The Board of County Commissioners approved a resolution last week toward the start of a seven-hour meeting, in a unanimous, single vote that grouped together numerous ordinances. This action enables the county to invest up to 5%, rather than 3%, of its $9 billion in investments in these bonds — debt issued by the Israeli government sold by a U.S. underwriter.

Despite the previous cap of 3%, Israeli bonds only make up about 1.48% of Miami-Dade’s portfolio, or roughly $130 million, according to the county’s third-quarter investment report. 

Known as “Israel Bonds,” these loans are deeply rooted in the Diaspora’s relationship with the country. Israel, like many countries, raises money by selling bonds to investors, who then receive repayments with interest after a specified time period. But for American Jews, these bonds are issued via the U.S.-based Development Corporation for Israel, which has served as the underwriter since 1951. 

As for Miami-Dade, the county began purchasing Israeli bonds in 2016. But these investments increased substantially just after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. At the time, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced that the county would be boosting these investments from $51 million to $76 million. 

Palm Beach County made a similar decision at the time, as did cities, counties and states around the country.

Nonetheless, activists nationwide have increasingly been pushing governments to stop investing in Israel bonds, citing the Jewish state’s military operations in Gaza.

An initiative called “Break the Bonds,” launched by the progressive Jewish Voice for Peace group, claims that “the Israeli military is committing a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,” and that community investments in such bonds are enabling the situation. 

“At a time when so many people in our community are struggling, we believe our public dollars should be invested in our communities and in meeting the needs of the people who live here,” JVP South Florida said in a statement, prior to last Tuesday’s vote. 

Israel Bonds representatives did not reply to repeated requests for comment. 

Given the resolution’s swift passage, which occurred without a public hearing at the board meeting, detractors signed up to testify about an unrelated item in order to voice their concerns.  

“My tax dollars should be kept safe and should be working to benefit my community,” Coconut Grove resident Jared Simon, who identified himself as Jewish, told the commissioners.

“You didn’t even allow public comment on it before voting,” he said. “Your constituents do not want their tax dollars funding the functions of the Israeli government.”

Addressing the lack of public hearing, the commissioners responded that residents already had the opportunity to speak about the resolution during a session earlier this summer. 

That session occurred on July 15, when the Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee advanced the rule to the Board of County Commissioners with a favorable recommendation. 

Among the most prominent speakers to take the podium — even though he had apparently not registered to do so — was James Fishback, a far-right former gubernatorial candidate and sharp critic of Israel. Alleging that the commissioners “unanimously voted to give up to $450 million of money to Israel,” Fishback said he’d rather not be “escorted out by these great men in uniform.”

“Do you serve the people of Hialeah or of Haifa? Do you serve the people of Aventura or of Tel Aviv?” he asked the commissioners. “Do you serve the people of South Miami or of Jerusalem? This money should be invested here in this community.”

As the sergeants escorted Fishback out of the auditorium, another individual screamed “America First!” from the audience. 

Oliver Gilbert, one of the commissioners, responded that the “board today didn’t vote to give any money to anyone,” stressing that they just “set investment criteria.” 

Before Tuesday’s meeting reached its most heated point, Keon Hardemon, another commissioner, told the audience that he and his colleagues “don’t care what you’re talking about, what subject it is that you don’t like, what you care for, what you don’t care for, what your politics are.”

“What we are not going to stand for are people who want to make anyone in this room feel uncomfortable,” Hardemon added. 

Yet immediately after this intervention, public outcry over the resolution, known as 11A2, continued. 

Miami resident Mina Trachtenberg argued that county investment policies require the prioritization “of public funds and liquidity of public funds above all else.”

“The resolution passed today achieves the opposite of that, opening the door to the purchase of high-risk, even junk-quality bonds of a foreign entity,” Trachtenberg said. “Please divest from apartheid.”

Anthony Rodriguez, the chairman of the Board of County Commissioners, eventually instructed the sergeants in the room to eject anyone who refused to comply with the rules. 

Just after those instructions, Miami resident Mohammed Mohammed came to the podium, voicing his alarm that he was “going to be escorted out just for being Palestinian.”

“That’s not the case. Let’s not put words in anybody’s mouth,” a visibly frustrated Rodriguez responded. “You just have to follow the order and speak on the item.”

Mohammed then declared “that 11A2 is an absolute disgrace,” leading Rodriguez to summon the sergeants and declare that the speakers just “want their minute of fame.”

The rule’s sponsor, commissioner René García, explained that the county invests about $9 billion, with the intention of generating “a greater return of money” to fund public needs. García, a former Republican state senator, explained that the rule simply ensures “more flexibility and more liquidity” for certain investments. 

In addition to raising the investment cap from 3% to 5%, the resolution would also reduce the maturity of “bonds backed by the full faith and credit of the state of Israel” from five to three years. 

Within that text, the authors also deleted a clause that previously had required Israel to have an “A” credit rating from at least two agencies. That revision stemmed from a recent Florida statute allowing investments in Israel bonds regardless of the country’s rating. This change was particularly noteworthy because credit ratings of Israel have fluctuated in the past few years. 

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Entertainers, rabbis and a physician who is featured in a new documentary about doctors treating Palestinians in Gaza signed the letter released Wednesday, which called the attacks against Ruffalo a “false and dangerous weaponization of charges of antisemitism.” George Clooney also defended Ruffalo on Thursday.

Signatories of the pro-Ruffalo petition include “Broad City” creators Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer; celebrated filmmakers Joel Coen, Jonathan Glazer and Todd Haynes; Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner; and actors including Hannah Einbinder, Joaquin Phoenix and Debra Winger.

In late August, Ruffalo, the award-winning actor and progressive activist, went on social media to link Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, the chief driver of the looming Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, to tech giant Oracle, which Ruffalo claimed is responsible for “an apartheid system of oppression” in Gaza. 

Oracle is owned by Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men; both Ellisons are Jewish and prominent Israel supporters. Oracle also owns a stake in the social media network TikTok’s U.S. operations, and has long been a target of progressives who point to the company’s links to, and public support for, Israel. 

“Larry Ellison will own most of ‘Para Bros,’” Ruffalo wrote in the post, which is no longer available, according to a screenshot reproduced by the Hollywood Reporter. The “Spotlight” and Marvel star also called Larry Ellison a “classic oligarch” who is “crushing workers and consolidating the wealth of the world for their own power and concentrated dominance.”

The $110 billion merger is under adjudication in federal court in California following an antitrust lawsuit filed by 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America. As backlash to the merger has steadily grown across Hollywood and in political and media spaces, Paramount at least since June has been pushing the idea that opposition to the merger has had an antisemitic element.

The company seized on Ruffalo’s comments, immediately releasing a lengthy statement to media after his controversial social media post that accused the actor of invoking “antisemitic tropes,” adding, “This simply exposes the true motivation of some who have advocated opposition to this transaction.”

Several leading Jewish groups have also said his post stepped beyond legitimate criticism of the merger and into classic antisemitic rhetoric about Jewish wealth and power. 

In an August statement, the head of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles said the actor’s comments “combined Jewish wealth, media control, secret technology and sinister global power,” drawing on “recognizable antisemitic tropes with a long and dangerous history.” Other LA-based Jewish activist groups, including Creative Community For Peace and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, have also condemned his comments.

Speaking amid the unfolding controversy about Ruffalo and his use of the word genocide to describe Israel’s campaign in Gaza, “Fauda” co-creator Avi Isaacharoff called him “a rare combination” of “ignorant” and “stupid.” 

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has reached out to Shani Rosenzweig, Ruffalo’s agent and a prominent Jewish entertainment figure in her own right, for comment and a Ruffalo interview request. Rosenzweig did not respond to either request.

Ruffalo has found support from several progressive Jewish figures beyond the entertainment industry, including IfNotNow co-founder Simone Zimmerman, Israeli Holocaust historian Raz Segal and Jewish Currents editor Peter Beinart.

In their open letter defending Ruffalo, the progressive Jewish cohort argued the actor was right to draw links between Israel’s behavior and the merger.

“Pointing out the crucial connections between what is happening in Gaza and what is happening in Hollywood is the exact opposite of antisemitism,” the letter reads. “It is, for us, the very essence of Jewish ethical duty.” The letter points to specific statements from Larry Ellison, and Oracle executives, describing their surveillance and artificial-intelligence technological ventures and their positive relationship with Israel.

Other entertainment figures have tried to thread a more careful needle. Oscar-winning filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan, who has directed Ruffalo in two movies and was at one point developing an American remake of the hit Israeli TV series “Shtisel,” defended the actor from antisemitism charges this week while also noting, “I disagree profoundly with many of his positions on the Middle East, Israel, Gaza, and Iran’s constellation of fanatical Islamist fundamentalist proxies.”

“But Mark and I have been friends for over 30 years,” Lonergan continued in his letter to the Hollywood Reporter. “The notion that he is antisemitic is overtly preposterous, and the accusation itself a cynical and disgusting lie.”

Ruffalo is soon scheduled to attend the Toronto International Film Festival for the Sept. 10 premiere of the biopic “Being Heumann,” about Jewish-American disability rights activist Judy Heumann, in which he co-stars.

Opposition to David Ellison’s bid to combine two historic media giants, each having recently weathered smaller mergers of their own, has grown considerably in recent months. Those objections have come both from Hollywood rank-and-file concerned about further industry consolidation, as well as from political and media figures voicing objections to Ellison’s close ties to President Donald Trump and his intentions with Warner’s flagship news property, CNN. 

The merger was initially thought to be on track to be finalized this fall with Trump’s blessing. The president has publicly championed the merger, and his Justice Department approved the deal in June. But talks have ground to a halt following the antitrust lawsuit. The fate of the merger is now in question, with Paramount having agreed to a trial in March 2027 and on the hook for a $7-million-per-day “ticking fee” it had previously agreed to pay out to shareholders if the deal failed to close by this October. 

Prior to Ruffalo’s post, Ellison himself published a New York Times op-ed defending his merger plans.

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Vance’s Monday meeting with representatives of the suburban Detroit synagogue that had been attacked by a terrorist in March came as the vice president has upped his outreach to Jewish voters ahead of a likely 2028 presidential run. He also invited a rabbi and security guard to a rally Monday in the Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights, where he called them out from the podium and said he was “honored” to have them attend.

The Reform synagogue’s clergy later offered more details about his outreach, telling JTA that he had met with one rabbi, as well as with a security officer who had stopped the assailant from harming anyone at the preschool that was in session.

The meeting was held at Vance’s request, Rabbi Jen Lader told JTA, and the vice president did not visit the synagogue itself.

“This was an important opportunity to ask for the Vice President’s support in the fight against antisemitism, and for additional security funding through the Jewish American Security Act,” Lader wrote in an email to JTA, referring to a bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. House this summer to increase federal funds for both Jewish organizations and synagogue security. 

Lader continued, “We’ve made the same requests to elected officials on both sides of the political aisle.”

Later that day the vice president traveled to Las Vegas, where he met in a closed-door session with members of the Republican Jewish Coalition, who have been riled by his close relationship with podcaster Tucker Carlson and other points of contention.

Vance sought to draw a contrast with Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, who spent the weekend offering apologies for his earlier comments about the temple attack, when he appeared to describe the attack as a response to Israel’s incursion in Lebanon.

Some Michigan Jewish leaders are publicly mobilizing against El-Sayed, a harsh critic of Israel: As of press time, more than 400 Jews in the state, including some who hold prominent community positions, have signed a petition pledging to vote for the GOP candidate, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, in the Senate race. 

A representative for Vance did not respond to a request for comment on the vice president’s Temple Israel meeting or for his views on the Jewish American Security Act.

At the RJC meeting, where he also received a standing ovation but did not address his Carlson ties, attendees told JTA that Vance highlighted his outreach to Temple Israel. 

The nation’s largest Reform synagogue, Temple Israel was attacked in March by a man who had recently lost family in an Israeli strike on a Hezbollah position in Lebanon. In two statements following the attack, El-Sayed initially condemned it outright. He then changed his wording to include what he now says was “context” about Israel’s war in Lebanon, including the phrase, “Hurt people hurt people.”

Speaking with the state Democratic Party’s Jewish caucus at the party convention on Saturday, El-Sayed apologized for those remarks, saying, “I made a mistake.” He also attended the caucus’s “Summer Simcha” fundraiser the next day, where he repeated his apology and asked for forgiveness. He told JTA the “context” he’d sought to include in his initial remarks was related to “violence in all its forms, in all circumstances.”

Temple Israel clergy have declined to comment to JTA on El-Sayed’s two apologies for his past comments. Lader had penned an op-ed in The Free Press criticizing his response.

Vance’s Michigan visit also included a rally in Sterling Heights, where he discussed the synagogue attack and called it “a terrible, antisemitic terrorist attack.”

“It could have been so much worse, ladies and gentlemen,” Vance told the crowd, who had given the Temple Israel personnel a standing ovation. “That guy showed up at that synagogue, at that school with a desire to kill a lot of children, and he killed precisely zero children because of the brave security guards who did their job and did it very well.”

Vance also called El-Sayed, a progressive and a Muslim, “very, very evil” from the podium. 

“Abdul El-Sayed made an apology for the very people who would perpetrate violence against hundreds of innocent American school children,” Vance told the crowd. “You’ve got to ask yourself, if he’s willing to empathize, not with the children who almost had their lives destroyed at the most innocent and what should be the safest place in the world, their school, what is he going to do when he goes to Washington, D.C. when the cameras aren’t on?”

Vance added, “What I see is a man who has sympathy and compassion for people who share his religion, but have nothing for people who don’t. A person who will apologize for a murderer so long as he looks the right way, but will not understand the plight of an innocent child if that person has the wrong faith.”

The Jewish voters petition, titled “Michigan Jews Against Extremism,” was spearheaded prior to El-Sayed’s apologies but has picked up more signatures in their aftermath. 

The petition’s language states that “many” of the signatories “have been fiercely supportive of Democratic candidates and principles,” but that all of them “declare our intent to vote for Mike Rogers for US Senate in 2026.”

“If El-Sayed were to win the general election in this important swing state, we fear the far-left and anti-Jewish elements in the Democratic Party would become dominant, including in the imminent 2028 presidential race,” the petition says. “We cannot allow him to become the Democratic standard-bearer or Michigan’s senator.”

The petition specifies that their vote for Rogers “does not require that we agree with him on every issue or that we support President Trump.”

Benji Rosenzweig, a real-estate agent and music podcaster based in West Bloomfield, was one of the letter’s signers. 

“I’ve watched Abdul El-Sayed, for the last number of months, surround himself with people who cheer for the destruction of our families and the annihilation of our community,” Rosenzweig told JTA. He signed the petition before El-Sayed’s apologies but wasn’t swayed by them: “What he said was, ‘I’m sorry that you were hurt.’ That’s not an apology.”

Rosenzweig describes himself as a “centrist” who holds “liberal values,” and who would have voted for El-Sayed’s primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, in the general November election if she had won the nomination. He recently met Rogers at an event, he said, and told him that “I will be holding him accountable to the liberal values that I still value.”

As of press time, the petition’s signatories include Brian Hermelin, current president of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit; Mark Davidoff, CEO of the Michigan Israel Business Accelerator; Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld, CEO of the Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills; Amy Newman, former chief development officer of Jewish Family Service of Metro Detroit; and David Victor, past president of the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee. 

The petition included their names but not their titles, suggesting they were signing as individuals and not as representatives of their organizations. The list also includes the names of several people who had previously told JTA they would commit to fundraising for Rogers if El-Sayed won the Democratic primary.

Local rabbi Asher Lopatin, currently on leave from his role as community relations director for the Ann Arbor Jewish federation, has stumped for Rogers but told JTA he does not have a formal role with the campaign. In the Forward this week, Lopatin again urged the state’s Jewish Democrats to back Rogers over El-Sayed.

“To show the Democrats that such candidates should never be nominated, we must show them that such candidates can never win,” the rabbi wrote on Monday.

The El-Sayed campaign did not return a request for comment from JTA about the petition.

For the approximately 100,000 Jews in Michigan, the question of whether to vote for El-Sayed has proven hugely divisive. At the same Sunday event that hosted the candidate, state Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish and has publicly sparred with El-Sayed over his rhetoric, implored the crowd to “place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest and, yes, even our own survival” — suggesting that Jewish voters should put their own feelings of personal safety aside in order to elect a Democrat.

Nessel’s comment, coming one day after she sat out a state Democratic convention over what she said was fear of antisemitic harassment, has sparked some backlash outside of Michigan. Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, called the attorney general “an absolute embarrassment.” 

Mark Goldfeder, who runs the litigation group National Jewish Advocacy Center, wrote on the social network X, “Jewish voters can care deeply about democracy, climate, health care and the welfare of their neighbors while still treating Jewish safety as entirely nonnegotiable.”

Rosenzweig said he had once been an admirer of Nessel but that he was “really sad” over what he interpreted as her suggestion that voting for Abdul “may put Jewish people in danger, but do it anyways.”

“If Abdul wins she gets to say, ‘Well, Jews are endangered,’” he said. “It’s just such a crazy place to put people in.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed Amy Newman’s job title. She is the former Chief Development Officer of Jewish Family Service of Metro Detroit.

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The neighborhood has totally changed since his dad, Mike, first took over the business more than 60 years ago. Back then Northeast Philadelphia was an epicenter of Jewish life, packed with synagogues and other Jewish establishments. Most of them are gone. And now — with the close of Steve Stein’s Famous Deli and Restaurant — the area just lost its last Jewish deli. 

But only after an outpouring of affection from longtime customers, who flocked to the place once news spread  in the last few weeks. “It’s overwhelming,” Stein said.  “The amount of people that came in here in the last 10 days, two weeks. Their comments are very touching. I knew I was liked. I didn’t know I was loved.” 

To be sure, several customers told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that they’ll miss Stein, but they also bemoaned the fact there aren’t many Jewish food options left. Certainly none with prices as low as Famous.  

“I’ve been going there my whole life, “ said Rebecca Asheuer, who grew up a few miles away from Famous’ current location — its third since the Steins took over the business. “I feel surprise and sadness, because it’s the last one in the Northeast.   

“I think the Jewish people are moving out of the city and also the businesses used to be passed down in families. Now with the economy and other stuff, people don’t want to take over the family business anymore,” she said.

Another longtime customer mourned the closing of the deli, but also the disappearance of Jewish life in the area.

“I kind of expected it to go sooner or later,” said Aileen Owens, who remembered going to Famous when the Auspitz family ran it over six decades ago. “There’s nobody around.  Synagogues and all that stuff, it’s all fading out. They went to the suburbs.”

According to Steve’s account, his father Mike Stein, his brother Arnold and cousin Jack began running the produce concession at the Famous Deli in Philly’s Castor Gardens neighborhood in the late 1950s. Around 1960, they bought the deli from the Auspitz family, which had operated a chain of Philadelphia delis dating to the 1920s. 

Steve and his brother Arnie eventually ran the deli together. As Jewish families moved farther into Northeast Philadelphia, the deli moved as well — first to Krewstown Road in the mid-1970s, eventually having two locations there, and then about 14 years ago to its final location at 1619 Grant Ave.

If all goes right, Steve’s 57-year-old son Lee hopes to continue the migration and resurrect the family business in the suburbs. Sort of.  

“I’m looking to have a place of my own,” said Lee, who started off as an eight-year-old taking out the trash, but would occasionally try to cut the lox when no one was looking. “I have a lot of experience in this business. 

“I call myself multi-talented, not just in the deli business, but in cooking and baking, I would probably downsize and not do fruit and produce like we do here. It’s just not worth it, you know, the space for what you’re paying. I would do a similar situation to here. Deli, prepared foods, a little bit of bakery, a small sit down. But what I’ve told the people that come in here, ‘You’ll never, ever see some of this product again. And you’ll probably never, ever see these prices ever again.’”   

Still, he wants his new venture to be affordable.

“My father always liked being a people-pleaser,” the younger Stein said. “So he tries to please people with a price. But that price affects you eventually.” 

As for Steve, he wishes his son well, but knows it won’t be the same. “Lee wants to try something, but not here,” Stein said.

He added that some remaining establishments in the wider region – “they do 90% restaurant and 10% deli, I do 90% deli and 10% restaurant” – will “benefit from me not being here.” 

One former competitor isn’t so sure. “I’m upset another Jewish deli has closed and he’s been in business a long time and certainly has his whole clientele,” said Michael Young, longtime owner of Ben & Irv’s, a deli restaurant in Huntingdon Valley, a suburb about 20 minutes northwest of Famous. “But it’s a different world today; a different area. So I don’t know if it will help us.” 

Lee Stein said he actually tried to stay put, but needed a little help.“The real problem is the landlord never took care of the building,” said Lee, who wishes his dad had been more assertive on that front. “I tried to make it work here with them, figuring this would be an easy fix. I asked them for some renovations; to put a new roof on. The roof has several holes in it. When it rains outside, it pours in here. So, I tried to negotiate with them first before I did anything else, but that wasn’t going anywhere.” 

JTA’s attempts to reach the landlord for comment were unsuccessful. Regardless, Steve Stein, who was forced to close the deli for a short while last year due to health code issues, says he is ready to turn the page. 

The first thing he’ll do once things settle down is get therapy on his aching legs. And he’s excited to have more time to devote to his wife of 61 years, Sheila, along with his children, Lee and Mindy, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. “But I’ll miss my customers. They’re like family.” 

Already he’s feeling the difference  “It’s devastating,” he said on Aug. 24, the day after the store officially closed, amid a final “blowout sale” to get rid of what little was left. “I’m usually the first one in the store. 

“It’s going to be very much missed by me.” 

He’s not the only one.

“Nothing lasts forever,”  said one customer before heading into Famous one last time. “But it’s very sad.”

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“If I had the opportunity to take it back, I would take it all the way back,” he said.

“There is never a justification for a terrorist act, period,” El-Sayed added. “What I was trying to say is that there is a broader question of the responsibility I think all of us have to bring down violence wherever we see it and however we see it.” 

He added, “I understand and heard that people felt like it was justifying the attack, and I didn’t intend to justify it.”

El-Sayed addressed around 300 Michigan Jewish Democrats at the caucus’s annual “Summer Simcha” fundraiser in suburban Detroit on Sunday, one day after he spoke to the caucus at the state Democratic nominating convention.

At both events, El-Sayed sought forgiveness for comments earlier in the year that linked the March Hezbollah-style car-ramming at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township to Israel’s war in Lebanon. Though El-Sayed quickly condemned the incident in an initial statement, he had followed up with one in which he’d said, in part, “Hurt people hurt people,” referring to the attacker having lost family in a recent Israeli airstrike in Lebanon.

In his Sunday speech, El-Sayed referenced the Jewish “value of tikkun olam, to repair the world,” and he affirmed the synagogue preschool had been “attacked by a terrorist.” To the gathered Jewish Democrats, the candidate added that he hoped to “earn your trust.”

His outreach to Jewish voters will soon become even more pronounced. The campaign intends to hire a Jewish liaison and is in the midst of an interview process for the role, which includes talking with Jewish community leaders, a person familiar with the campaign told JTA.

With El-Sayed’s narrow primary victory, and Michigan’s increasing centrality in the fight for control of the Senate, the state’s approximately 100,000 Jewish voters — the majority of whom have historically voted Democrat — find themselves under the microscope as they weigh voting for a candidate who supports zeroing out all aid to Israel. Following his Summer Simcha speech, El-Sayed stayed to speak with a long line of Jews who came up to share their concerns. 

Asked later what he’s heard from the Jews who speak to him, he told JTA, “I hear a lot about safety, and folks want to know that they’re going to be safe.” 

He added, “The prerequisite of Jewish safety is never in question to me, and I just want to make that very, very clear.”

The event, at which JTA was the only media outlet given permission to attend, underscored the tension that has become increasingly difficult for Jewish Democrats, in Michigan and beyond, to reconcile: whether party candidates have earned the vote of their Jewish constituents when those candidates won’t commit to supporting Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, or haven’t taken what community members feel is a strong enough stance against antisemitism.

El-Sayed’s Jewish liaison will likely have their work cut out for them. In both of his spoken apologies this weekend, the candidate had insisted the main problem was with the timing of his attempt to apply “context” to the situation, not with the substance of what he said. Yet many Jews then and now objected to the idea that bringing up Israel’s war in Lebanon was appropriate context when discussing a synagogue attack.

Rabbi Paul Yedwab, a member of Temple Israel’s clergy who was not in attendance at the event, declined to comment to JTA on El-Sayed’s apologies, citing the synagogue board’s recent reaffirmation of a federal law prohibiting houses of worship from commenting on electoral politics.

Asked about which “context” he had been referring to in his apologies, El-Sayed told JTA he meant “violence in all of its forms, in all circumstances.”

El-Sayed shared the room with some party figures who have sharply opposed him, and who the state’s Jewish Democrats hold in high esteem. The caucus event honored state Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish and who has had public disagreements with El-Sayed over his handling of Jewish communal issues. 

In her own speech, Nessel acknowledged that Jews were being forced into a “stark choice” thanks to “members of our own party who seek the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state and place the Jewish diaspora in jeopardy.” 

Yet the attorney general stressed that the election was bigger than Israel, and, invoking Purim’s Queen Esther, urged Jewish voters to put their own feelings of personal safety aside.

“We have a moral imperative to place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest and, yes, even our own survival,” she told the crowd. 

Nessel said that other societal concerns – climate change, artificial intelligence, the threat of nuclear warfare – loom larger than support for Israel alone and would worsen under continued GOP rule. “What is defending the historic homeland of our ancestors and demanding that candidates acknowledge its right to exist, if the planet upon which it rests is no longer inhabitable?” she asked.

“I think it’s so easy for people to lash out at what they perceive are direct attacks on their faith, on their cultural beliefs, on their historical ancestry,” Nessel told JTA following her speech. “It’s very easy for people to be mad and to say, ‘I reject that.’ I just hope that people will consider that there are many other factors at play.”

Even among caucus leadership, though, there were deep divisions over the right Jewish approach to take in the election.

“I’m a Mike Rogers supporter,” Troy Zukowski-Serlin, a Kalamazoo-based member of the Michigan Jewish Democrats board, told JTA on Sunday before El-Sayed’s speech. Despite his board position, Zukowski-Serlin said nothing would change his mind about voting for the Republican candidate: “It’s signed, sealed and delivered with me.” 

His wife Michelle, who attended the event wearing a dress with an Israeli flag imprint, said she would be writing in Nessel, “my hero,” on the ballot.

Jewish Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss, who is running for Congress in a heavily Jewish suburban Detroit district and whose own disagreements with El-Sayed have spilled into public view, told JTA that the event was “a step in the right direction” for the candidate.

“It has lingered in the Jewish community for the last six months,” Moss said, of El-Sayed’s initial comments about the Temple Israel attack in his district. “And I appreciate that this is something that he recognized there needed to be a reckoning with, and amends toward.”

Some Jewish communal leaders in attendance, though, said he wasn’t there yet.

“He is moving, and I’m hopeful about that. And it’s making me feel more secure in his leadership,” Rabbi Josh Whinston of Temple Beth Emeth, a Reform synagogue in Ann Arbor, told JTA. “There’s still work to do.”

Whinston said he would also like to see El-Sayed address other comments he has made, including having referred to the Israeli government as “bloodthirsty.” Such language, the rabbi said, “puts us in harm’s way.”

The event’s organizers were also skeptical that El-Sayed had changed many minds.

“I think that people are pretty well set in what they want to do,” Joan Lowenstein, another caucus board member, told JTA. “But I think they still want to hear words that make them feel that someone else is thinking about what they’re concerned about.”

Liz Fried, of Ann Arbor, was one of the attendees who went up to speak to El-Sayed afterwards. She told him that her children were soon to fly to Israel, and asked if he would support funding for the Iron Dome defensive system. 

He wouldn’t, she recalled to JTA — a position he has held in public. 

“I was upset,” Fried said. “He doesn’t care about the safety of my children.” 

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The Democratic nominee told the room that his remarks following the attempted targeting of the West Bloomfield synagogue preschool, in which he had said, in part, “Hurt people hurt people,” were intended to provide “context.” 

Reflecting on them, he said on Saturday, “I made a mistake.”

“If my statement caused pain, I’m sorry. It was not what I intended to do,” El-Sayed continued. Referencing the first of two statements he had made about the attack, he added, “We issued a statement, of course, condemning it, and that just should have been it, full stop.” 

El-Sayed’s initial Temple Israel comments, which many Jews interpreted as justifying the attack, have alienated Jewish voters in the state. After an initial statement condemning the attack, El-Sayed then followed up with one referencing Israel’s war in Lebanon, where the attacker had lost family in an Israel airstrike. 

On Saturday, El-Sayed, a former county health director, insisted that his push for “context” to the attack was broadly appropriate, but not at that moment, explaining that such “conversations” could happen “in the fullness of time.”

“Sometimes you can’t really see context in the moment of acuity or pain,” he said. “The intention for me was not to trample that pain. It was not to discount it. It was not at all to justify any sort of domestic terrorism. That’s wrong, full stop.” 

El-Sayed’s apology, which was in response to a question posed to him by a Jewish Democrat in attendance, came amid a new round of outreach efforts he has been making with Jewish voters since he won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary earlier this month. He also plans to attend a Sunday Jewish caucus gathering honoring state Attorney General Dana Nessel with congressional nominee Jeremy Moss in attendance, both of whom the candidate has publicly been at ideological odds with over Jewish issues. 

In recent days El-Sayed has also minimized some of his harsh critiques of Israel in his stump speeches and issued a statement distancing himself from onetime campaign ally Hasan Piker, the left-wing anti-Israel streamer. 

His nomination acceptance speech later that day made only one, oblique, reference to American support for Israel: “It shouldn’t be this hard to pay your taxes and know that that money’s going to be spent on you, and your kids, and your schools, instead of being dropped in the form of a bomb on somebody else, and their kids, and their school.”

But skepticism was still palpable among the 30 or so Jewish Democrats in the room, a crowd that included one delegate who said his daughter and grandson had been inside Temple Israel when it was attacked. 

“Our safety as Jews in America relies on, I think, what’s said by public figures, and how they present themselves in public, and how they advocate for Jews in public,” he said just prior to El-Sayed’s apology.

Not all of El-Sayed’s answers pleased the room. Fielding another question about whether he would support the longstanding Democratic platform of a two-state solution in the Middle East if elected senator, the candidate pivoted.

“It’s incoherent to start with a solution and say, ‘Figure out how to work here,’” El-Sayed said. “To me, it’s about starting with a process and saying, ‘How do we dignify equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination for Palestinian people and Jewish Israelis alike?’” 

He added, as he has in other interviews, that he was open to the possibility of a two-state solution “if that’s what a free Palestinian and free Jewish Israeli people decide.” But, he qualified, “Our country, under the guise of a two-state solution, has been aiding, arming, and abetting a government that wants to foreclose on the possibility of a second state.”

That didn’t sit well with some in attendance, even as El-Sayed’s apology for his other comments was broadly appreciated. 

“I really liked him apologizing for misspeaking. We’ve all made comments that we regret later on,” Rebecca Kasen, a Lansing-area Michigan Jewish Democrat in attendance, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I was less comfortable with what he said about not supporting a two-state solution.”

Overall, Kasen said, her opinion of El-Sayed had improved after the Jewish caucus meeting as a result of his apology. 

“I was probably a more reluctant voter for him” beforehand, she said. That had changed: “Instead of just going to vote now, I am going to be enthusiastically voting for him.”

As the Senate race is shaping up to be the potential tipping point to decide control of the chamber in a crucial midterm year seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump, the views of the state’s Jewish Democrats regarding their party have been placed under a microscope for more reasons than just El-Sayed. That has led some longtime Jewish Democratic voters to defect to the Republican opponent, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, and also led to some awkward moments at the convention.

In one example, Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit, the party’s progressive Jewish nominee for state attorney general, addressed the Jewish caucus by declaring, “We’re going to win and keep the attorney general’s office in the hands of a Michigan Jewish Democrat.” Conspicuously absent from the day’s events was Nessel, the Jewish Democrat currently holding the seat.

Prior to the Saturday convention, Nessel, the state’s highest-ranking Jewish official, had announced she would not be attending for fear she would be targeted by antisemitic harassment. Earlier this week, in a podcast interview with The Atlantic, Nessel had reiterated her issues with El-Sayed’s comments about Temple Israel and expressed hope he would walk them back soon.

Nessel’s son Zach Nessel, secretary of the state Jewish Democratic caucus, told the caucus that his mother’s absence stemmed from “agitators” who had targeted her at the party endorsement convention in the spring. Attendance at Saturday’s event was less than one-third of what the Jewish caucus had drawn at the spring convention, organizers said.

Zach Nessel criticized the state Democratic Party for failing to take prompt action to remove the agitators from the earlier convention. He told JTA that Jews in the party “have a right to be concerned.”

“I think the Democratic Party needs to put more work into addressing their concerns,” Zach Nessel said. “But I think that can’t happen without showing up.”

Moss, the Michigan state senator who has recently been at the center of another El-Sayed-related controversy, was spotted at the convention on Saturday but did not attend the Jewish caucus events. 

One ally of El-Sayed’s who also addressed the caucus is University of Michigan Board of Regents nominee Amir Makled. He is an attorney for members of the school’s pro-Palestinian encampment movement who had pushed out a Jewish pro-Israel incumbent at the previous convention. During his own address to Jewish delegates, Makled did not mention his history of social media posts including retweeting far-right antisemitic conspiracy theorist Candace Owens and sharing praise for Hezbollah leaders.

Makled’s speech later that day at the nominating convention alluded to his work with the encampments, as he declared that Michigan “will never have a university where students are punished simply because their speech makes the powerful uncomfortable.”

In between candidate meet-and-greets, Jewish caucus members shared their anxieties about their closely scrutinized role in the midterm elections. They were gravely concerned about protecting democracy and election security from Republican threats and felt that flipping the Senate was crucial. 

Yet it was hard, they said, to get much of the Jewish community onboard given the positions of El-Sayed and some other members of the Democratic slate. Michigan is home to an estimated 100,000 Jews, and the senate race is currently polling in a dead heat, making their votes potentially pivotal.

“How do we unify our community to put the country first?” one attendee asked the group. “I have a hard time doing that.”  

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Yiannopoulos, a British citizen who himself has cheered on the Trump administration’s mass deportations, was arrested in New Orleans on Thursday. 

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Yiannopoulos had entered the U.S. legally in 2019 but “chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws.” Yiannopoulos missed an immigration hearing and was issued a final order of removal in July, according to DHS, and will remain in ICE custody “pending removal.”

Jewish MAGA firebrand Laura Loomer, an influential figure in the Trump administration, took credit for the arrest on social media.

In a series of posts on X, Loomer blasted Yiannopoulos for his past internship with former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and his appearances on right-wing commentator Candace Owens’ podcast. Both Greene and Owens are anti-Israel figures who have become critics of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.

“Milo is going to be deported back to the UK where he can live among the Muslims he has recently chosen to embrace,” Loomer wrote. “Today is a great day for America.” Late Friday, Loomer claimed he was “on an airplane back to the UK.”

Yiannopoulos, a former editor at Breitbart News and onetime beacon of the burgeoning alt-right movement, has a long history of inflammatory comments, and has flirted with Holocaust denial while claiming Jewish ancestry. The Anti-Defamation League labeled him as an “alt right apologist” and a “misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, transphobic troll who is extremely good at getting people to pay attention to him.” 

