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MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER | SINCE 1929 | NOVEMBER 13, 2020 | 26 HESHVAN 5781
ELECTION 2020
IRAN, ISRAEL, ANTISEMITISM AND MORE: WHAT TO WATCH IN JOE BIDEN’S PRESIDENCY BY RON KAMPEAS
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ASHINGTON (JTA) – On Joe Biden’s first day as president, he plans to launch a task force to reunite children and parents separated at the country’s southern border. It’s one of several ways Biden has vowed to reverse policies put in place by President Donald Trump, and it’s important to many American Jews for whom immigration policy carries an emotional weight. But on many issues important to American Jews, change may come slower, or not at all. When it comes to where
the U.S. Embassy in Israel is located, for example, Biden has indicated that he has no intention to turn back the clock. On other Israel issues, change is likely but exactly what a Biden administration will try to do is not yet clear. Here’s a look at what might happen after Biden becomes president on Jan. 20, 2021.
Antisemitism When Biden launched his campaign in April 2019, he said he had considered retirement – but was appalled by Trump’s equivocations after the deadly neo-Nazi
Jonathan Sacks, former UK chief rabbi and ‘intellectual giant,’ was 72 BY BEN HARRIS AND CNAAN LIPHSHIZ AND GABE FRIEDMAN
and white supremacist march in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Biden constantly cites combating bigotry and antisemitism specifically in his appearances, including at the Democratic convention. Biden wants to develop a “comprehensive approach” to combat antisemitism, in consultation with the Jewish community. Trump cut some programs tracking extreme right domestic terrorists; Biden said he will restart them. Trump last year signed an executive order recognizing Jews as a protected class CONTINUED ONPAGE 12
PRESIDENT-ELECT JOE BIDEN AND VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT KAMALA HARRIS DELIVER REMARKS IN WILMINGTON, DELAWARE, ON NOV. 7. (CREDIT: ANDREW HARNIK BY /POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)
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(JTA) – Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom whose extensive writings and frequent media appearances commanded a global following among Jews and non-Jews alike, has died. Sacks died Saturday morning, Nov. 7, at age 72, his Twitter account announced. He was in the midst of a third bout of cancer, which he had announced in October. Sacks was among the world’s leading exponents of Orthodox Judaism for a global audience. In his 22 years as chief rabbi, he emerged as the most visible Jewish leader in the United Kingdom and one of the European continent’s leading Jewish voices, offering Jewish wisdom to the masses through a regular segment he produced for the BBC. He had a close relationship with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who called Sacks “an intellectual giant” and presented him with a lifetime achievement award in 2018. Sacks was also an immensely prolific author, addressing pressing social and political issues in a succession of well received books. His popular commentary on the prayer book, published by Koren, helped to dethrone the more traditionalist Artscroll Siddur as the preeminent prayer book in American Modern Orthodox synagogues. Sacks was normally averse to mixing religion and politics, something he discussed, along with his latest book, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times, and an array of other hot-button topics with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in August. “When anger erupts in a body politic, there is quite often a justified cause. But then the political domain has got to take that anger and deal with it very fast,” he told JTA’s opinion editor CONTINUED ONPAGE 23
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MASSACHUSETTS JEWISH LEDGER
| NOVEMBER 13, 2020
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