Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said Wednesday he would reject further funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, echoing a position taken this week by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), under pressure from some members of the Democratic Socialists of America.

“The Iron Dom[e] is important & saves lives. Israel should be able to buy it on their own with a $45 defense billion budget,” Khanna said, closely following the stance taken by Ocasio-Cortez. 

Joe Hathaway, the Republican nominee in the special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, repeatedly accused Democratic nominee Analilia Mejia, a progressive organizer, of espousing antisemitism and taking stances that would make the district’s sizable Jewish community unsafe, during their sole debate earlier this week.

Hathaway, in his opening statement, said that Mejia would “demonize thousands of members of our Jewish community.” The Randolph, N.J. city councilman has leaned into outreach to Jewish voters during the campaign. 

Maureen Tkacik, a top editor for The American Prospect, an influential progressive magazine in Washington, has made no secret of her self-avowed hatred of Israel, particularly in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza.

“Hating Israel is everything to me,” Tkacik wrote in one social media post in February, while adding in another, “If you don’t hate Israel I strongly question your humanity.”

An Ireland-based Palestinian journalist who has contributed to outlets including The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Drop Site, Middle East Eye, The New Arab and The Electronic Intifada shared posts on his Instagram story encouraging violence against an Irish pro-Israel commentator, Druze Israeli politicians and Israelis generally.

Abubaker Abed had been based in Gaza and was evacuated during the war, ending up in Ireland. He began his career as a soccer reporter and commentator before shifting to focus on the war when it began in October 2023. Press TV, an Iran state-backed media outlet, named him “Journalist of the Year” last year.

COMMERCE, Mich. — As former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) campaigns for the open Senate seat in Michigan, he is not shy about his support for Israel. But he has lately encountered more people pushing back on American support for the Jewish state, and he is worried not enough is being done, including in his own party, to fight that trend. 

“I don’t think we have an effort to counter the [anti-Israel] narrative,” Rogers, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told Jewish Insider in an interview near Detroit last week. “You don’t have to love Israel, but you have to respect the fact that the nation is trying to defend itself and its people who have maybe, probably, the most horrific history of being treated in the world of any other race on planet earth.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) reportedly committed on Tuesday to opposing “any spending on arms for Israel, including so-called defensive capabilities” for Israel as well as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, according to an editor from City & State New York.

The New York Democrat made the comments on a Democratic Socialists of America endorsement call on Tuesday evening.

Nearly half (47%) of young Jewish women reported dating less as a result of increased antisemitism and other negative consequences of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, according to a new survey by Jewish Women International. 

Over one-third (36%) of respondents said they’ve ended existing romantic relationships due to these dynamics, while 18% said they’ve stopped online dating altogether. 

A federal judge ordered the University of Pennsylvania on Tuesday to comply with a subpoena from the Trump administration requesting detailed information about Jewish university affiliates as part of the government’s crackdown on campus antisemitism.   

The decision follows a monthslong legal battle between Penn and the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s over the EEOC’s authority to enforce the subpoena issued last July, which stemmed from an ongoing investigation into Penn’s handling of antisemitism. 

Israel is ending all defense procurement from France, the Israeli Defense Ministry said, citing Paris’ hostile posture toward Jerusalem and a desire to increase domestic production and purchases from allies. 

“Israel will reduce all defense procurement from France to zero, replacing it with domestic Israeli procurement or purchases from allied countries,” Israel’s Ministry of Defense told Politico on Tuesday. 

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) is no stranger to policy conversations about homeland security and terrorist attacks. As a former CIA analyst and an official at the State Department and the Pentagon, national security has been a top issue for her since her first campaign for Congress, in 2018. 

Now she must apply her policy expertise to a tragedy that is immensely personal: the attack earlier this month at Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., where a heavily armed man with ties to the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah drove an explosive-laden car into the building and opened fire, before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No one else was killed.

ROYAL OAK, Mich. — When Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow saw the news on March 12 about an attack at Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, her first thought was about her 5-year-old daughter, Noa. 

McMorrow is not Jewish, but her husband is, and Noa attends preschool at another Reform congregation in the area. 

The Trump administration’s conflicting posturing on the war in Iran — insisting on the one hand that a diplomatic deal is within reach while also threatening to escalate strikes and potentially deploy ground troops — has left experts and former administration officials uncertain about President Donald Trump’s next move.

The president threatened in a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday morning to “conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg Island” if current talks fall apart and “the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business.’”

The Democratic National Committee’s resolutions committee is set to consider resolutions condemning AIPAC and Israel at its upcoming meeting next week in New Orleans — a sign of the continued and growing discord in the party over Middle East policy. 

It’s unclear at this point how great of a chance the resolutions stand of passing in their current form, but they are emerging as the AIPAC brand has been tarnished inside the Democratic Party.

The FBI determined that the attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., earlier this month was “a Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism purposely targeting the Jewish community and the largest Jewish temple in Michigan,” officials said on Monday. 

Jennifer Runyan, head of the FBI in Detroit, said during a news conference that the assailant, Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, made a video stating, “This is the largest gathering place for Israelis in the State of Michigan in the United States. I have booby-trapped the car. I will forcefully enter and start shooting them. God willing, I will kill as many of them as I possibly can.”

The Knesset passed a controversial law on Monday allowing — and in some cases requiring — courts to impose the death penalty on terrorists found guilty of murder. Opponents swiftly challenged the legislation in court, with appeals arguing that its designations are vague and discriminatory.

While Israel already allowed the death penalty for genocide and crimes against humanity, it had not been invoked since the execution of senior Nazi Adolf Eichmann in 1962. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party proposed the new law in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks with an aim to have terrorists sentenced to death, and conditioned the party’s support for the state budget, which the Knesset approved earlier Monday, on passage of the bill.

An AI-generated Instagram account, which featured a fake Orthodox rabbi spreading antisemitic conspiracies to its more than 1.4 million followers, was taken offline over the weekend following major backlash from Jewish groups and one Democratic lawmaker — yet several similar, hate-peddling accounts have emerged with little to no public action from Meta.

An account called “Rabbi Goldman” “uses fake, AI-created authority figures to spread hate” in “a troubling and growing tactic,” according to a report published last week by Combat Antisemitism Movement. 

Israeli-American comedian Modi Rosenfeld, known simply as “Modi,” pulled out of a Passover-themed benefit Monday after his manager revealed that the entertainer had been “blindsided” with the news that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani would participate in the Lower Manhattan event.

Quoting Jewish Insider’s initial report on the mayor’s scheduled involvement in the 33rd Annual “Downtown Seder” at impresario Michael Dorf’s venue City Winery, Rosenfeld’s official Instagram account announced the Tel Aviv-born, Long Island-reared performer had withdrawn from the event.

Jewish Israelis’ support for the war against Iran dropped by 15 points from the first week of the war, according to a poll released by the Israel Democracy Institute on Monday.

In the first week of the war, 93% of Jewish Israelis supported continuing the war, while in the latest IDI poll — conducted nearly a month into the war — 78% support it. More than twice as many Israeli Jews (11.5%) oppose the war as did at the beginning of March (4%).

Relatives of a Shanghai-based software magnate devoted to promoting Chinese, Iranian and Russian interests are operating inside the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, supporting Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s preferred candidates for Congress and playing significant roles in shaping and advancing key elements of his agenda, Jewish Insider has found.

Onstage with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) last September, Mamdani credited one of his signature campaign promises to the political director of the far-left nonprofit Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.

A group of 25 Senate Democrats criticized President Donald Trump on Friday for lifting sanctions on Russian and Iranian oil exports, sanctions which have seen broad bipartisan support.

“We write with deep concern and confusion over your administration’s recent decision to ease sanctions on Russian and Iranian oil exports,” the Democrats wrote in a letter to the president. “These actions speak once again to the troubling lack of strategic foresight that has marked your administration’s decision-making prior to and during its war of choice with Iran, jeopardizing the lives of our servicemembers across the region and raising costs for Americans here at home.”

A war powers resolution introduced by Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Delia Ramirez (D-IL) and Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) on Friday would block any U.S. participation in and assistance to Israeli operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Like the war powers resolutions on Iran that lawmakers have repeatedly called up for votes in the House and Senate, Tlaib or another lawmaker could force the House to vote on the legislation.

The scandal surrounding Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) could send another far-left Israel critic to Congress, after a House Ethics Committee panel found her guilty on Thursday of 25 charges and lawmakers now move toward expelling her from the chamber.

Cherfilus-McCormick was indicted in late 2025 for a range of financial crimes  including allegedly stealing $5 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds, money laundering and illegal campaign contributions.

Speaking to Jewish Insider last July, Effie Phillips-Staley, one of the Democrats aiming to take on Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) in suburban New York this fall, said that she wanted to be “very clear that the U.S. has to continue to be a critical ally to Israel” and that she wouldn’t support additional conditions or restrictions on U.S. aid to Israel.

But as support for Israel has declined with the Democratic base, the progressive candidate has  flip-flopped on her views towards the Jewish state. She received an endorsement this month from the virulently anti-Israel group TrackAIPAC, which has garnered accusations of antisemitism and dishonest tactics from even elected Democrats who are themselves critical of Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition narrowly beat a deadline that would have led to an early election, passing the 2026 state budget early Monday morning, a day before the March 31 deadline.

The budget passed after the coalition granted NIS 800 million ($255 million) in benefits to Haredi institutions, and promised Shas and United Torah Judaism that the government would pass a law that, in effect, would continue yeshiva students’ exemption from military service, even as Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the IDF chief of staff, raised “10 red flags” about insufficient military manpower.

White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff compared the release of Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas to the release of Palestinians from Israeli prisons, stating that both experiences “feels like we’re changing lives.”

“People ask me: ‘Why do I like doing it?’ And I say because it feels worthy, it feels like we’re changing lives,” Witkoff said on Friday at the FII Priority summit in Miami. “I remember when we met those families of the Israeli hostages and they were ecstatic because they didn’t think their children were coming home.”

It has been quite some time since I’ve had the presence of mind to sit down and write my wine column.

Since I last wrote, I’ve welcomed a granddaughter, something I highly recommend, and started an early stage defense technology fund in Israel. Even with all of the changes in my life, the thing I’ve missed most is writing this column and hearing from readers.

As the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran nears the one-month mark, experts say the war has diverted diplomatic and military attention away from Gaza, creating a mixed picture: Hamas has used the pause in sustained Israeli military pressure to reassert control in areas it still governs, while the degradation of Iran’s capabilities could ultimately leave the group weaker and more isolated once the conflict subsides.

