| | Good Friday morning. In today’s Daily Kickoff , we cover former President Donald Trump’s address to the Israeli American Council’s summit in D.C. and talk to Democratic senators supportive of this week’s pager and walkie-talkie attacks in Lebanon. We have the scoop on a letter from Rep. Mike Lawler raising concerns about a National Security Council official’s background and talk to Rep. Brad Schneider about his bid to lead the New Dems. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff : Microsoft’s Brad Smith, Columbia University’s Katrina Armstrong and David Rubenstein. 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: Pro-Israel stalwart Schneider vies for leadership role in key Democratic caucus; Inside the high-stakes, all-hands-on-deck hostage advocacy campaign in Washington; Is Jordan reaching its boiling point?; and FAA failing to respond to Rep. Molinaro’s inquiry over suspension of flights to Israel. Print the latest edition here. Spread the word! Invite your friends to sign up.👇 Share with a friend | - The Israeli American Council’s annual summit in Washington continues today. More below on the first day’s speeches and events.
- The exclusive confab The Weekend convenes in Aspen starting today.
- The U.N. General Assembly begins this weekend in New York. We’ll be covering the major speeches and sideline events. Are you going to UNGA? Drop us a line at editor@jewishinsider.com.
| With just 46 days left until the November election, former President Donald Trump spent last night in Washington, D.C., courting Jewish voters at two separate events backed by Dr. Miriam Adelson, eJewishPhilanthropy's Haley Cohen reports for Jewish Insider from Washington.
Trump’s doubleheader of Jewish outreach began at an early evening gathering for a select group of about 100 Jewish leaders and pro-Israel lawmakers at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill focused on fighting antisemitism. It was hosted by Yehuda Kaploun, an Orthodox businessman, and his business partner Ed Russo.
Attendees were given “Trump” kippot and signs that read “Donald Trump for President” in Yiddish transliteration. Trump spoke for about 45 minutes at the Capitol Hill event, and concluded the evening with a similar stump speech at the Israeli American Council’s national summit at the Washington Hilton, where approximately 3,000 pro-Israel supporters convened.
Trump ratcheted up his partisan rhetoric, warning of dire consequences for Israel if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected. "If we continue down our current path, with four more years of Kamala, Israel will be faced not just with an attack, but with total annihilation,” Trump said at the IAC event. “Total annihilation, that's what you're talking about. You have a big protector in me."
At the earlier event on Capitol Hill, Trump offered a similar warning: ”If I don't win. I believe Israel will be eradicated.” He added that, if he loses, "in my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss."
Trump also reiterated his desire for Israel to win the war against Hamas — but to “win it fast.” He said at the IAC event: “I will support Israel’s right to win its war on terror, and it has to win it fast. Will you please win it fast? Win it, but you have to win it fast if you can. And I will always defend Israel’s fundamental right to exist as a Jewish nation in the Jewish homeland.”
The biggest applause of the night came when Trump told the crowd that if elected, he would fight rising antisemitism on college campuses by informing “every college president that if they do not end antisemitic propaganda they will lose their accreditation… I would inform every educational institution in our land that if they permit violence, harassment or threats against Jewish students, the schools will be held accountable for violations of the civil rights law.”
Trump said he would also “move swiftly to repair safety for Jewish people on American streets. Jews have been beaten on their way to synagogue just recently.”
At the IAC event, Trump called to the stage rescued hostage Andrei Kozlov to loud applause: “He’s got more courage than I have,” Trump said.
“We’re going to get them out, they’re going to come out,” Trump said of the 101 hostages that still remain in Hamas captivity.
Spotted at the Capitol Hill gathering: Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Rick Scott (R-FL) and Joni Ernst (R-IA), and Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Virginia Foxx (R-NC). Also in attendance were dozens of Jewish leaders, including Nathan Diament, executive director of public policy for the Orthodox Union, and campus activist Shabbos Kestenbaum, who recently endorsed Trump’s campaign. | pager positions Democratic senators support Israel’s pager attack against Hezbollah, amid AOC criticism  ANWAR AMRO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Many Democratic senators — progressives and moderates alike — are declaring support for the audacious operation against Hezbollah that detonated thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by its operatives in Lebanon while limiting civilian casualties, amid criticism from left-wing lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) who harshly criticized Israel for the operation. A number of Democratic senators who have criticized Israel's handling of the war in Gaza nonetheless offered praise for the stunning, targeted attacks against Hezbollah. Israel has not claimed responsibility for this week’s attacks in Lebanon, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Point of precision: “For those of us who care about regional stability we have to manage the risk of escalation, but for those of us who have been critical of the conduct of the war in terms of [there being] too high of a tolerance for civilian casualties, we should be a little cautious to criticize an operation this precise,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), a progressive Democrat who has criticized Israel’s prosecution of its war against Hamas, told JI on Thursday.
