Accusing a Jewish Candidate of Being Beholden to AIPAC is False and Antisemitic

The Jewish Community & Friends for Democracy has no affiliations with AIPAC (the American Israel Political Action Committee). We are not ourselves AIPAC donors. We also do not support some recent reported decisions by AIPAC as to the candidates it has endorsed. We’re not fans of big money in politics ourselves, and we believe that ordinary citizens should get to decide who should represent them.

Our group, Jewish Community and Friends for Democracy, does not endorse candidates in our race. We hope readers will use the information we provide to make their own decisions. We understand that many different considerations come into play when voters cast their ballots, and our goal is to educate voters in our district, not urge support for a specific candidate.

Accordingly, we do NOT endorse Jason Friedman or any other specific candidate whose positions we are evaluating in this report.

But AIPAC involvement in politics is legitimate, while attacks on it trend into antisemitic tropes. And that has happened in the Congressional District 7 race in Illinois, with false claims that only the Jewish candidate in the race is doing the “Israel lobby’s” bidding.

In fact, AIPAC is a 75-year-old bipartisan largely Jewish political organization with an entirely American membership which focuses on the American-Israel relationship. To be clear, AIPAC and its funding sources are American, not Israeli. AIPAC has endorsed and opposed candidates for political office and also seeks to educate political leaders concerning issues involving Israel. All of this is legitimate and lawful. Positions on policies, including funding priorities as to Israel that AIPAC takes can be debated, as we do.

This was and remains an antisemitic attack on a candidate running in our local Congressional race, to our deep regret.

Singling Out the Jewish Candidate

We cannot be silent when the sole Jewish candidate in the race, Jason Friedman, has been singled out falsely and unfairly for taking AIPAC money. The attack was sly because Friedman in fact has NOT taken AIPAC money. What he had done was accept money from donors who are also AIPAC donors, as several other candidates have done. These non-Jewish candidates were not attacked in public, nor heckled and taunted with charges of being on the AIPAC dole, as Jason Friedman was.

On November 22, 2025, The Intercept, ran an article entitled “AIPAC Donors Back Real Estate Tycoon for Danny Davis Seat.” The article goes on to highlight that Danny Davis turned down AIPAC money but says “Now the Israel lobby is coming for his seat.”

This article suggested that Jason Friedman is part of the “Israel lobby” who is out to get the seat. It also mentions by name two Jewish donors to the Friedman campaign who have also donated to AIPAC.

Dangerous Antisemitic Writing

Smearing Friedman, and Friedman alone, with “guilt by association” to wealthy Jewish donors is dangerous antisemitic writing: it trades on the longstanding antisemitic tropes that there is a conspiratorial international cabal of financial masterminds who are under the sway of a foreign power—Israel—and are undermining the will of the voters.

On February 10, 2026, it became clearer to all just how unfair the AIPAC slur against Jason Friedman has been when the media revealed that Melissa Conyears-Ervin, and not Jason Friedman, had the endorsement of the United Democracy Project, an AIPAC affiliated PAC and she, not Jason Friedman, received 2.5 million in the PAC’s funding for a weekly ad campaign.

The antisemitic attacks on Jason Friedman should be repudiated by all candidates rather than allowed to go unchecked.

We remain especially concerned about the infusion of the dual loyalty trope and “mastermind/cabal” trope, that paints the Jewish candidate as part of the “Israel lobby” in light of the revelations by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as to the antisemitic vetting process he was subjected to as a potential candidate for Vice President in the 2024 Presidential campaign.

Historical Parallels and Outright Antisemitism

Claims about Friedman that demonize him for his money and his wealthy Jewish donor friends are similar to the right-wing attacks in 2016 on Hillary Clinton for her association with George Soros and Goldman Sachs banker Lloyd Blankfein, which was roundly attacked as the most antisemitic political ad ever produced by a mainstream political party. Yet when the left or Democrats or Democratic Socialists are the perpetrators of a similar antisemitic smear, there has been silence from the other candidates and from the Democratic party itself.

Friedman was also heckled by antizionists at a Democratic Party of Oak Park forum and called “genocide Jason.” To be clear, accusing an American citizen of complicity with genocide due to his presumed allegiance to Israel based on nothing more than his Jewish background and positions regarding a Ceasefire in the Gaza war, a position echoed by other candidates in the same race, is a racist, antisemitic smear.

Candidates Spreading the Trope

Three of the candidates for the Congressional seat (Reed Showalter, Anabel Mendoza and Dr. Thomas Fisher) reposted the Intercept article on their own social media.

In addition, three candidates have adopted a “no AIPAC money” platform without clarifying what this means. See web pages of Kina Collins, Anabel Mendoza, and Reed Showalter.

Extremism on Both Sides

Antisemitic attacks on Jewish candidates need to stop, for the sake of democracy, and Democrats need to be better than this. Those who are perpetrating antisemitic slurs against a fellow candidate need to recognize left-wing antisemitism for what it is. This is particularly important as some of the most extreme voices on the right, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Congressperson who has trafficked in numerous antisemitic tropes, has used these same slurs, saying:

“The truth is AIPAC doesn’t like it because I unapologetically represent America. AIPAC needs to register as a foreign lobbyist by US law because they’re representing the secular government of nuclear-armed Israel 100 percent…. I believe that political donations from any foreign entity or organization can corrupt our politicians and undermine our democracy. We need to stop foreign entities from dictating our policies and influencing our elections.”

Source: Marjorie Taylor Greene pushes back against criticism

The suggestion that Americans with an interest in supporting Israel and its continued relationship to the U.S. government, many of whom are Jewish, are “foreign” or representing “foreign entities” is an antisemitic double standard nowhere applied to the identity of donors to other PACs.

Our Call to Action

We call upon all candidates to:

• Remove their platforms that single out Jewish candidates for office and provide misinformation about AIPAC. Stop running ads that associate Friedman and AIPAC (including continuing to run the Intercept article).
• Clarify the difference between accepting support from AIPAC versus merely having donors who may support AIPAC (i.e., using guilt by association)
• Apply any stance as to AIPAC and acceptance of money from donors who may support AIPAC consistently to all candidates who are similarly situated, not selectively used to tarnish a single candidate who is Jewish
• Not single out AIPAC as a malign “foreign” and wealthy cabal as the sole foreign policy-related PAC that candidates repudiate, given how closely such a platform comes to antisemitism that has no place in political discussion and debate

Notes

Source for Marjorie Taylor Greene quote: “Congressional candidates slam AIPAC influence in US elections” (Jan. 16, 2026)