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What you need to know about Dean Phillips, the Jewish congressman running for president
(JTA) — Dean Phillips is running for president. And he wants to talk.
Talking runs in the Jewish Minnesota congressman’s family — his grandmother is Dear Abby. And he’s friends with Ilhan Omar, despite their polar opposite views on a range of issues, including Israel, because they like to talk things through.
Now, Phillips, 54, is hoping that penchant for dialogue will fuel his latest endeavor — a long-shot bid to defeat Joe Biden in the Democratic presidential primary.
“The greatest challenge we face right now isn’t ideology, isn’t issue based, it’s conversation, the lack of conversation,” the Minnesota Democrat said in ads for his first congressional campaign for the House in 2018, which he reupped for his presidential campaign. “And the great intention of my campaign in my personal mandate is to get people to talk.”
Phillips doesn’t differ much from Biden on policy, and hasn’t garnered any meaningful support from other elected officials or in the polls. But so far, as primary season approaches, he’s refused to back down.
Here are six things to know about Phillips as he vies against odds to be the first Jewish U.S. president.
He has staked his campaign on Biden’s unpopularity.
Phillips’ challenge boils down to one thing: Biden’s unpopularity. He says he likes the president and appreciates his performance, but that polls show Democrats need a different nominee next year.
Biden’s approval rating is 37% and has been lower than 50% for two years, according to Gallup. Election polls show him neck-and-neck with former President Donald Trump — with some showing Trump leading in several swing states.
“The numbers are horrifying,” Phillips told CBS in an October interview. “I love Joe Biden, I want to make that clear — a remarkable man. I think he saved our country. … But that’s not what the numbers are saying now. There is an exhausted majority in America that wants neither of these candidates.”
Phillips’ platform more or less mirrors Biden’s: spurring small business growth, favoring police reforms while praising those in uniform who do their jobs well, promoting gun control and action to combat climate change.
He did depart from Biden in December on healthcare, endorsing Medicare for All, a policy championed in recent years by Sen. Bernie Sanders which would provide government-run healthcare to all Americans. Biden has campaigned in the past on expanding healthcare coverage but has not endorsed Medicare for All.
The problem Phillips faces is that hardly anyone wants to listen to him.
When pollsters pay attention to Phillips, he garners less than 5% against Biden and even trails Marianne Williamson, the Jewish self-help author. The president leads the polls by more than 60 points.
Polls aren’t Phillips’ only problem: His campaign has raised less than $1 million. The Democratic Party is canceling primaries in key states, including North Carolina and Florida. And colleagues who enjoyed his company are now shunning him, Axios reported this week.
Phillips, who was elected to an influential leadership position in his party just a year ago, is persona non grata among some House Democrats, a few of whom were willing to diss him on the record.
“Dean Phillips is not going to win any primary,” said Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the former majority leader. “I think he’s not helpful to the country.”
But Phillips is not ending his run, telling Axios that his party should have “a democracy of competition and not coronation.”
He was one of the first Jewish members of Congress to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
On Nov. 17, Phillips posted a statement that at first appeared to echo the Biden administration’s policy on Israel. It called Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel “despicable,” mourned “the resulting human tragedy in Gaza” and said “Israel has every right and expectation to target Hamas terrorists and dismantle their capability of destroying the state of Israel.”
But the statement added, “That response has taken an unacceptable toll on Palestinian civilians.” And it called for an “immediate and mutual ceasefire of large-scale military operations and indiscriminate terror” to be upheld by both sides.
The statement — which had several other provisions, including calling for a release of hostages, new Israeli elections and a multinational force to be stationed in Gaza — made Phillips one of the first Jewish members of Congress to call for a ceasefire.
On Dec. 11, he called for both Hamas and Netanyahu to lose power — and implicitly tied that call to his own presidential bid.
“Hamas is a clear & present danger to Israel, Palestinians, & peace, & must be destroyed,” he wrote. “Netanyahu is a clear & present danger to Israel, Palestinians, & peace, & must be democratically replaced. Earth needs a new generation of leaders to save itself.”
He has also echoed feelings of isolation felt by many Jews amid reports of rising antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war.
“Being a Jewish member of Congress in the Democratic caucus is very difficult right now, you can imagine,” he told Bill Maher in November. “And there’s a seemingly a lack of progressive love when it comes to our doorstep. And it’s problematic.”
His grandmother was famous — and declared that he would be a Democrat.
When Phillips was born in 1969 his father, Artie Pfefer, was deployed to Vietnam and was killed six months later, never having met his son. When Phillips was an adult, he learned that his parents kept in touch through audiotapes. In one, Pfefer said, “I really love you so much and little baby Dean. I’m just getting a feeling for you and those pictures and, you know, his voice and everything. I’d really like to give him a big, big fat kiss.”
When he was 3, his mother DeeDee remarried, and Eddie Phillips, who also was Jewish, adopted Dean. Eddie’s mom was Pauline Phillips, better known as the advice columnist Dear Abby.
Phillips likes to recount that when he was 10 or so and tracking the 1980 presidential race, independent candidate John Anderson visited his school.
“We were having a family dinner, and my grandma asked about my day and said, ‘Before you continue, are you a Democrat or Republican?’ I didn’t know. And she said, ‘You’re a Democrat.’ So she anointed me a Democrat when I was 11 years old,” he told Roll Call last year.
“Nine years later, I was having dinner with her again, and she asked what I was going to do that summer as a junior in college,” he said. “She knew [Democratic Vermont Sen.] Patrick Leahy a bit and said I should apply for an internship on Capitol Hill. So I did, and that became the greatest summer of my life until joining Congress myself in 2019.”
His Jewish identity revolves around philanthropy, and his business career centers on gelato and coffee.
Phillips likes to cite his Minsk-born great-grandfather, Jay Phillips, as a model: He suffered antisemitism and poverty as a child in Minnesota, but would set aside pennies he earned as a newspaper delivery boy to pay for bread for the homeless.
Jay Phillips founded a distillery empire (launching, among other things, the first American-made schnapps) and helped establish Mt. Sinai hospital in Minneapolis, among other philanthropic endeavors.
Dean Phillips for a time ran the distillery, but he said his great-grandfather’s charitable work was his real calling. He has served as co-chairman of the Phillips Family Foundation.
“Our true family business is the foundation, and philanthropy is the thread that is woven through the generations,” he told TC Jewfolk, a local Jewish outlet. “My Jewishness begins with that, and the philanthropy begins with our Jewish heritage and Jay’s story of sharing the pennies.”
He quit the distillery in 2012 to run Talenti Gelato, selling it in 2014 to Unilever. He then opened two coffee shops in the Minneapolis area named Penny’s.
“We thought combining crepes with coffee was similar to gelato, which was this elevation of a product that people enjoy when they traveled to Europe and had a fondness for, but wasn’t really available widely in the U.S..” he told Forbes. “So it’s not the café; I’d like to position it more as an escape, and it just happens to serve coffee and crepes.”
That venture was not so successful: The coffee shops shuttered in 2022.
His first taste of politics was in a synagogue.
Phillips was on the board of Temple Israel, the oldest synagogue in Minneapolis, which, he told TC Jewfolk, was his “first foray into governance.” He made it sound daunting, but also portrayed it as a useful learning experience.
“It was enlightening because when people with great passion and different perspectives are all looking to the same end and see the means differently, that is analogous to Congress, and it requires patience and listening and conversation and the willingness to participate,” he said.
He believes in talking before condemning.
Phillips’s neighboring district is represented by Ilhan Omar, the firebrand Somali-American Muslim congresswoman who has drawn criticism for rhetoric some Jewish critics call antisemitic.
They occupy opposite ends of the Democratic spectrum: he has been a leading member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, which brings Republicans and Democrats together to seek bipartisan compromise. She is a member of the far-left “Squad”. He is unapologetically pro-Israel; she is a fierce critic of Israel. He is all about spurring business-friendly legislation; she is allied with the Democratic Socialists of America.
Phillips has not held back when he thinks Omar deserves criticism: He was one of four Jewish Democrats who in 2021 accused her and other Squad members of echoing antisemitism for using words like “apartheid” and “terrorist” to describe Israel’s government.
But he also considers Omar a friend, according to a lengthy 2019 profile of their unlikely relationship in Politico Magazine. Just after Omar made perhaps her most notorious statement, saying support for Israel in Congress was “all about the Benjamins,” he sought her out for a face-to-face chat before issuing his own statement, despite the talk causing a delay that he said irked fellow Jewish Democrats.
“That’s how I wish more people would conduct themselves — let’s share it face to face,” Phillips told Politico. “You know, a little more talking, a little less tweeting. It’s the tweeting that gets us into trouble.”
In a fiery floor speech in February, he defended his friend when Republicans ousted her from the Foreign Affairs Committee, saying they “share a belief in debate, deliberation and reconciliation.” Then, to whoops and cheers from members of the Squad, who sat behind him as he delivered his speech, he laid into far-right Republicans for members of their conference who “encouraged an insurrection.”
The same day, Omar joined Phillips in cosponsoring a pro-Israel resolution “recognizing Israel as America’s legitimnate and democratic ally.”
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The post What you need to know about Dean Phillips, the Jewish congressman running for president appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.