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Alan Greenspan, longtime Fed chairman who inspired Jewish pride and antisemitic conspiracy theories, dies at 100
(JTA) — WASHINGTON – Alan Greenspan, the free markets champion whose longevity shaping the American economy was grist for the mills of Jewish pride and antisemitic conspiracy mongering alike, has died at 100.
Greenspan, who led the Federal Reserve under presidents of both parties for 18 years, died Monday, according to a statement by his widow, veteran NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell.
“Alan passed away at our home this morning at the age of 100 from complications of Parkinson’s disease,” Mitchell said in a statement she shared with her employer. “He was a giant of a man who helped shape the U.S. economy for decades under presidents of both parties, but was always honest in acknowledging his mistakes.”
The “mistakes” he acknowledged included first and foremost the housing bust in 2008, two years after he retired as Fed chairman.
“Yes, I’ve found a flaw,” he confessed in congressional testimony that year when Rep. Henry Waxman, the Jewish California Democrat, asked Greenspan if he regretted his laissez faire approach to keeping interest rates low. “I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.”
Greenspan’s Jewish profile was low key: government He was a member of two predominantly Jewish clubs, Harmonie in New York and Hillcrest in Los Angeles. He rarely if ever headlined Jewish events, but he campaigned in the Jewish community for his favored candidates, including for Ronald Reagan in 1980, when the Republican ousted Jimmy Carter from office.
He was among a coterie of Reagan advisers who assured Jewish leaders in a New York meeting that Reagan would be a better friend to Israel than Carter, who had clashed with the government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
Because of his prominence, Greenspan became an avatar of postwar Jewish success. When Sen. Joe Lieberman became in 2000 the Democratic vice presidential candidate, commentators reflexively named Greenspan as one of the prominent Jews who had helped create an environment that paved the way for Lieberman’s ascent.
Greenspan’s successors as Fed chair, Ben Bernanke, and then Janet Yellen, were Jewish; by the time Yellen assumed the job in 2013, that fact seemed hardly worth mentioning.
That didn’t spare Greenspan from being fodder for antisemitic conspiracy theorists. Hutton Gibson, the extremist who shaped the views of his son, Hollywood megastar Mel Gibson, placed Greenspan at the center of his fantasies of Jewish malign influence and once said Greenspan should be hanged.
By the time he assumed the Fed chairmanship in 1987, Greenspan was a prominent Republican deeply involved in economic politics. President Richard Nixon named him chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in 1974; he assumed the position just after the scandal-plagued Nixon resigned and then worked throughout President Gerald Ford’s term.
Greenspan, a prominent analyst and consultant since his early 20s, had in 1967 joined Nixon’s presidential campaign as a top domestic affairs consultant.
He came to Republican politics by way of his infatuation with the works of Ayn Rand, the Russian-born Jewish philosopher whose extreme libertarianism wrapped up in didactic, potboiler novels like “The Fountainhead” shaped generations of post-World War II conservatism. He invited Rand to his swearing-in as chairman of the White House council.
“As I got to know her better and read her materials and had conversations with her, she had a sort of effect similar to that of a favorite college professor,” Greenspan told The New York Times in 1989.
Still, for all of his attachment to Rand’s philosophy of rationalist self-interest, which she dubbed “Objectivism,” Greenspan was known above all for his caution in addressing the government’s role in distributing resources and addressing inequality.
Reagan tasked him with reforming Social Security, and some of the recommendations of the commission Greenspan headed became law. At the time, he said he had to temper his ideals, which would have scrapped the system, in order to reform a system which kept millions of retired Americans solvent.
“Do I like the present Social Security system? No,” he told The New York Times in 1983. “If you asked me whether it would be necessary in the ideal society, I’d say no. Our type of economy is far removed from where I would like to see it, but you have to be careful about moving from one type of society to another.”
A throwaway line in a 1996 televised speech referring to the “irrational exuberance” of investors caused markets to plunge and reinforced for Greenspan the importance of caution in whatever he said.
His caution and his maintenance of low interest rates steered the U.S. economy through its massive 1991-2001 boom, and helped the economy recover from the crisis precipitated by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But his laissez-faire policies also were blamed for the 2000 dot-com bust and the 2008 mortgage crisis; his critics said he gave banks too much freedom, leading to abuses.
Born in 1926 in New York City, Greenspan was steered toward music school by his mother, a Jew of Hungarian descent. His father worked as a stockbroker and financial analyst. Alan attended the prestigious Julliard school and played saxophone in swing bands. On breaks between gigs, he was a voracious reader, and a book on markets led him to leave Julliard for New York University, where he studied economics.
He preserved his love for music throughout his life. Eric Alterman, the liberal Jewish commentator, recalled his conversation with the Fed chair after an introduction by Mitchell.
“I have you on CD with Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd,” Alterman, a pop music enthusiast, recalled saying. “How did you like my playing?” Greenspan said. “Better than your monetary policy,” Alterman said, and Greenspan ended the conversation.
Greenspan’s only survivor is Mitchell, whom he married in 1997 in a ceremony officiated by Jewish Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Genesis Prize, the organization that awards people for commitment to Jewish values, in a social media post on Monday, said Greenspan’s virtues exemplified Jewish values.
“One of Greenspan’s guiding principles was a Jewish value of l’dor v’dor — from generation to generation: decisions made today should not mortgage our children’s future,” the organization said. Another was cheshbon hanefesh, or moral self-accounting and self-critique. After the 2008 financial crisis, Greenspan — a vocal proponent of free market policies — publicly acknowledged where his assumptions had fallen short, demonstrating a willingness to reconsider prior convictions in light of evidence.”
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Heeding a Saudi plea, Trump says he canceled a joint U.S.-Israel assault on Iran
(JTA) — President Donald Trump said he canceled at the last minute a planned joint assault with Israel on Iran’s energy infrastructure at the behest of Saudi Arabia, which feared the war blowing up into a wider conflict.
The U.S. alerts over the weekend warning citizens to evacuate the Middle East and then Trump’s announcement late Saturday that he was canceling the planned strike appeared to catch Israel off guard. It undercut Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim last week that he and Trump were in lockstep on Iran.
“The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II,” Trump said on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns.
“Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to,” he said. “This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.”
Saudi Arabia’’s official news agency confirmed that Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince who has close business and personal ties with Trump and his family, appealed to the U.S. president to stand down.
“The Crown Prince stressed the need to prioritize dialogue to reduce escalation and the importance of making every possible effort to achieve calm that paves the way for diplomatic solutions, preserves the region’s security and stability, and prevents a wider conflict whose repercussions would affect regional and international security and stability,” the Saudi Press Agency said.
Iran disputed Trump’s claim, instead saying that it was ready to respond to any attack on the country.
“The Iranian Foreign Ministry vowed that Tehran will use all means at its disposal to exercise its inherent right of self-defense in the face of the United States’ ongoing violations against the Islamic Republic,” the Fars News Agency said.
Fars, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – the principal power in Iran since the war began – denied any stand-down on Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz.
“Iran’s Armed Forces have staged uncompromising retaliation in the face of each instance of violation, including those taking place in support of illegal vessel movement in the waterway,” the agency said.
The waterway is critical to the passage of a fifth of the world’s petroleum. Iran has asserted control of the waterway in the wake of the war the United States and Israel launched in February.
Trump’s statement came after CBS News reported on Saturday that the United States and Israel were set to attack Iran’s energy infrastructure, which would substantially escalate the war. The State Department put out a security alert advising Americans in the region to leave if they could, and to cancel plans to enter it.
Regional media reported that Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, conveyed warnings through Turkey and Pakistan to regional U.S. allies that it would hit back hard if the U.S.-Israel attack went through.
