In a briefing for the House Education & Workforce Committee on his response to the anti-Israel protest encampment at Northwestern University in 2024, Evanston, Ill., Mayor Daniel Biss “severely downplayed” the situation on that campus and antisemitism across the country, the committee said.

The committee asked Biss, who is a congressional candidate in the race to succeed retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), to brief them on his decision to withhold Evanston police support from Northwestern University when requested by the school to help clear the encampment.

The lack of external law enforcement support prompted Northwestern to make a deal, widely criticized in the Jewish community, with the encampment members to disband voluntarily, according to internal Northwestern communications released by the committee.

“In his briefing with the Committee today, Mr. Biss severely downplayed antisemitism at Northwestern after October 7th. He told the Committee that the great majority of his Jewish friends in the Northwestern community had no concerns about it,” a committee spokesperson told Jewish Insider.

That’s at odds with comments from Jewish Northwestern community members and local Jewish groups about the encampment.

“He further stated that Northwestern should not have received an F on the Anti-Defamation League’s college report card. He even accused the Committee of alarmism that is not warranted by the facts when it comes to antisemitism at the university after the October 7th attacks,” the spokesperson continued. “The countless Jewish Northwestern students, faculty, and community members that the Committee has interviewed would say otherwise.”

The school reached an agreement with the Department of Justice last year, paying $75 million and making policy changes to address antisemitism on its campus.

Biss, meanwhile, has dismissed the committee’s questioning of him as a smear campaign orchestrated by AIPAC and one of his primary opponents, state Sen. Laura Fine, to hurt his congressional campaign.

“From the start, this ‘briefing’ was a flimsy attempt to weaponize the very real threat of antisemitism to attack me and support my opponent. It failed,” Biss said in a statement. 

“I’m proud of my record of protecting peaceful protest and combating antisemitism, including my decision to decline the unnecessary and undemocratic request to clear the Northwestern encampment in 2024. As the Trump administration increasingly attacks our fundamental democratic rights, it’s more important than ever to back our commitment to peaceful protest with action. I hope the committee learned something today.”

Biss’ campaign also noted that only House staff attended the briefing, rather than lawmakers themselves.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani spent the mayoral campaign distancing himself from the most radical anti-Israel elements of his leftist movement, but an examination of his wife’s social media activity reveals she liked multiple Instagram posts cheering on Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, assault.

The posts liked by Rama Duwaji, a Syrian-American artist, unambiguously celebrated the terrorist attack, which saw nearly 1,200 Israelis and foreign workers killed, thousands wounded, 251 civilians and military personnel kidnapped and numerous episodes of sexual assault.

The first post, shared on the day of Hamas’ onslaught, came from The Slow Factory, which bills itself as “a school, knowledge partner and climate innovation organization” that “center[s] the voices and ideas of the Global Majority (Black, Indigenous, and other people of color) to share their knowledge outside the boundaries of institutions & oppressive systems.”

The Instagram post shows stills from participants’ livestreamed footage of the attack: first of a bulldozer that terrorists used to breach the barrier separating Israel from Gaza, the second of attackers riding on a captured IDF vehicle. Printed on the former are the words “Breaking the walls of apartheid and military occupation,” and on the latter “Resisting apartheid since 1948,” and on both the slogan “Systemic change for collective liberation.”

The extensive caption on the post laments that “if and when the occupation forces retaliate against this resistance” Gazans will be “punished for wanting freedom from apartheid.”

Duwaji, who met Mamdani on a dating app in 2021 and married him in early 2025, liked this post and others using a personal account in her own name, on which she has posted her often-political illustrations and with which the mayor has interacted in the past. She has used it also to directly criticize Israeli policy.

The unapologetic tone of the Slow Factory Post contrasts radically with the mayor’s debate-stage messaging on the attack, which characterized Hamas’ actions as “war crimes,” even as he continually lambasted the Israeli military response.

Duwaji did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and the mayor’s office would not answer questions regarding his feelings about her online activity, or whether they had discussed the Oct. 7 attacks at the time. Rather, his team repeated his standard line on the bloody terrorist rampage.

“Mayor Mamdani has been clear and consistent: Hamas is a terrorist organization, October 7th was a horrific war crime, and he has condemned that violence unequivocally,” a City Hall spokesperson said in a statement to Jewish Insider.

It is unclear when Duwaji liked the Slow Factory post, or the materials that the People’s Forum — part of Shanghai-based Maoist tech mogul Neville “Roy” Singham’s network of nonprofits promoting pro-China, pro-Russia and pro-Iran propaganda — posted to Instagram on Oct. 8, 2023. Duwaji, again using her personal account, liked two posts from protests the organization led alongside the Democratic Socialists of America and allied organizations in Times Square one day after the attack on Israel.

Mamdani, then a state assemblymember, publicly criticized the rally at the time for “making light” of Hamas’ massacre of civilians. 

But the posts his then-girlfriend approved of on Instagram enthusiastically justify both the rally and the terrorist actions. 

Both captions feature the slogan “from the river to the sea” — often understood as calling for the total elimination of Israel from the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — and one includes a clip of the crowd chanting, call-and-response style: “Every colonized people, every occupied people has the right to self-defense.”

The images in that post show signs and banners declaring “WHEN PEOPLE ARE OCCUPIED, RESISTANCE IS JUSTIFIED” and “RESISTANCE AGAINST OCCUPATION IS A HUMAN RIGHT.”

“Thousands have taken to the streets in #NYC to stand with Palestinian resistance and call for an end to all U.S. aid to apartheid Israel,” the caption on the post reads.

JI’s findings come amid a growing focus on political spouses: earlier this week, The New York Times reported that the wife of Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) had liked or shared numerous controversial posts, including some attacking activists critical of Israel.

The Anti-Defamation League on Thursday urged public figures to refrain from promoting antisemitic rhetoric amid the U.S. and Israel’s operation against Iran, as some leading Democrats have invoked anti-Israel sentiment since the war began last week.   

“Since the start of hostilities with the Islamic Republic of Iran last weekend, we are witnessing an alarming pattern of escalating, inflammatory rhetoric from voices across the political and ideological spectrum,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL. “This rhetoric distorts reality and fuels dangerous antisemitic narratives.”

The ADL’s statement comes as several Democratic elected officials have condemned the joint U.S.-Israel ongoing strikes in Iran.  

Greenblatt expressed concern that “too many voices” have “engaged in this dangerous game,” which he said includes statements calling Israel an “apartheid state” or accusing it of “genocide,” which “inflame hatred.” 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Tuesday on the liberal podcast “Pod Save America” that the U.S. should reconsider its military support for Israel. Amid the Iran operation, he told the podcast’s hosts that Israel could “appropriately” be described as an apartheid state.   

The comments marked a shift for Newsom — widely considered a 2028 presidential contender — who traveled to Israel less than two weeks after the Oct. 7 terror attacks in 2023 and said in an October 2025 interview that he would not consider eliminating U.S. military aid to Israel.   

Additionally, the ADL condemned rhetoric that claims pro-Israel organizations and supporters are “anti-American” for advocating for a U.S.-Israel relationship, as well as rhetoric that blames Israel or frames American policy as manipulated by Jewish influence. 

During an address at J Street’s convention in Washington on Sunday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said the pro-Israel advocacy group “may call itself pro-American. They may call themselves pro-Israel. But they are neither.” 

“It is a sad irony that an operation against the world’s largest sponsor of antisemitism has prompted so much antisemitism,” said Greenblatt.

The ADL’s statement, which does not mention Newsom or any other figures by name, is a contrast from one put out by the American Jewish Committee on Wednesday, which directly condemned the governor.  

“Governor Newsom’s recent comments about Israel were confusing and problematic at a critical moment, as the United States, Israel, and their regional partners confront significant threats from the Iranian regime,” the AJC said.


“Invoking the term ‘apartheid’ is wrong and inflammatory, does not reflect the complex realities on the ground, and only risks inflaming tensions.
Policy disagreements between Israeli and U.S. leaders should not undermine the enduring importance of the U.S.–Israel relationship, grounded in shared values and strategic interests.” 

A strong anti-incumbent mood is apparent in the electorate, based on primary results from North Carolina and Texas’ congressional primaries Tuesday night. Meanwhile, one sitting Democratic lawmaker who lost support from AIPAC is narrowly fending off a challenge from a virulently anti-Israel challenger who campaigned in the closing days of the primary against the Iran war. 

Big picture: There’s a deep skepticism of the political establishment throughout the country within both parties. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), a center-right hawk who was one of the stars of the 2018 GOP freshman class, badly lost to state Rep. Steve Toth, a right-wing challenger backed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). 

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) is doing a bit better than public polls suggested, but still is only polling in the low 40s against MAGA-aligned Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a race that’s headed to a runoff.

Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), who has been enmeshed in scandal after his extramarital affair with a staffer, who later died by suicide, became public, is leading social media influencer Brandon Herrera, but is also only polling in the low-40s and will also be headed to a runoff. 

On the Democratic side, Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC), who was boosted to office in 2022 with AIPAC support but has since grown more critical of Israel, is clinging to a one-point lead (49-48%) over Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, who would have become one of the most anti-Israel lawmakers in Congress if she was elected. Allam was backed by the far-left Justice Democrats and received support from a new super PAC attempting to elect anti-Israel lawmakers.

The Iran war may have played a key role in the primary. Foushee won the early vote by an eight-point margin, but Allam carried the Election Day vote by six points — after airing an ad blasting the war in Iran and baselessly accusing the United States of targeting civilians. 

And in a member-against-member Democratic primary in Texas, Rep. Al Green (D-TX), one of the most left-wing members of Congress who has been a reliable vote against Israel, is narrowly trailing newly elected Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX), a more mainstream Democrat. Menefee looks like the favorite, but is short of the 50% necessary to avoid a runoff. 

Meanwhile, former Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) is on track to reclaim his old suburban Dallas seat, unseating Rep. Julie Johnson (D-TX) in the process. But he’s likely heading to a runoff as well. 

All told, pro-Israel Democrats can express a bit of relief toward Tuesday night’s primary results. Assuming Foushee holds on to victory, it blocks the path of a Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) prototype from getting elected to Congress. If Allam prevailed, she could have held that safely Democratic seat — and an anti-Israel platform — for many years. 

And Menefee’s advantage against Green in Texas is undoubtedly a win for Jewish voters, potentially replacing an anti-Israel detractor with a stronger ally (if he holds on in the runoff).

On the negative side, the successor to Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) in the House is expected to be Frederick Haynes III, the congresswoman’s pastor who delivered a scathing sermon against Israel one day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack against the Jewish state. Haynes was backed by Justice Democrats and an anti-Israel group (IMEU Policy Project), but didn’t have much serious primary competition. 

The highest-profile race of the night was Crockett’s Senate primary campaign against state Rep. James Talarico. Talarico prevailed, defeating Crockett 53-46%, with most votes counted. Talarico is hoping to emerge as a sleeper candidate in red-state Texas, and some Democrats believe he has an outside chance of succeeding — especially if he faces the scandal-plagued Paxton.

A few general election showdowns also now look set: Rep. Don Davis (D-NC), drawn into a tougher district, will face a rematch against Republican retired Army Col. Laurie Buckhout this year. And Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX), drawn into a more Republican district, will face Republican attorney Eric Flores — in a key bellwether race of whether Republicans will be able to maintain their recent inroads with Hispanic voters. 

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) took aim at the pro-Israel advocacy group AIPAC during an address on Sunday morning at the opening plenary of J Street’s convention in Washington and accused it of being un-American. 

Van Hollen elicited a loud chorus of boos in response to his description of AIPAC’s opposition to legislation he had sponsored seeking to place conditions on U.S. military assistance to Israel.

“I put forward months and months ago a proposal that said, with respect to any country, any country that receives U.S. military assistance — has to agree to, No. 1, comply by American law and by international law. You know who came out against that? AIPAC came out against that,” Van Hollen said. 

“AIPAC came out against a proposal that says American taxpayer dollars that are used for military assistance — it’s OK to give them to any country in the world, even if that country doesn’t agree to abide by American law or international law,” said Van Hollen. “I will tell you that AIPAC may call itself pro-American. They may call themselves pro-Israel. But they are neither.”

Van Hollen accused Israel of violating American and international law during its war against Hamas in Gaza, and earned cheers for saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions should be reined in.

“There can’t be a continuing blank check when the Netanyahu government is operating in violation of American law, which they have repeatedly, or in violation of international law,” he said.

Van Hollen has emerged as one of Israel’s staunchest critics in Congress over the course of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza in response to the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. In his speech, he gave a shout-out to his wife, Katherine Wilkens, a longtime liberal analyst on the Middle East at think tanks in Washington. 

“I’m also very pleased to be joined here today by the real expert in the Van Hollen family on the Middle East, and that’s my wife and partner, Katherine,” he said. 

Van Hollen used his speech to tie the U.S. strikes against Iran that began early Saturday morning to President Donald Trump’s “lawless” actions domestically. 

“What we see is this lawlessness and attack on freedoms here at home also infecting our foreign policy,” said Van Hollen. “It is a gross violation of international law just to go all off and attack another country. It’s not a preemptive strike … It also is a gross violation of your constitution. This isn’t a close call.” 

Van Hollen criticized Trump’s stated goal of regime change in Iran, and said the president’s actions will harm civilians in Iran. 

“Yes, we hate the Iranian regime. It’s been brutal against its own people,” said Van Hollen. “But I don’t think you’re going to help the Iranian people by watching bombs that kill civilians. We’ve seen over 140 school kids killed in one of the very first attacks of the war. That is not a way to bring solidarity and support from the people of Iran.”

Iranian forces said more than 150 people were killed after a strike hit a school in the county’s south, but the Israeli military said it was “not aware” of any IDF operations in that area. A CENTCOM spokesperson told The New York Times it is “aware of reports concerning civilian harm resulting from ongoing military operations. We take these reports seriously and are looking into them.”

Van Hollen was the only member of Congress to speak at J Street’s opening session. Other congressional speakers slated to address the conference on Monday include Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Tim Kaine (D-VA), as well as Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Sean Casten (D-IL), Madeleine Dean (D-PA) and Sara Jacobs (D-CA). 

Robert Peters, a far-left state senator from Illinois who is now competing in a crowded Democratic primary for a safely blue Chicago-area House seat, has made anti-AIPAC messaging a central focus of his campaign, castigating the pro-Israel group as a corrupting force in congressional elections funded by Trump-aligned interests scheming to promote a “right-wing agenda.”

Just last week, for instance, Peters joined forces with a coalition of progressive House candidates in Illinois to decry AIPAC’s recently reported political engagement in key congressional races in the state, claiming that anyone who accepts support from the group will become “a ‘yes man’ to Trump donors to commit unspeakable horrors in another part of the world.”

Not long after he had launched his campaign last year, however, Peters met privately with an AIPAC official in Chicago and then filed an Israel position paper at the group’s request, according to a person with close ties to the organization who reviewed the document at the time it was submitted. 

The behind-the-scenes engagement — rumors about which have circulated among Peters’ opponents — raises questions about the sincerity of his hostile rhetoric toward AIPAC as he now is building support from prominent Israel critics.

Most likely, the source familiar with the matter suggested to Jewish Insider this week, Peters was “seeking AIPAC’s good grace” in a strategic effort to preempt attacks from its super PAC, United Democracy Project, which often targets candidates who stray from pro-Israel messaging. 

“Israel is a vital partner to the United States, and Congress must ensure that this special relationship is preserved,” Peters wrote in his paper, confirming in a separate section he is “committed to ensuring the U.S. continues to be an essential ally of Israel, including funding foreign aid to protect the people of Israel from terrorism, cyber threats and missile attacks.”

The group is now facing scrutiny over its alleged covert funding of a newly formed super PAC, called Affordable Chicago Now!, which is investing heavily in Peters’ race to help boost a top rival, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, a pro-Israel Democratic candidate. Peters, for his part, has accused “AIPAC and Trump donors” of “pouring cash” into Miller’s primary bid, warning “AIPAC and Trump allies” are now “trying to buy this seat,” though AIPAC has not endorsed her and UDP is not publicly involved in the race in Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District. (UDP did not respond to a request for comment.)

The policy paper that Peters allegedly submitted to AIPAC — screenshots of which were obtained by JI — is far more measured than the anti-Israel stances he now espouses. Most strikingly, he voiced support for upholding continued U.S. military aid to Israel, which the group views as one of its top litmus tests. Earlier this month, for example, UDP invested millions on attack ads in a special House primary in a wealthy suburb of northern New Jersey, hitting an erstwhile ally, former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), who had entertained policies to condition assistance to Israel. 

“Israel is a vital partner to the United States, and Congress must ensure that this special relationship is preserved,” Peters wrote in his paper, confirming in a separate section he is “committed to ensuring the U.S. continues to be an essential ally of Israel, including funding foreign aid to protect the people of Israel from terrorism, cyber threats and missile attacks.”

By contrast, Peters has more recently condemned AIPAC-backed candidates as pro-Israel pawns “OK with unconditional military aid” to support what he calls Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “war machine,” which he says committed genocide in Gaza. If elected, Peters has pledged to sign on to the Block the Bombs Act, a bill that seeks to impose sweeping new conditions on U.S. weapons transfers to Israel.

Matthew Fisch, a spokesperson for Peters, said in a statement to JI on Wednesday that the state senator has shared his Israel position paper “with a range of stakeholders and individuals upon request, some of whom responded with feedback for our campaign.”

“Among those stakeholders was AIPAC staffer Martin Ritter, who has a longstanding relationship with Robert going back to his days as an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union,” Fisch said. He claimed that Ritter, who directs AIPAC’s Midwest outreach in Chicago, “requested the document and provided feedback, which our campaign promptly rejected.”

Peters “is not and has never been open to receiving support from AIPAC for his campaign,” Fisch said, noting the candidate’s “positions on this issue are well documented and have been widely discussed.”

When JI first reached out to Peters’ campaign last October to inquire about the paper, Fisch said the document had been “drafted in the early months of the campaign to share with any and all stakeholders from across the spectrum of viewpoints,” and that it had “reflected Robert’s nuanced position on a range of subjects in the context of that moment.”

He did not respond to follow-up questions from JI at the time asking if the paper had been submitted to AIPAC.

Peters, a Jewish convert, had long been prominently opposed to Israel’s war in Gaza, joining at least one anti-Israel protest affiliated with the far-left Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, the latter of which is now backing his campaign. He called for a ceasefire in mid-November 2023, just over a month after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, writing in an opinion piece that he had “watched the unprecedented bombing campaign rain down on” Gaza and “saw that it was being done in our name, as Jews and as Americans.”

But even as Peters’ outspoken views on Israel would seem to preclude any outreach to AIPAC, the source familiar with his engagement, granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic, said he had regularly been in touch with the group at least until January, when he spoke with Ritter to express his concerns that the paper had been leaked.

Fisch confirmed that a call took place last month but said Ritter initiated it. “At the time, he falsely insisted to Robert that AIPAC was not supporting Commissioner Miller,” he told JI, “something that proved demonstrably false just a few days later.”

“Robert has always supported conditioning aid and ensuring it is in full compliance with the Leahy Law and international law,” Matthew Fisch, a spokesperson for Peters, told JI, adding the paper “does not mention the Block the Bombs Act because it was drafted prior to the bill’s introduction.”

Ritter, for his part, referred questions to an AIPAC spokesperson. “Like many advocacy organizations,” the spokesperson said in a statement to JI, “AIPAC routinely meets with candidates across the country to understand their views on issues important to its members.”

In some ways, the paper seems written specifically to meet AIPAC’s approval — including in its support for “fully” implementing the Taylor Force Act, a key legislative tool favored by the lobbying group that withholds direct aid to the Palestinian Authority until it ceases payments to convicted terrorists or members of their families.

But Fisch insisted that the paper is consistent with Peters’ long-standing Middle East policy positions. “Robert has always supported conditioning aid and ensuring it is in full compliance with the Leahy Law and international law,” he told JI, adding the paper “does not mention the Block the Bombs Act because it was drafted prior to the bill’s introduction.”

In a section of the paper on foreign aid to Israel reviewed by JI, Peters made no explicit argument for conditions, saying only that he supports “the continuation of aid in the framework of President Obama’s 2016 Memorandum of Understanding, compliant with existing U.S. law.” The 10-year agreement, set to expire in 2028, provides $3.8 billion in military aid and missile-defense funding to Israel annually — assistance the Block the Bombs Act is designed to challenge. Critics have argued the proposed legislation would effectively amount to an arms embargo on Israel for many key weapons systems.

Peters, 40, has largely positioned himself as a progressive front-runner in the March 17 primary, where 10 candidates are competing to fill the seat being vacated by Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL), who is running for Senate. In addition to Peters and Miller, the primary field includes former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), who is drawing support from an AI-backed super PAC, and state Sen. Willie Preston, among others candidates.

During a recent candidate forum, Preston accused Peters of being dishonest in his AIPAC messaging. “Robert Peters tells you AIPAC hates him,” Preston said, according to video of the event reviewed by JI. “He sought their support — they just didn’t give it to him.”

Peters, in his own remarks at the forum, said that he shared a “position paper” with “Palestinian-led organizations,” among other organizations he claimed “groups like AIPAC fundamentally hate,” according to the video. He denounced AIPAC as a “right-wing, Trump-allied” organization, and said that “anybody taking” its support “is disqualified to represent” the district in Congress.

Peters has claimed major endorsements from leading Israel critics, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Delia Ramirez (D-IL) — who introduced the Block the Bombs Act last May. He has also won support from anti-Israel groups such as the Working Families Party, which endorsed his campaign on Tuesday, and the anti-Israel AIPAC Tracker, which has argued that candidates “only submit a policy paper to AIPAC if” they are “angling for” support from the organization.

Peters is not the only Israel critic now seeking the Democratic nomination in an Illinois primary race to have allegedly engaged in discussion with AIPAC. Daniel Biss, the mayor of Evanston who is hoping to succeed retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) in the suburbs of Chicago, sought backing from the group before he announced his run for Congress last year, JI has reported, though he denies having done so.

Biss has claimed publicly he met with AIPAC in an effort to stave off potential spending by the group in his race.

In recent weeks, AIPAC has become a particularly divisive subject of debate in Illinois as the group has ramped up its spending while facing accusations it is attempting to hide its involvement in some districts by operating under the cover of newly created super PACs not required to disclose their funding sources until after the primaries.

“He is practiced in the ways of politics,” Tom Bowen, a Democratic strategist in Chicago who is not involved in Peters’ primary, told JI on Wednesday. “That he submitted a paper in order to demonstrate he would be a collaborative elected official, I’m not surprised at all. Robert understands politics, and you have to build coalitions in order to legislate.”

Last week, for example, Schakowsky said she was rescinding her endorsement of Miller because of support the county commissioner has reportedly received from AIPAC-aligned forces in her primary. “Illinois deserves leaders who put voters first,” the congresswoman said in a statement, “not AIPAC or out-of-state Trump donors.” 

In a separate Democratic House primary in the state, meanwhile, Anthony Driver Jr., a progressive candidate critical of Israel, said recently that he was rejecting a campaign contribution from a prominent Jewish party donor in Chicago, Michael Sacks, over his ties to AIPAC — a move Sacks lamented as a sign of growing “anti-Israel sentiment and outright Jew hate.”

Tom Bowen, a Democratic strategist in Chicago who is not involved in Peters’ primary, said he would not be surprised if the candidate had privately engaged with AIPAC, calling him a savvy political operator.

“He is practiced in the ways of politics,” he told JI on Wednesday. “That he submitted a paper in order to demonstrate he would be a collaborative elected official, I’m not surprised at all. Robert understands politics, and you have to build coalitions in order to legislate.”

As for why he is “saying what he’s saying today,” Bowen suggested that there is “obviously political opportunity in corralling support from the folks in Congress who make” Israel “a top issue for national fundraising.”

“In many races in Illinois now, it is very difficult to forge broad coalitions,” Bowen added. “Ultimately,” the candidates are working to build coalitions “they think they need to win.”

Moderate congressional Democrats are pushing back against claims from anti-Israel activists, sparked by recriminations over an unreleased Democratic National Committee post-2024 election analysis, that the party’s position on Israel during the war in Gaza was a decisive factor in Vice President Kamala Harris’ election loss.

Speaking to Jewish Insider, the lawmakers rejected the notion that the Biden administration and Harris campaign’s approach to Israel was the decisive factor in the defeat, instead pointing to broader political dynamics.

They also called on the DNC to release the post-election autopsy, expressing confidence that the findings wouldn’t indicate that taking a stronger anti-Israel line would have helped Harris win more votes.

“I don’t think that was the issue in the election. I disagree with that conclusion,” Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) told JI. “Israel is our country’s strongest ally in the Middle East, one of the strongest allies in the world, and I can tell you that my colleagues here overwhelmingly support a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.”

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) echoed those sentiments, telling JI that “the idea that the vice president lost every swing state because she wasn’t more extreme on this issue is laughable.” He called on Democratic officials to “release the report.”

“I mean, this is ridiculous,” said Moskowitz. “You got Democrats talking about how we should release the report on Epstein … now they should release [the DNC autopsy report].” 

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH), who represents a swing district in Ohio, also called for transparency, but cautioned against narrowing the post-election analysis to a single issue.

“That’s what the party should do,” Landsman said of releasing the report. “The country, they want us to focus entirely on the voters … which means that it’s going to be about their economic conditions, it’s going to be about their safety, it’s going to be about how we invest in their communities, it’s going to be about how we make their lives better. That’s the winning formula.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told JI he had not heard of the autopsy, however, he stated that he questions “the veracity of that report,” adding that he “strongly disagrees” with the assertion that Harris lost due to her stance on Israel.

“There were a number of reasons why she lost,” said Blumenthal. “I have not spoken with anybody associated with the DNC about this report. I have no idea what the report says, but it may be wise to release the report.” 

Senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod contributed reporting.

A prominent Jewish Chicago-area Democratic donor and philanthropist lamented rising anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism after a progressive Illinois congressional candidate issued a public statement saying he would reject the donor’s contribution to his campaign due to his ties to AIPAC.

Union organizer Anthony Driver Jr. is running in Illinois’s 7th Congressional District, on a platform critical of Israel and in opposition to AIPAC. He said in a statement that he would return a contribution by Michael Sacks, a local Jewish, pro-Israel philanthropist and Democratic donor who had been a prominent supporter of former President Barack Obama and close ally to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Sacks also chaired the 2024 Democratic National Convention host committee and raised nearly $100 million to put on the convention.

“Michael Sacks has supported community violence intervention work in Chicago for years. I served nearly four years as President of the Chicago Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, helping advance real public safety reform,” Driver said. “The first time I heard about any link between Michael Sacks and AIPAC was on the debate stage. As I said on that same stage, I will return the contribution.”

Sacks, in response, pointed to public anti-Israel and antisemitic currents as pushing Driver, who has been endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, to take such a position.

“It is truly sad there is so much anti-Israel sentiment and outright Jew hate that Anthony found himself in this position,” Sacks said in a statement to the Chicago Tribune. “I can only hope that the electorate rejects hate in all forms.”

Sacks said he asked Driver to contribute the donations to a community violence prevention group of his choosing, calling Driver a “pragmatic [progressive]” and praising his work on violence reduction.

On the campaign trail, Driver has railed against AIPAC and spending by its super PAC, supporting one of his rivals, Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin. Conyears-Ervin faced attacks by several of her opponents about her support from AIPAC’s super PAC during a candidate forum last week.

Driver also states on his campaign website that he supports efforts to restrict offensive weapons transfers to Israel, including the Block the Bombs Act, and the recognition of Palestinian right of return.

