Forty-three senators, led by Sens. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — 28 Republicans, 14 Democrats and independent Sen. Angus King (I-ME), who caucuses with the Democrats — sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Thursday calling on him to reach a comprehensive agreement with Iran addressing its nuclear weapons program as well as its provocations in the Middle East and its ballistic missile program.
The letter calls on Biden to “use the full force of our diplomatic and economic tools in concert with our allies on the United Nations Security Council and in the region to reach an agreement that prevents Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons and meaningfully constrains its destabilizing activity throughout the Middle East and its ballistic missile program.”
The letter became a flashpoint between AIPAC and J Street, with AIPAC lobbying for the letter and J Street against it, according to a Senate staffer. The letter was one of AIPAC’s lobbying priorities during its virtual national council meeting last week, and spokesman Marshall Wittmann described it as “an important bipartisan statement.”
J Street lobbyist Dylan Williams said that his group “has deep concerns” that the letter “will be framed by opponents of diplomacy with Iran as demonstrating the signatories’ opposition to the Biden Administration’s compliance-for-compliance approach.”
Williams added that “it’s clear that the overwhelming view of Democrats in both houses of Congress” is that the U.S. should follow the Biden administration’s strategy of first returning to the 2015 deal and then negotiating further agreements.
Signatories on the Democratic side include moderates like Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Chris Coons (D-DE), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Gary Peters (D-MI). Republican signatories include Sens. James Risch (R-ID), Susan Collins (R-ME), John Cornyn (R-TX), Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Todd Young (R-IN). Many of the Senate Republican conference’s most vocal critics of the Biden administration’s Iran policy did not sign on.
While acknowledging that “Democrats and Republicans may have tactical differences,” including disagreements about the underlying 2015 nuclear deal and the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign, the letter emphasizes that the senators are “united on preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon and addressing the wide range of illicit Iranian behavior.”
It further calls on Biden to “prioritize” the release of Americans detained in Iran.
The letter doesn’t give specific recommendations on how the U.S. should approach Iran, including how, or whether, the Biden administration should continue the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign.
The letter does encourage Biden to work with allies in Europe, Israel and the Gulf to address Iran, and points to the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states, as a sign of progress for regional cooperation.
The Senate’s letter follows twobipartisan House letters which also called for more comprehensive agreements addressing a wider range of Iranian activities. It also comes as some Senate Republicans — including some who signed this letter — are advancing for legislation which would tighten congressional oversight over potential sanctions relief for Iran.
For the first time, the White House Seder will be open to both the public and the press
Pete Souza/The White House via AP
In this image released by the White House, President Barack Obama and the first family mark the beginning of the Jewish holiday Passover with a Seder with friends and staff in the Old Family Dining Room of the White House in Washington, on Monday, March 29, 2010.
When it comes to Passover at the White House, former President Barack Obama set a high bar for future administrations as the first president in American history to host a Seder back in 2009 — a tradition he observed annually during his time in office. The ritual was personal for the former president, originating from a campaign stop in Harrisburg, Pa., where Obama sat down with three Jewish staffers for a makeshift Seder in the basement of a Sheraton hotel.
Former President Donald Trump was comparatively less engaged with the annual holiday. The White House hostedSeders in the first two years of his presidency; Trump did not attend either of them.
This year, the Biden administration is opting for a more accessible approach than either of his two immediate predecessors. On Thursday evening, the White House will host and broadcast a virtual Passover celebration featuring live remarks from the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, as well as reflections from other top White House officials, according to a spokesperson. Vice President Kamala Harris is also expected to join the event. Sharon Brous, senior rabbi at IKAR, a non-denominational synagogue in Los Angeles, will emcee.
“My focus is on lifting up the very essence of the story of yetziat mitzrayim, the exodus from Egypt,” Brous told Jewish Insider in an interview on Wednesday evening, noting that the holiday’s themes carry added significance during the pandemic. “In particular, for thinking together about what the message of the trajectory from enslavement to liberation, from darkness to light, from degradation to dignity, from narrowness to expansiveness, has to teach us in this time of so much grief and loss and isolation.”
Brous said the White House asked her to lead the event about 10 days ago. “My reaction was that I wished we were doing this in person,” she said. “I know that it was meaningful for the Biden-Harris administration to do this, and so I hope we’ll be able to do it in person at some time in the future.”
The hour-long Zoom event, scheduled to begin at 5 p.m., is open to the public and the press — making it the first White House Passover event of its kind. Technically, it isn’t a Seder because it takes place two days before Passover’s official start, though the celebration is in keeping with the manner in which many Jews have observed the holiday since the pandemic began.
“This is the second year in a row that families around the country are going to be celebrating Passover on Zoom,” said Matt Nosanchuk, president of the New York Jewish Agenda and a former White House Jewish liaison who participated in one of Obama’s Seders.
With that reality in mind, the Biden administration’s decision to recognize the holiday in an online gathering, open to all who are interested, represents a significant gesture, Nosanchuk told JI. “For them to bring the Jewish community to celebrate Passover with the second gentleman,” he said, “is a tremendous opportunity to forge some connection.”
Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said the White House event “sends a signal to the Jewish community” that the Biden administration is an inclusive one. “They’ve made this, essentially, an open invitation to those in the Jewish community who want to join,” Soifer told JI. “That is quite unique for a White House, certainly for a White House wanting to engage the Jewish community in advance of Pesach. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“It’s definitely different,” said presidential historian Tevi Troy, who contemplated organizing a White House Seder during his time as a Jewish liaison in the Bush administration but didn’t pursue it because the logistics were too challenging. “The Jewish world is recognizing the benefits of Zoom and virtual events, and I think this is playing off of that,” he added. “It’s nice to have these acknowledgements of the Jewish presence in America.”
Noam Neusner, who also served as a White House speechwriter and Jewish liaison under Bush, agreed with that assessment. “It’s always good when the Jewish community is authentically represented and recognized at the highest levels of the U.S. government,” he said. “It’s affirming. It reminds people that Jewish people came to this country and thrived here. So this kind of recognition is kind of long in the making, and it’s nice to see it.”
Still, Neusner said it would be unfortunate if the event were politicized. “The one thing I would caution against would be to make the event explicitly political, even though a significant majority of Jewish voters supported the election of the Biden-Harris administration,” he told JI. “Judaism does not require political alliances.”
But Karen Adler, a former Biden aide and senior vice president of the Adler Group, suggested that wouldn’t be an issue. “It’s both particular and universalist,” she said of Passover, “and so I think a White House Passover event like this covers the waterfront, if you might, of who we are as a very, very diverse Jewish community, both those who supported President Biden and Vice President Harris, and those who didn’t. We all share in the Passover holiday.”
While President Joe Biden is slated to kick off the event with a prerecorded message from himself and First Lady Jill Biden, he appears to have no plans for a private Seder of the kind hosted by Obama. Biden did not participate in those Seders, which were intimate affairs, but at least two high-level staffers now in his administration — Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, and Herbie Ziskend, deputy communications director to Harris — attended every year.
Eric Lesser, a Massachusetts state senator and former Obama aide who helped kickstart the Passover tradition in Harrisburg, also never missed a Seder at the White House between 2009 and 2016. “I think back very fondly to the eight Seders that President Obama hosted,” he said. But he seemed equally excited to join the Biden administration’s virtual Passover event on Thursday evening. “It’s just great to see a continued focus on it,” Lesser said. “I’ve got it on my calendar, so I’m ready to go.”
Such are the advantages of celebrating Passover on Zoom. “Doing it virtually actually does give us the opportunity to stream it live, so there will be many thousands of people who will be able to participate in the celebration this year,” said Brous, the IKAR rabbi who is leading the event. “That’s a bit of a pandemic silver lining for us.”
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) voted in favor of Colin Kahl’s nomination for the top policy job at the Pentagon in a Senate Armed Services Committee vote on Wednesday. Manchin’s vote allows Kahl’s nomination to proceed to the Senate floor, where he is expected to be confirmed.
The 13 Republicans on the committee unanimously opposed Kahl’s nomination to become undersecretary of defense for policy, while all 13 Democrats voted in favor.
“[Coming to a decision] took me a long time,” Manchin told reporters after the vote. “I went through everything I could. And we had many phone calls. We have a difference of opinion on Iran. And he knows what our difference is.”
Manchin said that many of his concerns about Kahl revolved around his role in negotiating the 2015 nuclear deal.
The West Virginia senator said he told Kahl, “You put trust on the front end, hoping they do the right thing on the back end. Where I come from, once you’ve lost that trust, you have to gain it back. That was a nonstarter for me,” noting that Iran had been “a little bit exclusive on what they would allow us to inspect.”
But, Manchin noted, he and Kahl agreed that the Trump administration misstepped in withdrawing U.S. support for Kurdish forces in Syria. The senator said that Kahl has the “qualifications and… expertise to be very helpful, especially if the President has trust in him.” Generally, Manchin elaborated, he tends to defer to the executive branch on nominees.
With Manchin’s support locked down, Kahl stands a strong chance of being confirmed, although potentially on a party-line vote. Centrist Republican Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) has said she will oppose Kahl, and no Republican has expressed support for the nomination.
“With an even vote in the committee, that could foretell an even vote on the floor, requiring the vice president to break the tie,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), who chairs the committee, told reporters after the vote.
Reed added that he does not know when Kahl’s nomination will come to the floor — that decision, he said, is now up to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who will discharge the committee and move the nomination to a full floor vote. The Senate begins its two-week spring recess Monday.
Manchin, who said he did not make a decision on how he would vote until this morning, was the subject of intense lobbying campaigns from both those supportive of and opposed to Kahl’s nomination.
Christians United for Israel ran a six-figure ad buy in Manchin’s home state criticizing Kahl, and took out full page ads in six West Virginia newspapers. The Republican Jewish Coalition and Zionist Organization of America, who characterized Kahl as anti-Israel and too conciliatory toward Iran, also opposed the nomination.
Kahl also faced criticism from Senate Republicans over his past tweets critical of the Trump administration and other Republicans.
