CANDIDATES WHO VALUE JEWISH HUMAN RIGHTS: THOUGHTS ON THE POLITICAL STATE OF THINGS FOR JEWS AND THEIR ALLIES

For Jewish Democrats and their allies, the Jewish Democratic Council of America has a list of those it endorses. This isn’t a conservative or even centrist organization, but a liberal one. You may find it useful as you peruse your electoral choices.

Note 1: There are candidates on this endorsement list who have been very critical of the current Israeli government (including Adam Hamilton and James Talarico, among others) and support conditioning some aid on the actions of the Israeli government.

Note 2: for obvious reasons, this list does NOT include Abdul El-Sayed, Troy Jackson, and Charles Booker (among others) since they don’t prioritize Jewish safety and don’t seem to care much about antisemitism. They don’t even clearly support the right of Jews to have their own homeland while never denying that right to any other group: that is simply bigotry.

For that reason, I cannot support any of those individuals, among others. I will NEVER support candidates who don’t care about anti-Jewish racism and who apparently believe that every other group has fundamental human rights, but not Jews.

I will NOT vote for, or support, any DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) candidates. It is a blatantly and openly antisemitic organization that expresses hatred for Jews. Also, despite the claims of many that the DSA shares the socio-economic platform of Scandinavian countries, that is simply untrue. Their own literature states that government should “own the means of production” and does not accept the idea of public or private markets. Scandinavian countries are actually very capitalist with thriving business markets and stock exchanges. To deny people basic commercial and property rights has always been terrible for Jews.

At the same time, I cannot support virtually any Republican candidates. That party is currently neo-Fascist, opposed to freedom and democracy, a personality cult, in direct opposition to liberal (and even traditional conservative) values, does not care about marginalized groups, and is morally bankrupt. That also is bad for Jews. Healthy representative democracy is fundamental for Jewish safety.

MAGA (which is now basically the Republican Party) will turn on us, no question (just consider JD Vance for a moment). Even awful Ted Cruz has expressed this sentiment frequently. Many far-right-wingers with a lot of influence in the Republican Party are currently attacking the Jewish community. That is going to infiltrate Republican politics. Young Evangelicals don’t agree with elders about Jews or Israel.

The Democratic Party has serious problems. It has failed the Jewish community in many regards, especially allowing DSA candidates to run in their primaries. This was always wrong and a disgrace. Other than Black voters, Jews have been the most loyal Democratic constituency since FDR in the 1930s.

But … Democrats are still fundamentally a mainstream party that accepts Jews as part of their coalition. They also support democracy, the Constitution, human rights, and care about struggling people. So I remain a Democrat–for the time being at least.

https://jewishdems.org/endorsements