If you are in New York City and struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can call 1-888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. You can also dial the 24/7 National Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
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Yeshiva University is left in mourning after a beloved gay alum dies by suicide
(New York Jewish Week) — Before eulogizing their friend on Thursday night, Beth Weiss draped a rainbow flag with a Jewish star over the podium.
It was a potent symbol of the twin identities that Weiss and others who knew Herschel Siegel said he had struggled to reconcile, particularly as a student and 2021 graduate of Yeshiva University. Siegel died by suicide Friday in Atlanta, where he grew up and had been living.
Weiss said during the eulogy they recalled having “a conversation with a gay friend about what it felt like to be queer in the Orthodox world” for the first time with Siegel, a classmate at Y.U., the Modern Orthodox flagship in uptown Manhattan.
“I can’t tell you how invaluable conversations and connections like that are,” Weiss said. “We talked about our dreams for the future, but also the reality of how our future might look because of our queerness.”
Weiss’ comments, delivered at a memorial held on the Y.U. campus and organized by some of Siegel’s friends from college, reflect a narrative solidifying around Siegel’s death. Many believe — based on their conversations with Siegel, his social media posts and their own experiences — that Siegel had considered that there may have been no place for him as a gay man in the Orthodox community where he grew up and attended college.
Even as some in Siegel’s community have downplayed the focus on his sexuality following his death, friends say his suicide should be a wakeup call at a time when Yeshiva University is deeply divided over whether and how to include LGBTQ students. In recent years, the school has fought not to have to recognize an LGBTQ student group, even petitioning the Supreme Court for relief. A trans woman was also told she could no longer pray in a synagogue affiliated with the school.
Weiss told the New York Jewish Week that there are many “Orthodox queer people who are possibly suffering, who feel like they are alone, and who feel like they don’t have a future,” adding, “I know that Herschel felt that way at points in his life because he told me.”
Experts caution that it is a mistake to attribute suicides to single causes. Still, there is no question that LGBTQ youth are at increased risk, particularly when they are not accepted in their communities. According to a 2023 survey by the Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention in the LGBTQ community, 41% of LGBTQ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year.
Siegel made his struggle transparent. In an Instagram post from March that has circulated widely after his death, he wrote about how the word “abomination” in a Torah portion brought up trauma for him as a gay man within the Orthodox community.
“According to that trauma, my very EXISTENCE as a gay, Jewish, Male was an abomination,” Siegal wrote. “And even decades later, that fear-based thought pattern erupted into my consciousness, at the most unexpected of times.”
He then asked, “Do we ever REALLY heal from the deeply traumatic memories within us? Or is it rather a Journey, like many other emotions, and then we come to realize that one day we are at ease while riding ‘the trauma-coaster’?”
Siegel ended the post on a positive note, sharing gratitude for anyone who “has ever experienced a profoundly traumatizing event within your lives. … The fact that we made it this far is something to be proud of in and of itself!”
He died a month later, on the eve of the Shabbat when the weekly Torah portion includes the Jewish legal prohibition on homosexual intercourse, calling it an “abomination.”
“I think about the bravery, the heroism, the strength of this kid,” said Mordechai Levovitz, a therapist and the clinical director of Jewish Queer Youth, an organization that seeks to support and empower Jewish LGBTQ teens, with a focus on the Orthodox community. “I think any person at all willing to endure a community in a religion that is very cruel to him — and yet sees the value because there is also still value — is someone that I think we can look up to, and that we can learn from, and that we can be inspired by.”
He added, “But also, we can admit and witness and bear the fact that it is because of the community that we created that this kid could not find a future for himself and thought that it would perhaps be better off if he was not here, or if he did not exist.”
Not everyone who has commented on Siegel’s death is connecting it with his sexuality. Rabbi Ilan D. Feldman of Beth Jacob Atlanta, Siegel’s synagogue, wrote an email to the congregation saying that “our thoughts and tefillos [prayers] go out to the Siegel family, whose agony can never be fully fathomed, and who will be embraced and supported by us, their community.” Siegel is survived by his parents and five siblings.
Feldman presided over a funeral on Sunday that people who were present said was attended by about 200 people, with more than 450 tuning in on Zoom. Levovitz said that at the funeral, the rabbi referred to Siegel as being “mentally ill.” Mental illness is considered the strongest predictor of suicide.
Feldman told the New York Jewish Week over the phone that “even by reducing this story to a one-dimensional story of a guy who was gay, who committed suicide, we’re actually doing a disservice to gay people.” He also said Siegel’s family is distressed by the narrative, which they believe is untrue.
“The storyline of this particular case is an openly gay person who had wonderful relationships with the entire Orthodox community, including haredi Orthodox leaders,” Feldman said. “And now we’re going take this guy after his death, during his shiva while his family is grieving, and start talking about [how] gays are marginalized and whether this drove him to suicide, when this is the one case where an Orthodox community embraced a gay person with love and with no exceptions.”
But he acknowledged that there is “a big difference between pressures from the Jewish community and pressures from Jewish tradition,” which under Orthodox interpretations does not permit homosexuality.
“If he ever felt pressure, it was relieved by the love that he received in the community, but the pressure may have been there because Jewish tradition is inconsistent with gay activity,” Feldman said.
A source in the Atlanta community who said he had known Siegel since Siegel was a child said Siegel’s death comes on the heels of another suicide in the Atlanta Orthodox community, also of a young person who identified as a member of the LGBTQ community.
“There is a cloud of sadness. People just feel confused and lost. This is the second time in six months,” the source said. “It’s just resonating very hard for people. Young people taking their lives, it’s not supposed to be something that is normal and is regularly happening.”
Hundreds of people attended the funeral for Herschel Siegel last weekend in Atlanta. (Courtesy)
Chaim Nissel, a dean at Yeshiva University who was an associate provost during Siegel’s tenure as a student, spoke at the Thursday night gathering and said he had known Siegel well, and even had the student visit his home. (Nissel was originally named in the lawsuit by the YU Pride Alliance against the university but was dropped after Y.U. argued that he did not have authority over whether the LGBTQ student club was approved.)
“He struggled to reconcile his identity and love of Torah,” Nissel said. “He died from mental illness.”
Yeshiva University had previously released a statement about Siegel’s death.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Herschel Siegel, a member of the Yeshiva University family,” the statement said. “We express our deepest condolences to his family. May his memory be a blessing.”
Siegel’s family did not respond to a request for comment. People close to the family said they were too distraught to speak to the press. The source from Atlanta who knew Siegel since he was a child said the family was “angry for the way that this is being spun,” suggesting that Siegel’s sexuality should not be the only focus.
“I do resent anyone that is trying to make this about him being gay,” the source said. “It’s the chicken or the egg situation. Did being gay in the Orthodox community make his depression more triggering, or was it that he was depressed, and felt alone, which made being gay so much harder?”
Even his closest friends say it’s impossible to untangle those forces.
“Herschel struggled with mental illness and struggled with accepting himself as a gay Orthodox man,” said Emily Ornelas, a friend who was close to Siegel when he was at Y.U.
“That’s a reality,” Orneles said. “Gay people in any organized religion struggle with that. But I do wholeheartedly believe that by the end of his life, he had come to terms with and accepted himself and was able to love himself for who he was in whatever capacity he could. I feel that is true.”
Ornelas says she is choosing to remember the many bright spots in her friend’s life, rather than focus solely on trying to identify reasons for his death. She recalled the way he connected with children when the two staffed a Passover retreat, as well as his energy in his many theater performances at Y.U., the way his smile lit up a room.
“I remember that his hugs were absolutely crushing,” Ornelas said. “I think he could have cracked my ribs easily. I remember that when he smiled, he smiled literally with every single one of his teeth. You could probably count them. I can hear his voice. He has a very particular affect to the way he spoke, and I think it was like a tiny bit of a Southern drawl. He was just like a really big part of my life — and all of our lives — for a very long time.”
At the memorial service, Weiss exhorted others who might feel tormented about being gay in an Orthodox community to hold on, despite their pain.
“You are not alone,” they said, holding back tears. “You have a future, and you have people who love and see you fully. You have people who celebrate all the wonderful, beautiful parts of you. And if it feels like you don’t have those people yet, we are here waiting for you with open hearts.”
They then shifted to a “a message to everyone else here with us tonight” — those who identify as allies, and those who are just deeply sad about their friend’s tragic death.
“Be like Herschel,” Weiss said. “Be like Herschel and embrace and love each of us with enthusiasm and with joy. Be like Herschel and see us as the full, valid and nuanced human beings that we are. Be like Herschel, and support us unconditionally. Be like Herschel so that we can continue to be here even though Herschel can’t. And be like Herschel, so that this never ever happens again.”
—
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Haley Stevens cheered at Jewish day school after endorsing GOP Senate candidate
(JTA) — Democratic Michigan U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens was given an extended ovation at a fundraising gala for a Detroit-area Jewish day school Sunday, hours after her endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers for Senate.
Stevens, a longtime pro-Israel stalwart, was celebrated at the Yeshiva Beth Yehudah annual dinner as many members of her party across the country spoke out against her decision to break with Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed.
Video of Stevens’ minute-long standing ovation was shared on social media by representatives of Agudath Israel of America, a major Orthodox advocacy group. Strongly pro-Israel Jews have largely lauded her move to Rogers, which she said came about in part because of her objections to El-Sayed’s past relationship with anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker.
Also on Sunday evening, Stevens struggled to explain the timing of her decision in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. One consistency in her response was her belief that she was helping Democrats beat back antisemitism within their own party.
“I’m trying to help the Democratic Party. I felt the same way about Graham Platner and his Nazi tattoo,” Stevens said, referencing the Maine Senate candidate who ultimately stepped down from the nomination. Asked if she believed El-Sayed is antisemitic, she responded, “I think some of the actions have certainly been antisemitic, Anderson, but I’m just sick of who he stands with.”
She named Piker and “the uncle,” referring to Piker’s uncle Cenk Uygur, whose PAC produced an ad supporting El-Sayed that blamed Israel for the price of groceries. After Stevens publicly pressured El-Sayed to condemn the ad’s contents, the candidate appeared to do so on Saturday night, which Stevens celebrated in a statement — hours before endorsing Rogers.
To Cooper, Stevens suggested that many other Democrats felt the way she did.
“I’ve been hearing from a ton of Dems, Anderson, who have said, ‘Thank you. This is how we felt.’ They haven’t liked this campaign. It’s painful,” she said. A growing number of Michigan Jewish Democrats have pledged to vote for Rogers, though more than 1,000 have also signed a letter pledging to vote for El-Sayed.
Yeshiva Beth Yehudah is spread across multiple suburban Detroit campuses and is the largest Jewish day school in the state. Its annual fundraising dinner, “An Evening of Unity,” is known for drawing big national names in politics and the media, usually from both major parties.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, was the evening’s keynote speaker, and the gala program also featured personal letters from President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
But it was Stevens, a regular supporter of the school, who turned the most heads. She was also presented with what the emcee called “a specially designed, illuminated book of the five scrolls of our prophets, which remind you all of our heartfelt esteem and appreciation for who you are.”
The yeshiva’s leadership also extended warm wishes to Stevens’ Jewish fiancé, Democratic megadonor Jason Turkish, whom the yeshiva’s emcee described as “our dear friend.” Turkish’s own endorsement of Rogers came days before the congresswoman’s.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Haley Stevens cheered at Jewish day school after endorsing GOP Senate candidate appeared first on The Forward.
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These Michigan rabbis couldn’t get El-Sayed’s attention. Now they’re going national.
(JTA) — ANN ARBOR – Shortly before an Oct. 24 rally featuring Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and former President Barack Obama in Detroit, 250 rabbis from across the country urged them both to take their concerns more seriously about El-Sayed’s position on Israel.
The rabbis were speaking on behalf of a group called Nonnegotiable Michigan, and they require El-Sayed to commit to their five demands before they will support him. In this case, they wanted him to vocalize support for “Jewish statehood in Israel” and a commitment to safety for “Zionist Jews” — and to do it onstage.
To their disappointment, neither headliner mentioned the movement or its demands — and El-Sayed will soon wrap his campaign, likely without having done so at all. Now the nascent movement is facing criticism from Jews to its left that the tactic backfired and made Jews more vulnerable.
In the campaign’s final days, Nonnegotiable’s attempt to find a voice in the race has also been overshadowed by pro-Israel Democratic congresswoman Haley Stevens’ endorsement of El-Sayed’s opponent, Republican former congressman Mike Rogers.
Still, the letter was the biggest rabbinical foray into U.S. politics since more than 1,100 clergy signed an open letter last year condemning “rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization” shortly before the election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The Michigan letter also signaled that even beyond the state, a sizable cohort of Jews are trying to state their principles amid shifting faultlines in the Democratic Party.
The organizers of Nonnegotiable are undeterred by the party’s silence. They are seeking a new national platform for liberal Zionist Jews to assert their priorities in politics.
“I do think it’s a template for a national model,” Rabbi Aaron Starr, one of Nonnegotiable’s co-founders, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I’m certainly looking beyond this election. In two years there will be a presidential election, and another slate of candidates for elected office.”
Starr, of the Conservative Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, a Detroit suburb, said Nonnegotiable’s biggest goal was to “name the priorities that were most core to mainstream American Jews.” He believes they have accomplished that.
As Israel seems sure to remain a hot-button topic for the American electorate in the 2028 presidential race, Starr sees the need for Jews to assert their priorities as urgent.
“Everyone recognizes the growing extremism among political parties and politicians these days,” he said. “Everybody, and especially rabbis, recognizes that extremists could pop up in their own districts and their own states. So they want a forum to be able to communicate ways by which we reject extremism.”
National spotlight
Nonnegotiable’s organizers told JTA they have gathered 1,900, mostly anonymous, signatures to date within Michigan. That figure would be larger than the combined totals of named Michigan Jews who have signed open letters pledging to vote for El-Sayed (1,000) and Rogers (560).
Nationally, the organization says 4,560 people have signed the petition, including the rabbis from out of state who have joined up with the movement in its final days. The other clergy were sourced from rabbinical networks on social media, and come from 34 different states and Washington, D.C. A good chunk of them serve active congregations.
Many are from liberal or swing states, including Rabbi Samuel Stern of Temple Beth Sholom in Topeka, Kansas, where another close Senate race is unfolding. Stern told JTA he signed in order to call out “the anti-Zionist hatred that we see coming out of different political sides and candidates.”
For the rabbis on the letter, El-Sayed’s rhetoric in Michigan looms large in their states, too — in some cases, larger even than more local antisemitism controversies.
At a recent rally in Kansas, President Donald Trump used the term “Shylock,” widely considered to be an antisemitic slur, when referring to a controversy involving the GOP incumbent senator suing patients with medical debt.
Stern, though, said that his Kansas congregation was generally more concerned about El-Sayed’s rhetoric on Israel several states away than Trump’s remarks closer to home.
“It really didn’t play that much here,” the rabbi said, of Trump’s comment. “I don’t know what that means for us, or for any of the other Jewish communities, but it wasn’t as prevalent here. We’ve heard more about what Dr. El-Sayed has said, his anti-Zionism, and been more concerned about that, than about the offhand comment by President Trump.”
Nonnegotiable has also expanded onto college campuses, with an organizing campaign that has quickly formed at the University of Michigan. Around two dozen Jewish students have publicly added their names to the letter.
“I really resonated with what Nonnegotiable stands for,” student organizer Jacob Reich, who is involved in various Democratic Party initiatives on and off campus, told JTA. “I felt torn between both my Jewish identity and my identity as a Democrat.”
Among Reich’s biggest concerns about El-Sayed, he said, was the candidate’s widely criticized “hurt people hurt people” remark made after a March attack on the state’s Temple Israel. The attacker’s family members were killed in Lebanon in an Israeli strike.
El-Sayed has since apologized for those comments, and his campaign has sent mailers to Jewish households in which he pledges to fight antisemitism. Reich said he appreciated the letter, but added, “I don’t think it went far enough to address a lot of the missteps that he’s taken.”
Whose nonnegotiables?
Rabbis friendlier with El-Sayed have argued the movement is ineffective at messaging; could boost Republican policies most Jews strongly oppose; and ignores ways in which the candidate has sought to improve his relations with Jews.
Some have aired those grievances to the movement’s leaders directly.
“Nonnegotiable describes itself as an invitation rather than an ultimatum,” Rabbi Alana Alpert, of Detroit-area Congregation T’chiyah, wrote privately to the campaign’s organizers in an Oct. 8 letter. “It has had the opposite effect, driving a wedge between the campaign and Jewish interests.”
In her previously unpublicized letter, which she recently shared with JTA, Alpert compared Nonnegotiable to Uncommitted, the 2024 activist campaign in Michigan that sought to pressure then-President Joe Biden on Gaza by withholding primary votes for him. The Uncommitted movement later refused to endorse replacement nominee Kamala Harris. Trump went on to win Michigan, and the general election.
The two campaigns used “similar language,” Alpert wrote. She told her fellow rabbis that they were now “dealing with the choices, coalitions, and consequences of an actual general election with far-reaching implications.”
Rabbi Nate DeGroot, who heads the progressive Shalom Center and serves two Michigan synagogues, laid out 10 alternative “nonnegotiables” of his own that he argues “Michigan Jews care just as much about.”
In an essay shared with JTA in advance of its publication, DeGroot’s own nonnegotiables include “fierce condemnation of Christian nationalism”; support for abortion rights and trans rights; and a “commitment to beating swords into plowshares,” a phrase originating in the bible that DeGroot said should also apply to opposing the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.
Rogers would fail to meet those criteria, DeGroot wrote. Both he and Alpert are supporters of Michigan Jews for Democracy, an ad-hoc group organizing for El-Sayed.
One argument Nonnegotiable’s critics have made is that the movement has had the net effect of benefitting Rogers, who has made an aggressive play for the Jewish vote while employing campaign language about the Muslim Brotherhood that many have argued embraces Islamophobic tropes.
Organizers have expressly denied that their cause is partisan, though some of the big names who signed the Nonnegotiable letter have since cast their ballots for Rogers.
At a recent Republican Jewish Coalition event staged for Rogers, some speakers directly referenced El-Sayed’s refusal to engage with Nonnegotiable as part of the reason not to vote for him.
“When rabbis and Jewish leaders within El-Sayed’s own party came to him with five basic, nonnegotiable commitments, fundamental principles of Jewish safety, identity, and self-determination, they asked him to affirm these commitments clearly and unequivocally,” Lauren Slutsky, a parent of a Temple Israel preschooler, told the crowd. “Weeks later, we’re still waiting.”
She argued, “If a candidate cannot clearly say that Jewish safety, including the safety of Zionist Jews, is nonnegotiable, why should our community or anyone in our community give him our vote?”
Accusations flying
Nonnegotiable’s organizers have denied that their group is affiliated with any Jewish cause but their own. Zioness, which bills itself as a progressive Zionist group, is boosting them.
Yet some Jews see in the movement an echo of more hardline pro-Israel sentiment.
J Street, the national liberal Zionist lobby, seized on a video accidentally posted to Nonnegotiable’s Instagram account that showed the account holder texting with David Victor, a former president of AIPAC and a Michigan resident. The pro-Israel lobbying giant has spent millions against El-Sayed in both the primary and the general election.
The gaffe, J Street vice president of political and digital strategy Tali DeGroot told JTA, was potential evidence that Nonnegotiable’s organizers were coordinating with AIPAC-aligned figures.
“Our fear from the start with Nonnegotiable is that it plays directly into the hands of Republicans who are cynically using the issue of antisemitism for their own political gain,” DeGroot, who has no relation to Nate DeGroot, told JTA. The texting, she insisted, “just validates that fear even more.”
J Street has not formally endorsed El-Sayed, but the lobby is generally supportive of his campaign and is spending against other AIPAC-aligned candidates this midterm cycle. Neither AIPAC nor Victor responded to JTA requests for comment.
Nonnegotiable organizers, however, dispute this account and have expressly denied any involvement from AIPAC in the group.
“If I had been aware of any of the establishment forces being involved in this, or if there was a whiff of partisanship, I would not have gotten involved,” Matt Zerwekh, an initial signer of the letter who leads Temple Emanu-El in the Detroit suburb of Oak Park, told JTA.
Some have even vocally opposed the powerhouse lobby. One of Nonnegotiable’s co-founders, Rabbi Josh Whinston of Ann Arbor’s Temple Beth Emeth, published an op-ed in the Detroit Free Press on Friday condemning AIPAC for quoting him in anti-El-Sayed mailers distributed to Jewish households.
On Sunday afternoon, hours after Stevens’ endorsement of Rogers, Nonnegotiable gathered again on Zoom with guests including Zionist pundit Hen Mazzig and Michigan U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten.
At the exact same moment as the call, pro-Israel congressional candidate Jeremy Moss was joining a cohort of Democrats castigating Stevens for her endorsement. Nonnegotiable leaders saw it differently: Starr praised Stevens for her “bravery.”
Others, such as Scholten, didn’t raise the subject at all. The congresswoman instead praised the U.S.-Israel relationship and the Iron Dome defensive system. “I’m so proud to stand as a friend and ally of our Jewish community right now,” she told those on the call.
The real purpose of the call, though, was for Nonnegotiable to suggest that Jews could write in a candidate instead of voting for either nominee.
Their top write-in pick: Emma Lazarus, the 19th-century Jewish poet best known for having her work engraved on the Statue of Liberty.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Ohio Senate race between Israel supporters becomes proxy battle for AIPAC versus J Street
(JTA) — A tight race in Ohio may play a pivotal role in determining which party controls the U.S. Senate, with the two campaigns serving as a proxy battleground for two Israel lobbying groups with different ideologies.
While Republican Sen. Jon Husted is technically the incumbent, in the eyes of many voters, so is Democrat Sherrod Brown. Husted was appointed by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to fill the seat vacated by JD Vance when he became vice president in January 2025. He is now running to fulfill the remaining two years of that term. Brown, meanwhile, served three terms in the Senate before losing Ohio’s other Senate seat to Republican Bernie Moreno in 2024.
In the background of this close race are two pro-Israel lobbying forces: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby supporting Husted, and the liberal J Street, a frequent critic of the Israeli government that backs Brown.
For this general election cycle, Husted has earned more than $544,000 in individual contributions earmarked for him through AIPAC, according to FEC filings. During the May special primary election, he amassed more than $306,000 in such contributions.
Husted received a direct $5,000 contribution from AIPAC’s political action committee in April, according to both FEC filings and a federal lobby disclosure. Another $5,000 in February was earmarked through AIPAC, meaning that the lobby forwarded a third party’s contribution to the campaign. Husted also received a $5,000 donation from the Republican Jewish Coalition PAC.
Asked why Husted received AIPAC’s backing, Deryn Sousa, a spokesperson for the organization, wrote that “Husted is endorsed because of his support of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
During his short time in the Senate, Husted has voted against measures to block arms sales to Israel and joined efforts to combat antisemitism.
In April, he voted against advancing two resolutions proposed by Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, seeking to restrict sales of certain military equipment – including 1,000-pound bombs and bulldozers – to Israel. That same month, he joined the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, and a year before, he questioned university leaders about the safety of Jewish students on campus.
Brown has likewise been a staunch supporter of Israel and Jewish Americans, voting against advancing a previous resolution to restrict arms sales, proposed by Sanders in 2024.
In 2018, Brown sponsored the United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act, which would have authorized military assistance for Israel through fiscal year 2028. He also spoke out on behalf of Jewish students amid campus protests in 2024 and warned of the dangers of antisemitism after a 13-year-old was charged with allegedly planning a mass shooting at an Ohio synagogue in 2023.
Brown has been “one of the biggest recipients of J Street bundled funds for this cycle,” according to Jordan Steinberg, a spokesperson for the group. Describing Brown as “a long-time J Street champion,” Steinberg told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the Democrat has received more than $800,000 from supporters of J Street in this race.
The biggest chunk of the funds, Steinberg continued, came via JStreetPAC, which operates as a conduit for individual donors who make contributions to candidates on J Street’s website. These contributions are then reported to the FEC as donations from individuals. The group also has a super PAC, J Street Action Fund, but Steinberg said that most donations come from individuals who contribute through the traditional PAC.
J Street in September announced that it would be stepping up lobbying efforts, investing $3 million to defeat certain Republican candidates backed by AIPAC.
“He is one of the top three recipients of our bundled dollars, and we couldn’t be more invested organizationally in his victory in November,” Steinberg added. “Brown has been a longtime champion of pro-peace, pro-democracy values, and we’re proud to stand with him this cycle.”
Other differences in financing have separated the two rivals, with each campaign accusing the other of linkages to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Brown has run ads slamming Husted for taking more than $116,000 from Ohio billionaire Les Wexner, a financial client of Epstein, with the most recent $3,500 gift occurring in July 2025, according to the Federal Election Commission.
A campaign spokesperson for Husted, Tom Evans, told JTA in a statement that “the Wexners have given to dozens of candidates from both sides of the aisle – including Sherrod Brown.” Evans noted that Husted’s campaign donated all available funds, totaling $34,000, to an anti-human trafficking charity, adding that the senator voted to release the Epstein files.
While Husted did support such legislation passed in November 2025, he supported tabling an amendment requiring disclosure of Epstein file documents to the public in September 2025.
Following Brown’s attack ads, Husted fired back with allegations that his opponent took contributions from people whose names appeared in the Epstein files. Those people included Wexner’s wife Abigail, former Harvard president and U.S. Treasury secretary Larry Summers and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. FEC records show, however, that Brown never took money from Wexner himself.
The Husted campaign has accused Brown of taking more than $150,000 from a dozen people listed in the Epstein files. Evans deemed the Democrat’s ads “hypocritical,” slamming him for sitting on the files while serving in Washington for 32 years.
The Brown campaign did not respond to JTA’s request for comment.
Apart from the clashes over contributions to each campaign, the Ohio Senate race has also included a controversy over a Husted campaign hire. The former staffer, Stephen Woytek, once used a photo of SS soldiers as his Facebook profile picture and added a playlist celebrating Rhodesia, a former white-minority-ruled state often used as a symbol by white nationalists, The Washington Post reported in September. Woytek at the time told the Post that he rejects “the racist and antisemitic ideology the SS and Nazi Germany represented,” adding that although he participates in historical reenactments for educational purposes, he should have “exercised better judgment.”
After the Post contacted the campaign about the posts, Husted reportedly dismissed Woytek.
Following the Post’s report, Ohio Democratic Party leadership said that Jewish and Black community leaders joined hands in condemning the senator “for hiring a Nazi enthusiast as a member of his senior campaign team.”
“Jewish Americans and our allies need to take action to combat the rise of antisemitism and hatred and defend our values,” Adam Rosen, Ohio chapter leader of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said in a statement.
Rosen accused Husted of showing “poor judgment” in hiring Woytek, raising doubts as to whether Jewish Ohioans should trust his judgment “when he can’t choose people for positions of power who aren’t Nazis.”
Evans, Husted’s campaign spokesperson, cited Woytek’s service in the U.S. Army and described him as a student of military history who “routinely reenacts historical battles.”
“While he denies negative intent, his social media activity displays a complete lack of judgement and disregard for its impact on others,” Evans added. He stressed that Husted “demands better of those who represent him,’ noting that the senator “made the immediate decision to part ways.”
Addressing this incident, Josh Kramer, president and CEO at Ohio Jewish Communities, emphasized that “Ohio Jewish Communities has a long history of working constructively with both sides of the local aisle, and we’re fortunate to have relationships with both Senator Husted and former Senator Sherrod Brown.”
“The controversy surrounding the former member of Senator Husted’s campaign is troubling,” Kramer added, noting, however, that “Husted acted to remove the individual once the matter was brought to his attention.”
Overall, Kramer said he believes that “Ohio has demonstrated itself to be a more moderate state, or less open to extremism, than other states.”
Looking at the election from a broader perspective, Ohio Jewish Communities’ Kramer said he was grateful that Ohio’s Jewish community has long worked with both Democrats and Republicans. While he recognized a rising tendency to link antisemitism to partisan politics, Kramer said that this race is “an opportunity for candidates to demonstrate their commitment to the safety and well-being of Ohioans, including the state’s Jewish population.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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