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.
{Reposted from the author’s blog}
