A new poll obtained by Jewish Insider suggests that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) may be facing a viable Republican challenger in Jennifer Strahan as the first-term incumbent prepares to defend her seat in the open House primary for Georgia’s newly drawn 14th Congressional District.

The poll, conducted by the GOP firm TargetPoint, shows that Strahan, a 35-year-old healthcare executive who lives in the southeast portion of the district and entered the race this past September, still faces an uphill battle in her quest to unseat Greene, the far-right conspiracy theorist who has frequently drawn controversy for her inflammatory public statements. 

Among 450 potential Republican primary voters who were surveyed, 60% said they would vote for Greene over Strahan if the election were held at the time the poll was conducted between Jan. 13 and 17. Strahan, for her part, pulled in 30% of the voting share. The margin of error is 4.6%.

But when voters were informed, among other things, of Greene’s history of incendiary comments, including “a number of anti-Jewish statements” as well as her support for the Nation of Islam, the poll showed that Strahan was statistically tied with the freshman congresswoman at 41%.

The poll was commissioned by “a group of Georgia Republicans who want to show that there is a viable, conservative alternative to” Greene, according to a Republican political consultant and fundraiser in Georgia who spoke with JI on the condition of anonymity.

The consultant declined to provide specific names of the backers. There is no other publicly available polling on the race.

Strahan is among three Republican challengers in the race, including Mark Daniel Clay and Charles Lutin. 

Marcus Flowers, one of four Democrats competing to unseat Greene, has raised $3.3 million, according to the Federal Election Commission, but experts view the Army veteran as a long shot due to the partisan makeup of the district, which remains deeply conservative even with a redrawn congressional map that includes deep-blue portions of southwest Cobb County in metropolitan Atlanta. Much of the district is situated in the more rural northwest part of the state.

The poll suggests that the new boundaries could slightly benefit Strahan in the primary. The small number of respondents who said they were undecided or envisioned voting in the Democratic primary or not at all were asked exclusively if they would “consider voting for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Republican opponent.” Though the survey did not specify a candidate, 100% responded in the affirmative.

The primary will be held on May 24.

While the poll shows some promise for Strahan, she is facing a steep fundraising deficit. As of September, Strahan had only pulled in around $56,000, according to the latest filings from the FEC. Greene, by contrast, has raised $6.3 million.

But as Greene continues to draw scrutiny for her provocative statements, Strahan sees an opening, as she explained in an interview with JI last month. 

During her brief time in Congress, Greene, 47, has often been accused of espousing antisemitic tropes, including support for QAnon conspiracy theories and social media comments in which she suggested that California wildfires were caused by a space laser controlled by a Jewish banking family. 

Greene has also likened mask and vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany, even after apologizing for such comments and visiting the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Earlier this month, Twitter permanently suspended Greene’s personal Twitter account, citing “repeated violations” of its COVID-19 misinformation policy.

On Thursday, Greene, posting to her Telegram account, once again likened vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany. “This past year the Democrat’s obsession with vaccine cards proved they are like the Nazi’s who forced people to carry ‘health pass,’” the congresswoman wrote.

In a statement to JI, Strahan said that such comments were further proof that Greene is unfit to serve in the House. 

“Rep. Greene’s apologies in the past for similar comments clearly meant nothing to her,” Strahan charged. “Her behavior embarrasses most Georgians, displays her ignorance of history, and explains why she is so ineffective. Our district deserves new leadership.”

A spokesperson for Greene did not respond to a request for comment from JI.

In the wake of the terrorist attack at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, last week, five senators are calling for increased funding for the government’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which provides financial assistance for nonprofits and houses of worship to improve their security.

“As you finalize the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Homeland Security Appropriations bill, we respectfully ask you to fund NSGP at an appropriate funding amount that reflects the increased threat level to the nonprofit sector,” Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Gary Peters (D-MI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), James Lankford (R-OK) and Rob Portman (R-OH) said in a letter to leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee obtained by Jewish Insider.

The letter, which is addressed to Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Ranking Member Richard Shelby (R-AL), as well as Homeland Security Subcommittee Chair Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), cites the Colleyville hostage standoff as evidence of “how extremists pose a threat to the Jewish community and to other religious, racial and ethnic groups.” It also warns that the recent attack may inspire further incidents.

In 2021, the NSGP — funded at $180 million — was able to fulfill less than half of the grant applications that it received. Despite this, both House and Senate appropriators have proposed holding NSGP funding at $180 million for 2022, rather than increasing it.

A number of Jewish organizations are in agreement that the 2022 NSGP should be funded at $360 million, double the 2021 funding level. The senators’ letter does not offer a specific funding amount.

The Democrats’ Build Back Better bill was set to include a $100 million boost to NSGP funding, bringing it up to a total of $280 million alongside the proposed appropriations bill, but that legislation appears to have stalled amid opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).

“The most recent attack on the Jewish community in Colleyville, Texas was unconscionable and part of a rising trend in anti-Semitic and hate-fueled crimes across the country. No community should have to live in fear due to who they are or how they worship,” Gillibrand told JI. “I will keep fighting to increase NSGP grants so that New Yorkers, and Americans across the country, can gather communally and worship freely and safely, against the threat of violence.”

“The recent heinous antisemitic attack in Colleyville, Texas has made clear just how persistent antisemitism continues to be in communities across our nation,” Rosen told JI. “As a former synagogue president, I know first-hand how important it is to strengthen and protect Jewish institutions from the threat of violence and antisemitism. It is past time we increase the Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding to help save lives and keep communities safe.”

Government funding is set to run out on Feb. 18, giving Congress approximately three weeks to finalize appropriations bills when it returns from its recess next week, or else pass another stopgap funding mechanism.

All five signatories to the letter have been frequent advocates for increased NSGP funding. Peters and Portman lead the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Lankford and Rosen lead the Bipartisan Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.

The hostage situation at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, last weekend was a terrorist act specifically targeting the Jewish community, FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Thursday during a webinar hosted by the Anti-Defamation League, clarifying an earlier statement from an FBI official investigating the case.

Thursday’s event — the most attended in ADL’s virtual “Fighting Hate from Home” series, according to a moderator — also featured Beth Israel’s Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker.

“Let me clear and blunt: The FBI is, and has been, treating Saturday’s events as an act of terrorism targeting the Jewish community,” Wray said during the webinar. “This was not some random occurrence. It was intentional. It was symbolic. And we’re not going to tolerate antisemitism in this country.”

Wray’s comments marked a clear contrast with a statement by FBI special agent Matthew DeSarno last weekend that the incident “was not specifically related to the Jewish community” — a notion that high-level administration officials including Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have pushed back on throughout the week.

According to those held hostage, the gunman, Malik Faisal Akram, repeatedly spewed antisemitic rhetoric during the 11-hour standoff with authorities, and demanded that the hostages contact Rabbi Angela Buchdal of New York City’s Central Synagogue, a leading Reform congregation, believing she would be able to fulfill his demands.

Wray added that the “enduring threats to the Jewish community” — emanating from a range of actors across the ideological spectrum both internationally and domestically — are “among our very highest priorities.” The FBI director said that he has tasked leadership in all 56 FBI field offices with building relationships with local faith communities.

The United Arab Emirates has long been considered a desirable destination for doing business. Now, the Gulf nation appears poised to become a global hub in the burgeoning — but controversial — field of cryptocurrency. As more and more countries seek to ban or impose strict regulatory measures on cryptocurrency, the world’s largest crypto trading platform, the Chinese company Binance, is going all-in on the UAE. At the same time, a surge in the buying, selling and creation of digital assets called NFTs — or Non-Fungible Tokens — is also taking place in the UAE.

