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She was a dancer who leapt to the top of her field — then the Trump administration fired her
When she walked up to the Kennedy Center on the first day of her internship in 2013, she was Jane Rabinovitz, a recent grad from William & Mary, fresh off a stint as stage manager for an Argentine aerial tango company performing in Miami, and newly determined to forge a career in the arts.
By the time security escorted her out with her personal belongings 12 years later, she was Jane (Rabinovitz) Raleigh, a veteran employee who’d risen in the ranks to become director of dance programming. In August, she and her small team were fired amidst the upheaval fomented by President Donald Trump, who in his second term has installed himself as Kennedy Center chairman and attempted to reshape the institution.
The team was dismissed on a Thursday. By Monday, the center announced its new dance director: former Washington Ballet dancer Stephen Nakagawa. Raleigh was hardly shocked. She’d known since early March about the letter Nakagawa had sent to Richard Grenell, the center’s new president, praising Trump and lamenting “radical leftist ideologies” and the “rise of ‘woke’ culture” in the ballet world.
For six months, Raleigh saw firsthand that “what was happening inside of the Kennedy Center very much mirrored the general chaos that was happening in the government, the DOGE experience that people were having,” she told me over Zoom from her home in D.C. “You’re watching the chess pieces be moved around the board, but it’s people’s lives.”
“There was definitely an overarching feeling of waiting for the shoe to drop,” Raleigh said. “I was committed to staying until I was removed,” she added. But “I did believe from the beginning that everyone would be fired at some point.”
When her time came, the choreography felt familiar. “The cadence of it mirrored what had been happening at the center for many months,” she said. In some cases, entire teams were erased and their programs sunset. In other cases, like hers, “the leader would be fired, and then one, two, or three days later, a new person would just show up.” Often, she said, that person had some connection to Trump or Grenell. (Grenell and the Kennedy Center press office have not responded to multiple requests for comment.)
In the five or seven minutes Raleigh said it took for her and her two assistant managers to be fired, she was informed that this move was the result of “a loss of confidence in my leadership and a loss of confidence in the team’s ability to align with leadership’s vision.”
According to Raleigh, Grenell had communicated that vision in a meeting only the previous week, suggesting they present more “broadly appealing” programming in the vein of So You Think You Can Dance or Paula Abdul. She left the conversation with “a directive to start exploring more commercial offerings,” and immediately began reaching out to agents to pursue it. But before she had a chance to share a proposal, the team was out.
“I didn’t really have a chance to even try,” she said.
From Purim spiels and horas to a career in the arts
Raleigh was born in Washington, D.C., and raised just across the river in Virginia by her Jewish father — that’s the Rabinovitz — and her Catholic mother. Theirs was a mixed household, like the one Raleigh now shares with her husband, who grew up Catholic. But her parents decided to raise their kids Jewish and joined Temple Rodef Shalom, a reform synagogue in Falls Church, Virginia.
A language lover and future Spanish major, Raleigh “ate up” Hebrew school lessons, even “practicing writing secret notes in Hebrew to myself,” she said. She connected to her Jewish community primarily through the arts. She sang in the youth choir and later became a founding member of the teen choir, Kol Machar. And for many years she performed in the Purim spiels her dad wrote and directed as a hobby. One year when she was in college, the woman playing Esther dropped out of the Tarzan-themed Purim spiel at the last minute. “My dad called me,” she recalled, “and he was like, either you can be Esther or I’m gonna have to be Esther.”
Raleigh danced a formative hora at her bat mitzvah and another at her wedding a few years ago. “The hora and Jewish artistic experiences have always been a moment to blend my Jewish life and my secular life,” said Raleigh.
In her secular life, she trained seriously in ballet. She minored in dance at William & Mary, led the student dance company, and interned one summer at the American Dance Festival. Soon after graduation, she decided to pursue a career in the arts instead. She grew up going to the Kennedy Center frequently, so that’s where she went.
Her path there led from intern all the way up to dance director. Raleigh curated ballet seasons and contracted, budgeted, and presented both ballet and contemporary dance with an eye toward exposing audiences to a broader variety of work. She brought in Alonzo King LINES Ballet from San Francisco for their Kennedy Center debut in 2024, for example, introducing audiences familiar with classical, narrative productions to a more contemporary vision of ballet by an important living artist.
Raleigh says she felt lucky to put the center’s ample resources to use to support local and emerging artists and present some of the world’s best companies in a worthy setting. “I frequently would have striking moments of realization sitting in the Opera House, when the curtains would go up on shows that I’d be working on,” she said.
“That sense of wonder,” she added, “does not go away.”
A Trump tailspin
Trump took little interest in the Kennedy Center during his first term. He never attended performances back then, Raleigh said, though his daughter Ivanka Trump frequently came to the ballet. Like other presidents before him, he did appoint new members to the historically bipartisan board; Raleigh said she worked closely over the years with a few who were “real ballet supporters.” Unlike his predecessors, Trump repeatedly skipped the annual Kennedy Center Honors.
“We had lived through a previous term, so there was certainly no expectation that anything would be different,” Raleigh said. Until Trump posted on social media in February, shortly after his second inauguration, announcing his intentions to take over as chairman, oust board members, and shake up programming in order to “make the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. GREAT AGAIN” and usher in “a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.”
Raleigh found out about Trump’s plan when the public did. At first, she didn’t give it much credence — Trump had said a lot of things during his first administration that he hadn’t acted upon, she said. However, it quickly became clear he would follow through this time, and it “put everybody into a tailspin.”
The purge began immediately. Several board members and longtime chair David Rubenstein were dismissed and replaced by Trump and his appointees. Center president Deborah Rutter was removed after an 11-year tenure, to be succeeded by Grenell.
“Every single day you would come in and be like, what will have happened today?” Raleigh said. A pattern emerged where “basically every payday Friday was mass firings day.” Sometimes it was three people, she remembered, and sometimes 20. Those waves of dismissals were “the most chaotic, traumatic, repeatedly painful thing.”
In response to the uncertainty and upheaval, staff at the Kennedy Center began working to form a union. “The Kennedy Center’s new management has communicated its intention to radically alter the Center’s programming priorities, eliminate staff, and dismantle our mission-essential programs,” the union website states. “We no longer believe our institution trusts us and we no longer trust our institution.” Raleigh said her team participated in the organizing effort — which members hoped would help them fight to protect jobs, working conditions, creative autonomy, and more — and she was vocal in backing it.
When she and her team were notified around 11:40 a.m. on Aug. 21 of a meeting that was to take place in the HR suite five minutes later, they knew what was coming. It took just a few minutes for HR and legal to fire them and hand over their termination paperwork, Raleigh recalled.
On the way back to their desks, Raleigh and her team sent a few texts to share the news and “staff from every corner of the building” showed up, as they had done for others so many times by then. They had an hour to say goodbye, get their things, and get out.
Suddenly jobless, they set up at her apartment, divvied up the list of artists they were presenting in the upcoming season, and called them all to share the unfortunate update. It felt particularly difficult to digest the fact that they couldn’t be behind the scenes to support the performances scheduled to take place that weekend as part of the center’s local dance commissioning project. “The piece was about how Black women can support other Black women and femmes to have rest and resilience in the world,” Raleigh said. Without a team, they worried, “Who’s going to take care of this piece of art?”
Next steps
Raleigh’s fears extend beyond the Kennedy Center. She told me she’s concerned about the fate of dance and the arts in the face of the “dismantling, essentially, of the NEA” by the Trump administration and recent shifts by key arts funders, with reports that longtime supporters like the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation, and Ford Foundation are now focusing on other priorities. And all this while arts organizations are still recovering from the pandemic’s crushing blow.
“The dance field has not been in a moment of incredible glory and surplus in my entire lifetime,” Raleigh said. So while the current state of affairs is “horrible,” perhaps “this is a moment for us to be thinking about what are new ways and new paths that we can chart going forward.”
Since her departure from the Kennedy Center, she’s been focused not only on the search for a new full-time job, but also on launching the DC Dance Network. It’s an effort to connect artists to resources and one another. “If we want to build a better fabric, a more supportive fabric, of the dance community nationally, why not start at the tiniest, most local version?” said Raleigh, whose fledgling organization announced its first commission in early November.
Living through the turmoil at the Kennedy Center and witnessing the tumult in the government “has totally transformed my approach to community, my approach to what it means to be a good neighbor,” Raleigh said. “This idea is very Jewish, that we’re commanded to do mitzvot so that we have the opportunity to do more in the future, that we’re compelled to repair the world through tikkun olam. All of that has really been informed from my Jewish childhood.”
She’s stayed in touch with her former colleagues and the union and participated in advocacy efforts. She was part of a group that showed up at the Kennedy Center to personally deliver a petition with more than 1,600 signatures collected by Hands Off the Arts demanding the organization reinstate wrongfullly terminated employees, recognize the union, and more. “They’re not getting off the hook,” she said.
Raleigh is waiting to see what kind of dance season, if any, the Kennedy Center announces for 2026-27. It remains to be seen which companies will agree to perform there and whether audiences will attend. In the meantime, Raleigh’s been heartened to see that none of her programming — which runs through June 2026 — seems to have been changed or canceled.