“I think it’s safe to say that Israeli and American attention has been significantly diverted to the Iran war, and as a corollary to the second front, meaning the war with Hezbollah, at the expense of full time attention to Hamas,” said Matthew Levitt, director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s program on counterterrorism and intelligence. “But it’s not like nothing’s happened in the interim, both for good and for bad.”

Ted Deutch, the CEO of the American Jewish Committee and a former Democratic congressman, said that Democratic lawmakers and candidates should not associate with far-left streamer Hasan Piker, who has a record of antisemitism and support for terrorism.

His comments come at a time when a small but growing group of Democrats has begun speaking out against Piker, particularly as he’s set to join a far-left Michigan Senate candidate on the trail. 

A new report by the American Jewish Committee, released on Friday, found that 73% of American Jews saw or heard antisemitism online in the last year and 21% said that the antisemitism they witnessed made them feel physically threatened.

Top officials at the group say that this pervasive antisemitism online is the fundamental root of the current wave of antisemitic sentiment society-wide, including violent extremist attacks on Jewish communities in the U.S. and globally, and that protecting the Jewish community requires making real progress in tackling that problem.

Thursday brought a series of new signals that at least a small number of ideologically varied Republican lawmakers are growing frustrated with the war in Iran and with the administration’s frequently shifting rhetoric about it — including from some otherwise-hawkish lawmakers.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who previously called for an end to the war, told Bloomberg on Thursday that she’s working on a potential authorization for use of military force in Iran, to limit the scope of the U.S. operation and prevent the deployment of ground troops.

After Janeese Lewis George met last week with Washington rabbis and other local Jewish leaders who were concerned about her views on Israel and antisemitism, the Washington, D.C., mayoral candidate released a statement pledging to stand firm in both her opposition to antisemitism and her support for the Palestinian cause. 

“Those two things are not in conflict,” Lewis George, who is endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, wrote in a statement that was posted to her campaign website on Wednesday. 

ROYAL OAK, Mich. — Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who is running in a tight three-way Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, slammed one of her opponents, Abdul El-Sayed, for his decision to campaign with the far-left political streamer Hasan Piker. 

Piker, who has a history of antisemitic and pro-Hamas remarks, is slated to appear at two campaign rallies with El-Sayed and Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) in April. 

The New York City Council passed a suite of legislation Thursday intended to battle antisemitism — and to formalize NYPD policy toward protests at religious and educational facilities — leaving it up to Mayor Zohran Mamdani to try to block the bills or let them become law.

Council Speaker Julie Menin told reporters before the vote that she’s received no signal that Mamdani would veto her signature bill, which would compel the city’s police commissioner to lay out official department procedure for its longstanding practice of establishing buffer zones around religious institutions during protest activity. 

President Donald Trump announced on Thursday afternoon that he would extend his pause on plans to strike Iran’s energy infrastructure, “per Iranian government request,” for an additional 10 days amid ongoing diplomatic negotiations to end the war.

Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform that he is “pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time.” 

Jared Kushner, an informal Middle East envoy to the White House, said Thursday that Iran had not been serious about reaching a nuclear deal with the United States before President Donald Trump, his father-in-law, chose to attack the country in a joint military operation with Israel.

“We basically saw that there was no seriousness, and that they were trying to play different games to just get beyond President Trump in order to preserve their capabilities and pathway to get to a nuclear weapon in a way that would have been very, very hard to be stopped in the future,” Kushner said at Saudi Arabia’s exclusive FII Priority summit, held in Miami this week.

An AI-generated Instagram account portraying an Orthodox-looking rabbi is pushing antisemitic conspiracy theories to its more than 1.4 million followers, and it’s not the only one, a study published this week about antisemitic content on the social media platform has found. 

An account called “Rabbi Goldman” “uses fake, AI-created authority figures to spread hate” in “a troubling and growing tactic,” according to the report, published on Wednesday by the Combat Antisemitism Movement.

A group of Senate Republicans is urging Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to provide a congressional briefing on the “progress and future priorities” of the joint task force established in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, which is responsible for investigating and prosecuting Hamas members and other actors involved in funding, supporting or perpetrating the attacks. 

The request, sent in a letter to the two Cabinet members on Thursday, was signed by Sens. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Ashley Moody (R-FL), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Steve Daines (R-MT), Ted Budd (R-NC), Katie Britt (R-AL), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), James Risch (R-ID), John Hoeven (R-ND), Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV).

Several Senate Republicans this week declined to fully endorse President Donald Trump’s comments that the U.S. had “won” the war in Iran, arguing that there is still more to be done to fully degrade Iran’s capabilities to the extent necessary.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Tuesday, “You know, I don’t like to say this — this war has been won. The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news. … We’ve won this war.” Trump also said Monday he would postpone strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure to allow for “productive conversations” toward ending the war — an announcement that boosted markets and brought down oil prices.

The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee told reporters on Wednesday, after a classified briefing, that the administration isn’t giving committee members enough information about its plans in Iran.

The comments by a senior, generally hawkish Republican, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), are a sign of cracks between congressional Republicans and the administration — who have largely remained in lockstep through the first month of the war — over the strategy in Iran.

The campaign website home page for Michael Blake, a progressive challenger to Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) who has made his criticism of Israel a centerpiece of his campaign, features a picture of Blake in Israel.

Blake was once a strong supporter of the Jewish state, and traveled there with the AIPAC-backed American Israel Education Foundation and with the New York Jewish Community Relations Council.

Former U.S. Central Command head Gen. Frank McKenzie said Wednesday that the U.S. military is “in the heart of the plan” in its war against Iran, pointing to major military achievements against Tehran’s missile and military capabilities, while cautioning that the conflict remains a grinding, long-term campaign.

As the conflict between the U.S., Israel and Iran nears the one-month mark, officials say Iran’s capabilities have been severely degraded, while President Donald Trump has asserted that the war is nearly over and that its objectives have largely been achieved. 

Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing criticism from some prominent Michigan Democrats — including Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who is running against him in the Democratic primary — for his decision to host campaign rallies with Hasan Piker, the far-left political streamer with a history of antisemitic remarks. 

“That’s the exact opposite of someone I’d be campaigning with,” Stevens told Jewish Insider on Wednesday. “We have to be serious here about who’s going to be the best general election candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan to beat [Republican] Mike Rogers, and someone who’s campaigning with someone like that is not going to win in Michigan.” 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Wednesday that he still hopes to pass supplemental military funding to support the war in Iran through regular legislative procedures, rather than incorporating it into an anticipated party-line budget reconciliation bill.

Graham, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, which oversees reconciliation, announced on Wednesday that the committee would be pursuing a new reconciliation bill, to include funding for both the military and homeland security.

The United Arab Emirates has been publicly expressing its disappointment in Arab League countries like Egypt for not showing or expressing very little support for Gulf states under attack from Iran, a dynamic playing out more quietly in other Gulf states, as well.

In a post on X on Sunday that received significant attention, Anwar Gargash, an advisor to the UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed, said that “Iran’s brutal aggression against the Arab Gulf carries profound geopolitical repercussions … and the result is to bolster our national capabilities and the joint security, as well as to solidify our security partnerships with Washington.”

Former Secretary of State Tony Blinken said at a Harvard Kennedy School event this week that he warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a few months into the war in Gaza that Israel was going to lose support among not just Democrats, but also Republicans and evangelical Christians.

“Israel was mostly seen as the David and other forces were seen as the Goliath. That is now flipped,” Blinken said. “One of the things that I told Netanyahu was, ‘You may not care that you’re losing the Democratic Party, but trust me, you are going to lose young Republicans. You’re going to lose young evangelicals. This is generational.’ And he moved on to something else.”

A first-of-its kind leaderboard evaluating how major video game companies address antisemitism and extremism in online games was released on Wednesday by the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Insider has learned.   

The leaderboard assessed 10 of the most popular games and their respective companies on their policies and in-game safety features. “Fortnite” was rated the best at implementing safeguards to combat antisemitism, with “Grand Theft Auto Online,” “Call of Duty” and “Minecraft” following closely behind. Other major games evaluated included “Roblox,” “Valorant,” “Clash Royale,” “Counter-Strike 2” and “PUBG: Battlegrounds.” 

Multiple Senate Republicans said Tuesday that they haven’t heard from the administration specific plans for restoring free trade through the Strait of Hormuz, though most emphasized that doing so is a critical goal.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said that the Pentagon has been planning for this contingency for years.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, wrote to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday questioning if a city-run health agency was using federal resources in its initiative aimed at responding to the “ongoing genocide in Palestine.”

He suggested that public funding for the city’s health department could be at risk without a course-correction.

Extensive security “preparations, training and practice” that had taken place prior to an attack on a Detroit-area synagogue earlier this month “greatly helped to dramatically mitigate what could have been so much worse in Michigan,” a Trump administration intelligence official said on Tuesday. 

During a security briefing webinar hosted by the Secure Community Network, a leading Jewish security organization, ahead of the Passover holiday, Matthew Kozma, under secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, called for continued vigilance “given the threat that’s stemming from Iran, particularly in the Middle East, but also here at home.” 

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the United States had achieved “regime change” in Iran through the killing of Iranian leaders and teased a “very significant prize” provided by Iran to the U.S. in the course of ongoing negotiations.

“We have, really, regime change. This is a change in the regime, because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), who chairs the moderate New Democratic Coalition, called on Democrats on Tuesday to reject and distance themselves from Hasan Piker, the far-left media figure boosted by an increasing number of Democrats and Democratic candidates.

Piker has faced repeated criticism for antisemitic comments and support for terrorism, in addition to a range of other offensive remarks and activity. Schneider, in addition to his leadership in the New Dems -— one of the largest groups in the House Democratic Caucus — is a co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Caucus.

For the third time in a month, Senate Republicans on Tuesday evening blocked an effort by Democrats to halt U.S. operations in Iran.

The war powers resolution, this time led by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), is part of a series of efforts by Senate Democrats to disrupt business on the Senate floor to force a reckoning and public testimony by Cabinet officials about the war in Iran.

Far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is taking flak over comments in an internal campaign call that issuing a statement on the attempted terrorist attack on Temple Israel in the Detroit suburbs that placed blame on Israel for the attack was a “risk” he felt he had to take, Punchbowl News reported Tuesday.

In both the original statement and the internal comments, El-Sayed condemned the attack while also suggesting that it ultimately could be blamed on Israel’s operations in Lebanon. The alleged attacker was the brother of a Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli airstrike, the IDF said.

A prominent Jewish Democratic donor in Chicago is raising alarms that growing efforts to demonize AIPAC and its engagement in political campaigns are part of a more sinister effort to make pro-Israel Jews feel unwelcome in a party they have long called home.

