Uncategorized
New book details the long and winding road trod by the Beatles and Bob Dylan
Where the Music Had to Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other — and the World
by Jim Windolf
Simon and Schuster, 400 pages, $30
I ran into a neighbor the other day and we got to talking and he asked me what I was working on at the moment. I told him I was reviewing a new book about the Beatles and Bob Dylan – the first full-length treatment exploring the relationships between the Fab Four and the bard from northern Minnesota and their influence upon each other. My neighbor replied, “I would never have thought to put Dylan and the Beatles together. It seems like they existed in wholly different universes.”
That’s when I realized the full extent and significance of Jim Windolf’s Where the Music Had to Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other – and the World. “Well then this book is for you – and for people like you who never made the connections between them,” I told him.
For some fans, the links between Dylan and the Beatles are and have always been readily apparent. From a young age, they all got bitten by the rock ‘n’ roll bug, particularly in the form of Little Richard. In his high school yearbook, Dylan wrote that his ambition was “to join Little Richard.” For the Beatles – and especially for Paul McCartney – Little Richard’s sound served as a template, powering “She Loves You” to the top of the UK pop charts via Paul’s version of what Windolf called Little Richard’s “vocal trademark, the rough falsetto whooooo.” When the Beatles played their final full concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco in 1966, their last song was Richard’s “Long Tall Sally.” Windolf informs us that in the 1970s, Richard’s “Lucille” was the song Paul launched into while auditioning musicians. And in 1988, when the Beatles were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, George Harrison said in his acceptance speech on behalf of the group, “Thank you very much, especially all the rock ‘n’ rollers – especially Little Richard. It’s all his fault, really.”
Windolf – an editor at The New York Times who has published articles, reviews, essays and humor pieces in Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, New York magazine, Rolling Stone and other publications – digs deep into the archives to come up with some new and surprising biographical facts about his subjects, as well as offering some surprising interpretations of how Dylan and the Beatles addressed each other indirectly – and sometimes quite directly – in song.
By early 1964, the Beatles had worn out the grooves on Dylan’s first two albums by listening to them repeatedly while in Paris doing a concert residency. “We all went potty on Dylan,” Lennon later said. Three years hence, the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, whose cover collage was chock-full of portrayals of artists, actors, thinkers, sports figures, comedians, gurus and other pop culture notables. As Windolf notes, standing tall above all others in the topmost row was a relatively diminutive figure in real life – Bob Dylan.
Dylan could not help but hear (and enjoy) the Beatles on his car radio while driving cross-country with friends. And the years following their introduction to each other’s music saw Dylan and the Beatles meet on a number of occasions, first brought together by their mutual acquaintance, journalist Al Aronowitz, who was also responsible for supplying the marijuana that turned a summit meeting into a riotous party. Windolf quotes Aronowitz saying that he was “a proud and happy shadchen, a Jewish matchmaker, dancing at the princely wedding I’d arranged.” (Yiddish also peppered Dylan’s vocabulary. Speaking of his “Ballad in Plain D,” a nasty song about a girlfriend’s sister, Dylan said years later, “That one, I look back at and I say, ‘I must have been a real schmuck to write that.’”)
The Beatles went on to attend two Dylan concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, and Lennon began writing songs that showed the lyrical and sonic influence of Dylan, including “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” and “Norwegian Wood.”
Windolf makes a strong case that “Nowhere Man,” written by Lennon, was the first Beatles song having nothing to do with romance. “In this regard, he was catching up with Dylan, who had written and recorded dozens of songs on subjects other than love.” Windolf goes on to compare the title character of “Nowhere Man” to that of Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man,” the latter’s clueless “Mr. Jones” sensing that “Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is.”
This dynamic of exchange, with the Beatles responding to Dylan’s work, continued through the their final album, 1969’s Abbey Road, whose penultimate track, written by Lennon, was “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” whose key phrase, “I want you / I want you so bad…” was lifted right from Dylan’s 1966 hit, “I Want You,” in which the refrain is, “I want you, I want you, I want you so bad.”
Dylan returned the favor, alluding to the Beatles in several songs. In his 1965 song, “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream,” he sang, “I ran right outside and I hopped inside a cab / I went out the other door, this Englishman said, ‘Fab.’” And Dylan wrote another playful answer song called “Fourth Time Around” to the Beatles’ very Dylanesque song “Norwegian Wood” in 1966. In 2004, in concert in North Carolina, Dylan sang new lyrics to his song “Tears of Rage,” including the lines: “I’ve never been to Strawberry Fields / I’ve never been to Penny Lane,” mentioning two Beatles songs.
The relationship was not, however, perfect, and after years of seemingly drawing creative inspiration from Dylan, Lennon seemingly grew tired of or frustrated with him. In several early songs from his post-Beatles solo career, Lennon’s tone changed from respectful to dismissive. In the anti-war anthem, “Give Peace a Chance,” he referenced “Bobby Dylan” — slyly infantilizing him — in a litany of names of counterculture figures including Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg. In his song “God,” he announced that he “didn’t believe’ in “Zimmerman,” using Dylan’s birth name — a possible instance of Lennon’s lifelong case of generalized antisemitism rearing its ugly head.
Lennon explained the move thusly: “Because Dylan is bullshit. Zimmerman is his name.” (To be fair, Lennon also sang that he didn’t believe in “Beatles.”) But the possible antisemitism continued with Lennon’s response to Dylan’s gospel-era hit “Gotta Serve Somebody,” a nasty answer song called “Serve Yourself,” saying “there’s somethin’ missing in this God Almighty stew, and it’s your goddamn mother you dirty little git.”
(The greatest victim of Lennon’s antisemitism, however, was Beatles manager Brian Epstein, whom Lennon teased mercilessly for being gay and Jewish. Yet somehow, when it came time to hire a new business manager after Epstein’s death by accidental drug overdose, Lennon’s candidate was Allen Klein, who graduated from Weequahic High School in New Jersey in 1950, alongside his classmate Philip Roth.)
Despite the apparent rancor, during the lengthy January 1969 rehearsal sessions portrayed in the Peter Jackson documentary film, Get Back, the Beatles jammed on parts of many songs by other artists, none more so than the 15 by Dylan. By this time, the Dylan-Beatles center of gravity had shifted to George Harrison, who had spent the previous Thanksgiving holiday hanging out with Dylan and members of The Band in Woodstock, N.Y., where he started out co-writing songs with Dylan. (Windolf mentions an attempt by Dylan and Lennon to write a song together, but no tape or manuscript has ever surfaced.) When Harrison’s first solo album, All Things Must Pass, was released in 1971, the opening track was a Dylan-Harrison co-write, “I’d Have You Anytime.” And the album also included an early version of Dylan’s “If Not for You.”
At a press conference on the Isle of Wight, where he was to perform in August 1969, Dylan claimed that the Beatles asked him to work with them. “I love the Beatles and I think it would be a good idea to do a jam session,” he said.
While such a jam session never took place, Dylan did invite George Harrison to join him in the studio several times throughout the years. In 2021, Columbia Records released 1970, a three-disc archival set including the complete recording session from May 1, 1970, when Harrison joined Dylan at Columbia’s Studio B in New York. Dylan also famously came out of relative seclusion to take part in Harrison’s benefit concerts for Bangladesh in August 1971. And Dylan realized his lifelong dream of submersing himself in a band when he took part in the 1998-1990 recording sessions of the Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup consisting of Dylan, Harrison, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne. (Tom Petty once said, “George quoted Bob like people quote scripture.”)
Windolf’s book is slightly marred by a few errors and interpretative attempts that needlessly call his analytical credibility into question. He refers to the electric backing band that Dylan toured the world with in 1965-66 as a “four-piece band,” but it was, in fact, always a five-piece band, almost entirely composed of musicians who would morph into the proto-Americana group The Band. He also writes that Dylan’s song “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” was “based on the true story of a Black housemaid who was killed in 1963 by her rich white employer, William Zanzinger.” In fact, the real-life guilty party was named William Zantzinger. Dylan used his poetic license to change the name to Zanziger in the lyrics for better poetic assonance (and possibly for legal reasons).
Windolf also claims that Dylan “preferred that the people he encountered not see him as a Jew, and the Dylan name helped him skirt the issue of ethnicity at a time when antisemitism was all too common.” That’s a common take, but one contradicted by the fact that one of the very first original songs Dylan sang in coffeehouses was “Talkin’ Hava Negilah Blues.” Why would someone trying to build a wall between his Jewish heritage and a made-up all-American identity choose to write and play such a song publicly? Plus, Dylan wrote several early songs that refer to Biblical stories (“When the Ship Comes In”) and the Shoah (“Masters of War”).
While changing one’s name in show business had at one time been an attempt to assimilate, simplifying an ethnic name or simply shortening it or making it catchier was a common show-business practice (and still is today). Even one of the Beatles chose to “jazz” up his name: Richard Starkey became Ringo Starr. And Richard Penniman wasn’t trying to fool anyone about being Black by calling himself Little Richard.
Nevertheless, Windolf makes a convincing case that Dylan and the Beatles played off each other in many ways, in and out of their music, such that their achievements overlapped in real time and continued to impact their lives and songs for decades to come. And, along with that, to shape and mold the very essence of popular culture for the last 60-plus years.
The post New book details the long and winding road trod by the Beatles and Bob Dylan appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Haley Stevens shocks Democrats by endorsing Republican Mike Rogers. Her move could sway Jewish voters in Michigan.
Rep. Haley Stevens, a Michigan Democrat who lost a heated Senate primary to progressive Israel critic Abdul El-Sayed, endorsed his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, on Sunday in a stunning break with her party just two days before Election Day. The move could shake up one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races.
The endorsement came after a weekend of growing tension between Stevens and El-Sayed, whose fierce criticism of Israel and association with online personalities accused of antisemitism alienated some Jewish Democrats. If elected, El-Sayed would become the first Muslim in the U.S. Senate.
Stevens, a staunch supporter of Israel who received significant backing from AIPAC during the primary, had been snubbed by El-Sayed amid efforts to unite Democrats ahead of Tuesday’s election. Just last week, she told CNN she would vote for El-Sayed and was scheduled to join him at a unity rally Sunday.
But a feud escalated over the weekend after El-Sayed refused to condemn the content of an ad from a PAC supporting his campaign that blamed U.S. aid to Israel for rising grocery prices. El-Sayed, in return, accused Stevens of “relitigating a primary that ended three months ago” and again mentioned the support she received from AIPAC.
“Our Democratic nominee for Senate said I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away,” Stevens said in a video posted on X after attending church services in Detroit with Rogers.
Speaking to the media alongside Rogers, Steven also referenced Hasan Piker, a popular left-wing pundit who has been accused of antisemitism and has campaigned alongside El-Sayed. “I don’t belong in Abdul’s campaign,” she said. “I do not stand with Hasan Piker, who gets trafficked on our college campuses.”
The surprise endorsement could influence Jewish Democrats who have struggled with whether to support El-Sayed despite their concerns about his rhetoric on Israel and antisemitism. After the March attack on Michigan’s Temple Israel, El-Sayed said, “Hurt people hurt people,” referring to the attacker having lost family in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon. He later apologized for the comment.
Some Jewish Democrats had considered leaving the Senate race on the ballot blank, similar to what the pro-Palestinian “uncommitted” movement did in the 2024 presidential election to protest the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel in the war against Hamas in Gaza.
Jewish voters make up just 1.4% of the electorate in the state. However, in a race so close, they could make the difference. The latest YouGov poll of likely voters in Michigan has El-Sayed up by 4 points.
Trump carried the swing state in 2024 by about 80,000 votes. In the Senate race that same year, Democrat Elissa Slotkin defeated Rogers by fewer than 20,000 votes. Even before Sunday’s development, the Republican Jewish Coalition had spent $2 million to target approximately 50,000 Jewish voters, primarily in Oakland County, who backed Stevens in the primary.
The divisions have also become personal for Stevens, who is considering converting to Judaism. Her Jewish fiancé, Jason Turkish, attended a RJC forum last week and said he would vote for Rogers.
AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, sent direct mailers to 130,000 identified Jewish voters in the swing state. It also sponsored get-out-the-vote phone calls.
Democrats try to limit the damage
The development marks one of the biggest public splits among Democrats over Israel this election cycle, as the party is fighting to win control of the Senate.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official, called Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers “a despicable betrayal.”
Schumer stood by his endorsement of El-Sayed. In a statement Sunday, he accused Republicans of “racist, Islamophobic, and over-the-top false attacks” against the Democratic nominee. He did not directly address the Stevens endorsement. Stevens, who said she is “still a very proud Democrat,” said she wants to see Schumer become Senate Majority Leader.
The endorsement also sparked a firestorm within Stevens’ own office, with her chief of staff and other aides resigning in protest. Stevens did not seek reelection to the House after running for Senate, and her term ends in December.
Republicans seized on the divide.
“Wow, this is BIG!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “Her following is huge, and the level of respect from the People of Michigan, especially our African American and Jewish populations, is virtually unparalleled. Haley said what few people are willing to say.”
Some Jewish Democrats also heavily criticized Stevens on Sunday, saying she was hurting the party and the country. “Anyone who makes an election this important about themselves, and not Michiganders and our democracy, should think hard about whether they are serving the greater good,” Slotkin, who is Jewish and who has hit the campaign trail with El-Sayed, wrote on X.
The Jewish Democratic Council of America, an organizing body for Jewish interests in the Democratic Party, had pointedly not endorsed El-Sayed during the campaign. Yet following Stevens’ announcement, its CEO Halie Soifer wrote, “A vote for any Republican in 2026 is a vote for Donald Trump.”
Nonnegotiable Michigan, a coalition of Michigan rabbis and Jewish Democrats, scheduled an online forum for Sunday afternoon to discuss their choices — whether to support the Republicans or leave the ballot blank — after El-Sayed ignored its repeated requests to engage. “Now, with voting underway and Election Day approaching, the question is no longer only what El-Sayed will do — but what Jewish voters will do,” the group said in a statement released before the Stevens endorsement.
Piker, on social media, called Stevens “a self interested striver who’s weirdly obsessed with Israel and has been paid handsomely for this strange obsession.” El-Sayed has distanced himself multiple times from Piker since they campaigned together in the primary, including this week after Piker compared a heavily Jewish Michigan suburb to “a KKK neighborhood.”
A shift in the Jewish vote on Tuesday could help decide the Senate race. It could also offer an early test of whether divisions over Israel will cost Democrats Jewish support beyond this election and heading into the 2028 presidential race.
JTA contributed to this report.
The post Haley Stevens shocks Democrats by endorsing Republican Mike Rogers. Her move could sway Jewish voters in Michigan. appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Looking for a Yiddish-related event?
The Forverts website now includes a new feature. Each week, you’ll find a listing of upcoming events related to the Yiddish language or culture, both online and in person.
The list will include lectures in English or Yiddish; concerts; plays; day trips; conversation groups and reading circles.
If you know of a Yiddish-related event coming up, let us know by emailing schaechter@forward.com.
Sunday, Nov. 1, 2 p.m. ET. In this Zoom event, L.A. Yiddish culture activist Miri Koral will discuss a unique translation project of 160 works written by diverse masters of Yiddish poetry who perished in the Holocaust. Poet and Holocaust survivor Binem Heller compiled the anthology in 1951 to ensure that the works of these wonderful poets aren’t forgotten, and Koral is determined to get them all translated into English, opening them up to a much wider audience. The program will be in Yiddish. Register.
Sunday, Nov. 1, 2 p.m. ET. Some of the most passionate Yiddish love poetry and prose was written about Crotona Park in the Bronx, an area that fell off the beaten track in the last century. In this on-site tour in Yiddish, scholar Eve Jochnowitz will guide us as we explore the neighborhood and the literature it inspired. The event is free but a donation of $18 is suggested. The group will meet at the corner of Charlotte Street and Crotona Park East. Register.
Sunday, Nov. 1, 2 p.m. ET. Come shmooze in Yiddish with people all over the world at the shmueskrayz hosted by the Parizer yidish-tsenter. The atmosphere is friendly and relaxed. Feel free to sip coffee or a glass of wine. No registration necessary. Zoom link here
Thursday, Nov. 5, 7 p.m. ET. In this Zoom event, we’ll hear an English translation of detailed Yiddish letters written by Shlomo Vorobeichic, a Jewish man in Vilna before the war, to his siblings who had settled in the U.S. Although Shlomo, his wife and two children perished in the Holocaust, two children survived and kept the letters. One of them, Moi Ver, became a well-regarded photographer. In the 1990s, Moi Ver’s daughter Lilian Falk translated her grandfather’s letters into English, giving us a vivid view of Vilna in the early 20th century. Register.
Friday and Saturday, Nov. 6-7. Stockholm khevre: Attend a Yiddish film festival that includes contemporary Yiddish works like the 2026 film Moishe Badkhn (Moishe the Wedding Entertainer); Welcome to Yiddishland (2024), and the Yiddish-Ukrainian film SHTTL (2023). All films are subtitled in English. Tickets.
Sunday, Nov. 8, 3 p.m. ET. Folks in the DC/Maryland/Northern Virginia area: Join the DMV Jewish Labor Bund for a bimonthly Yiddish song circle at Maryland Meadworks. All levels of Yiddish and singing ability are welcome.
Tuesday, Nov. 10, 3 p.m. ET. Toronto folks: Yiddish studies scholar Sonia Gollance will discuss and read excerpts of Tea Arciszewska’s Yiddish play Miryeml, which Gollance translated as part of her project to uncover Yiddish plays by women. The play is often described as a powerful memorial to the 1.5 million children murdered in the Holocaust. The in-person lecture will take place at the University of Toronto and will be in Yiddish. More info.
Wednesday, Nov. 11, 7 p.m. ET. Attend an in-person staged reading of Sh. An-ski’s legendary folk drama, The Dybbuk, directed by Mikhl Yashinsky. The play, originally written in Russian between 1913 and 1916, was translated into Yiddish by An-ski himself and inspired countless film, opera, and ballet adaptations. Register.
Thursday, Nov. 19, 7 p.m. ET. Learn what makes Quebec an essential place on the world map of Yiddish culture historically and today in this Zoom talk between the Yiddish Book Center’s director of special projects, Sebastian Schulman, and Brian Calvert from Jewish Heritage Travel. The discussion will feature a sneak peek at the Center’s upcoming group tour to Montreal and Quebec City. The trip is a unique chance to experience Yiddish-Quebecois culture—its history, art, music, cuisine—as well as Montreal and Quebec City as historic and contemporary centers of Jewish life and creativity. Register.
The post Looking for a Yiddish-related event? appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
These rivals in a close House race agree on Israel. They’re fighting over who Jewish voters can trust.
Israel and antisemitism have emerged as central issues in several closely watched midterm races. But in New York’s 17th Congressional District, where Jewish voters could help decide one of the country’s most competitive House contests, the two candidates have more in common on those issues than their campaigns suggest.
Cait Conley, the Democratic challenger to incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, is not a progressive Democrat who Republicans have been warning Jewish voters about in recent campaigns. An Army combat veteran and former national security official, she strongly supports Israel, opposes additional conditions on U.S. military aid and rejects accusations that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. She has also criticized New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani over his statement marking the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack and has vowed to confront antisemitism within her own party. But that may not be enough to win Jewish votes from Lawler, who is popular with Jewish voters.
The district includes Rockland and Putnam counties and parts of Westchester and Dutchess. It has one of the largest Jewish populations in the country, with Jews making up an estimated 19% of its population, according to a 2024 study. It is one of the key House races where Jewish voters could make the difference in a closely contested election that will determine which party controls Congress.
Kamala Harris carried the district by a narrow 50-49 margin in 2024, and it voted for Joe Biden by a 59-39 margin before that. The late Jewish congresswoman Nita Lowey, a Democrat, represented the district for three decades until her retirement in 2020. Her successor, former Rep. Mondaire Jones, chose not to run in the redrawn district in 2022 and instead lost a bid for a House seat representing parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn. During his unsuccessful 2024 campaign against Lawler, Jones had to delete a social media post that some deemed insulting to Orthodox Jews after he remarked that the former Republican House Speaker’s meeting with Rabbi David Twersky, the 86-year-old spiritual leader known as the Skverer Rebbe in Rockland County, “was a waste of everyone’s time.”
