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What American Jews fight about when they fight about Israel
(JTA) — Eric Alterman, born in 1960, says the view of Israel he absorbed growing up in a Jewish family in suburban Scarsdale, New York, was decidedly one-sided.
“I went on this nerdy presidential classroom thing when I was in high school,” he recalls, “and some Christian kid from the South raised his hand and said to the rabbi, ‘I don’t get it, if the Jews could have a state, why can’t the Palestinians?’ And I was like, ‘How dare you?’”
Alterman would go on to attend Cornell University, where he wrote his honors thesis on Israel, Vietnam and neoconservatism; spend a semester abroad at Tel Aviv University; study Israeli military history while earning his master’s degree in international relations at Yale, and research a dissertation on American liberalism and the founding of Israel as a doctoral student at Stanford.
Although he frequently writes about Israel as a contributing writer at the Nation and the American Prospect, Alterman is best known for his liberal analysis of the media and U.S. politics. He’s written 11 previous books, including one on Bruce Springsteen.
Yet he never stopped thinking about the widening gap between the idealized Israel of his youth and the reality of its relations with the Palestinians, its Arab neighbors and the West. Even when Israel’s revisionist historians were uncovering evidence of massacres and forced expulsions of Palestinians during the War of Independence, and Israeli politicians and intellectuals began asking why, indeed, the Palestinians didn’t deserve a state of their own, he saw that such discussions were considered blasphemous in most American Jewish circles.
Alterman, now a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College, explores that gap in his latest book, “We Are Not One: A History of America’s Fight Over Israel.” The book surveys U.S.-Israel relations, but with a focus on the ways defending Israel have shaped public discourse. It’s a book about arguments: within the administrations of 14 presidents, between Washington and Jerusalem, and mostly among Jews themselves.
Earlier this month we spoke about how the pro-Isael lobby became a powerful political force, the Jewish organizations and pundits who fight to limit the range of debate over Israel, and what he thinks is the high price American Jews have paid for tying their identities so closely to Israel.
“I try to take on shibboleths that in the past have shut down conversation and take them apart and sympathetically show the complexity of the actual situation that lies beneath — so that [criticism and disagreement] over Israel can be understood rather than whisked away by changing the subject, or what-aboutism, or by demonizing the person who is raising them,” said Alterman.
Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Let me start by congratulating you: It’s the first book about U.S.-Israel relations with a chapter named after a Bruce Springsteen album: “Working on a Dream.”
Eric Alterman: Nobody else has caught that. But it’s not about U.S.-Israel relations. It’s the first book about the debate over Israel in the United States. There’s a million books on U.S.-Israel relations.
So let’s define that more narrowly. The title reminds me of the United Jewish Appeal slogan over the years, “We Are One,” which was about American Jewish solidarity. So who is the “we” in your title, “We Are Not One”?
There are three or four different meanings. The “we” in this book are obviously the United States and Israel. An awful lot of people argue that the United States and Israel have identical interests in the world and that’s crazy, because Israel is this tiny little country in the Middle East and we’re a global superpower thousands of miles away. So obviously, we’re going to have differences. Number two, American Jews and Israeli Jews are very different people. They have very different life experiences. And they see things quite differently as evidenced by the political split between them. The title also refers specifically just to Americans, because we can’t even discuss most things anymore. The pro-Israel community, such as it ever was, is enormously split and it’s split in angry ways.
Much of your book is about what happens to American Jews when the idealized portrait of Israel’s founding and its presumed blamelessness in its actions toward the Palestinians comes up against reality. In that context, tell me a little about your choice to devote a chapter to the Leon Uris novel “Exodus,” an extremely sanitized version of Israel’s founding, and the 1960 movie based on it.
The influence of “Exodus” is something I didn’t understand until I wrote the book. It’s crazy, because Leon Uris was this egomaniac who wrote kind of a shitty book and said that he wanted to add a new chapter to the Bible, and he kind of succeeded. I was born in 1960. When I was growing up in suburban New York, every single family had “Exodus” on their shelves. When the movie came out Israelis understood this. They said, “We can just shut down our public relations office now.” And from the standpoint of reality the movie is worse than the book because it has Nazis — the Arabs in the book are working with Nazism. Uris didn’t have the nerve to do that. So the book created this idealized Israel and this idea of [Palestinians as] evil, subhuman Nazis.
What most Americans don’t understand, or choose not to understand, is that before the 1940s most Jews were anti-Zionist, or non-Zionist. This changed in the 1940s, when, as a result in part of the Holocaust, and the reaction to that, and the triumph of Zionists, they became intensely pro-Zionist, leading up to the creation of Israel. But after that, they kind of forgot about Israel. One might have given their children JNF boxes to carry on Halloween instead of UNICEF boxes, or maybe they paid to plant trees. But Israel doesn’t show up in the American Jewish Committee’s 1966 annual report until page 35 or 36, and Nathan Glazer’s 1957 book “American Judaism” says that the creation of the Jewish state has had “remarkably slight effects on the inner life of American Jewry.”
With the events of 1967, Uris’ idealized notion of Israel came together with this terrible fear of a second Holocaust, and the terror and shame and frightening nature of that combined to transform American Judaism overnight to an enormous degree.
You are referring to Israel’s lightning victory in the Six-Day War, which even non-religious Jews saw as a kind of miracle, and redemption two decades after the Holocaust. And that transformation, you argue, put defense of Israel, combined with Holocaust consciousness, at the center of Jewish identity.
More than just the center: It basically comprised almost all of it, for many secular Jews. I quote the neoconservative Irving Kristol in the book saying in 1976 that “the Holocaust and the founding of the state of Israel” was 100% of what Judaism means.
Which in turn led to a the tremendous pro-Israel lobbying efforts, political activism and punditry.
The budgets of American Jewish organizations overnight went from social services and liberal social justice causes to defense of Israel. And rabbis were replaced at the center of public discourse by the heads of these organizations — most of whom had no religious training or knowledge of history or Judaism.
Joe Biden, then vice president, speaks at the AIPAC 2016 Policy Conference in Washington, DC, March 20, 2016.
(Molly Riley/AFP via Getty Images)
One distinction you repeatedly make is between what most Jews believe compared to the Jewish organizations that claim to represent them. Surveys show the rank and file is consistently more liberal on Israel and less hawkish than the big organizations — a gap that showed up markedly around the Iraq War and the Iran nuclear deal.
Right. The big mistake that so many in the media make is that they go to the heads of these organizations who pretend to speak for American Jews when they don’t speak for American Jews. They speak for their boards and their donors.
The shift to Jewish lobbying on behalf of Israel coincides with an era in which there is seldom daylight between what Israel wants and what the United States wants or agrees to — often to the frustration of presidents. You are critical of those who exaggerate the pro-Israel lobby’s influence — folks like Stephen Walt and John J. Mearsheimer, authors of the 2007 book “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” — but, at the same time, you write, referring to the Israel debate in America, about “the continued stranglehold that money, power, organizational structure, and clearly defined paths to personal career advancement continue to hold over the shape of foreign policy.” How will you respond to critics who will say your book is trafficking in the myth of Jewish power and its conspiracy-minded hold over American policy?
The short answer is, that’s why I wrote a 500-page book — basically, for two reasons: One, everything is incredibly complicated. And some of those complications are consistent with antisemitic myths, and therefore they have to be teased out and broken down in such a way that you’re telling the truth rather than portraying the myth.
If you say things without context, they sound antisemitic. I say that yes, Jews are very powerful in the media and many use that power on or about Israel. But I think if you lay out the examples that I use, if you look at them and examine them, I don’t see how you can conclude otherwise. The people I describe often say that about themselves — how much power and influence they yield.
Secondly, I’ve always found it just about impossible to discuss Israel with anyone, because you have to share exactly the same assumptions with that person. And if you don’t, then they take it personally, or you’re an antisemite, or, at best, you’re insufficiently sensitive to how important antisemitism is. And if you describe ways in which American Jews act in ways that are consistent with antisemitic myth, it has a way of shutting down the conversation.
Undoubtedly there’s some criticism of Israel that is motivated by antisemitism, but there’s an awful lot of reasons to be critical of Israel, particularly if you are a Palestinian or care about Palestinians. This accusation [antisemitism] has shut down the discourse and part of my hopes in demonstrating the complexities of this history is to open this up.
So let me ask about your own stake in this. Your educational background and relationship to Israel are similar in many ways to the writers and thinkers in your book who tolerate no criticism of Israel. I don’t know if you call yourself a Zionist, but you have some connection to Israel, and you’re also willing to tolerate critiques of Israel. What’s the difference between you and some of the other people who went on the same journey?
For the longest time I was comfortable with the words “liberal Zionist,” but I don’t think they have any meaning anymore. I don’t think it’s possible to be a liberal Zionist — you have to choose. Israel is the only putatively democratic country that prefers Trump to either Obama or Biden, and it’s not even close. And young Israelis are moving further in that direction and young American Jews are moving further in the opposite direction.
