New Jersey’s two senators made history in Washington last week by standing out in their defiance of President Donald Trump’s policies. Freshman Andy Kim joined 14 of his Democratic colleagues in an unsuccessful resolution calling to cancel $8.8 billion in bombs and munitions sales to Israel. He argued that while supportive of Israel, the damage that the bombs could create outweighs their contribution to the war effort.
“I will continue to stand with Israel and the Israeli people. I voted for these Joint Resolutions because, while I support providing tools critical for Israel’s defense, I do not believe that these systems, which include those that can level entire city blocks and that have been used in incidents with disproportionate civilian casualties, achieve the primary objectives I’ve outlined. In fact, their use will make it harder.”
Kim added that he will continue to support providing defensive weapons such as the Iron Dome and David’s Sling to Israel, but called Trump’s plan to transform Gaza into a seaside resort reckless.
The reaction from Jewish community leaders across the Garden State was swift, with 168 rabbis across the denominational spectrum writing an open letter to Kim, expressing their shock and dismay.
“Sadly, a small minority in Congress do not understand the importance of the US-Israel relationship and seem to have accepted Hamas’ lies and propaganda. Now, knowingly or not, they are doing Hamas and Iran’s bidding and want America to abandon our ally and block these weapons sales,” they wrote.
“With this vote to block weapons sales to Israel, Senator Kim ignored his pro-Israel constituents and Israeli leaders across the political spectrum—notably those who are most outspoken against the current government. He did so after meeting with numerous New Jersey Jewish community leaders and pledging his support.”
The letter noted that Kim’s senior colleague, Cory Booker, voted against this resolution. In any political office, the voices of constituents can make a difference in swaying an elected official, particularly a freshman.
As an example, Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia voted with Bernie Sanders in November to block arms sales to Israel, but reversed their stance last week. Having secured their seats by narrow margins, they are mindful of pro-Israel voters who could mobilize in favor of Republican candidates.
Booker’s historic moment in the Capitol involved a record-setting 25-hour speech that rebutted many of President Trump’s policies in an effort to energize Democrats and encourage his Republican colleagues to join the opposition.
“I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able. I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis,” Booker said, as he invoked the late Sen. John Lewis. “I believe that not in a partisan sense because so many of the people that have been reaching out to my office in pain, in fear, having their lives upended—so many of them identify themselves as Republicans.”
Booker spoke of the present moment as a crisis for democracy, railing against trade wars and funding cuts, and in favor of saving Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. On the left side of his suit were two lapel pins: the national flag and the yellow ribbon for the Israeli hostages. On this note, Jewish voters leaned in to hear whether Booker would speak as he had voted in regards to Israel, or take a hostile tone in an appeal to the party’s progressive wing. Most of the speech dealt with domestic matters, and it was only in the seventh hour that he first mentioned Gaza, in the context of protecting USAID against DOGE.
“There are lies about USAID, like, I don’t know, 5 million condoms going to Gaza or something outrageous, and [they are] easily proven false time and time again.”
The next time that the war against Hamas was mentioned by Booker involved a domestic front on college campuses.
“I have long argued that universities have a huge problem. They have far too little intellectual and ideological diversity, which is the most important kind of diversity on a campus, but the way you fix that is not to restrict radical left-wing speech, but to add voices and views from other parts of the spectrum.”
He compared the defunding of universities by Trump to the Cultural Revolution in China and a threat to the scientific innovations that benefit the country.
“It’s creating a jolt in the market that is going to be disabling for labs, especially the smaller labs, because they won’t have the human capital to do their science. It’s also going to create chaos for PhDs. It’s going to be a cascading chain effect through the entire ecosystem.”
Thirteen hours into the speech, Booker returned to the subject, noting that Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk had a valid student visa as she was arrested by immigration enforcement agents following editorials that she wrote urging her university to divest from Israel.
“She [was] handled roughly, her belongings [were] taken away from her, hands [were] cuffed before being loaded into an unmarked car. It is no exaggeration that her arrest looks like a kidnapping, one that you might expect to see in Moscow rather than in the streets of Boston.”
Booker argued that the arrest was “likely a violation of a judge’s order to await her probable deportation.”
Focusing on due process and freedom of speech rather than the content of Ozturk’s advocacy perhaps shifted the focus away from the hostile climate that such activists have created on campuses, in which Jewish students and faculty feel threatened. More than a matter of social discomfort, the BDS movement would prevent universities from accepting academic credits earned in Israel, cooperating with Israeli schools, funding Jewish student organizations, and conducting Jewish events without disruption.
What makes Booker’s moment on Capitol Hill noteworthy is that his party has not yet found a unifying message since losing the election last November. Although Chuck Schumer is the party’s leader in the Senate, his vote to continue funding the government angered progressives, but they do not have the votes to oust him as the Minority Leader. His next election will be in 2028, when he will be 77 years old. With Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden as examples, he may opt to step aside in favor of a younger leader for his party.
Having tapped into his party’s anger at Trump with the marathon speech, Booker could be the successor to Schumer. He tapped into the anger felt towards Trump while quoting conservative voices and reaching across the aisle. In his 2013 profile of Booker, writer Jeffrey Goldberg wrote of Booker’s affinity for Judaism.
“I’ve met most of the Senate’s other Jews, and I can say, with a high degree of certainty, that Booker knows more Torah than they do,” he wrote.
When he was a student at Oxford, Booker served as president of the L’Chaim Society; he keeps an Artscroll Tanakh on his desk alongside other religious books and feels comfortable at Jewish events. No surprise that his speech was compared on social media to a Yom Kippur service or a Shabbos HaGadol drasha.
Like Schumer, Booker peppers his speeches with Jewish references, but they are not a substitute for how he votes in regards to Israel. That is why every mention of the ongoing war in Gaza by Booker deserves a closer look.
By Sergey Kadinsky
