North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein is speaking out against the leader of the state Democratic Party’s Muslim Caucus, Elyas Mohammed, who recently described Zionists as “modern day Nazis” and as a “threat to humanity,” among other incendiary social media posts drawing criticism from the local Jewish community.

“Antisemitic comments and conspiracy theories have no place anywhere, including in the North Carolina Democratic Party,” the governor said in a statement shared exclusively with Jewish Insider. “We must fight against antisemitism and all other forms of hate whenever and wherever we see them. We live in difficult times in our nation. Now is the time to come together and deliver results that improve the lives of all North Carolinians.”

Stein, a Jewish Democrat, had faced mounting pressure from Jewish leaders across the state to condemn the posts, which were first reported by The Algemeiner last week. Mohammed, who has frequently railed against Israel and Zionists on his Facebook page, has also shared a post arguing that Israeli civilians captured by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks were not hostages but “prisoners of war” because the invasion occurred in an “occupied zone.”

On Sunday, the leaders of several prominent Jewish groups in North Carolina distributed a joint letter to Stein and other Democratic officials and lawmakers that raised concerns over Mohammed’s “dangerous antisemitic rhetoric” and exhorted them to publicly condemn his recent statements.

“This is not a partisan appeal,” the Jewish leaders, including CEOs from three local federations in the state, said in the letter. “It is a civic and moral one. Jewish communities across our state must know, without ambiguity, that elected officials and party leaders reject rhetoric that vilifies them through historical distortion and collective accusation.”

In a statement to JI on Tuesday, former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat running for Senate, also condemned Mohammed’s comments.  

“These reprehensible posts were an unacceptable expression of antisemitism and I condemn them in the strongest of terms,” Cooper said. “Antisemitism continues to rise across the country and it’s on all of us to root it out in all of its forms. I’ve fought against antisemitism and hate throughout my career and would continue working to keep all North Carolinians safe as U.S. Senator.” 

Mohammed did not respond to a request for comment. 

North Carolina’s Democratic Party has been a prominent site of internal divisions over Israel that have played out in heated platform fights. Last year, for instance, the party’s executive committee stirred controversy after passing a series of resolutions that called for an arms embargo on Israel as well as “the immediate release of Palestinian hostages taken by Israel,” among other things.

Republicans have seized on such measures in the key battleground state, where Cooper is now seeking to replace outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) in a competitive race that could help tip the balance of power in the upper chamber.

The results in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District last night may not make national headlines, but should be sending a shock wave across Democratic campaigns and pro-Israel institutions. 

Analilia Mejia, the far-left, Bernie Sanders-endorsed activist, narrowly led in a crowded field of Democratic candidates in a primary election for an affluent, moderate-minded district, despite long odds.  

With most votes counted, Mejia leads former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), who was considered the favorite, 29-28%. Former Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way, favored by pro-Israel groups and endorsed by Democratic Majority for Israel, finished in third place, winning just 17% of the vote.

Mejia’s apparent primary victory is another sign that the socialist wing of the Democratic Party — as exemplified by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s out-of-nowhere success across the Hudson River — is ascendant. Mejia was the only candidate to call Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza a “genocide” and condemned Israel just days after Oct. 7 without making a mention of Hamas’ terror attack against the Jewish state.

As early as Oct. 10, before the Israeli invasion of Gaza began, Mejia said: “Every fiber of my being is horrified beyond words at what is furthering in Gaza.” 

The fact that a candidate as far to the left as Mejia could prevail in one of the most affluent, suburban districts in the country speaks volumes about the state of the party. This is a district, based in Morris County, filled with Wall Street bankers, venture capitalists and other wealthy white-collar workers that was a reliably Republican area not long ago.

Mejia is also beating the party machine-backed candidate, Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill, on his home turf — an unprecedented dynamic for an underdog with next-to-no institutional support.

The decision by the AIPAC-aligned United Democracy Project (UDP) to spend over $2.3 million in ads attacking Malinowski is also looking highly questionable. The money, spent on ads attacking Malinowski for funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during his time in Congress, served its role in knocking down the front-runner. 

But the playbook failed to do enough to boost Way, their closest ally, and clearly played an unintended role in Mejia’s strong showing, potentially elevating the fringe candidate into Congress. The lobby group was upset that Malinowski, who was generally a pro-Israel vote in Congress, had called for conditioning aid to Israel during the lengthy war in Gaza — and wanted to demonstrate that his criticism carried a cost. Their all-out push for the best possible result led to the worst possible outcome.

“If I was an AIPAC official, I’d be wondering, ‘How am I going to go to the same donors that I got money from to run this whole campaign against Malinowski and now I’m going to have to do the same thing to take out the person that I accidentally got elected?’” one Jewish leader said, presuming a Mejia win.

That said, there will be two opportunities for pro-Israel groups and moderate forces within the party to mobilize against Mejia, presuming she holds on for the nomination. Given that the New Jersey seat is a fairly competitive district — it backed Kamala Harris by eight points in the 2024 election — Mejia is not a lock to win the general special election (for the remainder of the term) against Republican Joe Hathaway, the mayor of Randolph Township. 

It’s hard to imagine Democrats, running in a very favorable political environment, losing the general election. But you couldn’t find a more-problematic candidate than a socialist running in a capitalist-minded district.

In addition, there will be a separate June Democratic primary for the regular term. There’s a strong chance Mejia would face credible opposition from a more mainstream Democrat, even if elected to Congress, though it’s possible multiple opponents could end up challenging her.

But the fact that Mejia isn’t yet a sitting lawmaker offers little consolation to pro-Israel leaders, who are looking warily at upcoming primary fields — from Illinois to Maine to Minnesota — where Democrats could nominate a slate of far-left, anti-Israel candidates that, if elected, would dramatically change the image and ideological disposition of the party.

As she launches a bid to reclaim her House seat, former Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) said that she wants to help lead the effort to push back against anti-Israel voices in the Democratic Party.

During her time in the House, from 2019-2023, Luria brought pro-Israel colleagues together to stand in support of the Jewish state in the face of others who were critical of it. She told Jewish Insider in an interview last week that those critics are loud and are “drowning out the fact that the support for Israel remains strong.”

“Having more people like me who are willing to speak up on that issue, in support of maintaining security assistance through the memorandum of understanding and continuing to maintain a strong relationship with Israel is important,” Luria said, adding that she wants to be a “leader” among new members and former colleagues “to show that the support [for Israel] remains strong.”

Luria said she continues to view Israel as the U.S.’ “strongest ally” in the Middle East and “key to our national security,” and that she continues to oppose any effort to condition U.S. aid to the Jewish state.

Luria said that Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 was “unconscionable” and that Israel “has a right to defend themselves and respond to that kind of security threat.” She said she was glad to see the ceasefire deal and the release of hostages, but said that the path forward remains difficult, and will require the involvement of the U.S. and the world community, with the removal of Hamas from Gaza as the key first step.

The former congresswoman, a prominent Democratic Iran hawk during her time in office who was skeptical of efforts to reenter the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, said that the Trump administration’s military action against Iran last summer, done in conjunction with Israel, appears to have “slowed … and delayed” Iran’s capacity to develop a nuclear weapon.

But she argued that the administration, in claiming that the nuclear program had been effectively ended, had “overblown” the effect of the strikes. She also criticized the administration for its extensive use of U.S. military power, in Iran and elsewhere, without consultation with or approval by Congress.

“I’ve said over and over again that anything that needs to be done to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon needs to be done,” she added. “I think that the president made that decision to act in that moment because it was an imperative to stop them from having it. I just think it’s disingenuous to the American people to do a victory lap and say we were successful. Because the fact is, the threat is still there. They’re going to build it back, and we’re going to continue to be faced with this issue.”

Asked about the prospect of renewed strikes on the Islamic Republic in support of Iranian protesters, Luria said that such action could be contingent on who or what the targets are, who would come to power in the aftermath and whether the end state would actually improve the situation for Iranians.

“I think there’s so many unanswered questions, and it’s hard to say what way to go forward with the little amount of information that we’re able to receive” given the Iranian internet blackout, she explained. “I think that international diplomatic pressure, including very strongly from the U.S., to end the violence by the government against protesters is important.”

Luria said that she’s been concerned by the rise in violent rhetoric and actual violence against both the Jewish community and other communities  — which she connected in part to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. 

Luria was a member of the House select committee that investigated the attack. She noted that one of the rioters, pardoned by President Donald Trump, wore a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt to the riot.

“The kind of activity that is both violent rhetorically and in action has somehow become acceptable in our political discourse,” Luria said. “You have the president, who is trying to act like Jan. 6 didn’t happen. He’s trying to whitewash it. … When vitriol and hate and division is sown from the top, it filters down, and then whatever lens people see that through — if someone’s lens is that they want to take that out in a way that’s antisemitic and towards the Jewish community, they’ve been emboldened to do that.”

She said it’s critical to speak up against antisemitism, and for truth, and to prevent people from trying to rewrite history, vowing to continue to “stand up and speak out directly against antisemitism.”

Asked about antisemitism on the left, and efforts to rewrite the history of Israel, the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks and the Jewish people, Luria affirmed that she sees similar trends on the far left, and that she believes extremist anti-Israel rhetoric by leaders can normalize antisemitic violence.

“Everyone in leadership, everyone in government, everyone in the faith community, needs to stand up and say that this is unacceptable,” Luria said. “And I think that I have done that at every occasion that it was necessary and every opportunity that I had while serving in that kind of role, both in Congress and — smaller scale — when serving in the military.”

After leaving office, Luria spent a semester as a fellow at the Georgetown University Institute of Public Policy focusing on bipartisanship, and worked in the maritime defense industry. She also grappled with multiple deaths in her family, including her son-in-law, who was 28, and her father.

Luria said she decided to make a new bid for Congress because of the “the polarization, the fact that Congress is not doing their job, the Republicans in the House, in my mind, have no backbone, no ability to show any independent thought.” She said that Democrats retaking the House will be the best way to check the Trump administration’s power.

She acknowledged that the race, in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, centered in the Tidewater area, may be difficult, but emphasized she has won tough races in the district before.

“I think people are looking for change and looking for Congress to do more for them, and so, I’ve thrown my hat back in,” Luria said. “Listening to people on the ground, everybody is really focused on, you know, that high cost of living, access to health care, the cost of health care.”

One other major Democratic candidate remains in the primary against Luria, but she is strongly favored as the frontrunner.

The seat is currently held by Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA), who unseated Luria in 2022.

Luria sees the results of the November 2025 statewide elections, in which Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger and scandal-tarnished Attorney General Jay Jones, also a Democrat, both won the district, as a sign that “the political tide has turned.”

Luria said that affordability will be a major priority for her, including healthcare prices, and that she’ll maintain the focus she had in office on the military and the Navy — the district being home to the Norfolk naval station, the Navy’s headquarters. Overall, she said, she wants to tamp down on the “chaos” coming out of the Trump administration.

“I think Congress has a role in this, and they have not stood up and done their role,” she said, referring to Trump’s tariff policies, threats against Greenland, antagonism toward NATO and military action against Venezuela and alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean.

Concerns over rising antisemitism and growing hostility toward Israel within the Democratic Party have long been on a slow boil. 

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s blockbuster revelation in his upcoming memoir that he was asked by Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign during the VP vetting process if he was ever an agent of the Israeli government underscores just how fraught the political environment has gotten for Jewish Democrats who support Israel.

Shapiro’s decision to go public with allegations that the last presidential nominee’s team exhibited bigotry underscores just how deep the divisions are within the party, especially as he considers a 2028 presidential run. These rifts pit the party’s moderate wing — which is generally supportive of Israel and harbors zero tolerance for antisemitism — against an ascendant left wing, exemplified by the disruptive anti-Israel protesters that Harris was pandering to at the time of her veepstakes deliberations.

Shapiro, if he runs for national office, is planting his flag in the mainstream wing of the Democratic Party, willing to call out antisemitism when he sees it, including on college campuses in his state, and supporting Israel — even while strongly criticizing some policies of the Netanyahu government. In his book, he proudly discusses his personal connections to Israel and the role Judaism plays in his life.

These were uncontroversial views within the Democratic Party, until the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks against the Jewish state emboldened an ugly strain of extremism that has, all too often, been accommodated by party leaders. (Shapiro also revealed that Harris insisted he apologize for his condemnation of intimidation targeting Jewish students at the University of Pennsylvania by anti-Israel protesters, which he refused to do.)

Anyone documenting the evolution of Democratic Party politics over the last few years can see the red flags. New York City, the epicenter of Jewish life in the United States, elected a mayor who refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Jewish Democrats running for office in progressive constituencies buckle under pressure to call Israel’s war against Hamas a “genocide” or decide to suddenly condemn AIPAC to showcase their progressive bona fides. A majority of Democratic voters, according to recent polls, now have an unfavorable view of Israel. 

