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Claudia Sheinbaum is on track to become Mexico’s first Jewish and woman president
(JTA) — The way things stand now, Mexico is headed to elect its first woman president next year. The two leading candidates in the polls for the 2024 election are Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico City’s former mayor, and Xóchitl Gálvez, a senator representing the center-right opposition bloc.
The polls point to another first: Sheinbaum, currently the frontrunner, could become the country’s first Jewish president, too.
Earlier this month, Sheinbaum, 61, was announced as the candidate for the left-wing Morena party, which has been led by the country’s outgoing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Since then, her momentum has only grown — a poll taken by the El Pais newspaper has 47% of voters supporting her, while Gálvez, her closest competitor, notched 30%.
If elected, Sheinbaum would join the ranks of the few Jews outside Israel who have been elected to their country’s highest office, including Janet Jagan of Guyana, Ricardo Maduro of Honduras, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski of Peru and Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Sheinbaum would also likely be the first Jewish person in history to lead a country of more than 50 million people.
Here is a primer on Sheinbaum and how her Jewishness has become part of the campaign.
She is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and political liberal who has beaten back crime.
Born to two science professors in Mexico City, Sheinbaum herself studied physics and became an engineering professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Her research focused on, among other things, energy usage in Mexico’s buildings and transportation system. Along with a group of other experts on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, she would go on to win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
As Mexico City’s head of government, Obrador appointed Sheinbaum as his environmental secretary in 2000. She became a close ally and joined his new left-wing Morena party (named after the country’s Catholic patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe) in the early 2010s. In 2015, she was elected mayor of Tlalpan, Mexico City’s largest borough, before becoming mayor of the entire city in 2018. She stepped down as mayor this summer to enter the presidential race.
Like the term-limited Obrador — whose approval rating of over 60% has been one of the highest in the world — Sheinbaum’s platform includes fighting Mexico’s deeply rooted corruption, continuing cash transfers to Mexico’s most vulnerable populations and developing Mexico’s energy sovereignty. But Sheinbaum will likely be more pro-environment than Obrador — while the current president has bolstered Mexico’s oil industry, Sheinbaum has said most of the country’s future “has to be related to renewable energy.”
As mayor of Mexico City, Sheinbaum led the city through the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. While Obrador appeared to minimize the threat of the virus, Sheinbaum advocated for masks and increased testing early on. And in a country plagued by violence, she has reduced her city’s murder rate by nearly half.
But some controversy also brewed during her time as mayor. Despite expanding public transport, there were at least a dozen accidents, some deadly, in the city’s subway system. Critics say she hasn’t done enough to fix the city’s crumbling infrastructure.
Sheinbaum also faced controversy involving infrastructure disaster as head of Tlalpan. In 2017, during an earthquake that killed more than 300 people in total, an elementary school collapsed in Sheinbaum’s district, killing 19 children and six adults. An apartment had been built on top of the school, destabilizing it, and some criticized her for allowing district officials to approve the construction permits. She apologized for what happened, but some parents of the deceased children still hold her accountable.
Her Jewish identity is more political than religious.
Sheinbaum had Ashkenazi grandparents who immigrated from Lithuania in the 1920s and Sephardic grandparents who left Sofia, Bulgaria, in the 1940s to escape the Holocaust. She has said that she celebrated holidays at her grandparents’ houses, but at home, her family life was secular.
Sources told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2018 that Sheinbaum feels connected to the history of Jews in political activism, but not as much so to the religion or its traditions. Like many secular, leftist Jews in Mexico, her parents moved to the south of the city to be closer to the National Autonomous University of Mexico, a hotbed of political activism. She told a group of Jewish women voters during her mayoral campaign in 2018 that she was a proud Jewish woman.
She also hasn’t made any public pronouncement about Israel or spoken as a member of a minority, even though Jews make up less than 1% of the capital city’s population. It is not known if she belongs to any synagogue or other Jewish institution.