And she’s returned as a spectator, back in the seats where she fell in love with the arts as a kid. In October, she went to see the Stuttgart Ballet perform at the Kennedy Center for the first time in more than 30 years. At the first intermission, the older woman sitting next to her — who said she’d seen the company during their last visit — turned to Raleigh and said, “Isn’t this amazing?!”
“In that moment, we were just audience members having the same transformative experience at the ballet,” Raleigh said. “She clearly didn’t know who I was,” Raleigh added, and “I just got to revel in the ballet with her.”
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US Sen. Rand Paul’s Son Apologizes After Drunken Antisemitic Insults Against Catholic Congressman
US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is trailed by reporters as he arrives for the weekly Senate Republican caucus luncheon at the US Capitol in Washington, US, May 22, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
William Paul, the adult son of frequent Israel critic US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), has apologized following reports that he made antisemitic and homophobic statements while defending Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) at a Capitol Hill restaurant on Tuesday evening.
NOTUS reporter Reese Gorman witnessed the encounter at Tune Inn and wrote that the younger Paul, 33, sat a few seats down from Lawler at the bar when he introduced himself and told the congressman that if Massie lost in his upcoming primary, “your people” would be responsible.
Lawler, an Irish Catholic, asked, “My people?”
This prompted Paul to say, “Yeah, you Jews.”
Lawler then clarified his religious background, saying, “Do you think I’m Jewish? I’m not.”
Paul apologized for his error, replying, “Oh wow, I’m so sorry for calling you a Jew.”
Lawler later told reporters the comment was “just a remarkable statement in and of itself,” adding that “at one point, you know, said that he hates Jews and hates gays and doesn’t care if they die. And I think that’s f**king disgusting.”
Lawler told the New York Post that he responded to Paul mistakenly identifying him as a Jew with, “And even if I was, what’s the problem?”
“Then he got into the Middle East,” the lawmaker recounted. “And he was talking about, like, us trying to steal Iran’s land for the Jews and steal the West Bank, and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’”
Paul then reportedly proclaimed Jews were “un-American” and more loyal to Israel. Lawler argued back against Paul’s dual-loyalty accusations and accused him of being antisemitic.
“Paul Singer serves Israeli interests, not American interests,” Paul also said during the encounter, referring to the billionaire Republican donor and prominent Jewish supporter of pro-Israel causes.
Singer has supported Ed Gallrein, a retired Navy SEAL challenging Massie in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District.
A new campaign ad that aired in Kentucky this week and was sponsored by Hold the Line PAC, a group backing Massie, characterized Singer as a “pro-trans billionaire” and featured a rainbow-colored Star of David behind his image while attacking Gallrein’s allies.
Critics condemned the imagery as antisemitic, arguing it invoked longstanding tropes about Jewish financial influence and used Jewish symbolism in a way designed to inflame cultural resentment.
Massie himself has been a fierce critic of Israel, condemning its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon and arguing that the Jewish state has targeted civilian infrastructure and should not receive assistance from the US.
US President Donald Trump has endorsed Gallrein and actively campaigned against Massie, who like Paul’s father is a libertarian-leaning Republican known for frequently breaking with party leadership and advocating an isolationist foreign policy.
During his outburst this week, the younger Paul also urged Lawler to watch far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson more and claimed that Massie and his father were the only legislators who care about America. In multiple postings on X, Paul promoted “Save the Republic Money Bomb” donations for Massie.
In December 2023, Massie sparked condemnation for posting a meme suggesting that Congress was more loyal to Zionism than “American patriotism.”
In recent years, meanwhile, Carlson has emerged as the leading anti-Israel commentator on the American political right, routinely advancing conspiracy theories condemning the Jewish state while heaping praise on Qatar, the longtime supporter of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Tuesday’s exchange concluded with Paul performing an obscene gesture.
Lawler responded by asking, “Did you just give me the middle finger?”
Paul replied, “I’m sorry, yeah, I did. I’m just really drunk. I’m going to leave.” He reportedly stumbled on his way leaving the bar.
Paul attempted to apologize on X on Wednesday from his @TastyBrew1776 account, writing, “Last night, I had too much to drink and said some things that don’t represent who I really am. I’m sorry and today I am seeking help for my drinking problem.” He has struggled with his alcohol use before, pleading guilty to a drunk driving charge in 2015.
Rabbi Uri Pilichowski responded to the apology.
“You don’t just have a drinking problem, you have a Jew-hating problem,” he posted. “The Jewish sages taught, ‘Wine goes in, and secrets come out.’ You need some Jewish friends so you can correct your image of Jews.”
