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Jon Ossoff: Everything you need to know about the newest Jewish Democratic senator
Jon Ossoff, a Jewish 33-year-old former executive of a documentary film company, has done what seemed nearly impossible just a few years ago: won a Senate election as a Democrat in formerly deep-red Georgia. Along with his fellow Democratic Senate winner, Rev. Raphael Warnock, the pair has flipped control of the U.S. Senate.
Ossoff’s young age and relatively short resume — in politics, at least — have left him a somewhat unknown figure. Here’s what you need to get acquainted with the newest Jewish member of Congress.
His path to politics was unusual. Ossoff demonstrated political interests early on, famously gaining an internship with Georgia Rep. John Lewis after writing the civil rights leader a fan letter as a teenager. He also worked as a speechwriter after college. But then he took a detour to work in documentary film before mounting a congressional bid in a 2017 special election. While he fell just short in that race, it elevated his name nationally and in his home state, positioning him to run for Senate. He has never held any elected office before.
He’s the youngest senator elected since 1973. That was Joe Biden, elected in Delaware at just over 30 years old. At 33, Ossoff is also the only senator too young to become president.
He’ll join a robust Jewish Senate delegation. Eight other Senate Democrats identify as Jewish, including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who goes from minority leader to majority leader with Ossoff and Warnock’s elections. (Michael Bennet of Colorado does not identify as Jewish, but his mother is a Holocaust survivor and he says his family history informs his values.) But it’s far from the largest Jewish Senate delegation in history: 13 Jews were among the senators sworn in in 2007.
He’s motivated by his Jewish background. Ossoff wrote a letter addressed to his state’s Jewish community last month and published it in the Atlanta Jewish Times. In it, he wrote that his Jewish upbringing “instilled in me a conviction to fight for the marginalized, the persecuted and the dispossessed.” He has delved into that territory more deeply in other venues, including in a 2017 interview with Moment magazine, where he said, “I think that Jews share a story that compels us to approach the world with empathy.”
Yes, he had a bar mitzvah. “I was bar mitzvahed at the Temple, which is a Reform synagogue,” he told JTA in 2017 during his first Senate run. “My Jewish upbringing imbued me with certain values, a commitment to justice and peace.”
He supports Israel and opposes BDS. In a position paper from July, Ossoff wrote that he is “committed to Israel’s security as a homeland for the Jewish people.” (He personally has family there, he told the Atlanta Jewish Times.) To that end, he “vigorously” opposes the boycott Israel movement, supports continuing the robust American military aid to Israel and wants to see a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He also supports diplomacy with Iran, through a nuclear deal and otherwise, to curb its nuclear arsenal.
https://www.jta.org/2021/01/06/politics/jon-ossoff-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-newest-jewish-democratic-senator
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