With little time before the election, Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign organized visual and in-person gatherings based on affiliations to drum up support, such as Asian Americans for Harris, Republicans for Harris, and the humorous-sounding White Dudes for Harris. Last Friday, the Jewish Democratic Council of America ran an hour-long Zoom pep rally with some of the Vice President’s most visible Jewish supporters offering optimism and reassurance that their candidate supports Israel, stands against anti-Semitism, and can beat Donald Trump in her White house run.
“Democrats align with the vast majority of Jewish voters on every key issue, and Republicans under Trump represent the antithesis of our values,” said moderator Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “It’s even more true today than ever before, but we can’t take anything for granted.”
Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, among the leading members of the party to attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the Capitol, spoke about Harris as a continuation of Biden’s foreign policy in “strengthening alliances and building coalitions.”
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, whose state has been trending in favor of the Democrats in recent elections, spoke of the personal attacks that he’s received for his support of Harris. “To those who say that you are not real Jews, how absurd. We all have full agency in expressing our Jewish identity as we see fit,” he said. “They might be misguided; I’m not questioning their Judaism. To do so is in and of itself anti-Semitic.”
Polis, the first openly gay governor of his state, spoke of his Jewish faith as “helping the least among us,” and then added that his support for Harris is also inspired by her experience as a prosecutor and advocate for consumers.
The panelists included three rabbis, none of them Orthodox or male, who spoke of their interaction with Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff. Lauren Holtzblatt, the co-senior rabbi of Adas Israel, Washington’s largest Conservative synagogue, was present at the installation of the mezuzah at the vice president’s residence and leading the Seder with the Second Couple earlier this year.
“We lit Yom Tov candles and ate matzah. We discussed the hostages, talked at length about the need for Israel’s security, but also for the need for peace and an end to the war. She understands the Jewish American experience in all of its facets,” Holtzblatt said. “She seeks to build a world with both a secure Israel and a future for the Palestinian people.”
The only non-Ashkenazi panelist, Mandana Dayani, was born in Iran and emigrated with her family as refugees fleeing the Islamist regime. “I was raised with gratitude for this country,” she said. An attorney and entrepreneur, she put aside these career ambitions to focus on women’s empowerment and voter engagement, founding I am a Voter, a nonprofit aimed at voter turnout.
In her support pitch for Harris, she spoke of child migrants who were kept in prisons under the Trump administration. “I saw myself in these kids, refugees in Texas,” she said. “One party seeks to uphold democracy and one seeks to dismantle it. The commitment to welcome the stranger, these are Jewish values.”
Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania spoke of her firsthand experience in a swing state. “What I’m hearing on the ground is newfound energy with Kamala Harris on the top of the ticket.” In her own tight reelection race, Wild said that with Biden she could “eke out a win,” but one that Harris is her party’s headliner, she is seeing a “surge of enthusiasm.”
When the panelists spoke of their Jewish values, it was a pushback against Trump’s insulting of Jews who vote for Democratic candidates, with one recent example being his July 30 interview on Sid Rosenberg’s radio show. “If you are Jewish, regardless of Israel, if you’re Jewish, if you vote for a Democrat, you’re a fool, an absolute fool,” he said.
Four days earlier, addressing a Christian audience in Florida, he argued that Harris is an anti-Semite. “She doesn’t like Jewish people. She doesn’t like Israel. That’s the way it is, and that’s the way it’s always going to be. She’s not going to change.”
Polis predicted that there could be at least 20 percent of Jewish voters who will choose Trump in the election, and Wild spoke well of her state’s governor Josh Shapiro, as he is on the shortlist for Harris as her running mate. Openly proud of his heritage and traditional in his observance of Judaism, Shapiro’s support for Israel is a source of division among party activists. Having expressed pessimism in regard to peace with the Palestinians in a college essay, and comparing campus rioters to Klansmen, led some leftists do dub him Genocide Josh, launching an online campaign to dissuade Harris from picking Shapiro.
“Those in the overly online left who are attacking Josh Shapiro’s pro-Israel positions in a different way than they are attacking non-Jewish Veep contenders’ positions, they’re just telling on themselves. There’s a strong undercurrent of anti-Semitism,” Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts said in an interview with CNN. “It’s unacceptable.”
Conservative columnist Ben Shapiro (no relation) noted that ideological purity tests among Democrats have forced candidates to reiterate their criticism of Israel’s policies and Netanyahu’s leadership. “Josh Shapiro desperately trying to un-Jewish himself to make himself sufficiently palatable to the pro-Hamas wing of the Democratic Party. Pathetic.”
On Tuesday morning, the Harris campaign announced that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is her running mate, closing a chapter for a historic running mate that could have been.
By Sergey Kadinsky
