PITTSBURGH — Rabbi Seth Adelson was leading a Saturday morning service at Beth Shalom Synagogue six years ago, about half a mile from where a gunman opened fire on a congregation at Tree of Life Synagogue, killing 11 people in the deadliest attack on a Jewish community in U.S. history.
“After the shooting on October 27, 2018, what was truly surprising and heartening is that we felt so embraced, loved and supported by all the people around us, non-Jewish friends and allies.” Adelson said.
He said he did not feel the same love and support after the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel that killed nearly 1,200 people and prompted Israel to launch military operations in Gaza. “All of the people that we considered allies, our non-Jewish friends, suddenly weren’t with us,” said the rabbi from Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood.
It’s a sentiment that permeates the heavily Jewish neighborhood — and has affected how the swing state community handles the 2024 election. With a sad anniversary and Election Day on the horizon, concerns about rising anti-Semitism are on the minds of many voters.
Rona Kaufman, a resident of Squirrel Hill, said she volunteered for John Kerry’s 2004 Democratic presidential campaign, donated to Barack Obama’s campaign, took her children to vote for Hillary Clinton and attended the Jews for Black Lives Matter event in Squirrel Hill. gone Matter” icon. Now he’s calling his plan to vote for former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 a “shocker.”
“I am very disappointed with the Democratic Party. And I am very concerned about the attitude of some of Harris’s chosen advisers to Israel,” Kaufman said.
Kaufman considers the Israel-Hamas war as “the frontline of the struggle for liberal values, human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, LGBTQIA rights, religious freedom, democracy and the rule of law. That’s how I see it. I also vote for it.”
Kaufman is convinced that more Jews will vote for the Republican Party in this election.
But Kaufman’s political journey is not universal. Lynda Wrenn is a longtime Democrat who said she was “absolutely” voting for Harris.
He and Kaufman share similar fears and concerns when it comes to anti-Semitism and Israel, but differ on which candidate would be better for the safety of the Jewish community.
“I don’t believe a word that Trump is trying to sue Jewish voters. He talks out of both sides of his mouth. He says he loves us and then he says that if he loses, all the blame is on us. So he’s both scapegoating us and giving us a thumbs up at the same time, and it rings hollow,” Wrenn told NBC News.
In recent days, Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, told The New York Times that he had heard Trump repeatedly praise Adolf Hitler (which Trump has denied) and that he thought the retired four-star general met Trump’s definition of “advice.” “fascist.” Harris repeated the language, and the Trump campaign responded with one Advertisement criticizing Holocaust survivor Harris For putting this label on Trump.
Wrenn, who experienced the rise of anti-Semitism firsthand last year and was ridiculed for wearing the Star of David, says he can sympathize with members of the community who are picky about a single issue this time around.
Of all the battleground states, Pennsylvania has the highest concentration of Jewish voters — about 300,000 in a state that President Joe Biden won by about 80,000 votes in 2020 and Trump by 44,000 in 2016, according to Brandeis University estimates.
Republicans, with groups including the Republican Jewish Coalition, aim to reach out and reach out to Jewish voters. spends a lot of money on advertising Like a demonstration of three Jewish women discussing anti-Semitism at a popular Jewish restaurant in a Philadelphia suburb.
One of the women at the table says that Harris is “preoccupied with defending the staff.” He goes on to say, “I’ve never voted for a Republican in my life, but I’m voting for Trump.”
Jackie Orlanksy, 90, and Barbara Walko, 80, two Jewish women who spoke to NBC News about politics on Squirrel Hill, gave a similar sentiment to the women featured in the ad — both of whom vote Democratic. For Harris.
“All he does is lie, and some of the things he says are so insane that he could stand in front of people and talk the way he talks,” Walko said of Trump.
While Israel and anti-Semitism are top issues for both Orlansky and Walko, they say there are many issues to look at this election cycle.
Orlasnky also pointed out that Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish.
“She’s married to a Jewish man and she seems like a very warm, kind person,” Orlanksy said.
“[That] makes a difference,” Walko repeated.
While both women are excited to vote for Harris, they will leave the Democratic Party and vote against Democratic Rep. Summer Lee in the local congressional race.
Many members of the local Jewish community say they are deeply offended Lee’s statement Signed by other Democratic leaders in Pittsburgh on the Oct. 7 anniversary, it did not directly blame Hamas. Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, who is running for re-election this year, issued a statement condemning Lee. (Casey’s Republican opponent, Dave McCormick, responded by criticizing Lee for not supporting his re-election.)
Jeremy Kazzaz, executive director of the Beacon Coalition, a nonprofit that focuses on voter education and the concerns of the American Jewish community, will vote for Harris, but some Republicans in Pennsylvania’s down-ballot races.
He said the Jewish community felt a “political awakening” after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, and if it doesn’t show in the presidential race, there may be signs of it in down-ballot races.
“I think there’s been a fairly seismic shift in this society of people of all religious and political stripes realizing that they need to be more involved in elections, educate themselves more and evaluate candidates on their own merits,” he said. , “as opposed to voting straight along party lines as they have done for years.”