He’s Shabbat observant, he keeps kosher and he’s just won Pennsylvania

Josh Shapiro, who openly embraced his Jewish faith on the campaign trail and used adverts to highlight his observance of Shabbat and sending his children to Jewish day school, has won Pennsylvania’s race for governor.

Mr Shapiro’s victory will make him one of the most influential Jewish politicians in the United States - and Pennsylvania’s first Jewish governor since Milton Shapp almost half a century ago.

Currently the state’s attorney general, Mr Shapiro secured 56 per cent of the vote to beat Trump-backed far-right Republican candidate Doug Mastriano, considered one of the most extreme midterm candidates in the elections.

Josh Shapiro

Josh Shapiro waves to the crowd during a rally in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania before being elected governor, November 5, 2022 (Credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Mr Mastriano, state senator and a prominent figure in the country’s fundamentalist Christian nationalism movement, has a history of controversial and anti-Jewish behaviour. He was placed on the Anti-Defamation League’s list of “right-wing extremists seeking elected office” after he spread the debunked, antisemitic conspiracy theory that George Soros, a liberal media mogul, was a Nazi.

Mr Mastriano’s campaign advertised on the social network Gab, a haven for far-right antisemites and extremists, including the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting in 2018.

An investigation earlier this year uncovered a $500 payment by Mr Mastriano to the site for “campaign consulting”, which ensured that every new Gab account would automatically follow his own.

And he later accepted a donation from Gab’s openly-antisemitic founder Andrew Torba.

Mr Mastriano claimed the Jewish day school Mr Shapiro attended as a child was a “privileged, exclusive, elite school” and his educational upbringing had led him to have a “disdain for people like us” - despite 60 per cent of students at the school requiring financial aid.

He also pinned the “elite” tag on the Jewish day school the Shapiros' children attend.

Doug Mastriano

Republican candidate for Pennsylvania Governor Doug Mastriano addresses the media after a rally in Manheim, Pennsylvania, October 29, 2022 (Credit: Mark Makela/Getty Images)

One of Mr Mastriano’s advisers called Mr Shapiro “at best a secular Jew”, while the senator's wife, Rebbie, told an Israeli reporter that she and her husband “probably” loved Israel “more than a lot of Jews do”.

Before running for governor, Mr Mastriano funded and acted in a Holocaust movie with heavy right-wing overtones and promoted Christianity at the expense of Jewish characters. At his campaign’s final stop, a Messianic Jew, which is an offshoot of Protestant Christianity, serenaded him with a parody of a “Fiddler on the Roof” song.

Governor-elect Mr Shapiro describes himself as a progressive Democrat, and ran on a platform of protecting voting rights, abortion rights, and raising the minimum wage.

Mr Shapiro rounded off his victory speech on Monday with a quote from Pirkei Avot, the Jewish book Teachings of Our Fathers, saying: “You are not required to complete the task, neither are you free to desist from it.”

Josh Shapiro rounds out his victory speech with a classic quote from Pirkei Avot, the Jewish book "Teachings of Our Fathers": You are not required to complete the task, neither are you free to desist from it.

He says it often in campaign addresses. pic.twitter.com/yLmdMKWaUF
— Gabby Deutch (@GSDeutch) November 9, 2022

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