• President Donald Trump will speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this afternoon local time after a delayed arrival resulting from an electrical issue on Air Force One that forced the initial plane to return to Joint Base Andrews after an hour in flight to be swapped out.
• We expect Trump to speak at length about the Board of Peace he is assembling, a day after the president told reporters at the White House that the body could serve as an alternative to the U.N. Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Israel would join the body, after previously criticizing the inclusion of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on the board’s executive committee.
• The president’s address will be preceded by an interview with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, and followed by a session focused on the political realignment of the Middle East. Speakers in the latter session include Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, U.K. Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper and International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi.
• Later in the day, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) is slated to speak at the WEF about the U.S.-China relationship.
• We’re continuing to monitor the situation in the Middle East, as the U.S. deploys an aircraft carrier and fighter jets to the region. Trump issued his harshest warning yet to Iran, vowing in an interview with NewsNation last night to “wipe them off the face of this Earth” if Tehran makes an assassination attempt against him. “Anything ever happens, the whole country is going to get blown up,” Trump said.
• In Washington, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is holding its markup of the Eastern Mediterranean Gateway Act.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV

When President Donald Trump first raised the idea of establishing a Board of Peace in October, it was as part of his 20-step ceasefire plan for Gaza. The board was meant to oversee a committee of Palestinian technocrats — whose composition was announced last week — and “set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza … [and] call on best international standards to create modern and efficient governance that serves the people of Gaza and is conducive to attracting investment.” 

The following month, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution supporting the ceasefire plan and “welcom[ing] the establishment of the Board of Peace,” authorizing it to operate in Gaza until the end of 2027. 

But the board’s charter describes a body concerned with peace worldwide, not with removing Hamas’ terror threat in Gaza, and in fact, it does not mention Hamas, Gaza or Israel at all. Its expansive, stated role is to “promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict.” 

Indeed, it appears to be an attempt to compete with the United Nations. Its preamble says: “Declaring that durable peace requires pragmatic judgment, common-sense solutions, and the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed … Emphasizing the need for a more nimble and effective international peace-building body.” Asked at a press conference on Wednesday if he intends for the body to replace the U.N., Trump said it “might.” “I wish the United Nations could do more. I wish we didn’t need a Board of Peace,” he said.  

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

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, speaking yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, argued in his speech to attendees that there had been “breaking of the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a brutal reality where the geopolitics of the great powers is not subject to any constraint”… 

Elsewhere at Davos, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign affairs minister, said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s proposed Board of Peace represents the only viable path forward for Gaza, confirming that Doha has been invited to join the initiative, Jewish Insider’s Mathew Shea reports…

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi defends Tehran’s violent crackdown on protests in the country and threatens that Iran will be “firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack” by the U.S.; in response, the WSJ’s editorial board, which called Araghchi the “soft face” of the regime, said the diplomat’s threat “betrays Iran’s harsh reality”…

Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and more than 70 Senate and House colleagues wrote to President Donald Trump urging the U.S. to intervene to stop potential Israeli annexation of the West Bank, and to reimpose sanctions on violent settlers…

Goldman Sachs and the Qatar Investment Authority announced the expansion of their strategic partnership, with the QIA potentially committing up to $25 billion in Goldman Sachs’ asset management arm..

The Supreme Court declined to hear a case brought forth by Agudas Chasidei Chabad, a Brooklyn-based umbrella group representing the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, against Russia over the return of sacred Jewish texts that had been taken by the Nazis and are now held in Russia…

With worshippers at Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Miss., still reeling from a Jan. 10 arson attack that severely damaged the historic synagogue, Congress appears poised to provide $300 million for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program for 2026, a small boost from the funding provided in 2024 and 2025, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

Miami Beach, Fla., nightclub Vendôme apologized for a now-viral incident in which far-right influencers were seen inside the venue as it played a Kanye West song praising Adolf Hitler; Vendôme said that three staff members that had been involved in the incident were no longer employed there…

Following the Buffalo Bills’ latest postseason loss, Gary Ginsberg laments in The New York Times about his hometown team’s lifelong failure to win a Super Bowl while expressing hope that revitalization efforts in the city could boost the team to a history-making championship win…

Israeli singer Noam Bettan won the season finale of popular Israeli singing competition show “Rising Star,” becoming Israel’s entrant to the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest…

Israel began demolishing the east Jerusalem headquarters of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, following the passage of a law banning the agency, which works with Palestinians, over what Israel says is its support for terrorism and staffers’ ties to terror groups…

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces are facing pressure from Damascus and Washington to agree to integrate into the Syrian government, days after the implementation of a ceasefire between the two…

Jacob Reses, chief of staff for Vice President JD Vance, and the Foundation for American Innovation’s Rachel Altman, got married on Sunday in Rockville, Md….

Literary agent and Holocaust survivor Georges Borchardt, who found a publisher for Elie Wiesel’s Night and represented the estates of such writers as Tennessee Williams and Hannah Arendt, died at 97…

Philadelphia attorney and community activist Daniel Segal died at 79…

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar (left) and Czech Foreign Minister Petr Macinka spoke on Tuesday in Prague during an official visit by Sa’ar to the Czech Republic.

Actor, director and producer, he is the voice of Beast in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” Robby Benson (born as Robin David Segal) turns 70…

Writer specializing in modern Judaism and women’s issues, Blu Greenberg (born Bluma Genauer) turns 90… Philanthropist, co-founder and chair emerita of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Lynn Schusterman… Owner of the NHL’s Boston Bruins and chairman of Delaware North, a global food service and hospitality company, Jeremy Maurice Jacobs turns 86… Literary critic, feminist, writer on cultural and social issues, Elaine Showalter (born Elaine Cottler) turns 85… Retired Israeli ambassador to Cyprus, New Zealand, Turkmenistan and Estonia, Shemi Tzur turns 81… Israeli visual artist, he taught at Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts for 30 years, Zvi Goldstein turns 79… Attorney general of the U.S. during the Obama administration, now a senior counsel at Covington & Burling, Eric H. Holder Jr. turns 75… Past chairman of the Zionist Organization of America and chair of the real estate group at the NY/NJ law firm of Sills Cummis & Gross, Mark Levenson turns 69… CEO of UJA-Federation of New York since 2014, he will retire in June, Eric S. Goldstein turns 66… U.S. senator (R-ND), Kevin Cramer turns 65… Chairman and CEO of Norfolk, Va.-based Harbor Group International, a $21 billion real estate investment firm, Jordan E. Slone turns 64… Executive editor digital at the Washington Monthly, Matthew Cooper… Chief operating officer of OneTable, Andrea Greenblatt… Senior fellow at the USC Annenberg School, she is the former editor-in-chief of both Glamour and Self magazines, Cindi Leive turns 59… CEO at C-SPAN, Sam Feist turns 57… President and CEO of The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Rachel Garbow Monroe… Director, producer and screenwriter of films, best known as the producer or director of the eight films in the “Paranormal Activity” series, Oren Peli turns 56… Christian Zionist, television host and presenter of “The Watchman” sponsored by Christians United for Israel, Erick Stakelbeck turns 50… CEO at Shpait.AI, Shlomo Einhorn… Peruvian model and TV host, she represented her country in Miss Universe 2009, Karen Schwarz turns 45… D.C.-based staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, Jennifer Haberkorn… Israeli actress, screenwriter and filmmaker, Romi Aboulafia turns 42… Vice president, chief of staff and senior counsel at Children’s National Hospital, Jordan Grossman… Samuel Z. Eckstein…

• White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff is meeting in Miami today with senior officials from Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to discuss the continued implementation of the Trump administration’s Gaza peace plan. Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty are slated to attend the meeting, the first convening at such a senior level since the ceasefire went into effect in October. The meeting comes as The Wall Street Journal reports on the challenges — namely Hamas’ refusal to disarm — facing the Trump administration as it attempts to implement the second phase of the agreement.
  
• Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest continues today in Phoenix, Ariz. Former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov will take the main stage today (more below), as well as Heritage Foundation CEO Kevin Roberts, former HUD Secretary Ben Carson, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Erika Kirk, Steve Bannon, Vivek Ramaswamy, Megyn Kelly and James O’Keefe.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MATTHEW KASSEL

In recent weeks, James Fishback, a 30-year-old Republican investor who last month launched a long-shot campaign for governor of Florida, has drawn online attention for a series of incendiary social media posts attacking Israel and invoking antisemitic tropes.

In addition to praising followers of the neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes, comments for which he has refused to apologize, Fishback has promoted a range of extreme anti-Israel positions, including in a recent campaign ad vowing to defend those who accuse the Jewish state of genocide. He has taken repeated aim at the pro-Israel organization AIPAC, which he calls a “foreign lobbying group,” saying its supporters are “slaves” and that his own “allegiance is to America.”

“I’ll be the first to admit that I fell for the ‘Israel is our greatest ally’ scam and the lie that criticizing Israel is ‘antisemitic,’” he wrote in a social media post this week. “It wasn’t until I was offered a paid trip to Israel this summer (which I never took) that I realized how cringe and pathetic the propaganda was.”

In using such inflammatory rhetoric, Fishback, a political newcomer, is likely seeking to channel the views among a younger audience of far-right voters increasingly fueling anti-Israel as well as antisemitic sentiment in the GOP, which has recently forced the party to confront a growing schism within its ranks over its ideological direction.

But while Fishback has sought to cast next year’s Republican primary as “very clearly a two-person race” between him and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) — the pro-Israel GOP front-runner now dominating the polls while reporting a $40 million fundraising advantage — political operatives in both parties are skeptical his insurgent bid will ultimately amount to any sort of meaningful on-the-ground traction even as he continues to provoke controversy from behind the screen.

“Social media is the only reason anyone has heard of Fishback, and 20 years ago no one would even be talking about him,” Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist in Florida, told Jewish Insider. “Unless he stumbles into a pile of cash, it’s hard for me to see this being more than just an effort to get clicks.”

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

• In New York, former Israeli hostage Emily Damari will sit in conversation this evening with Noa Tishby at Temple Emanu-El.
• The Jewish Institute for National Security of America’s U.S.-Israel national security summit begins today in Aventura, Fla.
• On the heels of last night’s election, New York Democrats are heading to Puerto Rico today for the 2025 Somos Conference. Will you be there? JI’s Matthew Kassel will be covering the conference — say hello if you see him.
• The two-day SALT conference kicks off today in London. Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci are among the speakers at the fintech-focused summit.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S Josh Kraushaar

Democrats scored sweeping victories across the country yesterday, with moderate lawmakers comfortably winning governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, while a democratic socialist prevailed in the closely watched New York City mayoral contest. California overwhelmingly voted to redistrict its congressional maps, a response to efforts in some red states to reconfigure congressional maps to give the GOP an edge. 

The results underscore the widespread backlash to President Donald Trump’s polarizing governance in the first year of his second term in office, and indicate the likelihood that Democrats have momentum heading into next year’s midterm elections, where the party is looking to retake control of at least one branch of Congress.

In Virginia, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee, easily defeated Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the sitting lieutenant governor, by a double-digit margin (57-43%), bringing in a sizable Democratic majority in the state’s House of Delegates. Her victory was so sweeping that the Democrats’ scandal-plagued attorney general nominee Jay Jones, who was under fire for texts he sent several years ago wishing political violence against GOP colleagues, narrowly prevailed over the Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican.

In New Jersey, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) comfortably prevailed over Republican Jack Ciattarelli, outperforming polls suggesting a close race. With most of the vote reporting, Sherrill leads by a whopping 13-point margin, 56-43%. In Bergen County, a bellwether county with a significant Jewish population, Sherrill won over 55% of the vote, a dominant performance illustrating the breadth of her support.

In New York City, DSA-aligned Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani prevailed over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was running as an independent, though by a narrower margin than polling suggested. Mamdani leads Cuomo by eight points, 50-42%, with Republican Curtis Sliwa only winning 7% of the vote. The outcome suggested that many GOP voters ended up switching their support to Cuomo, who won a last-minute endorsement from Trump.

The Jewish vote in New York City went heavily for Cuomo, 60-31%, according to the exit polling, but Mamdani won nearly one-third support despite a long record of anti-Israel hostility and refusal to condemn “globalize the intifada” rhetoric, among other positions that alienated the mainstream Jewish community.

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

Mamdani and the Machers: The New York Times’ Nicholas Fandos reports on New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s meetings with high-profile figures, including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg as he looked to shore up support in the weeks prior to his election. “The [NYPD chief] appointment would be one of the most significant he would make, and Mr. Mamdani needed to know he would have a partner to implement a series of progressive reforms he had pitched for the Police Department. Ultimately, both Ms. Hochul and Mr. Mamdani came around. … Mr. Bloomberg had privately told associates over the summer he was done with Mr. Cuomo after spending more than $8 million to back him in the primary. Mr. Mamdani left the meeting thinking he had done enough to keep it that way. He was wrong. Angry over Mr. Mamdani’s comments on Israel and worried about his inexperience, Mr. Bloomberg ultimately sent $5 million to two super PACs attacking Mr. Mamdani and re-upped his endorsement of Mr. Cuomo — but did so only six days before Election Day.” [NYTimes]

No to the Groypers: In The Wall Street Journal, Ben Shapiro argues that the conservative movement in the U.S. is “at a crossroads” amid an ideological split within the Republican Party over its embrace of Tucker Carlson and platforming of Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. “The Republican Party, like the Democratic Party before it, is at risk of being eaten alive by fringe actors. To allow it is both morally unjustifiable and politically obtuse. Americans reject this garbage. If Republicans cower before Nazi apologists and their popularizers, the GOP will lose — and deserve to. Our answer must be no. No to the groypers and their publicists like Mr. Carlson. No to demoralization. No to bigotry and antimeritocratic nonsense. No to anti-Americanism. This is our country, our party and our conservative movement. We can’t stand by while it is fractured by those who betray our most fundamental principles. If we lose the right, then we will surely lose to the left — and either way, we will lose our country.” [WSJ]

