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As day school educators gather, focus is on investing in leadership and creativity
When Rabbi Adam Englander arrived at a recent national gathering in Denver of Jewish day school and yeshiva educators, he had a good sense of what conference sessions he wanted to attend and whom he wanted to meet.
But it turns out that one of the most valuable benefits Englander experienced at the Prizmah educators conference were the serendipitous encounters he had with colleagues and the new opportunities for collaboration and creativity they presented.
As head of school at the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach, or HALB, in Woodmere, New York, Englander’s main focus usually is what’s happening at his school, not elsewhere. But at the conference he met with two colleagues with whom he shares a leadership coach, they created a WhatsApp group chat for sharing ideas, and Englander soon walked away with a new idea for a dynamic workshop to run with his leadership team this summer.
“Already just from this group I have an amazing idea,” Englander said. “That kind of good stuff can happen where you might meet someone who is like, ‘Oh, yeah. I have the same problem as you.’ Now you are connecting with some principal from San Francisco whom you’d never have met in a million years.”
He added, “Day school leaders really need to take the time and energy to invest in themselves, and their own growth.”
“Creative Spirit” was the theme of the conference in January organized by Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools, the national network organization that was created several years ago through a merger of five different day school organizations. The conference in Denver drew more than 1,000 professional and lay leaders from over 200 Jewish day schools and yeshivas across North America. It was the third-ever iteration of Prizmah’s national conference.
With tens of thousands of students spread out over hundreds of schools across the continent, day schools have become laboratories of creativity: for learning, for Jewish action, even for tackling societal challenges.
“Jewish day schools are inherently creative places,” said Prizmah CEO Paul Bernstein. “The exceptional level of shared optimism and imagination around the bright future of Jewish day schools was palpable at the conference. Day school leaders clearly share a belief and innovative determination in the opportunity to grow enrollment in the next decade — by promulgating the value proposition of Jewish day school, ensuring a pipeline of excellent educators and addressing the challenge of affordability.”
A salient example of creativity in action is how day schools adapted to the Covid-19 pandemic, not just adjusting to remote learning and figuring out how to return to classrooms safely, but in reconfiguring teaching approaches to suit different kinds of learning.
“Because of schools’ creativity, and because of the way that different stakeholders in schools — from administrators to teachers to parents to students — were able to work together, they solved these brand new problems we hadn’t seen before,” Bernstein observed.
Another area of tremendous creativity is how Jewish schools are managing the challenges of affordability: Day schools are almost entirely privately funded, tuition is a barrier for many families, and yet tuition fees alone are insufficient to cover costs. In recent years, some schools have adapted innovative and flexible fee models, from setting tuition based on a fixed percentage of a family’s income to using Jewish community grant funding to cap tuition for new families.
Much of the conference was devoted to ideas for the future of Jewish day school education, covering everything from curricula to leadership to finances. One main area of focus is recruiting and retaining quality educators and school leaders.
Debra Skolnick-Einhorn, head of school at the Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School in Washington, D.C., who spoke on a conference panel about professional development, said she believes the key to better educator retention is improving compensation and benefits, providing more opportunities for professional growth, and expressing more gratitude toward staff.
Tal Ben-Shahar, an American-Israeli bestselling author who teaches about the psychology of leadership, spoke at the conference about the importance of investing in leaders.
“It’s important to focus on self-care for the teachers, invest in people in the field,” Ben-Shahar said. “It’s critical to treat teachers well, keep them involved, treat them as professionals, and value their opinions.”
“Jewish day schools are inherently creative places,” said Prizmah CEO Paul Bernstein at the organization’s biennial conference in Denver, January 2023. (Courtesy of Prizmah)
John D’Auria, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of four books on leadership, spoke about how great leaders focus on mutual learning — getting colleagues to share and learn from one another — rather than top-down leadership. It’s an approach embodied by many day school curricula, which focus on collaborative and experiential learning.
At the conference, Lisa Kay Solomon, Louie Montoya, and Ariel Raz from Stanford University’s d.school K12 Futures team offered an art project dubbed Hall of Descendants where participants could create a portrait and message for future children and educators.
“While we can’t predict the future, we know it’s going to be filled with a lot of uncertainty, complexity and tensions that we can’t solve,” Solomon said. “The hall creates a relatability to that distant time travel and a sense of responsibility about what we might do today to serve that future descendant.”
Brad Phillipson, head of school for the Jewish Community Day School of Greater New Orleans, said he found the Hall “a powerful exercise in prioritizing the values with which I most closely identify, personally and professionally, and in contemplating the world I want to pass along to future generations — through our students, through my child, and, indirectly, through what my students, and my daughter, will teach their children.”
Tal Grinfas-David, who led a session at the conference on creative leadership and Israel, said it’s important for leaders to take risks. More often than not, she noted, leaders can be “risk averse to placate, to take safe pathways.”
Grinfas-David, who is vice president of outreach and pre-collegiate school management initiatives at the Atlanta-based Center for Israel Education, turned to Israeli history for examples of leadership that educators could emulate.
“What I wanted them to see was examples of courageous leadership and risk taking and where that could lead,” Grinfas-David said. “Hopefully, they see that leaders of Israel have had to strengthen the future of the state regardless of the circumstances, just as the school leaders need to leave behind a legacy of a stronger institution.”
Bernstein, Prizmah’s CEO, said that the recent gathering underscored how important collaboration is to Jewish education — and that regardless of location or denomination, colleagues have a lot to learn from each other.
“What we are seeing is that when Jewish day school leaders come together, whether you are Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, pluralistic, or nondenominational, whether you are from the Southwest or the Northeast, from the U.S. or Canada and beyond — there is so much more that unites than divides,” Bernstein said.
Prizmah’s next conference will be held in the winter of 2024.
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The post As day school educators gather, focus is on investing in leadership and creativity appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Can an Oklahoma Senate candidate attract voters with an ad tossing out AIPAC ‘trash’?
(JTA) —Oklahoma grassroots activist N’kiyla Jasmine Thomas is facing off on Tuesday against centrist Jim Priest in a Democratic Senate race that has become the latest litmus test for progressive politics in a conservative stronghold.
The two candidates are battling at the ballot box for the second time this summer after neither of them secured the needed majority to win the June primary contest. Thomas, a nurse who has been vocal against AIPAC, earned 45% of votes in the June five-person matchup, while Priest, a lawyer and ordained minister, accrued 24%.
Both Thomas and Priest would be underdogs in the general election against Republican candidate Rep. Kevin Hern, who swept his primary and clinched the endorsement of President Donald Trump. Oklahoma hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate in more than three decades.
Nonetheless, Tuesday’s runoff will serve as a referendum on the potency of progressivism in a deep-red state, just a week after democratic socialist Angie Nixon knocked out her moderate opponent in Florida’s Democratic Senate primary.
Unlike Nixon, Thomas is not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. She has, however, openly identified with socialist policies, while her opponent, Priest, calls himself a moderate.
Neither candidate has a wealth of political experience. Priest, 70, made a failed bid for Oklahoma attorney general in 2010 and was previously the CEO of two nonprofit organizations. His campaign priorities center on reducing the cost of living, making healthcare more accessible and inspiring confidence in government.
Thomas, meanwhile, is a 31-year-old citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, who says she represents “the next generation of leaders.” Among her key focuses are women’s health and safety, civil rights and LGBTQIA+ protections. She has also repeatedly pledged to never take money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Although the pro-Israel lobby has not been involved in this race, a November social media reel showed Thomas pulling a giant red trash bin, adorned with the labels “AIPAC Funds” and “Corporate PAC Funds.” Alongside the reel is a caption that reads, “Just taking out the trash.”
“I am a sole grassroots candidate,” she said in the reel. “And we are not accepting AIPAC or corporate PAC funds. It’s garbage.”
Asked about her rhetoric on AIPAC, Thomas told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “My concerns have NEVER been about Jewish people, Judaism, or Israel’s existence,” saying that she instead prioritizes human rights, civilian lives and the accountability of all governments.
Some voters see it differently. David Howman, a 30-year-old Jewish banker in Tulsa, said that although he’s “a fairly progressive Democratic voter,” he considers Thomas’s usage of AIPAC to be “a pretty cheap political tactic.”
“It’s kind of like a little grenade you get to toss out in there,” Howman told JTA.
“If AIPAC were funneling a bunch of money into the Jim Priest campaign, maybe that’s a conversation that is worth having,” he added. “But they’re not even touching this race.”
Though Howman voted for Priest in Tuesday’s runoff, he noted that a different candidate, Troy Green, was his favorite in the June primary.
When asked at a Saturday debate about Israel’s military actions, both candidates confirmed their belief in the existence of a “genocide” in Gaza. Only Priest, however, linked the word to Israel, while Thomas connected it to the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Priest recognized that Hamas “committed atrocities,” noting that “they kidnapped people, they killed people, they tortured people” and that “they should be held accountable.” But he also deemed Israel’s retaliation “disproportionate to the threat.”
