
Ron Kampeas is the former Washington bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Ron Kampeas is the former Washington bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
WASHINGTON (JTA) – It’s not quite schadenfreude, but some Jewish organizational officials are sighing in relief at President Donald Trump’s cascade of domestic woes, saying it may present opportunities for their relatively liberal agenda. Domestically, some Jewish groups are welcoming the prospect that scandals and distractions besieging the White House could delay – if not…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Zionist Organization of America launched two broadsides against the Trump administration, signaling growing unease on the pro-Israel right with the president’s Israel policies. The ZOA, among Trump’s most ardent defenders in recent months and the flagship for the conservative pro-Israel community, slammed President Donald Trump for retreating from a campaign pledge…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Donald Trump waived nuclear sanctions on Iran, keeping in place the Iran nuclear deal he has derided, but added new sanctions relating to Iran’s testing of ballistic missiles. The waiver Wednesday of sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program has been expected since last month, when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson declared…
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Bill Clinton consulted with folks who came up with him in Arkansas, George W. Bush preferred Texan veterans of his family’s hard-fought political battles and Barack Obama had his Chicago peeps. Who does the first billionaire president go to when he wants real-deal advice? Other billionaires, naturally. Much has been made of…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — As of Tuesday morning, thanks to the unfiltered confessional that is Twitter, we now know this: President Donald Trump shared information with Russia about “terrorism and flight safety,” as he put it. Trump was responding, after about 12 hours, to a Washington Post report that he shared highly classified information with the…
(JTA) – The three paratroopers casting eyes upward at the Western Wall. The troops reveling in the waters of the Suez Canal. The sweeping views of a Galilee no longer vulnerable to shelling from atop the Golan Heights. Not to mention Naomi Shemer’s anthem “Jerusalem of Gold,” reissued after the Six Day War with a…
(JTA) — On a chilly fall night in 1993, I learned that the bespectacled army reservist sitting across from me in an Ottoman-era building in Nablus and dining on watery yogurt and hard-boiled eggs was an executive at Israel’s then-nascent Channel 2. He wanted to continue our chat on Jane Austen — he noticed I…
(JTA) — Once it was the job of the shtadlan — a literal translation from Hebrew is “intercessor” — to make the case for the Jews to the czar, the sultan, the king. Now a couple of the president’s men are seeking shtadlans to make their case to the Jews. Stephen Bannon, President Donald Trump’s…