RECENT NEWS

scoop

Sen. John Fetterman to take second trip to Israel on Sunday

The Pennsylvania Democrat first traveled to Israel in June 2024

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Sen. John Fetterman, (D-PA) talks with reporters after the Senate luncheons in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) will travel to Israel on Sunday for his second visit to the Jewish state, the Pennsylvania Democrat told Jewish Insider on Friday.

Fetterman told JI of his plans in the Capitol early Friday evening while waiting to finish votes on funding legislation to prevent a government shutdown. The trip will mark Fetterman’s third international trip since being elected to the Senate in 2022. He did not elaborate on his schedule while in Israel. 

The Senate will be out of session all of next week.

Fetterman visited the Jewish state for the first time last June, during which he had meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Labor Party leader Yair Golan and Defense Minister Israel Katz, who was then serving as the country’s foreign minister. He also met with then-U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew and families of hostages.

Fetterman opted against visiting the sites of Hamas’ on Oct. 7, 2023, massacres during his first trip, saying at the time that he did not want to make anyone relive their trauma. He instead visited with students and faculty at Hebrew University and took a tour of Yad Vashem, the nation’s Holocaust memorial and museum.

Fetterman has also only been on one other congressional delegation out of the United States. His first trip after being elected was a brief visit to Turks and Caicos last May as part of a bipartisan delegation that facilitated the release of five detained Americans.

Fetterman, who suffered a stroke during his Senate campaign, has spent most of his first term thus far between Washington and Pennsylvania. 

Subscribe now to
the Daily Kickoff

The politics and business news you need to stay up to date, delivered each morning in a must-read newsletter.