Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks celebrated his group’s role in ousting Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) in his primary election earlier this month at the organization’s sold-out “America 250” themed gala Sunday night, held at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan.

Stating that RJC spent more than $5 million to unseat Massie, Brooks told attendees to loud applause, “Let me say clearly tonight, it was a fight worth having and a victory worth celebrating.” 

“When someone repeatedly undermines support for Israel, trafficks in isolationism at a moment of global danger and refuses to stand with the Jewish community when it matters most, there has to be consequences,” Brooks said. 

“Being anti-Israel in today’s Republican Party is not — unlike the Democratic Party — a path to success,” said Brooks, who called defeating Massie a “critical victory” for the direction of the GOP and conservative movement. “It was a message that needed to be sent and a message that has been received,” he added. 

With the midterm elections approaching, Brooks asserted that “the stakes could not be higher.”

“Today, as the Iranian threat remains front and center and antisemitism continues to rise, we are deeply grateful for [President Donald Trump’s] leadership and moral clarity,” continued Brooks. 

The gala came as the Republican Party grapples with a growing faction of younger activists, internet influencers and far-right nationalists — often referred to as the “groypers” — who hold extreme antisemitic and white supremacist views. Several speakers at Sunday’s event took the opportunity to distance their party from far-right commentators Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens — as well as anti-Israel elected officials in the GOP. 

“I want to thank the RJC for leading the fight, not just to elect Republicans and defeat radical, woke, antisemitic Democrats — but to hold the Republican Party to account as well and eliminate people like Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene, to take on people like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, because it’s not just pushing back against the Hasan Pikers of the world,” said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), referring to the far-left streamer who has been embraced by elements of the Democratic Party. “If we can’t root it out in our own party — if we can’t call it out, then we don’t have the moral standing to call out the other side.” 

Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, who was in New York City to march in the Israel Day on Fifth parade, said that his participation in the parade — the first-ever by a Knesset speaker — was a direct response to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s decision to boycott the festivities.

“The mayor of this city is still refusing to condemn genocidal slogans that are aimed at Jews,” Ohana said. “For the first time in more than 60 years, the mayor of New York City did not attend the Israel Day parade, and it is exactly for that reason that for the first time in more than 60 years, the speaker of Knesset did,” Ohana said to cheering from guests — many sporting red “Trump” kippot.  

“America’s greatest leaders understood that evil ignored becomes evil empowered. It must be confronted head-on,” said Ohana. “That is why I am so proud to stand with every one of you in this room, who have refused to surrender to antisemites who trade truth for clicks,” he continued. “On behalf of the Knesset — that represents the whole people of Israel — I want to thank you for that.”     

Speakers also included Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL); Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a New York state Republican gubernatorial candidate; and former Auburn University basketball coach Bruce Pearl.

The evening concluded with a panel on antisemitism in the United Nations, featuring U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz and Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon. 

Waltz said rather than walking away from Turtle Bay, “we need to get in there and fight and win.”

“It can be done,” he said. “Just this year, we forced the U.N. to take its first budget cut in its history.”