On Jan. 28, we attended a candidate forum for the Illinois 7th Congressional District candidates hosted at Oak Park Temple with Rabbi Max Weiss, moderator. Toward the end of the two-hour forum, the 10 candidates were each asked to define Zionism. Many did so but also expounded on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and endorsed a two-state solution to resolve it.
One candidate, Reed Showalter, did not. Instead, he pivoted to prepared remarks on how horrendous crimes have been and are being committed in the name of Zionism by the Netanyahu government, conflating Jewish self-determination with a “right wing project.” He concluded that as a person of “clear conscience,” America should return to a “position of humility” while calling for “the people” to determine “where and how they will live.”
His response seemed surprising at the time, especially given the synagogue audience would be unlikely to agree with him. What we did not anticipate was that our sacred space would be exploited by Reed Showalter for an appalling campaign ad.
A week later, Showalter’s campaign made a digital ad using clips it filmed during the forum of the “Define Zionism” question. [1] The ad began with Jason Friedman’s answer which identified Zionism as the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in a portion of their Biblical and ancestral homeland. Reed’s campaign overlaid this with an Intercept article headline tarring Friedman, the only Jewish candidate, as the AIPAC-backed candidate, though he has not received an endorsement or funding from AIPAC. [2] The remaining candidates’ answers were clipped to the parts where they endorsed a two-state solution, and finally Reed’s answer was aired in full. Reed’s message implied that his opponents who backed a two-state solution were naïve, in the wrong, or lacked his “humility” on this issue. Showalter’s ad is all the more insulting since in an interview with the Jewish United Fund published this month he explicitly said: “I support a two-state solution and I also denounce Hamas.” [3] So, which is it? Can voters trust him?
Perhaps Mr. Showalter should show some true humility. Instead of using a Jewish community forum as a setting to score points off his opponents for clicks, he could talk to Jews and Israelis living in the district he hopes to represent. He would find that many have first-hand experience and long histories with the land and the people living in Israel. And that many of us don’t support Netanyahu. He would learn that a two-state solution is the preferred solution to the conflict among Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs as found in polls as recently as 2020, with both preferring it to a one-state solution by a ratio of 4 to 1. [4] There is nothing naïve or ignorant about two states for two peoples. We hope our next Congressperson recognizes that as well.
Sources:
[1] Reed Showalter ad: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AeUYcyka9/
[2] https://jcf4democracy.netlify.app/pages/toolkit-aipac
[3] https://www.juf.org/govt_affairs/Candidate-Questionnaires-2026.aspx
[4] The Palestine/Israel Pulse, a Joint Poll Summary Report | PCPSR, https://www.pcpsr.org/en/node/823 (August 2020)
Michael Zmora
Oak Park
Phyllis Rubin
River Forest