|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
North Carolina Attorney-General Josh Stein became the state’s first Jewish governor Tuesday by beating Republican Mark Robinson, who once described himself as a “black Nazi.”
The race was called after Stein won 54.8% of the vote to Robinson’s 40.2%.
His victory was largely expected by October, mostly due to the notoriety Lieut. Gov. Robinson gained for both sexist and antisemitic comments he had made which came to light during the campaign.
CNN revealed in September that between 2008-2012, Robinson had posted on a pornography website that he was a “black NAZI,” backed the idea of bringing back slavery, and wrote sexually graphic stories, including one about being a ‘Peeping Tom’ in a local gym’s women’s showers.
After this story broke, Donald Trump distanced himself from Robinson even though he had been an early favorite of the former – and next – U.S. president.
Robinson, who only broke into politics in 2020, had also posted antisemitic statements such as calling the Black Panther superhero movie a creation of “an agnostic Jew” made solely “to pull the shekels out of your Schvartze pockets,” using the derogatory Yiddish term for black people.
While calling some of his past comments “poorly worded,” however, Robinson denied being an antisemite and has been a vocal supporter of Israel in its ongoing war against Hamas.
Stein, meanwhile, broke the religion barrier to the highest office in the state as a Reform Jew known for being active in his synagogue.
He has publicly embraced his Judaism, posting to X before Rosh Hashanah in 2022 that “Our Jewish faith obliges us to do our part to make the world a better place, better than we found it. This principle guides me as your attorney general.”
Regarding Israel, Stein follows the line set by President Joe Biden.
Just a few days after the Hamas invasion and massacre of 1,200 people on October 7, 2023, he attended a Jewish event and also wrote in solidarity, “We stand with Israel.”
But following months of pro-Palestinian protests and encampments on college campuses that included some in his own state, he took a more nuanced stance after a large anti-Israel protest took place at the University of North Carolina in May.
“The right to free speech is fundamental, and students should be able to exercise it peacefully. But any antisemitism, violence or other acts of hate are unacceptable. The safety of all students is critical,” he told a news reporter.
Like Biden as well, he is a believer in the so-called “two state solution” to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and has echoed the administration’s more recent commentary on the ongoing war.
“Hamas represents a real threat to Israel,” he told The News & Observer several months ago. “Israel is justified to try to address that threat. They have to do it in a way that minimizes … the impact on civilians because there are a couple of million Palestinians who live in Gaza who have nothing to do with Hamas, and are just trying to live their lives.”
Stein is succeeding another Democrat, Roy Cooper, who couldn’t run again due to term limits, even though North Carolina is a solidly red state on a national level, having voted for a Democratic president only once in the last 44 years.
