By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog
To counter those concerns, the Jewish Democratic Council of America, headed by Haile Sofer, Kamala’s old policy adviser, rolled out a ‘Jewish Americans for Kamala Harris’ online rally. But while the Zoom rally flier may feature a photo of Kamala and her husband, Doug Emhoff, awkwardly lighting a menorah, the leading figures in the rally only raise more questions.
The
two most prominent non-elected officials taking part in the rally are
Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers union,
and her girlfriend, Sharon Kleinbaum.
While Weingarten is best
known for her work in keeping school closed leading to as much as a
grade point of loss in education, she is militantly anti-Israel and has
used antisemitic rhetoric.
In response to a question from the
JTA, a liberal Jewish media outlet, about the power of teachers’ unions,
Weingarten launched into an antisemitic tirade in which she claimed
that “American Jews are now part of the ownership class” who “want to
take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it.” The
American Jewish Committee had responded with an op-ed urging her to
“Counter, Not Inflame, Antisemitism”.
I have tried to reach out
to ‘Jewish Americans for Kamala Harris’ to inquire if they agree with
Randi Weingarten that Jews are “the ownership class” who “want to take
that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it”, but have
not received an answer.
Weingarten had befriended and defended antisemites including former Women’s March leaders Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour, calling them
“friends” and “warriors for justice.” Mallory was an enthusiastic fan
of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who had praised Hitler. She
had described the creation of Israel as a “human rights crime” and
attacked Jewish groups.
Sarsour had a long track record of antisemitism and support for Islamic terrorism. After the Oct 7 Hamas attacks, the Islamic activist claimed
that Jewish hostage posters were entrapment and that Jews everywhere
were watching them. “So when you go home, they have their little people
all over the place, trust me I know them, I got a radar for them… you
think they’re ordinary people, trust me when I tell you they are
everywhere. They’re on your college campus, they’re outside the
supermarket, they’re outside Grand Central Station.”
Not only did
Weingarten not stand with Jewish activists against the Women’s March
antisemitic leaders, but she is a board member of the Americans for
Peace Now BDS group whose CEO Hadar Susskind praised Ben & Jerry’s decision to boycott Israel as a “principled moral stance which we fully support”. APN has platformed antisemitic figures like UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese who claimed that America is “subjugated by the Jewish lobby”.
Weingarten’s
AFT union has demanded that Israel stop attacking Hamas in a resolution
presented with personal support from Randi at a convention where
Kamala spoke. The AFT defended the pro-terrorist mobs harassing Jewish students and faculty on campuses.
Randi
Weingarten has repeatedly attacked Israel and tweeted a quote claiming
that “the Hamas attack was heinous; the Israeli government’s actions in
Gaza have been reprehensible.”
Weingarten’s girlfriend, Sharon
Kleinbaum, and fellow participant in Jewish Americans for Kamala Harris
is even worse. After Kleinbaum read the names of Hamas terrorists
alongside fallen Israeli soldiers at the LGBTQ temple she formerly
officiated at, congregants left feeling that it had become
pro-terrorist. One departing congregant complained that it “was
essentially delivering Hamas propaganda. … My partner and I are starting
a family and frankly I don’t want to raise my kids in a synagogue
that’s praying for people firing rockets.”
Kleinbaum had
co-signed a T’ruah letter together with anti-Israel activists urging
Biden not to allow Israel to finish off Hamas in Rafah and claimed that
Israel cannot “lay the full responsibility for the unimaginable
suffering of a massive population of trapped civilians at the feet of
Hamas.” The letter also called for Biden to impose sanctions on members
of Israel’s government.
Weingarten and Kleinbaum are not outliers at Jewish Americans for Kamala Harris.
Sharon
Brous of IKAR, profiled by Variety as a “trendy, progressive
congregation”whose wealthy congregants include Steven Spielberg and
appears to have some link to Kamala’s husband, is also on the list.
Brous had attacked the Jewish State before the Oct 7 attacks, including
in a hateful Yom Kippur address, claiming that “there can be no
democracy with occupation.”
Brous is a member of the councils of
anti-Israel groups like J Street, and the New Israel Fund. Worse still,
IKAR has participated in events with IfNotNow, an anti-Israel hate group linked to many of the ugly protests against the Jewish State.
Sharon
Brous has a long history of supporting antisemites, attacking Jews for
opposing Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar, claiming that Jews
“have spent years in hive mentality, pouncing on indications of
anti-Semitism among Israel’s critics”, accused the Jewish State of a
“52-year military occupation of millions of Palestinian people” and
ranted that American Jews must “hear Palestinian voices.”
Like
Weingarten, Brous attacked Jewish critics of the antisemitism in the
Women’s March leadership, falsely claiming that the criticisms were, “a
deliberate smear campaign from the far right to delegitimize the march
itself.” She complained that, “a much greater problem would be if the
Jewish community stepped out of activism because we’re afraid that
someone on the stage has a position on BDS different than our own.”
Lauren
Holtzblatt, the final clergymember on the Jewish Americans for Kamala
Harris call, is a member of J Street cabinet (while also tragically and
inappropriately) serving as Hillel International’s director of campus
initiatives and has also been associated with the anti-Israel group
T’ruah and signed on to its letters.
Every single ‘rabbi’
presented by ‘Jewish Americans for Kamala Harris’ is also affiliated
with anti-Israel groups. This raises troubling questions about not only
the anti-Israel extremism that had already infiltrated the Jewish
Democratic Council of America, but Kamala’s campaign.
Not only
does ‘Jewish Americans for Kamala Harris’ appear to be co-hosted with
the Kamala Harris presidential campaign, but several of its anti-Israel
clergy have ties to Kamala.
‘Jewish Americans for Kamala Harris’
shows that the Kamala campaign, like the Obama campaign, calculatedly
platforms and normalizes anti-Israel activists while shutting out
normative figures in the Jewish community. It is not a coincidence that
all of the clergy at the virtual rally were anti-Israel activists. It
also not a coincidence that no pro-Israel clergy or members of more
traditionally religious denominations were on the call.
The
‘Jewish Americans for Kamala Harris’ rally anticipates a Kamala
administration that will pursue anti-Israel policies while surrounding
itself with anti-Israel activists of Jewish descent.
Jewish Democratic Council of America has sent a clear signal that the only Jews welcome by the Kamala campaign are those that will join it in opposing the Jewish State.
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.
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