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The real Jewish history behind Netflix’s ‘Transatlantic’ and the WWII rescue mission that inspired it
(JTA) — While the United States swung its door shut to most refugees during World War II, a young American in France saved thousands, including some of the 20th century’s defining artists and thinkers — such as Marc Chagall and Hannah Arendt — from the Nazis.
The rescue mission of Varian Fry, which went largely unrecognized during his life, is the subject of Netflix’s new drama “Transatlantic,” launching Friday from “Unorthodox” creator Anna Winger.
Starring Cory Michael Smith as Fry, the seven-episode “Transatlantic” aims to recreate his operation in Marseille after the Nazis defeated France and before the United States entered the war. Winger has injected several imagined romances, war efforts and characters into the fictionalized series, including one posed as Fry’s lover, named Thomas Lovegrove (played by Israeli Amit Rahav). Although Fry’s son has said that he was a “closeted homosexual,” no such person is known to have existed.
Winger believes these inventions will invite Netflix viewers to learn more about the true story.
“The people who lived through these stories are dying out,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “My job is to bring this to a wide audience, to people who don’t know anything about it.”
The story behind the series
The real Varian Fry, a 32-year-old journalist and suit-clad Harvard graduate, showed up in Marseille with $3,000 taped to his leg and a list of 200 names in August 1940.
After France surrendered to Germany, Fry was among 200 Americans — including journalists, artists, museum curators, university presidents and Jewish refugees — to create the Emergency Rescue Committee at the Hotel Commodore in New York. This group was concerned with Article 19 in France’s armistice with Germany, which required French authorities to surrender any individuals demanded by the Germans.
The private relief organization drew up frenzied lists of anti-Nazi intellectuals who were trapped in France. With the help of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the ERC obtained some emergency visas and sent Fry to lead the rescue efforts in Marseille, a port city in the southern, unoccupied part of France.
What he found there was impossible to manage alone. His mission began in his room at the Hotel Splendide, where long lines of refugees waited in the morning before he woke up and at night after he went to bed. They sometimes walked straight into his bedroom without knocking, Fry wrote in a letter to his wife shortly after he arrived.
Gathering a small devoted staff, including Frenchmen, refugees and American expatriates, Fry moved his office to Rue Grignan and later Boulevard Garibaldi. Outside of Marseille he rented the Villa Air-Bel — colorfully recreated in “Transatlantic” — to house eminent writers and eccentric Surrealist artists waiting for visas.
The group developed legal and illegal branches, with the cover organization offering humanitarian relief while a behind-the-scenes operation flouted the law to help refugees escape. Using Marseille’s lively black market, the staff found hiding places, forged documents and bribed officials. Bil Spira, a Jewish Austrian-born cartoonist, forged passports for the ERC. (He was caught and deported to Auschwitz, but survived.) Resistance fighters Hans and Lisa Fittko devised an escape route to Spain, guiding refugees across the Pyrenees mountains on foot.
By the time he was forced out in October 1941, Fry’s shoestring operation had enabled 2,000 Jewish and other anti-Nazi refugees to flee Europe, including such towering artists as Chagall, Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp, and intellects such as Arendt, Heinrich Mann and André Breton. It has been estimated that 20,000 refugees made contact with the rescue center in Marseille.
Fry’s illegal efforts made him plenty of enemies from his own country, who accused him of interfering with American neutrality in the war. He angered the state department, officials at the American consulate in Marseille and ERC members in New York. In August 1941, he was arrested by Vichy police and sent back to New York.
Fry died in 1967 at the age of 59. Only a few months earlier, he had received the Croix de Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest decoration of merit — and the only official recognition in his lifetime. In 1994, he became the first American honored by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial and history authority, as Righteous Among the Nations.
The Emergency Rescue Committee merged with another relief organization and became the International Rescue Committee in 1942. It is still in operation today and currently led by a Jewish CEO, former British politician David Miliband.
What’s in the show, and why some are against it
Some of Fry’s colleagues are fictionalized in “Transatlantic,” including the Jewish Berliner Albert Hirschman (Lucas Englander), who would become an economist in the United States; the Chicago heiress Mary Jayne Gold (Gillian Jacobs); and the Jewish Austro-Hungarian activist Lisa Fittko (Deleila Piasko). American diplomat Hiram Bigham, who gave Fry crucial help and even hid writer Lion Feuchtwanger in his home, is also a character in the show.
Throughout the seven episodes, rescue missions swirl around a series of fictional love affairs. In addition to Fry’s relationship, a triangle unfolds between Hirschman, Gold and the fictional American Consul Graham Patterson. (There is no evidence that Gold romanced either with her comrade or with any American consul in Marseille.) Lisa Fittko has an affair with the fictional character Paul Kandjo, who organizes armed resistance to Vichy.
Gillian Jacobs as heiress Mary Jayne Gold. (Anika Molnar/Netflix)
Several wartime plot points are also invented, including a prison break at Camp de Mille and Gold’s collaboration with British intelligence.
The degree of fictionalization has angered some people close to the real history. Pierre Sauvage, president of the Varian Fry Institute, called the show’s trailer “shocking.” Born in 1944, Sauvage survived the end of the Holocaust in the French village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, although his Jewish parents were turned down by Fry’s overwhelmed committee. He became close friends with some of Fry’s fellow rescuers in their later years, including the late Gold, Hirschman and Fittko.
“Are there any red lines?” he said. “Can one fictionalize at will, with no concern for the reality of the story, for the false impression that people will get — and for the way it affects the private lives of the families of people portrayed?”
Sheila Isenberg, who documented Fry’s operation in her book “A Hero of Our Own,” has described the series as a “travesty.” Thomas Fischer Weiss, a child survivor who attempted Fry’s escape route through the Pyrenees at 5 years old, also said the historical events needed no embellishment.
“I think you should tell it straight,” he told the JTA.
The legacy of the ‘troublemakers’
Sauvage believes that if Fry and his associates were alive today, they would like to be remembered for their convictions.
“These were people who were sort of in your face,” he said. “People who knew clearly what they felt and expressed it. They would often describe themselves as troublemakers. Mary Jayne [Gold] said about Varian that he was an ‘ornery cuss’ — it took orneriness to stick to your guns.”
That orneriness was critical at a time when many Americans were apathetic to the plight of European Jews — a 1938 poll in Fortune magazine found that fewer than 5% believed the United States should raise its immigration quotas for refugees. By the summer of 1941, it was too late to open the doors. The German policy of expelling Jews had changed into extermination.
According to Sauvage, America’s refusal to accept more refugees had something to do with that shift.
“The Nazis could legitimately come to the conclusion that the world wouldn’t do anything about the murders and wouldn’t really care all that much,” he said. “What the Varian Fry mission symbolizes is people who cared.”
Varian Fry with Miriam Davenport in the first offices of the Centre Américain de Secours in Marseille in 1940. Davenport, a friend of Mary Jayne Gold, also worked in the rescue effort but is omitted from “Transatlantic.” (Varian Fry Institute)
After their year in Marseille, the rescuers settled into more ordinary lives. Hirschman became an economist with appointments at Yale, Columbia and Harvard. Lisa Fittko ended up in Chicago, where she worked hard in import-export, translation and clerical jobs to earn money, eventually joining protests against the Vietnam War. Gold divided her time between New York City and a villa on the French Riviera.
They all remembered the rescue mission as their finest hour. Speaking with Sauvage, Gold called that year “the only one in her life that really mattered.”
A refugee story for troubled times
Fry’s rescue mission inspired Julie Orringer to write “The Flight Portfolio,” a 2019 novel that became the basis for “Transatlantic.” Orringer was captivated by the image of a young man arriving in Marseille, idealistic and unprepared for the depth of anguish he would find.
“The task was way too big,” she told the JTA. “He realized quite early on that he was going to ask for help, that he was going to have to turn to others who had deeper experience. And in collecting this group of incredible individuals around him, he assembled a kind of collective mind that really could make a difference under the very difficult circumstances that he faced.”
