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.”

Israeli-American comedian Modi Rosenfeld, known simply as “Modi,” pulled out of a Passover-themed benefit Monday after his manager revealed that the entertainer had been “blindsided” with the news that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani would participate in the Lower Manhattan event.

Quoting Jewish Insider’s initial report on the mayor’s scheduled involvement in the 33rd Annual “Downtown Seder” at impresario Michael Dorf’s venue City Winery, Rosenfeld’s official Instagram account announced the Tel Aviv-born, Long Island-reared performer had withdrawn from the event.

“We were not told Mamdani was participating in this event until today,” the post read. “Modi will no longer be attending.” 

Reached by phone, Rosenfeld’s manager told JI that they had committed to featuring in the festivities months ago — and said the venue should have notified them earlier that the mayor, whose political initiation began with anti-Israel campus activism, would be part of the program as well.

“It’s just inappropriate to be blindsided with that information the day of the event, regardless of anyone’s political feelings,” said Leo Veiga, who is also Rosenfeld’s husband. “That’s a very polarizing thing right now, so it’s not appropriate for us to be attending.”

Veiga declined to elaborate further on his and Rosenfeld’s feelings toward the mayor and the event, and expressed hope that any controversy provoked would “die down.”

Still set to appear alongside Mamdani is Israeli musician David Broza, while Israeli-American Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie will participate via a livestream from Israel. Broza and Lau-Lavie are both well-known liberals and peace activists, while Rosenfeld is known for performing to religious audiences.

“The Seder is about asking urgent questions — about freedom, responsibility, and how we care for one another,” said Dorf in the initial press release announcing the event. “Each year, we bring together voices who challenge, inspire, and reflect the world as it is — and as it could be.”

Dorf, who previously hosted then-candidate Mamdani for a Yom Kippur event last year, has criticized IDF policy in Gaza — but has rejected allegations that Israel has committed “genocide,” a claim the mayor makes frequently. 

Net proceeds from the already sold-out tickets will go toward Seeds of Peace, an organization known for hosting Israel and Arab youth at dialogue forums in Maine, the press release said.

Other celebrities on the bill include Freakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner, news anchor Don Lemon, musician Meg Okura and comedienne Olga Namer.

A raft of Democrats — including 23 members of the 51-seat New York City Council, multiple state lawmakers and four candidates for Congress — have joined forces with a Beijing-aligned tech tycoon to bail out the fuel-starved dictatorship in Cuba.

The officials in question lent their names to the “Let Cuba Live” campaign, which denounces President Donald Trump’s oil embargo on the island nation and seeks to triage solar panels and generators to defray the crippling impact on its energy production. 

All donations for the effort run through the People’s Forum, a Manhattan-based nonprofit established and financed by Shanghai-based magnate Neville “Roy” Singham, part of his sprawling web of organizations promoting the interests of China and its allies Russia and Iran. 

The People’s Forum and Singham, a devout Maoist who reaped a fortune from the sale of his software firm Thoughtworks, were at the center of a House hearing last week on foreign influence operations and overseas funding of activist groups.

Let Cuba Live’s website reveals the involvement of other Singham-linked groups, including CODEPINK — co-founded by his wife, Jodie Evans — and the ANSWER Coalition, both of which spearheaded anti-Israel protests beginning the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. Jewish Voice for Peace and the Democratic Socialists of America are also signatories, along with well-known left-wing celebrities such as Susan Sarandon and Roger Waters who have long been vocally hostile to Israel.

But unlike Singham’s other attempts to influence U.S. policy and promote its geopolitical foes, this effort has attracted backing from dozens of leading Democrats, the vast majority of them representing parts of New York City. 

Several of the elected officials who have joined the crusade are DSA members: Councilmembers Alexa Aviles, Tiffany Caban, Chi Ossé, Shahana Hanif, state Sen. Julia Salazar and Assemblymembers Diana Moreno and Claire Valdez. 

Moreno was Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s handpicked successor to his old seat in the New York  Legislature, while Mamdani has endorsed Valdez to replace Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) in Congress. 

However, the bulk of the New York co-signers are not card-carrying DSA members, but simply members of the Council’s long-standing left-of-center Progressive Caucus. These include Councilmembers Harvey Epstein, Gale Brewer, Althea Stevens, Amanda Farias, Crystal Hudson, Christopher Marte, Elsie Encarnacion, Farah Louis, Jennifer Gutiérrez, Kayla Santosuosso, Pierina Sanchez, Sandy Nurse, Rita Joseph, Shanel Thomas-Henry, Shekar Krishnan, Shirley Aldebol, Julie Won — also a candidate for Velazquez’s soon-to-be-vacant seat — and Deputy Council Speaker Nantasha Williams.

Other prominent Democrats who have joined the Singham campaign include congressional hopefuls Jake Levine and Byron Sigcho-Lopez, seeking the seats of Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL), respectively. Levine did not respond to a request for comment. Sigcho-Lopez, a Chicago city alderman, told Jewish Insider that he had signed on at the request of DSA, of which he is a member. 

He said he was aware of CODEPINK’s participation in the campaign, but not of the larger Singham network’s involvement, though he expressed no regrets joining.

“Outside of the geopolitical struggle, it is important that we protect the well-being and lives of anyone,” Sigcho-Lopez said. “I think they’re fighting for the same things we’re fighting for in Chicago: we want to protect people’s humanity.”

None of the elected officials responded to JI questions, although two New York City Council sources — who requested anonymity to avoid jeopardizing their positions — said that the Progressive Caucus had urged members to sign on.

Several of the other names attached to “Let Cuba Live” are leading members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a small but prominent fringe party that has spearheaded anti-Israel protests, promotes the interests of Tehran, Moscow and Beijing, and provides staff and support to Singham’s network. The Justice Department has identified the PSL as a key force in organizing the wave of protests that have targeted synagogues in recent months.

As of Wednesday evening, the campaign was about $60,000 away from hitting its $200,000 fundraising goal, funds it has vowed to expend. “We are rushing solar generators and panels to our neighbors 90 miles away so that hospitals can keep their doors open and their lights on.”

The group behind a pro-Hamas demonstration near a Queens synagogue earlier this month and a series of other events targeting Jewish religious institutions has deep pockets — and deep roots, which criss-cross the country and link it to various extremist cells — according to publicly available tax filings.

The demonstrators who broke into chants of “Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here” outside Young Israel of Kew Garden Hills — and triggered outrage over New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s belated condemnation — were affiliated with an outfit known by multiple names: Palestinian Assembly for Liberation (PAL), Al-Awda (Arabic for “the return”) and Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC). But official filings with state and federal authorities reveal that the groups are different monikers of a single nonprofit operation, one whose revenue has exploded in recent years: from just $44,789 in 2022 to $451,903 in 2024, the most recent period for which filings are available.

The group also orchestrated the action targeting Park East Synagogue in Manhattan in November, and the “Flood Boro Park” rally that devolved into violence last February. On the day of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, the organization issued a full-throated endorsement of the assault.

“The Palestinian Assembly for Liberation and Al-Awda NY send their highest salutations to the Palestinian Resistance, the Freedom Fighters and Defenders of the indigenous Palestinian people,” a post on its Facebook page reads. “PAL and Al-Awda NY call on Palestinians globally to take their place in history, and to mobilize in all fora in support of the Liberation Operation.”

The group helped organize a Times Square protest the following day, alongside multiple far-left organizations. Much of the blowback the event received from New York officials centered on the participation of the NYC chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Mamdani is and was a member. 

However, materials promoting the demonstration show that its staging received support not just from PAL/Al-Awda/PRRC but also from the People’s Forum, a Manhattan-based arm of a global network financed by Beijing-based tech mogul Neville “Roy” Singham. Singham and his wife, Jodie Evans, have poured their massive fortune into advancing disinformation supportive of the Chinese government and its allies, Russia and Iran. The People’s Forum also hosted Al-Awda’s national conference in 2022, which featured speakers from the DSA BDS Working Group.

Social media and blog posts reveal that PAL/Al-Awda/PRRC has also worked closely with Evans’ organization CODEPINK, known for its tactics of disrupting Capitol Hill hearings and political events, and for its pro-China and pro-Iran activism. PAL/Al-Awda/PRRC has also long partnered with the Party for Socialism and Liberation and its affiliate, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition, which provides staff to the Singham network. All of these groups have been involved in the Shut It Down 4 Palestine protest campaign, as well as in the 2024 encampments at Columbia University.

PAL/Al-Awda/PRRC also has ties to Samidoun, a group identified by Israel, Germany, Canada and the United States as a fundraiser and affiliate of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which has been designated as a terror group by the U.S. for decades. PAL/Al-Awda/PRRC and Samidoun have cross-promoted and participated in each other’s events for years.

Further, a booklet for a 2023 “People’s Tribunal” on the Al-Awda website identifies Samidoun co-founder Charlotte Kates as “a member of Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition,” and archived versions of a now-deleted page listing PAL/Al-Awda/PRRC’s national board identified Kates as the group’s “Communications/Secretary” from 2021-2023. These pages also reveal that Nerdeen Kiswani, the founder of Within Our Lifetime and an outspoken defender of militant group violence, served as PAL/Al-Awda/PRRC’s “Youth Representative” in these same years. During that same period, Kiswani was a student at CUNY Law School, and delivered a speech at the school’s 2022 commencement in which she alleged that she had “been facing a campaign of Zionist harassment by well-funded organizations with ties to the Israeli government and military.” 

The national board also includes attorney Lamis Deek, who has publicly praised Hamas, the PFLP, and Iran’s Al-Quds intelligence force — and who officially launched the “Palestinian Assembly for Liberation” with other Al-Awda organizers in 2021.

The PFLP and Hamas are not the only terror organizations with which PAL/Al-Awda/PRRC and its leaders have shown affinity. The Anti-Defamation League discovered one of the group’s self-identified founders, Abbas Hamideh, lauded Hezbollah on his Twitter account.

Tax documents show PAL/Al-Awda/PRRC at present has just two officers on its board. The organization’s chair is Amani Barakat, part of a prominent business, real estate and philanthropic dynasty based in Southern California. The late family patriarch, Adil Barakat, was a leader in the Arab American Press Guild and the United States Organization for Medical and Educational Needs, a relief organization centered on Middle Eastern affairs.

PAL/Al-Awda/PRRC’s treasurer and only other listed executive is Anas Amireh, a Miami-area realtor who has lectured at Florida International University.

Barakat, Amireh and Deek did not respond to requests for comment, and messages left in an inbox and at a phone number listed on the Al-Awda website similarly received no answer.

The source of the group’s swelling resources isn’t clear from public information. It has received sizable contributions from “dark money” funds that mask the original contributor’s identity, as well as from the WESPAC Foundation, a New York-based charity that has come under fire for underwriting organizations that call for Israel’s destruction.

Labor for Palestine and U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel are also both affiliated with PAL/Al-Awda/PRRC, and operate out of its address in Coral Gables, Fla.

Good Monday afternoon!

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.

It’s me again — Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime. 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

The suspect in the arson attack that destroyed Mississippi’s largest synagogue early Saturday morning confessed to targeting the building because of its “Jewish ties,” Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

In an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Mississippi more than 48 hours after the attack, the FBI said the suspect, Stephen Spencer Pittman, 19, admitted to starting the blaze at Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Miss., due to “the building’s Jewish ties” and referred to the institution as the “synagogue of Satan” in an interview with the Jackson Fire Department. Pittman was charged with “maliciously damaging or destroying a building by means of fire or an explosive”…

President Donald Trump said Iranian officials made contact with the U.S. over the weekend and proposed restarting nuclear negotiations, telling reporters, “A meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting,” referring to the U.S. potentially taking military action in Iran over its violent crackdown on protesters around the country. 

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also spoke with White House special envoy Steve Witkoff in recent days about the protests, Axios reports; White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters today that an Iranian government official who spoke to Witkoff “express[ed] a far different tone than what you’re seeing publicly.”

Trump is currently leaning toward authorizing military strikes rather than engaging in diplomacy, The Wall Street Journal reports, and he is scheduled to hold a briefing tomorrow with advisors, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, to make a determination…

California Jewish communal organizations released a joint statement today condemning state Sen. Scott Wiener’s remarks on Israel, after the Jewish House candidate said in a video statement yesterday that he is changing his position and will now call Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. 

“We recognize that Senator Wiener has been a strong supporter of the Jewish community throughout the Israel-Hamas war and his many years of public service, and that he has directly experienced antisemitic attacks simply for being Jewish. Unfortunately, Senator Wiener’s newly stated position is both incorrect and lacks moral clarity. … We call on the Senator and our elected, civic, and education leaders to recognize and reflect on the consequences of their words in this fraught and polarizing environment,” the statement read…

In a major recruiting win for Senate Democrats, former Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) announced her run against Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) today, JI’s Marc Rod reports, giving Democrats an outside chance of picking up the red-state Senate seat.

Peltola maintained a strongly pro-Israel voting record during her one term in the House, breaking on numerous occasions with a majority of her party to vote for measures supporting the Jewish state post-Oct. 7, including supporting a stand-alone Israel aid package opposed by many Democrats. Sullivan, for his part, has been a hawkish pro-Israel voice in the Senate, and has pushed for a more aggressive stance toward Iran…

Democratic Maryland state Del. Adrian Boafo is launching a bid to succeed his former mentor, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), as the former House majority leader retires. Boafo, who served as campaign manager for Hoyer, is expected to be the party favorite in the primary, Politico reports. Former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who rose to prominence after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, is also considering joining the race…

In another race to watch, Rep. Nellie Pou (D-NJ) in New Jersey’s 9th Congressional District gained another opponent in Tiffany Burress, a Republican political newcomer and wife of former NFL wide receiver Plaxico Burress. On the first day of her campaign, Burress has already secured the backing of several GOP county chairs, as the party looks to flip the seat away from Pou after Trump unexpectedly carried the district in 2024…

Former Obama administration officials and Crooked Media hosts Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Ben Rhodes are hosting a fundraiser in Hollywood, Calif., on Thursday for Abdul El-Sayed, a far-left, anti-Israel candidate running for Senate in Michigan, JI’s Marc Rod reports.

El-Sayed, a physician and former director of the Wayne County Department of Health, has made his criticisms of Israel a centerpiece of his campaign, blasting other candidates in the race as being insufficiently hostile to the Jewish state. Favreau, Lovett and Rhodes, on their “Pod Save America” and “Pod Save the World” podcasts, have also emerged as a vocal force against Israel and AIPAC in the Democratic Party, and have boosted prominent anti-Israel candidates in other hot-button primaries…

The future of the Israeli Lounge at the Trump-Kennedy Center is reportedly in peril, eJewishPhilanthropy‘s Judah Ari Gross reports, “unless a major donor from the Jewish community steps up and makes a large donation,” far-right commentator Laura Loomer said over the weekend. The center’s president, Richard Grenell, is seeking to renovate the space; Loomer has suggested Qatar may look to provide the funds for the room’s overhaul…

The New York Times reports on the brewing fight between states over the order of 2028 Democratic presidential primary elections…

Dina Powell McCormick, a banking executive, former deputy national security advisor to Trump and wife of Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA), was named president and vice chair of Meta, reporting to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Axios reports. Zuckerberg said in a statement that Powell McCormick will focus on “partnering with governments and sovereigns to build, deploy, invest in, and finance Meta’s AI and infrastructure”…

⏩ 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 more details on the motives and background of the suspected arsonist who set fire to the Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Miss., over the weekend.

President Donald Trump will receive a major briefing on avenues for responding to Iran’s violent suppression of protests, including cyber, economic and military options.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will deliver her State of the State address in Albany, where she plans to announce her proposal to create a 25-foot buffer zone around houses of worship and health-care facilities. (The legislation, while welcomed by major Jewish groups, would not have prevented the pro-Hamas protest that disrupted a Queens community last week, which took place approximately 300 feet away from the targeted synagogue.) New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is expected to be in attendance.

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VENEZUELAN VIEWS

After years in exile, Venezuelan Jews celebrate the fall of Maduro

Some Venezuelan Jews see similarities in the response of far-left activists to Trump’s capture of Maduro and their criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza

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ON ALERT

Hezbollah’s continued presence in south Lebanon alarms Israel, despite disarmament claims

The Lebanese Armed Forces said it took operational control south of the Litani River, but has fallen well short of fully disarming the terrorist group

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Good Thursday afternoon!

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.

It’s me again — Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime. 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

Protests are escalating across Iran, with videos showing masses of demonstrators taking to the streets and security forces at times overwhelmed. Human rights groups estimate dozens of protesters have already been killed and reports indicate the country is experiencing an internet blackout. Storeowners are reportedly shuttering their businesses in an economic boycott, further deepening the economic crisis that spurred the unrest.

President Donald Trump reiterated his warning today that the Iranian regime will “have to pay hell” if “they start killing people, which they tend to do,” speculating that the deaths so far have been caused by stampedes and not law enforcement. Vice President JD Vance said at a press briefing that the Iranian regime “has a lot of problems” and that “the smartest thing for them to have done … is for them to actually have a real negotiation with the United States”…

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced today that he is establishing a royal commission into antisemitism in the country, after the deadly terror attack on a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney last month. The commission, considered a powerful tool in Australian governance, will investigate the scope and causes of antisemitism and make recommendations for law enforcement, in a report due on the year anniversary of the Dec. 14 attack…

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Spain would send “peacekeeping troops” to the Gaza Strip “when the opportunity presents itself.” Speaking to a gathering of ambassadors in Madrid today, he said, “Of course, we have not forgotten Palestine and the Gaza Strip … Spain must actively participate in rebuilding hope in Palestine.” Many countries remain wary of contributing troops to stabilize Gaza over concerns of being required to engage with Hamas…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met today with Nickolay Mladenov, former U.N. envoy to the Middle East and soon-to-be representative of the U.S.-led Board of Peace in Gaza…

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been silent thus far today about a protest taking place tonight organized by the radical anti-Israel group responsible for a similar protest outside the Park East Synagogue in November, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

The group posted the address of the real estate event they intend to protest, which is taking place at a synagogue in Queens’ heavily Jewish neighborhood of Kew Gardens Hills. The synagogue canceled prayer services and two nearby schools, Yeshiva of Central Queens and PS 165, announced early closures. Democratic state Assemblymember Sam Berger, who represents the area, told JI that local principals, staff and parents are “very concerned.” The surrounding area has been “completely upended,” he said…

The New Jersey Legislature will not give further consideration to a bill seeking to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism into state law during this legislative session, the bill’s lead sponsor announced, after several years of the Jewish community’s urging for the measure to be adopted…

Rob Sand, the state auditor and Democratic candidate for governor of Iowa, announced he raised over $9.5 million in 2025, more than double the record for off-year fundraising for a gubernatorial election in the state. Sand told Jewish Insider in 2019, when he first took office as auditor, that he conducted what was “definitely the first audit” to ensure agencies were in compliance with a state anti-BDS law. “When you say [you are] willing to be supportive of your ally [Israel], you need to put your money where your mouth is,” he said at the time…

Far-left New York state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez joined the race to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) today in the progressive 7th Congressional District covering parts of Brooklyn and Queens. The Democratic Socialists of America and Mamdani are expected to endorse Valdez, a move that could prove consequential in the district that The New York Times said will “pit left against lefter.” 

Valdez, who has already brought on several of Mamdani’s advisors, was a vocal critic of Israel’s war in Gaza and pro-Israel political groups; her opponent, Antonio Reynoso, takes similar stances but is viewed as a more “traditional progressive” and is expected to secure Velázquez’s support, the Times reports…

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) officially announced his retirement today after serving 23 terms, one of the longest-serving House members in U.S. history. Speaking on the House floor, the former majority leader and pro-Israel champion warned he was “deeply concerned that this House is not living up to the founders’ goals” and that the country “is heading not toward greatness, but toward smallness, pettiness, divisiveness, loneliness and disdainfulness”…

In his first State of the State address since 2020 — and final before his term ends next year — California Gov. Gavin Newsom heralded his state as a “beacon” and a “policy blueprint for others to follow.” He denounced Trump and laid out a policy agenda including clean energy, increased wages and lowered housing costs, in a speech seen as laying the groundwork for his potential 2028 presidential run…

The Qatar Investment Authority and Emirati-based MGX, linked to a UAE sovereign wealth fund, participated in the latest fundraising round for Elon Musk’s xAI, which raised over $15 billion total. Gulf investors including QIA and the Saudi and Omani sovereign funds have taken part in previous fundraising rounds for the company that owns the Grok AI chatbot on X…

⏩ 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 how legislation in New Jersey to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism was scuttled — and who was behind the bill’s demise. 

The third season of the hit TV show “Tehran” will premiere in the U.S. on Apple TV tomorrow, after a delay of several years. The popular international thriller, which follows a Mossad agent operating undercover in Iran, was indefinitely postponed at the outset of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The season ran in Israel in December 2024, and Apple has announced the fourth season is already in production.

On Saturday, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt will sit in conversation with Rabbi David Wolpe about the “golden age of American Jewry” at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.

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

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SAUDI SPOTLIGHT

U.S. lawmakers weigh in on fears of Saudi Arabia accommodating Islamists

The lawmakers downplayed reports of a serious Gulf rift, with Rep. Brad Sherman calling the increasing disputes between neighbors ‘tactical, not ideological’

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MENIN’S MOMENT

New York Jewish leaders hope Menin will serve as check against Mamdani

Julie Menin was elected the first Jewish speaker of the New York City Council on Wednesday

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Good Wednesday afternoon!

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.

It’s me again — Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime. 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

Qatar is the top country donating foreign funds to American universities, and Cornell University is its leading recipient, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

According to a new dashboard from the Department of Education, Qatar holds the No. 1 spot for funds provided to U.S. universities at a whopping $6.6 billion — $2.3 billion of which has gone to Cornell, making up the vast majority of the school’s $3 billion in foreign funding. Qatar has provided significantly more funds than the next leading countries, bolstering criticisms of the Gulf state’s influence over American higher education…

Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud this afternoon “to advance ongoing bilateral cooperation” following President Donald Trump’s meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in November. Rubio and Al-Saud discussed issues including Gaza, Yemen, Sudan and Syria, according to a State Department readout.

The Saudi foreign minister also met with lawmakers on the Hill, including Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL) and Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the chair and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee…

Trump is expected to kick off the second phase of the Gaza peace plan next week, Axios reports, including announcing the formation of the Gaza Board of Peace. Among the countries expected to participate are the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, with former U.N. envoy to the Middle East Nikolay Mladenov at the helm…

In a Truth Social post this afternoon, Trump called for the U.S. defense budget to be raised to $1.5 trillion in 2027, an increase of approximately 50% from his 2026 request…

Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz, in a speech to the Knesset on Monday, warned the American right about the dangers of rising antisemitism within its ranks, JI’s Lahav Harkov reports.

“I stand here in Jerusalem to sound an alarm,” Illouz said. “We are used to enemies from the outside … but today, I look at the West — our greatest ally — and I see a new enemy rising from within.” Illouz, who was born and raised in Montreal, took the unusual step of speaking from the lectern in English.

The right-wing lawmaker called for American conservatives to reject what he called the “poison” of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, mentioning the podcasters by name. “They claim to fight the ‘woke left.’ They are no different than the woke left,” Illouz argued. “The woke left tears down statues of Thomas Jefferson, the woke right tears down statues of Winston Churchill … It is the same hatred of the West dressed up in a different costume”…

New York City Councilmember Julie Menin was unanimously voted speaker of the council today, as expected, after she announced in November that she had garnered enough support to secure the position.

Shortly after being elected, Menin, the first Jewish council speaker in the city with the largest Jewish population in the world, said she will look to codify legislation to protect the Jewish community, including establishing safe perimeters for protests around synagogues…

A new poll by the Honan Strategy Group found Jewish and non-Jewish New York voters split in their views about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Forward reports. Fifty-five percent of non-Jewish respondents said Jews who say they feel threatened by Mamdani’s views on Israel are overreacting, while 53% of Jewish respondents said they are justified to feel that way. Fifty-one percent of Jews said Mamdani’s election is a troubling sign that antisemitism is being normalized, while 61% of non-Jews see it as evidence of healthy debate and diversity…

The New York Times lays out an ongoing lawsuit in New York over redistricting that could see the 11th Congressional District redrawn, which could impact the boundaries of Rep. Dan Goldman’s (D-NY) neighboring district and further complicate his reelection prospects…

In New Jersey, congressional candidates are raking in donations for what’s shaping up to be one of the state’s most expensive primary cycles ever. In the special election in the state’s 11th Congressional District to replace Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill, former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) announced he’s raised more than $1 million in the two months since he launched his bid.

Three Democratic candidates vying for Malinowski’s old seat in the neighboring 7th District, now held by Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ), have also raised over $1 million each, including former Navy pilot Rebecca Bennett. The large fundraising hauls are unusual for an off year, though Democrats see the 7th as a promising opportunity to flip a House seat, given that the swing district narrowly voted for Sherrill, a Democrat, in November…

Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a far-right Republican, announced today he will not pursue a rematch against Gov. Josh Shapiro, to whom he lost decisively in the 2022 gubernatorial race, amid speculation that he would once again seek the office…

Warner Bros. rejected a hostile takeover bid from Paramount, in the latest development in the battle to acquire the media giant. The company’s board voted to maintain its existing deal with Netflix for $72 billion, calling Paramount’s amended $77.9 billion offer with a personal guarantee from Larry Ellison “inadequate”…

⏩ 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 dynamics that may play out between New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the newly inaugurated City Council Speaker Julie Menin as she plays a critical role in potentially providing a check against the mayor’s policy agenda.

Temple Emanu-El’s Streicker Center in New York City will host a screening of the documentary “The Road Between Us” about Gen. Noam Tibon’s historic rescue of his family amid the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, as well as a discussion with Tibon and director Barry Avrich. Read JI’s interview with Tibon and Avrich.

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REASONS AND RAMIFICATIONS

Why Israel recognized Somaliland — and what the rest of the world might do next

After Israel announced it would recognize the secessionist region, the big question remains whether the United States will follow suit

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SAME AS THE OLD BOSS

New Venezuelan president signals similar anti-American foreign policy as Maduro

At a swearing-in ceremony on Monday, interim President Delcy Rodríguez appeared to embrace the ambassadors of Iran, China and Russia

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Good Tuesday afternoon!

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.

It’s me again — Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime. 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

Bolstering concerns that Iran could attempt to strike Israel to rally domestic support amid nationwide protests, Iran’s Defense Council warned today that Tehran could act against its “long-standing enemies” over their “hostile behavior.”

The body, formed after the June war with Israel, said in a statement that “Iran’s security, independence and territorial integrity are an uncrossable red line, and any aggression or continuation of hostile behavior will be met with a proportionate and decisive response.”

“The long-standing enemies of this land” are “repeating and intensifying threatening language and interventionist statements in clear conflict with the accepted principles of international law, which is aimed at dismembering our beloved Iran and harming the country’s identity,” the statement continued, as President Donald Trump has threatened to intervene if Iran cracks down on the protesters…

Wrapping up a U.S.-mediated dialogue in Paris, Israel and Syria made progress towards improving relations as they agreed to accelerate the pace of negotiations going forward, considered a U.S. proposal to establish a demilitarized joint economic zone and agreed to set up a communication mechanism to facilitate coordination on military deescalation, intelligence sharing and diplomacy…

Domestically, midterm election year is in full swing: Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) officially launched his reelection bid today in New York’s 10th Congressional District, highlighting the date as the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and his role as the House’s lead counsel during Trump’s first impeachment.

Goldman came out of the gate against his opponent, former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, with a slew of endorsements, including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-CA). 

Goldman told The New York Times that he understood his continued support for Israel “ran the risk of engendering a primary” in his progressive district but that he made his decisions based on “what I genuinely thought was best for the state of Israel, the people of Israel, Palestinian civilians and the future state of Palestine”…

Nearby in New York’s 12th Congressional District, George Conway, a former Republican lawyer and prominent critic of Trump who launched his run today as a Democrat, raised several concerns about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s approach to Israel and antisemitism in recent interviews, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

Conway, who recently relocated to Manhattan in order to run for the seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), said in an interview with The New York Times that he was “disturbed” by Mamdani’s sharp criticisms of Israel, even as he called the mayor “a great politician” and voiced admiration for his “focus on affordability.”

Conway added in an interview with NBC News that he was “concerned about some of the language” Mamdani has “used in the past about Israel,” as well as the mayor’s recent decision to revoke a pair of executive orders related to Israel and antisemitism on his first day in office. “His focus really has to be on bringing people together,” Conway said of Mamdani, “not sending the wrong message to individual groups of people”…

In the crowded Democratic primary in New York’s 17th Congressional District to take on Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), Peter Chatzky, the deputy mayor of Briarcliff Manor, injected $5 million of his own money into his campaign, Politico reports. Chatzky has stood out from the crowd in the competitive swing district in the northern suburbs of New York City with his comparatively critical stance of Israel.

Cait Conley, meanwhile, a national security veteran strongly supportive of Israel who is considered one of the front-runners in the seven-person race to take on Lawler, announced yesterday that she raised more than $560,000 in the last quarter of 2025 and has over $1.2 million in cash on hand…

Former Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) is considering mounting a run for Senate to challenge Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Axios reports. Peltola narrowly lost her seat in 2024 when Trump carried the state in the presidential election; if she does make a bid, she would give Democrats the opportunity to contest a red-state race, giving them an outside shot to win back the upper chamber…

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) died today at 65, Republican leadership announced. AIPAC mourned him as “an outspoken pro-Israel leader in Congress.” The congressman’s seat, a largely rural district he represented since 2013, was redrawn last year to be more favorable to Democrats, but a special election to fill his seat will be held under the old map friendlier to Republicans due to the timing of the vacancy…

Speaking at a press conference on the latest crime statistics out of New York City, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, standing next to Mamdani, said that antisemitic hate crimes in the city declined 3% from 2024 to 2025 but, at 57%, still make up the majority of all hate crimes reported…

In an interview released today on CNN commentator Scott Jennings’ podcast, Vice President JD Vance, asked about the rise of antisemitism in the conservative movement, said, “we need to reject all forms of ethnic hatred, whether it’s antisemitism, anti-Black hatred, anti-white hatred,” JI’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports.

“I think that’s one of the great things about the conservative coalition, is that we are, I think, fundamentally rooted in the Christian principles that founded the United States of America and one of those very important principles is that we judge people as individuals,” Vance continued…

⏩ 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 deep dive into the geopolitical ramifications of Israel’s choice to formally recognize the African nation of Somaliland — and whether the U.S. might follow suit.

The New York City Council will vote to elect its speaker tomorrow, which is widely expected to be Councilmember Julie Menin. Menin, who will be the first Jewish speaker of the council, has already begun to push back on Mayor Zohran Mamdani, expressing her concern to him over his repeal of former Mayor Eric Adams’ executive orders related to Israel and antisemitism.

In Washington, the Atlantic Council will host a discussion on the “future of humanitarian assistance,” including remarks from IsraAID CEO Yotam Polizer.

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TORAH AND BENCH

The judge overseeing the Maduro trial blazed a trail for Jewish lawyers

Judge Alvin Hellerstein became a law clerk because firms would not hire an Orthodox lawyer; now, he cites Torah from the bench

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DRAWING LINES

Bruce Blakeman outlines his approach to antisemitism if elected NY governor

Asked about right-wing antisemitism, Blakeman said that Tucker Carlson ‘is a big blowhard who has an issue with Jewish people’

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Good Monday afternoon!

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.

It’s me again — Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime. 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

Dominating the headlines, deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife pleaded not guilty to charges including narco-terrorism during their arraignment in New York City today. “I am still president of my country,” Maduro told the judge, who set their next hearing for March 17.

At the same time, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, whom the Trump administration has said it will work with, was sworn in as interim president in Caracas, though she insisted that Maduro is still president and that he is being held hostage by the U.S…

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced today that he will no longer seek reelection to a third term after facing weeks of criticism due to revelations of widespread fraud primarily among the state’s Somali diaspora population. 

“I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all. Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences,” Walz, who has increasingly played to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, said in his announcement.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), a moderate with a record of winning over independent voters, is considering running for governor in his stead, after she and Walz met yesterday. On the Republican side, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and Speaker of the Statehouse Lisa Demuth are already vying for the office…

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani denied that his executive order altering the relationship between the NYPD and his office — which appeared to indicate that NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch would no longer report to him but to a deputy mayor — will be meaningful in its impact, telling reporters today that the commissioner “will continue to report directly to me … The executive order is in terms of the question of coordination.”

The direct line between the mayor and NYPD head has been in place at least since the terror attacks of 9/11, after which the commissioner began to hold daily intelligence briefings for the mayor. The National Jewish Advocacy Center called the restructuring “unprecedented” in a letter to Mamdani and said that “The close relationship between the NYPD and the Mayor’s Office has been key to averting disasters for the Jewish community,” including during Hanukkah last month.

The move came as Mamdani revoked an executive order adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and an anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions order, which also drew backlash from Jewish leaders…

Meanwhile, in one of his final acts in office, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares sent a letter today reminding all K-12 superintendents and school boards in the state of their obligation to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism into their codes of conduct and discrimination policies, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. 

“As part of your compliance with Federal and Virginia law, you must implement the IHRA definition and its contemporary examples into your codes of conduct and discrimination policies to assess unprotected activity,” Miyares wrote, referencing a law passed by the state legislature in May 2023 requiring use of the IHRA definition by all state agencies… 

Harvard President Alan Garber said that the university was wrong to let professors express strong stances on controversial issues in the classroom, causing students to feel they couldn’t share their views, including faculty espousing anti-Israel views in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks. “It did happen in classrooms that professors would push this,” he said in a live taping of the Shalom Hartman Institute’s “Identity/Crisis Podcast” last month…

Leslie Grinage, Barnard’s dean and vice president of campus life and student experience, left her position today, the Columbia Spectator reports, after she came under intense criticism for her role in disciplining students who had violated school rules during anti-Israel protests on campus. Dozens of protesters staged a sit-in outside her office last year to demand the reinstatement of two students who were expelled after they disrupted a History of Modern Israel class…

Speaking in the Knesset today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he and President Donald Trump “will not allow Iran to rebuild its ballistic missile industry, and we certainly won’t let it renew its nuclear program” and that the two leaders agree that Iran must have no enrichment capabilities, all of its enriched uranium must be sent out of the country and there must be close oversight of its nuclear facilities…

Netanyahu also met with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) in Jerusalem today…

The Israel Defense Forces and Moroccan Armed Forces signed a joint work plan for 2026 during the third meeting of their Joint Military Committee in Tel Aviv this week…

A man was arrested for vandalizing the personal residence of Vice President JD Vance in Cincinnati this morning. Nobody was home at the time. “As far as I can tell, a crazy person tried to break in by hammering the windows. I’m grateful to the secret service and the Cincinnati police for responding quickly,” Vance said on X…

⏩ 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 Judge Alvin Hellerstein, the 92-year-old Orthodox Jewish federal judge overseeing the trial of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The Academic Engagement Network is convening a three-day “boot camp” in Miami Beach this week for university faculty combating antisemitism and anti-Zionism on campus. Speakers will include Israeli journalist Nadav Eyal, the Atlantic Council’s Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, antisemitism researcher Miri Bar-Halpern and past president of the American Association of University Presidents Cary Nelson.

Tomorrow, former Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and commentator Dan Senor will speak about “Israeli strategy in war and peace” in West Palm Beach, Fla., for the Palm Beach Synagogue’s “Critical Conversation Series.”

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DOMINO EFFECT

Toppling Maduro may weaken Iran’s hold in Latin America

Caracas served as the hub of Tehran’s operations in the Western Hemisphere

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ON THE AGENDA

Security remains Jewish community’s top lobbying priority for 2026

Major Jewish advocacy organizations told JI that they will continue to push for issues including Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding and combating antisemitism online

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Good Tuesday afternoon!

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.

It’s me again — Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime. 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

Two men in Manchester, England were found guilty of planning a terror attack on the city’s Jewish community, in the same area where two people were killed in a car ramming and stabbing attack at a synagogue on Yom Kippur.

Police warned it would have been the “deadliest terrorist attack in U.K. history”; the would-be assailants were affiliated with ISIS and had obtained guns and ammunition for an extended shooting spree, which they indicated was revenge for Israel’s actions in Gaza. One told an undercover officer, “We start with the Jews and if there any Christians caught in the act, that is a bonus, but we start with the Jews”…

At the same time, British police dropped a criminal investigation into Bob Vylan, the rap duo who led “death to the IDF” chants at the Glastonbury music festival in June, citing “insufficient evidence for there to be a realistic prospect of conviction”…

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem today pushing for additional information about Nonprofit Security Grant Program allocations, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports, as well as criticizing the $330 million funding allocation for the program proposed last week by Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“As I travel around Connecticut and hear from community leaders here and around the country, I am struck by the severely heightened anxiety and apprehension about physical threats to places of worship and community centers involving hate-based violence,” Blumenthal said.

The senator requested data on grant applications and acceptances, the reasons why FEMA has provided less funding than requested to some institutions and the resources FEMA provided to unsuccessful applicants for each year from 2023 to 2025…

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz walked back comments he made earlier today claiming Israel would reestablish settlements in the Gaza Strip; he said in a statement shortly after that “the government has no intention of establishing settlements” in the enclave and his comments were “made in a security context only.”

A U.S. official told Fox News about Katz’s initial remarks that “the more Israel provokes, the less the Arab countries will want to work with them”…

Israel covertly airdropped weapons and ammunition to a Druze militia in Syria shortly after the fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad, The Washington Post reports, over concerns of then-nascent President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s allegiances. Israel stopped providing weapons to the Druze after Al-Sharaa met with President Donald Trump in the White House earlier this year, though it continues to provide supplies including money, body armor and medical provisions.

“We were helping when it was absolutely necessary and are committed to minorities’ security, but it is not as if we are going to have commandos take positions next to the Druze or get in the business of organizing proxies,” one Israeli official told the Post…

At a meeting of the U.N. Security Council today, Iran accused the U.S. of violating its rights as a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty by insisting that the country have no domestic uranium enrichment. (The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency declared Iran in violation of the NPT in June.)

