A man in his late 30s with no government experience, no clear job title, and no official role in any Senate office has become the most influential figure in Senator John Fetterman's political orbit, and almost nobody in Washington knows who he is.
David "Dovi" Safier, who describes himself publicly as a "business professional," has spent the past two years gaining extraordinary access to the Pennsylvania Democrat's schedule, his meetings with foreign heads of state, and even his phone calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. New York Magazine reported that eleven current and former Fetterman staffers, all requesting anonymity, described Safier's growing presence with a mix of bewilderment and frustration. One former staffer summed up the office mood: "Oh God, Safier is here, and now John's not gonna go to any of his meetings."
The arrangement raises a straightforward question that neither Fetterman's office nor Safier has answered: Who, exactly, is advising a sitting United States senator on matters of war and diplomacy, and on whose behalf?
Safier first met Fetterman at a 2023 fundraiser in midtown Manhattan. Bob Pincus, a national board member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, helped Fetterman's staff arrange the event with a member of what Pincus called "our broader community." Safier co-hosted. Pincus told New York Magazine he "did not make an introduction" between the two men, but the connection stuck.
By the summer of 2024, staffers noticed Safier appearing at Fetterman's Capitol Hill office with increasing frequency. They would find him sitting inside, waiting to talk to the senator. After those conversations, multiple staffers said, Fetterman would appear "far more radicalized" on Israel.
The word "radicalized" is the staffers' own. It captures something specific: a first-term senator who arrived in Washington focused on working-class economics steadily reorienting his entire public identity around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, guided in significant part by an unpaid outsider with deep family ties to the pro-Israel establishment.
Safier's grandfather was Zev Wolfson, a real-estate magnate who died in 2012 at age 84, leaving behind hundreds of millions in assets. Wolfson's influence on U.S.-Israel relations was vast and largely behind the scenes. A Jerusalem Post obituary credited him with convincing members of Congress to send Phantom jets to Israel in the 1960s. In the 1980s, he was described as "personally responsible for saving Israel hundreds of millions of dollars in interest payments on US government loans." In the 1990s, he helped the Israeli military secure Patriot missiles.
The Israeli Embassy posthumously recognized Wolfson as one of the "greatest American contributors to the U.S.-Israel relationship." A late-1980s New York Times profile noted that Wolfson did not "relish the personal attention" nor "put his name on his buildings."
Safier appears to have inherited his grandfather's preference for working out of public view. He grew up on Long Island in an Orthodox community, relocated as a young man to a settlement in East Jerusalem, described by the International Court of Justice as illegally occupied, and studied Talmud at Mir Yeshiva, the largest yeshiva in the world. His published work mostly appears in Mishpacha, an Orthodox magazine. On political donation forms, he has listed his employer as "N/A," his occupation as "consultant" or "self-employed." A 2018 form listed his employer as the Wolfson Group, a New York City, based family investments firm founded by his grandfather and currently run by his uncles. He still maintains an active email address linked to the firm.
When people in Fetterman's office asked what he did for a living, Safier's answer was simple: "Oh, I'm in wealth management."
Safier's role quickly expanded beyond casual visits. Text messages obtained by New York Magazine show him coordinating fundraisers and arranging access to the highest levels of the Israeli government. In December 2023, Safier texted a former senior Fetterman staffer about organizing additional fundraisers and planning a trip to Israel. By April 2024, Safier was texting the same staffer about a direct line from Netanyahu's office:
"Got a call from the Israeli PM's office (a friend of mine is a longtime advisor)... The PM wanted to setup a call with the Senator to thank him for his support (I presume)."
That call happened. Safier listened in. Multiple former staffers told the magazine they learned of calls between Netanyahu and Fetterman on which Safier was present.
Fetterman traveled to Israel in June 2024 and again in March 2025. On the second trip, organized through Relief Resources, a New York City, based Jewish mental-health nonprofit on whose board sits Daniel Wolfson, Safier's uncle, Safier traveled with the senator for most of four days. The nonprofit said it invited Fetterman because of his "leadership in mental health awareness and legislative advocacy." Safier was heavily involved in setting up the trip.
Fetterman also met with the UAE ambassador to the United States. Safier was in the room. He attended a September 2025 meeting between Fetterman and Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter, where the senator floated a proposal to force every senator to vote on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Neither Leiter nor Safier thought it was a good idea.
In some of these meetings, staffers reported, Safier was the only person staffing the senator, a role that would normally belong to credentialed government employees with security clearances and institutional accountability.
