• The Republican Jewish Coalition pushed back
on claims that the Democratic Party 2020 platform, voted on this week
by the Democratic National Committee’s platform committee, supports
Israel. The Algemeiner reports:
RJC spokesperson Neil Strauss told JNS,
“Democrats can put whatever they want in their platform; we know, by
their actions, what their party stands for. Joe Biden
has invited Bernie Sanders’ viciously anti-Israel
foreign-policy team onto his team. Nancy Pelosi
endorsed the most anti-Semitic member of her caucus, [Minnesota Rep.]
Ilhan Omar.”
“Supposedly pro-Israel groups on the left have stood by and
tacitly supported the biggest pro-BDS voices in the party, [Michigan
Rep.] Rashida Tlaib and Omar,” he continued. “So they
can go ahead and push off the progressive wing from putting on paper
that the Democrat Party is no longer a pro-Israel party, but the party
leadership has already shown the world that Democrats have abandoned
Israel.”
Read more
about the Democratic Party platform below.
• The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports on the rise of
Parler,
an alternative to Twitter. RJC Executive Director Matt
Brooks is quoted at length about the
problems of anti-Semitism on Twitter:
Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish
Coalition, sees a pattern of Twitter accounts that remain active
despite a history of anti-Semitic remarks, including Nation of Islam
leader Louis Farrakhan, Iran Supreme Leader
Ali Khamenei, and Rep. Ilhan Omar,
who tweeted that congressional support for Israel was “all about the
Benjamins.”
“The fact that they find that people who want to showcase the
Star of David in terms of their Jewish heritage and pride as hate
speech is ridiculous and it’s really a crystal ball into the future
where if this cancel culture and political correctness run amok is
allowed to continue,” Brooks said.
For that reason, Brooks added, 2020 will be a contest that
pits the right against “the progressive left who want to cancel
everything and take down the Star of David and take down statues of
(George) Washington and Mount
Rushmore.”
• Reagan McCarthy at TownHall.com reports
on a statement by RJC National Chairman Senator Norm
Coleman about allegations of anti-Semitism against Senator
David Perdue (R-GA).
In his tenure in the Senate, [Perdue] co-sponsored multiple
pieces of legislation condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of
religious discrimination; Sen. Perdue co-sponsored SR189, which
condemned anti-Semitism in all forms, and the bipartisan Justice for
Victims of Lynching Act, which established lynching as a criminal
civil rights violation.
[Norm Coleman stated:]
“Time and again, Senator David Perdue has proven himself to be
a true friend to the Jewish community and has stood firmly against
anti-Semitic bigotry. Since coming to the Senate, he has consistently
condemned hatred toward our community and has worked with national
security leaders to protect synagogues and Jewish community centers
from anti-Semitic threats and violence. Senator Perdue has made it
clear that he strongly supports the right of all people to live free
of anti-Semitism and hate in all forms.
I am proud to support Senator Perdue, a true ally of the
Jewish community. Senator Perdue has stood with the Jewish community
in both combatting anti-Semitism and his unwavering commitment to the
security of the Jewish state of Israel.
On a personal note, I know Senator David Perdue to be one of
the most decent individuals I have known. He is what my grandmother
would call a “mensch”- a person of honor and high integrity. Any
attempts to smear him with charges of anti-Semitism are simply false.”
•
Sophie Panzer writes at the Philadelphia Jewish
Exponent about Jewish
voter outreach in 2020:
With the pandemic preventing in-person events and racial
justice protests sweeping the country, Jewish political groups are
adapting their strategies for an unprecedented campaign season.
Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish
Coalition, said one of his organization’s strong points is investment
in state- of-the-art Jewish voter files.
“One of the reasons we’ve invested so much money in [voter
files] is that, after successive campaigns of doing this, we realized
traditional voter files were horrible in terms of having accurate
Jewish voters on file,” he said.
In past elections, RJC phone bankers were pleased if 20% to
25% of the people they contacted from Jewish voter files were actually
Jewish. Now, thanks to a team of statisticians and demographers, RJC
has compiled files that yield a 60% to 75% Jewish voter contact rate.
Volunteers have made more than 400,000 calls to Jewish voters in swing
states.
Read more
about the RJC's sophisticated voter outreach program here.
