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Visit us at JewishInsider.com and sign up for our newsletter at https://www.jewishinsider.com/subscribe Jewish Insider (JI) covers politics and policy – and the people driving it – in the U.S., Middle East and beyond. From the halls of Congress and the White House and State Department briefing rooms in D.C. to the campaign trail in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, our political reporters are your eyes and ears on the latest news and buzz. We also bring you the latest in culture and culture wars, from college campuses to leading institutions.

Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the Trump administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, visited the United Ar...
04/09/2026

Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the Trump administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, visited the United Arab Emirates this week for his first official visit, taking part in high-level meetings that culminated in a Thursday morning discussion with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

During his trip, the envoy also held meetings with senior government officials and rulers, including Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi, chairman of the Defence, Interior and Foreign Affairs Committee at the Federal National Council, the UAE’s parliament.

The meetings focused on bolstering the strategic U.S.-UAE partnership, advancing regional stability and strengthening bilateral efforts to counter extremism, hate speech, and religious intolerance, according to the FNC.

Read more: https://ji.news/5hbut

Footage from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s visit to a Brooklyn Judaica store showed a little-known Orthodox City ...
04/09/2026

Footage from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s visit to a Brooklyn Judaica store showed a little-known Orthodox City Hall staffer blowing the shofar and explaining aspects of Hasidic garb to the democratic socialist — as well as ushering aside a heckler — provoking questions and commentary from Jewish observers.

Uri Fraenkel, who accompanied Mamdani and faith liaison Rabbi Miriam Grossman on the pre-High Holidays trip to Borough Park, cuts an unlikely figure in a leftist City Hall: an Israel-supporting Lubavitcher from Crown Heights, whose social media features multiple photos with former Mayor Eric Adams (“a true Mayor who fights for all New Yorkers,” a caption on LinkedIn reads), in whose administration he previously served.

Even more ironic, for a man all sources Jewish Insider spoke to described as apolitical, is the arm of the mayor’s office he now works in: the new Office of Mass Engagement, created with the explicit mission of “bringing the people-powered movement that elected Mayor Mamdani to the work of governance” — an office stocked with members of the Democratic Socialists of America all the way up to Commissioner Tascha Van Auken.

Full story: https://ji.news/5hbd5

The American Jewish community spent over $1 billion on security in 2025, according to a new Jewish Federations of North ...
04/09/2026

The American Jewish community spent over $1 billion on security in 2025, according to a new Jewish Federations of North America study — a record high and a 33% increase over 2024. The results, published today, showed that on average, Jewish communal organizations, including Jewish community centers, synagogues, schools, summer camps and nonprofits, spend roughly $225,000 on security per institution.

“Even the old number, $765 million [spent in 2024], was just a demonstration of the impossible situation that the Jewish community is being put in,” Eric Fingerhut, JFNA’s president and CEO said. “To have to raise extraordinary sums of money and dedicate extraordinary sums of money to security just to be able to fully live a flourishing Jewish life in this great and free country.”

Read more: https://ji.news/5hadf

North Carolina Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley is emphasizing that he stands firmly with Israel as he seeks to...
04/09/2026

North Carolina Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley is emphasizing that he stands firmly with Israel as he seeks to attract votes from the state’s Jewish community.

“The Jewish people matter [and] our relationship with Israel matters,” Whatley told Jewish Insider during the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit in Las Vegas. “Israel has been and will be our No. 1 ally in the Middle East and they need to be and we need to make absolutely sure that we have a senator who is going to fight for that relationship.”

Beyond just the Jewish community, during the RJC event, Whatley described support for Israel as a top-priority issue for North Carolina voters. He expressed unequivocal support for continued U.S. military aid to Israel.

Full story: https://ji.news/5ha8c

A co-founder of “Jews for Abdul,” a loose coalition of Jewish activists backing Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic no...
04/09/2026

A co-founder of “Jews for Abdul,” a loose coalition of Jewish activists backing Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic nominee for Senate, voiced reservations over the nominee’s approach to Israel in a recent organizing call, arguing he could “do a better job” toning down harsh rhetoric that has alienated many Jewish voters in the key battleground state.

Steve Gold, a “Jews for Abdul” member in a heavily Jewish Detroit suburb, said during the mid-August call that there were “three issues” about which El-Sayed has been “less than effective in communicating” his views, citing his refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, his “insistence on using the word genocide” to describe Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and his opposition to all U.S. funding for Israel, including defensive aid.

Gold confirmed to Jewish Insider on Thursday that his comments made on the private organizing call, a video of which was first reported by The Midwesterner, were authentic.

