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Ady Barkan, healthcare activist who fought Lou Gehrig’s disease, dies at 39
(JTA) — Ady Barkan, an Israeli-American lawyer and one of the country’s most visible progressive activists for single-payer health care, died Wednesday at a hospital in Santa Barbara, California. He was 39. The cause was ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which compromised his speech and movement but drove him to fight for patients’ rights.
In 2017, as a new father given just years to live, he literally threw his body into action, protesting Republican initiatives at the U.S. Capitol, crisscrossing the country and raising millions of dollars for political campaigns.
Barkan’s name was invoked in a Democratic presidential debate in 2019, when Sen. Elizabeth Warren, speaking in support of the universal, government-run healthcare proposal known as Medicare for All, cited Barkan’s personal story as an example of the shortfalls of private insurance.
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Barkan endorsed Joseph Biden and spoke at the Democratic National Convention that year, though he disagreed with the presidential nominee over health care policy. Biden opposes Medicare for All.
Warren also said she kept a picture of Barkan’s toddler, Carl, in her office.
Barkan was a longtime progressive activist before his diagnosis, inspired as a child by the Harper Lee novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” according to Politico magazine. He gained attention with efforts to democratize the Federal Reserve. As a senior organizer for the Center for Popular Democracy, he later led its Be A Hero project and affiliated PAC, which worked to defeat Republicans in the 2022 midterms.
He protested President Trump’s 2017 tax cut — even confronting then Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake about it on an airplane flight they shared — because he worried that it would cut funds for social services. He also gained attention for protesting the Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. After Maine Sen. Susan Collins voted to confirm Kavanaugh, Barkan raised $4 million for her eventual challenger’s unsuccessful campaign.
“We are all profoundly grateful for you, @AdyBarkan,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi tweeted after Democrats won a majority in the House of Representatives in 2018. “Your passion for saving our health care and charting a new path for progressive change were an inspiration throughout the campaign.”
Ohad Barkan, known as Ady, was born in Boston in 1983 to parents who met in Israel: Diana Kormos Buchwald, an immigrant from Romania and a professor of the history of science at the California Institute of Technology, and Elazar Barkan, an Israeli professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University. He grew up Cambridge, Massachusetts and California in what he described as a “secular Jewish household.”
He studied economics at Columbia College, and graduated from Yale Law School in 2010.
In 2019, he pushed Democrats and Republicans to focus more on the individual effects of health care policies. In a video posted to Twitter (now known as X), he invited people to join an initiative that would center people’s health care stories.
“Healthcare is too important to too many people for 30-second sound bites shouted between ten different candidates on a stage, moderated by journalists who are not pissed off enough about the reality that so many Americans are facing in the richest nation in the history of human civilization,” he said. “We need a better health care debate and we need it now. We have to do something about this.”
His story was featured in the 2021 documentary “Not Going Quietly.”
His survivors include his parents, his wife, Rachael King, a professor of English literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara, ande their two children, Carl, 7, and Willow, 3.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.