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Mike Pence and the Jews: What to know as he begins a presidential campaign
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Until the Jan. 6 insurrection, Mike Pence made sure to stay on the same page as Donald Trump — except, sometimes, when it came to the Jews.
Both men delighted the pro-Israel establishment — Trump by fulfilling a long wishlist of Israel’s right-wing government, Pence by proving himself as a stalwart Christian Zionist through years in elected office. But just weeks after Trump assumed office, the difference in how each man approached Jewish anxieties was already stark.
Jewish community centers and other Jewish institutions were getting bomb threats, and a Jewish journalist asked the president what he planned to do about antisemitism. Trump lashed out, accusing the reporter of lying and quipping, “Welcome to the world of the media.”
A week later, Jews in St. Louis were reeling after a vandal knocked over over 150 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery. Pence was in town and took the opportunity to condemn the bomb threats and the vandalism as “a sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil.” Then, he headed over to the cemetery, picked up a rake and helped clean up the mess.
Pence’s bid is the longest of shots. He polls in the low single digits, while Trump leads in the polls. The former president routinely depicts Pence as a traitor for not trying to hand him the election when Pence presided over the certification of the electoral vote on Jan. 6, 2021. Pence, meanwhile, has said Trump’s behavior that day endangered his family. If Pence does succeed in unseating his old boss, it will be because he’s tapped into a deep thirst among some Republicans for a more conventional candidate to wean the party off Trump.
No matter how he does in the race, here’s what you need to know about Mike Pence and the Jews.
He has been pro-Israel from the get-go
First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as an Indiana Republican in 2000, Pence made clear from the outset that defending Israel was among his priorities.
“My support for Israel stems largely from my personal faith,” he told Congressional Quarterly in 2002. “God promises Abraham, ‘those who bless you, I will bless, and those who curse you, I will curse.’”
In his autobiography published last year, “So Help me God,” he credits his interest in Israel and in Jewish issues to his late sister-in-law, Judy, “an elegant, sophisticated young woman from a prominent Jewish family in Milwaukee” who married his brother, Thomas, “a pickup-driving, dirt bike-riding, banjo-playing country boy from southern Indiana.” Pence wrote, “She made him a better man.”
For years, he has placed a quote from the Biblical book of Jeremiah above the fireplace in his personal and then his official residences — in the governor’s mansion in Indiana and then in the vice president’s residence in Washington, D.C: “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope, and a future.”
“They’re words to which my family has repaired to as generations of Americans have done so throughout our history, and the people of Israel through all their storied history have clung,” Pence told a conference of Christians United for Israel in 2017.
In Congress, Pence took the lead in advancing pro-Israel legislation, especially in defending the barrier Israel built cutting through portions of the West Bank to shield Israel and some of its settlements from terrorist attacks. Together with Rep. Ron Klein, a Florida Democrat, and the late Tom Lantos, a California Democrat who was the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress, he co-founded the House’s antisemitism task force.
Lantos, Pence said in his autobiography, had a profound influence on him. “He and I almost always disagreed on politics, but I was always inspired by his moral clarity and courage,” he wrote. Klein now chairs the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
As Indiana governor in 2016, Pence enacted the first state law banning state business with firms that support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement targeting Israel, known as BDS. The bill also applied to businesses that boycott Israel’s settlements — one of the first pieces of legislation to erase the line between Israel and the West Bank.
Later that year, the Republican Jewish Coalition effusively praised Pence’s selection as Trump’s running mate, calling him “a critical leader and important voice regarding Israel during his time in the House and as governor.”
He attended every policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee during the Trump administration; Trump avoided all of them.
His evangelical beliefs shape his domestic policy
One of the most prominent issues of the 2024 election will be abortion, following the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade last year. The decision gave states the authority to determine reproductive rights and led to the swift narrowing of abortion access in many states. On abortion and other issues including LGBTQ rights, Pence departs from most of the Jewish community, where support for abortion access and LGBTQ issues are high.
A number of Republicans — chief among them Trump — believe that the party should take the win and not pursue further abortion restrictions, arguing that the decision last year contributed to Republican losses in the midterm elections.