Manchin, who earlier this month opposed Office of Management and Budget director nominee Neera Tanden’s nomination over tweets critical of lawmakers, said after the committee vote that “Tanden’s was much more prolific than [Kahl’s] — and pointed… It wasn’t about policy, it was more about a person. There is a difference.”
“I would hope that would be curtailed,” Manchin said he told Kahl about his Twitter activity.
A group of largely Democratic figures, including former Ambassadors to Israel Dan Shapiro and Martin Indyk, former Undersecretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy, American Jewish Congress executive director Joel Rubin and Jewish Democratic Council of America CEO Halie Soifer penned a letter to senators last week in support of Kahl. Three former Israeli generals also told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency they supported Kahl.
Manchin said he had not spoken to President Joe Biden about the nomination, but did consult with former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, as well as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
The vote comes after Sens. Duckworth, Hirono said they’ll oppose Colin Kahl in a full Senate vote if the Biden administration does not put forth more minority candidates for top positions.
The Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to vote Wednesday on Colin Kahl’s nomination to be undersecretary of defense for policy, amid increasing questions about Kahl’s path to confirmation, multiple committee members told Jewish Insider.
The news of Wednesday’s vote, the timing of which was confirmed by committee chairman Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) and ranking member Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), comes hours after Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI), who both sit on the committee, announced their plans to vote against Biden nominees on the Senate floor until the administration commits to nominating more individuals from minority communities for high-level White House positions.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), is still publicly undecided on how he will vote on Kahl, but his vote appears critical to reaching a tied committee vote that would enable the nomination to proceed.
“I don’t think that [Reed] would bring [Kahl] up if he didn’t have the votes to get him out of the committee,” Inhofe told reporters Tuesday evening. “I don’t think there will be any Republican support.”
Hirono, who like Duckworth is a member of the Asian-American Pacific Islander community, told JI she would vote to advance Kahl’s nomination out of the committee Wednesday, but would vote no on the Senate floor.
Duckworth told reporters earlier Tuesday she had informed the Biden administration that she would oppose Kahl’s nomination, but a Reed spokesman told Jewish Insider that her comments were in reference to floor votes, not tomorrow’s committee vote. A Duckworth spokesperson did not immediately respond to JI.
Hirono told JI that once she and Duckworth receive a “commitment [from the administration] that, for example, the next secretary position that opens, it will be filled from somebody from a diversity group,” she would again support the White House’s nominees. Both Hirono and Duckworth also said they will continue to support nominees from minority backgrounds in the interim.
The White House did not respond to questions from JI earlier Tuesday about whether the administration was considering withdrawing Kahl’s nomination.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the United States Agency for International Development, was challenged Tuesday at her confirmation hearing over the Obama administration’s controversial decision to abstain from a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements in December 2016.
Resolution 2334 condemned the Israeli settlements in “occupied Palestinian territories,” which the resolution defined to include East Jerusalem, including the Old City of Jerusalem, as violations of international law. The U.S.’s abstention allowed the resolution to pass by a unanimous vote of the 14 other members of the Security Council.
At Tuesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) questioned Power about the resolution, which he called “the most shameful moment of the Obama administration,” “a pile of lies” and “motivated by antisemitism, by hatred of Israel.”
Power repeatedly dodged Cruz’s questions about whether she personally supports the resolution, but defended the abstention as “in keeping with President [Barack] Obama’s desire to encourage the parties to avoid unilateral steps, including terrorism, incitement to violence and the building of settlements.”
“The problem with the resolution,” Power explained, “was by and large the venue, because the U.N. has been so biased.”
In response to a follow-up question from Cruz, the former U.N. ambassador said that she does not believe the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem is illegally occupied territory.
Cruz suggested that the timing of the resolution — a month after the 2016 election — was politically motivated and potentially orchestrated by the Obama administration, saying that it “was passed with, at best, the acquiescence of the United States and of you as U.N. ambassador and, at worst, the active encouragement of the Obama administration and you as U.N. ambassador.”
Power also elaborated on her two “guiding principles” with regard to Israel during her term at the U.N.: combatting anti-Israel bias and antisemitism and “preserving space for a two-state solution.”
Power also touted what she characterized as victories at the U.N. regarding Israel, including making Yom Kippur a U.N. holiday, convening the first-ever General Assembly meeting condemning antisemitism and “integrat[ing] Israel in a way that had never been before.”
“I don’t think there is a record that looks as substantial when it comes to integrating Israel,” she said.
Power added that she was “disappointed” that she did not have the opportunity to discuss her record on Israel at the U.N. with Cruz during a private pre-hearing discussion.
She was also questioned by Republican senators about whether the Biden administration’s decision to rescind the terrorist organization designation the Trump administration had placed on the Iranian-backed Houthis had worsened the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, but said she lacked the information to respond to the question.
Power, who received praise from some GOP senators during the hearing — including Cruz, who said they had “a good working relationship” — is expected to be confirmed by the Senate.
Fifteen years ago, Mark Gerson, the co-founder and chairman of United Hatzalah and African Mission Healthcare, was invited by a friend for the unexpected combination of a cigar and Haggadah study session. Apprehensive to believe the Passover manual required more of his attention, Gerson agreed to join what seemed more an excuse for a cigar than an illuminating discussion.
To his surprise, the evening jumpstarted an obsession with the Haggadah. “It is nothing less than the greatest hits of Jewish thought,” Gerson told Jewish Insider in a recent interview wedged between virtual book tour appearances for his latest title, The Telling: How Judaism’s Essential Book Reveals the Meaning of Life.
The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Jewish Insider: Passover is probably the most popular holiday in Judaism, why is that? Is it for the same reasons the Haggadah is the “greatest hits of Jewish thought”?
Mark Gerson:I don’t know because I don’t think most people recognize the Haggadah as the greatest hits of Jewish thought. If people go through it quickly and basically treat it like a dinner program — literally, the book you get to before you can get to the meal — we’re not going to see this ‘greatest hits of Jewish thought,’ and we’re not going to get very much out of it. Just the fact that it is completely loaded with Jewish wisdom, perfectly oriented, to help us live happier, better and more meaningful lives in the year to come — it’s the best book ever written word for word, but if you treat it like a dinner program we’re not going to see it that way. Alternatively, if we think that the obligation of the Seder is to get through the entire Haggadah, we’re going to have a similarly bad experience, because we’re not going to be able to really stop and contemplate the existential lessons and the life-altering meanings that come out of basically every passage.
JI: Why do you think it’s so significant that the Haggadah and the Seder are so full of questions?
Gerson: That’s such a deep and fundamental question, and it gets to the essence of Judaism. The fundamental characteristic that all children share all over the world and all throughout history is curiosity, and every parent knows that when a child is two or three years old what that child will say about 20 to 25 times an hour… And so Moses — he’s a genius psychologist — identified the curiosity of children. He heard those 20 to 25 ‘whys,’ and he said, ‘That is what I will build the future of the Jewish people on, on the questioning of their children.’ These are all basing education on the question. The idea of using education at all as a means for perpetuation is totally radical. Because if one generation takes it off, the whole previous chain is broken… So it’s paradoxically on the basis of questioning, which leads to unpredictable answers and unexpected responses that we’ve built the future of the Jewish people, and that’s the focal point of the Seder night.
JI: Does that make Judaism more liberal than most religions?
Gerson:I think just the fact that we have no word for obedience is kind of astonishing. I mean you know other cultures and traditions command obedience, we don’t have a word for it. Even in the Bible, what’s our great tradition related to obedience, for which we have no word? It’s arguing with God. It’s Abraham arguing with God at Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s Moses arguing with God after the golden calf. It’s the daughters of Zelophehad arguing with Moses, and ultimately with God. So, yeah, we love questioning and Moses invented the idea of perpetuating a tradition through questioning, and it’s done very well.
JI: What do you think is the most important question in the Seder?
Gerson:I think they’re all important. The Haggadah, because it asks and answers all the great questions in life, it addresses each of us at any stage we’re at. Whatever anyone’s thinking about, aspiring towards or going through, the Haggadah is there to help in different passages. So it’ll be different for each person in each year.
JI: One of the passages you look closely at is perhaps the most perplexing and problematic of the whole Haggadah — the Wicked Son. What did end up finding so redeemable in that passage?
Gerson:It’s a very interesting response because the phrase blunt your teeth, a lot of people think it means punch him in the face. I don’t know if people thought that in ancient times, but certainly now when we hear blunted teeth, we think punch him in the face but then we realized that same expression comes from Ezekiel and Jeremiah. So where was that used? Well, it was used twice, neither of which had anything to do with punching anybody in the face. It was that the father who ate sour grapes and his son’s teeth were blunted. [Ezekiel 18:12 and Jeremiah 31:29] It’s clearly an expression of the father accepting the blame. This is why it’s good to really consider this when one has small children, because then you could think, what might I be doing that will lead to a wayward child when the child is 15 or 16, and then not do it.
JI: After a full year of the COVID pandemic, what new understanding do you bring to the Seder?
Gerson:Exodus 12 has this very strange but deeply instructive passage which says that there can be no leftovers at the Seder meal. Why are leftovers un-kosher for Passover? You can have leftovers any other time, but not after a Seder meal. It explains that if one household is too small to consume a lamb by itself, it must invite another household. Now we know from Josephus and modern science that it took approximately 15-20 to consume a lamb, meaning every household is too small to consume a lamb. So we begin this fundamental night of Jewish peoplehood — the great new year of the Jewish people — in the act of giving and sharing the spirit of hospitality. And that’s why we set big Seders, because it tells us to in the Bible. We couldn’t do that last year, and we really can’t do that this year.
JI: You write about how the Egyptians don’t seem to learn from the plagues. After letting the Israelites go, Pharaoh decides “Actually, we’re going to go after them,” and of course we know what happens then. How do you see that as a warning to us now?
Gerson: Everything in the Haggadah exists to teach us a lesson to be implemented today… and if we don’t see it in the passage, we’ve just got to keep interpreting. The purpose of the plagues was obviously not just to free the Jews, because if God wanted to free the Jews, as my daughter said when she was five years old, well, why don’t you just use a magic carpet or a big waterslide which starts in Egypt and ends in the Promised Land? (I would pick the waterslide.) But that wasn’t his purpose, that was one of his purposes, but his purpose was to educate the world that he is the one true God and that people should turn towards ethical monotheism. That’s the purpose. He wants to win an argument.
JI: Any special plans for this year’s Seder? Anything new or different?
Gerson: Well the difference is it’s the second year of just family, and, God-willing, it looks like the last year of just family. Normally we have 50 people or so — Jews, gentiles, people who have never been to a Seder before. It’s often a gentile at the Seder who is coming with such newness, freshness and appreciation who are the ones who most enhance and enrich the evening.
JI: Who are the Seder guests past or present you would most like to invite?
Gerson: No one’s ever asked that. Number one is Martin Luther King Jr., because he was living the Exodus story. Exodus is the great freedom story for the world and he was magnificently applying it to the struggles of his day… You know who else I’d like to have? I don’t even know who this person is, but in the Capitol there is a relief of 23 lawmakers with 11 facing one way, 11 facing the other, and Moses in the middle. I want to know who designed that, because the greatest Seder of them all is American history. I would say Harriet Tubman, who was nicknamed Grandma Moses. This story massively inspired her as well. It’s the quintessentially Jewish event with quintessentially universal implications and applications so I would want to have Maimonides — the quintessential rationalist whose approach I so deeply admire. I’d love to have some of the early rabbis. I talked in the book about how the early rabbis all had professions. If they weren’t working hard enough at their profession, whether it was a shoemaker or a carpenter or whatever it was, they were criticized by saying people say that you’re not going to be a great rabbi unless you work hard at your profession. I’d love to have that discipline.
Next year in Jerusalem. Last year on Zoom. This year — vaccination proof or negative test in hand — in Miami.
The end of the coronavirus pandemic is in sight — millions of Americans have already received the COVID-19 vaccine, and many are ready to party. Or at the very least, spend Passover at a luxury resort with gourmet kosher food.
Passover is a holiday typically celebrated with family and friends, at large Seders that go on for hours. After the pandemic forced Jewish families around the world last year to host downsized Seders, people are beginning to plan larger celebrations, asking guests to have either a vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test. This year, several dozen luxury Passover retreats are operating around the U.S., roughly a quarter of the number that normally run in a typical year — but more than the zero that were in operation last year.
The all-inclusive getaways — which can cost up to $11,000 per person — offer a week of kosher food, entertainment and activities to those who want to celebrate Passover without the hassle of cleaning a household and with the luxuries of a getaway stay. Though operators are implementing COVID precautions, including capacity limits in dining rooms and mask requirements, thousands of people want in.
“The interest has just been mega,” said Raphi Bloom, the co-owner of Totally Jewish Travel, a website that serves as a directory for Jewish travel companies and programs around the world. “It’s unbelievable. Considering the world we live in, the desire for people to travel is just incredible.” Spaces at these programs usually fill up months in advance. Now, less than a week before Passover, families are still trying to find spots at these retreats.
In a normal year, about 130 Passover programs are offered at luxury resorts around the world, in places like Miami, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Tuscany. Bloom estimates that upwards of 100,000 hotel rooms are sold each year for Passover vacations. “Some of our program operators will do an entire hotel buyout,” said Bloom, while others “will do a partial buyout where they’ll buy 50 rooms or 100 rooms and one of the banquet rooms and one of the kitchens.” In any case, attendees get access to extravagant Seders, multiple minyanim, buffets open round the clock and entertainment ranging from live music to rabbis-in-residence to guest speakers like conservative commentator Dennis Prager and parenting expert Sharon Mazel.
Last year, Passover program operators were forced to shut down at the last minute, when shelter-in-place orders emerged at the start of the pandemic. Many companies offered partial refunds or full credit toward a retreat this year. In some cases, operators had to forego a year’s salary.
This year, about a quarter of Passover programs are operating. Many, like those in parts of Europe where lockdowns remain in effect, are not able to operate at all, while certain American companies are forgoing programming this year in order to give the industry a year to bounce back. Some retreats have moved location from states with more restrictions to states with less. Others are going ahead with their normal programming, with some adjustments. “Everything about the whole landscape is different in terms of how we operate,” said Avi Lasko, president of Lasko Getaways, a travel company that this year is operating three Passover programs in Miami and Orlando.
“We have put a lot of COVID precautions into place, but we are running a full program, not cutting back or scaling down on anything,” Lasko explained. “In fact, I would say it’s just the opposite. It’s probably more than ever before. We’re doing more programming and more entertainment and things that are obviously very COVID-safe, but we’re really putting all of our effort into making this a fantastic program.”
In a typical year, Lasko’s three programs draw up to 3,000 guests. This year, he expects to serve about 1,000 people, due to capacity limits his company has set. But among participants, the desire to be on a vacation and with the Jewish community is enormous. “A lot of people have told us this is the first time they’re leaving their own house or their state in more than a year,” Lasko observed.
