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American rabbis, wrestling with Israel’s behavior, weigh different approaches from the pulpit
(JTA) — Rabbi Sharon Brous began a sermon at her Los Angeles synagogue last month with a content warning. “I have to say some things today that I know will upset some of you,” she began.
That same morning, across the country in New York City, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl was confessing something to her congregants, too: The sermon they were about to hear “kept me up at night.”
Both women — among the most prominent and influential Jewish clergy in the United States — went on to sharply criticize Israel’s new right-wing government, which includes far-right parties that aim to curb the rights of LGBTQ Israelis, Arabs and non-Orthodox Jews.
In taking aim at Israel’s government from the pulpit, the rabbis were veering close to what many in their field consider a third rail. “You have a wonderful community and you love them and they love you, until the moment you stand up and you give your Israel sermon,” Brous told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The phenomenon even has an informal name, she said: “Death by Israel sermon.”
Brous would know: A decade ago, she was the target of sharp criticism after she encouraged her congregants at IKAR, a nondenominational congregation, to pray for Palestinians as well as Jews during a period of conflict in Israel. The incident didn’t end her pulpit, but she has come to understand why many rabbis choose what she called “the path of silence” when it comes to Israel.
Now, she said, American Jews must depart from that path. “I want you to hear me,” she said in her sermon. “There is a revolution that is happening, and this moment demands an awakening on both sides of the sea, an honest reckoning.”
All over the country, non-Orthodox rabbis are making similar calculations in response to Israel’s new governing coalition, which has drawn widespread protests over its policy moves. (Orthodox communities, including their rabbis, tend to be more politically conservative and skew to the right of non-Orthodox communities on Israel issues.) Israel’s government is advancing an overhaul of the legal system that would sap the power of the Supreme Court, and is also contending with an escalating wave of violence.
Some rabbis feel more emboldened to speak aloud what they have long believed. Others are finding themselves reconsidering their own relationship to Israel — and bringing their congregants along on their journey. A few still feel that criticizing Israel from the pulpit is a misguided and even dangerous venture, one that could splinter American Jewish communities.
What cuts across the spectrum is a belief that Israel has been discussed too little from the synagogue pulpit. Brous said the tendency of liberal rabbis not to talk about Israel lest they anger their more conservative congregants has resulted in a painful reality: “American Jews have not developed the muscle that we now need to respond to this regime.”
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City launched a new program called Amplify Israel, which he hopes will encourage Reform movement leaders to embrace Zionism even as they navigate a “deeply problematic and even offensive” new Israeli government. (Shahar Azran/Stephen Wise Free Synagogue)
Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, meanwhile, believes today’s rabbis must be vocal in fending off the influence of “competing values” about Zionism from “various organizations that are either cool on Israel or don’t like Israel or just downright anti-Zionist.”
Last year, angered by a letter signed by dozens of rabbinical students denouncing Israel’s actions during its 2021 conflict with Hamas in Gaza, Hirsch launched an initiative based at his New York City Reform synagogue to equip rabbis with tools to counter what he said was “the growing influence of an anti-Zionist element” in the next generation of Jewish clergy.
The initiative, Amplify Israel, is housed at his Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, and employs another rabbi, Tracy Kaplowitz, to work full-time to galvanize leaders from across the Reform movement to support Israel. Kaplowitz jokes that her new job won’t be complete “until every Reform Jew is a Zionist.”
Hirsch knows the new coalition is complicating his task. “The new government is going to make our promotion of Israel more difficult in the United States,” he said, noting that the government “has elements in it that are deeply problematic and even offensive to most American Jews.”
He and Kaplowitz contend that it is possible, in their view, for rabbis to criticize aspects of the Israeli government from the pulpit while still remaining broadly supportive of the Jewish state and encouraging their congregants to be the same. They also say the need to build Zionist sentiment within the American rabbinate transcends any particular moment, including this one.
“If we have to transform how we connect to Israel each time there’s an election, we’ll be driving ourselves a little bit batty,” Kaplowitz said.
Rabbi Tracy Kaplowitz is a full-time Israel Fellow at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City. She jokes that her job won’t be finished “until every Reform Jew is a Zionist.” (Ryen Greiss/Stephen Wise Free Synagogue)
Hirsch sits on the advisory board of another new pro-Israel initiative, the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition. Helmed by Stuart Weinblatt, senior rabbi at Conservative Congregation B’nai Tzedek in Potomac, Maryland, the group is an interdenominational network of more than 200 rabbis who advocate to ”strengthen the ties between American Jewry and the State of Israel.”