Not Pence: he wants to ban abortion nationwide. “Having been given this second chance for life, we must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in every state in the land,” he said after the court’s decision.
Pence also has a long career of opposing LGBTQ rights. When he was governor, he sought to exempt Indiana from a Supreme Court ruling recognizing same-sex marriages. As a congressman, he opposed funding for outreach to HIV patients that he said promoted gay lifestyles. (His handling of an HIV outbreak in Indiana is understood to have worsened it.)
As Indiana governor in 2015, Pence signed one of the most far-reaching state laws allowing businesses to decline to serve LGBTQ customers. Businesses threatened to boycott the state, and he soon signed modified legislation that increased protections for LGBTQ people.
Months later, Pence was facing questions about why he pushed through the law from the Republican Jewish Coalition, a group that trends moderate on social issues and whose director said members had “a lot of questions” about the legislation. His tone was apologetic. “Ultimately we adopted a few reforms and made it clear this was a shield, not a sword,” he said of the bill.
He was the Trump administration’s top trauma whisperer for the Jews
During his time as vice president, Pence was often the favored spokesman when tragedy befell the Jews.
In 2018, at a Trump administration religious freedom event, Pence singled out the threats of violence faced by Jews in Europe, including in countries seen as allies by Trump.
“While religious freedom is always in danger in authoritarian regimes, threats to religious minorities are not confined to autocracies or dictatorships,” he said “They can, and do, arise in free societies, as well — not from government persecution but from prejudice and hatred.”
The same year, he said he was “sickened and appalled” at Nazi graffiti on an Indiana synagogue he knew well.
In 2019, he and his wife visited the Chabad synagogue in Poway, California, after a deadly attack by a white supremacist. “We had to come,” he told the rabbi.
The same year, he toured Auschwitz and the next year, he attended the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.
Some efforts to mark Jewish tragedy went awry. In 2018, when Pence marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jewish figures chided him for imbuing Christian imagery in his celebration of Israel’s founding in the wake of the Holocaust. “A few days ago, Karen & I paid our respects at Yad Vashem to honor the 6 million Jewish martyrs of the Holocaust who 3 years after walking beneath the shadow of death, rose up from the ashes to resurrect themselves to reclaim a Jewish future,” he said on Twitter.
It was not the last time a Pence event would bring Christian themes into Jewish mourning. Pence was scheduled on Oct. 29, 2018, to campaign in Michigan for a Jewish Republican running for Congress, Leah Epstein.
Two days earlier, a gunman massacred 11 Jewish worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the worst-ever attack on Jews in U.S. history. Epstein invited a Messianic Jewish leader to deliver a prayer. Messianic Jews, who call their spiritual leaders rabbis, believe in the divinity of Jesus, and Jewish groups took offense. That led Pence’s folks to scramble to tell reporters that he was unaware that the rabbi was not, in fact, Jewish.
Pence was not among the many Trump administration figures and supporters who urged the president to walk back his “very fine people on both sides” equivocation after a neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 in which a counter-protester was killed. The vice president defended his boss: “I stand with the president,” he said when asked about Trump’s statements.
Trump-Pence vs. Trump
Pence, increasingly at odds with his former boss since their Jan. 6, 2021, falling-out, has a unique way of distinguishing Good Trump from Bad Trump: He portrays the administration’s wins as “Trump-Pence” policies, while the not-so-salutary stuff is Trump’s alone.
That dynamic was in evidence last November at the annual conference of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, when Pence was among an array of presidential prospective candidates to speak, including DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Trump himself.
Moving the embassy to Jerusalem? “Trump-Pence.” “It was the Trump-Pence administration that kept our word to the American people and our most cherished ally, when we moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the state of Israel,” Pence said.
As for Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election? Pence didn’t directly name the former president, but differentiated himself from him.
“The American people must know that our party keeps our oath to the Constitution even when political expediency may suggest that we do otherwise,” Pence said then. “We must be the leaders to keep our oath even when it hurts.”
Will he get Jewish funding?
