👋 Good Friday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Cornell’s new president, Michael Kotlikoff, a week into his new role, and report on the University of Michigan’s shuttering of its DEI offices. We also cover yesterday’s Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, during which Sen. Bill Cassidy announced an investigation into American Muslims for Palestine, and report on past comments made by a surging Democratic congressional candidate in next week’s special elections in Florida who has called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sylvan Adams, Omer Wenkert and Danny Wolf.

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: All about ‘Qatargate,’ the scandal roiling Israeli politics; Jewish social service agencies brace for federal funding cuts amid uncertainty; and In Israel, Fetterman slams party’s ‘pandering’ to far left in face of ‘reality’ on the ground. Print the latest edition here.

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A newly announced Senate investigation into a pro-Palestinian advocacy group with alleged ties to Hamas is casting a spotlight on its little-known role in fomenting anti-Israel demonstrations that roiled college campuses across the country in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

But while the high-profile investigation marks the first time the Senate has probed American Muslims for Palestine — the nonprofit group whose activities have faced mounting scrutiny since Hamas’ attacks — it is the latest inquiry in a widening series of legal challenges targeting the secretive organization.

AMP’s behind-the-scenes efforts fueling protests over Israel’s war in Gaza, including providing support to the pro-Hamas group Students for Justice in Palestine — whose national umbrella was created by AMP’s chairman, Hatem Bazian — have contributed to a growing number of lawsuits that are collectively pushing the Virginia-based nonprofit organization into a defensive crouch and ultimately threatening its dismantlement.

In Virginia, for instance, the Republican attorney general, Jason Miyares, launched an investigation into AMP shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks for allegedly “providing support to terrorist organizations” such as Hamas, which the group has denied. In January, he filed a petition in a Richmond court that seeks to enforce a judge’s order for AMP to turn over closely guarded financial records that could help shed light on its donor network, which the group has long kept closely guarded.

Meanwhile, AMP is facing a civil lawsuit in Virginia filed last year on behalf of numerous survivors and family members of the Oct. 7 attacks, which accuses the group of providing material support for Hamas.

And in Chicago, a long-gestating lawsuit is working to establish that AMP is an “alter ego” of a now-defunct group, the Islamic Association for Palestine, which was found liable for aiding Hamas. The suit, which could head to trial later this year, is now seeking to collect a $156 million judgment IAP never paid to the family members of David Boim, an American killed by Hamas in a 1996 terrorist attack in the West Bank.

Daniel Schlessinger, the lead attorney in the Boim case, said his lawsuit requires a different burden of proof than those against AMP in Virginia because it does not need to show the group provided material support for Hamas. “All we have to do is prove AMP is essentially the same organization as IAP,” he told JI. Top officials at AMP, many of whom have ties to Hamas, were affiliated with IAP, which shuttered in 2004.

“I think we have a very strong case on the facts and I would like to say on the law,” Schlessinger said in an interview on Thursday. “We have a ton of evidence.”

The Senate probe announced on Thursday by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Schlessinger speculated, will likely help “strengthen the case that AMP, like IAP, is a supporter of Hamas through campus activities.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who chairs the committee and sent a letter to Bazian on Wednesday evening, said on Thursday he would be “demanding answers about” AMP’s “activities on college campuses,” adding that the “group’s leaders have ties to Hamas and helped create” National SJP years ago.

Even as AMP faces heightened pressure from the federal government, Christina Jump, an attorney for the group, told JI on Thursday that she would “continue to look forward to the opportunities to show” the group “abides by and within the law.”

Jump confirmed that AMP received the letter from Cassidy on Wednesday and “will of course respond timely and in accordance with all applicable laws.”

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Michael Kotlikoff was tapped as Cornell University president on March 21 at a fraught moment for elite universities, as some have come under scrutiny from the Trump administration for what officials have alleged is a failure to address rising incidents of antisemitism on campus. The Ithaca, N.Y., Ivy League campus received warning this month from the Department of Education that it is under investigation for allowing antisemitic discrimination and risks losing funding cuts. One week into his new role, Kotlikoff sat down with Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen to share his plans — and what he believes sets Cornell apart at a time of intense inspection among Ivy Leagues. 

