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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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‘Marty Supreme’ and everything else Jewish at this year’s Academy Awards
At last year’s Academy Awards, Anora — a frenetic, somewhat ambiguously Jewish look at a Jewish enclave of New York, took home best picture, original screenplay, director and actress for its Jewish lead Mikey Madison. This year, we have a film that feels, in some ways, quite parallel, while cranking the Yiddishkeit to 11: Josh Safdie’s breathless picaresque Marty Supreme, set on the Lower East Side, is up for best picture and its star, Timothée Chalamet is a favorite for best actor.
There’s also Blue Moon, Richard Linklater’s portrait of Jewish lyricist Lorenz Hart’s breakup with composer Richard Rodgers (Ethan Hawke is up for best actor). And One Battle After Another, a campy and absurdist satire about the infiltration of white supremacists in the U.S. government, is poised to have a massive night, with the blockbuster Sinners serving as its main competition.
That all goes to say that it’s another great year for Jewish stories at the Oscars, with some really compelling fodder for discussion about the place that Jews occupy today in arts and media. What stories are we telling and how are they received?
Here, as ever, the Forward culture team is here to break it all down for you, live as it unfolds. Of course, we cover Jewish movies all year. But at the Academy Awards, we get to see how the rest of the world feels about these movies. We will be updating this story with our thoughts throughout the ceremony.
Traditionally, as we begin these Oscars roundtables, we discuss what we’re all wearing and eating. What’ve we got?
Olivia: brown sweater and jeans; no food but aggressively chewing mint gum. I will later be drinking some of the seltzer I got from Brooklyn’s Seltzer Fest today.
Mira: I did a bunch of cooking for the week so I have vegetarian avgolemono soup and Alison Roman’s fennel salad. (I’m obsessed with this salad.) I am proudly wearing hard pants.
PJ: I am reheating some chicken from last night. Wearing a blue sweater with a little toggle and jeans. How many of Stellan Skarsgård’s large adult sons are here? In other l’dor v’dor news, Bill Pullman just mentioned how they filmed the Spaceballs sequel with his son Lewis.
Talya: I believe I’m wearing the exact same sweater I donned for this event last year — where’s my award for consistency? And, as always, sweatpants; I cannot comprehend suffering through this event in jeans.
Discussion of Israeli-Palestinian protests on the red carpet
Mira: Love a toggle. Speaking of outfits, anyone have thoughts on Odessa A’zion’s spangled red carpet set? She is one of the only people who styles herself on the red carpet, which I do respect.
Olivia: A’Zion’s outfit kind of looks like she forgot to tie whatever was supposed to be holding it up. I don’t think it looks bad, just like it’s falling down.
PJ: It wouldn’t look out of place hanging from the window of a VW van with shag carpet and some Tibetan prayer flags.
Mira: Of note, the past several years have seen protesters approaching people on their way into the ceremony, and a lot of pins on the red carpet taking a stance on the Israel-Hamas war, largely pro-Palestinian ones. We’re seeing less of that this year — though not none. Javier Bardem posted a photo of him wearing a pin reading “no to the war” in Spanish, along with another pin featuring Handala, a cartoon boy considered a symbol of Palestinians. The team of The Voice of Hind Rajab, nominated for best foreign film, are also wearing red pins with a white dove.
PJ: Those have replaced the red hand ArtistsforCeasefire pins, which some said recalled the bloody palms of Palestinians who killed IDF soldiers in 2000.
Olivia: A reporter for ABC in a pre-recorded segment asked executive producers and showrunners for the ceremony Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan if anything would get bleeped, such as mentions of Trump, Israel and Palestine. Recently, the BBC removed director Akinola Davies Jr’s call for a “Free Palestine” from their BAFTA stream. Kapoor asserted that the night’s production team supports free speech, but we’ll see what transpires over the course of the night.
The post ‘Marty Supreme’ and everything else Jewish at this year’s Academy Awards appeared first on The Forward.
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US Sends Additional Arms to Israel to Sustain Iran Operations
The first of two Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors is launched during a successful intercept test. Photo: US Army.
i24 News – The United States has recently increased shipments of munitions to Israel to support ongoing Israeli air operations against Iran.
According to reports broadcast by the public radio network Kan Reshet Bet, several weapons deliveries have arrived in Israel in recent days as part of what officials describe as an ongoing airlift aimed at sustaining the pace of military strikes.
Since the start of the campaign, Israeli forces are believed to have dropped more than 11,000 bombs on targets across Iran.
The shipments come as reports emerge about a potential shortage of ballistic missile interceptors in Israel. US officials told the news outlet Semafor that Israel’s interceptor stockpiles have been heavily used during the conflict.
According to those sources, Washington had already been aware for months that supplies could become strained, though it remains unclear whether the United States would be willing to share its own interceptor reserves. Israeli officials have since rejected claims that such a shortage exists.
Unlike the Iron Dome, which is designed to intercept short-range rockets and projectiles, ballistic missile interceptors serve as Israel’s primary defense against long-range missile threats. Fighter jets can also be used to attempt interceptions, though this method is considered a supplementary measure to missile defense systems.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has taken additional budgetary steps to support the war effort. During an overnight vote between Saturday and Sunday, ministers approved a roughly 1 billion shekel reduction across various ministry budgets to help finance classified military purchases linked to Operation “Roar of the Lion.”
The government had already approved a 3 percent cut in ministry budgets, a move expected to increase the defense budget by approximately 30 billion shekels as the conflict continues.
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Pope Leo Decries ‘Atrocious Violence’ in Iran War, Urges Ceasefire
Pope Leo XIV leads the Angelus prayer from a window of the Apostolic Palace, at the Vatican, March 15, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Matteo Minnella
Pope Leo made an impassioned plea on Sunday for an immediate ceasefire in the expanding Iran war, lamenting “atrocious violence” that he said had killed thousands of non-combatants and caused suffering across the region.
As the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its third week, the first US pope warned that violence would not bring the justice, stability and peace that the peoples of the region long for.
“For two weeks, the peoples of the Middle East have been suffering the atrocious violence of war,” the pope said at his weekly Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square.
“In the name of Christians in the Middle East and of all women and men of good will, I appeal to those responsible for this conflict: Cease fire!” Pope Leo said.
IDEA THAT WAR SOLVES PROBLEMS IS ‘ABSURD’
Leo added that the situation in Lebanon – ravaged by a war between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah – was also a cause of “great concern.”
“I hope for paths of dialogue that can support the country’s authorities in implementing lasting solutions to the serious crisis currently underway, for the common good of all the Lebanese people,” the pope said.
During a visit to a Rome parish later, the pope said war could never resolve problems and hit out at people who invoke God to justify killings.
“Today many of our brothers and sisters in the world are suffering because of violent conflicts, caused by the absurd claim that problems and disagreements can be resolved through war, when instead we must engage in unceasing dialogue for peace,” he said during his homily.
“Some even go so far as to invoke the name of God to justify these choices of death, but God cannot be enlisted by darkness. Rather, He always comes to bring light, hope and peace to humanity.”