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The End Jew Hatred Movement is spreading across the country — and sparking controversy
(New York Jewish Week) — Last month, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Jewish Democrat, proclaimed April 29 “End Jew Hatred Day,” citing “an urgent need to act against antisemitism in Colorado and across the country.”
Similar proclamations came from New York Rep. Mike Lawler, a Republican, and dozens of other elected officials nationwide.
But in the New York City Council, an identical effort proved controversial. While the overwhelmingly Democratic council approved April 29 as End Jew Hatred Day annually, six council members either abstained from or voted against what organizers had intended to be an unanimous decision.
The initiative behind the proclamations, called the End Jew Hatred Movement, is a relatively new presence based in New York City that is increasingly making its voice known nationally — through rallies, petitions, a relentless press campaign and now in the halls of government. One measure that demonstrates the initiative’s growth is the number of April 29 proclamations. Last year, there were a handful. This year, according to End Jew Hatred, there were 30.
The movement also provided the spark for the unexpected opposition in the New York City Council. Lawmakers who did not support the proclamation said they demurred because the End Jew Hatred Movement, while run by people who say they “set aside politics and ideology,” has been associated with right-wing Jewish activists.
End Jew Hatred doesn’t publicize much about its structure or funding. It is not a registered nonprofit organization, and would not tell the New York Jewish Week its annual budget or how it receives donations.
Its backers call it an unapologetic voice that’s fighting a growing problem, antisemitism, while its critics say it is an attempt to inject hawkish rhetoric into a national effort to combat anti-Jewish persecution. Amid that debate, the movement’s growth, and its successful spearheading of resolutions nationwide, show how an initiative founded by conservative activists has wielded influence in the conversation about antisemitism, even in liberal political spaces.
Here’s what we know about End Jew Hatred, how it’s establishing itself in New York City and beyond, and why its activities are drawing backlash.
A movement founded in the politics of 2020
Founded in New York City near the beginning of the pandemic, End Jew Hatred first drew local attention in October 2020, when it organized a rally in front of the New York Public Library protesting the way its activists said New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo were unfairly targeting Orthodox New Yorkers with public health restrictions.
Haredi New Yorkers and their backers railed against the city’s regulations that year, and claimed that policies limiting group prayer and other religious ceremonies were selectively enforced against their communities.
“Never in my life did I think I would see this type of blatant Jew-hatred from our public officials,” Brooke Goldstein, who founded End Jew Hatred, said at the rally, which drew dozens of protesters. “Singling out New York Jews for blame in the coronavirus spread is unconscionable and discriminatory.”
But while the movement’s first significant action concerned the pandemic, a spokesman for End Jew Hatred said it was inspired by another seismic event that took place in 2020: the racial justice protests and the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“How can we replicate this for the Jewish people?” said Gerard Filitti, senior counsel for the organization Goldstein directs, the Lawfare Project, describing End Jew Hatred’s genesis. “We saw antisemitism shoot up during the pandemic. So it was kind of the right time to launch this idea.”
Since then, in addition to spearheading the proclamations, the initiative has continued holding rallies, protesting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which aids Palestinian refugees, for “promoting Jew hatred”; speaking out against antisemitism in Berlin, Toronto and other cities around the globe; and, earlier this year, opposing a reported plea bargain for the men who assaulted Joseph Borgen while he was en route to a pro-Israel rally in May 2021. It was also a signatory on a letter to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg protesting the plea deal, and members of the movement showed up to the alleged attackers’ court hearing.
Nearly three years after its launch, the movement remains opaque about its structure, declining to share any financial information or elaborate on its relationship to the Lawfare Project, which bills itself as an “international pro-Israel litigation fund.” In a brief statement to the New York Jewish Week, a spokesperson for End Jew Hatred said the organization accepts donations from local community members and support from like-minded nonprofit groups, though he declined to detail how those donations were processed.
“Our network of activists spans the globe, from New York City to Los Angeles, from Toronto to Berlin,” he said. “Also, the movement is supported by people from all walks of life who donate both their time and money to make the movement a success. Activists are encouraged to fundraise within their community, and some actions have been supported by organizations that have taken part in them.”
