James Zogby

Zogby's father, Joseph, illegally immigrated from Lebanon to the United States in 1922.

He eventually obtained citizenship through a government policy of amnesty and worked as a grocer.

He married Celia Ann, a teacher, also born with the surname "Zogby"; they lived in Utica, New York, where their children were born.

Zogby, like his parents, is Catholic.

James Joseph Zogby (from زغبي, Zuġbīy) (born 1945) is the founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, D.C.–based organization that serves as a political and policy research arm of the Arab-American community.

He is Managing Director of Zogby Research Services, LLC, specializing in research and communications and undertaking polling across the Arab world.

He attended Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, graduating in 1967 with a bachelor's degree in economics.

During the late 1970s Zogby was a founding member and leader of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign.

He went on to earn his Ph.D. in Islamic studies from Temple University in 1975.

He studied at Princeton University in 1976 as a National Endowment for the Humanities post-doctoral fellow.

In 1980 he co-founded the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee with former U.S. Senator James Abourezk and served as executive director until 1984.

In 1980 Zogby's office in Washington, D.C. was fire-bombed.

In 1982, while at ADC, Zogby helped create Save Lebanon, Inc., a private, nonprofit, non-sectarian humanitarian relief organization to fund social welfare projects in Lebanon and health care for Palestinian and Lebanese victims of war.

In 1984 and 1988 Zogby served as deputy campaign manager and senior advisor to Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns.

In March 1985 Zogby founded the Arab American Institute, of which he is still president.

Since 1992 Zogby has written Washington Watch, a weekly column on American politics for major Arab newspapers, which is published in 14 Arab and South Asian countries.

He has written several books, including What Ethnic Americans Really Think (The Zogby Culture Polls) and What Arabs Think: Values, Beliefs and Concerns.

He also blogs at The Huffington Post and is a member of Politico's Arena.

Zogby hosted a weekly interview and call-in discussion program, Viewpoint with James Zogby, about Middle East and world issues on Abu Dhabi Television, which was broadcast in America on Link TV, DirecTV and Dish Network.

The show won an award at the Cairo Radio/Television Festival.

In 1993 Vice President Al Gore tapped Zogby to help lead Builders for Peace after the signing of the Israeli–Palestinian peace accord in Washington.

As co-president of Builders, Zogby promoted business investment by Arab-Americans in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

As co-president of Builders, Zogby frequently traveled to the Middle East with delegations led by Gore and Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown.

In 1994 he led a U.S. delegation to the signing of the agreement in Cairo, Egypt, along with the Builders co-president, former U.S. Congressman Mel Levine.

Zogby also chaired a forum on the Palestinian economy at the Casablanca Economic Summit.

After 1994, through Builders, Zogby worked with a number of U.S. Agencies to promote and support Palestinian economic development including AID, OPIC, USTDA, and the Departments of State and Commerce.

In 1995 he was appointed as co-convener of the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Committee (NDECC), an umbrella organization within the Democratic Party of leaders of European and Mediterranean descent, to which he was reelected in 1999 and 2001.

From 2001 to 2017 he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee.

Also in 2001 he was appointed to the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and in 2006 he was named co-chair of the DNC's Resolutions Committee.

In July 2006, during the 2006 Lebanon War, Zogby and other senior Arab American Institute employees were threatened in emails and voice mail messages from Patrick Syring, a career Foreign Service Officer of the U.S. State Department.

Syring accused Zogby and the Arab American Institute of being part of Hezbollah, and Zogby of being an anti-Semite.

He served as Gore's Senior Advisor on Ethnic Outreach, a post he also held in the 2008 Obama campaign.

As an author and scholar on Middle East issues and the Arab-American community, Zogby has been invited to testify before a number of Congressional Committees and Executive branch forums, including on the subject of Arab attitudes toward the United States.

He has been a guest speaker in the Secretary's Open Forum at the U.S. Department of State.

Zogby has also addressed the United Nations and other international forums.

He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In September 2013 President Obama appointed Zogby to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Zogby is a lecturer and scholar on Middle East issues and a Visiting Professor of Social Research and Public Policy at New York University Abu Dhabi.

President Obama appointed Zogby to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2013 and reappointed him to a second term in 2015.

Zogby has been the target of repeated anti-Arab threats, for which at least three men have been convicted and sent to prison.