“In Mexico, most of the [Jewish community] is affiliated to one of the five or six major communities,” said Daniel Fainstein, the dean of Jewish Studies at the Hebraica University in Mexico City. The country is known for being home to multiple tight-knit Orthodox communities, many of whom don’t mingle much. “I don’t think she’s affiliated to any of those communities. … She’s not seen as, let’s say, one of us. … I think that she’s seen as someone from Jewish origins that is developing her work as an academician and then as a politician.”
Sheinbaum’s Jewishness is shaping up as a simmering issue in the race.
Even though Mexicans are generally devout Catholics, according to Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra, a Mexican sociologist at the University of California San Diego, the country has a strong history of separating religion from politics.
“Mexican politics has actually been quite secular,” he told JTA. “So the religion of the president and the religious practices of the president are never discussed.”
In a break from that unspoken tradition, former President Vicente Fox called Sheinbaum a “Bulgarian Jew” in an apparent attempt to minimize her candidacy. “The only Mexican is Xóchitl,” Fox added, referring to Sheinbaum’s opponent.
Fox later apologized, and Gálvez condemned Fox’s comments. But since announcing her candidacy, in only a few months of official campaigning, Sheinbaum has already released her birth certificate on Twitter — twice — and published campaign ads emphasizing her Mexican identity in the face of attacks about her origins.
Pardo-Guerra said he didn’t think Sheinbaum’s Jewish identity would play a major role when the votes are counted next year. But he said it can be difficult to distinguish “stupidity from antisemitism” in Mexican political discourse.
“What has been said about Claudia Sheinbaum on some occasions is very close to antisemitism,” he said. “Most of it is ignorance, but I wouldn’t say there isn’t some other position out there.”
Tabea Alexa Linhard, a comparative literature professor at Washington University in St. Louis who teaches courses on Mexican and Jewish Diaspora cultures, also said Fox’s tweet had “a little bit of both” antisemitism and ignorance.
“Different forms of antisemitism endure in Mexico, as they do elsewhere,” she wrote in an email. “It is hard not to see echoes of the conspiracy theories involving Barack Obama’s place of birth. It is a political ruse, but in the U.S., this certainly had important consequences, and this kind of dog whistle may also be consequential in Mexico.”
Most Mexican Jews probably won’t vote for her.
The average Mexican may not care about Sheinbaum’s religion, but the average Mexican Jew is probably not voting for her. Like most other Latin American Jewish communities, the majority of Mexico’s Jews lean conservative politically. Sheinbaum’s platform is not radically left-wing when compared to other leftist leaders in Latin America, but Gálvez, who founded two tech firms, may be more appealing to conservative-leaning Jews, many of whom are business owners.
“I think that most [Mexican Jews] will vote for Xochitl Galvez,” said Fainstein. “[Their decision] is not related to the Jewish or non-Jewish origins of the candidates.”
He added that most “upper middle class” people vote against Morena, not just Jews. However, he did mention that “there are other groups of Jews who are active in Morena and support Morena also.”
Linhard also said the Jewish vote will not be dependent on the ethnic background of the candidate.
“Mexico’s Jewish community is very diverse,” he said. “Some will identify with Sheinbaum, others will not. But the vote of Jewish Mexicans will likely depend … on her and her opponent’s platform.”
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The post Claudia Sheinbaum is on track to become Mexico’s first Jewish and woman president appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Rafael Lemkin’s Family Fights to Have Anti-Israel Group Stop Using Name of Famed Zionist Who Coined Term ‘Genocide’
Raphael Lemkin being interviewed on Feb. 13, 1949. Photo: Screenshot
The family of Raphael Lemkin — the Polish-born Jewish lawyer who coined the term “genocide” and helped draft the Genocide Convention after World War II — is taking legal action against a stridently anti-Israel group based in the US, accusing the nonprofit organization of corrupting his family name and legacy.
Joseph Lemkin, the cousin of Raphael Lemkin and closest living relative, confirmed to The Algemeiner that his family is initiating legal proceedings against the Pennsylvania-based Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, with the support of the European Jewish Association (EJA), to stop the misuse of his family name.
“From our perspective, the Lemkin Institute has no right to use his name. Their actions are completely opposed to what he stood for,” Lemkin told The Algemeiner, referring to his cousin. “He was a passionate Zionist who dedicated all his efforts and resources to one cause: the adoption of the Genocide Convention.”
Lemkin’s father was Raphael Lemkin’s first cousin, and he said the two men had a close relationship.
First reported by The Algemeiner, the institute has used the Lemkin name to advance an agenda of extreme anti-Israel activism, which Lemkin’s family called a “shameful betrayal” of their legacy.
Initially registered in Pennsylvania as a nonprofit organization in 2021, the institute received US federal tax-exempt status two years later.
Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the organization has shifted toward aggressive anti-Israel political advocacy, backing pro-Hamas campus protests and reaching millions on social media with posts that falsely accuse Israel of genocide.
Less than a week after the Oct. 7 atrocities, for example, the institute released a “genocide alert” calling the Palestinian terrorist group’s onslaught an “unprecedented military operation against Israel.”
Comparing Israel’s defensive military actions against Hamas to the Holocaust, the institute accused the Jewish state of carrying out a “genocide” against Palestinians — the very term Raphael Lemkin coined in 1943. Israel had not even launched its ground offensive in Gaza at the time of the social media posts.
Days later, the Lemkin Institute called on the International Criminal Court “to indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the crime of #genocide in light of the siege and bombardment of #Gaza and the many expressions of genocidal intent.” Israel still had not initiated its ground campaign.
Since then, the organization’s vocal anti-Israel advocacy has continued unabated for the past two years, accusing the Jewish state of genocide and terrorism while largely staying silent about Hamas.
According to the Lemkin family, such statements distort history and undermine their legacy, but even more, they disrespect the memory of six million Jews.
“The institute has used this term to promote an inflammatory, antisemitic stance against Israel — completely contrary to the principles he stood for,” Joseph Lemkin told The Algemeiner, referring to his cousin.
“Astonishingly, they have even expressed support for Hezbollah and Hamas — both internationally designated terrorist organizations — while smearing Israel,” he continued.
Now, legal steps are underway to hold the institute accountable, stop it from exploiting the Lemkin name to raise money, and end its Holocaust comparisons.
After first sending letters demanding that the institute change its name, the Lemkin family is now awaiting a response — and if no voluntary action is taken or Pennsylvania officials fail to intervene, the matter will be taken to court, Lemkin told The Algemeiner.
Beyond its communications with the institute, the EJA legal team also sent letters to Gov. Josh Shapiro and Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations regarding this issue.
“The Lemkin Institute, through its very name, as well as its marketing and other materials, represents itself as an embodiment of Mr. Lemkin’s ideology. In reality, the Lemkin Institute’s policies, positions, activities, and publications are anathema to Mr. Lemkin’s belief system,” the letter reads.
“The Lemkin Institute is not authorized by Raphael Lemkin’s family, his estate, or any custodian of his legacy to rely upon his name for any purpose,” it continues. “The European Jewish Association and Mr. Lemkin’s family are outraged by the Lemkin Institute’s use of Mr. Lemkin’s name, especially in the context of the Lemkin Institute’s anti-Israel agenda.”
EJA Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin has sharply condemned the institute’s actions and statements, saying it has “weaponized a sacred legacy against the very people it was meant to protect.”
“The Lemkin Institute was established to prevent genocide — not to distort its definition or fuel antisemitic tropes,” Margolin said in a statement.
Raphael Lemkin was born in Poland in 1900 and eventually escaped the Nazis to the US, where he joined the War Department, documenting Nazi atrocities and preparing for the prosecution of Nazi crimes at the Nuremberg trials. He dedicated much of his life to making the world recognize the horrors of the Holocaust and designating mass murder as a crime which could be prosecuted through international law. Forty-nine members of his family, including his parents, were killed in the Holocaust. He died in 1959.
