• We’re awaiting the White House’s release of the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran hours after Bloomberg published what it said was the 14-point draft MOU.
• President Donald Trump said earlier today that the U.S. would resume military activity against Iran if he didnt like the MOU, the text of which he noted was not final. “It’s a memorandum of understanding, and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs on their heads. I don’t like it if they don’t behave. We’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head,” Trump said in France.
• Trump, who is returning to Washington after the G7 summit concludes later today, announced on Truth Social the postponement of the confirmation hearing for Jay Clayton to be director of national intelligence, which had been slated to take place this afternoon before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Trump said that before Clayton could be confirmed, the Senate needed to confirm Sullivan & Cromwell partner Jamie McDonald as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
• The Senate Homeland Security Committee is holding a hearing for a number of Trump administration nominations this morning, including Cameron Hamilton to be the administrator of FEMA.
• The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is holding its markup on a number of pieces of legislation, including the Iran Human Rights, Internet Freedom, and Accountability Act, the Eastern Mediterranean Gateway Act, the BANNED in Latin America Act targeting Hezbollah and Iran’s activities in the Western Hemisphere, and the Preventing External Aggression and Conflict Escalation in Sudan Act. The SFRC will also mark up legislation repealing some Syria sanctions.
• This afternoon on Capitol Hill, Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) is holding a press conference with former Columbia University anti-Israel activist Mohsen Mahdawi.
• The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law is convening a daylong summit for more than 50 leading litigators and legal experts at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington on Wednesday to address the legal challenges of defending Jewish students and employees. More below.
• The Atlantic Council is holding an event this afternoon with Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) focused on next month’s NATO summit in Turkey.
• In New York, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan is holding a ticker tape celebration for kids to celebrate the New York Knicks’ NBA championship win over the weekend. Actor Amy Schumer and author Jessica Seinfeld are set to serve as the parade’s grand marshals.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S GABBY DEUTCH AND mARC ROD

Voters in Washington, D.C., appeared poised to elect Councilmember Janeese Lewis George to be their Democratic nominee for mayor, all but guaranteeing, come November, that she will be elected in November to replace Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is not seeking another term after 12 years in office. The race has not been called, but Lewis George leads by more than 15,000 votes with 64% of the votes counted.

Lewis George, a 38-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America, ran a campaign powered by local labor unions that was focused on cost-of-living issues and countering President Donald Trump. She is on track to defeat Kenyan McDuffie, a former councilmember who ran on a more pragmatic platform that eschewed DSA’s brand of radical politics. 

The candidates’ views on Israel did not define the race, but they were a throughline in the background. Lewis George filled out a DSA endorsement questionnaire early in the campaign in which she pledged to avoid engaging with “the Israeli government or Zionist lobby groups.” Later, she promised to stand firm in fighting antisemitism while also supporting Palestinian human rights. McDuffie tried to use the comments to appeal to anti-DSA voters and Jewish Washingtonians. 

Lewis George will represent a shift from Bowser, a moderate Democrat who in 2019 led a trade mission to Israel and who regularly addressed the annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington before AIPAC canceled the event after 2020.

Meanwhile, it was a short night in Georgia, where Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) quickly claimed victory over former college football coach Derek Dooley in a Senate primary runoff. Collins picked up a last-minute endorsement from President Donald Trump, while Dooley’s backing by Gov. Brian Kemp wasn’t enough to push him to victory.

Collins ultimately finished the race around 10 points ahead of Dooley, a similar margin as in the primary election earlier this year. Dooley was widely seen as the more moderate and more electable of the two Republicans, as compared to Collins, who has been trailed by a series of scandals. Republicans may struggle to reclaim the seat from Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) with Collins as their standard-bearer in the race.

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

Still Joined at the Hip: In The Washington Post, Michael Singh, the managing director and a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, suggests that the relationship between Washington and Jerusalem remains strong amid reports of clashes between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump. “It is the rare state that is not only capable but willing to act in America’s stead, projecting power far more effectively than U.S. allies with gross domestic products many times Israel’s. The Jewish state’s capability is the product of a unique mix of societal factors, but is also in part the product of a decades-long, bipartisan strategy of building up Israel’s capabilities and its interoperability with the U.S. military.” [WashPost]

War Wound: The New York Times’ Bret Stephens posits that Iran has emerged from the war with the U.S. and Israel as the victor. “War is a contest of wills. And in that contest, the hard men of Tehran appear to have scored a decisive victory over the vain man of Washington. … There’s a word for this: debacle. Not because the war, for all its costs or errors of execution, was a mistake. It’s because this pretense of a peace is an act of geopolitical self-harm that will haunt our standing in the world for years to come.” [NYTimes]

Hardliners’ Lament: The Guardian’s Patrick Wintour reports on anger over the memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran among Iran’s hardliners who view the agreement as a capitulation. “Faced with the onslaught, Iranian officials led by Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to the head of the negotiating team, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, mounted a detailed rebuttal in an audio message insisting the deal would end the war, including Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, and that Tehran has not been required to make any new commitments on its nuclear programme, leaving the means of disposal of its highly enriched uranium – including down-blending inside Iran – to future discussions lasting 60 days. Mohammadi also said that by referring to ‘Iranian arrangements,’ the text would allow Iran and Oman to charge fees for passage through the strait of Hormuz, and would even prevent Israeli commercial ships using the waterway.” [TheGuardian]

In his new book, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, Vice President JD Vance writes that TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk, who was killed at a campus event in September, had raised concerns to Vance shortly before his death that some young conservatives “were going from legitimate disagreement with the Israeli government to antisemitism”…

In a review of the book, Wall Street Journal columnist Barton Swaim criticized what he called Communion’s “egregious sloppiness,” noting that portions of the book about accountability for the circumstances of Vance’s upbringing differ widely from similar components of his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy…

The U.S. is reportedly in talks with the Palestinian Authority to deepen the strained relations between Washington and Ramallah; The Times of Israel reports that Saudi Arabia is assisting the PA in its reform efforts…

Despite having previously approved a similar motion, the Senate on Tuesday narrowly defeated a procedural vote on a war powers resolution to prevent further military action against Iran, as the administration moves forward in negotiations with Tehran, JI’s Marc Rod reports…

The FBI announced on Tuesday that it had disrupted a sophisticated attack targeting the UFC fight on the White House lawn on Sunday, with Fox News reporting that one suspect allegedly told investigators that the attack was targeting “capitalist elites,” “billionaires” and politicians who received donations from AIPAC, JI’s Marc Rod reports…

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) said he requested an “immediate” classified briefing on the attempted attack, calling on “every leader in every party” to reject political violence and saying, “the temperature must come down”…

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) endorsed former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), who while in Congress was a member of The Squad and a strident critic of Israel, in her comeback bid against Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO)…

The Anti-Defamation League filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on behalf of a Boulder middle-school student whom the ADL said faced years of antisemitic harassment, alleging that teachers and administrators at a Boulder school did not address the situation…

The Wall Street Journal looks at how Iranian Americans in Los Angeles — where the Iranian national team played against New Zealand this week — are viewing Iran’s World Cup presence with a mix of emotions…

A new poll released by the Council for a Secure America found that a majority of Lebanese and Syrians have negative views of Hezbollah, with 68% of Syrians polled saying that the Iranian-backed group’s presence in Syria has been negative, and 59% of Lebanese surveyed saying Hezbollah has had a negative impact on Lebanon…  

U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the government had asked the country’s Advertising Standards Authority to probe whether a recent event at a London synagogue promoting home sales in Israel — which sparked large-scale protests in the synagogue’s vicinity — involved the sale or promotion of properties in the West Bank…

Israeli journalist Amir Tibon was awarded the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature on Tuesday for The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel’s Borderlands, his harrowing account of survival on Oct. 7, 2023, JI’s Christina Sher reports…

Project Shema, which focuses on antisemitism in progressive spaces, relaunched as an independent 501(c)3 organization, four years after first beginning its activities, which included workshops and trainings, with the support of grants and workshop revenue, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports…

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he had invalidated parts of the 1997 Hebron Agreement that gave construction and planning powers to Palestinian officials; Smotrich said that decision-making powers over the Jewish Tomb of the Patriarchs and the adjoining Muslim Ibrahimi Mosque now fall to Israeli authorities…

Noa Kirel teamed up with her mother, Ilana, for a duet in the Israeli pop star’s latest song, “Iconic Woman,” which dropped on YouTube on Tuesday, in honor of Pride month, alongside an AI-generated music video featuring both women.

Fashion designer, daughter of Reva Schapira, Tory Burch turns 60… 

Diplomat and attorney, undersecretary of state for international security affairs in the Carter administration, former longtime U.N. special representative, Matthew Nimetz turns 87… Winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics, professor at Georgetown and UC Berkeley, he is married to former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, George Akerlof turns 86… One of the world’s best-selling singer-songwriters over the course of seven decades, born Barry Alan Pincus, Barry Manilow turns 83… Former member of the Knesset for the Zionist Union and Labor party, Eitan Broshi turns 76… Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission during the Obama administration, Jonathan David (“Jon”) Leibowitz turns 68… Deputy administrator of the Federal Highway Administration during the first two years of the Biden administration, Stephanie Pollack turns 66… President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors until January 2025, Aaron Dan Peskin turns 62… Singer and composer, a pioneer of the Turkish and Arab music genres in Israel, Ofer Yoel Levy turns 62… Active in interfaith peace initiatives between Judaism and Islam and in encounters for Jews with Eastern religions, Rabbi Yakov Meir Nagen (born Genack) turns 59… Founder and chairman of Shavei Israel, Michael Freund turns 58… British historian, columnist and musician, Dominic Green, Ph.D. turns 56… Comedian, actor, director, writer and producer, Michael Showalter turns 56… International human rights attorney who serves as managing director of the law firm Perseus Strategies, Jared Matthew Genser turns 54… Screenwriter, television producer, director and voice actor, Matthew Ian Senreich turns 52… Advocacy, philanthropic and political counsel and founding partner at LAVA Strategies, David Elliot Horwich… SVP for the economic program at Third Way, a center-left think tank advancing a pro-growth economic agenda, Gabe Horwitz… Chief philanthropy officer of Jewish Federation of Broward County, Keith Mark Goldmann… VP of government affairs for the Conservation Lands Foundation, David Eric Feinman… Former rabbi of the Elmora Hills Minyan in Union County, N.J., now an LCSW therapist in private practice, Rabbi Michael Bleicher… NYC-based senior editor for The Hollywood Reporter, Alexander Weprin… Professional surfer and musician, his family owns Banzai Bagels on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, Makua Rothman turns 42… Founder and executive director of the Zioness Movement, designed to empower progressive Zionists, Amanda Berman… Director of national outreach for the East at the New Israel Fund, Alexander Willick… Award-winning college football and basketball analyst for NBC Sports and SiriusXM, Nicole Auerbach… Former member of the U.S. Ski Team’s alpine program, he competed for the USA in both the 2014 (Sochi) and 2018 (PyeongChang) Winter Olympics, Jared Goldberg turns 35… Senior art director at Business Insider, Rebecca Zisser… Shortstop for Team Israel at the 2020 Olympics, Scott Burcham turns 33… Actor known for her roles in the CBS series “Fam,” the Netflix series “Grand Army,” the HBO series “I Love LA,” and the film “Marty Supreme,” Odessa Zion Segall Adlon turns 26… D.C.-based real estate agent, Mounira Al Hmoud…

• In Washington, the Pentagon is convening military representatives from Israel and Lebanon for a fourth round of talks between Jerusalem and Beirut aimed at winding down military action around the Israel-Lebanon border and disarming Hezbollah and its strongholds in southern Lebanon.
• Allison Hooker, the State Department’s under secretary for political affairs, is slated to meet this morning with Oman’s ambassador to the U.S. The meeting comes days after President Donald Trump said at a Cabinet meeting that “Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow ‘em up.” 
• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is in Singapore for the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Shangri-La Dialogue, where he’ll speak tomorrow morning. Dozens of defense ministers and senior officials from around the world are slated to speak at the convening, which kicks off later today and runs through the weekend.
• In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he ordered the IDF to expand its control in the Gaza Strip to 70% of the enclave, amid stalled talks aimed at disarming Hamas and beginning the reconstruction of Gaza.
• Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) is hosting his annual World Famous Fish Fry, historically considered a mandatory pit stop for Democratic presidential aspirants. This year, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear are expected to attend the Columbia, S.C., fry-up.
• The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor State Convention kicks off today and runs through the weekend. This year’s convention takes place amid growing concerns that the party’s statewide conventions have become activist turf, after attendees at the Michigan Democratic Party convention last month heckled pro-Israel speakers and in one case screamed an antisemitic slur at the Jewish husband of Michigan Senate candidate Mallory McMorrow. Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), who is running for Minnesota’s open Senate seat, will skip this weekend’s convention altogether.
• The American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum begins on Sunday. Read our interview with AJC CEO Ted Deutch below.
• The annual Israel on Fifth parade will take place on Sunday in Manhattan. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani will not attend the parade, marking the first time in more than six decades that a sitting mayor has not attended. In attendance, however, will be dozens of Israeli officials — the largest delegation the country has ever sent to the parade. More below.
• Elsewhere in New York on Sunday, the Republican Jewish Coalition is holding its USA 250 Gala Dinner. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz, Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana and Reps. Randy Fine (R-FL) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) are slated to speak at the event.

A QUICK WORD WITH GILI COHEN

For years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has relied on a small, passionately loyal inner circle of advisors — Ron Dermer foremost among them — to provide a sounding board on some of the country’s thorniest security matters.

Now, with Dermer (mostly) gone, new elections looming and Israel fighting a multifront war and isolated on the world stage, that inner circle is nearly empty. And the departures of key security advisors have left the longest-serving prime minister in the country’s history arguably more alone than ever.

The position of head of Israel’s National Security Council has been unfilled on a permanent basis since October 2025, when Netanyahu dismissed Tzachi Hanegbi from the role. It is currently held in an acting capacity by Gil Reich, a former senior official at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, who will move to a different role within the defense establishment on Monday. 

Just a day later, the director of the Mossad, David Barnea, will also step down after completing a full five-year term. He is set to be replaced by Netanyahu’s military secretary, Gen. Roman Gofman.

However, in the Israel of 2026, nothing is straightforward. High Court justices must soon rule on whether Gofman’s sensitive appointment for the Mossad will be approved. This comes after the head of the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee — the Israeli version of a Senate hearing for high-ranking civil service roles — opined that Gofman’s appointment was flawed on ethical grounds.

But Gofman’s departure will mark a farewell to one of Netanyahu’s closest advisors and currently the most influential security figure in his orbit — and at a time when Netanyahu’s post-Oct. 7 relationship with the military echelon remains exceptionally complex. 

“The role of the national security advisor and head of the NSC is critical and central for shaping, planning and overseeing the execution of Israel’s national security policy,” Eyal Hulata, who served as head of Israel’s NSC from 2021-2023, told Jewish Insider. 

“The fact that the prime minister is not appointing a replacement for this role is, unfortunately, yet another example of a disregard for organized staff work and another blow to the professionalism required when working with the defense establishment,” Hulata continued. Sources close to the prime minister told JI that Netanyahu intends to fill these soon-to-be-empty positions shortly.

So, who are the candidates for head of the Israeli NSC? According to sources familiar with the matter, there are two front-runners: Reuven Azar, Israel’s ambassador to India, and Col. (res.) Gabi Siboni, a hawkish commentator on military strategy.

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

Weeding Out the Uyghurs: The Financial Times’ Alison Killing does a deep dive into China’s escalating efforts to crack down on Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the country. “But FT analysis suggests that the Chinese state’s campaign of oppression against Uyghurs and their culture and identity has in fact entered a new phase. It shows Xinjiang has the world’s highest prison detention capacity relative to its population size — evidence that authorities continue to rely on mass incarceration. Researchers and rights groups say repression in the region now extends towards the long-term remaking of Uyghur society. … ‘Everything that once reflected Uyghur civilization — our culture, our language — has been wiped out,’ says a Uyghur man who recently visited the region from the U.S.” [FT]

Making a Militia: In New Lines Magazine, Farea Al-Muslimi examines the decades-long effort by Hezbollah to grow and strengthen the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. “The relationship between Hezbollah and the Houthis is not simply a case of proxy support. It reflects a sustained process of construction — militarily, politically and institutionally — that produced an actor with its own strategic direction. Over time, that process altered the relationship itself. What began as mentorship created the conditions for autonomy. The Houthis remain aligned within a broader regional framework, but they are no longer defined by their allies.” [NewLines]

Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday afternoon that the U.S. and Iran were “very close” to reaching an agreement on the wording of a memorandum of understanding that would institute a 60-day ceasefire, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and begin nuclear talks… 

The Treasury Department reimposed sanctions on Francesca Albanese after the Trump administration appealed a federal court order to remove the U.N. special rapporteur from the U.S. sanctions list while a lawsuit challenging the sanctions plays out in court…

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ruled out a 2028 presidential run, saying at Thursday’s Mackinac Policy Conference that “there will be a robust group of people running for president,” but she “will not be one of them”…

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), a Jewish Democrat who is among the most vocal supporters of Israel in Congress, announced on Thursday that he would seek reelection in a new South Florida House district recently drawn to favor Republicans, after his own was largely erased, setting the stage for what is expected to be a costly and competitive race, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports…

Reps. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) and Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ), two strong supporters of Israel, made another trip to the country this week, during which they met separately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, JI’s Matthew Shea reports…

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier in her primary challenge to Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY); Mamdani had last year committed to backing Espaillat after the chair of the House Hispanic Caucus dropped his support for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and endorsed Mamdani in the general election…

Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion President Andrew Rehfeld, speaking at the Re-Charging Reform Judaism conference in New York this week, fought back against Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch’s condemnation of the Reform seminary’s ordination of anti-Zionist clergy, calling his comments “an attack on the very Enlightenment principles that founded our movement” and accusing him of “anti-intellectualism,” eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim reports…

Third Point founder and CEO Daniel Loeb made his first podcast appearance, appearing on Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s “Invest Like the Best” to discuss AI, corporate governance and investing in the current climate…

Appearing on The Free Press’ “Second Thought” podcast, Scooter Braun reflects on his relationship with Kanye West and the performer’s past antisemitic comments, noting that “obviously the things that [West has] gone through and the things he’s said been have been very upsetting to me,” but that Braun wants “to always believe people have an opportunity to have salvation and growth. And as much as I was very much upset because my family was in the Holocaust, and some of the things he said were incredibly inappropriate [and] very frustrating. And that’s the reason, probably, we haven’t spoken in a very long time”…

Jerusalem-born chef Raz Shabtai’s North Miami restaurant Mutra was awarded a Michelin star, becoming the only current kosher restaurant with the honor…

A who’s who of high-profile figures in sports management were in Budapest, Hungary, last night for the UEFA Champions League gala dinner; those in attendance included New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin…

A Jewish teenager in Toronto who had been missing since mid-May was found by authorities, who are investigating “whether or not there is any evidence of criminality” in her disappearance…

Organizers of Rome’s upcoming Pride parade denied a request from the country’s only Jewish LGBTQ group to march with a float, saying that the Keshet Italia, which is unaffiliated with Israel, had refused to called Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide”…

A soccer match between the Irish and Qatari national teams at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium was disrupted on two occasions by match-goers who threw tennis balls emblazoned with Palestinian flags onto the field, raising concerns about fans’ behavior ahead of two matches between Ireland and Israel slated for this fall in Dublin…

Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon said that Israel would cut ties with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres over Israel’s inclusion in an upcoming sexual violence blacklist, owing to alleged abuses of Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody…

CBS News is tapping former New York Times columnist Nick Bilton, a Vanity Fair alum, as executive producer of “60 Minutes,” replacing Tanya Simon…

The New York Times interviews the Washington Star‘s new owner, Dovid Efune, about his plans to resurrect the publication 40 years after it last published; earlier this week, Efune filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against online publication NOTUS, which recently announced plans to rebrand as The Star…

William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, was named the first chair of the J50 Forum, a group of leaders from 50 Jewish communities from around the world that was created last year by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar… 

CNN Jerusalem Correspondent Jeremy Diamond won the Emmy Award for Outstanding News Interview for his sit-down with senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad…

Actor Marvin Chatinover died at 99…

JI wine columnist Yitz Applbaum reviews the Hajdu Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2022:

I have written before about the brilliant cult winemaker Jonathan Hajdu. His wines continue to grace the kosher market with varieties new to it, challenging our palates in ways at once playful and serious. His rieslings dance; his old-vine zinfandels brood.

This Shabbat, we were blessed to taste his 2022 Reserve Cabernet. A big, bold, all-encompassing wine, it opens with a rush of dry earthiness that yields to a mouthwatering mid-palate juiciness of dark berry. The finish is long, carrying familiar notes of dark chocolate and a whisper of cedar. Pair it with a meat-rich cholent, and lay a bottle down for years to come.

Dan Tadmor, the president of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, addressed the crowd at the museum gala last night in New York City, which honored Stuart and Jane Weitzman, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim reports from the Plaza Hotel. The gala comes as the museum, which is making efforts to be incorporated into the Smithsonian, launches a $100 million fundraising campaign to transform and expand its mission.

“It’s the only museum that tells the American Jewish story in its entirety, geographically, historically, thematically, which is a tall order. It means that we need to excel,” Tadmor told eJP. “It’s been a very tumultuous 20 years, and thematic museums, which are museums that tell a story, they evolve, they need to evolve, because our stories change, narratives change, technology changes.”

Film, stage and television actor, singer and songwriter, Idina Menzel turns 55 on Saturday… 

FRIDAY: Montreal-based businessman and philanthropist, Marvin Birnbom turns 96… Professor emerita of marine biology at Rutgers University, Judith Shulman Weis turns 85… Former member of the Knesset for the Likud party and then Israel’s ambassador to Japan, Eli Cohen turns 77… Winner of three Emmy Awards and a Grammy, actor, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer, Danny Elfman turns 73… U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) turns 72… Retired senior diplomat in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she was previously a brigadier general in the IDF, Ruth Yaron turns 69… Television writer, producer and actor, best known as the creator of the sitcom “Arrested Development” as well as the co-creator of “The Ellen Show,” Mitchell Hurwitz turns 63… Past president of Ahavath Achim Congregation in Wichita, Kan., she is a trustee-at-large on the board of JFNA, Ellen Ginsburg Beren… Professor at the University of Chicago, co-author of the best-selling books in the Freakonomics series, Steven Levitt turns 59… CEO and executive editor of 70 Faces Media, the parent company of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Amiram “Ami” Eden… Policy analyst at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Yaakov Feinstein… Founding partner of Blandford Capital, Nathaniel Jerome Meyohas turns 52… Founder and creative director of the fashion label Shoshanna, Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss turns 51… Chief communications officer and global spokesperson at Aish, she is also a cookbook author, Jamie Geller turns 48… Film producer and former corporate lawyer at Skadden Arps, Edward Frank “Teddy” Schwarzman turns 47… Senior political reporter at The Forward, Jacob Kornbluh… Swedish-born pro-Israel activist, commentator and reporter, Annika Hernroth-Rothstein turns 45… Managing director at Hudson Bay Capital Management and Jewish communal activist, Alexander Berger… Assistant secretary for constituency affairs for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, he was formerly her Jewish liaison, Jacob “Jake” Adler… Israeli-born assistant pitching coach for the Colorado Rockies, he pitched for Team Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Alon Leichman turns 37… English actor, his bar mitzvah was at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Gregg Sulkin turns 34… 

SATURDAY: Santa Monica, Calif.-based historian of Sephardic and Crypto-Jewish studies, Dolores Sloan turns 96… Real estate developer, landlord of the World Trade Center until 9/11, former chair of UJA-Federation of NY, Larry A. Silverstein turns 95… Partner in the NYC law firm of Mintz & Gold, he is also a leading supporter of Hebrew University, Ira Lee “Ike” Sorkin turns 83… Cape Town, South Africa, native, she is the owner and chef at Los Angeles-based Catering by Brenda, Brenda Walt turns 75… Former professional tennis player, he competed in nine Wimbledons and 13 U.S. Opens, Steve “Lightning” Krulevitz turns 75… Former chief rabbi of France, Gilles Uriel Bernheim turns 74… Medical director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Ethiopia spine and heart project, Dr. Richard “Rick” Hodes turns 73… Encino, Calif.-based business attorney, Andrew W. Hyman… Literary critic, essayist and novelist, Daphne Miriam Merkin turns 72… Israeli physicist and philosopher, Avshalom Cyrus Elitzur turns 69… Former member of Congress from Long Island for 16 years, since leaving Congress he has opened a bookstore and written three novels, Steve Israel turns 68… Former science editor for BBC News and author of several books, David Shukman turns 68… Founder of Krav Maga Global with 1,500 instructors in 60 countries, Eyal Yanilov turns 67… Member of the editorial board at The New York Times, Michelle Cottle… Writer, filmmaker, playwright and DJ, known by his pen name Ithamar Ben-Canaan, Itamar Handelman Smith turns 50… Member of Knesset who previously served as Israel’s minister of agriculture, Oded Forer turns 49… Director of marketing at NYC’s Congregation Rodeph Sholom, Scott Hertz… Deputy assistant to President Biden until 2023, the first Palestinian-American White House senior staffer, now the chief of staff for Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), Reema Dodin turns 46… Communication and marketing coordinator for the San Francisco office of AIPAC, Alina T. Katz… Israeli author, her debut novel has been published in dozens of countries, Shani Boianjiu turns 39… Rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer, known professionally as Hebro, Raphael Ohr Chaim Fulcher turns 39… Senior counsel at Gilead Sciences, Ashley Bender Spirn… Ice hockey head coach of the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays, David Matthew Warsofsky turns 36… Deputy chief of staff for Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Miryam Esther Lipper… Senior reporter for CNN, Eric Levenson… Challah baker and manager of San Francisco’s Howard Properties, Jason Friend…

