| | Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the cease-fire and hostage-release agreement finalized in Doha overnight and look at the next steps in its implementation. We interview outgoing White House Jewish liaison Shelley Greenspan about her tenure in the Biden administration and report on concerns over the potential pick of Joe Kent, a former congressional candidate with ties to right-wing extremist groups, to head the National Counterterrorism Center. We also cover calls from House Republicans for the incoming Trump administration to appoint an Abraham Accords envoy, and talk to Ilya Shapiro about his new book about higher education. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ashley Moody, Alex Ryvchin and Michael Kadoorie.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: Lipstadt: U.N.’s Guterres said U.N. Special Rapporteur Albanese is ‘a horrible person’, Shari Redstone praises CBS News’ hiring of Susan Zirinsky following concerns over editorial bias; and Imam ridiculed by Sean Hannity is giving benediction at Trump’s inauguration. Print the latest edition here.
Spread the word! Invite your friends to sign up.👇 Share with a friend | - President-elect Donald Trump is slated to meet today with New York City Mayor Eric Adams at Mar-a-Lago. Trump will head to Washington this weekend ahead of Inauguration Day on Monday.
- French President Emmanuel Macron is in Beirut today for his first visit to Lebanon in more than four years. Macron will meet with Beirut’s new leadership, President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, the former head of the International Court of Justice.
- U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is also in Beirut today for meetings with political leaders. He is also expected to travel to the south of the country to see the U.N. peacekeeping force. Guterres was welcomed at the airport by Lebanon’s caretaker foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib.
- Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is in Moscow today to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two are expected to sign a “comprehensive strategic partnership.” Iran’s ambassador to Russia said on Thursday that the pact would not include a mutual defense clause similar to Moscow’s agreements with North Korea and Belarus.
| In the hours before Shabbat, Israelis collectively held their breath as senior Israeli government officials took steps toward approving a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement following the announcement Thursday night that both Israel and Hamas had agreed to the terms of the agreement being brokered in Doha, Qatar.
The next step is an Israeli security cabinet meeting to vote on the deal, which began late morning local time, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. The full cabinet will then convene at 3:30 p.m. local time to approve the deal.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is expected to resign and pull his party out of the coalition, having announced last night that he would do so if the deal is approved. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich opposed the deal but plans to stay in the government following negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which they agreed that the IDF could continue fighting in Gaza after a temporary cease-fire and control the entry of humanitarian aid. Smotrich and his party threatened to quit the coalition government if the war ends. Ben-Gvir’s departure will not topple the governing coalition, but if Smotrich follows, along with Likud minister Amichai Chikli, who made a similar threat, Netanyahu’s government will be seriously destabilized.
After the full Cabinet vote, the Israeli Justice Ministry is expected to release the names of the Palestinian terrorists to be released from prison, and the families of those terrorists’ victims will be given 24 hours to appeal to the High Court of Justice against their release. The court rejected all such appeals following the November 2023 hostage deal.
The first three hostages are expected to be released on Sunday. Secretary of State Tony Blinken told reporters on Thursday that he was “confident” the Israel-Hamas cease-fire deal will be implemented on Sunday. Read more on Blinken’s comments here.
In the first stage of the deal, a total of 33 hostages are expected to be freed over the course of six weeks, including Americans Keith Siegel and Sagui Dekel-Chen. As many as 1,000 Palestinian terrorists could be released at that stage, depending on how many of the released Israeli hostages are alive or dead.
The IDF will remain along the Philadelphi Corridor between Egypt and Gaza to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza, a senior diplomatic source said. That would include continued patrols, lookout towers and crossings, but the soldiers will be spread out differently than they are currently.
Talks on the second stage of the deal will begin 16 days after the first stage commences. The second stage would include the release of male IDF soldiers, including American citizen Edan Alexander, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
But comments by a senior Israeli diplomatic official who spoke to JI raise doubts as to whether the deal would advance to its second stage — a major concern among hostage families regarding the fate of the remaining 65 hostages not included in the first group of 33 set to be released.