“In response, Israel is committing genocide,” he said, accusing the Jewish state of preventing medical supplies and food from getting to people.
Expressing skepticism about both one-state and two-state solutions, Priest declared that “what’s needed is a 24-state solution,” in which the whole Middle East unites “in something like the Abraham Accords.”
The Priest campaign did not respond to JTA’s request for comment.
Thomas, meanwhile, emphasized that “we can be for our Jewish brothers and sisters, and we can be against Netanyahu and what he is doing.”
“He is committing genocide. He is absolutely murdering children,” Thomas said. “We have to stop providing funding for these wars.”
She also backed the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, noting that the U.S. should “not be on the side of another country that we don’t even have any ties to, outside of allyship.”
Thomas had previously refrained from using the word genocide in public statements, instead expressing “solidarity with Palestine” and calling for an end to “unconditional funding of Israel’s military.”
In her response to JTA’s request that she clarify her stances on AIPAC and Israel, Thomas provided a lengthy written statement.
“I stand with my Jewish brothers and sisters against antisemitism, hate and discrimination in all forms,” she said, referring to Judaism as one of the “most enduring faith traditions.”
Reiterating remarks she made at the debate, Thomas noted that “two things can be true at the same time,” and advocated for both the security of the Jewish people and a willingness to criticize “any government, including the current leadership of Israel.”
Thomas also voiced support for a two-state solution, explaining that “both Israelis and Palestinians deserve the opportunity to live in peace, security and self-determination.”
“When I discuss political influence or organizations, my focus is on the broader role of money, lobbying, and special interests in our political system, not on any one religion or community,” she added.
Regardless of who comes out victorious on Tuesday, Howman said that many Democrats will be heading to the ballot box this November with a pessimistic outlook.
“That’s kind of the challenge that we have here in Oklahoma,” he added. “There’s definitely a sense of defeatism on the Democratic side.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Can an Oklahoma Senate candidate attract voters with an ad tossing out AIPAC ‘trash’? appeared first on The Forward.
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How YIVO and Max Weinreich Americanized the Yiddish project
װי אַזױ האָט ייִװאָ געפֿונען אַ נײַע הײם אין אַמעריקע נאָכן חורבן? קלמן װײַזער (יאָרק־אוניװערסיטעט אין טאָראָנטאָ) דערצײלט די דאָזיקע דראַמאַטישע געשיכטע אינעם נײַעם בוך „ייִדיש־װיסנשאַפֿט קומט קײן אַמעריקע“.
לכתּחילה איז דער דערפֿאָלג פֿון ייִװאָ ניט געװען קיין זיכערער. װײַזער דערקלערט: „עס איז װײַט ניט געװען קלאָר פֿאַר די שטיצער און מיטאַרבעטער פֿון ייִװאָ אין די 1940ער יאָרן, צי אַן אָרגאַניזאַציע װאָסער ציל איז געװען צו באַדינען די אינטעלעקטועלע און קולטורעלע באַדערפֿענישן פֿונעם אַלװעלטלעכן ייִדיש־רעדנדיקן פֿאָלק קען זיך אײַנװאָרצלען אין די ביז גאָר פֿאַרשײדענע באַדינגונגען פֿון אַמעריקע נאָך דער מלחמה.“
פֿאַר דער מלחמה האָט ייִװאָ געהאַט אַן „אַמעריקאַנער אָפּטײל“ אין ניו־יאָרק. זײַן ציל איז געװען צו זאַמלען געלט פֿאַרן װילנער אינסטיטוט, כאָטש אײניקע זײַנע מיטגלידער האָבן זיך אָפּגעגעבן אױך מיט פֿאָרשונגען פֿון ייִדישער קולטור און געשיכטע — דער עיקר, אין מיזרח-אײראָפּע.
אָבער דאָס רובֿ אַמעריקאַנער ייִדן האָבן געהאַט אַ קנאַפּן אינטערעס צו ייִדיש און בכלל ניט געהאַלטן פֿון ייִדיש־פֿאָרשונג.
נאָכן חורבן איז ייִװאָ געשטאַנען אױפֿן שײדװעג: צו װערן אַ מין אַרכיװ געװידמעט דעם אַמאָליקן חרובֿ־געמאַכטן ייִדישן לעבן אין מזרח־אײראָפּע אָדער װײַטער צו אַנטװיקלען ייִדיש־װיסנשאַפֿט לטובֿת אַ ייִדישן המשך אין אַמעריקע.
