Georgetown University law school’s Student Bar Association passed a resolution this week condemning a Jewish attorney on Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) team and accusing her of Islamophobia after she appeared on campus to discuss the Muslim Brotherhood and her work representing victims of terrorism. 

Erielle Azerrad has served as Cruz’s deputy chief counsel since December and has been heavily involved in the Texas senator’s recent efforts to target the Brotherhood. Prior to joining Cruz’s office, Azerrad — who attended Georgetown Law — co-founded the Center for the Middle East and International Law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where she remains a senior fellow. She also served at the National Jewish Advocacy Center.

Azerrad was hosted by Georgetown Law’s Conservative and Libertarian Student Association (CALSA) on Tuesday for an event titled, “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Network in America and Legal Strategies for Confronting It.” 

During the hour-long summit, Azerrad delivered a lecture detailing the Muslim Brotherhood’s origins and how the group had expanded its operations in the U.S., according to a transcript of the event reviewed by Jewish Insider. Azerrad also noted the Muslim Students Association’s ties to the Brotherhood, though she disputed that such ties meant all Muslim students, or even all MSA members, were connected to the terrorist group. 

“The Muslim Association of America was founded by Brotherhood folks who were upset with the direction of the Muslim Student Association in the United States and thought it had veered too far from Brotherhood principles,” Azerrad said at the event. “Until I see a single MSA chapter come forward and say: ‘We disavow the Muslim Brotherhood,’ I am inclined to believe they are still tied to their foundings. That’s my opinion.”

“I can only presume to answer that the organization itself is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. I can’t speak to individuals that attend meetings,” she continued. “I do know for a fact that the Muslim Brotherhood embeds itself in the education centers of countries. That’s what it does. It recruits young people and it hopes to shape their minds, and then receives them after they graduate from college. So, I won’t presume to know every single individual who attends an MSA event, what their political leanings are.”

After the resolution condemning Azerrad was passed on Wednesday night, the SBA posted a photo of the document on Instagram. The caption alongside the photo describes it as a “Resolution In Solidarity With The Muslim Law Student Association of Georgetown Law.”

According to the post, the resolution, which does not name Azerrad outright, alleges that, “a speaker was brought to campus who, while here, promoted Islamophobic beliefs and conspiracy theories.” It also claims, without pointing to examples, that the speaker “has a well-documented record of false, bigoted, and harmful anti-Muslim rhetoric” and that “hosting such a speaker endangers Muslim students, undermines their belonging, and erodes their trust in the University.”

The resolution states that, “The Student Bar Association requests the Georgetown Law administration clarify their understanding of what was going to be discussed at an event or at a minimum reiterate the hate speech policy.”

Cruz quickly came to Azerrad’s defense after the SBA posted the resolution publicly.

“These woke children expect indoctrination rather than actual education. Their hysterical declaration contains no facts,” Cruz wrote on X. “Here are the actual facts: The Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization. Egypt, Saudi Arabia & the UAE have all banned, designated, or imposed restrictions on the Muslim Brotherhood for terrorism.”

“Calling evidence ‘hate speech,’ trying to censor it, and trying to cancel opponents doesn’t change facts,” he added. “And on that note, my staff and I are not going to apologize for educating people about those facts. If Georgetown were doing its job — instead of sucking up Qatari money — it would be too.”

Delegates in support of the resolution claimed before the vote at SBA’s weekly meeting on Wednesday night, which was sparsely attended, that attendees had been “heckled, intimidated and made to feel unsafe” at CALSA’s event with Azerrad, according to a source who attended the meeting and the event. 

The source said that opponents of the resolution pushed back on accusations that attendees were harassed at the gathering and argued that those behind the resolution had not yet provided sufficient evidence that Azerrad had made any anti-Muslim statements during the CALSA event. They also offered to provide a transcript to their fellow SBA delegates to review before voting and attempted to force consideration on a motion to postpone a vote on the resolution until Thursday to establish a factual record, which was overwhelmingly rejected. 

Reached for comment, Georgetown Law SBA President Eyram Gbeddy told JI that the resolution was brought forward in response to three issues. 

“At the event, (1) claims were made that MSAs (Muslim Student Associations) were part of a larger terrorist scheme, (2) outright lies were told about a prominent American Muslim who has repeatedly disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood, and (3) a Muslim student who attended was mocked and ridiculed by those ideologically aligned with the speaker,” Gbeddy said. 

During her speech, Azerrad repeatedly accused Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed of having “very strong ties” to the Muslim Brotherhood and pushed back on El-Sayed’s assertions that he is not affiliated with the group.

Gbeddy told JI that the resolution was taken up at Wednesday’s meeting “due to timing concerns.” 

“The decision was made that a rapid resolution was better than delaying and leaving MLSA in limbo as to whether they had the support of the SBA in their time of need. Especially considering the evidence we had in the room, including a personal apology from a member of the organization that held the event in the first place,” he said. “I am still in close contact with the leadership of all student organizations implicated, and I am more than open to receiving a transcript of the event.”

Gbeddy emphasized that he was speaking to JI in his personal capacity, and that his comments were not made on behalf of Georgetown Law or SBA.

Arielle Vertsman, a fourth-year student at Georgetown Law and a SBA delegate who opposed the resolution, described the situation as “a clear example of speech and an individual being censored and punished merely because some students deemed it to be offensive” and expressed concern that future events could be jeopardized if students are allowed to use institutional bodies to malign invited speakers as Islamophobic or bigoted. 

“Free inquiry and open discourse should be the bedrock of any serious intellectual institution,” Vertsman told JI. “Yet Georgetown seems to be sending a very different message: that certain viewpoints are not merely unwelcome, but grounds for censorship, condemnation, and punishment.”

“It is a repudiation of the very values that a law school exists to teach and defend: intellectual freedom, procedural fairness, and the rule of law itself,” she continued. “An institution entrusted with educating future guardians of these principles should be their fiercest defender, not a participant in their erosion. It is profoundly disillusioning, and it forces me to question not only Georgetown’s commitment to these ideals, but what the institution truly stands for.”

In the days leading up to the event, a flyer was distributed on campus highlighting five of Azerrad’s posts and one repost on X from the last two years. 

The retweet was of a post stating that, “The entire history of Islam is violent colonization, slavery, sexual slavery and conquest.” Other tweets include one mocking what she described as “Third Worlders” walking out of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most recent address at the United Nations; another describing the Palestinian cause as a “death cult;” and a post from last September celebrating the anniversary of Israel’s 2024 pager operation against Hezbollah.

Ahead of Tuesday’s event, the Georgetown Muslim Law Students Association (MLSA) posted an open letter to social media on Monday evening stating that the group was “deeply saddened and concerned” by Georgetown University’s decision to allow CALSA to host Azerrad. 

The letter accused her of having “a well-documented record of false, bigoted, and harmful anti-Muslim rhetoric” and warned that “hosting such a speaker endangers Muslim students, undermines our belonging, and erodes our trust in the University.”

“It is shocking that the University would break the trust it has built with Muslim students by welcoming a speaker who labels Muslim Students Associations as terrorist organizations,” the letter stated. 

The group also claimed that “the institutional decision to endorse” Azerrad being hosted on campus “collapses the distinction between free speech and hate speech,” and called on university administrators to “adopt a more rigorous process for vetting the speakers it invites to campus. We also ask that the University reevaluate its policies on speech and expression to prevent harmful, hateful rhetoric toward minority groups at campus events.”

Georgetown Law did not respond to JI’s request for comment.

In May, a Jewish university leader withdrew as Georgetown Law’s commencement speaker in response to backlash from anti-Israel student activists, and was replaced with a professor who criticized congressional hearings on campus antisemitism as a form of “McCarthyism” aimed at chilling free speech. In February of last year, the Georgetown Law Students for Justice in Palestine planned to host a convicted member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, on campus, though the university ultimately postponed the event to “conduct a thorough investigation into serious safety and security concerns.”

Jewish groups are raising concerns about the American Studies Association’s annual meeting, which includes sessions titled “Zionism Is Racism: Introducing the Critical Zionism Studies Syllabus” and “Dezionizing the U.S. University,” as well as the inclusion of a speaker with a history of controversial remarks about terrorism.

The Anti-Defamation League and the Academic Engagement Network said the programming at the three-day conference, which started Thursday in Chicago, presents a one-sided ideological perspective on Zionism and risks making Jewish and Zionist scholars feel unwelcome. The groups also criticized the inclusion of Palestinian American scientist and author Mazin Qumsiyeh, who in a 2016 article praised Bahaa Alyan, the terrorist that participated in a 2015 Jerusalem bus attack that killed three people, listing him among “martyrs of freedom” and describing such figures as “heroes.” 

