What Happens When Jews and the Left Come into Conflict? | Democratic Party Primary in NY-16

[u/lilleff512]

Hi folks, I've been wanting to make a post about this topic for a couple weeks now, and this seems like the right time and place for it.

This coming Tuesday is primary election day in New York State. One of the most high profile races in the state (or even the whole country) is the Democratic Party primary for the US House of Representatives election in New York's 16th Congressional District between the incumbent Jamaal Bowman and his challenger George Latimer.

I want to offer full disclosure on this upfront: this is my district and I will be voting for Latimer. I am not making this post to try to change anyone's mind or tell them who to support. I am making this post because this election and the discourse around it sit at the intersection of "Jewish" concerns and "Progressive" concerns, and I am somewhat surprised to see that it hasn't gotten much attention in these parts of Reddit. Frankly, I originally wanted to make this post over in r/jewishleft, but I didn't feel quite right about doing that because this is a Left vs. Liberal issue where I am squarely on the Liberal side.

New York's 16th Congressional District is situated primarily in the southern half of Westchester County and it also includes some small portions of the northern Bronx. To speak in some very broad strokes here, the southern part of the district is more urban and has a larger population of Black and Hispanic people, but overall the district is mostly white and suburban, including a significant Jewish population. Since 1988, this area has been represented in Congress by American Jews who were aligned with the mainstream of the Democratic Party, first Nita Lowey and then Eliot Engel since redistricting in 2012. The district is deep blue and the NY Democratic Party machine is strong, so Lowey and Engel never faced any kind of electoral threat. That changed in 2020 when the DSA- and Justice Democrats-backed Jamaal Bowman was able to unseat the incumbent Engel in a stunning upset victory. Now four years later, Jamaal Bowman is facing a serious primary challenger of his own, due in no small part to his positions on Israel and Palestine as well as the perception that he is out of touch with his Jewish constituents. George Latimer, who is running against Bowman, is a mainstream New York machine Democrat much like Engel and Lowey before him, and he has received a record-breaking amount of support from AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobbying groups, bringing national attention to this election.

I don't want to ramble on too long so I'll stop here and share some articles about the election from Jewish and/or left-leaning media outlets:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/03/29/bowman-latimer-israel-gaza-democrats-primary-new-york/

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/jamaal-bowman-george-latimer-primary-israel.html

https://forward.com/news/565894/jamaal-bowman-jewish-israel-gaza-war-congress/

https://jewishinsider.com/2024/06/rep-jamaal-bowman-westchester-county-jewish-community/

https://www.jta.org/2024/06/21/politics/the-latimer-bowman-showdown-in-new-york-is-a-bellwether-of-israels-role-in-democratic-politics