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👋 Good Friday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover the too-close-to-call special election race in New Jersey’s 11th District, where AIPAC’s super PAC invested heavily in recent weeks against former Rep. Tom Malinowski, who now trails far-left activist Analilia Mejia by several hundred votes. We report on antisemitism envoy Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun’s comments at the Hudson Institute yesterday, and cover the results of a Jewish Federations of North America survey of Jewish Americans that found a significant gap between respondents who said they were supportive of Israel and those who said they were Zionist. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sen. Lindsey Graham, Martin Weil and Georgia state Sen. Esther Panitch.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik, Gabby Deutch and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.

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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: Alphabet’s AI bet shows early returns under Israeli-American CFO Anat Ashkenazi; Will he or won’t he? Analysts don’t rule out Iran strike despite diplomatic flurry; and Mamdani, socialist allies face first electoral test in battle for NYC House seat. Print the latest edition here.

The results in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District last night may not make national headlines, but should be sending a shock wave across Democratic campaigns and pro-Israel institutions. 

Analilia Mejia, the far-left, Bernie Sanders-endorsed activist, narrowly led in a crowded field of Democratic candidates in a primary election for an affluent, moderate-minded district, despite long odds.  

With most votes counted, Mejia leads former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), who was considered the favorite, 29-28%. Former Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way, favored by pro-Israel groups and endorsed by Democratic Majority for Israel, finished in third place, winning just 17% of the vote.

Mejia’s apparent primary victory is another sign that the socialist wing of the Democratic Party — as exemplified by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s out-of-nowhere success across the Hudson River — is ascendant. Mejia was the only candidate to call Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza a “genocide” and condemned Israel just days after Oct. 7 without making a mention of Hamas’ terror attack against the Jewish state.

As early as Oct. 10, before the Israeli invasion of Gaza began, Mejia said: “Every fiber of my being is horrified beyond words at what is furthering in Gaza.” 

The fact that a candidate as far to the left as Mejia could prevail in one of the most affluent, suburban districts in the country speaks volumes about the state of the party. This is a district, based in Morris County, filled with Wall Street bankers, venture capitalists and other wealthy white-collar workers that was a reliably Republican area not long ago.

Mejia is also beating the party machine-backed candidate, Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill, on his home turf — an unprecedented dynamic for an underdog with next-to-no institutional support.

Read the rest of  'What You Should Know' here.

Daily Overtime brings you what we’re tracking at the end of the day — and what’s coming next.

In New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, the AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project made a $2.3 million bet against former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ). It was clear early on last night that the bet wasn’t paying off — but now the race could end up in what local Jewish leaders are calling a worst-case scenario, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Pac play: Though some were concerned about Malinowski’s growing criticism of Israel since leaving office, other Jewish leaders had been puzzled by UDP’s decision to attack a lawmaker they saw as an ally during his previous congressional term — particularly when a more strident Israel opponent such as Analilia Mejia, a Sen. Bernie Sanders-endorsed activist, was in the race. Now, some believe that UDP’s attacks on Malinowski, which attacked the former congressman’s vote in 2019 for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and his stock trading while in office, may have pushed voters toward Mejia, rather than toward a more moderate candidate, leaving pro-Israel advocates in an even worse position than if it had not intervened.

Read the full story here.

Moshe Davis, who served as the first-ever executive director of the Office to Combat Antisemitism created by former Mayor Eric Adams, offered advice and even some praise for the administration that replaced him — but also warned that fear of violence has gripped many observant Jewish New Yorkers, who may now feel excluded by their city government in favor of the city’s secular and progressive Jewish population. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Wednesday he intended to appoint Phylisa Wisdom of the progressive New York Jewish Agenda in Davis’ stead. Davis wished his successor well in an interview on Thursday with Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman, but highlighted her history as a leader in Young Advocates for Fair Education (Yaffed), an organization that criticizes the quality of secular education in Hasidic schools.

Hope and concern: “It’s a fence that needs to be mended, a bridge that needs to be built, between the work that she's been previously engaged in, and now making sure that Jewish New Yorkers are safe,” Davis, who is Orthodox, said. "I would hope that she's able to overcome those challenges.” Davis voiced concern that the present administration is mainly interested in working with Jewish organizations for whom progressivism is their main or even exclusive priority. Meanwhile, he noted that an increasing number of antisemitic hate crimes in New York City have targeted “visibly Jewish New Yorkers” from the Orthodox and Hasidic communities.

