Ukrainian and Israeli officials say the annual gathering at the gravesite of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov on Rosh Hashanah could become a hotspot for coronavirus
Gage Skidmore
U.S. Congressman Jeff Duncan speaking with attendees at the Conservative Review Convention at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina.
Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) has begun to circulate a letter among his House colleagues calling for the Trump administration to pressure the Ukrainian government into allowing religious exemptions for Jews looking to make their annual pilgrimage to Uman, Ukraine, for the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah. The move comes amid a strict border closure by Ukraine designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus in the country.
The House letter is addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and asks him to “consider advocating on behalf [of] a group of American citizens whom find this annual pilgrimage extremely important.”
Duncan’s office distributed the letter, obtained by Jewish Insider, to other Capitol Hill offices for signatures late Friday afternoon. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Ukrainian border closure extends through September 28, Yom Kippur. The letter references a number of exceptions in the current order, and states that all of the visitors would pay to test themselves upon arrival and would quarantine apart from the local population.
“The Ukrainian government could add a limited religious exception allowing for a small fraction of the regular attendees (not to exceed 2000 people) to enter the country for a total of five days,” the letter to Pompeo reads.
In recent years, as many as 30,000 Orthodox Jews have made the annual trek to Uman to visit the gravesite of Rabbi Nahman Breslov around the Rosh Hashanah holiday.
Israel’s coronavirus commissioner, Ronni Gamzu, has been vocally opposed to this year’s pilgrimage, predicting that it could prompt a major spike in coronavirus infections. Gamzu asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week to ban Israeli pilgrims from entering the Eastern European nation, prompting public clashes between Gamzu and several ultra-Orthodox politicians in Israel.
The pilgrimage has already become a flashpoint between local Ukrainian residents and visitors, with a scuffle breaking out between residents, local authorities and pilgrims earlier on Friday. Following Ukraine’s border closure, some pilgrims also found themselves stranded at Ukrainian airports on Friday.
As in-person convenings across the country have been rendered impossible due to the coronavirus pandemic, organizations have taken to the internet to connect with supporters and expand their reach. Since the start of the pandemic, Jewish Insider has compiled statistics, released weekly, on the webinars and online events being held across the community.
Ahead of the Republican National Convention, more than 2,000 viewers tuned into the Republican Jewish Coalition live webcast with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Sunday evening.
Week of August 21-August 27:
2,511 — Streicker Center, 8/24: “Righteous”
1,860 — Jews United for Democracy and Justice and Community Advocates, Inc., 8/26: “Rights on the Line” feat. Ben Jealous and Rabbi David Saperstein
823 —Republican Jewish Coalition, 8/27: “A Conversation with Trump Campaign Senior Advisor Jason Miller”
725 — American Jewish Committee, 8/24: “The Future of the U.S.-Israel Relationship: Challenges and Aspirations for a Vital Alliance”
653 — American Jewish Committee, 8/25: “Where We Can Go From Here: U.S. Policy Toward Iran, Negotiation Prospects, and Ongoing Threats to Peace
489 — American Jewish Committee, 8/27: “Maintaining U.S. Global Leadership”
416 — American Jewish Committee, 8/26: “American Identity: Integration and Immigration”
374 — American Jewish University, 8/26: “Josh Flagg Talks Real Estate, Philanthropy and his Fabulous Grandmothers” feat. Josh Flagg and Cynthia Platt Flagg
180 — American Jewish University, 8/24: “Teens Speak Up Against Injustice: The Story Behind ‘The Assignment’” feat. Liza Wiemer and Dr. Rachel Lerner
154 — J Street, 8/26: “J Street, American Jews, and The Israel Lobby”
145 — American Jewish University, 8/24: “Inside Dublab: Creating Music Culture Today” feat.Alejandro Cohen and Dr. Rotem Rozental
129 — American Zionist Movement, World Zionist Organization and the Canadian Zionist Federation, 8/25: “Tachles: Hebrew Zoom Classes”
106 — American Jewish Committee, 8/27: “Remote ACCESS: The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy and National Security
106 — J Street, 8/25: “Women in Politics: A Conversation with MK Merav Michaeli”
94 — American Jewish University, 8/25: “Career and Personal Success in the Age of Disruption” feat. Elan Divon and Dr. Robbie Totten
82 — American Jewish University, 8/27: “The Messy Middle: Challenges Women Face in Rising to Leadership” feat. Shelley Zalis and Rabbi Sherre Hirsch
68 — JWed and the Marriage-Minded Mentor, 8/27: “Respectful Rejection” feat. Aleeza Ben Shalom
All figures are verified by Jewish Insider prior to publication. To be considered for future reports, email [email protected]
In the lead-up to New York’s June 23 primary, it looked as if Rubén Díaz, Sr., the brash Pentecostal minister and city councilmember, was in a strong position to defeat his Democratic opponents in the crowded race to represent the 15th congressional district, which includes most of the South Bronx.