SUNDAY: Investment advisor at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, Alfred Phillip Stern turns 93… Owner of one of the nation’s largest privately held industrial empires, Ira Leon Rennert turns 92… Professor emeritus at Yale University and the 2018 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, William Dawbney Nordhaus turns 85… Food critic at Vogue magazine since 1989 and judge on “Iron Chef America,” he is the author of the 1997 award-winning book The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten turns 84… Founder and retired CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council, Alvin “Al” From turns 83… Author, political pundit and a retired correspondent for HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” he has won fourteen Emmy Awards during his career, Bernie Goldberg turns 81… Comedian, actor and TV producer, Susie Essman turns 71… Founder and chairman of the Katz Group of Companies with operations in the sports (including the Edmonton Oilers), entertainment and real estate sectors, Daryl Katz turns 65… Reality television personality, best known for starring in and producing her own matchmaking reality series, “The Millionaire Matchmaker,” Patti Stanger turns 65… Jerusalem-born inventor, serial entrepreneur and novelist; founder, chairman and CEO of CyberArk Software, one of Israel’s leading software companies, Alon Nisim Cohen turns 58… Entrepreneur, best known as the co-founder of CryptoLogic, an online casino software firm, Andrew Rivkin turns 57… Former Democratic mayor of Annapolis, Md., now VP of policy at SWTCH, Joshua Jackson “Josh” Cohen turns 53… Senior director of volunteerism & advocacy at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Melissa York… Israeli actor, singer and dancer, she played a Mossad agent in the espionage TV series “Tehran,” Liraz Charhi turns 48… Author of the “Money Stuff” column at Bloomberg Opinion, Matthew Stone Levine turns 48… Freelance writer in Brooklyn, Sara Trappler Spielman… Former attorney and NYT-bestselling author of the Mara Dyer and Shaw Confessions series, Michelle Hodkin turns 44… Senior counsel for autonomy & robotics at DoorDash, formerly a senior advisor at the Department of Commerce, Bert Eli Kaufman… Senior product manager at Tel Aviv-based Forter, Zoe Goldfarb… Stephanie Oreck Weiss… Chief revenue officer at NOTUS, Brad E. Bosserman… Senior rabbi and executive director of Jewish life at D.C.’s Sixth & I, Aaron Potek… Managing editor at NOTUS, Matt Berman… Medical student in the class of 2027 at the University of Nicosia Medical School, Amital Isaac… Brad Goldstein… Basketball player in Israel’s Premier League until recent years, while at Princeton he won the Ivy League Player of the Year award (2017), Spencer Weisz turns 31… Professional golfer on the PGA Tour, Max Alexander Greyserman turns 31… Tech product leader and rapper known by his stage name, King Sol, Benjamin Solomon turns 28…

• President Donald Trump suggested yesterday that a call between Israeli and Lebanese leaders could take place today, following a State Department summit on Tuesday between the ambassadors from the two countries. Israeli Science and Technology Minister Gila Gamliel, a member of Israel’s security cabinet, said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun were slated to speak, while a Lebanese government official told Reuters earlier today that Beirut was “not aware” of any upcoming contact with Israeli officials.
• Pakistani army chief Asim Munir is in Tehran today for meetings with senior Iranian officials aimed at convening a second round of U.S.-Iran talks in Islamabad. Yesterday, Munir met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. The meetings come as Pakistani Prime ‌Minister Shehbaz Sharif conducts a multicountry trip through the weekend, traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. In Jeddah yesterday, Sharif met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
• Voters in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District are heading to the polls today for the election to succeed now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill. Progressive organizer Analilia Mejia, who since the primary has gotten the backing of top Garden State Democrats, is the favorite to win in the blue district against Republican Joe Hathaway.
• The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is holding a confirmation hearing for several positions: NTIA Deputy Administrator Adam Cassady to be ambassador at large for cyberspace and digital policy, attorney Todd Steggerda to be U.S. representative to the U.N. in Geneva and the State Department’s Preston Wells Griffith III to be U.S. representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
• The House Appropriations Committee is holding a series of budget hearings over the course of the day. Committee members will hear this afternoon from Karen Evans, the acting administrator of FEMA, which administers the Nonprofit Security Grant Program.
• Harvard University is hosting a landmark public conference on antisemitism and civil rights today, one of the terms of a legal settlement between the school and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law. More below.
• The Shalom Hartman Institute’s Yehuda Kurtzer and The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg will sit in conversation at an event this evening at the Capital Jewish Museum focused on “Jewish America at 250” ahead of the U.S. Semiquincentennial.
• Semafor’s World Economy summit in Washington continues today. Speakers today include Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Mark Warner (D-VA), Steve Daines (R-MT), Todd Young (R-IN) and Susan Collins (R-ME), Steve Bannon, former Biden administration official Amos Hochstein and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. 

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

There’s been a lot of debate lately over whether President Donald Trump is losing some of his grip on the Republican Party, amid growing economic concerns and the ongoing military operations in Iran.  

While the media coverage has been amplifying any sign of intraparty discontent — to the point that former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is getting strange new respect from some Democrats and mainstream press — polls continue to show Trump with widespread backing from within his own party, and especially within the MAGA faction of the GOP.

Ultimately, election results are the best reality check. And you couldn’t draw up a better test on the degree of Trump’s impact on the Republican Party than examining the results from four states holding highly consequential primaries next month that will be a benchmark of the president’s power.

Key races in Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana and Texas will speak volumes about the president’s ability to shape the GOP agenda for the remainder of his second term — and most consequentially, whether he will be able to maintain a unified front with his party on continuing to pursue military action against Iran. 

The biggest intraparty showdown, especially when it comes to foreign policy, is the May 19 primary between Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and military veteran Ed Gallrein. Massie, one of the few anti-Israel Republicans in Congress, is being opposed by Trump but also has a solid base of grassroots support in the northern Kentucky district, which has thus far supported his anti-establishment brand of politics. But Gallrein has proven to be a credible challenger, raising millions and giving Massie the biggest political test of his career. 

Trump has spent some valuable political capital to boost Gallrein, including appearing at a recent rally in Massie’s district to promote his challenger. He’s been joined by the Republican Jewish Coalition, which has poured $3.5 million into the race, airing five ads underscoring Massie’s record of breaking with Trump. (Further drawing Trump’s ire: Massie also joined with Democrats in championing the release of the Epstein files.)

It’s never easy to beat a sitting incumbent, but Trump also has an imposing record of winning primaries in which he chooses to engage. If Massie pulls out a victory despite breaking so flagrantly with Trump on a number of key issues, it will be a sign of the president’s diminished political clout.

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

The Problem with Piker: The Free Press’ Peter Savodnik looks at Democrats’ continued embrace of Hasan Piker, despite the far-left streamer’s extensive history of praising terrorists and antisemitic and anti-American rhetoric. “The truth is they’re afraid of challenging Piker because they don’t want to alienate his next-gen Bernie Bro audience — a fear that is greatly exacerbated by their hand-wringing about not being on ‘the right side of history,’ down with the kids. … There’s a deeper problem here, one that is more cognitive, even spiritual: Too few Democrats can see that Piker is obviously, deeply wrong, that he lacks imagination, that he’s ignorant, that he camouflages his ignorance with just enough lingo to make his highly unoriginal neo-Marxist riffs and rants sound incisive.” [FreePress]

The Future of Warfare: In The Wall Street Journal, former CIA Director David Petraeus posits that despite the U.S.’ military successes in Iran, the war in Ukraine is more instructive as to the future of warfare. “War is increasingly defined by unmanned systems, artificial intelligence and mass precision. The Gulf offers useful insights, but Ukraine is the more demanding laboratory. There, the true challenges of unmanned systems at scale and the rapid emergence of autonomous capabilities are already on display. … The Gulf conflict demonstrates what American forces can achieve from a position of strength. Ukraine has shown what war looks like from a more vulnerable position, when that strength is contested at scale.” [WSJ]

At Semafor’s World Economy summit in Washington on Wednesday, Chuck Robbins, CEO of the tech giant Cisco, spoke about his decision a decade ago to acquire Leaba Semiconductor, an Israeli company, before it had even developed a product, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports…

UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem Al Hashimy, speaking at the confab, called for the Strait of Hormuz to be an international passageway that is not under the control of any one country…

Also speaking at the summit yesterday, “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil, speaking to David Rubenstein, talked about documentarian Ken Burns‘ July 4 tradition of reading the Declaration of Independence out loud with his family, calling it “a Seder for America”…

A second U.S.-sanctioned supertanker entered the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz, despite the U.S.’ maritime blockade of the waterway…

The Wall Street Journal looks at how growing economic distress in Iran could push Tehran back to negotiations with the U.S. as it seeks much-needed sanctions relief…

Seb Gorka, a deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, is reportedly looking to be named the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, following Joe Kent’s resignation last month…

The Financial Times spotlights Paolo Zampolli, a close personal friend of President Donald Trump and the U.S. special representative for global partnerships, as he conducts multibillion-dollar deals on behalf of the White House…

The Wall Street Journal reports on the hurdles facing Kevin Warsh ahead of his confirmation hearing to be the next chair of the Federal Reserve…

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), appearing on “Pod Save America,” praised former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) — once a vocal Omar foe who called for the congresswoman’s deportation while they were both in the House — and far-right influencer Candace Owens over the pair’s break with Trump, JI’s Marc Rod reports… 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul issued a challenge Wednesday to those seeking to challenge her plan to penalize protesters who get too close to religious institutions — “Bring it on.” Announcing new state programs to provide support and security for organizations deemed “vulnerable to hate crimes,” the governor, a Democrat, took questions regarding her proposal to bar demonstrations of more than two people from occurring within 25 feet of a house of worship, JI’s Will Bredderman reports…

Rama Duwaji, the wife of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, apologized for using racist language in social media posts as a teenager, but fell short of addressing more recent comments in which she suggested that Tel Aviv “shouldn’t exist in the first place,” and celebrated “freedom fighters of Palestine”… 

A new report from Yale University’s Committee on Trust in Higher Education found that universities themselves cultivated significant public distrust of higher education, citing soaring tuition costs, unclear admissions processes and the uneven applications of standards and rules…

Kent Syverud, who earlier this year had been tapped as the next chancellor of the University of Michigan, announced that he has been diagnosed with brain cancer and will not assume the position in Ann Arbor; the school’s Board of Regents said it will begin a new search process in the coming days…

Duke University suspended its Students for Justice in Palestine chapter on Tuesday, one month after students began submitting complaints about an antisemitic Instagram post from the group, which depicted the U.S. and Israel as pigs frothing at the mouth, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…

Hebrew Union College President Andrew Rehfeld told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher that the school was “deeply disappointed” by a decision by the Ohio Attorney General’s office to file a lawsuit to block the institution’s plans to shutter its Cincinnati rabbinical programs…

Apple TV released the trailer for the upcoming Israeli thriller series “Unconditional,” which stars Liraz Chamami and Talia Lynne Ronn as a mother-daughter pair stranded in Russia and at the mercy of Moscow crime rings following Ronn’s character’s arrest on drug-smuggling charges… 

“Fauda” co-creator Avi Issacharoff shared a sneak peek of the show’s upcoming fifth season, which takes place in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks…

Police in the U.K. arrested two people following an attempted arson attack at a synagogue in North London…

U.K. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called for the deportation of foreigners who engage in antisemitism…

Immanuel College, one of London’s only private Jewish secondary schools, is set to close at the end of this year, citing financial challenges…

Kanye West postponed an upcoming show in Marseille, France, after government officials, as well as the mayor of Marseille, suggested the rapper would not be welcome in the country; the decision comes days after U.K. authorities revoked West’s visa ahead of a summer festival he was set to headline in the country…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed into law legislation levying criminal penalties — including fines and prison sentences — against individuals convicted of antisemitic offenses…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hungary Prime Minister-elect Peter Magyar spoke by phone on Wednesday, with a readout from the Prime Minister’s Office saying that the incoming Hungarian leader invited Netanyahu to the country for the 70-year commemoration of the Hungarian Uprising…

LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil denied reports that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund was planning to pull its financial support for the league, weeks before its first scheduled U.S. tournament of the season, slated to take place next month at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia… 

Front Office Sports reports that a multiyear deal between Michael Rubin‘s Fanatics and Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority is on the verge of collapse… 

Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks is joining Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck as a senior strategic advisor; Brooks will continue in his position at the RJC, in addition to his role leading the Jewish Policy Center…

Israel Malachi was named the new director general of Israel’s Finance Ministry after serving for nearly four years as the ministry’s deputy director general…

Amy Marks is joining JCC Association of North America as the organization’s chief advancement officer…

Former “All Things Considered” host Ari Shapiro is joining CNN as a contributor, where he’ll co-host a new podcast focused on digital trends with his former NPR colleague Audie Cornish…

Author and TV producer Barbara Gordon, whose memoir about her addiction to Valium and mental health challenges became a bestseller, died at 90…

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (center right), cut the ribbon at the official launch on Wednesday of ARC Landing Boston, a joint initiative between Healey’s administration and Israel’s Sheba Medical Center. Joining Healey for the ribbon-cutting were New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Sheba Director General Yitshak Kreiss and ARC Innovation Founder and Director Eyal Zimlichman. 

