With the November New Jersey gubernatorial election fast approaching, it’s important the Jewish community support Jack Ciattarelli. Ciattarelli supports Israel, has stood against antisemitism, supports school choice and rational public education policies, the police, lower taxes, and the First Amendment freedoms that have allowed the Jewish community to prosper in the United States.
Contrasted with Ciattarelli’s common sense is current state Governor feckless Phil Murphy’s partisan extremism. From supporting elementary school “education” that includes the lie that anyone can change their biological sex, to standing against school choice programs (from charter schools to vouchers), Phil Murphy is pushing an “educational” agenda against the values of the Jewish community. Reelecting feckless Phil will see increased efforts to teach all New Jersey’s children that though they can’t get a tattoo or piercing without parental permission and are prohibited from voting, smoking, drinking alcohol or purchasing a gun, they can change their “gender” even without the consent of their parents. Moreover, many of the extremist, left-wing Democrats with whom Murphy associates want to charge parents with child abuse if they do not consent to their child’s sex change.
What will four more years of complete left-wing control of the state government mean for the Jewish community? Not only will efforts to reform education so tax dollars follow the student to the school of their choosing (rather than the bureaucracy controlling public schools) continue to be frozen, but be prepared for the state government to mandate trans education in yeshiva institutions.
On law and order, the precious concept that has broken down in nearby New York City, the Jewish community must ask what have the same knee-bending policies that Murphy has pursued in New Jersey wrought for the Jewish community in New York City? Bail reform for violent crimes has meant those engaging in antisemitic attacks targeting the Jewish community have been arrested, “processed,” and released on their own recognizance—all on the same day. Some of these criminals have engaged in the same behavior again and again, feeling no consequences for their actions. All the while kippah-wearing and other identifiable Jews in New York City must worry who will come up randomly and punch them in the face.
On our First Amendment freedoms, Governor feckless Phil Murphy was one of the many super-partisan Democrat leaders who decided that during the pandemic the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of religion no longer applied. During the shutdown, liquor stores were open but synagogues were closed. Murphy acted as if New Jerseyans needed the growing despair that comes with sitting at home alone drinking rather than the spiritual sustenance so many find at their shul. Instead of working with religious leaders to create safety guidelines that allowed people to pray for an end to the COVID crisis and exercise their First Amendment rights, for far too long Murphy and the Democrats penalized even well-spaced outdoor religious services.
Ultimately, the issue of government (both state and local) taxation and spending is one of fairness. The Jewish community supports a long list of tzedaka organizations that help everyone—Jewish and gentile, American and Israeli—get a hand up. However, our state spending programs are a handout, not to the alleged recipients, but to many of the tens of thousands of government employees, publicly funded bureaucrats, and the “private” contractors who get awarded taxpayer dollars. Many of these “public servants” and contractors are nothing but nepotism hires on display, given the job because of whom they know and whom they donate to, not because they are effective and efficient, and not because they serve the people. Governor feckless Phil Murphy, a transplant from New England who bought his place in the New Jersey Democrat Party leadership by donations to the established corrupt power players, has and will continue to add to the massive bureaucracy and long list of politically connected contractors wasting your taxpayer money, because that is his core constituency.
Lastly, while Democrats like Congress people Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Octavia Cortez and Bernie Sanders constantly bash the world’s only Jewish state, using (sometimes not even) thinly veiled antisemitic imagery and language, the Jewish community must ask: Why is Murphy missing in action? Is it because from the Antifa wing of the Democrats to the “mainstream” Democrat leadership in Trenton, the left is pushing the critical race theory lie that Jews are not indigenous to the land of Israel? Democrats like feckless Phil Murphy may duck every question on Israel or about the latest bigoted comment by their antisemitic colleagues, but everyone knows that Jack Ciattarelli and the GOP stand with the Jewish state and against antisemitism.
From Ciattarelli’s statement that if Ben & Jerry’s boycotts Israel he will boycott them to his support for the police; his advocacy for taxpayers over the politically connected class that survives by leeching off them; his support for education reform and common sense in the classroom to his love of the First Amendment values that have allowed the Jewish community to prosper, and more, it’s clear he is the gubernatorial candidate the Jewish community should support. Between Jack Ciattarelli and Phil Murphy, Ciattarelli is the only one who has stood with the Jewish community and our values.
By Joshua Sotomayor Einstein
