Alsobrooks visits the heart of Baltimore’s Jewish community — and Hogan country

Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks listens Monday as David Ginsburg, executive director of the Pikesville Armory Foundation, describes the redevelopment of the historic armory property. U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D) is on the left. Photo by Josh Kurtz.

Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (D) traveled to the heart of Baltimore’s Jewish community Monday to meet with local leaders and promote her Senate candidacy.

The Jewish leaders said they were grateful that she came — but wanted to keep the conversation going.

The 11th legislative district, where Alsobrooks sat in an overcrowded conference room for a half-hour meeting with area Jewish leaders and then toured the Pikesville Armory redevelopment project next door, was a surprising area of strength for her Republican opponent, Larry Hogan, when he was elected governor in 2014 and reelected four years later.

Now, with American Jews devastated by and conflicted about the ongoing war in the Middle East, the brutality of the Hamas attack of Israel on Oct. 7 and the Israeli pounding of Gaza in response, the question is whether Jewish voters, historically a bulwark of Democratic support, are in play this fall — in the Maryland Senate election and nationwide.

Alsobrooks was accompanied in Pikesville by the man she’s hoping to replace, U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin (D), a fixture in the neighborhood and a leader for six decates of the local Jewish community. Her appearance came on a day when she and her campaign were shaken by a newly discovered campaign sign in northern Prince George’s County that had been vandalized with a pro-KKK message and a bulls-eye drawn on Alsobrooks’ forehead.

Alsobrooks used that distressing and sobering development to seek a connection Monday with members of her audience, who are alarmed about the escalating incidents of antisemitism across the state. She also spoke about the historical alliance between American Jews and Black civil rights leaders.

“Growing up in the 1970s, it was hard not to have conversations about the Jewish community and the African-American community being special friends,” she said.

But that historical friendship has been tested in recent years, with the war in Gaza and its impact in the U.S. the latest stressor. Hogan is clearly counting on his robust support for Israel to pry a significant segment of Jewish voters away from Alsobrooks, who has endorsed Israel’s right to defend itself and called for a “two-state solution” for Israel and Palestine, a mainstream Democratic talking point.

Packed into a real estate company conference room, surrounded by 20 clergy, community leaders and elected officials, Cardin introduced Alsobrooks as “a remarkable individual,” and the county executive, who won the Democratic Senate primary a month ago, said she was eager to hear what the leaders had to say.

“One of the things I’m proudest about is my ability to listen,” she said. “And I think that’s one important quality of leadership.”

Alsobrooks is not yet well known in the Baltimore area, and the Jewish leaders wanted to make sure she was aware of the work they do and that they had more concerns than just Israel. They spoke about affordable housing, services for senior citizens, and mental health programs, along with federal funding for various capital projects in Baltimore City and Baltimore County.

“I think it’s important for her to meet with the Jewish community here, hear what we’re working on, because she’s not from Baltimore,” said Howard Libit, executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council. “We’ve had eight years of working with Larry Hogan, eight years of conversations with Larry Hogan, and now it’s her turn.”

Asked point-blank what she knows about Baltimore, Alsobrooks, who was born and raised in Prince George’s County, said she learned a lot attending the University of Maryland Law School in Baltimore, developing friendships there, clerking for a Baltimore City Civil Court judge and for U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-7th) and the Congressional Black Caucus.

Still, it was the war in Gaza — and increasing domestic antisemitism — that produced the most anguish during Monday’s conversation.

“The days since Oct. 7 have been incredibly painful for members of the Jewish community in Baltimore, in the United States and around the world,” said Andrew Cushnir, president and CEO of The Associated, an umbrella organization of 18 Baltimore-area Jewish groups. “We are in the kind of pain that most of us never imagined having as adults.”

Rabbi Alex Salzberg, executive director of the Towson University Hillel, said he took Alsobrooks’ comments on the Black-Jewish alliance of the past to heart, but added that he and Jewish students were disappointed that Black leaders didn’t come to their support when the student government voted in favor of divesting university funds from Israeli companies.

Alsobrooks, who frequently noted that she has a 19-year-old daughter attending college, agreed that it’s important for students to feel safe on their campuses — and that parents and teachers need to do more to educate them about their counterparts from other cultures.

Alsobrooks also noted that she traveled to Israel in December 2019, so, “I did not come to Oct. 7 without any information.” But, she conceded, “it would be disingenuous to pretend I understand everything.”

It is in this environment that Republicans think Hogan, and other GOP candidates up and down the ballot, can make inroads this November.

A Hogan spokesperson did not respond Monday to a request for comment on the campaign’s strategy for appealing to Jewish voters, who represent about 3.5% of the Maryland electorate. But Hogan staked out strong pro-Israel positions when he was governor and after becoming a Senate candidate he made his first policy to a synagogue in Potomac. He has criticized U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), an early Alsobrooks supporter, for calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza.

Although the 11th District routinely votes Democratic in national elections and sends Democrats to Annapolis, Hogan took 56% of the vote there when he was running for governor in 2014 and took 62% four years later. Bobby Zirkin, the district’s former state senator, is co-chair of Democrats for Hogan this year — and is basing his support in part on Hogan’s stance on Israel. (Zirkin’s successor, Sen. Shelly Hettleman (D), and the three delegates representing District 11 were among the elected leaders on hand supporting Alsobrooks Monday.)

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During his 2018 reelection campaign, Hogan also won legislative districts in Montgomery County with significant Jewish populations, though not as resoundingly as in Baltimore County.

Sam Markstein, national political director for the Republican Jewish Coalition, said Republicans this year are poised to do even better in national elections than they traditionally do — and Hogan is no exception — due in part to the Democrats’ mixed messaging on Israel.

“The days when the Democrats would get 80 or 85% of the Jewish vote — those days are over,” he said. “This year will be a reckoning for those on the other side of the aisle who think they can take the Jewish vote for granted.”

A poll released last week by the American Jewish Committee found 61% of Jewish voters supporting President Biden for reelection. But if those numbers hold, it would be the lowest level of Jewish support for a Democratic White House nominee since 1984, when President Ronald Reagan won a 49-state landslide.

The poll also showed that 87% of American Jews believe that antisemitism has gotten worse, while 90% believe antisemitism is a problem in the country. Eighty-five percent said support for Israel should be a U.S. policy priority.

“The Republican Party is unequivocally the pro-Israel party and the Democratic Party has a lot of work to do,” Markstein said. “In Maryland, the people know Larry Hogan, the Jewish community knows Larry Hogan, and they trust him.”

‘It’s much bigger than Larry Hogan’

But Alsobrooks and her supporters believe that the Maryland electorate — including Jewish voters— will have different priorities this year, even if they like Hogan personally. They predicted that the national Republican priorities on abortion rights, gun safety, civil rights, immigration, in vitro fertilization and more will prove anathema to Democrats who may admire Hogan.

“I think Marylanders will know the difference between a governor and a senator and that the balance of power in the Senate will determine the direction of our country,” Alsobrooks told reporters Monday after meeting with community leaders and touring the old Pikesville Armory, which, with federal funding, is being refurbished into a full-service community center and event space. “It’s much bigger than Larry Hogan.”

And asked about whether she’s worried Van Hollen’s call for a cease-fire in Gaza could hurt her politically with Jewish voters, Alsobrooks suggested she can’t be held responsible for all the views of the scores of elected officials who support her.

“I’m grateful to have Sen. Van Hollen’s support,” she said. “We all have our own thoughts and opinions on things and we’re not required to have the same positions. I think people know the difference, that we’re all individuals.”

Cardin said Alsobrooks had the skills to be an effective and responsive senator.

“She’s reached out to understand the issues that are important to the Jewish community,” he said. “She’s just been nominated and now she’s in our community. She is well-qualified to be our United States senator. And remember, this is the first time that Maryland’s been on the political map in terms of control of the United States Senate. That’s important to this community. They’re not going to want Republicans controlling the agenda.”

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