Emmy- and Tony Award-winning actress and movie producer, Ellen Barkin turns 72… 

CEO and president of American Express in the 1990s, he now serves on many corporate and charitable boards, Harvey Golub turns 87… Chasidic singer, known by his stage name Mordechai Ben David or MBD, Mordechai Werdyger turns 75… Olympic track-and-field athlete, and survivor of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, Esther Roth-Shachamorov turns 74… Cofounder of Jordan Company LP, a New York private equity firm, David Wayne Zalaznick turns 72… Physician and venture capitalist focused on biotechnology and life-sciences industries, Lindsay Rosenwald turns 71… Professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, Aaron Louis Friedberg, Ph.D. turns 70… Filmmaker, he directed the 2011 documentary “Paul Williams Still Alive” and the 1997 slapstick comedy “Vegas Vacation” starring Chevy Chase, Stephen Kessler turns 66… Former dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf turns 64… Former secretary of state of the United States under the Biden administration, Antony John “Tony” Blinken turns 64… Emmy Award-winning television producer and writer, he co-created and produced “Will & Grace” and “Boston Common,” David Sanford Kohan turns 62… Long Island native, he is a Los Angeles pharmacist, Jeffrey D. Marcus… U.S. ambassador to Egypt during the Trump 45 administration, Jonathan Raphael Cohen turns 62… Former mayor of Hoboken, N.J., Dawn Zimmer turns 58… Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S. and minister of strategic affairs, Ron Dermer turns 55… Canada’s minister of the environment, climate change and nature, Julie Dabrusin turns 55… Celebrity plastic surgeon, he is active on social media as “Dr. Miami” and has been on reality TV about his practice, Michael Salzhauer, M.D. turns 54… Board member of Jewish Community High School of the Bay in San Francisco, Ellen K. Finestone… Founder and president of Glass Ceiling Strategies, she is also a managing director for communications at Climate Power, Alex Glass… Founder of Jewish Fashion Council and journalist at Fabologie, Adi Heyman… Former pitcher in the Washington Nationals organization, he played for Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Richard Sidney Bleier turns 39… Attorney who has served as a law clerk to three Maryland judges, now a VP at JPMorgan Chase, Geoffrey S. Middleberg… Lead product manager at Anthropic, Uriel Kejsefman… Singer, pianist and composer, he is best known as half of the folk-rock duo the Portnoy Brothers, Mendy Portnoy turns 34… Climate and energy transition investor, he was a White House staffer in 2017, Matthew Saunders… Senior client strategy and success manager at Grow Progress, Adam Gotbaum… First baseman and free agent, he played for Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Matthew Jared “Mash” Mervis turns 28… Josh Goldstein… Sarah Wolfson…

• Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) was confirmed last night as secretary of Homeland Security in a 54-45 vote, with Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM) voting for Mullin and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voting against. He’ll be sworn in later this morning.
• Meanwhile, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle signaled movement toward resolving the stalemate over Department of Homeland Security funding after a group of Republicans spoke to President Donald Trump about the issue.
• The Hill & Valley Forum is taking place today in Washington. Jacob Helberg, a co-founder of the forum now serving as the State Department’s undersecretary of state for economic affairs, will kick off the daylong confab this morning, while House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will deliver the keynote address in the afternoon. Others slated to speak at Hill & Valley include U.S. International Development Finance Corporation CEO Ben Black, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD), Chris Coons (D-DE), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Todd Young (R-IN), Jim Banks (R-IN), Rick Scott (R-FL) and Mark Warner (D-VA); Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Riley Moore (R-WV); Palantir’s Mike Gallagher (himself a former member of Congress), JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire and Base Power Company’s Zach Dell.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV

“We will safeguard our vital interests under all circumstances,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, hours after President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would suspend strikes on Iranian energy facilities to start negotiations. 

In a Hebrew video statement, Netanyahu tried to reassure the Israeli public that the war would end in a way that made the previous three weeks — in which they, not Americans, ran with their children to bomb shelters multiple times a day — worth it. He vowed that Israel would be “continuing to strike in both Iran and Lebanon.”

“Earlier today, I spoke with our friend, President Trump,” Netanyahu said. “President Trump believes there is an opportunity to leverage the tremendous achievements we have reached alongside the U.S. military to realize the goals of the war through an agreement, an agreement that will safeguard our vital interests.”

Behind the scenes, however, the phone call was not enough to reassure Jerusalem that Washington had its interests in mind, and Netanyahu dispatched his closest advisor, Ron Dermer, to deter the Trump administration from reaching a “not good” deal, Israel’s Channel 12 reported.

Note the word choice: “not good.” If negotiations are genuine and this is not another mind game by the Trump administration, Israeli officials were not so optimistic in their briefings to Jewish Insider and Israeli media as to say there could be a good outcome from a deal that, de facto, would continue to recognize the mullahs’ regime — but perhaps a disaster could be averted.

Netanyahu used the term “vital interests” twice in his statement. The top interest on Dermer’s list is ensuring that the 440 kg of highly enriched uranium, the material that Iran boasted to White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff was enough for 11 bombs, would be removed from Iran. According to Ynet, Witkoff made this demand clear, raising his voice on the phone to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi before the latter’s first overture last week to return to the negotiating table.

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

The Mullahs’ Messenger: The Wall Street Journal’s Laurence Norman spotlights Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who has led Tehran’s negotiations with the West on a variety of issues, including the nuclear talks that preceded the start of the war last month. “In the months leading up to the U.S. and Israeli campaign, senior Arab officials say Araghchi flitted between openness, at times joining friendly dinners, and menacing by appearing to imply Iran might attack its neighbors. At one point, he told Saudi officials that Iran would target the United Arab Emirates, which has an open split with Riyadh, if war broke out. At other moments, he suggested the kingdom was also in Iran’s sights if it didn’t prod Washington away from war, the officials said. Tehran eventually attacked both.” [WSJ]

Droning On: The Washington Post’s Damir Marusic considers how Iran’s use of mass-produced, low-cost weaponry could affect how the Pentagon plans for future military conflicts. “The Shaheds detonating around the Persian Gulf underline the point that the era of relying purely on exquisite, expensive weapons is over. Watching cheap drones tear apart Ukraine’s Western-provided air defenses should have been a wake-up call, but the problem remained theoretical. Washington carefully rationed what was sent to the Ukrainians without asking difficult questions about U.S. arsenals. Now, by depleting existing stocks, Trump is forcing the reckoning: Just how will the U.S. rebuild?” [WashPost]

Open Season: In UnHerd, Ben Judah, who served as special advisor to former U.K. Foreign Minister David Lammy, reflects on the recent instances of violent antisemitism targeting Diaspora Jewry, including in his community in London. “A war is being waged against the Jewish diaspora. It is being waged with bombs, shootings, harassment and intimidation. The attacks, and the fear of them, are a small side plot in a great Middle Eastern War. … Yet more than fear, I feel disappointment. For if ever me and my son, or any of us who pray here, were butchered by a gunman shouting ‘Free Palestine,’ many Western activists would equivocate, contextualize, or even say it served us right.” [UnHerd]

Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg said that the U.S. plans to contribute $250 million to a supply chain investment fund — part of the White House’s Pax Silica initiative — whose other participants include the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Qatar….

The Telegraph reports that outposts of British private schools based in Qatar are using course materials that whitewash the Holocaust…

Wesam Hassanein, who served as Vice President JD Vance’s Middle East affairs advisor, is departing government to join the lobbying firm Continental Strategy LLC; Hassanein said that he was “not leaving because I oppose the president’s decision on Iran — I’m 100% supportive of President Trump’s decision to deny Iran nuclear weapons,” adding, “We should have done what President Trump is doing years ago”…

President Donald Trump declined to say on Monday if he knew whether Joe Kent, who stepped down last week as director of the National Counterterrorism Center in protest of the war in Iran, was leaking classified information amid reports he is under investigation by the FBI for doing so, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports…

Speaking at CERAWeek in Houston, former Defense Secretary James Mattis said the U.S. is “in a tough spot … and I can’t identify a lot of good options” regarding the situation in the Strait of Hormuz…

The Wall Street Journal looks at how Trump’s decision to enter talks with Iran — after giving Tehran a 48-hour deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend — came about following a series of quiet talks among Arab states looking to find an off-ramp to the conflict, even as those countries remained skeptical that a quick end to the war was in sight…

In response to former French diplomat Gérard Araud’s comment that the United Arab Emirates — which has received the brunt of Iranian missile attacks since the start of the war — was “deepening your dependence on a country that has led yours into a disastrous conflict without caring about your interests,” Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed replied, “We will never be blackmailed by terrorists”… 

ABZ’s comments come as Gulf states, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, reportedly consider becoming more deeply involved in the fight against Iran… 

The Associated Press spotlights how surveillance systems have been increasingly used as a tool in warfare, spotlighting Israel’s access to Tehran’s network of street cameras, which allowed the IDF to conduct strikes that eliminated much of Iran’s top leadership on the first day of the war…

Politico profiles Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad ⁠Bagher Ghalibaf, who is quietly being considered by the Trump administration for a leadership role in a post-regime Iran…

The Financial Times explores how Palantir is becoming a “flashpoint” in midterm campaigns around the U.S. due to its work with federal immigration officials, prompting some sitting members of Congress and candidates with previous ties to the data intelligence firm to distance themselves…

In an interview with Politico, in which he was asked if he is a Zionist, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he “revere[s]” the state of Israel” and is “proud to support” the Jewish state, but “deeply, deeply” opposes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership and indulgence of the far right. He also clarified that he does not consider Israel an apartheid state, and that his use of the phrase was in reference to a column by The New York Times’ Tom Friedman…  

Estée Lauder is in talks with Spanish beauty conglomerate Puig to potentially merge into a single $40 billion company…

Nathan Benaich’s Air Street Capital raised $232 million for a new fund as it focuses on AI investments…

The Justice Department announced two new investigations against Harvard University — one probing the school’s compliance with a 2023 ruling striking down the use of affirmative action in admissions, and the other looking into complaints of antisemitism…

The New York Times looks at the rollout of a new initiative in dozens of New York City public schools to teach Jewish and Muslim American history…

Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan met with Pope Leo XIV on Monday at the Vatican; Dayan gifted the pontiff a reproduction of Belgian-Jewish artist Carol Deutsch’s “Where Art Thou?” that was painted before Deutsch was murdered at Buchenwald in 1944…

BlueFuture LLC founder Eli Wald is joining Democratic Majority for Israel as chief development officer…

Venture capitalist Leonid Radvinsky, who acquired ownership of the OnlyFans website in 2018, died at 43…

David Simon, known as the “mall king” for leading his family’s real estate companies through three decades that saw the firm acquire more than 200 retail properties, died at 64…

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer (third from left) met on Monday with representatives of London’s Jewish community hours after four Hatzola ambulances were set on fire in an antisemitic attack.

