New York Jewish Week: Trump Will Loom Large In Key L.I. House Race

October 17, 2018

By Stewart Ain

For the past two years, Jan Singer of Kings Park, L.I., has demonstrated outside the Patchogue district office of Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) some 15 or 20 times with as many as 300 other protesters.

The number of demonstrators has depended on the topic — some were there to protest Zeldin’s backing of President Trump’s decision to ban immigrants from primarily Muslim countries; on other occasions it was to protest Zeldin’s positions on other topics, such as health care, the environment and guns — he received an A from the National Rifle Association.

“I think most people in the Jewish community are appalled at the fact that he does not represent what I consider Jewish values — such as on the immigration issue protecting the weakest among us,” Singer said. Singer and her fellow protestors may be tilting at windmills, trying to unseat a two-term incumbent, but the political winds in the run-up to next month’s midterm elections may be shifting, on Long Island and elsewhere in the country in the era of Donald Trump.

Zeldin, 38, one of only two Jewish Republicans in the House of Representatives, is running for his third term representing Suffolk County’s 1st Congressional District, which encompasses most of central and eastern Suffolk County, stretching from Smithtown to the East End. President Trump won the district handily in 2016, defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton by 9 percentage points – the largest plurality in the state — and last month tweeted his “complete and total endorsement” of Zeldin.

In 2014, Zeldin defeated six-term Democratic incumbent Tim Bishop by 10 percentage points and has maintained a strong hold on the seat since – winning two years ago by 16 percentage points with 59 percent of the vote.

But this is a classic swing district, which has given Democrats hope that it will be one of the 23 congressional seats they need to flip in the Nov. 6 midterms to recapture control of the House. A Newsday poll Sept. 26 put Zeldin ahead of Democratic challenger Perry Gershon, but the lead was close enough to be within the margin of error of 4.9 percent. A New York Times-Siena College poll taken earlier this month and based on 502 phone interviews put Zeldin’s lead at 8 percent.

“It was not a huge sample and it used a new polling method that I worry about a little bit,” said Matthew Lebo, a political science professor at Stony Brook University and director of its Center for Behavioral Political Economy. “So it’s hard to say just how close the race really is. But I would guess he [Zeldin] has a large advantage because people have voted for him twice already, and he has much more money. … His signs say vote for a veteran — Zeldin pushes his history as a vet quite a bit. And he refers to Gershon as ‘Park Avenue Perry,’ suggesting he is a carpetbagger. … As a member of Congress for two terms, you would have thought he [Zeldin] would have more to say about himself other than he is local and a vet.”

Gershon’s campaign material stresses the fact that he is not a career politician but rather a successful businessman, entrepreneur and family-man “with a deep devotion to Long Island and the issues that matter to working families.”

In an interview, Gershon, 56, told The Jewish Week that although he has an apartment in Manhattan, he has had a home for the past 20 years in East Hampton and that he pays taxes there. Zeldin, said Gershon, is making the carpetbagger claim “as a ploy to distract people and not talk about the real issues like health care.”

Zeldin’s office provided a link to a video of Gershon saying he spent weekends and the summer in East Hampton and lived in Manhattan the rest of the time. He said that when he decided in 2017 to run for office, he began living on Long Island full-time and changed his voter registration to East Hampton.

The video link was sent in reply to one of a dozen questions sent to Zeldin last Friday at the request of his communications director, Chris Boyle, after The Jewish Week contacted him to set up an interview with the congressman for any time on Monday. The campaign did not make Zeldin available, and Boyle then wrote his own answers to the questions and emailed them Monday night.

Gershon did not ask for the questions in advance and was interviewed by phone.

Boyle said the major issues of the campaign for Zeldin are “protecting our national security at home and abroad … growing our economy … [and] the need to do even more to combat the heroin and opioid abuse epidemic.”

Gershon said one of his major issues is the fact that Zeldin “voted to take away health care coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.”

Asked to respond, Boyle wrote: “He’s a liar.”

(According to the Office of the Clerk of the House, Zeldin did vote to repeal the ACA, which established that individuals with pre-existing conditions cannot be denied health care coverage or charged more for individual major medical insurance plans.)

Gershon pointed out that after the ACA vote, Zeldin “withdrew from communication with his constituents — he has held no town hall meetings since April 2017, and now his meetings are by invitation only with pre-screened questions.”

Asked his response, Boyle wrote, “The whole premise of that question is completely not true.” He did not elaborate.

Gershon, who said he is a Reform Jew, was also critical of Zeldin’s support for Trump’s assertion that “both sides” were to blame for the violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., last year that ended in the death of a 32-year-old woman there to protest the white nationalists.

“I was appalled and protested when Lee Zeldin made those comments,” Gershon said. “Lee Zeldin, who is a member of the Jewish faith, should remember his roots and not support white nationalism.”

Boyle’s email reply: “White nationalism? That’s absurd. Gershon should do some self-reflection and stop lying more often than he tells the truth.”

Analysts believe a surge of Democratic votes at the polls could pull off an upset in a district that has 16,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats. Gershon said he believes Democrats are “more energized” than they were two years ago. He cited a record 76 percent of Democrats who voted in the recent Democratic primary he won – about double the turnout of 2016.

But Zeldin believes Trump is still popular in the district and recruited three former Trump administration officials — Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka and Sean Spicer — to spark his re-election campaign.

Robert Zimmerman, a Democratic national committeeman from Great Neck, L.I., scoffed at the move, saying Zeldin’s “candidacy has become a rehab center for extremists even Donald Trump had to fire.”

He added that Gershon is “running a very strong campaign as a mainstream Democrat and has mobilized extraordinary support, considering that this race was initially not considered competitive and is now considered very competitive. And Gershon has become a national candidate … because as Lee Zeldin has become a Donald Trump groupie, Perry Gershon has been able to raise money throughout the country.”

But Rabbi Marc Schneier of The Hampton Synagogue in Westhampton Beach said Zeldin continues to “participate in many activities at the synagogue” and that their four-year “friendship has grown exponentially, not only in terms of Israel but in discussing the president’s peace plan in the [Persian] Gulf ….”

A poll released this week for the Jewish Electoral Institute found that although an overwhelming majority of American Jews support Israel, they are almost evenly split in their response to Trump’s handling of U.S.-Israeli relations, and fully 71 percent said they would not consider voting for Trump in 2020.

An exception is Leonard Feldman, an attorney from Smithtown, L.I., who said he supports both Trump and Zeldin in their quest for strong borders and economic programs.

“The stock market has gone up, the GDP [gross domestic product] is up, and unemployment is down – there are more people working now who have not worked in 10 or 15 years,” he said.

Feldman questioned what the “Democrats propose to do economically because I have not heard how they are going to make it better.”

Antisemitism is a warning sign. Are we listening?

By Eileen Filler-Corn • July 3, 2025
In the nearly two years since Hamas’s brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel, American Jews have watched a disturbing rise in antisemitism take place across America — and crucially, among some of our longtime allies. For decades, Jewish Americans stood at the forefront of progressive causes, marching for civil rights, fighting for reproductive freedom and advocating for immigrants and the marginalized. My Jewish faith is what first drove me to public service. The Jewish concept of tikkun olam — our responsibility to repair the world — is not just a religious tenet but a moral call to action. It’s why we’ve always shown up to defend others. Yet now, as antisemitism surges to record levels, many progressive organizations and leaders who once stood with us have gone quiet; or worse, turned their backs entirely. It’s no longer just about Israeli policy. The line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism has been crossed so many times it’s barely a line at all. “Zionist” has become a stand-in for “Jew,” and the message is clear: Unless you disavow the world’s only Jewish state, your place in many progressive spaces is no longer welcome. The picture is sobering. There have been calls to ban “Zionists” from Pride events. Many women’s groups have shrugged at Hamas’ rape of Israeli women. And the Democratic nominee for mayor of America’s most populous city has a pattern of antisemitic rhetoric and has refused to condemn the hurtful call to “globalize the intifada,” a rallying cry that has been used to incite violence against Jews. This didn’t happen overnight, but the silence from many who claim to fight for justice has been deafening and deeply painful. I know what it feels like to be targeted for who you are. In January 2020, shortly after I became the first woman and the first Jewish Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, the FBI uncovered a plot to assassinate me. Two members of a neo-Nazi domestic terrorist group had targeted me. It was the most serious of many threats I received during my time as Speaker. Thankfully, law enforcement intervened in time. But the threat was real, and it reminded me that hatred knows no single party or ideology. We’ve long seen this kind of extremist hate on the right, but today that same danger is rising on both extremes of the ideological spectrum. Antisemitism spreads under different names but with the same devastating consequences. Now, with the recent war between Israel and Iran, we’re likely to see a fresh wave of anti-Zionism and antisemitism. It is already giving rise to a new round of dangerous conspiracy theories laced with antisemitic tropes: accusing American Jews of dual loyalty; suggesting we control foreign policy; and portraying Jewish political engagement as part of a shadowy cabal influencing Washington. This is a moment of moral testing. Will our leaders speak clearly and forcefully against antisemitism, even when it’s politically inconvenient? Will those who champion diversity and inclusion apply those values to Jews as well? And will we be honest about how bad actors have exploited division, stoked extremism and enabled those who traffic in hate? Just as many Americans oppose President Donald Trump’s leadership while still loving this country and believing in its promise, the same is true for Israel. You can criticize or reject Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government and still support Israel’s right to exist, to defend itself and to thrive as a Jewish and democratic state. That distinction matters. Criticizing a government is not the same as condemning a people; but when it comes to Israel, that line is too often deliberately blurred. We must be able to hold leaders accountable without fueling hatred or questioning a nation’s fundamental legitimacy. Antisemitism is not merely a problem faced by Jews — it is a bellwether for the health of our democracy. When a society tolerates hatred against one group, it gives license to hate others. When threats against public servants go unchallenged, violence becomes normalized. I was reminded of that tragic reality when my friend and former counterpart, former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, was executed in her home along with her husband, Mark. Authorities say her killer was a politically motivated extremist who had compiled a list of Democratic lawmakers. Melissa was a principled leader and a friend. Her death was a heartbreaking loss and a flashing red warning sign for the tolerance of hate in our democracy. We cannot afford to treat this moment as normal. It is time for our allies to rejoin us. To speak up when we are threatened. To see antisemitism for what it is: a growing, dangerous force that must be confronted head-on. Because if we wait until it affects everyone, it will already be too late. Eileen Filler Corn is a JEI Board Member and Former Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, and the only ever Jewish speaker in VA
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Letter to House Judiciary Committee on Anti-Semitism

July 1, 2025
July 1, 2025 U.S. House Committee On The Judiciary 2142 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Now in our ninth year, the nationally and internationally recognized Jewish Electorate Institute (JEI), an independent, non-partisan, non-profit organization, continues to serve as the barometer for the Jewish electorate. We are therefore honored to submit the following Comments for the Record to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee in support of its June 24, 2025, hearing on antisemitism - Rising Threat: America’s Battle Against Antisemitic Terror. This hearing, punctuated by the moving testimony of Matt Nosanchuk, reminded us that Jewish safety in America is not a political football - it is a national imperative. Nosanchuk, a former senior official in both the Obama and Biden Administrations and a lifelong advocate against antisemitism, laid bare the stark realities we face. The murder of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, who were attending a Jewish community event just blocks from his home, brought the crisis home - literally and painfully. It also underscored a chilling truth: this could have been any one of us. Antisemitism today does not discriminate based on geography, profession, or even political identity. Nosanchuk rightly challenged both ends of the political spectrum. From the right, we've seen rising indulgence of white nationalist rhetoric, normalization of Nazi imagery, and an embrace of conspiracy theorists. When antisemitism is tolerated—or worse, weaponized—by public officials and influential institutions, it emboldens violence and undermines the rule of law. The example of the pardoning of the person wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” shirt at the riot on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was not just shocking to the Jewish community – it was symptomatic of a deeper, corrosive tolerance for hate. From the left, antisemitism also too often masquerades as political critique. When Jews are asked to renounce their ties to Israel to participate in coalitions, or when pro-Palestinian activism turns violent against Jews, with intimidating targeted rhetoric and violence, that’s not solidarity – it’s exclusion and scapegoating. Our Jewish identity should never be a precondition for political participation. What we need is not partisan grandstanding, but comprehensive action. That includes implementing the Biden Administration’s well-thought-out National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, restoring funding for civil rights enforcement at the Justice Department, and condemning hate, regardless of its ideological source. Nosanchuk’s call for education, prevention, and cross-community solidarity is exactly right. In closing, it’s our view at JEI that using antisemitism as cover for draconian immigration or university policies erodes the democratic institutions that have allowed Jewish life to flourish. Fighting hate must not become an excuse to violate civil liberties - ours or anyone else’s. Our safety as Jews has always been linked to the safety of others. In this perilous moment, we must demand more than soundbites. We must demand seriousness, solidarity, and above all, solutions. We are grateful to the Committee for having held this vital hearing at a perilous moment for American Jews. Sincerely, Barbara Goldberg Goldman Chairperson The Jewish Electorate Institute

JEI Statement on escalation and Support on Israel Security

June 18, 2025
Washington, DC — As hostilities between Israel and Iran intensify, the Jewish Electorate Institute (JEI), a nonpartisan political nonprofit, is calling on Congress to take all necessary measures to support Israel’s security, halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and help bring the hostages home.