Ami Horowitz

Early life

A native of Los Angeles, Horowitz graduated from the University of Southern California with majors in political science and philosophy.

Horowitz's mother is from Israel. He is a Modern Orthodox Jew, and spent a year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.

Career

After graduating from USC, Horowitz managed a Democratic candidate's unsuccessful campaign for state comptroller of Maryland. 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. Asked by Brian Lamb on C-SPAN about his political views, Horowitz described himself as "right-of-center" but "not reflexively" so.

U.N. Me

Horowitz's film U.N. Me, released in theaters in 2012, was produced, directed, and written by Horowitz and Matthew Groff.

Showdown Wisconsin

In 2012, Horowitz began screening a new documentary entitled Showdown Wisconsin, about the effort to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

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 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

Horowitz acted as "an ISIS supporter" while shouting terrorist rants and waving an ISIS flag inside UC Berkeley. Most of the students ignored his "terrorist rants", but a "few gave him a thumbs-up, wished him luck and smiled". Horowtiz then switched to a "Zionist tirade" and began waving an Israeli flag. At that point, many students expressed their outrage toward Israel, cursing and giving Horowitz obscene gestures. Horowitz received a lot of attention and millions of views from his post on YouTube. Horowitz wrote for Fox News that his film "unfortunately proves once and for all that there is in fact no connection between intellect and wisdom". He continued, "If these are our best and brightest then we should all be afraid, very afraid"

Portland State University students raise money for Hamas

In May 2016, Horowitz released a 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) 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. Its 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 September 2016, described a video he made in Sweden in which he filmed "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".

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 and YouTube. 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.

Many of Horowitz's statements about Sweden in the film and in subsequent interviews have been disputed by Swedish authorities and criminologists, and by news organizations and fact-checkers. 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.