Jewish future will be led by the bridge builders |
The primary is over. Now comes the moment for reflection.
What happened in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District should serve as an important lesson, not only for the Jewish community, but for political organizations everywhere that believe authentic leadership and community trust can be engineered through money, pressure campaigns, or insider strategy alone. Spoiler alert, they cannot.
Behind the scenes, there was once a very different path forward in this race. There was a candidate with a genuine ability to build broad coalitions across communities and bring people together in a district that deeply needed bridge builders. Yet as often happens in politics, competing interests, organizational priorities, and internal dynamics narrowed the field long before many voters had the opportunity to fully realize what could have been possible.
Then came enormous outside spending. Reports estimate that nearly $9 million flowed into this race from AIPAC-affiliated and allied organizations. While those efforts were undoubtedly driven........