Was there antisemitism at the Democratic convention? – Deseret News

The first priority for any Jewish organization that gathered during this week’s Democratic National Convention was security.

For months, pro-Palestinian activists had vowed to flood Chicago with protesters, like the ones who rocked college campuses through the spring. To DNC organizers, who hoped for a joyful, unblemished celebration of their new candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, that meant avoiding poor optics; for Jewish groups, it meant fearing for their safety.

In anticipation, Agudath Israel — a leading Jewish Orthodox group — planned a Tuesday afternoon event with precision, giving the time and location only to vetted guests. A security detail would monitor the doors.

The event’s purpose was to discuss antisemitism in the U.S., not foreign policy abroad — Agudath Israel, as an organization, is opposed to Zionism. Instead, the group invited dignitaries — members of Congress, parents of a hostage in Gaza, the Harris campaign’s Jewish outreach director, the DNC host committee chair — to lead discussions on antisemitism within the United States. The parents of Omer Neutra, who is being held hostage in Gaza, recited a psalm. Speeches on fighting Jewish hate were delivered.

Then, outside the doors, commotion.

Attendees heard them before they saw them: a group of masked protesters had found their way inside the building and to the event’s room, chanting “Zionism has got to fall!” and “You all have blood on your hands!” Inside the room, the speakers continued their speeches, but the room felt tense.

No one was certain how the protesters found the event or got in, though attendees speculated they simply saw Jews and followed them. “The irony of the fact that the mindless slogan-chanters chose to trail Orthodox Jews and try to disrupt a gathering about antisemitism cannot be understated,” Miri Szpilzinger, the group’s media director, told me. “It demonstrates the societal evil better than any speech or chart.”

“The protest just proved our point,” Rabbi A.D. Motzen, Agudath Israel’s national director of government affairs, told me. “Antisemitism is alive and well and needs to be combated.”

For years, religious liberty — and, more narrowly, protecting religious individuals from persecution — has been viewed as a chiefly conservative issue. Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to believe religious liberty is in danger in the U.S., and thus expend energy defending it. According to a forthcoming Deseret News/HarrisX poll, U.S. voters perceive the Republican Party as more welcoming to religious people than the Democratic Party. Religious people themselves are more likely to say they feel welcomed by Republicans than Democrats.

But Harris and her party are subtly trying to make a pitch to change that narrative. Harris is selling her candidacy, and the Democratic Party, as the defenders in an election where “fundamental freedoms are at stake.” Other speakers followed suit. Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, in a Wednesday convention speech, declared that Democrats are the “party of real freedom,” including the “freedom to worship how (one) wants.” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a Jewish humanist, told the Utah and Hawaii delegations Tuesday morning that “we are party of defending religious liberty from extremists.”

But Democrats are having difficulty finding a pitch on religious liberty that lands — and what groups they can focus on. Christian nationalism is a popular enemy: it plays well with the Democratic base, and it can be pivoted into a political attack on Republicans, even if its definition is imprecise. But discussing antisemitism is much more fraught.

Democrats attack Christian nationalism

“On the issue of the Ten Commandments, God said ‘obey,’ not ‘display,’” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, D-Mo., told a sparse audience Monday, who were gathered in an upstairs room in the ritzy theWit Hotel. Cleaver, a United Methodist preacher, was referring to Louisiana’s new law requiring public schools to display the Ten Commandments in their classrooms. Critics of the law say it is a violation of the free practice clause and an affront to religious pluralism, while defenders say the commandments are foundational to society.

“I just find it a little bit bizarre that religious people want to outsource their religious education to public schools in a way that, you know, feels like an abdication of their own responsibility,” added Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, the event’s moderator.

The program, organized by Raben, was a discussion of religious pluralism. “America has a faithful people and a secular state,” the invitation proclaimed. “Can our politics reflect both?” In many red states, the panelists warned, the answer, for now, is no. Louisiana wants to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Alabama banned abortion by citing the Bible. Texas is allowing chaplains to replace school counselors. It’s evidence of “the cult of white Christianity,” Rev. Jennifer Butler said.

Throughout the 45-minute discussion, there was no mention of Judaism or combating antisemitism, and for all the talk of interfaith dialogue, there was no effort to engage conservative Christians. It was par for the course: Throughout the week, a number of events, both sponsored by the DNC and not, focused on interfaith relations and religious freedom. White Christian nationalism was criticized at length; antisemitism, except at Jewish-run events, was largely ignored — and when it was mentioned, it was usually to highlight antisemitic tropes or actions by conservatives, not by fellow liberals.

At the DNC’s two “Interfaith Council” meetings, Christian nationalism was the main topic, and antisemitism was mentioned only once — to describe the qualifications of an “authoritarian or fascist political party,” which the Republican Party, Raskin said, has. On Wednesday, at a gathering of faith leaders called “Promise 2025″ — pitching a faith-centric alternative to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy plan — antisemitism was not mentioned once.

On Wednesday, those hoping for open, unflinching condemnations of antisemitism were offered a glimmer of hope: the parents of a hostage held by Hamas in Gaza were offered a speaking slot. A month earlier, the Republican National Convention hosted Ronen and Orna Neutra, the parents of Omer Neutra; at the time, there was a general assumption that the same at the DNC was a pipe dream.

Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Jewish Harvard graduate who spoke about campus antisemitism at the RNC, told me he was only there because they asked. “Look, if the Democrats want me, or any Jewish student, or any family of the hostages (to speak at their convention), we would be more than honored,” he told me then. “But the Democratic Party, for whatever reason, is really not interested in this story.”