Indeed, Harris’ decision to pick Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz over Shapiro as her running mate — amid concern about backlash from anti-Israel forces within the party — is an example of how politically damaging it can be for Democrats to indulge such far-left activism. Outside of his folksy demeanor, Walz offered little for the national ticket and now is enmeshed in scandal in his home state. If he was tapped, Shapiro boasted the moderate record and swing-state success that at least could have moved the needle a bit more. 

A Shapiro presidential candidacy would be a bet on a return to normalcy within the Democratic Party electorate. By calling out the Harris campaign’s behavior during the veepstakes vetting, Shapiro is drawing a red line between those who would tolerate bigotry in favor of those prioritizing electability by appealing to a middle-of-the-road normie voters. (He’s also reminding Democratic voters about the vulnerabilities Harris would bring to the table as a repeat presidential candidate as she mulls over another national campaign.)

For a short time after President Donald Trump’s decisive victory over Harris last November, it seemed like the moderates held the momentum within the party — and that a candidate with a proven record of winning over independents, like Shapiro, would be most appealing for a party desperate to win. 

But as the resistance reasserted itself amid Trump’s governing excesses, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s brand of far-left, anti-Israel populism proved successful in New York City, the energy has shifted squarely to the left, to the point where it’s difficult for the silent majority to fight back.

It feels like ages ago that former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a proudly observant Jew and pro-Israel stalwart, was embraced by the Democratic Party at all levels and proved an asset to the party’s presidential ticket. Just two decades later, it’s an open question whether another pro-Israel moderate Jewish Democrat will receive the same warm reception. 

The political fall of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who just months ago was near the apex of political prominence as Kamala Harris’ running mate in the 2024 presidential election, is an object lesson in the consequences of pandering to the far left of the Democratic Party. 

Last year, Walz looked like he was on the fast track in national politics. Now he looks to be ending his career as a disgraced two-term governor.

Walz announced Monday that he’s not running for a third term in office, amid a growing scandal over massive welfare fraud, where dozens of individuals from the state’s Somali diaspora were convicted in schemes involving over a billion dollars stolen from the state’s social services programs.

The scandal offers a snapshot of some of the Democratic Party’s most glaring vulnerabilities. Walz, along with others in the state’s Democratic leadership, oversaw the allocation of generous welfare payments without ample accountability, while turning a blind eye to corruption in a Somali community that’s become a reliable Democratic voting bloc.

A nimbler, and more moderate, politician would have aggressively led the charge against the criminals instead of coming across as a passive bystander. After all, a scandal like this threatens the sustainability of generous social welfare programs that have defined the ethos of the Minnesota Democratic Party. Instead, in his announcement Monday, he decried “political gamesmanship” by Republicans for drawing outsized attention to the issue.

A more pragmatic Walz would also have been comfortable speaking out against scandalous elements within the Somali community (without painting the entire community with a broad brush). Instead, his belated comments speaking out against the fraud typically avoided reference to the perpetrators of the scandal, and he frequently blamed Republicans as racist for invoking their backgrounds. That only dug him into a deeper political hole.

Walz’s sensitivity about not alienating the state’s Somali community also came up in other areas that underscored his progressive instincts. When a leading Somali mayoral candidate (state Sen. Omar Fateh) came under fire for employing virulently antisemitic staffers at the top levels of his campaign, Walz remained silent, even as Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) spoke up. 

Walz also has been supportive of far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) even when she’s faced controversies over using antisemitic tropes and embracing anti-Israel views that have placed her out of the Democratic Party’s mainstream. His selection as Harris’ running mate over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was cheered on by the anti-Israel wing of the party. 

The fact that Walz’s time in office is ending, in part, over his ideological stubbornness, is a shift from his early political career. Representing a swing district in the House for over a decade, Walz generally voted with his party’s moderates and broke with liberals on gun rights and energy policy while maintaining strong support for Israel. But as governor, he tacked to the left, embracing criminal justice reform and gun control, while often pandering to his party’s activists. 

In one notable exchange last year with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, he argued that MAGA Republicans were driven by racism and sexism — a point that the 2028 presidential contender disagreed with. Since his elevation to the national stage, Walz has often invoked racism and sexism in criticizing the Republican Party — an impolitic attack that distinguished him from prospective presidential contenders like Newsom and Shapiro.

Walz’s departure from the governor’s race gives Democrats the opportunity to replace him with Klobuchar, a more pragmatic figure who has coasted to reelection since first winning her Senate seat two decades ago. Klobuchar, if she runs, she’ll benefit from being distant from the state’s fraud scandal. 

But she could face challenges on her left that could expose the divisions within the party. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a progressive and longtime critic of Israel, has also been mentioned as a leading candidate. But his role as the state’s lead law enforcement officer during the fraud scandal — already an issue in his reelection campaign — would bring the same political vulnerabilities as Walz with more ideological baggage.

While the Democratic Party’s far-left wing has gained ground in New York City — an ascendance reflected in Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory — in the moderate-minded suburbs outside of the city, Democrats are reeling from the party’s embrace of its radical elements.

To that end, moderate Democrats are stepping up in key races, aggressively distancing themselves from the far-left wing of the party — and hoping the taint doesn’t affect the party’s brand at large heading into next year’s midterm elections. 

Rory Lancman, a civil rights attorney and former state assemblyman, is one of those moderate candidates looking to showcase the other side of the Democratic Party. He launched an exploratory committee on Monday in a heavily Jewish state Senate district in Long Island, which is currently held by Republican state Sen. Jack Martins.

“The Democratic brand has been severely damaged by Mamdani and others, particularly [for] those Democrats like myself who are deeply committed to the safety and security of Israel, and deeply committed to the safety and security of the American Jewish community — whether it’s in our synagogues or on college campuses,” Lancman told Jewish Insider. 

Lancman, 56, previously served as a member of the New York State Assembly, representing the 25th District in Queens from 2007 to 2013. He then served in the New York City Council from 2014 until 2020, where he was among the sponsors of a resolution condemning the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel. 

Currently, he serves as director of corporate initiatives and senior counsel at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, where he oversees lawsuits alleging antisemitism in the workplace, in labor unions and on college campuses. 

Lancman’s interest in returning to the political arena is driven by a desire to counter “the kind of anti-Israel agenda that Mamdani has committed himself to,” he told JI, referring to the incoming mayor’s hostile views about Israel, including his refusal to denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada” and pledge to discontinue the New York City-Israel Economic Council, a new joint initiative between the two governments aimed at building economic ties. 

“There’s a lot the state legislature could do,” Lancman continued. “It’s important for New York state to adopt the definition of antisemitism that is clear to be applied in circumstances all across the state, that’s the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition which many states have adopted. It’s hard to solve a problem if you lack a basic definition of what that problem is.” (The definition is recognized and used by specific local governments, state entities and institutions within New York, but has not been universally adopted by the state.)  

Lancman also called for reform to New York anti-discrimination laws “to make it easier for Jewish students to bring claims of discrimination under state law and to make it easier for Jewish businesses experiencing BDS to bring claims under state law.”

“We need to protect our houses of worship by adopting a New York State version of the Federal Faith Act, which is a law that can be strengthened and made useful in New York,” said Lancman. “I would like to see New York state explicitly prohibit any film production company that is engaged in BDS from being eligible for a New York state film tax credit.” 

“We need to take real steps to protect our houses of worship and protect us from violence on the street. All of these tools are the ones I’ve used in the last two years [at the Brandeis Center] to protect Jews who have experienced antisemitism.”  

For example, he’d like to see New York’s longstanding anti-mask laws, which were abolished during the COVID pandemic, reinstated. “If someone is walking around in a protest and covering their face, whether it’s with a white hood or a keffiyeh, it’s probably because they’re up to no good. We had a mask law in New York for decades and everyone understood its value.”

“We need to protect our houses of worship by adopting a New York State version of the Federal Faith Act, which is a law that can be strengthened and made useful in New York,” continued Lancman. “I would like to see New York state explicitly prohibit any film production company that is engaged in BDS from being eligible for a New York state film tax credit.” 

Identifying himself as a centrist, Lancman said he is well-placed to earn the trust of Democratic voters, many of whom cite their primary issue as the high cost of living in Nassau County. Like many Democrats, Lancman is “disturbed by things coming out of Washington,” but also has a “lingering mistrust about whether the Democratic Party is committed to defending Jewish life in this country.” 

The state Democratic Party chair, Jay Jacobs, who has spoken out against Mamdani, backed Lancman’s effort to flip the seat, saying earlier this week that “Rory’s lifetime of service to New York and record of delivering for Long Islanders would make him an excellent candidate, and we’re enthusiastic at the prospect of him running.” 

Martins’ office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from JI. While representing Nassau County’s District 7, which has a sizable Jewish community, Martins has advocated for increased security funding for Jewish (and other nonpublic) schools through the Nonpublic School Safety Equipment Grant. In February 2023, the NYS Senate Republican Conference appointed him to chair the Antisemitism Working Group, which produced a report on the rise of antisemitism in 2024.

The campaign arm of the state Senate Republicans called Lancman the product of “extreme City Council policies that drove up costs.”

“We can’t sacrifice one of our two major political parties to the antisemitic leadership and agenda, that would be catastrophic for the Jewish community in the United States and I refuse to surrender my party to the Zohran Mamdanis of the world,” said Lancman.

“My record, my consistent views, my outspoken opposition to Mamdani, will earn people’s trust on the issue of Israel and combating antisemitism,” Lancman told JI. “From there, we can talk about the things that clearly favor Democrats, which are making life more affordable from property taxes to energy costs, those are our issues. In a district like this though, a Democrat has got to establish a real connection and trust on defending Jewish life in this country.”  

In the state Assembly, Lancman said he would draw on a mantra he’s adopted from his time at the Brandeis Center: “That civil rights laws also protect Jews and that those laws need to be exercised to their fullest and need to be expanded and made robust as possible to address the antisemitic threats we are experiencing at this moment in time,” he said. 

“We can’t sacrifice one of our two major political parties to the antisemitic leadership and agenda, that would be catastrophic for the Jewish community in the United States and I refuse to surrender my party to the Zohran Mamdanis of the world,” continued Lancman. “Being able to convert one’s beliefs and point of view into actual legislation and policy, and have an effect on protecting Jews, is not easy. The job is not just proclamation. The job is making people’s lives better, and in the case of the Jewish community, it is quite literally protecting our place in this country.”

“I confess to being disappointed that Democrats aren’t making a bright line litmus test out of whether someone supports the existence of the Jewish state,” said Lancman, adding that his work at Brandeis Center since the Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attacks has “reinforced” the belief that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism and that if you hate the Jewish state, you hate the Jewish people.” 

“We see that played out every day in this country and around the world. We cannot let that ideology take hold in the Democratic party, and I’m committed to defeating anti-Zionism and antisemitism in the Democratic party. You don’t need to bend the knee to antisemitism or socialism to be a Democrat.”

The deadly terrorist attack during a Hanukkah celebration in Australia on Sunday is sparking a renewed debate within the Democratic Party over anti-Israel slogans including “globalize the intifada,” and whether such extreme rhetoric fuels antisemitic prejudice that can lead to violence against Jews.

Some candidates and elected officials in New York City, where recent anti-Israel demonstrations have raised alarms within the largest Jewish community in the world, are tying such rhetoric directly to the carnage at Bondi Beach in Sydney — after two gunmen killed at least 15 people and wounded more than three dozen in the deadliest attack against the Jewish community in Australian history.

Eric Adams, the outgoing mayor, said on Sunday that “the attack in Sydney is exactly what it means to ‘globalize the intifada,’” and cast the shooting as “the real-world application of that call to violence.”

Erik Bottcher, a city councilman who is among several Democrats now competing to succeed Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) in a heavily Jewish district in Manhattan, said that, in the wake of “an attack like Bondi Beach, we should be unequivocal: antisemitic violence is unacceptable, full stop.”

“And we should also be honest that slogans like ‘globalize the intifada’ don’t advance justice, they escalate hostility and make Jewish communities feel targeted,” Bottcher continued in a statement shared with Jewish Insider on Monday. “Leaders should be lowering the temperature.”

Alex Bores, a state assemblyman also seeking to replace Nadler, called the attack “horrifying and despicable” and said “antisemitism is a growing threat around the world,” while noting that “New York City has a special responsibility to confront it head‑on.”

“Any rhetoric or actions that dehumanize Jews, incite violence or put Jewish communities at risk must be called out and stopped, without exceptions. I have repeatedly condemned the use of the slogan ‘globalize the intifada,’” Bores told JI. “I believe that phrase, regardless of a specific speaker’s intent, has been tied inextricably to violent attacks, strikes fear in many New Yorkers and has no place in our city.”

Micah Lasher, a Jewish state assemblyman and another Democrat in the race, asked rhetorically in a social media post Sunday whether there was “any question” that “the spread of violence against Jews is intertwined with the social acceptability of violent rhetoric directed at Jews.”

