Funding to Israel was restored to its pre-sequester levels in the spending bill the U.S. House of Representatives passed. The bill keeps funding for Israel at $3.1 billion for 2014, the amount designated in a 2007 10-year memorandum of understanding that guaranteed Israel an average of $3 billion a year in assistance. The $1.1 trillion…
Lest you think that the thoughtless, cowardly attempt to reduce federal spending, known as sequestration, was nowhere near as bad as it sounded, listen to Nancy Volpert. She’s the director of public policy for the Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles, the oldest charity in L.A. and one of the largest, an organization dedicated to…
In the battle to end the across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration, it’s all hands on deck. Increasingly for the Obama administration, which is deadlocked over the budget with the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, that means reaching out to Jews. In conference calls and in appearances at Jewish events, administration officials are soliciting Jewish support…
As the blunt ax of sequestration begins its crude work, chopping federal expenditures with no purpose or sense of priority, it’s no wonder that those who work to secure and protect American aid to Israel are worried. That $3.1 billion pays for more than a military shopping list every year. It’s an outward representation of…
In an effort to save aid to Israel from mandatory, across-the-board cuts now being imposed on all discretionary federal programs, pro-Israel activists are opening the door on a dramatic course of action they have rejected repeatedly in the past. Members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest pro-Israel lobby, are refusing to foreclose…
Imminent threats threading through the rhetoric at AIPAC conferences is hardly new, but this year’s alarm raising had a unique wrinkle: In addition to the prospect of a nuclear Iran, the other danger targeted by the pro-Israel lobby was domestic – sequestration. The message hammered home throughout the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference…
Sequestration could lead to cuts in military assistance to Israel, Jordan and Egypt, Secretary of State John Kerry told Congress. “Under sequestration, our security assistance accounts would face an approximately $500 million reduction, undermining our efforts around the world to prevent conflict and protect our national security,” Kerry wrote in a Feb. 11 letter to…
A pregnant Darfuri woman at a refugee camp in Chad, a Latino senior citizen living below the poverty line in the Bronx and an elderly Jewish immigrant from the former Soviet Union living in Boston. They may not know it, but these individuals are all beneficiaries of programs run by Jewish organizations with public money….
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NPR Legal Correspondent Nina Totenberg in conversation with Editor-in-Chief Jodi Rudoren. To benefit the Forward.
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