| | Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt about her time as special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, and interview Shelley Berkley about her career in government service ahead of her swearing-in as mayor of Las Vegas. We also look at Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s plans to approach rising antisemitism as she mounts a bid for governor in New Jersey. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Charles Kushner, Patrick Collison and Ambassador Rahm Emanuel.
Spread the word! Invite your friends to sign up.👇 Share with a friend | - Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is in the U.S. this week for meetings with Biden administration officials as well as advisors from the incoming Trump administration in Washington and Florida.
- Former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is also in the U.S. this week. Over the weekend, Gallant visited Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, during the group’s annual Kinus Hashluchim conference of emissaries.
- In Washington, the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates is holding its National Day celebration.
- French President Emmanuel Macron is in Saudi Arabia for a two-day state visit that will largely focus on arms sales and the ongoing conflicts in the region.
- We’re also keeping an eye on renewed hostage talks, following last week’s cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah and a meeting last night of Israel’s security cabinet during which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel had resumed conversations with international mediators to agree on a new framework for negotiations. This morning, the IDF announced that it determined that Israeli-American hostage Omer Neutra had been killed on Oct. 7 and his body brought to Gaza, where it remains. Meanwhile, Hamas released a new video of another Israeli-American hostage, Eden Alexander, on Saturday.
| For more than a decade, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ruled his country with an iron grip as his troops engaged in a bloody civil war that saw hundreds of thousands killed and millions displaced, Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss writes.
Assad has long enjoyed the protection of Moscow and Tehran, in addition to Iranian proxy Hezbollah next door in Lebanon. Buttressed by those allies, Assad’s forces were largely able to operate with impunity as they cracked down on broad swaths of the Syrian population.
But Iran and Russia have been mired in their own conflicts — Iran with Israel, which destroyed the Islamic Republic’s aerial-defense systems in addition to military sites, and Russia with Ukraine, which recently began to deploy American-made long-range missiles against President Vladimir Putin’s army.
Iran has already thrown its support behind Assad — Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi traveled to Damascus to meet with Assad over the weekend — but is limited by the extent to which it can provide tangible support to the Assad regime following Israel’s blows to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Tehran’s proxies.
Israel’s systematic decapitation of Hezbollah — including the killings of its top leadership and handicapping of thousands of operatives through coordinated sophisticated pager and walkie-talkie explosions — crippled the Iran-backed terror group’s ability to provide support for the Assad regime in Syria. Israeli defense officials told JI over the weekend that the blows dealt to Hezbollah in recent months were major factors in the rebels’ decision to pursue an offensive against Damascus.
But this isn’t a typical case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The rebel coalition that took over Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, is led by an Al-Qaida affiliate known previously as the Al-Nusra Front.
Israel now finds itself in a precarious situation, one in which the enemy of its enemy — in this case, the rebel forces — potentially poses a greater threat to the Jewish state than the Assad regime. For months, Israel has conducted strikes on Iran- and Hezbollah-affiliated targets in Syria, with Russian and Syrian officials largely turning a blind eye.
That an Al-Qaida offshoot is leading a coup attempt against Assad complicates the West’s approach to the conflict: In a situation in which both sides have committed grave crimes against humanity, who, if either, should it support?
Should Assad’s regime survive, there is a unique opportunity for Damascus to move away from the Axis of Evil that has defined the last decade and chart a new course for the country.
But how Assad might do that — and who could help him — remains an open question. | exit interview How Deborah Lipstadt used diplomacy to fight antisemitism  NOAM GALAI/GETTY IMAGES When historian Deborah Lipstadt was nominated to be President Joe Biden’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism in 2021, she faced headwinds from Senate Republicans who were unhappy with her social media posts criticizing their party. Against that backdrop, Lipstadt’s recent insistence that the incoming Trump administration will be well-equipped to handle antisemitism is a strong, if surprising, marker of the goodwill President-elect Donald Trump has generated on combating antisemitism. “I don't know what the next administration's policies will be. Nobody does, and I certainly can't speak to that. But I have no doubt that they will take this issue very seriously,” Lipstadt told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch in a recent interview looking back on her nearly three years at the State Department.
American power: Since taking office in the spring of 2022, Lipstadt has visited more than 30 countries, with the simple mission of communicating to other nations that combating antisemitism is an American priority. “I don't know of a country, a democracy, that is not facing this issue on some level and struggling with how to respond, including our own,” she said. “I've been entrusted with an opportunity to use the levers of government to fight this horrible scourge. How can I do that? Sometimes it's not by getting blazing headlines, but it's by having my team go and lobby [different] countries.”
Read the full story here. berkley's back As the next mayor of Las Vegas, Shelley Berkley marks her ‘last hurrah’ in public office  ISAAC BREKKEN/AP After more than 10 years away from government, Shelley Berkley, a former longtime congresswoman from southern Nevada, will be marking her return to public office on Wednesday, when she is sworn in as the new mayor of Las Vegas. For Berkley, a Jewish Democrat who retired last year from her role as senior vice president of the Touro University system, the chance to represent her home city as its chief executive is a capstone to what she characterized as a lifelong commitment to public service. In a recent interview with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel, Berkley, 73, said she has no intention of seeking higher office and that her mayoral tenure will be her “last hurrah” as an elected official.
Swan song: “In a way, that’s very liberating,” Berkley said, listing a number of issues she hopes to address in the job, such as affordable housing, homelessness and rising antisemitism, among other things. The mayorship is “definitely the last elected office I will hold,” she stressed, “and I think that’s a wonderful way to end a career.” Berkley, who will succeed the term-limited mayor, Carolyn Goodman, first entered public office in the early 1980s, when she won a seat in Nevada’s state Assembly. Later, Berkley served for 14 years in Congress representing the Las Vegas area, during which time she built a reputation as one of the most prominent supporters of Israel in the House.
Read the full interview here. garden state race Sherrill says as governor she’d want to make N.J. ‘a model’ for combating antisemitism  KEVIN DIETSCH/GETTY IMAGES Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), who is running against Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop for governor of New Jersey, told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod that if elected, she'd work to make the state a national model for combating antisemitism.
In the race: “From the moment I entered Congress, I’ve worked tirelessly to combat antisemitism,” Sherrill said in a statement to JI. “This issue is deeply personal and important to me, and I stay in close touch with Rabbis and leaders throughout New Jersey to make sure I understand and am responsive to the community’s needs. As governor, I will continue to call out and fight against antisemitism and work towards a day when our state is seen as a model nationwide.” Gottheimer has made fighting antisemitism (as well as staunch support for Israel) a key focus during his time in Congress and made mention of the issue during his campaign announcement in early November. Fulop, who, like Gottheimer, is Jewish, has also highlighted his Jewish background and been vocal against antisemitism. Sherrill voted for legislation in late November backing State Department efforts to combat antisemitism but does not appear to have highlighted the issue on the campaign trail since announcing her run on Nov. 18.
Read the full story here. | Targeting Jewish Women: In The New York Times, New School professors Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Rachel Schreiber reflect on the combination of sexism and antisemitism they and other Jewish women have faced in the year since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks. “Though cartoonish tropes of Jewish women are ubiquitous (think of the materialistic Jewish American princess, gossipy yenta and overbearing, often overweight Jewish mother), they often barely register as bias in a progressive culture otherwise attuned to identity-based offense. Mocking American Jewish women, many of whom appear white, can be seen as punching up, a variation on calling out a so-called Karen — that is, an entitled, whiny white woman seen often in a racially charged situation. To be a Jewish American woman is to experience a paradox: We are a minority vulnerable to exclusion yet simultaneously perceived as sufficiently inside dominant culture that we are often expected to endure, or even deserve, any opprobrium that comes our way. This prejudice was further complicated by the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks. Early reports of sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli women were initially met with silence from many global feminist organizations. … It seems to us that the reactions to this violence were informed by the fact that the victims are Jewish women, presumably imperfect victims. Furthermore, the absence of a deeper understanding of why Jewish women are so readily degraded allows ignorance to fester.” [NYTimes]
No Direction Home: In the Washington Post, Inbar Ben Harush, a resident of the northern Israeli town of Shlomi, raises concerns about the cease-fire deal agreed to last week between Israel and Hezbollah. “After Hezbollah’s rocket campaign started on Oct. 8, we were evacuated from our house in Shlomi to a small hotel room in Jerusalem. Our life was flipped upside down. For nearly 14 months, we’ve been crammed into a tight space with no privacy, no kitchen and no certainty about the future. Our children have had to change schools multiple times. Our sense of home, security and normality has been shattered. We are refugees in our own country. As I write, Hezbollah still operates with Iranian and Syrian support. It can still fire rockets, and its intentions remain the same: to destroy Israel. If we, the displaced residents of northern Israel, were to return, it would be to live under the same threats as in the past: rocket attacks at best, invasion at worst — especially given the likelihood of Israel, within a few years, letting its guard down again. I have lost trust in my government and its promises. The only thing that will persuade me — and many others — to return to Shlomi is visible, tangible security. This means the IDF stationed in a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, dismantling Hezbollah’s ability to fire on us and preventing its return to the border area. Anything less is unacceptable.” [WashPost] | Join Jonathan Greenblatt and Bret Stephens on 12/3 at 6:30PM at the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Cultural Center or online for "The 'Jew-Hunt' Pogrom in Amsterdam and Beyond: It Could Happen Here." Be featured: Email us to inform the JI readership of your upcoming event, job opening, or other communication. | President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Charles Kushner to serve as ambassador to France…
