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Jewish Council for Public Affairs names Amy Spitalnick, who sued Charlottesville rally organizers, as its CEO
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Jewish Council for Public Affairs has tapped Amy Spitalnick, who spearheaded a successful multimillion-dollar lawsuit against neo-Nazis, as its next CEO.
The decision is a sign that the group, called the JCPA, is pursuing a more assertively liberal approach. For nearly 80 years, it was an umbrella for local Jewish community relations groups, and was affiliated with the Jewish Federations of North America, which has historically been driven by consensus across local Jewish communities. But in December, it split from the federation system and rebranded as a more explicitly progressive group.
The statement Monday announcing Spitalnick’s hire highlighted her work at the helm of Integrity First for America, the nonprofit that underwrote a successful lawsuit against the organizers of the deadly neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. The statement emphasized fighting for democracy against hate as priorities, and called Spitalnick “a powerful national voice on issues of democracy, antisemitism, extremism, and hate.”
Spitalnick, 37, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that she would focus on building relationships with other communities that are vulnerable to hatred and erosions in democracy.
“There needs to be an organization that wholeheartedly recognizes how deeply intertwined Jewish safety is with other communities’ safety and how bound up that all is in a broader fight for democracy at this moment, and builds the sorts of coalitions within and across communities that are essential to moving the needle,” she said.
The organization will remain nonpartisan, Spitalnick said, but she made no secret that she especially opposed many of the tropes peddled by Republicans including former President Donald Trump, who is a leading contender for the 2024 Republican nomination.
“We are grappling with a wave of anti democratic extremism that is deeply tied to rising bigotry and hate,” Spitalnick said. “And we see this in many forms — we see this with the attacks on immigrants and how so many of the conspiracy theories that underpin, for example, election lies, happen to utilize anti-immigrant and antisemitic conspiracy theories. We see this with the attacks on the trans community and on drag shows, where for example, neo-Nazis are using those attacks and those flashpoints to actively recruit for their violent antisemitic hate.”
Spitalnick was a communications official at J Street, the liberal Israel lobby, before transitioning into the rough-and-tumble of New York politics as the communications director for Mayor Bill DeBlasio and then in the state attorney general’s office. Last year, she was named director of another progressive Jewish group, Bend the Arc, but ultimately declined the position.
She earned a reputation for giving as good as she would get from her bosses’ critics and rivals. An email exchange she had with Tucker Carlson in 2015 made headlines when Carlson and his colleagues lambasted her with misogynist and vulgar language.
She was characteristically blunt last week after Carlson’s firing from Fox News after a history of using racially charged language. “When reporters write the story of Tucker Carlson, do not gloss over who he is,” she wrote on Twitter . “He is a raging white supremacist, misogynist, and bigot who has done more to normalize violent extremism and hate over the last few years than nearly anyone else.”
Spitalnick’s style is a sharp departure from the tone that the 79-year old organization had taken until December, when it announced an amicable divorce from the Jewish federations structure and its emphasis on consensus. It also means the group will be led by a millennial woman, a rarity among large national Jewish organizations.
“This now makes two millennial women at the helm of legacy Jewish organizations,” said Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women. “I’m looking forward to getting in good trouble together as we push Jewish organizations and leaders toward justice.”
Founded in 1944 as the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council — it changed its name in 1997 — the storied group was at the forefront of Jewish community advocacy for decades, from rescuing Europe’s Jews and opening up immigration to allow refugees to enter the United States to the Black-Jewish civil rights coalition, pro-Israel advocacy and advocacy for Jews in the Soviet Union. It received funding from dues paid by scores of local Jewish Community Relations Councils and from 16 national Jewish groups.
In recent years, as the American — and American Jewish — populations became more politically polarized, JCPA’s consensus-driven structure made it increasingly difficult for the group to take noteworthy stands on the issues of the day.
A turning point was the group’s decision in 2020 to sign a statement recognizing Black Lives Matter as a leading civil rights body. Officials in the Jewish federations system, which underwrote much of JCPA’s funding at the time, thought it was reckless to endorse a movement despised by most Republicans, and which has been accused of vehement opposition to Israel.
That spurred an effort to roll the JCPA directly into the Jewish Federations of North America, a shift that JCPA defenders said would place Jewish community relations under the purview of major donors, who tend to be more conservative than the grassroots.
Instead, the current chairman, David Bohm, led a split from the Jewish federations that would guarantee JCPA’s independence. Bohm and one of his predecessors, Lois Frank, joined UJA-Federation of New York in providing a substantial cash influx that would allow JCPA to function for three years.