The ADL and AEN argued that the conference programming threatens academic freedom and inclusion, warning that Jewish and Zionist scholars could face marginalization in their own professional communities.

“Academic freedom protects the right to criticize nations, governments, political movements, and ideologies,” the groups said in a joint statement to Jewish Insider. “But it also requires an intellectual culture in which contested claims are subject to scrutiny, disagreement is welcomed, and scholars are not marginalized or maligned because of their identities or beliefs.”

“Professional academic associations shape disciplinary norms, mentor early career scholars, and facilitate professional relationships and collaborations. When an association treats particular political claims and arguments as settled truths and those who disagree as morally suspect, it risks chilling open inquiry and fostering professional ostracism and exclusion,” they continued.

The groups called on ASA leadership “to uphold its stated commitment to critical thinking and public dialogue by reviewing its conference programming and speaker selection practices, creating genuine opportunities for intellectual exchange across differing perspectives, and unequivocally affirming that Jewish and Zionist scholars belong within the association.”   

ASA, a scholarly organization with almost 5,000 members, is devoted to the interdisciplinary study of U.S. history and culture and publishes the journal American Quarterly in addition to hosting an annual conference that draws thousands of academics, researchers and educators.

It has previously taken public positions on Israel-related issues, including in 2013, when its membership voted to endorse an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions, a decision that drew criticism from Jewish organizations and academics, including the American Association of University Professors. 

Nancy Koppelman, a faculty member at the Evergreen State College in Washington state, joined ASA in the early 1990s while a graduate school student. She dropped out following the 2013 vote. 

“What really strikes me is how much worse things are now than they were in 2013,” Koppelman, who serves as a faculty consultant for the AEN, told JI. “Back then, I got a panel together to react to the boycott. There were a fair amount of mixed reactions to our panel, but we had a lot of supporters back then. We said at the time [the vote] was going to make things worse. We were absolutely right, it has made things worse.”

“It’s not just a matter of boycotting institutions. It’s boycotting learning anything about Israel, boycotting learning anything about the Jewish people that has to do with Israel,” said Koppelman. “There’s a denial of the reality of the country, which is tremendously damaging to university life.”    

In an April 2026 statement, the ASA rejected the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, arguing that it conflates criticism of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism and suppresses pro-Palestinian activism and scholarship. 

The association also criticized the University of California, Berkeley’s decision to consider the IHRA definition — which is widely embraced by mainstream Jewish groups — when investigating discrimination complaints involving Jewish or Israeli individuals, describing it as part of a broader effort to silence dissent critical of Israel. The ASA said it opposes antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism but rejects what it called the “weaponization” of antisemitism claims to restrict scholarship and activism critical of Israel and Zionism. 

The ASA did not respond to a request for comment from JI about the conference programming. 

The conference comes as antisemitic and anti-Israel campaigns are on the rise within several U.S.-based professional academic associations, including the Association of American Geographers and the American Psychological Association.

In a meeting at the Vatican with American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch and other AJC leaders from around the country on Thursday, Pope Leo XIV pledged to combat antisemitism.

“Rooted in our shared spiritual heritage, this friendship also calls us to defend human dignity, to serve the poor, to protect religious freedom and to promote justice and peace,” the pope told the Jewish leaders. “Essential to this commitment is the rejection of all forms of religious and ethnic hatred and discrimination.”

Speaking to Jewish Insider after the meeting, AJC leaders emphasized the significance of the meeting and of the pope’s commitment to rejecting antisemitism, given both the massive influence that the pope and the Catholic Church hold around the world and the Church’s own history of fomenting antisemitism.

Leo reaffirmed his commitment to the 1965 Nostra Aetate declaration, in which then-Pope Paul VI rejected antisemitism and the charge of deicide against Jews and highlighted the shared spiritual heritage between Jews and Catholics.

“Differences of opinion, however profound, must never give rise to prejudice and hostility, which undermine the moral foundations of our society,” Leo said.

Deutch told JI that the meeting was “very powerful because of what the Pope said to us about his commitment, the Church’s commitment to fighting antisemitism and ongoing commitment to engage in the dialogue that we participate in throughout the year.”

“There was a genuine connection as he spoke about the Church’s longstanding engagement with AJC and the importance of maintaining the strong relationship, and the importance of approaching these challenging issues with mutual respect,” Deutch continued.

Rabbi Noam Marans, the director of interreligious affairs for AJC, emphasized that Leo’s reaffirmation of Nostra Aetate is a declaration that “the millennia of demonizing Jews and Judaism was not in the spirit of the original Christian teaching.”

Given the pope’s and the Catholic Church’s influence with 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide as well as those of other religions who listen to and respect him, Marans added that “it’s impossible to overstate [their] power … to make a significant contribution in confronting antisemitism.”

The AJC and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have collaborated on a project that aims to teach about antisemitism and antisemitic sentiments through a specifically Catholic lens, and are launching an updated version of the project next month, according to Marans.

“We learned that the church is reaching out across the world to its leadership, to encourage them to prioritize the confronting of antisemitism and the development of Jewish friendships,” Marans said. “These are laudable, and we need more because of our belief that antisemitism is not a Jewish problem; it is a societal problem. The Catholic Church and its history has a particular responsibility. We’re grateful for what they’ve done, and we hopefully will do even more.”

Deutch said that AJC intends to continue conversations with the Church to ensure that its commitment to combating antisemitism “extends to all of the forces confronting the Jewish community today all around the world, and the different ways they manifest themselves,” and called the meeting with the pope “an opportunity” to deepen that work.

Deutch said that Pope Leo’s decision to meet with the group so soon after undergoing surgery for lung cancer is an “important statement” and a “powerful reminder of why dialogue matters” which created opportunities for “deeper engagement with the Catholic Church at a time when it’s never been more important.”

Though AJC and Marans have met with Pope Leo and other senior Catholic leaders, this was the first major AJC delegation to meet with the pope since he assumed his position last year.

The group presented Pope Leo with an artwork created in Jerusalem featuring an excerpt from the Nostra Aetate declaration in both the original Latin and in Hebrew. The piece is inspired by an Italian ketubah from 1822.

AJC leaders also had an opportunity to address the pope one-on-one to thank him for his comments and wish him well in his recovery. Deutch said that, based on what he’s read about Pope Leo’s surgery, the pope seemed remarkably healthy.

“He was engaged and personable, and warm, and seemed genuinely thrilled to be able to participate in the meeting with us,” Deutch said.

Marans said that Pope Leo “chose not to focus” on issues related to Israel and the war in Gaza while speaking with AJC, which proved to be a point of friction between his predecessor, Pope Francis, and the Jewish community and Israel.

Marans said he believes that Pope Leo has undertaken a “seemingly deliberate effort … to ease the tension” and shift away from Francis’ intense focus on the war in Gaza, at least in terms of the rhetoric that he and other Church officials use.

He said that Pope Leo has “focused on addressing the challenges and differences of opinion in the spirit of the 60-year dialogue” and using “careful language when talking about sensitive topics,” which Marans said has been helpful for Catholic-Jewish relations, “even when he has spoken about difficult issues regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The group also met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the functional head of government for the Holy See. During the meeting, Marans said that Parolin also delivered an “unequivocal commitment by the Church to combat antisemitism,” and also directly addressed the subject of Israel head-on, linking the Church’s diplomatic relationship with Israel directly to its commitment to fighting antisemitism.

“At a moment when we constantly face leaders in politics who attempt to distinguish between their so-called commitment to fighting antisemitism and their obvious disdain for the state of Israel, this was one of the leaders of the Vatican, specifically linking the commitment, the Church’s commitment to fighting antisemitism, with its [agreement establishing relations with Israel],” Deutch said. “It’s a very, very powerful statement.”

Marans said AJC has worked hard to convey to the Church the “indispensability of identification with the state of Israel and Zionism to modern Jewry.”

While in Rome, the AJC group also met with Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome, and will meet with other Vatican leaders, leaders of the Jewish community and Italian government officials, which Deutch said are critical at a time when antisemitic and anti-Zionist content has cropped up in sometimes-violent protests in Italy and throughout Europe.

Deutch said that AJC will communicate to Italian leaders the way that demonization of Israel, including accusations of genocide, have fomented rising antisemitism and highlight the need to continue to stand with Israel against those seeking to deny its right to exist.

Marans said that the group heard from Di Segni that the Jewish community in Italy is “deeply concerned” and “feel[s] threatened, particularly by the bleeding from the anti-Israel rallies into antisemitic tropes.”

Deutch said that the message from Italian Jewish community members has matched what AJC has been hearing across Europe, that the protests and riots have had a “dramatic” impact in the Jewish community and left it “very much on edge.”