If Rabin Were Alive…: In The Atlantic, Dennis Ross, who worked closely with former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin while serving as the White House’s chief Middle East negotiator during the mid-1990s, considers how Rabin might have approached some of the country’s current challenges. “Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack and Israel’s devastating campaign in Gaza have produced a mutual animosity that won’t soon disappear. But a more promising factor has also emerged: Arab states finally seem ready to assume some responsibility for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. … If Rabin were alive, he would spot this strategic opening and try to seize it. He would see in Trump’s 20-point peace plan an opportunity to rebuild a better Gaza and create a coalition with Arab states to oppose Iran and extremist forces in the region. Rabin would understand that Israel has to make some concessions to Palestinians in order to enhance the prospects of a regional coalition. But he would also require Palestinians to do their part by ensuring security and reforming the Palestinian Authority.” [TheAtlantic]

ABCs of Gaza Aid: In The Washington Post, Stony Brook University professor Todd Pittinsky calls for conditioning reconstruction aid to Gaza on education reforms in the enclave. “Every generation in Gaza grows up memorizing the language of martyrdom. Schools, summer camps, mosques and media channels work in concert to instill an uncompromising worldview: violence is virtuous, compromise is weakness and the annihilation of Israel is a sacred duty. Hamas’s rockets are the visible expression of decades of indoctrination of the next generation. Gaza’s children are the victims of this violent ideology. Few parents in London, Paris or Washington would tolerate their child being taught that violence is noble or that neighbors are subhuman. Yet the international community has subsidized precisely that curriculum for Palestinian children — and then has acted shocked when violence perpetuates itself. It’s time for that to end.” [WashPost]

President Donald Trump renominated Jared Isaacman to be NASA director, six months after pulling the Elon Musk ally’s initial nomination amid a spat with Musk…

The White House is seeking a full repeal of existing sanctions on Syria ahead of President Ahmad Al-Sharaa’s meeting with Trump in Washington on Monday…

The Pentagon is advancing its consideration of a request from Saudi Arabia to purchase up to four dozen F-35 fighter jets; at a Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs conference in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, Israeli Security Cabinet member Avi Dichter said Israel is having discussions in Washington in which it is “shedding light on the threats” of the potential sale…

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) is mulling a challenge to Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA); if she enters the race, Pressley will also face Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), who announced his bid for the seat last month…

The Justice Department ended its antitrust investigation into Assaf Rappaport’s Wiz, clearing a key hurdle in Google’s effort to purchase the cybersecurity company for $32 billion…

Millennium Management CEO Israel “Izzy” Englander sold roughly 15% — valued at $2 billion — of his stake in the company the 77-year-old founded in 1989…

The Telegraph reports on a leaked BBC memo regarding the findings of an internal investigation by Michael Prescott, who until June was an independent external advisor for the network; Prescott’s 19-page report found “systemic problems” in BBC Arabic’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, which he said “pushed Hamas lies” and “minimised Israeli suffering”…

The New York Times interviews Israeli-Russian researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov about the torture and solitary confinement she endured over the two and a half years she was a hostage of the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah group in Iraq…

The U.N. Security Council voted to approve a resolution backing Morocco’s claim to the Western Sahara; the U.S., which led the measure, and 10 other countries voted in favor, while Russia, China and Pakistan abstained and Algeria voted no…

Israel received the remains of Staff Sgt. Itay Chen, the last remaining American hostage, who was killed on Oct. 7, 2023, while stationed along the Gaza border…

The Knesset is moving forward with legislation that would increase government oversight of the country’s media outlets…

Iran freed two French nationals who had been imprisoned in the country for more than three years; the couple had faced decades in prison after being convicted of espionage…

International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi said that Iran must “seriously improve” its cooperation with nuclear inspectors, who have not been permitted to access the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan facilities that were damaged during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June…

Stanley Chesley, a class-action lawyer and philanthropist who prioritized Jewish causes and projects in his hometown of Cincinnati, died at 89, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports…

Julie Fishman Rayman (right), the American Jewish Committee’s senior vice president of policy and political affairs, interviewed the Department of Justice’s Harmeet Dhillon, who oversees the Civil Rights Division, on Tuesday at AJC’s National Leadership Council Advocacy Fly-In in Washington.

Israeli singer and survivor of the Nova Music Festival, she won second place in the Eurovision Song Contest 2025, Yuval Raphael turns 25…

Singer, poet and actor, best known as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, Art Garfunkel turns 84… Co-founder and chairman of Rexford Industrial Realty, Richard Ziman turns 83… Television and film critic, Jeffrey Lyons turns 81… French public intellectual, media personality and author, Bernard-Henri Lévy turns 77… Economist and former director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University where he remains a University Professor, Jeffrey Sachs turns 71… Israeli ceramic artist and sculptor, Daniela Yaniv-Richter turns 69… Psychologist and wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sara Netanyahu turns 67… Director at The Gottesman Fund, Diane Bennett Eidman… Music producer and entertainment attorney, Kevon Glickman… Former prime minister of Israel, now leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid turns 62… Former regional director of AJC New York, now CEO at Healthcare Foundation of NJ, Michael Schmidt… Research division director for JewishGen USA, Ellen Shindelman Kowitt turns 58… Senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, Benjamin Wittes turns 56… Host, anchor and correspondent for CBS News and CBS Sports, Dana Jacobson turns 54… General counsel of The Jewish Theological Seminary, Keath Blatt… Jerusalem-born pianist, she has performed with major orchestras worldwide, Orli Shaham turns 50… Director at the Domestic Policy Council in the first six months of the Trump 47 administration, now director  of federal education policy at America First Policy Institute, Max Eden turns 37… CEO and organizer of Los Angeles-based Aesthetics and Edits, Tara Khoshbin… Legal correspondent at Business Insider, Jacob Shamsian… Legislative assistant for Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA), Talia Katz…

• Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav, CNN’s Dana Bash, Oct. 7 survivor Aya Meydan and former Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov are being honored tonight at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s annual tribute dinner in Los Angeles. Steven Spielberg will present Zaslav with this year’s Humanitarian Award, SWC’s highest honor.
• In Washington, Sony Pictures, the Motion Picture Association and the German Embassy are hosting a special screening of “Nuremberg.”
• Tikvah Ideas is hosting a conversation this afternoon between historian Jack Wertheimer and North American Values Institute founder David Bernstein about the challenges Jewish institutions face in combating antisemitism.
• The Future Investment Initiative wraps up today in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
• In Israel, we’re keeping an eye on the fallout from the announcement by the World Zionist Congress’ Likud delegation that it planned to appoint Yair Netanyahu, the son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to a top World Zionist Organization post. The announcement collapsed the coalition agreement that had been reached earlier in the day, prompting the WZC to vote to reconvene in two weeks. Read more from eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross here.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

A new Quinnipiac poll of the New York City mayoral race with less than a week until Election Day shows Zohran Mamdani on track to win, but with a narrow plurality that underscores the breadth and resilience of the political opposition against him. In short, he’s set to prevail thanks to a divided opposition and backing from an enthusiastic left-wing faction of the electorate — not because he’s winning over hearts and minds in Gotham.

If the polling is accurate, Mamdani would be the first New York City mayor to win without a majority of the vote since John Lindsay in 1969. Mamdani leads former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo 43-33% in the Quinnipiac poll, with Republican Curtis Sliwa tallying 14%. Mamdani, in a sign of his political ceiling, has lost several points of support since the pollster’s survey earlier this month. 

Among Sliwa voters, 55% said that Cuomo was their second choice, while only 7% said the same of Mamdani. If New York City utilized a ranked-choice voting system as it did in the primary, this race would be neck-and-neck.

