For Maury Litwack, beating Bowman is just the beginning

In August 2000, then-Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee, introduced his running mate, then-U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, an observant Jew from Connecticut. Among the millions witnessing this historic moment on TV was Maury Litwack, a University of Maryland graduate and a first-time voter. The elevation of an American Jew to a major party ticket had a profound impact on Litwack. He realized that Lieberman’s success was the result of years of organizing, competing in elections and offering representation to the people who put their trust in him.

At the same time, he worried that the Jewish community lacked the tools and resources to engage effectively in impactful grassroots activism.

More than two decades later, Litwack helped lead a successful mobilization effort in a competitive congressional race that made national shockwaves. His organization, Westchester Unites, turned out a record number of Jewish voters who contributed to the victory of Westchester County Executive George Latimer over progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a fierce critic of Israel, in the 16th Congressional District.

Litwack is the CEO of Teach Coalition, a nonprofit educational advocacy group that is associated with the Orthodox Union, North America’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization. Teach Coalition is also affiliated with Westchester Unites, a 501(c)(4) organization that mobilized voters in Bowman’s congressional district.

Litwack said in an interview with City & State that he is now fielding requests from organizations to replicate the successful voter mobilization efforts, particularly in swing states. “We are getting calls from all around the country of people saying to us, ‘How do I bring this to my hometown?’" he said.

Orthodox politics

Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Litwack grew up in a family of seven, deeply rooted in Orthodox Jewish traditions. His parents were originally from St. Louis, Missouri, and both of his grandfathers served in World War II.

After graduating from the University of Maryland, Litwack began his professional career on Capitol Hill, serving as a congressional aide for Republican Reps. Chris Cannon of Utah and John Doolittle of California. He said that he chose to work for these members of Congress, who were both Mormon, due to their respect for his observance of the Sabbath.

In 2006, Litwack transitioned to work for Miami-Dade County in its Washington D.C. office, where he managed international trade and municipal advocacy. Two years later, he went to work for the Orthodox Union as its director of state political affairs and in 2013 founded Teach Coalition. His passion for education policy drove him to lead initiatives that secured substantial resources and funding for yeshivas and Jewish day schools, which serve over 300,000 students across the U.S.

His efforts included organizing large missions to Albany and other state capitals and mobilizing thousands of community members with an emphasis on grassroots activism. Litwack said he wanted to “fill a gap” that he had seen in other successful groups when he walked the halls of government in Washington, D.C. “Providing people with the means to engage in their civic duties is both empowering and impactful,” he said.

In 2015, Litwack battled former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for excluding most kids in Jewish day schools from the universal pre-K program. He then worked with a robust coalition of Jewish, Catholic, and Islamic partners across New York state to successfully advocate for legislation that reimbursed nonpublic schools for the costs of their STEM teachers. During the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Litwack advocated for the distribution of more kosher and halal meals for students eligible for free lunch. And this year, he played a key role in securing $90 million in the state budget for security funding for interfaith students.

State Sen. Shelley Mayer, who with her colleague state Sen. Andrew Gounardes worked with Teach Coalition on the group’s priorities, said Litwack is “uniquely good” at building coalitions and earning respect across the faith spectrum.

Under his leadership, Teach Coalition expanded its operations to several states, including New Jersey, Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania, California and Nevada. In California, the organization is backing a lawsuit against the state by Jewish parents of students with disabilities over the lack of funds for needed services in religious schools.

Chris Coffey, chief executive of Tusk Strategies, who worked with Litwack on several public relations campaigns, described him as a “relentless worker who pushes to get results.” Coffey, who ran the Andrew Yang mayoral campaign in 2021 which garnered significant Orthodox support, said Litwack provided “invaluable help” on strategy and outreach during that campaign. “He’s helped organize moderate Jewish voters in New York as a force that we are now watching others around the country emulate.” 

Get out the vote

Litwack said that he first realized the potential of a more proactive approach in 2019 when he got involved in a competitive four-person election for the Miami Beach City Commission. A significant increase in Jewish voter turnout helped Steven Meiner, an Orthodox attorney, win a razor-thin victory after advancing to a runoff election by a two-vote margin following a recount.

Litwack described that experience as an “epiphany” about the impact of direct engagement with Jewish voters. “We realized that if we did a little bit of not just gentle reminding (of) the community, but picking up the phone and walking around the neighborhood and getting people out to vote, it would actually turn people out to vote,” he said.

Building on that success, Teach Coalition expanded its efforts to New Jersey in 2023, launching campaigns in at least four districts with significant Jewish populations, focusing on voter registration and turnout.

Majorities in towns like Teaneck, Bergenfield, Deal, Long Branch, Lakewood and Ocean County broke years-long trends of voting Republican in general and national elections, instead voting for Democratic candidates and at higher rates than other towns in their districts. In the heavily Orthodox town of Teaneck, 60% of voters voted Democratic – a significant shift from the 60% that Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli received in 2021.

A similar model also proved effective in Pennsylvania earlier this year. Since the state’s April 23 presidential and federal primaries coincided with Passover, Teach Coalition adjusted its voter center strategy to increase mail-in ballot usage. Pennsylvania is home to an estimated 300,000 Jewish adults, who make up about 3% of the state’s electorate, and voting was prohibited for observant Jews during the first two days of the eight-day holiday. Teach Coalition produced a video featuring Pennsylvania voters decrying the hurdles that prevented them from voting in person and urged Orthodox voters to exercise their right to participate by voting early.

‘This is our opportunity’

Teach Coalition’s most comprehensive and high-profile effort came this year in the Democratic primary for New York’s 16th Congressional District, which pitted Latimer against Bowman. Litwack said that the organization decided to get involved in the race after hearing from members of the Jewish community unhappy with Bowman. Some of Bowman’s Jewish constituents felt alienated by the two-term representative’s critical stance on Israel and his seeming reluctance to engage with the community, including declining invitations to join Shabbat meals or arriving late to a local event. Last year, 13 rabbis from Westchester sent a letter to Bowman, imploring him to change course. “We said, ‘OK, now this is our opportunity,’” Litwack recalled.

Westchester Unites, the Teach Coalition affiliate specifically focused on the Westchester race, worked with about 30 other local institutions to successfully re-enroll over 2,000 registered Republicans and independent voters ahead of the Feb. 14 deadline, making them eligible to vote in the competitive Democratic primary. It also opened a voter center in New Rochelle, serving as a hub for hundreds of local volunteers, and launched a voter turnout effort that included traditional door-knocking, phone calls, mailing reminders, and text messages.“The kind of turnout work that you see any campaign do, we were doing across the Jewish community,” Litwack said.

The impact of these efforts was evident in the hours after the polls closed on June 25. Turnout among Jewish voters in the Westchester part of the district increased to a record 58% –  2.4 times the rate of the rest of the district's voters. Although Jews only make up 11% of the adult population in Westchester County, they accounted for 23.73% of all votes cast in the primary.

Westchester Unites reported that it mobilized 14,871 people to vote in the primary – more than two-thirds of whom either cast ballots early or submitted mail-in ballots. In all, Westchester Unites said it was responsible for about 35% of all early votes in the county.

Latimer defeated Bowman by a margin of around 13,000 votes. Many of Bowman’s progressive supporters – which included progressive Jewish groups like Jews for Racial and Economic Justice – blamed his defeat on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its political action committee, United Democracy Project, which poured $14.6 million into the race. 

But it was Westchester Unites that did the actual, on-the-ground work of mobilizing Jewish voters. Litwack called it a “surround sound effort” that proved successful on its first attempt, and an “eye-opener” that caught the attention of elected officials across the state.

Even some Bowman supporters acknowledged the role that Westchester Unites played in Latimer’s victory. Micah Sifry, a writer and an organizer who was affiliated with “Jews for Jamaal” earlier in the campaign, said that he visited the Westchester Unites headquarters and was moved by the highly-sophisticated operation. 

“It was a very impressive operation that Litwack put together,” Sifry said, adding that Westchester United had harnessed an already enthusiastic base about the primary and “turbocharged it with state of the art mobilization techniques” to boost voter turnout.

Antisemitic attacks

In an interview with City & State, Litwack said the spike in antisemitic incidents following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza was a key factor in the campaign’s success.

He said that traditional voter engagement methods, such as sending reminders or making occasional outreach ahead of an important election, were no longer adequate, and the current climate of heightened fears about personal safety has created a strong sense of urgency and an increase in electoral participation.

“Our polling within the community has shown that antisemitism is the No. 1 issue they’re focused on right now,” Litwack said. “Antisemitism is an existential threat and the community views their ability to vote as a priority, determined to elect candidates who will represent them in this battle.”

To harness that passion, Litwack’s organization combined it with proven campaign tactics and resources. Having spent the past five years figuring out the most effective ways to get out the vote in Orthodox Jewish communities, Litwack was well-positioned to translate an increased fear of antisemitism into votes against a progressive member of Congress known for his outspoken criticism of Israel.

Some of Litwack’s critics on the (largely non-Orthodox) Jewish left have accused him of exploiting fears of antisemitism for political ends. Alicia Thilani Singham Goodwin, political director of Jews For Racial and Economic Justice, who led phone banks and organizing efforts in support of Bowman, said she found it “discouraging” that Westchester Unites was, in her view, deceiving voters with their messaging by exploiting the pain that existed after Oct. 7. She said that the organization’s attempt to help Republicans vote in a Democratic primary was not in the service of healing and rebuilding.

But as much as progressive Jews might insist that criticism of Israel is not antisemitic, it’s clear that many Jews who strongly support Israel – particularly Orthodox Jews – see little difference between Bowman’s anti-Israel rhetoric and antisemitic hate speech. They want to vote against anti-Israel politicians, and Litwack is happy to help them do so.

The Jewish community is not a monolith, and the community has historically been difficult to mobilize. Unlike influential labor unions, which have clear leadership and specific issues, the Jewish community has diverse concerns and no singular leadership structure. In previous elections, candidates like Mayor Eric Adams, Andrew Yang and Gov. Kathy Hochul have largely tried to secure Orthodox voter support by winning over powerful leaders in the Haredi, also known as ultra-Orthodox, community who command large voting blocs.

Litwack’s method was different. Rather than prioritizing outreach to Haredi leaders, Litwack sought to engage Orthodox Jewish communities and even secular Jews. He set a new standard for Jewish voter engagement by providing the Jewish community with the necessary resources and educating them about the broader impact of their participation so that “every community member can contribute to this battle,” he said. “There is power in numbers.”

Mayer, whose state senate district includes areas of Westchester County with a sizable Jewish population, praised Litwack for putting together an “incredible coalition” of Orthodox and non-observant Jewish voters in her part of the district that participated for the first time in this election. “I think it was quite a model of true organizing,” she said.  

Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from the South Bronx who has gained a reputation as a fierce advocate for Israel, said the effort was a reflection of “efficient and effective spending that offers the greatest return of one’s investment.” 

Beyond Bowman

Litwack is now concentrating on expanding voter participation, using the momentum from the Bowman-Latimer race to enhance Jewish electoral influence for the upcoming general election in November.

Under the rebranded “Jewish Voters Unite” banner, Litwack aims to boost voter engagement in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Nevada where Jewish voters make up 2% to 3% of the electorate, as well as in key states with significant Jewish populations like Florida and California. With offices already established in these states, the focus will be on mobilizing these voters to the polls.

Litwack may even have an impact in races where he is not directly involved. The Teach Coalition was not involved in the race against Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, but other Jewish groups – St. Louis Together, St. Louis Votes and Agudath Israel of America – successfully applied a similar strategy to the one that Litwack pioneered, and Bush ended up losing the Democratic primary for Missouri’s 1st Congressional District to a more pro-Israel candidate.

In New York, Litwack’s organization is set to open new offices in Queens and on Long Island for “get out the vote” efforts in down-ballot races this fall. 

He is also gearing up for next year’s New York City elections, including for mayor, as well as Assembly and state Senate races in 2026. The nonpartisan organization does not endorse any candidate. It seeks to take advantage of low-turnout local elections, where a small number of votes can swing the result. Litwack said he’s still evaluating the options, but “suffice to say we will be playing big in 2025.” 

Torres, who considers Litwack an ally, predicts Litwack will help to reshape New York politics. “He can out-organize the self-proclaimed organizers on the far-left,” Torres said, referencing progressive Jewish groups like Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and IfNotNow, who supported Bowman and other candidates endorsed by the Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America. “He is not only turning out Democratic votes. He’s expanding the Democratic vote and activating the Jewish community to an extent not seen before.”

David Greenfield, a former New York City Council member who recruited Litwack to take over Teach Coalition, said there is a “new phenomenon” in which “a frustrated Jewish community isn't just going to take it out on elected officials through contributions to their opponents, but is also going to take it out at the ballot box.”

Litwack noted that this approach is already having a significant impact across the board. The messaging “is resonating with people,” he said. “People see that there’s value in what they’re doing; that their vote made an impact.” And elected officials are realizing that it wasn’t just a one-off; from now on, they will be paying even more attention to the Jewish electorate.