Ted Cruz Calls Antisemitism “Existential Threat” to GOP. Which Democrats Are Giving the Same Warning About Their Party?

When Democrats can’t match Ted Cruz for moral courage and speaking out against hate, our party is in worse trouble than his.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) addressing the Republican Jewish Coalition on October 30, 2025, where he called out antisemitism in his party, calling itm an “existential threat..”(Image courtesy Times of Israel.)

Once again, the Republican Party faces a crisis of antisemitism. Kevin Roberts, the head of the Heritage Foundation, which is what passes for a “think tank” in the GOP. is caught in a battle over his defending Tucker Carlson after the right wing provocateur and bigot interviewed noted neo-Nazi and antisemite Nick Fuentes and largely agreed with him. While Roberts flitted back and forth on discrediting Jew hate, he steadfastly stuck by Carlson, despite Carlson’s own antisemitic utterances. Roberts argued for keeping both Carlson and Fuentes as important voices in the GOP. Roberts believes there is merit to some of what Fuentes and Carlson have to say, and that they should be engaged in dialogue. Ted Cruz has no problem saying that neither has anything of value to say, and the Republican Party should disown and disavow them and their antisemitism.

What’s important is that when faced with Jew hate in his party, Cruz, who is by no means an unblemished person or politician, has no hesitation to call it what it is and state openly that no American political party can survive if it incorporates hatred. I’m hoping Senator Cruz will come to understand the same is true when the hatred is directed against any group, be they LBGTQ+. immigrants, Muslims, or people who don’t share one’s political view.

What’s remarkable is that Senator Cruz held nothing back. He didn’t hesitate to call Carlson and Fuentes what they are, Jew haters and Nazi apologists, and he did not refrain from calling out the head of the GOP’s “brain trust” for accommodating hatred.

Some of the knuckleheads in MAGA and the militias might not appreciate what Senator Cruz is doing, but mainstream Republicans, legitimate conservatives and real Christians get it without any problem. He is giving his party a wakeup call, a warning that just as the Whigs fell apart over their inability to come to terms with the evils of slavery, a modern political party will also disintegrate if it falls prey to antisemitism.

Where Are the Democrats Willing to Do as Ted Cruz is Doing?

Nothing complained about in this post should be seen as opposing legitimate criticism of the Israeli government or its actions. I lodge such criticism all the time, right up till now. Support for Israel is not at all synonymous with support for any party or any politician. Surely, our support for our nation of America is not synonymous with support for any particular party or politician. As President Biden said, you can’t love your country only when you win.

There are many Democrats, and even some Republicans, who are harsh and fierce critics of Israel, but I don’t think they are antisemitic at all. Maybe wrong, naive, controlled by ideology and not facts, but they are not prejudiced. I might disagree with them on how they view the Gaza war or on aid to Israel, but I do not accuse them of acting out of malice or Jew hate. Among these folks are Bernie Sanders, AOC, Rho Khanna, and Rand Paul.

The Republican Party is not alone is dealing with the sickness of antisemitism. The Democrats have an equally if not more serious problems on their hands

Many Jews, myself among them, believe that the official Democratic candidate-and likely winner, if polls are accurate- for Mayor of New York City is an antisemite who is trying to exclude pro-Israel Democrats from his coalition and ultimately from the party. He is a socialist and a member of the Democratic Socialist of America (DSA), a virulent “anti-Zionist” group that has veered into outright Jew hate.

It is encouraging that prominent Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of NY, and his seatmate, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, have refused to endorse the antisemitic candidate. What is not right is that they are not saying why they won’t endorse him. We know the two Senators will not endorse a person who is an antisemite, who does not believe there should be a Jewish State, and who advocates that we “globalize the intifada,” even after that philosophy got two Jews gunned down on the streets of Washington, DC and another burned alive in Boulder Colorado. Why don’t they just say this?

Why can’t Senators Schumer and Gillibrand do as Senator Cruz is doing: warning the Democrats that antisemitism is a sickness that will destroy the party if not conquered right now.?

There are a handful of Democrats who are speaking loudly and forcefully against the Jew hate and the radicals who promote it. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) is the most prominent, and right behind him is Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), who replaced George Santos, is another.

From top :Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of NY )Courtesy Dreamstime), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of NY (Courtesy Dreamstime), President Barack Obama (Courtesy Unspash), President Bill Clinton (Courtesy Clinton Presidential Library.) Why aren’t they all speaking out loud and clear against Jew hate in the Democratic Party?

I know for certain that two of the most popular Democrats, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, are appalled and disgusted by the Jew hate they see in America, especially in our party.