So you ask me if I am a liberal Zionist. I don’t think the word “Zionist” is useful at all anymore, because Israel is a country and it’s not going anywhere. I sometimes call myself an anti-anti-Zionist, because anti-Zionism is dumb. I’m very anti-BDS. If I thought [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] could end occupation, I would support it, even though the idea of boycotting Jews puts a bad taste in my mouth. But the theory behind BDS apparently, and I’ve spent a lot of time on this, is that the world will force Israel to give up its identity and turn the country over to its enemies. It’s inconceivable that Israel would do that and inconceivable the United States would pressure them to do that. So BDS is entirely performative. It’s more of a political fashion statement than anything else.
And to me, it speaks to the failure of Palestinian politics throughout history. I have a great deal of sympathy for the Palestinians and their bad politics because it’s based on two problems. One is that they have never been able to see the future very well. So they should have agreed in 1921 and 1937, or whenever they would have had the majority and they were being given a country by the British. They should have taken the lousy offer from Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton in 2000. I kind of get it because they have so many competing constituencies, and it’s impossible to satisfy all of them at the same time. I understand that. It’s hard to imagine a Palestinian politician who could say yes, and if you look at Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, in both cases, it’s hard to imagine making peace with them.
I read that in your book, and my first thought was, well, isn’t that basically just confirming what the pro-Israel right has always said — that Israel has no partner for peace? So maybe the best it can do is maintain a status quo that assures some security for Israel and a workable something for the Palestinians.
Well, number one I hold Israel significantly responsible for the conditions under which that has developed and that they can change those. And number two, that’s no excuse for the way Palestinians are treated, either in the occupation or in Israel. So yes, I agree. There’s no one to make peace with today, but there are many steps Israel could take that could vastly improve the lives of the Palestinians, both in the occupied territories and inside Israel. And there are a lot of steps they could take that could build confidence for a future that could weaken Hamas, that could strengthen the Palestinian Authority, so that one day peace would be possible. But they do the opposite.
An Israel supporter at a New York rally to tell the United Nations “no more anti-Israel documents or resolutions,” Jan. 12, 2017. (Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images)
You talk about funding of Israel studies and Jewish studies departments as a reaction against fears of a pro-Palestinian takeover of academia. At the same time, you write how Palestinian supporters “succeeded in colonizing Middle East studies departments, student faculty organizations, and far-left political organizations.” Why does that matter in the long run if, as you also write, nothing’s really going to change American policy on Israel?
I gave a talk before the book came out at Tel Aviv University and someone asked me that question. I said, You care about these transformations for two reasons. One, you really will be all alone in the world. You’ll have the support of conservative [Evangelical] Christians who are in many respects antisemitic and are using you for their own purposes. So if you lose American Jews, you will be existentially alone in a way you’re not now and that strikes me as very unpleasant.
I do think that the quote-unquote pro-Israel community has a stranglehold on American politics that I can’t see changing anytime soon, and I think the change in the Democratic Party [that it will turn more pro-Palestinian] is very much exaggerated by both sides for their own reasons.
That being said, the people who are being trained now to be in the State Department and the National Security Council and the Defense Department and the think tanks and the places where the intellectual foundation of U.S. policy is made are learning something very different from what you and I learned in college. Right now, there’s no such thing as an influential Palestinian lobby in this country. There’s no pushing back. There’s no percentage for anyone opposing Israel who has a career interest in the future. That will change, and the whole shaping of the discourse will change and that will change the relationship between the United States and Israel. It’s not going to happen anytime soon, but it’s definitely going to happen.
As Jews in this country have remained largely liberal, Israel appears to be getting more illiberal, as we’ve seen with a new government that is more right-wing than any previously. And Israel has become more of a divisive element among Jews than a unifying force. As this gap appears to be widening, do you have any real hope for changing the discourse?
No, I don’t have any hopes for that. I don’t have anything optimistic to say about Israel. I think, politically speaking, from the standpoint of American Jews, everything is going in the wrong direction. But by demonstrating just how different Israeli Jews are than American Jews, and how little Israeli Jews care what American Jews think, I do think that it presents an opportunity for American Jews to think about what it means to be an American Jew in the Diaspora. Roughly half of the Jews in the world live in the United States. And since 1967 American Jews have defined themselves vicariously through Israeli Jews and taking pride in Israel. They expressed their identities by defending Israel and attacking the media when the media didn’t defend Israel.
