A democratic socialist once fired from a law job for pro-Palestinian comments is hoping to unseat a longtime member of Congress in Colorado’s primary election Tuesday, following primary victories for allies in New York.

Attorney Melat Kiros is a viable contender, according to polls, which show her about even with Rep. Diana DeGette in the race for Colorado’s 1st congressional district, which DeGette has held since 1997. One other candidate, University of Colorado Regent Wandy James, is polling a distant third for the seat, which includes almost all of the city and county of Denver.

Kiros, who was born the year DeGette took office, has used Israel policy as a wedge throughout the campaign — calling for an arms embargo against Israel, including funding for defensive weapons like the Iron Dome.

Last week, Kiros drew criticism for declining to call a firebombing attack at a vigil for Israeli hostages in Boulder last year antisemitic.

But some Jews are supporting her, saying that Kiros’ harsh criticism of Israel is necessary and warranted. DeGette has outfundraised Kiros at a 3-to-1 ratio, while Kiros has picked up endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders, Justice Democrats and the Sunrise Movement.

Kiros’ candidacy in the deep-blue district, where DeGette won three-quarters of the vote in 2024, will test the momentum of recent congressional primary victories by Democratic Socialists of America–backed candidates Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez in New York. Avila Chevalier personally campaigned for Kiros on Monday on X.

The race also comes during a tenuous month for Jews in the state. Students in Boulder issued a statement June 3 praising the Boulder attack as an act of “resistance.” Denver Jewish Day School, the largest Jewish school in the state, sent kids home early from summer camp June 11 after receiving threats. And last week the ADL filed a civil rights complaint alleging severe antisemitic harassment in Boulder schools.

Colorado voters will also go to the polls Tuesday to choose their nominees to succeed Gov. Jared Polis. Leading the Democratic candidates in polls is Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is the son and grandson of Holocaust survivors. (His top opponent, Sen. Michael Bennet, has a Jewish mother but does not identify as Jewish.)

Here’s 4 things to know about the congressional race ahead of the election.

1. Kiros entered politics after a pro-Palestinian blog post got her fired.

Kiros, whose family immigrated to the U.S. from Ethiopia when she was a baby, was working as an associate for law firm Sidley Austin in November 2023 when it signed onto a letter to law schools instructing them to take an “unequivocal stance” against antisemitism and Islamophobia, including protests that call for the elimination of Israel, which the letter called antisemitic.

In a Medium post responding to the letter, Kiros wrote that she agreed with the stance against antisemitism and that “there is no justification for the attacks on Israel on Oct. 7.” But she added that she did not believe that calling for the elimination of Israel qualified as antisemitism, partly because that perspective foreclosed on the possibility of a one-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians enjoyed equal rights.

“By chilling future lawyers’ employment prospects for criticism of the Israeli government’s actions and its legitimacy,” Kiros wrote, “you are complicit in Israel’s weaponization of anti-Semitism.”

The post received some traction online, and Sidley asked Kiros to take it down. She refused, reportedly leading to her firing. She then worked as communications director for 2024 congressional candidate John Padora, who placed third in that year’s Democratic primary in Colorado’s fourth congressional district.

2. She repeatedly declined to call the Boulder attack antisemitic 

Kiros was grilled on her stances about Israel in a June 22 interview with a Denver news channel.

She said weapons that defend Israeli citizens against attacks from Iran and Hezbollah “give Israel the cover to continue the genocide that’s taking place in Palestine and now the ethnic cleansing that’s taking place in Lebanon.” (Genocide scholars have debated whether the war in Gaza rises to the level of genocide.)

Some of Kiros’ comments on Israel appeared to take a more centrist position than some of her far-left allies. Though she has campaigned with controversial streamer Hasan Piker, she said she disagreed with his statement that Hamas is a lesser evil than Israel.

And asked whether Israel “had it coming” on Oct. 7, Kiros said “no, not at all — it’s about understanding the conditions in which violence and war happens.” She said Israel had resisted change despite decades of international frustration with its policies; her job as a politician, she said, was to change those conditions.

But the remark that drew the most attention was her response to a question about the Boulder attack, which took place at an event calling for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. The attacker, Mohammed Soliman, was heard saying “Free Palestine” as he threw molotov cocktails and used an improvised flamethrower to burn his victims.

Soliman left behind writings in which he declared that “Zionism is our enemies until Jerusalem is liberated and they are expelled from our land,” and further described Israel as a “cancer entity,” according to law enforcement.

He injured 13 people in the ambush, including an 82-year-old woman who later died of her wounds.

“I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator,” Kiros said. “All I know is that he attacked innocent people because of what they might have believed. And I don’t even know what the people that were at that protest believed, too. In fact most of them were probably just there to ask that the people who were kidnapped on Oct. 7 be returned to their families.”

Asked to confirm that she thought the attack was not antisemitic, Kiros said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what his intentions were.”