In an opinion article published in The Chicago Tribune on Tuesday headlined “Why I support AIPAC and a big tent Democratic Party,” Michael Sacks, an asset manager and longtime ally of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, pointed to what he called a “double standard” for AIPAC’s political involvement, and warned of “a coordinated effort to make support for Israel a litmus test for Democratic primary candidates in 2026 and beyond.”

Washington, D.C., mayoral candidate Kenyan McDuffie criticized his Democratic primary opponents for pledging to avoid campaigning with elements of the Jewish community — an apparent jab at Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed rival Janeese Lewis George, who is facing backlash from Jewish leaders over her pledge to boycott events she described as promoting Zionism.

“Recent reporting has raised serious concerns about how some candidates for office in DC have pledged not to engage with the majority of Jewish organizations in exchange for political support,” McDuffie wrote in a campaign email on Tuesday. “That is wrong. Full stop.”

A prominent moderate Democratic think tank is continuing to call out Democratic candidates for being “too cozy” with antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker, who has been embraced by several left-wing Democrats in recent months.

In his latest statement, Jonathan Cowan, president of Third Way, condemned Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed for his upcoming rallies with Piker, first reported by Politico, set to take place on April 7 at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan alongside Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA).

Former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who lost his bid for reelection in 2024 largely over his hostile views on Israel, now appears to be working for a political action committee linked to a radical anti-AIPAC social media account — a committee funded in part by soft-rock icon Don Henley.

The latest disclosure filings from Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption, one of two PACs tied to the X account AIPAC Tracker and website Track AIPAC, show that it paid $7,000 to a Yonkers, N.Y.-based firm called JAB Advocates for “General Campaign Consulting.” 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) lambasted the Trump administration for lifting sanctions on some Iranian oil last week, allowing the sale of 140 million barrels of oil currently at sea in a bid to bring down oil prices globally and potentially netting Iran $14 billion.

Lawmakers in both chambers, on a bipartisan basis, have spent years working to increase financial pressure on Iran, with broad support. Those efforts have been ongoing, including as recently as last week when the House passed the Enhanced Iran Sanctions Act by a bipartisan voice vote — in spite of concerns from the White House about sanctioning China, which predated the war, that delayed and watered down the bill.

Janeese Lewis George, a Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed candidate for mayor of Washington, D.C., met with prominent local rabbis and Jewish community leaders last week amid fallout over a DSA questionnaire she filled out outlining her views on Israel and antisemitism.

The March 19 meeting, at the Orthodox Ohev Sholom Congregation in Shepherd Park, was arranged after her responses to a DSA endorsement questionnaire were made public last month, according to two sources familiar with the meeting. 

Michael Blake, a far-left primary challenger to Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) who has grounded his challenge largely in criticism of Torres’ pro-Israel stance, flipped his view on the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement during his campaign.

In January, at a candidate forum, Blake affirmed his opposition to the BDS movement and highlighted anti-BDS legislation he helped sponsor as a state assemblyman. But in an X post on Friday, he reversed his position on the issue.

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

Trump made the comments while speaking to reporters from Palm Beach International Airport before boarding Air Force One, after being asked if he knew whether Kent was leaking classified materials. The president repeatedly derided Kent, a former Green Beret, for remarrying “quickly” after his first wife was killed in 2019 while serving in Syria and for his failed congressional campaigns.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) did not directly address whether the degradation of Iran’s military infrastructure should be viewed as a positive outcome, instead emphasizing the war’s potential economic and geopolitical consequences. 

Over the course of the past week, U.S. officials have indicated that Iran’s military capabilities have been severely weakened. President Donald Trump has described Iran’s military as “decimated,” and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified at a congressional hearing this past week that the Iranian regime was “largely degraded.” 

Analilia Mejia, a progressive activist and organizer who won a surprise victory in the special election primary in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, looks to be on track to win the district’s regular election Democratic primary after several of her potential opponents declined to run.

In the days after Mejia’s surprise victory over former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) and other more moderate candidates, there was speculation over whether she might be vulnerable to a one-on-one challenge in the regular primary on June 2. United Democracy Project, the AIPAC-linked super PAC that inadvertently helped boost Mejia, teased the possibility of  further involvement in the subsequent primary.

President Donald Trump revealed on Monday that White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and advisor Jared Kushner have been negotiating with Iran amid the ongoing war, which played a role in Trump’s decision to delay by five days potential strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure in response to Iran’s threat to fully close the Strait of Hormuz.

“We have had very, very strong talks. We’ll see where they lead. We have major points of agreement, I would say almost all points of agreement. Perhaps that hasn’t been conveyed. The communication, as you know, has been blown to pieces. They were unable to talk to each other,” Trump told reporters from Palm Beach International Airport before boarding Air Force One. 

Graham Platner, the progressive Maine Senate candidate, in a CNN interview that aired Sunday accused Israel of committing genocide and said the U.S. should cut off all aid, as well as dismissed concerns that bringing the Iran war to a halt would endanger U.S. forces in the region.

“I fundamentally believe that a nation that is committing a genocide should not be a place that we are putting money. We should be leveraging the fact that we have a lot of power in this relationship due to our funding,” Platner said in the interview. “We should be leveraging that to, frankly, get the Israeli government to stop behaving in such an utterly atrocious fashion.”

