Uncategorized
How many Hebrew Israelites are there, and how worried should Jews be?
(JTA) — Dressed in matching purple hoodies and shirts, with gold fringes attached to the bottom in observance of Deuteronomy 22:12, hundreds of members of a controversial Hebrew Israelite group marched through the streets of Brooklyn on Sunday.
“Hey Jacob, it’s time to wake up,” they chanted, using a term for people of color who have yet to embrace their “true” identity as descendants of the Biblical Jacob, later called Israel. “We got good news for you: YOU are the real Jews.”
The march and a demonstration that followed at the Barclays Center were organized by Israel United in Christ in solidarity with Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving, who was suspended for eight games after he posted a link to an antisemitic film on social media last month and then was slow to apologize. But IUIC has also used the controversy to promote its incendiary ideology and recruit new followers into what it calls “God’s army.”
After the demonstration — the second held by IUIC outside of the Brooklyn arena this month — the group’s founder posted a message on his Twitter account. “We are not here for violence,” Bishop Nathanyel Ben Israel wrote, “we are here for the spiritual war.”
Before 2019, those American Jews who were even aware of the once-obscure Black Hebrew Israelite spiritual movement likely associated it with the loud but non-violent street preachers who would harangue pedestrians in city centers. In December of that year, however, extremists professing Israelite beliefs attacked a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey and a Hanukkah party in Monsey, New York. Two Jews were killed in Jersey City, and a 72-year-old rabbi who was stabbed in the head in Monsey died from his injuries three months later.
With the memory of those attacks still fresh, and against the backdrop of a surge this fall in public expressions of antisemitism combined with threats of violence against Jewish communities emanating from other extremist corners, the militant posturing of IUIC has alarmed many Jews already on edge.
Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone of Crown Heights observed on Twitter that the Israelites who regularly preach near his home on Shabbat have been “particularly aggressive” of late, heaping verbal abuse on both him and his children. On Sunday afternoon, Lightstone posted a video of IUIC members assembling for their march and rehearsing their chants in Grand Army Plaza.
“Terrifying,” commented Elisheva Rishon, a Black and Jewish fashion designer who blames Hebrew Israelites for inflaming tensions between the two communities to which she belongs. A few Twitter users compared the march to the 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville, at which participants chanted “Jews will not replace us.”
The recent IUIC rallies give the impression that the radical wing of the Hebrew Israelite movement is large and riled up. Meanwhile, recent comments by Kanye West, the rapper who now goes by Ye, and Irving that align with elements of Hebrew Israelite doctrine suggest the movement has broad support among powerful Black celebrities.
But how big is the movement in reality? What percentage are extremists who assail Jews as impostors who stole their heritage from them? And if Black Israelism has entered the marketplace of mainstream religions in the United States, should Jews be concerned?
The numbers
The only available statistics on Israelite identification in the United States were collected as part of a small national survey conducted by an evangelical Christian research firm in 2019. For that survey, which sought to capture African-American attitudes toward the state of Israel, Lifeway Research asked 1,019 African Americans, “Which of the following best describes your opinion of Black Hebrew Israelite teachings?”
Most respondents (62%) said they are not familiar with the teachings, but 19% said they agree with “most of the core ideas taught by Black Hebrew Israelites,” and 4% said they consider themselves Hebrew Israelites. The remaining 15% said they either “firmly oppose” the teachings or disagree with most of them. (The survey did not specify what those teachings are.)
The 2020 U.S. Census put the Black population at 41.1 million, so extrapolating from the Lifeway data, there are approximately 1.6 million Hebrew Israelites in the U.S. — not counting the small numbers of Latinos and Native Americans who also belong to Israelite groups — and 7.8 million people who may not identify as Israelites but who agree with the spiritual movement’s main teachings.
For lots of these people, the attention that West and Irving have brought to their belief system has been validating.
“Israelism is becoming part of the plausibility structure of Black America,” Christian activist and author Vocab Malone told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, referring to a social context in which certain ideas are considered credible. “The suspicions that a lot of folks have toward the Jewish community, they think they’re vindicated now.”
