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Ron DeSantis is heading to Jerusalem to talk about ‘unnecessarily strained relations’ between the US and Israel
(JTA) — Even though he hasn’t officially declared his Republican presidential campaign (yet), Ron DeSantis has been pitching his governance of Florida as a model for running the United States — telling Fox News last week, for example, that “we can get America back on track and back on our foundations” by following Florida’s example.
This week, he repeated the pitch with a twist: His close relations with Israel are a template for the U.S.-Israel relationship, he said — and he’s ready to make that case next month in Jerusalem.
“At a time of unnecessarily strained relations between Jerusalem and Washington, Florida serves as a bridge between the American and Israeli people,” DeSantis said, announcing his participation in a conference on April 27 cosponsored by The Jerusalem Post and the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance. The event is called “Celebrate the faces of Israel.“
The “unnecessary strain” DeSantis mentioned is likely a reference to increasingly fraught relations between the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Biden administration over Netanyahu’s planned overhaul of the Israeli judiciary, which would sap the Supreme Court of much of its power and independence.
“They cannot continue down this road,” Biden said Tuesday regarding Netanyahu’s judicial reform, which the prime minister recently paused in the face of massive protests. Netanyahu responded to Biden on Twitter, praising the U.S.-Israel alliance but adding, “Israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.”
In his statement to the Post, DeSantis noted how Israel-adjacent his administration has been: He held one of his first Cabinet meetings, in 2019, in Jerusalem, and has toughened laws restricting the state’s dealings with companies that boycott Israel. He also alluded to the influx of Orthodox Jews to his state during the pandemic, a period when Florida’s restrictions on schools were less strict than in the northeast.
“A few months after my inauguration for my first term as governor of Florida, I traveled to Israel for a state visit with the largest ever trade delegation from the sunshine state to the Jewish state,” DeSantis said in the statement. “Since that time, we have strengthened the relationship between Florida and Israel through increased investment by Israeli companies in our state, fighting the scourge of BDS, and being home to the fastest growing Jewish population in the United States.”
DeSantis has also been popular with organizations representing the interests of Orthodox Jews, who tend to vote Republican. This week he signed into law a bill that transfers roughly $8,000 per year to any parent who wants to send their child to private schools, a decision that was effusively welcomed by Orthodox Jewish groups and will impact parents who pay tuition at Jewish day schools.
Maury Litwack, managing director of public affairs at the Orthodox Union, which has pressed to enact a similar voucher program nationwide, said the Florida law could act as a template. “The historic achievement of universal scholarships in Florida is just the beginning,” Litwack said in a release.
The announcement of the trip comes as DeSantis has, for the first time, begun to parry attacks by former President Donald Trump — who has made clear that he sees DeSantis as his chief rival for the 2024 Republican nomination. Trump officially declared his candidacy last year. Last week, DeSantis mocked Trump for potentially facing legal trouble over an alleged payoff to an adult film actress.
That was seen as a signal that DeSantis is closer to making a decision about running in 2024. And this week, an independent political action committee backing DeSantis hired a roster of Republican power players. DeSantis has already banked $80 million in his state political committee, a stunning amount for a governor who, due to term limits, cannot run for reelection.
The Jerusalem Post noted that at next month’s conference, DeSantis will speak to “a crowd of 400 participants, including around 120 U.S. Jewish philanthropists,” at least some of whom will likely be major political donors.
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Teen slashed in Brooklyn synagogue by fellow congregant
(JTA) — A 14-year-old boy was slashed on Monday evening inside a Brooklyn synagogue by a suspect the police called an “emotionally disturbed person.”
The 22-year-old suspect, Krybus Shimon, is a fellow congregant of Yeshiva Gevoah Toldos, an Orthodox synagogue in Borough Park, the New York Police Department said. He was taken into custody and charged on Monday with assault, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon.
The boy’s hand was slashed with a “cutting instrument” and he was treated by emergency medical services on the scene, police said.
The incident is not currently being investigated as a hate crime, and it’s not yet clear what led to the slashing.
Borough Park is one of the largest Orthodox enclaves in the United States, home to about 96,000 Jews, according to UJA-Federation of New York.
In January, the neighborhood was hit with a spate of antisemitic vandalism. Over 70 swastikas and the words “Adolf Hitler” were sprayed over two days across Gravesend Park, a playground in Borough Park. Two 15-year-old boys were arrested for the vandalism and charged with aggravated harassment and criminal mischief as a hate crime.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul last week announced a record $70 million in security funding for houses of worship, schools, community centers and other nonprofit organizations that are vulnerable to hate crimes and attacks because of their ideology, beliefs or mission.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Teen slashed in Brooklyn synagogue by fellow congregant appeared first on The Forward.
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Staunch Israel supporter Coons expected to win Delaware Democratic Senate primary handily
(JTA) — Delaware incumbent Sen. Chris Coons, a longtime supporter of Israel, is expected to easily win Delaware’s U.S. Senate primary on Tuesday, despite criticism from party progressives.
Coons, a mainstay of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has repeatedly backed measures to bolster Israel’s capacity for self-defense. He also joined a bipartisan delegation to visit Israel immediately after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.
But the senator has faced pushback in recent months for his refusal to back measures that would cut military aid to Israel.
