Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is organizing a trip to the Palestinian Territories, slated for the August recess, competing with AIPAC/AIEF’s trip to Israel for freshmen members, traditionally chaperoned by House leadership.

Asked on Tuesday if she’ll be going on the AIEF trip to Israel this summer, Congresswoman Tlaib said, “No, I have my own trip” and handed Jewish Insider a flier advertising the trip. Arranged by the “Humpty Dumpty Institute,” the leaflet bills the trip as a “congressional delegation to the Occupied Territories in Palestine,” taking place August 17-22, 2019.

Rep. Tlaib, the first female Palestinian-American member of Congress, floated the idea for this trip in an interview with the Intercept in December. Rep. Tlaib told JI on Tuesdaythat her goal in traveling to the West Bank is to help “people see the human impact on Palestinians, and what an opportunity of value to have a sitting congressmember that has a living grandmother in the Occupied Territories.”

Rep. Tlaib’s use of the phrase “Congressional delegation” is notable. If accurate, a CODEL would imply that the trip is officially supported by Congress, and paid for with congressional funds. According to a congressional source, that would mean that the funding was approved by the Speaker of the House and the relevant Chair and Ranking Member of a committee. 

Members of Congress can also take international trips that aren’t CODELs and are funded either personally out-of-pocket, or through educational foundations approved by the House Ethics Committee.

A Republican Member of Congress, Brian Babin (R-TX) wrote to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel in January, requesting that Rep. Tlaib be denied consent to travel on a CODEL, which, if organized through the House Foreign Affairs Committee would require his approval.

A committee aide told JI that since “Rep. Tlaib is not on the Foreign Affairs Committee…her official travel wouldn’t be subject to Chairman Engel’s approval.”

Editor’s note: This post has been updated to reflect that if organized outside of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Tlaib’s trip wouldn’t require Rep. Engel’s approval.

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is in his second term in Congress – elected in 2016 to represent Maryland’s eighth congressional district – but brings to the table over a decade of experience in the Maryland state legislature as over 25 years as a professor on constitutional law.

His knowledge and experience make him a key member of the House Judiciary (vice-chair of the subcommittee on the constitution) and Oversight committees (chair of the subcommittee on civil rights and civil liberties.). In the 116th Congress, he was elected to represent at the leadership level all junior Democratic members of the House, about 142 members who have served less than five terms. In this role he’s also sought to encourage camaraderie and bridge divides, with meetings and field trips on topics ranging from a trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to dinners discussing how to speak up and participate in agenda-setting discourse.

Rep. Raksin, who is Jewish, was the co-author of the anti-hate resolution passed in March (H.Res183), an effort to condemn antisemitism in the wake of remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

On Monday, following a weekend of violence between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Israel, Rep. Raksin spoke with Jewish Insider about House legislation concerning U.S. support for Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the view of American Jews today.

Laura Kelly: To begin, would you like to make any comment on the recent violence between Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip and Israel?

Jamie Raskin: It’s a terrible and dangerous situation. The rocket fire on Israel is completely unacceptable and the loss of life on both sides is intolerable. All of it to me, speaks to the need to revive a meaningful peace process quickly and to end the violence.

LK: A few weeks ago in Jewish Insider we reported on how Jewish members meet a bit informally, not as a formal caucus but regularly to discuss issues that they should all come together on. There have been public calls to formalize that group and maybe some discussions within the group… Can you talk about the benefits of a formalized caucus or what is the benefit of keeping it in an informal state right now?

JR: There are several Jewish members that are chairs of committees – Congressman [Jerrold] Nadler (D-NY) is Chair of Judiciary. Congressman Schiff is chair of Intelligence. [Rep.] Nita Lowey (D-NY) is the Appropriations hair. The original ethnic or racial caucuses that formed, the black caucus and the hispanic caucus, were among the minorities who felt like they needed to consolidate their forces in order to manifest power and presence within an institution. I don’t know if that would be a necessary reason for the Jewish members to do it. However, bringing Jewish members together to have a dialogue about matters of common interest makes a lot of sense.

LK: Last week, Senators Ted Cruz and Tim Kaine introduced their own condemning antisemitism resolution… Do you think these resolutions condemning antisemitism are a good move? Or do you think they’re simply a repeat of what’s already been done?

JR: We should be doing everything in our power to resist, to oppose the resurgence of antisemitism and other forms of hatred and Jewish people and other kinds of racism. Antisemitism and racism are threats, not just to Jews and African-Americans and other minority groups targeted, they are a threat to democracy, they are a threat to constitutional order and they are a threat to civilization. They are the expression of groups and movements that destroy everything humanities built. I just think that… The resolution which we adopted in the House [H.Res183], I tried to resist the idea that different minority groups should be pitted against each other, some kind of competition. That’s obviously a dead end for our people who want to continue equal rights and social justice…

LK: Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-CA) introduced a resolution expressing the sense of congress to support the two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians… will you sign on as co-sponsor?

JR: If I’m not formally on it…I told my staff last night to add me to the two-state solution resolution.

LK: Some of the language in the resolution it references ending the occupation and opposing settlement activity, also opposing efforts to unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank…

JR: All of those would presumably be a threat to a two-state solution. I think it has been the commitment of American foreign policy to try to prevent both sides from doing anything that will disrupt the possibility of a two-state solution and a lasting peace between the two-sides.

LK: Using that specific language, we all know in discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict language matters a lot, are those efforts to specifically reference Prime Minister Netanyahu and his pre-election promises to annex parts of the West Bank?

JR: I haven’t spoken to Congressman Lowenthal, I don’t know exactly what he had in mind but, the annexation is obviously — the idea of annexation is a major obstacle to a viable two-state solution and diplomatic process.

LK: You’ve signed on as a co-sponsor to Rep. Brad Schneider’s (D-IL) resolution opposing BDS…

JR: I do not favor BDS, I do not favor strategies of isolation and quarantine and boycott. I think that what the Middle East needs is just the reverse. It needs a lot more dialogue, a lot more social exchange and engagement between the two sides. All nations and communities there. You know, I’m not on any of the foreign policy committees … but what I tried to do is to sponsor discussions here about efforts to bring Israelis and Palestinians together.

So we had one discussion with a group tries to bring medical resources from Israel to the Palestinians and to share create a sharing arrangement among hospitals and medical facilities there. We brought here a project of young entrepreneurs, Israeli and Palestinian entrepreneurs, to work on business ventures together and to develop business ideas. In my very small way, I’ve been most interested in trying to advocate people-to-people projects and exchanges to promote peace and diplomacy and social connection. The cycle of violence can continue forever on its own, the challenge is how to create mechanisms of social reconstruction that cut through the cycle of violence.

LK: With your opposition to efforts to boycott Israel, therefore, would you support S.1 in saying that the government should not do business with people who boycott, or companies that boycott Israel? [A provision in S.1 called the ‘Combating BDS Act of 2019: allows a state or local government to adopt measures to divest its assets from entities using boycotts, divestments, or sanctions to influence Israel’s policies.’]

JR: There’s a problem with — again there have been so many Senate iterations I haven’t kept track of all of them — at least, there was a problem with the original version of that legislation advocated by our Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, I felt that there were big constitutional problems with it.

A lot of these [anti-]BDS laws have been struck down in different parts of the country because they operate on the principle that, essentially if you boycott Israel then you can’t get a government contract or job or something like that. The problem with that is that the US supreme court, in a case called the NAACP vs Claiborne Hardware found that boycotting is First Amendment protected activity. Just as you have the right to publish an article, or have a protest, you have a right to not shop some place, or not patronize some place, and then tell people you’re not doing that and then encourage them to do the same thing. So, the supreme court has said that boycott is constitutional [unclear] activity.

So, if you try to deny any sort of public benefit or job to someone participating in a boycott, you are burdening their first amendment rights, and that’s why a number of these laws have been struck down. That’s why, I’m afraid, at least the first version that I saw, of the Cardin bill, also ran afoul of the unconstitutional conditions doctrine. That’s the doctrine which says you can’t condition receipt of a public benefit on surrender of exercise of a constitutional right. In other words, you can’t say that people who engage in the boycott of this or that business or country or practice, can’t receive a particular public benefit.

LK: What’s your view on President Trump calling the Democratic party anti-Israel and anti-Jewish?

JR: Well, it’s obviously ridiculous that the Democratic party is anti-Israel. Of course it was Harry Truman that recognized the nation of Israel…minutes after it was created, and the Democratic party has always been a stalwart champion of Israel. The vast majority of Jewish members of Congress are in the Democratic party not the Republican party.

Jewish-Americans are voting for Democrats at 77 or 78 percent because the Democratic party embodies many of the values that the Jewish people have traditionally believed in. The Democratic party is the party that stands strong against discrimination, it stands strong against race and religious hatred. It stands strong for diversity and tolerance. It stands strong for social justice. It’s the party of the outsiders and downtrodden, we champion social security, medicare, medicaid, the Affordable Care Act. We fought to create laws against child labor, we fought for the Wagner Act, the right of working people to organize. We’re for women’s rights and women’s right to choose, we are the party of strong liberal democracy. And Jews are obviously not monolithic, Jews are all over the map, but there are extreme right-wing Jews, extreme left-wing Jews, there are lots of liberal and progressive Jews, but I think that most Jews believe that the Democratic party is the party that stands with the civilizing movements of the 20th century.

It was not our president who equated neo-Nazis and klansmen with anti-racist protestors, that was not Barack Obama or Bill Clinton that said that. That was Donald Trump. It was not our party which ran the most antisemitic political TV ad, in the history of the United States in 2016. That was Donald Trump. Donald Trump ran a TV ad targeting Janet Yellin, Lloyd Blankfein and George Soros as the enemies of the American people, this was essentially the closing argument of the Trump campaign in 2016. One could only regard with amazement the idea that Donald Trump would even bring up the question of a political party being antisemitic in America in 2019, because if there is an antisemitic political party, it’s not the Democrats.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) expressed his support for Israel’s right to defend itself, blasting Hamas as a terrorist organization that is hurting the Palestinian people on Monday. The New Jersey senator was reacting to the latest round of violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in an interview with CBSN Live.

“We support Israel’s right to defend itself, full stop,” Booker said. “You have a terrorist organization that actually suppresses its own people, conducts acts of violence and human rights violations against people who live in Gaza. And so Israel has a right to defend itself and it should do that. But for the people that live in Gaza, this is not about them. It’s about the terrorist organization that is attracting such violence, that is using children hospitals and schools as shields for their insidious aims, which is the destruction of the state of Israel.” 

At the same time, Booker, a 2020 presidential candidate, said that the U.S. should also be mindful “of the defense and the self determination of the Palestinian people.”

“That terrorist organization is like a cancer undermining the security of both Gazans as well as Israelis,” Booker said about Hamas. “And so I support the defense of the state of Israel, but I also support the human rights and self determination of the Palestinian people. I don’t think there’s any conflict there. I think we need to continue to work for peace in that region and work towards a two state solution.”

President Trump said on Sunday that the administration supports Israel “100 percent in its defense of its citizens.”

Booker contended that “there was no empathy for the struggles of Palestinians in that region” in the president’s statement, further criticizing the administration’s handling of the Palestinian issue.

“One thing that people should know,” he stressed, “from before Donald Trump, from before I was a senator, I stand with the right of the state of Israel to exist and to defend itself, and I will always be one of those people that stands up for the human rights of all people.”

The president suggests the former Secretary of State should be prosecuted

President Trump accused former Secretary of State John Kerry of encouraging the Iranians to rebuff his overtures to negotiate a new nuclear deal during a press conference at the White House on Thursday.

“What I’d like to see with Iran? I’d like to see them call me,” Trump said. “You know John Kerry speaks to them a lot. John Kerry tells them not to call. That’s a violation of the Logan Act. He is talking to Iran  — and has been. He has had many meetings and many phone calls and is telling them what to do.”

Trump further suggested that the Justice Department should prosecute Kerry for violating the Logan Act, “but my people don’t want to do anything” that’s political.

“John Kerry violated the Logan Act,” Trump repeatedly charged.

Last year, the Boston Globe reported that the former secretary of state was holding meetings with the main partners in the JCPOA to save the international accord. In September, Kerry admitted that he’s sat down with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif “three or four times” abroad since leaving office.

Following Kerry’s revelation in September, Sen. Marco Rubio (D-NY) urged the Department of Justice to investigate whether Kerry’s actions violated the Logan Act or the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

According to Trump, the Iranians would be wise to engage in talks with the U.S. in exchange for sanctions relief and “put them back into good shape” following the U.S. withdrawal of the 2015 nuclear deal and reimposition of economic sanctions. “We can make a fair deal. We just don’t want them to have nuclear weapons,” he said. “[That’s] not too much to ask.”

“We are not looking to hurt Iran,” Trump continued. “I want them to be strong and great and have a great economy, but they are listening to John Kerry, who has violated a very important element of what he’s supposed to be doing. They should call, and if they do, we are open to talk to them. We have no secrets.”  

By Jacob Kornbluh in New York

Yesterday, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) was targeted by the Intercept in a lengthy piece, knocking him for, among other things, his support for Israel, his role in the moderate Problem Solvers Caucus and willingness to interact with Republicans, and for a meeting he and Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) held with Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) in February to discuss why Rep. Tlaib’s past antisemitic comments were hurtful. In January on Twitter, Rep. Tlaib had charged that pro-Israel members, ”forgot what country they represent,” widely perceived as an accusation of dual-loyalty.

In an interview with the Intercept, Rep. Tlaib alleged that during the February meeting, Gottheimer acted as “a bully,” who “had a goal of breaking me down.” Tlaib claims that Gottheimer brought along a binder of statements she made and “confus[ed] me with other colleagues.”

Rep. Luria, who was in this meeting, disputes Tlaib’s characterization. The meeting was a “cordial and professional interchange between all of us,” Rep. Luria tells Jewish Insider. “My recollection of the meeting is that we went into it with good intentions to try to build a personal relationship so that we could talk about these issues,” says Luria. “And the meeting was cordial. We did not agree on policy issues. I mean specifically on BDS, [but] I remember the meeting ending well. I don’t have any recollection of [Rep. Gottheimer] bullying or being rude or anything like that.” Luria recalls that Rep. Gottheimer “gave her a hug on the way out and said, ‘thanks for coming and [I] look forward to meeting with you again.’”

Rep. Gottheimer tells us, “Rep. Rashida Tlaib and I do not agree on everything. But we’re both Democrats, and all healthy political parties are host to a range of views. I have a very different recollection of the meeting she discussed in that piece. I recall Rep. Luria and me honestly explaining how hurtful it is to have your loyalty to America questioned and how, historically, that has harmed the well-being of the Jewish people — those whose loyalty was put into question in the first place. Rep. Elaine Luria and I held that meeting together, at the leadership’s request, in a good faith effort to bring unity and understanding in an increasingly upsetting situation. In it, we shared some of what we believed were antisemitic statements made by multiple members of Congress. We had what we believed, at the time, was a mutually productive conversation. I’m disappointed by the misleading way this attempt to bridge differences was characterized.”

Worth noting: It’s highly unusual for a member of Congress to launch an unprovoked attack against a member of their own party through the press. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined in on the seemingly coordinated campaign against Gottheimer tweeting yesterday, “What’s funny is that there are Dems that do act like the Tea Party – but they’re conservative.”

In another cheap shot against Gottheimer, the Intercept wrote “This spring, he was one of just a handful of Democrats at a private retreat on Sea Island, Georgia, hosted by the conservative American Enterprise Institute, mingling with Vice President Mike Pence, Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and other Republican heavyweights.”

According to a copy of the AEI schedule, Gottheimer spoke on a late Saturday afternoon panel alongside fellow Democratic Representatives Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA). Pence addressed the nonpartisan free-market conference on Saturday morning, Kushner on Thursday night and Pompeo on Friday afternoon. That Gottheimer ‘mingled’ with those Trump officials is inaccurate, but that didn’t stop Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from further tweeting that Gottheimer went to “fundraise $ w/ Mike Pence.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi downplayed fractures in the Democratic party over support for Israel, in an interview with Washington Post political reporter Robert Costa on Wednesday, saying outspoken members critical of the U.S.-Israel relationship “are not a reflection of our consensus.”

The House Speaker also called the Jewish State “one of the greatest accomplishments of the 20th century.”

Robert Costa: There’s been a lot of debate in your conference in recent months about the issue of Israel. You’re the leader of the democratic party. When you think about the recent violence on the Gaza Strip, what is the Democratic view of what’s happened there and what perhaps should happen?

Speaker Pelosi: “Well, let me just say that — my view the establishment of the State of Israel is one of the greatest accomplishments of the 20th century, it was a political, official establishment of a country. It was so exciting.”

“Israel, we have shared values. Our friend in the Middle East for a long time – our only friend, our most serious partner in the Middle East, let me put it that way. So Israel’s security is very, very important to us. And so, many of us support a two-state solution that has a secured Jewish State and a state for the Palestinians to reach their fulfillment as well. What’s happening there is, in some ways, moving away from that. But, again, a peaceful resolution of that is what members of Congress by and large would support.

“There are some who have said things that are not a reflection of our consensus, you know, and we have pointed that out. But again, Israel’s security is important to us, we think Israel’s security is for the insured by having a two-state solution and we don’t want to move away from that.”

Pelosi on the much-anticipated Trump peace plan: “We’ve been waiting for over a year – I was in Israel last year around Passover, Easter, and we were told that the president’s plan was imminent. Now that was in the end of March of last year. We are 13 months past there and we keep hearing that his proposal is imminent. Maybe it is. We’ll see. But again we have to find peaceful ways to resolve the conflict.”

Watch the full exchange here [Video]

By Jacob Kornbluh in New York and Laura Kelly in Washington, D.C.

Iran announced on Wednesday that it will reduce its commitments to the JCPOA — the 2015 nuclear deal ― a year to the day after President Trump announced that the U.S. was withdrawing from the international accord.

EXPERTS ON WHAT’S NEXT — David Petraeus, former commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) and CIA Director, told Jewish Insider in an email: “I think that one of the big questions this year and next revolves around whether Iran decides – say, in 2019 – to pursue back-channel discussions with the U.S. or just tightens its belt a few more notches until the U.S. election in November 2020. I tend to think it unlikely that Iran would directly engage U.S. forces in the Gulf region given the considerable American capability to respond and uncertainty about what President Trump might be willing to do.”

“There is, to be sure, the possibility of so-called ‘asymmetric’; or indirect Iranian action; however, any attribution for such action to Iran would hold the possibility of a significant US response.”

FDD’s Mark Dubowitz: “By expanding their nuclear program, Iran is trying to freak out the Europeans and encourage them to confront the U.S. by activating their sanctions-busting pathways for European-Iranian trade. Washington should respond by sector-based sanctions against remaining areas of Iran’s economy like construction, engineering, and mining as well as by denying visas to any European officials enabling the use of any kind of workarounds.”

Hudson Institute’s Mike Doran in a phone interview with Jewish Insider: “Maximum pressure to me would mean two things. It would mean attempting directly and clearly to take away from Iran everything it had gained by the JCPOA — but we’re not doing that. We’re still issuing waivers for their civil nuclear program. And secondly, it would mean bringing their oil trade to an absolute standstill — and we haven’t done that yet either. We’re getting closer. We keep ratcheting it up, but we are still issuing some waivers that are, in effect, allowing Iran to sell oil. We’re also not challenging Iran on the ground, directly. We’re only challenging them through proxies. So maximum pressure would be a full court press across the board. Maximum pressure-minus would be to try to totally reverse the JCPOA away.”

Doran added: “We are in a conflict with Iran and you can’t take this nuclear program away from them without conflict. We shouldn’t kid ourselves. The Iranians are threatening to withdraw from the JCPOA because they can see that maximum pressure is coming and that the administration is serious about reversing their gains. They’re going to fight to preserve the gains they got with the JCPOA. So yes, there’s a conflict coming, it’s already begun. Does the administration have the stomach for it? I think so. I hope so.”

JINSA’s Michael Makovsky: “President Trump was correct in withdrawing from the JCPOA. It was something I had called for, as long as the administration was prepared to address a possible Iranian escalation. Historically, U.S. (or Israeli) military threats have been the most successful tool in deterring in Iranian action — far more than sanctions have been — as the Iranians clearly do not want to confront a determined America with overwhelming military superiority. However, Iran might choose to gradually ramp up its nuclear program in contradiction to the JCPOA, with the expectation that the American response will be meager. Trump will then need to back his prior warning to Iran not to escalate its nuclear program. As long as Trump is viewed as credibly determined to confront Iran militarily, beyond economic pressure, I believe Iran will avoid a conflict, thereby reducing tension in the region.”

