
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) — Rudy Giuliani delivered a message from President Donald Trump to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The former New York mayor, a top informal adviser to Trump, “delivered a personal message ahead of the expected meeting between the leaders next month in Washington,” said the alert sent Thursday by the Prime Minister’s Office…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — One or more Democratic senators are holding up a resolution condemning last month’s United Nations Security Council condemnation of Israel’s settlement expansion in the West Bank. Jewish Insider reported Wednesday that Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., was behind the hold. It cited Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., who told the newsletter that the Senate resolution’s…
(JTA) — There are plenty of paradigms in the history of humor for how Jews and non-Jews get along, or don’t: as persecutors and victims, as saviors and saved, as allies against a common oppressor. All these are fraught with the tensions between the powerful and the disempowered, which makes sense: Fear drives humor. But…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Donald Trump wants to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about recent settlement expansion plans when they meet next month. “He wants to have a meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu and we’ll discuss that,” Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, said Tuesday at the daily briefing for reporters when asked…
WASHINGTON (JTA) – “Cantor Kaufman!” Rabbi Jonah Pesner shouted across the intersection of 3rd and D in Washington’s Northwest quadrant, packed sidewalk to sidewalk with women in pink pussycat hats and their male friends. “A song!” Jason Kaufman, the cantor at Beth El in Alexandria, Virginia, draped in a rainbow tallit and in the middle…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Trump administration has yet to decide on when — or possibly even whether — to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, its spokesman said. On Monday, a sequence of answers by Sean Spicer in his first Q&A with reporters as White House spokesman suggested that President Donald Trump may retreat from…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Top Trump administration nominees for foreign policy and security posts are advancing through the Senate. On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., a congressman known for his hard-line opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, as CIA director. Also Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved Nikki Haley, the South Carolina…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Barack Obama said he conveyed to his successor Donald Trump that moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem could be “explosive.” “Obviously it’s a volatile environment when sudden unilateral moves are made that speak to the core issues or sensitivities of either side. That can be explosive,” Obama said Wednesday at his…
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