U.S. deputy Middle East envoy Morgan Ortagus said in response, “We’d like to make it clear to the entire world: the United States remains available for formal talks with Iran, but only if Tehran is prepared for direct and meaningful dialogue. … We have been clear, however, about certain expectations for any arrangement. Foremost, there can be no enrichment inside of Iran, and that remains our principle”… 

Estimated private funding of Israeli tech businesses reached $15.6 billion in 2025, according to early numbers from Startup National Central, a nonprofit that tracks and promotes the Israeli innovation ecosystem, up from $12 billion in 2024. “At the same time, deal volume declined to 717 rounds, the lowest in the last decade. This divergence tells a clear story: investors are doing fewer deals, but committing significantly more capital to each one,” the organization wrote….

Ben Sasse, the former Republican senator from Nebraska and previous president of the University of Florida, announced today that he has terminal Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. As UF president during the disruptive campus protests in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, Sasse was heralded for taking a uniquely firm stance against the protesters; he resigned from UF in July 2024 due to his wife’s failing health…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

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

This is the last Daily Overtime of 2025 — we’ll be back in your inbox on Monday, Jan. 5. 

Until then, keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for reporting on Jewish communal organizations’ 2026 legislative agenda, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with President Donald Trump in Florida next week (read JI’s Lahav Harkov’s preview of the meeting here), Zohran Mamdani’s first days in office after being sworn in as New York City mayor on Jan. 1, and more. 

Happy New Year!

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MILTARY MATTERS

Pentagon plan to reorganize military could undermine U.S.-Israel security, experts warn

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DAMASCUS DEALINGS

Trump’s Syria strategy tested amid resurgence of ISIS in Damascus

An attack by ISIS forces on U.S. servicemembers earlier this month prompted U.S. airstrikes and an entry ban on Syrian nationals, despite Trump’s embrace of Syria President Ahmad al-Sharaa

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While Congress is working on a bill to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization in the U.S., and the Islamist group is banned from Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and beyond, the group’s status in Israel is much more complicated.

The matter drew renewed attention this week after Mansour Abbas, the leader of the Ra’am party in the Knesset, an ideological offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, declined to call for the eradication of Hamas on Israeli radio.

In an interview with Israeli public broadcaster KAN, Abbas mostly lamented the high rate of crime and gun violence in Israeli-Arab society, but when he mentioned Gaza, the interviewer, Asaf Liberman, asked whether he sees Hamas as part of the enclave’s future.

“Palestinian society needs to pick its leadership and go on a new path towards peace and reconciliation,” Abbas responded. 

Liberman twice repeated his question and sharpened it: “Does Hamas need to be destroyed?”

Abbas added that an international force must enter Gaza and after an interim period a security force of the Palestinian Authority would be trained, but after being pressed to make his position on Hamas clear, he said the interview was beginning to feel like an “interrogation,” and pointed out that he had gone on air to talk about domestic issues facing Arab Israelis. “If you want to talk about crime, fine, if not, bye,” he said, before hanging up. 

Abbas has previously condemned Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, calling them unjustifiable and inhumane, and called for the release of the hostages. The other reporter who conducted the interview, Suleiman Maswadeh, later noted that Abbas and his family had recently received death threats, and hinted that was the reason the Knesset member avoided repeating his previously articulated position — which Maswadeh said does not include a future for Hamas in the governance of Gaza.

In 2021, the Ra’am party became the first Arab party in 50 years to join an Israeli governing coalition, which was celebrated by many in Israel and abroad as a milestone for coexistence, while the Israeli right criticized the 2021-2022 government for what it characterized as working with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Monday’s interview sparked headlines and analysis in right-leaning Israeli media and comments by politicians on the right about the viability of center and left-wing parties once again forming a coalition with Ra’am to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when Ra’am’s leader would not say that he is for eradicating Hamas.

“The Muslim Brotherhood is a very generic term,” said Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University. “It’s not membership in an organization; it’s a denomination. Mansour Abbas is the Muslim Brotherhood. Raed Salah, his rival, is also the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood. [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The historic and recent connections between Hamas and Ra’am, both of which were founded by adherents of the Muslim Brotherhood, shed light on the nuances of the international Sunni Islamist movement and its status in Israel.

Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, emphasized, in an interview with Jewish Insider on Wednesday, that the Muslim Brotherhood is an ideology aiming to make Muslim societies more religious, and is not one centralized organization spanning the Muslim world.

“The Muslim Brotherhood is a very generic term,” Milshtein said. “It’s not membership in an organization; it’s a denomination. Mansour Abbas is the Muslim Brotherhood. Raed Salah, his rival, is also the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood. [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna’s brother, Abd al-Rahman al-Banna, founded the group’s branch in Mandatory Palestine in 1935; its leaders included Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who incited the deadly Hebron riots against Jews in 1929 and collaborated with Hitler, and Izz al-Din al-Qassam, leader of the 1935 Arab Revolt against the British and namesake of Hamas’ short-range Qassam rockets. 

Gaza-based Sheikh Ahmad Yasin formed the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired Hamas in the 1980s. Sheikh Abdullah Nimar Darwish founded the Islamic Movement in Israel in 1971, which also espoused Muslim Brotherhood ideology.

In 1979, Darwish founded an underground group in Israel called The Family of Jihad with a goal of establishing an Islamic state. However, after his arrest and conviction for involvement in killing an accused collaborator and membership of a terrorist organization, he renounced violence and decided to promote Islamism within the confines of Israeli law.

Fissures began in the Islamic Movement in Israel after the Oslo Accords, with the northern branch, led by Sheikh Raed Salah, opposing it, while the southern branch supported it. The two parts of the movement officially split when the southern branch ran for the Knesset in 1996 as Ra’am, and Salah advocated boycotting national elections. 

The leaders of the northern branch were arrested in 2003 for aiding Hamas and in 2015, the branch was banned, after the police and Shin Bet demonstrated that it had close ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and received funds from groups affiliated with Hamas.

Darwish, however, continued to be the spiritual leader of the Islamic Movement’s southern branch and said he was committed to obeying the laws of Israel. He engaged in interfaith dialogue events, often with former Labor lawmaker Rabbi Michael Melchior, and spoke out against Holocaust denial. 

While Islamic Movement Southern Branch leaders have met with Hamas leaders and taken part in mediation efforts between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, in 2022, then-leader of Hamas Yahya Sinwar declared Mansour Abbas a traitor for joining the governing coalition and saying Israel is a Jewish state. Abbas has said that his decision to join the governing coalition in 2021 came from the values he “absorbed from the legacy of Sheikh Abdullah Nimr Darwish.” 

As such, the more radical of the two major offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood is outlawed in Israel.

Yet, more recently, the Islamic Movement Southern Branch has come under scrutiny for its own possible ties to Hamas. 

In the decades since its establishment, the Islamic Movement has faced repeated crackdowns on its charities. The Islamic Relief Committee, founded in 1987 with the stated goal to help the needy in the West Bank and Gaza, was shut down by Israeli authorities in 1995 for aiding Hamas members’ families, the first in a series of such actions.

“Israel’s anti-terrorism law and the whole discipline has been to focus on specific organizations and declaring them as terrorist organizations because of their goals, because of the means that they use, rather than focusing on an idea, which the Muslim Brotherhood really is,” Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, the former director of the IDF Prosecution for Judea and Samaria, told JI.

In July, the Israeli Justice Ministry unit dealing with nonprofit organizations found grounds to shut down “Aid 48,” a charity affiliated with Ra’am, on suspicion of providing funding to terrorist organizations. “Aid 48” is the Islamic Movement Southern Branch’s main charity. According to an investigation by the ministry, in 2020-2021, the organization transferred NIS 2 million to a charity in Hebron that Israel had declared in 2012 to be part of a terrorist organization; in 2023, “Aid 48” worked with three such Palestinian charities; in 2020, the organization gave NIS 933,000 to a Turkish organization run by Hamas members, which funneled money to the terrorist organization.

Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, the former director of the IDF Prosecution for Judea and Samaria, currently the director of the Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform in the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, explained to JI that Israeli law makes it easier to crack down on smaller subgroups than an umbrella term like the Muslim Brotherhood.

“Israel’s anti-terrorism law and the whole discipline has been to focus on specific organizations and declaring them as terrorist organizations because of their goals, because of the means that they use, rather than focusing on an idea, which the Muslim Brotherhood really is,” he said on the sidelines of a JCFA conference last week.

In order to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, “you have to break it down into intelligence,” Hirsch said, adding that the authorities would have to determine who they are seeking to arrest and what money and possibly weapons need to be seized.

Hirsch recounted taking part in the Israeli Security Cabinet meeting in 2015 when the government decided to outlaw the Islamic Movement Northern Branch.

“Some of the questions that were asked were, what is the next step? Who do we operate against now? It was a bit clearer than the entire Muslim Brotherhood, but even then there was a question,” he said.

“I would be very careful because, at its core, the Muslim Brotherhood is a movement that aims to change society. They have a lot of social organizations. It’s very different from Islamic Jihad or ISIS, who are not interested in social activism,” said Milshtein, adding that the Muslim Brotherhood ideology is up for interpretation by its adherents.

When it comes to the southern branch, Hirsch, who has worked with the “Choosing Life” organization of relatives of victims of terror whose lawsuit led to the shuttering of “Aid 48,”  argued that “there is a clear connection between Ra’am and funding Hamas … That connection was there all along. It’s partly ideological and partly the idea of the Muslim Brotherhood in its different constellations, including in Israel.”

Milshtein acknowledged that there have been cases of leaders of “Aid 48” meeting with Hamas leaders and funding going to Hamas ahead of its invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, but said that Abbas “took care of” those responsible when he learned of the incidents.

“I would be very careful because, at its core, the Muslim Brotherhood is a movement that aims to change society. They have a lot of social organizations. It’s very different from Islamic Jihad or ISIS, who are not interested in social activism,” he said, adding that the Muslim Brotherhood ideology is up for interpretation by its adherents.

“If you ask Mansour Abbas, there is no problem with being part of the Muslim Brotherhood and part of the government in a state that defines itself as Jewish,” he said. “If you ask Hamas, they want jihad against Israel.”

When several dozen people gathered at the Kennedy Center for a yoga class overlooking the Potomac River on Oct. 8, the class began with a practice familiar to anyone who regularly does yoga: intention setting. 

The class was called “Yoga for Carmel,” in honor of Carmel Gat, a 40-year-old Israeli yoga instructor who was taken captive by Hamas from Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7 and killed last year alongside five other hostages, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Among those taking part in the class were former hostages and the family members of those still being held in Gaza, all of whom had gathered at the same spot a day earlier for a somber event marking two years since the attacks that reshaped their lives. 

“What do you do in yoga? You set your intention. You think about the release of the hostages. That’s all we thought about during the entire yoga session,” recalled Matan Sivek, who until last month was the director of the Hostage Families Forum’s U.S. operation. As soon as the class ended, a cacophony of cellphones began ringing as news broke about a possible deal.

“At 6 p.m., we got the news that the deal might be happening, that it’s evolving super rapidly,” said Sivek. Soon it was confirmed: Israel and Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire that would result in the release of all the hostages and an end to the war. The news capped off an emotional 36 hours, which began with the Oct. 7 memorial event at the Kennedy Center a day earlier. 

Sivek sat down with Jewish Insider last week for a wide-ranging conversation reflecting on the two-year-long advocacy campaign — spearheaded by Sivek, his wife Bar Ben-Yaakov and leading Jewish organizations including the American Jewish Committee and Schusterman Family Philanthropies — demanding the release of the more than 250 people taken hostage by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. 

“I’m very happy that I am part of something that was successful at the end. There are many initiatives and nonprofits around the world who try to solve different issues, and they will never solve them. People try to end famine. They try to find a medicine for cancer. They try to stop addiction,” said Sivek. “For us, it’s something that you can say, ‘Wow, we really saved lives.’”

Advocating for the hostages was a task that Sivek and Ben-Yaakov took on almost by accident, but they ultimately became the address for Israeli hostage families who came to Washington to advocate for the release of their loved ones. The couple helped arrange meetings with Democratic and Republican lawmakers, officials in the Biden and Trump administrations and political and faith leaders around the country. Their strategy was to meet with anyone who would listen.

“We really were here to say that this humanitarian issue transcends all politics, and this was our strategy from Day One,” said Sivek.

It made sense, then, that the moment when President Donald Trump shared with the families that the hostages would be coming the following Monday — five days after that yoga class — was in a phone call to the hostage families as they stood in Sivek and Ben-Yaakov’s Georgetown living room. A video of the call, placed by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who put Trump on speakerphone, quickly went viral and appeared on news broadcasts around the world.

“President Trump, you have the best crowd in the world,” Lutnick said into the phone. 

Everyone in the room shouted together, smiles on their faces: “Thank you!” 

“You just take care of yourselves. The hostages will come back. They’re all coming back on Monday,” Trump said. Among those in the room were released hostages Keith Siegel, Iair Horn, Doron Steinbecher and Arbel Yehoud, as well as family members of Gali and Ziv Berman and Omri Miran, who at the time were still in Gaza, along with Horn’s brother Eitan and Yehoud’s partner Ariel Cunio. 

