In his first international trip as Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs, Nachman Shai arrived early Sunday morning in Surfside, Fla., as part of a joint delegation with Israel’s foreign affairs and defense ministries to help with relief efforts following the collapse of a condominium. 

“There’s a message here that I believe should be delivered, that when you’re in trouble, we are there to help,” Shai told Jewish Insider in an interview on Sunday night. “When we are in trouble, you are coming to help us. I remember that every single opportunity that is needed any assistance, any help from the United States with any administration — by the way, Republican, Democrats, in general — you’re always there for us.” 

Jeffrey Togman wanted to make a documentary about the bloody civil war in Syria. He found his subject at a synagogue. 

In May 2016, the Seton Hall University political science professor saw that Congregation Shomrei Emunah, a Montclair, N.J., Conservative synagogue five blocks from his home, would be hosting a discussion on the Syrian war and refugee crisis. At the time, Togman was actively looking for a subject to profile in his film. “I was looking for Syrian Americans who could tell the story of Syria,” Togman told Jewish Insider last week.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted on Thursday to advance the bipartisan Israel Relations Normalization Act, a broadly popular bill originally sponsored by Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Todd Young (R-IN) and James Risch (R-ID) that seeks to strengthen and expand last year’s agreements between Israel and a number of Arab nations. 

The legislation, which passed the committee by voice vote, has 56 total sponsors, making it likely to pass though the Senate. Despite the bill’s broad support, Thursday’s meeting turned acrimonious over a pair of amendments introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

As rockets flew between Israel and Gaza last month, American Jews watched with alarm as anti-Israel rhetoric became the norm in some left-wing circles. Accusations of Israel’s alleged genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid spread widely, even reaching the halls of Congress. 

“It’s become a very common experience for rabbis, and Jews of really any kind who lean to the left progressively, to find, at the very least, difficulties in progressive circles with the love for Israel,” said Rabbi Menachem Creditor, the Pearl and Ira Meyer Scholar-in-Residence at UJA-Federation of New York. Among people like him — American Jews who support progressive policies but also support Israel — “the language of being lonely has been getting louder.” 

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke with Israel’s new foreign minister, Yair Lapid, in a phone conversation on Thursday afternoon that touched on strengthening Israel’s relationship with Democrats, according to Schumer’s press secretary.

During a short break off the Senate floor, Schumer called Lapid, the leader of Israel’s Yesh Atid Party, to congratulate him on successfully forming a new unity government earlier this month. 

Speaking at the American Jewish Committee (AJC) Los Angeles’s virtual annual meeting, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff got candid about his experiences as the pioneering first Jewish spouse of a vice president and how his early legal work informs his present activities.

Year in review: In conversation with Scott Edelman, the immediate past president of AJC’s L.A. chapter, Emhoff reflected on the ways in which his life changed since the beginning of the pandemic. “March 12 [2020], I went to D.C. from L.A. for what I thought was a long weekend, and I never left for almost a year,” he said. “So from March till August, I was like everyone else out there, trying to get through COVID, and deal with work and family and that horrible experience that we’re hopefully getting out of.”

As the New York Islanders’ national anthem singer, Nicole Raviv was used to the spotlight when she took the stage on June 9 ahead of a playoff game against the Boston Bruins. 

What she wasn’t prepared for, however, was a technical glitch that cut her microphone, resulting in an arena-wide singalong that quickly went viral.

An upcoming congressional delegation to Israel will be an opportunity for legislators to “be focused on support for Israel and its security and at the same time focused on the humanitarian concerns of the Palestinians,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks (D-NY), who is leading the delegation, told Jewish Insider on Wednesday.

The trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories will be Meeks’s first as chairman.