SUMMARY (ALL TIMES EST):
– Listen to our interviews: Arutz 2 News' Nitzan Horowitz, Tablet Magazine's Yair Rosenberg, President of J-Street Jeremy Ben-Ami
– To read our coverage of the first day, click here, second day, click here, and third day, click here
– Keynote speakers tonight are Chelsea and Hillary Clinton
– There will be Jewish Week interviews with Harry Enten of FiveThirtyEight, and Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois.
– Opinion polls currently suggest a close race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
– Get in touch and let us know your thoughts, either via Twitter (@TheSaharZ) or via email (sahar@jewishweek.org)
LIVE UPDATES (PAGE MUST BE REFRESHED MANUALLY):
3:03pm The gavel has been brought forward to 4pm, which means I need to move over to the convention center. Go to www.twitter.com/NYJewishWeek to keep following live updates all throughout the evening.
2:46pm We're now done with the speeches and are moving on to a panel, which is being introduced. Among the speakers is former Congressman Robert Wexler, who you may remember from about an hour ago. Also here are Ann Lewis, a Democratic Party strategist who has served with Bill and Hillary Clinton in various roles, and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, who we were supposed to be interviewing but unfortunately will not be able to, owing to another commitment which has just come up.
2:35pm On a technical note, tonight's live blog will be transferring to Twitter. This is because of ongoing problems with my computer and the wifi in the arena. If you're not on Twitter, fear not. Go to www.twitter.com/NYJewishWeek, and you will be able to see all the updates, and it should even be smoother than it is on this website. You don't need to be signed up, so it will be just like following it here. Don't go yet though, there's still this Jewish roundtable. Next up is former Congressman Barney Frank, the first openly-gay member of Congress, whose legacy includes the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform bill.
2:32pm Dean talks about the need to bring out the Jewish vote in Florida and Pennsylvania, two states which Harry Enten talked about in our interview yesterday. A link, you say? Here you go: soundcloud.com/user-59807874/dnc_podcast_4
2:26pm Howard Dean, former chair of the DNC, is now up on stage. He talks about his Jewish wife, and about his children who decided themselves to grow up Jewish. He brings up Donald Trump, and links his success to Marine Le Pen in France and Brexit in Britain, and says that it's about a wave of people who feel left behind and disillusioned.
2:20pm slight mix-up with the rooms for the Jewish roundtable, but I'm there now. I've walked in on a speech about Donald Trump's foreign policy and tax returns. I'm assuming they'll get to the Jewish stuff in a minute.
1:39pm We're done now, Congressman Wexler says they might not agree on everything, but praises Ron Dermer for his integrity, patriotism and values. On to the Jewish roundtable next.
1:36pm We're into a Q&A session now. Most of the questions are attempting to talk about what Israel could do better or differently, and Ambassador Dermer is deflecting them all back to talk about Abbas' weaknesses and Palestinian unwillingness to negotiate.
1:13pm
1:10pm We've now had two mentions of Bill Clinton's pin from last night, so in case you missed it, here it is again:
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1:07pm He says that any attempt to remove settlements as part of a final peace deal would amount to "ethnic cleansing." A frustrated Congressman Wexler says "we'll agree to disagree."
12:59pm Amb. Dermer giving a robust defence of Netanyahu, and lays the blame for the failure to achieve any progress at the door of Mahmoud Abbas. He says the Palestinian leadership wants a solution that both gives them what they want and continues the conflict.
12:52 Referring to the Bar-Ilan speech and Netanyahu's support for a two-state solution and how committed he is, Amb. Dermer says that Netanyahu's goal is very clear, "he wants to reach a settlement." Perhaps an unfortunate choice of words.
12:39 Security not stringent enough apparently, one protester snuck through. Swiftly removed though and on we go. Ambassador Dermer says he agrees with Rep. Wexler that "the progressive case for Israel is not made enough."
12:36pm We're underway now, the speakers are former Congressman Robert Wexler, the current president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, which is hosting the event, and Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer.
12:27pm This event appears to be running on New York time. It's currently half an hour late, mainly because there are very few people here, I think because they're trying to make their way from the AJC convention which just ended. From here it's straight on to the Jewish Roundtable event.
12:18pm Stringent security at the entrance to the convention center for the "US-Israel Alliance" event, as you might expect. There is a small group of protesters outside. Unlike the J Street event, where they were from the Republican Jewish Coalition, this time they're from the other end of the political spectrum. Who'd be a Jew?
11:39am We're spoiling you today, with two interviews instead of one. Here is the first one, and it's with Harry Enten, senior political writer for famed data journalism website FiveThirtyEight. We talk about how Jews vote, why they vote the way they do, and what he would expect to see this November:
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