There is at least one entirely new program this year, in a location that could never have hosted a Passover retreat in the past: Dubai. “Since the Abraham Accords were signed last year, there’s been an explosion of kosher travel to Dubai in the UAE,” Bloom said, referring to the deal brokered by the Trump administration normalizing relations between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. “Rooms are still being sold as of today,” Bloom said last week. “Even 10 days, 11 days before Pesach, people are still booking to get on a plane to Dubai.”
The luxury Passover hotel industry has grown exponentially in the past decade, although its roots date back to the Catskills resorts popular in the mid-20th century. Due in part to discrimination — and the difficulty of finding kosher food — Jews have long traveled en masse, and the Catskills provided a close, convenient option for people from New York City looking to get away. But with the rise of air travel in the 1960s and 1970s, people began to travel to farther-flung destinations, leading to the decline of the Borscht Belt resorts in upstate New York.
“Twenty-five or 30 years ago, if you wanted to go on vacation and have kosher food, you would either have to schlep it with you — you have to buy frozen meat or fresh meat and take it with you on the plane or in the car — or if you are going on a cruise, you could order kosher food, but it would be basically an airline meal,” said Totally Jewish Travel’s Bloom. “So everybody else is at their tables getting full service, [but] the waiters will be bringing you a triple-wrapped plastic dish in foil.”
Mediocre pre-packaged kosher meals are no longer a necessity for observant Jews who wish to both travel the world and keep kosher. “As people’s demands got greater and as the ease of transporting the food around the world got greater, travel companies started to offer kosher tours,” Bloom explained.
Passover is the biggest event for the global kosher travel industry, but Jewish travel companies offer tours year-round. “You can go on a five-star Glatt kosher safari in the middle of South Africa or Zimbabwe,” said Bloom. “The company will hire a chef, they’ll get a mashgiach, fly in all the kosher meats, and you can eat like a king in the middle of [South Africa’s] Kruger National Park.”
Of course, most of those programs are not operating right now amid the COVID threat. But the Passover programs that are taking place this year offer an opportunity for Jewish travel operators to find out: Are people going to travel when the pandemic winds down? The answer is unequivocally yes — even if travel might not look exactly the same.
Some of the Passover programs are tweaking their offerings so that individual families can have private service. Instead of getting a block of hotel rooms, with family members eating in the same communal spaces as the other guests, a family might rent a private villa, with a full-service chef and catering service provided by the travel company.
Yocheved Goldberg, the rebbetzin at Florida’s Boca Raton Synagogue, told JI that a lot of members of her community are going to Orlando and renting houses at resorts that offer in-home catering. “That’s very popular,” Goldberg said, noting that people generally booked those private houses months ago, “when they weren’t sure the [Passover] programs were opening and didn’t want to risk not having an option.” But not everyone who previously used to travel will do so this year. Many people who used to go to the luxury getaways every year were forced last year to buy Passover dishes and host Seders. “They’re all set up to do it again,” Goldberg explained, and many have realized “it wasn’t so bad.”
Some people see Passover 2021 as the first opportunity for a full, in-person Jewish celebration in more than a year. “Purim [in 2020] was the last holiday before everything shut down literally overnight,” said Rabbi Steven Burg, CEO of Aish HaTorah, “and, I think at that time, everyone was saying, by Pesach, by Shavuot, then it was by Rosh Hashanah [that things will reopen] — that’s how we divvy up our years, totally based on holidays, so just the ability to be with people is nice.”
Burg will be a scholar-in-residence at a Passover retreat in West Palm Beach, where he will spend the holiday with his family. The hotel is requiring either proof of vaccination or a negative test within three days of arriving, and the hotel will offer testing on the reverse end for people who have to fly home afterward. Burg intends to focus his talks and discussions on reconnecting to Judaism after a difficult year of isolation. “Because everyone’s so spread out and split up,” he said, “we want to come together and really refocus on Jewish spirituality.”
In early February, Rep. Ron Wright (R-TX), who was entering his second term in the House of Representatives, became the first sitting member of Congress to die from COVID-19 complications. Wright’s death kicked off a stampede of candidates — including his widow, longtime local GOP operative Susan Wright, who is considered to be a favorite in the crowded field — hoping to fill his Dallas-area congressional seat.
Nearly two dozen candidates — 11 Republicans, 10 Democrats and two independents — have announced their candidacies for the May 1 special election in Texas’s 6th congressional district. For any candidate to win outright on May 1, they’ll have to gain more than 50% of the vote in the all-party, all-candidate election, which analysts see as unlikely given the wide field. Should no candidate clear 50%, the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, will face each other in a runoff later this year.
Mark Jones, a political science fellow at Rice University, explained to Jewish Insider that Wright’s experience in area politics, as well as the spate of endorsements she’s received from local politicians, make her a formidable candidate.
Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, added that widows of deceased members of Congress “have a pretty good track record” of winning the seats, given their existing connections within the party and public sympathy. In Louisiana on Saturday, Republican Julia Letlow won the special election to fill the seat that would have been held by her husband, Luke Letlow, who died of COVID-19 complications days before taking office.