Driver’s unwillingness to even accept support from a pro-Israel donor underscores the deepening hostility to Israel and its supporters in certain Democratic circles. As part of their anti-Israel campaign, progressives are working to make campaign contributions from individuals who have supported pro-Israel causes unacceptable — even if they haven’t been directly connected with AIPAC. 

The debate over Israel within the Democratic Party has long been a particularly acute source of tension, in the wake of a protracted war in Gaza that deepened internal divisions over  America’s increasingly contested relationship with one of its closest allies.

Recently, however, many Jewish and pro-Israel Democrats say they have observed a distinct and troubling new shift in that debate, as the range of politically acceptable opinions on Israel has strayed far outside the mainstream, with little pushback from party leaders.

Amid growing claims of Israel committing genocide as settled fact, openly pro-Hamas demonstrations, ongoing efforts to demonize pro-Israel engagement in Democratic primaries and rejections of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, the political atmosphere is raising questions about whether the party is willing to collectively draw red lines around creeping extremism or if it is now accommodating anti-Israel sentiment that until not long ago had been more commonly viewed as off-limits.

While hostility toward Israel has been building for some time over its military assault in Gaza sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, Jewish Democrats warn that the party’s acquiescence to its anti-Israel wing risks alienating a core constituency that could have negative consequences in the midterms as well as the upcoming 2028 presidential election.

Their worries have dovetailed with a sharp rise in anti-Israel and antisemitic invective from the right that some Jewish Democrats contend is inseparable from a deeper antipathy that transcends traditional party lines.

“For those of us who care about a strong U.S-Israel relationship, there is reason to be concerned,” said Howard Wolfson, a longtime advisor to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “The challenge is profound.”

Even as he said that challenge also extends to the right, Wolfson voiced apprehension that in his own party, “there are Democrats thinking of running for president who have said that they won’t take money from pro-Israel” political donors “and have thrown around the word genocide” while describing Israel’s conduct in Gaza. The Jewish community “has a real problem,” he lamented to Jewish Insider in a recent interview. “It is a subject of considerable angst and debate.”

Sara Forman, the former executive director of the New York Solidarity Network, an advocacy group that backs pro-Israel Democrats for state and local office, said, “The willingness to accommodate absurd assertions about Israel is a cancer that is spreading unchecked” within “the left ranks of the Democratic coalition” in addition to “factions of the Republican right wing,” a dynamic she and others attributed, in part, to the polarizing influence of online algorithms that frequently reward incendiary content.

“Right now,” she added, “I hate to say we are in an extremely frustrating situation where the identity of the Democratic Party is being redefined, and where a majority of center-left traditional liberal Jews are left somewhere in the wilderness.”

“To me,” she concluded, “it’s depressing.”

“It is very troubling for American Jews that we are even having to have this conversation,” Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist often involved in Jewish and pro-Israel causes, told JI. “Putting aside what one thinks” about Israel, he added, “to see it become a flashpoint in politics feels pretty shitty, to be sure.”

The Jewish state, he told JI last week, “is something that transcends language in a political primary and goes back to something deep within us emotionally, in terms of our family and how we think of our own history.”

“In the last presidential election we saw Jews, especially in the suburbs, swing more toward the Republican candidate than they had since” Ronald Reagan in 1980, Reinish noted. “If I’m Democratic leadership, I would be looking very closely at that.”

Over just the past few weeks, the scope of tolerable views on Israel has slid into markedly antagonistic territory, according to interviews with more than a dozen Jewish and pro-Isrsel Democrats who voiced a growing sense of alarm over the party’s direction.

Earlier this month, for instance, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) used her first appearance at the Munich Security Conference to not only repeat calls for conditioning U.S. aid to Israel but also to suggest that such support had enabled a genocide in Gaza. Though her comments were not new, that she had made them on one of the world’s most high-profile foreign policy stages underscored how her positions are continuing to gain greater currency in the party. 

Some observers were also unnerved by Ocasio-Cortez’s decision to level an accusation toward Israel of genocide while in Germany, seen as insensitive to the history of the Holocaust.

Jewish Democrats say they have been unsettled by the growing ease with which anti-Israel critics have invoked charged claims of genocide without understanding its meaning or historical significance. “The genocide conversation,” according to Steve Fulop, the former mayor of Jersey City who now leads the Partnership for New York City, an influential business advocacy group, “has unfortunately monopolized the left and has become more commonplace and accepted.”

Fulop, a grandson of Holocaust survivors, said the issue was not a major focus of conversation when he ran an unsuccessful primary campaign for governor of New Jersey last year. “In the last six months,” he told JI last week, “it has become more prevalent and more of a talking point.”

This month, the subject emerged in a special election for a House seat in a wealthy northern New Jersey suburb, where a far-left candidate, Analilia Mejia, clinched the Democratic nomination — beating a former congressman, Tom Malinowski, who had faced outside spending from AIPAC due to his support for conditioning aid to Israel.

While AIPAC drew widespread backlash for its role seen as unwittingly helping to elevate a harsher critic of Israel to the House in Mejia, many pro-Israel Democratic elected officials in the state have since coalesced behind the nominee, suggesting her staunchly anti-Israel views are little impediment to winning the party’s broad support. In addition to accusing Israel of genocide, the only candidate in the primary to do so, Mejia, a progressive activist, denounced Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks without mentioning Hamas and expressed “incredible discomfort” with Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. 

Even as Malinowski, for his part, disagreed with Mejia’s anti-Zionist sentiments, he echoed other Democrats who chose to endorse Mejia in the April special general election because, he wrote last week, he “strongly” believes that the “seat must remain in Democratic hands.”

Speaking broadly about anti-Israel currents now shaping the party, one Jewish Democratic member of the House said they have been unnerved by what they called an “obsession” with Israel among many far-left activists and candidates that reflects “litmus tests” not evenly applied to other key foreign policy issues.

“The line of what’s acceptable has shifted massively, especially since Oct. 7,” the House member, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the party, told JI last week. 

“What I’m watching right now, in 2026, is a breakdown in respectful language toward the Jewish community,” Joel Rubin, a progressive strategist and former State Department official, explained in an interview with JI last week. “It is very troubling and implies hostility that is undeserved — considering nobody should be treated to that kind of language. But it is also really dangerous for the Democratic Party and our electoral prospects to have this internal hostility and disunity.”

In New York City, which elected a fierce critic of Israel as mayor last November, Jewish Democrats say that line has moved in a particularly troubling direction. More recently, for example, Brad Lander, a former city comptroller now challenging Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in a heavily Jewish House district, drew scrutiny for hiring a campaign consultant who had boosted antisemitic conspiracy theories using a pseudonymous X account that also celebrated Iran and Hamas, among other controversial social media posts.

Even as Lander fired the consultant, Kaif Gilani, after his online activity was uncovered by JI earlier this month, the episode still fueled questions about whether he was adequately vetted, given that the consultant had established a profile as a well-known promoter of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani during the recent election. It also underscored just how common such extremism has now become in New York City — where protesters have in recent months openly chanted their support for Hamas outside synagogues.

Meanwhile, leading progressive lawmakers such as Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), both of whom are seen as potential presidential contenders, have avoided publicly distancing themselves from a popular far-left streamer, Hasan Piker, who recently sided with Hamas while sharing his views on one of those protests, near a synagogue in Queens hosting an event promoting Israeli real estate investment.

Joel Rubin, a progressive strategist and former State Department official now at work on a book about Democratic foreign policy, said he interprets such rhetoric as part of a broader “political tactic by some folks in the base to try to silence Jewish voices and to intimidate them into not advocating on these issues.”

“What I’m watching right now, in 2026, is a breakdown in respectful language toward the Jewish community,” he explained in an interview with JI last week. “It is very troubling and implies hostility that is undeserved — considering nobody should be treated to that kind of language. But it is also really dangerous for the Democratic Party and our electoral prospects to have this internal hostility and disunity.”

“There has always been this struggle within the Democratic Party of the argument, on every issue, of what is acceptable and what is not,” Sam Lauter, a political consultant and pro-Israel activist in the Bay Area, told JI. “With regard to Israel, that argument is not new, but what is new is how much it’s increased and what has become acceptable and what has been just dismissed.”

The increasingly charged tenor of conversation around Israel “is not the way Democrats should be thinking about communicating to voters if we want to win elections outside of deep blue areas,” Rubin suggested. “My biggest fear is that people are afraid to stand up and speak out.”

Kenneth Baer, a former Obama administration official who now directs a communications firm, sounded a similar note of caution. “Democrats are running to outdo each other to criticize Israel to curry favor with the massively online left and the interest groups that constitute the party,” he told JI recently. “The political dynamics of 2026 may mean this doesn’t matter in November, but in 2028 and beyond, running to the extremes is not a political winner.”

“There has always been this struggle within the Democratic Party of the argument, on every issue, of what is acceptable and what is not,” Sam Lauter, a political consultant and pro-Israel activist in the Bay Area, told JI. “With regard to Israel, that argument is not new, but what is new is how much it’s increased and what has become acceptable and what has been just dismissed.”

Still, he argued, pro-Israel Democrats have also “missed out” on the opportunity to forcefully defend their positions. “It has been very clear for years that people who disagree with us have been organizing at a grassroots level while building up support and making their viewpoint a part of the party mainstream,” he said. “And our community stopped engaging at that level years ago, which is why many of us have been screaming that this is a huge problem.”

Former Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), who previously helmed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, attributed the changing landscape in large part to what he views as a demographic shift driven by younger voters “generations away from romantic images of Israel” that are now “replaced by algorithm-fueled social media portraying Israel dropping bombs on schools and hospitals in Gaza.”

“In politics, perception is reality, and the reality for younger people is that Israel is wrong,” he told JI.

But he said it would be a miscalculation to disengage from that conversation. “Pro-Israel activists who don’t understand the need to push back proceed at their own peril,” he said. “You can’t surrender the narrative, which means supporters of Israel on both sides of the aisle need to find a much more effective narrative, particularly toward young voters.”

Many pro-Israel activists are at a loss, however, for how to recapture the debate, as Middle East policy now appears likely to be a focus of the next presidential election.

“It’s easy to observe a problem and then not have specific ideas on the solution,” Israel told JI. “That is a fundamental question now.”

“I don’t have a great answer, to be honest with you,” said Wolfson, the Bloomberg advisor. “I find it is far easier to identify the breadth of the problem than to identify a solution.”

According to Lauter, “the Overton Window has shifted” for Democrats, “and what needs to also shift is our community’s understanding of how to deal with it and approach it.”

“Let’s see how the midterms go and which candidates jump in,” said Aaron Keyak, the deputy special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism in the Biden administration who now serves on the board of Combat Antisemitism Movement. “But in the lead-up to 2028,” he told JI, “the Middle East policy discussion will certainly be more prominent.”

“Regardless of what we think or say today, the particular policy conversation leading up to 2028 is going to be driven by the candidates, so until we can fill out the answer to the ‘what’ and ‘why’ questions, we need to be able to answer the ‘who’ one,” Keyak added.

In the meantime, said former Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC), who is now the board chair of Democratic Majority for Israel, the party still boasts a number of pro-Israel elected officials as well as candidates, including some her group recently announced it is endorsing in a range of contested House primaries.

“There is no doubt that we are living through very difficult times for American Jews,” she told JI in a recent interview, pointing to what she described as “unprecedented condemnation” of the U.S. alliance with Israel from both sides of the aisle. “What gives me hope,” she said, “is I know from my experience campaigning in a purple state in a competitive seat that the vast majority of Democrats still believe that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state and has the right to defend itself and its people.”

“We don’t have to love Israel,” but voters should understand the strategic benefits of working with a key Middle East ally, Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic strategist in New York City, said. “It ain’t about Jews,” he told JI. “It’s about the future of the United States of America.”

As the midterms near, Manning maintained that nominating pro-Israel Democrats will be a crucial step toward reclaiming the House. “The seats that are going to make the difference to taking back the majority are seats where candidates have to appeal not just to Democrats but also to independents and Republicans,” she said. “I think that it’s important for us to understand where voters are, regardless of what the loudest voices online or on the stage might be saying.”

Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic strategist in New York City, agreed with that sentiment, arguing that pro-Israel party members should be seeking to push the debate “back to the middle” and pressing a “straightforward geopolitical argument” to highlight the advantages of the U.S.-Israel relationship rather than relying on expenditures that have proven to be divisive in primaries.

“We don’t have to love Israel,” but voters should understand the strategic benefits of working with a key Middle East ally, Sheinkopf said. “It ain’t about Jews,” he told JI. “It’s about the future of the United States of America.”

The Anti-Defamation League and Blue Square Alliance Against Hate are joining forces in a new partnership to combat the spread of antisemitism, Jewish Insider has learned. 

ADL said it will integrate the blue square symbol, which has become popularized by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s group, into its educational programming such as tool kits and content for synagogues as well as materials and content distributed to other faith communities.

“We are proud to embrace the blue square campaign as we seek to build empathy for the Jewish people and to expand understanding about the root causes and consequences of antisemitism,” said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt.  

“The blue square serves as a universal symbol for unity and solidarity. It’s a call to action that

demonstrates we are strongest when we stand together, arm in arm as sisters and brothers, united by our shared values,” said Kraft, founder of the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, which rebranded last year from the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism. 

“At a time when there is far too much divisiveness in our country, this is when we need the unity that the blue square represents most. By partnering with the ADL, we are amplifying our mission to stand up to Jewish hate and all hate and are expanding the reach of the blue square to reach more Americans in communities across our country in order to fight hate together,” Kraft continued.

Blue Square and the ADL have a history of collaboration: Earlier this month, ADL conducted a survey on reactions to the Blue Square Alliance’s Super Bowl commercial amid a political debate over its impact. The antisemitism watchdog plans to honor Kraft at its annual conference next month in New York City. 

Jewish leaders in the Houston area see a chance for a fresh start this year with a new congressman, after an increasingly strained relationship with their longtime representative, Rep. Al Green (D-TX), who has taken a strong anti-Israel turn in recent years.

Green, 78, is struggling to hold onto his seat in a primary against newly elected Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX), the former Harris County attorney, who won a commanding victory in a special election runoff last month to replace former Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-TX). Turner died months after taking office to replace former Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), who died less than a year earlier of pancreatic cancer after serving for over 30 years in the House. 

Due to Texas’ redistricting process, Menefee now faces Green, as well as other longshot candidates, for a full term in the House beginning in 2027.

Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, Green has consistently taken anti-Israel stances, even on legislation that has received widespread support on a bipartisan basis. Weeks after the attacks, Green was one of just 10 House lawmakers who voted against legislation expressing support for Israel and condemning Hamas.

The veteran congressman was an early backer of efforts to unilaterally recognize Palestinian statehood, of legislation describing the war in Gaza as a genocide and of the Block the Bombs Act.

Siding with six other members of the House, he voted to cut off missile-defense funding to Israel last July. Green also voted against supplemental aid to Israel in 2024 and has supported legislation to block specific arms transfers to Israel.

Green was one of 11 lawmakers to vote against an amendment condemning Hamas’ use of human shields and demanding its unconditional surrender and disarmament.

He voted against declaring the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” to be antisemitic. And he was one of just four House members who voted to require universities to disclose investments in countries whose leaders are facing International Criminal Court arrest warrants, indirectly targeting Israel.

In 2024, he introduced a resolution affirming the Palestinian right to statehood, to which two Jewish members were added as cosponsors without their knowledge or consent. He led an effort, opposed by a majority of House Democrats, to impeach President Donald Trump for striking Iran last June without congressional authorization.

At the same time, Green has also continued to back certain measures to combat antisemitism.

Green told the Texas Tribune that he expects AIPAC to spend “inordinate amounts of money to get me out of office,” and has been railing against the group on the campaign trail, though AIPAC has not endorsed anyone in the race.

Menefee has said little publicly about Middle East politics, though in a January candidate forum for the special election, he described Israel’s operations in Gaza as excessive while also condemning the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, according to The Daily Cougar, the University of Houston’s student newspaper.

“Look, what I want is peace, now,” Menefee said. “I want a lasting ceasefire so that not a single baby in either Israel or Gaza has to worry about being bombed.”

Leaders in the local Jewish community said their once-strong relationship with Green — who had been a frequent presence at community events and maintained strong relationships with members of the community — turned sour following Green’s vote on the post-Oct. 7 resolution, which surprised and hurt many in the community.

“Everybody — particularly in a large section of the Jewish community — carries this wound from that vote. They’ve not forgotten it. They’re unforgiving about it. It’s been very painful because there was a relationship,” Art Pronin, who is Jewish and leads the Meyerland Area Democrats Club, told Jewish Insider. “It felt like we lost a congressman. … it was just shocking.”

Pronin says he now hears concerns from others in the community about Green on a weekly basis at his synagogue.

“It’s really sad, because we used to have a very strong relationship with him,” Norri Leder, a founder of Houston Jewish Women Vote and a board member of the local federation, told JI. “It’s been incredibly disappointing, and especially because the way his district was newly drawn, he represents a very large chunk of the Jewish community. … It almost feels like he’s hostile towards us, not just disagrees. It doesn’t feel like respectful disagreement.”

Leder added that Green’s positions on Israel policy had appeared to begin to shift prior to Oct. 7, but the change became more pronounced after the attacks.

She said that she has heard from other members of the community for whom Green’s stance on Israel issues is factoring “very heavily” into their plans for their primary votes. “We’re looking for somebody that understands us and wants to represent us, and Al Green gets a poor grade on that front.”

The longtime congressman was the chair of the local NAACP before entering public office, building strong relationships with the local Jewish community that he maintained for years, according to Pronin.

Since Oct. 7, Pronin and Leder said that Green has not attended community events to which he’s been invited and has been inaccessible to Jewish constituents who have requested meetings or expressed concerns about his posture.

Leder said that lack of accessibility and engagement from Green and his office, in addition to the shock of his vote against the resolution condemning Hamas, has contributed to the sense of hostility she feels from him.

Pronin said he had multiple conversations with Green about his vote on the resolution condemning Hamas, seeking an explanation, but has never received a “solid explanation,” and Green has not softened his stance.

Leder joined a group meeting with Green recently, where he was pressed on his lack of engagement with Jewish constituents, and said Green vowed he would try to engage on some issues of mutual concern, but also “did launch off on Israel” during the conversation.

“The challenge is you can have very strong feelings about Israel, but if you’re representing the Jewish community that lives here, you still have to represent that community, and that’s where I think he’s really fallen down,” Leder continued. “He wasn’t present at any [Oct. 7 memorial] events in the community. He hasn’t attended … community seders, things like that a lot of elected officials attend, and he just has been completely absent.”

“It feels like his anger at [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and whatever he’s feeling towards the Israeli government is spilling over into his treatment of Jewish constituents,” she added.

Leder said that Menefee, on the other hand, has interacted on numerous occasions with the Jewish community and attended events like the community Passover seder. He “understands our concerns,” Leder said, though she said she couldn’t speak specifically about his views on the current Israeli government.

“I know him personally. I think he has a lot of respect for the Jewish community and is available and that’s what the Jewish community is looking for: somebody that understands our concerns and is there for us as constituents, and when it comes to Israel, is somebody that is open and reasonable,” she continued.

Pronin said he has known Menefee for a long time and never heard him say anything about Israel policy that has concerned him, describing the newly elected lawmaker as “balanced” on the issue, though he hasn’t spoken about it extensively.

“I think he’s got a balancing act to play on this issue, and we’ll have to really kind of thread the needle in conversations with these communities, and maybe help bring people together to talk about this, so he can listen and hear out the perspectives on this as a congressman over time,” Pronin said.

Green’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Mark Jones, a Texas pollster and fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, recently conducted a poll of the district showing Menefee with a commanding 52%-28% lead.

“Menefee’s crushing him,” Jones told Jewish Insider, noting that an internal poll by Menefee’s campaign conducted by the well-regarded Lake Research Partners shows similar results. Jones predicted that Menefee should be able to win the race cleanly in the primary, without advancing to a runoff.

Around two-thirds of the voters from the new district come from Green’s old district, but they are roughly evenly split — with a slight advantage toward Menefee — between the two leading candidates, Jones said. The quarter of the district that comes from the current 18th District “overwhelmingly prefer[s] Menefee,” Jones added. “And that’s also the case with some of the other northern parts of the district that used to be in other districts.”

“The only reason Green is even in this race remotely is that he still is popular among … his current constituents, but he’s doing very poorly among the roughly little more than a third of constituents who he currently doesn’t represent,” he said.

And though voters report positive views on both candidates, Jones noted, when forced to choose, “a significant majority — effectively almost two-to-one — prefer Menefee.”

Jones said that, for many Democrats, Menefee is a “perfect candidate,” with a reputation for being pragmatic progressive and a record opposing Trump. Green’s age is also a stumbling block for him, particularly for voters who saw two of their representatives die in office over the course of about a year.

“People like what he’s done over the past 20 years, but they believe it’s time to pass the baton,” Jones said.

Green has argued that he will be more effective given his greater seniority in the House, which is particularly valuable in the Democratic Caucus. At the same time, the veteran lawmaker has  been a bomb-thrower who has sometimes found himself out of step with Democratic leadership.

An unfolding scandal implicating Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) could catapult an anti-Israel social media influencer with a history of antisemitic posts to Congress in Texas’ upcoming 23rd District Republican primary.

Brandon Herrera, who ran against Gonzales in 2024, came under fire from Gonzales and Jewish and pro-Israel groups in the previous election cycle over a series of YouTube videos replete with imagery, music and jokes about the Nazi regime and the Holocaust. He also expressed opposition to U.S. aid to Israel.

But Tuesday evening, corroborating a long-running rumor, the San Antonio Express News reported that Gonzales had been having an extramarital affair with a female staffer who died by suicide last year. The Express News reported that the relationship was allegedly well-known to staffers and cited multiple sources close to the woman, including a former colleague, and a text message she sent confirming the relationship prior to her death.

Both Gonzales and the woman were married to other people at the time of the relationship and had children. Gonzales’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Jewish Insider, though he has previously denied the affair.

The Express News’ editorial board announced, hours after the paper broke the story, that it was withdrawing its endorsement of Gonzales.

“The affair is troubling for many reasons,” the editorial board wrote. “First, it is an act of deception. Gonzales is married and has six children. Second, this was not an equal relationship but one involving a staffer. Third, while an attorney for Santos-Aviles’ husband has said he does not believe the affair played a role in the suicide by self-immolation at her home in Uvalde, it still looms over the tragedy.”

Herrera demanded that Gonzales drop out of the race and resign, warning that Gonzales clinching the Republican nomination could allow Democrats to flip the seat in November. 

“[Gonzales] not only broke House ethics rules by having an adulterous affair with a member of his congressional staff and by using taxpayer money to fund the affair, but he also broke trust with the public by insisting that the initial reporting of the affair was false,” Herrera said. “If he prevails in the primary and becomes our party’s nominee in the general election, Democrats will seize the opportunity to flip a reliable Republican seat blue.”

Democrats have an outside shot of flipping the district, which voted for President Donald Trump by 15 points in 2024, in November.

“It’s shameful that Brandon Herrera is using a disgruntled former staffer to smear her memory and score political points, conveniently pushing this out the very day early voting started,” Gonzales responded in a statement to The Texas Tribune. “I am not going to engage in these personal smears and instead will remain focused on helping President Trump secure the border and improve the lives of all Texans.”

The late staffer’s husband said in an interview on Wednesday, his first time speaking out about the situation, that Gonzales had “abused his power” and that his wife’s mental state deteriorated after he discovered the affair and the spouses separated. He said he did not believe she was trying to kill herself, but that it was “a cry for help that turned into a tragedy.”

He said he wants Gonzales to face accountability and criticized the congressman for “pushing, you know, family values and Christian morals … denying the fact that he’s ruined somebody’s life.”

Gonzales narrowly beat Herrera in a head-to-head primary runoff in 2024, 51%-49%, a margin of less than 400 votes. Herrera has spent the last two years on the campaign trail, gearing up for a rematch.

Even before the scandal broke, a Political Intelligence (PI) poll published last week by the Daily Caller showed that Herrera led Gonzales 33%-29% among likely Republican primary voters, growing his lead to 43%-34% in a head-to-head matchup. 

Neither the AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project nor the Republican Jewish Coalition, which collectively spent $1.4 million opposing Herrera in 2024, responded to inquiries about whether they plan to be involved in the race again this year.

Gonzales maintains a significant lead over Herrera in fundraising, closing out 2025 with $2.5 million on hand to Herrera’s $722,000. If neither candidate breaks 50% in the primary election, the highest vote-getters will advance to a head-to-head run-off election.

Two other Republican candidates, former Rep. Quico Canseco (R-TX) and veteran Keith Barton, are also in the race, but both trail significantly in fundraising.

Gonzales also has the backing of Trump, despite efforts by Herrera to tie himself to the president. Trump sent a cease-and-desist letter to Herrera’s campaign in January demanding that he stop using Trump’s image in campaign materials, which a Trump representative called misleading.

Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas Republican strategist, noted to Jewish Insider that the report came days into the early voting period, putting the issue front-and-center for voters as they head to the polls.

But the extent of the story’s impact, he continued, will depend on how much voters are aware of it — whether they’re seeing it repeatedly in conservative media and to what extent the Herrera campaign invests in spreading the news widely, and through what channels. He also noted that the latest reporting will likely be most voters’ first exposure to the story.

“I think it’s complicated, and I think it’s definitely not good,” Steinhauser said. “The news is tragic and horrible, and he clearly made bad decisions, and the voters are going to have their say on that, and we’ll see what they do.”

Steinhauser predicted that the race is likely to go to a runoff, and said some voters might also stay home, if they have negative views of both candidates.

When the results are tallied, the impact of the story may be measurable, he added, in whether Gonzales’ share of the votes drops from the start of early voting to later in the early voting period and election day ballots.

The revelations about Gonzales will also make it harder for Republicans to hold onto the seat in November, with both potential Republican nominees now carrying baggage into the general election. “If I were the Democrats, I would probably be looking at investing more money here,” Steinhauser said.

Mark Jones, a Texas pollster and political science fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, said that Gonzales has “had a whirlwind” turnaround from solidifying the support of the president and the GOP establishment to the latest revelations. 

Though rumors had been circulating for a number of months about the affair, “it’s one thing to have them be allegations with him denying them, and another thing for it to be increasingly credible evidence that not only was he having an affair with this woman, but then he was disingenuous in terms of his responses and when questioned about it,” Jones said.

Jones added that Trump’s response, if any, to the news would be decisive, given the president’s immense popularity and the value of his endorsement with Texas voters.

He said that the Gonzales scandal is most likely to be a problem for Republicans in November if there is a “continued drip, drip of information that increasingly links Congressman Gonzales to this woman’s death.”

“Herrera has a fair point, certainly, the Tony Gonzales without this whole incident is a much stronger candidate than the Tony Gonzales with this incident,” he continued, while arguing that Gonzales is still likely to be “viewed more positively than Herrera” — and, as a moderate, is better aligned with the district — particularly if Democrats spend millions on an anti-Herrera campaign.

A new report released by the Anti-Defamation League on Tuesday highlights an acceleration over the past two years in antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric by HispanTV, Iran’s Spanish-language state-sponsored media outlet that primarily targets Latin America.

“The Iranian regime’s media outlet is spreading classic antisemitic conspiracy theories and anti-Israel propaganda to potentially millions of people across Latin America and beyond, making the Islamic Republic a destabilizing force not only in the Middle East, but across the Spanish-speaking world,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “With antisemitism already at historic levels globally, Tehran is funding a massive media propaganda operation that is priming the pump for spreading antisemitism and hate against Israel and Jews the world over.”

