Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

AIPAC-affiliated congressional trips to Israel set for August delayed over Delta variant concerns

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The AIPAC affiliate that organizes trips to Israel for members of Congress has rescheduled several that were to take place next month until early 2022, citing the COVID-19 resurgence in the country attributed to the Delta variant.

Two trips organized by the American Israel Education Foundation, one for new Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives and another bipartisan trip for members of two House committees, Armed Services and Homeland Security, were to have taken place in August.

But COVID cases are rising in Israel, and the country this week instituted new measures to contain the resurgence triggered by the variant.

“Given Israel’s increased concern over the Delta variant and the likelihood of further travel restrictions, we decided it was not possible to offer Members of Congress a comprehensive and informative program in the midst of the current challenges,” AIPAC spokesman Marshall Wittmann said in an email. “Enthusiasm for traveling to Israel remains high among these members of Congress, and we look forward to them visiting Israel with AIEF.”

The trips will now take place in February 2022, when the trip for Democratic freshmen was already scheduled.

The AIEF trips, usually organized in non-election years for first-year representatives, are seen as key to building support for Israel in Congress.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee this month announced that for the second year in a row it will not mount an annual conference in Washington because of continued concerns about the coronavirus.


The post AIPAC-affiliated congressional trips to Israel set for August delayed over Delta variant concerns appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

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 polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

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 comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag 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.