DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

So, this bartender thing, how much of it was the real deal, and how much was she left a staff position or something a year out specifically to set up this run?

www.timesofisrael.com posted:

…
But in the case of Ocasio-Cortez, in particular, Tobin is mistaken. Not all Israelis are alike. In fact, it has fallen largely under the radar that during part of the period between her graduation from Boston University in 2011 and her election to Congress in 2018, she held two positions in which she worked under the auspices of two Israelis.

Ocasio-Cortez’s official House of Representatives biography does not mention these two positions, focusing instead on a post-college position she held as educational director with the National Hispanic Institute and on stints as a bartender and waitress. Similarly, the acclaimed 2019 Netflix documentary “Bring Down the House,” which follows Ocasio-Cortez during her successful June 2018 primary bid in New York’s 14th district, shows her working as a bartender.

“They call it working class for a reason,” she said in the documentary as she hauled buckets of ice and mixed drinks, “because you are working nonstop.”

But elsewhere on the internet, there are traces of Ocasio-Cortez’s less publicized gigs, in which two Israeli-Americans figure — Joe Raby and Chen(i) Yerushalmi, men associated more with the world of venture capital and startups than with the working class.

It was under the aegis of these men that Ocasio-Cortez prepared curricula teaching entrepreneurial and self-presentation skills to ambitious young college students and graduates in the Bronx. These skills, which she helped teach to others, may have been instrumental in her own political rise.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s spokesperson, Lauren Hitt, told The Times of Israel that the names Cheni Yerushalmi and Joe Raby “are not ringing a bell with us over here. It may be a fairly tenuous connection.”

Public sources, however, indicate that Yerushalmi was Ocasio-Cortez’s boss at a company called Gage Strategies, while Raby vetted candidates for the Sunshine Bronx business incubator that she applied and was admitted to. Ocasio-Cortez herself publicly associated with both these employment experiences over a period of five years prior to her election to Congress.

### An incubator and a book publishing company

A biography for a September 21, 2013, talk Ocasio-Cortez gave at Boston University, her alma mater, describes her as the “founder of Brook Avenue Press, a social enterprise dedicated to providing relevant educational products to children and parents in urban areas.”

She is also described on the same website as the “Lead Educational Strategist at GAGEis, Inc.”

Both the Brook Avenue Press and GAGEis (also known as Gage Strategies) operated from the Sunshine Bronx Business Incubator, a city-subsidized co-working space launched in 2012, where for about $200 a month entrepreneurs could take advantage of workspaces, conference rooms, mentoring and business training. Raby and Yerushalmi, its owners, were seasoned entrepreneurs in the co-working industry who had won a city contract in 2009 to develop the incubator with financial support from the city.

Ocasio-Cortez’s startup Brook Avenue Press was chosen to participate in the incubator program in 2012.

In a 2011 video she recorded shortly after graduating from college, a younger, less polished Ocasio-Cortez described the publishing startup she would go on to develop while at the Bronx business incubator.

“What Brook Avenue Press seeks to do is develop and identify stories and literature in urban areas” for kids, she said.

Despite the fact that participants paid rent to the incubator, there was an application and interview process to get in.

Joe Raby, who a year later would run a major venture capital fund in Israel, described the vetting process in a January 2012 press release.

“We’re different from a traditional incubator because we won’t accept you if we don’t think we can help you succeed,” said Raby, the incubator’s co-founder and managing partner.

“We try to understand your business objective, and create the bridges and opportunities that will help you achieve and measure it.”

Ocasio-Cortez may have gained some early political experience as well while working at the incubator owned by the two Israelis. In August 2012, she, owner Cheni Yerushalmi and a few other incubator participants lobbied for federal legislation that would allow Bronx entrepreneurs to deduct a higher percentage of their startup costs from their taxes.

“Young entrepreneurs are playing a special role in developing promising, creative enterprises for our future and a small break can open up their resources for hiring, creating a new product, or reinvesting in the local economy,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a press release.

Ocasio-Cortez not only developed her publishing company while at the incubator, but also worked as a curriculum developer for a related company called GAGEis, Inc. or Gage Strategies, also run by Cheni Yerushalmi, according to multiple public sources. Online photos of GAGEis activities show lectures that took place at the Sunshine Bronx incubator.

Gage Strategies’ purpose was to teach college students and recent graduates how to burnish their professional image and marketability. Modules of the training program included headings like “strategy,” “branding,” “networking,” and “confidence.”

Ocasio-Cortez continued to associate herself with Yerushalmi and Raby’s incubator for several years. In August 2017, after she announced she was running for the Congressional primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District, a C-SPAN broadcast identified Ocasio-Cortez as “Brook Avenue Press Founder” and “GAGE Strategies Educational Strategist.”

This, despite the fact that the Sunshine Bronx business incubator shut its doors in 2014, according to The Real Deal.

The Brook Avenue Press website is no longer online, nor are any archived pages of the website available. The state of New York dissolved the company in October 2016 due to lack of activity. It was still registered at the Sunshine Bronx address.

### Israeli-American entrepreneurs

Cheni Yerushalmi and Joseph Raby, who accepted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to the Sunshine Bronx Business Incubator, have followed very different career paths to the young self-described democratic socialist.

Yerushalmi is the son of an Israeli couple who moved to the United States when he was a child. Raby is the son of Iraqi immigrants to the United States. The two men grew up together on Long Island, according to media reports. They launched their first co-working space, Sunshine Suites, in 2001, which had two locations in Manhattan. Yerushalmi told an interviewer in 2010 that he and Raby had funded their endeavors with the help of friends and family.

“We actually took a small round of friends and family before we opened up our latest space in Tribeca. And so [the investments are] only between us and friends and family.”

Outside of work, Cheni appears to have a passion for Burning Man-like festivities, including Burlesquerade, an annual costumed gala on a 30,000-square-foot “super yacht” that reportedly brings together Wall Street bigwigs, techies and artists.

He also founded the “Pynk Collective” in Vermont, which, according to his LinkedIn page, is “a collective of 240+ friends who come together in celebration of life and community in a special valley in Bridgewater, Vermont.”

By November 2012, Raby had moved to Israel and become director of operations of an Israeli venture capital firm called the Tel Aviv Angel Group, which later merged into Maverick Ventures Israel, where Raby was “director of finance and operations” from October 2013 to December 2018.

The Tel Aviv Angel Group and Maverick Ventures were reportedly (Hebrew link) founded in 2008 by Mark Gerson, the New-York based co-founder of the Gerson-Lehrman Group, together with Yaron Karni, a young Israeli entrepreneur whom Gerson had asked to scope out promising Israeli startups on behalf of himself and a small group of wealthy investors.

In March 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile, Raby became the COO of an Israeli virtual private network provider called SaferVPN. The company was located inside the offices of Maverick Ventures. The company offered free VPN services to dissidents in authoritarian regimes. A 2017 description of the company on a website of the Israeli Economy Ministry claimed that “SaferVPN boasts more than a million users in more than 240 countries, with the largest number of customers from the United States, Russia, China, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and Turkey (in that order).”

SaferVPN also happened to employ a number of former binary options operatives in key positions.


SaferVPN’s New York office was located in the same building and on the same floor as Sunshine Suites NOHO, one of Raby and Yerushalmi’s three co-working spaces.

In March 2015, Raby became a director of the Israeli startup StoreSmarts, a data analytics company that tracks shoppers’ behavior in stores using their phones’ WiFi signals. One of Raby’s co-directors at StoreSmarts was Lev Binzumovich Leviev, a co-founder, with Vyacheslav Mirilashvili and Pavel Durov, of the Russian social-networking site Vkontakte. (Leviev and Mirilashvili sold their 48 percent stake in the social networking company to Rosneft board member Ilya Sherbovich in April 2013).

In March 2016, StoreSmarts reportedly provided its technology free of charge to the Free Brazil Movement to help organizers estimate the size of a mass demonstration against the government.

The Times of Israel reached out to Ocasio-Cortez to learn more about her time at the Sunshine Bronx incubator and Gage Strategies as well as her interactions with Yerushalmi and Raby. Her spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said she would “do some digging to see if I can find anything, but it may be a fairly tenuous connection.”

She added, “I wish I could be more helpful but I’m not sure that they did have any meaningful interaction, but let me look into the matter and get back to you.”

