WASHINGTON (JTA) – Democrats and Republicans are readying for a potentially tough fight in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District in coastal Palm Beach and Broward counties — a potential bellwether race that could end up pitting two prominent local Jewish politicians against one another. Its national import notwithstanding, it’s also a race homey enough that two [...]
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WASHINGTON (JTA) — Richard Lugar was never considered to be one of Israel’s leading advocates on Capitol Hill. The veteran Republican senator from Indiana, who suffered a primary defeat last week after 35 years in office, is famously his own man. Lugar, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, consistently backed defense assistance for [...]
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WASHINGTON (JTA) — Simmering beneath the presidential season’s familiar refrains of support for Israel is a passionate partisan argument over how best to confront Iran and deal with the new Middle East. The Jewish election debate season was launched informally on May 4 at the annual American Jewish Committee global forum when longtime U.S. Rep. [...]
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WASHINGTON (JTA) — As soon as President Obama wrapped up the television interview in which he endorsed same-sex marriage, he called an evangelical minister who advises him to offer a heads up. Jack Lew, the White House chief of staff, made a similar call to the Orthodox Union. The calls, made Wednesday before excerpts from [...]
Read More »WASHINGTON (JTA) — If Israel goes to elections as expected this summer, will it be a replay of 1988 or 1992? Both Israeli election years also were American presidential election years, as 2012 is. In 1988, the Dukakis-Bush race had no discernible effect on a race that saw Yitzhak Shamir edge Shimon Peres for Israel’s [...]
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WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Obama enjoys the support of three-fifths of American Jews, according to the latest American Jewish Committee survey, a significant improvement over where he stood half a year ago in the organization’s polling. The poll, released Monday, shows Obama with 61 percent of the Jewish vote, as opposed to 28 percent for [...]
Read More »WASHINGTON (JTA) – Amid the election season tumult, behind-the-scenes campaigns are also underway for who will be the next top Democrats on two key congressional committees — with Jewish lawmakers in the running for both leadership slots. Two veteran congresswomen, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), who is Jewish, are vying for [...]
Read More »(JTA) — Tributes and statements of profound respect and admiration are pouring in for Elan Steinberg, former executive director of the World Jewish Congress, who died April 6 of complications from lymphatic cancer. He was 59. “Elan’s premature death will leave a huge void in the Jewish world,” said WJC President Ronald Lauder, who called [...]
Read More »The following excerpt written by Mike Wallace is from “I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl.” © 2005 Dr. Judea and Ruth Pearl. Wallace was senior correspondent on “60 Minutes” and was a reporter for CBS News for more than four decades. (JTA) — Occasionally down the years I’ve [...]
Read More »The first Israeli government official to ever appear before J Street received a rousing, whistling, foot-stomping reception. And that was it, as far as the welcome went. The speech delivered March 26 at J Street’s annual conference by Barukh Binah, the deputy chief of mission at the Washington embassy, was a compendium of the Israeli [...]
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