װײַזער ברענגט דעם לײענער אַרײַן אין די הײסע װיכּוחים צװישן די מיטאַרבעטער פֿון ייִװאָ װעגן דער ריכטונג פֿון דער אַרבעט. יודל מאַרק האָט געהאַלטן אַז ייִװאָ דאַרף זיך אָפּגעבן דער עיקר מיטן חורבן־פֿאָרשונג, בעת אַמאָליקע בונדיסטן האָבן געטענהט אַז ייִװאָ דאַרף שטודירן דעם מצבֿ פֿון די ייִדישע מאַסן אין אַמעריקע.
מאַקס װײַנרײַך, דער אינטעלעקטועלער מדריך פֿון ייִװאָ, האָט געהאַט אַן אַנדערע װיזיע. ער האָט געגלייבט, אַז דאָס אַמעריקאַנער ייִדנטום איז מסוגל צו שפּילן די פֿירנדיקע ראָלע אין דער ייִדישער װעלט נאָכן חורבן. אָבער לױט זײַן מײנונג זײַנען די אַמעריקאַנער ייִדן ניט געװען גרײט אויף אַזאַ שליחות. און צוגרײטן זײ דערצו האָבן געדאַרפֿט די פּליטים פֿון מזרח־אײראָפּע.
לױט זײַן װיזיע, האָט זיך ייִװאָ געדאַרפֿט אָפּגעבן ניט סתּם מיט װיסנשאַפֿט, נאָר מיט „װיסן װאָס שאַפֿט“, דאָס הײסט, ייִדיש־װיסנשאַפֿט מוז דערמעגלעכן אַמעריקאַנער ייִדן אָפּצוהיטן זײער ייִדישן מהות און פֿאַרזיכערן ייִדישע המשכדיקײט.
דער שליסל צום דערפֿאָלג פֿונעם ריזיקן פּראָיעקט איז געװען די ייִדישע שפּראַך. ייִדיש האָט געדאַרפֿט דינען װי אַ בריק צװישן דורות ייִדן, אַ גײַסטיקע פֿאַרבינדונג צװישן דער אַלטער און דער נײַער הײם.
צוליב דעם, האָט װײַנרײַך געהאַלטן, דאַרף מען „אױסגױיִשן“ די אַמעריקאַנער ייִדישע אינטעליגענציע און העכערן דעם פּרעסטיזש פֿון ייִדיש אין דער אַמעריקאַנער אַקאַדעמישער װעלט.
אָבער ניט געקוקט אױף װײַנרײַכס באַמיִונגען איז ייִװאָ לכתּחילה פֿאַרבליבן אױף די ראַנדן פֿונעם אַמעריקאַנער ייִדישן הױפּטשטראָם און האָט באַקומען אַ קנאַפּע שטיצע מצד די גרױסע ייִדישע פֿילאַנטראָפּישע אָרגאַניזאַציעס. די באַציִונגען צװישן ייִװאָ און דער אַמעריקאַנער ייִדיש־סבֿיבֿה זײַנען אױך ניט געװען קײן גלאַטיקע.
די נאָרמאַטיװע ייִדישע כּלל־שפּראַך, װאָס ייִװאָ האָט געװאָלט פֿאַרשפּרײטן, האָט אַרױסגערופֿן קריטיק מצד אײניקע ייִדישיסטן. זײ האָבן געטענהט, אַז דער „ייִװאָ־ייִדיש“ איז װײַט פֿונעם עכטן נאַטירלעכן מאַמע־לשון.
אין זײַנע אַרטיקלען אין פֿאָרװערטס האָט יצחק באַשעװיס אױסגעלאַכט אַזעלכע נעאָלאָגיזמען װי „קדמן־ייִדיש“ און „בראשית־ייִדיש“, װאָס װײַנרײַך האָט צוגעטראַכט װי לינגװיסטישע באַגריפֿן פֿאַר פֿאַרשײדענע היסטאָרישע תּקופֿות אין דער אַנטװיקלונג פֿון דער ייִדישער שפּראַך.
אין תּוך איז דער קאָנפֿליקט צװישן ייִװאָ און די ייִדישע ליטעראַטן געװען אַרום דער פֿראַגע, „צו װעמען געהערט ייִדיש?“, דערקלערט װײַזער. דער ציל פֿון ייִװאָ איז געװען צו שאַפֿן אַ נאָרמאַטיװע שפּראַך, װאָס מען קען אױסלערנען װי מען לערנט אַנדערע פֿרעמדע שפּראַכן. אַזױ קען מען פֿאַרזיכערן דעם המשך פֿון ייִדיש אַפֿילו װען קײן לעבעדיקע ייִדיש־רעדנדיקער סבֿיבֿה איז מער ניטאָ.