“If Hamas does not agree to Israel’s demands for ending the war” — meaning Hamas would agree to cede control of Gaza — “Israel will stay in the Philadelphi Corridor on the 42nd and the 50th day. In other words, in practicality, Israel will stay in Philadelphi until further notice,” the official said.
The deal also states that Israel will retain a buffer zone around Gaza’s perimeter but will withdraw from the Netzarim Corridor bisecting Gaza from east to west, which will be subject to “security arrangements,” an Israeli official said this week.
The third and final stage of the deal would include exchanges of hostages’ bodies for the bodies of Palestinian terrorists held by Israel. It would also entail a full withdrawal of Israeli troops to the perimeter of Gaza, and the entry of a yet-to-be-determined third party to govern Gaza. | exit interview White House Jewish liaison Shelley Greenspan on how the kosher sausage gets made  courtesy In Shelley Greenspan’s early meetings with Jewish communal leaders after she assumed the role of White House liaison to the Jewish community in the summer of 2022, she heard the same request over and over again: that President Joe Biden should draft a national strategy to fight antisemitism. The request was a lobbying priority for Jewish groups but was not yet on the radar of the White House officials who would need to actually craft that document. Greenspan resolved to make it happen. “It wasn't easy. It had never been done before. It isn't something that we set out to do from the onset of this administration,” Greenspan recalled in a recent interview with Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch, where she offered a peek at how the kosher sausage gets made as she gets ready to leave her post after more than two years.
Chutzpahdik: Greenspan maintains that her support for Israel is one of the reasons she went to work for Biden. “I am so proud of the way that this president responded [after Oct. 7]. I think he's the most pro-Israel president we've ever had in this country,” she said. Meanwhile, in the same White House, some of her colleagues were releasing anonymous open letters criticizing Biden’s support for Israel. “I definitely had to lean into my own chutzpah and my own moral courage at times, especially when navigating the complexities of these diverse perspectives. There were challenges internally and externally,” she acknowledged. “That’s the most I’ll say on that.”
Read the full interview here. troubling ties Trump’s favored candidate for key intel role has ties to extremists  JENNY KANE/AP The potential nomination of a hard-right former congressional candidate with ties to extremists to lead a major counterterrorism organization in the incoming Trump administration is fueling concerns among some national security experts, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. Joe Kent, a retired Green Beret and former CIA officer who twice ran unsuccessfully for a House seat in Washington state, has reportedly emerged as the top pick to head the National Counterterrorism Center.
Raising concerns: But his past links to white supremacists and neo-Nazis, promotion of conspiracy theories and echoing of pro-Russia talking points, among other issues, have faced scrutiny — raising questions over his possible stewardship of one of the county’s top intelligence agencies. “Given Kent’s ties with groups who supported the violent overturning of the 2020 election, he would seem like an unorthodox choice for a role countering terrorism on behalf of the American people,” Seth Kotlar, a professor of history at Willamette University in Oregon, told JI on Thursday, “but this is hardly the first situation recently where the usual rules that have governed U.S. politics, regardless of party, have been disregarded by the incoming administration.”
Read the full story here. mike drop Johnson removes Mike Turner, key GOP hawk, from House Intelligence Committee leadership  SARAH SILBIGER FOR THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) declined to reappoint Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, removing an influential internationalist from a key national security post, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Conflicting narratives: Turner, a pragmatist, national security hawk and vocal supporter of Ukraine and NATO, had been reviled by the House Freedom Caucus and others in the conservative and isolationist wing of the GOP. Turner said in an interview with CBS on Wednesday that Johnson had told him his ouster was prompted by “concerns from Mar-a-Lago,” referring to President-elect Donald Trump, an accusation that Johnson denied. “This is not a President Trump decision. This is a House decision, and this is no slight whatsoever to our outgoing chairman. He did a great job,” Johnson said. “It’s a new Congress. We just need fresh horses in some of these places, but I’m a Mike Turner fan.”
Read the full story here. book shelf Ilya Shapiro’s new book ‘Lawless’ calls out dysfunction in higher education  courtesy Three years after Ilya Shapiro posted an ill-fated viral tweet that ultimately led to him resigning from a prestigious role at Georgetown, the conservative legal scholar has many more allies in his criticism of the “illiberal takeover” of higher education and legal education in particular, a problem he describes in his new book, Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elite. The aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel and the rise in antisemitism that followed at many top American universities proved to be a tipping point, he told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch. “It raised the issue of the dysfunction and pathologies in our institutions of higher education to a national level,” said Shapiro.
Institutional gatekeepers: Shapiro, whose career has been spent in libertarian and conservative institutions, asserts that his critique of legal education today is not about the fact that most law school faculty at the nation’s top universities lean to the left politically. “I want to emphasize that this is not the decades-long complaint that conservatives have with the hippie takeover of the faculty lounge, if you will,” said Shapiro. “What happens at law schools matters because lawyers, for good or ill, are overrepresented among our political leaders, among the gatekeepers of our institutions.”
Read the full story here. scoop House Republicans urge Trump to immediately nominate an Abraham Accords ambassador  GPO A group of 47 House Republicans, led by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), urged President-elect Donald Trump to immediately nominate an ambassador-rank special envoy for the Abraham Accords, a position that has been left empty since it was created by Congress in late 2023, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Bashing Biden: In a letter to Trump on Thursday, the lawmakers said that they’re confident Trump will “prioritize” expanding normalization agreements between Israel and the Arab world in his second administration, and said that having a dedicated official leading those efforts would be “key to a cohesive, effective, and long-lasting normalization effort.” The lawmakers said that the Biden administration’s failure to fill the slot — in spite of bipartisan pressure to do so — showed “clear indifference to the Abraham Accords,” which they described as “incomprehensible, bad policy, and after the legislation’s passage in 2023, unlawful.”
Read the full story here. rubio replacement Newly appointed senator Ashley Moody a strong ally of Florida’s Jewish community  PHOTO: Associated Press Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tapped the state’s attorney general, Ashley Moody, on Thursday to replace Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) when he departs office after his confirmation to become President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of state. As attorney general, Moody expressed unwavering support for Israel in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and has prioritized cracking down on rising statewide antisemitism in her job — with a focus on scrutinizing Florida’s college campuses, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Record on antisemitism: Days after the Oct. 7 attacks, as anti-Israel rhetoric soared on hundreds of campuses, Moody told Floridians that the state has a “zero-tolerance policy” for hate crimes. In an October 2023 memo to 21 college and university campus police chiefs, Moody wrote, “Florida stands with Israel and those affected by Hamas’ horrific crimes, and we cannot stand by and let those who wish to terrorize, harass, assault or threaten our Jewish communities do so with impunity.”
