RJC and ZOA, two right-wing Jewish groups, won’t say ‘president-elect’ Biden for now

Image by Getty Images
(JTA) — Two conservative Jewish organizations known for their support of President Donald Trump’s Israel policies will not call Joe Biden “president-elect” until legal challenges are settled, reflecting a consolidation of right-wing backing for Trump’s refusal to concede.
“We will be referring to ‘President-elect’ Biden when the states certify the election and the courts have ruled on allegations of fraud and irregularities,” Matt Brooks, the Republican Jewish Coalition director, said in an email. “Remember it’s the states that call outcomes, not decision desks.”
Morton Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, said he too would not use the term. “I will not call him president-elect, I will say ‘likely president-elect,’” Klein said in an interview.
After Biden posted insurmountable leads in enough states to make the election clear, major media projected him as the winner on Saturday, as they have prior to formal certification dating back to the 19th century. But Trump and a number of Republicans have launched multiple lawsuits challenging vote counts in a number of states where the vote was close, falsely alleging fraud.
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, set the tone Monday for much of the party and its allies on the right when he said in a Senate floor speech that it would be premature to refer to Biden as president-elect, pending the outcome of Trump’s legal challenges.
Nonetheless, a number of moderate Republican senators, including Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah and Ben Sasse of Nebraska have congratulated Biden and referred to him as president-elect.
There were multiple legal challenges and demands for recounts in states in 2016, but no one hesitated to call the election then for Trump, or to refer to him immediately as “president-elect.”
Klein faulted the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations for congratulating Biden. A number of other mainstream Jewish groups, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the American Jewish Committee have also congratulated Biden, as have a number of Modern Orthodox and haredi Orthodox groups whose constituents were likely to have supported Trump.
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.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
- 4
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish פֿילאַנטראָפּ אלי הירשפֿעלד שענקט פֿאָרווערטס די אינטערנעץ־אַדרעסן Yiddish.com און Yiddish.orgPhilanthropist Eli Hirschfeld donates domains Yiddish.com and Yiddish.org to the Forward
די מתּנה וועט דערמעגלעכן מער אָנהענגערס פֿון ייִדיש צו געפֿינען די ייִדישע ווידעאָס, אַרטיקלען און שפּילן פֿונעם פֿאָרווערטס.
-
Fast Forward Antisemitic incidents on college campuses rose over 80 percent last year, says the ADL
-
Fast Forward As the last generation of Holocaust survivors ages, advocates call for their testimonies to be heard
-
Fast Forward Jewish Federations CEO privately opposed a Jewish open letter criticizing Trump’s campus arrests
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.