Aaron Baker, a self-identified “parent, trans woman, Jew and local community organizer” who is running against Esther Panitch, a Democratic state representative who is the only Jewish member of the Georgia state government, launched a website attacking Panitch for her “contributors with deep Republican histories, Republican committee ties or direct Republican establishment pedigrees.”
After Panitch noted that the five supporters, whom Baker highlighted, were Jewish, the attack website no longer includes pictures of the five.
“Aaron Baker has quietly removed the photographs of five Jewish community leaders from her website,” Panitch stated. “The names are still there. The framing is still there. The disclaimer is still there.”
“Out of around 1,000 donors over four years, Aaron chose five to put on a public list. Every single one is Jewish. That was not an accident,” she added. “Removing the photos is not a correction. It’s a confession. The list is still there. Aaron Baker owes these five community leaders, and the Jewish community of Atlanta, a public apology.”
She added that the five include “a Holocaust Commission member,” a Democratic National Committee finance leader, a Federation vice chair and the director of Atlanta’s Antisemitism Response Network.
Panitch told JNS that “Jewish identity isn’t a political prop.”
“Creating a list of Jewish leaders as targets for scorn, while Jews are being murdered, is dangerous and shows her judgment can’t be trusted,” the pro-Israel representative said. “My opponent has no history of standing up for the Jewish community. I’ve spent 30 years earning trust through substantive legal and legislative work, and that’s how I’ll keep earning it: as a fighter, a winner and a leader.”
The page attacking Panitch contains a disclaimer, which states that “the Jewish community is under serious threat, antisemitism is rising and Esther Panitch herself has been a target of antisemitism and threats of violence” and that “everyone should have the freedom to practice their religion openly and safely, without intimidation, harassment or violence.” JNS sought comment from the campaign.
Lukas Tull, deputy campaign manager for Baker’s campaign, told JNS that “the argument that we are dangerously targeting anyone is not true.”
“We are highlighting information that is already publicly available in the Panitch campaign’s finance filings that anyone with access to the internet can find,” Tull said. “Examining contributions that a politician chooses to accept is a common practice, and in this case a very significant majority of Rep. Panitch’s donors happen to be Jewish, especially the larger donors that are disclosed in the campaign’s reports.”
“To follow Rep. Panitch’s argument that people cannot be individually highlighted on the basis of their own public political activities would lead to a conclusion that almost none of her major donors can be scrutinized,” Tull said. “We decided to remove the photos for a variety of reasons. Some of these include copyright issues for the site, related to image ownership, but also due to feedback from supportive leaders in the Jewish community.”
