| | Good Friday morning. In today’s Daily Kickoff , we report on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s efforts to add the Antisemitism Awareness Act to the NDAA and highlight a Senate Democrats’ proposal to maintain the current funding level for 2025 nonprofit security grants. We talk to GOP senators about former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination to be director of national intelligence and cover Elon Musk’s meeting earlier this week with Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff : Gov. Doug Burgum, David Chalian and Rep. Ritchie Torres. 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: What to watch for in a second Trump administration, At JFNA General Assembly, organizations try to map a path forward at an inflection point and Saudi-Israel normalization appears more distant with a skeptic in Israel’s Foreign Ministry, MBS’ ‘genocide’ accusations. Print the latest edition here. Spread the word! Invite your friends to sign up.👇 Share with a friend | - The Jewish National Fund Global Conference is in full swing today in Dallas. Rabbi David Wolpe will deliver this afternoon’s keynote address on “the future of American Jewry.” (If you’re at the summit tomorrow, catch Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen in a panel on “Israel and the media.”)
- The Conservative Political Action Alliance (CPAC) is holding its forum at Mar-a-Lago this weekend. Argentinian President Javier Milei spoke at the event last night.
- The Sir Bani Yas International Forum on Peace and Security is taking place this weekend in Abu Dhabi. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is among the foreign diplomats reportedly in attendance.
| Since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to power in 2022, there’s been ongoing tensions between the Biden administration and Jerusalem — most prominently over Israel's prosecution of the war against Hamas in Gaza.
But in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s decisive electoral victory last week, Israel, the broader Middle East and American Jews will soon be dealing with a new administration with vastly different priorities, Jewish Insider’s Executive Editor Melissa Weiss writes.
The changes are not just taking place in the U.S., but also in Israel, where hours before Trump’s victory, Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, replacing him with Foreign Minister Israel Katz, a longtime Netanyahu ally who is unlikely to challenge key issues on the prime minister’s agenda, as Gallant did. Days later, Netanyahu announced Yechiel Leiter, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Eli and has ties to numerous right-wing Israeli institutions, as his new envoy to Washington, replacing Amb. Mike Herzog.
The appointment of Katz, who was discharged from the military in 1977, to lead Israel’s wartime defense ministry comes as Netanyahu looks to wind down the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, amid reports that Israel is aiming to reach a cease-fire before Trump takes office in January.
Trump had said repeatedly on the campaign trail that he wanted to end the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, adopting a foreign policy that aligns with the MAGA wing of the Republican Party. But it remains unclear whether Netanyahu, who has vowed “total victory” in Gaza since the onset of the war last October, will face constraints as a result of Trump’s desires to wind down the two biggest military conflicts of the moment.
Indications of warm ties between the incoming Trump administration and the Netanyahu government are already on display: Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer was in Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump on Sunday, and Trump’s selection of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to be the U.S.’ top diplomat in Israel was met with praise from Israeli coalition members. And according to Israeli Channel 12’s Amit Segal, Trump told an Israeli official that he will cancel any restrictions and delays on arms transfers to Israel.
Jewish communal concerns — focused in large part, but not exclusively, on U.S.-Israel relations since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks last year — are likely to shift with Trump’s selections of former Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) to serve as attorney general and director of national intelligence, respectively.
Will Gaetz, if confirmed, follow the lead of the Biden administration’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, whose Justice Department worked closely with Jewish communities after Oct. 7 on security-related issues and the enforcement of hate crimes legislation? The former Florida congressman had on more than one occasion raised concerns among Jewish communal leaders: his guest to the 2018 State of the Union was a conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier, and earlier this year, Gaetz voted against the House version of the Antisemitism Awareness Act, calling the legislation a “ridiculous hate speech bill” in a since-deleted tweet.
The nomination of Gaetz, which raised eyebrows among Senate Republicans as well as his former House colleagues, was opposed by both the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, two organizations that rarely weigh in on presidential nominations.
Trump’s nomination of Gabbard drew attention for, among other things, the former congresswoman’s defense of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who used chemical weapons against civilians during the country’s decade-long civil war, and her condemnation of the Trump administration's killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020.
Jewish leaders have not come out in force against Gabbard’s nomination the way they have for Gaetz. One official at a pro-Israel group told us this week, “Tulsi is a few marbles short of a full set but we are hopeful the marbles she has are blue and white in support of Israel.”
The small shift among Jewish voters toward Trump indicated that there were some reservations about how a Harris White House would handle issues that matter to the Jewish community: security funding, campus antisemitism and the U.S.-Israel relationship.
But while some concerns — such as worries about fraying ties between Jerusalem and Washington — have abated with Trump’s victory, the selections of Gaetz and Gabbard are set to deepen concerns that the politicization of national institutions could hinder the U.S.’ ability to fight terrorism and threats to both Israel and the American Jewish community. | scoop Schumer moves to add Antisemitism Awareness Act to 2025 defense bill  KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) proposed incorporating the Antisemitism Awareness Act into the National Defense Authorization Act as part of negotiations with top congressional leaders, potentially putting the bill on a fast-track to passage, his office told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod on Thursday.
Stepping on the gas: Senate lawmakers have been discussing the possibility of holding an amendment vote to add the antisemitism bill, which has been stalled in the Senate for months after passing the House, to the National Defense Authorization Act. But Schumer’s move in closed-door talks with the top congressional leadership — known as the four corners — could accelerate that process. If his proposal is approved by the House speaker and the Senate and House minority leaders, the Antisemitism Awareness Act would become part of the must-pass defense and national security policy bill and nearly assured to become law.
Read the full story here. confirmation questions Gabbard draws deference from several GOP hawks despite antiwar record  ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination to be director of national intelligence was met with mixed reactions from Republicans on Capitol Hill, though no Republicans who spoke to Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs on Thursday suggested plans to oppose her nomination. Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who switched parties last month while campaigning for President-elect Donald Trump, has adopted unorthodox foreign policy positions during her political career. In 2017, she met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus after he had committed atrocities against his own people. In 2020, Gabbard criticized Trump for launching the military strike that killed Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani. And in 2022, she blamed NATO and the U.S. for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Mixed reception: Some Republicans said they wanted to dig into those views during Gabbard’s confirmation process. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) argued that “speculation” about the former congresswoman’s positions demonstrated the need for a full Senate confirmation process. Meanwhile, other hawkish Senate Republicans appeared enthusiastic about the nomination. “I like her,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said, noting they had been in the same Army Reserve unit at one point. “We have different foreign policy positions at times, but I’m going to do with Trump what I did with everybody: let you pick your people, defer to your choice unless it’s too far.”
Read the full story here with additional comments from Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), Ted Budd (R-NC), Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Josh Hawley (R-MO) and John Fetterman (D-PA). freelance diplomacy Elon Musk meeting with Iranian ambassador alarms national security experts  MANDEL NGANBRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images National security experts are raising alarms that Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who is a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations earlier this week, warning that the discussion risks placating a belligerent and unreliable sponsor of terrorism, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. Musk, who has emerged as one of Trump’s top advisers in recent weeks, met with the Iranian ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, for a previously undisclosed conversation in New York on Monday, according to a New York Times report published on Thursday, which cited anonymous Iranian officials who described a “positive” meeting with the world’s richest person.
‘Own goal’: “If true, this would be an own goal of strategic proportions,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank who specializes in Iran, told JI on Thursday evening. “Despite campaigning long and hard for Trump, Musk would have just met with a representative of the regime that was trying to kill the 45th and soon to be 47th president of the United States.”
Read the full story here. education consternation Senate Republicans question Department of Education Middle East studies grants  COLIN MYERS/CLAFLIN UNIVERSITY/HBCU VIA GETTY IMAGES Two Senate Republicans wrote to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona on Thursday, raising concerns about federal funding for Middle East studies allegedly provided to anti-Israel professors on college campuses, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The letter, from Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), focused on National Resource Centers and Foreign Language Area Studies grants provided by the Department of Education. A recent report by a nonprofit group that scrutinizes government spending alleged that $22.1 million of those funds have gone toward Middle East studies programs and, specifically, to professors with strident anti-Israel views.
What they said: “The Biden-Harris administration should not channel American taxpayer dollars toward extremist professors who inculcate their students with hatred of America’s strongest ally — and sole democracy — in the Middle East,” the senators wrote. “This potential abuse of taxpayer funds is not just wasteful but may run contrary to the intent of the programs and the law.”
Read the full story here. money matters Senate Democrats propose $305 million for 2025 nonprofit security grants  MARCO BELLO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES In a draft bill released on Wednesday evening, Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee proposed providing $305 million for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in 2025, the same amount that was provided in 2023, before a surge of antisemitic incidents across the country in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Lawmakers and Jewish groups have said that substantially more funding is needed for the program that funds security improvements at nonprofits and religious institutions given the accelerated pace of threats and the chronic and significant budget shortages.
