The friendship<\/a> between Warnock, who today occupies King’s position as senior pastor of historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, and Peter Berg, The Temple’s current chief rabbi, amounts to a keeping of the faith. For more than a decade, the two have spoken at each other’s house of worship during MLK weekend.<\/p>\n After the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh, Warnock was the first person to call Berg to commiserate. Small wonder that the Republican effort to portray him as an anti-Semite for criticizing Israeli policy toward the Palestinians has done little to dampen Jewish enthusiasm for his candidacy.<\/p>\n
As for Ossoff, it was by reading about the civil rights movement that this 33-year-old son of a well-to-do Atlanta businessman was inspired to work for Black politicians. As an undergraduate at Georgetown University, he impressed the late Congressman John Lewis sufficiently to receive an unpaid internship in Lewis’ office, then talked his way into a job helping Rep. Hank Johnson win his seat in Congress and worked for him for five years.<\/p>\n
Three years ago, Ossoff rose to political prominence when he ran in a special election and nearly flipped Georgia’s sixth congressional district, once represented by Newt Gingrich. It includes part of Marietta, where Leo Frank was lynched, and a major chunk of Cobb County, which back in the day refused to allow the subway from Atlanta to cross its border because it didn’t want Black people coming in.<\/p>\n
Today, the sixth district is 40% minority. In 2018, Democrat Lucy McBath became its first Black representative by beating Republican incumbent Karen Handel in a close contest. In a rematch in November, McBath won handily.<\/p>\n
That’s the new Georgia. If the Warnock-Ossoff campaign prevails on Tuesday, the state will never be the same.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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