Jack Lew

Jacob Joseph “Jack” Lew, born August 29, 1955, is a Jewish-American attorney, public servant, and diplomat. Over more than five decades in public life, he held senior positions in Democratic administrations, academia, and finance. He served twice as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, as White House chief of staff, and as the 76th United States secretary of the treasury. From 2023 to 2025, he served as the United States ambassador to Israel.

Lew’s importance lies not simply in the offices he held, but in the systems he helped manage. His work centered on the difficult infrastructure behind public policy: budgets, appropriations, national service, interagency coordination, economic policy, and negotiations between the White House and Congress. As an observant Jew who reached the highest levels of American government, he also represents an important chapter in the story of Jewish participation and influence in American public life.

Early life, education, and public service

Lew was born and raised in New York City in a Jewish family. His father, Irving Lew, was a lawyer and rare-book dealer who had come to the United States from Poland as a child. Lew attended New York City public schools, graduated from Harvard College in 1978, and earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1983.

He began his career in Washington in 1973 as a legislative assistant to Representative Joe Moakley. From 1979 to 1987, he was a senior domestic-policy adviser to House Speaker Tip O’Neill. His responsibilities covered major areas of American policy, including Social Security, Medicare, budgets, taxation, trade, appropriations, and energy. He advanced within the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, first as assistant director and later as executive director.

Before returning to government, Lew practiced law for about five years at Van Ness, Feldman and Curtis, where he focused primarily on electric-power law. He also worked at the Center for Middle East Research, served as an issues director for the Democratic National Committee’s 1988 campaign, and became deputy director of the Office of Program Analysis in Boston’s Office of Management and Budget. This combination of legal, policy, and administrative experience prepared him for positions requiring both strategic judgment and practical implementation.

The Clinton administration: budgets, national service, and negotiation

From February 1993 to 1994, Lew served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton. He worked on policy development and helped draft the national-service initiative that became AmeriCorps, a program designed to expand opportunities for service in communities across the United States. He was also involved in White House work on health-care reform legislation.

In October 1994, Lew moved to the Office of Management and Budget, where he served as executive associate director and associate director for legislative affairs. From August 1995 through July 1998, he was OMB’s deputy director and chief operating officer. He managed a staff of approximately 500 people and coordinated the administration’s work on budgets and appropriations. The role required more than technical expertise: it demanded the ability to build workable agreements among institutions, parties, and competing public priorities.

Lew was part of the administration’s negotiating team during the debate over the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. His work during this period established his reputation as a careful and effective negotiator. On July 31, 1998, the Senate confirmed him as director of the Office of Management and Budget, a position he held until the end of the Clinton administration in January 2001.

As OMB director, Lew had lead responsibility for the administration’s budget, management, and appropriations policies. He served in the Cabinet and on the senior economic team, advised the president on domestic and international matters, represented the administration in negotiations with Congress, and served on the National Security Council. In his hands, the federal budget was not merely an accounting document; it was a central instrument for setting national priorities.

Academia, management, and finance

After the Clinton administration, Lew joined New York University, where he served as executive vice president for operations and as a clinical professor at the Wagner School of Public Service. His work at NYU extended his experience beyond government. He managed a major academic institution while helping prepare students and professionals for public service.

In 2006, he became chief operating officer of Citigroup’s Alternative Investments unit. His experience in finance gave him additional insight into the operation of large financial institutions and the relationship among markets, regulation, and government policy. He also served in professional and civic roles, including membership in the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution’s advisory structures, and the National Academy of Social Insurance.

The Obama administration: managing policy in a time of crisis

After Barack Obama was elected president, Lew became deputy secretary of state for management and resources. In that position, he served as the State Department’s chief operating officer and focused primarily on resources, budget, and management, while his fellow deputy secretary, James Steinberg, concentrated on policy. Lew also co-led a comprehensive review of American diplomacy and development policy.

In July 2010, Obama announced that Lew would replace Peter Orszag as director of the Office of Management and Budget. The Senate confirmed him in November. In this role, Lew helped prepare the administration’s 2011 budget, which proposed reducing the deficit through a combination of spending reductions, changes to mandatory programs, and increased revenues. His work reflected the enduring challenge of public finance: reconciling fiscal responsibility with economic growth and the protection of public programs.