Post-Oct. 7 landscape: “One of the things I have tried to do is be very clear up-front — something that we didn’t really have the opportunity to do prior to Oct. 7 — how we were going to meet protests,” Kotlikoff told JI. “I said at the beginning of the year that we were going to fully support free expression and students’ First Amendment rights. That is critical for a university campus. However, when those expressive activities or expressions of speech begin to infringe on the rights of others by preventing others from hearing a speaker or from closing down a career fair, there will be consequences. That is not expressing your own First Amendment rights, it’s infringing on others’ rights. We were very clear about that and have followed through.”

Read the full interview here. 

Elsewhere: At a time when some elite universities are acquiescing to the Trump administration’s demands to crack down on antisemitic activity on campus, Georgetown University is pushing back by issuing statements supportive of a university professor and postdoctoral scholar who was detained by federal authorities last week for his reported affiliations with Hamas, JI’s Haley Cohen reports. 

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The University of Michigan will close its diversity, equity and inclusion offices and end its use of diversity statements across the university as a direct response to policy changes from the Trump administration, its president, Santa Ono, announced on Thursday, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Trump effect: The university began reassessing its DEI work late last year. President Donald Trump’s early actions targeting the tenets of DEI — an ideology described as “discriminatory” by the Department of Education — played a major role in the decision to do away with DEI programming.

Read the full story here.

Bonus: Harvard’s School of Public Health on Thursday announced on Wednesday that it had suspended a formal collaboration with Birzeit University, a Palestinian university in the West Bank that has faced scrutiny for its ties to Palestinian terror groups. 

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In a stunning reversal, the Trump administration withdrew Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-NY) nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations due concerns about protecting Republicans’ razor-thin House majority, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Withdrawn: Trump said on his Truth Social website that he had asked Stefanik to remain in Congress to help pass key legislation. “With a very tight Majority, I don’t want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat,” Trump said. “There are others that can do a good job at the United Nations.” Stefanik passed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before the end of January, but lawmakers had said that they were waiting on approval from the House and White House to move to a final. Concerns have been growing that Republicans might lose an upcoming special election in Florida and potentially the race in upstate New York that would have replaced Stefanik.

Read the full story here.

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Josh Weil, the Democratic challenger to Florida state Sen. Randy Fine in Tuesday’s special election in Florida’s 6th Congressional District, said in 2021 that the U.S. should withdraw its support for Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Republican internal polling reportedly shows Fine losing the deep-red district by three points, though Republicans in the state say publicly that they’re confident he’ll win.

Florida fight: Weil, a teacher, previously ran a long-shot campaign for U.S. Senate in Florida in 2022. During that campaign, in 2021, Weil said that he sought an end to U.S. military aid to Israel. He said he condemned “Israel’s state sanctioned violence against Palestinians” and urged the U.S. government to work to stop the evictions of Palestinians from homes in east Jerusalem. Fine has accused Weil of antisemitism and of having a “deep-seated hate of Israel and Jews.” He has branded Weil, who is Muslim, as “Jihad Josh,” accusing him of supporting Islamic terrorism.

Read the full story here.

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The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held its first hearing specifically focused on campus antisemitism since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, where panel members and witnesses sparred over the Trump administration’s overall response to the issue and cuts to the Department of Education, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report.

What they said: A repeated focus during Thursday’s hearing was on the Trump administration’s moves to gut the Department of Education, including its Office for Civil Rights, which Democrats argued would undermine efforts to combat campus antisemitism. “I am sure that OCR currently has the resources necessary to investigate these claims,” HELP Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said. “With respect, I think an analysis of their current staffing versus what they had and the number of backlog cases would refute that,” Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) responded.

Read the full story here.

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Jews should not turn away friends who speak out against antisemitism, philanthropist and World Jewish Congress-Israel President Sylvan Adams said at the Israeli Diaspora Ministry’s International Conference on Combating Antisemitism on Thursday, which sparked controversy for including representatives of far-right European nationalist parties, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.

Friends across the board: “We Jews need friends, and if members of the right or left dissociate themselves from and call out the antisemites, then I am happy they have agreed to come to Israel to publicly express their views,” Adams said. “Some of these parties will win elections in their respective countries, and their support for us will be enormously important.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a brief, oblique reference to the controversy about the conference in his remarks there, saying that he “welcome[s] all those from across the political spectrum, be they from the left or from the right, who realize that antisemitism is intrinsically evil and that it threatens their own future. I salute you for coming to Jerusalem.”

Read the full story here.

MBS is Back: The Wall Street Journal’s Karen Elliott House considers the role that Saudi Arabia and its leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, could play in President Donald Trump’s efforts to stabilize the Middle East. “MBS is actively engaged in high-wire diplomacy on all these Mideast issues plus Ukraine. He has hosted the presidents of Syria, Lebanon and Ukraine. He helped assemble Arab leaders to try to come up with a Gaza peace plan acceptable to Mr. Trump, who continues to talk, at least vaguely, about dispelling Palestinians from Gaza. The Saudi leader is positioned to play a constructive role in the region if Mr. Trump wants to enhance stability there rather than simply make a splash. He’s Mr. Trump’s favorite Arab leader. Moreover, he has relations with China, Russia and even Iran, with which he restored diplomatic ties in 2023, and now seeks to broker talks between Washington and Tehran. Along with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, he has a decisive say over oil production and thus prices that influence the global economy. President Biden’s ‘pariah’ has suddenly become President Trump’s ‘peacemaker.’” [WSJ]

Vance’s Views: Puck’s Julia Ioffe examines the origins of Vice President JD Vance’s isolationist foreign policy views. “Vance has become the most acerbic messenger of Trump’s view that Europe has taken advantage of American taxpayers by not investing enough in its own defense. But if the president loathes what he perceives as the Europeans’ almost effeminate weakness — especially compared to Putin’s machismo — Vance’s contempt for the continent’s leadership seems deeper, and more ideological. … People familiar with Vance’s foreign policy preferences agreed that those private messages are an accurate reflection of his worldview. It’s clear enough that Vance’s team, as one source familiar with their thinking said, believe that ‘the Europeans are freeloaders.’ But these sources also pointed to deeper roots for this hostility, a mix of post–War on Terror disillusionment and a reverence for ‘traditional’ Western culture that has fueled Vance’s disdain toward America’s oldest allies.” [Puck]

When the Helpers Hurt: The Atlantic’s Michael Powell observes how human rights organizations are increasingly applying a double standard to Israel. “Amnesty’s goal was to serve as an advocate for victims and prisoners of conscience, and to stand apart from the polarized politics of the Cold War. The same ethos influenced the founders of Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders. As the latter group proclaims on its website: ‘We are independent, impartial, and neutral.’ More recently, though, human-rights leaders have grown accustomed to looking at the complicated stew of politics and culture in Israel and Palestine and blaming Israel foremost. As the cultural and political left has come to dominate the human-rights community, young staffers with passionate ideological commitments have helped rewrite the agendas of the best-known organizations. Critical theories of social justice, built on binaries that categorize Palestinians as oppressed and Israel as the oppressor, now dominate many conversations about the Jewish state, which a constellation of groups casts as uniquely illegitimate — a regressive, racist ethnic ‘Western’ state in an Arab sea.” [TheAtlantic]

Turkey's New Turn: In The New York Times, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, whom the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had detained on charges of bribery and corruption, decries Ankara’s targeting of government opponents. “For years, Mr. Erdogan’s regime has gnawed away at democratic checks and balances — silencing the media, replacing elected mayors with bureaucrats, sidelining the legislature, controlling the judiciary and manipulating elections. The large-scale arrests of protesters and journalists in recent months have sent a chilling message: No one is safe. Votes can be nullified and freedoms can be stripped away in an instant. Under Mr. Erdogan, the republic has been transformed into a republic of fear. This is more than the slow erosion of democracy. It is the deliberate dismantling of our republic’s institutional foundations. My detention marked a new phase in Turkey’s slide into authoritarianism and the use of arbitrary power. A country with a long democratic tradition now faces the serious risk of passing the point of no return.” [NYTimes]