He said he was particularly struck by seeing young Jewish students running from the school to their parents’ cars at the end of the day at a Jewish school in Rome — something they’ve been trained to do for decades since a 1982 terrorist attack on a synagogue in Rome. The school has also removed a Jewish insignia from students’ shirts out of concern about violent antisemitic attacks.

“This is not a world that we should have to live in, and that conversation that we had, and watching the young kids run, and older kids in their plain shirts, is something that I think is going to guide us in the work we do for some time to come,” Deutch said.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), a co-chair of the House antisemitism task force, blasted independent Nebraska Senate nominee Dan Osborn over a new ad targeting Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) for receiving support from AIPAC.

The ad, shared by the Osborn campaign on social media, features a narrator saying: “When it comes to war, Pete Ricketts knows whose side he’s on: AIPAC and defense contractors,” highlighting AIPAC donors’ support for Ricketts’s campaign.

At one point, the ad features an image of a grinning Ricketts in front of a building labeled “Hospital for Orphans & Puppies” being blown up by a bomb.

Bacon described the ad as antisemitic.

“I reject the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel messaging. [Nebraska] is better than this,” he said.

Osborn is running with the support of Democrats, and polling has shown a tightening race between him and Ricketts.

The retiring GOP Nebraska congressman has been vocal in calling out voices targeting Jewish donors for their political involvement.

Manhattan’s Waldorf Astoria was basking in blue light on Wednesday night as more than 800 guests gathered for the inaugural benefit gala of Robert Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance Against Hate. The sold-out event raised more than $32 million to combat antisemitism and discrimination, according to the organizers. 

The haul marks the largest amount the group has raised in a single night. With opening remarks by CNN commentator Van Jones, the program honored Bank of America Chair and CEO Brian Moynihan for his support of the organization’s work, and featured a video message from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a member of Blue Square’s advisory board, who shared her personal experiences confronting racism and hate. 

Kraft, the New England Patriots owner who founded the organization, took the stage alongside former Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop emeritus of New York. The trio reflected the group’s effort to enlist figures from sports, religion and business in the fight against antisemitism and hate of all kinds.

Hate “starts with antisemitism, but it doesn’t end there,” Kraft told attendees. “I believe that silence is hate’s greatest ally,” he said. “Silence allows hate to grow unchecked, at devastating speed. That is the premise on which the Blue Square Alliance was founded … I knew if we could find a way to reach people beyond the Jewish community, to educate them, inspire them and give them a simple way to stand with us, we could change the conversation around all hate.” 

An eclectic crowd filled the ballroom, where household names sat beside prominent figures from New York’s Jewish community. Spotted in the crowd were singer-songwriter Jon Bon Jovi; Disturbed frontman David Draiman; CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Bianna Golodryga; New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch; Speaker of the New York City Council Julie Menin; former CEO of UJA-Federation of New York Eric Goldstein; ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt; Yeshiva University President Ari Berman; Columbia University Hillel Executive Director Brian Cohen and Rabbi Berel Gurevitch, who leads Chabad West Village.

For all the differences in the room, from celebrities to rabbis to Wall Street executives, nearly everyone shared one accessory: the small blue square that is the organization’s symbol, pinned on lapels and gowns alike. The blue square pin has become a visible symbol of the group’s message, worn by supporters across religious and cultural lines. A video shown during the evening highlighted its reach beyond the Jewish community, including an Oklahoma City pastor who said he ordered 3,000 pins for his congregation.

Kraft founded the organization in 2019 as the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, launching the blue square campaign in 2023, looking to turn the blue square emoji into the symbol for Jewish solidarity and opposition to hatred against Jewish people. In October 2025, the group rebranded as the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, reflecting its effort to build a broader coalition of allies while continuing to focus on antisemitism. The expanded push came amid a sharp rise in antisemitism in America following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. The ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents nationwide in 2024, its highest annual total in the 46 years it has tracked such incidents.

The gala also revisited the campaign that made the organization a familiar name beyond Jewish communal circles: its Super Bowl commercials.

Clips from the 30-second spots played at the event, as attendees chatted about the ads’ power to bring the fight against antisemitism to one of the country’s biggest cultural stages. The organization is perhaps best known for the high-profile commercials, which have also at times drawn scrutiny. Its first Super Bowl spot, in 2024, featured a former speechwriter for Martin Luther King Jr. urging viewers to stand up to antisemitism.

A 2025 commercial starring Brady and Snoop Dogg broadened the message to standing up to hate of all kinds, while this year’s “Sticky Note” spot depicted a Jewish student bullied at school and a Black classmate who covers an antisemitic slur on his backpack with a blue square.

Syria’s national school curriculum under President Ahmed al-Sharaa promotes antisemitic depictions of Jews, denies Israel’s right to exist and glorifies violent struggle against the Jewish state, despite the Syrian leader positioning himself as a pragmatic statesman with no hostility toward Jerusalem, according to a new review of the country’s textbooks following the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The study, titled: “The New Syria: Education Under al-Sharaa Review of Syria’s National School Curriculum, 2025-2026,” published by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), evaluated 130 textbooks across grades 1-12 in Syria’s 2025-2026 national curriculum. It marks the first full analysis of instructional materials issued under President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s administration following Assad’s ouster in December 2024.

Researchers Matan Perchikov, Itam Shalev and Dr. Yonatan Negev compared the post-overthrow materials with their Assad-era predecessors. They concluded that while the new government has replaced Ba’athist-era secular nationalism with Sunni Islamist ideology, longstanding hostility toward Israel and Jews remains deeply entrenched.

“The post-Assad era presents Syria with a rare opportunity to create an education system based on inclusion and tolerance,” said Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se. “Instead, these textbooks show a very concerning shift from one damaging ideological framework to another … This report should raise serious concerns among international leaders who hope to see Syria emerge as a partner in building a peaceful Middle East.”

The findings come as al-Sharaa, a former commander in al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate who later led Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has sought to build diplomatic ties with Western and regional powers to secure international aid and sanction relief. His government has also repeatedly insisted that it seeks to make peace with Israel, claiming Jerusalem has been obstinate in negotiations.

The report concludes that the persistent indoctrination against Israel and Jews in Syrian classrooms starkly contrasts with al-Sharaa’s public rhetoric of political pragmatism, presenting a key test for international diplomats engaging the post-Assad government.

According to the report, Israel’s legitimacy is rejected outright across all grade levels in Syrian textbooks. Maps omit the State of Israel, labeling the entire territory as “Palestine” or “Occupied Palestine,” while text lessons refer to Israel as the “enemy,” “thieving,” “filth” and a “terrorist entity.”

In a sixth-grade social studies textbook, Israel is described as the “thieving Zionist Entity” and students are asked to analyze why the “terrorist entity” lacks the core characteristics of a legitimate state.

A 12th-grade history textbook challenges Jewish national identity, characterizing Jews as a “hodgepodge of peoples” rather than a single nation. “The Zionists lack most features of nationhood: they do not belong to shared roots, nor speak a single language, nor belong to one geographical environment or one history,” the textbook asserts, according to the report.

In Islamic education and social studies units, anti-Jewish stereotyping extends to early Islamic history, depicting “treachery, backstabbing, disloyalty and hostility as inherent and enduring characteristics of Jews.”

Furthermore, the curriculum systematically replaces the standard Arabic name for Jerusalem (al-Quds) with the Islamic term Bayt al-Maqdis.

According to the study, anti-Israel sentiment was also a cornerstone of education under the Assad regime, pointing to previous reports that identified a “denial of Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish nation-state” in Assad-era textbooks. The 2026 study reveals that under al-Sharaa’s government, the curriculum not only retained its hostility toward Israel, but also expanded beyond the Assad-era into explicit religious antisemitism, with certain lessons from the Assad-era “carried over unchanged.”

Palestinian violence against Israel — including suicide bombings — is also explicitly justified or glorified. A ninth-grade history textbook describes Second Intifada suicide bombings as “martyrdom operations” that embarrassed Israel and forced its complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

A fifth-grade Arabic textbook includes a poem dedicated to Dalal al-Mughrabi, a Palestinian terrorist who led the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre that killed 38 Israeli civilians, including 12 children. The text idolizes al-Mughrabi as a “sword,” a “flame” and the “voice of a raging earthquake” who “raised the banner of liberation.”

High school history textbooks similarly celebrate Izz al-Din al-Qassam — a Syrian-born Muslim preacher who led armed revolts and became the namesake of Hamas’ military wing — describing him as “one of the first martyrs of the revolt.”

Armed struggle is generally lauded: A 12th-grade Islamic education textbook defines jihad as an individual religious obligation whenever Muslim lands or holy sites are threatened, explicitly categorizing Palestinian and Syrian military struggles over Israeli-controlled territory as acts of religious jihad.

The broader ideological changes also extend to Syria’s treatment of religious minorities. The report found that lessons emphasizing religious tolerance and equality had been removed or revised, while Sunni Muslim identity was increasingly presented as central to Syrian national identity. Christians remain acknowledged in the curriculum, but other communities, including Druze and Kurds, receive little recognition, according to the researchers.

The report also identified changes in Syria’s portrayal of regional powers. Iran and Hezbollah, both allies of the former Assad regime, are now depicted negatively, while Turkey and the Ottoman Empire receive more favorable treatment.

A House Education & Workforce Committee investigation of K-12 schools found widespread issues with antisemitism and anti-Israel advocacy in school curricula in the Philadelphia and Berkeley school districts. It also found that the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, had funded purveyors of antisemitism.

The committee report described the issues in the two school districts as not isolated classroom incidents but systemic patterns of behavior pushing biased definitions of Israel and relying on antisemitic activists and organizations for educational materials.

“The Committee’s investigation reveals a troubling pattern in American public education. In school districts on opposite sides of the country, as well as within the nation’s largest teachers’ union, the Committee uncovered evidence that political activism has increasingly displaced educational neutrality and contributed to an environment in which antisemitism is minimized, excused, and even permitted to flourish,” the report concluded.

“Parents send their children to school to learn reading, writing, and math — not to be taught to hate Israel or embrace radical political causes. Yet that’s exactly the kind of material our investigation uncovered,” the committee’s chairman, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), said in a statement. “Jewish students deserve to feel safe in their classrooms, and parents deserve to know what their children are being taught. Schools that receive taxpayer dollars must be held accountable when they fail to protect students from antisemitism.”

The committee is also continuing an investigation of Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia.

The committee found that the NEA provided funding for Rethinking Schools and the Zinn Education Project, which the report describes as “a leading purveyor of antisemitic resources in K-12 schools” which rationalized Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, provided resources demonizing Israel and guidance for teachers to rebut “false accusations of antisemitism” and criticized the Anti-Defamation League.

It also accused the NEA of addressing antisemitism only in the context of white nationalism.

The investigation condemned Berkeley’s work with the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, which the report said “resulted in lessons littered with antisemitic resources along with the activist ideology that fuels contemporary antisemitism,” including materials that erased Israel from maps, praised antisemitic and anti-Israel figures and referenced resources produced by individuals who support terrorism.

The report also found that the Liberated Ethnic Studies curriculum also offered the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel as an example of “embodied solidarity,” as part of a unit on solidarity and social movements.

The committee found that the district’s “Israel/Palestine” lesson plan overlooked terrorism against Israel while criticizing Israeli military operations in Gaza and defended chants calling for the destruction of Israel.

The committee also highlighted that Berkeley school district employees worked with — and at least one teacher and student group raised money for — the Middle East Children’s Alliance, which is allegedly tied to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. 

In an Arab American Heritage Month teaching guide, the district promoted a children’s book that praises and defends “intifada” and featured a group that, according to the American Jewish Committee, “makes bizarre and radical claims about antisemitism,” including criticizing Jews for seeking law enforcement protection in response to violent hate crimes.

Based on internal communications, the committee found that employees circulated pro-Hamas teaching resources; criticized those supporting Israel after Oct. 7; rejected the idea that Jews are indigenous to Israel or that the State of Israel is a necessary refuge for Jews; and otherwise disseminated anti-Israel and antisemitic resources and narratives.

The investigation found that the School District of Philadelphia utilized history curricula and teaching guides that lionized or whitewashed anti-Israel and antisemitic groups and figures including Edward Said, the Nation of Islam and CodePink, as well as utilized materials from at least one antisemitic source that praised “jihad.”

The investigation also found that Philadelphia teachers and staff, including those involved in drafting school curricula, had spread antisemitism online, including the director of the district’s social studies curriculum, Ismael Jimenez.

The report states that Jimenez “rationalized violence against Jews” and hosted a professional development series featuring an anti-Israel activist. Another teacher involved in writing curricula said online that “all resistance is righteous.” The review also found that district curriculum specialists circulated biased anti-Israel materials internally following the Oct. 7 attacks.

The district also relied on materials from a group of district employees which had declared that [a]ll resistance is righteous.”

The district told the committee that it is making changes to how it writes curricula, including terminating Jimenez, standardizing its curriculum based on the guidance of national experts and conducting a “comprehensive review” of the curriculum. But the committee said that other employees involved in spreading antisemitism have not been “adequately disciplined.”

The district is also conducting a review of antisemitism complaints, including social media posts by faculty and staff, over the past two years.

In a transcribed interview with the committee, the Philadelphia superintendent, Tony Watlington, said it is inappropriate to describe Israel’s founding as racist and “problematic” to compare Israel to the Nazi regime, but that he was not sure if either sentiment was antisemitic. He also said he did not understand what it meant to apply double standards to Israel.

But he said that an internal review had found that there had been a hostile environment for Jewish students in the district in some cases in 2022 and 2023.

The report also criticized the district for its work with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Watlington said he was not aware of CAIR’s antisemitic or anti-Israel activity or its alleged connections to terrorism but found the group “to be authentically interested in the well-being and support of our students and interested in helping the School District of Philadelphia to become the fastest-improving large urban school district in the country.”

And, while describing posts by teachers supporting terrorism and condemning Zionists as disturbing and unacceptable, he said that he does not have the authority to determine whether they violate district policy.

In a statement, the School District of Philadelphia said that antisemitism “has no place in our schools” and that it takes concerns about antisemitism “very seriously.” But it characterized the report as a partisan hit-job.

“The School District of Philadelphia has cooperated extensively with the Committee’s inquiry, and objects to the blatantly partisan framing of the District, days before Election Day,” District spokesperson Monique Braxton said in a statement. “The report distorts and mischaracterizes our record. In fact, the District has taken serious steps to combat all forms of hate in our schools, including a new record management system, revised policies, mandatory annual training for staff, and appropriate disciplinary actions. We remain committed to fostering a safe and welcoming environment for our students and staff.”

Board of Education President Reginald Streater said in a statement that the board also does not agree with the committee’s findings and offered support for Watlington.

Amy Spitalnick, the CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which has worked with the NEA to address antisemitism, criticized the committee’s conclusions. 

“As the Jewish organization that has partnered directly with NEA on extensive antisemitism programming over the past year, a number of the report’s claims are news to us and the thousands of educators who have been part of our programs — programs that explicitly address antisemitism in all of its forms, including as it relates to Israel,” Spitalnick said. “A report that intentionally misrepresents or ignores the work done to date only serves a political agenda rather than advancing the interests of Jewish students and educators.”

She also acknowledged that “there are real challenges as it relates to countering antisemitism and advancing Jewish inclusion in our schools and unions, and so much more work ahead.”

“That requires action by the unions and by school districts — and it also requires the federal government to restore the very programs it’s gutted that should be protecting our students, such as Title VI and the Office of Civil Rights,” she said.

But other Jewish leaders took the committee’s findings as a damning indictment of the schools’ leadership. 

“The Committee’s findings expose a stunning failure of oversight in Philadelphia’s public schools. Students were assigned materials that excused political violence and portrayed Israel and the United States as terrorists. The district’s decision to overhaul how social studies curricula are developed is an important acknowledgment of the problem,” David Bernstein, CEO of the North American Values Institute, told Jewish Insider. “But the damage has been done. The real test will be whether it will hold those responsible accountable and ensure that students receive accurate, balanced instruction.”

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed made his case to Jewish voters in a new mailer this week in which he pledged to combat antisemitism — but Jewish Democrats skeptical of El-Sayed said the letter only reinforced their concerns that he’s not prepared to acknowledge or address contemporary drivers and manifestations of antisemitism.

In the letter mailed to Jewish voters this week, El-Sayed said he knows “what it’s like to be discriminated against because of what I believe” and said that he wants to “protect the kind of America where everyone can pray how they choose to pray.”

“I care deeply about the threat of antisemitism to our communities, and I am committed to protecting all Michigan Jews against hatred and injustice,” El-Sayed continued. “As your senator, I will always stand up against antisemitism and take the threat of violence against our Jewish community incredibly seriously. Antisemitism is a scourge, and we need to address it in all its forms. It has no place in our communities. Ever. Full stop.”

The letter, paid for by the Michigan Democratic State Central Committee, is the latest part of the El-Sayed campaign’s efforts to win over skeptical members of the Jewish community, with prominent community leaders saying they plan to support his opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), or sit out the race.

But some voters skeptical of El-Sayed’s campaign said the letter isn’t helping his case and that his focus on freedom of prayer and belief misunderstands the nature of the antisemitic threat that the community faces.

“What I have always said and what I will continue to say is that his continued emphasis on describing antisemitism solely as a religious bigotry leaves him ill-equipped to protect Jews should he be elected to office,” Democratic state Rep. Noah Arbit, who opposes El-Sayed, told Jewish Insider. “The attack on Temple Israel wasn’t motivated because the terrorist didn’t like how we pray. He attacked us because we are a proudly Zionist congregation.”

El-Sayed continues to face criticism for his response to the Hezbollah-inspired attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich., earlier this year, of which he said, “hurt people hurt people.” El-Sayed has since apologized for those remarks, and has been working since the primary election to win over skeptical Jewish voters.

Arbit said that El-Sayed “can’t bring himself to speak to the violent antisemitism that stems from blind, burning hatred of Israel” and questioned how he’ll respond if Jews face similar attacks going forward.

“When Jews in Michigan are targeted with violence because of our connections and our commitments to Israel, will Abdul El-Sayed stand with us?” Arbit said. “Or will he — as so many of his friends on the extreme, far left have done — deflect, excuse and blame us or blame the Israeli government for the fact that radicalized people have taken their anger about a foreign conflict out on Michiganders?”

Joan Lowenstein, a member of the Michigan Democratic Party Central Committee and president of the Jewish Federation of Ann Arbor, offered a similar view. Lowenstein is a leading member of the Nonnegotiable campaign, which is pressing El-Sayed and other Democrats to agree to a series of commitments to protecting Jewish safety and acknowledging Israel’s right to exist.

“It makes it seem as though all the Jews really care about is prayer, the only thing that differentiates us is that we pray differently, as though antisemitism is about prayer. It’s just so tone deaf,” Lowenstein said, adding that El-Sayed seems to be trying to separate Jewish voters from Israel.

She called the letter “more lip service,” not a meaningful commitment like those sought by the Nonnegotiable effort — and particularly hollow coming amid escalating anti-Israel rhetoric by El-Sayed, who this week said that Israel is not a friend or ally of the United States.

She said that El-Sayed’s repeated accusations that Israel dragged the U.S. into the Iran war and has caused nothing but trouble for the United States only play into antisemitic tropes.

“El-Sayed seems to be moving even farther away from understanding the issue of what we would have hoped to hear to reassure us, and instead is really just saying, you’re going to have to take me or leave me because all my votes are going to be against Israel,” she said.

Rabbi Aaron Starr of Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Mich., a leader of the Nonnegotiable campaign, speaking in his personal capacity, also said that the letter highlights the disconnect between El-Sayed and the Jewish community and fails to address real-world manifestations of antisemitism.

“This letter demonstrates that Dr. El-Sayed is just not hearing the requests of Jewish Michiganders. It’s been six weeks since Nonnegotiable Michigan launched with clear and consistent communication,” Starr said. “I certainly share in his hope that America can be a place ‘where everyone can pray how they choose to pray,’ and I stand up for the right of everyone to pray or not to pray how they want. 21^st-century antisemitism, though, manifests not in discrimination against how we pray, but in our ability to pray safely, to gather safely, to express our connection to the land, people, and state of Israel safely.”

He said that achieving safety for the Jewish community requires not just security funding — noting that the community spends $1 billion annually nationwide on securing its institutions — but also “rhetoric and policy that recognize how antisemitism takes hold and spreads.”

He went on to call out El-Sayed’s own rhetoric, including calling Israel “bloodthirsty” and attributing U.S. support for Israel to financial inducements.

“Just this week, he told a national audience that Israel takes American money to push our country into wars, and he equates Israel with Iran,” Starr said. “When he and others engage in such language, Jews across America feel the consequences on college campuses, at hospitals, in grocery stores, in parades, at our preschools, and in our sanctuaries.”

This week, Illinois Democratic House candidate Daniel Biss, who beat out an AIPAC-backed challenger as well as a far-left anti-Israel activist, visited the Wolverine State to speak to a group of Jewish voters in connection with Michigan Jews for Democracy, a group supporting but not formally affiliated with El-Sayed’s campaign.

“With antisemitism rising, Abdul has shown a real commitment to Jewish safety. He’s the right choice for our community and our country,” Biss said on X. Other speakers the group has brought to the state include Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) and House candidate Brad Lander.

A Jewish high school student in a Washington, D.C., suburb faced a campaign of antisemitic harassment at school, culminating in an anonymous phone call threatening to bomb him followed by fireworks set off outside his home, according to a new federal civil rights complaint accusing Montgomery County Public Schools of failing to protect him from antisemitic harassment.

The Title VI complaint, filed on Monday by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleges that the threats and subsequent harassment left the student afraid for his physical safety, causing him to miss class. It asks the federal agency to investigate the district and require reforms, including staff training, revised procedures for handling antisemitism complaints and the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in district policies and training.

According to the complaint, the student faced repeated antisemitic harassment at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md., including being accused of supporting genocide for wearing an Israeli baseball shirt, targeted with demands that classmates shun him as a “Zionist” and told by other students to “go back to 1935.” 

The complaint says that the student received an anonymous phone call saying, “You’re a stupid f**king Zionist Jew, and we are going to bomb you,” followed by fireworks being set off outside his home. His family, faculty members and school staff repeatedly alerted MCPS to the harassment, the complaint alleges. Before transferring to Blair, the student had left Northwood High School after teammates allegedly threw coins at him and told him to “pick it up, Jew,” other students made Hitler salutes and an online message called him a “Jewish freak” and told him to kill himself.

“School administrators have no justification for failing to respond effectively to antisemitic harassment under their watch. An explicit anti-Jewish bomb threat should leave no doubt about the seriousness of the danger or the urgent need for an effective response from school leadership,” said Kenneth Marcus, chairman of the Brandeis Center, said in a statement. 

Last month, more than 40 rabbis and cantors in the county warned in a letter that public school leaders have failed to address a rising tide of antisemitism in local classrooms, urging officials to implement new teacher training and stricter social media rules. 

Incidents in recent months, according to the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, include inflammatory anti-Israel messaging at Olney Elementary School’s cultural night; “Heil Hitler” gestures and speech occurring at middle school events; and “physical threats and harassment directed toward Jewish students at multiple schools.” Montgomery County’s public school system is the largest school district in the state and about 10% of the county’s total population is Jewish. 

Thomas Taylor, the superintendent of MCPS, acknowledged that the district needs to do more to combat antisemitism following the letter from Jewish clergy. MCPS told Jewish Insider it was aware of the new complaint but declined to comment. 

Guila Franklin Siegel, chief operating officer of the JCRC, which is not a party to the complaint but has worked with the affected child, said in a statement that the legal action “speaks to the devastating and long-term consequences of antisemitism on children and families — and the considerable work that remains for MCPS to properly address it.” 

“Whatever the outcome of this particular matter, the JCRC will continue to urge MCPS to take immediate and proactive steps, including better teacher and staff training, additional Holocaust and Jewish peer education programs, and stronger enforcement of social media guidelines to ensure that every Jewish child feels safe and protected at school.” 

The complaint also comes as the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a separate racial discrimination case against MCPS made by Asian American families.

American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) will hold 250 menorah lightings in all 50 states during Chanukah this year as part of a new initiative aimed at countering the “real darkness” of rising antisemitism and highlighting the Jewish community’s deep roots in American history shortly after the 250th birthday of the United States. 

“Even in times when we see real darkness, we should do what Jews ultimately need to do, which is to counter it with light,” Rabbi Levi Shemtov, Chabad’s executive vice president, told Jewish Insider in an interview on Sunday. “An increased light dispels darkness more than any other method is what we have seen.”

Chanukah 250 will take place over all eight nights of Chanukah, Dec. 4 through Dec. 12, and is expected to feature appearances from leading Republican and Democratic political leaders. Shemtov said Chabad will finance the events, many of which are still being organized, and that the organization is also in talks with “with some significant organizational and philanthropic partners, who are showing real interest given the historic opportunities here.”

“We’re aiming to have 250 events in all 50 states, which will receive support including funding ranging in amounts and scope from security costs to logistics and organizational support,” Shemtov told JI. “I’d like to see as many governors, mayors and dignitaries as we can get to join.”

As part of the initiative, Shemtov said that organizers “intend to do a large-scale campaign to reach people everywhere from private homes to community centers to the public square. If we can reach a million points of light, which I think is doable if everybody works together, that would be something historic which people will remember.”

“I think that the message will be clear, relevant and hopefully very uplifting to Jews across America, so that they will now recall and hopefully reinforce within themselves this idea that America affords us unprecedented and unparalleled liberties as Jews,” Shemtov said. “Even though it has come with some very significant challenges in recent years, the perpetrators of hate today need to know that while they follow their predecessors in history, we intend to follow ours as well. With resilience and hope and faith, we will prevail over them once again.”

