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The hora, the hora! How Jewish wedding music got that way
(JTA) — When my wife and I were planning our wedding, we thought it might be cool to hire a klezmer band. This was during the first wave of the klezmer revival, when groups like The Klezmatics and The Klezmer Conservatory Band were rediscovering the genre of Jewish wedding music popular for centuries in Yiddish-speaking Eastern Europe.
Of course we also wanted to dance to rock ‘n’ roll and needed musicians who could handle Sinatra for our parents’ benefit, so we went with a more typical wedding band. Modernity won out over tradition.
Or did it? Musician and musicologist Uri Schreter argues that the music heard at American Jewish weddings since the 1950s has become a tradition all its own, especially in the way Old World traditions coexist with contemporary pop. In a dissertation he is writing about the politics of Jewish music in the early postwar period, Schreter argues that American Jewish musical traditions — especially among secularized Conservative and Reform Jews — reflect events happening outside the wedding hall, including the Holocaust, the creation of Israel and the rapid assimilation of American Jews.
That will be the subject of a talk he’ll be giving Monday for YIVO, titled “Yiddish to the Core: Wedding Music and Jewish Identity in Postwar New York City.”
Because it’s June — and because I’m busy planning a wedding for one of my kids one year from now — I wanted to speak to Schreter about Jewish weddings and how they got that way. Our Zoom conversation Wednesday touched on the indestructibility of the hora, the role of musicians as “secular clergy” and why my Ashkenazi parents danced the cha-cha-cha.
Born in Tel Aviv, Schreter is pursuing his PhD in historical musicology at Harvard University. He is a composer, pianist and film editor.
Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.
I was struck by your research because we’re helping to plan a child’s wedding now. It’s the first wedding we’ve planned since our own, and we’re still asking the same questions, like, you’ve got to make sure the band can handle the hora and the Motown set and, I don’t know, “Uptown Funk.” Your research explores when that began — when American Jewish weddings began to combine the traditional and secular cultures.
In the period that I’m talking about, post-World War II America, this is already a fact of life for musicians. A lot of my work is based on interviews with musicians from that period, folks now in their 80s and 90s. The oldest one I have started playing professionally in 1947 or ’48. Popular American music was played at Jewish weddings as early as the 1930s, but it’s a question of proportion — how much the wedding would feature foxtrots and swing and Lindy Hop and other popular dance tunes of the day, and how much of it is going to be klezmer music.
In the postwar period, most of the [non-Orthodox] American Jewish weddings would have featured American pop. For musicians who wanted to be in what they called the “club date” business, they needed to be able to do all these things. And some “offices” — a term they used for a business that books wedding bands — would have specialists that they could call on to do a Jewish wedding.
You’re writing about a period when the Conservative movement becomes the dominant American Jewish denomination. They have one foot in tradition, and the other in modernity. What does a wedding look like in 1958 when they’re building the big suburban synagogues?
The difference is not so much denominational but between the wide spectrum of Orthodoxy and the diverse spectrum of what I describe as “secular.”
Meaning non-Orthodox — Reform, Conservative, etc.?
Right. Only in the sense that they are broadly speaking more secular than the Orthodox. And if so they are going to have, for the most part, one, maybe two sets of Jewish dance music — basically a medley of a few Jewish tunes. You might have a wedding where it could be a quarter of the music or even half would be Jewish music, but this would be for families that have a much stronger degree of attachment to traditional Jewish culture, and primarily Yiddish culture.
There’s a few interrelated elements that shape this. Class is an important thing. For lower class communities in some areas, and I am talking primarily about New York, you’d have communities that are a little bit more secluded, probably speaking more Yiddish at home and hanging out more with other Jewish people from similar backgrounds. So these kinds of communities might have as much as a third or half of the music be Jewish, even though they consider themselves secular. It’s actually very similar to an Orthodox wedding, where you might also have half and half [Jewish and “American” music].
Jews in the higher socioeconomic class might, in general, be more Americanized, and want to project a more mainstream American identity. They might have as little as five minutes of Jewish music, just to mark it that they did this. Still, it’s very important for almost all of them to have those five minutes — because it’s one of the things that makes the wedding Jewish. I interviewed couples that were getting married in the ’50s, and a lot of them told me, “You need to have Jewish dance music for this to be a Jewish wedding.”
Composer and pianist Uri Schreter is pursuing his PhD in historical musicology at Harvard University. (Nicole Loeb)
When I was growing up in the 1970s at a suburban Reform synagogue on Long Island, klezmer was never spoken about. I don’t know any parents who owned klezmer albums. Then when I got married a decade later, it was in the middle of the klezmer revival. Am I right about that? Were the ’50s and ’60s fallow periods for klezmer?
You’re definitely right. Up until the mid-1920s, you still have waves of immigration coming from Eastern Europe. So you still have new people feeding this desire for the traditional culture. But as immigration stops and people basically tried to become American, the tides shift away from traditional klezmer.
The other important thing that happens in the period that I’m looking at is both a negative rejection of klezmer and a positive attraction to other new things. Klezmer becomes associated with immigrant culture, so people who are trying to be American don’t want to be associated with it. It also becomes associated with the Holocaust, which is very problematic. Anything sounding Yiddish becomes associated for some people with tragedy.
At the same time, and very much related to this, there’s the rise of Israeli popular culture, and especially Israeli folk songs. A really strong symbol of this is in the summer of 1950, when the Weavers record a song called “Tzena, Tzena,” a Hebrew Israeli song written in the 1940s which becomes a massive hit in America — it’s like number two in the Billboard charts for about 10 weeks. Israeli culture becomes this symbol of hope and the future and a new society that’s inspiring. This is all in very stark contrast to what klezmer represents for people. And a lot of the composers of Israeli folk song of its first decades had this very clearly stated ideology that they’re moving away from Ashkenazi musical traditions and Yiddish.
So the Jewish set at a wedding becomes an Israeli set.
At a typical Conservative wedding in the 1950s and ’60s, you might hear 10 minutes of Jewish music. The first one would be “Hava Nagila,” then they went to “Tzena, Tzena,” then they would do a song called “Artza Alinu,” which is today not very well known, and then “Hevenu Shalom Aleichem.” They are songs that are perceived to be Israeli folk songs, even though if you actually look at their origins, it’s a lot murkier than that. Like two of the songs I just mentioned are actually Hasidic songs that received Hebrew words in pre-state Palestine. Another probably comes from some sort of German, non-Jewish composer in 1900, but is in Hebrew and is perceived to be a representation of Israeli culture.
But even when the repertoire already represents a shift towards what’s easier to digest for American Jewry, the arrangements and the instruments and the musical ornamentation are essentially klezmer. The musicians I spoke to said they did this because they felt that this is the only way that it would actually sound Jewish.
That is to say, to be “Jewish” the music had to gesture towards Ashkenazi and Yiddish, even if it were Israeli and Hebrew. As if Jews wanted to distance themselves from Eastern Europe — but only so far.
Someone like Dave Tarras or the Epstein Brothers, musicians who were really at the forefront of klezmer in New York at the time, were really focused on bringing it closer to Ashkenazi traditions. Ashkenazi Jewish weddings in America are not the totality of Jewish weddings in America, and Israeli music itself is made up of all these different traditions — North African, Middle Eastern, Turkish, Greek — but in effect most of the really popular songs of the time were composed by Ashkenazi composers. Even “Hava Nagila” is based on a melody from the Sadigura Hasidic sect in Eastern Europe.
Of course, if you’re a klezmer musician you’re allergic to “Hava Nagila.”
Then-Vice President Joe Biden dances the hora with his daughter Ashley at her wedding to Howard Krein in Wilmington, Delaware on June 2, 2012. (White House/David Lienemann)
You spoke earlier about Latin music, which seemed to become a Jewish thing in the 1950s and ’60s — I know a few scholars have focused on Jews and Latinos and how Latin musical genres like the mambo and cha-cha-cha became popular in the Catskill Mountain resorts and at Jewish weddings.
