The Senate campaign of Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) is calling on Minnesota’s Democratic Party to launch a formal investigation into a series of alleged instances of antisemitic activity among delegates in the lead-up to its state convention being held at the end of next month.

In a letter sent last week to Richard Carlbom, chair of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Craig’s campaign wrote that one of its staffers had received a threatening anonymous phone call last month from a person “believed to be a delegate” who used an ethnic slur for Jews and said that the congresswoman “takes dirty Jewish money.”

The letter, shared exclusively with Jewish Insider, also cited a local DFL organizing convention in late March at which an unnamed delegate allegedly said that “we should nuke” Israel, among other examples of extremist violent rhetoric. 

Mara Kunin, Craig’s campaign manager, said in the letter to state party leadership that such “incidents should be investigated promptly and that the DFL should take appropriate action and make clear that antisemitism in addition to other forms of hate will not be tolerated in our party.”

“Hate in all forms must be called out, whether it comes from the right or the left,” Kunin wrote. “We hope this serves as a necessary wake-up call for the DFL. We urge prompt and decisive action — action that allows the DFL to live up to our shared goal of building a big-tent party rooted in the principles of respect, dignity and integrity.”

In a statement shared with JI, Carlbom said that the DFL “condemns antisemitism and harassment in all forms without reservation,” and called the incidents raised by Craig’s team “disgusting and wrong, full stop.”

“We have responded directly to the Craig campaign, connected them to our Code of Conduct Committee, and encouraged those affected to file a police report,” he continued. “We will enforce our Code of Conduct and hold every leader and member to the standard our party demands. That work is happening and it won’t stop.”

The letter comes as Jewish and pro-Israel Democrats have voiced concerns about growing hostility toward Israel that has overlapped with a creeping extremism among some high-profile party influencers who have gained prominence espousing antisemitic rhetoric.

In Michigan’s Senate race, for example, Hasan Piker, an antisemitic streamer who has praised Hamas, has recently emerged as a flash point in a broader debate about whether Democratic candidates should appear with him publicly or join his show.

The issues raised by Craig’s campaign also dovetail with an uptick in anti-Israel sentiment during state and national party conventions around the country. Last week, at the Democratic National Committee’s meeting in New Orleans, party activists voted down one controversial resolution that criticized AIPAC’s “undue influence” in primary elections, while kicking two other measures to a Middle East working group.

Similar efforts are now poised for consideration at several state conventions in the coming months, including a series of new resolutions introduced by Democratic activists in Texas seeking to formally condemn Israel for alleged genocide while labeling pro-Israel political activity as “foreign interference in U.S. elections.”

In Minnesota, where Craig is facing off against Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan for the DFL endorsement, the party’s convention in late May is expected to feature some divisive resolutions related to Israel as in past years, according to local Jewish community activists familiar with the ongoing preparations.

During a recent local convention among several that take place before the statewide meeting, for instance, one new resolution advocated for removing language from the DFL’s official platform recognizing “Israel’s right to exist within secure borders, Palestinian rights to self-determination, and continued peace efforts in the Middle East.”

“Israel with the full support & shielding of the U.S. Government has conducted an intensification of genocide & ethnic cleansing in the past 2+ years, murdering more than 75,000 Palestinians since October 2023,” the resolution states. “The DFL party cannot claim any sort of morality while providing support to a state that’s founded on and committed to ongoing occupation, apartheid, and genocide. The two-state solution has long been an illusion, and so-called ‘peace’ without justice is not worth supporting.”

The DFL did not return a request for confirmation about the status of the resolution and if it would be taken up at the state convention in its current form.

Manny Houle, a Democratic pro-Israel strategist based in Minnesota, said it was “highly unlikely this divisive verbiage makes it as is to the state ballot at the end of May,” noting “there is an entire other round of editing when it comes to resolutions and most of the greatly divisive platforms are not getting the statewide support needed to make the ballot.”

“However, some sort of floor petition resolution is likely,” he told JI. “In addition there likely will be a resolution, if not multiple, about Middle East peace.”

One local Jewish activist now involved in efforts to oppose such resolutions, speaking on condition of anonymity to address a sensitive matter, predicted “other problematic” measures will also arise at the state convention. “We have been strategizing about how to handle any anticipated nastiness at the state convention this year, likely to arise through ‘debate’ over these resolutions,” the activist told JI, pointing to a DFL Jewish community outreach organization that is seeking to become an official party caucus. 

In the August Senate primary to be held three months after the convention, Craig, a moderate favored by the pro-Israel community, has claimed backing from the party’s establishment wing, while Flanagan is largely coralling progressive support in what is regarded as a proxy fight between opposing Democratic factions.

While AIPAC has not made an endorsement in the race, Craig’s past support from the advocacy group have drawn criticism from activists working to force the party leftward on Israel.

Antoine Givens, a Craig spokesperson, said her team “will continue to make clear that antisemitism and all forms of hate cannot be tolerated in our party,” while referring to the recent alleged incidents of antisemitic behavior among party members.

“Violence and the threat of violence have no place in our politics and no place in the DFL,” he told JI in a statement. “These actions are unacceptable, and it’s on all of us to demand better.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz’s decision to drop out of the 2026 gubernatorial race in a state heavily favored for Democrats marks a significant political fall for the party’s 2024 vice presidential nominee. 

Walz, 61, said while announcing on Monday that he would no longer seek a historic third term as governor that he had “every confidence” that he could have won his reelection bid — despite facing intense scrutiny for a state welfare fraud scandal that has gained national attention and become a political flashpoint in Minnesota. Still, Walz acknowledged that the fraud allegations, which have mostly been leveled at members of the state’s Somali community, and the broader scandal played a role in him ending his campaign.

The outgoing governor used his announcement to again criticize President Donald Trump and Republicans for “vile, racist lies and slander towards our fellow Minnesotans,” accusing them of highlighting the large number of Somalis under investigation and indictment to demonize the immigrant community. 

Despite the scandal, Walz began the campaign as the favorite to win the governor’s race, the result of the state’s Democratic lean and the fact that Republicans have not won a statewide election there since 2006, when former Gov. Tim Pawlenty won his bid for a second term. 

But Walz only won his 2022 reelection bid by eight points, which made his bid for a third term in 2026 precarious as Republicans looked to amplify the fraud allegations. 

The decision to end his campaign means Walz will cap off two decades in elected office next January, less than two years after former Vice President Kamala Harris selected him as her running mate and thrust him onto the national stage. 

While holding a moderate voting record as a member of Congress, Walz largely governed as a progressive, and was the preferred choice of progressive Democrats critical of Israel in the 2024 veepstakes over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. 

On the campaign trail, Walz praised anti-Israel protesters and urged the U.S. to exert more leverage on Israel. He also drew scrutiny for appearing at events with an antisemitic and pro-Hamas Muslim cleric. He said last year after the election that war in Gaza was “rightfully” a “central focus” of the 2024 campaign.

Last year, Walz did not respond to inquiries about then-Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh’s campaign, which employed senior staffers who celebrated Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. 

And, criticizing Israel for striking Iran last June, Walz suggested that China was better positioned to act as a broker for Middle East peace than the Trump administration.

The positions and approach to governance mark a notable evolution for Walz from when he first entered political life. Walz was elected to the House during the Democratic midterm wave of 2006, scoring an upset in a GOP-leaning rural district. Walz held onto the southern Minnesota seat for six terms, assembling a pragmatic voting record in the process that included support for gun rights, Israel and the Keystone XL pipeline. 

That voting record earned him the endorsement of the National Rifle Association, something the advocacy group revoked during Walz’s successful 2018 gubernatorial campaign, when he ran on a platform of tightening gun restrictions. 

Walz’s leftward shift began after first being elected governor, but he accelerated his progressive push when his party won full control of the state legislature in 2022.

Minnesota is home to a sizable Muslim population, many of whom are represented by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a vocal Israel critic, in the Minneapolis area. More than 18% of the state’s Democratic primary voters in 2024 chose to write in “uncommitted” rather than support former President Joe Biden as a means of protesting his support of Israel. 

Walz said at the time that the party needed to focus on winning back those anti-Israel voters rather than dismiss their criticisms, though he also argued that centrist voters were also in play. 

“These are voters that are deeply concerned, as we all are. The situation in Gaza is intolerable, and I think trying to find a lasting, two-state solution, certainly the president’s move towards humanitarian aid and asking us to get to a ceasefire, that’s what they’re asking, to be heard,” Walz told CNN on the evening of Super Tuesday. “That’s what they should be doing. … We start bringing these folks back in. We listen to what they’re saying. That’s a healthy thing that’s happening here.”

“Take them seriously. Their message is clear that they think this is an intolerable situation and that we can do more, and I think the president is hearing that,” he added

Former Minnesota Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, who turns 95 today, isn’t necessarily a household name — but is one of the more consequential figures in Jewish political history, as the first Holocaust refugee elected to Congress and one of the most prominent Jewish Republicans during a golden period of Jewish representation on Capitol Hill.

Boschwitz now holds the distinction of being the oldest living elected senator, and remains active in political and business life from his home in Plymouth, Minn. He spoke on the phone to Jewish Insider this week about his life story, legacy and thoughts about our current political moment.

Boschwitz was born in Berlin in 1930. On the day that Hitler took power in 1933, Boschwitz’s father came home and told his family they would be leaving Germany forever. He arrived in the United States in 1935 with his family, completed college at the age of 19, started a retail lumber business and quickly made a career in business and, later, politics. 

