👋 Good Wednesday morning!
In today’s Every day Kickoff, we take a peek contained in the World Economic Forum at Davos and have a look at the Republican Steering Committee assignments doled out this week. Also in today’s Every day Kickoff, Gov. Josh Shapiro, Annette Taddeo and Yossi Vardi.
When the World Economic Forum in Davos concludes on Friday, some 175 attendees will wrap the week in a time-honored, millennia-old tradition: Shabbat dinner.
The annual Shabbat dinner, held on the conclusion of the weeklong confab for the last 25 years, is sponsored by the World Economic Forum and hosted by WEF founder Klaus Schwab and his wife, Hilde. (Schwab, for his part, once said the dinner is his favorite a part of the gathering.)
“In relation to Shabbos, it’s at the tip of every week of intense meetings and networking and business,” Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz, who has traveled to Davos annually for twenty years and is involved within the planning for the annual dinner, told Jewish Insider. “So then people come to the last necessary meal: It’s spiritual, it’s purposeful, it’s Yiddishkeit.”
Israeli entrepreneur Yossi Vardi is a driving force behind the event, Berkowitz said. Prior to his death, Israeli President Shimon Peres was an annual staple on the dinner. Former Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat gives the d’var Torah, a job he took on following the death of Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel.
“From heads of state to leaders of industry, emerging technology corporations, Nobel laureates, academics, it’s a tremendous amalgam of the amazing diversity of the Jewish people and friends of the Jewish people,” Berkowitz, who can also be the president of AZ Advisors, explained.
While the guest list for the invite-only Shabbat dinner stays under wraps, Berkowitz noted that this yr’s WEF boasts a number of high-profile Jewish figures, including Andy Jassy, Eduardo Elsztain, Orit Gadiesh, David Rubinstein, Steve Schwartzman, Jared Kushner, Marc Benioff, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Alex Soros, Rebecca Blumenstein, Adam Grant, Gary Cohn, Wired’s Gideon Lichfield, Israeli Chief Economist Shira Greenberg, Rabbi Yonatan Neril, Google’s Ruth Porat, OurCrowd’s Jonathan Medved, Edward Felsenthal and Bank of Israel Governor Amir Yaron.
While the Swiss Alps may not seem on its face to be a classic destination for observant Jewish travelers, the town boasts an extended Jewish history, and has grow to be a summer hotspot for Orthodox Jews searching for a getaway, with no less than one fully kosher hotel, and a yeshiva that functions year-round for some 200 young men.
Today in Davos, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will address the gathering, in what is predicted to be one in all the most-anticipated speeches of the week. Immediately after Zelensky’s address, which is scheduled for five p.m. local time, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines will speak alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Svyrydenko on a session focused on “Restoring Security and Peace.” Earlier today, Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Princess Reema Bandar al-Saud spoke on a panel titled “Saudi Arabia’s Transformation in a Changing Global Context.”
Yesterday, Iranian-British actress Nazanin Boniadi, Iranian-American author Masih Alinejad and Tirana Hassan, the acting executive director of Human Rights Watch, spoke concerning the ongoing protests in Iran in a conversation moderated by Rima Maktabi, U.S. bureau chief of Al Arabiya. Also yesterday, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis called for more sanctions on Iran over its recent drone exports to Moscow.
On the sidelines of the Swiss confab, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen met with his Spanish counterpart, José Manuel Albares.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt can also be in Davos this week, where he’ll be speaking on a Thursday panel titled “Keeping Faith.”
“We’re seeing an increasing number of data points within the trendline of rising global extremism — from rising antisemitic attitudes and incidents within the U.S., to an authoritarian rebellion in Brazil, to violent crackdowns against peaceful protests in Iran,” Greenblatt told us. “I’m looking forward to joining diverse world leaders at Davos to attach the dots between individual countries’ issues and concerning global trends, and discover paths forward to collaboratively address these challenges.”
Back in Latest York City, Dan Senor and Campbell Brown hosted “Fauda” creators Lior Raz and Avi Issacharoff last night for a conversation and personal screening of the premiere episode of the show’s newest season — the fourth season will drop on Netflix on Friday. The intimate event was held on the Roxy Cinema in Tribeca’s Roxy Hotel.
Throughout the panel discussion, Raz and Issacharoff also discussed a latest four-episode series that can launch on Showtime later this yr a couple of joint CIA-Mossad operation to trace down the world’s most wanted terrorist.
Notable attendees included Blackstone’s Jon Gray, Joseph Baratta, David Kestenbaum, Peter Wallace, Paramount’s Shari Redstone, Bloomberg‘s Ethan Bronner, The Wall Street Journal‘s James Taranto and Gregory Zuckerman; Pushkin’s Jacob Weisberg, Tribeca Enterprises’ Jane Rosenthal, Latest York Post’s Keith Poole, Instagram’s Charles Porch, Meta’s Naomi Gleit; Tablet‘s Alana Newhouse, Armin Rosen and Stephanie Butnik; Boykin Curry, Cyrus Vance Jr.; Emma Bloomberg, Gary Ginsberg, Mindy Gray, Endeavor’s Linda Rottenberg, Nir Hood, Post News‘ Noam Bardin, Steven Rattner and Maureen White; Richard Haass and Susan Mercandetti; Tali Farhadian Weinstein and Boaz Weinstein; Seth Siegel, Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Gilad Erdan and Daniel Bonner.
We heard from Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) about her attendance at a weekend showing of Tom Stoppard’s semi-autobiographical play “Leopoldstadt” on Broadway. “‘Leopoldstadt’ was a profound example of how we are able to learn from the humanities,” Pelosi told JI’s Marc Rod. “I told the forged that they were great teachers and that I’ll always remember the story they told. I also told them of my father being a champion of the Jewish community, calling upon the Roosevelt administration to be more concerned concerning the treatment of Jews in Europe and to maneuver quicker in establishing a Jewish state. Bravo to Tom Stoppard!”
