Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop campaigned with multiple anti-Israel figures
Fulop, who has expressed strong rhetorical support for Israel, is running for the New Jersey governorship against Democratic Reps. Mikie Sherrill and Josh Gottheimer

Kyle Mazza / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via AP Images)
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop is seen during the press conference in Jersey City.
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, a Democratic candidate for governor of New Jersey, has been outspoken in his public career about his Jewish identity and — though he’s mostly stayed away from foreign affairs in his current role — has maintained a pro-Israel stance.
But Fulop has endorsed or been endorsed by multiple state officials and candidates who have expressed strident criticisms of Israel, reflecting the tricky Democratic primary politics that he and others in the gubernatorial primary are facing.
Shortly after his 2023 campaign launch, Sadaf Jaffer, then a Democratic assemblywoman, was the first sitting legislator to endorse Fulop.
Jaffer has an extensive history of comments on social media criticizing Israel and demanding an end of U.S. support for Israel. She has routinely accused Israel of genocide and said that “American taxpayer $ is being used to unrelentingly kill, maim, starve tens of thousands of Palestinian children for months on end.”
She also accused Israel of deliberately killing aid workers as its “goal” and of seeking to colonize Gaza. She has described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “wanted war criminal.”
Jaffer refused to vote for President Joe Biden over his support for Israel, claiming he had the unilateral ability to stop the war in Gaza by stopping arms transfers.
“[Biden] saw photos of dead Palestinian kids & didn’t care,” she said in another social media post. “He called into question the # of people killed when all accounts have shown they are undercounted. He simply doesn’t see Palestinian humanity.”
Jaffer alleged that U.S. support for Israel is driven by “racist logic,” accusing a Jewish congressman of refusing “to acknowledge that the people who live in the Middle East (other than Israelis) are human. They are all deemed terrorists simply for existing.”
She has condemned efforts to combat antisemitic harassment on college campuses, including accusing the Biden administration of “deploying security forces to college campuses to beat those who dare protest” and of pursuing “fascism.”
Fulop said it was a “true honor to have Assemblywoman Jaffer’s support in this campaign as well as the tremendous value she will bring to our team in helping shape the policy positions that we believe will one day improve the daily lives of millions of New Jersey residents.” She has joined him at campaign events.
A Fulop campaign spokesperson rejected any suggestion that he shared these views.
“The mayor’s view and history is quite clear, as he is a grandson of Holocaust survivors, a son of a Golani in the IDF, and a graduate of a yeshiva education,” the spokesperson said. “To insinuate that he has some anti-Israel bias is just silly and false.”
A key pillar of Fulop’s campaign has been a growing statewide slate of candidates whom he has endorsed and alongside whom he is running.
One of those candidates was — albeit briefly — Christina Khalil, a Democrat who repeatedly publicly defended Hamas, saying that Hamas had kidnapped Israelis on Oct. 7 “to save their lives,” described Israel’s existence as an “illegal occupation,” claimed that Hamas did not commit rape, claimed that the Israeli Defense Forces were responsible for the deaths on Oct. 7 and said that Hamas “only conducted Oct 7th to do hostage exchange because Israel kept kidnapping children.”
After Khalil’s pro-Hamas posts and others, came to light, Fulop quickly withdrew his endorsement, attributing the decision to an incomplete background check before the endorsement. Khalil claimed to Politico that Fulop’s team had been aware of her posts before the endorsement, which Fulop denied.
Asked about the Khalil endorsement, the Fulop campaign spokesperson told JI that the campaign revoked the endorsement “the minute her background check was complete.”
Fulop also endorsed Freshta Taeb for the state Assembly. Taeb co-authored, with Jaffer, an Oct. 27, 2023, op-ed demanding a cease-fire in Gaza, less than a month after the Hamas attack, in which she said that the Biden administration “does not equally value Muslim lives, or those of Arabs who find themselves lumped in with Muslims.”
“We can only draw one heartbreaking conclusion: The Biden administration doesn’t see Muslims for our full humanity,” the op-ed continues.
“It damages our faith in our country’s leadership that President Joe Biden has not only given a green light to these tragedies but is seeking to escalate the war with an additional $14 billion in weapons for Israel — while making no efforts or calls for de-escalation or ceasefire,” Taeb and Jaffer wrote.
That op-ed also condemned the Hamas attack and the killing of civilians, and said that Oct. 7 had “understandably traumatized and hurt many people around the world.”
The Fulop spokesperson noted that Fulop is supporting 40 candidates “across the party and they each have different views which makes our democracy work and makes it stronger,” who were “chosen by activists that live in the respective county.”