Jonathan Calt Harris

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Jonathan Calt Harris (born December 27, 1969) a native of Illinois, is an American conservative writer and editor, and a Christian pro-Israel activist. He currently serves as an assistant director of Policy & Government Affairs at AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.


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[edit] Education

Harris graduated from the University of Illinois in 1998 in History and attended graduate school at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Religious Studies, living in Israel for the first half of 1996 as an undergrad, and from October of 1998 to July of 2000 as a graduate student. Harris does not claim a graduate degree.

[edit] Journalism

Harris worked for Time magazine in Jerusalem from 1998-2000, and as a reporter in New York for much of 2001. Harris worked as a researcher and occasional contributor for Time magazine’s Jerusalem bureau while in graduate school.

Harris' articles on academia and Middle East studies have appeared in National Review Online, The Washington Times, The New York Post, the Middle East Quarterly and various conservative online sources. [1]

[edit] Campus Watch

Harris served as the managing editor of the controversial academic review website Campus Watch from October of 2002 through May of 2004. Harris continued to write and edit for Campus Watch until registering as a lobbyist in January of 2005.

Through Campus Watch, Harris published several highly critical profiles of individual academics including Sarah Lawrence scholar Fawaz Gerges, Columbia University's Rashid Khalidi, and the University of Michigan's Juan Cole who he has called "anti-Israel to the point of being an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist." [2] The academic Middle East Studies Association of America, then headed by Cole, was the subject of several pieces, with Calt Harris referring to it as "once respectable group of scholars which has now become a hive of academic opposition of America, Israel, and...rationalism."

[edit] Advocacy

Jonathan Calt Harris did not publish under by-line while serving as an in-house Washington lobbyist for Zionist Organization of America[3]. He was registered with the government from 2005-2007 as the ZOA's "Assistant Director of Government Relations" [4]

Harris left ZOA in March of 2007. He was executive director of the Michigan chapter of StandWithUs, from since April of 2007 to April of 2008. In September of 2007, he was interviewed regarding Christian Zionism by the Detroit Jewish News, where he published several editorials on the Pluto Press controversy at the University of Michigan. Harris, through StandWithUs, organized a coalition of local community organizations to protest the unique Pluto Press contract with UM Press. The contract is up for review or cancellation in June of 2008.

Most recently, Harris has written on Christian Zionism for the Jewish Policy Center. Harris joined AIPAC in June of 2008.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ John Calt Harris Articles on Middle East Forum website
  2. ^ Caught in the Crossfire between Academics
  3. ^ Jonathan Harris Lobbyist Registration on Open Secrets website
  4. ^ ZOA Lobbying Report on Open Secrets website.