Jeff Ballabon

Who is Jeff Ballabon?

Jeff Ballabon is an American media executive and formerly a lobbyist, a lawyer, and a political and Orthodox Jewish community activist.

He is a lawyer and graduate of Yale Law School, with degrees in Jewish law from Ner Israel Rabbinical College and in literature from Yeshiva University. He served as counsel to Senator John Danforth of Missouri and to the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. He interned briefly at the State of Israel's Ministry of Justice, where he worked on several matters, including the formulation of Israel's Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty.

He subsequently ran the public policy and communications departments for Court TV, Channel One News and Primedia. In the 1990s, an era of extremely high profile trials, like the O.J. Simpson murder trial, Ballabon was a leader in the campaign to allow US court proceedings to be televised.

The Forward labeled Ballabon one of the "50 Most Influential Jews in America," called him "the architect of Bush's 2004 re-election effort in the Orthodox community."

Ballabon is a key point of contact for the Jewish community with Christian leaders, as well.