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Sen. Markey, a progressive critic of Israel, projected to win Massachusetts Democratic primary in a landslide
(JTA) — Massachusetts progressive Sen. Ed Markey, a sharp critic of Israel, is projected to beat the more moderate Rep. Seth Moulton by a wide margin on Tuesday, securing the Democratic nomination for the upcoming U.S. Senate race.
The Associated Press called the race just a half hour after polls closed, at 8:31pm, when Markey had secured 75.9% of votes to Moulton’s 24.1%, with 3% of ballots tallied.
“Tonight is a testament to the power of the progressive movement,” Markey said on Tuesday night. “It is a progressive movement fueled by young people demanding more from their leaders.”
Noting that he spoke to Moulton prior to taking the stage, Markey added that he looks forward to working together “to build a better future for everyone.”
Moulton, meanwhile, told his supporters that he had “called Sen. Markey to congratulate him on his victory tonight.” He conveyed his “full support” for his opponent as the Democratic nominee, stressing that they “must stand united this November to protect our democracy and defeat Donald Trump.”
Markey, 80, began serving in the U.S. House of Representatives 50 years ago and remained there until he was elected to fill the Senate seat of John Kerry, who was appointed U.S. Secretary of State in 2013. During Markey’s time in the House, he was a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and in the Senate, he has supported multiple resolutions aimed at cutting military aid and munitions sales to Israel.
Moulton, 47, was born two years after Markey arrived on Capitol Hill. He has been serving in the U.S. House since 2015 and has opposed both the Democratic socialist agenda and the aging establishment, instead calling for “new energy, new ideas and leaders willing to put people over politics.”
“We ran a race that stood on principle, that wasn’t just about politics as usual, and that elevated the voices of Massachusetts citizens who have been left behind by the status quo in Washington,” Moulton said on Tuesday. “Challenging the establishment and calling for a new generation of leadership isn’t easy, but it is necessary,” he added.
But many political analysts have suggested that Moulton’s predominant focus on his youth and his opponent’s age may have been his primary downfall. Although in the weeks leading up the primary, polls had projected Markey’s win, the two candidates had been running neck-and-neck in the preceding months.
A New York Times piece recently described Moulton as a “rebel without a cause” who drifted with “the political winds” and focused on platforms he was fighting against rather than those he was supporting. In a case relevant to the American Jews, he declared in October that he was “returning AIPAC donations” and refusing new funds from the pro-Israel lobby.
“In recent years AIPAC has aligned itself too closely with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government,” Moulton posted at the time. “I’m a friend of Israel, but not of its current government.”
Track AIPAC, a group that documents political spending by pro-Israel lobbies, reported that such PACs have spent about $101,500 on Moulton over his career — a relatively modest amount for a six-term congressman.
“It is clearly the safe thing to do, if you are running for a nomination in the Democratic Party, to aggressively distance yourself from Israel,” Jeff Robbins, a Boston-based attorney and former Senate investigative counsel, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Robbins, who also served as delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission under President Bill Clinton, described the shift as “reflective of the reality that we have seen play out in spades over the last year.”
That situation involves Democratic candidates “running for the hills about AIPAC and treating it as a boogeyman,” added Robbins, who began organizing pro-Israel rallies in in 2012, while chairing the New England Board of the Anti-Defamation League.
“If you want to have a prayer of being elected in a Democratic primary in this country, you had better be able to say, ‘I don’t take money from AIPAC. In fact, I never heard of it before,’” he added.
On Tuesday night, however, neither candidate referred directly to AIPAC. Moulton spoke only briefly, while Markey primarily focused on domestic issues but did quickly mention the Middle East.
“We need to end the war in Iran, and stop the bombing in Gaza,” Markey said. “We need to slash the Pentagon budget.”
The senator stressed the need to protect the LGBTQ+ community and to prioritize affordability goals, such as achieving “a future with no copays, no surprise bills, no premiums, no deductibles, a future with Medicare for all.”
“Donald Trump is attacking the futures, the dreams, of every boy and every girl on every porch all across this country, cutting education, cutting healthcare, cutting protections against discrimination,” the senator said. “We are not backing down in Massachusetts: not now, not ever.”
The post Sen. Markey, a progressive critic of Israel, projected to win Massachusetts Democratic primary in a landslide appeared first on The Forward.
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Teen slashed in Brooklyn synagogue by fellow congregant
(JTA) — A 14-year-old boy was slashed on Monday evening inside a Brooklyn synagogue by a suspect the police called an “emotionally disturbed person.”
The 22-year-old suspect, Krybus Shimon, is a fellow congregant of Yeshiva Gevoah Toldos, an Orthodox synagogue in Borough Park, the New York Police Department said. He was taken into custody and charged on Monday with assault, reckless endangerment and criminal possession of a weapon.
The boy’s hand was slashed with a “cutting instrument” and he was treated by emergency medical services on the scene, police said.
The incident is not currently being investigated as a hate crime, and it’s not yet clear what led to the slashing.
Borough Park is one of the largest Orthodox enclaves in the United States, home to about 96,000 Jews, according to UJA-Federation of New York.
In January, the neighborhood was hit with a spate of antisemitic vandalism. Over 70 swastikas and the words “Adolf Hitler” were sprayed over two days across Gravesend Park, a playground in Borough Park. Two 15-year-old boys were arrested for the vandalism and charged with aggravated harassment and criminal mischief as a hate crime.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul last week announced a record $70 million in security funding for houses of worship, schools, community centers and other nonprofit organizations that are vulnerable to hate crimes and attacks because of their ideology, beliefs or mission.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Teen slashed in Brooklyn synagogue by fellow congregant appeared first on The Forward.
