Josh Shapiro outraged after Harris campaign asked if he was ‘Israeli double agent’

Pennsylvania’s Jewish governors claims Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign rejected him for VP spot over antisemitism.

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign asked Pennsylvania’s Jewish governor, Josh Shapiro, whether he was secretly working as an agent of Israel as part of the vetting process for a possible vice presidential nomination, the governor wrote, drawing his ire over what he considered an inappropriate question.

On Sunday, The New York Times published a report containing quotes from Shapiro’s upcoming memoir, Where We Keep the Light: Stories from a Life of Service, which is slated for release on January 27.

The Times, which received an advance copy of the book, revealed that during the vetting process of potential vice presidential picks ahead of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, members of the Harris campaign asked him outright whether he was working as a “double agent for Israel.”

The question angered Shapiro, who vented his frustrations to Harris’ team.

“Well, we have to ask,” Shapiro was told, according to his memoir.

That, Shapiro wrote, “said a lot about some of the people around the VP.”

After the encounter, Shapiro wrote that he was left wondering “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.”

“These sessions were completely professional and businesslike,” Shapiro added. “But I just had a knot in my stomach through all of it.”

The governor, a moderate Democrat who won a landslide victory in the 2022 governor’s race in the bellwether state running on a centrist agenda, was among the final candidates considered by the Harris campaign for vice president.

However, the campaign ultimately tapped Tim Walz, the progressive governor of Minnesota.

The decision to tap the left-wing governor from a reliably Democratic state over a popular moderate from a key battleground state fueled speculation that then-Vice President Harris had rejected Shapiro over his strong public support for Israel, or in a bid to placate antisemitic far-left voters.

Shapiro had in the past spoken publicly about his volunteer work as a teenager on an Israeli kibbutz, during which he worked briefly on an IDF base.

In April 2025, the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion was damaged in a firebombing attack in an apparent assassination attempt on Shapiro during the Passover holiday.

The terrorist, Cody Allen Balmer, cited the war in Gaza and Shapiro’s support for Israel in justifying his attack.