Image by Alex Wong/Getty Images

(JTA) — In Georgia’s battle of the Staceys, Stacey Abrams, the state’s onetime House minority leader, defeated former State Rep. Stacey Evans in the Democratic primary for governor.

Nationwide, the win is seen as a bellwether in the battle for the Democratic soul between progressives and moderates. Abrams is a progressive.

The Israel wrinkle in the progressive vs. moderates debate played out in Georgia. In a Jewish community debate in February, Lois Frank, the former chairwoman of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, asked Abrams about her 2016 vote against a bill strongly backed by Jewish groups. It would have penalized those who comply with the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Michael Jacobs, the editor of the Atlanta Jewish Times, noticed something jarring about her response. Twice in a two-minute answer, Abrams said, “I unequivocally believe in the right of Israel to exist.”

Jacobs was glad to hear it, but unnerved she had to say it.

“In 2018, one of the leading candidates for Georgia governor sees Israel’s right to exist as an issue for debate, not an accepted reality,” he wrote in his column. “I don’t think Abrams has any doubts about Israel’s existence, but her need to say it means she expects others in her progressive wing of the Democratic Party to disagree with her.”

After she launched her candidacy, Abrams appeared to anticipate blowback and outlined her Jewish credentials in a Medium post last November. But she could not vote for the BDS bill, she said, for the same reason that other progressives who oppose BDS oppose such bills: It brings government in as a referee on boycotts and free speech, which, she said, should trouble those steeped in the history of civil rights.

“While the instinct to use the imprimatur of the state to punish free speech, however abhorrent, is understandable  —  the law then becomes precedent,” she said. “Boycotts have been a critical part of social justice in American history, particularly for African-Americans.” (A few months later, 45 leading Jewish Georgians, including Frank, took to Medium to defend her argument as legitimate even if they disagreed with her.)

It’s an argument that’s going to continue. Louisiana this week became the 25th state to pass an anti-BDS law, and there are a number of legal challenges to such laws in the states that have them.

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.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

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

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount