Honest Reporting, Torah-True • Kosher & Fat-Free
The Jewish Star says
VOTE
Nov. 1-7, 2024
30 Tishrei, 5785 • Noach Vol. 23, No. 37
For USA, for community, for Am Yisrael
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Reach the Star: Editor@TheJewishStar.com 516-622-7461 x291
TheJewishStar.com
OU: Jews must vote
For The Jewish Star The Orthodox Union’s Teach Coalition is working overtime to bring out Jewish voters in the general election that ends on Nov. 5. “If we want our elected officials to defend Israel, combat antisemitism and recognize our concerns around security and the costs of private education, we must make our voices heard as a community by voting for people who will champion and fight for the issues we care about,” said Teach Coalition Founder and Chief Executive Officer Maury Litwack. He discounted the notion that a person’s vote “doesn’t matter.” “They say that they voted once, but didn’t get the outcome they wanted,” he said. “To me, that only underscores our collective responsibility to vote, and to ensure that our friends and family vote too. True, the official of your choice may not win. But if you and 20 of your friends vote, the outcome may be affected.” Earlier this year, Teach Coalition opened first-ever voter centers in Jewish communities nationwide, including a storefront in Westchester’s Jewish community that brought out the vote in a key primary election (where high Jewish turnout helped oust the district’s vehemently anti-Israel Squad member, Rep. Jamaal Bowman). Offices also opened in the Five Towns (opposite the Cedarhurst LIRR staton), in Philadelphia, Beverly Hills, Boca Raton, and Miami, in addition to several mobile voter centers.
Rep. Ritchie Torres of Riverdale greets a voter at the Cedarhurst LIRR station on Monday morning, as he stumped on bealf of Democratic congressional ccandidate Laura Gillen in the predominantly Orthodox Five Towns. Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star
Rep. Anthony D’Esposito interacts with voters at a campaign event in the Five Towns. The first-term Republican is being challenged by Democrat Laura Gillen, the former Hempstead Town supervisor he defeated two years ago. D’Esposito campaign
Torres touts Gillen GOP sends big guns
By Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star Pro-Israel Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres joined congressional candidate Laura Gillen as she stumped for votes at the Cedarhurst LIRR station during the morning rush on Monday. Torres, the gay Latino progressive from the Bronx who’s made a mark by speaking firmly and continuously in support of the Jewish state, was there to lend his credibility to Gillen’s pro-Israel bonafides as she seeks to unseat one-term Republican Rep. An-
thony D’Esposito in Nassau’s 4th CD. She lost to D’Esposito in 2022. Torres, who is often greeted like a rock star in his district’s heavily Jewish and liberal-leaning Riverdale neighborhood, was warmly welcomed by the mostly Orthodox commuters he and Gillen encountered in politically-red Cedarhurst. While everyone Gillen encountered greeted her politely, few promised their votes. One young man from See Dem ‘rock star’ on page 2
For The Jewish Star Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito was set to make a splash in Franklin Square on Wednesday, with a campaign appearance in support of his reelection by House Speaker Mike Johnson and former Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin. D’Esposito, a one-term incumbent in the Long Island’s 4th CD, is challenged by former Hempstead Town Supervisor Laura Gillen, who he defeated in 2022. It’s considered a swing district, having chosen President Biden
in 2020 and D’Esposito two years later. On Tuesday Zeldin joined D’Esposito in New Hyde Park to denounce open borders and sanctuary city policies and discuss how the “migrant crisis has profoundly and negatively impacted Nassau communities.” D’Esposito has spoken frequently about his support for Israel and for the election of former President Trump. “I don’t believe that Oct. 7 would have happened if we had stronger leadership,” he told The Jewish Star.
Time for Jewish anti-Zionists to get off the train JOnaThan S. TObin
JnS Editor-in-Chief
H
istorical memory lies at the heart of most Jewish holiday commemorations. During Sukkot, for example, Jews daily welcome ushpizin — “guests” or ancestors,
including the patriarchs of Judaism — into their sukkahs, which themselves are a remembrance of the post-Exodus wanderings of the Jewish people in the desert. It is just one example of how identification with the past is very much part of the present. It also emphasizes the collective fate of a people on their way to their homeland, where shelter would hopefully no longer be a function of impermanent huts open to the stars. On Sukkot, we not only invite guests into our
homes, it is a way we connect ourselves with that journey to Israel. But for a small though noisy minority of contemporary American Jews, the fate of other Jews and Israel is no longer a matter with which they concern themselves. As a consequence, it is now more imperative than ever for Jews to stop pretending that one can join those chanting “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada” — slogans that justify and encourage the genocide of the Jews of Is-
rael — and still be considered part of the Jewish community. Anti-Zionists may be considered Jewish according to halacha and by the New York Times, but in the post-Oct. 7 world, it should no longer be possible to pretend to speak for Jewish values or tradition, or to be part of the Jewish world, while opposing the right of the one Jewish state on the planet to exist and defend itself. See Jewish anti-Zionists on page 2