| | Good Tuesday morning. In today’s Daily Kickoff , we look at the race taking shape for the GOP leadership of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, report on Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s comments yesterday at the Brookings Institution and sit down with Rep. Jake Auchincloss for a wide-ranging interview covering the war in Gaza, President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign and Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s recent primary defeat. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff : N.C. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, Taffy Brodesser-Akner and Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum. Spread the word! Invite your friends to sign up.👇 Share with a friend | - We’re continuing to keep an eye on the fallout over the weekend incident in Antalya, Turkey, where airport employees refused to refuel an El Al plane that had to make an emergency landing at the airport following an in-air medical incident. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod yesterday that the incident was “disturbing,” but “should come as no surprise considering Turkish President Erdogan is supporting Hamas terrorists in their pursuit against Israel and has aligned himself with Israel’s adversaries in the region that wish to see its downfall.”
- At Jerusalem’s Mt. Herzl this evening, Dr. Miriam Adelson and United Hatzalah will inaugurate a new fleet of 76 emergency vehicles and pay tribute to fallen soldiers and medics who died in the line of duty.
| Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) had a yearslong relationship with the Menachem Begin Heritage Center. So it was fitting that the Jerusalem center played host to the Jewish statesman’s family and longtime friends as they paid tribute before a packed audience to Lieberman, three months after his death, Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss reports from Jerusalem.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, who made a surprise appearance at the event, recalled his first meeting with the Connecticut legislator and one-time vice presidential candidate. In the 1980s, Lew recalled, he had been an aide to then-House Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-MA), and accompanied O’Neill to a dinner in Connecticut, where he was seated next to Lieberman — ostensibly, Lew suggested, “so it would be easy to serve the two salmon dinners” to the only attendees who kept kosher.
Lew, whose relationship with Lieberman traversed the professional into the personal as their children grew up together in Washington, and later as the two men moved to Riverdale, N.Y., said that “Joe Lieberman was the rare public figure who was the same in public and private, sincere and respectful, principled and compassionate. Since we, on occasion, did not share the same policy perspective, I can also say he listened to views contrary to his own. He reflected on them. He would not dismiss alternative views, though he would not budge on deeply held beliefs.”
Natan Sharansky, the former refusenik and former longtime head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, praised Lieberman’s “moral clarity,” pointing out that Lieberman nearly appeared as the vice presidential candidate on the GOP ticket just eight years after he was the vice presidential nominee on the Democratic line. “What we know is that in politics, people [can be] among the leaders of one party, and then the next election they’re among the leaders of the other party, and it’s [because they change] their views, all of them. But Joe wouldn’t change his views — it was the parties that were changing their views.”
Lieberman’s daughter, Hani Lowenstein, reflected on her father’s connection to Israel. “Every experience in Israel was just wonderful when you were with my dad, whether it be grabbing some food at a local cafe, or walking through the Old City to get to the Kotel — that walk took a very long time because he was stopped. If there were tourists, he was stopped the whole way there,” she said to laughter from the audience. “He loved the miracle that was and is the State of Israel and the vibrancy of life here. He so enjoyed every moment spent with children, grandchildren and friends. On a political level, I don't believe he ever felt any sort of dialectical tension between being a patriotic American and an ardent Zionist. The concept of dual loyalty cannot be found in the Lieberman dictionary, because he saw the interests of the U.S. and Israel as being intertwined.”
Historian Gil Troy, who sat in conversation with the Begin Center’s Paul Gross, said that Lieberman’s “greatness came from understanding that politics isn't just about winning that moment, or being in that moment, but transcending that moment.”
“One of the things I think we're hearing,” Troy said, “is that Joe Lieberman didn't just die at the age of 82. He was 248 years old, he lived an American life. And he was 3,500 years old,” the age of the Jewish people. | Q&A Rep. Jake Auchincloss talks Netanyahu, Bowman, Biden and antisemitism  courtesy Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), closing out his second term on Capitol Hill, has emerged as a prominent voice among younger members of the Democratic caucus, seen as a potential leader on key issues. Jewish Insider’s Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar and senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod sat down with Auchincloss, who is Jewish, for nearly an hour in his Capitol Hill office last week to discuss the state of the Democratic Party, the situation in the Middle East, antisemitism, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming address to Congress and more.
