Tagged U.S. Congress

WASHINGTON (JTA) – There’s a striking difference between competing bids in Congress addressing last month’s U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. It’s not that they differ on the United Nations – the two nonbinding congressional resolutions under consideration condemn the Security Council, as well as the outgoing Obama… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA)– On Mar. 8, we celebrate International Women’s Day, a day intended to celebrate the economic and social advances made by women, while at the same time drawing attention to areas that still need action. It is striking that this year the day falls so close to Purim.… Read more »

The House Budget Committe chair, Rep. Paul Ryan, and the Senate Budget Committee chair, Sen. Patty Murray, walk past the Senate chamber on their way to a press conference to announce a bipartisan budget deal, Dec. 10, 2013. (T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — For Jewish and pro-Israel groups, the congressional year is ending with an odd reversal: the prospect, however fragile, of bipartisan comity on budget issues coupled with a rare partisan disagreement on Middle Eastern policy. The groups that deal with social welfare and justice issues are heartened,… Read more »

Sen. Mark Kirk, shown here with Sen. Kelly Ayotte testifying before a Senate committee on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on Nov. 5, 2013, has been a leader in pushing for Iran sanctions. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — They want to brandish a new stick against Iran, but hawks in Congress aren’t going to use it — yet. For all the disappointment they expressed following the deal on Iran’s nuclear program, skeptics in Congress appear to be willing to give the agreement brokered… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, shown addressing the AIPAC policy conference in Washington in March 2012, will present a video message to this year's confab. (Robert J. Saferstein)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – This week’s annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington may be as notable for what — and who — is missing as what’s planned. For the first time in at least seven years, neither the U.S. president nor the Israeli prime minister will attend. In addition, for… Read more »

Rep. Gary Ackerman, shown addressing the Israel Policy Forum on Dec. 3, is one of a number of veteran pro-Israel lawmakers leaving Congress. (Courtesy IPF)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When the new Congress convenes in January, it will be missing several longtime pillars of support for Israel on Capitol Hill. Gone from the House of Representatives will be veteran Jewish Reps. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee; Gary Ackerman… Read more »

Congressional candidate Rabbi Shmuley Boteach talking to Tenafly High School football players outside a polling station in the northern New Jersey borough, Nov. 6, 2012. (Chanie Lieber)

TENAFLY, N.J. (JTA) — “Hey, are you tweeting that?” Rabbi Shmuley Boteach asks. Boteach — the self-proclaimed “America’s rabbi,” author of “Kosher Sex,” father of nine and Republican candidate for U.S. Congress — is standing on the sidewalk next to Tenafly Middle School on the morning of Election Day.… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When 15 prominent American Protestant leaders sent a letter to Congress last week calling for an investigation and possible suspension of U.S. aid to Israel, at least one outcome was certain: The Jews wouldn’t like it. Already, one major American Jewish group has canceled its participation… Read more »

Left to right, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyah, President Obama and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressing the U.N. General Assembly in 2011. Israeli officials told the Israeli media that Obama's refusal to meet with Netanyahu at this year's General Assembly is a sign of tension over Iran policy. (Courtesy U.N./design by Uri Fintzy)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Between the red lines, the deadlines, the diplomacy and the dress downs, the vaunted cooperation between Israel and the United States on whether and when to strike Iran seems to be in a free fall. In an unusually blunt outburst, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sept.… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — There is a solution to get us beyond the seemingly endless stalemates and complications that continue to characterize the ongoing debate over Holocaust-era insurance claims. And I do not believe it can be found in the well-intentioned bill before the U.S. Congress. This different approach… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — New sanctions targeting Iran’s financial sector and its sale of crude oil give President Obama leeway to moderate their possible impact on oil markets and to use carrots as well as sticks to sway third parties into isolating the Islamic Republic. The sanctions target any foreign… Read more »

Leo Bretholz, a Holocaust survivor, testifying at a House Foreign Relations Committee hearing on allowing lawsuits to go ahead against SNCF, the French national railroad, for its role in deporting Jews to death camps, Nov. 16, 2011. Bretholz fled from such a transport. (Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The U.S. House of Representatives again is considering Holocaust compensation legislation that has pit survivors against some leading Jewish organizations. The House Foreign Affairs Committee heard testimony Wednesday on a bill that would make it easier for claimants to make their case against Holocaust-era insurers in… Read more »

UNESCO designated Tel Aviv's "White City" -- its 4,000 Bauhaus buildings -- a heritage site in 2003, facilitating funds for rehabilitation projects. (David Lisbona via Creative Commons.)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The immediate consequence of UNESCO’s vote to grant the Palestinians membership is clear: A cutoff of American funding for the U.N.  agency governing the protection of cultures and sharing of scientific knowledge, which stands to lose roughly a fifth of its budget. What’s less certain is… Read more »

The owner of a sukkah that needed new infrastructure, Edmon J. Rodman looked into the national debate on job creation for a bipartisan solution. (Edmon J. Rodman)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Each Sukkot we read in Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, that there “is a time to tear down, and a time to build up.” For my sukkah it was time for both. Last year the legs of my sukkah were bowed and its roof supports looked flimsy. This… Read more »

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee seen here answering questions from reporters on Sept. 13, 2011, is withholding funding from the Palestinians because of the Palestinian Authority's statehood push in the United Nartions. (Courtesy Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — If the Palestinians don’t pull back from their statehood push, congressional cuts in aid are inevitable, U.S. lawmakers say. Just how comprehensive such cuts will be, however, could end up depending on Israel’s stance on the issue. Lawmakers, lobbyists and congressional staffers told JTA that hundreds… Read more »

Medical personnel clean the scene of where a bus exploded from a bomb, injuring 25 people, near the central bus station in Jerusalem, March 23, 2011. (Abir Sultan / Flash90/JTA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – It happens almost like clockwork: Something happens in the Middle East, and it reverberates across the Atlantic with new letters from the U.S. Congress. With so many relatively new members looking to establish their pro-Israel credentials, the reaction in Congress to the recent violence in Israel… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A combination of timing, diplomatic considerations and, above all, good old-fashioned noodging has culminated in the biggest push in years to free Jonathan Pollard. Insiders associated with the push, which resulted last week in a congressional letter to President Obama asking for clemency for the American… Read more »

U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor, shown speaking at the 2009 General assembly of the Jewish Federations of North American, is poised to shepherd the GOP to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives. (Robert A. Cumins/ Jewish Federations of North America)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Eric Cantor has spent a lifetime relishing wearing the other hat. Among Jews, the Republican congressional whip from Richmond, Va., likes to play the genteel Southern conservative, the posture that won over his wife, a socially liberal banker from New York. Among southerners, he’s the nice… Read more »

WASHINGTON (Forward) — Holocaust survivors denouncing the Jewish establishment would be a spectacle in almost any venue — all the more so when it’s under the bright lights of a congressional hearing. The issue at hand recently before the U.S. House of Representatives’ subcommittee on commercial and administrative law… Read more »