“People of good will must confront this reality,” he concluded.

Such discourse is likely to intensify in next year’s primaries, where several anti-Israel candidates in New York City are seeking to challenge incumbent Democrats over their positions on Gaza and ties to AIPAC, the pro-Israel advocacy group increasingly demonized by the far left.

For now, however, those challengers were largely reluctant to weigh in on the heated rhetoric used by anti-Israel protesters — including just last month at at a synagogue in Manhattan where demonstrators chanted such phrases as “globalize the intifada” and “death to the IDF” — and if such language deserves further scrutiny amid heightened security concerns in the Jewish community following the Bondi Beach attack.

Darializa Avila Chevalier, an organizer in Harlem who helped to lead anti-Israel protests at Columbia University and recently launched a bid to challenge Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), did not respond to a request for comment.

Michael Blake, a former state assemblyman who is now challenging Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) in the Bronx and who has drawn charges of hypocrisy for pivoting from his past outspoken support for Israel and close relations with AIPAC, also did not return a request for comment — even as he condemned the shooting in Australia.

For his part, Torres, a pro-Israel stalwart and top ally of the Jewish community, described the attack as “part of a global surge in antisemitism fueled by an ever-escalating campaign of demonization and dehumanization.”

A spokesperson for Brad Lander, the outgoing city comptroller mounting a newly launched bid to unseat Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in a left-leaning district covering Lower Manhattan as well as parts of Brooklyn, likewise declined to comment, instead referring to his “several public comments about the Sydney shooting.”

The spokesperson also cited previous remarks in which Lander voiced reservations about calls to “globalize the intifada,” shortly after Zohran Mamdani, who is now the mayor-elect of New York City, had faced widespread backlash for refusing to denounce the slogan. 

“Maybe you don’t mean to be saying it’s open season on Jews everywhere in the world, but that’s what I hear,” Lander, a top Jewish ally of Mamdani, said in comments in June. “And I’d like to hear that from other people.”

A spokesperson for Goldman, a pro-Israel Jewish Democrat, also declined to weigh in on the matter.

Mamdani, who condemned the Bondi Beach attack as a “vile act of antisemitic terror” in a social media post on Sunday, has refused to denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada,” but has vowed to discourage its usage.

In a Friday interview with WCBS in New York, Mamdani responded to feedback from a prominent local rabbi, Ammiel Hirsch, who expressed concern about the mayor-elect’s “ideological hostility to the very existence of Israel” and said that “anti-Zionist rhetoric and anti-Israel policies will threaten Jewish safety” in the city.

“Rabbi Hirsch is entitled to his opinions,” Mamdani stated. “The positions that I’ve made clear on Israel and on Palestine, these are part of universal beliefs of equal rights and the necessity of it for all people everywhere.”

A spokesperson for Mamdani did not respond to a request for comment.

Despite reluctance among Mamdani and some of his allies to now more openly grapple with rhetoric many Jews have found threatening, one progressive challenger to Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY), a pro-Israel incumbent in Queens endorsed by AIPAC, said that he has come to view phrases such as “globalize the intifada” as harmful, thanks to conversations with his Jewish friends.

Chuck Park, a former City Council aide and foreign service officer who has criticized Meng’s donations from AIPAC, said “Jewish people around the world — from Bondi Beach to Bushwick — are very scared right now,” while adding “it is the job of non-Jewish leaders like myself to listen to them.”

“When I listen to my Jewish friends,” he said in an interview with JI on Monday, “they tell me that they hear” the phrase particularly “as a call to violence against them.”

“The swastika is no longer a Buddhist symbol of good fortune, right?” Park added. “The pointed white hood is no longer a Catholic symbol of penance. And in a very similar way, that phrase is not a call for the liberation of an oppressed people, and I think it has instilled and maybe even inspired dangerous attacks on Jewish people around the world.”

The hotly anticipated primary matchup between outgoing New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) was widely expected to be a bellwether race that would test the strength of pro-Israel sentiment within the Democratic Party.

Featuring two prominent Jewish New Yorkers with sharply opposing views on the Middle East, the race notably pits Lander, an outspoken critic of Israel and its war in Gaza, against Goldman, a more moderate incumbent viewed as a strong defender of the Jewish state.

But nearly a week after announcing his challenge, Lander, the progressive New York City comptroller, is so far tiptoeing around such differences, even as they are arguably the driving contrast in the primary. Instead, he has more actively emphasized a message that is casting Goldman as ineffective in countering President Donald Trump — declaring it is “time for fighters” and “not folders” in Congress.

His top surrogates — including a range of vocal Israel critics including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City — have made no mention of Middle East policy in their statements endorsing his campaign to represent New York’s 10th Congressional District, which covers Lower Manhattan and a swath of northwest Brooklyn.

“We need more fighters in Washington now more than ever, and Brad is a fighter,” Warren said last week, adding that Lander has “the grit to not just win this race, but deliver for working families.”

Such comments, however, have failed to note that Goldman, who was elected to Congress in 2022, is recognized as a leading Trump antagonist, having served as the top prosecutor in the president’s first impeachment case. Like Lander, he has frequently confronted the Trump administration on a range of issues including its immigration agenda. Last week, for instance, Goldman seized the spotlight during a fiery House hearing in which he clashed with Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary — accusing her of illegally deporting asylum seekers in a grilling that drew headlines and social media virality.

Warren’s team did not respond to a request for comment when asked why she was not satisfied with Goldman’s record opposing Trump and his administration’s policies.

The early effort by Lander and some of his allies to employ rhetoric focused largely on fighting Trump has obscured how Israel is the clearest dividing line in the race — raising questions about Lander’s strategy as he seeks to shape a narrative Goldman’s supporters have dismissed as a misdirection. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), in a statement last week, countered that her colleague is one of the “best members” she has “ever served with” and said he “is exactly the right fighter for this moment.”

With opposition to Trump likely a major motivating force for midterm voters, Lander is now facing scrutiny over his attacks targeting a two-term incumbent who has long staked his reputation on effectively battling the president. Meanwhile, in the wake of Israel’s recent ceasefire with Hamas, it remains to be seen if Gaza will continue to be an animating issue heading into the June primary election that is already shaping up to be a heated and expensive race.

Goldman, a Levi Strauss heir whose estimated net worth is up to $250 million, spent nearly $5 million of his own money during his first primary bid three years ago, when he narrowly prevailed in a crowded field of progressive rivals who split the vote. Lander has also targeted Goldman’s personal wealth, saying that the “oligarchy” should not “be able to buy a seat in Congress.”

Even as Lander, a former longtime city councilman from Brooklyn, touts high-profile support from the Senate, House progressives have for their part so far stayed on the sidelines. 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), an Israel critic who backed Lander’s comptroller bid in 2021 and called him a “talented hero” after his arrest by federal agents at an immigration courthouse last June, said she is “not weighing into that race right now,” echoing other like-minded lawmakers who also declined to take sides in the looming primary.

While Lander has long identified as a progressive Zionist, he has been outspoken in criticizing Israel’s conduct in Gaza, accusing the country of war crimes and ethnic cleansing. He has additionally called for conditioning U.S. aid to Israel, a measure Goldman has rejected. 

“What Lander is counting on now is the sentiment of the moment, which is further to the left and more anti-Israel,” Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic consultant in New York City, told Jewish Insider in a recent interview.

In a speech before the mayoral election, where he rose to prominence as a top surrogate for Mamdani after losing his own primary bid, Lander advocated for building a “coalition of anti-Zionists and liberal Zionists,” seeking to unify opposing factions to end “the horrors in Gaza.” 

Goldman, for his part, chose not to endorse Mamdani, citing concerns about his approach to Israel and rising antisemitism, but he has said he looks forward to working with the mayor-elect on promoting his affordability agenda.

“What Lander is counting on now is the sentiment of the moment, which is further to the left and more anti-Israel,” Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic consultant in New York City, told Jewish Insider in a recent interview.

Still, in the days after launching his campaign, Lander has sent mixed signals about how he plans to highlight differences with his opponent on Israel. 

In his campaign announcement video released last Wednesday, for example, he took a thinly veiled jab at Goldman in vowing not to do “AIPAC’s bidding,” referring to the increasingly demonized pro-Israel group, but did not mention the incumbent by name.

Lander told The New York Daily News in an interview last week that he views contrasts over Gaza as ancillary to their approaches to confronting the Trump administration, drawing raised eyebrows from observers who noted that hitting Goldman on his strongest issue avoids addressing a more salient tension over Middle East policy.

“On this issue, we have some disagreements,” he said of Israel, “but the core rationale is because it’s time for fighters not folders,” Lander elaborated on his approach to the race.

One Jewish community leader supportive of Goldman expressed frustration at the logic behind Lander’s challenge. “I’m just pissed that there’s not a single thing they can point to what Goldman isn’t doing right other than being pro-Israel,” he told JI, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive subject.

During a campaign kickoff event in Brooklyn last week, Lander accused Goldman of failing to hold Israel accountable for its behavior in Gaza, saying “only I, of the two of us, recognize that Netanyahu’s leveling of schools and hospitals and the destruction of Gaza was a war crime,” in reference to the Israeli prime minister. He also reiterated that New Yorkers “don’t want elected officials who do AIPAC bidding in a district that recognizes that our safety and our freedom is bound up together.”

Lauren Hitt, a spokesperson for Lander’s campaign, disputed criticism that he is avoiding Israel as a top issue. “Brad literally called out AIPAC in his launch video, so safe to say he will continue to spend quite a bit of time discussing Israel in this race,” she said in a statement to JI on Friday. 

On Friday, Lander also said on social media that, if he were a member of Congress, he would introduce a resolution censuring Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) over his recent incendiary comments calling for Muslims to be “destroyed.” Lander, without directly citing his opponent, also noted he would “not have voted with Republicans” to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) over incendiary comments against Israel during the Israel-Hamas war in 2023, as Goldman himself had done.

Hours later, Goldman also denounced Fine in an X post for remarks assailing Muslims as “barbarians,” calling the statement “despicable and unacceptable” and saying he “must apologize and retract this tweet immediately.”

Lauren Hitt, a spokesperson for Lander’s campaign, disputed criticism that he is avoiding Israel as a top issue. “Brad literally called out AIPAC in his launch video, so safe to say he will continue to spend quite a bit of time discussing Israel in this race,” she said in a statement to JI on Friday. 

“Brad will also speak to the other issues concerning NY-10 voters, including affordability — another topic where the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune is out of step with the district’s experience. NY-10 voters don’t need a representative that’s palling around with Don[ald Trump] Jr. in the Bahamas, they need someone who understands and represents their views,” Hitt added, referring to an October social media post in which Trump’s son sarcastically thanked Goldman for his “kind words” about the president’s ceasefire and hostage deal during the government shutdown.

For now, it is unclear how AIPAC and pro-Israel groups more broadly are assessing the matchup — and if they will choose to engage in the primary. A spokesperson for AIPAC declined to weigh in. 

In 2022, AIPAC disclosed after Goldman had won his primary that its super PAC, United Democracy Project, had quietly contributed at least $350,000 to a separate group established near the end of the race to fund a series of attack ads against Yuh-Line Niou, a far-left rival who had drawn controversy for voicing alignment with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.

One pro-Israel consultant, who was granted anonymity to address a sensitive topic, suggested “AIPAC’s involvement in the race would probably be a negative against Goldman.” Mamdani, an ally of Lander who has long been a fierce critic of Israel, performed well in the district — where Goldman’s views on Israel have faced backlash from left-wing voters.

Democratic Majority for Israel, which is backing Goldman, had been wary of a one-on-one contest with Lander, whom polling has shown is a strong opponent, according to a person familiar with the group’s discussions. Lander’s early consolidation of progressive support helped to push two other rivals on the left not to run in the race, effectively clearing the field for the outgoing comptroller. A spokesperson for DMFI did not respond to requests for comment regarding its plans.

Goldman, meanwhile, said in an interview with a local news outlet last week he welcomes Lander’s challenge but is “not really thinking about” the race “right now.” A campaign spokesperson said that he is “focused on stopping” Trump and “will deal with Brad and other challengers in the new year,” when he is “planning to roll out a flood of” endorsements from fellow House members.

Despite differences over Israel, Goldman is also endorsed by J Street, a progressive Israel advocacy group that has long been close to Lander. A spokesperson for J Street told JI in a statement the group is “proud” to back Goldman and “we deeply value his pro-Israel, pro-peace and pro-democracy leadership.”

“Dan has a progressive record,” said Chris Coffey, a Democratic strategist. “It’s not always as far left on Israel as Brad, for sure, and that is one of the things that differentiates them on policy.” Israel, he added, “could be a defining issue in this race,” regardless of Lander’s messaging efforts to prioritize Trump.

“We are also grateful for our years-long friendship with Brad Lander, who is a vocal leader for our values. We know that the issue of peace is close to both of their hearts,” the spokesperson continued. “Ultimately, it is up to the district to determine who they want to represent them in Congress, and we are glad to see two J Street-aligned voices in this race.”

A top J Street official, speaking on background to address the primary, confirmed the group will not be engaging materially in the race as it is satisfied with both candidates’ records. “I expect our donor base will give to both,” the official told JI. “There’s definitely a split of opinion on this race, to say the least.”

“Dan has a progressive record,” said Chris Coffey, a Democratic strategist. “It’s not always as far left on Israel as Brad, for sure, and that is one of the things that differentiates them on policy.” Israel, he added, “could be a defining issue in this race,” regardless of Lander’s messaging efforts to prioritize Trump.

Lander, for his part, could also face backlash from far-left activists in the district who have bristled at his identification as a progressive Zionist and have taken issue with his investments in an Israeli arms producer as comptroller, even as he chose to cease holdings of Israel bonds during his four years in office.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is focused largely on winning back the House in next year’s midterms, declined to comment on the primary, though it has traditionally backed incumbents.

Locally, a political advocacy group in the district called Brooklyn BridgeBuilders, which is dedicated to fighting antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment, is planning to support Goldman and is currently in the process of formalizing its strategy, according to Ramon Maislen, its CEO.

“The decision to challenge a highly effective liberal Jewish incumbent is incredibly fraught,” Maislen, a Jewish community activist who lives in Park Slope, told JI. “Dan is someone who has been unwavering in taking on Trump, defending our democracy and standing with the Jewish community.”

The leftward lurch of the Democratic Party over the last year can be documented in many ways: The sudden rise of Zohran Mamdani as mayor-elect of New York City, the surge of far-left candidates running on socialist, anti-Israel platforms and the party accommodating a panoply of activist views, including anti-Israel activism, instead of drawing red lines against extremism.

But all of these developments don’t directly impact the party’s electoral fortunes, especially since the surge of left-wing activism has mainly predominated in the most-progressive parts of the country, like New York City, Seattle and safe Democratic districts.

But now there are clear signs that Democratic voters are rallying behind out-of-the-mainstream, in-your-face candidates in battleground and even GOP-leaning states and districts, developments that are putting races out of play for a party that’s hoping to ride an anti-Trump wave back into power in next year’s midterms.

Nowhere is the party’s leftward evolution clearer than in Texas, a conservative-minded state where the Senate race was potentially competitive as a result of GOP infighting. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is facing a serious primary threat from the state’s right-wing, scandal-plagued attorney general, Ken Paxton. The Democratic thinking: If Paxton won the nomination, a mainstream candidate with a track record of winning persuadable voters could at least force Republicans to spend money to defend red-state turf next year. 

To that end, Colin Allred, a former NFL player and center-left suburban lawmaker who was elected to the House in 2018 by winning over independents and some moderate Republicans, jumped into the race. Allred lost to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in 2024, but cut the GOP victory margin in the race to eight points — about half of President Donald Trump’s 14-point margin against Kamala Harris.

Allred’s brand of pragmatic politics was quickly overtaken this year by candidates drawing attention for their social media virality. Texas state Rep. James Talarico quickly emerged as an Allred alternative, offering a brand of TV-ready, populist progressivism that some party strategists thought could be a model for candidates looking to appeal to the base without insulting conservatives. Even though his voting record is liberal, the fact he went on Joe Rogan’s podcast and talked about faith drew him a niche following within the party.

But all that strategic posturing was rendered moot, after the polarizing and progressive Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) announced her candidacy on Monday, emerging as a front-runner in the Democratic primary even as most strategists view her as a surefire loser in a general election — no matter who Republicans nominate. What’s concerning Democrats even more is that if she’s nominated, her long history of controversial comments could hurt Democrats looking to hang on for reelection in competitive districts.

In a sign of where the energy in the party lies, Allred quickly announced he was dropping out of the Senate race and instead is pursuing a comeback bid in the House. Talarico is sticking around, and while his team is optimistic they can win the primary, they acknowledge they’re starting out with a double-digit deficit against the more-prominent Crockett.

If Democrats want to entertain any hopes of winning back the Senate majority, they have to prevail in at least two GOP-held seats in conservative territory — Ohio, Texas, Iowa and Alaska being the most realistic options. Putting Texas in play was always seen as part of that playbook, even as Democrats privately acknowledged their odds are long.

With Crockett as the nominee, not only does Texas fall out of contention, but the opportunity for Democrats to drain GOP resources in defending a red state also would become more unlikely. 

And what’s worrying Democrats is that the trend of voters rallying behind far-left candidates who aren’t electable is percolating far beyond Texas. In a Tennessee congressional special election this month, the party nominated state Rep. Aftyn Behn, a candidate nicknamed the “AOC of Tennessee,” as their standard-bearer against more-moderate alternatives in the primary. The race in a Trump-friendly district became competitive because of the GOP’s political problems, but Behn wasn’t able to exploit the opportunity because of her record.

There are many candidates emerging with backgrounds like Crockett and Behn in congressional primaries across the country. They’re the type of candidates who can win in deep-blue constituencies, but the party pays a price when they’re nominated in swing districts.  

CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere summed up the Democrats’ dilemma clearly: “This seems like a classic case of the party seeing a potential Republican disaster it could take advantage of, then laying the groundwork for the Democrats’ own disaster.”  

The 2028 presidential race is still well over a year away from beginning in earnest. But if there’s any indication about whether Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, long considered a rising star in the Democratic Party, is seriously considering running, it’s that the moderate swing-state governor recently sat down for interviews for two major magazine features — in The Atlantic and The New Yorker — both published in the last week. 

Shapiro faced questions about his ambitions, his successes and failures and his take on the increasingly divisive and vitriolic nature of American politics. The two interviews also offer a fresh look at how Shapiro, one of the most prominent Jewish politicians in America, thinks about and practices Judaism from his perch in Harrisburg. 

When he ran for governor in 2022, his first major campaign ad featured footage of him and his family observing Shabbat. He told The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta that Friday night dinners are “still a sacrosanct moment for our family.” But he also shared that he and his family have lately attended synagogue services “far less than at any other point in our lives.”

Shapiro regularly invokes religion in public addresses, choosing to speak about “my faith” rather than more specifically referring to his Jewish faith. 

“I feel more connected to my faith today than at any other time in my life. Truly. And I probably pray more now than at any other time in my life. But my connection to an institution of prayer, or a sort of formal structure of that prayer, has dramatically decreased,” Shapiro shared. “The sort of ritualistic practices became less of a focus of the way we practice our faith — with the exception, of course, of Friday nights.” 

In conversation with The New Yorker’s Benjamin Wallace-Wells, Shapiro opened up about the arson attack on the governor’s residence in April, hours after his family had concluded their Passover Seder. At the October sentencing hearing for the assailant, Shapiro said for the first time that he may have been targeted, in part, for his Jewish faith. 

“The prosecutor felt it was important to introduce into evidence the bomber’s claims that he did that because of ‘what I did to the Palestinians,’ so clearly there was some motivation because of my faith,” Shapiro told The New Yorker, which reported that the dining room — now restored after being severely burned — features a small display of charred cups and dishes from the Seder, to remember that frightening evening. 

But Shapiro’s subsequent comments backed away from personally tagging an antisemitic motive on the perpetrator: “I think it is dangerous for you or anyone else to think about those who perpetrate these violent attacks as linear thinkers, meaning that they have a left-wing ideology or a right-wing ideology, or that they have a firm set of beliefs the way you might or I might. These are clearly irrational thinkers.”

Shapiro talked to The New Yorker about rising antisemitism in the U.S., and said that he disagreed with President Donald Trump’s handling of antisemitism. Trump “is using Jews as his excuse for trying to take over universities and restrict their funding,” Shapiro said. But he does not deny that Jewish students were targeted, sometimes violently, on American campuses after the Oct. 7 attacks. “These are crimes,” Shapiro said. “And to me, that’s where a line was crossed.” He flexed his gubernatorial power to pressure the University of Pennsylvania — albeit indirectly — to crack down on antisemitism. 

Ultimately, as Shapiro continues in a political career that has so far only taken him higher, often with great momentum, he will face a question beyond just who is the best candidate in 2028: Can a Jewish person get elected president in the U.S.? The Atlantic asked Shapiro directly.

“There aren’t a whole lot of folks who pray like me,” Shapiro acknowledged. But, he added, “I have found that by living openly and proudly with my faith that it’s brought me closer to the people of Pennsylvania. And I think the people of Pennsylvania are pretty indicative of where large swaths of the American people are.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Jewish Insider on Tuesday that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) would need to reject antisemitism and other forms of bigotry if she wanted to join the Democratic coalition, tempering his recent comment that the Democratic Party should be enough of a “big tent” to accommodate Greene.

Greene, who has recently earned friendly treatment from some Democrats and liberal-leaning media programs such as “The View” over her break with President Donald Trump, has continued to invoke antisemitic tropes, most recently suggesting over the weekend that Israel had pressured Trump to denounce her, and has promoted a variety of other conspiracy theories.

But that rhetoric, for which many liberals previously condemned Greene, has gone increasingly overlooked.

“We are a big tent. We must be a huge, vast tent. I say this is a party that’s got room for Marjorie Taylor Greene if she wants to come over. We’ve got room for anybody who wants to stand up for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights today,” Raskin said in remarks to Florida Democrats shared on social media last weekend.

Asked about Greene’s ongoing promotion of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories, Raskin told JI in a statement, “Before I would welcome Rep. Greene or any other leaders who might flee from Trump’s autocratic personality cult, I would of course want to see them repudiate all the forms of authoritarianism, antisemitism, racism, transphobia and bigotry that they have promoted as Republicans and that have become so intertwined with the MAGA Republican brand under Trump.”

He said he believes that some of his colleagues may end up switching parties.

“I have real hope that a whole lot of my Colleagues will continue to evolve away from the dangerous and divisive swamps of MAGA politics,” Raskin said. “I meet Independents and Republicans every day joining the Democratic Party, and I am delighted to work with them and anyone else who will stand up against antisemitism, racism and corruption and for democracy, equality, freedom and progress for all.”

Jewish Democratic groups urged Democrats to keep Greene at a distance.

“She has a track record of antisemitism and opposition to Israel that goes back before she was even in Congress and continued as recently as a few days ago,” Democratic Majority for Israel CEO Brian Romick told Jewish Insider. “The House is a legislative body and you need to get 218 [votes]. You should get 218 [with] whoever you can get to 218, but just because someone votes with you today doesn’t make them a good person or your friend.”

Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said that Greene’s rift with Trump “doesn’t change her many years of espousing extremist views, including dangerous lies about Jewish Americans, whether it be the infamous ‘space laser’ accusation or other antisemitic conspiracy theories. So if she really wants to distinguish herself from the toxic politics of Donald Trump, she needs to do more than simply call for the release of the Epstein files.”

Soifer also argued that Greene’s views of Israel — she has accused the country of genocide in Gaza and sought to cut off military aid — “are not aligned with those of Jewish Dems either.”

“If she’s going to provide an additional vote for passage of critically important measures for the American people, including reducing their otherwise skyrocketing prices of health care, then the Democrats should gladly take that support,” Soifer said. “However, that doesn’t mean aligning with her and her extremist views. It doesn’t change the fact that she has continued to perpetuate antisemitic conspiracy theories and espouse extremist and even antisemitic views.”

Longtime Democratic official Rahm Emanuel offered a word of warning on Sunday night to the thousands of Jewish communal leaders gathered in Washington to kick off the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly: Don’t expect 2028 presidential candidates to visit Israel like his old boss, Barack Obama, did on the campaign trail in 2008. He used an ice cream metaphor to make his point.

“If in 2024 the Democrats didn’t have a choice, in 2028 it’s going to be like Baskin-Robbins. There’s gonna be, like, 31 flavors. Some of us are gonna be chocolate mint. Nobody is going to Jerusalem,” Emanuel said at the opening plenary. “Nobody is leaving America to go travel to Jerusalem. That’s the politics. And it’s not just in the Democratic primary.” 

Emanuel, Obama’s former chief of staff and the former U.S. ambassador to Japan, beseeched the attendees to reckon with the shifting political winds on Israel and work to make a stronger case for the U.S.-Israel relationship. 

“For the generation under 30, the last two years will be as seminal a definition as what the Six-Day War was for those six days for a generation. We have our work cut out for us,” said Emanuel, who acknowledged that his message may not make him popular in a room of pro-Israel professionals. “This may be the last time I’m asked to speak to you.” 

Emanuel has discussed the possibility of running for president in 2028, and this year has positioned himself as an independent-minded truth-teller willing to break with Democratic Party talking points. He urged the Jewish leaders, who are in Washington for a three-day conference focused on philanthropy and advocacy, to take stock of the task that awaits them.

“The task here is a major long-term rehabilitation of the narrative around what Israel needs, and if we don’t understand the depth of where we are, we’re never going to fix the problem,” said Emanuel, who was speaking on a panel with conservative CNN analyst Scott Jennings. 

Emanuel described the American Jewish community as being “on the precipice,” when asked about a 2024 Atlantic article that argued that antisemitism on both sides of the aisle threatens to end the so-called “golden age” of American Jewish life. 

“Whether that era, that golden era, closes or stays open for another generation is not only incumbent upon the people in this room, but incumbent upon all of us who believe in a set of values that, as noted, are universal,” he said. “I think what we’re seeing on the left and the right, not only about Israel, but now fully open about Jews and who they are, sits on the precipice. It can go either way.”

An increasingly crowded race for a coveted House seat in the heart of Manhattan is shaping up to be among the most vigorously contested Democratic primary battles in next year’s midterms, with half a dozen — and counting — contenders now jockeying for the chance to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY).

In a district home to one of the largest Jewish constituencies in the country, the open primary next June is likely to center in part on Israel as the candidates signal where they stand on an issue that has grown intensely charged over the war in Gaza.

Even as the far left now seeks to ride momentum from Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory — which elevated an unabashed socialist to executive office — experts suggested the primary could largely serve as an exception to the anti-Israel sentiments that became a trademark of his stunning rise.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent in the mayoral election this month, won the district by five points with 50%, indicating that a potentially meaningful share of Jewish voters were resistant to Mamdani’s hostile views on Israel and refusal to condemn rhetoric seen as antisemitic.

The district, which includes the Upper East and West Sides of Manhattan, “is more moderate and pro-Israel than” another heavily Jewish House seat in Brooklyn where Mamdani performed well, Chris Coffey, a Democratic strategist who is not involved in the race, told Jewish Insider on Thursday.

So far, however, most of the declared candidates have been relatively cautious about sharing their positions on Israel — underscoring the hazards of addressing a subject that has fueled deep divisions within the Democratic Party. “I would be surprised if they want to lead on this,” Coffey speculated. “It’s a contentious issue.”   

With the exception of Alex Bores, an assemblyman who represents the Upper East Side, none of the top candidates who have launched bids in recent weeks answered a question from JI on Thursday asking whether they would support an embargo on offensive weapons to Israel, a measure backed by Nadler after he revealed in September that he would step down at the end of his current term.

“There are laws on the books about this and they should be applied across the board,” Bores said in a statement indicating he would oppose such efforts if elected. “There is no singling out or exemptions for any one country.”

Privately, Bores has been “clear” that an arms embargo is not “negotiable for him,” according to a person familiar with his thinking. Former Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), a pro-Israel Jewish Democrat, endorsed the assemblyman on Tuesday but was not available to comment about his decision.

Alan Pardee, a former financial executive who is also seeking the nomination, was more direct in a statement shared with JI. “I believe that Israel has the right to defend itself, and that the United States is a critical ally in that regard. I do not support the proposed embargo,” he said.

Micah Lasher, a Jewish assemblyman on the Upper West Side and a protégé of Nadler who is viewed as traditionally pro-Israel, has yet to publicly confirm his own stance on the matter, even as he is expected to reject an embargo. Lasher also dodged a question about the issue while speaking at an Assembly town hall in September before he launched his House bid, saying he was unwilling to discuss topics outside his state legislative purview, according to audio shared with JI. 

A poll that circulated in the district in September, which some observers suspected was affiliated with Lasher or allies of his campaign, asked respondents whether they supported Congress blocking “the sale of weapons to Israel” in order to “send a message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” a sign of the significance of such questions to voters in the race.

Like Nadler, a veteran Jewish lawmaker who has long sought to balance his progressive politics with support for Israel that dwindled during the war in Gaza, Lasher had faced backlash from some Jewish community leaders in the district for having endorsed Mamdani, though he has clarified they are not aligned on Israel issues.

Other candidates in the primary who backed the mayor-elect have similarly distanced themselves from his positions on Israel. Erik Bottcher, a city councilman from Chelsea who joined the primary on Thursday, has confirmed that, unlike Mamdani, he supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Jack Schlossberg, an influencer and the grandson of John F. Kennedy, who also entered the primary this week, has said he disagrees with Mamdani’s pledge to arrest Netanyahu if he steps foot in the city. The political scion was raised Catholic but identifies as Jewish.

Bores, who endorsed Mamdani in September, has objected to a failed bill the mayor-elect introduced as an assemblyman to strip nonprofit groups of their tax-exempt status for “engaging in unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity.” Bores has said he viewed the bill as “immediately suspicious” because it “singularly applies to organizations providing aid to a specific country and its people.“

And Liam Elkind, a Jewish former nonprofit leader who had launched a primary challenge to Nadler before he announced his plans to retire, has expressed his concern that Mamdani has refused to denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada” — seen by critics as a call to violence against Jews. Mamdani has, instead, pledged to “discourage” usage of the phrase. 

Rounding out the primary field is Jami Floyd, an attorney and journalist who is seeking to occupy a centrist lane and has said that she did not vote for Mamdani. 

The field could grow as other potential candidates are said to be mulling campaigns, including George Conway, a lawyer and outspoken critic of President Donald Trump who is an independent, and Nathalie Barth, former president of Park Avenue Synagogue.

Cameron Kasky, a young gun-violence prevention activist, has filed to run and said on Thursday he is now exploring a bid. He is expected to soon join the race, according to a person familiar with the matter. He would be one of the lone anti-Israel voices in the current primary field, testing the resonance of such views among an electorate that denied Mamdani the majority of the vote.

Kasky, who is Jewish, has frequently criticized Israel on social media and is in favor of an arms embargo. “If you are a Democrat running in 2026 and do not fully support an arms embargo to the to State of Israel amidst their ongoing genocide in Gaza despite Trump’s fake ‘ceasefire,’” he said in a recent post, “Stop wasting everybody’s time. It’s over. The people have spoken. Moral clarity is winning.”

Despite his recent loss, Cuomo, a staunch defender of Israel, is also exploring a campaign and has been making calls to donors who backed his mayoral bid, though it was unclear how seriously he is considering the move, people familiar with the matter told JI. Cuomo, who was once married to a Kennedy, has suggested that he can pull support from Schlossberg and told people he “already has the Kennedy voters,” one of the sources told JI. A spokesperson for Cuomo has dismissed speculation that he has been considering a House campaign.

The primary is also expected to attract outside spending from super PACs and major Democratic donors, including Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn who has reportedly committed to backing Elkind. One person familiar with the race suggested Lasher could claim support from a powerful former boss, Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, for whom he once worked as a legislative director.

AIPAC, the pro-Israel advocacy group that has actively engaged in recent primary cycles, did not respond to a request for comment about how it is assessing the race.

With a week since the off-year gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, a clear dynamic is emerging: President Donald Trump’s gains with nontraditional GOP voters — especially working-class Black and Hispanic voters and Gen Zers — are not translating into support for the Republican Party this year. 

If Republicans are unable to recreate the Trump 2024 coalition without Trump on the ballot, they will face serious political disadvantages for the midterms and beyond. 

The double-digit margins of victory of incoming Democratic governors Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia speak volumes about the current political environment. Their sweeping wins underscore that, while Democrats may be divided as a result of ideological infighting, the antipathy towards Trump and the GOP is the glue that holds the party together. 

The historic tendency of voters taking out their dissatisfaction on the party in power is alive and well, and is much more of a factor than the favorability ratings of the political parties.

The most revealing outcome from the gubernatorial elections is the fact that the majority-making elements of Trump’s coalition swung decisively back to the Democrats, according to the AP/Fox News voter analysis. In New Jersey, young men between 18-29 backed Sherrill by 14 points (57-43%) after narrowly supporting Trump in last year’s presidential election. In Virginia, Spanberger won 58% of young men, a huge margin for a demographic that had assumed to be trending away from the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party’s comeback with Hispanic voters is equally as significant. Because of continuing inflation and backlash to the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation of illegal immigrants and ICE tactics, Hispanic voters once again voted like reliable elements of the Democratic coalition. In New Jersey, over two-thirds (68%) of Hispanic voters backed Sherrill —12 points more than Kamala Harris’ support with Hispanics in the state in 2024. In Virginia, Spanberger’s 67% support with Hispanics was eight points ahead of Harris’ vote share with the key constituency.

Meanwhile, Black voters overwhelmingly sided with the Democratic nominees this year, after a notable minority of them backed Trump in last year’s presidential election. Spanberger won 93% of the Black vote, seven points more than Harris, even though she was running against a Black opponent in Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. Sherrill won 94% of the Black vote in New Jersey, a whopping 15 points more than Harris carried in 2024.

There are a number of lessons from the gubernatorial results, even if they don’t neatly extrapolate into different states in future elections. 

First, the presence of pragmatic-minded Democrats with moderate voting records in Congress at the top of the ticket was a major selling point. In the 2024 presidential election, more voters viewed Harris as out of the ideological mainstream — a dynamic that was impossible to shake, given her long record of progressive posturing. That’s a clear lesson for Democrats to learn as they weigh their presidential nomination options for 2028.

Second, it’s evident that the GOP’s inroads with nonwhite working-class voters in 2024 was more of a short-term blip —mainly in response to former President Joe Biden’s handling of inflation — than any kind of lasting realignment. Republicans may come to regret their aggressive, partisan gerrymandering in Texas, given that it’s reliant on moderate-minded Hispanic voters in the state maintaining an affiliation with the Republican Party. That’s far from a sure thing.

Finally, it’s a reminder that the economy remains the dominant issue for voters — especially with these politically cross-pressured constituencies, which are generally less financially secure than their counterparts. One way to tamp down the so-called “culture wars” and rising extremism is by ensuring economic security and a broader safety net for less advantaged Americans. 

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The humid air was swelling with anticipation as thousands of New York politicos descended on Puerto Rico’s capital last week to attend the annual Somos conference, a multiday marathon of post-election elbow-rubbing where receptions and panels occur alongside covert negotiations and late-night schmoozing at local bars and hotels.

The extended Democratic gathering, which kicked off on Wednesday and continued into the weekend, was adjusting to the ascendant political order led by Zohran Mamdani, whose victory in New York City’s mayoral election earlier that week had upended the Democratic establishment and led to new alliances that until recently would have seemed improbable.

While Mamdani was still largely unknown during Somos last year, just weeks after announcing his long-shot mayoral bid, the 34-year-old democratic socialist and state assemblyman now seized the spotlight as attendees swarmed his arrival Thursday at the Caribe Hilton, where the incoming mayor was later fêted by some of the state’s top elected officials at a crowded beachside reception.

For many Jewish leaders who joined the Caribbean confab, however, the feeling was far more subdued, as they openly grappled with the sensitive question of how to work with a mayor-elect whose stridently anti-Israel views conflict with their own core values.

It is a wholly unfamiliar position for Jewish leaders and mainstream Jewish institutions in New York City, where the mayors have long been proudly pro-Israel. But Mamdani’s stunning rise challenged the conventional thinking that a winning candidate in New York, a place with the largest Jewish community of any city in the world,  must show strong support for Israel. In breaking with decades of precedent, Mamdani still faced skepticism from a significant number of Jewish voters who cast their ballots for former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who lost the Democratic primary and then ran as an independent. Exit polls showed that Cuomo, a vocal supporter of Israel, had doubled Mamdani among Jewish New Yorkers, with around two-thirds of the vote.

As Mamdani prepares to assume office in less than two months, Jewish leaders mingling at Somos were freshly processing his looming mayoralty with a mix of shock, hesitation and bemused detachment. Even if some voiced hope for a positive relationship, most were not ready to specify how they planned to move forward or what was expected of his administration.

One well-connected Jewish attendee cited the five stages of grief in characterizing the reactions among Jewish community leaders who had largely resisted engaging with Mamdani’s campaign. Many of them, it seemed, were dealing with the first stage of denial — and were far from finally reaching acceptance.

“We’re so screwed,” one Jewish political activist was overheard lamenting at an event on Friday evening.

Still, some Jewish community leaders who spoke with Jewish Insider over the course of the retreat suggested they were willing to give Mamdani the latitude to follow through on areas where they are aligned, pointing to a sort of provisional detente in the aftermath of a bruising and emotionally fraught election.

“The mainstream Jewish community is open to dealing with reality,” Noam Gilboord, the chief operating and community relations officer at the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, said diplomatically while attending the conference.

The JCRC, for its part, has not yet held any direct meetings with Mamdani, though members of his team privately reached out about some key issues during the election and have continued to stay in touch, according to Mark Treyger, the group’s chief executive. The campaign gave a heads-up to JCRC leadership, for instance, before Mamdani publicly announced that he would ask Jessica Tisch to stay on as police commissioner, an encouraging choice to Jewish community leaders who favored her for the role.