Shemtov argued that the Chanukah initiative was unique to other efforts to combat antisemitism because it served as a means to bring the Jewish community together through a common tradition and provided an opportunity to mark the centuries-long history of Jews in America. 

“We need to refresh the narrative, to remember that the story of Jews in America is not one of turn of the century or post-World War II refugees,” Shemtov said. “We were here at the very beginning, and Jewishly identified at that time. The founders of the United States not only had many Jewish values inculcated into the establishment of our nation, but also made accommodations and expressions early on to enable proud Jewish life and clear Jewish identity within a fully American life, and that’s a story that’s not being told enough.”

“As we celebrate the semi-quincentennial of the United States, we should also be amplifying the Jewish role in the establishment and defense of the United States, going back literally to when it was founded,” he continued. “Jews have supported, fought for, even died for America since its establishment. I think that this year’s Chanukah celebration is a very good opportunity for us to focus on and appreciate that in prominent celebrations across the country.”

Three Jewish politicos from New York’s Capital Region — all women, and all Democrats — have launched a new state-level committee dedicated to supporting candidates with liberal social views who also push back on anti-Jewish and anti-Israel forces.

Aleinu-NY PAC, named for the Jewish prayer that translates to “on us,” registered with the New York Board of Elections in late September and officially launched its website last week. It describes itself as “a new nonpartisan political action committee in NYS established to support candidates who stand up against Antisemitism and the scourge in violence against the Jewish community throughout New York.”

Behind the PAC’s inception is veteran Albany lobbyist and consultant Libby Post, along with Albany Common Councilmember Deborah Zamer and Schenectady County Legislator Michelle Ostrelich. A longtime advocate for gay rights and animal welfare, Post told Jewish Insider that the left-wing reaction to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, and the subsequent rise of antisemitic incidents, have placed Judaism at the center of her identity and political concerns for the first time.

“People celebrating Oct. 7 — it’s absolutely disgusting — and not recognizing the fear that has gone through the Jewish community because of the antisemitic, anti-Zionist rhetoric, that’s just turning into violence,” she said in an interview. “I used to say that I was a lesbian who happened to be Jewish. Now I say I’m a Jew who happens to be a lesbian.”

Post said the PAC would consider endorsing candidates “regardless of where they’re running or what party.” But she added that the group would not depart from the values that had defined so much of her political career, and highlighted a section of the website that invokes the halakhic principle of Kavod HaBriyot, often interpreted as universal human dignity. 

“We want to help elect candidates who demonstrate their opposition to antisemitism and violence against the community, but we also will be looking at their stands on choice [on abortion] and LGBT rights because that has to do with hate,” she said. “We’re not going to support a candidate who might be great on half what we want them to be great on, but they’re Islamophobic, or they’re anti-choice, or they’re homophobic.”

Post said the PAC had not yet determined how it would define these standards in a candidate questionnaire, and acknowledged that it might rule out support for many Republican candidates or even for conservative Democrats representing the state’s large Orthodox communities. 

However, on the question of Israel’s right to exist, the PAC’s standard is already in place and unequivocal. 

“Anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Jewish hatred, just like antisemitism. Full stop,” the FAQ section of the webpage states. “Anti-Zionism is a hate movement that uses the lies of ‘genocide,’ ‘apartheid,’ and ‘colonizer’ to incite hostility and violence against the Jewish community.”

Nonetheless, the committee will focus not on foreign policy, but exclusively on domestic rhetoric and the problem of bias attacks. 

Post said the PAC had collected $5,000 from around a dozen donors in just one week. But it will not begin interviewing candidates or making endorsements until local elections next year, and will likely hold its first in-person fundraiser in her office near the state Capitol building after the legislature reconvenes in January.

Post said that the “antisemitic spewing from all corners” and the “silence from the left” on Hamas’ sexual assaults during the Oct. 7 attacks had made the PAC’s creation feel necessary.

“I’ve had it. It’s the only way I can explain this,” Post said. “I’m glad my parents aren’t alive to see any of this, because my father fought in [WWII], and we, like so many others, lost family in the Holocaust.”

Major Jewish organizations called on an Italian early childhood education center to issue a public apology for what they described as antisemitism directed at Jewish educators whose planned professional development trip to the city of Reggio Emilia was canceled after the center asked them to certify that they condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“There is no circumstance in which educators at Jewish institutions should be singled out for their personal views, social media or online profiles in an effort to identify connections to a country of deep religious, cultural, historic, and personal significance to Jewish people worldwide,” the Jewish Federations of North America, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and Prizmah said in a joint statement on Monday. 

The controversy unfolded earlier this month as more than 70 educators from Jewish schools canceled a planned visit to Reggio Emilia, Italy, after being asked to sign a statement declaring, “I distance myself from the occupation of Gaza and the violation of children’s and human beings’ rights in the occupied territories as well as in every places [sic] in the world,” according to a screenshot obtained by Jewish Insider. 

The educators — members of the U.S.-based Paradigm Project — were scheduled to travel from Oct. 11–16. Their goal was to study the Reggio Emilia Approach to early childhood education, a method long embraced by Jewish preschools, and bring those insights back to their classrooms.  

“This distressing incident continues a pattern of isolating Jews and Jewish institutions, limiting cultural exchange, learning and understanding, and suggesting that our full participation in civic spaces is contingent on our renouncing the State of Israel, the only Jewish state in the world seen for many Jews as the only clear refuge we have in the face of antisemitic violence. Bringing this trend into educational environments — into early childhood no less — is deeply disturbing,” the groups said.

Following outreach from the State Department, the mayor of Reggio Emilia, Marco Massari, told the city council last week that the city’s Charter for Democratic and Participatory Education, a document associated with Reggio Emilia’s early childhood education approach, was intended to be open for discussion, not a requirement that visitors sign on to a particular position. At the same time, he reiterated the city’s longstanding criticism of Israel’s government and called its war in Gaza a genocide.

The Jewish groups said a group of Israeli educators that “both refused to sign the statement and insisted on attending the event nonetheless” received “warm treatment and appropriate security.”

Even still, the statement called the mayor’s response “insufficient” and urged Reggio Children, the organization that oversees the educational approach and had been working with Paradigm, “to issue an unambiguous public apology that acknowledges the antisemitism Jewish educators experienced, and to take concrete steps to ensure that educators of all backgrounds are welcomed, respected, and treated equally, regardless of their religious identity or historical ties to any country.” 

The groups also called for changes to the city charter “to ensure that when it calls out injustice against children, it does so in a way that does not exclusively single out Israel or Israeli policy, in content or substance, and does not specifically target Jews around the world. Indeed, any such language should reflect a commitment to justice for ALL children — including Israeli and Jewish children.”

A planned event in Minneapolis featuring antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and far-left state Sen. Omar Fateh, set to take place days before the midterm election, is facing growing backlash inside the state.

Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) condemned the planned event on Saturday and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), the Democratic candidate for governor, also criticized Piker in a statement on Sunday.

On Monday, Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s Jewish Caucus and the local Jewish Community Relations Council condemned the event, planned for Oct. 26, and urged Minnesota Democrats to reject it in statements to Jewish Insider. The regional branch of the Anti-Defamation League also criticized Piker.

The DFL Jewish Caucus urged Minnesotans to unite against the event, emphasizing the way that the state had turned out against Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the state, which resulted in the deaths of two U.S. citizens.

“[Piker’s] record speaks for itself. He has built an empire on contempt for this country, for anyone who disagrees with him, and for the basic decency that binds a community together,” the caucus said in a statement. “Hasan Piker is not progressive. He is not brave. He is a hate profiteer, selling the very thing Minnesotans rejected just months ago.”

The group said that DFL members cannot welcome hate “under a different banner” and that it is not “acceptable because it claims to be on our side.”

“Our values mean nothing if we only apply them to our opponents. We are grateful for Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Angie Craig for having the courage to say so,” the caucus continued. “That is why we now call on every DFLer to reject Hasan Piker, plainly and publicly, and to refuse him the stage he seeks. Our victories have never depended on hate. We should be ashamed to court it.”

“Hasan Piker and his brand of hate have no place in the DFL, and no place in Minnesota,” the caucus added.

Just last week, the Jewish caucus had defended Omar after a federal raid of her home.

The JCRC of Minnesota and the Dakotas  said in its statement to JI that it is “appalled by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and state Sen. Omar Fateh’s decision to share a stage with Hasan Piker,” adding, “[e]levating someone with a longstanding record of antisemitic rhetoric is a betrayal of Jewish Minnesotans.”

The JCRC highlighted Piker’s past rhetoric that “dehumanizes Jews and shifts responsibility for antisemitic violence onto its potential victims” as well as a range of other past offensive statements expressing support for terrorism and racist and homophobic comments.