Conservative columnist Bethany Mandel, an advocate for Jewish outreach to antisemites, responded with an invitation to Paul, asking him, “Care to come for Shabbat dinner sometime?”
Addressing the admission of excessive drinking, Lawler told reporters, “That’s not an excuse for that type of hatred and vitriol. It’s my fourth year in Washington; that was arguably the most shocking thing I’ve witnessed.”
Lawler explained how he saw the encounter in the context of today’s rising antisemitism.
“But I mean, look, I think it speaks to a larger issue, obviously, in society and what we’re seeing among young people and what we see online,” he said. “And this is the level of hatred and vitriol, frankly, that some of my Jewish colleagues experience, but many of my constituents experience.”
Paul’s father chose not to comment on his son’s antisemitic outburst, saying to reporters on Wednesday only, “I don’t have anything for you.”
He and Massie have both faced substantial criticism for their positions on Israel.
On numerous occasions, Massie voted as the lone Republican in the House opposing bills supporting Israel and denouncing antisemitism. In October 2023, he voted against House Resolution 771, which stated that Congress “stands with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists” and “reaffirms the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security.” In September 2021 he was likewise the sole Republican to oppose the Iron Dome Supplemental Appropriations Act.
In May 2022, Massie earned the distinction of being the only member of Congress to oppose a resolution honoring Jewish Americans’ heritage and denouncing a rise in antisemitic violence. He also distinguished himself further on Nov. 28, 2023, as the only legislator to vote against a resolution reaffirming Israel’s right to exist.
In January 2024, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley condemned Massie as “the most anti-Israel Republican in Congress” and challenged her primary rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to denounce his support.
Paul has also faced opposition for his actions against the Jewish state. In November 2018, he blocked two bills to continue military funding of Israel. Then-Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said then that “at a time when Israel faces unprecedented threats, blocking a bipartisan bill that empowers the US to stand with Israel is inexplicable.” Paul claimed that he supported Israel and that his move was intended toward encouraging the Jewish state to support its own defense.
Former Texas Rep. Ron Paul — the father of Rand and grandfather of William — has faced accusations of bigotry for decades, originating in his decision to publish a series of 1980s newsletters bearing his name which promoted racism, antisemitism, homophobia, and conspiracy theories, including one since identified by analysts as disinformation deployed by the KGB accusing the United States of creating the AIDS virus.
According to former Cato President Ed Crane, Ron Paul once told him that “his best source of congressional campaign donations was the mailing list for the Spotlight, the conspiracy-mongering, antisemitic tabloid run by the Holocaust denier Willis Carto.”
Rand has previously spoken fondly about the influence of one of his father’s antisemitic mentors, Murray Rothbard, the founder of the anarcho-capitalist and paleo-libertarian traditions who frequented the Paul family’s dinner table. During his career, Rothbard promoted Holocaust deniers, used antisemitic slurs in private correspondence, called for abolishing the Constitution to return to the Articles of Confederation, and urged Republicans to support former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
“I have one of the largest Jewish populations anywhere in the country in my congressional district, and I’m not going to stop standing up for my constituents,” Lawler told reporters. “I’m going to stand up for the Judeo-Christian values that are at the core of our nation, our Constitution, and our rule of law, as I reminded Mr. Paul.”
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Israel to Extend F-35 Flight Range in Push to Build Up Military Force
A US Marines F-35C Lightning II is staged for flight operations on the flight deck of the US Navy Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in support of the Operation Epic Fury attack on Iran from an undisclosed location March 3, 2026. Photo: US Navy/Handout via REUTERS
Amid a multi-front conflict and a broader drive to bolster its military capabilities, Israel has signed a new contract with Elbit Systems subsidiary Cyclone to develop an extended-range capability for the F-35 Lightning II, marking its latest effort to extend the aircraft’s operational reach and endurance.
On Thursday, Israel’s Defense Ministry announced it signed a $34 million contract with Cyclone to develop and integrate external fuel tank systems for the Lockheed Martin-manufactured platform, aimed at enhancing its operational reach and in-flight persistence during extended missions.
Based on an existing Cyclone design used on F-16 aircraft, the system is expected to reduce reliance on aerial refueling and enhance the Israeli Air Force’s flexibility in long-range operations.
The aircraft integrates stealth capabilities, advanced data fusion, and internal weapons carriage, alongside Israeli-developed electronic warfare, communications, and computing systems that are incorporated into the US-built platform architecture.
Israeli officials said the agreement is part of a broader effort to strengthen domestic defense-production capabilities, improve readiness for a prolonged period of security challenges, and preserve Israel’s regional air and strategic superiority, amid an expanding multi-front conflict against Iran and its regional terrorist proxies.