The Congressional Progressive Staff Association, a congressional employee group for progressive staffers and prospective staffers, hosted a happy hour this week with Columbia University protest leader Mohsen Mahdawi, whom the administration has been trying for months to deport.

The Department of Homeland Security has characterized Mahdawi as a “ringleader” in anti-Israel protests at Columbia and accused him of using “threatening rhetoric and intimidation” against Jewish students. 

As the U.S. deploys thousands of Marines to the Middle East and President Donald Trump continues to send mixed messages about whether he plans for a ground invasion of Iran, one GOP senator said he’s hoping the administration does not take that step.

“I would hope it wouldn’t come to that,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Jewish Insider on Friday, when asked about the possibility of a ground operation in Iran.

Republican voters expressed strong support for President Donald Trump’s military action against Iran, and would decidedly prefer a GOP congressional candidate who advocates for the war’s aims, according to a new survey from pollster J.L. Partners.

The poll, which surveyed 1,018 likely GOP voters between March 17-18, finds that an overwhelming share of Republicans (83%) support Trump’s war against Iran, with just 9% opposing. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of Republicans said they “strongly support” Trump’s war efforts.

A veteran operative for former Chicago mayor and congressman Rahm Emanuel has established a new political action committee to fight New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America in the Big Apple — an effort that sources say could involve former city Comptroller Scott Stringer and aides to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The Next NYC PAC registered with the New York State Board of Elections on March 11, using the address of Gregory Goldner’s home in the Mid-North District of Chicago. Goldner, who helmed Cuomo’s mayoral campaign in the final weeks of the 2025 cycle and ran a PAC aimed at preventing the election of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson two years prior, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. 

Missile strikes from Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon resulted in over 100 casualties between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

One person was killed and another injured after two cars caught fire in the Upper Galilee from errant IDF shells that fell inside Israel, rather than Lebanon, an investigation by the military found on Monday.

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH), one of the few House Democrats who has supported strikes on Iran and opposed a war powers resolution to bring it to an end earlier this month, now says he wants to see the war wrapped up, and will vote for an upcoming resolution to end the conflict.

“It’s time to finish the operation in Iran. It’s time to be done,” Landsman said in a statement on Friday. “No expansion of the original operation. No ground troops.”

Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff rejected a recent Student Assembly resolution calling for the university to boycott its partnership with an Israeli institution, stating that doing so would “fundamentally conflict with our core commitment to academic freedom” and noting the “political bias” within the resolution “is deeply disturbing.” 

In a letter to the Student Assembly, Kotlikoff wrote that the resolution — which calls to sever Cornell’s longstanding academic partnership with the Technion —  “would not only hinder our research, teaching and public engagement; it would imperil our academic principles.”

The Trump administration filed a new lawsuit against Harvard University on Friday, claiming that its leadership violated the civil rights of Jewish students by failing to address ongoing antisemitism that has roiled the Ivy League campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel. 

In the 44-page lawsuit, filed in federal court in Boston, the Department of Justice said that Harvard unlawfully discriminated against Jewish students by its “intentional conduct and its deliberate indifference to discriminatory harassment of Jewish and Israeli students and creation of a hostile educational environment” since Oct. 7 and “up to the present day.” 

In a letter to the leaders of the House Appropriations Committee, a bipartisan group of 150 House members asked the committee to provide $1 billion in funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program in 2027, a massive expansion of the program and an unprecedented increase in their request level.

The request letter, which has been sent annually for the last several years at the start of the House’ appropriations process, comes this year in the immediate aftermath of an attack at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich., and its early childhood center.

The Pentagon’s reported intention to ask Congress for $200 billion for an emergency supplemental to fund the U.S. military amid war in Iran is being met with prompt rejection from a number of congressional Democrats, raising questions about whether the funding will pass through normal procedures or if supporters will have to resort to partisan budget reconciliation measures.

“As far as $200 billion, I think that number could move, obviously. It takes money to kill bad guys,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said of the reported proposal on Thursday. “We’re going back to Congress and our folks there to ensure that we’re properly funded for what’s been done, for what we may have to do in the future, ensure that our ammunition is — everything’s refilled, and not just refilled, but above and beyond.”

A group of congressional Democrats is urging the State Department to restart chartered evacuation flights and take additional steps to help U.S. citizens who wish to leave Israel amid the ongoing war with Iran.

The lawmakers described the State Department’s current partnership with El Al, which launched on March 13 with a limited number of special evacuation flights for U.S. citizens, as insufficient. The Israeli airline has currently suspended registration for the flights, and government-imposed security restrictions are limiting passenger capacity on each flight and reducing airport operations.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard distanced herself — to a degree — on Thursday from two aides who have taken hostile stances toward the U.S.’ Middle East policy: the recently departed director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, and the recently hired Dan Caldwell.

Kent resigned from the administration this week with a conspiratorial letter condemned by many as antisemitic, claiming that there was no imminent threat from Iran and that Israel and pro-Israel advocates in the U.S. had tricked the administration into joining it.

In the 24 hours before a fringe Catholic political group planned to host a gala in Washington honoring a number of public figures who have faced accusations of antisemitism, several prominent members of the American Catholic Church stated unequivocally that antisemitism is not a part of their religious doctrine.

