On June 4, the Baltimore Sun Editorial Board published a piece headlined “Officials should condemn Jill Carter’s antisemitic comments.” The editorial went on to paint the former state senator as a vicious antisemite.
Before continuing, some things need to be put in context.
First, the Baltimore Sun, which was once heralded as the city’s flagship paper, has long been a propaganda rag for powerful capitalist interests in the Baltimore area. However, the Sun’s nosedive into reactionary propaganda took an even darker turn in 2024, when it was purchased by Sinclair owner and conservative media mogul David Smith. Since that purchase, the Sun’s coverage of local issues has become mired in racist stereotypes and jingoistic narratives. If one were to believe the Sun, Baltimore City seems to be an irredeemable Gotham overrun with crime and senseless violence solely due to the city’s majority Black population. This is, of course, a lie. But that seems to be all the Sun peddles these days, racist and divisive lies.
Second, Jill Carter is a long-time progressive activist and advocate for the Black community. She served as a state delegate and a state senator for the 41st district for 22 years combined. During that time, she advocated for Medicare for all, an end to racist police terror, reparations for Black families affected by lead poisoning, and investment in public housing. Due to her pro-people positions and advocacy, she has often found herself in the sights of the right-wing and the local capitalist class.
This recent smear campaign based on allegations of antisemitism is no different. So, what were Jill Carter’s words that the Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore Scoop (right-wing religious Zionist website) and Zionist commentators like J. Barry O’Connell and Jay Bernstein found so virulently antisemitic?
In a Facebook comment, Senator Carter referred to the fact that in a District where 63% of the population is Black, the entire Democratic Central Committee is composed of white Orthodox Jewish people. She explained in detail, “The 41st District is 63% Black. How is it not recognized that the efforts of leaders of the Orthodox Jewish community to control the politics of this majority-Black district are hostile to black people? I’m kind of glad this race is bringing out the truth of who people are, and who controls the so-called media.”
Let’s pause for a second. Just to be clear, the author of this article is a Jewish Baltimorean. He has family who live in Jill Carter’s district. He has counter-protested illegal Zionist sales of Palestinian land in Jill Carter’s district. There are plenty of working-class Jewish people who live in that district, who, like everyone else, do their best to get through the day and feed their families.
There is also no doubt that for hundreds of years, the idea that Jewish people control the media has been a foundational antisemitic principle that has been used to oppress and scapegoat Jewish people for the crises of capitalism.
But as with so many things, multiple facts can be true at the same time, even if they seemingly exist in contradiction. In Marxism, the analytical lens of this paper, we refer to this as dialectical materialism, and it is a particularly helpful lens for the issue at hand.
As stated before, while the 41st District of the Maryland Senate contains many working-class Jewish people who hold little systemic power, there is certainly a section of that community that does. This section of the Jewish community includes people like Izzy Patoka and Yitzy Schleifer, both Zionist Jewish politicians who claim to represent the view of the entire Jewish community. They are both hardline Zionists who support the genocide in Gaza and have long peddled cheap racist lies.
These are the sort of politicians who help run the Democratic Party machine in the 41st District and throughout Maryland. They do not speak for the Jewish community. They speak for the forces that finance and control machine politics: real estate, big business, utilities, developers and wealthy donors. Carter’s offense was that she named the political power of that machine in a majority-Black district.
With that said, examining Patoka and Schleifer’s monetary backers enlightens the entire situation. Izzy Patoka is backed by the Kushner family, the slumlords who deprived Baltimore residents of basic civil rights and who are a staunch ally of Donald Trump. Schleifer’s campaigns are funded primarily by big pharma, real estate barons, and local utility magnate Baltimore Gas and Electric.
Let us now return to exactly what Senator Carter said. She was indeed talking about how certain members of the Jewish community in Baltimore exert disproportionate control over Democratic Party politics in a historically Black city. This is not antisemitic; it is simply a fact. And, it is not a fact that means that Jewish people are at the head of a vast conspiracy allowing them to control all facets of society, including the media. One is a local phenomenon based in racism and the opportunism of the capitalist class. The other is a hateful, jingoistic conspiracy theory. This is dialectical. It can be true that Jewish politicians, backed by secular business interests, hold some institutional power and play a role in depriving the Black community of a voice, but it is also true that Jewish people do not “control the media.”
Senator Carter was not espousing antisemitic conspiracy theories. She has spent her whole career fighting for genuine equality and justice for all people. She has stood against both antisemitism and Zionism since she stepped onto the local political scene.
The smear campaign against Jill Carter has nothing to do with protecting the Jewish community or combating antisemitism. It is just another attack on a pro-people figure and an attempt to undermine any voice for the Black community’s control of its own institutions.
As a Jewish Baltimorean, I stand in solidarity with Senator Jill Carter and reject the cynical attempts of Baltimore’s ruling class to undermine her advocacy on behalf of oppressed communities.
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