Start-Up Nation Central, the NGO founded in 2013 to connect countries and companies around the world with Israeli tech innovation, will name Avi Hasson as its next CEO effective September 1, the group announced on Wednesday. 

Hasson previously served as Israel’s chief scientist and founding chair of the Israel Innovation Authority. Prior to that, he was a general partner at the Gemini Israel Fund and Emerge venture capital firms. He joins the firm amid an increase in international interest in Israeli innovation following the Abraham Accords and Israel’s efforts to develop post-COVID technologies.

For Joshua Henkin, wrestling Morningside Heights, his newly released fourth novel, to the ground has been a long personal journey that spanned eight years and 3,000 pages of drafts.

The book, billed as “a poignant, illuminating portrait of marriage,” by The Wall Street Journal, tells the fictional story of Pru Steiner’s marriage to Spence Robin, a brilliant Columbia University professor, who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Focusing mostly on Spence’s family, Henkin gives color to a clan navigating a challenging disease and complex relationships.

Months after partisan fights over Israel reached a fever pitch during the recent war between Israel and Hamas, seven House lawmakers who traveled to Israel, the West Bank and Qatar last week told Jewish Insider that they were heartened by the new Israeli government’s commitment to ensuring that the U.S.-Israel relationship remains bipartisan.

The weeklong trip by members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, from July 6 to 11, was the first House delegation abroad since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Gregory Meeks’s (D-NY) first as chairman. Meeks was joined by six other Democrats and three Republicans.

With Donald Trump’s impeachment team in disarray following a rambling introductory speech from one of his top lawyers last February, the embattled former president turned to David Schoen, a reserved Alabama-based attorney who had initially been tapped to lead the defense.

But instead of overseeing the team, Schoen — hired on the recommendation of Roger Stone and tasked with making jurisdictional arguments — was initially sidelined as the trial commenced.

AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying giant, will not hold its annual policy conference in Washington, D.C. in 2022 due to continued uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, an AIPAC source informed Jewish Insider on Monday.

The group, which announced the move to its members late Monday afternoon, generally has to plan the conference a year in advance in order to secure contracts with hotels and venues for the event. Given continued COVID-related issues — highlighted by reimposed restrictions in Israel and the emergence of the Delta variant — it would be both “impossible” and “irresponsible” to plan in-person events for next spring, when the conference typically takes place, the source said.

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), one of the eight lawmakers appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to the House’s select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, told Jewish Insider she is prioritizing the probe over her reelection prospects in 2022.

Luria, who hails from Virginia’s 2nd District, a swing district, is among the most electorally vulnerable members of the panel. She’s almost certain to face attacks in the 2022 election based on her role on the committee, the creation of which was opposed by most congressional Republicans.

The Jewish Democratic Council of America is endorsing Shontel Brown, a Cuyahoga County councilwoman and party chair, in the crowded and increasingly contentious Democratic primary to represent Ohio’s 11th Congressional District, Jewish Insider has learned.

“JDCA is proud to endorse Shontel Brown in the OH-11 primary because she shares our Jewish and Democratic values on a wide range of issues, including access to affordable, quality health care, ensuring jobs that pay fair wages, supporting public education, taking action to end gun violence, protecting our democracy, and ensuring equity and justice for all,” Halie Soifer, JDCA’s CEO, said in a statement to JI.

Alta Fixsler, a seriously ill ultra-Orthodox child in the United Kingdom, has obtained a visa to continue treatment in the United States after U.K. doctors and officials decided to take her off life support, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced Friday.

The two-year-old Fixsler suffered severe brain damage at birth and has been on life support for her entire life. Doctors, who said she was unable to breathe, eat or drink without medical assistance, sought to take her off life support, a course of action her parents said violated their religious beliefs. In late May, a U.K. court granted the doctors permission to take her off life support, rejecting the parents’ religious objections.