In one of his final acts in office, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares sent a letter on Monday reminding all K-12 superintendents and school boards in the state of their obligation to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism into their codes of conduct and discrimination policies. 

“Every student in Virginia has the right to learn in an environment free from fear,” Miyares said in a statement. “The IHRA definition provides schools with a clear framework to recognize and respond to antisemitic conduct and distinguish protected speech from unlawful discrimination, intimidation, and harassment.” 

The IHRA definition is currently used by the Department of Education to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Virginia law also requires use of the IHRA definition by state agencies. “As part of your compliance with Federal and Virginia law, you must implement the IHRA definition and its contemporary examples into your codes of conduct and discrimination policies to assess unprotected activity,” Miyares wrote. 

Miyares, a Republican, lost his reelection bid in November to Democrat Jay Jones, who will be inaugurated later this month. 

In New York City, newly inaugurated Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing criticism for repealing an executive order, issued by former Mayor Eric Adams, that saw the city adopt the IHRA definition. As Virginia’s use of the IHRA definition was codified in state law after being passed by the state legislature in May 2023, neither Jones nor Democratic Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger could reverse it without approval from the General Assembly. 

Virginia public schools have been roiled by a number of high-profile antisemitic incidents in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce announced in November it would open investigations into the Fairfax County, Va., school system, along with several others across the country. 

“Jewish students in Virginia have been excluded, harassed, threatened, and even assaulted,” Miyares wrote in the letter. “Our youngest children have been targeted with harassment as early as elementary school and our young adult leaders have faced hostile and even threatening environments in higher education. This discrimination often masks itself as ‘Anti-Zionism,’ targeting the majority of Jews whose identity includes connection to the modern Jewish state of Israel and fellow Jews who live there… But normalized discrimination based on shared ancestry and ethnic characteristics is still illegal discrimination.”

Miyares continued, “When determining discriminatory motive, the IHRA definition is an effective tool to identify both traditional antisemitic tropes and modern antisemitism that often involves demonization, delegitimization, or applying double standards against Israel.”  

“Pushing back against antisemitism requires clarity, consistency, and courage,” Miyares wrote. “We cannot fight something we fail to define. By adopting this resolution, schools can meet their legal obligations while upholding constitutional principles and ensuring equal access to education for every student.” 

Several leading Jewish organizations in Virginia and Washington issued a joint statement on Thursday slamming state Del. Sam Rasoul and calling for his resignation as chair of the Virginia House of Delegates’ Education Committee, days after the Roanoke Democrat announced that he is considering running for Congress in 2026. 

The statement — from the Jewish Community Relations Councils in the greater Washington area, Richmond, the Tidewater (including Virginia Beach) and the Virginia Peninsula (Newport News) — accused Rasoul, who is Palestinian American, of using rhetoric that fuels antisemitism. 

It did not mention Rasoul’s possible congressional bid. The four organizations are all nonprofits and prohibited from engaging in political advocacy. 

“Del. Rasoul’s antisemitic rhetoric dates back several years, and his vitriol has continued to increase in recent weeks. We are speaking out now because the situation demands it,” Vicki Fishman, director of Virginia government and community relations at the Washington JCRC, told Jewish Insider on Thursday.

Instead, the Jewish groups called for Rasoul to resign as chair of the education committee in the statehouse.

“Sam Rasoul has had the opportunity to provide children with a supportive learning environment and the responsibility to help keep them safe in their classrooms. He has repeatedly failed on both counts and is no longer fit to serve,” the organizations stated. Rasoul has faced scrutiny from Jewish leaders in the state for months, but he remains in the leadership role. 

“Del. Rasoul uses his position and platform to regularly spew vitriol toward the Jewish people — calling Israel ‘depraved’ and ‘evil’ while re-defining Zionism to falsely disparage it as a ‘supremacist ideology,’” the organizations wrote. “Del. Rasoul’s words are precisely the type of destructive rhetoric that fuels antisemitic attacks.” 

Rasoul said his decision to run for a U.S. House seat will depend on whether Virginia moves toward redistricting next year, a process that the House of Delegates appears likely to approve. 

Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA) touted his history with local Jewish organizations and vowed to make combating antisemitism a priority in Congress while speaking to members of Northern Virginia’s Jewish community on Wednesday.

Walkinshaw appeared at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington’s “Lox and Legislators” breakfast in Falls Church, Va., where he lauded attendees for helping to “build communities in ways that make our communities better and stronger for all of us,” recounted his visits to the Fairfax community’s eruv and highlighted his relationships with Congregation Olam Tikvah and the JCRC.

Walkinshaw, who won a special election in August to replace the late Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), his longtime boss, cited Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America while noting that the recent celebration of the fourth anniversary of the eruv’s opening highlighted “the quintessential Americanness of that eruv project.” An eruv is a boundary that allows observant Jews to carry items outside their homes on Shabbat, a foundational feature that makes communities accessible to religious Jews.

“The United States of America, a nation founded on the principle of religious liberty and freedom, where everyone is free to express their faith,” Walkinshaw said. “A lot of folks who remember their [de] Tocqueville, Democracy in America, from high school or college history courses. … He traveled across the country in the 1830s and was impressed by our institutions and our founding documents.”

“He [de Tocqueville] wrote that what actually made — to borrow a phrase — what made America great was our spirit of association and our ability to come together in all kinds of different ways, as faith communities, as neighborhoods, as communities,” he continued. “To solve problems together and work together to make our communities, our states, our nation even better and stronger.”

Walkinshaw expressed concern about the rise in antisemitism nationally and in Virginia, vowing to fight for an increase in Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding for the next fiscal year and to urge the House Education and Workforce Committee to “take a holistic look at antisemitic incidents in school districts across the country,” something he penned a letter to Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) about last month.

“We have to be united. We have to be firm in our opposition to hatred in any form or opposition to antisemitism,” Walkinshaw said. “We can’t allow antisemitism to be a partisan issue. We have to stand against it, Democrats and Republicans, no matter where it takes place.”

The Virginia lawmaker went on to say that “so much of what the Jewish community does in Northern Virginia, what the JCRC does across our region, is build communities in ways that make our communities better and stronger for all of us.” 

“The Fairfax eruv is an affirmation of Jewish belonging here in Northern Virginia, and in Fairfax an affirmation that Jewish people and Jewish families are welcome here and should feel safe here in Fairfax and in Northern Virginia,” he told the crowd. “We know that’s not a feeling that we can take for granted.”

Reached for comment by Jewish Insider on his outreach to Northern Virginia’s Jewish community since taking office, Walkinshaw said in a statement, “Throughout my career in Northern Virginia, I’ve worked closely with our region’s diverse communities, including the Jewish community, to advance safety, dignity, and opportunity for all.”

“As a Member of Congress, I’m proud to continue that work — advancing progressive policies, confronting all forms of hate including antisemitism, and advocating for democratic values and human rights,” his statement added.

Ron Halber, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, gave Walkinshaw a glowing assessment based on his job performance since taking office in September.

“I really have a very, very strong and positive feeling about Rep. Walkinshaw,” Halber told JI. “He’s incredibly thoughtful. I think he has spent a great deal of his career on Capitol Hill, and that he’s just ready for this job.”

“He’s got deep relationships in the Jewish community. I think the Jewish community overall is very, very positively disposed to him. He had a tremendous reaction, a tremendously positive reaction in that room, including from myself,” Halber continued. “I think he’s a great guy, and I think he’s going to do great things. … He’s done a lot of outreach to the Jewish community, makes himself accessible. I think we’re going to have a champion for the Jewish community with him.”

Halber went on to predict that Walkinshaw, who he described as “an excellent speaker,” could become a rising political star. “He’s young, and I think he’s going to become a leader in Congress very quickly. I think he’s very, very smart about a lot of issues,” Halber said.

Sam Rasoul, a Palestinian-American Virginia state delegate with a history of inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric, announced on Monday that he is considering running for Congress in 2026, pending the outcome of a likely redistricting effort in the state. 

The Virginia state Senate recently adopted a measure kicking off a process to allow mid-decade redistricting, following the lead of other states planning to redraw congressional maps to shore up partisan advantages. Texas initiated the political arms race after facing pressure from President Donald Trump to draw maps more favorable to Republicans, and several other GOP-controlled states have followed — and some Democratic-controlled states, like California and Virginia. 

The new maps are already putting several pro-Israel incumbents at risk in states like Ohio and Florida. 

Rasoul, a Roanoke Democrat who chairs the Education Committee in the House of Delegates, came under fire from prominent Jewish Democrats in the state earlier this year after posting a series of posts on social media that critics say crossed a line into antisemitism. 

“Zionism has proven how evil our society can be,” Rasoul wrote on Instagram in July. He called Zionism a “supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way,” which, he wrote, “shows us the worst in humanity.” 

Former Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, a Democrat, told Jewish Insider in August that Rasoul’s language is “fueling one of the oldest forms of hatred in the world, repackaged in the language of activism.” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said at the time that he “forcefully reject[s] any claim that Zionism — the desire of Jewish people to have a state of Israel — is inherently racist or evil.” 

Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger, who was on the campaign trail at the time, did not mention Rasoul by name. But when asked about his comments, she said, referring to the war in Gaza, that “one can and must denounce these tragedies without using antisemitic language, whether intentional or not.”

In a fundraising email announcing his intention to formally explore a congressional run, Rasoul made his opposition to Israel a central part of his pitch.

“Virginians are looking for bold, experienced, progressive leadership that meets this moment and delivers results by guaranteeing healthcare as a human right through Medicare for All, protecting our access to clean air and water through a Green New Deal, and ending all military aid to Israel, which has waged a genocide in Gaza using our taxpayer dollars in violation of American law,” Rasoul wrote. 

Rasoul has served in the House of Delegates for 12 years. 

Virginia’s statehouse will decide in January whether to approve the redistricting effort. If it passes, it will then have to be approved in a statewide ballot referendum. 

Conservative Jewish legal and education experts in Virginia are voicing concern over a request made by Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, for the University of Virginia to pause its presidential search until she takes office in January — and how such a move could impact campus climate for Jewish students. 

The issue of selecting board members at the state’s leading public universities has been a politically charged one since Gov. Glenn Youngkin took office in 2021. Several board seats remain unfilled at George Mason University after Democrats in the state legislature blocked Youngkin’s nominees, including Ken Marcus, founder of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, whom Youngkin appointed in 2024.  

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court of Virginia upheld the ruling in favor of Virginia Senate Democrats blocking more than 20 of Youngkin’s university board appointments at several schools, including UVA and GMU. 

Spanberger has spoken out against government interference at the University of Virginia over several of the Trump administration’s civil rights investigations into the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion program and over its alleged failure to address antisemitism. The university reached a deal with the federal government in October to pause the investigations, which led its president, Jim Ryan, to resign under pressure. 

Youngkin, in turn, attacked Spanberger for getting involved in university governance before she assumes office in January, criticizing a letter she wrote to the board as “riddled with hyperbole and factual errors and impugns both the Board of Visitors and the presidential search underway.” There are currently five vacancies on the UVa Board of Visitors, which Spanberger is looking to fill in order to put her own stamp on the school’s academic future.

Historically, such intraparty skirmishing over university governance and board appointments wouldn’t have a major impact on the Jewish community.  But at a time when dealing with antisemitism has become tinged with partisanship — with Democrats accused of being less aggressive in dealing with some prominent antisemitic incidents —  the makeup of these key leadership roles and appointments carries high stakes.

As a gubernatorial candidate, Spanberger’s campaign declined to comment when asked by Jewish Insider last year about reaction to news of a GMU student arrested for plotting a terror attack against the Israeli consulate in New York City.

“Democrats [may be] less interested in addressing campus antisemitism and associate allegations of it with the Trump administration’s so-called ‘assault on higher education’ and feel like acknowledging antisemitism may be playing into Trump’s hands,” David Bernstein, a law professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, told Jewish Insider.

“Democratic-elected prosecutors in Albemarle County [where UVA is located] told universities that even if students violate the state’s anti-mask law, which is a felony, they’re not going to prosecute them. That’s evidence of Democrats in general not taking campus antisemitism seriously,” continued Bernstein, referencing the tendency of anti-Israel activists to wear masks to conceal their identities at protests. 

Marcus told JI his expectations for new UVA leadership include “moving forward with stronger policies to address antisemitism, [for example] more forceful use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. I’d like to see that be followed at UVA as it has been at George Mason [University].”

“But that’s now in question,” continued Marcus. “It certainly will make a difference whether the current board selects the president or whether they wait for Gov.-elect Spanberger to have a say in the matter. Issues driving selection of the president are unlikely to focus on antisemitism, but they certainly might include adjacent issues like DEI.”  

Jason Torchinsky, a partner at Holtzman Vogel who has filed several lawsuits on behalf of Jewish students alleging campus antisemitism, also expressed worry that “if new board members that the governor-elect appoints are not committed to combating antisemitism on campus, the tide is going to turn and it will get worse at UVA.” 

In Virginia, state university board appointees are typically former legislators of the governor’s party or an alum who donates to the school. Torchinsky said he “suspects Spanberger will follow that pattern.”  

Torchinsky represented Matan Goldstein, a Jewish UVA student who sued the school in 2024 over allegations that he was “a victim of hate-based, intentional discrimination, severe harassment and abuse and illegal retaliation.” As a result of the lawsuit and an anti-Israel encampment that spring, “UVA made a lot of good changes at that time,” including enforcing an anti-mask law at protests, Torchinsky told JI. 

“If the board reverses those policies or fails to enforce them, it could be bad for Jewish students,” continued Torchinsky. “I’m just hoping those don’t get reversed.” 

A private K-8 school in Northern Virginia reached a settlement on Tuesday with the parents of an 11-year-old Jewish student who say their daughter faced months of antisemitic harassment that went unaddressed by school officials. 

According to the complaint, filed in July with the Office for Civil Rights in the Virginia Attorney General’s Office by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights under Law and Washington-based firm Dillon PLLC, the student faced several antisemitic incidents while a student at Nysmith School for the Gifted in Herndon, Va., including a history class where students were asked to work together to create a large drawing featuring the attributes of “strong historical leaders.” 

The students collaborated on a large artistic rendering featuring Adolf Hitler’s face. The parents learned of the project only after Nysmith School posted a photo of the children holding up their project, which is reproduced in the complaint. The student was also told that Jews are “baby killers” and that they deserved to die because of the Israel-Hamas war.

Kenneth Nysmith, the headmaster and owner of Nysmith, told the parents to tell their daughter to “toughen up” when they asked the school to take steps to address the bullying, according to the complaint.  

Two days later, on March 13, the headmaster sent the parents an email stating all three of their children — a son in the second grade and two daughters in the sixth grade — were expelled effective that same day. The complaint does not address any reason that Nysmith provided for the expulsions but noted that the children had no disciplinary record.

In addition to the harassment, the complaint notes that Nysmith canceled an event featuring a Holocaust survivor due to concerns that the event might exacerbate tensions within the school community related to the Israel-Hamas war. 

Under the terms of the settlement, in addition to monetary relief to the family, Nysmith School agreed to establish a committee to review and investigate discrimination complaints — with an independent monitor evaluating the committee’s work. It also agreed to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and to provide staff with annual antisemitism training and students with annual education on antisemitism and the Holocaust for the next five years. 

The training will be led by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. Nysmith, headmaster of Nysmith School, agreed to issue a public statement apologizing for expelling the children and making them feel unwelcome based on religious identity. 

Kenneth Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center, said that the settlement sends “a clear message, one that demonstrates accountability and willingness to improve. It is our hope that other schools and universities around the country will follow suit.”   

With a week since the off-year gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, a clear dynamic is emerging: President Donald Trump’s gains with nontraditional GOP voters — especially working-class Black and Hispanic voters and Gen Zers — are not translating into support for the Republican Party this year. 

If Republicans are unable to recreate the Trump 2024 coalition without Trump on the ballot, they will face serious political disadvantages for the midterms and beyond. 

The double-digit margins of victory of incoming Democratic governors Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger in Virginia speak volumes about the current political environment. Their sweeping wins underscore that, while Democrats may be divided as a result of ideological infighting, the antipathy towards Trump and the GOP is the glue that holds the party together. 

The historic tendency of voters taking out their dissatisfaction on the party in power is alive and well, and is much more of a factor than the favorability ratings of the political parties.

The most revealing outcome from the gubernatorial elections is the fact that the majority-making elements of Trump’s coalition swung decisively back to the Democrats, according to the AP/Fox News voter analysis. In New Jersey, young men between 18-29 backed Sherrill by 14 points (57-43%) after narrowly supporting Trump in last year’s presidential election. In Virginia, Spanberger won 58% of young men, a huge margin for a demographic that had assumed to be trending away from the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party’s comeback with Hispanic voters is equally as significant. Because of continuing inflation and backlash to the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation of illegal immigrants and ICE tactics, Hispanic voters once again voted like reliable elements of the Democratic coalition. In New Jersey, over two-thirds (68%) of Hispanic voters backed Sherrill —12 points more than Kamala Harris’ support with Hispanics in the state in 2024. In Virginia, Spanberger’s 67% support with Hispanics was eight points ahead of Harris’ vote share with the key constituency.

Meanwhile, Black voters overwhelmingly sided with the Democratic nominees this year, after a notable minority of them backed Trump in last year’s presidential election. Spanberger won 93% of the Black vote, seven points more than Harris, even though she was running against a Black opponent in Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. Sherrill won 94% of the Black vote in New Jersey, a whopping 15 points more than Harris carried in 2024.

There are a number of lessons from the gubernatorial results, even if they don’t neatly extrapolate into different states in future elections. 

First, the presence of pragmatic-minded Democrats with moderate voting records in Congress at the top of the ticket was a major selling point. In the 2024 presidential election, more voters viewed Harris as out of the ideological mainstream — a dynamic that was impossible to shake, given her long record of progressive posturing. That’s a clear lesson for Democrats to learn as they weigh their presidential nomination options for 2028.

Second, it’s evident that the GOP’s inroads with nonwhite working-class voters in 2024 was more of a short-term blip —mainly in response to former President Joe Biden’s handling of inflation — than any kind of lasting realignment. Republicans may come to regret their aggressive, partisan gerrymandering in Texas, given that it’s reliant on moderate-minded Hispanic voters in the state maintaining an affiliation with the Republican Party. That’s far from a sure thing.

Finally, it’s a reminder that the economy remains the dominant issue for voters — especially with these politically cross-pressured constituencies, which are generally less financially secure than their counterparts. One way to tamp down the so-called “culture wars” and rising extremism is by ensuring economic security and a broader safety net for less advantaged Americans. 

Democrats scored sweeping victories across the country yesterday, with moderate lawmakers comfortably winning governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, while a democratic socialist prevailed in the closely watched New York City mayoral contest. California overwhelmingly voted to redistrict its congressional maps, a response to efforts in some red states to reconfigure congressional maps to give the GOP an edge. 

The results underscore the widespread backlash to President Donald Trump’s polarizing governance in the first year of his second term in office, and indicate the likelihood that Democrats have momentum heading into next year’s midterm elections, where the party is looking to retake control of at least one branch of Congress.

In Virginia, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee, easily defeated Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the sitting lieutenant governor, by a double-digit margin (57-43%), bringing in a sizable Democratic majority in the state’s House of Delegates. Her victory was so sweeping that the Democrats’ scandal-plagued attorney general nominee Jay Jones, who was under fire for texts he sent several years ago wishing political violence against GOP colleagues, narrowly prevailed over the Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican.

In New Jersey, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) comfortably prevailed over Republican Jack Ciattarelli, outperforming polls suggesting a close race. With most of the vote reporting, Sherrill leads by a whopping 13-point margin, 56-43%. In Bergen County, a bellwether county with a significant Jewish population, Sherrill won over 55% of the vote, a dominant performance illustrating the breadth of her support.

In New York City, DSA-aligned Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani prevailed over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was running as an independent, though by a narrower margin than polling suggested. Mamdani leads Cuomo by eight points, 50-42%, with Republican Curtis Sliwa only winning 7% of the vote. The outcome suggested that many GOP voters ended up switching their support to Cuomo, who won a last-minute endorsement from Trump.

The Jewish vote in New York City went heavily for Cuomo, 60-31%, according to the exit polling, but Mamdani won nearly one-third support despite a long record of anti-Israel hostility and refusal to condemn “globalize the intifada” rhetoric, among other positions that alienated the mainstream Jewish community. 

Jewish community leaders reacted to the New York City mayoral outcome with alarm. “We recognize that voters are animated by a range of issues, but we cannot ignore that the mayor-elect holds core beliefs fundamentally at odds with our community’s deepest convictions and most cherished values,” the UJA-Federation of New York said in a statement. Sara Forman, the executive director of the New York Solidarity Network, said, “Tonight the quiet normalization of antisemitism just got very loud.”

The Anti-Defamation League announced it would be launching a tool tracking the incoming Mamdani administration’s policies and staffing, in a sign of how deep the Jewish community’s concerns run.  

“In light of Mayor-elect Mamdani’s long, disturbing record on issues of deep concern to the Jewish community, we will approach the next four years with resolve. We expect the mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population in the world to stand unequivocally against antisemitism in all its varied forms and support all of its Jewish residents just as he would all other constituents,” said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.

One big question is what lessons a triumphant Democratic Party will learn from the outcome of Tuesday’s elections. The party’s activist left has been ascendant and will be celebrating the election of a democratic socialist in Gotham, but Mamdani’s vote share in a heavily Democratic city lagged well behind the performance of Democratic moderates in more competitive states. 

That alone is a powerful sign of the electoral penalty that far-left candidates could incur, which would be crippling for the party in swing states and battleground districts. Whether Democrats will internalize that lesson is an open question in the months ahead.

The stakes for Jewish voters are high for today’s off-year elections. All the major contests — in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and California — are taking place in parts of the country where Jews make up a significant constituency. At a time when both parties are facing rising antisemitism in their own midst, we will be keeping a close eye on the results for trends affecting the Jewish community.

Here’s what we’ll be watching most closely:

New York City mayor: Polls consistently show Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani with a comfortable lead, but there’s less consensus on how decisive his winning margin will be. Most polls show Mamdani under 50%, though a few show him hitting a majority. Some show the combined anti-Mamdani vote — represented by former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa — outpacing Mamdani’s share. 

Whether Mamdani surpasses a 50% majority will go a long way in determining how big his mandate will be. A narrower victory would mean that downballot Democrats — from members of Congress to local city council members — would have less to fear in response to the Mamdani movement.

President Donald Trump’s last-minute endorsement of Cuomo on Monday night could help the former Democratic governor pick off some Republican voters that had been leaning toward Sliwa. But for Cuomo to score an upset victory, he’d need to win over the vast majority of those Sliwa voters.

Pay close attention to the results in Rep. Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY) heavily Jewish Manhattan district for signs of where the progressive-minded Jewish vote ends up landing. Cuomo won the first round of balloting over Mamdani in the district (37-33%), which includes the Upper East and Upper West Sides, but Mamdani narrowly prevailed in the final round of ranked-choice voting. Nadler notably backed Mamdani after his victory in the primary, but his district featured a significant share of backers for Brad Lander, the progressive city comptroller, as well. Cuomo will need a solid showing in Nadler’s district to do well.

New Jersey governor: The race between Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and Republican Jack Ciattarelli is competitive, though Democrats hold a small edge, according to public polls. The county we’ll be watching closely as a bellwether is Bergen County in north Jersey, which has one of the largest Jewish constituencies in the state and saw a significant pro-Trump swing from 2020 to 2024.

It’s also home to Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), the pro-Israel stalwart in Congress who carried the county in the Democratic gubernatorial primary and campaigned with Sherrill at a Jewish event in his home base last month.

Former President Joe Biden won 57% of the vote in Bergen, while former Vice President Kamala Harris barely won a majority (51%). New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, won 53% of the Bergen County vote in his narrow victory over Ciattarelli in 2021.  Ciattarelli would probably need an outright win in suburban Bergen to secure a victory.

Virginia statewide elections: Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee, is expected to win comfortably against Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the lieutenant governor, but the downballot races are likely to be more competitive. 

Republicans are pinning their hopes on securing a second term for Attorney General Jason Miyares, one of the more active state attorneys general working to fight antisemitism in their home state. His Democratic opponent, Jay Jones, is mired in a scandal over texts wishing violence against a former GOP colleague in the state Legislature. Polling shows the race highly competitive, with Spanberger’s margin of victory potentially making the difference as to whether she can pull Jones over the finish line.

The lieutenant governor race features Ghazala Hashmi, a Democratic state senator who has elicited concern from the state’s Jewish community over her past involvement in anti-Israel activism. She’s running against conservative talk show host John Reid. Either winner would make statewide history: Hashmi would be the first Muslim woman elected to statewide office; Reid would be the first openly gay Republican elected statewide. 

In a brief interview Monday, Jewish Insider asked Hashmi how big of a challenge she thinks antisemitism is in Virginia. Hashmi replied: “I think we see growing challenges on so many levels of bigotry, and we have to be united in our efforts. I’m facing a great deal of Islamophobic attacks, as you probably have seen, so we have to respond to everything.” Pressed on what she thought about antisemitism specifically, Hashmi cut our interview short.

California redistricting referendum: Gov. Gavin Newsom is likely to win his push to redraw California’s congressional lines to offset some of the partisan redistricting that Republicans have engaged in. The new lines, however, could end up endangering some of the more moderate Republicans that have strong records on fighting antisemitism and supporting Israel. 

The list of those Republicans adversely affected include: Rep. Ken Calvert — who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee on defense funding — as well as Reps. Darrell Issa, Kevin Kiley, Doug LaMalfa and David Valadao.

Kiley has been a particularly outspoken voice against campus antisemitism from his perch on the House Education and Workforce Committee. 

Far-left mayoral scorecard: We’ll also be closely watching the mayoral races in Seattle and Minneapolis, where far-left DSA-aligned candidates are running competitively. If Katie Wilson and Omar Fateh end up both prevailing in Seattle and Minneapolis, respectively, it will signal a sign of the Democratic Party’s growing radicalism in major urban areas.

Gordon Gee has served as president of more American universities than almost anyone, as far as he knows. Most recently he led West Virginia University, from which he retired in July; before that, he oversaw Ohio State, Vanderbilt, Brown and the University of Colorado over a span of 45 years. 

Alongside his various presidencies, Gee also helped open Hillel houses on two different campuses: Vanderbilt and Ohio State. It’s a distinction that makes him particularly well-suited to opine on the state of American higher education, which has been grappling with the thorny and sometimes intertwined issues of antisemitism, free speech and student conduct. 

A 2002 Wall Street Journal article attributed Vanderbilt’s decision to increase recruitment of Jewish students to Gee, himself a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. More than two decades later, under a successor Gee proudly claims, Vanderbilt is still courting Jewish students and positioning itself as a bastion of common sense amid the upheaval that followed the Oct. 7 attacks two years ago.   

As Gee, 81, looks back on his career and reflects on the state of academia, he sees a growing chasm between what he described as two different kinds of universities: those like Vanderbilt, that have held firm to the principles of institutional neutrality, and those like his alma mater, Columbia University, that have struggled to take an impartial stance in response to campus protests and antisemitism — and that are wary of making significant change. 

“One is the resistance. [They say] anything that comes out of the [Trump] administration, anything that they want, anything, it is just terrible,” Gee told Jewish Insider in an interview last week ahead of a keynote address at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa. “The other are those institutions that are trying to determine a way to move forward and do so by knitting themselves together in different ways. Those are mainly the big public universities. Those are the real future of the American higher education system, and for Jewish students themselves.”

Immediately after Oct. 7, Gee called Rabbi Ari Berman, the president of Yeshiva University, and asked for help in recruiting other university presidents to sign onto a statement condemning the attacks, which was published in The Wall Street Journal as a full-page ad. But they were unable to get many of the big-name academic leaders they wanted. 

“The biggest challenge facing university presidents is fear,” said Gee. “I think the university presidents, in many ways, are paralyzed, and a lot of it is brought on by themselves, because of the fact that they allowed themselves to become kind of engaged in this ‘go along, get along’ response, and now all of a sudden, when they discover that they’ve got to take a stand, it’s becoming very difficult for many of them.”

“That was when I really started to discover that there’s no moral high ground on this with a number of people. It was very distressing to me,” Gee said. “I think that so many people were walking on eggshells. They didn’t want to have disruptions. They also didn’t want to speak out.”

Although anti-Israel protests took place at West Virginia University, there was no encampment there in the spring of 2024, as happened on dozens of campuses around the country that semester. As Gee watched other university administrators fail to respond in clear ways to the protests that often crossed a line into harassment and targeting of Jewish students, he saw administrators afraid of upsetting stakeholders on campus. 

“The biggest challenge facing university presidents is fear,” said Gee. “I think the university presidents, in many ways, are paralyzed, and a lot of it is brought on by themselves, because of the fact that they allowed themselves to become kind of engaged in this ‘go along, get along’ response, and now all of a sudden, when they discover that they’ve got to take a stand, it’s becoming very difficult for many of them.”

Rather than protecting the free speech of pro-Israel students who were often cowed into silence by classmates, university leaders did little, Gee alleged. 

“They were silencing those who were intimidated by it, those who were pro-Israel, those who wanted to speak up in terms of balance,” said Gee. “University administrators were allowing that to happen.”

As President Donald Trump has sought to make his mark on higher education by targeting campus antisemitism and going after university diversity programs, Gee does not share the same skepticism toward Trump’s proposals that has characterized the responses of many university administrators who worry the administration’s actions are too heavy-handed.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has approached several top universities about signing onto a compact that would give them preferential access to federal funds. No university has yet signed on, with administrators claiming it amounts to government infringement on their academic freedom. Gee — generally a skeptic of federal meddling in higher education — isn’t entirely opposed.

“If the Obama administration were doing exactly the same thing, people would cheerfully say, ‘Oh, that’s right, and that’s what we’re going to do,’” said Gee. “A lot of it has to do with the people in power, and I can understand that to some extent, but it doesn’t mean to say that the ideas are bad.” 

“Three-quarters of it is exactly what universities ought to be doing. A quarter of it probably is a bridge too far,” Gee explained. “But the very fact that a political administration, this Republican administration, can take on universities, and successfully so in many ways, has shown how the relationship between universities and the general public has deteriorated.” 

While Trump’s approach may have come from a genuine concern about the academic environment, “they’ve used that not as a scalpel, but as a sledgehammer,” said Gee. Still, he thinks the vehement opposition in many corners of academia has to do with the messenger.

“If the Obama administration were doing exactly the same thing, people would cheerfully say, ‘Oh, that’s right, and that’s what we’re going to do,’” said Gee. “A lot of it has to do with the people in power, and I can understand that to some extent, but it doesn’t mean to say that the ideas are bad.” 

Gee described himself as “always the optimist,” and said the current uncertainty facing academia — budget cuts, public distrust, a lack of understanding of its purpose — can be a “clarifying moment.”

“We need to understand we’re about teaching and learning. We’re not about propaganda. We’re not about ostracism. We’re not about making people feel inadequate if they don’t toe the line,” said Gee.

During Jim Moran’s 24 years in Congress, the Virginia Democrat had a habit of putting his foot in his mouth, particularly when it came to his Jewish constituents. 

In 2003, he blamed the Jewish community for President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, prompting several local rabbis to call for his resignation. Four years later he blamed AIPAC for the war. The blowback was so strong that when then-Sen. Barack Obama accepted Moran’s endorsement of his presidential campaign in 2008, he stated plainly that he disagreed with Moran’s views of the Jewish community. 

Moran retired from Congress in 2015, but the 80-year-old still walks the halls of Capitol Hill. Now, he’s there as a lobbyist — primarily as a registered foreign agent lobbying on behalf of the government of Qatar. 

He is a regular in the offices of high-ranking members of Congress and senators. And last month, during a House Education Committee hearing about antisemitism in higher education, Moran was conspicuously seated directly behind Robert M. Groves, the president of Georgetown University, which has a campus in Doha and has received more than $1 billion from the Gulf monarchy. 

“Jim is one of these guys that people seem to like on both sides of the aisle. He’s been able to keep in contact with a lot of members when needed,” Tom Davis, a former Republican congressman from Virginia who Moran hired to help represent Qatar, told Jewish Insider. 

A Georgetown source said Moran was not working with the university or sitting in one of Georgetown’s three allotted seats at the hearing. Still, there’s no doubt he is a highly influential foreign policy voice in Washington on behalf of a country with which America has a complicated relationship.

Qatar is a major non-NATO ally of the U.S., an official designation conferred by President Joe Biden, and is home to the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East. But it also has financial and diplomatic ties with Hamas and other terror groups. Qatar’s leaders say that is necessary so the country can maintain its role as a trusted mediator, while its critics say Qatar’s close relationship with Hamas makes it unlikely to put real pressure on the terror group to make a deal with Israel or to release the hostages. Some on Capitol Hill and in the pro-Israel community have expressed concerns that Qatar’s massive investment in American universities has fueled anti-Israel activism and antisemitism on campuses.

With a Boston accent leftover from his childhood, Moran has a penchant for talking tough — and acting tough, too. In the 1990s, at the start of his time in Congress, he occasionally threatened to brawl with fellow lawmakers, and once shoved another member of Congress off the House floor. 

Moran was an early and consistent critic of Israel, long before the wave of anti-Israel sentiment that has exploded on the far left over the past two years. He has kept up ties with Jewish leaders in Northern Virginia, but those relationships grew strained as Moran repeatedly criticized pro-Israel advocates and Jewish activists. 

“Jim is an extraordinarily compassionate man. He has trouble with suffering. His judgment about what constitutes suffering and who’s causing it is not always accurate, and so that has gotten him in a considerable amount of trouble over the course of his long political career,” said Rabbi Jack Moline, who served for 27 years as the rabbi at Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria. Moline met regularly with Moran until the rabbi called for Moran’s resignation in 2003, after Moran blamed Jews for the Iraq war, a comment the former congressman later said he “deeply regret[s].”

“His relationship with the Jewish community fell apart,” Moline told JI. “It didn’t surprise anybody when, after he finally did retire from Congress, he was offered and accepted work lobbying for Qatar.” He first registered as a lobbyist for Qatar in 2017. His firm, Moran Global Strategies, has been paid more than $2 million by Qatar in the last two years, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets. A spokesperson for the Qatari Embassy did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Moran Global Strategies.

Though Moran expressed contrition for his antisemitic remarks during the lead-up to the Iraq war, his rhetoric toward the Jewish community has only grown more inflammatory in the decade since he left Congress. In recent years, he has appeared on several virtual panel discussions held by the Arab Organization for Human Rights in the U.K., a London-based NGO led by Mohammad Jamil Hersh, a former Hamas activist who has been sanctioned by Israel and was deported by the country more than three decades ago. In those conversations, he regularly blasted the influence of American Jews and the “pro-Israel lobby.”

During a February 2023 AOHR event, Moran tried to explain Washington’s support for “apartheid” in Gaza by pointing the finger at American Jews and suggesting that they are unduly involved in the American political system. 

“It’s about domestic politics and it always has been. The majority of people who contribute to the Democratic Party in America have Jewish surnames. Now think about that,” said Moran. He described them as people “whose principal reason for contributing to the political system in America has been the sine qua non of support for Israel, and unqualified support for Israel.” 

In this and several other interviews, Moran recognized that his language was rather impolitic.
“I don’t want to sound antisemitic, and Palestinians are a Semitic people,” Moran said. “I’m just saying that let’s deal with the political reality in the United States that’s driving and reinforcing the injustice that’s occurring within Palestine.”

Moran and his team have held dozens of meetings with members of Congress since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in 2023 that spurred the ongoing war in Gaza, mainly to talk about “Qatar’s role in the Middle East peace process,” according to documents he filed with the Justice Department as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act. At the same time, he has continued to question Jewish involvement in the American political system — including just days after Oct. 7, in a call hosted by the Muslim Public Affairs Council. 

“The reality is that campaign contributions have corrupted the United States Congress. One of the motivating factors is, ‘How do I please my political supporters, particularly my financial supporters?’ The reality is that the Jewish community, and frankly to their credit, is deeply engaged in the American political process,” Moran said in the MPAC call. “That’s one of the motivating factors that causes the Congress to look the other way where the Middle East is concerned.” 

Although he expressed skepticism about the supposed influence of American Jews in electoral politics, he encouraged Muslim, Palestinian and Arab Americans to increase their own influence. But his prognosis for their potential efficacy was grim. “I’m not sure they’re ever going to be able to successfully catch up,” Moran said. 

Even as Moran took aim at Jews’ participation in the political process, he routinely downplayed accusations of antisemitism that have been lobbed at him directly and at the broader anti-Israel movement. 

In September 2024, in another AOHR virtual briefing, Moran acknowledged that he would likely be called antisemitic for his comments accusing Israel of committing war crimes “daily” and for describing the situation in Gaza as “comparable to the Holocaust.” 

“Foreign aid going into committing war crimes on a daily basis because of the politics, because of the campaign financing, because of the control of the media — it’s inexcusable. It’s an indictment of what has become of this democracy,” said Moran, without saying who, exactly, he thinks controls the media. “It’s an indictment of the fact that our foreign policy has been Israeli-centric, and let me say one other thing so that people don’t particularly accuse me of being antisemitic, although I’m sure many will: Many of those protests across the country were led by Jewish students.”

This spring, after President Donald Trump returned to office and began targeting universities, Moran was dispatched to Capitol Hill to talk to Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee about Qatar’s funding of American higher education, which has come under the microscope.

It is notable that one of the people tasked with advocating for a country that is close to both America and Hamas seems to have a deeply rooted hostility to Israel and even to American Jews, particularly at a moment when Qatar’s dealings in the U.S. are facing greater scrutiny — such as when Trump said earlier this year that the U.S. would accept a Qatari gift of a luxury jet to use as Air Force One.

But Qatar has a suite of lobbyists who span the political spectrum. Moran primarily deals with Democrats. Qatar has in the past also targeted hundreds of conservative “influencers” to reach Trump’s inner circle, and employs several Republicans as lobbyists. Partisan politics is at play, too; Democratic lawmakers blasted the Air Force One move, while Republicans fell in line behind Trump.

Several prominent Trump administration officials have ties to Qatar, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, who said in her January Senate confirmation hearing that she remains “very proud” of the lobbying work she did for Qatar ahead of the 2022 World Cup. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy and chief negotiator, has a history of business dealings with the country. 

“If you take a look at the folks they’ve got representing them, they’ve been all over the lot on that issue. It’s certainly not a pro-Arab versus Israel issue,” said Davis, the Virginia Republican who works with Moran on the Qatar file. “There’s nothing there to indicate that their lobbyists have any kind of ideological bent on that issue.”

Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect that Moran began lobbying for Qatar in 2017, not 2023. 

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

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

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

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

Rasoul has stood by his attack against Zionism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As concern mounts in the Virginia Jewish community about anti-Zionist rhetoric posted on social media by a state lawmaker who leads the Education Committee in the House of Delegates, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat who is favored in this year’s governor’s race, has avoided weighing in on the matter, taking heat from her opponent in the process. 

Spanberger’s campaign did not respond to several calls and emails from Jewish Insider on Wednesday inquiring about state Del. Sam Rasoul, a Roanoke Democrat who has in recent weeks called Zionism “evil” and described it as “a supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way.” 

Rasoul is the chair of the House Education Committee in Richmond. 

Winsome Earle-Sears, Virginia’s lieutenant governor and the Republican nominee for governor, described Rasoul’s rhetoric as antisemitic and called on Spanberger to address his comments. 

“If she has a shred of moral clarity, she’ll condemn this antisemitism. This a great opportunity finally to stand up against the members of her own party who are pushing this hateful agenda. Virginians deserve to know where she stands,” Peyton Vogel, the press secretary for Earle-Sears, told JI. 

Rasoul’s recent Instagram posts have drawn criticism from prominent Democrats in the state, including former Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, who said Rasoul’s language is “fueling one of the oldest forms of hatred in the world,” as well as Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA).

“I forcefully reject any claim that Zionism — the desire of Jewish people to have a state of Israel — is inherently racist or evil,” Kaine told JI in a statement on Wednesday, when asked about Rasoul. “Many Zionists in Israel, America and throughout the world are deeply concerned by the suffering of innocent Palestinians.”

Tali Cohen, the Washington regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, accused Rasoul of espousing “antisemitic rhetoric.” 

Since soon after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, Virginia state Del. Sam Rasoul, a Democrat who chairs the Education Committee in the state’s House of Delegates, has used his social media accounts to attack Israel and decry American support for the Jewish state. 