He was elected as a Republican to the Senate in 1978, scoring an upset against the state’s former Gov. Wendell Anderson. He served there for 12 years, eventually losing reelection in 1990 to Democrat Paul Wellstone.

“When I came to the Senate, I was really the first Jewish conservative that many of my colleagues really met. They hadn’t met many Jewish Republicans at all. I think we had a hand in building some of the pro-Israel feelings now,” Boschwitz told JI. (During the 1980s, four other Jewish GOP senators would end up serving alongside him.)

In the Senate, Boschwitz served in GOP leadership, including as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, where he helped raise money and lead the campaign to elect GOP senators. He held seats on the influential Budget Committee, Foreign Relations Committee and Agriculture Committee, which helped him build support in a big farming state like Minnesota.

“The highlights of my career: I voted for the Reagan defense budgets and for lower taxes that resulted in a strong economy and winning the Cold War without a shot,” Boschwitz said.

After leaving the Senate, Boschwitz was named as President George H.W. Bush’s emissary to Ethiopia, where he led the American delegation to negotiate the release of Ethiopian Jews to allow their migration to Israel in what became known as Operation Solomon. Earlier as a senator, Boschwitz led an Ethiopian Jewish caucus that featured dozens of senators from both parties. 

Aside from his legislative work, Boschwitz was also known as something of a matchmaker for young Jewish professionals on Capitol Hill, sponsoring parties for Jewish singles who worked around Washington.

“I was very active in the Jewish community… I wanted young Jewish members of the congressional staff to know that there was a Jewish senator who was interested in them,” Boschwitz told JI.

Despite Minnesota’s relatively small Jewish population, Boschwitz held a Senate seat that, famously, was represented by four different Jewish senators over four decades — with Wellstone, current Republican Jewish Coalition National Chairman Norm Coleman and comedian Al Franken all holding the same Senate seat from 1978 until Franken’s resignation in 2018.

Asked in closing how concerned he was about the rise of antisemitism in this country, Boschwitz simply said: “Yes, there has been a rise in antisemitism. But I think that the U.S. is not a country where the Jews have to be careful or look for another place to go. I’m a fan of magnificent America.”

Daniel Rosen earned a unique distinction when he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate early this month to be Minnesota’s top federal prosecutor.

The 60-year-old lawyer and Orthodox Jewish community activist is one of the few Orthodox Jews to serve as U.S. attorney. And he is almost certainly the only chief federal law enforcement officer in the county who regularly studies the Talmud, a text, he says, that shares a “phenomenal” range of common principles with the American legal tradition.

“The more you study the Talmud, the more you see how rooted in our [Jewish] traditions American law, and the British law from which it emerged, really is,” Rosen explained in a recent interview with Jewish Insider.

As he acclimates to his new role, Rosen, who had previously worked in private practice, said that one of his “primary motivations” for seeking the position was the “rapid escalation of violent antisemitism” in the United States, calling the “prosecution of violent hate crimes” a top priority for his office.

“Jewish history tells us that Jews fare poorly in societies that turn polarized,” he said, arguing that Jewish Americans, in particular, “have a profound and immediate interest in reversing the direction of the violent hatred that’s being expressed in many directions.”

Rosen, a Minnesota native who gave up his law practice to assume his government position this month, is a graduate of University of Minnesota Law School and a Navy veteran. He has long been involved in Jewish communal life and pro-Israel activism, having served as a board member of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas as well as a state representative for AIPAC.

Despite his lack of prosecutorial experience, Rosen was among three candidates for the job put forward by Minnesota’s four House Republicans — including Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), the majority whip. 

In their recommendation to President Donald Trump, Emmer and his colleagues praised Rosen’s advocacy on behalf of “community and charitable issues, especially matters of particular interest to the American Jewish community,” later describing him as “one of the sharpest legal minds in the entire country.”

Speaking with JI this week, Rosen discussed his expectations for the role he assumed just weeks ago and how his Jewish faith influences his approach to the law, among other things. 

The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Jewish Insider: How have you been acclimating to your new job after being confirmed earlier this month?

Daniel Rosen: It’s been profoundly interesting, above all. For me, who comes in without a prosecutorial background, it has required a considerable education in the specifics of criminal procedure. But far more interesting are all the inputs that go into every case. From all of the various participants in the investigation and the prosecution and the cases, I’m seeing a world that heretofore I had not seen, and I’m finding it absolutely fascinating. 

What really strikes home is the not only the number of bad actors out there, but the sheer nefariousness of all of those bad actors and the real need for what it is that U.S. attorneys’ offices are doing all over the country in order to help maintain safety in an environment when our society is tearing apart.

In Minneapolis, we are one of several locales around the country where the philosophy of the local prosecutor is really inconsistent with the kind of law enforcement that, in my view, the country needs right now. And accordingly, the burden on the U.S. attorney’s office here in Minnesota — to pick up the slack that’s left behind by the local prosecutor — is a heavy burden, and dealing with the additional burden that their reticence creates for us is something that I’m having to learn quickly on the job. But I’m adjusting to it. 

JI: Are there any noteworthy cases that your office is currently handling that you can mention?

DR: There are several cases that have achieved quite a bit of not only local but national notoriety that we are in the midst of right now. First of all, in Minnesota, this office has been prosecuting a COVID assistance fraud that is simply breathtaking in a scope and amount. It is generally known as the ‘Feeding Our Future’ case, or more accurately put its cases — where a large group of defendants and others that have not been charged have together stolen hundreds of millions of the taxpayers’ dollars in a brazen fraud. We’ve also uncovered and now charged frauds of similar character also involving taxpayer money and also involving breathtakingly large amounts of money.

We have a team here in our office that certainly has its hands full in completing the investigations and bringing those cases to trial. In addition to that, we of course had a political assassination here in Minnesota early in the summer, where the former speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives and the current leader of the House Democratic Caucus was assassinated, along with her husband, and another legislator was shot and left for dead but, thank God, he survived. The prosecution of that case is one of tremendous importance, particularly given our current times where bitterness in political discourse has turned to violence, and deadly violence, repeatedly.

JI: As you know, we’ve seen the rise of political violence across the country, some of it related to anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment. Is that on your mind as you take over this job?

DR: The rapid escalation of violent antisemitism in America is not only on my mind, but it’s one of my primary motivations for having sought this position. Jewish history tells us that Jews fare poorly in societies that turn polarized, and where that polarization evolves into factional hatreds in the non-Jewish societies within which we live. Those factional hatreds virtually always evolve into violent expressions of hate against the Jews. 

Accordingly, Jewish Americans have a profound and immediate interest in reversing the direction of the violent hatred that’s being expressed in many directions in the country. So for that reason, prosecution of violent hate crimes is certainly at the highest level of priority for me.

JI: In your lifetime, do you feel antisemitism has reached a level that you haven’t seen before?

DR: Yes. By my recollection, in the 1990s, if someone sprayed a swastika on the side of a synagogue in Omaha, it would probably be noted in The New York Times. Today, those kinds of antisemitic acts are happening, it seems, every single day, or nearly every single day, and they’re happening all over the country. It’s been a slow change, but now it’s rapidly escalating.

There is something else I can add. I don’t know if it’s directly responsive to the question, but it is something that I think about. In the 2,000-year odyssey of the Jews, through the diaspora, we have had other countries that have played host to us, and where the lives of the Jews were comparable to what they are here in America. In Spain, the Jews had what historically is referred to as the Golden Age in Spain. There was a Jewish Torah scholar who was the prime minister. There was another tremendous Jewish Torah scholar who was the finance minister to the king and the queen. Our life in Spain, everybody thought it couldn’t get better. And then, of course, it ultimately came to the point where every Jew in Spain had to choose to either leave, surrender their faith or die.

In Germany, there were Jews who said, ‘Forget Jerusalem. Berlin is our Jerusalem.’ There were Jews who thought, ‘Here we are at the height of culture, at the height of refinement, at the height of knowledge. What could be better for us than Germany? We Jews, a cultured and knowledgeable people, fit in here so well.’ But, of course, we know how that ended. 

So, we all have to ask ourselves, how’s it going to proceed here in the United States? And I believe the answer is, it depends on the good faith of the thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of elected and appointed officials all over the country who recognize the good that the Jews contribute to society and recognize the good that comes from being good to the Jews, and having the courage to stand by their convictions. If they lose their courage, it would not bode well for the Jews in the country. So it’s my view that, if nothing else, as an example to fellow Americans, sometimes we’re just called to do our part to contribute to the rebuilding of the society that we so desperately need. And so I gave up a law practice and here I am now, an appointed public servant.

JI: Can you elaborate on your own involvement in Jewish communal life and fighting antisemitism?

DR: When I was a young lawyer, my father had some political relationships. He was not a man of politics, but he had political relationships, and he was a person who was not for any organization or in any communally organized way, but he was an advocate for Jews, for the Jewish community and for Israel in the non-Jewish world in a very active way. I can remember as a teenager going with my father to an annual convention of all the employees of a company that he represented, and the chief executive officer of that company asked my father to speak to them about the history of Israel and the imperative of supporting Israel. By my recollection, there was not a dry eye in the house. But whether that recollection is precisely correct or not, what I can tell you is it had a profound impact on me.

Early on in my law career, my father encouraged me to develop political relationships, and I realized that if there was going to be a way that I could contribute to the welfare of the Jewish community, that was really the realm within which I could do it. That evolved into developing really important and long-lasting relationships with elected officials, especially federally elected officials. I acted a lot in partnership with AIPAC, and I did a lot, following my father’s example, on my own independent path. 

Over the years, I realized the importance of bringing members of Congress to Israel, showing them Israel through the eyes of members of the Jewish community who were committed to the welfare of the people of Israel and who were also committed to the welfare of the Jews of America. So I began to organize and lead trips to Israel for members of the U.S. House of Representatives. I’ve taken a good number of members of the U.S. House from the Upper Midwest to Israel, one or two or three at a time, and those members of the House have gone on to become governors and Cabinet secretaries and congressional leaders. Their exposure to Israel and to Jewish lay leaders on the trips that I have led, I think, has resulted in developing a very strong and, God-willing, unbreakable affinity, on their part, for the Jewish community.

JI: Were you raised in an Orthodox household? 

DR: I was raised in a traditional household where Shabbat was respected but not strictly observed. My evolution into Orthodoxy was a slow one through my early adulthood, but I became shomer Shabbat approximately 20 years ago.

JI: How do Judaism and Jewish values influence your own approach to the law?

DR: I study the Talmud every day. What I can tell you is, the more you study the Torah, and the more you study the Talmud, the more you see how rooted in our traditions American law, and the British law from which it emerged, really is. The common denominators are phenomenal. But why is that? That’s because the values that we hold dear, the values that the Torah instills in us, are the values from which the societies in which we live have derived their fundamental principles of justice.

JI: Are there any specific concepts you’d like to cite? 

DR: I guess my answer to your question is, Tzedek, tzedek tirdof — ‘Justice, justice, you shall pursue.’ I think that’s a good one for a U.S. attorney.

Several key Minnesota political leaders across the ideological spectrum condemned the vandalism of a synagogue in Minneapolis on Wednesday as an act of antisemitism.

Temple Israel, which had been vandalized previously, was spray-painted with the message “watch out Zionists” as well as red triangles — a symbol used by Hamas to mark Israeli targets.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) told Jewish Insider, “This is an unacceptable act of antisemitism that must be unequivocally condemned. After a summer marked by political violence in our state, we must all stand up, speak out, and act to combat hate.”

Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) told JI that the vandalism “was a horrific thing for the congregants of Temple Israel and the Jewish community in Minneapolis to have to experience.” 

“We need to call out these brazen acts of antisemitism and come together to make sure our friends and neighbors know they are safe and supported,” she continued.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, running in a competitive race for reelection, said, “This morning, Temple Israel woke up to anti-Semitic threats — a reminder that hate still tries to find a foothold. It won’t find one here. Minneapolis stands with our Jewish neighbors. Hiding behind hate to spread fear against any religion is cowardly and unacceptable in our city.”

Frey’s primary challenger, state Sen. Omar Fateh, said in a statement to JI, “Anti-Semitism has no place in our city, and the hate speech found at Temple Israel this morning is unacceptable. Minneapolis cannot and will not tolerate violence against our communities, and we stand with our Jewish neighbors.”

Fateh has staked out anti-Israel positions, and some of his associates have endorsed the Oct. 7 attack.

Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), who is running for Senate, said that the incident was “alarming and unacceptable. And it’s a sobering reminder that antisemitism is on the rise.”

“This is not who we are as Minnesotans. We must stand with our Jewish neighbors in the face of this blatant antisemitism and reject all hatred in our communities,” Craig continued.

Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who is also running for Senate, described the vandalism as “anti-Semitic hate.”

“My heart is with the congregants of Temple Israel and our entire Jewish community. Hate has no home in Minnesota, and every house of worship should be a safe place to pray,” she continued. “Hate attacks against all faith communities have reached historic highs, and Minnesota is not an exception.”

She went on to highlight the recent shooting at Minneapolis’ Annunciation Catholic Church, a fire and break-in at an Islamic center and attacks on the Somali community.

“Threats, hate, and destruction don’t put us on a path to peace — they make us all less safe. In this moment, it is up to us to stand up against hate, lead with kindness, and find a way to draw all our communities closer,” Flanagan concluded.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who represents the district in which Temple Israel is located, did not respond to a request for comment and does not appear to have addressed the vandalism publicly.

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.

Good Thursday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we spotlight the extreme comments of two political activists closely affiliated with Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh, and talk to Jewish Democrats working to promote a balanced Israel-related resolution at an upcoming Democratic National Committee meeting as party delegates consider a measure that calls for an arms embargo and a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel. We also cover the reactions of Jewish groups and Canadian politicians to the Toronto International Film Festival’s decision to cancel the screening of an Oct. 7 documentary due to the absence of Hamas’ approval to use footage of its attacks on Israel, and talk to Rep. Brad Schneider about this week’s Democratic congressional delegation visit to Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Pete Buttigieg, Boris Epshteyn and Alex Sagel.

What We’re Watching

• We’re keeping an eye on comments on Israel and Gaza from 2028 Democratic hopefuls, following the publication this morning of an interview with Pete Buttigieg, who, under pressure from anti-Israel activists, clarified his comments about the Israel-Hamas war made on a podcast last week. The former transportation secretary said that he would have backed Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) proposals to ban arms sales to Israel, supports the recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution and would not back a new 10-year Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Israel.
• The Rohr Jewish Learning Institute’s National Jewish Retreat continues today in Washington. Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin, former senior Treasury official Mitchell Silk and Rabbi Levi Shemtov are all slated to speak today.
• On the heels of Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s warning this week against foreign support for armed groups in Lebanon, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Khalil Helou, Assaf Orion, Sarit Zehavi are speaking at a virtual event this afternoon focused on Hezbollah’s disarmament and the future of UNIFIL in Lebanon.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

Tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Eyal Zamir, the chief of staff of the IDF, are as high as the record-setting temperatures that have swept the region this week.

The IDF’s top officials and the Israeli government have clashed on a series of issues in recent days, including the appointments of more than two dozen military officials and Zamir’s initial opposition to Netanyahu’s plan to take over Gaza City and expand IDF operations in the Gaza Strip, which was approved by Israel’s Security Cabinet last week.

The IDF chief of staff has warned that the new approach to Gaza risks the lives of the 20 remaining living hostages in the enclave, and would further deplete the military’s resources in Gaza. The army, under strain after nearly two years of war, has — even prior to Zamir’s appointment in March — been at odds with the government over the continued exemption of the majority of the country’s Haredi population from the mandatory conscription required of most Israelis.

Israel Democracy Institute President Yohanan Plesner told Jewish Insider this morning that “historically, the relationship between the political level — prime minister, defense minister — and the top brass of the defense establishment, and mainly the IDF chief of staff, has been based on the premise that when Israel engages or embarks on significant security endeavors, operations and so on, it’s based on mutual consent,” with both parties having “de facto … veto power.”

But now, Plesner said, Netanyahu “is violating this decision-making norm that characterized the way decisions on core security [and] national security issues were made in the past.”

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

online archive

Omar Fateh’s allies defended Oct. 7, denied Israel’s right to exist

Two political activists closely affiliated with Omar Fateh, a far-left Minnesota state senator who is now running for mayor of Minneapolis, have expressed a range of extreme views on the Hamas terror attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, endorsing the violence as a justified act of resistance and accusing Israel of initiating the war in Gaza, among other inflammatory comments, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. Their rhetoric could fuel concerns among local Jewish leaders who sounded alarms about Fateh’s close alliances with anti-Israel activists after he won the state Democratic Party endorsement last month over Jacob Frey, the incumbent seeking a third and final term. Fateh, a 35-year-old democratic socialist has been a staunch critic of Israel, calling its conduct in Gaza a genocide and pushing for a ceasefire 10 days after Hamas’ attack.

Friends like these: But some of Fateh’s campaign staffers have gone significantly further than the state legislator, raising questions over his tolerance for incendiary language on a sensitive issue that has stoked growing internal tensions in the state party and could possibly inflect an increasingly bitter mayoral race in the lead-up to November. In a series of now-deleted social media posts, for instance, Fateh’s communications manager, Anya Smith-Kooiman, stated that Israel “does not have a ‘right’ to exist” and “must be dismantled,” while amplifying comments dismissing widespread reports of sexual violence on Oct. 7 as “propaganda” and hailing the attacks as a form of “resistance” that succeeded where the peace process had failed.

Read the full story here.

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FAMILY FEUD

DNC confronts anti-Israel push from party delegates

When Democratic National Committee members gather in Minneapolis later this month for the party’s summer meeting, they’ll consider two Israel-related resolutions — a more balanced one, which has the backing of party chair Ken Martin, and an anti-Israel measure that calls for an arms embargo and a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel. Sources within the DNC say they don’t expect the anti-Israel resolution, which was authored by a committee member from Florida, to pass. But the fact that it will be considered by the body has unnerved Jewish Democrats, who are working behind the scenes to promote the more balanced resolution, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. 

Alternative approach: That one calls for an “immediate ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages, living and deceased, held by Hamas.” It also reiterates Democratic Party support for a two-state solution. (The text of the two resolutions was first reported by Semafor.) The Martin-backed resolution is co-sponsored by the DNC’s entire leadership, including DNC associate chair Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Jewish Labor Committee, according to a copy of the resolution obtained by JI. Both measures will first be voted on by the DNC’s Resolutions Committee.  

Read the full story here.