Scott McConnell, Lifeway’s executive director, told JTA that the survey’s sponsor, the Christian Zionist organization Philos Project, supplied the question about Hebrew Israelite teachings. Asked if there are plans to include similar questions in future surveys, he replied, “I know there are some pastors at African-American churches that have concerns about some of their parishioners being led astray by the teachings of the Hebrew Israelites, so we’ll keep it on our radar.”
Malone, who uses an alias in keeping with hip-hop culture, is a close observer of the Israelite world. The Phoenix resident frequently engages in debates on the street and online with members of groups described as hateful by the Southern Poverty Law Center — including IUIC, Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge, Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, and The Sicarii — in hopes of convincing them to follow what he considers to be the true path of Christianity.
Founded in 2003, IUIC has proven the most adept at creating public spectacles and garnering media coverage. The group operates 71 U.S. chapters and 20 international ones, according to the Anti-Defamation League, and it holds men’s conferences each year that culminate in choreographed marches on city streets, like the one on Sunday in Brooklyn. Based on the size of those marches, Malone estimated that national membership has grown from around 5,000 in 2015 to around 10,000 today. Other radical groups likely have much smaller memberships but don’t share any figures, preferring to “play their cards close to their chest,” Malone said.
These estimates suggest that the extremists comprise a very small percentage of the 1.6 Hebrew Israelites living in the United States.
Ultimately, IUIC has a goal of recruiting 144,000 Black, Latino and Native American people who will be spared by God during the end time, as foretold in the book of Revelation. In order to achieve this goal, the group sends representatives to proselytize overseas, including in parts of Africa and the Caribbean. (IUIC did not respond to requests for comment from JTA.)
Both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ADL monitor the activities of IUIC and other radical camps, as Israelites call their groups. However, spokespeople for both organizations told JTA they do not know how many people belong to these camps.
An online movement
What is clear is that the camps have greatly expanded their reach in recent years, taking their message from street corners to the entire globe thanks to the internet and social media. IUIC members run dozens of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts where they post a constant stream of videos and memes, many containing antisemitic tropes. One recent Instagram post shows a startled-looking Hasidic Jewish man holding his hat above the words “The Synagogue of Satan.” (Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, uses similar language about Jews. A video he recorded this month defending West and Irving has been viewed millions of times.)
The main IUIC YouTube channel, @IUICintheClassRoom, has 126,000 subscribers and 29.4 million video views. A series of videos posted three years ago on the channels of local chapters provide some insight into how members hear about IUIC and why they join.
The most common way these members say they found their way to the camp was via videos they watched online. “Prior to actually coming to IUIC, I did do some Israelite window shopping,” recounts Officer Joshua of IUIC Tallahassee. “I always questioned myself, why is it that our people are at the bottom? How come we get the worst jobs and so forth? I knew Christianity wasn’t answering my questions, so what I did was I just started soul searching.”
As part of his quest, Joshua says he stumbled upon a video of Bishop Nathanyel and other IUIC leaders preaching on the street. “I was like man, these brothers really know what they’re doing, they really have our history,” he says. “That’s what actually made me do more research on IUIC and the truth.”
Sar (“Minister”) Ahmadiel Ben Yehuda speaks at the African Hebrew Israelites’ annual New World Passover celebration in Dimona, Israel, May 2013. (Andrew Esensten)
In another video, Sister Ezriella from the Concord, North Carolina, branch explains that as a young adult, she felt uncertain about her life’s purpose. Then her mother shared information with her about IUIC. “She was so happy it changed her life, I had to take notice and I had to come check it out for myself,” she says. “I fell in love with it. I fell in love with finding out who I am.”
A number of Black, male celebrities have also been drawn into the wider Israelite orbit in recent years, including rappers Kendrick Lamar and Kodak Black, TV host Nick Cannon, boxer Floyd Mayweather and retired NBA player Amar’e Stoudemire.
Some of these celebrities appear to have been exposed to Israelite teachings by relatives and other acquaintances. Lamar, who famously rapped “I’m a Israelite, don’t call me Black no mo’” on a 2017 song, learned about Israelism from a cousin who was involved with IUIC. Black began identifying as a Levite in 2017 after studying scripture with an Israelite priest while serving a jail sentence in Florida. Stoudemire has said his mother taught him he had “Hebraic roots.” (He officially converted to Judaism in 2020, a step most Israelites reject because it contradicts their claims of already being authentic Jews.)
Isabelle Williams, an analyst at ADL’s Center on Extremism who tracks radical Israelite camps, said celebrity endorsements of the ideology can have a big impact because they come from figures who are widely respected.
“If people came upon an extremist Black Hebrew Israelite group street preaching, it might be easier to dismiss it and recognize the extreme ideology behind it,” she said. “But when it’s being shared by these influential figures, people might be less likely to recognize the really insidious ideology and dangerous antisemitic conspiracy theories that are behind these statements.”
Williams added that a range of extremist groups have seized on comments made by West and Irving. “It’s not just BHI and NOI groups that are leveraging this moment,” Williams said. “We’ve seen white supremacists who are also using this recent attention and circulation of antisemitic conspiracy theories to promote their own agenda.”
Rabbi Capers Funnye is the most prominent Israelite leader in the U.S. He serves as chief rabbi of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis, an organization that provides spiritual guidance to about 2,500 people in the United States, along with tens of thousands of Israelites in southern and west Africa.
In an interview, Funnye condemned West, Irving and the radical Israelite camps that have rallied around them. “God is never about divisiveness,” Funnye said. “God is never about hatred. God is never about, ‘You ain’t.’ I don’t have to say what you aren’t to make me who I am.”
A member of the Chicago Board of Rabbis and the leader of a Chicago synagogue with a mixed membership of around 200 Jews and Israelites, Funnye was at pains to differentiate his community from IUIC and its ilk: His follows the Torah and supports the state of Israel, he said, while others follow both the Old and New Testaments, worship Jesus and reject Israel’s government as illegitimate.
“Whatever army that Kyrie is speaking about, we are not a part of his army,” he said, referring to a comment Irving made during an Oct. 29 press conference about how he has “a whole army” behind him.
But Funnye said another of Irving’s recent statements — “I cannot be antisemitic if I know where I come from” — resonated with him and his congregants.
“We are Semitic,” he said of Black people who identify as Israelites, “so now we really have to draw a line when antisemitism is only defined by one’s complexion or ethnicity. We were not the ones that racialized Judaism, and we will never racialize it because Jews are not a race.” (“Semitic” refers to people who speak Semitic languages, such as Hebrew and Arabic.)
Outside of the United States, the largest organized group of Hebrew Israelites is located in Israel. The African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem are a Dimona-based community of more than 3,000 African-American expatriates and their Israeli-born offspring.
African Hebrew Israelite youth serve in the army — not Kyrie Irving’s or IUIC’s army, but the Israel Defense Forces. After 53 years in Israel, the community has never been fully accepted, in part because they are not Jewish according to halacha, or Jewish law. Currently, some 100 community members are being threatened with deportation for living in the country illegally.
Ahmadiel Ben Yehuda, the African Hebrew Israelites’ minister of information, said he interpreted Irving’s remarks as a reference to “the global awakening of people of African ancestry to their Hebraic roots.” He said the backlash Irving has faced shows that the conversation around this awakening must involve qualified representatives of communities who can cite reputable sources — not documentaries such as the one Irving boosted — “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America” — in support of their claims of Israelite ancestry.
“What is certain is that Israel and Judaism must figure out a way to better accommodate these communities,” Ben Yehuda said. “This is not going to fade away, and it shouldn’t. It will intensify as the awakening continues.”
How this awakening will affect Jews and established Jewish communities remains to be seen.
In September, George Washington University’s Program on Extremism released a report titled “Contemporary Violent Extremism and the Black Hebrew Israelite Movement.” The report noted that the “predominant threat” today comes not from Israelite groups themselves but from “individuals loosely affiliated with or inspired by the movement.”
Malone, the Christian activist, cautioned that as the extremist wing of the Israelite movement grows, more violent lone wolves may emerge.
“There’s a big funnel with any movement, and the bigger the funnel is, you get certain things down at the bottom,” he said. “This is not Buddhism. This is a different kind of thing with a different kind of rhetoric.”
—
The post How many Hebrew Israelites are there, and how worried should Jews be? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Can an anti-Zionist Democrat win in a heavily Jewish South Florida district?
(JTA) — Democratic primary voters in Florida’s newly drawn 25th Congressional District are choosing on Tuesday between an anti-Zionist member of the Democratic Socialists of America and one of Israel’s staunchest supporters in Congress.
The race offers a test of whether the Democratic Party’s progressive insurgency can extend to a district that includes Delray Beach, Boca Raton and Miami Beach and an electorate that is roughly 25% Jewish, highlighting the party’s widening divisions over Israel.
Redistricting has transformed what had been solidly Democratic territory into a district President Donald Trump would have carried in 2024. The new lines pit Oliver Larkin, a DSA member who has accused Israel of genocide and called for ending U.S. military aid to the country, against Jared Moskowitz, a two-term congressman who backs continued U.S. military aid even as support for it has eroded within his party.
Polling from Moskowitz-aligned firms has shown him with a lead of 30-plus percentage points, while a more recent poll from a Larkin-aligned outlet this month put the two in a statistical dead heat.
Larkin’s language has alarmed some Jews, including his labeling of modern-day Israel as a “religious supremacist” country and his call for Israel to become a “secular” state. “I do not support a religious supremacist regime, whether it be in Israel or Saudi Arabia, or any other country,” Larkin told Fox News.
Larkin supports a complete arms embargo on Israel, and told JTA that that should be “the minimum standard for anyone claiming to support democracy.” Asked by Fox News if he supports selling defensive weapons to Israel, Larkin responded, “I do not make a distinction between offensive and defensive weaponry.” He also backed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s goal of arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Larkin doubled down after Mamdani backed down from the stance, saying, “I believe that the United States, any federal or otherwise law enforcement entity that has the legal jurisdiction to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu for his war crimes — that should be enforced.”
Larkin has courted support from left-wing, anti-Zionist Jews who support his platform and says that he has spoken out against antisemitism on the campaign trail.
“Our campaign believes in collective liberation for all people and that includes the liberation of Jewish South Floridians and Jewish people the world over from antisemitism,” Larkin said in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He said that there is a rise in fascism across the U.S. and that we “must recognize the link between antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, xenophobia, transphobia, and more and build a coalition to unite together to defeat these forces.”
Larkin said he supports a “one-state solution with equal and democratic rights for all people.”
Progressive, pro-Palestinian candidates with similar platforms have won the Democratic nomination this midterm cycle in deep-blue districts around the country. Larkin, who worked on Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, is betting he can match their success even in a heavily Jewish district that leans more to the center.
Moskowitz, who is endorsed by AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel, outright accused Larkin of fueling antisemitism, telling the Sun Sentinel editorial board in a letter that his opponent “has embraced the support of individuals and organizations that have repeatedly trafficked in antisemitic rhetoric and hostility toward the Jewish community.”
Last month, a Boca Raton rabbi encouraged Republican congregants to register as Democrats so they could cast their votes for Moskowitz. The far more moderate Democrat has refused to debate Larkin, saying that his opponent is contributing to antisemitism.
Moskowitz has also claimed that Larkin is “running against me solely on my religion.” The Sun Sentinel board rated Moskowitz’s claim “demonstrably untrue” and, in an unusual move, said it would not endorse him for reelection after he declined a joint interview with Larkin. The paper decried what it described as Moskowitz’s “lack of respect for voters.” Moskowitz’s campaign did not respond to a JTA request for comment.
Moskowitz has outraised Larkin 11-to-1, according to local media estimates. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has raised $667,200 of Moskowitz’s $2.5 million through June 30, according to campaign finance analyses done by the website Open Secrets.
Donna Nevel, a member of the South Florida chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, believes Larkin can win.
“There are thousands and thousands of us, from Jewish communities and all across South Florida, who are doing everything we can to make sure that Oliver will be our congressperson,” Nevel said to a cheering crowd, during a fundraiser held in New York City earlier this month.
