Norm Coleman Chairman, Republican Jewish Coalition
Matthew Brooks Executive Director, Republican Jewish Coalition
Coleman, a former Republican senator from Minnesota, and Brooks, head this leading Jewish lobby organization focusing on Republican lawmakers. The RJC has strong ties to mega-donor and Donald Trump supporter Sheldon Adelson but has had its differences with the president over what some say seems like ambivalence on Trump’s part to speak out on racial issues and anti-Semitism. Last year, Coleman called on the president to show “greater moral clarity” after he appeared to equate white supremacists with protesters who clashed with them. The RJC also had issues with Trump’s failure to mention Jewish victims in a Holocaust Remembrance Day statement. But when Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and said he would move the Tel Aviv-based U.S. embassy there, the RJC took out a full-page ad in the New York Times thanking him for his decision, notwithstanding international condemnation for the move and the riots that ensued in the West Bank.