Weinblatt hews to an early generation’s view of how rabbis should approach Israel from the pulpit. He told JTA that he believes his colleagues should always be supportive of Israel in public, even if they choose to pressure the Israeli government and advocate against certain policies in private — which, he says, is “the appropriate vehicle” for voicing concerns. “My position has always been that support for Israel should be unconditional,” he said.
“If we as rabbis are sharply critical of Israel, the result can often lead to a distancing from Israel, which ultimately may diminish the connection people feel to Judaism and the Jewish people,” he added. “People do not always distinguish and differentiate between opposition to a particular policy and broader criticisms of Israel which can do lasting damage.”
Asked whether the Israeli government could ever conceivably take a step that would necessitate a public response from American rabbis, Weinblatt ruminated for days. He ultimately told JTA that the current debate around proposed changes to the Law of Return, the Israeli policy that allows anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent to claim citizenship, would be such an example, as that is a policy that would have a direct effect on Diaspora Jews.
Tightening who is eligible under the Law of Return is in fact a goal of some elements of Israel’s governing coalition, although the Diaspora minister assured an audience in the United States that, unlike with the proposed changes to the government’s judicial system — which have earned criticism across the political spectrum — there would be an effort to build consensus and no changes would happen overnight.
Still, the prospect of such a change so alarmed Rabbi Hillel Skolnick of Congregation Tifereth Israel in Columbus, Ohio, that he traveled to Jerusalem to address the Knesset, Israel’s lawmaking body.
“The members of my congregation and my movement have a spiritual connection with Judaism and also a political connection because we live in a democracy, so they see a Jewish democracy as an ideal that they can look to as a light unto the nations,” he said, in a speech he delivered as a representative of the Conservative/Masorti movement.
“By even questioning the idea of the Law of Return,” he went on, Israel “takes away from both the Jewish connection and the democratic connection they have with this country.”
Skolnick suggested that he was unsure of how to speak to his congregation about the new government and its agenda. “My question to you is, what message can I go home with?” he asked.
Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt, founder and chair of the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition, shown with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Weinblatt believes American rabbis’ “support for Israel should be unconditional,” and that disagreements with its government should be hashed out in private. (Courtesy of Stuart Weinblatt)
This week, hundreds of American rabbis will be returning to their congregations with messages honed by a week in Israel. The Reform movement just concluded its biennial convention, which was held there for the first time since before the pandemic. Their visit coincided with major developments in the country’s twin crises: The Knesset advanced the judicial reform legislation, and three people were killed in a Palestinian shooting and subsequent settler riot in the West Bank.
In a sign of the balancing act that American rabbis are navigating, the Reform movement’s leader, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, who has been among the earliest and most outspoken critics of the new Israeli government, will also be a featured speaker at Amplify Israel’s conference this May aiming to encourage Zionist sentiment among Reform Jews.
At the convention, the leader of the Central Conference of American Rabbis called for Reform clergy to move away from defining Israel in stark black-and-white terms — an apparent reference to Jews who speak of “pro-Israel” and “anti-Israel” forces.
“In order to connect better with those in our communities around Israel in a nuanced and meaningful way, we must be able to move beyond the pro/con dichotomy which only serves to divide us in ways that are a distraction to the actual issues at hand,” Rabbi Hara Person told the attendees. During the conference, the rabbis attended and voiced support for Israeli protests against their government.
“We are seeing a shift for the better, in my opinion, about how Jews are feeling comfortable critiquing Israel’s policies,” Rabbi Sarah Brammer-Shlay told JTA last fall, before the Israeli elections. Brammer-Shlay was a signer of the 2021 rabbinical students’ letter who graduated from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and today is a rabbi and chaplain at Grinnell College.
That kind of shift has Weinblatt worried. “Sometimes, rabbis are actually out of sync and out of touch with their congregations, who do want to hear messages of support of Israel,” he said.
That may well be the case, particularly at synagogues with aging populations, but survey data suggests that American Jews are moving to the left on Israel at the same time that Israel itself has shifted to the right. The most recent Pew Research Center survey of American Jews, in 2021, found that most have a negative opinion of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; only one-third think Israel is making a sincere effort to achieve peace with Palestinians; and 10% support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel.
While rabbis typically consider what they think their congregants want to hear, they aren’t bound to say it. And some rabbis say this moment is a time to take a stand, even if there is blowback.
Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsky of Congregation Ansche Chesed, a Conservative congregation on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, announced in December that his congregation would no longer recite the Prayer for the State of Israel, part of most congregations’ Shabbat morning liturgy since 1948. He said the extremism of Israel’s leadership meant the words no longer applied, and replaced the prayer with the more generally worded Prayer for Peace in Jerusalem.
”I couldn’t just say, ‘God, please guide our leaders well,’” Kalmanofsky said, pointing specifically to the fact that extremist politicians Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich were now government ministers who would be the beneficiaries of such prayer. “The things that they’re saying cannot possibly represent the Israel that I want to support.”
Kalmanofsky had not previously been outspoken as a critic of Israeli policy. He said he has faced some tough feedback from some in his community, including from those who believe this is a moment that demands more, not less, prayer for Israel — “not an unreasonable response,” he said. But a month into the liturgy change, he said he is confident he has made the right decision.
“Something really meaningful had changed in the public life of the state of Israel,” he said. “That deserved real recognition, and a real response.”
Continuing to focus on preserving a Jewish connection with Israel without “dealing like grown-ups” with its “very serious problems” would render the rabbinical voice irrelevant, Kalmanofsky said. “At best, we’re kind of like, ‘blind love, blind loyalty.’ And at worst, we’re totally obtuse, and have nothing meaningful to say about the real world.”
“If you’re going to have a pulpit,” Kalmanofsky added, “you’re going to have to use it once in a while.”
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Iran’s regime is obsessed with Jeffrey Epstein
In the hours leading up to the recent ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran, pro-regime AI-generated videos flooded social media. In one widely circulated clip, a Lego version of Donald Trump is shown desperately pleading with Iran for a ceasefire. The response comes in the form of a ballistic missile with the words “in memory of the victims of Epstein’s Island” written on it, hurling toward U.S. allies in the region.
Another video shows a terrified Trump in bed with young girls, having a nightmare of an Iranian missile barrage before waking and agreeing to ceasefire terms while eating a taco — a reference to the acronym “TACO” (“Trump Always Chickens Out”).
These videos are just some of the dozens released by media organizations affiliated with the Iranian regime that invoke pedophile sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein in its anti-Western propaganda.
“The IRGC is very happy to use him in every venue they have—in media, newspapers, speeches,” said Saeid Golkar, an Iranian-born expert on the Iran regime’s propaganda, using the acronym for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “Everything they are talking about, especially right now, goes back to the corruption of the West and Epstein.”
Golkar, who grew up exposed to regime messaging, said the fixation on Epstein reflects a broader ideological goal: convincing Iranians that the West is a place of moral decay.
“From the beginning, one of the pillars of the Islamic Republic’s ideology was anti-Westernism and portraying the West as a corrupt place,” he said. “There is no respect for families or values … no limitation for sexual interaction. I remember the phrase ‘living like pigs’ — that they are living together like animals. That was a big concept.”
Golkar says the Epstein files released by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this year have been a “gift” to the regime, offering a concrete example of the Western immorality it hopes to present to its people. When Iranians express a desire for a “normal life” without Sharia law or morality police, the regime invokes Epstein.
“They say, ‘You don’t want a normal life — you want a corrupted life…. These people don’t care about your freedom. They are a group of pedophiles.’” This, despite the fact that girls can be legally married in Iran at the age of 13, and even younger with the approval of a male guardian and judge.
The Baal game
One of the most prominent features of pro-regime rallies in Iran is the burning of Baal statues. The figure of Baal — meaning “lord” in ancient Semitic languages — is referenced in the Old Testament as a rival to the God of the Israelites. Historically, Baal was a fertility deity associated with rain and agricultural prosperity. Later interpretations and conspiracy theorists came to portray the worship of Baal as tied to sexual deviance and child sacrifice.
A popular online conspiracy theory ties Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators to Baal, pointing to a viral document from the Epstein files that appears to show bank transfer details with the name “Baal.name” listed where a financial institution would typically appear. They interpret this as evidence that Epstein maintained an account connected to the deity, suggesting he may have worshiped Baal or been involved in ritual abuse. Popular right-wing influencer Candace Owens weighed in with a video titled, “BAAL SO HARD: The Epstein Files,” where she referred to Jews as “pagan gypsies.” It has almost 3 million views.
