It might have been the last place you’d expect anger to erupt against the Bernie Sanders campaign.
But at a Jews for Bernie brunch in New York City, frustration seemed to boil over when some silver-haired Jewish supporters began deriding what they described as the campaign’s lackluster response to perceived missteps by the Democratic presidential candidate on Jewish issues — most recently, the previous week’s interview with the Daily News in which Sanders grossly overestimated the number of Palestinian civilians killed in the 2014 Gaza conflict.
That interview and other Sanders blunders on issues of Jewish concern, several at the event complained, are making it more difficult to make the case to fellow Jews to support the Vermont senator in his bid for the White House.
“I’m very frustrated with the campaign,” said Lisa Harbatkin, 72. “Given where today’s left is on Israel, I felt Bernie was too fuzzy on the Palestinians, but good enough. But as the campaign progressed, I became more upset.
“Sanders has been tone deaf on Gaza. And the interview with the Daily News was appalling,” she said. “He doesn’t go to the AIPAC conference, but he’s going to the Vatican? I mean, come on!”
Sanders passed up an invitation to address last month’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee annual policy conference in Washington, D.C., and his campaign said last week that he’ll be going to Rome to speak at the Vatican. The campaign later clarified that there were no plans for a meeting with the pope.
In the Daily News interview, Sanders said he wasn’t sure of the exact death toll in the Gaza conflict but recalled that 10,000 civilians had been killed and said “Israel’s force was more indiscriminate than it should have been.”
The actual number was 1,462 civilians killed, according to the United Nations. Hamas’ figure was 1,617 civilians; Israel’s estimate was 762.
Following intense criticism, including from Israeli politicians and the Anti-Defamation League, the Sanders campaign issued a statement of clarification noting that Sanders himself had cautioned during the interview that he wasn’t sure of the exact figure, and that when someone later provided the correct number he immediately accepted it.
But that didn’t satisfy many of the 70 or so people who showed up at the Jews for Bernie event. The purpose of the April 10 meeting was to help Jewish Sanders supporters coordinate their efforts to promote the Jewish presidential hopeful and get out the vote for the New York primary on April 19.
After some schmoozing amid tables laden with kosher-certified bagels, lox and cream cheese, a few campaign workers made formal remarks and a rabbi for Sanders delivered a topical commentary on the weekly Torah portion. Volunteers then distributed signup sheets to organize door-to-door canvassing and phone calls to New York voters.
But half a dozen Jewish Sanders supporters instead pulled their chairs into a circle to brainstorm bullet points for a flier they said needed to be drafted about why Jews should support Sanders. Sheryl Fetik of Queens said she has spent a lot of time in recent days responding to emails from fellow Jews slamming Sanders’ comments about Gaza. “He wasn’t perfect in what he said, but he knows that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations,” she said.
Many of those who attended the event sported Hebrew “Bernie” buttons and said they just wanted to help promote the candidate in the run-up to the primary. This will be New York’s first competitive Democratic presidential primary since 1988, when Jesse Jackson, Michael Dukakis and Al Gore were running for president.
Ari Kamen, the New York state political director for the Working Families Party, which supports Sanders for president, said he believes Sanders has a real shot at winning in the Empire State if volunteers go out and talk to their friends, family and neighbors directly about the issues Sanders champions.
“I grew up in this Jewish environment that really emphasized social and economic justice,” Kamen told the crowd. He cited the sages’ dictum in Pirkei Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers, “It is not your responsibility to complete the work [of perfecting the world,] but neither are you free to desist from it.”
New Yorker Alfred Litman, 67, supports Sanders because the candidate’s values align with his own, particularly on socioeconomics and social justice.
“Bernie is for helping those who need help,” Litman said, adding that his political proclivities are not about Sanders’ religion. “It has nothing to do with his being Jewish. Zero. Because I don’t find him that Jewishly identified, and I am Jewishly identified.”
One young campaign volunteer, Sandy Fox, who organized a kosher Shabbat afternoon event for Sanders in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, said in her public remarks that she sees Sanders as a very Jewish candidate.
“When I hear Bernie speak, I hear the echoes of Yiddish-speaking socialists on the Lower East Side,” Fox said before using a Yiddish term meaning “welcoming” and “homey.” “I’ve never seen a more haimish presidential candidate in my life.”