As Anthony Weiner eyes a political comeback, can he count on Jewish voters?
The former Jewish congressman is considering a run for a New York City Council seat in Manhattan
Former Rep. Anthony Weiner on Sept. 25, 2017. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh December 11, 2024
Anthony Weiner, the once-prominent Jewish Democrat from New York who saw his political career unravel amid sexting scandals and a two-year jail sentence for inappropriate online contact with a minor, has taken a formal step toward a potential political comeback. Over the weekend, Weiner registered as a candidate in next year’s Democratic primaries for a New York City Council seat representing lower Manhattan.
Now hosting a weekly radio show, Weiner said he is still weighing whether to fully re-enter the political arena. However, he noted that registering as a candidate was a necessary step to form an exploratory committee and take part in an endorsement forum at a local Democratic club on Thursday. Weiner added that he plans to publish a booklet “in the coming days” that will detail 25 ideas on issues of importance.
Weiner’s potential return inevitably raised questions about his tarnished legacy during a political season when public redemption stories are taking center stage.
Weiner’s complex relationship with the Jewish community
During his 12 years in Congress and two unsuccessful bids for mayor, Weiner established himself as a staunch advocate for Israel and a dedicated supporter of issues central to the Jewish community.
I covered Weiner’s failed mayoral campaign in 2013, which began with him as a frontrunner but ended in a fifth-place finish in the Democratic primary after a sexting scandal resurfaced. I broke the story of Weiner lashing out at a patron at a bakery in the Orthodox-populated Borough Park neighborhood in Brooklyn. During that viral incident, Weiner claimed he “fought very hard for this community and delivered more than you will ever in your entire life.”
In a speech to Jewish donors at the time, Weiner portrayed himself as a landsman — a fellow countryman — deeply attuned to Jewish ideals and values.
In 2008, during the Russia-Georgia conflict, Weiner played a key role in supporting Georgian Jews concerned about the threat of Russian aggression. He also helped with homeland security grants for synagogues and Jewish institutions.
Weiner maintained a stronger connection with the Orthodox Jewish communities in Queens and Brooklyn, a voter base with far less presence in Manhattan, than he did with Jews in New York City. According to recent data from the UJA-Federation of New York, only 3% of Jewish adults in Lower Manhattan East — part of the City Council’s 2nd District — identify as Orthodox.
The former Democratic congressman was the first elected official to call for the release of Jonathan Pollard, an American convicted of spying for Israel, and urged fairness in the case of Shalom Rubashkin, a prominent member of the Chabad community and the former head of America’s largest kosher meat processing plant in Iowa, who was convicted in 2009 on fraud charges. Pollard was released in 2015 and moved to Israel a few years later. Rubsahkin’s sentence was commuted by Donald Trump in 2017. Weiner also worked on issues sensitive to the Haredi community like the preservation of Jewish gravesites in Ukraine and Metzitzah B’peh, a controversial circumcision ritual.
But Weiner faced criticism and intense debates over his moral conduct and his interfaith marriage to Huma Abedin, a Muslim-American who was raised in Saudi Arabia. In his 2013 bakery confrontation, the Orthodox heckler, Saul Kessler, called Weiner a “disgusting” individual and a “scumbag” and berated him for being “married to an Arab.” Weiner and Abedin are still finalizing their divorce. She is now engaged to Alex Soros, the son of Jewish billionaire George Soros.
Weiner also came under fire for comparing the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy to Nazi-era Germany in 1938. He later clarified his remarks.
Weiner’s hawkish views on Israel
Weiner consistently positioned himself as a staunch defender of Israel, espousing views that align with the ruling Likud Party’s hawkish policies on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2013, Weiner doubled down on his claim that the West Bank was not occupied. “The status of that area is left to be decided by the people who’re there,” he said, and added, “There are disagreements about what constitutes the West Bank.”
Marching in the annual Israeli Day Parade in Manhattan in 2013, Weiner said, “When people describe me as being hawkish on Israel, I don’t disagree. I mean, I think there should be zero space between the Israeli imperatives in that part of the world and what U.S. policy should be.”
Weiner called Israel “a democracy in an oasis of terrorist states and terrorist organizations” and described the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as “unwise.”
In her memoir published in 2021, Abedin wrote that she and Weiner argued over Israel policy on their first date. “He was an unabashed defender of Israel’s right to exist as a democracy, and I shot back that it couldn’t be at the expense of the Palestinian people’s right to basic humanity,” Abedin recalled.
Weiner’s stance on the conflict could potentially be appealing to an electorate with a more emotional attachment to Israel. Post-election polls showed growing support for President-elect Donald Trump and Republican candidates in New York’s key swing districts with sizable Jewish populations.
Since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Weiner has spoken out in defense of the war in Gaza and was critical of pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses and throughout the city in monologues on his Saturday radio show, The Middle with Anthony Weiner. On the first anniversary of Oct. 7, Weiner said that “it is completely compatible to say Israel’s got to do everything that they need to do” to restore safety and security on its borders “but also to have concern for Palestinians who are in the innocent crossfire here.”
In an interview with Jewish Insider, an online publication, Weiner criticized Democrats for failing to adequately oppose the protests across the city, including the incident outside Cooper Union in Manhattan last year. “The line that’s getting crossed increasingly in a startling amount that I don’t think many of our public figures are acknowledging, is when that’s tipping into unchecked antisemitism,” he said.
