Israel votes tomorrow. Americans vote next Tuesday. On Wednesday night, in between the two, we're hosting a conversation about what the midterms could mean for Israel.

Joel Rubin is a Democrat. He was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Obama administration and later ran the American Jewish Congress. Joel Rayburn is a Republican. He was the US special envoy for Syria in the Trump administration and is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Uri Zehavi moderates, and the two Joels talk with each other.

We'll cover four things:

• Aid and security cooperation. What each party wants to keep, and what could change.

• Iran. How a new Congress could shape American policy on it.

• Bipartisan support. How solid support for Israel is in Congress, and where the two parties agree.

• Pro-Israel voters who feel pushed out. What each party is getting wrong with them, antisemitism in its own ranks included, and what it would take to win them back.

Neither guest is a candidate. Both get the same questions and the same time, and we won't be talking about races or candidates.

AIC does not endorse or oppose any candidate or party. Our guests speak for themselves.

It's Wednesday 28 October, 7:30 to 8:30 PM ET, with time for your questions. It's free for everyone. Register and we'll email you the Microsoft Teams link. On a computer you join in Chrome or Edge, no account needed. On a phone or tablet you'll need the free Teams app. The conversation will be recorded.

Register for Wednesday night

Atlanta Israel Coalition

The day before a vote is when people start wanting things in writing. The army wants a name on any decision it's asked to carry out. The Samaria council wants families living on its hills before any new cabinet gets a say. Both are planning for the morning after, whoever wins. Washington's working to a different election.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Iran: Trump tells Israel to wait, and Zamir reportedly asks for a signed order before an action that could escalate with Iran. See The War Today.

• Hebron: Friday's gunmen had help from Hamas in Turkey, the army believes, and Paratroopers arrest a would-be attacker on Highway 60. See The War Today.

• The police: Sohlberg lets Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir meet the police chief, and bars them from directing him on the vote. See Inside Israel.

• Achi: A recording has Kish, with Netanyahu on speaker, offering Achi a deputy ministry for leaving the race. See Inside Israel.

• Samaria: The first families move into Shalem near Elon Moreh, the ninth community in the Samaria council's plan. See Inside Israel.

• Tehran: Saudi Arabia's defense minister brings Pakistan's army chief and Turkey's spy chief to Iran's security council. See Israel and the World.

• Finer: Biden's former deputy national security adviser tells Democrats to cut Israel's aid whoever forms its next government. See Israel and the World.

• Board of Deputies: British Jewry's representative body votes 118 to one to declare the Green Party racist. See Israel and the World.

• The MOU: A fight over defense technology holds up the next US aid deal, and the money's shrinking regardless. See Briefly Noted.

• Ben Gurion: Arrivals outrun departures by 67,231 in a week, and Israir's chief says it's Israelis flying home to vote. See Briefly Noted.

• Karak: Jordanian forces capture the three men they say attacked Friday's church funeral, all three alive. See Briefly Noted.

Abroad, plenty of people have stopped waiting for the result before writing down their terms. Britain's Jews are asking for something in writing too, from a party that just voted to treat Zionism as racism.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

Read today's brief

Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Sunday to Friday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.

Join AIC

On AIC's social feeds

This has been on our feeds this week as well.

Instagram: Joel Rubin is a Democrat. Joel Rayburn is a Republican. On October 28, Uri Zehavi puts the same questions to…

Instagram: Four things Joel Rubin and Joel Rayburn will talk about on October 28.

Instagram: In June 2025 Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles and drones at Israel. Seventeen days after the war…

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The war and the campaign are sharing Israel's last weekend before the vote, and they don't want the same things from it. The army would like Tehran to hear nothing it could take for the start of another round. Washington keeps handing Tehran some anyway, and so does the campaign. Abroad, what's pencilled in for after Tuesday is already being drafted, by friends and by people who aren't.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Hebron: Two soldiers hurt at Judea Junction die, and the army goes into the Hebron neighborhoods the gunmen came from. See The War Today.

• Iran: Washington reloads a carrier and thins its embassies while saying no strike before 3 November, and Tehran lists targets. See The War Today.

• Crypto: Netanyahu wants a crypto plan against banking sanctions, and the Bank of Israel says crypto can't get around them. See Inside Israel.

• Golan: Yair Golan asks for four ministries and says Channel 14 signs the Press Council's code or gets shut down. See Inside Israel.

• The draft: Achi quits on a Likud deal, and Porat Yosef's dean tells voters to skip Shas over the draft of haredi yeshiva students. See Briefly Noted.

• Ankara: Britain, France, and Germany join Ankara's line against a new Iran strike, and an Istanbul court tries Netanyahu in absentia. See Israel and the World.

• Falklands: Israel's UN ambassador calls for direct British-Argentine talks on the Falklands, reportedly on Netanyahu's order after London's sanctions. See Israel and the World.

• UNRWA USA: The Brandeis Center asks the Justice Department to probe UNRWA's $51 million American fundraiser as an unregistered foreign agent. See Israel and the World.

• New York: The Chabad rabbi stabbed on 47th Street is back at work, and a Long Island shul's door holds against arson. See Israel and the World.

• Jordan: Gunmen kill at least seven at a Greek Orthodox funeral in Jordan's Karak governorate, and nobody has claimed it. See Briefly Noted.

• Hezbollah: Hezbollah reportedly tells Berri it won't fight for Iran if the war with America and Israel resumes. See Developments to Watch.

Israel's going into Tuesday answering whatever comes at it with what it already has. In Hebron that's soldiers searching houses. With London it's one sentence at the UN. The answers that take longer, a draft law the High Court won't throw out among them, are waiting on whoever forms the next government.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

Read today's brief

Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Sunday to Friday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.

Join AIC

On AIC's social feeds

A few things we've put out lately.

Instagram: Something good from Jewish Atlanta. On 1 January 1867, Atlanta held its first Jewish wedding, Emilie Baer to…

X: On 1 January 1867, Atlanta held its first Jewish wedding, Emilie Baer to Abraham Rosenfeld. Isaac Leeser…

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A lot of this morning's claims arrive with a number attached and nobody vouching for the count. Jerusalem has one of those too. The counts that do hold up come from soldiers and shipping trackers, and neither is running for anything.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Judea Junction: Hamas-linked gunmen wound five at the pillbox before Home Front officers kill both, and Judea and Samaria closes through Tuesday. See The War Today.

• Iran: The IDF says Trump never stopped an Israeli strike because none was planned, and wants less talk from ministers. See The War Today.

• Saudi Arabia: An Israeli official confirms IDF intelligence helps Riyadh against the Houthis, and Aramco empties its Dhahran headquarters. See The War Today.

• The High Court: Justices keep E1's tender sealed until after the vote, and bar parties from counting their voters at polling stations. See Inside Israel.

• Shas: Shas's oldest Torah sage says anyone voting Likud loses his share in the world to come. See Inside Israel.

• Sakharov: The European Parliament gives its top rights prize to the International Criminal Court, and the EPP stands to applaud. See Israel and the World.

• Istanbul: Turkey hosts Saudi, Egyptian, Pakistani, British, French, and German foreign ministers, and Ankara adds Judea and Samaria to the agenda. See Israel and the World.

• Russia: Moscow calls Netanyahu's bot charge absurd, accuses him of leaking before the vote, and says Russia barely has antisemitism. See Israel and the World.

• Utah: A grand jury indicts an Ogden man caught with six pipe bombs, and one count is an attempted hate crime. See Israel and the World.

• Palau: Pacific leaders take Israel on as a Pacific Islands Forum partner, beside the US, China, Japan, and the EU. See Briefly Noted.

• Awarta: Arsonists torch the tomb Jewish tradition holds is Eleazar the High Priest's, and the army is hunting them. See Briefly Noted.

• Iraq: Baghdad shuts the al-Sheeb crossing into Iran, and Washington reportedly wants all but two of the gates closed. See Developments to Watch.

Most of what Israel's doing this week comes down to what it doesn't know. The warning came with no place and no day on it, so the closure takes in the whole territory. And the army can't rule out Tehran taking a stump speech literally, so it would like fewer stump speeches. The arguments about everybody else's numbers can wait until Tuesday's are in.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

Read today's brief

Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Sunday to Friday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.

Join AIC

On AIC's social feeds

Here's what's been going up on our feeds.

X: In 1838 Rebecca Gratz started the Hebrew Sunday School in Philadelphia. She was the first to bring the…

YouTube: David Sussman: How Ancient Miners Discovered Copper by Accident

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Next Wednesday, the 28th, two people who've worked on Israel from inside the American government are going to sit down and talk with each other. Joel Rubin was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under President Obama. Joel Rayburn was President Trump's special envoy for Syria. Israel votes the day before, Americans vote the Tuesday after, and they'll be talking about what's at stake for Israel whichever way the House and Senate go.

We're nonpartisan, non-denominational, for all ages and stages. So they each get the same questions and the same time. AIC doesn't endorse or oppose any candidate or party, and our guests speak for themselves. I'm so grateful to both of them for making the time in a week like this.

So here's my favor. If you know somebody who's been following either election, could you forward them this email? That would be amazing.

And thank you to Beth Jacob, Ohr HaTorah, and New Toco Shul for hosting Rabbi Leo Dee with us tonight. We couldn't do any of this without y'all.

— Cheryl Dorchinsky, Founder & Executive Director

• Tonight · Rabbi Leo Dee in Atlanta. From Darkness to Light, in Toco Hills. Doors open at 7:20 PM. It's free. Register

• Wed 28 Oct · What the Midterms Could Mean for Israel. Joel Rubin, ex-Obama State Department, and Joel Rayburn, ex-Trump Syria envoy. Free. AIC does not endorse or oppose any candidate or party. Our guests speak for themselves. Register

• Thu 5 Nov · Israel Up Close: Guy Haran on Israeli wine. He's been taking people around Israel's wineries since 2006, and he's with us live from Israel at noon ET. The first talk's free for everyone. Register

• Tue 17 Nov · Our book club, the Author’s Table, opens. Shai Davidai on his book American Intellectual Antisemitism. It's online at 8 PM Eastern, and this first one's free to everyone. Register

• Thu 19 Nov · Israel Up Close with Mustapha Ezzarghani. He grew up in Morocco and now tells Arabic speakers the truth about Jews and Israel. 7:30 PM ET. Free for members, $18 for everyone else. Register

See everything on our calendar

THIS WEEK AT AIC

Bridges of Hope, the whole evening. Our March night in Dunwoody is on YouTube now, start to finish. Ghazal Mizrahi and JoDavi sing, George Rishfeld tells how he survived the Vilna Ghetto as a hidden child, and Mustapha Ezzarghani talks about how hate is built.

Watch Bridges of Hope

Bring your community

Take one of our invitations to your own synagogue, church or civic group. People come when somebody they know asks them. It's an hour or three in the weeks before an event.

Volunteer with AIC

Tokyo Disney, Japan

One of our ducks turned up at Tokyo Disney this week. The finder's whole note: “Shalom! This duck made its way all the way to Tokyo Disney!”

See the map

Jewish joy, weekly

• A Very Narrow Bridge

  Gimme Some Torah · Rabbi Eli Garfinkel · October 20, 2026

• Finding Your Ark in a Noisy World

  Your Weekly Dose · Rabbi Eliyahu Schusterman · October 16, 2026

• 2 New Jewish Cookbooks You Need on Your Shelf

  The Shabbat Drop · Miranda Lapides · October 16, 2026

• Bears and Lions

  Finding the Joy · Uriel ben Avraham · Parashat Noach · October 15, 2026

• Around the World on Foot -- in 28 Years!

  Spiritual Sparks · Rabbi Ze'ev Smason · October 15, 2026

Read all the columns →

WATCH

Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, at an AIC talk, on what Gaza could have been.

More short clips from AIC talks are on our YouTube channel.

On AIC's social feeds

A couple of ours on the same subject.

• Instagram: Israel votes on the 27th. Americans vote on November 3. On Wednesday the 28th, a Democrat and a Republican…

• X: Joel Rubin (ex-Obama State Dept) and Joel Rayburn (ex-Trump Syria envoy), live Oct 28, 7:30 PM ET. Free.

• Instagram: On April 7, 2023, Rabbi Leo Dee lost his wife Lucy and their daughters Maia and Rina in a terror attack in…

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Nearly everything that moved yesterday is addressed to whoever governs Israel after Tuesday, and none of it is waiting to hear who that'll be. Some of it comes from friends with elections of their own to get through, and some from enemies who'd like their message read before the votes are counted. The parties are at it too, setting out what it'll take to get them into a coalition before anyone's been asked to form one.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Iran: Washington and Jerusalem plan a three-day round on Iran after the midterms, and Netanyahu orders the regime overthrown. See The War Today.

• Gaza: Hamas tells the UN's humanitarian coordinator it's ready for another October 7, and asks him to pass it on. See The War Today.

• Lebanon: Hezbollah is rebuilding in Beirut and Tyre, an Israeli security official says. See Briefly Noted.

• Winter: Ofer Winter turns down Smotrich's offer of a ministry to quit the race, and says his support comes with terms. See Inside Israel.

• Draft evaders: Baharav-Miara counts 110,330 evaders or Order 12 cases for the High Court, and Elad riots over one deserter. See Inside Israel.

• Judea and Samaria: Rabbis for Human Rights walks about ninety volunteers and Brad Lander into a closed military zone at Nahalin. See Briefly Noted.

• Turkey: Ankara signs a defense-industry pact in Doha, and Benghazi's parliament ratifies Tripoli's 2019 maritime deal with Turkey. See Israel and the World.

• Influence: The Shin Bet says it took down foreign influence accounts aimed at Tuesday's vote, without saying whose. See Israel and the World.

