Tagged David Friedman

David Friedman gave Netanyahu half a nod for West Bank annexation. What happens next?

U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman speaks at the AIPAC policy conference in Washington, D.C., March 26, 2019. (Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said Israel “has the right to retain” some of the West Bank. Palestinians fumed, Jewish settlers rejoiced, and the punditocracy predicted gloom and doom. What was it exactly that Friedman said in a New York Times interview. And what… Read more »

First-ever official US delegation joins March of the Living at Auschwitz

Elan Carr, second from left, the U.S. special anti-Semitism envoy, stands with U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, second from right, and Israeli soldiers at the March of the Living at Auschwitz, May 2, 2019. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

OSWIECIM, Poland (JTA) — President Donald Trump’s appointee as special envoy for monitoring and combating anti-Semitism toured Auschwitz for the first time on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. Elan Carr, who was named earlier this year, was part of the first official U.S. delegation to the March of the Living,… Read more »

David Friedman tells the media to keep their ‘mouths shut.’ But what did they actually say?

U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman speaks at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, May 14, 2018. (Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — David Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, waded into the debate over media coverage of Israel with a pointed request to journalists. Reporters should “just keep your mouths shut until you figure it out,” he was quoted as saying at a conference launching a new Jerusalem… Read more »

Lack of peace with Israel is Palestinian’s fault, U.S. ambassador says after terror attack

Rabbi Raziel Shevach, right, shown with his family, was killed in a shooting near Nablus in the northern West Bank. (Facebook)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The U.S. ambassador to Israel blamed the Palestinians for the lack of peace with Israel in the aftermath of a shooting in the West Bank that killed an Israeli man. David Friedman tweeted Wednesday morning, as the Israeli military expanded its search for the killer or killers, including… Read more »

David Friedman, new US envoy to Israel, presents credentials in Jerusalem

David Friedman, right, with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin at a ceremony for new ambassadors at the president's residence in Jerusalem, May 16, 2017. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The new U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, presented his credentials to President Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem. During the ceremony Tuesday morning, Rivlin identified himself as a seventh-generation Jerusalemite and noted.”Next week, we will celebrate 50 years since Jerusalem was united, and the Jewish people were… Read more »

Meet the Jews in Donald Trump’s administration

Jared Kushner exits Trump Tower in New York City, Dec. 7, 2016. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

(JTA) — American Jews are watching the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency with both fear and hope. Many have expressed worries about some of his supporters’ ties to the so-called “alt-right” movement, whose followers traffic variously in white nationalism, anti-immigration sentiment, anti-Semitism and a disdain for “political correctness.” Those fears… Read more »

Trump’s Israel envoy pick shakes up American Jewish status quo

Donald Trump, center, along with his attorney David Friedman, left, exit the Federal Building following their appearance in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, New Jersey, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010. (Bradley C Bower/Bloomberg News via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) -– Nearly six years ago, when President Barack Obama was set to elevate one of his top emissaries to the Jewish community to the Israel ambassadorship, Dan Shapiro asked for – and got – the endorsement of one of Obama’s fiercest pro-Israel critics. “Dan has always spoken… Read more »

Meet the Jews in Donald Trump’s inner circle

Top left, clockwise, Ivanka Trump, Jason Greenblatt, Boris Epshteyn and Steven Mnuchin (Trump photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Greenblatt photo: Uriel Heilman; Epshteyn photo: Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for SiriusXM; Mnuchin photo: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for City Harvest)

(JTA) — President-elect Donald Trump has a complicated history with Jews. On the one hand, his daughter Ivanka converted to Orthodox Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner, and he’s spoken fondly about having Jewish grandchildren. On the other, some of Trump’s supporters have links to the anti-Semitic far right movement known as… Read more »