Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter shared pictures of the vice president signing a condolence book at the embassy
Israel's Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter/X
Vice President JD Vance signs a condolence book at the Israeli Embassy in Washington in memory of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim on May 27, 2025.
Vice President JD Vance visited the Israeli Embassy in Washington on Tuesday to pay his respects following last Wednesday’s killing of two staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in the nation’s capital.
Vance was seen in photos posted on X by Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter signing a condolence book at the embassy honoring the memories of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, the two staffers killed in the May 21 attack following a museum event for young diplomats and Jewish professionals hosted by the American Jewish Committee.
“Thank you @VP Vance for coming to the Embassy to honor our dear colleagues and friends, Sarah and Yaron. The care and compassion you and the Trump administration have shown in the wake of this murderous attack are testaments to the enduring friendship between our two countries and peoples, and our mutual battle against terrorism,” Leiter wrote on the social media platform.
Leiter said at a press conference immediately following the shooting that Lischinsky and Milgrim met while working at the embassy and that Lischinsky planned to propose on an upcoming trip to Jerusalem.
The alleged shooter, Elias Rodriguez, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, the murder of foreign officials, causing death with a firearm and discharging a firearm in a violent crime. The interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, said last week that the 31-year-old Chicago native, who was seen on video shouting “free Palestine” and “I did it for Gaza” after the attack, is eligible for the death penalty.
A Vance spokesperson did not respond to Jewish Insider’s request for comment on the visit, though the vice president wrote on X the morning after the shooting that, “My heart breaks for Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, who were murdered last night at the Capital Jewish Museum.”
“Antisemitic violence has no place in the United States. We’re praying for their families and all of our friends at the Israeli Embassy, where the two victims worked,” Vance said at the time.
Plus, the NYC candidate who won't say 'Jewish state’
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
A police officer stands at the site of a fatal shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum on May 22, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover comments by Zohran Mamdani at last night’s UJA-Federation of New York town hall with the leading Democratic candidates in New York City’s mayoral primary and report on the Trump administration’s move to strip Harvard University of its ability to enroll foreign students. In the aftermath of Wednesday’s deadly shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, we talk to friends of the victims, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, and report on comments by pro-Israel leaders connecting the murder to anti-Israel advocacy on the political extremes and highlight a statement by 42 Jewish organizations urging additional action from the federal government to address antisemitism. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sen. John Cornyn, Rep. Josh Gottheimer and Ambassador Yechiel Leiter.
Ed. note: In honor of Memorial Day on Monday, the next edition of the Daily Kickoff will arrive on Tuesday, May 27.
What We’re Watching
- The fifth round of nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran will take place today in Rome. Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Mossad Director David Barnea are also set to meet with Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in Rome to coordinate Israel’s views with the U.S.
- Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) will deliver the keynote address at the 51st commencement ceremony of Touro’s Lander Colleges on Sunday at Lincoln Center.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JOSH KRAUSHAAR
In a series of upcoming Democratic primaries, Jewish and pro-Israel groups are deciding whether to press their political case and go on offense behind stalwart allies — or take a more cautious approach, focused on preventing candidates that are downright hostile to Jewish concerns from emerging as nominees, Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar writes.
It’s an unusual place to be in. Until recently, most Democratic candidates were reliably attuned to Jewish communal interests, and there wasn’t much of a need for groups to play in primaries, except in rare situations. That changed with the emergence of the anti-Israel Squad of far-left Democrats, which led pro-Israel Democratic groups like DMFI to step up and support mainstream candidates, and pushed AIPAC to launch a super PAC to become much more involved in direct political engagement.
Now, even the issue of fighting or speaking out against antisemitism — far from the more heated debate over Israel policy — is no longer a consensus issue for Democrats. Senate Democrats (when in charge of the upper chamber) hesitated to hold hearings on campus antisemitism, a leading candidate for mayor of New York City declined to sign onto a legislative resolution commemorating the Holocaust and an increasingly credible New Jersey gubernatorial candidate has declined to distance himself from Louis Farrakhan.
What was once the extreme has now come uncomfortably close to the Democratic mainstream. The urgency of ensuring most candidates condemn antisemitism and anti-Israel radicalism wherever it rears its ugly head was made clear after the horrific murder on Wednesday night of two Israeli Embassy employees by a terrorist with a radical, anti-Israel background. Far too often, the growing number of threats to Jews along with the rise of anti-Israel sloganeering featuring antisemitic hate or adoption of terrorist symbols has been met with a benign acceptance.
That’s made the tactical decisions from outside Jewish and pro-Israel groups involved in politics a lot more significant. There are a number of Democratic primaries coming up featuring a stalwart ally of the Jewish community, an anti-Israel candidate with checkered history on antisemitism and a middle-of-the-road candidate whose record on these issues is respectable, but not always reliable.
Take next month’s New Jersey governor’s primary. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), seen as the front-runner, has compiled a generally pro-Israel record in Congress but hasn’t stuck her neck out as much as her Democratic colleague, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ). Gottheimer has yet to catch momentum in the crowded primary, and one of the other credible challengers is Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, whose condemnation of Israel’s war in Gaza and praise for Farrakhan is viewed as beyond the pale.
At a certain point, do Jewish groups rally behind the center-left front-runner to block the more problematic candidate, or stick with the most supportive candidate?
The New York City mayoral primary next month provides another key test. State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani is the favorite of the DSA base, and thanks to strong support from that far-left faction, is polling in second place. But due to his high profile and moderate pro-Israel message, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo looks like the clear front-runner — even as Jewish voters haven’t yet consolidated behind him in the crowded field.
To Cuomo’s benefit, New York City mayoral primaries have a ranked-choice system that prevents a candidate with a small but passionate base from winning a small plurality in a crowded field. In theory, that should help Cuomo. But as the leading moderate candidate in the race, he could also benefit from consolidating the centrist vote, which is still up for grabs.
Within the sizable Jewish constituency in New York City, Cuomo faces pushback from some Orthodox voters still angry about the then-governor’s lockdowns and expansive COVID-19 restrictions during the pandemic, making his pitch in support of Israel and against antisemitism far from a slam dunk in certain circles. His resignation from the governorship amid allegations of sexual misconduct is also a factor for some Jewish voters, as well.
But if pro-Israel, Jewish voters divide their support among other candidates, it could help Mamdani, whose record is the least palatable to these same constituents.
The fact that many Democrats in New Jersey and New York City, two places with among the largest concentrations of Jewish voters in the Diaspora, are not automatically stalwart allies of mainstream Jewish interests, is itself a sign of the changing political times and the evolving nature of the Democratic Party. It may also explain why there appears to be more of an effort to play defense — a focus on blocking the most objectionable candidates from winning high office — rather than hoping for the best, and seeing where the chips fall.
TYING IT TOGETHER
Pro-Israel leaders link anti-Israel advocacy to fatal shooting
Pro-Israel leaders and lawmakers in the United States on Thursday connected the killing of two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington to the anti-Israel advocacy seen on the political extremes throughout the country since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, characterizing it as a culmination of such rhetoric and, in some cases, the failure of some politicians to denounce it, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report.
What they’re saying: Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) told Jewish Insider that the attack should be a signal to the left that it needs to rethink its rhetoric on Israel and Zionism. He compared the anti-Israel movement in the United States to a “cult” that has been stoked online and is using inherently violent slogans while its members “try to hide behind this idea that it’s free speech to intimidate and terrorize members of the Jewish community.” A coalition of 42 Jewish organizations, in a statement, described the murders as “the direct consequence of rising antisemitic incitement in places such as college campuses, city council meetings, and social media that has normalized hate and emboldened those who wish to do harm.”
Hill talk: Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) called on the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate the political organizations that Elias Rodriguez, the suspect in the shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum, claims to be an active member of, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
fondly remembered
Israeli Embassy victims remembered as ‘the perfect diplomat’ and ‘committed to peace’
“The perfect diplomat.” That’s how a former colleague and friend of Yaron Lischinsky remembered him on Thursday, the day after the Israeli Embassy staff member was shot dead alongside his girlfriend, Sarah Milgrim, outside of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington as the couple was leaving an event for young diplomats and Jewish professionals hosted by the American Jewish Committee. “He was diligent and went to D.C. to pursue his dream,” Klil, who interned with Lischinsky, 29, at the Abba Eban Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations at Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel, in 2020 and requested to be identified only by her first name, told Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen.