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festival fiasco

Jewish groups, Canadian politicians outraged over film festival’s cancellation of Oct. 7 documentary

Pro-Israel groups and Canadian politicians expressed outrage on Wednesday after organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival canceled an invitation to show the documentary “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” about the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, at its upcoming festival, citing the use of Hamas footage of the attacks that had not been approved for use by the terror group, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. 

‘Shamelessly disturbing’: “The Toronto International Film Festival’s reasoning for canceling the October 7 documentary screening is completely absurd and transparently dishonest,” the American Jewish Committee said in a statement. “Pulling a movie because footage wasn’t cleared for copyright by a terror group is so ridiculous that it would almost be laughable — if it weren’t so deeply, shamelessly disturbing.” In an open letter, Creative Community for Peace, a nonprofit that mobilizes prominent members of the entertainment community to oppose boycotts of Israel, wrote that “instead of advancing peace, TIFF has chosen to amplify hate.”

Read the full story here.

Walking it back?: In a statement released last night, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey recognized the concerns, expressed “sincere apologies for any pain” caused and said he is “committed to working with the filmmaker to meet TIFF’s screening requirements to allow the film to be screened at this year’s festival. I have asked our legal team to work with the filmmaker on considering all options available.” He also noted “the urgent need for compassion amid rising antisemitism and Islamophobia,” underscored by Oct. 7 and the ensuing war in Gaza.

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TRIP TALK

Democrats discussed Gaza aid, day-after plans with Israeli leadership, Schneider says

A group of congressional Democrats visiting Israel this week, including 11 first-term lawmakers, pressed Israeli leaders on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, emphasizing the need for them to increase aid flows into Gaza, Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod on Wednesday.

Readout: Schneider said the “focus of the trip, without question, was understanding Israel’s existential war against Hamas — Hamas attacked on Oct. 7 … understanding the implications of that. But also understanding the humanitarian crisis that’s taking place in Gaza.”  He said that the humanitarian crisis, the obstacles to providing aid and what can be done to increase aid flows were a key focus of each of the group’s meetings, including with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Read the full story here.

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CHANGING OF THE GUARD

Kibbutz Nir Oz, the hardest-hit community in the 10/7 attacks, welcomes 50 new, idealistic residents as it looks to rebuild

Walking along a path on Kibbutz Nir Oz, Yahel Meirovich and Raz Baruch felt the surreal contrast between the quiet birdsong, the deceptively pastoral stillness of the near-deserted kibbutz and the steady thud of bombs heard from the Gaza Strip, less than a mile away. Part of a group of 50 young adults — all of them educators from the Hashomer HaTzair Labor Zionist youth movement (literally, “the young guard”) — who have recently relocated to the kibbutz, the two were keenly aware of the emotional tension hanging in the air, Meirovich told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judith Sudilovsky a week after their Aug. 3 arrival.

Raised right: The move of the young Hashomer HaTzair educators to Nir Oz is part of the youth movement’s Mefalsei Nativ (“Path Levelers”) program, in partnership with Kibbutz Nir Oz, which was founded by Hashomer HaTzair pioneers, with core support from the Kibbutz Movement Rehabilitation Fund — the body leading the recovery efforts of kibbutz communities in the Gaza border region since Oct.7, 2023. The Homeward Initiative, an educational foundation strengthening southern and northern communities since the war’s outbreak, has also played a key role in supporting the project from its inception as part of a broader joint effort to build young, vibrant communities in the heart of the hardest-hit kibbutzim. “For us, the decision to move to Nir Oz is the embodiment of everything we were raised on in Hashomer HaTzair – acting together with courage and stepping in where we’re needed,” Meirovich said

Read the full story here and sign up for eJewishPhilanthropy’s Your Daily Phil here.

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Worthy Reads

Tanker Trouble: In The Wall Street Journal, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Max Meizlish and Bridget Toomey look at how the U.N.’s attempt to remove oil from a moored tanker off the coast of Yemen has served to benefit the country’s Iran-backed Houthis. “Following the transfer of oil, the [tanker] was supposed to be operated by Yemen’s state oil company under the advisory oversight of the U.N. Development Program. In practice, the vessel serves as a floating fuel station for the Houthis. On paper, the U.N. transferred ownership to Yemen’s internationally recognized government — but control is what matters, and the Houthis have it. … All this is being underwritten by the international community. While the Houthis attack commercial vessels and threaten global shipping, the U.N. is bankrolling their offshore oil logistics by paying $450,000 a month for the [tanker]’s operations. A vessel designed to prevent one catastrophe is facilitating another — moving Russian oil in defiance of sanctions, sustaining the Houthis’ illicit fuel economy, and prolonging a regional war.” [WSJ]

Silent Suffering: In the Jewish News Syndicate, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee joins Yehuda Kaploun and Mark Walker, respectively the Trump administration’s nominees to be antisemitism envoy and ambassador-at-large for international freedom, to suggest that recent images from Gaza underscore the need for Hamas to be removed from power. “In today’s world, photos and videos spread faster than any news story. They can capture raw human suffering in a way words never could. We see the faces of Gaza’s civilians bearing witness to Hamas’s brutality, too. We see children hollow-eyed with fear, women clinging to life, men bruised and beaten, each one telling a story of pain and desperation under Hamas’s rule. But for every image we see, there are countless others suffering in silence, locked away in tunnels or makeshift prisons, hidden from view and stripped of their dignity.” [JNS]

Across the Pond: The New York Times’ David Wallace-Wells considers the lessons — and warnings — U.S. politicos can take from U.K. politics as London’s two major parties fail to win over broad swathes of the electorate. “Lately, the spirit of Democratic defeatism that was so obvious right after the election has given way to something a little more confident and combative — though national approval of Democrats is at 30-year lows, the Democratic voters dragging down the figure are still loyal to the party, and Democrats have regained an advantage in party affiliation and opened up a sturdy lead in generic-ballot congressional surveys. The British experience, though, suggests a different interpretive framework entirely: that after an anomalous period of left-liberal unanimity, the two factions are again veering apart, giving off sparks of hostility along the way. That may be manageable, or even healthy, heading into 2026. But 2028? Look out.” [NYTimes]

Word on the Street

The New York Times’ Mara Gay looks at how former President Barack Obama and some of his closest advisors, including David Axelrod, Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer, have warmed to New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, reporting on a call between the former president and the candidate and saying, “[t]he interest from the closely guarded world of Obama and those around him is the clearest sign yet that Mr. Mamdani is likely to be embraced by the Democratic mainstream, whether the party’s leaders and donors like it or not”; Patrick Gaspard, who served as political director for Obama’s 2008 campaign, is also serving as an advisor to Mamdani and introduced Axelrod to the candidate…

Boris Epshteyn, the personal lawyer to President Donald Trump, connected two of the law firms that reached settlements with the administration — which Epshteyn personally brokered — with the Department of Commerce to assist on trade deals…

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) tapped Jack Schlossberg to the America 250 Commission ahead of the U.S. Semiquincentennial next year…

A woman who sprayed a foul-smelling liquid on Jewish marchers at Montreal’s Pride parade was arrested following the incident; a member of the local activist group Faction Against Genocide, in Solidarity said the substance, which smelled like urine, was nettle extract…

Alex Sagel, the CEO of Germany-based defense contractor Renk, said the company could move parts of its business out of the country should Berlin move forward with plans to ban arms sales to Israel…

South Sudan’s Foreign Ministry denied reports that Juba had engaged in talks regarding the potential relocation of Palestinians from Gaza; the Foreign Ministry’s announcement came the same day as Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Heskel visited the East African nation, where she held meetings with the country’s president, foreign minister and deputy foreign minister…

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said that Beirut will not permit the presence of armed groups in the country and warned against foreign interference in Lebanese affairs; Aoun made the comments in a meeting with senior Iranian official Ali Larijani, who was on a three-day visit to Lebanon…

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that he will approve tenders to build more than 3,000 housing units in the controversial E1 area between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim in the West Bank; in a statement, Smotrich said the construction “buries the idea of a Palestinian state”… 

Businessman and philanthropist Bruce Slovin, who oversaw the creation and later served as chairman of the Center for Jewish History, died at 89…

Cable industry pioneer and philanthropist Leonard Tow, who with his wife, Claire, funded journalism initiatives at a number of New York City universities, died at 97…

Pic of the Day

The National Library of Israel received the original manuscript of Naomi Shemer’s song ‘Al Kol Eleh’ this week, gifted by the family of Ruth Nussbaum, Shemer’s sister, for whom the song was written. Nussbaum’s children —Tair, Noa, Yaakov and Avshalom — spoke at the donation event, together with Shemer’s daughter, Lali.

Birthdays

Historian and VP of alumni relations for MLB’s New York Mets, the press box at Citi Field is named in his honor, Jay Edward Horwitz turns 80…

Social media influencer, Dorothy Katz Wiggins turns 100… American-born British novelist, biographer, journalist and Oscar-winning screenwriter, Frederic Michael Raphael turns 94… Former attorney general of New Jersey and chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, David Samson turns 86… President of the Hampton Synagogue until 2024 and former board member of the UJA Federation-New York, Carol Levin… Member of the New York State Assembly since 2005, Charles D. Lavine turns 78… Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, Ester R. Fuchs turns 74… Professor of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, Henry Brem, MD turns 73… U.S. District Court judge in South Carolina, he is the co-author of a book on the early Jews of Columbia, S.C., Judge Richard Mark Gergel turns 71… Turkish-born economist and professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Dani Rodrik turns 68… U.S. senator (R-TN) since 2021, Bill Hagerty turns 66… Home fragrance and décor guru, Harry Slatkin turns 65… Lecturer at Purdue University, Martin J. Sweet turns 55… Winner of three Pulitzer Prizes as a journalist, Adam Goldman turns 52… Filmmaker and producer, she is the executive director of DOC NYC, a major documentary film festival in NYC, Raphaela Neihausen turns 49… VP at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, Jeremy Scott Wynes… Professional tennis player for 15 years, primarily a doubles specialist, now an assistant athletic director, Scott Lipsky turns 44… Senior advisor to President Donald Trump, Boris Epshteyn turns 43… Ukrainian-born actress, she moved to Los Angeles at the age of seven and has appeared in dozens of films, Mila Kunis turns 42… Opinion editor at eJewishPhilanthropy, Rachel Kohn… Internet entrepreneur and former CTO at Facebook, he is the co-founder and CEO of Quora, Adam D’Angelo turns 41… Retired lacrosse player, he played for ten seasons in Major League Lacrosse and for Team Israel in 2018, Maxwell (Max) Oren Seibald turns 38… Principal at Marcus & Associates Executive Recruiters, Jacob Lefkowitz… Member of Knesset for Otzma Yehudit, he serves as the minister for the development of the periphery, the Negev and the Galilee, Yitzhak Shimon Wasserlauf turns 33… Ryan Smith… Dylan Cooper… Tim Carney…

Two political activists closely affiliated with Omar Fateh, a far-left Minnesota state senator who is now running for mayor of Minneapolis, have expressed a range of extreme views on the Hamas terror attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, endorsing the violence as a justified act of resistance and accusing Israel of initiating the war in Gaza, among other inflammatory comments.

Their rhetoric could fuel concerns among local Jewish leaders who sounded alarms about Fateh’s close alliances with anti-Israel activists after he won the state Democratic Party endorsement last month over Jacob Frey, the incumbent seeking a third and final term. Fateh, a 35-year-old democratic socialist whose campaign has recently drawn comparisons to New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, has likewise been a staunch critic of Israel, calling its conduct in Gaza a genocide and pushing for a ceasefire 10 days after Hamas’ attack.

In a mayoral candidate questionnaire solicited by the Twin Cities chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America — which endorsed his bid after facing widespread criticism over its response to the Oct. 7 attack — Fateh also backed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, according to portions of the form reviewed by Jewish Insider. 

He additionally pledged, without explanation, to “refrain from any and all affiliation” with what the DSA questionnaire dismissed as “Zionist lobby groups,” citing AIPAC, J Street, Christians United for Israel and, most notably, the Jewish Community Relations Council, a nonpartisan organization that typically engages with a diverse group of elected officials in both parties. The local JCRC — which represents the Jewish community to Minneapolis government officials — has voiced reservations about its ability to interact with Fateh if he is elected, in light of his statements on Israel.

But some of Fateh’s campaign staffers have gone significantly further than the state legislator, raising questions over his tolerance for incendiary language on a sensitive issue that has stoked growing internal tensions in the state party and could possibly inflect an increasingly bitter mayoral race in the lead-up to November.

In a series of now-deleted social media posts, for instance, Fateh’s communications manager, Anya Smith-Kooiman stated that Israel “does not have a ‘right’ to exist” and “must be dismantled,” while amplifying comments dismissing widespread reports of sexual violence on Oct. 7 as “propaganda” and hailing the attacks as a form of “resistance” that succeeded where the peace process had failed.

Elsewhere, Smith-Kooiman, who joined Fateh’s campaign in December, according to her LinkedIn page, declared a month after the Oct. 7 attacks that she did “not give a flying f**k about Hamas,” claiming “the root of the problem is a colonial government segregating, ethnically cleaning, murdering Palestinians, stealing their land with impunity and not expecting a resistance group to violently fight back.”

“Colonial and oppressive regimes love to call everyone but themselves a terrorist,” she continued in her November 2023 post to X, now removed from her profile. “Israeli terrorism created Hamas and the cycle will go on and on until Israel, Britain and the U.S. are held accountable for their violence and thievery. Let’s address root causes: imperialism.”

More recently, Smith-Kooiman, in a June social media post, advocated for the release of what she called “all Palestinian hostages,” equating prisoners held in Israel with the captives who were kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7.

In addition to Smith-Kooiman, another activist with ties to Fateh’s mayoral bid, David Gilbert-Pederson, has unreservedly praised the Oct. 7 attack, which he has characterized as a heroic feat of defiance against “imperial domination.”

Speaking on a panel discussion about “connecting movements for collective liberation” in December 2023, Gilbert-Pederson — who has been listed as a Fateh campaign staffer in filings — celebrated “what happened collectively for the people of Palestine on Oct. 7,” saying it was not his place to cast judgment on the violence. 

“We as Americans, people who live in the imperial core, our job is to stand in unconditional solidarity with those resisting oppression,” Gilbert-Pederson, a close ally of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), explained in his panel remarks. “Unconditional solidarity does not mean that we get to say, ‘Oh, this tactic you did, we don’t really like that,’ or, ‘We agree with you, but I think that some of your methods are too extreme.’ That’s not what unconditional solidarity means.”

“We live in the core of the empire,” he said, “so it is our job to demand that our government divest from Israel, divest from the colonial project, and start to free the U.S. as well.”

Broadly summarizing his approach, he argued that “all resistance to that kind of imperial domination is justified.”

Fateh’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday about Gilbert-Pederson and Smith-Kooiman, both of whom have previously faced some scrutiny for their rhetoric on Israel and Oct. 7, or his answers to the DSA’s questionnaire.

For his part, Frey, a Jewish Democrat, has been outspoken against rising antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ attacks. The mayor, 44, has clashed with the City Council over anti-Israel resolutions he has dismissed as one-sided, even as he has condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government’s handling of the ongoing war in Gaza.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, criticizing Israel’s strikes on Iran and the Trump administration’s global posture, suggested that China might be better positioned than the United States to broker peace in the Middle East.

The 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee was a favorite of Israel critics on the left during the vice presidential selection process and praised anti-Israel protesters during the campaign. He is seen as a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate.

“I truly worry now. I’m sure there’s some great strategic thinkers in the Trump administration that have now said, how is this going to — a tweet from the President today said, ‘I told them, I told them, they should have done something and here we are,’” Walz said at a Center for American Progress event, to chuckles from the audience. “Yeah, here we are with the Middle East back on fire in a way that has now expanded.

He said he is “deeply concerned” about the Israeli strikes on Iran.

“Iran has to retaliate in their mind, I’m sure,” Walz continued. “And now, who is the voice in the world that can negotiate some type of agreement in this, who holds the moral authority? Who holds the ability to do that? Because we are not seen as a neutral actor, and maybe we never were, I don’t want to tell anybody that … but I think there was at least an attempt to be somewhat of an arbitrator in this.”

“Consistently, over and over again, we’re going to have to face the reality, it might be the Chinese,” Walz said, “and that goes against everything [the Trump administration] say they’re trying to do in terms of the balance of power.”

.@GovTimWalz on Israel's preemptive strikes: "Iran has to retaliate in their mind I'm sure and now, who is the voice in the world that can negotiate some kind type agreement in this? Who holds the moral authority…we are not seen as a natural actor…it might be the Chinese…" pic.twitter.com/pi4tpnc4lD

— CSPAN (@cspan) June 13, 2025

Walz also described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as “intolerable.”

“It became a central focus in the campaign — and I would say rightfully so,” Walz said. “Human rights issues, how we’re going to try and attempt to get a two state solution where we can allow folks to live peacefully and coexist and have their own self control, or self determination.”

Join us for back-to-back episodes of “Inside the Newsroom” on Thursday, January 18

This first episode at 11am ET will feature an interview between JI Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar and Rep. Dean Phillips, who’s running for president in the Democratic primary against President Joe Biden and represents Minnesota’s Third District in the House of Representatives.

Watch the recording

This second episode at NOON ET will feature an interview between JI Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar and former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, who is running for Senate in Michigan and served as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Register now: https://ji.news/423L5JR

Julia Coleman hasn’t been involved in campus advocacy for a number of years now. But Coleman still carries many of the lessons she learned during her time working as a field representative for the Leadership Institute, a conservative youth organizing group, touring colleges in the mid-Atlantic region.

“One of our demonstrations was we would take a SodaStream and we would set up a little booth,” Coleman recalled in a recent interview with Jewish Insider, referring to the popular soda machine, which is headquartered in Israel and is a frequent target of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns. “While we’re showing them this amazing apparatus, we would talk about the innovations coming out of Israel and the importance of having a free, democratic state in the Middle East and protecting Israel. And it opened up a lot of students’ eyes.”

Such discussions were, incidentally, also good practice for Coleman in her personal and political future as a young Republican. She is now the daughter-in-law of Norm Coleman, the former Minnesota senator and current chair of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “You can’t be in my home and not have those conversations,” the former senator said matter-of-factly in a phone conversation with JI. 

Now that she is vying to represent Minnesota’s 47th district in the state Senate, Coleman — who currently serves as a city council member in Chanhassen, a suburb of Minneapolis — is acutely aware that some of the same issues she faced on campuses will also be present in higher office. Coleman defeated Victoria Mayor Tom Funk in the 47th district Republican primary in August.

She says she is ready for the challenge. “I would like to let the Jewish community in Minnesota know that they do have an ally in me,” she said.

