a breakup? I don’t think so, but we’ve been feeling this way, a lot of us, for a long time.” 

Between now and the general election, Alexander wants to talk to as many candidates as possible about whether they plan to take the concerns of Jewish voters seriously. 

“I haven’t changed. I am not a Republican or a conservative. I cannot win my district as an independent. But I also wonder how I can continue to carry this party banner with anything approaching pride, or rather, without anxiety and ambivalence,” state Rep. Noah Arbit, a Democrat who represents West Bloomfield, told JI.

“This isn’t identity politics. This is figuring out, in a pluralistic nation like the United States, does everyone have a place? And we want the people who are running for office to answer: Do the Jews have a place in your vision and your platform?” she said.

Moss said he intends to use his platform as a state lawmaker and congressional candidate to answer that question clearly: Jews do have a place in the Democratic Party.

“My solution is to offer my candidacy for everybody and to ensure that folks know that there is a lane for Jewish Democrats in this moment, that we don’t have to feel hopeless, we don’t have to feel politically homeless, that this is a lane that we have to solidify here,” said Moss. “My core values as a Democrat are really Jewish values.”

For state Rep. Noah Arbit, a Democrat who represents West Bloomfield, the site of an antisemitic attack last month, Sunday’s convention adds to angst he has been feeling about his party for years. He was the one who founded the Jewish caucus in 2019, in response to rising antisemitism on the political left. 

“I haven’t changed. I am not a Republican or a conservative. I cannot win my district as an independent. But I also wonder how I can continue to carry this party banner with anything approaching pride, or rather, without anxiety and ambivalence,” he told JI. Yet he said he will not cave to pressure from the party’s far-left flank.

“I certainly won’t be run out of representing my community by a band of extremists,” said Arbit. “So I need to stay.”

Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI), a Democrat representing a swing district in Michigan, condemned the state party for nominating an attorney who expressed support for Hezbollah for the University of Michigan Board of Regents, as well as other harassment and divisive tactics delegates targeted at pro-Israel candidates at the party convention last weekend.

She argued that such activity and decisions will ultimately help Republicans in the November midterm elections.

“What I saw on the MDP Convention floor is deeply troubling — for what it says about who we are, how we win, and whether we will be able to meet this urgent moment,” McDonald Rivet said on X on Tuesday, emphasizing that, coming from the only Trump-won district held by a Democrat in the state, she “know[s] how hard it is to win.”

She said that while she is “excited” to run alongside “many” of those nominated, “the Convention nominated others with extreme positions and records — like calling Tucker Carlson ‘a real one,’ Hezbollah leaders ‘martyrs,’ or amplifying Qasem Soleimani — that are out of step with my values and those of Democrats across our state.”

Her comments are a reference to Makled, who has run on an anti-Israel platform and had an endorsement from the SEIU labor union pulled over past social media posts expressing support for Hezbollah. Makled’s nomination ousted Jewish regent Jordan Acker, who was repeatedly harassed and had his home vandalized by anti-Israel demonstrators.

McDonald Rivet said she was also concerned that “too much of the behavior we saw on the floor is not acceptable.” Pro-Israel candidates and those supporting them, including a supporter of Acker and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), faced aggressive boos at the party convention, to the extent that Abdul El-Sayed, the far-left Senate candidate who many of those vocal demonstrators are supporting, called out their behavior.

“We don’t name-call. We don’t belittle and bully. We don’t shout people down. We don’t make them feel unwelcome or unsafe based on who they are,” McDonald Rivet said. “We reject all forms of hate, including both antisemitism and Islamophobia.”

She said that the Democrats “will never beat MAGA by practicing their division.” She pointed to comments by Michigan Republicans celebrating the chaos and welcoming Jewish Democrats into the fold as proof that the events at the convention will “[make] it much, much harder for us to win back power this November” and make Republicans’ “jobs easier.”

“On Sunday, we saw a troubling step in the wrong direction. But it isn’t too late to course correct. Michigan Democrats, we can’t afford any less,” she concluded.

McDonald Rivet called for the Democratic Party to come together around a “unifying agenda” and to create spaces where everyone feels “respected, liked, and welcome.”

👋 Good Monday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at deepening concerns among Jewish Democrats over the party’s increasing embrace of terror supporters and antisemitism, and report on recent polling from Israel that indicates a divide in public opinion over the Trump administration-brokered recent ceasefires with Iran and Lebanon. We cover the weekend’s Alex Soros-backed inaugural Global Progressive Summit in Barcelona, and break down the results of last week’s special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, where progressive Analilia Mejia sailed to victory, despite a lack of support from some of the district’s most Jewish areas. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, Raz Hershko and Luke Lindberg.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

• Vice President JD Vance is expected to return to Islamabad, Pakistan, this week for a second round of talks with senior Iranian officials amid conflicting reports over the status of the talks, with Iran saying it has not yet decided whether it will send representatives to the negotiations.
• Meanwhile, Tehran threatened retaliation this morning for the U.S.’ weekend attack on and seizure of an Iranian-flagged ship in the Gulf of Oman that had attempted to evade the Navy’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
• Argentine President Javier Milei is in Israel today after arriving over the weekend ahead of events around Israel’s Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut, the country’s back-to-back commemorations of Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror, and its Independence Day. Yesterday, Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the Isaac Accords between the two countries. Read more about the initiative here.
• Israel will hold official Yom HaZikaron events at the Western Wall this evening and at Mt. Herzl, the country’s military cemetery, tomorrow morning.
• In Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will speak this morning at a State Department ceremony unveiling the portrait of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

Events in recent days may well be marking a tipping point in the decline of the Democratic Party — at least when it comes to its treatment of Jews, on top of its growing hostility toward Israel.

The weekend ended with the news that Michigan Democratic delegates, at their statewide convention Sunday, nominated a Hezbollah supporter, Amir Makled, to the University of Michigan Board of Regents, choosing to oust a Jewish member, Jordan Acker, whose home and car were repeatedly vandalized with antisemitic graffiti and his family threatened.

Acker’s offenses? He backed efforts to hold anti-Israel campus protesters at the University of Michigan accountable for assaulting police and engaging in intimidation of Jewish students, among other instances of student misconduct. He declined to support efforts to divest university funds from Israel, along with other members of the Board of Regents, as a radical faction of students had demanded. 

Acker’s non-Jewish Democratic ticketmate, Paul Brown, who also supported discipline against anti-Israel students, wasn’t targeted and was renominated for election. But the Democratic delegates ousted Acker in exchange for Makled, who has posted on social media with comments praising Hezbollah’s leaders and retweeted antisemitic messages from the conspiracy-theorizing influencer Candace Owens. 

The results mark a new low for Michigan Democrats. Also over the weekend, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed told CNN that he believes the Israeli government is just as evil as Hamas. Read more here.

In the same interview, El-Sayed also said that Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) should replace Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as the Democratic leader in the upper chamber, citing Schumer’s continued support for U.S. aid to Israel. Van Hollen is among the most vocal critics of Israel in the Senate. 

Michigan is a closely watched bellwether of the direction of the Democratic Party, and the latest developments underscore that a more radical faction of the party appears to be growing. This, in the state where dozens of Jewish preschoolers were nearly killed in a terrorist attack last month by a Hezbollah sympathizer who targeted the state’s largest synagogue.

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

dem defections

In New Jersey election results, signs of defections among Jewish Democrats

Rep.-elect Analilia Mejia (D-NJ) cruised to victory in last Thursday’s special election for New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, but the results showed notable defections among Jewish Democrats — an early warning sign for both the left-wing Mejia and her party, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

By the numbers: Mejia ran significantly behind other recent Democratic candidates in two municipalities that have traditionally strongly favored Democrats — Livingston Township and Millburn Township — both areas with significant Jewish populations. In Millburn, Mejia lagged 22 percentage points behind former Vice President Kamala Harris’ performance in the 2024 presidential election, and 17 percentage points behind Harris in Livingston.

Read the full story here.

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SPEAKING OUT

John Fetterman blasts party for tolerating antisemitism within its ranks

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said on Friday that the Democratic Party “absolutely” has an issue with rising antisemitism, calling out the party’s embrace of candidates including Graham Platner in Maine and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan while criticizing the recent progressive push to cut off defensive aid to Israel, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

What he said: The Pennsylvania senator made the comments after being asked on CNN’s “The Arena with Kasie Hunt” if he believed the Democratic Party has a problem with antisemitism. Fetterman argued that the growing support for both candidates in their respective primaries was indicative of a tolerance for antisemitism within the party. “I mean, the guy that’s going to win the primary in Maine has a Nazi tattoo on his chest and now that’s no problem for a lot of voters,” Fetterman said. 

Read the full story here.

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IDENTITY CRISIS

Yehuda Kurtzer calls on American Jews to embrace reality of ‘political homelessness’

Amid a surge in antisemitism across the political spectrum, many American Jews have described feeling a growing sense of isolation. But for Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, being “politically homeless” is not a crisis to be solved, but rather a position to be embraced, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.

A different perspective: “I don’t think some measure of political homelessness is a fundamentally bad thing,” Kurtzer said on Thursday while speaking alongside Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. “I think Americans have become hyper-partisan in ways that reflect that partisan political identity has become part of our identities in ways that are not healthy for Americans.” Kurtzer and Goldberg sat in conversation at an event focused on American Jewry ahead of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.

Read the full story here.

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the view from israel

Ceasefires deepen Israeli divisions over Trump’s handling of war

A weekend of diplomatic turbulence has deepened fault lines in Israel over the ceasefires in Lebanon and Iran, with public opinion split along political lines over whether President Donald Trump is serving Israeli interests — or overriding them. Trump’s announcement of a ceasefire in Lebanon on Thursday, before any known progress had been made in talks between Jerusalem and Beirut toward dismantling Hezbollah, already made waves in Israel, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. 

Tough talk: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that “we have not yet finished the job,” but said Israel was “provid[ing] an opportunity to advance an integrated diplomatic and military solution with the Lebanese government,” at Trump’s request. Within an hour of the release of Netanyahu’s statement, Trump published a Truth Social post in which he “PROHIBITED” Israel from continuing to bomb Hezbollah targets, adding: “Enough is enough!!!” Shira Efron, a senior fellow at RAND who serves as the think tank’s distinguished chair for Israel policy, told JI that “there is no question that the tone – ‘prohibited’ in upper case, ‘enough is enough’ – struck a sensitive note in Israel, and people are talking about a vassal state.” 

Read the full story here.

Under pressure: Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), a moderate Republican and co-chair of the House Problem Solvers Caucus, introduced a war powers resolution on Thursday that aims to enforce the deadlines for the war in Iran laid out in the 1973 War Powers Act, breaking with all Republicans except Thomas Massie (R-KY) JI’s Marc Rod reports.

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ENVOY SPOTLIGHT

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack faces renewed condemnation for anti-Israel, pro-Ankara comments

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack faced fresh condemnation from two Senate Republicans and conservative influencers for a series of comments he made at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey this weekend in which he repeatedly criticized Israel and praised Ankara, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Hezbollah hiccups: To comments by Barrack claiming that the current ceasefire in Lebanon “is so delicate because everybody has been equally untrustworthy” — referring to both Israel and Hezbollah — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he “respectfully and strongly disagree[s].” Barrack said at the conference there needs to be “a path with Hezbollah, and that path has to be not killing Hezbollah.” He further dismissed the idea that the Lebanese Armed Forces would act to disarm Hezbollah, as is required under the terms of the current and past ceasefires. “I always get in trouble because Hezbollah, in American parlance, and most of the West, is a foreign terrorist organization. Hezbollah, in Lebanon, is also a political organization,” Barrack added.

Read the full story here.

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UNITING THE GLOBAL LEFT

Chorus of anti-Israel voices gathers at Alex Soros summit in Spain

A range of Israel critics, from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) to Israeli lawmaker Ahmed Tibi, were among those gathered in Barcelona, Spain, over the weekend for the inaugural Global Progressive Summit, backed by left-wing philanthropist Alex Soros. The conference brought together representatives from over 40 countries, offering, according to its website, “a necessary alternative to conservative and far-right forces,” Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. 

In attendance:  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, an outspoken critic of Israel who called on Saturday to downgrade EU-Israel relations, hosted the two-day conference, whose American attendees also included Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, with Soros. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent video messages. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose government petitioned the International Criminal Court to prosecute Israeli leaders, Brazilian President Lula de Silva and U.K. Justice Secretary David Lammy were also in attendance.

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

Dumb and Dumber: The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg explores the expanding platforms of influencers and public figures who are uneducated on the issues about which they speak and unchallenged by interviewers. “Talking with Piker about a political coalition to save American democracy without discussing his affinity for China’s rulers is like teaming up with Carlson without interrogating his praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin — or with Donald Trump without examining his outlook toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And yet, only the debate over the latter tends to happen, such that Israel crowds out all other considerations, including extremely consequential beliefs that can end up going unchallenged.” [TheAtlantic]

It’s All Relative: In The Washington Post, the American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka raises concerns about the presence of relatives of officials from American adversaries who are living in the U.S., amid an effort to deport some of those family members. “The U.S. is littered with other nepo babies, wives and cousins — what the Iranians and Arabs call aghazadeh and the Russians call mazhor — enjoying the privileges of living in the land of the free, often made possible by the ill-gotten gains of the fam back home. It’s little wonder why they came. … It turns out the easiest route is through higher education, with some institutions explaining outright how F-1 student visa holders can transfer to permanent status upon graduating.” [WashPost]

Dropping the Trump Name: The New York Times’ Eric Lipton spotlights an effort by the wealthy Khayyat family in Syria to influence U.S. foreign policy in Syria through the Trump family’s business dealings. “Such a mixing of personal and diplomatic affairs has long been the norm in Middle Eastern nations, where a small set of players have historically run, and profited from, their dominant role in society. But it has become the way Washington operates in Mr. Trump’s second term, too. … [A friend of Mohamad Al-Khayyat, Syrian American businessman Tarek] Naemo, who is based in Florida and runs an investment firm that he said had done deals with partners including the Qatari Investment Authority, began with his wife to court at least a dozen members of Congress, starting with Speaker Mike Johnson.” [NYTimes]

Word on the Street

President Donald Trump nominated Under Secretary of Agriculture Luke Lindberg to serve as the next head of the World Food Program, following Cindy McCain’s announced departure from the role over health issues…

The New York Times looks at divisions within the conservative campus movement in the wake of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September, finding that members of some campus chapters and breakaway groups are split “over support for Israel, the showcasing of conspiracy theorists and who is rightfully American,” as well as disagreements over the war against Iran…

Buckley Carlson, the son of Tucker Carlson, departed his role as deputy press secretary to Vice President JD Vance to start his own consulting firm…

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was spotted with Philadelphia 76ers owner Josh Harris as the 76ers took on the Boston Celtics in Massachusetts over the weekend…

Authorities in Los Angeles arrested an Iranian woman with permanent U.S. residency status accused of brokering sales of Iranian weapons to the Sudanese Armed Forces for use in the African country’s yearslong civil war…

A George Washington University alumna is suing the school and her former employer, Ernst & Young, as well as a number of GWU officials, alleging that she faced retaliation and discrimination in the wake of an address she delivered at one of the school’s 2025 commencement ceremonies; her remarks calling for GWU to divest from Israel deviated from those approved by the school…

Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University graduate student who was detained for more than a month by immigration officials for co-authoring an op-ed critical of Israel, is returning to Turkey, having completed her Ph.D. studies at the Boston-area school…

The New York Times reviews When We See You Again, Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s account, which will be released tomorrow, of her life before and after the 2024 death of her son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, at the hands of his Hamas captors…

Canada’s Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, with the backing of more than 80 Jewish groups, is calling on the federal government in Ottawa to increase funding to address “rising security demands” as the country sees a sharp increase in antisemitism…

A French peacekeeper was killed and three others members of UNIFIL, the U.N.’s peacekeeping force in Lebanon, were injured in what France and UNIFIL said was a Hezbollah attack; French President Emmanuel Macron, whose government was sidelined from recent U.S.-brokered talks between the Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to Washington, called on Beirut to “immediately arrest those responsible and assume their responsibilities alongside UNIFIL”…

An appeals court in France ruled than an Algerian-born nanny who worked for a French Jewish family was not acting out of antisemitism when she poisoned family members, despite having told police, “Because they have money and power, I should never have worked for a Jewish woman; she only brought me trouble”; the woman was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison, less than if she was found to have been motivated by antisemitism…

Kanye West’s upcoming concert in Poland, which was slated to take place in June, was called off by organizers, one of whom cited “formal and legal reasons,” weeks after West’s planned concerts in France and the U.K. were also cancelled amid public outcries over his past antisemitic comments… 

Helen Mirren, Skylar Astin and Liev Schreiber were among more than 1,000 signatories to an open letter organized by Creative Community for Peace in support of Israel’s continued participation in the Eurovision Song Contest…

U.K. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis decried the “sustained campaign of violence and intimidation” targeting British Jews amid a series of attacks on Jewish communities around the country…

Mirvis’ statement came shortly before the arrest of two teenagers in connection with an arson attack that caused minor damage to London’s Kenton United Synagogue; British authorities are investigating whether the recent spate of attacks targeting Jewish sites in the country is linked to Iran…

A British court rejected an effort by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians to issue a summons for a dual U.K.-Israeli citizen who traveled to Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, to rejoin his unit as a reservist in the wake of Hamas’ deadly attacks the day prior…

Sixteen Arab and Muslim countries — including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, but excluding Abraham Accords signatories the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Bahrain — signed onto a Qatar-led statement condemning Israel for appointing former Israeli Ambassador to Kenya Michael Lotem as the country’s first ambassador to Somaliland, four months after Jerusalem recognized the African state…

The New York Times explores the impact of the war in Iran on Qatar and other U.S.-allied Gulf nations, finding Doha [t]rapped between their chief ally and their neighbor” and now being “forced to rethink their security strategies”…

The UAE’s minister of state for international cooperation said that 90% of the sites struck in the Gulf nation by Iran over the course of the recent conflict were civilian infrastructure; Reem Al Hashimy said that approximately 2,800 missiles and drones launched by Iran had hit targets in the UAE…

The governor of the UAE’s central bank, who met last week in Washington with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, introduced the possibility of working with Washington to create a currency-swap line as a potential financial backstop should the Gulf state face further economic challenges…

Iran said it executed two people alleged to have collaborated with Israel’s Mossad…

The IDF released a map showing the Lebanese territory under its control as it fights against Hezbollah in the southern part of the country…

IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said the military was conducting an investigation following the surfacing of a photo in which an IDF soldier is pictured desecrating a statue of Jesus in the southern Lebanese Christian village; Israeli Prime Minister condemned the incident, saying he “was stunned and saddened” and that Israel “express[es] regret for the incident and for any hurt this has caused to believers in Lebanon and around the world”…

Senior Hamas officials confirmed to The New York Times that the terror group was willing to relinquish some of its weapons to the Palestinian administrative committee operating under the Trump administration’s Board of Peace…

Israeli Olympic silver medalist Raz Hershko won gold in her weight class at the European Judo Championships in Tbilisi, Georgia…

Pic of the Day

Yizhar Hess, vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization, hosted a reading on Sunday of Israel’s Declaration of Independence at the egalitarian section of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Hess was joined by members of the Sydney Jewish community as well as former Israeli hostage Shoshan Haran.