Cherry blossoms: The pair mostly lost touch after the internship, when Lischinsky moved to Washington to work at the Israeli Embassy after pursuing a masters’ degree at Reichman. But their interest in Japan kept the two connected via social media, where they would share cherry blossom photos — Lischinsky’s came each spring when the Japanese trees bloomed on the Tidal Basin in Washington. Klil shared her cherry blossom photos from London, where she was living after the internship. “We had a shared experience around that,” she said. Recently, Lischinsky’s Instagram posts featured more than cherry blossoms. Klil took note of the photos he had been posting, posing together with Milgrim. The couple met while both working at the embassy.
Remembering Milgrim: Milgrim, 26, was remembered by a former colleague and friend as “bright, helpful, smart and passionate.” “Sarah was committed to working towards peace,” said Jake Shapiro, who worked with Milgrim in 2022-23 at Teach2Peace, an organization dedicated to building peace between Palestinians and Israelis. “One small bright spot in all of this is seeing both Israelis and Palestinians that knew Sarah sending their condolences and remembering her together,” Shapiro told JI. That gives him hope that a “more peaceful reality is possible.”
COMMUNITY CALL
Jewish community urges additional action from federal government following D.C. shootings
A coalition of 42 Jewish organizations issued a joint statement on Thursday urging additional action from the federal government to address antisemitism in the United States following the killing of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, and particularly expanded funding for a variety of programs to protect the Jewish community, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
What they’re asking for: The demands include a call to massively expand funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $1 billion, from its current level of $274.5 million. The groups also called for additional funding for security at Jewish institutions, for the FBI to expand its intelligence operations and counter-domestic terrorism operations and for local law enforcement to be empowered to protect Jewish establishments. And they called for the federal government to “aggressively prosecute hate crimes and extremist violence” and hold websites accountable for amplification of antisemitic hate, glorification of terrorism, extremism, disinformation, and incitement.”
UNSAID BUT UNDERSTOOD
Mamdani declines to support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state
Zohran Mamdani, a leading Democratic candidate in New York City’s June mayoral primary, declined to say whether he believes Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state, when pressed to confirm his view during a town hall on Thursday night hosted by the UJA-Federation of New York in Manhattan, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Between the lines: “I believe Israel has a right to exist and it has a right to exist also with equal rights for all,” Mamdani said in his carefully worded response to a question posed by JI’s editor-in-chief, Josh Kraushaar, who co-moderated the event. Despite some initial resistance to addressing such questions earlier in his campaign, Mamdani, a Queens state assemblyman and a fierce critic of Israel, has in recent weeks acknowledged Israel has a right to exist. But his remarks on the matter have never recognized a Jewish state, an ambiguity he was forced to confront at the forum — where he avoided providing a direct answer.
DEFINITION DYNAMICS
Following shooting, Gottheimer urges New Jersey governor candidates to support IHRA bill
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), a candidate for governor of New Jersey, challenged his fellow candidates to pledge to sign bipartisan state legislation to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in response to the murder of two Israeli Embassy officials outside the Jewish museum in Washington, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Background: That legislation has become a major dividing line in the gubernatorial race — Gottheimer and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) support it, while Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop opposes it, but said recently he would not veto it. Other candidates did not respond to requests for comment on the issue earlier this year. Critics of the legislation say that the IHRA definition — which identifies some criticism of Israel as antisemitic — violates free speech protections. “As Governor, I’ll immediately sign New Jersey’s IHRA bill into law, and I’ll push to dismantle antisemitism and hate in any form whenever it rears its ugly head,” Gottheimer said.
EDUCATION ESCALATION
Trump escalates war on Harvard by barring all foreign students
The Trump administration on Thursday stripped Harvard University of its ability to enroll foreign students, citing Harvard’s collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party, in what the Department of Homeland Security described as an act of accountability for the university “fostering violence, antisemitism and pro-terrorist conduct from students on its campus.” The move is an escalation in President Donald Trump’s battle with Harvard, just one front in his war with elite higher education institutions. But this is the first instance of the White House completely cutting off a university’s ability to admit international students, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Israelis on campus: Harvard currently hosts more than 10,000 international students, according to university data, 160 of whom are from Israel. Current students must transfer schools or lose their visa. Harvard Hillel’s executive director, Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, expressed concern about the impact on Israeli students at Harvard. “The current, escalating federal assault against Harvard — shuttering apolitical, life-saving research; threatening the university’s tax-exempt status; and revoking all student visas, including those of Israeli students who are proud veterans of the Israel Defense Forces and forceful advocates for Israel on campus — is neither focused nor measured, and stands to substantially harm the very Jewish students and scholars it purports to protect,” Rubenstein told JI.
Worthy Reads
Today’s Blood Libel: Bari Weiss draws a line in The Free Press between anti-Israel vitriol that has pervaded protests, universities and social media in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks and the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers on Wednesday. “Venomous, untrue statements about Israel, its supporters, and the war against Hamas in Gaza chipped away at the old taboo against open antisemitism in America. Constant demonization of American Jews and Zionists is how a democratic state and its supporters have been made into targets. It is how the ‘permission structure’ for violence against Jews in America has been erected. Growing up, learning about Simon of Trent or other medieval blood libels, I wondered how something so unnatural, so deranged, could ever happen. How lies could spread so far, transmogrify into a movement, infect culture so comprehensively, and engender deadly action. … How can anyone honest with themselves not draw a connection between a culture that says Zionists are antihumans — even Nazis themselves — and the terrorists now attacking Jews across the globe?” [TheFreePress]
Israeli Resilience: Tablet’s Armin Rosen writes about the resilience of the Israeli diplomatic corps: “In my experience the diplomats of the Jewish state are among the least Israeli of Israelis. They are restrained and secular and quiet and usually know how to dress themselves; they speak with every possible accent, and it’s hard to imagine them whacking at a matkot ball, fighting their way onto a bus, or davening during halftime of a basketball game. They are the normal and cosmopolitan faces of a rambunctious and inherently tribal country. But it is the tension between the rigors of diplomacy and the character of their homeland that also makes them deeply Israeli: whatever their religious practice and whatever their politics, Israeli diplomats are inevitably Jews among the nations, a tiny sub-tribe that serves as the official foreign representation of the world’s only Jewish state, the first in 2,000 years and one of the most hated and lied-about countries in the entire history of humankind. To carry out this mission for fairly low pay on behalf of an often-dysfunctional foreign ministry, in places far from home where spies and activists and journalists and local Jews are circling you or even actively targeting you at any given moment, requires a typically Israeli mix of creativity, resourcefulness, and optimism” [Tablet]
Yaron the Healer: Mariam Wahba, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, eulogizes her friend Yaron Lischinsky, one of the victims of Wednesday night’s shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum, in The Free Press. “He told me how his family lived in Israel before they moved to Germany, about moving back when he was 16, and knowing, early and without hesitation, that he wanted to be a diplomat and peacemaker. Language came easily to him: Hebrew, Japanese, English, and of course, his native German. He moved through the world with care and thoughtfulness, as if everyone and everything he touched might break. … Yaron was the kind of person who knew the exact year of the First Council of Nicaea and never made you feel small for getting it wrong. His murder leaves a wound in many hearts, one that may never fully heal, for he was the healer. Yaron was sharp, but more importantly, he was kind. He didn’t just want to understand the world. He wanted to mend it. Quietly and gently. Thoughtfully. Steadily.” [TheFreePress]
Bibi, the Bit Player: The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg argues that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put too much faith in a second Trump term and has found himself sidelined from the president’s agenda. “By revealing Netanyahu to be a bit player, rather than an elite operator, Trump has not just put the Israeli leader in his place. He has exploded Netanyahu’s carefully cultivated political persona — an act as damaging to Netanyahu’s standing as the Hamas attack on October 7. Worse than making Netanyahu look foolish, Trump has made him look irrelevant. He is not Trump’s partner, but rather his mark. In Israeli parlance, the prime minister is a freier — a sucker. The third-rate pro-government propagandists on Channel 14 might not have seen this coming, but Netanyahu should have. His dark worldview is premised on the pessimistic presumption that the world will turn on the Jews if given the chance, which is why the Israeli leader has long prized hard power over diplomatic understandings. Even if Trump wasn’t such an unreliable figure, trusting him should have gone against all of Netanyahu’s instincts.” [TheAtlantic]