After more than three years of war, Israel is now expected to increase defense spending over the next decade by roughly $95 billion, on top of an annual defense budget that has already grown from under $27 billion to nearly $40 billion.
Earlier this month, Israel also announced a major expansion of its combat air fleet, effectively doubling its planned procurement of F-35 Lightning II aircraft from 50 to 100, while increasing its next-generation F-15 Eagle fleet from 25 to 50, as part of one of its largest long-term force modernization programs in decades.
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I run The Jewish Theological Seminary. Here’s the real story about President Isaac Herzog speaking at our commencement
Because there have been many public misstatements and mischaracterizations, I believe it is incumbent on me as chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary to clarify the facts about our invitation to Israeli President Isaac Herzog to serve as our commencement speaker this year.
Herzog’s leadership and public service reflect the core principles and values that underlie JTS’s enduring commitment to the state of Israel, and to a vision of Zionism that is central to our institution. His life and work, including his advocacy for strengthening Israel’s democracy and his defense of a two-state solution, align with JTS’s mission.
Our seminary’s leadership felt that awarding him an honorary degree, and having our students hear him speak directly to them, would be both a privilege and fully consistent with our love for Israel and the people of Israel. (Herzog can no longer attend the commencement in person, but will be delivering his commencement address virtually, and will receive his honorary degree in person at some date in the future.)
I am proud that JTS serves as a forum for respectful disagreement, which our choice of Herzog as speaker prompted. The Jewish world encompasses a wide range of perspectives, particularly regarding the political situation in Israel. That diversity of thought exists both within our classrooms and beyond. I welcome the voices of those who may disagree.
What is regrettable is the extent to which respectful disagreement has been drowned out by a public media spectacle.
After our initial announcement of Herzog as commencement speaker, six seniors in JTS’s undergraduate dual-degree programs with Barnard College and Columbia University wrote a letter expressing their opposition to our decision.
Those students’ concerns focused on the policies of the Israeli government in its recent wars, and in no way challenged the legitimacy of the state of Israel. They also asked some additional students and alumni of other JTS schools to sign on in support of their objections. This list of supporters included four rabbinical students, three of whom are first-year students.
As too often happens in such circumstances, the letter was shared more widely, without the students’ prior knowledge or consent. This was dismaying to several of the students, who had intended to hand deliver it to me to spark conversation. What should have been a private exchange between students and their administrators escalated in alarming ways.
The authors were publicly criticized, misidentified as rabbinical students, and labeled “anti-Zionist,” including by some parties who purport to care deeply about JTS. Calls were made for their expulsion, and unfounded accusations were directed at their characters.
Few individuals from the community called me for clarification about what was actually transpiring before rushing to judgment publicly. Absent was the principle of “dan l’chav zechut” — that we should assume the best unless proven otherwise. I was deeply saddened by the outcry.
Here’s what actually happened: After I was made aware of this letter, I invited the undergraduates who authored it to meet with me for an extended and honest conversation. What they said in that conversation made it clear that anyone who labels them as anti-Zionist is misguided.
Rather, they are thoughtful individuals whose consciences are deeply troubled by many of the actions of Israel’s current government. Our conversation gave us an opportunity to discuss the role of dissent within a committed community, the importance of understanding the totality of a public figure’s career rather than focusing on isolated statements, and the distinct responsibilities of the offices of prime minister and president of Israel.
We at JTS take our responsibility as educators seriously. First and foremost, we are here to teach our students to engage with difficult issues thoughtfully, navigate disagreement and move forward in constructive and meaningful ways.
But just as important is our obligation to support and defend them when they are portrayed unfairly in public forums by those who do not know them as we do.
We take equal pride in the students who wrote the letter raising concerns about Herzog’s role in commencement, and those who wrote a letter to me expressing strong support for it — a response I heard echoed by many.
As Noam Pianko wrote in the Forward, this kind of thoughtful and respectful exchange about Israel and Zionism at JTS is not new; it is part of a longstanding tradition and precisely the kind of engagement we should continue to foster. One of our students who favored Herzog’s appearance reflected that in our courses, “the focus is not on advancing a single vision of Zionism but on confronting the deep and often irreconcilable disagreements within it. We read competing Zionist thinkers … Each author offers fundamentally different answers to what a Jewish state should be and what it should prioritize.”
We hope the Jewish community joins us in taking pride in the thoughtful young people who are working to navigate a complex Jewish world. By embracing, supporting and educating them, we can help ensure they remain deeply connected to the Jewish community, continue to be nourished by it, and contribute to its future in meaningful ways.
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