Until filing papers on Monday, Pence’s main vehicle for fundraising has been a 501(c)4, a political advocacy group that is not required to reveal donors or extensive financial information. Advancing American Freedom has said its aim is to raise tens of millions of dollars to promote Pence’s favored conservative causes.
Now that he’s in the race, it will be interesting to watch where Pence draws Jewish support. One clue may be in a plane ride: Last year, Pence went on a campaign style tour of Israel and Ukraine. Loaning him the plane was Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate and Republican kingmaker Sheldon Adelson.
Adelson has since said she’s not planning to get involved in the GOP primaries.
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The post Mike Pence and the Jews: What to know as he begins a presidential campaign appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Hamas releases remains of just 4 deceased hostages, leaving 24 still unaccounted for

(JTA) — Hours after freeing 20 living hostages to a jubilant Israel, Hamas released the remains of four deceased hostages — far fewer than the 28 it is holding and obligated under the terms of the ceasefire to release.
The group had already indicated that it was not prepared to release all of the deceased hostages’ remains immediately, following two years of war in Gaza, and Israel and negotiators had accepted that it could take some time. Still, the small number of bodies released on Monday represented a disappointment for many who had hoped that Monday would bring closure to those who have spent years lobbying for the hostages’ release.
Hamas said the hostages released on Monday were Guy Illouz, Bipin Joshi, Daniel Perez and Yossi Sharabi. Subsequent DNA testing confirmed that Illouz and Joshi were in the group; the identities of the other two remains were not immediately confirmed at their families’ instruction.
- Illouz, 26, was injured during the attack on the Nova music festival. A returned hostage said he had been killed.
- Joshi, 23, was a Nepalese agriculture student who had arrived in Israel just weeks before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. He had not previously been confirmed dead, though Israel had expressed “grave concern” about his life. His family had joined lobbying efforts on behalf of the hostages and last week released a video produced by Hamas that showed him alive in Gaza at least a month after he was taken hostage.
- Perez, 22, was a soldier who responded to the Hamas attack. The IDF announced in March 2024 that he had been killed on Oct. 7, along with two other soldiers in his tank. A fourth soldier in the tank, Matan Angrest, was released alive on Monday and paid tribute to Perez in his first message to Israelis.
- Sharabi, 53, was abducted from Kibbutz Beeri. He was likely killed in an IDF airstrike, the IDF said in February 2024. His brother Eli, whose wife and daughters were killed on Oct. 7, was released during the first phase of the current ceasefire and has become a prominent voice among freed hostages.
Israel reportedly believes that Hamas is in possession of at least some additional hostages’ remains but chose not to release them. It is pressing for their swift release, but especially with U.S. President Donald Trump emphasizing that he views the war as permanently over, has no way to apply pressure on Hamas.
The post Hamas releases remains of just 4 deceased hostages, leaving 24 still unaccounted for appeared first on The Forward.
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Why there are new laws shaping how schools teach about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Teachers, parents and schools have long debated what students should learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But lesson plans have typically been discussed in PTA gatherings, faculty meetings, and curriculum committees — not determined by legislation.
That’s changing, as new laws around the country seek to regulate how narratives about the conflict are taught. The measures are testing the boundaries of classroom free speech, teeing up legal battles between teachers who want to express pro-Palestinian viewpoints in the classroom and those who see such lessons as unprofessional or antisemitic.
The latest flashpoint is in California, where a new “antisemitism prevention” bill was signed into law this month, partly in response to controversy created by the state’s ethnic studies curriculum, which Gov. Gavin Newsom made a graduation requirement in 2021.
A tale of two curriculums
“Is Israel a settler colonial state?” and “If so, what does that mean for us in regard to who to support?”
Those were questions a San Jose, Calif., teacher posed to students in January 2025, along with a YouTube video titled “Zionism is not the same as Judaism,” featuring a spokesperson from the anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta.
In April, the California Department of Education found that the lesson “discriminated against Jewish students” and required the school district to provide teacher training on presenting controversial topics in a balanced, non-discriminatory way.
Such disputes have become prevalent in California in the four years since the adoption of the state’s ethnic studies curriculum.
Many Jewish groups support a curriculum that includes lessons on antisemitism and Jewish identity, alongside units on Black, Latino, Native American, and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.