She also said that “many Zionist organizations think that South Florida is their backyard.” She continued, “And we say, ‘Hell no!’”
In an email to JTA, Nevel said there are a “large and growing” number of Jews in the district supporting Larkin, including “well over a hundred Jewish canvassers on a regular basis.” Larkin joined a JVP-hosted Shabbat dinner with Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Florida’s left-wing U.S. Senate candidate Angie Nixon on Friday.
Larkin has said that we “should not be supporting or allowing AIPAC to influence our elections.” He told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that the group has a “corrupting influence” and that it only supports Congress members “on the condition, in my estimation, that they support wholesale U.S. military aid to Israel.”
Left-wing streamers Hasan Piker — a staunch Israel critic who’s drawn antisemitism accusations — and Michael Beyer, who was suspended from Twitch after calling Jews a “demon ethnicity,” have both fundraised for Larkin.
Asked about their support, Larkin told the Sun Sentinel that both figures have used “language that I personally have not used and will not use,” and said that as a candidate it is important “that I speak in respectful terms and based in fact.”
“But I believe that when those individuals have made those references it’s been towards members of the Israeli government,” Larkin said, as well as Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
“So certainly they’re not politicians and they don’t speak in political terms, and I don’t condone language that dehumanizes any individual,” he said. “I do think that they have legitimate criticism — even if it is rather unvarnished in how they convey it — of what the Israeli government has done.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Can an anti-Zionist Democrat win in a heavily Jewish South Florida district? appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Florida’s primaries have many pain points for Jews. Here are 5 races to watch
(JTA) — As an exhausting primary season begins to wind down, voters in Florida, the last remaining big state yet to hold its primaries, head to the polls Tuesday with several races on the Jewish community’s radar.
The conservative state is home to large numbers of Jews, including a growing number of Jewish emigres from more liberal enclaves, and features several marquee matchups on both sides of the aisle. The state has faced some political turmoil, including last-minute Republican-led redistricting that could hurt the chances of some pro-Israel Jewish Democrats at a moment when such figures are an endangered species in the U.S. House.
On the GOP side, the right’s civil war between hardline pro-Israel figures and a growing crop of white nationalist-adjacent Israel skeptics will be laid bare in multiple races.
Here are some of the storylines for Jews to watch for on Florida’s ballot:
The ‘groyper’ governor’s race
No other low-polling candidate this cycle has grabbed as much attention as James Fishback, the former investment banker running for governor in Florida.
Despite consistently trailing his rival, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, in the GOP primary, Fishback has raised concern among both Jewish conservatives and party elites. He has embraced online far-right figures including Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist and antisemitic influencer, and uses memes and coded phrases such as “goyslop” to court Fuentes’s “groyper” movement of young men who spread irony-laced antisemitic talking points online.
Asked earlier in the campaign about “goyslop,” a term that refers to low-quality food supposedly promoted by Jewish elites, Fishback told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency he employed it in a speech “because it’s funny. Get a life.”
Much of Fishback’s campaign has focused on the youth vote, fueling concerns that antisemitism could be a building block of the next generation of the right. His college campus visits have boasted high turnout, and young Republican groups that have hosted him have themselves been criticized for antisemitic behavior.
Few analysts expect Fishback to win the primary. His campaign has been mired by scandal and odd behavior, and Donalds, the Trump-endorsed frontrunner, leads most polls by comfortable margins. But Fishback is polling in the double digits in some recent analyses of likely voters from polling outlets including Cygnal, which also has him outpacing two other establishment candidates, and primary polling in Michigan and Wisconsin that turned out to be inaccurate further complicates the prognosis.
Even a reasonably strong performance from Fishback, particularly among the youth vote, would be met with alarm in some Jewish conservative corners.
A Jew who insults Muslims takes on a rival who insults Jews
Elsewhere in Florida’s Republican field, tensions between rising antisemitic and anti-Islamic sentiment within the party are mounting.
