Jewish Governor Candidate Loses Key Endorsement After Running Mate Backs BDS

Illinois State Senator Daniel Biss
A longshot left-wing campaign to win the Democratic nomination in Illinois’s gubernatorial race just got longer after candidate Daniel Biss lost the endorsement of a key member of Congress due to his running mate’s support for the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
Daniel Biss, a Jewish state senator and former math professor running a Bernie Sanders-style campaign, has long trailed in the polls for the party nomination behind businessmen J.B. Pritzker (who is also Jewish) and Chris Kennedy. But Biss still had a few strong endorsements, including from two members of Congress.
Unfortunately for Biss, one of those congressmen, Rep. Brad Schneider (who is also Jewish), announced Sunday that he could no longer support the Biss campaign because of the anti-Israel activism of Biss’s running mate, Chicago alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa.
“This decision is not taken lightly,” Schneider wrote. “I remain hopeful that, as Alderman Ramirez-Rosa learns more about the importance of the U.S.-Israel partnership to both our nations, the unique challenges Israel faces as the only democracy in a very dangerous neighborhood, and the commitment of the vast majority of the Israeli people to peace and a two-state solution, he will reconsider his positions.”
Ramirez-Rosa said in an interview in 2016 that the U.S. should consider “divesting from Israel to support the people of Palestine.” He is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, which voted in August to endorse the BDS movement.
Contact Aiden Pink at pink@forward.com or on Twitter, @aidenpink.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO