‘Rejecting the binary’: Jewish Democratic leaders praise Harris for support Israel and Gazans
Kamala Harris spoke at the Jewish Democratic Council of America on May 24, 2023. (Photo by Mandel NGAN / AFP via Getty Images)
By Rebecca Massel August 2, 2024
At a Passover Seder at their home this spring, Vice President Kamala Harris and her Jewish husband, Doug Emhoff, spoke about the Israeli hostages held captive in Gaza and the ceasefire negotiations to end the Israel-Hamas war.
“She understands the Jewish American experience and its multifaceted nuances,” Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt, who led that Seder at the Naval Observatory, told some 3,000 people Friday afternoon on a “Jews for Harris” Zoom call. “She understands generational trauma and she rejects false binaries,” added Holtzblatt, co-senior rabbi of Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C. “She seeks to build a world with both a secure Israel and a future for the Palestinian people.”
Organized by the Jewish Democratic Council of America, the call was the first major outreach to Jewish leaders since Harris replaced President Joe Biden at the top of the ticket. Jewish politicians including Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland and Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado were among the speakers, along with the comedian Alex Edelman and high-profile liberal rabbis like Sharon Kleinbaum. The meeting aimed at mobilizing Jewish leaders and voters to support Harris, specifically through volunteering or financially supporting the council. Halie Soifer, the executive director of JDCA, asked each speaker why they were supporting Harris’ presidential campaign.
Kleinbaum, the recently retired first full-time rabbi of New York’s largest gay congregation, and Holtzblatt both mentioned the vice president’s ability to both support Israel’s right to defend itself and care about Palestinian suffering in Gaza. “I believe we see in this vice president, soon hopefully to be president, the example where it is possible to hold these things at the same time,” Kleinbaum said.
Other speakers focused on former President Donald Trump’s insulting comments suggesting that Jews who support Democrats are disloyal to Israel. “How can a Jewish person or a person that loves Israel vote, think of this, vote for this, these parties?” Trump said after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week. “How can they vote for these horrible, these horrible people?” On Tuesday, Trump said on a radio show that Harris “doesn’t like Jewish people” and seemed to agree when the host labeled Emhoff “a crappy Jew.”
Edelman, whose one-man show Just For Us, focuses on white supremacy and antisemitism, spoke about how Trump’s comments offended him.
“I should be so lucky to be as crappy a Jew as Doug Emhoff,” he declared.
Polis, the Colorado governor, said that when he posted the invitation to the Zoom on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, some critics responded that Harris supporters are not “real Jews,” something Polis called “absurd.”
“We all have full agency in expressing our Jewish identity consistent with our values,” he said. “There’s no question in my mind that the president we need, the president we deserve, is Kamala Harris.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly called Sharon Kleinbaum the “founding” rabbi of New York’s largest gay congregation. Though she was its first full-time rabbi, the congregation did not have a rabbi at its founding.
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