News

In a dramatic turn of events, Melinda Katz has taken the lead in the Democratic Primary for District Attorney. At least, that’s the case as I write this column. By the time it appears, who knows. We are headed for manual recount. There will probably be court challenges and maybe even another election. But while the result of the primary may not be clear for a while, we can still learn some lessons by taking a closer look at the results.

In the first legislative move by a member of “The Squad” since the Democratic Civil War spilled out into the streets of Washington, DC, a pro-BDS resolution was sponsored by Ilhan Omar. Omar, who has a long history of anti-Semitic statements and a deference to radical Islamist terrorists, disguises her obvious hatred of the Jewish people and the Jewish state as a First Amendment issue. She is not alone in the Democratic Caucus on this issue. There is increasing support for anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments in both Houses; this is only the latest symptom of a larger disease.

This week, the simmering conflict in the House Democratic Caucus boiled over when freshman Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez finally fought back against Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi. This public feud shines daylight on a conflict that has quietly been occurring since 2016: the Democratic Civil War – moderates versus socialists.

In an era where President Trump is constantly accused of his rhetoric endangering the lives of millions of people without any evidence, the left is mysteriously silent about what is happening in New York City. Mayor Bill de Blasio has repeatedly spewed anti-police rhetoric, and a new generation of video-taking teenagers are trying to make a name for themselves by essentially daring the police to arrest or shoot them by pouring water on patrolling officers. This pattern of disrespect leads all the way back to the top.

In his column last week, our Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, the Rabbinic Consultant for this newspaper, raised the subject of the Promised Land as it relates to the concept of American exceptionalism. Since the arrival of the earliest English colonists, this New World home has been described as a “city on a hill,” an “empire of liberty,” and the “land of the free,” among other oft-repeated accolades. Rabbi Schonfeld describes the United States as a “beacon of freedom and hope to the entire world.”

 As is Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, I am grateful to President Trump and his administration regarding some matters of longstanding concern to the Jewish people. I am thrilled by Nikki Haley’s record at the United Nations and delighted that the United States Embassy to Israel is finally located in Israel’s capital, Jerusalem. I joined AIPAC to lobby Congress to defeat JCPOA (“the Iran deal”), negotiated by President Obama and reflecting his administration’s deeply misguided perspectives on the foreign-policy interests of the United States.