Read the full story here for additional comments from Sens. Richard Blumenthal (CT), John Fetterman (PA), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Mark Kelly (AZ), Raphael Warnock (GA), Chris Coons (DE) and Peter Welch (VT). scoop Lawler accuses NSC official, Maher Bitar, of ‘clear bias against and disregard for Israel’  DAVID DEE DELGADO/GETTY IMAGES Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), in a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, alleged that Maher Bitar, a senior official inside the National Security Council, has shown “a clear bias against and disregard for Israel,” Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The NSC hit back hard against Lawler’s allegations, defending Bitar and his record.
Who he is: Bitar is currently the deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for intelligence and defense policy at the NSC. Lawler’s letter also cites reports that Bitar is in consideration to be the director of national intelligence in a potential Harris administration, though the source of those rumors, first published in Puck, is not clear and JI was unable to independently confirm them. National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett blasted Lawler and the letter, saying “This letter is a shameful and outrageous attempt to smear a patriotic American and dedicated public servant who has served our country for nearly two decades.”
Read the full story here. mixed messaging New Republican super PAC airing contradictory ads about Harris’ Israel record  ANDREW HARNIK/GETTY IMAGES A new super PAC with ties to Republicans is sending contradictory messages in ads about Vice President Kamala Harris and her record on Israel — in what critics from both parties have described as a cynically motivated effort to independently target key voting blocs. On one hand, the recently created group, Future Coalition PAC, has been running digital ads touting Harris as a stalwart supporter of Israel amid its war with Hamas. The spots, which are airing in heavily Arab and Muslim communities in Michigan, seem designed to sway voters in the battleground state who have expressed anger with the Biden-Harris administration over its approach to the conflict in Gaza, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Opposite ads: Meanwhile, the super PAC, which has not yet publicly disclosed its donors, released a new slate of ads on Wednesday that invoke the opposite message — accusing Harris of “pandering to Palestine” while calling on her to “stand with our ally Israel.” The videos are running in Pennsylvania, another crucial battleground home to a sizable population of Jewish voters who could help swing the election, according to Facebook’s ad library.
Read the full story here. brad's bet Pro-Israel stalwart Schneider vies for leadership role in key Democratic caucus  Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), among the most prominent Jewish and pro-Israel leaders on the Democratic side of the House, is now vying for the chairmanship of the New Democrat Coalition, one of the largest caucuses on the Democratic side of the aisle, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. He’s running against Rep. Sharice Davids (D-KS).
Value of moderation: The group, colloquially known as the New Dems, includes 99 House Democrats, nearly half of the caucus and casts itself as a voice for moderation, pragmatism and bipartisanship in the Democratic caucus, a mission Schneider said is important to him. “Moderate is a style of getting things done, it’s not a position,” Schneider said, emphasizing the importance of the caucus’s “commitment to getting things done” by working across divides within the Democratic caucus and across the aisle.
Read the full story here. exclusive Lawmakers press U.K. to designate IRGC as a terrorist group  Christopher Furlong/Getty Images A bipartisan group of 17 lawmakers wrote to U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Wednesday, renewing a call for the U.K. to fully designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Call to action: The U.K. and other U.S. allies’ failures to fully proscribe the IRGC has been an ongoing source of frustration for officials on Capitol Hill — lawmakers sent a similar letter to former U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in March 2023, alongside letters to other U.S. allies. The Labour government, of which Lammy is a part, took power in July. “We welcome reports that your government is actively exploring options to proscribe the group,” lawmakers wrote in the new letter. “We urge your government to act expeditiously to make an IRGC proscription a reality.”
