Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerry Nadler

With some pro-Israel groups pouring significant amounts of money into numerous upcoming primary races, Middle East policy and other issues of interest to the Jewish community are taking on an outsized role in a number of upcoming races in the final weeks of a grueling primary season, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

By the numbers: More than $12 million has been spent by outside groups opposing and supporting candidates in part due to their positions on U.S. aid to Israel, Washington’s relations in the region and the Biden administration’s efforts to rejoin the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Up first: Voters head to the polls on Tuesday in Maryland’s 4th Congressional District, where former Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) faces former state attorney Glenn Ivey. The AIPAC-affiliated super PAC United Democracy Project has bet big on Ivey, putting its largest spending to date in any individual race — $5.9 million — behind its efforts to boost the former Prince George’s County state attorney and defeat Edwards. Democratic Majority For Israel has also spent $426,000 backing Ivey. J Street has spent $728,000 backing Edwards and opposing Ivey.

By the numbers: UDP and DMFI’s efforts may be giving a boost to Ivey’s chances on Tuesday. A July 6 poll from a pro-Edwards group obtained by Jewish Insider showed Ivey leading by five percentage points over Edwards — 33% supporting Ivey and 28% backing Edwards — a major turnaround from an internal Edwards poll in May that had her leading Ivey by 13 points. Ivey also led Edwards in fundraising at the end of June, $1.2 million to $980,000, and had outspent her $940,000 to $737,000.

Michigan matchup: In Michigan, the state’s Democratic primaries, set to take place on Aug. 2, have also become flashpoints for the pro-Israel community. The sizable Jewish community in Michigan’s 11th Congressional District, located in the suburbs around Detroit, has found itself split between Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) in the member vs. member matchup. UDP has spent $2.4 million boosting Stevens, while J Street has spent $728,000 attacking her. AIPAC’s PAC has also bundled $636,000 for Stevens this year. Stevens has outraised Levin, closing out the second quarter with $4.7 million total raised and $1.8 million on hand. Levin trailed, with $2.6 million raised, and has $1.1 million on hand.

New York Minute: On the Upper East and Upper West Sides of Manhattan, redistricting has pitted against each other two veteran New York members of Congress, Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Jerry Nadler (D-NY), both of whom have long track records with the Jewish community. Former Obama aide Suraj Patel is mounting his third bid for Congress, hoping that Maloney and Nadler will split the vote, giving him a path to victory. While in step on many issues, Maloney has tacked more to the center, including opposing the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, which Nadler supported. J Street has endorsed Nadler, while DMFI and Pro-Israel America have endorsed Maloney. AIPAC and JDCA endorsed both incumbents.

Read more here.

Matthew Foldi

Like many Jewish candidates for public office, Matthew Foldi says his religious education inspired his foray into politics. Unlike most of those Jewish candidates, Foldi is a mere few years removed from his Jewish schooling. The former journalist, a Republican who is running for Congress in Maryland’s 6th District to take on Rep. David Trone (D-MD), graduated from Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School (JDS) in Rockville just eight years ago. If elected, he would be the youngest member of the next session of Congress. “It’s impossible for me to even think about a world in which I’m not Jewish,” Foldi told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch in a recent interviewat a coffee shop on Capitol Hill.

Chadashot man: Foldi, 25, stepped down from a position as a reporter at the conservative Washington Free Beacon in April, soon after Maryland’s 2022 redistricting process was finalized with a map that surprised many by putting incumbent Trone at risk. Foldi’s pitch to voters hinges on his reporting work at the Free Beacon, a job he held for just over a year. (He also once edited the Chadashot, Hebrew for “news,” section of the JDS student newspaper.) “I’ve done an effective job of illuminating the problems. Maybe it’s time to actually be part of the solution,” he explained as his rationale for his House run. “I ran up against the limitations of what I felt like I could accomplish as a reporter.”

Tough road: Before Foldi takes on the Democrat, he has to win the Republican primary on Tuesday. Foldi has racked up endorsements from national Republican figures such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Donald Trump Jr. But he trails competitor Neil Parrott, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, in fundraising. Parrott recently notched the endorsement of The Washington Post.

Family ties: Foldi grew up steeped in a particular world of Washington foreign policy: His mother, Bonnie Glick, started her career as a foreign service officer before serving as deputy administrator of USAID under former President Donald Trump, and Foldi was also close with his aunt, Caroline Glick, an American-Israeli columnist and conservative activist. In 2019, Foldi went to Israel to work for his aunt, who at the time was a candidate for the Knesset in former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s right-wing Yamina party. She did not ultimately enter the Knesset.

Congressional goals: In Congress, Foldi said he plans to make support for Israel a priority. “I don’t think that the role of America is to be neutral in the Middle East. And I don’t think it’s our role to be neutral with regards to the Arab-Israeli conflict,” said Foldi, who added that he does not support a Palestinian state. Foldi accused Trone of kowtowing to far-left Democrats in Congress who oppose Israel, and who have, Foldi added, “completely taken over.” But Trone, who is not Jewish but raised his children in the faith with his Jewish wife, is known to be one of the most reliable backers of Israel in the Democratic Party.

Read the full interview here.

For many Jewish college students, Hillel is the first introduction to Judaism in their adult lives. But in addition to providing essential Jewish services and community for students across North America, Hillel chapters have been thrust to the forefront in the fight against rising incidents of antisemitism on college campuses. Among the Hillel International leadership, the trend has not gone unnoticed. “If you look at campus trends and broader trends in North American life and, really, globally, we are very much seeing this rise in antisemitism on campus,” Hillel International President and CEO Adam Lehman said during a recent appearance on Jewish Insider’s “Limited Liability Podcast.”

By the numbers: According to a 2021 survey conducted by Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League, 33% of Jewish students reported personally observing or experiencing antisemitism on campus. Overall, 15% of students said they felt uncomfortable sharing their Jewish identity. “That’s really bad… In some of our surveys, we’ve seen that 15% climb to 40 or 50%. Totally unacceptable,” Lehman said. “Can you imagine if the LGBTQ community was out saying, ‘We cannot express ourselves, we’re gonna actually be undercover.’ Obviously, that’s the way it was for many minority communities, particularly the Black community or Hispanic community. It’s not an option.”

Taking the initiative: In 2021, the organization introduced the Campus Climate Initiative aimed at working with local campus Hillel leaders and administration officials to develop action plans for combating antisemitism, including increasing educating students about the Jewish community. Earlier this year, Hillel announced the expansion of the initiative to 15 additional colleges and universities, bringing the total participating campuses to 40. “We have to engage university leaders in this process. This cannot be just the focus of Jewish organizations and student leaders. We need administrators to take responsibility for taking on antisemitism in the same way they focus on other forms of bias, discrimination and injustice,” Lehman emphasized.

End goal: The ultimate measure of success, Lehman said, comes when Jewish students feel safe and comfortable on campus. To achieve that, he outlined several suggested actions administrators could take to implement change, including incorporating antisemitism awareness into faculty, staff and student trainings and preparing bias response teams to become better attuned to how and where antisemitism appears. “Beyond simply advocating to administrators, we’ve really said, ‘How can we better educate and equip university leaders so that they can be partners in understanding antisemitism and actually making policy change that addresses the issue?’”

Read more and listen to the full podcast episode here.