(JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump Tuesday, as the American leader is weighing whether to expand his bombing campaign against Iran or to find a diplomatic resolution regarding the Straits of Hormouz and the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

Israel fears that Trump is going to negotiate a premature end to the war without eliminating Iran’s capacity to develop nuclear weapons in the future. Trump has persistently insisted that Iran can’t possess nuclear weapons, but the war and the economic upheaval it has spurred has contributed to Trump’s approval rating hitting record lows in his second term. The poor marks are ringing alarm bells for Republicans ahead of midterm elections that could return Democrats to leadership in at least one chamber of Congress.

Netanyahu and Trump are also at odds over other issues, however, including the recent U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal, the pending sale of F-35 advance fighter jets to Turkey and the extent of Israel’s troop presence in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.

Netanyahu is coming to the United States to attend the funeral for Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who remained one of Israel’s most unyielding advocates even as its popularity plummeted and was one of the most important Trump associates in pressing for the Iran war. Former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, now the opposition leader, will also be at the service at Washington’s National Cathedral on Tuesday.

But while in Washington, Netanyahu will seek to close the widening gaps between himself and Trump over Middle East strategy. In a video statement he released before Monday‘s departure, Netanyahu said, “I am embarking on this mission with one clear goal – to ensure the security, strength and future of our dear State of Israel.”

“We will discuss all the issues on the agenda, first and foremost, Iran,” he said. “Naturally, our goal is to safeguard our security and also to expand the circle of peace around us.”

During the trip, Netanyahu said he would also pay his final respect to Graham, “one of the greatest friends the State of Israel has ever known.”

Israelis are acutely aware of the emerging differences between the allies. “It will not be an easy visit,” former IDF intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told Israel Radio on Monday morning. “There is no doubt that Netanyahu wants the United States to return to war.”

Trump himself spoke on Monday of the discord between himself and Netanyahu, even as he lauded Netanyahu, while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, stating that Netanahu had been “great” and that “we did very well together.”

On the plane Trump was quizzed about U.S. plans to sell advanced F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, which Netanyahu has publicly opposed. “Turkey has been a great ally for me,” Trump told reporters, stressing, “No one tells me what we should be selling or not.” He acknowledged that Turkey “is not a big fan” of Israel and Netanyahu.

When it comes to the Saudi civilian nuclear power program that the Trump administration recently completed, Israel has been more circumspect. But it has deep concerns about an agreement that allows for plants with the capacity to enrich uranium. Assisting in the building of those plants had been one of the key incentives former President Joe Biden had used as a means to sway Saudi Arabia to normalize ties with Israel and join the Abraham Accords between Israel and several other Muslim countries.

Trump has since said that U.S. support for a Saudi civilian nuclear program would be contingent on normalization with Israel and that the plants would not be allowed to enrich uranium. But on Monday, he told reporters aboard Air Force One that he hadn’t spoken with Saudi Arabia about the Abraham Accords. Tuesday’s meeting is the first face-to-face encounter between Trump and Netanyahu since the announcement.

The closer Netanyahu appears to Trump and the center of U.S. decision making, the better it is for him domestically ahead of Israel’s Oct. 27 election. Trump has in his second term met with Netanyahu more than any other leader. This will be their eighth such conversation, and the fifth time he has hosted the Israeli leader in the White House.

Tight ties with Netanyahu also plays well for Trump with his evangelical base ahead of the U.S. mid-terms in November, but they run the risk of further alienating the larger American public that opposes the conflict.

Netanyahu’s influence in America had diminished, in part because of how unpopular the war has become in the United States and the role he played spurring it on.

“This is not the same Netanyahu of 2025 or even of February 2026. He is greeted with suspicion,” Yadlin said of the reception he expects for the prime minister in the United States.

Netanyahu last visited Washington in February, where he successfully advocated for the joint Israeli-U.S. military aerial bombing campaign against Iran launched on the 28th of that month.