On Monday, March 31, join Bret Stephens and SAPIR for two exciting events. At 9:30 AM ET, Stephens hosts Israeli President Isaac Herzog for a special pre-Passover conversation. Then, at 7:00 PM ET, Stephens sits down with Adam Kirsch, Ariella Saperstein, and Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove at Park Avenue Synagogue and online for an evening of discussion on “The Bounds of Jewish Disagreement.” Register now.

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President Donald Trump hosted an iftar dinner at the White House last night; those in attendance included Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Princess Reema Bandar Al-Saud, UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba (who sat next to Trump), newly appointed acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Deputy Special Envoy for the Middle East Morgan Ortagus, Qatari Ambassador to the U.S. Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani and Bahraini Ambassador to the U.S. Abdullah Bin Rashid Al Khalifa…

U.S. officials confirmed that Israel provided intelligence from an on-the-ground source in Yemen that was used in the U.S. attack on the Houthis earlier this month…

A federal judge ordered senior Trump administration officials who were active in a Signal group chat that discussed the U.S. strikes on Houthi targets to preserve the messages exchanged in the group leading up to the strikes…

Following the leaking of the Signal group texts, presidential historian Tevi Troy examines the history of White House leaks…

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) announced on Thursday that he will force a vote next week on a pair of resolutions cutting off some offensive arms sales to Israel, kicking off a repeat of his high-profile floor votes on similar measures last year that divided the Senate Democratic Caucus, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report... 

Speaking during yesterday's Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) sparred with Charles Asher Small, the executive director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, over Small’s findings connecting Qatari foreign donations to antisemitism issues on college campuses; Marshall offered a defense of Qatar, accusing Small of drawing inaccurate conclusions, of being prejudiced against Qatar and “picking on” the kingdom, claiming that the country has been a strong and reliable ally. Those views were challenged by Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL), who expressed skepticism that foreign funders broadly have well-meaning or patriotic intentions in providing funding to U.S. schools...

The House overwhelmingly rejected amendments by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) targeting colleges' investments in Israel and Israeli donations to U.S. universities. Reps. Al Green (D-TX), Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) voted with Tlaib in favor of one of the amendments, requiring disclosure of donations, and Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) voted present. Only Omar and Pressley voted with Tlaib on the other, regarding investments in Israel…

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) introduced legislation to make Palestinian Authority passport holders ineligible for entry into the United States…

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was moved to a prison in Oklahoma, after he gave an unauthorized interview from his Metropolitan Detention Center cell in New York to conservative commentator Tucker Carlson…

Politico interviews George Van Dusen, the outgoing mayor of Skokie, Ill., where in 1977 Nazis attempted to hold a rally in the city, now home to the state’s Holocaust museum… 

The New York Times looks at the efforts, considered by some to be controversial, of a German nonprofit to excavate and rebury the remains of German soldiers killed during WWII…

The Washington Post spotlights the meeting between the grandson of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and the grandson of Holocaust survivors…

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called new federal elections for May 3…

Israel intercepted two ballistic missiles that were fired by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen on Thursday…

The U.S. submitted a new ceasefire and hostage-release proposal to Qatari mediators to give to Hamas in an effort to end the weekslong stalemate between Israel and Hamas…

In Newsweek, former Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt defends Steve Witkoff, the Trump administration’s current Middle East envoy, amid criticism over Witkoff’s handling of Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage-release talks and his approaches to Qatar and Hamas…

The Wall Street Journal interviews former hostage Omer Wenkert about the more than 500 days the Israeli man spent in Hamas captivity in Gaza after being taken from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023…

Iran responded to President Donald Trump’s letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sent earlier this month, proposing new nuclear talks; the contents of the Iranian response, which was delivered through an Omani intermediary, have not been made public…

Philanthropist Leonard Polonsky, whose foundation largely focused on supporting the arts, died at 97…

University of Michigan Athletic Department

University of Michigan basketball star Danny Wolf meets with Roy Alexander and Adi Alexander, the brother and father of Israeli American hostage Edan Alexander, on Thursday ahead of tonight’s Michigan-Auburn NCAA Tournament matchup in Atlanta.

GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP via Getty Images

Director of the Mossad, David "Dadi" Barnea turns 60 on Saturday... 

FRIDAY: Professor emeritus of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in physics, Jerome Isaac Friedman turns 95... Chairman and CEO of the Hartz Group and Hartz Mountain Corporation, a leading seller of pet supplies, Leonard Norman Stern turns 87... Israeli electrical engineer and business executive, he was the founder and first general manager of Intel Israel and the inventor of the EPROM chip, Dov Frohman turns 86... Expert on the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, and wife of the late U.S. Sen. and VPOTUS candidate Joe Lieberman, Hadassah Lieberman turns 77... Glenview, Ill., resident, Genie Kutchins... Iranian-born CEO of Los Angeles-based toy company MGA Entertainment (maker of Little Tikes and Bratz and Lalaloopsy dolls), Isaac Larian turns 71... Former member of the Knesset for 13 years, she served as the leader of Israel’s Labor party, Shelly Yachimovich turns 65... Special envoy and coordinator for the U.S. Department of State’s Global Engagement Center during the Biden administration, James Phillip Rubin turns 65... One of four hostages held at gunpoint for 11 hours at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, in January of 2022, Jeffrey R. Cohen... Former rhythmic gymnast, now teaching yoga in Connecticut, she represented the U.S. at the 1984 Summer Olympics, Valerie Le Zimring-Schneiderman turns 60... Senior editor for The Economist, he is the younger brother of U.S. Sen. (D-CO) Michael Bennet, James Douglas Bennet turns 59... Presidential historian and Jewish liaison in the Bush 43 administration, he is now a senior scholar at Yeshiva University and a senior fellow at the Ronald Reagan Institute, Tevi Troy turns 58... President and CEO of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, Adam Lehman turns 58... Film producer, director and entertainment executive, Brett Ratner turns 56... Journalist and writer who has spent most of his career in Japan, he assisted the U.S. State Department's investigation into human trafficking in Japan, Jake Adelstein turns 56... Israeli journalist, she is both a television and radio news presenter, Keren Neubach turns 55... Novelist, television producer and journalist, one of her novels was made into a major motion picture, Jennifer Weiner turns 55... U.S. senator (R-FL), she was appointed this year to the seat vacated by Marco Rubio, Ashley Moody turns 50... Author of eight best-selling novels including The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger turns 48... Member of the Knesset for the Likud party since 2015, now serving as the minister of culture and sports, Makhlouf "Miki" Zohar turns 45... Benjy Spiro... Los Angeles-based, Israeli-born fashion designer, Yotam Solomon turns 38... Retired MLB outfielder for the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs, now a real estate developer in Bali, Indonesia, Ryan Kalish turns 37... VP at Tradepoint Atlantic, a 3,300-acre global logistics center near Baltimore, Michael Hurwitz... SVP of asset management at Hackman Capital Partners, Zachary David Sokoloff... Quarterback for the Brigham Young University Cougars football team, the first Jewish quarterback in BYU history, Jake Retzlaff turns 23...