Birthdays

Israeli model, swimwear designer and social media star, Neta Alchimister turns 32… 

Stanford University professor and 2020 Nobel Prize laureate in economics, Paul Robert Milgrom turns 78… Chairman of the media networks division of Activision Blizzard, he previously held high-ranking roles at NFL Network, ESPN and ABC, Steve Bornstein turns 74… Philadelphia-based development professional, currently at AJC after a long career for a number of organizations, Andrew Demchick turns 70… Immigrants rights activist and professor at Salem State University, she is the eldest daughter of Noam Chomsky, Aviva Chomsky turns 69… Television and radio host, syndicated columnist and political commentator, Steve Malzberg turns 67… Past president and executive director of the D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, now at the Center for AI and Digital Policy, Marc Rotenberg turns 66… Author, journalist and former co-host of “The Femsplainers Podcast,” Danielle Crittenden Frum turns 63… Semi-professional race car driver and restaurateur, he was previously CEO, president and chairman of the Trust Company of New Jersey, Alan Wilzig turns 61… Television producer and game show host, known professionally as J.D. Roth, James David Weinroth turns 58… Israeli jazz bassist, composer, singer and arranger, Avishai Cohen turns 56… British film director, Sarah Gavron turns 56… Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, one of four Jewish Republican congressmen, Randy Fine (R-FL) turns 52… VP of government and public affairs at Cleveland-based GBX Group, a historic real estate development firm, Seth Foster Unger… Deputy associate administrator at the General Services Administration, Michael C. Frohlich… Chief philanthropy and leadership officer at the World Jewish Congress, Elliott G. Mendes… President and CEO at the Los Angeles-based Skirball Cultural Center, Jessie Kornberg turns 44… Former general manager of Bird in Israel, he is a nephew of Israel’s past president Reuven Rivlin, Yaniv Rivlin… ESPN sportscaster and former Fox Sports and NFL Network personality, Peter Schrager turns 44… New York-based national security and human rights lawyer, Irina Tsukerman… Co-founder of The Free Press and its head of strategy, Nellie Bowles turns 38… PM breaking news editor at CNN Politics, Kyle Feldscher… Policy advisor and counsel to U.S. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), Zachary L. Baum… Systems engineer at Google X, Joseph Gettinger turns 38… Facilitator, coach and workshop organizer, Daniela Kate Plattner… Research analyst at the U.S. Department of State during the Biden administration, David Mariutto… VP at Cedar Capital Partners, Alex Berman… CEO of Social Lite Creative and news anchor on ILTV, Emily K. Schrader… Israeli scientist, engineer and artificial intelligence researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Maor Farid turns 34… Working on advertising platforms at Apple, McKenna Klein… Senior associate at LvlUp Ventures, Andrew J. Hirsh… R&B, soul, pop singer and teen actress, at 13 she was the runner-up on the second season of “The X Factor,” Carly Rose Sonenclar turns 27… Diane Kahan… 

Events in recent days may well be marking a tipping point in the decline of the Democratic Party — at least when it comes to its treatment of Jews, on top of its growing hostility toward Israel.

The weekend ended with the news that Michigan Democratic delegates, at their statewide convention Sunday, nominated a Hezbollah supporter, Amir Makled, to the University of Michigan Board of Regents, choosing to oust a Jewish member, Jordan Acker, whose home and car were repeatedly vandalized with antisemitic graffiti and his family threatened.

Acker’s offenses? He backed efforts to hold anti-Israel campus protesters at the University of Michigan accountable for assaulting police and engaging in intimidation of Jewish students, among other instances of student misconduct. He declined to support efforts to divest university funds from Israel, along with other members of the Board of Regents, as a radical faction of students had demanded. 

Acker’s non-Jewish Democratic ticketmate, Paul Brown, who also supported discipline against anti-Israel students, wasn’t targeted and was renominated for election. But the Democratic delegates ousted Acker in exchange for Makled, who has posted on social media with comments praising Hezbollah’s leaders and retweeted antisemitic messages from the conspiracy-theorizing influencer Candace Owens. 

The results mark a new low for Michigan Democrats. Also over the weekend, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed told CNN that he believes the Israeli government is just as evil as Hamas.

In the same interview, El-Sayed also said that Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) should replace Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as the Democratic leader in the upper chamber, citing Schumer’s continued support for U.S. aid to Israel. Van Hollen is among the most vocal critics of Israel in the Senate. 

Michigan is a closely watched bellwether of the direction of the Democratic Party, and the latest developments underscore that a more radical faction of the party appears to be growing. This, in the state where dozens of Jewish preschoolers were nearly killed in a terrorist attack last month by a Hezbollah sympathizer who targeted the state’s largest synagogue.

But it’s not just in Michigan where the weekend’s developments suggest an ominous turn in the Democratic Party’s evolution.

Today’s Daily Kickoff includes comments made by Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), one of the few pro-Israel Democratic stalwarts left, who blasted his party for tolerating antisemitism, calling out Democrats’ acceptance of Senate candidates with checkered histories, including Graham Platner in Maine and El-Sayed. 

In particular, Fetterman expressed shock that party leaders had nothing to say about revelations that Platner praised Hamas’ tactics in a 2014 Reddit forum that shared video of the terrorist group killing several Israeli soldiers.  

We cover the implications of the election results from New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, a moderate-minded, affluent suburb, where voters elected a far-left Israel critic who withheld criticism of Hamas after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks — except for the Jewish Democrats in the district, who swung decidedly to the right.

And we report on the pained comments from Yehuda Kurtzer, the president of the Shalom Hartman Institute (a liberal, pluralistic think tank dealing with issues affecting the Jewish community), who called on American Jews to “embrace political homelessness” as part of a pointed perspective on how badly things have gotten within the progressive movement, the longtime home for many American Jews.

“We’re stuck as an American Jewish community between an illiberal argument on the right, which is currently in power, and an illiberalism of the left,” he said.

Also notable from the weekend: Likely Democratic presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel, who is portraying himself as a bold, moderate truth teller against the left wing of his party, championed the fact on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” that he wants to cut off all U.S. military aid to Israel — in a clear political pander to the growing anti-Israel wing of his party. Truth-telling only goes so far when public opinion against Israel within the Democratic party has grown to such a high level.

It’s surely comforting to believe that Israel’s aggressive war against Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and Lebanon and tough tactics against Iran or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s haughty approach to his engagement with Washington are the main factors driving the Democratic Party towards its estrangement of Israel. Maybe then, after a possible change of Israeli leadership in the country’s October elections, Democratic public opinion would shift.

But if that was truly the case, you wouldn’t see the party tolerating candidates with neo-Nazi tattoos who “dig” Hamas’ terror tactics and ones who compare the mistakes of a democratic state with a terrorist group that seeks in its charter to eliminate all Jews. 

You wouldn’t see a Jewish regent of the University of Michigan and a Jewish Michigan attorney general being personally threatened for enforcing the law — with little protest from party leadership.

And you wouldn’t see Hasan Piker, an antisemitic social media figure with a laundry list of terror-justifying rhetoric, become the progressive movement’s trendy surrogate, in this fraught moment for American Jews.

Kurtzer is right that illiberalism is rising on all sides. But when the party that has long positioned itself as the bulwark against bigotry now tolerates terrorist apologists and antisemitic hate — while abandoning pro-Israel Jews who long called it home — it should be a wake-up call that something is broken.

Far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said in an interview with CNN that aired Sunday that he believes the Israeli government is just as evil as Hamas.

Responding to a question from CNN anchor Manu Raju on that issue, El-Sayed answered in the affirmative, adding, “Killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil. It’s not, ‘How evil is this one versus that one?’ Hamas — evil. Israeli government — evil. We can say both,” he said.

He also said that he believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal and responsible for a genocide.

El-Sayed also defended his decision to campaign with far-left streamer Hasan Piker, brushing off criticisms of Piker as “cancel culture.”

“My understanding of America is, it’s a place where we have freedom of speech. My understanding of America is, it’s a place where we’re willing to have conversations with folks with whom we disagree,” El-Sayed said. “I went on ‘Fox and Friends’ this morning. Is it un-American to go and speak on ‘Fox and Friends’? Or are we drawing certain kinds of lines? And it’s that penchant for cancel culture that I think people hate about Democrats.”

He said that Piker is “having a conversation with a number of folks who feel locked out.”

El-Sayed also said that Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) should replace Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as the Democratic leader in the Senate, due to Schumer’s continued support for U.S. aid to Israel. Van Hollen is among the most vocal critics of Israel in the Senate.

Michigan has been a closely watched bellwether of the direction of the Democratic Party, and El-Sayed’s candidacy — defined by his virulent anti-Israel rhetoric — will test how hostile Democratic partisans have become toward Israel.

At the state’s Democratic nominating convention on Sunday, which all three Senate candidates attended, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) was booed by a contingent of left-wing activists hostile to her longstanding support for Israel. 

Also receiving heckles from a loud contingent of Democratic delegates: a speaker supporting Jordan Acker, who is seeking reelection to the University of Michigan Board of Regents. Acker has been targeted by the university’s anti-Israel activists, facing harassment and vandalism of his home that Michigan leaders have called plainly antisemitic.  

Former Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at a party event the day prior to the convention, where she said President Donald Trump “got pulled into” the war in Iran by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, adding that the war “has always been [Trump’s] feeble attempt to distract from the Epstein files.”

The Michigan arm of the powerful SEIU labor union announced on Tuesday that it had rescinded its endorsement of Amir Makled, an attorney running for the University of Michigan board of regents, in light of Makled’s deleted social media posts praising the terrorist group Hezbollah. 

“This decision follows new information that was not available at the time our endorsement was made,” the statement read. “As an organization, we hold our endorsed candidates to a high standard and expect alignment with our values and the interests of our members.”

Makled is a Dearborn trial lawyer who represented an anti-Israel protester who was arrested during the 2024 anti-Israel encampments at UM’s flagship Ann Arbor campus. A Detroit News report found that Makled had deleted posts praising Hezbollah’s leaders and retweets of antisemitic messages from the far-right influencer Candace Owens. Makled did not comment on the matter in the Detroit News report, and he did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Jewish Insider on Tuesday.

Makled is running an insurgent campaign to be one of two Democratic nominees for UM regent. Two seats are up for election in 2026, and both of them are held by Democrats — Jordan Acker and Paul Brown — who were first elected in 2018. Makled is singling out Acker, who is Jewish and has faced antisemitic attacks from anti-Israel activists at the university. The regents play a key governing role for the university, including on matters including student protests and divestment. 

The two Democratic nominees for the statewide position will be decided at a Michigan Democratic Party convention in Detroit on April 19.

At a Tuesday night event with antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker at the University of Michigan, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed doubled down on claims that the man who attacked Temple Israel in West Bloomfield last month did so as a result of the pain he felt from the war in the Middle East. 

“Nothing justifies the heinous attack that we saw on Temple Israel,” El-Sayed, a Democrat, said at a press conference alongside Piker, with whom he appeared at two campaign rallies in Michigan on Tuesday. “I also think it’s just critical for us to understand that hurt people do hurt people, and the circumstances happening 6,000 miles away can affect the lives that we live here, and if we stand against violence, we’ve got to stand against violence, all violence.” 

El-Sayed’s comments reiterated a sentiment he expressed the day after a Lebanese American man drove a car packed with explosives into the synagogue. No one lost their lives in the incident. The assailant, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after shooting at a security guard, had family members killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon — including his brother, a commander in Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia. 

Since El-Sayed’s initial statement, more details surrounding the attack have surfaced. The FBI said the attack was “a Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community.” 

When a reporter from The Free Press pressed El-Sayed on his claim, asking whether a similar argument would have allowed sympathy for a Jewish person attacking a mosque after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel, he suggested the circumstances were not the same. 

“After Oct. 7, there was a whole genocide against Palestinians,” El-Sayed said.

COMMERCE, Mich. — As former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) campaigns for the open Senate seat in Michigan, he is not shy about his support for Israel. But he has lately encountered more people pushing back on American support for the Jewish state, and he is worried not enough is being done, including in his own party, to fight that trend. 

“I don’t think we have an effort to counter the [anti-Israel] narrative,” Rogers, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told Jewish Insider in an interview near Detroit last week. “You don’t have to love Israel, but you have to respect the fact that the nation is trying to defend itself and its people who have maybe, probably, the most horrific history of being treated in the world of any other race on planet earth.”

Rogers is the only major Republican candidate in the Senate race, while three Democrats are locked in a tight battle for the nomination, with several months still to go until the August primary. He narrowly lost to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in the state’s closely-contested 2024 Senate election, after having previously served in Congress from 2001 to 2015.

Rogers recounted a recent conversation with a woman who worked in Republican politics and grew up Christian, who told him that she is now not sure whether to support Israel. 

“This is her word: ‘I always believed we were supposed to be for Israel. It’s in the Bible, it’s part of our faith. We have to,’” he recalled. “She said, ‘This is the first time I’ve had doubts.’ And I said, ‘Really? Why?’ And she said, ‘Well, my children are coming to me with all of this stuff,’ and it’s all social media driven.” 

Asked about the burgeoning influence of far-right antisemitic influencers like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, Rogers said he is concerned about growing antisemitism on the right, although he thinks the problem is worse on the political left. 

“I do think on the right, we’ve got to be careful it doesn’t creep into the mainstream. I do still think it’s fringe, and we need to make sure that candidates who don’t feel that way, candidates who are more open to conversation about it, get elected, so that we can push back on that,” said Rogers. 

President Donald Trump has met with Carlson numerous times in the White House this year. Rogers doesn’t think that’s a problem, though he wants to see Carlson’s ideas disputed.

“I always believe that if I can sit in a room with you, I don’t care how much I disagree with you, you’ll probably find some common ground. I would say we need to keep talking, and we need to make sure that people understand that that’s not right, have that debate — I’m OK with debate,” said Rogers. “We just don’t want him to be a louder voice than his rhetoric would seem, because it’s dangerous.” 

Two weeks earlier, an armed gunman drove a truck filled with explosives into Temple Israel, a synagogue in suburban Detroit. He fired at security guards before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in an incident where no one else died, but left the community badly shaken.

“It didn’t take a life, but it’s sure going to have some emotional impacts for people for a while,” Rogers said. “The theme I hear the most is just how antisemitism is becoming more normal. It used to be so ostracized.” 

Rogers said fighting antisemitism in the state must begin at universities.

“Once I’m elected, we’re going to sit down with college presidents and we’re going to look at their mitigation plans, and we’re going to talk about it. We’re going to have hard conversations with them,” Rogers explained. “You can’t allow virtue signaling to become a thing, and now it’s where people are, because they want to virtual signal that they’re for the little guy. I’ve never seen such ignorance about an issue in my life, and people so certain about their opinion.” 

In recent days, Rogers has criticized Abdul El-Sayed, one of his Democratic opponents, for announcing that he will host campaign rallies at the University of Michigan and Michigan State with the far-left antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker. 

“My problem with Hasan is, I think he’s a blatant antisemite, No. 1. But No. 2, he’s anti-American,” said Rogers. “At a time when we have men and women, very brave, courageous men and women standing tall for the United States of America, taking risks in the United States military, they’re on college campuses trying to get kids whipped up about how America is the bad guy.” 

Rogers tied the antisemitic attack in Michigan to a broader wave of political violence. 

“Just think about the last year. There’s legislators in Minnesota who were hunted down and killed, Charlie Kirk’s assassination,” he said. “Obviously, the Jewish community is a specific target by, unfortunately, extremist voices here in America. But political violence — you look at how it’s crept into the language of people.” 

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. — Pop. Pop. Pop. Liz Rosenbaum heard the unmistakable sounds of a gun being fired and took a deep breath as the 4-year-old boy next to her looked her way, wide-eyed. Even in the best of times, he was an anxious kid. This was not one of those times. “Was that a gun?” he asked.

Without missing a beat, Rosenbaum reminded the boy that the classroom across the hall in the Temple Israel Early Childhood Center had a bunch of balloons set up earlier for someone’s birthday. They must’ve popped, she suggested. “Remember? You saw the balloons in their class,” she told the child. 

Rosenbaum, a retired Detroit public school teacher, locked eyes with the much younger teacher across the room and whisper-yelled to her: Don’t show any emotion. Just take care of the kids. So they held the babies — to a preschool teacher, any child is a baby — and waited, not knowing anything beyond the fact that someone was shooting a gun and the smell of smoke was getting worse. Rosenbaum’s 5-year-old grandson, Theo, was in a nearby classroom, but she had already gotten word from her daughter, via Theo’s teacher, that he was OK.

Seconds or minutes or hours later — it was hard to know — police officers came to the door. Rosenbaum’s co-teacher was perched at the door’s little window, peeking through a one-way blackout shade that allowed teachers to look out but kept outsiders from seeing in. 

The officers said the code word that the teachers had been trained to know would reveal the person on the other side of the door was, in fact, one of the good guys. The teachers opened the door and grabbed the kids, carrying or pulling or holding or dragging, whatever it took to obey the officers’ command to “get out of here, fast.”

“[The kids] knew something was going on. I said, ‘Remember these officers you studied? You read about them. We talked about them. Those are our helpers,’” Rosenbaum recalled telling the kids. Two days earlier, police and firefighters had visited the preschool, located in the largest Reform congregation in Michigan, as part of a lesson. 

A cadre of preschool teachers carried babies and led toddlers out the back door of the synagogue, first to an ambulance that was too crowded, and ultimately onto a West Bloomfield School District bus that took them across the street to a country club for the Chaldeans, an Iraqi Christian community. Some teachers had to run with their kids to get there. You’re a dinosaur — run as fast as you can! they said, hoping to hurry the kids along without scaring them.

Rosenbaum and the entire world would soon learn that a Lebanese immigrant — later revealed to have ties to the terror group Hezbollah — had driven a truck packed with explosives into Temple Israel around noon that day. Cable news networks showed aerial shots of smoke billowing from the roof of the synagogue and reported in alarming chyrons that an active shooter was inside. The attacker got out of his car and started shooting before he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

Every child in Rosenbaum’s classroom walked out of Temple Israel alive. In fact, every person who was already in the building survived; the only person who was injured was a security guard, hailed as a hero and already on the mend. (He was apparently quite pleased that, in his moment of need, he convinced a Temple Israel rabbi to buy him a sandwich with bacon to bring to his hospital room.) 

The story of Temple Israel is one of miracles. The building’s sprinkler system turned on, soaking everything in the building except for the Torah scrolls. Miracle. The hallway where the attacker rammed his car was set aflame, burning most of the photos that lined the wall showing the synagogue’s annual confirmation classes but sparing the oldest photos, from decades ago, which were not digitized and otherwise would’ve been lost forever. Miracle. Teachers trained in active-shooter protocols acted quickly and meticulously to secure their classrooms, and security guards performed their jobs perfectly. Miracle. No children were in the hallway in the path of the truck. Miracle upon miracle upon miracle. 

“Nes gadol hayah poh,” Noah Arbit, a lifelong member of Temple Israel and a Michigan state representative whose district includes the synagogue, said last week in an interview with Jewish Insider at a bakery a couple of towns over. A great miracle happened here. It was a riff on a Hebrew phrase used on Hanukkah, the holiday that celebrates the Jews’ miraculous victory over the ancient Greeks during the time of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Usually, Jews living in the diaspora say a different version of the phrase that translates to “a great miracle happened there.” This time, the miracle was here in Michigan. 

”I think if it happened anywhere else but Temple Israel, we probably could have had a massacre. Temple Israel benefits from scale and resources in a way that other synagogues around here don’t,” said Arbit, a Democrat. 

But it is not accurate to say that this is only a story of miracles. For people who don’t live in West Bloomfield, once the headlines shifted from “active shooter at a synagogue” to “antisemitic attack thwarted,” many moved on. Jews in Metro Detroit did not. For them, this story of miracles was first a story of terror, of fear, of never being able to un-learn the feeling of dread that comes from not knowing whether your child is alive or dead.

“People are traumatized, and there’s no way around it,” Rabbi Josh Bennett, who has been on the pulpit at Temple Israel for 33 years, told JI last week. “And yet there’s an entirely different world out there, which is the world talking about miracles, and thank God nobody was injured. And that’s actually very dissonant, because the rest of the world has kind of moved on, and they’re just waiting for us to reopen the building.” 

The path toward healing is not as straightforward as just reopening the building, and even that will be complicated and time-intensive. 

“The building will be rebuilt. If you drive by there now, you’ll see there’s construction workers working on it right now, and they’re drying it out, and they’re redoing the drywall and fixing it. It will come back bigger and better,” said Steve Ingber, a Temple Israel member and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. 

There’s also the question of where to have Temple Israel’s preschool meet for the rest of the school year. The ECC students have been holding playdates together as the school remains closed and Temple Israel looks to find an alternate place for the school to meet. 

But first and foremost is the lingering emotional trauma that is only beginning to be unpacked. 

“We don’t want to leave anyone behind. We don’t want anyone to feel like they are isolated and living in a black hole, and after this traumatic moment and after a mass violence experience, that is often the case, is what I’m learning from these professionals,” said Rabbi Arianna Gordon, Temple Israel’s director of education and lifelong learning. “It’s really easy to fall into that black hole and really feel like you’re invisible, feel like you’re isolated. And we are really, really trying to make sure that everyone feels seen and feels helped and feels heard.”

On March 12, the day of the attack, Gordon heard a loud boom that she later learned came from the truck driving into the building. She opened her office door and saw a stroller overturned in a pile of broken glass. A security guard shouted to get back in the room, and she took her staff to shelter in place in a far corner of a new office they had moved into only two days earlier. She sent a message to all the teachers, telling them to implement lockdown procedures. 

Her 2-year-old son was in the building. When Gordon and her colleagues were evacuated, she waited outside the building until her son came out. 

“Rachel, our ECC director who ran out with me, will say that my voice screaming for my child, when we were running out, will forever haunt her,” said Gordon. She doesn’t remember making a sound.

Most of all, as social workers and rabbis work to meet community members’ emotional needs, the biggest unanswered question has to do with security: Is there enough? Even if so — and by all accounts, Temple Israel’s large security operation saved lives — how do community members make sense of the fact that their sense of safety has now been shattered? That a man from a nearby community pledged his allegiance to a foreign terrorist group and sought to bring tremendous harm to Jewish children? 

“It hurts more than I ever thought that it would. I think there’s a lot of people who feel that way. It’s a beautiful building and a sacred space,” said Arbit, the state representative. He blinked back tears. “Sorry. It’s been really hard.” 

The day of the attack, Ingber was getting ready to leave the federation office in nearby Bloomfield Hills for lunch when he heard the security radio crackle to life. The Jewish Federation of Detroit employs 23 security officers throughout the community’s schools and synagogues, and each of them carries a radio. The one in Ingber’s office goes off each morning around 8 a.m., a tech check to make sure it works. It sits quiet the rest of the time. Except on March 12. “SHOTS FIRED,” a voice announced over the radio.

“First, it took me a second, like, Wait, did I just hear that?” Ingber recalled during an interview in his office last week. “From there, we heard that this was real, and then we immediately started working on it, and that entailed sending every other Jewish building in town into lockdown, because we don’t know: Is this a one-off, or is this a coordinated attack?” 

Security is the biggest annual line item expense for the Jewish federation, as it is for many Jewish institutions. The federation has made more than $1 million in security funds available to local organizations since the attack. Jewish activists from Detroit and around the country went to Capitol Hill the week after the attack to lobby Congress to increase the amount of money in the federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program. 

But for the 75,000 or so Jews in the Detroit metropolitan area, the need still feels almost impossible to meet. 

“I still feel, despite everything, that Temple Israel is incredibly safe, because what happened was our team protected us. They protected the staff and the children,” said Elyssa Schmier, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Michigan office and a Temple Israel member. Her 5-year-old son goes to another Jewish preschool in the area that is smaller, with less of a security presence. 

”My son’s preschool was — the security was fine. I wouldn’t say it was great, and we’ve kind of known all along it wasn’t super great. So now they’ve had to put in full-day armed security and go with a new company. People weren’t sending their kids to school until that went into place. We’ve had a couple families pull out altogether,” Schmier said in a conversation last week in a coffee shop near West Bloomfield. “The additional cost is astronomical now of what the school’s going to have to take on.”

All of the added security means even more closed doors at a time when the Jewish community longs more than ever for allies. 

“Things that are part of the strength of the Michigan Jewish community are now being looked at with an eye of concern, and the irony of that, for a community that so values community building and institutions is, I think, not lost on anybody,” Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) told JI last week. 

Jeremy Moss, a Democratic state senator who attends a Conservative synagogue in the area, said over a meal of rye bread, pickles and chicken soup at a West Bloomfield deli last week that the Temple Israel attack warrants a much larger outcry from outside the Jewish community than it is getting. Moss, who is running for Congress this year, is the only Jewish member of the Michigan state Senate. He is also the only LGBTQ member of the Senate. He knows that those two parts of his identity are often treated differently.

“When I talk about LGBTQ rights, I have my Democratic colleagues rushing to be behind me, to stand in solidarity, to allow me to lead on the discussion, to allow me talk about what is homophobic and transphobic, to back me up,” he said. 

“In the past several years, when I talk about antisemitism, it feels like I’m talking alone, or that I’m challenged, or that I’m lectured, not necessarily by my colleagues, but lectured about what is antisemitism from others, rather than allowing my own experience to be accredited, to be valid,” he added. “It’s a very isolating, lonely feeling, and it really makes you realize how small the Jewish community is and how difficult it is to get our lived experience heard and supported.” 

The attack on Temple Israel, and the fact that no one died, offers a “second chance,” Moss said. Not just for the parents and children, he said, but “for all of us.”

“Whether you’re on the left, this is a second chance to speak out if you haven’t spoken out before. Whether you’re on the right, this was a second chance for them,” Moss said, taking aim at his Republican colleagues who did not support a major hate crimes package passed last year. “I think there’s a lot of second chances going on as a result of this incident, where every child went home healthy to their parents that day. The question is, what are we going to do with that?” 

For a lot of people at Temple Israel, it’s too early to think about what all of this means. The pain is too raw. Because here’s what they know: A man was able to park in the Temple Israel parking lot, sit there for two hours listening to Arabic battle anthems while texting his sister and other family members about his plans and drive his truck head-on into the building, while teachers shushed children and sang them songs just feet away.

What could be normal after that? 

“It needs to be driven home over and over again: A person who drives their vehicle with fireworks and gasoline into an early childhood center with the intent of killing children and Jews — that is antisemitism,” said Bennett, the senior rabbi. “It is impossible to be in an event like this without being forever changed. It is an indelible mark on the soul of our congregation.” 

In a strange irony, many of the kids who were at Temple Israel during the attack are unfazed. Some were too young to notice anything out of the ordinary. The slightly older kids experienced the chaos, but they mostly felt lucky to get an unexpected field trip that came with chicken tenders, pizza and games. Parents whose younger children were at the ECC are struggling to describe what happened to their older kids. 

“When they ask, like, why do people hate Jews, it is really hard to be a parent and to be an educator in this moment and figure out the right things to say to our children,” said Gordon, the education director. Her 2-year-old is, of course, not asking those questions; he was mostly asleep throughout the attack, which occurred during nap time. But her 7- and 9-year-old kids are.

“I say that I don’t have a good explanation. I can’t tell you why people hate Jews. But what I can tell you is that there also are people who are really incredibly helpful and wonderful and supportive of our Jewish community, and we want to focus on that,” said Gordon. 

The day after the attack, Shabbat services were held at Shenandoah County Club, the Chaldean club that had opened its doors a day earlier as a reunification center during the attack. Last Friday, Temple Israel’s members met inside another West Bloomfield synagogue. At least 200 people joined the service, eager to hug each other and sing together and live out the beautiful parts of being Jewish. But they were reminded at every moment that they were living in a world transformed by ugliness. 

Police cars parked out front directed traffic, and anyone coming in had to pass seven or eight security guards as they walked through a metal detector. During the service, security guards slowly walked around the room, monitoring the crowd. One guard stood like a sentry at the sanctuary’s big window, eyes fixed on whatever unknown threats might be lurking outside on the frigid early spring evening.

Indoors, Temple Israel’s rabbis and cantor joyfully ushered in Shabbat with a musical service. They told congregants about webinars being offered by mental health professionals. They shared that the synagogue’s staff were being given the entire week of Passover off so they could relax with their families. 

The rabbis and ECC staff had been allowed back into the synagogue briefly to be able to take items from their offices before cleanup crews disposed of the rest, most of which was waterlogged or burned. One of them grabbed a box of large, colorful plastic bricks. 

As people left the service, they were invited to take one of those bricks home with them to place on their Seder plates. It would be a bitter reminder of what Temple Israel had endured. But more importantly, it would remind people that with the help of its dedicated and loving community, Temple Israel will rebuild. 

For Rosenbaum, the Temple Israel preschool teacher, it’s been a challenging few weeks. She woke a few days after the attack from a nightmare. She stepped outside, breathing in the fresh air. She is in therapy. Babysitting the Temple Israel toddlers who are now out of school helps, too. She will be back teaching at Temple Israel as soon as she is allowed.

“My mother taught me, when you fall off a bicycle, you get back on and you learn to ride it. When you get in an auto accident, you get back in the car and you learn to drive it. I taught my kids that. And Temple Israel is very strong. We are going to go back. We’re going to go back as being strong and supporting and loving one another, like we do,” said Rosenbaum.

“In the grand scheme of things, Hashem was with us.”

ROYAL OAK, Mich. — When Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow saw the news on March 12 about an attack at Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, her first thought was about her 5-year-old daughter, Noa. 

McMorrow is not Jewish, but her husband is, and Noa attends preschool at another Reform congregation in the area. 

“This could have been us. This could have been our daughter,” McMorrow thought. 

Then, as an elected official and one of the three leading candidates in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, she released a statement condemning the attack, in which a heavily armed man drove a car that was filled with explosives into the synagogue and opened fire before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No one else was killed in the attack, which occurred steps away from preschool classrooms where more than 100 children and their teachers sheltered in place.

“I was horrified when I put out my statement that day. All of the first comments on it were whataboutism,” McMorrow told Jewish Insider in an interview in a coffee shop near Detroit last week. “Antisemitism is real.” 

Recent polling released by McMorrow’s campaign shows her with a narrow lead over her primary opponents, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and public health official Abdul El-Sayed. But many voters remain undecided, and the state’s primary is not until August. 

The FBI said on Monday that the Temple Israel attacker, a Lebanese immigrant whose brother had been a Hezbollah commander until he was killed by the IDF the week before the attack, carried out a “Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community and the largest Jewish temple in Michigan.” 

The attack was emotionally jarring for McMorrow, who got choked up speaking about her daughter. 

“It was really eye-opening when I started going to services and events with Ray and Noa — the level of security did stand out to me as somebody who grew up in a Catholic church, to walk in and the first thing you see are the security guards, and they’re lovely and they’re friendly, but it just — that really stuck with me, that we need that just to be Jewish,” McMorrow said. “We shouldn’t have to think twice that somebody is going to attack her or my husband or our family or anybody, for no other reason than she’s Jewish.”

After the attack, McMorrow watched people respond to her social media posts and argue that somehow the attack was warranted or justified.

“We didn’t see that with things like the Sandy Hook shooting. When we see attacks on kids, you don’t immediately jump to, ‘Well, what about this? And did they deserve it?’ Of course not,” McMorrow said.

In the Senate primary, McMorrow appears to be trying to carve out a lane between Stevens, a moderate pro-Israel stalwart, and El-Sayed, a far-left candidate whose recent decision to campaign with antisemitic political streamer Hasan Piker earned condemnation from both Stevens and McMorrow. 

In her interview with JI, McMorrow described herself as someone tuned in to the fears of Jewish Michiganders who is also trying to be a bridge-builder to the state’s large Arab community. 

“Over the last week, I made it a point to reach out and talk to not only members in Temple Israel and leaders in the Jewish community, but also leaders out of the Muslim community, particularly over in Dearborn,” McMorrow said. “What I heard independently from both groups is we need to figure out a way out of this, that there is so much hurt and there is so much pain, and this is not sustainable. There is a desire to bring the heat down, but we have to recognize as leaders, we need to create open doors for people to work through their trauma.” 

But sadness or frustration at events in the Middle East cannot be grounds for attacking a Jewish institution, McMorrow said. 

“There are going to be differing views on what the right course of action is in the Middle East, and that should be expected in a state like ours,” said McMorrow. “However you feel about what is happening in the Middle East, the response is never to take it out on people at home. The 140 kids who were at preschool that day bear no responsibility at all for anything that’s happening in the Middle East.”

McMorrow has said she will not accept donations from AIPAC, which has been a big booster of Stevens in the past, although AIPAC has not formally endorsed Stevens for Senate. McMorrow is endorsed by the progressive Israel advocacy group J Street, which currently describes McMorrow as a priority candidate for the organization. 

“I believe deeply that long-term peace and security for Israel is necessary, and I worry that the Netanyahu government is making that reality harder,” McMorrow said. She has said that she supports legislation to block offensive weapons sales to Israel, and told JI that she thinks the U.S. should play a role as a moderating force for Israel — and described herself as someone who supports the U.S.-Israel relationship but not unconditionally. 

“There was a headline in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago that I think about often, which is, ‘Israel won the war, but lost the world.’ And Israel needs allies to survive. It is attacked from all sides at all times,” she said. “That’s how I think about it with the U.S.-Israel relationship: How do we as an ally help our ally in the Middle East not make the same mistakes that the United States did, even in Iraq and Afghanistan, where retribution went too far?”

In October, when asked by a voter whether she believes Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to genocide, McMorrow said yes, “based on the definition” of the word. Since then, she has avoided using the word directly, instead saying that its usage has become a “political purity test,” an argument she also employed in her interview with JI.

“People seem to be more focused on a word than a goal, which is why I have since said this does feel like we’re splitting hairs over the definition of a word and not talking about for most people, we want the same thing. How do we get there in a way that brings people together instead of pushing them apart?” McMorrow said. 

That same attitude drives McMorrow’s approach to the state’s diverse constituencies — particularly, she said, as she thinks about how to address antisemitism and hate after the Temple Israel attack. She touted a bill she supported last year that expands the definition of hate crimes and called for more interfaith work in the state.

“That is part of the responsibility and role of a senator that may not be legislative, that’s just, how do we keep doors open?” she asked. “How do we talk about the things that unite us, and how do we work together so that Michigan, given the uniqueness of our population, can be a model for the rest of the country? That even in the wake of a lot of uncertainty and turmoil in the Middle East, we can coexist?”

But McMorrow also keeps returning to something that a Temple Israel parent told her, about the “root cause” of this month’s attack.

“As I was talking to a mom from Temple Israel, she credited all of the security that they’ve invested in,” McMorrow recalled. “She said, ‘We have to address the underlying root cause, which is antisemitism and hate that led this person — whatever trauma he was going through, his first course of action was to think to attack the synagogue full of preschoolers.’” 

The FBI determined that the attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., earlier this month was “a Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community and the largest Jewish temple in Michigan,” officials said on Monday. 

Jennifer Runyan, head of the FBI in Detroit, said during a news conference that the assailant, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, made a video stating, “This is the largest gathering place for Israelis in the State of Michigan in the United States. I have booby-trapped the car. I will forcefully enter and start shooting them. God willing, I will kill as many of them as I possibly can.”

On March 12, Ghazali rammed a truck full of explosives and weapons into Temple Israel, one of the largest Reform synagogues in the country, which has an active early childcare center. Armed security stationed at the synagogue engaged with Ghazali inside the vehicle, who killed himself after his truck caught fire during the gunfight. No one else was killed. 

Ghazali, 41, was born in Lebanon and entered the U.S. in 2011 on an IR1 immigrant visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen. He was granted U.S. citizenship in 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security. 

Ghazali was the brother of a Hezbollah commander who was killed by the IDF in Lebanon the week before the attack.

In the days following the attack, US officials said Ghazali was flagged by federal government databases as having connections to “known or suspected terrorists” associated with Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon, the FBI revealed on Monday. 

If he survived, he would have been charged with providing material support to Hezbollah, Jerome Gorgon, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said. 

“This man acted under Hezbollah’s direction and control,” Gorgon said. “He intended to kill others, not just himself.”  

ROYAL OAK, Mich. — Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who is running in a tight three-way Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, slammed one of her opponents, Abdul El-Sayed, for his decision to campaign with the far-left political streamer Hasan Piker. 

Piker, who has a history of antisemitic and pro-Hamas remarks, is slated to appear at two campaign rallies with El-Sayed and Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) in April. 

“It is somebody who says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks and views and followers, which is not entirely different from somebody like Nick Fuentes,” McMorrow told Jewish Insider in an interview Thursday, referring to the neo-Nazi podcaster. “[Piker] is a provocateur, to put it lightly, who says things that are misogynistic and antisemitic, and said that the United States deserved 9/11.” 

McMorrow’s comments come as El-Sayed has doubled down on his decision to campaign with Piker. The third major candidate in the Democratic primary, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), said on Wednesday that Piker is “the exact opposite of someone I’d be campaigning with,” a sentiment McMorrow echoed.

“That is not somebody that you should be campaigning with at a moment when there is clearly a lot of pain and trauma across our state,” said McMorrow. “How do you bring everybody together, especially when there are difficult conversations, where there aren’t easy answers? You don’t fan the flames and stoke division just to get attention.” 

Earlier this month, a heavily armed man drove a car into Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue with an early childcare center in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., before he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The assailant’s brother, a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon, was killed by Israeli forces not long before the Michigan attack.

“I had made a statement back in 2023 after the Oct. 7 attacks that my biggest fear was that events in the Middle East tear us apart at home, and this was an example of that coming to life in a really visceral and terrifying way,” McMorrow said. 

“However you feel about what is happening in the Middle East, the response is never to take it out on people at home. The 140 kids who were at preschool that day bear no responsibility at all for anything that’s happening in the Middle East. And the rhetoric [is] being ratcheted up.”

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.”

Piker, for his part, has appeared to relish the new controversy, calling Schneider an “AIPAC dog” in an X post. “Democrats that spend any amount of time chirping about me love israel [sic] more than defeating Republicans and preserving democracy,” he wrote in another.

Even as prominent progressives have come to Piker’s defense, none seem to have meaningfully reckoned with his record of extreme commentary, which features a range of offensive statements about Jews and Israel. He has labeled Orthodox Jews as “inbred,” compared Zionists to Nazis and dismissed reports of sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. More recently, he unequivocally sided with Hamas, saying the terror group “is a thousand times better” than Israel — which he condemned as a “fascist settler colonial apartheid state” in a social media post last January to his 1.6 million followers.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), for instance, a potential 2028 presidential contender who has appeared on Piker’s show, said in mid-March that he is “proud” to join the streamer’s feed. But when asked to share his views on Piker’s antisemitic comments, Khanna — in keeping with other progressive elected officials and activists who likewise have ties to the influencer — has demurred, stating broadly that he condemns antisemitism while reiterating he has called Hamas a terrorist organization.

The debate over Piker raises questions about the meaning of progressivism as left-leaning figures have continued to tolerate and in some cases even condone Piker’s extreme commentary, which has frequently shown a penchant for illiberalism that is sharply at odds with traditional progressive values.

In addition to espousing antisemitism and using eliminationist rhetoric with regard to Israel, Piker has said “America deserved 9/11,” downplayed the U.S.-designated Uyghur genocide in China, voiced approval of Hezbollah, called Russia’s annexation of Crimea “justifiable” and endorsed political violence, among other radical sentiments regularly expressed on his Twitch stream and on social media.

Jeremiah Johnson, co-founder of the Center for New Liberalism, who has written critically about Democrats embracing Piker, said the fundamental issue with the streamer “is that he does not believe in liberal democracy.”

“I am generally in favor of a big tent for the Democratic Party,” he told Jewish Insider. “If we want to win large majorities, we’re going to have to accept that some of the people who vote for us will have idiosyncratic, outdated or even outright wrong and bigoted views. But that doesn’t mean we should make those voices the face of the party, and I think it’s a dangerous game for Democrats to promote people like Piker.”

Piker’s status otherwise underscores how some progressive leaders are increasingly aligning with extreme figures in the Democratic Party based on broad policy agreements, without fully accounting for the implications of ignoring or validating baggage that voters would likely find off-putting.

Last week, for example, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) joined a growing cohort of Democratic senators in endorsing Graham Platner, a far-left candidate running for Senate in the battleground state of Maine, saying he’s “got the grit to fight for what’s right on behalf of Maine’s working families — not billionaires and giant corporations.”

Her statement made no allusion to the lingering concerns over Platner’s now-covered Nazi tattoo — whose symbolism he claims not to have known until recently — even as she raised alarms last year about one of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s tattoos that is reportedly linked to white supremacist ideology.

Warren’s team did not respond to a request for comment from JI asking if she had considered Platner’s tattoo while making her endorsement.

Some critics argue that progressives who overlook Piker’s disturbing record or dismiss Platner’s tattoo do so at their own peril. 

Shannon Watts, a prominent gun control activist who has vocally criticized both Piker and Platner, said it is “disheartening to watch some Democratic politicians and pundits align with the most morally vacant and dangerous people in our party, just as we watched happen on the right for over a decade.”

“Too many Democrats are deciding one compromise at a time that their political survival matters more than principle,” she told JI this week. “Anyone who embraces hatred cannot call themselves progressive; they are simply an emerging version of MAGA on the left. Aligning with and supporting antisemitic behavior is a moral stain on our party and a stark warning sign for our future.”

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing criticism from some prominent Michigan Democrats — including Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who is running against him in the Democratic primary — for his decision to host campaign rallies with Hasan Piker, the far-left political streamer with a history of antisemitic remarks. 

“That’s the exact opposite of someone I’d be campaigning with,” Stevens told Jewish Insider on Wednesday. “We have to be serious here about who’s going to be the best general election candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan to beat [Republican] Mike Rogers, and someone who’s campaigning with someone like that is not going to win in Michigan.” 

El-Sayed will host two rallies with Piker and Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University on April 7. 

Piker has millions of followers on the streaming platform Twitch. He has said that “Hamas is a thousand times better” than Israel, and has described Orthodox Jews as “inbred.” He has also praised terrorists and said America deserved 9/11. 

Stevens said that by associating with Piker, El-Sayed is “choosing to campaign with someone who has a history of antisemitic rhetoric.”

Slotkin told JI that she is not familiar with much of Piker’s language but that what she knows of his rhetoric raises concerns for her.

“Any equating of all Jews or American Jews with Israel and the Israeli government is a problem right off the bat, and then it sounds like, from there, a cascading set of antisemitic tropes and just the kind of rhetoric that is — I want to read for myself, but sounds deeply antisemitic, consistently, and therefore not someone that should be helping anybody out in the Michigan political environment,” said Slotkin. 

The announcement of Piker’s upcoming campaign visits to Michigan comes two weeks after an attempted terrorist attack at Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. 

A new poll conducted by the campaign of Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, the third major Democrat running alongside Stevens and Piker, shows McMorrow leading the race with 30%. El-Sayed is behind her at 25%, and Stevens follows at 23%, with 21% undecided. Other polling ahead of the August primary has shown Stevens with a small lead. 

Far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is taking flak over comments in an internal campaign call that issuing a statement on the attempted terrorist attack on Temple Israel in the Detroit suburbs that placed blame on Israel for the attack was a “risk” he felt he had to take, Punchbowl News reported Tuesday.

In both the original statement and the internal comments, El-Sayed condemned the attack while also suggesting that it ultimately could be blamed on Israel’s operations in Lebanon. The alleged attacker was the brother of a Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli airstrike, the IDF said.

The Punchbowl report linked to a minute-long unlisted YouTube video of El-Sayed, which appears to have been recorded on Zoom.

“I want us to understand that we have to work toward a world where none of this happens, no war, no bombing of apartment buildings, no antisemitism, no attacks on synagogues in schools, like we need to be opposed to all of it and and I think that that’s the kind of leadership that I’m hoping I can offer,” El-Sayed said in the video.

“We put out a much longer statement on this,” he continued. “I hope folks will check it out, and I hope it resonated. And, you know, it was a risk. All of our team was really worried about saying something, but leadership is being willing to say the thing, if you believe it to be true, that nobody else is going to say.”

El-Sayed clarified in an X post that the “risk” he was referring to “that these cowards will NEVER take is having the courage to call out an illegal and unjustified war that’s killing children, wasting our tax dollars, and spiking gas prices, too.”

While El-Sayed spoke, one person in the Zoom meeting, identified as “Mauricio” appeared to justify the attack, saying in a comment, “The synagogue raised funds for the IDF.”

In the initial statement, El-Sayed offered a condemnation of the attack, emphasizing that it would leave scars on the community and that it recalled “centuries of trauma,” while affirming his support for Jews’ right to practice their faith in safety.

But, while condemning the attacker and saying his actions could not be justified, El-Sayed also suggested that the perpetrator’s actions ultimately traced back to Israel and its reported killing of his family members.

“Hurt people hurt people. Violence is a cycle,” El-Sayed said. “Ayman Ghazali lost family, including two children in an airstrike in Lebanon last week. They were innocent people, and then, in an evil act of displaced rage, he tried to take it out on innocent children who had nothing to do with the loss of the innocent children he lost, except that they share a faith.”

“A week earlier, an airstrike killed his niece and nephew. Imagine if that had never happened. Imagine there was no war in Iran. Imagine if there were no air strikes in Lebanon. Imagine if his family had never died. Imagine there was never an attack on Temple Israel. That’s the world that we want to live in,” El-Sayed continued.

Spokespeople for El-Sayed’s Democratic opponents did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

But Republicans have pounced on the comments.

Mike Rogers, the likely GOP nominee for the Senate race, condemned El-Sayed over his remarks in the internal campaign call.

“If you’re having a moral crisis over whether to condemn terrorism, you’re unfit for office,” Rogers said in a statement. “There’s no justification for it, but here Abdul is sympathizing with the attacker. It’s an absolute slap in the face to the families of these kids, and to Michigan’s entire Jewish community — and only serves to inflame antisemitism.”

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, called his comments “pathetic.

“The contrast couldn’t be more clear in Michigan: radical terrorist sympathizers like Abdul El-Sayed or America First heroes like Mike Rogers,” Scott said.

El-Sayed has shrugged off criticisms of his comments.

El-Sayed is also facing attacks from Republicans and the Democratic group Third Way over his participation in a pair of events with far-left influencer Hasan Piker, who has repeatedly made antisemitic comments and expressed support for terrorism.

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Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard distanced herself — to a degree — from two of her isolationist-minded aides, Joe Kent and Dan Caldwell, who have taken a hostile stance to the U.S.’ Middle East policy, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. 

Gabbard affirmed, after being pressed at a House Intelligence Committee hearing today, that the conspiratorial views about Israel espoused by Kent in his resignation letter earlier this week did concern her, and said about Caldwell that he would have no influence over intelligence reports at her agency.

Gabbard, who has previously been a vocal critic of military engagement with Iran, further acknowledged that her current position requires her to “check” her personal views “at the door”…

Reports of a potential $200 billion emergency funding request from the Pentagon for the war in Iran are drawing firm Democratic opposition and hedged responses from Republicans on the Hill: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he’ll “look at” the request “but obviously it’s a dangerous time in the world and we have to adequately fund defense,” while Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he’d “hate to be the senator that denied the request if it made sense.” Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) responded with a simple “No,” while Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called it a “nonstarter”…

The Senate is set to hold another round of votes on blocking U.S. arms transfers to Israel, after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) filed three new joint resolutions of disapproval against $658.8 million in sales of over 20,000 bombs to Israel, JI’s Marc Rod reports.

A majority of the Democratic caucus — 27 lawmakers — voted to block at least one arms sale in July of last year, a significant jump in support from previous similar efforts; Israel’s standing in the party has largely declined since then amid Democratic criticism of the war with Iran…

During a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at the White House today, President Donald Trump reiterated that he had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to attack Iranian oil facilities, after an Israeli strike on the South Pars gas field yesterday: “I told them, don’t do that. We didn’t discuss. … It’s coordinated, but on occasion, he’ll do something.”

Trump also put pressure on Takaichi to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, while European leaders released a joint statement “express[ing] our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait,” after repeatedly declining to get involved. A team of British military planners is now consulting with CENTCOM on options to assist short of military action, The New York Times reports…

Asked if he will deploy more U.S. troops in the region, Trump told reporters he’s “not putting troops anywhere. If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you — but I’m not putting troops”…

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth compared Iran to Hamas in a briefing today, saying that, “just like Hamas and their tunnels,” Iran has “poured any aid, any economic development … into tunnels and rockets”…

A group of congressional Democrats is urging the State Department to restart chartered evacuation flights out of Israel and take additional steps to help U.S. citizens who wish to leave the country amid the ongoing war with Iran, JI’s Marc Rod reports. 

The lawmakers described the State Department’s current partnership with El Al, which launched on March 13 with a limited number of special evacuation flights for U.S. citizens, as insufficient. The Israeli airline has currently suspended registration for the flights, and government-imposed security restrictions are limiting passenger capacity on each flight and reducing airport operations…

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the U.S. may lift sanctions on Iranian oil already at sea in order to blunt rising gas prices. “In essence, we will be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or 14 days as we continue this campaign,” he explained on Fox News…

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan warned the kingdom is reaching a breaking point after continued Iranian attacks, saying “what little trust” Riyadh had with Tehran has “completely been shattered.”

On a potential Saudi military response, Prince Faisal said, “Do they have a day, two, a week? I’m not going to telegraph that.” It’s a notable shift for Riyadh, which had been pivoting away from its traditional allies and towards Iran and other Islamist countries prior to the war…

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker condemned AIPAC after a primary cycle in which the pro-Israel group spent millions backing — and opposing — candidates across the state, calling it “an organization that was supporting Donald Trump and people who follow Donald Trump.”

Pritzker, a Jewish Democrat who was once an AIPAC donor himself, said it “really is not an organization that I think today I would want any part of.” He further echoed far-left sentiments that Israel dragged the U.S. into conflict with Iran, claiming Trump “simply follow[ed] Netanyahu into that war”…

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) details his experience with a would-be assailant, a man described by authorities as a “ticking time bomb,” who was arrested near his home last year after police discovered an arsenal of weapons and a handwritten list of targets that included Jewish sites and Moskowitz.

“Besides the police presence outside his house, Moskowitz himself will not appear in parades and says he won’t speak at outdoor staged events. ‘It’s not worth it. I’d rather lose my election,’” the lawmaker told Roll Call…

Temple Israel in suburban Detroit released photos of the devastation to the building caused by an attacker last week, noting that it had “chosen thus far not to make [the photos] public” but are doing so now “to take back control of our narrative” after several were leaked to the media.

“We share these images because our community deserves to see our building through eyes of love, not through the lens of spectacle. This is our sacred space, and we will be the ones to tell its story,” the synagogue wrote…

The University of California, Berkeley reached a settlement in its lawsuit with the federal government, agreeing to pay $1 million and make changes to its discrimination policy following accusations that the university had failed to properly address campus antisemitism. 

Among the policy changes, the school will clarify that the word “Zionist” cannot be used as a proxy for Jew or Israeli. The claims in the lawsuit predate the recent campus unrest over Israel’s war in Gaza, stemming from an incident in 2022 when student groups adopted policies saying they would not host Zionist speakers…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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 struggles facing international broadcasters Voice of America and Radio Free Europe in reaching Iranian citizens during the ongoing war due to budget cuts and roadblocks from the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

The House Appropriations Committee will hold a field hearing at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. in New York City on “accountability and reform” at the U.N. 

We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat Shalom!

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QUARREL ON THE QUAD

University of Michigan regent race revives campus fight over Israel

Anti-Israel activists are singling out regent Jordan Acker, hoping to unseat him with attorney Amir Makled, who represented a member of the school’s encampment

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When Jordan Acker ran for the University of Michigan Board of Regents in 2018 — a statewide elected office — he presented himself as a young alumnus eager to bring a fresh energy to the governing board of Michigan’s flagship public university. 

But since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel in 2023, Acker has become the target of the university’s anti-Israel activists, facing harassment and vandalism that Michigan leaders have called plainly antisemitic. 

Acker, who is Jewish, has been a staunch opponent of efforts to divest university funds from Israel, along with other members of the Board of Regents, which has reiterated that it will not divest from Israeli companies. In November, the president of Michigan’s student government vetoed a divestment resolution. 

In May 2024, a stranger wearing a keffiyeh came to Acker’s house in the middle of the night and placed papers on the door, described as a list of demands from the “UMich Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” In December of that year, his front windows were smashed and his wife’s car was vandalized with pro-Hamas graffiti. The university called it “a clear act of antisemitic intimidation.” 

Now Acker is up for reelection, along with regent Paul Brown. Both of them are Democrats who were elected to the board in 2018, and they each oppose divestment. 

But the university’s anti-Israel activists are targeting only Acker. This time, they are advocating for voters to unseat him and to vote instead for Amir Makled, a candidate who has aligned himself with anti-Israel activists and advocated for the university to divest from Israel. Only two of the three candidates will proceed to the general election, where they’ll go up against two Republicans. 

A flyer that was distributed at a recent Washtenaw County Democrats meeting in support of Makled called out only Acker for his support of Israel. (Brown told Jewish Insider that he and Acker are running on a ticket, and they are doing events together as well as joint fundraising.)

“UM Regent Jordan Acker is up for re-election this year, and as one of the most vocally zionist regents who has personally advocated for the repression of pro Palestine voices at the university, we are mobilizing to unseat him from his position on the Board of Regents,” read the flyer, which featured a photo of Acker’s face crossed out with a red X. “Together we can replace him with pro-Palestine regental candidate Amir Makled who helped successfully defend the UM Encampment 11 against charges from MI attorney general Dana Nessel.” 

The flyer encouraged Michigan students to sign up to attend the Michigan Democratic Party convention in Detroit on April 19, where delegates will nominate the two candidates for Board of Regents. 

Nearly two decades ago, Makled helped pass a measure calling on the University of Michigan’s Dearborn campus to divest from Israel when he was a student there in the late 2000s. It was one of the first universities in the nation to vote in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Makled, a Dearborn trial lawyer who represented an anti-Israel protester who was arrested during the 2024 University of Michigan encampments, is basing his pitch to voters in part on the idea that the state’s flagship public university should divest from Israel. Makled has been endorsed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), one of the most vocal critics of Israel in Congress.

“Investment in entities that are not ethical and don’t represent the values of this institution aren’t in the best interest of the university,” Makled recently told The Michigan Daily, the campus newspaper. “[Investment] should be based off ethical dollars and ethical approaches to investment. And so we shouldn’t be profiting from entities that are supporting a genocide.”

And while Acker and Brown might prefer that the race not be used to relitigate the messy 2023-2024 academic year that followed the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks — other issues like tuition affordability and the university’s response to President Donald Trump are expected to be a focus for all three candidates — the election is already shaping up to be a referendum on the university’s handling of anti-Israel protests that year.

“We made mistakes. I think there’s no question about it. And I think a lot of these decisions were made from a place of real stress and real personal fear and real trying to do what was right based on the information we knew at the time,” Acker told JI on Wednesday. “You have to be realistic and protect the rights, yes, of pro-Palestine protesters. I think that’s one of our most sacred rights. But we can’t do so at the expense of other people’s rights.”

Brown is also opposed to divestment, and he, like Acker, had to deal with a protester showing up at his home in the middle of the night. But it did not change his stance on divestment.

“I had a masked person come to my home at 3 a.m. and nail a demand letter onto my door that said, Do these I think, four things by Thursday or else, and every one of them was, in essence, a form of punishment to the people in the nation of Israel,” Brown said. “My feeling is that I’m just fundamentally opposed to using the university as a mechanism, as a weapon, to punish any group or nation.”

Makled, who is the child of Lebanese immigrants, received a burst of national media attention early last year when he was detained at the Detroit airport on his way home from a family vacation. He claimed he was being questioned because he was representing a University of Michigan student who was facing felony charges of resisting arrest during a police raid on the anti-Israel encampment in 2024. He told the Michigan College Democrats that the Board of Regents’ handling of the protests was part of his reason for deciding to run.

“We have to support students, and we have to have the right to speak out, because that’s at the core of what we do when we’re going through the process of higher education,” Makled said at the meeting. 

The charges against the protesters, including his client, were dropped last year. Afterward, in the courtroom, he made an impromptu speech.

“This was not about trespass. This was not about felony conduct. This was the criminalization of free speech and today the state of Michigan agrees,” said Makled. “There is still a genocide that is happening in Palestine. And we should never forget that today, we still get to stand firm and say, free Palestine.”

Makled did not respond to a request for comment.

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📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing today that the Iranian regime “appears to be intact but largely degraded,” Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports, as the U.S. and Israel continue to target Iranian leaders and assets. If it survives the war, she said, the regime would “seek to begin a yearslong effort to rebuild its military, missiles and UAV forces.”

Gabbard, a longtime opponent of war with Iran, repeatedly declined to say whether the intelligence community had assessed Iran to be an imminent threat to the United States, after her former deputy, Joe Kent, alleged in his resignation letter yesterday that no such threat existed. CIA Director John Ratcliffe, however, was clear in his view that “Iran has been a constant threat to the United States for an extended period of time, and posed an immediate threat at this time”…

Regarding Kent’s resignation over his opposition to the war in Iran and claims that Israel coerced the U.S. into the war, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Kent “was not someone who was involved in … the president’s intelligence briefings over the last several months. Have not seen him here at the White House for quite some time.”

She said President Donald Trump finds it “disappointing” that Kent would “resign with a letter filled with falsehoods, accusing the president of the United States [of] being controlled by a foreign country. That’s both insulting and laughable.”

Vice President JD Vance told reporters, “I know Joe Kent a little bit. I like Joe Kent … It’s fine to disagree, but once the president makes a decision, it’s up to everybody who serves in his administration to make it as successful as possible. That’s how I do my job”…

In his nomination hearing to be secretary of homeland security, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said he will aim to “streamline the process” for grants, including the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, JI’s Matthew Shea reports, vowing to work to “cut out the redundancies.”

“The amount of paperwork once you’re approved to get the funding flowing, and then the paperwork that’s followed up on is way too encompassing,” Mullin said. “Taking years to get reimbursed is not acceptable. Taking months to get reimbursed is not acceptable.” His hearing was otherwise colored by personal hostility with Homeland Security Committee Chair Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), which could complicate Mullin’s path to nomination…

The Israeli Air Force reportedly struck the South Pars gas field in Iran, the largest in the world; Qatar, which owns half of the field, called it a “dangerous and irresponsible step.” The U.S. reportedly had knowledge of the operation, despite the Trump administration asking Israel earlier this month not to strike energy facilities…

Trump issued a veiled threat to American allies who have declined to assist in securing the Strait of Hormuz, musing on Truth Social, “I wonder what would happen if we ‘finished off’ what’s left of the Iranian Terror State, and let the Countries that use it, we don’t, be responsible for the so called ‘Strait?’ That would get some of our non-responsive ‘Allies’ in gear, and fast!!!”…

Michael Blake, the Democrat challenging Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) whose campaign has focused extensively on criticism of Israel and AIPAC, expressed strong support for Kent’s resignation letter and his baseless claim of Israel’s role in initiating the war. “An absolutely breathtaking, courageous and bold resignation letter stating that Iran posed NO IMMINENT THREAT to us and Trump made this decision due to the Israeli government and its American Lobby,” Blake wrote on X…

Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner released an ad in response to one from his opponent, Gov. Janet Mills, highlighting social media comments he had made about sexual assault. “If I saw these ads, I’d have questions,” Platner says in the spot. “Maine, I’m asking you not to judge me for the worst thing I said on the internet on my worst day 14 years ago, but who I am today.”

Mills replied with another ad featuring an interview clip of Platner in which he said about his posts, “I made a lot of comments that I’m not, like, ashamed of. It’s not as though I have this ream of comments in which I look back and I’m like, oh my god, I was a terrible person back then”…

During an economic-focused visit to Detroit today, Vance remarked about the recent shooting attack at nearby Temple Israel, “When something happens to any member of our American family, and this particular incident happened to Jewish members of our American family, it is something that all of us have to stand up and say, it’s disgusting, it’s unacceptable”… 

Also in response to the Temple Israel attack, Montgomery County, Md., a heavily Jewish suburb of Washington, announced it will provide $500,000 in supplemental funding for its Nonprofit Security Grant Program for current recipients over the next 90 days. It’s one of the few localities that provides its own funding in addition to the federal program…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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 far-left candidates running against establishment Democrats in Colorado.

The Senate will vote on another war powers resolution this evening aiming to stop the U.S. operation in Iran. The resolution, sponsored by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), is expected to fail largely along party lines, as the previous one did earlier this month.

Administration intelligence officials including DNI Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe will appear before the House Intelligence Committee tomorrow for its rescheduled worldwide threats hearing.

The Senate’s Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee is set to hold a vote on Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s (R-OK) nomination to be secretary of homeland security, though Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) threatened to cancel it over personal animosity and outstanding questions about a 2016 overseas trip that Mullin claims was classified. If a vote is held, Mullin will need the support of at least one Democrat on the committee in order to advance without Paul’s support, which Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has previously pledged to provide.

After his appearance this evening on far-right commentator Tucker Carlson’s podcast, Joe Kent will be interviewed tomorrow by Candace Owens, who similarly deals in antisemitic conspiracy theories, at the Catholic Prayer for America gala in Washington. Also appearing at the gala is Carrie Prejean Boller, the former beauty pageant queen who was removed from the White House’s Religious Liberty Commission after berating Jewish hearing witnesses over antisemitism.

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HORSESHOE POLITICS

Onetime Democratic critics elevate Joe Kent’s conspiratorial resignation letter

Democrats previously slammed Kent as an untrustworthy extremist in opposing his nomination. Now, amid his anti-Israel accusations, some argue he has a point

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📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned from his role today over opposition to the war in Iran, baselessly alleging that Israel had coerced the United States into what he characterized as a misguided military conflict, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

In a letter to President Donald Trump, Kent, a former Green Beret who had reported to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, wrote that he “cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” claiming that the Islamic Republic “posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

Kent, a hard-right former congressional candidate with isolationist foreign policy leanings, has previously promoted conspiracy theories, echoed pro-Russia messaging and associated with white supremacists and neo-Nazis, among other controversies. He’s now expected to appear on the podcast of his ally and friend Tucker Carlson…

After being largely rejected by foreign leaders on his repeated calls to assist in the war with Iran, Trump claimed in a post on Truth Social that, “Because of the fact that we have had such Military Success, we no longer ‘need,’ or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID! … WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”

Asked about the timeline of the war by reporters in the Oval Office this afternoon, Trump said, “We’re not ready to leave yet, but we will be leaving in the … very near future”…

Reports indicate Iran’s security forces, despite being badly battered by the U.S. and Israel, are conducting renewed crackdowns on the Iranian public and potential dissenters. At least 500 people have been arrested since the start of the war, and new security checkpoints are being deployed for regime oversight…

Major U.S. airlines have extended their suspensions of direct flights to Tel Aviv as the war continues, JI’s Haley Cohen reports, with both United and Delta airlines not offering any direct flights until June.