Word on the Street
Elias Rodriguez, the suspected gunman in the deadly shooting of two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington on Wednesday, was charged with two counts of murder and other federal crimes. Interim U.S. Attorney in Washington Jeanine Pirro said investigators are continuing to investigate the attack as a hate crime and terrorism and additional charges may be brought…
The New York Times drew parallels between Wednesday night’s killing of two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington and another murder of an Israeli diplomat in the Washington area in 1973, a case which was never solved…
Scripps News published archive footage from 2018 from an interview it conducted with Elias Rodriguez, the suspected gunman in the Wednesday night shooting of Israeli Embassy employees, during a protest in Chicago where he identified himself as a member of ANSWER Chicago. ANSWER has held protests against the Israeli war in Gaza, which the organization calls a genocide…
The shooting has stoked safety fears among Israelis and Jews amid a spike in global antisemitism, The Wall Street Journal reports…
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing that President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “have a good relationship, one that’s built on transparency and trust.” Leavitt said the president “has made it very clear to not just Prime Minister Netanyahu, but also the world, that he wants to see a deal with Iran struck if one can be struck.”…
The Supreme Court, in a 4-4 decision, rejected an Oklahoma Catholic school‘s bid to receive public funds as a religious charter school; the deadlocked ruling lets stand an Oklahoma Supreme Court decision barring the creation of such a charter school. The Orthodox Union had filed a brief in support of the school and said that a favorable ruling would make Jewish education more accessible…
A federal judge in Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration and Education Secretary Linda McMahon from dismantling the Department of Education and ordering them to reinstate department employees who had been fired. The administration said it will challenge the judge’s ruling “on an emergency basis”…
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights announced on Thursday that Columbia University violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by “acting with deliberate indifference towards student-on-student harassment of Jewish students from October 7, 2023, through the present.” Anthony Archeval, acting director of the Office for Civil Rights at HHS, said in a statement, “We encourage Columbia University to work with us to come to an agreement that reflects meaningful changes that will truly protect Jewish students.”…
The Wall Street Journal highlights what it called the “extraordinary blurring of government negotiations and private business dealings” as Zach Witkoff, son of Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, continues to invoke his father’s work and White House connections as he travels the world pursuing deals for his cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial…
Netanyahu on Thursday appointed Maj. Gen. David Zini as the next Shin Bet chief, despite a court ruling that his firing of the previous chief, Ronen Bar, and the determination of the attorney general that the move represented a conflict of interest in light of the agency’s ongoing investigation into Netanyahu’s aides’s ties to Qatar…
The Israeli airstrike that targeted Mohammed Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, earlier this month, also reportedly killed several other high-ranking Hamas operatives as they gathered for a meeting…
Iran threatened to “implement special measures” to protect its nuclear facilities and materials if Israeli threats of a strike persist…
A failed Houthi attempt to launch a missile from the vicinity of Sana’a airport caused an explosion this morning, Muammar al-Iryani, Yemen’s information minister, said…
Globes reports that in closed meetings with Israeli officials, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee conveyed concerns from Washington on several economic issues including initiatives that would affect U.S. energy giant Chevron and streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+…
Pic of the Day
Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. (right), on Thursday stands outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, where two staff members of the Israeli Embassy were killed in a terror attack the night before. With him are (from left) Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL), Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL).
Birthdays
Actor, voice actor and stand-up comedian sometimes referred to as “Yid Vicious,” Bobby Slayton turns 70 on Sunday…
FRIDAY: Emeritus professor of physics and the history of science at Harvard, Gerald James Holton turns 103… Businessman and attorney, he acquired and rebuilt The Forge restaurant in Miami Beach, Alvin Malnik turns 92… Businessman, optometrist, inventor and philanthropist, Dr. Herbert A. Wertheim turns 86… Former dean of the Yale School of Architecture and founder of an eponymous architecture firm, Robert A. M. Stern turns 86… Founder and chairman of law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, leading DC super-lobbyist but based in Denver and long-time proponent of the U.S.-Israel relationship, Norman Brownstein turns 82… British fashion retailer and promoter of tennis in Israel, he is the founder, chairman and CEO of three international clothing lines including the French Connection, Great Plains and Toast brands, Stephen Marks turns 79… Senior counsel at Cozen O’Connor, focused on election law, he was in the inaugural class of Yeshiva University’s Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, Jerry H. Goldfeder turns 78… Award-winning television writer and playwright, Stephanie Liss turns 75… Israeli diplomat, he served as Israel’s ambassador to Nigeria and as consul general of Israel to Philadelphia, Uriel Palti turns 71… Editor-in-chief of a book on end-of-life stories, she is a special events advisor to The Israel Project, Catherine Zacks Gildenhorn… Israeli businessman with holdings in real estate, construction, energy, hotels and media, Ofer Nimrodi turns 68… President of Newton, Mass.-based Liberty Companies, Andrew M. Cable turns 68… Best-selling author and journalist, whose works include “Tuesdays with Morrie,” he has sold over 42 million books, Mitch Albom turns 67… Resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Reuel Marc Gerecht… Chairman of the board of the Irvine, Calif.-based Ayn Rand Institute, Yaron Brook turns 64… Actor, comedian, writer, producer and musician, H. Jon Benjamin turns 59… Former ski instructor, ordained by HUC-JIR in 1998, now rabbi of the Community Synagogue of Rye (N.Y.), Daniel B. Gropper… Film and television director, Nanette Burstein turns 55… Australian cosmetics entrepreneur, now living in NYC, she is known as the “Lipstick Queen,” Poppy Cybele King turns 53… Prominent NYC matrimonial law attorney, she is the daughter of TV journalist Jeff Greenfield, Casey Greenfield turns 52… Member of the Knesset for the New Hope party, she previously served as Israel’s minister of education, Yifat Shasha-Biton turns 52… Retired attorney, now a YouTuber, David Freiheit turns 46… Executive director of the Singer Family Charitable Foundation, Dylan Tatz… Tech, cyber and disinformation reporter for Haaretz, Omer Benjakob… Professional golfer on the LPGA Tour, Morgan Pressel turns 37… Senior manager of brand and product strategy at GLG, Andrea M. Hiller Tenenboym…
SATURDAY: Co-founder of the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, he is featured in Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers,” Herbert Wachtell turns 93… Professor emeritus of statistics and biomedical data science at Stanford, Bradley Efron turns 87… Biographer of religious, business and political figures, Deborah Hart Strober turns 85… Born Robert Allen Zimmerman, his Hebrew name is Shabsi Zissel, he is one of the most influential singer-songwriters of his generation, Bob Dylan turns 84… Social media and Internet marketing consultant, Israel Sushman turns 77… Member of Congress since 2007 (D-TN-9), he is Tennessee’s first Jewish congressman, Steve Cohen turns 76… Former director of planned giving at American Society for Yad Vashem, Robert Christopher Morton turns 74… Former Mexican secretary of foreign affairs, he is the author of more than a dozen books, Jorge Castañeda Gutman turns 72… President of the Israel ParaSport Center in Ramat Gan and vice chair of Birthright Israel Foundation, Lori Ann Komisar… First-ever Jewish member of the parliament in Finland, he was elected in 1979 and continues to serve, Ben Zyskowicz turns 71… Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer, Michael Chabon turns 62… U.S. ambassador to Singapore during the Obama administration, he is now the managing director and general counsel of KraneShares, David Adelman turns 61… Senior advisor at the MIT Center for Constructive Communication, Debby Goldberg… Ukrainian businessman, patron of the Jewish community in Ukraine, collector of modern and contemporary art, Gennadii Korban turns 55… Film director, in 2019 he became the second-ever Israeli to win an Academy Award, Guy Nattiv turns 52… Swedish criminal defense lawyer, author and fashion model, Jens Jacob Lapidus turns 51… Actor, who starred in the HBO original series “How to Make It in America,” Bryan Greenberg turns 47… Emmy Award-winning host of “Serving Up Science” at PBS Digital Studios, Sheril Kirshenbaum turns 45… EVP and chief of staff at The National September 11 Memorial and Museum, Benjamin E. Milakofsky… Synchronized swimmer who represented Israel at the 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics, Anastasia Gloushkov Leventhal turns 40… Travel blogger who has visited 197 countries, Drew “Binsky” Goldberg turns 34… Member of the Iowa House of Representatives since 2023, Adam Zabner turns 26… Social media influencer and activist, Emily Austin turns 24…
SUNDAY: Academy Award-winning film producer and director, responsible for 58 major motion pictures, Irwin Winkler turns 94… Holocaust survivor as a young child, he is a professor emeritus of physics and chemistry at Brooklyn College, Micha Tomkiewicz turns 86… Co-founder of the clothing manufacturer, Calvin Klein Inc., which he formed with his childhood friend Calvin Klein, he is also a former horse racing industry executive, Barry K. Schwartz turns 83… Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 1986, he is now on senior status, Douglas H. Ginsburg turns 79… British journalist, editor and author, he is a past VP of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Alex Brummer turns 76… Of counsel in the Chicago office of Saul Ewing, Joel M. Hurwitz turns 74… Screenwriter, producer and film director, best known for his work on the “Back to the Future” franchise, Bob Gale turns 74… Los Angeles area resident, Robin Myrne Kramer… Retired CEO of Denver’s Rose Medical Center after 21 years, he is now the CEO of Velocity Healthcare Consultants, Kenneth Feiler… Israeli actress, Rachel “Chelli” Goldenberg turns 71… Professor of history at Fordham University, Doron Ben-Atar turns 68… President of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, Ralph Friedländer turns 66… U.S. senator (D-MN), Amy Klobuchar turns 65… Senior government relations counsel in the D.C. office of Kelley Drye & Warren, Laurie Rubiner… Israel’s ambassador to Lithuania from 2020 until 2022, Yossi Avni-Levy turns 63… Actor, producer, director and writer, Joseph D. Reitman turns 57… Cape Town, South Africa, native, tech entrepreneur and investor, he was the original COO of PayPal and founder/CEO of Yammer, David Oliver Sacks turns 53… Member of the Australian Parliament since 2016, Julian Leeser turns 49… Former Minister of Diaspora Affairs, she is the first Haredi woman to serve as an Israeli cabinet minister, Omer Yankelevich turns 47… Senior political reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Greg Bluestein… COO at Maryland-based HealthSource Distributors, Marc D. Loeb… Comedian, actor and writer, Barry Rothbart turns 42… One of the U.S.’ first radiology extenders at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Orli Novick… Senior communications manager at Kaplan, Inc., Alison Kurtzman… Former MLB pitcher, he had two effective appearances for Team Israel at the 2017 World Baseball Classic qualifiers, Ryan Sherriff turns 35… Olympic Gold medalist in gymnastics at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics, Alexandra Rose “Aly” Raisman turns 31… Laura Goldman…
Sen. John Fetterman asked members of the left, ‘Why can’t you just call it [antisemitism] what it is?’
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Sen. John Fetterman, (D-PA) talks with reporters after the Senate luncheons in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.
Pro-Israel leaders in the United States on Thursday connected the murder of two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington to the anti-Israel advocacy seen on the political extremes throughout the country since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, characterizing it as a culmination of such rhetoric and, in some cases, the failure of some politicians to denounce it.
The suspected shooter, Elias Rodriguez, shouted “free, free Palestine” and “I did it for Gaza” following the shooting, according to an eyewitness and video from the arrest. He reportedly published a manifesto railing against Israel.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said that the attack should be a signal to the left that it needs to rethink its rhetoric on Israel and Zionism. He compared the anti-Israel movement in the United States to a “cult” that has been stoked online and is using inherently violent slogans while its members “try to hide behind this idea that it’s free speech to intimidate and terrorize members of the Jewish community.”
He said that too many on the left have failed to call out antisemitism in the anti-Israel movement.
“Why can’t you just call it what it is, and then address and assert the pressure on the aggressor,” which is Hamas,” Fetterman said. “I can’t even imagine having to live with that ever-present antisemitism and what? Why can’t people just acknowledge and call that what it is?”
Fetterman predicted that the same elements of the left that have supported Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, will also rally behind Rodriguez.
“What part of my party does this come from where it’s like, we try to defend or try to justify assassinating an executive in broad daylight or … somebody [who] guns down” two people at a Jewish event, Fetterman asked incredulously.
Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter connected the shooting to the anti-Israel protests seen on college campuses and elsewhere in the country.
“The point of the matter is that on campuses around this country, where ideas — these are the temples of ideas — where smart ideas, intelligent ideas, moral ideas, truthful ideas, are supposed to be taught, we have useful idiots running around in support of the destruction of Israel,” Leiter said at a press conference.
