Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-OR), in a letter to Portland’s Jewish community, apologized for a recent House floor speech in which she appeared to compare the war in Gaza to the Holocaust while explaining her support for a resolution describing the war as a genocide.

According to local reporting, Dexter, who represents a wide swath of Portland, told Jewish leaders in a private meeting she intends to remain a co-sponsor of that resolution.

“I am reaching out with humility and appreciation that intent and impact can sometimes be quite different, and I recognize and take responsibility for the harm I have done to the trust I have with many in our Jewish community,” Dexter said in the letter, first shared by the Jewish Review, a publication affiliated with the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland. “I am deeply sorry that my recent statement on the U.S. House floor gave the impression that I was equating the Holocaust with the evolving events in Gaza.”

Dexter said that she “should not have discussed” the war in Gaza and the Holocaust “during the same speech” and acknowledged that the speech “gave many the impression I was comparing them” when she did not intend to do so. She said that the Holocaust “is without comparison.”

“In the aftermath of Hamas’ atrocious attack on October 7th and in the face of rising antisemitism that is pervasive in every corner of the world, I am genuinely sorry to have been the cause of further pain,” Dexter continued. “I am mindful of the remaining living survivors of the Holocaust and certainly many, many family members of victims and survivors who I may have hurt. I want to apologize to them for how my words may have been hurtful toward them or disrespectful of their loved ones’ memories.”

Dexter said that she remains committed to supporting Oregon’s Jewish community and Israel’s right to exist, and pledged to “work to do better in the future” to consider how her words may impact the community.

“Clearly, I could have done better. I will continue to come to the Jewish community, those both in support and in opposition to my views, to expand my understanding and sit in honest discourse with you, to hopefully build greater trust and understanding with time,” Dexter continued. “You have my commitment to standing up against antisemitism and for the needs of our Jewish community today — and every day.”

Dexter also met directly with and apologized to members of the Jewish community, including Jewish Federation of Greater Portland CEO Marc Blattner and Bob Horenstein, chief community relations and public affairs officer, according to the Jewish Review article.

Horenstein told the Jewish Review that the meeting was a “candid and difficult discussion” and said that Dexter offered regret for her “poor choice of words,” but that she said she would not withdraw her support for the resolution accusing Israel of genocide.

“In the meeting, Rep. Dexter reinforced Israel’s right to exist and to self-defense. However, she believed the Netanyahu government went too far and thus would not withdraw her co-sponsorship of the misguided congressional resolution. On the issue of the Holocaust comparison, she listened intently and we believe her apology was heartfelt,” Horenstein said. “We look forward to working with her and being a resource to her moving forward.”

Dexter was first elected in 2024, beating back a far-left challenger with assistance from AIPAC’s United Democracy Project. Though she offered a broadly pro-Israel platform in 2024, she has since swung left, also calling for a halt to offensive weapons transfers to the Jewish state.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike are cheering the implementation of X’s new location feature this week — allowing users to see what countries accounts are operating from — with some expressing hope that the move will expose the level of foreign involvement in domestic online political discourse.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle touted the new feature as a useful way to identify if an account commenting on U.S. political matters could potentially be a foreign actor. 

The new feature has exposed a variety of far-left and far-right accounts engaging in U.S. political discourse and spreading antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiments as they operate from various foreign countries.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said the information gleaned from the platform’s new feature crystalized the degree to which “foreign interests are trying to spread” antisemitic ideas in the United States. “The evidence is insightful,” Bacon, who is leading a bill with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) aimed at addressing antisemitism on social media, told Jewish Insider.

“On one hand I’m glad much of the antisemitism poison is not coming from the U.S., but it is alarming that so many foreign interests are trying to spread that poison by pushing it in the U.S. and masquerading as Americans,” the Nebraska Republican continued. “We need to keep informing Americans that much of the antisemitism is coming from abroad.”

Several lawmakers argued that the feature would help with the broader effort to prevent worsening domestic partisan divides, especially those fueled by U.S. adversaries.

“Foreign adversaries have spent years flooding social media with hate-filled and antisemitic propaganda to divide Americans,” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), the GOP co-chair of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, told JI. “Americans deserve to know which accounts are run from abroad so we know the true source of these narratives.”

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), who represents a Trump district and has been critical of X owner Elon Musk, said in a statement, “I have always suspected that many anti-Israel, antisemitic, Jew hate accounts are promoted by our adversaries.”

“Beijing, Moscow and Tehran know they cannot defeat us economically or militarily, so they exploit controversial issues, like Israel and antisemitism, and try to divide,” Suozzi told JI. “We must defend America by pushing back on external adversaries seeking to divide us internally.”

Others noted in statements to JI that ensuring transparency from major social media platforms was a necessary step in combating the rise in online antisemitism. 

“Transparency on social media is crucial to fighting misinformation and antisemitism online. We’ve seen cases of foreign actors like Russia, China and Iran attempting to use these platforms to sow division and spread hate,” Gottheimer told JI. “I am glad they implemented this change and hope they will work with Congress to take steps to fight antisemitism and prevent malicious foreign influence.”

Rep. Laura Friedman (D-CA), who led a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in July about X’s AI program Grok expressing antisemitic and pro-Nazi ideas, told JI in a statement, “This transparency is an important step. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, bad actors spreading antisemitic narratives to divide Americans is a real threat. There’s much more tech companies should do to expose and stop this manipulation.”

Other Republicans also commented on the new feature this week. 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has become a leading voice targeting right-wing antisemitism, posted on X on Tuesday that “America-hating foreign bots are at it again,” in response to a tweet from an account that is based in South Asia, according to the new location feature.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley tweeted her support for the new service, writing on Tuesday, “I have long said foreign actors are using social media to poison our politics and divide Americans. The location feature on X is a huge win for transparency and American security. Other social media platforms should do the same.”

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), who is among the most vocal Democratic supporters of Israel in the House, will serve as the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Middle East and North Africa subcommittee beginning Friday, replacing Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) following her indictment earlier this week.

As per House Democratic rules, Cherfilus-McCormick surrendered her subcommittee leadership role after being indicted by the Justice Department this week, on allegations that she used misallocated federal disaster funds for personal expenses and to support her campaign.

Sherman was the most senior Democrat on the subcommittee. He had previously declined to pursue leadership of the subcommittee given that he is also the top Democrat on a House Financial Services subcommittee, and would have needed to surrender that post. 

But Democratic rules now allow him to temporarily hold both leadership posts concurrently; Cherfilus-McCormick will resume the Foreign Affairs role if she is acquitted or charges are dropped.

“My views on the Middle East are well known to the readers of Jewish Insider,” Sherman told JI. “I am pleased to serve as the chief Democrat on the House-Knesset Parliamentary Friendship Group and as a Co-Chair of the House Israel Allies Caucus. I particularly want to focus on making sure that any Saudi nuclear program does not lead to a Saudi nuclear weapon. Likewise, I’m concerned about the possibility of transferring F-35 jets to Saudi Arabia.”

Democratic leadership on the subcommittee has been through repeated changes in recent years. Sherman is the fifth Democrat to lead it since 2022: former Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) stepped down when he retired from Congress to lead the American Jewish Committee, former Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) also stepped down when he left Congress in 2023 and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) declined to run for re-election in 2024.

Mark Mellman, a longtime Democratic political strategist and former president of Democratic Majority for Israel, died this week after a long illness.

Mellman, CEO of the Mellman Group, led campaigns for more than 30 U.S. senators, including former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), as well as dozens of members of Congress, including Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Seth Moulton (D-MA). He worked on John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign and was the former president of the American Association of Political Consultants.

He was also a fixture of election coverage and commentary, analyzing presidential debate performances for PBS and The Wall Street Journal, writing a longtime column for The Hill, and more.

In Israel, Mellman was the longtime advisor to opposition leader Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid party, including during Yesh Atid’s meteoric rise from a new party to the second-largest in the Knesset in the 2013 election and Lapid’s brief time as prime minister in 2022.

Lapid paid tribute to Mellman as “a friend and a mentor. A man with a huge heart and a wonderful sense of humor. He was also a trusted advisor and a brilliant strategic mind. …He will be sorely missed by me, my family and everyone at Yesh Atid.” 

Mellman co-founded Democratic Majority for Israel in 2019 to support pro-Israel Democrats and counter rising anti-Israel sentiment in the party. He led DMFI, one of the first pro-Israel organizations to donate directly to political campaigns, for six years, until he stepped down earlier this year.

Todd Richman, the co-founder and former co-chair of Democratic Majority for Israel, wrote on X, “The news of @MarkMellman passing away is devastating. He will be sorely missed especially within the pro-Israel community. His stature, intellect, knowledge of the issues, his ability to understand trends and his overall credibility helped make @DemMaj4Israel into the powerhouse that it is today.” 

“We could not have done this without him,” Richman continued. “I remember when Ann Lewis and I met with Mark just to get additional thoughts on how we can build this organization, and he told us he would like to be the organization’s CEO. Ann and I couldn’t believe it. It was like manna from heaven. DMFI would not be where it is today without him.”

Mellman also worked with AIPAC in 2015 on a campaign against the Iran nuclear deal.

He was an active member of the Kesher Israel synagogue in Georgetown.

Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, posted on X that he “always had tremendous respect for Mark Mellman.” 

Democratic Arizona state Rep. Alma Hernandez called Mellman “a passionate, strong voice for Israel…one sharp, good man and an amazing pollster. Boy, did he know his stuff. … I know the pro-Israel [Democrat] world lost a true leader.” 

William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said, “Mark Mellman never stood on the sidelines. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our community and worked to elect leaders who shared his own unwavering commitment to Israel and the Jewish people. He brought strategy, integrity and courage to every fight. I was proud to call him my friend, and our community is stronger because he gave it his voice, his talent and his heart.”

Mellman leaves behind his wife, three children and grandchildren. His funeral will be held on Sunday.

Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed sidestepped a question about Israel’s right to exist during an interview with the anti-Israel media outlet Zeteo last week.

Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan asked El-Sayed how he would respond if and when he faces questions on the campaign trail about whether he supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. El-Sayed initially responded by calling the question hypocritical and again dodged when pressed.

He said that most U.S. presidents have expressed support for a two-state solution, and “Israel exists. Palestine doesn’t. And so I always wonder why nobody asks me why Palestine doesn’t have a right to exist.”

El-Sayed accused the U.S. of supporting “the very people in Israel who want to foreclose on the possibility of Palestine existing.”

“And so to me, frankly, it is about our principles and how we apply them evenly. If you believe in a two-state solution, then what are you doing to make it possible?” he continued.

He went on to note his own childhood experiences in Egypt, which is the second largest recipient of U.S. military aid, and said that aid hasn’t benefited the Egyptian people, suggesting the U.S. should not be providing any foreign military aid anywhere.

“My position on this has always been … it’s not about conditioning aid. I think under no condition should we be sending the money that should be buying our kids’ schools or healthcare or infrastructure to a foreign military to buy them tanks,” he continued. “And that we can start with Egypt. We go to Pakistan, we can go to Jordan, we go to Saudi Arabia and we go to Israel. I just think it’s about principle.”

El-Sayed also dismissed AIPAC donors as “MAGA billionaires throwing their money around to try to dictate the outcome for a Democratic primary.”

“I think Michiganders are sick and tired of being told who they can and cannot vote for in Michigan,” he said.

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.”

A delegation organized by AIPAC recently completed a nine-day visit to Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, Jewish Insider has learned, as the pro-Israel lobbying group seeks to promote ties with Israel among key U.S. allies. 

Over 200 of AIPAC’s largest donors as well as its CEO, Elliot Brandt; board chair, Michael Tuchin; board president, Bernie Kaminetsky; and top professional staff traveled to the region from Oct. 22-30, according to a participant with knowledge of the trip’s background.

Though Israel already has warm relations with all three countries, as both Israel and the U.S. look to increase ties in the Indo-Pacific region, the trip was meant to highlight the Jewish state’s relevance in its defense prowess, relationship to the U.S., shared democratic values, growing relations to the Gulf states — which have historically provided the Asian nations with much of their oil and gas — and acumen in the technology and business sectors, the participant said. 

The large group met with high-level leadership in each country, including the Taiwanese president, vice president and secretary-general of its National Security Council, Korean ministers and a Japanese senior diplomat.

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te told the group that “the Taiwanese people often look to the example of the Jewish people when facing challenges to our international standing and threats to our sovereignty from China,” and that the T-Dome, a missile interceptor project announced by Lai earlier this month, was inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome and President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” project.

The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Tel Aviv said in a statement to JI, “We welcome AIPAC’s recent visit in Taiwan, underscoring the positive synergies and mutual benefits of partnerships among Taiwan-U.S.-Israel. We continue to work with all stakeholders to deepen cooperation in trade and advanced technologies, to safeguard our shared interests of peace and prosperity.”

The Japanese leg of the trip coincided with Trump’s visit to Tokyo, and the Japanese government had just been sworn in — with its first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi. 

Takaichi, known as a national security hawk, was elected within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on a platform of boosting defense capabilities and reinforcing Japan’s role in the region, largely through prioritizing the country’s alliance with the U.S., which the AIPAC delegation highlighted as areas of success for Israel.

In South Korea, the delegation visited the Korean Demilitarized Zone, its border with North Korea, where participants heard from Mike Chinoy, a veteran CNN correspondent for the region. The conversations with government officials focused on shared concern between Israel and Korea about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and cooperation with Iran.

The group also met with business leaders throughout the region who, the participant said, see Israel’s “start-up nation” as a compliment to their own “scale-up nations,” not well-known for innovation but able to rapidly scale technological advancements. The delegation emphasized the multilateral possibilities in the “new Middle East” as a result of Israel’s ties with its Abraham Accords partners, something the participant said is not yet well understood in the region. 

AIPAC has taken similar delegations to the Gulf, India and Europe. The Asia visit had been planned for 2020 but was postponed due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

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.

Like many progressives now running for Congress, Graham Platner, a Democratic Senate candidate in Maine, has made opposition to Israel a central part of his messaging.

He frequently accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza, advocates for blocking U.S. aid to Israel and is an outspoken critic of AIPAC. During a campaign event last month, Platner, a 41-year-old former Marine who runs an oyster farm, also said he believes that Israel is a terrorist state.

But more so than many candidates, the political newcomer seems particularly invested in engaging on Middle East policy, even if his views have drawn scrutiny, according to audio of a recent private discussion in which he debated about Israel with some attendees at a fundraising event in Maine for nearly 20 minutes.

Speaking at the August fundraiser, Platner defended his stances on Israel and shared previously undisclosed details about his personal ties to the region, according to the audio, recently shared with Jewish Insider.

Despite his hostile criticism of Israel, Platner said he believed that the country “has the same right to exist that every nation has to exist,” though he did not confirm whether he recognizes Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. 

While he said he agreed that Hamas is a terrorist organization, Platner claimed that Netanyahu had “publicly stated that” Israel was “funding Hamas to make sure that there was going to be no non-radical leadership within Gaza in order to keep a Palestinian state from happening.”  

While members of Netanyahu’s coalition have made this argument — Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich referred to the terrorist organization as “an asset” as it serves as an obstacle to Palestinian statehood — the prime minister has never personally made such a claim. New York Times reporting from shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks alleged that the Israeli prime minister had allowed the Qatari government to send money into the Gaza Strip for several years in order to “maintain peace in Gaza.” Netanyahu called allegations that he was empowering Hamas “ridiculous.”

“It is difficult for me to lay the onus of everything only at the feet of the Palestinians,” he explained, “and not include the Netanyahu government.”

Platner also quibbled with an attendee who said that 1,200 Israeli civilians had been killed during the attacks, noting that a percentage of those who had died on Oct. 7 were soldiers in the Israeli military.

“It wasn’t 1,200 civilians. It was 600 military members,” Platner countered, using a number that far exceeded the approximately 300 soldiers who were killed in the attacks. 

“Who were taken sleeping, unarmed, out of their beds, I’ve met families,” the attendee responded, likely referring to the tatzpitaniot, unarmed female observer soldiers, and others, who were famously killed and kidnapped in their pajamas.  

“When you are wearing a uniform and carrying a gun in the service of a cause, it is difficult for me to feel that you can be called a civilian,” said Platner, who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. “There is a one-way street on this,” he continued, “that I find to be disingenuous.”

The private comments suggest that Platner is not merely paying lip service to such issues on the trail, as he runs in a competitive primary against Maine Gov. Janet Mills for the Democratic nomination to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). 

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

Platner’s views on Israel and Gaza have received limited attention in recent weeks as his campaign has weathered controversy over his past incendiary Reddit posts and faced questions over when he first became aware that a skull tattoo on his chest he had for nearly 20 years resembled a Nazi symbol known as a Totenkopf.

Platner, who covered the tattoo this month, has insisted he did not know what the skull signified until recently, though reporting from JI and CNN has contradicted that claim.

He has also argued that members of his family are Jewish and never objected to the skull tattoo when he took his shirt off around them. “Eighteen years,” he told The Atlantic recently. “It’s never come up.”

In the conversation about Israel at the fundraiser, which took place before controversy ensnared his campaign, Platner noted his stepbrother is Seth Frantzman, an Israeli author, journalist and security analyst who has long worked for The Jerusalem Post and lives in Jerusalem, saying they are “very close,” according to the audio.

Frantzman, who has previously written admiringly about Platner without mention of their familial ties, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Platner also said that he had “multiple friends in B’Tselem,” the left-wing Israeli human rights group that has described Israel as an apartheid regime and accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza — as he argued that Israel is not fully a democracy.

He cited his friends from B’Tselem “who have showed me videos, who have introduced me to former soldiers, who have introduced me to Palestinians, who have laid out a very clear and, frankly, well-sourced case that Palestinians living within the borders of the occupied territories do not live in a democracy, that they do not have equal rights, that they do not have equal access to areas.”

He said that, “as an American taxpayer,” he was uncomfortable with sending continued U.S. aid to support Israel’s military.

But even as he has been deployed to the Middle East, Platner confirmed that he had never visited Israel.

As polls show Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) with a narrow lead in the run-up to New Jersey’s gubernatorial election, less than two weeks away, the Democratic lawmaker has stepped up her efforts to court the state’s sizable Jewish community — whose support could make the difference in what is expected to be a close race.

In recent weeks, Sherrill has previewed a plan of action to counter antisemitism in a webinar led by Jewish Democrats, joined calls for the state’s largest teachers’ union to fire an editor of its magazine over antisemitic and pro-Hamas social media comments and met with Orthodox Jewish leaders in Lakewood who represent an influential voting bloc. 

The moderate congresswoman, who has held a northern New Jersey House seat since 2019, has condemned her Republican rival, Jack Ciattarelli, for appearing onstage at an event last weekend just after a Muslim affairs advisor had said he was “not taking money from Jews,” a remark Sherrill called “blatant antisemitism” from her opponent’s “inner circle.”

In addition to attending a Jewish event with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) late last month in Bergen County, Sherrill is also expected to join Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and other Democratic leaders for a fundraiser on Saturday hosted at the home of Shawn Klein, the Jewish deputy mayor of Livingston, in northeastern New Jersey.

The increased engagement and attention to Jewish issues comes as Sherrill finds herself in a tightening race against Ciattarelli, who came close to unseating term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy in 2021 and was trailing by just five points in a poll released Thursday. The state’s significant Jewish population could help tip the scales for either candidate — with Ciattarelli depending on particularly robust turnout from the Orthodox community.

Her engagement otherwise comes as she has faced lingering reservations from some Jewish leaders in the state who believe she embraced a more critical approach to Israel in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, including early calls for a pause in fighting in Gaza. 

And on a key piece of state legislation that would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, some Jewish leaders have voiced frustration with Sherrill’s evolving stance. While she previously endorsed the bill, Sherrill recently added caveats about free speech concerns to her position before offering more direct support, according to two Jewish leaders who have advocated for the legislation.

“I’m not sure she realized the depth of concern she has in the Jewish community,” one Jewish leader in the state, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive matter, told Jewish Insider on Thursday.

Sherrill has since registered feedback from Jewish activists and has “tightened up” her stance, according to the community leader. “Her statement on IHRA was rather weak and she now understands her response was seen as weak,” he said.

“This has always been an issue of concern in the race that maybe the Jewish community wasn’t going to be with her,” said another Jewish leader familiar with Sherrill’s campaign, pointing to a recent “uptick in outreach.”

In a statement to JI, Carly Jones, a spokesperson for Sherrill, said the congresswoman “has long been a friend to the Jewish community, and as governor, she will fight to lower costs, protect our kids, and combat antisemitism.”  

“Mikie will take real action to combat antisemitism by securing houses of worship, protect kids to ensure they’re safe at school and welcome on college campuses, ensure people can practice their religion with pride, appoint an attorney general who will protect communities against hate crimes, and strengthen the role of the Interfaith Advisory Council,” Jones added.

While Sherrill is not expected to perform well among Jewish voters in the conservative Orthodox enclave of Lakewood, which Ciattarelli has aggressively courted over several years, it was still regarded as a positive gesture that she chose to visit the community earlier this week to meet with local leaders, according to an Orthodox activist familiar with the matter who was granted anonymity to speak freely.

“I think she understands that this is a town that is just going to go overwhelmingly for her opponent,” the activist told JI, predicting the Lakewood Vaad, an influential coalition of local rabbis, is preparing to announce its endorsement of Ciattarelli over the weekend — even as the Republican candidate has refused to acknowledge that his Muslim relations advisor used antisemitic rhetoric.

The visit was initially set for early September, but Sherrill had been forced to reschedule because of a conflict on Capitol Hill.

During the meeting Thursday, marking her first visit to Lakewood in the general election, Sherrill toured the community, discussed local issues such as childcare and busing, and attended a fundraiser hosted by business leaders from across the state as well as locals hedging their bets as Sherrill remains favored in the election, according to the Orthodox activist.

Another Jewish leader familiar with Sherrill’s campaign said her team was “acutely aware that Lakewood would be a challenge due to” President Donald Trump’s “heavy engagement there in recent years.”

The congresswoman “has a very solid record on Israel and the Jewish community throughout her time in Congress, but I think the shift to the right by the Orthodox community has been a challenge for her,” the Jewish leader told JI.

Micah Rasmussen, director of Rider University’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, said the Orthodox vote in Lakewood, which includes around 30,000 registered Republicans, could lend a helpful boost to Ciattarelli’s campaign — as Sherrill seeks to shore up broader Jewish community support across the state.

“In 2021, Jack Ciattarelli came out of Lakewood 5,000 votes ahead of Phil Murphy, but that was without the Vaad’s endorsement,” Rasmussen said. “Should he get the endorsement this time, he could triple his previous margin or potentially even more. That certainly isn’t enough to get him across the finish line all by itself, but it helps.”

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) said on Tuesday, just days before early voting starts in the New York City mayoral race, that he is still not ready to endorse Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, as he hasn’t seen the candidate assuage Jewish communal concerns.

Appearing on CNN, Goldman said he wasn’t sure if he would vote for Mamdani or his rival, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and that he’s “trying to work through” outstanding issues he has with the candidates.

“You know, I’m a Democrat at heart and I believe in the Democratic Party. I am very concerned about some of the rhetoric coming from Zohran Mamdani, and I can tell you as a Jew in New York who was in Israel on Oct. 7, I and many other people are legitimately scared because there has been violence in the name of anti-Israel, anti-Zionism,” said Goldman, a pro-Israel Democrat whose House district, covering Lower Manhattan and a swath of Brooklyn, leans heavily to the left.

“I’ve asked [Mamdani] to speak out on that and to condemn that and I frankly haven’t really seen him do much on that. And I believe, for my personal reasons as well as my professional reasons as a representative of New York City, that it is my duty to make sure that everybody, including the Jewish community, feels safe here, and many in the Jewish community do not feel safe right now,” the congressman continued.

“And I hope that Mr. Mamdani takes that to heart and takes some action to make the Jewish community understand that he will keep us safe and secure,” he concluded.

Goldman is one of several Democratic New York lawmakers who have refused to endorse their party’s candidate for Gracie Mansion, including swing district Reps. Laura Gillen (D-NY) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) as well as George Latimer (D-NY).

Other prominent New York Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have met with Mamdani but have held back endorsements.

Only five New York City Democratic lawmakers in the state’s congressional delegation have endorsed Mamdani: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY),Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) and Yvette Clarke (D-NY). 

Graham Platner, a far-left Democratic candidate running for Senate in Maine who has captured the enthusiasm of the party’s grassroots base, sought to preempt rumors circulating in recent weeks that a black skull-and-cross bones tattoo on his chest is a Nazi symbol.

Speaking with Tommy Vietor on the “Pod Save America” political podcast, released on Monday night, Platner, 41, confirmed the existence of the tattoo, seen in video he shared displaying his bare chest, but suggested that his opponents in the race have been spreading claims that the symbol is affiliated with Nazism, which he forcefully denied.

“I am not a secret Nazi. Actually, if you read through my Reddit comments, I think you can pretty much figure out where I stand on Nazism and antisemitism and racism in general,” said Platner, a Marine veteran and oyster farmer in Maine who has faced scrutiny over past online posts. “I would say a lifelong opponent.”

But according to a person who socialized with Platner when he was living in Washington, D.C., more than a decade ago, Platner had specifically acknowledged that the tattoo was a Totenkopf, the “death’s head” symbol adopted by an infamous Nazi SS unit that guarded concentration camps in World War II.

“He said, ‘Oh, this is my Totenkopf,’” the former acquaintance told Jewish Insider recently, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive issue. “He said it in a cutesy little way.”

The exchange occurred in 2012 at Tune Inn, a popular dive on Capitol Hill where Platner later worked as a bartender and was a frequent patron while he attended The George Washington University on the G.I. bill, according to the former acquaintance. He would often take his shirt off drinking with friends late at night at the bar, and on at least one occasion had stated he knew what the tattoo represented, the former acquaintance recalled.

Platner gave varying accounts of the image during this time, saying at one point he was aware it was a Totenkopf when he had first gotten the tattoo several years prior and at another time claiming he had not known, according to the former acquaintance.

The mixed accounts indicate that Platner has at least long been aware of the symbols’s connection to Nazism, even as he said in the podcast interview he was not familiar with any such association when he chose to get the tattoo.

Platner, who is running to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said he had gotten the tattoo in Split, Croatia, in 2007, when he and a group of “very inebriated” fellow Marines had time off while on deployment and decided to step into a parlor. “We chose a terrifying-looking skull and crossbones off the wall, because we were Marines, and skulls and crossbones are a pretty standard military thing,” he explained on the podcast.

“We got those tattoos, and then we all moved on with our lives,” he added, emphasizing he had later served in the Army and received a security clearance to work as a contractor for the State Department in Afghanistan. “I can honestly say that if I was trying to hide it,” he continued, “I’ve not been doing a very good job for the past 18 years.”

In a statement shared with JI on Tuesday, Platner said he did not know about the tattoo’s connection to Nazi imagery until recently. “It was not until I started hearing from reporters and DC insiders that I realized this tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol,” he said. “I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I knew that  — and to insinuate that I did is disgusting. I am already planning to get this removed.”

Platner’s former political director, Genevieve McDonald, who resigned from his campaign last week over her objection to his recently unearthed incendiary Reddit comments, said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that “Graham has an antisemitic tattoo on his chest.”

“He’s not an idiot, he’s a military history buff,” McDonald wrote in the post, which was reviewed by JI. “Maybe he didn’t know it when he got it, but he got it years ago and he should have had it covered up because he knows damn well what it means.”

McDonald said that Platner’s campaign “released it themselves to some podcast bros, along with a video of him shirtless and drunk at a wedding to try to get ahead of it.”

A spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement to JI that Platner’s tattoo “appears to be a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo, and if true, it is troubling that a candidate for high office would have one.”

“We do understand that sometimes people get tattoos without understanding their hateful association,” the ADL spokesperson added. “In those cases, the bearer should be asked whether they repudiate its hateful meaning.”

Platner, a political newcomer who is facing Gov. Janet Mills and other candidates in the Democratic primary, launched his campaign in August and has raised more than $4 million while promoting a left-wing populist message — including staunch criticism of Israel and opposition to “fascists” — that garnered a high-profile endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). 

The Senate race is widely viewed by Democratic leadership as a major pickup opportunity in the midterm elections, as the party works to regain a majority in the upper chamber.

But Platner’s campaign has lost momentum in recent days amid the revelations that he had made several controversial comments while posting in Reddit forums. In a range of comments published anonymously, Platner, who has acknowledged that he wrote the posts and apologized for some of them, described himself as a “communist,” called all cops “bastards” and dismissed sexual assault in the military, among other remarks facing backlash.

In previously unreported posts reviewed by JI, Platner defended a man with a Nazi SS lightning bolt tattoo who later admitted to impersonating a federal officer at a Black Lives Matter protest in Las Vegas in 2020. “I will be sure to inform the black guys I know with bolts that they’re Nazis now and not USMC Scout/Snipers,” Platner said in a deleted Reddit post, referring to the Marines.

“Bolts were a STA icon since the ’80s at least, if not longer,” he wrote in another, using military jargon. “It was never official, but it sure as shit was tattooed on almost every HOG I knew between 2004-2012.”

Platner has also drawn scrutiny for appearing in a photo this summer with a white supremacist agitator in Maine, Richard Ward, who is running for a Bangor City Council seat.

Ward, a far-right activist who frequently spreads neo-Nazi rhetoric and imagery, wrote on Facebook in late August that he met and shook hands with Platner during an encounter at a Maine fair, posting a photo in which they are both seen standing side by side.

“Shaking hands with Graham Platner today at Blue Hill Fair,” Ward said. “Check out Graham Platner for U.S. Senate. We have a lot in common.” 

In the photo, Ward is pictured wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the number “88,” an apparent reference to a widely recognized neo-Nazi code for “Heil Hitler.” The post, a screenshot of which was obtained by JI, has since been deleted from Ward’s Facebook page.

A spokesperson for Platner’s campaign confirmed the encounter had taken place but said that he had quickly ended the conversation. “Graham promptly told Richard to f*** off and get the f*** away, like he would tell any Nazi,” the spokesperson told JI last month.

The Democratic Senate primary in Maine is shaping up to be among the most significant proxy battles over Israel in the upcoming midterm elections, pitting the state’s moderate two-term governor against a left-wing populist upstart who has vocally embraced an anti-Israel platform.

Gov. Janet Mills, who announced her campaign to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) on Tuesday and is backed by Senate Democratic leadership, is set to face a well-funded challenge from Graham Platner, a veteran and oyster farmer who boasts high-profile support from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

In contrast with Mills, who has criticized anti-Israel divestment efforts in her state and warned against a “deeply troubling” rise in antisemitic incidents after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, Platner has promoted more hostile views on Israel and its alliance with the United States.

Since entering the race in August, Platner has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza and endorsed measures to block U.S. arms sales to Israel. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment regarding the recently brokered ceasefire and hostage-release deal between Israel and Hamas.

Platner has also been an outspoken critic of the pro-Israel advocacy group AIPAC, whose affiliated political arm is supporting Collins, one of the most vulnerable Republicans now seeking reelection — in a state President Donald Trump lost by seven points in 2024.

“We are focused on helping to re-elect Senator Collins, who has long been a leader and champion of strengthening the partnership between the U.S. and Israel,” Marshall Wittmann, a spokesperson for AIPAC, told Jewish Insider on Thursday.

Wittmann did not address whether AIPAC has plans to get involved in the primary. Collins, a five-term senator, has defended her relationship with AIPAC, which has faced growing criticism from Democratic candidates in recent months as intraparty tensions over Israel have intensified.

It remains to be seen if the Maine Senate race will draw outside spending from other pro-Israel groups including Democratic Majority for Israel, which has engaged in a number of recent primaries. The group did not respond to requests for comment from JI.

The primary also includes Jordan Wood, a former congressional aide whose campaign says that he has raised $3 million since April. Dan Kleban, a brewery owner in Maine, dropped out of the race on Tuesday and endorsed Mills, who was aggressively recruited by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). 

Mills’ campaign said this week that she had raised $1 million in the 24 hours after she announced her bid. Platner’s team reported a $4 million haul since entering the race over the summer, with prominent contributors ranging from Ron Klain, a former chief of staff to President Joe Biden, to the billionaire donors Donald Sussman and Chris Hughes, according to campaign filings.

While Platner, 41, has drawn scrutiny over his views on Israel — which he has made a central component of his campaign messaging and national fundraising appeals — the political newcomer has more recently weathered controversy surrounding past comments in which he identified as a “communist,” called “all” police “bastards” and said rural Americans are racist and stupid, among other incendiary statements.

Platner has said that such views, unearthed in a CNN investigation published on Thursday, do not reflect his current thinking. Still, the deleted posts underscore how a previously untested candidate is likely to navigate additional vulnerabilities in a race that Democrats view as one of their top priorities as they seek to win back the Senate majority next year.

Following Mills’ launch this week, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a top elections forecaster, said that it had changed its ranking of the Maine Senate race from “leans Republican” to “toss-up” — a rating also echoed by The Cook Political Report.

Mills — who, at 77, would be the oldest freshman senator in history if elected — has won praise from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The two-term governor also formed a joint fundraising committee with the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm earlier this week, according to a new campaign disclosure.

Mills’ campaign team features veterans of her 2022 bid for governor, a person familiar with the matter told JI on Thursday, including Eric Adelstein of the communications consultancy AL Media and Jefrey Pollock of the polling firm Global Strategy Group — which has conducted a number of surveys on Israel and the Jewish vote. 

Chelsea Brossard, a Democratic strategist who recently advised Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) in his bid for governor of New Jersey, is also joining Mills’ team as campaign manager, according to the source, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss undisclosed details.

Mills’ campaign did not respond to requests for comment from JI on Thursday. Pollock declined to comment.

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.

The newly brokered ceasefire and hostage-release agreement between Israel and Hamas was met on Thursday with a notable lack of enthusiasm from the most outspoken Democratic detractors of Israel in Congress — even as they have vocally advocated for ending the war in Gaza. 

While the deal drew accolades across the political spectrum, from left-wing Israel detractors such as Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) to MAGA stalwarts, some of the most high-profile members of the far-left Squad and other ideologically aligned lawmakers remained silent well after the first phase of the agreement was finalized Wednesday or offered only grudging praise for the long-awaited development that could lead to an end to the war.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Summer Lee (D-PA) and Greg Casar (D-TX), chair of the House Progressive Caucus, did not respond to requests for comment from Jewish Insider and had not weighed in publicly on the deal as of Thursday night, despite widespread reaction to the agreement on Capitol Hill.

In statements to social media, Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Delia Ramirez (D-IL) briefly voiced hope that the deal would hold but reiterated their accusation that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and called for increased accountability in the conflict, without referring to Hamas’ involvement.

Like Omar, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) made no mention of the hostages in his own response to the deal, which also expressed hope that the agreement would, “as soon as possible,” help end “this horrific war.”

The relatively muted comments — or lack thereof — underscore how anti-Israel lawmakers are reluctant to praise a major diplomatic breakthrough brokered by President Donald Trump — even as it aligns with their interests in ultimately ending the two-year war in Gaza.

They also highlight how the broader pro-Palestinian movement, whose extreme rhetoric has increasingly signaled support for Hamas as a “resistance” group righteously opposing occupation, has grown captive to a narrow and uncompromising conception of the war that attributes blame for the conflict exclusively to Israel while largely dismissing the suffering of the hostages.

In a statement addressing the agreement, for example, Abdul El-Sayed, a prominent critic of Israel who is now running for Senate in Michigan, said that “the impending return of Palestinian and Israeli hostages to their families offers a glimmer of hope in a dark time,” equating Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, some of whom were serving life sentences for terrorism, now set to be released as part of a hostage-for-prisoners exchange with Hamas.

El-Sayed also devoted most of his lengthy message to denouncing “genocide in Gaza,” saying that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “and all who enabled these atrocities must be held accountable under international law.” El-Sayed’s statement did not name Hamas.

Earlier this week, El-Sayed had drawn widespread backlash over a fundraising email his campaign sent on the two-year anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that blamed Israel for the war in Gaza but also did not mention the terrorist group or the massacre that had initially sparked the war in Gaza. 

As the new agreement is set to be implemented in the coming days, it will be worth closely observing if the Squad’s rhetoric on the situation in Gaza evolves — and whether even the most hostile critics of Israel can muster even a little enthusiasm for a deal that could fulfill a goal they have pushed since the start of the war.

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH), in a webinar with Democratic Majority for Israel on Tuesday, emphasized that colleagues who push to block aid to Israel or recognize a Palestinian state risk emboldening Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran when they are on their back foot.

Landsman also laid out what he sees as preconditions for rebuilding Democratic support for the Jewish state.

“Saying, ‘We’re going to withhold aid, we’re going to unilaterally call for a Palestinian state’ — which exists where? Is that all of Israel? What are you talking about? — that suggests to Hamas, ‘Maybe we should keep fighting,’” Landsman said. “I don’t think that’s their intent. I think that it’s entirely appropriate to be critical of the government and decisions … without abandoning our ally.”

“Witholding aid does undermine our ally in a way that is really significant,” Landsman continued.

He said he’s trying to push colleagues in that direction. He added later that he believes that the war in Gaza is a “just war,” even if “it needs to come to an end.”

Asked about the longer-term path toward rebuilding Democratic support for Israel, Landsman said that an end to the war and new leadership in Israel would likely be critical steps in that direction.

“Once we get on the other side of this and we have a government that’s really actively pursuing peace, then the path for a lot of these folks who have felt alienated, to come back. I think is pretty clear,” Landsman said. 

He added that peace must also come alongside continued efforts to beat back threats. “You do have to take out these terror armies, and you have to marginalize and completely sideline Iran as a threat, which is going to require constant work.”

He said he was encouraged to see the deal put forward by the Trump administration on Monday, arguing that the war “needs to end for a whole host of reasons,” including freeing the hostages and surging aid into Gaza.

“Israel’s standing in the international community has been diminished, which is a key strategy for Hamas. And this is one of the reasons why I think Netanyahu has got to figure out a way to end this war, because Hamas is succeeding at delegitimizing Israel in a way that is really harmful, way more so than anything it could do militarily,” Landsman said. “I think you’ve got to take that off the table, and that means ending the war.”

Landsman also said that “there’s still limited pressure on Hamas to end this war” and called on the Trump administration to employ “maximum leverage, maximum pressure” on the group, including by detaining Hamas leaders in Qatar.

He added that surging aid is “the right thing to do, it’s the Jewish thing to do and it’s also just strategically what has to happen if Israel is going to maintain its standing in the world and continue to get support.”

He said that positive steps are being taken but added that there are “serious issues with UNRWA that the U.N. and the international community have not gotten serious about.”

He also emphasized the need for an Arab-nation compact to bring the war to an end and deradicalize and rebuild Gaza with a new government that seeks peace with Israel.

“Get all 22 of them involved in a very formal and committed, long-term, sustainable way,” Landsman said. “I think that helps achieve the goals that we collectively have for ending this war and getting Gaza to a place where Hamas is gone, the strip is deradicalized and we’re in a position to help them rebuild with a new governing authority that wants peace with the state of Israel.”

Landsman suggested that such an effort could also unlock Arab-Israeli peace.

“An Israel that’s seeking peace is quite popular. I think that’s what [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] would support. Once this war is over and there is a pathway to peace because these terror armies have been defeated … I think these folks do come back and say, ‘Okay, let’s be part of something,’” Landsman continued.

He said that the Trump administration needs a larger team, working full-time, on pursuing Middle East peace in the longer term. “You’ve got to get ironclad commitments from all of these countries. It’s got to be formal. They’ve got to come together in a formal, sustainable way.”

Without continuous White House pressure and attention, he warned that any peace that is reached is likely to crumble.

With numerous incumbent House members retiring or seeking higher office, the 2026 election will bring four open seats to the deep blue Chicago area — a level of turnover unprecedented in recent history — each of which is being hotly contested by a series of diverse candidates. And in each of the districts — the 2nd, 7th, 8th and 9th — at least one viable candidate is staking out positions strongly critical of Israel.

Illinois’ Second District (of Rep. Robin Kelly, who is running for Senate):

The sizable Second District stretches from the south side of Chicago and runs nearly three hours south along the border with Indiana. It includes liberal, highly educated areas around the University of Chicago and Hyde Park, where anti-Israel state Sen. Robert Peters is likely to pull most of his support.

Peters, who converted to Judaism, has been critical of Israel’s operations in Gaza and joined at least one anti-Israel protest affiliated with the far-left Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, calling in mid-November 2023 for a ceasefire.

“I watched the unprecedented bombing campaign rain down on a densely populated community in Gaza — one that had no easy means to escape — and I saw that it was being done in our name, as Jews and as Americans,” Peters wrote in an op-ed. “I thought of the story of my own biological father’s family. I knew that the massive humanitarian crisis that is still unfolding in Gaza will not make the world safer for Jews, whether in Israel or anywhere.”

More recently, he condemned the “forced famine of millions of people in Gaza” and said on X, “No wonder the Trump administration supports the destruction of Gaza, Trump and his allies want to do the same thing to Black people here.”

Peters was adopted as a child, and discovered in 2022 that his biological father was Jewish; he went on to join a congregation and begin the process of formally converting. The state senator has the support of national anti-Israel activists.

“Robert is the only Jewish candidate in the race for Congress in Illinois’ 2nd District, and this issue is deeply personal for him. Robert believes the U.S. must lead the effort to broker a diplomatic resolution that brings home the hostages, ends the war, and that ultimately leads to a solution where both the Israeli and Palestinian people can enjoy lasting security and self-determination,” a Peters campaign spokesperson told JI.

Peters, according to Frank Calabrese, a Chicago political analyst, has established himself as the favorite of the progressive class, raised substantial amounts of money and picked up an endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). But Calabrese said he will struggle among the more moderate Black voters that live in the Chicago suburbs.

Calabrese said he sees former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. as the prohibitive favorite to win the seat, describing Jackson as someone with “universal name ID,” hailing from a family that is “as close to royalty as you get. It’s comparable locally to the Kennedy family, in the south side of Chicago.”

As a member of Congress from 1995 until 2012, Jackson visited Israel on trips organized by the AIPAC-affiliated American Israel Education Foundation and the Jewish United Fund — taking criticism from anti-Israel activists. He was the keynote speaker for a pro-Israel event in Chicago in 2009, saying at the time, “I am honored to stand in solidarity with you today as we stand in support of Israel.”

Jackson’s brother, Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-IL), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has grown increasingly critical of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza, including supporting a call for the U.S. to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state and serving as an original cosponsor of the “Block the Bombs Act,” which critics describe as an effective permanent arms embargo on Israel for many critical weapons systems.

Jackson resigned from office under investigation for misuse of campaign funds. He later pleaded guilty to fraud and served 30 months in prison. Calabrese said he thinks voters will largely be forgiving of that history. 

He said that it would be “mind-blowing” for Jackson to rack up less than 25% of the vote, which might not be enough to win if there were a small number of other competitors, “but when you put seven, eight, nine people in the race on the ballot — it’s going to be Jesse Jackson.”

Other candidates Calabrese predicted will be most competitive include Yumeka Brown, a member of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, and Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, both of whom he suggested could siphon some of the suburban Chicago vote.

Illinois’ Seventh District (of retiring Rep. Danny Davis):

Justice Democrats-affiliated Kina Collins is expected to make a third bid for the 7th District seat, after two primary challenges to retiring Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL). She has been opposed in past races by the AIPAC-affiliated United Democracy Project super PAC.

Collins has a long record of taking anti-Israel stances, having described the war in Gaza as a genocide just nine days after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, called for conditions on U.S. aid to Israel and repeatedly accused Israel of committing war crimes.

She has also suggested Israeli training is the source of American police brutality against Black Americans.

Collins finished third in the 2024 primary, with 19% of the vote. Calabrese said her core base lies with white progressive voters.

Davis’ handpicked replacement is state Rep. LaShawn Ford. But due to Ford’s poor performance during his 2019 mayoral campaign — he received just 1% of the vote — Calabrese said it’s “hard to call him a [clear] frontrunner,” even with Davis’ backing. 

Calabrese described the field in general as “chaotic” and said none of the candidates have yet to pull away from the pack.

Ford joined a statement on Oct. 11, 2023, condemning violence against both Israelis and Palestinians.

“Hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians have been killed, and thousands injured,” the statement read. “We will not be able to achieve peace when millions of Palestinians are denied human rights.”

Facing criticism that the initial statement had suggested a moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas, Ford later offered his unequivocal condemnation of the “cowardly Hamas terrorists,” according to local media reports.

Melissa Conyears-Ervin, the city treasurer, is mounting her second bid for the seat, after challenging Davis in the 2024 primary, lagging well behind the congressman with just 21% of the vote. She ran on a strongly pro-Israel platform in 2024 and claimed Collins was antisemitic for accusing Israel of genocide.

Jason Friedman, a businessman who entered the race as a primary challenger to Davis, has a base in downtown Chicago and he may have a financial advantage, Calabrese said, but is an untraditional candidate for the majority-minority district, which has historically been represented by a Black lawmaker.

Friedman has been a member of the leadership of the Jewish United Fund and Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago and was a board member of the Jewish National Fund. He led at least one JUF trip to Israel for young business professionals, and was honored with JUF’s Young Leadership Award. He testified before the Chicago City Council in 2012, urging divestment from Iran’s energy sector

“Trump and the United States have a moral obligation to create an environment to end the war and this humanitarian crisis, bring the hostages home, and create a path towards a true two-State solution,” Friedman said in a statement to Jewish Insider. “Netanyahu and his government have inexcusably put their own self-interests over the interests of Israel and the U.S.-Israeli relationship, and it must stop.” 

Others in the race include Richard Boykin, a former chief of staff to Davis, and Anthony Driver, a former leader of the Chicago police oversight board and the former state executive director of the Service Employees International Union, which is supporting his campaign.

Illinois’ Eighth District (seat of Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is running for Senate):

The suburban 8th District race is also up for grabs — a recent poll conducted by one of the candidates found over two-thirds of voters undecided — and features an ideologically diverse set of candidates, including at least two prominent antagonists of the Jewish state.

Yasmin Bankole, a Hanover Park trustee, is vowing to cosponsor the “Block the Bombs Act,” saying, “Our tax dollars are supporting an unjustifiable humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” She has accused the Trump administration of being complicit in potential ethnic cleansing.

“What’s happening in Gaza is immoral, unconscionable, and it is the responsibility of Congress to act,” Bankole said in a position statement on her campaign website.

Earlier this year, she shared a photo of an emaciated child in Gaza, later revealed to suffer from cerebral palsy, writing in the caption, “This heartbreaking and deeply alarming photo has stopped me in my tracks. We must not look away while this modern day tragedy rages on. We must continue to shine a light on ALL injustices. I call on the U.S., Israel, and those in the international community to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches and is safely distributed in Gaza.”

She also signed onto a Jan. 9, 2024, statement organized by JVP calling for a permanent ceasefire.

Bankole is a former staffer for Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and has the senator’s backing in the race. Calabrese said she is “getting a lot of buzz” and has a similar profile and potential support base to Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-IL), who represents a neighboring district.

Junaid Ahmed, a local small business owner, is making a second run for the seat, after attempting to challenge incumbent Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) in 2024, winning just 30% of the primary vote. Ahmed is aiming to capture the progressive lane, according to Calabrese.

On his campaign website, Ahmed lists “Peace in Gaza and Palestinian self-determination” as a top campaign priority and describes the war in Gaza as a genocide.

On the site, he called for a “comprehensive arms embargo and the ending of all military aid to Israel, demonstrating the U.S. stands with our fellow democracies in enforcing international law” and for the U.S. to realize “the self determination of the Palestinian people and an end to the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.”

Ahmed also said he supports “a multilateral effort [to] ensure equal protections for Palestinians under international law” and “[c]omprehensive strategies to tackle Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and anti-Palestinian discrimination here at home and across the globe.”

He said in September that “the United States has a moral duty to stop Israel from committing more [war] crimes” and that Israel’s actions “are hurting America’s standing in the world.” 

“As humans, we have the moral obligation to stand up and speak out against these heinous and genocidal acts,” he said in August.

Ahmed’s advocacy against the U.S.-Israel relationship dates back well before the war in Gaza. In 2021, he said, “Your tax dollars are going towards oppressing the Palestinian people,” condemning government funding packages that included aid for Israel.

In 2022, he commemorated the “Nakba” — a term that translates to “catastrophe” and refers to the founding of Israel and exodus of Palestinians — describing it as a “a horrific tragedy that led to the ethnic cleansing of 800,000+ Palestinians from nearly 530 villages at the hands of settlers who would later found Israel in 1948.”

The leading moderate in the race is former Rep. Melissa Bean, who served in the House from 2005 to 2011. The district is significantly different than it was when Bean first ran, Calabrese noted, and she has been less active in local Democratic politics since she retired, meaning she’ll have to re-introduce herself to many voters. 

Bean, in a 2016 story, was described as close with Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) when he was a pro-Israel advocate before his time in office, and she has spoken out in support of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

In addition to Bean, Bankole and Ahmed, other candidates include Kevin Morrison, a Cook County commissioner, businessman Neil Khot and Dan Tully, a former JAG officer who has donated a significant sum to his own campaign and could be a strong fundraiser.

In the case of Morrison, Calabrese said the Cook County Commission, where he serves, has traditionally served as a launching pad for officeholders including Johnson and Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL) — but the district is split between Cook County and DuPage County, where Morrison’s support is weaker.

Calabrese said that Khot could rally support from the sizable local Indian-American community, and that he has been a strong fundraiser, supplemented by his own personal funds.

Illinois’ Ninth District (seat of retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky):

The Ninth District, which has one the largest Jewish constituencies in the state, has been the most-watched of the open Chicagoland seats, with prominent candidates including state Sen. Laura Fine, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and influencer and anti-Israel activist Kat Abugazaleh.

The race in the “very liberal district” which includes “the most liberal parts of Chicago” is turning into a sprint to the left, Calabrese said. The district also includes a large Middle Eastern population unfriendly to Israel, in addition to a sizable Orthodox Jewish community.

Fine represents the wealthier areas of the district and the more mainstream side of the Democratic Party. In an interview with Jewish Insider in May, Fine, who is Jewish, touted her pro-Israel platform and described herself as a staunch defender of the Jewish state who has long been outspoken against rising antisemitism fueled by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza.

The 58-year-old state lawmaker, who served in the state House before rising to the state Senate in 2019, is a co-chair of the legislative Jewish Caucus and calls herself a “proud Jewish woman,” noting that her bat mitzvah was held in Israel. “I have been on the front lines of the fight against antisemitism,” she told JI.

Calabrese said he believes Abugazaleh, despite widespread skepticism over her lack of political experience and short period of residence in the district, stands a serious chance of winning because “this [is a] very transient part of [the Chicago area]. It’s a lot of renters, it’s a lot of single people, it’s a lot of young people and they’re very activist. It’s people like Kat. … She’s raising money, she’s getting volunteers and she represents a good part of what the district’s like.”

Biss has also leaned into criticizing Israel on the campaign trail, calling for the U.S. to stop all offensive weapons shipments to Israel and unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. A campaign spokesperson said he would support the “Block the Bombs Act.”.

“Years of experience have taught us that stern words from allies mean nothing to Netanyahu,” Biss said in a recent Substack post.

He added that recognizing a Palestinian state “would help lay the groundwork for a free and democratic Palestine, with a government that has no place for and provides no material support to Hamas or any other terrorist organization.”

He also wrote that, while he has deep familial connections to the state of Israel — his mother grew up in Israel, he spent significant time there and he had a cousin who served in the IDF after Oct. 7 — “other families have stories that paint a dramatically different picture. The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 was itself a violent trauma for Palestinians. And I have also spent time in the West Bank, decades ago, witnessing first-hand the cruelty of the occupation — and the way, already then, that it warped Israeli attitudes.”

Biss also criticized Israeli airstrikes on Iran and said the U.S. should “work to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon through diplomatic means, not reckless military strikes.”

Biss, as mayor of Evanston, represents the largest political entity in the district — a large potential pool of votes — is well known from a past run for governor and is politically well-suited to the district, Calabrese said.

“He’s liberal but not really leftist …. So he’s a really good compromise between what I consider establishment and activists,” Calabrese continued, though Biss has leaned more into an activist posture on the campaign trail, participating in heated protests in the area against ICE.

There are other candidates in the race, including Bushra Amiwala, an activist and member of the Skokie Board of Education and the first Gen Z woman elected to public office in the country and the youngest Muslim elected official as of when she was elected.

Amiwala also has a history of anti-Israel activism. She opposes all military aid to Israel, said the U.S. should “demand reparations” from Israel and urged senators to support legislation blocking certain arms transfers.

“To have so much of our taxpayer dollars funding a humanitarian crisis in Palestine is not OK. And I don’t think we need to spend any more money on this. We need to leverage the money we’ve already given Israel to force them to sit at the table and come to a ceasefire,” she told Chicago magazine.

She also accused Israel of deliberately starving Palestinians and said opponents unwilling to describe the war in Gaza as a genocide should drop out of the race.

“This is the new litmus test for Democrats and it doesn’t take a focus group or opinion poll to find the right answer,” Amiwala wrote in a fundraising email. “If you are so morally and ethically compromised on this issue, you are no better than a MAGA Republican and are undeserving of even calling yourself a Democrat.”

Amiwala also said that “we’ve seen AIPAC buy our elected officials,” referring to the group’s political spending, and suggested that U.S. aid to Israel is the reason Americans lack access to education and universal healthcare.

And she has condemned Israel’s “continuous illegal bombing of sovereign nations. Israel has caused countless bloodshed and ignored international law while bankrolled by the U.S. every step of the way.”

But Calabrese said he’s skeptical that anyone other than Abugazaleh, Biss and Fine stands a realistic chance of winning the seat.

Citing New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s stated plans to revoke the city’s use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) called on Thursday for the House to pass the long-stalled Antisemitism Awareness Act.

The bill has seen no movement in the current congressional session in the House and faces significant hurdles in the Senate after a series of poison-pill amendments were added to the legislation. But Jewish groups are continuing to push for the bill’s passage, a top priority issue since Oct. 7, including in lobbying efforts this week.

“Zohran Mamdani’s reckless attempt to roll back New York City’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism is shameful, dangerous, and completely disgusting,” Lawler and Gottheimer said in a joint statement.

They went on to condemn as antisemitic the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which Mamdani supports, “efforts to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist” and Mamdani’s refusal to “outright condemn the violent call to ‘globalize the intifada.’”

“Given the sharp spike in antisemitic violence, families across the Tri-State area should be alarmed. Leaders cannot equivocate when it comes to standing against antisemitism and the incitement of violence against Jews,” Lawler and Gottheimer said. “This is exactly why Congress must pass our bipartisan Antisemitism Awareness Act.”

The two vowed to “continue working together, across party lines, to make sure our communities are safe, our values are clear, and antisemitism is confronted head-on.”

The wide-open primary race for the most Democratic district in the country is highlighting stark divisions in Israel policy among the leading candidates.

The candidates for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District — which includes western Philadelphia, Center City and parts of north Philadelphia — include a host of prominent local officials, as well as some outsider candidates, including state Sen. Sharif Street, who recently resigned as state Democratic Party chair, progressive state Rep. Chris Rabb, state Rep. Morgan Cephas and physician Dr. David Oxman.

Dr. Ala Stanford, a local surgeon and activist who gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, is also seen as a likely candidate, and former City Councilman Derek Green may also join the race.

A Rabb victory would be cause for significant concern for pro-Israel voters in the district — which includes some heavily Jewish areas of Philadelphia — and national pro-Israel groups. The state senator has an extensive history, particularly since Oct. 7, of anti-Israel activism, and has accused Israel of genocide.

He posted on social media in Sept. 2024 in support of a Philadelphia teacher who was suspended following a complaint from Jewish parents about threatening social media posts directed toward them.

“I’m here in solidarity with the educators and students who have shown the discernment to understand that discomfort is not the same as danger, animus or even harm. Quite the contrary, without discomfort, we cannot truly learn, grow or heal,” Rabb said on Instagram. “I do not believe that being critical of any political ideology — be it neo-liberalism or Zionism — is being against an entire people or ethnic group. … We must not allow students and educators to be attacked for discussing critical global issues or other international struggles … And there should be no instance when a mere reference to any sovereign nation is reflexively viewed as a proxy for hate or bias.”

Rabb was the only elected official to attend a recent anti-Israel “People’s Tribunal” hosted by a range of far-left groups, which aimed to present a case that U.S. officials including Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) are guilty of complicity with genocide and war crimes by Israel.

Rabb described the event as a generational moment that would reverberate far into the future.

He called on his state to divest from and cease any investments in Israel until the end of the war in Gaza, and said that advancing a proposed anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions bill would “cause a s*** show of epic proportions that no Democrat wants to see — especially in an election year where the policy choices we make are being scrutinized by a highly skeptical, but vigilant and well organized subset of the electorate.”

Rabb also spoke at a February 2024 protest led by anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace at which he indicated support for protests blocking traffic and opposed arrests of demonstrators at the Pennsylvania Statehouse, comparing anti-Israel protests to the Civil Rights Movement. “This is a radical expression of one’s First Amendment rights,” he said.

He visited and praised anti-Israel encampments at multiple colleges in Pennsylvania and indicated support for BDS efforts targeting the colleges, participated in events with the local Council on American-Islamic Relations chapter and spoke out against detentions and attempted deportations of student activists.

He also condemned school leaders out-of-state, in Maryland, for suspending teachers for anti-Israel, antisemitic or pro-Palestinian comments, one of whom he said was a personal friend.

“I’m irate about how these pro-#censorship folx have maliciously targeted these teachers,” Rabb said. “Being pro-#Palestine is neither a crime, nor anti-Jewish.”

Rabb on Oct. 18, 2023, 11 days after the Hamas attacks, called for a ceasefire as well as the release of “the more than 200 civilian hostages taken back into Gaza and Palestinian political prisoners.”

“I grieve the loss of lives in Israel and Palestine. I condemn Hamas’s brutal attack on October 7th … I also grieve the thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, including hundreds of children, who have been killed by Israeli bombs since then. It is never acceptable to cause the deaths of civilians. All human life is sacred,” Rabb said. “I join my colleagues in Congress who have called for immediate de-escalation, ceasefire, adherence to International Humanitarian Law and humanitarian aid to Palestine commensurate with the devastation wrought upon Gaza.”

Rabb was one of several Democratic state lawmakers who signed onto a Nov. 21, 2023, letter to Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation which delivered a similar message. The chief of staff for the state senator who led that letter had reposted several X posts on Oct. 7 indicating support for the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Street, who is Muslim, has long-standing ties to members of the state’s Jewish community and has spoken out in support of Israel’s right to exist and against antisemitism. He traveled to Israel in 2017 on a trip for Muslim legislators organized by the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange, a source familiar with the campaign told Jewish Insider.

“As a Black man and a Muslim, I’ve spent my entire political career fighting for the inherent worth and dignity of every person. That’s why I have stood strong against the growing tide of anti-Semitism in this country,” Street said in a statement to JI. “In Congress, I will work hard for peace in the Middle East based on mutual trust and grounded in Israel’s right to exist and the right of the Palestinian people to live without fear.”

In a November 2023 statement responding to the Hamas attack and ensuing war in Gaza, Street emphasized the right of both Israelis and Palestinians to peace and freedom, and mourned civilian deaths on both sides, while emphasizing the importance of U.S. support for Israel.

“We must affirm the right of Israel to exist. We must affirm the right of the Jewish people to have a sovereign state and we must also affirm the right of the Palestinian people to live in a place where their children are safe and their families are secure,” Street said. “A place where their hospitals and schools are not compromised by Hamas commingling military facilities with hospitals and schools.”

He said that the U.S. “must not abandon its calling to protect the children of the Holocaust” and “must remember why the modern state of Israel was created in the aftermath of World War II. We must remain vigilant in our support of Israel and its right to defend itself.”

Street added that “does not disavow us from having an obligation to the Palestinian people as well,” and ensuring that “food flows plentifully into the land of Palestinian people,” that hospitals and schools are rebuilt and that both Israeli and Palestinian children can live in peace.

He went on to condemn hate crimes in the United States targeting both the Palestinian and Jewish communities, as well as Christians.

Street also offered his condemnation and condolences following the shooting earlier this year of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington.

“As the highest-ranking Muslim elected official in Pennsylvania, I am heartbroken by the senseless act of violence that took the lives of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington, D.C.,” Street said. “I extend my deepest condolences to the families of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, and to all who are grieving this horrific tragedy. No one should fear for their lives simply because of who they are or where they work.”

“I unequivocally condemn this shooting—and all acts of gun violence, antisemitism, and hatred. We must all stand against violence, wherever it occurs and whoever it targets,” Street continued. “I support the right of Israel to exist in peace and security, just as I support the rights of Palestinians to live with dignity and freedom. A just and lasting peace in the region will never be built on bloodshed. We must do better—here at home and abroad.”

As the Pennsylvania Democratic chair, Street spoke out against the Uncommitted movement that urged voters to oppose President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential primary over his position on the war in Gaza. “As a Muslim American, I know that President Biden has my back and will fight for our community,” Street said. He also emphasized the need for Democrats to appeal to both Jewish and Muslim voters.

Street did not vote last year on an anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions bill when it passed either the Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee or the full Senate.

Cephas does not appear to have much of a public record of speaking out about the conflict in the Middle East, though in the days after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, she was an advocate for increased state-level funding for nonprofit security funding.

Larry Ceisler, a public affairs executive in Philadelphia, told JI that the race is likely to be highly competitive — a rare opportunity for a Philadelphia elected official to potentially secure a long tenure in higher office.

He described the race as essentially a toss-up and said he could see a scenario for each of Street, Cephas and Rabb to win. Ceisler said that the race could break down, to some extent, along geographic lines.

Street, Ceisler said, has strong name recognition as the son of a former Philadelphia mayor, and represents north Philadelphia. Cephas represents west Philadelphia, and Rabb represents northwest Philadelphia, an area that is very politically active, leans left and usually has high voter turnout in primaries.

Ceisler predicted Rabb will present himself as the furthest-left candidate in the field and noted that he previously beat a candidate backed by the local party apparatus, while Street is likely to lean on more traditional support bases including local party and ward leaders and some organized labor groups.

He said Cephas’ youth, gender and leadership in the Statehouse could also make her an attractive candidate for some voters. And he said that Stanford enjoys high name recognition and goodwill from the COVID-19 era, though she is untested and unscrutinized as a political candidate.

Ceisler noted that he is a Rabb constituent and former supporter who wrote to Rabb to express his disappointment early in the Israel-Hamas war about his post-Oct. 7 positions, saying he felt Rabb was “uninformed” and had accepted false and misleading information, though he said that Rabb should not be “vilified.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified the name of public affairs executive Larry Ceisler.

The progressive Israel advocacy group J Street endorsed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Friday, marking the first time the top Democratic congressional leader accepted an endorsement from the group. 

With Jeffries endorsed by J Street, the group has now thrown its support behind the entire House Democratic leadership team: Jeffries, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-CA). 

Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar have all also been endorsed by AIPAC, and they have each traveled to Israel on AIPAC-affiliated trips. 

“J Street is proud to endorse the House Democratic leadership team at such a critical moment in the US-Israel relationship,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said in a statement Friday. “After 23 months of war, it is important to endorse Democratic leaders who understand the time has come for a just and lasting peace that brings the remaining hostages home and immediately and permanently surges aid to the people of Gaza.” 

In recent months, J Street has taken an increasingly critical line toward Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza. The organization has supported measures to withhold or condition American military aid to Israel, a position AIPAC vehemently opposes. Ben-Ami said last month that he has been convinced Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to a genocide.

“Hakeem Jeffries is a pro-Israel leader and a champion for strengthening and expanding America’s partnership with our democratic ally, none of which J Street supports,” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told Jewish Insider on Friday.

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

James Talarico, a Democratic state representative in Texas seen as a rising star in his party, launched a campaign for Senate on Tuesday, joining a crowded primary to claim the seat held by veteran Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).

The 36-year-old former public school teacher, who has studied to become a Presbyterian minister, has drawn national attention for openly embracing his Christian faith to connect with voters. In his launch video, he referred to Jesus, invoking him as “a barefoot rabbi who gave two commandments: love God and love neighbor.”

“Two thousand years ago, when the powerful few rigged the system, that barefoot rabbi walked into the seat of power and flipped over the tables of injustice,” Talarico added. “To those who love our country, to those who love our neighbors: It’s time to start flipping tables.”

Talarico, who is calling for a generational shake-up in a party he sees as largely out of touch with voter concerns, until this week had no apparent record of public commentary on Middle East policy, a subject that is likely to stir debate in the upcoming election cycle amid Democratic divisions over Israel’s war in Gaza.

In interviews published on Tuesday, he indicated that he would adopt a more critical approach to Israel, calling the war a “moral disaster” that his party has failed to address. “One of the primary reasons that the Democratic Party lost young voters in particular last election was our party’s failure to recognize the moral disaster in Gaza, and I hope that we have leaders who recognize that mistake,” he said in comments to Punchbowl News that were echoed in an interview with The Washington Post.

He also declined to say, in an interview with HuffPost, if he believes that Israel’s military conduct in Gaza amounts to genocide, dismissing the question as a debate “within elite political circles” that distracts “from the immediate goal, which is stopping the human suffering in Gaza.”

And on specific legislation, Talarico passed on commenting on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) recent resolutions seeking to block U.S. military aid to Israel, saying he was unfamiliar with the measures, which won support from a majority of the Democratic caucus. He said broadly that the party’s approach to Israel “needs to entail action,” but did not elaborate further.

His comments, notable for a Senate candidate in a solidly conservative and deeply evangelical state, underscore how the party is now shifting away from its long-standing support for Israel as it reckons with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and declining Democratic Party voter sympathy for the Jewish state, according to polls.

Talarico’s campaign said he was unavailable for an interview with Jewish Insider on Tuesday to expand on his new comments about Israel and the direction of the party.

His views could draw attacks from Republicans — who are already highlighting his favorable remarks regarding Zohran Mamdani, the far-left Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City and vehement critic of Israel.

In next year’s primary, Talarico, whose profile rose over the summer after he appeared on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, is facing former Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX), who unsuccessfully opposed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) last election, and Terry Virts, a former astronaut, among other Democrats. 

While Allred has previously voiced strong support for Israel and its alliance with the United States, he argued last year that Israel’s military aims in its war in Gaza could not achieve any further practical goals and that the U.S. should consider withholding some aid to pressure Israel to finalize a ceasefire deal with Hamas.

Even as he has railed against billionaire Republican donors, Talarico has previously accepted campaign donations from a super PAC in Texas funded by the pro-Israel GOP megadonor Miriam Adelson, thanks to his support for legalizing casino gambling within the state. 

Adelson, who was one of President Donald Trump’s biggest donors in the last election, has also donated to Cornyn, now seeking to fend off a challenge from Ken Paxton, Texas’ attorney general.

A representative for Adelson did not respond to a message from JI seeking comment on Tuesday.

Having recently returned from a trip to Israel, Rep. George Latimer (D-NY) is emphasizing that Israel’s critics in the United States and around the world are overlooking Hamas’ key role in perpetuating the conflict and contributing to the humanitarian issues in Gaza, strengthening the terrorist group’s position and insulating it from external pressures. 

At the same time, the New York Democrat also said that Israel must do more to pursue an end to the war, make its case to the world and provide aid in Gaza.

Latimer, speaking to Jewish Insider last week, said that the trip, organized by the AIPAC-affiliated American Israel Education Foundation for Democratic freshmen and leading Democratic lawmakers, had reinforced his view that the situation on the ground is more complicated than the more simplistic narratives demonizing Israel that have been spread by some critics and media.

“When you see on the ground, you understand it is not a simple black-and-white situation,” Latimer, a first-term congressman from Westchester County, N.Y., who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said. “People come up to me and say, ‘Israel is practicing genocide. What they’re doing is evil and we need to stop it.’ And then you get on the ground and you realize how much more complicated it is than that.”

He said that American critics of Israel fail to acknowledge Hamas’ “role in all of this and its contributory actions.” He said he sees a “lack of appreciation here in the United States that Hamas is committed — has shown no signs to want to sit, talk peace, have a cessation of hostilities. … That makes it very, very hard to plot a strategy, if the other side is completely intransigent.”

Latimer said the situation is comparable to overlooking the fact that the U.S. entered World War II because Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, or that the U.S. invaded Afghanistan because of the 9/11 attacks. He said that the “mindset” that motivated such attacks doesn’t disappear overnight, and can take protracted conflict to address.

At the same time, he said that “there’s a gap between what [the Israeli government] needs to be doing and what it is doing, and it’s a serious gap.” He said he doesn’t see proposals to relocate the population of Gaza out of the enclave, discussed during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as “workable” or “humane.”

He addressed friction within Israeli society over Israel’s war plans in Gaza, and said that Netanyahu’s decision-making may be shaped by his far-right coalition members, adding that “if there’s no movement from Hamas, what can you ask Israel to do unilaterally?”

“So Netanyahu’s strategies present as intransigent in the face of intransigence on the other side,” Latimer continued. “You need some joint breakthrough where both sides step back from the path that they’re on, and both sides have to be willing to do that, if you can expect the other side to also then do that.”

He noted the difficulty of forcing a dug-in enemy like Hamas to surrender, comparing it to the challenge of forcing a Japanese surrender during WWII.

Latimer unseated Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), a vocal Israel critic, in the 2024 Democratic primary, boosted by significant support from his district’s Jewish community as well as national pro-Israel groups.

Latimer told JI he thinks Israel has not done enough to try to win over or influence global opinion in its favor. Latimer said he believes that the Israeli government views such efforts as a lost cause and not worth attempting.

“There’s a case to be made [for Israel]. But in lieu of that, the rhetoric is all what Israel is doing and not doing, and how evil they are, when, in fact, all of this came from an attack that was horrific on Oct. 7,” Latimer said.

He said that there have been “atrocities” on the Israeli side, pointing broadly to settler violence in the West Bank, but said that “the question is, overall, are you weighing all of these things together, or as the world opinion, and much of the United States opinion, particularly among younger people, has been framed completely around ‘Israel bad,’” ignoring the “evil that’s been done on behalf of the other side of this. That is a contributing reason why we’re in the situation we’re in.”

“The fact that people are starving is horrific. But as long as the world blames Israel for it solely, Hamas is winning. Why would they change any strategies?” Latimer said. “The leaders of Hamas are not sitting in the tunnels. … They’re sitting in the safety of the protection of [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan or over in Qatar. Therefore, they’re not under the pressure.”

Latimer said that the food supply in Gaza was a key issue he examined on the trip, calling starvation in Gaza a “legitimate” problem. 

He said that the current four Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution sites are “nowhere near enough,” given the “massive number of people that need to be fed and housed.”

But he added that Hamas being “unwilling to cooperate” in the safe delivery of aid is an impediment to efforts to improve the humanitarian situation and that the United Nations “in the eyes of the Israelis, has lost credibility.” 

He said that the best path forward would likely be for a coalition of Arab countries to take the lead of a humanitarian aid distribution entity: “We need to have a third party that has credibility.”

“Israel is not doing enough to solve the problem, and Hamas is doing things to prohibit the problem from being solved,” Latimer said, calling on Israel to work to increase the number of food distribution centers and strengthen supply lines and on Hamas to stop attempting to intercept food and sow chaos at distribution sites.

“The fact that people are starving is horrific. But as long as the world blames Israel for it solely, Hamas is winning. Why would they change any strategies?” he said. “The leaders of Hamas are not sitting in the tunnels. … They’re sitting in the safety of the protection of [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan or over in Qatar. Therefore, they’re not under the pressure.”

“What I saw in September 2005 gave me hope. What I see when I go back 20 years later is, you shake your head and you go, ‘Why did it turn out this way?’” Latimer said. “Did it turn out this way because Israel wanted it to turn out this way? Israel didn’t want Oct. 7. Israel didn’t want all of its young men in the reserves and active duty, constantly on a wartime footing.”

He declined to weigh in definitively — citing the limited information at his disposal and his limited power as a lone congressman — on whether the U.S. needs to increase pressure on its allies in Turkey or Qatar to expel or detain those Hamas leaders, but said that “clearly there has been insufficient pressure on Hamas” because its leaders have shown no urgency to return the hostages, negotiate in good faith or participate in un-corrupted food distribution.

Latimer said he first traveled to Israel two decades ago, just after the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, and that there was hope at the time that the Israeli withdrawal would “allow the opportunity for Gaza to experience peace and some kind of growth.”

“What I saw in September 2005 gave me hope. What I see when I go back 20 years later is, you shake your head and you go, ‘Why did it turn out this way?’” Latimer said. “Did it turn out this way because Israel wanted it to turn out this way? Israel didn’t want Oct. 7. Israel didn’t want all of its young men in the reserves and active duty, constantly on a wartime footing.”

He said that if Gaza’s leaders had pursued growth and development over the past 20 years, “we could be in a very different place today,” but instead Hamas seized power and used Gaza as a platform to attack Israel.

Asked about recent decisions by European countries to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state, which came around the time of Latimer’s trip, the congressman said that he supports a two-state solution, but one that “comes out of a negotiated process,” noting the many outstanding issues to be worked through.

“You cannot expect Israel to survive with a hostile entity interspersed with its borders, and yet be its own country. And there has to be a sense that this country can function and provide its services to its people and maintain civil control. None of those things are automatically in place yet, so I don’t know what we’re recognizing in substance,” Latimer said. 

“I think what we’re recognizing in symbolism is European countries that basically are saying, ‘We need to have a two state solution,’ and probably their population is reacting to what’s happening in the moment and putting pressure on their governments to do this,” he continued.

“The Palestinian Authority certainly has a steep mountain to climb, but right now, they’re the best hope that you have of a presence — and certainly it’s not Hamas, it’s certainly not coming out of any of the groups that Iran is backing or has backed,” Latimer said.

Based on the delegation’s meeting with Palestinian Authority leaders, Latimer said that he believes there is an “intent” and “willingness” in the PA to pursue needed reform and bolster credibility with the Palestinian population.

“How much success they’re going to have with the civilian population to accomplish those things — it’s going to be a tall task,” he said.

At the same time, he noted that some Arab governments such as those in Jordan and Egypt maintain cooperative relationships with Israel even as many of their citizens remain hostile.

“The Palestinian Authority certainly has a steep mountain to climb, but right now, they’re the best hope that you have of a presence — and certainly it’s not Hamas, it’s certainly not coming out of any of the groups that Iran is backing or has backed,” he continued.

In the long term, Latimer added, the Abraham Accords represent a path forward for the region, and said that moderate Sunni Arab states want to see a viable and demilitarized Palestinian Authority government that can credibly govern the Palestinian people.

Rep. Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY) surprise decision on Monday to retire at the end of his current term has set off what is expected to be a crowded primary to succeed the long-serving Jewish Democrat — with a growing number of candidates weighing bids for the coveted Manhattan House seat he has held for more than three decades.

The looming open-seat primary has also raised questions about whether candidates will embrace Nadler’s increasingly skeptical views on Israel, and how the issue will shape the race. The 78-year-old lawmaker, who represents one of the largest Jewish constituencies in the nation, has long identified as a pro-Israel progressive, even as he has vocally criticized Israel’s conduct during its ongoing war in Gaza and drew scrutiny from some Jewish community leaders over his early endorsement of Zohran Mamdani, the far-left Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City.

In an interview first announcing his retirement on Monday, Nadler, the dean of New York’s congressional delegation, told The New York Times that he believed Israel was committing mass murder and war crimes in Gaza “without question,” and said he would back efforts to withhold offensive weapons transfers to Israel during the rest of his term — in a sharp break from his previous stance on continued military aid to the Jewish state.

It remains to be seen how Nadler’s approach will influence the race. The list of potential candidates includes Micah Lasher, a Jewish assemblyman who is expected to claim Nadler’s blessing, according to people familiar with the situation. Lasher, a former aide to Nadler, has built strong ties to the pro-Israel community, but he faced backlash from local rabbis over his similarly quick choice to support Mamdani, in spite of the nominee’s hostile views on Israel.

One Jewish leader said it was premature to draw conclusions about Lasher’s positions on Israel, while voicing confidence that he “makes up his own mind” on tough issues, regardless of where his allies may stand. 

“Lasher is center-left but has always been relatively moderate on Israel,” a pro-Israel strategist added in assessing the assemblyman’s stances on the Middle East.

Still, “the Zohran thing threw a lot of people off,” another Jewish leader said of Lasher, 43. “I do worry with Micah that, because of the political pressures, he could end up turning himself into a Jerry.”

Lasher did not respond to a request for comment from Jewish Insider on Tuesday.

Despite speculation about his approach, Jewish activists and some Democratic strategists broadly suggested that the pro-Israel community would, by varying degrees, likely be comfortable with Lasher, in addition to other lawmakers from state and local office who are said to be mulling campaigns of their own in Nadler’s district, which covers Manhattan’s Upper West and East Sides.

Among them are two City Council members, Erik Bottcher and Julie Menin, who are also eyeing bids for state Senate and Council speaker, respectively. Menin, a Jewish Democrat, was among some local elected officials who chose not to attend a meeting with Mamdani this summer that had been organized by Nadler, a person familiar with the matter told JI. Keith Powers, a city councilman who recently lost a bid for Manhattan borough president and is looking at another open state Senate race, is also weighing a bid, sources said, as is Alex Bores, an assemblyman on the East Side.

“I commend Congressman Nadler for his years of public service,” Bores said in a statement shared with JI on Tuesday, indicating he is exploring a bid for the open House seat. “Rep. Nadler has always led with his convictions and cared deeply about his constituents; that is the exact kind of representation that the people of the 12th Congressional District deserve.”

Pro-Israel strategists indicated that they had more urgent concerns about another possible candidate, Lina Khan, the former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission and a progressive icon who now lives in Harlem and has been “shopping around for a district for months,” according to a source familiar with the situation. 

Khan, whose name has been floated as a potential candidate, could be a prolific fundraiser in a campaign, sources speculated. While she does not appear to have publicly addressed key Middle East questions, the anti-monopoly advocate has praised Mamdani’s campaign, raising early concerns that he would have a close and powerful ally in Congress if both are elected. Khan did not respond to a request for comment about her plans.

In addition to Khan, another prominent figure whose name has been privately mentioned in the days after Nadler’s unexpected announcement is Chelsea Clinton, according to people familiar with the conversations. Clinton has not confirmed her interest in the race to succeed Nadler but is actively considering a campaign after debating a run for an open City Council seat last cycle, said one person informed of her thinking. Her mother, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, voiced appreciation for Nadler in a social media post on Tuesday, after he officially announced his departure from the House.

Chelsea Clinton, 45, has been outspoken against antisemitism and would bring considerable name recognition to the race, though pro-Israel activists said they were largely unfamiliar with her views on Israel’s war in Gaza. 

The primary is likely to draw outside spending from pro-Israel groups including AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel, both of which have engaged in a number of House races where divisions over Middle East policy have fueled mounting tensions amid the war in Gaza.

Brian Romick, chairman of DMFI’s political arm, DMFI PAC, said the group “will be watching closely as the field takes shape and look forward to meeting with the candidates.”

A spokesperson for AIPAC declined to comment on Tuesday.

Two potential candidates who would likely align most closely with AIPAC and are currently weighing bids include Natalie Barth, a philanthropist who has previously served as the president of Park Avenue Synagogue, and Elisha Wiesel, son of the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Elie Wiesel, people familiar with their plans told JI. 

Wiesel, who has been critical of Mamdani’s approach to Israel and antisemitism, had endorsed former Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) when she ran against Nadler in a bitterly contested primary three years ago.

Whitney Tilson, a former hedge fund executive who ran a failed campaign for New York City mayor as a moderate pro-Israel Democrat, is also considering a bid to replace Nadler, writing in a social media post on Tuesday that residents of the district, which had narrowly favored Mamdani in the primary, “have a special responsibility to lead the” fight against President Donald Trump, “defend the rule of law” and “support our allies, especially Israel and Ukraine.”

Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Jewish campus activist who has celebrated Trump’s crackdown on antisemitism, also confirmed to JI on Tuesday that he is weighing a campaign, saying he has been “encouraged to run by a group of New Yorkers from a broad ideological spectrum.”

“I am actively considering it,” he said. “If I can make a positive difference to my city and community, I would be foolish not to. There is a strong desire amongst New York Democrats for a return to normalcy. The party has steered too far to the left and I will help in any way I can, including running for office.”

Some observers have suggested that Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), a moderate Jewish Democrat whose deeply progressive district includes Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, could potentially jump over to Nadler’s race — where he could face a more friendly electorate and forestall challengers to his left. 

But a spokesperson for Goldman, Simone Kanter, dismissed such speculation. “No truth at all, no idea where that’s coming from,” he told JI on Tuesday.

As the field takes shape, Nadler is already facing a younger challenger, Liam Elkind, who in his launch video in July called on the veteran congressman to retire to make room for a new generation of party leadership. 

But Elkind, a 26-year-old nonprofit leader who is running on a broadly pro-Israel platform, is likely to face an uphill battle with the primary now expected to draw more well-known rivals with establishment credentials.

Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner is putting anti-AIPAC and anti-Israel messaging front-and-center in fundraising appeals he’s circulating on social media.

Platner is currently running a series of Facebook and Instagram advertisements soliciting donations for his campaign that highlight his opposition to AIPAC and accuse Israel of committing genocide. The pitches indicate that Platner is treating the issue as central to rallying support for his campaign.

“My opponent has already been endorsed by AIPAC — an endorsement I will never get. Because what is happening right now in Gaza is a genocide,” Platner says in one direct-to-camera video ad focused specifically on his opposition to AIPAC. “I need your help because we refuse to take money from AIPAC, and we refuse to take money from the billionaires who support it.”

Every one of the eight active ads that Platner is running on Facebook and Instagram, according to Meta’s political advertising library tool, includes a repudiation of AIPAC, and around half accuse Israel of genocide. In most of Platner’s other ads, that language comes alongside comments on a range of other issues.

Some of the written advertisements being circulated by Platner’s campaign on Facebook and Instagram include language such as “there is a genocide happening in Palestine,” “why are we funding Netanyau’s genocide in Palestine?” and “I won’t kowtow to AIPAC or billionaires.” 

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

Platner, in the days since launching his campaign, has been repeatedly and vocally critical of Israel and of AIPAC, including calling the group “weird.”

Platner’s potential general election opponent, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) has been a vocal supporter of Israel in the Senate, as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. It’s not clear yet how Platner’s stance on Israel will play in the election, but Collins is already attacking him for his views. 

The candidate’s advocacy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears to date back to his high school days — a page from his yearbook that Platner’s campaign shared on X shows him holding a sign that appears to read “Free Kosovo Chechnya Kashmir Palestine Kurdistan Tibet.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), a progressive stalwart and a longtime Democratic pillar on the House Judiciary Committee, announced his retirement Sunday evening, opening up a recently redrawn Manhattan district that the congressman has held for over three decades.

Nadler, whose district has one of the largest Jewish constituencies in the country, has long positioned himself as a progressive pro-Israel advocate, even as he broke with the organized Jewish community on some issues — most notably his support for former President Obama’s Iran nuclear agreement in 2015.

But in recent months, he has emerged as being at odds with the New York Jewish community on some high-profile issues. Even as most of the leading New York state Democratic voices have held back any endorsement of far-left New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, Nadler was one of the first House Democrats to offer the anti-Israel candidate his support — and has worked to secure support from a deeply skeptical Jewish community towards Mamdani. 

Nadler has also lately become a sharp critic of the Jewish state, in contrast to his pro-Israel Jewish Democratic colleagues from his home state. In a New York Times interview announcing his departure, he accused Israel of committing mass murder and war crimes in Gaza “without question.” He told the paper that when he returns to Congress, he will support legislation withholding offensive military aid to Israel, joining a growing roster of progressive Democrats in doing so — a move that could give cover for other colleagues to follow suit. 

During Donald Trump’s presidency, Nadler saw his national profile grow when he led the first House impeachment hearings against the president as Judiciary Committee chairman, sharing the spotlight with then-Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). He came across as a partisan fighter during the process, and played a much more low-profile role during Trump’s second impeachment.

The impeachment fights enhanced his political profile in his solidly liberal district, helping prepare him for a heated primary in 2022 against a longtime colleague, former Rep. Carolyn Maloney, after redistricting put the two Democrats in the same district. Despite the contentious campaign, Nadler comfortably prevailed by 31 points.

And while there are plenty of ambitious New York City Democrats that could run to succeed Nadler, the congressman told the New York Times that he plans to support state Assemblyman Micah Lasher, a former aide, who represents parts of the upper West Side in the state legislature. 

Former New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor this year, is also from Nadler’s district and could decide to run for Nadler’s seat. 

Leading elected officials in Minnesota are remaining silent in response to a top Minneapolis mayoral candidate, far-left state Sen. Omar Fateh, whose campaign has faced scrutiny for employing staffers who have celebrated Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and called for Israel’s destruction, among other extreme views he has yet to publicly address.

Fateh, a 35-year-old Democratic socialist, now employs a campaign communications manager, Anya Smith-Kooiman, who, in now-deleted social comments recently unearthed by Jewish Insider, has endorsed the Hamas attacks as a justified act of “resistance,” said Israel “does not have a ‘right’ to exist” and “must be dismantled,” and amplified a comment dismissing widespread reports of sexual violence on Oct. 7 as “propaganda,” according to screenshots. 

Meanwhile, David Gilbert-Pederson, a local political activist and City Council aide who has been listed as a Fateh campaign staffer in filings, has unreservedly praised the Oct. 7 attacks, insisting in remarks on a December 2023 panel discussion that supporters of the Palestinian cause must “stand in unconditional solidarity with those resisting oppression.”

But even as some of the state’s leading Democratic lawmakers have endorsed Fateh’s rival, incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey, who is seeking a third term, they have so far declined to weigh in on the staffers’ comments and Fateh’s decision to hire them, which has raised questions about his acceptance of extreme rhetoric on a particularly sensitive issue.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Gov. Tim Walz, who are Frey’s most high-profile backers in what is expected to be a hotly contested race, both avoided addressing the matter to JI. A spokesperson for Klobuchar declined to comment on Friday, and representatives for Walz did not return multiple requests for comment.

Prominent Democratic officials who have not taken sides in the mayoral contest also did not respond to requests for comment — including Peggy Flanagan, the lieutenant governor who is now running for U.S. Senate, and Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), a pro-Israel lawmaker also seeking to replace retiring Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN). A spokesperson for the senator did not respond to a message seeking comment about Fateh.

The muted responses underscore an increasing reluctance among many Democratic elected officials and public figures to speak out against extremist or antisemitic language related to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

In Minneapolis, only one of the three City Council members who have endorsed Frey’s reelection bid was open to weighing in on the matter, denouncing the campaign staffers as well as Fateh’s judgement for choosing to employ them.

“Defending the Oct. 7 terrorist attack is disgraceful, and it’s embarrassing that Sen. Fateh is OK with this behavior,” Linea Palmisano, a Democratic councilwoman, told JI on Friday. “Who mayors surround themselves with matters, and anyone who stands by these remarks isn’t ready for the job.”

LaTrisha Vetaw and Michael Rainville, the other Council members supporting Frey, did not return requests for comment.

While Fateh himself has not used the same rhetoric as his allies, the state legislator has been a staunch critic of Israel — calling for a ceasefire 10 days after the Hamas attacks and accusing Israel of genocide in its war in Gaza. 

Fateh has also voiced his support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, which some critics have accused of stoking antisemitism, and has pledged not to engage with the local Jewish Community Relations Council, according to a candidate questionnaire solicited by the Twin Cities chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, a supporter of his campaign.

In the document, portions of which were recently obtained by JI, Fateh vowed to “refrain from any and all affiliation” with the JCRC, which the DSA dismissed as a “Zionist lobby group” akin to AIPAC, J Street and Christians United for Israel — even as the group is nonpartisan and represents the Jewish community to Minneapolis government officials.

Fateh did not share an explanation for his answer despite space to do so, according to the document reviewed by JI. 

Steve Hunegs, executive director of the JCRC of Minnesota and the Dakotas, sharply criticized the state senator’s responses to the DSA in a statement to JI on Friday, while questioning his commitment to combating antisemitism.

“Sen. Fateh’s campaign slogan promises a ‘city that works for everyone,’” Hunegs said. “But how can Sen. Fateh be understood as anything other than a divider when he’s pledged to boycott Jewish organizations? Likewise, how can Jews feel that our safety will be a priority when Sen. Fateh’s staff traffic in antisemitism? As proud Jews we aren’t going to allow Sen. Fateh, the DSA or Hamas apologists drive us from the public square.”

Fateh’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Fateh, who assumed office in 2021 as the first Muslim and first Somali American to serve in the Minnesota state Senate, won the state Democratic Party endorsement last month over Frey, who has challenged the results. 

The mayor, 44, is the second Jewish mayor to represent Minneapolis and has been increasingly outspoken against rising antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ attacks, while opposing some resolutions on Israel in the City Council that he has dismissed as one-sided. He has also been a critic of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his handling of the war in Gaza amid a worsening humanitarian crisis.

Ever since President Donald Trump ran surprisingly close to Vice President Kamala Harris in New Jersey during last year’s presidential race, Republicans have been looking at the state’s gubernatorial race as a chance to capitalize on the party’s momentum in the blue state.

Jack Ciattarelli, the GOP’s nominee for governor, also came tantalizingly close to defeating Gov. Phil Murphy in the state’s last gubernatorial race. He’s running again, and hoping to get over the finish line against Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), in part by courting the state’s sizable Jewish community, which has swung to the right in recent elections.

“People now know, because of the closeness of my race, that we can win. There’s just an attitude change because they feel like the Democrats have really failed them on a number of issues, and antisemitism is one of them,” Ciattarelli told Jewish Insider in an interview ahead of his visit to Israel this week. 

Ciattarelli, 63, who built two medical publishing companies in New Jersey while serving as a state lawmaker, said, “I see myself not so much as a politician, but a successful CEO who is looking to be the CEO hands-on governor that we need.”

As part of his Jewish communal outreach, Ciattarelli traveled to Israel on Sunday for a five-day visit, which he organized in a show of solidarity. He also spent time on his visit pursuing opportunities for economic investment from leading Israeli companies in the technology and medical sectors. 

“Any students in violation of university policy, I think, should be expelled. Any student that’s broken the law should be arrested, and any student here on an academic visa from another country should be sent back to where they came from if they’re going to engage in that kind of behavior,” Ciattarelli said. “I will pressure our college and university presidents to be working in partnership with me to make sure that kind of behavior isn’t tolerated.”

He told JI that one of his goals with the visit was to boost the state’s economy “by forging a closer economic relationship with a number of nations” that are close U.S. allies. “Israel is first and foremost on the list, but as governor, I will certainly look to Canada, Mexico and India as well to increase our bilateral trade,” Ciattarelli said. 

Fighting antisemitism, Ciattarelli said, will be a priority of his if he’s elected. Ciattarelli said he has “made very, very clear” that he supports codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism into state law, will “appoint an attorney general and a superintendent of state police that are both sensitive to the needs and worries of New Jersey’s Jewish community” and will establish an Advisory Council on Jewish Relations to guide him on ways to the best support the community. 

“Any students in violation of university policy, I think, should be expelled. Any student that’s broken the law should be arrested, and any student here on an academic visa from another country should be sent back to where they came from if they’re going to engage in that kind of behavior,” Ciattarelli said. “I will pressure our college and university presidents to be working in partnership with me to make sure that kind of behavior isn’t tolerated.”

Ciattarelli described the December 2023 House Education and Workforce Committee hearing, where the presidents of Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology declined to say that calling for the genocide of Jews qualified as bullying and harrassment, as a “watershed moment” that brought the issue of antisemitism to the forefront of Jewish voters’ minds. 

“I will do what others have done, including Democratic leaders, and that’s condemning Mamdani, condemning his candidacy, and doing all they can to make sure that a threat to communities such as this is not elected,” Ciattarelli told JI. “There is no space for someone like this in the public sphere, let alone in public office, and I’m going to do everything in my power to protect all 9.3 million citizens here in New Jersey, and particularly members of the Jewish community who feel threatened by a person such as this.”

“They want to see a governor who’s going to demonstrate zero tolerance for antisemitism and call it out for what it is when we see it and hear it,” Ciattarelli said of Jewish voters in the Garden State. 

The New Jersey Republican has also sought to tie Sherrill to Zohran Mamdani, the far-left Democratic nominee in New York City’s mayoral race who has resisted condemning “globalize the intifada” rhetoric. Ciattarelli’s campaign cut a digital ad highlighting Sherrill’s nationally televised indecision on whether she would support Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. 

“I will do what others have done, including Democratic leaders, and that’s condemning Mamdani, condemning his candidacy, and doing all they can to make sure that a threat to communities such as this is not elected,” Ciattarelli told JI. “There is no space for someone like this in the public sphere, let alone in public office, and I’m going to do everything in my power to protect all 9.3 million citizens here in New Jersey, and particularly members of the Jewish community who feel threatened by a person such as this.”

The race is competitive, with Jewish voters (who make up about 6% of the state’s population) potentially emerging as a swing voting bloc. 

“This race is shaping up to be fairly tight, with both candidates making notable outreach efforts to the Jewish community. Jack’s visit to Israel and his strong support for IHRA have had a particularly positive impact,” one Jewish leader in the state told JI.

“Mikie has also engaged significantly, and that effort has been noticed, but concerns remain based on her support of Mamdani in the city and the way she recently framed the call for a ceasefire in Gaza. She still retains goodwill within the Jewish community, but has a long way to go in strengthening trust and confidence,” the leader explained.

A Jewish community leader in Central Jersey, also granted anonymity to speak freely, offered a similar take.

“It’s definitely a race that’s very closely watched in the Jewish community, more than any time in the past, I would say. I think seeing Jack going to Israel, out of all places, just three months before the general election, I think that shows you how important the Jewish vote is going to be this time around, and Jack is losing no time and trying to get the Jewish vote on his side,” the source said.

“I often say that in New Jersey, you have to run for governor as though you’re running for mayor,” Ciattarelli said, adding of his outreach to Democratic and unaffiliated voters, “The biggest compliment I get is when I can come down off a platform or stage, if somebody comes up to me and says, ‘Are you Republican? Are you Democrat?’”

Ciattarelli told JI that he views Bergen County, the state’s most populous county, as a must-win area for his campaign, making the support of Democratic and independent voters necessary in his path to victory. The area, which is represented by Gottheimer in Congress, is also home to around 100,000 Jewish residents, a majority of whom are registered Democrats or independents. 

“Bergen County has a greater population than eight states and it’s the key to winning a statewide election. I did very well, just coming a little short in ‘21, but I do sense a change amongst a great number of people who may not have considered me last time, may not have voted last time that are looking to make a change here in New Jersey,” Ciattarelli said. 

“I often say that in New Jersey, you have to run for governor as though you’re running for mayor,” he continued, adding of his outreach to Democratic and unaffiliated voters, “The biggest compliment I get is when I can come down off a platform or stage, if somebody comes up to me and says, ‘Are you Republican? Are you Democrat?’”

Since narrowly losing his first campaign for governor, Ciattarelli worked hard to unify the party around his repeat bid, making particular effort to secure support from the MAGA wing of the Republican Party. His efforts paid off in the primary, which he won without much serious GOP opposition.

For her part, Sherrill handily defeated five other Democrats, including Gottheimer, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka,and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, in the Democratic primary. 

With that backdrop, both parties are watching the November gubernatorial contest closely to see if the rightward shift in the Garden State has held since Trump took office in January. For his part, Ciattarelli says that while the issues animating New Jersey voters have not changed since his 2021 race, he believes “what is different is the political landscape.” 

“The issues I was talking about in ‘21, including antisemitism, have now come to a complete boil. They were simmering back then,” Ciattarelli told JI. “I’m not competing with a pandemic this time around. It’s not easy to campaign when there’s a shelter-in-place order. I’m not running against an incumbent. There’s a lot less indifference.”

As part of his strategy to encourage voters to hit the polls in November, he said he was focusing his messaging around “four issues across the state that are raging that apply to all people”: the affordability crisis, affecting housing and energy costs; public education; public safety; and the overdevelopment of the interior of the state, where suburbs without the infrastructure to become a city are being overinvested in at the expense of New Jersey’s cities. 

Regardless of which community he’s engaging with, the New Jersey Republican says the voters he’s spoken to have been more concerned with “how it is I go about solving issues” than national political matters. 

“People get excited by ideas. They don’t want to hear the use of polarizing rhetoric. I think they find it a breath of fresh air when somebody stands up and is speaking to the issues and how they’re going to solve them,” Ciattarelli explained, describing this approach as “the secret to the sauce for me in the seven elections I won prior to November ‘21.”

Both parties are also investing heavily as the race emerges as one of the most competitive statewide elections of 2025. 

The Democratic National Committee said earlier this month that it would provide more than $1.5 million for Sherrill’s campaign to devote to field staffing and ground game efforts. Greater Garden State, a super PAC connected to the Democratic Governors Association, announced plans in July to spend $20 million on ads for Sherrill. That dollar amount is greater than Murphy and outside groups supporting him spent on ad buys during the entire 2021 general election. 

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, visited North Jersey earlier this month for a series of fundraising events for Ciattarelli that brought in $1 million. 

The Democratic and Republican nominees for governor of New Jersey spoke last week at an event organized by the New Jersey Jewish Business Alliance about their plans to combat antisemitism across the Garden State.

“I as governor will certainly address this appalling surge of antisemitic incidents head-on and work to ensure that every business owner in our state has a fair shot,” Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) said. “I vow to be an ally in the governor’s office. I’ll put the full force of law behind combating antisemitism and making sure that everyone can thrive here in the Garden State.”

Sherrill said that it’s “been an incredibly difficult past several years for the Jewish community here in New Jersey,” highlighting a series of incidents including a fire-bombing at a synagogue in her district, as well as graffiti, harassment, intimidation and more facing Jewish institutions, individuals and businesses.

She noted that Jewish business owners in the state had faced violent crimes and losses of business “because of their religion.”

Republican Jack Ciattarelli said that antisemitism “will not be tolerated in the state of New Jersey under my governorship” and that his entire administration “will be sensitive to the needs and worries of the Jewish community across this state.”

He said he plans to launch an advisory council to maintain “constant contact” with the Jewish community statewide.

He condemned Gov. Phil Murphy for calling antisemitism issues on college campuses “complicated.”

“It’s not complicated. Anybody who’s violating university policy should be expelled. Anybody who’s broken the law should be arrested, and anybody here on academic visa that’s done either those two things should go back to where the hell they came from,” Ciattarelli said. “We’re not going to have anybody feeling unsafe on our college campuses.”

The Republican nominee voiced support for legislation to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which he said he hopes will be signed before he takes office.

Ciattarelli said that, on his upcoming trip to Israel, he’d be meeting with business leaders to find ways that New Jersey can increase its bilateral trade with the Jewish state.

“Do you know that New York does $14 billion a year in bilateral trade with Israel? New Jersey? Less than 2 billion,” Ciattarelli said. “What does New York have that we don’t have? I’ll be meeting with business leaders to say we’re open for business.”

Both nominees also spoke at length about their plans to improve the business climate in the state.

Virginia state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, on Thursday became the latest Virginia politician to weigh in on antisemitic comments by state lawmaker Sam Rasoul. Without naming Rasoul directly, Hashmi appeared to criticize his language, which has been described as antisemitic by several leading Jewish organizations in the state.

“The rise in antisemitism has created real fear in communities across Virginia — and it cannot be ignored or dismissed; instead it must be condemned clearly, consistently and without caveat,” Hashmi wrote in a post on X on Thursday. “As a Muslim, I know what it feels like when an entire community is scapegoated for the actions of a few. No group should be vilified, targeted, or dehumanized. Antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism and all forms of hate have no place in our communities — they are an affront to our shared values.”

As chair of the Virginia Senate’s education committee, she works closely with Rasoul, who chairs the education committee in the House of Delegates. Hashmi was the first Muslim elected to the Virginia state Senate, and Rasoul is one of two Muslim lawmakers in the House. Hashmi faced a public rebuke from the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond last year after hosting a hearing about anti-Israel protests on college campuses, which she had praised publicly. 

In a July Instagram post, Rasoul described Zionism as “evil” and said it is a “supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way.” His rhetoric earned condemnation from former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, and her Republican opponent, Winsome Earle-Sears, as well as Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA). 

Rasoul has stood by his attack against Zionism.

“While there are many who aspire for Zionism to be a safe place for a homeland for Jewish people, the reality is the manifestation of that has produced apartheid — and now, as human rights orgs in Israel have claimed, a genocide in Gaza,” Rasoul told Semafor on Thursday. 

Later, Rasoul provided additional commentary to the Virginia Scope, a political newsletter in the state, doubling down on his claims that Zionism has made “the world less safe for my Jewish friends,” as he wrote on Instagram last month.

“The court of public opinion has shifted that this is clearly a genocide, so the default is anyone critical of the genocide must be antisemitic,” Rasoul said. “I will continue working hand-in-hand with our Jewish brothers and sisters who are fundamentally less safe because they have taken antisemitism and unfortunately used it so loosely that when there’s true antisemitism that we must counter, it’s difficult for the public to determine what’s really going on, and so we need to be better stewards and try to defend against all hate.”

Facing pressure from the Virginia Jewish community to speak out against recent anti-Zionist social media posts from state Del. Sam Rasoul, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, addressed concerns about antisemitism without specifically referencing Rasoul. 

“This war continues to unleash heartbreak and tragedy as we witness civilian deaths, starving families, and hostages still held by Hamas. These horrors rightly compel so many to advocate for the mass delivery of aid, the release of all Israeli hostages, and a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel,” Spanberger told the Virginia Scope, a political newsletter, in response to a question about Rasoul, who chairs the Education Committee in the House of Delegates. “However, one can and must denounce these tragedies without using antisemitic language, whether intentional or not.” 

She did not specify whether she identified Rasoul’s rhetoric as antisemitic. Spanberger’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Jewish Insider. 

Rasoul, a Palestinian-American legislator who represents Roanoke, has in recent weeks taken to social media to call Zionism “evil” and said that it is “making the world less safe for my Jewish friends.”  

In her statement to the Virginia Scope, Spanberger acknowledged the recent rise of antisemitic violence in America.

“Just recently, antisemitic language led to attacks on peaceful protestors in Colorado and the murder of two Israeli Embassy staff members — as well as a growing, pervasive sentiment of fear among our Jewish neighbors. We must recognize our shared commitment to peace and work to rebuild trust in our communities,” she said. 

Rasoul’s rhetoric has drawn criticism from some other Virginia Democrats, including former House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who told JI this week that he “forcefully reject[s] any claim that Zionism — the desire of Jewish people to have a state of Israel — is inherently racist or evil.” 

State Sen. Schuyler VanValkenbuerg, a Democrat from the Richmond area, echoed Kaine’s sentiments.
“The current Israeli government deserves condemnation for its actions in Gaza. But the claim that Zionism is inherently evil deserves to be forcefully rejected. It’s wrong and it’s dangerous,” VanValkenburg posted on X on Thursday.

North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper, the state’s former governor, rejected efforts to withhold U.S. aid to Israel, days after the Senate voted on legislation to block certain U.S. arms sales to Israel, his campaign told Jewish Insider.

“The Governor believes it’s urgent for the United States to use other means of pressure on the Israeli government to step up now and find ways to get food to people who desperately need it and return the hostages,” a Cooper campaign aide said. “He would consider the specific text of any bills that came before the Senate, but generally does not believe we should withhold aid from a critical ally like Israel when they have to defend themselves against countries like Iran.”

Cooper, a moderate Democrat, has taken other steps in recent days to distance himself from anti-Israel elements of the Democratic Party, including rejecting a series of anti-Israel resolutions passed by state Democratic Party leadership. But it wasn’t until he entered the Senate race that he weighed in against the anti-Israel turn of the North Carolina Democratic party. 

The Senate’s Israel votes are proving to be a sensitive issue among Democratic Senate candidates across the country — and is emerging as a dividing line between the party’s moderates and progressives.

A divide is emerging in the Democratic Senate primary in Illinois over resolutions the Senate voted on earlier this week to block certain arms sales to Israel.

Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton’s campaign and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi told Jewish Insider on Friday that they wouldn’t have supported the resolutions led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), even as they condemned the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. 

But Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL) announced earlier in the day that she would have voted for the resolutions if she’d been in the Senate.

The split could help shape the potentially crucial Jewish community vote in the upcoming Senate primary.

“As a mother, it’s heartwrenching to see images of children forced to go without food. Israel and the United States need to take every possible step to end the humanitarian crisis and ensure aid is immediately and widely made available,” Stratton said in a statement to JI. “I continue to pray for a ceasefire that ends the suffering in Gaza, for the return of the hostages still held by Hamas to their families in Israel, and for lasting peace in the region.”

Stratton’s campaign elaborated that the lieutenant governor believes, “[w]e should all be speaking with a clear voice that the Netanyahu administration must be doing more to get food and aid to the citizens of Gaza right away, but Juliana believes that cutting off U.S. military aid to Israel could risk standing in the way of the ultimate goals of a true ceasefire and sustained peace.”

The campaign also said that Stratton believes in Israel’s “right to defend itself as one of the United States’ closest allies and the only democracy in the Middle East.”

The campaign said Stratton “strongly disagrees” with how the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has executed the war in Gaza, but she “has been vocal in her support of Israel in the wake of the horrific terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7th.”