Read the full interview here.

Political pushback: News that employees in the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene had launched an anti-Israel “working group” inside the agency’s headquarters provoked outrage among both progressive and conservative leaders in the New York City Council.

Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the newly confirmed U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, was interrupted three times during a Thursday afternoon think tank event about his new role. The first was a phone call from Harmeet Dhillon, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, which he sent to voicemail. The next two were protesters who had somehow made it through security at the conservative Hudson Institute to loudly chant “free Palestine” in the midst of Kaploun’s remarks before being escorted out. Those unexpected interruptions framed Kaploun’s pitch as he settles into his new role at the State Department, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

What he said: First, that he will be successful because he is working on behalf of an administration that is committed to fighting antisemitism (“If you want to know how the administration works together, that was Harmeet Dhillon,” he said as he silenced his phone). And second, that education — and pushing back on false narratives about Israel and the Holocaust — is the most important way to combat antisemitism. “The hardest job that I have is how you effect a change in education across the board, by teaching people not to hate, and that’s the battle,” Kaploun said in a conversation moderated by Hudson senior fellow Michael Doran. 

Read the full story here.

Young American Jews have less of an emotional attachment to Israel than older Jews, but the overwhelming majority of all American Jews, across age groups, believes in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, new survey data from Jewish Federations of North America reveals. The results from the survey, which was conducted in March 2025 and released this week, makes clear that a baseline belief in Israel’s existence is still a consistent feature of American Jewish life among at least three-quarters of all Jews in the United States. At the same time, illustrating the complexities of the post-Oct. 7 landscape, one-third of young Jews describe themselves as anti-Zionist or non-Zionist, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Breakdown: Overall, nearly 9 in 10 American Jews believe in Israel’s right to exist, though there is a disparity among age groups. Ninety-eight percent of Jews between the ages of 55 and 74 believe in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state, compared to 76% of American Jews between 18 and 34. According to the survey, fewer than half of American Jews — across nearly all age categories — identify as Zionists. Among those between the ages of 18 and 34, 35% identify as Zionist. Among Jews over 75, just 33% identify as a Zionist. 

Read the full story here.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) abruptly ended his meeting with Gen. Rodolphe Haykal, the head of the Lebanese Armed Forces, on Thursday after Haykal declined to refer to Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

What happened: Graham met with Haykal in his Senate office for a planned discussion on the latest military developments in Lebanon and the LAF’s approach to Israel and Hezbollah. The South Carolina senator wrote on X that he asked the Lebanese military official at the start of the meeting if he viewed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, and did not appreciate the response he received. “I just had a very brief meeting with the Lebanese Chief of Defense General Rodolphe Haykal,” Graham said. “I asked him point blank if he believes Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. He said, ‘No, not in the context of Lebanon.’ With that, I ended the meeting.”

Read the full story here.

Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) and Nate Morris, two of the leading Republican candidates for Kentucky’s Senate seat, on Thursday endorsed Ed Gallrein, the GOP challenger to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), one of the leading GOP critics of Israel in Congress, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What they said: “Ed will never side with AOC or the radical-left against President Trump. He is exactly the kind of conservative warrior we need in Congress, and I’m proud to endorse him,” Barr said. "I've said repeatedly President Trump won a historic mandate in Kentucky and he needs allies he can trust in the House and Senate to deliver his agenda,” Morris said. Massie, in a statement, brushed off the endorsements as more geared toward gaining Trump’s favor in the Senate race, rather than his own campaign.

Read the full story here.

Backlash Building: The Wall Street Journal’s Margherita Stancati and Benoit Faucon report on a second wave of anger across Iran toward the regime in Tehran. “Mourning families are shouting antiregime slogans at funerals and memorials. Students are refusing to sing patriotic songs at school. Medical workers are publicly condemning the arrests of colleagues who treated people injured in the protests. And groups of local activists are openly calling for the fall of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The shows of defiance — sometimes loud and risky, other times quiet and personal — come as Iranians reckon with the full extent of January’s violence and the government that ordered it. And they are cropping up even as the regime has carried out waves of arrests targeting protesters and their sympathizers, from relatives to medical workers to civil-rights activists.” [WSJ]

Attention to Detentions: In The Washington Post, Pedro Pizano, the director of the John McCain Freedom for Political Prisoners Initiative, and New America’s Sarah Moriarty, whose father, Bob Levinson, has been held hostage longer than any American in history, call on the Trump administration to utilize an executive order signed last year to designate Iran, Russia and Afghanistan as State Sponsors of Wrongful Detention in an effort to deter the taking of American hostages in those countries. “Authoritarian regimes across the world have made state hostage-taking a routine tactic. Innocent Americans are arrested to extract concessions from the U.S. government, to offer authoritarian governments a point of leverage or to incentivize prisoner swaps. … Americans traveling, working or reporting abroad deserve a proactive response to hostage-taking. They deserve a policy that makes their safety nonnegotiable. The SSWD designation is a significant step toward that goal. Whether it realizes its potential depends entirely on if Washington decides to make it count.” [WashPost]

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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Thursday condemned a pro-Hamas rally that took place in Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square last weekend. "Hamas is a violent terrorist organization whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews. Support for Hamas and the antisemitism the group foments has no place in Pennsylvania," Shapiro spokesperson Will Simons told JI, adding, “The governor will continue to call out all forms of antisemitism and hate”...

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, announced on Thursday that he’s launching an investigation into New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, prompted by the mayor’s rescission last month of executive orders from the prior administration related to Israel and antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report…

A bipartisan group of 82 House lawmakers wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday, urging her to roll back new conditions placed on applications for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program amid rising antisemitic attacks, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

Puck looks at the backlash that Sephora is facing for its continued support for beauty influencer Huda Kattan, despite her recent social media activity in which she appeared to support the Iranian government, weeks after she posted conspiracy theories blaming Israel for the 9/11 attacks and both World Wars…

The New York Times spotlights former Washington Post reporter Martin Weil, who was among the hundreds of staffers laid off earlier this week after having worked on the Post’s local news desk for more than 60 years… 

A North Carolina man was sentenced to five years in prison for sending antisemitic threats to a Macon, Ga., rabbi and Georgia state Rep. Esther Panitch…

The MetroWest Jewish Day School in Framingham, Mass., is slated to close at the end of this academic year after more than 20 years; administrators from the school, which serves the Boston area, said the decision to close was a financial one…

The New York Times interviews Olympic athlete AJ Edelman, the captain of Israel’s first-ever bobsled team, about his efforts to build and finance a team to represent the Jewish state in bobsledding at the Winter Games in Milan, while the Associated Press profiles what the team has dubbed as its “Shul Runnings” bid…

The news editor of the Australia Broadcasting Corporation instructed staffers who cover issues that could come under the remit of the country’s antisemitism commission not to use disappearing messages on communications apps following the implementation of a disposal freeze order from the National Archives of Australia…

Israel announced plans to build a new international airport in the northern Negev, near the Ziklag archeological site…

Iranian state media reported that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized two oil tankers carrying “smuggled fuel” that were transiting through the Gulf…

Ted Berger, the former head of the New York Foundation for the Arts, died at 85…

AJC

American Jewish Committee leaders met on Wednesday with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan, United Arab Emirates deputy prime minister and foreign minister, in Abu Dhabi.

Pictured (from left): Reva Gorelick, deputy director of AJC Abu Dhabi; Huda Raphael Sievers; AJC Abu Dhabi Director Ambassador (ret) Marc J. Sievers; al-Nahyan; Jason Isaacson, AJC chief policy and political affairs officer; and Benjamin Rogers, director of Middle East and North Africa initiatives and deputy director at AJC’s Center for a New Middle East.

Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Boston attorney, author and podcast host, his 2013 book on Jews and baseball was turned into the 2016 play "Swing, Schmendrick, Swing," Larry Ruttman turns 95 on Sunday…

FRIDAY: Israeli pediatric endocrinologist, winner of the 2009 Israel Prize, in 1966 he described the type of dwarfism later called Laron syndrome in his name, Dr. Zvi Laron turns 99… Advertising entrepreneur and founder of Global Water Resources, William Levine turns 94… Member of the New Jersey Senate for 17 years including 10 years as majority leader, Loretta Weinberg turns 91.. Rosalyn Kaplan… Cantor of Congregation Hugat Haverim in Glendale, Calif., Harvey Lee Block… Syndicated columnist for The Washington Post for 43 years (ending in 2019), he had worked at the Post since 1968, Richard Martin Cohen turns 85… Actor, best known for his role in the 172 episodes of the television series “L.A. Law,” Michael Tucker turns 81… Pulitzer Prize-winning author and vice chairman of S&P Global, Daniel Yergin turns 79… Professor at McGill University since 1975, Yitzchak M. "Irv" Binik turns 77… Louisiana commissioner of administration for eight years, after serving as lieutenant governor of Louisiana for the prior six years, Jay Dardenne turns 72… Professor concurrently at both Harvard and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, Michael Pollan turns 71… Past chair of the board of UJA-Federation of New York and a part owner of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, David Lewis Moore… Los Angeles attorney specializing in criminal and civil appeals, Paul Kujawsky… President of Brown University since 2012, Christina Hull Paxson turns 66… Former longtime foreign correspondent for NPR in many capitals including Jerusalem, author of the New York Times bestseller The Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner turns 63… Special events producer at Ballas Bloom Creative, Jacquelyn Ballas Bloom… NFL long snapper for 18 seasons between 1994-2011, David Aaron Binn turns 54… Television and film actress, writer and producer, best known for her role as Pepper in the FX series "American Horror Story," Naomi Grossman turns 51… Rabbi and author of eight books, Danya Ruttenberg turns 51… Former tenured professor at MIT, she is the co-trustee of the Pershing Square Foundation with her husband, Bill Ackman, Neri Oxman turns 50… Israeli-French singer-songwriter whose hit single "New Soul" was used by Apple in a 2008 advertising campaign for its MacBook Air, Yael Naim turns 48… Equestrian show jumper who competes for Israel, Danielle "Dani" Goldstein-Waldman turns 41… Vice president for national political campaigns and strategy at AIPAC, Stephen Knable… Investigative journalist, his work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and many other outlets, he is also a data science manager at EDO, Steven I. Weiss… Deputy director of foreign affairs at the Israeli Ministry of Health, Adam Cutler… Member of the Australian parliament, Joshua Solomon Burns turns 39… Corporate procurement director for IKO North America, Yadin Koschitzky...

SATURDAY: Director of training for the Bulfinch Group, a financial planning firm based in Needham, Mass., Michel R. Scheinmann turns 78… Rabbi emeritus of Beth Tzedec Congregation in Toronto, Baruch Frydman-Kohl turns 75… U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper (D-CO) turns 74… Majority leader of the Illinois House of Representatives, Robyn Gabel turns 73… PFAS practice group leader at Sundance Consultants and part time instructor at Carnegie Mellon University, Rick Wice… American businessman and investor arrested in Bolivia in July 2011 and held for 18 months without charges, freed through public outcry and the efforts of Sean Penn, Jacob Ostreicher turns 67… Actor, humorist, comedian and writer known for his “Saturday Night Live” "TV Funhouse" cartoon shorts, Robert Smigel turns 66… President of The Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC, Dr. David L. Reich turns 66… Baseball columnist for the New York Post and a baseball insider for MLB Network, Jon Heyman turns 65… Director general of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2020 to 2023, Alon Ushpiz turns 60… Former professional hockey player who played in 418 regular and post-season games in the NHL spanning 13 seasons, Mike Hartman turns 59… Rabbi at Beth Chai Congregation in Bethesda, Md. and author of nine Jewish children's books and teen novels, Deborah Bodin Cohen… Principal consultant at Saxon Strategies, Jennifer Diamond Haber… Author of 24 fiction and non-fiction books, some of which have been made into feature films, Ben Mezrich turns 57… Executive director of the UJA and JCRC-NY's Community Security Initiative, Mitch Silber turns 56… Israeli actor, model and musician, he played Yonatan Netanyahu in the 2018 film "Entebbe," Angel Bonanni turns 54… Executive director of the Aviv Foundation (Chani and Steve Laufer), Adam Simon… SVP at Material+, Jonathan Weiss… Chassidic singer and recording artist, Shloime Daskal turns 47… Former member of the Knesset for the Yisrael Beiteinu party, Mark Ifraimov turns 45… MLB pitcher from 2005 until 2017, he played for the Rangers, Cubs, Orioles, Astros, Blue Jays and Reds, he is now an angel investor in the San Francisco area, Scott Feldman turns 43… Professional basketball player in Germany, Italy and Israel, he is now a VP at Lightspeed Venture Partners in Menlo Park, California, Dan Grunfeld turns 42… NFL player for six seasons until 2015, he is now the safeties coach for the Washington Huskies, Taylor Mays turns 38… Senior director of advancement field services for Hillel International, Rachael Fenton… David Israel… Michael Harris...

SUNDAY: Winner of 25 Emmy Awards as a broadcast journalist, best known as the anchor of ABC's Nightline from its inception in 1980 until his retirement in late 2005, Ted Koppel turns 86… Stage, television and film actor, stand-up comedian and singer, Robert Klein turns 84… Chair of the Morris A. Hazan Family Foundation, Lovee Arum turns 82… Therapist and life coach based in Wake County, N.C., Sheila Kay… Columbus, Ohio-born attorney and president of Schottenstein Legal Services, James Mark Schottenstein turns 79… Former CEO of the Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York (Albany), now an executive coach and nonprofit consultant in Venice, Florida, Rodney Margolis… Village justice in Red Hook, N.Y., Judge Jonah Triebwasser turns 76… CEO of NYC-based Cohen Brothers Realty Corporation, owner of more than 12 million square feet of office space and design centers, he also produces films and owns theatres, Charles S. Cohen turns 74… Active private investor and business operator, he is on the board of Tel Aviv University, Marc Lauren Abramowitz turns 73… President of NYC-based BlackRock, the world's largest asset management firm, he is a past chair of the board of UJA-Federation of New York, Robert S. Kapito turns 69… Chief rabbi of the IDF, Brig. Gen. Eyal Moshe Karim turns 69… Senior director of synagogue affiliations and operations for United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Barry S. Mael… Chair of the board of trustees of the Hudson Institute, Sarah May Stern… British businessman and former longtime chairman of the Premier League's Tottenham Hotspur, Daniel Levy turns 64… Former member of the Knesset for the Jewish Home and New Right parties, Shulamit "Shuli" Mualem-Rafaeli turns 61… Chairman of Andell Inc., a private investment firm and family office he controls with his wife, Ellen Bronfman Hauptman, Andrew Hauptman turns 57… Chess grandmaster, then derivatives trader, now a retirement planner, Ilya Mark Gurevich turns 54… Attorney, rabbi and New Jersey political consultant, Benjamin G. Kelsen… Popular Israeli musician, singer and songwriter, Eviatar Banai turns 53… Actor and filmmaker, Seth Benjamin Green turns 52… Member of the Knesset for the Labor party until 2021, he is now director-general of the Israeli office of the UJA-Federation of New York, Itzik Shmuli turns 46… Founder of DC-based JTR Strategies, she is the former head of aviation and international affairs at USDOT under President Barack Obama, Jenny Thalheimer Rosenberg… Senior advisor in the office of the Inspector General at USAID, Adam Kaplan… Partner at Sidley Austin, he was previously chief of staff to then-Attorney General Bill Barr, William Ranney Levi… Retired professional ice hockey center for five NHL teams, now a real estate executive, Trevor Smith turns 41… Synchronized swimmer on behalf of Israel at the three Olympic games: 2004 (Athens), 2008 (Beijing) and 2012 (London), Inna Yoffe turns 38… Yale Law School graduate, she clerked for Judge Marsha S. Berzon on the 9th Circuit and is now a senior attorney at Public Justice, Alexandra Brodsky… Vice president of policy and government affairs for AIPAC, Celia Glassman… Canadian jazz-pop singer-songwriter, who performed at the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics, Nicole "Nikki" Rachel Yanofsky turns 32… Pitcher for Team Israel in the 2020 Olympics as well as the 2017 and 2023 World Baseball Classics, Jake Layton Fishman turns 31… Associate attorney in the NYC office of Heidell, Pittoni, Murphy & Bach, Samantha Grosinger… Director of global brand and marketing at Olami, Michal Nordmann...