Notable quotables: Auchincloss said he and other Democrats should walk out of Netanyahu’s congressional address if the prime minister criticizes President Joe Biden, urged Netanyahu to call for new elections and lay out a plan for postwar governance in Gaza, warned that Israel has an “under-30 problem” among Democrats and said that Democrats should look to Britain’s Labour Party as a warning on failing to fully combat antisemitism.
Read the full interview here. Race to the Top Crowded race shaping up for top GOP spot on House Foreign Affairs Committee  ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES A crowded race for the top Republican slot on the House Foreign Affairs Committee is taking shape, with the seat set to be potentially vacated at the end of the year. Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod took a look at the records of each of the potential contenders.
Who’s in the race: Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), the current chairman is, per GOP conference rules, term-limited as chairman at the end of this Congress. But he’s seeking a waiver to continue as chairman for another term. He’s reportedly facing challenges from Reps. Ann Wagner (R-MO), Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Darrell Issa (R-CA), with Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL), Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Scott Perry (R-PA) among the other possible contenders.
Read the full story here. heard yesterday Blinken warns of governance vacuum in Gaza in ‘day-after’ scenario  Secretary of State Tony Blinken/X Secretary of State Tony Blinken, speaking on Monday at the Brookings Institution, called for “clear, coherent, achievable plans for Gaza's governance” once the Israel-Hamas war ends, warning that the conflict “cannot and must not end with a vacuum in Gaza,” Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports.
Drilling down: Blinken’s comments come amid increasing international pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to put forward a “day-after” plan for governance in the enclave. The Times of Israel reported on Tuesday that Netanyahu has privately walked back some of his hesitancy to the possibility of Palestinian Authority-linked officials being involved in postwar governance in Gaza, even as he continues to publicly reject PA involvement in “day-after” plans for the Strip. “Vacuums tend to get filled by bad things before they get filled with good things,” said Blinken. “And we know that there are three things that are unacceptable for Gaza’s future: an Israeli occupation; Hamas perpetuating its leadership; or chaos, anarchy, lawlessness, which is what we’re seeing in big parts of Gaza today.”
Read the full story here.
Bonus: The Wall Street Journal looks at the uptick in lawlessness and crime that has become prevalent across the Gaza Strip as public order begins to break down. legal moves ADL, victims' families sue Iran, Syria and North Korea over Oct. 7 support  ALEXI J. ROSENFELD/GETTY IMAGES The Anti-Defamation League filed a federal lawsuit on Monday, alongside more than 100 American survivors and victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and their family members, accusing Iran, Syria and North Korea of providing material support for the attacks, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
The allegations: The lawsuit ultimately seeks compensation for the victims and their families, which would likely be paid out from the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism fund. It accuses the three rogue states of providing military, tactical and financial support to Hamas.
Read the full story here. Backing IHRA N.C. GOP gubernatorial candidate touts support for IHRA definition, despite running afoul of it in the past  ALLISON JOYCE/GETTY IMAGES The Republican lieutenant governor of North Carolina, Mark Robinson, has been dogged for years by accusations of antisemitism over past comments invoking anti-Jewish tropes and conspiracy theories, downplaying the Holocaust and quoting Adolf Hitler, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Robinson, now the GOP nominee to be governor of North Carolina, has sought to dismiss, downplay and otherwise put those past controversies in the rear view mirror.
IHRA legislation: Most recently, he came out in support of legislation passed by North Carolina’s Statehouse codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism — even though some of his past comments seem to run afoul of the IHRA definition itself. Robinson’s already-long record of questionable past posts is also continuing to grow.
Read the full story here.
Elsewhere in North Carolina: Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law legislation codifying the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism. no extra credit After ADL revises its campus report card, critics still give it a failing grade  MATT BURKHARTT/GETTY IMAGES After witnessing Jewish student life at Cornell University up close as an adjunct professor of law, Menachem Rosensaft said if he were to rate the Ivy League campus for how it handled the surge of antisemitic activity that rocked universities nationwide in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, he would give a “B.” The Anti-Defamation League gave the school a near-failing “D,” in the Campus Antisemitism Report Card that was first released in April and revised last week, which assigned grades from A through F to 85 U.S. universities’ institutional response to campus antisemitism, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Haley Cohen reports.
