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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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Sen. Rick Scott Donates Salary to US Holocaust Memorial Museum
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, Dec. 7, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
US Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) announced on Wednesday that he will donate a portion of his Senate salary to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, underscoring what he called the urgent need to combat antisemitism at home and abroad as threats to Jewish communities escalate.
Scott, who has given part of his congressional salary since joining the Senate in 2019, said his gift was motivated by the growing dangers facing Jewish people and the importance of ensuring younger generations understand the Holocaust.
“Ann and I are proud to support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Years ago, Ann and I brought our daughters to the Auschwitz memorial and museum in Poland because it was so important to us that they learned about the Holocaust and understood the horrors that occurred,” he said in a statement.
“It’s so important that every generation understands the atrocities of the Holocaust, and the museum does an incredible job teaching those lessons to millions of people every year. By sharing the stories of those who survived and those who were murdered, providing critical resources to educators, and reminding each of us what it means when we say ‘Never Again,’ it is a vital institution,” he added.
Scott also recounted taking his daughters years ago to Auschwitz in Poland, describing the visit as an effort to show them the catastrophic consequences of unchecked hatred against Jews.
The senator tied his donation to the approaching second anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during the onslaught.
“As we approach the second anniversary of Oct. 7, Ann and I are proud to support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s meaningful work defending the truth of the Holocaust and their important efforts to teach its relevance for today,” Scott said.
Scott’s office did not disclose the specific amount of the donation.
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Texas State University Silent on Status of Professor Who Incited Violent Attack on Jews at Public Library
West Asheville Library in North Carolina. Photo: Screenshot/buncombecounty.org.
Texas State University is refusing to disclose whether it still currently employs a far-left professor who was filmed inciting a riotous assault on three pro-Israel individuals who peacefully spectated an anti-Israel presentation that was held in June 2024 at the West Asheville Library in North Carolina.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, two of the victims, David Moritz and Monica Buckley, are Jewish, and one is cancer patient Bob Campbell, an 80-year-old military veteran. Their assailants kicked, punched, and dragged them out of the event, titled “Strategic Lessons From the Palestinian Resistance,” after Texas State University assistant professor of philosophy Idris Atsu Robinson spotted them in the audience and invited the 60-80 anti-Israel partisans in attendance to decide their fates.
At one point during harrowing footage taken of the incident, Robinson suggested that the encounter could lead to “murder.” At no point did he deescalate the situation and even seemed to find humor in igniting the passions of a mob.
Responding to an Algemeiner inquiry on Thursday, a Texas State media relations official declined to comment on Robinson’s employment status, saying the university “does not discuss personnel matters.”
The university has been asked before to account for its handling of Robinson.
In June, the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department, a pro-Israel nonprofit that seeks to combat antisemitism, notified the school of Robinson’s conduct and rhetoric. According to StandWithUs, “university sources” confirmed that he will not be teaching during the fall semester of the 2025-2026 academic year. However, the university would not comment on the matter “due to the confidential nature of personnel matters,” making it unclear whether Robinson is still employed by Texas State and will teach there in the future.
StandWithUs says Texas State should state Robinson’s employment status, share findings amassed during an internal investigation of him, and produce any previous complaints which accused him of wrongdoing.
“It is critical that universities protect Jewish and Zionist students by refusing to provide a classroom platform to faculty members unlawfully promoting antisemitic hate and violence,” Michael Scheinman, Saidoff Legal Department assistant director of campus and community affairs, told The Algemeiner on Wednesday. “Schools that do not act and fail to implement strong safeguards risk exposing their students to the same hatred and violence suffered by the victims of this attack.”
He added, “StandWithUS Saidoff Legal continues to support the victims of this horrendous hate incident by coordinating with law enforcement, helping to identify masked perpetrators, and urging Texas State University to condemn the antisemitic conduct that contributed to this violence.”
By his own words, Robinson took immense pride in what transpired in Asheville, North Carolina last year. Commenting on the matter the next day while being interviewed on a podcast produced by the organizers of the event, he argued for “popular riots” and “divine violence,” saying explicitly that “terrorists” reserve the right to “take the life of the oppressor.”
“My arms are chewed up,” Campbell, a Navy veteran, told The Algemeiner during an interview which followed the assault. He added that medical staff at a local US Veterans Affairs facility identified “severe contusions” on his body.
“What really upset me — I was [lying] on the floor, and this big guy was on top of me,” Campbell recalled. “The librarian came to the door, looked me right in the eye, turned around and walked back and didn’t do a damn thing. Didn’t call the police.”
The activists proved equally merciless to the other victims, putting Moritz in a headlock and heaving Buckley outside and ordering her not to free herself from their grip.
Expressions of anti-Zionism are escalating to violence more frequently, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.
Earlier this month, Eden Deckerhoff — a female student at Florida State University (FSU) — allegedly assaulted a Jewish male classmate at the Leach Student Recreation Center after noticing his wearing apparel issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“F—k Israel, Free Palestine. Put it [the video] on Barstool FSU. I really don’t give a f—k,” the woman said before shoving the man, according to video taken by the victim. “You’re an ignorant son of a b—h.” Deckerhoff has since been charged with misdemeanor battery.
According to the Tallahassee Democrat, Deckerhoff has denied assaulting the student when questioned by investigators, telling them, “No I did not shove him at all; I never put my hands on him.” However, law enforcement charged her with misdemeanor battery and described the incident in court documents as seen in viral footage of the incident, acknowledging that Deckerhoff “appears to touch [the man’s] left shoulder.” Despite her denial, the Democrat noted, she has offered to apologize.
In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by a major Jewish organization. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where an assailant identified by law enforcement as Juan Diaz-Rivas and others allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and his friends approached the victim while shouting “F—k the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to local prosecutors.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the San Francisco district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
According to the latest data released by the FBI, antisemitic hate crimes in the US have been tallying to break all previous statistical records. In 2024, even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups have noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Europeans Launch UN Sanctions Process Against Iran, Drawing Tehran’s Ire
Satellite image shows buildings at Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, before Israel launched an attack on Iran targeting nuclear facilities, in Isfahan, Iran, May 17, 2025. Photo: Planet Labs PBC via REUTERS
Britain, France, and Germany on Thursday launched a 30-day process to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear program, a step likely to stoke tensions two months after Israel and the United States bombed Iran.
A senior Iranian official quickly accused the three European powers of harming diplomacy and vowed that Tehran would not bow to pressure over the move by the E3 to launch the so-called “snapback mechanism.”
The three powers feared they would otherwise lose the prerogative in mid-October to restore sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under a 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the decision did not signal the end of diplomacy. His German counterpart Johann Wadephul urged Iran to now fully cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog agency and commit to direct talks with the United States over the next month.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters the decision was “illegal and regrettable” but left the door open for engagement.
“The move is an action against diplomacy, not a chance for it. Diplomacy with Europe will continue,” the official said, adding: “Iran will not concede under pressure.”
The UN Security Council is due to meet behind closed doors on Friday at the request of the E3 to discuss the snapback move against the Islamic Republic, diplomats said.
Iran and the E3 have held several rounds of talks since Israel and the US bombed its nuclear installations in mid-June, aiming to agree to defer the snapback mechanism. But the E3 deemed that talks in Geneva on Tuesday did not yield sufficient signals of readiness for a new deal from Iran.
The E3 acted on Thursday over accusations that Iran has violated the 2015 deal that aimed to prevent it developing a nuclear weapons capability in return for a lifting of international sanctions. The E3, along with Russia, China, and the United States, were party to that accord.
US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of that accord in 2018 during his first term, calling the deal one-sided in Iran‘s favor, and it unraveled in ensuing years as Iran abandoned limits set on its enrichment of uranium.
Trump’s second administration held fruitless indirect negotiations earlier this year with Tehran.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed the E3 move and said Washington remained available for direct engagement with Iran “in furtherance of a peaceful, enduring resolution to the Iran nuclear issue.”
An Iranian source said Tehran would do so only “if Washington guarantees there will be no [military] strikes during the talks.”
The E3 said they hoped Iran would engage by the end of September to allay concerns about its nuclear agenda sufficiently for them to defer concrete action.
“The E3 are committed to using every diplomatic tool available to ensure Iran never develops a nuclear weapon,” including the snapback mechanism, they said in a letter sent to the UN Security Council and seen by Reuters.
“The E3’s commitment to a diplomatic solution nonetheless remains steadfast.”
Iran has previously warned of a “harsh response” if sanctions are reinstated, and the Iranian official said it was reviewing its options, including withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The E3 had offered to extend the snapback for as much as six months to enable serious negotiations if Iran restored access for UN nuclear inspectors – who would also seek to account for Iran‘s large stock of enriched uranium whose status has been unknown since the June war – and engages in talks with the U.S.
Calling the E3 decision inevitable, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said it was an “important step in the diplomatic campaign to counter the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions.”
GROWING FRUSTRATION IN IRAN
The UN process takes 30 days before sanctions that would hit Iran‘s financial, banking, hydrocarbons, and defense sectors are restored.
Russia and China, strategic partners of Iran, finalized a draft Security Council resolution on Thursday that would extend the 2015 nuclear deal for six months and urge all parties to immediately resume negotiations.
But they have not yet asked for a vote.
“The world is at crossroads,” Russia’s deputy UN Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told reporters. “One option is peace, diplomacy, goodwill … Another option is a kind of diplomacy at the barrel of the gun.”
The specter of renewed sanctions is stirring frustration in Iran, where economic anxiety is rising and political divisions are deepening, three insiders close to the government said.
Iranian leaders are split over how to respond — with anti-Western hardliners urging defiance and confrontation, while moderates advocate diplomacy.
Iran has been enriching uranium to up to 60 percent fissile purity, a short step from the roughly 90 percent of bomb-grade, and had enough material enriched to that level, if refined further, for six nuclear weapons, before the airstrikes by Israel started on June 13, according to the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog.
Actually manufacturing a weapon would take more time, however, and the IAEA has said that while it cannot guarantee Tehran‘s nuclear program is entirely peaceful, it has no credible indication of a coordinated weapons project.
The West says the advancement of Iran‘s nuclear program goes beyond civilian needs, while Tehran says it wants nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes.