Why I’m No Longer a Democrat

Elul asks us to look inward.

In the weeks before Rosh Hashanah, we take an accounting of ourselves: Who were we this past year? When did we speak? When did we remain silent? And who do we want to be in the year ahead?

This year, American Jews need to ask ourselves a harder question:

When our own people needed our voices, did we use them?

Jews have a proud history of standing up for others. We marched for civil rights and women’s rights. We fought discrimination and defended minorities. Tikkun olam, repairing the world, is woven into our Jewish identity.

I have lived those values politically, too.

I was a lifelong Democrat. I campaigned for Bill Clinton. I marched for women’s rights. I believed the Democratic Party represented tolerance, equality and a commitment to protecting people from hatred and discrimination.

But I no longer recognize the party I once knew.

Too much of today’s Democratic politics is fueled by hate: hate for Donald Trump, hostility toward traditional family values and an obsessive hostility toward Israel.

The Democratic Socialists of America represent a Marxist, Islamist ideology that is hijacking the Democratic Party I belonged to for nearly three decades.

The DSA supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel and ending U.S. military assistance to the Jewish state. Its influence is no longer confined to activist meetings or college campuses. Candidates aligned with its politics are gaining power from California to New York to Michigan.

Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed’s political rise in New York and Michigan should be a wake-up call for Jews across the nation.

At a time when Americans are struggling with housing, homelessness, crime, schools and the affordability of raising a family, why are local politicians spending precious time turning city halls into debating chambers for the Middle East?

Richmond’s City Council passed a resolution accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and calling for an end to U.S. military aid. Santa Monica’s City Council passed its own Gaza ceasefire resolution.

Whatever your views on the war, ask yourself: Is this why we elect city councilmembers?

Richmond cannot negotiate Middle East peace. Santa Monica cannot determine American foreign policy.

We have watched this fixation spread onto college campuses. Now we are watching it move deeper into electoral politics.

El-Sayed has appeared politically alongside Hasan Piker, a Marxist provocateur who has generated repeated controversy over his rhetoric about America, Israel and Jews.

During a leaked donor call, El-Sayed spoke about moving Democrats further left, saying, “Ideally, you put one ogre (Sen. John Fetterman [D-Pa.]) on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message.”

Think about what that signals.

A Democrat who stands unapologetically with Israel becomes someone who must be politically eliminated to “send a message.”

For lifelong Democrats, this is the moment to stop telling ourselves that nothing fundamental has changed.

The party of Bill Clinton is not today’s Democratic Party. The movement I marched alongside for women’s rights is sharing political space with activists like Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian anti-Israel activist, whose worldview is profoundly hostile to the Jewish community. 

Do not be fooled into believing every movement that speaks the language of “equality” necessarily practices it equally.

After Oct. 7, 2023, Jewish families learned that painfully.

As a Jewish mother, I watched Jewish students discover that the empathy they had been taught to extend to every marginalized community was not extended to them. Jews were asked to explain Zionism, condemn Israel and prove that they were the “right kind” of Jews before being afforded the compassion routinely demanded for everyone else. In others words, check your Zionism at the door if you want to belong. 

As an Iranian-American Jew, I know what can happen when ideological extremism is dismissed until it becomes institutional power. My family fled a country transformed by religious extremism. I will not assume that because Jews are comfortable today, we will automatically be comfortable tomorrow.

That is why this Elul must be different.

This is not an argument against criticizing Israel. Criticize Netanyahu. Debate Gaza. Question American aid. That is democracy.

But Jews must recognize the difference between criticism and a political culture in which Israel becomes uniquely vilified and support for the world’s only Jewish state becomes a moral stain.

And lifelong Jewish Democrats, ask yourselves this uncomfortable question:

Has your hatred of Donald Trump become stronger than your love for your Jewish identity?

You do not have to like Trump. You do not have to vote Republican. This isn’t about one man.

It is about refusing to allow partisan loyalty to make us silent when our own community is threatened.

Elul calls us to cheshbon hanefesh — an accounting of the soul.

We have spent generations using our voices for everyone else. We should continue doing so.

But this year, we must use them for ourselves, too.

Because if the Jewish people are not here, we cannot continue repairing the world.

When the shofar sounds this year, ask yourself one question:

When my people needed my voice, did I use it?

May our answer in the year ahead be yes. 

Shirin Yadegar is the founder of LA Mom Magazine and a political commentator.