Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Bernstein’s First Speech as Obama’s Jewish Liaison

Jarrod Bernstein made his first public speech as President Obama’s liaison to the Jewish community Monday, at the second annual Agudath Israel legislative breakfast, in New York . As might be expected, he did his best to remind the members of the pro-Israel Haredi organization of what the administration is doing both for Israel and for the Jews at home.

Addressing an audience made up of people not generally known to be Obama fans, Bernstein pointed out that the Obama administration has allocated a record number of Pell grants, which benefit rabbinical and yeshiva students. He also highlighted the fact that Obama’s requests to Congress for aid to Israel have been the highest in history ($3 billion this year), and that this funding has been integral to the deployment of the Iron Dome missile defense system, which has been saving Israeli lives. Bernstein also spoke of Obama’s efforts to thwart the Iranian nuclear threat.

Prior to becoming director of Jewish outreach at the White House, Bernstein was principal deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs at United States Department of Homeland Security. Earlier in his career, he worked for seven years for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Bernstein was far from the only person from the political sphere in attendance at the Agudath Israel breakfast. Among those who also made a point of showing up to either speak or simply shmooze at the event, which took place in the highly Jewish 9th Congressional District (that’s the one Anthony Weiner represented until his disgraceful departure, and the one that subsequently went to the Republican Bob Turner in a special election last September), were U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, and Manhattan Borough President (and NYC mayoral candidate) Scott Stringer.

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.