Pushing back: Rosensaft, who has taught a course at Cornell Law School on the law of genocide and war crimes trials since 2008 and who last year created a new course titled “Antisemitism in the Courts and in Jurisprudence,” called the “D” grade “unwarranted and decidedly does not correspond to what I have seen and have experienced on campus.” Rosensaft, general counsel emeritus of the World Jewish Congress, told eJP that the analysis was “shallow” and “did not give any justification for the grade or recommendations of what should be done in order for the university to improve its grade.”
Read the full story here and sign up for eJewishPhilanthropy’s Your Daily Phil newsletter here. | French Twist: The Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Dalton looks at the role left-wing antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment is playing in this month’s French elections, as the country’s Jewish voters choose between far-left and far-right candidates. “What held [the far-right] National Rally back is the historical stigma that many French voters still attach to the party. The party was founded by Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie, who called the Nazi gas chambers a ‘detail’ of World War II history, and Pierre Bousquet, a former member of the French division of the Waffen-SS. Marine Le Pen has spent years distancing the party from its founders. Recently its leaders have been among the most outspoken defenders of Israel in French politics. Many French Jews say they wouldn’t hesitate to vote for her party if the alternative were a candidate from the leftist alliance. That sentiment has helped lift the stigma around her party.” [WSJ]
Academic Freedom: In Tablet, Rebecca Cypess explains why she chose to leave her administrator position at Rutgers University to join the leadership of Yeshiva University. “I am not running away from antisemitism, but rather running to embrace the Jewish educational principles that Yeshiva University embodies. Perhaps ironically, those principles — most important, free inquiry and respect for diverse opinions within constructive bounds — are more closely aligned with the ideals of higher education espoused by the Founders of the United States than the ones currently exhibited by public universities like Rutgers. … What would [George] Washington — an advocate of religious tolerance and a friend of the Jews — have thought of the Rutgers protester who glorified martyrdom through suicide attacks or of the students who called for the Israeli professor to be fired? Surely he, like Associate Justice [Louis] Brandeis, would have expected the university administration to answer such divisive, destructive language with words promoting goodwill and a quest for mutual understanding. Who has the responsibility to articulate the connection between education and the common good if not the leaders of universities?” [Tablet]
New World Order: In The Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch considers how the emergence of what he dubs an “Axis of Resistance” is affecting global structures and norms. “With the adoption of the Abraham Accords normalizing Israel’s relationship with several Arab countries, and with the accession of Sweden and Finland into NATO, the Liberal Alliance has forged tighter ties. In response, the Axis of Resistance has adopted a more offensive posture. … The Axis of Resistance does not have a unifying ideology, but it does have the shared goal of diminishing U.S. influence, especially in the Middle East and Eurasia, and rolling back liberal democracy. Instead of a NATO-like formal structure, it relies on loose coordination and opportunistic cooperation among its member states and its network of militias, proxies, and syndicates. Militarily, it cannot match the U.S. and NATO in a direct confrontation, so it instead seeks to exhaust and demoralize the U.S. and its allies by harrying them relentlessly, much as hyenas harry and exhaust a lion.” [TheAtlantic] | Be featured: Email us to inform the JI readership of your upcoming event, job opening, or other communication. | President Joe Biden has reportedly not contacted top Democrats on Capitol Hill since last week’s presidential debate…
Among those named to City & State NY’s Brooklyn Power 100 list of bigwigs in the borough: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) at the No. 3 spot; New York City Comptroller Brad Lander at No. 5; Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who was named to the No. 11 slot along with Reps. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) and Yvette Clarke (D-NY); the Met Council’s David Greenfield at No. 17; others on the list include: Assemblymembers Jo Anne Simon, Helene Weinstein and Simcha Eichenstein; State Sen. Simcha Felder; crisis communications consultant Risa Heller; JCRC-NY CEO Mark Treyger; New York City Councilmembers Inna Vernikov and Kalman Yeger; United Jewish Organization’s David Niederman; Teach NYS Executive Director Sydney Altfield; Crown Heights Jewish Community Council Executive Director Eli Cohen; and Amidei Zion of Bobov’s Joel Rosenfeld.
