Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

A progressive Jewish group is pressuring Democrats to reject AIPAC endorsements

IfNotNow has targeted, among others, Jewish New York Reps. Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman

Activists affiliated with IfNotNow, a group opposed to the Israeli occupation, launched a campaign Tuesday to pressure Democratic New York members of Congress to refuse endorsements and financial contributions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

The effort is part of a national “Reject AIPAC” campaign IfNotNow launched last month to target federal lawmakers residing in states with large Jewish populations. 

The focus on AIPAC, for many years the undisputed leader in pro-Israel advocacy in the U.S., may resonate as the landscape of Jewish political advocacy shifts. American Jews, generally repulsed by anti-democratic movements in the U.S. and Israel, where a hard right government is pursuing a package of reforms that will undermine the balance of power there, want pro-Israel groups to take a strong pro-democracy stance. 

The 40 activists spearheading the campaign to reject AIPAC said they want to show that the lobby group misrepresents American Jews. IfNotNow and other AIPAC critics fault its endorsement strategy, tepid criticism of Israel’s government and failure to call out Israel for its treatment of Palestinians.

On the target list in New York are Jerry Nadler, the dean of the informal congressional Jewish caucus; and Dan Goldman, a freshman Democrat who represents Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. Both congressmen were backed by AIPAC. But while Nadler was also endorsed by the liberal pro-peace J Street, Goldman benefited from a large AIPAC contribution — $350,000 — that went to a local super PAC opposing one of his progressive competitors in the race. Goldman is also closely aligned with AIPAC. He met his wife, Corinne Levy Goldman, at an AIPAC young leadership event in 2012.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, during Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s address to a joint session of Congress on July 19, 2023. Photo by Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

AIPAC spokesperson Marshal Wittmann said the group “will not be deterred by fringe, anti-Israel groups” in their effort to support “Democrats and Republicans who understand the importance of strengthening the relationship between the United States and Israel.” Wittman added that AIPAC expects to “fully engage in the democratic process” in future elections. 

Endorsements aplenty

For the first time since its founding in 1963 to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance, AIPAC in 2022 began to endorse congressional candidates, releasing a list of 365 mostly Democratic and Republican incumbents. The move came in for fierce criticism because the list included more than 100 Republicans who refused to certify the 2020 presidential election.

AIPAC also faced backlash for helping to fund primary candidates it deemed more staunchly pro-Israel than their Democratic rivals — even when those rivals were incumbents. Its affiliated United Democracy Project super PAC spent $28 million in highly competitive Democratic primaries, including $1 million in the general election against Rep.-elect Summer Lee, a progressive Democrat from Pennsylvania. 

The endorsements marked a dramatic change from years past, in which AIPAC would privately request position papers on Israel from first-time candidates and scrutinize the voting records of incumbents. It would then recommend candidates deemed sufficiently supportive of Israel to its financial backers, according to insiders familiar with the process.

Last year, however, candidates might have had no contact at all with AIPAC before they received an endorsement, which, the lobbying group said, was based exclusively on their positions and actions concerning the U.S.-Israel relationship. Though some Democratic House members were surprised by AIPAC’s endorsement, none publicly disavowed it. 

AIPAC trivia

In the backyard of a Manhattan Chinatown bar Tuesday, as the 40 IfNotNow activists discussed strategy for their anti-AIPAC campaign, news came of an indictment in the more than yearlong investigation of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The development, the activists noted, aligned with their cause, in that AIPAC had endorsed 109 Republicans who voted to overturn the election.

IfNotNow activists on Aug. 1, 2023. Photo by Jacob Kornbluh

“AIPAC is directly supporting the extremists working to dismantle our democracy and disenfranchise the most marginalized people in this country,” said Matan Arad-Neeman, IfNotNow’s communications director. 

Michaela Davenport, a member of IfNotNow’s NYC chapter, said she realized AIPAC was “promoting a fictional narrative about Israel” when she attended an AIPAC progressive students retreat during her college years. “AIPAC is willing to jeopardize our democracy to sustain that false narrative,” she said, explaining why she had volunteered for the campaign.

At the two-hour event, attendees also played an AIPAC trivia game. They flubbed several questions, including ones on the year the pro-Israel group was founded and what the AIPAC abbreviation stands for.

Eva Borgwardt, IfNotNow’s political director, expressed her appreciation for the turnout at the event. She said an increasing number of American Jews are now coming to realize AIPAC’s alignment “with racists and antisemites.”

IfNotNow’s campaign is largely focused on New York, Philadelphia, Massachusetts, Chicago, California and Washington, D.C., where AIPAC and IfNotNow are based. But it has also encouraged people across the nation to push their representatives to reject an AIPAC endorsement.

“It should be an easy choice,” Borgwardt said.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.