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Staunch Israel supporter Coons expected to win Delaware Democratic Senate primary handily
(JTA) — Delaware incumbent Sen. Chris Coons, a longtime supporter of Israel, is expected to easily win Delaware’s U.S. Senate primary on Tuesday, despite criticism from party progressives.
Coons, a mainstay of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has repeatedly backed measures to bolster Israel’s capacity for self-defense. He also joined a bipartisan delegation to visit Israel immediately after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.
But the senator has faced pushback in recent months for his refusal to back measures that would cut military aid to Israel.
This past spring, he was one of just seven Democrats to join Republicans in voting against a resolution authored by independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, which sought to stop the sale of military bulldozers to Israel. Coons was among just 11 Democrats who opposed a second Sanders resolution that proposed similar sales bans on massive bombs and other defense equipment.
Coons has served nearly three terms in the Senate. He won a special election in 2010, about a year after Joe Biden resigned to become U.S. vice president, and then went on to secure two full terms in 2014 and 2020.
In Tuesday’s primary, he will face off against artificial intelligence systems builder and historian Jeff Appelhans, naval architect and marine engineer Mary Louve and a former business executive who changed his legal name from Eric Hansen to E. No-Trump Hansen.
While Coons has earned endorsements from establishment Democrats, such as Delaware Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Gov. Matt Meyer, he has drawn criticism from party progressives for both his support of Israel and the financial backing he gets from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group.
Of Coons’s opponents, the most vocal critic on Israel-related policy has been Appelhans, whose campaign priorities included ending U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Appelhans slammed Coons for voting against the Sanders bills, writing on his campaign site that “the liberal consensus moved to block the sales.”
Appelhans condemned Coons’s voting record on “moving armaments to Israel,” noting in a recent interview that “there’s never been a vote that he’s stopped” on this issue. He was speaking with Delaware Public Media last week as part of a series of candidate interviews.
Regarding the conflict in Iran, Appelhans slammed “Congress’ unwillingness” to challenge the president, noting that “there was very much a sense that Israel would be a staunch ally and they could sort of get this done really easily.”
In the same radio series, another candidate, Louve, expressed uncertainty as to “why we’re still backing Israel,” while acknowledging the country’s history as a U.S. ally.
“Is it worth us continuing to step up for a bully?” she asked. “It’s aggression that is unnecessary that’s continuing to escalate because we’re helping it.”
Hansen did not participate in these conversations, Delaware Public Media stated.
This summer Coons pledged to stop taking donations from the data company Palantir, which has come under scrutiny for its work with the Israel’s Defense Ministry, the U.S. military and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the nonprofit news site Spotlight Delaware.
Despite his more centrist reputation, Coons has had significant criticism for the Trump administration’s strategies in Iran. In his own Delaware Public Media interview, Coons accused the president of selling the conflict “as a cheap, quick war.”
While little polling data was available ahead of Tuesday’s race, the Polymarket predictions site gave Coons a 99.7% chance of winning as of Monday evening. In his last primary in 2020, Coons defeated a progressive opponent, Jessica Scarane, with nearly 73% of voter support.
Regardless of Tuesday’s outcome, the victor is expected to easily defeat the Republican challenger in the November general election, with the Cook Political Report deeming Delaware “solid” Democratic territory.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Staunch Israel supporter Coons expected to win Delaware Democratic Senate primary handily appeared first on The Forward.
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Noah Wyle wins an Emmy for playing one of TV’s most Jewish doctors
(JTA) — Noah Wyle on Monday night won his second consecutive Emmy for playing Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch on “The Pitt.” The win also marked a second victory for one of television’s more fully realized Jewish characters.
The actor won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for the HBO Max medical drama, which also won Outstanding Drama Series for the second year in a row. In his acceptance speech, Wyle recalled growing up in Los Angeles and said, “This is all I’ve ever wanted to do, and this is the only club I’ve ever wanted to join.”
For Jewish viewers, the significance of Wyle’s victory goes beyond the actor’s own Jewish ancestry. In the first season, Robby was seen reciting the Shema at one of his lowest moments, turning what might have been a throwaway piece of character background into an intimate expression of fear and faith.
In the second season, Wyle, who is also a writer and executive producer on the show, pushed that dimension further. An episode he wrote dealt with the trauma of the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, while also exploring Robby’s complicated relationship with his Jewish faith.
Wyle has described Robby’s faith as something he is still “grappling” with — including the question of whether he has faith at all. The Shema scene, he said, functioned almost like a child’s primal plea for help.
Wyle was not the only Jewish winner of the night. Saul Metzstein, the Scottish Jewish director whose father was the prominent modernist architect Isi Metzstein, won Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for “Slow Horses.” Metzstein had been competing against Wyle, who was nominated for directing an episode of “The Pitt.”
Those two wins were among the relatively few Jewish victories at this year’s ceremony. Jewish actors including Jason Segel, Lisa Kudrow, Harrison Ford and Hannah Einbinder were among the nominees but did not win in their categories.
“Nobody Wants This,” the Netflix show about a rabbi’s romance with a non-Jewish podcaster, was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series but lost to “Widow’s Bay.”
An Emmy was also awarded to a Jewish actor and director whose death in 2025 stunned the industry and a legion of fans. Rob Reiner, who was killed in December with his wife, Michele, won a posthumous Emmy for his guest role as a kind dispenser of business advice on “The Bear.” Reiner’s award was presented at the Creative Arts Emmys earlier this month, rather than Monday’s televised ceremony.
Reiner, before going on to direct Hollywood classics like “This Is Spinal Tap,” “The Princess Bride” and “When Harry Met Sally” won his first two Emmy awards in 1974 and 1978 for playing Mike Stivic, the liberal son-in-law of Archie Bunker on “All in the Family.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Noah Wyle wins an Emmy for playing one of TV’s most Jewish doctors appeared first on The Forward.
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