WASHINGTON – Turkey’s Jews are pleased as can be that for the first time, a Jew will be representing their country at the Eurovision song contest.
On the other hand, the singer, Can Bonomo, is not exactly trumpeting his accomplishment — at least not the Jewish part.
“We would like to inform that Mr. Can Bonomo is bound to refuse answering all the questions about his religious beliefs, anti-Semitism and political subjects,” Bonomo’s spokesman, Ece Kahraman, wrote in a statement to JTA.
Bonomo has taken pains to tell fans that he will be participating in Eurovision as a Turk, not as a Jew.
WASHINGTON – Rick Santorum’s near-win in Iowa and his fourth place finish in New Hampshire ahead of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have made him the GOP’s latest “not Romney” candidate to beat. His status as the GOP right’s champion will be put to the test Jan. 21 in South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary. He may have his work cut out for him, however, in attracting Jewish support in the general election if he eventually manages to wrest the nomination from bruised frontrunner Gov. Mitt Romney.
Pro-Israel insiders say the Santorum campaign is now aggressively reaching out to Jewish givers who helped him when he was a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.
In a surprise move Monday, President Barack Obama announced that Jack Lew, his director of the Office of Budget and Management — a Cabinet-level position — would replace William Daley as White House chief of staff.
Lew, 56, was chosen for his long years in government and his reputation as a skilled multitasker — he was top budget-cruncher for President Bill Clinton before reprising the job for Obama — but Jewish officials were offering a sigh of relief for a subsidiary reason: Their who-we-gonna-call pleas were answered.
WASHINGTON — When a delegation from the American Council for World Jewry (ACWJ) went to North Korea, its agenda was typical of visits by Jewish organizations to developing nations: promote outreach to Israel, offer to broker assistance and training, gently raise problematic defense relations with Israel’s enemies.
Pyongyang’s agenda was much simpler, but just as timeworn: Get to know these powerful Jews.
The two meetings, in 2008 and 2009, offered a window into the operation of the most cloistered country in the world — and, many believe, the most dangerous — and how communist North Korea may engage as it gently teases apart the curtains.
Solomonic choice: Two pro-Israel incumbents, one race
WASHINGTON — The California race between Democratic congressional incumbents Howard Berman and Brad Sherman is pitting experience against energy, compromise against confrontation and — painfully for many in the Jewish community — pro-Israel stalwart against pro-Israel stalwart.
“These are two guys who are extraordinary leaders on issues of importance to those who care about Israel,” said a pro-Israel insider in Washington who, like many others in the community, asked not to be identified in order not to offend either congressman.
“Congress will be lessened by one of them not being there,” said the insider, who likened the choice to Solomon’s judgment to split the baby.
Berman, 70, and Sherman, 57, currently represent adjacent districts in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. They have been thrown against one another because of the post-census redistricting of California’s electoral map by a nonpartisan commission.
WASHINGTON — Political observers here say a suburban Chicago congressional primary that features two Jewish candidates is a test of the Democratic Party’s direction for 2012.
The race’s two highest profile candidates are Brad Schneider, who enjoys establishment support and has strong ties to the organized Jewish community, and Ilya Sheyman, a 25-year-old progressive activist who has proven to be a whiz at small-donor fundraising.
In addition to the race’s generational aspect — Schneider, 50, is twice the age of Sheyman — observers see the primary as a bellwether for Democrats as they head into next year’s nationa elections: Will the party tack left. or try to hold closer to the center?
WASHINGTON – Dennis Ross got back in the driver’s seat, yet three years later the peace is still missing.
Ross, a veteran of four failed presidential pushes for Middle East peace, announced Nov. 10 that he would be leaving his post as President Barack Obama’s top Middle East strategist by the end of the year and rejoining the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Ross leaves with a mixed record in the two areas in which he was most focused: Iran’s nuclear program and advancing Israeli-Arab peace. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is stalled, if not sliding backward with the Palestinian statehood campaign and the absence of negotiations. At the same time, the Obama administration has persuaded reluctant nations to sign on to enhanced Iran sanctions.
WASHINGTON – Does Nicolas Sarkozy really hate Binyamin Netanyahu? Does President Barack Obama really sympathize?
And does it really matter?
The fleeting, private exchange between the French and U.S. presidents at a recent summit in Cannes, France, made international headlines, and its meaning is still being parsed by political pundits and pro-Israel activists.
The Anti-Defamation League was the only major centrist Jewish group to publicly rebuke Obama for the Nov. 3 exchange, which was overheard by several journalists at the G-20 summit who were plugged into a listening device monitoring the leaders that was switched on early.
WASHINGTON – The international nuclear watchdog has spoken on Iran, and although its report does not have the smoking gun some had anticipated, it makes a cumulative case damning enough for the Obama administration to ask for increased sanctions.
JTA canvassed Washington Iran-watchers on Tuesday afternoon in the hours after leaked copies of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report — 10 pages, with a 14-page annex accumulating the evidence — plunked down on desks across the U.S. capital.
WASHINGTON – The immediate consequence of UNESCO’s vote to grant the Palestinians membership is clear: a cutoff of U.S. funding for the international agency governing the protection of cultures and the sharing of scientific knowledge, which stands to lose roughly a fifth of its budget.
What is less certain is what effect the defunding, mandated by a U.S. law banning aid to organizations within the United Nations that recognize Palestinian statehood, would have on U.S. — and, by extension, Israeli — influence worldwide.