• AIPAC: AIPAC stops endorsing candidates and giving through its PAC, and its super PAC carries on. See Israel and the World.

• IHRA: Powell accepts all 27 of Bell's recommendations, IHRA included, and the National Education Union turns the definition down. See Briefly Noted.

• New York: A woman stabs a Lubavitcher from Crown Heights in Manhattan's Diamond District and gets away. See Briefly Noted.

• Economy: The Bank of Israel holds at 3.25 percent and lifts this year's growth forecast to 5.6 percent, from 3.8. See Briefly Noted.

Netanyahu told the army yesterday what the Iran war is for, and it goes a good deal further than the plan on the table with Washington. Whoever's sworn in next inherits the order and the gap between the two. Up the road from Kiryat Shmona, nobody's waiting for the result either. Tel-Hai opened this week as Israel's eleventh research university.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

Read today's brief

Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Sunday to Friday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.

Join AIC

This week's Watchwords

Before dawn on Monday, Israeli police and the Shin Bet arrested ten suspects over the weekend's attacks, two of them for the one at Taybeh, a Christian village in Judea and Samaria, where masked men chased Belgian, French, and Polish diplomats out of an olive harvest on Saturday. Belgium's foreign minister, Maxime Prevot, had already said on Saturday that he'd press for European Union sanctions on "those responsible for this violence and those who support them." With suspects in custody, it's the second half of his sentence that has work left to do, and it reaches Israelis who weren't anywhere near Taybeh.

• Belgium's foreign minister wants European Union sanctions over the attack on European diplomats in Judea and Samaria last weekend, and he wants them to reach well past the men who did it. On Friday, masked Israeli rioters came down into an olive harvest at Abu Falah, a Palestinian village northeast of Ramallah, and beat Heidi Levine, a Washington Post photographer wearing a vest marked press. On Saturday, masked men with clubs chased diplomats from Belgium, France, and Poland out of a harvest at Taybeh, a Christian village nearby, smashed a window of the Belgian consular car, and knocked down a French mayor. Maxime Prevot, Belgium's foreign minister, said his government will press for EU sanctions "against those responsible for this violence and those who support them," and blamed Israel's "illegal settlement policy." Israel went after the men. Before dawn on Monday, police and the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, arrested ten men, two of them for Taybeh and four for the attack on Levine, and a court kept all six in custody through Wednesday. Mike Huckabee, America's ambassador, called the attack on Levine "a despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards." Attacks by Israeli civilians that survive verification come to about a hundred and ten a year. Attacks on Israelis run into the thousands. And Defense Minister Israel Katz wants the rioters made wholly a police job, from prevention through prosecution. "Those who support them" is wide enough to take in councils, communities, and ministers. Prevot's ask is that the suspects Israel already has in custody stand in as proof that the state sent them.

Below the line: the week's deployable language — what to say when the reporter asks, how to answer the donor worry, the claims you'll field, and the traps that lose the room. Members read the full brief.

Unlock this week's Watchwords →

Also from Mitzpe:

• The Morning After the Vote · Israel Brief

On AIC's social feeds

We've said some of this on social, too. Pass one on.

Instagram: In December 2025 AIC volunteers were back in Israel. One stop was Achim Shuva, where soldiers going in and…

X: In December 2025 AIC volunteers restocked Achim Shuva, where soldiers going in and out of Gaza get a meal…

Instagram: Three years after October 7, families along the Gaza border are going home.

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Shomrim's volunteers were on Clapton Common thirty seconds after the first call, and held the man until the Met turned up. The army's been running its own version for weeks, in Gaza and lately at the arrivals gate. Further from the scene it thins out into a statement, somebody else's jets, or a delegation sent to Tampa to ask Israel to stop, and Beirut's made a habit of that last one.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Iran: Israel reportedly had a strike on Iran ready for 10 October, and Trump held it back for the midterms. See The War Today.

• Lebanon: Katz says any shot or drone at an Israeli town now draws a heavy strike on Hezbollah's Dahiyeh. See The War Today.

• Gaza: The IDF says it killed Tamer al-Zabaq, who helped abduct Shani Louk, and a senior Hamas security figure. See The War Today.

• Winter: Netanyahu and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich ask Ofer Winter's rabbi to talk him out of the race, and Winter stays in. See Inside Israel.

• The draft: The state is due to tell the High Court today that police arrested fourteen draft evaders since July and sent 143 home because the Military Police never came. See Briefly Noted.

• Turkey: Barrack tells Doha that fighting Iran's militias isn't America's job, and Ankara sends its Saudi defense pact to parliament. See Israel and the World.

• Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee, calls Israel "not actually our friend" for the third time this month. See Israel and the World.

• Shylock: Trump uses "shylock" again at a Kansas rally, and the ADL's answer leaves out his name. See Israel and the World.

• England's schools: Sir David Bell's review makes antisemitism a safeguarding matter, after three in five Jewish pupils report experiencing it. See Israel and the World.

• Hashmonaim: The haredi brigade commissions its first fifteen officers on the roof of the Western Wall Yeshiva. See Briefly Noted.

Distance explains most of it. The further an institution sits from the people it's meant to protect, the more of its answer comes as an explanation. Up close it's a volunteer patrol in north London, a division holding the Lebanese line, and a unit that knew which flight to meet.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

Read today's brief

Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Sunday to Friday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.

Join AIC

On AIC's social feeds

A couple of ours on the same subject.

Instagram: Israel votes on the 27th. Americans vote on November 3. On Wednesday the 28th, a Democrat and a Republican…

Instagram: In December 2025 AIC volunteers were back in Israel. One stop was Achim Shuva, where soldiers going in and…

X: In December 2025 AIC volunteers restocked Achim Shuva, where soldiers going in and out of Gaza get a meal…

Follow AIC: YouTube · TikTok

Soldiers start voting today, and a lot of what they're voting on is their own army. Washington would like a say in when it fights next, and the haredi parties want one on whom it drafts. A week of campaigning isn't going to settle either.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Iran: Hegseth meets Netanyahu unannounced at Ovda, and Zamir has warned a new round with Iran could postpone the election. See The War Today.

• Lebanon: The IDF says Hezbollah kept using a Kfarra site Lebanon's army said it had dealt with, as Israel–Lebanon military talks resume in Tampa. See Briefly Noted.

• Gaza: Katz says the IDF will disarm Hamas if the American-brokered deal doesn't, and COGAT lets commercial trucks back in. See The War Today.

• Gantz: Benny Gantz pulls Blue and White out of the race, polling around one percent, and endorses nobody. See Inside Israel.

• The draft: Some fifty Chabad students back from a year at 770 are stopped at Ben-Gurion, and Netanyahu calls the arrests unacceptable. See Inside Israel.

• E1: Britain's Miliband threatens bidders for 1,234 E1 homes with sanctions as bidding closes, and Sa'ar answers within hours. See Israel and the World.

• The UN: Alice Jill Edwards, the UN's torture rapporteur until July, accuses Albanese and Alsalem of refusing to record October 7. See Israel and the World.

• Al-Saadi: The FBI says Kataib Hezbollah's al-Saadi kept running his network from his cell, and Berlin summons Iran's ambassador. See Israel and the World.

• Istanbul: About twenty-five activists corner a Turkish-born Israeli citizen in an Istanbul mall after her location is posted online. See Israel and the World.

• Judea and Samaria: Shin Bet and Foreign Ministry figures show major terror attacks falling from 218 in 2024 to 62 in 2025. See Briefly Noted.

• Vance: The vice president won't join Trump's endorsement of Netanyahu, saying he's not getting involved in Israeli elections. See Briefly Noted.

Abroad, the warnings are flying, and they don't weigh the same. Britain has built itself new powers to sanction whoever builds at E1, and hasn't used them on anybody yet. Germany answered an Iranian plot against the man who leads its Central Council of Jews by calling in Tehran's ambassador. Only one of those threatens anybody's business.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

Read today's brief

Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Sunday to Friday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.

Join AIC

On AIC's social feeds

This has been on our feeds this week as well.

Instagram: In December 2025 AIC volunteers were back in Israel. One stop was Achim Shuva, where soldiers going in and…

X: In December 2025 AIC volunteers restocked Achim Shuva, where soldiers going in and out of Gaza get a meal…

X: Shuva Junction, near the Gaza border. On Oct 7 the wounded were brought here. Achim Shuva has fed and…

Follow AIC: Instagram · YouTube · TikTok

If you’re an AIC member, you’ll hear each episode first. And you can send in your question for the guest ahead of time.

You can join at atlantaisrael.org/join. The first full episode of Between Us will be released at the end of October.

Follow Between Us wherever you get your podcasts and I’ll talk to you then.

A fair share of Israel's campaign since Thursday has been run by people who don't get a ballot. Some of that is friendly, and some of it comes with a case number. Tehran's contribution would come by air. The army is planning the 27th with that in mind.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Hormuz: The Revolutionary Guards declare the strait closed again, and Katz says Israel is ready to hit Iran's energy targets. See The War Today.

• Saudi Arabia: Saudi-led forces shoot down Houthi missiles aimed at the kingdom's energy hubs, and Brent touches $110. See The War Today.

• Lebanon: Hezbollah claims the explosives Lebanese troops seized and wants them back, with Beirut due in Tampa tomorrow. See The War Today.

• Gaza: Israeli officials say Hamas's truck levy funds its payroll, and the Board of Peace rejects COGAT's plan to cut entries. See Briefly Noted.

• Olive Leaf: Police and the Shin Bet arrest ten men before dawn over the weekend beatings at Abu Falah and Taybeh. See Inside Israel.

• Ben-Gvir: Netanyahu says Defense stays with Likud, and Ben-Gvir claims European governments were promised he'd be left out. See Briefly Noted.

• The doctrine: Netanyahu wants NIS 450 billion more for defense over a decade, and the cabinet cuts ministry purchasing 4.9 percent. See Inside Israel.

• Trump: Trump endorses Netanyahu in a letter to Israelis, warning that anyone else leaves the Iran work to America. See Israel and the World.

• Rome: Prosecutors add Katz and Zamir to their criminal investigation over Israel's interception of two Gaza flotillas. See Israel and the World.

• Wikipedia: An ADL report finds 91 percent of a banned editor's assessable edits to six of the site's biggest pages still live. See Israel and the World.

• France: Riots leave 997 police officers and gendarmes hurt, and Marseille's synagogues stay open under the community's own guards. See Briefly Noted.

• Hamburg: A court jails a Dane for preparing to murder Josef Schuster and Volker Beck, and writes Iran into the verdict. See Briefly Noted.

Catching the man who did the legwork is the easy part, and a lot of institutions stop there. Courts in Hamburg and London jailed Tehran's hired hand and a Foxtrot recruit last week without getting anywhere near the men who hired them. Israel had its own suspects in custody within three days, and now we find out whether its courts treat that as the end of it.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

Read today's brief

Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Monday to Thursday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.

Join AIC

On AIC's social feeds

A few things we've put out lately.

Instagram: Something good that came out of Israel. Netafim started in 1965 in the Negev desert in Israel, trying to…

X: Netafim started in 1965 in the Negev desert in Israel, trying to grow crops in desert soil. It has since…

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Rabbi Leo Dee is coming to Toco Hills next Thursday, the 22nd, and I really hope you'll be there. His story is below, and it's a hard one. Thank you to Beth Jacob, Ohr HaTorah, and New Toco Shul for bringing him here with us.

So here's my favor. Register this week, and bring a friend with you.

And a welcome to Israel Baseball Americas, who are running their Prospect Camp in Atlanta for the first time this Sunday. If you know a Jewish or Israeli high schooler who plays, their details are below.

We couldn't do any of this without y'all. Thank you.

— Cheryl Dorchinsky, Founder & Executive Director

In person · Free to attend · Toco Hills

Rabbi Leo Dee in Atlanta

Thu, Oct 22 · Doors 7:20 PM · Program 7:45 PM · Toco Hills

In April 2023, Hamas terrorists murdered Rabbi Leo Dee's wife Lucy and their daughters Maia and Rina. He has spent the years since talking to Jewish communities about what a person does the next morning, and the morning after that.

It's free, and we send you the address when you register. We're hosting it with Congregation Beth Jacob, Congregation Ohr HaTorah, and New Toco Shul.

Register

• Thu 5 Nov · Israel Up Close: Guy Haran on Israeli wine. He's been taking people around Israel's wineries since 2006, and he's with us live from Israel at noon ET. The first talk's free for everyone. Register

• Tue 17 Nov · Our book club, the Author’s Table, opens. Shai Davidai on his book American Intellectual Antisemitism. It's online at 8 PM Eastern, and this first one's free to everyone. Register

• Tue 15 Dec · The Author’s Table, with Amanda Elliot. We're reading Eight Ways to Say I Love You. It's for members, it's free, and it's at 8 PM Eastern. Details

See everything on our calendar

THIS WEEK AT AIC

Israel votes on Tuesday 27 October. If you want to follow it, Uri Zehavi, who hosts Israel Up Close, wrote a two-part guide for The Algemeiner. Exit polls come in at 4 PM our time.

Part one: It All Comes Down to 61 Part two: The Issues, What to Watch for Before and on Election Night

Israel Baseball's Prospect Camp, Sunday 18 October

Israel Baseball Americas is bringing its official Prospect Camp to Atlanta for the first time on Sunday. It's open to Jewish and Israeli high school players in the classes of 2027 to 2030, and Team Israel's national team staff run it. Players get pro-level coaching and an evaluation, and they're added to the Israeli National Team database. It's the first step toward IBA's new 15U and 18U Prospect Teams. Registration is $200.

Register for the camp

Look after a visiting speaker

Pick a speaker up at the airport, have them over for a meal, or give them a spare room for the night. Some people do one leg of it, some host the whole visit.

Volunteer with AIC

Hakone, Japan

One of our ducks went on a tour in Hakone, Japan. The guide saw the finder hiding ducks along the way and asked about it, and that's how they found out the family is Jewish. They'd never met a Jew before. The guide's verdict: “Jews are nice and I like duck.”

See the map

Jewish joy, weekly

• Bears and Lions

  Finding the Joy · Uriel ben Avraham · Parashat Noach · October 15, 2026

• Around the World on Foot -- in 28 Years!

  Spiritual Sparks · Rabbi Ze'ev Smason · October 15, 2026

• Can There Be Too Much Love?

  Gimme Some Torah · Rabbi Eli Garfinkel · October 14, 2026

• Don’t Let the Inspiration Go Stale

  Your Weekly Dose · Rabbi Eliyahu Schusterman · October 9, 2026

• October 7th has made me a different Jew.

  The Shabbat Drop · Miranda Lapides · October 9, 2026

Read all the columns →

WATCH

Darrell Blocker, at an AIC event: “I think I was born Jewish.”

More short clips from AIC talks are on our YouTube channel.

On AIC's social feeds

This has been on our feeds this week as well.

• Instagram: Rabbi Leo Dee is coming to Atlanta on Thursday, October 22.

• Instagram: Rabbi Leo Dee's book, The Seven Facets of Healing, is built around seven things his wife Lucy used to name…

• X: Rabbi Leo Dee lost his wife Lucy and two daughters to a Hamas terror attack in 2023. His book is built…

Follow AIC: Facebook · Instagram · YouTube · TikTok · X

Most of the day's arguments are about who gets blamed, and some of them are being settled before anything's happened. Israelis have been having that fight over October 7 since the morning after, and it still hasn't found anyone with the standing to end it. Abroad, the charges keep reaching further back.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Iran: Netanyahu reportedly asks Washington to hold off on Iran until after the vote, and Katz seeks home-front powers past it. See The War Today.

• Shipping: Iran sinks two more ships, and Central Command destroys a Guards-linked dhow caught targeting US Navy ships. See The War Today.

• Lebanon: Katz says Hezbollah loses Nabatieh and the Litani area for good if it joins an Iranian attack. See The War Today.

• Gaza: Gaza's merchants strike over Hamas's cash levy on every truck, cutting roughly 300 trucks a day. See Briefly Noted.

• October 7: Ronen Bar sues Netanyahu for libel, and Kan reports the Egyptian jet tied to Kamel carried businessmen. See Inside Israel.

• Bnei Brak: Haredi rioters break into an office building where haredi soldiers serve, and police arrest two. See Inside Israel.

• Qatargate: In testimony aired last night, Netanyahu aide Yonatan Urich admits at least two 2024 meetings with a top Qatari official. See Briefly Noted.

• Colombia: Colombia opens its Jerusalem embassy, and its foreign minister quits the Hague Group at the reception. See Israel and the World.

• Obama and Harris: Obama tells Belfast that Jews fleeing Europe "took land off people," and Harris goes further in Seoul. See Israel and the World.

• Dublin: Irish Jewry's leader says a hotel there turned away an antisemitism forum after asking whether the IDF would be involved. See Israel and the World.

• The IMF: The Fund now sees Israel's economy growing 4.5 percent this year, a full point above its April forecast. See Briefly Noted.

• London: Britain can now sanction anyone building Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria, days before E1's bids close. See Developments to Watch.

Where Jerusalem has an answer, it's putting its own version down first. Katz did it in south Lebanon yesterday, spelling out what Hezbollah loses before it's joined anything. People will still point at Israel. They'll just have to argue with something already on the record.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

Read today's brief

Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Monday to Thursday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.

Join AIC

This week's Watchwords

The Norwegian Nobel Committee gave its Peace Prize on Friday to Navi Pillay, the South African jurist who chaired the UN inquiry that accused Israel of genocide over the war in Gaza. Hours later Washington sanctioned the International Criminal Court itself, the Hague tribunal holding a warrant for Netanyahu's arrest, and Britain, France, and Germany were among the allies who said they'd keep backing it. Between them, the prize and the sanctions turned the case against Israel into a choice between Trump and "the rule of law."

• The Nobel committee in Oslo gave its Peace Prize on Friday to the woman who chaired the UN inquiry that accused Israel of "genocide," and Washington sanctioned the International Criminal Court that afternoon. It picked Navi Pillay, an 85-year-old South African jurist and a former judge of the court in The Hague. Her commission, set up by the UN Human Rights Council, made that accusation against Israel over the Gaza war last year. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sanctioned the court as an institution. "Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC," he said. The court has had a warrant out for Netanyahu since November 2024. Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the Netherlands, with Denmark and Australia, answered within hours in a joint statement. They "regret and strongly disagree," and they'll "continue to work together to support the Court's vital work." Then one of Pillay's own commissioners, Chris Sidoti, told an audience at a Melbourne synagogue: "We are not a court. We are not even prosecutors." He conceded the panel never checked for itself the 83 percent civilian figure its finding leaned on. And Francesca Albanese, the UN rapporteur Washington has already sanctioned, wants the ICC prosecutor to investigate Israeli "government officials and media figures" for incitement. What they want conceded is a genocide charge treated as settled because it now has a peace prize on it, a warrant on Israel's prime minister that outlasts anything Washington does, and Israeli journalists next in line.

Below the line: the week's deployable language — what to say when the reporter asks, how to answer the donor worry, the claims you'll field, and the traps that lose the room. Members read the full brief.

Unlock this week's Watchwords →

On AIC's social feeds

A couple of ours on the same subject.

Instagram: Our book club, the Author's Table, opens on Tuesday 17 November. Shai Davidai joins us online to talk about…

Instagram: AIC's shop has tees, sweatshirts and hoodies, hats, and totes, and everything's printed when you order it.…

X: Hamas chose the date, by murdering about twelve hundred people in one day. That's one way to answer a line…

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Just about everybody with a stake in the next three weeks is working to one of two election days now, Israel's or America's, and the ones setting the pace aren't on either ballot. Abroad, it's a different kind of day. The statements are running a good way ahead of the files behind them.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Iran: Trump reportedly tells Netanyahu to get ready for another strike, and Iranian officials tie the tanker war to the midterms. See The War Today.

• The Houthis: The IDF readies Eilat for a Houthi raid as weapons tracers find the Houthis buying Chinese missile parts. See The War Today.

• Drones: Katz moves to ban fiber-optic and SIM drones for six months, as he warns of enemy plots to sway the vote. See Briefly Noted.

• Kamel: Netanyahu confirms Egypt's spy chief landed in Israel eleven days before October 7, and asks who met him. See Inside Israel.

• Winter's list: Ofer Winter loses the eighth name on his list, and Ben-Gvir refuses him a surplus-vote deal before Friday's deadline. See Inside Israel.

• Apaches: The cabinet funds the lapsed 12-Apache order with NIS 964 million from the Arab development plan's later years. See Briefly Noted.

