Kamala campaign mocked for 'Kamala(t) Shabbat' events

In a desperate attempt to get back the Jewish vote in the US, the Harris-Walz campaign and the Democratic Party are dispatching Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff to swing states and attendees at his speeches have been asked to host events called "Kamala(t) Shabbat," a play on the Friday evening prayer service known as Kabbalat Shabbat, welcoming the Sabbath.

However, one of the events went viral on social media Tuesday night after eagle-eyed Jewish users noticed that many of the Jewish rituals and traditions in the advertising were wrong.

The organizer of one of the "DIY" “Kamala(t) Shabbat” events in Lincoln Square, Chicago, used a staged picture from 2022 of Vice President Kamala Harris, Emhoff, and guests to advertise the gathering, but the image showed the group celebrating Passover, not the Sabbath.

The picture in the event announcement on OneTable showed Seder plates, which are used during the Passover Seder, a feast commemorating the exodus of the Jews from Egypt during the holiday that usually falls in April. During the feast, Jews read from the Haggadah about the story of Passover.

The event was held on October 18, during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot (booths), a harvest festival in the fall during which Jews traditionally eat outside in makeshift huts to commemorate the journey of the Jews through the desert. Rather than being outside, the event said it was “indoors” and the photo showed Harris and her guests around a table inside a dining room.

Featured prominently on the table is an orange, which is not part of a traditional Seder. According to My Jewish Learning, the “custom” was invented in the 1980s by Susannah Heschel, a Jewish feminist scholar who read a feminist version of the Haggadah written in the 20th Century that suggested adding the crust of bread to the seder plate as a solidarity gesture with Jewish lesbians, even though leavened bread is prohibited on Passover. The website claimed that Heschel felt including bread on the Seder plate, even though leavened products are traditionally removed from Jewish homes for Passover, was a step too far, and instead chose to include an orange at her next seder to symbolize the inclusion of gays and lesbians.

Jews on social media were also quick to point out that the wine on the table came from the area of Judea and Samaria, parts of biblical Israel which far-left activists that support Harris claim as “occupied” by Israel, and, as such, boycott products that come from the region. 

Democrats in Michigan posted the “Kamala Shabbat” event in their state designed to “Gather, Reflect, Mobilize.”

“Come join the movement of young Jews across the country and host a Kamala(t) Shabbat dinner in your own home! (Get it? Kabbalat Shabbat / Shabbat dinner → The Next President of the United States → Kamala(t) Shabbat!) We only have two Shabbatot remaining until the election! These series of DIY Shabbat dinners across the state, hosted inside your home for your friends and family, will create a space to gather and reflect on the stakes of this election, and mobilize your community to go all-out in these final weeks of the campaign.”

“Sign up for our virtual training and receive an exclusive Kamala(t) Shabbat Dinner guide—think of it like a Shabbat haggadah designed for the intersection of Jewish tradition and democracy! While the campaign will not coordinate individual meals, we will provide tools to help hosts and guests turn their already planned Shabbat dinners or meals-to-be into powerful spaces for gathering, reflection, and most importantly, mobilizing our friends and community.”

According to journalist Daniel Greenfield, the diners will discuss Harris and attendees will read "passages from her book, The Truths We Hold.” He added, “There's only one mention of G-d, but multiple mentions of Kamala. There's no quotes from the Torah but quotes from Kamala's book.”

One of the quotes featured on the event site attributed to Kamala reads, “Years from now, our children and our grandchildren will look up and lock eyes with us. They will ask us where we were when the stakes were so high. They will ask us what it was like. I don't want us to just tell them how we felt. I want us to tell them what we did.”

A poll released last week by the Manhattan Institute found that the majority of Jewish voters, a group that traditionally leans towards Democrats, are now open to supporting Republican candidates in the year since the Oct 7 massacre.

According to the poll, only one-third of respondents said they would only vote for a Democrat. The poll revealed that this is due to 41 percent of respondents being highly concerned about growing antisemitism within the Democratic Party, with those numbers increasing among Orthodox Jews, Conservative Jews, and Politically Independent Jews. Additionally, Harris and the Democratic Party are considered weakest on "Security, Israel, and antisemitism."

Emhoff appeared confused as to why Jews were abandoning his wife’s party in favor of former President Donald Trump during a speech this week in Southfield, Michigan. Emhoff said, “It’s so vexing to me that any Jew supports him.” Emhoff then falsely claimed that Trump, who has Jewish children and grandchildren, “foments antisemitism everywhere he goes. He does not care about us.”

According to CNN, Jewish attendees at Emhoff's event were asked to send messages encouraging people to host “Kamala Shabbat” dinners.