South Florida Democrat Moskowitz airs campaign ad targeting antisemitism with concentration camp footage

Moskowitz’s team emphasized the “deeply personal” nature of the congressman’s battle against antisemitism in a statement issued alongside the ad’s release.

By Sharon Udasin, JTA

South Florida U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz pulled on his family’s story as Jews in the Holocaust in a campaign ad targeting antisemitism as he strives to retain his seat in the November general election.

“In every generation, they rise against us,” the Jewish incumbent says in the ad over a background of somber music and black-and-white photos from a concentration camp. “My great-grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz.”

“In our generation, right here, the Parkland shooter had swastikas carved into his gun,” he continues, standing in front of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, referring to the 2018 fatal shooting that killed 14 students and three educators.

Moskowitz, a top Democratic supporter of Israel in Congress who fended off progressive challenger Oliver Larkin in a heated August primary, emphasizes in the ad that he has worked to fight antisemitism through bipartisan laws.

Some of this legislative action has involved increasing security at synagogues and Jewish nonprofits and expanding education to reduce hate crimes.

“Never again is now,” Moskowitz concludes.

Moskowitz won the August primary with 63.5% of Democratic voter support, to Larkin’s 36.5%.

But Larkin was vocal throughout the race about his opposition to arms sales to Israel, going so far as to label the country as a “religious supremacist” nation.

As Moskowitz prepares to face former Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer, a Republican who is also Jewish, the Democrat may be facing a tight race in a region that had previously been solidly blue.

The 25th Congressional District, which includes parts of Delray Beach, Boca Raton, and Miami Beach, is about 25% Jewish, according to local estimates.

Yet recent redistricting efforts have transformed the region into territory that President Donald Trump would have likely won in the 2024 elections.

In fact, the Cook Political Report declared a shift from “solid D” to “toss up.”

“There’s no doubt that the race for the new 25th District will be highly competitive in a favorable environment for Democrats,” the report stated.

Moskowitz’s team emphasized the “deeply personal” nature of the congressman’s battle against antisemitism in a statement issued alongside the ad’s release.

He is confronting this challenge, his team explained, by “connecting his family’s experience during the Holocaust to the hatred that continues to threaten our communities today.”

While Moskowitz’s great-grandparents died in Auschwitz, his grandparents were able to escape Europe right before the war.

His grandmother left on the Kindertransport, an organized effort that rescued Jewish children from Nazi-controlled territories beginning in 1938.

By Tuesday evening, the Google Ads Transparency Center, which includes data on YouTube ads, did not yet reflect how much money the campaign had spent on its ads there.

Meta’s Ad Library also did not yet have data as to how much had been spent on the Facebook version of the ad posted there.

Stephen Sussman, a professor of public administration at Barry University, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that although “Holocaust imagery should never become routine campaign material,” he doesn’t believe that this ad has crossed a line.

“The Holocaust was, of course, a real event that continues to shape Jewish life and memory,” Sussman said, recognizing that Moskowitz’s great-grandparents were murdered at Auschwitz and that many Jews today feel threatened by antisemitism.

“He is not comparing his opponent to Hitler or using the Holocaust to make an unrelated political attack,” Sussman added.

The professor also noted the ad’s direct connections to the congressman’s record, such as his leadership in passing bipartisan legislation on antisemitism awareness and in boosting funding for synagogue security.

Sussman acknowledged that when Holocaust imagery becomes part of a campaign, there “is a legitimate concern” that other people might deploy that imagery less responsibly.

But he stressed that given Moskowitz’s history and work record, as well as the current political climate, this particular ad is “powerful but defensible.”

Ken Goldstein, a politics professor at the University of San Francisco, offered a similar perspective, explaining that of the thousands of ads he has watched in his lifetime, he found this one to be powerful but not particularly controversial.

“He was certainly using pictures of the Holocaust, jarring images, but they were his family’s story,” said Goldstein, who is an expert on the impacts of political advertising.

“I don’t think he’s using it to personally attack anybody else except the Parkland shooter,” he added, noting that the ad isn’t being used to attack an opponent. “This one does not strike me as particularly harsh, unfair, or out of bounds at all.”