The Jews and the Left, Batya Ungar-Sargon’s latest book, takes readers through the long history of Jews in American political life, from George Washington’s praise for the Jews to FDR and the Civil Rights movement, concluding with the shock many Americans felt on October 7, when Hamas committed the 21st-century Holocaust that was not universally condemned.
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Batya noted, “I wrote the book because the question that I get asked, maybe the most, especially by Christians, conservatives, Republicans, is ‘why do the Jews vote for the Democrats, when the Democrats hate them, and we love them?’”
Although the book ends with the aftermath of October 7, the results of the recent New York and Maine primary elections underscore the book’s relevancy today and are a dramatic postscript. A direct threat to America’s values and ideals is the recently elected Democrat candidates that include Nazis, communists, and antisemites.
Maine Democrat Senate candidate Graham Platner has a chest tattoo of the Totenkopf, the skull-and-crossbones icon adopted by the infamous Nazi SS unit. He retweeted a post that characterized Judaism as a “death cult” and praised the military tactics that Hamas used in 2014 in the horrific execution of five Israeli soldiers.
Batya addresses the Nazi tattoo directly.
The left told people who were not Nazis, “You are Nazis, you are white supremacists. You are evil.” And now they’re lining up behind a guy with an actual Totenkopf tattoo and who knew what it was. And that’s not a deal breaker for them?
In my book, I have this quote that applies: ‘Many in the Democratic Party insist that it is the radical left that has turned on the Jews, not the mainstream of the party. But, few of the Democratic politicians are willing to take on the extremists on their side.’ Just look at House minority Senate leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), both supporting Platner. We defeated the Nazis, because that was very important to us as Americans. It’s not just Jews who should be upset about his candidacy.
Brad Lander, who is Jewish, won his primary race for New York’s 10th Congressional District by accusing Israel of genocide and apartheid and attacking pro-Israel lobbying, while acknowledging that the attack line made him “queasy” because it played into antisemitic tropes. Then there was Zohran Mamdani, who was elected New York City mayor with 30 percent of the Jewish vote. Have the Jews forgotten what happened to the German Jews of the 1930s, and are they falling off the same cliff by failing to recognize the dangers?
Batya explains,
They call themselves socialists. But there’s very little by way of economic policy. It’s all abolish ICE and free Palestine. In my view, these virtue signals from the left are a way to distract from the fact that they have nothing to offer working-class people. So instead, they like these identity politics, because it makes them feel like they are the good guys, while supporting a policy that’s actually very bad for working class people, like abolish ICE, open borders, defund the police, let’s have no prisons, and their other deplorable views.
But the truth of the matter is, it goes even deeper than that. The left has turned on the Jews and turned on Israel. Lander is representative of a stream among Jews that are bending the knee to the people that hate us, because political power is more important to them. And I think it’s shameful, and I think it’s embarrassing.
Leftist Democrats believe in freedom of speech for me but not for thee. Many, such as Lander, attack the Jewish lobbying group AIPAC and those who support it. Batya cannot understand their opposition to AIPAC.
I mean, what is AIPAC? It’s just an organization that helps Jewish Americans fund candidates who are supportive of Israel. Why are Jewish Americans less worthy of donating to campaigns than non-Jewish Americans? “Down with AIPAC” has become the price of entry on the left, and they say it, even though they know it’s antisemitic. So it’s really, really dreadful, but it’s certainly a sign of the times, and exactly what the book is about.
As a side note, the leftists never attack CAIR or Qatar, which has invested over $65 million in various educational programs across the United States that vilify supporters of Israel and spread antisemitism. A released report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) uncovers extensive foreign influence and anti-Israel bias infiltrating U.S. K–12 classrooms. They influence how American students are taught about the Middle East and Israel by making changes that include the removal of key historical documents and the omission of others, the misrepresentation of Israel’s capital in maps, and the exclusion of balanced perspectives on Israeli history and diplomacy.
Darializa Chevalier won New York’s 13th Congressional District. She is known for creating a climate of fear among Jewish students and faculty at Columbia University. She was part of the 2024 campus takeover and has said she believes in the eradication of Western civilization. She participated in an anti-Israel, pro-Hamas rally on October 8, 2023, celebrating the high number of Israeli fatalities in the worst terror attack in the Jewish state’s history. She and those like her are a direct threat to Jewish freedom of religion by creating an atmosphere of fear.
According to an American Jewish Committee poll (34%) of all Jewish college and university students say they have avoided displaying their Jewish identity due to fear of antisemitism. Additionally, students who report experiencing antisemitism (60 percent) say they have avoided wearing, carrying, or displaying things that would identify them as Jewish.
Batya also had to face the Palestinian mobs.
As someone who has been protested by one of these pro-Palestine mobs, it is very intimidating, because you try to talk to them like a human, and they stare right through you. You feel like you’re in a zombie movie. It’s like they’ve been zombified. They don’t have any opinions of their own. They march in lockstep. You feel like you’re in a zombie movie, which is scary. It’s intimidating, spiritually and emotionally but not physically.
In conclusion, Batya refers to the American ideals of freedom of speech and religion and the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.
A big theme in the book, is how cherished American Jews have always been. Wherever there was antisemitism, it came from the elites, and that’s what we’re seeing today. Another big theme in the book is that being antisemitic and being anti-American go hand in hand, because Jews were always such a precious part of the United States. The things that people hate about America are the same things that people hate about Jews, and vice versa, which is why I keep saying, “You can’t say, ‘I love America, but I hate the Jews.’”
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