‘Antisemitism is on the ballot’ in St. Louis. What does that mean?
Campaign focused on Rep. Cori Bush’s St. Louis district echoes one that helped oust Jamaal Bowman in New York
U.S. Rep. Cori Bush speaks at her campaign headquarters in St. Louis two years ago. A new nonprofit is seeking to turnout Jewish voters in her district by telling them that “antisemitism is on the ballot,” which critics see as a thinly veiled reference to Bush, a harsh critic of Israel. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
By Arno Rosenfeld August 1, 2024
Echoing the campaign that ousted Rep. Jamaal Bowman in New York’s Democratic primary last month, a new group is trying to turn out Jewish voters in a St. Louis district represented by one of the harshest critics of Israel in Congress by saying “antisemitism is on the ballot” when they go to the polls next week.
The group, St. Louis Votes, won’t say exactly what that means, and its tax-exempt status prohibits it from explicitly campaigning for or against a specific candidate. But while its name suggests a citywide push, the campaign is only targeting voters in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, where Rep. Cori Bush, an outspoken progressive, is being challenged by Wesley Bell, the county prosecutor, in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
The nonprofit, which was created a few weeks ago, includes veterans of a similar effort to boost Jewish turnout in Westchester County as part of a broader campaign to oust Bowman. AIPAC has provided most of the funding for Bell’s campaign and was also the main backer of Bowman’s challenger, though the group has not funded the independent voter turnout projects.
The group’s leaders seem to be tiptoeing around the point of its work both because it is registered as a tax-exempt 501(c)(3), barred by federal law from endorsing a particular candidate, and because it wants to draw support from leaders who might not participate if it was more explicit about defeating Bush.
“The reason we’re functioning as a 501(c)(3) is so we can partner with synagogues, institutions, JCRCs, and Jewish community organizations without fear of partisanship,” Jessica Haller, who ran a similar effort in Westchester County this spring, told a group of St. Louis Votes volunteers on a private Zoom call earlier this month.
Many St. Louis Jewish leaders have been openly campaigning for Bell — or against Bush — just as they did against Bowman or for his opponent, George Latimer, the Westchester County executive, in what became the most expensive House primary campaign in American history. It is a sign of the intensifying cleavage within the Democratic Party over Israel, and growing animosity in the Jewish establishment toward Israel’s critics in Congress since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack.
Nearly three dozen rabbis wrote an open letter endorsing Bell in June, criticizing Bush for “her long track record of anti-Israel votes.” It followed a similar letter last fall amid a general frustration that Bush, a Black former nurse and pastor, was not willing to meet with Jewish groups or sit for an interview with the local Jewish newspaper.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which spent more than $14 million to defeat Bowman, has poured at least $10 million into the Bush-Bell primary so far. AIPAC’s super PAC has spent $7.16 million supporting Bell and funneled another $2.9 million directly to his campaign, accounting for nearly two-thirds of the challenger’s funding and providing him with a significant advantage over Bush in the final days before the election.
A poll published this week by a group seeking to unseat Bush suggested Bell had edged ahead of the incumbent, with 48% of the vote to her 42%; 8% of the district remained undecided.
Some voters fear ‘Jewish lives don’t matter’
Like Bowman, Bush is a member of the so-called Squad of Democratic House members who have been strident opponents of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza. Though she has a close relationship with Jewish activists who share her critique of Israel, much of the organized Jewish community in St. Louis has been at odds with Bush for years.
Bell, who is also Black, has a robust Jewish outreach program that has drawn volunteers moved by his vocal support of Israel after Oct. 7 and a belief that Bush was promoting antisemitism. St. Louis Votes is tapping into a similar sentiment around antisemitism without openly using Bell’s name, which could risk its tax-exempt status.
“People are very worried, people are feeling threatened, people are feeling like people don’t care about Jewish lives — that Jewish lives don’t matter,” Benjamin Singer, chief executive of St. Louis Votes, said in an interview, speaking generally and not about Bush specifically. “We tapped into a strong concern and passion of the community to have our voice heard.”
St. Louis Votes has received the backing of both the local Jewish federation and community relations council, which posted on Facebook to help recruit people to work for the group for $20 an hour. Jewish groups often participate in get-out-the-vote campaigns, but it is unusual for these efforts to focus on a specific primary in a single district.
Some participants in St. Louis Votes have also made it clear that they view the project as a way to help Bell.
“If you are already working directly with the Bell campaign, keep it up,” Steve Epstein, another veteran of the Westchester campaign, wrote in a series of Facebook posts seeking to recruit St. Louis volunteers. “We do not mean to compete with them, just to supplement them in the Jewish community.”
Thin line between partisan, non-partisan organizations
The Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis, a nonpartisan advocacy group, has urged members to sign up to volunteer with St. Louis Together, a group closely affiliated with St. Louis Votes that is specifically encouraging Jews to vote in next week’s Democratic primary.
