WASHINGTON (JTA) — Kamala Harris, the junior senator from California, is reportedly set to announce her bid for the Democratic presidential nod.
Harris, 54, is a progressive on most issues who draws some ire from the left for her tough-on-crime posture when she was California’s attorney general. She pleased Democratic hearts, meanwhile, with her tough treatment of President Donald Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, during his Senate confirmation last year.
The daughter of a mother who immigrated from India and a father who immigrated from Jamaica, Harris has some Jewish nuggets in her history.
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She smashed a glass at her wedding
She met her Jewish husband, Douglas Emhoff, on a blind date in San Francisco, arranged by friends. They married in 2014 — Harris’s sister Maya officiated — and smashed a glass to honor Emhoff’s upbringing. It was her first marriage and his second — Emhoff has two children from his first marriage.
You thought Jews can be parochial? “Most eligible Indian American bachelorette marries fellow lawyer” is how one Indian American media outlet reported the story.
Emhoff took the Washington, DC bar exam in 2017 so he could work in the same city.
Emhoff’s Twitter feed is pretty much “I love my wife” all the time (take that, Kellyanne and George Conway).
She did the blue box thing
The ‘blue box’ present in many Jewish homes to collect coins for the KKL JNF Jewish National Fund (CC-BY, Jeffrey Beall, Wikipedia)
“So having grown up in the Bay Area, I fondly remember those Jewish national fund boxes that we would use to collect donations to plant trees for Israel,” she said at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 2017. “Years later when I visited Israel for the first time, I saw the fruits of that effort and the Israeli ingenuity that has truly made a desert bloom.”
No mention why Harris was a blue box girl growing up — and Google was no help. JTA has put a query into her office.
She’s more AIPAC than J Street
Since being elected in 2016, Harris has spoken twice at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Her 2018 speech, with the California delegation, was off the record (itself not unusual, although critics of Israel were unnerved), but she gave a good picture of where she stands in her 2017 speech.
US Senator Kamala Harris, a Democrat from California, speaks at AIPAC’s 2017 Policy Conference at the Washington Convention Center on March 28, 2017 (screen capture)
She’s for two states — so is AIPAC, although, sometimes less than emphatically — but she doesn’t believe in big-footing either side.
“I believe that a resolution to this conflict cannot be imposed,” she said. “It must be agreed upon by the parties themselves.”
More than half of the Democratic caucus in the Senate gets the endorsement of J Street, the Jewish liberal lobbying group that believes pressure is necessary to start peace talks. J Street did not endorse Harris. Her only association with the group was in November 2017, when she was one of 17 local and federal politicians on the host committee (i.e., “yes you can stick my name on the invitation”) of a party thrown by J Street’s Los Angeles chapter.
Harris also co-sponsored a Senate resolution in early 2017 that essentially rebuked the Obama administration for allowing through a US Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s settlement policies.
She supported the Iran nuclear deal, although she was not a senator in 2015 when Congress voted on it, and is on the record opposing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.
Harris also digs Israel’s Supreme Court building.
“The beauty of the architecture and spirit of design left a lasting impression — the straight lines in the building represent the immutable nature of truth, while the curved glass and walls were built to represent the fluid nature of finding justice,” she told the J. The Jewish News of Northern California in 2016.
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Kamala harris parents affair husband book president sister biography
Harris, 54, is a progressive on most issues who draws some ire from the left for her tough-on-crime posture when she was California’s attorney general. She pleased Democratic hearts, meanwhile, with her tough treatment of President Donald Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, during his Senate confirmation last year.
The daughter of a mother who immigrated from India and a father who immigrated from Jamaica, Harris has some Jewish nuggets in her history.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories FREE SIGN UP
She smashed a glass at her wedding
She met her Jewish husband, Douglas Emhoff, on a blind date in San Francisco, arranged by friends. They married in 2014 — Harris’s sister Maya officiated — and smashed a glass to honor Emhoff’s upbringing. It was her first marriage and his second — Emhoff has two children from his first marriage.
You thought Jews can be parochial? “Most eligible Indian American bachelorette marries fellow lawyer” is how one Indian American media outlet reported the story.
Emhoff took the Washington, DC bar exam in 2017 so he could work in the same city.
Emhoff’s Twitter feed is pretty much “I love my wife” all the time (take that, Kellyanne and George Conway).
She did the blue box thing
The ‘blue box’ present in many Jewish homes to collect coins for the KKL JNF Jewish National Fund (CC-BY, Jeffrey Beall, Wikipedia)
“So having grown up in the Bay Area, I fondly remember those Jewish national fund boxes that we would use to collect donations to plant trees for Israel,” she said at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 2017. “Years later when I visited Israel for the first time, I saw the fruits of that effort and the Israeli ingenuity that has truly made a desert bloom.”
No mention why Harris was a blue box girl growing up — and Google was no help. JTA has put a query into her office.
She’s more AIPAC than J Street
Since being elected in 2016, Harris has spoken twice at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Her 2018 speech, with the California delegation, was off the record (itself not unusual, although critics of Israel were unnerved), but she gave a good picture of where she stands in her 2017 speech.
US Senator Kamala Harris, a Democrat from California, speaks at AIPAC’s 2017 Policy Conference at the Washington Convention Center on March 28, 2017 (screen capture)
She’s for two states — so is AIPAC, although, sometimes less than emphatically — but she doesn’t believe in big-footing either side.
“I believe that a resolution to this conflict cannot be imposed,” she said. “It must be agreed upon by the parties themselves.”
More than half of the Democratic caucus in the Senate gets the endorsement of J Street, the Jewish liberal lobbying group that believes pressure is necessary to start peace talks. J Street did not endorse Harris. Her only association with the group was in November 2017, when she was one of 17 local and federal politicians on the host committee (i.e., “yes you can stick my name on the invitation”) of a party thrown by J Street’s Los Angeles chapter.
Harris also co-sponsored a Senate resolution in early 2017 that essentially rebuked the Obama administration for allowing through a US Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s settlement policies.
She supported the Iran nuclear deal, although she was not a senator in 2015 when Congress voted on it, and is on the record opposing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.
Harris also digs Israel’s Supreme Court building.
“The beauty of the architecture and spirit of design left a lasting impression — the straight lines in the building represent the immutable nature of truth, while the curved glass and walls were built to represent the fluid nature of finding justice,” she told the J. The Jewish News of Northern California in 2016.
Tag - kamala harris parents kamala harris husband kamala harris president kamala harris book kamala harris sister kamala harris aka kamala harris book tour kamala harris kids kamala harris 2020 kamala harris age kamala harris and husband kamala harris book 2019 kamala harris baltimore kamala harris children kamala harris campaign kamala harris college
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