Former CEO of Microsoft, he is the owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, Steve Ballmer turns 70…

Beverly Hills-based estate planning attorney, Ronald M. Kabrins turns 88… Co-owner of Baltimore-based Bond Distributing Company until 2022, Rochelle “Ronnie” Footlick… Member of the House of Lords and star of the U.K.’s version of “The Apprentice,” he was the chairman of Tottenham Hotspur, Baron Alan Sugar turns 79… Film and television actress and director, Donna Gail Pescow turns 72… Attorney in Tarzana, Calif., Paul Marshall Leven… AIPAC and Jewish community activist in Austin, Deborah E. Rudy… Owner of Joslynda Capital, Michael Weiss… Veteran of four NASA space shuttle missions, he had a mezuzah on his bunk in the space shuttle, Scott Jay “Doc” Horowitz turns 69… Professor emerita of art history at Hofstra University and widely published poet, Martha Hollander turns 67… Professional wrestler under a series of ring names including “The Star of David,” his wrestling career spanned from 1979-2000, Barry Horowitz turns 66… Former president of American Jewish University, the Newseum and Colgate University, Jeffrey Herbst turns 65… CEO of The Female Quotient, Shelley Zalis… Former official at UJA-Federation of New York and JDC, now at NYC’s 92NY, Laura Spitzer… Actor who is best known for his roles on the Fox medical drama series “House” and the USA Network’s science fiction drama “Colony,” Peter Jacobson turns 61… Founding partner and chief strategy officer at The Quiet Co., Fred Menachem… Veteran Israel-based journalist, now working for The Jerusalem Report, Ruth Marks Eglash… Actress, she appeared in every film of the “American Pie” film series from 1999-2012, Alyson Hannigan turns 52… Special counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell, Aharon Friedman… Chairman and CEO of Dorshei Torah v’Tzion and senior rabbi of the Hudson Yards Synagogue, Rabbi Jason Herman turns 49… Actor best known for his role as FBI Special Agent Aram Mojtabai in NBC’s “The Blacklist,” Amir Arison turns 48… Director of marketing at Window Nation, Eric Goldscher… Executive editor at Bloomberg Green, a vertical and print magazine focused on climate change, Aaron Rutkoff… Famed NYC photographer now working for the MTA, he is known for wearing vintage suits and hats daily, Marc A. Hermann turns 44… Pitching coach at San Jacinto College, he pitched for Team Israel in the 2017 World Baseball Classic and in the 2020 Olympics, Josh Zeid turns 39… Director of communications at the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, Joshua D. Cohen… Venezuelan-born featured celebrity chef, she is a caterer and a private chef in Los Angeles, Deborah Benaim turns 38… Growth strategist at Fun and Function, Jenna Nelson Beltser… Three-time all-star hockey player, most recently with PWHL Boston of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, Kaleigh Fratkin turns 34… Former COO at Bnai Zion Media, Justin B. Hayet… Competitive pair skater for Israel at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, now a software development engineer for Amazon Web Services, Andrea “Anya” Davidovich turns 29…

• President Donald Trump will attend a Kennedy Center board meeting this afternoon. The president confirmed on Friday that Richard Grenell was exiting his role as president of the arts center after just over a year in the position.
• New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is slated to briefly meet today with a group of largely local Orthodox Jewish leaders in the city, following a series of incidents in which Mamdani has had to address antisemitism in the context of his wife’s professional work and social media activity. Mainstream groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Community Relations Council-New York and the American Jewish Committee, were not invited to the meeting, which is expected to last between 15-20 minutes. Satmar leader Rabbi Moshe Indig and United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg’s Rabbi David Niederman are expected to attend.
• The Anti-Defamation League’s Never is Now conference begins today in New York. Speakers at today’s opening session include ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, GAP President and CEO Richard Dixon, actor Jerry O’Connell and Bravo stars Meredith Marks and Jackie Goldschneider.
• The Jewish Funders Network annual conference continues today in San Diego. Read more from eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher here.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MARC ROD AND lahav harkov

The ongoing war in Iran is highlighting a widening gulf between center and center-left voters in Israel and Democrats in the United States. While Democrats in the United States are mostly opposed to the war, Israelis are overwhelmingly supportive of the effort.

Recent polling from Israel has shown that 92.5% of Jewish Israelis and 81% of Israelis overall support the war.

The divide was particularly evident in an exchange on X this week between Yair Zivan, a centrist and top advisor to Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, and Matt Duss, a foreign policy advisor to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and a former confidante of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), whose post prompted the exchange. 

Sanders, on X, condemned the Israeli operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, saying, “The U.S. cannot continue to be complicit in Netanyahu’s wars.”

Zivan said in response that he was writing from a bomb shelter and that Israel “is under attack by fanatical terrorists who want to murder us,” arguing that Sanders’ “humanity never seems to extend to Israeli lives.”

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

• President Donald Trump is speaking at an event today in Hebron, Ky., the home turf of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), the House GOP’s leading isolationist and anti-Israel voice who has also opposed key Trump administration policies. Massie won’t be at the Hebron event, but Ed Gallrein, who is mounting a primary challenge to Massie and has already been endorsed by the president, will be in attendance. Read more here.
• Fox News’ Bret Baier will discuss his years covering the White House and Pentagon in conversation with Gary Rosenblatt tonight at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center in New York City. 

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV

When Israel and the U.S. launched their first strikes on Iran, Ron Dermer was in Australia, about as far as one could get from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem or the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. He soon found himself, like many other Israelis wanting to get home from abroad, on a plane to Taba, Egypt, from which point he would cross back into Israel, where airspace remains restricted.

Since November, when he resigned from his official post as strategic affairs minister, Dermer has spent most of his time traveling for speaking engagements. But now, two sources with knowledge of the matter confirmed to Jewish Insider, Dermer is back again in public service. 

He may not have an official title, but he is doing what he has done for the previous three years — serving as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest and most trusted advisor. Israel’s Walla News quoted a source in the Prime Minister’s Office who said Dermer was reporting for “reserve duty,” like over 100,000 other Israelis since the outset of the war with Iran.

Netanyahu and Dermer’s relationship has been so close for the past 26 years that Dermer has been called the prime minister’s third son and nicknamed “Bibi’s brain.” With a very small inner circle and few advisors whom he truly trusts, Netanyahu views Dermer as a critical asset to his team at a time when the U.S. and Israel are making decisions that will determine the future of the Middle East for years to come.

Dermer is also known as having a good relationship with the Trump administration, and has reportedly been taking part in Netanyahu’s nightly calls with President Donald Trump. 

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

Russia-Iran Axis: In The Washington Post, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) argues that the U.S. must address the looming threat posed by Russia as it bolsters Iran in the current war against the U.S. and Israel. “That Russia-Iran partnership is now shaping the war in the Middle East as well. According to The Washington Post, U.S. officials believe Russia is sharing intelligence with Iran as Tehran targets American and allied interests in the region. Russia is not a bystander in this crisis. It is helping Iran challenge the United States. … Stopping Iran’s attacks on Americans must go hand in hand with tightening pressure on the Kremlin. Enforcing sanctions on Russia’s oil exports, cracking down on the shadow fleet that funds Putin’s war and deepening cooperation with Ukraine’s battle-tested military are not favors to Kyiv. They are steps that protect American troops and interests.” [WashPost]

School Daze: The New Yorker’s Nicholas Lemann looks at tensions between universities that have long relied on federal funding and the government as the Trump administration cracks down on campuses over social issues and schools’ alleged failures to address antisemitism. “The Trump Administration has deployed a brutally effective, previously unused technique for getting these institutions’ full attention: suspending their funds, even those appropriated by Congress and legally committed to in contracts. The Trump Administration is unusual in its disregard for the law, rough way of doing business, and heedlessness about the effects of its actions. Still, it isn’t completely out of touch with political reality. These actions are not nearly as unpopular as universities think they should be.” [NewYorker]

The Hamas Caucus: Commentary’s Seth Mandel reflects on the growing tolerance in some political circles for individuals who support Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. “Most of all, it’s just a strange feeling to know how many of the people you interact with would be unmoved if you were to go up in flames right in front of them. Essentially, October 7 became the kind of dividing line that made a lot of Jews understand history. So it’s a useful question to ponder: How should we act? After all, not only must we maintain precisely the values we did before, but we also should work toward returning society to a place in which support for October 7 brings public shame.” [Commentary]

Lev’s Lefty Son: USA Today’s Jay Stahl profiles Gen Z Democratic influencer Aaron Parnas, the son of former Trump associate and congressional candidate Lev Parnas. “From his front-facing iPhone camera, the low-key lawyer, formerly a practicing civil litigator, amassed more than 7.5 million followers on Instagram and TikTok. His fan base eclipses the entire following of progressive American media companies such as The Huffington Post and Mother Jones. … His TikTok has nearly 600 million all-time likes. His Parnas Perspective newsletter on Substack is ranked No. 1 in the news category. He wakes up every day by 7:45 a.m., pours a cup of coffee and releases his first Substack morning report by 9:30 a.m. ET. His loyal fan base is diverse, ranging from Gen Z political observers to White MS NOW moms and Black TikTokers who praise his go-go-go posting schedule.” [USAToday]

With no clear path to confirmation in the Senate, Jeremy Carl withdrew his nomination to be assistant secretary of state for international organizations on Tuesday, a month after he was grilled at a confirmation hearing and struggled to explain his past antisemitic, anti-Israel and otherwise inflammatory comments, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

The Senate confirmed Gen. Joshua Rudd as head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command in a 71-29 vote…

The Pentagon said that approximately 140 U.S. servicemembers have been injured since the start of the war with Iran, the majority of whom have suffered minor injuries…

A U.S. diplomatic facility in Baghdad was struck in a drone assault believed to have been launched by a pro-Iran militia; five of the six drones fired at the logistics hub were shot down, with one hitting the compound…

The State Department ordered the evacuation of U.S. diplomats and their families from a consulate in the southern Turkish city of Adana and suspended all consular services at the branch after two missiles aimed at Turkey were shot down…

Iranian and Israeli officials said that newly named Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei was wounded during the opening salvos of the war last month, though the extent of his injuries was unknown…

Israeli officials told the Financial Times that they expect the country’s conflict against Hezbollah in Lebanon to continue on after the conclusion of the war with Iran…

The New York Times’ Bret Stephens considers the possible scenarios going forward in Iran, including regime change, regime modification and potential state collapse…

The Washington Post looks at an Iran-backed propaganda effort using the conspiracy theory that the U.S. and Israel jointly launched the war against Iran to distract from the Epstein files in an effort to draw attention to Tehran’s talking points…

The Financial Times reports on the use of a “number station” in western Europe that is transmitting what appear to be Farsi codes to receivers in Iran as part of what former U.S. intelligence officials have suggested could be a way for Washington to connect with agents inside the Islamic Republic…

FIFA head Gianni Infantino said that President Donald Trump had provided assurances that the Iranian national soccer team would be “welcome” to participate in this year’s World Cup, which is taking place at a number of venues across North America…

The Wall Street Journal spotlights Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline and the United Arab Emirates’ Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, both of which were built to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, which is effectively controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and is where Iran has begun to lay mines…

A federal judge is weighing whether to force the University of Pennsylvania to turn over records of Jewish students and faculty to the Trump administration as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission attempts to conduct a probe into antisemitism at the Ivy League school; read more about the legal battle here… 

Clay Fuller, a Trump-endorsed district attorney, easily advanced to a runoff in the special election to replace former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in Congress; Fuller will face off next month against a long-shot Democratic candidate, veteran Shawn Harris…

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is endorsing former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn in the race to replace retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD); Hoyer, who served with Pelosi in House Democratic leadership, has endorsed state Del. Adrian Boafo…

Populist political neophyte Allison Ziogas launched a bid for Congress in New York City’s only red district, which covers Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn and is currently represented by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY); Ziogas has tapped Democratic consultant Morris Katz, who has worked with far-left candidates including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner… 

CNN significantly changed a story and removed a social media post on Tuesday that downplayed an attempted terrorist attack over the weekend outside of Manhattan’s Gracie Mansion, initially writing that the suspects traveled from Pennsylvania for “what could’ve been a normal day” during the city’s “abnormally warm weather,” Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports…

Pershing Square’s Bill Ackman filed for an initial public offering to take his hedge fund public in tandem with a new investment fund, Pershing Square USA…

J., The Jewish News of Northern California spotlights the newly formed Garry’s List, the self-described “radically centrist,” nonpartisan group formed by Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan that seeks to influence California state politics and is attracting Jewish and Israeli tech and business professionals…

Police in San Jose, Calif., are investigating a violent attack against two adult men outside an upscale restaurant as an antisemitic hate crime, a spokesperson for the police department confirmed on Tuesday, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. Tali Klima, a spokesperson for the grassroots advocacy group Bay Area Jewish Coalition, urged elected officials in the Silicon Valley community to speak out against the attack, which occurred in Rep. Ro Khanna’s (D-CA) district…

The Secure Community Network said that there is no known threat to the Jewish community following an active shooter incident Tuesday afternoon near the Agudath Israel of Baltimore synagogue in which a Baltimore Police officer and a suspect were shot, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports…

Police in Teaneck, N.J., arrested a teenager accused of shooting a Jewish man with a gel pellet gun from a car after stopping to ask the man his views on the Israel-Palestinian conflict…

U.K. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood approved a request from London’s Metropolitan Police to ban the annual Al Quds Day march, which had been slated for Saturday and had faced criticism for organizers’ support for assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei…

Australia assisted two additional members of Iran’s national women’s soccer team in seeking asylum after granting asylum to five of their teammates; one of the women changed her mind and contacted the Iranian Embassy to assist in repatriation efforts, disclosing the team’s location to Iranian officials and prompting those who planned to stay in Australia to have to move… 

Former Heritage Foundation staffer Daniel Flesch is joining the Foundation for Defense of Democracies after departing Heritage amid a mass exodus in response to Heritage President Kevin Roberts’ defense of Tucker Carlson…

United Hatzalah President Eli Beer (left) on Tuesday visited a site in central Israel where a fragment of an intercepted Iranian ballistic missile landed.

Composer and conductor, he has composed the music for nearly 100 feature films, David Louis Newman turns 72…

Pioneering investor in high-tech startups, he was the chairman of Compaq Computer for 18 years, Benjamin “Ben” M. Rosen turns 93… Professor emeritus at Princeton University whose research focused upon the Cairo Geniza and Jewish life in Muslim countries, Mark R. Cohen turns 83… Doctor of nursing practice, Hermine Jan Warren… Film producer, director and writer, Jerry Gordon Zucker turns 76… Retired office administrator at Creative Wealth Management in Islandia, N.Y., Glenda Kresh… Culinary writer, television host and novelist, Steven Raichlen turns 73… Suzanne Dreyfus… Co-owner of One Oak Vineyard in Sonoma, Calif., Laura Zimmerman… Chairman of Lions Gate Entertainment and head of MHR Fund Management, Mark Rachesky turns 67… President of the United Arab Emirates and the ruler of Abu Dhabi, popularly known by his initials MBZ, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan turns 65… CEO of The Carlyle Group, the world’s sixth-largest private equity firm, Harvey M. Schwartz turns 62… Managing director of Rockefeller Capital Management, Alexandra Lebenthal turns 62… College physician at Stony Brook University, internal medicine specialist, Richard E. Tuckman, MD turns 61… CEO of Weiss Public Affairs, Amy Weiss… President of JCS International, a global media company, she was a journalist for over two decades with Yedioth Ahronoth, Michal Grayevsky… Singer-songwriter, she also promotes an eponymous line of eyeglasses, Lisa Loeb turns 58… Keyboardist for the rock band Foo Fighters, Rami Jaffee turns 57… Technology executive and data scientist, Jon Cohen… CEO of Campus Apartments and a limited partner of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils, David J. Adelman turns 54… Chief of staff at American Friends of Magen David Adom, Daniel Kochavi… United States District Court judge based in Atlanta since 2019, Judge Steven Daniel Grimberg turns 52… Israeli singer-songwriter and pianist who has twice been recognized as Israel’s Singer of the Year, Keren Peles Toor turns 47… Film, theater and television actress, Lucy Chet DeVito turns 43… Partner at Ridgewood Energy, an energy-focused private equity firm, Samuel J. Lissner… CEO of Flowcarbon, Dana Stern Gibber… Financial consultant at Wells Fargo Advisors, Lev Beltser… Assistant director of Ramah Sports Academy, Ayala Wasser… Director of the Israel office at Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre, Richard Pater… Principal and chief strategist at MCS Group, Sharon Polansky…

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine are holding a press conference at 8 a.m. about the ongoing U.S. and Israeli military operations in Iran.
• Legislators on both sides of the Capitol could vote as soon as today on war powers resolutions. More below on an effort by a group of moderate House Democrats to push an alternative resolution that would give the Trump administration some leeway as it continues to strike Iran.
• In Iran, multiday funeral proceedings for assassinated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that were slated to begin today have been postponed. Surviving senior Iranian clerics could announce a successor to Khamenei as soon as today, with his son Mojtaba Khamenei considered a likely contender. More below.
• The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is releasing its annual report this afternoon at an event on Capitol Hill.
• The Heritage Foundation is launching its 2026 “Index of U.S. Military Strength” at an event this morning at the think tank’s Washington headquarters. Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Reps. August Pfluger (R-TX), Pat Harrigan (R-TX) and Matt Van Epps (R-TN) are slated to give remarks, along with Heritage’s Rob Greenway and Victoria Coates.
• Reut USA’s “AJ2026: Launching a Decade of Renewal” kicks off today in Miami. Read more here.
• Author Izabella Tabarovsky is speaking tonight at a UJA-Federation of New York event about her latest book, Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student’s Survival Guide.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

A strong anti-incumbent mood is apparent in the electorate, based on primary results from North Carolina and Texas’ congressional primaries Tuesday night. Meanwhile, one sitting Democratic lawmaker who lost support from AIPAC is narrowly fending off a challenge from a virulently anti-Israel challenger who campaigned in the closing days of the primary against the Iran war. 

Big picture: There’s a deep skepticism of the political establishment throughout the country within both parties. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), a center-right hawk who was one of the stars of the 2018 GOP freshman class, badly lost to state Rep. Steve Toth, a right-wing challenger backed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). 

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is doing a bit better than public polls suggested, but still is only polling in the low 40s against MAGA-aligned Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a race that’s headed to a runoff.

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), who has been enmeshed in scandal after his extramarital affair with a staffer, who later died by suicide, became public, is leading social media influencer Brandon Herrera, but is also only polling in the low-40s and will also be headed to a runoff. 

On the Democratic side, Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC), who was boosted to office in 2022 with AIPAC support but has since grown more critical of Israel, is clinging to a one-point lead (49-48%) over Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, who would have become one of the most anti-Israel lawmakers in Congress if she was elected. Allam was backed by the far-left Justice Democrats and received support from a new super PAC attempting to elect anti-Israel lawmakers.

The Iran war may have played a key role in the primary. Foushee won the early vote by an eight-point margin, but Allam carried the Election Day vote by six points — after airing an ad blasting the war in Iran and baselessly accusing the United States of targeting civilians. 

And in a member-against-member Democratic primary in Texas, Rep. Al Green (D-TX), one of the most left-wing members of Congress who has been a reliable vote against Israel, is narrowly trailing newly elected Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX), a more mainstream Democrat. Menefee looks like the favorite, but is short of the 50% necessary to avoid a runoff. 

Meanwhile, former Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) is on track to reclaim his old suburban Dallas seat, unseating Rep. Julie Johnson (D-TX) in the process. But he’s likely heading to a runoff as well. 

All told, pro-Israel Democrats can express a bit of relief toward Tuesday night’s primary results. Assuming Foushee holds on to victory, it blocks the path of a Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) prototype from getting elected to Congress. If Allam prevailed, she could have held that safely Democratic seat — and an anti-Israel platform — for many years.

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

Regional Realignment: In The Wall Street Journal, Shimon Refaeli, an advisor to former Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, posits that Iran’s attacks on Arab countries across the Middle East underscores the importance of a new regional order — proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2024 — that brings together Israel and moderate Arab states. “A regional alliance could evolve from a mechanism to contain Iran into a broader framework for regional stabilization and deterrence. In this sense, the emerging alliance is an expression of a deeper structural change in the region: the convergence of moderate states around shared interests of stability, technology, air defense, trade routes and maritime security. The Iranian threat exposed the need for an integrated system. Even if the threat diminishes, that need won’t disappear. It will become the foundation for a long-term security architecture.” [WSJ]

Minority Rights: In The Washington Post, Aram Hessami argues that Iran’s ethnic minority groups — which comprise approximately half of the Islamic Republic’s population — are a key cog in any future Iranian government. “Even as Iranian minorities endured decades of discrimination at the hands of the theocratic regime, they built networks of civic engagement, political leadership and social organization that make them uniquely capable of contributing to a future state grounded in pluralism and citizenship. … Their organizational depth and their long history of fostering political associations and activism qualify them to defend against tyranny and help lay the foundation for democratic, pluralistic, lasting governance.” [WashPost]

Crying Over Khamenei: The Atlantic’s Gal Beckerman reflects on the emotional response of Iranians, both pro- and anti-regime, to the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “It would be easy to reduce these tears to simple expressions of either happiness or sadness. But if we recognize the deeper well they are drawn from, the implications for what happens next are much more troubling. You can’t just wipe away that feeling of rupture, or the decades of fear that preceded it. People become comfortable with the reality they know; they will mourn even an abusive father, and might require a lifetime to overcome the abuse. Even those who unreservedly despised him, but had no other leader, might not know what to look for in an alternative, or whether to trust a good steward if one comes along.” [TheAtlantic]

Facing concerns from Senate Republicans over her agency’s preparedness, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday defended the department’s ability to respond to potential Iranian sleeper-cell threats as the Department of Homeland Security remains unfunded and under a partial shutdown amid an escalating conflict with Tehran, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports… 

Axios reports on a Feb. 23 call between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which Israel shared intelligence indicating that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his top advisors would be meeting in a single location, prompting the strikes that would take place days later…

The Wall Street Journal does a deep dive into the hour-by-hour U.S. and Israeli military moves that took down the top echelon of the regime…

Politico spotlights Iran’s Kharg Island, which houses the Islamic Republic’s most important oil facility, as Trump faces calls to seize the Persian Gulf island…

Talking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity, White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said that on three occasions, talks with Iran “opened up with the Iranian negotiators telling us they had the inalienable right to enrich all the nuclear fuel that they possessed,” with Witkoff and Jared Kushner responding “that the president feels we have the inalienable right to stop you dead in your tracks”…

Hannity told podcaster and former White House official Katie Miller that his former colleague, far-right commentator Tucker Carlson, is “not the person that I knew when he was at Fox”…

A new poll from Fox News found Americans split 50-50 on U.S. military action targeting Iran…

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who voiced support over the weekend for strikes against Iran, said that the U.S.- and Israeli-led war is “another example of the failure of the international order”… 

In an interview at Bloomberg Invest 2026, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan said that Iran was “a problem that needed to be dealt with, and if it were dealt with in other years, it would have been more difficult. And so the notion that it’s being dealt with today in some ways is reassuring, notwithstanding the current instability”…

Democratic lawmakers speaking at the Monday evening gala of J Street’s Washington conference argued that the joint U.S.-Israel operation that killed many top Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would ultimately make Iranians, Israelis and the United States less safe, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

In an event to promote his upcoming book, California Gov. Gavin Newsom suggested that the U.S. may have to rethink its military aid to Israel, and said that it would be accurate to describe Israel as “sort of an apartheid state”…

The Jewish Agency for Israel is launching a new fund to provide direct and immediate grants to victims of Iranian attacks in Israel during the current conflict,eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports…

The Department of Homeland Security is opening an investigation into antisemitic comments allegedly made by Greg Bovino, the former head of U.S. Border Patrol, complaining about the inaccessibility of the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, who is Jewish, over Shabbat…

The King County Prosecutor’s Office in Washington state filed criminal trespass charges against nearly three dozen people accused of taking over a building on the University of Washington’s flagship campus last spring, but stopped short of charging them with vandalism despite the demonstrators having caused more than $1 million in damage to the building…

An X account believed to belong to the man who killed three people in Austin, Texas, over the weekend was found to contain numerous antisemitic and pro-Iranian regime posts…

Police in San Luis Obispo, Calif., are investigating an incident that took place outside the house of the California Polytechnic State University chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi in which a group of men yelled antisemitic slurs at members of the Jewish fraternity; the incident comes as the university faces congressional scrutiny over its handling of antisemitism on campus…

A Toronto synagogue was shot at Monday night, causing damage to the building’s exterior, according to police. Toronto Police Service said that there were several bullet holes in the front windows of Temple Emanu-El in North York; no injuries were reported, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports…

Team Israel played an exhibition game against the Miami Marlins ahead of the team’s first game in the World Baseball Classic this upcoming weekend…

The German Culture Ministry, which provides funding for the annual Berlinale, is creating a board of advisors to oversee the film festival’s executive director and instituting a code of conduct regarding antisemitism after incidents last year in which award winners used their speaking time to criticize Israel…

Geraldine Schottenstein, who with her husband, Jerome, was a major donor to Jewish causes in the Columbus, Ohio, area, including Jewish Columbus and the newly renamed Jerome and Geraldine Schottenstein Chabad House Student Center at The Ohio State University, died at 93…

American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad)’s Rabbi Levi Shemtov led a Megillah reading yesterday in the Indian Treaty Room at the White House for over 50 senior administration officials and staff.