די סאַמע געשפּאַנטע קאַפּיטלען אין דער געשיכטע פֿון ייִװאָ אין אַמעריקע דערצײלן װעגן דעם קאַמף פֿאַר צוריקבאַקומען די מאַטעריאַלן, װאָס האָבן אַ מאָל געהערט צום װילנער ייִװאָ.
טײלװײַז האָבן די נאַציסטן זײ געבראַכט קײן דײַטשלאַנד פֿאַרן אַרכיװ פֿונעם אַנטיסעמיטישן „אינסטיטוט פֿאַר פֿאָרשונגען פֿון דער ייִדן־פֿראַגע“”. נאָך דער מלחמה זײַנען די דאָזיקע מאַטעריאַלן אַרײַנגעפֿאַלן אינעם רשות פֿון דער אַמעריקאַנער מיליטערישער אַדמיניסטראַציע אין דײַטשלאַנד.
כּדי צוריקצוקריגן די דאָזיקע מאַטעריאַלן איז געװען אַ גװאַלדיקער אױפֿטו פֿון װײַנרײַך און זײַנע מיטאַרבעטער, צװישן זיי — לוסי שילדקרעט (דאַװידאָװיטש), װאָס האָט שפּעטער זיך קונה־שם געװען װי אַ חורבן־פֿאָרשערין. לױטן געזעץ האָט די אַמעריקאַנער מיליטערישע אַדמינסטראַציע געדאַרפֿט צוריקגעבן די געראַבעװעטע מאַטעריאַלן צו פּױלן אָדער סאָװעטן־פֿאַרבאַנד. אַן אַנדער פּרעטענדענט איז געװען דער העברעיִשער אוניװערסיטעט אין ירושלים.
װײַנרײַך האָט אױסגענוצט זײַנע קאָנטאַקטן אין די אַמעריקאַנער הױכע פֿענצטער און אין 1947 האָט ייִװאָ צוריקבאַקומען זײַנע מאַטעריאַלן. עס האָט זיך אים אױך אײַנגעגעבן פֿאָרצושטעלן ייִװאָ װי אַ יורש פֿון אַנדערע קולטורעלע אַנשטאַלטן אין װילנע, און ייִװאָ האָט אױך באַקומען די אוצרות פֿון דער סטראַשון־ביבליאָטעק און דער „ווילנער יידישער היסטאריש-עטנאגראפישער געזעלשאפט אויף דעם נאמען פון ש. אַנ־סקי.
דאָס צװײטע קאַפּיטל פֿון דער דאָזיקער געשיכטע איז פֿאָרגעקומען נאָכן פֿאַנאַנדערפֿאַל פֿונעם סאָװעטן־פֿאַרבאַנד אין די 1990ער יאָרן. דעמאָלט האָט מען אַנטדעקט אַ היפּשע זאַמלונג פֿון פֿאָנדן פֿון ייִװאָ אין ליטע, װאָס אַ ליטװישער ביבליאָגראַף האָט פֿאַרבאַהאַלטן אין אַ מאַגאַזין פֿון דער מלוכישער ביכער־קאַמער.
דאָס מאָל האָט ייִװאָ געדאַרפֿט פֿאַרהאַנדלען מיט דער רעגירונג פֿון דער ליטװישער רעפּובליק, װאָס איז אָקערשט געװאָרן אומאָפּהענגיק. סוף־כּל־סוף איז מען געקומען צו אַ פּשרה, און איצט קען מען נוצן די דאָזיקע מאַטעריאַלן אינעם דיגיטאַלישן פֿאָרמאַט.
װײַזערס געשיכטע פֿון ייִװאָ איז אַ געשפּאַנטע און באַלערעװדיקע לעקטור. מאַקס װײַנרײַך איז ניט געװען דער אײנציקער צװישן די אײראָפּעיִשע ייִדישע פּליטים װאָס האָט געפֿונען אַ נײַע הײם אין אַמעריקע און אױפֿגעבױט דאָ אַ הצלחהדיקעע קאַריערע. אָבער ער איז אפֿשר געװען דער אײנציקער, װעמען עס האָט זיך אײַנגעגעבן ניט נאָר ממשיך צו זײַן זײַנע אײגענע פֿאָרשונגען, נאָר אױך װידער אױפֿצובױען אַ גאַנצע װיסנשאַפֿטלעכע אינסטיטוציע אױפֿן נײַעם אַמעריקאַנער באָדן, װאָס פֿאַרבלײַבט אַקטיװ ביזן הײַנטיקן טאָג.
The post How YIVO and Max Weinreich Americanized the Yiddish project appeared first on The Forward.
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Hasan Piker causes new trouble for Democrats — especially in key Senate race
Hasan Piker, the popular pundit who most recently suggested American Jews are making themselves targets of violence by supporting Israel, may speak for far-left progressives, but he doesn’t speak for one of the movement’s highest-profile candidates in a closely watched swing-state race, the candidate said.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democratic nominee for Senate, released a statement Monday saying he disagreed with Piker’s latest remarks and that he is opposed to “any rhetoric that puts the community at risk.”
“If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone is going to come around and take action,” Piker said during a Twitch stream on Thursday, “not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.” He claimed American Jews who support Israel are bringing violence on themselves by tying their identity to what he called “Jewish ISIS.”
Piker added in an interview published Monday in Haaretz that, “I don’t think that me calling Zionism a Nazi ideology is fomenting violence towards Jews broadly. I genuinely don’t believe that.”
In Monday’s statement, El-Sayed sought to move past the controversy, shifting the conversation back to his campaign’s economic message as he remains in a close race with GOP nominee Mike Rogers. “While politicians and pundits try to make this race about a Twitch streamer, we’re going to be talking about gas, groceries, good schools and healthcare,” Sayed said. “Nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople.”
Piker’s influence
The episode comes as Piker appears to be expanding rather than retreating from Democratic electoral politics.
He campaigned with El-Sayed and other insurgent progressives, including Adam Hamawy, a fierce Israel critic who served as a trauma surgeon in Gaza and won the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 12th District. In Florida, Rep. Jared Moskowitz made Piker himself part of the closing argument against his socialist primary challenger, Oliver Larkin, whom Piker supported. After Moskowitz easily defeated Larkin, the Jewish congressman offered Piker his “condolences.”
On Monday, even as the controversy over his remarks about American Jews was unfolding, Piker used his Twitch platform to offer an exclusive look at new polling commissioned by the IMEU Policy Project, a pro-Palestinian advocacy organization, and conducted by YouGov among more than 4,000 likely Democratic primary voters in the six states picked as early contests in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary: South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and Virginia.
The results showed broad support among those Democratic voters for presidential candidates who commit to reducing U.S. aid for Israel. Piker commands an enormous platform among precisely the younger voters progressive candidates are looking to court. “These numbers are making it undeniable,” Piker said on the stream. “This is an issue that is untenable.”
Earlier in the stream, Piker said the backlash over the weekend has “been a lot” to endure. “I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing,” he added. “I’m not going to feel discouraged. I’m not going to stop saying the truth… someone has to do it.”
The risk for El-Sayed
For El-Sayed, separating himself from some of Piker’s comments but still embracing him reflects the difficult political balance he has been trying to maintain since narrowly winning the primary.
El-Sayed has struggled to build support among Jewish Democrats while holding on to the progressive and pro-Palestinian coalition that helped carry him through the primary. He has assured Jewish voters that his fierce criticism of Israel — and his political relationships with figures such as Piker — should not be seen as hostility toward Jews. “I love and revere Judaism and the Jewish people,” he said in a recent TV appearance. “My commitment to the well-being of the Jewish community, their safety, their children, their future in Michigan is the same commitment that I’ve got to the well-being of my own daughters and all of our kids,” he said in another interview on Sunday.
At the same time, he resisted calls to distance himself from Piker, who has been embraced by Democratic Party progressive candidates. He appeared with El-Sayed on the campaign trail even as Piker has championed terrorist groups as righteous fighters against Israel — leading to accusations he traffics in antisemitism. In a recent speech to college students, Piker blasted Democrats who “fund ICE” and “fund Israel.”
El-Sayed’s Republican rival has already begun courting those voters, launching a “Democrats for Rogers” effort and highlighting El-Sayed’s relationship with Piker.
Speaking to Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Monday night, El-Sayed said that Rogers “thinks he’s running against Hasan Piker.”
An AARP poll released this month had El-Sayed at 48% and Rogers at 47%. Jewish voters account for only about 1.4% of the state electorate, but the defections among Jewish Democrats could matter in a race that close.
The post Hasan Piker causes new trouble for Democrats — especially in key Senate race appeared first on The Forward.