Wright said that in her late husband’s last days, he, as well as their friends, encouraged her to run for his seat, and she seeks to honor her husband’s service.
“I really admired his commitment to his constituents. I admired his style. He was a statesman and I want to continue that,” Wright told JI. She added that her experience as a congressional spouse has given her unique insights into how Congress operates, and that she and her husband were “pretty much the same ideologically.”
Wright emphasized that she has been active politically in the district for 30 years, including as a staffer for state representatives. “I understand the constituent work and the outreach and bringing people together with their government to address their problems and access to services,” she added.
Wright’s husband served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and she traveled with him to Israel on a trip with the AIPAC-linked American Israel Education Foundation in 2019.
Wright described her visit as “the trip of a lifetime” and said she would be excited to return. “The people were delightful, the food was delightful. The hospitality was wonderful. I was very intrigued and found it very captivating. The people were just so welcoming,” she said.
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Other than Wright, State Rep. Jake Ellzey and former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Chief of Staff Brian Harrison are two of the most competitive candidates on the GOP side, analysts told JI.
Ellzey’s district overlaps with a portion of the 6th congressional district, where he ran in 2018, losing to Ron Wright in the primary. His previous congressional bid, during which he fell short of Wright by just over 1,000 votes, provides him with a potential advantage, said Cal Jillson, a professor of political science at SMU. Harrison has put up strong early fundraising numbers, and may be able to use his service in the Trump administration to mobilize some supporters — particularly if the former president offers his endorsement, Jones and Jillson explained.
Jillson and Jones both regard retired professional wrestler Dan Rodimer — who drew media attention for relocating from Nevada to run for the seat just before the filing deadline, claiming to have the support of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and the Trump family — as a sideshow in the race. Rodimer was the Republican Party’s candidate in Nevada’s 3rd congressional district in November, losing to Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV).
On the Democratic side, political organizer and former journalist Jana Lynne Sanchez, who was the 2018 Democratic nominee for the seat, and Lydia Bean, an author and sociology professor who has previously run for state office within the district, are the top contenders, according to Jones. Shawn Lassitier, a former teacher from outside the district, is also running, with endorsements from local education officials.
A Sanchez campaign poll of 450 likely voters in the district conducted from March 9 to 12found Wright leading the race with 21% support, tailed by Sanchez at 17%, Ellzey at 8% and Bean at 5%. The margin of error for the poll was 4.6% — meaning Wright and Sanchez are statistically tied.
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In interviews with JI this week, the other candidates laid out a range of reasons for jumping into the crowded candidate field.
Sanchez, who lost to Ron Wright 53-45 percent in 2018, told JI that she entered the race because “our democracy [is] at great risk.”
“We need to have people like me who will stand up for what’s right and stand up for the people in the district,” said Sanchez, who is banking on name recognition from her earlier congressional bid. She is hoping that recent challenges for the GOP — including the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol — will tilt the scales in Democrats’ favor. The last Democrat to represent the district was Rep. Phil Gramm, who switched parties in 1983, going on to serve one term as a Republican.
Ellzey’s military service — he was a Navy fighter pilot from 1992 to 2012, serving tours in Iraq and Afghanistan — has played a central role in his desire to run for public office.
“I’ve just never been one who feels like I can just sit back and enjoy life living in the United States without giving back,” Ellzey told JI. “I’ve seen my enemies. Our environment right now in the culture of politics is one of contempt. And I don’t work that way. So I think I have a unique voice.”
Ellzey also said that his experience as a veteran and member of the Texas Veterans’ Commission gives him a “unique perspective” on issues like defense and the national debt.
Bean cited recent challenges in Texas — particularly the state’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread blackouts that left millions of Texans without power for days after a February ice storm — as motivation to run for the seat. “Texans are dealing with a situation where our leaders are completely and catastrophically failing us,” Bean explained. “I just can’t stand by while Texas Republicans continue to fail.”
Harrison said that he has deep roots in the district, where he went to high school and ran a small business, and that people familiar with his work in Washington encouraged him to run.
“I believe deeply in America, I believe she is worth saving, but that we’re on the wrong course, perhaps faster than ever, and that the time we have to course-correct is limited,” Harrison said. “I think that Texas needs not somebody that just believes the right thing but who’s been tested and been proven able to go to Washington and actually make government more accountable.”
Harrison pointed to his work tackling COVID-related issues while working for the administration, noting his involvement in the Operation Warp Speed vaccination development program and implementing a border shutdown using public health authorities.
Wright, Sanchez and Bean all said that COVID-related challenges would be among their top priorities if elected. Wright said that she wants to help her constituents safely return to work and reopen schools.
Sanchez said she’d focus on ensuring that COVID aid goes to businesses that need it and that constituents are receiving vaccines. She also expressed concern about healthcare inequities in the Black and Latino communities. More broadly, she framed herself as a moderate looking to join the Problem Solvers Caucus or the New Democrat Coalition.