The first direct flight on United Airlines between Newark Liberty International Airport and Ben Gurion Airport is available on June 16, while the first direct New York to Tel Aviv flight on Delta Airlines is available June 1. United’s direct flights from Israel to Chicago O’Hare and Washington Dulles International Airport are also suspended…

U.S. Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack denied reports that the U.S. is encouraging Syria to deploy forces into eastern Lebanon to help disarm Hezbollah, as the IDF begins to carry out ground incursions in the south of the country…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to post “proof of life” videos on social media amid internet conspiracy theories that he has been killed and replaced by a look-alike…

Trump’s decision to withhold his endorsement in the Texas Senate GOP runoff all but guarantees that Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will both appear on the May 26 runoff ballot, as neither have dropped out of the race ahead of this evening’s deadline…

Maine Gov. Janet Mills released her first attack ad against her Democratic primary rival in the race for U.S. Senate, oyster farmer Graham Platner, highlighting social media comments he made about sexual assault that have marred his campaign. In the ad, several women read disparaging comments made by Platner on Reddit over a decade ago relating to rape, and a picture of Platner’s Nazi tattoo — which he has since had covered — is displayed under a magnifying glass. “The closer you look, the worse it gets,” the ad’s narrator says…

The Wall Street Journal spotlights the gamble being made by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker as he expends political capital (and actual capital) backing his lieutenant governor, Juliana Stratton, in the state’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate taking place today. Pritzker’s involvement has drawn the ire of the Congressional Black Caucus, which is backing Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL), even though both Stratton and Kelly are Black. The race is seen as a test of Pritzker’s political clout in his home state…

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 accuse Israel of committing genocide and to praise Robinson’s controversial tenure as the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, JI’s Will Bredderman reports.

“I think also of how she stood steadfast alongside the people of Palestine,” the mayor said in listing Robinson’s accomplishments. “I say this as over the past few years as we’ve witnessed a genocide unfold before our eyes, there has been deafening silence from so many. For those who have long cared about universal human rights and the extension of them to Palestinians, silence, however, is nothing new. For Palestinians are so often left to weep alone. Yet former President Robinson has never been silent”…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for a rundown of the results of Illinois’ Democratic primaries, where polls close at 8 p.m. ET.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is expected to face questions over the departure of her deputy, Joe Kent, at the Senate Intelligence Committee’s hearing on worldwide threats, where she will testify alongside other intelligence agency heads. Gabbard said today after Kent’s resignation that, as commander-in-chief, Trump “concluded that … Iran posed an imminent threat and he took action based on that conclusion,” but did not say whether she agrees herself in that assessment, something she is likely to be pressed on tomorrow.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will receive a classified briefing on the war in Iran from State Department intelligence officials.

The Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a nomination hearing for Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) to be secretary of homeland security after Trump’s ouster of Secretary Kristi Noem.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom will hold a hearing on rising antisemitism abroad.

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NAMING NAMES

Jonathan Greenblatt calls out Chris Van Hollen, Ro Khanna at ADL’s national conference

The ADL’s annual summit comes amid high-profile antisemitic attacks during the Iran war

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This P.M. edition is reserved for our premium subscribers — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

European countries are largely rebuffing President Donald Trump’s calls to join the war with Iran and help secure the largely impassable Strait of Hormuz. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said today, “This is not our war; we did not start it,” while the French foreign ministry said, “Posture has not changed: defensive it is.” Poland, the U.K. and Italy similarly made clear they would not be participating in an offensive capacity…

On potential negotiations with Iran, Trump told reporters, “We don’t even know their leaders. We have people wanting to negotiate. We have no idea who they are.” He said new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is “badly disfigured” and noted it’s “unusual” he hasn’t recently been seen in public.

Khamenei narrowly survived an airstrike on his compound on Feb. 28 as he briefly stepped outside, according to leaked audio obtained by The Telegraph, which reportedly contains remarks by an official in the office of deceased Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to senior clerics…

IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani denied reports that Israel is running low on missile interceptors, saying there is no “urgent problem” and that the military re-equips its supplies “in real time”…

Debris and missile fragments from Iranian attacks fell in the Old City of Jerusalem near several sensitive sites including the Western Wall Plaza and feet away from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre…

Twenty-three Democratic members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee wrote to Trump requesting a public hearing with Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to understand their role in “lead[ing] diplomatic engagement with Iran”…

Representatives of the U.S.-led Board of Peace met with Hamas officials over the weekend in Cairo, Egypt, Reuters reports, in an effort to keep ceasefire negotiations on track even as the war with Iran proceeds. Aryeh Lightstone, an aide to Witkoff, reportedly represented the U.S. delegation, with more meetings expected this week…

Times of Israel reporter Emanuel Fabian chronicles his experience receiving death threats from users of the prediction market platform Polymarket over his reporting on a recent Iranian missile strike in the city of Beit Shemesh…

Trump announced that Susie Wiles, his White House chief of staff, has been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer and will receive treatment while remaining in her post…

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a potential 2028 presidential contender, tested out his measured, pro-Israel messaging in a series of recent podcast interviews, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. In his appearances on “Pod Save America” and “Higher Learning,” Shapiro made the case that, as the starting point for any public political conversation about Israel, the fact of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state must be respected.

“I think what is dangerous here … is for those who think Israel doesn’t have a right to exist in [the] conversation. That to me is a recipe for permanent war,” Shapiro told “Higher Learning” host Van Lathan. He also pushed back on California Gov. Gavin Newsom, his potential 2028 opponent, for saying Israel could be described as an apartheid state…

Rep. Mike Lawler’s (R-NY) reelection campaign is employing a community activist, Darrell Davis, who has criticized Democratic politicians, including Rep. George Latimer (D-NY) and a county executive, for taking money from pro-Israel groups and traveling to Israel, Politico reports.

Davis accused Latimer of being on the receiving end of a “Jewish organized spending spree” and taking “about $30 million to buy a congressional seat, to represent the interests of Israel,” which he called “a horrific threat to democracy.” About Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins’ trip to Israel, Davis wrote, “Why are they in Israel?? What more proof do people need that black Dems don’t give a sh*t about you. They are up for sale”…

The day before her primary election in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, far-left social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh removed language from her campaign website claiming “There is no acceptable scenario that leaves Hamas in charge of the Gaza Strip,” after she had faced criticism from the Hamas-friendly outlet Drop Site News over its inclusion. Her site says that the earlier language on the page “did not accurately reflect Kat’s views or the values of this campaign”…

And the closing drama in the Illinois Senate Democratic primary is Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton’s claim that she received a deathbed endorsement from civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, which the Jackson family said today he had never finalized. The late reverend’s support is seen as meaningful in the race, which includes multiple prominent Black candidates, as well as Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL)…

The Atlantic spotlights one of the main obstacles facing Maine Gov. Janet Mills in her Democratic primary for U.S. Senate against oyster farmer Graham Platner: her age. Mills, 78, “does not have a dicey Reddit history or a recently covered-over Nazi tattoo” but is still trailing in the polls, even as Platner continues to be plagued by scandals. “One likely factor: If she is elected, Mills would be the oldest freshman senator in history”…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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 tense runoff in the Democratic primary for Texas’ 35th Congressional District, where a fringe conspiracy theorist eked out a narrow victory over a sheriff’s deputy backed by the pro-Israel establishment.

All eyes will be on the Prairie State tomorrow, as several high-profile Democratic primaries will be decided across Illinois. Read JI’s coverage of the races to watch.

On the Hill, the House Intelligence Committee will hold its annual hearing on worldwide threats, with testimony from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, FBI Director Kash Patel, NSA Acting Director William Hartman and DIA Director James Adams.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on reforming U.S. defense sales.

Stories You May Have Missed

BREAKING POINT

Antisemitism meets America’s ‘thoughts and prayers’ ritual

Democrats began calling out those who traffic in antisemitic rhetoric when they offered platitudes after an attack on a Michigan synagogue

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UNDER PRESSURE

Ro Khanna facing new Democratic challenger hitting him from the political center

Tech entrepreneur Ethan Agarwal: ‘He thinks being racist against Jewish people is going to help him win the American left. I don’t care if he’s right. I just think it’s unethical and immoral’

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Six weeks ago, Danny Phillips, the director of security at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., arranged for the FBI to hold an active-shooter training for the congregation, one of the largest Reform synagogues in the county.

That training potentially saved the lives of 140 children and their teachers on Thursday when an assailant rammed a truck full of explosives and weapons into the building.

The education the staff received, the congregation’s rabbi, Josh Bennett, told Jewish Insider, “included the famous ‘run, hide, fight,’ and that’s exactly what our people did. And it’s only because he brought that to the front of mind that we are ready at the moment,” the rabbi continued, referring to Phillips.

The frightening incident unfolded on Thursday afternoon when Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, the brother of a Hezbollah commander who was born in Lebanon and became a U.S. citizen in 2016, breached the suburban Detroit synagogue, while it was filled with preschoolers.

Armed security stationed at the synagogue engaged with Ghazali inside the vehicle, who killed himself after his truck caught fire during the gunfight with security officials. Phillips was the only other person injured during the attack — he was knocked unconscious and remained hospitalized on Sunday, and is expected to make a full recovery.

“That is the guy who is our hero,” said Bennett. Phillips previously spent 28 years working for the Bloomfield Hills Police Department. 

“Because of him, not just his heroic actions on Thursday, but the way he has treated the hiring of staff and the training of our teachers and staff, that’s what made a difference,” Bennett told JI.  “Yes, he was a hero in the moment and there’s no way to overstate how incredible he was, along with other members of our team who engaged this perpetrator. But it’s bigger than that.” 

Rachel Levine, director of Temple Israel’s early childhood center, said she gives tours to prospective families a few times a week “and everyone’s first question is always about security.”

“Every time I tell them, in my life, I have never felt so safe in a building as I do here,” said Levine, who has previously worked at Jewish day schools and public schools, some of which were in downtown Detroit. 

“The men that are there to take care of us have really made us always feel like they are taking care of us,” she continued. “I knew [in the] moment [of the attack] that they were going to do what they had to do to make sure that none of us were hurt. And literally, they did.” 

Even as community leaders are describing the outcome of the attack as a miracle, Temple Israel, one of the largest Reform congregations in the U.S. with 3,100 families, faces a long road to recovery and rebuilding. 

“Our staff and teachers who were in the building are at various levels of coping,” Bennett told JI. “We are putting together professional programs to support people. At the same time we are trying to figure out the rebuilding phase. The building has already been released by the FBI and we’re starting to have insurance walk through and help us understand rebuilding. It’s a massive project. We’re talking about moving our office staff, religious school and nursery school in the interim.” 

With the assistance of the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, the community has set up recovery spots for families, which includes support for mental and physical health care, as well as a space for retrieving children’s belongings left behind in the building. Bennett described it as an “emotional site as parents walk in.” 

“Everyone is in a tremendous sense of disbelief. I woke up today feeling angry that we are in this position,” added Levine. 

But the Temple Israel leaders also noted an “overwhelming” outpouring of support from near and far, including from political leadership in Michigan, some of whom faced criticism over muted responses as the state saw a spate of antisemitic vandalisms after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

“There have been really clear messages against antisemitism at the press conferences [from] both Gov. [Gretchen] Whitmer and Sen. [Elissa] Slotkin (D-MI),” said Bennett. “There were pretty strong words that I have not heard before from leadership. I don’t know what that means in terms of legislation but we feel very protected and supported right now.”

The congregation also leaned on its longstanding relationship with the Chaldean community, Iraqi Christians who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1950s to flee persecution. “They have a huge population in our midst and their community center is directly across the street from us, a major country club,” which served as a reunification point for parents and children on Thursday, said Bennett. 

“On Sept. 11 we came together, on Oct. 7 they were in our sanctuary supporting us,” he continued. “They have been unbelievably gracious and gave us their social hall for Shabbat services,” where more than 1,000 people worshipped together on Friday evening, as many more around the world watched via a livestream.

“The outpouring of financial and emotional support from everyone has been at times overwhelming,” said Bennett, who is one of Temple Israel’s seven rabbis.

While the congregation’s adults grapple with trauma from the attack and discuss rebuilding, in a testament to how well security officials, staff and teachers protected the children, Levine recalled a conversation she had with a father who picked up his 4-year-old son from the reunification point. 

The boy described the day to his family not as scary, but exciting; full of “fire drills” and police.      

“We practice all the time so the kids are not afraid,” said Levine.  

The suspect in the attack last week at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., was the brother of a Hezbollah commander, the IDF said on Sunday.

The IDF announced in an X post on Sunday that Ibrahim Muhammad Ghazali, the brother of Ayman Mohammad Ghazali, “was responsible for managing weapons operations within a specialized branch of [Hezbollah’s] Badr Unit. The unit is responsible for launching hundreds of rockets toward Israeli civilians throughout the war.”

“Ibrahim was eliminated in an IAF strike on a Hezbollah military structure last week,” the IDF said.

After Thursday’s attack, in which Ayman Ghazali drove his vehicle through the doors of the synagogue and preschool building and killed himself after his truck caught fire, some media outlets noted that relatives of the attacker had been killed in recent Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon.

A New York Times article initially headlined “The Michigan Synagogue Attacker Was a Quiet Restaurant Worker” focused on Ghazali’s response to the deaths of his brother and his brother’s two children. “The auditorium at the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights, Mich.,” the paper reported, “was packed” the night of the family’s memorial.

Hezbollah called Ghazali’s two brothers, Qasim and Ibrahim, “martyrs” after they were killed in an Israeli strike, and noted that Ibrahim “kill[ed] 10 Zionists.”

CBS reported that another of Ghazali’s brothers, Qasim, was also a member of a Hezbollah rocket unit.

According to CNN, Ghazali appeared in federal government databases as having ties to “known or suspected terrorists” associated with Hezbollah. He had been questioned upon his return from his last trip to Lebanon in 2019.

The IDF has been carrying out airstrikes on Hezbollah targets since the beginning of the month, after the Iran-backed terrorist group joined the Islamic Republic in its attacks on Israel, following the launch of Operation Lion’s Roar two weeks ago.

👋 Good Friday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on yesterday’s attack on the Temple Israel congregation in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., and talk to Senate leaders about how the incident, in which one person was injured, could affect the ongoing stalemate over Department of Homeland Security funding. We cover the clash between the center-left think tank Third Way and Rep. Ro Khanna over the Democratic Party’s approach to antisemitism, and talk to experts about Iran’s degraded missile launch capabilities. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sarah Rogers and Jeff Miller.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik, Emily Jacobs and 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: The Amodei siblings leading Anthropic clash with the White House over AI safety; Conservative students alarmed about College Republicans leader with Nick Fuentes ties; and Will Iranian attacks push Qatar to expel Hamas leaders? Print the latest edition here.

What We’re Watching

• We’ll be keeping an eye out in the coming days on how yesterday’s attack on a Michigan synagogue is playing out on the national stage, from Jewish communal conversations to debates in Washington and in state capitals about antisemitism, security funding and safety measures.
• We’ll also be monitoring the ongoing military operations in the Middle East. Overnight, dozens were injured in an Iranian strike on the northern Israeli Arab town of Zarzir. Earlier this morning, CENTCOM confirmed that four of the six crew members of a U.S. KC-135 that crashed during a refueling mission in western Iraq on Thursday were killed, with an investigation underway.
• In Iran, a large explosion was reported this afternoon local time at a Quds Day demonstration in Tehran. The IDF had previously warned against congregating in the area.
• SXSW continues today, with Tech Tribe hosting its annual Shabbat dinner this evening.
• On Sunday, Jewish philanthropists are convening in San Diego for the three-day annual Jewish Funders Network conference. eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher and Rachel Kohn will be on the ground at JFN — sign up for eJP’s Your Daily Phil for the latest on the conference, and say hello if you see Jay and Rachel in San Diego.
• The Zionist Organization of America is hosting a gala in South Florida on Sunday night, where the group will honor Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) and the Justice Department’s Leo Terrell.
• In New York on Sunday, HaZamir: The International Jewish Teen Choir, is slated to perform at Lincoln Center.
• And across the country, the Oscars are taking place Sunday night in Los Angeles.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

It’s a testament to the level of security, staff preparation and good fortune that a potential terrorist attack against Temple Israel in suburban Detroit was foiled yesterday. The fact that no one other than the heavily armed perpetrator was killed after driving a vehicle filled with explosives into a synagogue filled with preschoolers, counts as something of a miracle.

It’s also a reminder of the consequences of what can happen when antisemitism is allowed to become normalized in our society, moving unchecked through our social media feeds and political discourse, all amid the record levels of hate crimes committed against Jews simply for their identity.

Even as politicians are reflexively speaking out against antisemitism in the aftermath of the attack, it’s hard to forget the poisonous rhetoric many on the extremes have advanced that could easily activate a lone-wolf extremist to commit an unspeakable crime. 

On the hard left, opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza has morphed into accusations of genocide, attacks against AIPAC as a uniquely sinister organization, conspiracy theories that Israel tricked the U.S. into war with Iran and euphemizing the support of terrorism as merely being “pro-Palestinian.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who has emerged as one of his party’s leading anti-Israel voices as he mulls a presidential campaign, had the audacity to say he “stands with” antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker — along with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has refused to condemn “globalize the intifada” rhetoric and anti-Israel Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner — during the Michigan synagogue terror attack.

Former Obama deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes and his “Pod Save America” colleagues are now declaring that anyone who supports the Iran war — a group that may well include some Jewish Democrats in Congress who are sympathetic to the operation’s aims, even if they have reservations — should be primaried, and have no place within the Democratic Party. 

On the hard right, extremist podcasters are broadcasting the most undiluted antisemitism in media since the days of Father Coughlin in the 1930s. Tucker Carlson has devoted much of his show to promoting conspiracy theories about Jews, while other social media influencers have found that attacking Israel and questioning Jewish influence is a ticket to building a niche audience in online spaces. Gatherings of young right-wingers have all too often become cesspools of anti-Jewish hate. 

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

TEMPLE ISRAEL ATTACK

Assailant killed in active shooter situation at Michigan synagogue

An assailant was killed during an active shooter situation at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., law enforcement officials confirmed on Thursday afternoon. One other person, a security guard, was injured, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

Probe details: The attack is being investigated as a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community,” Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office, confirmed in a Thursday evening press conference. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed to JI that the attack was carried out by Ayman Mohamad Ghazali. Ghazali, 41, was born in Lebanon and entered the U.S. in 2011 on an IR1 immigrant visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen. He was granted U.S. citizenship in 2016, according to DHS. Law enforcement officials did not release information on a possible motive.

Read the full story here.

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SECURITY RECKONING

Michigan synagogue attack seems unlikely to shift DHS funding stalemate

The car ramming and shooting attack at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., on Thursday seems unlikely to break the congressional stalemate over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which has been in a partial shutdown for weeks, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Among other programs, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Nonprofit Security Grant Program fall under the DHS funding bill, which Democrats have sought to renegotiate to implement new restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, following the deadly shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

Not shifting: Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said that Republicans have tried to fund DHS through a short term stopgap bill as negotiations continue, but Democrats have refused. “It’s a dangerous game, and people are going to get hurt,” Thune said. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pointed blame for the lack of NSGP funding toward Republicans, highlighting that they had blocked passage of legislation by Democrats on Thursday to fund and reopen portions of DHS, including FEMA. “Leader Schumer is an ardent supporter of NSGP funding, and this week, Republicans rejected Democratic efforts to fund the program through FEMA, along with the TSA, CISA, and the Coast Guard,” a spokesperson for Schumer told JI.

Read the full story here.

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TAKING A STAND

Democratic divide over antisemitism erupts in clash between Third Way and Ro Khanna

Following a Republican convening this week focused on combating right-wing antisemitism, a prominent moderate Democratic group urged fellow Democrats to follow the lead of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in calling out antisemitism within their own party. “We certainly believe that Cruz was right and our side has a real antisemitism problem too that too many Democrats are failing to face squarely,” Matt Bennett, executive vice president for public affairs at the center-left think tank Third Way, told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch on Thursday.

Speaking out: His comments came after Lily Cohen, a press advisor at the organization, shared a post highlighting Cruz’s comments at the Republican Jewish Coalition confab and said she “would love to see more Dems calling out antisemitism on their own side with the same fervor.” Cohen specifically mentioned Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the far-left, antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker. “We do believe that Platner has not remotely done enough to explain why he had a Nazi tattoo for 20 years,” said Bennett. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a progressive lawmaker who has been a frequent critic of Israel and pro-Israel activists in the U.S., responded to Cohen’s post by saying he stands with Platner, Mamdani and even Piker.

Read the full story here.

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ISRAEL UNDER FIRE

Iranian missile injures 58, damages 300 homes in northern Israel

An Iranian missile struck northern Israel early Friday, injuring 58 residents and damaging 300 homes in Zarzir, a Bedouin town near Nazareth, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. A woman in her 30s was moderately injured by shrapnel in her back; the rest of the injuries were minor, according to Magen David Adom emergency services.

