At a Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington online event on Oct. 22, Angela Alsobrooks, the Prince George’s County executive, blamed former President Donald Trump for “a lot of” the current rise in U.S. Jew-hatred.
“I attribute a lot of the hate and division that we have seen to former President Trump, who normalized in too many instances of hate, including antisemitism,” she said during the event.
Alsobrooks also slammed the former president for his response to the rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2016, where white supremacists carried tiki torches and chanted that “Jews will not replace us.”
“None of us can forget what we saw in Charlottesville, where he called people who were there with antisemitic tropes ‘good people,’” she said. “This kind of division and hatred comes from poor leadership.” (Trump condemned the hatred at the rally.)
Larry Hogan, the former Maryland governor and a centrist Republican, is running against Alsobrooks for the Senate seat, currently held by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who is not seeking reelection.
In his pitch to Jewish voters, Hogan has taken aim at Alsobrooks on her Israel track record, including calling for an immediate ceasefire.
JNS sought comment from Hogan about Alsbooks attributing Jew-hatred to Trump.
“Turning serious issues into partisan battles is what Washington politicians do when they care more about scoring points than finding real solutions,” Hogan told JNS. “It does nothing to solve the problem.”
“I’m committed to addressing this crisis head-on and working across party lines to combat antisemitism wherever it appears—in our schools, on our campuses and in our communities,” the former governor told JNS.
During the recent event, Alsobrooks called for “bipartisan support” for the Jewish state and also discussed rising antisemitism on campus.
“We should not tolerate on any level, hate speech, threatening behavior, assaulting behavior,” she said. “It’s going to be really important that we stamp it out—antisemitism and hatred of all kinds—everywhere that we find it, and that includes college campuses.”
Alsobrooks leads Hogan by an average of 11.3 points in recent polls, per RealClearPolitics.
On Oct. 29, Hogan visited Beth Sholom Congregation and Talmud Torah, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Potomac, Md. “In the Senate, I’ll be an unabashed pro-Israel champion and a partner to our Jewish community in the fight against antisemitism,” he stated. “Together, we’ll stand up for our allies and our values.”
The former governor wrote on Oct. 27, on the sixth anniversary of the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha mass shooting in Pittsburgh, that “we continue to hold in our prayers the families and loved ones of the innocent victims whose lives were taken in this senseless act of violence.”
“I will always stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Jewish community here in Maryland and across the nation,” he stated. “Together, we are stronger than hate.”
Alsobrooks stated on Oct. 7, on the anniversary of Hamas’s terror attack, that the hostages must be released and that she will continue her support for the Jewish state. She also called for a two-state solution.
The last time that she posted about visiting a synagogue was July 11, when she wrote about “the unique relationship between the African-American and Jewish communities” and working to “fight against all forms of hate.”
Democratic Majority for Israel endorsed Alsobrooks.