“The good news about the UAE is that they are welcoming this new technology versus places like America and China — America’s and China’s loss is the UAE’s gain,” Jamil Abu-Wardeh, director and co-founder of METKAF.com, a crypto learn-and-launch company in the UAE, told The Circuit. “The UAE has realized that you need to have the right people and technology in place to make this something you can monitor.”

At the end of December 2021, Binance struck an agreement with the Dubai World Trade Centre Authority (DWTCA), which is in the process of establishing an international virtual asset ecosystem. With the deal, Binance became one of the first cryptocurrency exchanges to join DWTCA’s new crypto center, which according to bitcoin.com, is set out to become a “comprehensive ecosystem for cryptocurrencies and providers of related services.” In its announcement, Binance said “it believes that Dubai’s new agenda will contribute to the growth of the global economy” and that through the agreement it would help advance “Dubai’s commitment to establishing a new international Virtual Asset ecosystem that will generate long-term economic growth through digital innovation.” 

On Dec. 21, 2021, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, tweeted just one word — “Dubai” — after the company had signed the agreement with DWTCA. With a new worth of $96 billion, Zhao — also known as CZ — rivals tech titans such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Larry Page, and is banking a lot on Dubai.

In November, Zhao bought his first home in Dubai in a show of support for a city he has described as “very pro crypto.” In December, Bloomberg reported that Binance was in talks with Dubai and Abu Dhabi with officials from the special economic zones Abu Dhabi Global Market, Dubai International Financial Centre and Dubai Multi Commodities Centre about its plans in the Gulf nation. 

A potential Binance headquarters in Dubai signals much about the booming crypto scene in Dubai, especially as it continues to face global regulatory pressure. Founded in China in 2017, Binance is striving to establish itself as a regulated and mature finance institution. Despite recent crackdowns by regulators across the globe, trading volumes at Binance soared between July and August, suggesting that it had little impact on the platform’s business.

“Binance controls 70 percent of crypto transactions, and the fact that it is being headquartered in the UAE is further proof of how the UAE is becoming a capital for crypto and digital assets,” said Abu-Wardeh.

While many countries have moved to ban the use of Bitcoin (BTC) and digital assets, UAE regulators have taken a different approach by pushing forward its vision to become a blockchain capital via specific frameworks designed to guide crypto businesses on how to operate within the Gulf nation’s laws.

“Binance controls 70 percent of crypto transactions, and the fact that it is being headquartered in the UAE is further proof of how the UAE is becoming a capital for crypto and digital assets,” said Abu-Wardeh.

As interest in blockchain and cryptocurrencies grows globally, it is increasing exponentially in the UAE as the global economy shifts to include less traditional modes of money transactions, such as digital wallets, that can hold both fiat currency and cryptocurrency. 

In May 2021, the DMCC Crypto Centre launched to promote cryptographic and blockchain technologies in Dubai. It is now home to over 100 organizations operating in the crypto space, with a further 900 having applied for licenses. There are more than 400 crypto businesses now operating in the UAE. 

Within the UAE’s welcome arms to crypto, a surge in the buying, selling and creation of NFTs is also taking place. NFTs are cryptographic assets on a blockchain with unique identification codes and metadata that distinguish them from each other. However, unlike cryptocurrencies, they cannot be traded or exchanged at equivalency because they are unique representations of real-world assets.

NFTs exploded onto the art scene in February 2021, when artist Michael Joseph Winkelmann, known as Beeple, sold his first NFT artwork at Christie’s auction for $69.4 million.

In November 2021, the percentage of people who own a non-fungible token (NFT) in the UAE was more than double the global average, according to a survey of 28,000 people conducted by finder.com.

According to the survey, which polled 1,004 people in the country, 23 percent of people in the UAE own at least one NFT. The average rate of NFT ownership around the world was found to be 11.7 percent. The UAE is ranked fourth-highest on the list, behind the Philippines (32 percent), Thailand (27 percent), and Malaysia (24 percent). After the UAE, Vietnam had 17 percent. On the other end of the spectrum, Japan had the smallest at two percent, followed by the U.K. and the U.S. with three percent, Germany at four percent, Australia and Canada at five percent. 