Coleman, 28, says she entered the race to replace Scott Jensen, a Republican retiring at the end of his term, because she believes the state has been co-opted by progressives like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), the freshman congresswoman who is highly critical of Israel and has been accused of antisemitism. “She definitely has yanked that entire party further left and has really created quite a radical base here in Minnesota,” Coleman declared weeks after Omar’s resounding primary victory over a more moderate challenger. 

Julia Coleman during her swearing-in ceremony.

“I will fight antisemitism, whether it’s coming from Ilhan or members of the state legislature or the public, whether it’s coming from movements like BDS,” promised Coleman, who characterizes herself as “a strong, Zionist, pro-Israel supporter.”

It may seem, at first glance, that a down-ballot candidate such as Coleman wouldn’t have much of an opportunity to effect change at the state level. But her father-in-law avers that it is just as important to have pro-Israel candidates locally as it is to have them in Congress. 

“To have somebody who, in their core, understands the importance of these issues, I think, really makes a difference because the battles are being fought on the local level,” he said. 

Dan Rosen, a lawyer in Minneapolis who is involved in pro-Israel causes at the state and national levels, agreed. “Even here in Minnesota, the Jewish community has to be on its guard,” he told JI. “Anti-Israel advocates are active at our capitol, where pro-Israel legislators have passed anti-BDS legislation and thwarted efforts to force divestment from Israel. Accordingly, we are grateful when legislative candidates, like Julia, are committed to fighting those that would single out Jewish and pro-Israel interests for attack.”

Coleman, who was raised Catholic, has developed a strong affinity for Judaism since she married Jacob Coleman — an account executive at a Minneapolis insurance company and a volunteer fireman in Chanhassen — in 2018. They have decided to raise their 10-month-old son, Adam, in both religious traditions, just as Jacob, whose mother is Catholic, grew up.

“We’ll do Christmas and Hanukkah, we’ll do Easter and Passover,” she said, “and it has helped me to not only appreciate the Jewish people and their faith, but also it has taught me so much about my own because we share that Old Testament. I think that it is so important for Christians to really get to know their Jewish brothers and sisters and their faith, because it helps us to understand our own even better.”

Coleman with her husband, Jacob, a volunteer fireman in Chanhassen.

Coleman said she has learned much about Judaism as well as the U.S.-Israel bond through her relationship with her father-in-law. “He did my first Seder,” she told JI, “and it was just such a beautifully eye-opening experience into the Jewish faith, as well as my own, because that’s part of our background.”

“You learn simply by being around him,” Coleman added, noting that she attended the RJC convention at his behest in 2019. “That was such a great experience. I’ve always been pro-Israel, but to hear the president speak and to get to meet hundreds of people who are Jewish and Israel supporters, and to share why this issue matters to them on a personal level, and to hear Norm speak to them and hear their stories — you learn so much.”

Coleman — who has never been to Israel but wants to visit — was raised in Minnesota. Her father is a Ramsey County deputy sheriff, and her mother is an executive consultant. She graduated from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and was Miss Minneapolis in 2014. (Her platform, she said, was suicide prevention.) She “gave up” her “crown,” as she jokingly put it, to spend a year with the Leadership Institute, but returned to her home state to work for Charlie Kirk’s conservative nonprofit student organization, Turning Point USA.

“I got kicked off of college campuses more than I care to admit,” she said.

Soon after, she was hired as a reporter and anchor for Alpha News, a partisan media startup in the Gopher State. But Coleman found that being in front of a camera was unfulfilling, so she moved on to a new position as a public relations manager at Medical Alley Association, a trade group advocating on behalf of Minnesota’s health technology community. 

She currently holds that job while serving on the Chanhassen City Council, a position she has occupied since 2018, the same year she married her husband — who five years ago ran for the Senate seat she is gunning for, but lost the Republican endorsement to Jensen.

“My dad was thrilled when I married Norm’s son, because Norm brought the Wild to Minnesota, and my dad is a die-hard Wild fan,” said Coleman, alluding to Minnesota’s professional hockey team. “I don’t think my husband had to put up too hard of a fight to ask for permission, although my dad was on duty and armed when Jake asked for permission, so, brave guy.”

Coleman sits with her father, a Ramsey County deputy sheriff.

Though Coleman is only two years into her term as a city council member, she believes that she is ready for a promotion to the State Senate. 

“I felt compelled to run in order to preserve the freedoms that I got to grow up with and the opportunities I had,” she said, emphasizing that she takes Omar’s statements personally in large part because of her son.

“My son has Jewish heritage,” she told JI. “I’m just blown away by Ilhan Omar’s rhetoric, and when people think of a female politician from Minnesota, I want them to think about someone who’s pro-Israel and supportive of the Jewish community.”

Support for BDS, Coleman added, has become commonplace among left-leaning politicians in Minnesota, a development she regards as troubling. “It is just antisemitism at its finest,” she told JI.

Coleman, who is all but assured a seat in the solidly conservative district as she goes up against Democrat Addie Miller in November, swats away questions about her ambitions beyond state office. 

“I always say the same thing when I was on council,” she said. “I have to prove I can do a good job here before I’ll even think that far ahead.”

In the meantime, she is looking forward to taking on more substantive issues assuming she is elected to the State Senate — a return of sorts to her days advocating for conservative causes on campuses in her early 20s.

“You really don’t talk about hot button issues on council,” Coleman told JI. “You talk about zoning, you talk about the local levy, the fire department. In the State Senate, issues like BDS will come before me. Issues like abortion and the Second Amendment will come before me. Issues that are going to affect every single Minnesotan will be discussed and debated. And so I do believe that, if elected in November, I will be incredibly blessed to fight for the people of Minnesota and, hopefully, leave behind a state that is better than the one I grew up in for the next generation of Minnesotans.”

Before he was elected to the Minneapolis City Council in 2017, Jeremiah Ellison had carved out a niche for himself as a freelance muralist and aspiring comic book artist for schools and businesses in the city. The last mural he painted — a job overlapping with the tail end of a grueling campaign — was for a pediatric dental practice called Camp Smile, which, to Ellison, evoked “the name of a dentist-themed horror movie.” 

Because he was so short on time, Ellison showed up to the gig without having planned out what he would draw and rendered a series of creepy vignettes, scattering a few anthropomorphic electric toothbrushes with arms, legs and wings around a giant toothpaste tube unfurling a colorful striped ribbon. “It came out really weird,” Ellison, 30, recalled in a series of interviews with Jewish Insider this summer. “I knew the client didn’t like it.”

Still, Ellison found the experience of unloading his ideas directly onto the final surface to be a refreshing change from the usual process of coming up with a design beforehand and then getting it approved. “It always feels really dynamic on the page,” he mused, “and then it loses something in translation when you get it up onto the wall.”

In a way, Ellison could also have been talking about his time as a city councilman representing Minneapolis’s Fifth Ward, where he was born and raised. The activist-turned-politician came to prominence as a public figure five years ago, when he appeared in a viral photo while protesting the police killing of a young, unarmed Black man, Jamar Clark. Though Ellison once defiantly addressed city councilmembers with his back to them, he has taken a somewhat more measured approach since joining their ranks in 2018.

Not that Ellison is new to politics by any means. As the son of Keith Ellison — Minnesota’s attorney general and a former congressman — he is attuned to the vicissitudes of governance. But it is one thing to watch from afar and quite another to do it day in and day out. When he was elected, Ellison hoped to focus on housing equality and economic development at the hyperlocal level. “That’s sort of where I really wanted to stake my claim,” he said. 

But he has shifted his priorities as the pandemic has taken its toll — his grandmother died from the coronavirus — and as mass protests against George Floyd’s murder have set off a national reckoning over the role of the police. In Minneapolis, Ellison has led the charge to introduce a charter amendment that would replace the city’s police department with a new public safety system, but those plans were put on hold when the city’s charter commission blocked the proposal from appearing on the ballot until next year.

His activism notwithstanding, Ellison rejects the notion that he is seeking to eradicate the police. “Abolishing the police department is certainly the goal of activists in the community,” he said. “Not that I’m against that concept. I just don’t think it’s what the council is doing at the moment. I don’t even think it’s anywhere close to that.” 

Ellison describes the effort in different terms. “We are looking to reimagine how public safety happens in our city,” he said. “But the simple fact is law enforcement, at least for the foreseeable future, is still going to be, probably, a significant part of that.”

Jeremiah Ellison speaks during the North Minneapolis City Council Candidate Forum on February 16, 2017. (Tony Webster)

Ellison talks about this issue with a fluency that suggests he was made to address the policing crisis. But in conversation with JI, he also appeared to be exasperated by some of the structural challenges ahead of him, such as qualified immunity and arbitration statutes that have protected police officers from wrongdoing.

“These are things that will drive you to a point of frustration pretty quickly when you’re realizing that you can’t hold people accountable in the way that they deserve to be held accountable,” Ellison said with a sigh, lamenting the lack of control he once possessed with a paintbrush. “I don’t necessarily feel made for this moment in any kind of way. But I do feel like it’s important that I answer the call when I’m being asked to keep my community as safe as possible.”

Despite that goal, Ellison also expressed a strong and persistent desire to give it all up and return to his old vocation, even if he is the scion of one of the most powerful politicians in Minnesota politics. In the art world, at least, his ideas would be unadulterated by the vexing challenge of legislation. “Certainly, when I’ve wrapped here, my plan, my hope,” he said matter-of-factly, “is that I can go back to drawing comics.”

***

Ellison has always defined himself as an artist, which his parents encouraged from a young age. “When he was a little kid, he used to paint and draw on the walls,” Keith Ellison told JI in a phone conversation. “We had to tape paper up on the walls so he would write on the paper and not the walls. This was when he was a tiny little boy, like two or three years old. He just kept doing it, and so we put him in an arts class.”

The class was with Juxtaposition Arts, a prominent non-profit visual arts organization in North Minneapolis. “He was our youngest student,” said Roger Cummings, a co-founder of Juxtaposition, adding that Ellison, who joined at age six, learned to develop his analytical faculties by critiquing and interpreting his classmates’ works before he had reached adolescence. 

Ellison was also taught that making a mural was as much an artistic statement as it was an exercise in community engagement. “What we try to do is give different levels of responsibility to young people,” Cummings explained, mentioning such extra-artistic tasks as securing the wall, talking to the business owner and creating a design that takes into account those who live and work in the area.

Even with that civic-minded training, Ellison was not immediately moved to go into public service. “When we were younger — 16, 17 — he was really adamant that he did not want to go into politics,” said Michael Lee, who is one of Ellison’s best friends from high school, noting that Ellison’s father had been elected to Congress the year after they got to know each other. Still, Lee added that Ellison had changed his mind when they spoke years later. “His understanding of public service and politics comes out of his orientation toward art and storytelling.”

Ellison, who dropped out of college after about one semester, has brought that sensibility to the city council. “He’s not locked into convention,” his father told JI. His mother, Kim Ellison, who chairs the Minneapolis Board of Education, agreed. “If he didn’t have blank paper and pencil in front of him, he wasn’t focused — that was part of everything he did or any space he was in,” she told JI. “Even now, in his office or in his house, he’ll have a whiteboard. He’s got to write down his thoughts and be able to see them.”

Lisa Goodman, a city councilmember who sits next to Ellison on the dais whenever the council meets in person — which isn’t often these days — described Ellison as a “creative, nervous doodler” who could often be seen scribbling away on a piece of paper during council presentations. “He lets out his anxiety and energy through art,” she said. 

Though Ellison and Goodman disagree on several policy issues — including the police — Goodman said that she has managed to find common ground with her young colleague despite their differences. 

Jeremiah Ellison speaks with constituents in Minneapolis. (Courtesy)

In the fall of 2019, Goodman, who is Jewish, invited Ellison, a Muslim, to a Friday night service at Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue she regularly attends in Minneapolis. “In Minnesota, Jews and Muslims are not the predominant religion, and so I found commonality with him in that, and I was really honored that he agreed to come with me to synagogue,” she told JI. “He immediately accepted my invitation, showed up on time and sat with me and prayed.”

Ellison, who serves a section of Minneapolis that was once home to a sizable Jewish population, recalled the service with a sense of appreciation. “It was very social justice–centered, and there was this strong sense of solidarity that I felt, especially sitting next to Lisa Goodman, who I had been told would be an intense political enemy.”

Ellison believes Judaism and Islam are “incredibly compatible,” given, for one, that they are both Abrahamic religions. “I also think that, politically, the two religions sort of exist under a certain level of threat in America,” he said. “It can be difficult to recognize that when you have prominent sort of, quote unquote, Islamic figures who are openly antisemitic.”

He was referring, in large part, to the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who is widely viewed as an antisemite. But Ellison’s appraisal is complicated by the fact that his father once supported Farrakhan and defended him in law school newspaper columns. 

Though Keith Ellison — who was the first Muslim to serve in Congress in 2007 — has since renounced Farrakhan, his affiliation with the controversial leader, as well as some of his past statements on Israel, have come back to haunt him, particularly when, in 2016, he ran for chair of the Democratic National Committee. While Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) endorsed Ellison, Haim Saban, the powerful Democratic donor, refused to get behind him, characterizing Ellison as “an anti-Semite and anti-Israel individual.”

***

Ellison is, of course, aware of his father’s uneasy relationship with some high-profile members of the Jewish community, but he doesn’t feel constrained by it. “I think, personality-wise, my dad is a bit extroverted,” he said. “I’m more introverted, which is probably the only reason that I don’t have a bunch of controversial things that people know I said when I was in my early 20s.”

“I don’t feel any pressure because of my relationship with my dad,” he added. “I have a level of urgency to remember that I don’t know everything. At 21, I probably would have very decidedly spoken about my support for Palestine, which I still hold, without much regard for any understanding of antisemitism. Now, I’m building relationships with people in my community. I’m building relationships with my colleagues who are helping me consider things that I just quite honestly hadn’t considered before.”

Steve Fletcher, another Jewish Minneapolis city councilmember who was elected the same year as Ellison, is one of those colleagues. He described Ellison as a strong ally who was capable of detecting instances of antisemitism when they entered the public discourse. 

“I’m an advocate for smart housing and density in the urban core, and every once in a while somebody who opposed adding more dense housing would say to me, ‘Go back to New York,’ and I’m not from New York,” Fletcher recalled. “It just felt a little coded. It was something that I noticed, and that Jeremiah noticed. He picked up on it right away.”

Still, Ellison acknowledged that he has approached the issue with a learning curve. “There have been points where elected leaders who I’m fond of, who I have a good relationship with, have said things that I didn’t understand to be antisemitic,” he said, “and it’s been through conversations with people like Lisa and Steve Fletcher, in particular, where I feel like I have come to understand antisemitism a lot better than I think I really did.”

“I’m Muslim, so solidarity with people in Palestine is something that has been a crucial part of my politics,” Ellison elaborated. “I think that understanding where that line is and when you do cross that line between being critical of the way a government functions versus assigning these characteristics, these caricatures, to a religion, a people, I think that I needed to grow in understanding what that line was myself. And I think that I have grown.”

Ellison declined to name names when asked which elected leaders he had in mind. But Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who inherited Keith Ellison’s seat in Minnesota’s 5th congressional district when he ran for attorney general, is a friend of the young city councilman and has been accused of making antisemitic remarks.

“Ilhan has had to learn the hard way what that line is between being, I think, appropriately critical of a government’s policies versus saying things that are antisemitic,” he said of the congresswoman, who endorsed Ellison during his run for City Council when she was a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. “While I still unequivocally support Ilhan and her reelection, and want to support her in her growth as a young congressperson, I also think I understand that there’s probably still some learning and a little bit of remedy that needs to occur between her and a lot of folks of Jewish faith here in Minnesota.”

For his part, Ellison said he is still working out some of his beliefs when it comes to Israel. He declined to take a stand, for instance, regarding the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. 

“To be fully honest, I wouldn’t condemn the BDS movement just because I understand, I think, the impulses of a lot of the people I know who are participating in it and who do believe in it,” he said, adding, “I would want to make sure that I fully understand the ways in which that movement could be interpreted as antisemitic, whereas I gotta acknowledge right now, I don’t fully understand where that line is as it pertains to BDS.”

Still, he expressed a strong desire to visit Israel as well as the Palestinian territories, if given the chance to do so. “It’s just an important part of the world to engage with,” he said, “and I think it’s important to sort of be on the ground. I think that you always learn more on the ground.”

Jeremiah Ellison speaks in front of a mural at a Minneapolis skate park.

***

For the moment, though, Ellison appears intent on staying put in his home city, where, as a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, his first term ends in 2022. While his tone suggested that he would most likely run for a second term, he also indicated he would be happy to pass the mantle to another public servant when he felt the time was right. He certainly has no intention of running for higher office, he said. “I don’t want to be mayor.”

Though such statements should be taken with a grain of incredulity — he is a politician, after all — Ellison appeared genuinely intent on getting back in touch with his artistic side and abandoning politics altogether when the time is right. 

“Without putting a date on it, I think me deciding to wrap up this position will have less to do with whether or not I think I’m ready, and I think it’ll have more to do with how good of a job I do in fostering new political talent that centers the work more than the title, that centers the community more than their own advancement,” he said. “Those are the things I care about. I’m gonna be doing well either way. I made a living as a muralist.”

Ellison regards his muraling as separate from his political endeavors. He quotes a role model, the Chicago artist Theaster Gates, to bolster his point: “I would never make a mural to solve a social problem.” 

“I think muraling is really important, but I also think that there’s a real limitation to murals that doesn’t really dishonor them,” he said. “I still think that murals are really necessary, but the thing that I always found as a mural artist was that murals are often like pins on a map. I think the best murals maybe tell a story of a neighborhood — and certainly murals that ignite that activist sort of impulse tell a story and they point to an issue.”

In his time on the city council, Ellison has nevertheless made efforts to marry his past life as an artist with his current role as an elected official, but he hasn’t yet found a spare moment to do so effectively. “I will tell you, there have been times where I’ve tried to pick up a project,” he told JI. “I’ve thought about doing almost, like, a very relatable local government explainer via comic. It gets so hard to actually sit down and write and draw when you’re in the day-to-day of this job.”

For now, Ellison is focused on the day-to-day. “I just try to do my job,” he said. “My job is to keep people safe. The police murdered George Floyd and then the police also escalated tensions with protesters until things obviously got untenable. And so that’s my focus.”

Susan Segal, who was recently appointed chief judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals and who previously served as Minneapolis’s city attorney, told JI Ellison had been a thoughtful councilman during the brief time she worked with him. “He asked questions and wanted information, and he’s a good listener, so I really enjoyed my time working with him,” said Segal, who hosted Ellison and his father for a Passover Seder not too long ago. “He was a good client in the sense that he asked for legal advice and he followed it.”