“This is the moment when the world realized the timing of the release of the hostages,” said Sivek.

The White House deputy press secretary, Anna Kelly, told JI this week that Trump was deeply affected by the story of the hostages.

“President Trump is always motivated to end human suffering around the world, and he was horrified by the images of Oct. 7 and the capture of innocent Americans, Israelis and others taken hostage by Hamas,” said Kelly.

Within the Trump administration, Lutnick was working behind the scenes on behalf of the hostages. His wife, Allison, was the driving force behind his advocacy. 

Allison Lutnick had gotten to know many of the families after a trip to Israel early last year, when she met the mother of Omer Shem Tov, a hostage who was freed in February. Allison then connected with Sivek when she moved to Washington this year, and soon after he facilitated a meeting between the Lutnicks and several freed hostages at the Lutnicks’ apartment in Miami. 

“We spent three three hours together in our apartment talking and sharing. They spoke of the horrors of what they’d been through and we spoke of the horrors of what we had been through 24 years earlier on 9/11,” she told JI on Wednesday. At the time, Howard Lutnick was the CEO of the financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald, which lost 658 employees on 9/11, including his brother Gary. 

“There was definitely a bond between all of us, having experienced a terrorist attack and the loss of loved ones and horrible trauma,” she added. “Howard and I felt this very deep connection with them and what they were going through. We had an understanding of it.”

Whenever Sivek asked, Allison Lutnick texted leading administration officials like Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directly to set up meetings for them with hostage families. The Lutnicks’ family foundation supported the Sukkah of Hope at the Kennedy Center, where the Oct. 7 commemoration event took place. (The sukkah was supposed to be set up on the Ellipse, outside the White House, but the government shutdown scuttled that plan. So Allison Lutnick, a Kennedy Center board member, reached out to the center’s president, Ric Grenell — and, thus, it was moved there.) 

She and her husband both spoke at the memorial event, and that morning in the sukkah, a majority of Trump administration cabinet secretaries gathered for a breakfast with the hostage families. 

“We are part of you. We are with you, and we will help get them home,” Howard Lutnick said in a speech. Less than 36 hours later, there was a breakthrough in the deal.

“The two-year anniversary of Oct. 7 was a day of intense emotion, sadness, mourning and disbelief and horror that it’s been two years. And then the next day, Oct. 8, was this incredible elation. It just couldn’t have been more different,” Allison Lutnick said. “It was extraordinary to walk into Matan’s house later that night and celebrate with the families. It was the first time I’d ever seen them smile for a picture.”

She and her husband arrived at the impromptu celebration with two bottles of champagne. Meanwhile, Lisa Eisen and Stacy Schusterman, the president and the chair of Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, showed up with food for 30. They had been planning to host Sivek’s family and all the hostage families for Sukkot that night — Eisen and her husband had purchased a larger sukkah in preparation — but the gathering never happened.

“I called Lisa. I was like, ‘Lisa, you worked so hard for this dinner, but I think we cannot make it.’ And it was 6 p.m. At 7 we were supposed to be there,” Sivek said. “I was like, ‘A deal is happening. I cannot take them from the city. They need to stay here.’” 

“I said, ‘Well, this is the best excuse ever to not come,’” Eisen recounted to JI. She and her family sat down to eat, toasted the hostages and said the Shehechiyanu prayer, expecting to have a much smaller dinner at home. Then Sivek asked her to come celebrate with them.

“So we packed up all of the food for 30 people, and we drove down to Matan and Bar’s house, and we set up the meal because they had no food,” said Eisen, who split the cooking with her husband: three kinds of soup (coconut lentil, red lentil and matzoh ball), schnitzel, salads, homemade hummus, pies and cakes. “It was one of the most powerful, moving, beautiful moments. And I have to say, Matan and Bar, it wouldn’t happen without them. They were so tireless.” 

It was in that environment with hugging and crying and eating — critical to any Jewish event — that everyone realized this deal, finally, seemed to be real.

“This is how our kitchen became famous,” Sivek said with a laugh. “For us it was some sort of closure as well, the fact that after two very difficult years, the announcement came from our kitchen.”

Almost immediately, Sivek and his partners began booking the Israelis on flights back home; less than a week later, they would be reunited with their loved ones. It was a moment these Israelis had hardly dared to imagine during the agony of the preceding two years. In that period, their pain was shared by Jews around the world, who wore dog tags and yellow ribbon pins to constantly remind others of the people imprisoned in Gaza.

“Many people view this as a miracle that happened, that they’re out, and of course, it seemed like a miracle. But there was a lot of work of hostage families and former hostages behind the scenes to make it happen,” Sivek said. “I think that the Jewish people should be very, very proud of themselves, that we stood by our people, and we actually managed to save their lives.” 

For Jewish and Israeli authors and the people who enjoy their books, the publishing industry has been a decidedly depressing place over the last two years. 

A spreadsheet titled “Is Your Fav Author a Zionist?” went viral on social media and called for readers to boycott so-called “Zionist” authors, a label extended even to some who merely spoke to Jewish audiences. The literary magazine Guernica retracted an essay by an Israeli author in response to protests from staff. LitHub, the preeminent news site dedicated to the publishing industry, has adopted a stridently anti-Israel stance since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks two years ago. “A litmus test has emerged across wide swaths of the literary world effectively excluding Jews from full participation unless they denounce Israel,” the author Jamie Kirchick wrote in The New York Times last year. 

A new initiative from the Jewish Book Council, a 100-year-old nonprofit dedicated to promoting Jewish literature, aims to fight back against the torrent of bad news for Jewish writers. This month, JBC unveiled Nu Reads, a subscription service that will deliver selected Jewish books to subscribers bimonthly. The first book, Happy New Years by the Israeli author Maya Arad, has already shipped to Nu Reads’ inaugural subscribers.

“There’s a chill for our community across the industry,” JBC CEO Naomi Firestone-Teeter told Jewish Insider in an interview this month. “If we care about Jewish literature and we care about these authors and ideas, we need to buy these books. We need to invest in them and support them.” 

Curated book subscription services have soared in popularity in recent years. A reinvigorated Book of the Month Club launched in 2016, an homage to the ubiquitous brand of the 1950s and 1960s that helped curious readers find new titles; the new iteration has a reported 400,000 members. More than 230,000 Jewish families in the U.S. and Canada receive children’s books each month through PJ Library, a program modeled on Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. It was PJ Library — which has transformed young Jews’ experience with Jewish books in the two decades it has existed — that served as an inspiration to JBC.

“I very jokingly suggested that I wish that there was a PJ Library for grown-ups,” said Tova Mirvis, the author of five books and Nu Reads’ writer-in-residence, who helps curate the book selections. “It was just an idea, and I began to think about it. I spent a lot of time thinking about my own experience of reading Jewish books, and how who I am as a person and as a writer is so shaped by my love of Jewish fiction.” 

Unlike PJ Library, Nu Reads is not a charity project. It asks consumers to choose to spend their money on hardcover copies of new Jewish books. The founding subscriber rate of $154 includes six books delivered over the course of a year, along with invitations to community gatherings and author talks. Several hundred people have become subscribers in the two weeks since Nu Reads was announced.

At a time when Jewish writers face growing challenges in the publishing industry, JBC hopes Nu Reads will herald Jewish readers’ purchasing power to remind publishers that Jewish books are a good investment, because publishing is, ultimately, a business. 

“It’s much harder to get published because there are fewer venues. There are fewer places that review books. We have so many other distractions we use aside from reading books. There are fewer bookstores — all the ways that, I think, the literary world has shrunk, and so of course that affects Jewish writers as well,” Mirvis told JI. 

Nu Reads, Mirvis hopes, will serve as “a reminder to the literary world, to publishers and editors, that there are so many people within the Jewish community who love these books. I think it’s a way to galvanize readers to say, ‘I want to read the next generation of these writers.’”

In early 2024, JBC created an online resource for Jewish writers and publishing industry professionals to report instances of antisemitism they had experienced. The organization, which is best known for presenting the annual National Jewish Book Awards, also launched a virtual support group for Jews in the literary world that still meets regularly. 

“This is such a competitive industry,” said JBC CEO Naomi Firestone-Teeter. “We’re holding all of that together to try to not be sensationalist about anything, but at the same time, these are real concerns that are valid.”

So far, JBC has received more than 400 reports of antisemitism, with examples including digital harassment and abuse, students kicked out of literary journals because of their views on Israel and writers asked by publishers or marketers to discuss their Judaism only in a particular way. 

Still, it’s nearly always impossible to attribute a decision in the literary world purely to antisemitic motives. A book may be dropped by a publisher because of the author’s attitude toward Israel or the Jewish themes it portrays. But it could also be dropped for a near-infinite number of other reasons: limited demand, fewer books being published overall or the book simply not being very good. 

“This is such a competitive industry,” said Firestone-Teeter. “We’re holding all of that together to try to not be sensationalist about anything, but at the same time, these are real concerns that are valid.”

Nu Reads’ second selection is Sam Sussman’s Boy From the North Country, a novel about a boy in upstate New York who grows up with a nagging sense that he is Bob Dylan’s illegitimate child. (The book is based on Sussman’s own life, and a glance at a photo of the author reveals more than a passable resemblance to the folk icon.) 

As a child in the Hudson Valley, far from other Jews, Sussman had formative encounters with stories by Jewish writers such as Chaim Potok, Philip Roth and Tony Kushner. When he moved to New York City, Jewish book events were how he tapped into the Jewish community.

“We only have so much control over how the wider world receives Jewish literature,” author Sam Sussman told JI. “But I think it’s very important that within the Jewish world, we’re open to stories from Jews of all backgrounds and with all political and cultural perspectives.” 

“I really grew up in a part of the world where there weren’t a significant number of other Jews, and literature was a really important way for me to connect to a broader sense of Jewish community,” Sussman told JI. 

Sussman has not experienced the kind of pushback or stigmatizing that some other Jewish writers have reported since Oct. 7. Instead, he urged Jewish readers to think about how to ensure that the full diversity of Jewish voices and stories are told and respected.

“We only have so much control over how the wider world receives Jewish literature,” Sussman told JI. “But I think it’s very important that within the Jewish world, we’re open to stories from Jews of all backgrounds and with all political and cultural perspectives.” 

Sussman’s story, and the growing positive acclaim for his debut novel, is a reminder that despite the steady drip of negative headlines for Jewish authors, the literary world — an industry Jewish authors and intellectuals helped shape over decades — is not a monolith, and the story of American Jewish literature has not yet reached its conclusion.

“How do we respond to the urgent needs of our community and raise awareness about them and create written documentation around them, but also, how do we find ways that we can just really celebrate our Jewishness and have that propel us forward?” asked Firestone-Teeter. “The ability to hold all these things at once is incredibly inspiring.”

As the New York City mayoral race nears its end, Manhattan Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch has a message for his colleagues: It’s not too late to provide “leadership and clarity of perspective” to voters to oppose Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, citing the candidate’s hostility towards Israel and refusal to recognize it as a Jewish state.

Hirsch, a prominent and notable moderate pro-Israel voice within the progressive-minded Reform movement isn’t surprised by polling showing Mamdani leading his opponents, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa, among unaffiliated and Reform Jews, who skew overwhelmingly liberal.

But Hirsch, the senior rabbi of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, expressed frustration with the lack of organized effort among Jewish leaders to oppose Mamdani, whose affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and antagonistic views on Israel — including his refusal to condemn the term “globalize the intifada” — have generated private and public criticism. 

In an interview with Jewish Insider on Wednesday, Hirsch, who has led the Upper West Side congregation for the past 20 years, said there is still time for left-wing Jewish leaders to find their voice. Even without initiatives and statements from the Reform movement, progressive Jewish leaders can still “make a difference” by “laying out the stakes” — even as early voting begins this Saturday. 

Hirsch recently released an online video message, addressing Mamdani directly. “I do not speak for all Jews, but I do represent the views of the large majority of the New York Jewish community, which is increasingly concerned with your statements about Israel and the Jewish people,” the rabbi said. “Your opposition to Israel is not centered on policies, you reject the very existence of Israel as a Jewish state … I urge you to reconsider your long-held rejection of Israel’s right to exist. Be a uniter and a peacemaker.”

Following Hirsch’s video, other Jewish leaders began to follow his lead. Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of the Conservative Park Avenue Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side said in an address to his congregation last Saturday, “Mamdani’s distinction between accepting Jews and denying a Jewish state is not merely a rhetorical sleight of hand or political naïveté — though it is to be clear both of those — his doing so is to traffic in the most dangerous of tropes.”

On Wednesday, more than 600 rabbis from around the country signed on to an open letter, “A Rabbinic Call to Action: Defending the Jewish Future,” spearheaded by The Jewish Majority.

“As rabbis from across the United States committed to the security and prosperity of the Jewish people, we are writing in our personal capacities to declare that we cannot remain silent in the face of rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization throughout our nation,” the letter states. 

