Minnesota DFL Unanimously Approves First Jewish Caucus

The Minnesota DFL State Central Committee unanimously approved the creation of a Jewish Caucus to be an official, party-approved community outreach organization Saturday afternoon at Edina High School. 

The creation of the group has been about six months in the making. Party activists Ben and Miranda Weisbuch, Kit Bix, and Ethan Litman, former Golden Valley Mayor Shep Harris, and current Minnetonka City Council member Deb Calvert were among the group instrumental in its creation.

“[There was] no opposition, not even from where thought opposition would come from,” Ben Weisbuch said. “It’s an amazing feat for the DFL, and an amazing feat for us. It’s a historic day.”

The Jewish Community Outreach Organization had broad support from current and former elected officials, both Jews and non-Jews, including Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Secretary of State Steve Simon, and three of the four DFL congresswomen: Angie Craig, Kelly Morrison, and Ilhan Omar.

The purpose of organizing the group came after the experience many had at the 2024 DFL Convention in Duluth.

“People had antisemitism thrust at them in their face and a lot of people felt unsafe in the DFL,” Weisbuch said. “This has been tried before, and we decided that we wanted to try again.”

The group’s mission statement says it will, in part, “work to strengthen the link between Minnesota’s Jewish community and DFL Party through effective communications, public events, and advocating for policies that improve the lives of all Minnesotans.”

The Jewish community has historically been a reliably Democratic voting bloc, generally in the mid-70 percent range according to exit polling. Weisbuch said that the Jewish male vote for Democrats is lagging behind women: 62 percent of Jewish men voted for Kamala Harris, whereas 86 percent of Jewish women voted for Harris. 

In order to get to this point, the group had to create a constitution, bylaws, and rules – which the party’s constitution, bylaws and rules committee has to approve. Then, the state executive committee determines that authorizing the group advances the electoral goals of the party. Once it passes those two milestones, then the state central committee votes to approve.

The Jewish Community Outreach Organization is now one of 18 authorized outreach organizations or caucus; others include the African American Caucus, Disability Caucus, Muslim Caucus, and Stonewall DFL, the party’s LGBTQ caucus. There is a one-year probationary period for every new organizing group like the JCOO, which means they won’t be able to endorse candidates until next year. But that one-year period will end in time for the group to endorse before the primary elections in 2026.

“Practically, it means that we’re organizing politically for Jews for the DFL, and to dispel antisemitism,” Weisbuch said. “We can raise money for candidates. We can get membership. And we can fight this fight.”

One thing that the group didn’t address in their constitution is Israel, which Weisbuch said was a strategic decision.

“This is about Minnesota. It’s not about what’s happening in Gaza, it’s about what’s happening in Duluth,” he said. “We concentrated, frankly, on what we can change and what we can control, which is elections in Minnesota, and changing the lives of Jews and organizing [statewide]. We don’t have control over what’s happening in Gaza and we don’t have control over Netanyahu.”

Weisbuch said that setting aside issues related to Israel was appreciated, but he knows that in the future it may come up.

“This was about getting a seat at the table for our community,” he said. “Now we’re going to be out front and make sure that our voices are heard. We can start to have conversations openly with antisemites on right and left. We can combat antisemitism within our own (Democratic) ranks, which we need to do.”

Harris said there was some concern that voting members who are part of the Democratic Socialists of America may have pushed back against the formation of the caucus. The DSA members of the Minneapolis City Council had been leading the push for a ceasefire resolution, which some groups called divisive. The DSA has also been leading protests against Israel during it’s war with Hamas which began on Oct. 7, 2023, when the Iranian-backed terrorist organization killed more than 1,200 people in Israel. 

“There have been a handful of us who have relationships with some folks in that group, and we kept saying to them repeatedly: ‘This is about fighting antisemitism. This is about getting back to the bread and butter issues that attracted Jews on social justice values to the DFL and the Democrat Party almost 100 years ago,” Harris said. “We kept assuring them that, on the issue of Israel, we’re Jews. We have multiple opinions on this issue.”

Harris said that there are more areas where people can agree than disagree. 

“We want to get back to the bread and butter issues that have historically unified us,” he said. “There’s going to be some tough conversations going forward, but there are so many different issues where we can partner with different communities and different groups and draw consensus over than on issues that we’ll have disagreement over.”

In his speech to the convention on Saturday, Weisbuch explained that the conversations that many Jewish families were having were about who would hide the Jews if history repeated itself.

“It’s about survival,” he said. “It’s about the swastikas on our place of worship. It’s about the progressive activist no longer feeling safe in the DFL spaces that they once did. It’s about survival, and that resonated with the 700 people in the room.”