Former Sanders Aide Warns Democrats Face ‘Crisis Moment’ Over Pro-Israel Jews

WASHINGTON D.C (VINnews) — A former Jewish outreach director for Sen. Bernie Sanders said Tuesday that Democrats have reached “a crisis moment,” arguing that parts of the party’s progressive wing now impose an ideological test on Jewish Americans: support for Israel is no longer welcome.

Joel Rubin, a longtime progressive activist and former deputy assistant secretary of state, told Jewish News Syndicate that Jews are being told they must abandon support for Israel to remain fully accepted in Democratic politics.

“Oppose Israel, and you’re in. Support Israel, and you’re out,” Rubin said.

“They are being told that to be a full participant as a Jewish person, you must drop your support for Israel,” he said. “They are being told that Israel is a foreign country, and that Jews should just drop it if they want to still participate.”

“That is inherently antisemitic,” Rubin said.

Rubin served as Sanders’ Jewish outreach director during the Vermont independent’s 2020 presidential campaign. He later worked with Jewish communal organizations and has written that the environment around Sanders has grown increasingly hostile to Jews who support Israel.

He said Sanders and his allies have “shaped a political environment that’s deeply hostile to any Jewish person who cares about the State of Israel.”

“He’s going where the wind blows, and the progressive base wants to go a certain direction,” Rubin told JNS. “And he is the leader of that community.”

In a recent essay, Rubin wrote that anti-Zionism is no longer one position among many in the Democratic Party.

“It has increasingly become the boundary marker separating the politically acceptable Jew from the politically suspect one,” he wrote.

He argued the effort is intentional.

“It’s very important to ensure that people are aware that this is a deliberate attempt to politically marginalize Jews,” Rubin said. “It is a deliberate attempt to break apart the American relationship with Israel. It’s a deliberate attempt to do that by trying to terminate Jewish advocacy for Israel within the Democratic Party.”

“The way it gets that done is by trying to intimidate Jews in the Democratic Party to be silent and afraid,” he said.

Rubin said the pressure intensified after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, when criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and support for a two-state solution were no longer enough for some activists.

He compared the demand that Jews cut ties with Israel to a standard applied to no other ethnic group.

“Then tell Armenians they can’t care about Armenia, tell Turks they can’t care about Turkey,” he said. “Every ethnic group in America has affinities to homeland types, and they just are singling out Jews for a particular offense.”

His warning to the party was blunt: “No political party is healthy when it kicks out the Jews.”

JNS sought comment from Sanders. There was no immediate public response.

Rubin said he spoke out because of his record inside progressive Democratic politics.

“I needed to speak out, because if someone like me doesn’t speak out, who will?” he said. “We need to turn this around for the sake of the Jewish community, for the sake of the Democratic Party.”