Read more: https://ji.news/5h9rp

For 40 Jewish graduate students gathered on Capitol Hill on Monday, the trip to Washington was not simply an exercise in...
04/09/2026

For 40 Jewish graduate students gathered on Capitol Hill on Monday, the trip to Washington was not simply an exercise in advocacy. Many arrived carrying stories from campuses where they had felt increasingly isolated, targeted or ignored — and left with a desire to do something about it.

The students gathered for the Jewish Grad Organization’s Partners Summit, sponsored by Adam Miller and Family, and met with congressional offices throughout the day to advocate for the Jewish American Security Act, a bipartisan bill designed to strengthen security on university campuses, among other efforts to combat antisemitism across American society. They also discussed campus codes of conduct and equal protection, and shared their personal experiences with antisemitism.

For Rachel Applefield, the stakes of the legislation were deeply personal.

Applefield, a second-year student at Indiana University Maurer School of Law and president of the school’s Jewish Law Student Association, grew up in West Bloomfield, Mich. She is a member of Temple Israel, where an attacker drove a truck into the synagogue’s early childhood center in March. That attack underscored for her the vital need for robust Jewish security—and reinforced her belief that college campuses require similar resources to protect students.

“It’s been very, very difficult and very personal,” Applefield told Jewish Insider. “I’m sure it’s personal for everyone, but it’s very personal for me, this Jewish American Security Act.”

Full story: https://ji.news/5h8qn

Trump met with several Hasidic rabbis at the White House on Thursday ahead of Rosh Hashanah, a gathering his office call...
04/09/2026

Trump met with several Hasidic rabbis at the White House on Thursday ahead of Rosh Hashanah, a gathering his office called the first of its kind in nearly 50 years.

The rabbis, many of whom were pictured in photos that circulated on social media ahead of the meeting flying to Washington on private jets, hailed from a range of leading Hasidic communities in New York.

The meeting, according to sources, was also attended by Jared Kushner, Vice President JD Vance and Rep. Mike Lawler, who is among the most vulnerable House Republicans running this cycle.

Beforehand, sources familiar with the meeting framed it as a chance for Trump to convey greetings ahead of the Jewish new year. But some more substantive issues were also raised, according to the sources, including topics like “large families” as well as housing concerns, prison reform and “expanding earned income tax credits” for those with more than three children.

Full story: https://ji.news/5h8j7

When Marcy Grossman began her three-year post as Canada’s ambassador to the United Arab Emirates in 2019, Jewish life th...
03/09/2026

When Marcy Grossman began her three-year post as Canada’s ambassador to the United Arab Emirates in 2019, Jewish life there was quietly tolerated. By the time she left, the country had inaugurated the region’s first synagogue in nearly a century.

Now, she is returning to the UAE — not as a diplomat, but as the newly appointed director of the American Jewish Committee’s Abu Dhabi office.

In her first interview since being tapped for the position, Grossman told Jewish Insider that even amid a rise of antisemitism in the West, normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors has proven more resilient than many expected since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks.

Grossman attributes the concern from Emirati leaders about antisemitism in the West to “a shared interest.”

“At the end of the day, much of the antisemitism that we see in North America is fueled by violent extremism from non-friendly sources. Countering violent extremism is one of the main security priorities of the UAE. So in that regard, there’s a shared interest,” she told JI.

Full story: https://ji.news/5h8ft

Vice President JD Vance defended his friendship with antisemitic podcaster Tucker Carlson at a White House press briefin...
03/09/2026

Vice President JD Vance defended his friendship with antisemitic podcaster Tucker Carlson at a White House press briefing on Thursday, saying that he would not “play the game where I throw friends under the bus because I have political disagreements with them.”

Vance made the comments after being asked to respond to the concerns raised by his continued association with the far-right commentator and accusations that he has been “avoiding addressing a lot of these issues,” as Carlson has increasingly used his show to platform antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial.

Read more: https://ji.news/5h8e5

Many of the liberal Jewish and civil rights organizations and lawmakers who protested federal efforts to deport Columbia...
03/09/2026

Many of the liberal Jewish and civil rights organizations and lawmakers who protested federal efforts to deport Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mohsen Mahdawi are so far silent on new revelations about Mahdawi’s lengthy history of antisemitic and pro-terrorist social media posts.

Mahdawi, a graduate student at Columbia facing deportation for his role in campus protests, wrote posts over the span of 15 years that supported armed violence and called to “annihilate the Jews,” according to a 100-page investigation published Wednesday by journalists David Collier and Rachel Feldman — with Arabic-to-English translations confirmed by Jewish Insider.

Mahdawi, a 35-year-old green card holder and West Bank native, pledged in a 2010 Facebook post, “soon, very soon, we will annihilate the Jews.” He also praised Hamas and honored deceased terrorists in several posts on Instagram and Facebook, declaring that Palestinians have the capacity and conviction “to kill and to wound.”

Read more: https://ji.news/5h8aq

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