Conley, 31, faces a difficult challenge in her bid to unseat Lawler, who has deep relationships with Orthodox and Hasidic voters since he first won his seat in the 2022 midterms by a narrow margin of about 2,000 votes, thanks in part to strong support from the large Hasidic communities in Monsey, New Square and New Hempstead in Rockland County.
That makes the race a test of whether a moderate, pro-Israel Democrat can win back Jewish voters who have grown concerned about the growing influence of progressives within the Democratic Party.
In separate interviews with the Forward, Conley and Lawler both stressed their support for Israel and commitment to fighting rising antisemitism. To draw a contrast, Lawler, 40, questioned whether Conley would stick to her positions if elected, while Conley accused him of using his ties to Jewish voters to distract from his support for President Donald Trump’s agenda.
A Democrat who rejects conditions on Israel aid
Conley, a West Point graduate and 16-year Army combat veteran who later served as counterterrorism director on President Joe Biden’s National Security Council and oversaw election security efforts at the Department of Homeland Security, occupies a different position on Israel than many progressive Democrats.
She supports Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, backs continued U.S. military assistance and opposes imposing conditions on that aid, including on offensive weapons.
“I do not believe that what is going on in Gaza is a genocide, and I do not believe in further conditioning assistance to Israel, so it continues to have the means to defend itself against the very real threats that are posed,” Conley said in an interview. “I will be an effective and strong advocate for the Jewish community and assistance to Israel in the Democratic Party.”
Conley said her experience serving in the Middle East shaped her understanding of the threats Israel faces, particularly from Iran and terrorist organizations.
At the same time, she supports a two-state solution and believes American politicians should be able to criticize Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other Israeli leaders without questioning Israel’s legitimacy. She expressed concern, though, that criticism of Israeli government policies can sometimes become an excuse for targeting Jews. Conley also supports expanding federal security grants for synagogues and other religious institutions.
Conley said she supported the targeted American strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in 2025, but opposes Trump’s war with Iran because she believes it has made the United States less secure and increased energy prices.
Lawler isn’t buying Conley’s pro-Israel pitch
Lawler dismissed the suggestion that he and Conley hold essentially the same positions on Israel and antisemitism.
“That’s laughable on its face,” he said in an interview.
His central argument is that Conley may sound like a moderate on the campaign trail but would ultimately follow Democratic leaders in Congress, as support for Israel becomes increasingly divisive within the party.
“She’ll be a rubber stamp on whatever the majority of the Democrats want to do,” Lawler said, citing the July vote to eliminate the $3.3 billion in annual military assistance to Israel. A record 103 of 212 Democrats supported the measure. Another 10 Democrats abstained. Conley “is not going to stand up and be a lone voice on these issues,” he said.
“At the end of the day,” Lawler added, “I have a very clear record of delivering on these issues, and there’s staunch differences in approach.”
A Republican who speaks the community’s language
Lawler’s relationship with Orthodox and Hasidic voters goes beyond his positions on Israel. A practicing Catholic, Lawler has made those relationships part of his political brand, going back to his election to the State Assembly in 2020. He has taken credit for lowering the temperature in Rockland County after local GOP officials in 2019 posted a video widely criticized as antisemitic. He regularly attends community celebrations and has helped arrange meetings between local rabbis and religious leaders, President Donald Trump and Republican leadership.
Earlier this year, William Paul, the son of Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, confronted him in a Washington bar, believing the New York congressman was Jewish. Paul later apologized and said he has a drinking problem for which he is seeking treatment.
His presence in the community has become so familiar that his campaign even has Yiddish materials and songs promoting his reelection. The songs are shared in popular WhatsApp groups, played at weddings and blasted from trucks driving through Hasidic neighborhoods to encourage people to vote.
Lawler’s campaign is aiming to surpass the 22,000 votes he received in Hasidic neighborhoods in 2022 and 26,000 votes in 2024, as polls show the race is a dead heat. In an interview with Punchbowl News, he predicted 30,000 Orthodox votes, arguing that the community’s participation is difficult for pollsters to capture.
In his interview with the Forward, Lawler said his popularity comes from a simple strategy: showing up.