Fetterman's trajectory on Israel has been unlike any other Democrat's. He promised to be the "last" Democrat standing with Israel. When pro-Palestine protesters showed up at his home, he waved an Israeli flag from the roof. Asked about Israel's pager operation in Lebanon on Meet the Press, he said: "I love it." When hostilities escalated, he released a statement praising the response: "President Trump has been willing to do what's right and necessary to produce real peace in the region. God bless the United States, our great military, and Israel."
On May 19, Fetterman was the only Democratic senator to vote against the War Powers Resolution, breaking decisively with his caucus on a matter of constitutional authority over military force.
The numbers tell the story of how far the Democratic Party has moved in the other direction. In 2024, eighteen Democratic senators backed a measure to block arms sales to Israel. By April 2025, forty backed a similar measure. Senator Bernie Sanders framed the shift approvingly, saying more Democrats are "seeing the light."
Fetterman moved the opposite way. Staffers joke that he has become the "senator from Tel Aviv." Some call Safier "chief", not because of any formal title, but because, they say, he wields more influence than the actual chief of staff. That chief of staff, Cabelle St. John, recently announced her departure.
The senator's isolation extends beyond policy disagreements. His alignment with the Trump administration on Middle East strikes placed him at odds with nearly the entire Democratic caucus. Republicans have reportedly been wooing him to switch parties, though Fetterman has insisted he would be a poor fit in the GOP.
The September 2025 meeting with Ambassador Leiter produced its own controversy. Staffers present told New York Magazine that Leiter, while gossiping with Fetterman, described prodding Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to be more helpful to Israel, and asked whether Schumer "puts blood in his matzo." The remark, if accurately reported, invoked an antisemitic trope directed at a Jewish senator by an Israeli ambassador.
The Israeli Embassy denied the specific phrasing. Its official statement said Leiter told Schumer, "as he's said to other senators and congressmen, that the accusation of starvation in Gaza is no different than medieval blood libels." The denial did not address whether the matzo reference was made.
The chief of staff for an unnamed current Democratic congressperson, upon learning of Safier's arrangement with Fetterman, called it "definitely concerning" and said that in their experience, nothing comparable existed elsewhere on Capitol Hill: "Truly, no."
Safier occasionally flew on a private jet owned by Reuven Moskowitz, a wealthy lawyer and technology entrepreneur who also sometimes appeared at Fetterman's office. Moskowitz, a donor and supporter of former New York City Mayor Eric Adams, was reported by The City to have used an "ethically dubious" loophole to bundle large sums of money for Adams' campaign. Moskowitz was present during the March 2025 Israel trip alongside Fetterman and Safier. He did not respond to requests for comment.
Neither did Safier. Nor did the Wolfson Group. Nor did Relief Resources. Nor did Netanyahu's foreign-press spokesperson. The wall of silence around this arrangement is itself notable.
Fetterman's recent endorsement of resumed military strikes against Iran only deepened his estrangement from the Democratic mainstream. Former staffers described themselves as "infuriated", not just by the policy positions, but by the "buddy-buddy dynamic with Safier" that seemed to drive them.
On social media, Safier has been Fetterman's most enthusiastic public booster, calling him the "Secretary of Trolling" and posting AI-generated videos and slow-motion clips of the senator set to Sia's "Unstoppable." The praise, staffers said, could be "strange."
The core issue here is not whether Fetterman's support for Israel is right or wrong. Reasonable people hold strong views on both sides. The issue is the mechanism through which a sitting senator's foreign-policy positions are being shaped, and by whom.
The broader Democratic fight over war powers and Middle East policy is playing out through official channels, floor votes, committee hearings, public statements. Fetterman's version plays out through an unpaid adviser with no government credentials, no public accountability, and a family legacy of behind-the-scenes influence over U.S.-Israel relations stretching back sixty years.
Safier holds no title. He passed no background check for this role. He answers to no ethics office. He files no financial disclosures related to his advisory work. Yet he sits in on calls with a foreign head of state, staffs meetings with ambassadors, coordinates trips funded through a nonprofit connected to his own family, and, by the account of eleven people who worked in the office, exercises more influence over the senator than anyone on the payroll.
The political landscape around these questions is shifting fast. Fetterman's willingness to stand apart from his party on Israel may be principled. But principle does not excuse opacity. If a senator's foreign-policy agenda is being set by someone with no official standing, no public portfolio, and no obligation to disclose his interests, voters in Pennsylvania deserve to know exactly what that arrangement looks like, and who benefits from it.
Transparency isn't a partisan value. It's the bare minimum a democracy requires from the people who govern it, and from the people who quietly advise them.