In a statement to the Forward, DeGette said, “It’s never okay to rationalize antisemitism or excuse an act of terrorism. Those aren’t Denver values and we deserve better.”

The Kiros campaign did not respond to an inquiry.

3. DeGette, the incumbent, has a mixed record on Israel

DeGette, 68, has also pitched herself as a progressive. She was an early supporter of Medicare for All and includes abolishing ICE in her campaign positions. Her supporters highlight her efforts to secure abortion rights and her role in managing Trump’s first impeachment in 2019.

But unlike Kiros, DeGette has supported a two-state solution. DeGette voted for an April 2024 foreign aid package that included $5.2 billion to replenish Israeli air defenses.

“I believe Israel should have a nation, and I believe Palestine should have a nation, and I believe we need to move towards that solution,” DeGette told Colorado Public Radio. “I believe Israel has a right to defend itself.”

Her support for the war in Gaza flagged as it dragged on. In December 2025, DeGette voted against the National Defense Authorization Act that included provisions for funding additional weapons to Israel — and calling for a permanent ceasefire along with a surge in humanitarian aid.

But some constituents remained unsatisfied. DeGette’s heated exchange with one at a campaign event earlier this year went viral on social media. Someone asked “why she kept sending money for bombs,” and DeGette replied she was only funding defensive arms. When the constituent stormed off, saying DeGette didn’t care about Palestinians, the congresswoman followed her to correct her.

Finally, DeGette said, “If the only issue that you care about is this issue, then you should not vote for me.”

4. Some Jews in her district support Kiros. Others are worried.

Rabbi Rachel Kobrin, the spiritual leader of Congregation Rodef Shalom, wrote in the Denver Post last week that Kiros’ candidacy scared her as a liberal Jewish woman because it reflected a coarsened public discourse around Israel and ruled out a two-state solution.

“I do not believe Milat Kiros has shown the curiosity, humility, and empathy necessary to represent my community as a political leader,” Kobrin wrote.

One Jewish reader responded to Kobrin’s column by coming to her defense.

“We fought the state of South Africa as an apartheid state that was violently and legally separating and killing its black native citizens,” wrote Vivian Weinstein, a Denver resident critical of the war. “In the same way, Israel cannot continue to exist as an apartheid state according to its own law.”

The post Colorado voters weigh candidate for Congress who declined to call Boulder firebombing antisemitic appeared first on The Forward.

The most important traffic reports these days usually come from the Strait of Hormuz.

“Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz dropped significantly over the weekend, The New York Times reported, “as a four-day exchange of attacks between Iran and the United States left some shipowners deciding it was too risky to transit.”

What’s going on with the Strait of Hormuz affects gas prices, stock prices, Americans’ moods — and the world economy.

But what does “strait” mean, anyway?

The word has been with us for a long time, and intriguingly, it appears in many famous translations of the Torah. It also pops up in translations of the New Testament.

“Strait” comes from the Latin for “strict.” It first appeared in English in the 14th century, when, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it referred to clothing — “a garment, etc.: Tight-fitting, narrow.”

Over time, the meaning changed a bit, but it always had something to do with narrowness. From 1561 to 1725, it meant: “Of bonds, a knot: Tightly drawn.”

As the centuries passed, it attracted the attention of poets.

”It matters not how strait the gate,” wrote William Ernest Henley in his poem “Invictus.”  “How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”

It turns out that Henley was kind of into the subject of what words meant.

“The poet, who was one of the leading slang lexicographers of his day, saw the gates of heaven as strait — tight, narrow, difficult to get through,” the late great language columnist William Safire observed in 1984, when he wrote a column on “strait” and “straits.”

Maybe Henley had the New Testament in mind, too.

Matthew 7:13 in The King James Bible advises: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.”

Today, according to Merriam-Webster, “strait” means “a comparatively narrow passageway connecting two large bodies of water — often used in plural but singular in construction.”

Henley, the poet, was using an archaic meaning — a narrow passage, without water.

In contemporary English, “strait” also has a secondary meaning — “a situation of perplexity or distress — often used in plural,” according to Merriam-Webster, but also according to anyone who has used the phrase “dire straits,” including, one would presume, the band Dire Straits.

Both physical and emotional space

“Strait” describes both a physical space — for example, a body of water — and an emotional space, like “dire straits.”

Perhaps that dual meaning is why the word “strait” appears in translations of the Torah. In the 1917 Jewish Publication Society translation, the Hebrew word tzar, or “narrow,” is translated as “strait.”

Consider 1 Samuel, 13:6, in the JPS translation from 1917:

“When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait — for the people were distressed — then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in holds, and in pits.”

Tzar has both a literal descriptive meaning and a figurative emotional meaning. Sure, as an adjective, it means narrow, such as in the famous song about the entire world being “a narrow bridge” — gesher tzar me’od. 