Fact-checkers have disputed the interpretation of the bank document, noting that “Baal.name” is likely a misreading or formatting artifact of “Bank Name,” and that the actual account name — Clearlake Centre, LLC — is clearly identified elsewhere in the record.
On numerous occasions, the Iranian regime has staged the burning of Baal statues in major cities during pro-regime rallies, sometimes even coordinating multiple burnings across the country. Mehr News Agency, a state-owned Iranian news network, reported on one such rally in early February, writing: “Participants set fire to the symbolic Baal idol, describing the act as a representation of condemnation over crimes linked to Jeffrey Epstein’s island, where children were abused.”
These events are often accompanied by chants of “Death to America,” “Death to Israel,” or “God is Great.” In some cases, the statues have been marked with a painted Star of David.
The Baal figure has also appeared in many of the AI-generated videos circulating online amidst the war. In one, created by pro-regime media organization Explosive Media, Lego versions of a drunken Pete Hegseth and Trump are paired with a rap track: “We hitting the Baal-worshipping Epstein Island crew, the ones who hurt the kids. Revenge for every American soul you and Trump’s dirty crew oppressed and did. We taking payback for the girls you broke.”
Though Explosive Media claims it is not directly affiliated with the Iranian government, Golkar said he has seen evidence suggesting it operates as part of the IRGC’s media apparatus. The regime has also acknowledged granting tiered internet access to select individuals tasked with amplifying official messaging. In early March, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said full internet access had been given to those “who can carry the voice of the government further.” Explosive Media, which says it has 2.5 million followers across Iranian messaging platforms, has cited its status as a media organization to explain its continued access. This has prompted experts like Moustafa Ayad, a researcher with the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, to raise questions about how closely it is connected with the state.
Another video, played on Iranian state TV, depicts figures the regime frames as victims of the West — a Native American man, a Gazan child, an Epstein victim, and former Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US strike in 2019 — gazing skyward as an Iranian missile strikes the Statue of Liberty. In this version, the statue is reimagined as Baal holding a Talmud. Upon impact, both sink into the Hudson River.
The Epstein fixation extends beyond rallies and social media. Golkar said Epstein is frequently referenced in official Basij (a plainclothes paramilitary volunteer militia in Iran) and IRGC materials, as well as in speeches by Iranian officials. Just two days before his assassination, Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, posted on X, “It has been reported that what remains of Epstein’s network is working to prepare a conspiracy aimed at fabricating an incident similar to the September 11 attacks, in preparation for accusing Iran of being behind it.”
In another post in response to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Laranjani posted on X, “Mr. Hegseth! Our leaders have been, and still are, among the people. But your leaders? On Epstein’s island!”
The Epstein War?
These propaganda videos are largely made in English. With Iran still in a media blackout, the Iranian people may not be their intended audience.
Shaping global perception through media is a key part of the Iranian war strategy. In a meeting with a group of Iranian poets in 2024, Ayatollah Khamenei, who was assassinated on the first day of the war, stated, “All war is a media war. Whichever actor has greater media influence will achieve their goals.”
The IRGC has spent years building a media apparatus designed to do just that. IRGC-affiliated production studios, media-focused university programs, and cultural centers are dedicated to training and refining propaganda content. Iran also outsources some of its media production to countries more attuned to Western cultural cues, particularly Pakistan.
A key element of the regime’s narrative is the claim that the Trump administration initiated the war to distract from the Epstein files. This theory has also circulated on both the left and the right in the United States.
In Washington D.C., posters cover the streets referring to the War in Iran, formally titled Operation Epic Fury, as Operation Epstein Fury.
U.S. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky posted on X shortly after the war began, garnering over 250 thousand likes, “Bombing a country on the other side of the globe won’t make the Epstein files go away, any more than the Dow going above 50,000 will.”
The popular podcaster Joe Rogan espoused the theory on a recent episode, stating, “Look, the Epstein files comes out — we go to war with Iran. It’s a good way to get people to stop talking about certain things.”
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Dan Bilzerian wants to ‘kill Israelis’ and thinks Judaism is ‘terrible.’ Now he’s running for Congress.
(JTA) — Dan Bilzerian, the mega-influencer who’s spread conspiracy theories about Jews and said he wants to “kill Israelis,” is running for Congress.
Bilzerian registered this week to run in the Republican primary against the Jewish far-right firebrand Rep. Randy Fine in Florida’s sixth district. Bilzerian initially gained fame for his Instagram photos alongside bikini-clad women but has since become a vocal critic of Israel and Jews — and has repeatedly called Fine a “fat Jew” in the lead-up to his campaign launch.
In a TMZ interview after Bilzerian announced his candidacy, the outlet’s Jewish founder, Harvey Levin, questioned the influencer on whether his use of the phrase “fat Jew” was antisemitic.
“[Fine] literally talks about how Muslims are lower than dogs, so, is that Islamophobic?” Bilzerian shot back. Fine drew bipartisan criticism for his comments earlier this year.
“Yes,” TMZ’s Levin and Charles Latibeaudiere responded. (Bilzerian added that Fine “tweets that, and he’s a senator,” though Fine is actually a member of the U.S. House of Representatives who was formerly a state senator.)
Bilzerian responded to a follow-up question by denying that he’s antisemitic — and questioning the term “antisemitism” altogether, saying it’s been “hijacked to only talk about Jews.”
“No, I’m not antisemitic. I think that that’s kind of a made-up term, I think the Palestinians are the real Semites,” Bilzerian said.
“Was Hitler antisemitic?” Levin asked.
Bilzerian did not say.
“Like I said, the term is focused solely on Jews, but actual Semites are the Arabs,” he answered. “And Palestinians are Semites as well. They actually have more DNA lineage to that region than any of the Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews that have taken it from them.”
The comments were nothing new for Bilzerian, who has 30 million followers on Instagram and 2 million on X. He regularly tweets opinions like “Jewish supremacy is the greatest threat to the world today,” questions the accuracy of the statistic that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust, and reposts clips of avowed antisemite Nick Fuentes.
But now, Bilzerian’s foray into electoral politics could serve as a test of the popularity of an emerging, anti-Israel faction within the Republican party headlined by figures like Tucker Carlson and Fuentes, who’ve espoused conspiracy theories about Jews.
Those figures’ opposition to the war in Iran have sped up their dissent from President Donald Trump. During the TMZ interview, Bilzerian said Fine should be tried for treason for putting “Israel before America,” and also criticized Trump for being “Israel first.” He has tweeted that Trump “needs to be impeached.”
(Ironically, Fine introduced a bill that would ban dual citizens from serving in Congress, and Bilzerian is a dual American-Armenian citizen.)
Bilzerian is not the only anti-Israel Republican challenger to Fine, a staunch Israel supporter who’s been backed by AIPAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition.
“I appreciate @DanBilzerian‘s zeal to take @RepFine out of Congress. I’ve been working tirelessly for one year on the same goal,” wrote Aaron Baker, who’s been endorsed by the Anti-Zionist America PAC. “I would however also appreciate if Dan ran for FL-16 much closer to where he grew up. Make @AIPAC spend $ defending more seats. Divide and conquer.” FL-16’s current representative, Vern Buchanan, was endorsed by AIPAC in 2024.
But Bilzerian, with his 29.6 million followers on Instagram and 2.1 million on X, brings a larger national audience to the congressional primary.
“I’d never heard of this guy before, until a couple of days ago, but having watched your interview, it’s clear that he simply doesn’t like Jews. In America you’re allowed to do that,” Fine said on a TMZ appearance following Bilzerian’s. But, he continued, “I don’t think it’s going to work out to become a congressman, having that perspective.”
Bilzerian gained many of his followers when he was the “king of Instagram,” posting photos of himself surrounded by scantily clad women, sports cars and with large guns. In June 2015, Bilzerian said he would be running for president, though by December he’d gotten behind the candidacy of Trump.
Before that, he’d served four years in the U.S. Navy starting in 1999, and dropped out of the University of Florida to play professional poker. His father, Paul Bilzerian, is a businessman who, as a corporate takeover specialist, was sentenced to four years in prison for federal crimes including fraud and criminal conspiracy.
In the months after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and the ensuing war in Gaza, Bilzerian’s social media presence began taking its current shape of focusing predominantly on Israel and, eventually, Jews.
“Do you think the Israeli attacks on Gaza are justified or f–ked up?” Bilzerian asked his followers on Nov. 6, 2023. By 2024, the occasional surveys he took of his followers became pointedly focused on Jews.
“Who causes the majority of the worlds problems,” he asked, with users overwhelmingly voting for the multiple-choice option “16 million Jews.”
In January 2025, Bilzerian asked his followers whether Hitler was a “good person,” a “terrible person,” or if they didn’t know. A third of the 178,000 voters said Hitler was a “good person,” and another 23% said they didn’t know.
Bilzerian laid out his views on Jewish people in a 2024 interview with conservative commentator Patrick Bet-David, during which he said Jews “knew about 9/11” and “had JFK assassinated.”
Later that year, conservative media personality Piers Morgan asked Bilzerian how many Jews he believed died in the Holocaust.
“I don’t know, but I would bet my entire net worth that it was under 6 million,” Bilzerian said.
According to FEC filings, Bilzerian’s campaign treasurer is Patrick Krason. Krason was also the treasurer for the short-lived presidential campaign of Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, another public figure who’s spread conspiracy theories about Jews.
Bilzerian has promoted the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, claiming that Jews control the media and are using that position to push an “anti-white agenda” and replace whites with non-white immigrants.
“It started with the jewish owned news stations telling us ‘white supremacy is the greatest threat to America,’” Bilzerian wrote last year. “Whites were replaced in movies & streaming networks. Then the Jewish exec run Blackrock forced DEI on all major corps.”
Bilzerian often cites passages from the Talmud to make claims about Jewish beliefs, such as that Jews approve of stealing and raping as long as the crimes are committed against non-Jews. Other figures like Candace Owens have similarly taken passages from the Talmud, but rabbis have criticized those figures for using quotes that are mistranslated and often taken out of context from the text, which includes centuries of rabbinic debates and is not a formal code of laws.
During a stream with the influencer Sneako, who has also spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, Bilzerian said he supports “exterminating Israel” and that he “would sign up tomorrow and go f—king put boots on the ground and go f—king kill Israelis.”
“Give me a rifle and send me the f–k over there,” he said, adding, “I truly believe that the majority of that country is evil.”
On Morgan’s show, Bilzerian said Judaism innately promotes “Jewish supremacy,” and pointed to the State of Israel as being the result of that ideology.
“Israel is a manifestation of that religion,” he said. “And I think that religion is terrible.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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After AIPAC-backed primary loss, Tom Malinowski endorses rival who says Israel committed genocide
(JTA) — After Tom Malinowski narrowly lost a primary in which AIPAC spent $2.3 million against him, critics said AIPAC’s plan backfired as it had inadvertently boosted a candidate farther from its pro-Israel agenda.
Now, Malinowski has thrown his support behind that victor, the Bernie Sanders-backed progressive Analilia Mejia.
“A couple of months ago, Analilia and I were rivals for the Democratic nomination,” Malinowski said in a video posted on Thursday afternoon. “Together, we are here united as Democrats in common cause.”
The video, which featured a friendly Malinowski and Mejia seated next to each other, was released ahead of her special election next week, and emphasized the need for Democrats to “take back the House.” Neither politician mentioned Israel or AIPAC in the video, though both politicians slammed the lobbying group following their tight primary race.
After Mejia’s victory back in February, AIPAC brushed off criticism that its attack ads against Malinowski — who describes himself as “pro-Israel” but crossed the group’s red line of supporting conditions on military aid — inadvertently contributed to Mejia’s win. Mejia has been harsher in her criticism of Israel and, unlike Malinowski, refers to its war in Gaza as a “genocide.”
But Mejia, an AIPAC spokesperson said, was only nominated for a special election that would fill the seat vacated by Gov. Mikie Sherrill through the end of 2026.
“The real race for the full congressional term is in the June primary, and we’re going to take a close look at that,” said Patrick Dorton, spokesperson for AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project.
But if AIPAC had its sights set on supplanting Mejia come June, those plans may have been complicated by her newfound support from Malinowski, a popular politician in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District.
Meanwhile, on Friday morning, Mejia was endorsed by J Street, the liberal pro-Israel group that supports a growing number of candidates who back conditions on military aid to Israel. J Street’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, blasted AIPAC in a Substack column following the February primary. He also wrote positively about Malinowski, but did not mention Mejia in the column.
“I look forward to working in partnership in our shared commitment against antisemitism, bigotry and hate,” Mejia wrote, accepting J Street’s endorsement.
On Tuesday, Mejia appeared at Temple Ner Tamid, a Reform synagogue in Bloomfield, New Jersey, for a conversation with its rabbi about issues of Jewish concern including Israel and synagogue security. (Joe Hathaway, the Republican nominee, joined the congregation for a conversation the night before.)
“I’m running for congress to give every person in NJ-11 a voice – that’s why I’m committed to listening to folks from every corner of our community,” Mejia wrote after the event.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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