H eadlines
Sen. Ben Cardin, Boris Epshteyn Speak at
Congregations of Shaare Shamayim Town Halls
L OCA L
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
THE CONGREGATIONS
of Shaare Shamayim held
its traditional presidential
town hall via Zoom this year,
splitting sessions with Sen.

Ben Cardin, a long-serving
Democrat from Maryland, and
Boris Epshteyn, a Republican
strategist and former White
House official, into two nights.

Each spoke on behalf of
their party’s presidential
candidate before submitting to
Q&A sessions moderated by
Linda Kobrin, the synagogue’s
executive vice president, and
congregant Rhona Sloan.

Cardin and Epshteyn, both
nationally known figures, were
the latest high-profile representa-
tives to speak at the synagogue’s
town halls; Sen. Joe Lieberman
and former White House Press
Secretary Ari Fleischer have
appeared in the past.

Each campaign surrogate
spoke about their candidate’s
commitment to Israel; each
attested to their candidate’s special
relationship with American Jews.

And that was about the extent
of the similarities between the
campaign surrogates’ delivery.

Cardin, who spoke on Oct.

22, was able to be seen on his
camera, and wore a suit as he
answered questions with long,
winding answers from a desk;
Epshteyn, his voice scratchy
and hoarse from speaking at a
series of rallies in the days prior
to his Oct. 26 appearance, was
not able to appear on camera,
and answered the questions he
was given in rapid succession,
spending about half of the time
that Cardin did at the town hall.

Cardin spoke and answered
questions for 45 minutes, im-
ploring viewers to vote and
warning that President Donald
Trump had signaled a willing-
ness to challenge election results.

“I come to the Jewish commu-
nity, and can say very clearly, that
Joe Biden will continue to ensure
the unbreakable support in the
United States for the Jewish
state, for the Jewish people and
for Jewish values,” Cardin said.

“All are under challenge today.”
Cardin spoke for about
20 minutes before answering
questions passed along by Kobrin.

Preempting questions that
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JEWISH EXPONENT
Boris Epshteyn
Via Twitter
would pop up during the Q&A,
Cardin made the case for Biden
as a defender of Israel, pointing
to the nearly $40 billion in
military aid pledged to Israel
by the Obama administration
in 2016. He half-defended the
Iran deal; having voted against
it, Cardin still disagreed with
the president’s decision to
withdraw. Cardin decried
Trump’s comments following
the Charlottesville, Virginia,
rally of 2017 (though Epshteyn
would dispute the common
characterization of those
comments in his own session.)
He downplayed the power of the
“Squad” within the Democratic
Party, and assured viewers that
Biden was not a socialist.

COVID-19 lingered at the
edge of a few questions, but for
the most part, it was absent.

Four days later, Epshteyn, a
Soviet immigrant who was the
chief political commentator at
Sinclair Broadcast Group until
last December, joined congre-
gants and viewers for about
25 minutes, splitting his time
evenly between his opening
address and the Q&A.

Trump, he said, is rivaled
only by President Harry
Truman in the support he’s
offered to the state of Israel.

Going down the line, Epshteyn
named the numerous peace
deals of the last few months
that the U.S. has brokered
between Israel and histori-
cally antagonistic countries, as
well as the killing of Qasem
Sen. Ben Cardin
Soleimani and the new U.S.

Embassy in Jerusalem, as
signature accomplishments of
the administration.

Trump “has fought and
combated anti-Semitism
anywhere and everywhere,”
he said, adding that Biden and
Sen. Kamala Harris belong
to the party of Linda Sarsour
and have met with Jacob Blake
Sr., “an avowed and rabid
anti-Semite” (Blake’s son, Jacob
Blake, was killed by police in
Kenosha, Wisconsin, setting
off protests and riots; the elder
Blake was later found to have
made anti-Semitic Facebook
posts). After about 10 minutes,
Epshteyn fielded questions from
Sloan, answering queries about
Charlottesville, the border wall,
masks, protecting preexisting
conditions and Vladimir Putin
as rapidly as they came in.

Though synagogue president
Jacques Lurie said that there
was some apprehension about
the possibility of disruption,
the precautions that were taken
allowed each night go off without
a hitch. The questions from
attendees were often pointed,
but rancor and name-calling
were absent from the decidedly
low-key affairs.

“You know, we have really
gotten very good at organizing
this and keeping people
respectful,” Lurie said. “So I really
wasn’t worried about that.” l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM