Daily Kickoff: Mandela Barnes clarifies Israel stance + Jonathan Swan on JI’s podcast
✍️ Exclusive: A bipartisan group of House lawmakers led by Reps. Grace Meng (D-NY) and Mike Waltz (R-FL) urged the Defense Department in a letter on Thursday against downgrading the rank of the U.S. official responsible for managing security coordination between the Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, a week after 32 senators sent a similar letter.
❓ Progress Report: Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) sent a letter to Secretary of State Tony Blinken this week requesting an update on joint solar and desalination projects among the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Jordan.
🚨 Race to Watch: The Working Families Party endorsed New York state Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou in the crowded Democratic primary in New York’s redrawn 10th Congressional District.
🙏 Apology, Again: Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is also running in the 10th District, issued another apology for comments made at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic singling out Jewish mourners at a funeral in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg for breaking restrictions on large gatherings.
↩️ Terrible Tweet: A Boston city councillor walked back her comments following backlash for a tweet in which she invoked antisemitic tropes in response to a recent Appeals Court decision over an Arkansas anti-BDS law.
🚓 Letter Lead: The Jewish Federations of North America led a letter signed by 189 national and local organizations, including 80 local federations, supporting the Safer Communities Act, which passed out of the Senate last night.
🎥 Video to VC: Jeffrey Katzenberg detailed how he is applying what he learned in Hollywood — including lessons from the failed effort to start Quibi — to his new career as a venture capitalist.
💎 Simon the Swindler: Simon Leviev — the focus of the Netflix documentary “The Tinder Swindler,” who scammed European women out of tens of thousands of dollars — was summoned to appear court next week, where he will face allegations that he impersonated being a member of the prominent Leviev family.
🕺 Get This Party Started: Slate interviews entertainment company execs following the release of the Apple TV+ series “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” which spotlights the world of bar and bat mitzvah entertainment.
🎸 Making Music: Israeli-born jazz guitarist Gilad Hekselman discussed his latest album, “Far Star,” written while in Israel for the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
👍 Committee Confirmation: The U.N. General Assembly confirmed Daphna Hacker as Israel’s candidate for the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
🇮🇱 Ballot Box: Israel was elected to head the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2025, in a vote taken at the body’s plenary in Stockholm this week.
🏡 Humble Abode: The Associated Press spotlights the German Colony residence of U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, who moved into the Jerusalem neighborhood earlier this year.
⛏️ Ancient Find: Israeli archeologists discovered a 1,200-year-old mosque in Israel’s Negev Desert.
🤝 Mending Fences: Turkey’s foreign minister said Ankara and Jerusalem are working to restore ties at the ambassador level, following a visit to Turkey by Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Thursday.
🗄️ Digital Drop: Pope Francis ordered that the WWII-era Jewish files from the archives of Pope Pius XII be published online.
🇦🇷 Tragic Accident: Five people died in a fire in the apartment of a Jewish family in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Recoleta.
👨 Revolutionary Shuffle: Iran is reportedly removing Hossein Taeb as the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence unit following a string of targeted attacks on Iranian scientists and military officials.
✈️ Flights Fixed: Flights in and out of Syria’s Damascus International Airport resumed after some runways and a terminal were damaged by an airstrike.
🇮🇶 Proxy Politics: Sixty-four new lawmakers were sworn into Iraq’s parliament yesterday, filling vacancies created by the mass resignation of lawmakers aligned with Muqtada al-Sadr, making the pro-Iran bloc the body’s majority.
🗣️ Veep Trip: Former Vice President Mike Pence visited the headquarters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Albania, where he met with Iranian dissidents and delivered a policy speech on Iran.