“We are here to represent the transition with the Jewish community, and we’re so happy to be here,” Ali Najmi, a Mamdani confidante and chief counsel to the mayor-elect’s transition team, told JI in a brief exchange. “We see so many good friends and old friends, and we’re so looking forward to our new friends.” 

Mamdani’s team also checked in with the JCRC after he had won the primary to give assurances that the newly anointed Democratic nominee was committed to providing continued security for its annual Israel Day on Fifth parade — even if he was unlikely to attend, as a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the Jewish state.

While Mamdani was absent from a Thursday night reception the JCRC hosted with the UJA-Federation of New York, he sent two of his top aides, Ali Najmi and Elle Bisgaard-Church, to join the event instead. They were warmly greeted by attendees in a public easing of tensions that would have been difficult to imagine just a few weeks ago.

“We are here to represent the transition with the Jewish community, and we’re so happy to be here,” Najmi, a Mamdani confidante and chief counsel to the mayor-elect’s transition team, told JI in a brief exchange. “We see so many good friends and old friends, and we’re so looking forward to our new friends.” 

Najmi did not share further details regarding the transition’s formal plans to address Jewish issues, steps that are certain to be aggressively scrutinized in the coming months.

Yeruchim Silber, the director of New York government relations at Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox advocacy group, said he appreciated the outreach and looked forward to meeting with Najmi again. “We’re hopeful that we could always find some common ground and work together,” he told JI during the reception. “Look, the mayor-elect said very clearly in his victory speech that he’s going to tackle antisemitism,” he added, “so we’ll take him at his word.”

“My understanding is there is interest in more formal Jewish outreach” from Mamdani’s team, said Phylisa Wisdom, the executive director of New York Jewish Agenda, a liberal Zionist group that has been receptive to the mayor-elect. Wisdom, who joined a private conversation with Mamdani at a Reform synagogue in Brooklyn before the election, said the appearance of his aides at the reception on Thursday demonstrated “a desire to be in all kinds of Jewish spaces they may not have been during the election,” in order to “build relationships and show goodwill.”

“This is a very, very divided time for the city, I think I can acknowledge that,” Mark Levine, the incoming city comptroller who endorsed Mamdani, said in his remarks to the room. 

Mamdani, whose presence at formal Somos events drew throngs of eager admirers seeking selfies with the mayor-elect, likewise steered clear of an annual Shabbat gathering convened by the Met Council, the Jewish anti-poverty charity. Despite his victory, the event, which featured Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), New York state Attorney General Letitia James and other prominent officials, made no direct allusion to Mamdani — further highlighting his uncomfortable relationship with the Jewish community. 

Instead, the speakers at the Met Council’s widely attended reception zeroed in largely on such issues as hunger, poverty and the Trump administration’s efforts to withhold payments for food stamps amid the government shutdown.

“This is a very, very divided time for the city, I think I can acknowledge that,” Mark Levine, the incoming city comptroller who endorsed Mamdani, said in his remarks to the room. 

Levine, who is Jewish, is now facing pressure from some Mamdani allies to divest the city from Israel bonds. He has refused to change course, saying last week that he has “criticism of the Israeli government” but still maintains “deep personal ties to Israel.” Mamdani, meanwhile, has voiced support for ending “the practice of purchasing Israel bonds,” though Levine has indicated he does not believe the mayor-elect has the power to enforce such a policy.

The Shabbat reception was disrupted by anti-Israel protesters two years ago, weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. But no such demonstrations occurred last Friday.

Mamdani, who will soon become New York City’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor, has frequently vowed to fight rising antisemitism. The day after the election, he swiftly moved to condemn vandalism of a Jewish day school in Brooklyn that was defaced by swastika graffiti, calling the attack a “disgusting and heartbreaking act of antisemitism” and pledging to “always stand steadfast with our Jewish neighbors to root the scourge of antisemitism out of our city.”

In his outreach to different parts of the Jewish community and in his public remarks during the election, Mamdani called for increased funding to prevent hate crimes and boosting police protection at Jewish institutions. He has expressed interest in a city curriculum backed by leading Jewish groups, even as it uses a definition of Zionism contradicting his own views on Israel. Mamdani has said he does not recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Despite his pledges to counter antisemitism, that tension underscores how many Jewish leaders see his positions as an active threat and an impediment to upholding support for Israel, as the war in Gaza has fueled deep divisions in the Democratic Party. 

Mamdani’s anti-Israel stances have provoked concerns that he will act on his views when he takes office. He has indicated, for instance, that he would reassess the partnership between Cornell University and Israel’s Technion, situated on Roosevelt Island. He has also pledged to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes if he steps foot in New York City, in a controversial move that legal experts have questioned as legally dubious.

Mamdani has faced scrutiny for his ties to the Democratic Socialists of America, whose avowedly anti-Zionist mission includes demands that the mayor-elect implement several policies that would sever New York City’s relations with Israel. His refusal to explicitly condemn calls to “globalize the intifada” have otherwise continued to frustrate Jewish community leaders.

Robert Tucker, a Jewish philanthropist who had served as the commissioner of New York City’s Fire Department until last week, announced that he was resigning after Mamdani’s win, reportedly owing to the mayor-elect’s anti-Zionist stances.

But some Jewish leaders at Somos speculated that Mamdani may now see his vocal opposition to Israel as an albatross as he seeks to enact an ambitious affordability plan that will need buy-in from the state leadership.

During his time at Somos, the mayor-elect seemed careful to largely avoid the issue. “I will make clear that we are not looking to remake New York City in my image,” he said in remarks at a labor breakfast Saturday. “We are looking to remake it in the image of struggling workers across the five boroughs.”

In comments to a mosque he visited in San Juan, where the imam had mentioned Palestine during his own sermon, Mamdani spoke in metaphorical terms as he addressed the audience. “If you are not at the table, you may find yourself on the menu,” he noted. “It was a Muslim brother, Malcolm X, who reminded us that sitting at the table does not make you a diner. You have to be eating some of what’s on that plate.”

Still, some of Mamdani’s allies on the far left indicated that they were eager to use momentum from his victory to push a more hostile view of Israel into the mainstream discourse and to challenge incumbents who accept donations from AIPAC while promoting pro-Israel policies.

In a panel discussion on Thursday billed as “Colonialism, Resistance and Solidarity: Puerto Rico and Palestine,” Mamdani’s supporters — including City Councilmember Alexa Avilés, Beth Miller of Jewish Voice for Peace Action and Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American activist who has spread antisemitic rhetoric — were emboldened by his recent win, as attendees chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestina will be free!” and “Viva, viva Palestina!” Sarsour described Mamdani’s election as “a new day” and said “we’re not going back.”

“Being someone who supports the Palestinian people is no longer a political liability,” Sarsour, who has vowed to hold Mamdani “accountable” as mayor, told the room. “It is what gets you elected into office.”

In statements following the election, a range of Jewish organizations promised to hold Mamdani responsible for keeping Jews in New York City safe. The mayor-elect’s “victory marks the beginning of a new political chapter for New York, one that many in our community view with enormous concern,” Eric Goldstein, the CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York, said in a letter to supporters. “His rhetoric on Israel and Zionism raises serious questions about whether Jewish New Yorkers will continue to feel seen and protected in the very city we indelibly helped build and grow.”

He said the Jewish community would be watching closely to ensure “that antisemitism is not given any oxygen in our neighborhoods,” adding that “actions matter more” than “words.”

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsh, who leads Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, said in a post-election sermon that he “will readily engage in dialogue” with Mamdani if he chooses to reach out. “We will support Mayor Mamdani’s policies where we can — and oppose them when we must,” he concluded.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who, at Somos, celebrated Mamdani’s win, also stressed to reporters on the sidelines of the conference that Jewish New Yorkers still need to “see action” from the mayor-elect to address their concerns. “That’s one area where I know that there’s some opportunities for him to demonstrate, as he has said, but also demonstrate that he is there to protect all New Yorkers, to protect anyone’s right to worship or their beliefs but also their institutions,” she explained.

The Anti-Defamation League, for its part, launched a “Mamdani Monitor” to track policies that could impact Jewish safety and security. Jewish leaders in attendance at Somos, however, voiced reservations with the effort, suggesting they did not see it as productive as some in the community look for common ground to work with the mayor-elect.

Others voiced hope that a leading candidate for City Council speaker, Julie Menin, who is Jewish, would serve as a counterweight to Mamdani — in contrast with a leftist rival, Crystal Hudson, seen more as an ally of the mayor-elect. Menin, who declined to join a meeting between Mamdani and Jewish officials in the primary, is known as an outspoken supporter of Israel in the City Council.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who, at Somos, celebrated Mamdani’s win, also stressed to reporters on the sidelines of the conference that Jewish New Yorkers still need to “see action” from the mayor-elect to address their concerns. “That’s one area where I know that there’s some opportunities for him to demonstrate, as he has said, but also demonstrate that he is there to protect all New Yorkers, to protect anyone’s right to worship or their beliefs but also their institutions,” she explained.

Hochul, for her part, has also drawn backlash from Jewish donors for choosing to back Mamdani’s campaign in the general election, people familiar with the situation told JI. “She’s got a lot to prove,” one Jewish leader said of the governor, long regarded as a staunch defender of Israel.

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), a pro-Israel Jewish Democrat who declined to endorse Mamdani in the general election, told JI at Somos that, despite their disagreements on Israel, he was looking forward to working with the mayor-elect on areas of alignment such as cost of living issues.

But some Jewish community activists were more suspicious of the incoming mayor. One Brooklyn organizer dismissed the possibility of working with Mamdani outright, saying that his stances on Israel had foreclosed any hope of finding common ground, even on unrelated issues.

Leon Goldenberg, an Orthodox business leader in Brooklyn who serves as an executive board member of the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition, which endorsed Cuomo in the general election, told JI that he has been struggling to decide whether he will ask Mamdani for a meeting.

“I’m really at a loss,” he said on Thursday. “What are we going to talk about, Israel?”

The FJCC itself, which long enjoyed a close relationship with outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, was more optimistic, according to Josh Mehlman, the group’s chairman.  “We have met, and will meet with them again,” he said of Mamdani’s team. “We are confident we can work together for the best interest of the Flatbush community and the Orthodox Jewish community citywide.”

Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis won reelection on Wednesday over his far-left, DSA-aligned challenger, state Sen. Omar Fateh, marking a win for the more pragmatic wing of the Democratic Party. 

A similar result may be emerging in Seattle, where preliminary results showed the Democratic incumbent, Mayor Bruce Harrell, leading over his socialist challenger, though many ballots remain to be counted. 

Frey, who is the second Jewish mayor to preside over Minneapolis, secured his third term, winning by six percentage points, 50% to 44%, in the final round of the city’s ranked choice voting on Wednesday.

Fateh, a progressive affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, has accused Israel of committing “genocide,” among other anti-Israel views, and campaigned with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who remains one of Israel’s harshest critics in Congress. 

Members of Fateh’s staff had also expressed hostile views towards Israel; His communications manager, Ayana Smith-Kooiman, said in a series of now-deleted social media posts that Israel “does not have a ‘right’ to exist” and “must be dismantled,” and said she did not care about Hamas a month after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks — statements that drew rebuke from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN). 

Frey’s victory in Minneapolis signals a wariness of a socialist candidate in the heavily Democratic city, in contrast with Zohran Mamdani’s win in New York City’s mayoral election on Tuesday. 

Meanwhile, in Seattle, the first wave of ballots counted Tuesday night found Harrell holding a seven-point lead over self-described socialist Katie Wilson, 53% to 46%.  

Wilson, who has expressed hostile views towards Israel, including calling the Jewish state’s war on Hamas a “genocide,” led over Harrell in the primary. Wilson has expressed support in the past for divesting from investments in Seattle that support Israeli actions, which is in line with the BDS movement. 

Additionally, some Seattle Jewish community leaders have expressed deep concern over Wilson’s candidacy and her relationships with anti-Israel activists, including Kshama Sawant, a former far-left Seattle city councilmember who has faced accusations of stoking antisemitism.

However, the race is still far from being decided. Many ballots are left to be counted, including a significant share from left-leaning parts of the city. The next tranche of ballots is set to be reported around 5 p.m. local time on Wednesday.

One thing Betsy Sheerr knows for sure is that most Democratic lawmakers still believe in Israel’s right to exist. She also knows that needing to reestablish this basic fact may not be a good sign for her party, and, more broadly, for American support for Israel.

“I can’t believe the bar is so low that that’s where we have to start,” said Sheerr, a longtime Democratic activist and a board member of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. 

That’s the position in which many pro-Israel Democratic advocates find themselves as they begin to take stock of the domestic political damage wrought by Israel’s two-year war with Hamas that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks. 