Jason Brodsky, a policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI): “I think the pressure really is going to be on Iran to come to the table. We’re already seeing Zarif making some public overtures, using the Kim Jong-un approach, trying to decouple the president from his advisors. That’s a hinted overture, testing the president’s receptiveness to talk. I think that Iran is not likely to undertake any action that significantly rocks the boat because it is playing the long game and it wants to wait out the Trump administration at least until 2021 to try to see if they can get a better deal out if a Democrat were to win.” 

By Jacob Kornbluh in New York

The trip is said to conflict with AIPAC/AIEF’s

Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is organizing a trip to the Palestinian Territories, slated for the August recess, competing with AIPAC/AIEF’s trip to Israel for freshmen members, traditionally chaperoned by House leadership.

Asked on Tuesday if she’ll be going on the AIEF trip to Israel this summer, Congresswoman Tlaib said, “No, I have my own trip” and handed Jewish Insider a flier advertising the trip. Arranged by the “Humpty Dumpty Institute,” the leaflet bills the trip as a “congressional delegation to the Occupied Territories in Palestine,” taking place August 17-22, 2019.

Rep. Tlaib, the first female Palestinian-American member of Congress, floated the idea for this trip in an interview with the Intercept in December. Rep. Tlaib told JI on Tuesday that her goal in traveling to the West Bank is to help “people see the human impact on Palestinians, and what an opportunity of value to have a sitting congressmember that has a living grandmother in the Occupied Territories.”

Rep. Tlaib’s use of the phrase “Congressional delegation” is notable. If accurate, a CODEL would imply that the trip is officially supported by Congress, and paid for with congressional funds. According to a congressional source, that would mean that the funding was approved by the Speaker of the House and the relevant Chair and Ranking Member of a committee.

Members of Congress can also take international trips that aren’t CODELs and are funded either personally out-of-pocket, or through educational foundations approved by the House Ethics Committee.

A Republican Member of Congress, Brian Babin (R-TX) wrote to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel in January, requesting that Rep. Tlaib be denied consent to travel on a CODEL, which, if organized through the House Foreign Affairs Committee would require his approval.

A committee aide told JI that since “Rep. Tlaib is not on the Foreign Affairs Committee…her official travel wouldn’t be subject to Chairman Engel’s approval.”

Laura Kelly is the Capitol Hill reporter for Jewish Insider. Follow her @HelloLauraKelly

Editor’s note: This post has been updated to reflect that if organized outside of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Tlaib’s trip wouldn’t require Rep. Engel’s approval.

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) is in his second term in Congress – elected in 2016 to represent Maryland’s eighth congressional district – but brings to the table over a decade of experience in the Maryland state legislature as over 25 years as a professor on constitutional law.

His knowledge and experience make him a key member of the House Judiciary (vice-chair of the subcommittee on the constitution) and Oversight committees (chair of the subcommittee on civil rights and civil liberties.). In the 116th Congress, he was elected to represent at the leadership level all junior Democratic members of the House, about 142 members who have served less than five terms. In this role he’s also sought to encourage camaraderie and bridge divides, with meetings and field trips on topics ranging from a trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to dinners discussing how to speak up and participate in agenda-setting discourse.

Rep. Raksin, who is Jewish, was the co-author of the anti-hate resolution passed in March (H.Res183), an effort to condemn antisemitism in the wake of remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

On Monday, following a weekend of violence between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Israel, Rep. Raksin spoke with Jewish Insider about House legislation concerning U.S. support for Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the view of American Jews today.

Laura Kelly: To begin, would you like to make any comment on the recent violence between Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip and Israel?

Jamie Raskin: It’s a terrible and dangerous situation. The rocket fire on Israel is completely unacceptable and the loss of life on both sides is intolerable. All of it to me, speaks to the need to revive a meaningful peace process quickly and to end the violence.

LK: A few weeks ago in Jewish Insider we reported on how Jewish members meet a bit informally, not as a formal caucus but regularly to discuss issues that they should all come together on. There have been public calls to formalize that group and maybe some discussions within the group… Can you talk about the benefits of a formalized caucus or what is the benefit of keeping it in an informal state right now?

JR: There are several Jewish members that are chairs of committees – Congressman [Jerrold] Nadler (D-NY) is Chair of Judiciary. Congressman Schiff is chair of Intelligence. [Rep.] Nita Lowey (D-NY) is the Appropriations hair. The original ethnic or racial caucuses that formed, the black caucus and the hispanic caucus, were among the minorities who felt like they needed to consolidate their forces in order to manifest power and presence within an institution. I don’t know if that would be a necessary reason for the Jewish members to do it. However, bringing Jewish members together to have a dialogue about matters of common interest makes a lot of sense.

LK: Last week, Senators Ted Cruz and Tim Kaine introduced their own condemning antisemitism resolution… Do you think these resolutions condemning antisemitism are a good move? Or do you think they’re simply a repeat of what’s already been done?

JR: We should be doing everything in our power to resist, to oppose the resurgence of antisemitism and other forms of hatred and Jewish people and other kinds of racism. Antisemitism and racism are threats, not just to Jews and African-Americans and other minority groups targeted, they are a threat to democracy, they are a threat to constitutional order and they are a threat to civilization. They are the expression of groups and movements that destroy everything humanities built. I just think that… The resolution which we adopted in the House [H.Res183], I tried to resist the idea that different minority groups should be pitted against each other, some kind of competition. That’s obviously a dead end for our people who want to continue equal rights and social justice…

LK: Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-CA) introduced a resolution expressing the sense of congress to support the two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians… will you sign on as co-sponsor?

JR: If I’m not formally on it…I told my staff last night to add me to the two-state solution resolution.

LK: Some of the language in the resolution it references ending the occupation and opposing settlement activity, also opposing efforts to unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank…

JR: All of those would presumably be a threat to a two-state solution. I think it has been the commitment of American foreign policy to try to prevent both sides from doing anything that will disrupt the possibility of a two-state solution and a lasting peace between the two-sides.

LK: Using that specific language, we all know in discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict language matters a lot, are those efforts to specifically reference Prime Minister Netanyahu and his pre-election promises to annex parts of the West Bank?

JR: I haven’t spoken to Congressman Lowenthal, I don’t know exactly what he had in mind but, the annexation is obviously — the idea of annexation is a major obstacle to a viable two-state solution and diplomatic process.

LK: You’ve signed on as a co-sponsor to Rep. Brad Schneider’s (D-IL) resolution opposing BDS…

JR: I do not favor BDS, I do not favor strategies of isolation and quarantine and boycott. I think that what the Middle East needs is just the reverse. It needs a lot more dialogue, a lot more social exchange and engagement between the two sides. All nations and communities there. You know, I’m not on any of the foreign policy committees … but what I tried to do is to sponsor discussions here about efforts to bring Israelis and Palestinians together.

So we had one discussion with a group tries to bring medical resources from Israel to the Palestinians and to share create a sharing arrangement among hospitals and medical facilities there. We brought here a project of young entrepreneurs, Israeli and Palestinian entrepreneurs, to work on business ventures together and to develop business ideas. In my very small way, I’ve been most interested in trying to advocate people-to-people projects and exchanges to promote peace and diplomacy and social connection. The cycle of violence can continue forever on its own, the challenge is how to create mechanisms of social reconstruction that cut through the cycle of violence.

LK: With your opposition to efforts to boycott Israel, therefore, would you support S.1 in saying that the government should not do business with people who boycott, or companies that boycott Israel? [A provision in S.1 called the ‘Combating BDS Act of 2019: allows a state or local government to adopt measures to divest its assets from entities using boycotts, divestments, or sanctions to influence Israel’s policies.’]

JR: There’s a problem with — again there have been so many Senate iterations I haven’t kept track of all of them — at least, there was a problem with the original version of that legislation advocated by our Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, I felt that there were big constitutional problems with it.

A lot of these [anti-]BDS laws have been struck down in different parts of the country because they operate on the principle that, essentially if you boycott Israel then you can’t get a government contract or job or something like that. The problem with that is that the US supreme court, in a case called the NAACP vs Claiborne Hardware found that boycotting is First Amendment protected activity. Just as you have the right to publish an article, or have a protest, you have a right to not shop some place, or not patronize some place, and then tell people you’re not doing that and then encourage them to do the same thing. So, the supreme court has said that boycott is constitutional [unclear] activity.

So, if you try to deny any sort of public benefit or job to someone participating in a boycott, you are burdening their first amendment rights, and that’s why a number of these laws have been struck down. That’s why, I’m afraid, at least the first version that I saw, of the Cardin bill, also ran afoul of the unconstitutional conditions doctrine. That’s the doctrine which says you can’t condition receipt of a public benefit on surrender of exercise of a constitutional right. In other words, you can’t say that people who engage in the boycott of this or that business or country or practice, can’t receive a particular public benefit.

LK: What’s your view on President Trump calling the Democratic party anti-Israel and anti-Jewish?

JR: Well, it’s obviously ridiculous that the Democratic party is anti-Israel. Of course it was Harry Truman that recognized the nation of Israel…minutes after it was created, and the Democratic party has always been a stalwart champion of Israel. The vast majority of Jewish members of Congress are in the Democratic party not the Republican party.

Jewish-Americans are voting for Democrats at 77 or 78 percent because the Democratic party embodies many of the values that the Jewish people have traditionally believed in. The Democratic party is the party that stands strong against discrimination, it stands strong against race and religious hatred. It stands strong for diversity and tolerance. It stands strong for social justice. It’s the party of the outsiders and downtrodden, we champion social security, medicare, medicaid, the Affordable Care Act. We fought to create laws against child labor, we fought for the Wagner Act, the right of working people to organize. We’re for women’s rights and women’s right to choose, we are the party of strong liberal democracy. And Jews are obviously not monolithic, Jews are all over the map, but there are extreme right-wing Jews, extreme left-wing Jews, there are lots of liberal and progressive Jews, but I think that most Jews believe that the Democratic party is the party that stands with the civilizing movements of the 20th century.

It was not our president who equated neo-Nazis and klansmen with anti-racist protestors, that was not Barack Obama or Bill Clinton that said that. That was Donald Trump. It was not our party which ran the most antisemitic political TV ad, in the history of the United States in 2016. That was Donald Trump. Donald Trump ran a TV ad targeting Janet Yellin, Lloyd Blankfein and George Soros as the enemies of the American people, this was essentially the closing argument of the Trump campaign in 2016. One could only regard with amazement the idea that Donald Trump would even bring up the question of a political party being antisemitic in America in 2019, because if there is an antisemitic political party, it’s not the Democrats.  

Laura Kelly is the Capitol Hill reporter for Jewish Insider. Follow her @HelloLauraKelly

The 2020 candidate stands with Israel

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) expressed his support for Israel’s right to defend itself, blasting Hamas as a terrorist organization that is hurting the Palestinian people on Monday. The New Jersey senator was reacting to the latest round of violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in an interview with CBSN Live.

“We support Israel’s right to defend itself, full stop,” Booker said. “You have a terrorist organization that actually suppresses its own people, conducts acts of violence and human rights violations against people who live in Gaza. And so Israel has a right to defend itself and it should do that. But for the people that live in Gaza, this is not about them. It’s about the terrorist organization that is attracting such violence, that is using children hospitals and schools as shields for their insidious aims, which is the destruction of the state of Israel.”

At the same time, Booker, a 2020 presidential candidate, said that the U.S. should also be mindful “of the defense and the self determination of the Palestinian people.”

“That terrorist organization is like a cancer undermining the security of both Gazans as well as Israelis,” Booker said about Hamas. “And so I support the defense of the state of Israel, but I also support the human rights and self determination of the Palestinian people. I don’t think there’s any conflict there. I think we need to continue to work for peace in that region and work towards a two state solution.”

President Trump said on Sunday that the administration supports Israel “100 percent in its defense of its citizens.”

Booker contended that “there was no empathy for the struggles of Palestinians in that region” in the president’s statement, further criticizing the administration’s handling of the Palestinian issue.

“One thing that people should know,” he stressed, “from before Donald Trump, from before I was a senator, I stand with the right of the state of Israel to exist and to defend itself, and I will always be one of those people that stands up for the human rights of all people.”

By Jacob Kornbluh in New York

Ferguson says that some pro-Israel groups “exist to essentially conflate, confuse and confound definitions of antisemitism.”

Leo Ferguson, a community organizer at Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ), and cartoonist Eli Valley discussed antisemitism and criticism of Israel with Bob Garfield on WNYC’s On The Media May 3 podcast.

According to Ferguson, groups on the right — he singles out the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and Canary Mission — have created an “entire cottage industry” that seeks to “essentially conflate, confuse and confound definitions of antisemitism” to delegitimize the work of pro-Palestinian groups on campus and other critics of Israel.

Charges of antisemitism prompted by rhetoric by progressive Democrats like Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ferguson asserts, are “weaponized” out of a “desire to advance a policy agenda or to bludgeon the opposing political party.”

Eli Valley discussed his recent cartoon ridiculing Meghan McCain for linking Rep. Omar to the Chabad of Poway attack last week.

Valley told Garfield that Ms. McCain believes her authority to speak on Jewish issues “comes from her friendship with Joe and Hadassah Lieberman.”

The Jewish cartoonist and satirist also mocked the daughter of the late Senator John McCain for labeling his cartoon ‘antisemitic.’ “A Christian woman is saying a Jewish cartoonist is antisemitic,” he responded. “But given the narrative we’ve been forced to live in, it was not out of the ordinary. And in fact, there was so many people on the Jewish right — who have been condemning me for years for saying maybe Netanyahu is not the messiah, who were embracing her, who were inviting her over for Shabbat dinner — basically saying, not even implicitly, ‘You’re the Jew. That guy who draws cartoons critical of Israel, no Jew.’”

Read a partial transcript of the two interviews on the NPR podcast below:

Ferguson: “There is an entire cottage industry from the Zionist Organization of America to Canary Mission. These organizations that exist to essentially conflate, confuse and confound definitions of antisemitism. They particularly target pro-Palestinian organizing on campus, but they also look for any breadcrumb they can use to delegitimize that work.”

Garfield: So for example, if I were to say, ‘Well, you know, I believe that Israel is not just a security state, but an apartheid state where Arabs are second-class citizens or guest workers.’ I will be accused of antisemitism by one of these groups?

Ferguson: “Absolutely. Another example are folks targeting the BDS movement, where you have organizers working to advocate for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel to pressure Israel to address its human rights abuses and treatment of Palestinians. Whether you agree or disagree with their tactics, this is clearly a legitimate form of political protest, widely used — the anti-apartheid movement, lots of other movements throughout history — and yet there is a ton of energy going towards trying to smear these folks as being across the board antisemitic and to conflate the use of this Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions tactic with antisemitism.”

Garfield: I just want to be clear, sometimes there is even from the right a legitimate grievance. I’m not much of a Zionist, but I am Jewish and sometimes criticism of Israel does sound awfully antisemitic, especially when the subject is U.S. pro-Israel policy and it’s being framed as being beholden to ‘The Jews.’ So the accusation isn’t always empty, is it?

Ferguson: “Absolutely not. There’s antisemitic rhetoric, frankly, that finds its way into all kinds of political discourse. We shouldn’t be surprised by this because antisemitism is an ideology that is pervasive in our society. So it’s going to show up everywhere, and as the temperature gets turned up — it’s unfortunate but it shouldn’t be surprising —  that it seeps into conversations about Israel and into conversations about bankers… It’s our job to get really, really clear about what antisemitism is and how it operates to really up our game in terms of our antisemitism analysis so that we can call that stuff out when we see it. That’s really important, but it’s also important to not conflate terms and ideas because ultimately that actually makes all Jews less safe.”

“When you take charges of antisemitism, be they real or false, and use them not out of a deep concern for the well-being of Jews, but in fact out of a desire to advance a policy agenda or to bludgeon the opposing political party, that’s the weaponization of antisemitism. I think the best example is right-wing Republican leaders in Congress attacking progressive Democrats about antisemitism, completely ignoring the egregious antisemitism in their own party. They won’t criticize Trump for saying that there are very fine people on both sides in Charlottesville, something that he just doubled down on a few days ago. They won’t criticize their own members like Steve King for doing, you know, truly heinous, racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic things. They won’t criticize members who stand up next to white nationalists at rallies and events. They refuse to criticize members of Congress, like Chuck Grassley, who are more than happy to trumpet the antisemitic conspiracy theories surrounding George Soros. But they somehow become outraged — they’re shocked, shocked to find antisemitism in the progressive left.”

Garfield: Which, once again, is cynical, but some of it’s just ambiguous. Right? I’m thinking of the scandal a few months back when Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota obviously evoked old antisemitic tropes about Jews and money. Now, the Israel lobby does wield a lot of influence in Congress, maybe not on NRA level, but they are not a trivial force in our politics. But nonetheless, Omar took a drubbing, especially from Republicans pointing across the aisle saying, ‘Hey, you guys talk about hate speech, but look who you’re harboring in your tent.’ At a minimum, it was not good optics for a Democratic Party that has been thumping Trump as an apologist for hate.

Ferguson: “It’s a win, win for the folks on the right who are looking to make those gains. The way that I know that their strategy is successful is that today, just a few days after a white nationalist gunman walked into a synagogue in San Diego and murdered someone and wounded others, we’re still having a conversation about Ilhan Omar.”

Garfield: The whole Ilhan affair became a political football. A resolution in the House was floated against antisemitism and that created a hubbub. Then it mutates and almost everybody voted for it, only 23 nays cast. What if anything, did this episode teach us?

Ferguson: “As messy as the process was, I actually look at the outcome in some ways as a win, because it’s actually really important that we get clear that this kind of white nationalist ideology is actually targeting all of us. Like it is actually meaningful to say that we want to fight against Islamophobia, that we want to fight against anti-black racism, that we want to fight against xenophobia. At the same time, as we’re saying, we want to fight against antisemitism while we’re watching antisemitic violence and incidents of hate speech and swastikas being drawn and playgrounds, or we’re watching those things rise in New York City. We know that our Arab and Muslim neighbors, our immigrant neighbors, our LGBTQ neighbors are also coming under threat from the same ideology. And so it’s very much incumbent on all of us to band together, think of this as something in which we have real mutual shared interest.”

Garfield: We last spoke, six months ago after the Tree of Life shooting, and although the crimes are piling up, although the public expressions of antisemitism are piling up, something else was going on that you believe represents positive change.

Ferguson: “As a Jew, and as someone who has spent some time studying antisemitism, one thing that I know is that Jews are less safe when people believe that they have no control over their economic destiny, that they are being crushed by wealthy, powerful people. Unfortunately, the analysis that the white nationalists and the folks on the right have is a sort of cheap one that says, ‘Blame the Jews, blame George Soros, blamed the globalists.’ I have a very different understanding of what it is that is hurting working people. My people were brutally murdered because too many of their fellow countrymen believed that they were responsible for poverty and real economic hardship and pain. So it means a lot that since we last spoke, we saw Amazon get shoved out of New York by a coalition that included Jews and Muslims and Sikhs, and all different kinds of folks, saying, ‘This is not our vision for the city that we want. This is not where we believe we are going to find prosperity.’ That’s very powerful — like us building power together across lines of difference towards a much brighter future. That’s what is going to keep us safe. That is the true antidote.”

Garfield: Well, it’s an interesting thought that if nationalism and white separatism and general right-wing extremism grows out of a sense of economic and cultural insecurity, that if these very same communities can be empowered to see the results of their own actions, that will take the pressure off the Jews as the scapegoats for everything. But does that really deal with the underlying millennia old forces of just plain animus?

Ferguson: “That makes me think of Ta-Nehisi Coates, who points out that we don’t have a roadmap for this. There is no manual for how to undo centuries and centuries of these ideas infecting our society and shaping the fortunes and histories of nations and people. So all we can do is look towards what looks good, what looks right. It looks better to me to have a future in which there is broad shared prosperity in which all people, including Jews, feel safe. My sense is that’s probably a step in the right direction. It doesn’t mean that we don’t also have to call out antisemitism, that we don’t have to name it and identify it and pick it apart and understand it. I don’t think we have to choose. In fact, frankly, I think we can’t do one without the other.”

Eli Valley, discussed his drawing of a cartoon ridiculing Meghan McCain for linking Rep. Ilhan Omar to the Chabad of Poway attack: “In the service of pivoting from the nightmare that we’re experiencing, to blame antisemitism on the left, to blame it on a Muslim Congresswoman who is receiving death threats as a result of this charade, in the wake of the last massacre incited by GOP philosophy and ideology, instead of saying, ‘Wow, we need to be on the White House lawn. The GOP needs to have an enlightenment and stop these horrible antisemitic dog whistles,’ she went on ABC program and didn’t blame Ilhan Omar for the massacre, but both sides of the issue.”

Valley suggested that McCain thinks her authority to speak out on Jewish issues “comes from her friendship with Joe and Hadassah Lieberman.”

Garfield: “There’s one little footnote to this whole story with Meghan McCain and that is when she saw your cartoon ridiculing her, she said…

Valley: “…‘This is the most antisemitic thing I’ve ever seen.’ Everyone else was like, ‘This is hilarious.’ A Christian woman is saying a Jewish cartoonist is antisemitic. But given the narrative we’ve been forced to live in, it was not out of the ordinary. And in fact, there was so many people on the Jewish right who have been condemning me for years for saying maybe Netanyahu is not the Messiah, who were embracing her, who were inviting her over for Shabbat dinner, basically saying, not even implicitly, ‘You’re the Jew. That guy who draws cartoons critical of Israel, no Jew.’”

By Jacob Kornbluh in New York

White House senior advisor Jared Kushner engaged in a conversation with Rob Satloff about the much-anticipated Mideast peace plan at the Washington Institute’s 2019 Soref Symposium dinner at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington D.C.

In the 45-minute discussion, Kushner — tasked by President Trump to formulate the ‘ultimate deal’ — teased experts in Washington for their skepticism and blamed the Palestinian Authority for fomenting the conflict rather than solving it. [CSPAN]

HIGHLIGHTS — At the start of the 45 minutes discussion, Kushner described the peace plan as “an in-depth operational document.” He also assured the audience that the two sides and U.S. allies will be “very well consulted” before the plan will be presented, adding, “The good thing about what I do is that who I speak with, and when we speak to them — the people who need to know, know about it, but the people who don’t need to know, usually don’t know about it.”

And while remaining tight-lipped about specifics, Kushner maintained that the peace proposal will address “a lot of [the Palestinians’] political aspirations and a lot of their dignity — that is important to us.” 

Kushner on the two state solution: “If you say ‘two-state’ [solution], it means one thing to the Israelis, it means one thing to the Palestinians. So we said, you know, let’s just not say it.”

On annexation, Kushner said he did not discuss the issue of the Israeli government applying Israeli law over settlements in the West Bank with Netanyahu, but added, “I hope both sides will take a real look at [the plan], the Israeli side and the Palestinian side, before any unilateral steps are made.”

Kushner, asked how he defines success, tells Satloff: “Our approach has been that if we are going to fail, we don’t want to fail doing it the same way it has been done in the past.”

Satloff: You want to be original in your failure? (laughter)

Kushner: “Well, hopefully, the goal is not to fail, but I think that what we want to do is to figure out how to do this in an intuitive way… We have tried to do this in a very rational way and, hopefully, that is different.” 

Satloff: Has the president read the plan?

Kushner: “The president has been involved from the very beginning… He is involved with the details. He is been pushing us, we have been reporting back to him with regularity. He’s read a lot of the parts of it. He hasn’t seen the latest draft because we have still been refining it, but the president has been very involved in creating this, in creating the strategy, and he’s a very hands-on leader. It has been a lot of fun to work with him on it because this is the one [issue] that he does care about and he would like to see it go forward with it in a good way.”

Satloff:Some time before you go public, I assume there will be some Oval Office meeting, or a Mar-a-Lago family dinner perhaps, where the president turns to you and asks, ‘Okay Jared, honestly, what’s your opinion ― this plan is going to have my name on it — is this going to be a winner? You know I like winners. I really hate losers. Which is this? We don’t have to do it. Is it worth it?’

Kushner: “When you work for a president, you try hard not to disappoint, but you can disappoint. When you work for your father-in-law, you can’t disappoint. So I think I have established a good track record now on all the different tasks he’s given me, I have come back with results and I have come back with good advice, and I do think that this is something that he will be proud of… People should root for this to succeed. I mean people should want this to succeed. I think people should want people to take these issues that maybe have held them apart for a long time and say, ‘Okay, both parties have to give a little bit, but you’ll gain a lot more than you give, and that’s how you make deals, and compromise is important, and that’s a noble thing.’ I think that the president will lay out a framework that I think is very defensible, that has a lot of new ideas in it, and is something that, I think, he will be very proud of, and, hopefully, does lead to some breakthrough.”

At the conclusion of a panel discussion with Washington Institute experts following Kushner’s remarks, Satloff said that he stands by a previous bet he had with Dennis Ross that Trump will, in the end, not take the risk of rolling out a peace plan that is doomed to failure. “I look forward to gathering about two months from now… What Jared Kushner proposed tonight was essentially the traditional Arab version of a process, which is, ‘We can work on implementation, but we know what the solution is.’ He gave the Arab version of a process with a very pro-Israel version of the content. Will that succeed? My bet is we never see it, And so let’s find out.” Watch the entire panel, moderated by Susan Glasser, analyzing Kushner’s remarks here [Video]

The Wilson Center’s Aaron David Miller emails us: “Stunning that without saying anything, Jared Kushner said everything. The plan is clearly an effort to fundamentally change the traditional terms of reference of the peace process — to create a new reality that moves away from a two state paradigm based on core issues toward a transactional process driven by an economic and security trade off with token nods toward the political issues now impossible to resolve.

By Jacob Kornbluh in NY

In a letter, Facebook VP Joel Kaplan makes clear that the site won’t “remove lies or content that is inaccurate” and that includes “denying the Holocaust.”

Facebook intends to allow Holocaust denial on its platform, so long as it doesn’t advocate “violence against Jewish people in any way,” according to a letter written by Joel Kaplan, Vice President for Global Public Policy at Facebook and obtained by Jewish Insider.

“I want to underscore that Facebook rejects hate,” Kaplan writes. “We take down any content that celebrates, defends, or attempts to justify the Holocaust. The same goes for any content that mocks Holocaust victims, accuses victims of lying about the atrocities, spews hate, or advocates for violence against Jewish people in any way. As you can imagine, posts and articles that deny the Holocaust often violate one or more of these standards and are removed from Facebook.”

But Kaplan makes clear that Facebook will “not remove lies or content that is inaccurate — whether it’s denying the Holocaust, the Armenian massacre, or the fact that the Syrian government has killed hundreds of thousands of its own people. This is because we do believe that people should be able to say things on Facebook that are wrong or inaccurate, even when they are offensive.”

The letter dated April 9 and addressed to Paul Packer, Chairman of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, responds to an inquiry about whether the social network would allow Holocaust denial on its site, in light of its recent ban on “praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism.”

Mr. Packer declined to comment on the letter.

A rally in support of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who has recently faced an increase in death threats following her controversial remarks surrounding 9/11 and spat with President Trump, took place outside the Capitol on Tuesday, organized by the Black Lives Movement, a collective of progressive and women-focused organizations and which stems from Black Lives Matter..

Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) spoke at the rally, striking at the Democratic party for feeding into Republican efforts to attack and delegitimize the freshman congresswoman.

“…I can’t protect my sister in our own caucus,” Rep. Pressley told the crowd. “That’s not ok. And that’s why we’re here. And they are surprised that we are here, and we’ll continue to be here – because we are not going quietly into the night. Their attempts to silence us in their silence, by being complicit – their attempts to silence us through legislation, their attempts to silence us through their movements. A great activist friend of mine once said it’s not that the marginalized are voiceless it’s that they are unheard. To that I say, can you hear us now? Hands off Ilhan.”

“I cannot stand that they continue to police her [Rep. Omar],” Rep. Tlaib said. “They continue to police our words, they continue to police our positions. But I say ‘hands off!’ Hands off of the women of color that serve in the United States Congress …I’m telling you right now Ilhan, no more. No more apologies, no more policing, no more backing down.”

Rep. Omar addressed the crowd and, equated how increasing threats from white supremacists, in light of the Poway Synagogue attacks, unites the Muslim and Jewish communities.

“At this moment, the occupant of the White House, as my sister [Rep.] Ayanna [Pressley] likes to call him, and his allies, are doing everything they can to distance themselves and misinform the public from the monsters that they created that is terrorizing the Jewish community and the Muslim community. Because when we are talking about antisemitism, we must also talk about Islamophobia – it’s two sides of the same coin of bigotry,” she said. “…just this week, when we’ve had the attack in California on a synagogue, is the same person that’s accused of attempting to bomb a mosque.” “So I can’t ever speak of Islamophobia and fight for Muslims if I’m not willing to fight against antisemitism,” Rep. Omar said.

SPOTTED: Linda Sarsour attended the rally but did not make any remarks. [Pic]

By Laura Kelly in Washington, D.C.

Global oil prices remain largely unchanged despite the recent move by the Trump administration to apply maximum pressure on Iran by not renewing sanctions waivers for Iranian oil exports. The International Monetary Fund projects that the sanctions could fuel inflation in Iran to 50 percent, the highest level since 1980. Before the U.S. announcement, the IMF had expected Iranian inflation to average 37 percent.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said during a conversation with The Hill‘s Bob Cusack at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.: “We’ve worked with alternative suppliers including alternative suppliers for the countries that we didn’t grant waivers to. We’ve worked on alternative suppliers here in the United States of America. We produce as much crude oil as anybody out there… But with respect to the absence of the granting of waivers and what others may do, sovereign nations make their own choices; individual businesses inside of that will make their own choices. What we can do is prepare a sanctions regime that makes it incredibly costly, and so companies that choose to violate the sanctions that we have in place… we will ensure that they are held accountable for the violations that they engage in. It’s pretty straightforward.”

Maria Jeffrey, a spokesperson for Sen. Cruz (R-TX) tells JI, “Sen. Cruz believes that maximum pressure should mean maximum pressure. That includes taking away Iran’s waivers for raking in billions in oil sales, and it was always clear that global energy markets would be able to adjust without increasing prices.”

FDD’s Mark Dubowitz emails: “The oil markets are well supplied and buyers have other options apart from Iranian crude. As long as the Saudis and Emiratis step in to replace Iranian barrels, prices should remain stable and the maximum pressure campaign against Iranian oil exports can be intensified.”

By Jacob Kornbluh in New York

On Israel, the Times columnist asks, “What happens if Jared and Ivanka divorce tomorrow?”

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens addressed the Times’s cartoon controversy and the U.S.-Israel relationship under President Trump during a conversation at the NYU Global Center on Monday. The panel, hosted by students groups TorchPAC and Realize Israel, had the title “Where Are We Now? American Jewry & Zionism in the Age of Trump.”

Stephens said that writing the op-ed in response to the antisemitic cartoon in the paper’s international print newspaper last week was an easy choice. “The moment I saw the cartoon, I realized, I’m either going to denounce it or feel ashamed of myself,” he said. “It was an emotional decision, it was easy. But most importantly it was easy because the senior leadership at the Times — the editorial page editor James Bennet, and people, in fact, more senior to him — were horrified by the publication of the cartoon. It took them by surprise. These things happen at newspapers, and even if they didn’t agree with every word that I wrote, they understood that it was essential that the paper of record also provide the most biting criticism of the cartoon.”

A frequent critic of Trump, Stephens cautioned pro-Israel Americans about Trump. “For people whose political affinities are entirely a function of their feelings about Israel, right, than Trump presents something of a conundrum,” Stephens said. “Because on the one hand there have been a set of policies, which I have supported — publicly — like moving the embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, getting out of the JCPOA, the Iran deal, which…in my opinion is good for Israel and the right thing to do. On the other hand, there are two more deeply worrying aspects of Trump’s policies. One is that he is in many ways an extension, his views are more of an extension of Obama’s views than most people acknowledge. Trump has a kind of ‘come home America’ idea of the world. Obama used to talk about ‘nation building at home,’ he was a very reluctant interventionist. He didn’t get involved in, for example, the Syria conflict, and he thought that United States should be sort of vacating parts of the world. And the consequences of that were visible.”

Stephens said of Trump, that “his transactional concept of foreign policy, his ‘what’s in it for us’ trademark approach — America First — is one that right now contains an exception for Israel, because for whatever reasons he’s pro-Israel. But what happens if Jared and Ivanka divorce tomorrow? Right? No, seriously, imagine Jared cheats on Ivanka and Trump is in a rage: ‘How come that Jared, that scoundrel son-in-law, is behaving the way I do?’ Well, then you’re in trouble because the philosophical concept through which Trump conducts foreign policy no longer necessarily makes an emotional exception for Israel. And what happens when you get Trump 2.0? That is to say the same kind of foreign policy, but on a more consistent basis. That’s what worries me about Trump.” Stephens later said that he’s worried about Trump because he gives “free rein to a set of ideas about immigration, about nationalism, about, we’ll call it globalism, which will eventually find their targets. In fact, already have found their targets in the Jewish people.”

By Jacob Kornbluh in New York, NY.

A new effort is underway to create a Jewish caucus in Congress, to more forcefully respond to a rise in antisemitic incidents and rhetoric.

Jewish House Democrats acknowledged to Jewish Insider that they regularly meet in an informal working group to discuss issues related to antisemitism, yet a public call is putting pressure on formalizing the group.

Jack Rosen, president of the American Jewish Congress and a longtime donor to Democratic candidates, called for such a group in an op-ed last week, and told Jewish Insider that he came forward following “Israel-bashing” from “ultra-left progressives” in Congress.

“What prompted me to come up with this idea was the vote on the anti-BDS bill, the Israel-bashing we are getting from some of the ultra-left progressives and understanding that we are now living in the new political climate,” Rosen explained in a phone interview.

On the state and municipal levels, the California legislature and the New York City Council each have a Jewish caucus.

In Congress, there are currently 34 Jewish lawmakers out of the body of 535 in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, including two Republican House members — Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) and David Kustoff (R-TN).

The informal group among Jewish House Democrats has met for years, said Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL), who has attended meetings since she was first elected in 2013. “There has been an informal working group of Jewish congresspersons for as long as I’ve been here, I think it goes back way before I was in Congress,” she said.

The informal group is led by Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Nita Lowey (D-NY), both senior Democratic members and respective leaders of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Committee on Appropriations.

Rep. Frankel said that discussions about formalizing the caucus have come up in recent weeks, particularly following the statements made by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

“There have been folks who have mentioned to me the idea of formalizing,”  said Rep. Frankel. “This sort of came up in response — we had this situation with one of our colleagues who made some, we thought, some offensive remarks. So there’s been some discussion about, should we be in the position where Jewish members make more of a formal statement together. That’s really been some of what I’ve heard. As far as I know there hasn’t been any action taken.”

Rosen, for his part, said the lack of congressional action against Rep. Omar is a driving force behind the public call for a formalized Jewish caucus, stressing that despite the fact that Jewish members serve in senior leadership positions, “they failed in passing a resolution specifically condemning antisemitism.”

After Jewish Insider reported that Rep. Omar had referred to Americans who support Israel as “pushing for allegiance to a foreign country,” House Democrats spent a week debating how to address her comments and, with pushback from progressives and the Congressional Black Caucus, downplayed Rep. Omar’s use of the language. The resulting resolution, therefore, broadly opposed hate and bigotry against all groups, with sections devoted to antisemitism.

“What played out was that the Progressive Caucus, the Black Caucus (CBC), wanted to see a resolution that represented attacks on more communities as opposed to pinpointing where the problem was,” Rosen noted. “And they prevailed. Had there been a Jewish Caucus, they would have walked into the Speaker’s office unified as the Black Caucus did and there could have been a different outcome.”

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), who is part of the informal Jewish working group, called their meetings “as important now as ever,” and echoed Rep. Frankel that discussions are happening over whether to formalize.

Rep. Phillips said it would be a group decision whether to include Jewish Republican members. “I can tell you my personal mission is to broaden conversations and coalitions and that means extending invitations and I would certainly, personally, like to see such a caucus more broad, rather than less. Ultimately that’s going to be a decision of everybody at the table and I can’t speak to that yet.”

Halie Soifer, Executive Director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) told Jewish Insider that if the Jewish members of Congress “believe a Jewish Caucus is needed or would make their voice more effective, it is something that JDCA would certainly support.”

Rosen maintained that a bipartisan Jewish caucus could have prevented the stalling of Rep. Zeldin’s antisemitism resolution, which was introduced in January, that specifically mentions Rep. Omar’s comments and her 2012 tweet saying Israel had “hypnotized the world.”

The March resolution rejecting antisemitism and hate and bigotry, however, “provided a political opportunity for Trump to label the Dems as being anti-Jewish,” said Mr. Rosen. “We know that President Trump is probably the best brander in the world and he took advantage of the issue to brand the entire party as being anti-Jewish.”

Norm Coleman, Chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition told Jewish Insider that he’s “not looking for a Congressional Jewish Caucus. I’m looking for members of Congress to call out [Rep.] Ilhan Omar for repetitive antisemitic tropes and to support her removal from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. I’m wary of members of Congress taking cover on the antisemitism issue by joining an American Jewish Caucus, rather than personally speaking out against Rep. Omar and others for antisemitic words and actions.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) commented on Benjamin Netanyahu’s reelection as Israel’s prime minister earlier this month during a live CNN town hall in New Hampshire on Monday.

Shelly Tsirulik, a student at Harvard University: You have been an outspoken critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet Israel is also one of America’s most important allies in the world. Given that Prime Minister Netanyahu just won another term in office, how do you plan to maintain the strong U.S.-Israel relationship despite those critiques?

Sanders: “Look, what I have said over and over again, and I repeat to you: I happened to, as a young man your age, I spent a number of months in Israel. I worked on a kibbutz for a while. I have family in Israel. I am not anti-Israel. But the fact of the matter is that Netanyahu is a right-wing politician who, I think, is treating the Palestinian people extremely unfairly.” (applause)

“What I believe, you know, the U.S. gives billions of dollars in military aid to Israel — what I believe is not radical — I just believe that the U.S. should deal with the Middle East on a level-playing-field basis. In other words, the goal must be to try to bring people together and not just support one country, which is now run by a right-wing — dare I say — racist government.”

“I am 100 percent pro-Israel. Israel has every right in the world to exist and to exist in peace and security, and not be subjected to terrorist attacks. But the United States needs to deal not just with Israel but with the Palestinian people as well.”

Congresswoman Lois Frankel represents Florida’s 21st district, which includes communities along the south-eastern coast of the state. A long-time public servant, she spent 14 years in the Florida State House before becoming the Mayor of West Palm Beach and then elected to Congress in 2013. She is a member of the House Committee on Appropriations and the subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs subcommittee. Yesterday, she spoke with Jewish Insider about her support for and connection to Israel, her Jewish identity, and the danger of highly partisan politics. This interview has been edited for clarity.

Laura Kelly: Can you tell me about your connection to your Jewish identity, how you were raised or how it influences your life?

Rep. Lois Frankel: I was raised in New York, on Long Island, in a town which was probably 95 percent Jewish. My parents are Jewish, my grandparents are Jewish – my grandparents came to this country to get away from the looming Holocaust. I’ve known many people in my life who’ve fled Nazi Germany, some who were in Nazi Germany – unfortunately most of those people have passed on. I have many friends who are my contemporaries, whose parents or grandparents also fled the… Nazis in Europe.

…We belonged to a Conservative Temple. It was sort of a typical Jewish family, I’m going to say, we weren’t overly religious, we attended Temple [on] holidays, events — we had the long Passover dinners, we lit candles, I was married by a rabbi… I  grew up in a time where very few girls were bat mitzvah’d, so I was not bat mitzvah’d, I’m sort of resentful. But I grew up in a very Jewish community and… Judaism is part of my identity. More the culture, the Tzedakah [charity or justice], the values of the Jewish religion, is really what’s been most part of me. Not the davening [praying[, it is more the values that I learned growing up.

LK: Have you traveled to Israel?

LF: I’ve traveled with the Jewish Federation [of South Florida] a number of times and also as a member of Congress.

LK: With such a large freshman Democratic class, how important is it do you think members take a trip to Israel to understand the U.S.-Israel relationship?

LF: I think it’s very important and I think every one of them should do it. I would also say that travel is — not only to Israel, but to countries all over the world — it’s very important for members of Congress to really have an understanding of our place in the world. I think travel is very important, to Israel and to other countries, without a question.

LK: How do you feel connected to Israel through your Jewish identity, or does Israel strengthen your Jewish connection? What is your view on that?

LF: When I went with my congressional classmates, there were  50 of us in my class, we all went to Israel together with our families. I can tell you that — and most were not Jewish and many were going to Israel for the first time. It was incredibly spiritual and [a] bonding experience to be there and yes, I would say probably for any Jew, including myself — it does enhance your identity. I don’t consider myself — I am not a “religious” person, you’re not going to find me in Temple every Saturday morning, but I definitely identify myself as a Jew and I understand the struggle of the Jewish people.

