The Fight is On in Georgia

As noted above by Senator Norm Coleman, January run-offs will be held in both the regularly scheduled Georgia Senate race pitting GOP Senator David Perdue against Democrat Jon Ossoff, and the special election in which Senator Kelly Loeffler is defending the seat she was appointed to after the retirement of Senator Johnny Isakson.

So far, RJC members have donated nearly $300,000 to the Perdue and Loeffler runoff campaigns through the RJC PAC. Have you made your contribution yet? YOU CAN DONATE HERE!

Note that donation limits have reset for the runoff. Individuals can give up to $2,800, and couples $5,600, to each candidate regardless of how much you gave to Sen. Perdue and Sen Loeffler during the general election.

The Forward reports on the RJC’s efforts in Georgia, which are ramping up now: 

The Republican Jewish Coalition has already spent $150,000 since Sunday afternoon, according to its executive director Matt Brooks. Its Florida staff will become its Georgia staff, and it is planning new digital ads to target Jewish voters.

The message, Brooks said, will be that “Keeping a Republican Senate is a brake on extremism, and will ensure that the Democrats don’t have a blank check to give to” the party’s progressive leaders, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders. (Brooks told JTA that the RJC will not refer to Biden as “president-elect” until “states certify the election and the courts have ruled on allegations of fraud and irregularities.”)

We’ve already heard from many RJC members who want to volunteer to make calls into Georgia or take on other tasks. If you’d like to volunteer and help bring Senators Perdue and Loeffler over the finish line, contact us at [email protected].

RJC Atlanta Chapter Chairman Chuck Berk spoke to the Atlanta Jewish Times about what the Jewish community needs to know about Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s opponent, Raphael Warnock. 

In a statement to the AJT, Chuck Berk, who heads the Atlanta chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said, “The Jewish community should be appalled by the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic comments by Rev. Warnock and have real concern as to whether, if elected, he would be a supporter of Israel and Jewish issues. But if history is any guide, I doubt that will have any impact. Liberal Jews, including many of our Atlanta rabbis will naively ignore these statements, as they did Obama’s Reverend [Jeremiah] Wright’s statements, the cold shoulder to Israel by Obama-Biden for eight years, throwing Israel under the bus at the UN, and not condemning the Black Lives Matter ‘protestors’ in Los Angeles who attacked and vandalized synagogues, Jewish businesses and memorials with anti-Semitic, anti-Israel slogans (i.e. F*** Israel). We need Georgia senators who have a history of a strong, unblemished record of support for Israel and Jewish causes, like David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.”

The JTA reports that Warnock’s record on Israel has become a flashpoint for Atlanta Jews:

“Raphael Warnock signed letter likening West Bank to apartheid South Africa,” Jewish Insider reported Thursday.

The publication followed up with another story this week saying that Warnock, a Black pastor who leads the church helmed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. until his assassination in 1968, “blasted Israel” in a 2018 sermon.

On Monday, Loeffler amplified that sermon on Twitter, accusing Warnock of having “a long history of anti-Israel extremism.”

… The Republican Jewish Coalition on Tuesday tweeted a story about Warnock’s Israel record, saying, “Believe his actions, not his self-serving words.