Read the full story here. problematic posts Republican candidate’s antisemitic social media costing the party in Washington state swing seat  Carrie Kennedy/Facebook A candidate for the Washington Statehouse in a highly contested purple district posted an antisemitic image and compared COVID-19 protocols to Nazi Germany, part of a series of bizarre and extreme posts on social media, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Antisemitic meme: In March, Carrie Kennedy, the GOP nominee in Washington’s 10th House District, shared an image on Facebook that features figures with the labels “Rothschild,” “J.P. Morgan,” “Goldman Sachs,” “Federal Reserve,” “Bank of England,” “[Janet] Yellen,” “[Ben] Bernanke” and “[Alan] Greenspan,” each name alongside a Star of David. Another graphic in the meme reads “SS Int Jewry.”
Read the full story here. | Pressure Point: In The Hill, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Behnam Ben Taleblu argues that Iran is benefitting from U.S. pressure on Israel to minimize tensions with Iranian proxies across the region. “Politically, the Islamic Republic is benefiting from a contradiction at the heart of how the Biden administration sees the Middle East. Since Oct. 7, U.S. officials have stressed that Washington seeks both ‘de-escalation’ and ‘deterrence.’ But conceptually, to bolster deterrence, a willingness to escalate must be perceived. Conversely, to foster de-escalation, one might inadvertently create conditions in the mind of the adversary that erode deterrence. By preying on America’s fears of a wider war in the Middle East, Tehran hopes that when push comes to shove, de-escalation will be prioritized over deterrence. Tehran aims to enlist Washington and the broader West in its bid to foil Jerusalem’s war aims, one of which is to destroy Hamas.” [TheHill]
End Game: The Free Press’ Eli Lake suggests that covert Israeli operations do not ultimately benefit the country’s long-term strategic goals. “This failure of Israeli covert action to improve its strategic standing in the Middle East is perhaps best demonstrated by its recent killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. At the end of July, Haniyeh lost his life in an explosion at the guest house where he was staying during the inauguration of Iran’s new president. Not only did Israel’s agents reportedly manage to sneak a bomb inside a guest house in the capital city of their mortal enemy, but after Iran vowed revenge, to this day it has yet to follow through on its threat. That sounds like an unbelievable success. But there’s a catch. Because of Iran’s mere threat of retaliation, most commercial airlines have stopped their flights to Israel, further isolating a country maligned for fighting a war in Gaza started by Iran’s proxy, Hamas. Indeed, after the pager explosions, Air France and Lufthansa have canceled flights to Tel Aviv, fearing Hezbollah’s retaliation.” [FreePress]
Hezbollah’s Reach: The Washington Post’s Susannah George and Suzan Haidamous look at the extent to which Hezbollah is entrenched in Lebanese society. “Nearly every mourner approached by The Washington Post said they knew someone who died or was injured in the explosions. Ali, an airport worker who only gave his first name for fear of speaking without Hezbollah’s permission, recalled the blasts on Tuesday happening all at once, and seeming to come from all directions. He said on his street alone, four people were injured, including a fruit seller. ‘They were just civilians,’ he said. Asked why they were carrying pagers that were distributed by Hezbollah, he replied: ‘In this area, everyone is part of the resistance.’” [WashPost] | Be featured: Email us to inform the JI readership of your upcoming event, job opening, or other communication. | Israel hit more than 100 Hezbollah rocket launchers in southern Lebanon in a series of overnight strikes...
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed a response to this week’s attacks on Hezbollah members in Lebanon, calling the operation an “act of war”...
Hamas reportedly rejected an Israeli offer that would see all the remaining hostages released in exchange for an end to the war and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s safe passage out of Gaza…
Biden administration officials are privately acknowledging that it is unlikely that a cease-fire and hostage-release deal will be reached before the end of President Joe Biden’s term…
The Uncommitted National Movement, which called for casting ballots for “Uncommitted” instead of President Joe Biden in primaries across the country, is withholding its endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris; the group also urged voters against voting for third party candidates or former President Donald Trump…
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was revealed by CNN to have made dozens of inflammatory comments on an online pornography forum; among them, Robinson referred to himself as a “black NAZI”...
