When Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland took the stage on Sunday evening at the Capital Jewish Museum’s gala in Washington, he won over the crowd instantly with his opening line: “Shalom, friends.” 

But as he continued his speech, Moore used the occasion — an introduction of the philanthropist David Rubenstein, one of the dinner’s honorees — to decry rising antisemitism in the United States and, in particular, the murder of Israeli Embassy staffers Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky outside the museum in May. 

“We received, once again, a very unneeded reminder of the fact that this nation still has wounds. That the level of antisemitism that we see in our society is not just intolerable, it’s heartbreaking,” said Moore. “I’m a person of deep faith, and while I might not have shared faith with them, Yaron was my brother and Sarah was my sister.” 

“I know that in their name and in their lives, we are committed in the state of Maryland to making sure that Maryland can be a true safe haven for everybody to know that they should always and will always feel comfortable in their own neighborhoods, comfortable in their own environments, comfortable in their own skin, comfortable in their homes of worship, and comfortable in the thing that gives them peace and joy,” said Moore. 

“In the state of Maryland,” Moore continued, “we will make sure that hate will never find oxygen.”

Moore, a popular Democrat who has been floated as a potential Democratic presidential contender, said on Meet the Press last week that he plans to seek reelection in 2026 and serve his full term — effectively ruling out a 2028 White House run.

A book that centers on Palestinian identity is drawing controversy from some Jewish parents in the Montgomery County, Md., public school system after it was assigned to first grade students as required classroom reading, Jewish Insider has learned. 

The book,“Tunjur! Tunjur! Tunjur! A Palestinian Folktale,” written by Margaret Read MacDonald, aims to convey a message to children that there are consequences for taking things that don’t belong to them. It tells the story of a woman who “prayed to Allah” for a child and received a pot as her child. The pot, too young to know right from wrong, had a tendency to steal honey from the marketplace and jewels from the king — until she got caught. As punishment, she was filled with muck. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” the pot’s mother tells her. “You cannot take things that do not belong to you.” 

While the book does not mention Israel, local Jewish leaders and parents voiced concern that the required book’s subtext sends an anti-Israel message to elementary schoolers and that the reference to “Allah” does not belong in a public school setting. 

A syllabus notes that students can receive supplemental reading materials if “any instructional material conflicts with your family’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”

The book’s lesson that “‘you cannot take things that do not belong to you’ echoes activist rhetoric that falsely casts Israel as an oppressor and the Jewish people as imperialist rather than indigenous,” Dana Stangel-Plowe, chief program officer at the North American Values Institute, a nonprofit that monitors antisemitism in K-12 schools, told JI.

“It reinforces a false narrative that erases the historic Jewish connection to Israel. It sends a troubling message to Jewish families during a time of rising antisemitism,” Stangel-Plowe told JI.

Not all Jewish communal leaders agreed that the book was problematic. Guila Franklin Siegel, chief operating officer of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, argued that Jewish families should embrace the book.  

“If the only complaint about this book is that it’s sharing a Palestinian folktale that teaches children not to take things that don’t belong to them, I can’t see what the problem with the book is,” Franklin Siegel told JI. “It will be a shame if Jewish people wind up objecting to books only because they have protagonists who happen to be Palestinian.” 

“There may well be books and materials that do misinform students about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we always monitor that work,” said Franklin Siegel. “If we turn this into a back and forth where parents are requesting opt-outs for any material that they don’t see eye-to-eye with, we’ll wind up in a situation where we’re seeing a significant number of students whose parents are requesting opt-outs for things like Holocaust speakers.” 

Meanwhile, Margery Smelkinson, a parent of four MCPS students, told JI that she would have preferred the district find a children’s book that teaches not to steal “without causing controversy.” 

“The real problem is that MCPS chose a book that even requires an opt-out form — why not just pick another book?” 

Smelkinson called on the school district to prioritize helping students get up to speed in reading, math and science instead of “creating more barriers to learning.”

“I’m concerned and curious if my child was introduced to [similar rhetoric] last year,” Diana Tung, the parent of an MCPS second grader and kindergartener, told JI. “I assume in a public school setting there’s going to be pretty diverse spiritual beliefs [but] the context of the tale itself [concerns me]. The themes should be taught using a different folktale, I’m pretty confident there are plenty.”  

“Books and materials approved to be available for use in classrooms, beyond being in alignment with curriculum standards, are selected to be representative of our very diverse community,” Christopher Cram, a spokesperson for the suburban Washington school system, which is the 15th-largest school district in the country and educates a significant number of Jewish students, told JI. “Students and families expect to be able to see themselves in the materials we use.” 

The school system has faced several antisemitic incidents since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, leading to the school board president, Karla Silvestre, being subpoenaed to testify at a congressional hearing in May 2024. Weeks after the hearing, at least six MCPS school buildings — including three elementary schools — were vandalized with antisemitic graffiti. 