British promoter of rock concerts, charity concerts and television broadcasts, Harvey Goldsmith turns 80…

Composer, conductor, author and music professor, Samuel Adler turns 98… Broadcast journalist and author, she is best known as a correspondent for the ABC news magazine “20/20” for almost 30 years, Lynn Sherr turns 84… Board member emeritus at New York City Center, Perry B. Granoff turns 83… North American representative of World ORT for 20 years, Harry Nadler… Screenwriter and director, she is the mother of actors Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal turns 80… Retired CEO of LCH Clearnet LLC, a clearinghouse affiliated with the London Stock Exchange, David A. Weisbrod… Former director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America, Rabbi Avi Shafran turns 72… U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) turns 68… Founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools, Eva Moskowitz turns 62… President of the New England Patriots, Jonathan A. Kraft turns 62… Manager of the Louvre’s restitution investigations of art looted from Jewish families during the Nazi and Vichy regimes, Emmanuelle Polack turns 61… U.S. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) turns 58… Former member of both the New York City Council and state Assembly, now at the Brandeis Center, Rory I. Lancman turns 57… Evan L. Presser… Staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, Emily Bazelon… Chief of staff at Goldman Sachs, Russell Horwitz… First Jewish player to be selected in the top round of the NHL Draft (1998), Michael Henrich turns 46… Member of the Knesset for the New Hope party, Sharren Haskel turns 42… VP of public policy at the International Council of Shopping Centers, Abigail Goldstein “Abby” Jagoda… Brazilian entrepreneur and software engineer who co-founded Instagram in 2010, Michel “Mike” Krieger turns 40… Singer, music producer and composer, Aryeh Kunstler turns 40… Chief of staff for New York state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, Victoria “Tori” Burhans Kelly… Israeli-born basketball player who played for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans, Gal Mekel turns 38… Model and actress, she was a lead Victoria’s Secret model, Erin Heatherton (born as Erin Heather Bubley) turns 37… Foreign policy advisor for U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL-22), Jennifer Miller… Ice hockey goaltender for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in the American Hockey League, Yaniv Perets turns 26…

• President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet at the White House at 11 a.m., following Netanyahu’s meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at 9 a.m. at Blair House. More below.
• Vice President JD Vance is wrapping up his two-country trip to Armenia and Azerbaijan in Baku. Traveling with the vice president are Aryeh Lightstone, a key player in the Trump administration’s effort to negotiate a ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan last year, and Jacob Helberg, the under secretary of state for economic growth, energy, and the environment.
• American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch is speaking at New York’s Temple Emanu-El tonight to discuss the organization’s annual report on antisemitism in America, which was released yesterday.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will sit down with President Donald Trump at 11 a.m. today at the White House for a meeting largely focused on Iran that, in a twist of fate, coincides with the 47th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. 

The meeting — their seventh since Trump resumed office — comes amid a tense political backdrop, with the White House outwardly signaling it prefers diplomacy with Tehran while moving military assets to the Middle East. As recently as yesterday, Trump teased the possibility of sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the region.

Joining Netanyahu on the trip is Roman Goffman, the military secretary to the prime minister who was nominated to be head of the Mossad; Gil Reich, the acting head of Israel’s National Security Council; and Israeli-American venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg, who is working with Jerusalem on the Gaza portfolio. Reich and Goffman are among the Israeli officials, including Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter and Military Intelligence chief Shlomi Binder, who have taken on portions of former Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer’s portfolio. 

Netanyahu, Goffman, Leiter and Reich met last night at the Blair House with White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who updated the Israeli officials on last Friday’s negotiations with Iran, ahead of this morning’s White House meeting.

But what began more than a month ago as White House concern over Iran’s violent crackdowns on protesters — recall Trump’s message to Iranians that “help is on its way” — has morphed into nuclear talks that appear to leave out Tehran’s domestic situation.

Despite the ongoing crackdown, which mollified protests and left tens of thousands dead, video circulating on social media and messaging apps believed to be from last night featured some residents of Tehran taking to their balconies to chant, “death to Khamenei,” “death to the dictator” and “death to Islamic Republic” ahead of today’s anniversary of the fall of the shah. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who spent the weekend golfing with Trump in Florida, posted on X last night, “To the brave people of Iran: President Trump has always heard your cries and demands for justice. The regime has proven yet again it’s incapable of real change. If this regime continues the course they are on, then I believe President Trump’s statement that help is on the way is becoming more real by the day.”

Vice President JD Vance, who is traveling to Armenia and Azerbaijan this week, said today that “if the Iranian people want to overthrow the regime, that’s up to the Iranian people. What we’re focused on right now is the fact that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s National Security Council, spent Tuesday in Oman for high-level meetings about the next round of talks with the U.S. Larijani’s meetings included a sit-down with Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaid, who served as the mediator for last week’s talks in Muscat. Iranian state media reported after the meeting that al-Busaid “handed over a letter” to Larijani, but did not elaborate on the letter’s contents or who it was from.

As Netanyahu departed for Washington yesterday, he emphasized that the negotiations with Iran would be the priority. “I will present to the president our outlook regarding the principles of these negotiations — the essential principles which, in my opinion, are important not only to Israel, but to everyone around the world who wants peace and security in the Middle East,” Netanyahu said.

For Israel, one of those essential principles is significantly limiting Iran’s ballistic missile program. After today’s meeting, it should become clearer whether Trump and Netanyahu are on the same page.

Oil Change: Former Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Karen Elliott House, reflects on her recent trip to Saudi Arabia and the challenges facing Riyadh as it scales back its Vision 2030 plans. “These are tough times for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Some of his grandiose projects are being scrapped as unworkable and unaffordable with oil prices around $65 a barrel. The risk of a U.S. war with Iran puts all his other big developments — and the oil that funds them — at risk of retaliation. And the death of his elderly, infirm father, King Salman, could soon bring succession issues to the fore. … The kingdom seems confused about what it wants. Officials are disquieted by Mr. Trump’s on-again-off-again threats to strike Iran. The Saudi defense minister recently warned in Washington that a failure to strike would ‘embolden’ the Iranian regime. Yet his government insists it wants no strike.” [WSJ] 

Ukraine’s Iron Dome: The Atlantic’s Simon Shuster spotlights Ukraine’s Sunray missile-defense system that employs laser technology. “The Ukrainian response has been a race to build a bootstrapped version of the Iron Dome, Israel’s short-range air-defense system, which is thought to be the most effective in the world. (Lockheed Martin is now at work on a comparable system for the United States, which President Trump has dubbed the ‘Golden Dome.’) But the task of shooting projectiles out of the sky — or, as ballistic-missile defense is often described, ‘hitting a bullet with a bullet’ — has bedeviled engineers at least since the invention of ballistic missiles during World War II. Even in the case of Israel, which has nearly 30 times less territory than Ukraine, the construction of an effective air-defense shield took about four years. A single battery of Iron Dome interceptors cost as much as $100 million in 2012.” [TheAtlantic]

The Unfavorables: In the Liberal Patriot, John Halpin examines why world leaders tend to have low favorability numbers. “A few themes do emerge to help explain why so many leaders are unpopular. One, they are polarizing figures who split electorates. [President Donald] Trump and Turkey’s [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan most come to mind here; their supporters really like them, and their opponents fervently despise them. Two, they are viewed by voters as either corrupt (like South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa) or as out-of-touch elites failing to bring about changes that many voters demanded (like [French President Emmanuel] Macron or {U.K. Prime Minister Keir] Starmer). Three, they are not addressing voters’ long-standing economic concerns that have been mounting for decades.” [LiberalPatriot]

The Treasury Department announced sanctions on the Hezbollah-linked gold exchange company Jood SARL and a series of business entities tied to the Lebanese terror group and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps…

A draft plan for the rehabilitation of Gaza viewed by The New York Times would allow Hamas to keep some small arms even as it would be required to relinquish weapons that are capable of striking Israel…

A group of eight leading Senate Democrats released a statement on Tuesday evening urging President Donald Trump to “clearly reinforce the opposition of the U.S. government to Israeli government actions that set the conditions for irreversible annexation” of the West Bank when he meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House today, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports…

House members on both sides of the aisle raised concerns about the new Syrian government’s recent moves against minority groups, particularly the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, in some cases questioning whether Damascus is complying with lawmakers’ expectations after the Caesar Act sanctions on Syria were lifted, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

Republican lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee urged their Democratic colleagues on Tuesday to work with them on legislation to update the Internal Revenue Service’s 990 forms used by tax-exempt organizations to include disclosures for donations from foreign actors, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports…

Columbia University is considering expanding and refocusing how its Middle Eastern studies department teaches about Israel, the provost’s regional review committee announced in a set of recommendations this week, marking a pivot in a field and at a school that have come under immense scrutiny from the federal government and Jewish leaders following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports… 

Noah Pollak, a senior advisor at the Department of Education, offered a series of recommendations, including broader cultural changes and vigorous disciplinary action, on how universities can and should reform to better address antisemitism on campus, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) officially launched her reelection bid in what is expected to be her toughest reelection campaign to date in a state considered by Democrats to be a potential flip in the midterms…

Analilia Mejia, the presumptive winner of the special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, said she wouldn’t commit to voting for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) if she is in Congress in January 2027 for the next House leadership vote…

Neighbors of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro are suing him over his family’s moves to make security upgrades to their property following an arson attack directed at the governor’s mansion last year…

A synagogue in Montgomery County, Md., a suburb of Washington, was defaced with antisemitic graffiti on Tuesday. A swastika, the word “genocide” and the phrase “AZAB,” an acronym standing for “All Zionists Are Bastards,” were spray-painted on street signs and banners outside of Shaare Tefila, a Conservative congregation in Olney, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports… 

Candle Media sold a majority stake in ATTN: back to co-founders Matthew Segal and Jarrett Moreno, after previously acquiring the startup in 2022 for $150 million; investors in the acquisition include former Paramount Global chair Shari Redstone and Andell Holdings Chair Andrew Hauptman…

Paramount is making additional offers to Warner Bros. Discovery in its hostile takeover bid, including paying the $2.8 billion fee Warner Bros would owe Netflix if it were to terminate its agreement in favor of moving forward with Paramount; the offer comes as activist investor Ancora Holdings, which has an approximately $200 million stake in Warner Bros., is expected to oppose the Netflix sale…

Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman is planning to grow his foundation to become one of the 10 largest foundations in the country; last month, his foundation hired a new executive director, and plans to continue to prioritize education, culture and medical advancements as it scales up its work…

Former General Atlantic President and co-chair Anton Levy is launching Layer Global, an investment firm focused on investing in early-stage startups…

Venezuela is shipping crude oil to Israel for the first time in nearly six years, just over a month after the arrest of then-President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces…

The New York Times looks at efforts in Syria to cater to Jewish visitors as the country increasingly opens up to tourists, as some members of the Syrian Jewish diaspora seek to reclaim property that had belonged to them decades ago…

Jonah Kaplan was tapped as a correspondent by CBS News, joining the network from WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, where he was an investigative reporter…

Holocaust survivor Gabor Boritt, who after coming to the U.S. as a refugee became one of the country’s preeminent scholars on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, died at 86…

Newly announced National Council of Jewish Women CEO Jody Rabhan was on Capitol Hill yesterday, giving challah to Jewish legislators, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, ahead of the organization’s annual Shabbat focused on reproductive rights.

Tight end on the NFL’s Carolina Panthers for four seasons ending in 2006, Mike Seidman turns 45…

Journalist, writer, political commentator and author of a Passover Haggadah co-written with his late wife Cokie Roberts, Steven V. Roberts turns 83… NYC-based gastroenterologist, he is a past president of American Friends of Likud, Julio Messer, M.D. turns 74… Governor of Florida from 1999-2007, John Ellis “Jeb” Bush turns 73… Former Knesset member for the Jewish Home, Likud and Ahi parties, Eliyahu Michael “Eli” Ben-Dahan turns 72… ProPublica’s editor-in-chief since 2013, he was previously at The New York Times for 18 years, Stephen Engelberg turns 68… Victorville, Calif., resident, Tricia Roth… Hospice and palliative care physician, Gary E. Applebaum, MD… Retired consultant, Alan Vorchheimer… U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) turns 64… Admin and special project coordinator for Jewish Renewal programs at JDC, Debbie Halali… Founder and president of RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, Scott Berkowitz… Governor of Hawaii, one of three current Jewish governors that are named Josh, Joshua B. Green turns 56… Managing principal at Baltimore-based real estate firm, Quest Management Group, Jason Reitberger turns 52… Elected as a member of the Broward County (Florida) School Board in the months following the death of her daughter at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, Lori Alhadeff turns 51… Director and executive producer of the broadcast team at Salesforce, Rob Hendin… Ilana Ozernoy… Executive at City Winery, he was also a pitcher for Team Israel in qualifying for the 2020 Olympics, Shlomo Lipetz turns 47… Executive director of Merkos 302 at Chabad World Headquarters, Mendy Kotlarsky turns 44… Republican strategist and president of Somm Consulting, Evan Siegfried… Administrator of NASA since December 2025, Jared Taylor Isaacman turns 43… Senior relationship manager at Bank of America’s Transformative Healthcare Group, David B. Stern… Senior program director at TELUS Digital, Michelle Zar Beecher… Manager of account management at FiscalNote, Rachel Kosberg… Assistant general manager for MLB’s Baltimore Orioles, Eve Rosenbaum turns 36… M&A partner at Kirkland & Ellis, Alix Simnock… Senior associate attorney at EarthJustice and author of two books on origami, Scott Wasserman Stern… and his twin brother, SVP at Fight Agency, Eric Wasserman Stern, both turn 33… Forward deployed engineer at a stealth startup, CY “Joy” Neuberger Twersky… and her masterchef brother, exactly one year younger, Yisroel Neuberger…

• White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are wrapping up two days of meetings in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, focused on the Russia-Ukraine war, and will likely depart to Oman ahead of talks with Iran tomorrow. The White House had threatened to walk away from the meeting, initially planned for Turkey, over a series of last-minute Iranian demands, including the change of venue and limiting the scope to Tehran’s nuclear program. The talks, which are viewed in Israel with deep skepticism, are for now back on following the urging of some Arab states for Washington to remain at the table. More below.
• Israel’s Security Cabinet is convening today at 4 p.m. local time.
• It’s primary day in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District. Voters are heading to the polls today to cast their ballots to choose the successor to fill now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s House seat. AIPAC’s super PAC United Democracy Project has spent upwards of $2 million in the district on ads targeting former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) following his leftward shift on foreign policy. More below.
• The Hudson Institute is hosting a sit-down this afternoon with State Department antisemitism envoy Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun.
• Civic Spirit and the The Jewish Education Project are hosting a daylong summit today in New York focused on civic education in Jewish day schools and American Jewish identity.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV

It didn’t take long – just over two hours, to be precise – between the news of the apparent collapse of talks between the U.S. and Iran and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s announcement on X that they were back on: “Nuclear talks with the United States are scheduled to be held in Muscat on about 10 am Friday.” Anonymous American sources then confirmed to various media that negotiations were set to take place, after leaders of Arab and Muslim countries urged the Trump administration to give them a chance, despite Iran’s prevarications.