But an alternative curriculum, created by the “Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium,” has drawn sharp criticism for portraying Israel as a colonial state and omitting discussion of antisemitism while covering other forms of bigotry. For instance, it defines the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as a “global social movement that currently aims to establish freedom for Palestinians living under apartheid conditions.”
“If I look at the materials that they’re putting forward, it doesn’t provide any balance,” said Larry Shoham, a Jewish English and business teacher at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles. “And I’m just afraid that when students are exposed to this curriculum, we’re planting seeds of prejudice and hatred in the next generation.”
Several Jewish groups have sought to keep the “liberated” curriculum out of public schools. But achieving that goal through legal avenues has yielded mixed results.
A coalition of Jewish groups had success in Santa Ana, Calif., where in February the school district settled a lawsuit that alleged ethnic studies courses were biased against Jews. As part of the discovery process, the plaintiffs uncovered several antisemitic messages from the school board, including a text message from a committee member suggesting that “we may need to use Passover to get all new courses approved,” since Jews would not be present. As part of the settlement, the district agreed to terminate their “liberated” ethnic studies classes and redesign the courses with public input.
But in Los Angeles, a federal judge issued a rebuke of parents who sought to use the law to change curriculum. A group under the name “Concerned Jewish Parents and Teachers of Los Angeles” sued the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, arguing that they had a religious belief in Zionism, and the “liberated” ethnic studies curriculum made it unsafe to express Zionist beliefs.
The parents, the judge wrote in his decision, had the right to petition for curricular changes. But the curriculum, even if offensive to some, was not discriminatory or illegal.
“It is far from clear that learning about Israel and Palestine or encountering teaching materials with which one disagrees constitutes an injury,” Judge Fernando Olguin wrote.
Bills aimed at restricting the “liberated” ethnic studies curriculum have also stalled. Last spring, the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California championed a bill that would have required school districts to submit ethnic studies curricula to the California Department of Education for review, ensuring “content is historically accurate, free from antisemitic bias, and aligned with educational best practices,” JPAC wrote on its website.
But facing opposition from some civil liberties groups, the bill never made it into committee. JPAC shifted its focus to a broader measure creating a new statewide office to combat antisemitism in public schools, JPAC executive director David Bocarsly said in an interview.
That bill, with the requirement that curricula be “factually accurate” and “consistent with accepted standards of professional responsibility, rather than advocacy, personal opinion, bias, or partisanship,” just passed.
The new law’s impact
The law establishes a state Office of Civil Rights and an antisemitism prevention coordinator, who will track complaints, issue guidance, and coordinate training about antisemitism.
As for curriculum, supporters say the law simply reinforces longstanding norms for teachers: that lessons should be grounded in fact and free of political bias — requirements which don’t bar thoughtful discussions about Israelis and Palestinians.
“There’s nothing in this bill or existing law that prevents teachers from bringing up international conflicts or controversial issues, and to be able to provide opportunities for students to engage with it with critical thought,” Bocarsly said.
Critics, however, see the law’s vague language as a deliberate attempt to stifle speech and make educators think twice before broaching the subject at all.
“Are you allowed to talk about the occupation of the West Bank?” said Jenin Younes, national legal director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “Are you allowed to talk about the Nakba from the Palestinians perspective in 1948? That’s not clear.”
Younes said she’s also troubled by a provision that allows anyone — not just students or parents — to file a complaint about antisemitism. That, she said, “opens up the door to people from outside who want to harass teachers.”
Some educators share those concerns. Mara Harvey, a Jewish social studies teacher at Discovery High School in Sacramento, wrote an op-ed calling California’s law “the wrong response to a real problem” and part of a broader push to bring “right-wing, Trump-style censorship to California schools.”
“Consider what it could mean in a real classroom: A student brings in an article from Haaretz (one of Israel’s most respected newspapers) criticizing government policies. Could a discussion on this be deemed antisemitic?” Harvey wrote. “Yes, it could.”
Combatting antisemitism or ‘attacking teachers’?
