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Addressing Jewish Republicans, Kevin McCarthy promises to yank Ilhan Omar from House Foreign Affairs Committee
LAS VEGAS (JTA) — Kevin McCarthy, the likely next speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said he would remove Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat, from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in part because of her criticism of Israel.
He also hinted that her personal criticism of him last year was a factor.
McCarthy, a California Republican whose party just won a narrow majority in the House, was speaking Saturday to the annual Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas.
“I remember what she said about me,” he said. “I remember what she said about Israel. I remember what she said about the [U.S.-Israel] relationship,” he said. “I remembered it so much, I promised you last year she would no longer be on foreign affairs. I’m keeping that promise.” There was applause.
Omar has called for greater congressional oversight of the U.S.-Israel relationship. She has attacked parts of the pro-Israel lobby, at times appearing to invoke themes of Jewish control, which has drawn accusations of antisemitism from some Jewish groups, from Republicans and from some Democrats. (Omar has apologized for some but not all of the remarks that caused offense.) She also supports the movement to boycott Israel.
One of Omar’s most notorious tweets was when she said that McCarthy’s support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins,” slang for $100 bills. She later apologized. McCarthy’s reference to what Omar said about him may also refer to her calling him “a liar and a coward” last year after he refused to discipline a Republican congresswoman, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, for calling her a member of a “jihad squad” and joking that she feared Omar, a Somali American Muslim, carried a bomb.
In a rare move in 2021, Democrats, who controlled the House, stripped Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, of her committee memberships in part for her past embrace of QAnon, a conspiracy movement that has spurred violence. McCarthy then said he would retaliate should he be elected speaker.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker at the time, declined a compromise from McCarthy that would have removed Greene from sensitive committees but allow her to remain on other committees. Saying that Omar “would no longer be on foreign affairs” and not banned from committees suggests that McCarthy may be thinking of the same sort of outcome for Omar.
Jeremy Slevin, Omar’s spokesman, said McCarthy did not care about antisemitism and was only seeking to silence Omar.
Greene “ran an ad holding a machine gun to @IlhanMN’s head and said Muslims couldn’t be in Congress,” Slevin said in a tweet. “Donald Trump led fascist chants of ‘send her back,’ leading to death threats. This has nothing to do with antisemitism and everything to do with silencing her by any means necessary.”
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The post Addressing Jewish Republicans, Kevin McCarthy promises to yank Ilhan Omar from House Foreign Affairs Committee appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Frank Gehry, renowned architect who began life as Frank Goldberg, dies at 96
(JTA) — Frank Gehry, a Jewish architect who became one of the world’s most renowned innovators in his field for his contributions to modernist architecture, including the famed Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, has died at 96.
His death following a brief respiratory illness was confirmed on Friday by the chief of staff at his firm, Meaghan Lloyd, according to the New York Times.
Gehry was born Ephraim Owen Goldberg on Feb. 28, 1929, to a Jewish family in Toronto. In 1947, Gehry moved to Los Angeles with his family and later went on to graduate from the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture in 1954.
The same year, he changed his name to Gehry at the behest of his first wife who was “worried about antisemitism and thought it sounded less Jewish.” He would later say he would not make the choice again.
Among Gehry’s most acclaimed works, which feature his signature, sculptural style, are the Bilbao Guggenheim, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris and the DZ Bank Building in Berlin.
Gehry also often returned to the motif of a fish, including two large fish sculptures in the World Trade Center in New York City and on Barcelona’s seafront. Some tied the fish motif to his recollections about his Jewish grandmother’s trips to the fishmonger to prepare for Shabbat each week.
“We’d put it in the bathtub,” Gehry said, according to the New York Times. “And I’d play with this fish for a day until she killed it and made gefilte fish.”
Gehry began to identify as an atheist shortly after his bar mitzvah. But in 2018, while he was working on ANU-Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, he told the Jewish Journal that Judaism had influenced his career nonetheless.
“There’s a curiosity built into the [Jewish] culture,” he said. “I grew up under that. My grandfather read Talmud to me. That’s one of the Jewish things I hang on to probably — that philosophy from that religion. Which is separate from God. It’s more ephemeral. I was brought up with that curiosity. I call it a healthy curiosity. Maybe it is something that the religion has produced. I don’t know. It’s certainly a positive thing.”
In 1989, Gehry won the prestigious Pritzker Prize, considered one of the top awards in the field of architecture, and in 1999 won the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects. In 2007, Gehry also received the Jerusalem Prize for Arts and Letters and in 2016 won the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then-president Barack Obama.
His survivors include his wife, Berta Isabel Aguilera, daughter Brina, and sons Alejandro and Samuel. Another daughter, Leslie Gehry Brenner, died of cancer in 2008.
The post Frank Gehry, renowned architect who began life as Frank Goldberg, dies at 96 appeared first on The Forward.
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Herzog Says Wellbeing of Israelis His Only Concern in Deal With Netanyahu’s ‘Extraordinary’ Pardon Request
Israeli President Isaac Herzog speaks during a press conference with Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics in Riga, Latvia, Aug. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ints Kalnins
i24 News – In an interview with Politico published on Saturday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog remained tight-lipped on whether he intended to grant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “extraordinary” pardon request, saying that his decision will be motivated by what’s best for Israel.
“There is a process which goes through the Justice Ministry and my legal adviser and so on. This is certainly an extraordinary request and above all when dealing with it I will consider what is the best interest of the Israeli people,” Herzog said. “The well-being of the Israeli people is my first, second and third priority.”
Asked specifically about President Donald Trump’s request, Herzog said “I respect President Trump’s friendship and his opinion,” adding, “Israel, naturally, is a sovereign country.”
Herzog addressed a wide range of topics in the interview, including the US-Israel ties and the shifts in public opinion on Israel.
“One has to remember that the fountains of America, of American life, are based on biblical values, just like ours. And therefore, I believe that the underlying fountain that we all drink from is the same,” he said. “However, I am following very closely the trends that I see in the American public eye and the attitude, especially of young people, on Israel.”
“It comes from TikTok,” he said of the torrent of hostility toward Israel that has engulf swathes of U.S. opinion since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, “from a very shallow discourse of the current situation, pictures or viewpoints, and doesn’t judge from the big picture, which is, is Israel a strategic ally? Yes. Is Israel contributing to American national interests, security interests? Absolutely yes. Is Israel a beacon of democracy in the Middle East? Absolutely yes.”
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Syria’s Sharaa Charges Israel ‘Exports Its Crises to Other Countries’
FILE PHOTO: Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa addresses the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
i24 News – Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Saturday escalated his messaging against Israel at the Doha forum.
“Israel is working to export its own crises to other countries and escape accountability for the massacres it committed in the Gaza Strip, justifying everything with security concerns,” he said.
“Meanwhile, Syria, since its liberation, has sent positive messages aimed at establishing the foundations of regional stability.
“Israel has responded to Syria with extreme violence, launching over 1,000 airstrikes and carrying out 400 incursions into its territory. The latest of these attacks was the massacre it perpetrated in the town of Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside, which claimed dozens of lives.
“We are working with influential countries worldwide to pressure Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied after December 8, 2014, and all countries support this demand.
“Syria insists on Israel’s adherence to the 1974 Disengagement Agreement. The demand for a demilitarized zone raises many questions. Who will protect this zone if there is no Syrian army presence?
“Any agreement must guarantee Syria’s interests, as it is Syria that is subjected to Israeli attacks. So, who should be demanding a buffer zone and withdrawal?”