The Mirage of "Momala"

5 Av 5784 (Aug 9, 2024)

The stakes for this upcoming 2024 election feel more dramatic, and probably are more dramatic than any other election in my lifetime. The choice stands clear at this point between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. The American Jewish population is facing this choice at a political crossroad. The reality of October 7th and the reactions to it from the societies around us have rocked many of our traditional political sensibilities. Jews on the left in particular have been blindsided by the hostility they’ve faced from their own political home and a collection of polls seem to suggest that the Jewish vote may sway to the right this election season. According to some very recent polling, nearly 51% of New York Jewry plan to vote for the GOP candidate, a proportion not seen in decades of presidential elections. This trend is cautiously welcome however as political activists and influencer circles in our own community are now participants in astroturfing Kamala Harris’ sudden popularity. Selling Kamala as “momala” (a yiddish inspired title the Harris family seems to have given Kamala) to Jewish voters feels like forced exercise that gets harder as time goes on. Still yet, we should talk about it.

Doug Emhoff and Kamala Harris at a Hanukkah celebration at the White House

Let’s address a funny point circulating in Jewish discourse. No one cares that Doug Emhoff was born Jewish, and neither does he apparently. This seems to be the first and primary argument Jewish defenders of the incumbent Democrat make when asked about her. Leaving aside the fact that Emhoff isn't a legislator or an elected official, being ethnically jewish shouldn’t be considered an inherent virtue in our political calculus. The stench of identity politics and political hypocrisy reeks here a bit. I’d like to be clear, talking about Jews in government isn’t distasteful and it’s part of our kiddish gossip at shul. However, promoting a politician primarily because their spouse is Jewish is disingenuous. For those on the left raving over Kamala being married to a Jew, I’m sure the fact that Donald Trump has an observant Jewish daughter and multiple grandchildren would garner little sympathy from them. Though to be fair to Ivanka and Jared, the levels of Jewishness at play here are resoundingly different.

For all the jubilant celebration of Emhoff as the “first jewish spouse to a President or Vice President”, he’s rather separated from the Jewish community and it’s seemingly by choice. In his 3 marriages, he’s never married a Jewish woman. His own children refuse to associate with Judaism as explained in a Forward article about his daughter. Doug himself was “celebrating Judaism for a few years … but out of an independent search,” and for Ella “it’s not something she grew up with” and explicitly chooses not to identify as Jewish according to her PR team. Moreover, since the war broke out in October, Kamala’s step-daughter decided to use her social media platform to raise money for UNRWA, even after multiple employees were caught participating in the events of October 7 and being members of Hamas. As far as Jewish representation in government goes, this isn’t something we should be so keen to highlight, much less celebrate. Actually, an accurate representation of the type of Jewish representation we’ve had is summed up rather well in this Hanukkah video put out by Harris and Emhoff 3 years ago:

Apparently Hanukkah is about “light”, “Tikkun Alom” (momala could at least try to pronounce it correctly) and fighting for the “dignity of all people”. This is a fantastic bastardization of one of my favorite holidays. Gone are the central themes of defeating oppression, survival, and dedication to Hashem. Hanukkah is now a universalist celebration of “spreading joy all around the world”. It’s the kumbaya-fication of one of the most particular (and Zionist!) Jewish holidays and it makes me want to vomit in my mouth. None of this is kosher and I’m not sure why any Jew would be looking at this display with glee. Unfortunately, our problems only begin here.

The most worrying aspect of a Harris administration is the continuation of a pro-Iranian foreign policy. Obama’s presidency began a new legacy for America’s involvement in the Middle East. Speaking from Cairo in 2009, Obama outlined that outreach and building bridges with the Islamic world would now take precedent. This included a new robust push to negotiate with the Iranian regime. Previous sanctions were lifted, billions of dollars delivered, and terror proxies of the regime had their collars loosened to purchase this new relationship. In fact, as reported in Haartez, the Obama administration actively blocked a DEA/CIA investigation (dubbed Project Cassandra) into Hezbollah’s narco-terrorism infrastructure to save the Iran deal. The eventual deal came very much to the disappointment of Benjamin Netanyahu (and the larger Israeli population) and many American Jewish democrats. The same attitude continued through the Biden/Harris presidency which undid the historic momentum of the Abraham Accords. Palestinian grievances were once again re-centered as the main hurdle to unlocking peace in the Middle East, the Houthis were de-listed as a terror group, and Iran enjoyed the lifting of previous constricting sanctions placed by the Trump presidency. Kamala Harris would undoubtedly pursue the same framework in her approach to the Middle East which will only lead to further belligerency against Israel.