The report urges governments to probe ties between HispanTV and sanctioned Iranian officials and government entities and consider designating the media outlet as a foreign influence operation. It also urges social media companies to take moderation action against or take down HispanTV’s pages, satellite companies to reconsider broadcasting the channel’s content and internet hosting companies to cease providing services to the outlet.

The report was released in conjunction with an ADL-sponsored event on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference focused on Iran’s malign activities in Latin America.

According to the report, HispanTV’s content features a consistent narrative including antisemitic tropes about Jewish and Zionist influence, portrays Israel as the center of a global conspiracy, expresses support for violent extremist groups and the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, praises the Iranian regime in comparison to Western democracies and denies Israel’s right to exist.

“The failure of governments, international organizations, corporations, and others to take meaningful action against HispanTV has allowed the Iranian regime to export its hateful and violent conspiracies around the world,” the report states. “If this threat is not seriously addressed, the result will likely be the radicalization of Spanish-speaking audiences across Latin America and beyond.”

The report charges that “one of the most pervasive themes in HispanTV’s coverage” is an antisemitic depiction of Jews and Zionism as “an omnipresent, evil force” controlling governments as part of an interconnected malign plot.

The glorification of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad is also a “central narrative thread” in the coverage, positioning the terrorist groups as righteous, moral and necessary alternatives to the evils of Zionism, and lauds their alleged victories. The outlet covers Hezbollah and the Houthis in a similar light.

“HispanTV consistently frames Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks as legitimate and praiseworthy acts of resistance worthy of celebration. This reframing is essential to the channel’s ideological project, converting mass violence into a foundational myth of liberation,” the report adds.

The outlet has downplayed or ignored high-profile antisemitic attacks targeting the Jewish community globally, according to the report. It also portrays Jews and Israelis as “operating a highly organized global disinformation apparatus designed to deceive the world and justify genocide,” downplaying or dismissing the idea of antisemitism entirely.

The largest global membership organization for social workers from around the world will vote next week on whether to expel Israel’s leading social work body, sparking a feverish advocacy campaign by Jewish and Israeli practitioners to urge members to vote against the measure. 

The vote by the International Federation of Social Workers is scheduled for Feb. 18, and it comes after several members in the IFSW complained that some Israeli social workers served in combat roles in the Israel Defense Forces during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. The IFSW alleges that military service violates social workers’ professional and ethical commitments to nonviolence. 

The Israeli Union of Social Workers — and its allies in the United States and Canada — argue that such a request ignores Israel’s mandatory draft policy, holds Israel to a different standard from other member nations and singles out the only Jewish state. The leader of the Israeli body said it would be “entirely unimaginable” for Israeli social workers to ask not to serve in combat, noting that it would come across as “elitist” and “mark our union as illegitimate in the eyes of both the government and the public.” 

“If we believed that removing the [IUSW] from the IFSW would promote peace, guarantee the rights and security of both nations — we ourselves would vote in favor,” IUSW’s chair, Inbal Hermoni, wrote in a letter urging countries to vote against the measure. “This is a noble goal. However, this is not the case.” 

The IFSW comprises 141 country members — including Russia, Iran and China — representing more than 3 million people. The only other country to ever face a similar punishment from the IFSW was South Africa, which was suspended during the era of apartheid rule. 

Last year, the IFSW voted to formally censure Israel — the second time the body had done so.

“This position was grounded in our ethical mandate: social workers are called to uphold human dignity, promote peace, and work for social justice. Active participation in combat contradicts these principles,” IFSW President Joachim Mumba, who is from Zambia, said last year.

Social workers, psychologists, doctors and other practitioners in the so-called “helping professions” have complained about antisemitism that they say has become normalized since the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel — with double standards, anti-Zionist litmus tests and outright antisemitism now viewed as widespread and even acceptable among others working in those fields.

“This vote shouldn’t be seen in isolation. It’s a reflection of the systemic hostility towards Israel and towards Jews that have come to permeate these professional spaces,” said Guila Franklin Siegel, chief operating officer of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. “In fighting against this, we are fighting against a much bigger problem.”

Andrea Yudell, a therapist in Washington, told Jewish Insider on Thursday that voting to expel Israeli social workers “would effectively legitimize the hostility that we’ve been seeing in the field.”

A petition organized by several groups for Jewish therapists in the U.S. and Canada is urging the National Association of Social Workers and the Canadian Association of Social Workers — the two membership organizations in each country — to publicly oppose next week’s vote. 

“It imposes a nationality-based collective sanction, treating professionals as ethically suspect solely because of their national affiliation. No other national association is held to this standard,” the petition states. It has been signed by more than 11,000 people. Spokespeople for NASW and CASW did not respond to requests for comment. 

Several U.S. Jewish organizations are helping to circulate the petition and generate attention about the vote, which the Anti-Defamation League called “collective punishment.”

The issue, according to Jewish social workers, goes deeper than just professional drama among the practitioners. The spread of antisemitism in a field predicated on compassion could threaten to alienate or harm Jewish clients who turn to social workers to help meet their emotional and material needs.

“It’s not just the social workers themselves. It’s the people we are trying to serve. Those people. It’s unethical to them,” said Jennifer Kogan, a licensed clinical social worker in Washington, D.C. “Jewish clients are affected by this. They don’t feel safe.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) urged the Trump administration Thursday to investigate reports that a clique of ideologically driven staffers at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene had launched an anti-Israel “working group” inside the agency.

In a letter addressed to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the upstate lawmaker decried reports that employees had met during work hours at the city bureaucracy’s Queens headquarters. 

Stefanik raised the possibility the department’s federal funding might have gone toward a prohibited political purpose — or that the gathering may have violated civil rights protections by creating a discriminatory environment for Jewish New Yorkers.

“The use of federal funds to support or tolerate government-sponsored activities that veer into ideological advocacy or that risk emboldening hate is a grave matter with civil rights and public safety implications,” Stefanik wrote. 

The letter requested Kennedy’s agency probe four questions: whether any federal resources went toward enabling the working group, whether it created a hostile context for Jewish employees and service recipients, whether higher-ups in the agency were aware or approved of its establishment and activities and whether HHS action against the agency is appropriate. Stefanik further asked for a briefing within 30 days on the federal department’s findings.

Neither HHS nor the Mamdani administration immediately replied to requests for comment.

For the first hour and a half of the White House Religious Liberty Commission’s Monday hearing on antisemitism, the Jewish witnesses testifying about their experiences of antisemitism seemed to be in alignment with the commission’s members — all generally conservative and eager to see antisemitism stamped out. 

Then Commissioner Carrie Prejean Boller began questioning the witnesses with a sharply anti-Israel bent, in an adversarial tone. Following public backlash, she was removed from the commission two days later by the commission’s chair, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. (Prejean Boller insists Patrick does not have the authority to remove her.) 

Prejean Boller, who wore a Palestinian flag pin at the hearing, has used the criticism to deepen her line of attack against so-called “Zionist supremacy in America,” doubling down on her opposition to Israel. “I am a free American. Not a slave to a foreign nation,” she wrote on X on Tuesday. 

While Prejean Boller may have been removed from the body, she found an ally who has stood by her this week and who remains on the commission’s advisory board: Sameerah Munshi, a Muslim activist who first gained a public profile in the summer of 2023, when she testified at a Montgomery County, Md., school board hearing against the inclusion of LGBTQ-related material in elementary school classes. 

That moment thrust Munshi briefly into the national spotlight, where she worked alongside conservative Christians who also opposed the liberal Maryland county’s approach to educating about LGBTQ issues. Prejean Boller, too, first gained national attention for her opposition to gay marriage at a beauty pageant in 2009. 

The two women — both of whom were appointed by President Donald Trump — have now joined together as the anti-Israel wing of the commission. Both of them have publicly defended antisemitic commentator Candace Owens, who uses conspiracy-laden language to discuss Jews and Israel. In a shared Instagram post last week, Prejean Boller and Munshi pointed fingers at a shadowy cabal that they blame for both the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the alleged crimes of Jeffrey Epstein. 

“The politicians who refuse to condemn the Israeli government’s starvation and genocide on the Palestinians are the same ones unmoved by the Epstein crime files,” Prejean Boller and Munshi wrote. “Gaza was a precursor to the release of the Epstein files. Their goal: normalize and justify the torture and killing of innocent children … Arrest these monsters. Drain the evil swamp. End Palestinian genocide. Defund Israel.” 

Prejean Boller and Munshi said in another post that they had submitted an alternative list of “fair witnesses” to the commission whom they hoped would present at the antisemitism hearing. The list included Norman Finkelstein, a discredited Holocaust scholar who has publicly defended the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, as well as Miko Peled and Yaakov Shapiro, two anti-Zionist Jewish activists. 

“Antisemitism should never be conflated with anti-Zionism or pro-Palestinian advocacy,” the two women wrote. 

When former UCLA law student Yitzy Frankel spoke at the hearing about his experience of antisemitism on campus after Oct. 7, and described a statement he wrote condemning Hamas’ “rape, beheading of children and taking of hostages,” Munshi muttered under her breath that Hamas had not beheaded anyone, a member of the audience who was seated near her told Jewish Insider. 

What remains unclear is who at the White House appointed Prejean Boller and Munshi to their roles on the commission and its advisory board, of which Munshi serves as a lay leader. Several members of the advisory board who spoke to JI said they did not know how they had been selected. A White House spokesperson declined to comment. Munshi did not respond to a request for comment. 

Neither Munshi nor Prejean Boller had a history of posting anti-Israel content online prior to late last year. 

Prejean Boller’s X account was used only infrequently, mostly to share content about Trump, illegal immigration, Christianity and gender issues. In early 2024, Prejean Boller began to come to Owens’ defense when Owens left The Daily Wire amid concerns about her antisemitic views. Munshi was also an infrequent user of X, and very occasionally posted pro-Palestinian messages over the last two years. Following Monday’s hearing, both women have taken to posting often and highlighting their opposition to Zionism.

“We condemn Zionist supremacy and the demanding we deny our individual faith for the fear of being called an antisemite. Religious freedom lives on,” Prejean Boller posted on Tuesday alongside a photo of the two women. 

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, has been elected as a new trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a leading philanthropic backer of anti-Israel causes, the foundation announced this week.

In joining the board, Ben-Ami is drawing closer to a foundation that has long been a top contributor to J Street, a progressive Israel advocacy group that has recently sought to capitalize on growing Democratic frustration with the war in Gaza.

But the foundation’s approach to philanthropy has not always been comfortably aligned with J Street’s mission, which is officially opposed to the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement seeking to isolate Israel. For its part, RBF has provided funding to a range of pro-BDS groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Palestine Legal.

Such giving came under scrutiny amid a surge of anti-Israel protests that arose in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks — particularly as JVP emerged as a leading organizer of some demonstrations. “Several of our partners take policy positions that are critical of the government of Israel,” the foundation said in a December 2023 statement defending its grantees, “but each shares our conviction that all human life is precious and valued.”

In a follow-up statement in May 2024, the foundation clarified that it “has had no direct involvement in the campus protests nor have we earmarked funds for them,” while acknowledging some grantees “have provided training, messaging, and/or legal support to student protest leaders.”

Ben-Ami, in a LinkedIn post, said that he was “enormously honored to be joining the board of a strategic and thoughtful leader in the philanthropic world” and was “looking forward to getting started.”

As a trustee, he will provide “fiduciary oversight of the Fund’s vision, mission, and activities,” RBF said in its brief announcement on Monday.

In an email to Jewish Insider, Ben-Ami said he was “deeply aligned with the Foundation’s focus on strengthening democracy, peacebuilding and promoting sustainable development,” praising the foundation’s approach as “particularly thoughtful and strategic.”

“I’ve appreciated RBF’s approach to funding in the Israel-Palestine area and specifically that they continue to engage on these issues when many others find the topic too politically contentious. It’s precisely their willingness to engage – and lead – on issues that others shy from that attracts me to them” Ben-Ami continued. “I might not agree with the exact tactics and prescription of each RBF grantee in this area, but I do know that the program is driven by a shared desire to achieve a just and durable peace and to challenge conventional wisdom in ways that I hope bring innovative solutions to light.”

“The beauty of the philanthropic world is that it allows dialogue to be opened and strategies to be tried that may not be possible in the more highly charged political arena where I have spent the bulk of my career,” Ben-Ami added.

The foundation’s “Peacebuilding” program, which focuses on the Middle East, “pursues interrelated strategies to advance conflict transformation of specific conflicts — Afghanistan and Israel-Palestine — as well as conflict prevention efforts elsewhere to de-escalate tensions and develop policy frameworks that advance peace,” according to its website. “The Fund has a particular interest in advancing shifts in U.S. foreign policy,” it adds.

In 2024, RBF’s assets totaled $1.4 billion, according to its most recent tax filings.

Even as it continues to reject BDS, J Street has recently shifted its policy and advocacy positions amid rising disillusionment with Israel’s conduct in Gaza. In August, Ben-Ami said he would no longer seek to push back against critics who claim Israel committed genocide in its war with Hamas. “I simply won’t defend the indefensible,” he wrote.

Earlier this month, meanwhile, he argued that the “longstanding framework built on unconditional support” for Israel “has broken down,” adding that “a changed reality demands a redefined approach to the relationship.”

Former RBF trustees have included Peter Beinart, a prominent anti-Zionist journalist, and Daniel Levy, a co-founder of J Street. In 2016, Nicholas Burns, a former veteran diplomat, resigned from the board, citing RBF’s “funding of organizations that support BDS,” which he called “fundamentally anti-Israeli.”

Stephen Heintz, RBF’s longtime president, who is stepping down this spring, also chairs the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an isolationist think tank that has promoted sympathetic positions on Iran. 

“Although our budgets, programs, and strategies have fluctuated over my tenure,” he wrote earlier this month, “our values have remained constant.”

An emerging fault line over how — or whether — to confront rising antisemitism is roiling the organized Jewish community, as some prominent groups have pushed back against sharp criticism questioning the effectiveness of their strategies.

The latest salvo comes from Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, which has recently found itself in the spotlight. In an opinion article in eJewishPhilanthropy published Monday, Greenblatt defended his organization’s approach to combating antisemitism — after a New York Times columnist had called for the group to be dismantled.

Speaking at 92NY in Manhattan for the annual State of World Jewry address earlier this month, Bret Stephens, a Times opinion columnist, stoked controversy when he suggested that the American Jewish community should shut down the ADL and reallocate its resources to focus on building Jewish identity rather than combating antisemitism.

“The fight against antisemitism, which consumes tens of millions of dollars every year in Jewish philanthropy, is a well-meaning but mostly wasted effort,” he said in his address. “We should spend the money and focus our energy elsewhere. The same goes for efforts to improve pro-Israel advocacy.”

In his response, Greenblatt dismissed Stephens’ argument as misguided, even as he said the speech had appropriately identified a “pathology” that can afflict those who define opposition to antisemitism as their “primary organizing principle.”

“It can turn Jewishness into a defensive crouch — more alarm system than civilization,” Greenblatt said.

Still, Stephens’ new “framing risks replacing one error with another,” he insisted, describing the fight against antisemitism and efforts to promote Jewish communal life not as binary choices but as mutually reinforcing objectives. 

“Security and identity aren’t competing priorities; they’re inseparable preconditions for Jewish flourishing in an open society,” Greenblatt insisted in his rebuke. “Shutting down the Anti-Defamation League or other Jewish organizations is not some magic formula that promises self-reliance; it’s a disastrous prescription for unilateral disarmament.”

The ADL has, in recent years, frequently drawn attacks from both the left and right over its closely scrutinized relationship to the Trump White House and its classifications of political extremism, among other sources of scrutiny the group has weathered. 

But as one of the nation’s oldest Jewish civil rights groups, the ADL has rarely seemed to find itself in the position of justifying its continued existence — particularly amid unusually direct backlash from an otherwise likeminded Jewish and pro-Israel pundit like Stephens.

The intense tenor of the debate underscores how Jewish groups are now grappling with polarizing divisions over how to move forward in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks and a resulting surge in antisemitism that has often stemmed from anti-Israel sentiment.

In addition to the ADL, such heated discussions have also recently centered around a costly Super Bowl ad seeking to raise awareness of antisemitism released by The Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, an advocacy organization founded by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

The ad, which featured a Black high school student consoling a Jewish classmate after bullies placed a “dirty Jew” sticky note on his backpack, was meant to reach a broad audience that is largely  “unengaged” on the issue of growing antisemitism while “lacking awareness, empathy and motivation to act,” according to Blue Square Alliance President Adam Katz.

But the 30-second commercial — part of a $15 million ad campaign extending to NBC’s Winter Olympics coverage — drew online denunciations from several critics who said it depicted Jews as in need protection from non-Jews and alleged that its framing ignored examples of antisemitism intersecting with anti-Israel hostility.

Greenblatt, for his part, was among the first Jewish leaders to praise the ad last week after it circulated online, in a statement that also functioned as a tacit defense of his own organization’s ongoing mission.

“Antisemitism has permeated all aspects of society,” he said in a social media post. “This ad is a simple yet moving depiction of resilience in the face of discrimination. It takes all of us, Jewish or not, to stand up against antisemitism. I’m glad this video will be getting the national attention it so deserves.”

Young American Jews have less of an emotional attachment to Israel than older Jews, but the overwhelming majority of all American Jews, across age groups, believes in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, new survey data from Jewish Federations of North America reveals. 

The results from the survey, which was conducted in March 2025 and released this week, makes clear that a baseline belief in Israel’s existence is still a consistent feature of American Jewish life among at least three-quarters of all Jews in the United States. At the same time, illustrating the complexities of the post-Oct. 7 landscape, one-third of young Jews describe themselves as anti-Zionist or non-Zionist.

Overall, nearly 9 in 10 American Jews believe in Israel’s right to exist, though there is a disparity among age groups. Ninety-eight percent of Jews between the ages of 55 and 74 believe in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state, compared to 76% of American Jews between 18 and 34. 

Among younger Jews, a majority still describe feeling emotionally attached to Israel, although there is a larger discrepancy from their parents’ generation. Fifty-seven percent of American Jews between 18 and 34 said they feel emotionally attached to Israel, compared to roughly three-quarters of Jewish Americans between 55 and 74. Among American Jews who are older than 75, 88% described feeling emotionally attached to Israel. 

According to the survey, fewer than half of American Jews — across nearly all age categories — identify as Zionists. Among those between the ages of 18 and 34, 35% identify as Zionist. Among Jews over 75, just 33% identify as a Zionist. 

JFNA’s chief impact officer, Mimi Kravetz, argued in a Jewish Telegraphic Agency op-ed explaining the survey results that Jews’ reluctance to describe themselves as Zionists, while agreeing with the fundamental tenets of Zionism, is a result of misperceptions about the word, which Kravetz said had experienced “definition creep,” shaped by “political agendas, public discourse, and broader social forces.” 

She urged Jewish advocates to respond with unity and a recommitment to the term’s earliest definition. 

“For us, Zionism means supporting the State of Israel and the Israeli people and uniting the Jewish people behind this shared commitment,” Kravetz wrote. 

But while relatively few American Jews describe themselves as Zionists across age groups, the data shows that far more young Jews identify as anti-Zionists or non-Zionists than older Jews. About one-third (32%) of Jews between 18 and 34 describe themselves as anti-Zionists or non-Zionists. That’s a much larger number than any other demographic: 13% of Jews between 35 and 44 say the same, compared to 15% of Jews between 45 and 54, 1% of Jews between 55 and 64, 4% of Jews between 65 and 74 and 9% of Jews older than 75. 

News that employees in the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene had launched an anti-Israel “working group” inside the agency’s headquarters provoked outrage among both progressive and conservative leaders in the New York City Council.

The New York Post first reported on Wednesday that employees of the mayorally controlled agency — which oversees restaurant inspections, disease control, vital statistics and addiction services — held the inaugural meeting of its “Global Oppression and Public Health Working Group” inside its main office in Queens during the workday on Tuesday. A presenter acknowledged that the working group “really developed in response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine,” according to materials the Post obtained. 

City Council Speaker Julie Menin, the first Jewish person to lead the body, told the Post that an investigation into the matter was “necessary to protect the public trust and address the unacceptable rise in antisemitism across New York City.”

City Councilmember Lynn Schulman, a Democrat who co-chairs the body’s health committee and serves as vice chair of its Jewish Caucus, described herself as “deeply troubled” at the news. However, she said that the agency had assured her it was probing the situation. 

The department did not respond immediately to a request for comment from Jewish Insider.

“DOHMH should be singularly focused on protecting and improving the health of New Yorkers — not advancing political narratives unrelated to its mission,” Schulman, a longtime progressive activist, wrote in a statement. “Politicizing a public health agency undermines trust, morale, and the core mission of the department.”

“This incident is especially troubling given the alarming rise of antisemitism we are seeing in New York City — including multiple antisemitic [acts] reported in recent weeks. Hosting a meeting that promotes inflammatory accusations while ignoring antisemitism entirely only deepens and alienates Jewish employees and residents,” she added. 

The report also drew condemnation from City Councilmember Joann Ariola, a Republican who represents parts of Queens.

“What this is, to be clear, is thinly veiled activism that is attempting to normalize itself within a city agency,” she said in a statement. “Jewish New Yorkers already feel under attack just walking the streets of this city. They should not have to be in fear about the radical ideology of their healthcare providers.”

A pair of well-financed groups, whose origin is currently unknown, is set to begin running ads boosting moderate pro-Israel candidates in a series of open House seats in Chicago, each of whom is facing off against vocal anti-Israel opponents.

The ads — being run by newly formed super PACs Elect Chicago Women and Affordable Chicago Now — boost state Sen. Laura Fine, running in the 9th Congressional District, former Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL), running in the 8th District and Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, running in the 2nd District.

The ad buys for the two groups add up to millions of dollars across the three races.

Given that the groups were just launched, FEC filing policies will not require them to disclose their donors until close to Election Day. But the ads, which do not focus on Israel policy, are widely rumored to be connected to the United Democracy Project, the AIPAC-affiliated super PAC.

UDP did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and AIPAC has not made formal endorsements in any of the races in question. 

Fine has established herself as a supporter of Israel during her campaign, and Bean had a pro-Israel record in office. Miller’s public record on the issue is less established.

A spokesperson for Evanston, Ill. Mayor Daniel Biss, running in the 9th, declared that ads were being run by “a right-wing dark money super PAC” and that Fine “is being propped up by Trump supporters, AIPAC donors, and right-wing super PACs.”

Biss has called for a ban on offensive weapons transfers to Israel and far-left influencer Kat Abughazaleh, another leading candidate in the  race, has taken even stronger anti-Israel positions.

State Sen. Robert Peters, a 2nd District candidate who also strongly condemned Israel during the war in Gaza, posted a video earlier this week accusing “AIPAC and Trump donors” of “pouring cash” into Miller’s campaign, warning that “AIPAC and Trump allies” are “trying to buy this seat.”

One of Bean’s leading challengers in the 8th is Junaid Ahmed, who supports an arms embargo and an end to all military aid to Israel.

In several progressive-minded districts across the country, UDP has utilized similar pop-up groups and not disclosed its involvement until after Election Day.

The pro-Fine ad praises her record in office on issues like health insurance and gun control, as well as points to her support for a ban on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Chicago. It calls her “the fighter we need to stop Donald Trump.”

ICE has become a major issue in the race, with both Biss and Abughazaleh attending anti-ICE demonstrations. Abughazaleh is under indictment for allegedly conspiring to injure ICE officers during a protest.

The pro-Bean ad highlights her support for the Affordable Care Act in her previous service in Congress, even though she “knew it might cost her an election,” and includes a photo of her with former President Barack Obama. It frames her new run for Congress as a continued effort to protect healthcare access from GOP attacks.

The pro-Miller ad highlights her work with Planned Parenthood and her work to protect pregnant mothers and combat domestic violence on the Cook County Commission. It also frames her as a fighter against President Donald Trump.

All three moderates — Fine, Miller and Bean — solidified their places as leading contenders in their respective races this week by leading in fundraising in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Fine also released an internal poll this week showing herself and Biss  tied for the lead in her race, with Abughazaleh in third and other candidates trailing.

Bean is seen as the front-runner in her race, given her established record. Miller, in spite of her strong fundraising, could face headwinds running against former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), who has strong local and institutional support but struggled to raise money last quarter.

A week after President Donald Trump took office for the first time in 2017, the White House ignited a political and media firestorm by releasing a statement commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day that failed to mention Jews. 

The omission was covered in major media outlets like CNN and Politico; the Anti-Defamation League called it “puzzling and troubling.” 

Nearly a decade later, Trump released another Holocaust Remembrance Day post this week, with a far more specific message: “Today, we pay respect to the blessed memories of the millions of Jewish people, who were murdered at the hands of the Nazi Regime and its collaborators during the Holocaust,” the statement read, “as well as the Slavs and the Roma, people with disabilities, religious leaders, persons targeted based on their sexual orientation, and political prisoners who were also targeted for systematic slaughter.”

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance’s post commemorating the day, which marks the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of Auschwitz by Allied Forces, did not mention Jews or antisemitism, leading political rivals on the left to pounce. (Democratic Majority for Israel called it “indefensible.”)

But despite the visibility of Vance’s tweet — which his defenders pointed out included pictures of him and his wife at Dachau, standing in front of a sign that said “Never again” in Yiddish — he was far from the only politician that failed to mention the fact that the Holocaust targeted Jews. Among them were: Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA), both of whom pledged to remember the victims of the Holocaust without referring to Nazis’ targeting of Jews. 

Multiple presenters at the U.K.’s BBC also failed to mention Jews in their coverage of Holocaust Remembrance Day — drawing backlash and a subsequent apology from the national broadcaster.

Does it matter that these politicians or media don’t reference Jews if they are still highlighting the significance of the Holocaust? It’s possible to argue that, definitionally, the Holocaust was about Jews, so one could assume that any reference to the Holocaust is itself a reference to the killing of Jews and the antisemitism that led to it. 

“If I talk about the potato famine, do I have to say Irish? How many other potato famines were there?” asked Deborah Lipstadt, a Holocaust historian who served as President Joe Biden’s antisemitism envoy. “But this is part of a greater whole in an age of rising antisemitism.” 

For years, Americans’ knowledge of basic facts about the Holocaust has been declining, particularly as fewer Holocaust survivors are alive each year to share their stories. A 2023 survey conducted by the Claims Conference found that 21% of Americans believed that 2 million Jews or fewer were killed. Eight percent of Americans, and 15% of 18- to 29-year-olds, said the number of Jews who were killed during the Holocaust has been greatly exaggerated. 

“Holocaust history has the power to teach vital, timeless lessons about why our choices matter — but only when it is approached with the precision, historical integrity and respect it rightfully deserves,” the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said in a statement this week that called for an end to “the abuse and exploitation of Holocaust memory.” 

In the 81 years since the Holocaust, political leaders and movements have exploited the memory of the genocide to serve their own ends, particularly by shifting the focus of who its victims were. 

In the former Soviet Union, where more than 2 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, memorials to those killed called them “peaceful Soviet citizens” — stripping them of their Jewish identity, as if their killers had targeted Russians rather than Jews. Some right-wing politicians in modern Poland have attempted to quash historical scholarship documenting that Poles were involved in Nazis’ killing of Jews, and that the Nazis targeted Jews, in particular, rather than just the Poles (though Poles were targeted, too). 

Norman Goda, a Holocaust historian at the University of Florida, said that modern remembrances of the Holocaust that fail to mention Jews are “a soft form of denial.” 

“The Nazis certainly knew who they were deporting. The Nazis certainly knew who they were gassing,” Goda told Jewish Insider on Wednesday. “The ignorance is such that you have to remind people that the Nazis called this Die Endlösung der Judenfrage, the final solution of the Jewish question. They weren’t just killing random people.” 

The politicians posting about the Holocaust almost surely know that, as do most of their constituents. But rising antisemitism coupled with declining knowledge about a genocide that targeted and killed 6 million Jews means that reminding people of the facts — the specifics — remains crucial. 

“Do we do this with any other mass catastrophe? Do we discuss the Armenian Genocide without mentioning the Armenians? Do we discuss slavery in the United States without mentioning who the slaves were?” Goda questioned. “We don’t do it, and anybody who would do that is engaged in an almost willful misunderstanding, either a profound historical ignorance, on the one hand, where you almost have to try to be that ignorant, or something that is simply more nefarious.”

Anti-Israel and antisemitic messages from Saudi regime mouthpieces and state-sanctioned media have increased in recent weeks, as Riyadh has pivoted away from a more moderate posture to an alignment with Islamist forces, such as Qatar and Turkey.

Over the weekend, prominent Saudi columnist Dr. Ahmed bin Othman Al-Tuwaijri wrote an article in a Saudi news site attacking the United Arab Emirates, with whom Saudi Arabia has been at odds in recent weeks, as “an Israeli Trojan horse in the Arab world … in betrayal of God, His Messenger and the entire nation.” He also wrote that “Israel is on a path to a rapid downfall and the umma will remain, God willing.”

The column, published after weeks of anti-Israel and antisemitic messaging from Saudi-backed channels, sparked an uproar from Western voices. The Anti-Defamation League condemned “the increasing frequency and volume of prominent Saudi voices … using openly antisemitic dog whistles and aggressively pushing anti-Abraham Accords rhetoric, often while peddling conspiracy theories about ‘Zionist plots.’”  

The Saudi site then took the article down. But when there was a backlash in the Arab world, it went back online. 

An editorial in the Saudi government newspaper Al-Riyadh earlier this month said that “wherever Israel is present, there is ruin and destruction,” and that Israel “do[es] not respect the sovereignty of states or the integrity of their territories, while working to exploit crises and conflicts to deepen divisions.” 

A conspiracy theory that has gained steam on Saudi social media in recent weeks accuses the UAE of trying to push for a “New Abrahamic Religion” melding Judaism, Christianity and Islam, thus destroying Islam, an apparent reference to the Abrahamic Family House — meant to foster religious tolerance. 

The shift in Saudi media comes after months in which imams at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, whose sermons are seen as reflecting official Saudi messages, have railed against Israel and the Jews. In a recent sermon, Sheikh Saleh bin Abdullah bin Humaid said, “Oh Allah, deal with the Jews who have seized and occupied, for they cannot escape your power. Oh Allah, send upon them your punishment and misery.” 

“I’m ringing the alarm; I’m breaking the glass,” Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said on the “Ask A Jew” podcast earlier this month. “I’m saying, listen, these guys are changing.”

Edy Cohen, a research fellow at the Israel Center for Grand Strategy, told Jewish Insider that the Saudi-backed Arabic news channel Al Arabiya is “very anti-Israel, they glorify the Palestinians,” though he stopped short of the characterization made by a prominent Israeli journalist last week that it has become worse than the Qatar-backed Al Jazeera.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said on the “Ask A Jew” podcast earlier this month that the Trump administration needs “to have a serious talk with” the Saudis.

“I’m ringing the alarm; I’m breaking the glass,” he said. “I’m saying, listen, these guys are changing.”

In the past, “you only got these crazy terrorist clerics, the al-Qaida types … would be inciting against the Jews,” Abdul-Hussain said. “But this week, the [Saudi] state-owned media was inciting against the Zionist plan to partition the region and to divide the region. This is very new.” 

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, a researcher for the Z3 Project, noted in a recent interview on the “Tikvah Podcast” that the Saudi “interest is colliding with that of Israel in many places,” while “the interests of the Israeli and the Emiratis are converging in a lot of places,” leading Riyadh to lash out against both at the same time.

He noted a rise in “the Arabist discourse of Arab sovereignty, Arab unity, the Emiratis and Israelis want to fragment us.”

“[The Saudi leadership] heard [exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi] said the new Iran will normalize relations with Israel, and this drove the leadership crazy,” Edy Cohen, a research fellow at the Israel Center for Grand Strategy, told JI. “Imagine Iran and Israel together … the Shi’a and the Jews together; it’s their biggest nightmare.” 

One reason for the turn in Saudi messaging is that Riyadh is “very afraid of Israel,” Cohen said, noting that it views recent Israeli actions as going against Saudi interests.

Cohen noted that Saudi Arabia was mostly quiet about Tehran’s violent suppression of the recent nationwide demonstrations, but behind the scenes, “the Saudis and the Qataris led a campaign for Trump not to strike Iran.”

“[The Saudi leadership] heard [exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi] said the new Iran will normalize relations with Israel, and this drove the leadership crazy,” Cohen posited. “Imagine Iran and Israel together … the Shi’a and the Jews together; it’s their biggest nightmare.” 

Before that, Cohen said, Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, which put Jerusalem on the UAE’s side against Somalia, angered Riyadh, a move he said led a diplomatic push for Arab states to condemn Israel. At the time, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Saudi sources said Israel recognizing Somaliland threatened its chances of normalization with Riyadh.

Israel and Saudi Arabia have also staked out opposing positions on Syria, where Riyadh supports President Ahmad al-Sharaa, while Israel has been much more hesitant to embrace the new Syrian leader and has acted militarily to protect the Druze Syrian minority near its border.

Cohen said Saudi Arabia would still be willing to establish diplomatic relations with Israel if it brought them a defense pact with the U.S., but “at a price no [Israeli] prime minister would be willing to pay.” 

Abdul-Hussain put Saudi’s pivot in the context of its failed regional ambitions. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, sought to move “from a country that has relied on oil for a living … to a country that looked like Dubai, where you have tourism and services, what they call a knowledge economy. … Israel is clearly one of the highest knowledge economies in the world.”

However, Abdul-Hussain said, “his experiment has just hit a wall and this transformation is not happening.” In an indicative development, MBS’ flagship project of a futuristic city on the Red Sea known as Neom has been scaled back following delays and budgetary limitations, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. 

Now, Abdul-Hussain said, “the quickest tool that [MBS] can get is to reconnect with the Islamists. … Look at Turkey and Qatar using Islamism all the time to project influence, including in Gaza … Washington clearly likes them for some reason, so [MBS is] thinking, why not use Islamism … as a tool to project power at Saudi’s borders? This means they will have to bash the heck out of Israel.”

With the continued talk about a possible American attack on Iran amid the regime’s violent crackdown on protesters, Aboubakr Mansour’s prediction in JI last year after the Israeli and American strikes on Iran remains relevant: He argued that the success of the 12-day war would not bring Jerusalem and Riyadh closer together, nor would regime change in Iran. A less extreme government in Tehran could grow closer to Washington, threatening the Saudi-American relationship. 

“They have an interest in Iran remaining the pariah that it is,” he said at the time. “The Saudis are in a place where they want to see neither the Israelis nor the Iranians win. [The Saudis] want them to put each other in check, which will give [the Saudis] more leverage.” 

Aboubakr Mansour told the “Tikvah Podcast” this month that he was “still shocked” by the Saudis’ “unbelievable pivot in terms of rhetoric, domestically and regionally, against Israel and the UAE.”

“The easiest way for them to [pivot away from Israel] is to insist on a Palestinian state, but that did not entail that, all of a sudden, they will recall a lot of Muslim Brotherhood figures from abroad … using their online channels to denounce the Zionists … getting closer to Turkey and Qatar. That itself, I was definitely shocked by,” he said. 

Now, Aboubakr Mansour said, after Saudi Arabia changed its messaging, “you saw a massive activation of this huge and colossal empire of narrative control that the Qataris run” — meaning Al Jazeera — “in favor of Saudi Arabia. …That’s a form of power, also, that has its own seduction, and I think the Saudis calculated that they have a very large symbolic comparative advantage that is best optimized to use this kind of populist anti-Zionist discourse in the Middle East.”

The United Auto Workers historically evokes imagery of assembly lines, picket lines and blue-collar solidarity. But the UAW, one of the largest unions in the country, has increasingly drifted away from its core mission of representing autoworkers in the workplace, driven by individuals pushing an extreme anti-Israel political agenda that leaves critics questioning the relevance to workplace issues. 

The most recent example came earlier this month, when 30% of the 275 employees of the Israeli-owned Breads Bakery signed union authorization cards for UAW Local 2179, the percentage necessary to petition the National Labor Relations Board for a union election. The group, which calls itself “Breaking Breads,” said in a statement, “Workers are demanding a living wage, safe workplace, and basic respect.” 

But the group’s demands also include that the management of the New York-based bakery chain, CEO Yonatan Floman and founder Gadi Peleg, “halt use of bakery profit to materially support the Israeli occupation.” Breaking Breads, which has a Palestinian flag emoji in its Instagram bio, also condemned the bakeries’ participation in the Great Nosh, an annual Jewish food festival in New York City, and said it will not participate in baking cookies with an image of the Israeli flag. 

Deborah Lipstadt, who served as the State Department’s antisemitism envoy under President Joe Biden, told Jewish Insider that “many institutions and organizations, whether they be universities, unions [or] city councils, a small group is able to go in and organize, and with the minority of members, push a policy.”

Lipstadt, a historian who has served on Emory University faculty for more than 30 years, said she has “seen similar situation[s] on university campuses and [within] professional academic organizations where a small group, sometimes just a few individuals, is able to gain control and push the organization in a certain direction, even if the vast majority of members don’t agree. I wonder if that is the same thing happening” with the Breads unionization push, she said.  

“There are fewer Jews in the unions,” continued Lipstadt, adding that she frequently encourages Jewish college students to get involved in student government for this reason. “What is not surprising to me is that we find activists inserting themselves and pushing the union in a more extreme fashion,” she said. 

A number of labor unions have seen a rise of antisemitism and anti-Israel activity since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks, despite many being historically supportive of Israel, dating back nearly a century, when many American unions donated money to the Histadrut, Israel’s national labor union. Multiple groups have now taken legal action against UAW branches in response to certain campaigns, which some legal experts allege were discriminatory against Israelis and Jews. 

UAW did not respond to a request for comment from JI. 

“Unions exist to protect and support all workers, not to be used as platforms for ideological campaigns that single out or target specific communities,” Karen Paikin Barall, chief policy officer at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, told JI.  

The Brandeis Center won a settlement in November against the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, part of UAW Local 2325. In their complaint filed in federal court in September 2024, three union members who sued to block an anti-Israel resolution proposed weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks described being targeted as “snitches,” “losers,” “disgusting,” “dictators in training” and “Zionist ghouls” in the ALAA’s internal discussion boards. The plaintiffs also said they were accused of “spreading lies and misinformation” by talking about “Jewish babies being murdered, and women being raped” on Oct. 7. 

“What we are seeing now is campus-style activism moving into the labor movement, with unions being treated like college campuses rather than professional workplaces governed by civil-rights law,” said Barall. “When unions prioritize an obsessive focus on a foreign conflict over the real, day-to-day concerns of workers and tolerate rhetoric that marginalizes Jews, it undermines both the credibility of the labor movement and the fundamental principles on which unions were founded.” 

Patrick Semmens, vice president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a nonprofit that fights against unions and for worker mobility and freedom of representation, told JI that the push to unionize Breads Bakery, which is still in an election period, has not yet crossed a legal line into discrimination. 

But NRTW has seen it before — the group provided free counsel to a group of Columbia University Jewish graduate students who filed a legal complaint in September over a set of demands from Student Workers of Columbia, UAW Local 2710. Those demands included seeking amnesty for students who had been expelled due to violations of university conduct during anti-Israel protests, negotiations over police access on campus and pushing for Columbia to eliminate a study abroad program in Israel. 

“UAW has been one of the most aggressive [unions] and to many people the most offensive,” Semmens told JI. “The argument with Columbia is that if they take this to an extreme and demand using their government-enforced bargaining powers to do things that are discriminatory, then they can cross a line and become illegal. The graduate student case at Columbia argues that. There were pretty radical demands.” 

The Columbia University case is also connected to the Breads Bakery campaign. 

Columbia graduate student Johannah King-Slutzky, who was arrested during the 2024 encampment and takeover of Hamilton Hall on Columbia’s campus and was subsequently suspended, is now involved in the Breads Bakery unionization push, even though she has never worked for the bakery. 

“Part of UAW’s ‘contract negotiations’ with Columbia is demanding [King-Slutzky] be reinstated,” said Semmens. “It’s all tied together.” 

Semmens estimates that “30 or 40% of UAW-represented individuals are now on college campuses, so that’s a real force.”

He added that anti-Israel activity within UAW accelerated after the March 2023 election of its president, Shawn Fain, a well-known figure on the progressive left and an outspoken critic of Israel since Oct. 7. 

“He ran as an outsider and his base of support was not so much the traditional blue-collar workers but very much college campuses and graduate students,” Semmens told JI. “That’s what put him in power, so that’s why you see so much of that coming to the forefront of UAW now.”

Fain’s “strongholds within the union in terms of internal union election are a very radical political contingent. From our perspective, that’s unfortunate, especially for workers or grad students who aren’t traditional employees but are roped under this system,” said Semmens. “If they dissent from these positions, they find that the union that’s supposed to be representing them is actually trying to discriminate against them.”  

Neither Fain nor King-Slutzky could be reached for comment. 

Former Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL) has emerged as an early front-runner in the Illinois 8th Congressional District primary, though she’s facing off against a number of anti-Israel candidates.

Bean, who maintained a pro-Israel record in office, is running as a relative moderate. One of her leading challengers is likely to be Junaid Ahmed, who supports an arms embargo and end to all military aid to Israel, making a second run for the seat, with another candidate who has expressed support for policies cutting off aid to Israel, Yasmin Bankole, also showing some early strength in polling.

“Coming into it, you’d say Melissa would probably be the one to beat. The question is, has the party changed a lot, especially in primaries, since she was in the House last?” Pete Giangreco, a longtime Chicago-based Democratic political strategist, told Jewish Insider. “Has the party moved — or at least Democratic primary voters, have they moved to the left more than where Melissa is, is sort of an open question.”

Internal polling by the Bean campaign last September showed her with a narrow lead but only polling at 10%, followed by Ahmed at 8%, Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison at 5% and Bankole, a Hanover Park trustee, at 3%, with more than two-thirds of respondents undecided.

A late November poll by the campaign of military veteran and attorney Dan Tully found Bean leading at 20%, followed by Morrison at 10%, Bankole at 7% and Ahmed at 5%, with 46% undecided.

Businessman Neil Khot, who is self-funding his campaign, is also a wild card assuming he spends enough money to build name recognition ahead of the primary campaign.

The seat, in Chicago’s western suburbs, is currently held by Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), who is running for the Senate.

Frank Calabrese, a Chicago political analyst, said he anticipates Bean will have a significant fundraising advantage in the next filing period, given her history in Congress and her post-congressional career as a banker. He named Bankole, Morrison and Ahmed as other top Democratic candidates.

Ahmed was endorsed last June by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), and has also been backed by Reps. Delia Ramirez (D-IL) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, Justice Democrats, Track AIPAC and IfNotNow Chicago.

He has a degree of name recognition and an established fundraising base — particularly among progressive and Arab-American voters — from an unsuccessful run for the same seat in 2022, a political strategist involved in the race said. The strategist rated him as Bean’s strongest competitor.

As of the end of September, Ahmed led the race in fundraising, with $838,000, fueled by small-dollar donations from Arab-Americans.

Bean, who did not join the race until mid-September, raised $530,000 in her first few weeks in the race. Morrison raised $382,000 and Bankole $293,000 during the last fundraising quarter.

Khot was the first candidate to go on air with television advertisements, which Giangreco said could give him early momentum. 

“I think you’d have to say Melissa is the favorite here, but she’s got to raise money and make her pitch, and I imagine that she’ll be on the air soon,” Giangreco said. “She got a little bit of a late start, so I think that’s probably why she’s not quite there yet on resources, and it’ll be interesting to see what the early spending for Neil Khot does.”

Morrison has a record as a local official and backing from various local leaders, as well as Reps. Eric Sorensen (D-IL), Mike Quigley (D-IL), Becca Balint (D-VT), Mark Takano (D-CA), Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Equality PAC, the campaign arm of the Congressional Equality Caucus, which supports LGBTQ+ candidates.

Bankole is backed by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), but Giangreco was skeptical that she’ll be able to put together a winning coalition.

“There are a number of candidates who are trying to kind of reinvent the Raja coalition. And you do have a large South Asian population there,” he said. “How many will vote in a Democratic  primary is an open question, and there are multiple candidates who are going after Raja’s base, so I don’t know if that feels like a winning strategy.”

The strategist involved in the race noted that it has received significantly less attention than several of the other open-seat races in the Chicago area. The strategist characterized Bean and Ahmed as the candidates to beat at this point.

Bean, who served from 2005-2011 is likely to highlight her work in Congress, particularly her support for the Affordable Care Act, as she works to build up support. But the strategist said that Bean could be vulnerable, among the liberal base, to attacks on her as a banker, linking her to Wall Street.

They predicted that Ahmed and his backers will work to rally support from progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and to turn out support among the socialist-leaning left.

Giangreco was more skeptical of Ahmed’s chances running on a progressive platform.

“Unlike [in Illinois’s 9th Congressional District] and [5th Congressional District], that are far more progressive, or even [the 2nd Congressional District] … there isn’t a liberal bastion like those other places have, where there’s a well-grounded progressive round structure,” Giangreco said. “It doesn’t mean there aren’t progressive voters. It’s just less part of the culture of the Democratic primary electorate there.”

Though the Tully campaign polling put Ahmed behind other progressive candidates in the race, the strategist said that Ahmed’s fundraising has been strong and should be sufficient to help him pull ahead into the top tier of the race, and he will be best positioned to capture progressive left voters.

Other candidates currently polling lower, like Tully — who raised $630,000 as of the end of the previous quarter — are hoping that a heated battle between some of those more prominent candidates will push voters away and give them a chance to capture a share of the voters.

“Dan Tully is a really interesting candidate, veteran and all that, but — not to put everybody into a box — but veterans usually have a tough time raising primary money, they actually tend not to do as well in primaries,” Giangreco said.

Former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the school’s anti-Israel protest movement, will likely be rearrested and deported to the North African country of Algeria, a top Department of Homeland Security official said Wednesday.

Khalil was released in June from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he had been held for three months. Last week, a federal appeals court ruled that he could be rearrested, instructing the lower court to dismiss Khalil’s habeas petition, a court filing that challenged his incarceration and eventually secured his release. His deportation proceedings had been paused.

Asked by Katie Pavlich on NewsNation on Wednesday whether there are plans to rearrest Khalil and move forward with deportation, Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, said “it looks like he’ll go to Algeria. That’s what the thought is right now.”

“It’s a reminder for those who are in this country on a visa or on a green card. You are a guest in this country — act like it,” said McLaughlin. “It is a privilege, not a right, to be in this country to live or to study.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a press conference on Thursday that Khalil “is a New Yorker. He should remain in New York City.”

“We have seen this attack on him as part of a larger attack on the freedom of speech that is especially pronounced when it comes to the use of that speech to stand up for Palestinian human rights. I will make that clear to everyone. He deserves to be in the city just like any other New Yorker,” Mamdani said.

Khalil, who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent, first came to the U.S. on a student visa, and later married a U.S. citizen and received a green card. While a graduate student at Columbia in 2024, he led campus protests against the war in Gaza and subsequent negotiations with university administrators. 

The federal government sought to deport Khalil on the basis of his failure to disclose crucial information in his green card application, including his former employment by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency that works with Palestinians, as well as his membership in the unofficial campus group Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which was banned from Instagram last year for promoting violence. 

Immigration authorities arrested Khalil at his home in March. He was not charged with a crime. The White House said at the time that the government had authority to arrest and deport Khalil based on the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which states that if the secretary of state has “reasonable grounds” to believe that a migrant poses “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” that person is eligible for deportation.

A memo submitted in May to the court in Louisiana and signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited the president’s authority to expel noncitizens whose presence in the country could have adverse foreign policy consequences, regardless of whether they have committed a crime. It stated that Khalil’s arrest and planned deportation were based on his “participation in antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.” 

A university professor who resigned from her position following a Title VI antisemitism investigation, and another who organized large-scale anti-Israel demonstrations, are among several controversial speakers scheduled to speak at an event on Friday hosted by the University of Washington. 

The day-long conference, called “The World as Palestine: On Advocacy, Activism, and Justice,” is organized by the Middle Eastern Studies department and is scheduled to be held in the university’s student union building. 

Andrea Brower, a former instructor in a “Solidarity and Social Justice” program at Gonzaga University in eastern Washington, is scheduled to speak during the program’s opening panel, “Reflections from Eastern Washington’s Palestinian Liberation Movement.” She resigned in 2024 after the school opened an antisemitism investigation into the protests she led on campus against Israel’s war in Gaza and her criticism of the university’s investment in companies with ties to Israel.

The panel will examine “academic dissent, critical thought, and resistance with reflections from Eastern Washington’s Palestinian liberation movement,” according to its registration page.  

Another speaker on the panel will be Majid Sharifi, the director and professor of international affairs at Eastern Washington University. When Iran fired hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel in October 2024, Sharifi told CBS News Miami that Iran was “defending itself” after its “sovereignty was violated” by Israel’s assasination months prior of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. 

The third speaker alongside Brower and Sharifi is Kathryn DePaolis, an associate professor and interim chair and director of the School of Social Work at Eastern Washington University. DePaolis helped create a new group called the Inland Northwest Coalition for the Liberation of Palestine two months after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks. During Israel’s war in Gaza, the organization staged Palestinian “die-ins” in front of the Spokane courthouse. 

“The event isn’t about the scholarship of activism, which would be different — it’s activism itself,” a Jewish faculty member at UW told Jewish Insider. “It’s using state resources to promote an ideology and worldview that contributes to antisemitism and anti-Zionism on campus.” 

Other panel topics are “Lessons from the Palestinian and Filipino Struggles for Liberation” and “Activism and Civic Engagement in Washington State.” Laila Taji, an author speaking on the latter panel, has ties to the radical student group Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return (SUPER UW), which led a destructive protest on campus last year over the school’s ties to Boeing — and Boeing’s ties to the IDF — that caused more than $1 million in damages to the university’s engineering building. 

The event will also screen “The Palestine Exception,” a documentary about “professors and students as they join calls for a ceasefire and divestment from companies that do business with Israel and face waves of crackdown from administrators, the media, the police and politicians,” according to the film’s synopsis. 

Neither the UW administration nor Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson responded to requests for comment from JI about the selection of speakers for the event at the university, which is a public college. 

The event comes days after students from SUPER UW who were suspended and arrested last spring for their participation in the engineering building vandalism were allowed to return to campus, Victor Balta, a spokesperson for the university, confirmed to JI. “The student conduct hearing process has been completed and the students have been found responsible for violations of the student conduct code and held accountable. The students were out of class and banned from campus for three quarters,” said Balta. Twenty-one students were suspended at the time.

“Suspensions also resulted in forfeiture of tuition paid or the repayment of tuition by any student who must remain in good standing in order to receive financial aid, such as tuition exemption grants for graduate students or work study. Once a suspension is concluded, any outstanding balances due must be paid in order to be eligible for re-enrollment,” Balta continued.

The students could still face criminal charges, though none have been brought in the nine months since the protest. The incident also led the Trump administration’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism to open a review into the university. 

SUPER UW was suspended as an official student organization in December 2024 after its members were charged with “vandalism,” “unauthorized keys, entry, or use,” “failure to comply” and “disruption and obstruction” by the school’s administration, according to the group. As a result, SUPER UW does not have access to school resources but can still gather on campus. 

In August, Secure Community Network, found that a manifesto released by SUPER UW — which the student group published on Medium shortly before its building takeover began — was inspired by a foreign terrorist entity. 

The document praised Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel as a “heroic victory” and said the group looks to “the rich history of struggle in our university for strength and inspiration as we take action.” SUPER UW also released a statement of solidarity with the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a fundraising arm of the terror group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that was designated as a terror group by the U.S. Treasury Department in October 2024. 

A Manhattan comedy club canceled Israeli comedian Guy Hochman’s show on Tuesday night after pro-Hamas groups protested outside of the venue. 

“The owner of the place was afraid and canceled the show,” Hochman told Jewish Insider, referring to Broadway Comedy Club, located near Times Square. “So, I did an alternative show for my audience outside freezing to death.”

“We are not giving up,” Hochman continued, adding that “another, big show” was planned for Wednesday evening. He did not disclose the location of the rescheduled show.  “We are the Jewish people and we want to live and laugh,” said Hochman. 

The owner of the venue, Carolyn Martin, did not respond to a request for comment from JI. 

City College of New York’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter was among the groups promoting the Tuesday demonstration on social media. It shared a post from the New York City chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement that said “victory” was achieved by the cancellation. CCNY SJP, which remains a registered student group, also participated in this month’s pro-Hamas protest in Queens that caused nearby schools and a synagogue to close early.  

Outside the comedy venue, masked demonstrators banged on drums, chanted and held signs that read “clean up the trash,” “death to the IDF” and “no war criminals in our city.” A heavy NYPD presence was called to monitor the protest. 

Hochman was reportedly detained at the airport for six hours of questioning on Monday when he arrived in Toronto after the anti-Israel group Hind Rijab Foundation filed a complaint about his service in the IDF. He was released after intervention from the Israeli consulate.

A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of the school’s anti-Israel protest movement, could be rearrested. 

Khalil was released in June from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he had been held for three months. 

A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reopened the case on Thursday, instructing the lower court to dismiss Khalil’s habeas petition, a court filing that challenged his incarceration and eventually secured his release. In a 2-1 ruling, the panel decided that the federal district court in New Jersey that issued Khalil’s release did not have jurisdiction over the matter and that it should have been handled in immigration court, which is part of the executive branch overseen by the Justice Department, meaning Khalil is now liable to be rearrested.

Baher Azmy, a lawyer for Khalil, told The New York Times, “We are disappointed with and strongly disagree with the majority opinion, but take heart in the very powerful and persuasive dissenting opinion. We’ll continue to fight with all available legal options.” The dissenting option came from Judge Arianna Freeman, who said that Khalil had proved that he faced irreversible injuries during his detention. 

Khalil’s deportation proceedings are currently paused, secured through a deal between his lawyers and the federal government. Thursday’s ruling could mean that the case restarts again, though it will very likely be appealed.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani responded to the reopening of Khalil’s case, saying in a statement that “last year’s arrest of Mahmoud Khalil was more than just a chilling act of political repression, it was an attack on all of our constitutional rights.”

“Now, as the crackdown on pro-Palestinian free speech continues, Mahmoud is being threatened with rearrest. Mahmoud is free—and must remain free,” said Mamdani.

Khalil, who grew up in Syria but is of Palestinian descent, first came to the U.S. on a student visa, and later married a U.S. citizen and received a green card. While a graduate student at Columbia in 2024, he led campus  protests against the war in Gaza and subsequent negotiations with university administrators. 

The federal government sought to deport Khalil on the basis of his failure to disclose crucial information in his green card application, including his former employment by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency that works with Palestinians, as well as his membership in the unofficial campus group Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which was banned from Instagram last year for promoting violence. 

Immigration authorities arrested Khalil at his home in March. He was not charged with a crime. The White House said at the time that the government had authority to arrest and deport Khalil based on the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, which states that if the secretary of state has “reasonable grounds” to believe that a migrant poses “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” that person is eligible for deportation.

A memo submitted in May to the court in Louisiana and signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited the president’s authority to expel noncitizens whose presence in the country could have adverse foreign policy consequences, regardless of whether they have committed a crime. It stated that Khalil’s arrest and planned deportation were based on his “participation in antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.” 

Khalil’s arrest was largely met with cautious celebration from mainstream Jewish groups at the time who said his deportation was “fully justified” but emphasised a need for due process. 

Khail was released on June 20 when Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled that his prolonged detention likely violated his constitutional rights. 

One day after his release, Khalil appeared at a rally in New York City organized by a group accused of ties to the Iranian regime protesting the U.S.’ airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities that had occurred a few days earlier. 

Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ), who faced a heated primary battle in 2024, is facing the prospect of another primary challenge in 2026, this time from an outspoken anti-Israel activist.

In 2024, Menendez successfully fended off a bitter primary challenge in the 8th Congressional District from Ravi Bhallah, the then-mayor of Hoboken, 52%-38%. Now, Mussab Ali, also a former mayoral candidate, is reportedly considering a run.

Ali, who previously served as president of the Jersey City school board, finished fourth in the Jersey City mayoral primary last year with 18% of the vote. His unsuccessful campaign drew comparisons to that of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, which Ali himself leaned into.

As early as Oct. 17, 2023 — before Israel’s full ground invasion of Gaza began — Ali accused Israel of ethnic cleansing and genocide, and demanded that American Jews denounce Israel’s actions. He posted on X demanding a ceasefire two days later.

“As Muslims we are always somehow responsible for the actions of any brown person around the world. As a proud Muslim myself I had several friends ask me about the attacks by Hamas and I unequivocally denounce the killing of innocent civilians,” Ali said. “Yet today as Israel marches towards an ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians, as the government murders innocent children in the name of Judaism, I wonder where are my Jewish friends condemning this murder taking place in your name.”

Ali has called for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel, arguing, “There are too many problems right here in Jersey City for us to be spending billions aboard supporting a war criminal,” ostensibly referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As a mayoral candidate, he also said he would champion a measure to support recognizing Palestinian statehood if elected mayor.

Ali also said he supports a one-state solution, and described Israel as an apartheid state.

“If you asked me a couple years ago, I would have said two-state, because I think that there was still some way to reconcile and make it so that there were two states that sort of worked together. I think today, you have to find a one-state solution,” Ali said. “I don’t see this process working. … I think you need to have [a] one-state solution eventually. I think that is where everything is leading towards. It’s got to be a one-state with equal rights for everybody.”

He also claimed, falsely, that there are unequal “tiers of citizenship” for Jewish and non-Jewish Israeli citizens.

He emceed an anti-Israel rally in Jersey City on Oct. 30, 2023, and was removed from a meeting of the Jersey City Council debating a ceasefire resolution in November 2023 for disorderly conduct.

He criticized Menendez and other New Jersey lawmakers for their calls to disband the anti-Israel encampment at Columbia University, and himself joined an encampment at George Washington University, defending the encampments as “extremely peaceful” expressions of free speech.”

“Extremely disappointed in [Menendez] who is aligning himself against the young people in our country trying to bring awareness to the pain of those in Gaza,” Ali said. “I’m sad how quickly these reps act against students occupying a college campus but are silent on settlers occupying land in Palestine.”

During his mayoral campaign, Ali mocked U.S. officials for visiting Israel, saying that they are only doing so because they are “funded by AIPAC.”

He also described himself as tied closely to many prominent anti-Israel organizers and campus anti-Israel groups from his time at Harvard Law School.

Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, told Jewish Insider that he believes Menendez is better-positioned to fend off a primary challenge now than he was in 2024.

“One of the biggest factors in challenging an incumbent is how much you can catch them off guard. How much can you surprise them? How much can you catch them unaware, unprepared?” Rasmussen said. “And it’s pretty clear at this point that you’re not going to get that advantage with Menendez.”

He said Menendez can expect greater support from the state Democratic organization this year, and that he will likely have a “prohibitive financial advantage” over any potential challenger, with nearly $600,000 on hand as of the end of September 2025.

“He’s got to definitely approach it as he did the last time, in terms of not taking anything for granted. But if he does that, he should be in pretty healthy shape,” Rasmussen continued. 

He said Menendez has also “successfully shown that he is his own person” — separating himself sufficiently in the minds of voters from the scandals of his now-imprisoned father, former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), which were a major vulnerability in the last election. “I think it only gets easier from here … each time he runs.”

Rasmussen said Menendez will need to “make his peace” with progressives and the anti-machine, anti-incumbent movement in New Jersey Democratic politics, a process that will take time.

Menendez scored a major victory in that effort on Wednesday, landing an endorsement from Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ), whose Senate candidacy helped catalyze the anti-machine movement in the state. 

“We talked about what drives us in politics and came to agree on the need to build a different kind of politics that is focused on delivering for people,” Kim said in his endorsement. “I’ve really appreciated his partnership and strongly support his re-election to continue to serve the people of New Jersey.”

Rasmussen said that progressive voters in Jersey City and Hoboken would be “theoretically up for grabs” for Ali — but it’s an open question if he’d be more successful in consolidating the progressive vote behind him in a challenge to Menendez than he was in his mayoral campaign.

“Time is not on Ali’s side … in terms of fundraising,” Rasmussen added. “If you’re going to come out of the woodwork and mount a challenge that’s credible, you are running behind. You are running to play catch-up, and there’s not a lot of time between now and June. … He’s going to have to get ramped up in pretty short order.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani sparked an uproar among Jewish community leaders when, on his first day in office, he revoked an executive order that adopted a definition of antisemitism equating some criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish prejudice.

But the mayor has yet to articulate which, if any, definition of antisemitism he will abide by, raising questions about his views toward escalating anti-Jewish hate in the city as he continues to weigh in on high-profile issues affecting the Jewish community.

His recent comments responding to pro-Hamas protesters in Queens last week and an arson attack on a synagogue in Jackson, Miss., over the weekend illustrate what Mamdani’s critics interpret as a core tension animating his assessment of antisemitism.

While Mamdani released a statement on Sunday calling the arson a “violent act of antisemitism,” his comment on the demonstration outside a synagogue in Kew Gardens Hills where protesters openly voiced support for Hamas was delayed and came only after he faced growing pressure from media outlets and Jewish community leaders to denounce the demonstration.

In contrast with several of his top allies on the left, Mamdani, who has long been an outspoken critic of Israel, ultimately chose not to the call the protesters antisemitic, even as he otherwise denounced Hamas as a “terrorist organization” and said that the chants heard at the demonstration “are wrong and have no place in our city.”

The statements on two separate issues in different states helped distill how Mamdani has traditionally reacted to individual instances of antisemitism. He has unequivocally condemned as antisemitic recent incidents where Jews have faced violent attacks and have been targeted by vandalism, among other acts. But the mayor has been slower to react decisively on protests near Jewish institutions involving anti-Israel activism.

Mamdani, who has long identified as anti-Zionist and refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, drew backlash last November after he admonished a Manhattan synagogue that was also targeted by anti-Israel demonstrators who chanted slogans including “death to the IDF” and “globalize the intifada,” a phrase he has declined to renounce.

Even as he distanced himself from the language used by protesters in objecting to an event about immigration to Israel, Mamdani said that “sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law,” a statement he later revised. He did not label the protest antisemitic, as other elected officials had done. On the recent Queens protest outside an Israeli real estate event, Mamdani used similar language when asked why he hadn’t condemned “both sides.” He answered, “I absolutely have an opposition to the sale of land in the West Bank. It’s a violation of international law and that comes from my belief in the importance of following international law.”

His ongoing reluctance to explicitly identify such protests as antisemitic underscores how his record of pro-Palestinian activism has long been central to his self-conception. While he moderated on several key issues in the election, Mamdani notably resisted softening even some of his most controversial views relating to Israel — such as a pledge to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes.

“On an ideological level, it’s a very problematic issue to be a proud anti-Zionist — especially if you are the mayor of New York City,” Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, who leads Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, said. “On a practical level, wherever anti-Zionism has been normalized,” he said, “as night follows day, it leads to antisemitism, in every single case, and it is the case today. There won’t be an exception simply because the mayor, at this time, insists on being an anti-Zionist and is proud of it.”

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, who leads Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, said in an interview with Jewish Insider on Monday that he has spoken with Mamdani repeatedly about what he called a clear connection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism — which, he noted, the mayor has not acknowledged.

Even as Hirsch conceded “it’s not necessarily the case in every circumstance” that “anti-Zionism is, ipso facto, antisemitism,” he said such discussions are “completely divorced from reality,” disagreeing with Mamdani’s assessment of the Queens protest last week. “What Jews mean by anti-Zionism is not what Hamas means by anti-Zionism,” he explained. “If you are pro-Hamas, then you are, by definition, an antisemite.”

“On an ideological level, it’s a very problematic issue to be a proud anti-Zionist — especially if you are the mayor of New York City,” Hirsch argued to JI. “On a practical level, wherever anti-Zionism has been normalized,” he said, “as night follows day, it leads to antisemitism, in every single case, and it is the case today. There won’t be an exception simply because the mayor, at this time, insists on being an anti-Zionist and is proud of it.”

The working definition of antisemitism Mamdani rescinded, which is promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, has long been a target of anti-Israel activists and some progressives who believe it stifles legitimate criticism of Israel — even as it is widely accepted as useful guidance by mainstream Jewish groups.

A spokesperson for Mamdani did not respond to a request for comment from JI asking how he would define what he has frequently called “the scourge of antisemitism” while pledging to ensure the safety of Jewish New Yorkers.

Mamdani has yet to announce key administration hires for areas related to antisemitism, such as the office to combat antisemitism, which he has vowed to retain, and he has sent mixed messages regarding his efforts to fight antisemitism — voicing interest, for example, in a city curriculum embraced by leading Jewish groups that promotes a definition of Zionism seemingly at odds with his own views on Israel.

Shortly before his inauguration, Mamdani argued that a report issued by the Anti-Defamation League, which highlighted several members of his transition team who had used antisemitic tropes and justified Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, ignored what he called “the distinction between antisemitism and criticism of the Israeli government.” He did not address some of the most extreme comments made by appointees, but said the ADL report “draws attention away from the very real crisis of antisemitism we see.”

Mark Goldfeder, the director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, said he suspects that Mamdani is now “gearing up to adopt” what he characterized as “one of the ‘IHRA-lite’ definitions” of antisemitism, citing those embraced by the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism and the Nexus Project — which he called “a little better than JDA,” though neither are widely accepted by mainstream Jewish organizations. Both definitions, he argued to JI, “provide more cover to those who wish to hide their antisemitism behind the curtain of anti-Zionism.”

Jonathan Jacoby, the president and national director of the Nexus Project, said in a statement to JI on Monday that Mamdani “and all public officials should be judged by the actions they take to protect Jewish communities — not by their adherence to any one controversial definition of antisemitism.”

According to Goldfeder, applying the Nexus definition to the recent incidents addressed by Mamdani “would mean that attacking Jews at a synagogue,” as in Jackson, “would be antisemitic — but harassing them, as long as no physical attack” took place, as in Queens, “would be fine.”

“I, for one, am not OK with either,” Goldfeder said. “Neither are the federal government, the majority of U.S. states and the vast majority of Americans both Jewish and non-Jewish.”

Jonathan Jacoby, the president and national director of the Nexus Project, said in a statement to JI on Monday that Mamdani “and all public officials should be judged by the actions they take to protect Jewish communities — not by their adherence to any one controversial definition of antisemitism.”

“Mamdani has expressed a clear commitment to engaging a wide range of Jewish voices in the fight against antisemitism and hate, and affirmed that the city will continue to operate an office to combat antisemitism,” Jacoby added. “Instead of getting hung up on fights over definitions like IHRA that were never intended to be enshrined into law, we need to see more security funding for vulnerable institutions, more support for more education about antisemitism and bias, and the enforcement of civil rights laws to prevent actual discrimination and harassment.”

Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said that the “biggest question” for her “is not whether the mayor personally adopts a specific definition but, rather, how he will respond to acts of antisemitism and invest in a comprehensive strategy to counter it.”

Rabbi Marc Schneier, who has spoken privately with Mamdani about issues concerning the Jewish community, said he was “pleasantly surprised” that Mamdani spoke out against the Queens protest and called Hamas a terror group, noting that the mayor had faced scrutiny for not even mentioning Hamas in his initial statement regarding the Oct. 7 attacks.

“We may be witnessing some evolution in terms of his understanding of Israel,” Schneier told JI, while adding that the Jewish community has “a long way to go.”

Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said that the “biggest question” for her “is not whether the mayor personally adopts a specific definition but, rather, how he will respond to acts of antisemitism and invest in a comprehensive strategy to counter it.”

“I’ve appreciated his willingness to engage with our community and evolve his position and I hope that he will continue to do so,” she told JI on Monday. “The pro-Hamas protests in Kew Gardens and the arson attack in Jackson are different examples of the many ways antisemitism is manifesting right now. All of it threatens Jews and our broader society and democracy.”

While several prominent university presidents famously refused to say that advocating for the genocide of Jews violates school policy when pressed by Congress two months after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, Kent Syverud, the president and chancellor of Syracuse University, wrote a campus-wide email explaining that such rhetoric would not be tolerated on campus. 

On Monday, Syverud was tapped as the University of Michigan’s 16th president following a six-month search to replace President Santa Ono. Syverud’s appointment was met with optimism from several Jewish leaders who said his strong ties to the Jewish community could benefit the Ann Arbor school, which experienced some of the most disruptive anti-Israel and antisemitic activity in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza. 

“Syverud’s appointment is very good news for the University of Michigan, which has faced numerous incidents of antisemitism and anti-Israel hostility in recent years,” Miriam Elman, who was a tenured associate professor at Syracuse before joining the Academic Engagement Network as its executive director in 2019, told Jewish Insider. University of Michigan’s undergraduate student body is 15% Jewish, according to Hillel International. 

At Syracuse, Syverud supported the school’s large Jewish community, including engaging collaboratively with the campus Hillel and Chabad chapters, according to Elman. Syverud also met regularly with the leadership of the Jewish Federation of Central New York. 

Last May, at the federation’s invitation, he provided introductory remarks for a community-wide screening of the documentary “October 8,” a film about the world’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks. “He provided an update on the campus response to antisemitism for the hundreds of attendees and made it clear that it will never be tolerated,” said Elman.

“He is committed to the principles of the academy, including unfettered free expression and academic freedom, as well as to community safety,” continued Elman. “While other university leaders equivocated and failed, since Oct. 7, the [Syracuse] administration, under his leadership, has consistently enforced the student code of conduct and reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on protests and demonstrations.

University of Michigan’s Board of Regents voted unanimously to appoint Syverud, an accomplished legal scholar, during a special session on Monday. Syverud is returning to his Ann Arbor roots; he served as the law school’s associate dean for academic affairs from 1995 to 1997. He then served as law school dean of Vanderbilt University from 1997 to 2005 and later as the dean of the law school at Washington University in St. Louis from 2005 to 2013 before coming to Syracuse. 

University of Michigan Regent Jordan Acker, who was the target of anti-Israel vandals at his home and law office near campus several times in 2024, told JI he is “proud that Kent Syverud is returning to his alma mater as president.”

“His time at Syracuse, [and] his leadership at Washington University and Vanderbilt show a deep commitment to students, their welfare, and creating an environment for all to learn. I have no doubt he will continue that legacy as Michigan’s new president,” said Acker. 

Elman noted Syverud’s “steadfast rejection of BDS and the academic boycott of Israel and support for numerous educational opportunities for students and faculty to engage with Israeli universities and scholars.” 

“Syverud also understands the threats facing the Jewish people and the campus, recently noting that nefarious external actors, including Iran, seek to manipulate students, stoke divisions and cause mayhem,” continued Elman.

Alums for Campus Fairness praised Syverud and said the organization “looks forward to continuing our strong working relationship” with the incoming chancellor, who in October participated in a panel on campus antisemitism hosted by the group.

Syverud also participated in a 2024 summit on campus antisemitism for university presidents hosted by the American Jewish Committee, Hillel International and the American Council on Education. 

“AJC is heartened over the news that Kent Syverud will take on the presidency at the University of Michigan,” Sara Coodin, AJC’s director of academic affairs, told JI.” “Syverud brings a wealth of experience and measured, thoughtful and heartfelt engagement and commitment to fostering a positive campus culture and countering hate.”

In 2019, Syverud was recognized by the Simon Wiesenthal Center for suspending Syracuse fraternities that posted videos with antisemitic and racist statements. 

The search for Michigan’s next president began last summer after Ono stepped down following a tenure marked by post-Oct. 7 turbulence — including a nearly month-long encampment — until his resignation last spring. 

Ono, now inaugural director of the Ellison Institute of Technology, was generally seen as an ally of Michigan’s pro-Israel community who was quick to condemn acts of antisemitism — leading to pro-Palestinian vandals attacking his home on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.  

Domenico Grasso, the former chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, currently serves as the university’s interim president. Syverud is expected to assume the position by July 1. 

The finalized 2026 funding package for the State Department, released Sunday, leverages a portion of the U.S.’ contributions to the United Nations and its agencies to push for changes in what the U.S. has said is the institution’s anti-Israel bias and antisemitism.

The bill withholds 10% of the U.S. contribution for the U.N. or any U.N. agency until the State Department confirms to Congress that the agency is “taking credible steps to combat anti-Israel bias,” putting measures in place to inform donors of when funds have been diverted or destroyed, “effectively vet[ting]” staff for ties to terrorism and taking steps to address antisemitism, among a variety of other anticorruption and accountability measures.

The moves put new financial teeth behind longstanding U.S. efforts to combat antisemitism at the U.N., as well as to ensure stronger oversight following revelations that members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency participated in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.

However, the provisions relating to the U.N. in the final bill are significantly scaled back from the House’s draft of the legislation — which would have cut all U.S. funding for the U.N. regular budget and withheld funding for the U.N. secretariat pending a series of specific accountability steps relating to UNRWA personnel.

The explanatory report accompanying the bill includes a new requirement for relevant investigators general to provide a plan to Congress to conduct “risk-based investigations and related oversight of United States-funded implementing partners” of any aid provided in Gaza and the West Bank. It directs the administration to focus on reports of staff or contractors for such aid providers who have ties to or involvement in terrorism, and provide recommendations for addressing and preventing these issues.

The legislation maintains longstanding mechanisms governing U.S. aid to Gaza and the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority and new accountability measures implemented following the Oct. 7 attacks, as well as a ban on U.S. funding for UNRWA and a ban on funding for the U.N. Human Rights Council and its Commission of Inquiry investigating Israel.

It provisions limiting U.S. assistance to U.N. bodies if the Palestinians receive status equivalent to that of a state in any U.N. body.

The legislation provides the expected $3.3 billion in funding for military aid to Israel, as per the terms of the U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding. It includes a new $5 million allocation for historical, archeological and cultural initiatives to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship. It also bans relocating the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Jerusalem.

The bill includes cuts to a number of U.S. assistance programs in the Middle East, including cutting funding for the Middle East Partnership for Peace Act program from $50 million to $37.5 million, for Israeli-Arab scientific partnerships from $8.5 million to $7 million and the Middle East Partnership Initiative from $27.2 million to $20 million. 

It holds funding for joint U.S.-Israeli development projects in third countries at $3 million.

The legislation provides a significant boost in funding for the office of the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism — $2.6 million, up from $1.75 million. 

It also instructs the antisemitism envoy and the special envoy for Holocaust issues to work with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to prioritize efforts with U.S. partners to address Holocaust denial and distortion and antisemitism on social media and in artificial intelligence, and to brief Congress on a plan to tackle these issues. It directs the antisemitism envoy to consult with Congress on programs to combat antisemitism more broadly as well.

“At a moment when antisemitism is surging worldwide, the $2.6 million included in this minibus for the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism is both necessary and timely,” Lauren Wolman, the Anti-Defamation League’s senior director of government relations and strategy, told Jewish Insider. “Antisemitic hatred is spreading across borders and being supercharged online, with real-world consequences for Jewish communities everywhere. This bill will strengthen U.S. leadership in confronting global antisemitism and sends a clear signal that combating antisemitism and Holocaust distortion is an urgent national priority.”

The legislation requires the administration to report to Congress on the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran, as well as on U.S. efforts to eliminate Iranian oil exports to China — including the specific dates of communications between U.S. and Chinese officials about those imports.

The bill continues to bar the administration from revoking the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ terrorism designation, or entering into a nuclear deal with Iran in contravention of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. And it permits the use of funding to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, support democracy in Iran and otherwise combat Iranian malign activities.

It mandates that the State Department lay out a strategy, within 90 days, to expand the Abraham Accords, specifically including the possibility of providing arms transfers and other defense materiel to signatories.

The legislation includes $1.65 billion in funding for Jordan — $845 million in budget support funding for the government and $425 million in military aid.

The bill provides $1.425 billion in funding for Egypt, $1.3 billion of that in military aid, with $320 million conditioned on various human rights benchmarks, though those conditions can — and traditionally have been — waived.

For Lebanon, the bill provides $112.5 million, maintaining existing provisions and accountability measures emphasizing reforming the Lebanese Armed Forces and combatting Hezbollah. 

The bill permits the provision of funding for nonlethal assistance in Syria, but bars the use of any funding to support Iranian, terrorist or Russian objectives and requires the administration to consult with Congress prior to providing any such funding.

It also requires the administration to report to Congress on the treatment of minorities in Syria and on whether the new Syrian government is taking “all sufficient actions” to protect them.

The bill allocates $20 million for the office of the special envoy for the Middle East, $2 million of that dedicated to activities in Lebanon, and $7 million for the office of the special envoy for Syria.

Several other provisions related to the Middle East that were included in the original House draft of the bill, including restrictions related to the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court, preventing the establishment of additional diplomatic facilities in Jerusalem other than the U.S. Embassy and a directive to treat the West Bank and Gaza as separate entities for budgeting purposes have not been included in the final version of the bill.

From the House’s explanatory report, the negotiated version of the bill adopts anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions provisions, as well as expanded vetting procedures to ensure political neutrality by aid recipients; new oversight requirements for U.S. aid to Syria; a report on antisemitism by foreign governments; a requirement for the State Department to report to Congress on efforts to end the PA’s terror payments program; and a report to the Congress on the possibility of a memorandum of understanding with Egypt on Security Assistance.

The legislation removes provisions included in 2024 appropriations legislation that prohibited military education and training funding for Saudi Arabia and that barred funding to support a Saudi nuclear program unless Saudi Arabia agreed to strict controls including renouncing uranium enrichment and reprocessing.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was silent regarding an anti-Israel protest in Queens on Thursday that caused nearby schools and a synagogue to close early in anticipation of the demonstration where protesters chanted “We support Hamas.”

The radical group behind the protest, called Palestinian Assembly for Liberation [PAL]-Awda, wrote on social media Thursday afternoon that it would gather in the evening outside of an event held by CapitIL, a Jerusalem-based real estate agency, at the Modern Orthodox synagogue Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills. The post called it an “illegal event” promoting “blatant land theft and dispossession.”

Dozens of masked, keffiyeh-clad demonstrators gathered near the synagogue and chanted, “We support Hamas here,” “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the IDF” for more than two hours while banging on drums in the residential area in Queens’ heavily Jewish neighborhood of Kew Gardens Hills. One protester held a ripped Israeli flag that was painted red to resemble blood. The protest was also promoted by Columbia University Apartheid Divest. 

A heavy NYPD presence monitored the demonstration and set up a barrier keeping protesters about 300 feet from the synagogue, and away from a counterprotest happening across the street. 

The demonstration marked the first major test Mamdani has faced in protecting the city’s Jewish community since he was inaugurated last week. The same group led a protest in November outside of Park East Synagogue, where they gathered near the entrance, as it hosted a Nefesh B’Nefesh event providing information on immigration to Israel. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch later called the November protest “turmoil,” while Mamdani’s office said the event was promoting “activities in violation of international law,” a statement his spokesperson would later revise. 

Mamdani made no public statement regarding the protest on Thursday and his spokesperson did not respond to multiple inquiries from Jewish Insider, including one asking whether the mayor’s team had discouraged demonstrators from protesting and another asking if he condemned any of the slogans chanted.

After the announcement of the protest location, the synagogue canceled prayer services and two nearby schools, Yeshiva of Central Queens and PS 165, announced early closures. Democratic state Assemblymember Sam Berger, who represents the area, told JI that local principals, staff and parents were “very concerned.” The surrounding area was “completely upended,” he said.

“For our @NYCMayor who has said he ‘will always stand steadfast with our Jewish neighbors,’ I am calling on [Mamdani] for an immediate condemnation of this demonstration,” Berger wrote on X before the event. 

The National Jewish Advocacy Center, a Jewish legal advocacy group, sent a letter earlier Thursday to Mamdani noting that “penal Law §240.20 squarely prohibits disorderly conduct that causes or recklessly risks public alarm — including masked intimidation. These laws must be enforced equally,” the group wrote. 

Berger told JI during the protest that he was “grateful to the NYPD for the resources they deployed to keep order, but fielding dozens of calls from concerned parents and watching chaos descend on a peaceful community of working class New Yorkers was deplorable.”

“There is a time and a place to protest foreign policy and that is not in the middle of a residential neighborhood where families are simply trying to live their lives,” the assemblymember said. 

PAL-Awda had previously planned a protest outside a Nefesh B’Nefesh event in Manhattan on Wednesday night. Less than an hour before the event began, the group announced that the demonstration was canceled, without providing a reason. 

A few hours before Thursday evening’s demonstration was scheduled to begin, the group posted a series of instructions for participants including “mask up” and “bring Palestinian flags and signs.” 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Tuesday she plans to implement a policy establishing “safety zones” around houses of worship. Protesters on Thursday remained further from the synagogue than the proposed legislation’s required 25-foot buffer zone. 

A radical anti-Israel activist group responsible for the disruptive November protest outside of a historic synagogue in Manhattan announced it will hold a similar demonstration on Thursday, marking the first major test Mayor Zohran Mamdani will face in protecting the city’s Jewish community since he was inaugurated last week. 

The group, called Palestinian Assembly for Liberation [PAL]-Awda, initially announced two demonstrations against Israeli immigration events in New York City this week. “Nefesh B’Nfesh settler recruitment fair on Wednesday at 7 pm in Manhattan and illegal Stolen Palestinian Land sale on Thursday at 6:30 in Queens,” it wrote Tuesday on social media, adding that it would disclose event locations on Wednesday. 

The group, which never posted the location of the Nefesh B’ Nefesh event, wrote on Instagram on Wednesday evening, less than an hour before the event started, that “our planned action tonight to protest the settler recruitment event is being cancelled.”

“Although NBN is still holding their event, their reach and attendance has been diminished,” it wrote. “PAL-Awda NY/NJ and our allies will build on this win to ensure our community will always stand together in vocal opposition to zionist settler colonialism, to all settler recruitment, and genocide.”  

Thursday’s demonstration, which PAL-Awda said it is still planning to hold, is protesting an event held by CapitIL, a Jerusalem-based real estate agency. 

PAL-Awda led a mob of anti-Israel demonstrators in November in a protest outside of Park East synagogue as it was hosting a Nefesh B’Nefesh event providing information on immigration to Israel. Protesters shouted chants including “death to the IDF” and “globalize the intifada.” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch later called the protest “turmoil,” while Mamdani’s office said the event was promoting “activities in violation of international law.” 

The planned protest comes as Mamdani is facing criticism for repealing antisemitism and Israel-related executive orders issued by former Mayor Eric Adams, including one that saw the city adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, just hours after taking office on Jan 1. Coupled with Mamdani’s reaction to the November protest, Democratic state Assemblyman Sam Berger expressed concerns on Tuesday about how the mayor might handle this week’s protests.

“Without IHRA as a guiding standard, the city lacks a reliable framework to recognize when extremist language is being laundered as political discourse, leaving communities vulnerable in moments exactly like this,” Berger wrote on social media calling the mayor’s decision to repeal the executive order “all the more concerning” in light of the threats to the Jewish community. 

Berger, an Orthodox Jew whose district includes the area where Thursday’s Israeli real estate event is being held, said that PAL-Awda also protested a similar event a year and a half ago. That demonstration “quickly descended into vile displays of antisemitism and open support for terrorist organizations whose stated goal is the complete destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. That context matters and it cannot be ignored,” said Berger. 

“During that previous incident, protestors stood across the street, more than one hundred feet away, yet the distance did nothing to prevent a stream of antisemitic chants, tropes and harassment. Criticism of Israel is not the issue. The concern is when those arguments are used as a cover for blatant antisemitism, which is exactly what happened last time,” said Berger, adding that he’s “been in contact with the commanding officer of [NYPD’s] 107th Precinct and with Queens Shmira, and am assured they are taking this very seriously and that the community will be protected and public safety will remain the priority throughout this scheduled protest.” 

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Tuesday she plans to implement a policy establishing “safety zones” around houses of worship. 

President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States would intervene to “rescue” Iranian anti-government protesters if the Iranian government attempts to kill them, amid a renewed wave of public demonstrations in Iran.

“If Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,” Trump said on Truth Social. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Nationwide protests have racked Iran for days, largely caused by an ongoing economic crisis and broader discontent with the regime.

Trump publicly floated the idea of pursuing regime change and targeting the leadership of the Islamic Republic last summer during the Israel-Iran war, but later backed off of the idea.

Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, responded to Trump on X, suggesting that the U.S. and Israel are interfering in Iranian internal affairs and threatening U.S. soldiers.

“With the statements by Israeli officials and @realDonaldTrump, what has been going on behind the scenes is now clear. We distinguish between the stance of the protesting shopkeepers and the actions of disruptive actors, and Trump should know that U.S. interference in this internal matter would mean destabilizing the entire region and destroying America’s interests,” Larijani said. “The American people should know — Trump started this adventurism. They should be mindful of their soldiers’ safety.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) praised Trump’s efforts and said, “A weakened Iran — a nation run by religious nazis — is due to President Trump’s efforts to isolate Iran economically and to use military force wisely. It is time to Make Iran Great Again.”

“Under President Trump’s leadership and in collaboration with our allies, I can see the demise of Hamas and Hezbollah in 2026, paving the way for normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. This would be the biggest change in the Middle East in thousands of years,” Graham continued.

Daniel Shapiro, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel and a senior Defense Department official in the Biden administration, advised Democrats to express support for the Iranian protesters.

“This should be a bipartisan issue,” Shapiro said. “Press Trump to do more than issue threats: support protesters with internet access and prepare now to advise/assist in a transition.”

He also said that Trump’s threat “could be a tipping point moment” if it causes the Iranian regime to refrain from crackdowns, but also “imposes an obligation on the U.S. to follow through if needed, with both the risk of deeper U.S. military involvement, and the moral hazard of failing to back up the threat.”

Shapiro urged the administration to prepare “now for the transition that may unfold. The U.S. must be prepared to provide humanitarian assistance, expertise in institution building and reconstruction, carefully implemented sanctions relief, and coordination among regional partners to assist Iranians in steering toward a transition to a peaceful, stable (and hopefully democratic) outcome.”

A Northwestern University professor who supported the anti-Israel encampment on the Evanston, Ill., campus and is married to the founder of the university’s chapter of Educators for Justice in Palestine was tapped to join a new presidential search committee, the school announced last week.

Ian Hurd, a professor of political science and president of the faculty senate at Northwestern University, is listed on Northwestern’s website as an “expert on the Middle East.” As Faculty Senate president, Hurd has played an influential role in shaping faculty responses to campus protests, academic freedom disputes and university governance questions. 

During this period, faculty leadership — including the Senate — was widely criticized by Jewish students, parents and advocacy groups for failing to condemn antisemitic conduct, for blurring distinctions between political speech and discriminatory harassment and for prioritizing faculty and activist concerns over student safety and civil rights compliance.

The search committee is tasked with making a recommendation to the board of trustees for selecting the school’s next president. The search comes following President Michael Schill’s resignation in September, amid widespread controversy over the school’s handling of antisemitism during his tenure. 

During the anti-Israel encampment that overtook Northwestern’s campus in April 2024 — in which Jewish students were surrounded by mobs and told to “go back to Germany and get gassed” — Hurd signed an open letter with 171 faculty members backing the encampment.  

Schill was heavily scrutinized by Jewish leaders for overseeing the Deering Meadow agreement, a controversial pact made with anti-Israel encampment participants in the spring of 2024, that allowed students to protest the war in Gaza until the end of the school year so long as tents were removed, and encouraged employers not to rescind job offers for student protesters. The document also allowed students to weigh in on university investments — a major concession for students who had demanded the university divest from Israel. 

The Illinois private university agreed to end its commitment to the agreement last month as part of a $75 million settlement with the federal government to restore federal funding that was frozen earlier this year over allegations that administrators failed to address campus antisemitism.  

Hurd praised Schill’s capitulation to demonstrators in a May 2024 interview with the Daily Northwestern, saying he was “really proud of how NU handled the situation.” 

Hurd’s wife, Elizabeth Shankman Hurd, who is also a professor of political science at Northwestern, was among the founders of the NU chapter of Educators for Justice in Palestine, a faculty-staff network established in December 2023 aligned with NU Students for Justice in Palestine. Shankman Hurd signed the October 2023 faculty letter that downplayed the Hamas attacks in Israel and also helped circulate multiple faculty statements opposing Northwestern’s antisemitism task force, even as Jewish students reported harassment and exclusion from campus spaces.

Hurd’s appointment to the search committee drew criticism from some of the school’s Jewish alumni. “The antisemitic encampment at Northwestern occurred in April 2024, immediately before Ian Hurd was elevated into senior faculty leadership. At the time, Hurd was a leading figure in the Faculty Senate and publicly defended the administration’s response,” Michael Teplitsky, president of the Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern and an alum of the school, told Jewish Insider. 

“That sequence is not incidental — it is disqualifying,” continued Teplitsky. “Northwestern is under federal civil rights scrutiny precisely because its leadership normalized antisemitic conduct and chose negotiation over enforcement. Elevating a faculty leader who publicly endorsed that approach into a gatekeeping role for selecting the next president signals continuity, not reform. It raises profound concerns about judgment, civil rights enforcement, and whether the university is capable of the governance reset that Jewish student safety and federal compliance now plainly require.”

Hurd “brings an obvious bias to this committee, likely put in there as the most respectable proxy for the anti-Zionist faculty cohort,” Rich Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northwestern, told JI. 

“His decision to sign the faculty letter [in support of] the pro-Hamas encampment should be disqualifying. Now is certainly the time to double down on accountability for what Northwestern has agreed to, not pretend everything is rosy because of [the settlement with the Trump administration] and [former President Michael] Schill’s resignation,” said Goldberg. 

Hurd did not respond to a request for comment from JI on Monday. 

A new report by the Anti-Defamation League highlights several members of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team who have used antisemitic tropes and justified Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, among other issues the group flags as “deeply troubling” and that raise further questions about his vetting process.

The document, published on Monday, comes days after the ADL uncovered antisemitic comments by  a top transition appointee, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, who had denigrated Jews in a series of past social media posts. Da Costa resigned shortly after the posts were publicized amid backlash from critics. 

Mamdani said last week that he was unaware of those comments and would hire an outside legal team to assist with the vetting process as he staffs his administration — noting “clear changes that need to be made” and are “underway.”

But the ADL writes in its new document that other appointees merit scrutiny as Mamdani prepares to assume office on Jan. 1. The ADL, which reviewed more than 400 transition appointees announced in November to help fill his administration, identified “many examples of individuals who have engaged in some type of antisemitic, anti-Zionist, or anti-Israel activities” and “have ties to” antisemitic groups and figures, according to the document. 

The organization, which has closely monitored Mamdani’s ongoing transition, says that it “has long distinguished between legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies and antisemitism.”

“The swift action taken in the Da Costa case demonstrates that when clear antisemitic statements are identified, Mayor-elect Mamdani’s team can and will respond appropriately,” the ADL says. “This makes it all the more important to understand how other appointments with concerning backgrounds were made and what this reveals about the vetting standards that will be applied to actual administration positions.”

Among the transition team members the ADL singles out is Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari, co-executive director of Alliance for Quality Education who was named to the youth and education committee and is one of several appointees who expressed support for or participated in anti-Israel campus encampments. 

In one photo uncovered by the ADL, Shaakir-Ansari is pictured in front of a banner with an inverted red triangle — popularized by Hamas to identify targets — and the words “long live the resistance.” The ADL also flagged a cartoon that Shaakir-Ansari posted on social media that depicts “Israel as a dog pushing a person representing Palestine off a bed,” according to the document.

Meanwhile, a day after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, Kazi Fouzia, director of organizing at DRUM Beats and a member of Mamdani’s committee on worker justice, defended the violence in a social media post claiming “Resistance are Justified when people are occupied” above footage of an anti-Israel demonstration in Manhattan, the document shows.

Youssef Mubaraz, director of public relations for of the Yemeni American Merchants Association who was appointed to serve on the committee on small businesses, also dismissed a Facebook video about Hamas’ widespread use of sexual violence on Oct. 7 as “propaganda,” according to the ADL.

The ADL writes that more than 20% of Mamdani’s appointees “have a documented history of making or sharing anti-Zionist or anti-Israel statements.” Mohammed Karim Chowdhury, also a member of the worker justice committee, previously shared a post claiming that “Zionists are worse than Haman of ancient times, the Inquisition, and the Nazis” and that “Zionists are never Jews,” the document notes.

“It’s all about the benjamins!” Rocky Bucano, who serves on the committee on arts and culture, wrote in a 2019 Facebook post that promoted antisemitic tropes “criticizing Israeli and American leaders,” the ADL says.  

At least four transition appointees have ties to Louis Farrakhan, the virulently antisemitic leader of the Nation of Islam, the ADL notes — citing Tamika Mallory, the former Women’s March organizer who was named to the community safety committee, and  Jacques Léandre, who is serving on the legal affairs team, among others. 

Other appointees have “connections to groups that openly promote terror and harass Jewish people,” the ADL says — including Within Our Lifetime, a radical anti-Israel organization that has engaged in antisemitic provocation.

In reviewing the transition team, the ADL writes in its document that many of Mamdani’s committee appointments “are inconsistent with his campaign commitments to prioritize the safety of New York’s Jewish community.”

“The composition of these transition committees will directly influence the administration’s policies and approach to Jewish community concerns,” the ADL states, “and the current appointments raise serious questions as to whether those concerns will not be adequately represented or addressed.”

A transition spokesperson, asked to comment on the report, referred Jewish Insider to Mamdani’s comments made during a press conference on Monday. 

“We must distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of the Israeli government,” he said of the findings, arguing that “the ADL’s report oftentimes ignores this distinction, and in doing so it draws attention away from the very real crisis of antisemitism we see.”

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s newly tapped director of appointments, Catherine Almonte Da Costa, resigned on Thursday afternoon after her history of antisemitic online posts — including complaining about “money hungry Jews” — was exposed.

“Catherine expressed her deep remorse over her past statements and tendered her resignation, and [Mamdani] accepted,” Dora Pekec, the mayor-elect’s transition team spokesperson, said in a statement to Jewish Insider.

Da Costa, who previously served as executive assistant to former Mayor Bill DeBlasio and was appointed by Mamdani on Wednesday, posted a series of antisemitic comments in 2011 and 2012, which were shared by the Anti-Defamation League. Da Costa’s account — and the posts, which had remained online — was deleted once the antisemitism watchdog published her posts on Thursday. 

“Money hungry Jews smh,” Da Costa posted on X in January 2011, according to screenshots. 

“Woo! Promoted to the upstairs office today! Working alongside these rich Jewish peeps,” she posted in June 2011.

In June 2012, Da Costa wrote that the “Far Rockaway train is the Jew train,” a reference to the neighborhood’s sizable Jewish population. 

Da Costa resigned on Thursday, saying that she “spoke with the Mayor-elect this afternoon, apologized, and expressed my deep regret for my past statements. These statements are not indicative of who I am. As the mother of Jewish children, I feel a profound sense of sadness and remorse at the harm these words have caused. As this has become a distraction from the work at hand, I have offered my resignation.”

Sara Forman, executive director of the New York Solidarity Network, praised “cutting ties” with Da Costa as” the right thing to do,” but added that “had she said ‘Zionist’ instead of ‘Jew’ the response from the incoming Mamdani administration and the outcome we just witnessed would likely have been quite different.”

“This is why we have been telling Mr. Mamdani all along that all anti-Jewish rhetoric, including anti-Zionist dog whistles, cannot just be ‘discouraged,’ it must be rejected and condemned outright,” Forman said in a statement.

The Anti-Defamation League of New York and New Jersey condemned the posts on X before Da Costa’s resignation, writing that they “echo classic antisemitic tropes and otherwise demean Jewish people.” 

“We appreciate Da Costa has relationships with members of the Jewish community, but her posts require immediate explanation — not just from Ms. Da Costa, but also from the Mayor-Elect,” the ADL said in a statement. 

The recently unearthed posts come as several of Mamdani’s transition appointees have drawn scrutiny from Jewish leaders, who remain skeptical of the mayor-elect, who takes office on Jan. 1, and his commitment to fighting antisemitism. 

Among the most controversial of his appointments is Tamika Mallory, a former Women’s March leader who stepped down from its board amid allegations of antisemitism, to a newly established community safety committee.

Pocket your kippah. Tuck your Star of David into your shirt. Keep your head down as you walk through the quad, That’s just some of the advice Jewish college students around the country told the Soviet-born writer and activist Izabella Tabarovsky they were given by the leaders of major Jewish organizations as a strategy to weather the anti-Israel and antisemitic storms that have raged on campus since Oct. 7, 2023.

Tabarovsky’s counter-message: Don’t hide. Reclaim your Zionism. And take inspiration from the Soviet refuseniks of the 1980s who stared down Communist Party strongman Leonid Brezhnev, held fast to their Judaism and eventually won their freedom.

Tabarovsky lays out some of these strategies for college students in a new book, Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student’s Survival Guide, in which she argues that the anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses in recent decades, which has metastasized into antisemitism, mirrors Soviet anti-Jewish propaganda. In the book, Tabarovsky looks back to that era not only to understand the root causes of contemporary antisemitism, but to take inspiration on how to fight it.

The book features a history of Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda with its parallels to the rhetoric on college campuses today, interviews with refuseniks – Soviet Jews who were denied the right to emigrate to Israel, and often imprisoned for trying – and campus activists, and a foreword from the best-known refusenik, Natan Sharansky. Tabarovsky, who was born in the Soviet Union, emigrated to the U.S. in 1990 and now lives in Israel, also offers concrete strategies for students encountering antisemitism to stand proud and strong as Jews.

Tabarovsky told Jewish Insider that she saw a need for her book after many discussions with young Jews: “We’re in a bleak moment, and a lot of books diagnose the bleakness. … I saw a hunger for an inspirational message.”

In the near-decade that she has been writing about the subject, it has become “widely accepted among scholars and people involved in this [activism] that the patterns of anti-Zionist demonization and erasure are some of what Soviet Jews experienced in [former Soviet Union leader Leonid] Brezhnev’s USSR,” she said.

“If American Jews are today encountering the same language, the same explanatory logic and worldview … wouldn’t it make sense to look at how Soviet Jews responded?” Tabarovsky said. “We have this heroic story at the center of the Soviet Jewish story, which is really bleak, but had one really bright light that led to massive change.”

Tabarovsky clarified that, while the U.S. is a democracy and the Soviet Union was an oppressive totalitarian regime, “historic parallels are complex and nothing is ever exactly the same. I would never say that America today is like Brezhnev’s USSR, and the dangers that American Jews face are incomparable to what somebody like Sharansky faced.”

However, she said, “what is similar are the ideological echoes and anti-Zionist erasure. … In every society, there is a scale of punishments that’s different. What’s the worst thing that can happen in America? Your reputation is ruined; you lose your career, you’re ruined financially. All of these things can happen to people who declare themselves Zionists.”

While the refuseniks are remembered for their attempts to emigrate from the Soviet Union, Be a Refusenik focuses on their domestic dissident activity, especially their underground actions to strengthen Jewish identity, spread Jewish education, teach Hebrew and learn about Israel and Zionism. They were “crowdsourcing Jewish knowledge” when the Soviet party line was that “Zionism is racism, is Nazism,” Tabarovsky recounted.

Part of the strategy Tabarovsky suggests for young Jews on campus is modeled after “an inner journey the refuseniks took” in strengthening their Jewish identity.

“Some refuseniks told me this is how they viewed it,” Tabarovsky said, “the system refused to allow them something they wanted, but before that, they refused [to accept] something about the system itself. They refused [to accept] the antisemitism that the system demanded from them, that they erase their Jewish identity, that they give up their sense of peoplehood. … The refuseniks said ‘we don’t buy it; we refuse [to accept] this version of reality. We believe something different.’”

Tabarovsky noted that in her speaking engagement with young American Jews, she realized that many are unfamiliar with the refuseniks, and when she would ask for examples of Jewish heroes, they would usually mention the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising or the Maccabees.

“[Refuseniks] are a real example of Jewish courage and defiance. … They found each other and created a different reality. They wrote their own Jewish story and recreated the Jewish identity that had been taken away from them. … They are the role models we need,” she said.

Tabarovsky said that American Jews need to rebalance the narratives of Jewish victimhood and heroism, because victimhood has become too dominant.

“You read the horrible things refuseniks went through, but none of them talked about themselves as victims,” she said. “They felt like protagonists in their own story. They took responsibility; they took risks consciously. We need to think of ourselves in these terms, as well.” 

Tabarovsky said she heard from many students who were told by large Jewish organizations to keep their heads down and try not to provoke or attract attention, or engage, and applauded those who did not take that advice.

To Jewish students, Tabarovsky suggests: “Reclaim your Zionism.”

“Build a community. Find other people like you. Re-empower yourself and think about your situation strategically,” she said. “The Jewish community has been improvising responses on the fly, while the other side is in the driver’s seat, creating all these propagandistic narratives. … We need to think strategically about how we need to organize ourselves.” 

Once that happens, Tabarovsky said she is confident that Jewish students “will know how to act.” One example she cited was Lishi Baker, a rising senior at Columbia studying Middle East history, who she said saw American flags being defaced during anti-Israel protests at Columbia University and organized a counter-protest with American, not Israeli flags, to show that the protests are not only anti-Israel, but anti-American.

Tabarovsky called on students “to be more creative in the way they protest. The other side is doing all kinds of things to attract the media. The Soviet Jewry movement was so creative and knew how to attract attention.” 

Federal authorities foiled an alleged terror plot by an anti-Israel, anti-American extremist group, officials announced on Monday. The group — the Turtle Island Liberation Front — appears to also be one of the organizers of an anti-Israel protest that targeted a Los Angeles synagogue this month. 

Four members of TILF were arrested over the weekend in the Mojave Desert, where they had allegedly gathered to attempt to construct improvised explosive devices. According to Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, they planned to set off the pipe bombs in a coordinated attack at midnight on New Year’s Eve targeting U.S. companies in Los Angeles and Orange County, Calif. 

“Last Friday, Dec. 12, the defendants took a significant step to carry out their plans,” Essayli said at a press conference Monday, noting that they traveled to a remote campsite near Twentynine Palms in San Bernardino County to begin assembling the bombs. “They had everything they needed to make an operational bomb.” 

Attorney General Pam Bondi described TILF as “a far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist group” in a social media post about the arrests. The four people arrested were identified as Audrey Ilene Carroll, Dante Garfield, Zachary Aaron Page and Tina Lai. They face charges of conspiracy and possession of a destructive device. FBI Director Kash Patel announced on Monday that a fifth individual with ties to the plot was arrested in New Orleans. 

Carroll had a poster at her home that said “Death to America. Long live Turtle Island and Palestine,” according to prosecutors. Turtle Island is a phrase used by some Native Americans to describe North America. 

TILF appears to be an organizer of an anti-Israel protest that targeted Wilshire Boulevard Temple, one of the largest synagogues in Los Angeles, earlier this month. 

The group posted a “call to action” on its Instagram urging followers to target the “bloody war criminals” and “genocidal monsters” from Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense company, because of the purported use of Elbit’s AI technology in Los Angeles’ Koreatown neighborhood. “Never let them live in peace,” the caption read. 

The post listed an address on Wilshire Boulevard for the demonstration but did not name the location. The address corresponds with the Wilshire Boulevard Temple building where an event to teach Koreans about security strategies, featuring an AI researcher from Elbit Systems, was taking place at the same date and time. 

Protesters entered the synagogue and disrupted the event, with one person shattering a glass vase and chanting profanities. Two people were arrested during the incident. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass called the activists’ actions “abhorrent” and pledged to send more security to houses of worship. 

Other posts on TILF’s Instagram call for violence.

“Peaceful protest will never be enough,” one graphic reads. “The only way out is through resistance.” 

The account’s most recent post was promoting a Palestine-themed holiday market in Los Angeles last weekend. 

Prosecutors announced on Monday that the investigation into the TILF New Year’s Eve plot was due in part to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in September “to root out left-wing domestic terror organizations in our country such as antifa and other radical groups,” according to Essayli.

Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) said on Friday that there is a concerted network, on both the right and left, pushing antisemitic and anti-Israel ideology to the point that it has become “pervasive,” particularly among younger people.

Speaking at a Hudson Institute conference on antisemitism, Mast, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he does not have a “silver bullet” to address the problem because of how widespread it has become. He recounted a recent speech in a class at a military academy where he saw “probably a 50/50 divide about why we have this [U.S.-Israel] relationship, what is the benefit of this relationship?”

The Florida Republican said that he sees a “very specific network that is in place that works together to sow antisemitism that is now, in many cases, working on the left and right across the media, to go out there and put this wedge in this relationship.”

Mast described the effort as “pervasive, systematic, planned out, orchestrated” and a “very, very serious global threat across multi-national organizations, media across the globe and adversaries and terrorist organizations.”

Mast said that in response “we need to do a really good effort of showing the pervasive effort to drive this wedge — through antisemitism, is my opinion — between the United States of America and one of our greatest allies anywhere in all of these spheres — military capabilities, relationships, intelligence sharing, geography, signals intelligence, geospatial intelligence, human intelligence — all these different things that we are so close in, beyond the trust that we have.”

The Foreign Affairs Committee chair said that Europe is one of the U.S.’ “biggest adversaries” in the fight against antisemitism, describing its actions post-Oct. 7, particularly several states’ decisions to recognize a Palestinian state, as “the most unhelpful thing that could possibly be done.” He said that those efforts emboldened the terrorist groups fighting Israel.

Mast said he had not interacted much with Tucker Carlson, one of the most prominent anti-Israel voices on the right, but had a direct conversation with Carlson after the commentator attacked the congressman for his time in the Sar-El program, where he volunteered in a support capacity alongside the Israeli Defense Forces. Mast said he told Carlson he was overlooking that Mast’s ultimate loyalty is to the United States, not to Israel. 

“You never bothered to ask the question of, ‘How many countries have I taken an oath to support and defend?’ Just one: the United States of America,” Mast said he told Carlson, going on to emphasize he took that oath five times as a member of the military and an equal number as a member of the House, in addition to nearly losing his life three or four times in U.S. military service. “You’re connecting dots that don’t exist because you failed to ask some really fundamentally important questions which is, ‘Where do your allegiances lie?’”

Mast said he decided to sign up for the IDF volunteer program during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, when he faced down anti-Israel demonstrators in Boston following his time in the military.

“Some of these people draping themselves — like we see on our college campus here — draping themselves in Palestinian flags, chanting, rallying, whatever, they started harassing me and my family for being a U.S. service member,” Mast said. “At the end of that night, we got home and I told my wife, ‘I don’t know what it’s going to look like, I’m going to find a way. I’m going to show my support for Israel against this hypocrisy and against these pricks that we encountered.’”

Jewish Insider senior national correspondent Gabby Deutch contributed reporting.

Earlier this year, in the heavily saturated world of commentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a new name started to appear everywhere, though it seemed to come out of nowhere: Adam Louis-Klein, an anthropology Ph.D. student at McGill University. Until this past spring, he had hardly said anything about Israel publicly. He was too busy studying a remote Amazonian tribe. 

But then Louis-Klein, 32, built a platform and started writing — first on Facebook and X; then in Times of Israel blog posts; on podcasts, including one from the American Jewish Committee, and a show hosted by the Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur; and in articles published in The Free Press and Tablet. 

Anywhere he could, Louis-Klein was making the bold claim that American Jews need to stop arguing about when anti-Zionism crosses a line into antisemitism. In fact, he thinks they need to give up on their efforts to convince people that anti-Zionism is an antisemitic movement. 

His thesis — the idea he is trying to get out into the world everyday, alternating between attention-catching social media graphics designed to go viral and lengthy posts using the dense academic jargon of anthropology — is that anti-Zionism should be considered a hate movement, something that is worthy of condemnation on its own, regardless of whether it is deemed antisemitic or not. 

“When someone’s marked as a Zionist, anti-Zionists treat those Zionists differently. They treat them in unequal ways. They advocate for violence, or they advocate for discriminating or boycotting them, or excluding them or purging them. Anti-Zionists stigmatize Zionists. They spread libels about Zionists. They call Zionists slurs,” Louis-Klein told Jewish Insider in an interview last week. “It’s its own way of discriminating, and it’s hiding in plain sight. It’s there for everyone to see.”

The perpetual fighting over whether anti-Zionism should be considered antisemitism misses the point, Louis-Klein said — and it might actually make things worse for Jews.

“You’re going to get this continual problem across the line of turning it into some endless debate over ‘is it really antisemitic or not?’” Louis-Klein stated. “This is something that fuels anti-Zionists, because they can tell the Jewish community is not clear and is not setting a clear boundary against anti-Zionism, and is saying, ‘Well, anti-Zionism may be legitimate,’ and so that’s leaving an open space.” 

Louis-Klein is the last person who expected that he would be contributing to the highly contentious public discourse surrounding Zionism. 

As a Jewish anthropology student, he chose to focus his studies on a tiny Amazonian tribe in the Colombian rainforest. He devoted his research to understanding the Desana people and their relationship to Christian missionaries. It was work that occasionally involved Jews, insofar as Jews, of course, appear in the Bible. Otherwise, though, Judaism did not factor heavily in Louis-Klein’s academic research — and Israel even less so. 

The Jewish state was a topic to be avoided if you were a budding anthropologist with an eye toward a successful career in academia, and Louis-Klein was quickly progressing down that path. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Yale and master’s degrees at The New School and the University of Chicago before enrolling at McGill. 

He had visited Israel with his family when he was in college, but later drifted away from feeling connected to the country when he became a self-described “radical leftist” after graduating. But Louis-Klein didn’t entirely abandon Israel. And when he walked out of the Amazon on Oct. 9, 2023, after three months living with the Desana tribe, he quickly discovered that the world had changed two days earlier, when Hamas attacked Israel. 

“Am Yisrael Chai,” Louis-Klein wrote on social media, unknowingly drawing a line that split his life as an academic into a before and after. His peers were shocked that he was not using the opportunity to distance himself from Israel.