“When public figures like New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani refuse to condemn violent slogans, deny Israel’s legitimacy, and accuse the Jewish state of genocide, they, in the words of Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, ‘Delegitimize the Jewish community and encourage and exacerbate hostility toward Judaism and Jews.’” 

Hirsch, who serves as president of the New York Board of Rabbis, sat down with JI to discuss the current moment, one that he called “an obligation — it’s the call of history — for Jewish leaders to stand up” ahead of the Nov. 4 election. 

Jewish Insider: You’ve been raising your voice against Mamdani, but with voting starting this weekend, do you think other Jewish leaders who have just started speaking out took too long? 

Ammiel Hirsch: The Jewish world has very serious self-reflection to do in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks. Everything has changed and the future will be different than what it was going to be pre-Oct. 7. The American Jewish community has substantial — in some respects unprecedented — challenges in the years to come.

The kind of antisemitism we are seeing now and likely to see in the future is different and more widespread than anything anyone alive has experienced. Our relationship with Israel has to be reassessed and reevaluated. How we teach our young people has to be reassessed and evaluated and the nature of the American Jewish community itself — we are seeing a deep polarization that should have taken everybody by surprise. During crunch time, when Israel was under real existential threat, we didn’t expect this kind of polarization around the idea of the existence of Israel. 

Everything needs to be reevaluated. I concluded over the last two years that certain things I was perhaps willing to overlook in favor of other values and interests need to be looked at more carefully now. I’m not prepared to overlook candidates for public office who express fundamental anti-Zionism. We need to draw the line on anti-Zionism because it disenfranchises and delegitimizes Judaism itself. It leads to an intensification of antisemitism. 

JI: Are you surprised there hasn’t been more of an organized effort among the Jewish community to challenge Mamdani since he won the primary in June? Has the Jewish world met the moment? 

AH: We’ve been slow to respond to widespread, pervasive, global anti-Zionism and we’ve been slow inside the Jewish community in countering Jewish voices who are anti-Zionist. We, the mainstream of the Jewish community, have an obligation to counter that ideology. If it’s not countered, it intensifies and exacerbates the problem and that relates to public candidates as well. It’s imperative for the American Jewish community to stand up and express the kinds of views that I expressed. I think more are doing so. It is a responsibility at this historic moment in time for Jewish leadership to do so. 

It would have been better had it been earlier, but it’s welcome — and imperative — at any time. It does make a difference and I urge everybody, especially those in Jewish leadership, to lay out the stakes. I say this as a Jewish leader, but I’m a New Yorker and U.S. citizen as well and care about the well-being of the city and country. It goes way beyond the well-being of the Jewish community. 

Judaism has a lot to say about poverty, economics, immigration, the death penalty — all of those issues are important as well. But specifically on the anti-Zionism issue, it goes to the very existence and future of the Jewish people. Anti-Zionism means dismantling the place where half of the world’s Jews live. That’s the intention of the anti-Zionist enemies of Israel and Zohran Mamdani is giving them ideological and communal support. It’s an obligation — it’s the call of history — for Jewish leaders to stand up at this moment of Jewish history. Our people need leadership and clarity of perspective from their leaders. They’re thirsting for Jewish leaders to clarify what is in the best interest of the Jewish people and what is in the best interest of our values. Not to do that is to fail at this inflection point of American and world Jewish history. I’m heartened that more American Jewish leaders are speaking up now, but not enough. 

JI: What do you ​​make of the recent IRS reversal allowing rabbis and other clergy members to make political endorsements from the pulpit? One of the most recent examples being by another prominent New York City rabbi, Elliot Cosgrove, who heads the Park Avenue Synagogue. He decried Mamdani in a speech to his congregation last Shabbat, saying he believes the front-runner “poses a danger to the security of the New York Jewish community.” 

AH: For me, I uphold the Johnson Amendment [a 1954 provision in the U.S. tax code that prohibits all 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates], no matter what the IRS decided to enforce. I do not endorse political parties or candidates. I speak about policies, which are directly relevant to our roles as rabbis and Jewish leaders. Policies reflect public morality. I’m not going to become partisan. It’s wrong on principle, because we receive tax relief status on the basis of our commitment to being nonpartisan. It weakens us because it unnecessarily splits the community and runs the risk of making synagogues into political centers. I try very carefully to speak about general policies and not endorse parties or candidates. That’s why my message was in the form that it was [speaking to Mamdani directly]. 

In my message, I was turning to the candidate himself. I didn’t tell people what my political preferences were or how they should vote. My message was that anti-Zionism endangers the Jewish community.

JI: Polls that look at Reform, Conservative and Orthodox voters have found Reform Jews are more supportive of Mamdani — why do you think that is? You’ve authored several essays, both before and after Oct. 7, about why the Reform movement is more inclined towards criticizing Israel than other branches of Judaism. Is that a driving factor here for support for Mamdani?

AH: The more liberal a person is the more likely they are to resonate and support liberal candidates, so it’s not surprising to me. The Reform movement started in North America as a religious movement that negated the centrality of Jewish peoplehood, so of course they were going to resonate more to universal values, not as an expression of Jewish peoplehood values, but the negation of it. Part of that still exists and the more years go by that Jews do not perceive an existential threat against the Jewish community, the more they return to that inclination towards universalism — that Jewish peoplehood is the problem. I’ve called that out for years now and I think that does play a role. It’s why I feel so strongly that I need to speak out.

I do not consider anti-Zionism to be a liberal position, it’s illiberal and I think many people are confused. Zionism is the liberation movement of the Jewish people, that’s a liberal philosophy. 

JI: Would you like to see the Union for Reform Judaism come out with an official statement against Mamdani?

AH: I don’t participate in the decisions of the URJ. As I said, I believe it’s important for every Jewish leader to speak up at this inflection point of American Jewish history, so I would welcome it from everybody across the board.

I’ve seen some very good statements from our Orthodox colleagues. We need to unite as much as possible. There is room for debate and disputation, it’s part of Judaism, but at this critical moment in Jewish history we should seek to lay aside for another day controversies that distract us from the main objective that we have, which is to counter antisemitism and a form of anti-Zionism that constitutes antisemitism.  

All of us need to unite on that because we’re a small minority and the task is monumental. If we don’t voice a common position, then what happens is we give an impression that the Jewish community is split on the very essence of the contemporary Jewish experience, which is the centrality of Jewish peoplehood and support of the Jewish state. We give the impression that the small minority of Jews, who are very noisy, constitute a much bigger component of Judaism than they really are. That’s another reason we need to counter this loudly. 

In our movement, which is the most liberal of affiliated American Jews, there are some anti-Zionist voices but the overwhelming majority of the Reform movement is pro-Israel and considers Israel to be a component of their own Jewish identity. 

JI: What are some ways in which you would encourage synagogues and Jewish institutions to engage with Mamdani if he is elected mayor?

AH: If he becomes mayor, he will have been elected fair and square. Then we’ll have to try our best to work with him where we can and oppose him when we must. 

Given that this anti-Zionist philosophy is mainstream, it is imperative for American Jewish leaders to stand up, push back. People will vote how they vote and whoever wins will reflect the will of the people and then we’ll have to work within those constraints. 

Since his arrival in Israel in April, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has made his mark as the first evangelical U.S. ambassador to Israel — and possibly the most effusive in his remarks about the Jewish state.

That may be why a leaked letter he wrote to Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel last week, expressing “profound disappointment” that an issue delaying work visas for Christian organizations had gone unresolved and suggesting that Israelis may be treated in kind by the U.S., drew so much attention.

A day after the letter leaked, the ambassador visited Taybeh, a Palestinian village in the West Bank where there had been a fire in a field near a church, writing on X that “desecrating a church, mosque or synagogue is a crime against humanity and God,” and “I will demand those responsible be held accountable.” With Taybeh church leaders blaming settlers, Huckabee’s comments were interpreted in many media accounts as doing the same, though he later clarified that he was not attributing the fire to anyone. 

But with the visa issue resolved and the world’s attention on the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the latest round of collapsed negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage-release deal, Huckabee was back to standing firmly behind Israel in an interview with Jewish Insider in his office at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem on Thursday. With an a guitar hanging on the wall behind him emblazoned with an American flag and President Donald Trump’s slogan “make America great again,” Huckabee pinned the humanitarian issues in Gaza on Hamas and the U.N and the failure of negotiations on Hamas, and was critical of other Western countries that have come out against Israel, accusing them of emboldening the Gazan terrorist group. 

The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Jewish Insider: There’s a lot of pressure on Israel over humanitarian aid in Gaza and claims that residents of Gaza are starving. Israel says that they are letting more food in but no one is distributing it, while much of the world doesn’t believe that. I want to ask you: Do you think there is really starvation in Gaza? What is really happening?

Ambassador Mike Huckabee: This very morning, I had a visit from someone who returned yesterday from three days in Gaza. He firsthand went and saw the [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] feeding sites, talked to people, not only from the staffing and the distribution, but he talked to people in Gaza … He came to the conclusion, first of all, that absolute lies that are being told, not only about GHF and what they’re doing, but are also being told about the deprivation. 

There are clearly people who need food and medicine. That’s not a doubt. But the biggest reason that people are not getting the food and medicine they need is that Hamas is doing its best to cause the people to suffer. They want to get the photos of the most disastrous consequences possible. 

The photos that I also saw, which were very disturbing but also revealing, [were of] hundreds and hundreds of pallets of food that are sitting out in the sun ready to be distributed, but the U.N. won’t move them. Hundreds of trucks filled with food and medicine, and the U.N. claims that they’re trying to help. No, they’re not. They are as much a part of the problem, if not the biggest part of the problem there is. And this food could be distributed right now, but the U.N. isn’t doing it. The NGOs aren’t doing it, and the World Food Program isn’t doing it, because they just drop it off. Then, basically, they’re waiting on Hamas to come and steal it so [the group] can turn around and sell it to the people that ought to be getting it for free. It is a scam. 

It is a disgrace and an outrage that the story that is being told is that GHF is killing people, and they’re not. They haven’t fired one round at anybody … It’s simply not true. It is sadly being reported sometimes because Hamas will release a news story and the Associated Press, CNN, The Washington Post, will gobble it up. They’ll print it without any verification … That’s what Israel is up against. It’s what the U.S. is up against every single day, with really, really horrible misinformation about what’s happening.

JI: Why do you think countries that purport to be friends of Israel and the U.S. — 26 countries signed a letter to Israel about the aid including the U.K., Canada, France — are believing Hamas?

MH: It’s hard for me to understand why they would do that without doing a little better job of verifying the information. If they would, they would have a totally different picture…

The other day there was the story of the 26 countries that came out and did this condemnation of Israel. If you read the news release, it’s all about Israel, all about what they haven’t done right, and a lot of the things in the story are just untrue. The biggest just shocker of it all, was that there was one brief mention of the fact that the war was started by Hamas on Oct. 7, as a passing reference, without really giving the qualifier that this war should have ended on Oct. the 8th, but Hamas doesn’t want it to, and they’re doing everything they can to make sure it doesn’t…

I’ve been shocked that very few other nations and even nonprofit organizations have been willing to stand up and help in the distribution of the food through the GHF, because the whole model was based on … No. 1, get food to people who are hungry, and No. 2, do it in a way that it doesn’t get stolen by Hamas. That’s been accomplished; over 85 million meals now have been served and continues to operate at almost 2 million meals a day.

It hasn’t been perfect. There have been hiccups, but [that happens] when you have that many people coming to a site and trying to get that much food out to people. Heck, you can go to Walmart on Christmas Eve … and it’s bedlam. Sometimes you stand in the long line and sometimes they ran out of what you wanted, but that’s true in the most efficient retailer on the planet. This is being done out in the middle of a desert for heaven’s sakes, and has really worked pretty doggone good. 

Well, we just want people to get the truth and to get the food, but we don’t want Hamas to steal it, which is what they have done through the U.N. model, which has been an absolute disaster. 

Maybe the U.N. is more interested in preserving the machinery of the U.N. than they are in feeding people. And I know that sounds harsh, but I absolutely am on the record for that, because when I see just thousands of pallets, thousands of tons of food sitting that could be consumed by people, it’s sitting there because the U.N. doesn’t really have any incentive to go out and actually get it to the people. They can just present that ‘We carried X number of trucks in.’ How many people got fed from that? Bigger question is, how many of those trucks or pallets are going to be looted by Hamas, who will then sell it to the people that are hungry?

JI: Do you think that there’s something that Israel needs to be doing differently at this point with regards to humanitarian aid? 

MH: Get their message out more strongly. You know, they have a good message about what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to protect the people who are delivering the food. Food isn’t being delivered by the IDF. That was one of the key points; they didn’t want the military giving the food, because there’s a distrust, and we understand that, so we brought our own contractors in. But you can’t give food away in a war zone without having the military who’s prosecuting the war involved, at least on the perimeter, so that they can make sure that there’s a secure route in and a secure route out … Israel has a much better story to tell than the world is hearing, and it’s very frustrating, especially when so-called allies are attacking Israel and not even really mentioning Hamas. 