The prospect of Díaz in Congress filled Democrats with dread, due in large part to his opposition to gay marriage and his comparison of abortion to the Holocaust. The 77-year-old, Puerto Rican-born city politician, who is perhaps most closely identified by his trademark cowboy hat, has also expressed positive views on President Donald Trump.
But when the votes were finally tallied, it seemed that Díaz was less popular in the district than had been assumed. Coming in third, he lost by a resounding 18 points to Ritchie Torres, the 32-year-old progressive city councilman, who has characterized Díaz as “the Donald Trump of the Bronx.” Torres, an openly gay man who identifies as Afro-Latino, declared victory in mid-July and was ruled the official winner three weeks ago.
In many ways, Torres’s win functioned as a symbolic rebuke of Díaz and the views he represents. Díaz appeared visibly shaken on primary night when an NY1 reporter, Juan Manuel Benítez, tried to interview him live on the air. The city councilmember, dressed flamboyantly in a red cowboy hat and bolo tie, refused to answer Benítez’s questions, pointing an accusatory finger at his interlocutor and calling him “bad.”
But in a recent phone interview with Jewish Insider, Díaz — who has largely avoided the limelight since the election — adopted a care-free tone in discussing his loss. “I have no regrets,” he said. “No regrets.”
“Anyone that runs for public office — anybody — anyone is excited to win,” he told JI. “People don’t want to lose. Somebody has to lose.”
“I did what I had to do. I congratulate Ritchie Torres,” said Díaz, adding that he had not spoken with his former opponent, who is all but assured a seat in Congress in the sapphire-blue district.
Still, the city councilman sounded somewhat aggrieved in assessing the reasons he believes he failed to garner a plurality of the vote.
He blames Trump.
Or, rather, he blames Torres’s apparently successful effort — along with the efforts of other candidates in the race — to link Díaz with the president. “I thought people would not believe it, but they did,” said Díaz.
“People should know me,” he added.
Díaz — who admitted in a March interview with Jewish Insider that he did little campaigning in his district — averred that there was nothing he would change if he had the chance to do his campaign over, implying that his record stands on its own. “No elected official does more activity for that community than me,” he declared. “No one.”
“I do a Christmas party, the biggest Christmas party in the Bronx,” he told JI. “I do street fairs. I do back-to-schools. I’m telling you, I do so much activity.”
Díaz seemed surprised that his enthusiasm for Trump’s first presidential campaign — “I do like Donald Trump,” he toldThe Washington Post in the spring of 2016 — might have hampered his prospects in the Bronx. “I have supported Republicans in the past, and I have no problem with that,” he said. “Most likely, I will do it in the future.”
When asked who he would vote for in the upcoming election, Díaz put forth a roundabout response. “I’m not voting for Biden,” he said matter-of-factly. “No. I’m not voting for him. Definitely not, because I’m not voting for him. I’m in America. You’re free to choose whoever you want to choose.”
So who did he plan to vote for?
“I don’t know who I’m going to vote for,” Díaz shrugged. “I don’t know.”
What about Trump?
“I don’t know,” Díaz said. “I might vote for Trump, who knows? Hey, I’m deciding. I’m probably — I’m a Democrat. I am a Democrat. And I might be voting for Biden, yes. I’m just joking with you. I think that I am a Democrat.”
JI pointed out that it did not sound as if Díaz was joking.
“I tell you what you want to hear,” he said with an impish chuckle. “You want to play games, then I’ll play games with you.”
Finally, he clarified that he would probably not vote for Biden, but that if he did, it would be because he likes Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Biden’s vice presidential running mate. “She’s good,” he said, without elaborating any further.
Díaz told JI that he will retire from the city council at the end of his current term in 2022. “Next year I’m not running,” he said. “I’m out of politics.”
“What do you want me to do, die there?” said the reverend, who previously served in the New York State Senate and has been a city councilmember since 2018.
Díaz suggested he might not have served his term in Congress if he had won the primary. At first, he said he would only have served one term if elected. But then he added, “Who knows, maybe I wouldn’t even serve. Maybe I would have resigned before I was sworn in.”
“I was trying to prove something,” he concluded.
What he was trying to prove, however, Díaz failed to explain. “There were those plans of how long I was going to serve,” he said. “Should I serve if I win? I just wanted to run and see.”
Though his experiment didn’t seem to yield the result he would have liked, Díaz said he has nevertheless been keeping busy in his current capacity as a city official.
His district office is open, he told JI, pointing out that he has been working to serve his community amid the coronavirus outbreak.
“Everybody has to worry about the virus. Everybody. Everybody has to worry about that,” he said. “That’s something that’s dangerous, so people have to wear their masks, and I’ve been giving masks here and there, and helping different groups, and now I’m planning to give back-to-school book bags.”
“This is my last year and that’s it,” he added. “But I’m going to keep doing what I always did.”
Did he plan to stay in the Bronx after his term is up?
“I’m not moving,” said Díaz, who has been in the borough since 1965. “I will die here in New York.”
In an interview with Politico’sPlaybook on Thursday, White House senior advisor Jared Kushner defended actions by the Trump administration to cut U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority and blamed the PA leadership for the crisis.
“Our strategy has not been to isolate the Palestinians. Our strategy has just been to not do stupid things,” Kushner said, explaining why the administration has cut off aid as the PA grapples with ongoing financial crises in the West Bank and Gaza. Kushner said he told representatives of the “Quartet” — a group comprised of the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United States — on Wednesday that the Palestinians are complaining about what he called “a self-made financial crisis” because they are unwilling to take the money Israel is ready to transfer from an escrow account.
Kushner also addressed the ongoing conflict between Israel and Gaza. ”The only reason why they have conflict is because they’re shooting rockets on buildings in Israel.”
“In the past, people would rush and try to help them, but we just haven’t rewarded bad behavior,” Kushner stressed. “When they came out, they started criticizing America when we moved the [U.S.] embassy [to Jerusalem], we basically said, OK, we’re not sending you money anymore.’ We’re not going to send American taxpayer money over to a country, to a people who basically insult America and take [us] just for granted. So we’ve just taken a common-sense approach. We’ve tried not to do stupid things again.”
Kushner suggested that by rebuilding trust with Israel and Gulf countries and by showing “he’s not going to be intimidated,” President Donald Trump “could actually be the first person to lead the Palestinian people to a place where they have self-determination, hope and a lot of economic opportunity” if they choose to return to the negotiation table. “They now have a proposal on the table for a Palestinian state from Israel — something they did not have [at the] beginning of this administration — and there is a map that Israel has agreed to negotiate on the basis of that has never been done before in the history of negotiations.”
Bonus: Peter Berkowitz, director of policy planning at the State Department, pushed back in a Zoom call hosted by the American Jewish Committee on Thursday against the argument that the U.S. has isolated itself on the issue of Iran following the U.N.’s rejection of the Iran arms embargo extension earlier this month.
“We need to understand that the American partners who are most directly affected by Iran’s ceaseless effort to extend its hegemony throughout the Middle East — that is our Arab Gulf partners and Israel — are at one with us in our approach to Iran and support the maximum pressure campaign,” Berkowitz explained. “The countries that understand, I think, best and face most immediately the Iranian threat… they understand this as the United States is working actually with them to advance our shared interest in instability in the East. Is more diplomacy necessary to persuade the Europeans to do the right thing? Yes, of course. But again, I want to emphasize, it would be wrong to understand the United States as going alone because it’s got an important difference of opinion with our European friends. The United States is working closely with our partners in the Middle East.”
The Republican Jewish Coalition is launching a new digital ad targeting Jewish voters in key swing states ahead of President Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night.
The ad, titled “Wake Up Call,” features four lifelong Jewish Democrats who are supporting Trump’s reelection, according to a clip shared exclusively with Jewish Insider. It features Rabbi Alan Sherman, a Reform rabbi and former president and executive vice president of the Palm Beach County Board of Rabbis; Cantor Sagee Goldenholz, an Ohio native who now lives in Coral Springs, Florida; Marc Dunec, a former congressional candidate in New Jersey’s 11th district; and Caryn Borger, a doctor from New Jersey.
The four cite the policies of the Obama administration and the rise and influence of ‘the Squad’ — a quartet of progressive freshman Democratic congresswomen — as reasons to switch their support to Trump.
The ad ends with Sherman blowing the shofar, a custom during the Hebrew month of Elul and the High Holy Days, “as a wake up call to all Jews to wake up and vote for Donald Trump.”
The three-minute clip, which cost $10,000, will target Jewish voters in the key swing states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia and Arizona. The ad is part of the RJC’s $10 million spending strategy and the group’s third online ad of this election cycle.