Roots in pro-Israel and right-wing activism
The Lawfare Project, Goldstein’s group, has represented Jewish students who settled a discrimination lawsuit with San Francisco State University, and the following year, represented an Israeli organization that settled a suit with the National Lawyers’ Guild, after the guild declined to place the group’s ad in its annual dinner journal.
This year, the group is providing legal aid to a Las Vegas-area Jewish teen who had a swastika drawn onto his back. And it sued the mayor of Barcelona over her decision to sever ties with Tel Aviv.
Goldstein also has a history of right-wing activism and controversial statements. She has made appearances on conservative news networks such as Fox News, One America News and Newsmax. She once said that “there’s no such thing as a Palestinian person,” and on Election Day in 2016, tweeted, “Can I run the anti-anti-islamophobia department in the Trump administration?”
Goldstein has said she sees Ronald Lauder — the philanthropist, World Jewish Congress president and conservative donor — as an ally. In a virtual conversation between the two hosted by Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Synagogue last year, Goldstein thanked Lauder for his “support and his friendship,” and Lauder called Goldstein “so smart and wonderful.” Lauder was also involved with the movement’s effort to establish End Jew Hatred Day in New York City last year.
Ronald S Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) recorded before a bilateral a conversation with Chancellor Scholz. (Michael Kappeler/Getty Images)
End Jew Hatred has also worked with Dov Hikind, a former Brooklyn Democratic state assemblyman who now runs a group called Americans Against Antisemitism. Hikind’s group has partnered with End Jew Hatred, and he has appeared at its events. Hikind told the New York Jewish Week that his group and End Jew Hatred are “involved in terms of pushing the same agenda.”
Hikind has stirred controversy as well: In 2013, he wore blackface as part of a Purim costume, and in 2005, sponsored a bill that would have allowed police to profile Middle Eastern men on the subway. He was a follower of the late right-wing extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Controversy or consensus?
Even as its right-wing connections have sparked suspicion from progressive activists, End Jew Hatred has garnered support from establishment Jewish groups. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations promoted End Jew Hatred Day on Twitter last week, posting a graphic with the logo of the movement. And the city’s Jewish Community Relations Council also backed the City Council resolution.
“All people, regardless of party affiliation, have a role to play in combating antisemitism and other forms of hatred, and we should not lose sight of that,” a JCRC spokesperson told the New York Jewish Week. “From our perspective, every day should be End Jew Hatred Day.”
Lauder has also advocated the use of the term “Jew hatred” in place of antisemitism in a video published by the World Jewish Congress that has been viewed more than 480,000 times.
“No one is embarrassed anymore when they’re called an antisemite,” he said. “Antisemitism must be called what it really is: Jew hatred.”
That view is not universally shared among antisemitism watchdogs. Holly Huffnagle, the American Jewish Committee’s U.S. director for combating antisemitism, said that the term “Jew hatred” is “jarring” and “makes people stop and think.” But she said the term does not capture the way antisemitism is often expressed via coded conspiratorial language.
“[People] might not know what [the term] antisemitism is, but Jew hatred they know,” she said. “In that sense it can be used to get attention, to help people call it out.”
“On the other hand, the antisemitism we see today, in its primary form, which is conspiratorial, is not captured by the term ‘Jew hatred,’” she added. “I hear from a variety of people that they don’t hate Jews, they’re against Jew hatred, they’re not antisemitic, but they believe that Jews have too much power [or] they control the media.”
And End Jew Hatred’s right-wing ties have also made some progressive activists in its home base of New York City wary of its motives. The lead sponsor of the City Council’s End Jew Hatred Day resolution was Queens Republican Inna Vernikov, a former aide to Hikind who has previously spotlighted antisemitism allegations at the City University of New York.
Her resolution, which passed overwhelmingly, garnered a mix of 14 co-sponsors, including some prominent Jewish Democrats and all six of the council’s Republicans — two of whom have links, respectively, to white supremacists and a person arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Council Member Inna Vernikov introduced a resolution to create an annual “End Jew Hatred” day in the New York City Council on April 27, 2023. (New York City Council Flickr)
Those right-wing connections were part of what led six progressive council members to either abstain from or vote against the resolution. One of the council members who voted no, Brooklyn’s Shahana Hanif, told the New York Jewish Week that she has participated in multiple actions against antisemitism but opposed the resolution because she didn’t want to endorse End Jew Hatred as a movement.