Still, Araghchi’s statement alludes to one of the major reasons that the talks were, briefly, called off: Are they only “nuclear talks” or are they about a range of malign behavior by the Islamic Republic? 

The Iranian answer to that question is clear, but the Trump administration sent mixed messages.

President Donald Trump’s interview yesterday with NBC provides few clues. The president expressed support for the protesters against the Iranian regime, saying “we’ve had their back.” 

Yet, in a bit of revisionist history, Trump portrayed his recent threats to Iran as being solely about the nuclear file: “They were thinking of starting a new [nuclear] site in a different part of the country. We found out about it and said, ‘you do that, we’re going to do very bad things to you,'” Trump said. He didn’t mention ballistic missiles in the interview.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, specified that “as far as the topics [of negotiations] and what the agenda needs to be, I think that in order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things, and that includes the range of their ballistic missiles, that includes the sponsorship of terrorist organizations across the region, that includes the nuclear program and that includes the treatment of their own people.”

“Beyond that,” Rubio said, “the president retains a number of options as to how to respond to [the violent crackdown on protesters] and future events.”

Vice President JD Vance told Megyn Kelly that stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon was the main concern: “In a perfect world, would I love it if a bunch of freedom-loving Iranians… had a government that was much more friendly to the United States of America? Would that be a good thing? Absolutely.”

“But fundamentally,” he added, “the president has been focused …  on this question of ensuring that they don’t get a nuclear weapon. .. I feel 100% confident that even if the Iranians were rushing toward a nuclear weapon, they couldn’t get one during the Trump administration. But we’re not thinking about the next three years; we’re thinking about the next 30 years.”

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

Decision Time: The Washington Post’s Marc Thiessen weighs the risks of President Donald Trump backing away from action on Iran. “There are risks to military action in Iran, just as there were risks to the military action in Venezuela. We take the success of the Venezuelan operation for granted today, but it could easily have gone sideways: A helicopter could have crashed, Americans could have been killed, and U.S. forces could have failed to achieve their objective. Deposing the Maduro regime by force was a bold and courageous decision. And deposing the Iranian regime by force will require similar presidential courage. Though a weakened Iran cannot stop the U.S. military, it could inflict damage on both the United States and Israel. In Venezuela, Trump concluded that the risks of inaction outweighed the risks of action. That is doubly true for Iran.” [WashPost]

For Whom the Toll Tolls: In The New York Times, Scott Anderson considers what the range in death tolls from Iran’s recent crackdown says about Tehran’s treatment of protesters. “In conventional wars, combatants often minimize their own casualty figures while exaggerating those of their enemy to bolster morale and suggest victory is close. In internal insurrections like what we have witnessed in Iran, this formula tends to be reversed, with the state lowballing casualty numbers — no government wants to be seen as indiscriminately slaughtering its citizens — and dissidents raising them to provoke outrage. The current Iranian regime has the dubious distinction of having traveled both sides of the street. … Whatever the final number proves to be, it may have carried out one of the worst state-sanctioned massacres of unarmed civilians anywhere in nearly a half century in order to survive.” [NYTimes]

After Charlie Kirk: The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg reflects on how the death of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk has “destabilized the entire Trump coalition,” calling Kirk “a pivotal person” who had held the movement together. “In doing so, the killer helped unshackle dark forces — chief among them anti-Semitism — that now threaten to overtake the conservative movement. … On one level, this conflict is about Jews and Israel. But on another, this debate is downstream from something much bigger: a power struggle over who will define and control the MAGA movement once Trump is gone. By painting rivals as tools of the Jews, hard-right influencers such as Carlson and Bannon hope to delegitimize the competition not by besting their ideas, but by slurring their loyalties and identity.” [TheAtlantic]

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced on Tuesday that he had drafted legislation designating the Polisario Front, the militant group that claims sovereignty over parts of the Western Sahara, as a foreign terrorist organization and will formally introduce it “if there’s no change in their behavior,”Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports….

Reps. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) introduced the Internet Reach and Access Now (IRAN) Act, requiring the administration to implement, and periodically update, a strategy to promote internet access for Iranian civilians…

A small group of lawmakers received a redacted copy of a classified whistleblower complaint made against Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard; an investigation into the complaint had for months been stalled over the DNI’s refusal to share the information with Congress…

Federal prosecutors filed four additional terrorism-related charges against the Chicago man accused of killing two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington last year…

The World Jewish Congress’ Menachem Rosensaft is calling on the Alliance for Downtown New York, which maintains hundreds of commemorative markers on the sidewalks of Manhattan’s Lower Broadway, not to replace the marker honoring former French Prime Minister and Nazi collaborator Pierre Laval, which had been damaged and become a tripping hazard before its temporary removal…

PEN America walked back its condemnation of protests targeting an Israeli comedian whose Los Angeles shows were canceled; PEN America had previously condemned the “profound violation of free expression” the protests had caused Guy Hochman, but said in a follow-up statement days later that it “decided to withdraw this statement” and “remain[s] committed to open and respectful dialogue about the divisions that arise in the course of defending free expression”…

Less than half of Israelis support joining an American strike on Iran if Israel is not directly attacked, a poll from the Israel Democracy Institute found this week, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports…

The Washington Post laid off a third of its newsroom staff, including its entire Middle East bureau, some staffers from which had faced criticism for repeated instances of biased, sloppy and inaccurate reporting…

The New York Times’ culture critic reflects on the state of “Jewish comedy” amid increasing antisemitism and a more polarized political climate, especially on issues related to Israel…

eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher spotlights the PRECEDE Foundation’s efforts to educate the Ashkenazi community about potentially lifesaving early detection for pancreatic cancer, which Ashkenazi Jews are significantly predisposed to… 

Jewish leaders in Manchester, England, are warning Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola to “focus on soccer” following comments he made about “the genocide in Palestine”; “We have repeatedly asked for prominent individuals to be mindful about the words they use given how Jewish people have had to endure attacks across the globe,” a statement by the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester read…

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is eliminating the federal positions of antisemitism envoy and Islamophobia envoy, replacing both roles with a newly created advisory council to combat hate…

Australia is preparing a system to “grade” universities on their handling of a range of issues relating to antisemitism as part of a broader plan from the office of Canberra’s antisemitism envoy that was fast-tracked following the terror attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach in December… 

The brother of Shin Bet head David Zini and two others were indicted on charges of trafficking cigarettes into the Gaza Strip during Israel’s war against Hamas…

First Lady Melania Trump welcomed freed Israeli hostages Aviva and Keith Siegel to the White House on Wednesday, one year after Aviva met the first lady for the first time and pleaded for help securing her husband’s release, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Team USA ice dancer from 2014-2019, now a clinical research coordinator associate at Stanford Medicine, Eliana Gropman turns 25…

Former member of the Knesset for Agudat Yisrael and the United Torah Judaism alliance, Shmuel “Shmelka” Halpert turns 87… Former member of the Virginia Senate for 44 years, Richard Lawrence “Dick” Saslaw turns 86… Director, screenwriter and producer of movies and television, Michael Kenneth Mann turns 83… Outfielder from 1965-1974 for the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves, later in his career he served in the Astros’ front office, Norm Miller turns 80… Israeli engineer, inventor and entrepreneur, he holds more than 800 patents and applications, and is a founding partner of Rainbow Medical, an operational investment company, Yossi Gross turns 79… Actor, singer, voice actor, puppeteer and comedian, best known as the voice of Jafar in Disney’s “Aladdin” franchise, Jonathan Freeman turns 76… Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, he wrote a 2015 essay entitled “The Making of a Libertarian, Contrarian, Nonobservant, but Self-Identified Jew,” Randy E. Barnett turns 74… Founder and CEO of a company representing 200 hotels globally, he is the owner of Luxe Hotels, Efrem Harkham turns 70… Board chair of Jewish leadership organization M2 and a member of the board of governors of The Jewish Agency for Israel, Linda Adler Hurwitz… Ellen Braun… Movie, television and stage actress, writer, producer and director, Jennifer Jason Leigh (family name was Morozoff) turns 64… Rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom of Napa Valley, Niles Elliot Goldstein… Former member of the New York state Assembly, now a New York City Council member, Harvey David Epstein turns 59… Canadian environmental activist, Tzeporah Berman turns 57… Educator, writer, columnist, lecturer, public speaker and pro-Israel activist, Rabbi Pesach Wolicki… Baltimore-area sommelier, he curates kosher food and wine events and researches synagogue history, Dr. Kenneth S. Friedman turns 53… Member of the New York City Council from 2014-2021, now a NYC attorney, Benjamin Kallos turns 45… President and COO of American Signature, the parent company of Value City Furniture, Jonathan Schottenstein turns 44… Israeli swimmer, she competed in the 2000 Olympics, Adi Maia Bichman turns 43… CEO at the American Journalism Project, Sarabeth Berman… Partner for political and strategic communications at Number 10 Strategies, he was previously a senior advisor to Ambassador Ron Dermer, Joshua Hantman… Olympic sprinter, born in Los Angeles and now an Israeli citizen, specializing in the 400-meter dash, Donald Sanford turns 39… Actor and singer, best known for his work in musical theater, Alex Brightman turns 39… Director of communications and intergovernmental affairs at NYC’s Correctional Health Services, Nicole A. Levy… Israeli golfer who is an LPGA Tour member, Laetitia Beck turns 34… 

• President Donald Trump will meet today with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine to discuss options for dealing with Iran.
• Today’s meeting comes as the president weighs potential military action in Iran in response to the deadly crackdowns on protesters around the country. Iran had over the weekend communicated to the White House that it was willing to engage in talks over its nuclear program, for which Trump said “a meeting is being set up,” but potential U.S. strikes could come regardless of that meeting.
• Meanwhile, Iran is continuing to jam Elon Musk’s Starlink, which was activated to restore internet service following a decision by Tehran to cut off internet as well as international phone services.
• In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul will deliver her annual State of the State address at 1:30 p.m. ET. Among the issues she plans to cover, Hochul is expected to announce a proposal to create a 25-foot buffer zone around houses of worship and health care facilities.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV

The mass protests across Iran erupted just over two weeks ago — the same day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Palm Beach, Fla., to meet with President Donald Trump.

The big question as Netanyahu and Trump met was whether the president would give Israel a green light to strike Iran as it reconstituted its ballistic missile program at a pace that raised major concerns in Jerusalem. Trump’s response was a resounding yes, adding that if Iran would start rebuilding its nuclear program, the answer would be yes and “fast.” 

But as the demonstrations in Iran grew and the regime’s response grew more and more violent – Iran International reported 12,000 protesters have been killed as of Tuesday morning, while an Iranian official put the death toll at 2,000 – international talk about Israeli airstrikes subsided to near-silence. 

Asked how Israel’s calculation about striking Iranian missile or nuclear sites may have changed in the last two weeks, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov on the “Misgav Mideast Horizons Podcast”: “With the United States threatening to intervene, what would we have to gain from this? Other than providing a pretext for the Iranians to strike back at us. I think we’re operating responsibly, prudently.”

Still, Israelis remain jittery about a second round of war with Iran, to the extent that the IDF’s spokesperson, Brig.-Gen. Effie Defrin, released a statement on Monday evening warning that “in recent days, many rumors have circulated in light of the situation in Iran. …The IDF is prepared defensively and remains on alert for surprise scenarios if required. The protests in Iran are a domestic matter. …We will provide updates if there are any changes. I emphasize: Do not lend a hand to rumors.” 

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