That led to the divorce from the Jewish federations, and the end of dues that had come into the organization from the local and national groups. A JCPA official said Spitalnick would be expected to diversify the funding base, and did not count out a return to the dues-paying format.
Freed of the fear of alienating a multitude of stakeholders, the announcement in December laid out two prongs that located JCPA robustly in the liberal camp: One would focus on “voting rights, election integrity, disinformation, extremism as a threat to democracy, and civics education.” The other would focus on “racial justice, criminal justice reform and gun violence, LGBTQ rights, immigration rights, reproductive rights, and fighting hate violence.”
Bohm, in restructuring JCPA, brought in the heads of two local community relations councils — Jeremy Burton of Boston and Maharat Rori Picker Neiss of St. Louis, who had previously said the old structure — and its inhibitions — made it increasingly irrelevant. The JCPA announcement this week came with quotes from Neiss and Burton lavishing praise on Spitalnick.
“Through her unwavering commitment to social justice and her demonstrated leadership in public policy advocacy, Amy is poised to usher in a new era of progress and impact for the Jewish Council for Public Affairs,” Neiss said.
The release said JCPA would continue “to support a democratic, Jewish, and secure state of Israel” but otherwise did not address the divisions over democracy and the judiciary currently roiling the country and its supporters abroad. It also didn’t address the erosion of support for Israel on the American left in an era when Israel’s governments have trended increasingly to the right.
Asked about differences between the Jewish community and other communities over Israel, Spitalnick said it was important not to cut out other communities. “It means working across those differences where possible, and building those relationships, and sometimes that means staying at the table even if we have fundamental disagreements,” she said.
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New York shouldn’t divest from Israel Bonds — and voters should be wary of politicizing pensions
At the Passover Seder, we sing dayenu — “it would have been enough.” Each verse names a gift given by God to the Jewish people: the exodus, the parting of the sea, manna in the desert, the Torah. We sing the song to cultivate gratitude, and to remind ourselves that while just one of these miracles would have been sufficient, together, they are overwhelming. The point is to recognize that we have been blessed and that we carry an obligation — to remember, to protect and to stand with those who are still in danger.
Drew Warshaw, a candidate who is challenging Tom DiNapoli in the Democratic primary for New York state comptroller, recently published an op-ed in these pages calling on New York to divest its pension fund from Israel Bonds. He reinterpreted the Seder’s recitation of dayenu not as a prayer of gratitude but rather as a reminder of a personal reckoning — “enough is enough!” he wrote — suggesting it is time to withdraw the United States’ support from Israel.
This beautiful tradition deserves better than to be weaponized against a financial instrument, Israel bonds, that has served New York State pensioners — including school administrators, sanitation workers, court officers, and first responders — well for many years.
So, as a member of the Israel Bonds national board of directors, let me offer my own dayenu:
- If Israel bonds had simply never defaulted or had never been late on a single payment since 1951 — through wars, recessions, and regional upheaval — dayenu. It would have been enough.
- If Israel bonds had only delivered consistent, strong investment returns to the police officers and firefighters who rely on New York State’s pension fund — dayenu.
- If Israel bonds had only helped build a democratic nation from the ground up, the only stable democracy in a deeply unstable region — dayenu.
- If Israel bonds had done all of this while the state of Israel endured wars, fought terrorism and weathered the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023 — dayenu.
These facts present strong reasons to maintain or expand the investment. In contrast, the case for divestment is weak. That’s especially true given that Israel bonds represent far less than one percent of the nearly $300 billion held by the New York state common retirement fund. This is not a portfolio-defining position. It is a rounding error being treated as a moral crisis.
Warshaw is right that our tradition demands moral courage. But the story of the exodus is not only a story about the courage to leave; it is also a story about the courage required to build.
For Israel, sovereign bonds are part of that building. The proceeds from Israel bonds have been used to build every part of Israel’s economy. To treat an Israel bond as nothing more than a political statement is to collapse a complex financial instrument into a bumper sticker.
The New York State comptroller has one overriding obligation: to make investment decisions based on financial evidence guided by economics, not a personal political agenda.
State-level divestment from Israel would set a troubling precedent, telling voters that New York’s pension fund can be redirected not by financial best practice but by ideological pressure, its investment decisions subject to the political winds of any given election cycle. That is a slippery slope to travel.
The New Yorkers whose savings are at stake deserve better, and so does the tradition Warshaw has invoked. It teaches us that the hardest work is not, in fact, leaving. It is, instead, building something worth staying for.
The post New York shouldn’t divest from Israel Bonds — and voters should be wary of politicizing pensions appeared first on The Forward.
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Cole Allen’s manifesto cites the Bible — so why did Trump say he ‘hates Christians?’
“When you read his manifesto, he hates Christians,” President Trump said on Fox News, speaking about the alleged culprit behind an attack at the White House Correspondents Dinner.
But Cole Allen, the 31-year-old man tackled to the ground of the Capitol Hilton, where the dinner was held, was, according to reporting from independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, a devout Christian, active in the Christian fellowship at CalTech, his alma mater. And his manifesto, which started with an apology to “everyone whose trust I abused,” in fact thanked his church and cited the Bible, giving a theological justification for his efforts.
“Rebuttals to objections,” he wrote in his neatly laid out manifesto, starting off with the idea that “as a Christian, you should turn the other cheek.” This, he argued, doesn’t apply when someone else is oppressed and, in fact, “turning the other cheek when *someone else* is oppressed is not Christian behavior.”
Later, he turned to the quote “yield unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” that comes from the gospels. (The line appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke.) This quote is usually interpreted to mean that Christians should obey the government of their time, or that earthly matters — like, in the biblical context, taxation — do not concern God. Trump, Allen wrote, is not a supreme emperor like Caesar but instead subject to the rule of law. “In so far as representatives and judges do not follow the law, no one is required to yield them anything,” he wrote.
While people might have theological quibbles with these arguments, they clearly come from a place of engagement with Christianity. So why did Trump frame Allen’s attack as specifically one against Christians?
Trump signed a national security directive in September last year, stating that “anti-Christianity” as well as “hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality” are common threads driving domestic terrorism. The directive outlined a new strategy including investigating any person or organization who might fall under this new, sweeping set of domestic terrorism priorities in order to “intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.” Much of the directive is focused on monitoring speech.
Directing attention toward a sense of persecution functions to unite an increasingly splintered MAGA base, some of whom are feuding over how their Christianity dictates their response to Israel and the war in Iran.
Some Christian politicians on the right, such as Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee, claim their Christianity demands that they support Israel. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth regularly cites his religion in justifying U.S. wars, including the one in Iran.
But an increasing number of others, including talking heads like Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes, and former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene — once an outspoken Trump supporter — have said that their faith demands that they oppose the government’s wars and its support for Israel.
This is an issue for Trump, who was elected with the support of a strong network of conservative Christian leaders, think tanks and PACs. Many of Trump’s supporters were initially drawn to him for religious reasons and have long spoken of him in terms of God’s favor, comparing him to biblical figures including King Cyrus and King David or citing Trump’s survival of the assassination attempt during his campaign as a sign of God’s personal protection.
By invoking another attack against him as an attack against all Christians, Trump may be hoping to redirect his base from their squabbles over Israel, and Jews, and reunite them against a common enemy — namely, a conveniently nebulous association of figures who supposedly hate Christianity, or want to violently police their beliefs. Perhaps he’s hoping none of them will read Allen’s manifesto and come to the conclusion that he is, in fact, one of them.
The post Cole Allen’s manifesto cites the Bible — so why did Trump say he ‘hates Christians?’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Cruz Calls for US to Join Israel, Taiwan in Recognizing Somaliland
US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks during a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on April 15, 2026. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has renewed his calls for the Trump administration to recognize Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state, arguing the self-declared African republic would be a significant strategic partner if Washington were to formalize relations.
“Somaliland is a geo-strategic US maritime security partner in Africa,” Cruz said last week during a hearing on US counterterrorism approaches in Africa. “It sits along the Gulf of Aden near one of the world’s busiest shipping corridors and its forces actively contribute to counterterrorism and anti-piracy missions.”
Somaliland, which has claimed independence for decades in East Africa but remains largely unrecognized, is situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the south and east. It has sought to break off from Somalia since 1991 and utilized its own passports, currency, military, and law enforcement.
Unlike most states in its region, Somaliland has relative security, regular elections, and a degree of political stability.
“Somaliland stands with our allies, including Taiwan and Israel, and aligns with US interests in a region where China is aggressively expanding,” Cruz said. “Most recently, Israel’s decision to formally recognize Somaliland in December 2025 underscores its growing strategic relevance.”
In December, Israel recognized Somaliland’s independence, becoming the first UN-recognized country in the world to do so — Taiwan did in 2020 — while igniting a diplomatic firestorm in Somalia and dozens of Muslim nations which condemned the decision.
Israel announced the appointment of its first ambassador to Somaliland earlier this month. Less than two months earlier, the first official delegation from the self-declared African republic — 25 water sector workers — arrived in Israel for help on tackling their water crisis at home.
As for the US, Cruz noted that Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the Commander of US Africa Command, had met with partners in Somaliland last year “to assess the security environment and to review Berbera’s operational capacity.”
“This is the kind of partner we should be encouraging and one that will shape how we confront CT challenges in the Horn of Africa,” he added.
Anderson visited Somaliland’s capital Hargeisa and Berbera, the site of a rapidly developing trading port operated by Dubai’s DP World, one of the world’s top shipping and logistics companies which manages 10 percent of global container trade.
On Thursday, Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE), responding to an official state invitation. The UAE has nurtured a longstanding relationship with Somaliland, previously supporting training for the country’s military in 2018. The deal for constructing the Berbera port will allow the UAE to maintain a presence for 30 years.
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland has “solidified a ‘Berbera Axis’ (Israel-UAE-Ethiopia) centered on port access and maritime monitoring,” according to an analysis by Marie de Vries, a researcher at the French think tank La Fondation Méditerranéenne D’études Stratégiques (Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies), or FMES. In contrast, she added, a “Mogadishu Axis” has emerged due to a partnership of Somalia with Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia
Cruz’s comments came after US Rep. John Rose (R-TN) told The Algemeiner that he supported the US recognizing Somaliland.
“I think it’s also an important element that this is a relatively well-functioning democracy, and we think the United States should encourage that,” said Rose, who also touted the strategic benefits for the US. He introduced legislation to push the US government to study boosting economic ties with Somaliland.
Cruz addressed the arguments of those who oppose recognition of Somaliland in last week’s hearing.
“Critics argue that recognizing Somaliland could introduce new CT [counterterrorism] risks or undermine our posture in Mogadishu. I would argue the opposite,” Cruz said. “Working with a capable, willing partner like Somaliland strengthens our posture, particularly when Somalia itself continues to struggle with instability and persistent terrorist threats.”
Nick Checker, senior official in the US State Department’s Bureau of Africa Affairs who testified at the hearing, said that while Somaliland has been a “very good partner” on counterterrorism, US President Donald Trump’s current position is not to support formal recognition.
“I certainly agree with you that Somaliland has been a very good partner CT and otherwise with the United States. We’ve had a positive relationship with both them and other member states,” Checker said. “But you know the policy of the administration for now is that we do continue to recognize, as you know, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the federal government of Somalia. But within that framework, we still do obviously look for opportunities to deepen our cooperation with Somaliland.”
Cruz expressed optimism that Trump would change his position.
“Well, I think the implications would be strengthening an ally, and I think clarity is powerfully effective in foreign policy and national security,” Cruz responded. “And I think that is an approach that President Trump has embodied. So, I have a high level of optimism that by the end of this term, President Trump will recognize Somaliland.”
Cruz previously called on Trump to recognize Somaliland in an August 2025 letter.
Somaliland “has proposed hosting a US military presence near the Red Sea along the Gulf of Aden and is open to critical minerals agreements that would support our supply chain resilience,” Cruz wrote in his letter. “The US-Somaliland partnership is robust, and it is deepening.”
Somaliland says it has significant mineral resources, and officials have expressed a willingness to offer the US a strategic military base at the entrance to the Red Sea and critical minerals as part of a deal that would include formal recognition.
However, China has strongly opposed any such moves.
“The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using economic and diplomatic coercion to punish Somaliland for its support for Taiwan, as well as to undermine that support,” Cruz wrote in last year’s letter. “The government of Somalia has played an unfortunate role in these efforts: In April 2025, the CCP arranged for Somalia to bar Taiwanese passport holders from transiting into Somaliland, and Chinese support to Somalia is benefiting anti-Somaliland groups working to erode its sovereignty.”
China’s embassy in Somalia released a statement in response to Cruz’s letter declaring that Beijing “firmly opposes this misconduct. Senator Cruz’s remarks constitute serious interference in the internal affairs of Somalia and reflect the hegemonic and bullying attitude of certain US politicians towards the Somali people.”
Cruz referenced China’s response during last week’s hearing.
“Unsurprisingly, the Chinese Communist Party immediately condemned my letter, which only shows how important Somaliland is to US national security,” he said.
De Vries described in her FMES report that “recognition of Somaliland risks normalizing Taiwan’s presence in a region where China has heavily invested in ports, telecommunications, and security partnerships. China’s reaction is driven less by the legal status of Somaliland than by a broader strategic calculus focused on preventing Taiwanese visibility and safeguarding Djibouti’s role as a primary regional hub.”
China established its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017.