Read the full story here. | Still Speaking Out, Through Tears: In Time, Rachel Goldberg-Polin explains why she and her husband, Jon Polin, have continued to fight for the release of the remaining 98 hostages after their son’s murder in Hamas captivity. “People seemed confused that Jon and I are relieved and happy that so many of our hostage community, with whom we feel like family, will finally be reunited with their loved ones. This does not mean we are not in agonizing mourning and oozing with grief for our beloved Hersh, who we buried 135 days ago. It means we can hold two truths; we can even hold more. Humans are fascinating creatures. We can experience a multitude of diverse feelings simultaneously. So we can experience suffering while still having the capacity to laugh, we can be longing for someone and capable of celebration, we can be weeping and resilient, we can be yearning and hopeful. What is essential to us at this moment is that we make sure this phase of the deal is the beginning of the end, and not the end. Getting out 33 cherished human beings is critical. BUT, there are still going to be 65 hostages left in captivity. This remains a microcosm of failure of all of humanity.” [Time]
Did Israel Win?: The Atlantic’s Graeme Wood suggests the cease-fire and hostage-release deal struck between Israel and Hamas is a good short-term solution but falls short of resolving larger issues. “From the beginning of the war, Israel has struggled to define its goals — in part because it is, as a country, so divided about its nature and purpose that any real goal articulated would be unsatisfactory to a large portion of its population. It was left instead with reassuring but vague slogans. ‘Free the hostages’ was a defensible one from the start — the objective was just, and within Israel’s rights — but it concealed many harder strategic questions. What if freeing the hostages involved freeing murderers and terrorists from Israeli prisons? Evidently it does. What if their freedom was conditional on letting Hamas survive and rule Gaza? Evidently it is. Gaza is wrecked, and tens of thousands of its people are dead. But Hamas is still the only armed force likely to rule Gaza when Israel withdraws. If the intention is to end the war, then the war will end with Hamas bloodied but unbowed.” [TheAtlantic]
Bibi’s Media Man: The New Yorker’s Ruth Margalit profiles Yinon Magal, an Israeli commentator on the right-wing Channel 14 who is a vocal defender of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Magal was once a prime-time newscaster, and at fifty-five he still looks the part: a rugged beard, piercing blue eyes, a blandly wholesome face. These days, though, he is an unapologetic combatant, delivering his version of the news in a hunched-over-the-deck posture that has been described as ‘gorilla pose.’ Magal favors building Jewish settlements among the ruins in Gaza. He thinks the military has courted catastrophe by being ‘too busy’ integrating women into combat roles. He has encouraged the ‘voluntary migration’ of political opponents, which would remove not just Palestinians from Gaza but also liberal Jews from Israel. He dismisses criticism of the government as sanctimonious and occasionally treasonous. He and his panelists heap contempt on judges, journalists, academics, and the opposition leader Yair Lapid, whose verbal flip-flopping is the subject of a daily segment. ‘The level is that of bullies in the locker room,’ Chen Liberman, a reporter for the investigative program ‘Uvda,’ told me.” [NewYorker]
Miller Time, 2.0: The New York Times’ Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, David Fahrenthold and Charlie Savage look at Stephen Miller’s rise from Senate staffer to key player in the incoming Trump administration. “He plays the long game on relationships, scouting people who may be influential several years in the future. He built a relationship with JD Vance ahead of his successful Ohio Senate primary, years before he would become Mr. Trump’s running mate. He also can be a political shape-shifter when it’s expedient for him. His long-term demonization of ‘radical Islam’ went relatively quiet at moments during the 2024 presidential race, as he encouraged the Trump campaign to issue inviting statements to Muslims in Michigan — part of a strategy to exploit Muslims’ anger over the Biden administration’s support for Israel, according to three people with direct knowledge.” [NYTimes]
A Class Above: New York magazine’s Charlotte Klein spotlights the private Century Club in New York City, an under-the-radar gathering spot for New York’s elite media class. “Journalists have always belonged to the Century, where Daily News editor Ed Kosner used to invite writers to lunch if they had published a good story. There are currently more than 50 media bosses, reporters, and editors who are members, including CNN CEO Mark Thompson, Times managing editor Carolyn Ryan, Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Radhika Jones, New Yorker articles editor Susan Morrison, New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast, author Robert Caro, Pushkin’s Jacob Weisberg, and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. … The Century has more than 2,000 members, and journalists make up merely a fraction of them, outnumbered by academics, artists, lawyers, philanthropists, architects, and other public-intellectual types. But in the post-pandemic years more journalists than ever are joining, as the Century, with its grand balconied Palladian window and marble columns, has once again become socially relevant in the media world, not only for members but for the many colleagues members can invite as guests.” [NYMag] | Be featured: Email us to inform the JI readership of your upcoming event, job opening, or other communication. | The incoming Trump administration is planning a broad sanctions strategy in an effort to end the war between Russia and Ukraine and decrease oil exports from Iran and Venezuela, which have increased during the Biden administration…
President-elect Donald Trump announced that actor Mel Gibson — who has a history of antisemitic, racist and misogynist outbursts — will serve as his special envoy to Hollywood, alongside Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight...
The Wall Street Journal looks at how Trump is structuring his foreign policy team, with “the customary national-security cabinet members sharing the spotlight with half a dozen envoys and advisers assigned to deal directly with hot spots and foreign capitals”...
The Financial Times does a deep dive into the diplomatic efforts — and pressure from the incoming administration — that led to a breakthrough in cease-fire and hostage-release talks; “The Trump effect was not only on Bibi, it was also on Qatar and Egypt,” former Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross told FT…
In a Truth Social post, Trump said he would not hire prospective employees who had previously worked for a slew of current and former Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and GOP donor Charles Koch…
Belaaz reported that meetings between Trump and leading rabbis, including Satmar Rabbi Ahron Teitelbaum and Gerer Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Shaul Alter, could take place the third week in February…
Scott Bessent, the Trump administration's nominee to be Treasury secretary, testified at his confirmation hearing on Thursday that raising U.S. energy production would allow the U.S. to apply stronger sanctions on Iran. "Through sanctions policy, I believe that we can again, as I like to say, make Iran poor again. Not the Iranian people, the Iranian government," Bessent said…
The Secure Community Network urged Trump to deport non-citizens who have rallied in support of Hamas and Hezbollah…
Elon Musk reportedly leveraged his relationship with Iran’s envoy to the U.N. in a successful effort to free an Italian journalist arrested last month in Tehran; the woman’s arrest came days after Italy arrested an Iranian engineer for whom the U.S. had requested an extradition over his involvement in a drone attack that killed American servicemembers last year…
Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s final press conference was disrupted by two protesters — Max Blumenthal and Sam Husseini — angry over the Biden administration’s Israel policies; both men were removed from the room…
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) found a Capitol Police officer who shared her last name — and learned they were cousins…
Israeli firefighters arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday to assist with the response to wildfires in the city…
Hong Kong-based businessman and CLP Holdings Chair Michael Kadoorie is looking to raise $50 million to fund plans to boost the city’s public image and tourism sector…
A Sydney home previously owned by Alex Ryvchin, the co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti…
The chief rabbi of Rome, Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, chastised Pope Francis over the pontiff’s increasingly inflammatory rhetoric about Israel…
WizzAir resumed its flights to and from Israel on Thursday…
Lenovo acquired Israeli enterprise storage company Infinidat; as part of the deal, which is Lenovo’s first in an Israeli company, the Chinese tech giant will open a development center in Israel…
French President Emmanuel Macron announced plans to hold a summit about Syria in Paris, slated for Feb. 13…
An Iranian official confirmed that Israel had clandestinely sold centrifuge platforms containing explosive material to the Islamic Republic; the operation was one of several Israel has conducted in recent years targeting Iran and its proxies in the region…
Iraq’s foreign minister called on Iran-backed militias in the country to lay down arms or join forces with Iraq’s existing security services…
Steve Rogers, the CEO of the Kaplen Jewish Community Center on the Palisades in Tenafly, N.J., died…
Attorney Shirah Neiman, who in 1970 became the first woman in 18 years to work in the criminal division of the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, died at 81… |  Sen. Lindsey Graham Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) presented outgoing Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog and his wife, Shirin, with a framed copy of Senate Resolution 931, honoring Herzog’s “exceptional service” as Israel’s top envoy in the U.S., at a reception last night at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. |  GALI TIBBON/AFP via Getty Images Retired president of the Supreme Court of Israel, now teaching at University of Haifa Law School, Asher Dan Grunis turns 80...
