Sara Lehmann is an award-winning New York based writer. For more of her writings please visit saralehmann.com.
There is a lot of buyer’s remorse these days among moderate and even liberal Democrats.
Last week, Alan Dershowitz, the famed attorney who recently authored Why I Quit the Dems, and So Should You, told WABC radio hosts John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby, “Today, if you want to win a Democratic primary you have to be anti-America, anti-Israel and anti-Christian…If you want to see what’s going to happen to America with the Democrats, just look at France."
Dershowitz also took aim at former President Obama, whom he used to consider a friend. “He is an enemy today of Israel, of the Jewish people and of American values. And I see that happening all through the Democratic Party…Maybe his true self has come out after he left the presidency."
Two weeks ago, Obama spoke in Ireland, a bona fide antisemitic country, and accused Jews of stealing land from Palestinian Arabs after the Holocaust. Obama said, “They took land off people and they were expelled. Those people understandably said, ‘This is injustice, and I want my land back.’" And he went on to condemn Israel for having “ceded moral ground" in fighting defensive wars against their enemies.
It is heartening to see how far Dershowitz has come in repudiating the party he spent decades cultivating. Especially since his invaluable defense of Israel and Jews came at immense personal sacrifice. But it is surprising that a man of such intellect would have been duped in the first place.
Relitigating Obama’s past offenses against Israel is critical insomuch as they laid the foundation for the Democratic Party’s current anti-Israel platform. But in Dershowitz’s defense, most Democrats were still loathe to openly revile the Jewish State during the Obama years. Much of the anti-Israel rhetoric then was couched in innuendo or indirect insinuation.
There is no subtlety today. Democrats, like Mayor Mamdani, ran and won on openly antisemitic platforms, including accusing the Jewish state of genocide and asserting it has no right to exist. Democrats don’t attempt to hush chants of “Globalize the intifada", “From the river to the sea", and “Free Palestine" - they bask in them.
Which all leads to the massive increase we are witnessing in hate crimes against Jews.
On Sunday, President Trump campaigned in Michigan for Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers against the Islamist Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who cannot definitively distance himself from the Muslim Brotherhood. Trump said, “Any Jewish person that supports this guy should be ashamed of themselves."
Huge numbers of non-Orthodox voters in Michigan, who have never voted for a Republican, intend to hold their nose and vote for Rogers or not vote at all. Concern for their personal safety as Jews has finally resonated.
It is inexplicable that the same cannot be said about many Jews in New York, specifically some haredi Jews. Some of their leaders have endorsed Governor Kathy Hochul over Nassau Executive Bruce Blakeman in the upcoming gubernatorial elections in an apparent bid to secure government programs for their communities.
Their support for a governor who is utterly beholden to an antisemitic mayor is confounding, considering they account for the majority of victims of soaring antisemitic hate crimes because they are visibly Jewish. Especially in a blue state that is soft on crime.
Hochul endorsed Mamdani, supports his policies - including immoral regulations totally anathema to Torah values - and currently campaigns with him. The governor has the power to reign in a renegade mayor, yet with Hochul the tail wags the dog.
Indeed, just this week Hochul shared her wish that Prime Minister Netanyahu would lose the elections in Israel. And she implicitly blamed him for the antisemitism in New York by an “overreach" against Hamas in the war.
Blakeman, who has been running the safest county in America for years, enforced a zero-tolerance policy against antisemitism. And he plans to do the same if elected governor.
Supporting Hochul for financial gain, however, is shortsighted too. Hochul bailed out a bankrupt New York City due to socialist policies that strip the city’s coffers and drive out tax payers in droves. More of the same in New York State, which is already number 50 in economic outlook, will produce similar results statewide. If Hochul continues on the path of overregulating and overtaxing New Yorkers, which Blakeman opposes, what will happen to state-funded programs then?
One leader of an haredi Jewish group publicly endorsed Hochul in appreciation for supporting the federal tax credit scholarship program. But according to Blakeman, in an interview I conducted with him for Hamodia in July, “It didn’t cost Kathy Hochul anything to sign on to President Trump's scholarship program…It was a little nod to people who were getting a program from the federal government, when for years, they've been trying to get it from the state government. Tuition tax credits, property tax relief, vouchers - Hochul's against those, I'm for those."
In other words, they are selling out for nothing. In the process, a Chillul Hashem emerges, causing animosity among other Orthodox Jewish New Yorkers who are angered by their brethren’s betrayal. And the takeaway feeds the antisemitic trope made famous by another radical politician, Rep. Ilhan Omar - "It's all about the Benjamins".
Fortunately, many haredi Jews in New York are not buying into a Faustian bargain that is sure to backfire. Supporters of Blakeman include Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky, dean of the Yeshiva of South Shore, Rabbi Boruch Ber Bender, founder and president of the Achiezer Community Resource Center, prominent Chabad Rabbis, including Rabbi Zalman Wolowik of Chabad of the Five Towns, and others. Rabbi David Yosef, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, met with Blakeman while on a trip to NY and offered a bracha for success.
The Munkatcher Rebbe also endorsed Blakeman and expressed alarming concern about antisemitism in America with a disquieting observation. “Did you expect, five years ago, that antisemitism was going to be a problem in the United States?" the Rebbe told Blakeman when they met at the Rebbe’s home. “I just know that in Germany in 1930 it was the same story. This is why we all support you: besides the fact that you are qualified, we must have you."
In 1930, no one could have imagined what would have transpired by 1945. With eighty years-worth of hindsight, there can be no excuse.
A version of this article first appeared in Hamodia.