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Scott Wiener, Jewish Democrat and critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, vies for Nancy Pelosi’s seat
Scott Wiener grew up helping his mother fold the newsletter for the tiny Conservative synagogue his parents built in rural New Jersey — a congregation so small it borrowed space from a Lutheran church. Half a century later, the California state senator is running for Nancy Pelosi’s seat, bringing a Jewish story rooted in survival to a political moment defined by division.
His view of Israel, shaped by family history and moral discomfort with the Gaza war, puts him at odds with an older generation of Jewish Democrats.
In an interview on Thursday, just hours after Pelosi announced she would step down following four decades of service in Washington, Wiener said his Jewish identity and stories of his ancestors escaping pogroms and fascism in Eastern Europe guide him to take a more human-centered approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict — one that is often critical of Israel and reflects a broader realignment among Jewish Democrats in recent months.
“I care deeply about Israel as the home of one half of all Jews on the planet,” Wiener said. “And I want to recognize the basic humanity of both Israelis and Palestinians living there to a peaceful existence.”
Wiener, 55, is expressing a growing view among Democratic incumbents and candidates now running for office when speaking about Israel. He was an early supporter of a bilateral ceasefire, called the war in Gaza “indefensible,” and said he would back congressional measures to halt the sale of offensive weapons to Israel to protest the country’s leadership. “In my view, it’s a moral stain” on the U.S.-Israel alliance, he said about Israel’s conduct of the war.
And like Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, who recently announced a primary challenge to Sen. Ed Markey, Wiener has promised not to take contributions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has become increasingly unpopular among some mainstream Democrats in recent years. “I’m not seeking AIPAC’s support because I have policy differences with AIPAC,” he said.
Wiener insisted that his view reflects that of the “large majority of Democrats in Congress” who don’t want to sever ties with Israel. “I strongly support the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Wiener said about his position. “I want Israel to have a government that is committed to democracy and to peace and a Palestine that is not being run by Hamas.”
At least six candidates have registered to compete in the June 2026 Democratic primary to succeed Pelosi in California. The field includes Saikat Chakrabarti, a former chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who has called the war in Gaza a genocide.
Who is Scott Wiener?
Born in Philadelphia, Wiener grew up in Turnersville, a rural town in southern New Jersey that he described as being conservative and Christian. When the family moved there in the early 1970s, their neighbors asked why they didn’t have horns, Wiener recalled.
In the 30-minute phone interview, Wiener said his ancestors fled pogroms and state-sponsored antisemitism in the early 1900s from Lithuania, Romania, Russia, and the borderlands of Belarus and Ukraine, arriving in Philadelphia between 1903 and 1909.
His childhood revolved around Judaism. His parents — a small business owner and a teacher — gathered a dozen Jewish families from nearby areas and founded a small Conservative congregation, B’nai Tikvah. At first, the group met in a Lutheran church, draping a sheet over the cross during services.
Rabbi Leonard Zucker, an Orthodox rabbi from Cherry Hill, would come to town each Friday before sundown and sleep at the Wieners’ home for Shabbat so he could walk to the synagogue. Wiener would help his mom, who was the treasurer, fold, stamp and mail the monthly newsletter to members. Within 15 years, the congregation grew to 150 families and moved into its own building.
“I did not have any friends outside of the synagogue until I was in 10th grade,” Wiener said. In public school, he experienced what he describes as a “fair amount of antisemitism.” He said kids called him a kike and a Christ-hater; someone tried to burn a cross on their lawn. He said his sixth-grade history textbook had a chapter about how the Jews begged the Romans to kill Jesus. In high school, he helped form a committee to address religious intolerance after a Christian minister delivered a sermon at a graduation.
Wiener came out as gay while at Duke University, and was elected president of his fraternity.
After college, he spent a year in Santiago, Chile, on a Fulbright scholarship, finding there a local synagogue where he could attend High Holiday services. He later moved to San Francisco to work as a litigation attorney at Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe before becoming a deputy city attorney. He served on the Board of Supervisors for six years before being elected to the state Senate in 2016. At 6-foot-7, Wiener likes to note that he’s the tallest elected official in the California Legislature. He also co-chairs its Jewish Caucus.
His childhood memories shaped one of his signature legislative victories: a law requiring that antisemitism be explicitly addressed in the state’s ethnic-studies curriculum. The bill, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom last month, builds on existing civil rights protections to ensure that students of all faiths and backgrounds can participate in public education free from harassment, bullying or bias.
Wiener said he doesn’t consider himself very religious. He rotates between various San Francisco synagogues — Congregation Emanu-El, Sherith Israel and Sha’ar Zahav — on the High Holidays and special occasions.
Wiener’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
In his statement days after Oct. 7, Wiener declared that “Hamas must be entirely eliminated,” and condemned the subsequent pro-Palestinian protests, one of which disrupted a Halloween pumpkin carving event he hosted in 2024.
But as Israel’s military campaign in Gaza intensified, his rhetoric shifted. Weeks into the war, he had already called for a negotiated ceasefire.
By mid-2025, he was calling the bombardment of Gaza “indefensible,” and in September of this year, he said the Israeli plan to invade Gaza City was “abhorrent and unacceptable.”
In the interview, Wiener said the war in Gaza went “far and beyond self-defense” and rooting out terror. “The obliteration of Gaza and the scale of death among Palestinians,” he said, “is an immoral thing.”
The post-Pelosi test
Pelosi, who often spoke of her pride in her Jewish grandchildren and her father’s early support for Israel’s founding, represented a generation of Democrats for whom unwavering pro-Israel support was a given. Wiener’s bid to succeed her could signal the start of a different era.
In a fundraising email sent Wednesday, the day after Zohran Mamdani, a critic of Israel, was elected New York City’s first Muslim mayor, AIPAC warned that “anti-Israel forces in America are energized, mobilized, and taking the fight directly to us.” The race for Pelosi’s seat could become a key test of how Congress approaches Israel in the years ahead.
Support from Jewish Democrats, including Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, for a bill restricting offensive arms sales to Israel highlights the growing divide within the party over how to back an ally.
Wiener said his support for restricting U.S. arms sales to Israel would apply only under a right-wing government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We have to ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are not being used to do what Israel just did in Gaza,” he said. “We need to be able to strike that balance and have that kind of relationship where it’s not just a blank check.”
“I hope that changes,” he added. “I hope the conversation can be led by the broad middle — by people who simply want peace.”
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Hollywood’s Jews take sides in Mark Ruffalo-Paramount antisemitism row
(JTA) — Some 170 notable Jewish personalities have released an open letter defending actor and producer Mark Ruffalo, who has been accused of antisemitism for his comments on Paramount Skydance’s pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Entertainers, rabbis and a physician who is featured in a new documentary about doctors treating Palestinians in Gaza signed the letter released Wednesday, which called the attacks against Ruffalo a “false and dangerous weaponization of charges of antisemitism.” George Clooney also defended Ruffalo on Thursday.
Signatories of the pro-Ruffalo petition include “Broad City” creators Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer; celebrated filmmakers Joel Coen, Jonathan Glazer and Todd Haynes; Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner; and actors including Hannah Einbinder, Joaquin Phoenix and Debra Winger.
In late August, Ruffalo, the award-winning actor and progressive activist, went on social media to link Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, the chief driver of the looming Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, to tech giant Oracle, which Ruffalo claimed is responsible for “an apartheid system of oppression” in Gaza.
Oracle is owned by Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men; both Ellisons are Jewish and prominent Israel supporters. Oracle also owns a stake in the social media network TikTok’s U.S. operations, and has long been a target of progressives who point to the company’s links to, and public support for, Israel.
“Larry Ellison will own most of ‘Para Bros,’” Ruffalo wrote in the post, which is no longer available, according to a screenshot reproduced by the Hollywood Reporter. The “Spotlight” and Marvel star also called Larry Ellison a “classic oligarch” who is “crushing workers and consolidating the wealth of the world for their own power and concentrated dominance.”
The $110 billion merger is under adjudication in federal court in California following an antitrust lawsuit filed by 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America. As backlash to the merger has steadily grown across Hollywood and in political and media spaces, Paramount at least since June has been pushing the idea that opposition to the merger has had an antisemitic element.
The company seized on Ruffalo’s comments, immediately releasing a lengthy statement to media after his controversial social media post that accused the actor of invoking “antisemitic tropes,” adding, “This simply exposes the true motivation of some who have advocated opposition to this transaction.”
Several leading Jewish groups have also said his post stepped beyond legitimate criticism of the merger and into classic antisemitic rhetoric about Jewish wealth and power.
In an August statement, the head of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles said the actor’s comments “combined Jewish wealth, media control, secret technology and sinister global power,” drawing on “recognizable antisemitic tropes with a long and dangerous history.” Other LA-based Jewish activist groups, including Creative Community For Peace and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, have also condemned his comments.
Speaking amid the unfolding controversy about Ruffalo and his use of the word genocide to describe Israel’s campaign in Gaza, “Fauda” co-creator Avi Isaacharoff called him “a rare combination” of “ignorant” and “stupid.”
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has reached out to Shani Rosenzweig, Ruffalo’s agent and a prominent Jewish entertainment figure in her own right, for comment and a Ruffalo interview request. Rosenzweig did not respond to either request.
Ruffalo has found support from several progressive Jewish figures beyond the entertainment industry, including IfNotNow co-founder Simone Zimmerman, Israeli Holocaust historian Raz Segal and Jewish Currents editor Peter Beinart.
In their open letter defending Ruffalo, the progressive Jewish cohort argued the actor was right to draw links between Israel’s behavior and the merger.
“Pointing out the crucial connections between what is happening in Gaza and what is happening in Hollywood is the exact opposite of antisemitism,” the letter reads. “It is, for us, the very essence of Jewish ethical duty.” The letter points to specific statements from Larry Ellison, and Oracle executives, describing their surveillance and artificial-intelligence technological ventures and their positive relationship with Israel.
Other entertainment figures have tried to thread a more careful needle. Oscar-winning filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan, who has directed Ruffalo in two movies and was at one point developing an American remake of the hit Israeli TV series “Shtisel,” defended the actor from antisemitism charges this week while also noting, “I disagree profoundly with many of his positions on the Middle East, Israel, Gaza, and Iran’s constellation of fanatical Islamist fundamentalist proxies.”
“But Mark and I have been friends for over 30 years,” Lonergan continued in his letter to the Hollywood Reporter. “The notion that he is antisemitic is overtly preposterous, and the accusation itself a cynical and disgusting lie.”
Ruffalo is soon scheduled to attend the Toronto International Film Festival for the Sept. 10 premiere of the biopic “Being Heumann,” about Jewish-American disability rights activist Judy Heumann, in which he co-stars.
Opposition to David Ellison’s bid to combine two historic media giants, each having recently weathered smaller mergers of their own, has grown considerably in recent months. Those objections have come both from Hollywood rank-and-file concerned about further industry consolidation, as well as from political and media figures voicing objections to Ellison’s close ties to President Donald Trump and his intentions with Warner’s flagship news property, CNN.
The merger was initially thought to be on track to be finalized this fall with Trump’s blessing. The president has publicly championed the merger, and his Justice Department approved the deal in June. But talks have ground to a halt following the antitrust lawsuit. The fate of the merger is now in question, with Paramount having agreed to a trial in March 2027 and on the hook for a $7-million-per-day “ticking fee” it had previously agreed to pay out to shareholders if the deal failed to close by this October.
Prior to Ruffalo’s post, Ellison himself published a New York Times op-ed defending his merger plans.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Hollywood’s Jews take sides in Mark Ruffalo-Paramount antisemitism row appeared first on The Forward.
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Spanish far-right activists use Nazi-style salutes in anti-migrant protests
(JTA) — MADRID — Dozens of far-right activists raised their arms in Nazi-style salutes and sang a Spanish fascist anthem in the heart of Madrid on Wednesday, amid protests against the government’s handling of migration.
Between 60 and 70 members of Núcleo Nacional, an ultra-nationalist anti-immigrant group, participated in mass demonstrations of tens of thousands of people across Spain, a spokesperson for the group told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The protests were in response to an influx of migrants from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish territory in North Africa.
The broader demonstrations in Madrid were called by Spain’s conservative People’s Party and far-right Vox party, drawing about 50,000 people to the streets, according to government estimates. The protests were planned for Ceuta Day, a holiday marking the Portuguese conquest of Ceuta from the Marinid Sultanate of Morocco in the 15th century, beginning centuries of Portuguese and later Spanish rule.
Núcleo Nacional activists were shown on video making the outstretched-arm gesture associated with neo-Nazi movements and chanting, “Ceuta is not for sale, Ceuta will defend itself.” They also sang the song “Cara al Sol,” a fascist anthem from 1935 that became central to the regime of former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who ruled from 1939 to 1975. Núcleo Nacional denied a link between their gesture and Nazi history.
The demonstration ended in clashes between protesters and police, with four people arrested and four police officers injured, according to local authorities. Protesters were also shown on camera grabbing, pushing and cursing at multiple journalists who were covering the rally.
Francisco Martín Aguirre, the delegate of the Spanish government in Madrid, condemned “the violent acts that occurred at the end of the gatherings in Madrid.”
“All respect to those who legitimately and peacefully protest for the cause they deem fit,” he said on X. “Violence is never the way and those who daily incite it are also responsible.”
A spokesperson for Núcleo Nacional told JTA that the group was not performing a Nazi salute, but an “Iberian or Roman salute.”
“It represents our ancestors,” the spokesperson said. They added that the group was protesting to “support the people of Ceuta.”
The outstretched arm salute in Nazi Germany was inspired by a gesture popularized in the 1920s in Italy’s fascist movement, which later allied with the Nazis. The Italians called it a Roman salute, though researchers say there is no evidence linking it to ancient Rome. Franco also instituted the gesture in 1937, then instructed Spaniards to abandon it in 1945 after the Axis powers lost World War II.
More than 72,000 Moroccan migrants crossed into Ceuta between July 30 and July 31, with at least 100 people dying in the attempt. Most have returned to Morocco, but some 5,000 remain in makeshift shelters or on the streets and beaches, inflaming tensions between migrants and local residents and heaping pressure on the left-wing government of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Núcleo Nacional has about 2,000 members, many from neo-Nazi and Francoist groups that lost their capacity to mobilize, according to the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. The group has grown rapidly and opened four regional branches since its founding in 2024. Earlier this year, it registered a political party as Noviembre Nacional.
The group pledges to defend the white race, Christianity, the Spanish nation and Europe against foreign and domestic enemies, including migrants, internal independence movements and “multicultural globalism.” Spain’s Civil Guard last year opened an investigation into Núcleo Nacional after it posted a video calling for groups to “actively defend” the streets and “jointly fight against the invasion” of immigration.
Núcleo Nacional leaders have also denied the Holocaust and suggested that Israel orchestrates migration to Europe, according to the Observatory of Antisemitism, a Spanish watchdog organization. Núcleo Nacional said in a 2024 statement, “Any Spanish patriot should not forget that it is Israel that is financing the Maghrebi invasion to which all of Europe is being subjected.”
On Núcleo Nacional’s social media channels, it has claimed that it is targeted by “the Jewish-Zionist lobby in Spain” and accused the “international Jewish-American financial elite” of “buying up Spain at bargain prices while ruining us.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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US House passes bill stripping federal funds from universities that boycott Israel
(JTA) — The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill that would prevent federal funds from going to academic institutions that participate in commercial boycotts of Israel.
The HR 4795 bill, co-sponsored by North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx and New Jersey Democrat Rep. Josh Gottheimer, passed in a 237 to 169 vote, with 203 Republicans, 33 Democrats and one Independent in favor. Whether Democrats will grant sufficient support to pass the legislation in the Senate remains unclear.
If the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act goes on to become law, it would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to require universities to refrain from “participating in a nonexpressive commercial boycott of Israel” in order to remain qualified for certain funds.
Expressive conduct is “symbolic speech” designed to relay a message, like picketing, marching, flag desecration and draft-card burnings. A 2022 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling deemed economic boycotts nonexpressive commercial conduct as opposed to independent expression.
In addition to forbidding boycotts, the legislation also stipulates that institutions receiving such funds would need to “certify that students are not unreasonably obstructed from participating in academic programs in Israel.”
“This bill is an important step forward in ensuring academic freedom for all students,” Gottheimer, who is Jewish, said in a statement. “I will push the Senate to take up the bill shortly so it can become law.”
Foxx, meanwhile, stressed that the act “takes a strong stand against the BDS movement on college campuses across the nation,” referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign that aims to put economic pressure on Israel by barring the purchase of Israeli products and suspending trade agreements.
“This legislation has true teeth and completely severs any possible taxpayer support of these concrete campaigns of antisemitism in the form of BDS and academic boycotts of Israel,” Foxx added.
The Anti-Defamation League welcomed the bill’s passage on Thursday, deriding BDS activities as a tool used “to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jews and other students for their connection to the Jewish state.”
The Combat Antisemitism Movement, an interfaith advocacy group that aims to fight “Jew hatred,” echoed these sentiments. A Thursday statement from the coalition noted that ahead of the vote, the group had sent a letter to all U.S. House members conveying its support for the bill.
“Academic boycotts of Israel harm American students and scholars, weaken vital U.S.-Israel research collaboration, and lend the credibility of American universities to a discriminatory campaign that singles out the only Jewish state,” the letter stated.
Among the 32 Democrats to join Gottheimer in supporting the bill were many prominent Jewish lawmakers, such as Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Lois Frankel and Jared Moskowitz of Florida; Greg Landsman of Ohio; Brad Schneider of Illinois; Eugene Vindman of Virginia and Kim Schrier of Washington.
Yet not all Jewish legislators, even those who are against BDS, voted in favor of the bill. Ahead of the vote, Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York, vowed in a statement that he would vote against the bill and urged his colleagues to do the same.
While Nadler voiced his antipathy to BDS and acknowledged that proponents of the movement “can veer into antisemitism,” he stressed that “those who engage in BDS have a First Amendment right to do so.”
The liberal pro-Israel lobby J Street offered similar opposition, arguing that this bill would mean “infringing on constitutionally protected free speech and academic freedom.” Noting a distinction between Israel proper and the West Bank, J Street stated that “penalizing universities for expressing their opposition to activities that further annexation sets a dangerous precedent.”
Nadler, meanwhile, described the measure as both “a direct and gross violation of the First Amendment” and “the latest assault by the Trump Administration” on the nation’s academic institutions.
“No matter how much I may disagree with BDS, and find it strategically stupid and morally repugnant, I will always fight to protect Americans’ right to speech with which I disagree,” he added. “It is the only way to ensure speech I do agree with is equally protected.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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