“Antisemitism is real,” Hanif said. “I understand the urgency. I understand the opportunity when there is a resolution or any kind of symbolic gesture that comes along, that every legislator wants to be united in supporting our Jewish colleagues. But in the same breath, it is our responsibility to know who is leading on these efforts.”
City Comptroller Brad Lander, a prominent Jewish progressive politician, vouched for Hanif’s record of standing up to antisemitism and echoed her concerns. He told the New York Jewish Week that End Jew Hatred’s activists are “right-wingers who have a track record of working very closely with people who foment hatred.”
Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a progressive group, also opposed the resolution. Rafael Shimunov, a member of the group, said the resolution was “clearly associated with the right,” and noted that at a hearing ahead of the vote, an activist decried bail reform, something right-wing advocates have pushed for years to repeal.
Shimunov also took issue with remarks Vernikov has made about George Soros, the billionaire Jewish liberal megadonor who has become an avatar of right-wing antisemitism, and whom Vernikov called ”an evil man, who happens to be Jewish.” JFREJ activists also noted that also noted that some Republican cosponsors of the bill, such as Vernikov, Vickie Paladino and Joann Ariola, have called for transgender women to be barred from women’s sports at schools and universities. In addition, Paladino has a history of anti-LGBTQ comments. The activists say these views undercut the council members’ calls to oppose hatred directed at Jews.
End Jew Hatred’s supporters dismissed accusations that their cause is right-wing. In a text message, Vernikov told the New York Jewish Week that “this resolution has nothing to do with politics or right-wing extremists.” Hikind also echoed that message.
“Everyone in the Jewish community supported this idea,” Hikind said. “To say it’s just right-wing organizations is dishonest and hypocritical.”
Filliti, the Lawfare counsel, said the aim of the resolution — and End Jew Hatred as a whole — was to send “a unifying message.”
“We’re not looking to make this political,” he said. “We have had so much success with this and we are so happy to see this going forward.”
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Trump says US aid to Israel will stop at end of year
(JTA) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning said that the United States would halt billions of dollars in annual aid to Israel by the end of 2026, potentially ending decades of military support for one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East.
“We were giving them $4 billion. We are. But it gets cut off at the end of the year,” Trump declared during a call-in appearance on the “Fox & Friends” morning program on Fox News. Israel’s 10-year memorandum of understanding with the United States, which currently gives Israel $3.8 billion annually, runs through 2028 so it’s unclear how easy it would be for the White House to stop the funding this year.
Referencing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement in January that he wanted to taper off aid to zero at some point in the future, Trump questioned why Republicans should have to deal with criticism from hardline pro-Palestinian Democrats like Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed when “we give them more than anybody else and they no longer need it.”
“It’s a bad talking point,” he added. His comments came as Americans across the country are voting Tuesday in midterm elections that will determine control of the U.S. House and Senate.
“We reached an agreement on that” and Netanyahu “brought it up,” Trump continued. “He said: ‘I think it would be appropriate if we do not receive aid,’ because he understands that this is one of their points of contention.”
A growing number of Democratic congressional candidates across the United States have campaigned on a platform of reducing or halting military aid to Israel during the run-up to today’s midterm elections. This April, dozens of senators — almost all of them Democrats — voted in favor of a failed motion to block the sales of certain weapons to Israel.
Yair Golan, chairman of Israel’s liberal Democrats party, slammed Netanyahu in the wake of Trump’s statement, tweeting that “precisely at a time when Israel’s defense spending has reached enormous proportions, when Israel needs to replenish its offensive weapons stockpiles, and after air defense capabilities have been depleted following such a long war—Netanyahu logs another massive failure under his name.”
“The cessation of U.S. aid is heavy damage to Israel’s security” and “a responsible prime minister would have fought to increase American aid, not eliminate it,” added Golan, whose party opposes Netanyahu’s and is trying to form a coalition to oust Netanyahu from power following Israel’s own elections last Tuesday.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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A ‘unique 20th Century Israelite’ who always made sure we got it right
It’s fitting that I first met Rabbi Capers Funnye in a television studio. And it should surprise no one that the topic that brought us together — by no means accidentally — was a discussion about Black Jews.