As it turned out, the Democratic Party was interested, and the parents got a prime-time slot Wednesday night. As Rachel Goldberg-Polin took the stage, she was uncontrollably emotional, bowing her head on the podium as she cried. The crowd offered them a standing ovation; she said later she was overcome by emotion because she didn’t know how the Democratic delegates, many of whom had threatened protests over Biden’s policy toward Israel, would receive them. But they were received warmly.

“This is a political convention,” Jon Polin said. “But needing our only son — and all of the cherished hostages — home is not a political issue. It is a humanitarian issue.” The crowd chanted, “bring them home.” The applause was not as booming as what the Neutras received at the RNC a month ago, said Rabbi Motzen, who attended both, but it was still loud. “Progress is progress.”

That progress, proponents say, has largely occurred behind the scenes. During his convention speech Tuesday, second gentleman Doug Emhoff mentioned that his wife, the vice president, has consistently pushed him to engage in combating antisemitism.

On Thursday, at an event hosted by the Democratic Jewish Council of America, he elaborated further. Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of a U.S. president or vice president, has led the White House’s efforts to combat antisemitism, culminating in the first-ever national strategy on the topic. “Why did we have that (first) meeting? Because Kamala Harris and Joe Biden said we need to do this,” Emhoff told a group of about 200 attendees crammed into a conference room.

Ever since Oct. 7, Emhoff said, Harris has continued to encourage him to lead the charge. He has met with university leaders to ensure Jewish students are safe on their campuses. When Emhoff led the U.S.’ delegation to the Paris Olympics, he hosted two major events on antisemitism.

Harris, Emhoff said, is uniquely equipped to promote religious liberty and tolerance. “We’re living openly as a Jewish interfaith couple at the (vice president’s) residence,” he said. As Harris mentioned in her convention speech, she’s the daughter of a Hindu immigrant; she’s now a practicing Baptist. “This is who she is,” Emhoff said. “This is Kamala Harris. I cannot vouch for her enough about her love for me and everything I am.”

Convincing Democrats that Harris will be tolerant of faith is one thing; convincing Democrats that they, too, should be tolerant may be another thing altogether. The DNC’s organizers made an effort to provide an ecumenical schedule of prayers. Invocations and benedictions at the evening sessions were offered by Muslim imams, a Hindu priest, Jewish rabbis, a Greek Orthodox archbishop, a Catholic cardinal and Methodist pastors.

But when the nightly invitation to rise and respectfully join in prayer came, most attendees got up and left, or loudly joined in conversation. “Had it been my synagogue, I would’ve told them off for being disrespectful before the Almighty,” Rabbi Michael Beals, who offered the benediction Tuesday, told me. By the time Beals finished his prayer, over half of the convention hall had emptied.

Religious pluralism

How capable are Democrats of becoming the party of religious liberty? Proponents see a window now to preach religious pluralism, as some Republicans lean heavily into a Christian-centric worldview. This year’s GOP platform calls for defending Christians from “persecution.” Trump’s rallies, cloaked in Christian iconography, often feel like tent revivals.

“If we’re going to talk about religion and faith, we need to talk about all religions, and make sure we’re holding the same standard for everyone, and we’re not just uplifting Christianity at the expense of other forms of religions and practices,” said Rep. Angela Romero, a Democratic member of the Utah House of Representatives and a delegate at the DNC.

“This idea that religion is the domain of conservatives — strictly, white evangelical Christians — has no basis in fact or in history,” Raushenbush, the CEO and president of Interfaith Alliance, told me. But many progressives view religious liberty as a cover to discriminate against marginalized groups, like people of color or the LGBTQ community. The biggest question he gets when talking about religious freedom with Democrats, he said, is “whose religion, and whose freedom?”

All religions and all freedoms, it would seem, must also include Jews and their freedom of self-determination. Those on the left, Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, said, “generally do not take antisemitism on the left as seriously as we must.” But it is not an issue unique to the right or the left, she said in a February speech: “Simply put, antisemitism is a hatred that can be described as a horseshoe where the far-left and the far-right are closer to one another on the issue of antisemitism than they are to the center.”

On the left, then, it is much more difficult to talk about the antisemitism festering among their own ranks. “I guess there is this worry about maybe alienating the Muslim minority, about talking about antisemitism and getting mixed with Israel,” said Rabbi Beals. “It’s fine to be against any policy of the state of Israel, just like it’s fine to be against any policy of the United States. But when Israel is singled out over and over and over again to the exclusion of anybody else, it does sound like antisemitism.”

He pointed out the backlash against Shapiro when he was under consideration to be Harris’ running mate. “All those candidates had the same position on Israel,” Beals said. “But they only went after the Jewish person.” (The White House quickly called out Trump this week for antisemitism after he called Shapiro “the highly overrated Jewish governor.”)

Throughout the convention, though, there were small flashes of hope. On Wednesday, after the Polins received a standing ovation and chants to bring their son home, a quorum of 10 Jewish men gathered outside the doors of the United Center. They turned to the east and offered their afternoon prayer, speaking in Hebrew and swaying. For several minutes, delegates filed in and out of the doors by them. Some delegates wore “CEASEFIRE NOW” pins; some wore keffiyehs. None said anything or caused any disruption. After 10 minutes, the Jewish men walked back inside.