Andrew Yang, New York City mayoral candidate takes a selfie with a guest as he visits Morningside Park during the first annual Juneteenth Festival in Harlem, on June 19, 2021 in New York City.

Andrew Yang, the entrepreneur and former presidential longshot, said his experience navigating the fraught politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict last spring as a Democratic candidate for New York City mayor — when escalating violence between Israel and Hamas in Gaza coincided with an uptick in antisemitic incidents — informed his decision to launch a third party that he hopes will act as a moderating force in American politics, he told Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel in an interview.

‘A natural response’: Yang, who recently registered as an independent after decades as a Democrat, recently revealed that he was starting the Forward Party in an effort to reshape what he views as an entrenched political system in thrall to various forms of extremism and groupthink. The announcement appears in the final chapter of his eponymously titled new book, Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy, published by Crown. “I believe the Forward Party is, in many ways, a natural response to many of the concerns of the Jewish community,” Yang told JI.

False narrative: Yang described a “strong narrative” among some progressive Democrats “that tries to separate everyone into either oppressor or oppressed… In this narrative, the people of Israel are the oppressors, and what’s interesting is that when you have conversations with other people in other contexts, you could make the case that Jews are actually historically the most oppressed people in the history of the world.” Yang indicated that he had “encountered people who very much held” that view when his mayoral campaign overlapped with the conflict between Israel and Hamas. As violence intensified last May, Yang weighed in with a supportive statement for the Jewish state — and found himself subject to intense scrutiny.

Targeted communities: Yang, who is Taiwanese-American, believes that Jews and Asians in particular represent a natural coalition for the Forward Party amid a rise in hate crimes against both groups. “A lot of this stuff I discovered during the mayoral [campaign],” he said. “I didn’t realize how tied together the Jewish community is with my community and the survival of the system… Jews and Asians are kind of in a similar boat in terms of, like, we need a functioning system of integrity to stand the test of time or else our communities are among those that will be targeted.” Yang recalled attending a rally against anti-Asian hate when he was running for mayor that helped clarify why he now believes forming a third party is necessary. “People started chanting ‘defund the police,’” he told JI. “I said to a friend at the time, ‘If someone thinks that defunding the police would be a good thing for Asians, they need to have their head examined.’”

Dem disenchantment: As he embarks on his latest political project, Yang said he has spoken with Jewish supporters who are disenchanted by the Democratic Party. “They’ve expressed a number of concerns that have made them excited about the Forward Party,” he told JI. “Number one, they see that there is a strain within the Democratic Party that will make support for Israel more and more contentious moving forward — a stream that does, unfortunately, include antisemitism.” The other element, he said, “is that they see that right now the system is not designed for success, and it’s subject to very negative and authoritarian impulses.”

Read the full interview here.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) departs from the Senate Chambers in the U.S. Capitol on July 21, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

Two Kentucky Jewish leaders who spoke with Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) office this week said the senator’s aides told them it was up to the Jewish community to lobby against Afghanistan aid if they wanted supplemental Iron Dome funding to move forward quickly, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Responsibility: “What [Paul’s office is] suggesting is it’s the Jewish community’s responsibility to convince Congress to stop funding Afghanistan, so that that money can go to Iron Dome. I’m flabbergasted by that suggestion,” Daniel Grossberg, a Jewish political activist in the state who participated in a call with Paul staffers on Tuesday, told Jewish Insider. “These are two unrelated issues… They are suggesting that the Jewish people are responsible for defunding potential terrorism in Afghanistan in order to secure their existence in the Jewish homeland.”

Caught in the middle: Mindy Haas, executive director of the Louisville-area Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass, who was also on the call, echoed Grossberg’s assessment of the message conveyed by Paul’s staff. “We don’t feel that it’s fair that the Jewish people are being used as a pawn right now. We need to make sure that we are able to protect the people of Israel,” Haas said. “Nobody likes what’s going on [in Afghanistan], but we have to protect the people of Israel. And it’s not just Jews in Israel, it’s all people in Israel.”

Tell me why: Grossberg added that Paul’s staff failed to provide a satisfactory explanation of why the senator was linking the two issues. “[Paul’s state director, Rob Givens,] kept reiterating that the senator’s stance is clearly supportive of Iron Dome, but he is quite insistent on marrying it to defunding Afghanistan,” he said. “They couldn’t give me any good explanation of what one has to do with the other.”

House hostilities: Paul’s actions are also garnering criticism from the House Democrats who led the charge on the stand-alone Iron Dome funding bill. “Just as I denounced the political stunts in the House by members of my own party, I denounce the Republican opposition to passing the funding for Iron Dome in the Senate,” Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) said. “We must honor our commitment to Israel and drop these stalling tactics before it’s too late.” Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) told JI earlier this week that Paul’s actions are “abhorrent” and he should “let it go.”

Read the full story here.