There’s a lot one could say about how the Biden administration has both helped and hampered Israel’s current war in Gaza and the enveloping concerns in Lebanon and Yemen, but I think it’s most sensible to make that full account after the war is finished. Certainly Kamala’s comments immediately after meeting with Bibi Netanyahu a couple weeks ago aren’t thrilling. “I will not be silent” she said of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. One wonders what she would say in retrospect of the American effort to destroy ISIS which leveled Mosul and killed tens of thousands of civilians. Still now, to this day, an arms shipment meant to help resupply Israel sits in limbo from Biden’s “red line” warning to prevent an IDF entrance into Rafah.

As it is with foreign affairs, the ripple effects bleed into American domestic life. University campuses became enflamed on October 8th. Faculty and students across the country roared in celebration over the massacres they touted as “liberation”. Those celebrations quickly turned to public protests aimed to promote Israeli boycotts and a ceasefire in Gaza. What’s notable is observing how different states handled the rise student encampments. Consider in contrast how red and blue states approached the same problem. In Florida, Governor DeSantis came out with some of the strongest rhetoric and action against pro-hamas mobs:

"When you're talking about from the river to the sea, you're essentially saying you want a second holocaust," said DeSantis. "That is what Hamas stands for... so when you see that that is not what we want to be producing in terms of leaders around this country."

Students for Justice in Palestine clubs were immediately disbanded by state order and police were quick to arrest and clear any encampments. The same pattern held in fraternal republicans stronghold states like Texas and Arizona.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis denouncing encampments at UF: “We don’t do that here”

New York however was far more tolerant of the rampant violence and rhetoric that sprung from its campuses. Columbia University, a bastion of progressive student action, became a flashpoint. Students took over the campus and turned it into, excuse my French, a shitshow. Members of the janitorial staff were taken hostage at one point, Jewish students were subjected to regular harassment and violence, and Israeli faculty were isolated and barred from campus. Columbia cancelled its graduation ceremony and major Jewish donors to the university pulled their contributions and positions on the board. Claudine Gay, serial plagiarist and former president of Harvard, characterized progressive tolerance best when she testified that calling for a Jewish genocide isn’t always bullying and harassment and that “context” is crucial. It’s a truly funny test of how shallow progressives are. Depending on the “political context”, words can either be understood as violence or just sharp inquisition. At any given college orientation today freshman students can expect to be lectured about how misgendering their peers is a punishable offense however, imitating literal terrorism rhetoric word for word is simply an outcry of the oppressed and an acceptable display at Columbia University.

Tents from the Columbia University encampment espousing rhetoric from ‘Lion’s Den’, a Palestinian terrorist organization that mainly operates in Judea Samaria.

Let’s get something clear, Harris is one of the most left wing politicians in government. In the 2017-2019 Congressional cohort, she was rated the fourth most liberal senator and in the proceeding Congress, from 2019 to 2021, she was rated second most liberal, just behind Bernie Sanders. We’re not talking about a moderate Clinton-Era democrat here. We’re talking about someone who has a legislative bent on the level of the Squad but is somehow able to present themselves as a moderate. Some activists in our own community see her politics as benefit for the pro-israel community somehow.

Hen Mazzig, cofounder of the Tel Aviv Institute and Israeli activist, would like his followers to believe that Harris is a pro-israel candidate that is somehow going to be able to “change the hearts” of those who have explicit pro-Hamas sympathies. Ignoring the fact that these people have spent the better of the last year labeling the President “genocide Joe”, there’s little to suggest that a Harris campaign would do any better. Rather, empowering Kamala Harris would in all likelihood give an even larger voice and sense of control to the progressive contingent that sees Israel as an oppressive white supremacist state. The Tel Aviv Institute, Hen’s organization, puts out a “Jewish 100” list naming the most influential jewish voices. The tzaddik himself, Douglas Emhoff makes the list looking very very shtark. Give me a break please. This man has influenced nothing on or for the Jewish community.

Emhoff’s Jewish 100 blurb from the Tel Aviv Institute

Overall Hen, no thanks. Given the state of world, the challenges Israel is currently facing, the rampant jew hatred (that’s mostly coming from a left wing and Islamist faction) in our streets protesting our shuls, I’d like to have a “cheerleader for Israel”, we know who that is. I’d like to see Jewish representation in government that isn’t shallow and conceded in it’s celebration of Jewish holidays. I’d like to see Jewish representation that doesn’t conflate jewish values with hardened political progressive values. At the very least, please don’t try to sell us the mirage of momala. It’s quite treif.

- Lawless Levite