The Republican Party’s message for U.S. Jewish voters ahead of the presidential election is essentially the same as Google’s former motto, according to the party’s Jewish spokeswoman.
“We stand against evil,” Elizabeth Pipko, a former model, told JNS last week, on the sidelines of the Republican Jewish Coalition summit in Las Vegas. “There’s no other message that we need, because we’ve seen what happens with weak leadership.”
After reading in the news about Hamas executing six hostages, including the Israeli-American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Pipko told JNS that the election is “not even political anymore.”
“People tell me all the time this is an election about life or death, and unfortunately, now I have to share that sentiment, because people are dying,” she said. “People are being slaughtered by an evil that’s not just an enemy of Israel, but it’s an enemy of ours too.”
“If people don’t realize that—that it’s so much deeper than Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, left, right—I don’t know what else there is to say,” she said.
Republican Jews naturally made hay of Israel as a political issue during their Las Vegas gathering. Pipko, who started in politics as co-founder of a movement to bring Jewish Democrats into the Republican Party, told JNS that the Jewish state presents a winning issue for the party beyond just for Jews, and that Republicans should address it broadly.
“They should hammer it home very strongly. I plan to do that, not only because I support Israel as strongly as I do, but because Israel is symbolic,” Pipko said. “Support for Israel against an enemy like Hamas is everything that we believe in and stand for as a country.”
“We should not only be encouraging support for Israel, but explaining, especially to young people, why in the Middle East, we have this close relationship with Israel, why we share enemies with Israel,” she said.
Pipko said that such a message is particularly important as the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks approaches.
“What happened on Oct. 7 could happen on our soil as well without strong leadership,” she said. She added that if Americans had reelected Donald Trump, rather than electing Joe Biden, “maybe Oct. 7 wouldn’t have happened.”
Former President Donald Trump has been making the same point as he runs for his old seat, and he did so addressing attendees of the summit remotely.
Pipko told JNS that even though Trump only appeared virtually, there was palpable excitement in the room.
“That’s what matters, right?” she said. “Virtually everyone was screaming. We saw some people crying. They’re hopeful, and I’m very excited to be a part of it with everyone who seems really, really eager to elect President Trump in 60 days.”
A few months into her role with the Republican National Committee, Pipko is ankle-deep in election season media politicking, and conceded that “it’s going to get so much worse over the next two months.”
“It’s an honor, because I don’t think people realize, for me, I’m doing this as a Jew,” who will mix religion and politics in a way few will in a political spokesperson’s role, she said.
“It’s the kind of pressure that I live for, because I know it’s an honor that God let me in this position,” she said. “It’s one I can’t let go to waste.”
