Germany remained the country with the most antisemitic incidents relative to its Jewish population in 2025, among Diaspora countries with major Jewish populations, according to a new report from leading Jewish groups released on Wednesday. 

According to the report, nearly 70 antisemitic incidents per 1,000 Jewish residents were recorded in Germany in 2025.

Not since the terror attack on a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, more than 30 years ago has the Jewish Diaspora experienced as deadly a year as 2025. 

Worldwide, 20 people were killed last year in four antisemitic attacks across three continents — all in “J7” countries, the seven countries with the largest Jewish Diaspora populations —  including deadly incidents in Sydney, Australia, and Manchester, England. Eighty-five people were killed in the 1994 AMIA attack in Buenos Aires, which still marks the deadliest terror attack on Jews outside of Israel.

The data comes from the second annual Report on Antisemitism by the J7 — a global alliance formed in July 2023 by major Jewish organizations representing the seven largest diaspora communities outside Israel: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Argentina and Australia. 

Tel Aviv University published a study with the same findings in April.

The J7’s 52-page report tracked over 23,000 antisemitic incidents across J7 countries in 2025 — a 136% total increase and a 97% surge in violent acts compared to 2022, prior to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel.

While the number of antisemitic incidents in the U.S. plummeted by a third last year, assaults with a deadly weapon spiked, according to a May report by the Anti-Defamation League. The May 2025 killing of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington marked the first Jews to be killed in antisemitic attacks on U.S. soil since 2019. One month later, a Jewish victim died from her injuries sustained in a firebombing attack in Boulder, Colo., at a march in support of the Israeli hostages. 

Every J7 country’s antisemitic incidents remain dramatically above pre-Oct. 7 levels. Australia saw the sharpest rise of antisemitic incidents since 2021 (+270%), followed by Germany (+215%), the U.S. (+131%) and France (124%). Anti-Zionism was a key motivation behind a significant share of incidents: 48% in the U.K., 45% in the U.S. and 23% in Germany.

The report also features a new “in focus” section highlighting Ireland, which saw 143 antisemitic incidents — a rate of 65 per 1,000 Jewish people — while the country lacks a national strategy to combat antisemitism and dedicated security funding for religious institutions. 

“The J7 Annual Report makes clear that antisemitism is no longer a temporary surge, but a sustained global crisis affecting Jewish communities across all seven countries,” said William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which represents the U.S. along with the ADL in the J7. Daroff called on governments, institutions and technology companies to “act with urgency, enforce the law, strengthen security and ensure that Jews can live openly and safely.”

New Jersey, the state with one of the largest Jewish populations in the country, has become something of a political nightmare for Jewish voters who have seen Democrats turn to far-left, virulently anti-Israel candidates in this year’s primaries. 

That trend continued Tuesday night as Democratic voters in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District nominated plastic surgeon Adam Hamawy, despite his past affiliations with Islamist extremists, who prevailed with about 28% of the vote in a crowded Democratic primary field. 

Hamawy, with the support of left-wing groups, some progressive lawmakers and the anti-Israel American Priorities super PAC, prevailed over his opponents with regional bases but limited support outside their local communities. No pro-Israel groups or other moderate-minded outside PACs decided to spend money on anti-Hamawy attack ads, allowing him to consolidate enough backing from his base to prevail with a relatively small plurality. 

Hamawy was a former associate of Omar Abdel Rahman, also known as the Blind Sheikh, who was convicted of inspiring the terrorists who engineered the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Hamawy later served as a defense witness during Abdel Rahman’s 1995 trial, and volunteered around the same time in Bosnia with a group later shuttered as a front for Al-Qaida. 

Despite his baggage, Hamawy is expected to win election to Congress in the November general election, given the central New Jersey district’s heavily Democratic electorate. 

Democratic voters in the neighboring 11th Congressional District also overwhelmingly renominated left-wing Rep. Analilia Mejia (D-NJ), who was the surprise winner in a special election primary earlier this year after AIPAC’s super PAC spent money attacking the more moderate former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ)

But while Mejia won a whopping 82% of the Democratic vote against her long-shot opposition, there was a significant protest vote against her in the towns with a large Jewish constituency: Livingston and Millburn.

In more favorable news for pro-Israel moderate voters, Democrats nominated former Navy pilot Rebecca Bennett, who flew missions over the Straits of Hormuz, to run against Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) in a major battleground district.

“I just feel very strongly that Israel has a right to defend itself and has a right to exist, and that the United States needs to be able to support Israel, and it shouldn’t be partisan,” Bennett told Jewish Insider last August. “I think we should be supporting Israel as an ally, regardless of political party.”

She also told JI she supports continuing U.S. aid to Israel without restrictions or conditions.

Kean, who has represented the 7th Congressional District since 2022, has been missing from Congress for the last several months with an undisclosed illness. His uncertain personal circumstances have made Democrats bullish of their prospects in the swing district, which Kean only won by five points in 2024.

Meanwhile, Rep. Robert Menendez Jr. (D-NJ), a pro-Israel Democrat, comfortably brushed back a challenge from far-left, anti-Israel candidate Mussab Ali, winning 70% of the primary vote. 

The race to replace New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill in her northern New Jersey district, an affluent, suburban area with a sizable Jewish population, has attracted around a dozen Democratic candidates from a wide array of backgrounds. But three Jewish leaders in the state plugged into the local political scene say they see Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill as the likely front-runner in the 11th Congressional District, with former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) as a formidable candidate as well. 

The primary election is set for Feb. 5, with a general election on April 16.

Gill, a former aide to Gov. Phil Murphy, has been endorsed by the outgoing governor, and is considered the leading Democrat, the Jewish leaders said, because he’s a well-known and well-liked figure in the district, has the backing of the Democratic Party establishment, entered the race relatively early and has long been seen as an up-and-coming leader in the area.

He’s also been working aggressively to secure supporters and donors, two leaders said.

But he could also face attacks over his role as Murphy’s campaign manager in 2017, when he faced allegations by a top campaign aide who accused Gill of running a “toxic” workplace, attempting to push her out of the campaign, of misogynistic behavior toward her and other female campaign staff and of using a misogynistic slur in an argument with her. Gill denies those allegations.

Malinowski is a known quantity from his three terms in Congress and has been endorsed by Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) as a counterweight to the New Jersey political machine — but there’s only partial overlap between Malinowski’s former House district and the neighboring seat he’s running in now, setting up potential attacks on him as an outsider.

“Malinowski is a legitimate, serious candidate. He’s in the mix. I would not rule him out. He’s a well-known name. He’s got the history here. He’s deeply connected,” one leader said. “If I had to gauge it right now, I would say Gill one, and [Malinowski] two.”

They also noted that the limits of Murphy’s influence were clear in Kim’s election in the Senate race, in which he garnered more statewide party support than Tammy Murphy, the wife of the current governor, who dropped her bid before the primary.

One Jewish leader said that, given his ties to Murphy and their ideological alignment, Gill would likely be a reliable supporter of the Jewish community, as Murphy generally has been. The leader noted that Gill had also worked in the past with Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and the late  Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), both of whom were strong supporters of Israel.

“I think you’ll see someone who is a practical, thoughtful person in their engagement with the Jewish community,” they said.

But two other Jewish community leaders noted that Gill’s wife, a state representative, has raised concerns among some in the community.

Assemblywoman Alixon Collazos-Gill attended a Palestinian flag raising event in Clifton, N.J., which featured denunciations of Israel, accusations that Israel was committing genocide and deliberately inflicting famine in Gaza and calls for “no money for wars.”

Collazos-Gill, who has attended flag raising events for various other communities in Clifton as well, posted on Facebook after the event, “I was moved by the sense of community, love and resilience. Thank you Clifton for the kind invitation and the Palestinian community that organized the event.”

She was also critical of the Trump administration’s efforts to deport Mahmoud Khalil, an anti-Israel activist at Columbia University. “So many things are at stake: due process, freedom of speech, the right to peacefully protest, democracy. This is a warning that this can happen to any non-citizen. We should all be concerned,” she posted on Facebook.

She was also endorsed by the New Jersey branch of the Working Families Party, which at the national level has accused Israel of mass starvation in Israel and called for the U.S. to condition aid to the Jewish state. It supported an immediate ceasefire in Gaza two weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.

And she attended a meet-and-greet event in May at the invitation of prominent members of the Palestinian American Community Center, a local Palestinian group. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) urged the Department of Justice to investigate the group in April for hosting an alleged affiliate of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine at its annual conference. In social media comments, an organizer of the meet and greet emphasized that it had occurred off-site and was not formally affiliated with the PACC, a nonprofit group.

Collazos-Gill was vague about what was discussed in a Facebook post, but thanked the two PACC members for “inviting me to join you in these meaningful conversations about the issues that matter most to you.”

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

The Jewish leader who praised Gill said they had spoken to Collazos-Gill recently and didn’t hear her express any anti-Israel sentiments, and said she had indicated an interest in cultivating relationships with the Jewish community. They also noted that Collazos-Gill is sponsoring legislation to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

“Regardless, I do think Brendan is a supporter of Israel and the Jewish community as his own person,” the leader continued.

While in Congress, Malinowski was generally a reliable supporter of Israel and a voice against antisemitism, but some of his views towards Israel since Oct. 7, 2023, have raised skepticism in the Jewish community, one leader noted.

In public interviews, he expressed support last year for President Joe Biden’s moves to pressure Israel against entering the Gaza city of Rafah by withholding some arms shipments.

Also in the race is Jeff Grayzel, the deputy mayor of Morris Township, N.J., and a leader in his local Jewish community relations council and federation. While Jewish leaders praised Grayzel and said he’d be a strong voice for Jewish community priorities — one described him as clearly the strongest advocate on those issues — they were skeptical that he would have a path to victory against better-known figures such as Gill and Malinowski.

Grayzel, speaking to JI last week, pushed back, arguing that neither Malinowski nor Gill are particularly well-known in the district. 

He predicted that Malinowski and Gill, training their fire at each other will provide an opportunity for other candidates to emerge, and that the wide field will mean that a fairly low vote percentage is needed to win.

Grayzel outlined a path to victory that includes winning Morris County, where he lives and which makes up 40% of the district, as well as picking up the substantial Jewish vote in Essex County.

“People are sick and tired of politics as usual,” Grayzel said. “I think I have the message that’s going to resound the most with the voters, coming at it as a [former] mayor who has literally solved problems, who’s delivered results for his community.”

The Jewish community, Grayzel added, will “have to come out and vote. … If Jews are sick and tired of antisemitism, if Jews are tired of how Israel has been treated, the answer to that is to vote.”

Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way also entered the race, but the Jewish leaders largely said they do not see her as a strong contender, given that she entered the race late and is not particularly well-known, despite her statewide position.

Former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), who established himself as a prominent voice on Capitol Hill on foreign policy and national security issues in Congress between 2019 and 2023, told Jewish Insider last week, as he mounts a congressional comeback bid, that he’s “as pro-Israel as I have ever been.”

But he also expressed more openness to policies conditioning or restricting aid, and called for the U.S. to serve as a “counterweight” to the Israeli far right. And he said that U.S. aid shouldn’t be used in furtherance of Israeli actions that the U.S. itself doesn’t support. At the same time, he expressed support for the Trump administration’s Gaza peace plan and strikes on Iran’s nuclear program.

Malinowski is one of the many Democrats who have declared their candidacies in the special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, recently vacated by Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill. The 11th District, an affluent suburb with a sizable Jewish population, borders and incorporates portions of the district Malinowski represented for two terms.

Malinowski said that he’s “as pro-Israel as I have ever been, in the sense that I believe that Israel should be safe and secure as a Jewish and democratic state, and that the United States has a moral and strategic interest in defending Israel as that kind of state at the same.” 

Malinowski said that “to be pro-Israel for me also requires listening to what the hostage families have been saying for the last couple of years, to what hundreds of Israeli security officials have been saying to their government and directly to the United States about the need to bring the war in Gaza to an end and to have some plan that addresses the legitimate desire of Palestinians to have their rights respected and to have a future that they can strive towards.”

“I would not seek to enable [any] ally to do something that I thought should not be done. It’s just a basic foreign policy principle that I think most people would agree is straightforward,” Malinowski told JI, when asked about the possibility of conditioning or suspending aid to Israel. “I would make case-by-case judgments given what’s happening on the ground.”

He said he would not support U.S. policies that would hurt Israel’s ability to protect itself, but added that the U.S. should “serve as a counterweight” to the pressure that an Israel government may feel from Israel’s far right and “use our influence and leverage and our honest voice to steer our ally away from policies that are self-destructive.”

He expressed a similar view in public interviews last year when he offered support for President Joe Biden’s moves to suspend some U.S. arms sales to Israel to pressure Israel against mounting a military incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

“I would not seek to enable [any] ally to do something that I thought should not be done. It’s just a basic foreign policy principle that I think most people would agree is straightforward,” Malinowski told JI, when asked about the possibility of conditioning or suspending aid to Israel. “I would make case-by-case judgments given what’s happening on the ground.”

He said he was not committing to supporting conditions on aid but also did not rule them out depending on the situation. “There’s no U.S. ally in the world that I would guarantee a rubber stamp on every request for military assistance, that’s not the way U.S. foreign policy functions,” Malinowski said.

He said on X in April of last year that the U.S. has, in practice, failed to apply the globally applicable U.S. laws conditioning all arms sales on human rights compliance to Israel. He said that a decision to enforce that law last year to suspend arms sales to certain Israeli units was a “step towards treating Israel as we would any other partner.”

He added that the purpose of the law is to seek remediation of the issues to prevent the need to cut off arms, as was the case for most of the Israeli units to which it was applied.

At the same time, Malinowski indicated to JI a level of skepticism of efforts to halt all offensive aid to Israel, which have been pushed by some former colleagues, arguing that the “distinction between defensive and offensive is hard to make and a bit artificial.”

He expressed support for the Trump administration’s 20-point ceasefire plan for Gaza, saying it “offers the best possible hope for a way forward” and said the U.S. should focus on pushing all parties involved to implement it to its fullest extent, to deploy the international security force to neutralize Hamas and to surge humanitarian aid.

He said any decision on Israel in Congress, including with regard to aid, would be geared toward pursuing that goal.

“I think we’re very far from being able to address the issues of sovereignty and what the ultimate answer to those questions should be,” Malinowski said. “Even many of my Palestinian and Arab American friends, I think, would say that they’re not interested in lip service to a two-state solution right now.”

He said that “serious oversight” is needed from Congress on the deal because he is concerned that Trump will be “tempted to just declare victory and claim his Nobel Peace Prize without doing the hard work of securing implementation of the rest of the plan,” when it will require “steady pressure” — on Hamas and its interlocutors as well as on Israel — to ensure that the situation does not return to the pre-Oct. 7, 2023, status quo.

Malinowski was not supportive of an effort led by some progressive lawmakers to recognize Palestinian statehood, arguing that the U.S. focus should be — and that his focus would be — on more immediate humanitarian and security issues, including ensuring the Trump plan proceeds.

“I think we’re very far from being able to address the issues of sovereignty and what the ultimate answer to those questions should be,” Malinowski explained. “Even many of my Palestinian and Arab American friends, I think, would say that they’re not interested in lip service to a two-state solution right now.”

Malinowski said he did not oppose the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities earlier this year, adding that U.S. intervention likely helped bring the war to a quicker close than it would otherwise have, by bringing the U.S.’ superior capabilities to bear on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He also said he’s “very happy” the Assad regime fell, Hezbollah was “significantly weakened” and the “paper tiger of Iran’s defenses has been exposed.”

At the same time, he argued that any “lasting solution” to Iran’s nuclear program will require a diplomatic agreement with “highly intrusive inspections,” and said President Donald Trump had “exaggerate[d] the impact” of the U.S. strikes.

“My hope is that we will continue to pursue that, rather than imagining that this problem can be addressed just by going to war every few years,” Malinowski said.

At home, Malinowski has spoken publicly at various occasions since the Oct. 7 attacks about anti-Israel and pro-Hamas activism in the U.S. and on college campuses. He argued in May 2024 that students who care about protecting innocent Palestinians were being overshadowed by more extreme voices advocating for the end of Israel, which he called counterproductive.

“The loudest voices are using Gaza’s plight to push a sweeping & more radical agenda of defeating Zionism and “colonialism.” This is not about ending the war but about ending Israel,” Malinowski said on X. “But the actual political effect of these protests has been to shift attention away from Gaza at the very moment (after the World Central Kitchen strike) when opinion was shifting against the war. All our attention should be on getting aid to Gazans, freeing hostages, avoiding more deaths, and what happens post-war. Instead, we have to talk about dumb 19 year olds glorifying Hamas & ‘intifada,’ drowning out the voices of others who sincerely care about saving lives.”

He said those voices also gave right-wing “bad faith partisans” fodder to “cast all legitimate criticism of self-defeating Israeli government policies” as support for Hamas and demand police crackdowns.

“Even though there is a significant problem on the far left that involves anti-Israel protests morphing into calls for an end to Israel as a Jewish state, we don’t quite have a Nazi problem in the Democratic Party in a way that leading Republicans are now acknowledging they do on their side,” Malinowski said.

Malinowski told JI that leaders need to speak up and police antisemitism on their own sides, adding that he “probably underestimated the extent of the problem on the far left” during his time on office but argued that the “problem on the right has gotten much worse and is too often dismissed by critics of the Democratic Party.”

He argued that the problem in the GOP is much more severe than in the Democratic Party. “You have leaders of the party rightly worried, as some on the Republican side are, that a significant share of the young people going into administration positions … have something akin to a Nazi ideology,” he said.

“Even though there is a significant problem on the far left that involves anti-Israel protests morphing into calls for an end to Israel as a Jewish state, we don’t quite have a Nazi problem in the Democratic Party in a way that leading Republicans are now acknowledging they do on their side,” he continued.

He also said that holding social media platforms accountable — a longtime priority for Malinowski — for their amplification of content designed to fuel hatred, will be critical. He said that social media platforms “bear the largest share of responsibility” for increased extremism on both the far left and far right.

Asked about New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s record on Israel and antisemitism issues, Malinowski told JI the Jewish community is “rightly feeling a tremendous amount of anxiety” about rising antisemitic rhetoric and violence.

He said Mamdani has “made a lot of decent promises about the need to reject antisemitism and hatred of all stripes, and about his interest, his determination to listen to people and to bring communities together. And he needs to be held to those promises.”

Malinowski said that if Mamdani follows through, he could prove to be a “potentially very powerful ally against antisemitism” and help to rebuild Jewish-Muslim dialogue that has broken down since Oct. 7.

“But I also understand that he has said things in the past and failed to say some things in the present that cause people understandable anxiety, and therefore everyone has to be vigilant and hold him accountable to the better angels of his nature,” the former congressman continued.

Malinowski said he decided to run for Congress again because “it would be nice to have a Congress again, one that can fulfill its basic constitutional function of checking presidential policies that go too far. … I’d like to contribute to making Congress a coequal branch again.” 

And he argued that his experience in foreign policy generally is one of the key factors that makes him stand out from the rest of the field, explaining that there is a “big shortage” in the House of “people who can conduct oversight of the administration’s foreign policy.”

Asked about emerging attacks on him as a carpetbagger — he previously represented a neighboring district that included only part of the district in which he is now running — Malinowski argued he’s the only lawmaker who has represented any part of the district before and he works in the district as a professor at Seton Hall University.

And he argued that voters are looking for a candidate who can effectively pick up Sherrill’s work where she left off from his first day in office, given his previous service. His previous service, he said “is one of the key distinctions” between him and the rest of the field.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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