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I Want a Democratic Party that Believes Jewish Lives Matter
(Wall Street Journal) Jennifer Bayer Michaels - I was an intern in the Clinton White House. I went on to work in senior positions for the campaigns of Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy, and for President Joe Biden's Super PAC. I helped elect Democrats up and down the ballot, staunchly defending them in public and in private. I attended almost every Democratic National Convention, as a professional and as part of a community of friends who were my political family. In 2020 I proudly served as a delegate for Joe Biden. For decades I championed women's rights, reproductive choice, civil rights and equality. As a Jew, I was especially drawn to the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., for whom Zionism - the Jewish longing for self-determination - was inseparable from the universal struggle for human rights. That was the Democratic Party I believed in. Then came Oct. 7, 2023, and the massacre of Israelis and Jewish Americans. It forced me to confront the reality that members of my own party responded not with grief or solidarity with the victims but with protests that framed the attack as "resistance." It horrified me. There was no denying that under the banner of a "big tent," Democratic leaders were making room to shelter and legitimize extremism. Voices once on the margin suddenly dominated the narrative. Then came the breaking point. The term "genocide" - reserved for the worst crimes in human history, like the Holocaust - was weaponized as a political slogan and hurled at Israel and Jews with ease. It was suddenly applied to a nation defending itself after an actual genocidal terrorist organization slaughtered families in their beds and hunted down and killed teenagers at a music festival. Genocide is a ruse, a malicious inversion of reality. Yet few Democrats pushed back. Many embraced it. In November, 20 Democratic lawmakers introduced a measure in the House accusing Israel of genocide. The North Carolina Democratic Party and the Young Democrats of America adopted official positions accusing Israel of genocide. What we're seeing among Democrats is a broad, networked, antisemitic movement with cultural power and political influence. The Democratic Party has allowed and lately encouraged the normalization of rhetoric that dehumanizes Jews and distorts history. It has become acceptable to be an antisemite who hates Israel. I cannot be affiliated with a party that espouses that message. Democratic leaders must speak clearly: Terrorism is terrorism, Jewish lives matter, moral consistency matters. Only after my community's safety is secure, and the party recognizes it not as a favor but as a fundamental principle, will I consider coming home.