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced a bill to establish a national park honoring philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, which would be the first national park dedicated to honoring a Jewish American…
Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and Young Kim (R-CA) urged the administration to "more effectively [enforce]" existing oil sanctions on Iran…
Sixteen House Democrats voted with every Republican in favor of legislation that would codify regulations allowing products produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be labeled as made in Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
The chairs of the House Energy and Commerce and Education and the Workforce committees threatened to subpoena the Department of Health and Human Services, accusing it of failing to respond to an inquiry about how it is vetting grant recipients, especially universities, to ensure that they are now permitting antisemitic harassment and discrimination…
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Jim Risch (R-ID) and Reps. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) called on the administration to "swiftly implement" the Iran sanctions passed by Congress in the MAHSA and SHIP Acts earlier this year. They said the administration has failed to meet requirements set out under that law for imposing sanctions and developing a strategy to counter Chinese evasion of Iran oil sanctions…
Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN) and 62 other progressive Democrats introduced a bill to restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency…
The Wall Street Journal interviewed Baltimore Orioles owner David Rubenstein about his decision to purchase the team earlier this year…
Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, warned of “real and serious” threats by foreign actors around the upcoming presidential election; Smith suggested that the race has “become an election of Iran versus [former President Donald] Trump and Russia versus [Vice President Kamala] Harris”...
Columbia University interim President Katrina Armstrong issued an apology to community members who were “hurt” by the NYPD’s campus presence and disassembly of the school’s encampment…
Qatar Airways announced that passengers will not be allowed to bring pagers or walkie-talkies onto flights departing from Beirut, days after thousands of communications devices belonging to operatives of Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon…
Dermatologist and artist Dr. Mark Podwal, who specialized in cartoons and paintings about the Holocaust and Jewish topics, died at 79… | Ishay Ribo’s song “Ein Li Milvadcha,” which translates to "I Have Nothing but You" from his new album "Sof Chama Lavo." |  Stephanie Keith/Getty Images Senior chairman of Goldman Sachs since 2019, prior to which he served as Goldman's CEO for 13 years, Lloyd Blankfein turns 70...
FRIDAY: Florida real estate developer of Aventura and Turnberry Isle Resort, Donald Soffer turns 92... Author, theater producer, television personality and philanthropist, Candy Spelling turns 79... Wealth management advisor, he won four Super Bowls with the Steelers during his eight-year career as a tight end, C. Randy Grossman turns 72... Dean of the Yeshiva of Greater Washington, Rabbi Ahron Lopiansky turns 71... Co-founder and board chair of Broadcom and owner of the NHL's Anaheim Ducks, Henry Samueli turns 70... Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel since 2017, Yosef Elron turns 69... Insurance agent in Tulsa, Okla., Lawrence M. Schreier... Real estate developer, sports agent and boxing promoter, Marc Roberts turns 65... Former rabbi of Congregation Beit Torat Chaim of Jakarta, Indonesia, Rabbi Tovia Singer turns 64... Emergency medicine physician in Austin, he was the goalkeeper for the U.S. field hockey team at the 1984 Summer Olympics, Randolph B. "Randy" Lipscher turns 64... Civil rights attorney, author and legal analyst on “The Today Show,” “NBC Nightly News” and MSNBC, Lisa Bloom turns 63... SVP of marketing and communications at BBYO, Deborah Gavin Shemony... Former member of the Knesset for the Likud party, Keren Barak turns 52... Founder of PFAP Consulting and COO of PizzaIDF, Melissa Jane Kronfeld, Ph.D.... Republican policy director at the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, James Mazol... Deputy news team lead at Bloomberg Law, Drew Singer... Senior associate at Blue Laurel Advisors in Israel, Emily Grunewald... Climate activist in Oakland, Calif., Carter Lavin... Senior director of strategic initiatives at Sony Music Entertainment, Alison Bogdonoff... Director of brand and community marketing at Sakara Life, Zoe Plotsky Rosen... Manhattan resident, Isabel Eliana Tsesarsky... Lauren Ackerman...
