Beth Davidson was reading an article about an anti-ICE protest when she noticed a familiar figure, who was being handcuffed, in the photograph: her old rabbi.
Davidson, who is running for Congress and used to serve on the board of Bet Am Shalom Synagogue in White Plains, New York, immediately called up Rabbi Lester Bronstein, who retired from the synagogue in 2024. (Davidson’s son was Bronstein’s final bar mitzvah student.)
“That’s my Rabbi!” Davidson wrote on Instagram, adding, “You inspire me every day in my work to protect our immigrant neighbors and realize our American — and Jewish — promise to welcome the stranger.”
Davidson is no stranger to opposing ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. As a legislator in Rockland County just northwest of New York City, Davidson sponsored legislation earlier this year that would restrict how county employees can interact with ICE.
“He and I are very much in lockstep,” Davidson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview.
Davidson, who converted to Judaism in 2004, credits Jewish values such as tikkun olam, or repairing the world, and “welcoming the stranger,” as well as her time on her synagogue’s board, with driving her public service.
With the primary coming on June 23, Davidson is vying for the Democratic nomination to unseat Republican congressman Mike Lawler in November. Lawler is being backed by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, whose super PAC has $95 million in its war chest.
Davidson is a Jewish candidate running in one of the country’s most heavily Jewish districts — New York’s 17th — and a district that is seen as vulnerable to being flipped by the Democrats, having voted for Kamala Harris in 2024.
As Democratic voters in deep-blue areas are electing a growing number of staunch Israel critics to Congress, Davidson is pitching herself as a candidate who’s committed to supporting Israel — a commitment shared by the staunchly pro-Israel Lawler — while marrying that with a liberal agenda and commitment to fighting Donald Trump.
“To Jews that have felt lost in the Democratic party, as I’ve heard over and over again, who’ve felt homeless — I’ve said from the beginning, you have a home in my campaign,” Davidson said, adding that she wants to “reunite this party that is so sharply divided.”
Davidson wrote about her personal connection to Israel in a 2025 position paper, which included a trip to Israel with her husband and two children five years after she converted to Judaism. Her teenage daughter also traveled to Israel with her summer camp, Camp Havaya, just two months before the Oct. 7, 2023 attack. “For me and for my family, championing the sanctity and safety of Israel is not an abstract political stance or foreign policy issue,” Davidson wrote, instead calling it “deeply personal.”
Davidson trailed her opponent Cait Conley, a former Biden national security adviser, 29% to 22% according to the latest poll, which was commissioned a month ago by a pro-veterans group that endorsed Conley and is spending $1 million to boost her. A previous poll conducted in late April had Davidson ahead of Conley, 26% to 15%.
Effie Phillips-Staley, the staunchly pro-Palestinian candidate who drew backlash after appearing on streamer Hasan Piker’s show, commissioned the April poll and sat in third in both surveys with single-digit percentage points.
Mondaire Jones, the former congressman who represented much of the current 17th district, endorsed Davidson last year and said she would be “a real, bipartisan leader willing to stand up to her own party if it means protecting lower Hudson Valley residents,” referring to the district’s geographic area that includes Rockland and Putnam Counties, as well as parts of Westchester and Dutchess counties.
Davidson told JTA that she would “stand strong against antisemitism” and be a “strong voice for Israel” if elected, as well as a “strong voice for clean water, public schools, our daughter’s reproductive rights [and] so many of the other values that we share.”
Throughout Davidson’s time on the board of Bet Am Shalom, a Reconstructionist synagogue, Bronstein — who was a rabbi there for more than 35 years — said she exuded natural leadership qualities.
“She came in with no agenda other than to help and do her part and contribute in whatever way she was needed,” he said, calling her a “great team player” and “coalition builder” in the role. “She was so clearly a leader type, that the board people immediately latched onto her.”
One moment that has stuck with Bronstein was a speech Davidson gave on the second night of Rosh Hashanah in 2018. During it, she spoke about issues including police violence; the Flint, Michigan, water crisis; disproportionate suicide statistics among LGBTQ people; long-term illnesses contraced by 9/11 first responders; and the first Trump administration’s immigration policies.
She brought up NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who never played after openly supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, as an example of someone who sacrificed his livelihood to stand up for what he believes in, then asked congregants, “In this year that we begin today, what are your works going to be? What are you prepared to sacrifice? And what will you stand for?”
“It was a very strong sermon — you know, it stuck with me,” Bronstein said.
Among the issues at play in the NY-17 race, Jewish-related issues, including antisemitism and Israel, have played a major role.
They came to the fore in a particularly unique way when Lawler was confronted in a Capitol Hill bar by Sen. Rand Paul’s son in May. William Paul, who mistakenly thought Lawler was Jewish, told the congressman that if anti-Israel GOP incumbent Thomas Massie lost his upcoming Kentucky primary it would be because of “your people.” (Massie did lose the primary, and Lawler, who is Irish-Italian Catholic, later joked, “I am so proud of my people” at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s “America 250” gala.”)
Asked about that incident, Davidson said antisemitism “has reared its ugly head” during the campaign, and said it exemplified how people “feel like they have the license to attack and say those kinds of things that I don’t believe we’d say about any other community.” Davidson said she doesn’t tolerate antisemitic remarks being directed at anyone, including the person “who will presumably be my opponent in the fall.”
Davidson said she supports and has a personal appreciation for the need to bolster security for houses of worship — both as “a mom who drops her kid off at Hebrew school,” and as a Bet Am Shalom board member who was required to to wear a panic button around her neck while volunteering as a greeter for High Holiday services.
She supports the statewide bill to enact 50-foot buffer zones outside houses of worship, which lawmakers introduced in response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations held outside of synagogues hosting Israeli real estate events that included promotion of West Bank settlements.
Davidson said she supports the State of Israel while opposing the Benjamin Netanyahu-led government, similar to how she opposes the Donald Trump administration while being pro-America.
Some of Davidson’s positions put her in the minority of Democrats regarding Israel. Only seven of 47 Senate Democrats voted “no” on a pair of recent, Bernie Sanders-led resolutions to block certain weapons sales to Israel. Davidson said she’d want to speak with New York Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer about their reasoning, and would have likely voted “no” alongside them if she were in the U.S. Senate.
She supports a path to Palestinian self-determination, and pointed specifically to the “23-state solution” put forth by liberal pro-Israel group J Street, which would foster an agreement between Israel and 22 Arab states.
J Street lists both Davidson and Conley as “primary approved” candidates on its website. Meanwhile, pro-Israel group Democratic Majority for Israel has endorsed Conley, while AIPAC is continuing to back Lawler. Davidson has not been boosted by any super PACs in the race, and raised about $1.8 million, compared to Conley’s $2.6 million, as of March 31.
When asked about whether anti-Zionism amounts to antisemitism, Davidson said it “depends on the person saying it and the context.”
“When someone challenges the right of the State of Israel to exist, or says something like ‘From the river to the sea,’ I do find that to be antisemitic,” Davidson said. “But I just really try to unpack what their point is, what their feeling is. I’m always loath to paint anyone with a broad brush.”
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