We never stopped talking about it. And making sure others got it right.
The spiritual leader for decades of Chicago’s Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation and since 2016 the Chief Rabbi of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis, Funnye died Nov. 2 at 74.
Our friendship spanned decades, beginning before we co-founded the Alliance of Black Jews with Michelle Stein-Evers Frankl in 1995. With Stein-Evers, then in Los Angeles, and me in Boston, the organization brought together Jews of African descent from around the country to celebrate our dual affiliations as normative.
Although the organization did not last beyond its early years, it spawned numerous other groups that exist today. Most significantly, it mainstreamed the fact that Blackness and Judaism are not mutually exclusive.
That’s the message we had been imparting five years earlier, on the Black Entertainment Television show Our Voices in 1990. Having filed a story mentioning Black Jews while a reporter for BET’s news division, I was asked by the network to co-produce a special on the subject. In addition to me, they asked who else should appear.
“There’s a rabbi in Chicago,” I said unhesitatingly, though I had yet to meet him, “and the police chief in Charleston, South Carolina” — Reuben Greenberg, who passed away in 2014.
Each of us came to Judaism differently: me, the child of a non-Jewish African-American father and non-Black Jewish mother; Greenberg, via conversion first through Reform, then Conservative Judaism (and also “reversion” in that he was reaching back to the religion of his grandfather), and Funnye, who had been Methodist before joining the Ethiopian Hebrew denomination (of African Americans, not Ethiopians) and later underwent a Conservative conversion.
Although his smicha was granted by the Ethiopian Hebrew group (now more broadly termed Israelite) and not by the Conservative body, he was invited to join the Chicago Board of Rabbis as its first African American member in 1997.
His dual affiliations as both Conservative and Israelite — and indeed, that of his largely Black and increasingly Hispanic Chicago shul, which also had merged with an aging Ashkenazi congregation — allowed him to serve as a bridge between many strains of Judaic practices.
“He accomplished what he wanted,” said Rabbi Baruch A. Yehudah of Congregation B’nai Adath Kol Beth Yisrael in New York. “He wanted to be a bridge builder and he built many — into the Ethiopian community, the Nigerian community, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda. He was the first one of us to be on a mainstream board of rabbis.”
“I loved him,” Yehudah added. “He wasn’t just my boss.”
Bruce Haynes, author of The Soul of Judaism, called Funnye “the most unique 21st Century Israelite” because of his role as chief rabbi. “To my knowledge, that (position) was the first of its kind. It elevated him institutionally as the premiere figure among modern-day Hebrew Israelites.”
Yet that outreach went beyond the bima. “Having chosen to move his whole family toward Conservative Judaism was an important step in cementing a personal relationship between Israelite congregations and rabbinic Judaism,” Haynes said.
Rabbi Tamar Manasseh, a protégé of Funnye who in 2021 became the first woman ordained by the Israelite body, said Funnye was “doing the whole bridge thing before anybody knew that they wanted a bridge.
“There were Black Jews who didn’t like that. There were white Jews who didn’t like that, either. It was uncomfortable for everybody until it wasn’t uncomfortable for anybody.”
She praised him for enduring “all of the stuff he had to go through to get us to a point where I can complain about things now, which is remarkable.”
I too find it difficult to separate the personal from the bridge-building. In addition to our numerous Black Jewish campaigns and initiatives — we literally traveled the world together, from Chicago to Boston to San Francisco to Uganda — he served as the rabbi for my mother’s funeral and my daughter’s wedding.
In my ever-diverse family, both were examples of bridge-building in their own right. During the wedding, my now son-in-law, whose native language is Russian, recited the line “I concentrate you to me as my wife,” prompting Funnye to break from the prepared liturgy to correct him.
“No, no. Consecrate. We gotta get this right.”
“I consecrate you to me as my wife,” the groom said, appreciative of the gentle but authoritative guidance.
Because Capers made sure to get it right.
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The Jewish midterms: Races to watch on Election Day
Tuesday’s midterm elections will determine which party controls Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s second term, with Republicans fighting to hold their narrow majorities and Democrats hoping to regain power.