“I am really the first elected official that has shown up, you know, consistently and publicly in this community, and not just to see the leadership of the community, but to meet the people,” he said. Lawler has even picked up some Yiddish vocabulary along the way. Asked what word he had learned, Lawler quipped, “I love the word shanda to describe Chuck Schumer,” using a Yiddish term for disgrace about the Senate Democratic leader, who is Jewish.
Lawler believes his efforts have helped build support beyond the Orthodox and Hasidic communities, including among Reform and secular Jews who might otherwise vote Democratic but are concerned about their party’s direction on Israel. “Democrats have effectively abandoned Jewish Americans,” he said.
Conley acknowledged Lawler’s visibility in the community but questioned whether it is matched with policies that benefit Jewish families. “Mike Lawler shows up for the photo op, but when it comes to acting, he turns his back on the community every time,” she said. Conley pointed particularly to his support for Republican-led legislation cutting Medicaid spending and other federal benefits.
A fight over antisemitism in politics
Conley said her own outreach has focused on convincing Jewish voters that she understands their security concerns and shares their commitment to Israel, even as she disagrees with Lawler on domestic policy.
She also spoke of a personal connection to the Jewish community as a member of the LGBTQ community, recalling how Jewish Americans stood up for LGBTQ rights. “That’s why I proudly stand beside them and let them know that there are people who deeply care and will proudly stand shoulder to shoulder with them and fight back against antisemitism,” she said.
As Lawler highlights his ties to Jewish voters and questions whether Conley would stand up to anti-Israel voices in the Democratic Party, Conley accuses him of associating with Republicans who have faced accusations of antisemitic rhetoric and ties to white nationalists.
She said Lawler had a double standard: condemning antisemitism among Democrats while supporting Republicans who have faced accusations of antisemitic rhetoric or associations with white nationalists. “He is the biggest hypocrite,” she said of Lawler. “He is a political operative who will do whatever is politically convenient for his political ambition.”
Conley cited, for example, Peter Oberacker, a Republican state legislator running against Democratic Rep. Josh Riley in the neighboring 19th District, who came under fire after a Facebook post from Veterans Day 2015 resurfaced in which he paid tribute to his grandfather who served in the Nazi-German military during World War II. Lawler attended Oberacker’s campaign launch last year and praised him. Lawler also contributed $5,000 to his campaign.
Conley described Oberacker as an “overt Nazi sympathizer” and said Lawler’s support for him undermined his claim to be a defender of Jewish Americans. Conley also pointed to Lawler’s past connections with members of the New York State Young Republicans, whose group was disbanded following a Politico investigation exposing racist and antisemitic messages. Lawler condemned it and called for those involved to resign from leadership positions.
Asked directly about the criticism, Lawler defended Oberacker. “He’s not an antisemite,” Lawler said, adding that Oberacker represents Jewish constituents in the state Senate. He dismissed Conley’s accusations as an attempt to distract from her own political alliances. “I think Cait is grasping at straws,” he said.
Lawler pointed to Conley’s decision to run on the Working Families Party ballot line, a progressive party that endorsed Mamdani in last year’s mayoral primary and has accused Israel of genocide. He also noted her remarks in a September interview, when she said that she “respects” what Mamdani represents to many New Yorkers. “I don’t respect antisemites,” Lawler said.
Lawler was the lead sponsor of the bipartisan Antisemitism Awareness Act that would require the Department of Education to use the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism — which classifies most anti-Zionism as antisemitic — when investigating allegations of discrimination. It passed in the House in 2024 by an overwhelming majority of 320-91, but was stalled in the Senate due to resistance over constitutionally protected free speech. It was reintroduced in the House last year.
More recently, Lawler partnered with Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Jewish moderate Democrat from New Jersey, on a bipartisan House resolution condemning antisemitic rhetoric from online personalities including Hasan Piker and Candace Owens.
Conley said she recognizes the rise of “extremism and antisemitism in both parties” and has heard from Jewish voters who feel abandoned by some of the same political allies they once supported. By speaking out on these issues and committing to confront them within her own party, Conley is aiming to convince these voters that they do not have to support a Republican to feel protected.
“The Jewish community knows they have a home in the Democratic Party. Period,” she said.
The post These rivals in a close House race agree on Israel. They’re fighting over who Jewish voters can trust. appeared first on The Forward.
