{"id":190716,"date":"2026-05-13T01:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/190716\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T01:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T01:27:07","slug":"jewish-pennsylvania-judge-leaves-democratic-party-over-antisemitism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/190716\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewish Pennsylvania judge leaves Democratic Party over antisemitism"},"content":{"rendered":"

An elected Supreme Court justice in Pennsylvania announced Monday night that he has left the Democratic Party and registered as an independent, citing concerns about antisemitism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a statement, David Wecht, who is Jewish and served as Pennsylvania\u2019s Democratic Party chair from 1998 to 2001, said he believed antisemitism has moved from the fringe of the Democratic Party to the mainstream.<\/p>\n

\u201cNazi tattoos, jihadist chants, intimidation and attacks at synagogues<\/a>, and other hateful anti-Jewish invective and actions are minimized, ignored, and even coddled,\u201d he wrote. \u201cAcquiescence to Jew-hatred is now disturbingly common among activists, leaders, and even many elected officials in the Democratic Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wecht wrote that he had long understood that antisemitism \u201calways festered on the fringe\u201d of the right, a fact that hit home in 2018 when a far-right shooter killed 11 people at the Tree of Life<\/a> synagogue in Pittsburgh, where he and his wife were married in 1998.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the years that have followed, that same hatred has grown on the left,\u201d he said in his statement. \u201cIt is the duty of all good people to fight this virus, and to do so before it is too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wecht previously made national headlines for his 2020 ruling against an effort to overturn President Joe Biden<\/a>\u2019s victory in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Through a spokesperson, Wecht declined to be interviewed about his exit from the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

Wecht\u2019s comments come as Democrats wrestle with a range of internal tensions over antisemitism.<\/p>\n

The ascent of Graham Platner, an oyster farmer who recently covered up a Nazi Totenkopf skull-and-crossbones tattoo, to become Maine\u2019s Democratic candidate for Senate, and the increasing coziness between some progressive politicians and Hasan Piker, the leftist streamer who has said he favors Hamas over Israel, have particularly alarmed some members of the Jewish community.<\/p>\n

Wecht is the son of renowned forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht, who was involved in investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Wecht\u2019s mother, translator Sigrid Ronsdal, spent the first six years of her life living under Nazi occupation in Norway.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know David and his legendary father, Cyril,\u201d Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who has clashed with his Party over Israel, tweeted following Wecht\u2019s announcement. \u201cAs I\u2019ve affirmed, I\u2019m not changing my Party – but I fully understand David\u2019s personal choice. The Democratic Party must confront its own rising antisemitism problem.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An elected Supreme Court justice in Pennsylvania announced Monday night that he has left the Democratic Party and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[16062,84977,2258,14755,28,30,29,8576],"class_list":["post-190716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-antisemitism","tag-antizionism","tag-democrats","tag-judges","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}