|
September 1, 2024
Key Takeaways:
- It's been 331 days since October 7, 2023, when, on Simchat Torah, Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel and murdered 1,200 people (including 44 Americans). More Jews were murdered on that day than on any day since the Holocaust. Hamas wounded 3,300 and took 240 hostage during a day of brutal savagery and unspeakable, undeniable sexual violence; 107 hostages, many dead, some raped and possibly pregnant, remain captive in Gaza today.
- The 107 remaining hostages comprise five religions and 25 nationalities, including eight Americans, five probably alive: Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Keith Siegal, Omer Neutra, Edan Alexander, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Itay Chen, Judi Weinstein Haggai, and Gad Haggai. A ceasefire conditioned on releasing all hostages must remain a top priority.
- Are you tired of answering inane questions about Kamala Harris and Tim Walz from your Republican friends? Maybe it's time to start asking them some questions. I've got four for starters.
- The Democratic Party and the Democratic base support Israel and oppose antisemitism. They understand that supporting dignity and humanitarian assistance for the Palestinians is complementary to, not detractive from, Israel's security. If you're worried about long-term trends in the Democratic Party that you don't like, I have great news for you: Voting Democratic in November doesn't mean committing to voting Democratic forever. You can change your mind if these trends that have been wrongly predicted for 40 years ever materialize.
Read to the end for corrections, what you may have missed last week, fun stuff, and upcoming events.
You're welcome to read for free, but if you want to help spread the word, you can give something back by credit card or PayPal, by Venmo @Steven-Sheffey (last four phone digits are 9479), or by check. Thank you.
Hi Steve,
Our Republican friends love to send us articles loaded with easy-to-make but hard-to-disprove (because it's hard to disprove a negative) allegations about Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, their staffs, and their families. Steve Bannon called it "flooding the zone with sh*t." Maybe we should ask them some questions for a change:
You say you support aid to Israel. I believe you. How can you vote for Trump/Vance given that JD Vance twice voted against emergency aid to Israel? Vance voted against the package that included $14 billion in emergency aid to Israel twice, on February 13 when it could have passed and on April 23 when it did pass. The first time, Senate Republicans voted against the package 26-22 (Democrats supported it 46-2) but the second time even most Republicans supported it, 31-15. Vance was one of the few Republicans who voted against it twice, yet Trump selected him as his running mate. Harris never voted against aid to Israel when she was in the Senate. Walz never voted against aid to Israel when he was in the House.
How can you vote for any Republican after nearly the entire Republican House caucus voted to cut aid to Israel by nearly 30% last year? You love to talk about the handful of Democrats who sometimes vote against aid to Israel but last year only a handful of Republicans did NOT vote to cut aid to Israel. Two weeks before October 7, on September 29, 198 Republicans--90% of all House Republicans--voted for HR 5525, a so-called continuing resolution that would have cut aid to Israel by nearly 30%. Republicans wrote the bill without Democratic input, brought it to the floor, and voted for it even though it violated our Memorandum of Understanding with Israel. It failed because 21 Republicans and 211 Democrats voted against it. No Democrats voted for it.
You say you oppose antisemitism. I believe you. How can you vote for Donald Trump, who repeatedly uses antisemitic rhetoric? You go crazy when this or that member of Congress says something you think is antisemitic. We are not talking about one or two out of 435 members of the House. We are talking about the leader of the Republican Party, the man running for the most powerful position in the world. Trump has a long record of antisemitism and accusing Jews of disloyalty. Those are not the only antisemitic tropes he's used. Trump dined with Kanye West and white nationalist/Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. Trump said that there were "very fine people on both sides" of the 2017 Charlottesville march that featured white supremacists carrying tiki torches chanting "Jews will not replace us."
Most recently (as of this writing) Trump called Governor Josh Shapiro the "highly overrated Jewish Governor." If you don't think that's antisemitic, try substituting another ethnicity for "Jewish" and see how it sounds (when Shapiro was considered for the vice president slot, Trump's allies launched a whisper campaign against him). Watch Josh Shapiro's response. JDCA CEO Halie Soifer was asked during the convention whether she thought Trump was an antisemite. Why aren't you outraged too?
You know that the Nazis perpetrated the greatest mass murder of Jews in history. How could you vote for Donald Trump, who regularly uses Hitler's rhetoric? Trump repeatedly invokes Hitler and the Nazis and called for the "creation of a unified reich" on May 21, 2024. No less an authority than JD Vance once called Trump "America's Hitler." Are you cool with all that? We are not talking about Trump's staff or family. We are talking about Trump. Harris and Walz have nothing remotely similar in their records. You seem to care about these issues because you constantly assert Democrats have problems on these issues, yet you give Trump and Vance--who themselves have far more serious problems--a pass. Why?
The good news is that more than 70% of Jewish Americans will vote Democratic this year. Once again, quadrennial predictions of Jewish defections from the Democratic Party will prove false, and with good reason: The Democratic Party is the only party that supports Israel, condemns and marginalizes antisemitism within its ranks, and is good on the other issues Jewish American prioritize, including democracy, reproductive freedom, gun safety, climate change, and the economy. As one leading pollster frequently quips, the only problem Democrats have with Jews is that there are not enough of us.
But this will be a close election. Every vote matters. We have a small but vocal minority within our community that loves to circulate articles with all manner of nonsense, often focusing on appointees we've never heard of or adult family members not running for office who will have no role in government. Don't let them take us down their rabbit holes and waste our time refuting the nonsense. Focus on explaining why we are supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz--and asking why they'd rather talk about anything except Trump, Vance, Harris, Walz, and their records; you know, the things that matter.
The best response is to step back and ask yourself--and your Republican friends--to take a breath and look at the actual records of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on Israel and antisemitism. Watch what Harris said about Israel when she accepted the Democratic nomination for president. She could have been talking to an exclusively Jewish, pro-Israel gathering but she was talking to the country and the world. Watch what Harris said about Israel on Thursday night in her interview with Dana Bash on CNN.
Read the Democratic platform on Israel, the most detailed and pro-Israel platform ever adopted by an American political party, and compare the Democratic platform to the Republican platform.
Then ask yourself: Given all that, how likely is it that Republican allegations regarding various appointees and other topics are true? How likely is it that Harris and Walz have spent decades putting together unequivocally pro-Israel records and adopting a platform that is perfect on Israel as a smokescreen to put in place evil actors who will destroy Israel the first chance they get?
But what about the future? I've been hearing this for 40 years: The Democrats might be good now, but what about campus protests, what about the young generation, what about "the base," what will the Democratic Party look like down the road?
One trait shared by every successful politician, Democratic or Republican, is that they know their base. If they didn't, they wouldn't win elections. Democrats overwhelmingly support aid to Israel. They approved the most pro-Israel platform ever adopted by any American political party last week. The Democratic base is not campus protesters or looney college professors. I don't know what you call someone who calls Joe Biden "Genocide Joe," attacks AOC for "platforming Zionists," or threatens not to vote against Trump, but Democrats they probably ain't.
Here's the good news: As long as we remain a democracy, you get to change your mind every two years. No one is asking you to sign a document saying that you'll vote Democratic for the next 20 years, the next 10 years, the next four years, or even in 2026. The question in November is which candidates and which party, as currently configured, do you want running the country for the next two or four years, not in the decades to come (although voting Republican could result in losing these democratic rights in perpetuity--in only that sense does your decision in November preclude you from later changing your mind). Martin Raffel wants Harris and Walz for the next four years. I agree.
Corrections. I'm entitled to my own opinions but not to my own facts, so I appreciate it when readers bring errors to my attention. Last week's newsletter omitted two names from the long list of Jews who spoke at the convention: Dana Nessel (Michigan Attorney General) and Rabbi Michael Beals (I somehow should have known he was Jewish...).
In Case You Missed It:
- There is no daylight between Harris and Biden on policy regarding Israel and antisemitism, which is clear if you know what Harris has said and done. These are the key resources to read and share:
- JDCA Key Facts on Harris, Walz, Trump, Vance, and Project 2025.
Tweet of the Week. Advice from comms expert George Lakoff.
Video Clip of the Week. Samurai Delicatessen.
Upcoming Events. Join Jewish Voters for Harris-Walz for our National Organizing Call with Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff and national Jewish leaders on Tuesday, September 3, at 5:30 pm ET. Register here.
For those new to this newsletter. This is the newsletter even Republicans have to read and the original home of the viral and beloved 2022 and 2023 Top Ten Signs You're At a Republican Seder. If someone forwarded this to you, why not subscribe and get it in your inbox every Sunday? Just click here--it's free.
I periodically update my posts on why Democrats are better than Republicans on Israel and antisemitism and on the IHRA definition of antisemitism. My definition of "pro-Israel" is here (it's a work in progress, as am I).
I hope you enjoyed today's newsletter. It takes time to write and costs money to send. If you'd like to chip in, click here and fill in the amount of your choice. You don't need a PayPal account. If you see something that says "Save your info and create a PayPal account," click the button to the right and it will go away. Or you can Venmo @Steven-Sheffey (last four phone digits are 9479). Or you can send a check.
| 