The Teach NY Coalition is setting its sights on next year’s New York City Council and mayoral elections, after the group’s successful effort to turn out voters in the Democratic primary in New York’s 16th Congressional District, where Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) was ousted by Westchester County Executive George Latimer…
Barry Diller’s IAC signed a non-disclosure agreement with Paramount parent company National Amusements, as Diller considers a bid to take a controlling stake in Paramount…
More than 170 Jewish headstones in two Cincinnati cemeteries were vandalized; some of the graves date back to the 1800s…
The New Yorker reviews Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new novel, Long Island Compromise, which comes out next week…
A Reform U.K. candidate running in the country’s elections this week is under fire for since-deleted tweets that invoked antisemitic stereotypes; Antony Antoniou said the tweets, which included numerous references to the Rothschild family and WWII, were automated from RSS feeds…
U.K. conservatives are facing pushback from the British Jewish community over reactions to Labour leader Keir Starmer’s recent comments that he has “protected time” with his family on Friday evenings; Starmer’s wife comes from a Jewish background…
The New York Times reports on the growing number of Palestinians in the West Bank who have switched their political allegiances from Fatah and the Palestinian Authority to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad…
Israel released 55 prisoners, including the head of Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital, Mohammed Abu Selmia, who had been detained since November, shortly after the IDF discovered tunnels underneath the hospital…
U.N. groups are beginning to move humanitarian aid that has piled up at the U.S.-constructed pier off the Gaza coast to warehouses in the enclave…
Israeli officials called for the evacuation of Palestinians in Khan Younis, a move that suggests the IDF is planning a major operation in the Gazan city…
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum will step down from the pulpit of Manhattan’s Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, which she has led for more than three decades…
Liora Argamani, whose daughter, Noa, was held hostage in Gaza until her rescue last month, died at 61… |  Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Members of various Jewish organizations participated in the NYC Pride March on Sunday in New York. |  Mike Pont/Getty Images Actress and internet personality, Barbara Dunkelman turns 35...
Director emerita of Hebrew studies at HUC-JIR, now on the board of trustees of Los Angeles Hebrew High School, Rivka Dori... Nobel laureate in medicine in 2004, he is a professor at Columbia University and a molecular biologist, Richard Axel turns 78... Co-creator of the "Seinfeld" television series and creator of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," comedian and producer, Larry David turns 77... Swedish author and screenwriter, she wrote a novel about Jewish children who escaped the Holocaust, Annika Thor turns 74... Former CEO of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, she also served as a State Department special envoy on antisemitism, Hannah Rosenthal turns 73... Montclair, N.J.-based philanthropic consultant, Aaron Issar Back, Ph.D.... Israeli Druze politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Kulanu and Kadima parties, Akram Hasson turns 65... Maryland state senator since 2015, Cheryl C. Kagan turns 63... Founder and head of business development of AQR Capital Management, David G. Kabiller turns 61... Member of the Knesset for the United Torah Judaism alliance, Ya'akov Asher turns 59... Chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, Peter E. Baker turns 57... Reading specialist at Wayne Thomas School in Highland Park, Ill., Stephanie Rubin... Co-founder, president and dean at Mechon Hadar in Manhattan, Shai Held, Ph.D. turns 53... Global industry editor for health and pharma at Thomson Reuters, Michele Gershberg... Music video and film director, Alma Har'el turns 49... Motivational speaker, media personality and co-founder H3 & Company, Charlie Harary turns 47... Author of fiction and non-fiction on a variety of Jewish topics, Elisa Albert turns 46... Israeli journalist, TV anchor and popular lecturer, Sivan Rahav-Meir turns 43... Member of Congress and chair of the House Republican Conference, Elise Stefanik (R-NY) turns 40... Actress, singer and producer, Ashley Tisdale turns 39...
BIRTHWEEK: Chief communications officer for Aleph Venture Capital, Erica Marom Chernofsky (was Sunday)… | | | | | |