Krishnamoorthi — who, in an interview with JI earlier this year, said he did not support efforts to cut off or condition U.S. aid to Israel — said Friday that the Sanders resolutions would not have solved the humanitarian crisis.

“We need an immediate ceasefire brokered by the U.S. and regional partners and that is swiftly accepted by Hamas, along with the release of the remaining hostages and the emergency provision of humanitarian aid,” Krishnamoorthi said in a statement to JI. “The U.S. must use all of its diplomatic influence to make that happen as quickly as possible. Ultimately, the only path to a lasting peace is a two-state solution. The first step and my focus today is ending the current humanitarian disaster and getting food in as quickly as possible. Wednesday’s resolutions did not right that wrong.”

He said that he has “long been a steadfast supporter of our nation’s alliance with Israel” and that it “had every right to defend itself,” but said that “[w]hat we see going on today in Gaza is a moral catastrophe.”

“As Americans, we can never sit by and allow widespread starvation and disease among a civilian population that includes the elderly, the disabled, women, and children,” Krishnamoorthi continued. 

He highlighted that he wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff on Friday, urging them to surge aid into the strip and to ensure accountability that it reaches its intended recipients. 

He said in the letter that, despite acknowledging the starvation in Gaza, the administration has not done enough to remedy the situation. Krishnamoorthi also urged others in the region, including Hamas, to cooperate in the proper delivery of aid.

Kelly, meanwhile, said in a statement Friday that she would have voted for the resolutions.

“Israelis and Palestinians must work to secure a path forward where both peoples can live in peace, safety and security,” Kelly said in a statement. “I have supported Israel, but in this moment, I cannot in good conscience defend starving young children and prolonging the suffering of innocent families. Now is the time for moral leadership in the U.S. Senate.”

Both Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) — who is retiring — and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) supported the resolutions.

Durbin has supported every similar effort Sanders has made since November to block various arms sales to Israel, but Duckworth had voted against them in the past and, in fact, argued forcefully against them in a letter to constituents.

The votes on Sanders’ proposal to cut Israel aid are also proving to be a dividing line in Michigan’s Senate primary: Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) announced Friday that she would have opposed them, while state Sen. Mallory McMorrow said she supported them.

Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) vote Wednesday night, with a majority of Senate Democrats, in favor of a resolution to block a shipment of automatic weapons to Israel is fueling renewed frustration with the senator within the Georgia Jewish community, setting back efforts by the senator to repair ties with Jewish voters who objected to similar votes last December.

Ossoff’s relationship with Georgia’s sizable Jewish community could be a critical deciding factor in his reelection campaign next November — with a tight margin of victory expected in the swing state, significant changes in Jewish voting patterns could help decide the election.

The Georgia senator alienated many in the Jewish community by voting in December for two of three resolutions to block aid shipments to Israel. In subsequent months — after a group of Jewish donors expressed support for Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp as a potential challenger — Ossoff reached out to Jewish community leaders and groups to work to repair ties, with some success.

Many leaders said at the time that he was making progress but had more work to do to fully regain their trust. Those efforts hit a stumbling block in June after Ossoff — whose second child had just been born — took nearly a week to comment on the war between Israel and Iran.

Ossoff said, of his votes on Wednesday, that he had voted for the resolution to block the automatic weapons to send a message to the Israeli government objecting to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as well as due to concerns that the weapons would be provided to police controlled by Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a controversial figure even in pro-Israel circles.

He said he voted against a second resolution blocking a sale of bombs and bomb guidance kits, because those weapons are necessary to strike targets throughout the region attempting to launch missiles and rockets at Israeli civilians. Ossoff had similarly opposed a resolution on bombs and guidance kits in November, while voting for two other resolutions to block other weapons transfers. 

Norman Radow, a major Democratic donor in Georgia who spoke to Ossoff on Wednesday evening after the votes, told Jewish Insider, “I’m disappointed with him and he knows it. And I think he knows that a vast majority of the Jewish community feels the same way.”

Radow said that Ossoff’s justifications for his vote on the assault rifles resolution didn’t hold water for him and his logic was “sophomoric.” The Democratic donor said he’d argued to the senator that Ossoff had overstated the extent of violence in the West Bank and of starvation in Gaza. 

And he said he told the senator that non-binding efforts condemning Hamas and its backers are ineffectual, as compared to the real impacts that cutting off military supplies to Israel would have. 

He indicated he appreciated the senator’s call.

“I’m disappointed in his behavior, but I can’t say it’s a surprise. We’ve seen this before,” Cheryl Dorchinsky, the founder of the grassroots Atlanta Israel Coalition, said. “It’s insane to me that anyone would think that voting against weapons to Israel during a war is a good idea, regardless of who’s in power.”

She said she feels adrift from both political parties. “When people that I see going into politics as having hopefully an interest in doing the right thing fail us as a people, it just kind of breaks my heart,” Dorchinsky said. She argued that Israel should not be a partisan issue, and blamed “bad actors” trying to turn it into one.

“While I wish [Ossoff] would have voted against both of [the resolutions], I’m very pleased he voted against [the one on bombs and bomb guidance kits],” Dov Wilker, who serves as the regional director of the American Jewish Committee in Atlanta, said. Wilker also said he was “disappointed” that the state’s other senator, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), had voted for both of the resolutions.

Another Jewish Democratic donor in Georgia said, “The yes vote with Sanders, who only wants to destroy the U.S.-Israel relationship, is concerning [and] emboldens the terrorists to continue to reject the ceasefire that was agreed to by Israel. It’s exactly what Hamas wants.”

Rabbi Joshua Heller of Atlanta’s Congregation B’nai Torah told JI that, while he does not endorse candidates, he’s heard in conversations that “a lot of folks who had previously been strong supporters of [Ossoff’s] in the Jewish community are not happy about the stands that he has taken.”

Heller said that, in conversations with him about such positions, Ossoff and his staff have highlighted actions he has taken in support of Israel, “and that is true, but every time a vote like this comes around, there is a break in trust and that becomes harder to restore.”

He said that in conversations with Democratic Jewish voters, many onetime Ossoff supporters are “having second thoughts, at this point,” and that there is a real “challenge in his relationship with a lot of folks in the Jewish community right now.”

“No Jewish community is monolithic, but I definitely see a lot of folks in the community who are troubled by this,” Heller said.

Ossoff still maintains supporters in the Jewish community who back his stance on this week’s resolutions.

Beth Sugarman, a prominent J Street member in Georgia, told JI, “The Jewish community has diversity of opinions, but the people I know think Jon Ossoff is thoughtful and represents us well and his statement and split vote was a good reflection of where the community is. The senator’s statement and split vote was thoughtful and exactly what the community believes.”

J Street supported both of the resolutions to block aid.

Cary Levow, a supporter of pro-Israel causes and candidates, said, “I support Senator Ossoff and know of other Jewish Georgians who understand that Jon’s approach to the Gaza humanitarian issue is genuine.” 

“Senator Ossoff has voted for over $20 billion in aid to Israel, has family living in Israel and has spent a significant amount of time in the country,” Levow continued. “I think Jon has represented the Jewish community well and I have zero concern about a senator who is critical of how [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] Bibi is waging this war.”

Larry Auerbach, a Georgia lawyer and Ossoff supporter, said, “Senator Ossoff has done what the vast majority of Georgia’s Jewish community has asked him to do to represent us well by standing up for protecting the Israeli people’s security and saying that the extremists in the Netanyahu administration can’t continue like this.”

National Republicans see Ossoff’s positions as an opening to peel off Jewish voters in the upcoming senatorial election. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has seized on Ossoff’s November votes to block aid to Israel, again slammed him on Wednesday.

“Jon Ossoff is a radical leftist who time and again refuses to stand with Georgia’s Jewish community,” NRSC spokesperson Nick Puglia said in a statement. “He’d rather please the pro-Hamas extremists in his party than stand with Israel and Jewish Georgians. In 2026, voters will send him packing.”

Radow, the Democratic donor, argued that Ossoff’s votes were “bad politics,” though he said he’s not sure any of the current or prospective Republican candidates can beat Ossoff.

“He’s kowtowing to Bernie Sanders — that does not win elections in Georgia,” Radow said. “The only thing that Jon’s got going for him right now is the Republican field of candidates is pretty weak. … I want him to win, and he’s not winning my vote right now, and he’s not going to win a lot of people’s votes supporting Bernie resolutions.”

He said that whether he ultimately supports Ossoff next year will depend in part on which Republican ultimately ends up as the nominee against him.

“It’s certainly going to be an interesting race, and my vote is still up for grabs,” Radow said. “I’m not going to be a knee-jerk Democrat on this issue.”

He urged Ossoff, going forward, not to show public daylight with Israel, “stop playing secretary of state” and keep disputes with the Israeli officials behind closed doors. And he called on the senator to consult with Jewish community members before critical votes like this one, rather than reaching out afterward to explain his votes.

Dorchinsky said that she would “never say never to anything,” when asked if Ossoff could win her support at this point, and that she’ll “be paying attention” and make her final decision when she’s in the voting booth next year.

“He has a responsibility to represent us all, and if he actually started to, I would be thrilled. As of right now, I’m clearly not,” Dorchinsky said.

A Jewish leader in Georgia agreed that a key deciding question for wary Jewish voters will be who the Republican Party nominates to run against Ossoff in 2025.

The leader told JI he thinks that Ossoff’s vote for the assault rifles resolution could help him “thread the needle” more easily than other resolutions and represented a more “considerate” approach, given the Ben-Gvir connection. “I think the majority of American Jews are not fans of Ben-Gvir,” the Jewish leader said.

“I think that if he is consistent with his messaging around the specific nature of why he voted against the assault rifles, I think it’ll help people that are more on the fence with him, but want to vote for him — versus those that are just against him,” the leader said.

But, the leader continued, “that doesn’t mean everyone’s going to buy it,” and noted that many members of the community are unhappy with the vote. 

They  said the vote is particularly “not going to help” Ossoff among Jewish community members upset by his delay in commenting on the Iran war, “but those that were able to give him some grace that he finally said something — this will help them.”

Heller was more skeptical that Ossoff’s vote-splitting approach would satisfy anyone, saying he thinks the strategy won’t help Ossoff with supporters of Israel who don’t believe in stopping weapons shipments nor with opponents of Israel who believe in cutting off all aid to Israel.

In comments to a supportive crowd of pro-Israel college students in Washington, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) said Tuesday that the world needs to be reminded that “Hamas is the central cause of the war in Gaza.”  

“We have to remind the world that despite the amnesia, Hamas is the central cause of [Israel’s] war in Gaza. The primary responsibility for a war lies with its cause … Hamas is morally responsible, principally responsible for the war in Gaza,” Torres, a pro-Israel Democratic stalwart in Congress, told about 700 attendees gathered in Washington for the Israel on Campus Coalition’s three-day annual national leadership summit.

Torres went on: “The accusations against Israel, whether it’s genocide, apartheid or [deliberate] starvation, are all false. It’s all a propaganda campaign. But we also have to recognize there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza … We should be doing everything we can to alleviate the human suffering in Gaza.”

At the same time, Torres offered criticism of the Israeli government’s public diplomacy, saying that it should be “mindful of the words” it speaks.

“Israel is the first country in history to be conducting a war under the scrutiny of 24/7 cable news and social media … so given those realities, you have to be more effective, not only in the actual war but the informational war and be mindful of the words you speak.” 

“There are moments when I feel like the Israeli government has the worst PR operation I’ve ever seen,” Torres said. “We are morally better than the other side. We have the moral high ground, we should act like it.” 

Asked about the ideological direction of the Democratic Party, which has become increasingly critical of Israel, Torres sidestepped the question. “Look, I reject isolationism whether it’s coming from the far left or the far right. In the end, isolationism is no friend of the United States and it’s no friend of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Torres said.

LEWISTOWN, Pa. — Inside a coffee shop in this small town of 8,500 people, hundreds of miles from the bustle of Manhattan, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro made his first public comments about Zohran Mamdani, criticizing the New York City Democratic mayoral candidate for not taking a stronger stand against “extremists” who have made “blatantly antisemitic” comments.

“He seemed to run a campaign that excited New Yorkers. He also seemed to run a campaign where he left open far too much space for extremists to either use his words or for him to not condemn the words of extremists that said some blatantly antisemitic things,” Shapiro told Jewish Insider in an interview on Wednesday. 

Shapiro’s comments come as Mamdani, who defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary last month, continues to face backlash for declining to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada.” (Mamdani told business leaders last week that he would “discourage” use of the slogan.) 

National Democratic figures have struggled to figure out how to respond to Mamdani’s come-from-behind victory and to assess what the election of a self-proclaimed democratic socialist as the Democratic nominee for mayor of the largest city in the country means for the future of the party. 

Neither Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) nor House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) have endorsed Mamdani, while some progressive leaders — such as Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — have embraced him. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), another swing-state Democrat, said on Wednesday that Mamdani’s victory is a “message” that “cost of living and the economy is the driving issue for the average person.” 

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, when asked about Mamdani’s handling of the “globalize the intifada” slogan, said earlier this month that he did not agree with everything Mamdani has said, but that the Democrats are a “big tent” party. Martin later clarified that he found the “intifada” phrase “reckless and dangerous.”

Widely viewed as a possible 2028 presidential candidate, Shapiro has steered clear of weighing in on a number of divisive national issues, preferring instead to focus on Pennsylvania, where he maintains a 61% approval rating. But on Wednesday, he offered a sharp message to Mamdani.

“I’ll say this about Mamdani or any other leader,” Shapiro said. “If you want to lead New York, you want to lead Pennsylvania, you want to lead the United States of America, you’re a leader. I don’t care if you’re a Republican or Democratic leader or a democratic socialist leader. You have to speak and act with moral clarity, and when supporters of yours say things that are blatantly antisemitic, you can’t leave room for that to just sit there. You’ve got to condemn that.”

At a moment of declining support for Israel within the Democratic Party, the Jewish governor told JI that he stands by his pro-Israel bona fides. 

“I think one of the things that always strengthened Israel was the fact that the relationship America had with Israel was not even bipartisan, but somewhat nonpartisan. Figuring out ways to build bridges between the parties, between people of different walks of life, to support Israel, I think is important,” he noted. “I think just in general, across the board, I want to see more support for Israel, for a Jewish state. That doesn’t mean that one can’t be critical of Israeli policy.” 

There is more that politicians on both sides of the aisle need to do to maintain support for Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship, Shapiro said, though he added that “the majority of that work is going to happen in Washington.” He declined to specifically address Democrats’ views on Israel or polling that showed a massive drop in Democratic support for Israel since 2023. 

“I don’t do foreign policy in Pennsylvania in my role as governor, but I do think it is important to repair that relationship,” Shapiro said. “I am concerned that support for Israel in the United States broadly is down compared to what it was a decade ago.” 

It isn’t only American leaders who need to work to strengthen ties between Israel and the U.S., Shapiro said. He placed some of the blame on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I think if you care about the future safety and security of Israel, and you’re the leader of Israel as Netanyahu is at present time, you’ve got to find ways to build bridges to people in both parties, to leaders in both parties,” said Shapiro, who has long been a critic of Netanyahu’s leadership. But he asserted that opposition to Netanyahu as prime minister should not be equated with opposition to the existence of a Jewish state.

“There are policies of the Netanyahu government that I don’t support. I’ve been very vocal about that. But there’s a difference between not supporting the policies of whoever’s in charge at a particular time, and the underlying notion of a Jewish state of Israel,” said Shapiro. “I do think it is important to strengthen people’s understanding of Israel and the relationship America should have with Israel and to strengthen that bond.” 

Shapiro, one of the most prominent Jewish politicians in the country, has been on the receiving end of antisemitic smears over his support for Israel. In April, the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg was set ablaze in an arson attack just hours after Shapiro and his family had hosted a Passover Seder. 

Police said the alleged perpetrator was motivated by anti-Israel animus, but Shapiro has repeatedly declined to characterize the incident as antisemitic in nature, saying that doing so would be “unhelpful” to prosecutors who have not brought hate crime charges. 

Shapiro told JI the arson attack left a profound impact on him, both personally and religiously. It brought him closer, he said, to “my faith and my spirituality.”

“It made me believe even more, not just in my God, but in the power of prayer,” said Shapiro. “It’s given me a deeper, spiritual connection of my faith and a deeper connection to people of other faiths.”

Good Tuesday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Jewish Capitol Hill staffers in Democratic offices who feel increasingly isolated at work over their colleagues’ growing antipathy toward Israel and antisemitism, and report on the Young Democrats of America’s decision to accuse Israel of genocide in its updated foreign policy plank. We report on the latest developments following Israel’s just-launched ground operations in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, and look at the critical approaches to Israel being taken by GOP challengers to freshman Rep. Nellie Pou in New Jersey. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: David Ellison, Sam Altman and Rep. Andrew Garbarino.

What We’re Watching

• A number of House committees are meeting for hearings and markups this week. This morning, we’re keeping an eye on a House Foreign Affairs Committee markup that includes a bill expediting arms sales to Abraham Accords signatories. Read more here.
• At 10:30 a.m. ET, the House Financial Services Committee is holding a markup that includes new legislation introduced by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) that aims to create oversight and set conditions for lifting sanctions on Syria. Read more here.
• On the Senate side of the Capitol, the Senate Armed Services Committee is holding a confirmation hearing for the Navy’s Vice Adm. Frank Bradley to be head of Special Operations Command.
• At noon, the American Jewish Congress is holding a virtual briefing with Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Executive Director Johnnie Moore.
• Elsewhere in Washington, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will appear today at a Federal Reserve conference to push the economic benefits of artificial intelligence.
• Tonight, UJA-Federation of New York is hosting a bnai mitzvah party for more than three dozen Israeli teenagers who have lost a parent on or since Oct. 7, 2023. The IDF Widows and Orphans Organization facilitated the trip.
• And in Israel, the Israel Democracy Institute is holding a conference in Jerusalem focused on the Knesset’s upcoming summer recess, which begins on Sunday.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

It’s a scenario that has played out many times over since Oct. 7, 2023: Against the backdrop of ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations, Israeli actions in Gaza draw widespread condemnation. World leaders call for a ceasefire. Amid that growing criticism, Hamas, sensing increased pressure on Israel, responds by escalating its demands or backing away from negotiations entirely.

This week is no different, with Israel’s launch on Monday of a ground operation in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, where it had not previously operated, the same day that more than two dozen Western countries released a joint statement calling for “unconditional and permanent ceasefire.” Hamas negotiators in Doha, Qatar, have reportedly spent the last two weeks dragging out ceasefire talks, over issues ranging from the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released to the areas where the IDF is allowed to operate.

In yesterday’s statement, the countries’ demand of Hamas is only for the “immediate and unconditional release” of the remaining 50 hostages, with no mention of disarmament or the terror group’s removal from power — key Israeli demands since Hamas’ brutal attacks on the Jewish state almost two years ago.

Hamas has since October 2023 faced limited pressure to acquiesce to Israeli and American demands. The terror group’s backers in Doha, where senior Hamas officials have long lived in opulence and security, have similarly faced little international pressure — even as Qatar plays a key role in negotiations. Israel has not been a perfect actor, and at times has walked away from the negotiating table. But Jerusalem’s refusals have been outpaced by Hamas’ intransigence, the latter of which has frustrated White House officials in both the current and former administrations.

Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.

CAPITOL CLIMATE

The new normal for Jewish Democratic staffers on Capitol Hill: isolated, fearful, united

Many of the liberal-minded Jewish staffers on Capitol Hill came to Washington to work on issues such as reproductive rights, access to health care and environmental policy. But for nearly two years — following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza — they have had to navigate a professional environment that demands an air of detached professionalism while their fellow staffers and Democrats writ large adopt a more critical approach to Israel and antisemitism. Several Democratic Jewish staffers, ranging from junior aides to chiefs of staff — most of whom requested anonymity, wary of being made a target of antisemitism and concerned about putting themselves at risk professionally at a time when Democratic jobs are hard to come by — told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch and Danielle Cohen-Kanik that, in the face of growing antipathy to Israel and continued antisemitic terror and threats, they have turned to each other to build a tight-knit community among Jews working on Capitol Hill. 

Ties that bind: “It has led to increased camaraderie and dialogue and kind of just a common understanding and bond … We work for a lot of different members: members who are Jewish, members who are not Jewish, members who one of their main issues is the U.S.-Israel relationship, members who are not mainly concerned with it,” a legislative aide for a Democratic member of Congress. “But nonetheless, I think a lot of us are united and brought together by the aftermath of Oct. 7.” 

Read the full story here.

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POLICY SHIFT

Young Democrats of America calls Israel’s war in Gaza ‘ongoing genocide’

The Young Democrats of America, a leading youth advocacy group representing party members under the age of 36, approved a new platform at its recent national convention accusing Israel of “genocide” in Gaza, raising long-simmering internal tensions over Middle East policy, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

Amendment: The organization, whose biennial convention concluded in Philadelphia on Saturday, narrowly passed an amendment expressing opposition to the “Israeli government’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, its occupation of the West Bank, and its denial of civil and political rights on an equal basis in the territories it militarily occupies,” according to an updated foreign policy plank reviewed by JI. The change, which added the “genocide” reference to an existing amendment, was proposed “to reflect current events and align with present-day actions,” according to a platform committee document from the convention.

Read the full story here.

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MILITARY MANEUVERS

IDF enters Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, amid renewed international call for a ceasefire

The IDF entered the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah for the first time on Monday, amid stalled hostage and ceasefire negotiations in Doha, Qatar. The maneuver in Deir el-Balah began a day after an evacuation order from the city, built on the Mediterranean coast around an UNRWA refugee camp. Israeli officials believe some of the remaining 50 hostages may be held in the area. In June 2024, the IDF freed four hostages, Noa Argamani, Shlomi Ziv, Almog Meir Jan and Andrey Kozlov in a raid in adjacent Nuseirat, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov and Tamara Zieve report.

Background: Deir el-Balah has been relatively unscathed during the war that began after the Hamas terrorist attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The April 2024 incident in which the IDF killed World Central Kitchen aid workers whom it had mistakenly identified as terrorists took place near Deir el-Balah. Before the latest operation in the Gaza war began in May, a senior defense official told JI that the plan was to start from Gaza’s perimeter and work its way to the center, which the military now appears to be doing.

Read the full story here.

Presidential surprise: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that President Donald Trump was “caught off guard” by recent Israeli actions in Syria and Gaza, noting that he had called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to air his concerns, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

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representation consternation

Minneapolis Jews sound an early alarm on Democratic Party endorsement of DSA lawmaker

Jewish community activists in Minneapolis are voicing concerns about the rise of state Sen. Omar Fateh, a far-left lawmaker who, in a surprise upset, narrowly clinched the state Democratic Party endorsement on Saturday against incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. Fateh, a 35-year-old democratic socialist, has rarely commented on Israel or rising antisemitism during his time in the state Senate, even as he called for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas just 10 days after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks. 

Community concerns: Fateh’s close alliances with anti-Israel voices such as the Twin Cities arm of the Democratic Socialists of America — which backs efforts to boycott and divest from Israel — have raised questions over his approach to key issues and his potential outreach to the organized Jewish community as he vies for the mayorship. In its mayoral endorsement questionnaire, the DSA asked candidates to pledge “to refrain from any and all affiliation with the Israeli government or Zionist lobby groups” — citing AIPAC, J Street and even the nonpartisan Jewish Community Relations Council.

Read the full story here.

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pino’s positions

Israel record of Rosemary Pino, leading GOP candidate against Rep. Nellie Pou, raises questions

The leading Republican candidates in a New Jersey swing district that President Donald Trump narrowly carried in 2024 hold questionable track records on Israel and antisemitism — in sharp contrast to most GOP candidates across the country, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

The latest: Rosemary Pino, the Clifton, N.J., City Council member who recently entered the race against Rep. Nellie Pou (D-NJ), posted a video last month from a Palestinian flag-raising event in Clifton where speakers accused Israel of genocide, though she told JI her attendance at the event did not signal support for the sentiments expressed, and that she supports the U.S.-Israel relationship. Pino also expressed concerns in 2023 about city council legislation that would have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. She told JI she “strongly condemn[s] antisemitism in all shapes and forms.”

Read the full story here.

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GEN Z OUTREACH

Netanyahu says young people will ‘wise up’ to oppose Mamdani’s policies if elected

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued that young people in America are won over “pretty quickly” by the truth about the situation in Israel, when discussing New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on a podcast released Monday, and suggested that Mamdani’s policies would be unpopular if he’s elected, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Quotable: “A lot of people have been taken in by this nonsense,” Netanyahu said, on the “Full Send” podcast, hosted by a social media influencer group called the Nelk Boys popular with young men. “Sometimes folly overtakes human affairs for a while, but not for long, because reality steps in,” Netanyahu continued. “I’m obviously not happy with it, but I’m less concerned with it, because I think if we can speak the truth to the young people of America, they wise up pretty quickly.”

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

Postwar Patriotism in Tehran: The New York Times’ Erika Solomon and Sanam Mahoozi look at how Iran has channeled its recent military losses and attacks on its nuclear program into a resurgent nationalism. “Iran has emerged from its war with Israel — briefly joined by the United States — deeply wounded. … Amid that bleak outlook, the country’s leaders see an opportunity. Outrage over the attacks has sparked an outpouring of nationalist sentiment, and they hope to channel that into a patriotic moment to shore up a government facing daunting economic and political challenges. The result has been an embrace of ancient folklore and patriotic symbols that many of Iran’s secular nationalists once saw as their domain, not that of a conservative theocracy that often shunned Iran’s pre-Islamic revolutionary heritage.” [NYTimes]

The Gaza Tragedy: The Washington Post’s David Ignatius considers how the humanitarian situation in Gaza has approached the brink of collapse. “At the heart of this catastrophe is that Hamas and Israel seem unable to end a war that has been ruinous for both sides. Hamas is beaten but won’t surrender, and it seems eager to manipulate the chaos. Israel has won but has failed to consolidate its victory with a transitional scheme for governance that would replace Hamas with an Arab force backed by the Palestinian Authority. Meanwhile, the remaining Israeli hostages are trapped in this unending nightmare.” [WashPost]

Mandy’s Wrong Note: In his Substack, Michael Granoff responds to actor Mandy Patinkin’s recent comments critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s war against Hamas. “Finally, Mandy, one of my favorites of your recording, is your brilliant medley of ‘Everybody Says Don’t,’ from Sondheim’s ‘Anyone Can Whistle,’ and ‘The King’s New Clothes.’ The emotion you convey at the climax of the latter number, ‘…one little boy who for some reason didn’t know what he was SUPPOSED TO SEE…’ I bet you always fancied yourself that virtuous little boy. But you know what? You are actually with ‘the Ministers, the Ambassadors, the Counts and the Dukes,’ who repeat the lie promulgated by terrorists and by institutions like the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, Al Jazeera, and more. The King’s new clothes? Those are the accusations against us – apartheid, war criminals, baby killers, genocide. Lies just as naked as the king.” [Substack]

Messing’s Message: In The Times of Israel, actress Debra Messing reflects on the rise of antisemitism in the progressive movement where she had long found a political home. “What troubles me most is not the presence of hate. Hate has always found a way to survive. What troubles me is the way it is being rationalized. Dismissed. The way it is reframed as something noble. The way it becomes invisible, especially to those who should know better. Jewish safety and progressive values should never be in conflict. If they are, we have to ask whether we’ve drifted from our humanity. The test is whether progressivism stands firm, not just when it is easy but when it’s hard; when it forces us to confront multiple truths. In the end, every movement tells you who belongs by what it is willing to protect. I still believe in the progressive vision. But I’m watching closely, because if it can’t make space for my community, then it’s not what it claims to be.” [TOI]

Word on the Street

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to withdraw the U.S. from UNESCO over what it alleges is the body’s anti-Israel and pro-China bias, as well as its focus on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives…

Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) was elected chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, following committee chair Rep. Mark Green’s (R-TN) resignation from Congress on Monday…

In a letter to members of the House Homeland Security Committee’s Counterterrorism and Intelligence subcommittee, the Jewish Federations of North America highlighted the significant security costs facing the Jewish community, as advocates push for additional security assistance from the federal government at a time of heightened antisemitism,Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

The Bronx campaign office of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was vandalized with anti-Israel graffiti days after the New York Democrat voted against an amendment pushed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to end funding for Israel’s missile-defense programs…

Larry Ellison’s Oracle is in talks with Skydance Media, founded and led by Ellison’s son, David, over a potential $100 million annual deal that would take shape following Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount; the deal would see Paramount use Oracle’s cloud-sharing software…

The Wall Street Journal looks at the legal and financial battle between Fortress Investment Group and real estate investor Charles Cohen as Fortress attempts to seize hundreds of millions of dollars it says it is owed by Cohen…

The CEO and board chair of Friends of the IDF are stepping down, weeks after the leak of an internal report alleging internal dysfunction, inappropriate spending and a toxic work environment, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports…

An anti-Israel activist in New York City was arrested and charged with setting nearly a dozen police vehicles on fire last month; Jakhi McCray had previously been arrested in 2024 for torching Israeli and American flags outside the Israeli consulate in New York…

In its “Overlooked” series, The New York Times spotlights Soviet aviator Polina Gelman, who during World War II was part of an elite group of female navigators known as the “Night Witches”; Gelman, who died in 2005, was the only Jewish woman to earn the USSR’s Hero of the Soviet Union medal during the war…

A federal appeals court overturned the conviction of the man found guilty of kidnapping and killing 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979; Pedro Hernandez will have a new trial — his third, after the first was deadlocked, prompting the 2017 trial that found him guilty…

Former Brigham Young University quarterback Jake Retzlaff is transferring to Tulane, following a seven-game suspension for violating BYU’s honor code…

The Washington Post looks at Hamas’ deepening financial crisis, as the terror group, which had not prepared for its war with Israel to extend past a year, finds itself unable to pay salaries and rebuild its vast underground tunnel system…

Israeli officials warned that the country’s port in Eilat is at risk of shutting down entirely unless it receives financial assistance, citing the impact of the Houthis’ constant ballistic missile attacks that have caused a 90% drop in activity at the Red Sea port…

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Fox News that Tehran will not give up its nuclear enrichment program, while an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that the country will not resume nuclear talks with the U.S., despite planning to continue talks with European powers…

Iran launched a suborbital test flight satellite carrying Ghased rockets, the first time since last month’s war with Israel that Tehran has launched such a test…

Government offices, businesses and banks across Tehran will shutter tomorrow as the region faces a heat wave, with temperatures expected to exceed 104 degrees Fahrenheit…

Turkey is closing in on an agreement to purchase up to 40 Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets; Ankara has been waiting on required approval from Germany, which had been stalled since 2023 over Berlin’s opposition to some elements of Turkish foreign policy…

Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly directed his government to prepare a package of joint Egypt-U.S. investment opportunities, as part of a broader effort to deepen Egyptian relations with Washington…

Real estate mogul Don Soffer, a key driver behind the establishment and development of Aventura, Fla., died at 92…

Former University of Baltimore Law School Dean and president of the Charles Crane Family Foundation, Larry Katz died at 85…

Pic of the Day

A delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations met on Monday with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in Jerusalem.

Birthdays

British biochemist and professor at the University of Dundee in Scotland, Sir Philip Cohen turns 80… 

Actress, prominent in Israeli theater, television and film, Gila Almagor turns 86… British Conservative Party member of Parliament for 36 years until 2010, a leading figure in the fight against human trafficking in the UK and worldwide, Anthony Steen CBE turns 86… Historian, author and professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Judith Walzer Leavitt turns 85… Actor, director and comedian, Albert Brooks (born Albert Lawrence Einstein) turns 78… Past president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Detroit, owner of Nodel Parks (operator of 37 manufactured home parks in nine states), Richard Martin Nodel… One of only 21 EGOT winners, including eight Academy Awards and 11 Grammy awards, pianist and composer of many Disney movie musical scores, Alan Menken turns 76… Owner of Baltimore’s Seven Mile Market, Hershel Boehm… Managing director of a German public affairs firm, he works to ensure that the Holocaust and its many victims are not forgotten, Terry Swartzberg turns 72… Publisher of the 5 Towns Jewish Times, Larry Gordon turns 72… Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia since 2011 (senior status since May 2023), Judge Amy Berman Jackson turns 71… Canadian sports journalist, radio host and mental health advocate, Michael Elliott Landsberg turns 68… Member of the board of governors of the American Jewish Committee, Cindy Masters… Secretary of veterans affairs in the first year of the Trump 45 administration, David Jonathon Shulkin turns 66… Director of government relations for the Zionist Organization of America, Dan Pollak turns 66… Federal prosecutor for 25 years, she was the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama throughout the Obama administration, Joyce Alene Vance turns 65… Founding partner of the D.C.-based intellectual property law firm, Greenberg & Lieberman, Stevan Lieberman turns 60… Democratic member of the West Virginia House of Delegates since 2018, Evan Hansen turns 59… Television journalist, David Shuster turns 58… CEO of Leviathan Productions, focused on Jewish history, folklore and literature, Ben Cosgrove… Pentagon speechwriter during the prior administration, Warren Bass… Owner of West Bloomfield, Mich.-based Saltsman Industries and Saltsman Financial Group, Daniel A. Saltsman… Branch chief and senior advisor for policy and readiness at the U.S. Army, Jonathan Freeman… Contemporary artist, he is the founder and director of Pioneer Works, a cultural institution in Brooklyn, Dustin Yellin turns 50… Manager of global issues for ExxonMobil, Elise Rachel Shutzer… Associate justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court, Rachel Wainer Apter turns 45… Former White House assistant press secretary, now the executive producer for news and politics at Crooked Media, Reid Cherlin… White House correspondent at The Independent, Andrew Grant Feinberg turns 43… Member of the House of Representatives (D-RI) since 2023, Seth Michael Magaziner turns 42… Executive director of the American Sephardi Federation since 2014, Jason Guberman-Pfeffer… Actor best known for his role in the Freeform series “Pretty Little Liars,” Keegan Phillip Allen turns 36… Director at the Peterson Health Technology Institute, Maor Cohen… Talia Joyce Thurm Abramson… Serial entrepreneur, software consultant and product strategist, Yoela Palkin… Actor, his career started when he was 10 years old, he played Jimmy Olson in the 2025 version of “Superman,” Skyler Gisondo turns 29…

On the night of May 21, several dozen young diplomats and political aides gathered at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington for a reception focused on humanitarian aid efforts in Gaza. 

The event was one of dozens of similar programs that happen around Washington, offering networking opportunities and social connection (alongside tasty hors d’oeuvres) to the overworked, largely underpaid employees that power Congress and the federal bureaucracy. But this event imprinted on the minds of young Jewish politicos because of what happened as it was ending, when Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, two Israeli Embassy staffers, were shot and killed just after leaving the American Jewish Committee event by an assailant who said that he carried out the attack “for Gaza.” 

“I saw the news and I said, ‘Could’ve been any of us,’” a legislative aide for a Democratic member of Congress, who had a ticket to that night’s event, told Jewish Insider last week. 

For that staffer, the event brought back to the fore the kind of visceral pain and discomfort that Jewish congressional aides — especially those in Democratic offices and social circles — have gotten used to dealing with since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel. 

Confronting the aftermath of that day and the ongoing war in Gaza has been a challenge for American Jews in all fields, many of whom have had to face growing antisemitism and antipathy to Israel in their professional lives. But in the Democratic spaces of Capitol Hill — one of the most consequential and most scrutinized workplaces in the country, which is in large part managed by young staffers in their 20s and 30s — the issue is inescapable. 

Many of the liberal-minded Jewish staffers on the Hill came to Washington to work on issues such as reproductive rights, access to health care and environmental policy. Now, for nearly two years, they have had to navigate a professional environment that demands an air of detached professionalism while their fellow staffers and Democrats writ large adopt a more critical approach to Israel and antisemitism. 

A June poll showed Democratic sympathy toward Israel at an all-time low, with 12% saying they sympathize more with Israelis, and 60% saying they sympathize more with Palestinians. That was a major drop from November 2023, when 34% of Democrats said they were more sympathetic to Israelis and 41% said they were more sympathetic to Palestinians.

Several Democratic Jewish staffers, ranging from junior aides to chiefs of staff — most of whom requested anonymity, wary of being made a target of antisemitism and concerned about putting themselves at risk professionally at a time when Democratic jobs are hard to come by — told JI that, in the face of growing antipathy to Israel and continued antisemitic terror and threats, they have turned to each other to build a tight-knit community among Jews working on Capitol Hill. 

“It has led to increased camaraderie and dialogue and kind of just a common understanding and bond … We work for a lot of different members: members who are Jewish, members who are not Jewish, members who one of their main issues is the U.S.-Israel relationship, members who are not mainly concerned with it,” said the legislative staffer. “But nonetheless, I think a lot of us are united and brought together by the aftermath of Oct. 7.” 

“If you’re just going to pick up lunch, and you just hear something about ‘apartheid Israel’ in the cafeteria, that hurts. You feel something on that,” said one former senior Jewish staffer who no longer works on Capitol Hill.

Laurie Saroff spent more than 20 years on Capitol Hill, most recently as chief of staff to Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA). When she left Congress in 2022, she started a bipartisan networking organization called the Capitol Jewish Women’s Network. 

“So many of us, which is something people don’t understand, are grieving. We’ve been grieving for 650-plus days. Everyone is touched at a different level, but it’s very personal, and sometimes I’m with people who are not Jewish and don’t understand how this impacts us so much,” Saroff told JI. “I think there’s a need for people to come together that I hadn’t seen in the past.” 

Part of that desire to connect came from a feeling of alienation from other colleagues on Capitol Hill. Encountering charged anti-Israel rhetoric in the hallways of the Capitol and its fortress of office buildings has become commonplace. 

“If you’re just going to pick up lunch, and you just hear something about ‘apartheid Israel’ in the cafeteria, that hurts. You feel something on that,” said one former senior Jewish staffer who no longer works on Capitol Hill. Whenever the war in Gaza intensifies, congressional offices face a barrage of angry, often confrontational phone calls seeking to pressure the members not to support Israel, which the Jewish staffer called “absolutely brutal” for the interns tasked with picking up the phone. 

“The things that we hear in our day-to-day about the way that people talk about Jewish communities or Israel groups is so outside the boundaries of what could be considered polite or not antisemitic statements – ‘AIPAC controlling the government,’ AIPAC’s money in races where they don’t even spend it, and yet it’s blamed on AIPAC,” a Jewish foreign policy staffer told JI. “We hear from callers all day long about AIPAC money. Clearly at this point, it’s just a stand-in for saying Jewish money. That’s how I hear it.”

Soon after the Oct. 7 attacks, some Democratic congressional staffers began to pressure their bosses to call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. “Dear White Staffers,” an Instagram account that first went viral several years ago for revealing allegations of lawmaker misconduct, has taken a sharply anti-Israel turn, frustrating many Jewish aides who see their colleagues continuing to follow and engage with the account. 

In 2024, some staffers who wanted the U.S. to take a tougher line against Israel created a website that they dubbed the Congressional Dissent Channel. “​​We are congressional aides dedicated to changing the paradigm of U.S. support for the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza being carried out by the state of Israel,” the organizers wrote on the website, which has since been taken offline. 

“I also have had a lot of Dem staff who are not Jewish — who kind of privately don’t agree with this sort of orthodoxy on the topic that is emerging — reach out to me and be like, ‘This is kind of crazy,’” a Jewish Democratic staffer said. “And it’s really nice to hear that. And I’ve definitely gotten closer to some people for that reason,” she told JI, though she added that the anti-Israel contingent in the Democratic Party and on the Hill “feel like there’s a lot of permissiveness for them to say things that are really not acceptable.”

“It’s the small things, like Dear White Staffers. You can’t even explain to your colleagues how repugnant some of these posts are. For any other group, it feels like they would be disciplined. The post would be removed. There would have to be apologies,” the foreign policy staffer told JI. “It’s no secret that — how do I say this? — that diversity is something that seems to be really valued, except for when it comes to Jewish voices.” 

Another Jewish Democratic staffer wanted to make clear that many of her non-Jewish colleagues were similarly alarmed by the language that other Hill staffers had adopted after Oct. 7. 

“I also have had a lot of Dem staff who are not Jewish — who kind of privately don’t agree with this sort of orthodoxy on the topic that is emerging — reach out to me and be like, ‘This is kind of crazy.’ And it’s really nice to hear that. And I’ve definitely gotten closer to some people for that reason,” she told JI, though she added that the anti-Israel contingent in the Democratic Party and on the Hill “feel like there’s a lot of permissiveness for them to say things that are really not acceptable.”

A senior staffer for a pro-Israel member of Congress said that when their office interviewed potential new hires after Oct. 7, the interviewers began asking job candidates — mostly younger people seeking early career roles — if they were comfortable with the member’s views on Israel and other topics, and what they would do if they disagreed. 

“You had to walk on eggshells with your staff, because staff are way more progressive than the offices we were representing. It was a very, very challenging thing, while you’re also dealing with the personal ramifications and trauma of the actual events that happened,” said the former senior staffer who no longer works on the Hill. “I remember there was this one junior staff walkout, and it was the craziest thing to me, because if you’re not from the community, if you’re not a constituent, what are you trying to do? Members are trying to represent the interests of their district, not what their staff or interns want them to do.”

With these experiences casting a shadow over Jewish staffers’ time on the Hill and their understanding of politics and identity, they’ve found comfort in each other and in Jewish tradition. 

“There’s a deep desire amongst people to lean on the most beautiful parts of the [Jewish] identity,” a Jewish policy staffer told JI. “I think that gives people a lot of strength because it’s really hard to hear all these things about your community all the time, and then you go to something like a Shabbat dinner … and you’re really reminded that this negative barrage is something that you have to endure for the sake of something that is really meaningful and powerful.”

The legislative aide who had purchased a ticket to the Capital Jewish Museum event said that the aftermath of Oct. 7 and rising antisemitism are “not theoretical and are extraordinarily personal,” which “is a theme that I have found has united and brought together a lot of Jewish staffers on the Hill.” The past two years have also led to “increased camaraderie and dialogue and a common understanding and bond,” bringing these staffers together both inside and outside the workplace.

The staffer who found solidarity with some non-Jewish colleagues said Jewish staff “have formed group chats to support each other and check in and … vent about frustrating experiences that they’re having, stuff like that. So I definitely think professionally and personally the community has deepened a lot and people are really leaning on each other.” 

“Shabbat has really been an anchor, I think,” the aide told JI. Congressional staffers endure “lots of busy weeks, lots of long weeknights.” Joining together for a Shabbat meal, as groups of staffers do frequently, becomes “an intentional place to kind of withdraw from that and exist in our Jewish selves.” 

The staffer said that, in attending Shabbat dinners, “there’s a deep desire amongst people to lean on the most beautiful parts of the [Jewish] identity. I think that gives people a lot of strength because it’s really hard to hear all these things about your community all the time, and then you go to something like a Shabbat dinner … and you’re really reminded that this negative barrage is something that you have to endure for the sake of something that is really meaningful and powerful.”

Shabbat, she added, is “a good antidote for the constant gaslighting.”

A newly released CNN poll, conducted this month, illustrates the resilience of a hawkish DNA within the Republican Party and among its voters even amid the rise of an isolationist strain that has sought to gain influence in the GOP during President Donald Trump’s second term.

The poll asked respondents: “Do you think the United States should or should not take the leading role among all other countries in the world in trying to solve international problems?” Overall, 43% took the more active approach, while 56% took a more isolationist view.

Republicans, however, remained the strongest advocates of a muscular American role in world affairs, with 52% supporting America taking a leading role and 47% opposed. By contrast, just 42% of Democrats and 39% of independents shared the more hawkish worldview.

Notably, the shift in more isolationist sentiment was almost entirely driven by Democrats and independents since the last CNN survey in March, which found majority support for significant American global engagement. In the March survey, a 57% majority of Democrats preferred more American involvement in the world, a number that dropped 15 points in the last four months. The Republican share of those preferring American engagement remained steady at 52%.

The results from the CNN polls suggest there’s a more committed core of Republican-voting hawks that is more resilient than the shifting political winds, whereas the Democratic foreign policy worldview appears more dependent on partisanship and what’s happening in the news at the time. 

In March, at the time of the first CNN poll, Democrats showed a surge of support for foreign engagement — in large part, because they were responding to the hostile reception Trump delivered at the time to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was seeking American military aid to his country. Back then, Trump wrongly blamed Zelensky for causing the war, and attacked him as a dictator in the run-up to the ugly confrontation at the White House. It was the high point of isolationism in Trump’s second term — and prompted an uptick of hawkishness among Democrats.

But since then, Trump has sharpened his rhetoric against Russian President Vladimir Putin and agreed to send Ukraine offensive weapons, in a reversal of his previous reluctance. He also decided to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities despite alarmism from an isolationist faction within his party, which turned out to be a major military (and political) success. 

A recent Echelon Insights survey underscored that Trump’s hawkish turn has broadened and deepened support for strongly supporting American allies within the party. A clear 49-36% of Trump voters, asked if they supported continuing to give weapons to Ukraine, said yes. When informed that it was Trump’s decision to aid Ukraine further, nearly two-thirds of Trump supporters embraced the decision.

The actions on Capitol Hill are consistent with the polling. When Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) proposed a series of amendments cutting off aid to foreign allies, the vast majority of Republicans voted against them. Even on her proposal to cut military aid for Ukraine, 141 of the 217 House Republicans took the pro-Ukraine side. 

And when Greene proposed to block missile defense funding that the U.S. gives to Israel, only one other Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), joined her. Indeed, there were more Democrats who joined with MTG (four) than Republicans — in a sign of the “horseshoe theory” of the far left and far right uniting in their extremism.

Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear program appears to have created a momentum shift within the party, pushing back the faction of isolationists seeking to gain influence in the administration but also building support for a familiar brand of muscular engagement that has defined the party for generations.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin defended himself on Friday amid criticism that his response to a question about New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the “globalize the intifada” slogan did not sufficiently express his own view that the phrase should be condemned.

“The right-wing lie machine is at it again. That’s not what I said in this interview. I’ve never supported or condoned the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’, a phrase which is reckless and dangerous, as it can been [sic] seen as a green light to terror, and it should be unequivocally condemned,” Martin wrote in a response on X to the Washington Free Beacon.

“Let me be clear, at a time of rising antisemitism, there’s no place for rhetoric that can be seen as a call to violence,” he added.

Several Jewish Democrats and organizations that represent them defended Martin’s handling of the Wednesday “PBS NewsHour” interview fallout.

Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, told Jewish Insider on Friday that, “We welcome the clarification from Chair Martin that the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’ is reckless and dangerous because it can be seen as a green light to terror. Chair Martin has never supported or condoned this phrase, and has now made it clear that there’s no place for rhetoric that can be seen as a call to violence in the Democratic Party.”

“He also said that this phrase should be unequivocally condemned, and we would like to see all Democrats do exactly that,” Soifer told JI. 

The Democratic Majority for Israel said in a statement that the group “appreciates the recognition by DNC chair Ken Martin that the phrase ‘Globalize the Intifada’ is a dangerous call to incite violent action against Jews & Israelis.” 

“During the last two intifadas, thousands of innocent Israelis — Arabs and Jews — were victims of Palestinian terrorism. Words have meanings, and the meaning of that phrase is clear to those who have experienced the intifadas. This incitement of violence should never be acceptable and must be condemned unequivocally,” the statement continued.

Martin’s Friday comment was met with criticism from several Jewish Democrats.

Georgia Democratic state Rep. Esther Panitch took issue with the DNC chairman’s response, writing on X, “I am not right-wing, and I know what I heard. You have welcomed the person who refused to condemn the phrase you call dangerous. Why?”

Sara Forman, the executive director of the New York Solidarity Network, an organization representing Jews in New York, criticized Martin in a lengthy X post on Friday for his handling of the interview question and his subsequent tweet clarifying his position. 

“There is no excuse the chair of @TheDemocrats could come up with to put the toothpaste back into the tube. Ken Martin is the chair of the DNC and his idiotic ‘big tent’ comment is now a party position with a high cost – the loss of normal Democrats around the country,” Forman wrote.

“Incumbents will be held accountable for his words against Republican challengers who will make it very difficult and expensive to hold swing districts. And D challengers will be playing right into the hands of their Republican incumbent opponents when they distance themselves from his comments,” she continued. “For a party chair to fundamentally misunderstand his role, which is to fundraise so Democrats can win elections, is insane.”

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) has stood apart in recent weeks as one of a small number of congressional Democrats who’ve been supportive of the Trump administration’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

He argued in an interview with Jewish Insider last week and in a recent op-ed that the Israeli and American show of force, alongside the undermining of Iran’s proxies across the region, could be the key to weakening the Iranian regime to a point where it will agree to a fundamental change of course going forward, unlocking opportunities for regional peace and prosperity. And, he said, it’s critical that the U.S. move forward in a truly unified and bipartisan manner to capitalize on that opportunity.

Landsman told JI he thinks that his Democratic colleagues’ responses to the strikes are motivated by the current political environment, fears about a broader war and concerns about the future of diplomatic talks and the safety of people in the region.

“We’re just in a different political environment than the one I grew up in,” Landsman, 48, said. “The one I grew up in was ‘politics stops at the water’s edge,’ which I loved. … The thinking behind it … is that when we take on these really complicated foreign policy issues, that we do it in a bipartisan way, and that’s not the environment we live in right now.”

He said there’s also a “legitimate concern that it would provoke further attacks or it would instigate a broader war.” Landsman has argued that the current situation is fundamentally different from the run-up to the Iraq war that many skeptics of the strikes have invoked.

Some colleagues, he added, may have also had concerns about compromising diplomatic efforts or “legitimate concerns for people’s safety. But I think for others, and for a lot of folks, it’s just political,” he said.

Landsman said he still hews to the older approach, believing that it’s critical to work toward bipartisan common ground in critical foreign policy questions. He highlighted that the American people overwhelmingly oppose the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon.

“I think the American people want [our Middle East policy] to be bipartisan, all of it,” Landsman said. “I think they’re tired of the partisanship in general, but in particular, as it relates to how we resolve these international conflicts and how we take advantage of international or global opportunities, I think they are done with all of this being so partisan.”

He said he still believes a diplomatic solution with Iran is possible and necessary, but said the regime needed to be weakened and see that the U.S. is willing to use force in order to agree to totally dismantle its nuclear program and allow comprehensive international inspections and to dismantle its terrorist proxies .

Unlike some supporters of the strikes, Landsman said he doesn’t think regime change in Iran is the most productive goal, and that the U.S. should instead leverage the regime’s vulnerability for a more favorable deal and fundamental change to the regime’s posture.

“This regime wants to stay in power. If they decide — which they can, and now they’re so weakened that it’s an easier decision for them, and that’s why the strikes were important — they can decide, ‘We’re going to focus on the Iranian people’” and abandon terrorism and their ambitions to destroy Israel, Landsman said. “They could unlock the talent of tens of millions of incredibly brilliant people that have been stuck in Iran under this regime.”

He said that achieving that will “require real engagement and leadership” from both Congress and the executive branch.

Landsman has proposed establishing a bipartisan and bicameral congressional committee to work toward Middle East peace, and argued that the administration needs an expanded team working on the issue, describing Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as stretched too thin.

“They need to lay out a vision for ending hostilities with Iran and ending the war in Gaza and giving people a sense of what will happen next in terms of peace and stability and security,” Landsman said.

The congressman argued that these issues are too difficult and too important for Congress to be excluded, or to be treated in a partisan manner. He pushed for deep and ongoing executive branch engagement with Congress, not just providing briefings, but in strategizing and building a lasting solution going forward.

Finally putting the Iranian threat to bed would set the Middle East on a fundamentally different course, Landsman argued. “[The Middle East] should be Europe, [if not] for Iran. It hasn’t been able to break out that way because Iran has been the primary obstacle.”

“Getting to a point where Iran is slowly but surely being removed as a threat opens up all the doors,” he said. “It just changes the dynamic for everybody.”

He said he believes leaders across the region see a path toward ending the war in Gaza and the long-running conflicts and building “a Middle East that’s entirely free from terror and countries are working together” and prospering.

In spite of the deep divisions that have increasingly characterized discussions in the United States on Israel and the Middle East since the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, Landsman said he still believes that “the list of what we agree on is way bigger than the list of what folks may disagree on.”

The points of agreement across the American political spectrum include: that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon; that Iran needs to be subject to stringent inspections; that Iran needs to cease its support for terrorists; that Hezbollah must be disarmed; that the war in Gaza needs to end; that the hostages need to be returned; that Hamas needs to be removed from power; and that international investment in collaboration with Israel and non-Hamas Palestinian leaders is needed to move Gaza forward.

“More international pressure can be brought to bear on Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis to separate them … and say ‘The world has come together. We are going to pick the side of those who want to rebuild the region and rebuild it free of terror and corruption,’” Landsman said. “Ultimately, when you have the kind of security that any country would need and expect, then you get back to the negotiating table.”

Landsman has spoken on multiple occasions in recent months about his aspirations for an abiding peace in the Middle East, a vision that he says is driven by a lifetime of connection and passion for Israel and the region.

He said his Jewish upbringing had inculcated in him a sense of connection to the importance of Israel for the Jewish people.

Landsman said that efforts to negotiate between Israel and the Palestinians were also a constant feature of his youth, and that he believes that there is still broad agreement on the goal of a durable peace that can provide security for Israel and self-determination and self-governance for the Palestinians.

A Harvard Divinity School graduate, the Ohio congressman has visited Israel numerous times as a lawmaker, but also traveled there frequently and built connections in his previous work in education advocacy. After implementing new preschool programs in the Cincinnati area, Landsman was asked to help work with Ethiopian Israelis to improve educational outcomes, an effort that grew between 2015 and 2020.

He said his time on the ground in Israel showed him that Jews and Palestinians “have a lot in common” — shared history, a shared home and common experiences of expulsion and rejection. And it highlighted to him the extent to which Arab Israelis are part of and integrated into Israeli society.

“I have built up this legitimate affection and love for these two communities of people that, because of circumstance, have been fighting,” Landsman said. “Ending that would transform everything — not just their lives, but the region and the world.”

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin declined on Wednesday to criticize New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the “globalize the intifada” slogan. The DNC chair, who was elected earlier this year, praised the party for being a “big tent” comprising different ideologies, including “leftists” such as Mamdani.

Asked during a “PBS NewsHour” interview about concerns from Jewish Democrats regarding Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the phrase, Martin replied, “There’s no candidate in this party that I agree 100 percent of the time with, to be honest with you. There’s things that I don’t agree with Mamdani that he said.”

Martin said that he had learned through his 14 years as chairman of the Minnesota Democratic Party and his tenure at the DNC “that you win through addition. You win by bringing people into your coalition. We have conservative Democrats. We have centrist Democrats. We have labor progressives like me, and we have this new brand of Democrat, which is the leftist.”

“We win by bringing people into that coalition. And at the end of the day, for me, that’s the type of party we’re going to lead. We are a big tent party. Yes, it leads to dissent and debate, and there’s differences of opinions on a whole host of issues. But we should celebrate that as a party and recognize, at the end of the day, we’re better because of it,” Martin said.

Martin also argued that national Democrats could learn from Mamdani’s primary campaign performance in terms of focusing their message away from President Donald Trump and toward a forward-looking vision.

“He campaigned for something. And this is a critical piece. We can’t just be in a perpetual state of resisting Donald Trump. Of course, we have to resist Donald Trump. There’s no doubt about it for all the reasons we just talked about. But we also have to give people a sense of what we’re for, what the Democratic Party is fighting for, and what we would do if they put us back in power,” Martin said.

“One of the lessons from Mamdani’s campaign is that he focused on affordability. He focused on a message that was resonant with voters and he campaigned for something, not against other people or against other things. He campaigned on a vision of how he was going to make New York City a better place to live,” he continued.

Martin praised the methods by which Mamdani’s campaign got its message out.

“The other lessons, of course, is the tactics he used to get his message out, both a very aggressive in-person campaigning, meeting voters where they’re at, and then also in those digital spaces, using very creative messaging to cut through the noise and to get to voters in an inexpensive but authentic way,” he said.

Effie Phillips-Staley, running on a progressive platform in the crowded Democratic field looking to unseat Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) in a swing congressional district, is taking a firm stance against the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, even as she has expressed concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“For the leader of the free world to decide to strike Iran based on Fox News coverage and without deliberation or the approval of Congress is alarming and unprecedented,” she said in a statement to Jewish Insider on Monday, a position shared by many congressional Democrats. “We cannot have a nuclear armed Iran under any circumstances and Congress must hold this President accountable by upholding the War Powers Act and requiring a full diplomatic process.”

She also expressed concern in a statement following the initial Israeli strikes on Iran.

“I do not support a nuclear Iran under any circumstances and understand Israel must preserve its security as it faces near constant threat of attacks. I am also deeply troubled at the rush to war, especially as diplomacy was underway,” Phillips-Staley said. “It is not lost on me that Trump’s decision to carelessly destroy the JCPOA in his first term has now put the lives of countless people, including Israelis and Americans, at risk. Diplomacy must be given a chance. We must prioritize the safety of innocent civilians, American personnel and peace.”

Phillips-Staley, a Tarrytown, N.Y., village trustee who has made her career in the nonprofit world focused on issues including the Hispanic community, public schools and art, told JI in an interview last month that she sees an open lane in the race for an unabashed progressive.

“I looked at the field and felt strongly that there was a space for a progressive candidate in this field, and so I decided to enter,” she said.

She’s leaning on that progressive positioning to distinguish her from a field of nearly 10 Democrats, many of whom are staking out broadly moderate or center-left platforms. Despite her criticisms of the Iran strikes, Phillips-Staley has otherwise not embraced elements of the left-wing policy agenda that have alienated Jewish voters.

Phillips-Staley said she wanted to be “very clear that the U.S. has to continue to be a critical ally to Israel,” emphasizing that Israel remains under threat and “does, of course, have a right to exist and should continue to exist.” 

She indicated that she would oppose additional conditions or restrictions on U.S. aid to the Jewish state, which she emphasized is critical to keeping Israel safe from existential threats.

But Phillips-Staley criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom she said had “repeatedly undermined” a two-state solution, while adding that Hamas cannot continue to rule Gaza.

She said she wants to see Congress work to “create incentives to find a peaceful resolution,” but emphasized that the hostages must first be released. Phillips-Staley said that her family’s El Salvadorian background helps her understand the damage that a “cycle of violence can do” and how difficult it can be to interrupt.

She described the Abraham Accords as a framework that could be built upon for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Speaking to JI in the aftermath of the antisemitic attacks in Washington and Boulder, Colo., Phillips-Staley called rising antisemitism nationwide “deeply, deeply troubling and appalling.” She suggested that brokering Israeli-Palestinian peace would help tamp down on antisemitism domestically.

“Apart from what everybody says — ‘we need more education, we need to come together more’ — I think we really have to work very hard to find a resolution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine,” Phillips-Staley said. “Peace creates peace. And the terrifying thing is … what is spilling from that unresolved conflict is now making Jews in America under threat even more, which is entirely unacceptable.”

She said the U.S. also needs to crack down on acts of violence and provide more resources to address antisemitism in the country.

Asked about the increase of domestic antisemitism predating the war in Gaza, Phillips-Staley criticized the first Trump administration, saying it had enabled and emboldened a range of unacceptable behavior, including white nationalism.

She expressed hope that a new Congress and subsequently a new presidential administration could help to reverse those trends. 

Citing her own immigrant family background, she also criticized the Trump administration for implementing immigration restrictions in the name of combating antisemitism, explaining, “anything that creates wedges, that undermines the openness of people coming together, I question as effective.”

Phillips-Staley told JI she’s running for Congress to continue what she characterized as a lifetime of service in the nonprofit sector and, later, public office. She added that as the daughter of an immigrant from El Salvador, she has close ties to the Lower Hudson Valley district’s Hispanic and immigrant communities. She said those communities had urged her to run for higher office.

She currently lags behind many of the other candidates in the 17th District race in fundraising, though she entered the race more recently than several other competitors. In the first six weeks of her campaign she only raised $52,000, loaning her campaign an additional $100,000. She ended the third quarter with $103,000 on hand.

“Effie’s campaign is people-powered and grassroots,” campaign spokesperson John Tomlin said in a statement. “She does not come to the table with a list of corporations, ultra-rich and Washington establishment figures to seed her operation. We have an active campaign and we are on target with our goals.”

Rockland County Legislator Beth Davidson said she raised $350,000 in the past quarter and $850,000 since the start of her campaign, while national security veteran Cait Conley reported raising $472,000 in the second quarter and more than $800,000 since launching her campaign,  and nonprofit leader Jessica Reinmann raised $311,000 in the first quarter, $100,000 of that self-funded.

Phillips-Staley argued that her lived experience as a Hispanic person from a working-class background, who put herself through college and worked her way up from a receptionist to executive director of a nonprofit, makes her fairly unique among political candidates and leaders. 

Her key issues as a member of Congress, she said, will be affordability, particularly in housing, and protecting government services that help Americans succeed. She said she’s proud of the work she’s done on issues like infrastructure and zoning in her role in local government.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) congratulated Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday for his presumed victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary but stopped short of endorsing the far-left state assemblyman’s candidacy in the general election.

Schumer wrote on X that he spoke with Mamdani on Wednesday morning and was “looking forward to getting together soon,” but did not offer an endorsement while praising the 33-year-old democratic socialist  assemblyman’s campaign. 

“I have known @ZohranKMamdani since we worked together to provide debt relief for thousands of beleaguered taxi drivers & fought to stop a fracked gas plant in Astoria. He ran an impressive campaign that connected with New Yorkers about affordability, fairness, & opportunity,” Schumer said. 

A spokesperson for the Senate minority leader declined to comment when asked by Jewish Insider for Schumer’s thoughts on Mamdani’s long history of anti-Israel activism. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), also praised Mamdani’s campaign operation, telling MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he “clearly outworked, outorganized, and outcommunicated the opposition. And when someone is successful in being able to do all three things at the same time, it’s usually going to work out for them.”

Speaking to The Independent on Wednesday, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said she had a “lovely call” with Mamdani after his win, but similarly declined to offer her immediate endorsement. 

“We talked about how he inspired voters to support him because of his laser-like focus on affordability, and I asked for a meeting to … talk about some issues that I have that I want to talk through,” Gillibrand said. 

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) criticized his Democratic colleagues in Congress who have spoken out against Israel’s attack on Iran, calling it “astonishing” to see members of his party treat Israel’s actions as escalatory. 

Fetterman spoke to Jewish Insider on Friday for an interview in the wake of Israel launching its military operation to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities and prevent the regime from acquiring a nuclear weapon. 

The Pennsylvania senator said he could not fathom how some Democrats on Capitol Hill could accuse the Jewish state of launching the strikes to upend the Trump administration’s nuclear negotiations with Tehran.

Fetterman didn’t mention any of his Democratic colleagues by name, but many have been critical of the Iranian strikes. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), for instance, went on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Friday morning and said that Israel’s strike on Iran was “pretty transparent that this was an effort to submarine, to undermine our diplomacy.”

“It was just astonishing to see colleagues criticizing these things. It’s like, do you think you can negotiate with that regime? Do you think you want to run that scenario and allow them to acquire 1,000 pounds of weapons grade uranium? I can’t understand, I can’t even begin to understand that,” Fetterman told JI.

“I can’t imagine why they would say that. Remember, Iran tries to acquire nuclear weapons. Iran has created and spent billions of dollars to build those destructive proxies like Hamas or Hezbollah or the Houthis. Why can’t we talk about that? Why can’t we talk about the absolute imperative to keep Iran accountable for what they’ve done? That’s exactly part of what Israel did last night, as well,” he continued.

The Pennsylvania Democrat praised the opening salvos of the operation as “absolutely spectacular,” citing the “precision in targeting people.”

”They eliminated the generals and those scientists in their beds at their building, and they didn’t take out the whole building. It was just their specific apartments. I mean, that is truly remarkable. … It’s like Beepers 2.0, the kind of things they’ve done. Like I said, I am constantly blown away by the sophistication and their lethality,” Fetterman said, referring to the Israeli pager operation that took out senior Hezbollah leaders.

“I think I might have been the only one openly calling for that [striking the nuclear facilities now]. I’m never going to negotiate with that regime. You can never trust them, and the only thing they’re going to respond to, that they respect, are exactly the kind of things that [Israel] did last night. … Any potential path for an enduring peace in the Middle East, these are the kind of steps that do that,” he added.

Fetterman disputed the narrative that the U.S. supporting Israel in targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities could increase the prospect of a regional war. “If Iran is going to take their big, big swing, they would have done that by now. Just imagine how exposed they are, even how [exposed] they were earlier this year after what Israel had done taking out Hezbollah,” he told JI. 

“Hezbollah ain’t talking tough anymore. They’re not talking about any kinds of actions, they’re just whimpering, and that’s my point. Iran can’t fight for s**t. … They just shot their big shot, a couple junkie rockets, and it’s like, that’s what you’ve got?” Fetterman asked.

With a cryptic video that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard posted on X on Tuesday morning, the Democratic-congresswoman-turned-America-First-advocate reignited simmering concerns about the unorthodox intelligence chief among both her longtime detractors and some Republicans who voted to confirm her earlier this year.

“She obviously needs to change her meds,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Jewish Insider of Gabbard. Kennedy, like all Republicans except Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), voted to confirm Gabbard in February. 

“I only saw a post that she did, which I thought was a very strange one since many people believe that, unfortunate though it was, the nuclear bomb that was dropped in World War II at Hiroshima actually saved a lot of lives, a lot of American lives,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told JI of Gabbard’s video. 

In the social media video, Gabbard describes a recent visit to Hiroshima, Japan, where she learned about the toll of the atomic bomb dropped on the city by American troops in 1945, which spurred a Japanese surrender and the end of World War II. She warned that the world faces another “nuclear holocaust” unless people “reject this path to nuclear war.”

“This is the reality of what’s at stake, what we are facing now, because as we stand here today, closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before, political elite warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers,” said Gabbard, not specifying who she was referring to by “political elite warmongers” or which countries she may have been calling out. 

Gabbard’s video decrying “warmongers” prompted concern from Republicans seeking a more traditionally conservative foreign policy worldview. 

“She seems to be doing her best audition to be head of the Quincy Institute,” a senior employee at a pro-Israel advocacy group said of Gabbard.

One Senate Republican, speaking on condition of anonymity, questioned Gabbard’s logic in raising the human toll of Hiroshima and her “warmongers” comment.

“I’m not sure I understand why the DNI would even need to make that point,” the senator said of the Hiroshima focus, later adding: “I don’t seek nuclear war. I don’t know anyone who wants nuclear war. There’s plenty of ideological diversity here, but pretty much universal opposition to that.”

Since taking office, Gabbard, who in 2020 was a surrogate for progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) presidential campaign, has generally been aligned with the isolationist wing of the Republican Party, which is increasingly ascendant in the Trump administration. William Ruger, the official she tapped for the high-level position that prepares the president’s daily intelligence briefing, came from Koch-affiliated institutions and has called for “American restraint” on the world stage. 

During her nomination battle, Gabbard faced criticism, including from some Republicans — focused in particular on a congressional trip to Syria in 2017 when she met with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, her parroting of Russian propaganda about the country’s war with Ukraine and her defense of Edward Snowden, the former intelligence official who leaked classified information before fleeing the country. 

“It defies belief that someone would be criticizing [President Harry] Truman’s act of winning a war. We really need to get back to winning wars when we fight,” Eric Levine, a prominent Republican fundraiser in New York who urged senators to oppose Gabbard’s confirmation, told JI on Tuesday. 

Levine raised concerns about Gabbard’s ability to influence President Donald Trump’s approach to Iran, as nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran are set to continue this weekend. He said that if Trump does the “right thing” — meaning he ends the Iran negotiations and supports a strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure — then the U.S. will “save a lot of lives, just like Harry Truman did, and will not require the dropping of a nuclear bomb.” 

“I’m very concerned about the isolationist wing of the Republican Party,” Levine continued. “I don’t know who’s winning out, because we don’t know what the end result is in Iran yet.”

Several Republican senators questioned why Gabbard would make the video in the first place.

“I thought it was not appropriate,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told JI.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) described the impact of the bomb as “horrible” but said it was necessary to end the war, in which his father had fought. 

“Dropping those bombs probably saved a million servicemen’s lives. If you don’t want to get nuked, don’t start barbaric wars,” Graham told JI. “I think it’s a horrible thing to happen to people, but it was brought on by Japan, and if I were Harry Truman, I would have done the same thing because the casualty estimates were a million dead Americans invading mainland Japan.”

Alexa Henning, Gabbard’s deputy chief of staff, declined to say whether Gabbard was referring in the video to a specific nation or to specific people. 

“Acknowledging the past is critical to inform the future. President Trump has repeatedly stated in the past that he recognizes the immeasurable suffering, and annihilation can be caused by nuclear war, which is why he has been unequivocal that we all need to do everything possible to work towards peace,” Henning said in a statement. “DNI Gabbard supports President Trump’s clearly stated objectives of bringing about lasting peace and stability and preventing war.”

Despite the criticism coming even from some allies, Gabbard’s views do not appear to have gone outside the realm of what Trump hopes to see from her. 

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), a personal friend of Gabbard’s from their shared time in the House, defended Gabbard’s post and her service as DNI. 

“I think she’s doing a great job … She’s doing exactly what the president wanted her to do,” Mullin told JI. “People have been critical of her, and this is D.C., right? You’re going to get criticized for walking down the stairs wrong, so criticism is part of the job.”

As Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) works to come from behind in the closing weeks of the New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial primary, the veteran congressman is counting on support from the state’s sizable Jewish community to launch him to victory in the June 10 election.

“It’s a key part, a critical part of the coalition,” Gottheimer told Jewish Insider on Monday. “These off-year primaries are — despite what we’re all working to do — it’s always a lower turnout in the off years. And I’d say the Jewish community is very engaged, and I think they play a really important role in the election.”

He argued that he has an extensive record both in office and before his time in Congress fighting antisemitism and supporting the U.S.-Israel relationship, and has forged deep bonds with the Jewish community, particularly at a time when it has been subjected to increased antisemitism.

“I think that [the Jewish] community around the state recognizes that,” Gottheimer said. “I think I’ve made a very strong case of why I’d be an excellent governor for the Jewish community, and for all communities.”

Gottheimer recently picked up the endorsement of the Lakewood Vaad, an influential group of rabbis in one of the state’s largest Orthodox Jewish communities, which urged both Democrats and unaffiliated voters to vote for Gottheimer in the Democratic primary. The endorsement came comparatively early for the Vaad, which in the past has endorsed candidates as late as on Election Day.

As of last week, Lakewood had more than 20,000 unaffiliated Orthodox Jewish voters, in addition to nearly 3,000 Orthodox voters registered as Democrats, according to Shlomo Schorr, the director of legislative affairs for Agudath Israel of America’s New Jersey office. In surrounding communities in Ocean County where the Vaad’s sphere of influence extends, there are 3,500 Orthodox Democrats and 2,250 unaffiliated Orthodox voters, Schorr said.

“It’s a three-part punch: it’s Lakewood coming out early, it’s Lakewood saying to the Democrats they should vote for Josh and it’s them saying [to] the unaffiliated who have the ability to show up that day and declare as a Democrat that they should as well show up for Josh,” a Gottheimer-backing New Jersey strategist said. 

Even as Gottheimer has lagged behind other opponents, such as Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), the establishment favorite in the race, in the limited public polling available, one Gottheimer advisor suggested that current polling could be missing the preferences of the Orthodox community. 

“Orthodox communities such as the Vaad are generally missed as a part of traditional polls because the community is not inclined to participate in traditional opinion polling,” the advisor told JI. “If you wanted to look for a hidden vote that wouldn’t be counted, there’d certainly be evidence that that is one.”

The New Jersey strategist predicted that the Lakewood endorsement would produce a “domino” effect: as the largest Jewish community in the state, Lakewood turning out for Gottheimer could drive turnout among other New Jersey Jewish communities, signaling “that Josh has a viable path to victory and to win.” Some other Jewish community leaders, including a Jersey Shore-based Sephardic Orthodox group, have also endorsed Gottheimer.

If those communities turn out in force for Gottheimer, it could total between 30,000 and 50,000 votes, the strategist said, which “is enough to — 100% — win that election.” They continued, “Josh’s path to victory is Bergen County turning out and the Jewish community turning out.”

Gottheimer also emphasized to JI that he’s been speaking to Jewish communities throughout the state for months, and has won endorsements from mayors and other local officials in areas with large Jewish communities statewide, both Orthodox and non-Orthodox.

“We have very big support — I’ve spent a lot of time — because I think the Jewish community wants somebody who’s going to stand up and fight antisemitism and hate, who’s going to make sure we teach children in K-12 about the Holocaust, about what happened on Oct. 7 [2023], actual facts, and who’s going to be a nationwide leader on these issues,” Gottheimer said. 

“A lot of Jewish voters feel abandoned, and they want someone who’s going to be a champion of them and of the community,” Gottheimer said.

Schorr said the Vaad is anticipating that it can convince not only Democrats but an even more significant number of unaffiliated voters in Lakewood and beyond to pull the lever for Gottheimer in a race that is expected to be fought on the margins.

Along with its endorsement, the Vaad is spending heavily on ads and get-out-the-vote efforts to help raise awareness around the primary, for which early voting begins next Tuesday and ends on Sunday.

Schorr, who clarified that he was not involved in the endorsement discussions and that his own group is not taking sides in the race, acknowledged that the Vaad’s endorsement could “heavily tilt” the election. But he said the late push may face some logistical hurdles with just weeks remaining until the primary.

“There’s not that much time,” he told JI on Tuesday. “Their struggle will be to get people to turn out for the Democratic candidate.”

Livingston, N.J. Mayor Ed Meinhardt, a former synagogue president who has endorsed Gottheimer, said he expects the Jewish community in his town and surrounding areas — including two large Orthodox congregations — to support Gottheimer, adding that Gottheimer’s “path to victory very much goes through the Jewish population of western Essex” County.

Sherrill represents Livingston and other areas of Essex, and local observers expect her to carry a significant share of the Jewish vote in her congressional district.

“I think what Congressman Gottheimer is doing is taking the vote away from Congresswoman Sherrill,” Meinhardt said. “I believe what Congressman Gottheimer is doing is actually splitting the vote and taking the vote away from her and putting it back into his camp … That’s why he’s spent so much time in this area.”

Another local source familiar with the race said that “given the way the numbers are looking, having the Jewish community come out and vote would appear to be a boon for [Gottheimer], and if the Jewish community doesn’t come out and vote for him, it’s going to hurt.”

The source said that the Jewish community in New Jersey — totaling more than 600,000, making it the largest non-Christian religious community in the state — could be enough to swing the race if Jewish voters show up in force and if Gottheimer is able to turn out and unify Jewish voters statewide, outside of his existing Bergen County constituency.

“There’s 120,000 people in Lakewood, so let’s say they could deliver 40,000 votes, give or take, maybe less … but there’s enough there that if the entire community came out and voted for one candidate, there’s a good chance that candidate’s going to win,” the source said.

David Bercovitch, the co-founder of a new political advocacy group called Safeguard Jewish South Jersey, which has endorsed Gottheimer, said the congressman “has garnered the support of so many in the Jewish community because he embodies the values of everyday New Jerseyans.”

“He is a strong advocate on the issues of concern for the Jewish community, as his track record in Congress shows,” Bercovitch told JI. “I believe many will be surprised by the results on June 10 in large part because of his tremendous advocacy for the Jewish community.”

In the GOP primary, the Vaad also endorsed Jack Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman who won Lakewood in his previous bid for governor in 2021, even as Gov. Phil Murphy, a term-limited Democrat, had notched the coalition’s backing at the time.

The American Jewish Committee — together with major groups representing U.S. universities — on Tuesday released a statement asking the Trump administration to reconsider its approach to combatting campus antisemitism, which it said involves steps that “endanger” academic freedom. 

“America’s higher education and Jewish communities share and endorse the Trump Administration’s priority of eradicating antisemitism. We come together to ask the Administration to pursue this important goal in ways that preserve academic freedom, respect due process, and strengthen the government-campus scientific partnership,” said the joint statement, which was co-signed by American Council on Education, Association of American Universities, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, American Association of Community Colleges, National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

The groups — which together represent more than 1,000 colleges and universities — called antisemitism “a plague on humanity” which “has found unacceptable expression on U.S. campuses in recent years, as it has elsewhere in American society, on both sides of the political spectrum.”

The statement continued, “In the name of combating antisemitism, the federal government has recently taken steps that endanger the research grants, academic freedom, and institutional autonomy of America’s higher education sector.”

It urged the U.S. government to instead address antisemitism “through the nation’s powerful anti-discrimination laws, which allow for vigorous enforcement while providing due process rights that are essential to ensure fair treatment of individuals and institutions.” 

The groups pledged “continuing consequential reform and transparent action to root out antisemitism and all other forms of hate and prejudice from our campuses.”

The Trump administration has cut — or threatened to cut — more than $12 billion in research funding from elite schools including Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Brown and Northwestern. The moves to rescind billions in federal funding from colleges and universities, as well as to detain and deport foreign students, have ignited debate in the Jewish community in recent months, with many stressing a need for due process. 

“Our democratic values are not at odds with our vision for classrooms and campuses free from antisemitism – in fact, each is necessary for the other,” Ted Deutch, CEO of the AJC, said in a statement on Tuesday. 

Deutch told Jewish Insider last month that the group is trying to take a nuanced approach to the White House’s response to campus antisemitism. 

“There are campuses [where] so many of the challenges should have been addressed by universities, and weren’t. We’ve been clear that it’s really important that the administration, that the president, is making this a priority,” Deutch said. “At the same time, as we’ve said, due process matters and obviously our democratic principles matter as well, we have to be able to both express appreciation and, when necessary, express concern.”

“When the hammer [of funding cuts] is dropped in a way which winds up cutting life-saving cancer research, that’s when we have concern, which we’ve expressed,” Deutch warned. 

Barbara Snyder, president of AAU, an organization of 69 leading research universities, said in a statement that “cutting funds for life-saving research and threatening academic freedom and constitutional rights such as freedom of speech do nothing to make students safer. Fighting discrimination and supporting due process are two sides of the same coin; you cannot have one without the other.” 

Jessica Reinmann, a Democratic nonprofit executive challenging Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) in New York’s 17th Congressional District, said, in a recent interview with Jewish Insider, that she feels a deep personal connection and dedication to the State of Israel and to the Jewish people, which she traces back to her strong relationship with her grandfather when she was young.

Her grandfather’s mother and her sister were the only children, out of 16 in their family, to survive the Holocaust, but they were separated — her great grandmother coming to the United States and her sister going to Israel.

She said that her grandfather would regularly visit his family in Israel and would tell her stories about them, teaching her that Israel is “not just a state” but “our homeland.” She said that her grandfather also instilled in her a strong sense of Jewish heritage and peoplehood, recalling that he helped her practice her haftorah for her bat mitzvah, and saw him reading it along with her as she recited it.

“For me, Israel’s right to exist, its right to defend itself, its right to be our homeland — the Jewish people’s homeland — located where it is is undeniable,” Reinmann said. “We’ve had a long-standing relationship that not only protects democracy in the Middle East, but it protects all of the Jewish citizens of the United States … and we must maintain that relationship.”

