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Four weeks into his presidency, Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the “scandal” over the new U.S. leader’s failure to pick up the phone came to a quick and cheerful close. The end of the “will he call?” controversy on Wednesday was evident in Netanyahu’s grin in the photo his office sent to the media to announce the phone call, which lasted an hour. But the scrutiny of the Biden-Israel relationship is just beginning. How the two sides summarized the call was evidence of where they stand on critical issues, including Iran and the peace process. ....
Five months ago Rabbi Alan Sherman appeared in a political ad draped in a prayer shawl and blowing a shofar “as a wake-up call to all Jews, to wake up and vote for Donald Trump.” Trump lost. And his bid to overturn the election, culminating in a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and an ongoing reckoning within the Republican Party, has led to Sherman’s own wake-up call. He no longer supports Trump. If the former president runs again, Sherman said he will change his registration to Independent. “When I was in the Army for 28 years, I swore allegiance to this country through the Constitution, but I didn’t swear any loyalty to Donald Trump,” Sherman, a retired chaplain, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “He’s going to try to be very influential in the Republican Party, which is completely turned upside down, and the Republican Party is going to have to decide who they are.” ....
The Anti-Defamation League’s call for President Donald Trump to be removed from office is not likely to lead to that result. But it is nonetheless a significant event: the first major, mainstream American Jewish organization to take such a stand, and an unprecedented one for the 108-year-old organization. Jonathan Greenblatt, the group’s chief executive officer, told me in a phone interview Sunday that he knows the president is not likely paying attention to the ADL’s news releases. But as one of the nation’s leaders on tracking and fighting white supremacy, he said, the ADL had to make the strongest possible statement after Wednesday’s assault on the Capitol. ....