This month, Republicans sought to stall a Yemen War Powers resolution by introducing a last-minute amendment condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Democrats voted down the measure but Republicans seized on perceived anti-Israel sentiment within the party. This builds on tension from comments by Democratic members like Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) who have questioned U.S. support for Israel.

LK: What are some of the discussions in the Democratic caucus to respond to these Republican efforts or to fight back over perceived divisions over Israel?

LF: I’m sorry to say this… I feel like the Republicans are using Israel and the Jews as a political football. I feel very strongly that the security of Israel, is not only the right thing for Israel, it’s the right thing for our country… When I first got to Congress, still the acrimony was pretty bad on most issues, but the one thing I would say, ‘Wow, at least when it comes to Israel, most of us are on the same page.’

I still feel that way. I feel that most of us are still on the same page, there’s overwhelming support for Israel, for the security of Israel, by the majority of members. I’m not going to say every member because, listen, there’s always going to be some people who disagree, there are some who disagree with everything…

You never want to get to a situation where, let’s say, where we are with — the acrimony, I should say, the disagreements about our relationship with Saudi Arabia. You never want that situation, ever, to happen. In my opinion, the president of the United States is using Israel as a political football — not that I necessarily disagree with some of his positions, but when he states a position and then says the Democrats are against Israel, that is a really bad thing for Israel, for him to make that kind of statement. Because number one, it’s not true and number two, why foster that perception? Why would you want the resentment that so many people in this country have for this president… why would you want him to foster resentment towards Israel? Or towards Jews?

LK: We’re in a different era where a member’s popularity on social media [influences conversations], Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has millions of followers on Twitter, so when she says something on a Yahoo news radio program about the possibility of cutting military aid to Israel, that gets a lot more focus than what would probably be the majority view in the Democratic caucus. How is the Democratic caucus dealing with those kinds of conversations?

LF: My understanding, and this is just from reading, is I think she said something to the effect that ‘those conversations are on the table.’ I don’t think she said it with much conviction or knowledge. If you really want to know, she’s a very exciting new member, so I’m not trying to be disrespectful to her in any way: I have not heard or seen anything from her that would lead me to believe that she is leading any kind of effort to not fund Israel. This is speculation, because I don’t know exactly where she’s gotten her information, but she probably talked to some members who don’t agree with the support we give Israel and so she’s probably reporting that some people are discussing it. I’m on the foreign operations committee of the Appropriations committee, and I can tell you, there’s no discussion in that regard. None, zero, zippo, and there will not be… not in the House and I would guess there’s no discussion in the Senate either.

Last month, Rep. Frankel and Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX) introduced legislation that provides extra funding to joint U.S.-Israel development projects in under-developed nations.

LK: Why was it important for you to put that extra money into this development cooperation with Israel?

LF: For me, given the recent conversations in Congress and the rise of antisemitism in the world and in the United States, I’ve thought that we should highlight something really good that’s happening, not only between our country and Israel — I think it’s unfortunate that so much of the discussion of Israel, unfortunately, has to be about a bomb coming into one of the cities, or the indictment of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. It gets so much negative news, just like in this country. The news is always negative, and yet Israel is doing so many good things, there’s so much innovation, especially in the area of energy and water. Israel is a generous country and it takes its knowledge and shares its knowledge and this is just really a way to highlight work that Israel is already doing and really to memorialize their work with USAID in [developing] countries… [working with public and private companies] to help countries become more economically successful and resources more sustainable.

The bill was included in Rep. Ted Deutch’s legislation broadening U.S.-Israel security cooperation, that was introduced around the same time. Also included in Rep. Deutch’s bill, is a provision of a proposed fix for the 2018 Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act, which – when it went into effect in February – had the consequence of ending all U.S. aid accepted by the Palestinian Authority. Rep. Frankel said she is interested in a solution to this “glitch,” where funding for humanitarian projects and security cooperation can be restored while preserving the rights of victims of terror that the law is meant to protect.

LK: To your position on the appropriations committee and the state foreign operations: With the expectation of a peace plan to be unveiled, do you feel there’s very little role for Congress to play since the Palestinian’s have rejected all U.S. aid?

LF: Well, I do think we have to fix — there’s a glitch, I would say a glitch — yes, we have to change that act [the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act]… We know that the president has cut off aid anyway right now, and… I have no idea what the peace plan is going to look like… Congress needs to take some action that would actually put the Palestinians in a position of being able to accept aid, should that be part of  [Trump’s] proposal. I don’t know what it will be.

LK: What’s the significance of having Congress involved in any peace proposal or any peace negotiation?

LF: Candidly I have no idea what Trump, what they’re doing or what they’re proposing… I guess if it was a treaty, I think the Senate would have to approve that… I don’t know whether we would be involved. But if it involves any kind of funding, yes, Congress would be involved… But if there was any kind of funding, the administration would have to depend on Congress to appropriate money.
Laura Kelly is the Capitol Hill reporter for Jewish Insider. Follow her @HelloLauraKelly

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Monday the official designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, placing sanctions on the military body embedded within the Iranian regime.

The official designation is expected to take effect next week, Secretary Pompeo said, and foreign governments and individuals are on notice that any dealings with the Iranian government are expected to be under threat because of the IRGC’s deep involvement and can be prosecuted under U.S. penal codes.

“If you’re the general council for a European financial institution today, there’s more risk,” Sec. Pompeo said of doing business in Iran. “It is absolutely the case that the IRGC amounts to a significant piece of the Iranian economy through pure kleptocracy and it is also the case that it is sometimes difficult to know whether the IRGC is involved. That is, the diligence effort is an enormous undertaking.”

The announcement builds on the Administration’s efforts to increase sanctions Iran after leaving the Iran nuclear deal. It also makes it more difficult for any future U.S. administration to re-enter such a deal, says Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.“You can’t just push this away, wipe this way with a reentry into the nuclear deal. It’s going to create a higher bar for anyone trying to provide some financial relief to Iran if that day comes to pass,” he said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif called the announcement an election gift to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said that Israel is “dragging the U.S. into a quagmire on its behalf.”

A(nother) misguided election-eve gift to Netanyahu. A(nother) dangerous U.S. misadventure in the region.— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) April 8, 2019

#NetanyahuFirsters who have long agitated for FTO designation of the IRGC fully understand its consequences for US forces in the region. In fact, they seek to drag US into a quagmire on his behalf.@realDonaldTrump should know better than to be conned into another US disaster. pic.twitter.com/i4bcfgxybT— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) April 7, 2019

The move also comes before a May 2 deadline on whether to renew waivers for countries currently buying Iranian oil. Sec. Pompeo declined to comment on the status of waiver renewals during a press briefing at the State Department.

Nathan Sales, the head of the Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism, said the announcement is the next step in the Administration’s “maximum pressure campaign” and adds criminal charges to any organization or individual that does business with the IRGC.

“It’s not just that the IRGC supports terrorism that its proxies undertake. Today the IRGC stands accused and convicted of directly engaging in terrorism itself,” he said.

Material support to a designated foriegn terrorist organization can carry a maximum penalty of 20 years, Mr. Sales said. Outstanding cases include the deaths or injuries of an estimated 603 U.S. troops serving in Iraq, as concluded by the Department of Defense.

Iran threatened reciprocal action against the U.S. over the announcement, Reuters reported, IRGC commander Mohammad Ali Jafari threatened an end to calm in the West Asia region.

Secretary Pompeo said Monday that “we have made clear, both privately and publicly, that an attack on the United States of America is something they ought to think more than twice about.”

Republican lawmakers praised the move.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) offered complete support of the Administration’s new designation, writing on Twitter, “The IRGC has been wreaking havoc throughout the Middle East and is a direct arm of the Ayatollah’s hateful policies. Secretary Pompeo and President Trump have rightfully put enormous pressure on Iran.”

Congressman David Kustoff (R-TN) said the President is sending a clear message that the United States does not do business with a country that terrorizes people in and outside its borders.

“We must remain vigilant against those who wish to bring Americans harm and continue to stand with our greatest ally in the Middle East, Israel,” Rep. Kustoff said.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon said his country thanks the U.S. for recognizing “Middle East realities”, writing on Twitter, “The IRGC is the main exporter of Iran’s regional terrorism. The world should follow this example & increase the pressure on Iran! [sic]”

Mr. Schanzer, speaking from Israel ahead of their national elections on Tuesday, said the announcement has had little airtime in the country’s political debate.

“When you look at sanctions designations and announcements, it really resonates among a certain group of wonks in Washington as well as Jerusalem. It rarely resonates outside the kind of expected audience.”

This post has been updated.

Laura Kelly is the Capitol Hill reporter for Jewish Insider. Follow her @HelloLauraKelly

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ULTIMATE DEAL WATCH — How Dumbo Heights provides a clue to Kushner’s peace plan rollout — Earlier this week, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, revealed in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the Trump peace plan has been completed and will likely be rolled out soon after Israel’s elections on April 9th.

The Key Questions: What? When? And How? — While Danon shed some light on the question of timing, key questions remain about what’s actually in the plan (which, we’re told, is likely to include land swaps involving the cooperation of neighboring countries Egypt and Jordan) and how it will be released.

Kushner’s playbook — Many real estate deal analogies have been made given the professional backgrounds of Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt. Trump himself has called Middle East peace “like a real estate deal.” While the comparisons have often focused on the contents of a possible deal, there’s another real estate technique that, according to sources who’ve been briefed, Kushner is likely to deploy: marketing films.

Flashback — On a late afternoon in the spring of 2014, Jared Kushner walked up to the podium at a Brooklyn real estate gathering to deliver a rare public presentation. Kushner kept his remarks brief and instead let a slickly produced two-minute film — featuring a deep voice over and futuristic renderings of his company’s Dumbo Heights development — do the talking. “That really gives you a flavor of what we’re trying to create,” Kushner concluded following the video. You can watch Kushner’s remarks here, along with the film.

‘Has to be the best’ — Kushner Companies later used the same marketing firm, Creative Soldier, founded by self-described ‘real estate ad genius’ Joshua Abehsera, to create a film promoting the penthouse residences of the Puck Building. In the video, Jared Kushner can be seen explaining, “we started with the premise that this project can’t be good, this project can’t be great, this project has to be the best.”

From Brooklyn to Bethlehem — Economic incentives are expected to be the centerpiece of the Trump peace proposal. Kushner toured the region last month in an effort to secure financial pledges from Gulf countries and Turkey. As we previously reported, according to former U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk, the number Kushner has in mind to raise is $65 billion. Starting with showcasing what life in the region could look like with peace and financial prosperity, and painting a picture for ordinary Palestinians, appears to be one of the ‘unique’ approaches that Kushner plans to introduce to the peace process.

Whether the futuristic renderings bringing the Dumbo spirit to Gaza and the West Bank will win support for the overall plan remains to be seen. We’re living in the age of the Fyre Festival, which famously sold tickets for thousands of dollars entirely on a flashy promo video featuring Instagram models in the Bahamas. Producing teaser films to sell Middle East peace might not be such a stretch… [JewishInsider]

HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND — On Saturday, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are expected to address the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) National Leadership Meeting held at Sheldon Adelson’s Venetian Resort in Las Vegas.

Additional speakers at the weekend confab include House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jim Risch (R-ID), Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), David Perdue (R-GA) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND); Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Billy Long (R-MO), Denver Riggleman (R-VA) and Dan Crenshaw (R-TX); South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, and U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat anti-Semitism Elan Carr.

RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks tells us: “We are deeply honored and humbled to be able to host both President Trump and Vice President Pence at our annual RJC conference. This is the most pro-Israel President ever in history and when he steps in front of a crowd of nearly 2000 people he will feel the love of the crowd and know that his leadership and historic accomplishments are appreciated. This is the biggest event for the RJC in our history and it will be the most memorable.”

ON THE HILL — Yemen war powers vote turns partisan on Israel language — by JI’s Laura Kelly: Democrats succeeded in passing a resolution on Thursday directing the removal of U.S. troops in Yemen despite an effort by Republicans to invoke the motion to recommit (MTR) on antisemitism and BDS. The Yemen bill, which passed the House 247 to 175, directs the removal of all U.S. troops from hostilities in Yemen unless authorized by Congress. The bill heads to President Trump’s desk where it will likely be vetoed, marking the second time the president has used such authority.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) called into question the motivations of Republicans as a “cynical and dishonest tactic” to block the bill. “The American people will not be fooled or misled by this tactic,” Leader Hoyer said on the floor. “No one can accuse me of failing to defend the U.S.-Israel partnership and strongly opposing BDS and I will be voting against this motion and I urge all my colleagues to do so as well.”

Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), chair of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa and International Terrorism, took to the House floor to say that he carries “the legacy of the history of the Jewish people. There is no one in this chamber, no one, who would question my commitment to opposing BDS or fighting antisemitism or supporting our ally Israel,” Rep. Deutch said to loud applause from the Democrats. “But I also strongly reject… what my colleagues are doing here today.”

The Republican motion failed by a vote of 228 to 194, although at least seven members broke ranks with their parties. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Justin Amash (R-MI) voted no on the motion to recommit and five Democrats voted in favor, including Reps. Jefferson Van Drew (D-NJ), Anthony Brindisi (D-NY), Joe Cunningham (D-SC), Elaine Luria (D-VA) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ).

“This is a matter of principle for me,” Rep. Gottheimer told Jewish Insider. “I have always stood strong against antisemitism and always will.”

Rep. John Curtis (R-UT), speaking before seeing the vote on the MTR, told JI, “I would just emphasize how important it is that we figure out how to keep this a bipartisan issue,” he said regarding antisemitism. “One of my worries is that I’m seeing this kind of being fractured into a Republican issue and we really need to keep it a bipartisan issue and I’m hoping we can do that.”

Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), a member of the Democratic Israel Working Group caucus, explained to JI, that the majority of Republicans voting against the Yemen bill showed their motion to recommit was disingenuous. “I listened to the Republican [Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX)] make his case about BDS and it’s exactly why I do oppose BDS But this was about trying to undermine a bill about Yemen and the starving, hungry children in a war torn part of the world.” Read all the responses here [JewishInsider]

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), speaking at a press conference following the vote, called the defeat of the GOP’s BDS motion, a “turning moment for America” and called on the House leadership to introduce S.1 – the Senate-passed bill which includes a provision barring the government from doing business with individuals or organizations that boycott Israel. “Today was a day in history I didn’t want to see in America. Today, every Democrat but five voted against an amendment to reject the BDS movement. Every Democrat but five would not stand with Israel today. This is a turning moment for America.” [Video]

Rep. Eliot Engel, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, posted: “I’ve spent my entire career fighting anti-Semitism and championing the U.S.-Israel relationship. The Republicans’ MTR today hurts these important causes, with the true aim of gutting a critical bill to help the Yemeni people.”

DRIVING THE CONVO — Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) reacted to the American Action Network ad campaign targeting him and three of his colleagues for not acting to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “As I’ve said many, many times, I think the worst thing we can do, if we care about the US-Israeli relationship, is to turn it into a partisan issue,” Malinowski told Jewish Insider’s Laura Kelly. 

Former U.S. Ambassador Daniel Shapiro tells us: “The logic of trying to tag strong Democratic supporters of Israel with the remarks of others that they have condemned escapes me. It makes little sense if you care about bipartisanship in support for Israel, and it will convince no one but those who want to use Israel as a political football. Fortunately, most voters don’t. This will be money poorly spent.”

Norm Coleman, Chairman of the American Action Network, responds to the criticism: “We are not politicizing Israel. We are calling out antisemitism,” Coleman stressed. “The tragedy is that calling out antisemitism has been politicized — by the far-left — who have muzzled reasonable Democrat voices through fear of pushback from the Democrat base.” According to Coleman, AAN is only challenging Rep Omar over her repeated use of antisemitic tropes, not for her criticism of Israel. “Shame on those who don’t have the courage to call out as antisemites those who traffic in accusing Jews of dual loyalty, hypnotizing their critics, and using ‘the Benjamin’s’ (money) to buy Israel’s support. This is Ilhan Omar, and this is classic antisemitism.”

An AAN official argued that the strategy behind targeting thought to be “reasonable Democrats” is because they are the most likely to feel pressure in their respective district to do something to spur action. [JewishInsider]

Anti-Semitism Is Back, From the Left, Right and Islamist Extremes — by Patrick Kingsley: “‘Today, mainstream European and North American politicians, even presidents, premiers and prime ministers, don’t hesitate to flirt with or embrace overtly anti-Semitic messages and memes,’ said David Nirenberg, dean of the Divinity School at the University of Chicago and an expert on Jewish history. ‘This electoral utility of anti-Semitism feels new to me, newly flexible, and therefore newly dangerous,’ Mr. Nirenberg added.” [NYTimes]

BUZZ ON BALFOUR — Final polls published days before the April 9 election show a tight race between Netanyahu’s Likud Party and Kachol Lavan. Though all polls project the Likud would be able to form a right-wing coalition, Netanyahu has warned his supporters that he’s on the brink of losing his bid for reelection.

Netanyahu is boasting about his ties with President Trump in his final pitchto voters. In TV commercials and on campaign posters, the Netanyahu campaign is featuring a Trump endorsement from 2013 with recent statements made by the president about Netanyahu’s leadership.

Asked by The Jerusalem Post in an interview whether Trump and Putin were trying to help Netanyahu get reelected, Gantz replied: “One could think like that. I hope that’s not the case.” Gantz said he did not request a meeting with Trump while in D.C. for the AIPAC conference last month knowing he’d be rejected. “I knew the answer in advance. If the White House thought it would be important to meet me, it would have happened,” he said.

Kachol Lavan co-leader Yair Lapid traveled today to Paris to meet with President Emmanuel Macron. “During the meeting, the two will discuss the situation in the Middle East, including the threat from Iran, and the rise of antisemitism in Europe,” the party said in a statement. 

Anshel Pfeffer writes: “Benjamin Netanyahu is almost certainly about to win a fifth election. He deserves to win. He has won a ruthless and brilliant campaign, anticipating nearly all his rivals’ moves. No one has even come close… Israelis are like smokers who would really like to quit but don’t believe they can function without the constant dose of nicotine. It’s not just Netanyahu who has created such a compelling narrative for his indispensability. It’s his opponents on the center-left who have lost their narrative.” [Haaretz]

Oren Liebermann and Andrew Carey: “‘King Bibi,’ as he was described in one recent documentary film, is the master of Israeli politics, and he knows howto use the system to his advantage. In short, don’t count him out just yet.”[CNN]

THE POWER OF POT — Former Likud MK Moshe Feiglin is expected to be one of the surprises of the April 9th election, if recent polls turn out to be accurate. “The [cannabis] legalization issue has got people listening to me,” Feiglin told The Washington Post. His party Zehut is projected to get around 5 seats in the next Knesset. Feiglin’s support comes from an unusual coalition of right-wing voters and disaffected young people who see little difference between PM Netanyahu and his challenger, Benny Gantz, WSJ’s Dov Lieber explains.

Feiglin hasn’t committed to supporting either candidate for prime minister, giving him the chance to wind up as the post-election kingmaker in all likelihood. “Unless a miracle happens, I won’t become prime minister, so our [campaign] is focusing on social issues,” Feiglin told Lahav Harkov — writing for the Wall Street Journal — in response to criticism that he is hiding his radical right-wing positions. “Given the likely outcome of the political jockeying, the many Israelis who enjoy their cannabis may find themselves smoking legally later this year,” Harkov concludes.

JI INTERVIEW — Ami Ayalon, former Shin Bet chief and co-founder of the Israeli NGO Blue White Future, sat down for an interview with Jewish Insider’s Jacob Kornbluh in New York. They discussed what’s at stake in the upcoming election, the future of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and the much-anticipated Trump peace plan.

“The way I see it, my children will live in a two states reality, the reality I believe we should hope for. The only question is how much we will suffer on the way,” Ayalon said. Israeli society is afraid of changing the status quo, he explained why offering solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian was not an election issue this cycle. “It is too painful and too complicated. We are in a state of denial. We want to believe that the status quo is sustainable. But it is clear that it is not.”

Ayalon doubts Netanyahu would annex the West Bank if elected to a 5th term as head of a right-wing coalition government. “Bibi will do everything in his power not to annex. He does not believe in annexation,” he opined. “I spent probably hundreds of hours with Netanyahu. I saw him in very unique moments. So I believe he will do everything to sustain the status quo. On the other hand, he will do everything possible in order to make sure that Hamas and Fatah remain divided between Gaza and the West Bank to proclaim there’s no Palestinian partner. And he will do anything to remain in power.”