When he died, her grandfather required that some of the inheritance he left her family be used for them to visit Israel, which they did in 1994. It was Reinmann’s first time out of the country — her family could not previously afford to travel to Israel.

Reinmann recalled in detail the feeling of connection to the history of the Jewish people when she stood before the Western Wall in Jerusalem and placed a note addressed to her grandfather between the bricks.

“I remember my note that I put in the Wailing Wall was ‘Dear Grandpa, I finally made it. I love you,’” Reinmann said. “My grandfather was my person, and so being there was just a connection to him that I have never felt again.”

Reinmann said that her Jewish upbringing — strongly influenced by her grandfather — and the values of tikkun olam and tzedakah that it instilled in her have been a major influence on her desire to give back to her community, first as a nonprofit leader and now as an aspiring public servant.

The district in the New York City suburbs, once a blue bastion, has been key to Republicans’ control of the House in the past two cycles and Democrats are hoping to claw it back in the next year’s midterms. It’s also among the most Jewish districts in the country, and the incumbent Lawler has built strong support in the community.

Addressing the specifics of the war in Gaza, Reinmann emphasized that Hamas provoked the war by attacking Israel and taking hostages, and that it could have ended the war at any time by releasing the hostages.

The three priorities for the U.S. now, Reinmann said, must be returning all of the hostages, “annihilat[ing] Hamas” and finding a path forward toward peace.

“I think we really need to take back our standing in the world as the leader of the free world and as the leading democracy,” Reinmann said.

“I imagine [peace] looks like a two-state solution at some point, but until there’s less hatred, until everybody can deal with each each other with dignity and respect, there’s going to be a lot of peacekeeping that needs to be done once Hamas is gone to protect Israel and Israelis,” Reinmann said.

Asked about the regional threat from Iran, Reinmann said that the U.S. needs “do everything that we can … both diplomatically and militarily” to ensure that Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon, as well as cut off Iran’s financing.

“I think we really need to take back our standing in the world as the leader of the free world and as the leading democracy,” Reinmann added.

On the home front, Reinmann said she’s seen the impact of campus antisemitism through her daughter, who is currently a student at Yale. Her daughter, she said, had to walk past and through antisemitic encampments with signs calling for “Intifada” and “From the River to the Sea.”

“She’ll say that it was no big deal because she could walk away from it, but I think it changed her,” Reinmann said.

“When institutions that receive a significant amount of federal funding continuously allow students on their campus to feel scared and to feel discriminated against and to not be able to get into classes — if we don’t hold places accountable under Title VI, there’s no point in having Title VI,” Reinmann said.

She said that she strongly believes in the First Amendment, even the right to express hateful views, as long as it is done in a manner that is civil and in compliance with relevant regulations. But she emphasized that speech that incites violence is not free speech. 

She said that college campuses need to fulfill their legal responsibilities to protect students against discrimination, and if they fail to do so, the law is clear that their funding should be revoked, with due process.

“When institutions that receive a significant amount of federal funding continuously allow students on their campus to feel scared and to feel discriminated against and to not be able to get into classes — if we don’t hold places accountable under Title VI, there’s no point in having Title VI,” Reinmann said.

She said she had been involved locally in implementing and improving Holocaust education, work Reinmann said she began when she built a relationship with the Holocaust and Human Education Rights Center in White Plans, N.Y., through her daughter’s bat mitzvah project.

Reinmann said that her daughter told her that her school did not have any dedicated Holocaust education and subsequently, as the head of the middle school parent-teacher association, Reinmann worked with the school to bring in a Holocaust survivor to speak and launch a Holocaust education program.

Reinmann found that her daughter’s high school did not recognize International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and she joined a Jewish parents’ group which pressed the school to institute an annual day of special classes for students from second through twelfth grade on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

She said that more than 70 families from the school also came together last year for a Shabbat dinner, with the goal of “really making the Jewish religion not so obscure to people.”

Before facing Lawler — or another Republican, should he decide to run for governor of New York — in the general election, Reinmann will face Rockland County legislator Beth Davidson and likely other Democrats in the Democratic primary. The district is among House Democrats’ top targets to flip in the upcoming midterms.

Reinmann has spent the last 10 years leading 914Cares, an anti-poverty charity based in Westchester County, but said that with the return of the Trump administration, she felt she could do more to make a difference on the issues that she cares about by stepping up to run for federal office.

She said that her experience at 914Cares has exposed her to and given her experience working with a broad cross-section of the Westchester community, from affluent donors to underresourced communities. She said she also formed local networks with schools, health care centers, day cares, police and fire departments and other nonprofits to distribute assistance and meet people where they are.

Reinmann’s organization does not take federal money, but she said she has been involved in local, state and national political advocacy on poverty issues. 

Her key issues in Congress, she said, would be affordability, supporting unions, poverty awareness and gun safety legislation, naming several fellow New York Democrats including Reps. Pat Ryan (D-NY), George Latimer (D-NY) and Grace Meng (D-NY) as specific members she’s hoping to work with on such issues.

She also emphasized the need to restore the U.S.’ standing globally, repair relationships with allies that Trump has damaged and restore USAID, as well as protect government services that the administration has or may attempt to cut.

The National Republican Congressional Committee announced on Monday that it’s targeting Rep. Jared Moskowitz’s (D-FL) South Florida district as a potential opportunity to flip a Democratic-held seat in the 2026 midterms, honing in on one of the most heavily Jewish congressional districts in the country.

Moskowitz took office in January 2023 in the district that includes parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, including some of Fort Lauderdale, Deerfield Beach, Boca Raton, Coral Springs and Parkland. The district, once safely Democratic, has been trending increasingly competitive in recent years, particularly in the wake of the Florida redistricting cycle. The Cook Political Report rates the district “Lean Democrat.”

“Out-of-touch Democrat Jared Moskowitz has repeatedly bent the knee to the most extreme wing of his party instead of putting his constituents — and common sense — first,” NRCC spokesperson Maureen O’Toole said in a statement, pointing to his votes against government funding legislation and a bill banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. “Moskowitz is more interested in getting on TV than delivering for Floridians. With a strong Republican field ready to step up and challenge him, Moskowitz’s days in Congress are numbered.”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee did not respond to a request for comment. Moskowitz was not on the DCCC’s initial list of endangered “frontline” incumbents. 

Moskowitz has cut a unique profile in Congress: he’s often shown a willingness to reach across the aisle in policymaking and has appeared on conservative media, even as he has also enjoyed sparring with Republicans. The former state senator also has bipartisan credentials back home, having been appointed by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis as the director of emergency management in the state, and later as a Broward County commissioner.

He has frequently worked with Republicans, and broken with many in his own party, on issues related to Israel, Iran and antisemitism, at times criticizing the Biden administration’s actions. Given that pro-Israel policy is a major priority for many voters in the district, it could become a focus on the campaign trail.

Moskowitz was briefly floated as a potential nominee for the Trump administration to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and is seen as having ambitions for a statewide campaign.

Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist in Florida, said that the district is “a jump ball,” noting that President Donald Trump and Republicans continue to gain ground in the state, but said that “the biggest issue the Republicans are going to have is that Jared is pretty skilled” as a politician. 

National Republicans did not make concerted efforts to flip the seat in the 2022 or 2024 cycles.

O’Connell said that the NRCC’s early campaign will likely be focused on attacking Moskowitz’s image and popularity to make him an easier target, before looking at specific candidates to recruit or back.

“If they can do that successfully and make the case that he’s not a common-sense Democrat but in fact someone who is hook, line and sinker a Democrat, they think that they can probably knock him off,” O’Connell continued.

Former state Rep. George Moraitis, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, is the most prominent Republican to enter the race on the GOP side thus far. Moraitis is centering his campaign on issues including the economy and national security.

Jewish Democratic leaders in the district largely argue that Moskowitz is popular enough locally — particularly when it comes to pro-Israel policy — that he should be relatively safe from a challenge. Moskowitz won reelection in 2024 with 52% of the vote.

But the Republican inroads in the South Florida district are significant: After President Joe Biden won Moskowitz’s district by a comfortable 13-point margin in 2020, Vice President Kamala Harris barely eked by, with less than a two-point margin of victory four years later.

“I think they’ve underestimated Jared before, and they’ll continue to do that again. I’m convinced he’ll win reelection,” Mitch Ceasar, a former chair of the Broward County Democratic Party, told Jewish Insider. “And as to folks who sometimes think he takes an approach that’s not exactly in line with the party — well, he’s voting exactly in line with his district.”

Ceasar argued that, while the margins may be close, Moskowitz is a skilled campaigner and fundraiser and is deeply in tune with his district, making it difficult for Republicans to challenge him.

Former state Rep. Joseph Geller predicted that, in the more favorable environment Democrats are likely to face in 2026, Moskowitz will expand his margin of victory.

“They can make it a fight, [but] I don’t think they’re going to beat Jared,” Geller said. “That is a function of him doing what he needs to do, but I know Jared. He’s got to raise the money, he’s got to run the campaign, he’s got to get his message out, he’s got to have people see him. But he does those things. That’s why he’s in there to begin with.”

“If he does what he needs to do, and I have every reason to think he will, he will win,” Geller reiterated. He also urged progressives in the district not to “let perfect be the enemy of the good, and [Moskowitz] is a good congressman and a good public servant and a good Democrat.”

Ceasar said he did not have hard data on the issue, but speculated that the growing Orthodox Jewish community in the district, particularly in Boca Raton, may be driving some of the rightward shift in the district.

Geller attributed that shift more to trends unfavorable to Democrats nationally and statewide in the past two election cycles, more than any factors specific to the district itself. 

“I think Jared Moskowitz in ‘26 in a better environment does just fine,” Geller said. 

New Jersey legislation codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism is splitting the Democratic field in the gubernatorial race, after one leading candidate said last week he’d veto the bill.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) told JI this week that she supported legislation under consideration in the state that would codify the IHRA definition as New Jersey’s official definition of antisemitism for assessing cases of antisemitic discrimination. “I’ve supported the IHRA definition in the U.S. House, and would support the current state Senate bill to combat the alarming rise of antisemitism in New Jersey,” Sherrill said in a statement to JI.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer’s (D-NJ) campaign indicated in a statement that he also supports the bill. His campaign manager, Chelsea Brossard, noted that he “helped write and pass” the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which codifies the IHRA definition at the Department of Education. 

“Since October 7th, antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed to an all-time high in New Jersey. This is unacceptable, and Josh will continue working tirelessly at all levels of government to protect Jewish students and families from all forms of hate,” Brossard said.

Those comments come after Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, who has touted his Jewish heritage on the campaign trail, said he was opposed to the legislation, arguing that it could infringe on criticism of Israel and ultimately exacerbate antisemitism.

Three other candidates in the race — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller and former state Sen. Steve Sweeney — did not respond to requests for comment on the IHRA issue.

Fulop and Sherrill have both recently come under scrutiny for campaigning alongside progressive leaders who’ve been outspoken against Israel. 

A Jewish leader in the state told JI that Fulop’s IHRA stance, in combination to his ties to anti-Israel figures including Sadaf Jaffer, an outspoken anti-Israel former state assembly member, have generated growing frustration and a sense of betrayal among members of the Jewish community.

Fulop aggressively rejected the notion that his IHRA stance was motivated by politics, and said his comments have been misconstrued by various constituencies. “What I said was a very thoughtful, careful, deliberate answer that serves very little political benefit because I answered it honestly,” Fulop told JI.

He said that, in the same comments about IHRA, he had supported the New Jersey-Israel Commission and anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions legislation and said that Gov. Phil Murphy had not been aggressive enough in response to antisemitism on college campuses.

He also said Jaffer was only a campaign volunteer and that they don’t agree on all issues. “Anybody who says that I’m antisemitic or I don’t sympathize with the Jewish community is totally misguided, and they’re purely political.”

Another Jewish leader said that many Jewish politicos see Gottheimer’s record as the strongest on antisemitism and supporting Israel, but that without an aggressive advocacy effort highlighting the differences in the candidates’ records, the Jewish vote could end up split among various candidates, with voters prioritizing other issues.

A key political dynamic in the race is becoming the fight between New Jersey’s Democratic machine and those casting themselves as outsiders opposing that machine. Institutional support has largely been divided between Sherrill and Gottheimer, but some leaders who had initially backed Gottheimer recently switched their allegiance to Sherrill.

“Party leadership in New Jersey is a little bit scared,” Dan Cassino, the executive director of the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll, told JI. “There’s a strong incentive for that group, for institutional Democrats, to unify behind one candidate and make sure that candidate gets the nomination, to preserve at least the perception that they’re able to pick the candidates and therefore maintain their power.”

If Sherrill and Gottheimer split the moderate vote, one of the other candidates could muster enough support to achieve victory. No reliable polling is available in the race at this point.

Fulop and Baraka seemed to pick up momentum from strong performances in a recent debate and have been making strides in fundraising, Cassino added. In that debate, Sherrill appeared to be “riding the fence,” he continued, and avoiding controversial policy positions, while Gottheimer was on the receiving end of criticism from several other candidates.

As they’re trying to lock down a winning coalition, some candidates are trying to balance appealing to both left-wing constituencies critical of Israel and the state’s sizable Arab and Muslim populations, as well as the state’s significant Jewish population and the moderate voters they’ll need to win the general election.

Baraka’s candidacy could raise concerns in the Jewish community given that his father, poet Amiri Baraka, claimed in a 2002 poem that Israelis knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance. A Baraka-backed initiative in Newark held an event on Oct. 7, 2023, honoring the elder Baraka, which featured multiple speakers who have been accused of antisemitism. Baraka has defended his father from accusations of antisemitism.

A Jewish leader in the state said that Baraka’s base largely coincides with anti-Israel parts of the Democratic Party.

Sweeney, a moderate Democrat and the former senate president, supported anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions legislation when he was in the state Senate and led legislation to combat antisemitism in schools in 2019 which largely utilized the IHRA definition. Hailing from southern New Jersey, his base of support is expected to come largely from that part of the state, potentially including some Jewish voters in the Cherry Hill area.

The Jewish leader said that Sweeney’s record on Jewish issues has been unobjectionable.

Spiller, the former mayor of Montclair, N.J., could face issues among Jewish voters in the state over concerns about antisemitism in New Jersey’s public schools, though he has offered condemnations of antisemitism in the past. He’s leaning into education issues on the trail. The Jewish leader described the teachers’ union as having a poor record on Israel issues.

Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) has strong words against antisemitism. 

“Antisemitism has no place in society, period,” he told Jewish Insider in a candidate questionnaire. “It’s horrifying any time you see hate perpetrated against Jewish people in the United States or anywhere around the world.”

Despite his emphatic beliefs, Perdue’s opponent in Georgia’s upcoming Senate election, former journalist Jon Ossoff — who is Jewish — has argued that Perdue himself has recently perpetrated antisemitic hatred. 

In late July, Perdue’s campaign tactics came under scrutiny when the first-term Republican senator published a Facebook ad that enlarged Ossoff’s nose — a classic antisemitic stereotype. A spokesman for Perdue told The Forward, which first reported on the image, that the edit was “accidental” and the ad would be removed from the site. 

But Ossoff wasn’t buying it. “This is the oldest, most obvious, least original antisemitic trope in history,” the 33-year-old Democratic candidate wrote in a Twitter statement when the ad was publicized by national media outlets. “Senator, literally no one believes your excuses.”

(Read the complete Perdue and Ossoff questionnaires, along with many others on JI’s interactive election map.)

Perdue did not mention the ad in his responses to the JI questionnaire, which includes a question asking candidates whether they believe there is a concerning rise of antisemitism, including in their own party.  

“I’ve been a friend of Israel and the Jewish community since I was very young,” the senator averred. “Since I got to the U.S. Senate, I’ve made fighting antisemitism and all forms of bigotry a top priority. Unfortunately, we saw this issue at the forefront in 2017 after a string of bomb threats at Jewish Community Centers across the country. That was unacceptable, and I worked with national security officials in the Trump administration to make sure there would be a long-term strategy to protect these JCCs and other places of worship.”

For his part, Ossoff also chose to not directly address Perdue’s controversial ad in responding to JI’s questionnaire, despite his previous caustic statement directed at the incumbent. 

“Sectarianism and racism often increase at moments of great social, economic, and political stress — especially when dangerous political demagogues like Donald Trump deliberately inflame mistrust, resentment, and hatred to gain power,” Ossoff told JI. “Racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia have increased in America as President Trump has deliberately pitted Americans against Americans, stirring up conflict within our society rather than uniting us to move forward together as one people.”

But Ossoff’s answer could also have been regarded as an implicit critique of Perdue’s reelection tactics. “I learned about public and political leadership from my mentor, Congressman John Lewis, who taught me to focus on our shared humanity above our racial, religious and cultural differences,” Ossoff continued, referring to the Georgia representative and civil rights leader who endorsed Ossoff before his death on July 17. 

“My state, our country and all humanity will only achieve our full potential and build the Beloved Community [a term coined by Lewis] by recognizing that we are all in this together, that our interests are aligned and that hatred, prejudice and discrimination only hold us back.”

Despite the tension between the two candidates, both emphasized their support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

“Any peace deal should protect the political freedom and human rights of all people in the region and ensure Israel’s security as a homeland for the Jewish people without threat of terrorism or invasion,” Ossoff declared. “The aim of the peace process should be secure and peaceful coexistence, political freedom and prosperity for people of all faiths and nationalities in the Middle East.”

“Obviously there is no simple fix but a two-state solution would be the best outcome for both sides,” Perdue told JI. “However, that won’t happen unless the Palestinians are willing to come to the table, negotiate in good faith and cut ties with terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The Palestinian Authority has to end their practice of providing stipends for known terrorists. It’s ridiculous and the reason I support the Taylor Force Act. We’ve got to make sure the United States isn’t sending foreign aid until these payments end. Israel has made it clear that they are open to living in peace with the Palestinians. You’ve seen a willingness by Israel to begin negotiations. The Palestinians must do the same in order to solve this issue.”

Perdue and Ossoff also both expressed their commitment to ensuring that Israel maintains its security edge in the Middle East. 

“The special relationship between the U.S. and Israel is deeply rooted and strategically important to both countries, but it cannot be taken for granted,” Ossoff told JI. “Security cooperation, trade and cultural ties enrich and strengthen both countries. The U.S. Congress, with strong bipartisan support, should play an essential role in maintaining and strengthening healthy and open relations between the U.S. and Israel.”

“The U.S.-Israel relationship is both special and strategic,” Perdue said, while noting that his first foreign trip as a senator was to Israel. “It is special because we share the common values of freedom and democracy, and it’s strategic because Israel is America’s strongest ally in the Middle East.”

“President Trump has shown that Israel is and will continue to be a priority,” Perdue added. “By moving our U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, the president recognized the historic and modern reality that Jerusalem is the center for the Jewish people and all parts of Israeli government. Jerusalem is unquestionably Israel’s capital.”

Still, Perdue and Ossoff differ when it comes to the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). 

Perdue supports Trump’s decision to pull out of the agreement. “President Obama’s Iran deal was an unmitigated disaster,” he told JI. “It’s very clear that the Obama-Biden Administration’s weak foreign policy only emboldened Iran and made the world less safe. Trusting Iran to change was not only naive, but it also created a national security risk for our ally Israel.”

Ossoff disagrees, with qualifications. “Nuclear weapons proliferation is one of the gravest threats to U.S. and world security,” he said. “I support robust efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons anywhere. An Iranian nuclear weapons capability would pose an existential threat to Israel and other U.S. allies and would pose a critical threat to U.S. national security.”

“I opposed the Trump administration’s unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA,” he added. “In the Senate, I will support U.S. participation in an agreement that prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons, whether based on the JCPOA, another multilateral agreement or a desperately needed new global nuclear arms reduction and nonproliferation treaty.”

Ossoff, who narrowly lost a 2017 congressional bid, is hoping he can best Perdue in November’s election as the Democrats are strategizing to flip the Senate. The Cook Political Report has rated the race a “toss-up.”

In November 1988, a 51-year-old upstart Democratic candidate named Nita Lowey overcame the odds to defeat two-term Republican incumbent Rep. Joseph J. DioGuardi in a nail-biter of a congressional election. Lowey’s upset, all those years ago, feels reminiscent of the current political moment, as establishment players face stiff competition from progressives.

Last August, Lowey got a taste of that dynamic when Mondaire Jones, a 33-year-old attorney, announced he would challenge Lowey in the Democratic primary. Two months later, Lowey declared that she would not seek re-election. The congresswoman has said she made her decision independent of Jones, who is now poised to succeed her. But the timing may have been significant: Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), who serves in a neighboring district and entered Congress in Lowey’s class, appears to have fallen to a left-leaning challenger in the June 23 primary.

Lowey, for her part, is sanguine about the recent primary election in her own district, the results of which have not yet been officially called. “Whoever wins, I wish them well,” she told Jewish Insider in a phone interview. “I just would hope that they would continue a legacy that, to me, is very important: helping people.”

As she prepares to retire at the end of her term, Lowey, 83, reflected on her decades-long run serving the northern suburbs of New York City. 

“It’s been an extraordinary opportunity for me,” said the congresswoman, who represents the 17th congressional district, which includes portions of Westchester and all of Rockland County.

That is, of course, an understatement. Throughout her 32 years in office, Lowey has established herself as a formidable presence in Washington, having ascended to the upper ranks of the House Appropriations Committee, which she now chairs along with its subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs.

“She was a powerhouse,” said Howard Wolfson, a Democratic strategist who worked for Lowey in the early 1990s as her chief of staff and press secretary and in the early 2000s when she served as the first chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “I learned an enormous amount from her — about how she operated, how she built coalitions, how she was able to work with people from both sides of the aisle, how she used her charisma and her energy and enthusiasm.”

“She wanted to make a difference,” Wolfson added. “She was there to legislate.”

In her conversation with JI, Lowey rattled off a number of achievements, such as her advocacy on behalf of public television, abortion rights, food allergy labeling, gender equity in preclinical research and environmental protections for the Long Island Sound. 

Her work advocating for pro-Israel causes, she said, is a part of her legacy she views as particularly important. “The work that I’ve done regarding the Israel-United States relationship almost makes me feel as [though] I’m carrying on l’dor v’dor, the tradition,” said the Bronx-born Lowey, who is Jewish and has long felt a kinship with Israel.

“I think it’s very important to continue that relationship,” said Lowey, adding her concern that partisan politics have, more recently, interfered with bipartisan support for the Jewish state. 

Lowey recalled the time in 2015 that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who she refers to using his nickname, Bibi — appeared before Congress to deliver a controversial speech that was highly critical of former President Barack Obama’s support for the Iran nuclear deal. 

“I called Bibi on the phone and I said, ‘Your coming here without a bipartisan invitation is a mistake,’” she said. “‘I will make sure that you get another invitation, but please, you’ve got to keep Israel a bipartisan issue.’ He came anyway. He didn’t listen to me.”

The congresswoman is also worried about possible annexation of parts of the West Bank, which Netanyahu has said could happen as soon as this month. “I have many concerns about the annexation,” she said. “This expansion would put an end to a two-state solution, in my judgement.” 

Still, Lowey spoke affectionately of Netanyahu, whom she has known for decades. Earlier this year, she traveled to Israel as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. 

“It was a very emotional — a very emotional time — for me,” said Lowey, who remembers chatting with the prime minister about her first trip to Israel as a member of Congress, during which they rode a helicopter together around the country. “It was just the two of us,” she remembered, “flying over and understanding what this issue was all about.”

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) appear at an event in New York in May 2014. (Gary He/ U.S. Department of Labor)

Constituents in Lowey’s district, which includes a sizable Jewish population, are more than grateful for her commitment to their needs.

“She’s always available, which is always so special,” said Elliot Forchheimer, CEO of the Westchester Jewish Council. “People appreciated being able to hear from her and being able to have a quick conversation with her, which she would take back to her office and down to Washington as needed.”

Debra Weiner, who is active in the Westchester Jewish community, said Lowey’s voice will be “sorely missed” after she steps down. “A big hole will be left both in our Westchester community here and certainly representing us in the United States Congress.”

“Many of us felt that she was very much one of us,” said Michael Miller, executive vice president and CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, recalling that Lowey would wear a Lion of Judah pin indicating her annual support for the United Jewish Appeal. 

Lowey’s decision to work on the foreign operations subcommittee, Miller added, made her their “go-to person.” Miller also noted that Lowey had helped procure federal security funding for nonprofit religious organizations as the country saw an uptick in incidents of antisemitic violence. 

“We owe her a tremendous debt of gratitude,” Miller said.

Jackie Shaw, executive director of the Interfaith Council For Action in Ossining, was equally appreciative of Lowey’s service. 

“Through Nita Lowey’s hard work and dedication to underserved communities, IFCA was able to receive funding to address critical housing needs,” Shaw said in an email. “With these funds, IFCA was able to continue its mission of providing safe, quality affordable housing. Nita’s leadership will be sorely missed.”

In a statement, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), echoed that sentiment. Lowey’s “career is marked by her fierce advocacy for working families and steadfast desire to give underrepresented communities a seat at the table,” she said, adding, “I will miss seeing her in the halls of Congress.”

Lowey looks back on her tenure in Congress with a strong sense of accomplishment, but pointed out that nothing came without a fight. 

“I was one of a small group of women when I got to Congress,” the 16-term congresswoman said. The number of female representatives who now serve in the House, Lowey told JI, gives her faith that the country will be well-served as she prepares to retire. “They come to me and want to learn from me, but I’m continuing to learn from them as I try to help them adjust to this important responsibility.”

More broadly, Lowey emphasized the work she has done since 1989 for constituents in need. “I’m very proud of all the casework we’ve done just helping people,” she told JI. “There are so many thousands of people who have benefited because of the great casework we do in my district office.”

Not that she has any plans of becoming complacent in her final six months in office. 

Rabbi Steven Kane, who works at Congregation Sons of Israel in Briarcliff Manor, said he spoke with Lowey just last week about a $100,000 grant his synagogue had received for security upgrades. Though Lowey is in her final term, Kane marveled at the fact that she had made the decision to personally inform him of the grant.

“We were very fortunate to have her,” he said.

Lowey has also been working to pass the bipartisan Middle East Partnership for Peace Act, which, she said, creates joint economic ventures between Israelis and Palestinians as well as “people-to-people” programs — all with the intention of encouraging a “strong foundation,” as Lowey put it, for a two-state solution. 

The act, she seemed to suggest, would be one of the crowning achievements of her legacy. “I want to get all these things done before I leave,” she said. “So I’m working very hard.”