Time lapse: The Senate’s proposed Homeland Security funding bill comes months after the Senate Appropriations Committee released and voted to advance funding bills for the rest of the federal government, which were negotiated on a bipartisan basis. But talks over the Homeland Security package had dragged on, primarily focusing on border security issues. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the vice chair of the Appropriations Committee, blasted the bill as a partisan Democratic measure. “Senate Democratic leadership’s decision to forego bringing bills to the Senate floor and leave committee-reported bills languishing on the calendar is unacceptable,” Collins said in a statement.
Read the full story here. settler sanctions Nearly 90 congressional Democrats call for sanctions on Smotritch and Ben Gvir  GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGE A group of 88 Senate and House Democrats, including some key Democratic leaders, called on President Joe Biden to sanction Israeli Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The lawmakers' letter calling for the aggressive move against the Israeli officials was sent at the end of October, but was not released publicly until Thursday, after the Biden administration declined to withhold additional weaponry from Israel, as some progressive Democrats had demanded, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
What they said: “Violent settlers, fueled by the inflammatory rhetoric and incitement to violence by members of the Israeli cabinet, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and empowered by extremist organizations like Regavim and Amana, have carried out over 1,270 recorded attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, averaging more than three violent attacks per day,” the lawmakers said. “With radical officials in the Netanyahu government continuing to enable settler violence and enact annexationist policies, it is clear that further sanctions are urgently needed.”
Read the full story here. | Survey Says: Tablet’s Armin Rosen assesses a flurry of recent polls about Jewish support for the 2024 presidential candidates that resulted in varying, and often differing, conclusions. “Based on Tablet’s own comparison of precinct-level numbers from the 2020 and 2024 election, Donald Trump did improve his performance in a range of Jewish neighborhoods across America. From the yeshivas of Lakewood, New Jersey, to the bagel shops of New York’s Upper West Side; from Persian Los Angeles to Venezuelan Miami; from the Detroit suburbs to the Chabadnik shchuna in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights, Jewish areas voted in higher percentages for the Republican candidate than they did in 2020, which in turn was better for Republicans than 2016. The oft-cited exit poll pushed by CNN, NBC and others asserting that the Jewish vote went 79% to Harris did not include New York, New Jersey and California, which have some of the largest Jewish populations in the country. Claims that the numbers are holding steady for Democrats become more difficult to sustain after a close look at vote totals in the places where Jews actually live.” [Tablet]
Talking Trump: Bloomberg’s Ethan Bronner looks at how President-elect Donald Trump’s push for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to wind down wars in Lebanon and Gaza could affect relations between Netanyahu and far-right elements of his coalition. “Could Trump give Netanyahu an excuse to restrain coalition partners to his far right? Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, thinks so. Netanyahu, he wrote in a recent op-ed, ‘will be able to say to them, “The president twisted our arm.”’ That could factor into a deal involving Saudi Arabia, which seeks a defense pact with the US and wants, in exchange for establishing relations with Israel, to see a path to a Palestinian state. And that, Oren says, may be a price Netanyahu accepts and which he could again blame on Trump. If so, it could draw on a plan from the first Trump administration in which Israel annexes 30% of the West Bank and grants the remainder to the Palestinians for a rump, demilitarized state — a plan fiercely rejected by the Palestinians, who may find they have little power to influence negotiations.” [Bloomberg]
Drawing Parallels: Israel Policy Forum’s Michael Koplow compares last week’s attacks against Israelis in Amsterdam to recent settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. “Jews getting stalked and ambushed at their hotels and beaten up by roving mobs in a European country because they are Jewish or citizens of the Jewish state, while passersby walk along averting their eyes and the police are nowhere to be found, is a pogrom. … Now that we agree that pogroms are bad, let’s revisit the subject from a different angle. A mob hunting members of a disfavored, unpopular minority group in the streets, beating them and destroying their property. Victims cowering behind locked doors, afraid to leave the places they have holed up in. … If this seems familiar in a way that extends beyond last week, it is because it does not only describe what Israelis faced in Amsterdam. It also describes what Palestinians face time and time again in the West Bank, but unlike Amsterdam, it is not a one-off but an ongoing nightmare, and one from which Palestinians have no escape and no recourse.” [IPF]
Confirmation concerns: The Washington Post’s David Ignatius raises concerns about the selections of former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth to the incoming Trump administration’s national security team. “Trump started off with reasonable enough nominees for his national security team. Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Michael Waltz, both of Florida, are solid choices for secretary of state and national security adviser. Both have worked with Democrats on defense and intelligence issues, and neither would send America’s allies and partners rushing for the exits. … Trump doesn’t want war — except, perhaps, when it comes to China and Iran. Most of his appointees, the good, bad and ugly, have hawkish views about Beijing and Tehran. Those countries are in the firing line. But tragically, so are U.S. military and intelligence officers. That can’t be what voters wanted on Nov. 5. It’s up to the Senate to prevent it by denying confirmation of Hegseth and Gabbard.” [WashPost]
Campus Considerations: The Atlantic’s David Brooks considers how the concept of meritocracy in education has shaped — and damaged — American society. “If you control the choke points of social mobility, then you control the nation’s culture. And if you change the criteria for admission at places such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, then you change the nation’s social ideal. When universities like Harvard shifted their definition of ability, large segments of society adjusted to meet that definition. The effect was transformative, as though someone had turned on a powerful magnet and filaments across wide swaths of the culture suddenly snapped to attention in the same direction. … The challenge is not to end the meritocracy; it’s to humanize and improve it. A number of recent developments make this even more urgent — while perhaps also making the present moment politically ripe for broad reform.” [TheAtlantic] | The Ramah that started it all. Camp Ramah in Wisconsin is looking for a new Director of Operations.
Be featured: Email us to inform the JI readership of your upcoming event, job opening, or other communication. | Iran signaled to the U.S. last month that it was not trying to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump in response to a September warning from Washington over Tehran’s efforts to target Trump…
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Thousands of people opposed to Lithuania’s ruling Social Democrat party joining with a party whose leader is on trial for making antisemitic comments protested outside of parliament in Vilnius…
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David Chalian, longtime political director at CNN, was promoted to be the network’s senior vice president and Washington bureau chief… |  Donni Kraines Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) stopped by Char Bar in Washington, D.C., on Thursday night to present the owners with a congressional proclamation condemning the vandalism attack on the establishment over the weekend, in which the kosher restaurant’s windows were smashed. The event was organized by Agudath Israel of America. “America stands in solidarity with the Char Bar, which, as the only kosher restaurant in DC, was the target of antisemitic vandalism right on the eve of the 86th Anniversary of Kristallnacht,” the proclamation reads. |  DREW ANGERER/AFP via Getty Images Original creator and producer of “Saturday Night Live,” more recently producer of “The Tonight Show,” Lorne Michaels (born Lorne Lipowitz) turns 80 on Sunday...
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SUNDAY: Rabbi of Agudath Israel of Baltimore, he is also the rabbinic administrator of the Star K Kosher Supervision service, Rabbi Moshe Heinemann turns 87... Detroit philanthropist and director of the William Davidson Foundation, Karen Davidson... Editor-at-large for Washingtonian Magazine and author of a biography of Bernie Sanders, Harry Jaffe... Film and television director, writer and producer, Jon Avnet turns 75... Founder and principal of ourCovenant, Diana Aviv... Operations manager at NPC Global, Daniel Gastaldi... Author and journalist, Gary M. Pomerantz turns 64... Attorney and business executive who once played on the South African national teams in both cricket and field hockey, Mandy Yachad turns 64... U.S. senator (R-PA) until 2023, Pat Toomey turns 63... Director of the Domestic Policy Council for the first 28 months of the Biden administration, Ambassador Susan Rice turns 60... "The Travelling Rabbi" of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies who serves 11 sub-Saharan countries, Moshe Silberhaft turns 57... U.S. ambassador to Switzerland during the Obama administration, Suzan Gail Davidson (Suzi) LeVine turns 55... Executive editor and Washington bureau chief of Talking Points Memo, David Kurtz turns 55... Segment producer at HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” Michele Tasoff... Partner in Seven Letter, Ralph Posner... Human resilience coach, Michael Ostrolenk... President of Stanford University, Jonathan David Levin turns 52... Former President of NBC News, Noah Oppenheim turns 46... CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, she previously served as national security advisor to then senator, now VPOTUS, Kamala Harris, Halie Soifer... Partner at Thematic Campaigns f/k/a AKPD Message and Media, Isaac Baker... MLB player for 14 seasons, NL Rookie of the Year, five-time NL All-Star and NL MVP in 2011, Ryan Braun turns 41... NFL fullback for six seasons with the Bucs and Saints, Erik Lorig turns 38... U.S. foreign affairs and defense correspondent for the Financial Times, Felicia Schwartz... Mortgage lender at Baltimore-based River Holdings, Zecharya “Zack” Teichman... Director of the Israel Summit at Harvard, Aidan Golub... | | | | | |
