New York’s 12th Congressional District election is shaping up to be a fascinating race. The winner of the June Democratic primary will be the presumptive shoo-in for what is effectively a lifetime appointment to Congress.
Retiring Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has been the longest-serving Jewish member of Congress, representing the most Jewish district in the nation and one of its most liberal districts. The overlap has created problems for the large and growing list of people vying to be the Democratic candidate in November. The slate includes prominent social media darlings such as former Republican and over-the-top anti-Trump poster George Conway and a young, hipster Kennedy looking to make his way into the family business, as well as a few long-standing members of the local Democratic machine.
The problem is that the Democratic Party is rife with antisemitism. While it is still OK to be a Democrat who says that antisemitism is bad, not a single candidate has offered anything concrete they might do about the growth of the problem. Plenty of Jewish voters see this problem, some holding their noses and switching parties. But many hold fast to the Democratic Party.
None of the candidates — not one — is willing to meaningfully stand up to the cancer in their party. They accept the silver-tongued new mayor who still cannot fully renounce his love of intifada, meaning open terrorism against Jews. They call out antisemitic events as naughty, without calling out the organizers who are supporters of their party. They never say what they will do about the widespread and baseless hatred of their Jewish constituents.
And they never look within a party now dominated by committed anti-Zionists. When the most widely accepted definition of antisemitism suggests otherwise, the solution, on Mayor Mamdani’s first day, was to rescind the city’s adoption of that internationally accepted definition.
More outspoken haters of Israel, such as Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), continue to be treated as rising stars. No Democrats stop them in their tracks when they falsely accuse Israel of being an apartheid state or when they minimize Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Not one candidate openly and adamantly challenges the utter falsity of the apartheid lie about Israel. When protesters hold their rallies outside synagogues, not outside Israel’s Consulate, do any of the candidates for Congress have the integrity to say the protesters are antisemites?
Critics of this op-ed might point out that the Republican Party is similarly afflicted with this cancer. Absolutely true, but Republicans are making a more substantial, though still insufficient, effort at siloing the problem. Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, who aren’t in the government, are increasingly viewed in isolation. Former Reps. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are heading to the margins. Those who have come to the defense of the antisemites within the Republican structure, such as the head of the once-esteemed Heritage Foundation, are rightly finding themselves estranged from the party.
While we should see similar efforts to eliminate the scourge of antisemitism from the Democrats, instead, we see the opposite. What will the new representative do about antisemitism?
They will say it is bad.
A synagogue is attacked. Jews are assaulted with “long live Hamas” as they enter their houses of worship. A synagogue burns. Jews are spat upon while going to class. A cemetery is desecrated. A Jewish student in the subway is verbally attacked. Another is stabbed. This is but a small taste of just the last few months, just in America. Yet, all we hear is that antisemitism is bad.
LIFE IS A GIFT, IN AND OUT OF THE WOMB
On the legislative front, will the new representative do something? On the rhetorical front, will they openly attack the fraudulent basis of the war against Jews and Israel? Will they work to drum out the antisemites in their ranks? Isn’t this something the candidates in the most Jewish district in the country should do something about?
Antisemitism is a cancer. Yet not a single candidate for this important congressional seat is willing to say that the cancer in their party has metastasized and that the patient needs serious treatment. Saying it is bad does nothing.