“I’d never witnessed anything like this in my life. Just the way in which people were talking to me was something I’d never seen before. The aggression, the hostility, the gaslighting from people I thought were my friends,” Louis-Klein said. “I was removed from WhatsApp groups. I was bullied, people just being like, ‘Shut up, you’re white,’ kind of thing. I mean, it’s not a story that’s uncommon. now. There are so many Jewish students at universities who’ve experienced this.” 

What came next for Louis-Klein was a newfound connection to his Jewish identity and to Israel. But the identity crisis also brought about an intellectual shift, too, one in which Louis-Klein decided that he could use his academic background to investigate the roots of the hatred he was experiencing. His dissertation is now more of a comparative project, looking at both the Desana people and the Jewish people. He has already experienced pushback from colleagues.

“The reaction is obviously extremely negative, and I don’t have any expectations of being able to have an official career within anthropology, but so far, I expect to be able to complete my dissertation,” Louis-Klein said. “Trying to make Jewishness visible, trying to make the experience of antisemitism or anti-Jewish oppression and discrimination visible, was perceived as violent and aggressive to others.” 

Louis-Klein founded an organization this fall called Movement Against Anti-Zionism to put forth a more organized push for his message that a stronger campaign against anti-Zionism is needed to make life better for American Jews. 

Alongside more than 1,000 health-care professionals, the organization signed onto an open letter last week decrying the reach of anti-Zionist ideology in the medical field. Louis-Klein told JI he wants to see legacy Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League “launch a full-scale campaign against anti-Zionism.”

“Educate about anti-Zionist libels as their own libels and tropes. They are the ‘colonizer,’ ‘apartheid’ and ‘genocide’ libels. They’re used to stigmatize and attack Jews who are marked as Zionists,” he explained. His social media accounts attempt to make these points in the snappy, bright graphics that are now the touchstone of social media activism.

“Antizionism is a hate movement,” one faded pink image says, meant to be liked and shared for an audience that will scroll past it in no more than a second or two. 

“If someone is an anti-Israeli racist, let’s put it this way: they hate Israelis for their national identity. That’s clearly a bigotry. And if someone else says, ‘Well, they don’t hate all Jews, it’s not antisemitic.’ … That’s basically a way of legitimizing anti-Israeli racism,” Louis-Klein explained. “The need to prove that something is antisemitic [in order] to prove that it’s bad is a way of legitimizing a bunch of racism.” 

Even with a ceasefire in effect in Gaza, Louis-Klein does not anticipate university campuses to go back to business as usual from before Oct. 7. 

“What we can do is recognize the historical moment we’re living in and recognize that the only way out is through, so to speak,” he said. “We have to talk about anti-Zionism.”

Sam Rasoul, a Palestinian-American Virginia state delegate with a history of inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric, announced on Monday that he is considering running for Congress in 2026, pending the outcome of a likely redistricting effort in the state. 

The Virginia state Senate recently adopted a measure kicking off a process to allow mid-decade redistricting, following the lead of other states planning to redraw congressional maps to shore up partisan advantages. Texas initiated the political arms race after facing pressure from President Donald Trump to draw maps more favorable to Republicans, and several other GOP-controlled states have followed — and some Democratic-controlled states, like California and Virginia. 

The new maps are already putting several pro-Israel incumbents at risk in states like Ohio and Florida. 

Rasoul, a Roanoke Democrat who chairs the Education Committee in the House of Delegates, came under fire from prominent Jewish Democrats in the state earlier this year after posting a series of posts on social media that critics say crossed a line into antisemitism. 

“Zionism has proven how evil our society can be,” Rasoul wrote on Instagram in July. He called Zionism a “supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way,” which, he wrote, “shows us the worst in humanity.” 

Former Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, a Democrat, told Jewish Insider in August that Rasoul’s language is “fueling one of the oldest forms of hatred in the world, repackaged in the language of activism.” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said at the time that he “forcefully reject[s] any claim that Zionism — the desire of Jewish people to have a state of Israel — is inherently racist or evil.” 

Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger, who was on the campaign trail at the time, did not mention Rasoul by name. But when asked about his comments, she said, referring to the war in Gaza, that “one can and must denounce these tragedies without using antisemitic language, whether intentional or not.”

In a fundraising email announcing his intention to formally explore a congressional run, Rasoul made his opposition to Israel a central part of his pitch.

“Virginians are looking for bold, experienced, progressive leadership that meets this moment and delivers results by guaranteeing healthcare as a human right through Medicare for All, protecting our access to clean air and water through a Green New Deal, and ending all military aid to Israel, which has waged a genocide in Gaza using our taxpayer dollars in violation of American law,” Rasoul wrote. 

Rasoul has served in the House of Delegates for 12 years. 

Virginia’s statehouse will decide in January whether to approve the redistricting effort. If it passes, it will then have to be approved in a statewide ballot referendum. 

An antisemitic art display at Washington Union Station on Thursday depicting U.S. and Israeli leaders drinking the blood of Gazans is drawing widespread condemnation for echoing the historic blood libel against Jews. 

“This is the kind of stuff that Nazi soldiers were shown during World War II, with the idea to make it that Jewish people were not humans,” Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, told Jewish Insider. “This is exactly what that is in the modern day. It is done to make Jews look like animals.”

The demonstration, displayed both inside and outside of D.C’s main train station, was organized by Hazami Barada and Atefeh Rokhvand, two anti-Israel activists who have been involved in several protests around Washington since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, including leading a protest encampment outside of the Israeli Embassy and outside of then-Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s home for months in 2024. 

Barada protested a community vigil for the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, which took place at The Anthem, a music venue in the nation’s capital. Rokhvand is an elementary school teacher who spoke at the Muslim Student Association conference in 2024.  

Another local activist, Hasan Isham, took credit on Instagram for 3D printing the masks used in the protest, which featured people dressed in suits wearing masks to resemble Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, former President Joe Biden and Blinken. The five officials were sitting at a long “Friendsgiving dinner” table decorated with the Israeli flag while eating doll limbs drenched in fake blood. A menu placard read: “Starter: Gaza children’s limbs.” “Main: Stolen Organs.” “Dessert: Illegally harvested skin.” “Drink: Gaza’s spilled blood.”

Leading Jewish groups condemned the demonstration, with the Anti-Defamation League calling it “nothing less than abhorrent.” 

The American Jewish Committee said that “blood libel was on full display” and called on “leaders and authorities [to] condemn this display and ensure that public spaces are not used to spread dangerous hate.”  

“This was nothing less than the revival of one of the oldest and most dangerous antisemitic tropes in history. Blood libel has fueled violence, persecution, and massacres of Jews for centuries. Seeing it resurface in our nation’s capital is both horrifying and unacceptable,” AJC said in a statement.

Union Station is within U.S. Park Police jurisdiction, which manages its own permits. Park Police did not respond to an inquiry from JI asking whether a permit was provided for the demonstration. First Amendment permits had previously been granted for a pro-Palestinian encampment outside of Union Station, but were revoked after demonstrators burned American flags in 2024. 

The display on Thursday was removed by Amtrak police within five minutes of being fully set up, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. After being removed from Union Station, the organizers moved the display to outside the station.

“Whether inside or outside, this was absolutely disgusting… and done to incite hatred against Jewish people,” said Halber. “The result is that this could lead to violence against Jews. It was designed to use the worst antisemitic stereotypes against Jews to demonize Jews. It’s nothing more than a modern-day blood libel.” 

“This happened at Union Station where members of Congress and people advocating on Capitol Hill pass through,” continued Halber. “This is seen by a lot of people.”

One of the co-founders of the Track AIPAC account and website that has gone viral in online anti-Israel circles is a former campaign staffer for a series of far-left lawmakers, she revealed in an interview on Wednesday. The group’s founders had previously remained anonymous.

Cory Archibald, who founded the Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption PAC before merging with Track AIPAC, described herself in an interview with the “Breaking Points” podcast as a former campaign staffer for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and former Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), all members of the anti-Israel Squad.

Casey Kennedy, Archibald’s other co-founder, said in the interview that numerous members of Congress have reached out to the group to start a dialogue.

The Track AIPAC founders also said that they plan to expand their efforts to tracking individual pro-Israel donors’ political spending generally.

Asked about accusations that it is antisemitic to demand, as Track AIPAC does, that AIPAC register as a foreign lobbying organization — given that AIPAC’s members and leadership are American citizens and do not take direction from the Israeli government — the two did not directly address the issue.

“I would say it is not antisemitic to stand against an ongoing genocide that’s being perpetrated with American backing,” Kennedy responded.

The Track AIPAC account has also faced criticism for a range of extremist posts and comments, such as one recent post criticizing Israeli-American citizen and IDF soldier Itay Chen, who was killed by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and whose body was taken hostage for more than two years.

“Itay Chen was an American-Israeli citizen who chose to join the Israeli military to partake in ethnic cleansing and genocide abroad,” the account posted on X, in response to a post from Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) honoring the release of Chen’s remains last week.

The co-founders said in the interview that the criteria for receiving an endorsement from their group, which has thus far endorsed around three dozen Senate and House candidates, include commitments to rejecting support from AIPAC, Democratic Majority for Israel, the Republican Jewish Coalition and various other pro-Israel groups; supporting the recognition of Palestinian statehood; “enforcing the Leahy laws to make sure that we’re not sending weapons to be used in war crimes” and overturning the Citizens United decision.

The PAC raised $139,000 between January and the end of June.

In the wake of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s victory on Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League is launching the “Mamdani Monitor,” an initiative to track and monitor policies and personnel appointments of the incoming administration, Jewish Insider has learned. 

The initiative will feature a tip line to report antisemitism as well as investment into researching policies, mayoral appointments and funding decisions coming from City Hall. 

The ADL said it will draw from tip line reports to launch a public-facing tracker that monitors policies and other actions from the Mamdani administration that could impact Jewish safety and security — including education policy, budget priorities and security measures. The antisemitism watchdog plans to use the tracker’s findings to mobilize New Yorkers to respond to policies deemed threatening to the Jewish community. 

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told JI that the initiative’s launch comes as Mamdani, throughout his campaign, “promoted antisemitic narratives, associated with individuals who have a history of antisemitism and demonstrated intense animosity toward the Jewish state that is counter to the views of the overwhelming majority of Jewish New Yorkers.”

“We are deeply concerned that those individuals and principles will influence his administration at a time when we are tracking a brazen surge of harassment, vandalism and violence targeting Jewish residents and institutions in recent years,” said Greenblatt. 

Antisemitism and anti-Israel incidents reached historic levels in New York City following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks. Jewish leaders have expressed concern that some of Mamdani’s proposed policies — such as the desire to disband the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, which responds to riots — could threaten the safety of the Jewish community. According to the NYPD, in 2024, 54% of all hate crimes in New York City were against Jews.

In recent days, a chorus of left-wing lawmakers in Congress have ramped up their ire towards the United Arab Emirates, accusing the Gulf country of helping fuel the yearslong civil war in Sudan by reportedly backing the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the non-Islamist Arab force fighting the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). 

The UAE has long denied allegations of involvement in the war. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that, according to sources, recent assessments by the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department’s intelligence bureau purport to show the UAE sending Chinese drones to the RSF. 

On the other side, Iran, Russia, Egypt and Turkey have provided support to the SAF, according to conflict monitors and reporting by Bloomberg and The Washington Post.

The war in Sudan has wrought havoc upon the eastern African nation, with both warring factions committing crimes against humanity. The conflict has killed as many as 150,000 people and has displaced around 12 million. 

Over the more than two-year long conflict, both militias have been accused of widespread sexual assault, mass killings of civilians, torture and deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure. On Monday, the RSF captured the city of El Fasher after an 18-month blockade which saw the group effectively devastate the city, with reports of mass killings, sexual violence and the destruction of hospitals and displacement camps.

The U.S. government, under former President Joe Biden, determined the RSF was committing genocide and found both the RSF and SAF guilty of committing war crimes.

Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood’s growing influence with the Sudanese Armed Forces has alarmed experts, who warn that the SAF’s deepening ties to Islamist networks threaten regional stability and could pose a risk far beyond the eastern African nation.

“The Muslim Brotherhood has had a strong presence in Sudan since the 1940s and that presence has evolved over the years,” Norman Roule, a former senior U.S. intelligence official, told Jewish Insider. “It’s important to note that this presence is also why Iran is such a strong supporter of the Burhan [head of SAF] government.” 

Liam Karr, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, who has condemned actions on both sides of the conflict, says the ties date back to former Islamist dictator Omar al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan for several decades before the SAF overthrew him in 2019. 

“The SAF is working with several Islamist brigades that consist of former Bashir-era army, police and intelligence personnel,” Karr told JI. “This includes the al Baraa Ibn Malik Brigade, which is widely associated with the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood and Bashir and has an estimated 20,000 fighters.” 

In recent months, the SAF has received explosive attack drones from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to aid in the conflict, while Egypt, one of their key backers, arrested a key Islamist militia leader aligned with the group — signaling that even staunch regional supporters of the group are “growing wary of its Islamist factions,” according to Foundation for Defense of Democracies Research Fellow Hussain Adbul-Hussain. 

Roule said Iran has a vested interest in providing the SAF with weaponry in order to reestablish a presence in the region and revitalize their “broken proxies,” following Israel’s degrading of its military capabilities and of its proxy Hezbollah, as well as the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. 

“This is of extreme importance to the U.S. and its partners in the region, because if the Quds Force [IRGC] is able to establish a presence it lost in Syria, it would be able to reestablish training camps it operated a decade ago for Hamas smugglers, routes for weapons that it could send back into Gaza and revitalize Lebanese Hezbollah, as well as provide a transshipment location of weapons to the Houthis,” said Roule. “The Muslim Brotherhood presence in Khartoum is of serious concern for the United States and deserves much greater attention. It is a significant threat to the United States, Israel and the region.” 

Anti-Israel lawmakers, including some of the Jewish state’s most vocal critics in the House, have sounded the alarm on the RSF, but have notably glossed over the SAF and its increasingly Islamist alignment. 

“Sudan is facing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis and a genocide,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in a post on social media on Tuesday. “The UAE and other arms dealers to the RSF and RSF-aligned militias must be held accountable.”

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) echoed the same sentiment, saying she is “horrified” by the RSF’s “mass killings of civilians.”

“We must do everything in our power to stop this genocide, including cutting off all weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates who are arming and funding this ethnic cleansing,” said Tlaib on social media on Wednesday.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) followed suit and similarly directed his criticism at the Emirates. 

“I am incredibly concerned about the deepening humanitarian crisis in Sudan, and the atrocities committed by the Rapid Support Forces,” Castro wrote on social media on Wednesday. “The United States must put pressure on the RSF and those who back it — including the United Arab Emirates — to end these atrocities.”

A number of far-left activists online have also singled out the RSF and its reported Emirati ties for condemnation. 

Kenneth Roth, a virulent critic of Israel and former head of Human Rights Watch, posted on Tuesday, “British arms sold to the United Arab Emirates are being found in Sudan, where the UAE is arming the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces as they commit genocide.” 

“Both the Biden and Trump administrations refused to hold the UAE accountable as it armed Sudan’s RSF, despite massacre after massacre, atrocity after atrocity,” wrote New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, adding, “Members of Congress are showing more responsibility and initiative.” 

House Democrats, led by Reps. Gregory Meeks and Sara Jacobs, released a statement in April marking the two year anniversary of the conflict. “External actors like the UAE must immediately stop fueling the conflict by arming the warring parties,” the statement said notably only listing the UAE and omitting any mention of Turkey, Iran, Russia, and other countries who have sent arms to factions in Sudan.

A bi-partisan group of senators, including Ranking Member Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, released a statement on Thursday breaking in tone from the other lawmakers – condemning both sides and making mention of all nations reportedly backing the war. 

“Both the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have committed atrocities against civilians and pursued a zero-sum war at any cost,” the lawmakers said in a statement. “Foreign backers of the RSF and SAF-including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Russia, Iran, China and governments in the immediate region-have fueled and profited from the conflict and legitimized the monsters destroying Sudan,” the senators continued. 

Secular forces in Sudan have called for the country’s Islamist movement to be classified as a terrorist group, according to Hussain. Sudan’s Civil Democratic Alliance of Revolutionary Forces (Sumud) has stated that the “Islamist movement sees no pathway for ending the fighting other than the complete submission of the Sudanese people to its terrorist regime, an arrangement that has never achieved peace.” 

Karr says the Trump administration and the SAF’s own partners have put “heavy pressure” on the group to “distance itself politically from the Islamist groups.” Karr also believes pressure should be applied to the RSF.

In his second term, President Donald Trump voiced support for designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Various members of congress have introduced legislation that would require the secretary of state to use this designation, though Congress has yet to move forward with the legislation. 

Responding to historic levels of antisemitism in the U.S., the Anti-Defamation League and Gibson Dunn LLP announced on Wednesday a new joint network offering pro bono legal assistance to victims of antisemitic incidents.

The new initiative joins an already crowded space of Jewish groups offering legal services, including the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, The Lawfare Project and StandWithUs. 

While leaders of those organizations told Jewish Insider they welcome the ADL’s new venture — and some already have plans to collaborate — the network appears to overlap with existing Jewish nonprofit work, though none with the scale of lawyers and firms the ADL is engaging. 

Called the ADL Legal Action Network, the antisemitism watchdog’s latest initiative will involve more than 40 law firms across the U.S., with more than 39,000 attorneys offering support as co-counsel and referral counsel to people who have experienced discrimination, intimidation, harassment, vandalism or violence on the basis of their Jewish identity.  

Victims will be instructed to submit information about their case online to be evaluated by a professional litigation team, which will assess whether the situation warrants free representation. The system leverages “cutting-edge AI technology to efficiently triage and route cases to the network of law firms and ADL’s national incident response infrastructure,” according to the ADL. Participating law firms include Cooley LLP; Covington & Burling LLP; Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP; Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP; and Arnold, Porter Kaye Scholer LLP.

James Pasch, ADL’s vice president of litigation, told JI that the group will “continue to work with and refer cases to the Brandeis Center and several other organizations doing this important legal work, including serving as co-counsel on several cases.”

Still, Pasch said that the launch of a platform to provide Jews “access to significant resources and some of the top legal minds in the country” is a unique approach, one that he said “has never existed before to fight back against antisemitism in the courts.” 

“We’re continuing to see historic levels of intake from a range of Jewish Americans, despite the ceasefire [in the Israel-Hamas war]. We’re seeing lots of activity, maybe not at the levels of a year ago, but certainly more than we’ve seen previously,” said Ken Marcus, founder of the Brandeis Center, which provides representation to Jewish students and employees nationwide. 

In February, the Brandeis Center established the Center for Legal Innovation — a team of nearly 20 lawyers and legal staff to litigate exclusively against antisemitism. “I’m pleased that there will be a new network in which to collaborate with,” Marcus told JI. 

In addition to the Brandeis Center, several other Jewish groups have been providing pro bono legal services to protect Jewish civil rights for years. 

“The Lawfare Project and the #EndJewHatred movement launched the Legal War Room nearly two years ago — long before today’s new initiatives — to create a global infrastructure for defending Jewish civil rights through coordinated, strategic litigation,” Gerard Filitti, senior counsel at The Lawfare Project, told JI. 

The Lawfare Project’s network has grown to more than 900 lawyers worldwide, according to the organization — significantly smaller than the new ADL network. “The Lawfare Project emphasizes strategic litigation and systemic reform more than scale, taking on high-profile, precedent-setting cases,” said Filitti. 

He continued, “It’s encouraging to see other organizations now adopting our model; it validates what The Lawfare Project proved first — that the rule of law is one of the most powerful tools to fight antisemitism.” 

Yael Lerman, director of the antisemitism education organization StandWithUs’ legal department, Saidoff Law, told JI that the group is “happy to see ADL is expanding into this area, in which we are witnessing an increase in reports of antisemitism to our intake hotline.”

“The need for legal groups to address antisemitism in the community is growing and our work certainly reflects this, as does ADL’s new initiative,” she said, adding that “we anticipate partnering with them regularly in this new endeavor.” 

Lerman declined to elaborate on how Saidoff Law’s work differs from the new Legal Action Network. 

The legal network’s launch comes two years after ADL and Gibson Dunn teamed up with the Brandeis Center and Hillel International to respond to a rise of antisemitism on college campuses, following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, by creating the Campus Antisemitism Legal Line, a free legal protection helpline for college students who have experienced antisemitism.

Democratic lawmakers who have been stridently critical of Israel and its operations in Gaza offered tepid support for the ceasefire and hostage-release deal, the first phase of which was signed on Thursday, while reiterating their criticisms of Israel and the U.S.’ support for the Jewish state. Few offered any words of support for the Israeli hostages who have been held by Hamas for over two years. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has led a series of efforts to block arms transfers to Israel, didn’t explicitly praise the deal negotiated by President Donald Trump, but said he hopes the deal would lead to the end of a “horrific war.” He made no mention of the Israeli hostages set to be released, but asserted one-tenth of the Gazan population was killed or injured during the war. 

“As of today something like 10% of the Palestinian people in Gaza have been killed or wounded, mostly women, children and the elderly. The United States has put tens of billions of dollars into an effort which has led to mass destruction,” Sanders told Jewish Insider. “So I hope — and I’m sure everybody else does — that this horrific war can end as soon as possible.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said on X that the ceasefire is a “hopeful step” but quickly pivoted to expressing unvarnished opposition to Israel. She also made no mention of the Israeli hostages expected to be freed from their Hamas captors.

“For the sake of humanity, let’s hope this will be a lasting and permanent ceasefire,” Omar said. “While this is a hopeful step, we must demand accountability for every war crime committed during this genocide and continue to call for an end to the occupation.”

Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL), the lead sponsor of legislation that aims to place strict conditions on critical arms sales to Israel, said on X she plans to continue to pursue that legislation.

“Immediately after October 7, I called for a ceasefire and for a path that honors our shared humanity. It is unfortunate that it took this long. However, I am hopeful that today’s ceasefire agreement will bring the hostages and prisoners home and end the bombing and starvation of the Palestinian people,” Ramirez said. “We must save Palestinian lives and pursue an end to U.S. complicity in Israel’s war crimes, atrocities, and genocide.  I will continue to work to Block the Bombs, as we pursue a future of self-determination for the Palestinian people and a just and lasting peace for all residents of the region.”

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), tamping down on enthusiasm for the deal, reposted an X post suggesting that Israel may violate the deal.

“There is certainly some hope that the Gaza deal will hold but it’s important to remember that the last ceasefire agreement collapsed in March before ever reaching phase 2 when Israel reimposed a blockade on Gaza and bombings on the strip resumed,” the post, from an NBC News correspondent, reads.

Other prominent critics, particularly on the far-left, have remained unusually mum about the deal.

Squad members Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) and Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) did not respond to requests for comment and did not comment publicly.

Some other lawmakers who have been vocally critical of Israel’s operations in Gaza offered more fulsome praise for the deal.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said in a statement that the deal is “the first hopeful moment in a long time,” noting both the release of hostages and the surge of aid into Gaza. He credited U.S. pressure on Israel, however, rather than the reported increased pressure from Qatar, Turkey and Egypt on Hamas, for the breakthrough.

“Pressure from the U.S. and others has always been necessary to reach this moment — something that could have been achieved much earlier and prevented the staggering loss of civilian life, starvation, and devastation in Gaza,” Van Hollen said. “U.S. leadership will be essential to enforce this plan and convert this moment into real progress toward lasting peace — which can only be achieved by sidelining the extremists on all sides and committing to security, dignity, human rights, and justice for all.” 

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who led an effort calling for the U.S. to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state, also praised the deal and led with the return of the Israeli hostages in his comments.

“It’s obviously very welcome news. Finally, the hostages are going to come home. The bombing hopefully is going to stop. Israel is going to withdraw,” Khanna said on Fox Business. “Everything I have read seems that this is a welcome development. And I’m really glad that after two years of a war, this seems to be finally coming to a resolution.”

“Now, we need to work for 2 states & ensure the bombing does not resume later in the year,” he added on X.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) told JI, “For the sake of humanity, I pray this holds. It is so far past time to end this genocide, free the hostages, and surge food, water, and baby formula to starving families in Gaza.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) declined to comment, saying she had not reviewed the deal.

FBI Director Kash Patel called the Anti-Defamation League “an extreme group functioning like a terrorist organization,” saying in a Wednesday announcement that the FBI has cut all formal ties with the anti-hate group. 

Patel slammed James Comey, the former FBI director now facing federal charges for allegedly lying to Congress in 2020, for speaking at an ADL conference in 2014 and 2017.

“James Comey disgraced the FBI by writing ‘love letters’ to the ADL and embedding agents with an extreme group functioning like a terrorist organization and the disgraceful operation they ran spying on Americans,” Patel told Fox News. “That was not law enforcement, it was activism dressed up as counterterrorism, and it put Americans in danger.” 

The ADL’s website says the organization “works closely with federal, state and local law enforcement to assist them in protecting communities from extremism and hate.” The Bureau’s Denver field office gave a leadership award to a senior ADL official last year, calling the ADL “invaluable partners for the FBI in Denver.” The press release announcing that award has since been deleted from the FBI’s website. 

“That era is finished,” Patel said Wednesday. “This FBI formally rejects Comey’s policies and any partnership with the ADL.”

In recent days, the ADL came under fire from Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr. and other far-right activists because of a post on its website that outlined ties between extremists and Turning Point USA, the activist group founded by Charlie Kirk, the conservative influencer who was killed at a speaking engagement in Utah last month. Facing pressure from these leading voices on the right, the ADL this week deleted its online Glossary of Extremism and Hate.

“ADL has deep respect for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and law enforcement officers at all levels across the country who work tirelessly every single day to protect all Americans regardless of their ancestry, religion, ethnicity, faith, political affiliation or any other point of difference,” the group said in a statement Wednesday.

“In light of an unprecedented surge of antisemitism, we remain more committed than ever to our core purpose to protect the Jewish people.”

The current boycott by Hollywood actors, directors and other industry workers against Israeli counterparts “violates federal and state civil rights laws,” according to a letter distributed on Wednesday by a Jewish civil rights group to major U.S. film industry leaders, Jewish Insider has learned. 

The letter was sent by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law to top studios, distributors, platforms, talent agencies and film festivals — including Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, Netflix, Amazon, MGM Studios and Apple Studios. It warns that participation in the “Hollywood Blacklist,” a boycott circulated last month by Film Workers for Palestine that calls for industry professionals to blacklist Israeli artists, companies and institutions, could result in legal consequences. 

The letter was signed by more than 5,000 Hollywood actors, directors, and other industry employees, including industry heavyweights such as Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo. 

Boycotting Israeli institutions would also jeopardize studios’ eligibility for film tax credit status, the letter said, noting that “a production that participates in the Hollywood Boycott may also violate its contractual obligations in connection with receiving state tax breaks.”

The letter cites the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which “prohibits both organizations and individuals from refusing to contract for goods and services with Jews and Jewish businesses operating in the United States,” which it says is “an evident component of the Hollywood Blacklist targeting the Israeli film industry while carving out Palestinian Israelis for different treatment from Jews.” The letter also refers to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on national origin.

While the blacklist claims to only target Israeli institutions deemed “complicit” in denying Palestinian rights, and not individuals, it refers to all but “a few” Israeli film institutions as complicit. Additionally, the letter states that the effort would affect Jewish individuals who work for boycotted films. Discrimination on the basis of national origin is “self-evident,” the Brandeis Center wrote, “since the Hollywood Blacklist exclusively targets ‘Israeli film institutions,’ while non-Israeli film institutions who may be similarly ‘complicit’ in the alleged whitewashing or support for Israel are not subjected to the same scrutiny and shunning.”  

