Good afternoon from the Jewish Currents news desk. In today’s newsletter, we run through the big money groups dumping cash on New York City’s most heated political contests ahead of next week’s election. And: We have a quick question for Dylan Williams of the Center for International Policy on the Iran hawks’ terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I’m Josh Nathan-Kazis, and here’s what we’re talking about today at the Jewish Currents news desk. 

ONE BAD CALL AFTER ANOTHER: Late in February, when the US and Israel launched their dumb war in Iran, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the rest of the large US Jewish establishment groups cheered. Most Americans didn’t want the war, as I wrote at the time, and most Americans were right: Four months later, all it’s won is disaster and instability. Drunk on Israeli propaganda, the Conference of Presidents and the rest of the US Jewish establishment believed they were getting the big regime-toppling invasion that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had always wanted. Instead, they ended up with a deal that hems Netanyahu in in Lebanon, and otherwise matches the agreement President Obama delivered in 2015, and Trump tore up in 2018 as a favor to the Conference of Presidents and its friends. The Conference of Presidents seemed chastened Tuesday, saying they were “encouraged by President Trump’s repeated and unequivocal commitment that Iran will never obtain a nuclear weapon,” but that “many important questions remain unanswered.” Questions like: Are the wrong people speaking for American Jews?

FEAR IN MINNEAPOLIS: Federal prosecutors in Minnesota this week charged 15 people with an alleged conspiracy to disrupt ICE’s siege of Minneapolis this past winter. The indictment includes dozens of pages of messages and social media posts discussing plans to oppose ICE’s efforts in Minneapolis, but no allegation that the defendants harmed a single federal agent. Judges have already dismissed a long list of similar cases brought by the same US Attorney’s office against other activists involved in opposing ICE, and there’s no reason to think that these latest charges will fare any better. Instead, the point seems to be to scare Americans out of protesting the Trump administration’s invasions of US cities under the guise of immigration enforcement. “We feel heavy and anxious in Minnesota,” Lily Cooper, an immigration organizer at Unidos MN who appeared on a January episode of On the Nose about fighting ICE, told me on Thursday afternoon. “We are very aware that the government is intentionally creating fear, chaos, and confusion to consolidate a narrative that if we resist authoritarianism we are violent terrorists. We are very clear right now that we will not comply in advance and that we refuse to redirect attention away from human rights violations in detention facilities and continuing immigration crackdowns.”

STAY CLASSY: Jonathan Greenblatt, the former bottled water executive now paid more than $1 million per year by the Anti-Defamation League to smear anti-Zionists as antisemites and hang out with Peter Thiel, thinks we shouldn’t have scheduled the socialist streamer Hasan Piker to speak at Jewish Currents Live this October. “The same week we will mark the third anniversary of 10/7, Jewish Currents will give their stage to Hamas cheerleader Hasan Piker,” Greenblatt posted on X. “#StayClassyJC.” Putting aside the silly quibble over scheduling—the event is October 11, mark your calendars—Greenblatt’s up to his same old tricks here, libeling the left to cover his own side’s failures. “It’s not discussed enough that Hasan Piker is the most popular fighter of antisemitism on the left,” Jewish Currents editor-at-large Arielle Angel said yesterday when I asked about Greenblatt’s attack. “He routinely redirects populist anger at Jews to the people, and systems, that are actually at fault.” You can hear Piker talking about this with Arielle on this episode of On the Nose from last month. “Hasan is one of the sharpest voices in American politics and we’re thrilled he’ll be with us in October,” Jewish Currents publisher Daniel May told me. “Anyone who has listened to Hasan for 30 seconds knows how ridiculous this slander is, but hey, glad we could help Mr. Greenblatt earn his wages this week.” (Piker was less polite: “oh my god jonathan shut your bald ass up,” he posted.) 

STUN GRENADES: Israeli police on Wednesday cracked down on Haredi anti-draft protesters, blasting them with stun grenades and bashing them with batons on a highway outside of Bnei Brak. (Itamar Ben-Gvir, the fascist national security minister who never saw a Palestinian or leftist skull he didn’t want to crack, threatened in the aftermath to take away Israeli cops’ flashbangs.) Late in the day, thousands of members of the Ger Hasidic group massed outside of a military prison where one of their members was being held as a draft dodger. We reported on Tuesday about Daniel Gordis’s apparent call for violence against the Haredim. The cops are acting as Gordis—and doubtless many other Israelis—hoped, and the violence is spiraling. “Israel has always inflicted violence against those outside its mainstream—Palestinians primarily, of course, but also Ethiopians, Mizrahim, leftists, and Haredim,” Jewish Currents assistant editor Maya Rosen tells me. “The intense violence we are seeing against the recent Haredi protests is the meeting point between the police’s increasing authoritarianism and the growing internal schism in Israeli politics.” For the left, there’s something admirable about the discipline and bravery of the young Haredim. “The Haredi protesters are achieving what the left wishes it could—shutting down the country and demanding that business as usual stop,” Maya says. What the Haredim want, though, is a special exemption for themselves, not an end to the violence inflicted on others. More protests are planned for tonight.

LINDSAY’S STORM: New York City is shut down below Canal Street right now for a ticker-tape parade. We have a source on an actual float, who reports from Broadway that “it smells like piss.” Nevertheless! Mamdani, at City Hall at midday, delivered a barnburner. “The Knicks didn’t just win for New York City,” the mayor said. “They won like New York City.” Lots of the important things that happen to this city are outside of the control of the mayor and his administration, and yet they can still define a mayoralty; this Knicks victory feels, at this very early date, like the inverse of that 1969 snowstorm that spoiled John Lindsay’s. What luck!

The Jewish Currents news desk is directed by Josh Nathan-Kazis, with reporting from Alex Kane, Maya Rosen, and Mari Cohen, and editing by Lizzy Ratner and Arielle Angel. Want to get in touch? Email me at jnk@jewishcurrents.org, or message me on Signal @jnk.56. If you were forwarded this email, subscribe here so you don’t miss the next one.

A Quick Question for Dylan Williams on the Iran Hawks’ Worst Week Ever

In 2015, President Obama signed a deal with Iran that limited the country’s nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions and unfreezing Iranian overseas assets. Pro-Israel lobby groups and their allies in the US Jewish establishment went to the mattresses to kill the agreement, pushing for maximum belligerence in its place. They got their way: President Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, and after years of skirmishes, launched an all-out war against Iran in February. That war seems to be over for now, and on Wednesday, Trump signed a memorandum of understanding that sets the stage for a new round of negotiations with the Iranians. The preliminary terms outlined in the memorandum look very much like those of Obama’s 2015 deal: Iran gets access to tens of billions of dollars in frozen state assets and a commitment to end US sanctions in return for a renewed promise to not build a nuclear weapon.

On Thursday morning, I asked Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, about the path trod since 2015.

Josh Nathan-Kazis: The memorandum Trump signed yesterday resembles, in its outlines, the 2015 JCPOA. Where does this leave the pro-Israel groups that spent the past decade pushing against diplomacy and for the war that just ended?

Dylan Williams: This war has been a massive humiliation for the Israeli government and its backers, like AIPAC and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. And it’s not just the total strategic failure of 100 days of a war of choice. It’s the definitive failure of 100 months of their approach of breaking the 2015 Iran deal, imposing ever-increasing sanctions, and belligerence, threats, and war, only to end up with Trump trying to negotiate a deal that is a fraction as effective as the JCPOA was. This time, because of their failed approach across a decade, they’re doing it from a position of comparative weakness and facing a domestically strengthened Iranian regime. So, it’s just the ultimate vindication of the diplomacy-first camp’s approach, and the complete discrediting of pressure and belligerence.

JNK: Is this a good deal? Is it good for America and the world that we’re all back in the place where the Obama administration landed us in 2015?

DW: Diplomacy is always going to be a better option than an endless war. We don’t know what the full deal is yet. We know what the ceasefire MOU says. The question is, will these 60 days of coming negotiations yield an agreement that justifies the concessions we are making to Iran, and effectively block Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon? I think that’s possible. And if that agreement is achieved, it should receive wall-to-wall support, despite the complete disaster of the policy that preceded it.

Six Big Money Groups Dumping Cash on Next Week’s Democratic Primaries in New York

Alex Kane

New York’s primary elections are on Tuesday, and big-money groups are spending boatloads to influence the outcomes of heated races in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and across the state.

The groups behind the flood of cash can spend as much money as they want but aren’t allowed to coordinate with the candidates they back, and hide their agendas and identities behind vague, meaningless names like Next NYC PAC and Real Fight NYC. But election filings, in many cases, offer a glimpse at the people behind the PACs, and the issues they care about. 

Here’s a look at what we know about six of the groups playing in state and federal races in New York.

1. Moving Harlem Forward: Created to attack Conrad Blackburn, a Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed public defender running to unseat Assemblymember Jordan Wright, this independent expenditure committee (IEC) has raised money from a mix of sources, including the New York state teachers’ union. It has also received tens of thousands of dollars from pro-Israel donors, including $25,000 each from Scarsdale resident Adeena Rosen—a director of the New York Solidarity Network (NYSN), a pro-Israel political group with close ties to the city’s Jewish establishment—and Daniel Lowy, a donor to NYSN’s affiliated PAC, Solidarity PAC.

2. The American Centerpoint: This IEC has spent $25,000 on campaign literature backing Stephanie Ruskay, a Conservative rabbi running for an open New York State Assembly seat on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Her opponent is Eli Northrup, a progressive criminal justice reformer who has the endorsements of Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Senator Bernie Sanders. Ruskay is the associate dean of the Jewish Theological Seminary’s rabbinal school. There is only one known donor to the IEC: the aforementioned Adeena Rosen, who gave it around $25,000. 

3. Progressive Unity Fund: This super PAC has spent at least $1.6 million on TV ads attacking Darializa Avila Chevalier, the pro-Palestine activist looking to unseat Rep. Adriano Espaillat. Their first ad features a veteran lamenting Avila Chevalier’s since-deleted tweet calling US soldiers war criminals. There are no known donors to this group, and there won’t be until the next FEC filing date, which comes after the primary. However, we know that the group’s original treasurer was the treasurer for an anti-Mamdani super PAC run by Hank Sheinkopf, a pro-Israel Democratic operative. Its current treasurer used to work for former city comptroller and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who Jewish Insider identified as being “deeply involved” in this PAC.

4. Next NYC PAC: This IEC, formed by operatives tied to Stringer and former governor Andrew Cuomo, is funneling money to other PACs backing establishment candidates against progressives. Next NYC has given money to PACs backing Ruskay and New York State Assembly incumbent Stefani Zinerman, who is facing a DSA-backed challenger, retail worker Eon Huntley, in her Brooklyn district. Its donors are mostly real estate bigwigs—including Knicks owner James Dolan’s own super PAC, the Coalition to Restore New York, and the Real Estate Board of New York. Adeena Rosen has also given this PAC $25,000, as have other pro-Israel donors such as Daniel Loeb and Daniel Lowy.

5. Real Fight NYC: This group—another super PAC whose donors are for the most part unknown—is backing Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president competing in a heated House primary against DSA-backed Assemblymember Claire Valdez. Valdez initially speculated to the press that Real Fight was a shell group for AIPAC. But according to City & State, AIPAC has nothing to do with it, and it is being funded partially by the American Federation of Teachers. The Reynoso campaign has since attacked Valdez for linking the super PAC to AIPAC.

6. American Priorities Super PAC: This anti-AIPAC super PAC, which I wrote about for the news desk a few weeks ago, is also boosting Valdez, as well as Avila Chevalier. It shares top donors with the pro-DSA PAC New Yorkers for Lower Costs—mostly Muslim American businesspeople, many of whom work in tech, like Omer Hasan and Mohammed Waqas. (Espaillat has attacked Avila Chevalier over the super PAC’s support, noting that one of its funders, Hussein Sam Mahrouq, a Palestinian Texan businessman, also donated to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, an anti-immigrant Republican.) The PAC’s latest ad, which features Mamdani talking up both candidates, is partly narrated by former Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who was ousted in 2024 thanks in part to record spending on the part of AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project.