U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, the incumbent in the state’s deep-red 6th District, has prompted considerable ire on Capitol Hill for comments denigrating Muslims — including comparing them to dogs — and saying that Gazans should “starve away” until the Israeli hostages were released. As a hardline pro-Israel voter who also wears a kippah on the House floor, Fine has made his Judaism central to his political identity, making him a litmus test for both the right and organized Jewry.
Some of that ire has made it back to his home district, where Fine is facing primary challenger Dan Bilzerian, a celebrity poker player and Instagram influencer who routinely promotes antisemitic conspiracy theories. He has said he wants to “kill Israelis,” has called Fine a “fat Jew” and called antisemitism “a made-up term.” He has further claimed that Israel “wanted Oct. 7 to happen” and called reports of Hamas raping victims that day “bull—t.” Bilzerian has spent at least $1 million of his own money on the race.
The primary has been marked by inflammatory rhetoric and personal attacks. Fine responded to Bilzerian’s entry into the race by declaring that “we don’t want Armenians to be able to serve in Congress” (Bilzerian is Armenian), prompting anger from Armenian-American groups.
Last week a Fine campaign sign was defaced with a swastika, an act condemned by the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish groups. In a release, Fine accused Bilzerian’s supporters of having painted the swastika, a charge Bilzerian has denied and labeled “the most jew move of all time.”
On Friday, Fine’s campaign said the candidate had referred Bilzerian to federal investigators for allegedly receiving unreported campaign donations from China. Bilzerian’s pitch to voters heavily centers around antisemitism: “District 6 understands the jewish problem,” he wrote on social media over the weekend, accompanied by pictures of his campaign stops.
Some Jewish groups, including the American Jewish Committee, have condemned Fine’s rhetoric on Gaza and other matters. He still receives support from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, as well as the Republican Jewish Coalition, whose PAC has given his campaign thousands of dollars this cycle, according to federal election filings. In recent days, Republican leaders including House Speaker Mike Johnson — who had declined to condemn Fine’s earlier remarks about Muslims and dogs — have condemned Bilzerian’s antics as antisemitic.
The combined presence of Bilzerian and Fishback on the ballot is leading at least one GOP group to lump them together as similar threats. The Front Line, a Republican PAC aligned with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and formed with the goal of curbing antisemitism within the party, released an ad during the World Cup that attacked them both.
In the ad, which was generated with artificial intelligence, the two candidates are shown hosting a party with media personalities Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the pro-Palestinian group Code Pink and Iranian clerics who cut a giant cake made to look like a crossed-out Israeli flag.
One pro-Israel Dem faces a left-wing challenger…
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, one of the most pro-Israel Democrats in Congress, is finding himself in a familiar predicament this election cycle: fending off an anti-Zionist democratic socialist.
Activist Oliver Larkin is running against Moskowitz for the seat in the state’s 25th District, which is about 25% Jewish and is considered a toss-up in November after being redrawn this year. Moskowitz currently represents the 23rd District, which covers much of the same ground.
Moskowitz has outraised his challenger 11-to-1, according to local media estimates, and has refused to debate him. He has the support of AIPAC, which has raised at least $667,000 for him, according to analyses of federal campaign reports.
He also has a groundswell of Jewish support in the district, even from some unlikely corners: The rabbi of a large Orthodox synagogue in Boca Raton has encouraged his congregants to change their voter registrations from Republican to Democrat in order to cast votes for Moskowitz.
Polling from Moskowitz-aligned firms has shown him with a considerable lead, while a poll from a Larkin-aligned outlet this month put the two in a statistical dead heat.
Moskowitz has also outright accused Larkin of fomenting antisemitism, telling the South Florida Sun Sentinel editorial board in a letter that his opponent “has embraced the support of individuals and organizations that have repeatedly trafficked in antisemitic rhetoric and hostility toward the Jewish community.”
Moskowitz has also claimed that Larkin is “running against me solely on my religion.” The Sun Sentinel board rated Moskowitz’s claim “demonstrably untrue” and, in an unusual move, said it would not endorse him for reelection after he declined a joint interview with Larkin. The paper decried what it described as Moskowitz’s “lack of respect for voters.”