But Jewish Democrats in the state fear that a series of recent posts from Rasoul vilifying Zionists has taken his anti-Israel rhetoric to a new level, prompting concerns about his leadership of the committee that is tasked with reviewing the education-related legislation that comes before the statehouse. 

“Zionism has proven how evil our society can be,” Rasoul wrote in a July 26 Instagram post that described Zionism as a “supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way.” Rasoul accused Zionists of “making the world less safe for my Jewish friends.” Public opinion polling shows that the vast majority of American Jews feel a connection to Israel. 

Former Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, a Democrat from Northern Virginia, told Jewish Insider on Tuesday that Rasoul’s rhetoric is “fueling one of the oldest forms of hatred in the world, repackaged in the language of activism.” 

“I would expect more from someone who was appointed chair of the Education Committee and is entrusted to set an example for young people,” said Filler-Corn, who was the first woman and first Jewish person to serve as Speaker of the House in Virginia, from 2020 to 2022. She left office in 2024. 

Committee leadership is decided by Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, a Democrat from Portsmouth. Several leaders in the Jewish community — including both within the Democratic Party and from nonpartisan Jewish communal organizations — told JI they have raised concerns about Rasoul’s posts directly with Scott or his staff, seeking Rasoul’s removal from the chairmanship. Neither Scott nor other high-ranking Democrats in the state have weighed in on Rasoul’s posts.

“I’m concerned about people’s silence,” said Cookie Hymer Blitz, a longtime Jewish and Democratic activist in Northern Virginia. “Others need to speak out without fear of intimidation or just taking the consequences. If you’re intimidated, sometimes you still have to just do the right thing.” 

One person, who requested anonymity to speak about their private conversation with Scott, said the speaker did not defend Rasoul, who is the son of Palestinian immigrants — nor did the speaker seem to take the impact of Rasoul’s language as seriously as they would have liked. Another said Scott was not receptive to the concerns raised. 

“Under Speaker Don Scott’s leadership, Virginia has taken real, bipartisan steps to combat antisemitism and hate,” his communications director, Gianni Snidle, told JI in a statement on Tuesday. “Speaker Scott has been proud to strengthen Virginia’s partnership with Israel, including continued support for the Virginia Israel Advisory Board.”

Snidle did not answer a question from JI about Rasoul’s posts and his leadership of the Education Committee.

“We think that it is very concerning that he’s the chair of the Education Committee while he’s propagating antisemitic rhetoric,” Vicki Fishman, director of Virginia government and community relations at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, said of Rasoul. “He’s considered a thought leader on equity and security of our public schools, and we are deeply concerned that his ability to empathize and truly understand the serious crisis of school-based antisemitism is compromised when he is propagating and amplifying demonization of Jews — demonizing this core aspect of Jewish identity, which is Zionism.” 

Daniel Staffenberg, the CEO of the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond, said Rasoul’s leadership atop the Education Committee is “deeply troubling … not just for Jews but all people who value truth [and] justice, who wish to combat hate, not normalize it.” 

In his July Instagram post, Rasoul appeared to minimize the Holocaust in describing the scale of what he described as “genocide” in Gaza. “After 22 months of the most horrific crimes, there is no doubt that Israel is conducting the most evil cleansing in human history,” Rasoul wrote. 

Rasoul wrote on Instagram in May that “those who defend Zionism and remain quiet … are making our world a more evil place.” Earlier that month, he said Zionism “shows us the worst in humanity” and that “the depravity of Zionism knows no bounds.” Rasoul has represented Roanoke in the statehouse since 2014. He ran for statewide office in 2021, coming in second in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor. 

Marc Broklawski, a public employee who lives in Virginia and serves as the vice-chair for rules in the Virginia Democratic Party, decided to go public with his concerns about Rasoul in a thread on X last week and to call for Democratic leaders in his state to speak out against Rasoul’s language.

“It wasn’t just one post. It was the pattern, painting Jewish fear as fake, Jewish trauma as a strategy. At some point, you either stay silent or speak up. I spoke up. Because when you say there’s ‘no middle ground,’ you’re not asking for justice, you’re demanding sides. And we know what happens when Jews are cast as the enemy,” Broklawski told JI, referring to language in Rasoul’s July post that said there is “no middle ground in this supremacist mess.”

Rasoul did not respond to a request for comment. 

James Walkinshaw, a longtime former aide to Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), aims to follow in his late mentor’s footsteps as the strong favorite to win a special general election in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District in September.

Walkinshaw, who has been a member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors for the last five years, spent more than a decade as Connolly’s chief of staff on Capitol Hill. He’s now running to fill the seat Connolly held from 2009 until his death earlier this year. Walkinshaw said that Connolly, who was not planning to seek reelection next year, had encouraged him to run, and he received the endorsement of Connolly’s family members.

Asked if he sees any major differences between himself and Connolly — whether on policy or his approach to the role of a member of Congress — Walkinshaw said that there are few, and that he was aligned with his former boss’ views on most issues. 

But when it comes to Israel, Walkinshaw sounds likely to adopt a more moderate tone on Middle East policy, something of a contrast from Connolly, who took an increasingly critical view of the Jewish state during his tenure in the House.

Connolly, who was a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, represented a sizable Jewish population and a significant Muslim population in his Northern Virginia district. 

“I’m a strong believer in the importance and value of a secure, democratic … Jewish state,” Walkinshaw told Jewish Insider. “I think the U.S.-Israel relationship has immense historical importance. It has immense strategic importance to the United States, and I want to see a strong U.S.-Israel relationship with bipartisan support.”

He said that the current situation in Gaza presents “a very difficult moment in the region and in the relationship, but my hope is we can get through this moment and preserve the really important relationship that we have.”

Walkinshaw said he’s hopeful that talks will resume to return all of the remaining hostages, end the violence in Gaza and increase humanitarian aid to alleviate the current crisis, which he described as “unacceptable.”

Walkinshaw said he opposes the push by some progressive House members for a full halt to U.S. military aid to Israel, arguing that “severing the U.S.-Israel relationship in that way” would not serve anyone’s interests, including the Palestinians. “I think it is really important that relationship continue.”

“I wish that President Trump had continued to pursue that diplomatic path. I think that path was still available to him when the decision was made to launch the strikes against Iran. And I’m hopeful that that diplomatic path can be resumed,” Walkinshaw told JI.

“But I do think that the president of the United States, whether it’s Joe Biden or Donald Trump, has a responsibility to be a neutral broker and try to encourage both sides to come to an agreement to reach a ceasefire and the president of United States has a lot of leverage in those conversations, and should use it,” he continued.

Walkinshaw said that a nuclear-armed Iran is “unacceptable” and would endanger both Israeli and U.S. interests globally, but said that a deal with the Iranian regime is the only path to guaranteeing that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon.

“I wish that President Trump had continued to pursue that diplomatic path. I think that path was still available to him when the decision was made to launch the strikes against Iran. And I’m hopeful that that diplomatic path can be resumed,” Walkinshaw told JI, when asked about the administration’s June military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

He argued that although the U.S. and Israeli strikes had “diminished” the regime’s capabilities, Iran still has the capacity to rebuild and resume its nuclear weapons program, potentially in a more covert fashion than in the past.

And he said he believes that the Constitution and the War Powers Act “are clear” that Trump should have come to Congress for authorization before launching the strikes.

Walkinshaw’s district has seen a series of antisemitic incidents in recent months, including the arrest of a George Mason University student for plotting a terror attack against the Israeli consulate in New York and the discovery of pro-terrorism materials in the homes of two other students.

“The first thing we all have to do as leaders is speak out clearly that any form of hate or discrimination, including antisemitism, are absolutely unacceptable,” Walkinshaw said. He said that he would work in Congress to speak out against antisemitism “wherever it might take root” and to “ensure that in our schools, we’re educating students about antisemitism and ways to speak out against it and be involved in the very important efforts to end antisemitism.”

He noted that George Mason falls under the supervision of the state, and that Fairfax County has no authority over the campus or campus property, but said he’s “proud of the work that the Fairfax County Police Department did in coordination with other law enforcement agencies” to respond to the three students in question.

He also noted that there was a spree of instances of antisemitic graffiti in the district he represents on the Fairfax County board, all perpetrated by one individual. He said that, after those incidents, he brought together a local group of interfaith leaders to speak out and show solidarity with the Jewish community.

“The first thing we all have to do as leaders is speak out clearly that any form of hate or discrimination, including antisemitism, are absolutely unacceptable,” Walkinshaw said. He said that he would work in Congress to speak out against antisemitism “wherever it might take root” and to “ensure that in our schools, we’re educating students about antisemitism and ways to speak out against it and be involved in the very important efforts to end antisemitism.”

Walkinshaw added that he’s “proud of the strong relationship I’ve built with the Jewish community here in Fairfax” and that he would plan, as a member of Congress, to continue to stand with the community, in both times of celebration and mourning.

Eileen Filler-Corn, the former Virginia House speaker and outspoken supporter of Israel, endorsed Walkinshaw. She agreed that the nominee has longstanding connections with the Jewish community.

“He’s been very, very active with our community and very supportive of our community and engaged,” Filler-Corn told JI, as he consistently attends community events and vigils. “He’s not a new face to the Jewish community. He’s somebody we know very well. And he doesn’t just say the right things. He actually walks the walk.”

She added that he has reached out and shown up consistently, even when “things change and things become hard.”

“He is somebody that does his research and listens and learns, and I do believe he has been extremely supportive of our community amid the rise in antisemitism,” she continued, adding that he has a record of action and public comments as supervisor to back that up.

Filler-Corn said she’s had the opportunity to speak with Walkinshaw many times both before and after Oct. 7, 2023, about Israel policy, and emphasized that he’s always available to listen and talk about issues with her. She said she believes he understands the issues at play, and that he’s also willing to research and learn about them.

“I have been very, very pleased with what he has shared,” she continued, noting that he had highlighted the need to free the hostages during a candidate forum in the Democratic primary.

Walkinshaw told JI he ultimately decided to run for Congress because he feels that his community is “under attack from the Trump administration” and that the administration is threatening American democracy. 

“I think by and large, if voters in the 11th District liked what they got from Gerry Connolly in terms of his philosophy and in terms of his approach to fighting for the people he represented, then they’re going to like what they get from me if I’m successful on Sept. 9,” Walkinshaw told JI.

