Ami Horowitz is an American
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
documentary filmmaker
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
and activist. He is the writer, producer, and director of ''Ami on the Loose'', a satirical short film series made for
Fox News
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...
. Horowitz co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in the 2012 documentary ''
U.N. Me'', a critical examination of the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
.
Horowitz came to some prominence after the release of his 10-minute documentary ''Stockholm Syndrome'', on the relationship between immigration and crime in Sweden. Horowitz's commentary appears to have influenced President Donald Trump's rhetoric on the same subject. Some of Horowitz's statements about Sweden in the film and in subsequent interviews were described as false by fact-checkers, news organizations, criminologists, and by Swedish authorities.
Early life
A native of Los Angeles, Horowitz graduated from the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
with majors in political science and philosophy.
Horowitz's mother is from
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
.
He is a
Modern Orthodox Jew
Modern Orthodox Judaism (also Modern Orthodox or Modern Orthodoxy) is a movement within Orthodox Judaism that attempts to synthesize Jewish values and the observance of Jewish law with the secular, modern world.
Modern Orthodoxy draws on seve ...
, and spent a year at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
in Israel.
Career
After graduating from USC, Horowitz managed a Democratic candidate's unsuccessful campaign for state
comptroller
A comptroller (pronounced either the same as ''controller'' or as ) is a management-level position responsible for supervising the quality of accounting and financial reporting of an organization. A financial comptroller is a senior-level executi ...
of
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
. Then, taking the candidate's advice to "make money and go into politics later," he went into investment banking, and spent sixteen years in that field. During that period, he worked at
Lehman Brothers
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Gol ...
.
Asked by Brian Lamb on C-SPAN about his political views, Horowitz described himself as "right-of-center" but "not reflexively" so.
Executive order against anti-Semitism
Horowitz released a video from a Middle East conference hosted by Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
and UNC-Chapel Hill, that was largely paid for by the U.S. government. The video showed edited clips of a performance by Palestinian-Israeli rapper Tamer Nafar
Tamer Nafar ( ar, تامر النفار, he, תאמר נפאר; born June 6, 1979) is an Israeli rapper, actor, screenwriter and social activist who identifies as Palestinian. He is the leader and a founding member of DAM, the first Palestini ...
of a satirical song called "Mama, I fell in love with a Jew". Because of Horowitz's video, the Department of Education sued the universities and President Trump signed an executive order against anti-Semitism.
''U.N. Me''
Horowitz's film '' U.N. Me'', released in theaters in 2012, was produced, directed, and written by Horowitz and Matthew Groff. Neil Genzlinger of ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' called ''U.N. Me'' "a sassy documentary that suggests the United Nations is doing more harm than good", saying "Mr. Horowitz, the on-camera gadfly, finds ways to work wit into decidedly unpleasant subject matter."
Short films
Under the titles of ''Ami on the Street'', ''Ami on the Loose'', and ''An Ami Horowitz Digital Short'', Horowitz created satirical short films that have appeared on FOX News
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...
and YouTube. The films include "Do cops' lives matter?", "Do liberals even know what's in the Iran deal?", "Ferguson Protestors Call for Darren Wilson's Death", "What do you know about the IRS and ObamaCare?", and exposing "anti-Israel companies in Ireland".
ISIS flag at UC Berkeley
In one of Horowitz's videos, he acted as "an ISIS
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...
supporter" while shouting terrorist rants and waving an ISIS flag inside UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...
. According to the video, most of the students ignored his "terrorist rants", but a "few gave him a thumbs-up, wished him luck and smiled". Horowitz later switched to a "Zionist tirade" and began waving an Israeli flag. The video then shows students expressing their outrage toward Israel, cursing and giving Horowitz obscene gestures. How long the videos took to create, and what edits were made is unclear, but Horowitz does appear in different outfits during the two parts of the video.
Portland State University students raise money for Hamas
In May 2016, Horowitz released
video
on FoxNews.com to "see just how far America's liberal students in the Pacific Northwest were willing to take the BDS Movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel. Its objective is to pressure Israel to meet what the BDS movement describes as Israel's obligations u ...
) against our ally, Israel". Posing as a volunteer for the faux-organization American Friends of Hamas, Horowitz said he raised several hundred dollars from students to "wipe Israel off the map". He told Fox News afterward, "Let's be clear. It's not that these kids are stupid or misinformed or ignorant—I could not have spelled it out more specifically, that we want to use this money to kill Jews".
''Stockholm Syndrome''
In December 2016, Horowitz's 10-minute film ''Stockholm Syndrome'', which explores the "cultural and religious clashes between liberal Swedes and the recent influx of refugee immigrants", was released on FoxNews.com
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conservatism in the United States, conservative cable television, cable List of news televisi ...
and YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
. Filmed in September 2016 in Sweden it features what Horowitz described as " no-go zones". Horowitz said police told him that "when we're pursuing a suspect, and they cross that threshold, and there's about 30 or 40 of them in Sweden, they will not pursue". The film includes audio footage that he says is of himself being "punched, kicked and choked" by Arabic-speaking men that he was trying to film in Husby, Stockholm
Husby is a district ( sv, stadsdel) in Rinkeby-Kista borough, Stockholm, Sweden. Husby has 11,551 inhabitants as of December 31, 2007.
Husby is located on the blue Metro line. The main construction of modern Husby, with its multi-level concrete ...
. on February 17, 2017, Horowitz appeared on the Fox News
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owne ...
program ''Tucker Carlson Tonight
''Tucker Carlson Tonight'' is an American talk show and current affairs program hosted by conservative commentator Tucker Carlson on the television network Fox News. The show premiered in November 2016 and includes political commentary, monolog ...
'' to discuss the documentary; President Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
referred to the interview indirectly in a speech the next day.
Some of Horowitz's statements about Sweden in the film and in subsequent interviews were described as false by fact-checkers, news organizations and criminologists as well as Swedish authorities.[
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] Two policemen who were featured in Horowitz's film said that Horowitz edited answers and questions to misrepresent them. Two cameramen involved in the project later concurred, after reviewing the raw film, that the footage had been unethically edited to misrepresent the subjects. Horowitz denies it, but refused to show the raw material.
2020 presidential campaign
On May 8, 2019, Horowitz announced on Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
that he was running for president of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
in 2020
2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...
, stating that he was running as a Democrat
Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to:
Politics
*A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people.
*A member of a Democratic Party:
**Democratic Party (United States) (D)
**Democratic ...
because "all their current candidates are insane" and would be soliciting $1 donations in order to qualify for the Democratic presidential primary debates.
Horowitz did not qualify for any of the Democratic presidential debates. He filed a report with the Federal Election Commission
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency of the United States whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. Created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Cam ...
that his campaign had terminated as of July 31, 2019.
References
External links
2020 Presidential campaign website
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Horowitz, Ami
Living people
Writers from Los Angeles
University of Southern California alumni
Writers from New York City
Year of birth missing (living people)
American documentary filmmakers
American political writers
American male non-fiction writers
Candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election
Jewish American candidates for President of the United States
21st-century American Jews