“There is a thriving crypto scene in the UAE,” said Chris Fussner. “The main reason is mostly due to macro forces. By being so agile with their policy, especially in today’s world, the UAE government has looked at web3, blockchain and crypto as a good bet for taking on the future.

“I feel like the new generation coming out of school feels like they can’t play in the normal industries: banking, legal,” Liontree founder and CEO Aryeh Bourkoff said on a recent episode of Boardroom’s “Out of Office” podcast. “ Like, what’s the point of going through the normal school system? What’s the point of going through the normal banking programs, going into the stock market? Ten percent of people own 90% of stocks. And they’re thinking, what’s the point of entering a race starting with one? That is informing the mindset of creating NFTs: a new asset class; crypto: a new currency; Metaverse: a new internet world. It’s not just innovation, it’s creating new worlds.”

For the UAE’s 50th birthday celebrations last month, the country’s postal operator issued NFT stamps to celebrate the federation’s National Day.

Dubai Culture has also ventured into NFT art with its latest exhibition — a collaboration with NFT curatorial platform MORROW, which opened on Jan. 15 at the Al Safa Art and Design Library. Titled “50/50” to mark the UAE’s 50th anniversary, the exhibition includes works by Gigi Gorlova, Khalid Al Banna, Alia Al Gaoud, Dalal Ahmed and Marwan Shakarchi. 

“We founded MORROW in March 2021,” said co-founder and artist Jen Stelco, who was introduced to NFTs last year. “Just under a year ago, gallerists and traditional artists were hearing a little bit about NFTs, and it was scary.”

At the time, it seemed an individual had to either be a traditionalist or into NFTs — you couldn’t be both. It also seemed like there was no room for art galleries in the NFT sphere, as NFT artists upload their work onto virtual platforms, leaving no need for it to be exhibited physically. 

“Galleries were not on board with NFTs, but we love galleries, so we sought to find a way to bring galleries into NFTs by building a platform that is for galleries,” explains Stelco. 

Stelco and her co-founder Anna Seaman co-curated their first NFT exhibition for the digital art marketplace SuperRare in February 2021 called “Orchestra of Crickets.” 

“This was arguably the birth of the MORROW idea,” added Stelco. “It worked, and so we decided to go ahead.”

Also jumping on the digital art-cum-NFT bandwagon is Art Dubai. For the art fair’s upcoming 15th edition in March, it launched a new digital art section examining the context from which NFTs, cryptocurrency, video art, and virtual reality developed since the beginnings of digital art in the 1980s. 

“There is a thriving crypto scene in the UAE,” said Chris Fussner, curator of the new section and a web3 specialist and director of Tropical Futures Institute, a leading design strategy studio in Cebu, Philippines. that elevates early stage artists and web3 tech startups. “The main reason is mostly due to macro forces. By being so agile with their policy, especially in today’s world, the UAE government has looked at web3, blockchain and crypto as a good bet for taking on the future. Dubai is a forward-facing city and it has to look towards the future in order to remain competitive in today’s global landscape.”

Al Safa Art and Design Library (Rebecca Proctor)

Art Dubai’s new section will include a dedicated gallery section featuring international platforms working with NFTs as well as those that have been working with digital art since the 1980s. It will also include a space introducing visitors to the main players in the digital world, with explanations of where to buy bitcoin and trade in crypto, among other activities.

The latest and perhaps most symbolic representation of the UAE’s NFT boom comes in the form of the historic Pontifex carpet woven by Afghan women and gifted by Sheikh Mohamad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and deputy supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces, to Pope Francis in September 2016 during a visit to the Vatican. The two leaders met to discuss the strengthening of existing diplomatic ties and the promotion of inter-religious harmony and tolerance. The Fatima Bint Mohammed Bin Zayed Initiative (FMBI) has replicated the physical version of the carpet to be gifted to whomever buys it as an NFT. 