But Larkin’s own language has alarmed some Jews, including his labeling of modern-day Israel as a “religious supremacist” country and his call for Israel to become a “secular” state. Asked by Fox News if he supports selling defensive weapons to Israel, Larkin responded, “I do not make a distinction between offensive and defensive weaponry.” A rally he and other progressive candidates were scheduled to participate in with Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan on Friday was moved at the last minute after the venue, citing Jewish leaders’ concerns over Tlaib’s anti-Israel rhetoric, cancelled.
Larkin has denied charges of antisemitism and spoken positively about Judaism on the campaign trail. In a statement to JTA, his campaign said he would advocate for “the liberation of Jewish South Floridians and Jewish people the world over from antisemitism,” and said an arms embargo on Israel should be “the minimum standard for anyone claiming to support democracy.”
He also has the support of Jewish figureheads on the anti-Zionist left. Author and trans activist Abby Stein was among a group of progressive figures who hosted a fundraiser for him in Brooklyn earlier this month.
… while another faces a redistricting controversy
Things once seemed simpler for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an establishment Jewish Democrat and former chair of the Democratic National Committee who has comfortably served in Congress since 2004 from a safe blue seat.
But after a late GOP-led redistricting push in Florida earlier this year, prompted by President Donald Trump’s demands for Republicans to redraw their districts to help them hold the House, Wasserman Schultz’s future is suddenly a lot less certain.
Instead of the district she has represented for decades and which many Democratic observers believed she could still win despite the gerrymandering, the congresswoman decided to run in the neighboring 20th — a heavily Black district that for three decades has been represented by a Black lawmaker.
And Wasserman Schultz’s primary opponents, including a former congresswoman facing a federal fraud trial and 2 Live Crew rap star “Uncle Luke” Campbell, aren’t happy she’s gunning for the seat. Critics accuse Wasserman Schultz of carpetbagging and say her decision to run in an easier seat will harm Black representation in government. Campbell has said her decision to run would harm Black-Jewish relations.
Even congressional leaders normally in Wasserman Schultz’s corner have balked at her decision. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries withheld an endorsement in the race, citing what he called the “sensitivities of the moment.”
Florida’s third Jewish Democratic mainstay in the House, Rep. Lois Frankel, is facing her own primary challenge in a new district — though in her case, the boundaries are similar to her old district. Frankel, a staunch Israel supporter, will have to defeat progressive challenger Victoria Doyle, a retired attorney. The close resemblance to her old district and lack of substantive groundswell support behind Doyle likely means Frankel will retain the party’s nomination.
Besides redistricting, Wasserman Schultz and Frankel, as with other institutional Democrat figures, are also facing a voter base unhappy with the party’s status quo. This year the state’s LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus withheld endorsements in both races, despite Wasserman Schultz’s and Frankel’s historically good relationships with the caucus. Rep. Jared Moskovitz, meanwhile, did receive the caucus’s endorsement.
DSA vs. Soviet refugee in Dem Senate primary
Democrats haven’t held a U.S. Senate seat in Florida since 2019. But in a midterm environment expected to favor the party, the state could prove pivotal, and the primary to replace former Sen. Marco Rubio is putting one of the party’s biggest division points — “socialist” branding — in the spotlight.
The frontrunner for the nomination, retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, is a Kyiv-born Jewish refugee from the former Soviet Union. Vindman, whose twin brother is a congressman in Virginia, attained broader name recognition during the first Trump administration, when he publicly testified about a controversial phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Vindman’s opponent is state Rep. Angie Nixon, who, in contrast to her opponent’s family history of fleeing from socialism, recently joined the Democratic Socialists of America. Nixon has made noise in her party for pushing pro-Palestinian legislation on the state level — including a push, less than a month after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel, for “de-escalation and cease-fire in the state of Israel and occupied Palestine.”
Nixon has campaigned alongside Oliver Larkin, as well as far-left elected figures in the party including Tlaib, and her pro-Palestinian positions are a big point of worry for some Jewish figures. But in a state with high numbers of voters, particularly Latinos, who have fled socialist or Communist regimes, it’s the candidates’ associations with the “S”-word that may prove the deciding factor.
Vindman has far outraised Nixon to date, and leads in the scant polling that has been conducted so far. A July poll from the University of North Florida, however, suggests that Nixon fares slightly better against the Republican nominee, appointed Sen. Ashley Moody.
Joseph Strauss contributed reporting.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Florida’s primaries have many pain points for Jews. Here are 5 races to watch appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Vandals attack prominent Reform synagogue in Jerusalem
(JTA) — JERUSALEM – Vandals broke into a Reform synagogue in Jerusalem over the weekend, damaging the building and artwork and tearing down Pride flags displayed by the congregation.
Shortly after midnight a group of youths entered the grounds of Kol HaNeshamah in Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood, smashed a window and made their way into the prayer hall.
Security footage released by the Reform movement shows at least three people at the site. No congregants were present at the time.
“This past weekend we experienced a serious incident at our synagogue, when unknown individuals broke into the compound, damaged the building, vandalized a work of art and tore down the Pride flags that represent the community’s values of inclusion and acceptance,” Debi Shoua Haim, a rabbi at Kol HaNeshamah, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“Precisely during the month of mercy and forgiveness, it is painful to see displays of hatred and violence that have no place in a properly functioning society,” Shoua Haim said, referring to the Hebrew month of Elul, traditionally a period of repentance leading up to the Jewish High Holidays.
The congregation turned over security footage from the incident to police, who opened an investigation through Jerusalem’s Moriah station, Shoua Haim said. Police also sent a detective to the synagogue on Saturday to examine the footage and collect fingerprints, according to Shoua Haim.
Kol HaNeshamah is one of Israel’s best-known Reform congregations and has previously been targeted in attacks involving its support for the LGBTQ community. In 2018, a large rock was hurled into its courtyard while more than 200 people were taking part in Simchat Torah celebrations, prompting the congregation to file a police complaint. No one was injured.
In June 2023, the synagogue reported two break-ins within a matter of weeks in which Pride flags displayed for Pride Month were torn down. During one of those incidents, intruders also entered the sanctuary, although nothing was stolen.
Security footage from the 2023 incidents showed two youths entering the synagogue. Rabbi Oded Mazor, another rabbi at Kol HaNeshamah, said at the time that the intruders had entered through a kitchen window before moving through the building, kicking objects and pulling down the flag. Police complaints were filed after both attacks.
The latest attack drew condemnation from Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi and lawmaker from Israel’s Democrats party who previously headed the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism.
Kariv called those responsible “incited hooligans” and accused the Israeli government of contributing to hostility toward Reform and other liberal Jewish denominations.
“This is a government that specializes in spreading hatred for free and in delegitimizing the liberal Jewish streams,” he wrote on X.
Kariv also called on Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion to visit Kol HaNeshamah and publicly stand with the congregation. Reform and Conservative communities in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel face similar attacks “on a weekly basis,” he said.
Lion has not yet publicly commented on the incident but Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Yossi Havilio described it as part of a “wave of hate crimes against the LGBTQ community in Jerusalem,” saying the Pride flag had been taken from the synagogue and urged police not to dismiss the vandalism as a prank.
“A hate crime is not a ‘prank,’” Havilio wrote on social media.
The incident also came within hours of an attack at Central Synagogue, a major Reform congregation in Manhattan, where an assailant disrupted a Friday night Shabbat service and attacked a congregant and a security guard. There has been no indication that the two incidents were connected.
Kol HaNeshamah was founded in Jerusalem in 1984 and has become a prominent center of Reform Judaism in the city, combining egalitarian religious practice with support for religious pluralism and LGBTQ inclusion. Its presence in Jerusalem has also periodically made it a target of opposition from critics of non-Orthodox Judaism.
Police have not publicly identified the perpetrators or declared a motive for Saturday’s break-in, and there have been no arrests announced in the case.
Shoua Haim said the congregation would not change course in response to the attack.
“To all those who are trying to extinguish our light, the Kol HaNeshamah community will continue to be an open, embracing and accepting house of prayer,” she said. “Hatred will not defeat our values, and we will continue to work for togetherness, love and tolerance.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Vandals attack prominent Reform synagogue in Jerusalem appeared first on The Forward.