Given his experience, he argued, he’s well-placed to advocate for the community, and has a deep understanding of the centrality of constituent services issues to the role and of how to deliver results in the House.

He said he’s aiming to follow in Connolly’s footsteps and gain a seat on the House Oversight Committee, of which Connolly was briefly the ranking member prior to his death, highlighting the high proportion of government contractors and federal employees in his district impacted by the Trump administration’s mass cuts to the federal government. Walkinshaw also named affordability as a top priority, which he said should be a focus for every Democratic candidate.

“I think by and large, if voters in the 11th District liked what they got from Gerry Connolly in terms of his philosophy and in terms of his approach to fighting for the people he represented, then they’re going to like what they get from me if I’m successful on Sept. 9,” Walkinshaw told JI.

The parents of an 11-year-old Jewish student at a private school in Northern Virginia say their daughter faced months of antisemitic harassment that went unaddressed by school officials, who also cancelled an annual event featuring a Holocaust survivor due to concerns that the event might exacerbate tensions related to the Israel-Hamas war. 

Days after the parents addressed the campus environment with school leadership, all three of their children were expelled, according to a complaint filed on Tuesday with the Office for Civil Rights in the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, Jewish Insider has learned. 

According to the complaint, Kenneth Nysmith, headmaster and owner of The Nysmith School for the Gifted in Herndon, Va., canceled the event with the Holocaust survivor and expressed concern that it might inflame tensions within the school community in light of Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza.  

The complaint, filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights under Law and Washington-based firm Dillon PLLC, alleges several antisemitic incidents that the parents of the 11-year-old Jewish student say she faced in the months leading up to the cancellation of the Holocaust survivor event. The complaint recounts that in October 2024, their daughter’s history teacher asked students to work together on an art project to create a large drawing featuring the attributes of “strong historical leaders.” The students collaborated on a large artistic rendering of a strong leader, featuring Adolf Hitler’s face. The parents learned of the project only after Nysmith School posted a photo of the children holding up their project, which is reproduced in the complaint.

The complaint also alleges that the 11-year-old student experienced harassment, including being told by other students that Jews are “baby killers” and that they deserved to die because of the Israel-Hamas war. The parents of the student allege that the antisemitic bullying got worse after the school hung a Palestinian flag in the gym.  

The complaint claims that the parents of the student being bullied asked Nysmith to take steps to protect their daughter. Nysmith, according to the complaint, told the parents to tell their daughter to “toughen up.” Two days later, on March 13, the headmaster sent the parents an email stating all three of their children — a son in the second grade and two daughters in the sixth grade — were expelled effective that same day. The complaint does not address any reason that Nysmith provided for the expulsions but noted that the children had no disciplinary record.

“The allegations in this complaint reflect what appear to be a growing trend of the normalization of antisemitism to the extent where a school feels compelled to censor a Holocaust survivor,”  Jeffrey Lang, senior litigation counsel at the Brandeis Center, told JI. “But the antisemitic harassment of a young Jewish student because of what’s happening in Israel is acceptable. It’s that trend that I find very worrisome.”  

According to Lang, the K-8 private school is in violation of the Virginia Human Rights Act’s definition of a “private accommodation,” which requires schools that accept tuition to provide a safe learning environment for all students.  

Jason Miyares, the attorney general of Virginia, announced this week that his office had filed a petition to enforce a judge’s order from last July that a pro-Palestinian advocacy group with alleged ties to Hamas turn over closely guarded financial records that could shed light on its donor network — which has faced growing scrutiny in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks.

Miyares’ office said in a statement on Tuesday that American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a nonprofit group headquartered in Virginia that he has been investigating in a probe of its fundraising operations, “has refused to comply” with a civil investigative demand for documents the group has long shielded from public view.

The petition “seeks AMP’s immediate compliance” with the demand, the statement said, reiterating that Miyares’ team has been requesting records as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations that the group “may have used” funds “for impermissible purposes, such as benefiting or providing support to terrorist organizations.”

In a major court ruling last summer, a Richmond judge rejected AMP’s effort to challenge the demand, ordering the group to “produce records” and denying its petition to narrow the focus of the probe, according to a statement from the attorney general’s office after the decision had been made.

But Miyares, a Republican who first launched his investigation shortly after Hamas’ attacks on Israel in October 2023, said that AMP has continued to drag its heels several months later.

“Despite the court denying AMP’s previous efforts to halt my investigation, they continue refusing to comply,” he said in a separate statement posted to social media on Tuesday, while calling the petition “necessary to ensure accountability and uphold the law.”

A spokesperson for his office did not respond to a request for comment on the investigation.

Christina Jump, an attorney for AMP, said that she was unable to comment on the petition because she had “yet to see the referenced enforcement action,” claiming the attorney general’s office had “issued a press release prior to making any effort to contact AMP — or its counsel — about this new step.”

Jump added that AMP had filed a “timely” appeal of the judge’s decision and made “requests for a stay of the enforcement,” accusing the attorney general’s office of attempting to “thwart” the group’s “right to utilize the full legal process,” which she called “both disappointing and premature.”

“We will continue to pursue all legal actions which AMP may rightfully pursue — and its appeal of the underlying decision remains actively pending,” she wrote in an email to Jewish Insider on Wednesday.

Founded in 2006, AMP describes itself as “a grassroots organization dedicated to advancing the movement for justice in Palestine by educating the American public about Palestine and its rich cultural, historical and religious heritage and through grassroots mobilization and advocacy.”

But in the wake of Oct. 7, the group has faced growing scrutiny over its involvement in anti-Israel protests on college campuses around the country and its financial backing of National Students for Justice in Palestine, members and chapters of which have voiced outspoken support for Hamas.

Top officials at AMP, meanwhile, were also once affiliated with a now-defunct group, the Islamic Association for Palestine, found liable for aiding Hamas.

The attorney general’s investigation is one of several legal challenges now targeting AMP’s records, which critics have long suspected of hiding illicit financial activity.

The group has insisted it has never supported or funded terrorism and that it does not send money overseas. Jump, in her email to JI, said “no court, in any jurisdiction, has ever found that AMP has done anything inappropriate regarding its fundraising. It has not.”

AMP’s fiscal sponsor, AJP Educational Foundation, took in more than $2.2 million in revenue in 2023, according to its most recent tax filings, which do not disclose the group’s donors.

In an interview with JI last September, Miyares — who has largely avoided commenting publicly on the active investigation — said that his office has been “aggressively in the process of using the legal system” to obtain additional records that AMP has fought to withhold.

“We have been relentless in that pursuit, and we will continue to be relentless,” he said. “Our job is to get to the truth.”

For most of the last 12 years, Republicans in Virginia have been wandering in a political wilderness.

They watched in despair as Democrats swept statewide elections in 2013, then nearly won control of the General Assembly in 2017 — the final seat resulted in a tie that was broken when the Republican’s name was pulled out of a bowl — before going on to wrest control of the House of Delegates and State Senate in 2019. Republicans’ poor electoral fortunes were not limited to Richmond; former President Donald Trump lost the state by five points in 2016, but lost it by 10 points four years later. 

As the Virginia gubernatorial race begins in earnest, Democrats in the Old Dominion seem to think the status quo is working. In a landslide primary election earlier this month, Virginia Democrats nominated Terry McAuliffe, the prolific national fundraiser who already served as governor from 2014 to 2018. (The state bars governors from serving two consecutive terms.)

But the GOP hasn’t given up on Virginia yet. From a primary field of well-known Republican politicians ranging from business-friendly state lawmakers to a self-described “Trump in heels,” Republican voters chose Glenn Youngkin, a political newcomer who most recently served as chief executive of investing giant The Carlyle Group. Youngkin has touted his business bona fides while running a campaign that’s scant on policy details, in the hopes of appealing to both the Trump-supporting base of his party and the suburban swing voters who overwhelmingly shifted to Democrats during the past administration. His clearest argument seems to be that he is a new face on the scene — and he thinks Virginia needs change.  

“I think common sense has been checked at the door,” Youngkin told Jewish Insider in a recent interview at his campaign headquarters in Falls Church, Va., just inside the Beltway. He was wearing a white Oxford shirt with his campaign logo — the words YOUNGKIN GOVERNOR above the shape of Virginia — embroidered in red. “Being an outsider who brings a fresh perspective, I can say things like, ‘Well, why in the world do we do it like that?’”

Despite Democrats’ good fortunes in Virginia in recent years, a win is not a guaranteed outcome for McAuliffe. A recent poll showed the former governor beating Youngkin by only four points, a surprisingly close margin. Yet unlike 2017, when national money poured into the state’s down-ballot races, Virginia Democrats worry those donors might feel they no longer need to invest in Virginia. “We’ll have a challenging time convincing national donors that Virginia is at risk,” a former Democratic state official told JI.  

ANNANDALE, VA – MAY 8: Gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin works the line of cars as the Virginia GOP holds a drive through primary to select candidates for the 2021 general election, in Annandale, VA. (Photo by Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

“A Republican can win in Virginia,” said Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. “There are many analyses that I think are overstated, that claim that Virginia is a solid blue state now strongly in Democratic hands, and nearly impossible for Republicans to win statewide. We’ve been here before.” 

In an interview with JI, Youngkin provided insight into how he plans to address two of his major priorities — education and the economy — and expressed concern over rising antisemitism in Virginia and around the country. Unlike many Republican Senate and House candidates who are clamoring for Trump’s endorsement, Youngkin did not mention the former president over the course of the interview.

“He’s making, I think, the right choice in presenting himself now as a mainstream, conservative Republican, and trying to move away from the taint of the Trump era,” said Rozell. “All of that is complicated by the fact that Trump gave a full-throated endorsement of Youngkin, and Youngkin responded by saying he was honored to have that endorsement.”

Since winning the Republican nomination at a statewide nominating convention last month, Youngkin has shied away from mentioning Trump on the campaign trail. This marks a change for Youngkin, who ran a markedly more conservative campaign in the primary, when he touted his Election Integrity Task Force, and refused to say whether President Joe Biden was legitimately elected. Just days after clinching the nomination, he began to acknowledge Biden’s election as legitimate. 

He has also avoided taking concrete positions on culturally conservative issues like abortion and gun rights. His campaign website does not have an issues page, and a Washington Post editorial criticized Youngkin for “mastering the duck and the dodge.” 

Democrats’ strategy involves taking Youngkin’s lack of concrete policy proposals and tying him to Trump, but Youngkin is attempting to pre-empt that by running TV ads across the state, part of his decision to invest millions of his own dollars into his campaign. “It’s giving Youngkin the opportunity to define himself prior to the time that the Democrats define him,” said Bob Holsworth, managing director at DecideSmart, a Virginia-based political consulting firm. 

While Youngkin is tiptoeing around Trump’s legacy, he is offering a full-throated endorsement of the latest front in national Republicans’ culture war: the battle in school boards across the country, including in Virginia, over critical race theory.  

“What critical race theory is clearly about is, first, identifying people by the color of their skin and dividing people into groups, and then providing judgments on those groups,” Youngkin explained. The term refers to a legal theory, which has historically been reserved for college courses, that asserts that racism is systemic in the U.S. Over the past few months, as many school boards around the country have mandated instruction about racism following widespread racial justice protests, the term has come into popular parlance. 

Critics of critical race theory argue that teaching children that white Americans have “white privilege” due to their race, while Black people and other people of color are at a disadvantage, encourages strife between racial groups. “It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about the challenges that so many folks and particularly black Americans have faced,” Youngkin noted. “In fact, it kind of pits kids against one another. And this just isn’t right.” 

Republicans like Youngkin seek to limit recent school board curriculum changes that now mandate the teaching of topics like white supremacy and racism in greater detail. 

“It was, in fact, mandated through the Board of Education, that we were going to teach this in the schools. We will de-mandate that,” said Youngkin. He did not provide further details on how he will attempt to fight critical race theory. “The goal is for us to actually not judge people by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character and by opening up opportunity for everyone,” he explained, quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The Board of Education is a commission whose members are appointed by the governor, and Youngkin would not have sway over the board until its current members’ terms expire, beginning next year. 

In response to the racial reckoning that occurred last summer after George Floyd’s murder, the state Board of Education adopted some changes to Virginia’s state history and social science standards last fall. But the new standards do not refer to “critical race theory,” and ultimately most decisions about how to adapt those standards into concrete curriculums occur at local school board levels, which would be out of Youngkin’s direct control as governor. 

WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 29: (L to R) Suzanne Youngkin, Glenn Youngkin and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao attend Capitol File’s book release party for Kelley Paul’s “True and Constant Friends” on April 29, 2015 at ENO Wine Bar in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Capitol File Magazine)

Still, Youngkin and Republicans think the message sells. Critical race theory “clearly has some political appeal” as a campaign talking point, said Rozell. “If the Republicans can actually pivot away from the Trump era, and turn the tables, and try to characterize the Democratic left as having gone way too far, there may be a strategy there to win over some swing voters in the critical suburbs and exurban communities.”

Jewish Republicans think the message is resonating in their communities, too. “I think it’s an issue that has really taken hold,” said William Kilberg, a former partner at Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher who served as solicitor for the U.S. Department of Labor in the Nixon administration and who lives in McLean. “I think people are very concerned. They’re seeing a lot of it in the schools, both public and private.”

Rabbi Dovid Asher of Keneseth Beth Israel, an Orthodox synagogue in Richmond, expressed concern that curriculum changes could target Jewish students, or unfairly leave out Jewish history. (The edited standards adopted by the state last year include the Holocaust, which has long been part of the state standards.) “I think a lot of us are concerned about efforts in other states, like California, in terms of what is going to be adopted or ratified for the curriculum, and whether Jews are going to be left out, or even worse, kind of attacked for a misunderstanding of our history,” Asher said, referring to the California state ethnic studies curriculum whose early iterations were widely criticized by the Jewish community for leaving out Jews and targeting Israel. “We certainly would like allies on the inside that have power with regards to these issues, to be more inclusive of the American Jewish narrative.”

In contrast to other Virginia Republicans who have run far-right campaigns in recent years, Youngkin has tried to present his campaign as a big tent; he put out a statement recognizing Juneteenth and last week announced a Latinos for Youngkin coalition. 

“What’s been interesting is the enthusiasm for this campaign. What we’re doing is not just Republicans, it’s actually Republicans and independents and a lot of Democrats,” Youngkin told JI. 

Still, Youngkin is new to electoral politics, and building a coalition is difficult if voters don’t know who he is. A graduate of Rice University and Harvard Business School, Youngkin worked at Carlyle for 25 years. He has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican politicians, but was not widely known as a major donor. 

Youngkin’s relative novelty also extends to the state’s Jewish community. “Most of my Jewish friends, candidly, are either in New York or Texas,” Youngkin said when asked who he is close to in Virginia’s Jewish community. Youngkin’s former colleague David Rubenstein, the Carlyle founder and a prominent Jewish philanthropist, declined to comment, noting through a spokesperson that he does not weigh in on political topics. 

Youngkin is active in faith circles; he served as church warden at Holy Trinity Church in McLean, and until he ran for office, he was on the board of trustees at the Museum of the Bible in Washington. Funded by the Green family, the evangelical Christian family that owns Hobby Lobby, the museum aims “to invite all people to engage with the transformative power of the Bible.” 

“What I loved about the museum — when I was in an exhibit, and I looked around, there were folks from every possible faith persuasion, and none,” Youngkin said. “There were folks from all ages and ethnicities learning about the Bible, and for all kinds of reasons: curiosity, to deepen a religious understanding, it was really neat.”

Last week, Youngkin unveiled a plan to combat antisemitism — his most specific policy proposal to date, on any topic. He pledged to create a “Virginia Holocaust, Genocide and Anti-Semitism Advisory Commission” and work with the General Assembly to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. The plan appears to be modeled off a bill that passed in Texas last week, which will adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism and create a state commission of the same name as the one in Youngkin’s proposal.  

“Antisemitism is on the rise, and actually violence is as a result of, I think, a lessening of understanding of, one, we have to treat each other with deep respect, but also, why do we teach about the Holocaust in Virginia? It’s to make sure that Virginians understand and can remember,” Youngkin explained. 

McAuliffe has not released a concrete plan on confronting antisemitism, but his website notes that he intends to “improve identification and enforcement of hate crimes.” Reached for comment this week following Youngkin’s proposal, McAuliffe mentioned the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which he called “a grim reminder that antisemitism and white supremacy are alive and well in our Commonwealth and in our nation” and noted that Youngkin’s “top endorser Donald Trump…called these domestic terrorists ‘very fine people.’” (In response, a Youngkin spokesperson noted that “the anti-Semitic march in Charlottesville was an abhorrent demonstration of hate that has no place in America.”)

Youngkin’s spokesperson told JI that when crafting the proposal, the campaign had consulted with Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, a conservative advocacy organization, and Rabbi Gershon Litt, the Hillel director at the College of William and Mary. When contacted by JI, both rabbis said they were approached by the campaign after the fact and asked to give a quote praising the proposal. 

Glenn Youngkin

“I just gave a quote about the legislation but I have never spoken with the campaign,” Litt said. Menken said a campaign official called and gave him an overview: “I didn’t even look it over. She kind of ran it by me,” he noted. “I said, ‘That sounds like a great idea.’”

Other politically conservative Jewish community leaders agree that they are just now beginning to learn about Youngkin, but some like what they have seen so far. Kilberg believes the Youngkin campaign is trying to reach Jewish voters. “I have no doubt [he] will,” Kilberg, a longtime Republican activist, knows Youngkin from the business world, said. “He shows sensitivity out of the box. I know him better, I suspect,  than most of our co-religionists because we’re more active and we’re Republicans and most Jews are not.” 

Asher, the Richmond rabbi, said that Youngkin “has a little bit of a reputation, especially within the business community and with regards to his political interests and political connections, to be someone who is supportive of tradition, of religious observance, and somebody who is going to protect religious liberties.”

Several Jewish Republicans remarked to JI that Youngkin had supported the Jewish community earlier this year when the Republican Party of Virginia announced that voting in the statewide nominating convention would take place only on a Saturday, with no exception for Shabbat-observant Jews. The party eventually added a Friday afternoon voting period. “He was very supportive of that initiative and in that kind of outreach, so for Republicans in my congregation, that’s a good sign — to have somebody who could be the leader of the Virginia Republican Party be on their side for those issues,” said Asher. 

Ultimately, Youngkin’s pitch comes back to his experience as an executive, which he says can help him run the state more efficiently — a classic argument for business leaders-turned-politicians, and one that McAuliffe himself has used. 

On the economy, he sounds like an old-school conservative, with the goal of cutting red tape and bureaucracy. His first step will be to “make sure that any residual executive order that the governor has put in place is removed immediately,” Youngkin said. He pointed to an executive order that current Governor Ralph Northam signed in January making some COVID-19 workplace standards permanent, though a more recent order in May ended the mask mandate and eased restrictions. 

He proposed offering a tax holiday to new small businesses “in order to give them a chance to get back on their feet because we need that job engine cranked back up,” Youngkin said. More broadly, he criticized bureaucratic regulations in the state. “Our job creation engine has had a blanket on it, which has really been a stack of challenging regulatory impositions,” argued Youngkin. “As a business leader, there’s just no excuse for it.”

“The comprehensive nature of the Virginia government doesn’t really intimidate me, because I’ve run something very big,” said Youngkin. “But I also recognize that I’m going to need a lot of people around me who understand how to get things done in order to accomplish many of our goals.”

One of the most frequent questions Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) receives from constituents in Virginia’s 2nd congressional district is: “Is it as crazy in Washington as we see on TV?” 

Her typical answer, Luria told Jewish Insider,_,is that while it might seem like there is no real opportunity for positive change in Congress, she has managed to find common ground with members across the political spectrum to pass legislation that matters to all. 

And while she is only a freshman member in Congress, Luria had the third highest number of bills signed into law by President Donald Trump among her colleagues on Capitol Hill last year. “It kind of shows that the process can work, and that there are lots of things that we can do that are not controversial where we can find common ground,” Luria told JI in a recent interview. “So when I talk to people about that, the bipartisan work I’ve done is hopefully somewhat reassuring.” 

Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Luria spent 20 years in the U.S. Navy, ultimately rising to the rank of commander. She served on six different ships and was deployed six times, operating nuclear reactors and on aircraft carriers. 

