Ron Kampeas is the former Washington bureau chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Ron Kampeas
By Ron Kampeas
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News Bernie Sanders Opens Up About Jewish Upbringing — at Last
(JTA) — I interviewed Bernie Sanders a couple years ago, when word first circulated that the Vermont senator might seek the presidency. Though he knew about JTA going in — and must have known questions about his Jewish background were coming — he didn’t want to get into it. I wrote at the time: “But…
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Fast Forward Donald Trump Gets Jews for Jesus Blessing
(JTA) — CNN reported that Donald Trump last week met with “Christian, Jewish leaders.” I tried to but could not track down which “Jewish leaders” were in the group. What also puzzled me was that it was the first day of Sukkot: That didn’t rule out the presence of a “Jewish leader,” but it made it…
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The Schmooze When Ben Bernanke Dealt With Questions About Jewish ‘Horns’
(JTA) — Ben Bernanke dealt with prejudice as a Jew crowing up in South Carolina — including being asked if he had horns — according to his new memoir. Several times, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve writes, elementary school classmates asked “quite innocently, I believe” whether he had horns. “Growing up in Dillon…
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Fast Forward Breaking Down Netanyahu’s 44-Second U.N. Staredown
(JTA) — All anyone attending the United Nations General Assembly opening seemed to want to talk about was the threat posed to the world by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. That was much to the consternation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who argued in his speech before that body on Thursday that Iran,…
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Fast Forward GOP Jews Quake as Donald Trump and Ben Carson Top Polls
(JTA) — The Republican Jewish establishment is watching the surge of political outsiders — like Donald Trump and Ben Carson — in the presidential primaries with dismay. “It’s like we have a conference call every morning, and we ask, ‘What can we do to screw ourselves up today?’” said Fred Zeidman, a longtime fundraiser for…
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News Will John Boehner Now Spill the Beans on Bibi Speech Drama?
(JTA) — John Boehner, the Republican from Ohio who is the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, is quitting politics. Now that he’s going, maybe Boehner may feel free to elaborate on his role in the secret that launched the ongoing U.S.-Israel crisis — and perhaps permanently changed the relationship between the two countries….
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Fast Forward Did Pope Francis and Benjamin Netanyahu Agree on Moses?
(JTA) — The marble visages of 23 historic lawgivers overlook the U.S. House of Representatives chamber: 11 on the east side, 11 on the west and Moses in the center — with all 22 others facing north toward him. In addresses to joint sessions of Congress this year, two speakers have gestured toward the relief…
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Opinion Did New York Times Flub ‘Jewish’ Iran Vote Chart?
(JTA) — In a chart of lawmakers who are against the Iran deal, The New York Times singled out Jewishness as an implicit cause of opposition to the nuclear agreement. The chart, posted Thursday, originally included a column with the heading “Jewish?” “Yeses” were highlighted in yellow (yellow!), while “noes” were not. Another column showed…
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