Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

Ben-Ami Takes to the Airwaves

J-Street, the Jewish communities’ lightening rod, is now taking its debate with other Jewish organizations to the airwaves. It is not every day that Jewish leaders air their communal dirty laundry out in the open, but that is exactly what happened over the weekend when Jeremy Ben-Ami, leader of the dovish lobby, met with David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, at Christian Amanpour’s CNN studio.

Here is the debate in full. It starts off rather mellow but heats up toward the end.

According to Amanpour, AIPAC representatives turned down an invitation to debate Ben-Ami.

Hours after the show aired on CNN, Ben-Ami held a live discussion at the New York 92nd street Y with Alan Dershowitz. There too it was hard to find many points of agreement.

And in between Ben-Ami took some time to exchange punches with the ADL’s Abe Foxman over the timeless Jewish question: Can one attack Sarah Palin’s views on settlements and still call himself pro-Israel?

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.