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Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader with strained Jewish relations, dies at 84
(JTA) — The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Black leader who sought to build a “rainbow coalition” for America’s future but struggled to include Jews in it, has died at 84.
For American Jews, Jackson’s use of an antisemitic epithet, criticism of Israel and association with the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan during his first presidential run in 1984 proved hard to overcome, even as the towering figure apologized in part and preached reconciliation.
“This man is brilliant, he is a leader,” Edgar Bronfman, then president of the World Jewish Congress, said in 1992 after inviting Jackson to address its conference in Brussels. “Do I trust him totally? Of course not. Because he is not a Jewish leader, he is a Black leader, he’s got a different agenda. Do I think that he and I can work together to bring the Black and Jewish communities together to fight against racism? Yes.”
Born in the Jim Crow South and educated as a Baptist minister in Chicago, Jackson emerged as a purveyor of a hopeful vision of racial inclusion and economic uplift in the years after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., with whom he had worked. After clashing with other King allies over the appropriate tenor of civil rights activism, he formed his own group — ultimately called Operation PUSH — to advance his vision: uniting groups marginalized economically or politically into a governing majority to achieve economic and social justice.
Soon, his group’s economic boycotts were winning commitments to minority hiring and propelling him into the political mainstream. Jackson succeeded in negotiating the freedom of U.S. hostages abroad, including in Syria and Cuba in 1984. Soon, he was mounting a historic campaign for president, becoming only the second Black national candidate since Reconstruction. In his second Democratic primary run, in 1988, he won 11 primaries and caucuses, nabbing 7 million votes and driving a dramatic expansion in the number of Black registered voters.
But criticism dogged Jackson, even as he notched civil rights and national politics wins. Some in his own community accused him of caring more about the concerns of affluent African-Americans than about the poverty afflicting the majority of Black people in the United States; others charged him with profiting personally off of his advocacy.
Perhaps the most significant breaches came with American Jews, who had played a prominent role in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
In 1979, he met in Lebanon with Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat in an effort to broker ties between the group and the United States. At the time, the U.S. position was not to engage with the PLO or its leader until it had acknowledged Israel’s right to exist.
Jackson also visited Israel during the same trip, but two Jewish members of the delegation — including one who helped plan it after working with Jackson to oppose a Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois, the previous year — quit in protest partway through, saying that they had concluded that Jackson was a “dangerous man” who “cares not one bit about the Israeli point of view.”
In 1983, soon after announcing his first presidential campaign, the far-right Jewish Defense League announced a “Jews for Jackson” effort to thwart him. The announcement prompted Jackson’s first denial that he was antisemitic.
Tensions exploded early the next year when Jackson admitted that he had used the term “Hymietown” to describe New York City in what he believed had been a private conversation with a reporter. The term, an offensive slur for Jews that riffs off the name Hyman, smarted for a community that had hoped antisemitism in the United States was a thing of the past.
Jackson first denied making the comments, including during a televised national debate, but then apologized in a speech at a synagogue in Manchester, New Hampshire, ahead of the first presidential primary. “It’s human to err, divine to forgive,” he said, explaining that he had not wanted the comment to disrupt his campaign.
“I appeal to you tonight as a Jewish community to find yourself in the rainbow coalition,” Jackson continued, adding, “I categorically deny that I am either antisemitic or anti-Israel.”
At the same time, Jackson declined to distance himself from Farrakhan, a longtime associate who had introduced him at a Chicago rally. After Farrakhan made new antisemitic comments, calling Judaism a “gutter religion,” Jackson’s campaign denounced the comments but not Farrakhan himself.
That summer, Jackson also made new comments about Israel that violated sacrosanct beliefs among American Jewish leaders. Jackson endorsed the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel at a time when the idea was far out of the mainstream of American and Israeli politics. He also raised questions about U.S. military aid to Israel, saying that Israeli weapons were being used to maintain apartheid in South Africa.
Relations had soured so much that Jackson became a wedge issue during the 1988 election, when Republican strategists and figures such as Vice President George Bush suggested that Democrats were not forceful enough in condemning antisemitism.
There were some signs of openness. Jewish leaders, including Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said Jackson had met privately with them in an effort to mend fences. “It is a different Jackson in 1988 than in 1984,” Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said at the time. “One has to recognize and welcome that certain sensitivity he is now showing.”
By the early 1990s, Jackson had made gains in building trust with segments of the Jewish community, speaking at synagogues and Jewish community forums and participating in Holocaust remembrance events. In July 1992, he made two headlining speeches condemning hatred of Jews, at the Democratic National Convention and to a World Jewish Congress meeting in Brussels.