Unlike naysayers on the right who suggest Democrats have abandoned Israel — a claim made frequently by President Donald Trump — the Jewish activists and communal leaders who advocate for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship and for U.S. aid to Israel still insist that support for the Jewish state remains bipartisan, and that congressional Democrats remain broadly pro-Israel. That proposition faced its toughest test during a two-year war, when Democrats became increasingly sympathetic to the Palestinians as Israel’s effort to eradicate Hamas left the Gaza Strip in ruins and claimed thousands of lives.

As a fragile ceasefire holds, Jewish Democrats see an opportunity to reengage party activists and elected officials who have grown frustrated with Israel’s actions in Gaza. 

Jewish Insider spoke to more than a dozen fundraisers, activists and professionals in the pro-Israel space, most with a long history of involvement in Democratic politics. Their pitch to Democrats at this precarious moment involves two parts: First, push to make Trump’s peace plan a reality. Second, ensure that Democrats understand that the value of America’s relationship with Israel is independent from the leader of either country — and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who remains unpopular with the American left, won’t be in power forever. 

“I think ending the war turns the temperature down pretty dramatically,” said Brian Romick, CEO of Democratic Majority for Israel. “Right now, what we’re saying is, no matter where you were in the previous two years, we all need the deal to work, and so being for the deal [and] wanting the deal to work is a pro-Israel position right now, and then you build from there.”

At the start of the war, 34% of Democrats sympathized more with Israel, and 31% sympathized more with Palestinians, according to New York Times polling. New data released last month shows that 54% of Democrats now sympathize more with the Palestinians, compared to only 13% with Israel. That stark shift in public opinion corresponded to more Democratic lawmakers voting to condition American military support for Israel than ever before.

This summer, 55 Democrats in the House co-sponsored legislation that would significantly restrict arms sales to Israel. Twenty-seven Democratic senators voted in July to support a bill put forward by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that aimed to reject Israeli arms sales. The bill failed, but it marked a watershed moment for the party, with more than half of all Democrats voting in support of the measure. Not long ago, voting to condition aid to Israel would have been seen as a red line by pro-Israel groups. But with a growing number of Democrats who have already done so, such threats could ring hollow.

“I do think that there is room to build forward,” said Jeremy Burton, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, which works closely with Democratic lawmakers in deep-blue Massachusetts. “We have to be secure enough in our own belief in the future and our hope for the future to say ‘OK, if your point was that you’re committed to the long-term project of Israel’s security and safety, and you were looking for short term ways to pressure the government of Israel, then let’s move forward with the long-term project, even if we disagreed with you in the short term.’” 

The pro-Israel lobby AIPAC maintains that it is committed to bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, even as the group has faced sharp criticism from progressive activists — including some who have pressured political candidates to swear off donations from the group. A spokesperson for the organization downplayed the shifting political headwinds, noting that American military aid to Israel continued throughout the war. 

“It is important to separate the noise from anti-Israel extremists of the right and left and actual impact,” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told JI. “For example, time and time again Congress has resoundingly rejected the efforts of those extremists to cut defense assistance to Israel.”

AIPAC has a long-standing policy of not criticizing the Israeli government no matter who is in power, and that isn’t shifting. But other pro-Israel advocates believe that approach may not work with Democrats who are fed up with Netanyahu’s governance. 

“We know that can one be critical of certain Israeli government policies and still be pro-Israel, and we also know that’s increasingly the case for many Democrats, just as it is for a majority of Jewish Americans,” said Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. 

“The vast majority of Democrats are far more sympathetic to the people of Israel than its current leadership,” echoed Tyler Gregory, who leads the Bay Area JCRC and works closely with progressive leaders in San Francisco. “We need to bring it to a human level.” 

Andrew Lachman, president of California Jewish Democrats, was more overt in his hope that Israel elects a new leader in its next election, set to take place next October, unless it’s called sooner. 

“If there’s a new change in leadership in Israel, that has the opportunity to be able to reset some of those relationships,” Lachman told JI. 

It’s a sentiment echoed by Sheerr, who regularly interacts with Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill. “I think a lot of people, both lawmakers and others, are looking forward to the next Israeli elections, frankly, and life after Bibi,” she said. That is, of course, assuming that Netanyahu isn’t reelected — a risky bet given that Netanyahu has held the role through multiple elections since 2009, except for one 18-month stretch.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), who is challenging Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) in Massachusetts’ Senate primary next year, said this month that he would return donations from AIPAC, an organization that has previously endorsed him. He told JI last week that he took issue with the group’s “steadfast support for the Netanyahu government.” 

“My views on Israel as an essential partner of the United States and our most important ally in the Middle East have not changed,” Moulton said. 

Markey, for his part, has been one of Israel’s leading critics in the Senate, making next year’s Democratic primary one between a candidate who condemns the leading U.S.-Israel advocacy group and a candidate with a record of voting against military aid to Israel.

Ron Halber, who leads the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and maintains close ties with Democratic lawmakers in Maryland and Virginia, said that Israeli leaders also have a responsibility to repair ties between Democrats and the Jewish state.

“For Israel to align itself, or for the current government or for advisors to think that working with the Republican Party is the way to the future, is about the dumbest strategic mistake I can imagine,” said Halber. “The bipartisan nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship is the fundamental blanket of Israel’s support in the world.” 

The leftward shift of Democratic lawmakers has come despite advocacy campaigns by major Jewish groups who urged senators to vote against Sanders’ resolutions restricting aid to Israel. But some within the mainstream Jewish community recognize that the longtime approach of offering unequivocal support to Israel’s government is not sustainable. 

“My opinion is that this government is harmful,” said Sam Lauter, a public affairs consultant in San Francisco and Democratic fundraiser who helped create DMFI in 2019. “I used to be one of those people who would be sort of silent about that, because ‘I’m a diaspora Jew, and I don’t get a say.’” 

Halber said he believed that many Democrats supporting Sanders’ bill “did so symbolically,” because they knew it was going to fail. “They were trying to send a message to Israel that this is a bridge too far, when they believed humanitarian aid [to Gaza] was being cut off,” he added.

The “million-dollar question,” according to Ilan Goldenberg, J Street’s vice president of policy, is whether lawmakers’ support for conditioning military assistance to Israel will continue after the war, when they have to vote to approve the annual $3.8 billion security package to Israel. 

“I think it’s going to be, ‘We need accountability, and we need certain behavior that we would like to see,’ and if you’re not getting that out of the Israelis, then a willingness to use more leverage and pressure and accountability,” said Goldenberg, who served as Jewish outreach director on Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign last year. “I think that is where the center of the Democratic Party is likely to settle, which is a very different place from where we were before the start of the war.” 

J Street has supported Sanders’ resolutions restricting arms sales to Israel.

If any of the support for the bills that sought to reject certain weapons sales carries over into the regular appropriations process, it would mark a significant shift. 

“It seems indisputable that the Overton window has shifted dramatically over the last two years in terms of what ‘the left’ broadly deems acceptable about Israel, Zionism and even the Jewish American community,” said Amanda Berman, CEO of the progressive group Zioness. “This kind of rhetoric doesn’t just disappear when the news cycle moves on. That said, the vast majority of liberals and progressives are not uniquely obsessed with Jews or Israel, and have any number of urgent issues of concern.” 

Even as pro-Israel activists seek to rebuild frayed ties with erstwhile allies, they recognize that not everyone should be welcomed back into the tent, even if the tent is bigger than it was before.

“We don’t need to be forgiving or ignoring those who chose to just demonize and be dismissive of our anxieties, our fears, our hopes over the last two years,” said Burton. 

The dust has hardly settled in Gaza, and it is too soon to know what the lasting impact of the war will be. But given that this was Israel’s longest war, and that it played out under scrutiny of the traditional media and social media, “it’s going to be a lot harder to put the genie back in the bottle than previous times,” as one person involved in Jewish philanthropy and Democratic politics quipped. 

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, widely viewed as a likely 2028 Democratic presidential contender, plans to publish a memoir early next year. 

The book, called Where We Keep the Light, is being marketed by publisher HarperCollins as an important story from “a leading voice in the Democratic Party.” For politicians with national ambitions, writing a memoir is generally seen as a stepping stone toward greater name recognition and future campaigns. 

In the book, Shapiro will discuss his family and his faith, and remind “us of the faith that guides so many and that there is more that unites us as Americans than divides us.” He will write about his path toward public service and his rise through the ranks of Pennsylvania politics. 

A HarperCollins press release said the book goes into detail on the arson attack at the governor’s residence during Passover in April and the period in 2024 when Vice President Kamala Harris was considering naming him her running mate, a topic about which Shapiro has shared very little publicly. 

The book will be published on Jan. 27, 2026.

In recent months, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) has stood apart from many of his Democratic colleagues in offering staunch support for Israel, openly praising President Donald Trump for finalizing a deal to free the hostages in Gaza and maintaining a hard line against New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani.

Suozzi, a moderate Democrat who hails from a swing district on Long Island with a significant Jewish population, is a longtime stalwart supporter of Israel, and argued in a recent interview with Jewish Insider that maintaining bipartisanship on the issue is critical.

Suozzi has been among the minority of Democrats who have openly credited Trump for the ceasefire that secured the release of the remaining living hostages in Gaza last week.

“We thank God and congratulate President Trump and all those who helped make the return of the hostages a reality. As we celebrate this moment, let us also pause to pray for all those who have endured so much suffering, death and destruction along the way,” Suozzi told JI last Monday, after the hostages were freed.

“It’s plain on its face that the president orchestrated this and put a tremendous amount of effort into this,” he continued. “I disagree with the president on certain things, but when it comes to this issue, I’m fully aligned with him.”

Suozzi said that the Torah and Old Testament teach that it’s critical to stick to one’s values and keep moving forward in hard times.

“One of the values that we need to stick by right now is to stand with the State of Israel, who’s our great ally and shares our values during what has been difficult times,” Suozzi said. “The president is the one who’s accomplished — along with a lot of help from other people — this very important thing, we have to praise him for that, even though I disagree with him on a whole host of other things. On this, he’s really done something remarkable.”

Suozzi noted that he had also supported Trump’s signing of the Abraham Accords and decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem during his first term.

“We have to get back to a place in our American governing and politics where people can disagree, where they disagree respectfully, but also give credit where credit is due in trying to work together to to solve problems,” Suozzi explained. “I want to work with the president. … If he could do Ukraine and an immigration deal — which would require some bipartisan cooperation — he would truly have cemented his place in history. I want to be helpful in that respect.”

Asked about those in the Democratic Party — including some of the most vocal critics of Israel — who have refused to credit Trump or acknowledge the ceasefire that went into effect earlier this week, Suozzi said he sees them as hypocritical.

“It’s the pot calling the kettle black. They criticize Trump for being partisan, or they criticize Republicans for being partisan — which they are, I’m not saying they’re not,” Suozzi said. “When you have something like this that happens, you can’t just base it on your party. It has to be based on what’s right and what’s wrong. This is clearly right. This is clearly a good thing.”

He also said that people, on both sides of the aisle, who understand the damage wrought by antisemitism, “have to join league with each other, regardless of our political party, and work together to do everything we can to stamp it out. In the short term: hold people accountable and prosecute them. In the long term: educate our society about where antisemitism comes from and why it’s so destructive.”

Suozzi said that both in the Democratic Party and the country as a whole, “we have to do a better job” of rooting out and calling out antisemitism. 

“It’s not always easy to take on people that are on your team, so to speak,” he continued. “But I think there’s a lot of people on the wrong side of history here. This is an important moment with the enabling of the haters, with social media, with the algorithms on the different platforms — especially TikTok — that are inciting this hateful behavior and the foothold that some malign actors have been working — not just recently but over decades — to build this hate machine. We have to really stand strong against this, even when we have to disagree with people that are on our team, so to speak.”

“At a time when most have hidden beneath the parapet, the Jewish community is very lucky to have fearless leaders like Tom, who willingly stands up to the antisemitic haters and unflinchingly protects the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), another outspoken pro-Israel moderate, told JI.

Suozzi, along with Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY), has been among the most vocal opponents within New York Democratic politics of Mamdani’s candidacy — publicly condemning the democratic socialist and explicitly rejecting the prospect of endorsing him, when other Democrats have fallen in line or remained silent. Among other issues, Suozzi has called out Mamdani for his refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada.”

Suozzi has also pushed back more broadly on the left wing of his party.

“If [Mamdani] wants to be a socialist, he should form his own party and not be part of the Democratic Party,” he said, a sentiment he has directed at the Democratic Socialists of America as a whole.

Asked how he thinks supporters of Israel and opponents of antisemitism can go about rebuilding the eroding bipartisan consensus on these issues, Suozzi said that it’s critical for supporters of Israel to vote for Democrats like himself who are aligned with them on that issue.

He recounted a conversation he had with longtime friends who are Orthodox Jews and who said they had voted against Suozzi in the last election, opting instead to vote down the Republican Party line.

