With his path to victory narrowing in the closing stretch of New Jersey’s gubernatorial primary, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) had placed his hopes for a come-from-behind win on the state’s sizable Jewish community, a politically active voting bloc he saw as a crucial part of his coalition in a crowded race with overlapping constituencies and likely low turnout.

The moderate Jewish Democrat worked to court Jewish voters by touting his pro-Israel record and commitment to fighting antisemitism. Weeks before the election, he received a promising endorsement from the Lakewood Vaad, a coalition of influential Orthodox rabbis. The group, which represents the state’s largest Orthodox bloc, has not traditionally taken sides in primaries but urged Democratic as well as unaffiliated voters to back Gottheimer, promising to deliver thousands of voters he and his allies saw as one of their best chances to make the difference in a close race.

In the end, however, the veteran congressman came in fourth place in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, losing to a fellow House member, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), by 22 points, even as she had claimed only a third of the vote in the six-way race.

Gottheimer’s poor overall performance across the state came in spite of relatively strong turnout in Lakewood, where he won more than 5,000 votes from the Orthodox community, including several unaffiliated backers, according to Shlomo Schorr, director of legislative affairs for Agudath Israel of America’s New Jersey office.

With nearly 3,000 registered Democrats in the Orthodox community in Lakewood, Gottheimer’s Vaad endorsement helped him secure those votes and to claim additional support from unaffiliated residents, though hardly as many as his allies had hoped to attract: Lakewood has more than 20,000 unaffiliated Orthodox voters — suggesting that only a small fraction of them had declared as Democrats in order to vote in the primary.

Even if he had sought to mobilize those Orthodox voters earlier in the primary, Gottheimer still would have come up short. “None of that would have made a difference,” Schorr told Jewish Insider, given the outcome on Tuesday. “We just don’t have the kind of numbers to flip such a lopsided race, obviously.”

“Had Gottheimer been competitive with Sherrill in the rest of the state, his advantage among the Orthodox community could well have put him over the top,” Dan Cassino, a political scientist and pollster at Fairleigh Dickinson University, said. “Orthodox voters are a reliable source of votes, and Gottheimer put a lot of effort into securing their support. In a game of inches, that could have been decisive, but this race wound up not being a game of inches.”

Micah Rasmussen, director of Rider University’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, said that “Gottheimer was resourceful and smart to reach out to the religious communities of New Jersey — and it did bear fruit for him.”

“But fundamentally, he needed a lot more than those handful of communities could deliver for him,” Rasmussen told JI.

Dan Cassino, a political scientist and pollster at Fairleigh Dickinson University, agreed. “Had Gottheimer been competitive with Sherrill in the rest of the state, his advantage among the Orthodox community could well have put him over the top,” he said. “Orthodox voters are a reliable source of votes, and Gottheimer put a lot of effort into securing their support. In a game of inches, that could have been decisive, but this race wound up not being a game of inches.”

In Lakewood, a deeply conservative community where Republicans vastly outweigh Democrats, Gottheimer had always been severely limited in his ability to claim a decisive share of the electorate, particularly in a race he lost by more than 175,000 votes. By contrast, Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican nominee backed by President Donald Trump, won Lakewood with more than 9,500 votes. In 2021, he came unexpectedly close to unseating outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, with strong support from the community, even as the Vaad had endorsed the incumbent last cycle.

“Considering he lost by 175,000 votes, there’s not much more he could have done,” a New Jersey political strategist and Jewish community activist said of Gottheimer, adding that the election results showed that the Lakewood Vaad is more capable of turning out significant votes than it was in the past — for second-time Republican nominee Ciatarelli. 

Lakewood helped deliver Ocean County for Ciattarelli, the strategist said, even as the county GOP chair endorsed one of Ciattarelli’s opponents. “That would have been a great day, just good news all around. But the Gottheimer thing kind of leaves people with a bad taste in their mouth.”

Meanwhile, a widely touted nonpartisan effort to register Jewish voters for the Democratic primary succeeded in persuading only a small minority of Lakewood voters to change their party affiliation, said Schorr, who pegged the number at some 250 voters. “It’s very difficult to get people, especially Orthodox Jews, to become registered Democrats,” Schorr told JI. “They’ll vote, maybe, in the election — but to change their affiliation from Republican to Democrat, that you’re not going to get them to do.”

The results raise questions about what basis had existed for the promises and expectations of that re-registration and turnout effort, according to the strategist, who noted the Lakewood votes simply never were up for grabs. “There aren’t a lot of Democratic votes in Lakewood, in the Orthodox community, to be had,” the strategist explained, while adding that Ciattarelli has worked hard to make connections and appeal to those voters.

A local Democratic strategist argued that the disappointing results of the Orthodox turnout effort need to prompt a re-assessment of the strategy.

Even as Gottheimer won his home county of Bergen in northern Jersey, he underperformed in Orthodox communities there and elsewhere in the state, such as Edison and Cherry Hill, said Schorr. “I think they could have done better just from the initial numbers I’ve seen,” he told JI. “The Lakewood area delivered, but other places did not.”

“For Josh, it was a challenge,” a Jewish leader said of Gottheimer. “It wasn’t enough for Josh, but at the end of the day, a pro-Israel and well-known friend of the Jewish community was still elected in part because of the Jewish vote in the state,” the Jewish leader said of Sherrill. 

Notwithstanding his strong record on Israel and antisemitism, across the wider Jewish community, Gottheimer also faced competition from a range of primary rivals including Sherill, former state Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, each of whom has, to varying degrees, built relationships with Jewish leaders during their tenures.

The results indicated that Sherrill overperformed and Gottheimer did not see a strong turnout surge, said a Jewish leader in the state who believes that many Jewish community members are now disillusioned with the results. Still, the Jewish leader expects Sherilll will maintain a positive relationship with the Jewish community going forward.

“For Josh, it was a challenge,” another Jewish leader said of Gottheimer, who sought to draw relatively minor contrasts with Sherrill on Jewish issues during the race, as she has called for increased federal action against antisemitism and demonstrated a largely pro-Israel record while in Congress. “It wasn’t enough for Josh, but at the end of the day, a pro-Israel and well-known friend of the Jewish community was still elected in part because of the Jewish vote in the state,” the Jewish leader said of Sherrill. 

Looking toward November, a Jewish leader said that moderate Democratic voters could be up for grabs for Ciatarelli, as many Jewish voters have been feeling disenchanted with the direction of the Democratic Party.

He is also likely to draw strong support from the Orthodox community, where in Lakewood alone there are around 30,000 registered Republicans.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) comfortably prevailed in New Jersey’s Democratic gubernatorial primary last night, translating strong fundraising and backing from numerous party leaders into a double-digit margin of victory in the six-candidate field. With most of the ballots tallied, Sherrill won just over one-third of the Democratic vote.

Sherrill, a pragmatic suburban lawmaker and military veteran, will face Republican former state Rep. Jack Ciattarelli in the November general election. Boosted by President Donald Trump’s endorsement, Ciattarelli easily won the GOP nomination.

Sherrill continues the trend of moderate-minded candidates prevailing in recent Democratic primary fights. Three of her Democratic opponents ran to the congressman’s left, with left-wing Newark Mayor Ras Baraka even getting arrested at a federal immigration facility. That activist messaging didn’t end up winning him much traction in the race.

Baraka’s anti-Israel record and past praise of Louis Farrakhan concerned Jewish leaders, but he ultimately finished well behind Sherrill, in second place with 20% of the vote.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) ran to the center in the race, spent heavily and worked hard to win over the significant Jewish vote in the state, landing key endorsements from several Orthodox groups. But aside from handily winning his home county of Bergen, he struggled to make inroads in other parts of New Jersey, tallying 12% of the vote. (In Ocean County, where the congressman picked up a key endorsement of the Lakewood Vaad, he lagged in third place.)

Sherrill has compiled a largely pro-Israel record during her time in Congress, and called for more action against antisemitism in the aftermath of the murder of Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum. But she hasn’t been as outspoken as Gottheimer on issues affecting the Jewish community, and declined interview requests from Jewish Insider during the last month of the campaign to more fully discuss her views on antisemitism. 

Ciattarelli also spoke out against antisemitism on the campaign trail, and touted his visit to Israel last summer as he campaigned in Lakewood.

The November general election will offer the first test of whether Trump’s significant gains in the Garden State in last year’s presidential election will hold now that he’s been in office for months — or whether there’s an emerging backlash to his polarizing governance. Trump only lost the once solidly-blue state to then-Vice President Kamala Harris by six points, a much narrower margin than Democrats anticipated.

Ciattarelli ran against outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, in 2021, and also ran a surprisingly competitive race against the incumbent, losing by just three points. 

As New Jersey’s competitive gubernatorial primary takes place today, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) looks like the front-runner in the crowded Democratic field but without much public polling and a late flurry of advertising, there’s still a considerable amount of uncertainty as to who will emerge as the nominee in the six-way race.  

Sherrill, a military veteran who has represented a suburban north New Jersey seat since 2018, is the favorite of many Democratic Party officials and has been leading in the limited public polling of the race. The congresswoman has also been one of the top fundraisers in the field, along with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), who has been courting support from the state’s sizable Jewish community.

“Josh has been betting on the Jewish community coming out strong, and there is a realistic possibility that if new voters emerge in places like Lakewood, which is the fifth-largest city in New Jersey now, it could play a decisive role,” one Jewish community activist, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss the primary, told Jewish Insider on Monday. 

But even as Gottheimer won a key endorsement last month from the Lakewood Vaad, an influential coalition of rabbis from the state’s largest Orthodox Jewish community, other observers expressed some skepticism that the moderate congressman’s strategy of consolidating Jewish support will be enough for him to prevail in the primary to replace Gov. Phil Murphy, a term-limited Democrat.

“I just don’t know if it’s going to be able to be enough to give him the edge,” said Shlomo Schorr, the director of legislative affairs for Agudath Israel of America’s New Jersey office. “It was maybe a bit too late to get the turnout that they had wanted and needed.”

Though Schorr said that Gottheimer’s strong showing in early voting so far in major Orthodox communities such as Teaneck and Lakewood could peel support away from Sherrill, he also speculated that it could help to fuel another candidate, Steve Fulop, the mayor of Jersey City, running as a progressive-minded anti-establishment challenger. 

Fulop, a Jewish Democrat whose campaign is appealing to progressive, younger voters, has said “every single person has a pathway to win.” He has faced backlash from Jewish leaders for opposing legislation to enshrine the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism into state law, though he later walked back his remarks in a mailer aimed at Jewish voters.

Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark whose coalition in some ways overlaps with Fulop, has experienced a late surge thanks largely to his high-profile arrest last month outside an immigration detention facility in New Jersey, even as his record of commentary on key issues such as Israel and antisemitism has raised concerns among many Jewish leaders in the state.

The other Democrats in the primary include Stephen Sweeney, a moderate who served as president of the state Senate, and Sean Spiller, the president of the New Jersey Education Association who has drawn significant outside support from a super PAC spending more than $8 million to boost his campaign. 

Jack Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman backed by President Donald Trump, is favored to clinch the Republican nomination. He came close to unseating Murphy in 2021, winning Lakewood in the process. The Vaad has also endorsed his campaign this cycle.

The results of the Democratic primary are more volatile, particularly without the so-called county line that had bestowed establishment-backed candidates with preferential ballot placement.

“With no line, all bets are off,” said a Jewish activist who is not taking sides in the race, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address the primary. “It’s all turnout. I still think it’s Mikie’s to lose. Her team is confident, as is the candidate. But I guess they all are.”

Recently released Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander and his family endorsed Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) for governor of New Jersey and praised his advocacy for Alexander’s release in a letter to the congressman.

The letter, read out at a recent campaign event in Tenafly, N.J. by a family friend, reads, “We can’t wait to thank you in person and we can’t wait to call you Governor Josh in November.”

The letter is signed by Alexander himself, his mother and father Yael and Adi, his sister Mika and brother Roy.

“In those dark times” of Alexander’s captivity, “you were not only a shining ray of light, but you were what we call a mensch,” the family wrote. “You reached out to us and stood by us from day one. You opened doors for us in the political arena and used all your skills, connections and resources to help us in our long uphill struggle to bring back our son to us.”

“You used every platform to bring Edan to the spot light,” the letter continues. “In NJ, in DC and out to the world. You took it personally and took us in as your extended family. You were there for us in the public eye and in private.”

Gottheimer is banking on strong support and turnout from New Jersey’s Jewish community to propel him to victory in next week’s gubernatorial primary.

A federal judge in New Jersey issued an order on Wednesday ruling that the Trump administration’s monthslong effort to deport Columbia University protest leader Mahmoud Khalil was likely unconstitutional — but that his failure to disclose his affiliations with anti-Israel groups raises concerns. 

Judge Michael Farbiarz said in his opinion that the court found that Khalil is unlikely to succeed in his challenge against the claim that he failed to disclose crucial information in his green card application, including former employment by UNRWA and his membership in the campus group Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which has been banned from Instagram for promoting anti-Israel violence.  

Farbiarz also noted that the charges in Khalil’s case are “unprecedented” and likely unconstitutional, stating, “the issue now before the Court has been this: does the Constitution allow the Secretary of State to use Section 1227, as applied through the determination, to try to remove the Petitioner from the United States? The Court’s answer: likely not.” Farbiarz said he will soon issue an order about next steps in the case.

The opinion ruling was a response to an appeal filed by Khalil’s lawyers last month, after the Trump administration presented claims against Khalil, a former graduate student who led last year’s anti-Israel campus protests against the war in Gaza and subsequent student negotiations with university administration.

A memo submitted to the court in Louisiana — where Khalil remains held in an ICE detention facility — signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited the president’s authority to expel noncitizens whose presence in the country could have adverse foreign policy consequences, regardless of whether they have committed a crime. It stated that Khalil’s arrest and planned deportation are based on his “participation in antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.” 

“Condoning anti-Semitic conduct and disruptive protests in the United States would severely undermine that significant foreign policy objective,” Rubio wrote in the two-page memo.

One day after the memo was submitted, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled that the government’s argument that Khalil’s presence in the U.S. posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences” was sufficient to rule he could be removed from the country. Khalil’s lawyers argue that he’s being punished for what they say is protected speech.

Khalil, who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent, first came to the U.S. on a student visa and later married a U.S. citizen and received a green card. He was arrested on March 8 at his university-owned apartment, without being charged with a crime, making him the first high-profile target of the Trump administration’s crackdown on foreign students.  

The prolonged case is a contrast to a Vermont judge’s decision last month ordering the immediate release of Mohsen Mahdawi, another Palestinian student from Columbia who helped organize campus anti-Israel demonstrations, but remained jailed for just two weeks. Mahdawi graduated from Columbia last week. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He is a strong advocate on the issues of concern for the Jewish community, as his track record in Congress shows,” Bercovitch told JI. “I believe many will be surprised by the results on June 10 in large part because of his tremendous advocacy for the Jewish community.”

In the GOP primary, the Vaad also endorsed Jack Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman who won Lakewood in his previous bid for governor in 2021, even as Gov. Phil Murphy, a term-limited Democrat, had notched the coalition’s backing at the time.

Following the murder of two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), a New Jersey gubernatorial candidate, wrote to federal leaders to call for further action to protect the Jewish community and raised concerns about growing trends of antisemitic violence across the country.

Sherrill wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi to call on the government to provide additional resources and funding to allow houses of worship and nonprofits to protect themselves — including through the Nonprofit Security Grant Program — and ensure that law enforcement can properly investigate and prevent antisemitic violence.

In the letter, Sherrill described the shooting as unequivocally motivated by antisemitism and as  “an assault on the core values and ideals of our nation — particularly the right to religious expression and to practice one’s faith without fear of violence” and said “we must take every effort to prevent it from happening again.” She said the attack “highlight[s] the threat of violence against Jewish Americans and residents across the United States.”

“As antisemitic violence and threats have increased, I remain concerned that synagogues, Jewish faith-based organizations, and nonprofits are under-resourced for the heightened threats that they face,” Sherrill said. “I urge you to take whatever actions you can to ensure that the programs that support these organizations are properly resourced and staffed.”

In addition to NSGP funding, Sherrill expressed concerns that funding cuts will leave “initiatives within your departments meant to combat antisemitism and other hate crimes … unable to address the rising threat that we face today.” She pointed specifically to a range of programs to address and prevent hate crimes.

The administration has sought to cut funding from hate crime grant programs it claimed violate the First Amendment. Sherrill urged the administration to “maintain and expand funding for these programs.”

Sherrill linked the shooting to the April arson attack on the residence of Penn. Gov. Josh Shapiro, pointing to the arson as another example of the “ever-present risk of antisemitism and violence to all Jewish Americans,” given that the arsonist, who targeted the governor’s mansion on the first night of Passover, was allegedly motivated by Shapiro’s support for Israel. Sherrill also highlighted vandalism and firebombing incidents at synagogues in her district. 

“Our country faces a crisis of antisemitic violence and threats that show no signs of abating,” Sherrill wrote. “It is vital that the federal government take urgent action to protect Jewish communities, prosecute perpetrators of antisemitic hate crimes, and support community programs to counter antisemitism. Jewish Americans face the severe threat of antisemitic violence every day, and it is long past time that the U.S. federal government prioritizes their safety.”

Another gubernatorial candidate, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), publicly urged other candidates in the race to support state legislation to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism last week, in response to the shooting. Sherrill has said she supports that bill.

Some in the Jewish community have seen Sherrill’s record on Jewish issues as spotty at times compared to Gottheimer, but a pair of progressive candidates with more questionable records on such issues have become increasingly competitive against Sherrill, who leads in polling.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), a candidate for governor of New Jersey, challenged his fellow candidates to pledge to sign bipartisan state legislation to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in response to the murder of two Israeli Embassy officials outside the Jewish museum in Washington.

That legislation has become a major dividing line in the gubernatorial race — Gottheimer and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) support it, while Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop opposes it, but said recently he would not veto it. Other candidates did not respond to requests for comment on the issue earlier this year. Critics of the legislation say that the IHRA definition — which identifies some criticism of Israel as antisemitic — violates free speech protections.

“I’m heartbroken by the tragic act of violence that took the lives of two young Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, D.C. Wednesday night … While the investigation continues, one thing is undeniable: antisemitism is fueling violence in this country, and it’s getting worse,” Gottheimer said in a statement shared with Jewish Insider. “Here in Jersey, we feel the effects of hate firsthand in our communities and synagogues. New Jersey had the third highest amount of antisemitic incidents last year, according to the ADL.”

“No one should have to live in fear simply for being Jewish. We must call out antisemitism wherever it appears and hold those responsible for spreading hate and violence accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” he continued. “As Governor, I’ll immediately sign New Jersey’s IHRA bill into law, and I’ll push to dismantle antisemitism and hate in any form whenever it rears its ugly head.”

Gottheimer visited the scene of the shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum on Thursday morning.