Whatever Harris says about Israel, these Jews helped shape it
Vice President Kamala Harris in July. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh September 9, 2024
If the Israel-Gaza statement on her campaign’s brand-new policy page looks familiar, that’s because it’s almost verbatim what Vice President Kamala Harris said about the issue last month at the Democratic National Convention, except using the third person rather than the first.
“Vice President Harris will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and she will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself,” reads the paragraph near the end of the web page, which was published Sunday night. “She and President Biden are working to end the war in Gaza, such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.”
Don’t be surprised if you hear Harris repeat the carefully crafted statement during her debate with former President Donald Trump on ABC Tuesday night. Many mainstream Jewish Democrats have praised it for carefully threading the needle on a complex issue that threatens to bleed some voters from both right and left.
The framing is a reflection of what CNN described as a “yearslong crash course in foreign diplomacy”: Harris has visited 21 countries and met with more than 150 world leaders since she became vice president in 2021. It has also been shaped by some Jewish national security experts who are in her inner circle — as well as her Jewish husband.
Here is a look at several of those key advisers:
Rebecca Friedman Lissner, the deputy national security whose grandparents survived the Holocaust
Lissner, 38, is the right hand to Harris’ national security adviser Phil Gordon. She joined the vice president’s office in April 2022 from the National Security Council, where she worked on the administration’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and oversaw the development of Biden’s National Security Strategy.
“I’m the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors,” Lissner, a graduate of Harvard University and Georgetown University, told Politico at the time. “So international politics and policy have always felt very immediate and salient for me and my family and that’s why I got into this business in the first place and I’m committed to ensuring that America remains a force for good in an increasingly challenging world.”
Lissner was previously a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations focused on nuclear policy, and taught at the Naval War College, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania.
Author of the 2021 book Wars of Revelation: The Transformative Effects of Military Intervention on Grand Strategy, Lissner has criticized Trump for prioritizing flashy tactical successes during his presidency but failing to develop a comprehensive strategy. Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a foreign affairs think tank, described Lissner in a recent Foreign Policy profile as a liberal internationalist “trying to make a more pragmatic U.S. foreign policy.”
Dean Lieberman, the speechwriter who went to Auschwitz with Doug Emhoff
Since joining the Harris team in August 2021, Lieberman has been her chief foreign policy speechwriter, traveling with the vice president to 17 countries, and the vice president’s informal liaison to the Jewish community. He also accompanies the second gentleman, Douglas Emhoff, on his trips overseas, and led the planning for Emhoff’s 2023 visit to Krakow, Poland and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Lieberman, 35, previously served as spokesperson for the White House National Security Council on issues related to China, the Indo-Pacific and Europe. During the Obama administration, he worked in the State Department, leading communications on the 2013-2014 Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. He was previously a spokesperson for the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem and press secretary for the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California.
“The Vice President is a lifelong supporter of Israel as a secure, democratic homeland for the Jewish people,” Lieberman told the Forward about Harris’ views on the Israel-Hamas war. “Throughout her career, she has had an unwavering commitment to the security of Israel. The Vice President has made clear she will always ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself from Iran and Iran-backed terrorists, like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. She will never leave Israel unable to defend itself. And she will always speak out and combat antisemitism whenever and wherever she sees it.”
In July, Leiberman told CNN, “One can criticize specific policies of the government of Israel while still strongly supporting the state of Israel and the people of Israel. And that support for Israel in no way conflicts with the vice president’s strong view that the Palestinian people deserve freedom, dignity, and self-determination.”
Cynthia Bernstein, the Yeshiva University grad who co-led the VP’s inaugural Passover seder
Bernstein, 39, is the director of management and administration and go-to person on the vice president’s staff for Jewish-related matters. She started at the White House as an intern in 2012, after spending time in Jerusalem, writing curriculum at Yad Vashem and volunteering with refugees.
An observant Jew, she is a graduate of Yeshiva University, where she spent a year teaching political science, and has a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
During the Obama administration, Bernstein was then-Vice President Biden’s director of administration. She also helped with strategic planning and budgetary matters in the White House Office of Management and Administration.
In 2022, Bernstein co-led the inaugural Passover Seder at the vice president’s residence. The Seder plate included an orange, something many feminist and progressive Jews use to symbolize the ability — and need — for Judaism to change with the times. “At least for us, it symbolizes inclusion,” Bernstein told Jewish Insider at the time, “and especially making sure that women’s voices are heard and are provided the same opportunity.”
Ilan Goldenberg, the Jerusalem-born adviser on Middle East issues
Goldenberg, 46, was tapped as the Harriz-Walz campaign’s Jewish liaison last month. He previously served as the vice president’s adviser on Middle East issues and is continuing in that role on Israel-related matters during the campaign.
Born in Jerusalem, Goldenberg is fluent in Hebrew and Arabic. He grew up in New Jersey and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia. During the Obama administration, Goldenberg worked on the Iran file at the Pentagon and was chief of staff to the administration’s special envoy during the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. In 2020, he advised Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign.
Doug Emhoff, second gentleman
The Jew who likely whispers most in Harris’ ear, of course, is her husband of 10 years.
Emhoff, 59, has since 2021 been the face of the Biden-Harris administration’s campaign to combat domestic antisemitism. He hardly comments on Israel, but in an interview on Pod Save America last week, he said: “There has to be” a hostage-ceasefire deal, he said. “There needs to be consequences for Hamas, and there needs to be in the leaders, and there needs to be peace.”
On a Zoom call hosted by the Jewish Democratic Council of America and Jewish Women for Kamala in July, for example, Emhoff said Harris “has been and will always be a strong supporter of Israel as a secure democratic and Jewish state.”
Harris’ rabbi (and friends)
Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt, co-senior rabbi of Washington’s Adas Israel Congregation — where Emhoff is a congregant and spoke emotionally last week about the hostages recently killed by Hamas — occasionally appears with the vice president.
Halie Soifer, chief executive of the Jewish Democrats’ group, was a national security adviser to Harris while she was in the Senate, and accompanied her and Emhoff on a trip to Israel.
Tom Nides, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said during the Democratic National Convention that he often speaks with Harris about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sam Lauter, a major Democratic fundraiser from San Francisco who serves on the board of several pro-Israel organizations, has been advising Harris since her successful campaign for San Francisco district attorney in 2003.
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