“The person I was speaking with said, ‘We need to get your party back to what it was,’” Suozzi recounted. “I said, ‘Well then you have to support Democrats like me that are working on that. Because you don’t know what things are going to be like in five years, or 10 years, or 15 years or 20 years. The key to the future is to ensure that this continues to be a bipartisan effort, this relationship between the United States and Israel.’”

Suozzi said that his commitment to standing with Israel and the Jewish people is deep-rooted, tracing back in part to his father, his own history and the values and democratic principles shared by the U.S. and Israel.

His father — “the best man I ever knew” — was an Italian immigrant who fought in World War II and faced discrimination at home after the war. “He would not tolerate any sort of discrimination [against] anybody. … If anybody said something that was anti-Jewish or anti-Black or anti-anything, he’d either confront you or get up and walk out of the room.”

Suozzi said that he found an Israeli war bond in his father’s files after he passed away. “He never talked about anything like that, it was just who he was.”

Suozzi said that reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, about the psychologist’s experience in the Holocaust, was deeply impactful on him as a high school student. He first traveled to Israel as Nassau County executive in October 2002, meeting with key leaders during the Second Intifada.

He said that his hotel was largely empty due to terrorism concerns, that heavy security was necessary for his group and that the trip organizers attempted to prohibit him from going to mass at the Church of The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem for security reasons. 

Undeterred, Suozzi snuck out of his hotel to go and initially felt “so courageous” but, walking out of the church, “I see these little girls getting on the bus to go to school that morning. … It was like, ‘Wow, I’m not courageous. People have been living like this … 60 years, living their lives, making this place successful, despite the fact that everybody in the area is trying to kill them. And they’ve held onto their values, and they’ve held onto the things that I believe in.’ So I decided right then and there that I would always stand strong with Israel, no matter what.”

With all of the living hostages released from Gaza and an end (at least for the time being) of Israel’s war in the Palestinian territory, the coming months could offer the mainstream Jewish community something of a breather to assess the changed political landscape. 

In the war’s final months, the anti-Israel far left gained a foothold in Democratic Party politics, most prominently in the New York City mayoral race with Zohran Mamdani, but also in urban contests ranging from Seattle to Somerville, Mass. The antisemitic forces on the far right have been less of a political force, but have gained strength on podcasts and among younger right-wingers, and have been embraced to a greater extent by a few populist lawmakers like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). 

With the return of the living hostages, Israel’s success in degrading Hamas and additional enemies, and the apparent end of the Gaza war, Jewish optimists can plausibly argue that some degree of normalcy could creep back in the political sphere. Israel should become a less salient issue for low-information scrollers, with the war’s end reducing the constant anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda being fed on so many screens. 

With a ceasefire finally achieved, the anti-Israel forces have been remarkably silent, and have been exposed for the Hamas-sympathizing extremists that they always have been. That faction of the anti-Israel Democratic left is as politically exposed as it’s been since the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, 2023.

There’s also the possibility that, with Israeli elections being held next year, a new Israeli prime minister would get elected, bringing with him or her a new Israeli government that may not be as polarizing to liberal critics of Israel back in the U.S. 

Jewish pessimists also have a plausible case to make. Support for Israel has declined in the past year, with the most significant slippage coming from Democratic Party voters and some independents. It’s hard to imagine it will rebound anytime soon. The youngest Gen Z voters are the most hostile towards Israel and have been even before Oct. 7. It’s reasonable to expect their future growth in the electorate will only grow the pool of anti-Israel voters.  

Furthermore, the rise of anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment isn’t happening in isolation; it’s a symptom of the rise of larger illiberal and extreme forces within both parties. The fact that polls show an upward tick in the toleration of political violence, growing antipathy to capitalism on the left, and growing sympathy for authoritarianism on the right is the broader context of the growing hostility Jews are facing, and it’s not showing any signs of abatement.

In the coming year, it will be important to track whether the political outlook for Jews is getting better or whether the trends we’ve seen worsen in the last couple years are accelerating. 

We’ll be debuting an election scorecard next week, examining the most meaningful elections in the coming year that will test the influence of the political mainstream against the extremes. Stay tuned: it will be worth bookmarking and tracking as we approach Election Day this November, and in the runup to next year’s congressional primaries.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), who on Wednesday announced a primary challenge to Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), announced Thursday that he will return donations he has received from AIPAC and will reject further donations from the group.

Massachusetts is a solidly Democratic state but has also a large population of Jewish pro-Israel voters who might be inclined to support the more-moderate Moulton. Though his record on Israel policy is somewhat mixed, Moulton’s record on the issue is more pro-Israel than that of Markey, who is a prominent critic of Israel and has voted repeatedly against weapons transfers to the Jewish state.

“I support Israel’s right to exist, but I’ve also never been afraid to disagree openly with AIPAC when I believe they’re wrong. In recent years, AIPAC has aligned itself too closely with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s government,” Moulton said in a statement. “I’m a friend of Israel, but not of its current government, and AIPAC’s mission today is to back that government. I don’t support that direction. That’s why I’ve decided to return the donations I’ve received and will not be accepting their support.”

According to campaign finance watchdog group Open Secrets, Moulton received around $43,000 from AIPAC and its supporters in the 2024 election cycle, out of a total of $2.8 million raised. The Boston Globe reported that Moulton plans to return $35,000 in donations from the current election cycle.

AIPAC issued a blistering statement in response to Moulton.

“Rep. Moulton is abandoning his friends to grab a headline, capitulating to the extremes rather than standing on conviction,” spokesperson Marshall Wittmann said in a statement. “His statement comes after years of him repeatedly asking for our endorsement and is a clear message to AIPAC members in Massachusetts, and millions of pro-Israel Democrats nationwide, that he rejects their support and will not stand with them.”

Moulton’s stance echoes those taken by other prominent Democratic candidates across the country seeking to appeal to the progressive Democratic base increasingly hostile to Israel.

Moulton’s changed stance on accepting support from AIPAC is a sign of how even more-moderate Democrats are facing pressure from the party’s activist base to distance themselves from embracing Israel. The Massachusetts congressman had been endorsed by AIPAC prior to declaring his Senate campaign.

“I’m cautiously optimistic that the recent breakthrough in Gaza will move us closer to ending the horrific violence in the region,” Moulton added in the statement. “A political resolution that allows Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side in peace is exactly the kind of framework I’ve been calling for from the beginning.”

Barry Shrage, the longtime former president of the Combine Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston and a professor of practice in Brandeis University’s Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program said it’s tough to predict where pro-Israel Jewish voters will land.

“I think a lot of people will remember what Markey has been doing and where Markey was coming from — kind of a leader of the anti-Israel ‘progressive’ Democratic faction,” Shrage said. “But then people are going to want to know, really, what Moulton really thinks.”

“He made a decision that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is more important to him than the Jewish community — or he thinks that the Jewish community has also turned against Israel, which, by the way is not the case, not in Boston,” Shrage said, of Moulton’s denunciation of AIPAC. “It’s kind of a cop-out for him to say, ‘I disagree with Netanyahu and that’s why I won’t take any AIPAC support.’”

Shrage noted that he saw Markey aligning himself more closely with anti-Israel figures and groups during his 2020 campaign, pointing to an op-ed in which he wrote, “his campaign … has made a concerning shift by welcoming and featuring support from individuals and organizations with highly divisive and polarizing approaches to Israel, our country and our world and all that goes with it, socially, politically, and economically.”

Shrage supported then-Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA) against Markey in 2020.

He told JI that Markey’s leftward shift on Israel issues has continued in the ensuing six years, noting that Markey “won the race, in a way, by selling himself” to the left wing of the party.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) announced on Wednesday that he plans to mount a challenge to Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), grounding his campaign in an argument for generational change.

“I just don’t believe Sen. Markey should be running for another six-year term at 80 years old,” Moulton said in his Senate race announcement. “Even more, I don’t think someone who’s been in Congress for half a century is the right person to meet this moment and win the future. Sen. Markey is a good man, but it’s time for a new generation of leadership.”

But unlike many of the younger challengers taking on older Democratic incumbents in the current election cycle, Moulton, 46, is generally more moderate, including on foreign policy issues, than Markey, an outspoken progressive. While Moulton has been strongly critical of Israeli operations in Gaza, his record as a whole leans more pro-Israel than Markey’s.

Markey faced a similar challenge from former Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA) in 2020 — ahead of the current anti-gerontocracy push in parts of the Democratic Party. Young progressives rallied around Markey, who won the race by 10 points. In that campaign, Kennedy sounded more supportive of Israel than the senator he was attempting to unseat. 

A recent Fiscal Alliance Foundation poll of the Senate race found that 63% of Massachusetts voters think Markey should not run for another term. In that same survey, Moulton led Markey, 38-30% among Democratic primary voters.

Markey is a prominent progressive voice in the Senate and voted seven times in the last year in favor of resolutions led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to block various weapons transfers to Israel. He memorably faced boos at a pro-Israel rally just days after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks when he called for de-escalation between Israel and Hamas.

He also joined a letter accusing Israel of violating U.S. arms sales conditions imposed by the Biden administration, and pushed to incorporate those conditions into the supplemental aid package for Israel and other allies.

Markey called the U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear program “illegal and unconstitutional” and said the attack “holds dangers for all Americans.” 

“This attack may set back but will not stop Iran’s efforts to get a nuclear bomb. The regime can rebuild its program and will now be highly motivated to do so. A diplomatic solution remains the best way to permanently and verifiably prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” Markey continued. “Trump’s illegal actions raise the risk of escalation into a wider regional war with grave risks for U.S. troops and personnel and civilians in the region.”

During a committee markup of the Antisemitism Awareness Act earlier this year, Markey led an amendment opposing the revocations of visas, detentions and deportations of students and faculty based on “protected conduct under the First Amendment,” one of a series of amendments that helped torpedo the bill.

Markey appeared on the streaming show of Hasan Piker, a far-left commentator who has repeatedly faced criticism for antisemitic rhetoric and support for terrorism, during last year’s Democratic National Convention. 

While Moulton, a Marine veteran, has been critical of Israel’s war operations in Gaza and called for increased humanitarian aid, he has not backed congressional efforts to condition, withhold or end U.S. aid to Israel since Oct. 7. He voted — with most House lawmakers — in favor of supplemental aid to the Jewish state last year.

After a meeting in May 2024 with then-Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog, Moulton said he opposed Israel’s plans to launch a full-scale invasion of the southern Gazan city of Rafah and backed President Joe Biden’s threat to withhold weapons if Israel proceeded with that operation. In 2019, prior to the recent war in Gaza, Moulton offered support for a bill that would have placed restrictions on the use of U.S. military aid to Israel.

In July 2025, Moulton said in a statement that it is “a moral imperative for the Netanyahu government to alleviate this suffering” in Gaza and that “Hamas bears primary responsibility, but Israel has the ability and the obligation to help.”

“I want Israel to succeed in defeating Hamas and bringing the hostages home. But that won’t happen if its policies undermine its own mission, and you cannot win a war against terror by allowing civilians to starve,” Moulton continued, citing his own experience serving in Iraq. He said he told the Israeli ambassador directly that “what’s happening in Gaza is unacceptable.”

Weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks, Moulton cautioned Israel against launching an operation in Gaza without a robust plan for what would come after the war.

Moulton voted against several Republican-led measures — which split the Democratic caucus — that would have tightened U.S. sanctions on Iran and limited presidential authority to waive such sanctions, as well as against sanctions on the International Criminal Court.

At the same time, he voted in favor of redesignating the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, having previously led a letter to the Biden administration supporting such action, and was a lead co-sponsor of a bill to expand funding for a cooperative counter-tunneling program with Israel.

Moulton stopped short of the blanket condemnation that many Democrats expressed for the U.S. strikes on Iran, saying, “One of the reasons I was reticent to just immediately condemn the strikes is because anything that gets us back to the negotiating table is helpful — that’s where we need to be at the end of the day,” though he said he would not have voted to provide congressional approval for those strikes.

He subsequently accused administration officials of “outright lying about things that we just don’t know yet” for declaring shortly after the strikes that the U.S. had completely “obliterated” Iran’s key nuclear facilities.

On antisemitism, Moulton voted in favor of the Antisemitism Awareness Act, as well as for resolutions describing anti-Zionism as antisemitic, calling for college presidents to resign over their testimony to Congress on campus antisemitism and for a GOP-led resolution condemning the firebombing of a hostage advocacy rally in Boulder, Colo., which also praised Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks, when a coalition of Harvard University student groups issued a statement condemning and blaming Israel for the event, Moulton, a Harvard alumnus, said that he “cannot recall a moment when I’ve been more embarrassed by my alma mater” and later condemned then-Harvard President Claudine Gay’s comments at a House hearing on antisemitism.

Both Markey and Moulton have supported expanded funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to help protect Jewish and other nonprofit institutions.