“Boycotting Jews isn’t an original idea, or, thankfully, a legal one in the United States of America,” Rory Lancman, director of corporate initiatives and senior counsel at the Brandeis Center, said in a statement. “We caution Hollywood decision makers against submitting to pressure to effectuate this blatantly illegal blacklist of Jewish Israeli artists and institutions. As we say in our letter, we much prefer to see their work on the screen, and not them in court.”

Since the blacklist petition’s release, approximately 1,200 prominent members of the film industry signed a counterletter, spearheaded by Creative Community For Peace, calling for signers of the original boycott to rethink their stance. Signatories of the counter petition include Mayim Bialik and Debra Messing.

Sirene Abou-Chakra, the head of General Motors’ global philanthropy division with a history of posting anti-Israel messages on her public X account, is no longer in her role, a GM spokesperson confirmed to Jewish Insider.

Abou-Chakra, a native of Dearborn, Mich., took over the auto company’s mammoth philanthropy arm in June to questions about how her extensive anti-Israel social media history would impact GM’s relationship with the Detroit-area Jewish community and its extensive business relationships with the Jewish state. 

The spokesperson did not say if Abou-Chakra, who previously served as the chief development officer for the city of Detroit and also spent a decade with Google as an account executive, was fired or had left on her own accord. 

From late 2019 through the summer of 2024, Abou-Chakra posted a series of tweets that were critical of the Jewish state and Republicans, accusing Israel of being “built on lies,” alleging the country “is not a democracy” and claiming the pro-Hamas protests in Washington during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress last July were “planted” by pro-Israel actors. 

“Haven’t seen this at any pro Palestine rally all year and there have been thousands. *He* comes to town and all of a sudden ‘Hamas’ graffiti, anti semitic dolls, and American flags are burned? I have a hard time believing this wasn’t planted by the other side,” Abou-Chakra wrote in a since-deleted post. 

During that protest at Washington’s Union Station, demonstrators assaulted a police officer while he was making an arrest; spray-painted “Hamas is comin” on a statue outside the station, along with other pro-Hamas graffiti; carried Hamas flags; called for a “final solution”; burned an effigy of Netanyahu and carried another showing him with horns covered in blood; and took down and burned an American flag outside the station before replacing it with a Palestinian flag.

The posts, almost all of which were still online prior to JI’s first outreach to GM earlier this month, were promptly taken down, though the auto giant did not respond to multiple requests for comment at the time.

In a November 2019 tweet that had been deleted prior to this month but was featured in a Deadline Detroit article at the time, Abou-Chakra criticized Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for visiting Israel. Notably, Whitmer’s trip included a stop at GM’s headquarters in Herzliya, which was opened in 2008 and employs more than 700 people.

“Apartheid is the Israeli regime restricting @RashidaTlaib movements in Palestine yet inviting @GovWhitmer to discuss trade. 2 US government officials from Michigan. 1 major difference,” Abou Chakra wrote. “Arabness is a crime in Israel, and this week 8 from the same family in Gaza paid that price.”

Under pressure from Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr. and prominent right-wing activists in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Anti-Defamation League is removing from its website the Glossary of Extremism and Hate, one of the organization’s signature anti-hate resources. 

The database identifies over 1,000 terms relating to extremist ideologies and groups, and it has faced scrutiny in recent days after viral social media posts revealed that the Glossary of Extremism included an entry about the slain Turning Point USA founder and his organization. 

Musk, Trump Jr., Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and other conservatives slammed the civil rights organization for its apparent portrayal of Turning Point and Kirk, just weeks after his death, as extremists.

An ADL spokesperson confirmed to Jewish Insider that the organization removed the glossary entirely and that it does not consider TPUSA an “extremist group.” The glossary no longer appears on the ADL website. 

“With over 1,000 entries written over many years, the ADL Glossary of Extremism has served as a source of high-level information on a wide range of topics for years. At the same time, an increasing number of entries in the Glossary were outdated. We also saw a number of entries intentionally misrepresented and misused,” the spokesperson told JI. “At ADL, we always are looking for how we can and should do things better. That’s why we are moving to retire the Glossary effectively immediately. This will allow ADL to explore new strategies.” 

But although the Glossary of Extremism and Hate has been deleted from the ADL’s site, material about Kirk and TPUSA — including criticism of the group for its ties to “a variety of extremists” — still appears in another resource on the ADL’s website. A spokesperson described that “backgrounder” as one of “a multitude of resources on its website that address extremism and its many expressions.” 

The ADL first published its backgrounder on Turning Point in February 2019. The piece was then updated in January 2023 and again on Monday afternoon, after screenshots of the page itself and the glossary entry on TPUSA circulated on social media. The edited version softens some of the ADL’s language about TPUSA while holding firm on its description of the group’s more extreme elements.

The ADL’s page on TPUSA, which will remain on the website, but not as part of a searchable glossary entry, appears in a section about “Extremism, Hate or Terrorism.” Prior to this week, the entry stated: “Since the group’s founding, Kirk has moved further to the right and has promoted numerous conspiracy theories about election fraud and COVID-19 and has demonized the transgender community.”

“Kirk also promotes Christian nationalism: the idea that Christians should dominate the government and other areas of life in the US. TPUSA continues to attract racists to the group. Numerous TPUSA representatives have made bigoted remarks about minority groups and the LGBTQ+ community,” the TPUSA entry continued. “White nationalists have attended TPUSA events, even though the group says it rejects white supremacist ideology.” 

Kirk was one of the most influential conservative activists in the country until he was shot and killed at a Utah university speaking engagement this month by a perpetrator who wrote in text messages to a romantic partner that he “had enough” of Kirk’s “hatred.” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said earlier this month that the suspect was “deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology.”

The ADL’s webpage about Kirk, which remains active, still says that Kirk “created a vast platform that was used by numerous extremists and far-right conspiracy theorists. A number of such individuals speak and attend his annual AmericaFest and other events sponsored by TPUSA.”

But the updated page edited some of the language about Kirk and took a more subdued tone towards TPUSA. The ADL now describes the group as “a political student organization that appeals to a wide range of conservatives, from moderate Republicans to the far-right. TPUSA has played a significant role in GOP politics and elections, helping to galvanize young people.” 

The ADL also added a lengthy section about Kirk’s support for Israel, and goes on to say that TPUSA and Kirk “publicly supported the state of Israel and spoke out against its critics. These views made him a target of prominent voices from the extreme right such as the Groypers.”

Still, the ADL states that TPUSA “has promoted some conspiracy theories,” and that some people tied to TPUSA “have a history of bigoted statements about the Black community, the LGBTQ community and specifically transgender people, and other minority groups.”

The ADL spokesperson told JI that an organization’s inclusion in its Glossary of Extremism did not necessarily mean the group was a hate group. “To be clear, inclusion in our glossary did not mean that the purpose of the group was to promote extremism or hate, and Turning Point USA is not an extremist group,” the spokesperson said. 

“We recognize that TPUSA repeatedly stated that it rejects white supremacist ideology; however, as we noted in our materials, white nationalists openly attended their events and some people affiliated with the organization had a history of bigoted statements about minority groups. So we felt it important to have it covered both in the glossary and as a fuller backgrounder with more in-depth research on the group,” the spokesperson added.

On Sunday, prior to the changes, Musk decried the ADL’s descriptions of Turning Point as “deeply wrong” and in need of an immediate correction. 

“The ADL needs to change this now,” Musk wrote on his X platform.

Trump Jr. wrote that ADL’s inclusion of TPUSA in its glossary was “disgraceful.”

In a tweet alongside a screenshot of the organization’s prior page about Turning Point, Luna, who represents Florida’s Gulf Coast, said the ADL “has some explaining to do.” “Seems to me like if they don’t agree with you, they will label you a ‘hate group,’” she wrote on X on Monday morning.

“‘America First’ is not hate speech. Turning Point USA is not a hate group,” Luna wrote in a subsequent tweet later Monday. 

Andrew Kolvet, the longtime executive producer of Kirk’s podcast, posted earlier in the day: “Good morning to everyone except the pro-Antifa, anti-Christian hate group known as the ADL.” The Antifa remark was in reference to criticism from conservatives over how the ADL classifies the far-left group on its site.

This is not the only time the ADL has recently reassessed its educational resources. In late 2023, the organization eliminated a major educational program, “A World of Difference,” after 40 years. The organization published a slew of anti-racism resources in the summer of 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, but some of them have since been removed from its website. In 2022, the ADL promised to review its educational content following a Fox News investigation that slammed the group’s use of “concepts from critical race theory.” 

Under CEO Jonathan Greenblatt’s leadership, the ADL has had to fight off critics from both the ideological left and the right as it grapples with its mission amid rising antisemitism within both political parties. 

When Greenblatt took the helm of the organization a decade ago, replacing longtime ADL chief Abe Foxman, he faced criticism from some on the right for taking the organization in a liberal direction. In the first Trump administration, the ADL came out against the White House on several occasions, including by signing onto a lawsuit challenging the president’s policy banning travelers from several Muslim nations. 

Greenblatt has also taken on progressive critics who disagree with the ADL’s stalwart support for Israel, and his assertion that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. After the Oct. 7 terror attacks, the organization has leaned more deeply into its pro-Israel ethos and its work targeting antisemitism, stepping back from some of its focus on other forms of hate. 

More recently, the organization has taken steps in the second Trump administration to reach disaffected conservatives — angering some longtime supporters in the process. In January, the ADL hired a lobbying firm with close ties to Trump to assist on its antisemitism work. 

When Musk made a hand gesture during Trump’s inauguration that resembled a Nazi salute, Greenblatt took flak from some in the Jewish community for coming to Musk’s defense. He has since said he should have “framed” his comments differently. 

This story was corrected to note the timing of when the ADL eliminated its “A World of Difference” program.

The Anti-Defamation League filed a new lawsuit on Thursday on behalf of more than 140 U.S. victims of the Oct. 7 attacks alleging that several different terrorist groups carried out the attacks with material support from U.S.-designated state sponsors of terror: Iran, Syria and North Korea. 

The suit comes a year after a similar suit by the ADL targeting Iran, Syria and North Korea, but it relies on an additional statute to seek compensation for the American victims of the attacks, which left 1,200 people dead. The suit also includes more plaintiffs than the original case. 

The new case names the terror groups — Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, Hezbollah and the Popular Resistance Committees — and invokes two American laws that provide civil remedies to victims of international terrorism. 

“The victims of the October 7 massacre deserve justice, accountability and redress,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “This lawsuit seeks to do that by holding those responsible for the carnage accountable, from the state sponsors who provided the funding, weapons and training to the terrorist organizations who carried out these unspeakable atrocities.”

ADL brought the lawsuit with Crowell & Moring, a law firm that has helped victims in terrorism cases including the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in the 1980s and the bombing of UTA flight 772 in 1989. The firm obtained billions of dollars in judgments in those cases.  

“State sponsors of terrorism should not be able to avoid the consequences of their heinous acts by hiding behind the proxies they materially support,” Crowell partner Aryeh Portnoy, the lead counsel on the case, said in a statement. 

The parents of Yona Brief, an IDF soldier who was severely injured on Oct. 7 and died as a result of his wounds more than a year later, said they hope the lawsuit will help deter future attacks. 

“We believe it is critical that those responsible for the horrific terror inflicted that day are held accountable in a court of law, to ensure the record is clear as to who helped support, plan and carry out the violence that day,” David and Hazel Brief said in a statement. “We are hopeful that this type of litigation will help prevent attacks like these in the future, so that no other families have to go through losing a loved one as a result of such violence.”

As Jewish leaders reckon with the increasing likelihood that Zohran Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York City, many who have voiced anxiety over his avowedly anti-Israel policies are reacting with a mix of fear and resignation.

Their concerns have been mounting as Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, has continued to hold a comfortable lead in the race, where polling shows him handily prevailing over the divided field. The 33-year-old democratic socialist and Queens state assemblyman has recently claimed endorsements from prominent party leaders including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who clarified she does not agree with him on Israel issues but said she appreciated his commitment to combating antisemitism as well as his efforts to meet with Jewish community members to address “their concerns directly.”

But multiple Jewish leaders said in interviews with Jewish Insider on Wednesday that they remain deeply skeptical of his campaign’s outreach and pledges to confront rising antisemitism, citing a string of recent statements in which he has doubled down on his hostile approach to Israel — as well as an ongoing refusal to explicitly denounce extreme rhetoric espoused by his allies on the far left.

While Mamdani has, since winning the primary in June, walked back some of his polarizing views on key issues such as policing, he has otherwise made an exception for Israel, of which he has long been a fierce critic. In a series of interviews published last week, for instance, he reiterated a campaign vow to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if elected, even as legal experts cautioned such a move could violate federal law. 

A vocal supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel — which some critics deem antisemitic — he said he would end a program established by Mayor Eric Adams, who is now running as an independent, to foster business partnerships between companies in Israel and New York City. He also said he would stop relying on the working definition of antisemitism promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance — which labels some criticism of Israel as antisemitic — as was adopted by Adams in a recent executive order.

And although he has said he would discourage activists from invoking the slogan “globalize the intifada,” which he himself has not used publicly, Jewish leaders have noted that Mamdani has still not condemned the phrase itself, fueling suspicion that he tacitly approves of the chant critics interpret as a call to antisemitic violence.

“I believe that he will genuinely work to drive a wedge between Jews and their neighbors as long as he serves in public office,” Sara Forman, executive director of New York Solidarity Network, a group that supports pro-Israel Democratic candidates for state and local office, told JI. “To this date,” she said of Mamdani, “his actions certainly have given us no indication they match his words.”

Andres Spokoiny, who leads the Jewish Funders Network but emphasized that he was speaking only in his personal capacity, said that he was “extremely concerned and extremely fearful” about what he regards as a likely Mamdani mayoralty. “His views make the majority of Jews unsafe and unwelcome,” he told JI.

More broadly, Spokoiny said his worries had less to do with particular policies than what he called “the breaking of a taboo” around anti-Zionist sentiment that did not ultimately serve as an “impediment” to Mamdani’s rise, even in a place that is home to the largest Jewish community of any city in the world. “That fact that it is in New York is highly symbolic,” he said. “It shows that our society doesn’t have the antibodies to reject somebody with a very divisive message.”

He also voiced regret about a lack of unity in the organized Jewish community to collectively oppose Mamdani and coalesce behind one candidate in the race, which includes former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running on an independent line, and Curtis Sliwa, the GOP nominee. “I think it asks for a deep rethinking in the Jewish community about how we face this challenge,” he said. 

While Mamdani has won backing from some Jewish elected officials in New York, notably Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), others have continued to keep the nominee at a safe distance with just weeks until November. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has withheld an endorsement of Mamdani despite meeting privately with him, as has Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who said last month he is waiting for the nominee to take “concrete steps” to address antisemitic hate crimes. 

“Typically during a general election you’ll see candidates moderate their positions either in a dishonest attempt to bridge the gap between themselves and uncomfortable voters or in a genuine extension of the olive branch,” said Sam Berger, an Orthodox Democrat who represents an Assembly district in Queens. “Indeed, we’ve seen Zohran do this with the business world as well as with the NYPD.”

Simone Kanter, a spokesperson for Goldman, said on Wednesday that the congressman had “nothing new to add yet beyond what he’s already said” about Mamdani.

During his campaign, Mamdani has more actively aligned with groups on the far left including Jewish Voice for Peace, which is anti-Zionist, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, which hosted a recent gala at which the nominee was celebrated alongside Brad Lander, the Jewish comptroller with whom he cross-endorsed in the primary.

Even as Mamdani has engaged in outreach to the Jewish community to address concerns about his platform, among other issues, some Jewish leaders indicated they did not anticipate there would be any common ground on which to develop a relationship with a potential Mamdani administration.

“Typically during a general election you’ll see candidates moderate their positions either in a dishonest attempt to bridge the gap between themselves and uncomfortable voters or in a genuine extension of the olive branch,” said Sam Berger, an Orthodox Democrat who represents an Assembly district in Queens. “Indeed, we’ve seen Zohran do this with the business world as well as with the NYPD.”

By contrast, Berger argued of his colleague in the state legislature, Mamdani “hasn’t done the bare minimum with long-recognized Jewish institutions and leaders, instead relying on his support from the fringe of the fringe,” which he called “a major red flag.”

“Fixing potholes is typically apolitical,” he told JI, “but [when] the point of contention is the uplifting of baseless hatred against the Jewish people there is no common ground to be had.”

Kalman Yeger, an Orthodox assemblyman in Brooklyn who has been among Mamdani’s most outspoken critics, said the nominee’s “inability to get his brain around the notion that globalizing the intifada is a bad thing is terrifying.”

Simcha Eichenstein, a Democratic assemblyman from the Hasidic neighborhood of Borough Park in Brooklyn, was equally pessimistic about Mamdani. 

“We can agree to disagree when it comes to policy matters, but as a visible Jew, I should be able to walk the streets of New York City safely, without fear of harassment,” he told JI on Wednesday. 

“The inability and unwillingness of a candidate running to represent nearly a million Jews to denounce radical, extreme and antisemitic groups have many within the Jewish community wondering whether we have a future in New York at all,” Eichenstein added, citing as an example the radical pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, which has led at least one protest that was attended by Mamdani in 2021. 

Kalman Yeger, an Orthodox assemblyman in Brooklyn who has been among Mamdani’s most outspoken critics, said the nominee’s “inability to get his brain around the notion that globalizing the intifada is a bad thing is terrifying.”

“His lunatic threat to arrest Netanyahu, when he is surely not stupid enough to believe he has that power, is a sign to the Jew haters that he stands with them,” Yeger added, claiming Mamdani “will, by his words, his actions and his inactions, cause continued increasing antisemitism” in New York City.

Mamdani has forcefully rejected accusations he has fomented antisemitism, vowing to increase funding to counter hate crimes by 800%. A spokesperson for his campaign did not return a request for comment from JI on Wednesday.

Daniel Rosenthal, vice president of government relations at UJA-Federation of New York, said his organization, a nonprofit forbidden from making political endorsements, “will strongly oppose any actions that alienate or marginalize Jews, including attempts to delegitimize Israel and support BDS. As always, we will work to ensure that the needs and concerns of Jewish New Yorkers are heard and addressed.”

Leon Goldenberg, a Brooklyn real estate executive who is an executive board member of the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition, said his group had no interest in meeting with Mamdani — despite that he expects him to win the election. “What I really have a problem with is ‘globalize the intifada,’” he told JI on Wednesday. “You can’t condemn it. ‘Globalize the intifada’ is murder Jews on the streets.”

Goldenberg, who endorsed Adams in the general election but now believes he has no chance, said he was considering moving his permanent residence to Florida, where he keeps an apartment, if Mamdani prevails this fall. “He’s bright. I’m not going to take that away from him,” he said of the nominee. “But there’s very little that qualifies him to be mayor. If he had a different mindset, he’d be a great mayor.”

Despite their concerns about a potential Mamdani administration, few Jewish leaders were ready to speculate about working with him. 

Daniel Rosenthal, vice president of government relations at UJA-Federation of New York, said his organization, a nonprofit forbidden from making political endorsements, “will strongly oppose any actions that alienate or marginalize Jews, including attempts to delegitimize Israel and support BDS.” 

“As always, we will work to ensure that the needs and concerns of Jewish New Yorkers are heard and addressed,” Rosenthal told JI.

Other Jewish leaders pointed to ongoing voter registration efforts to boost Jewish turnout in the election. Josh Mehlman, who chairs the Flatbush Jewish Community Coalition, said his group had helped register more than 5,000 new Democratic voters in the Orthodox community in the last week alone. He did not respond when asked if he felt the increase in registrations would have any discernible impact on the outcome of the mayoral race.

Joel Rosenfeld, a representative of the influential Bobov Hasidic sect, also stressed his community “is fully focused on voter registration” in the lead-up to the election. Asked if he had anything else to add on the matter, Rosenfeld said, “A blessed new year,” ahead of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

Still, there are signs that some Hasidic groups may now be cautiously — and quietly — warming up to a potential future Mamdani administration, even if it remains unlikely that any groups will endorse him, community members say. 

“The Hasidim are a very practical bloc of voters, particularly the leadership,” said one Democratic consultant who has worked with the community. “Results matter more than ideology for them. If they think Mamdani will win, that’s where they’ll go.”

One Jewish community activist familiar with the matter said that “there are some groups secretly talking to” Mamdani “or his top people,” though he added it was “hard to believe any groups will openly endorse him, especially if Adams is still in the race.”

“The feeling is that like it or not he is most likely going to be the next mayor so we might as well begin a dialogue now rather than after the election,” he told JI.

Another activist familiar with a Satmar faction in Williamsburg, which represents the largest Hasidic voting bloc in New York City, said that Mamdani’s team is “aggressively courting” the community and has been in dialogue with leadership. “They want to work with us and we want to work with them,” the activist said in summarizing the dynamic, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive situation. 

“The Hasidim are a very practical bloc of voters, particularly the leadership,” said one Democratic consultant who has worked with the community. “Results matter more than ideology for them. If they think Mamdani will win, that’s where they’ll go.”

The wide-open primary race for the most Democratic district in the country is highlighting stark divisions in Israel policy among the leading candidates.

The candidates for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District — which includes western Philadelphia, Center City and parts of north Philadelphia — include a host of prominent local officials, as well as some outsider candidates, including state Sen. Sharif Street, who recently resigned as state Democratic Party chair, progressive state Rep. Chris Rabb, state Rep. Morgan Cephas and physician Dr. David Oxman.

Dr. Ala Stanford, a local surgeon and activist who gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, is also seen as a likely candidate, and former City Councilman Derek Green may also join the race.

A Rabb victory would be cause for significant concern for pro-Israel voters in the district — which includes some heavily Jewish areas of Philadelphia — and national pro-Israel groups. The state senator has an extensive history, particularly since Oct. 7, of anti-Israel activism, and has accused Israel of genocide.

He posted on social media in Sept. 2024 in support of a Philadelphia teacher who was suspended following a complaint from Jewish parents about threatening social media posts directed toward them.

“I’m here in solidarity with the educators and students who have shown the discernment to understand that discomfort is not the same as danger, animus or even harm. Quite the contrary, without discomfort, we cannot truly learn, grow or heal,” Rabb said on Instagram. “I do not believe that being critical of any political ideology — be it neo-liberalism or Zionism — is being against an entire people or ethnic group. … We must not allow students and educators to be attacked for discussing critical global issues or other international struggles … And there should be no instance when a mere reference to any sovereign nation is reflexively viewed as a proxy for hate or bias.”

Rabb was the only elected official to attend a recent anti-Israel “People’s Tribunal” hosted by a range of far-left groups, which aimed to present a case that U.S. officials including Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) are guilty of complicity with genocide and war crimes by Israel.

Rabb described the event as a generational moment that would reverberate far into the future.

He called on his state to divest from and cease any investments in Israel until the end of the war in Gaza, and said that advancing a proposed anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions bill would “cause a s*** show of epic proportions that no Democrat wants to see — especially in an election year where the policy choices we make are being scrutinized by a highly skeptical, but vigilant and well organized subset of the electorate.”

Rabb also spoke at a February 2024 protest led by anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace at which he indicated support for protests blocking traffic and opposed arrests of demonstrators at the Pennsylvania Statehouse, comparing anti-Israel protests to the Civil Rights Movement. “This is a radical expression of one’s First Amendment rights,” he said.

He visited and praised anti-Israel encampments at multiple colleges in Pennsylvania and indicated support for BDS efforts targeting the colleges, participated in events with the local Council on American-Islamic Relations chapter and spoke out against detentions and attempted deportations of student activists.

He also condemned school leaders out-of-state, in Maryland, for suspending teachers for anti-Israel, antisemitic or pro-Palestinian comments, one of whom he said was a personal friend.

“I’m irate about how these pro-#censorship folx have maliciously targeted these teachers,” Rabb said. “Being pro-#Palestine is neither a crime, nor anti-Jewish.”

Rabb on Oct. 18, 2023, 11 days after the Hamas attacks, called for a ceasefire as well as the release of “the more than 200 civilian hostages taken back into Gaza and Palestinian political prisoners.”

“I grieve the loss of lives in Israel and Palestine. I condemn Hamas’s brutal attack on October 7th … I also grieve the thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, including hundreds of children, who have been killed by Israeli bombs since then. It is never acceptable to cause the deaths of civilians. All human life is sacred,” Rabb said. “I join my colleagues in Congress who have called for immediate de-escalation, ceasefire, adherence to International Humanitarian Law and humanitarian aid to Palestine commensurate with the devastation wrought upon Gaza.”

Rabb was one of several Democratic state lawmakers who signed onto a Nov. 21, 2023, letter to Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation which delivered a similar message. The chief of staff for the state senator who led that letter had reposted several X posts on Oct. 7 indicating support for the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Street, who is Muslim, has long-standing ties to members of the state’s Jewish community and has spoken out in support of Israel’s right to exist and against antisemitism. He traveled to Israel in 2017 on a trip for Muslim legislators organized by the American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange, a source familiar with the campaign told Jewish Insider.

“As a Black man and a Muslim, I’ve spent my entire political career fighting for the inherent worth and dignity of every person. That’s why I have stood strong against the growing tide of anti-Semitism in this country,” Street said in a statement to JI. “In Congress, I will work hard for peace in the Middle East based on mutual trust and grounded in Israel’s right to exist and the right of the Palestinian people to live without fear.”

In a November 2023 statement responding to the Hamas attack and ensuing war in Gaza, Street emphasized the right of both Israelis and Palestinians to peace and freedom, and mourned civilian deaths on both sides, while emphasizing the importance of U.S. support for Israel.

“We must affirm the right of Israel to exist. We must affirm the right of the Jewish people to have a sovereign state and we must also affirm the right of the Palestinian people to live in a place where their children are safe and their families are secure,” Street said. “A place where their hospitals and schools are not compromised by Hamas commingling military facilities with hospitals and schools.”

He said that the U.S. “must not abandon its calling to protect the children of the Holocaust” and “must remember why the modern state of Israel was created in the aftermath of World War II. We must remain vigilant in our support of Israel and its right to defend itself.”

Street added that “does not disavow us from having an obligation to the Palestinian people as well,” and ensuring that “food flows plentifully into the land of Palestinian people,” that hospitals and schools are rebuilt and that both Israeli and Palestinian children can live in peace.

He went on to condemn hate crimes in the United States targeting both the Palestinian and Jewish communities, as well as Christians.

Street also offered his condemnation and condolences following the shooting earlier this year of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington.

“As the highest-ranking Muslim elected official in Pennsylvania, I am heartbroken by the senseless act of violence that took the lives of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington, D.C.,” Street said. “I extend my deepest condolences to the families of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, and to all who are grieving this horrific tragedy. No one should fear for their lives simply because of who they are or where they work.”

“I unequivocally condemn this shooting—and all acts of gun violence, antisemitism, and hatred. We must all stand against violence, wherever it occurs and whoever it targets,” Street continued. “I support the right of Israel to exist in peace and security, just as I support the rights of Palestinians to live with dignity and freedom. A just and lasting peace in the region will never be built on bloodshed. We must do better—here at home and abroad.”

As the Pennsylvania Democratic chair, Street spoke out against the Uncommitted movement that urged voters to oppose President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential primary over his position on the war in Gaza. “As a Muslim American, I know that President Biden has my back and will fight for our community,” Street said. He also emphasized the need for Democrats to appeal to both Jewish and Muslim voters.

Street did not vote last year on an anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions bill when it passed either the Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee or the full Senate.

Cephas does not appear to have much of a public record of speaking out about the conflict in the Middle East, though in the days after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, she was an advocate for increased state-level funding for nonprofit security funding.