Tehran retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil supply is shipped. That step caused crude oil prices to spike in the first quarter of 2026 from $61 a barrel to $118, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Iran allowed the strait to reopen in a limited way after an April ceasefire that was followed by a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. in June. The agreement fell apart in early July, with the parties resuming attacks – but without any Israeli military involvement. The United States bombed Iran for 13 consecutive nights, ending on Thursday, even as talks with the Islamic Republic  continued.

The United States and Israel in February were initially aligned around their joint goal of destroying Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, with Netanyahu also focused on the collapse of the Islamic Republic.

Over the weekend, Trump stressed that the war was still about eliminating Iran’s nuclear program. Last week he spoke about specifically hitting the nuclear facility at Pickaxe mountain.

In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said the United States was “keeping all options on the table,” but was giving space for talks.

He dismissed media reports that lack of military supplies was part of Trump’s motivation to pause its bombing campaign, stating that the United States had everything it needed militarily.

Waltz warned Iran not to ignore American military threats. Early Monday morning, Trump published a short AI video in which his likeness planted an American flag on an Iranian oil tanker, with a slogan that stated, “it’s our oil tanker now.”

Later in the day, the president told reporters on Air Force One that he was having “good talks” with the Iranians, “so we will see what happens. I think there is a good chance something could happen. If it does, good. If it doesn’t, we go back to doing what we were doing two days ago.”

Yadlin told Israel Radio that at the end of the day, “What interests President Trump is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.”

The war might have begun in February with a focus on the Iranian regime and its nuclear program, but it will end, Yadlin predicted, with the reopening of the strait and some kind of diplomatic achievement with regard to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Israel has watched the U.S.-Iran reengagement warily from the sidelines.

Sima Shine, an Iran expert at the Tel Aviv-based International Institute of Strategic Studies, said that until now, neither Washington nor Tehran had wanted Israel’s involvement in the resumed fighting, fearing that such a step would “widen the scope of the war.”

Maintaining its status as a bilateral conflict makes it easier to return to negotiations, she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The United States can better control the battlefield without Israel, which would have its own military agenda and objectives, Shine said. Israel can only enter the war if it is attacked by Iran or invited to do so by the United States, she added.

In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Netanyahu warned of a forceful response should Iran attack Israel.

Iran has to end its nuclear program, he stressed, saying that the military strikes so far have set the program back but have not eliminated it.

A nuclear-armed Iran is a danger to Israel, the region, the United States and the world, he said, adding, “President Trump and I are both committed to prevent this danger.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Netanyahu to meet Trump with Iran, Gaza and Saudi Arabia on the line appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — DETROIT — Hours before a big debate showdown with her primary rival, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens began a routine campaign stop Monday seemingly comfortably in her element.

The Michigan candidate for U.S. Senate walked into The Roost, a cafe and wine shop in the Woodbridge neighborhood, chatting up her record on small businesses with the owner, Jeff Tatum. She gamely made herself a cappuccino, exclaiming with glee that the store used Dial soap like her father’s business had.

She also made a play for party unity. Asked by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about Jewish Democratic donors who have indicated they would fundraise for Republican candidate Mike Rogers if Stevens lost the primary, she responded, “I’m on the Democratic team. I’m on the Beat Mike Rogers team.”

But things went off-script for Stevens when she sat down with Jai Singletary, director of a local neighborhood improvement association — who revealed, midway through their conversation, that he had already cast his early voting primary ballot for her opponent, former county health director Abdul El-Sayed.

What’s more, Singletary made it clear to Stevens that the candidates’ respective stances on aid to Israel were the deciding factor for him.

“Genocide isn’t a Palestinian issue. We’ve all got to care about this,” Singletary told Stevens, a pro-Israel centrist who has received nearly $30 million in outside spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to date in her primary — the organization’s largest-ever investment in a single race, according to CBS News. He believes, he said, that “our country is directly responsible for peace not being achieved.”

The director of Woodbridge Neighborhood Development and local soccer coach added, “We’ve got to have the money stay here. I don’t think we should be giving any more aid to the State of Israel while they’re committing the atrocities they’re committing in widespread collective punishment.”

The interaction spotlighted two of the biggest questions hanging over Michigan’s closely watched and hard-fought Democratic Senate primary: To what degree are the state’s voters factoring Israel into their decisions, and does the pro-Palestinian sentiment driving El-Sayed’s campaign cross racial lines — including in the Black communities where Stevens has long maintained strong relationships?

Many of the Jews in Michigan who form a major base of support for Stevens have made clear their distrust of El-Sayed, who has questioned whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state. Meanwhile, the state has a large Arab and Muslim voting bloc, and voters here helped propel a 2024 Democratic revolt over Israel’s war in Gaza that helped lead to the party’s current civil war. But the situation is less clear with voters from other groups.

El-Sayed and the insurgent progressive movement he represents have sought to make Israel central to the race and have tried to turn Stevens’ AIPAC support into her biggest liability. But the Stevens campaign has made the calculation that most of the state’s voters — including Detroit’s majority-Black population, with whom she has enjoyed good relations in the past — would rather talk about other things.

Not so, according to Singletary, who is Black. In his own Detroit community, he told JTA, Israel was an important issue.

“It’s connected,” he said, comparing the Israeli-Palestinian state of affairs to Apartheid-era South Africa, adding, “$3.3 billion to the state of Israel, and that’s money that could be helping out here. I think people are now seeing the links.” He told reporters that, though he does not have Palestinian family himself, his own vote was “100% exclusive” based on Israel.

After the campaign left, Singletary told JTA that he had no affiliation with the El-Sayed campaign and had stopped by on an invitation from the store’s owner. He said he would not vote for Rogers in the general election even if Stevens wins and came because he hoped to develop a connection with her in the event she became the nominee.

The issue of whether backers of either candidate across the yawning policy divide would continue to vote for a Democrat in the general if their preferred choice loses has become an emerging question. Last week, Democratic U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten of Michigan, a Stevens backer, refused to commit to voting for El-Sayed if he wins the primary. Scholten cited the candidate’s campaigning with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who has repeatedly said he would “vote” for Hamas over Israel. Her objection, she said, was to his comment that “America deserved 9/11.”

“Abdul El-Sayed is taking us in a direction we don’t want to go as a party,” Scholten told CNN host Jake Tapper.

Stevens’ campaign is also touting her backing from a growing number of establishment Democrats, including, on Friday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. She and El-Sayed face off Monday evening in their final televised debate before the Aug. 4 primary.

Speaking to Singletary, Stevens smiled and nodded. She name-dropped a Palestinian supporter of hers, and mentioned legislation targeting China that she’s worked on with “my colleague Ro Khanna” — the staunchly pro-Palestinian Democratic congressman from California, who has endorsed El-Sayed. She added that she believes in a two-state solution and has been attacked “by name” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

She also turned to her staff and excitedly indicated to Singletary: “He voted for Abdul in the primary, and he came here to talk to me.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post In Detroit, pro-Israel Senate candidate Haley Stevens meets a pro-Palestinan El-Sayed supporter appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — Most people spend their later years looking back. Harold Grinspoon has spent his reinventing himself.

The businessman became a philanthropist. The philanthropist discovered Jewish children’s books and created PJ Library. In his late 80s, he became a sculptor after a cherry tree fell in his yard.

Now, as he turns 97, Grinspoon is reflecting on the unexpected pivots that have defined both his life and his approach to Jewish giving.

Known for innovative programs like PJ Library — which engages young Jewish families with monthly deliveries of age-appropriate children’s books and music — Grinspoon and his eponymous foundation have focused on programs that, in the spirit of the real estate business that made his fortune, build Jewish habits, institutions and relationships that he hopes will outlast him.

