<\/p>\n
<\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<hr \/>\n<hr \/>\n<h1>5 Jewish things to know about Kamala Harris<\/h1>\n<p>By Ron Kampeas<br \/>\nJewish Telegraphic Agency<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-251063\" src=\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/1-11-19-kamala-harris-1024x569.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"356\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/1-11-19-kamala-harris-1024x569.webp 1024w, https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/1-11-19-kamala-harris-300x167.webp 300w, https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/1-11-19-kamala-harris-768x427.webp 768w, https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/1-11-19-kamala-harris-1536x853.webp 1536w, https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/1-11-19-kamala-harris-2048x1138.webp 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/>Sen. Kamala Harris in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill Nov. 13, 2018. She will likely run for president. (Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"is-flex\">\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>WASHINGTON (<a href=\"http:\/\/jta.org\/\">JTA<\/a>) \u2014 Kamala Harris, the junior senator from California, is reportedly set to announce her bid for the Democratic presidential nod.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s attorney general. She pleased Democratic hearts, meanwhile, with her tough\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2018\/09\/06\/politics\/kamala-harris-brett-kavanaugh-hearing\/index.html\">treatment<\/a>\u00a0of President Donald Trump\u2019s second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, during his Senate confirmation last year.<\/p>\n<p>The daughter of a mother who immigrated from India and a father who immigrated from Jamaica, Harris has some Jewish nuggets in her history.<\/p>\n<p><strong>She smashed a glass at her wedding<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>She met her Jewish husband, Douglas Emhoff, on a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/entertainment\/garchik\/article\/California-Attorney-General-Kamala-Harris-engaged-5380881.php\">blind date<\/a>\u00a0in San Francisco, arranged by friends. They\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiawest.com\/news\/global_indian\/kamala-devi-harris-ties-the-knot-with-l-a-attorney\/article_d97aca52-321c-11e4-8419-0019bb2963f4.html\">married\u00a0<\/a>in 2014 \u2014 Harris\u2019 sister Maya officiated \u2014 and smashed a glass to honor Emhoff\u2019s upbringing. It was her first marriage and his second \u2014 Emhoff has two children from his first marriage.<\/p>\n<p>You thought Jews can be parochial? \u201cMost eligible Indian American bachelorette marries fellow lawyer\u201d is how one\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanbazaaronline.com\/2014\/09\/02\/california-attorney-general-kamal-harris-marries-douglas-emhoffmost-eligible-indian-american-bachelorette-marries-fellow-lawyer\/\">Indian American media outlet<\/a>\u00a0reported the story.<\/p>\n<p>Emhoff\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/newsok.com\/article\/feed\/5560751\/5-things-to-know-about-kamala-harriss-husband-douglas-emhoff\">took<\/a>\u00a0the Washington, D.C. bar exam in 2017 so he could work in the same city.<\/p>\n<p>Emhoff\u2019s Twitter feed is pretty much \u201cI love my wife\u201d all the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/douglasemhoff\/status\/1083122192328548352\">time<\/a>\u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/she-works-for-trump-he-cant-stand-him-this-is-life-with-kellyanne-and-george-conway\/2018\/08\/15\/3b89b82a-9b46-11e8-843b-36e177f3081c_story.html\">take that, Kellyanne and George Conway).<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>She did the blue box thing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo 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,\u201d she\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.policyconference.org\/article\/transcripts\/2017\/harris.asp\">said<\/a>\u00a0at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 2017. \u201cYears 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>No mention why Harris was a blue box girl growing up \u2014 and Google was no help. JTA has put a query into her office.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1354627\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1354627\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PC17_Kamala_Harris-e1491498234400.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 880px) 100vw, 880px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PC17_Kamala_Harris-e1491498234400.jpg 880w, https:\/\/www.jta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PC17_Kamala_Harris-e1491498234400-156x104.jpg 156w, https:\/\/www.jta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PC17_Kamala_Harris-e1491498234400-350x233.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.jta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PC17_Kamala_Harris-e1491498234400-768x511.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.jta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/PC17_Kamala_Harris-e1491498234400-500x333.jpg 500w\" alt=\"Kamala Harris\" width=\"880\" height=\"586\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1354627\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-1354627\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., addressing the AIPAC policy conference in Washington DC on March 28 2017. (AIPAC)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>She\u2019s more AIPAC than J Street<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2018\/03\/07\/kamala-harris-israel-aipac\/\">unnerved<\/a>), but she gave a good picture of where she stands in her 2017 speech.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s for two states \u2014 so is AIPAC, although, sometimes less than emphatically \u2014 but she doesn\u2019t believe in big-footing either side.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe that a resolution to this conflict cannot be imposed,\u201d she said. \u201cIt must be agreed upon by the parties themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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., \u201cyes you can stick my name on the invitation\u201d) of a party thrown by J Street\u2019s Los Angeles chapter. She also m<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jstreetdotorg\/status\/950512274569154561?fbclid=IwAR0MkPr-0ebyqyUeuJCT5g2zjTJn279zOkAlYmOCi_oDI73iUFzMsMWkWC8\">et<\/a>\u00a0a year ago in her office with the group\u2019s director, Jeremy Ben-Ami.<\/p>\n<p>Harris also co-sponsored a Senate resolution in early 2017 that essentially rebuked the Obama administration for allowing through a U.S. Security Council resolution condemning Israel\u2019s settlement policies.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Harris also digs Israel\u2019s Supreme Court building.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe beauty of the architecture and spirit of design left a lasting impression \u2014 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,\u201d she\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jweekly.com\/2016\/06\/03\/candidates-for-sen-boxers-open-seat-speak-on-israel-anti-semitism-bds\/\">told<\/a>\u00a0the J. The Jewish News of Northern California in 2016. \u201cThe Court, like Israel, is a beautiful home to democracy and justice in a region where radicalism and authoritarianism all too often shape government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>She\u2019s big on tackling hate crimes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Harris created a hate crimes unit as San Francisco District Attorney and made hate crimes a focus of her work as the state\u2019s attorney general. (Harris\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/sacobserver.com\/2012\/09\/attorney-general-kamala-harris-announces-slight-decrease-in-hate-crimes-in-california\/\">reported<\/a>\u00a0that in 2012 anti-Jewish hate crimes were the most commonplace religion-based hate crime.)<\/p>\n<p>One of her first successful Senate actions was to get passed a non-binding Senate resolution that named religious institutions as possible targets of hate crimes, and urged better hate crime reporting, a key demand of Jewish civil rights groups over the years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Her big sisters are Jewish<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Well, in political terms, anyway. In October 2016, she got key endorsements from the state\u2019s two Jewish senators \u2014 Barbara Boxer, who was retiring and whom Harris would replace, and Dianne Feinstein, the state\u2019s senior senator. This was important because in California\u2019s \u201cjungle primary\u201d system the two top vote-getters in the primaries get on the November ballot even if they are of the same party. Harris was facing a popular Democrat, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, in the general election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2019\/01\/11\/politics\/5-jewish-things-to-know-about-kamala-harris\">https:\/\/www.jta.org\/2019\/01\/11\/politics\/5-jewish-things-to-know-about-kamala-harris<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=250970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=250970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=250970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=250970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}