With President Joe Biden’s announcement that he is withdrawing from the presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, eyes have turned toward Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Jewish governor, as a possible vice presidential running mate. 

Shapiro, who has been mentioned as a potential first Jewish president since his gubernatorial campaign in 2022, appears to be a formidable choice for Democrats. 

In a poll conducted by a Democratic super PAC, Blue Lab, he was among four Democratic candidates who performed the strongest, outperforming Biden by five points in battleground states. Shapiro was also already being vetted by donors as a potential contender and running mate for Kamala Harris.

CNN host John King said on the network’s nightly program that Shapiro is being seriously considered by the Harris campaign. However, he added, his Jewish identity could be risky.

In 2022 Shapiro beat his Republican rival, State Sen. Doug Mastriano — a Christian nationalist who had repeated antisemitic tropes on the campaign trail, by 15%. It was the largest margin for a non-incumbent since 1946 and the most votes in a Pennsylvania gubernatorial election.

But he has significant ground to cover at the national level. According to a new ABC News/IPSOS poll published on Sunday, most Americans are unfamiliar with Shapiro. Only 10% view him favorably, while 45% don’t know enough of him to form an opinion. When asked how they would feel about Shapiro becoming the Democratic nominee for president in 2024, 13% of respondents said they would be satisfied with the choice, while 69% had no opinion.

Nonetheless, his high approval rating, oratory skills reminiscent of President Obama, lack of political baggage, strong support for union workers, and reputation as a commonsense Democrat who works with an opposition-led legislature make Shapiro a crucial asset for the Democratic ticket. On Sunday evening, Shapiro released a statement endorsing Harris for president and called on Democrats to unite behind her candidacy. 

What would a Josh Shapiro vice presidency mean for American Jews?

Joshua David Shapiro, 51, as the running mate for the country’s potential first woman president, would likely galvanize the Jewish electorate and even appeal to moderate Republicans.

Shapiro proudly and publicly embraces his Judaism. He keeps a kosher kitchen at the governor’s mansion and hosts Shabbat dinners with his family. Shapiro featured challahs baked by his wife Lori in his campaign launch video in 2022 and was sworn in on a Bible that was rescued from the 2018 attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. During the Passover holiday, Shapiro posted a video that showed preparations for his first Seder in the official residence. Last December, he hosted a menorah lighting ceremony with four survivors of the Oct. 7 attack.

Shapiro wears a red string around his wrist — a symbol from the Tomb of Rachel that many Jews believe serves as protection from the evil eye — that his daughter picked up when she visited the Western Wall. 

He maintains a close relationship with Rabbi Solomon Isaacson, the founder of Congregation Beth Solomon and known as the Grand Rebbe of Philadelphia.

What would a Josh Shapiro vice presidency mean for fighting antisemitism?

Shapiro was the state’s attorney general during the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue, which killed 11 worshippers in the deadliest act of antisemitism in the nation’s history. Shapiro said at the time he wanted the shooter, Robert Bowers, put to death in line with his belief that the penalty should be reserved for those committing the most heinous crimes. 

But, weeks after his inauguration in early 2023, he beseeched the state legislature to abolish the death penalty. He said he had evolved on the issue after meeting with some of the families of those slain in the shooting attack. When Bowers got the death penalty last August, Shapiro was mum on the sentence. Surveys show Jews — far more than most Americans — favor life in prison over the death penalty for convicted murderers. And Jewish teachings call for capital punishment to be rare.

Last month, speaking at a ground-breaking ceremony for a new facility that will house a sanctuary and a museum about antisemitism, Shapiro said his prayer is that this “be a place of light and enlightenment.”

He has spoken forcefully against rising antisemitism, particularly after the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. In December, Shapiro decried the University of Pennsylvania’s president Liz Magill for her widely-panned remarks about confronting antisemitism. And he criticized a “culture” at UPenn which he said does not take antisemitism seriously enough. Magill later resigned. Shapiro visited Goldie’s, a kosher eatery targeted by pro-Palestinian protesters who accused it of “genocide,” in a show of solidarity. He said the targeting of Jewish-owned stores was antisemitic.

Last month, he condemned Sen. Bob Casey’s GOP challenger, former hedge fund CEO David McCormick, for profiting off his investment in Rumble, a video platform that has amplified far-right antisemitism and Holocaust denial. Shapiro accused McCormick of making a “conscious choice” to invest more than a million dollars in a site “that gives a megaphone to extremists who spew hate speech and antisemitism.”

Shapiro’s gubernatorial campaign in 2022 was rife with antisemitism. His GOP rival, State Rep. Doug Mastriano, was slammed for his association with Gab, an online echo chamber for antisemitic tropes that caters to far-right extremists. Mastriano himself repeated antisemitic tropes on the campaign trail. 

A Harris-Shapiro ticket would be able to draw a stark contrast with the Trump-Vance ticket. Sen. JD Vance was a promoter of replacement theory, and recently excused Trump after he repeatedly accused American Jews of disloyalty to Israel and suggested they hate their religion by voting for Democrats. He called it a “reasonable” argument to make in courting Jewish voters. Trump and Vance have also invoked the Soros-as-puppeteer conspiracy. 

What were Josh Shapiro’s early Jewish years like? 

At age 6, Shapiro joined his mother, Judi, in campaigning for the release of Jews in the Soviet Union. Through his synagogue, Beth Sholom Congregation in Elkins Park, and the Forman Hebrew Day School, Shapiro wrote letters to a refusenik named Avi Goldstein, who lived in Tbilisi. He also enlisted others from the U.S., Canada and England in a pen-pal program called “Children for Avi.”

He went to Akiba Hebrew Academy, now known as Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy, also the alma mater of CNN host Jake Tapper; Shapiro said the election for school president is the only one he has ever lost.

After graduating from the University of Rochester, where he was the first freshman student body president, Shapiro moved to Washington, D.C., to work as an aide to the late Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, and then an adviser to Rep. Peter Deutsch of Florida. Both were Jewish Democrats. 

He proposed to his wife in 1997 under the 19th-century Montefiore Windmill in the Yemin Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem, during one of more than a dozen trips to Israel.

Shapiro’s views on Israel and the war in Gaza

Shapiro is a strong supporter of Israel, but he also called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a failed leader” who took his country in a “very dangerous direction” prior to Oct. 7 by embracing a right-wing government and pushing an unpopular judicial overhaul plan.

The Pennsylvania Democrat is a supporter of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He believes both sides “have missed opportunities over the last two or three decades to find that peace.” 

Reflecting on the current Israel-Hamas war in December, Shapiro said that calls for a ceasefire are premature “as long as Hamas remains in power.”

In June, Shapiro signaled support for an anti-BDS bill. The bipartisan legislation would defund colleges and universities that boycott Israel. The governor’s office said he would sign the bill into law if it passed the legislature.

This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.