Connect with us

Uncategorized

How hard is it to talk about Israel? We asked 4 Jewish teens

(JTA) — In addition to juggling school, extracurriculars and trying to fit in, American Jewish teens have the added challenge of trying to foster a relationship with Israel in an increasingly hostile environment. Proposed judicial reforms by Israel’s far-right government and terrorist attacks and reprisals have led to a sense of crisis within Israel and its supporters and critics abroad. Discussions in America about the United States’ continued support for the state are front and center on the political stage, and teens have noticed. 

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency gathered four teens from across the country to talk about their relationship with Israel. Their thoughts are uniquely influenced by their experiences as American Jewish teens who are constantly surrounded by those who often challenge their support and connection to a country where many have family or friends. They are also hesitant to voice their views about Israel due to fear of backlash from critics of Zionism or being told that they are not pro-Israel enough by its fiercest supporters. An edited transcription of their discussion is below.

JTA: How would you describe your relationship with Israel? 

Gayah Hampel, 15, Houston:  I have a lot of family in Israel, and I haven’t been there since I was 8 years old, but I really, really want to go again. The trip was a very important part of my life, even though I don’t remember much from it. Israel’s history is very important to me, and I really want to go back to take in all the religious stuff there and all the history, because that really fascinates me. 

N.Z.,15, Los Angeles (N.Z. asked that their full name not be used because they do not share that they are Jewish and are concerned about antisemitic attacks): I have some family in Israel, but I only visited there once before COVID started. I’m not totally connected to it, because I don’t really talk to my Israeli cousins a lot since they live so far away and the time zones are far. I don’t really have a huge connection to it.

Avi Wolf, 14, Cleveland: I go to a school that’s based on Zionism, and we learn a lot about Israel and Israeli history in our school. We have a ton of teachers who are from Israel, and I visit every Passover along with keeping in touch with my Israeli friends a lot, so I have a very strong connection to Israel.

Emmie Wolf-Dublin, 15, Nashville: I write a lot about Israel for my local paper. I’ve never been, but I have a lot of family there. It’s really important to have a connection to that land, and I feel like it’s definitely important to me. One thing that I’ve thought a lot about, is the whole idea: Would you go fight for your country, for Israel, if there was some war to happen? I think I would. 

JTA: If you had to describe your biggest concern about Israel in one or two words, what would it be? 

Wolf: Probably safety. 

Hampel: The growing terrorist attacks.

N.Z.: Safety and reputation. 

Wolf-Dublin: Reputation, publicity.

JTA: What do you mean when you say reputation? 

Wolf-Dublin: My personal belief is that it’s not so much about Israel’s actions, but the way that Hamas and Palestine and the Palestinian Authority present them to the world. We would have a lot fewer issues on our hands if we were more careful about that and [would have] a lot more allies on our side if we made different choices in that sector.

N.Z.: Jewish people are already hated enough, especially in America, just for believing in Judaism. Having the addition of making it seem like we’re stealing this land away from Palestinians, people just find more and more ways to be antisemitic towards us and be like, “Oh, well, we have a reason.” So, the more bad things happen and the more things that get blamed on Israel, the worse antisemitic attacks will become.

JTA: Avi and Gayah, you both talked about safety. Is that safety from terrorism within the country or safety from foreign countries? Or both? 

Hampel: I would say both, but mainly, what’s happening inside the country because a lot of people living in Israel are also doing the terrorist attacks and physically attacking army personnel and citizens. So [I’m mainly worried about attacks from the] inside because it’s destroying us from inside, which is much scarier than from outside.

Wolf: It’s mainly that there’s a lot of terror attacks. There are a lot of other countries, like Iran, Syria and Lebanon, who surround Israel. They’re very big enemies with Israel, and they have a lot of power, so it’s always scary for the people inside but also [Israel is] the only Jewish state in the world. It’s the one place that all Jews can go and know they’re safe. If Jews don’t have a homeland anymore, it’d be a big issue.

JTA: What is your opinion on equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism? If someone is anti-Zionist, does that necessarily make them antisemitic? 

Wolf: In the past, anti-Zionism and antisemitism were very different things before the creation of Israel, but now, in our modern times, there are Jews who are very anti-Zionist and don’t believe Jews should have Israel. If you’re not a Jew, and you’re just a person who’s anti-the State of Israel, which is the only state of the Jews, you can’t antagonize Israel or be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic, even if it’s indirect. 

Wolf-Dublin: I agree, and I would honestly say that denying Israel’s right to exist and denying the Jewish connection, I think Jewish connection to Israel even more so, but Israel’s right to exist too. I feel like they’re both outright antisemitism.

JTA: Have you ever experienced anti-Zionism or antisemitism against you? 

N.Z.: I haven’t personally experienced antisemitism because I don’t share that I’m Jewish at my [public] school. I do see a lot of Israel-Palestine stuff online, and people are like, “get the Jews out, give it to Palestine.” We had a basketball game at this Jewish school that some of my old classmates went to a week or two ago, and they played against a non-Jewish school and they were holding up photos of the Palestine flag and swastikas and screaming Kanye West at some of the kids. It was really bad. I don’t know all the details because I wasn’t there, but I heard it was bad.

Wolf-Dublin: I live in Nashville, and Nashville does not have a big Jewish population. It’s in the south, there’s a lot of anti-Israel stuff, especially at school, but there’s also been Holocaust denial. It’s really everywhere, and I’m also really linked in the Jewish community, so I feel like it’s part of that. I had a teacher who had family in Palestine, and she got into this entire fight with me about it. She left earlier on in the year, so that was a win. I don’t understand how you can do that and still call yourself a professional. So I stopped paying attention in that class because why should I pay respect to someone who can’t respect my heritage?

Hampel: I haven’t personally directly towards me, but in seventh grade, a few years ago, when there were rockets firing every day from Hamas into Israel, like non-stop, there were Jews in my grade who were saying, “Israel is in the wrong, they need to stop attacking,” or “they need to stop attacking the innocent Palestinians.” It wasn’t directed towards me, but I still felt like they were, in a way [being anti-Zionist]. It was indirectly affecting me. I do know of Jews who have experienced antisemitism before.

JTA: How comfortable do you feel sharing your attitudes about Israel when around Jews?

Wolf: I feel extremely comfortable sharing all my opinions about Israel, regardless if it is a Jew or not. In Cleveland, most Jews believe in Israel and think the Jews should have a state. I have very strong attitudes towards Israel, and I don’t mind sharing my attitude with other Jews, even if they don’t believe in Israel or think what Israel is doing is wrong because I believe in it. There’s real history, and you can look in the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible), and you can see the real claims to Israel and everything. That’s why I’m very comfortable sharing with other Jews.

Hampel: I’m extremely comfortable sharing my opinions about Israel with other Jews and also non-Jews as well because I think it’s important. I’ve noticed that there are so many people who don’t know what’s actually going on [in Israel], and the story behind it. It’s important to me that I share that history, and I share my side of [what’s happening in Israel], especially having people in Israel who are very close to me. I’m very comfortable sharing my views on Israel, for that reason. Also it’s part of my personality so even if I don’t mention it, in our friendship, you’ll most likely hear me saying something about Israel.

Wolf-Dublin: I’m sort of both. In terms of Jewishness, I’m always open to talking about that. In terms of talking about Israel with my Jewish friends, I might bring it up, but I’m not always super-wanting to. I don’t know that I generally do pose [questions]. I’m sure I’ve done it before, but with non-Jews, if somebody brought it up to me, I would not be shying away from the conversation. However, I don’t know that I would personally bring it up myself.

N.Z.: I don’t love sharing my opinion of Israel because I’m afraid I might say something wrong, and then people will come after me for it. Sometimes, when I’m not really confident in what I’m saying, I don’t like sharing my opinion because I’m afraid people will try to shame me for it, especially on something so touchy as a subject like this.

JTA: N.Z., you feel that way even around Jews?

N.Z.: Even around Jews, especially. I feel like talking about this kind of stuff would be even more awkward because if I don’t share the same views as them, I feel like they’d be like, “Oh, well, are you trying to say you’re antisemitic or something?”

JTA: How comfortable do you feel sharing your attitudes about Israel when around non-Jews? 

Hampel: I’m comfortable sharing my views about Israel with non-Jews. I personally don’t want to bring it up myself, like Emmie said because if they do disagree with me, I don’t like starting arguments. It’s not something that I seek to do, and so if it becomes an argument, and I started it, that doesn’t sit with me right. However, if it comes up, I will definitely, definitely not back down, and I will defend my opinion. 

Wolf: I also feel very comfortable sharing with non-Jews, but as opposed to what Gayah said, I feel comfortable bringing it up. I don’t mind if someone wants to argue with me about Israel or its attributes. I would obviously want to make sure to show the proper facts, but I feel very comfortable and confident with non-Jews because it’s the Jewish homeland, and I want to fight for what I believe in.

N.Z.: I guess if I’m really, really being pressured to share my opinion, I would, but it’s definitely not something I’d bring up because I don’t really like getting into fights about such touchy subjects.

JTA: Some of you said that you don’t want to express your attitudes about Israel, because you’re worried about starting fights. Has that happened to you?

Wolf: I’ve definitely gotten into arguments, but it has been with Jewish people. It was very interesting because they were talking about stuff, but I could tell it was from the news, but the media was twisting it. It’s like, “Israel attacks the Gaza Strip and fired a missile at an apartment building.” Yeah, it’s true, but they were just doing it after Hamas had killed a bunch of their civilians.

Hampel:  That has happened before. It started not as a conversation about Israel, but it morphed into that, and it was very disappointing to me because it was such a twisted version of Israel that I definitely had not seen before. I definitely don’t believe it at all, any bit of it, and it was also with a Jew. 

JTA: To change topics slightly, what have you heard about Israel’s new government?

Hampel: To be completely honest, I do not follow Israeli politics. It’s not that I don’t want to, but I just don’t. It’s more important to me to know about the events that happen, the dangers that happen, I want to know of that, or the good things that happen too, but the politics, I don’t keep up with that at all. 

Wolf: I’m pretty involved in the politics and everything. In our Hebrew class, we had a whole week, just learning about the Israeli government, how it works, and my teacher presented to us all the political parties during the election. We learn about it, some good, some bad, and I know there’s a lot going on in the media. It’s kind of hard to get the correct sources since I’m not living in Israel.

N.Z.:  I really don’t keep up with politics in general, but I haven’t heard anything about the new Israeli government at all. 

Wolf-Dublin: I’m not very happy about it. I’m pretty into politics in general, but I definitely don’t agree with 90% of the things they’re doing. There’s a bill on drag queens in Tennessee right now that’s probably about to get passed that will outlaw anybody performing in drag. That’s the kind of thing that’s alarmingly similar [in Israel, whose new government includes opponents of LGBTQ rights], and I can see that happening in Israel, and that’s not something I want to see.

JTA: Emmie, you’re seeing trends in Tennessee that are similar to what the new Israeli government is proposing?

Wolf-Dublin: Everybody can have their own opinion, but I have a lot of issues with the current government, and I have a lot more issues with what they’re doing with the judicial system.

JTA: Where do you get your info about the Israeli government?

Wolf-Dublin: Either from my dad or just reading.

JTA: Among the political issues that you think are most important. Where would you rank Israel? This can be compared to hot-button issues, like reproductive rights, the economy, immigration, climate change, LGBTQ rights and concerns about democracy. Where on that list, would you rank Israel?

Hampel: I would say for me that it’s pretty high. I wouldn’t say it’s the highest, but it’s pretty high for me, because even if I wasn’t Jewish, Israel produces a lot of things that everyone uses and has so many inventions that we all use. It’s important to keep that safe, and it’s still a democracy. That’s very important in today’s society. It’s not at the top of my list, but it’s pretty high up. 

N.Z.: I’m not really a political person, so it’s not really the top thing on my mind, but it’s definitely an issue that I read up about every now and then. 

Wolf-Dublin: I don’t know that I have a clear ranking. I don’t think I could clearly rank it, but I would say it’s important, but its politics are only as important to me as a citizen of the world and not so much. Its existence is important to me.

—
The post How hard is it to talk about Israel? We asked 4 Jewish teens appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Uncategorized

Three years after Oct. 7, survey says Jewish engagement has reached an elevated ‘new normal’

(JTA) — Levels of engagement in Jewish life have risen overall, establishing a “new normal” three years after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, according to a survey released Thursday by the Jewish Federations of North America.

Thirty-eight percent of Jewish respondents surveyed by the federation umbrella group in May and June said they had increased their Jewish engagement in some way in the last three years, an increase of 7 percentage points over rates in 2025 yet down from the 43% rate in March 2024, in the months after the attacks. The survey had a margin of error of 1.8 percent.

JFNA researchers say the results demonstrate that this initial spike in engagement — which the organization dubbed “the Surge” — has had a lasting effect, prompting people to deepen their involvement in Jewish life even three years on.

“I think the fact that people are continuing to engage with community during a difficult time is a good thing, and it’s an opportunity for us to meet people’s needs in this moment,” Mimi Kravetz, JFNA’s chief impact and growth officer, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency ahead of the release of the findings Thursday morning.

The number of “Surgers,” she said, includes Jews who were already engaged but have found ways to become more engaged since the attacks.

Many in the Jewish community feared that Jewish engagement “would continue to decline as we got further out from the events of Oct. 7, and that likely people would return to something like their behavior prior to Oct. 7,”  Kravetz said. “That is usually what happens after a major incident.”

JFNA surveyed more than 2,800 Jews by text message in May and June of this year. Follow-up questions were generated by AI, which Kravetz said allowed researchers to ask open-ended questions about respondents’ relationship to Jewish community and quickly sort the answers by category.

This approach unlocked new insights. A top motivator for Jewish engagement was “social or interpersonal” connections in informal settings, such as Shabbat dinners or personal invitations to Jewish events. And in what seems like an encouraging sign for congregational Jewish life, 65% of Jews who “Surged” were turning to synagogues — though Kravetz noted that not every shul’s membership has grown as a result.

The Chabad-Lubavitch movement, whose adherents place a premium on interpersonal connections and often operate in environments lacking in other Jewish communal infrastructure, was the second-most-popular engagement option.

Jews who had increased their levels of engagement were also more likely to voice support for Israel, the findings said. Ninety-three percent of “Surging” Jews said they were “emotionally attached to Israel,” compared to 51% of Jews whose level of engagement did not change. Additionally, 75% of Jews who grew their engagement agreed that “in general, Israel makes me proud to be Jewish,” compared to 36% who did not “Surge.”

Overall, respondents’ most frequently cited barrier to participation in Jewish life was Israeli politics. Large numbers of Jews said they struggled to connect with Jewish community spaces because they felt misaligned on Israel in one direction or another — data that JFNA said it did not quantify because it came out of the open-ended section of the survey.

The most common complaint, Kravetz said, was that Jews were seeking spaces they thought of as “apolitical.”

Kravetz said that many of those Jews, instead of dropping out of Jewish life, indicated they eventually found communities that aligned better with their values.

“These aren’t people who are walking away,” Kravetz said. “These are people who are leaning into Jewish community and are experiencing this tension. And usually, what we see is people are interested in finding Jewish spaces that meet their needs.”

The challenge for Jewish leaders, Kravetz said, is “to make sure that we have and support that diversity of spaces for people, so that they can find the right space that meets their needs.”

But that diversity has limits, as many prominent Jewish leaders — including heads of JFNA — have also urged Jewish communal spaces to reaffirm a commitment to Zionism at a moment when more and more Jews feel divided on Israel. Some Jewish leaders have explicitly called to reject anti- and non-Zionist Jews.

Kravetz doesn’t see those values as contradictory or damaging to the “Surge.” She pointed to another recent JFNA survey, released earlier this year, querying Jews about their relationship to Zionism.

While that survey found that only a third of American Jews identify as Zionist, it also found that 88% of the same population agree with what has historically been a basic tenet of Zionism: that “Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish, Democratic state.”

“I think being supportive of the premise of Zionism, and in how we define Zionism, is very much aligned with engaging the majority of the Jewish community,” she said.

The post Three years after Oct. 7, survey says Jewish engagement has reached an elevated ‘new normal’ appeared first on The Forward.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

On Oct. 7, Mamdani spoke in support of Palestinians. A father from Gaza did it better.

On Wednesday in New York City, on the third anniversary of Oct. 7, two people spoke up for Palestinians. One of them was New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The other person actually said something helpful.

In a statement from the mayor’s office, Mamdani expressed sorrow at the loss of over 1,100 Israeli lives and Hamas’ “horrific war crimes,” then pivoted to condemn Israel for its war against Hamas in Gaza, accusing Israel of ongoing genocide, war crimes, apartheid and occupation.