“I was 10 years old in 1939 when the Holocaust began and the horrific news of what was occurring to the Jews in Europe over the ensuing years made a deep impression on me,” he recalled in a recent email interview. “I have spent my life reflecting on the inhumanity of the Holocaust and what small part I could play in helping to rebuild the Jewish community.”

That help is also coming from JCamp 180, a program that now supports over 175 Jewish day and overnight camps by providing strategic and organizational development, and Life and Legacy, which provides training and incentives for institutions to plan for their futures.

To date, with Life and Legacy’s assistance, $350 million has been placed into organizational endowments, and over $2.2 billion has been committed for the future of Jewish communities.

Visitors to the foundation headquarters in Western Massachusetts find a philanthropy that often runs like a think tank, looking for  answers to out-of-the-box questions within the Jewish world and the local community. How can art be used to promote Jewish values? What’s the best way to help local farmers? What do the intimate, lay-led congregations known as havurot need to survive and thrive?

Many of these questions are posed by Grinspoon himself.

“That’s always struck me as the essence of who Harold is: curious, fearless, and determined to understand the things he supports from the inside out. He shows up, asks questions, listens, and follows through,” Jamie Simon, CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, wrote in an email.

Simon first met Grinspoon when she headed up Camp Towanga, the Jewish overnight camp near Yosemite National Park. She remembers how on a visit, he laced up his hiking boots for the steep hike down to the river, eager for an up-close look.

Curiosity and high energy drive Grinspoon, agrees Adrian Dion, COO of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

Dion said Grinspoon likes to take his early morning work meetings during his daily 4-mile walk. Once, they encountered a flooded road.

“We took off our socks and shoes and walked through, then jumped in the back of a pickup to get back. That’s Harold. Roll with the punches but keep the work going,” she wrote about the avid outdoorsman.

In his wide-ranging email interview with JTA, Grinspoon  reflected on his turning points, philanthropy, his love of Yiddishkeit, world travels and discovering a new life as an artist.

“I always knew that if I made money, that I would give it back to the Jewish people,” Grinspoon wrote.

“If” became “when” in 1991, when he and his wife, Diane Troderman, founded HGF. He had made his money as founder of Aspen Square Management, a property development company in Agawam, Massachusetts, where the couple live.

In his mid-70s, Grinspoon, a cancer survivor and grandfather, was introduced to the world of Jewish children’s books by his daughter-in-law, Winnie Sandler Grindspoon. Like other Jewish philanthropists of his era, he was concerned by research showing that young Jewish families were increasingly opting out of synagogues and other legacy Jewish institutions.

Grinspoon had no idea that there were such beautifully illustrated, high quality Jewish-themed books that his grandkids were eager to read. The challenge — and opportunity — was getting them into the hands of Jewish parents, and creating Jewish moments for unaffiliated and interfaith families with little or no connection to Jewish institutions.

He launched PJ Library in 2005. He was inspired by Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, a national literacy program he supported in his area.

Today, the HGF’s signature program is a global, multi-lingual organization with more than 670,000 subscribers, in 40 countries, across five continents. A sister program in Israel, Sifriyat Pijama, reaches 350,000 children, while Maktabat-al-Fanoos provides books in Arabic to Arab-speaking school children.

Looking back, Grinspoon marvels about the endurance of PJ Library, whose name is a nod to family bedtime reading.

Among his favorite books are “Bagels From Benny,” by Aubrey Davis and “Joseph Had a Little Overcoat,” by Simms Taback, a classic that PJ sends to every new subscriber.

PJ Library has not only helped connect families with Jewish values and stories, according to Naomi Firestone-Teeter, CEO of the Jewish Book Council, but its impact on publishing Jewish children’s books has been remarkable.

“PJ Library has helped create a strong, reliable audience for Jewish children’s books,” she wrote. “We’ve seen that influence reflected in the revival of out-of-print titles and the introduction of new voices and books that speak to the diversity and richness of Jewish life.”