FRIDAY: Retired major general in the Israeli Air Force, he helped start the first Israeli venture capital fund, Dan Tolkowsky turns 104... Former two-term member of Congress from Iowa, he is the father-in-law of Chelsea Clinton, Edward Mezvinsky turns 88... Host of television's tabloid talk show "Maury," originally known as the "Maury Povich Show," Maury Povich turns 86... Former reporter, columnist and editor covering religion, education and NYC neighborhoods for The New York Times, he is the author of four books, Joseph Berger turns 80... Actor who has appeared in over 100 different television series and commercials, Todd Susman turns 78... Australia's chief scientist until 2020, he is an engineer, entrepreneur, philanthropist and former chancellor of Monash University, Alan Finkel turns 72... Economist, professor, New York Times best-selling author and social entrepreneur, he has written 13 books and is the founder of six companies, Paul Zane Pilzer turns 71... President and co-founder of Bluelight Strategies, Steve Rabinowitz turns 68... Journalist-in-residence at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Joanne Kenen... Chair of zoology at the University of Wyoming, she was the Democratic nominee in the 2020 U.S. Senate election in Wyoming, Merav Ben-David turns 66... Majority owner of the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers, founder and chairman of Quicken Loans and dozens of other companies, Dan Gilbert turns 63... Professor of law at Harvard University, Jesse M. Fried turns 62... Former first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama turns 61... Film and stage actor best known for his roles on “The West Wing” and “The Big Bang Theory,” Joshua Malina turns 59... Film director, television director, screenwriter and film producer, Bartholomew "Bart" Freundlich turns 55... Founder and CEO at NYC-based Rosewood Realty Group, Aaron Jungreis... President of the Israel Democracy Institute, he was a member of the Knesset for the Kadima party until 2013, Yohanan Plesner turns 53... D.C.-based partner at PR firm FGS Global, Jeremy Pelofsky... Professional dancer who has competed in 17 seasons of “Dancing with the Stars,” Maksim Chmerkovskiy turns 45... Film and television actor, Scott Mechlowicz turns 44... Director of foundation relations at J Street, Becca Freedman... Executive director at SRE Network, Rachel Gildiner... Impact finance counsel in the NYC office of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, Perry Isaac Teicher... Film and television actor, Max Adler turns 39... Retired player for MLB's San Diego Padres, he also played for Team Israel in 2013 and 2017, now an on-air radio and television host, Cody Decker turns 38... Winner of the $1 million prize as the sole survivor on Season 26 of “Survivor,” he has since become a writer for three television shows, John Martin Cochran turns 38... Business administrator at the City of Hoboken, Jason Freeman... SVP of communications at Better Medicare Alliance, Rebecca Berg Buck turns 35... Social media lead for VPOTUS-candidate Tim Walz during the 2024 presidential campaign, Alyssa Franke...
