Good Monday morning. In today's Daily Kickoff, we preview this week's Capitol Hill hearing on campus antisemitism, and talk to experts about the possibility of a Saudi-Israeli normalization agreement. We interview Rep. Greg Landsman about the recent U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear program, and report on Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin's outreach to Jewish groups following his comments earlier in the week regarding Zohran Mamdani's defense of the phrase "globalize the intifada." Also in today's Daily Kickoff: Amb. Charles Kushner, Sen. Joni Ernst and Elmo. Spread the word! Invite your friends to sign up.👇 |
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- Attendees of this year's Aspen Security Forum are making their way to Colorado today, ahead of the start of the gathering tomorrow. Jewish Insider's Marc Rod will be on the ground in Aspen — drop us a line if you will be as well.
- We're also keeping an eye on stalled Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks amid reports that President Donald Trump and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani were set to meet on the sidelines of yesterday's FIFA finals in New Jersey. Read more here.
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A QUICK WORD WITH JI'S MELISSA WEISS |
School may be out of session for the summer, but officials from Georgetown University, the University of California, Berkeley and the City University of New York will be in the hot seat this week when they testify on Tuesday before the House Education and Workforce Committee. This is not the first time that university officials have appeared in front of Congress to account for the situations on their campuses, but this week's hearing aims to focus on more than just the anti-Israel activism that has permeated many campuses since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza to focus on root issues, including foreign funding in higher education as well as faculty anti-Israel organizing efforts. With that as the backdrop, Georgetown's interim president, Robert Groves, is likely to face hard-hitting questioning about the school's donations from authoritarian regimes. Nearly a decade ago, Georgetown took a $10 million donation from an organization connected to Beijing's ruling Chinese Communist Party — more specifically, according to The Washington Post, to "the specific CCP organizations that manage overseas influence operations" — to establish the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues. But that $10 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money Qatar is alleged to have sent to Georgetown. According to a study by the right-wing NGO ISGAP, Qatar has donated more than $1 billion dollars to the Jesuit school in recent decades. In addition, Qatar has long had a partnership with Georgetown that includes an outpost of the school in Doha. Earlier this year, the school extended its contract with Doha for another decade. There's a saying that has floated around many a conference, Jewish organizational board meeting and Shabbat dinner table in recent years: Jews endow buildings, their enemies endow what happens inside of them. Tomorrow's hearing will see just how deeply those efforts have permeated. Read the rest of 'What You Should Know' here. |
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| After Iran strikes, Saudis in no rush to join Abraham Accords, experts say |
One of the original drivers of the 2020 Abraham Accords was Israel's vocal, public stance against Iran's nuclear program and regional aggression. That stance also brought Israel and Saudi Arabia closer, a relationship that developed to the point that in the summer of 2023, it seemed like normalization was just around the corner. By extension, it might make sense for the Abraham Accords and a Saudi-Israel rapprochement to be back in the headlines after Israel took the ultimate stand against Iran's nuclear program last month, bombing it with assistance from the U.S. Yet there has been almost no serious talk about Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords in recent weeks, experts told Jewish Insider's Lahav Harkov. Saudi two-step: Riyadh has also been publicly signaling that its relationship with Tehran is still on track since China brokered a deal between the two countries in 2023. Saudi Arabia, like other Gulf States, spoke out last month against the Israeli and American airstrikes on Iran. Last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah. "There's all this public condemnation of the attacks on Iran," Bernard Haykel, a professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, told JI, "but when the U.S. pulled its forces from the Air Force base in Qatar [due to Iran's retaliation], they moved their planes to a Saudi base. So they condemned the U.S. for attacking Iran, but they also gave the U.S. protection." Read the full story here. |
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CONGRESSIONAL CONVERSATION |
Rep. Greg Landsman: Americans are 'tired' of partisanship on Iran and foreign policy |
TOM WILLIAMS/CQ-ROLL CALL, INC VIA GETTY IMAGES |
Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) has stood apart in recent weeks as one of a small number of congressional Democrats who've been supportive of the Trump administration's strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, Jewish Insider's Marc Rod reports. Landsman told JI he thinks that his Democratic colleagues' responses to the strikes are motivated by the current political environment, fears about a broader war and concerns about the future of diplomatic talks and the safety of people in the region. Looking ahead: Landsman argued in an interview with JI last week and in a recent op-ed that the Israeli and American show of force, alongside the undermining of Iran's proxies across the region, could be the key to weakening the Iranian regime to a point where it will agree to a fundamental change of course going forward, unlocking opportunities for regional peace and prosperity. "[The Middle East] should be Europe, [if not] for Iran," he said. "It hasn't been able to break out that way because Iran has been the primary obstacle." Read the full story here. |
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DNC Chair Martin calls Jewish leaders amid Mamdani fallout |
AARON J. THORNTON/GETTY IMAGES FOR ONE FAIR WAGE |
Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, spent Friday calling Jewish leaders, seeking to reassure them that he does not condone the phrase "globalize the intifada," two sources with knowledge of the meetings told Jewish Insider's Gabby Deutch. Among the leaders he called were senior officials at the Anti-Defamation League and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Harmful rhetoric: Earlier in the week, a "PBS NewsHour" clip of Martin discussing New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani went viral. In the Friday phone calls, two sources confirmed, Martin faced criticism from Jewish leaders over Martin not specifically addressing the "globalize the intifada" language during his PBS interview. But a DNC senior advisor told JI that Martin made clear he stood with them against the harmful rhetoric. "By the end of it there was an understanding that Ken does understand and is aligned with the community and that frankly people want full-throated leadership," the advisor said. "This language isn't about Democrats. This is just not acceptable, period, and as a party it's not acceptable." Read the full story here. Bonus: Jewish Insider's Emily Jacobs talks to Jewish Democrats and organizations that represent them about Martin's handling of the Wednesday "PBS NewsHour" interview and fallout from it. |
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Senate's defense bill includes effort to advance Middle East air defense cooperation |
KEVIN CARTER/GETTY IMAGES |
The Senate Armed Services Committee's draft of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, passed out of committee this week, includes provisions aimed at furthering coordinated air and missile defense efforts in the Middle East, Jewish Insider's Marc Rod reports. Pushing ahead: The amendment, led by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), a co-chair of the Abraham Accords Caucus, instructs the Defense Department to submit to Congress a new report on implementing integrated air and missile defense infrastructure in the Middle East, including an assessment of threats; a summary of U.S. priorities and capabilities; and lessons learned from the Iranian ballistic missile attacks on Israel and the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Read the full story here. Bonus: The House Armed Services Committee released its first draft of the 2026 NDAA on Friday. The bill would create an emerging technology cooperation program with Israel, extend the U.S. weapons stockpile in Israel and cooperative counter-tunneling programs through 2028, and expand counter-drone and missile cooperative programs and authorize increased funding. It would also expand U.S. support for the Lebanese Armed Forces and require a Pentagon briefing on Iran's use of Western technologies in its drones. |
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AJC calls defacing of Jewish pogrom memorial 'a test for Poland's democracy' |
WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES |
The American Jewish Committee called for a "swift political response" following the placement of plaques at the Jedwabne memorial site in Poland that falsely accuse Jews of being responsible for killing Poles during the pogrom that occurred there 84 years ago last week, Jewish Insider's Haley Cohen reports. Background: At least 340 Jews were burned alive by their Polish neighbors in the massacre at Jedwabne on July 10, 1941. Marking the anniversary of the attack last Thursday, right-wing activist Wojciech Sumliński and his supporters illegally placed plaques in English and Polish several yards from the memorial, offering a revisionist account of what happened at the site. One of the plaques reads, "After the Soviets took over eastern Poland, Jews assumed administrative roles and, knowing the local realities, denounced Polish patriots who were then deported and murdered by the Soviets. Only the German attack on the Soviet Union halted these repressions. Then the Germans began killing Jews just as they had previously killed Poles by the millions." Read the full story here. |
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Summer camp nostalgia hits the big screen in 'The Floaters' |