Latin music is not exclusively a Jewish thing, but it’s part of American popular culture by the late 40s. But Jews are very eagerly adopting it for sure. In the Catskills, you would often have two separate bands that alternated every evening. One is a Latin band, one is a generic American band playing everything else. And part of that is American Jews wanting to become American. And how do you become American? By doing what Americans do: by appropriating “exotic” cultures, in this case Latin. This is a way of being American.
Jews and Chinese food would be another example.
And by the way, in a similar vein, it also becomes very popular to dance to Israeli folk songs. A lot of people are taking lessons. A lot of people are going to their Jewish Y to learn Israeli folk dance.
I’ve been to Jewish weddings where the “Jewish set” feels very perfunctory — you know, dance a hora or two long enough to lift the couple on chairs and then let’s get to the Motown. Or the Black Eyed Peas because they were smart enough to include the words “Mazel Tov!” in the lyrics to “I Gotta Feeling.”
So that’s why we always hear that song! I will say though, even when the Jewish music appears superficial, it does have this deeper layer of meaning. It’s very interesting how, despite all these changes, and despite the secularization process of American Jewish weddings, the music still connects people to their Jewishness. These pieces of music are so meshed with other religious components. Of course, most people see this as secular. But a lot of people connect to their Jewish identity through elements such as Jewish music, Jewish food, certain Jewish customs that are easier to accommodate in your secular lifestyle, and the music specifically has this kind of flexibility, this fluidity between the sacred and the profane.
That’s beautiful. It sort of makes the musicians secular clergy.
It’s interesting that you say that. In his history of klezmer, Walter Zev Feldman refers to the klezmer — the word itself means “musician” — as a kind of a liminal character, an interstitial character between the secular and the mundane. The music is not liturgical, but when the klezmer or the band is playing, it is an interval woven with all these other religious components and things that have ritual meaning.
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Trump says US aid to Israel will stop at end of year
(JTA) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning said that the United States would halt billions of dollars in annual aid to Israel by the end of 2026, potentially ending decades of military support for one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East.
“We were giving them $4 billion. We are. But it gets cut off at the end of the year,” Trump declared during a call-in appearance on the “Fox & Friends” morning program on Fox News. Israel’s 10-year memorandum of understanding with the United States, which currently gives Israel $3.8 billion annually, runs through 2028 so it’s unclear how easy it would be for the White House to stop the funding this year.
Referencing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement in January that he wanted to taper off aid to zero at some point in the future, Trump questioned why Republicans should have to deal with criticism from hardline pro-Palestinian Democrats like Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed when “we give them more than anybody else and they no longer need it.”
“It’s a bad talking point,” he added. His comments came as Americans across the country are voting Tuesday in midterm elections that will determine control of the U.S. House and Senate.
“We reached an agreement on that” and Netanyahu “brought it up,” Trump continued. “He said: ‘I think it would be appropriate if we do not receive aid,’ because he understands that this is one of their points of contention.”
A growing number of Democratic congressional candidates across the United States have campaigned on a platform of reducing or halting military aid to Israel during the run-up to today’s midterm elections. This April, dozens of senators — almost all of them Democrats — voted in favor of a failed motion to block the sales of certain weapons to Israel.
Yair Golan, chairman of Israel’s liberal Democrats party, slammed Netanyahu in the wake of Trump’s statement, tweeting that “precisely at a time when Israel’s defense spending has reached enormous proportions, when Israel needs to replenish its offensive weapons stockpiles, and after air defense capabilities have been depleted following such a long war—Netanyahu logs another massive failure under his name.”
“The cessation of U.S. aid is heavy damage to Israel’s security” and “a responsible prime minister would have fought to increase American aid, not eliminate it,” added Golan, whose party opposes Netanyahu’s and is trying to form a coalition to oust Netanyahu from power following Israel’s own elections last Tuesday.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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A ‘unique 20th Century Israelite’ who always made sure we got it right
It’s fitting that I first met Rabbi Capers Funnye in a television studio. And it should surprise no one that the topic that brought us together — by no means accidentally — was a discussion about Black Jews.
We never stopped talking about it. And making sure others got it right.
The spiritual leader for decades of Chicago’s Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation and since 2016 the Chief Rabbi of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis, Funnye died Nov. 2 at 74.
Our friendship spanned decades, beginning before we co-founded the Alliance of Black Jews with Michelle Stein-Evers Frankl in 1995. With Stein-Evers, then in Los Angeles, and me in Boston, the organization brought together Jews of African descent from around the country to celebrate our dual affiliations as normative.
Although the organization did not last beyond its early years, it spawned numerous other groups that exist today. Most significantly, it mainstreamed the fact that Blackness and Judaism are not mutually exclusive.
That’s the message we had been imparting five years earlier, on the Black Entertainment Television show Our Voices in 1990. Having filed a story mentioning Black Jews while a reporter for BET’s news division, I was asked by the network to co-produce a special on the subject. In addition to me, they asked who else should appear.
“There’s a rabbi in Chicago,” I said unhesitatingly, though I had yet to meet him, “and the police chief in Charleston, South Carolina” — Reuben Greenberg, who passed away in 2014.
Each of us came to Judaism differently: me, the child of a non-Jewish African-American father and non-Black Jewish mother; Greenberg, via conversion first through Reform, then Conservative Judaism (and also “reversion” in that he was reaching back to the religion of his grandfather), and Funnye, who had been Methodist before joining the Ethiopian Hebrew denomination (of African Americans, not Ethiopians) and later underwent a Conservative conversion.
Although his smicha was granted by the Ethiopian Hebrew group (now more broadly termed Israelite) and not by the Conservative body, he was invited to join the Chicago Board of Rabbis as its first African American member in 1997.
His dual affiliations as both Conservative and Israelite — and indeed, that of his largely Black and increasingly Hispanic Chicago shul, which also had merged with an aging Ashkenazi congregation — allowed him to serve as a bridge between many strains of Judaic practices.
“He accomplished what he wanted,” said Rabbi Baruch A. Yehudah of Congregation B’nai Adath Kol Beth Yisrael in New York. “He wanted to be a bridge builder and he built many — into the Ethiopian community, the Nigerian community, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda. He was the first one of us to be on a mainstream board of rabbis.”
“I loved him,” Yehudah added. “He wasn’t just my boss.”
Bruce Haynes, author of The Soul of Judaism, called Funnye “the most unique 21st Century Israelite” because of his role as chief rabbi. “To my knowledge, that (position) was the first of its kind. It elevated him institutionally as the premiere figure among modern-day Hebrew Israelites.”
Yet that outreach went beyond the bima. “Having chosen to move his whole family toward Conservative Judaism was an important step in cementing a personal relationship between Israelite congregations and rabbinic Judaism,” Haynes said.
Rabbi Tamar Manasseh, a protégé of Funnye who in 2021 became the first woman ordained by the Israelite body, said Funnye was “doing the whole bridge thing before anybody knew that they wanted a bridge.
“There were Black Jews who didn’t like that. There were white Jews who didn’t like that, either. It was uncomfortable for everybody until it wasn’t uncomfortable for anybody.”
She praised him for enduring “all of the stuff he had to go through to get us to a point where I can complain about things now, which is remarkable.”
I too find it difficult to separate the personal from the bridge-building. In addition to our numerous Black Jewish campaigns and initiatives — we literally traveled the world together, from Chicago to Boston to San Francisco to Uganda — he served as the rabbi for my mother’s funeral and my daughter’s wedding.
In my ever-diverse family, both were examples of bridge-building in their own right. During the wedding, my now son-in-law, whose native language is Russian, recited the line “I concentrate you to me as my wife,” prompting Funnye to break from the prepared liturgy to correct him.
“No, no. Consecrate. We gotta get this right.”
“I consecrate you to me as my wife,” the groom said, appreciative of the gentle but authoritative guidance.
Because Capers made sure to get it right.
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The Jewish midterms: Races to watch on Election Day
Tuesday’s midterm elections will determine which party controls Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump’s second term, with Republicans fighting to hold their narrow majorities and Democrats hoping to regain power.
Recent polls suggest Democrats are favored to retake the House and have a strong chance of winning the Senate. Several closely watched gubernatorial races could also shape the field for the 2028 presidential election and increase the number of Jewish governors.
The outcome could have immediate consequences for U.S. foreign policy, particularly American support for Israel and the war with Iran. If Democrats win the House, they would have greater power to investigate Trump’s handling of the war, limit his power and challenge his foreign policy decisions. Democrats will also likely push for restrictions on military aid to Israel, depending on who forms the next Israeli government. Democrats remain divided over Israel and their leadership has so far resisted pressure to pursue major changes to longstanding U.S. policy.
A Democratic takeover of Congress would put House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, both longtime supporters of Israel, in charge of their respective chambers and navigating any divides within their caucus.
The elections will also test whether Democrats can win back voters who shifted toward Trump and will reveal how much influence the party’s progressive wing may have, particularly on Israel and foreign policy going into the presidential primary season.
For Jewish voters, the stakes are especially high. Although they make up only about 2% of the population nationwide, Jewish voters could help decide close races in New York, Michigan, Georgia and Ohio. The results could also show whether frustration with Democrats over Israel is driving more Jewish voters toward Republicans or whether concerns about antisemitism on the right and disapproval of Trump are keeping them in the Democratic camp.
Here are the key races we’re watching and what’s at stake.
– Senate –
Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed (D) vs. Mike Rogers (R)
Issues: The race has become one of the largest tests of the Democratic divide on Israel and antisemitism. El-Sayed, a progressive and fierce critic of Israel, defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in the contested Democratic primary despite millions spent by AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups. Now, Stevens is backing Rogers. El-Sayed has refused to moderate his views and has doubled down on ending Israel aid and his association with Hasan Piker, a popular left-wing pundit who has been accused of antisemitism. El-Sayed said he disagreed with the content of an ad from a PAC supporting his campaign that blamed U.S. aid to Israel for rising grocery prices.
The Jewish vote: The state has an estimated 130,000 Jewish residents, who make up 1.4% of the electorate. The Republican Jewish Coalition spent $2 million to target 50,000 Jewish voters in Oakland County who opposed El-Sayed in the primary; those votes could matter in a close race.
Georgia: Incumbent Jon Ossoff (D) vs. Mike Collins (R)
Issues: Ossoff, the state’s first Jewish senator, has angered some Jewish voters for backing measures to block some aid to Israel. Collins criticized Ossoff for supporting El-Sayed. The Republican has been accused of ties to white nationalists and antisemitic figures, including his son-in-law, who promoted antisemitic conspiracies. Collins rejected their views and condemned antisemitism.
The Jewish vote: Georgia is home to an estimated 150,000 Jews, primarily in Atlanta. Though that represents 1.3% of the electorate, Jewish voters could play an important role in a state where recent elections were decided by narrow margins. The outcome could test whether dissatisfied Jewish Democrats will still support Ossoff over a Trump-aligned Republican and whether his Jewish identity still provides a political advantage.
Florida: Incumbent Ashley Moody (R) vs. Angie Nixon (D)
Issues: Moody, who was appointed to the Senate in 2025 after Marco Rubio became Secretary of State, is a staunch supporter of Israel and led on combating BDS in her previous role as attorney general. Nixon is the first member of the Democratic Socialists of America on a major party ticket. She did not make Israel the centerpiece of her Senate campaign, which focused heavily on affordability, health care and other economic issues. But on Israel and Gaza, her record puts her broadly in line with the DSA’s platform.
The Jewish vote: Florida is home to 750,000 Jews, who make up an estimated 3-5% of the state’s electorate. Moody leads Nixon by an average of 6 percentage points.
– House –
New York 17: Rep. Mike Lawler (R) vs. Cait Conley (D)
Issues: Support for Israel and antisemitism were central in outreach to the Jewish community, though the two candidates have more in common on those issues than their campaigns suggest. Lawler highlighted his ties to Jewish voters and questioned whether Conley would stand up to anti-Israel voices in the Democratic Party, while Conley accuses him of associating with Republicans who have faced accusations of antisemitic rhetoric and ties to white nationalists.
The Jewish vote: The district has 150,000 Jewish residents who make up 19% of the population. At least 20,000 members of the growing Hasidic communities in Rockland County voted for Lawler in 2024. His first race was won by a narrow margin of about 2,000 votes. The margin of victory could determine whether a pro-Israel moderate Democrat could peel away Jewish voters from Lawler’s camp.
New York 10 and 12: Brad Lander and Micah Lasher
Lander and Lasher are heavily favored to win their races in the deep blue districts. They represent a generational transition in the debate over Israel and Jewish influence in Congress, as Jerry Nadler, co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Congress who served as the leading voice in Congress for liberal Jews, is set to retire. Lander, an ally of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and of the pro-Palestinian movement, supports halting all aid to Israel and has called the Gaza war a genocide, while Lasher supports continued aid and calls himself a Zionist.
The Jewish vote: The 12th District has the nation’s largest Jewish population – 24%, while the 10th ranks fourth, at 21%.
New York 13 and 7: Daraliza Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez
The election of Avila Chevalier, a former Columbia University Gaza War encampment activist, in the 13th District — where Jews make up 6% — and Valdez in the 7th District in Brooklyn — where Jews make up 13% – will put two fierce Israel critics and DSA members at the center of debate over Israel in Congress.
Florida 20: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D) vs. Brent Andersen (R)
Wasserman Schultz, one of the most prominent Jewish members in Congress, is favored to win reelection after easily winning the Democratic primary in a redrawn majority-Black district, surviving GOP redistricting. Jews make up just 5% of her new district.
Florida 25: Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D) vs. Scott Singer (R)
Issues: Moskowitz, who built a reputation as an outspoken supporter of Israel and one of the more bipartisan members of the House, easily defeated Oliver Larkin, a democratic socialist and fierce critic of Israel, in the August primary as he clashed with progressives over Israel. Singer, the Jewish former mayor of Boca Raton, highlighted his support for Israel and his roots in the district and, if elected, could increase the Jewish Republican caucus to five members.
The Jewish vote: The district is home to 67,000 Jews, at 8%. Recent polls show a close race, in which Jewish voters will play an important role in deciding whether they are represented by a Jewish Democrat or a Jewish Republican.
California 11: Scott Wiener vs. Connie Chan
Issues: This race to succeed Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker, is a test of how far left on Israel is good enough for San Francisco. Both Weiner, who is Jewish and advanced to first place in the Democratic primary, and Chan say that Israel committed genocide in Gaza and want to end U.S. military aid to Israel. Chan, however, is the favored candidate among pro-Palestinian activists, who say Weiner’s characterization of the conflict as a genocide was too little, too late.
Jewish vote: The district is home to 57,000 Jews, 7.5% of the population. Wiener leads Chan by an average of 6 percentage points.
Colorado 1: Melat Kiros (D) vs. Shimon Blau (I)
Issues: Israel has been a defining issue in the race. Kiros, a democratic socialist, has repeatedly declined to call the 2025 firebombing of a walk for Gaza hostages antisemitic. The attacker was heard yelling “Free Palestine” as he threw molotov cocktails, injuring 13 people, including an 82-year-old woman who later died from her injuries. Kiros has since said she understands “the immense pain and fear the Boulder attack caused.” Kiros has also argued in favor of a one-state solution, called for ending both offensive and defensive weapons sales to Israel, and called Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack the “inevitable consequence of apartheid.” Blau, an Orthodox Jew, said he was inspired to get into the race by what he described as Kiros’ antisemitic rhetoric. He told Axios he’ll caucus with Democrats if elected.
The Jewish vote: Jewish voters make up about 2% of the state’s electorate. Kiros is favored to win and become the first Gen Z woman elected to Congress.
Ohio 7: Rep. Max Miller (R) vs. Brian Poindexter (D)
Issues: Miller, a Jewish Republican and former Trump White House aide, has been an outspoken supporter of Israel and a critic of antisemitism on the left. But his reelection campaign has been overshadowed by allegations of domestic violence and abuse made by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, the daughter of Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno. Last year, a local doctor was arrested after threatening to kill Miller. Poindexter, a union ironworker endorsed by J Street and the Jewish Democratic Council of America, largely avoided discussing Israel in the campaign.
The Jewish vote: The Cleveland area is home to one of Ohio’s largest Jewish communities, though the Jewish share of the 7th District is estimated at 2%.
Virginia 2: Rep. Jen Kiggans (R) vs. former Rep. Elaine Luria (D)
Issues: Luria, a Jewish Navy veteran, is challenging the Republican incumbent in a closely watched rematch after losing the seat in 2022. In her farewell speech on the House floor, Luria accused some of her colleagues of engaging in antisemitic tropes. Democratic Majority for Israel invested $1 million in a digital ad campaign supporting her political return. Both candidates have military backgrounds, making national security and foreign policy central to the contest.
The Jewish vote: The district’s 8,400 Jewish residents make up 1% of the population.
– Governors –
Ohio: Amy Acton (D) vs. Vivek Ramaswamy (R)
Issues: Ramaswamy, an American First candidate, campaigned twice at a church whose pastor called modern Judaism “fake.” Acton, who is Jewish, faced antisemitic attacks while serving as Ohio’s health director during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ramaswamy boasted during the campaign that he was the first Republican, during the 2024 presidential primary, to propose sunsetting the $38 billion aid for Israel. If Acton wins, she would be Ohio’s first Jewish governor, while Ramaswamy would be the state’s first Hindu governor.
The Jewish vote: Ohio is home to 180,000 Jews, 1.5% of the state’s population. Acton has a four-point lead over Ramaswamy.
New York: Kathy Hochul (D) vs. Bruce Blakeman (R)
Issues: Blakeman, the Jewish Nassau County executive, has made support for Israel and opposition to antisemitism on the left central themes of his campaign against Hochul. But Blakeman has struggled to match the support former Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin received from Jewish voters and Hasidic voting blocs four years ago. Hochul has maintained strong ties with Jewish leaders even while working closely with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. She remained a strong supporter of Israel despite growing criticism of the country within her party. A recent Netanyahu critic, Hochul was the first foreign elected official to visit Israel shortly after Oct. 7 and criticized the pro-Palestinian protests on campus. Her most recent state budget included a measure establishing a buffer zone around houses of worship to prevent disruptive protests from blocking access.
The Jewish vote: The state’s 1.8 million Jews have historically played an outsized role in elections, exceeding their 9% share of the population. Organized Hasidic voting blocs are sought after by both parties. This year, most groups endorsed Hochul, in part because of her decisions to pause the implementation of state regulations on secular education in yeshivas and to join the federal tax-credit program created under Trump that would help families pay for private school tuition.
– Other races –
LA Mayor
The competitive race for mayor of Los Angeles features the incumbent, Karen Bass, against Nithya Raman, a democratic socialist, who has threaded the needle on Israel, putting her at odds with the national Democratic Socialists of America, which requires candidates to take an anti-Zionist stance. Bass has rejected the use of the term “genocide” and opposes the movement to boycott Israel. She has also faced criticism from parts of the Jewish community for what some considered an inadequate response to the Pacific Palisades wildfires and for failing to establish protest-free buffer zones outside synagogues.
Colorado Governor
Phil Weiser, the state’s Jewish attorney general, is hoping to succeed Jared Polis, the Jewish governor who is term-limited. Victor Marx, the Republican nominee, has faced antisemitism allegations for depicting Weiser with red horns in an attack ad.
2028 watch
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker are both favored to win reelection. Both Jewish politicians have been floated as possible 2028 presidential candidates so how well they perform, and how strong their coattails are, may influence their future prospects.
Texas railroad commissioner
Jewish state Rep. Jon Rosenthal accused his Republican opponent, Bo French, of sending an antisemitic fundraising email in July. French has focused his campaign on culture war issues, despite the office’s limited role: regulating the state’s gas and oil industries.
Michigan Board of Regents
Lena Epstein, who is Jewish, is seeking a seat on one of the two open seats for the Michigan board of regents in an election seen as an Israel litmus test for Democrats. The Democratic nominee, Amir Makled, has faced scrutiny over past social media posts viewed as pro-Hezbollah and antisemitic.
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