Are Jews losing their political home in the Democratic Party?

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro waving to a crowd from a stage.

By Yardena Schwartz

Aug. 26, 2024 3 AM PT

Republicans have repeatedly tried — and failed — to win over Jewish Americans, who have historically supported Democrats in overwhelming numbers. One memorable attempt was the campaign by Donald Trump and others on the right to falsely portray Barack Obama as a closeted Muslim who should be feared by those of other faiths. American Jews were not as bigoted as they hoped: Obama won 78% of the Jewish vote in 2008 and 70% in 2012.

This election, however, feels different. Since Oct. 7, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, was followed by a surge in antisemitic attacks, more Jews have begun to question their safety in this country. With much of the antisemitism emanating from the political left, Republicans seem to think their moment to win the Jewish vote has arrived.

Their argument appears to be simple: You may deplore Trump’s assault on democratic institutions, reproductive rights and the rule of law, but you can’t afford to care about those things anymore — not when the future of Jews in America is being threatened by protesters who praise Hamas and Israel is fighting an existential war against Iranian proxies.

It is no coincidence that in the days after Vice President Kamala Harris became Trump’s presumptive rival for the presidency, Trump began to falsely frame her as an enemy of Israel and Jews. “She’s totally against the Jewish people,” he declared at a rally in North Carolina on July 24. “No. 1, she doesn’t like Israel. No. 2, she doesn’t like Jewish people,” he told a New York radio station on July 30.

Setting aside that Harris is the first vice president in history with a Jewish spouse, Trump has repeatedly and recently shown that he is no true friend of Israel or the Jewish people. Just four days after Oct. 7, he criticized Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to prevent Hamas’ invasion and called Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group that has been firing rockets at Israel since Oct. 8, “smart.” At a rally in Florida the same day, he said the Israeli military had to “step up their game,” referred to Israel’s defense minister as “this jerk” and reiterated that he considers Hezbollah “very smart.”

Imagine the outrage if a Democrat — let alone the party’s leader — had said any of this just after Hamas’ massacre.

Trump was furthermore calling on Israel to “finish up your war” as long ago as March. It was not until two months later that President Biden delivered his first public call for an end to the war in Gaza — one conditioned, unlike Trump’s, on a Hamas release of Israeli hostages. Trump repeated his call during Netanyahu’s July visit to the United States, saying Israel must end the war “and get it done quickly.” Speaking on Fox News, he added that “Israel is not very good at public relations” and was “getting decimated” on that score.

Anyone understandably concerned about the Israeli government’s far-right turn in recent years should keep in mind that the Trump administration empowered the ultranationalist forces responsible for its increasing international isolation.

Trump has also repeatedly insulted Jews in his desperate bid to reimagine Democrats as a party of antisemites, saying Jewish Americans should have their “head examined” and “be ashamed of themselves” for supporting Democrats. He recently called Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), one of the country’s highest-ranking Jewish officials and a staunch supporter of Israel, “a proud member of Hamas.”

It’s Trump’s MAGA camp that is infested with actual antisemites. Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Trump loyalist who famously blamed California wildfires on Jewish space lasers, opposed a bipartisan bill to address antisemitism on the premise that it rejected “the Gospel that says Jesus was handed over to Herod to be crucified by the Jews.” Greene’s far-right colleague Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) voted against the bill for the same reason. The Holocaust denier Candace Owens was to appear alongside Donald Trump Jr. at a recent campaign event if not for a backlash from the Jewish community. The former president has also fraternized with unabashed antisemites such as Nick Fuentes and Kanye West.

Again, try to imagine if personalities like these were connected to Harris or Biden.

For all the legitimate fears aroused by violent anti-Israel protests over the last 10 months, let’s remember that the bloodiest days for Jews in America were at the hands of the far right, not the far left. The deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history was perpetrated at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 by a white nationalist who believed in the far-right “great replacement” conspiracy theory that Jews are working to flood the country with illegal immigrants. The previous year, neo-Nazi Trump supporters marched through Charlottesville, Va., chanting, “Jews will not replace us.” Then-President Trump insisted that some of them were “very fine people.”

Jews have long been overrepresented in social justice movements in this country, which may be one reason for their enduring common cause with Democrats. But Jewish support for the party has never been tested as it has since Oct. 7. Recent surveys showed 89% of American Jews have seen an increase in antisemitism and 60% feel uncomfortable being open about their faith. The backdrop to this sense of insecurity is the extreme rhetoric of some anti-Israel protesters. While most of the protesters have been peaceful, others have called for the deaths of Jews and expressed support for Hamas and Hezbollah.

One stark recent example of the state of the Democratic Party’s relationship with Jews was a conversation on CNN about Kamala Harris’ potential running mates. Regarding Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, the network’s John King told Anderson Cooper, “He’s Jewish; there could be some risk in putting him on the ticket,” a reference to the party’s division over the war in Gaza. That Cooper didn’t ask a follow-up or raise an eyebrow at the idea that Shapiro’s faith presented a problem suggested — rightly or not — that King was stating a fact of Democratic politics. Although Harris’ selection of a running mate no doubt depended on a variety of variables, it’s a troubling perception of the party that has been the political home of most Jewish voters for the better part of a century.

Nevertheless, especially after the powerful expressions of support for Israel and the Jewish people at last week’s Democratic National Convention, Trump’s quest to paint Harris as their enemy looks absurd. American Jews’ relationship with Democrats has certainly been complicated, but — particularly in light of the alternative — it’s likely to remain strong.

Yardena Schwartz is a journalist and the author of “Ghosts of a Holy War: The 1929 Massacre in Palestine that Ignited the Arab-Israeli Conflict.”