As summer heats up, Jewish adults looking for an escape from the fraught state of world Jewry may find themselves reflecting on a seemingly simpler time — getting competitive over color war or gaga ball and singing Debbie Friedman songs around a campfire at Jewish sleepaway camp. That sense of nostalgia for one's Jewish summer camp years is doled out liberally in "The Floaters," a new film that centers on the fictional Camp Daveed and a group of outsider teens called "floaters," Jewish Insider's Haley Cohen reports. Art imitating life: "We try to push the movie beyond lox and bagels," co-producer Shai Korman told JI, noting that he and his co-producers — his two sisters — specifically aimed to "put on-screen Jewish women that exemplified the Jewish women that raised us, that were leaders and mentors." Camp Daveed is run by women, from camp director Mara to the camp's rabbi, Rabbi Rachel. Several iconic films, such as "Wet Hot American Summer" and "Meatballs," were also inspired by Jewish camps. But in "The Floaters," "we talk about the rules of kashrut," Korman said. "You see Orthodox and secular kids all together, reflecting the world we grew up in." Read the full interview here. |
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R&D Nation: In the Financial Times, Ruchir Sharma observes Israel's rise as a regional economic superpower despite nearly two years of war. "Perhaps the most telling sign of its dynamism is that Israel now spends more than 6 per cent of GDP on research and development — more than any other nation and over double the global average. An unusually high share — about half — of that R&D funding comes from foreign multinationals, many involved in defence-related industries. … To many observers, the geopolitical situation in the Middle East still seems precarious. But the market's optimistic take on Israel's tech-driven economy is now showing up in economists' forecasts, which are projecting growth at nearly 4 per cent in coming years. That's relatively strong for a developed nation. It validates the market view that Israel is cementing its status as the region's dominant economic force." [FT] FIDF Scandal Fallout: eJewishPhilanthropy's Judah Ari Gross looks at how recent concerns over alleged mismanagement and financial impropriety at Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces has "provided ample ammunition" to observers critical of legacy Jewish organizations. "Though always present in communal discourse, the tear-it-all-down-and-start-again voices have gained strength since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and the subsequent rise in global antisemitism, and not without cause. … Legacy institutions, with their galas and boards and committees and well-paid executives, are an easy target. These established organizations have often failed to defend their size and bureaucracy, or even acknowledge that alongside the stability and internal checks that they provide, those things do make them slower to react and pivot in an emergency." [eJP] The World to Come: In his "Jerusalem Journal" Substack, Avi Mayer considers the possibility of a post-Zionist America. "Critiques of Israeli policy, no matter how strident or widespread, do not automatically lead to the wholesale rejection of Israel or the negation of Jewish self-determination. But if current trends continue, and if voting patterns start to reflect the shifting views of the electorate, we may find ourselves in uncharted territory. The ramifications of a changed America could be wide-ranging, deeply impacting both American Jewish life and Israeli national security. An America that is intolerant of a core element of contemporary Jewish identity would be a place in which American Jews would feel — and be made to feel — increasingly uncomfortable. From the Soviet Union to the Middle East to western Europe, hostility to Zionism on the part of national leaders and elites has always precipitated societal antisemitism, forcing Jews to confront painful dilemmas." [JerusalemJournal] |
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Speaking at a Turning Point USA student conference in Florida over the weekend, far-right commentator Tucker Carlson suggested that Americans who served in the Israeli Defense Forces "should lose their citizenship," adding that he believed a person "can't fight for another country and remain an American, period"... A hacker took over the X account of "Sesame Street" character Elmo, posting a series of profane, racist and antisemitic comments; the posts included a message to "kill all Jews" and another that described President Donald Trump as a "puppet" of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu… xAI, the AI company affiliated with X owner Elon Musk, said that its Grok chatbot had undergone a coding update that modified what information it was taking in, making Grok "susceptible to existing X user posts; including when such posts contained extremist views"; the chatbot had spewed a series of antisemitic and sexually explicit posts over a period of several days last week… A new survey from the Anti-Defamation League found that 1 in 4 Americans consider recent antisemitic attacks in the U.S. to be "understandable," while three-quarters of those surveyed want the government to take more action against antisemitism… Pennsylvania Democrat Jenelle Stelson is mounting a second congressional bid against Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), to whom she lost by less than a percentage point in the 2024 election; read our interview with Stelson during her campaign last summer… The U.S. Board on Geographic Names approved the renaming of an Alaskan waterway that had been named Nazi Island by the U.S. Air Force during World War II… The Financial Times reports that the Boston Consulting Group was paid more than $1 million for its work on a Qatari-backed project led by former American military veterans to bring aid into Gaza by sea… French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are not expected to attend an upcoming rescheduled conference on Palestinian statehood; the initial conference had been canceled following the onset of the Israel-Iran war. The BBC spotlights Punjabi businessman Kundanlal Gupta, who during World War II saved more than a dozen Austrian Jews by creating fictitious job offers in India, providing those "hired" with a way to escape Nazi Europe… New satellite images indicate that Iran struck an American storage facility that contained secure communications equipment on the Al Udeid base in Qatar during its attack on American targets last month… Iranian state media alleged that Israel attempted to assassinate Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during last month's war; Pezeshkian reportedly suffered a leg wound in the Israeli strike on a meeting of Iran's Supreme National Security Council… Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly told leaders in Washington and Tehran that Moscow backs a nuclear deal with Iran that forbids the Islamic Republic from enriching uranium… Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday that Tehran would be open to returning to nuclear talks in exchange for the guarantee that it would not face further attacks; Iran also said it would be open to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections, days after the country's parliament passed a law tightening restrictions around international inspections… A Palestinian-American man from Florida who was visiting family in the West Bank was killed in clashes with settlers… A Filipino woman who worked as a caretaker in Rehovot, Israel, died as a result of injuries sustained in an Iranian ballistic missile strike last month; Leah Mosquera's death brings the number of fatalities in Israel as a result of the 12-day war to 29… Israel's Transportation Ministry estimated that Ben-Gurion Airport will see 3.4 million travelers over the course of this summer, a drop of nearly 2 million passengers from the summer before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks and ensuing war… Charles Reinhart, the former director of the American Dance Festival, died at 94… B Lab founder Andrew Kassoy, who pushed the concept that capitalism could promote social good, died at 55… Physicist Daniel Kleppner, whose work on atomic clock accuracy helped shape the use of GPS systems, died at 92… Sports journalist Samuel Abt, who covered the Tour de France for more than three decades, died at 91… |
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U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner visited the Memorial de la Shoah in Paris last week in what he said was his "first stop" after arriving in the country. |
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QUINN HARRIS/GETTY IMAGES |
MLB pitcher for 11 seasons, now a sportscaster and author, he won the Cy Young Award and was an MLB All Star in 1980, Steve Stone turns 78... Architect and urban designer, Moshe Safdie turns 87... Los Angeles resident, Susan Farrell... Film producer, best known for the Lethal Weapon series, the first two "Die Hard" movies and the Matrix trilogy, Joel Silver turns 73... Film and theatrical producer, in 2012 he became the first producer to have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award, Scott Rudin turns 67... Co-founder and managing director of Beverly Hills Private Wealth, Scott M. Shagrin... United States secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick turns 64... Venture capitalist at Breyer Capital, James W. Breyer turns 64... Media columnist for the Chicago Tribune until 2021, Phil Rosenthal turns 62... U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council during the last three years of the Biden administration, she is the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Ambassador Michèle Taylor turns 59... Illustrator and author best known as the writer of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick turns 59... Principal at Full Court Press Communications, Daniel Eli Cohen... Member of the Washington state Senate until 2023, David S. Frockt turns 56... President and CEO at the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, Renee Wizig-Barrios... Rapper and record producer from Brooklyn known as "Ill Bill," he is the producer, founder and CEO of Uncle Howie Records, William "Bill" Braunstein turns 53... Professor in the department of genetics at the Harvard Medical School, David Emil Reich, Ph.D. turns 51... Chief operating officer at Aish Global, Elliot Mathias... Fashion designer and cast member on "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," Dorit Kemsley turns 49... Retired mixed martial artist, now a life coach, Emily Peters-Kagan turns 44... Co-founder and executive chairman of Pinterest, Ben Silbermann turns 43... Editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, Eliana Yael Johnson... Interior designer and owner of Tribe By Design, Tehillah Braun... Professional golfer with four tournament wins in the Asian and European tours, David Lipsky turns 37... Founder at Bashert Group and head of a NYC-based family office, Daniel B. Jeydel... AVP for grantmaking at Hillel International, she recently joined the board of the Siegel JCC of Delaware, Rachel Giattino... Reporter covering housing and the home building industry for The Wall Street Journal, Nicole Friedman... Director of Chabad Georgetown, Rabbi Menachem Shemtov... Creator of the Instagram feed called Second Date Shadchan, Elizabeth Morgan (Lizzy) Brenner... Collegiate basketball star for Princeton and Maryland, now playing for Maccabi Bnot Ashdod of the Israeli Women's Basketball Premier League, Abby Meyers turns 26... |
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