SATURDAY: Israeli insurance and banking executive, he served as a member of the Knesset from 1978 until 1981, Shlomo Eliahu turns 89... Retired executive director of the Israel on Campus Coalition of Greater Washington, Judy Novenstein... Publisher of a weekly community newspaper in Boston, David Jacobs... Executive editor at The 74 Media, JoAnne Wasserman... Microbiologist and professor of biology at Wichita State University, Mark A. Schneegurt turns 63... Commissioner of the Social Security Administration during most of 2024, he was governor of Maryland for eight years after serving as mayor of Baltimore for the prior eight years, Martin O'Malley turns 62... Executive chairman of Aspen Square Management, an operator of apartment units in 12 states, Jeremy Pava turns 62... Executive director of Ohr Yisroel, Rabbi Yitz Greenman... Journalist and author of two New York Times bestsellers on personal finance, Beth Kobliner turns 60... Stand-up comedian, actor and writer, he is best known as the host of an eponymous Comedy Central program, Dave Attell turns 60... Senior rabbi of Golders Green United Synagogue in London for 20 years until 2023, Rabbi Dr. Harvey Belovski turns 57... President of the World Mizrachi movement, dean of the Jerusalem College of Technology (Machon Lev), he is also the rabbi of the Gush Etzion Regional Council, Rabbi Yosef Zvi Rimon turns 57... NYC real estate entrepreneur, Andrew Heiberger turns 57... VP of government and airport affairs at JetBlue, Jeffrey Goodell... Former MLB All-Star and Gold Glove catcher, now a real estate investor, Mike Lieberthal turns 53... VP for communications and government affairs at Princeton University, Gadi Dechter... Samara Yudof Jones... Actor and screenwriter, best known for his role in the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother," Jason Jordan Segel turns 45... Baltimore-born basketball player, dubbed by Sports Illustrated as the "Jewish Jordan" in a 1999 feature, Tamir Goodman turns 43... Israeli-born comedian and actor, best known for his web series "Jake and Amir" (with Jake Hurwitz), Amir Shmuel Blumenfeld turns 42... Chief development officer at Cleveland-based The Centers, Stacey Rubenfeld... British actor, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd turns 37... Former deputy political director of the Midwest region of AIPAC, Talia Alter Gevaryahu... Cellist and music professor, he has performed as a soloist with more than 30 symphonies, Julian Schwarz turns 34... Singer, songwriter, actress and dancer with more than with 9.2 million followers on TikTok, Montana Tucker turns 32... All-Star pitcher, last month he signed an eight-year, $218 million contract with the New York Yankees, Max Fried turns 31... Linda Rubin...
SUNDAY: Surfer as a child, she is the real-life inspiration for the fictional character Gidget in a book written by her father, Kathy Kohner-Zuckerman turns 84... Retired after 40 years of service as a news reporter and White House correspondent for ABC News, Ann Compton turns 78... Rebbe of the Hasidic dynasty of Belz since 1966, Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach turns 77... CEO of Charleston, S.C.-based InterTech Group, a family-owned chemicals manufacturer, Anita Zucker... Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Amy Laura Wax turns 72... Former speaker of the Knesset following a stint as chairman of the Jewish Agency, Avraham Burg turns 70... President and CEO of PayPal until 2023, he is the lead director on the board of Verizon, Daniel H. Schulman turns 67... Stoughton, Mass., resident, Hillery Bauman... Jay Susman... Los Angeles-based attorney and founder of the blog “American Trial Attorneys in Defense of Israel,” Baruch C. Cohen... Retired speaker of the U.K.'s House of Commons from 2009 to 2019, his family name was originally Berkowitz, John Simon Bercow turns 62... U.K. ambassador to Mexico until last year, Jon Benjamin turns 62... Governor of Illinois since 2019, Jay Robert "J.B." Pritzker turns 60... Chief Washington correspondent for ABC News, Jonathan Karl turns 57... Israeli-American social entrepreneur, she is the co-founder and former CEO of Circ MedTech, Tzameret Fuerst turns 54... Former lecturer at the University of Maryland's Center for Jewish Studies and senior adviser to Enter: The Jewish Peoplehood Alliance, Scott Lasensky... United Arab Emirates' minister of state and ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Al Otaiba... Journalist, entrepreneur, and social activist, Jessica Abo turns 44... DC-based managing director of policy and political affairs at AJC: Global Jewish Advocacy, Julie Fishman Rayman... VP at the National Women's Law Center, Melissa Boteach... Isaac (Ike) Wolf... Assistant director of policy and government affairs at AIPAC, Alex Bronzo... Gastroenterologist in Boston and a former ice dancing champion, Loren Galler Rabinowitz, M.D. turns 39... Actor since early childhood, he has already appeared in over 25 films and most recently a main character in Amazon's "Hunters," Logan Lerman turns 33... Midwest regional deputy director at AIPAC, Emily Berman Pevnick... | | | | | |
