Rachel Goldstein
 | |
| Era | The Modern Era |
|---|---|
| Age | 40-55 |
| Home | Bala Cynwyd, PA |
| Demographic | Jewish-American, suburban, professional |
| Lean | Lean Democrat |
| Race | white |
| Predecessor | Park Slope Dana |
Rachel is a nonprofit director in the Philadelphia suburbs who is Jewish and liberal. Since 2023 she has found it hard to hold both identities at once, as the Democratic Party, which she has supported for a century, moves further left on Israel.
Who they stand for
Rachel represents the American Jewish voter, roughly seven in ten of whom vote Democratic, a group that has backed the party for about a century. She lives in the Philadelphia collar counties that made Pennsylvania competitive, including Lower Merion and Montgomery County, once Republican and now Democratic suburbs. Her adult life showed her that antisemitism was not only historical, including the white-nationalist march in Charlottesville in 2017, the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh in 2018, and, after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023, campus encampments and chants from her own side.
Rachel dislikes Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and supported the 2015 Iran nuclear deal her Republican neighbours opposed. She cannot vote for a party with white nationalists, but the Democratic Party now includes people who call Israel a settler-colonial state, caught between the two.
Scarsdale Ellen and Park Slope Dana, earlier personas, felt less tension. In Ellen's time, liberals supported Israel; Dana broke with the civil-liberties left over Israel alone. Rachel has watched parts of the left break with her over Israel while her distaste for the right remains unchanged; she is the first persona whose main fear is her own party, not the opposing one.
Playing to them
Rachel responds well to a president who condemns antisemitism from both the right and the left, maintains the security relationship with Israel while criticising Israeli government policies, and defends secular liberal institutions at home, including the courts, abortion rights, public broadcasting, and the causes of the American Civil Liberties Union. She does not forgive a president who praises the far right or appears with its members, endorses the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, allows the language of the party's most left-wing members into official statements, or fails to name a synagogue attack as antisemitic. She forgives a president who takes a tough public line with Netanyahu, so long as it is not a pretext for abandoning Israel.
Winning Rachel's support on Israel costs the support of Brooklyn Jamal and College Chloe, who march for Palestinians, and a president who distances the administration from Israel to win them loses Rachel along with Miami Maria and Military Mike. Winning her on abortion rights and secular government costs Iowa Martha, Heartland Hank and Gospel Gloria. Beltway Barbara is closest to Rachel in most respects, but Rachel has a reason, over Israel, to distrust the left that Barbara does not share.
Where they live
The five states where Rachel Goldstein makes up the largest share of the electorate in the modern era:
- New York
- New Jersey
- Massachusetts
- Connecticut
- Rhode Island
Lineage
Scarsdale Ellen → Park Slope Dana → Rachel Goldstein
Jewish liberal women, and what changes is how Israel fits with the rest of their politics. For Ellen there is no conflict: liberals support Israel. For Dana, Israel is the one issue on which she breaks with the civil-liberties left. For Rachel, the left has turned against Israel and she is caught between her party and her community. Her contempt for the Republican right is the same in all three. Her fear of the left is new.