“This is done in the name of a political agenda to eradicate the State of Israel,” Leiter added. “The State of Israel is now fighting a war on seven fronts. This is the eighth front, a war to demonize, delegitimize, to eradicate the right of the State of Israel to exist.”
He also connected rising global antisemitism to countries like France that have spoken out against Israel and are moving to recognize a Palestinian state.
A coalition of 42 Jewish organizations, in a statement, described the murders as “the direct consequence of rising antisemitic incitement in places such as college campuses, city council meetings, and social media that has normalized hate and emboldened those who wish to do harm.”
William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said on X, “There is a direct line between demonizing Israel, tolerating antisemitic hate speech in the public square, and violent action.”
“We are now witnessing the deadly consequences of months of relentless antisemitic incitement — amplified by international organizations and political leaders across the globe — since the horrors of October 7,” Daroff said. “This is not a debate over policy; it is the mainstreaming of hatred, and its consequences are measured in blood.”
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) said on X the attack was “the deadly consequence of normalizing Jew-hatred.”
“Since October 7, antisemitic attacks have surged — fueled by violent chants to ‘globalize the intifada’ and slurs like ‘dirty Zionist,’” Gottheimer said.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), highlighting a tweet from a local anti-Israel group that praised the attack, said that, “Violence is not a bug but a feature of virulent Anti-Zionism.”
Arizona state Rep. Alma Hernandez called out a series of progressive lawmakers, saying, “spare us the fake outrage.”
“Two Israeli diplomats were murdered in cold blood—and you dare act concerned? Y’all have spent years fueling the hate and antisemitism that’s now exploding across America. Don’t pretend to care,” Hernandez continued, in an X post. “You are constantly surrounded by keffiyehs and “Free Palestine” and have pushed rhetoric that’s radicalized Americans into thinking murdering Jews and harassing them in the streets will somehow “liberate” Palestine and end the so-called genocide. No thanks.”
“We don’t want prayers from politicians who support individuals and organizations that promote this hate and who are being actively supported by said individuals and organizations while they run for office,” Hernandez added.
“You can’t support chants of ‘Globalize the Intifada’ and then be ‘appalled’ when people act it out,” Georgia state Rep. Esther Panitch said on X in response to a statement on the attack from Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) that did not acknowledge that the victims worked for the Israeli embassy and condemned “violence” broadly. Panitch also criticized other progressive Democrats who issued statements on the attack.
Panitch added, “Fascinating that those who campaigned against the Jewish community’s right to define their own experience of antisemitism are the ones who call ‘Globalizing the Intifada’ peaceful protests. The same ones who can’t say the word antisemitism in their posts.”
Jordan Acker, the University of Michigan regent who has been repeatedly targeted with antisemitic harassment and vandalism, drew a direct line between those incidents and demonstrations on the University of Michigan’s campus, and the Wednesday night murders.
“This isn’t protest. It’s a threat. This is what antisemitism looks like — and it’s escalating,” Acker said. “This is part of a terrifying trend: Jews in America being hunted, harassed, and attacked for being visibly Jewish — for existing in public. When we call it antisemitism, we’re told we’re overreacting. That our fear is political. That our pain is inconvenient. We’ve been gaslit for 18 months. Enough.”
He also called out progressives directly, saying “antisemitism isn’t any less dangerous when it comes wrapped in ‘progressive’ language.”
In response to the attack, some of the most prominent far-left critics of Israel on Capitol Hill have offered what many in the Jewish community have seen as half-hearted and inadequate responses.
“My heart breaks for the loved ones of the victims of last night’s attack in D.C. Nobody deserves such terrible violence. Everyone in our communities deserves to live in safety and in peace,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) said, linking to an article highlighting that the victims, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, were Israeli Embassy workers, but not noting their backgrounds or the circumstances of the shooting in her own post.
Omar noted that the shooting took place at the Capital Jewish Museum but did not acknowledge the victims’ backgrounds and condemned violence broadly.
“I am appalled by the deadly shooting at the Capital Jewish Museum last night. Holding the victims, their families, and loved ones in my thoughts and prayers,” Omar said. “Violence should have no place in our country.”