Jewish leaders in the Houston area see a chance for a fresh start this year with a new congressman, after an increasingly strained relationship with their longtime representative, Rep. Al Green (D-TX), who has taken a strong anti-Israel turn in recent years.

Green, 78, is struggling to hold onto his seat in a primary against newly elected Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX), the former Harris County attorney, who won a commanding victory in a special election runoff last month to replace former Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-TX). Turner died months after taking office to replace former Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), who died less than a year earlier of pancreatic cancer after serving for over 30 years in the House. 

Due to Texas’ redistricting process, Menefee now faces Green, as well as other longshot candidates, for a full term in the House beginning in 2027.

Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, Green has consistently taken anti-Israel stances, even on legislation that has received widespread support on a bipartisan basis. Weeks after the attacks, Green was one of just 10 House lawmakers who voted against legislation expressing support for Israel and condemning Hamas.

The veteran congressman was an early backer of efforts to unilaterally recognize Palestinian statehood, of legislation describing the war in Gaza as a genocide and of the Block the Bombs Act.

Siding with six other members of the House, he voted to cut off missile-defense funding to Israel last July. Green also voted against supplemental aid to Israel in 2024 and has supported legislation to block specific arms transfers to Israel.

Green was one of 11 lawmakers to vote against an amendment condemning Hamas’ use of human shields and demanding its unconditional surrender and disarmament.

He voted against declaring the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” to be antisemitic. And he was one of just four House members who voted to require universities to disclose investments in countries whose leaders are facing International Criminal Court arrest warrants, indirectly targeting Israel.

In 2024, he introduced a resolution affirming the Palestinian right to statehood, to which two Jewish members were added as cosponsors without their knowledge or consent. He led an effort, opposed by a majority of House Democrats, to impeach President Donald Trump for striking Iran last June without congressional authorization.

At the same time, Green has also continued to back certain measures to combat antisemitism.

Green told the Texas Tribune that he expects AIPAC to spend “inordinate amounts of money to get me out of office,” and has been railing against the group on the campaign trail, though AIPAC has not endorsed anyone in the race.

Menefee has said little publicly about Middle East politics, though in a January candidate forum for the special election, he described Israel’s operations in Gaza as excessive while also condemning the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, according to The Daily Cougar, the University of Houston’s student newspaper.

“Look, what I want is peace, now,” Menefee said. “I want a lasting ceasefire so that not a single baby in either Israel or Gaza has to worry about being bombed.”

Leaders in the local Jewish community said their once-strong relationship with Green — who had been a frequent presence at community events and maintained strong relationships with members of the community — turned sour following Green’s vote on the post-Oct. 7 resolution, which surprised and hurt many in the community.

“Everybody — particularly in a large section of the Jewish community — carries this wound from that vote. They’ve not forgotten it. They’re unforgiving about it. It’s been very painful because there was a relationship,” Art Pronin, who is Jewish and leads the Meyerland Area Democrats Club, told Jewish Insider. “It felt like we lost a congressman. … it was just shocking.”

Pronin says he now hears concerns from others in the community about Green on a weekly basis at his synagogue.

“It’s really sad, because we used to have a very strong relationship with him,” Norri Leder, a founder of Houston Jewish Women Vote and a board member of the local federation, told JI. “It’s been incredibly disappointing, and especially because the way his district was newly drawn, he represents a very large chunk of the Jewish community. … It almost feels like he’s hostile towards us, not just disagrees. It doesn’t feel like respectful disagreement.”

Leder added that Green’s positions on Israel policy had appeared to begin to shift prior to Oct. 7, but the change became more pronounced after the attacks.

She said that she has heard from other members of the community for whom Green’s stance on Israel issues is factoring “very heavily” into their plans for their primary votes. “We’re looking for somebody that understands us and wants to represent us, and Al Green gets a poor grade on that front.”

The longtime congressman was the chair of the local NAACP before entering public office, building strong relationships with the local Jewish community that he maintained for years, according to Pronin.

Since Oct. 7, Pronin and Leder said that Green has not attended community events to which he’s been invited and has been inaccessible to Jewish constituents who have requested meetings or expressed concerns about his posture.

Leder said that lack of accessibility and engagement from Green and his office, in addition to the shock of his vote against the resolution condemning Hamas, has contributed to the sense of hostility she feels from him.

Pronin said he had multiple conversations with Green about his vote on the resolution condemning Hamas, seeking an explanation, but has never received a “solid explanation,” and Green has not softened his stance.

Leder joined a group meeting with Green recently, where he was pressed on his lack of engagement with Jewish constituents, and said Green vowed he would try to engage on some issues of mutual concern, but also “did launch off on Israel” during the conversation.

“The challenge is you can have very strong feelings about Israel, but if you’re representing the Jewish community that lives here, you still have to represent that community, and that’s where I think he’s really fallen down,” Leder continued. “He wasn’t present at any [Oct. 7 memorial] events in the community. He hasn’t attended … community seders, things like that a lot of elected officials attend, and he just has been completely absent.”

“It feels like his anger at [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and whatever he’s feeling towards the Israeli government is spilling over into his treatment of Jewish constituents,” she added.

Leder said that Menefee, on the other hand, has interacted on numerous occasions with the Jewish community and attended events like the community Passover seder. He “understands our concerns,” Leder said, though she said she couldn’t speak specifically about his views on the current Israeli government.

“I know him personally. I think he has a lot of respect for the Jewish community and is available and that’s what the Jewish community is looking for: somebody that understands our concerns and is there for us as constituents, and when it comes to Israel, is somebody that is open and reasonable,” she continued.

Pronin said he has known Menefee for a long time and never heard him say anything about Israel policy that has concerned him, describing the newly elected lawmaker as “balanced” on the issue, though he hasn’t spoken about it extensively.

“I think he’s got a balancing act to play on this issue, and we’ll have to really kind of thread the needle in conversations with these communities, and maybe help bring people together to talk about this, so he can listen and hear out the perspectives on this as a congressman over time,” Pronin said.

Green’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Mark Jones, a Texas pollster and fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, recently conducted a poll of the district showing Menefee with a commanding 52%-28% lead.

“Menefee’s crushing him,” Jones told Jewish Insider, noting that an internal poll by Menefee’s campaign conducted by the well-regarded Lake Research Partners shows similar results. Jones predicted that Menefee should be able to win the race cleanly in the primary, without advancing to a runoff.

Around two-thirds of the voters from the new district come from Green’s old district, but they are roughly evenly split — with a slight advantage toward Menefee — between the two leading candidates, Jones said. The quarter of the district that comes from the current 18th District “overwhelmingly prefer[s] Menefee,” Jones added. “And that’s also the case with some of the other northern parts of the district that used to be in other districts.”

“The only reason Green is even in this race remotely is that he still is popular among … his current constituents, but he’s doing very poorly among the roughly little more than a third of constituents who he currently doesn’t represent,” he said.

And though voters report positive views on both candidates, Jones noted, when forced to choose, “a significant majority — effectively almost two-to-one — prefer Menefee.”

Jones said that, for many Democrats, Menefee is a “perfect candidate,” with a reputation for being pragmatic progressive and a record opposing Trump. Green’s age is also a stumbling block for him, particularly for voters who saw two of their representatives die in office over the course of about a year.

“People like what he’s done over the past 20 years, but they believe it’s time to pass the baton,” Jones said.

Green has argued that he will be more effective given his greater seniority in the House, which is particularly valuable in the Democratic Caucus. At the same time, the veteran lawmaker has  been a bomb-thrower who has sometimes found himself out of step with Democratic leadership.