Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) has proven her electoral mettle in the past two election cycles, eking out victories in a perennially competitive district. She claims the rare distinction of being one of only seven Democrats to win a district in 2020 that was also won by former President Donald Trump. State Sen. Tom Barrett, who is challenging Slotkin in Michigan’s new 7th Congressional District, which is centered around Lansing, is hoping to break that pattern.

Barrett, who served in the Army for 21 years, including in Kuwait and Iraq, and went on to serve as a Michigan State House member for four years, echoed many Republicans this cycle in telling Jewish Insider he’s running for Congress because he “feel[s] our country is on the wrong track… it’s largely attributable to the failed decisions and bad policy that’s coming out of Washington, D.C., under this current administration.”

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has opened an investigation into a complaint alleging that Jewish students at the University of Vermont faced numerous instances of discrimination and harassment, which have altogether created a “hostile environment on campus.”

The complaint, jointly filed in October 2021 by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Jewish on Campus, named four incidents that occurred that year and included testimonials by students who admitted that they feared openly expressing their Jewish identity on campus.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid concluded what officials described as a moving and successful visit to Berlin on Monday, increasing hope in Israel that floundering attempts to return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action could pave the way for a new strategic dialogue on how to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

On Saturday, Germany, together with France and the United Kingdom, issued a statement highlighting serious doubts about Iran’s intentions to revive the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. There have also been signs in the U.S. that President Joe Biden will tamp down efforts to seek support for a return to the deal ahead of the November midterms.  

Last summer, a group of five Jewish Democrats in the New Hampshire state house forcefully spoke out against a GOP fundraiser being co-sponsored by a Republican lawmaker who, months earlier, had shared an article from a well-known neo-Nazi website on social media.

Now, as New Hampshire voters head to the polls, one of those legislators is advancing the fight as he calls on Don Bolduc, a top Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, to reject an endorsement from Dawn Johnson, who drew fierce and bipartisan backlash after she tweeted a link to The Daily Stormer two years ago.

A who’s who of former Trump administration officials and a coterie of diplomats gathered in a Washington, D.C., downtown office suite on Monday to celebrate the two-year anniversary of the signing of the Abraham Accords. 

The event was jointly hosted by the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, a nonpartisan organization working to build multilateral ties between Accords member nations, and the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-aligned think tank. Speakers praised former President Donald Trump for his accomplishments in the Middle East and bemoaned the media for not giving him adequate credit for the Abraham Accords. 

In the entire New England congressional delegation — the members of Congress spanning Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine — there is a single Republican: Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. Rhode Island Republicans are hoping that could change this fall in a political environment expected to be unfavorable to Democrats.

Ground zero, according to political analysts, is Rhode Island’s 2nd District, an open seat that Democrats are looking to hold onto after Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI) announced his decision not to seek a 12th term. Voters in the district, which includes parts of Providence and the entire western half of the state, go to the polls Tuesday on the last primary election date of the year. 

The Biden administration’s Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley met on Thursday with the leaders of several U.S. Jewish organizations, including The Jewish Federations of North America, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Union for Reform Judaism, American Jewish Committee, Democratic Majority for Israel and AIPAC, Jewish Insider has learned. 

Participants declined to share information about what was discussed at the meeting. “Federations appreciated the engagement from the White House, and we’re pleased the meeting took place,” a JFNA spokesperson told JI. 

Fresh off a trip to Israel, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) predicted that a new Iran deal will not be finalized until after the upcoming U.S. midterms and Israeli elections, and previewed plans for multiple legislative initiatives aimed at countering Tehran.

“I don’t think there’s any chance the agreement will be announced before our election, or the Israeli election [set for Nov. 1], because the politics of this agreement are probably not good in either place,” Graham told Jewish Insider on Thursday. But, despite fresh setbacks in the latest round of talks, “I’m assuming that [the administration] will get a deal because they want a deal so badly.”