From bat mitzvah guest to backer of Israel in Congress: Nancy Pelosi’s Jewish journey

(JTA) — 5 days after Nancy Pelosi made historical past in 2007 as the primary girl elected to be speaker of the U.S. Home of Representatives, she held an occasion at her alma mater, the non-public Roman Catholic college, Trinity Washington.

She requested a rabbi, the Reform motion’s David Saperstein, to headline the occasion as a result of she noticed the motion as taking the lead on a disaster that deeply involved her, in Darfur. “Don’t stand idly by the blood of your neighbor,” Saperstein stated, quoting Leviticus.

Pelosi was so happy with Saperstein’s remarks that afterwards she pulled him right into a household photograph.

“I would like you on this,” she instructed Saperstein as she grabbed his arm.

American Jews have been within the image for Pelosi since she was born, when her father helped lead the motion in the US to garner authorities help for the institution of a Jewish state, and thru her shut relationship with Jewish Democrats whom she promoted to management roles in Congress.

Pelosi, who’s 82, stated Thursday she would step down as chief of the Democrats within the Home, after her occasion misplaced the chamber to Republicans, albeit by a a lot smaller margin than anybody anticipated.

Listed here are some Jewish highlights from Pelosi’s profession.

Following in her father’s footsteps

Pelosi was born right into a household of distinguished and highly effective Baltimore Democrats.

As a congressman within the Forties, her father, Thomas D’Alesandro, was outspoken in his criticism of the Roosevelt administration for not doing sufficient to cease the carnage in Europe and he was an early advocate of Jewish statehood. (Pelosi loves to inform those that there’s a soccer stadium named for him north of Haifa.)

After his congressional gig, D’Alesandro turned Baltimore’s mayor, and cast a detailed relationship with the town’s Jewish neighborhood. “She likes to say that, rising up in Baltimore, she went to a bar or bat mitzvah each Saturday,” Amy Friedkin, a previous president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, instructed the Jewish Telegraphic Company.

Pelosi has at the very least two Jewish grandchildren. In 2003, she instructed AIPAC, “Final week I celebrated my birthday and my grandchildren — ages 4 and 6 — known as to sing ‘Completely satisfied Birthday.’ And the shock, the true present, was that they sang it in Hebrew.”

Carrying Israel near her coronary heart

Pelosi has visited Israel a number of instances and has hosted Israeli leaders in Washington. Certainly one of her closest relationships was with Dalia Itzik, the Labor Get together member of Knesset with whom Pelosi shaped a bond as a result of they each made historical past across the identical time, as the primary ladies audio system of their parliaments.

United States Home Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, holds the navy id disc of kidnapped Israeli troopers throughout a ceremony on the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, on April 1, 2007. (Michal Fattal/Flash90)

Itzik was a number one advocate in Israel for the households of Israelis held captive in Arab lands. She gave Pelosi the dogtags of three Israelis who have been lacking within the 1982-1986 Lebanon warfare (they have been ultimately confirmed lifeless). Pelosi introduced the dogtags to her conferences with Arab officers she believed may have the ability to assist result in decision for the households — together with on a 2007 mission to Syria that infuriated the Bush administration.

She promoted Jewish members of her caucus

Quite a lot of Jewish Democrats stuffed prime positions beneath Pelosi’s two stints as Home speaker, from 2007 to 2011, and since 2019.

In 2004, Pelosi noticed a glittering future in a younger girl simply elected from South Florida, and two years later named Debbie Wasserman Schultz chief deputy whip, launching a management trajectory that may take Wasserman Schultz to the chairmanship of the Democratic Get together.

High Jewish committee chairs beneath Pelosi have included the late Tom Lantos of California (Overseas Affairs); Eliot Engel of New York (Overseas Affairs); Adam Schiff of California (Intelligence); Ted Deutch of Florida (Ethics); Susan Wild of Pennsylvania (Ethics); and Jerry Nadler of New York (Judiciary). Jewish members akin to Schiff, Nadler, Engel and Jamie Raskin of Maryland took main roles in impeachment hearings.

Raskin and Elaine Luria of Virginia have been distinguished on the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot spurred by former President Donald Trump’s lies in regards to the 2020 election.

It wasn’t all the time easy crusing

Simply because Pelosi was near the pro-Israel neighborhood didn’t imply she assumed its each coverage or political place.

She received scattered boos in 2007 at an AIPAC convention when she introduced plans to press for the downsizing of U.S. troops in Iraq, partially as a result of then-Vice President Dick Cheney instructed the identical convention that decreasing a U.S. presence in Iraq would embolden Iran and make Israel susceptible.

In 2008, when it seemed like Barack Obama would overtake Hillary Clinton within the Democratic primaries, Pelosi opposed a procedural measure that may have checked Obama’s ascent. Twenty distinguished Jewish Democrats, spearheaded by Israeli-American leisure mogul and megadonor Haim Saban wrote Pelosi to inform her to maintain out of the presidential stakes, permitting “superdelegates” to contradict the desire of the folks. She replied, kind of, thanks however no thanks.

A yr later, she was clashing with Saban once more when he sought to maintain his pal Jane Harman, a California Jewish Democrat, within the prime spot on the intelligence committee. Pelosi had her approach and reportedly “went ballistic” at Saban for interfering.

Pelosi additionally spearheaded the profitable effort in 2015 to maintain Congress from nixing Obama’s Iran nuclear deal as soon as he was president, because the pro-Israel neighborhood needed her to do.

An Israeli poem stays her lodestone in instances of disaster

Pelosi has taken lately to quoting Ehud Manor’s tune, “I Have No Different Nation,” most recently when she delivered her first remarks after her husband was grievously wounded by a house invader spurred partially by Trump’s election lies and antisemitic conspiracy theories.

At first, the idea was {that a} sensible Jewish aide fed her the road to make use of at Jewish appearances, however the story was fairly totally different. Isaac Herzog, then Israel’s opposition chief, consoled Pelosi in 2016 once they met at a Saban-underwritten dinner in Washington. Pelosi was mourning Trump’s presidential victory a month earlier.

JTA uncovered that story after Pelosi cited her favourite line within the poem on the Home flooring within the aftermath of the lethal Jan. 6 riots.

“I cannot be silent now that my nation has modified her face, I cannot chorus from reminding her and singing right here in her ear, till she opens her eyes,” she stated.