Then came the Hallmark-ian ending, “To honor the dead, we must fight for a world in which every person can live with freedom, safety, and dignity.”

It was four paragraphs of blame with a coda of pablum: no vision for a way forward and no idea of how to improve Palestinian lives, much less Israeli ones.

Vision and healing — that is, leadership — came not from the mayor, but from a Palestinian and an Israeli who spoke later that day at a forum uptown.

“It’s my choice to give the children the anger and the pain or to give them a chance” at a future, said Jaser AbuMoussa, a Gazan who suffered unfathomable loss during the recent conflict. “And I will choose the chance every day.”

“Our neighborhood, from Nir Oz to the sea, can be a paradise because of the human factor on both sides of the border, and not because we necessarily love each other,” said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, a member of the ravaged Kibbutz Nir Oz. “You don’t have to agree on everything to get there.”

AbuMoussa and Dekel-Chen appeared on stage together at the 92nd Street Y, speaking across chasms of grief. From the West Coast, I tuned into a livestream of the event, because if Israelis and Palestinians want a secure and just future, it starts not with pain-inducing pronouncements like Mamdani’s, but with painful conversations like this one.

On Oct. 15, 2023, an Israeli airstrike hit AbuMoussa’s home in Khan Younis in Gaza, killing his wife and two of his children, as well as a nephew, sister-in-law and a cousin. A second airstrike killed his mother, sister, uncle, aunt, a niece and a nephew. AbuMoussa, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, managed to evacuate with his two surviving children to the United Arab Emirates, where they underwent lifesaving surgeries.

“She was an architect,” he said of his wife, Heba. “She was a novelist. She was a poet, and above all, she was a wife and a mother.”

Hamas terrorists took Dekel-Chen’s son Sagui into Gaza, where he was held for 498 days before his release. Terrorists killed 47 out of 420 kibbutz members and took 76 people hostage, including the Bibas family.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad gunmen “rampaged for nine hours through the kibbutz, destroying everything in their path,” said Dekel-Chen, a historian at Hebrew University and visiting professor at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, which co-sponsored the event. He said he is only alive because he and his wife were on a work trip to the United States at the time.

So many arguments over Oct. 7 turn into comparative victimhood — Mamdani’s statement was an example of that, making sure to emphasize Palestinian loss.

But the Palestinian at the 92nd Street Y didn’t do that.

“To me, suffering is like an absolute value, and we are not here for a competition,” AbuMoussa said.

While on the same day in the same city, the mayor’s statement used the words “genocide,” “apartheid” and “war crimes,” the Gazan father who lost his wife and two of his four children used none of those words.

Both men made it clear that the pain and anger of Oct. 7 and the years that followed are ever-present, a fact of life. But so is the choice of how to channel that anger.

“I will not point it at people,” said AbuMoussa. “I will not point it at Jonathan because he is an Israeli. But I will point it at policies, at leaders, at systems that were invented to kill people.”

While he held Israel responsible for helping to create the catastrophe in Gaza — he pointed out that Israeli attacks have killed 1,400 Palestinians since the ceasefire —  AbuMoussa — again, in contrast to Mamdani — excoriated Hamas. The group corrupted Gaza’s political, economic, social and above all religious life. It cast itself as the only legitimate interpretation of Islam, though AbuMoussa said Oct. 7 itself contravened Islamic law.

Hamas never treated protecting civilians as its job, AbuMoussa said, pointing out that Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar’s family went into the tunnels while ordinary Gazans were left out, unprepared.

The Westerners who took to the streets and college campuses in support of resistance hurt Palestinians more than helped them, AbuMoussa said, because they blur Palestinians together with Hamas and the Iranian axis.

These were the very people Mamdani seemed to be pandering to in his statement — who turn Gaza, in AbuMoussa’s words, “into a flag or a pin.”

Dekel-Chen said his harshest critics are often Diaspora Jews who fail to separate what’s good for Israel from the government of Israel.

Because they spent no time trading accusations and blame, both men had plenty of time to discuss their vision for a better future.

Gazans aren’t leaving, despite the Israeli far right’s fantasies, and Israelis aren’t leaving, despite the Islamists’ fantasies, Dekel-Chen said.

It’s the simplest truth, but it carries extra weight when an Israeli Jew who lives a mile from Gaza says it: there are roughly seven million Jews and seven million Arabs between the river and the sea, and no one is going anywhere.

AbuMoussa said he is open to a confederation between Israelis and Palestinians, two states or “whatever.” But Oct. 7 proved the folly of believing the status quo, or just managing the conflict, will bring stability.

The way forward for now, both men said, is to push leaders to carry out the 20-point plan President Donald Trump put forward to help Gaza recover. They agreed that Washington still has the most leverage.

If Gazans had some sort of hope, AbuMoussa said, “I don’t think they will choose Hamas ever.”

Dekel-Chen said the insistence that Hamas fully disarm before any rebuilding “hurts us all.”

“Nothing positive will happen on our side of the border,” Dekel-Chen said, until most Gazans have hope in a post-Hamas future.

That is ultimately why both men decided to speak together — because they recognize what continuing the hatred costs.

“It’s the only way that I know how to honor those that I grieve, and the loss of life on both sides,” Dekel-Chen said.

It was a message, and a conversation that I wish Mamdani had heard in person. Instead, he spent the evening in Union Square, where anti-Israel protesters booed him for appearing with a group called Israelis for Peace.

To his credit, he showed up. But the same constituency the mayor seemed to court that morning turned on him that night, for standing beside actual Israelis calling for peace.

AbuMoussa and Dekel-Chen could have told him: You can stoke division or you can build a future. Choose the future.

 

The post On Oct. 7, Mamdani spoke in support of Palestinians. A father from Gaza did it better. appeared first on The Forward.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Israel is the one thing both Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidates agree on

(JTA) — Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and GOP opponent Stacy Garrity faced off on Wednesday in a heated gubernatorial debate, clashing over most policy issues — with the notable exception of Israel.

“I want to recognize the anniversary of the Hamas attacks, where 1,200 innocent people were killed, including 49 Americans,” said Garrity, referring to the third anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

“I want to remember the lives that were stolen, the families that were changed forever, and the Americans that didn’t make it home,” she added.

While Garrity, Pennsylvania’s state treasurer, has the endorsement of President Donald Trump, Shapiro has a 25 percentage point lead in a poll released Wednesday. Both candidates won their primaries uncontested in May, and both have been outspoken against antisemitism.

Shapiro, who himself is Jewish, likewise recognized “the third anniversary of the October 7 massacre” at the debate. He recalled how “Hamas, a terrorist organization, broke into Israel and murdered 1,200 innocents, took over 250 hostage, including many Americans.”

“This is a moment where my heart stands with the people of Israel,” he said. “My heart stands with the Jewish community, who I know are grieving as a result of this.”

“This is a moment where we need to stand together against terrorism, against hate and against antisemitism,” the governor added.

Although the candidates shared similar perspectives on Israel during Wednesday’s debate, they clashed on numerous other topics, including the death penalty, voter identification, taxes and tariffs.

Asked by the debate moderator about the plunging support for Israel in the Democratic Party, Shapiro replied that he has “been very, very consistent” in both his “love of Israel” and his disagreements with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Shapiro then noted that Israelis will head to the polls in just a few weeks to choose their next leader. He expressed hope that they would not elect Netanyahu, whom he said “has led Israel down a very dangerous and isolated path.”

“I want America to have a strong relationship with Israel and with the Israeli government,” Shapiro added. “That’s not possible right now with the Netanyahu government in charge.”

Shapiro, one of the most prominent Jewish Democrats nationwide, was among the final candidates considered by Kamala Harris in her vice-presidential search in the 2024 election. He is also seen as a possible 2028 presidential hopeful.

But Shapiro has also faced the challenges posed by increasing antisemitism in America. During Harris’s search, for example, a website and social media feed labeled him “No Genocide Josh” over his support for Israel.

In April 2025, an arsonist set fire to Shapiro’s house just hours after his family had conducted a Passover seder. In 2018, while Shapiro was serving as Pennsylvania’s attorney general, a terrorist killed 11 people and injured six others at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh..

Garrity, meanwhile, has more than tripled Pennsylvania’s investment in Israel bonds in her current role. She invested $20 million after the Oct. 7 attack and another $35 million in July 2025.

The post Israel is the one thing both Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidates agree on appeared first on The Forward.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News