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Synagogues are joining the ‘effective altruism’ movement. Will the Sam Bankman-Fried scandal stop them?
(JTA) — A few years ago, Adam Azari was frustrated over how little he could do to alleviate suffering in the world with his modest income as a writer and caretaker for people with disabilities.
He kept thinking about a set of statistics and ideas he had encountered during his graduate studies in philosophy. For example, he remembered reading that for the price of training a guide dog for the blind in the United States, one could prevent hundreds of cases of blindness in the developing world.
This hyper-rational way of thinking about doing good was called effective altruism, and it was growing into a movement, known as E.A. for short. Some proponents were even opting to pursue lucrative careers in finance and tech that they otherwise might not have chosen so they would have more money to give away.
Azari, meanwhile, had become a believer who was stuck on the sidelines. Then, one day, he had what he calls a “personal eureka moment.” Azari would return to his roots as the son of a Reform rabbi in Tel Aviv and spread the word of E.A. across the Jewish denomination and among its millions of followers.
“It suddenly hit me that the Reform movement has this crazy untapped potential to save thousands and thousands of lives by simply informing Jews about effective giving,” he recalled.
He badgered his father, Rabbi Meir Azari, and, for a moment, thought of becoming a rabbi himself. But he abandoned the idea and focused on pitching E.A. to the Reform movement’s international arm, the World Union for Progressive Judaism. Azari found an ally in WUPJ’s president, Rabbi Sergio Bergman, and the organization soon decided to sponsor his efforts, paying him a salary for his work.
Over the past year, Azari’s Jewish Effective Giving Initiative has presented to about 100 rabbis and secured pledges from 37 Reform congregations to donate at least $3,000 to charities rated as the most impactful by E.A. advocates and which aid poor people in the developing world. Per E.A. calculations, it costs $3,000 to $5,000 to save a single life.
“Progressive Judaism inspires us to carry out tikkun olam, our concrete action to make the world better and repair its injustices,” Bergman said. “With this call we not only do what the heart dictates in values, but also do it effectively to be efficient and responsible for saving a life.”
This charitable philosophy appears to be gaining traction in the Jewish world just as one of the figures most associated with it, who happens to be Jewish, has become engulfed in scandal.
Sam Bankman-Fried built a cryptocurrency empire worth billions, amassing a fortune he pledged to give away to causes such as artificial intelligence, combatting biohazards and climate change, all selected on criteria developed by the proponents of effective altruism.
A few weeks ago, Bankman-Fried’s fortune evaporated amid suspicions of financial misconduct and revelations of improper oversight at his company, FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that was worth as much as $32 billion before a run of withdrawals ultimately left it illiquid. The situation has drawn comparisons to the implosion of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, and authorities investigating the situation have said Bankman-Fried could face criminal penalties over his role.
In the wake of FTX’s collapse, Bankman-Fried has suggested that his embrace of E.A. was insincere, a tactic to bolster his reputation.
But Azari and the organizer of another initiative, a growing reading and discussion group called Effective Altruism for Jews, are undaunted and don’t believe the scandal should taint the underlying principles of the movement.
“Whether you call it E.A. or just directly donating to global health and development, it doesn’t matter,” Azari said. “The basic idea is to support these wonderful charities, and I don’t think the FTX scandal changes any of that. Malaria nets, vitamin A supplements and vaccine distribution are still super cost-effective, evidence-based ways of helping others.”
Azari added that he has had several meetings with rabbis since the news about Bankman-Fried broke and that no one has asked him about it.
“I don’t think people are making the connection,” he said. “And to me, there is no connection between us and FTX.”
When talking to rabbis about why E.A. would make a good fit with their congregation’s charitable mission, Azari cites the Jewish value of tikkun olam, a mandate to “repair the world” often used to implore people to care for others. He explains that donating to charities with a proven track record is a concrete way to fulfill a Jewish responsibility.
That kind of thinking proved attractive to Steven Pinker, the prominent Harvard psychologist, who has endorsed Azari’s initiative. In a recorded discussion with Azari and others last year, Pinker recalled his Reform upbringing, which included Hebrew school, summer camp and synagogue services.
“The thing I remember most is how much of my so-called religious education was like a university course in moral philosophy,” Pinker said. “We chewed over moral dilemmas.”
As an adult, Pinker returned to Jewish teachings on charity and, in particular, those of the medieval philosopher Maimonides, examining these ideas through the lens of E.A. He began to wonder about the implications of Maimonides’ focus on evaluating charity based on the motives of the donor. That focus, he concluded, doesn’t always lead to the best outcomes for the beneficiary.
“What ultimately ought to count in tzedakah, in charity, is, are you making people better off?” he said.
Also on the panel with Azari and Pinker was the man credited with authoring the foundational texts upon which E.A. is built. Peter Singer, who is also Jewish and whose grandfather died in the Holocaust, teaches bioethics at Princeton. Starting in the 1970s, Singer wrote a series of books in which he argues for a utilitarian approach to ethics, namely, that we should forgo luxuries and spend our money to save lives. The extremes to which he has taken his thinking include suggesting that parents of newborn babies with severe disabilities be permitted to kill them.
From Bankman-Fried to Singer, the list of Jews who have either promoted E.A. or lead its institutions is long. With their estimated fortune of $11.3 billion, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari Tuna have eclipsed Bankman-Fried as the wealthiest Jews in the field. There’s also popular philosopher Sam Harris and New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, who have each dedicated episodes of their podcast to the topic.
The website LessWrong, which defines itself as “a community blog devoted to refining the art of rationality,” is seen as an important early influence; it was founded by Eliezer Yudkowsky, an artificial intelligence researcher who grew up in a Modern Orthodox household but does not identify religiously as a Jew anymore. Two other Jews, Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld, left the hedge fund world to establish GiveWell, a group whose research is considered the premier authority on which charities are deserving of E.A. donations.
The prevalence of Jews in the movement caught the attention of E.A. enthusiast Ben Schifman, an environmental lawyer for the federal government in Washington, D.C. About two years ago, Schifman proposed creating a group for like-minded individuals in hope of helping grow the movement. In an online post, he laid out the history of Jewish involvement and wrote a brief introduction to the topic of Judaism and charity.
Today, Schifmam runs a group called Effective Altruism for Jews, whose main program is an eight-week fellowship involving a reading and discussion group with designated facilitators. Schifman said about 70 people spread across 10 cohorts are currently participating. There’s also a Shabbat dinner program to bring people together for informal meetings with funding available for hosts.
Participants discuss how ideas that are popular in E.A. might relate to Jewish traditions and concepts, and also brainstorm ways to popularize the movement in the wider Jewish community, according to Schifman.
“There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit with regards to the Jewish community and sharing some of the ideas of Effective Altruism, like through giving circles at synagogues or, during the holidays, offering charities that are effective,” Schifman said in an interview that took place before the Bankman-Fried scandal broke.
Asked to discuss the mood in the community following the collapse of Bankman-Fried’s company and an affiliated charity, FTX Future Fund, Schifman provided a brief statement expressing continued confidence in his project.
He said, “While we’re shocked by the news and our hearts go out to all those affected, as an organization EA for Jews isn’t funded by FTX Future Fund or otherwise connected to FTX. We don’t expect our work will be impacted.”
Even if Schifman and Azari are right that their movement is robust enough to withstand the downfall of a leading evangelist, a debate remains about what impact E.A. can or should have on philanthropy itself.
Andres Spokoiny, president and CEO of the Jewish Funders Network, wrote about the question with skepticism in an article published more than two years ago. He argued against “uncritically importing the values and assumptions” of effective altruists, whose emphasis on the “cold light of reason” struck him as detached from human nature.
In a recent interview, Spokoiny echoed similar concerns, noting that applying pure rationality to all charitable giving would mean the end of cherished programs such as PJ Library, which supplies children’s books for free to Jewish families, that may not directly save lives but do contribute to a community’s culture and sense of identity.
He also worries that too strong a focus on evidence of impact would steer money away from new ideas.
“Risky, creative ideas don’t tend to emerge from rational needs assessments,” he said. “It requires a transformative vision that goes beyond that.”
But Spokoiny also sounded more open to E.A. and said that as long as it does not try to replace traditional modes of philanthropy, it could be a useful tool of analysis for donors.
“If donors want to apply some of E.A. principles to their work, I’d say that is a good idea,” he said. “I am still waiting to see if this will be a fad or buzzword or something that will be incorporated into the practice of philanthropy.”
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The manosphere says women owe their husbands sex — Judaism says the opposite
The poll posted by writer Emily May on X asked: “Married women, have you ever said yes to sex because you didn’t want to deal with his moodiness if you said no?”
Over 5,000 people responded. The majority — 72% — were men, despite the fact that the question was directed at married women. Manosphere influencers, including self-proclaimed misogynist and antisemite Andrew Tate, jumped in to use the post as a proof that women use sex to manipulate men, and generally denigrate any woman who turns a man down. Gendered ideas of marriage and sexual drive — that men need sex physically, that women want to “trap” men into marriage — percolate constantly in manosphere and incel circles, and May’s posts sent the internet into a predictable tizzy.
The question of sex within marriage — how often to have it, whether it requires consent, and whether women owe it to their husbands — has been a matter of debate for, arguably, centuries. Marital rape wasn’t outlawed in all 50 states until 1993. The U.S. imported British common law, in which, as 17th century English jurist Matthew Hale put it, a “husband cannot be guilty of a rape” because marriage means that “the wife hath given up herself in this kind to her husband which she cannot retract.” In short, a wife cannot turn down her husband.
Marital rape is illegal in the U.S. in the contemporary era, but the presumptions that women owe their husband sex have continued. And undergirding all of these assumptions in many of the discussions is a Christian idea of marriage and sex.
In Christian subreddits, people discuss the idea that, in marriage, the two become one flesh, and the women must submit to their husbands, concluding that this means the woman cannot refuse the man as her body belongs to him. They cite First Corinthians 7:4-5, which says a couple cannot “deprive” the other except by mutual agreement to abstain for prayer, and that the “wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband.”
It says the same of the husband’s body, though few commenters note this line. But in Judaism, this is in fact the main focus. While both religions agree that sex is a fundamental part of marriage, the emphasis in Judaism is not that the wife owes it to her husband. Instead, it’s that a husband owes it to his wife. Within limits.
The Talmud is very specific on those limits. First of all, there are the menstrual purity laws, which forbid sex during menstruation as well as for seven days after the bleeding has stopped, which means that for about two weeks out of the month, observant couples are forbidden from having sex.
More to the point of the current debate, the Talmud — in the Ketubot tractate, dealing with the laws of marriage — also speaks very explicitly to the realities of life: That people get tired, exhausted and aren’t in the mood for intimacy. Still, it says, there are limits on the excuses. And these relate to exactly how taxing one’s job and daily duties are.
The rules are as follows: A man who is unemployed must offer his wife sex every day, because there is nothing exhausting him. Workers or laborers must be available twice a week if they work in the city in which they live. Donkey drivers — e.g. those whose work requires traveling shorter distances — are obligated to offer once a week, while camel drivers, who must travel long distances, must return home and offer their wives sex at least once a month. Sailors must return home to do the same every six months. And students of the Torah may leave home to study for up to 30 days — but they must then spend a full month at home with their wife.
In each of these cases, the wife isn’t obligated to accept any offer of sex; in fact, the wife can give permission for her husband to be gone longer — perhaps to take a job in another city to support the family, which would result in less sex. But she can also demand he stay closer to home so he can fulfill his conjugal duties. Sex is her right, not her obligation.
Her pleasure is also the focus. Men are instructed to court their wives, not simply rush to sex — to learn from “the rooster, which first cajoles the hen and then mates with it.” In tractate Eruvim, a man is not only explicitly forbidden from having sex with his wife without her consent, but also from doing so in any way that causes her discomfort, emotional or physical — e.g. pushing for her consent or making her unhappy, or even having sex that isn’t pleasurable for her.
What is clear from all of the writing is that the presumption of the rabbis is that it is more likely that the man, for reasons of exhaustion or work or even another wife, might avoid having sex with a desiring woman. This isn’t to say that Jewish text is perfect in its conception of women; there are, of course, plenty of other problematic, less empowering ideas about women in Jewish text. A man has a right to divorce his wife, for example, for all kinds of reasons, including spoiling his dinner, while she cannot divorce him. Still, it’s fascinating that the Jewish approach to sex and gender turns the common gender expectations around sex in modern Western society upside-down.
Today, the dominant stereotypes presume men are horny and desirous at all times, and women are far less sexual. Those are not neutral ideas; just looking at the discourse raging online right now, it’s clear those presumptions drive a lot of misogynistic hate, like the idea that women would only use sex as a way to entrap men. People take these gendered beliefs about sex as though they’re unassailable truisms about the world.
But they’re clearly not; for millennia, Jewish culture has believed the opposite. The reality is nothing is so clearcut, and different people of any gender have different relationships to sex, and different libidos. The internet isn’t a great place for that kind of nuance, but maybe — just maybe — if people realized their conclusions aren’t as foundational, or as God-given, as they thought, they might reexamine their assumptions.
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Georgia’s Jewish senator called his newly minted GOP opponent an antisemite. Why?
(JTA) — After Rep. Mike Collins won a hard-fought Republican runoff election in Georgia Tuesday for the party’s Senate nomination in November, his opponent wasted no time going on the offensive.
“Donald Trump’s handpicked candidate Mike Collins is a notorious bigot, antisemite, and extremist,” Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff posted on social media on Tuesday night.
Ossoff, who is Jewish, did not elaborate on the antisemitism allegation in the post, which continued with other attack lines against Collins. But Collins and some of his senior staff members have faced well-documented past allegations of antisemitism in a state that’s home to an estimated 100,000-plus Jewish adults.
“Whether he’s socializing with a known Nazi, speaking in antisemitic dog whistles, or doubling down after targeting a Jewish reporter, Mike Collins’ record of bigotry and antisemitism speaks for itself,” Valeria Rivadeneira-Crandell, a spokesperson for Ossoff’s campaign, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a statement.
The Collins campaign did not return a request for comment for this article.
The Ossoff campaign provided links to multiple incidents. In one instance in 2024, Collins came under hot water after replying favorably to a tweet from an antisemitic account that appeared to reference a Washington Post reporter’s Jewish background. “Was never any doubt,” Collins, who has said he runs his own X account, wrote at the time.
Following backlash, including from some Georgia state lawmakers, Collins doubled down, writing, “I guess pointing out that a Washington Post journo excusing crime because she believes USA is on ‘stolen land’ makes her a garbage human is anti-Semitic? Y’all just see stuff that ain’t there.”
Collins, a Trump-endorsed MAGA loyalist with a trollish social media streak in a closely watched swing state, won his runoff with more than 55% of the vote, according to Associated Press tallies. His win came the same night as Trump’s preferred pick for governor of Georgia lost his own GOP primary runoff.
Collins has leaned heavily into nativist proposals and language, including sponsoring a bill to end birthright citizenship. He also approvingly shared a 2024 video of a University of Mississippi fraternity mocking a Black pro-Palestinian protester with monkey noises.
Collins also defended the New York Young Republicans shortly after that organization’s antisemitic group texts were leaked to the press. “I don’t care about some group chat,” Collins tweeted in October, accompanied by a picture of Laken Riley, the Georgia nursing student whose 2024 murder by an undocumented immigrant spurred a GOP-led push for harsher penalties on migrants.
Collins went on to attend a New York Young Republicans gala that also honored far-right German politician Markus Frohnmaier and featured appearances from several antisemitic figures, including the livestreamer Sneako.
The congressman has also come under scrutiny for some of his current and former staffers’ behavior.
Last month a report in Slate, citing leaked text messages, found that Collins’ chief of staff Kip Talley had participated in a group chat with white supremacist influencers Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer. Talley wrote in December chats that his goal was to “try and use the levers of the legislative branch” to help Holocaust denier and right-wing activist Charles C. Johnson, who was then incarcerated on contempt of court charges related to falsely presenting himself as an FBI informant.
Talley told his chat mates that he was “reaching out to my people at FBI and DOJ” and “trying to get him out,” referring to Johnson. At the time, Talley was Collins’ deputy chief of staff. He was promoted to chief of staff in January. Johnson was released from prison in February.
Talley, who remains in his role with Collins, told Slate he had “acted solely in my personal capacity after hearing concerns that an acquaintance I have known for years was being mistreated in custody and denied basic medical care.” He added that he “did not act at the direction of Rep. Collins, use official resources, or coordinate with anyone else in the group chat.”
Collins also formerly employed William Paul, who last month made a series of antisemitic comments to Jewish GOP Rep. Mike Lawler. Paul, son of Sen. Rand Paul, had been Collins’ digital director in early 2025 but had not been on the congressman’s staff for nearly a year at the time of his altercation with Lawler.
Amid such comments and associations, Collins has also maintained a resolutely pro-Israel stance within a MAGA movement that is quickly fracturing over Israel. He spoke at a memorial event in his home state marking the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, vowing to “make sure that Israel has the resources to defend themselves,” and he has continued to refer to Israel as “our ally.” Prior to the 2024 election, he tweeted, “I bet money Iran wouldn’t be attacking Israel if Trump was president.”
Ossoff, too, has positioned himself as an Israel supporter, but he has recently voted against some weapons sales to the country. That has upset many Georgia Jewish organizations, who in 2024 penned an open letter — signed by several synagogues, Jewish schools, the local Anti-Defamation League and other groups — opposing the senator’s vote against arms sales.
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Alex Bores’ supporters disagree on Israel. They agree on him.
(New York Jewish Week) — Alex Bores, who’s running to succeed Rep. Jerry Nadler in Congress, is threading a very delicate needle.
On the one hand, Bores, a two-term New York State Assembly member from the Upper East Side, has garnered support from a number of Jewish leaders and political moderates who tout his support for Israel. He marches annually in the city’s Israel Day Parade and has resisted growing calls for Democratic politicians to support conditioning military aid to Israel.
At the same time, he’s being backed by a number of the left-wing groups and individuals calling for those very conditions.
Those two camps seldom coexist on a single candidate’s list of endorsements, especially as Israel has become a major wedge issue this midterm election cycle. But Bores, who has put a promise to regulate artificial intelligence at the center of his campaign for New York’s 12th Congressional District, has managed to maintain the coalition.
“You could make a sitcom,” said Cameron Kasky, a former candidate in the race who’s now backing Bores, referring to what he called the “Boalition.” “If you put 12 Alex Bores endorsers in a mansion together and showed up with a reality TV crew, you could make the most must-watch television in the entire world.”
Scroll through the “Endorsements” page on Bores’ campaign website and you’ll find Chi Osse, the democratic socialist City Council member who’s called for divesting city pension funds from Israel bonds, just a couple rows down from Carolyn Maloney, the former Upper East Side representative who was a staunch supporter of Israel in Congress.
Progressive groups such as Bernie Sanders’ Our Revolution and PSC-CUNY, the City University of New York’s staff-faculty union, are backing the same candidate who drew the support of ActJew, which supports more centrist candidates and calls itself “a response to a political and social landscape that normalizes antisemitic and anti-Israel activity and rhetoric.” (ActJew endorsed both Bores and Micah Lasher in the race.)
Bores’ endorsers include some of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s political allies, such as failed City Council candidate Lindsey Boylan, and vocal critics of the mayor including Fabien Levy, a Jewish spokesperson for Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams.
“I can’t imagine the Bores campaign hasn’t occasionally looked at each other and been like, ‘What is happening right now?’” Kasky said.
So how is Bores pulling it off?
For progressive groups, the answer lies, at least in part, in Bores’ work on AI.
“He put forward the country’s strongest regulation of the AI industry to protect Americans from those who want no rules and only care about unfettered power and profit,” wrote Our Revolution’s executive director, Joseph Geevarghese, in an endorsement announcement. Geevarghese was referring to the RAISE Act, a state law that Bores introduced to impart transparency and safety regulations on AI models.
As an elected official, Bores is no political outsider, though the 35-year-old’s background in the tech industry differentiates him from fellow frontrunner Lasher, who’s spent decades working for politicians such as Nadler, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor.
Bores’ resume includes a nearly five-year stint at the tech company Palantir, starting as a data scientist in 2014 and working his way up to become the U.S. government lead. That gig has complicated how some progressives see Bores, given Palantir’s work with ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that Bores himself has called to abolish. He has repeatedly said that he quit Palantir over its contract with ICE back in 2019, and that he chose “principle over my career and millions of dollars.”
Pundits such as center-left commentator Matthew Yglesias — who has also joined the Bores coalition — say there is a “unique value” to him winning because of his promise to enforce AI regulations and the message that it would send to the anti-regulation PACs that have been spending against him. Yglesias added that Lasher, too, would be “an above-average House member.”
