Elijah Cummings, Whose District Trump Said Is ‘Infested,’ Has An Israel Program
Participants in the Elijah Cumming Youth Program in Israel Image by Facebook
By Aiden Pink July 30, 2019
Rep. Elijah Cummings is a 23-year veteran of Congress and chairs the House Oversight and Reform Committee, but most Americans likely first heard of when when President Trump went on a multi-day Twitter tirade criticizing him and his Baltimore congressional district.
Cummings is well-known and well-liked among his district’s large Jewish community, JTA reported. He’s even the sponsor of the Elijah Cummings Youth Program in Israel, a two-year leadership development program for non-Jewish high school students that includes a month-long trip to Israel. More than 200 people have graduated the program over the past two decades. Cummings meets with participants and donates his speaking fees to the organization.
“It helps create an understanding that I think sometimes we lack when it comes to being able to collaborate with others who don’t exactly look like you,” former participant Jaina Maultsby told the Baltimore Sun in 2017 about her Israel trip. “Even though there sometimes would be a language barrier, there was still a sense of connection.”
Baltimore has one of the country’s biggest Jewish populations, and community leaders praised his efforts to bring African-Americans and Jews together. The community “has been able to count on Rep. Cummings time and again for assistance and leadership,” Baltimore Jewish Council executive director Howard Libit told Haaretz.
On their Israel trip, fellows stay at the Yemin Orde youth village in Haifa and are paired with Israeli teens of diverse ancestry, with whom they participate in volunteer work and leadership workshops.
“Through this experience, our fellows — who come from diverse backgrounds — learn from one another about tolerance and gain appreciation of different cultures,” Cummings said in a statement to the Sun. “This cross-cultural immersion helps to foster lifelong bonds and create fertile ground for peace.”
Past participants have said that Cummings keeps in touch with alumni long after they complete the program.
Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor of the Forward. Contact him at pink@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aidenpink
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
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.