It was sold on Jan. 14 for 300,000dhs ($82,000 USD). The MORROW collective helped create the NFT in collaboration with Zuleya, and sold the NFT through the NFTone platform.

The new owner will receive the physical replica of the carpet and an ornate gold frame on a 165-centimeter digital canvas with the NFT loaded onto it. The money will go to aid vulnerable families in Afghanistan. The charity sale of the carpet is in itself an expression of the UAE’s new digital landscape — as well as its aims for interreligious and inter-cultural tolerance.

On the night of her election win in the primary race to succeed now-HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge in Ohio’s 11th Congressional District, Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH) — then a former Cuyahoga County Democratic Party chair — spoke before a crowd of supporters assembled outdoors, thanking them for their help in her come-from-behind win against former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner. In her off-the-cuff remarks that night in August, Brown, who would go on to defeat Republican Laverne Jones Gore in the general election, made sure to thank “my Jewish brothers and sisters” who had played a role in her victory. 

“This was an organic, authentic relationship that had been forming for years. I have been working in the community as a legislator for nine years, six of them as a county council representative representing communities with a significantly large Jewish population,” Brown said during an appearance on Jewish Insider’s “Limited Liability Podcast” on Tuesday. 

Nationally, last year’s off-cycle primary race was widely characterized as a battle between the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party. But speaking on the podcast, Brown maintained that framing had little bearing locally. “I think that the local race was really about results. It didn’t get into this progressive-moderate issue,” she said. “I know the national narrative was different. But it definitely, on the ground, was about who has been doing the work and who has been delivering for the people. And I think that is why I was able to earn the support of so many local elected officials in this race.”

Brown’s public support for the U.S.-Israel relationship and her opponent’s critiques of the Jewish state played a prominent role in the race. “It got pretty, I would say, rough at times,” Brown said of the campaign. “But for me, it was an easy, clear decision,” Brown maintained, noting that her 2018 trip to Israel helped her form a better understanding of the region.

Following the intense fighting between Israel and Hamas in May, U.S. support for Israel became one the most contentious issues of the race. Local and national pro-Israel groups boosted their support for Brown.

When asked by podcast co-host Richard Goldberg about Turner’s “concession speech,” in which Turner largely avoided conceding, Brown quickly quipped, “Was it?” In that speech, Turner drew criticism for claiming, “We didn’t lose this race, evil money manipulated and maligned this election.” 

Asked on Tuesday about her opponent’s remarks, Brown sought the high road. “I am a person that likes to focus on the positive. I am one that has not really engaged in that type of rhetoric or even acknowledged it in that way, because we know that good, certainly, won over evil in that race,” Brown said.

“When I hear things like that, I gotta, you know, just pray for my enemies. That’s all I can say is pray for the enemies and hope that the Lord blesses them in a way that they will be too busy to focus on me,” she added, while acknowledging that a potential rematch with Turner in 2022 is possible.

Asked about the rhetoric of some progressives in Congress deemed antisemitic, Brown called for accountability. “I think we have to hold everyone accountable when that type of rhetoric comes up. And so, whether it’s on one side of the aisle or the other, accountability, accountability, accountability is so important. Our words matter.”

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks (D-NY) said he will look into whether the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen should be re-labeled as a terrorist group following a drone attack that killed three civilians in the United Arab Emirates’s capital of Abu Dhabi last weekend.

The Biden administration removed the Houthis from the U.S.’s list of foreign terrorist organizations in February 2021 — reversing a decision by the Trump administration. Biden administration officials have indicated that decision was motivated in part by a desire to continue to provide humanitarian assistance to Yemen.

“I’m going to be looking at that very carefully and talking to [the administration],” Meeks, the top foreign policy Democrat in the House, told Jewish Insider on Wednesday. “I’m very concerned and condemn to the highest degree the Houthis and the utilization of the drones and the strike on the UAE. So, [that is] something that we’re looking at.”