The Quinnipiac poll finds Mamdani building an unconventional coalition of secular progressives and Muslims in New York City politics, running up the score with voters of no religion (71% support) or of a religion other than Christianity and Judaism (50%). Mamdani struggles badly with Jewish voters, winning just 16% support, while only receiving 28% of the vote among Catholics and 36% among Protestants. 

Mamdani is winning support from just 59% of Democrats, with 31% backing Cuomo — an unusually weak showing for a Democratic nominee. But Republicans are evenly divided between Cuomo and Sliwa, preventing the former governor from capitalizing on Mamdani’s deep unpopularity with GOP voters. Mamdani is tied with Cuomo among independents at 34% apiece. 

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

Adams on Mamdani: In an interview with Molly Ball for Time, New York City Mayor Eric Adams raises concerns about New York City mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani. “Adams considers Mamdani’s promises unrealistic; he predicts buyer’s remorse when the frontrunner’s supporters realize he can’t actually freeze most people’s rent, make buses free, or bring down the cost of living. Adams is also concerned about the threat of Islamic extremism, with which he thinks Mamdani is too comfortable, and perplexed by polls that show Mamdani getting a large proportion of the Jewish vote. … In 2023, Adams hosted Mamdani and his father, a scholar of post-colonialism at Columbia University, for dinner. ‘The frightening thing is, he really believes this stuff!’ Adams tells me as he mixes the veggies. ‘Globalize the intifada, there’s nothing wrong with that! He believes, you know, I don’t have anything against Jews, I just don’t like Israel. Well, who’s in Israel, bro?’ At the dinner’s end, Adams says he told the Mamdanis, ‘Listen, I just don’t believe what you do.’” [Time]

Poisoned (Big) Apple: In The Wall Street Journal, Bernard-Henri Lévy warns of what a Mamdani victory in the mayoral election could portend for New York City and beyond. “It would be a black day for the Jews of New York. An insult to the memory of Saul Bellow, Elie Wiesel and Leonard Bernstein. A spit in the face of Emma Lazarus, the poet whose words of welcome to the humiliated, afflicted, nameless and stateless who arrived at Ellis Island are engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. It would be a beginning of rupture of the age-old pact between the world’s most cosmopolitan city and the people of the Book. It would be an earthquake in the history of Judaism: At the hour when the threat of annihilation was everywhere, New York was the last place on the planet where Judaism and Jews could not only be saved, but reinvented. Beyond the Jews, it would be the entire Democratic Party turning its back on the legacy of Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton to rally to a faction that, under the cover of ‘intersectionality,’ confuses the green flag of Hamas with that of the workers.” [WSJ]

The Power of Prayer: In the Jewish Journal, Tevi Troy reflects on the prayers — by his estimate, in the billions — said over the course of the hostages’ captivity in Gaza. “Many of the hostages themselves prayed as well. Some of them were religious when they were taken hostage. Some became religious because of the experience. The sustaining of hope through prayer is often derided in Western liberal societies. But the hostages themselves have attested to the power of prayer in giving them not only hope, but agency. And that gave them a grasp on life itself. … Even as we prayed for the hostages, most people had little expectation that they would survive the horrors that Hamas had in store for them. I myself wondered whether these prayers would have any effectiveness, even as I dutifully said them, day in and day out, for two years. And while we mourn the 83 who did not make it, we must also celebrate the miracle that 168 of them have survived, an outcome no one would have imagined possible two years ago.” [JewishJournal]

Windows of the Soul: The Forward’s Benyamin Cohen spotlights the efforts of retired Illinois judge Jerry Orbach to salvage stained glass windows from shuttering synagogues. “‘I’ve heard many congregations describe their windows as the soul of their congregation,’ [Case Western Reserve University professor Alanna] Cooper said. She found in Orbach what her fieldwork had only theorized. ‘He’s creating an afterlife for these windows,’ she said at a dedication ceremony at Northbrook, where they both spoke [and where many of the windows are kept]. Standing before the crowd that day, Cooper described the scene she’d witnessed when windows were removed from Ahavath Israel in Kingston, New York, which Orbach also rescued and relocated to Northbrook. Cooper recalled workmen carrying the panels to their crates as the last members of the congregation looked on. ‘As they lowered the windows into the boxes,’ she said, ‘it felt like a burial.’ Now she gestured toward the sanctuary, the glass alive with color once more. ‘And this,’ she said, ‘is the afterlife.’” [TheForward]

The FBI is pushing back on an effort by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to make DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s office the federal government’s primary counterintelligence agency, underscoring tensions between the two agencies days after they clashed over National Counterterrorism Center head Joe Kent’s attempted investigation into the killing of Charlie Kirk…

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave $1.5 million to the Fix the City super PAC backing former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, days before the city’s mayoral election…

CBS News conducted a fresh round of layoffs that included Johannesburg, South Africa-based foreign correspondent Deb Patta, whom Puck described as “one of the most prominent voices on Gaza”…

A federal judge sentenced the two men convicted of attempting to kill Iranian dissident and writer Masih Alinejad on behalf of Iran to 25 years in prison…

An inquest into the attack on a synagogue in Manchester, U.K., on Yom Kippur found that one of the attack’s two victims was mistakenly killed by a single police bullet as he attempted to hold the synagogue’s door closed, while another congregant died of multiple stab wounds after being attacked by Jihad Al-Shamie…

DAZN is teaming up with FIFA to relaunch FIFA+, a global soccer streaming service; DAZN founder and chair Len Blavatnik and FIFA President Gianni Infantino inked the deal in Riyadh on Wednesday, joined by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman…

The IDF said it conducted an overnight raid in the southern Lebanon village of Blida targeting Hezbollah infrastructure…

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is mulling the possibility of moving the country’s capital to the southern coastal city of Makran, citing the degree to which Tehran, with a population of 10 million, has become “expanded and overloaded”…

International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi said that inspectors have noticed movement around Iranian sites where enriched nuclear material is stored, but that the Islamic Republic does not appear to be actively enriching uranium…

Grossi’s comments come amid reports that Iran is working to rebuild its ballistic missile program following the 12-day war with Israel in June; European intelligence sources said that Iran has received thousands of tons of sodium perchlorate from China in the last month following the reimposition of snapback sanctions on Iran…

The New York Times looks at the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Syrians and sectarian violence around the country since the ouster of Bashar al-Assad last year…

Longtime NYPD Chief Chaplain Rabbi Alvin Kass, the oldest and longest-serving member of the department, died at 89…

The cast of Israeli satire show “Eretz Nehederet” performed David Broza’s song “Under the Sky,” accompanied by former hostage Alon Ohel on piano.

Winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert Caro turns 90…

Former president of the University of Minnesota and chancellor of the University of Texas System and current president of the University of California, Mark Yudof turns 81… Actor, best known for his portrayal of Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli in the “Happy Days” sitcom, Henry Winkler turns 80… NBC anchor, reporter and commentator, she is married to former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan, Andrea Mitchell turns 79… South African-born rabbi, now leading Kehillat Bnei Aharon in Raanana, Israel, David Lapin turns 76… Professor of physics at Syracuse University, Peter Reed Saulson turns 71… Former basketball player for five seasons with the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, now a managing director at CBIZ, Joel Bruce Kramer turns 70… Israeli violinist, violist and conductor, Shlomo Mintz turns 68… President of New York University since July 2023, she is the first Jewish individual and first woman to serve in that role, Linda Gayle Mills turns 68… Meatpacking executive, sentenced to 27 years in prison in 2009 for fraud, his sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump in 2017 after serving eight years, Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin turns 66… Former CEO and later executive chairman of Qualcomm, now CEO of Globalstar, he is a co-owner of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, Paul E. Jacobs turns 63… Partner in the D.C. office of Cadwalader, he previously served as the attorney general of Maryland, Douglas F. “Doug” Gansler turns 63… Partner and co-founder of the Irvine, Calif., law firm of Wolfe & Wyman, Stuart B. Wolfe… Global head of public policy at Apollo Global Management, David Krone… White House correspondent for The New York Times and a political analyst for CNN, Maggie Haberman turns 52… Principal in the D.C. office of Korn Ferry, Jeremy Seth Gold… Assistant secretary for investment security at the U.S. Treasury during the Biden administration, now a partner at Latham & Watkins, Paul M. Rosen turns 47… Public information officer of the City and County of Denver, Joshua Eric Rosenblum… Businesswoman, fashion designer, author and former White House advisor, Ivanka “Yael” Trump turns 44… Magician, author and lecturer, Joshua Jay turns 44… Founding director at Tech Tribe and director of social media for Chabad, Mordechai Lightstone… Bioinformatics scientist at Specifica, she earned a Ph.D in Genetics from Stanford and was on the 2010 U.S. Olympic Biathlon team, Laura Spector turns 38… Senior congressional reporter for Punchbowl News, Ally Mutnick… VP of public affairs at the American Petroleum Institute, Rebecca Schieber Brown… Senior spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, Mia Ehrenberg…

• President Donald Trump will lead a meeting at the White House today focused on winding down the war in Gaza and increasing humanitarian aid to the country. Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s Middle East envoy, told Fox News that the administration believes “that we’re going to settle this one way or another, certainly before the end of this year.”
  
• Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who is in the U.S. this week, will meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio this afternoon in Washington.
  
• This evening, the Florida Democratic Party Jewish Caucus is hosting a briefing with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

In the run-up to the U.S. presidential election last year, one common refrain heard in Israeli leadership was to wait out the election in the hope of a friendlier Trump administration taking over. 

Increasingly, many pro-Israel voices in the United States are quietly saying the same thing about upcoming Israeli elections, which polls suggest could usher in a more moderate coalition, and diminish the influence of far-right leaders in the current Israeli government.

The possibility of new elections taking place soon, more than any particular shift in military strategy or policy decisions, is looking like the most likely factor that could advance progress in the region. 

While Israeli elections are not guaranteed to take place until October 2026, the legislative crisis over Haredi conscription in the IDF is looking like it could collapse Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, and move up the election timetable to as early as next January. 

What has prevented elections until now is the fact that all members of the governing coalition are projected to lose seats if elections are held. That most Israelis want new elections is the very reason why they haven’t happened – yet.

Indeed, if elections were held today, Netanyahu would be in serious trouble. A recent poll commissioned by Israel’s Channel 12 found the anti-Netanyahu bloc making up a narrow majority of 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, with the current Likud-led coalition sitting at 49 seats, and Arab parties making up the remaining 10 seats. 

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

The Heck With Hasbara: The Wall Street Journal’s Elliot Kaufman interviews Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar about the diplomatic and public relations hits the country has taken as it nears two full years of war against Hamas in Gaza. “Hamas took over and Israel is still paying the price, in diplomacy and in lives. The logic leads me to the conclusion that whether the Gaza war ends now or in some months seems less important for Israel — and even for its foreign relations — than whether Hamas is left with the ability to draw it into another war a few years on. In general, Mr. Sa’ar says, ‘We need to survive first. After that, there comes popularity and how much we are able to convince others around the world.’ Later, he catches himself, and adds, ‘I’m not saying diplomacy shouldn’t be taken into consideration. I’m the last to say that — I’m foreign minister.’” [WSJ]

Southern Comfort: The Atlantic’s Rose Horowitch spotlights the growing popularity of southern universities among prospective Jewish students, as many of the Ivies and small liberal arts colleges in the Northeast face widespread anti-Israel and at times antisemitic activism. “The line between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism is nearly always contested; the anti-Israel protest movement on some campuses counts many Jewish students among its ranks. Meanwhile, southern colleges are becoming more popular with northeastern students of all backgrounds. No doubt some Jewish students have opted out of the Ivy League simply because they think the South is the place to be. Even so, an atmosphere of fear has clearly taken hold among many Jewish families. Jewish leaders at Columbia, Harvard, and Yale told me that just about every parent of a prospective student asks if their child will be safe on campus. (Here I will resist the temptation to make any quips about Jewish moms.)” [TheAtlantic]

Crimson Coexistence: In The New York Times, Jacob Miller and Tommy Barone, who served as chairs of the Harvard Crimson’s editorial board during the last academic year, reflect on how they worked to maintain civil discourse in the publication’s pages. “The two of us faced a measure of internal criticism, but we consistently underscored the importance of principled, rational disagreement. Meeting by meeting, the board rallied behind this approach. Disagreeing civilly about big stories — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also D.E.I., free speech and admissions policies — became routine, and we published thoughtful editorials that helped earn back disillusioned readers’ respect. Refined by dissent, our editorials, regardless of their ideological tilt, offered stronger reasoning and more engagement with counterarguments. They passed the test our previous editorials on controversial issues had too often failed.” [NYTimes]

Split With Hamas: In Haaretz, Haisam Hassanein considers the outcomes of the Arab League’s call for Hamas to be disarmed and removed from Gaza. “On paper, this new declaration is historic. But it seems most Israelis don’t even know it exists. If Arab leaders are serious, they can’t stop at communiqués read in Cairo or Riyadh. They have to step into Israel’s conversation. That means Hebrew language interviews, Israeli TV, op-eds in this paper and others. Spell it out directly: Arab states are ready to put money into rebuilding Gaza. They are ready to back one Palestinian leadership. They themselves are also ready to move toward normalization. But all of it hinges on Israel doing its part – stopping the drift into endless conflict and opening a real path toward a two-state solution. That’s the message. And Israelis deserve to hear it unfiltered. Right now, they don’t.” [Haaretz]

Dan Scavino, the longest-serving aide to President Donald Trump, was tapped to head the White House Presidential Personnel Office, replacing Sergio Gor, who was nominated to be U.S. ambassador to India…

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack received pushback from Lebanese journalists and commentators after warning journalists at a press conference in Beirut to “act civilized” and not be “animalistic”…

Microsoft is weighing disciplinary measures against employees who, protesting the company’s tech sales to Israel, participated in a sit-in in the office of President Brad Smith at the company’s Washington state headquarters that temporarily locked down the building… 

Business executives and Jewish leaders in Chicago are preparing to open a college preparatory Jewish high school in the city’s Lakeshore East neighborhood after purchasing the unfinished building, where construction on another school stalled six years ago…

Police in St. Louis County, Mo., charged an area man with defacing a sign outside the city’s Jewish Student Union, which provides programming and community events to Jewish high schoolers in the city…

The Wall Street Journal spotlights the high-profile, high-stakes divorce proceedings of David Geffen, who did not sign a prenuptial agreement with his now-estranged husband, amid allegations of drug use and unequal power dynamics…