Recent polls suggest Democrats are favored to retake the House and have a strong chance of winning the Senate. Several closely watched gubernatorial races could also shape the field for the 2028 presidential election and increase the number of Jewish governors.
The outcome could have immediate consequences for U.S. foreign policy, particularly American support for Israel and the war with Iran. If Democrats win the House, they would have greater power to investigate Trump’s handling of the war, limit his power and challenge his foreign policy decisions. Democrats will also likely push for restrictions on military aid to Israel, depending on who forms the next Israeli government. Democrats remain divided over Israel and their leadership has so far resisted pressure to pursue major changes to longstanding U.S. policy.
A Democratic takeover of Congress would put House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, both longtime supporters of Israel, in charge of their respective chambers and navigating any divides within their caucus.
The elections will also test whether Democrats can win back voters who shifted toward Trump and will reveal how much influence the party’s progressive wing may have, particularly on Israel and foreign policy going into the presidential primary season.
For Jewish voters, the stakes are especially high. Although they make up only about 2% of the population nationwide, Jewish voters could help decide close races in New York, Michigan, Georgia and Ohio. The results could also show whether frustration with Democrats over Israel is driving more Jewish voters toward Republicans or whether concerns about antisemitism on the right and disapproval of Trump are keeping them in the Democratic camp.
Here are the key races we’re watching and what’s at stake.
– Senate –
Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed (D) vs. Mike Rogers (R)
Issues: The race has become one of the largest tests of the Democratic divide on Israel and antisemitism. El-Sayed, a progressive and fierce critic of Israel, defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in the contested Democratic primary despite millions spent by AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups. Now, Stevens is backing Rogers. El-Sayed has refused to moderate his views and has doubled down on ending Israel aid and his association with Hasan Piker, a popular left-wing pundit who has been accused of antisemitism. El-Sayed said he disagreed with the content of an ad from a PAC supporting his campaign that blamed U.S. aid to Israel for rising grocery prices.
The Jewish vote: The state has an estimated 130,000 Jewish residents, who make up 1.4% of the electorate. The Republican Jewish Coalition spent $2 million to target 50,000 Jewish voters in Oakland County who opposed El-Sayed in the primary; those votes could matter in a close race.
Georgia: Incumbent Jon Ossoff (D) vs. Mike Collins (R)
Issues: Ossoff, the state’s first Jewish senator, has angered some Jewish voters for backing measures to block some aid to Israel. Collins criticized Ossoff for supporting El-Sayed. The Republican has been accused of ties to white nationalists and antisemitic figures, including his son-in-law, who promoted antisemitic conspiracies. Collins rejected their views and condemned antisemitism.
The Jewish vote: Georgia is home to an estimated 150,000 Jews, primarily in Atlanta. Though that represents 1.3% of the electorate, Jewish voters could play an important role in a state where recent elections were decided by narrow margins. The outcome could test whether dissatisfied Jewish Democrats will still support Ossoff over a Trump-aligned Republican and whether his Jewish identity still provides a political advantage.
Florida: Incumbent Ashley Moody (R) vs. Angie Nixon (D)
Issues: Moody, who was appointed to the Senate in 2025 after Marco Rubio became Secretary of State, is a staunch supporter of Israel and led on combating BDS in her previous role as attorney general. Nixon is the first member of the Democratic Socialists of America on a major party ticket. She did not make Israel the centerpiece of her Senate campaign, which focused heavily on affordability, health care and other economic issues. But on Israel and Gaza, her record puts her broadly in line with the DSA’s platform.
The Jewish vote: Florida is home to 750,000 Jews, who make up an estimated 3-5% of the state’s electorate. Moody leads Nixon by an average of 6 percentage points.
– House –
New York 17: Rep. Mike Lawler (R) vs. Cait Conley (D)
Issues: Support for Israel and antisemitism were central in outreach to the Jewish community, though the two candidates have more in common on those issues than their campaigns suggest. Lawler highlighted his ties to Jewish voters and questioned whether Conley would stand up to anti-Israel voices in the Democratic Party, while Conley accuses him of associating with Republicans who have faced accusations of antisemitic rhetoric and ties to white nationalists.