This past spring, he was one of just seven Democrats to join Republicans in voting against a resolution authored by independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, which sought to stop the sale of military bulldozers to Israel. Coons was among just 11 Democrats who opposed a second Sanders resolution that proposed similar sales bans on massive bombs and other defense equipment.
Coons has served nearly three terms in the Senate. He won a special election in 2010, about a year after Joe Biden resigned to become U.S. vice president, and then went on to secure two full terms in 2014 and 2020.
In Tuesday’s primary, he will face off against artificial intelligence systems builder and historian Jeff Appelhans, naval architect and marine engineer Mary Louve and a former business executive who changed his legal name from Eric Hansen to E. No-Trump Hansen.
While Coons has earned endorsements from establishment Democrats, such as Delaware Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Gov. Matt Meyer, he has drawn criticism from party progressives for both his support of Israel and the financial backing he gets from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group.
Of Coons’s opponents, the most vocal critic on Israel-related policy has been Appelhans, whose campaign priorities included ending U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Appelhans slammed Coons for voting against the Sanders bills, writing on his campaign site that “the liberal consensus moved to block the sales.”
Appelhans condemned Coons’s voting record on “moving armaments to Israel,” noting in a recent interview that “there’s never been a vote that he’s stopped” on this issue. He was speaking with Delaware Public Media last week as part of a series of candidate interviews.
Regarding the conflict in Iran, Appelhans slammed “Congress’ unwillingness” to challenge the president, noting that “there was very much a sense that Israel would be a staunch ally and they could sort of get this done really easily.”
In the same radio series, another candidate, Louve, expressed uncertainty as to “why we’re still backing Israel,” while acknowledging the country’s history as a U.S. ally.
“Is it worth us continuing to step up for a bully?” she asked. “It’s aggression that is unnecessary that’s continuing to escalate because we’re helping it.”
Hansen did not participate in these conversations, Delaware Public Media stated.
This summer Coons pledged to stop taking donations from the data company Palantir, which has come under scrutiny for its work with the Israel’s Defense Ministry, the U.S. military and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the nonprofit news site Spotlight Delaware.
Despite his more centrist reputation, Coons has had significant criticism for the Trump administration’s strategies in Iran. In his own Delaware Public Media interview, Coons accused the president of selling the conflict “as a cheap, quick war.”
While little polling data was available ahead of Tuesday’s race, the Polymarket predictions site gave Coons a 99.7% chance of winning as of Monday evening. In his last primary in 2020, Coons defeated a progressive opponent, Jessica Scarane, with nearly 73% of voter support.
Regardless of Tuesday’s outcome, the victor is expected to easily defeat the Republican challenger in the November general election, with the Cook Political Report deeming Delaware “solid” Democratic territory.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Staunch Israel supporter Coons expected to win Delaware Democratic Senate primary handily appeared first on The Forward.
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Noah Wyle wins an Emmy for playing one of TV’s most Jewish doctors
(JTA) — Noah Wyle on Monday night won his second consecutive Emmy for playing Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch on “The Pitt.” The win also marked a second victory for one of television’s more fully realized Jewish characters.
The actor won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for the HBO Max medical drama, which also won Outstanding Drama Series for the second year in a row. In his acceptance speech, Wyle recalled growing up in Los Angeles and said, “This is all I’ve ever wanted to do, and this is the only club I’ve ever wanted to join.”
For Jewish viewers, the significance of Wyle’s victory goes beyond the actor’s own Jewish ancestry. In the first season, Robby was seen reciting the Shema at one of his lowest moments, turning what might have been a throwaway piece of character background into an intimate expression of fear and faith.
In the second season, Wyle, who is also a writer and executive producer on the show, pushed that dimension further. An episode he wrote dealt with the trauma of the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, while also exploring Robby’s complicated relationship with his Jewish faith.
Wyle has described Robby’s faith as something he is still “grappling” with — including the question of whether he has faith at all. The Shema scene, he said, functioned almost like a child’s primal plea for help.
Wyle was not the only Jewish winner of the night. Saul Metzstein, the Scottish Jewish director whose father was the prominent modernist architect Isi Metzstein, won Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for “Slow Horses.” Metzstein had been competing against Wyle, who was nominated for directing an episode of “The Pitt.”
Those two wins were among the relatively few Jewish victories at this year’s ceremony. Jewish actors including Jason Segel, Lisa Kudrow, Harrison Ford and Hannah Einbinder were among the nominees but did not win in their categories.
“Nobody Wants This,” the Netflix show about a rabbi’s romance with a non-Jewish podcaster, was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series but lost to “Widow’s Bay.”
An Emmy was also awarded to a Jewish actor and director whose death in 2025 stunned the industry and a legion of fans. Rob Reiner, who was killed in December with his wife, Michele, won a posthumous Emmy for his guest role as a kind dispenser of business advice on “The Bear.” Reiner’s award was presented at the Creative Arts Emmys earlier this month, rather than Monday’s televised ceremony.
Reiner, before going on to direct Hollywood classics like “This Is Spinal Tap,” “The Princess Bride” and “When Harry Met Sally” won his first two Emmy awards in 1974 and 1978 for playing Mike Stivic, the liberal son-in-law of Archie Bunker on “All in the Family.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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