Threats from all sides: Soon after the attack, President Donald Trump issued a threat to Iran: “Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th president of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!” Iranian state TV said that new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei released his first statement since being named to the position earlier this week, after his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the initial strikes of the ongoing war with Iran, which began on Feb. 28. In the statement, Khamenei vowed that Iran “will not neglect avenging the blood of [the] martyrs.” 

Read the full story here.

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MISSOURI BREAKS

GOP Sens. Hawley, Schmitt suggest U.S. operations in Iran can wrap up soon

Both of Missouri’s Republican senators, Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, argued that the administration seems to have largely achieved its key objectives for the war in Iran — a posture that distinguishes him from most GOP colleagues and highlights subtle but emerging divisions among Republicans on the proper scope and duration of the war, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What he said: “I assume our overriding national security objective when it comes to Iran is to prevent them from getting nukes. And between our bombing last June and in the last … 12 days, I don’t know how they’re going to reconstitute their nuclear program anytime in, maybe, our lifetimes,” Hawley told JI on Thursday. “My point is just that I think the military has achieved a tremendous amount. It has ended [Iran’s] nuclear program for all intents and purposes. It has destroyed their navy. It has eliminated most of their ballistic missiles — those are good things. I’d be glad to take that [win].” Eric Schmitt, who is also aligned with the populist wing of the party, likewise emphasized the progress the U.S. has made and pushed for a quick conclusion to the war.

Read the full story here.

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DOWN BUT NOT OUT

Iran’s missile capabilities degraded despite recent increase in missile attacks, experts say

Despite a recent escalation in Iranian missile attacks targeting Israel, experts remain confident that Tehran’s military capabilities have been significantly degraded by the U.S. and Israel. U.S. and Israeli officials have touted that Iran’s missile capabilities have been severely reduced, with CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper saying Wednesday that Iran’s ballistic missile attacks have “dropped drastically,” Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. 

State of play: That may not feel like the reality for Israelis — after four consecutive days of declining missile fire, Iran briefly increased its launches to 46 missiles on Wednesday, a roughly 70% percent increase from the 27 missiles fired the previous day. But the data shows and analysts remain confident that Iran’s stockpiles are being degraded. Ari Cicurel, the associate director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told JI that the escalated attacks might actually be a “reflection of Iran’s degrading capabilities.” 

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

A Bridge Too Far: Puck’s Julia Ioffe looks at the catch-22 facing Elbridge Colby, the Trump administration’s under secretary of war for policy, as the U.S. engages militarily with Iran — a strategy that Colby has long personally opposed. “Colby isn’t the first to strike this kind of Faustian — or simply Washingtonian — bargain over the past decade. But for him, as for everyone else, the MAGAfication cuts both ways. On one hand, he has political power and the kind of job that NatSec types dream of. On the other, that power is entirely subject to Trump’s whims. ‘He’s an ideological actor in an administration that has no ideology,’ a Democratic member of Congress told me.” [Puck]

Van Hollen’s Venom: In the Jewish News Syndicate, Betsy Berns Korn, chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, raises concerns about Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-MD) allegation that AIPAC is “neither” a pro-American nor a pro-Israel organization. “Citizens advocate for stronger alliances with NATO partners, support Taiwan’s democracy, promote human-rights abroad, defend labor interests, protect the environment and work to expand trade relationships. That tradition of civic participation is a hallmark of American democracy. Advocacy for a strong relationship between the United States and Israel belongs squarely within that tradition. … Support for this partnership does not make Americans less loyal to their country. On the contrary, it reflects their judgment about what best serves American security, democratic values and global stability.” [JNS]

Regime Unchanged: The Washington Post’s David Ignatius warns that the U.S.’ strategy in Iran runs the risk of allowing the regime to stay in place. “If the conflict ends tomorrow, Iran will have lost nearly all its nuclear facilities and scientists, most of its missiles and missile launchers, most of its weapons factories, most of its navy, and much of the command and control for its military, intelligence and security forces. But the regime survives. It has taken America’s best punch, and it’s still standing. Tiers of senior military, intelligence and political leaders are dead, but they have been replaced by others. There’s no sign of a popular uprising. The cadres of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hide among piles of rubble, but they haven’t been eliminated.” [WashPost]

Kurds Force: In New Lines Magazine, Laurent Perpigna Iban spotlights the Kurdish factions that had until recent days been under consideration by the U.S. to lead a ground incursion into Iran. “For the first time in their history, the various Iranian Kurdish factions have found common ground and established a platform for cooperation. … The project is more political than military, laying the groundwork for the protection of Iran’s Kurdish population. According to converging sources, discussions about a potential ground incursion do exist, even if such a scenario has not formally been placed on the table.” [NewLines]

Mind Meld on Iran: The Financial Times’ Neri Zilber reports on the close coordination between Washington and Jerusalem on the joint attack on Iran. “The speed and ferocity of the aerial campaign has required extraordinary levels of coordination — from the initial war plan that was put together to the thousands of phone conversations every day between the two militaries. ‘It’s a mind meld,’ said Dan Shapiro, a former senior US defence official and ambassador to Israel. … The close coordination, across the entire chain of command, has involved some 4,000 to 5,000 calls per day — from the chief of staff level down to the hundreds of pilots in the air at any given time, according to the senior Israeli military official.” [FT]

Word on the Street

Politico reports on Vice President JD Vance’s skepticism ahead of U.S. strikes on Iran; Vance reportedly privately conveyed his opposition to military action to senior administration officials…

President Donald Trump officially removed Carrie Prejean Boller from the Religious Liberties Commission, weeks after Prejean Boller vociferously defended antisemitic conspiracy theorist Candace Owens at a commission hearing… 

Religious Liberties Commissionadvisory board member Sameerah Munshi, who had allied herself with Prejean Boller, announced her resignation from the board…

Trump nominated Sarah Rogers, the State Department’s undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media, days after a federal judge voided the actions undertaken at the agency under Kari Lake, who was serving as acting CEO; Rogers will maintain her State Department role in addition to leading USAGM…  

The president also nominated United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Governing Council member Jeff Miller to serve as the body’s chair; Miller, who also serves on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition, was first appointed to the USHMM’s governing council by Trump in 2021…

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Thursday introduced legislation, co-sponsored by Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL) and Tom Cotton (R-AR), designating the Polisario Front, the terrorist group that claims sovereignty over parts of the Western Sahara, as a foreign terrorist organization; “This bill will ensure that America’s most powerful anti-terrorism sanctions can be used to counter those threats and, once a designation is secured, the Polisario Front and its leaders will be cut off from access to the global financial system, international travel, and the resources they rely upon to conduct their terrorism,” Cruz told JI…

Following the Michigan synagogue attack, Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) shared on X an antisemitic death threat that he received, saying that they are a daily occurrence for him and other Jewish members of Congress…

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) raised concerns about the status of Kamran Hekmati, an Iranian-American Jewish constituent in Suozzi’s district who has been jailed in Iran for nearly a year after being arrested for having visited Israel more than a decade ago for his son’s bar mitzvah…

Reps. Sara Jacobs (D-CA), Jason Crow (D-CO) and Yassamin Anasari (D-AZ) led 121 House Democrats in a letter questioning the administration over a strike on an Iranian girls’ school reportedly executed by the U.S….

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who is 85, announced that he will seek an 18th House term, two years after the South Carolina Democrat stepped down from his Democratic leadership role…

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed New York state Assemblymember Micah Lasher, who had served as a mayoral aide to Bloombergin the Democratic primary to succeed Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY); Bloomberg is preparing to spend up to $5 million on an ad campaign boosting Lasher in the crowded 12th Congressional District primary…

The Treasury Department announced on Thursday that it was imposing sanctions on four “sham charity” groups in Turkey and Indonesia that it said are funnelling money and resources to Hamas, JI’s Marc Rod reports…

The Trump administration is temporarily lifting sanctions on Russian oil that is already at sea in an effort to lower prices as Iran maintains control over the Strait of Hormuz; Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday that it was “unfortunate” that Moscow would benefit in the short term from the conflict with Iran… 

The White House intervened to water down a broadly bipartisan sanctions bill targeting Iran’s oil exports to China, sources told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod…

Turkish elites have reportedly begun circulating claims that Israel could turn its military attention toward Ankara should Iran emerge from the war depleted — a belief analysts say reflects growing mistrust and conspiratorial thinking in Turkey rather than any actual Israeli intent, JI’s Matthew Shea reports…

The Wall Street Journal gives a play-by-play accounting of the defection of six members of the Iranian women’s national soccer team, who sought asylum in Australia while playing in a tournament in the country…

Palestinian scholar Walid Khalidi, a co-founder of Beirut’s Institute for Palestine Studies, died at 100…

Pic of the Day

Amb. Michael Mann, the head of the European Union delegation to Israel, donated blood yesterday during a visit to Magen David Adom headquarters in the mixed central Israeli city of Ramla.

Birthdays

Four-time Israeli national champion in the skeleton event and pilot of Israel’s first-ever Olympic bobsled team in Milan, Adam “AJ” Edelman turns 35 on Saturday…

FRIDAY: Editor of Avotaynu Magazine, a journal of Jewish genealogy and scholarship, Sallyann Amdur Sack-Pikus turns 90… Former mayor of Miami Beach, Fla., and author of Destiny: From Shoeshine Boy to Mayor, Norman Ciment turns 90… Israeli singer, he won the 1978 Eurovision Song Contest, Izhar Cohen turns 75… Psychotherapist in private practice in Manhattan and Teaneck, N.J., Shana Yocheved Schacter… U.S. Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) turns 69… Founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, a NYC-based organization working to end the war on drugs, Ethan Nadelmann turns 69… Professor of applied mathematics at Imperial College London, he is also a chess grandmaster, Jonathan Mestel turns 69… Former Florida congressman, Alan Grayson turns 68… Teacher of rabbinic literature and author of The Jewish Family Ethics Textbook, Rabbi Neal S. Scheindlin turns 66… Founder and CEO of MediaBistro which she sold in 2007, now managing director of Supernode Ventures, Laurel Touby turns 63… Heavy metal songwriter, vocalist for the band Disturbed as well as for the band Device, he is a former yeshiva student, David Draiman turns 53… Member of the California state Senate since 2014, Benjamin Allen turns 48… Former member of Knesset for the Jewish Home party and decorated IDF reservist, Yonatan “Yoni” Chetboun turns 47… Deputy campaign manager on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) 2020 presidential campaign, now host of radio show “The Agenda,” Ari Rabin-Havt… Television and film actor, Emile Hirsch turns 41… President and CEO of Nefco, a distributor of construction and industrial supplies, Matthew Gelles… Television and film actor, Emory Isaac Cohen 36… Senior director of social marketing at NBC Universal, Jessie Hannah Rubin… Former Formula 3 racing driver, his mother is Houda Nonoo, the first Jewish woman to serve as an ambassador of Bahrain, Menasheh Idafar turns 35… Gabriel Romano…

SATURDAY: Professor emeritus of chemistry at Tel Aviv University, winner of the 1982 Israel Prize, Joshua Jortner turns 93… Founder and retired president of Los Angeles-based Skirball Cultural Center, Rabbi Dr. Uri Herscher turns 85… Dean of Yeshiva Toras Moshe in Jerusalem, Rabbi Moshe Meiselman turns 84… Senior lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Marshall Ganz turns 83… Canadian criminal defense attorney, Brian Greenspan turns 79… Actor, writer, producer, director and comedian, Billy Crystal turns 78… Former member of the Maryland House of Delegates for 28 years, Shane Elizabeth Pendergrass turns 76… One-half of the eponymous Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (Ben is four days younger), Jerry Greenfield turns 75… Retired Hebrew teacher, Eliezer Cohen Barak… Co-founder of the Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, she is the president of Stand By Me, an organization that supports cancer patients, Gila Milstein… Partner at Hefter, Leshem, Margolis Capital Management Group of Wells Fargo Advisors in Highland Park, Ill., Steven Hefter… Founder and leader of ChangeCommunications, Jo-Ann Mort… NYC-based restaurateur and CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, Danny Meyer turns 68… Professor in the department of Jewish philosophy at Tel Aviv University, Menachem Lorberbaum turns 68… Minneapolis-based attorney, Jonathan S. Parritz… Past president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Denise L. Eger turns 66… Owner of Baltimore’s Tov Pizza, which he founded in 1984, Ronnie Rosenbluth… Owner and COO of EJM Development Company, he also heads its lending division, New Frontier Capital, Jon Monkarsh… Microgrid architect at Urban Ingenuity and lecturer at Georgetown University, Shalom Flank, Ph.D… Film and television actress, she is best known for her title role in the 1985 film “The Journey of Natty Gann,” Meredith Salenger turns 56… Entrepreneur, musician, songwriter and record company executive, Josh Gruss turns 52… Screenwriter and film director, Etan Cohen turns 52… Canadian fashion stylist, publicist and close friend of Meghan Markle (her children were in the royal wedding as page boys and flower girl), Jessica Brownstein Mulroney turns 46… Heiress, together with her brother and cousins, to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, philanthropist, former child actress, Liesel Pritzker Simmons turns 42… Oldest of three sisters who are members of the rock band Haim, Este Arielle Haim turns 40… Former NASCAR driver, he is the sole inductee into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in the “Auto Racing” category, Jon Denning turns 39… Former point guard at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was the Ivy League player of the year in 2012, Zack Rosen turns 37… Director, screenwriter and actor, known for his work on “The Intern,” “Big Time Adolescence” and “I Want You Back,” Jason Orley turns 37… Product quality specialist at The Topps Company, Philip Liebman… Coach for first-time founders, Sophie Galant… CEO of Prizmah, Paul Bernstein…

SUNDAY: Emmy, Golden Globe and Tony Award-winning actor, active in film, television and on the stage, Judd Hirsch turns 91… UCLA professor, biochemist and biophysicist, David S. Eisenberg turns 87… First-ever NYC Public Advocate starting in 1994, he is an author of 23 books, Mark J. Green turns 81… British billionaire and philanthropist, former chairman of retail conglomerate Arcadia Group, Sir Philip Nigel Ross Green turns 74… Former managing member at Buena Vista Fund Management in San Francisco, now owner of a homemade bread business, Robert Mendel Rosner… Animator and director of numerous episodes of “The Simpsons,” David Silverman turns 69… Real estate agent at Signature Realty Associates in the Tampa and Florida Gulf Coast market, Ze’ev “Wolf” Bar-El… White House special envoy leading diplomatic efforts around the world, Steve Witkoff turns 69… Freelance writer and consultant, Bathsheva Gladstone… Executive director of the Jewish Culture Center at Indiana University Bloomington, Debra Barton Grant… Member of the Knesset for the Likud party, currently serving as speaker of the Knesset, Amir Ohana turns 50… Retired MLB infielder, he now owns Loma Brewing, a brew pub in Los Gatos, Calif., he was Team Israel’s batting coach in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Kevin Youkilis turns 47… Global business editor for Defense One, where he writes about the intersection of business and national security, Marcus Weisgerber… Psychotherapist based in Raleigh, N.C., Mindy Beth Reinstein Brodsky… Born in Jerusalem, she is a member of the New York state Assembly for the northeast portions of Queens, Nily Rozic turns 40… Rapper, comedian and actor, better known by his stage name Lil Dicky, David Andrew Burd turns 38… Board chair at the African Middle Eastern Leadership (AMEL) Project and executive director of the 30 Birds Foundation, Justin Hefter… Co-founder of Punchbowl News, Rachel Schindler… and Rachel’s twin brother, college admissions consultant and SAT/ACT tutor, Max J. Schindler… Zach Shartiag… Professional wrestler, Maxwell Jacob Friedman turns 30…

The car ramming and shooting attack at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., on Thursday seems unlikely to break the congressional stalemate over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which has been in a partial shutdown for weeks.

Among other programs, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Nonprofit Security Grant Program fall under the DHS funding bill, which Democrats have sought to renegotiate to implement new restrictions on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, following the deadly shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

The bill, as originally drafted, would have provided $300 million for the NSGP, well below the $1 billion many Jewish community groups have said is necessary and the $500 million that many supporters of the program on the Hill have been advocating for.

“The consequences, impacts of not funding DHS are real, and they’re in an unsustainable position. [It’s] now been 14 days [that Democrats have] had the latest offer from the White House and haven’t responded to it,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said on Thursday. 

Thune also said that Republicans have tried to pass a stopgap funding measure, known as a continuing resolution (CR), to restore funding to DHS while negotiations continue, but Democrats rejected it.

“They’re trying to get up here and blame Republicans, and we’ve tried through a continuing resolution to fund the government to allow for the negotiations to continue, but our offer has been out there. They have yet to respond to it,” Thune continued. “We’re trying to fund everything with a CR to allow for those negotiations to continue, and they consistently block it. So it’s, I’m not sure, but it’s a dangerous game, and people are going to get hurt.”

But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) pointed blame for the lack of NSGP funding toward Republicans, highlighting that they had blocked passage of legislation by Democrats on Thursday to fund and reopen portions of DHS, including FEMA.

“Leader Schumer is an ardent supporter of NSGP funding, and this week, Republicans rejected Democratic efforts to fund the program through FEMA, along with the TSA, CISA, and the Coast Guard,” a spokesperson for Schumer told Jewish Insider. “Democrats continue pushing for common-sense solutions Americans demand: to rein in ICE and make sure no more Americans are killed by unaccountable and masked individuals.” 

Schumer had called for $500 million in funding for the program this year.

Multiple Jewish community groups urged lawmakers to move the DHS bill forward in light of Thursday’s attack.

“This latest attack shows the security crisis the Jewish community is facing & the need for more resources for our protection,” Nathan Diament, the executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, wrote in a post on X. “The main source of security funding, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, is bogged down in the DHS funding bill fight[.] Congress needs to act on this now.”

Diament added to JI that lawmakers “need to act — with urgency.  We don’t care if the funding comes through a DHS appropriations agreement, the war supplemental or some other legislation — but it’s urgent and must be done.”

A spokesperson for the Jewish Federations of North America told JI, “Our position remains that there are vitally important programs for Jewish communal safety in the Homeland Security bill and that both sides must work to fund them as quickly as possible.”

Sydney Altfield, CEO of the Teach Coalition, which supports Jewish schools, also highlighted the DHS funding gridlock, and urged Congress to support a significant increase in NSGP funding.

“Right now the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, the main funding source protecting institutions like this one, is caught in the middle of a DHS funding fight in Congress. The government’s first responsibility is to protect its citizens,” Altfield said in a statement. “That is why Congress needs to bring NSGP funding levels to $1 billion before the next attack happens. Jewish families have been forced to pay an antisemitism tax for too long.”

Rabbi A.D. Motzen, the national director of government affairs for Agudath Israel of America, wrote on X, “Hopefully Congress will fund [DHS] soon so we can do more to stop these attacks from happening.”

The Anti-Defamation League also urged Congress to boost NSGP funding to $1 billion, without making direct mention of the stalled DHS funding talks.

“Today’s attack in Michigan is a painful reminder that Jewish communities remain targets of violent hate. At a time when threats are rising, at-risk communities must have the resources they need to protect themselves,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said. “The Nonprofit Security Grant Program has been a lifeline for synagogues, schools, and community centers seeking to strengthen their security.”

“Yet demand for this lifesaving program continues to far outpace available funding. We urge Congress to significantly increase funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $1 billion. The safety of American communities must remain a bipartisan priority,” he continued.

In a longer statement issued publicly, JFNA said that the attack at the suburban Detroit synagogue — and the actions of security guards in preventing deaths — highlights the need for additional government support. 

“We cannot do it alone. Protecting citizens is the primary responsibility of the government. The Jewish community is forced to spend over $765 million a year to simply protect itself, and there is more the government should do to ensure every vulnerable Jewish institution has the resources to keep safe,” JFNA said in the statement.

“Today’s events prove once again that the investments our community have made in security play a critical role in keeping us safe, even in the face of the intolerable antisemitic violence around us,” the statement continued.

The group has been pushing for $1 billion in funding for the NSGP as part of a six-point plan for protecting the Jewish community, which is facing record levels of antisemitism, which have been exacerbated by the war in Iran. 

The Temple Israel attack follows the January firebombing that left a historic Jackson, Miss., synagogue severely damaged. 

This P.M. edition is reserved for our premium subscribers — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

A suspect was killed during an active shooter and car ramming incident at Temple Israel in the heavily Jewish Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield Township, Mich., this afternoon, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

Armed synagogue security engaged the suspect with gunfire, and a security guard who was knocked unconscious is expected to recover. A preschool that was in session at the time of the incident was evacuated safely. Authorities are continuing to investigate the suspect’s identity and motive.