The Jewish vote: The district has 150,000 Jewish residents who make up 19% of the population. At least 20,000 members of the growing Hasidic communities in Rockland County voted for Lawler in 2024. His first race was won by a narrow margin of about 2,000 votes. The margin of victory could determine whether a pro-Israel moderate Democrat could peel away Jewish voters from Lawler’s camp.
New York 10 and 12: Brad Lander and Micah Lasher
Lander and Lasher are heavily favored to win their races in the deep blue districts. They represent a generational transition in the debate over Israel and Jewish influence in Congress, as Jerry Nadler, co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Congress who served as the leading voice in Congress for liberal Jews, is set to retire. Lander, an ally of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and of the pro-Palestinian movement, supports halting all aid to Israel and has called the Gaza war a genocide, while Lasher supports continued aid and calls himself a Zionist.
The Jewish vote: The 12th District has the nation’s largest Jewish population – 24%, while the 10th ranks fourth, at 21%.
New York 13 and 7: Daraliza Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez
The election of Avila Chevalier, a former Columbia University Gaza War encampment activist, in the 13th District — where Jews make up 6% — and Valdez in the 7th District in Brooklyn — where Jews make up 13% – will put two fierce Israel critics and DSA members at the center of debate over Israel in Congress.
Florida 20: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D) vs. Brent Andersen (R)
Wasserman Schultz, one of the most prominent Jewish members in Congress, is favored to win reelection after easily winning the Democratic primary in a redrawn majority-Black district, surviving GOP redistricting. Jews make up just 5% of her new district.
Florida 25: Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D) vs. Scott Singer (R)
Issues: Moskowitz, who built a reputation as an outspoken supporter of Israel and one of the more bipartisan members of the House, easily defeated Oliver Larkin, a democratic socialist and fierce critic of Israel, in the August primary as he clashed with progressives over Israel. Singer, the Jewish former mayor of Boca Raton, highlighted his support for Israel and his roots in the district and, if elected, could increase the Jewish Republican caucus to five members.
The Jewish vote: The district is home to 67,000 Jews, at 8%. Recent polls show a close race, in which Jewish voters will play an important role in deciding whether they are represented by a Jewish Democrat or a Jewish Republican.
California 11: Scott Wiener vs. Connie Chan
Issues: This race to succeed Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker, is a test of how far left on Israel is good enough for San Francisco. Both Weiner, who is Jewish and advanced to first place in the Democratic primary, and Chan say that Israel committed genocide in Gaza and want to end U.S. military aid to Israel. Chan, however, is the favored candidate among pro-Palestinian activists, who say Weiner’s characterization of the conflict as a genocide was too little, too late.
Jewish vote: The district is home to 57,000 Jews, 7.5% of the population. Wiener leads Chan by an average of 6 percentage points.
Colorado 1: Melat Kiros (D) vs. Shimon Blau (I)
Issues: Israel has been a defining issue in the race. Kiros, a democratic socialist, has repeatedly declined to call the 2025 firebombing of a walk for Gaza hostages antisemitic. The attacker was heard yelling “Free Palestine” as he threw molotov cocktails, injuring 13 people, including an 82-year-old woman who later died from her injuries. Kiros has since said she understands “the immense pain and fear the Boulder attack caused.” Kiros has also argued in favor of a one-state solution, called for ending both offensive and defensive weapons sales to Israel, and called Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack the “inevitable consequence of apartheid.” Blau, an Orthodox Jew, said he was inspired to get into the race by what he described as Kiros’ antisemitic rhetoric. He told Axios he’ll caucus with Democrats if elected.
The Jewish vote: Jewish voters make up about 2% of the state’s electorate. Kiros is favored to win and become the first Gen Z woman elected to Congress.
Ohio 7: Rep. Max Miller (R) vs. Brian Poindexter (D)
Issues: Miller, a Jewish Republican and former Trump White House aide, has been an outspoken supporter of Israel and a critic of antisemitism on the left. But his reelection campaign has been overshadowed by allegations of domestic violence and abuse made by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, the daughter of Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno. Last year, a local doctor was arrested after threatening to kill Miller. Poindexter, a union ironworker endorsed by J Street and the Jewish Democratic Council of America, largely avoided discussing Israel in the campaign.
The Jewish vote: The Cleveland area is home to one of Ohio’s largest Jewish communities, though the Jewish share of the 7th District is estimated at 2%.
Virginia 2: Rep. Jen Kiggans (R) vs. former Rep. Elaine Luria (D)
Issues: Luria, a Jewish Navy veteran, is challenging the Republican incumbent in a closely watched rematch after losing the seat in 2022. In her farewell speech on the House floor, Luria accused some of her colleagues of engaging in antisemitic tropes. Democratic Majority for Israel invested $1 million in a digital ad campaign supporting her political return. Both candidates have military backgrounds, making national security and foreign policy central to the contest.
The Jewish vote: The district’s 8,400 Jewish residents make up 1% of the population.
– Governors –
Ohio: Amy Acton (D) vs. Vivek Ramaswamy (R)
Issues: Ramaswamy, an American First candidate, campaigned twice at a church whose pastor called modern Judaism “fake.” Acton, who is Jewish, faced antisemitic attacks while serving as Ohio’s health director during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ramaswamy boasted during the campaign that he was the first Republican, during the 2024 presidential primary, to propose sunsetting the $38 billion aid for Israel. If Acton wins, she would be Ohio’s first Jewish governor, while Ramaswamy would be the state’s first Hindu governor.
The Jewish vote: Ohio is home to 180,000 Jews, 1.5% of the state’s population. Acton has a four-point lead over Ramaswamy.
New York: Kathy Hochul (D) vs. Bruce Blakeman (R)
Issues: Blakeman, the Jewish Nassau County executive, has made support for Israel and opposition to antisemitism on the left central themes of his campaign against Hochul. But Blakeman has struggled to match the support former Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin received from Jewish voters and Hasidic voting blocs four years ago. Hochul has maintained strong ties with Jewish leaders even while working closely with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. She remained a strong supporter of Israel despite growing criticism of the country within her party. A recent Netanyahu critic, Hochul was the first foreign elected official to visit Israel shortly after Oct. 7 and criticized the pro-Palestinian protests on campus. Her most recent state budget included a measure establishing a buffer zone around houses of worship to prevent disruptive protests from blocking access.
The Jewish vote: The state’s 1.8 million Jews have historically played an outsized role in elections, exceeding their 9% share of the population. Organized Hasidic voting blocs are sought after by both parties. This year, most groups endorsed Hochul, in part because of her decisions to pause the implementation of state regulations on secular education in yeshivas and to join the federal tax-credit program created under Trump that would help families pay for private school tuition.
– Other races –
LA Mayor
The competitive race for mayor of Los Angeles features the incumbent, Karen Bass, against Nithya Raman, a democratic socialist, who has threaded the needle on Israel, putting her at odds with the national Democratic Socialists of America, which requires candidates to take an anti-Zionist stance. Bass has rejected the use of the term “genocide” and opposes the movement to boycott Israel. She has also faced criticism from parts of the Jewish community for what some considered an inadequate response to the Pacific Palisades wildfires and for failing to establish protest-free buffer zones outside synagogues.
Colorado Governor
Phil Weiser, the state’s Jewish attorney general, is hoping to succeed Jared Polis, the Jewish governor who is term-limited. Victor Marx, the Republican nominee, has faced antisemitism allegations for depicting Weiser with red horns in an attack ad.
2028 watch
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker are both favored to win reelection. Both Jewish politicians have been floated as possible 2028 presidential candidates so how well they perform, and how strong their coattails are, may influence their future prospects.
Texas railroad commissioner
Jewish state Rep. Jon Rosenthal accused his Republican opponent, Bo French, of sending an antisemitic fundraising email in July. French has focused his campaign on culture war issues, despite the office’s limited role: regulating the state’s gas and oil industries.
Michigan Board of Regents
Lena Epstein, who is Jewish, is seeking a seat on one of the two open seats for the Michigan board of regents in an election seen as an Israel litmus test for Democrats. The Democratic nominee, Amir Makled, has faced scrutiny over past social media posts viewed as pro-Hezbollah and antisemitic.
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