JI: Hamas is degraded, but it’s still a force in Gaza and it’s still holding hostages. We’re talking a day after Hamas essentially rejected the temporary ceasefire and hostage deal being offered. But there was talk before that of turning the proposed 60-day ceasefire into a permanent one, even though Hamas has not been eliminated. How does the Trump administration see things going forward?

MH: The president has said repeatedly, without any equivocation, that Hamas can’t stay, and they can’t govern. … And frankly, it’s the right message. They can’t stay, they can’t govern. It would be like saying the Nazis can stay in Germany after World War II and have a hand in governing the future; nobody would have thought that was a good idea … Hamas built tunnels bigger than the London Underground so they could kill Jews. It’s a horrible, horrible story, and people need to put the blame where it falls, and that’s on Hamas and not on Israel.

JI: The negotiations seem to have reached a dead end. What more do you think that could be done to get the hostages home?

MH: If everyone in the world puts enough pressure on Hamas and says it won’t be just Israel and the U.S. coming to get you, it’ll be the whole world coming to get you. It’s like in the movie “Tombstone” and Wyatt Earp says, “I’m coming for you, and hell is coming with me.” That’s the kind of message that we need to say. The problem is Israel has made concession after concession. They have made offer after offer. The U.S. has intervened time and time and time again and gone to, I don’t know how many different talks, meetings and negotiations, but every time you will hear “we’re close,” we think we’re about there, and then Hamas changes all the conditions at the last minute, or just outright rejects them…

[On Wednesday, Hamas] went back to a position that [it] had abandoned in the past. So when there’s not a good faith negotiation going on, and then you have to ask: Whoever thought there was going to be? These are the people that murdered pregnant women in front of their families, and that raped women in front of their children. When people do things like that, these aren’t people you sit down and work out a negotiation to buy a home from or sell a car to. So, while everybody has hopes that this is going to end and soon, all the hostages returned and Hamas is gone, it’s up to Hamas whether or not that’s going to happen.

JI: Do you think the letter from the 26 countries emboldened Hamas to harden its position? 

MH: That’s the real tragedy. It’s not just that they’re condemning Israel, but by condemning Israel and barely mentioning Hamas, they’re empowering Hamas to just keep hanging on. 

There needs to be a collective across-the-whole-globe condemnation of Hamas with this clarity of message that what they’ve done is evil and holding hostages for nearly 700 days can’t be justified under any conditions … The families who have been put through a living hell over this deserve to be relieved. 

JI: What about the Qataris? Do you think that the U.S. is doing enough to put pressure on them? It seems that they are doing everything they can to try to stay on President Trump’s good side.

MH: One thing they could do — if that’s their goal, to be in the president’s good graces — would be to be key in bringing this to a resolve. And I hope they do. I hope they use every influence they have, and they truly have some. I mean, they’ve been housing some of the Hamas leaders since all of this started. And Al Jazeera, which is one of the most despicable propaganda machines in the world, is financed by them…

I’ll leave [the details] to the headquarters in Washington, but nobody would be disappointed if [Qatar] did more.

JI: There’s also President Trump’s plan to to turn Gaza into a ‘riviera.’ There has not been a lot of progress. Where do things stand? Is the U.S. asking any countries to accept Gazan refugees?

MH: I think it’s more of an Israeli mission to make that decision. What the president has said is U.S. policy is that people who are there who want to leave should be free to leave. They shouldn’t be forced to leave and face expulsion, but neither should people be forced to stay. It ought to be an individual, personal decision on the part of the people who are right now living in what is anything less than an ideal circumstance. 

JI: So you’re saying the U.S. is not involved in trying to find countries that will accept them?

MH: It’s not something that has been shared with me as to being an immediate issue. I know that there is definitely talk that this would be a great opportunity for people to have a fresh start that has been discussed at both the U.S. and Israeli levels. And I think everybody thinks that would be a wonderful thing if people had that option, and if countries were willing to say, “Hey, we’d love to have people come and be part of our labor force and immigrate to our country.” But I don’t know that there’s any specific plans that the U.S. has made on that…

The U.S. took a position several months ago when the president said … ’We’ll just take [Gaza] over. Immediately, within 24 hours, you had four or five Gulf countries saying, “Oh no, no, we want a piece of it. We’ll help govern.” People who don’t understand the president and how he works probably didn’t get it that the whole point was to force people to pony up and get in the game, and that’s exactly what happened…

What he does want to do is to see that these people have a chance for a better life, economically, and just from a security standpoint, they’re never going to have it under Hamas … Who runs [Gaza in the future]? Good question. Maybe it comes to the place where there’s a number of Middle Eastern countries that come and really make a partnership and a coalition and invest the money to rebuild it and give people an opportunity to have a decent and deserved life.

JI: There have been terrible clashes and massacres of the Druze minority in Syria in recent weeks. It seems from U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who’s also envoy to Syria, that the Trump administration still wants to give new Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa a chance. Is that causing friction with Israel, which tried to stop the violence against the Druze with airstrikes?

MH: Right now, the ceasefire has held for two days, which doesn’t seem like a lot of time, but in Syrian time, that’s a lot of time. There were some horrific things that have happened, especially to the Druze. The Israelis were very bold in standing up for the Druze and showing their support … literally going in and trying to help them with supplies and standing up assistance in every way they could. I thought it was an admirable thing, because the Druze have stood with Israel.

The head sheikh of the Druze community [Muwaffaq Tarif] was sitting right where you are on Tuesday afternoon. We had a very candid meeting about the situation they faced. They’re deeply grateful for Israel’s support. It did mean a lot to them that they weren’t just left hanging…

I’ve had several conversations with Ambassador Barrack over the course of the last week and before. It’s a fragile situation. Nobody’s going to deny that al-Sharaa is not exactly the person the U.S. would have picked … but he’s who we got.

What the president [Trump] did was, I think, bold, but also brilliant, at a time when al-Sharaa realized he doesn’t have the military or economic capacity to make Syria viable. He’s got to find a partner. He’s like the kid that goes to the prom and doesn’t have a date. Somebody’s going to go over there and say, “Would you dance with me?” Do we want it to be Iran, Russia, China? Absolutely not. President Trump comes in and says, “You can dance with me, but if you do, terrorism has to go away.” We can’t have these relationships with bad guys and remilitarize Syria and turn it into another nightmare like Assad. [Al-Sharaa] wisely decided that that was a better partnership than any offer he had. That’s where we are now. 

Everybody has anxieties about where this could go, but we also are in a place where it could turn the corner, go very well, and we could see normalization between Syria and Israel, and that would have looked really unthinkable two years ago.

JI: You don’t think that the last couple weeks have taken a Syria-Israel agreement off the table?

MH: No, I don’t at all. I think it showed some of the challenges that we face. A lot of things happened because of misunderstanding and lack of communication. When [the Syrian military] went south of Damascus with artillery and tanks, it looked like they were getting ready for a military operation. They should have better communicated to the Israelis [and said,] “This is not a threat to you. We’re not moving this equipment in there because we’re going to come across the border.” You know, everybody should have talked to each other better.

JI: But Israel wants that part of Syria, the south, entirely demilitarized. Do you think that’s something that Syria would agree to?

MH: Yes, I do. You want Syria to have some security forces, you’ve got to have that, but they don’t need a full-scale military with an air force and all the others. I think there are regional interests that would help provide a level of security for them that does not require the standing up of a navy and army … The ideal is to help them to become stable economically.

JI: There was reporting after the Israeli strikes in Syria that some people in the Trump administration called Netanyahu a madman and asked, “What country are they going to bomb next?” Does that ring true to you?

MH: I think that people who know don’t talk, and people who talk don’t know … I hate this kind of stuff where a person pretends that he knows something and blabs it out. The president has been very clear, again, without equivocation, that he and [Netanyahu] are very close friends. I saw with my own eyes and was in the room when there was an extraordinary level of camaraderie and cooperation … For all this talk about how there’s this terrible clash and all I would say, look at what is on the record, what is sourced with firsthand source, and dismiss the nonsense that people say … I discount it as somebody who’s trying to be important when they’re not that important.

JI: Still, it seems like there’s a kernel of truth to there being some sort of push and pull within the Trump administration, and even more so within the broader Republican Party, about foreign policy and how to relate to Israel. Do you think this is going to be a problem for Israel? 

MH: I really don’t see that. I mean, are there moments where Israel and the U.S. will disagree? Of course, [it] happens in partnerships, whether you’re in business or in marriage. I’ve been married 51 years. I guarantee you, my wife and I have had disagreements, sometimes, some pretty strong ones. She would tell you that she’s right and I’m always wrong. That’s part of the way we’ve stayed together 51 years. But it doesn’t mean that you don’t love each other and that you don’t stay together. 

It’s part of the process of being adults that you hash out your differences. So I don’t have any doubts that there are times they may have a conversation that they’re not on the same page …  I haven’t been privy to those, but that would be normal. 

JI: We’re coming out of a complicated week for Israel and Christians. There was an issue with work visas for people working in Christian organizations. How is that going to work going forward?

MH: It really wasn’t a big issue, except within that one area. And fortunately, we have it all resolved, and everybody’s happy … Really the new arrangement is the old arrangement, and that was that the process through which people would be granted visas coming to teach or to be a part of a Christian organization. It’s been handled the same exact way for decades, and we were very clear. We didn’t want anything new … Just do what you’ve been doing. It’s been working very well. There have been no problems with it. And then all of a sudden, in January, before I came, apparently there was a change in the way it was processed, and it was creating an enormous level of bureaucratic problems for the organizations, and they were frustrated, and it involved deep investigations and a lot of paperwork and cost…

So we had a meeting with a minister. Thought it went well and thought everything was resolved. The problem continued to happen. So if we would call with one specific case, it would get resolved, but then another one would come up, and then another … So I sent a letter. It was terse, but I felt it was an honest assessment of, look, we thought this was fixed. It isn’t. Here’s the problems it’s causing. We did not leak the letter, but it got leaked. I don’t know who sent it out, but that’s beyond the point. It resulted in immediate attention…

The point that I was making was that at a time when Israel needs all the friends it can get, and some of the best friends you have, the evangelical Christians in America, you really don’t want to tell them they’re not welcome, and that’s the message that’s being sent … We have to get it fixed. So we did, so everybody’s happy.

JI: By unfortunate coincidence, this was the same week where an IDF shell hit the church in Gaza, and then there was a fire near a church in Taybeh that Palestinians blamed on Israel.

MH: I think that it was unfortunate they were all happening at the same time, but they’re totally separate and not tied together in any way. The State of Israel didn’t do anything in Taybeh. And you know, [the shelling of] the Church of the Holy Family was a horrible thing, but to their credit, [the IDF] admitted that it was a terrible mistake and they apologized for it. It’s not something you would ever want to see happen. But Israel doesn’t get enough credit for owning up to a mistake when they make one and trying to make it right, and I appreciate that about them.

JI: You hear these voices of people saying Israel is going to lose Christian support. And there are polls that show young evangelical support for Israel in decline. Do you think that Israel needs to be doing something differently or reaching out more?

MH: I think there is some lessening of the support … There are several things at play. One is the advent of a lot of Middle Eastern studies on college and university campuses, highly funded by Gulf states that are pouring billions of dollars into these programs, and they’re somewhat indoctrinating influences … That’s part of it, and a lot of it is that maybe there’s just not a good historical context for some of the younger people that they don’t know. 

I’m convinced that one of the most important things people can do is to come to Israel and see for themselves. Don’t even take my word for it. You just come. That’s what I’ve been doing for 52 years. When I tell people my views of Israel, I tell them, look, it’s not something I read in a book or watched on a documentary or listened to some people give lectures. I’ve been coming here for 52 consecutive years. I’ve watched this country develop and grow and change … which I think had more credibility than just “I was at a march somewhere in Palo Alto [Calif.] and carried a sign for a few blocks. That’s something I hope happens more and more. The Jewish community has Birthright that brings a lot of young Jewish people here. There’s now an organization called Passages, and it’s bringing a lot of Christian kids here. I think that’s the most wonderful thing that can happen.

JI: Is the Trump administration still trying to negotiate with Iran? The Europeans said they will snap back sanctions if there isn’t an agreement by the end of August, and an Israeli official recently said the U.S. was hoping they would do it sooner. Is that true?

MH: I don’t know whether there’s any U.S. policy on hoping it would come sooner. Frankly, I’m just glad to hear the Europeans stand up for something that is right for a change. You know, they’ve been beating up Israel instead of Hamas for a while, and it’s kind of refreshing for them to realize that Iran’s playing games, and they’re still beating their chest and making threats that make no sense in light of what they’ve just been through.

In “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” King Arthur cuts off [the Black Knight’s] arm, then his other arm, and then his legs. And the guy says, “‘tis but a scratch.” I mean, that’s Iran. They got their arms and legs cut off, and they’re hollering, “Just a scratch, you didn’t get me’” … And you just want to say to them, “Did you not get the message? You just got your brains kicked out, and this would be a good time for you to experience a little humility and recognize you’re never going to have a nuclear weapon. Everybody’s telling you this, even Europe is telling you this. They’re about to put sanctions on you because of it, and this might be a good time to reassess your aspirations to be a nuclear-weapon country.” So I’m grateful that Europe is talking this way, and if they do it in August, wonderful. That’s better than not doing it at all. And maybe — probably not, but maybe — Iran comes to [its] senses.

JI: You recently made an appearance in the courtroom for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s trial with a Bugs Bunny doll. Was that something that the president wanted you to do, or was that your idea? Some Israelis are concerned that the country or the judiciary could be penalized over Netanyahu’s trial the way President Trump threatened to raise tariffs on Brazil over the corruption trials against former President Jair Bolsonaro. Is that a possibility?

MH: I have not heard anything like that … [Trump] had two very significant, substantial statements about the trials here because he himself has been put through an extraordinary level of lawfare. It’s just been shocking as an American citizen, to watch this, where they try to file charges, both civil and criminal, anywhere they can find a court that’ll take him, New York, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Florida…

I think what he’s trying to say is that if you’re going to want to change the government, do it at the ballot box. You don’t do it in the courtroom. What he saw happening to the prime minister here, he saw as a mirror reflection of what was going on there [in the U.S.]. And it’s not so much that it’s an accusation about the courts or their integrity here, but the act of prosecuting and the tenacity of prosecution while a prime minister is going through the middle of two wars and trying to get hostages released. 

As far as my being there, I hadn’t seen a circus in a long time, so I decided to go.

The murder of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim is a reminder “of the dreams that terrorism seeks to destroy every single day,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Monday, standing alongside Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar at a memorial event held in Jerusalem for the young Israeli Embassy staffers who were killed last week in a terror attack outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington.

“Today, we stand together with profound grief, and our hearts are heavy with the loss of these two radiant souls that we will no longer have with us,” Noem said. “In this moment of sorrow, we also ask that you would gather with us to honor their light and the unbreakable spirit of the Israeli and the American people,” Noem continued. 

Lischinsky, Noem said, “was known for his infectious smile and his unwavering commitment to peace and the vision of the Abraham Accords.” 

“Friends and family shared of Sarah that she glowed with warmth and compassion, dedicating her life to fostering peace and understanding,” Noem said, mentioning ​Milgrim’s work for the Israeli peace-building nonprofit Tech2Peace and her career in public diplomacy. “Their love for each other, a bond that was so strong that Yaron had already chosen a ring to propose to Sarah here in Jerusalem reminds us of the dreams that terrorism seeks to destroy every single day — but we will not let hatred have the final word.” 

“Sarah and Yaron’s lives are a testament to the power of love and service,” Noem said. “They stood for something that was much larger than themselves, and their memory calls us to do the same. They have lived a life of significance that has forever changed us. Together they embody the very best of Israel: courageous, hopeful and dedicated to peace.” 

Sa’ar thanked Noem for her visit to Israel, which he said, “shows solidarity and demonstrates the close relations between our people.” He also thanked the U.S. government for the investigation into the murder of Lischinsky and Milgrim.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee also spoke at the event, held at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters, and said that the memories of Lischinsky and Milgrim “will not be taken from any of us, and we should always be mindful that there are people who pay an incredible price to simply be Israelis and Jews.” 

“And it’s why the United States must always stand, and it’s why it’s so very important that we welcome the secretary here to the State of Israel as she comes to offer in person an extraordinary sense — not just of condolences — but also a sense of confidence that the relationship between our nations will never waver, or will it ever falter.”

The remarks by both the American and Israeli officials emphasizing the importance of the strong bonds between the U.S. and Israel come amid recent reports about faltering ties, especially during President Donald Trump’s recent visit to the Middle East, which excluded Israel, and amid the Trump administration’s ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Noem arrived in Israel on Sunday evening when Jerusalem Day began, marking the city’s reunification in the 1967 Six-Day War, which made her the first U.S. cabinet secretary to mark that day, according to Huckabee. She prayed at the Western Wall and put a note between its cracks.

Noem later met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which she “expressed unqualified support for the prime minister and the State of Israel,” a Prime Minister’s Office readout stated. 

She also praised the border fence between Israel and Egypt, the PMO stated. The fence, which was completed in 2013, was built, in part, to block African migrants from crossing into Israel from the Sinai peninsula.

Noem also met last night with her counterpart, Itamar Ben-Gvir, in a meeting which was also attended by Netanyahu. According to a statement from Ben-Gvir’s office, the minister thanked Noem for American support for Israel and for Trump’s relocation plan for Gaza. The statement also noted that Noem invited Ben-Gvir for another visit to the U.S. During his last visit, in April, the far-right minister did not meet with Noem, who was in Texas at the time, nor anyone else in the Trump administration.

JI’s Lahav Harkov contributed to this report.

The Mishnah meets the American Revolution?

Sefaria, a non-profit that provides public domain access to Jewish texts and commentary, has developed a prototype of its highly praised model to bring its technology to other bodies of work — starting with the U.S. Constitution.

In addition to providing primary source material, Sefaria, founded in 2013 by Google developer Brett Lockspeiser and author Joshua Foer, maintains a user-friendly interface and software to highlight interlinking references and citations throughout Jewish scripture.

“I think we were really inspired by the shape of Torah itself. The Torah tradition has this texture and shape that the printed ‘Vilna Shas,’ the printed Talmud, really has this visual sense of,” Lockspeiser, who serves as the organization’s chief technology officer, explained to Jewish Insider.

“All along, we’ve had in the back of our heads that the software that we’re building isn’t necessarily specifically about Jewish content,” he continued. “It’s something that applies to any body of text where you have lots of voices kind of in communication and dialogue with one another.”

Sefaria, working with a grant from the Lippman Kanfer Foundation, developed a prototype of its model with texts related to the birth of American democracy. The group chose the United States Constitution as an example, partly for its robust links to other noted texts but also because the Constitution and related texts already existed in the public domain. Lockspeiser emphasized this was only an initial example, mentioning the works of Shakespeare, Greek and Roman literature, medical texts, and texts of other religions as potential future projects.

Just as with its original platform, the goal of Sefaria will remain the same: to promote learning by providing free access to primary and secondary sources. Lockspeiser said he and others on the team have already spoken to experts about the unlimited future potential.

Tamara Mann Tweel, a professor in Columbia University’s American Studies Program, spoke glowingly of Sefaria’s new direction.

“The project will benefit teachers and students across the country by allowing them to access their rich democratic inheritance and converse with the great political and literary minds who have helped build that inheritance,” Tweel told JI. ”Sefaria took the infrastructure built for our Jewish textual tradition and gave it to our democratic one.”

Currently, the prototype website — which also lists works including the Declaration of Independence, Madison’s notes from the Federal Convention, the Magna Carta and important Supreme Court decisions — appears bare-bones, especially in comparison to the complexity of its mother site.

Still, the possibilities for future development are immediately apparent. While Lockspeiser admits there remain “a million steps,” before the site is ready for mass use, the Google alum is enthusiastic about the progress.

“I think we’re being really successful right now at the initial demo moment,” he said. “You look at it and you’re just like, ‘This is interesting. This is cool. There’s something here.’ And that’s the seed of a project being successful.”

As a new employee of the Maccabee Task Force, an organization that fights BDS on college campuses, Marvel Joseph is responsible for connecting with students at historically black colleges and universities. Joseph’s goal, he told Jewish Insider, is “bridging the gap between the black community and Israel.” The recent college graduate is up for the task — he was an outspoken AIPAC activist at Florida Atlantic University (FAU), and a prominent black voice in the college’s pro-Israel scene.

But following George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers last month, Joseph, the son of Haitian immigrants, has found himself in an unfamiliar role: teaching Jewish communities about racism. He has participated in recent Zoom webinars with different Jewish communities — including an Orthodox synagogue and his alma mater’s Hillel — about the ongoing protests. In recent weeks he has discussed fighting police brutality with rabbis, Jewish nonprofit professionals and other Israel advocates he has gotten to know since he first got involved in the pro-Israel space in 2018. 

“This is the first time that I’ve really been able to say, ‘This is what it’s like being black,’” Joseph explained. “Never before in my entire time as a pro-Israel advocate or pro-Israel leader… have I ever had the opportunity, necessarily, to really stand up and say, ‘This is what my community is going through.’”

Since he attended a 2018 retreat hosted by AIPAC for African-American students, Joseph has placed Israel advocacy at the forefront of his personal and professional endeavors. He has interned at AIPAC, traveled to Israel four times and developed relationships in the Jewish community. Now, for the first time, he is asking the friends he made there to show up for him — and he has found a largely receptive audience. 

“What I’m hoping comes out of all of this, when it’s all said and done, is that in the same way that we have black activists in the pro-Israel movement, I hope we also get strong Jewish activists in the pro-black community and the black lives matter movement,” Joseph said. 

Joseph, who is Christian, is used to being in Jewish spaces, having grown up and attended school in Boca Raton, Florida. In 2010, when a major earthquake rocked his parents’ native Haiti, many of his Jewish friends joined together to raise relief funds for Haitians. That memory of “Jewish kids helping me” has stayed with Joseph. 

As a child, he identified more with the Haitian community than with the broader African-American community in south Florida. “Growing up from immigrant parents as opposed to growing up from a family of descendants of African-American slaves… there’s a different starting point,” Joseph said. Unlike some of his friends whose families were affected by violent, racially tinged events, his parents started fresh in America in the 1980s. 

Even in the mostly white spaces he was accustomed to, Joseph didn’t think much about racism. “The schools that [my parents] put me in, even though I was the only black person there, I didn’t feel any different than anyone else, because my background, my culture, always revolved around being Haitian, not around being black in America,” Joseph said. 

That changed when he started college. At a fraternity party freshman year with a white friend from home, the friend turned to him, saying, “‘Dude, I’m so glad that you’re not like these other n*****s,’” Joseph recalled. “I was like, ‘What?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, you’re one of the good ones,’” Joseph said. “It didn’t matter anything else that happened years before… to him I was just a good n****r,” Joseph added.

The encounter at the party set him on a quest to “find out what my real identity was,” he said. Joseph began reading black authors like James Baldwin, whose quote “to be black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage,” inspired his journey toward better understanding systemic racism in the United States. 

Marvel Joseph leads a Maccabee Task Force trip to Israel for black student leaders in December. (Courtesy)

Still, Joseph’s Haitian background is a key part of his identity, and it’s what inspired his connection to Israel. He has only been to Haiti once, on a three-day visit in 2019, which he described as the most meaningful trip of his life. “It was the first time when I walked into a place I didn’t feel out of place. I got to actually be part of my people,” Joseph explained. “Probably how a lot of Jewish people feel when they get to go to Israel.” That shared feeling of being part of a diaspora, and having a homeland, drew him toward Israel. 

Joseph has built a niche for himself in the pro-Israel world, as a Christian and a Haitian who speaks about his deep connection to the Jewish state. But he told Jewish Insider that he never felt like “the token black person in the pro-Israel movement.” The reason, Joseph said, is that “when you’re tokenized, you say what they tell you to say and not what you believe. Everything I say is stuff that I believe.” 

As he sees it, many Jewish organizations — including some right-leaning ones who might not otherwise host discussions about racism — are reaching out to him now “because they realized that this is someone who stands up for [the Jewish community] in ways that no one prior has.” 

Joseph understands that it’s unusual for a black person who is not Jewish to pursue a career in what is largely a Jewish cause. “We love talking about MLK being the ultimate black Zionist, but MLK had other things that he was worried about,” Joseph said, adding, “I’ve essentially dedicated my first year out of school, at least my first year out of school, to really doing this work.”

So what does Joseph hope to see from his Jewish friends? “My response to people when they say, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about you during this time,’ is, ‘Well hey, call your congressman, tell them you’re thinking about me and all the black people that have been killed.’” 

AIPAC, which sent a letter to its African-American members six days after Floyd’s death expressing solidarity, received criticism for being slow to issue a public statement in response to the events, but Joseph wasn’t concerned by that. What mattered more was the messages of support he received from friends at AIPAC and in the pro-Israel community, people who asked him how they could support him and the cause. “It’s a bipartisan organization… the fact that people decided that whether this is a partisan issue or not, I support you and your community, not because of everything you’ve done for me but because it’s the right thing to do, to me means more than any statement,” Joseph explained.

He views his position in the Jewish community as a bridge-builder, someone who supports Israel and fights antisemitism but also helps “my friends in the Jewish community understand that there’s a world outside of just the Jewish issues.” He understands that the anti-Israel policies in the official Black Lives Matter platform give some Jews pause. “But the idea of ‘black lives matter’ is black lives matter. There’s other ways to support a community,” Joseph said.

“At the end of this,” Joseph explained, he hopes to see “more education and a more genuine partnership, not an ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine,’ but a ‘please tell me how I can help.’”