“Everyone is safe. All 140 students in our Susan and Harold Loss Early Childhood Center, our amazing staff, our courageous teachers, and our heroic security personnel are all accounted for and safe,” the synagogue wrote on social media. “This note is coming to you before we know anything about our future programming or services, or any investigation. We wanted you to know we are safe, and we love you all”…

Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new supreme leader, issued his first public statement today that indicates he’s as hard-line as his late father: Khamenei demanded the U.S. shut all its military bases in the Gulf immediately and said he’ll continue to target the Strait of Hormuz in order to “pressure the enemy.” His statement was read on state media indirectly by a presenter, as reports indicate the 56-year-old was injured in an Israeli strike and he has not been seen in public since.

President Donald Trump did not seem dissuaded — he posted on Truth Social, “when oil prices go up” the U.S. makes “a lot of money,” but “of far greater importance to me, as President, is stopping an evil Empire, Iran, from having Nuclear Weapons”…

Following a Republican convening this week focused on combating right-wing antisemitism, the center-left think tank Third Way urged fellow Democrats to follow the lead of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in calling out antisemitism within their own party. 

“We certainly believe that Cruz was right and our side has a real antisemitism problem too that too many Democrats are failing to face squarely,” Matt Bennett, the group’s executive vice president for public affairs, told JI’s Gabby Deutch.

Similar comments from Third Way staff sparked a public clash with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who defended controversial left-wing figures including antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker and said the true issue lies with the “neocons” in the party…

Less than a week until primary election day in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, outside spending in the race is approaching $9 million, the majority of which is aimed at boosting state Sen. Laura Fine, a pro-Israel Democrat. Nearly half of all outside spending has come from the Elect Chicago Women super PAC, widely rumored to be connected to pro-Israel groups.

Another PAC rumored to be connected to AIPAC, Chicago Progressive Partnership, has spent over $1 million attacking anti-Israel social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh, including a new ad that spotlights her support from James “Fergie” Cox Chambers Jr., a communist political activist and scion of the billionaire Cox family often involved in radical-left causes…

A new poll commissioned by the far-left advocacy group Justice Democrats finds Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) in a competitive race for his seat — he’s now neck-and-neck with his primary opponent, state Rep. Justin Pearson. Pearson, a progressive legislator, gained public attention for being expelled from the Statehouse in 2023 for participating in a gun control protest on the floor…

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed Assemblyman Micah Lasher, his former staffer, in the hotly contested primary race for New York’s 12th Congressional District today, calling him “a key part of our team in City Hall.” Bloomberg plans to spend “millions of dollars” on a super PAC and ad campaign to boost Lasher, The New York Times reports, a notable effort by the popular former mayor to elevate Lasher among the pack…

Trump has delayed endorsing Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in the Texas Senate runoff against Attorney General Ken Paxton, which Trump implied last week he would do imminently, instead using the potential endorsement to pressure Senate Republicans to change filibuster rules and pass his voter-ID bill. Paxton raised the stakes by saying he might drop out if the bill passes, a move that forced Cornyn to shift his stance on the filibuster…

The Boston Globe looks at Rep. Seth Moulton’s (D-MA) efforts to get on the Democratic primary ballot in his race against Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), which will require him to receive support from 15% of delegates at the state Democratic Party’s upcoming convention. Moulton is attempting to recruit unregistered voters to become delegates in order to boost his chances, which observers are split on…

Politico uncovers the past political stances and writings of Morris Katz, the Democratic operative and anti-Israel whisperer now behind several high-profile progressive campaigns, when he lauded former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and derided progressive icon Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)…

Shortly after the organization elevated a new political director who is closely tied to neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, College Republicans of America’s chapter at Georgetown University came under investigation by the school for a social media post in which it claimed “Muslims have no place in American society”…

The Wall Street Journal spotlights Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of CENTCOM, as he “stay[s] out of the politics of the war” in Iran “and remains focused on waging it”…

The Treasury Department issued sanctions against four “sham charity” groups in Turkey and Indonesia that it said are funneling money and resources to Hamas’ military wing, JI’s Marc Rod reports…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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

Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for reaction to today’s attack on Michigan’s Temple Israel from Jewish leaders and leading lawmakers.

The South by Southwest festival will hold its annual #openShabbat experience for Jews in tech, film and music tomorrow in Austin, Texas. 

A Saturday fundraiser for Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA) with an appearance by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Nunn’s home district in Iowa has been canceled; the event, called “Top Nunn” in reference to the “Top Gun” movies, had drawn scrutiny after several soldiers who had been stationed in Nunn’s district were killed in the course of the war with Iran. 

The Jewish Funders Network international conference starts Sunday in San Diego.

HaZamir: The International Jewish Teen Choir performs at Lincoln Center in New York City on Sunday evening.

The Zionist Organization of America will host its Florida Superstar Gala Sunday evening, where it will honor Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel; Justice Department official Leo Terrell; and Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL), among others.

We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat Shalom!

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An assailant was killed during an active shooter situation at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., law enforcement officials confirmed on Thursday afternoon. One other person, a security guard, was injured.

The attack is being investigated as a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community,” Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office, confirmed in a Thursday evening press conference. 

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed to Jewish Insider that the attack was carried out by Ayman Mohamad Ghazali.

Ghazali, 41, was born in Lebanon and entered the U.S. in 2011 on an IR1 immigrant visa as the spouse of a U.S. citizen. He was granted U.S. citizenship in 2016, according to DHS. 

Armed security stationed at the synagogue engaged with Ghazali inside a vehicle that “breached the facility by driving into it,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said. Shots were fired and Ghazali was killed inside the vehicle, according to Bouchard, who added that “we can’t say what killed him at this point, but security did engage him with gunfire.”   

Bouchard said that a security guard who was knocked unconscious during the incident and hospitalized “should be OK.” 

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said the vehicle likely intentionally crashed into the synagogue, causing the building to catch fire. Smoke could be seen billowing from the roof in early live news footage.

Temple Israel, one of the largest Reform congregations in the U.S., runs a preschool, which was in session at the time of the incident. In a message to members, the synagogue said that “all students and staff are safe” and had been evacuated to a nearby location.

Bouchard added that he and other law enforcement leaders had been preparing for a scenario such as this for the last two weeks, around the start of the U.S. and Israeli war in Iran. 

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, as well as the three main Democratic candidates vying for the U.S. Senate seat to represent the state, swiftly issued statements on X addressing the incident. 

“Michigan’s Jewish community should be able to live and practice their faith in peace,” said Whitmer. “Antisemitism and violence have no place in Michigan.” 

“Before our very eyes, a Temple in West Bloomfield is under attack,” said Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who represents the district where Temple Israel is located. “Like many of you, I am getting reports in real time. To everyone in Michigan’s 11th district, continue to follow the guidance of local law enforcement. To the Jewish American community in Michigan and beyond, we stand with you.”   

“I’m hearing the first reports of an incident at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield,” said state Sen. Mallory McMorrow “Please stay away from the area and listen to direction from first responders as we wait to learn more.” 

“The rise in antisemitism is not abstract. It’s not left or right. It is here. It is in our state, our community, just miles from my own house. It is in our neighborhoods, our schools, our houses of worship. Enough,” she said in a follow-up statement later on Thursday afternoon. 

Far-left Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said that he was “horrified to hear the reports of an active shooter at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield. Please stay safe if you’re in the area. This kind of violence has no place in our communities.” 

State Sen. Jeremy Moss, the front-runner to succeed Stevens in Congress, said in a statement that he has “been in contact with local officials to monitor the active shooting at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield and am praying for everyone inside …  We’re living through an incredibly agonizing time in our Jewish community. We deserve safety in our synagogues, schools, and everywhere else. This rise in targeted hate and violence is untenable.” 

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said she “grew up not far from” Temple Israel. 

Slotkin declined to “get ahead of the police” as “law enforcement are still securing the scene.” She urged the public to “listen to the warnings that they’re putting out.”

Amid rising antisemitism in Michigan, Steven Ingber, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Detroit, said during a Thursday evening press conference that he was not “shocked or surprised” by the attack.

A mayoral candidate in Ann Arbor, Mich., featured an open Hamas supporter in his campaign video, Jewish Insider has learned. 

Justin Yuan, co-chair of Michigan’s Huron Valley Democratic Socialists of America, made a brief appearance in Washtenaw County commissioner and DSA member Yousef Rabhi’s video ad promoting Rabhi’s mayoral bid ahead of August’s Democratic primary.

A former member of the Michigan House of Representatives, Rabhi is challenging Democratic incumbent Chris Taylor, who is generally viewed as more moderate and has served as mayor of Ann Arbor, a college town that is a liberal stronghold, since 2014. Rabhi’s campaign was endorsed last week by Huron Valley DSA. 

Yuan, who does not speak in the campaign video but is filmed sitting in a group of people listening to Rabhi speak, uses a pseudonym on X but has posted photos on the account identifying himself.

He has a series of posts hostile to Israel and in support of Hamas, screenshots of which were obtained by JI before the account was turned private last week, including a tweet on Oct. 7, 2023, during Hamas’ terror attacks in Israel that said, “universities across the country, especially huge rich ones like UMich [University of Michigan], need to be forced to drop ties with the zionist colonial entity and its occupation.” 

A University of Michigan alum, Yuan called for “militant fighting unions on every campus that not only demand justice for Palestine but shut shit down to win it” in the same post.     

One month after the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, Yuan wrote, “Love Hamas. Simple as.”

In January, he wrote on X that the argument to “condemn Hamas because we’re socialists” is “out of touch given the actual situation in that palestinian land is being auctioned in the middle of nyc.” 

Ann Arbor, which is home to the state’s flagship university, has seen an increase of antisemitism since Oct. 7, both on and off campus. University of Michigan has experienced some of the most disruptive anti-Israel and antisemitic activity in the wake of the attacks in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. 

According to minutes from a Huron Valley Area Labor Federation meeting obtained by JI, Yuan also coordinated, and pushed for, retraction of a letter from the group in 2024 that condemned the harassment of Jewish University of Michigan Regent Jordan Acker. Acker’s home and law office were vandalized several times that year by anti-Israel demonstrators. 

At the time, the Michigan chapter of the Anti-Defamation League said it was “deeply disturbed” that the group, which is a regional chapter of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations union, reversed its statement condemning the intimidation. 

Neither Yuan nor Rabhi’s campaign responded to requests for comment from JI. Yuan made his X account private after JI reached out.  

Kelly Neumann, a prominent Michigan Democratic fundraiser who is supporting several major Democratic candidates in the state, shared a social media post on Veterans Day in 2024 honoring her grandfather, who served in the Nazi regime’s army in World War II.

The post includes multiple photos of Neumann’s grandfather in Nazi regalia, including what appears to be an officer’s uniform.

“Happy Veterans Day to all my family and friends who serve/served! Without you, America would not be here today,” the post, shared on Facebook and Instagram by Neumann, a local attorney, reads. The Facebook post, which remained online as of initial publication of this story, was subsequently deleted. “Interesting story, I do not talk much about but my Grandfather, Albert Neumann was on the German side in WWI & WWII.  He escaped to Brazil with my Father after Germany lost in WWII and then made their way to Detroit where they spoke no English and worked their way up to provide a stable life for their family.”

Neumann went on to say that her grandfather “was one of my best friends. He was one of the first people in my life that accepted me as gay when I was nervous and scared. I’ll never forget him embracing me and loving me for who I am.”

“His story is a true testament that people can change and love indeed can win,” Neumann concluded.

Neumann is serving as a co-chair of the finance committees for state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who is running for U.S. Senate, and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who is running for governor. Neumann has co-hosted several fundraisers for McMorrow’s campaign, as recently as last Friday, as well as multiple fundraisers for Benson’s campaign.

In March 2025, Neumann also hosted a $50,000 fundraiser for Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), now running for Senate against McMorrow, and is a member of Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet’s (D-MI) fundraising “cabinet.” She hosted a December fundraiser for state Sen. Jeremy Moss, a Jewish, pro-Israel Democratic candidate for the House.

Neumann appears to be well-connected in Democratic politics¸ having hosted events alongside various other prominent Michigan Democrats. She has also shared photos with former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and professed to being in personal contact with multiple Democratic senators — albeit prior to the 2024 Veterans Day post.

FEC records indicate she has never personally donated directly to Stevens or Moss’ campaigns, and she’s been critical of Stevens during her Senate candidacy.

Arik Wolk, a spokesperson for Stevens’ campaign, distanced her from Neumann. “Haley rejects antisemitism in all forms, and has spent her career standing up to and calling out hate. Had Haley seen the post celebrating Ms. Neumann’s grandfather’s service to the SS, Ms. Neumann would not have hosted that event,” Wolk said.

Neumann, and the other candidates whom she is supporting this cycle, did not provide comment.

Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, a Democratic candidate for Senate, said in a recent radio interview that accusations of genocide against Israel — with which she has previously agreed — have become a “political purity test,” arguing that there has been too much emphasis on that specific word.

McMorrow herself has backed accusations of genocide, affirming in response to a question at an October event that she believes the war in Gaza is a genocide “based on the definition” — though she didn’t specifically utter the word “genocide” herself.

Asked on local radio station WDET last week whether her stance has changed since October, when she affirmed that she believed the war in Gaza met the definition of a genocide, McMorrow did not offer a direct yes or no answer.

“I am somebody who looks at the videos, the photos, the amount of pain that has been caused in the Middle East, and you can’t not be heartbroken,” McMorrow said. 

“But I also feel like we are getting lost in this conversation, and it feels like a political purity test on a word —  a word that, by the way, to people who lost family members in the Holocaust, does mean something very different and very visceral — and we’re losing sight of what I believe is a broadly shared goal among most Michiganders, that this violence needs to stop, that a temporary ceasefire needs to become a permanent ceasefire, that Palestinians deserve long term peace and security, that Israelis deserve long term peace and security, and that should be the role of the next U.S. senator,” she continued.

McMorrow went on to criticize an unnamed opponent for campaigning on the issue of the war in Gaza, presumably referring to Abdul El-Sayed, the far-left Democrat who has made his opposition to Israel a centerpiece of his campaign.

“Particularly in this primary, we’ve got some candidates who are using this as a political weapon and fundraising off of it, and I think that that is just losing the humanity of what we’re seeing in the Middle East. And we deserve better,” McMorrow continued.

El-Sayed has repeatedly sent fundraising emails highlighting his criticisms of Israel, including one on the second anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which ignored Hamas and criticized Israel. Other fundraising appeals have accused Israel of genocide and highlighted the deaths of journalists, accusations of famine and the death toll in Gaza, as well as blamed AIPAC funding for U.S. lawmakers’ support for Israel.

El-Sayed’s campaign has declared in such fundraising appeals that he is “the only candidate in this race with the courage to speak up — even if AIPAC and MAGA billionaires come after him for doing so” and “one of AIPAC’s top targets to defeat.”

El-Sayed’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

McMorrow and El-Sayed are, functionally, competing for the votes of anti-Israel voters in the state, with Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) maintaining a pro-Israel stance and securing backing from Democratic Majority for Israel.

In the WDET interview, McMorrow said that she continues to support legislation to block offensive weapons sales to Israel.

“The more that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu pushes into Gaza, the worse this gets,” McMorrow said — though Israeli territorial advances in Gaza stopped months ago with the ceasefire deal. “And to be very clear, being in support of Israelis is not being in support of Netanyahu, in the same way that being in support of Palestinians is not the same as being in support of Hamas. … So we need to use the leverage that we have as the United States as an ally to ensure that this war ends and that the ceasefire is a permanent ceasefire.”

All three of the leading Democratic contenders hoping to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) condemned two antisemitic incidents targeting Chabad at Michigan State University this week, during the first days of Hanukkah. 

The first incident took place on Tuesday night when an individual “intentionally threw a rock” through a window of the Chabad Jewish Student Center at MSU in Lansing, Rabbi Kasriel Shemtov, executive director of Chabad Lubavitch of Michigan, told Jewish Insider. 

The following night, swastikas and the words “he’s back” were spray painted on the door of the same building. No one was in the building at the time of either incident. Law enforcement officials have confirmed that both incidents are being investigated as hate crimes.

The incidents, which occurred days after a mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia left 15 dead — including a Chabad rabbi — prompted quick statements of condemnation from Democratic Senate candidates looking to replace Peters: Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Abdul El-Sayed, a Bernie Sanders-endorsed progressive candidate. 

In a statement to JI, Stevens said, “Acts of blatant antisemitism, like what we just saw at Michigan State, are unacceptable in Michigan and everywhere else. Jewish students at MSU — and all our universities — deserve to feel safe on campus. We must ensure our campuses are free of harassment and violence targeting the Jewish community.”

McMorrow, whose husband is the former president of MSU Hillel, told JI that the “safety of Jewish students on our campuses and in our communities is something that hits home for us…  I know how much this matters to our family and to this community.”

El-Sayed wrote on X, “Antisemitic violence like this has no place in Michigan. We stand together with our Jewish sisters and brothers against antisemitism and hate in all forms.” 

Sens. Gary Peters (D-MI) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) also denounced the incidents, as did university officials.

“I condemn the vile antisemitic crime targeted at MSU’s Chabad Jewish Center. This hatred has no place in Michigan or anywhere else. My thoughts are with the Jewish community and the MSU campus during this time that should be filled with light not hate,” Peters wrote on X. 

Slotkin said, “As we see a rise in deadly acts of antisemitism around the world, this must be condemned left, right and center. Anti-semitism can start small and grow into something ever more dangerous.”

In a campus wide email, MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz wrote, “In the wake of unspeakable violence committed against the Jewish community in Australia, I was deeply troubled to learn of multiple incidents of antisemitism near our own campus in the form of vandalism against the university community’s Chabad Jewish Center. That this occurred during Hanukkah — a time centered on light, resilience and faith — only deepens the pain and concern felt by many.” 

As two Democratic Michigan Senate candidates compete for the votes of anti-Israel voters with accusations of genocide against the Jewish state, Abdul El-Sayed, is going after state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, as insufficiently and inauthentically critical of Israel.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), meanwhile, is solidifying her support for Israel, receiving an endorsement this week from Democratic Majority for Israel and calling herself a “proud pro-Israel Democrat [who] believe[s] America is stronger when we stand with our democratic allies, confront antisemitism and extremism, and keep our promises to our friends abroad and our working families here at home.”

With significant Arab and Muslim and Jewish constituencies, Israel policy issues are poised to play a significant role in Michigan’s Democratic primary next year.

El-Sayed entered the race as a vocal critic of Israel, while McMorrow, in recent months, has joined him in describing the war in Gaza as a genocide, as well as saying she would support efforts to cut off offensive weapons shipments to Israel.

El-Sayed, in a recent event at Michigan State University, criticized McMorrow for not taking that position sooner, describing allegations of genocide in Gaza as a matter of clear and incontrovertible fact. Video of the comments was published by the Michigan Advance.

He compared McMorrow’s position to someone taking months to decide that the sky is blue and saying, “let me give you five caveats about why it might not be blue.”

El-Sayed also suggested that McMorrow’s positions changed because she was seeking support from AIPAC, and only took a more critical stance on Israel after the group declined to support her. The far-left publication Drop Site alleged that McMorrow had been seeking an AIPAC endorsement earlier in the year and had authored a pro-Israel position paper. 

McMorrow’s campaign has denied that she completed a questionnaire for AIPAC and McMorrow said last month she would not accept the group’s support. AIPAC has previously endorsed Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who has maintained her position on Israel, in House races, but has not weighed in on the Senate race.

“When there’s 20,000 kids who died, that’s a genocide,” El-Sayed said in his remarks at Michigan State. “When people who are from the very country that committed — whose government committed that genocide say it’s a genocide, at some point you kind of just gotta be like, ‘Oh it’s a f***ing genocide.’ … “I don’t pretend that when 20,000 babies are murdered by our tax dollars, that there’s hemming and hawing about saying because it’s the truth.” El-Sayed was referring to numbers from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health indicating that almost 20,000 children and teenagers were killed in the war.

He suggested that McMorrow is trying to “package” herself as a progressive changemaker while the “substance” of her policies is “the same old politics.”

Asked last month whether the war in Gaza is a genocide, McMorrow said that it is.

“We have [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu trying to tell us what we’ve been seeing with our own eyes is not true,” McMorrow said. “It is true. And two things can be true at once. … The position of the United States should not be that we support Netanyahu with no check and balances.”

Asked about El-Sayed’s criticisms, McMorrow’s campaign referred Jewish Insider to those remarks.