Trump also announced that Massad Boulos, whose son is married to Trump’s daughter Tiffany, will serve as an advisor to the incoming administration on Mideast and Arab affairs…
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that Trump wants a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement in place between Israel and Hamas before he takes office in January…
Sara Netanyahu, who is in Florida for several weeks, dined with Trump at the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach on Sunday evening…
Trump threatened members of the Beijing- and Russia-aligned BRICS bloc with “100% tariffs” if they pursue the creation of a new currency outside of the U.S. dollar-denominated system…
President Joe Biden was spotted by the White House press pooler walking out of a bookstore in Nantucket, Mass., carrying a copy of Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine…
The White House gave provisional approval to a $680 million weapons sale to Israel shortly after Israel and Hezbollah reached a cease-fire agreement last week…
In an op-ed published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a coalition of Georgia rabbis voices concern about the recent votes by Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Jon Ossoff (D-GA) to limit arms sales to Israel…
Rep. Michelle Steel (R-CA) conceded to Democrat Derek Tran in California’s 45th Congressional District…
Steve Cohen, who previously served as a top aide to former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is meeting with potential donors about setting up a fundraising apparatus to boost Cuomo, who is expected to enter New York City’s mayoral race…
In a Washington Post op-ed, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel reflects on his tenure in Tokyo and the threats posed by China and other malign actors…
An Illinois man charged with shooting a Jewish man in Chicago in October was found dead in his prison cell; authorities said that Sidi Mohamed Abdallahi appeared to have died by suicide…
The New York Times’ John McWhorter spotlights the resurgence of the Yiddish language…
Senior Emirati official Dr. Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi on Friday visited the family of Rabbi Zvi Kogan, who was killed last month in the UAE, as the family sat shiva for Kogan...
In an op-ed in The Times of Israel, Al Nuaimi and Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt write that they have redoubled their "commitment to coexistence and harmony. The UAE will continue to be a lighthouse of hope in a region often shrouded in despair"...
Stripe CEO Patrick Collison traveled to Israel last week…
France said it believes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has immunity from the arrest warrant recently issued by the International Criminal Court, citing Israel’s lack of membership in the international body…
U.K. Foreign Minister David Lammy said he would comply with the ICC’s arrest warrant if Netanyahu were to enter the U.K., but would also continue to talk to and meet with Netanyahu in spite of the warrant’s issuance…
Longtime Israeli diplomat Eyal David was tapped as a policy advisor in the Foreign Minister's Bureau of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs…
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz criticized Jerusalem’s recent cease-fire agreement with Hezbollah in Lebanon…
Maj. Gen. Eliezer Toledano, the head of the IDF’s Strategy and Third-Circle Directorate, said he will not seek the position of IDF chief of staff…
The Jerusalem Post’s Michael Starr reflects on his two deployments to Gaza as a reservist…
Current and former Israeli officials condemned comments made over the weekend by former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon accusing Israel of having committed war crimes in Gaza…
The IDF said that a Hamas-linked terrorist who was involved in the Oct. 7 attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz and employed by World Central Kitchen was killed in a strike on the vehicle in which he was traveling through the Gaza Strip; the car, part of an aid convoy, had not been among the vehicles approved for transporting aid…
UNRWA, the U.N. agency tasked with working with Palestinians, paused its aid deliveries in Gaza, citing an uptick in the looting of the aid-distribution convoys…
Israel’s National Security Council warned citizens against travel to Thailand, citing the same terrorist infrastructure that targeted a Chabad rabbi in the United Arab Emirates last month…
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman traveled to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday for a private visit, during which time he met with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan…
Riyadh dropped its push for a defense treaty with the U.S. that would include the potential normalization of relations with Israel and will instead pursue a smaller military cooperation agreement with Washington...
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas designated Palestinian Legislative Council Chairman Rawhi Fattouh to serve as his interim successor for up to 90 days until an election is held in the event that Abbas dies in office or resigns; just prior to his appointment, Fattouh walked out of the Italian government's Mediterranean Dialogues Conference in protest over the participation of Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuli Edelstein, whom Fattouh characterized as a "colonialist settler"…
Longtime New York state Sen. Manfred Ohrenstein, who fled Nazi Europe as a teenager, died at 99…
Writer and director Marshall Brickman, who collaborated with Woody Allen on several films including “Annie Hall,” for which they won an Oscar, died at 85… |  Nehoray Edri More than 6,500 Chabad-Lubavich emissaries from around the world gathered this weekend in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, for the annual Chabad Kinus Hashluchim, the largest rabbinic conference in the world. The event took place less than a week after the funeral of Rabbi Zvi Kogan, the 28-year-old Israeli-Moldovan Chabad emissary who was killed last week after being abducted in Dubai. “For many of the rabbis, this conference was a family coming together after a very tough year, after many tragedies, and one that was very fresh and raw,” Rabbi Motti Seligson, director of media at Chabad, told eJewishPhilanthropy's Nira Dayanim. “But it was also a moment of collective resolve,” he said. As in many Jewish communal spaces this year, the war in Israel was a prominent theme throughout. According to Seligson, there are 1,400 Chabad emissary families in Israel, many of whom have been deeply affected by the war. “What’s going on there is on everyone’s minds,” said Seligson. Read more about the gathering in eJewishPhilanthropy. |  REMKO DE WAAL/ANP/AFP via Getty Images Former director of the Mossad and then head of the Israeli National Security Council, Efraim Halevy turns 90...
Professor of rabbinic literature at Yeshiva University's Gruss Institute in Jerusalem, Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff turns 87... Real estate executive and founder of the Sunshine Group, she was an EVP of The Trump Organization until 1985, Louise Mintz Sunshine turns 84... Sociologist and human rights activist, Jack Nusan Porter turns 80... Partner at Personal Healthcare LLC, Pincus Zagelbaum... Former drummer for a rock band in France followed by a career in contemporary Jewish spiritual music in Brooklyn, Isaac "Jacky" Bitton turns 77... EVP at Rubenstein Communications, Nancy Haberman... Author of more than 15 volumes of poetry, he is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Pennsylvania, Bob Perelman turns 77... French historian, professor at Sorbonne Paris North University and author of 30 books on the history of North Africa, Benjamin Stora turns 74... Retired associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Barbara A. Lenk turns 74... Professor at Montana State University, she was a member of the Montana House of Representatives and a board member of Bozeman's Congregation Beth Shalom, Dr. Franke Wilmer turns 74... Canadian fashion designer and entrepreneur, he is best known for launching the Club Monaco and Joe Fresh brands, Joe Mimran turns 72... Partner in the Madison, Wisconsin law firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland, she is a class action and labor law attorney, Sarah Siskind... Rabbi of Baltimore's Congregation Ohel Moshe, Rabbi Zvi Teichman... Celebrity physician and author of diet books, he is the president of the Nutritional Research Foundation, Joel Fuhrman turns 71... Advertising account executive at the Los Angeles Daily Journal Corporation, Lanna Solnit... Cleveland resident, Joseph Schlaiser... Emmy Award-winning actress, her late father was an Orthodox rabbi, Rena Sofer turns 56... Identical twin sisters, known as The AstroTwins, they are magazine columnists and authors of four books on astrology, Tali Edut and Ophira Edut turn 52... Lecturer of political science at Yale, she was formerly a White House staffer, Eleanor L. Schiff turns 48... Television writer and producer, Murray Selig Miller turns 48... Former member of the Knesset, now serving as Israel's ambassador to the U.K., Tzipi Hotovely turns 46... Actress best known for playing Special Agent Kensi Blye in 277 episodes of CBS's "NCIS Los Angeles," Daniela Ruah turns 41... Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation, Annie Fixler... Senior director with Alvarez & Marsal in Atlanta, she was a sabre fencer at the 2004 Summer Olympics, Emily Jacobson Edwards turns 39... Actor, best known for playing Trevor in the coming-of-age film "Eighth Grade," Fred Hechinger turns 25... | | | | | |