• Beirut: Washington rebukes Lebanon's military court for weighing a Hezbollah lawyer's complaint against Beirut's own ambassador in Washington. See Israel and the World.

• Pillay's panel: Commissioner Chris Sidoti admits the panel never checked the civilian figure its "genocide" finding leaned on. See Israel and the World.

• MI5: Ken McCallum counts more than 50 arrests in Iran-linked operations in a year, many aimed at British Jews. See Israel and the World.

• Lebanon's Shia: Two-thirds tell a September survey they want Hezbollah's weapons handed to the state. See Briefly Noted.

• Land Authority: The High Court turns down the government's bid to keep Eliyahu at the authority that runs the E1 tender. See Developments to Watch.

Being off the ballot is what lets Tehran and Trump keep their options open, and both are using it. Israelis who face voters on the 27th don't have that, so a lot of what Jerusalem settled this week was really about which side of the count a decision lands on. Katz's drone order doesn't care who wins. It runs six months either way.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

Read today's brief

Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Monday to Thursday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.

Join AIC

On AIC's social feeds

Elsewhere on our feeds this week.

• Instagram: Three years after October 7, families along the Gaza border are going home.

• X: "Not only have those that lived here returned, but new families have come here." David Sussman on the Gaza…

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Not much of yesterday's trouble started yesterday. Most of it had been lying in the open for months or years, where any of several offices could have dealt with it, and most of them can now show you the paperwork saying they did their part. That's the argument Israel takes into the last two weeks before it votes, and Britain is having its own version of it.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• The Ramim Ridge: A Hezbollah cluster bomblet kills a 14-year-old on a school hike by the Lebanese border and wounds 24 more. See The War Today.

• Riyadh: Netanyahu reportedly asks Riyadh to let Israel join the Houthi campaign, and the crown prince says no. See Briefly Noted.

• Iran: Trump says Washington may have killed too many Iranian leaders to know who it's dealing with. See The War Today.

• The president: Herzog vows to head off a repeat election, and Golan and Eisenkot rule out unity with Netanyahu. See Inside Israel.

• The draft: Deri says the rabbis' orders are to buy time, and Breslov buses schoolchildren to a military prison. See Inside Israel.

• Qatargate: Channel 12 airs Urich asking ChatGPT, a year into the war, how to improve Qatar's image. See Briefly Noted.

• Fairford: Britain pins the plot at the bomber base on the Revolutionary Guards, and Netanyahu says Israel tipped London off. See Israel and the World.

• 60 Minutes: CBS builds a Judea and Samaria segment on a UN count that files Jews visiting Har HaBayit as incidents. See Israel and the World.

• Manchester: Britain sends the Heaton Park synagogue killings to a public inquiry that can hear MI5 in private. See Israel and the World.

• Alkmaar: A Dutch city bars Hapoel Be'er Sheva's fans from Thursday's match, citing the 2024 attacks on Israeli fans in Amsterdam. See Briefly Noted.

• Election day: Intelligence reportedly picks up talk of an attack around the vote, and the Elections Committee says it wasn't told. See Developments to Watch.

Much of what went wrong yesterday can be fixed by people already on the payroll. The IDF spent the week blowing up Hezbollah tunnel routes inside the security zone, and that's what getting to a problem early looks like when somebody owns it. The draft is harder. The people who'd have to legislate it are asking for votes right now, and two of the parties that would hold the pen would rather it waited.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

Read today's brief

Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Monday to Thursday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.

Join AIC

On AIC's social feeds

Here's what we've been posting lately. If one's worth passing on, share it.

• Instagram: Someone on our October 7 call asked David Sussman what he tells a group standing at the Nova site for the…

• X: "They'll never be able to shine that light again because they're no longer here. But we still have that…

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What they carry is up to us. $36, for example, could stock socks and underwear in the closet at Shuva Junction, where soldiers stop on their way in and out of Gaza. $180 could bring toys to kids in hospital. $360 could help stock rehab supplies for soldiers recovering from their wounds.

If you'd rather send the thing itself, the Amazon wish list is what goes in the suitcases, starting with trauma kits. Order by 1 January so it reaches Cheryl before she leaves.

The goal is $10,000, and the bar on the page shows where we are: atlantaisrael.org/mission

A gift goes wherever AIC needs it most unless you pick Missions & Humanitarian Relief on the form. Pick that, and it's kept for the mission.

Thank you.

Uri

The requests landing in Jerusalem lately have one thing in common. Whoever's making them would like somebody else's name at the bottom. Allies want it there for the dangerous jobs, and both camps in the campaign want a prosecutor or a pardon to settle what voters are about to decide anyway. Everybody asking would rather go second.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Riyadh: A Houthi missile kills 12 at King Khalid airport, and US officials sound out Zamir on hitting Yemen. See The War Today.

• Iran: Trump rules out striking Iran before the midterms, then hedges, and IDF officials say Tehran has largely rebuilt its missiles. See Briefly Noted.

• Gaza: The IDF edges the Yellow Line west and clears a Board of Peace contractor to map weapons drop-off sites. See The War Today.

• The courts: Mandelblit concedes police took steps he never approved, and Braverman reportedly ordered an October 7 call time changed. See Inside Israel.

• The draft: Jerusalem Faction rioters block roads at Bnei Brak and Jerusalem, and police extract Deri from a Shas campaign event. See Inside Israel.

• The polls: Netanyahu's bloc polls short of 61, and Likud officials set 55 as the target, enough to block anyone else. See Briefly Noted.

• The ICC: Washington sanctions the court as an institution, with licences that give its member states until April. See Israel and the World.

• Oslo: The Peace Prize goes to Navi Pillay, who chaired the UN commission that accused Israel of genocide. See Briefly Noted.

• Ramallah: Abbas pushes November's legislative vote to September 2027 and blames Israel for a delay Fatah and Hamas agreed on. See Israel and the World.

• The American right: Carlson pushes a false-flag theory of October 7, and NatCon speakers in Jerusalem wave off antisemitism charges. See Israel and the World.

• Holborn: The Greens' leader loses the by-election, then says he agrees with his party's motion branding Zionism racism. See Israel and the World.

• The envelope: About 66,000 people now live along the Gaza border, some 5,000 more than on the eve of the massacre. See Briefly Noted.

Europe has been doing this the longest. Paris recognized a Palestinian state partly on Abbas's promise of a November vote. Whoever lives next door to a promise like that ends up paying for it. Meanwhile the capital keeps filling up — on Wednesday Colombia opens the tenth embassy in Jerusalem.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

Read today's brief

Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Monday to Thursday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.

Join AIC

On AIC's social feeds

Here's what we've been posting lately. If one's worth passing on, share it.

• Instagram: On October 7, 2023, the wounded from the kibbutzim and the Nova festival were brought to Shuva Junction…

• X: Shuva Junction, near the Gaza border. On Oct 7 the wounded were brought here. Achim Shuva has fed and…

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Almost every fight on the table comes in a short version and a long one, and the long one keeps winning. Mamdani found that out about the anniversary. Netanyahu's finding it out about the warnings before October 7, which is a shame, because the whole record has plenty in it for him too. This close to two elections, though, just about everybody's still printing the short one.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Iran: The Pentagon readies Central Command for renewed strikes, and Israeli officials say the IDF would fly in them. See The War Today.

• Lebanon: Hezbollah reportedly takes $200 million from Iran, and its men turn up again in pilot-zone villages south of Nabatieh. See The War Today.

• The Houthis: Houthi missiles and drones kill three at two Saudi airports, and Riyadh reportedly asks Damascus for troops. See The War Today.

• October 7: A Yedioth investigation sets Netanyahu's 55-page account beside the originals, and his then-military secretary goes on the record. See Inside Israel.

• Turnout: Netanyahu and Smotrich host dozens of rabbis and open a joint turnout headquarters, and Ben-Gvir isn't invited. See Inside Israel.

• The draft: Military Police go back to arresting evaders, and the Jerusalem Faction orders roadblocks in Jerusalem and Gush Dan this afternoon. See Inside Israel.

• London: Britain's Jerusalem consulate closes at Sa'ar's deadline, and London shelves its threat to expel Israeli diplomats. See Israel and the World.

• Jeffries: The House Democratic leader uses the anniversary to call for a Palestinian state, and two senior Democrats join in. See Israel and the World.

• City Hall: Mamdani's anniversary statement gives the massacre four sentences and Israel the rest, and fellow Democrats turn on him. See Israel and the World.

• Union Square: A pro-Palestinian crowd overruns a vigil that mourned both peoples, and the mourners finish behind police barricades. See Israel and the World.

• Nir Oz: About 120 people sleep in the kibbutz again, and 76 homes go up at once, with 106 more planned. See Briefly Noted.

• Kamal Adwan: The IDF kills two Hamas men leaving the Beit Lahia hospital and says attacks run from inside it. See Developments to Watch.

The short version is a campaign product, and it doesn't keep. Tehran doesn't need one. Nobody in the Guards is on a ballot, so when one of their advisers names the next shipping lanes they're going after, treat it as a plan. Israel's best arguments this week are the ones nobody had to edit — a third of Nir Oz sleeping at home again, and an army that says it's staying in south Lebanon as long as the digging takes.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

Read today's brief

Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Monday to Thursday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.

Join AIC

This week's Watchwords

Britain's Green Party made it official policy on Sunday that Zionism is a form of racism, three days short of the third anniversary of October 7. Bridget Phillipson, Labour's chair, called it shameful. All week, and not only from the Greens, the offer to Jews has been the same: we'll mourn you, we'll even protect you, as long as you leave Israel out of it.

• Britain's Green Party voted on Sunday to treat Zionism "as any other form of racism," and its leader is on a ballot in London on Thursday. Delegates at the annual conference of the Green Party of England and Wales passed the motion 1,022 to 813. The policy as the party published it calls Zionism "an ethnonationalist political project" and says anti-Zionism "should not be equated with antisemitism." It also backs BDS, a full arms embargo on Israel, and "a single democratic state throughout historic Palestine." That's a map with no Israel on it. A week earlier, at a party workshop, members voted 67 to 24 against an amendment that would have protected Jewish members from racism complaints for belonging to a synagogue. Conference threw it out again on Sunday. Zack Polanski, the Green leader, is standing in Thursday's Holborn and St Pancras by-election, for the London seat Keir Starmer gave up. Tony Blair did the arithmetic in The Free Press: at least two-thirds of British Jews call themselves Zionists, so the party "has, in effect, branded the majority of the country's Jews racists." What the Greens are asking of British Jews is that they give up Zionism if they want to stay in the party.

Below the line: the week's deployable language — what to say when the reporter asks, how to answer the donor worry, the claims you'll field, and the traps that lose the room. Members read the full brief.

Unlock this week's Watchwords →

Three years ago this morning, Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel. They murdered about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages into Gaza. Hundreds of them were at the Nova music festival, dancing in a field near Re'im when the sun came up.

Today we went back to that field together. Thank you to everyone who joined us this morning for the tour of the Nova festival site with David Sussman. We promised everyone who registered the recording, and here it is.

If you joined us live, you can go back over anything you missed. If you couldn't make it, the whole tour is here. Pass it on to anyone who should see it: your kids, your rabbi, a friend who's never heard what happened at Nova.

Watch the recording

And say their names. Every person murdered at Nova had a name and a face. Pick one this week, learn who they were, and tell someone about them.

We kept this morning free so anyone could come, but bringing David to you live from the Nova site isn't free. If it meant something to you, a gift helps us cover it and bring you the next one.

Were you with us this morning? Tell us how it landed, in two minutes. You don't have to give your name.

Share your feedback

Thank you for remembering October 7 with us. Am Yisrael chai.

— Cheryl Dorchinsky,
Founder & Executive Director,
Atlanta Israel Coalition

What the tour covered

Three years to the day, David took us live across the Nova festival site and through the communities along the Gaza border that were attacked at dawn that Shabbat. Cheryl opened the morning with a prayer for Israel and for the victims.

If you want a particular part, here is where it sits in the recording:

0:00 Welcome, Cheryl Dorchinsky 1:46 A prayer for Israel and for the victims 3:12 The Nova festival site, with David Sussman 1:15:02 Closing

David has been guiding AIC audiences since 2020: two tours of the Old City that December, two five-part virtual series after them, and all ten days of AIC's first in-person mission in November 2022.

And if you want to go further back, here is our earlier walk through the Nova site.

In person · Free to attend · Toco Hills

From Darkness to Light: Rabbi Leo Dee in Atlanta

Thu, Oct 22 · Doors 7:20 PM · Program 7:45 PM · Toco Hills

On April 7, 2023, Rabbi Leo Dee's wife Lucy and their daughters Maia and Rina were murdered in a terror attack in the Jordan Valley. He has spent the years since talking to Jewish communities around the world about what a person does the next morning, and the morning after that.

He is coming to Atlanta with his wife, Aliza. It is free to attend, and we send you the address in Toco Hills when you register.

Register

MITZVAHS THAT FLOAT

Left on a Magen David Adom blood mobile in Tel Aviv

A Quacker left this one aboard a Magen David Adom blood mobile in Tel Aviv. Last they heard, it was still there, waiting for whoever spots it first.

On AIC's last mission, Cheryl, Uri and Modi all rolled up their sleeves for Magen David Adom too. Modi gave so generously he passed out. (He's fine. The juice and cookies helped.)

Ducks keep turning up all over Israel: under the Chagall windows in Jerusalem, next to a blessing in a hotel lobby in Netanya, and at the Michael Levin Base barbecue in Jerusalem, where a bar mitzvah project hid them all over as a thank-you.

Heading to Israel? Take a few with you and hide them. Every duck carries a QR code back to the map, so you get to see where yours lands.

Left along the way in Israel: under the Chagall windows, Jerusalem · a hotel lobby, Netanya · a bar mitzvah project barbecue, Jerusalem

See all sightings

Yehi zichram baruch. May their memory be a blessing.

A note before today's Brief.

Hamas crossed into Israel three years ago this morning to break it. They murdered about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages into Gaza. Hundreds of them were at a music festival near Re'im.

It didn't break. Israel buried its dead, went to war, and went back to building. Families are back on the border, rebuilding the towns Hamas burned.

Before the analysis, a prayer.

HaShem, remember the souls of the men, women and children murdered that morning. Yehi zichram baruch. Comfort every family that buried someone, and every family still carrying it. Send a refuah shlemah to the wounded, in body and in spirit. Watch over the soldiers of the IDF and bring every one of them home. And bless Am Yisrael — HaShem oz le'amo yiten, HaShem yevarech et amo vashalom.

If you can, spend an hour or so with us at 9:00 AM Eastern this morning. David Sussman, who's been guiding AIC through Israel since 2020, is taking us live across the Nova site and the communities along the Gaza border, and he'll take questions as he goes. It's free, and everyone who registers gets the recording.

Register here: atlantaisrael.org/oct7

Register free for the Nova tour

— Uri

The army has done most of what soldiers and concrete could do about October 7, and the rest is waiting on a signature in Jerusalem.

Just about everyone with a stake in October 7 picked this week to put their own account of it on the record — the army, both camps of bereaved families, Simcha Rothman's Knesset committee, and a French MEP in Strasbourg who'd rather the day was about something else. The Israeli accounts fight over who failed, and even harder over who gets to judge it. Three weeks out from the vote, that fight is the campaign.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• The envelope: The army's three-year report lists about 40 new posts and a rebuilt barrier, and reservists serve nearly double their planned days. See The War Today.

• Judea and Samaria: Troops reportedly pull down dozens of terror monuments, and Katz lays out a war plan against the PA. See The War Today.

• Iran: Satellite images show Tehran digging out a weapons site Israel bombed in March, and officers warn of a missile miscalculation. See The War Today.

• The inquiry: Protesters block the Ayalon for a state commission, and other bereaved families demand a national one instead. See Inside Israel.

• E1: Smotrich petitions the High Court himself against the attorney general's freeze on opening the 1,234-home E1 tender. See Inside Israel.

• The tribunal: A Defense Ministry paper says October 7's captured invaders won't face a judge before 2028. See Inside Israel.

• Visa waiver: Washington sends a team to review Israel's visa waiver after the flydubai attack, and the UAE pulls rescue-flight slots. See Israel and the World.

• The Palestinian vote: Kallas offers EU observers for Abbas's 28 November legislative election, and Hamas says it's running. See Israel and the World.

• The Greens: Labour all but rules out working with the Greens after their conference brands Zionism a form of racism. See Israel and the World.

• Strasbourg: Rima Hassan takes Israel's flag down from the European Parliament's October 7 memorial, and Metsola weighs discipline. See Israel and the World.

• New York: Mamdani doubles an anti-hate fund that paid CAIR through a grantee, as Jews take 53 percent of hate crimes. See Israel and the World.

• Off Oman: A projectile wounds 12 of a tanker's 19 crew, days after American escorts get ships moving through Hormuz. See Developments to Watch.

Outside Israel, the anniversary drew the gestures it always draws, and this year a few of them come with a cost — a party Labour now says it won't work with, an MEP who has to explain herself to her own president. Tehran is paying by the day for a strait it shut itself. The cheapest thing anyone offered this week was a European stamp on a Palestinian vote, and it would help Hamas more than anybody.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

Read today's brief

Join AIC. Membership starts at $72 a year, or $9 a month. You get the full Israel Brief Monday to Thursday, the Closed Dossiers, Vantage and Watchwords on mitzpe.org, and the AIC Book Club free. It also pays for AIC's programs and its missions to Israel.

Join AIC

Vantage: August–September 2026

Israel's lines are built for the winter now, and most of what could move them is waiting on two elections a week apart.

Israel stopped waiting for anyone else to disarm Hezbollah or Hamas, and the ground it took in August and September isn't going back this year.

Unlock the full Vantage →

Inside its own borders, Israel's been bargaining — with a crowd that turned out to stop an arrest, with a candidate the bench didn't want to rule on. Pointed outward, it isn't haggling with anybody. London is finding that out about a consulate, a documentary's makers are learning it too, and the army is hunting down the men who crossed the fence three years ago tomorrow, one at a time.

Flash Brief: The Day in 90 Seconds or Less

• Gaza: Katz orders the last 2,000 October 7 invaders hunted down as the Shin Bet warns of a pre-election kidnapping. See The War Today.

• Bab al-Mandab: Yemeni government forces take the airfield on the strait's narrows, and Turkey and Pakistan pledge forces to Riyadh. See The War Today.

• The draft: Hundreds of haredi men pen Military Police in a Modi'in building until the police trade away the arrest. See Inside Israel.

• The ballot: The High Court restores Ra'am, the Joint List, and Cassif, and talks Balad into pulling Abu Shehadeh without a ruling. See Inside Israel.

• Due process: Zini asks to hold Jewish suspects without charge, while a lecturer who recruited nobody is charged in open court. See Inside Israel.

• London: Britain threatens to expel 27 Israeli diplomats if Sa'ar's order closing its Jerusalem consulate stands Thursday. See Israel and the World.

• NAZA: The IDF answers the film claim by claim, after a Times review that skipped everything Israelis had published against it. See Israel and the World.

• The anniversary protests: Israel maps 262 anti-Israel events worldwide, and the Met and New South Wales say they can't stop theirs. See Israel and the World.

• Somaliland: Hargeisa asks Israel, the one country that recognizes it, for air defenses against Turkey. See Briefly Noted.

• The radio gap: Police and the IDF still have no shared emergency radio — on October 7, an officer used WhatsApp. See Briefly Noted.

• Tehran: Pezeshkian nominates the man who ran Iran's missile industry to rebuild it as defense minister. See Developments to Watch.

Whatever a state gives up under pressure at home, it ends up teaching. A crowd that gets its man back once knows to come again, and Hamas is betting its rebuild on an Israeli government that settles. Facing outward, Jerusalem names a date and holds to it, and it puts its own name to a denial anyone can check. It could stand to bring that habit home.

The full brief — The War Today, Inside Israel, Israel and the World, Briefly Noted, and Developments to Watch — is on mitzpe.org for members. Membership comes through the Atlanta Israel Coalition.

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Tomorrow, three years to the day: the Nova site, live

David Sussman, the licensed Israeli guide who's taken AIC groups through the country since 2020, walks the Nova festival site and the communities along the Gaza border live on Zoom, Wednesday, October 7, at 9:00 AM ET. It's free. Can't make the hour? Register anyway, and AIC will send you the recording.

Register free for the Nova tour