“As the Democratic Party moves away from Israel, works to defund our police, raise our taxes and oppose school choice, more and more Jewish Democrats are realizing that today’s party isn’t their grandparent’s Democratic Party and are leaving the party to support President Trump,” RJC executive director Matt Brooks told JI. “We welcome them with open arms. The choice before voters this year is very clear and we’re going to see more and more Jewish Democrats cast their votes for President Trump in this election.”
Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) leads his progressive challenger, Alex Morse, by nine points ahead of the heavily contested September 1 Democratic primary in Massachusetts’s 1st congressional district, according to a new Jewish Insider poll.
The poll, based on 518 voter surveys conducted by RABA Research on August 23 and 24, puts Neal on relatively comfortable footing with 49% of the vote, placing him outside the ±4.3% margin of error. Morse pulled in 40% of the vote among those surveyed, with 12% of likely voters reporting that they were “not sure” who they would choose.
At the same time, Neal’s failure to clear the 50% threshold could be a sign of trouble for him, as incumbents polling below 50% are often considered at risk of defeat.
In recent weeks, the contentious race has gained national attention as Morse, who is gay, became embroiled in a sexual misconduct scandal that nearly ended his run. But he was vindicated after the allegations put forth in a letter by the College Democrats of Massachusetts appeared to have been part of a scheme to derail Morse’s campaign in coordination with the state’s Democratic Party. Neal has denied any knowledge of such plans.
The controversy seems to have given Morse a boost, said Robert Boatright, a professor in the department of political science at Clark University in Worcester. “A lot of people outside Massachusetts rallied to his side on that, so the story got him more visibility, and my guess would be it helped him more than it hurt him,” he told JI.
“But at the same time, the district is not really favorable to him,” Boatright added, predicting that Neal’s blue-collar base would likely give him an edge next week.
Still, Boatright speculated that left-leaning enthusiasm for another candidate in Massachusetts, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) — who is running against a younger challenger, Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA), but has been backed by progressives in and outside of the district — could perhaps buoy Morse in his own race.
According to the JI poll, Kennedy leads Markey 44% to 37% among Democratic and independent voters in Massachusetts’s 1st congressional district. Nineteen percent of respondents said they were undecided.
Morse, the 31-year-old Holyoke mayor, entered the race to unseat Neal last summer, riding a progressive grassroots wave that, this election season, has swept away a number of long-serving legislators including Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Dan Lipinski (D-IL) and William Lacy Clay (D-MO).
Among the many issues demonstrating the political divide in the race, Neal and Morse have divergent views on aid to Israel. Morse, who is Jewish, believes the U.S. should condition aid to Israel in order to pressure the Israeli government to change its policies towards the Palestinians. Neal opposes conditioning security assistance to Israel.
According to the poll, a plurality of voters in the district — 48% — think aid to Israel should be conditioned, while 34% want assistance to continue without conditions. Eighteen percent — including 29% of voters who identified as “very liberal” — were not sure or expressed no opinion on the matter.
Morse said he does not support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, but opposes efforts to legislate against BDS.
Neal is backed by a number of pro-Israel groups including Pro-Israel America and Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), which last week poured more than $100,000 into anti-Morse advertising.
Over the past year, Morse has built a formidable campaign operation, raising more than $1.3 million, according to the latest filings from the Federal Election Commission.
While the polling indicates Morse has been gaining momentum, he’ll still have to overcome the gap if he wants to pull off an upset in the district, which includes a large swath of western and central Massachusetts.
Morse, who is backed by Justice Democrats, picked up another key endorsement on Tuesday from Courage to Change, the political action committee founded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). The endorsement was not reflected in the poll because it occurred after the surveys were conducted.
Neal, who entered Congress in 1989 and serves as the powerful chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, has vastly outraised his opponent, raking in nearly $3.8 million in his reelection effort.
Neal, 71, has also benefited from considerable outside spending. In addition to the money spent by DMFI, the American Working Families super PAC poured more than $500,000 in advertising into the race in an effort to boost Neal.
Even if Neal manages to defend his seat, his falling short of 50% in the poll signals a tough political environment for established longtime members of Congress.
“If this were an isolated phenomenon, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but there have been a bunch of these races,” Howard J. Gold, a professor of government at Smith College in Northampton, told JI. “This fits into a really well established and growing pattern, and the old guard, the Democratic establishment, has to be really, really, careful. They can’t rely on politics as it used to be.”
Jacob Kornbluh and Marc Rod contributed to this report.