Elie Tahari co-founder Avraham Tahari listed his Alpine, N.J., home for $24.75 million, 15 years after buying the property for $4.25 million…

The Woodstock, N.Y., property that was featured on the cover of Bob Dylan’s “Bringing It All Back Home” sold for $4.6 million…

Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Karp is stepping down after five years in the role; Karp will remain at the publisher, overseeing its newly created Simon Six imprint…

In The Wall Street Journal, Tevi Troy reflects on the slow pace encouraged by vacation life…

Norges Bank Investment Management, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, is ending its investments in Caterpillar as well as five Israeli banks, after its ethics council reviewed the companies’ ties to Israeli construction and Palestinian home demolitions in the West Bank…

Israel said that a strike on the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis earlier this week that killed 20 people had targeted a camera the army alleged had been positioned by Hamas to observe IDF troop movements…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the decision by Australia to expel Iran’s ambassador in Canberra, calling it a positive “first step,” days after he had criticized Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for being “weak” and failing to adequately address antisemitism in the country…

French President Emmanuel Macron doubled down in his support for Palestinian statehood, writing in a letter to Netanyahu, which was published in several European newspapers, that a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace “is essential to the State of Israel’s security”…

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Berlin would not join other foreign powers in recognizing a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly next month; Merz, speaking at a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, said that Germany doesn’t “see the requirements met” for statehood…

The Financial Times looks at how the 12-day war between Israel and Iran has sparked calls inside Iran for political change…

Philanthropists Shmuel and Anat Harlap made a $180 million donation to the Rabin Medical Center in central Israel, the largest-ever single gift to an Israeli hospital, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports…

Commentator Batya Ungar-Sargon is joining NewsNation, where she will host an eponymous weekend program…

Jewish communal activist and fundraiser Jacqueline Levine, who was active in the Civil Rights Movement as well as the movement to free Soviet Jewry, died at 99…Physicist Rainer Weiss, who won the Nobel Prize in 2017 for his role in developing a mechanism to predict intergalactic events, died at 92…

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (center) signed into law legislation that requires all colleges in the state to designate anti-discrimination coordinators to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights. Hochul was joined by state Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky (left) and Assemblywoman Nily Rozic (right), who sponsored the legislation in their respective chambers.More on the new law here.

Member of AJR, an indie pop multi-instrumentalist trio, together with his two brothers, Adam Metzger turns 35…

Chatsworth, Calif., resident, Ruth Ann Kerker Hapner… Board chair for North America at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, Mark S. Freedman turns 74… Author, essayist and journalist, Michael Wolff turns 72… President of the Israeli Jewish Congress focused on battling antisemitism, he is a former senator in the Russian Federation, Moshe Shlomo (Vladimir) Sloutsker turns 69… President of Cornell University until June 2024, Martha Elizabeth Pollack turns 67… Governor of New York State since 2021, Kathy Hochul turns 67… Israel’s ambassador to the Czech Republic, Anna Azari turns 66… Vice chairman at IBM and lead independent director on the board of Apollo Global Management, Gary Cohn turns 65… Executive director of J Street Israel, he served as Israel’s consul general to New England from 2006 until 2010, Nadav Tamir… Contributing editor at the National Interest, he is also chairman and CEO of Widehall, Steve Clemons turns 63… Private equity investor and a trustee of the Jewish Federations of North America’s Board, Neil A. Wallack… Israeli-born CEO of Insitro, she was a professor at Stanford for 18 years and a 2004 winner of a MacArthur genius fellowship, Daphne Koller turns 57… Director of National Intelligence throughout the four years of the Biden administration, Avril Haines turns 56… Co-founder of the 2017 Women’s March which she departed citing concerns over antisemitism, Vanessa Wruble turns 51… Managing partner and founder of G2 Investment Partners, Joshua Goldberg… Former director general of the Israeli Ministry of Finance, now CEO of the Strauss Group, Shai Babad turns 49… Mayor of Evanston, Ill., Daniel Kalman Biss turns 48… Senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Richard Goldberg turns 42… Director of the JCRC at the Jewish Federation & Foundation of Northeast Florida in Jacksonville, Nelson France… Co-founder of theSkimm, Danielle Merriah Weisberg turns 39… Michael Weiss… Director of the Botanical Garden and senior lecturer, both positions at Tel Aviv University, Yuval Sapir… Talia Rubin…

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Washington on Sunday, ahead of his planned Monday meeting with President Donald Trump.
• We’ll be reporting on the details around the meeting and what’s at stake as the two leaders discuss Gaza, Iran, Syria and normalization efforts — sign up for Jewish Insider’s email and WhatsApp alerts to stay up to date with the latest developments over the long weekend.
• Former Israeli American hostage Edan Alexander is slated to meet Trump at the White House at 12:45 p.m. ET.
• The Nova Music Festival exhibition and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum are hosting an event this afternoon with DJ and Nova festival survivor Noa Beer and Holocaust survivor Nat Shaffir.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S GABBY DEUTCH

After Israel’s 12-day war with Iran, the U.S. is now demanding that Tehran return to the negotiating table. 

“Told you so,” many prominent Democrats — including architects of Iran policy in both the Obama and Biden administrations — are saying in response, arguing they were right all along about the power of negotiations. But in doing so, they are also overlooking the impact of President Donald Trump’s military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities on the regime’s negotiating calculus. 

The Pentagon is now saying the strikes set back the Iran nuclear program by two years. Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, the IDF’s chief of staff, said that Iran is no longer a nuclear threshold state as a result of the U.S. and Israeli attacks.

But those assessments, among other similar analyses, have done little to change the minds of some of the leading Democratic foreign policy hands who have long argued for diplomacy above all else.

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

Just the Beginning on Iran: In The New York Times, former National Security Advisor John Bolton suggests that the U.S.’ strikes on Iran last month are not the end of Washington’s efforts to degrade the threats posed by Iran. “Satisfying America’s legitimate demands requires Iran to do a full Libya, meaning real performance in denuclearizing, not just acquiescing to treaty verbiage. It requires that Iran surrender all of its weapons-related assets, meaning any enriched uranium and all remaining physical assets, including dual-use capabilities. However, absent a change of government in Tehran, which Washington should support, a full Libya is impossible. Unlike Muammar el-Qaddafi, the mullahs, already badly humiliated, realize that further humiliation would fatally weaken their rule. They will never voluntarily accept that fate. Instead, they will resume their earlier tactic of using negotiations to string the West along until memories dim and, as the old saying goes, ‘zeal for a deal’ takes over, as it did for Barack Obama, producing the fatally flawed 2015 Iran agreement.” [NYTimes]

Mideast Magical Thinking: In The Wall Street Journal, presidential historian and former White House aide Tevi Troy examines the history of Middle East regimes falsely claiming victory over Israel, following claims by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Israel had been “practically knocked out and crushed” by Iran’s military. “These false statements by Middle Eastern autocracies show the weaknesses of systems that can’t acknowledge reality. An inability to turn a critical eye on oneself and admit a mistake represents a fundamental flaw in authoritarian regimes. … As long as autocratic nations like Iran continue to act like Monty Python’s Black Knight, they’ll never develop the capacity to fight effectively against nations that can critique themselves. But that isn’t all that truth telling can bring. If Iran ever does develop the capacity for honesty, then its leaders would realize — like the Egyptians did — that peace with Israel is a much more effective strategy than fighting with it.” [WSJ]

Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke on Wednesday with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud…

In The Wall Street Journal, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), who last week withheld his support from New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, suggests that the Queens assemblyman’s victory should be a “wake-up call” to Democrats and posits that Mamdani won the primary “because too many voters think the rest of the Democratic Party no longer stands for them”…

In the New York Daily News, political strategist Bradley Tusk posits that Mamdani is likely to win the general election in November, owing to the “ceiling” facing any Republican candidate and Mayor Eric Adams’ own unfavorability ratings in the city as he mounts an independent bid…

Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman called on former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to withdraw from the mayoral race following his primary loss to Mamdani, assessing that Cuomo’s “body language, his subdued energy and his proposals to beat Mamdani” indicated he was “not up for the fight” and suggested Cuomo’s departure from the race would be necessary “to maximize Adams’ probability of success”…

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights launched an investigation into George Mason University’s handling of antisemitism issues, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports; the Virginia university had faced scrutiny over its response to a series of incidents involving students, including the discovery of pro-terrorism materials in the home of two of GMU students and federal charges brought against a third student accused of plotting a mass causality attack… 

eJewishPhilanthropy‘s Judah Ari Gross interviews Mike and Shelly Pitman, respectively the president and executive director of the Brooklyn-based La’Aretz Foundation, which has raised $1 million to provide $2,500 directly to 500 Bat Yam families affected by Iran’s ballistic missile strike on the city…

Bar Winkler and Roey Lalazar’s Israel-based AI startup Wonderful raised $34 million in its latest round of funding…

The New York Times spotlights “Everybody Loves Raymond” creator Phil Rosenthal, following the release of the eighth season of his travel food show “Somebody Feed Phil”…

Smithsonian Magazine looks at the resurgence in popularity of Jewish food in Poland…

Iran charged two French nationals who have been imprisoned in the country for three years with spying for Israel and conspiring to overthrow the Iranian government…

Australia confirmed it canceled the visa of artist Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, following the May release of a song titled “Heil Hitler”…

Punk-rap duo Bob Vylan was removed from the lineups of upcoming music festivals in France and the U.K. following an uproar over an incident at the Glastonbury music festival last month in which the group led attendees in a chant calling for “death to the IDF”…

U.K. Parliament members voted overwhelmingly in favor of banning the activist group Palestine Action, after two members of the group broke into a British air base and vandalized military aircraft… 

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian approved a law passed days ago by the country’s parliament to suspend coordination with the International Atomic Energy Agency and ordered Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Supreme National Security Council and Ministry of Foreign Affairs to begin implementation of the new law…

The New York Times looks at Iran’s history of recruiting common criminals and cartel members to carry out attacks on American soil…

Hamas called on the leader of a Bedouin clan that has challenged Hamas’ leadership in the enclave to surrender, as Israel bolsters its support for groups operating on the Palestinian Authority’s payroll against Hamas…

Adam Szubin is joining Covington as of counsel in the firm’s national security practice (h/t Playbook)…

Former hostages Omer Shem Tov (second from left); Noa Argamani (third from right) and Iair Horn (second from right); and Tzur Goldin (far left), brother of Lt. Hadar Goldin, met on Wednesday in Washington with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Movie, television and stage actress, director and writer, Shoshannah Stern turns 45…

Civil rights attorney known for many high-profile cases, born Gloria Rachel Bloom, Gloria Allred turns 84… Winner of the Israel Prize in 1998, professor emeritus of mathematics at both Hebrew U and Rutgers, Saharon Shelah turns 80… Founder of an eponymous charitable foundation and a political office, Barbara Fish Lee turns 80… Retired director of the March of the Living in Miami-Dade and in Boca Raton, Leon Weissberg… Psychologist and board member of many non-profit organizations, Dr. Gail (Giti) Bendheim… Israeli celebrity chef, author of 32 cookbooks and culinary columnist for Yedioth Ahronoth, Yisrael Aharoni turns 75… Head of pediatric oncology and associate professor of pediatrics at the Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New York, Dr. Carolyn Fein Levy turns 57… Musician, best known as a harmonicist, Annie Raines turns 56… Actor who has appeared in film and television in the U.S., U.K. and Israel, Yair “Jonah” Lotan turns 52… Development professional Suzanne Greene… Pini Herman…

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff are slated to meet this morning with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Washington.
• The Vatican announced that the funeral for Pope Francis will be held on Saturday. President Donald Trump said that he and First Lady Melania Trump will attend, marking the president’s first overseas trip of his second term.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene the security cabinet this evening to discuss U.S.-Iran talks and Iran’s nuclear program.
• Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is in the U.S. this week for a multicity trip that includes events and meetings in Miami, Washington and New York.
• The National Press Club postponed a press conference featuring leaders of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, which had been slated to take place this morning.

In two months, New York City Democratic voters will head to the polls to vote for the candidate who will likely be the city’s next mayor. The primary, featuring former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and a cast of lesser-known local Democrats, will be one of the first tests for the party over its direction in the new Trump era, Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar writes. 

The race pits a pragmatic, established figure in Cuomo, who has high name recognition but plenty of baggage stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct that led him to resign from the state’s governorship. One of his emerging opponents is a charismatic far-left candidate, state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who, as The Free Press puts it, “wants to turn the Big Apple into a Havana on the Hudson.” Cuomo has been a pro-Israel stalwart, while Mamdani represents the Democratic Socialists of America wing of the party that is virulently anti-Israel.

There are many other candidates in the race, but few who are presenting the ideologically moderate profile that Cuomo brings to the table. Most are trying to capture the activist energy of the AOC wing of the party, even if their specific policy positions on local issues vary. This, despite the fact that the New York City electorate moved decidedly to the right in the 2024 elections, with working-class voters in particular rejecting the leftward drift of the party. 

Polls have shown Cuomo with a significant advantage, but with elevated unfavorable ratings. A recent Siena poll conducted for the AARP found Cuomo leading Mamdani 34-16% on the first ballot, and by a substantial 64-36% margin at the end of the ranked-choice voting process. The poll found him dominating voters over 50 with 42% of the vote (with the next-closest challenger, Scott Stringer, only polling at 9% with older voters), but actually trailing Mamdani with younger voters between the ages of 18-49.

A separate statewide Siena poll, conducted in March, found Cuomo with just a plus-12 favorability (51-39% fav/unfav) among Democratic voters in the Empire State. Like many traditional Democratic figures, even as a front-runner, he’s struggling to win support among the younger voters whose anti-establishment views are disrupting the party.  

The primary election will come as Democrats are trying to figure out the party’s future direction amid a humiliating defeat last November. The results showed that progressivism was a turnoff to swing voters, especially among nonwhite working-class voters that once made up the base of the party in cities like New York. Despite the Trump administration’s disruptiveness in its first months, there hasn’t been the same level of rallying against the White House, compared to the surge of activism after President Donald Trump’s first election.  

Indeed, the moderates have the electoral momentum at their back. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, running on a Bloomberg-style technocratic message of competence over ideology, unseated a progressive incumbent last November. Two pragmatic pro-Israel Democrats ousted two of the most radical members of Congress, former Reps. Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, in primaries. Last week’s mayoral election in Oakland, Calif. — one of the most progressive cities in the country — nearly featured an upset from a moderate insurgent against former Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA).

At the same time, the energy in the party has remained on the left’s side. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have been rallying crowds to their side since the election, in one of the few displays of grassroots enthusiasm since November. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), a political pragmatist at heart, drew the ire of many in his party for not initiating a government shutdown in protest of the president’s policies. Newly elected DNC Vice Chair David Hogg, a 25-year-old left-wing activist, is getting attention for backing primaries to incumbent Democrats in safe seats. 

June’s New York City primary will be the biggest test of whether the loud left-wing activism actually reflects the sentiment of a majority of Democratic voters. It didn’t in the last mayoral race, where Eric Adams ran as the moderate, pro-law-and-order Democrat and prevailed over candidates who were more progressive.  

If the left can’t make it in a Democratic primary in Gotham, it will have trouble making it anywhere else — especially when the biggest battlegrounds for the party will be for general election voters in much redder constituencies.

No Endgame in Sight: The Washington Post’s David Ignatius posits that both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas are refusing to take serious steps to reach the end of the war because such a deal would endanger each of their holds on power. “Wars end when public opinion demands peace. And there are new demands from Palestinians and Israelis alike to break the logjam and move toward a new ceasefire and hostage release. The anti-war protesters aren’t a majority on either side, but they illustrate the bitterness and exhaustion this conflict has produced. Thousands of Palestinians courageously joined anti-war protests in Gaza last month, according to Associated Press reporters there. … The awful truth at the center of this conflict is that Netanyahu has never had a plan for what happens when it’s over. He wants a Gaza that’s not governed by Hamas or reoccupied by Israel, but he refuses to create a pathway for eventual Palestinian governance because this would rupture his right-wing coalition.” [WashPost]

Job Insecurity: The Atlantic’s Rose Horowitch looks at the challenges facing Ivy League presidents, following Columbia University’s announcement that it would begin a search for the school’s next leader after the departure of its third president in as many years. “With declining trust in higher education, campuses fractured over the Israel-Hamas conflict, and a White House eager to wage populist war on elites (a White House run, incidentally, by Trump, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, and Yale Law alumnus J. D. Vance), the job of elite college president, formerly considered difficult but prestigious, has become, on many campuses, impossible and thankless. Presidents are charged with leading an inflexible organization made up of autonomous and competing constituencies through a period that requires immediate change. But they can’t do anything without angering either parents, students, professors, donors, administrators, or Trump. Any false step might cost them their position. … Universities searching for new presidents are now prioritizing candidates who can play politics on a national level — candidates with political acumen and crisis-management experience.” [TheAtlantic]

Split Screen: Tablet’s Park MacDougald looks at the ideological fights at the Pentagon that have fueled for the recent upheavals within the department. “We are not witnessing an ‘internal fight; within MAGA, because there is no MAGA beyond Trump. Instead, [writer Lee] Smith wrote, ‘What we’re seeing … is an external faction trying to attach itself to MAGA in order to strangle Trump’s America First foreign policy.’ With that faction now openly attacking the administration and making common cause with its enemies to undermine the administration, the only question is how much longer Trump can put up with it.” [Tablet]

President Donald Trump is backing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amid discord within the Pentagon, investigations into leaks and security breaches and the departures of numerous senior Pentagon officials in recent weeks…

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce summoned DePaul University President Robert Manuel to testify in its upcoming hearing on campus antisemitism next month…

A federal jury found Nadine Menendez, the wife of former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), guilty of bribery and obstruction charges tied to money and gold bars her husband received while in office; Menendez will be sentenced in June, the same month her husband is slated to start his 11-year prison term…

In The Wall Street Journal, former White House staffer and presidential historian Tevi Troy looks at the history of Hollywood figures advising Democratic presidential candidates following the release earlier this month of Chris Whipple’s Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History…

Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre suggested that if his party wins the country’s upcoming elections, the government will consider funding cuts to universities that don’t act to address campus antisemitism…

Jason Horowitz, the Rome bureau chief for The New York Times, reflects on the time he spent covering and traveling with Pope Francis prior to the pontiff’s death earlier this week…

A new report from the Claims Conference found that 70% of the remaining 200,000 Holocaust survivors in the world will die in the next decade; the median age of survivors is 87…

Israeli cybersecurity startup Cyvore Security emerged from stealth mode with an initial investment of $2.5 million…

Shin Bet head Ronen Bar alleged in an affidavit that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had demanded Bar display personal loyalty to Netanyahu; among other scathing allegations, Bar, whom Netanyahu is attempting to dismiss, said that the prime minister had ordered him to spy on Israelis involved in anti-government protests…

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told an Israeli radio station that bringing the hostages home was a secondary war aim to destroying Hamas…

Israel canceled the visas for 27 left-wing French lawmakers who had been slated to travel to the country this week, citing an Israeli law that allows for the revocation of visas to travelers who could act against the State of Israel…

An Israeli man is missing and feared dead after being filmed tussling with at least one shark off the coast of Hadera…

Palestinian media reported that Syrian officials arrested two senior leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad based in Syria…

Anne Neuberger, who served as deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology in the Biden administration, was named the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University…

Sociologist Herbert Gans, whose research focused on American society in the second half of the 20th century, an interest he attributed to the absence of culture in Germany, from which he escaped as a child, died at 97…

Eden Golan released the music video for her new song, “Pieces.”

Real estate developer and principal owner of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, Zygmunt “Zygi” Wilf turns 75… 

Calgary-based CEO of Balmon Investments, Alvin Gerald Libin turns 94… Co-founder of Human Rights Watch and formerly national director of the ACLU, Aryeh Neier turns 88… English journalist and former anchor of BBC Television’s “Newsnight,” Adam Eliot Geoffrey Raphael turns 87… Conductor and professor of music at Boston University, Joshua Rifkin turns 81… Former longtime mayor of Madison, Wis., Paul R. Soglin turns 80… Managing director emeritus of Kalorama Partners, D. Jeffrey (“Jeff”) Hirschberg… Former chief economist at the World Bank, Sir Nicholas Herbert Stern turns 79… President and chief investment officer of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google, Ruth Porat turns 68… Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for The Washington Post, Sari Horwitz turns 68… NYC area accountant, he is a partner at EisnerAmper LLP, Edward Lifshitz… Chicago-based philanthropist who serves as president of the National Ramah Commission, Arnie Harris… New Zealand native now serving as the CEO of Australian-based job-board SEEK, Ian Mark Narev turns 58… Founder and editor of the data-journalism and research initiative themadad, Shmuel Rosner turns 57… NYC-based attorney, member of Kriss & Feuerstein LLP, Jerold C. Feuerstein turns 57… News director of The Forward, Benyamin Cohen turns 50… Russian and Israeli public figure, media manager and an art dealer, Yegor Altman turns 50… Member of the Knesset for the National Unity party, Yehiel Moshe “Hili” Tropper turns 47… Tel Aviv-based deputy bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, Shayndi Raice… Managing director of external communications for the Jewish Federations of North America, Niv Elis… CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman turns 40… Associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Zachary Krooks… Competitive ice dancer, Elliana Pogrebinsky turns 27…