WASHINGTON — Is it weird that Kamala Harris chose Tim Walz to be her running mate instead of Josh Shapiro?
On Tuesday, as soon as the vice president announced that the Minnesota governor would be her running mate, critics of the choice began suggesting that she sidelined Pennsylvania’s governor because he is Jewish.
“Did Harris reject Shapiro just because progressives don’t like that he was Jewish?” tweeted Alan Dershowitz, the lawyer and gadfly who has said he is a Democrat but has frequently defended Donald Trump.
Maury Litwack, an Orthodox Union executive who focuses on education policy, tweeted, “Democrats: You can be excited about the Walz pick but also be sad that an outright antisemitic campaign was waged against Shapiro. Some soul searching is needed.”
Harris’s campaign pushed back immediately against claims that she caved to the progressive anti-Shapiro campaign that gathered steam over the past week. In a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, an aide to Harris rejected the accusation that Shapiro’s faith or stances on Israel was a consideration.
“Assertions that Vice President Harris did not select Gov. Shapiro based on his religion or views on Israel are absolutely ridiculous and offensive,” the aide said.
“Vice President Harris has an unwavering commitment to Israel’s security, as she reaffirmed last night following the meeting in the Situation Room,” where she and President Joe Biden joined a briefing about Iranian plans to attack Israel, the aide said. “She will always combat antisemitism whenever and wherever she sees it.”
In the midst of the conversation about the Walz pick, pundits — both Jewish and not — have been debating what role, if any, Shapiro’s Jewish identity played in Harris’ opting against him. Although all of the leading contenders were pro-Israel, a progressive effort sought to portray Shapiro as too supportive of the country and intolerant of its critics, dubbing him “Genocide Josh.”
Republicans have seized on the choice of Walz to paint Democrats as antisemitic. But while Jewish Democrats have expressed concern about antisemitism among Shapiro’s critics, they’re lining up behind Walz — and pushing back on the notion that antisemitism played any role in the decision.
Multiple commentators noted that Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish.
“Multiple things can be true: Some extreme voices targeted Shapiro. And Harris — who is married to a Jew and proudly highlights it — picked Walz because she felt he was best for the ticket,” tweeted Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, who had lacerated the anti-Shapiro campaign and whose group frequently allies with progressives.
And the Democratic Party’s official Jewish affiliate noted that Walz, like most Democratic officials, is a consistent supporter of Israel.
“The idea that [the vice president] didn’t choose Gov. Shapiro because of his position on Israel is ridiculous,” Jewish Democratic Council of America CEO Halie Soifer said in a tweet. “[Kamala Harris] and Gov. Walz share Gov. Shapiro’s strong support of Israel. This is the position of our party, and if anyone has any doubts, consult the Democratic Party Platform.”
Republicans said that the fact that Walz and Shapiro were on the same page on Israel is precisely why the pick reeks of antisemitism.
“Shapiro and Walz’s views on Israel aren’t that different,” tweeted Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton said in a tweet. “But Harris catered to her pro-Hamas, antisemitic base who opposed Shapiro because he’s Jewish.”
In addition to the Harris campaign’s statement, Shapiro himself has suggested that his views on Israel and his Jewish identity weren’t factors in the decision. In his statement following the selection, Shapiro suggested he was not quite ready to leave his job, in which he is wildly popular, after just 18 months. Politico also reported that he was ambivalent about ending his term early.
“Pennsylvanians elected me to a four-year term as their governor, and my work here is far from finished,” he said. He endorsed Walz and did not mention his Jewishness, though he quoted a rabbinic adage.
Alongside Israel policy, Shapiro’s critics made note of everything from his stance on school vouchers to his review of a 2011 case involving a woman’s death. And his opponents included fellow supporters of Israel: Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, one of the most outspoken pro-Israel Democrats in Washington, also sounded cautionary notes about his governor, saying that Shapiro was ego-driven.
Activists who had spearheaded the campaign against Shapiro celebrated the Walz pick as a victory and said they hoped it would be a harbinger of Harris ramping up her criticism of Israel.
“I think this is clearly a victory for those of us who made an issue of Shapiro’s Israel record. I am aware that Walz (and Harris) have far from perfect records themselves,” tweeted David Klion, the Jewish writer who has been one of the most prominent voices opposing Shapiro. “But I think we were within our rights to highlight Shapiro’s deep, lifelong commitment to Israel.”
Dear White Staffers, an anonymous Instagram account that helped launch a “No Genocide Josh” petition, posted a photo of Walz cradling a piglet and grinning.
“Celebrate today and keep pushing,” said the account run by a staffer for Pennsylvania Rep. Summer Lee, a strident Israel critic. “We can’t let up. We did this. It took all of us.”
Some progressives in Minnesota acknowledged that Walz’s record on Israel was not what they hoped in a vice presidential candidate but said they hoped he could change. “Governor Walz has demonstrated a remarkable ability to evolve as a public leader,” Elianne Farhat, executive director of Take Action Minnesota and senior advisor to Uncommitted, a movement to press the Democratic Party to shed its Israel support, said in a statement. “While his past positions as a Congressman may have conflicted with anti-war voters, we hope he can evolve on this issue as he has on others, such as shifting from an A to F rating from the NRA.”
Nathan Diament, the Washington director of the Orthodox Union, a group whose constituents lean Republican, said he was comfortable with the pick and with Harris’s considerations — but said he was eager for her campaign to weigh in.
“Extremists are already declaring victory and she needs to repudiate that,” he said. “Both because it is the right thing to do and there’s a political imperative to do it.” Diament pointed to the large Jewish population in Pennsylvania: A shift among Jewish voters could determine who gets the state’s electoral votes.
Van Jones, a CNN commentator who is close to Harris, likewise said the party needed to have an internal reckoning because of the intensity of the bigotry that arose during the anti-Shapiro campaign.
“You also have antisemitism that has gotten marbled into this party. You can be for the Palestinians without being an anti-Jewish bigot, but there are some anti Jewish figures out there, and there’s some disquiet now,” he said. “How much of what just happened is caving into some of these darker parts in the party? So that’s going to have to get worked out. It’s going to have to get talked through.”
Mark Mellman, the president of Democratic Majority for Israel, said it was absurd to claim Harris, with a Jewish husband, would be reluctant to consider a Jew as a running mate.
“Vice President Harris has picked Jewish men before for important positions in her life, so the suggestion that the selection is antisemitic is absurd on its face,” he said in an interview.
Like Jones, however, he said there needed to be a reckoning with the intensity of the opposition Shapiro faced. “There’s no question, however, there was a disturbing level of antisemitic invective during this process, and that should be condemned by everybody of good conscience.”
Still, prominent Democrats said the idea that Jews were not welcome in their ranks was absurd, given how many Jews hold senior roles in the party.
When conservative commentator Erick Erickson tweeted, “No Jews allowed at the top of the Democratic Party,” he received a response from Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, who is the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in history.
“News to me,” Schumer wrote.
