Doug Mastriano - blows jewish horn in effort to take over Pennsylvania

[yankeedoodle]

Pennsylvania Republican Doug Mastriano enters race for governor with a shofar blast
https://www.jta.org/2022/01/09/politics/pennsylvania-republican-doug-mastriano-enters-race-for-governor-with-a-shofar-blast

Doug Mastriano isn't Jewish. But that didn't stop him from announcing his candidacy for Pennsylvania governor at an event where a man donned a tallit, or a Jewish prayer shawl, and blew a shofar.

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1479889034218463238?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1479889034218463238%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jta.org%2F2022%2F01%2F09%2Fpolitics%2Fpennsylvania-republican-doug-mastriano-enters-race-for-governor-with-a-shofar-blast

Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator who has fashioned a political persona for himself in the style of Donald Trump, cast doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election and spoken out against vaccine mandates, had long been expected to enter the governor's race before formally announcing his candidacy Saturday. Mastriano is running as a Republican and, if he wins the primary, will likely face off against Josh Shapiro, the state's Democratic attorney general who rose to prominence by vocally opposing efforts to cast doubt on Joe Biden's victory in the state in the 2020 presidential election. Shapiro is Jewish.

The use of shofars by Christians at right-wing political events has become increasingly common in recent years and this was not the first time Mastriano has attended a right-wing event where a shofar was blown.

In December 2020, he attended a series of "Jericho Marches" in Washington, D.C. where Trump's supporters prayed for him to remain president. Jack Jenkins, a reporter for Religion News Service, told the New Yorker that the event was intended to mimic the Biblical story in which the walls of Jericho fell. "They blew on shofars believing they could literally overturn the election results," Jenkins said.

And Mastriano was in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 when Trump's supporters rallied and later stormed the Capitol, with some of them sounding shofars.

According to the New Yorker, Mastriano used campaign funds to charter buses to bring Trump supporters to the Jan. 6, 2021 rally. Although Mastriano said he left the Capitol after it was clearly "no longer a peaceful protest," some of his Democratic colleagues in the state senate have called for him to be expelled or court-martialed.

Mastriano has made "establishment Republicans" his enemy and was condemned by some of them on social media. "I know, it's a free country, so I guess Mr. Mastriano is free to appropriate two of the most meaningful elements of Jewish worship, the prayer shawl worn on Shabbat and the shofar sounded on Rosh Hashanah, for his political event. And I'm free to say it's beneath contempt," Bill Kristol, the former editor of the Weekly Standard, said in a tweet.

Michael Flynn, who served as Trump's first national security advisor for just a few weeks before resigning in disgrace, and Jenna Ellis, an attorney who worked to overturn the 2020 election results for Trump, appeared alongside Mastriano at the event, according to the York Daily Record.

[abduLMaria]

Last person I saw with a shofar with some Jewish asshole at an anti-Israel protest outside the embassy in SF.

He was about 6'4" and blew the horn at some teenage girl and hit her with it.

He was arrested.

[yankeedoodle]

Doug Mastriano's wife: 'We probably love Israel more than a lot of Jews do'
https://www.jta.org/2022/10/30/politics/doug-mastrianos-wife-we-probably-love-israel-more-than-a-lot-of-jews-do

Asked about his association with a social network that is a haven for antisemitism and for his criticism of his rival's Jewish day school, the Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania briefly had no words.

His wife did. "I would like to make a comment on that real quick," said Rebecca Mastriano, to applause from supporters in the room. "As a family, we so much love Israel. In fact I'm going to say we probably love Israel more than a lot of Jews do."

The exchange, during a press question and answer session at a Doug Mastriano campaign stop on Saturday, offered perhaps the clearest encapsulation yet of a dynamic that has been dominant in the matchup between Mastriano and Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish and favored to win.

Mastriano, who is backed by Donald Trump and espouses beliefs that some have characterized as Christian nationalism, has attracted many far-right supporters, among them Andrew Torba, the founder of Gab, a social network that is rife with antisemitism and was frequented by the Tree of Life synagogue shooter.

Rebecca Mastriano's comment mirrors the sentiment that Trump has expressed in statements about Jews and Israel in 2019 and again earlier this month — that American Jews owe Israel their support, and that Republicans care more about Israel than liberals do — which have earned rebuke outside the Republican party as a perpetuation of an antisemitic dual loyalty trope.

One of Mastriano's top advisers, Jenna Ellis — who formerly worked as a lawyer for Trump, promoting the lie that the former president won the 2020 election — was criticized for saying Shapiro is "at best a secular Jew." Shapiro, who keeps kosher and has referenced Shabbat in campaign ads, has accused Mastriano of courting "white supremacists and racists and antisemites."

The question to Mastriano on Saturday came from Nathan Guttman, a journalist who was reporting for the Israeli broadcaster KAN. (Guttman is also the editor of JTA Hebrew, an initiative to make Jewish Telegraphic Agency reporting accessible to Hebrew speakers.)

https://twitter.com/jacobkornbluh/status/1586520983036481536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1586520983036481536%7Ctwgr%5Eb0fcfa7c91264abcebe56ad10556481dc863e344%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jta.org%2F2022%2F10%2F30%2Fpolitics%2Fdoug-mastrianos-wife-we-probably-love-israel-more-than-a-lot-of-jews-do