The Times of Israel also contacted Joe Raby and Cheni Yerushalmi to ask about their time working with Ocasio-Cortez. We had not heard back from them by the time of publication.

Peace Now held its Yitzhak Rabin commemoration event online last week, with some 1,700 participants. Ocasio-Cortez was not among them.

bronxboropres.nyc.gov posted:

“Joined by MacArthur “Genius” Fellow Majora Carter, Sunshine Bronx Co-Founder & Managing Partner Cheni Yerushalmi, and Bronx Entrepreneurs, Lawmakers Urge Action on Federal Legislation Allowing Bronx Entrepreneurs to Deduct Up to $10,000 of Their Start-Up Costs – Twice the Current Deduction

Gillibrand, Diaz Jr.: “We Need to Help Create an Environment That Will Spark Growth in the Bronx Tech Industry”

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. were joined today by Sunshine Bronx Co-Founder & Managing Partner Cheni Yerushalmi, StartUp Box South Bronx Co-Founder Majora Carter, and Bronx entrepreneurs at the Sunshine Bronx Business Incubator in urging Congress to pass targeted tax breaks that could help spark the growth of Bronx tech start-ups and create new jobs in the borough. The Small Business Start-up Support Act, which Senator Gillibrand is advocating to bring up for a vote in the Senate this Fall, would help tech start-ups offset their initial costs by increasing the deduction for start-up costs from $5,000 to $10,000.

According to a report by the Center for an Urban Future, New York City is the country’s second largest tech center after Silicon Valley. With a booming tech start-up sector in the City, the lawmakers and Bronx entrepreneurs said this federal legislation would encourage more people to start their own businesses, and attract more entrepreneurs to the borough.

“We know that government doesn’t create jobs, businesses do. New York City is home to the world’s brightest minds and best ideas to grow our economy and create the next big business of tomorrow,” Senator Gillibrand said. “Small businesses and start-ups are the backbone of our local economy and we must help provide the environment for these businesses to grow and create new jobs. The growing high-tech industry is the future of our economy, and we need to help make sure it starts right here in the Bronx.”

“We have seen tremendous economic growth in the Bronx over the past few years, and small businesses have played a major role in bringing about that growth,” said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. “Business incubators like Sunshine Bronx and Startup Bronx are helping to lay the groundwork for the continued growth of our economy by supporting small businesses, and we need to support their work. Senator Gillibrand’s bill is common sense legislation, and I am proud to support it.”

“The value of joining an incubator is much more than just affordable office space,” said Cheni Yerushalmi, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Sunshine Bronx Business Incubator. “Incubators such as ours bring together a diverse network of entrepreneurs and businesses to create opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t exist. Providing tax relief would be a huge kickstart, allowing our entrepreneurs to spend their money where they need it most: satisfying their clients.”

“The talent is here, but we need to create the kind of economic developments that retain and attract talent,” said Majora Carter, Co-Founder of StartUp Box South Bronx. “At SBSQ.org we’re creating a tech-savvy pipeline of talent who will feed these businesses so they can grow – while we build the social infrastructure to make more people want to stay here as well!”

“Plenty of entrepreneurs have started their businesses on a shoestring and any break they receive means more flexibility for further growth, said  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Founder of Brook Avenue Press, a publishing firm for children’s books and curriculum. “A tax break could mean part-time work for someone else or keeping a business’ doors open long enough to turn a profit. Young entrepreneurs are playing a special role in developing promising, creative enterprises for our future and a small break can open up their resources for hiring, creating a new product, or reinvesting in the local economy.”

“Everyone knows that the first year of any new business is the most difficult,” Mandi Susman, President of Sus4Media, said. “The successful start-ups make it to their second and third years by working smart and keeping their expenses low. Having this kind of tax relief could be the difference between making it to the second year and having to close up shop.”

While new Bronx start-ups typically face a number of substantial expenses in their first year of operating their business – such as permits, staffing, marketing and much more – they are currently limited in the amount of tax deductible expenses for their first year’s tax returns. The Small Business Start-up Support Act that Senator Gillibrand co-sponsored would double the deduction for start-up expenses from $5,000 to $10,000. Eligible expenses include monthly fees for advice and training at the City’s incubators, studies of potential markets, products, labor markets, or transportation systems; advertisements for the opening of a new business; compensation for consultants and employees undergoing training and their instructors; and travel for the purpose of securing suppliers, distributors, and customers.