Good Wednesday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the far-left challengers gearing up to compete against Democratic incumbents in New York City and cover Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s evasive answer to whether he supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. We report on the reaction of Jewish groups to former state Assemblyman Michael Blake, who is running in the Democratic primary against Rep. Ritchie Torres, for featuring a clip of an antisemitic influencer in his campaign launch video. We also cover the announcement by former Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) that she will run to reclaim the congressional seat she lost in 2022, and report on Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer’s resignation. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Shulem Lemmer, Gal Gadot, and Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider Israel Editor Tamara Zieve and U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik, with an assist from Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

• The International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries begins today in New York City, bringing together 6,200 rabbis from 111 countries.
• Former First Lady Michelle Obama will appear at Washington’s Sixth & I Synagogue this evening to discuss her forthcoming book, The Look.
• Finance industry executives — including Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan and Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman — were invited to dinner at the White House with President Donald Trump this evening. 

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S Josh Kraushaar

Beware the law of unintended consequences: President Donald Trump’s zeal to aggressively redraw maps in GOP-friendly states is looking like it will bring less of a political advantage to Republicans than originally expected.  

Indeed, if the overall political environment remains in the Democrats’ favor — which would be consistent with the historical precedent of the opposition party gaining seats in the first midterm election of a new president — the House is likely to flip back to the Democrats’ control in 2027.

Here’s the lowdown: California’s referendum on redistricting, which passed overwhelmingly on Election Day, will allow Democrats to gain as many as five seats with a new, more-partisan map — with three Republican-held seats (of GOP Reps. Doug LaMalfa, Kevin Kiley and Ken Calvert) all but guaranteed to flip.

That should offset the expected GOP gains in Texas, which started the whole redistricting gamesmanship off with a partisan redraw that guarantees Republicans to pick up at least three Democratic-held seats, with the hope that Republicans can win two additional seats that became more favorable to them.

But there’s a catch with the Texas map. Two of the redrawn districts — the seats of Democratic Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar — are in predominantly Hispanic areas along the U.S.-Mexico border that swung dramatically to Trump in 2024, but had a long tradition of voting Democratic before then. If Democrats rebound with Hispanic voters — as happened in New Jersey and Virginia on Election Day — and the national environment remains rough for Republicans, it’s not hard to see the two Democratic incumbents hanging on.

Adding another wrinkle to the GOP’s redistricting plans: A Utah judge rejected the preferred map drawn by Republican state lawmakers, and selected a new map that would guarantee a Democratic district in Salt Lake City. That would automatically flip one seat to the Democrats, given that the state’s current delegation is made up of four Republicans, all in solidly Republican districts. 

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

NEXT STEPS

After Mamdani win, socialists look to challenge Democratic incumbents in NYC

The organized left scored a major victory last week when Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City, elevating to executive office a politician who became one of the nation’s most prominent democratic socialists during the campaign. Now, as the movement seeks to ride momentum from Mamdani’s win and grow its influence at the federal level, some emerging challengers are setting their sights on a handful of pro-Israel New York Democrats in the House — posing what is likely to be the first key test of its political credibility in the upcoming midterm elections, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

Challenges ahead: While next year’s primaries are still more than six months away, some early signs indicate that the far left is already facing obstacles in its efforts to target established incumbents like Reps. Dan Goldman and Ritchie Torres, raising questions about its organizational discipline and messaging ability, not to mention alignment with Mamdani — who is now walking a delicate path in seeking buy-in from state leadership to deliver on his ambitious affordability agenda. Jake Dilemani, a Democratic consultant in New York, said “there is and should be euphoria among the left” after Mamdani’s victory, “but that does not necessarily translate into toppling relatively popular incumbents. One swallow does not make a summer,” he told JI on Tuesday.

Read the full story here.

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EVASIVE MANEUVER

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed sidesteps question on Israel’s right to exist

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed sidestepped a question about Israel’s right to exist during an interview with the anti-Israel media outlet Zeteo last week. Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan asked El-Sayed how he would respond if and when he faces questions on the campaign trail about whether he supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. 

What he said — and what he didn’t: El-Sayed initially responded by calling the question hypocritical and again dodged when pressed. He said that most U.S. presidents have expressed support for a two-state solution, and “Israel exists. Palestine doesn’t. And so I always wonder why nobody asks me why Palestine doesn’t have a right to exist.” El-Sayed accused the U.S. of supporting “the very people in Israel who want to foreclose on the possibility of Palestine existing. And so to me, frankly, it is about our principles and how we apply them evenly. If you believe in a two-state solution, then what are you doing to make it possible?” he continued.

Read the full story here.

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EXCLUSIVE

Jewish groups blast Torres challenger for featuring antisemitic activist in campaign launch

Major New York Jewish groups criticized former Assemblyman Michael Blake, who is running in the Democratic primary against Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), for featuring a clip of an influencer who supported the shooting of two Israeli Embassy employees at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington in his campaign launch video, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Pushback: “Hurling a bus load of antisemitic tropes and platforming bigots who cheer antisemitic violence in a launch video is not the pro-humanity flex one thinks it is,” the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York said in a statement. The Anti-Defamation League of New York and New Jersey said that “we can all agree that Michael Blake’s platforming of anti-Zionist influencer Guy Christensen should be roundly condemned.”

Read the full story here.

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comeback campaign

Pro-Israel Democrat Elaine Luria announces bid to reclaim House seat

Former Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), who was an outspoken voice in support of Israel and against antisemitism during her time in the House, announced a bid on Wednesday to reclaim the congressional seat she lost in 2022, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Looking back: Luria, who is Jewish, was a leading moderate voice in the House in support of Israel and against antisemitism, at times criticizing members of her own party and breaking with the Biden administration on its Israel policy. She was one of the few House Democrats who consistently opposed efforts by the Biden administration to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal and Luria organized and led a group of pro-Israel House Democrats to speak on the House floor in 2021 in support of Israel and its military operations, responding to a competing effort by far-left Democrats in opposition. She also repeatedly called out antisemitism from Democratic colleagues.

Read the full story here.

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STEPPING DOWN

Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s right-hand man, resigns from Israeli government

Israel’s influential minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer, resigned from his post on Tuesday, three years after assuming the role, Jewish Insider’s Tamara Zieve reports. “This government will be defined both by the attack on October 7th and by the prosecution of the two-year, seven-front, war that followed,” Dermer, widely regarded as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest advisor, wrote in his resignation letter.

Staying around: Dermer has led Israel’s ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations since February. He is expected to stay on as Netanyahu’s envoy to continue handling the future of the Gaza portfolio, political sources recently told JI. U.S.-born and a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, Dermer has long played a central role in managing Israel’s relationship with the U.S. “What the future holds for me, I do not know. But I do know this: No matter what I do, I will continue to do my part to help secure the future of the Jewish people,” Dermer said.

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history lessons

Clintons tie Trump’s Gaza peace plan to Oslo Accords in Rabin memorial discussion

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday that President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza could be a “new moment of hope and possibility.” But it will only be successful if there is “a level of organization” applied to the implementation, a lesson that can be drawn from the Oslo process, she said, during a panel hosted by Columbia University’s Institute of Global Politics, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. 

What she said: “One thing that can be learned from the Oslo process and applied to the situation now with the peace plan is that there was a process,” Clinton said. The event commemorated the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered by a right-wing extremist, soon after signing the Oslo II Accords peace agreements with then-Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat in 1995 — two years after the signing of the Oslo I Accords. “You have to have a level of organization, it can’t just have few people at the top — whether it be a president or special envoy, as necessary as they are, you have to have teams of people who can be working with their counterparts,” continued Clinton, who is a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia. 

What he said: In 40-minute remarks, former President Bill Clinton, who mediated the Oslo Accords signing — which he hosted at the White House — spoke about his close personal and professional relationship with Rabin, calling the assassination one of the worst days of his life. “We have to begin again, where the trust level is low,” Clinton said of achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace. “People in power might not be in favor of giving up on anything now.” 

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

Hate on the Right, Then and Now: The New York Times’ Bret Stephens draws comparisons between today’s rising trend of antisemitism within the GOP to past iterations of antisemitic ideology on the right. “The MAGA movement is not antisemitic. But many of its core convictions are antisemitic-adjacent — that is, they have a habit of leading in an anti-Jewish direction. Opposition to free trade, or to a welcoming immigration policy, or to international law that crimps national sovereignty, are legitimate, if often wrongheaded, political positions. But they have a way of melding with hoary stereotypes about ‘the International Jew; working across borders against the interests of so-called real Americans.” [NYTimes]

After Mamdani, Healing Divisions: Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, senior rabbi at Park Avenue Synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, reflects in the Forward about how the New York City Jewish community must unite in the aftermath of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory. “For me, personally, the fact that about a third of New York City’s Jewish voters checked the box for Mamdani is totally bewildering. I am not unaware of the bigger political trends, the shortcomings of the other candidates, or the systemic challenges our city faces; I understand why Mamdani won. But for me, his anti-Zionist rhetoric and his intent to shut down research and economic partnerships between Israel and New York — to name but a few of his promises that would negatively impact our community — not only disqualified him from receiving my vote, but were a meaningful enough concern that I chose to publicly urge Jews and their allies to vote against him as well. And yet, it would seem that what was self-evident to me was not so self-evident to a sizeable percentage of my kinfolk. … We need to learn to walk together again. If, as I have repeatedly claimed, ahavat yisrael — love of the Jewish people — is my North Star, then it is a principle I must uphold even and especially when it is uncomfortable to do so. It is a love that must extend to Jews whose views I neither share nor understand.” [Forward]

Takeover on the Quad: John Ellis, professor emeritus of German literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, argues in The Wall Street Journal for placing universities in a “receivership” to address the dominance of left-wing ideology in higher education. “The discrepancy between what we fund the campuses for and what they are doing is enormous. Promotion of knowledge and understanding has given way to inculcation of a poisonous fringe ideology. Students are encouraged to despise their society and kept ignorant of anything that might make them think otherwise. … The only viable solution is to place schools in ‘receivership,’ a well-established procedure to reform ailing college departments. A new chairman is imposed on a department with a free hand to make whatever appointments he thinks necessary to restore the department to health. By action of lawmakers or trustees, a new president can be imposed on a campus with a mandate to return the school to its proper mission by appointing subordinate administrators, especially deans, committed to reform.” [WSJ]

Investing in the Jewish Future: In Sapir, Jordan Chandler Hirsch argues that the Jewish people should establish a sovereign wealth fund to secure long-term communal and national resilience. “A wealth fund would allow the Jewish community to invite allies and skeptics alike into mutually beneficial investments. It could help key players solve their problems and achieve their goals, thereby securing support for ours. Skeptics who distrust our institutionalism might respect our show of independence. Anti-establishment forces might welcome Jewish capital that strengthens their projects. Most important, a wealth fund could transform both our psychology and our posture — from supplicants seeking protection into partners offering opportunity. Despite its corporate veneer, a wealth fund would not merely reproduce institutionalism. If shtadlanut sought seats at the institutional table, a wealth fund would build its own table and invite others in.” [SAPIR] 

Word on the Street

President Donald Trump sent a letter to Israeli President Isaac Herzog calling on him to “fully pardon” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, describing the corruption case against him as “a political, unjustified prosecution.” Herzog’s office put out a statement saying that while he “holds President Trump in the highest regard … anyone seeking a Presidential pardon must submit a formal request in accordance with the established procedures”…

Following a joint meeting in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced the creation of a joint committee “for the consolidation of the state of Palestine,” which will work towards drafting a “constitution” for such a state…

Iran has smuggled advanced armaments to terror groups in the West Bank over several months, the Washington Free Beacon reports, including rockets, explosive drones, anti-tank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, hoping to use it as another launch pad in addition to Gaza to attack Israel…

Sens. Jim Risch (R-ID), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) met with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa at the Capitol on Tuesday. A person familiar with the situation told Jewish Insider that Van Hollen had “reiterated his support for the lifting of the Caesar sanctions while also stressing his long-held position that the U.S. must ensure that the Government of Syria complies with the six conditions included in the amendment he and Senator Graham added to the NDAA”…

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) urged the State Department to take action to ensure the release of Kamran Hekmati, an Iranian-American dual citizen and Suozzi constituent imprisoned in Iran. “This is about more than one man. It’s about defending the basic rights of American citizens abroad and standing up to regimes that traffic in hostage diplomacy,” Suozzi said…

Rep. Gabe Amo (D-RI) led 125 House Democrats in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio seeking “clarity on your plan to ensure desperately needed humanitarian aid reaches Palestinian civilians in Gaza” and urging that aid be distributed through “reputable international institutions”…

Saudi Arabia is set to host a U.S.-Saudi investment summit at the Kennedy Center in Washington next Wednesday, a day after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman‘s visit to the White House…

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) met with Malcolm Jallow, an anti-Israel left-wing member of the Swedish parliament who has espoused antisemitic views and has associations with pro-Hamas individuals…

The New York Times speaks to Iranians deported back to Iran by the Trump administration in the first U.S.-chartered deportation flight to the country in September…

The New York Times profiles Jack Schlossberg, grandson of President John F. Kennedy, who is preparing to run for Congress in New York’s 12th Congressional District…

After receiving backlash for canceling planned shows in Israel as a result of pressure by the BDS movement, British comedian John Cleese said he was only postponing the shows “following advice about safety.” The “Monty Python” actor, who has a history of anti-Israel commentary on social media, claimed he is “hugely fond of Israeli audiences”…

Argentine President Javier Milei met with Rabbi David Yosef, the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel; Isaac Sacca, the Sephardic chief rabbi of Argentina; and Eyal Sela, the Israeli ambassador to Argentina… 

Israeli authorities arrested four suspects after dozens of settlers launched an arson attack in the Palestinian villages of Bei Lid and Deir Sharaf in the West Bank….

Israeli actress Gal Gadot won Israel’s Genesis Prize, sometimes called the “Jewish Nobel,” for her outspoken support of Israel in Hollywood since the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks. Gadot said she will donate the $1 million award to organizations “that will help Israel heal”… 

Israeli pop star Noa Kirel and soccer player Daniel Peretz tied the knot on Tuesday in an A-lister affair in Jaffa: spotted at the nuptials were Israeli celebrities Eden Daniel Gabay, Idan Raichel, Eran Zahavi, Reef Neeman, Ron Bitton, Ron Aluf and Mor Hamami…

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts recently toured a site in Saudi Arabia for a possible Universal theme park location, raising speculation that he might bring in Saudi funds for a potential Comcast bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery…

Wonderful, an Israeli AI startup, has secured $100 million in a Series A funding round led by Index Ventures, with backing from Insight Partners, IVP, Bessemer and Vine Ventures…

Song of the Day

Shulem Lemmer shared on social media “The March Medley” he performed together in June with the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion, featuring Gur’s “Shir Hamaalos” and Modzitz’s “Ein Kitzvah,” at the 2025 MDA Chassidut B’Class concert in the Caesarea amphitheater.

Birthdays

Rabbi of the Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest, Hungary, Róbert Frölich turns 60… 

Co-founder and dean of the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia, Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky turns 101… Professor emerita of history at Columbia University and expert on Japan, Carol Gluck turns 84… Author and senior fellow at USC’s Annenberg School, Morley Winograd turns 83… Accountant and former PwC partner in Phoenix, Steven M. Scheiner, CPA… Former New York state senator, he is a descendant of Rabbi Shmuel Salant, the former Ashkenazic chief rabbi of Jerusalem, Stephen M. Saland turns 82… Sportscaster for “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video, after more than 50 years at NBC and ABC, Al Michaels turns 81… U.S. senator (D-RI), Jack Reed turns 76… Attorney in Brooklyn, Bernard C. Wachsman… Member of the New York state Assembly since 2006, her district includes Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Linda B. Rosenthal turns 68… Author of young-adult fiction and winner of the 2015 National Book Award for Challenger Deep, Neal Shusterman turns 63… Author, journalist and former political advisor to Al Gore and Bill Clinton, Naomi Rebekah Wolf turns 63… University of Chicago professor, he won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, Michael Kremer turns 61… Mayor of Oakland, Calif., until 2023, Elizabeth Beckman “Libby” Schaaf turns 60… Partner in the Chicago office of Kirkland & Ellis, Sanford E. “Sandy” Perl turns 60… White House chief of staff for the last two years of the Biden administration, Jeffrey Zients turns 59… British journalist and political correspondent for BBC News, Joanne “Jo” Coburn turns 58… Hasidic lecturer with many thousands of followers, Rabbi Avraham Elimelech Biderman turns 58… SVP and general manager of MLB’s Minnesota Twins from 2016 until 2024, Thad Levine turns 54… Member of the Knesset until 2019 for the Yisrael Beiteinu party, Robert Ilatov turns 54… Restaurant critic and food writer for the Boston Globe, Devra First turns 53… Israeli fashion model and actress, Nina Brosh turns 50… Former member of the Knesset for the United Torah Judaism party, Eliyahu Hasid turns 49… Campus support director at Hillel International, Aviva Zucker Snyder… Actress best known for her roles on “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful,” Kelly Kruger turns 44… Co-founder of Purple Acorn, Dave Weinberg… Assistant professor of Jewish studies at Oberlin College, Matthew D. Berkman turns 41… Director of strategic talent initiatives at the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, Spencer F. Lucker… New Jersey-based primary care physician known as Doctor Mike, he is an internet celebrity on YouTube and Instagram, Mikhail Varshavski turns 36… Activist in the fight against antisemitism throughout the U.S., Adela Cojab turns 29… Catcher in the Washington Nationals organization, Cameron J. Stubbs turns 29…

Good Tuesday afternoon!

This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.

I’m Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime briefing. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed sidestepped a question about Israel’s right to exist during an interview with the anti-Israel media outlet Zeteo last week, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. 

Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan asked El-Sayed how he would respond if and when he faces questions on the campaign trail about whether he supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Pressed after initially dodging the question, El-Sayed said, “Israel exists. Palestine doesn’t. And so I always wonder why nobody asks me why Palestine doesn’t have a right to exist.”

El-Sayed also dismissed AIPAC donors as “MAGA billionaires throwing their money around to try to dictate the outcome for a Democratic primary,” though AIPAC has not yet endorsed a candidate in the Michigan Senate race…

Chi Ossé, a far-left Gen Z New York City councilman, is planning to launch a primary challenge to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), The New York Times reports, despite discouragement from his ideological ally, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who clinched Jeffries’ endorsement shortly before the general election. Ossé’s insistence on running reportedly caused him to be disinvited from Mamdani’s election night party… 

Elsewhere in New York, Bruce Blakeman, the first Jewish executive of Nassau County who just won reelection last week, is considering mounting a bid for governor, he told Politico, where he would face off against Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) in the GOP primary. Both are allies of President Donald Trump; Blakeman said he “told [Trump] that I was interested, and he didn’t discourage me. And I think he’s had the same conversation with Elise. I think the president is going to play it out and see what happens at the convention”…

Also throwing her hat in the ring, former Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), a moderate Jewish Democrat with a strong pro-Israel record, plans to launch a comeback campaign tomorrow, Punchbowl reports. Luria would likely be the front-runner in the already crowded Democratic primary to win back Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District from Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA), who defeated her in 2022…

Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs and longtime advisor and confidante to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, resigned from his post today after three years in the role, JI’s Tamara Zieve reports. “This government will be remembered both for the October 7 attack and for its management of the two-year, seven-front war that followed,” Dermer wrote in his resignation letter. Israeli media had reported for months that Dermer’s departure was expected.

Dermer has led Israel’s ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations since February and is expected to stay on as Netanyahu’s envoy to continue handling the future of the Gaza portfolio, political sources recently told JI… 

The State Department denied reports today that White House advisor Jared Kushner met with Gaza militia leader Yasser Abu Shabab to discuss ceasefire issues including dozens of Hamas terrorists still “stuck” in tunnels on the Israeli side of the ceasefire lines, though U.S. officials told Axios Kushner did speak with Netanyahu about the issue during their meeting in Jerusalem yesterday, and is eager to resolve it without impact on the next phase of the deal…

Saudi Arabia is set to host a U.S.-Saudi investment summit in Washington next Wednesday, a day after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the White House. An invite obtained by CBS News shows the event taking place at the Kennedy Center, co-hosted by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Investment and the U.S.-Saudi Business Council…

An undated letter from Houthi Chief of Staff Yusuf Hassan al-Madani to Hamas’ Al Qassam Brigades indicates that the Yemeni terror group has halted its attacks on Israel and ships in the Red Sea amid the ongoing ceasefire: “We are closely monitoring developments and declare that if the enemy resumes its aggression against Gaza, we will return to our military operations deep inside the Zionist entity, and we will reinstate the ban on Israeli navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas,” the letter reads…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for an analysis on congressional redistricting efforts and additional reporting on Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s Washington meetings.

The International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries kicks off tomorrow, drawing 6,200 rabbis from 111 countries to New York City.

Former First Lady Michelle Obama will appear at Washington’s Sixth & I Synagogue tomorrow evening to discuss her forthcoming book, The Look.

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