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Oct 27, 2025

Headline: A Rising Democrat Leans Into the Campus Fight Over Antisemitism

Sub-headline:Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, the proudly Jewish leader of a battleground state, has dived headfirst into subjects that have wrenched apart his party.

A few hours after Columbia University canceled its main commencement ceremony following weeks of pro-Palestinian student protests, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania was in his office in Harrisburg, taking stock of the ways he sees universities letting students down.

“Our colleges, in many cases, are failing young people,” he said in an interview this week. “Failing to teach information that is necessary to form thoughtful perspectives. They are willing to let certain forms of hate pass by and condemn others more strongly.”

Mr. Shapiro — the leader of a pre-eminent battleground state, a rising Democrat and a proudly observant Jew — has also emerged as one of his party’s most visible figures denouncing the rise in documented antisemitism after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

And at a moment of growing Democratic anger and unease over how Israel is conducting its devastating military response, Mr. Shapiro, 50 — who has no obligation to talk about foreign policy — has not shied away from expressing support for the country while criticizing its right-wing government.

Plunging into a subject that has inflamed and divided many Americans carries risk for an ambitious Democrat from a politically important state. The politics around both the Gaza war and the protest movement are exceptionally fraught within the Democratic Party, and many of its voters and elected officials have become increasingly critical of Israel.

But Mr. Shapiro has been direct.

Asked if he considered himself a Zionist, he said that he did. When Iran attacked Israel last month, he wrote on social media that Pennsylvania “stands with Israel.”

When the University of Pennsylvania’s president struggled before Congress to directly answer whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated the school’s rules, Mr. Shapiro said she had failed to show “moral clarity.” (She later resigned.) When opponents of the Gaza war picketed an Israeli-style restaurant in Philadelphia known for its falafel and tahini shakes, Mr. Shapiro called the demonstration antisemitic and showed up for lunch.

And as university officials have struggled to define where free speech ends and hate speech begins, a tension upending the final weeks of the school year, Mr. Shapiro has issued stern warnings about their responsibility to protect students from discrimination. The issue hits close to home: On Friday, police cleared an encampment of pro-Palestinian demonstrators off the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Shapiro had said it was “past time” for Penn to do so.

Editor: This selection from this 1609 word political feature story by Katie Glueck.

He added, “It’s certainly not helpful when it comes to our top political priority, which is to re-elect President Biden.”

The Mideast war, which has killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza, according to local health authorities, has fueled a broad and significant protest movement.

But on college campuses, there are sharp debates over when demonstrations against Israel and its treatment of Palestinians veer into antisemitic targeting of Jewish students and institutions.

Editor: In the sentence below Mr. Shapiro is not just patently dishonest, but maligns the very notion of what a political/moral actor is and does! To segregate ‘Israeli policies’ from the political/moral actors who have committed the Genocide is about political/moral vacuity!

To Mr. Shapiro, the distinction is clear: Criticism of Israeli policies is fair game. “Affixing to every Jew the policies of Israel,” he said, is not.

Mr. Shapiro said he felt a “unique responsibility” to speak out both because he leads a state founded on a vision of religious tolerance, and because he is a “proud American Jew.”

Indeed, his Jewish identity is intertwined with his public persona to a degree rarely seen in American politicians.

He is a Jewish day school alumnus who has featured challah in his campaign advertising and alludes to a collection of Jewish ethics in his speeches. In recent weeks, he offered an under-the-weather 76ers player matzo ball soup and celebrated the end of Passover with Martin’s Potato Rolls, a Pennsylvania delicacy.

“It’s not an easy time to be Jewish, and to be a Jewish politician,” said Sharon Levin, a former teacher of Mr. Shapiro’s. “Josh is front and center.”

Mr. Shapiro has also spent significant time in Israel, proposing to his wife in Jerusalem. Asked if, like Mr. Biden, he considers himself a Zionist, he confirmed that he did.

Editor: Note the two mentions of Joe Biden!

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