South Florida U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz pulled on his family\u2019s story as Jews in the Holocaust in a campaign ad targeting antisemitism, as he strives to retain his seat in the November general election.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn every generation, they rise against us,\u201d the Jewish incumbent says in the ad over a background of somber music and black-and-white photos from a concentration camp. \u201cMy great-grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our generation, right here, the Parkland shooter had swastikas carved into his gun,\u201d he continues, standing in front of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, referring to the 2018 fatal shooting that killed 14 students and three educators.<\/p>\n
Moskowitz, a top Democratic supporter of Israel in Congress, who fended off progressive challenger Oliver Larkin in a heated August primary, emphasizes in the ad that he has worked to fight antisemitism through bipartisan laws. Some of this legislative action has involved increasing security at synagogues and Jewish nonprofits and expanding education to reduce hate crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cNever again is now,\u201d Moskowitz concludes.<\/p>\n
Moskowitz won the August primary with 63.5% of Democratic voter support, to Larkin\u2019s 36.5%. But Larkin was vocal throughout the race about his opposition to arms sales to Israel, going so far as to label the country as a \u201creligious supremacist\u201d nation.<\/p>\n
As Moskowitz prepares to face former Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer, a Republican who is also Jewish, the Democrat may be facing a tight race in a region that had previously been solidly blue.<\/p>\n
The 25th Congressional District, which includes parts of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, is about 25% Jewish, according to local estimates.<\/p>\n
Yet recent redistricting efforts have transformed the region into territory that President Donald Trump would have likely won in the 2024 elections. In fact, the Cook Political Report declared a shift from \u201csolid D\u201d to \u201ctoss up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that the race for the new 25th District will be highly competitive in a favorable environment for Democrats,\u201d the report stated.<\/p>\n
Moskowitz\u2019s team emphasized the \u201cdeeply personal\u201d nature of the congressman\u2019s battle against antisemitism, in a statement issued alongside the ad\u2019s release. He is confronting this challenge, his team explained, by \u201cconnecting his family\u2019s experience during the Holocaust to the hatred that continues to threaten our communities today.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Moskowitz\u2019s great-grandparents died in Auschwitz, his grandparents were able to escape Europe right before the war. His grandmother left on the Kindertransport, an organized effort that rescued Jewish children from Nazi-controlled territories beginning in 1938.<\/p>\n
By Tuesday evening, the Google Ads Transparency Center, which includes data on YouTube ads, did not yet reflect how much money the campaign had spent on its ads there. Meta\u2019s Ad Library also did not yet have data as to how much had been spent on the Facebook version of the ad posted there.<\/p>\n
Stephen Sussman, a professor of public administration at Barry University, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that although \u201cHolocaust imagery should never become routine campaign material,\u201d he doesn\u2019t believe that this ad has crossed a line.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Holocaust was, of course, a real event that continues to shape Jewish life and memory,\u201d Sussman said, recognizing that Moskowitz\u2019s great-grandparents were murdered at Auschwitz and that many Jews today feel threatened by antisemitism.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is not comparing his opponent to Hitler or using the Holocaust to make an unrelated political attack,\u201d Sussman added.<\/p>\n
The professor also noted the ad\u2019s direct connections to the congressman\u2019s record, such as his leadership in passing bipartisan legislation on antisemitism awareness and in boosting funding for synagogue security.<\/p>\n
Sussman acknowledged that when Holocaust imagery becomes part of a campaign, there \u201cis a legitimate concern\u201d that other people might deploy that imagery less responsibly. But he stressed that given Moskowitz\u2019s history and work record, as well as the current political climate, this particular ad is \u201cpowerful but defensible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ken Goldstein, a politics professor at the University of San Francisco, offered a similar perspective, explaining that of the thousands of ads he has watched in his lifetime, he found this one to be powerful but not particularly controversial.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was certainly using pictures of the Holocaust, jarring images, but they were his family\u2019s story,\u201d said Goldstein, who is an expert on the impacts of political advertising.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s using it to personally attack anybody else except the Parkland shooter,\u201d he added, noting that the ad isn\u2019t being used to attack an opponent. \u201cThis one does not strike me as particularly harsh, unfair, or out of bounds at all.\u201d<\/p>\n