Similar debates about curriculum have played out in schools across the country. In Plano, Texas, a high school classroom used a Jeopardy-style game with the prompt, “Group who wants to gain back the country they lost to Israel.” The correct answer: “Who are the Palestinians?”
In August, Texas Attorney general Ken Paxton launched an investigation into Plano Independent School District, writing in a letter that “accounts have circulated that teachers are presenting biased materials and insisting that students take a pro-Palestinian view.”
“Any teacher or administrator that has facilitated or supported radical anti-Israel rhetoric in our schools should be fired immediately,” Paxton wrote on X.
In a statement, the school district said the claims of antisemitism were false and amounted to “political theater.”
Other states are also grappling with how best to address alleged bias in schools.
In Kansas, a law passed in May prohibits “incorporating or allowing funding of antisemitic curriculum.”
Arizona considered an even tougher approach. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have let parents sue educators for teaching antisemitism — meaning teachers would have been personally liable for lawyer fees and financial damages.
“Unfortunately, this bill is not about antisemitism; it’s about attacking our teachers,” Hobbs wrote in a letter explaining her veto.
In other cases, the curriculum has simply been removed. In Massachusetts, the state teachers association’s “curriculum resources” for lessons on “Israel and Occupied Palestine” included an image of a Star of David made of dollar bills. The curriculum resources were taken down after intense backlash.
Incidents like that are what Rebecca Schgallis, senior education strategist at the CAMERA Education Institute — which describes itself as “fighting antisemitism and anti-Israel bias in education” — cites in arguing for closer review of classroom materials nationwide.
She pointed to resources such as “Teaching While Muslim,” a group of New Jersey Muslim educators who say they are “working to actively include social justice, anti-racist & anti-Islamophobic curricula and educators in our schools.” Content on the group’s website includes a worksheet instructing students to color the Palestinian flag over the entire map of Israel — though it’s unclear whether such a lesson has ever actually been taught in public school classrooms.
Because curriculum decisions are made locally, Schgallis said, it’s difficult to track how widespread such lessons are. Often, she added, the problem comes not from official materials but from individual teachers going “rogue.”
“I think teachers have an obligation to teach curriculum and not to insert their personal viewpoints,” Schgallis said. “Everyone has the right to free speech outside of the classroom, but when teachers are teaching, they have a job to do.”
The post Why there are new laws shaping how schools teach about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appeared first on The Forward.
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Kamala Harris on whether Israel committed genocide: ‘We should all step back and ask this question’

(JTA) — Former Vice President Kamala Harris held back from labeling Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide” on Sunday but said it was an appropriate question.
“A lot of folks in your party have called what’s happening in Gaza a genocide. Do you agree with that?” correspondent Eugene Daniels asked Harris during an interview on MSNBC’s “The Weekend.”
“Listen, it is a term of law that a court will decide,” Harris responded. “But I will tell you that when you look at the number of children that have been killed, the number of innocent civilians that have been killed, the refusal to give aid and support, we should all step back and ask this question and be honest about it, yeah.”
Several lawmakers, including Vermont’s Jewish Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, and far-right Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have described Israel’s conduct in Gaza over the past two years in Gaza as a genocide, but the allegation has not gotten mainstream support in Congress.
Throughout Harris’ book tour for her new memoir, “107 Days,” the former vice president has drawn pro-Palestinian protests who have accused her of being a “war criminal” and of supporting “genocide” in Gaza during her term. She has at times rebuffed the protesters and also given airtime to their concerns.
“I was the first person at the highest level of our United States government or administration to talk about the fact that the people in Gaza were starving,” Harris told protesters at a book event last month, according to the Washington Post.
Later in the interview, Daniels asked Harris whether she agreed that President Donald Trump should be “commended” for his role in brokering the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel that saw the release of the 20 living hostages on Monday.
“I don’t think we should hold any credit where it’s due,” said Harris. “I really do hope it becomes real and that the hostages are out, that Gaza is no longer being treated with such brutality of force, that aid goes in. I commend the people who have been a part of this process. I commend the Qataris, the Egyptians, and the president.”
The post Kamala Harris on whether Israel committed genocide: ‘We should all step back and ask this question’ appeared first on The Forward.