Despite the mutual denials from both sides, Ayalon believes that Netanyahu’s wish is to create a government with Kachol Lavan (the Blue and White party), headed by Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid. He predicts, however, that it won’t happen because of the political environment Netanyahu himself has created — even if President Trump releases his peace plan immediately after the April 9 election. Read the full interview here [JewishInsider]

REPORT — The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has inspected a “secret atomic warehouse” in Tehran that Israeli PM Netanyahu revealed in his United Nations General Assembly speech last September, Reuters reported on Thursday. The IAEA had been to the site more than once last month, a diplomat told Reuters. The tests theoretically could show the presence of nuclear material at the site. But experts say that given the amount of time that has elapsed and the likely removal of equipment, it will be hard to clearly identify whether the Israeli claims are true. “It will be very difficult to find anything now,” one of the officials told the Wall Street Journal. 

HEARD YESTERDAY — Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz discussed the Iran nuclear deal, antisemitism and U.S. support for Israel during a live town hall hosted by Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier on Fox News. “I don’t believe there is an antisemitic strain” in the Democratic Party, Schultz said. “I was at AIPAC last week. For some reason, most of the Democratic candidates who are running for president decided not to go. I think they are making a statement that was more about foreign policy that was more about Iran, but it wasn’t about being antisemitic.”

“I have been asked the question, is the country ready for a Jewish president, since I am Jewish? And the answer is: yes! I believe strongly in the goodness and kindness of the American people. And if I were to run for president and be fortunate enough to win — I am not running for president as a Jew. I am running for president as an American who happens to be Jewish. I am concerned that there’s been a 61 percent rise in antisemitism in America today, and that bothers me a great deal and is something that I think we should be dealing with.” 

On whether he would re-enter the 2015 Iran deal: “I would discuss that with my advisors and make that decision, but I would not have pulled us out of the Iran deal. I think that was a strategic mistake.” 

‘NOT NUTS’ — Schultz said during a Boys’ Club of New York fundraiser on the Upper East Side on Wednesday that he will make a decision on independent presidential bid by July 1 and that he and his wife are “cautiously optimistic.” Barry Sternlicht, chief executive officer of Starwood Capital Group Management, expressed his support for Schultz in a conversation with Bloomberg News. Sternlicht cited Ross Perot getting 19 percent of the vote in 1992 as evidence that Schultz could win in a three-person race. “He was a little nuts,” Sternlicht said of Perot. “Howard is not nuts.”

2020 WATCH — Mayor Pete Buttigieg brings pro-Israel, ‘religious left’ message to 2020 Democratic primary… Joe Biden slated to make his first public appearance since complaints about his behavior surfaced… Trump mocked Biden with an altered video of his apology… Is Bill de Blasio running for president? Sure looks like it… 

** Good Friday Morning! Enjoying the Daily Kickoff? Please share us with your friends & tell them to sign up at [JI]. Have a tip? We’d love to hear from you. Anything from hard news and punditry to the lighter stuff, including event coverage, job transitions, or even special birthdays, is much appreciated. Email [email protected] **

BUSINESS BRIEFS: Elon Musk in Talks to Bore Tunnels in Israel, Netanyahu Says [Bloomberg] • David Bistricer’s Clipper Equities buys out Chetrit at 720-unit Greenpoint project [RealDeal] • WeWork inks lease at Isaac Chetrit’s Times Square Building [RealDeal] • Can Technology Stop the Duane Reade-ization of New York? [NYTimes] • Steven Lowy’s Scentre exit signals end of era [TheAustrailian]

STARTUP SPOTLIGHT — Private investors buy out shares of Custom Ink, which built a fortune on T-shirts — by Aaron Gregg and Thomas Heath: “Major investors in Custom Ink, Washington’s homegrown online T-shirt company that began 19 years ago in a Bethesda basement, are cashing out their shares under an agreement with the private-equity firms Great Hill Partners and HarbourVest… Custom Ink co-founder and chief executive Marc Katz, 42, will continue to run and own a significant stake in the company… Katz quit Wall Street two decades ago in pursuit of an idea that would make the simple T-shirt into something more. Custom Ink customers go online and design T-shirts for family reunions, small businesses, youth sports teams, religious groups or student associations online… At first from a basement in Maryland, Katz and others built a company with 1,700 employees based in the upscale Mosaic District in Fairfax County, Va. The company also has facilities in Charlottesville, Dallas and Nevada.” [WashPost]

LONG READ ― Where Rudy Giuliani’s Money Comes From — by Stephanie Baker: “Dan Pickard, a partner and FARA specialist at the Washington law firm Wiley Rein LLP, declines to discuss Rudy Giuliani specifically, but he says that if someone is paid by a foreign political group to give a speech in the U.S. to influence policy, he should file as a foreign agent. ‘FARA is so much broader than just lobbying,’ he says. Giuliani told me he’s getting paid not by the MEK but rather by an American organization of Iranian dissidents. Is it the Organization of Iranian-American Communities, which is allied with the MEK, I asked? ‘I can’t remember the exact name,’ Giuliani said. He dismissed concerns about FARA, saying, ‘It’s no different than if you did work for an American Jewish group that has strong views on Israel.'”[Bloomberg]

SPORTS BLINK — Sixers Co-Owner: Robert Kraft Now Better Understands Racial Profiling After He Was Busted For Solicitation — by Gabe Fernandez: “At a sports business conference on Wednesday, Michael Rubin, a minority owner of the Philadelphia 76ers, was asked about Robert Kraft’s recent troubles with the law, given that the Patriots owner is a friend of his. In his response, Rubin reported that the incident has sparked a sudden sociopolitical awakening in Kraft… ‘The biggest thing that I talk to Robert about every day these days is, he’s finally seeing what it’s like to be a player in the NFL and a player in the NBA, when you have experiences with law enforcement that aren’t the way that you thought they were going to be,’ Rubin said.” [DeadSpin; BostonGlobe]

Citi Field Stand will have Kosher for Passover options during Mets vs. Phillies Series. [YeahThatsKosher]

Putting ‘Soul’ Back in the Hebrew Bible — by Blaire French: “Recently the word has gone out of fashion with scholars and translators. They argue that the traditional Hebrew word for soul—nefesh—should be translated as ‘life breath,’ ‘the essence of a human being’ or ‘person’ … Berkeley scholar Robert Alter, in his new translation of the Hebrew Bible, has made a decisive statement against soul … Since God has a nefesh, it cannot only be tied to earthly flesh. Dualism is not foreign to the Hebrew Bible. To exclude ‘soul’ as a definition for nefesh because it sounds too Christian does not do justice to the original text. Emphasizing the Hebrew Bible’s concrete approach to life should not obstruct its occasional reach toward otherworldliness. Nefesh deserves to have its soul restored.” [WSJ]

WINE OF THE WEEK — 2012 Terra di Seta Special Reserve Chianti Classico — by Yitz Applbaum: “Yesterday I had a conversation with a close friend about what it takes to create great experiences that can always be remembered and cherished. We agreed that it is always about the people involved. l further posited that the wine shared during these experiences is of paramount importance. During this particular conversation, I was blessed to be drinking a great Italian wine.”

“The 2012 Terra di Seta Special Reserve Chianti Classico is made from one hundred percent Sangiovese grapes. One might expect a certain coarseness from this single variety, but the eighteen months in new French oak mellows this wine, giving it a supple and serene mouthfeel. The one place where the edginess of this grape captivates you is in the mid-palate and then, only for a nanosecond. No surprise, drink this wine with linguine and ravioli and drink this wine in the next twelve months.” [Terradiseta]

MAZEL TOV — A Business Trip Yields the Investment of a Lifetime — by Vincent Mallozzi: “When Julian Olidort returned to his Manhattan office after a business trip to Israel five years ago, he said his first priority was ‘to assemble a team of co-workers’ to assist in the delicate handling of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that emerged 6,000 miles away in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It was an investment he was eager to pursue. Her name was Sivan Aloni. ‘She was a very beautiful and intelligent woman with a very different outlook on life,’ Mr. Olidort said. ‘She lived every day at her own pace, and that was something I deeply admired, so I thought if there was ever a chance to meet her again it would be so magical, so worth it.’ Mr. Olidort, now 29 and an associate at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Ms. Aloni, now 31 and the adviser to Ambassador Dani Dayan, consul general of Israel in New York, met in Jerusalem in May 2014 at the first Genesis Prize award ceremony… They were married on a Tuesday morning, April 2, by Rabbi Haskel Lookstein at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in Manhattan.” [NYTimes]

WEEKEND BIRTHDAYS — FRIDAY: Vice-provost of the California Institute of Technology (1988-2007) where he also served as a professor of physics and applied physics, David Goodstein turns 80… Research scientist, science administrator, CEO of the Ontario Genomics Institute and lecturer on Jewish medical ethics, Mark J. Poznansky turns 73… Marketing consultant and owner of Newton, PA-based Strategic Decisions Inc., Gene Kadish turns 71… Engineer, inventor, businessman, best known for his invention of the Segway, he is the holder of hundreds of other patents, Dean Kamen turns 68… CEO of Hess Corporation, a global energy company, John Barnett Hessturns 65… British novelist, author of over 40 books specializing in mystery and suspense, his Alex Rider series is estimated to have sold 19 million copies worldwide, Anthony Horowitz turns 64…

Assistant managing editor for CNN Politics, he is focused on legal and justice issues, the Supreme Court and immigration policy, Dan Berman turns 40… Deputy chief of staff and legislative director for Representative Dina Titus (D-Nevada-1), Benjamin J. Rosenbaum turns 36… Operations manager at 2U (an educational technology company), he was previously a managing director of the Israel on Campus Coalition (2014-2018), Adam Maslia turns 30… Congressional Reporter at GovTrack Insider and Box Office Analyst at BoxOffice Media, Jesse Rifkin turns 27… Speechwriter for US Senator Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), Wilson Shirley turns 26… Los Angeles-based director of public relations for the Western US at the Israel Ministry of Tourism, Camila Seta turns 26… Executive editor at Jewish Insider, Adam Ross Rubenstein turns 24… Harvey Levin…

SATURDAY: Philanthropist Jeanie Schottenstein… 1992 winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine, Edmond H. Fischer turns 99… Former justice of the Supreme Court of Israel (1981-1993), aunt of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Shoshana Netanyahu turns 96… Educator often considered the founder of the modern small schools movement, senior scholar and adjunct professor at NYU, winner of a MacArthur genius fellowship in 1987, Deborah Meier turns 88… Biochemist and molecular biologist, long-time professor and now professor emeritus at Hebrew U, Aharon Razin turns 84… Born in Amsterdam, survived the Holocaust, moved to Israel in 1978, visual artist, textile designer and art teacher, Helen Berman turns 83… Chemist, writer and professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, Mark Mordecai Green turns 82… Former president of HBO Documentary Films, she has won 32 individual Primetime Emmy Awards, Sheila Nevins turns 80… Academy Award-winning best director for Rain Man (1988), produced and directed many films including Diner (1982), Good Morning Vietnam (1987), Bugsy (1991) and Wag the Dog (1997), Barry Levinson turns 77… Santa Monica-based poet, critic and teacher, she earned her Ph.D. studying Jewish American women authors, Nancy Shiffrin turns 75… Founder and chairman of Cognex Corporation, a provider of machine vision systems, Robert J. Shillman turns 73…

Founder and CEO of Emmis Communications, a media conglomerate and owner of radio stations and magazines across the US, he was the former owner of the Seattle Mariners (1989-1992), Jeff Smulyan turns 72… Political activist, artist and author, she was adopted as a young child by philanthropist Max Fisher, she is best known for her speeches at the Republican National Conventions in 1992 and 1996, Mary Fisher turns 71… Los Angeles-based playwright, performer and teacher of autobiographical storytelling, Stacie Chaiken turns 65… Movie director, producer, writer and editor, winner of two Academy Awards for best documentary feature, Rob Epstein turns 64… Scholar of ancient and medieval piyyut (Hebrew poetry), head of the Fleischer Institute for the Study of Hebrew Poetry, Shulamit Elizur turns 64… Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, Michael J. Gerhardt turns 63… Director, screenwriter and producer of television comedies, Steven Levitan turns 57… Manhattan Beach, California resident, Deborah Granow turns 57… Screenwriter, producer, actor, director, best known for creating, producing and writing the HBO television series Entourage, Douglas Reed “Doug” Ellin turns 51… Attorney and serial entrepreneur, he co-founded Demand Media company in 2006 (which he left in 2013) and has built, operated and sold over $1.3 billion of Internet media companies, Richard Rosenblatt turns 50…

Israel’s Consul General in New York from 2007-2010, now CEO of Israeli private equity fund Amelia Investments, Asaf Shariv turns 47… Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Hong Kong-based Oasis Management Company, he serves as Vice Chairman of the Ohel Leah Synagogue in Hong Kong, Seth Hillel Fischer turns 47… Actor, director, comedian, screenwriter and producer, best known for his role on the television series Scrubs (2001-2010), Zachary Israel “Zach” Braff turns 44… Mandolinist and teacher, he has performed with symphony orchestras in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago and in Europe and teaches classical mandolin at Mannes College in NYC, Joseph Brent turns 43… Co-founder and executive editor of Modern Loss and senior editor for 70 Faces Media, Gabrielle Birkner turns 40… Chef, best known as the winner of the second season of Bravo television’s Top Chef, Ilan Hall turns 37… Minneapolis-based Midwest regional director and senior policy analyst at The Israel Project, Jacob Millner turns 35… Asher Liam Senorturns 10… AIPAC’s senior development director for New York and founder of its real estate division, Jay Haberman… Philip Seal…

SUNDAY: Political activist and former US military analyst, in 1971 he released the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg turns 88… Professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University, Marilyn Ann Friedman turns 74… Retired president of Yale University (1993-2013), then CEO of Coursera, an education-focused technology company (2014-2017), Richard Charles “Rick” Levin turns 72… Brookline, Massachusetts resident, Jonathan Ruby turns 67… Born in Haifa, a professor at the Pennsylvania State University since 1981, folklorist, ethnologist, historian, educator and author, Simon J. Bronner turns 65… Los Angeles-based casting director, Jane Sobo turns 61… Legal recruiter at Tower Legal Solutions in Addison, Texas, Ilene Breitbarth turns 57… Chicago-based progressive activist, Oren Jacobson turns 37… NYC socialite, travel expert and founder of Pretentious Pocket, a silk pocket square business, Justin Ross Lee turns 36… Co-author of Politico’s Playbook (the indispensable morning newsletter for the political class) and most frequent hat tipper to Jewish Insider’s birthday editors, Daniel Lippman turns 29… Associate director of communications at AIPAC, Marissa Wizig turns 27… Professional golfer who joined the PGA Tour in 2015 when he won Rookie of the Year, he won the FedEx St. Jude Classic in both 2016 and 2017, Daniel Berger turns 26… David Farahi turns 25…

Earlier this week, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, revealed in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the Trump peace plan has been completed and will likely be rolled out soon after Israel’s elections on April 9th.

The Key Questions: What? When? And How? — While Danon shed some light on the question of timing, key questions remain about what’s actually in the plan (which, we’re told, is likely to include land swaps involving the cooperation of neighboring countries Egypt and Jordan) and how it will be released.

Kushner’s playbook — Many real estate deal analogies have been made given the professional backgrounds of Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt. Trump himself has called Middle East peace “like a real estate deal.” While the comparisons have often focused on the contents of a possible deal, there’s another real estate technique that, according to sources who’ve been briefed, Kushner is likely to deploy: marketing films.

Flashback — On a late afternoon in the spring of 2014, Jared Kushner walked up to the podium at a Brooklyn real estate gathering to deliver a rare public presentation. Kushner kept his remarks brief and instead let a slickly produced two-minute film — featuring a deep voice over and futuristic renderings of his company’s Dumbo Heights development — do the talking. “That really gives you a flavor of what we’re trying to create,” Kushner concluded following the video. You can watch Kushner’s remarks here, along with the film.

‘Has to be the best’ — Kushner Companies later used the same marketing firm, Creative Soldier, founded by self-described ‘real estate ad genius’ Joshua Abehsera, to create a film promoting the penthouse residences of the Puck Building. In the video, Jared Kushner can be seen explaining, “we started with the premise that this project can’t be good, this project can’t be great, this project has to be the best.”

From Brooklyn to Bethlehem — Economic incentives are expected to be the centerpiece of the Trump peace proposal. Kushner toured the region last month in an effort to secure financial pledges from gulf countries and Turkey. As we previously reported, according to former U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk, the number Kushner has in mind is $65 billion. Starting with showcasing what life in the region could look like with peace and financial prosperity, and painting a picture for ordinary Palestinians, appears to be one of the ‘unique’ approaches that Kushner plans to introduce to the peace process.

Whether the futuristic renderings bringing the Dumbo spirit to Gaza and the West Bank will win support for the overall plan remains to be seen. We’re living in the age of the Fyre Festival, which famously sold tickets for thousands of dollars entirely on a flashy promo video featuring Instagram models in the Bahamas. Producing teaser films to sell Middle East peace might not be such a stretch…

Democrats succeeded in passing a resolution Thursday directing the removal of U.S. troops in Yemen despite an effort by Republicans to insert language on Israel and BDS that would stoke divisions in the Democratic Party.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) called into question the motivations of Republicans who sought to introduce an amendment regarding U.S. support for Israel, and was a “cynical and dishonest tactic” to block their bill opposing the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

The Yemen bill, which passed the House 247 to 175, directs the removal of all U.S. troops from hostilities in Yemen unless authorized by Congress. The bill heads to President Trump’s desk where it will likely be vetoed, marking the second time the president has used such authority.

The Republicans attempted to block passage of the Yemen bill by invoking the motion to recommit (MTR), a last opportunity to amend and debate a measure before a final vote on an overall bill. Republicans had succeeded in passing two previous MTR’s, one on antisemitism and another on immigration.

House Democrats met the Republican move with harsh condemnation.

“The American people will not be fooled or misled by this tactic,” Leader Hoyer said during floor debate of the measure. “No one can accuse me of failing to defend the U.S.-Israel partnership and strongly opposing B.D.S. and I will be voting against this motion and I urge all my colleagues to do so as well.”

Representative Ted Deutch (D-FL), chair of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa and Internatinoal Terrorism, took to the House floor to say that he  carries “the legacy of the history of the Jewish people.” “There is no one in this chamber, no one, who would question my commitment to opposing B.D.S. or fighting antisemitism or supporting our ally Israel,” Rep. Deutch said to loud applause from the Democrats. “But I also strongly reject – I strongly reject – I strongly reject what my colleagues are doing here today.”

Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) said the move by Republicans is an effort to paint the party as divided over Israel. “I have not seen any sign of division in the Democratic caucus about support for Israel. But, I think that’s what they’re trying to create an appearance of division,” Rep. Wild said.

The Republican motion failed by a vote of 228 to 194, although at least seven members broke ranks with their parties. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Justin Amash (R-MI) voted no on the motion to recommit and five Semocrats voted in favor, including Reps. Jefferson Van Drew (D-NJ), Anthony Brindisi (D-NY), Joe Cunningham (D-SC), Elaine Luria (D-VA) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ).

“This is a matter of principle for me,” Rep. Gottheimer told Jewish Insider. “I have always stood strong against antisemitism and always will.”

Rep. John Curtis (R-UT), speaking before seeing the vote on the MTR, told JI, “I would just emphasize how important it is that we figure out how to keep this a bipartisan issue,” he said regarding antisemitism. “One of my worries is that I’m seeing this kind of being fractured into a Republican issue and we really need to keep it a bipartisan issue and I’m hoping we can do that.”

“I think for the most part we’re not seeing in committee meetings its more on the outside of committee meetings where you’re really starting to see this friction. I’m worried that Democrats are leaving this issue a little bit and we really need them to stay with us on this antisemitism and make it a bipartisan issue,” Rep. Curtis said.

Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), a member of the Democratic Israel Working Group caucus, told JI, that the majority of Republicans voting against the Yemen bill showed their motion to recommit was disingenuous.

“I listened to the Republican [Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX)] make his case about B.D.S. and it’s exactly why I do oppose B.D.S. But this was about trying to undermine a bill about Yemen and the starving, hungry children in a war torn part of the world.”

Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) further condemned Republicans of using Israel as “a political ploy.”

“The war in Yemen is one of the worst humanitarian crises… Republicans tried to defeat the resolution by adding language about B.D.S., using Israel as a political ploy. I stand strong in my support for Israel, which can never become a political football. I strongly oppose B.D.S. and have voted for resolutions condemning it on multiple occasions,” she said.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), speaking at a press conference following the vote, called the defeat of the GOP’s BDS. motion, a “turning moment for America” and called on the House leadership to introduce S.1 – the senate-passed bill which includes a provision barring the government from doing business with individuals or organizations that boycott Israel.

