{{Short description|American speechwriter, author, and lawyer}} {{pp|small=yes}} {{for|people with similar names|Sara Horowitz (disambiguation)}} {{Use American English|date=November 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=February 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Sarah Hurwitz | image = Nordiske Mediedager 2017 (33746304154) (cropped).jpg | birth_date = {{Birth based on age as of date|44|2025|October|12}} | birth_place = Wayland, Massachusetts | occupation = Speechwriter | alma_mater = Harvard University<br>Harvard Law School | boards = | website = {{url|SarahHurwitz.net}} }}
'''Sarah Hurwitz''' (born {{Birth based on age as of date|44|2025|October|12|noage=1}}<ref name="Silow-Carroll-2025a" />) is an American speechwriter. A senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama in 2009 and 2010, and head speechwriter for Michelle Obama from 2010 to 2017,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Shear |first1=Michael D. |date=July 25, 2016 |title=Michelle Obama Joins Forces With Her Predecessor (and Former Adversary) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/us/politics/michelle-obama-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0 |accessdate=26 July 2016 |work=New York Times}}</ref><ref name="Thompson-2016">{{cite news|last1=Thompson|first1=Krissah|title=What's on Michelle Obama's mind? Meet the speechwriter who puts it into words.|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/whats-on-michelle-obamas-mind-sarah-hurwitz-knows-how-to-put-it-in-words/2016/06/13/440d2130-3103-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html|accessdate=26 July 2016|newspaper=Washington Post|date=June 13, 2016}}</ref> she was appointed to serve on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council by Barack Obama shortly before he left the White House.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2017-01-16 |title=President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts |url=https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/16/president-obama-announces-more-key-administration-posts |access-date=2025-11-20 |website=whitehouse.gov |language=en}}</ref>
==Early life and education== Hurwitz is from Wayland, Massachusetts. She is Jewish. She attended Harvard University and Harvard Law School, and began her career as an intern in Al Gore's speechwriting office in 1998. <ref>{{Cite web |last=Joseph |first=Anne |date=2020-02-19 |title=Michelle Obama's speechwriter finds her Jewish path |url=https://www.thejc.com/life/michelle-obamas-speechwriter-finds-her-jewish-path-q77iryks |access-date=2025-11-23 |website=The Jewish Chronicle |language=en}}</ref> Hurwitz identifies as a liberal Zionist.<ref name="Silow-Carroll-2025a">{{Cite web|title=Sarah Hurwitz wants Jews to stop apologizing and start learning|url=https://www.jta.org/2025/10/12/ideas/sarah-hurwitz-wants-jews-to-stop-apologizing-and-start-learning|website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency|date=2025-10-12|access-date=2025-11-29|language=en-US|first=Andrew|last=Silow-Carroll|quote=Your book includes a chapter on Israel that aims to counter the accusations that Zionism is colonialist and racist. But you also include criticism of Israel, saying the country is not without its "serious flaws." How do you navigate the lonely place of being a liberal Zionist today, which I often define as being too Zionist for the liberals and too liberal for many Zionists?}}</ref>
== Career ==
=== Political speechwriting === She was chief speechwriter for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign and deputy chief speechwriter for the presidential campaigns of Senator John Kerry and General Wesley Clark.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wagner |first1=Susan L. |title=The Write Stuff: Presidential speechwriter from Wayland featured in documentary |url=https://www.metrowestdailynews.com/story/news/2009/09/02/the-write-stuff-presidential-speechwriter/41393316007/ |website=MetroWest Daily News |access-date=19 November 2025 |date=2 September 2009}}</ref>
She was offered a job as a senior speechwriter for then-Senator Barack Obama in his presidential campaign days after Clinton conceded. Her first assignment for Michelle Obama was to work with her on her address to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.<ref name="Thompson-2016" /> She also wrote her speeches at the 2012 and 2016 Democratic National Conventions.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/07/26/behind-michelle-obama-big-night-writer-from-wayland/JKrkC64mIQHnFruK78tcAJ/story.html|title=Behind Michelle Obama's big night, a writer from Wayland|last=Ramos|first=Nestor|website=BostonGlobe.com|access-date=2019-03-17}}</ref> After a couple of years as a senior speechwriter for President Obama, Hurwitz became chief speechwriter for Michelle Obama and also worked on policy issues affecting young women and girls as a senior advisor to the White House Council on Women and Girls.<ref name="The Institute of Politics at Harvard University">{{Cite web|url=https://iop.harvard.edu/fellows/sarah-hurwitz|title=Sarah Hurwitz|website=The Institute of Politics at Harvard University|language=en|access-date=2019-03-17}}</ref>