Luria, 45, was first elected in 2018 as part of a blue wave that flipped districts that had voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, beating first-term incumbent Republican Rep. Scott Taylor with 51% of the vote. This year, her district is considered a toss-up, according to the Cook Political Report, and she will once again face Taylor. 

While Luria voted for Trump’s impeachment last year, she has aligned herself with the president when it comes to his policy on Israel and — as a member of the House Bipartisan Task Force For Combating Anti-Semitism — she has been an outspoken critic of the far-left wing of the Democratic Party. Luria was one of 12 House Democrats who broke party ranks last year to vote in favor of a Republican motion to recommit on anti-BDS legislation that would allow state and local governments to adopt laws to divest public funds from entities that boycott Israel. 

She is also only one of a handful of Democrats who have attended Trump White House events, including the signing of Trump’s executive order to combat antisemitism on campus, and more recently, the Abraham Accords signing ceremony between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, along with Bahrain. “I was honored to join President Trump at the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords, marking a new era in regional security and cooperation in the Middle East,” Luria told JI after the event. “I commend President Trump on his leadership to make this milestone a reality,” she added. 

While Luria claims she does not agree with everything Trump has done, she noted she is “willing to literally stand behind him on the stage while he does support an effort that I do agree with.” Luria added she would love “to see more bipartisanship and more opportunity to work together to get the things done that we all agree on.” 

Rep. Elaine Luria

In an interview last year, Luria told The Washington Post that her Jewish faith inspired her to take a position on impeachment and to speak up in defense of Israel and against antisemitism. 

“I did not necessarily anticipate going in to be a representative in the House that I would need to be as vocal about these things,” Luria told JI. Her debut speech on the House floor was during a debate over a resolution against hate, widely considered to be watered-down, following Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) comments regarding lawmakers’ support for Israel. Luria quipped that her remarks, decrying the dual loyalty label by pointing to her faith and past experience, sounded like an adapted version of the Passover song “Dayenu.” While she felt “discouraged” that the measure was diluted in the process, Luria said she felt it was important for her to use that opportunity to “speak up against antisemitism.” 

Luria maintained that with the retirement of longtime Democratic members like Reps. Nita Lowey and Eliot Engel of New York, and the addition of some newly successful far-left candidates, “I think that it’s much more important that I stay and come back to Congress as a strong voice to counter people who certainly speak up with different views than mine.” 

Last year, Luria reached out to Omar to discuss Israel and antisemitism. And while those meetings were not “as productive as I hoped for, I will always continue to try to do that,” Luria said, adding that she will “redouble” her efforts to engage with new members about issues of importance to the Jewish community. 

Luria is also one of the few House Democrats who didn’t sign on to letters expressing opposition to possible Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank. A House letter sent to Israeli leaders, signed by 191 House Democrats and backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), warned that annexation would undermine the two-state solution. Luria told JI she “deliberately chose to not sign on to that letter,” because she believes it’s not the job of a member of Congress to be weighing in on Israeli government decisions, or to be “doing anything that would erode the very strong relationship that we have between the U.S. and Israel.” 

Luria was an early supporter of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, endorsing the now-Democratic nominee back in January. “I know that Joe Biden is a very strong supporter of Israel. He stood up to antisemitism during his very long career serving in the Senate and he believes in standing up against the BDS movement,” she said. The only place she differs with her party’s standard-bearer is on his commitment to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. “I know that that is something that I’m not 100% aligned with him on, but I think that overwhelmingly his positions, both for domestic policy and support of the U.S.-Israel relationship, [are] something I do align with.” 

Luria, along with fellow freshmen Reps. Max Rose (D-NY) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), are part of the “Gang of Nine,” moderate Democrats with national security backgrounds. 

In 2018, during a campaign stop, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) introduced Luria and expressed in amazement how “this Jewish girl from Alabama,” who served 20 years in the Navy, commanding a combat unit of 400 sailors, was going to be a congresswoman. Recalling that moment, Luria laughed that she might indeed be an unusual candidate for office. “I guess there are not many Jewish girls from Alabama who go to the Naval Academy and then end up in Congress,” she said. “But I feel it’s just a continuation of my service, and I feel a great responsibility to preserve my heritage and serve my constituents well.”

Two military veterans in Virginia are hoping that serving in Congress will become their next mission.

Victory this November will be an uphill battle for the winner of the Republican primary in the state’s 10th congressional district, which was flipped blue when Rep. Jennifer Wexton unseated two-term incumbent Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) in 2018. Now Republicans in the district are looking to reclaim the seat.

Jeff Dove, who deployed to Iraq as an Army chemical operations specialist, and Rob Jones, who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine combat engineer tasked with identifying IEDs, are considered top contenders for the nomination. Both men said their military service has shaped them, and their political aspirations, in fundamental ways.

“In the Marine Corps, I learned to be a person that took responsibility for the things that are important to them,” Jones, who lost both legs above the knee in an IED explosion and went on to become a paralympian and advocate for disabled veterans, told Jewish Insider. He said that after studying Wexton’s background and record, “I set my sights on a new mission to return conservative leadership back to my home on behalf of my home and on behalf of my family.”

Dove told JI that “one of the things that I learned while serving in Iraq was, don’t take anything for granted.” He recounted memories of distributing school supplies to Iraqi schoolchildren. “Going to Iraq and going and being in war makes me think twice about reasons why we go and fight. I don’t necessarily think that we should be getting involved in every single conflict out there.”

This is not Dove’s first congressional run — in 2018, he challenged longtime Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) in the neighboring 11th district, losing by nearly 44 points. Despite that loss, Dove said going toe-to-toe with a prominent Democrat like Connolly, who has won by significant margins against Republican opponents since redistricting in 2010 turned the district solidly blue, helped him identify his party’s weaknesses in campaigning, and prepared him to discuss and debate major issues.

Wexton won by more than 10 points in 2018, has stronger name recognition than either Republican and is better funded than her opponents. Jones has $77,000 on hand and Dove has $41,000, while Wexton has $1.8 million. Jones and Dove have both spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their primary campaigns.

Given that the district is a long shot with an expensive media market, neither Republican should expect much additional investment in his campaign, John McGlennon, a professor of government at Virginia’s College of William & Mary, told JI.

“That district has been trending Democratic at a very fast pace, and I don’t see it turning around in this election,” he said.

But this is not Jones’s first battle against difficult circumstances — he fought to survive a gruesome injury and remain physically active and mobile following the amputation of his legs.

Rob Jones (Jones for Congress)

“When I first got wounded, a lot of people would struggle with that, with this drastic change in their life circumstances,” he said. “But one of the things I realized early on was my mom was going to be devastated, and so what was best for her was that I be fine, that I be okay with my injury. Because of that, I think it forced me to rise to the occasion.”

Since leaving the military, Jones has become an activist for wounded veterans, raising money through athletic achievements. He bicycled across the country, from Maine to San Diego, in 2013 and 2014, and ran 31 marathons on 31 consecutive days in different cities around the world in 2017.

“I was in this position where I felt this desire to continue to serve my fellow Marines and continue to serve my country in some capacity,” he said of the marathons. “I didn’t see any of the stories [in the media] where there was this kind of post-traumatic growth after coming back from the war. And so I wanted to make sure that both sides of that coin were told.”

Dove would also bring a unique perspective to Congress if he is elected. With Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) retiring, Dove could become the only black Republican in the House. 

Dove is sharply critical of the way Democratic politicians address the black community. “It’s a shame that politicians on the Democratic side feel they need to do something… to show that they’re so called ‘down with the struggle,’” he said, referencing the announcement made by Democrats last week regarding a police reform package, which the party’s leaders made while wearing stoles with a traditional Ghanaian pattern. 

“And also they seem to like to talk to us in a certain way to make it seem like we’re not intelligent enough to handle normal English speech,” Dove added, focusing on Joe Biden’s controversial appearance on “The Breakfast Club” radio show. “It’s all pandering and it’s ridiculous. We don’t want to be talked at. The black community wants to be talked to, and heard.”

Dove blames the controversial 1994 crime bill for many of the issues regarding policing in black communities, noting that law enforcement became more aggressive toward black Americans following the legislation’s introduction into law. “When I was in high school, that legislation was first put in place,” he said. “And we could see the difference in how police reacted to us.”

Dove added that, although he has personally had negative experiences with police, including being pulled over and handcuffed, he does not see all police officers as an issue. “I think 99.9% of law enforcement is here to protect and serve us like they’re supposed to,” he said.

Dove praised the bipartisan First Step Act, which reformed federal prisons and sentencing, as a positive move toward meaningful criminal justice reform, and added that he wants to see more portions of the 1994 crime bill repealed. He also said he wants police to be better integrated into the communities they serve, rather than holding what he called an “us versus them mentality.”

He suggested that relations between law enforcement and communities could be strengthened with more direct outreach that brings police closer to the communities they serve.

It’s a mindset that can also be applied to his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dove suggested that the parties need to directly engage in order to move forward.

Dove said he supports a two-state solution, but, “it’s ultimately not going to be our decision. It’s going to be the parties involved… They’re going to have to come together at some point and end this fighting. Because it’s not beneficial for either side to continue.”

Still, the Army veteran sees a role for the U.S. in the peace process — as a mediator in the conflict “making sure that both sides are at the table and continuing discussions and making sure no one is taking too much advantage of the other.”

Jones largely agrees. He also supports a two-state solution, and said the U.S. should “help them come to a solution between the two of them that both of them can be happy with.”

Republicans in the 10th district will pick their nominee at a drive-through convention this Saturday at Shenandoah University, where only pre-registered delegates will be permitted to vote. Also in the race are Matthew Truong, who emigrated from Vietnam at age 12 and built a career in the tech world, and Marine veteran Aliscia Andrews. The convention was originally scheduled for May 30, but delayed due to the coronavirus. A similar convention last Saturday in Virginia’s 5th district has raised significant controversy, but Saturday’s convention in Winchester is expected to go smoothly.

Jones, who announced his candidacy on the ninth anniversary of the attack that took his legs, is confident that delegates will pick the best person for the job — and that he is that person.

“I think the biggest thing is selflessness, acting on the best interests of people that you care about, places that you care about, things that you care about,” he said. “[That] is the key to overcoming anything and accomplishing anything in life.”