Israel appeared to be caught off guard both by the planned escalation and by Trump’s stand-down. “Israel is unaware of a decision to restart full military operations, nor has been requested of Israel to join any military actions against Iran,” CBS News quoted an Israeli official as saying – even as it quoted U.S. officials as saying that Israel was coordinating with the United States.
Israel’s government had no comment on Trump’s reported plan to attack the infrastructure, or his stand-down. Flights in and out of Ben Gurion Airport were unaffected. In his Truth Social statement, Trump said, “The Country of Israel joins me in this commitment.”
Trump has multiple times since the war’s launch threatened to escalate the war only to retreat at the last minute, something the Fars news agency noted in a sardonic tone.
“This narrative seems familiar and repetitive,” it said in a separate report on bin Salman’s appeal. “Every time Trump has made serious threats against Iranian infrastructure in the past, after Tehran has not backed down, he has claimed that friendly countries have asked him not to do anything.”
Trump escalated his rhetoric last week as Iran continued to attack ships attempting to transit Hormuz. “We’re going to beat the f***ing s**t out of them,” he told Fox News.
Trump has since the tentative signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Iran in mid-June asked Israel to stay out of the conflict – including in the wake of the resumption of fighting on July 13.
Netanyahu, facing a tough reelection in October, has in recent weeks sought to allay any perceptions in Israel that he had been sidelined by Trump. He met with the president last week.
“I just finished an excellent meeting with President Trump,” he told Israeli reporters after the meeting. “And when I say excellent, it’s not lip service – a conversation with full cooperation, with mutual support, with the understanding of the joint goal to ensure that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon, and other goals.”
The roller-coaster ride appeared to unsettle Netanyahu’s colleagues in his Likud Party. “You can say ‘no’ to Trump,” Knesset member Amit Halevi told Kan Reshet Bet, the government-run radio station. “Our commitment is to the security of the state.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention
(JTA) — Local and national Jewish Democrats say they are sympathetic after Michigan’s Jewish attorney general, Dana Nessel, said she would skip the state Democratic Party’s nominating convention over concerns about antisemitism and harassment.
“I don’t blame AG Nessel for not wanting to go and basically put herself in situations that feel untenable in this moment of time and don’t add any value politically, personally,” Jessica “Decky” Alexander, the Michigan Jewish Democratic caucus chair, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday.
Alexander’s comment came a day after Nessel announced during a televised antisemitism roundtable that she would be skipping the convention next month, where party leaders will finalize the state’s Democratic candidate for Senate following a divisive primary that has focused in part on Israel and antisemitism.
“I don’t feel safe going. I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” Nessel said during the roundtable. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.”
She said she had filed a formal complaint within the party about a party official who had called her a neo-Nazi because of her beliefs. “Why is this person more accepted in our party than me?” she asked without naming the official. Her office responded to a request for comment by referring to the recorded livestream of the antisemitism roundtable.
Nessel’s declaration comes in the final days of the primary between Rep. Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel stalwart, and Abdul El-Sayed, a democratic socialist who is deeply critical of Israel. El-Sayed is surging in polls despite a reported $30 million spent against him by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, and its supporters, whom he has made a target of criticism from the campaign trail.
Nessel’s comments also follow turmoil at the Michigan Democratic Party’s endorsement convention in April, where Stevens was booed by attendees. A third primary candidate who later dropped out of the race, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, said a convention attendee had targeted her Jewish husband with an antisemitic slur.
The incident has fueled alarm among Jewish Democrats, according to Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
“She’s not alone,” Soifer told JTA about Nessel on Friday. “We’ve heard from other Jewish Democrats who attended the Democratic Party convention earlier this year in Michigan, and there was a sense of discomfort amid what felt like a pro-Palestinian protest [that] may have even blurred the line for some into antisemitic sentiment — and it’s really concerning.”
