
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.
(JTA) — From the man who married her grandmother to the man who married her daughter, from working a room full of bar mitzvah guests on behalf of her husband’s political career to headlining major pro-Israel events during her own, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s journey has never wandered far from Jews. Clinton’s Jewish encounters have been…
(JTA) — It’s early days for the White House’s latest charm offensive among American Jews, but a new poll suggests that the wooing effort is having little effect. The poll, published Wednesday by J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group that generally backs President Barack Obama’s Middle East policies, shows Obama stuck at the same mid-50s approval…
(JTA) — Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority in the Supreme Court decision that will keep “Israel” off the passports of Jerusalem-born Americans, begins by calling Jerusalem a “delicate subject.” Competing claims to the Holy City were not the only timeworn and sensitive issue the justices contended with in their 6-3 decision on Monday,…
(JTA) — When David Axelrod, then a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, first learned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly had referred to him and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel as “self-hating Jews,” he remembers feeling stung. “For people to suggest that I would be anti-Israel or worse, anti-Semitic – it…
(JTA) — Two months after questions about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s commitment to a two-state solution threatened to upend the U.S.-Israel relationship, tensions have abated, but not because peace with the Palestinians is any nearer. There has been no more talk recently from President Barack Obama’s White House about “reevaluating” how the United States…
(JTA) — When considering the Vatican’s creep toward recognition of Palestinian statehood, think “Israel-Vatican” and not “Jewish-Catholic,” say Jewish officials involved in dialogue with the church. A May 13 announcement on an agreement regarding the functioning of the church in areas under Palestinian control raised eyebrows in its reference to the “State of Palestine.” The…
Congress considers a bill that would grant it review over any Iran nuclear deal. President Barack Obama says, if it ties my hands, I’ll veto it. (JTA) So Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), get together and they hammer out a bill everyone can…
(JTA) — Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) not long ago withdrew her name from the list of those seeking the Senate seat Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is vacating for his presidential run. Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, and perhaps the party’s most important Jewish lawmaker, was clearing the way for a…