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A Jewish guide to Chris Christie’s presidential campaign, starting with his Trump and Kushner feuds
(JTA) — As he has launched his long-shot campaign for the Republican nomination, Chris Christie has taken aim squarely at the man he once enthusiastically endorsed: Donald Trump.
But alongside portraying the former president as a danger to democracy, Christie has singled out another person for criticism who is not running for president, and who may not even work on a campaign: Jared Kushner, Trump’s Jewish son-in-law and senior adviser.
The Christie-Kushner feud goes back two decades, dating back to when Christie prosecuted a case that sent Kushner’s father to prison. The feud played a decisive role in freezing the former New Jersey governor out of the Trump administration and is making a reappearance as Christie tries again for the White House, following a news-making but unsuccessful 2016 run.
It’s also one of the many ways Christie’s career, forged in a state with more than half a million Jews, has intersected with Jewish issues and public figures. Whether the Garden State candidate claims the nomination or plays the spoiler, as he did eight years ago, here’s what you need to know about Chris Christie and the Jews.
He grew up in North Jersey with Jewish friends
Christie was born in Newark, but raised in Livingston, a heavily Jewish town in northern New Jersey, where he made a lot of Jewish friends at high school.
Among them was Harlan Coben, the bestselling author of potboilers, who once told a Christie biographer, “If you were to ask who in our class would end up being governor, most people would tell you Chris Christie.”
Another was David Wildstein, a top aide whom Christie named to a senior position at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and who pleaded guilty to involvement in what became known as “Bridgegate,” a scheme to shut down toll lanes for the George Washington Bridge. (Christie claimed no knowledge of the scheme.)
His brother Todd is married to a Jewish woman. A COVID-19 outbreak at their son’s bar mitzvah in 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, led to the temporary closure of a middle school.
He also has intersected with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the author, onetime Republican candidate and New Jersey denizen. In 2015, with Boteach looking on, Christie condemned the Iran nuclear deal spearheaded by President Barack Obama.
He advanced Orthodox-friendly policies as governor
New Jersey has a substantial Orthodox Jewish population, and Christie advocated policies and put forward messages that have traditionally appealed to Orthodox voters. Like another Republican candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Christie advanced school vouchers and other changes that would drive public money to private Jewish schools, although Christie was unsuccessful in launching a voucher program in his state.
As governor, he traveled to Israel and signed a bill prohibiting the state from investing in companies that boycott Israel. But foreign policy has never been his focus or strength: Israel rates no mention at all in his 2019 autobiography, and in 2014, he apologized to the late Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson for using the term “occupied territories” in reference to the West Bank at a Republican Jewish Coalition event. Supporters of Israeli settlements dispute that Israel is occupying the area.
He clashed with Jared Kushner — and lost
In 2004, real estate mogul Charles Kushner pleaded guilty to tax fraud, witness retaliation and making false statements to the Federal Election Commission, and spent 14 months in prison in Alabama. It was a victory for Christie, then a U.S. attorney.
But 12 years later, that victory would lead to a defeat. Christie was the first among the primary candidates in 2016 to drop out and endorse Trump, and worked hard to secure him the nomination and the presidency. Trump wanted to reward Christie with a top job and named him transition chief. Almost immediately, however, Jared Kushner, Charles’ son, got Christie fired.
Christie saw it coming, he wrote in his 2019 book, where he described the younger Kushner’s initial attempt to talk Trump out of naming Christie transition chief. “It wasn’t fair,” Christie quoted Kushner telling Trump regarding his father’s imprisonment. “You don’t know what it was like for me. Almost every weekend, I flew to Alabama to visit. He didn’t deserve to be there.”
After he was fired, Christie wrote that he learned that a 30-binder transition plan he scripted for Trump had ended up in a dumpster.
Christie remains focused on the Kushners. They earned a place in the subtitle of his autobiography, “Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey, and the power of in-your-face politics.” An NPR review of the book says, “Christie’s main beef is with Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President Trump. Christie blames the young Kushner for ousting him from Trump’s inner circle.”
Kushner and his wife, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, also occupied a dubious place in Christie’s campaign launch in New Hampshire on Tuesday night.
“The grift from this family is breathtaking, it’s breathtaking! Jared Kushner and Ivanka Kushner walked out of the White House, and months later he gets $2 billion from the Saudis,” Christie told the crowd. “You think it’s because he’s some kind of investing genius? Or do you think it’s because he was sitting next to the president of the United States for four years, doing favors for the Saudis? That’s your money. That’s your money he stole and gave it to his family. So that makes us a banana republic.”
He has drawn a parallel between Trump and an antisemitic right-wing movement
Christie has made no secret that his principal aim is to neutralize the man he was among the first to endorse in 2016, because he now sees Trump as a menace. Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual conference last year, he illustrated his criticism of Trump via a comparison to a foe of Israel — Iran.