It’s time for them to speak out, as Ted Cruz is doing in his party.

Jews Will Stick With the Democratic Party, but Only Up to a Point.

Jewish voters will not abandon the Democrats just because there are differences of opinion on Israel and the Gaza War. We understand that there are many moving parts in the Middle East, and we are never all agree on how each one should move. Besides, we Jews have a diversity of opinions on the subject. It often comes as a surprise that the Florida Democratic Party Jewish Caucus called for Netanyahu to be removed from office way back in January of 2024.

What does turn off Jewish voters are people assaulting Jewish students on campuses and to be frank, it seems like Republican states do a better job of protecting their students than Democratic states. (Gavin Newsom seems to be exception, and he did act to end violence against Jews on California campuses. However, I think we can agree that the Democratic governors of New York and Massachusetts fell woefully short of their duty to protect students against Jew hate.)

Another certain turn off is a candidate for the US Senate from Maine who had to cover up a Nazi tattoo he proudly displayed for 18 years, including a stretch when he was making racist and far right statements online. So we expect to beat Republican Susan Collins, a perceived moderate, with someone like that?

The Democratic Party Needs a Response to Jew Hate.

One of the main problems in combating antisemitism in the party is the inability of the official party structure to address and deal with it. We need to start with our leaders doing what Cruz is doing. If Senators Schumer and Gillibrand can’t come out and say they are not supporting a candidate because he’s an antisemite, how can we expect lower-level party apparatchiks and functionaries to do anything?

Here are a few quick responses that should have been put in place already:

1.) Educate party officials about antisemitism.

In many instances, the problem festers because party leaders simply don’t understand the nature of antisemitism. All too often, terms like “Jew,” “Zionist,” “Palestine,” or “Israel” are tossed around by people who have no idea of what they are talking about. Few can properly define any of those terms or place them in any sort of accurate historical perspective. This ignorance allows the radicals to control the narrative with their inaccurate distorted and bigotted viewpoints.

One major problem is that Democrats do not necessarily understand the centrality of Israel to not only the Jewish religion, but the entire culture. What kept a scattered and persecuted people alive for nearly two thousand years of oppression was the immutable concept that Israel belongs to the Jews and that someday their homeland would be returned to them. All one need do is read the Psalms to see how true this is, and even better, listen to the great reggae song by the Wailers, “By the Rivers of Babylon.” That song, almost word from the Hebrew Psalm 137, tells of the anguish of Jews longing for Zion in 550 BCE, after they were kidnapped en masse from their land and taken to Babylonia as slaves.

The Jews were eventually permitted to return to Israel, where they flourished and built the Second Temple. This all came to an end around the beginning of the Christian Era, when the Romans destroyed the Temple and forcibly removed Jews from Israel and took them to Rome as slaves. If you visit the Palatine Hill above the Colosseum in Rome, you will see frescas celebrating the destruction and looting of the Jewish homeland. So there’s no doubt whose homeland it is and who has that historical claim. The problem is that some people don’r like history,

I wonder how many non-Jewish Democrats know that every seder for the last 2500 years had ended with the call “Next year in Jerusalem!”

As the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously declared, “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews”.

If they understood these things, they might be a little more circumspect in their language. They might understand why Jews take deep offense to the use “Zionist” as a pejorative, or even worse, the crackpot revisionist and racist history that denies the Jews of Israel are really Jews entitled to return. There’s simply no bottom to the sickness and delusion of the far left Jew haters.

Every member of any official unit of the Democratic Party should be required to listen to the online or live presentations by the ADL on antisemitism.

One trait the party needs to develop is to listen to aggrieved members. When Florida Stare House member Hillary Cassels switched from Democrat to Republican ealier this year, she said it was because she has repeatedly complained about antisemitism in the party, but it fell upon deaf ears.

Tip to the Democratic Party; when a minority person tellls you something you said or did offends them, don’t argue with, don’t shrug them off, don’t tell them they should not believe their lying eyes and ears. Instead, listen to them, find out why they feel the way they do, and try your best to meet them where they are and proceed from there. (This applies to every minority group without exception.)

Without going into details right here, I can say that’s certainly been my personal experience as well. If a Jew complains about antisemitism in the party, they are likely to receive a lecture on freedom of speech, a big tent, tolerance, even an entreaty to accept the arguments of the antisemites. What we don’t seem to get is understanding or a sympathetic ear.

2.) Speak out now!

In fact, from what I have seen, there’s a need for broader education on sensitivity towards all minorities. (I include Muslims among this group about whom education is needed.) There is a reason we are rapidly losing Latino and Asian voters and why we are seeing a slight defections among the most loyal of Democratic, Blacks and Jews. Jewish areas on the Atlantic side of Florida were once the Bluest of the Blue; today, there isn’t a single Jewish member of the Florida State House from that side and Jews over there have voted majority (or close to it) for DeSantis and Trump in the last two elections. It’s mostly due to the perception that the Democratic Party is infected with antisemitism and is anti-Israel..

We can’t deny that antisemitism exists in either party. It’s just that Republicans can at least argue that these antisemites are outliers, and that the mainstream will reject antisemitism or tolerance for it, even from the powerful Heritage Foundation. They can point to the statements of not only Cruz, but Mitch McConnell and other party leaders who are willing to take on antisemitism and the Heritage Foundation.

3.) Get rid of the litmus tests!

Democrats need a visible spokesperson to fill the role Cruz fills for the GOP. The Heritage Foundation is a lot more powerful than the DSA. There’s nothing to fear.

There’s no argument to counter the reality that Mamdani, the DSA and other radical elements of the Democratic Party exclude Zionists, pro-Israel people, and often Jews in general. The leftists have a litmus test requiring that one be “anti-Zionist,” and unquestionably accept that Israel is committing “genocide” and “war crimes,” Accusations against Hamas or other terrorists are not permitted.

Here is a basic rule of political science: you win by addition and lose by subtraction.

It’s not good enough to agree 99% of the time? And how does it happen that the left gets to pick to litmus test issue that drive Jews out? Do we get banned if we have different opinions on charter schools, gun laws, how many weeks should be allowed for unrestricted termination of pregnancy, the tax rate, where to land on balancing environmentalism versus jobs, how much foreign aid to give, where we should have troops overseas and when we should or should not use them?

4.) Rid the party of the crazies and the radicals before they do us all in.

There are a multitude of issues, and within the party, we have a very wide range of opinion on each of them. Why is is that the cancellation only occurs when someone refuses to hew the left wing anti-Israel stance?

Speaking of the DSA, it’s no secret that this radical group has been not-so-quietly infiltrating the Democratic Party organization and promoting their anti-Zionist and antisemitic viewpoints. Litmus tests are being administered by the radicals, seeking to exclude Zionists and Jews.

It’s a nutjob’s argument that a party does better by subtracting voters, but these radicals are all too often raging nutjobs. .

It’s not only the NYC race of the DSA infiltration that poses an existential threat to the Democrats. Right now, there’s that guy running for the Democratic nomination for Senate in Maine. He claims to be a “progressive,” except in the not-too-distant past he described himself as having some Nazi and anti-LBGTQ+ sentiments, and for 18 years wore the dreaded SS death head symbol as a tattoo, only covering it up last week. He claims he never knew what it was. I simply do not believe him. You don’t walk around with a Nazi tattoo for 18 years and the subject never comes up.

Why would anyone in my party ever support someone like that? When people see that members of our party support someone such candidates, what are they supposed to think?

![Top:Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY)[Courtesy Instagram]. Bottom:Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) Courtesy Britanica.) These are two Democrats who speak out against Jew hate and in support of Israel.

Top:Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY)[Courtesy Instagram]. Bottom:Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) [Courtesy Britanica.) These are two Democrats who speak out against Jew hate and in support of Israel.

I know I have cited Rep. Ritchie Torres (D NY) so often that we’ve all memorized his quote right after Trump was elected a years go, but it constantly fits a stream of thought so perfectly that I can’t omit it:

“Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like “Defund the Police” or “From the River to the Sea” or “Latinx.”

There is more to lose than there is to gain politically from pandering to a far left that is more representative of Twitter, Twitch, and TikTok than it is of the real world. The working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling.”

*Thank you, Rep. Torres and Senator Fetterman for standing true to the Democratic Party principles of combatting all forms of hate, including Jew hate, and for standing by our ally, Israel. And thank you Senator Cruz for speaking truth to power in your own party. When someone does the right thing, we must say so.*

**Click here to read about Ted Cruz speaking out against antisemitism in his party.**

THE TRUTH WILL WIN IF IT IS TOLD

Stephen Shaiken is an attorney and author. He has written extensively on Constitutional issues. He has litigated scores of Constitutional questions in federal appellate courts and is a member of the United States Supreme Court Bar.

And please check out my fiction. You can visit the Amazon Series Page for the acclaimed NJA Club Series: CLICK HERE

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Originally published at https://stephenshaiken.substack.com.