In the World Jewish Congress speech, he condemned antisemitism, praised Zionism as a “liberation movement” and called for Jews and Blacks to renew their joint fight against racism.
“Let us not turn closed scars into open wounds in the name of freedom and candor,” he said. “Let us be wise enough to act our way into a way of thinking, and not just think and talk ourselves into not acting.”
Bronfman, the WJC’s president, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the time that he had invited Jackson to speak over the objections of many Jewish voices, because he wanted to make sure that a conference focused on racism against Jews also examined racism in the United States.
The speech won over some in attendance. “I was proved to be wrong,” said an Australian co-chair of the WJC’s board who had opposed Jackson’s invitation. “I do see genuine opportunities now, if we move forward, to some sort of a rapprochement.”
But Foxman said Jackson would still have to do more to convince him. “It is a record that has been marred by an insensitive view of Jewish history, the Holocaust, Zionism and the modern Jewish state, its government and their policies,” he said. “One speech to the Jewish community in the Palace of Congresses in Brussels will not repair it.”
Foxman said he would work with Jackson if Jackson chose to deliver similar comments before Black audiences in the United States.
By the late 1990s, a thaw appeared to have taken place. Yeshiva University invited Jackson to speak on the topic of Black-Jewish relations. While Jackson faced some protests at Park Avenue, at Y.U., President Norman Lamm praised him as a “leading, vibrant” activist who has “performed miracles in fostering racial harmony.”
During that speech, Jackson denied that “Black antisemitism,” then a topic of growing concern among Jewish leaders, was a structural phenomenon, saying that any hatred that existed was confined to misguided individuals and not a product of the community as a whole. He also argued that the far right posed a greater threat to Jews in the United States.
Around the same time, Jackson participated in a vigil on behalf of Iranian Jews outside Park East Synagogue in New York City. Rabbi Marc Schneier, whose father Arthur is Park East’s rabbi, said following Jackson’s death, “I have lost a cherished friend.”
Jackson maintained personal relationships with other Jewish figures. Following the death in 2021 of Robert Marx, a pioneering social justice advocate and leading Reform rabbi in Chicago who drew inspiration from his experiences marching with King, Jackson issued a bereft statement praising him as “the Jewish voice for justice” and saying, “We prayed together, sang together, and marched together. When Nazis marched in Skokie, we fought hate together. We have always been together. I love him so much. I miss him already.”
Some Jewish groups eulogized Jackson on Tuesday, though often acknowledging the wrinkles in his record. “It’s no secret that there were also very painful moments in Rev. Jackson’s relationship with the Jewish community, and he is a testament to engagement even when there are deep disagreements and pain,” said the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a civil rights group, in a statement. “He went on to be a key ally to the Jewish community, underscoring the urgency of building strong, long-lasting alliances against bigotry wherever it exists.”
Jackson announced in 2017 that he had Parkinson’s disease and had been increasingly out of the public eye. He shared a stage with Farrakhan at a memorial service for the singer Aretha Franklin in 2018 and traveled to Auschwitz in 2019 for a memorial service for the Roma victims of the Holocaust before making his last major public appearance in a wheelchair at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. His organization announced in November that he had been hospitalized, and his family announced on Tuesday that he had “died peacefully.”
He is survived by his wife Jacqueline; six children including his son Jesse Jackson, Jr., who was elected to Congress in Illinois; and several grandchildren.
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Mamdani calls AIPAC ‘monsters’ in rally ahead of NY primaries
(JTA) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday night accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee of spending “millions in dark money” to ensure pro-Israel candidates win seats in tthe November midterms.
Mamdani made his remarks at a rally headlined by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) at Kings Theater in Brooklyn ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic primaries for progressive congressional candidates. He called on the crowd to help elect Jewish former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, State Assembly member Claire Valdez and former Columbia encampment organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier.
In a fiery 30-minute speech, Mamdani took aim not just at AIPAC but also Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his handling of the war in Gaza. He claimed that “The monsters that we are up against, they take many different forms,” and then singled out AIPAC.
He described the major pro-Israel lobby as an organization “for whom the only thing more frightening than democracy being allowed to run its course is an end to genocide and Netanyahu’s wars.”
Mamdani continued by alleging that AIPAC moves “millions in dark money to accomplish a single goal, to preserve their power so that they can turn us against one another instead of our leaders turning towards the moral change we all know to be necessary.”
AIPAC did not respond to a request for comment about Mamdani’s remarks.
The lobby, whose endorsement was once heavily sought by politicians on both sides of the aisle, has increasingly come under fire for its campaign tactics. Pro-Israel Democrats are particularly struggling to hold onto seats as voters on the left increasingly turn against the Jewish state.
Sanders, for his part, doubled down on criticism of AIPAC when he took the stage. “The American people understand that a large part of our horrific foreign policy is impacted by AIPAC funding,” he said.
Turning to the local races, Mamdani voiced support for Valdez for her opposition to Israel. “When other Democrats chose to look the other way as Netanyahu committed war crimes, Claire didn’t just name the genocide,” he said. “She organized for a ceasefire.”
In a change of tone, Mamdani emphasized unity, including an appeal to Jewish voters.
“Whether you worship at shul, at a mosque, in a church, a gurdwara, a temple, or you don’t worship at all, we share a belief that our city deserves leaders who lead with hope and not fear,” the mayor said.
He added, “No matter where we live, how old we are, what train we take in the morning, or what bagel we order, we are New Yorkers and we want the same things,” including “a city that belongs to all of us.”
Reaction on social media was swift. One self-described mom from New York City posted on X of the rally and the Democratic Socialists of America there: “It’s pretty transparent and vile how Zohran Mamdani and the DSA are using ‘AIPAC’ as a euphemism for Jews, and how Brad Lander is going right along with it.”
Jewish writer Dovi Safier also criticized the comments, writing, “The mayor of the city with the world’s largest Jewish population is pushing conspiracy theories about ‘money men’ who ‘move millions in dark money’ to ‘turn us against one another’ — and calling them ‘monsters.’ Subtle.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Jewish groups push back against Trump’s Iran deal — but more quietly so far than in 2015
(JTA) — A growing number of Jewish groups are pushing back against the new memorandum of understanding brokered between President Donald Trump and Iran.
At least for now, however, their responses are more muted than when the same groups publicly opposed former President Barack Obama’s own Iran deal in 2015. And at least one major Jewish group that opposed Obama’s deal is backing Trump’s framework.
“Trust President Trump,” the Republican Jewish Coalition told its followers Thursday, becoming the most notable Jewish group to support Trump’s memorandum of understanding.
“President Trump has earned the trust of the Jewish community as he and his team work towards a final agreement,” RJC CEO Matt Brooks and chair Norm Coleman said in a statement. They praised the MOU, saying it “envisions a horizon of economic stability for the United States, the region, and the world,” and that it “provides an opportunity for potential new pathways to greater peace.”
The RJC cautioned that “a final deal must avoid the flaws that doomed Obama’s,” specifying that there should be “no sunset clauses” on Iran’s nuclear program and other proposals. In the days before its own statement, the group had been reposting praise of the MOU from other Trump allies, including Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Meanwhile, the American Jewish Committee and the pro-Israel lobbying giant AIPAC took a different tack. They became the largest Jewish organizations to voice concern with the new Iran deal on Thursday, issuing public objections following requests for comment from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The MOU “raises significant questions,” AIPAC said in a lengthy statement that urged Congress to intervene ahead of “a final nuclear agreement,” claiming that the terms of the MOU don’t match “President Trump’s stated objectives for the war.”
The AJC outlined what it said were seven “concerns” it had with the MOU. Like most of the other Jewish groups that responded to JTA for this story, the AJC also expressed hope that the terms of the deal could be changed to be stricter on Iran and more favorable to Israel before it is finalized. (In 2015, in response to Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the AJC said it “overwhelmingly” would “oppose this deal.”)
Trump’s MOU is not a final agreement, unlike Obama’s JCPOA. Rather, it marks the start of a 60-day negotiating period that aims to end the Iran war about to enter its fourth month. It does not yet outline any clear commitments regarding Iran’s nuclear program, which had been at the heart of the JCPOA and which is of particular concern to Jewish groups, who are roundly opposed to Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon in large part because of the risk to Israel. Many had objected to Obama’s deal in part because of its “sunset clauses” that would have phased out nuclear restrictions starting at the 10-year mark.
Regardless, many analysts across the political spectrum are concluding that Trump’s framework is a worse deal than Obama’s, in part because it provides a pathway for Iran to stage an economic recovery.
The Israeli government, which sent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to personally lobby Congress in 2015 to oppose Obama’s deal, is also strongly opposed to Trump’s — in part because it would require Israel to withdraw from fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. A new poll by Israel’s Channel 12 found that 71% of Israelis don’t trust Trump to look out for their country’s interests in negotiations with Iran.
Hawkish pro-Israel think tanks, including the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, issued papers knocking Trump’s deal.