Meanwhile, American Jews hardly ever go to synagogue. According to Pew, 20% of American Jews regularly attend synagogue and half of them are Orthodox, who are 10% of the community. What brought me back into Judaism was studying Torah. And hardly any American Jews are ever exposed to that.
So I think there’s an opportunity to reimagine Diaspora Jewry now that the Israel story doesn’t work, and it’s clear that it doesn’t work. Young American Jews are leaving or voting with their feet. They’re walking away. Israel-centric Judaism is in part responsible, although it’s not the whole story. Intermarriage is a big part of the story. The de-religionization of all groups is part of the story. But personally, I don’t see what a liberal American Jew would see in a Judaism that defines itself as it has for the past 50 years as defending Israel and remembering the Holocaust.
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The post What American Jews fight about when they fight about Israel appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump says Netanyahu ‘turned his Troops around’ after he asked Israel not to bomb Beirut
(JTA) — U.S. President Donald Trump is claiming credit for another truce between Hezbollah and Israel, nearly two months after surprising both sides by declaring a ceasefire that has teetered ever since.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said nothing has changed in Israel’s approach to battling Hezbollah in Lebanon, where it is based.
“I had a conversation with Bibi Netanyahu today, asking him not to go into a major raid of Beirut, Lebanon. He turned his Troops around. Thank you Bibi!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday afternoon. “I also had a conversation with Representatives of the Leaders of Hezbollah, and they agreed to stop shooting at Israel, and its soldiers. Likewise, Israel agreed to stop shooting at them. Let’s see how long that lasts — Hopefully it will be for ETERNITY!”
The post followed another similar message published hours earlier in which Trump said “there will be no Troops going to Beirut, and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back.”
The posts came after days of heavy fighting in Lebanon, where multiple Israeli soldiers have been killed by Hezbollah drones and Israel spurred an evacuation in the outskirts of Beirut after warning that it would soon launch an operation against Hezbollah outposts there.
In a post of his own on X, Netanyahu confirmed that he had spoken with Trump but did not say that he had agreed to a ceasefire.
“Tonight, I spoke with President Trump and told him that if Hezbollah does not cease attacking our cities and citizens—Israel will attack terror targets in Beirut. This stance of ours remains unchanged,” Netanyahu wrote. “In parallel, the IDF will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon.”
The Lebanese Embassy in Washington, meanwhile, said in a statement that Lebanon had learned that Hezbollah had agreed to a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire.
The hostilities in Lebanon and northern Israel reflect a distinct front in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. When Trump declared a ceasefire in that war in early April, Israel at first maintained that it did not apply to Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy. But Trump insisted that Netanyahu cease fighting in Lebanon, too.
Two months later, Trump is still negotiating for a permanent end to the Iran war. On Monday, he said on CNBC that he found the talks to be “very boring” and did not care if the Iranians dropped out of discussions.
The post Trump says Netanyahu ‘turned his Troops around’ after he asked Israel not to bomb Beirut appeared first on The Forward.
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Smotrich’s surprise appearance at Israel Day Parade sparks backlash from NY and Jewish leaders
(New York Jewish Week) — Amid a record crowd at New York’s annual Israel Day parade on Sunday, one participant is standing out.
A growing number of city, state and Jewish leaders are denouncing the participation of Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right Israeli minister who joined the march without having been announced in advance.
“The facts: Smotrich was NOT invited. Crashed at the last minute. Marched in the back of the parade. Not one New York public official joined him,” David Greenfield, the CEO and executive director of the Met Council, which sponsored a pre-parade breakfast for elected officials Sunday, wrote in a post on X.
Greenfield was responding to a groundswell of anger about Smotrich’s presence at the rally, which is typically framed as a broad Jewish communal celebration of Israel. While the inclusion of Israeli government officials has long been a sticking point for some who would prefer the parade to avoid politics, this year Smotrich’s presence in particular has proved galling for several prominent parade participants.
“Bezalel Smotrich is a far-right extremist whose hateful and divisive rhetoric is fundamentally at odds with the values we hold dear in New York,” Gov. Kathy Hochul, who joined the march, wrote in a post on X Monday. “Yesterday’s parade was a celebration of Jewish pride, community, and unity. I strongly condemn his participation.”
Attorney General Letitia James, who attended the parade, and New York State Assemblymember Alex Bores also condemned Smotrich on Monday.