''The Forward'' included Hurwitz in their Forward 50 list as one of 2016's fifty most influential Jewish-Americans.<ref>{{cite web|title=Forward 50 2016 - Sarah Hurwitz - The Voice of Michelle Obama|url=http://forward.com/series/forward-50/2016/sarah-hurwitz/|website=The Forward|date=November 14, 2016 |publisher=The Forward Association|accessdate=25 May 2017}}</ref> She served as a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University in 2017.<ref name="The Institute of Politics at Harvard University" />
===Books=== Hurwitz's book, ''Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life -- in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There)'', about her rediscovery of Judaism, was published by Spiegel & Grau on September 3, 2019.<ref name="Kirkus Reviews">{{Cite web |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/sarah-hurwitz/here-all-along/ |title=Here All Along |website=Kirkus Reviews |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Martin |first=Rachel |date=2023-07-02 |title=She found meaning where she least expected it — her childhood faith |url=https://www.npr.org/2023/07/02/1184875650/faith-religion-judaism-sarah-hurwitz |access-date=2025-11-20 |work=NPR |language=en}}</ref> ''Kirkus Reviews'' called it "A solid guide to Judaism for reluctant believers."<ref name="Kirkus Reviews" />
In 2025, her second book, ''As a Jew,'' was published by HarperCollinsOne. It debuted on ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list on September 25, 2025.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Hardcover Nonfiction Books - Best Sellers - Books - Sept. 28, 2025 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/2025/09/28/hardcover-nonfiction/ |access-date=2025-11-20 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-10-12 |title=Sara Hurwitz relaims the Jewish story |url=https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-870225 |access-date=2025-11-20 |website=The Jerusalem Post |language=en}}</ref> In the book, she argues that Holocaust education fails if it does not show the historical scope of antisemitism.<ref name="Silow-Carroll-2025b" /> It includes a chapter that aims to counter the characterization of Zionism as colonialist and racist, and states that Israel is not without "serious flaws".<ref name="Silow-Carroll-2025a" />
=== 2025 remarks on the Gaza genocide === On November 16, 2025, Hurwitz was among three panelists at the plenary session of the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in Washington.<ref name="Silow-Carroll-2025b">{{Cite web |last=Silow-Carroll|first=Andrew|date=2025-11-26|title=Sarah Hurwitz, former Obama aide, stirs social media firestorm with remarks about Holocaust education|url=https://www.jta.org/2025/11/26/united-states/sarah-hurwitz-former-obama-aide-stirs-social-media-firestorm-with-remarks-about-holocaust-education|access-date=2025-11-27|website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYO2ZsQu0H8 |title=Eric Fingerhut, Sarah Hurwitz, Dr Micah Goodman, and Richard Marceau {{!}} 2025 Opening Plenary |date=2025-11-17 |last=Jewish Federations of North America |access-date=2025-12-03 |via=YouTube}}</ref> During the panel, Hurwitz said:
{{Blockquote|text="So you have TikTok just smashing our young people's brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza. And this is why so many of us can't have a sane conversation with younger Jews because anything that we try to say to them, they are hearing it through this wall of carnage. So I want to give data and information and facts and arguments and they are just seeing in their minds carnage and I sound obscene... Holocaust education is absolutely essential. But I think it may be confusing some of our young people about antisemitism, because they learn about big, strong Nazis hurting weak, emaciated Jews, and they think, 'Oh, antisemitism is like anti-black racism, right? Powerful white people against powerless black people.' So when on TikTok, all day long, they see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it's not surprising that they think, 'Oh, I know the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel. You fight the big, powerful people hurting the weak people."<ref name="Ackerman-2025" /><ref name="Mustafa-2025" /><ref name="Silow-Carroll-2025b" />}}