“The Jewish community is attacked at a far higher rate than any other religious group in the United States. If we Catholics, in truly living out the Gospel, are to defend religious freedom with integrity, we must clearly speak out against antisemitism,” Archbishop Alexander K. Sample, the archbishop of Portland, Ore., said in a video posted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Wednesday. 

The Senate is set to hold another round of votes on blocking U.S. arms transfers to Israel, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) filed three new joint resolutions of disapproval against $658.8 million in sales of 500- and 1,000-pound bombs to Israel and “defense articles” for 250-pound bombs.

“Given the horrific destruction that Israel’s extremist government has wrought on Gaza, Iran and Lebanon, the last thing in the world that American taxpayers need to do right now is to provide 22,000 new bombs to the Netanyahu government,” Sanders said. “No more weapons to support an illegal war.”

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 8-7 Thursday to advance Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s (R-OK) nomination to be secretary of homeland security to the full Senate, largely along party lines.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the committee chair, was the lone Republican to oppose the nomination, while Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voted in support. Mullin’s nomination now heads to the full Senate, where a simple majority is required for confirmation.

Far-left challengers to Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) and Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) are picking up support in internal party proceedings in what some progressives are touting as a sign of the incumbents’ vulnerabilities. 

But local experts say those developments shouldn’t necessarily be read as signs that the two establishment Democrats are on their way out — the state’s Democratic Party processes tend to favor more progressive candidates, and both Hickenlooper and DeGette still have strong advantages going into the primary later this year.

When Jordan Acker ran for the University of Michigan Board of Regents in 2018 — a statewide elected office — he presented himself as a young alumnus eager to bring a fresh energy to the governing board of Michigan’s flagship public university. 

But since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel in 2023, Acker has become the target of the university’s anti-Israel activists, facing harassment and vandalism that Michigan leaders have called plainly antisemitic. 

Arguing that character in politics still matters, Katy Padilla Stout, an attorney and former teacher, sees an opportunity to flip a red district in south Texas that President Donald Trump won by 15 points in the last presidential election. 

Padilla Stout is the Democratic nominee in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, where she’s now set to face hard-right influencer and GOP nominee Brandon Herrera, who brings significant baggage to the House race. Herrera became the presumptive GOP nominee after Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), who is more moderate and had demonstrated crossover appeal, withdrew from the race under an increasing cloud of scandal.

Joe Kent, who resigned earlier this week from his role as director of the National Counterterrorism Center over his opposition to the war in Iran, offered a litany of baseless accusations about Israel while defending the Iranian regime in an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s program on Wednesday.

Kent doubled down in the interview on an allegation made in his resignation statement that Israel coerced the U.S. into the war for its own benefit. As evidence, Kent and Carlson — a friend of Kent’s and a leading critic of the Trump administration’s approach to Iran in the conservative movement — pointed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying earlier this month that the “imminent threat” that prompted the U.S. to take action was the foreknowledge that Israel was going to strike, likely resulting in retaliation against American targets by the Iranian regime. 

The Senate voted largely along party lines on Wednesday night to reject a procedural motion on an effort aiming to bring the U.S. operations in Iran to an immediate halt for the second time this month.

The war powers resolution, led by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), is part of an effort by a group of Senate Democrats to disrupt and slow down business on the Senate floor in protest of the war in Iran, which was launched without congressional authorization, and to seek public testimony by Cabinet officials about the conflict. 

The deputy inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Adam Kaplan, said on Tuesday that his office will investigate U.N. staff for ties to Hamas, noting that previous vetting requirements by the aid agency exempted employees of the international body. 

Following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, USAID’s Office of Inspector General (USAID OIG) — responsible for conducting independent auditing and investigation of USAID and other foreign assistance programs — identified Gaza as a “high-risk for potential diversion and misuse of U.S.-funded assistance,” and has initiated investigations into several partners over connections to terrorism and fraud “to ensure humanitarian assistance in Gaza does not fall into the hands of Hamas and other foreign terrorist organizations.” 

Michael Blake, who is mounting a primary challenge to Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), praised Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, who resigned on Tuesday with a conspiratorial statement that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have characterized as antisemitic.

Kent has a history of affiliations with far-right and antisemitic extremists and, on Tuesday, issued a statement announcing he would leave his post in opposition to the war in Iran, which Kent claimed Israel and pro-Israel advocates had tricked the U.S. into joining. 

In his nomination hearing to be secretary of homeland security, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said he will aim to “streamline the process” for grants, including the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) aimed at helping harden religious institutions, amid heightened antisemitism and increased threats during the ongoing war in Iran. 

The NSGP has faced persistent challenges, including severe underfunding, controversial new conditions and, most recently, delays tied to the ongoing partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. 

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said that the U.S. and Israeli operations against Iran have largely destroyed Tehran’s “power projection capabilities” in the region, but that the regime remains standing, if weakened.

“The [intelligence community] assesses that Operation Epic Fury is advancing fundamental change in the region that began with Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and continued with the 12-day war last year, resulting in weakening Iran and its proxies,” Gabbard said at a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee on worldwide threats on Wednesday. 

U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian production sites during the ongoing war have destroyed the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile production capabilities, the IDF told Jewish Insider on Wednesday.

”Right now, they are unable, during this war, to produce ballistic missiles … due to steps we and the Americans took,” IDF Lt.-Col. Nadav Shoshani, the IDF’s international spokesperson, said in response to a query from JI. 

