Jonathan D. Salant has been a Washington journalist for more than 30 years and currently works as the D.C. correspondent for NJ.com and the Star-Ledger of New Jersey. An award-winning political reporter, he is a former president of the National Press Club, the Regional Reporters Association and the Washington chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and a former chairman of the Standing Committee of Correspondents, the group of Capitol Hill reporters that oversee the daily press gallery. 
He helps organize and then moderates the B'nai Israel Men's Club's biennial political forum, which regularly attracts the major party candidates for Maryland governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House. Govs. Martin O'Malley and Larry Hogan and U.S. Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hoillen have all appeared at the forums. Jonathan also has spoken on politics at several events sponsored by the synagogue and its men's club, including a standing-room-only talk and discussion during Yom Kippur. He also is co-coach of B'nai's softball team.

A native New Yorker, Jonathan and his wife Bonnie Cole were married at B'nai Israel. They live in Rockville with their son Isaac, a senior at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a graduate of B'nai's Talmud Torah and its Hebrew High School.

He is a great-great-great grandson of Rabbi Samuel Salant, the former chief Ashkenazi rabbi of Jerusalem.