News

Developer Funds Interests Coming and Going

By Nathan Guttman January 11, 2011

Irving Moskowitz, the Florida businessman and champion of right-wing causes in Israel, is also a big donor for the incoming Republican chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Laura Rozen in Politico reported Monday that Moskowitz and his wife donated in this past election cycle $9,600 to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who this week assumed the chairmanship of the House committee that oversees foreign policy.

But this is not the only place where Moskowitz is putting his money. He is also the developer and funder of a 20-unit apartment complex in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheik Jarrah. This complex will be built over the ruins of the building known as the Shepherd Hotel, which was demolished this week by Israeli authorities in order to make way for the new project.

And this is where it gets interesting.

Moskowitz is funding the project and is also supporting Ros-Lehtinen. Ros-Lehtinen is now in a position to pose difficult questions to the State Department. And the State Department, with a harshly worded statement by Secretary Hillary Clinton on Sunday, made clear it really opposes Moskowitz’s building project in East Jerusalem. In fact, Clinton even called the tearing down the Shepherd Hotel to make room for the Jewish housing project a “disturbing development.”

And even if Clinton won’t hear from Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on this issue, she is sure to hear from Abe Foxman of the Anti Defamation League. He sent out a letter to Clinton, as well as to the UN and EU leaders, protesting their criticism of Israel’s decision to demolish the hotel and build a Jewish apartment building. The letters were described as “private” but in a press release the ADL said it was “deeply concerned by this barrage of condemnation aimed at Israel.”

Nathan Guttman, staff writer, was the Forward’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha’aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO