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Amid revolt against ‘Israel lobby,’ J Street seeks elusive middle ground in primaries
A website and social media posts from “Track AIPAC,” associated with a group called Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption, is targeting members of Congress it hopes to unseat in the upcoming primary season with large dollar figures alongside their photos, declaring them captive of the “pro-Israel lobby.”
Such posts give the impression that the candidates have received significant financial support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest group working to elect candidates who support Israel uncritically — which has made clear this election year that it will not provide support to candidates who even mention conditioning U.S. aid to Israel.
But the Track AIPAC dollar figures in many cases also include contributions from other fundraising committees whose aims are at odds with AIPAC’s, such as J Street, a progressive group that is trying to push Israel to change direction as it carries out a new war alongside the U.S.
It’s just one attempt to lump together all campaign funding groups that recognize Israel’s right to exist and the candidates they support as targets for defeat in this year’s primary elections, no matter how critical they have been of the Israeli government. The tactic is aimed at voters in a party where support for Israel has collapsed, and risks obscuring where candidates stand on crucial questions as voters head to the polls.
Against that backdrop, J Street is holding its line while focusing on its lane in 2026: Endorse only candidates committed to Israel as a Jewish state, but who also advocate changes for the direction of Israel’s government.
“The minimum is the recognition that there must be, and there is an Israel that is the national homeland of the Jewish people,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street’s president, said in a recent interview. “If you don’t want to say that out loud publicly, you won’t be on our list.”
Ben-Ami himself has shifted his position on Israel in recent years. Last August, Ben-Ami wrote that he was “persuaded” by the claim that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, after rejecting the term throughout most of the nearly two-year military campaign. Earlier in the war, he had described the military’s conduct as a “moral stain on the state of Israel.”
J Street also supported the pair of resolutions introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Jewish Vermont Independent and longtime critic of U.S. aid to Israel, to block weapons transfers to Israel. A record 27 Senate Democrats — a majority of the caucus — voted in favor. And even before that, J Street urged oversight of U.S. military assistance to Israel.
Where J Street fits in
Founded in 2007, the organization describes itself as a pro-Israel, pro-peace and pro-democracy group that supports a two-state solution and diplomacy to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its federal political action committee, launched in 2009, has gradually expanded its list of endorsees as it seeks to position itself as a bridge between pro-Israel voices and the party’s progressive wing.
This cycle, J Street PAC is backing 133 House and Senate incumbents as well as Democratic challengers running against Republican incumbents. The group has also approved several candidates competing in open Democratic primaries, allowing its donor network to support their campaigns. In one New York race, J Street endorsed the incumbent, Rep. Dan Goldman, and also “approved” his challenger, former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.
Even the minimal recognition of Israel and support for U.S. defense aid to the Jewish state have increasingly become a political flashpoint in Democratic primaries.
In some competitive races, progressive candidates critical of the U.S.–Israel alliance have gained traction, benefiting from crowded fields or backlash to heavy outside spending. That dynamic has been visible in contests such as the New Jersey special election for a House seat, where progressive candidate Analilia Mejia prevailed after an AIPAC-associated super PAC spent more than $2 million targeting former Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, a J Street–approved candidate.
Ahead of next Tuesday’s Illinois primary, another super PAC aligned with AIPAC, Elect Chicago Women, has targeted the frontrunner, Daniel Biss, contributing to the rise in polling of a younger Palestinian-American candidate, Kat Abughazaleh. J Street is backing Biss.
AIPAC has become increasingly controversial among mainstream Democrats for backing pro-Israel Republicans who joined President Donald Trump’s crusade to question the 2020 election results. That opposition deepened during the Gaza war as Democratic voters became more polarized over U.S. policy on Israel. Many congressional candidates, including some Jewish Democrats, have promised not to take contributions from AIPAC. The group has also drawn attacks from white nationalists and some leaders of the MAGA movement.
The test: A future for Israel
Amid the larger conflict, J Street is trying to define a middle ground.
Ben-Ami outlined the organization’s red lines for endorsements during J Street’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, saying the group looks for candidates who acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security needs while avoiding unconditional support for its government. “If you’re in favor of a complete arms embargo against Israel, and you don’t recognize that Israel should be the national homeland of the Jewish people, you won’t come anywhere near our list,” Ben-Ami said.
The strategy reflects a broader shift in progressive politics, where Israel policy and Palestinian rights — once a marginal issue in most congressional races — have become a litmus test for progressive candidates seeking to define themselves against establishment Democrats. Recent polls showed the wider tensions within the Democratic Party, which loomed large in the 2024 presidential election in the wake of the Gaza war — and now opposition to the war in Iran — are likely to shape the midterm elections.
Gallup, which has tracked Americans’ views of Israel for more than two decades, found that sympathy for Palestinians in the decadeslong Middle East conflict has jumped 22 percentage points over the past two years. Only 17% of Democrats now sympathize more with Israel.
J Street’s leaders reject that characterization. Ben-Ami said polling on Israel shouldn’t be a zero-sum choice. He faulted some established pro-Israel organizations for pushing a binary framework that pressures people to pick one side or the other, which he sees as a “self-defeating approach” that has backfired politically. J Street, he said, tries to create space for candidates who acknowledge both the trauma of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel and the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza. Ben-Ami added that many voters hold both views at once and are looking for leaders with clarity on the issue.
For some progressive activists, however, the distinction is: any organization that defends Israel as a Jewish state is increasingly treated as part of the same establishment.
Massively outspent
Also looming over J Street as it tries to reach voters is AIPAC’s vastly bigger bank account.
AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, spent $28 million in high-stakes Democratic primaries in 2024. The group has already invested more than $7.3 million of the $78 million it raised in the 2026 election cycle, and its affiliated Illinois group, Elect Chicago Women, has to date spent an additional $5.7 million to defeat Biss in the March 17 primary for the open seat in Illinois’ 9th District.
J Street hasn’t been able to match that scale, even as it framed its efforts as a counterweight to AIPAC spending. J Street raised $3 million for the J Street Action Fund super PAC for spending in competitive House and Senate races.
Ben-Ami said J Street plans to be “very targeted” in deploying its resources to influence key races, particularly contests that could determine control of Congress or where candidates aligned with its positions are facing attacks backed by AIPAC spending.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project, a progressive research group, said it plans to spend $2 million in ads this cycle, targeting Republicans over their support for Israel and backing Democrats in favor of blocking weapons to Israel.
Democratic Majority for Israel, a mainstream Democratic-affiliated political action committee, said its budget for the midterms exceeds “seven figures.” Brian Romick, DMFI’s president, said in an interview that his group’s “number one goal” will be to help Democrats take back the House “with a pro-Israel majority.” Its primary spending, he said, will support candidates who’d increase the odds of a Democrat winning the seat.
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Some named names, some didn’t, but it’s not just a story of good guys and bad guys
It was written in 1972 and takes place between 1947 and 1959. It consists of testimony given before the infamous House Committee on Un-American Activities, which damaged or destroyed the lives of many people in the entertainment world during the Communist scare and the blacklisting of the 1940s and 50s. But for its Tony-winning director, Anna D. Shapiro, Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been, a docudrama that is being revived at New York City Center, is relevant today — in more ways than one.
“I think that everybody will enter this play from a different perspective, because it’s in conversation with things that we’re dealing with as a country right now,” Shapiro told me over the phone. “For instance, my producer, Jeffrey Richards, who is of a certain generation, for him, it’s just deeply about freedom of expression. He has spent his whole life making art, championing artists, and the idea that he feels like we’re moving towards, which we clearly are, is a more fascist behavior around freedom of expression. He wants to remind people how dangerous some of these moves from the current administration are.”
“But I’m just a little bit younger than Jeffrey,” Shapiro, 60, continued. “I did the play when I was in college. So I was probably 22, 23, actually, just finishing college. And it was very clear then, right? It was about good guys and bad guys, and it was very easy to demonize the people who named names and champion the people who were brave enough not to name names. And now, as I’m older, I realize there’s a lot more complexity when the entire system is coming after you in a way that makes you feel like your entire livelihood is threatened. So on one level, it’s one thing for Arthur Miller not to name names. It was Arthur Miller. They weren’t going to be able to destroy Arthur Miller. But it’s another thing for an actor whose career is fading and who doesn’t have any control over his destiny to be kind of pushed into naming names. And I think that that’s what interests me, which is how difficult it becomes to be good in America, how difficult that is becoming, how terrifying and terrorizing the current administration is.”
The play, by Eric Bentley, highlights testimony by some of those — Jerome Robbins, Elia Kazan, Larry Parks, Abe Burrows — who named names of Communist Party associates and some of those who didn’t, such as Arthur Miller, Paul Robeson, Lillian Hellman, Lionel Stander. It features a rotating cast that includes Steven Pasquale, Molly Ringwald, Santino Fontana and Bob Odenkirk.
Bentley, who died in 2020 at age 103, taught dramatic literature at Columbia University during the 1950’s and 60s. He was a champion and translator of the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Shapiro won her Tony for Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County and is a former artistic director of the famed Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. Most recently on Broadway she directed the Tony-winning revival of Eureka Day.
‘Of course they were antisemitic’
Six of the Hollywood Ten screenwriters and directors who were blacklisted and sent to prison for their refusals to testify were Jews. In the Bentley play, Miller, Robbins, Hellman, Stander and Burrows are Jewish.
As the play records, one key committee member, John E. Rankin of Mississippi, a known racist who was called out for his antisemitism, insisted on reading out the birth names of actors who he presumed to be Jewish, such as June Havoc (June Hovick), Danny Kaye (David Daniel Kaminsky), Eddie Cantor (Edward Iskowitz), Edward G. Robinson (Emanuel Goldenberg) and Melvyn Douglas (Melvyn Hesselberg).
“Of course they were antisemitic,” Shapiro said. “One of the things that they went out of their way to point out was how many of the actors and directors in Hollywood had changed their names and that their original names were so clearly Jewish. For them, this exposed a kind of nefariousness. They assumed a nefarious intent, as opposed to being what it really was, which was a way for Jews to defend themselves and keep themselves safe from antisemitism by changing their names, to be able to be in the public eye in a way that was less dangerous for them.”
The committee, she said, “twisted that and said, see, all these people, all of these people in Hollywood, are pretending not to be Jews, but they are, and they’re the problem.”
Actually, though, she said, “when you really look at what being a quote-unquote Communist was in this time, for the most part, these were essentially Democratic socialists. They were people who had gotten a little lucky, were making a little money. Many of them for the first time in their families. And they wanted to help the underdog. They wanted to look at what was corrupt in the system and make things better for people. They weren’t ‘burn the system down.’ They weren’t those people.”
Many Jews were victims of blacklisting, but many top executives in Hollywood who perpetrated or supported blacklisting were themselves Jewish. One reason, of course, was fear of the committee and other anti-Communist zealots like Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. But there was another.
“I think that’s our complex history, isn’t it?” Shapiro said. “And we’re in a complex moment as Jewish people. We have been in such a conversation with our existential threats. And what we think of as the solution to that very, very real historic and current threat. And what I appreciate about you bringing that up is that Jews are not a monolith. Right now, that’s happening again, right? I disagree actively with my older brother, right? Now, what we don’t disagree with each other about is that we’re Jews.”
Making an impact
Although Shapiro says her family were not practicing Jews, she said she is very conscious of her Jewish heritage. “My mother didn’t practice primarily because she was a Marxist and she didn’t believe in God. And also, quite frankly, she was raised in a very conservative Jewish household. And the sexism of her day, of when they were in shul, the women were upstairs. Every Friday night, her grandmother would cook everything and eat in the kitchen. So she saw a lot of the sexism. And that really made her walk away from her Judaism. But with both of my parents, whenever Judaism was being attacked or somebody wanted to take it away from them, they would fight for it.”
“What I’ve realized, Shapiro went on to say, “is how without practicing, without going to shul, without even celebrating Passover, my Judaism is in my body, and it informs decisions I make. I think it’s the reason that I’ve done so much work around equity and systemic racism and systemic sexism. I think I essentially understand that part of my task is to seek justice, and to make an impact in the world.”
So what impact would she like the play to make on audiences?
“I always say that I direct plays really for one reason, and that is to make the audience’s world bigger. And that really only happens two ways, right? You go into a theater and you either see something familiar and you go, wow, there’s other people like me, or you go into the theater and you see something so different from your own experience and you think, my God, the world is so much bigger than I know. In this play, based on the way that you calibrate the performances, you can either make a very black and white statement, or you can make more nuanced and ambiguous statements.”
She agrees with the philosophy, she said, that every society’s survival is based on its ability to embrace ambiguity.
“And where we are right now — and I’m not even talking about on the right, because I don’t have anything to say about the right. They’re very confusing to me. So I can only speak to the people with whom I share essential beliefs. I think that we are not talking to one another well. I think we are looking at black and white and good and evil, and it’s way more complex than that. So I hope people come away going, wow, I really thought it was just going to be like the good guys who didn’t name names and the bad guys who named names.”
‘Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been’ runs through Sept. 11 at City Center in New York.
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Israel dominates debate as Rep. Dan Goldman defends seat in referendum on Zionism
American support for Israel and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict emerged as a central point of contention during the first televised Democratic primary debate between Rep. Dan Goldman and former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander on Tuesday night.
Lander, who identifies as a liberal Zionist, is challenging Goldman with the support of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, in a campaign that has gone after Goldman as allegedly out of step with Democratic voters who seek change in Israel.
Recent events in and near the 10th Congressional District, in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan, provided plenty of fodder. The Celebrate Israel parade, the vote by members of the Park Slope Food Coop to boycott Israeli products, military assistance for Israel and investments in Israel bonds made up the first 15 minutes of the one-hour debate, hosted by Spectrum News NY1.
The exchange highlighted growing divisions within the Democratic Party over Israel and the war in Gaza.
“With all due respect, we’re now 10 minutes into this, and we’ve only spoken about Israel,” Goldman, a two-term incumbent, complained. “Israel is not the most important issue in this district.” The district voted heavily for Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel. Jewish voters make up an estimated 20% of the electorate.
“This is one of the significant moral and humanity challenges of our time, and our representative failed,” Lander pushed back, citing Goldman’s support for U.S. aid to Israel and refusal to call the war in Gaza a genocide. In his opening remarks, Lander criticized Goldman for accepting donations from AIPAC, the U.S. campaign fundraising group allied with the Israeli government.
The Goldman-Lander contest is expected to serve as an early test of Mamdani’s political influence following his upset victory in the mayoral race. Mamdani and Lander cross-endorsed each other in the mayoral race, and Mamdani made his endorsement of Lander for Congress along with democratic socialists in two other congressional primaries. Recent polling has shown Goldman trailing Lander.
Both candidates, who describe themselves as liberal Zionists, drew sharp contrasts over their approach to the conflict in the Middle East and the movement to boycott Israel.
Lander defended his decision not to march this year the annual Israel parade by pointing to the participation of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition who has made past controversial statements, including advocating for the displacement of Palestinians. “We shouldn’t be marching with war criminals,” Lander said.
However, Lander announced he would not attend the parade before it was publicly known that Smotrich would participate in the event, and shortly after Mamdani announced that he too would skip. Smotrich’s appearance drew little attention during the march itself. The Israeli minister joined the march at East 63rd Street along the route and walked primarily with a delegation of Knesset members. His participation sparked backlash afterward, with prominent Democrats condemning his appearance and critics of Israel excoriating Democratic elected officials who marched along the same route.
In an interview on Monday, Mamdani said he’s “offended” by the participation of Smotrich, saying he represents “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.”
Goldman defended his march. “I was unaware” of Smotrich joining the parade, he said. “And I am incredibly disappointed that that occurred.”
Israel appeared again in the cross-examination period, with Goldman asking Lander to explain why he left the Democratic Socialists of America after Oct. 7, 2023 — with Lander citing a “heinous” rally DSA promoted on Oct. 8 cheering on the attacks.