A 2017 article by James Loeffler, who now teaches at Johns Hopkins University, described what he called “the forgotten Zionism of Raphael Lemkin.” Loeffler noted that while “dead international lawyers rarely become celebrities,” Lemkin “has emerged as a potent symbol for activists and politicians across the world.”
Loeffler traced Lemkin’s work as an editor and columnist of a Jewish publication, Zionist World. “The task of the Jewish people is … [to become] a permanent national majority in its own national home,” Lemkin wrote in one such column.
“It is not enough to know Zionism,” Lemkin wrote in another column quoted by Loeffler. “One must imbibe its spirit, one must make Zionism a part of one’s very own ‘self,’ and be prepared to make sacrifices on its behalf.”
Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, founder and executive director of the Lemkin Institute, told the online news site EJewish Philanthropy that her organization was named after Lemkin to “bring his name back into public discourse” but “there was no clear person to contact” when naming the institute in 2021.
“We don’t want to cause unhappiness for anybody in the Lemkin family. We did ask to know what legal basis exists for the complaint, and we have not received any response to that specific question,” she added.
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China Expands Influence Campaign Targeting Israel as Way to Hurt US, Study Finds
Chinese and US flags flutter outside the building of an American company in Beijing, China, April 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Tingshu Wang
China has increasingly used state media and covert campaigns to spread anti-Israel and antisemitic narratives in the United States, according to a new study.
The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), an Israeli think tank, has released a report examining how China’s state media portrays Israel and the United States as solely responsible for the war in Gaza, depicting them as destabilizing actors while spreading anti-Israel and antisemitic messages.
“It is evident that China and its proxies play a significant role in the current wave of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment in the United States,” Ofir Dayan, a research associate in the Israel-China Policy Center at INSS, writes in the report.
According to Dayan, China’s dissemination of anti-Israel narratives is not intended to directly harm Israel but rather to undermine the US, while preserving its valuable diplomatic and economic ties with Jerusalem.
“Israel is used as a tool to advance Beijing’s claim that Washington destabilizes both the international system and the regions where it operates,” the report says.
While China’s primary aim is to target the United States, Israel ends up suffering “collateral damage” as a result, the study finds.
In advancing these objectives, INSS explains that China covertly conducts influence campaigns across the United States, promoting anti-Israel and antisemitic narratives, including conspiracy theories about “Jewish control” of politics, the economy, and the media.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused China, along with Qatar, of orchestrating a campaign in Western media to “besiege” Israel by undermining its allies’ support.
There is “an effort to besiege — not isolate as much as besiege Israel — that is orchestrated by the same forces that supported Iran,” Netanyahu said, speaking to a delegation of 250 US state legislators at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.
“One is China. And the other is Qatar. They are organizing an attack on Israel … [through] the social media of the Western world and the United States,” the Israeli leader continued. “We will have to counter it, and we will counter it with our own methods.”
According to the INSS report, China’s role in promoting anti-Israel activity in the United States is evident in the narratives it spreads — both publicly, through state-run media, and covertly, through targeted cyber operations.
For example, China Daily — the official news outlet of the Chinese Communist Party — has been openly critical of Israel since the start of the Gaza war, using its coverage to attack Washington and depict it as a destabilizing force fueling conflict worldwide.
The Chinese news outlet has also published articles contending that neither Israel nor the United States care about Gazans or Israeli hostages held by Hamas, accusing the US of instigating wars for domestic political gain, and attempting to create divisions in American society by portraying support for Israel as unpopular.
The study also explains how China exploited the wave of protests across US universities following the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, to deepen divisions within American society.
It portrayed anti-Israel protesters as calm and peaceful defenders of free expression, while depicting pro-Israel demonstrators as violent.
“Posts on heavily censored social media in China were even more blatant, and at times antisemitic, claiming that Israel controls the United States and drawing comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany,” the report says.
“Some referred to Israel as a ‘terrorist organization,’ while describing Hamas as a resistance organization and spreading unfounded conspiracy theories,” it continues.
In the past, the US State Department has accused China of promoting conspiracy theories and antisemitism within the United States.
China also carries out covert influence campaigns through targeted cyber operations, aimed in part at shaping Israel’s image in the United States and undermining US-Israel relations.
According to the study, China-linked cyber campaigns have used troll networks to spread malicious content about Israel, disseminating antisemitic messages to American audiences that falsely claim Jewish and Israeli control over US politics.
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US Lawmakers Slam Zohran Mamdani Over Pledge to Scrap IHRA Definition of Antisemitism
Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS
Two members of the US Congress on Wednesday slammed New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani after he pledged to abandon a widely used definition of antisemitism if elected.
Reps. Mike Lawler, a Republican from New York, and Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat from New Jersey, said in a joint statement that Mamdani’s plan to scrap the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism is “dangerous” and “shameful.” The IHRA definition — adopted by dozens of US states, dozens of countries, and hundreds of governing institutions, including the European Union and United Nations — has been a cornerstone of global efforts to monitor and combat antisemitic hate.
“Walking away from IHRA is not just reckless — it undermines the fight against antisemitism at a time when hate crimes are spiking,” Lawler said in his own statement. Gottheimer echoed that concern, arguing that dismantling the definition “sends exactly the wrong message to Jewish communities who feel under siege.”
The backlash followed Mamdani’s comments last week to Bloomberg News in which he vowed, if elected, to reverse New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ executive order in June adopting the IHRA standard. Mamdani, a democratic socialist and state assemblymember, argued that the IHRA definition blurs the line between antisemitism and political criticism of Israel and risks chilling free speech.
“I am someone who has supported and support BDS [the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel] and nonviolent approaches to address Israeli state violence,” he said at the time.
The BDS movement seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination. Leaders of the movement have repeatedly stated their goal is to destroy the world’s only Jewish state.
“Let’s be extremely clear: the BDS movement is antisemitic. Efforts to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist are antisemitic. And refusing to outright condemn the violent call to ‘globalize the intifada’ — offering only that you’d discourage its use — is indefensible,” Lawler and Gottheimer said in their joint statement, referring to Mamdani’s recent partial backtracking after his initial defense of the use of the phrase “globalize the intifada.”
“There are no two sides about the meaning of this slogan — it is hate speech, plain and simple,” the lawmakers continued. “Given the sharp spike in antisemitic violence, families across the Tri-State area should be alarmed. Leaders cannot equivocate when it comes to standing against antisemitism and the incitement of violence against Jews.”
IHRA — an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries including the US and Israel — adopted the “working definition” of antisemitism in 2016. Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum.
According to the definition, antisemitism “is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” It provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.
In a statement, the Mamdani campaign confirmed that the candidate would not use the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which major civil rights groups have said is essential for fighting an epidemic of anti-Jewish hatred sweeping across the US.
“A Mamdani administration will approach antisemitism in line with the Biden administration’s National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism — a strategy that emphasizes education, community engagement, and accountability to reverse the normalization of antisemitism and promote open dialogue,” Mamdani spokesperson Dora Pekec told the New York Post.
Lawler and Gottheimer’s pushback comes as Congress debates the Antisemitism Awareness Act, legislation that would codify IHRA’s definition into federal law. Advocacy groups such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have urged lawmakers to back the measure, warning that antisemitic incidents have surged nationwide over the past two years and having a clear definition will better enable law enforcement and others to combat it.
For Mamdani, the controversy over the IHRA definition adds a new flashpoint to a mayoral campaign already drawing national attention.
A little-known politician before this year’s Democratic primary campaign, Mamdani is an outspoken supporter of the BDS movement. He has also repeatedly refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, falsely suggesting the country does not offer “equal rights” for all its citizens, and promised to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits New York.
Mamdani especially came under fire during the summer when he initially defended the phrase “globalize the intifada”— which references previous periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels and has been widely interpreted as a call to expand political violence — by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II. However, Mamdani has since backpedaled on his support for the phrase, saying that he would discourage his supporters from using the slogan.