His ascension through the conservative movement was abruptly halted in 2017 after appearing to endorse pedophilia in a video. But the commentator bounced back after developing a relationship with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. After Ye began to gain notoriety in 2022 for promoting extreme antisemitic rhetoric, Yiannopoulos joined his long-shot 2024 presidential campaign as chief of staff. 

Yiannopoulos also took credit for organizing a dinner in 2022 between Donald Trump, Ye and white nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes, which was widely condemned by both parties. At the time, Yiannopoulos said that he organized it “to send a message to Trump that he has systematically repeatedly neglected, ignored, abused the people who love him the most, the people who put him in office, and that kind of behavior comes back to bite you in the end.” 

More recently, when Ye took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year to apologize for his antisemitism, Yiannopoulos shared the ad on X — a day after he had posted, “The problem with these kamikaze Jews is they aren’t remotely as likable, human or frightening as Japs.”

Yiannopoulos has said that he is Jewish through his maternal grandmother, though he is a practicing Roman Catholic, and refutes claims of being racist or antisemitic.

In 2019, Yiannopoulos told the Los Angeles Jewish Journal that he is a “paid-up Zionist” who would advocate for a Jewish “super-state” in the Middle East. That interview took place in Berlin, the day after an event where Yiannopoulos spoke to members of the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland party. 

Two years earlier, Yiannopoulos had rallied against the City University of New York for hosting Linda Sarsour, a promoter of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement against Israel, as a commencement speaker.

In an April 2026 interview with Owens, who herself has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, Yiannopoulos compared the Israeli government to Nazi Germany, and said that “Netanyahu’s Israel will have eclipsed Hitler’s Germany by many, many counts, morally speaking, probably by the numbers, too.” 

He said that the Netanyahu administration “has gone so far that they’re now willing to sacrifice their own citizens in order to increase their borders.”

“Where do I remember that from? Uh, could it be the word ‘Lebensraum’?” he said, referring to the key tenet of Nazi ideology that meant conquering more land for the Aryan race to settle. “Could it be a country that did exactly that?”

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“The Republican Jewish Coalition is proud to welcome Vice President JD Vance to our National Leadership Summit in Las Vegas,” said an RJC spokesperson. “JD Vance is a friend, who is coming back after first joining us in 2022 as a candidate for the US Senate.”

Vance’s appearance comes as a number of Jewish Republicans and major GOP donors have indicated that they would rather support Marco Rubio for the presidential nomination in 2028 than Vance, who is seen as Donald Trump’s likeliest successor. Some of those donors will be in the room on Monday at the Venetian Resort, which is owned by the billionaire Adelson family — a major backer of Trump and various Jewish and Israeli causes.

The vice president has lost the confidence of the pro-Israel crowd with his reprimanding of Israeli officials, indulgence of anti-Israel conspiracy theories and silence on Tucker Carlson, the prominent pundit who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories. Multiple donors told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency during last year’s confab that they would not support Vance in 2028.

Carlson, meanwhile, was a major focus of the discussion at the RJC’s 2025 summit, where signs reading “Tucker is not MAGA” were handed out to attendees. His son, Buckley Carlson, is a former Vance staffer.

An agenda sent by the RJC lists Vance as a speaker during a Monday evening session that will be closed to press. A spokesperson confirmed that Vance will be speaking in a “fireside chat.”

A number of high-profile Republican candidates are also expected to speak at the RJC confab, which is being held on Sunday and Monday, a few months ahead of the midterm elections. Speakers include U.S. Senate candidates Mike Collins, the Georgia congressman who is challenging Jewish Democrat Jon Ossoff, and former Rep. Mike Rogers, who is running against Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

Collins has faced accusations of antisemitism and having ties to the far right. He has said that some of his statements were misunderstood, and has defended himself by citing his support for Israel.

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The Associated Press called the race two hours after polls closed at 9:01pm. By the time 99% of votes were tallied, Darline Graham had secured 52.3% of the votes to Norman’s 47.7%.

“Tonight is a great victory, but it’s not the finish line,” Graham told her supporters on Tuesday night. “In fact, it is the starting line for an even bigger fight, which lies ahead.”

If Darline Graham goes on to win November’s general election against Democrat Annie Andrews, she will have big shoes to fill. Her brother served 23 years in the Senate and eight in the U.S. House. He traveled to Israel about a dozen times between Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on the Jewish state and his death at age 71.

Heading into the primaries, analysts expressed no doubt that Darline Graham would be pro-Israel. But matching Lindsey Graham’s level of foreign policy activity, they warned, would be a formidable task. Meanwhile, her campaign to date has largely avoided discussion of international affairs. Instead, she has focused on domestic concerns like reducing spending, securing borders and promoting Trump-backed policies. 

During a debate aired on C-SPAN last week, Graham struggled to respond to a foreign policy question about Taiwan and the South China Sea, ultimately admitting that she’s “not that informed on national security.”

“I’m not a polished politician up here,” she said. “National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise.”

Later addressing issues of affordability, Graham linked the domestic economic situation to the war in Iran and said she trusts President Donald Trump “to get the Strait of Hormuz open.” She also voiced her preference for financial sanctions over putting troops on the ground. 

Asked about the country’s relationship with Israel, Graham described the Jewish state as “one of our strongest allies.” Recognizing her brother’s close relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she added that during a recent meeting with the Israeli premier, she vowed to “continue supporting Israel in any way” she can.

“We have to stand with Israel,” Graham said. 

At their previous face-off, Graham had secured 33% of the vote, while Norman came in second place, at 25%, against eight fellow Republicans. But South Carolina requires primary winners to earn a majority of votes in order to avoid a two-candidate runoff. In the November general election, Graham will contend with Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who is unlikely to prevail in the solidly Republican state.

Tuesday’s runoff marked the third time in two months that South Carolina Republicans came to the polls to select a Senate candidate. Lindsey Graham, won the first primary in June but died suddenly the next month from an aortic dissection.

A few days later, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, appointed Darline Graham to finish her brother’s term. Though she only had minimal policy experience, including a leadership role at the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, she earned President Donald Trump’s endorsement and declared her candidacy in the full race. 

Trump celebrated Graham’s nomination in a Tuesday night Truth Social post, writing that “Darline Graham rides Trump endorsement to win GOP nomination for brother’s South Carolina seat.”

Graham thanked Trump profusely during her Tuesday night acceptance speech, recognizing the president as one of her brother’s “closest friends” and crediting him for helping her secure a victory. 

Norman, meanwhile, thanked his supporters on Tuesday night for their “prayer crusade of a campaign,” stressing that he “did not prepare a concession speech.” He accused “outside PACs” of spending $8 million opposing him and blamed the Democrats for this situation, adding that “they got what they wanted.” 

He recognized Trump’s role in the race as a supporter of Graham, noting that he “never understood why he got involved” but that it is the president’s prerogative to do so. Nonetheless, Norman pledged that there “won’t be any tears” and that he planned to back Graham.

“I’m not supporting a Democrat, so I will support her, Darline, as best I can,” he added. “We’ll live to fight another day.”

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The Associated Press called Tuesday’s race, a sequel to the state’s June primary, less than an hour after polls closed. By the time 80% of votes were tallied, Thomas had accrued 59.9% of the votes to Priest’s 40.1%. 

Like many progressives in the current election cycle, she repeatedly vowed during her campaign to reject funds from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the influential pro-Israel lobby.

Although AIPAC has not participated in this race, Thomas posted a social media reel in November that showed her pulling a giant red trash bin, labeled “AIPAC Funds” and “Corporate PAC Funds.” Adjacent to the reel is a caption that reads, “Just taking out the trash.”

“I am a sole grassroots candidate,” she said in the reel. “And we are not accepting AIPAC or corporate PAC funds. It’s garbage.”

Asked about her rhetoric on AIPAC, Thomas told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a written statement that her “concerns [with AIPAC] have NEVER been about Jewish people, Judaism, or Israel’s existence,” adding that she instead prioritizes human rights, civilian lives and the accountability of all governments.

“When I discuss political influence or organizations, my focus is on the broader role of money, lobbying, and special interests in our political system, not on any one religion or community,” she added. 

In their previous matchup, a five-candidate race, neither candidate had earned the majority required to secure a win. Thomas earned 45% of votes in June, while Priest, a lawyer and ordained minister, accrued 24%. 

Heading into Tuesday’s runoff, it was already clear that both Thomas and Priest would be longshots  this November in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate in more than three decades. The Republican opponent, Rep. Kevin Hern, swept his primary and has the endorsement of President Donald Trump.

But Thomas’s win served as yet another litmus test on the potency of progressivism in a deep-red state, just a week after democratic socialist Angie Nixon knocked trounced a moderate candidate in Florida’s Democratic Senate primary. 

Thomas, unlike Nixon, is not a member of Democratic Socialists of America, but she has openly identified with socialist policies. The 31-year-old is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation who says she represents “the next generation of leaders.” Among her priorities are women’s health and safety, civil rights and LGBTQIA+ protections. 

During a debate this past Saturday, both Thomas and Priest described a “genocide” in Gaza. Priest linked the word to Israel, while Thomas connected it to the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

She emphasized that “we can be for our Jewish brothers and sisters, and we can be against Netanyahu and what he is doing.” 

“He is committing genocide. He is absolutely murdering children,” Thomas said at the debate. “We have to stop providing funding for these wars.”

In her statement to JTA, Thomas expressed her commitment to a two-state solution, adding that “both Israelis and Palestinians deserve the opportunity to live in peace, security and self-determination.”

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El-Sayed was one of a number of high-profile Democrats to do so days after Piker made comments that some party leaders and others interpreted as justifying threats to American Jews. 

Speaking on a Twitch livestream on Aug. 20, Piker stated, “If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action.” Piker added, “Not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews.”

Piker also referred to Israel as “Jewish ISIS.” He made the comments while showing a picture of Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss, a pro-Israel Jewish Democrat running for Congress, and a link to a story about Moss’s reluctance to back El-Sayed.

In response, El-Sayed linked his social media statement directly to Piker as he reiterated his ”commitment to Jewish safety,” stating that “antisemitism is a scourge” and denounced “any rhetoric that puts the community at risk.”

If not necessarily a sharp pivot, El-Sayed’s words — coming from a strident Israel critic in his own right — still represented an acknowledgement that his biggest campaign surrogate poses problems for his relationships with the Jewish community as well as other Democrats. 

Piker’s remarks sparked a new round of intense backlash against a figure already facing criticism for harsh words about Israel and its Jewish supporters. Moss and other Democrats said Piker — who is hugely popular on the online progressive left, has been embraced by several progressive House candidates and has spoken at major Democratic confabs — was fomenting discord against Jews.

“Hasan Piker’s talk of violence against American Jews, and directly naming a Michigan elected official, and future member of Congress, Jeremy Moss, is unacceptable. Full stop,” Michigan U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten, a Democrat, said in a statement Monday. 

Calling Piker “a hack who thrives on hate, shock and awe because he lacks substance,” Scholten further described his remarks as “disgusting” and “dangerous for everyone.” The moderate congresswoman had reportedly been in talks to endorse El-Sayed when the latest Piker controversy erupted, ending such dialogue, according to Semafor.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York also weighed in on a post on X, although he did not mention Piker by name. 

“There is zero justification for threats against the safety of our Jewish brothers and sisters at a moment of rising hate. We will fight the cancer of antisemitism with the fierce urgency of now,” Jeffries posted. Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin, likewise, condemned Piker’s remarks without naming him.

Some Jewish Democrats did mention Piker by name in their condemnations, including Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Micah Lasher, a Jewish pro-Israel progressive and Democratic nominee for Congress in New York.

“The issue isn’t (just) that he lumps all Jews together and holds us all accountable for the supposed evils of Israel,” Lasher wrote of Piker on X. “It’s that his nonstop drive to demonize the world’s sole Jewish state, along with those who support its survival, crosses the line — by miles — between criticism and Jew hatred of the ancient variety.”

Lasher went further into ruminations on the changing Jewish relationship to Zionism, saying that Piker has “helped turn the Z-word into a slur such that large numbers of Jews, particularly younger ones, disown it partly out of misunderstanding.”

In an email to JTA on Tuesday, Piker, who campaigned alongside El-Sayed at Michigan colleges, said the controversy wouldn’t affect his views or his support of El-Sayed. He also defended his remarks, saying they did not constitute a threat against Jews but a warning of how their support for Israel might be construed.

“I see antisemitism unjustly rising as Israel’s popularity rightfully plummets due to its genocide,” he wrote, quoting a column by Jewish New York Times columnist Ezra Klein that Piker said made a similar point. 

In that April 12 article, Klein asserted that “Anti-Zionism is rising as a response to what Israel is doing.” In the same article, he noted that Piker had said “offensive things” about Jews, but denied that the anti-Zionist influencer was a “Jew hater.” 

In his response to JTA, Piker added, “I don’t think any group is monolithic in their approach to issues, and the erasure of anti-Zionist Jews and calling all criticisms of Israel antisemitic only feeds into this dangerous false notion that Judaism and Zionism are inseparable and that all Jews are singularly invested in Israel.”

Piker chalked up El-Sayed’s remarks criticizing his recent comments to a political calculation. “I don’t think Abdul should cave to the Republican attack ads and framing, but if this allows him to stay on message then, he’s going to do what he must,” Piker wrote.

The incident with Piker comes as El-Sayed is working to secure the support of Michigan Democrats ahead of the November election.

El-Sayed’s GOP opponent, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, has highlighted El-Sayed’s record on Israel and relationship with Piker to similarly court Jewish voters. Rogers called Piker the Democratic candidate’s “running mate” at the state party nominating convention over the weekend, and issued a statement on Monday saying Piker had made a “call for violence against the Jewish Community, specifically against Jeremy Moss.” 

Rogers added that El-Sayed’s criticism of Piker “is the epitome of what a conman does — says one thing when it serves him and another when it doesn’t.” Rogers, who is polling in a statistical dead heat with El-Sayed, has pushed outreach to disaffected Jewish voters as part of his campaign strategy.

Jewish Democrats have struggled with the question of whether, or how, to coalesce around El-Sayed, who, among other positions, opposes all military aid to Israel. The candidate is scheduled to host two events Wednesday, including a town hall in heavily Jewish Oakland County, with Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, a progressive pro-Israel Jew. 

Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens, who lost the primary to El-Sayed in a race in which AIPAC and affiliated groups spent tens of millions of dollars supporting her, endorsed him after his victory. Stevens has since urged El-Sayed to distance himself from Piker.

Moss, meanwhile, has so far withheld endorsing El-Sayed, while the state’s Jewish attorney general, Dana Nessel, has urged the candidate to “tone down the rhetoric.”

Rabbi Asher Lopatin, who is currently on leave from his role directing community relations for Ann Arbor’s Jewish federation and who spoke at a “Democrats for Mike Rogers” press conference days before the latest Piker blowup, has cited El-Sayed’s relationship with the streamer as a key reason for why he shouldn’t serve in the Senate. 

The candidate’s latest statement hasn’t convinced him otherwise, Lopatin told JTA.

“I don’t want a political statement,” Lopatin said. “I want him to apologize for being around someone like Hasan Piker.” 

A sincere effort by El-Sayed to win over Jewish voters, the rabbi said, would “say openly that I respect Jews that are Zionist, I respect the Jewish people who have a sense of peoplehood, who have a connection to Israel.”

Moss, who is hoping to fill the seat in a heavily Jewish suburban Detroit district being vacated by Stevens, also took Piker to task Monday while continuing to gingerly describe his relationship with El-Sayed.

“I will not be lectured by a California podcaster about what Oakland County, Michigan’s Jewish community should and shouldn’t believe,” the candidate wrote in his own statement. (Piker lives and works in Los Angeles.) “And we certainly won’t be gaslit that we’re responsible for the antisemitic harm upon us.” 

Moss referenced the attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, a Detroit suburb, earlier this year. The congregation sits in the district he hopes to represent, and El-Sayed’s response to the attack, appearing to link it to the attacker having lost family in an Israeli strike on Lebanon, was roundly criticized by the state’s Jewish community.

Moss’s own relationship with El-Sayed has become a larger stand-in for how the Democratic Party may struggle to keep Jewish Americans in its tent amid deep divisions over Israel. 

Before Piker singled him out, Moss had told Slate that he’s held several ongoing conversations with his party’s Senate candidate but that El-Sayed was “going to have to demonstrate some serious outreach to Oakland County’s Jewish community.” 

Responding to Moss’s comments on the initial livestream that prompted the furor, Piker had mused, “I wonder what he has to do to gain the support of Oakland County’s Jewish community. Yeah, he has to drop his critiques of Israel. That’s what it is.”

Prior to his showdown with Piker, Moss told his followers he had been the target of a different sort of attack: “manipulated and unsourced audio” falsely attributing antisemitic tropes to him. In recordings circulating online over the last few weeks, including by a former Democratic primary opponent to Moss, a voice purporting to belong to Moss can be heard saying, “The entire purpose of my campaign is to ensure that the U.S. continues to support Israel.”

In a post on X on Aug. 18, Moss wrote that the words in the audio were not his. He noted that the audio “peddles in offensive tropes and lies — especially the lie of dual loyalty suggesting that Jews are never fully citizens of or loyal to their home countries.” 

The Democratic party, which is desperate to hold their Senate seat in Michigan, has limited time to mend fences with the state’s estimated 100,000 Jews. Michigan Democrats are holding their statewide nominating convention on Saturday; Nessel has already said she won’t attend out of fear of being targeted for antisemitic harassment. 

Dialogue between Moss and El-Sayed is still ongoing, the former wrote Monday, noting “our shared fight against MAGA extremism.” 

Moss said they have “talked about Jewish and Arab safety and security, both here at home in Michigan and in the Middle East.” He added, “There is still work ahead to unite our ticket despite our differences.”

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But recent reports have cast doubt on how much support the GOP candidate, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, is comfortable receiving from pro-Israel donors. 

According to multiple outlets, Rogers and his representatives have signalled to AIPAC that they would like the pro-Israel lobbying giant to refrain from directly spending in his favor in the general election in order to avoid opening up a line of attack against the candidate, with whom El-Sayed is currently polling in a statistical tie. The campaign is instead suggesting alternative avenues of support, including funnelling cash into a general pro-Rogers super PAC.

Rogers did not respond to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment. And there is no sign the Rogers campaign has cut off relationships with AIPAC, its aligned super PACs or their donor class. Far from it: Rogers recently attended several major AIPAC-connected fundraisers in Los Angeles, according to the Times.

In addition, the vast majority of AIPAC-aligned Jewish donors to his campaign remain in his corner, according to Dennis Bernard, a Jewish resident of metro Detroit resident and political fundraiser who has said he will support Rogers. 

Nevertheless, Rogers’ reported request — which intermediaries would have to make in a way that circumvents campaign finance laws forbidding direct coordination with super PACs — underscores a growing fear among Jewish and pro-Israel groups.

In a political climate that has seen both parties turn away from Israel and AIPAC to varying degrees, more and more pro-Israel Jews say their most visible player in the political arena may have become more of a liability than an asset.

Bernard, who serves as national chair of government relations for the nonpartisan umbrella group Jewish Federations of North America, described Rogers’ maneuvering around AIPAC as “a tactical strategy.”

“I’m sure Mike is very grateful for AIPAC’s assistance and is not trying to turn down AIPAC money,” Bernard, who has connected several AIPAC-aligned Jewish donors to the Rogers campaign in his personal capacity, told JTA. “Mike’s trying to figure out with everybody else right now: In this changing world, how do you strategically take Jewish money?”

Bernard acknowledged that being linked to AIPAC has become a political liability in many races, regarded by its critics as similar to taking “data center money.” 

Reached for comment, an AIPAC spokesperson directed JTA to remarks the organization gave to the New York Times on Monday. 

“The Rogers campaign has been explicit with us that they welcome support from AIPAC and our members,” spokesperson Deryn Sousa told the Times. 

AIPAC rarely involves itself in general elections, but the group has stated it continues to see El-Sayed as a prime target.

David Victor, a Michigan resident and former AIPAC president who remains involved in the group, referred a reporter asking about the race to the national group.

There’s no guarantee that a less visible role for AIPAC would protect Rogers, a vocal Israel supporter, from accusations that he is in league with the group. In addition, from the lobby’s perspective, allowing others to spend money raised by AIPAC would deprive the group of both messaging control as well as the opportunity to take credit for what it hopes will be an El-Sayed defeat. 

El-Sayed, a former county health official, made AIPAC’s heavy spending in favor of his inter-party rival Rep. Haley Stevens a major talking point on the campaign trail. Many other progressive candidates this election cycle have prevailed while turning AIPAC into a target. 

AIPAC and its defenders have argued that its spending for Stevens — which exceeded $30 million — helped narrow El-Sayed’s margin of victory and weakened him in the general election. But the group has taken heavy criticism this electoral cycle, including from ideological allies, over its aggressive spending against some liberal pro-Israel candidates, which observers believe helped propel figures more hostile to Israel into office. 

Even amid his reported desire to lower the visibility of AIPAC spending in the race, Rogers has been showing signs of hoping to peel Jewish voters away from El-Sayed.

For one, he has taken on some liberal Jewish campaign surrogates. Rabbi Asher Lopatin, who leads the Modern Orthodox congregation Kehillat Etz Chayim in the Detroit suburb of Huntington Woods, spoke at a “Democrats for Mike” press conference last week while standing next to Rogers. 

Currently on leave from his role as director of Community Relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, Lopatin told the crowd that he, a regular Democratic voter, was backing Rogers because El-Sayed “has shown contempt for the Jewish community and, frankly, for American values.” 

The rabbi cited El-Sayed’s comments after a man rammed an explosive-laden pickup truck into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield earlier this year. On that occasion, El-Sayed, speaking of the attacker who had lost family in an Israeli strike in Lebanon, said, “Hurt people do hurt people.” 

Lopatin also cited the candidate’s relationship with far-left anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker, with whom El-Sayed had campaigned during the primary. Days after their press conference, El-Sayed distanced himself from Piker following new comments from the streamer that prompted blowback from the Jewish community. 

El-Sayed did not respond to a JTA request for comment.

Lopatin told JTA he spoke at the Rogers event “as an individual,” and said that other Jews in the community had thanked him for “speaking up for us.”

Lopatin said Roger’s reported unease about AIPAC would not affect his support for the candidate.

“Good for him. There’s plenty of Republican money,” the rabbi, who has no affiliation with AIPAC himself, said. “If I were recommending something I would say, ‘AIPAC, stay out of this race. You’ve done what you could do. Stay out. Let him run.’”

Rogers is also positioning himself as a fighter of antisemitism, and his rival as a driver of it. Addressing the Michigan GOP nominating convention on Saturday, Rogers said he would support Jewish constituents whom he said would be harmed by El-Sayed.

Calling Piker the candidate’s “running mate,” Rogers said the duo’s rhetoric “has real implications” for people like a “young Jewish girl who attends the University of Michigan.” Rogers said the unnamed student told him she “hides her Star of David necklace so that violent antisemites on campus don’t see it and harass her — or worse.”

For his part, Bernard, who also runs a financial advisory firm, said it sometimes makes good business sense “not to take credit for a victory.”

“We let the client or someone else take it, and we just take our big profit and move on,” he said. “Because the people who need to know, know.”

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Oklahoma grassroots activist N’kiyla Jasmine Thomas is facing off on Tuesday against centrist Jim Priest in a Democratic Senate race that has become the latest litmus test for progressive politics in a conservative stronghold. 

The two candidates are battling at the ballot box for the second time this summer after neither of them secured the needed majority to win the June primary contest. Thomas, a nurse who has been vocal against AIPAC, earned 45% of votes in the June five-person matchup, while Priest, a lawyer and ordained minister, accrued 24%. 

Both Thomas and Priest would be underdogs in the general election against Republican candidate Rep. Kevin Hern, who swept his primary and clinched the endorsement of President Donald Trump. Oklahoma hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate in more than three decades. 

Nonetheless, Tuesday’s runoff will serve as a referendum on the potency of progressivism in a deep-red state, just a week after democratic socialist Angie Nixon knocked out her moderate opponent in Florida’s Democratic Senate primary. 

Unlike Nixon, Thomas is not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. She has, however, openly identified with socialist policies, while her opponent, Priest, calls himself a moderate. 

Neither candidate has a wealth of political experience. Priest, 70, made a failed bid for Oklahoma attorney general in 2010 and was previously the CEO of two nonprofit organizations. His campaign priorities center on reducing the cost of living, making healthcare more accessible and inspiring confidence in government. 

Thomas, meanwhile, is a 31-year-old citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, who says she represents “the next generation of leaders.” Among her key focuses are women’s health and safety, civil rights and LGBTQIA+ protections. She has also repeatedly pledged to never take money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Although the pro-Israel lobby has not been involved in this race, a November social media reel showed Thomas pulling a giant red trash bin, adorned with the labels “AIPAC Funds” and “Corporate PAC Funds.” Alongside the reel is a caption that reads, “Just taking out the trash.”

“I am a sole grassroots candidate,” she said in the reel. “And we are not accepting AIPAC or corporate PAC funds. It’s garbage.”

Asked about her rhetoric on AIPAC, Thomas told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that “My concerns have NEVER been about Jewish people, Judaism, or Israel’s existence,” saying that she instead prioritizes human rights, civilian lives and the accountability of all governments.

Some voters see it differently. David Howman, a 30-year-old Jewish banker in Tulsa, said that although he’s “a fairly progressive Democratic voter,” he considers Thomas’s usage of AIPAC to be “a pretty cheap political tactic.” 

“It’s kind of like a little grenade you get to toss out in there,” Howman told JTA. 

“If AIPAC were funneling a bunch of money into the Jim Priest campaign, maybe that’s a conversation that is worth having,” he added. “But they’re not even touching this race.”

Though Howman voted for Priest in Tuesday’s runoff, he noted that a different candidate, Troy Green, was his favorite in the June primary. 

When asked at a Saturday debate about Israel’s military actions, both candidates confirmed their belief in the existence of a “genocide” in Gaza. Only Priest, however, linked the word to Israel, while Thomas connected it to the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Priest recognized that Hamas “committed atrocities,” noting that “they kidnapped people, they killed people, they tortured people” and that “they should be held accountable.” But he also deemed Israel’s retaliation “disproportionate to the threat.”

“In response, Israel is committing genocide,” he said, accusing the Jewish state of preventing medical supplies and food from getting to people. 

Expressing skepticism about both one-state and two-state solutions, Priest declared that “what’s needed is a 24-state solution,” in which the whole Middle East unites “in something like the Abraham Accords.” 

The Priest campaign did not respond to JTA’s request for comment. 

Thomas, meanwhile, emphasized that “we can be for our Jewish brothers and sisters, and we can be against Netanyahu and what he is doing.” 

“He is committing genocide. He is absolutely murdering children,” Thomas said. “We have to stop providing funding for these wars.”

She also backed the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, noting that the U.S. should “not be on the side of another country that we don’t even have any ties to, outside of allyship.”

Thomas had previously refrained from using the word genocide in public statements, instead expressing “solidarity with Palestine” and calling for an end to “unconditional funding of Israel’s military.” 

In her response to JTA’s request that she clarify her stances on AIPAC and Israel, Thomas provided a lengthy written statement. 

“I stand with my Jewish brothers and sisters against antisemitism, hate and discrimination in all forms,” she said, referring to Judaism as one of the “most enduring faith traditions.” 

Reiterating remarks she made at the debate, Thomas noted that “two things can be true at the same time,” and advocated for both the security of the Jewish people and a willingness to criticize “any government, including the current leadership  of Israel.”

Thomas also voiced support for a two-state solution, explaining that “both Israelis and Palestinians deserve the opportunity to live in peace, security and self-determination.”

“When I discuss political influence or organizations, my focus is on the broader role of money, lobbying, and special interests in our political system, not on any one religion or community,” she added. 

Regardless of who comes out victorious on Tuesday, Howman said that many Democrats will be heading to the ballot box this November with a pessimistic outlook. 

“That’s kind of the challenge that we have here in Oklahoma,” he added. “There’s definitely a sense of defeatism on the Democratic side.” 

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Voters in Providence, the state capital, will vote on a referendum this November saying the city should refrain from investing in “foreign countries conducting ethnic cleansing, apartheid, illegal military occupation, or genocide.”

The language of the actual ballot petition does not mention Israel, nor any other country, by name. But the signature campaign was led by Providence for Palestine, a local activist coalition, and both its proponents and opponents have framed the measure as a referendum on Israel and the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. 

With the referendum’s ballot placement secured, Providence has become the largest American municipality ever to place divestment before the voting public.

“We’re in this moment when the general public at large, and particularly Democratic voters, very much understand what’s going on in Gaza and Palestine as genocide, as apartheid, and want their leaders to take action on it,” Zack Kligler, a lead organizer of the ballot initiative and member of the Rhode Island chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Kligler described the current divestment campaign as having “definitely been led disproportionately by Jewish organizers.”

To determine which countries are “conducting” any of its list of human rights abuses, the referendum would rely on “resolutions” from various bodies, including the United Nations Security Council, International Court of Justice and “any” U.S. court ruling or U.N. body. Some, though not all, of those bodies have reached conclusions that would implicate Israel in the ballot language’s divestment campaign. 

Both Israel and the Trump administration have strongly rejected all genocide accusations leveled against the country. “Apartheid” can be considered an independent crime under international law, while “ethnic cleansing” has no formal legal definition.

Divestment from Israel has seen some success on the municipal level since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks and Israel’s military response in Gaza, which has sunk the country’s popularity across the American electorate. Last year a non-binding divestment resolution in Somerville, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb with less than half of Providence’s population, became the first such initiative to win at the ballot box. Over objections from Jewish groups, the city this summer began exploring the question of how to enact the measure into law. 

Critics of divestment measures argue that they force local governments to put undue focus on international issues; could prompt division and backlash against local Jewish communities, and jeopardize public pension programs. The Providence campaign’s decision to avoid mentioning Israel in the ballot language sets it apart from similar initiatives, while also neutralizing claims, made against other resolutions, that such measures unfairly single out Israel. 

Yet local Jewish groups say the risk to the community remains.

“All this will do [is] stoke more division in our community, and potentially make Jewish people here feel more unsafe,” Stephanie Hague, chief strategy officer of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island, told JTA.

Hague noted that the ballot language, as written, prompts questions about the authority of the international bodies making judgments about what constitutes genocide, ethnic cleansing and other terms in in the initiative. She said that the Alliance would campaign against the ballot measure and, if it passes, explore legal options for putting up roadblocks to it. 

A 2024 proposal to the city council urged Providence, whose approximately 15,000 Jews make up around 7% of the population, not to invest in Israel bonds. The measure failed to make it out of committee. Likewise, the board of Brown University, the Ivy League school located in Providence, voted on a divestment resolution as part of the demands of the school’s pro-Palestinian encampment movement in 2024. It failed.

Activists are more confident this time, citing the success in Somerville — where, unlike in Providence, Israel was mentioned by name as the target of the winning ballot measure. Also unlike Somerville, whose measure was non-binding, Providence’s initiative would mandate city action.

Supporters also note that Providence joined a 2006 divestment initiative against Sudan to protest ethnic cleansing in Darfur, a divestment campaign that was spearheaded by American Jewish groups.

“We’re really proud of the legacy of the American Jewish community and standing up on social issues,” Kligler, who grew up in the Conservative movement, attended a Jewish day school in Brooklyn and has family in Israel, told JTA.

Unlike in Pittsburgh, where a similar 2024 initiative was undone before the election following legal challenges to the signatures, the Providence activists were able to collect and verify more than enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. The initiative’s supporters said they had identified around $2.5 million in city funds that would be affected by a divestment order. They cited American companies frequently targeted by pro-Palestinian activists, such as construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar and weapons firm Axon Enterprise.

The city council of Portland, Maine, also passed a divestment proposal in 2024, though that city’s mayor, after initially endorsing the plan, later said he regretted having done so because of the divisiveness it spurred. 

Some progressive Jewish professionals in Providence say the initiative is in keeping with their values.

“I know there are others out there who think that this is a situation where one would need to choose between their Jewish principles and other principles. I don’t perceive it that way,” Lex Rofeberg, senior Jewish educator with the alternative Jewish engagement network Judaism Unbound, told JTA about his support for the ballot campaign.

Rofeberg, a Providence resident, said it would be wrong for non-Jews to conclude that “it is a Jewish value to support human rights violations.”

“For those who see a ballot initiative that does not name Israel at all, but simply says we should not invest our dollars in atrocities — for people who see that as somehow threatening to Judaism, why would they think that?” he asked.

Hague, the Jewish Alliance staffer opposing the initiative, sees just such a threat to Jewish interests. She acknowledged that it can be hard to communicate to non-Jews, who would understandably oppose genocide and apartheid, the ways in which her group sees the BDS movement as “a calling card for antisemitism.”

She outlined what she saw as her group’s mission: “We have to do so much education in a short period of time, and helping people understand the Jewish community’s relationship to Israel, and then understanding this initiative’s relationship to the BDS movement and how those things are connected, and the real fear and isolation many Jewish Americans are already feeling, particularly after Oct. 7.”

The political environment, though, may be unfriendly to such efforts. Following broader national trends, the city’s Democratic mayoral primary, set for Sept. 9, is also pivoting to a large degree around Israel. 

Incumbent Mayor Brett Smiley, who converted to Judaism and held a bar mitzvah while in office, is a vocal Israel supporter who opposes the ballot initiative. His progressive challenger, state Rep. David Morales, has backed the ballot initiative.

So too have some local elected officials with Jewish heritage. “For any community that we are identified with, and for the sake of our soul and our humanity, we have to be able to say, ‘This is not OK,’” Rachel Miller, city council president, told JTA. 

Miller, who has a Jewish father and Catholic mother, said she considers herself “culturally” Jewish and objected to the idea that there is a single Jewish voice on the issue. She believes, she said, in “disconnecting the actions of a state against a group of people from my personal Jewish heritage, from my personal Jewish identity.”

Even if passed, it’s possible the ballot initiative could run afoul of a statewide ban on working with government contractors who openly boycott Israel — a so-called “anti-BDS law,” one of many such measures enacted in a range of states. 

Those laws themselves have been debated for years. This fall a ballot initiative in Oak Park, Illinois, a liberal Chicago suburb, will ask voters to register a formal objection to that state’s anti-boycott law. The initiative, which is opposed by local Jewish groups, survived a legal challenge on Monday.

Hague acknowledged current Jewish divisions on Israel, and the difficult political climate for pro-Israel Jewish groups. Facing down a ballot initiative like this, she said, takes work.

“I think we know public opinion is not supportive of Israel right now. I think it’s not an issue that people understand implicitly when they just read a ballot question,” she said. “So yes, of course, there’s reason for concern, and I think no matter what happens at the ballot, I still think it’s an important moment.”

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The slow-rolling collapse in Harrisburg, which has roughly 9,000 Jews in the city area, has included the closure of programs, the displacement of Jewish institutions and the planned sale of the Alexander Grass Campus for Jewish Life, which was purchased by the federation for $4.5 million in 2022 and envisioned as a hub for Jewish life in central Pennsylvania. 

The downfall has also featured an unusual intervention by Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella organization for 141 local federations that usually work highly independently. JFNA dispatched a former federation leader to help the Harrisburg Federation make hard financial decisions as it became clear its situation was not sustainable.

“While well-intentioned, there were clearly mistakes made that have set back Jewish life in Harrisburg and caused distress and division,” JFNA’s president and CEO, Eric Fingerhut, wrote in a letter to the community in April, in which he called the local federation’s business model “not viable.”

At the time, Fingerhut expressed optimism that the situation could turn around, writing, “Despite all that has transpired in recent years, I am confident the members of the Greater Harrisburg community can come together to repair what has been broken and build a bright future.”

Four months later, that optimism is being tested as Harrisburg’s Jewish residents have watched core functions of the local federation evaporate.

Gila Ogle, the head of the Silver Academy, a Jewish day school in Harrisburg, said there was a  “deep desire to ensure a vibrant future for Jewish life in Harrisburg,” but lamented that there is no longer a local Jewish federation to support it. 

“What people are saying is, ‘Well, now what’s our opportunity? How can we come together?’” she said.

The Silver Academy officially learned in June that it could no longer be housed in the Grass Campus, Ogle said. The school will open this fall in the educational wing of Beth El Temple, a Conservative synagogue in Harrisburg. The synagogue is also hosting senior programs previously operated by the JCC.

Ogle said the school had seen a small decline in enrollment over the past year, a trend she attributed to the “unsettlingness of the whole situation” for families.

“Families have a lot of concerns, and I think that’s fair,” Ogle said. “We’ve really done our best to communicate transparently and keep families looped in and part of the process, but it is hard.”

The Silver Academy was not the only institution housed on the Grass Campus that was hurt by the Harrisburg federation’s downfall.

When Rebecca Anzel first heard about the looming closure of her 3-year-old daughter’s preschool in April, she was “shocked and confused.” Her daughter attended the Brenner Family Early Learning Center, which shut down on May 1, just over a week after Anzel and other families were informed of its closing. The preschool has no plans for reopening. 

“I was devastated for my daughter, because I was worried about what that would do for her development and progression,” Anzel said at the time.

Now, as the federation’s collapse enters its final stages, the institutions it once supported are beginning to chart a future without it.

“It wasn’t that the Harrisburg Jewish community failed; it was that the business construct, the model, was failing and was faulty,” said Marc Terrill, the former head of the Jewish Federation of Baltimore, whom the national organization dispatched to Harrisburg to help the local federation deal with its finances. “They recognized that this isn’t the end to Jewish life in Harrisburg. They want very much a reset in putting together a financial, an organizational, construct that is more similar to what the most thriving Jewish communities in North America have.”

The abrupt closure of the campus comes as Jewish institutions increasingly rethink the necessity of large physical hubs amid rising operational costs and shifting demographics. While closures on the scale of Harrisburg’s are rare, in 2022, the Jewish Federation of New Mexico collapsed following a spate of bitter legal and boardroom battles and a widening financial crisis.

For some in Harrisburg, the federation’s short-lived experiment with the 6.4-acre campus underscored the need to pursue a more flexible model of community building.

Terrill pointed to the purchase of the Grass Campus as the pivotal decision in the federation’s unraveling.

“What’s been called into question is the business model,” said Terrill. “That wrapped around a number of things, but really, the thing that was the large decision that became existential was the purchase of the Grass campus.”

Rabbi Ariana Capptauber, the former leader of Beth El Temple and ex officio member of the Harrisburg federation’s board, said that she hoped the sale of the campus could serve as a turning point for the local Jewish community to reexamine how it organizes and sustains Jewish communal life.

If these developments serve as “a wake-up call” that lead to a more creative use of the community’s resources, Capptauber said, “then it could be really good.”

The financial strain surrounding the campus had been mounting for years.

While the federation had a net income of $2.9 million in 2023, according to public tax filings, in 2024, the organization operated at a $3.3 million deficit.

Sam Levine, a member of the federation’s transition committee, told The Burg in May that expenses to run the campus were “considerably higher than anticipated,” adding that the organization was also “depending on some donations, which unfortunately did not materialize.”

Since the property was purchased, the mortgage for the Alexander Grass Campus had risen to $9 million, Jeanette Krebs, a member of the federation’s transition committee, told Penn Live.

“We are continuing to work through a debt elimination strategy which includes monetizing real estate. Much remains to be seen regarding how things will turn out,” Krebs told JTA in an emailed statement. “I think there are several things that we can all agree on in Harrisburg.  Most importantly, that there is a future, people care deeply and we are committed to learning from our mistakes.”

Parents and other stakeholders said they learned little about the looming crisis before programs began shutting down. For Anzel, the lack of communication compounded the distress of losing her daughter’s preschool.

“We have not been given any sort of explanation at all other than major donors fell through, and so now we’re sort of left to try to fill in the blanks ourselves,” Anzel said.

Dana Ray, another parent at the Early Learning Center who organized a letter signed by parents calling on the federation to preserve the center, said that the prevailing sentiment among parents at the school had been “anger and sadness.”

Terrill said that there had also been a divide within the community over the initial move to the Grass Campus.

“There were some people that were very anti-campus,” Terrill said. “They thought that there was a different way to go, and ultimately a decision was made to go, and that had certain implications for it.”

Levine, the transition committee member, told local outlets that the federation is not planning to file for bankruptcy in hopes that local donations and the sale of the campus will help buoy the organization as it faces roughly $500,000 worth of debt on top of a large outstanding mortgage.

For Terrill, the “cautionary tale” of the collapse of the Harrisburg Federation was that there’s “no substitute for building community consensus, effective governance, and effective planning.”

The federation’s transition committee, which was announced by Fingerhut in April, has held roughly 200 conversations and listening sessions with community members as it charts what comes next.

“In a nutshell, the business plan, if you could call it that, was very reactionary,” Terrill said. “What they’re looking to put in place in response to lessons learned is an approach that’s quite different. That is linked to transparency, to financial discipline, to right-sizing, to community input.”

But as the Harrisburg federation begins selling off the campus that was intended to secure its future, local rabbis and parents say the federation’s unraveling has meant the loss of a central part of the local Jewish community’s infrastructure.

“It kind of makes me sad that now we’re sort of forced to leave this really, really lovely, vibrant Jewish community where she’s learning and actually retaining information about Judaism,” Anzel said of her daughter, who is now enrolled in a different preschool. “I don’t know where else she’s going to get that, and I’m really sad.”

Rabbi Tzvia Jasper, the senior rabbi of Temple Ohev Sholom, said that while many were “understandably upset” by the situation, it had also given way to a new sense of community.

“It’s certainly a really devastating time for our community, but in the same vein, I think there’s a lot of anticipation for what this new moment is going to bring,” Jasper said. “With any big change like this, comes the opportunity for creativity and innovation to sort of rethink and restructure the community and find out what the needs truly are.”

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The Associated Press called the race between the Democrats — who were vying to replace a disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell — a full two days after polls closed, when Wahab secured 53.1% of votes to Hernandez’s 46.9%, with 95% of ballots tallied. The gap between them grew by four percentage points from Tuesday evening, when Wahab had held a narrow 51% lead to Hernandez’s 49%.

“We stayed focused on the people, and I will fight for this district that raised me,” Wahab said in a Thursday statement, noting her journey “from foster care to Congress” in her East Bay community.

Although Wahab ended up victorious, the narrow initial margin on Tuesday shocked California’s 14th District, given that she had secured a double-digit lead in preliminary races two months ago.

But in the past few weeks, an unforeseen variable appeared to influence the trajectories of the two campaigns: a massive spending push from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee aimed at turning the tides for Hernandez.

Since the beginning of August alone, AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, and other affiliated groups spent more than $2.5 million on both boosting Hernandez and denigrating Wahab with negative ads and mailers, according to Federal Election Commission filings. 

“This was not a landslide for Wahab by any means,” local Democratic strategist Noah Finneburgh, who is not affiliated with either candidate, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 

“They narrowed the gap for sure,” Finneburgh added, referring to AIPAC. “They spent millions of dollars attacking Wahab very aggressively.”

These attacks, he explained, did not involve Israel and instead focused on divisive issues for the Bay Area, such as public safety and protecting kids. 

“Negative advertising with a persuasive message can be very effective,” Finneburgh said.

In her Thursday night statement, Wahab declared that her “district cannot be bought,” describing the race as “one of the ugliest, most expensive elections we’ve ever seen.”

Prior to this influx of cash and related ads, neither AIPAC nor Israel had played a significant role in this short-lived race, which began in April following Swalwell’s resignation amid allegations of sexual assault. He has denied the allegations.

When the district held a special primary to seek Swalwell’s replacement on June 16,  Wahab and Hernandez finished as the top-two candidates and moved on to this week’s special general runoff election. 

California primaries are “nonpartisan” or “top-two” races, in which the two highest ranking candidates move on to the general election, irrespective of their parties. The top-two in this case were both Democrats, like Swalwell, in a district that the Cook Political Report deems solidly blue.  

Even though Wahab will now finish the remainder of Swalwell’s term, she will have to compete with Hernandez again in the November general election for a full term that begins on January 3, 2027. 

In a June 16 special primary that preceded this week’s runoff, there was still a massive gap between the two candidates, with Wahab accruing 42.8% of the votes, compared to Hernandez’s 16.8%. A separate primary for the November race, which occurred two weeks earlier, placed Wahab at 38.3% and Hernandez at 17.2%.

Wahab, who will be the first Afghan American in Congress, has focused on affordability, civil rights, education and climate change. Her campaign calls for an end to wars and “prolonged occupations” but only specifically calls out U.S. military activity in “Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and elsewhere.”

Though Wahab has been critical of Israel and its operations in Gaza, she has not been as vocal about the issue as many other progressive colleagues nationwide. She responded “yes” when asked if Israel was committing genocide in a primary debate, but she didn’t include Israel or Gaza in her campaign priorities.

During a recent appearance on far-right influencer Hasan Piker’s livestream, Wahab acknowledged that “it’s not a zero-sum game in the Middle East,” adding that “we can care for all people.” She also referenced a resolution she introduced last year in the California legislature, pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza but also condemning Hamas and demanding the release of the hostages. 

“We talk about both Palestinians and the Israeli victims there,” Wahab told Piker. “We talk about holding the perpetrators accountable from both sides.”

Asked if she was in favor of “ending all U.S. aid to Israel,” she responded “yes,” while stressing that “humanitarian aid is important to me, too.”

Wahab has earned the backing of multiple labor unions, the California Democratic Party and Our Revolution, the group formed by Sen. Bernie Sanders to advance the progressive movement. The liberal pro-Israel group J Street also recently invested $108,000 in her campaign, according to the FEC. American Priorities, a pro-Palestinian PAC, also spent at least $200,000 on supporting her. 

Hernandez has received endorsements from several police and fire unions, as well as Democratic Jewish Reps. Lois Frankel of Florida and Brad Schneider of Illinois.

Come November, Hernandez will gain one additional asset. Due to statewide redistricting, the 14th District will gain about 26,000 new voters from Dublin, where Hernandez previously served as mayor, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. 

But Finneburgh said he believes that Hernandez has only a minimal chance of winning that race, especially because Wahab will be heading into that election as an incumbent. 

He also suggested that if “she plays her card right,” Wahab could even take some endorsements away from Hernandez.

“There’s going to be people who are going to probably move over from the Hernandez camp and back her,” Finneburgh added. “It’s going to be hard to unseat her.”

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The testimony of the whistleblower, Haley Van Erem, is now being used as evidence in an investigation, led by Jewish U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, into what the Democrat from Maryland said was the federal government’s “fake” and “pre-baked frame-up” handling of campus antisemitism cases.

Van Erem, a former civil rights attorney, alleged in a disclosure provided to Congress Monday that in high-profile antisemitism investigations at Harvard, Brown and Columbia, the “outcomes of the investigations were predetermined, without regard to the evidence.” 

The Trump administration had investigated all three Ivy League schools for alleged Title VI civil rights violations, ultimately striking deals with two of them to drop the charges. The disclosure concerns investigations conducted as part of the Trump administration’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, led by Justice Department official Leo Terrell.

Van Erem left the Justice Department in May 2025 because she was “unwilling to be made vulnerable to further participation in politically motivated investigations unsupported by facts and contrary to law,” according to the complaint.

When reached for comment about the disclosure by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a DOJ spokesperson said, “While at the DOJ, Ms. Haley Van Erem did not work on university investigations. And for all matters, the Department stands behind the integrity of these investigations.”

The disclosure alleges that officials rushed investigations, disregarded concerns from career attorneys and pursued funding cuts and settlements with the schools before establishing that they had violated federal civil rights law. 

In all three cases, which were investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s civil rights office, the Trump administration pulled combined billions in federal grants to the schools after determining they had fostered antisemitic environments on campus.

“Hundreds of millions of dollars were suspended from these universities prior to the completion of Title VI investigations and the investigative team’s conclusions were frequently disregarded,” the complaint says.

The complaint alleges that, at Columbia, officials moved forward with allegations of discrimination and funding cuts before completing a thorough review, at one point giving attorneys only hours to review draft findings. At Harvard, Van Erem also alleged that the Trump administration had pursued sweeping funding freezes “before any completed investigation had established Title VI violations.”

At Brown, Van Erem claimed that investigators found insufficient evidence to conclude that the university had violated Title VI, but said that administration officials refused to close the investigation. After reporting the lack of findings to Daniel Shieh, a senior Trump administration official in the department, Shieh allegedly admitted that there was “not a Title VI violation” at Brown but said that “there’s no way we’re going to get a letter of no violation cleared” by higher-ups.

“The Task Force’s investigations into alleged antisemitism on university campuses were marked by extraordinary procedural irregularities, predetermined outcomes without factual or legal support, and disregard for Title VI’s legal requirements and the First Amendment to meet the political mission of the Task Force,” the complaint reads. 

The complaint alleges that the Trump administration violated the procedural safeguards of Title VI, adding that “the agency’s own attorneys acknowledged that they lacked complaints, findings, or evidence to justify the funding suspensions.”

The allegations come days after a federal judge threw out the Trump administration’s antisemitism lawsuit against Harvard, citing a lack of evidence that the school had “turned a blind eye” to Jewish and Israeli students. The legal battle, which ensued after Harvard refused to settle its antisemitism claims with the administration, had divided Jewish groups.

Last year, the Trump administration reached a $220 million settlement with Columbia over allegations of antisemitism on the school’s campus, and Brown agreed to pay $50 million to state workforce development efforts in Rhode Island as part of its settlement. 

The disclosure by Van Erem prompted Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, to demand in a letter Tuesday that Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, sit for an interview with the committee and turn over records related to the investigation into the three schools, as well as Cornell.

“Antisemitism at American universities and medical schools is real. It needs to be addressed seriously. But your ‘investigation’ into antisemitism was fake, a pre-baked frame-up operation thoroughly political in nature,” Raskin wrote in the letter. 

“Before an actual investigation took place and regardless of what you actually found, the whole project was designed to harass professors and administrators at major universities, to curtail their freedom of speech and academic freedom, and to strip targeted institutions of hundreds of millions of dollars in grants that they had already been awarded on the merits of their applications,” Raskin continued.

This was not the first time former Trump officials have alleged improprieties in the administration’s campus antisemitism probes. Last year, nine federal prosecutors resigned from the Justice Department after alleging a “sham” investigation against the University of California system.

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The survey, which was conducted by Sense Worldwide and commissioned by the Jim Joseph Foundation, found that 39% of respondents have engaged less, engaged more selectively or disengaged entirely from Jewish spaces due to “events affecting Jewish people in the last few years.” 

Among those nearly 40% of respondents, 42% of them said that it was because their “views don’t align with how Israel/Palestine is discussed, and I don’t feel there’s room for nuance,” and 40% said they engaged less because they did not want to “experience biased, one-sided messaging.” Forty-eight percent said it was because “conversations often feel hostile, toxic, or unproductive.”

And among all respondents, when asked what would make Jewish experiences more appealing to them, 30% said that they would be attracted to experiences that were more cultural and less religious, and 26% said “spaces where non-Zionist and anti-Zionist views can be expressed without being labelled antisemitic.”

At the same time, the study found that young Jews have hardly abandoned Jewish life. Three-quarters of Jewish young adults in the United States say they regularly do something Jewish, though most are finding their connections outside of synagogues and traditional Jewish institutions, according to the study. 

A small group of participants, 4%, also offered an explanation of the lasting impact that Jewish experiences had had on them. The study found that the clearest negative theme among those respondents was disillusionment around Israel and Zionism and the way it was presented in Jewish education or community spaces.

“A negative legacy I have been reflecting on is what I now understand to be a biased education/perspective on Israel,” one respondent wrote.

The study surveyed 2,071 Jewish adults aged 22 to 40 from December 2025 through April 2026. Respondents were sampled from panels created by NORC and GenLabs, and the margin of error was +/- 3.4%. 

The survey found that 75% of Jewish young adults say they regularly do something Jewish in their lives, with 45% saying their only form of participation was informally, often at home with family or friends. 

Just 30% said they regularly participate formally in Jewish life, including through institutions or organizations.

That divide was also reflected in where respondents said they most often feel a sense of Jewish connection. Fifty-five percent cited family and 44% cited Jewish friends, compared with 19% who cited Jewish community organizations or groups. 

Sixteen percent said they found connection through social or political causes connected to Jewish identity, and 13% said they felt most connected through experiences related to Israel.

“The research gives us a much fuller and accurate understanding of where, how, and why Jewish young adults seek out and experience Jewish life,” said Stacie Cherner, the director of research and learning at the Jim Joseph Foundation, in a statement. “Now, importantly, we can begin to translate these insights to action.”

The Jim Joseph Foundation, which commissioned the survey, is a funder of 70 Faces Media, JTA’s parent company.

Another study of Jewish engagement across generations by the Jewish Federations of North America in March found that 40% of Jewish American adults describe themselves as engaged with their local Jewish community, while 60% were unengaged. 

When asked how often they take part in “anything that feels Jewish,” 20% of respondents said very often or often, while 24% said sometimes, 33% said rarely and 22% said never, the new survey found. Those without earlier Jewish experiences were much less likely to participate at all.

Among those who rarely or never participate in Jewish life, 52% said it was because they “don’t feel a strong connection to Jewish life,” while 38% said it “feels too religious” and 36% said it “doesn’t feel relevant to my life right now,” the survey found.

Among the 11% who have engaged more with Jewish spaces in recent years, the most common reason was wanting to feel a stronger sense of solidarity with the Jewish community, cited by 71%. 

And of that 11%, 61% said they wanted to “be around people who understand what I’m feeling,” and 54% said Jewish spaces felt safer or more supportive than other spaces. Eight percent said they sought spaces where non-Zionist and anti-Zionist views can be expressed without being labelled antisemitic.

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The judge, Richard Stearns, ruled Thursday that the government’s evidence for Harvard having committed Title VI civil rights violations were “too isolated and episodic to support a plausible inference that any institutionalized noncompliance with Title VI persists at Harvard to this day.”

In a statement, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the government disagrees with the ruling and is “assessing next steps.”

Trump’s suit against the Ivy League school, first filed in March, was a cornerstone of his administration’s aggressive and contentious fight against campus antisemitism. Harvard was among the most prominent schools to have experienced severe tensions, including incidents directly targeting Jewish students and “Zionists,” in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel. The school settled cases with some Jewish students and put forward its own plans to fight antisemitism.

Yet unlike some other schools, Harvard resisted the government’s efforts to make concessions and pay a fine in order to resolve Title VI cases. The school also fought the Trump administration’s 2025 freezing of more than $2 billion in federal funds to Harvard, which the government argued was punishment for failing to address campus antisemitism.

Sterns wrote that the government’s case in the Title VI suit was flawed because it relied on incidents almost entirely from the 2023-24 school year and couldn’t be considered “ongoing.” 

He also criticized the Trump administration’s practice of withholding funds from schools accused of Title VI violations, writing, “Congress’s intent was not to penalize a wayward funding recipient but instead to incentivize it to bring itself into compliance with TItle VI.” Title VI is the section of the Civil Rights Act requiring institutions that receive federal funds not to discriminate on the basis of race, color or national origin.

A spokesperson for Harvard did not immediately return a request for comment.

Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Harvard alum who has become a prominent conservative campus activist on antisemitism issues since Oct. 7, criticized the ruling to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“Harvard insists on violating the civil rights of American Jewish students while holding the American people hostage in paying for it,” he wrote in a message. Kestenbaum encouraged the government not to issue any further grants to the university.

The case has been seen as a barometer of academia’s ability to fight the Trump administration in court over federal incursion efforts, many of which the administration cited campus antisemitism to justify. The day before the suit’s dismissal, three dozen universities — including fellow Ivy League schools Brown, Columbia and Cornell, all of whom had signed agreements with the Trump administration in exchange for dropping antisemitism charges — filed an amicus brief supporting Harvard in a separate case that had restored the school’s federal funding by court order.

The legal brouhaha had divided Jewish groups. Weeks before the judge’s ruling, Hillel International filed, then immediately withdrew, its own amicus brief supporting Harvard in the separate case. Hillel’s brief had argued the school was already adequately addressing antisemitism and that the government’s actions “do not help Jewish students.” Hillel withdrew the brief hours later, after activists including Kestenbaum criticized the organization on social media and urged donors to withhold funding.

Hillel International declined to comment on the latest development to JTA. A request for comment to Harvard Hillel, which operates independently of the parent organization, was not immediately returned. A request for comment to Harvard Chabad, whose director has also been outspoken about fighting campus antisemitism, was also not immediately returned. 

Harvard’s Jewish community has also split over the school’s handling of antisemitism and the merits of the lawsuit. A March open letter signed by 120 Jewish Harvard faculty and staff after the lawsuit’s initial filing said the government “cynically exploits concerns about antisemitism to justify what can only be described as an authoritarian assault on institutions of higher education.”

In contrast, a July open letter signed by 170 Jewish and non-Jewish Harvard faculty and staff said that “challenges remain” on campus, while acknowledging “the situation has improved to some extent recently.”

“We understand why colleagues question the merits and motives of the Title VI lawsuit,” the second letter states. “But one should not turn a blind eye to the fact that many Jewish and Israeli students have suffered harassment and discrimination over the last few years, degrading their Harvard experience.”

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The lawsuit, which was filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in September 2025, accused Apple of discriminating against Tyler Steele, a longtime employee of one of its stores in Reston, Virginia.

Steele converted to Judaism in the spring of 2023, and while his manager initially approved his request not to be scheduled on Fridays and Saturdays due to his observance of Shabbat, another manager that replaced the previous one later rescinded the accommodation.

According to the complaint, Steele’s new manager, Anthony Dosch, denied his requests to have the days off in September 2023, allegedly telling him that month that he “could become a rules Nazi with regards to our policies.”

Days after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, Dosch also warned Steele not to get into politics or debates about the conflict at work, and a month later issued him a misconduct warning claiming that Steele had body odor that violated the store’s policies.

The EEOC alleged that Steele later complained to Apple officials in November 2023 about antisemitic behavior and the denial of his religious accommodation. Steele was fired from the store in January 2024, after reminding Dosch that he could not work on a Friday the following month for religious reasons.

“Employees should not have to violate their religious beliefs to keep their jobs or live in fear of retribution because they requested an accommodation,” EEOC Philadelphia Regional Attorney Debra Lawrence said in a statement at the time the lawsuit was filed.

In its lawsuit, the EEOC accused Apple of religious discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Apple and the EEOC unveiled the settlement in an Aug. 7 filing in federal court in Virginia, nearly a year after the initial complaint. The settlement is awaiting court approval.

Apple denied the allegations and did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement, which required the company to award Steele $80,000 in back pay and $70,000 in compensatory damages and interest.

Under the settlement, the company will also be required to update its religious accommodation policies and conduct trainings with some employees in its Virginia operations within 90 days.

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