“In some ways, the MOU is even weaker than President Barack Obama’s,” JINSA said. “This new deal authorizes the transfer of far more money and lifts many more sanctions on Iran than the JCPOA ever did.”
Trump and his top surrogates, including Vice President JD Vance, are increasingly signaling a lack of patience with Israel and a willingness to prioritize ending the war over stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
Some groups are waiting before weighing in. Nathan Diament, head of the Orthodox Union, declared Obama’s deal “not kosher” in 2015. On Thursday, he told JTA that the question of how to respond to Trump’s deal “will be a central topic of discussion” at the group’s leadership advocacy mission in Washington, D.C., taking place early next week. O.U. representatives are scheduled to meet with members of the Trump administration, as well as members of Congress.
JTA reached out Thursday to a wide range of Jewish groups that publicly opposed Obama’s Iran deal in 2015 to ask them their views on Trump’s. Many others, including the Anti-Defamation League and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, did not respond by press time.
Of those who did, only Morton Klein, head of the right-wing Zionist Organization of America, castigated the MOU outright. Klein told JTA he was “extremely upset with this deal” — and with Trump.
“I find this deal just astonishing,” Klein said. “Helping out a country that Trump himself said, if they’d gotten nukes, they’d have used them on Israel and killed millions of Jews? So that mentality, now you’re helping them rebuild?”
He added, “Trump has done many wonderful things for Israel, so we’ve praised Trump for that. But now he’s doing something very bad for Israel and America.”
Such level of forceful public opposition to the deal, though, is rare in Jewish circles at present — especially in contrast with the extent of Jewish mobilization against Obama’s deal in 2015.
Back then, in addition to the usual Jewish advocacy groups, dozens of local Jewish federations across the country pushed their communities and representatives to fight it, in a sweeping and sustained show of opposition.
“This Iran deal threatens the mission of our Federation as we exist to assure the continuity of the Jewish people, support a secure State of Israel, care for Jews in need here and abroad and mobilize on issues of concern,” one typical statement, from the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, read at the time.
Three years later, during Trump’s first term, he tore up the JCPOA, calling it “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.”
The lack of similar opposition today for Trump’s deal, Klein said, was glaring: “Nobody is taking issue with this agreement in the Jewish world.”
Among local Jewish groups, the initial reaction to Trump’s MOU has struck a measured tone. The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, one of dozens of local Jewish communal groups that publicly opposed the 2015 JCPOA, told JTA it was “concerned” that Trump’s deal “has granted Iran a new leverage point to use in the future to inflict pain on the world’s economy.”
Ron Halber, the JCRC’s head, blasted the MOU for being crafted without Israel’s input, and for requiring Israel to withdraw from its offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Similar to AIPAC, Halber said his organization would continue to push for “a final U.S.-Iran agreement” that is more favorable to Israel and takes harsher measures against Iran.
In its statement, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, which also opposed the JCPOA, did not directly weigh in on the new MOU. Instead, the federation said, “Any agreement involving the Iranian regime should be judged by its ability to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran,” among other factors.
JTA reached out to six other major Jewish federations that opposed the 2015 JCPOA, including Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, which was the first federation to oppose that deal and whose leader wrote, in 2021, “We were right.”
CJP of Boston did not respond to a request for comment. The Jewish United Fund of Chicago declined to comment, while several other federations that opposed the JCPOA — including Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix and Detroit — did not respond by press time.
In its own statement opposing the MOU, AIPAC did not outline an advocacy plan to combat it, in contrast to its full-court press against the JCPOA. An AIPAC spokesperson did not return a JTA request for comment on whether, or how, it planned to advocate against Trump’s MOU.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Who is Gadi Eisenkot, the Israeli politician who could dethrone Netanyahu?
Until recently, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett appeared to be the opposition figure best positioned to challenge Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s election this fall. But a new contender has emerged: Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, whose newly formed Yashar! (“Straight!”) party is rapidly gaining popularity.
According to Israel’s public broadcaster KAN, Eisenkot’s party currently projects to win 21 Knesset seats, trailing Netanyahu’s Likud at 23. Bennett and Yair Lapid’s joint slate, Together, the duo that managed to win the 2021 elections, is polling at 17 seats. Several other major Israeli polls reflect a similar or even stronger position for Eisenkot. As of this writing, Eisenkot and Netanyahu are neck and neck on Polymarket as the most likely politician to become the next prime minister.
Amid Trump’s Iran deal, which left Netanyahu in the lurch and has been widely unpopular among Israelis, Netanyahu’s appeal as a prime minister who can ensure Israel’s security is beginning to slip. Only 11% of Israelis feel Israel won the war, and 52% feel Netanyahu’s conduct harmed Israel’s interests in the U.S.-Iran deal. A recent Channel 12 survey found that 58% of Israelis believe the country’s next prime minister should not be Netanyahu.
After Bennett and Lapid joined forces to run together this April, their popularity has been steadily decreasing. Since they announced their joint run, Eisenkot has been gaining roughly one seat per week in Israeli polling.
This reflects an important theme in Israeli politics: combining politicians does not necessarily combine their voters. Bennett, a right-wing Orthodox nationalist who has long opposed a Palestinian state, appeals to a different constituency than Lapid, a secular centrist who has expressed support for a two-state solution.
Some right-wing voters who have supported Bennett now may view him as too left-leaning for their tastes because of his alliance with Lapid. For Bennett, who was seen as someone who could take right-wing voters from Netanyahu, this is a real problem.
Enter Eisenkot: a security-focused centrist with an untraditional background. He grew up in Eilat as the son of Moroccan immigrants. If elected, he would be the first ever Mizrahi Prime Minister in Israeli history.
He did not serve in Sayeret Matkal, the elite special reconnaissance unit in the IDF that cultivated many future Israeli politicians, including Bennett and Netanyahu. Rather, he got his start in Golani, the IDF’s oldest unit. He slowly climbed through the ranks, spending his career within the security establishment before eventually becoming the chief of staff of the IDF in 2015.
His political career is relatively new. Eisenkot entered politics in 2022 as part of Benny Gantz’s National Unity party before breaking away to launch Yashar! in 2025. His time in politics, though short, has been free of scandal or feuds — beyond, of course, his frequent disagreements with Netanyahu.
Service for all
For many Israelis, Eisenkot’s public image is inseparable from personal loss. His son, Gal, was killed fighting in Gaza in 2023, and two of his nephews also died during the war. Their deaths have given Eisenkot a unique standing in a country where military service has profoundly affected many Israeli families in the last few years, especially following the Oct. 7 attacks.
This experience also resonates amid one of the most contentious debates in Israeli politics: whether ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students should continue receiving exemptions from military service. As reservists have been called up repeatedly since Oct. 7 and the IDF has faced manpower shortages, many Israelis have argued that the burden of military service is being shared unequally. Roughly 80,000 men aged 18 to 24 who are currently exempt are eligible to serve in the IDF.
According to the Israel Democracy Institute, only 9% of the Israeli public supports exempting the ultra-Orthodox from mandatory military service. Netanyahu’s coalition, which depends on ultra-Orthodox parties, has sought to preserve some form of exemption system.
Eisenkot not only faced profound personal sacrifice for his family’s military service, but he also runs on the platform “service for all,” which hopes to reform broad military exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox.
In May 2025, he shared his thoughts for the first time on a two-state solution, telling Channel 12, “I always speak in favor of a Jewish, democratic, strong, and powerful state, and from that, we should derive our decisions. I think a Palestinian state is not relevant after October 7.” He added, “We need to be very measured, build it from the bottom up, and certainly not talk about a state and a prize after this murderous event,” he said, referring to the Oct. 7 attacks. “Instead, we should make our considerations from a position of strength, take our time, and not decide from one moment to the next, certainly not talk about it now.”
One of the most visible criticisms of Eisenkot has been his lack of command of the English language. Eisenkot speaks English, though certainly not to the level of fluent proficiency of MIT-educated Benjamin Netanyahu or Naftali Bennett. Last week, a top Netanyahu aide, Jonatan Urich, posted a viral video on X splicing clips of Einsenkot speaking heavily accented English with Nethayahu’s major speeches at the UN and Congress.
Eisenkot responded to the video on a popular Israeli podcast, stating, “Where was Netanyahu’s excellent English on October 7?” he asked. “Where is his excellent English in strengthening the relationship between Israel and the United States, which this morning is at rock bottom?”
While Eisenkot’s party continues to soar in the polls, he has a long way to go before he will be able to dethrone Netanyahu, who has won six Israeli elections since 1996.
Israel’s next prime minister will not simply be the person who secures the most votes for their party. To govern, a coalition must command at least 61 of the Knesset’s 120 seats. To do this, political parties – though often ideologically different – must come together in the hopes of securing a majority number of seats in the Knesset.
Eisenkot’s principal rival for leadership of the anti-Netanyahu camp is Bennett. Still, both Bennett and Eisenkot have emphasized that their primary goal is to take down Netanyahu. When asked whether he would step aside for Eisenkot if that were necessary to form a government, Bennett replied: “I will do anything in the world to replace this very bad government. I will not let ego be a factor.”
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