Nessel has raised the alarm about antisemitism within the party for years, alleging in 2024 that Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a prominent pro-Palestinian voice, had been antisemitic when criticizing charges Nessel filed against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan.
For her part, Alexander said she would be participating in the nominating convention and said she believed the chair of the state Democratic Party, Curtis Hertel, had been “very accessible and very open to making sure that we, including our Jewish elected officials, feel safe in that space.” But she said she understood why Nessel was staying away.
“It would never even occur to me, but I’m not an elected official,” Alexander said. “It’s a different stake for me than it is for Dana. I understand her completely.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’
(JTA) — Every congregational rabbi in Maine has signed onto a statement calling for peace and urging the state’s political leaders to stop using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza, following a Democratic primary in which several candidates used the label for the first time.
But the rabbis also indicated that they, too, were unsatisfied with conditions in the Middle East and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to work toward a peaceful future.
“We call upon Maine’s leaders, and particularly its political leaders, to reject the irresponsible usage of the term in describing the Israel-Hamas War,” said the statement released on Friday. “We also call upon Israeli and Palestinian leaders to end the cycle of violence and to create a better world for both Palestinian and Israeli children.”
The statement, titled “A Call for Peace and Responsible Rhetoric,” argues that using the term as a “political slogan does not advance peace in the Middle East.” The term “erases essential moral and legal distinctions, diminishes the meaning of genocide, and inflames hatred for the local Jewish community,” the rabbis say.
“Compassion for Palestinians does not require the adoption of hateful and misleading language,” they continue. “Advocating for peace does not require participation in a ‘Holocaust inversion’ against the Jewish community. And political leadership does not require demonizing one community in the service of another.”
The statement comes days after Troy Jackson, a former logger and state Senate president, secured the Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nomination Saturday at the party’s nominating convention to replace Graham Platner, a staunch Israel critic who dropped out of the race earlier this month. Platner faced a sexual assault allegation, which he denies. Jackson now faces Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November’s general election.
Platner’s romp to the primary victory featured routine use of “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions. And ahead of the convention to replace him, Jackson and several other Democratic hopefuls who later exited the race began using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza for the first time, a shift that drew scrutiny from some Jewish leaders and voters in the state.
The use of the term has become a “currency for acquiring power and position in Maine’s Democratic party,” Rabbi Rachel Isaacs, the leader of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, who also signed the statement, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“Too many Maine Democrats are cynically willing to trade in that currency at the expense of our safety and dignity,” she said in an emailed statement. “We decided we needed to say something collectively, both about the specious and dangerous nature of the claim, and about how much damage has been done to our families and congregants.”
The statement Friday was spearheaded by the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine and signed by every congregational rabbi in the state, including Rabbi Bill Siemers of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor and Rabbi Erica Asch of the Reform Temple Beth El in Augusta. (Rabbis affiliated with the Chabad movement in Maine did not appear on the signatory list.)
Zach Schwartz, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, said the federation hoped the “unity displayed here in Maine can inspire Jewish communities across the US to also unite against the extremist rhetoric harming our community and our children.”
Rabbi Josh Stanton, the associate vice president of interfaith and intergroup initiatives for Jewish Federations of North America, also hailed the joint statement.
“Maine’s Jewish clergy are setting an important example with their call to put aside inflammatory rhetoric and look to the common good,” Stanton said in an emailed statement. “At a time of rising polarization and declining civil discourse, the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine’s efforts to unify the community around this important message are a mark of true leadership.”
Isaacs told JTA that she hoped Jackson would “support, understand, and advocate for all of Maine’s citizens, including the totality of Maine’s diverse Jewish community.”
“Work with us to figure out how to express outrage and legitimate critique of Israel’s government without succumbing to language that you might not know is an ancient antisemitic trope, or dismissing the security needs of Israel’s citizens,” Isaacs said of her message to Jackson. “Please have the courage to forge your own path, and not follow in the footsteps of Graham Platner, a man who should have never been normalized, endorsed, or empowered.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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