The assignment of the Palestinian folktale as required reading comes two months after the Supreme Court ruled in Mahmoud v. Taylor that MCPS must allow parents to opt their children out of lessons and books that feature LGBTQ+ themes if the material conflicts with their religious beliefs.

The University of Maryland, College Park and Maryland’s attorney general have asked the state to approve their joint request to settle a First Amendment lawsuit brought by the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter.

The request to settle the case, which was not previously publicly available information, was revealed in a memo detailing the agenda for an impending meeting of the Maryland Board of Public Works, which oversees matters impacting the state university system. The university’s settlement, according to the agenda posted to BPW’s website ahead of a Wednesday board meeting, would provide $100,000 to defendants through the CAIR Legal Defense Fund, an arm of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. 

“The University of Maryland College Park and the Office of the Attorney General recommend paying $100,000 to settle all claims, including attorneys’ fees, as in the best interest of the State,” the memo reads. 

The University of Maryland declined to comment to Jewish Insider about its request to settle and Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown did not respond to JI’s request for comment.

On behalf of UMD SJP, CAIR and Palestine Legal filed a lawsuit against the university’s College Park campus last September alleging a violation of the students’ free speech after UMD President Darryll Pines announced that the school had canceled an SJP-sponsored anti-Israel rally slated for the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. 

UMD initially granted SJP a permit last August to hold the Oct. 7 demonstration on the campus’ central McKeldin Mall, prompting swift backlash and calls from campus groups including Hillel and the Jewish Student Union — and from former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who was running for the Senate at the time — for the school to reverse course. 

After the university canceled the protest, SJP filed a lawsuit stating that its First Amendment rights had been violated and a federal judge wrote in an opinion that the group “has demonstrated a substantial likelihood that it will prevail [in its lawsuit] on the merits of its freedom of speech claim.” The university then backtracked a second time and ultimately allowed the demonstration to take place, but the lawsuit moved forward. 

Pines said at the time that the initial decision to cancel the event — and all events scheduled for Oct. 7, other than university sponsored ones — was made following a “safety assessment,” which, he added, did not identify any threats to the campus. 

Einav Tsach, a rising senior studying journalism and business, told JI that amid turmoil around the SJP demonstration, Jewish students still “came together as a strong, vibrant Jewish campus community to mark the one-year anniversary of the horrors perpetrated by Hamas.” 

As the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks approaches this fall, Tsach, the former leader of  Mishelanu, an on-campus Israeli-American cultural association, said that Jewish UMD students “remain focused on marking this solemn day in the most meaningful way possible.”

Other than the controversy around last year’s demonstration, UMD, which has one of the largest Jewish student populations in the country — nearly 20% of the College Park undergraduate student body of more than 30,000 is Jewish — has largely avoided egregious incidents of antisemitism that have occurred on other college campuses. 

Maryland Jewish leaders are expressing disappointment over Sen. Angela Alsobrooks’ (D-MD) decision to support both of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) resolutions blocking U.S. arms sales to Israel despite vowing to oppose such efforts when she campaigned for the Senate last year.

Alsobrooks and 26 of her Democratic colleagues voted on Wednesday evening to block U.S. shipments of automatic weapons that Sanders and others claimed were destined for police units controlled by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right official in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. She also joined 23 Democrats in supporting a second resolution relating to U.S. bombs and bomb guidance kits. 

In a statement on her decision, the Maryland senator said she was joining the “voices of so many who feel the moral imperative to demand change. To witness the inhumanity of starving children and say nothing is not just a dereliction of duty but of conscience.”

“Netanyahu and his government must immediately change course. I remain committed to the U.S.-Israel relationship and my belief that the people of Israel have a right to defend themselves. In this moment, we must all do everything in our power as a global community to get desperately needed aid to the people of Gaza,” Alsobrooks said. 

The votes marked a change in position for Alsobrooks, who campaigned last year in the general election contest for her seat on the promise to not support cutting off aid to Israel and subsequently told Jewish leaders after winning the race that she planned to maintain that vow. It was also a shift from her votes against Sanders’ prior resolutions blocking aid this past spring. 

During the contested Democratic primary, however, she pledged to vote against future arms sales to Israel if the IDF invaded Rafah (an operation that later happened) and agreed with the Biden administration’s threat to withhold offensive weaponry.

In the general election, she moderated her position, and distanced herself from Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-MD) antagonistic record toward the Jewish state, which has alienated much of Maryland’s Jewish community. 

Now, many Jewish leaders in Maryland fear she’s aligning herself more closely with Van Hollen on Israel and Middle East policy.

A spokesperson for Alsobrooks told JI in a statement that, “As the Senator made explicit in her statement following the vote, she remains firmly committed to the U.S.-Israel relationship and her support for the security of the Israeli people. This vote was in direct response to the worsening humanitarian crisis in the region and her desire to see the delivery of desperately-needed aid. She will continue to support the people of Israel as well as the people of Gaza while remaining laser focused on eradicating the threat of Hamas and the return of the hostages.”

Ron Halber, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, said that the JCRC planned to request a meeting with Alsobrooks to “try and figure out what her thoughts were on this matter and express our concern” about her votes on Wednesday. 

Halber predicted that Alsobrooks was “probably swayed by the humanitarian disaster that has unfolded” in Gaza, pointing out her comments during the campaign and her votes against the April resolutions. He also noted that Alsobrooks was “speaking publicly at JCRC forums and speaking as recently as our legislative breakfast in December of last year” about her support for continued aid to Israel. 

That record, he argued, was as relevant as Wednesday’s votes. 

“Sen. Alsobrooks made it clear during her campaign that she would be a supporter of Israel, and I do not believe that this one vote takes her out of the pro-Israel camp,” Halber told Jewish Insider. “To me, one vote does not constitute a pattern. One vote does not constitute a dramatic shift in her support for Israel, but it’s certainly something we want to speak to her about and let her know that we are troubled by.”

“The concern is that for the Jewish community, Israel’s ability to defend itself is a holy grail, and that includes the ability to defend itself both defensively and offensively,” he continued.

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, a Jewish philanthropist and Democratic activist in Maryland, said she sympathized with arguments from Democrats and others about the humanitarian situation in Gaza while defending Alsobrooks’ pivot from her prior position on Israel aid. 

“There has been an evolution of facts between the campaign and now, and the situation with the suffering of innocent children in Gaza is highly problematic,” Mizrahi told JI. 

Mizrahi dismissed the notion that Alsobrooks’s vote constituted a broken campaign promise, noting that several other Democratic senators had made similar statements to her and her team during the 2024 cycle that had since come out in support of blocking aid, including Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI). 

“Politicians evolve when facts evolve, particularly when they’re bright people. Angela Alsobrooks is an incredibly bright person, of course, and she cares a lot. What I would like to know is her motivation for the vote,” she explained.

Despite this, Mizrahi said she hoped to see Alsobrooks return to supporting Israel aid and to “see her step up more significantly about hate crimes and about antisemitism, because we’re seeing quite a lot of it.”

“I hope that Sen. Alsobrooks will change her vote and will change her tone back to her earlier tone once the ship has righted in terms of the humanitarian situation for innocent people in Gaza,” Mizrahi said, later adding that she wanted to know “whether she feels that if things get better, that she will change her mind again, and that she will enthusiastically support weapons sales to the only democratic ally that America has in the Middle East,” Mizrahi said.

“I’m not going to hold this one vote [against her] until I know more about what her motivation was and what she’s hoping to achieve,” she added.

Bobby Zirkin, a Jewish former Maryland state senator who led an effort to urge Democrats to support former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, over Alsobrooks in their 2024 Senate contest, said that uncertainties over Alsobrooks’s commitment to Israel was a motivating factor behind his decision to back Hogan. 

“There was a reason that I stepped out during the campaign for Gov. Hogan. … My concern was always that she would follow the craziest, most fringe [parts of the] left-wing, which has become Chris Van Hollen in our party,” Zirkin said of Alsobrooks. “She made promises to many people in the Jewish community during the campaign and she has absolutely broken them.”

“You’ve gotta give the Alsobrooks campaign people credit for changing the subject and misrepresenting what she was going to do and all the rest. And by credit, I mean that they hoodwinked people,” he continued. “She pulled the wool over the eyes of a lot of people, and now we’re living with that.”

Rep. David Trone (D-MD), the co-founder of Total Wine & More, has a long and noteworthy record when it comes to philanthropy. 

He is believed to be one of the only sitting members of Congress who is an AIPAC “minyan” donor, which requires a minimum annual gift of $100,000 and is the highest membership level in the pro-Israel group. Trone has also donated millions to the American Civil Liberties Union, establishing the Trone Center for Justice and Equality. 

But in recent years, Trone, who represents Maryland’s 6th congressional district, has had to choose between the two groups because of his vehement opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. While AIPAC supports legislation that bars companies from participating in boycotts targeting Israel, the ACLU opposes such efforts on free speech grounds.

Trone, who voted last year in favor of a House resolution condemning BDS, disagrees with the ACLU. “We’re categorically opposed to BDS,” said the 64-year-old freshman congressman, who is a staunch supporter of the Jewish state and regards the movement as antisemitic. “A company shouldn’t be coerced into boycotting Israel.”

For Trone, such statements are hardly theoretical. Total Wine, which operates more than 200 stores across 24 states, is the largest retailer of Israeli wine in the U.S., according to the congressman, and its website makes clear that it opposes BDS as much as Trone does personally. “From Judea, Stop the BDS Movement,” reads a description below some wines that are produced in the West Bank.

The company has “worked hard to have one of the best selections in the country of Israeli wines,” Trone said, praising the wineries in the Golan, a region he characterized as an up-and-coming wine destination akin to Austria’s Wachau Valley. “And not just kosher, but Israeli wines themselves, some of which are kosher.” Despite his enthusiasm for Israeli wine, Trone was reluctant to name a favorite. “That’s just fraught with problems,” the freshman congressman said diplomatically after a brief pause.

Trone has long supported Jewish causes — at least since he married his wife, June Trone, who is Jewish and insisted their four children be raised in the religion. The family attends two synagogues in Maryland: Temple Beth Ami, which is Reform, and B’nai Israel Congregation, a Conservative synagogue June attends regularly. 

“I told him, I want to raise my family Jewish, so if that was something that he wasn’t interested in, we shouldn’t pursue this,” June recalled to JI in a rare interview, adding that there was never any discussion about her husband converting. “He said that was fine with him, and of course he’s been extremely supportive of my being Jewish, and the kids.”

Ralph Grunewald, the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Howard County, who worked as Trone’s liaison to the Jewish community during his last campaign, described the congressman, who was raised Lutheran, as an “honorary Jew.” 

“I’ve told him that many times,” said Grunewald, who took Trone on his second trip to Israel in February 2018 and solicited the congressman’s donation to AIPAC. “He just gets it in his kishkes.”

Trone said he was intimately attuned to the recent uptick in antisemitic violence in the United States. He lived in Pittsburgh for 15 years, and his oldest daughter, Michelle, received her Hebrew name at the Tree of Life Congregation, the site of a 2018 shooting that killed 11 people.

“We need to be there to support Israel, and that’s something that we are happy to do both in our personal capacity and in our official capacity,” said Trone, who serves as vice chair of the Middle East, North Africa and International Terrorism subcommittee.

Andrew Friedson, a Montgomery County councilmember who sits on Trone’s Jewish community advisory group, backed up that assertion. “David has been a very strong advocate for the U.S.-Israel relationship,” he said. 

Robert Stillman, a Maryland doctor who sits on the local board of the American Jewish Committee, agreed. “He’s co-sponsored every piece of legislation in Congress since he’s been there, that I’m aware of, regarding the safety and security of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Stillman said. “He hasn’t just been a vote,” Stillman added. “He’s been a collector of votes, an influencer.”

Trone is safely ensconced in Washington after handily winning his primary on June 2 — and he is in good shape to defend his seat come November. But his path to Congress was by no means seamless. 

A failed run for Congress four years ago cost him more than $13 million of his own money, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Last cycle, he poured approximately $18 million more into his successful campaign to represent Maryland’s 6th district, which includes the state’s northwestern portion. Trone is enlivened by his congressional service, he said, despite a tumultuous first term that has included a global pandemic as well as mass protests against police brutality. 

“I created a great, wonderful company, but I found I couldn’t move the needle enough to help those that don’t have a voice,” said Trone.

During his time in Congress, Trone has been focused on addressing mental health issues as well as opioid addiction. In May, the congressman — whose nephew died of a fentanyl overdose four years ago — was appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to a commission that will address the opioid crisis in the U.S.

“It’s really an opportunity to create legislation that’s going to save tens and tens of thousands of lives in addiction,” he said, “so I’m excited about that.”

Trone — who is aware that he is fortunate to have self-funded both of his campaigns — also wants to help out other aspiring candidates during a year in which the Democrats are hoping to flip the Senate while maintaining their hold on the House.

Not that political donations are anything new for the wine mogul. But Trone said there was an added urgency to his mission as the coronavirus crisis has upended traditional campaigning.

“It’s very hard for them, in today’s environment, to hold fundraisers and really get the money that it takes to run a campaign,” he told JI. “So if we’re able to step up because we’ve been fortunate financially, and help them out, that’s certainly, I think, the right thing to do.”

Trone is dispersing his money among more than 40 candidates, according to his wife, who is also making donations. Those candidates include Senate hopefuls Theresa Greenfield in Iowa, Sara Gideon in Maine, Mark Kelly in Arizona and John Hickenlooper in Colorado — all of whom are running in battleground states. 

“They’re the ones who will have the tougher elections,” she told JI.

In late April, Trone gave his most sizable personal donation in 2020 — nearly $250,000 — to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

“He wants to now give back,” said Grunewald, comparing the congressman to other wealthy politicians of generations past such as former Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH), who moved into public service later in life.

It is clear that Trone is hoping for a long tenure in politics as he tackles the issues that mean the most to him, while working to assist Democratic congressional and senatorial candidates in their effort to make it to Washington — which he knows, from personal experience, can be a difficult task.

“It’s crucial to be there to help,” he said.

This story has been updated for clarity.