“Today was a day in history I didn’t want to see in America. Today, every Democrat but five voted against an amendment to reject the B.D.S. movement. Every democrat but five would not stand with Israel today. This is a turning moment for America.”

Laura Kelly is the Capitol Hill reporter for Jewish Insider. Follow her @HelloLauraKelly

Former President Barack Obama will host a reception for freshman House Democrats on Monday evening at the home of Ambassador Esther Coopersmith in Washington, D.C, Jewish Insider has learned. Coopersmith, known as “one of the best at playing the Washington ‘networking’ game,” was appointed by Obama as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 2009.

On Monday night, AIPAC will also hold its leadership reception, perhaps AIPAC’s most-significant annual gathering, which typically puts the vast majority of members of Congress, AIPAC’s leadership, board and national council all in one room, during the same block of time.

Several progressive 2020 presidential hopefuls, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, have already announced they won’t be attending AIPAC’s policy conference this year. However, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio is scheduled to speak at the conference on Monday.

On any given night in D.C. while Congress is in session, members typically attend several receptions, but this conspicuous scheduling conflict has caught the attention of D.C. insiders. Obama’s reception is called for 7:15PM, while the AIPAC gathering is from 6:45PM until 10PM.

Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) began his town hall meeting with Jewish constituents on Tuesday night with an apology. “As a young congressman, I’ve got to tell you I’m sorry,” Rose confessed to the crowd gathered by the Council of Jewish Organizations (COJO) of Staten Island. “You sent me to Congress to take responsibility. You sent me to Congress to have your back… and I failed you. Because I know that Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s comments really caused you all a lot of pain by bringing up anti-Semitic tropes.”

Rose referenced his own military service to hit back at the charge of ‘dual allegiances’ among the Jewish community. “Certainly as a Jewish combat veteran, I could tell you I don’t have dual allegiance,” Rose declared. “I have allegiance to the flag. I have allegiance to the United States of America.”

While Rose acknowledged his inability to prevent his colleague, Rep. Omar, from offending the Jewish community, he also defended the Democratic leadership’s handling of the issue. In particular, the decision from leadership to not seek the removal of the Minnesota representative from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Removing a member from a committee is an “escalating” situation, Rose stressed during one of the town hall’s more contentious moments. “We have got to show her that there is a pathway for her to do the right thing, and we have to be vigilant towards that. Believe me, she understands that that’s a possibility and nobody is taking that off the table, but we are not there yet.”

“Let me be very honest with you,” the New York freshman continued as he stepped off the stage and walked closer to the attendee challenging him on the matter. “I was horrified and sad when she made the comments. So horrified that as a freshman member of Congress I stepped in front of my party’s leadership and I was the first member of the Democratic Party to criticize her. I did say that I accepted her apology. You know why I did that? Because I am an adult. Because my goal was to continue the quiet and non-glamorous actions of coalition-building and trying to protect the people in this room from those comments being made.”  

But Rose also expressed dissatisfaction with Omar’s rhetoric. “I am not satisfied with what I’ve seen thus far, I’m not,” he stated. “To equate Jewish organizations with the NRA, of course I’m upset. Of course I’m not satisfied and I don’t know any who are either. That’s why the first thing that I said is that ‘I’m sorry,’ I’m sorry because I couldn’t protect you from this. And that takes a lot to say.”

Rose concluded by pledging to “work as hard as I can to make sure that these comments are not made again.”

Deborah Lipstadt is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University. She’s the author of numerous books including: Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory and The Eichmann Trial, and, most recently, Antisemitism: Here and Now. Professor Lipstadt and I exchanged emails this week on Right vs. Left antisemitism, and how one should discuss it in America. Below is a transcript, lightly edited for clarity.

***

Adam Rubenstein: As you begin to define antisemitism in your new book, Antisemitism: Here and Now, you write that “Antisemitism is not simply the hatred of something ‘foreign’ but the hatred of a perpetual evil in this world.” So on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s recent comment about “foreign allegiance” in the context of pro-Israel Americans, and in discussion of her Jewish colleagues; what do you make of it? Is this textbook antisemitism?  

Deborah Lipstadt: Sadly, I believe it is. Dual loyalties is part of the textbook accusations against Jews. They are cosmopolitans, globalists, not loyal to their country or fellow citizens. (That is why so many people were shocked when Stephen Miller used it at a press conference about DJT’s critics.)

AR: The right and the left seem to be playing a game of ‘whataboutism’ on calling out antisemitism that goes something like: “Rep. Steve King’s an anti-Semite and you didn’t say anything then, so your criticism of Rep. Ilhan Omar isn’t legitimate.” Is partisanship in calling out antisemitism something new? What might be done about this? Should we worry about this trend?

DL: I don’t remember a time when there was such sustained attacks from both the right and the left simultaneously. I think it is that phenomenon that leads to the ‘whataboutism.’ My argument is (as, I wrote about this in the Times of Israel) that we are only seeing antisemitism on the other side of the political transom from where we reside. When people do that (King was wrong and Omar was wrong…. Equally so…Not one or the other.) I discount the criticism of those who only see it on the other side. I tend to think they are just trying to score political points.

I think I am “onto something” here because when I do occasionally read the comments to my posts, talks, reviews etc. I see those on the right excoriating me as a lefty (they use far more malicious terms). And vice versa. When both sides hate you that convinces me I must be right!!

It reminds me of when I wrote my book on Eichmann. Anti-Arendt folks thought I was too easy on her. Pro-Arendt folks thought was unfairly hard on her…. Voila, I must have gotten her just right.

AR: In your view, are Rep. Omar’s statements antisemitic or are they simply anti-Israel? Antisemitism and anti-Zionism aren’t in theory the same thing, but they often have connection points. Is what Rep. Omar says, her “foreign allegiance” comment, her support for BDS, and that support for Israel in Congress is “about the Benjamins,” i.e. Jewish money, simply “critical of Israel” or does it cross the line into antisemitism?

DL: This is such a nuanced topic and I deal with it in depth in the book. But simply put, (and giving her the benefit of the doubt… which is harder to do each time she engages in one of these attacks), she may think she is only criticizing Israel and its policies but one cannot ignore the fact that she is relying on traditional antisemitic tropes to do so. (To be an equal opportunity critic: When Kevin McCarthy accused Soros, Bloomberg, and Steyer of BUYING the election it was quite striking and evocative of traditional antisemitism.)

What it suggests to me is that, at best, these people exist in a place where antisemitism is out in the ethosphere; they hear it, breath it in, and don’t even recognize it as antisemitism. We see that same thing among some, and I emphasize only some, members of the Labour party. Many others know exactly what they are doing. You can only apologize so many times before I quote the Bard: Methinks the gentleman (gentlelady) doth protest too much.

AR: Antisemitism, anti-Semitism, Jew-hatred: what to call it? You have a letter in your book about the nomenclature, but could you parse the differences for us. How should we be spelling and referring to antisemitism? What’s at stake?

DL: It should be spelled as one word. Its inventor wanted it to mean one thing and one thing only: Jew hatred. He coined this word because he want his word to encompass, not just Jews who are religious, but Jews who have abandoned all links to the religion. He wanted to depict Jews as a metaphysical enemy. He wanted something large. And he got it. He certainly did not mean being against “semites” (whatever that is…. There are people who speak semitic language but that’s it….) – hence no hyphen.

I sometimes use the term “Jew hatred” but I “prefer” (prefer in the sense of “how do you prefer your poison?”) antisemitism because it should be by now, in the wake of Hitler and the Holocaust, a thoroughly discredited term. It should be gone. And it’s not. In fact, unless you are living under a rock, you know it is back and it has become increasingly acceptable.

It is a serious accusation. We should not use it against those with whom we disagree politically or otherwise. We should use as a badge of shame. That is why I am so careful about pinning it on anyone. When I do so I want it to stick and stick hard and be painful.

Final point: The Pittsburgh event was the worst. People were murdered. However, I am also terrified by the way antisemitism has become ubiquitous: floats in Mardi Gras parades, swastikas on synagogues, cutting down of trees in memory of the Shoah and of Ilan Halimi, etc. etc. etc. Antisemities have become emboldened and that should worry us greatly. They have not been created by these events but they have felt free, to borrow a phrase from the other side of the prejudicial barrier, to “come out of the closet.” They feel free to say things that would not have said a short while ago.

Several hundred supporters of Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar crowded into Busboys and Poets, a bookstore cafe in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night to hear the pair speak at a “Progressive town hall.” Some attendees stood waiting for over an hour outside in the February cold to enter the venue.

“We’re here, we’re here to stay and represent the voice of the people who have been silenced for many decades and generations,” Rep. Omar announced to raucous applause.

The night was billed as a conversation on a wide array of progressive issues but it was questions on antisemitism and Israel that ignited the fiercest passions, from Reps. Tlaib and Omar and those in the audience. “It is about the Benjamins,” shouted one audience member to laughter and acclaim, referencing Rep. Omar’s now-deleted tweet linking Congressional support for Israel to Jewish influence and lobbying. To this, Reps. Omar and Tlaib both smiled along furtively.

The two freshman members reflected on their few short months on the Hill in which they’ve both found themselves embroiled in controversy surrounding criticism of Israel, their support for the BDS movement, and for comments seen by many, including dozens of fellow Democrats, as anti-Semitic. To begin the discussion among a boisterous and friendly audience, the moderator asked what “we as a community here can do to support you criticizing Israel for some of the war crimes that it has done so that it’s not seen as ‘you’re anti-Semitic’? Because you’re not criticizing the religion, you’re not criticizing Jewish people, you’re criticizing the government policies.”

Rep. Omar elaborated that when she hears her Jewish constituents offer criticisms of Palestinians, she doesn’t automatically equate them as Islamophobic but is “fearful” that people are painting her as anti-Semitic because she is a Muslim. Omar continued, “What I’m fearful of — because Rashida and I are Muslim — that a lot of our Jewish colleagues, a lot of our constituents, a lot of our allies, go to thinking that everything we say about Israel to be anti-Semitic because we are Muslim,” she explained.

“To me, it’s something that becomes designed to end the debate because you get in this space of – yes, I know what intolerance looks like and I’m sensitive when someone says, ‘The words you used Ilhan, are resemblance of intolerance.’ And I am cautious of that and I feel pained by that. But it’s almost as if, every single time we say something regardless of what it is we say…we get to be labeled something. And that ends the discussion. Because we end up defending that and nobody ever gets to have the broader debate of what is happening with Palestine.”

“So for me, I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” Rep. Omar exclaimed, seeming to suggest, as Tlaib had in a tweet of her own, dual loyalty among a particular group of Americans. Loud rounds of applause and shouts of affirmation punctuated the event’s heavy focus on Israel.

Rep. Omar further pressed that while longtime members of Congress had fought against apartheid in South Africa, they are turning against Reps. Omar and Tlaib when they bring up support for Palestinians. Omar further drew the equation between Israel and the Palestinians and apartheid South Africa:

“So I know many [Members of Congress] were fighting for people to be free, for people to live in dignity in South Africa… So I know that they care about these things. But now that you have two Muslims who are saying, here is a group of people that we want to make sure that they have the dignity that you want everybody else to have, we get to be called names and we get to be labeled as hateful. No, we know what hate looks like!”

These comments come as Rep. Omar continues to deal with the fallout from her controversial tweets, which were widely regarded as anti-Semitic. In January, Rep. Tlaib also came under fire for an anti-Semitic remark in which she charged that members of Congress had “dual loyalty” when they voted for anti-BDS legislation.

On Wednesday night, the Michigan lawmaker thanked Jewish groups that support her. “I want to thank so many of our Jewish allies out there that stood up with me and they continue to stand up with us and tell the truth that this conversation and debate around human rights is for everyone,” she said.

Reps. Omar and Tlaib were joined onstage by Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the first Indian-American woman to serve in the House, and Congressman Mark Pocan (D-WI), co-chair of the House’s LGBT Equality Caucus. At the event, Rep. Pocan made note that two years ago he led a delegation of five members of Congress to Ramallah, Hebron and East Jerusalem. “As someone who’s not religious and [is] gay, it doesn’t seem to be natural that Palestine would be an important issue,” Rep. Pocan said, “but it’s an important issue because it’s a human rights issue.”

Laura Kelly is the Capitol Hill reporter at Jewish Insider.

Editor’s note, 3/1/19 at 3:03PM:
Jeremy Slevin, Rep. Omar’s communications director reached out with the following statement:
“The statement, presented as fact, that Rep. Omar “smiled furtively” is not accurate and frankly dangerous. As you know, Rep. Omar has apologized unequivocally for using that phrase. When someone shouted it from the audience last night, she did not respond and in no way endorses speech like that. Blaming the Congresswoman for a heckler’s hateful comments is grossly unfair and below the belt.”

After reviewing our footage of Rep. Omar’s reaction to the audience member’s “it is about the Benjamins” comment, we stand by our description of it and the use of the word “furtive.” Following the comment, Rep. Omar smiles, half-heartedly laughs, and makes a face that suggests “guilty nervousness,” the very definition of furtive. Contrary to Slevin’s accusation, the Congresswoman was not blamed for anyone else’s actions, her’s were merely described and accurately so.

Eli Groner, who most recently served as director general of the Israeli prime minister’s office under Benjamin Netanyahu, has joined Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT) as their Israel-based managing director. KDT is a subsidiary of Koch Industries and is run by Charles Koch’s son Chase, whom Groner will be reporting to in his new position.

WHY IT MATTERS — Chase Koch, 41, is assuming a bigger role at Koch Industries and the well-known Koch network of top donors. According to a recent in-depth Politico story, Chase is far from the partisan his dad and uncle David are thought to be. The story describes what’s being referred to inside the Koch network as ‘the shift’ which emphasizes bipartisanship and coalition building around policy issues over partisan politics.

IS ISRAEL PART OF ‘THE SHIFT’? — Over the past several years, much has been made about the Koch’s influence in foreign policy circles. Recent pieces —include “Koch Brothers Give a Megaphone to the Anti-Israel Fringe” (Bloomberg; 2016) and “Koch Dark Money Funds Anti-Israel Darlings” (Tablet Mag; 2018) — have highlighted the Koch brothers support of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, co-authors of the 2006 book The Israel Lobby, along with Charles Freeman who is similarly focused on Israeli influence in DC.

The first deal that Koch Disruptive Technologies announced after it launched in late 2017 was a $150M Series E round for INSIGHTEC, an Israeli medical company working on MRI-guided ultrasound devices. With the addition of Groner, Israel will be the first satellite office for KDT.

Asked to comment on his hiring, Groner told Jewish Insider in an email: “This should be seen as a vote of confidence in the ingenuity of Israeli entrepreneurs. Koch Industries has built one of the largest private companies in the world with a culture of principled entrepreneurship, and I’m thrilled that the Koch leadership has made the decision that Israel will be the first satellite office of Koch Disruptive Technologies.”

It’s worth noting that other well-known donors critical of Israel have not shied away from investing in Israeli companies either. George Soros had been an investor in SodaStream, Teva and the Alrov Group, owner of the David Citadel and Mamilla Hotels. However, given the large shift — generational and political — taking place in Koch world, perhaps Chase Koch, with his annual visits to Israel, will be changing headlines about the Kochs and Israel as well.

On Monday, Senior Democrats joined the growing list of Members of Congress rebuking Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) incendiary comments on Israel and AIPAC, invoking anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Rep. Omar suggested last night that AIPAC pays members of Congress to support Israel. The freshman member also retweeted a Jewish follower’s criticism of her original tweet that said, “She might as well call us hook-nosed.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), Assistant Speaker Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Caucus Vice Chair Katherine Clark (D-CT) issued a joint statement on Monday afternoon, condemning Omar’s anti-Semitic comments and urging her to apologize.

“Congresswoman Omar’s use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel’s supporters is deeply offensive,” the House leadership said. “We condemn these remarks and we call upon Congresswoman Omar to immediately apologize for these hurtful comments. As Democrats and as Americans, the entire Congress must be fully engaged in denouncing and rejecting all forms of hatred, racism, prejudice and discrimination wherever they are encountered.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told JI in a statement: “Rep. Omar’s use of an anti-Semitic stereotype was offensive and irresponsible. This kind of intolerance has no place in Congress—or anywhere in American society. No one should invoke anti-Semitic tropes during policy disagreements.”

Rep. Max Rose (D-NY), was the first Democratic member to issue a statement Sunday evening. “Congresswoman Omar’s statements are deeply hurtful to Jews, including myself,” Rose said. “When someone uses hateful and offensive tropes and words against people of my faith, I will not be silent.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that Omar’s “choice of words” are “deeply hurtful and offensive,” particularly following a previous comment she made about Jews ‘hypnotizing’ the world in support of Israel.

Rep. Eliot Engel, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it was “shocking” to hear a Member of Congress invoke the anti-Semitic trope of ‘Jewish money.’ “I fully expect that when we disagree on the Foreign Affairs Committee, we will debate policy on the merits and never question members’ motives or resort to personal attacks,” Engel said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Rep. Engel did not return a request for comment on Republican calls to remove Omar from the HFA committee.

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement, “Anti-Semitic tropes are painful for Jewish communities around the world, and such mischaracterizations of our support for Israel are deeply offensive.”

Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement, “The use of stereotypes and offensive rhetoric by Members of Congress, whether anti-Semitic or racist, must come to an end. They should never be a part of any conversation about the policies of Congress.

“Criticism of Israel, or any ally, can be at times fair and appropriate, but trafficking in hateful tropes and dog whistles is dangerous and must be called out,” added Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL).

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), presenting herself the first Jewish Congresswoman from Florida, said in a statement that Omar’s tweets “are alarming, offensive, and disturbing. They rely on anti-Semitic tropes that are centuries old and have no place today in America or the halls of Congress.”

Rep. Donna Shalala (D-FL), a freshman member of Congress, tweeted: “There is no place in our country for anti-Semitic comments. I condemn them whatever the source. To suggest members of Congress are ‘bought off’ to support Israel is offensive and wrong.”

“Comments like this are disgraceful and blatantly anti-semitic, and they have no place in our country’s discourse,” Anthony Brindisi (D-NY), another freshman, tweeted.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), who pledged on Sunday to speak out against criticism of Israel within his own party, said he’s disappointed in Omar for “again tweeting dangerous and hurtful tropes,” adding that is support for Israel “is based on shared values and U.S. national security, not money.”

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) said in a statement that he had declined requests from his constituents to criticize Omar and Tlaib “because it seemed” that Omar was distancing herself from some previous comments “and I felt that these colleagues should be approached privately and given an opportunity to hear why things they were saying were hurtful and wrong.” Suozzi explained this approach in an interview with JI on Sunday. However, Omar’s tweet yesterday “went too far.” The comments, he suggested, “conjures up the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes.”

Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL), reiterated her support for a two-state solution while denouncing “anti-Semitism and all forms of religious bigotry.” She added: “Support for the security of Israel has always been bipartisan & should not be a political football.”

Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL) tweeted, “I share in the House leadership’s denouncement of Rep. Omar’s comments about support for Israel. I can’t speak to her intent, but her comments conjure abhorrent anti-semitic rhetoric.”

Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) maintained that Omar’s comments were “particularly troubling at a moment in which Jewish Americans, alongside other religious and ethnic communities, face rising incidents of hate crimes and assaults.” She further expressed hope that Omar “will be open to hearing the perspectives of her colleagues, particularly around the ways that coded language asserting undue influence of Jews in American life has historically been wielded to discriminate and delegitimize the Jewish people.”

Also issuing statements were: Reps. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Ben McAdams (D-UT), Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Juan Vargas (D-CA), Daniel Hernandez Jr (D-AZ), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Daniel Lipinski (D-IL), Joe Morelle (D-NY), Kathleen Rice (D-NY), Albio Sires (D-NJ), Andy Levin (D-MI), Joe Kennedy III (D-MA), Dina Titus (D-NV), Cheri Bustos (D-IL), Donald Norcross (D-NJ), Richard Neal (D-MA), Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), Ted James (D-LA), Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX) and Jimmy Panetta‏ (D-CA).

Meanwhile, two Jewish members of the Democratic caucus — Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Elaine Luria of Virginia (D-VA) — are reportedly gathering signatures on a letter asking Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) to confront Rep. Omar and her colleague Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) by “reiterating our rejection of anti-Semitism and our continued support for the State of Israel.”

“As Jewish Members of Congress, we are deeply alarmed by recent rhetoric from certain members within our Caucus, including just last night, that has disparaged us and called into question our loyalty to our nation,” the letter reads. “We urge you to join us in calling on each member of our Caucus to unite against anti-Semitism and hateful tropes and stereotypes.”

Gottheimer also claimed that Omar refused to meet “for nearly two weeks” to discuss the issue of anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI) was the only member who publicly defended Omar’s tweets. “I wouldn’t take it as anti-Semitism,” Kildee said on CNN’s New Day. “We ought to be careful not to construe that in anything other than a concern about the fact that money has undue influence on political decision making.”

DRIVING THE CONVO — Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) ignited a fresh political firestorm Sunday evening, accusing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) of paying members of Congress to support Israel.

In response to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s call on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to admonish Omar and her colleague Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Omar tweeted: “It’s all about the Benjamins baby.” The Minnesota Congresswoman doubled down when asked whom she thinks “is paying American politicians to be pro-Israel?” “AIPAC!” Omar replied. She also retweeted a criticism from a Jewish Twitter user, “She might as well call us hook-nosed.” She later unretweeted it.

— LAST WEEK — In an interview with CNN last Tuesday, Omar said it’s “actually exciting” that her controversial views on Israel are sparking debate. And Tlaib explained her support for the BDS movement in an interview with NowThis News, claiming that she wants to “be able to humanize this issue.”

AIPAC responded on Twitter: “We are proud that we are engaged in the democratic process to strengthen the US-Israel relationship. Our bipartisan efforts are reflective of American values and interests. We will not be deterred in any way by ill-informed and illegitimate attacks on this important work.”

REACTION — Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) said in a statement: “Congresswoman Omar’s statements are deeply hurtful to Jews, including myself… When someone uses hateful and offensive tropes and words against people of my faith, I will not be silent.”

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) tweets: “My support for Israel is based on shared values and US national security, not money. I’m disappointed that Ilhan Omar is again tweeting dangerous and hurtful tropes.”

Republican House members called on Speaker Pelosi to remove ⁦Rep. Omar⁩ from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mark Mellman, head of the newly-created Democratic Majority for Israel said in a statement: “By suggesting pro-Israel views are paid for, Congresswoman Omar has driven headlong into the gutter, slandering America’s pro-Israel community and the vast majority of her colleagues of both parties, in the House and the Senate, who back a strong U.S.-Israel relationship… Congresswoman Omar’s hateful, hurtful and harmful slander is an embarrassment to her, to the Democratic party and to the United States Congress. She owes her colleagues, our party and our country an apology, and even more important, sincere repentance.”

The Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) also denounced Omar’s tweet, saying “enough is enough” with the anti-Semitic tropes. “At a time when anti-Semitism is increasing at home and abroad, it is vital that members of Congress speak out against bigotry in all its forms, and not repeat hateful conspiracy theories and tropes targeting any one religious or ethnic group,” JDCA’s Executive Director Halie Soifer.

Chelsea Clinton‏ tweeted: “We should expect all elected officials, regardless of party, and all public figures to not traffic in anti-Semitism.”

— In response to criticism, Clinton added: “I will reach out to her tomorrow. I also think we have to call out anti-Semitic language and tropes on all sides, particularly in our elected officials and particularly now.” Omar appeared to accept the offer.

Amb. David Friedman: “Congresswoman from Minnesota falsely claims U.S. officials are paid to support Israel. I find that painful but amusing. This U.S. official gladly took a massive pay cut for the privilege to serve & the honor of advancing U.S.’ best interests by supporting the U.S.-Israel relationship… Impugning the motives of U.S. officials who support Israel with false allegations of payoffs is disgusting.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): “Why is a Member of Congress launching anti-Semitic slurs on Twitter? Caricaturing support for Israel as purchased by Jewish $$— ‘about the Benjamins’— is an old slander.  Do other Dems agree? Will the media ask them? As more Dems support BDS, anti-Semitism becoming far too common.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): “AIPAC promotes a better understanding of the Middle East, combats the ancient hatred of anti-semitism, & strengthens the US alliance with Israel. I’m grateful for their work & I always look forward to seeing them. Thank you!”

IPF’s Michael Koplow: “Stunning that Ilhan Omar is spending her first few weeks as a Congresswoman spreading anti-Semitic tropes about moneyed Jews buying off elected officials… Supporters of Israel have every right to participate in politics and have their voices heard, and Israel is one of the U.S.’s most valuable allies on the globe, making it worthy of support irrespective of anything else. What Omar is doing is shameful bigoted hate mongering.”

Elan Carr, a former prosecutor in the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, will be appointed as the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, according to several sources. This position, established by the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004, has been vacant since January 20, 2017.

Last September, the House of Representatives first passed the “Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Act of 2018,” which requires the president to appoint an official to the post within 90 days of its passage, and within 120 days of the position’s vacancy.

From 2012 to 2014, Carr served as Alpha Epsilon Pi’s ‘Supreme Master’ on the fraternity’s ‘Supreme Board of Governors.’

Carr is a veteran of the United States Army and served as a judge in the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corp. He was also a Deputy District Attorney in Los Angeles County. In 2014, Carr ran against Rep. Ted Lieu in an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Sheldon Adelson has been a significant donor to Carr’s recent political campaigns, donating $100,000 in support of Carr’s bid for Los Angeles County supervisor in 2016.

Ira Forman, Carr’s predecessor in the Obama administration, tells us: “Many of us were calling on the administration to appoint someone. So I think we all should be heartened that the appointment has been made. I don’t know Carr, but I’ve read about him and he seems [to have] an impressive resume. I think the political skills will serve him well. You know, this is the art of the possible. You have to understand given the situation with anti-Semitism, given the administration’s own foreign policy and the situation at the State Department, what is possible and what’s doable. You have to make priorities. That’s something he and his staff will face right off the bat, and I think he has a strong background to make good decisions.”

Abe Foxman, Director of Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, emails: “It is welcome news that the President is finally about to appoint a special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. The appointment sends a clear message to our country and across the world that America considers anti-Semitism a serious matter. The fact that this position was legislated on several occasions adds to the deliberate efforts of Congress to make it happen in a bi-partisan manner. Hopefully, other countries who have not acted in a similar manner, will.”

For the past 13 years, come December in DC this invite-only gathering of top Jewish and Middle East leaders has been the hottest ticket in town. Held a block away from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it’s not the White House Hanukkah party with long lines and random guests, but the exclusive Saban Forum. Hosted by media mogul Haim Saban, the forum has served as an annual off-the-record convening of key Middle East movers and shakers since it was launched in 2004. Think AIPAC’s Policy Conference — if only the speakers’ lounge was invited. The Saban Forum has included conversations with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and Jared Kushner respectively over the last four years.

The Forum’s featured guest speaker in 2018? There’ll be none. In fact, there will be no gathering at all, organizers revealed in a letter to past attendees. Is the Saban Forum another casualty of the Trump effect on DC’s establishment? Perhaps, but organizers say they are taking this year off to reassess and refresh the format.

Since its inception, policy-makers, think-tankers, veteran experts and diplomats have engaged in formal and informal dialogue regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the U.S.-Israel relationship U.S. at the winter confab. Organized by the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, regular attendees included members of Congress, senior Israeli politicians, U.S. administration officials, thought leaders, media executives and even a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

But earlier this year, after hosting President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner for an open and frank discussion at last year’s Forum, Saban announced the discontinuation of the gathering. “We wanted to let you know that we have decided to take a year off to rethink and reformat the Saban Forum,” Saban and The Center’s current director Natan Sachs wrote in a letter to prior participants. “This will allow us to ensure it can live up to its mission while adapting to the new realities in the Middle East and in the United States.”

According to Martin Indyk, most recently the Executive Vice President of the Brookings Institute and now at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Saban Forum was cancelled simply because the content had gone stale. “The context needed to be renovated or reinvented. It was the same conversation with the same people, more or less,” Indyk told Jewish Insider. “It tended to devolve to the same conversation, especially because there were the same figures for all intents and purposes, on the Israeli side. On the American side, of course, it changed. We went from Obama and Kerry, to Trump and Jared Kushner. That was all different. But it really felt like the conversation wasn’t going anywhere. We were basically ships passing in the night.”

But some believe that the makeup of the Trump administration and the fact that the current Israeli government has established its own very close ties with the White House could have played a factor in the decision taken by Saban, who is considered a leading Democratic mega-donor. “I do believe the Forum would have been held this year if Hillary [Clinton] had been elected,” Dennis Ross — who served as Mideast Envoy under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — told Jewish Insider.

Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, critiqued what he perceived as imbalance of political views among attendees. “I think that the Saban Forum has suffered from the fact that it was almost entirely center-left to left,” Abrams explained to Jewish Insider. “There were very few Republicans, there were very few Likud or Yisrael Beitenu people. It’s basically a progressive club, and that’s just not smart because it does not reflect the political reality in either country.”

Indyk says the cancellation of this year’s gathering wasn’t influenced by the Trump administration. “We were able to engage with the current administration. Last year we had Jared Kushner come, which I think was the first time he appeared publicly,” he pointed out. “We had quite a few other officials there from the Trump administration who were not speaking publicly.”

“It wasn’t a problem of attracting the high level people,” said Indyk. “There was a question of whether there was really anything productive coming out of it.”

In an email to Jewish Insider, Saban insisted, “The Forum not taking place this year had nothing to do with Trump, Hillary or anything else.” Rather, he said, it’s simply time to “rethink and refresh.”

The Forum’s cancellation will leave a significant void in the conversation between American and Israeli leaders, according to several past participants.

“You can’t make the argument that there’s nothing to talk about,” Aaron David Miller of the Wilson Center told Jewish Insider. “Absolutely, there’s a need for such a gathering.”

“On the cusp of what may be the first effort by the administration to lay out a ‘comprehensive’ solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I would have thought that now would be an intriguing, fascinating time to hold this gathering,” Miller explained. “I think the issue is pregnant with all kinds of material, fascinating politics, security issues and personalities. At a time where there’s so much of consequence occuring, at a time when Israel faces so many security challenges, and at a time when Bibi faces a momentous year, why not have the Saban Forum? This could’ve been one of the more intriguing Saban Forums.”

According to Susie Gelman, Chair of the Israel Policy Forum, “Given how strained our political discourse has become, the opportunities for dialogue provided by the Saban Forum are needed now perhaps more than ever.”

Notwithstanding the current warm relationship between Netanyahu and Trump administration, former U.S. Ambassador Daniel Shapiro believes that the format could still play a “valuable role” between the two governments. “The relationship is always more than just a few people around the president and the prime minister,” Shapiro stressed in an email to Jewish Insider. “I hope we will resume the Saban Forum, or something like it, in the years ahead.”

Indyk and Saban say they are in the process of reevaluating the Forum, with plans to relaunch in the future. “We might bring it back in ‘19,” said Saban.

The Democratic nominee running in New York’s 19th district claimed during a debate on Monday that Israel is not a “Jewish democracy” unless it reaches a peace settlement with the Palestinians.

“It has become clear to me that being pro-Israel and being pro-peace is critical but I am also pro-democracy,” declared Antonio Delgado who is challenging incumbent Republican Congressman John Faso. “And as currently constructed, you know, Israel is not a Jewish democracy. Those settlements make it so that it can’t be,” Delgado added during the live-streamed debate. “We have got to have a two-state solution.”

Delgado — who noted that his wife and children are Jewish — said he was opposed to Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. “I think unilaterally moving in that direction sends a wrong signal to that region,” he explained.

Faso called his opponent’s remarks “insulting.”

“The state of Israel is our closest ally in the Middle East. For Mr. Delgado to claim that Israel is not a Jewish democracy is insulting to its citizens and to our relationship with that nation,” Faso told Jewish Insider in an emailed statement. “It is imperative that the United States stands strong side-by-side with the state of Israel and the Israeli people. Antonio Delgado doesn’t seem to understand that Israel is both a democracy and a Jewish State.”

In a later statement to Jewish Insider, Delgado clarified his remarks, insisting that they were made in the context of expressing support for the two state solution. “I am committed to a two-state solution—a Jewish state of Israel and a sovereign Palestinian State—because it is the only way for Israel to fulfill its own aspirations to remain a Jewish democracy for future generations,” Delgado stated. “As I made clear in the debate and in my statements throughout this campaign, I have a deep personal and family connection to the state of Israel. As a member of Congress, I will do everything in my power to ensure its security is safeguarded, which is also profoundly in America’s national interest.

Delgado blamed his opponent for “distorting” his remarks “for partisan political purposes.”

The race for the 19th district is featured as a “toss up” by the Cook Political Report. A recent poll showed Faso, who was first elected in 2016, and Delgado in a statistical tie.

HEARD LAST NIGHT — at Columbia University’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies: Former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew recalled his experience working with former House Speaker Tip O’Neill, President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and President Barack Obama (including his time as White House Chief of Staff), in a conversation moderated by Foreign Policy Fellow Daniel Bonner.

Lew on being an observant Jew serving at the highest levels of government: “I have worked for some of the most powerful constitutional officers in the country and I’ve only been treated with respect and it has been in no way an obstacle to my advancement and to my performance. If it had been an obstacle to my performance, it would have been an obstacle to my advancement. It’s like any other profession where things sometimes come up that are challenging because of observing Shabbat and Yom Tov… To me, the challenge was not finding a decisional structure where I felt I could do it with an observant lifestyle. To me, the challenge was being honest with myself — over when I really needed to be there and when I didn’t.”

On his tenure as Obama’s chief of staff: “He knew me pretty well… He said, “You know this is a 24/7 world, you’ve worked in every important part of it, and you’re going to be the one who has to decide when it is something that you need to be here for on a Friday night or Saturday. It won’t stop – but you’ve figured it out before and you’ll figure it out now. I’ll never be the one who says, ‘You need to be here,’ so you better make sure you don’t forget where your line is.” There were more Saturdays that I was in the office as Chief of Staff than any other year. I lived within walking distance. I could walk in — usually go to shul and then walk in — and it wasn’t always the most pleasant way to spend Shabbat, to walk into a meeting where people are yelling at each other over a budget agreement… but, fundamentally, if you are prepared to let things go on without you, it [working on Shabbat] doesn’t happen anywhere near every week…

There are periods of time when it becomes necessary to be there. Frankly, it was harder to be a deputy than to be more senior. Because when you’re a deputy, in some ways, you’re the connective tissue. When I was deputy director of OMB, and we were doing the balanced budget agreement in 1997, all the loose threads were in my head. if I wasn’t there, people didn’t know what everybody else knew. I was the field coordinator of this complicated, multipart negotiation. and when I was OMB Director, all the players would say, “isn’t it time for you to leave?” and then they’d break for Friday night. So — to some extent — when you get a little bit more senior, or a lot more senior, some of the schedule works around you. But not all of it- when the president was running for re-election in 2012, some weeks the only day he was in the building was Saturday. I’d know in advance, and go and sit in the Roosevelt Room or in the Oval Office and spend a couple of hours catching up, talking, doing what we had to do, and then I’d go home.

Lew also sought to set the record straight on a story about Clinton calling him on Shabbat while he served as OMB director: “There’s an apocryphal story, and I’ve spent considerable effort trying to push back on it, that President Clinton once called me, ostensibly couldn’t reach me and was unhappy about it… It could not be further from the truth. What actually happened was – this was the days before all the fancy messaging systems – I came home from shul on a Saturday morning, and the telephone is taking a message from the White House switchboard, and it is saying, ‘Please disregard the message that President Clinton left, he doesn’t want to bother you. He just realized it is still Saturday [Shabbat] in Maryland… this is not important… you can forget about it.’ That’s the real story… The truth of the matter is it reflects the kind of openness, generosity of spirit, that I experienced with President Clinton, President Obama, Speaker O’Neill, Secretary Clinton. It was never an issue… in an emergency, they all knew how to reach me, and no one ever doubted that they could. And they also knew that in an emergency it wasn’t going to be hard to get me to be where I needed to be…if somebody’s life was on the line, I wasn’t going to take any more time to think about it than a doctor would.”

On the U.S.-Israel relationship under Obama: “Leave aside, for the moment, a personal relationship. The relationship between the United States and Israel was extremely close for the eight years, whether it was military, intelligence, or economic cooperation, everything was at the highest level they’d ever been. There was a global effort starting with the Goldstone Report and cropping up on a regular basis to isolate Israel. And the United States was really the only country that was out there under President Obama defending Israel against things like the Goldstone Report. I can’t tell you how many dozens of phone calls were made, presidential, vice presidential, secretarial, sub-cabinet level, to try and prevent Israel from being isolated. There were differences on policy, and I think the differences are legitimate differences. But I agreed with President Obama – and do – on issues like the settlements policy. I think that if one cares deeply about a stable, lasting, peaceful future for Israel, preserving space for there to be a negotiated two-state solution is critical. And I think unilateral actions that make that less likely to happen also diminish the probability of a long-term stable, secure future.”

“The personal dynamic between the President and the Prime Minister was not as good as one might have hoped. And it was in both directions. I mean I saw as much provocation coming from the Prime Minister… I saw more provocation coming in than I saw going out. Now, you can say that the President should ignore that and it shouldn’t make a difference, and usually it didn’t. But some things like the [2015] speech to a joint session of Congress, kind of went beyond the pale of what you can just ignore. I think that was a huge mistake for Israel. A, it wasn’t going to work, B, it contributed to a trend of Israel identifying on a partisan basis when for most of 70 years there was no question that both parties could be pro-Israel. I don’t think that there was a personal relationship that stood in the way of the bilateral relations between our countries. I don’t think that there was anything about the personal relationship that weakened US support for Israel. When the Iron Dome needed to be completed and funded, we were there in a heartbeat. When there were any questions about threats, information was shared and I think if you talk to intelligence and military officials in Israel, they freely acknowledge that the relationship had never been better. So I think it is important to separate out the signal and the noise.”

On the Obama admin. UNSC move last December: “It wasn’t the U.S. choice for this issue to be in the UN for a vote. Interestingly, the countries that had worked to create the lead-up to the resolution, you know Egypt and UK, and U.S. involvement was, to take out of the resolution, the most offensive elements of it. In the end the decision whether to veto or not is always a hard one. When you’ve used your potential veto to improve a resolution and in the form its in at the end it reflects positions that you’ve taken, to veto it is very difficult. I certainly could make the case either way, but I think it’s not been fairly characterized in a lot of the debate in the community. And afterwards the pressure was brought on some of the parties that were brought into a place where it was ultimately going to be voted on. Perhaps the effort should have been put into preventing it from being presented. I don’t think it’s a great thing for Israel to always have only the United States standing between it and condemnation. And if the United States can play a role in addressing the things that are most offensive and improving what it is the world votes on, that’s actually helpful in the long run. Personally, I wish the resolution hadn’t been there at all. I’m not happy that there was a resolution. I’m also happy it wasn’t in its original form where we would have had to veto it, but then the rest of the world would have been voting for this even harsher condemnation. When it comes down to whether or not you think that settlements are appropriate and legal, you’ve said that for seven years and you know 11 months, that you don’t think they are. It’s hard to veto it over that issue. It doesn’t mean you’re not a friend of Israel. And it doesn’t mean that after that resolution you stop being a friend of Israel. The attempts to change the outcome – I don’t think they will survive historical review favorably.”

On Trump’s Jerusalem move: “On the one hand, since the founding of Israel – as a practical matter – American presidents and cabinet officials have been out to Jerusalem and met with the prime minister and leaders of the government, and treated Jerusalem as if it were the capital. But by the same token, presidents of both parties have not taken the step of unilaterally making the decision to declare to be the capital, or move the embassy. Now you can say that’s a legal fiction. Legal fictions are not without their merit. We have a lot of legal fictions in our tradition that help us to cope with difficult issues. I think that if the purpose of the legal fiction is to preserve the possibility of having a negotiated agreement that will produce ultimately some day a just and lasting peace with two states, that is the higher value. Congress passed this legislation and president after president had the unpleasant task of having to sign a waiver. We now have a president who doesn’t like to make those signatures. And you know, there’s a pattern that’s developed that it just rankles him to have to sign those waivers. I hope that this turns out not to be a major disruption. It’s a little hard to tell because it’s so fresh. But you know, if you care, as I do, about having permanent security for a democratic state of Israel, there is no pathway other than a two state solution. The more you hear talk about a one state solution, the more it means it’s not a democratic state. That is not the Israel that I want for my grandchildren to love.”

On the Iran nuclear deal: “First of all, I don’t think there’s any solid evidence that they were three to six months away from a balance of payments crisis. I think that were we to reject a deal that the rest of the world thought was fair, and that by, I believe any honest assessment, is a good deal for the United States and Israel, commanding adherence to our sanctions regime would become difficult if not impossible. Yes, we have the ability to punish, but can you punish everyone? If there is a concerted decision to ignore, can we be economically at war with all of Europe and all of Asia and all of Africa? There’s a limit… We insisted throughout the adjacent nuclear negotiations that we do not relieve sanctions unless Iran made the kinds of changes that we were demanding in terms of rolling back their nuclear program. Whether it was shipping out uranium, dismantling and disabling their reactors, destroying their heavy water reactor, there was a range of things they did – some of them irreversible – which met the standards that we and the world set out to accomplish. There were things that were difficult in the negotiations. I can tell you, as somebody who sat through meeting after meeting, I on many occasions would raise issues of things that would be difficult to defend, and negotiators would go back and they would do better. The snap-back provisions are the most effective snap-back provisions one could ever imagine designing. They were automatic essentially – nobody can veto if Iran violates the deal.”

“A lot of people have raised questions about what happens 15 years from now. I don’t think there’s any serious observer who doesn’t think the world is safer today because of the Iran deal, and I would argue that 15 years from now, that will be the case as well. The idea that somehow the Iran deal was not in Israel’s interest is something I disagree with. I think Israel is safer today than it was before the deal when Iran was genuinely approaching having a nuclear weapon. That’s not to say that it’s a safe world where you can take your eye off the ball. You have to stay focused.”

Lew on how he dealt with criticism over the Iran deal in the Jewish community: “I felt fine to walk into my synagogue. I live in a great community in Riverdale where  I know there are people in the room who might not agree with me. I didn’t have one hostile word on Iran in that room.”

— On the heckling incident at the Jerusalem Post conference: “I knew I was going into a room where people would disagree with me. I actually had gone for the purpose of making the case to people who didn’t agree. It’s not that hard to have a good session with people who agree with me. The challenge is to try and get people who don’t agree with you to listen. What I didn’t expect was that the level of civility and openness to discourse was so low in that particular room that heckling was considered to be an appropriate way to deal with an invited guest. I don’t think that’s okay. I don’t think it’s okay on campus, I don’t think it’s okay at a Jerusalem Post event. Interestingly, the program that day was one where many of the speakers knew me well, and one after another, whether it was a conservative member of the Prime Minister’s cabinet, or Natan Sharansky, they used the first five or ten minutes of their time to chastise the audience, saying, ‘That’s no way to treat anyone in terms of being respectful in the way you treat a guest, certainly not a friend of Israel who has for his whole career been there doing things to help the State of Israel.’ I got a call from the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] to apologize for the way I was treated. I said, ‘Look, I’ve been in rooms where people have been rude before, I can take it.’”

In a misdirection of sorts, Ivanka Trump posted the following photo on Monday of her family at the White House:

During #Passover, we reflect on the significance of the exodus from Egypt and celebrate the great freedoms we enjoy today! #ChagPesach pic.twitter.com/x2sOSXdWm1

— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) April 11, 2017

This post led to much of the media including The Jerusalem Post to conclude, “This year, Ivanka and Jared celebrated Passover at America’s first home, the White House, continuing a tradition first started in 2009 by former US president Barack Obama.”

However, Jewish Insider has learned exclusively that the President’s daughter and son-in-law spent the first days of the Passover holiday at the Four Seasons Resort in Whistler, a resort town in British Columbia, Canada.

A Jewish Insider reader shared a photo with us of Ivanka in ski gear filling up a plate of food while chatting on her cell phone a few hours before Monday night’s Seder.

In past years, Ivanka has joined Jared’s family at the Biltmore in Arizona, at a program near the Mayan Ruins in Mexico, and last year at Ivanka’s own Trump National Doral in Miami.

In fact, Jared first met Avi Berkowitz, now his deputy at the White House, on the basketball courts at the Biltmore Passover program.

Among the featured speakers at the Whistler Passover program this year is Ami Horowitz. Horowitz is a frequent Fox News contributor and is credited with sparking President Trump’s controversial remarks in February that Sweden “took in large numbers” of refugees and was “having problems like they never thought possible.” He told those at the rally to “look at what happened last night in Sweden,” leading to a strong reaction from Swedish officials who said no terrorist attack had taken place there the previous day or in recent months. After the backlash, Trump clarified via Twitter that he first heard about the stories in Sweden from Tucker Carlson’s Fox News segment with Horowitz.

No word yet on whether Ivanka’s friend, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will visit the First Family in Whistler.

WASHINGTON – AIPAC confirmed on Friday that Vice President Mike Pence will be speaking at its annual Policy Conference in March. The pro-Israel group has remained mum about President Donald Trump implying, that unlike last year, the real estate mogul turned commander-in-chief is unlikely to attend this year’s gathering as well.

“I am not surprised that Pence is going. AIPAC always plays it very straight,” Matt Nosanchuk, a former White House Jewish liaison during the Obama administration, told Jewish Insider. “If the President would’ve wanted to go, I am sure — like last year — they would’ve welcomed him. But I also can tell you that not everybody would’ve welcomed him,” he added.

Last year, Trump delivered an impassioned speech at the conference calling for “dismantling” of the Iran deal and vowing to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. Then a candidate, Trump also used his time to lash out at President Barack Obama. “He may be the worst thing that ever happened to Israel,” while adding, “President Obama [is] in his final year — yay!” The remark received some applause from the packed crowd in Washington’s Verizon Center arena.

The next morning, AIPAC President Lillian Pinkus publicly apologized for the applause and rebuked Trump. “Last evening, something occurred which has the potential to drive us apart, to divide us. We say, unequivocally, that we do not countenance ad hominem attacks, and we take great offense against those that are levied against the president of the United States of America from our stage,” Pinkus explained.

“Every time Trump speaks there is a layer of unpredictability. There is no doubt of that,” Tevi Troy, deputy secretary of health and human services during the George W. Bush administration, explained to Jewish Insider. Troy added, “Look I think it makes sense for all involved. Pence has a long history of being very, very pro-Israel. I think if Pence speaks there still might be some people who want to protest, but I think if the AIPAC folks said we’ve got to treat the administration and the vice president with respect, then that would probably be heeded. But, I don’t think AIPAC is as confident that the same would happen if Trump were to speak.”

Other commentators emphasized that Trump not speaking at AIPAC is hardly unusual. Phil Rosen, a top GOP fundraiser and former foreign policy advisor to former presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio, noted in an interview, “The last time a U.S. president spoke at AIPAC was in 2012 when President Obama was running for reelection. There has not been a U.S. president speaking at AIPAC since that date and in fact, Vice President Biden and others spoke on his behalf.”

Josh Block, CEO of The Israel Project, echoed the same sentiment, adding that another meeting between Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will also be making the headlines. Nonetheless, Block told Jewish Insider, “the fact that the White House is sending the next highest official — Vice President Pence, who was a strong leader on Israel-related issues in Congress and continued to be as governor of Indiana — is a sign from the White House to AIPAC and the pro-Israel community of the importance this administration attaches to the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

Troy added, “He is the president and he has a lot of competing obligations and offers. I bet Trump wasn’t thrilled with the way it worked out last time. AIPAC obviously had some issues. This is the best solution for everyone,”

“Pence is well known and trusted in the AIPAC community — I would expect him to further burnish his credentials,” Noam Neusner, former White House Jewish liaison in the George W. Bush administration, told Jewish Insider.

Leaders and members of the Jewish community should play a more active role in readiness and prevention of potential security threats on the homeland, Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Wednesday.

“The risk is s real. The imminency of it, I don’t want to be an alarmist, but we must treat the imminency of it as real,” Mayorkas told leaders of the Orthodox Union of America at the closing event of its annual leadership mission to Washington, D.C. “Homeland security grant funds are critical to equip institutions to address these issues, but $20 million does not cover the need throughout the country. It does require a community response and that means that we, all of you as leaders, must be leaders of the community in our security readiness and our security response protocols.”

Mayorkas urged the group of leaders to deliver a message to members of the community to “be active in the world of security.”

“I come from a tradition of a lack of security,” Mayorkas explained. “It instilled in me as a very young person was a sense of concern by virtue of my identity as a Jew. My mother, she tried to teach us not to speak of our Judaism outside of our Jewish community that was born of her tragic experience. My father was actually of a different school. He was a member of a very small Sephardic community in Cuba, and he used to talk about it all the time because no one in Cuba believed he was actually Jewish because there were only about eight of them.”

“We live in a time of what I see as increasing concern, not diminishing concern,” he continued. “If one takes a look at some of the political leaders that are ascending in power across the globe, it does not give me comfort for the safety and security of the Jewish community. I say that not about domestic politics, but rather some of the more extremist views that I see gaining popularity in other countries.”

According to Mayorkas, the FBI has over 1,000 active investigations of individuals in the U.S. whom they are watching because of signs of radicalization or association with radical Islamic groups.

Mayorkas challenged the community to hire trained security guards  and install protection measures for Jewish institutions, better train members to respond to an active shooter, and establish relationships with local police and security agencies.

At the event, concluding a day of meetings on Capitol Hill, Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) received an award for his role — as chairman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee — in bolstering American security in general, and the Jewish community in particular, through the federal “Nonprofit Security Grant Program.”

The Obama Administration is set to name a new liaison to the Jewish community later on Thursday, Jewish Insider has learned. Chanan Weissman will make the transition from the State Department to the White House, becoming the first Modern Orthodox Jew to assume this position for a Democratic administration, according to several sources.

Most recently, Weissman served as a spokesperson for the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Matt Nosanchuk, who held the Jewish liaison position for nearly three years, recently transferred to the State Department, à la ‘Trading Places,’ where he is working as a senior advisor in the Office of Religion and Global Affairs. Observers can debate the respective perks of Foggy Bottom and Pennsylvania Avenue, but only one job comes with the pressure of managing the Administration’s relationship with a community rarely described as ‘shy.’

Among the job’s demanding responsibilities, organizing the annual White House Hanukkah parties ranks high. It was once a single event but thanks to Nosanchuk’s efforts to double the number of invited guests, there are now two separate parties. “Over the past three years – or, as anyone holding this role measures it, six White House Hanukkah receptions – I have had the chance to work with incredible colleagues here at the White House and throughout the Administration,” Nosanchuk told the JTA as he stepped down. For Weissman, the silver lining of the eighth year is that he’ll be one and done on the party planning side.

The eighth year of any White House presents its own unique challenges. Administrations often cede the spotlight to the election season. President Obama has stressed he will not be a lame-duck president, and questions remain about whether the White House will attempt another push for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the final year. According to Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat who participated in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations following the Camp David summit in 2000, there’s no doubt that at some point between now and January 2017, Obama will seek to outline his own version of the Bill Clinton parameters before leaving office. If the White House decides to refocus on the Middle East, one can expect Weissman to play a critical role.

Scott Arogeti, appointed in July of 2008 to be President George W. Bush’s final Jewish liaison, is quite familiar with the timing of Weissman’s new role. “How do you move the ball down the field effectively at a point where the campaign season for your boss’s successor is already in full swing (taking media and public attention along with it) and most major policy battles are likely in the rear view mirror?” Arogeti told Jewish Insider by email. “From the last person to have this honor for President George W. Bush to the one who will presumably follow suit for President Obama, I wish you the best. (…oh, and good luck with the final Hannukah Party list!).”

Of historical note, Weissman is only the third Orthodox Jew — behind Tevi Troy and Marshall Breger — to hold this particular White House position and the first to do so under a Democrat. The Obama Administration, meanwhile, is no stranger to Orthodox Jews as prominent figures, including Treasury Secretary and former White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew and Ambassador Norm Eisen, previously a Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform in the White House, have served closely with the President.

In an email to Jewish Insider, Eisen recalled being impressed Weissman early on. “I first met Chanan years ago at the ‘hashkama’ minyan at Kesher Israel in DC, when he was starting his career at the State Department,” Eisen related. “Over cholent, we talked about working in government as observant Jews. I said to myself, someday he will be in the White House. Now he is! He will be a great White House Jewish liaison, continuing the high standard set by Matt and all his predecessors.”

“I think there’s an advantage but also a challenge,” Troy, a Bush 43 liaison, told Jewish Insider about being Orthodox in this White House role. “The advantage is that you have instant credibility within the community as knowledgeable and credible representing the community. The challenge is that the bulk of American Jews are not Orthodox and you have to show you can reach out to all.”

Weissman could have less difficulty due to his prior experience working on human rights and social justice issues. “If they had to replace Nosanchuk, they could not have made a better choice than Chanan,” Steve Rabinowitz, head of Bluelight Strategies, told Jewish Insider. “He’s knowledgeable about the issues, the community and the administration. He’s a modest guy, a politics guy, and a delightful guy. The whole package. And he hits the ground running.”

Weissman, a graduate of Beth Tfiloh High School in Baltimore, earned his Master’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and his Bachelor’s degree in journalism and government & politics from the University of Maryland. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife and three little girls.

NEW YORK – Hillary Clinton kicked off the last leg in the Democratic presidential primaries ahead of the April 19 New York primary at the Apollo Theater in Harlem on Wednesday.

“It is wonderful to be back in New York,” Mrs. Clinton said to loud applause. “New Yorkers took a chance on me, and I will never forget that. You have always had my back, and I have always tried to have yours. Now, once again, I am asking for your confidence and your vote.”

Clinton did not mention her Democratic primary challenger, Bernie Sanders, by name as she ticked off the boxes on the issues that appeal to her base. But she drew a clear contrast between Sanders and herself on domestic issues – “My opponent and I share many of the same goals, but some of his ideas won’t pass and the others just won’t work – and national security. “When you vote on April 19th in New York, you are voting for a president and a commander-in-chief,” Clinton stressed. “This isn’t a single-issue country. We need a president who can do all parts of the job. Our next president has to be just as passionate about defending our people and our country as about fixing our economy.”

In pivoting to the general election, Clinton also attacked Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for recent comments they made following the terror attacks in Brussels. “On the Republican side, what he are hearing is truly scary. When Donald Trump talks casually about using torture and allowing more countries to get nuclear weapons, or when Ted Cruz calls for treating American Muslims like criminals and racially profiling, that doesn’t make them sound strong. It makes them sound in over their heads,” she said. “Loose cannons tend to misfire. And in a dangerous world, that is not a gamble we can afford.”

The Democratic presidential front-runner was introduced by Senator Chuck Schumer, who shared his experience serving with her for eight years as the two representatives of the State of New York in the U.S. Senate. “Hillary Clinton delivers,” said Schumer. “She may not talk like we Brooklynites talks, but when she speaks, she changes minds and changes outcomes.”

Schumer’s reference to Brooklyn carried value as her campaign headquarters is based in Brooklyn, but also the hometown of her opponent.

In a conference call with reporters on Monday, Clinton’s chief strategist Joel Benenson said he expects Sanders to “campaign like a Brooklynite” in the New York primary, while Clinton will compete like a “senator.”

“I think he’s going to campaign like a Brooklynite, and she’s going to campaign like a senator who represented this state for eight years and has lived here for 16,” said Benenson. “And I think when voters hear the argument, it may make it competitive, but he’s not going to get to a number in New York that’s going to change the delegate count materially.”

While the line was interpreted as an insult to the Vermont Senator, Mayor Bill de Blasio, a supporter of Clinton told reporters, “I assume the phrase ‘campaigning like a Brooklynite’ is a compliment.” Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said in a statement, “Any candidate for president—be it Hillary, Bernie, or otherwise—should be fortunate enough to have the grit and tenacity that defines a Brooklynite.”

During his 16-minute introduction, the senior senator from New York contrasted Clinton’s embrace of America’s diversity to the rhetoric coming out “from the other side.” According to Schumer, “Hillary Clinton knows you can walk from one side of 125th street to the other and meet people from every continent on the face of this earth. You can start your day with waffles and chicken from Sylvia’s .. and eat a bagel and a schmear in the middle for lunch.”

A day after hosting four of the five presidential candidates, AIPAC scolded Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump for his harsh statements about President Obama, and admonished the crowd for cheering on.

“Last evening, something occurred which has the potential to drive us apart. To divide us. We say unequivocally that we do not countenance ad hominem attacks, and we take great offense to those that are levied at the President of the United States of America from our stage,” AIPAC President Lillian Pinkus said as she was joined on stage by Board Chairman Bob Cohen, CEO Howard Kohr, and Vice Chief Executive Officer Richard Fishman on the last day of the annual policy conference. “While we may have policy differences, we deeply respect the office of the President of the United States and our president, Barack Obama. We are disappointed that so many people applauded a sentiment that we neither agree with nor condone.”

In his speech to the crowd Monday evening, Trump said that President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “may be the worst thing that ever happened to Israel.” The Republican presidential frontrunner drew loud applause and a standing ovation as he expressed joy that Obama is concluding his second term, exclaiming, “Yay!” at one point.

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump sought to put to rest recent doubts about his policies as he promised to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance with a pro-Israel foreign policy as he addressed AIPAC’s annual policy conference at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., on Monday.

“I speak to you today as a lifelong supporter and true friend of Israel. I am a newcomer to politics but not to backing the Jewish state,” Trump presented himself to the pro-Israel crowd. “I didn’t come here tonight to pander to you about Israel. That’s what politicians do: all talk, no action. I came here to speak to you about where I stand on the future of American relations with our strategic ally, our unbreakable friendship, and our cultural brother, the only democracy in the Middle East, the State of Israel.”

“When I become president, the days of treating Israel like a second-class citizen will end on Day One,” Trump said to loud applause. “We will send a clear signal that there is no daylight between America and our most reliable ally, the state of Israel.”

Trump, reading off a teleprompter for the first time in his political career, promised to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “immediately,” and “move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem.”

The Republican presidential frontrunner received thunderous applause and a standing ovation as he expressed joy over 2016 being President Barack Obama’s last year in office.

Criticizing the president for attempting to pass a UN Security Council resolution on the terms of an eventual agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, Trump pledged to veto any attempt by the UN “to impose its will on the Jewish state.”

“It’s not up the United Nations to impose a solution,” he said. “The parties must negotiate a resolution themselves. The United States can be useful as a facilitator of negotiations, but no one should be telling Israel it must abide by some agreement made by others thousands of miles away that don’t even really know what’s happening.”

“We know Israel is willing to deal. Israel has been trying to sit down at the negotiating table, without preconditions, for years,” he asserted. “The Palestinians must come to the table knowing that the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable. They must come to the table willing and able to stop the terror being committed on a daily basis against Israel and they must come to the table willing to accept that Israel is a Jewish state and it will forever exist as a Jewish state.”

Trump started off his speech by criticizing the Iran nuclear deal, which he called “catastrophic for America, for Israel, and for the whole Middle East.”

“My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran,” he assured AIPAC. Echoing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said, “The biggest concern with the deal is not necessarily that Iran is going to violate it, although it already has, the bigger problem is that they can keep the terms and still get to the bomb by simply running out the clock, and, of course, they keep the billions.”

“Iran is a very big problem and will continue to be, but if I’m elected president, I know how to deal with trouble,” he said.

In Fortune Magazine‘s most recent issue, Josh Hochschuler tells the story of how at 22 he moved to Argentina and decided to create what is now Talenti Gelato & Sorbetto, the third-largest premium ice cream brand in the United States with $95 million in revenue last year. “One of the things I loved about Argentina was the cultural interaction with food. People hung out at the gelato and pastry shops to debate the merits of what they ate. I fell in love with the gelato—the taste, the texture, the consistency, and the experience of gathering to talk about it… I started approaching the famous heladerías [ice cream parlors] in Argentina, and one agreed to work with me… In February 2002 I put together a business plan and approached 108 family members, friends, and friends of friends for funding. I got 19 of them to agree, and raised $600,000. In retrospect, we didn’t raise enough money to open the store.”

“The second year, I began to convert the concept to wholesale, taking the gelato to restaurants and supermarkets. My Argentinean partners considered things sold in supermarkets low-end products and as a matter of pride did not see eye to eye with me on the move. So I bought them out in 2005. I closed the store and found a 2,700-square-foot space in an industrial area. I was close to $100,000 in debt and had to let all my employees except one go. The two of us made the gelato, and I did all the sales and deliveries. I raised some money from my original investors, took out a dozen or so credit cards, maxed their lines, and sold my car and furniture to continue forward… Revenue has almost doubled every year since 2008.”

When asked for his advice about how to get through the tough times, Hochschuler responded that “I derive a great deal of comfort from my faith. I believe things happen for a reason and look for a lesson or silver lining when confronting hardship. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, of blessed memory, has played a meaningful role in my life, and I often turn to his teachings for inspiration and guidance.” [Fortune]