Mysterious outside group accuses Sherrill of being anti-Israel

A mysterious group called Florence Avenue Initiative has started sending mailers accusing Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, of being anti-Israel.

The mailer, which was sent to Jewish voters around the state, tells recipients to “call Congressmember Mikie Sherrill – Tell her New Jersey stands with Israel, and she should too, every single day.” The back of the mailer then lists a number of votes and positions taken by Sherrill – a generally pro-Israel lawmaker who calls the nation a “key democratic ally” – that it characterizes as anti-Israel.

Not much is known about the Florence Avenue Initiative, and it doesn’t appear to have involved itself previously in New Jersey politics, but history suggests it could have quite a bit of money at its disposal. Last year, the group spent $5 million on ads hammering then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for not bringing the Antisemitism Awareness Act up for a Senate vote.

The progressive Jewish publication Forward wrote amid that ad blitz that the Florence Avenue Initiative described itself as a “a coalition of ‘concerned Jewish donors,’” and noted that the organization had chosen to use a media firm that typically works with conservative and Republican groups.

The anti-Sherrill mailer is the first time any money has been spent on negative campaigning in the Democratic primary, in which candidates and their affiliated PACs have mostly used their money thus far to boost their own name recognition and favorability. Why Florence Avenue Initiative has decided to go negative on Sherrill specifically, though, is tough to say.

Both Republicans and rival Democrats could stand to gain from softening support for Sherrill, who has led (albeit sometimes narrowly) in every public poll of the Democratic gubernatorial primary and who would likely be a formidable opponent for Republicans in a general election. Florence Avenue Initiative does not appear to have filed with the Federal Election Commission or the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, meaning that both its donors and its level of investment in the race are unknown.

(Despite the mailer’s focus on Sherrill’s House record and its insistence that people call her congressional office’s phone number, the intent is clearly to harm Sherrill’s gubernatorial campaign; one mailer reviewed by the New Jersey Globe was received by a voter in Voorhees, a Camden County town nowhere near Sherrill’s North Jersey congressional district.)

Sherrill’s campaign is pushing back strongly on the mailer, saying that Sherrill stands with Israel and accusing Florence Avenue Initiative of being a “dark money Republican group.”

“This attack from a dark money Republican group is absolute bullshit and so sloppy it’s even disproven by their own citations,” Sherrill spokesperson Sean Higgins said. “Mikie has always supported Israel’s defense, advocated for release of the hostages at every turn, and spoken out strongly against antisemitism before and after Oct 7. MAGA Republicans are attacking Mikie because they know she’s the strongest candidate to beat Jack Ciattarelli in the general election.”

The mailer lists five examples of Sherrill “[standing] against Jewish New Jersey families far too often”: her opposition to a May 2024 bill reversing a decision by then-President Joe Biden pausing a weapons shipment to Israel; her vote against censuring Palestinian American Rep. Rashida Tlaib in 2023; her “present” vote on a December 2023 resolution condemning antisemitism, which many Democrats opposed because it declared anti-Zionism a form of antisemitism; her criticism of Israel’s exploding pager attack in September 2024; and her alleged support for an “unconditional ceasefire with no return of hostages.”

As Sherrill’s campaign pointed out, however, the group’s own citations don’t always bear out what the mailer argues. The supposed evidence for Sherrill’s support for an unconditional ceasefire is a November 2023 statement calling for a humanitarian pause that affirms that “Israel has a right to defend its citizens” and explicitly calls for the “unconditional release of all hostages.” (Sherrill, like most of her fellow Democrats, later went on to support a bill providing billions in foreign aid for Israel.)

Discussion in the New Jersey governor’s race as it relates to Israel and antisemitism has generally focused more on two candidates to Sherrill’s left: Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, who has repeatedly criticized a state legislative bill codifying a specific definition of antisemitism, and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who has recently come under fire for a 2004 event in which he praised Nation of Islam leader and well-known antisemite Louis Farrakhan.

But as Jewish Insider chronicled last year, some high-level Jewish leaders are still wary of Sherrill, and instead see fellow Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) as a more reliable ally. Gottheimer – who would be New Jersey’s first Jewish governor, as would Fulop and Republican candidate Jon Bramnick – has been one of Israel’s most vociferous and consistent defenders within his party, at times breaking with the vast majority of his fellow Democrats to do so.