She believed that Fry left an example for the inexperienced. “If you‘re the kind of person who wants to take action on behalf of refugees, but doesn’t know how to do it, ask for help,” she said.
Winger, a Jewish Massachusetts native who has lived in Berlin for two decades, conceived of making a series about Fry in 2015. Germany saw an influx of more than a million migrants that year, most of them fleeing Syria’s horrific civil war. She optioned Orringer’s book in 2020.
“I thought a lot about the fact that people like us — artists, Jews, both — had to leave Berlin as refugees, but now there were so many people coming to Berlin as refugees,” said Winger.
Then, just as she started filming “Transatlantic” on location in Marseille, a new war broke out in Europe.
“The war in Ukraine started three days into the production and there was a whole other wave of refugees coming to Berlin,” she said. “Suddenly we were making it in another refugee crisis.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hit close to the show, whose cast and crew hail from across the continent. Winger’s cinematographer is married to a Ukrainian woman. In Berlin, she saw thousands of refugees crowding into the central train station, some without shoes, food or plans for shelter.
“I think it gave us all a strong sense of purpose,” said Winger.
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German Court Sparks Outrage by Allowing Anti-Israel Protest at Nazi-Era Jewish Deportation Site
A protest encampment with tents and banners is seen occupying Hamburg’s Moorweide square in northern Germany, the historic site where thousands of Jews were deported by the Nazis during the Holocaust, amid mounting controversy and security concerns. Photo: Screenshot
German authorities are facing mounting outrage from the country’s Jewish community after an anti-Israel protest encampment was allowed to remain for nine days at Hamburg’s Moorweide Square — the historic site from which thousands of Jews were deported by the Nazis to their deaths during the Holocaust.
On Friday, the Higher Administrative Court in the northern German city of Hamburg issued an expedited ruling overturning a previous police ban and allowing a pro-Palestinian demonstration camp, including tents and protest displays, to remain for more than a week at the historic site.
Local police had previously barred the anti-Israel protest camp from being established at Hamburg’s Moorweide memorial site, citing its deep historical significance as the Nazi-era gathering point from which thousands of the city’s Jewish residents were deported to concentration camps and systematically murdered by the Nazis.
Instead, protesters had been offered the option of relocating their encampment to Sternschanzenpark, a large public park located west of the city center.
However, the anti-Israel group successfully appealed the restriction before Hamburg’s administrative court.
According to the court’s ruling, the encampment falls under constitutionally protected freedom of assembly, with judges rejecting concerns that the demonstration could lead to criminal offenses.
“A broadly radical or extremist stance held by an organizer or protest leader is not, in itself, legally relevant to assessing potential risks unless it results in concrete actions during the demonstration that threaten protected legal interests,” the court stated in its ruling.
With more than 200 participants already on site and the encampment set to remain in place until May 16, police have established a substantial round-the-clock security presence, deploying multiple officers to monitor the area continuously.
Among the groups organizing the demonstration is Thawra Hamburg, which has been under surveillance by Germany’s State Office for the Protection of the Constitution since 2025 over alleged extremist activity and openly antisemitic rhetoric.
The anti-Israel group has been accused by German authorities of pursuing objectives hostile to the principle of international understanding, including publicly expressing support for or endorsing attacks carried out by Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel.
Philipp Stricharz, chairman of Hamburg’s Jewish community, condemned the court’s decision allowing the encampment to proceed, warning that extremist activists were being granted a public platform for antisemitism in the heart of the city.
“People who have even been officially classified as extremist are now being given space to spread antisemitism openly,” Stricharz said in a statement. “Jews must finally be able to move freely and visibly throughout Hamburg without fear — and that is currently no longer the reality.”
The Israeli Embassy in Berlin also denounced the demonstration and accused organizers of promoting extremist rhetoric and glorifying terrorism.
“Those who call for the ‘killing of colonialists,’ glorify Hamas terror, and propagate ‘resistance by any means necessary’ are not defending human rights. This is not a peace movement. This is extremist hatred,” the embassy wrote in a post on X.
Ab dem 9. Mai soll in Hamburg ein Protestcamp radikaler islamistischer und linksextremer Gruppen stattfinden – organisiert von Akteuren, die vom Verfassungsschutz beobachtet werden, nur wenige hundert Meter vom Zentrum jüdischen Lebens entfernt.
Wer zum „Töten von Kolonialisten“… pic.twitter.com/deFgpIPfjp
— Botschaft Israel (@IsraelinGermany) May 7, 2026
Local Jewish community leaders have now organized daily counterprotests against the encampment, scheduled to take place every evening at 5 p.m. through May 16.
Police have deployed a large number of riot officers to protect Jewish and pro-Israel demonstrators following repeated incidents in which activists at the encampment reportedly shouted chants including “child murderers” and “women murderers” at counter-protesters.
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Polish novel portrays nostalgic image of the Jewish life that once existed there
ס׳איז לעצטנס אַרויס אַן ענגלישע איבערזעצונג פֿונעם ראָמאַן „איך הייס שטראַמער“, וועגן אַ ייִדישער משפּחה אין דער פּױלישער שטאָט טאַרנע (טאַרנאָוו). דאָס בוך האָט אָנגעשריבן דער פּױלישער שרײַבער מיקאָלײַ לאָזינסקי.
אין משך פֿון העכער װי 150 יאָר האָט טאַרנע געהערט צו דער עסטרײַכישער פּראָװינץ גאַליציע. אונטער דער עסטרײַכישער אימפּעריע האָבן ייִדן ניט געליטן פֿון מלוכישן אַנטיסעמיטיזם, און די באַציִונגען צװישן ייִדן און פּאָליאַקן זײַנען געװען רעלאַטיװ רויִקע.
דער מצבֿ האָט זיך געביטן נאָכן אױפֿקום פֿון דער אומאָפּהענגיקער פּױלישער רעפּובליק נאָך דער ערשטער װעלט־מלחמה. די באַציִונגען זײַנען געװאָרן אַלץ מער געשפּאַנט מיטן צוּװוּקס פֿונעם פּױלישן אַנטיסעמיטיזם אין די 1930ער יאָרן.
די העלדן פֿונעם ראָמאַן זײַנען די משפּחה שטראַמער, װאָס באַשטײט פֿון זעקס מענטשן: דער טאַטע, די מאַמע, פֿיר זין און צװײ טעכטער. זײ זײַנען ייִדן פֿון אַ גאַנץ יאָר. דער טאַטע נתן איז אַ לא־יוצלח, װאָס האָט אַ מאָל עמיגרירט קײן אַמעריקע אָבער האָט ניט געהאַט קײן מזל אין דער „גאָלדענער מדינה“ און זיך אומגעקערט אַהײם צו זײַן פֿרױ און קינדער. זינט דעם פֿעפֿערט ער זײַנע ייִדישע רײד מיט ענגלישע װערטער און האַלט אין אײן חלומען װעגן צוריקפֿאָרן קײן ניו־יאָרק, װוּ ער האָט אַ ברודער אַן אָלרײַטיק.
זײַן פֿרױ רבֿקה איז אַ יוסטע באַלעבאָסטע װאָס האַלט אונטער דאָס גאַנצע געזינד. יעדער אײנער פֿון די קינדער האָט אײגענע דאגות, באַגערן און פּלענער פֿאַר דער צוקונפֿט.
לאָזינסקי שטעלט צונויף דעם סיפּור־המעשׂה אויף אַ קונציקן אופֿן, מישנדיק פּערזענלעכע שטאַנדפּונקטן פֿון פֿאַרשײדענע פּערסאָנאַזשן. אַזױ אַרום שאַפֿט ער אַ פֿילזײַטיקן קאָלעקטיװן פּאָרטרעט פֿון אַ טיפּישער משפּחה מיט אירע טאָגטעגלעכע עסקים.
לכתּחילה איז דער נאַראַטיװער טאָן אַ ביסל איראָניש. עס דאַכט זיך אַז די פּאָליטישע ענדערונגען האָבן ניט קײן סך השפּעה אױף זײער לעבן. דער טאַטע בענקט נאָך די אַלטע גוטע צײַטן פֿונעם אַמאָליקן עסטרײַכישן מלכות: „עס װעט קײן מאָל ניט זײַן אַזױ גוט װי בײַם קייסער פֿראַנץ־יאָזעף“, בעת זײַנע קינדער פּרוּװן זיך צוצופּאַסן צו די נײַע פּױלישע פּאַראָנדקעס.
די קינדער װאַקסן אונטער און די שטימונג פֿונעם ראָמאַן װערט ערנסטער. די האַנדלונג שטײַגט אַריבער די דלתּ־אַמות פֿון דער הײמישער שטאָט טאַרנע. נתן און רבֿקה רעדן נאָך אַלץ ייִדיש, אָבער זײערע קינדער פֿילן זיך הײמיש אין פּױליש. זײ בײַטן זײערע נעמען — הערש־צבֿי למשל װערט העסיאָ – און לערנען זיך אין פּױלישע גימנאַזיעס.
שפּעטער קלײַבן זײ אױס פֿאַרשײדענע דרכים: דער עלטסטער זון שטודירט לאַטײַן און גריכיש אינעם יאַגעלאָנער אוניװערסיטעט אין קראָקע אָבער קלײַבט אױס אַ קאַריערע װי אַ געשעפֿטסמאַן. זײַן ייִנגערער ברודער װערט פֿאַרטאָן אין דער קאָמוניסטישער פּאַרטײ, ער פֿאַרברענגט אַ פּאָר יאָר אין תּפֿיסה און דערנאָך פֿאָרט ער קײן שפּאַניע צו קעמפֿן אינעם בירגערקריג.
מיט דער צײַט װערט דער דערצײלערישער טאָן אַלץ מער דראַמאַטיש. דאָס שפּיגלט אָפּ די אַלגעמײנע פֿינצטערע אַטמאָספֿער אין פּױלן אין די 1930ער יאָרן, װען דער אַנטיסעמיטיזם װערט אַלץ מער בולט, און די עקאָנאָמישע לאַגע פֿון ייִדן ווערט אַלץ ערגער.
„עס האָט זיך אָנגעהױבן מיט ׳יעדער אײנער פֿאַר זײַנע אײגענע און מיט זײַנע אײגענע׳ און ׳קױף ניט בײַ די ייִדן׳ [די פּאָפּולערע אַנטיסעמיטישע לאָזונגען], און ענדיקט זיך מיט צעבראָכענע פֿענצטער אין ייִדישע קראָמען און לאָזונגען ׳ייִדן קיין מאַדאַגאַסקאַר!׳.“
אַזױ טראַכט דער ייִנגערער זון נוסעק, װאָס האַלט זיך װײַט פֿון פּאָליטיק. אָבער אַפֿילו ער װערט געװױר, אַז פּױלן גליטשט זיך אַרײַן אין אַ פֿאַשיסטישן רעזשים װי אין דײַטשלאַנד און איטאַליע.
פֿון דעסט װעגן קומט דער חורבן אומגעריכט פֿאַר די שטראַמערס. אַפֿילו װען היטלער און סטאַלין צעטײלן פּױלן, האַלטן זײ נאָך אַלץ בײַ אַ האָפֿענונג, אַז אַלץ װעט זיך װי ניט איז אױססדרן און דאָס לעבן װעט זײַן װידער נאָרמאַל.
„איך הייס שטראַמער“ געהערט צו אַ נײַער כװאַליע אין דער פּױלישער ליטעראַטור, װאָס פּרוּװט צו באַטראַכטן דעם פּױלישן עבֿר דורך אַ ייִדישן שפּאַקטיװ. פֿאַרן חורבן זײַנען בערך צען פּראָצענט פֿון דער פּױלישער באַפֿעלקערונג, דאָס הײסט, בערך דרײַ מיליאָן נפֿשות, געװען ייִדן. ערשט ניט לאַנג צוריק האָט מען אָנגעהױבן צו באַטראַכטן ייִדן װי אַ װיכטיקער באַשטאַנדטײל פֿון דער פּױלישער געשיכטע.
עס איז ניט קײן חידוש, װאָס דער פֿאָקוס איז דאָ אױף די באַציִונגען צװישן ייִדן און פּאָליאַקן און ניט אױף די אינעװײניקע פּראָבלעמען פֿונעם ייִדישן ציבור. דער דאָזיקער חילוק צװישן דעם פּױלישן און ייִדישן קוקװינקל איז בולט װען מען פֿאַרגלײַכט „ איך הייס שטראַמער“ מיט די ייִדישע ראָמאַנען פֿון יענער תּקופֿה, װי למשל מיכל בורשטינס „איבער די חורבֿות פֿון פּלױנע“, לײב ראַשקינס „די מענטשן פֿון גאָדלבאָזשיץ“ אָדער אַלטער קאַציזנעס „שטאַרקע און שװאַכע“.
די פּערסאָנאַזשן אין אָט די ייִדישע ראָמאַנען זײַנען געװען טיף פֿאַרטאָן אין ייִדישע סאָציאַלע, רעליגיעזע, קולטורעלע און פּאָליטישע פּראָבלעמען, בעת די קריסטלעכע פּאָליאַקן זײַנען געװען זײַטיקע און לרובֿ פֿײַנטלעכע פֿיגורן.
די ייִדישע מחברים האָבן באַטאָנט די אָפּזונדערונג פֿון ייִדן אין פּױלן, בעת בײַ לאָזינסקין זײַנען ייִדן מיטגלידער פֿון דער ברײטער פּױלישער געזעלשאַפֿט, כאָטש זײער אינטעגראַציע איז װײַט ניט קײן פֿולע.
אַזאַ צוגאַנג איז היסטאָריש אַקוראַט, װײַל אַ היפּשע צאָל ייִדן, בפֿרט אין די שטעט, האָבן טאַקע זיך געװאָלט אַסימילירן אין דער פּױלישער געזעלשאַפֿט. לאָזינסקי װײַזט די דאָזיקע טענדענץ גאַנץ גוט, אָבער װען עס קומט צו ייִדישקײט, זײַנען דאָ פֿעלערס װי למשל װען נתן, און ניט רבֿקה און די טעכטער, צינדט אָן די שבת־ליכט און דערצו נאָך, שרײַבט ער, „אײן ליכט פֿאַר יעדן משפּחה־מיטגליד“.
צום סוף פֿונעם ראָמאַן גיט לאָזינסקי צו אַ רשימה ביכער, װאָס ער האָט גענוצט װי היסטאָרישע מאַטעריאַלן. דאָס רובֿ זײַנען דאָס סאָלידע פּױלישע היסטאָרישע שטודיעס און זכרונות, אָבער עס איז ניטאָ קײן אײן מקור איבערגעזעצט פֿון ייִדיש אָדער העברעיִש. עס פֿעלט דאָ אַפֿילו דאָס יזכּור־בוך „טאַרנע: קיום און אומקום פֿון אַ ייִדישער שטאָט“ װאָס איז פֿאַראַן אין אַן ענגלישער איבערזעצונג. אין דער הײַנטיקער פּױלישער ליטעראַטור װעגן ייִדן פֿאַרבלײַבט ייִדיש בלױז אַ סימן פֿון ייִדישקײט, און ניט קײן שליסל צום רײַכן קולטורעלן אוצר.
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There Are No ‘Moderates’: Most of the Democratic Party Is Turning Against Israel
Former Wayne County Health Director Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat now running for US Senate in Michigan, speaks at a “Hands Off” protest at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, on April 5, 2025. Photo: Andrew Roth/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Americans are bracing for a politically charged summer as momentum builds for radical Democrats in key races across the country.
In what is emerging as a clarifying moment for just how far the Democratic Party is willing to swing, current polls depict a competitive race among the three candidates running for US Senate in Michigan’s August Democratic primary.
Some of the latest numbers show Abdul El-Sayed, the Bernie Sanders-endorsed physician, holding a slight lead over the other two Democratic challengers, Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrow and Congresswoman Haley Stevens.
In a page pulled out of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s playbook, El-Sayed, who blamed Israel for the attempted terrorist attack in March that targeted preschoolers at Temple Israel in Detroit, often cloaks his radicalism in rhetoric that focuses on affordability and universal healthcare.
He displays open contempt for Israel, and has called the Jewish State “just as evil” as the genocidal terrorist group Hamas.
El-Sayed campaigns with people who justified the 9/11 attacks, and refused to take a position on the death of former Supreme Leader Khamenei for fear of offending the Islamist sensibilities of Michigan’s Dearborn residents.
For many Jewish Americans, the ascendance of El-Sayed, Mamdani, and Graham Platner, the Democratic Senate Candidate from Maine who has praised Hamas’ military tactics (and had an SS symbol tattooed on his body), reflects a new moment — a shifting of the Overton window that not only propels dangerous candidates to prominence, but paves a paradigm in which politicians whose views would have been disqualifying just a decade ago are rebranded as moderates.
Campaigning as a suburban mom trying to capture the votes of centrists and peel off some left-wing voters from El-Sayed’s camp, the present political landscape is planting the 39-year-old Mallory McMorrow firmly in the center of the Democrats’ electoral path in Michigan, with El-Sayed to her left, and the Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who has pro-Israel views, to her right.
Yet when it comes to the state senator’s platform regarding Israel, McMorrow engages with many of the same anti-Zionist ideas espoused by her challenger, El-Sayed.
She traffics in similar language falsely accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza with a deft talent for fashioning her far-left views in a palatable package: a Christian wife and relatable mother, whose husband also happens to be Jewish.
McMorrow satisfies the Democrats’ defined virtuous, big-tent philosophy with competing statements insisting that she would not meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but also believes that Democrats’ affinity for Hasan Piker is a step too far into the realm of radicalism.
Should McMorrow be elected to the US Senate, would she vote any differently than El-Sayed when it comes to supporting the US-Israel alliance and providing Israel with the critical weapons it needs for its self-defense? It seems highly unlikely.
Much of the public discourse surrounds the surge of left-wing Democrats such as El-Sayed, Platner, and Mamdani, but the larger story to consider lies with politicians like McMorrow, who are using the atmospheric conditions to claim the mantle of moderation, but adopting the exact far-left positions of the candidates who hate Israel, and spread libels about Israel committing “genocide” and practicing “apartheid.”
If McMorrow is victorious in Michigan’s Democratic primary, her win would certainly be used by the Democratic establishment and its media allies to uphold a false narrative that the election was a defeat for the far left.
Yet there is perhaps no better example that illustrates just how successful leftists have been in dragging the center down than last month’s vote in the United States Senate, when nearly 80 percent of Democrats voted in favor of two anti-Israel measures introduced by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that, if passed, would have blocked approximately $450 million in weapons transfers to Israel.
The retreat from previously held pro-Israel leanings is reverberating beyond Congress, as “moderates” like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) and Rahm Emanuel showcase their willingness to create daylight between the US and Israel.
For its part, AIPAC has been historically quick to praise and bolster the candidacies of politicians like New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, only to have the lawmaker court his state’s growing Muslim and Arab constituencies by announcing that he will no longer accept money from AIPAC. Senator Booker also backed both Senate resolutions halting military aid to Israel.
If there are legitimate debates about AIPAC’s policies to be had, Democrats aren’t engaging in it. They’re instead using AIPAC as a bogeyman to jump on the “Israel is evil bandwagon,” and perpetuate the libel that Jews control American politics with money.
Progressive populists and Muslim Socialists may differ in their ideological appeal, but both brands of candidates use their gaining leverage as a vehicle to inject their morally blind politics into the American ecosystem and generate a new standard of what constitutes a moderate in today’s Democratic Party.
There’s very little that separates El-Sayed and McMorrow’s foreign policy vision, just as there would be scant differences in how a Shapiro or a Kamala Harris White House would approach America’s relationship with Israel.
When it comes to supporting Israel’s right to exist and defend itself, the party appears nearly united in intensifying its hostility and moving the Democratic coalition onward — and firmly against Israel.
Irit Tratt is a writer residing in New York. Follow her on X @Irit_Tratt.