In January 2012, Obama appointed Lew as White House chief of staff. He served until January 2013 and was involved in the administration’s effort to reach agreement with House Speaker John Boehner over budget questions, the debt ceiling, and the threat of the “fiscal cliff.” A chief of staff must coordinate the White House, manage the president’s priorities, and mediate among officials, members of Congress, and political partners. Lew’s experience with budgets and negotiation made him particularly suited to that task.

United States Secretary of the Treasury

On January 10, 2013, Obama announced that he would nominate Lew as secretary of the treasury. The Senate confirmed him on February 27, and he was sworn in the following day. He served as the 76th United States secretary of the treasury from 2013 to 2017.

As treasury secretary, Lew led one of the central institutions of the American government. The department is responsible for national financial and economic policy, management of the federal debt, relations with international financial institutions, and the country’s economic representation abroad. His tenure also involved questions of financial stability and the government’s ability to meet its obligations.

One of the most visible challenges of his tenure was the recurring congressional debate over raising or suspending the debt ceiling. In December 2013, Lew warned that the government could run short of cash within months and emphasized that raising the debt limit does not authorize new spending; it allows the government to pay obligations that Congress has already approved. His explanation clarified a basic but frequently misunderstood distinction in the operation of government finance.

In May 2014, Georgetown University awarded Lew an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, and he spoke at the first commencement ceremony of the McCourt School of Public Policy. In June of that year, The Jerusalem Post named him one of the fifty most influential Jews in the world, recognizing both his public stature and the significance of an observant Jewish figure serving at the highest levels of the American government.

Ambassador to Israel

In September 2023, President Joe Biden nominated Lew to be the United States ambassador to Israel. The Senate confirmed him on October 31, and on November 5 he presented his credentials to President Isaac Herzog. Lew served in Jerusalem until April 2025, when Mike Huckabee became the next ambassador.

Lew’s ambassadorship unfolded during war and humanitarian crisis following the October 7, 2023, attack. Together with the administration’s humanitarian envoy, David Satterfield, he was involved in diplomatic efforts to maintain the passage of humanitarian assistance into Gaza. In an article published with Satterfield in Foreign Affairs in August 2025, he described American efforts to promote the entry of hundreds of aid trucks each day and the diplomatic pressure brought to bear in support of that goal. His tenure illustrated the complexity of American diplomacy in Israel, where alliance, security, humanitarian assistance, and political responsibility intersect.

Jewish identity and community ties

Lew was raised in a Jewish home and is an observant Orthodox Jew. Throughout his public career, he maintained Shabbat observance and was connected to Jewish communities in several places where he lived and worked, including Beth Sholom Congregation in Potomac, TheSHUL of the Nation’s Capital and Kesher Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C., and the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in the Bronx.

His Jewish identity was not merely a private biographical detail. Lew belonged to a generation of Jewish-American leaders who brought experience rooted in community life, American higher education, and public service to the highest levels of government. At age 16, in 1971, he helped organize the New York March Against Hunger. In 2018, Queens Community House honored him for his lifelong contributions to social equality.

Why this legacy belongs in Moreshet

Jack Lew merits inclusion in the archive because he spent decades working at the points where government decisions become policies affecting millions of lives. He helped shape the budget policies of the Clinton and Obama administrations, contributed to the creation of AmeriCorps, managed large public organizations, negotiated with Congress, and served as treasury secretary when the financial stability of the United States was a central national concern.

His career also illuminates the contribution of Jewish Americans to the public life of the United States and the possibility of combining religious observance with national and international leadership. As ambassador to Israel, he brought his economic and governmental experience to the central relationship between the United States and the State of Israel during an especially difficult period. For these reasons, Moreshet preserves Lew’s story not only as an individual career, but as part of the broader history of Jewish influence on democratic institutions, economic policy, and Israel–United States relations. Moreshet.com offers readers the context needed to understand why public service, Jewish identity, and responsible institutional leadership belong to the shared heritage of the Jewish people and the wider world.