The year before PJ Library began, HGF established JCamp 180. The foundation committed up to $10 million to a matching fund to help the overnight camps weather the pandemic crisis, when they had to cancel an entire summer session.

The foundation, with assets reported at just over $1 billion as of 2024, along with its philanthropic partners, has invested more than $700 million in Jewish programming and communities in Israel, the US, and around the world.

In 2012, the foundation launched Life and Legacy, a partnership program aimed at strengthening management at Jewish institutions across the country.

Sandler Grinspoon is the current president of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation but will soon retire from the role and remain as a board chair, according to a spokesperson.

Through a second foundation, the Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation, her father also supports numerous non-Jewish civic causes, including awards programs for local farmers and educators.

Grinspoon’s wealth and optimism belie his early years.

Born in 1929, Grinspoon was raised in a poor family in Newton, a suburb of Boston. One of five kids, he attended elementary school in Auburndale, one of the city’s neighborhoods with few Jewish residents.

Dyslexic and bullied because he was Jewish, Grinspoon in Newton’s vocational high school, where he was one of the few Jewish students.

To earn money when he attended Marlboro College in Vermont, Grinspoon sold ice cream in the summer, so successfully that he left school to manage a fleet of ice cream trucks.

After serving in the U.S. Navy, Grinspoon bought a two-family home in West Springfield, Massachusetts. He renovated homes in need of repair and rented them as affordable housing. Over the decades, his real estate enterprise expanded across the country.

A decade after launching PJ Library, the ever-ebullient Grinspoon, then approaching 90, had another “aha” moment that once again transformed his life.

When a large cherry tree fell in the yard of his home, Grinspoon didn’t feel right having it carted away. Instead, he set to work creating a large sculpture from the distressed wood.

A creative spark was kindled -— leading him in a left-turn journey into the life of a sculptor. Working with an artistic partner for the past seven years, he’s created more than 140 large-scale, modern, abstract sculptures, many on display in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, where he supports a number of Jewish and local institutions.

“Somewhere inside me, I discovered a bend towards art. When I stepped back from my active role in my business and the foundation, I found the time to play with some concepts,” he wrote.

He works with distressed wood and recently, with modern media, including found objects. Among his works is “Cosmic Dreidel” and “Floating,” a newer work, a towering piece of 550 12-inch glass and stainless steel balls.

“Make sure to show a picture of that one,” he wrote.

Grinspoon and Troderman follow the news, Grinspoon said, acknowledging the distressing rise in antisemitism.

“My mind flashes back to when I was a young kid and antisemitism was rampant. This is the second time it has happened in my lifetime,” he wrote.

Post Oct. 7, 2023, his foundation continues its investment in programs that connect Jews around the world with Israel, Dion told JTA. Support for PJ Library is stronger than ever, she said.

“This is a moment in time to double down on our flagship programs — PJ Library, Life and Legacy and JCamp 180,” she wrote. “We will continue to grow and evolve as we have for the last 30 years,” and continue to look for new partners.

For Grinspoon, that’s the only way he knows how to respond to a challenge.

“I believe in helping others. Being generous. Being grateful. We try to be good citizens,” he wrote. In celebration of his 95th birthday, Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno presented Grinspoon with the key to the city, the largest in Western Massachusetts.

Nearly a century after growing up amid American antisemitism, living through the Holocaust, watching Israel’s triumphs and challenges, and witnessing the American Jewish community’s prosperity and vulnerability, Grinspoon says one of his greatest sources of optimism is Maktabat al-Fanoos, the Arabic-language children’s literacy program his foundation supports in Israel.

Like many of the programs he funds, it builds on family connections in service of creating civic and communal connections.

“It gives me hope,” he wrote. “I hope all Israeli citizens can be great neighbors.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post The man who changed Jewish bedtime stories is still reinventing himself at 97 appeared first on The Forward.