The Jewish vote could play a huge role in 2024. Pennsylvania is about to put up an early test.

PITTSBURGH — In the heart of one of America’s most prominent historically Jewish neighborhoods, Dan and Baila Cohen keep the front entrance of their 70-year-old Judaica store locked during business hours.

It’s not how they’d prefer it. But in light of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel, Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza and tensions at home, they said, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh told them they needed to be vigilant about who enters their business.

“That’s the reality of the world,” Dan Cohen said.

It’s not the first time they’ve had to take additional safety precautions. The couple completed their purchase of Pinsker’s Books and Judaica in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood in 2018 just days after a white supremacist gunned down 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue a few blocks away in the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history. But this time feels different.

“Oct. 27 really unified” Squirrel Hill and Pittsburgh, Baila Cohen said of the Tree of Life massacre. “Oct. 7 … really started polarizing the community itself, because that’s when we started seeing much more of the infighting and conflicts.”

Conversations with more than 30 political strategists, activists and voters outlined how that tension has put Jewish voters in an unfamiliar spot ahead of the 2024 elections: on the front lines of the fight for control of the White House and Congress. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Pennsylvania, the swing state with the largest Jewish population — about 300,000 voting-age Jews in a state President Joe Biden won by roughly 80,000 votes in 2020.

What’s more, the congressional district that includes Squirrel Hill features a primary Tuesday that is among the first