An upcoming Democratic runoff for a red-leaning open House seat in Texas that could be competitive in November is now emerging as a stark example of the growing tensions between moderate candidates and their fringe opponents on the extreme left over how to approach Israel and the rise of antisemitism.

The May 26 election in Texas’ recently redrawn 35th Congressional District, which was created to favor Republicans and extends from San Antonio to Austin, pits Johnny Garcia, a Bexar County sheriff’s deputy who is backed by pro-Israel Democrats and establishment officials, against Maureen Galindo, a local activist who has used her growing social media presence to promote a range of conspiracy theories, including specious claims about Israel and its ties to the United States.

Administration officials dodged questions about weapons sales to Turkey during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday, despite calling antisemitic statements from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “atrocious.”

“The president of Turkey, President Erdogan, has said, less than one year ago, ‘May Allah make Zionist Israel destroyed and devastated,’” Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL), a hard-right Jewish lawmaker, said during the hearing. He also referenced other comments, such as Erdogan calling Israelis “murderers to the point that they kill children who are five or six years old. They are murderers to the point they drag women on the ground to their death.” 

Prominent historian and Jewish studies scholar Pamela Nadell joined the ongoing debate over the effectiveness of legacy Jewish organizations on Tuesday, arguing that they play a crucial role in educating non-Jews about antisemitism. 

“It is impossible to consider dismantling legacy organizations that uncover potentially extremist attacks and that educate Americans — not Jewish Americans, we don’t need this education — about antisemitism and all forms of hate. We need to continue doing this work,” Nadell said at the conclusion of the Anti-Defamation League’s Never is Now conference in Manhattan in a conversation with the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt. 

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) on Tuesday urged the administration to work to free one of his constituents, Kamran Hekmati, from prison in Iran. Hekmati, who is Jewish and a U.S. citizen, has been held by the regime for nearly a year for visiting Israel for his son’s bar mitzvah more than a dozen years ago.

This week, the administration formally designated Hekmati as “wrongfully detained,” following an appeal from Suozzi and other lawmakers, a move the congressman praised.

Ten months after his daughter, Israeli Embassy employee Sarah Milgrim, was shot dead alongside her boyfriend and colleague, Yaron Lischinsky, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, Bob Milgrim said he feels a “deeper connection to the Jewish community [than] we ever felt before.” 

On Tuesday evening, at the conclusion of the Anti-Defamation League’s Never is Now conference in Manhattan, Milgrim was joined in conversation with his wife, Nancy Milgrim, and CBS News reporter Jonah Kaplan. In June, Kaplan conducted the family’s first interview after Sarah was killed.

Some Senate Republicans suggested on Tuesday that Israel’s killing of senior Iranian regime official Ali Larijani could help pave the way toward resistance and uprising by the Iranian people.

“They’re part of a terror state, and whatever they’re doing internally to go after their own people is something that none of us should simply stand by,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told Jewish Insider. “They’ve been a part of it for a long time. At some stage of the game, the people there will have had enough. We just want to make sure that this regime is weakened enough to where, when the people of Iran decide that they want a change in leadership, that it is a possibility of success for them.”

As the Iran war continues, major U.S. airlines have extended suspensions of direct flights to Tel Aviv, upending travel plans for thousands hoping to visit Israel for Passover, when the country typically sees a surge in visitors, and beyond. 

As of Tuesday, United Airlines’ website shows direct flights from the New York region’s Newark Liberty International Airport to Israel, a route that usually operates multiple times daily, are unavailable through June 16. The only available flights from Newark to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport are operated by Lufthansa, United’s partner, and require a layover in Frankfurt. 

Some congressional Democrats who previously criticized Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, for his extremist history are now elevating his conspiratorial resignation statement in which he blamed Israel for bringing the U.S. into the war with Iran, as well as a series of other Middle East conflicts.

Meanwhile, Republicans who supported Kent during his nomination process are now criticizing the former administration official.

A newly released report from House Republicans on the Education and Workforce Committee alleges that faculty members and student groups have played a central role in promoting and amplifying antisemitism on college campuses, particularly those affiliated with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

The report, titled “How Campuses Became Hotbeds: The Rise of Radical Antisemitism on College Campuses,” was released Tuesday and examines campus activity following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took the occasion of St. Patrick’s Day and the presence of former Irish President Mary Robinson in New York to talk Middle East politics and praise Robinson’s controversial tenure as the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights.

Speaking at a breakfast at Gracie Mansion, Mamdani acknowledged Robinson from the lectern and lauded her record of advocacy, particularly singling out her stance on Israel. The Irish presidency is a largely ceremonial role. 

Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned from his role on Tuesday over opposition to the war in Iran, baselessly alleging that Israel had coerced the United States into what he characterized as a misguided military conflict.

In a letter to President Donald Trump shared on social media, Kent, a former Green Beret who had reported to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, wrote that he “cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” claiming that the Islamic Republic “posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a recent cable encouraged American diplomats to work with local Israeli embassies on messaging efforts to encourage foreign governments to collaborate with the U.S. in its war against Iran, ABC News reported on Monday.

“At post’s discretion, advocacy efforts should be coordinated with Israeli diplomatic counterparts,” a leaked diplomatic cable stated, according to ABC.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday that Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, had been killed in overnight strikes in the Islamic Republic.

Also killed in the wave of strikes, according to the IDF, was Gholamreza Soleiman, the commander of the paramilitary Basij forces, who had led the elite unit for the past six years.