Joel Rubin is a Jewish community leader, public servant, foreign policy expert, political operative, non-profit executive, and media pundit with more than two decades of experience in Washington.
In the Jewish community, Joel has a uniquely diverse background of work in both establishment Jewish community institutions and key Democratic political organizations and campaigns. Joel was the Executive Director of the American Jewish Congress, which is a member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; a foreign policy advisor to Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ); a founding Board Member of the Jewish Democratic Council of America; the founding Political Director of J Street; a surrogate for the Obama 2012 campaign; the national Jewish Outreach Director for the Sanders 2020 presidential campaign; and a member of the Jewish teams for the Biden-Harris 2020 and Harris-Walz 2024 campaigns.
In public service, foreign policy, politics and the non-profit sphere, Joel has a broad array of key experiences. He was the Obama Administration’s Deputy Assistant State for Legislative Affairs to the House of Representatives, overseeing a team of two dozen professional staff covering all foreign policy issues. During that time, he also testified to the Congressional Benghazi Committee. Earlier, he was a civil servant in the State Department during the Bush Administration, entering government as a Presidential Management Fellow; he began his public service career as an Environmental Education Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica. In politics, Joel ran for Congress in Maryland, raising more than half a million dollars from over a thousand donors and was elected three times to serve in local government, including as the Vice Mayor of the Town of Chevy Chase (a non-partisan office). And in the non-profit arena, Joel was the Policy Director of Ploughshares Fund and Vice President of National Peace Corps Association.
In the media, Joel is a frequently sought-after commentator by both national and international networks. He has appeared on television nearly 1,400 times on multiple outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, FOX, NewsNation, the BBC, i24, and Al Hurra, including more than 200 times since October 7th on the wars in the Middle East. He has also written extensively about Jewish politics, domestic policy, and foreign affairs for The Hill, The Daily Beast, The Forward, Foreign Policy, and the Times of Israel, where he’s a columnist. Joel also publishes a weekly Substack newsletter entitled The Briefing Book, which has over 40,000 subscribers; and on social media, he has nearly 80,000 followers on BlueSky and more than 30,000 followers on Twitter/X. Lastly, Joel has a deep network of strong relationships with Jewish, political, and international media contacts (reporters, bookers, producers, opinion editorial writers) and is frequently sought out for print media quotes.
