I’m a lifelong Jewish liberal. I don’t know who to vote for anymore.

I haven’t abandoned my liberal values. But as antisemitism rises and Israel becomes demonized, I’m increasingly wondering whether my party has abandoned me.

photo: Jesse Paul/Unsplash

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This is a guest essay by Sid Stein⁠.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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I live in Albany, New York, where early voting has started. Because it’s the state capital, it attracts attention from national publications that report on state politics.

Reporters get stationed here. One of them, a good acquaintance of mine, works for the New York Times. He’s not famous, but in the world of newspaper journalism, he has one of the best gigs. Whether you like it or not, the New York Times is still the most prestigious publication in the United States.

I first met him in January 2023, when the New York legislative session began. He’s originally from Texas, so let’s call him Tex. He became a weekly regular at my seasonal karaoke show, which I host each year for politicians, staffers, and lobbyists when they’re in town. The legislative session runs from January through the first week of June. Back in 2012, the New York Times actually did a story about how my show contributed to a sense of collegiality among politicians of the two parties.

Tex is a moderate Democrat from a small “red” (conservative) town in Texas. He is smart, down to earth, and speaks Spanish and French. His appreciation for the “international” was one of the things I liked most about him. At the time, I was dating a woman from Mexico City who had lived in Houston for many years. Because they had some Texas things in common, he seemed like a natural fit in our lives.

Tex also found it interesting that I was a former attorney who became a DJ. He enjoyed picking my brain about Jewish issues, especially once he learned that I had lived in Israel for three years.

When Tex first came to the New York Times, he was asked to do a story about possible corruption in the Satmar Hasidic Jewish community of Kiryas Joel, an enclave of ultra-Orthodox Jews north of New York City. At issue was whether government funds were being misused by two administrators in the community.

When Tex’s story came out, both he and the New York Times took a lot of flak from Orthodox Jews, especially from the Hasidic community. Tex told me he was shocked that people thought he was antisemitic because of the article.

I read it a few times. Although I didn’t think he was antisemitic, per se, it was apparent that he didn’t really understand the Satmar community. Some things were missed, others generalized. I could understand why some Jews might think he was biased against them.

He once confided that he could have written a better article if he spoke Yiddish, the default language for the Satmars. I didn’t really think that would have made much of a difference, but I kept quiet and smiled. I told him that because he was the new guy in town, the New York Times, which has always had it in for the ultra-Orthodox, had set him up. He laughed, but I could see that he thought perhaps I wasn’t too far off the mark.

People have long accused the Times of being antisemitic. Here’s some background.

The New York Times was purchased by a secular Jew, Adolph Ochs, in 1896. Ochs and his successor, son-in-law Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who took over in the 1930s, were both opponents of Zionism. Sulzberger downplayed his Jewish background. Infamously, in addition to his opposition to Israel, he often buried stories of Nazi atrocities in the back pages of the paper. Since then, the New York Times has often been criticized for being unduly biased against Israel.

After the 2023 legislative session, I didn’t see Tex much until 2024. By then, a number of months had passed since October 7th, when Hamas and other Palestinians invaded Israel. Tex and I had many discussions about Israel. It was quite obvious to him that I am very passionate about the country. I also have a daughter who lives there.

Tex was generally supportive of Israel. He also seemed able to criticize the Netanyahu government without being, or even sounding, anti-Zionist.

As for me, as a lifelong liberal, I’ve never liked Netanyahu. Since October 7th, however, I’ve generally refrained from criticizing his response to the invasion by Hamas. Too many people jump to weaponize any criticism of Netanyahu or Israel. I refuse to participate in anti-Zionism. That doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to discuss Israeli policy with reasonable people.

My conversations with Tex about Israel took a turn as state politicians became increasingly vocal about the war. Some of those politicians, including members of the Democratic Socialists of America, came to my karaoke show. Tex was curious about what I thought of them vis-à-vis Israel.

At the top of that list was Zohran Mamdani, who was leading the anti-Israel movement even before October 7th. His most public legislative agenda item was the #NotOnOurDime proposal, which sought to remove charitable tax designations from certain pro-Israel charities.

I once hosted karaoke at a party for the State Assembly that Mamdani attended. At the time, I didn’t know who he was. He sang a few songs, and I remember him being somewhat of a “mic grabber.” I am probably the only Zionist who ever said, “Give it up for Zohran.”

Although I didn’t run into Mamdani again, I regularly saw other Democratic Socialists of America members at my weekly show. They were very anti-Israel, especially on X. Other politicians who weren’t in the DSA were also critical of Israel. Some supported Mamdani’s initiative, which had become a kind of litmus test.

A litmus test in the legislature works like this: A member proposes legislation and then seeks co-sponsors. If you don’t sign onto the bill, then you aren’t on board with the “cool kids.”

In my conversations with Tex, I voiced my growing displeasure with the Democrats as more and more of them jumped on the anti-Israel bandwagon. If there were Democratic members who were still pro-Israel, they weren’t pushing back on their colleagues. To the extent that any voiced support for Israel, it was usually just for the “idea” of a Jewish state. Their support was always qualified with criticism of Netanyahu and his government.

Many lifelong liberal Democrats like myself felt deserted by the party. In other words, we felt politically homeless.

As anti-Israel rhetoric ramped up, so did the rate of antisemitic incidents. Although politicians would condemn antisemitism, they usually added a qualification. Some would contextualize it by blaming the rise in antisemitism on anger at Israel — essentially victim-blaming. Lost in all this was the question of why people were attacking American Jews for something happening 6,000 miles away.

Most commonly, politicians would “all lives matter” their remarks in a way they never would have before. Instead of simply denouncing antisemitism, they would include admonitions about Islamophobia, homophobia, racism, and other forms of hatred.

One day, while I was expressing my frustration with the Democrats, Tex called me a single-issue voter. In other words, all I cared about was Israel. In my world, and in his, that’s an insult. He didn’t say it in a mean way, though. It was more like he had discovered something about me. I, however, took it as an insult. First of all, it’s at least adjacent to a charge of dual loyalty, a long-time antisemitic trope.

I thought about defending my record. For starters, why would I be a lifelong Democrat if all I cared about was cutting taxes? I could have told him about the times I addressed Albany’s city legislature to oppose a racist law on the books. I could have told him how I stood in the rain protesting South African apartheid. I could have told him that I chose to share a townhouse with a gay man when I was in college. At the time, that was hardly acceptable, except maybe in certain parts of New York City or San Francisco.

Although I was upset with Tex, I didn’t say anything. There was no point in losing a regular customer. You have to overlook a lot when you’re in the hospitality business. Still, I suspected that labeling me a single-issue voter revealed something about Tex’s own biases.

Tex grew up in a small town that doesn’t have a Jewish community, if any Jews at all. When he came to my shows, he always brought up the fact that I was Jewish. One of his go-to songs was by Paul Simon, and Tex always reminded me that Simon was a member of the tribe.

I don’t think Tex was antisemitic. I think he was just slightly uncomfortable around Jews. It’s akin to a white person who often brings up racial issues with a Black friend. They may be trying to show their allyship, but it can be annoying. I guess I became Tex’s go-to Jew.

Early on in the October 7th war, the New York Times, relying on information from Hamas, published that Israel had bombed the Al-Ahli Hospital, killing 500 people. The story went viral worldwide. When it came out that it was a misfired rocket by Palestinian Islamic Jihad that had hit a parking lot, killing only a few people, the New York Times posted a small correction on X that hardly anyone saw.

Then there was the attack on Israeli tourists attending a soccer match in Amsterdam. The initial report, filed by two correspondents based in South Korea, stated that the attack had been provoked when an Israeli tore down a Palestinian flag after the match. Over the course of a few days, it turned out that the attack was premeditated and had been planned through a Telegram chat group days before the match.

Whatever correction gets printed, it is always too little, too late.

Perhaps the most egregious “error” by the New York Times was publishing a picture on the front page depicting a small, emaciated child being held by his mother as an example of starvation. It turned out that the child had a congenital disease that caused his condition. It was not a lack of food. Later, we learned that the boy’s older brother, who looked perfectly healthy, had been cropped out of the picture.

Instead of a front-page correction about its blunder, the New York Times quietly equivocated. Again, the damage was done. The child became the poster child of mass starvation in Gaza, a starvation that even the United Nations has admitted never happened.

All these incidents get cited by anti-Israel activists. That activism leads to spikes in antisemitic attacks, sometimes deadly.

It would be silly to call the New York Times a single-issue newspaper. Still, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say it is single-minded about Israel and the Jews. I never brought that up with Tex, which brings me back to voting.

Events of the past few years may indeed have turned me into a single-issue voter. But the issue isn’t Israel. It’s antisemitism and the safety of the American Jewish community. That is my issue — and it doesn’t seem like any of the candidates really care about protecting my community.

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