Three Jewish politicos from New York’s Capital Region — all women, and all Democrats — have launched a new state-level committee dedicated to supporting candidates with liberal social views who also push back on anti-Jewish and anti-Israel forces.

Aleinu-NY PAC, named for the Jewish prayer that translates to “on us,” registered with the New York Board of Elections in late September and officially launched its website last week. It describes itself as “a new nonpartisan political action committee in NYS established to support candidates who stand up against Antisemitism and the scourge in violence against the Jewish community throughout New York.”

Behind the PAC’s inception is veteran Albany lobbyist and consultant Libby Post, along with Albany Common Councilmember Deborah Zamer and Schenectady County Legislator Michelle Ostrelich. A longtime advocate for gay rights and animal welfare, Post told Jewish Insider that the left-wing reaction to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, and the subsequent rise of antisemitic incidents, have placed Judaism at the center of her identity and political concerns for the first time.

“People celebrating Oct. 7 — it’s absolutely disgusting — and not recognizing the fear that has gone through the Jewish community because of the antisemitic, anti-Zionist rhetoric, that’s just turning into violence,” she said in an interview. “I used to say that I was a lesbian who happened to be Jewish. Now I say I’m a Jew who happens to be a lesbian.”

Post said the PAC would consider endorsing candidates “regardless of where they’re running or what party.” But she added that the group would not depart from the values that had defined so much of her political career, and highlighted a section of the website that invokes the halakhic principle of Kavod HaBriyot, often interpreted as universal human dignity. 

“We want to help elect candidates who demonstrate their opposition to antisemitism and violence against the community, but we also will be looking at their stands on choice [on abortion] and LGBT rights because that has to do with hate,” she said. “We’re not going to support a candidate who might be great on half what we want them to be great on, but they’re Islamophobic, or they’re anti-choice, or they’re homophobic.”

Post said the PAC had not yet determined how it would define these standards in a candidate questionnaire, and acknowledged that it might rule out support for many Republican candidates or even for conservative Democrats representing the state’s large Orthodox communities. 

However, on the question of Israel’s right to exist, the PAC’s standard is already in place and unequivocal. 

“Anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Jewish hatred, just like antisemitism. Full stop,” the FAQ section of the webpage states. “Anti-Zionism is a hate movement that uses the lies of ‘genocide,’ ‘apartheid,’ and ‘colonizer’ to incite hostility and violence against the Jewish community.”

Nonetheless, the committee will focus not on foreign policy, but exclusively on domestic rhetoric and the problem of bias attacks. 

Post said the PAC had collected $5,000 from around a dozen donors in just one week. But it will not begin interviewing candidates or making endorsements until local elections next year, and will likely hold its first in-person fundraiser in her office near the state Capitol building after the legislature reconvenes in January.

Post said that the “antisemitic spewing from all corners” and the “silence from the left” on Hamas’ sexual assaults during the Oct. 7 attacks had made the PAC’s creation feel necessary.

“I’ve had it. It’s the only way I can explain this,” Post said. “I’m glad my parents aren’t alive to see any of this, because my father fought in [WWII], and we, like so many others, lost family in the Holocaust.”