Harrison said that he seeks to “maximize Americans’ freedom and… protect this country” through initiatives like immigration reform, expanding healthcare choice and decreasing taxes and regulation.
Ellzey expressed deep concern about border security and the Biden administration’s cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, a planned high-speed rail project through his district.
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All five candidates expressed concern about Iran’s nuclear activities — but each offered a different take on how to address the regime.
Wright said the U.S. needs to strictly enforce sanctions against the regime to force Iran to come to the negotiating table, and argued that Iran continued to expand its nuclear program despite the 2015 nuclear deal.
Ellzey was also critical of the 2015 deal, and said he wants any future deal to be ratified by the Senate as a treaty. “You don’t treat them as though we just need to normalize relations with them… Until they start acting as a responsible world actor, which they haven’t, we don’t deal with them,” Ellzey added.
Harrison called the 2015 deal “even worse” now than when it was first inked, and said that strengthening U.S. relationships with other nations in the region through agreements like the Abraham Accords can limit Iran’s potential to destabilize the region.
Sanchez said that, prior to rejoining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the U.S. needs to address Iran’s violations of the enrichment limits in the original agreement, as well as shortcomings in the verification process that were in the 2015 deal. “Whatever deal we go back into, it must be verified. We must have the opportunity to demonstrate and to be sure that Iran is not developing nuclear capabilities,” she said.
Bean was more bullish, saying that the Trump administration was “extremely short-sighted” to pull out of the JCPOA, and that she “[supports] rejoining it now.”
All five candidates also framed themselves as supporters of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and said they support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Wright wants the U.S. to remain at the table facilitating peace talks, and added that she sees the Abraham Accords as a “perfect roadmap” for Israeli-Palestinian peace. “That is positive progress towards peace, that uses diplomacy and not violence,” she said. “The Abraham Accords initiated a new chapter of Mideast peace, and I would encourage the current administration to follow that same pattern.”
Harrison also called the Abraham Accords a “template” for a two-state solution, and emphasized his support for the defense relationship between the U.S. and Israel.
Sanchez broadly expressed support for the U.S. to continue “its role as a peacemaker” between the two sides, as well as continuing to support Israel.
Bean agreed that the U.S. should be facilitating diplomacy by “encouraging” but not pressuring the sides to come to the table. “No third party can make these two groups come together. They have to come together on their own,” she said. “The best thing we can do is support diplomacy as an ally of Israel.”
Ellzey told JI that “the two-state solution has been proposed many, many times and rejected by the Palestinians. So it’s not that offers haven’t been made to make peace.” He added that the U.S. must support Israel and let the Israeli government take the lead in determining what a final agreement between the two parties should entail.
Harrison and Sanchez have, like Wright, traveled to the Jewish state — Harrison as part of a Defense Department delegation with then-Vice President Dick Cheney in 2008 and Sanchez as a reporter and tourist in 1997.
Harrison called his Israeli hosts “welcoming and hospitable” and said that the trip underscored the importance of a “cooperative” relationship between the U.S. and Israel, rather than “one or the other sort of dictating the terms of our relationship.”
A Sanchez campaign spokesperson told JI, “What [Sanchez] took away from the trip was a deeper sense of the strength and resilience of the Israelis, as well as the [country’s] enormous economic potential.”
Within the U.S., none of the candidates said they see antisemitism as a pervasive issue within their own parties, although some of them acknowledged some concerns.
“I have not experienced that in the circles I’ve been in,” Wright said of the GOP. “But I do believe that there certainly could be some and obviously some people hold those views. So I would hesitate to say that it’s an issue within the party as a whole. From top to bottom, nationally, and locally, the Republicans that I deal with… are very supportive of Israel.”
“I haven’t been thrilled with some of the language that has come out of some sections of the Democratic Party, I must say,” Sanchez said. “But I do believe that the Democratic Party in main is not supportive of these comments.” Sanchez and Bean also both told JI they oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.
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Heading into May 1, analysts are primarily working to determine who are the most likely candidates to advance to a runoff.
“The real focus here is not so much on who’s going to finish first, but who’s going to finish first and second,” Jones said “The most likely scenario is that one of the two candidates in the runoff will be Susan Wright.”
Jones and Jilson both noted that the district has been trending more Democratic in recent elections, but said it currently remains a red district.
“A weaker Republican candidate and a good race by Sanchez, if she turns out to be the leading Democrat — or Bean — could produce a close race, but you sort of expect a Republican win somewhere in the mid- to upper-single digits,” Wilson said.
“Realistically, if Susan Wright is a candidate in the runoffs, she’s likely to win,” Jones added.
If Democratic voters are divided on May 1, they risk being shut out of the runoff entirely, with two Republicans advancing to that round, Cook Political Report U.S. House editor Dave Wasserman noted. He argued that Sanchez is likely Democrats’ best hope for a runoff slot.
A Trump endorsement could also dramatically reshape the race, Wasserman added, although Trump does not appear to be particularly engaged at this point.
Regardless, given Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the House and the relative competitiveness of the district compared to other upcoming special elections, this race is likely to be closely watched both in and out of the Lone Star State.