SATURDAY: One of the highest-grossing Hollywood box office producers of all time, plus the producer of many commercially successful TV shows, Jerry Bruckheimer turns 81... Chairman of the board of JDC, The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Mark B. Sisisky turns 74... Chair of the board of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, Cheryl Fishbein... Professor at Harvard Law School, Cass Sunstein turns 70... and his wife, with whom he shares a birthday, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Samantha Power turns 54... Member of the Knesset for the Likud party, he serves as Israel's foreign minister, Yisrael Katz turns 69... Chair of the board of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at American Jewish University, Debbi Kaner Goldich... Owner of Total Wine & More, the largest alcohol retailer in the U.S., he is a member of the House of Representatives (D-MD), David Trone turns 69... Professor of political science at Tel Aviv University and professor emeritus at Georgetown, Yossi Shain turns 68... One-half the renowned film-making team of the Coen Brothers, Ethan Jesse Coen turns 67... Attorney, author of nine books and Fox News weekly host, Mark R. Levin turns 67... Retired managing director of equity trading at Goldman Sachs, Andrew Berman... Co-founder of the private investment firm Centerbridge Partners, he is a former board chair of Johns Hopkins University, Jeffrey Aronson turns 66... Russian businessman who fell out of favor with President Putin, now living in Israel, Leonid Nevzlin turns 65... Co-founder of Wisdom Without Walls, she is the author of a series of courses for the Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning, Sandra Lilienthal... Director of the board of Jewish Education of Metropolitan Chicago, Alissa C. Zuchman, Ph.D.... Janet Bunting... Senior partner at polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, Anna Greenberg, Ph.D.... Emmy Award-winning talk show host, actress and producer, Ricki Lake turns 56... Guitarist and music producer in Israel, Nachman Fahrner turns 52... Managing editor of the New York Jewish Week, Lisa Keys... Member of the Maryland House of Delegates, Marc Alan Korman turns 43... Associate professor of radiology at Duke, he is an Olympic gold medalist in swimming, Dr. Benjamin M. Wildman-Tobriner turns 40... Former program director for strategic engagement at B'nai B'rith International, now at Meridian International Center, Sienna Girgenti... COO of TAMID Group, Nathan Gilson... Lecturer in expository writing at UMass Boston, Mia Appelbaum... Member of the Michigan House of Representatives, Noah Jeremy Arbit turns 29... Global director of communications at Gallagher Bassett, Scott Frankel...
SUNDAY: Brooklyn resident, Jay Kanter... Former president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles for 16 years, now a consultant at the LA-based Diane and Guilford Glazer Philanthropies, John Fishel... Professor of journalism at Columbia University and a former reporter for The New York Times, Ari L. Goldman turns 75... Former publisher of The New York Times, Arthur Ochs "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. turns 73... Senior political analyst at CNN, Gloria Borger turns 72... Clarinetist who performs klezmer, jazz, classical music and avant-garde improvisation, David Krakauer turns 68... Former U.S. ambassador to Romania, Adrian Zuckerman turns 68... Nobel Prize laureate in 2011, astrophysicist and professor of physics at UC-Berkeley, Saul Perlmutter turns 65... President of Israel, Isaac "Bougie" Herzog turns 64... Director of development at the Los Angeles Conservancy, Elizabeth "Liz" Leshin... Editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg turns 59... Former member of the Knesset for Likud, Osnat Hila Mark turns 57... Senior writer for the Jewish Federations of North America, he is the author of Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli, Ted Merwin... Founder and CEO of Terravet Real Estate Solutions, Daniel Eisenstadt... Founder and CEO at P3 Media, he has won three Emmys, a Peabody Award and a Polk Award, Adam Ciralsky turns 53... Arlington, Va., resident, Karen Elyse Simpson... Writer-at-large for The New York Times, she is the author of Chasing Hillary, Amy Chozick turns 46... Actress best known for her role as Quinn Perkins in the ABC political drama series “Scandal,” Katie Lowes turns 42... Hungarian politician who once served as a member of the European Parliament, Csanád Szegedi turns 42... Founder of Henry PR, Bryan Leib... Community ambassador of Tablet magazine and host of its "Unorthodox" podcast, Stephanie Taylor Butnick... VP at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, Baruch Yehudah Shemtov turns 37... Partner at Winning Tuesday, Jared Sichel... Associate director for combating antisemitism at AJC Global, Alyssa Weiner Sandler... Co-founder of Leman Mercer, Kyle Price... | | | | | |
