Josh Shapiro is part of a rising group of Democrats who are proudly showing their faith
The governor has long emphasized being Jewish in his public persona. Others in the party are doing the same.
Gov. Josh Shapiro had a big 2024 — from his star turn as a contender for the vice presidential ticket to his campaign trail cameos as a prominent Democratic election surrogate, and as a vocal supporter of Israel. As the year comes to an end, his national profile has continued to grow, this time with a focus on how he uses his faith to connect with voters.
Shapiro has long made his Jewish faith a tenet of his public identity, and now as President Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic, cedes the White House to President-elect Donald Trump, who promotes his own branded Bibles, the New York Times is pointing to Shapiro as part of “a small but prominent cast of Scripture-quoting, religiously observant Democratic politicians.” Many of them, the Times reports, are “poised to command national attention over the next four years.”
Shapiro, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.), and Texas State Rep. James Talarico are newer Democratic Party leaders who haven’t shied away from speaking publicly about being religious in an effort to relate to voters across spiritual lines even as the party has garnered a reputation for being increasingly secular.
“It is important for the community to understand, wherever you are, what motivates you,” Shapiro told the Times. “That’s important for people to know before you start talking to them about bills and policies and proposals.”
A Pew study published in April using data from 1994 to 2023 found that among registered voters who are atheist, agnostic, or otherwise not affiliated with a religious group, 70% leaned Democratic.
Meanwhile, 59% of Protestants and 52% of Catholics leaned Republican, while 69% of Jews and 66% of Muslims leaned Democratic — though the data for Muslims were smaller than these other groups.
But as the study broke down racial and ethnic groups, the story shifted, with 84% of Black Protestants and 60% of Hispanic Catholics leaning Democratic, according to Pew. The majority of both groups voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in this year’s election, but Trump made gains among Black and Latino voters.
While Trump isn’t known for being the most fluent in Christian theology, he has framed himself as a defender of Christian ideology. Trump, who has identified himself as a nondenominational Christian, has spoken about his near-death experience surviving an assassination attempt in religious terms, as have his supporters.
Trump has also proved successful presenting himself as authentic while the Democratic Party does soul-searching on how to better connect with voters.
Positions related to Shapiro’s faith have landed him in the spotlight of heated political debates.
While Shapiro has fiercely criticized Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he made a name for himself as an adamant supporter of Israel who at times spoke brashly about protesters he considered antisemitic. Those stances were seen as a vulnerability by some and a strength by others when he was being considered as Harris’ vice presidential nominee.
His religion remained in the spotlight after the veepstakes were over. Republicans, including Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance, tried to pin Harris’ decision to pick Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate on what they called antisemitism within the Democratic Party.
Shapiro appeared to rebuke those theories when he took the stage at Temple University’s Liacouras Center during the rally that debuted Walz as the Democratic vice presidential nominee in August.
In the final moments of a resounding speech that garnered thunderous applause from the crowd standing in the arena on North Broad Street, Shapiro celebrated his faith and its intersection with public service and quoted the Pirkei Avot, an ancient text of Jewish ethics: “No one is required to complete the task, but neither are we free to refrain from it,” he said.
“I want to just say this,” Shapiro said. “I lean on my family, and I lean on my faith, which calls me to serve, and I am proud of my faith.”
Rabbi David Glanzberg-Krainin, the rabbi at Beth Sholom in Montgomery County — Shapiro’s hometown synagogue — told The Inquirer in August that this moment showed “he’s not going to back down from saying that this is something that’s a foundational part of who he is” and how he approaches public service.
Glanzberg-Krainin also rejected Vance’s notion that Shapiro’s being Jewish was a factor in his rejection as Harris’ running mate.
“I absolutely can’t fathom a universe in which, you know, Vice President Harris, who’s married to a Jewish man, decided not to select Josh Shapiro as her running mate because Josh is Jewish … there’s just no world in which I can conceive of that as being possible,” he said.
As Shapiro has continued to embrace being Jewish, so has the fixation on his identity. After the popular governor gave a prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention later in August, Trump called him a “highly overrated Jewish governor” who “has done nothing for Israel” in a rant on Truth Social.
To this, Shapiro said that Trump is “obsessed” with him and that the then-GOP nominee was perpetuating “antisemitic tropes.”
Despite Shapiro’s faith occasionally becoming a political football, Glanzberg-Krainin said in August that he suspects the governor will continue to look for ways to meld his religion and his call to public service.
“Over the course of years, I think that’s something that he takes really seriously,” Glanzberg-Krainin said. “Where could he best serve? And that’s not something that’s just purely rational, I think it’s something that he feels on a deep level.”
Shapiro has already taken his faith-based connections beyond Pennsylvania, including by joining forces with Warnock, the Democratic senator from Georgia who also combines his faith with his public identity.
Shapiro visited Warnock’s church in October and “immediately introduced himself as a fellow person of faith,” the Times reported, telling churchgoers “Shabbat shalom,” a greeting observant Jews use on the Sabbath.
Warnock and Shapiro are both rising leaders in the party who are seen as potential future presidential nominees. The two men campaigned for Harris together, and Shapiro told the Times they talked about strengthening the “fraying bonds between the Jewish and Black communities.”