Don't Look Now But...

The Winds of War Are Blowing Up in Our Faces

Here’s the truth nobody wants to say out loud: the war most affecting American Jews and Christian Zionists isn’t only happening in the Middle East. It’s happening right here. In our city councils, our congressional primaries, our school boards, our neighborhoods. And it’s far more dangerous than we are willing to admit and respond accordingly.

Yes, we must continue to care and support Israel. Our hearts are in the right place. But we don’t live there. We live here — and here is where the seismic shift has shaken us while we’re all busy arguing with strangers on X, TikTok, Instagram, and Bluesky.

Last week, Kamala Harris privately called Zohran Mamdani — the most prominent Democratic Socialist in America — to talk about “the future of the party.” They’ve reportedly been in touch for months. She’s also been meeting with AOC and sitting down with organizers from the anti-Israel Uncommitted Movement as she positions herself for 2028.

Think about what that means. A former Vice President of the United States, the party’s most recent presidential nominee — a loser, as it goes, who can’t spit out a coherent sentence without a teleprompter and a prayer — is bending the knee. Sans Kente cloth this time. Not to the center of her party. Not to the Jewish Democrats who stood by her. To the DSA — the very people who withheld their votes in 2024 and are the reason she’s a “former” anything.

The timing tells the whole story. The call came from inside the house, two days after Mamdani-backed candidates swept congressional primaries in New York and unseated incumbent Democrats. She must have been seething, kicking herself, wondering when "brat" got reduced to "word salad."

Kamala isn’t calling Mamdani because she shares his worldview — though she MUST now, terms and conditions apply. She’s calling because he has something she needs: an army that shows up, and — I’d bet George Soros’ bottom dollar — the radical Islamists’ flavored cash fueling these radical campaigns.

That’s the part she — and we — need to be honest about. Inside today’s Democratic Party, whoever sucks up to the Islamists best wins the jackpot.

Let’s be honest: watch the sheer exuberance on the faces of the crowds surrounding these DSA candidates as they topple entrenched Democrats in primary after primary. It’s a masterclass — one we may never replicate unless we build something of our own: a sane independent political home where Never Trumpers, #WalkAway Democrats, and non-propagandized young people can come together and do what feels impossible. Whether you agree with them or not — and I don’t — they’ve done something the establishment forgot how to do somewhere between the third consultant retreat and the fourth strongly worded statement. They’ve energized the young electorate and of course those swaths of white women hell-bent on not feeling less than.

Mamdani and Co. understand the oldest rule in American politics: all politics is local.

Meanwhile, too many of us who oppose their agenda assume someone else will do the work. We share articles. We fire off posts. We kvetch in countless WhatsApp groups, declare we will end Jew-hatred and fight antisemitism — a pipe dream slipping through our fingers — and call it activism. It isn’t. It’s group therapy with worse results because quite frankly, I don’t remember being this depressed. And I’ve had some doozies.

Time and again I say, “Thank G-d my parents aren’t alive to see this.” And for that, every Jewish federation and old-guard organization should be ashamed of themselves. Another gala, another statement, another “task force.” Stop declaring so much. Pool the resources. Build a whole new strategy to fight the evil coming at us — daily.

Politics won’t be won on cable news or on social media led by influencers. (The term alone is enough to drive me to drink.) It’s going to have to be won on the ground.

So, what does “Fighting Back” look like?

Protect our own. Trained volunteer security and neighborhood watch groups at every shul, school, church, and JCC. Community Security Service and Secure Community Network (CSS and SCN) will train our people for free, in coordination with local police.

Vote in primaries — especially the boring ones. Mamdani’s slate didn’t win general elections against Republicans. They won low-turnout Democratic primaries, where a few thousand organized voters can topple an incumbent. If you sit out primaries, you’ve already surrendered the fight that matters.

Revitalize and reorganize your own communities. Synagogues, churches, day schools, community centers — these are ready-made organizing hubs. The DSA builds its machine out of chapter meetings and mutual-aid networks. We have institutions that are older, larger, and better funded. Use them for something other than kiddush.

Build the coalition. Jews and Christians in this country need to find partners, not purity tests. We don’t have to agree on theology, on domestic policy, or on everything about Israel to agree that antisemitism and Sharia-minded politics dressed up as progressivism cannot be allowed to capture America.

Persuade one voter at a time. Your neighbor. Your coworker. Your cousin who “doesn’t follow politics.” One real conversation moves more votes than a hundred posts.

The winds of war are blowing. Harris calling Mamdani tells you exactly where the Democrat Party is headed: toward whoever has the passion, the volunteers, and the primary voters — and the dark money to boot.

And don't think this ends with New York. A DSA candidate who called October 7 "inevitable" just knocked off a 15-term incumbent in Denver, and between now and September the same playbook rolls into Arizona, Missouri — where Cori Bush wants her old seat back — a Michigan Senate race that's already leading in the polls, Wisconsin's governor's mansion, Florida, and Massachusetts.

JTA has the full rundown of the races to watch this summer — read it here.

Until the people who oppose the DSA’s agenda match that level of commitment, enthusiasm, and grassroots organization, we should expect DSA-backed candidates to keep winning — and worse, watch too many of the old guard bend the knee to them, this time wearing keffiyehs.

We are sleepwalking into a darker tomorrow. Which brings me to one of my heroes... Cher, who said it best, “Snap out of it!”

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