But as ki tzar lo in Samuel 1 6:13 demonstrates, it can also refer to a tough circumstance, a strait. Similarly, perhaps, in contemporary Hebrew, someone might say, tzar li, or “I am saddened.”

These multiple meanings might lead a person to the hazardous question of whether one should say the “Strait of Hormuz” in the singular, or “Straits of Hormuz” in the plural.

That was what fascinated Safire in 1984. Today, his take feels like a postcard from another time — but it’s also soothing in this moment of, well, dire straits:

“My advice,”Safire wrote. “Go with the familiar; follow your ear. If you’re happy with the Straits of Gibraltar or Magellan, use the final s; if the place name is new to you, let the gazetteer crowd have its way.”

“Hormuz is unfamiliar to most Americans, and the Strait of Hormuz is therefore the name I would use, going along with Gary Hart and the stylebooks,” Safire continued. “But retain the singular sense: ‘The Straits of Gibraltar’ is a passage.’ ‘’The Strait of Hormuz’ is the next Quemoy and Matsu.”

I liked being distracted for a moment from Iran and Trump with the mention of “Gary Hart.”

That nostalgia reminded me that today’s Strait of Hormuz news cycle, about a traffic jam for the fuel and food we need to live, is about both a location and a feeling.

Sure, the waterway may be physically open, or, at least of this writing, effectively closed because of fear, but its status has other meanings too — like whether the Iranian regime actually won this war, and whether that narrow space is also a symbol of future peril.

And in those multiple meanings, strait echoes the Biblical tzar —narrow, yes, but also dangerous.

In Hebrew and in English, narrowness, perilousness and sadness frequently go together, indicating a world or a situation that must be navigated carefully. Perhaps a word like strait — a little bit singular, a little bit plural — captures it all.

The post As the Bible and the news from the Strait of Hormuz tells us, our world is in dire straits appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he could not endorse states that privilege one religion over another, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, during a one-on-one interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl on Sunday.

“Democratic Socialists of America now says they no longer favor a two-state solution. “Is that the way you see it as well? Karl asked in the interview, which came days after Mamdani’s endorsed Democratic socialist candidates for Congress swept their New York Democratic primaries.

Among them, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier campaigned on platforms that included opposition to U.S. military aid to Israel and support for Palestinian rights.

Mamdani replied to Karl: “The way I see it is equal rights for all people. And I think that that’s the truth for Israel. It’s the truth for any country in the world.”

When pressed by Karl that Israel is in fact a Jewish state and “that’s in the charter, that’s the way it is now,” Mamdani said he has consistently stated he supports “the state of Israel as a state with equal rights.”

However, he added, “I believe that any state that privileges one religion over the other is one that I can’t tell you I support, whether it be Israel or Saudi Arabia or anywhere else.”

The backlash to Mamdani’s comments was quick. In a statement Sunday, Ambassador Ofir Akunis, Consul General of Israel in New York, said, “Mamdani, we do not need your recognition of the Jewish state. If you knew a little history, instead of spending all day inciting and spreading hatred, you would know that Israel’s Declaration of Independence guaranteed full equality for all its citizens. That has been the reality since the day our state was established.”

Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, posted on X, “Mamdani is either willfully ignorant or maliciously mendacious,” adding that “Israel has no official state religion.”

He also stated that there are multiple countries for which Islam is the state religion, with additional Muslim-majority countries declaring Islam as the state religion in their constitutions.

Karl also asked Mamdani about his broader views on Israel, which became a prominent issue during the New York Democratic primaries, particularly among candidates who support Israel and continued U.S. military aid.

Mamdani said voters made it clear that “they were tired of tens of billions of dollars being spent in our taxpayer dollars to violate international law to kill thousands of civilians.”

He added that currently “Palestine is described as if there is a ceasefire,” but more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed during it. He said New Yorkers want to “follow international law, to believe in the humanity for all.”

Karl also pressed the mayor on the Poetica coffee shop incident in Brooklyn last week, where staff refused to take New York Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman’s money for a coffee purchase, calling him a “genocide enabler” because he supports Israel.

Mamdani said while he has “political disagreements” with Goldman (who lost his seat to Mamdani-backed Brad Lander), “I do believe that that’s a response that goes beyond that.”

And when asked about rising antisemitism in New York City, the mayor said that while Jews are a minority of the city’s population, they  constitute a majority of victims of the hate crimes committed in the city. ”That’s something that’s unacceptable,” he said.

Akunis said, however, that “The surge in antisemitism across the United States, and particularly in New York, is the result of ignorance and a lack of knowledge, combined with a fundamental hatred of the Jewish people.”

He added, “I once again warn that Mamdani’s inflammatory rhetoric will end in very serious and violent acts against Jewish and Israeli communities throughout the city.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Mamdani says ‘I can’t tell you I support’ Israel as a Jewish state appeared first on The Forward.