But in a race with little daylight between the two frontrunners — particularly regarding the U.S.-Israel relationship — Bores’ AI focus is setting him apart. And rather than sit out the race due to differences on Israel, a number of progressive groups are backing him anyways.
“I think progressives see something in Alex that is a testament to a resolve he’s going to bring,” said Kasky, who has advocated for policies such as an arms embargo on Israel. “And I think that that is enough for progressive groups to cede ground on the issue of Israel-Palestine, and frankly the issue of Israel and the Middle East region as a whole, which is getting increasingly severe.”
The makeup of the district itself plays a role as well: As one of the country’s most heavily Jewish districts, NY-12 is seen as less hospitable than other deep-blue districts for a “Squad”-type insurgent candidate. John F. Kennedy’s grandson Jack Schlossberg is the only major candidate who calls for conditioning aid and blocking weapons sales to Israel, but he has dropped in recent polls as he’s faced questions over his lack of experience.
Bores, Lasher and Schlossberg are all listed as “primary approved” candidates by J Street, the liberal pro-Israel organization.
Bores has confirmed that Our Revolution asked him about Israel and gave him its endorsement despite not being aligned on the issue. During a candidate forum in May, he said that “we need to make it acceptable for there to be people in progressive spaces that still believe in the right of Israel to exist and to defend itself.”
Michael Miller, who was CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York for 36 years, is endorsing Bores and wrote in a Facebook post that Bores is a “steadfast supporter of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”
In an interview, Miller — whom Bores named in a recent Temple Emanu-El forum as a Jewish American that he admires — said he felt assured that Bores’ support from groups such as Our Revolution had mostly to do with his AI work.
“The fact that he’s receiving support from a coalition that includes decidedly left-wing supporters doesn’t trouble me for as long as the issues of central concern to me — antisemitism and support for Israel — are those issues where he has given his support, and with which he has identified,” Miller said.
Miller added that he believes Bores’ Jewish family — his wife, Darya (who recently appeared in a campaign ad), and son, Charlie, are both Jewish — plays a “large role in how he thinks about matters of concern to the Jewish community.”
A number of Jewish celebrities in the district have embraced Bores. The Oscar-winning songwriter Benj Pasek and Jewish cookbook author Jake Cohen posted photos on social media showing them at a Bores event in a private home that included a conversation with journalist Laurie Segall about AI.
On the same day, Miller and more than 20 other local Jewish leaders and elected officials signed a letter endorsing Bores. The letter emphasized his record of combating antisemitism, pointing to measures such as securing funds for Holocaust survivor programs, funding security for synagogues and Jewish institutions, and organizing trips for students to Jewish museums.
But for some Jewish groups, Bores’ support from left-wing groups critical of Israel has given them pause.
Moshe Spern, a board member of the group ActJew, called on Bores to drop his PSC-CUNY endorsement back in March, saying the union is “consistently calling for divestments from Israel” and has “downplayed and ignored Jewish students/faculty experiences since 10/7.” PSC-CUNY revoked a pro-BDS resolution against Israel in February 2025, after its initial passage sparked backlash, including from Hochul and CUNY itself. Spern told JTA he pushed for the group to rescind its endorsement, but was outvoted.
Bores replied to Spern’s tweet, writing that “every major candidate pursued” PSC-CUNY’s endorsement, and that his endorsement interview focused on funding public education and regulating AI. Bores added that he has “spoken out against antisemitic incidents on campuses (including CUNY specifically) and will continue to do so.”
Meanwhile, some progressive groups have refrained from endorsing Bores because of his pro-Israel politics.
“It’s pretty much a non-starter for us to endorse someone who wouldn’t sign on to the Block the Bombs,” said Sophie Ellman-Golan, director of communications of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, referring to the Block the Bombs to Israel Act that would prohibit certain weapons sales to the country. She added that Bores also voted for a statewide “buffer zone” bill meant to curb protests outside houses of worship, which Lasher introduced, and which JFREJ has vehemently opposed throughout the year.
According to the latest polling data, despite Bores’ greater support from the left, there’s been little difference in the number of voters who are responding to each candidate.
“You go into any Jewish WhatsApp chat — I see this as an Upper East Side resident myself — and there’s no consensus,” said Michael Harris, ActJew’s CEO. “The consensus is Bores or Lasher.”
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