Democrats' traditional Jewish alliance is fraying as never before (Jewish Group) - WaPo

The place of Jews in the Democratic Party is on the ballot this year. Amid rancorous debates over Israel, some Jewish leaders warn that anti-Zionism has spilled over into antisemitism, encouraging segments of the party to question not just Israeli policy but also the participation of Jews in American political life.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) is the most prominent figure to raise the alarm. In an interview with Politico, he described a “very dangerous” development whereby candidates were being denounced for receiving money from Jewish donors who had also donated to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a prominent pro-Israel group. Shapiro isn’t the only one expressing worries. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) was asked at a town hall last month why she had accepted $4.5 million from “pro-Israel lobbies.” That figure comes from Track AIPAC, a group that tallies donations from pro-Israel groups as well as from individuals it deems “lobby donors.”

Slotkin stated that she takes no money from AIPAC, then objected to the math behind the question: “If that’s counting Jewish donors and saying Jewish donors are somehow the same as ‘pro-Israel lobby,’ I got a problem with that, and not just as an elected official, as a Jew.”

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As support for Israel has become harder to voice in the Democratic Party, space for criticism has grown. This spring, Jordan Acker, an elected regent at the University of Michigan, lost the Democratic Party’s nomination for the board of regents to Amir Makled, a challenger who hailed Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah as a “martyr” and shared a Candace Owens post describing Israelis as “demons.”

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Today, the growing salience of antisemitic voices on the right raises another possibility: that Jewish Americans who no longer feel comfortable in the Democratic Party will feel equally out of place in the GOP. That would be bad not only for Jews but for Americans generally. Any party that blames Jews for the country’s problems will have trouble addressing the challenges Americans actually face.

https://wapo.st/3Rxh0kO

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