Susan Wild, Lisa Scheller discuss Israel, antisemitism and foreign policy during latest Pa. 7th District debate

This year’s Pennsylvania 7th District race between Democratic incumbent Susan Wild and Republican Lisa Scheller is the first-ever congressional contest to feature two Jewish women.

David Bernstein, who on Tuesday night moderated a candidates forum hosted by the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley, said that such a contest would have been unimaginable to his grandmother. Not just because of their Jewish identities, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs president and CEO said, but also because those identities have been a nonissue in the race.

During the hour that followed, both Wild and Scheller expressed the importance of Judaism to their lives, their affection for Israel and their dedication to defending it. Both condemned domestic and international antisemitism of all stripes but disagreed on which partisans pose the most severe threat. They also departed in diagnosing how to address the joint enemies of the United States and Israel.

Wild, an attorney and former Allentown solicitor, converted to Judaism while raising her two children in the Jewish community. The 63-year-old says she strives to live by Jewish values related to generosity, humanitarianism and empowering poorer citizens to “find worthy, productive lives.”

Scheller speaks Hebrew fluently and, according to a position paper, owns a home in southern Israel. The 61-year-old multinational business owner describes herself as a Zionist who believes in the existence of Israel as a Jewish state and considers its relationship with America to be a “beacon of light, hope and freedom for all the world.” She has donated more than $1 million to Ben Gurion University and founded a graduate program in Israel Studies there.

Scheller, seeking to become only the third Republican Jewish woman elected to Congress, applauded the Trump administration for recently brokering Israeli peace deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. She said the U.S. should continue doing more to support economic normalization in the region.

Wild agreed that ensuring Israel’s strength and vitality relative to other countries in the Middle East is crucial to the United States' security, and said it’s one of the main reasons why she sought a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Wild emphasized that she supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and believes the U.S. must moderate negotiations from “a position of strength.” She noted that she was one of a dozen House Democrats who broke party ranks to support legislation combating the anti-Israel Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and that she has denounced antisemitic remarks and actions made by its supporters on American college campuses and elsewhere.

But Wild also said she believes white nationalism is the leading cause of violent political extremism.

“The guards at our synagogues, they’re not there to protect us from BDS supporters, though I do condemn that movement,” she said. “They are there to protect us from the violent, right-wing extremists who murdered Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue [in Pittsburgh two years ago].”

Scheller said she grew up in one of two Jewish families in Tamaqua, where other children threw pennies at her and called her “Christ Killer,” and that her daughter experienced antisemitism while organizing a pro-Israel celebration on her college campus. Scheller denounced all forms of hate including white supremacy, but maintained that BDS’s economic warfare against Israel poses the greatest modern threat of antisemitism. She criticized Wild for not adequately condemning in public Democratic colleagues Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib for widely perceived antisemitic remarks.

Scheller also expressed skepticism about America pushing for a two-state solution, which “requires Israel to negotiate with parties that ... don’t believe it has a right to exist.”

“How are we going to prevent antisemitism in Israel when we are mandating Israel to negotiate with enemies?” she asked.

Bernstein later in the debate asked the candidates how the United States should attempt to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Wild criticized Trump withdrawing from former President Barack Obama’s controversial Iran nuclear deal without having a “credible Plan B.” She also knocked him for escalating tensions earlier this year by ordering the assassination of Iranian military official Qasem Soleimani, whom she acknowledged was a “very bad person.”

Congress, she said, needs to reassert its authority over declarations of war and acts of military aggression to “make sure we don’t have chaotic, undisciplined policy toward Iran that sends mixed signals and raises the risk of miscalculation.”

Scheller applauded Trump for getting out of the nuclear deal, saying it gave Iran a “certain path to a nuclear weapon” and enabled it to continue developing its missile technology. She called for additional economic sanctions against Iran and its proxies in the Middle East. She also said her business, Silberline Manufacturing played a role in 2014 in seizing and disposing “hundreds of thousands of pounds” of aluminum powder China attempted to ship to Iran for weapons.

Tuesday’s event was the third debate or forum for Wild and Scheller in the past eight days, and they resumed arguments over health care policy, the Black Lives Matter movement and support for local police departments.

Scheller blamed the Affordable Care Act for unsustainable costs increases to employer-provided health insurance. She also criticized Wild for co-sponsoring a Medicare for All bill early in her first term.

Wild said she signed on to as many healthcare-related bills as she could in order to keep a campaign promise to enable more people to access affordable healthcare. She said her priority has been improving the ACA, not working toward a single-payer health insurance system. She also criticized Scheller and Republicans more generally for not providing a detailed alternative plan to the ACA.

Scheller also criticized Wild for supporting a coronavirus relief package in late September that cut $600 million for policing programs and for voting to eliminate qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that protects police departments and other government agencies from most civil lawsuits. She also accused her of supporting local efforts to defund police departments.

Wild disputed this characterization. She said she supports providing supplemental funding for training and mobile mental health teams to take the lead on, but not solely handle, certain 911 calls.

“The police aren’t the answer to everything, and they don’t want to be the answer to everything,” she said, citing her experience working with the Allentown Police Department as city solicitor.

Wild said the police programming cuts in the recent coronavirus relief package were among $1.5 trillion in reductions to the initial “Heroes Act” coronavirus relief package, which she joined Republicans in rejecting. Regarding qualified immunity, she said police officers should be just as accountable for negligence and abuse as nurses, truck drivers and other professionals.

Watch Tuesday’s event at www.youtube.com.

A Pew research poll released Tuesday found that 70% of registered voters who identify as Jewish support Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, while 27% support Trump. However, 35% of Jews approve of Trump’s job performance, up from 29% two years ago.

Wild holds more than a 10-point edge over Scheller in the PA-7 race, according to a Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll conducted Sept. 21-24 and released earlier this month.

No additional debates are scheduled ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

More 7th Congressional District debate coverage:

Susan Wild, Lisa Scheller clash over police protests, health insurance, taxes during first 7th District debate

Susan Wild, Lisa Scheller debate workforce recovery plans during 7th District candidate forum on economy

Morning Call reporter Andrew Wagaman can be reached at 484-553-7413 or [email protected].

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