SATURDAY: Chemist, professor emeritus at Hebrew University, winner of the 1974 Israel Prize, Raphael David Levine turns 87... Organizer of annual morning minyan services since 1983 for runners in the NYC Marathon, Peter Berkowsky turns 83... Attorney, NYT best-selling author, sports agent for many athletes including Cal Ripken, Jim Palmer, Brooks Robinson, Kirby Puckett and Eddie Murray, Ronald M. Shapiro turns 82... Houston-based labor law, employment law and personal injury attorney, active in Jewish organizations, Carol Cohen Nelkin... Orthopedic surgeon, he is a former professional boxer, Harold "Hackie" Stuart Reitman, MD turns 75... University of Chicago professor and winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for economics, Roger Myerson turns 74... Investor, computer scientist and founder of D. E. Shaw & Co., a hedge fund based upon high-speed quantitative trading, David Elliot Shaw turns 74... Economist and chairman of consulting firm Roubini Macro Associates and professor emeritus at NYU, Nouriel Roubini turns 67... Miami businesswoman, JoAnne Papir... U.S. deputy secretary of defense, he was the co-founder and co-CEO of Cerberus Capital Management, Stephen Andrew Feinberg turns 65... Hollywood mogul, co-CEO of entertainment and media agency William Morris Endeavor until he sold it this past week, Ariel Zev "Ari" Emanuel turns 64... U.S. senator (D-NV), Catherine Cortez Masto turns 61... French film director and writer, best known for his 2011 film "The Artist" which won five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Michel Hazanavicius turns 58... Secretary of the budget for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Uri Z. Monson turns 56... Deputy chief of staff at The Rockefeller Foundation and adjunct fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Eric Pelofsky... Founder of Leopard Strategies, Liz Jaff... Assistant to the president and White House staff secretary, he was a 2024 candidate for Attorney General of Missouri, Will Scharf turns 39... Communications director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, David A. Bergstein... Associate director at Power Insights, Annie Rosen Pai... Director of business development at Logical Buildings, Alexander Zafran...

SUNDAY: Partner of Rose Associates, a real-estate firm in the NYC area, Elihu Rose turns 92... Professor of international trade at Harvard and winner of the Israel Prize in 1991, Elhanan Helpman turns 79... Cherry Hill, N.J., resident, Zelda Greenberg... Film and television director, Michael Stephen Lehmann turns 68... Comedian, actor, television personality, screenwriter, author and musician, Paul Reiser turns 68... Host of Public Radio Exchange's “The World,” Marco Werman turns 64... District attorney of Philadelphia since 2017, he is running for a third term this year, Larry Krasner turns 64... U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria under Presidents Obama and Trump, he is a past president of the American Foreign Service Association, Eric Seth Rubin turns 64... Actor best known for his role as Steve Sanders on the television series "Beverly Hills, 90210," Ian Ziering turns 61... Owner and founder of the D.C. area's Ark Contracting, Noah Blumberg... Actress, director, producer and ballerina, Juliet Landau turns 60... U.S. special representative for international negotiations in the first Trump administration, now at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Jason Dov Greenblatt turns 58... Regional director in the Washington office at AJC: Global Jewish Advocacy, Alan Ronkin... Associate dean of students at Bard College, she helped 350 people escape Afghanistan amidst the U.S. withdrawal, Danna Harman... Tel Aviv-born actress, she appears on television and film in both Israel and the U.S., Mili Avital turns 53... Mexican-American chef, she won a James Beard Award for her PBS television series "Pati's Mexican Table," Patricia "Pati" Jinich turns 53... Former treasurer of Oakland County, Mich., Andy Meisner turns 52... Iranian-born LA-based retired actress, best known for her roles in "Crash" and the "Saw" franchise, also as the mother of the inspirational amputee Ezra Frech, Bahar Soomekh turns 50... Communications consultant, Gabriela Schneider... Jerusalem-born documentary photographer for the Associated Press, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography in 2007, Oded Balilty turns 46... Detroit-area Jewish leader and founder at Multifaith Life, Alicia Chandler... Best-selling author of The Oracle of Stamboul and The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, Michael David Lukas turns 46... Former senior advisor to then Ambassador David Friedman at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, Aryeh Lightstone turns 45... Author, composer and playwright, market development director of Sh’ma Journal, Robert J. Saferstein... Senior advisor at Avoq, Zach Silber... Senior reporter at the Huffington Post, Jessica Schulberg... Third baseman for MLB's Boston Red Sox, Alex Bregman turns 31... Associate at Arnold & Porter, she is a granddaughter of the late Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Leora Einleger...