Sen. Kamala Harris D-Calif. speaks at the 2017 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference, Tuesday, March 28, 2017, at the Washington Convention Center in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) pledged on Wednesday that a Biden-Harris administration would continue the United States’ unconditional military aid to Israel despite potential disagreements with the Israeli government.
“Joe [Biden] has made it clear he will not tie security assistance to any political decisions that Israel makes and I couldn’t agree more,” Harris said during a virtual fundraiser with 1,800 Jewish Democrats. “As vice president, Joe Biden helped ensure unwavering support for Israel’s security. During the Obama-Biden administration he was a key advocate in securing support for life-saving technologies, which I have seen: Iron Dome. David’s Sling. The Arrow. Three anti-rocket and missile defense systems. And Joe has also helped shape the unprecedented $38 billion-a-year MOU — memorandum of understanding — for defense assistance to Israel that was signed in 2016 which, as you know, was the largest military aid package in U.S. history.”
On the call, Harris reaffirmed that a Biden-Harris administration would “sustain our unbreakable commitment to Israel’s security, including the unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation pioneered during the Obama-Biden administration and the guarantee that Israel will always maintain its qualitative military [edge].”
Harris also told attendees that a Biden administration will rejoin “a diplomatic agreement” with Iran and extend it to include its terror activities in the Middle East only if Tehran returns to compliance with the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal. Harris blasted the Trump administration’s policy on Iran, blaming its approach for the U.N. Security Council’s rejection of the U.S. proposal to extend an expiring arms embargo on Iran. “I think it’s fair to say this ‘America First’ approach is truly and has been America alone, which is not in our best interest or in the interest of our allies,” she said.
Harris was introduced by her husband, Doug Emhoff, and Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL). Emhoff, who would make history as the first Jewish spouse of a vice president if Biden wins in November, stated: “A Biden-Harris administration will stand strong against antisemitism, period.”
'My speech will focus on an uplifting positive vision for America, and highlight the president's record of results for my district and for the country'
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), one of three Republican House members selected to speak on Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention, previewed her remarks in an interview with Jewish Insider. Stefanik says she will offer an “optimistic” look at the accomplishments of President Donald Trump’s first term in her remarks this evening.
“My speech will focus on an uplifting positive vision for America, and highlight the president’s record of results for my district and for the country,” Stefanik, who represents New York’s 21st congressional district, told JI.
Stefanik — whose district includes the Fort Drum army base — is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, and said she will also touch on national security issues. “National security issues, and the president’s record of pay raises for our troops, strong foreign policy, strong alliances is… something that is just a positive for voters across the country to know,” she explained.
She called the first two nights of the RNC “a smashing success” because voters are hearing from “mostly everyday Americans who talk about how the president’s policies and support have made an impact on their lives. I think those stories resonate with independent and all voters, much more so than the Hollywood celebrities that had a doom-and-gloom message [at the Democratic National Convention last week].”
In 2014, Stefanik, 36, became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. She still is the youngest Republican woman in the House, and is rising in prominence nationally in the GOP. The third-term congresswoman told JI she was honored to be picked to make the case for Trump after becoming one of his fierce defenders during the impeachment process. “[Trump] knows that I’m focused on results for my district, and I work effectively with the president to deliver those results to my district,” she stressed. “I also think my role in recruiting women — we have the highest number of Republican women ever running before — that’s something I’m very proud of, to have been the leader on that initiative.”
The New York lawmaker predicted that Trump will overperform in her state in the fall. “I think Democrats are losing significant support in New York, you’re seeing significant population shifts away from New York City and the president’s numbers continue to grow in upstate New York,” she explained. “I think that the president is going to overperform and do better in New York than he did in 2016, not just to not upstate districts, but all across the state.”
Stefanik told JI that there has “never been a president who is more supportive of the U.S.-Israel relationship than President Trump,” citing the embassy move, the withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and his fight against global terror. “That is a record that this president is proud of and every American should be proud of,” she said, “because it’s coming after the Obama administration, who one of the first statements they made was saying there needs to be more daylight between the U.S. and Israel.”
The Republican congresswoman said she is concerned by both current members of Congress and emerging Democratic candidates taking a more critical stance on Israel. Stefanik indirectly referenced Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) who, she said, should not be seated on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “And the Democratic Party has embraced activists like Linda Sarsour, who is a blatant antisemite,” she added.
Stefanik, who served as recruitment chair for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) in 2018, said it’s critical “to continue to work in primaries to support pro-Israel candidates in both parties because that important tradition of bipartisanship is absolutely critical.”