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Jerry Springer, son of Jewish refugees whose eponymous talk show was known for conflict, dies at 79
(JTA) — Jerry Springer, the son of Jewish refugees who set aside a promising political career to become the ringleader of a circus-like syndicated talk show featuring feuding couples, angry exes and frequent fisticuffs, died Thursday morning at his home in the Chicago area.
A family spokesperson told TMZ that Springer, who was 79, had been battling a “brief illness.”
Over nearly 5,000 episodes beginning in 1991 and lasting until 2018, Springer transformed daytime television conventions with a program designed to encourage conflict among its guests. Where rivals like Oprah Winfrey and Phil Donahue were interviewing celebrities and tackling more serious issues, Springer would bring on everyday people and pit them against one another in shows about incest, adultery and polyamory.
In an interview last year, he acknowledged the critics — including prominent British rabbis — who decried his version of “tabloid television” and said it had fueled divisions in society. “I just apologize,” he said. “I’m so sorry. What have I done? I’ve ruined the culture.”
Springer’s path to television notoriety was not preordained. He was born in a London tube station in 1944 during a German bombing raid to parents, Richard and Margot Springer, who were German-Jewish refugees from the Nazis. They escaped from what was then Prussia (now present-day Poland) and arrived in Britain in 1939 just before the outbreak of World War II. Twenty-seven other members of Springer’s family were killed in the Holocaust.
The family moved to the United States in 1949, settling in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens in New York City. Springer’s first career after earning a law degree from Northwestern University was in politics. He worked on the 1968 presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy that ended with Kennedy’s assassination, then ran a failed campaign for U.S. Congress in 1970 before being elected to Cincinnati’s City Council in 1971.
Springer’s only electoral success came in 1977, when he was elected mayor of Cincinnati and, under a power-sharing arrangement between his Democratic Party and a third party, served a single one-year term — by most accounts responsibly and effectively.
After serving as mayor, he anchored the news for the NBC affiliate in Cincinnati for 10 years before making the leap to syndicated TV.
“The Jerry Springer Show” started with more high-minded intentions before, as ratings dipped, he embraced the sensational. The television series was produced and aired by NBCUniversal and CW, and earned Springer a fortune: In 2000, Broadcasting & Cable reported, Springer was given a five-year, $30 million contract extension paying him $6 million per year.
The show’s high ratings and queasy critical reception (“family values” groups such as the Parents Television Council and the American Family Association called for boycotts) also obscured his own sober and tragic Jewish family story.
In 2008, Springer investigated his relatives’ fates on the BBC1 program “Who Do You Think You Are?” He broke down in tears at the train station where his maternal grandmother was sent to her death in the Chelmno extermination camp.
In 2015, Springer visited London to support a British Holocaust refugee project preserving the archive of what was originally known as the Central British Fund for German Jewry and later World Jewish Relief. The group helped tens of thousands of European Jews escape the Nazis to Britain in the 1930s and 1940s — including thousands of children as part of the Kindertransport and Springer’s parents.
“We are immensely grateful to Jerry Springer for giving his time to us and supporting our archives,” World Jewish Relief vice-chair Linda Rosenblatt said at the time.
“I was deeply touched when I received the records of my parents’ immigration,” Springer said. “These papers are a piece of my family history which I will treasure forever.”
After his talk show went off the air in 2018, he attempted a comeback with a courtroom show, “Judge Jerry.” It ran for three seasons. His last TV appearance came last season on “The Masked Singer,” where he performed as “The Beetle,” singing a Frank Sinatra tune.
In 2018, an off-Broadway version of the musical “Jerry Springer: The Opera,” opened in New York. Originally staged in London 15 years earlier, it featured songs celebrating the Springer ethos: “Fat people fighting / Open crotch sighting / Pimps in bad suits / Mothers who are prostitutes.” Nevertheless, a reviewer said the musical was “surprisingly free of the sometimes savage cruelty that distinguished the [talk] show from its wimpy competitors.”
In 2009, Springer joined the cast of the Broadway revival of the musical “Chicago,” playing the part of a slick lawyer whose adulterous client is facing charges in a tawdry murder case. It echoed a notorious incident from the real-life “Springer” show: In 2002, a man was convicted of killing his ex-wife hours after they and another woman were featured on an episode about love triangles.
In a 2004 interview with the public radio program “This American Life,” Springer put his tumultuous career in perspective.
“Well, we certainly made a difference in television. I’m not sure people are happy about it,” he told Alex Blumberg. “I try not to think about it too much. Life is what it is. And you take what’s handed and you work as hard as you can and, hopefully, you’ll be successful. But I just don’t spend too much time worrying about that. I do my show. I’ve always said it’s a stupid show. I’ve had a wonderful life because of it and all that, but I’ve never, for a second, thought that it’s important. It’s trivial. It’s chewing gum, and I recognize that.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, his survivors include his wife, daughter, son-in-law, grandson and sister.
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U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan calls Israeli government ‘evil’ like Hamas
Abdul El-Sayed, a U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan, said in an interview aired Sunday that the Israeli government is as “evil” as Hamas, sharpening his criticism of Israel in the closely-watched Democratic primary.
“Killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil,” El-Sayed told CNN congressional reporter Manu Raja on the network’s Inside Politics program. “It’s not how evil is this one versus that one — Hamas: Evil, Israeli government: Evil. We can say both.”
El-Sayed, 41, is a physician and the son of Egyptian immigrants. He is seeking to channel the energy of the 2024 Uncommitted movement, which protested the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the war against Hamas in Gaza. He is also hoping to build on the surprise success of the New York City mayoral campaign of Zohran Mamdani in taking on the Democratic establishment.
He is locked in a dead heat with state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Rep. Haley Stevens. The primary is set for Aug. 4.
Earlier this month, El-Sayed faced backlash for appearing alongside streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric — including saying that Hamas “is a thousand times better” than Israel. McMorrow, who is married to a Jewish man, and Stevens, who is closely aligned with AIPAC, have both criticized El-Sayed.
In the CNN interview, El-Sayed defended his decision to campaign with Piker, framing it as an effort to reach voters who feel alienated from traditional politics. “My understanding of America is, it’s a place where we have freedom of speech,” he said.
#MISen Abdul El-Sayed on CNN Inside Politics: @mkraju: You said Israeli government is evil. Do you think they’re just as evil as Hamas?
El-Sayed: “Yes, killing tens of thousands of people makes you pretty damn evil. It’s not about how evil one is versus the other. Hamas —… pic.twitter.com/4GfJ5oCtqR
— Jacob N. Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) April 19, 2026
The Michigan Senate race is shaping up as one of the starkest tests of the Democratic coalition and how the party navigates policy towards Israel in Congress amid the wars in Gaza and Iran. The state is home to the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.
Last week, 40 Senate Democrats voted to block $295 million for the transfer of bulldozers, used by the Israeli military to demolish homes in the West Bank and Gaza; 36 of them also supported a measure to block the sale of 1,000-pound bombs to the Jewish state. It shattered a previous high of 27 Democrats who backed a similar pair of resolutions of disapproval to block some weapons transfers last year.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who is Jewish, was among those who voted for the measures. In remarks as they announced their votes, Democrats highlighted their opposition to the Israeli government’s policies in the occupied West Bank, the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the war with Iran.
The post U.S. Senate candidate from Michigan calls Israeli government ‘evil’ like Hamas appeared first on The Forward.
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NYC Mayor Mamdani Unveils Major Tax Hike on Unoccupied Luxury Real Estate
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the New York City Office of Emergency Management, as a major winter storm spreads across a large swath of the United States, in Brooklyn, New York City, US, Jan. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Bing Guan
i24 News – NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani has officially introduced a controversial new tax targeting secondary residences valued at over $5 million.
The measure, designed to tap into the city’s vast concentration of unoccupied luxury wealth, is projected to generate roughly $500 million annually for the municipal budget.
“This tax is specifically aimed at the ultra-rich,” Mamdani stated, highlighting high-profile examples such as Ken Griffin’s $238 million Midtown penthouse and Alexander Varshavsky’s $20.5 million Columbus Circle residence.
While the city has yet to finalize specific evaluation criteria or the methods for distinguishing primary from secondary homes, the proposal has already become a flashpoint for economic debate.
The move has drawn sharp condemnation from billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who argued that the policy is fundamentally flawed.
Ackman contended that owners of luxury secondary residences contribute significant capital to the local economy without utilizing costly municipal services. He warned that the tax would likely trigger a corporate and high-net-worth exodus to low-tax jurisdictions like Miami, ultimately harming the city’s tax base.
President Donald Trump also entered the fray, denouncing the policy as “totally misguided” and claiming it is “destroying New York.” Trump, whose own extensive real estate holdings in the city could be impacted, argued that such taxation serves only to drive away the international investors who fuel New York’s development.
Implementation remains a significant question mark, as the tax could potentially affect nearly 13,000 property owners, including major figures like Jeff Bezos. Financial analysts point out that many of the city’s most expensive apartments are held through complex offshore structures and shell companies, making the identification and appraisal of these properties an immense administrative challenge for the city.
As the debate intensifies, the Mamdani administration faces a difficult path ahead in balancing its “tax the rich” mandate with the practical realities of New York’s competitive global real estate market.
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Iran Rebuffs Trump Announcement of New Peace Talks, State News Agency Reports
Iran rejected new peace talks with the United States, its state news agency reported on Sunday, hours after US President Donald Trump said he was sending envoys for talks in Pakistan and would launch new strikes on Iran unless it accepts his terms.
Trump posted on Truth Social that his envoys would arrive in Pakistan on Monday evening for negotiations, a timetable that would leave only a day for talks to make progress before a two-week ceasefire ends.
“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran,” he wrote. “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”
Iran’s official IRNA news agency cited no specific source in its report that Iran had rejected the talks.
“Iran stated that its absence from the second round of talks stems from what it called Washington’s excessive demands, unrealistic expectations, constant shifts in stance, repeated contradictions, and the ongoing naval blockade, which it considers a breach of the ceasefire,” IRNA wrote.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Iran’s rejection of the talks.
Earlier, a White House official said the US delegation would be headed by Vice President JD Vance, who led the war’s first peace talks a week ago, and also include Trump’s envoy Steven Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump had initially told ABC News and MS Now that Vance would not go.