As the first City-sponsored business incubator in the Bronx, the Sunshine Bronx Business Incubator provides approximately 180 workstations targeted to startup businesses and entrepreneurs across industries including finance, new media, technology, green finance and technology, biomedicine, and healthcare. Currently, an estimated 75 start-ups are using this facility. The incubator also offers conference rooms, bi-weekly networking events with tenants across all Sunshine locations in New York City, and support services including mentoring, coaching, and business training through a partnership with Baruch College.

F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:

Doesn't seem to bode well for AIPAC if they can't claim a "Squad" scalp, but probably Bowman and a few others really are toast.

mawarannahr posted:

president aoc age 81: "when I was a senator in 2024, I was arrested at Columbia University for condemning Hamas"

AmiYumi posted:

"yeah that thumbnail works for us

no need to take three seconds to edit it just post it as is"

PoundSand posted:

I was curious what her past results were and it's a substantially greater margin than her 2022 primary in the same district https://ballotpedia.org/Pennsylvania%27s_12th_Congressional_District_election,_2022, which was apparently a close race (41.9 vs 41.0%), so it seems her approval has only gone up.

I wonder what all the media literacy people would say about this flagrant propaganda. She's literally winning over an order of magnitude harder.

mawarannahr posted:

idk but

2 Israeli startup entrepreneurs played roles in rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Nichael posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvW-ZGNjBYc

ex post facho posted:

lol

https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1782943084516446401

Danann posted:

ex post facho posted:

lol

https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1782943084516446401

ex post facho posted:

lol

https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1782943084516446401

spacemang_spliff posted:

Im glad the Democrats are finally focusing on the important issues

ex post facho posted:

lol

https://twitter.com/BNONews/status/1782943084516446401

my bony fealty posted:

Joe Biden sucks major rear end

Bootleg Trunks posted:

https://x.com/SenFettermanPA/status/1782950946114322659

Bootleg Trunks posted:

https://x.com/politico/status/1782929961143177325

quote:

“I was excited to vote for Biden. I was excited to vote out a fascist from government. And in hindsight, I guess I see that, I was just putting someone who’s a little bit less evil, but evil nonetheless,” said the student, who was granted anonymity because of fear of retribution.

...

“I truly do not believe this is a lesser of two evils type of situation, I think about what conditions I want to be organizing under the next four years,” Ocasio-Cortez said to journalist Mehdi Hasan last week. “You can look at both of these individuals oppositionally as well. Even in places of stark disagreement, I’d rather be organizing under Biden as an opponent on an issue than Trump.”

Joementum posted:

democrats generally love their incumbents but this was definitely a good showing for Lee after getting millions of DFMI / AIPAC cash dumped in her

I suspect all of “the squad” (such a dumb name) will get reelected with the exception of Bowman

quote:

Lee’s 2022 primary made national headlines because of the involvement of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). According to OpenSecrets, the Super Pac United Democracy Project, which is affiliated with Aipac, spent a total of $3.3m against Lee in 2022. She ultimately defeated her opponent, Pittsburgh attorney Steve Irwin, by less than 1,000 votes, or 0.9 points.

This year, progressives largely expected pro-Israel groups like UDP to again invest heavily in attack ads against Lee. But surprisingly, they chose to stay out of Lee’s primary, a choice the congresswoman’s allies credited to her popularity and legislative record.

Bootleg Trunks posted:

https://x.com/politico/status/1782929961143177325

quote:

The larger impact of the protests, Democrats argue, is in shaping the broader conversation around Biden’s presidency and his standing heading into the election, especially on social media platforms like TikTok.

quote:

Each of these TikTokkers’ meetings was coordinated by White House deputy director of partnerships, Morgan MacNaughton, who herself has a background with the company. She was hired away last year from Palette, a social media talent management company that specializes in TikTok personalities. While there, MacNaughton helped found the political group “TikTok for Biden” (since renamed “Gen-Z for Change”).