Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Michelle Steel (R-CA) are set to introduce a bill today directing the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to create a curriculum to teach about the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

The USHMM already produces Holocaust education materials for use by schools across the country. The Oct. 7 curriculum would be targeted toward secondary schools.

LOS ANGELES — As the House Education and Workforce Committee prepares to hold its third major hearing on campus antisemitism later this month, the corresponding Senate committee — chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — has yet to hold any special hearings about rising antisemitism at American universities. 

Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV), the co-chairs of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, have been asking Sanders to call a hearing on the matter. As of last week, they hadn’t heard back from the Vermont progressive.

LOS ANGELES — While Jordanian King Abdullah II met President Joe Biden for lunch at the White House on Monday, his wife, Queen Rania Al Abdullah, was thousands of miles away speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills. 

Despite delivering a series of recent speeches and TV interviews slamming Israel and minimizing Hamas’ role in the current conflict, Rania, whose father was Palestinian, began her conversation with a plea for humanity and humility. 

LOS ANGELES — Last week, while college administrators across the U.S. seemed paralyzed over how to respond to campus anti-Israel protesters, one school weighed in with a simple statement that served as a counterweight to the hemming and hawing of elite private universities. “The University of Florida is not a daycare, and we do not treat protesters like children,” a UF spokesperson said, declaring that students in an unauthorized encampment would face disciplinary action if they did not leave. 

The statement achieved every PR flak’s dream: It went viral. Much of the positive attention heaped on the school landed on Ben Sasse, the former Nebraska senator and Yale-educated historian who has been the president of UF since early 2023. (A guest on Fox News on Monday praised Sasse and said, “Don’t be an ass, do it like Sasse.”)

LOS ANGELES — Inside the exclusive Milken Institute Global Conference happening this week in Beverly Hills, attendees schmoozed and took investing advice from some of the world’s most successful leaders. 

So when some people wiped away tears in a Monday afternoon panel discussion about addressing antisemitism, it was noticeable; the $25,000-per-seat conference does not have a reputation for sentimentality. But the honest conversation and the speakers’ cautious optimism, even at this difficult moment, emotionally moved some crowd members. Several of them wore yellow ribbon pins in honor of Israeli hostages. It was the first time in the conference’s 27 years that organizers held an entire session focused on antisemitism. 

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) will be the featured speaker at an event this week focused on the “challenges of covering Palestine” that accuses Israel of killing “an unprecedented number” of Palestinian journalists “during its campaign in Gaza.”

Van Hollen will deliver the opening address at the Arab Center Washington DC’s gathering at the National Press Club on Thursday entitled, “Covering Palestine: A Shireen Abu Akleh Memorial Symposium.” Following Van Hollen’s remarks, which will be delivered virtually, the conference will hold panel discussions on “Western media coverage of … the war in Gaza” and the risks faced by Palestinian journalists covering the conflict. 

As universities around the country strike various deals with anti-Israel protesters to quell the turmoil on college campuses — including giving protesters a seat at the table regarding investment decisions — Jewish leaders fear that even these largely symbolic concessions could further poison the atmosphere for Jewish students.

Negotiating with protesters sets up a climate in which “Jewish students — who are not violating rules —- are being ignored, bullied and intimidated,” Mark Rotenberg, vice president and general counsel of Hillel International, told Jewish Insider. “People who violate university rules should not be rewarded with financial benefits and rewards for the violation of university rules,” he continued. 

Tuesday’s Republican primary in Indiana’s 8th Congressional District is likely to come down to the wire, after pro-Israel groups injected millions in outside spending in a bid to block a former congressman — who voted repeatedly against Israel — from returning to Washington.

The race is largely down to former GOP Rep. John Hostettler and state Sen. Mark Messmer, according to political operatives tracking the race. Hostettler, while in office in the late 1990s and early 2000s, voted repeatedly against funding for Israel and other pro-Israel legislation, and claimed in a self-published book that a primary motivation — driven by prominent Jewish officials — for the Iraq War was protecting Israel.