“Every day we need to stand with the only democracy in the Middle East with Israel and stand against the terrorism of Iran, all across the world,” he said. “Because whether you’re talking about Iran, or whether you’re talking about those who aspire to this in our country, authoritarian dictators only want one thing — they just want one more chance to fool the crowd one more time.”
Reelecting Trump, he said, would diminish America’s standing in the world. “But if we’re not doing [democracy] here, we can’t stand up in those other countries and tell them to do it,” he said. “It’s time for us to get our house in order.”
Christie, who was cheered throughout much of his speech, knew the room, which was packed with donors and activists who appreciated Trump’s vehemently pro-Israel foreign policy, but who were wary of his mercurial personality and his flirtations with the far-right. Christie also drew a parallel between Trump and the right-wing John Birch Society of the mid-20th century.
“It was a dangerous time where Republican politicians throughout the country were afraid. They were afraid to speak out. They were afraid to oppose these folks. Because what they were told was if you oppose them, you cannot win a Republican primary. You cannot be a nominee.”
He also was among the first and most outspoken Republican voices to condemn Trump last year for dining with antisemites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes.
Over the years, Christie has had plenty of Jewish donors, including veteran Virginia-based fund-raisers William and Bobbie Kilberg. It’s not clear yet whether past contributors, including hedge funder Steve Cohen and Nick Loeb, the innovator of Onion Crunch, will back him this time.
“Somebody has to directly take on Trump and make it clear that he’s a danger to the future of democracy and that we cannot have him as our nominee,” Bobbie Kilberg told The Philadelphia Inquirer last week. “Chris is running to do that directly and forcibly. Only time can tell whether he can succeed, but it’s exceedingly important to put yourself out there.”
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Vanderbilt launches inquiry into instructor after math question about Israeli occupation draws criticism
(JTA) — Vanderbilt University has launched an inquiry into a mathematics lecturer whose classroom exercise about Palestinian territory drew criticism from the activist group StopAntisemitism.
Tekin Karadağ, a senior lecturer at the university’s department of mathematics, drew the ire of the antisemitism watchdog after it obtained a slide from one of his lectures that used a pro-Palestinian protest slogan and suggested that Israel was shrinking the Palestinian territory.
“Assume Palestine as a state with a rectangular land shape. There is the Mediterranean Sea on the west and the Jordan River on the east,” read the slide. “From the river to the sea, Palestine (…) was approximately 100 km. in 1946. The land decreases by 250 sq. km per year, due to the occupation by Israel. How fast is the width of the land decreasing now?”
Karadǎg, a Turkish national who received his PhD from Texas A&M University in 2021, included the question under “examples related to the popular issues” in a survey of calculus class, according to StopAntisemitism, which wrote in a post on X that Karadǎg was “bringing his anti-Israel, antisemitic bias into his classroom.”
In a statement shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Vanderbilt said that the content had been removed and that an inquiry had been launched into Karadağ.
“The university has received reports alleging a member of the faculty engaged in unprofessional conduct related to content shared during course instruction,” the school said. “The content in question has been removed, and a formal inquiry has been initiated consistent with relevant university policy.”
In recent years, rhetoric about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on college campuses has grown increasingly fraught, with professors’ commentary on the region sparking heavy scrutiny and, at times, disciplinary measures when their universities have determined that they exceeded the bounds of academic freedom. A recent report by Columbia University’s antisemitism task force found that students frequently experienced pro-Palestinian advocacy in classes entirely unrelated to the Middle East — such as dance or math classes.
The inquiry was not the first time that Vanderbilt took swift action against the expression of pro-Palestinian sentiments on its campus.
In March 2024, the university, which has roughly 1,100 Jewish undergraduate students, was among the first universities to expel students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. This year, the school’s antisemitism “grade” from the Anti-Defamation League was bumped up from a “C” to an “A.”
The post Vanderbilt launches inquiry into instructor after math question about Israeli occupation draws criticism appeared first on The Forward.
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Hugh Laurie rejects ‘Zionist’ label after his tribute to Israeli ‘Tehran’ producer sparks social media firestorm
(JTA) — British actor Hugh Laurie pushed back against being labeled as a “Zionist” after facing a wave of online criticism for posting a tribute to the Israeli producer of the hit television show “Tehran.”
“Dana Eden, who co-created and produced ‘Tehran’, died on Sunday, seemingly by her own hand,” Laurie, who played a nuclear inspector in the show’s third season, tweeted last week. “It’s a terrible thing. She was brilliant, and funny, and an exceptional leader. Love and condolences to all who knew her.”
The seemingly innocuous post eulogizing Eden, 52, who was found dead while filming the latest season of the hit Apple TV+ series in Athens last week, quickly drew a volley of backlash on social media.
“She was part of the occupation force’s propaganda arm,” wrote one user in response to Laurie’s post. “What a shame, didn’t expect you to be a closet Zionist.” Another wrote that Eden “creates propaganda for Israel so that they can kill kids more effectively. People should have no sympathy for her.”
The award-winning series, which follows a young Israeli Mossad agent in Iran, was produced by the Israeli public broadcaster Kan and purchased by Apple TV+ in 2020 for roughly $20 million. Eden’s death, for which no cause has been announced, occurred during production of the show’s fourth season, which had already stalled following Oct. 7.
Laurie is not the first actor to spurn the “Zionist” label, as entertainers in recent years have increasingly faced pressure to declare their views on Israel. In December, Jewish actress Odessa A’zion pushed back on claims she was a Zionist after an image of her wearing an IDF shirt as a teenager circulated online.
On Friday, Laurie, who previously starred in the Emmy Award-winning medical drama “House,” shot back at the criticism.
“Nothing I have ever said or done could lead a sane person to believe that I am a Zionist,” wrote Laurie in a post on X. “However. If someone exults in the death of a friend of mine, yes I will block them. If you wouldn’t do the same in my position, you can f—ck off too.”
Laurie’s subsequent post also drew outcry, but this time from pro-Israel influencers who lamented the actor’s disavowal of the Zionist label, calling him “weak” and a “pathetic weasel” in the replies.
Freelance journalist Angela Epstein replied to Laurie’s post, writing, “Not Hugh Laurie as well. I thought he was one of the decent ones….”
“God almighty, why does no one understand English any more?” wrote Laurie in response to Epstein’s critique. “I have not spoken or written a word that would indicate pro or anti Zionism. That’s what those words mean. Blimey.”
The post Hugh Laurie rejects ‘Zionist’ label after his tribute to Israeli ‘Tehran’ producer sparks social media firestorm appeared first on The Forward.
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German anti-Zionist group’s plan to protest at Buchenwald memorial over kaffiyeh ban sparks outrage
(JTA) — An anti-Zionist group in Germany has drawn condemnation after it announced plans for a protest against the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial in response to a ban on pro-Palestinian symbols at the site.
The group Kufiyas in Buchenwald claims that the memorial has become a place of “historical revisionism and genocide denial.” It announced a demonstration for April 11, the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp.
“Instead of honoring the persecuted and resolutely opposing every genocide, the memorial spreads Israeli propaganda and provides the ideological ammunition for the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” the group says on its website.
Buchenwald, one of the first concentration camps built by the Nazis and one of the largest in the country, was the site of the murder of roughly 56,000 male prisoners, including 11,000 Jews, from 1937 to 1945.
Last year, a German court ruled that the concentration camp had a right to refuse entry to visitors who wear a keffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian headscarf that has been adopted by pro-Palestinian protesters. The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit by a woman who attempted to wear the scarf to an event commemorating the concentration camp’s liberation.
The woman, who was only identified by her first name, Anna, posted a testimony about her actions on the Kufiyas in Buchenwald Instagram page in which she said she was inspired by the resistance of Buchenwald prisoners.
“Our fundamental principle is this: criticism of the Israeli government’s policies, settlement policy, or actions in the Gaza Strip is legitimate,” said the Buchenwald Foundation’s director Jens-Christian Wagner in a statement outlining the memorial’s protocols. “However, it becomes antisemitic when used to relativize the Holocaust and discredit its victims as perpetrators. We will not tolerate this at the Buchenwald Memorial.”
The campaign against the memorial has been signed onto by a host of pro-Palestinian groups, including the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and the German group Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, which has defended the protest on X as evidence of what “commemorating past German crimes has to do with rejecting current ones.”
In a post on Instagram announcing the protest earlier this month, the Kufiyas in Buchenwald group wrote that it would hold a “public protest” in Weimar, the German city located nearby the concentration camp. The group also said it planned to host lectures and a “tour that vividly illustrates the events in the former concentration camp.”
It was unclear whether the protest is intended to take place outside the memorial itself. Kufiyas in Buchenwald did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the location of the protest.
The protest quickly drew condemnation from German leaders, including the country’s antisemitism czar Felix Klein, who told the Swiss outlet Neue Zürcher Zeitung that the protest marked a “new low point in the unfortunately all-too-common reversal of perpetrator and victim roles.”
Michael Panse, the commissioner for combatting antisemitism for the German state Thuringia, where Weimar is located, told the outlet that the protest was “tasteless and historically ignorant.”
The protests also drew condemnation from the European Jewish Congress, which wrote in a post on X that the demonstration represents a “deeply troubling instrumentalization of Holocaust remembrance.”
“Holocaust memorial sites are places of solemn reflection and respect for the victims of National Socialism,” the post continued. “They must never be exploited to promote agendas that deny Israel’s legitimacy or glorify those who perpetrate violence against Jews.”
The post German anti-Zionist group’s plan to protest at Buchenwald memorial over kaffiyeh ban sparks outrage appeared first on The Forward.