Adelson: Stefanik ‘has guts to say the truth’
A few days after Rep. Elise Stefanik, the upstate Republican who in Congressional hearings last year skewered university heads for giving antisemitism a green light on their campuses, announced her entry into the gubernatorial race, the congresswoman was lavishly praised by billionaire philanthropist Dr. Miriam Adelson.
“When I heard you talking to the heads of the universities, I said to myself, ‘She has the guts to say the truth’,” Adelson told Stefanik on Sunday, as she introduced the congresswoman, at a ZOA event in Manhattan.
Adelson’s late husband, Sheldon Adelson, “used to say, ‘Stand up for what you believe in even if you stand up alone,’ and you showed us and all the world courage,” she told Stefanik. “You had the courage to do it, and you stood up for what you believe in, and it was fantastic. You are a great leader.”
“I hope to visit you in the office of New York governor next year after the election,” Adelson added.
Stefanik told the ZOA event, where she received the Maccabee Warrior Award for Leadership, that she “stood shoulder to shoulder with the American Jewish community and the people of Israel through war, terror and tragedy.”
Stefanik, who would face Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who endorsed Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, in a general election, said she will never forget putting a “simple” moral question to the presidents of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Pennsylvania.
“‘Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university’s code of conduct?’” she said. “I expected them to say ‘yes.’ But one after another after another said, ‘It depends on the context.’ And the world heard. Let me be clear. It does not depend on the context.”
Stefanik said that she is running for governor because New York “is not just a city and state in crisis — it is the epicenter of the battle for the very Western values that have shaped America. The fight for democracy, for capitalism, for the dignity of work, for the belief that through effort and perseverance anyone can achieve the American Dream.”
Mamdani is “a raging antisemite, defund the police, tax-hiking communist,” who “openly traffics in sympathy for those who chant ‘globalize the intifada,’ who refuses to condemn the glorification of terror, who has said he would arrest Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, whose family history and political ideology is steeped in sympathy for suicide bombers and terrorists,” Stefanik said.
“At the very moment that New Yorkers were looking for strength and moral clarity, our weak Gov. Kathy Hochul, the worst governor in America, showed weakness and endorsed the jihadist for mayor,” Stefanik said. “She propelled him to this office putting every Jewish New Yorker at risk.”
Morton Klein, national president of the ZOA, said at the event that “there has been a generalization and mainstreaming of bigotry against Jews.”
“Bigotry has been disguised as principle, hatred is baptized as virtuous and the ZOA will fight these dangerous lies with no appeasement and no dilution,” he said. “Total war against hatred.”
The event began with a memorial for Charlie Kirk, who was slated to be honored at the gala before a gunman killed him on Sept. 10.
“When I asked him to speak, he was overwhelmed with gratitude,” Klein told JNS, of Kirk. “He was such a great supporter of Israel and never turned against it, as people are saying.” (Some prominent conservatives, who peddle conspiracy theories, have said that Kirk wasn’t a Zionist.)
“It was a terrible loss for the world and the Jewish people when he was brutally murdered by that terrible human being,” Klein said. He told JNS that he and Kirk were close and traveled in Israel together.
Leo Terrell, chair of the US Justice Department task force on Jew-hatred, told the event that “Jewish Americans should have the same rights as all Americans. When they attend schools, they will not be discriminated against.”
“I am sick and tired of the ‘Jewish tax,’ the additional cost of security for Jews to go to school, work and synagogues,” Terrell said.
Cnservative talk-radio show host Sid Rosenberg told JNS at the event that “even though it seems like the war is over in Israel and the Middle East, with antisemitism at home in New York, we must continue to fight.”
At the event, ZOA announced a new Women’s Leadership Division, which Susan Good and Rhonda Small will co-chair.
“Our women’s division mission is clear — to uphold Israel’s sovereignty, to strengthen Jewish philanthropy, to advance education and social good and to stand united and fearless in a fight against antisemitism,” Good told attendees.