Meeks added that his “only concern” is “making sure humanitarian aid is able to continue and to make sure that it’s getting to people — women, children, men who are not combatants.”

President Joe Biden said during a marathon news conference on Wednesday that the Houthis’ terrorism designation is “under consideration.” 

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, argued on Wednesday that the decision to revoke the terrorism designation was a mistake from the beginning.

“Last year, the Biden administration revoked the Houthis’ designation as a terrorist organization. The Houthis have thanked the President by storming the U.S. embassy in Yemen last November and now firing missiles in Abu Dhabi,” Gallagher said in a statement to JI. “The evidence is overwhelming: the president needs to reverse course, recognize reality, and re-designate the Houthis as a terrorist group.”

The United Arab Emirates has also urged the U.S. to reinstate the Houthi’s terrorism designation, UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba confirmed on a JINSA webcast on Wednesday morning.

Reps. Don Bacon (R-NE) and Henry Cuellar (D-TX) announced on Twitter that they had launched the Congressional Caucus for the Advancement of Torah Values, eliciting a flood of questions — and snark  — on social media.   

Neither Bacon nor Cuellar is Jewish, nor are any of the caucus’s other members — Reps. Kat Cammack (R-FL), Dan Meuser (R-PA) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) — pictured in a photo from the caucus’s launch event last week. Spokespeople for Cuellar and Bacon declined to provide a full list of members. The other members pictured in the photo did not respond to requests for comment.

I look forward to working with @RepDonBacon as the Co-Chairman of the Congressional Caucus for the Advancement of Torah Values.

We will protect Torah values and freedom of religion, while fighting antisemitism and hatred.

The inauguration of the caucus https://t.co/HcACGF6DCZ

— Rep. Henry Cuellar (@RepCuellar) January 18, 2022

Cuellar said that the group would “protect Torah values and freedom of religion, while fighting antisemitism and hatred,” and Bacon said it would be “committed to combating anti-Israel bigotry and protecting the Jewish community’s values and right to worship freely.”

Bacon’s post about the group featured an image with the Israeli and American flags.

For the 117th Congress, @RepCuellar and I will be co-leading the Congressional Caucus for the Advancement of Torah Values. We’re committed to combating anti-Israel bigotry and protecting the Jewish community’s values and right to worship freely. https://t.co/MNZcTXSUS4 pic.twitter.com/b3KP5NmZ42

— Rep. Don Bacon (@RepDonBacon) January 19, 2022

The House has had a Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism since the mid-2010s, with more than 100 members. Fitzpatrick is one of the co-chairs of that group.

Rabbi Dovid Hofstedter, a Toronto-based rabbi and real estate investor who leads the Orthodox group Dirshu, which described itself in a press release as “the largest Torah organization in the world,” attended the launch event last week.

Neither Bacon nor Cuellar offered additional comment on the group, and a spokesperson for Bacon said they did not plan to put out an official press release until later this week. Hofstedter and another Dirshu representative were also unavailable to speak to JI.

The announcement of the Torah Values Caucus was met with skepticism from some liberal Jewish leaders. 

Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, said she is “deeply disturbed that this new congressional caucus does not include or center the voices of American Jews who are most impacted by the issues outlined in their statement.”

Jewish Democratic Council of America CEO Halie Soifer tweeted, “There are many challenges facing Jewish Americans, including the insidious threat of antisemitism. With all due respect to our non-Jewish friends, the creation of this caucus is not the way to address them, nor are our ‘Torah values’ in need of your advancement.”

Leaders within the Orthodox community told JI they also had not been aware of the caucus’s launch. The Republican Jewish Coalition did not respond to a request for comment.

In a seemingly unrelated development, the FBI conducted a “court-authorized” search at Cuellar’s Laredo, Tex., home on Wednesday afternoon.

The Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday in Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, in which the descendants of a Holocaust survivor are seeking to reclaim a painting by the French Impressionist master Camille Pissarro taken from a relative by the Nazi regime.

Tuesday’s arguments are the latest step in a long-running battle between multiple generations of the Cassirer family — descendants of Holocaust survivor Lilly Cassirer, who gave up the painting to the Nazis in exchange for permission to flee Germany — and the Spanish government-owned Thyssen-Bornemisza Musuem, which currently possesses the artwork.

At issue is a set of arcane legal rules determining whether federal or California (where the lawsuit was filed) state standards should be applied in the case. The federal and state governments have different “choice-of-law” standards for deciding whether domestic or Spanish law should be applied in deciding possession of the artwork.

A lower court decided that federal choice-of-law rules should be used and — based on those rules — that the case should be decided according to Spanish law. Spanish law grants the museum possession of the Pissarro after having possession of it for a sufficient period of time. The Cassirer family argues that California choice-of-law rules should have been used and that this would have led to the case being decided under California law.

“I thought the argument was well-received by the Court,” Stephen Zack, a lawyer with Boies Schiller Flexner representing the Cassirer family, told Jewish Insider on Tuesday afternoon. “You never try to guess what the Court’s going to do, but we thought the Court was well-prepared, we thought the questions were extremely appropriate, and we were able to answer them, we hope, in a way that satisfied the Court’s concerns.”

An assistant to the U.S. solicitor general also argued in support of the Cassirers.

Nicholas O’Donnell, an attorney who argued a different Nazi-looted art case before the Court last year and filed an amicus brief in support of the Cassirer family, told JI he thought the justices’s questions indicated “dissatisfaction” with the museum’s position.

“It seemed to me that they were largely agreeing with the petitioners, with the Cassirer family, about the choice-of-law question here,” he said.

Bill Charron, who chairs the art law practice at the law firm Pryor Cashman, said he felt “both sides did a terrific job with their arguments.”

“To the extent people were looking for a reaction from the justices about the factual context and the background of Nazi looting, there was none of that,” Charron said. “The Court was very focused on the procedural and choice-of-law questions that were presented.”

He explained that the Supreme Court likely took this case because of disagreements between federal circuit courts over whether state or federal choice-of-law rules should apply in similar cases.

“The context here of Nazi-looted art is absolutely a very compelling context, but it’s not, I don’t think, the driver for why the Court took the case,” he said. “I think the Court is trying to create some certainty, with respect to any number of cases that could be brought in federal courts” involving foreign sovereigns.

He said that the justices’s questions indicated that the Court was “struggling with the idea of following the Ninth Circuit’s approach” and applying federal choice-of-law rules — the outcome being advocated for by the museum.

In a statement to JI, the lawyers for the museum, Thaddeus Stauber and Sarah Erickson André, emphasized that they believe — regardless of whether the federal or state choice-of-law rules are applied — Spanish law will ultimately be enforced and the painting will remain in the museum’s possession.

“The [museum] appreciates the Supreme Court’s attention to the choice-of-law question presented by this case,” the museum’s lawyers said. “As the California federal district court previously recognized, both the California and the federal common law test hold that Spanish law applies and that, therefore, the Foundation is the owner of the painting under either test.”

Charron said that one of the museum’s “more compelling points” was that applying state choice-of-law rules in cases like this would “present an international relations problem” because foreign states could find themselves subject to different choice-of-law rules and outcomes in each of the 50 states.

“Justice Roberts’s response to that was, ‘Welcome to the United States,’” Charron continued. “He seemed fairly dismissive of that point.”

Ultimately, Charron said, if the Court does decide that California state choice-of-law rules should be applied, the case could be remanded to the Ninth Circuit to consider whether a California district court was correct in ruling that Spanish law would still apply in the case.

“I don’t think the Supreme Court is likely to answer that question on its own in the first instance,” he explained.

The Tuesday arguments were also the first time that lawyer David Boies, who represents the Cassirers, has argued before the Supreme Court in nearly a decade.