Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Forward 50 2018

Jacky Rosen

From Shul President To Nevada Senator

Jacky Rosen has climbed the leadership ladder quickly. In 2016 she was her Las Vegas-area synagogue’s president, then in 2017 she was elected to Congress, before winning an even bigger national office — being elected senator for Nevada in 2018. She’s the first freshman congresswoman to ever win a Senate seat.

Indeed, Rosen, 61, called her rabbi for advice when in 2016 she started thinking about running for Congress. Her rabbi urged her to go for it. At the time, she was wrapping up a three-year term as synagogue president. He told the Forward that she’d helped bring people together.

Rosen won her Congressional seat and then decided to run for Senate against one-term incumbent Dean Heller. She made a tight race look effortless and won with 50.8% of the vote to Heller’s 44.5%.

A former software developer, she focused her campaign on education and the environment. She has taken a pro-Israel line, and says she would have opposed the 2015 Iran nuclear pact.

After her meteoric rise, Rosen faces a tricky 2019 trying to fulfill her rabbi’s prediction in the U.S. Senate.

— Helen Chernikoff

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

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.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

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.