But it remains to be seen how long being a public servant will be his focus. “A few years ago, he was happy painting, doing graphic novels, painting murals, part of the whole Minneapolis art scene,” Keith Ellison told JI. “He’s been painting murals since he was literally three years old. And it’s his passion. It’s what he really is here to do.” He added, “I think Jeremiah could do more things in politics. But the question is, does he want to? And so I think, at this point in his life, he’s happy to do public service, but I think his real heart is in the arts world.”

Ellison isn’t denying his father’s assessment. “I’ll tell you, as much as I am honored to do this job,” he said, “I do like painting murals more.”

The Democratic primary race to represent Minnesota’s 5th congressional district has shifted in tone since December, when Antone Melton-Meaux first announced his campaign against freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

Like many parts of the country, the Minneapolis district has grappled with the coronavirus over the last several months. But in recent weeks, the mood in the district has transformed from anxiety and grieving to anger over systemic racism and racial inequality after the killing of George Floyd and the aggressive police response to the nationwide protests that followed. 

Melton-Meaux, one of three Democrats challenging Omar in the August 11 primary, told Jewish Insider that although the incident served as a watershed moment in the district, his campaign strategy hasn’t changed. “We have spoken about the institutional systemic racial inequities from the beginning of our campaign,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons I decided to run for Congress. So the tragedy of George Floyd has amplified that component of our campaign, so that we can demonstrate the leadership that the people are hungry for.”

This week, Melton-Meaux’s campaign released two television ads highlighting his background as a mediator — a skill set, he says, he wants to bring to a divided Washington. “The political culture in Washington is toxic,” Melton-Meaux says in one of the ads. “We don’t need more dividers… I will bring people together and get things done for our community.” In the other ad, he discusses the hurdles he faced growing up and the current challenges of protecting his children from racial injustice. 

“I would say that the tragedy of George Floyd has made it clear that leadership matters, and how our elected officials serve their residents matters,” Melton-Meaux stressed in a recent interview with JI. “We can’t wait any longer. We need leaders who will take up the mantle and do the hard work with the people to make that change happen.” 

Campaign officials told JI that the campaign will launch an integrated marketing strategy in the coming weeks in an effort to deliver Melton-Meaux’s message to voters. 

Since Floyd’s murder, Melton-Meaux has participated in local protests and marches across the district, engaging with constituents about the need for police reform. At one gathering, he joined his 16-year-old daughter, Ava, and thousands of high school and college students at the Minnesota State Capitol for a moment of silence in Floyd’s memory. “It was a beautiful thing,” he said of the experience, which was dubbed as a “sit and breathe” protest. 

“Residents of my district are tired and frustrated by the seemingly intractable problems we have with police violence, particularly how the police interact with people of color. The inequities that have fueled this moment have existed for decades,” Melton-Meaux said. He called Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s handling of the protests “imperfect,” pointing to the jeers Frey received during a rally last week after he refused to commit to defunding the city’s police department. “The crowd booing Mayor Frey’s answer is a clear expression of that anger and frustration,” he explained.

“After decades and centuries of abuse, people will no longer accept being told to be patient or accept incremental change,” he added. “As a black man, I truly understand those feelings. More of the same is not acceptable. It’s time for massive, systemic structural change in public safety. I not only support that, I’m also encouraged by the passion and calls for action in the community.”

In recent weeks, Melton-Meaux has managed to keep his momentum going as he seeks to raise his profile, according to political observers. Nonpartisan pro-Israel groups like NORPAC and Pro-Israel America have hosted virtual fundraisers for the candidate. 

“I am very pleased to have the support of the pro-Israel community, as well as many other communities that have seen the value of this campaign,” Melton-Meaux told JI. “We are doing well with our fundraising so that we can be competitive with the congresswoman [and] to make sure we’re getting our message out and connecting with residents for the upcoming primary.” 

Melton-Meaux refrained from directly attacking Omar, who recently lost her father due to COVID-19 complications. He suggested that voters in the district are looking for a representative who can build relationships with other lawmakers to deliver results. “We are making sure as a district that we are bringing people along so their voices are heard and that we are building bridges, not burning bridges,” he said, “to make sure that local, elected and federal officials are working together to bring the resources that people need to address these crises that we’re dealing with right now — both with COVID-19 and with the murder of George Floyd.” 

Read our previous feature of Melton-Meaux and his policy views here.

Minnesota Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Tina Smith (D-MN) have joined more than two dozen Senate Democrats publicly warning Israeli leaders of the implications of efforts to unilaterally annex portions of the West Bank. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the government could start annexing territory as early as July 1.

In individual letters sent last month and made public over the weekend, both senators — Klobuchar addressed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Smith wrote to Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz — posited that annexation would undermine efforts to attain a two-state solution.

Twenty-eight senators have so far spoken out against the annexation proposal.

Last month, 19 Democratic senators sent a letter to Netanyahu and Gantz urging the Israeli leaders not to move forward with the effort. That letter, which was updated several times before being sent, cautioned the new Israeli government that “unilateral annexation puts both Israel’s security and democracy at risk” and “would have a clear impact on Israel’s future and our vital bilateral and bipartisan relationship.” Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Bob Casey (D-PA) sent individual communiques to Netanyahu and Gantz, similarly opposing the move, and Sens. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) addressed the matter in individual letters to Pompeo. 

In addition, Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) issued statements against annexation, and Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) indicated to Jewish Currents that instead of signing or authoring a letter on annexation, he would “communicate directly with [Israeli] Ambassador [Ron] Dermer and Israeli officials to express his concerns.” 

On Monday, eight Senate candidates in battleground states are expected to join the list expressing their strong opposition to such a move. In statements provided to J Street and shared with Jewish Insider, the candidates — Cal Cunningham (North Carolina), Sara Gideon (Maine), Teresa Greenfield (Iowa), Al Gross (Alaska), Jaime Harrison (South Carolina), MJ Hegar (Texas), John Hickenlooper (Colorado), Amy McGrath (Kentucky) and Jon Ossoff (Georgia) — emphasized that annexation would put the future of a two-state solution at risk. 

Read their statements in full here.

Earlier this month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) warned that unilateral annexation “puts the future [of peace] at risk and undermines our national security interest and decades of bipartisan policy.” Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden also came out against annexation, saying it “will choke off any hope for peace.”

“From the presidential nominee to the speaker of the House and from the Senate to the senatorial campaign trail, Democratic leaders have now made absolutely clear that they do not and cannot support unilateral annexation in the West Bank,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami told JI. “For annexation to move forward in the face of this overwhelming opposition would be incredibly harmful to the future of Israelis and Palestinians and to the US-Israel relationship.”

A candidate for U.S. Senate is under fire for comments alleging that the “Jewish lobby” controls the Republican Party.

Republican Senate hopeful Jason Lewis, the current frontrunner to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Tina Smith in Minnesota next November, made the comments in 2013 on a radio show he hosted at the time. The comments were first reported by CNN.

“I don’t think the Jewish lobby, the Israeli lobby controls America because there are plenty of opponents,” said Lewis. “I do believe, as I said, they are controlling the Republican party.”

A former one-term congressman, Lewis also said Republicans had dual loyalties to Israel and alleged that former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton was a dual citizen of Israel and the United States. Bolton, who left his post as national security advisor to President Donald Trump last week, is not a dual citizen.

Lewis also claimed that “neoconservatives in the Republican Party from John Bolton on down view Israel as a 51st state.” He added, “and if you dare, dare not to support what Israel does, if you dare not support going to war with Iran — so Israel is safe — you are not only not a good Republican, not fit to be Secretary of Defense, you are an antisemite.”

The Minnesota Republican has often criticized Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who has made controversial statements about the U.S.-Israel relationship, including a claim in February that political support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins.” Leading Democrats and Republicans at the time denounced her remarks as antisemitic. 

In his campaign announcement in August, Lewis depicted Smith as a stooge of Omar, saying “I refuse to sit back on the sidelines and watch our state, country and way of life continue to come under blistering attack from radical politicians like Ilhan Omar and her footsoldier Tina Smith.”

In a statement to Jewish Insider, Democratic Majority for Israel CEO Mark Mellman condemned the remarks and tied them to the vote taken by Congress in May after Omar claimed that supporters of the U.S. alliance with Israel were “push[ing] for allegiance to a foreign country.”

“Republican Senate candidate Jason Lewis’ vile antisemitic remarks must be condemned by every decent American. The U.S. House of Representatives declared in a 407-to-23 vote that accusations of dual loyalty, like those made by candidate Lewis, are antisemitic. Lewis’ statements take already antisemitic allegations of dual loyalty to new extremes by wrongly claiming that John Bolton and other U.S. officials were actually ‘dual citizens’ of Israel and the United States. Lewis’ claim that the ‘Jewish Lobby’ controls the GOP through ‘money’ is both factually false and morally reprehensible.”

Friday afternoon, Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks tweeted, “What [Lewis] said about the Jewish community and their role in US policy as a “shock jock” was indeed shocking. It is unacceptable and indefensible and even if meant to be provocative to his listeners, it has no place in our discourse… In judging [Lewis] one must also look at his time in Cong after his radio career. During his tenure he had an outstanding record of support for Israel and always stood with the Jewish community. He deserves credit for his support and rebuke for his shock jock comments.”