Jewish groups responded with outrage on Sunday amid revelations that Josh Shapiro, the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania, says he was pressed intensely about his relationship to Israel when being considered as Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024.
Shapiro writes that Harris’ vetting team asked him if he had ever been “a double agent” for Israel or had ever engaged with undercover Israeli agents.
“I wondered whether these questions were being posed to just me — the only Jewish guy in the running — or if everyone who had not held a federal office was being grilled about Israel in the same way,” Shapiro writes in “Where We Keep the Light,” a political memoir set for release next week that multiple news organizations obtained this weekend. He said he told Harris’ vetting team that the questions were offensive.
Jewish leaders echoed that criticism on Monday, saying that pressing Shapiro on his Israel connections reflected antisemitic tropes that have been used to malign Diaspora Jews in the past.
“The more I read about @JoshShapiroPA‘s treatment in the vetting process, the more disturbed i become. The questions to him, I repeat, are why they needed a Special Envoy on antisemitism,” tweeted Deborah Lipstadt, who held that role in the Biden administration. “These questions were classic antisemitism.”
“Asking @governorshapiro — a prominent Jewish American public servant — whether he was ever an Israeli ‘double agent’ is not merely offensive; it’s a textbook invocation of one of the oldest antisemitic canards in politics: the smear of dual loyalty,” tweeted Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League. “Vetting a candidate is important, but those who do it should understand why this is barely veiled bigotry.”
Greenblatt continued, “It was shameful enough that former VP Harris failed to condemn the antisemitic smear campaign targeting Gov. Shapiro at the time, but it is even more concerning if this was why.”
Shapiro — who is considered a possible 2028 presidential candidate — volunteered in an IDF-affiliated program in Israel during high school and worked for six months after graduation in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., after graduating from college. During the war in Gaza, he criticized the conduct of some pro-Palestinian protesters while also criticizing the Israeli government’s prosecution of the war.
In 2024, as his name circulated as a vice presidential contender, his critics tarred him as “Genocide Josh” over his ties to and stances on Israel as they pressed Harris to pass him over. His defenders said at the time that he was unjustly singled out because he was Jewish. (Donald Trump also called attention to Shapiro’s Jewish identity and Israel connections while criticizing him during the campaign.)
Shapiro’s book marks his most forceful public comments on the topic. He previously said he believed that antisemitism had played “no role” in his not becoming a vice presidential candidate and his book reportedly reiterates that he pulled himself from consideration.
Last year, an arsonist who set fire to Shapiro’s official residence on the first night of Passover said he targeted Shapiro because of “what he wants to do to the Palestinian people,” according to law enforcement authorities. Shapiro’s wife and four children were home at the time.
Shapiro was one of three candidates fully vetted by Harris’ team. Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota who became the vice presidential candidate, was also asked about his ties to China, where he lived as a young adult, sources close to the campaign revealed in response to Shapiro’s account.
In his book, Shapiro says he was also asked whether he would apologize for his criticism of pro-Palestinian protesters in Pennsylvania. He said he would not.
“I believe in free speech, and I’ll defend it with all I’ve got,” he writes, according to the excerpts published online. “Most of the speech on campus, even that which I disagreed with, was peaceful and constitutionally protected. But some wasn’t peaceful.”
