{"id":3517,"date":"2018-03-04T12:36:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T17:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/?page_id=3517"},"modified":"2024-03-14T14:46:43","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T18:46:43","slug":"jta-nc-governors-race-to-pit-jewish-democrat-against-republican-who-says-he-apologized-for-past-antisemitism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/jta-nc-governors-race-to-pit-jewish-democrat-against-republican-who-says-he-apologized-for-past-antisemitism\/","title":{"rendered":"JTA: NC governor\u2019s race to pit Jewish Democrat against Republican who says he apologized for past antisemitism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
North Carolina Lieutenant Gov. Mark Robinson, pictured in 2022. (Allison Joyce\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By Ron Kampeas<\/a>, JTA<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When North Carolina voters go to the polls in November to elect their next governor, they will choose between a Jewish Democrat and a Republican who has been accused of antisemitism but said he apologized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both parties\u2019 contests were called relatively early on Tuesday evening, as soon as the polls closed. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who has troubled his state\u2019s Jewish community with past remarks considered antisemitic<\/a> for which he has expressed remorse, was projected to win the Republican nod for governor, and will face off against Josh Stein, the state\u2019s Jewish Democratic attorney general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NBC called Tuesday\u2019s primaries<\/a> for Robinson and Stein as soon as the polls closed. Stein was the first Jew to win statewide office in North Carolina in 2016, when he won the attorney general\u2019s race.  Robinson, who is Black, had the backing of former President Donald Trump, who recently called him \u201cMartin Luther King on steroids.\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stein, 57, trotted to the nomination after\u00a0being endorsed last year by outgoing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper<\/a>, who is term-limited. He is active in Temple Beth Or in Raleigh, a Reform synagogue, and has invoked his Judaism in explaining his politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur Jewish faith obliges us to do our part to make the world a better place, better than we found it,\u201d he said on X, formerly Twitter, to mark Rosh Hashanah in 2022.<\/a> \u201cThis principle guides me as your attorney general.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stein has also faced antisemitic invective. In 2017, an influential North Carolina conservative news site linked to an article invoking the antisemitic Great Replacement Theory in an attack on Stein. The conspiracy theory says Jews are orchestrating mass immigration to replace the majority-white populations of Western countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The article in question said, \u201cStein is a reform Jew. Those from within his own ethnic group want the Christian majority with roots in western countries to be numerically diluted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After winning the nomination on Tuesday, Stein wrote that he was \u201cpumped\u201d in a post on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m incredibly humbled, honored, and pumped to officially be the Democratic nominee for Governor of North Carolina,\u201d he wrote. \u05f4Thank you to everyone who has supported our campaign and believes in our vision for a stronger, safer North Carolina.\u05f4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robinson, 55, rose to political stardom in 2018 when a video of his pro-gun rights speech at a Greensboro City Council meeting went viral. He had never held elected office, but state Republicans encouraged him to run for lieutenant governor, and he pulled off a win in 2020, a year when Democrats won the attorney general and governor races. His campaign highlighted his rise from poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon, however, bigoted social media posts of his surfaced. Many targeted the LGBTQ community, but some advanced bigoted tropes about Jews.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018 he aimed fire at the blockbuster \u201cBlack Panther\u201d movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow can this trash, that was only created to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets, invoke any pride?\u201d he wrote, employing a Yiddish slur for Black people. \u201cShekels,\u201d Israel\u2019s currency, is often used in antisemitic rhetoric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black Panther was created in the 1960s by two Jewish comic book creators, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The film was directed by Ryan Coogler, a Black filmmaker who is involved in social justice causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robinson also used the slur in 2017 when criticizing the 1977 TV miniseries \u201cRoots\u201d which, he wrote, protrays the \u201cweakness of the shvartze.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, the Raleigh News & Observer<\/a> unearthed a conversation that Robinson had in 2019 with a fringe religious leader named Sean Moon. In the interview, Moon invokes anti-Semitic tropes about the Rothschild family, and Robinson says \u201cThat\u2019s exactly right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has also repeatedly said that the left focuses too much on the threat of violent right wing extremism in the form of Nazis, and that the threat is overstated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a political autobiography he said he apologized to Jews in the state for his posts<\/a>, although he has never made the apology public. He has also condemned antisemitic fliers appearing last year in Raleigh, and has attacked Democrats who have criticized Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polls show<\/a> that the race is neck-and-neck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ron Kampeas, JTA When North Carolina voters go to the polls in November to elect their next governor, they will choose between a Jewish Democrat and a Republican who has been accused of antisemitism but said he apologized. Both parties\u2019 contests were called relatively early on Tuesday evening, as soon as the polls closed.… more JTA: NC governor\u2019s race to pit Jewish Democrat against Republican who says he apologized for past antisemitism<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3518,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3517","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nJTA: NC governor\u2019s race to pit Jewish Democrat against Republican who says he apologized for past antisemitism - Jewish Political Guide<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"googlebot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"bingbot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/jta-nc-governors-race-to-pit-jewish-democrat-against-republican-who-says-he-apologized-for-past-antisemitism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JTA: NC governor\u2019s race to pit Jewish Democrat against Republican who says he apologized for past antisemitism - Jewish Political Guide\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Ron Kampeas, JTA When North Carolina voters go to the polls in November to elect their next governor, they will choose between a Jewish Democrat and a Republican who has been accused of antisemitism but said he apologized. Both parties\u2019 contests were called relatively early on Tuesday evening, as soon as the polls closed.… more JTA: NC governor\u2019s race to pit Jewish Democrat against Republican who says he apologized for past antisemitism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/jta-nc-governors-race-to-pit-jewish-democrat-against-republican-who-says-he-apologized-for-past-antisemitism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jewish Political Guide\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-03-14T18:46:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/mark-robinson.jpg.webp\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/\",\"name\":\"Jewish Political Guide\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/jta-nc-governors-race-to-pit-jewish-democrat-against-republican-who-says-he-apologized-for-past-antisemitism\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/mark-robinson.jpg.webp\",\"width\":2160,\"height\":1200},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/jta-nc-governors-race-to-pit-jewish-democrat-against-republican-who-says-he-apologized-for-past-antisemitism\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/jta-nc-governors-race-to-pit-jewish-democrat-against-republican-who-says-he-apologized-for-past-antisemitism\/\",\"name\":\"JTA: NC governor\\u2019s race to pit Jewish Democrat against Republican who says he apologized for past antisemitism - Jewish Political Guide\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/jta-nc-governors-race-to-pit-jewish-democrat-against-republican-who-says-he-apologized-for-past-antisemitism\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-04T17:36:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-03-14T18:46:43+00:00\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/jta-nc-governors-race-to-pit-jewish-democrat-against-republican-who-says-he-apologized-for-past-antisemitism\/\"]}]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3517"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3528,"href":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3517\/revisions\/3528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}