(JTA) — Democratic primary voters in Florida’s newly drawn 25th Congressional District are choosing on Tuesday between an anti-Zionist member of the Democratic Socialists of America and one of Israel’s staunchest supporters in Congress.

The race offers a test of whether the Democratic Party’s progressive insurgency can extend to a district that includes Delray Beach, Boca Raton and Miami Beach and an electorate that is roughly 25% Jewish, highlighting the party’s widening divisions over Israel.

Redistricting has transformed what had been solidly Democratic territory into a district President Donald Trump would have carried in 2024. The new lines pit Oliver Larkin, a DSA member who has accused Israel of genocide and called for ending U.S. military aid to the country, against Jared Moskowitz, a two-term congressman who backs continued U.S. military aid even as support for it has eroded within his party.

Polling from Moskowitz-aligned firms has shown him with a lead of 30-plus percentage points, while a more recent poll from a Larkin-aligned outlet this month put the two in a statistical dead heat.

Larkin’s language has alarmed some Jews, including his labeling of modern-day Israel as a “religious supremacist” country and his call for Israel to become a “secular” state. “I do not support a religious supremacist regime, whether it be in Israel or Saudi Arabia, or any other country,” Larkin told Fox News.

Larkin supports a complete arms embargo on Israel, and told JTA that that should be “the minimum standard for anyone claiming to support democracy.” Asked by Fox News if he supports selling defensive weapons to Israel, Larkin responded, “I do not make a distinction between offensive and defensive weaponry.” He also backed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s goal of arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Larkin doubled down after Mamdani backed down from the stance, saying, “I believe that the United States, any federal or otherwise law enforcement entity that has the legal jurisdiction to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu for his war crimes — that should be enforced.”

Larkin has courted support from left-wing, anti-Zionist Jews who support his platform and says that he has spoken out against antisemitism on the campaign trail.

“Our campaign believes in collective liberation for all people and that includes the liberation of Jewish South Floridians and Jewish people the world over from antisemitism,” Larkin said in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He said that there is a rise in fascism across the U.S. and that we “must recognize the link between antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, xenophobia, transphobia, and more and build a coalition to unite together to defeat these forces.”

Larkin said he supports a “one-state solution with equal and democratic rights for all people.”

Progressive, pro-Palestinian candidates with similar platforms have won the Democratic nomination this midterm cycle in deep-blue districts around the country. Larkin, who worked on Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, is betting he can match their success even in a heavily Jewish district that leans more to the center.

Moskowitz, who is endorsed by AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel, outright accused Larkin of fueling antisemitism, telling the Sun Sentinel editorial board in a letter that his opponent “has embraced the support of individuals and organizations that have repeatedly trafficked in antisemitic rhetoric and hostility toward the Jewish community.”

Last month, a Boca Raton rabbi encouraged Republican congregants to register as Democrats so they could cast their votes for Moskowitz. The far more moderate Democrat has refused to debate Larkin, saying that his opponent is contributing to antisemitism.

Moskowitz has also claimed that Larkin is “running against me solely on my religion.” The Sun Sentinel board rated Moskowitz’s claim “demonstrably untrue” and, in an unusual move, said it would not endorse him for reelection after he declined a joint interview with Larkin. The paper decried what it described as Moskowitz’s “lack of respect for voters.” Moskowitz’s campaign did not respond to a JTA request for comment.

Moskowitz has outraised Larkin 11-to-1, according to local media estimates. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has raised $667,200 of Moskowitz’s $2.5 million through June 30, according to campaign finance analyses done by the website Open Secrets.

Donna Nevel, a member of the South Florida chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, believes Larkin can win.

“There are thousands and thousands of us, from Jewish communities and all across South Florida, who are doing everything we can to make sure that Oliver will be our congressperson,” Nevel said to a cheering crowd, during a fundraiser held in New York City earlier this month.

She also said that “many Zionist organizations think that South Florida is their backyard.” She continued, “And we say, ‘Hell no!’”

In an email to JTA, Nevel said there are a “large and growing” number of Jews in the district supporting Larkin, including “well over a hundred Jewish canvassers on a regular basis.” Larkin joined a JVP-hosted Shabbat dinner with Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Florida’s left-wing U.S. Senate candidate Angie Nixon on Friday.

Larkin has said that we “should not be supporting or allowing AIPAC to influence our elections.” He told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that the group has a “corrupting influence” and that it only supports Congress members “on the condition, in my estimation, that they support wholesale U.S. military aid to Israel.”

Left-wing streamers Hasan Piker — a staunch Israel critic who’s drawn antisemitism accusations — and Michael Beyer, who was suspended from Twitch after calling Jews a “demon ethnicity,” have both fundraised for Larkin.

Asked about their support, Larkin told the Sun Sentinel that both figures have used “language that I personally have not used and will not use,” and said that as a candidate it is important “that I speak in respectful terms and based in fact.”

“But I believe that when those individuals have made those references it’s been towards members of the Israeli government,” Larkin said, as well as Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

“So certainly they’re not politicians and they don’t speak in political terms, and I don’t condone language that dehumanizes any individual,” he said. “I do think that they have legitimate criticism — even if it is rather unvarnished in how they convey it — of what the Israeli government has done.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Can an anti-Zionist Democrat win in a heavily Jewish South Florida district? appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — As an exhausting primary season begins to wind down, voters in Florida, the last remaining big state yet to hold its primaries, head to the polls Tuesday with several races on the Jewish community’s radar.

The conservative state is home to large numbers of Jews, including a growing number of Jewish emigres from more liberal enclaves, and features several marquee matchups on both sides of the aisle. The state has faced some political turmoil, including last-minute Republican-led redistricting that could hurt the chances of some pro-Israel Jewish Democrats at a moment when such figures are an endangered species in the U.S. House.

On the GOP side, the right’s civil war between hardline pro-Israel figures and a growing crop of white nationalist-adjacent Israel skeptics will be laid bare in multiple races.

Here are some of the storylines for Jews to watch for on Florida’s ballot:

The ‘groyper’ governor’s race

No other low-polling candidate this cycle has grabbed as much attention as James Fishback, the former investment banker running for governor in Florida.

Despite consistently trailing his rival, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, in the GOP primary, Fishback has raised concern among both Jewish conservatives and party elites. He has embraced online far-right figures including Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist and antisemitic influencer, and uses memes and coded phrases such as “goyslop” to court Fuentes’s “groyper” movement of young men who spread irony-laced antisemitic talking points online.

Asked earlier in the campaign about “goyslop,” a term that refers to low-quality food supposedly promoted by Jewish elites, Fishback told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency he employed it in a speech “because it’s funny. Get a life.”

Much of Fishback’s campaign has focused on the youth vote, fueling concerns that antisemitism could be a building block of the next generation of the right. His college campus visits have boasted high turnout, and young Republican groups that have hosted him have themselves been criticized for antisemitic behavior.

Few analysts expect Fishback to win the primary. His campaign has been mired by scandal and odd behavior, and Donalds, the Trump-endorsed frontrunner, leads most polls by comfortable margins. But Fishback is polling in the double digits in some recent analyses of likely voters from polling outlets including Cygnal, which also has him outpacing two other establishment candidates, and primary polling in Michigan and Wisconsin that turned out to be inaccurate further complicates the prognosis.

Even a reasonably strong performance from Fishback, particularly among the youth vote, would be met with alarm in some Jewish conservative corners.

A Jew who insults Muslims takes on a rival who insults Jews

Elsewhere in Florida’s Republican field, tensions between rising antisemitic and anti-Islamic sentiment within the party are mounting.

U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, the incumbent in the state’s deep-red 6th District, has prompted considerable ire on Capitol Hill for comments denigrating Muslims — including comparing them to dogs — and saying that Gazans should “starve away” until the Israeli hostages were released. As a hardline pro-Israel voter who also wears a kippah on the House floor, Fine has made his Judaism central to his political identity, making him a litmus test for both the right and organized Jewry.

Some of that ire has made it back to his home district, where Fine is facing primary challenger Dan Bilzerian, a celebrity poker player and Instagram influencer who routinely promotes antisemitic conspiracy theories. He has said he wants to “kill Israelis,” has called Fine a “fat Jew” and called antisemitism “a made-up term.” He has further claimed that Israel “wanted Oct. 7 to happen” and called reports of Hamas raping victims that day “bull—t.” Bilzerian has spent at least $1 million of his own money on the race.

The primary has been marked by inflammatory rhetoric and personal attacks. Fine responded to Bilzerian’s entry into the race by declaring that “we don’t want Armenians to be able to serve in Congress” (Bilzerian is Armenian), prompting anger from Armenian-American groups.

Last week a Fine campaign sign was defaced with a swastika, an act condemned by the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish groups. In a release, Fine accused Bilzerian’s supporters of having painted the swastika, a charge Bilzerian has denied and labeled “the most jew move of all time.”

On Friday, Fine’s campaign said the candidate had referred Bilzerian to federal investigators for allegedly receiving unreported campaign donations from China. Bilzerian’s pitch to voters heavily centers around antisemitism: “District 6 understands the jewish problem,” he wrote on social media over the weekend, accompanied by pictures of his campaign stops.

Some Jewish groups, including the American Jewish Committee, have condemned Fine’s rhetoric on Gaza and other matters. He still receives support from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, as well as the Republican Jewish Coalition, whose PAC has given his campaign thousands of dollars this cycle, according to federal election filings. In recent days, Republican leaders including House Speaker Mike Johnson — who had declined to condemn Fine’s earlier remarks about Muslims and dogs — have condemned Bilzerian’s antics as antisemitic.

The combined presence of Bilzerian and Fishback on the ballot is leading at least one GOP group to lump them together as similar threats. The Front Line, a Republican PAC aligned with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and formed with the goal of curbing antisemitism within the party, released an ad during the World Cup that attacked them both.

In the ad, which was generated with artificial intelligence, the two candidates are shown hosting a party with media personalities Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the pro-Palestinian group Code Pink and Iranian clerics who cut a giant cake made to look like a crossed-out Israeli flag.

One pro-Israel Dem faces a left-wing challenger…

Rep. Jared Moskowitz, one of the most pro-Israel Democrats in Congress, is finding himself in a familiar predicament this election cycle: fending off an anti-Zionist democratic socialist.

Activist Oliver Larkin is running against Moskowitz for the seat in the state’s 25th District, which is about 25% Jewish and is considered a toss-up in November after being redrawn this year. Moskowitz currently represents the 23rd District, which covers much of the same ground.

Moskowitz has outraised his challenger 11-to-1, according to local media estimates, and has refused to debate him. He has the support of AIPAC, which has raised at least $667,000 for him, according to analyses of federal campaign reports.

He also has a groundswell of Jewish support in the district, even from some unlikely corners: The rabbi of a large Orthodox synagogue in Boca Raton has encouraged his congregants to change their voter registrations from Republican to Democrat in order to cast votes for Moskowitz.

Polling from Moskowitz-aligned firms has shown him with a considerable lead, while a poll from a Larkin-aligned outlet this month put the two in a statistical dead heat.

Moskowitz has also outright accused Larkin of fomenting antisemitism, telling the South Florida Sun Sentinel editorial board in a letter that his opponent “has embraced the support of individuals and organizations that have repeatedly trafficked in antisemitic rhetoric and hostility toward the Jewish community.”

Moskowitz has also claimed that Larkin is “running against me solely on my religion.” The Sun Sentinel board rated Moskowitz’s claim “demonstrably untrue” and, in an unusual move, said it would not endorse him for reelection after he declined a joint interview with Larkin. The paper decried what it described as Moskowitz’s “lack of respect for voters.”

But Larkin’s own language has alarmed some Jews, including his labeling of modern-day Israel as a “religious supremacist” country and his call for Israel to become a “secular” state. Asked by Fox News if he supports selling defensive weapons to Israel, Larkin responded, “I do not make a distinction between offensive and defensive weaponry.” A rally he and other progressive candidates were scheduled to participate in with Palestinian-American Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan on Friday was moved at the last minute after the venue, citing Jewish leaders’ concerns over Tlaib’s anti-Israel rhetoric, cancelled.

Larkin has denied charges of antisemitism and spoken positively about Judaism on the campaign trail. In a statement to JTA, his campaign said he would advocate for “the liberation of Jewish South Floridians and Jewish people the world over from antisemitism,” and said an arms embargo on Israel should be “the minimum standard for anyone claiming to support democracy.”

He also has the support of Jewish figureheads on the anti-Zionist left. Author and trans activist Abby Stein was among a group of progressive figures who hosted a fundraiser for him in Brooklyn earlier this month.

… while another faces a redistricting controversy

Things once seemed simpler for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, an establishment Jewish Democrat and former chair of the Democratic National Committee who has comfortably served in Congress since 2004 from a safe blue seat.

But after a late GOP-led redistricting push in Florida earlier this year, prompted by President Donald Trump’s demands for Republicans to redraw their districts to help them hold the House, Wasserman Schultz’s future is suddenly a lot less certain.

Instead of the district she has represented for decades and which many Democratic observers believed she could still win despite the gerrymandering, the congresswoman decided to run in the neighboring 20th — a heavily Black district that for three decades has been represented by a Black lawmaker.

And Wasserman Schultz’s primary opponents, including a former congresswoman facing a federal fraud trial and 2 Live Crew rap star “Uncle Luke” Campbell, aren’t happy she’s gunning for the seat. Critics accuse Wasserman Schultz of carpetbagging and say her decision to run in an easier seat will harm Black representation in government. Campbell has said her decision to run would harm Black-Jewish relations.

Even congressional leaders normally in Wasserman Schultz’s corner have balked at her decision. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries withheld an endorsement in the race, citing what he called the “sensitivities of the moment.”

Florida’s third Jewish Democratic mainstay in the House, Rep. Lois Frankel, is facing her own primary challenge in a new district — though in her case, the boundaries are similar to her old district. Frankel, a staunch Israel supporter, will have to defeat progressive challenger Victoria Doyle, a retired attorney. The close resemblance to her old district and lack of substantive groundswell support behind Doyle likely means Frankel will retain the party’s nomination.

Besides redistricting, Wasserman Schultz and Frankel, as with other institutional Democrat figures, are also facing a voter base unhappy with the party’s status quo. This year the state’s LGBTQ+ Democratic Caucus withheld endorsements in both races, despite Wasserman Schultz’s and Frankel’s historically good relationships with the caucus. Rep. Jared Moskovitz, meanwhile, did receive the caucus’s endorsement.

DSA vs. Soviet refugee in Dem Senate primary

Democrats haven’t held a U.S. Senate seat in Florida since 2019. But in a midterm environment expected to favor the party, the state could prove pivotal, and the primary to replace former Sen. Marco Rubio is putting one of the party’s biggest division points — “socialist” branding — in the spotlight.

The frontrunner for the nomination, retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, is a Kyiv-born Jewish refugee from the former Soviet Union. Vindman, whose twin brother is a congressman in Virginia, attained broader name recognition during the first Trump administration, when he publicly testified about a controversial phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Vindman’s opponent is state Rep. Angie Nixon, who, in contrast to her opponent’s family history of fleeing from socialism, recently joined the Democratic Socialists of America. Nixon has made noise in her party for pushing pro-Palestinian legislation on the state level — including a push, less than a month after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel, for “de-escalation and cease-fire in the state of Israel and occupied Palestine.”

Nixon has campaigned alongside Oliver Larkin, as well as far-left elected figures in the party including Tlaib, and her pro-Palestinian positions are a big point of worry for some Jewish figures. But in a state with high numbers of voters, particularly Latinos, who have fled socialist or Communist regimes, it’s the candidates’ associations with the “S”-word that may prove the deciding factor.

Vindman has far outraised Nixon to date, and leads in the scant polling that has been conducted so far. A July poll from the University of North Florida, however, suggests that Nixon fares slightly better against the Republican nominee, appointed Sen. Ashley Moody.

Joseph Strauss contributed reporting.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Florida’s primaries have many pain points for Jews. Here are 5 races to watch appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — JERUSALEM – Vandals broke into a Reform synagogue in Jerusalem over the weekend, damaging the building and artwork and tearing down Pride flags displayed by the congregation.

Shortly after midnight a group of youths entered the grounds of Kol HaNeshamah in Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood, smashed a window and made their way into the prayer hall.

Security footage released by the Reform movement shows at least three people at the site. No congregants were present at the time.

“This past weekend we experienced a serious incident at our synagogue, when unknown individuals broke into the compound, damaged the building, vandalized a work of art and tore down the Pride flags that represent the community’s values of inclusion and acceptance,” Debi Shoua Haim, a rabbi at Kol HaNeshamah, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“Precisely during the month of mercy and forgiveness, it is painful to see displays of hatred and violence that have no place in a properly functioning society,” Shoua Haim said, referring to the Hebrew month of Elul, traditionally a period of repentance leading up to the Jewish High Holidays.

The congregation turned over security footage from the incident to police, who opened an investigation through Jerusalem’s Moriah station, Shoua Haim said. Police also sent a detective to the synagogue on Saturday to examine the footage and collect fingerprints, according to Shoua Haim.

Kol HaNeshamah is one of Israel’s best-known Reform congregations and has previously been targeted in attacks involving its support for the LGBTQ community. In 2018, a large rock was hurled into its courtyard while more than 200 people were taking part in Simchat Torah celebrations, prompting the congregation to file a police complaint. No one was injured.

In June 2023, the synagogue reported two break-ins within a matter of weeks in which Pride flags displayed for Pride Month were torn down. During one of those incidents, intruders also entered the sanctuary, although nothing was stolen.

Security footage from the 2023 incidents showed two youths entering the synagogue. Rabbi Oded Mazor, another rabbi at Kol HaNeshamah, said at the time that the intruders had entered through a kitchen window before moving through the building, kicking objects and pulling down the flag. Police complaints were filed after both attacks.

The latest attack drew condemnation from Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi and lawmaker from Israel’s Democrats party who previously headed the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism.

Kariv called those responsible “incited hooligans” and accused the Israeli government of contributing to hostility toward Reform and other liberal Jewish denominations.

“This is a government that specializes in spreading hatred for free and in delegitimizing the liberal Jewish streams,” he wrote on X.

Kariv also called on Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion to visit Kol HaNeshamah and publicly stand with the congregation. Reform and Conservative communities in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel face similar attacks “on a weekly basis,” he said.

Lion has not yet publicly commented on the incident but Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Yossi Havilio described it as part of a “wave of hate crimes against the LGBTQ community in Jerusalem,” saying the Pride flag had been taken from the synagogue and urged police not to dismiss the vandalism as a prank.

“A hate crime is not a ‘prank,’” Havilio wrote on social media.

The incident also came within hours of an attack at Central Synagogue, a major Reform congregation in Manhattan, where an assailant disrupted a Friday night Shabbat service and attacked a congregant and a security guard. There has been no indication that the two incidents were connected.

Kol HaNeshamah was founded in Jerusalem in 1984 and has become a prominent center of Reform Judaism in the city, combining egalitarian religious practice with support for religious pluralism and LGBTQ inclusion. Its presence in Jerusalem has also periodically made it a target of opposition from critics of non-Orthodox Judaism.

Police have not publicly identified the perpetrators or declared a motive for Saturday’s break-in, and there have been no arrests announced in the case.

Shoua Haim said the congregation would not change course in response to the attack.

“To all those who are trying to extinguish our light, the Kol HaNeshamah community will continue to be an open, embracing and accepting house of prayer,” she said. “Hatred will not defeat our values, and we will continue to work for togetherness, love and tolerance.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Vandals attack prominent Reform synagogue in Jerusalem appeared first on The Forward.