Hurwitz's remarks on the panel drew criticism on social media.<ref name="Mustafa-2025">{{Cite web|title=Backlash after former Obama speechwriter laments young Jews' empathy over Gaza 'carnage'|url=https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/backlash-ensues-after-former-obama-speechwriter-claims-youth-misinterpret-holocaust|website=Middle East Eye|access-date=2025-11-28|language=en|date=19 November 2025|last=Mustafa|first=Maysa}}</ref><ref name="Silow-Carroll-2025b" /><ref>{{Cite news |date=2025-11-23|title='Ban phones in Jewish schools': Obama's former speechwriter claims Gaza images make defending Israel 'impossible'|url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/ban-phones-in-jewish-schools-obamas-former-speechwriter-says-alleges-gaza-images-make-defending-israel-impossible/articleshow/125511649.cms|access-date=2025-11-27|work=The Times of India|issn=0971-8257}}</ref><ref name="Rosenfeld-2025">{{Cite web|title=As young Jews move away from Israel, Jewish leaders are reluctant to change their approach|url=https://forward.com/news/785155/jfna-israel-education-generational-divide/|website=The Forward|date=2025-11-21|access-date=2025-11-27|language=en|first=Arno|last=Rosenfeld}}</ref> Jenin Younes, legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, accused Hurwitz of using the Holocaust to silence criticism of Israel's actions in the Gaza war.<ref name="Silow-Carroll-2025b" /> Progressive Jews also criticized her remarks, with one rabbi writing, "She's not disagreeing with the moral lesson that we should stand against the powerful harming the vulnerable. She's upset that people are applying it universally. The lesson was supposed to stay contained, meant only for certain victims."<ref name="Silow-Carroll-2025b" />
Writing in his newsletter ''Forever Wars'', journalist Spencer Ackerman criticized Hurwitz for putting the blame on younger Jews for her own failure to communicate with them; "That's the core here.Hurwitz cannot cope with a younger generation of Jews recognizing the obscenity in what her Zionism has convinced her is justifiable." resolve the disconnect by reconsidering her views about Israel instead of Holocaust education. Ackerman further critiqued her characterization of Holocaust education as being the issue rather than Israeli behavior itself, arguing that the lesson of the Holocaust is meant to be "Never again for anyone. [...] For her, the lesson of the Holocaust is: Never again ''to us''."<ref name="Ackerman-2025">{{Cite web |date=2025-11-21|title=Sarah Hurwitz Profanes the Holocaust|url=https://www.forever-wars.com/sarah-hurwitz-profanes-the-holocaust/|access-date=2025-11-23|website=Forever Wars|language=en|last=Ackerman|first=Spencer}}</ref>
Palestinian American writer Yousef Munayyer commented, "It never dawns on them that maybe the solution is to just treat Palestinians as equal human beings. Ban cell phones, ditch holocaust education, shut down TikTok, sue the universities into the ground. All that is easier and more reasonable for them than treating us as humans."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Skwawkbox |date=2025-11-23 |title=Obama aide Hurwitz says it again: Gaza's dead children are inconveniencing Israel |url=https://www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/2025/11/23/hurwitz-israel-gaza/ |access-date=2026-05-29 |website=Canary |language=en-GB}}</ref>
That December, Hurwitz said on a podcast, "If you actually look at the two of them, the tropes are kind of the same, right? The right is saying that Jews are doing a white genocide, and the left is saying they’re doing a genocide in Gaza. It’s like the same, it’s very similar tropes."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://adcri.media/adc-media-watch/sarah-hurwitz-strikes-again-gaza-genocide-claim-is-akin-to-great-replacement-theory/|title=Sarah Hurwitz Strikes Again: Gaza Genocide Claim Is Akin to Great Replacement Theory|date=December 11, 2025|website=ADC Media Watch}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hurwitz, Sarah}} Category:Speechwriters for presidents of the United States Category:People from Wayland, Massachusetts Category:Harvard Law School alumni Category:Jewish American non-fiction writers Category:Jewish American women writers Category:21st-century American Jews Category:21st-century American women writers Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers Category:American women non-fiction writers Category:Obama administration personnel Category:21st-century American women civil servants Category:American Zionists Category:1980s births Category:Living people