A phone-banking script provided to St. Louis Votes volunteers, for example, instructs them to tell voters that they are calling from St. Louis Together and that “antisemitism is on the ballot this year in the Democratic congressional primary and our community needs everyone to vote.”
Rabbi Scott Shafrin, director of the JCRC, said that he was not familiar with St. Louis Together and that any promotion of its events was inadvertent. Singer, who runs both St. Louis Votes and St. Louis Together, emphasized that neither group tells voters which candidate to support.
Nonprofits that can accept tax-deductible donations, classified as 501(c)(3)s by the Internal Revenue Service, are prohibited from engaging in voter education that references specific parties or candidates. That’s why some create legally distinct affiliates in order to endorse candidates and campaign on their behalf.
For example, IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, two left-wing pro-Palestinian organizations, each have technically separate nonprofits, IfNotNow Movement and Jewish Voice for Peace Action, that are mobilizing volunteers as part of a campaign called Jews for Cori.
While groups like St. Louis Votes are barred from backing specific candidates, they are allowed to reference topics like antisemitism while doing nonpartisan voter turnout work. The Reform movement, for example, is currently running a campaign warning against “racism and antisemitism” and threats to “the freedom vote, reproductive freedom, and more.”
Singer said he was aware that St. Louis Votes could be seen as an attempt to help Bell defeat Bush, but insisted that is not so.
“We have been very careful — because of that perception — to avoid anything that would imply we support or oppose any candidate,” he said. “Our victory here is not a victory for any candidate; it is achieving record Jewish voter turnout.”
In a video of the Zoom call with volunteers — which was billed as private but ended up posted on the group’s website — Singer said the reason St. Louis Votes was only contacting voters in Bush’s district was “due to limited time and budget” and because it is “where a lot of the Jewish community lives.”
The district includes all of the city of St. Louis and several suburbs. According to a 2014 study by the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, it is home to around 25,000 Jews, 40% of those in the region. That would make Jews approximately 3% of the congressional district’s total population, though Singer estimated they could represent as many as 20% of primary voters. Shafrin, with the community relations council, said that the concentration of Jewish voters in the district where Bell is trying to unseat Bush made it a natural target for organizations looking to reach Jews, and noted that the JCRC is also supporting other get-out-the-vote efforts during both the primary and general elections.
In the campaign against Bowman, a group called Teach Coalition, which is affiliated with the Orthodox Union, said it turned out nearly 15,000 Jewish voters, or 24% of the votes cast in the district, as part of an effort called Westchester Unites.
A spokesperson said Teach Coalition was not involved with St. Louis Votes.
Critics see attempt to ‘sow fear’ among Jews
A group called Progressive Jews of St. Louis, which is helping run the Jews for Cori campaign, criticized St. Louis Votes in social media posts Tuesday, arguing that “by focusing on increasing Jewish voter turnout in a majority Black district” the campaign “could dilute the power of the Black vote.”
Hannah Rosenthal, a co-founder of Progressive Jews, said that the St. Louis Votes strategy seemed cynical.
“They’re using this framing of ‘antisemitism is on the ballot’ to sow fear in the Jewish community,” she said, “and spread disinformation in an effort to get more Jewish voters to the polls in support of Wesley Bell.”
Haller, the Westchester campaigner who is helping St. Louis Votes, said that warnings of antisemitism had been the message most likely to motivate voters in the race between Bowman and Latimer, who ultimately won by nearly 20 points in the June primary.
In the call with volunteers, Haller showed slides saying that 77% of Jewish voters in Bowman’s district said antisemitism made them more likely to vote and 92% said they were moved by the suggestion that elected officials are “normalizing antisemitism.”
Rosenthal said she is also worried about antisemitism but believed that Bell was more responsible for fueling it. She pointed to Bell dropping his bid to unseat Missouri’s Republican senator, Josh Hawley, a Christian nationalist who has been accused of antisemitism, and instead accept money from conservative donors to challenge Bush.
Unlike Rep. Ilhan Omar, a fellow Squad member from Minnesota, Bush has not been criticized for invoking antisemitic tropes. Instead, the concern has focused on her policy positions toward Israel.
Bush rose to prominence during the 2014 protests against the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, where the struggle against police brutality was linked to the Middle East with slogans like “Ferguson is Palestine.” During her first campaign for Congress in 2020, Bush supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, though she has since backed off that stance.
She has, however, been a consistent antagonist toward Israel during her time in Congress. Bush mourned both Israeli and Palestinian deaths and called for a ceasefire on Oct. 7, and within weeks accused Israel of an “ethnic cleansing campaign.”
A series of prominent St. Louis Jewish leaders and organizations responded with an open letter that said Bush’s comments were “fanning the flames of antisemitism.”
But Singer — who said he no longer wears a yarmulke in public out of fear — said that St. Louis Votes’ focus on “antisemitism” was not a direct reference to either Bush or criticism of Israel.
“Antisemitism — almost any Jew would agree — is far bigger and more transcendental than the modern political state of Israel,” he said. “The Jewish community is fighting simply for the right to survive.”
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