The Israeli government had promised its largest-ever delegation this year, in part a show of strength at a time when New York City’s anti-Israel mayor, Zohran Mamdani, vowed to skip the parade. But it had not said that Smotrich, who recently said he believed he was facing International Criminal Court charges, would be among the group. Smotrich joined the parade after flying in from Israel early Sunday morning.
Mamdani condemned the inclusion of Smotrich and other ministers in the parade, telling MS Now in an interview published Monday that he was “offended” by their presence.
“You can see in the participation of the far-right Israeli minister Smotrich, as well as a number of other ministers, a vision of annihilation, a complicity in genocide, and frankly, a belief that does not have much value for even the sanctity of children in Gaza,” Mamdani said. “I am offended, as I know many New Yorkers are, by their participation.”
Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, has been sanctioned by several countries for inciting settler violence against Palestinians. The head of Israel’s far-right Religious Zionist Party, Smotrich has previously advocated for annexing the majority of the West Bank, called for the “total annihilation” of cities in Gaza, and said that it would be “justified and moral” to block humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.
On Friday, Mark Treyger, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, which organizes the parade, said he did not know exactly which Israeli officials would be at the parade.
“We don’t have the full details as far as who is or who is not coming from the Israeli delegation,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the time.
“That’s usually handled from the consulate office, and I will refer to them as far as handling that,” Treyger added. “But for me personally, it’s really not about politicians. It’s about the people that we are welcoming, as far as families across New York, the state, the region, folks coming in from across the country that are looking forward to this parade.”
For some of them, Smotrich’s participation was a blemish.
“Bezalel Smotrich should be sanctioned by American political and Jewish communal leaders – not marching alongside them in the streets of New York City,” the liberal pro-Israel lobby J Street wrote in a post on X. As a political organization, J Street does not officially participate in the parade, but its members typically march as part of liberal delegations.
Other liberal Jewish groups similarly criticized both Smotrich’s presence and New York politicians for participating in the same parade as the Israeli delegation.
“It is shocking to see New York officials march alongside Kahanists like Bezalel Smotrich and Otzma Yehudit members, whose support for illegal settlements and territorial expansion inspire violence, hatred and the further immiseration of the West Bank and Gaza,” New York Jewish Agenda wrote in a post on X.
“We are grateful to Mayor Mamdani for refusing to march in the Israel Day Parade, which featured some of the Israeli politicians who have not only cheered on the genocide of Palestinians, but are part of the government committing that genocide,” tweeted the left-wing group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, adding, “Shame on every elected official who marched yesterday.”
Israel had announced several participants in advance of the parade, including Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli and Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer. Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, who has said he wants to see Gaza flattened by a nuclear bomb and then resettled by Jews, was also on the list.
Tamar Glezerman, an organizer for Israelis for Peace, which took part in a small demonstration along the parade route to oppose the Israeli government delegation’s presence, told JTA Sunday that she was surprised to see Smotrich in the group.
“They hid that because the Israeli government is, you know, a group of cowards, and they don’t want to get pushback,” she said.
Treyger appeared to respond to the outcry on Monday, writing in a post on X that while “some individuals who attended were neither invited by JCRC-NY nor known to us in advance, participation in the parade is not an endorsement of any political figure or ideology.”
A spokesperson for JCRC declined to clarify whether Treyger was referring to Smotrich specifically.
“We reject rhetoric that dehumanizes others, fuels division, or diminishes the dignity of any human being,” Treyger continued.
The post Smotrich’s surprise appearance at Israel Day Parade sparks backlash from NY and Jewish leaders appeared first on The Forward.
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Scott Wiener, Spencer Pratt and Eric Swalwell’s replacement: 5 primaries Jews are watching in California
(JTA) — Jews in the Golden State head into Tuesday’s primaries grappling with a host of weighty questions.
Can a Jewish progressive who believes Israel committed genocide still earn the support of his local Jewish community? Can an ardent critic of Israel be dethroned in Silicon Valley? And is a trollish Los Angeles mayoral candidate from reality TV preferable to a Mamdani-esque progressive?
For many of these races, the primaries won’t be the end of the story: State law mandates that the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, will move on to November’s general election. But the dynamics of several races ensure they will be seen as the latest bellwether for progressive political voters’ views on Israel, and local Jewish groups have compiled a voter guide specifically tailored to their concerns.
Here are five California races of particular interest to Jews.
A tight 3-way Los Angeles mayoral race
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is facing a tough bid for her reelection, and one of her challengers — L.A. City Council member Nithya Raman — has appeared with left-wing anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker and drawn comparisons to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Raman made a last-minute filing to challenge Bass not long after endorsing her for reelection.
For some Jewish Angelenos, the prospect of a mayor who has vocally criticized Israel is enough of a concern to instead back Spencer Pratt — a reality-TV star with links to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. While Pratt has distanced himself from some of his past beliefs, including that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, he has dodged questions about his friendship with Jones. (The mayoralty is officially a nonpartisan position.)
“A Raman mayorship would make every Jewish Angeleno less safe,” Sam Yebri, a local political activist with the centrist group Thrive LA who is also involved with pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, told JTA. The candidate’s Piker appearance was central to Yebri’s objections, and has also been a target from Pratt: “I would never sit next to somebody who has no problems with Jews getting attacked,” he told a local TV station.
Other Jews pointed to Raman’s absence at a recent City Council meeting marking Jewish American Heritage Month as a reason for their negative feelings toward her.
There are some key differences between Raman and her East Coast counterpart when it comes to Israel and Jews.
While Mamdani is an anti-Zionist aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, Raman says she supports Israel’s right to exist and opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
The local DSA chapter, after endorsing Raman for council in 2024, has since condemned her for her more moderate stances on Israel. Her constituents include large Jewish and Israeli neighborhoods; and Jewish leaders in the area have told the Forward they trust her and have had good conversations with her. She has attended services at local synagogues. (A local pro-Israel group also endorsed Raman in 2024.)
Yebri is instead encouraging voters to vote either for Bass or Pratt. Both of them, he said, “have made significant efforts to listen to the concerns of the Jewish community and have committed to protecting houses of worship and supporting LAPD funding.”
Pratt, a former star of “The Hills,” has focused much of his campaign on the city’s response to the 2025 Pacific Palisades fire (he lost his own house in the blaze). He has not made Jewish issues a centerpiece of his campaign, though he told CNBC last week that “all of my best friends since kindergarten are Jewish” and that he opposes antisemitism. “I want Jewish moms to feel safe for their kids to go to the temple or … to class at UCLA,” he said.
Yebri is not the only Jew backing Pratt. According to a report in the Jewish magazine Tablet, Ashley Underwood, a producer for Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and wife of Jewish comedian Larry David, hosted a fundraiser for the candidate that was attended by producer Hilary Shor and philanthropist Irene Medavoy. Shor then wrote on social media that she and others were “transfixed by the power of his message, which hopefully will help save our town.”
In the event no candidate secures above 50% of the vote (a likely outcome), the election will head to a November runoff.
Will Pelosi’s replacement be a ‘lefty Jew,’ or a Piker-backed leftist?
Perhaps no congressional race is being watched more closely than the bid in San Francisco to succeed retiring former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Jewish progressive with a growing national profile, is mounting a spirited bid for the 11th District seat and leading in the polls. But Wiener, who did not return a JTA request for comment, alienated many in the local Jewish community when he said he believed Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.
San Francisco Jewish groups condemned his comments, and the blowback caused him to step down from his role as the head of the state’s Jewish Democratic caucus.
“It is a hard year to be a lefty Jew running for Congress,” he told Politico, suggesting he believes, on the one hand, that “Israel’s existence is critically important, it is home to half of the Jews on Earth,” and on the other hand that “the Israeli government is an abomination, the Israeli government is engaged in an effort to destroy Palestinian communities.”
Complicating matters further for Wiener is the fact that one of his opponents, Saikat Chakrabarti, is running further to his left on Israel. A former chief of staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who also worked on one of Jewish progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns, Chakrabarti backs a full stop of weapons sales to Israel and has campaigned with Piker.
Chakrabarti has also opposed a local measure intended to combat antisemitism in public schools, which Wiener spearheaded. The law creates new enforcement mechanisms to address antisemitism in schools, which critics have argued would amount to surveilling teachers. Wiener spearheaded the bill; Chakrabarti has called it “a censorship bill,” while a top aide of his has called it “harmful.”
Yet Ocasio-Cortez herself has not endorsed Chakrabarti, which has become a sore spot in his campaign. Meanwhile, Pelosi’s endorsement went to a third candidate, San Francisco supervisor Connie Chan — who also said she believes Israel committed genocide, and has proposed pairing U.S. funding for Israeli defensive systems with aid packages for Gaza.
In a last-minute shakeup to the race, some pro-Palestinian sites and accounts claimed over the weekend that AIPAC-aligned donors had funneled money to Chan’s campaign via a series of other PACs. The allegations, which JTA has not verified, prompted Chan’s campaign to issue a statement urging “any organization supporting Connie to respect the very clear values she has laid out not to accept donations from AIPAC.”
A spokesperson for AIPAC did not immediately respond to a JTA request for comment on the claims, which if true would mark an almost unheard-of instance of AIPAC funding a candidate who has accused Israel of genocide. Chakrabarti, a centimillionaire who has self-funded much of his campaign, mused that “AIPAC wants to keep me out of the top two.”
Local Jewish voters, who have contended many times with area activism targeting Israel on a range of fronts, have agonized over whether to back Wiener. Some communal leaders are now arguing that they should — even if they disagree with his “genocide” comments.
“There is a version of Jewish political engagement that seeks to punish anyone who uses the word genocide, regardless of their record, regardless of their opponents,” Jewish organizers Arthur Slepian and Jan Reicher wrote in the Jewish News of Northern California. This position, they argued, is “self-defeating.”
“Wiener made a statement that many in the community found painful,” they continued. “But he did not abandon his commitment to Jewish security, Jewish education or the physical safety of Jewish institutions. He did not endorse the groups that chant for the elimination of the Jewish state. He did not cast Israel’s existence as a ‘colonial project’ that needs dismantling.”
Some Silicon Valley Jews hope to take down Ro Khanna
If Jews in San Francisco are largely conflicted on Wiener, their counterparts in Silicon Valley are much more unified — against their district’s outspoken pro-Palestinian incumbent.
Rep. Ro Khanna is one of Israel’s fiercest critics in Congress and has even made common cause with far-right Republicans, including Rep. Thomas Massie, over the issue. Khanna has also made no secret of his 2028 ambitions for higher office. Disaffected Jews and Israeli Americans in the 17th District are hoping to use this primary to send a message to Khanna by backing tech entrepreneur Ethan Agarwal, who has positioned himself as the congressman’s pro-Israel challenger.
“We have lost trust in his ability to represent us, and will not accept empty condemnations of antisemitism while he amplifies radical antisemitic messages at every possible turn,” Tali Klima of Bay Area Jewish Coalition-Action recently said about Khanna.
Of particular concern was Khanna’s appearance in a documentary about Israel also featuring YouTuber Ian Carroll, who has claimed that a “modern Jewish mafia” controls the United States. (Khanna distanced himself from Carroll after criticism.) The congressman has also appeared multiple times on Hasan Piker’s stream.
A PLO member’s grandson runs for Congress, again
Democrats are hoping to flip a San Diego-area district held by retiring Republican Rep. Darrell Issa. But to do that, they may have to back a candidate with an unusual pedigree.
Ammar Campa-Najjar, a former Obama staffer and U.S. Navy Reserve officer of Mexican and Palestinian descent, is putting his Palestinian identity front and center in his pitch for the seat. Campa-Najjar spent part of his childhood in Gaza, where his family moved after the Oslo Accords “to help build a secular Palestinian government and foster economic cooperation with Israel,” his campaign biography says.
Another part of his family story: His grandfather, Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar, was a top figure in the Palestine Liberation Organization who was targeted by the Mossad for what they alleged was his role in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes.
This became a sticking point for Campa-Najjar during a failed 2018 congressional run in a different district, when his Republican opponent said his background made him “a national security risk.” At the time, local Jewish leaders came to Campa-Najjar’s defense.
Also at the time, Campa-Najjar had condemned what he believed to be his grandfather’s role in planning Munich. But after an Israeli investigative journalist in 2019 questioned al-Najjar’s role, his grandson said he had “renewed skepticism” about the allegations that he was descended from a terrorist.
Last month, in response to a claim from far-right Jewish activist Laura Loomer that he was “Palestinian terrorist spawn,” Campa-Najjar wrote, “My grandmother was a Palestinian mother raising children, she was unjustly killed in her home. I never met my grandfather, I knew him as much as you do. What happened is a matter of disputed history.”
Campa-Najjar has also met with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who was part of the commando unit that killed his grandfather.
This is Campa-Najjar’s third congressional run, but the aftermath of Oct. 7 and the Gaza war puts his background in a new context — as does the recent mass shooting at a San Diego mosque (the candidate himself is a Christian convert from Islam). At the same time, some progressives have cooled on him, accusing him of having moderated his stances on a range of issues across his different campaigns.
One Jew in his corner: Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs, who represents a neighboring district and is Campa-Najjar’s longtime girlfriend. A super PAC backed by Jacobs’ grandfather Irwin Jacobs, a billionaire and business entrepreneur, has spent heavily for Campa-Najjar. (Neither Campa-Najjar nor Jacobs returned JTA requests for comment.)
J Street is also backing his candidacy, while Democratic Majority for Israel is spending heavily on his primary opponent, San Diego city council member Marni von Wilpert. A Republican also running in the district means that only one Democrat is likely to advance to the general election.
Will Swalwell’s replacement make noise about Israel?
Rep. Eric Swalwell was among the most resolutely pro-Israel Democrats in Congress. He was also accused of sexual misconduct by multiple former staffers. Swalwell has called the allegations “false,” but resigned from his seat — and bowed out of the governors’ race — opening a vacancy in the state’s 14th District.
Hoping to step into his shoes is state Sen. Aisha Wahab, who is leading in a poll commissioned by the left-wing Working Families Party PAC. A child of Afghan refugees, Wahab has collaborated with local Jewish leaders before on refugee-related issues, including on a 2021 fundraiser for Afghan refugee resettlement in the aftermath of the U.S. pullout from the country. That fundraiser was held at Manny’s, a San Francisco deli owned by an Afghani Jew that has been targeted multiple times — both before and after Oct. 7 — by anti-Zionist vandals.
But East Bay Jews hoping that Swalwell’s replacement might match his pro-Israel record will likely be disappointed. Wahab, like most of her Democratic opponents in the primary, has said that Israel committed genocide in Gaza after the Oct. 7 attacks.
At the same time, she has shown a willingness to work with Jews on Israel-related matters. In the California state Senate in fall 2025, Wahab coauthored a resolution to “call for the end to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the immediate release of all hostages.” Notably, her coauthor was Wiener, the self-proclaimed “lefty Jew” state senator who is also running for Congress in the nearby 11th District.
One prominent local Jewish leader has endorsed a different Democrat. Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, whose court-ordered removal from a case involving Stanford pro-Palestinian protesters has triggered allegations of antisemitism, is backing entrepreneur Rakhi Israni.
In 2024, Israni also appeared alongside local Jewish leaders on a panel discussing links between antisemitism and “Hinduphobia.” Some of Israni’s associations with more conservative Jewish and pro-Israel causes, including reported past personal donations to political campaigns for far-right Jewish pundit Laura Loomer and Christians United For Israel director David Brog, have further raised eyebrows among progressives. Israni is so far the leader in fundraising among the candidates.
“In a few instances, I financially contributed to candidates who later took positions that I strongly oppose, including one whose views I find abhorrent and incompatible with my own,” Israni, who did not immediately respond to a JTA request for comment, said in a statement last month in response to a report on her spending by the San Jose Mercury News. “But highlighting a handful of past donations without acknowledging years of overwhelmingly supporting Democratic candidates creates a misleading picture.” Israni did not name specific candidates in her statement.
Due to the circumstances of Swalwell’s resignation, the district is facing several different rounds of voting. Tuesday’s primary is for November’s general election, while a subsequent primary on June 16 will determine the top two contenders to fill the remainder of the current term, which will be voted on in August.
Other Jewish stories to watch on the ballot
- In the crowded 16-person field for lieutenant governor, two of the candidates are Jewish, and both have been endorsed by a range of leading state Jewish groups. Whoever wins will sit on the boards of the state’s public university systems, including the University of California, whose campuses have been wracked by tensions over Israel and antisemitism since Oct. 7.
- Campus Israel politics have also rocked a district attorney race. Santa Clara County DA Jeff Rosen, who is Jewish, has sought to prosecute a group of pro-Palestinian vandals at Stanford University who destroyed campus property, and had used the case in his campaign literature to claim that he was fighting antisemitism. That led a judge to recently remove Rosen from his effort to retry the case. Another Jewish DA in the state has since accused the judge of antisemitism. All this could upend Rosen’s bid for reelection as he faces a challenger, Daniel Chung, who used to be his subordinate. Chung has led protests against Rosen tied to the Stanford case.
- In a repeat of primary dynamics in other states, a pro-Israel group is spending heavily in a U.S. House race in a district without a large Jewish constituency. Democratic Majority For Israel is pouring $500,000 into TV ads in the Bakersfield-area 22nd District, which is conservative-leaning and majority Latino. The ads target progressive school board member Randy Villegas, who is backed by Bernie Sanders and other left-wing figureheads. Villegas has opposed continued U.S. military aid to Israel — though his opponent, moderate state Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, also previously said Israel had committed genocide in Gaza (she has since walked it back). National Democratic groups are also backing Bains as the party hopes to flip the district.
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