In the debate Lander emphasized his support for Israel as a Jewish state that is also one where Palestinian rights thrive.
In remarks on Sunday, ahead of the parade, Goldman spoke about the stakes of the race in an appeal to Jewish voters. “It’s a difficult time for many of us, but what we need is more than anything is moral clarity,” Goldman said at the Met Council annual legislative breakfast. “We need to stand for what we believe in, and I will do that right through the tape with the support of many of you.”
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Canada ‘is failing Jewish Canadians,’ prime minister says as he unveils effort to address antisemitism
(JTA) — Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney announced on Monday a new government body to combat racism, saying its first priority would be tackling antisemitism.
Carney addressed Canada’s surge in antisemitic hate crimes during a speech at Holy Blossom Synagogue, Toronto’s oldest Jewish congregation. He said the government had to “start with clearly admitting that Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians.”
Carney referenced the wave of attacks on Canadian Jews since Oct. 7, 2023, including bullets fired at synagogues and Jewish schools and attacks on Jewish businesses, community centers and Holocaust memorials.
Over two-thirds of the country’s religion-motivated hate crimes last year were directed at Jewish Canadians, who make up only 1% of the population, he said.
Carney said the government was responding by launching the Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion, with the mission of advising Canada’s government on combating all forms of hate.
“I am directing that the first responsibility of that council is to address antisemitism,” he said.
The council will be chaired by the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, Marc Miller. Carney also announced that Marc Gold, a lawyer and Jewish community leader who retired last year from the Senate of Canada, will join the council.
Carney said the council will be tasked with reassessing the nature, scale and drivers of antisemitism, developing a whole-of-government approach to align federal policies and public safety programs, improving the collection of data on hate incidents, and measuring the impact of government efforts.
Several Jewish organizations are likely to be disappointed that Carney’s announcement did not include more sweeping enforcement measures against antisemitism.
Rich Robertson, the director of research and advocacy at B’nai Brith Canada, said the speech was a “missed opportunity.” The organization was advocating for a task force that could respond immediately to antisemitic incidents and a commission of inquiry to identify their root causes, he said.
“We were hoping for true tactical changes that could positively be actioned to change the lived experience of Jewish Canadians, and unfortunately, that is not what we received today,” Robertson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Pressures on Carney were mounting ahead of the speech. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, an advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations of Canada, pushed for him to strengthen law enforcement.
“Government and law enforcement must address the drivers of this crisis, including radicalization, promotion of terrorism, and terrorist entities operating here in Canada,” CIJA said in a statement shortly before Carney’s address.
The group added, “The Prime Minister has an opportunity to set the tone from the highest office to make clear that nothing can justify the hatred, intimidation, and violence Jewish Canadians are experiencing and that every tool at the government’s disposal will be used to confront it.”
Carney’s messages about Israel, Gaza and antisemitism have divided Jewish voters. In September, he led Canada to officially recognizing a Palestinian state. He said in October that he would fulfill the commitment of his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited Canada. (The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza in 2024.) Last week, he spoke with Israeli President Isaac Herzog about the experiences of Canadians detained after trying to sail to bring aid to Gaza.
But Carney, the leader of Israel’s Liberal Party, has also introduced public safety legislation supported by national Jewish organizations, including CIJA and B’nai Brith Canada. Most significant among them is Bill C-9, which would strengthen Canada’s criminal code by creating new offenses for intimidation and obstruction at houses of worship, schools and community centers used by religious groups.
That bill has also faced backlash from free speech advocates, including both Jewish conservatives and progressives. Pro-Palestinian Jewish groups say that it would wrongly criminalize protesting against events like real estate sales for Israeli settlements in the West Bank if they take place in synagogues.
Carney appeared to acknowledge those criticisms in his announcement of the new ministerial council.
“I want to be clear about what these measures are and what they are not,” he said. “They are not curtailments of freedom of expression. They are not constraints on legitimate criticism of any government on any subject anywhere. But they are the basic standards we owe one another in our shared public institutions.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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