The JCRC demanded that other Minnesota Democratic leaders speak out.

“The silence from too many other state DFL leaders is deafening. Jewish Minnesotans hear that silence, and it further erodes their trust,” the group said. “We call on Minnesota’s DFL leaders, including candidates and party officials, to publicly repudiate Piker’s antisemitism and reject the decision by Congresswoman Omar and Senator Fateh to provide him this platform. They must confront antisemitism not only when it comes from the other party, but also when it comes from their own. Jewish safety and dignity must never be subordinated to partisan convenience.”

The JCRC praised Craig for her clear condemnation and said that “[h]er willingness to challenge her own party demonstrates the leadership this moment demands,” and “welcome[d]” Klobuchar’s statement to JI.

The group also emphasized that surveys increasingly show that Jewish voters feel that neither party supports their community.

“Congresswoman Omar and [state] Sen. Fateh’s choices deepen an already profound sense of political alienation,” the JCRC continued. “Jewish Americans should never have to choose between political belonging and the expectation that their leaders will stand against antisemitism.”

Rebecca Weininger, the Anti-Defamation League’s Midwest senior director, said, “Hasan Piker has a history of inflammatory rhetoric that sanitizes violence and denigrates Jewish people, including expressing support for designated terrorist organizations and referring to Israelis and Orthodox Jews as ‘inbred,’ a term he justified using to NPR just last week.”

The Jewish Democratic Council of America is launching a new streaming and digital ad campaign targeting Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and boosting his Democratic opponent, Cait Conley.

The ad is part of a $300,000 national midterm campaign by JDCA that aims to reach 4 million Jewish voters by Election Day, with other ads running in Ohio, Michigan, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Iowa and every district that the Cook Political Report rates as a toss-up.

The anti-Lawler ad hits the two-term Republican, who represents Westchester and Rockland Counties, over his ties to President Donald Trump, featuring footage of the two together.

The ad accuses Lawler of staying silent in the face of antisemitism from the Trump administration — though Lawler has been among the most outspoken and active lawmakers on combating antisemitism on Capitol Hill.

“Donald Trump is lucky to have Mike Lawler, we’re lucky to have Cait Conley,” the ad states.

Conley has also pledged to be outspoken against antisemitism if elected.

In the district, JDCA held a canvassing event with Conley’s campaign and the Westchester Jewish Democrats on Sunday.

“NY-17 has the largest Jewish voting population of any of the vitally important red-to-blue congressional districts in the country, with Jewish Americans making up nearly one-fifth of its population,” JDCA CEO Halie Soifer said. “We’re proud to support veteran Cait Conley in this race, and are confident a majority of Jewish voters in the district will vote for her because she aligns with our values.”

“This JDCA PAC ad sends a clear message that a vote for any Republican this year, including Mike Lawler, is a vote for Donald Trump’s extremism, cruelty, chaos, and corruption,” she continued. “This ad underscores that Trump has elevated and embraced dangerous far-right extremists and Mike Lawler has failed to hold the White House accountable. Conley, on the other hand, stands with Jewish voters on every key issue, including her opposition to Donald Trump.”

During his campaign, Lawler has highlighted his bipartisan record, and endorsements from some Jewish Democratic local officials.

JDCA is also running ads against Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), as well as a national campaign that highlights a Young Republicans group chat where members expressed antisemitic sentiments and praised the Nazis, and includes a clip of Vice President JD Vance shrugging off the scandal.

This story was updated on Oct. 19 to reflect that the ad campaign will run on streaming services, not cable.

Many Diaspora Jews who care about the future of Israel have been watching the election campaigns in Israel unfold from afar.

And while Diaspora affairs do not rank high in Israelis’ concerns in Oct. 27 election — security and the economy are the top issues — most Zionist political parties have given thought to the issue, whether in their platforms or when candidates are asked about antisemitism and Israel’s connection to world Jewry.

Jewish Insider and its sister publication eJewishPhilanthropy, in partnership with Anu: The Museum of the Jewish People and the Peoplehood Coalition, conducted an election panel at the museum on Wednesday, moderated by eJP Managing Editor Judah Ari Gross, to hear how the parties plan to commit themselves to ties with global Jewry. The event was also supported by Anu’s Tisch Center for Jewish Dialogue, the American Zionist Movement, Global Jewry, Belong, Masa and the Jewish Federation of Tulsa (Okla.).

The following are their answers, condensed for space and clarity:

Yashar, led by Gadi Eisenkot:

Alex Rif, who was born in Ukraine in the former Soviet Union and founded an activist movement for Russian-Israelis, spoke about the discrimination and harassment Jews faced in the Soviet Union, but said when they arrived in Israel, they were made to feel “not Jewish enough.” 

“My parents would tell me about times when people in the Soviet Union didn’t tell others that they were Jews because they were afraid. Unfortunately, we are going again to these times,” she said.

Rif said that “the issues of aliyah and absorption are in [Eisenkot’s] heart. … We have so many problems today. The antisemitism is rising. … [yet] this government, Netanyahu’s government, tried over and over to change the Law or Return, to cancel the grandchild clause” — meaning that anyone with one Jewish grandparent can immigrate to Israel — “and we’ve defended it.”

Rif called for “an international coalition to fight antisemitism,” to invest more in Birthright and Masa programs and to promote “an inclusive and respectful Judaism,” as well as protect the Law of Return.

Likud, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli did not attend as planned, and Likud did not send anyone in his place. Otzma Yehudit, Religious Zionist Party, Shas and United Torah Judaism declined to participate in the panel, which meant that the current governing coalition was not represented.

B’Yachad, led by Naftali Bennett:

Moshe Kinley Tur-Paz, a lawmaker from Yesh Atid, one of the parties comprising B’Yachad,  was born in Philadelphia but grew up in Israel. He said that he has been “trying to bring the voice of the Jews around the world, of world Jewry to Israel … and because Bennett himself also comes from a family of [immigrants to Israel] this is something very lively and very committed in our party.” 

Tur-Paz said that while Diaspora Jews cannot vote in Israel, their position should be brought up in legislative debates, proposing a non-voting 121st Knesset member to represent them in parliament. In addition, he called for funding for more Hebrew learning around the world, and emphasized the need to connect young Diaspora Jews to Israel as well as to educate Israelis about world Jewry, which he repeatedly said was lacking. In addition, he called to form a task force to fight antisemitism.

Tur-Paz said that when he was a principal, he partnered the school in Israel with an Australian school so that the children could learn together online and connect. “Education is everything,” he said.

He also spoke about the Western Wall plan to allow pluralistic prayer services at the holy site, which was proposed and then shelved in the 2010s. “We need every Jew to feel in the [Jewish] Quarter as if it [belongs to] himself. … We will bring it back to the Jews of the world so everyone will feel that this is his land and it is his Kotel.” Asked why his party did not advance the issue when it was in power, Tur-Paz gave what he called a “scoop” that he had been drawing up legislation to do so before the coalition collapsed.

The Democrats, led by Yair Golan: 

Gaby Lasky, a former Knesset member best known as a lawyer defending Palestinians and far-left activists against charges in Israel, moved to Israel from Mexico by herself at age 15. “Israel is the state of all the Jews around the world,” she said. “We believe that the connection between the state and Jewish communities outside of Israel is part of our identity, is part of our responsibility.”

The Democrats, she said, “believe in the values of the [Israeli Declaration] of Independence. We believe that Israel has to be a democratic and Jewish state, and for those reasons, we fight for Israeli democracy. … We fight for Israel to be a Jewish state, and that means … all the [denominations] of Judaism, not only Orthodoxy. … We have to change in Israel the fact that only Orthodox [conversion] is accepted. … We all share in common one thing, and that is Tikkun Olam. We believe that we can change this place for the better, and we can only do it if we do it together.” 

Yisrael Beiteinu, led by Avigdor Liberman:

MK Oded Forer, a former cabinet minister and the former director-general of the Immigration and Absorption Ministry, said that Israel is “the land of all the Jewish people around the world. You’re a member of the Jewish people — this is your state. Even if you haven’t visited here once.” 

Forer said that the mission of encouraging Jews to immigrate to Israel “isn’t complete. We need the majority of the Jewish people to live in Israel. .. I’m sure that we can do it.” 

Forer called to help fund security and Jewish education for Diaspora communities. He also expressed appreciation for the generosity of Diaspora communities after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks. Reflecting on both, he said that Israel’s support for world Jewry should be “unconditional” and so should world Jewry’s support for Israel.

Reservists and Economy Party, led by Yoaz Hendel: Writer and former Knesset member (2010-2013) Einat Wilf, whose Oz party merged with Hendel’s, said that she had been one of the small number of Knesset members who devoted time to Diaspora issues and said she had an “absolute, ongoing, unbroken commitment to this relationship … and this will not change whether there are or are not votes in it.” 

She called for “more stable, organized, institutionalized, consultative mechanisms by which the Jewish people can have their voice heard and participate in having their voice heard, short of voting.”

“One of the ironic successes of Zionism is that Jews in Israel live in a bit of a bubble, and we do not realize how dangerous what is being built around us in the world,” Wilf said, adding: “We have one side of the political map that believes that changing of government will be enough [to reverse anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment]; it won’t, and another side who has made [antisemitism] into something permanent. There’s always going to be antisemitism, so there’s kind of fatalist helplessness to it. .. It’s also going to be good for us, that Israeli leaders, coalition and opposition live in a bit less of a bubble.”

Amcha Yisrael, led by Ofer Winter: 

Former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum spoke of choosing to move to Israel in 2001, and her experience defending Israel in international media, in English and in Spanish: “I’ve been fighting … for three years for the legitimacy of our country, for the legitimacy of a war that we didn’t start.”

“I believe that I’m the candidate that can represent the [English-speaking] voice in this country and Israel-Diaspora relations. We have a wonderful plan for aliyah, for Israel-Diaspora relations and for representing our country and the Jewish people,” she stated.

Hassan-Nahoum also called to reform the World Zionist Organization so that it is a more effective voice of the Diaspora. “Ninety percent of what they do with the money… is just give jobs to their friends, retired politicians. … There are people in this organization who have a job, that don’t show up to work. Most of them can’t even speak English or any [foreign] language. … The infrastructure, the apparatus exists. Let’s clean it up please.”

Blue and White, led by Benny Gantz:

Pnina Tamano-Shata, a Knesset member who was the first Ethiopian-born member of Israel’s cabinet as immigration and absorption minister, said that “the most important experience in [her] life” was when she moved to Israel at age 3, barefoot, with only the clothes on her back. 

“We know every step we take impacts the Jewish world,” Tamano-Shata said. “We have to take responsibility [and have] accountability in such a challenging time.”

Tamano-Shata also called to “bring the young generation to be connect[ed] with Israel, to get the tools to deal not only with antisemitism, with a lot of fields — culture, education, the Jewish people and traditions and so much more.” 

Tamano-Shata called for an “alternative vote,” without specifying what it would entail, to “give more influence to the Jewish community … [on] important issues that bother the Jews in [the] Diaspora.”

She also referred to the ongoing war in Ethiopia, and said that Jews there, including children, have been killed and kidnapped, and people need to think about them, as well.

Asked about her party’s stance on negotiations with Palestinians and support for a two-state solution — the view held by the majority of American Jews — Tamano-Shata said that while her party yearns for peace, a Palestinian state is out of the question at this point in time, particularly in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks.

Israel First, led by Sharren Haskel:

Haskel, a Knesset member and former deputy foreign minister from Likud, was born in Canada and her family moved to Israel when she was a child. She said that having more immigrants in the Knesset helps address the issues that immigrants and Diaspora Jewry face.

Her party has a four-pronged program, beginning with educating Israelis and Diaspora Jews as young as possible to be connected to one another. The second is self-defense, including Krav Maga lessons and leadership programs. The third is strengthening Jewish identity, including free Hebrew lessons in Diaspora communities, and a Hebrew-speaking au pair program. Finally, Haskel called for reducing overhead and streamlining overlapping programs in Jewish organizations that receive Israeli government funding.

Haskel also posited that mixing religion and politics in Israel has been damaging to relations with the Diaspora and called for the separation of religion and state, while strengthening Jewish identity and values.

A Dublin hotel canceled 70 rooms booked for participants in an international conference of envoys for combatting antisemitism, attendees and organizers said on Tuesday.

Maurice Cohen, the head of the Irish Jewish Representative Council, said at the opening gathering of the summit that the Herbert Park Hotel canceled the group’s reservation made in May, after finding out the nature of the event. The hotel’s manager also asked if the conference was connected to the IDF. The Herbert Park Hotel declined to comment. 

The World Jewish Congress event, which was held on Tuesday and Wednesday in different locations in Dublin, convened over 35 government envoys and coordinators for combatting antisemitism, as well as leaders of Jewish organizations from 20 countries, including the J7 Task Force Against Antisemitism, which includes major organizations representing the Jewish communities in the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Argentina and Australia. Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheál Martin met on Tuesday with J7 representatives, including Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations CEO William Daroff and European Commissioner Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism Katharina von Schnurbein. The European Union co-funded the conference.

In his remarks to the conference, Maurice Cohen, president of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, recounted that he had celebrated his mother’s birthdays at the Herbert Park Hotel for years, but that it has since “acquire[d] a very different place in my memory.”

He met with the general manager of the hotel after reserving the rooms, and she asked what the abbreviation used to describe it, SECCA, stood for. When he told her the answer — Special Envoys and Coordinators for Combating Antisemitism — and explained who would be attending, he “noticed her manner change. There was a tension that had not been there before.”

She asked, “Will the IDF be involved?” Cohen recalled. 

“Nothing I had said had anything whatsoever to do with the Israeli army, yet somehow that was where the conversation had gone,” he added.

The manager then said she had to consult with the hotel’s owners, and soon after canceled the reservation.

“Contemporary antisemitism does not always arrive wearing the language of the past. It does not always announce itself with a slur, a threat or a placard. … It begins by treating Jewish identity as evidence of political allegiance. It turns Jewish people into representatives of a foreign state, Jewish gatherings into security concerns, and ordinary acts of welcome into decisions requiring special permission,” he said.

Cohen added: “That is the danger of antisemitism today: not only that it excludes Jews, but that it makes their exclusion appear reasonable.”

Former Irish Justice Minister Alan Shatter wrote on X that the incident was “a vile illustration of the issue to be addressed.” 

Ireland has long been one of the EU countries most critical of Israel, and antisemitism has spiked in recent years. Israel closed its embassy in Dublin in 2024 after Ireland joined South Africa’s genocide charges against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Irish President Catherine Connolly has said Israel is a “Jewish supremac[ist]” state, and said that Hamas should be accepted as part of a legitimate Palestinian government. As a parliamentarian, she protested the Irish Embassy to Israel commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

Last month, the Irish national soccer team faced calls from fans to boycott its match against the Israeli team, and the Irish players refused to shake hands with the Israelis.

In addition, Dublin nearly removed former Israeli President Chaim Herzog’s name last year from a public park adjacent to the city’s only Jewish school. Herzog was the son of Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, who later became Israel’s first chief rabbi, fought in the British Army in World War II, taking part in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, and was the head of IDF intelligence and Israeli ambassador to the U.N. — famously tearing up its “Zionism is racism” resolution — before serving as Israel’s sixth president in 1983-1993. His son, Isaac Herzog, is Israel’s current president.

The Anti-Defamation League and Gratz College announced on Wednesday the launch of a free training program on antisemitism aimed at college administrators and faculty. 

The program comes amid continued scrutiny of universities over how they handle antisemitism on campus. 

The self-paced program, “From Recognition to Response: Antisemitism on Campus,” is meant to give higher education professionals a working understanding of how antisemitism shows up on campus today and what their institutions are legally required to do about it, according to the organizers. Participants who complete all modules and assessments will receive a completion certificate from both organizations, though the program does not offer continuing education credits. 

The coursework covers the relationship between Israel, Zionism and antisemitism; campus climate since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks; and institutional response protocols. It combines ADL’s campus and civil rights work with Gratz’s Holocaust and antisemitism scholarship, and it is open to administrators, faculty, student affairs staff and conduct teams nationwide. 

While the coursework covers institutions’ obligations under Title VI and Title VII, it includes a disclaimer that it is not intended to provide, and should not be construed as, specific legal advice. 

The initiative expands on Gratz College’s growing footprint in the field. The Philadelphia-area Jewish college launched what it calls the nation’s first interdisciplinary master’s program in antisemitism studies in 2024, complementing its established Holocaust and genocide studies curriculum.

Ayal Feinberg, director of the Center for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights at Gratz, said in a statement that the new partnership is designed to bring together “deep academic expertise and decades of practical experience to help higher education professionals engage with these questions with greater clarity, rigor and informed judgment.” 

“Understanding antisemitism requires more than addressing individual incidents — it requires understanding the history, ideas and contexts that shape how antisemitism appears today,” said Feinberg. 

Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) on Tuesday dodged a question about his son-in-law, a white nationalist influencer who has apparently recorded and posted antisemitic and white nationalist videos while living on Collins’ property, at the second Georgia Senate debate.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) had hammered Collins on the issue, and Collins’ other ties to extremist figures including former congressional staff, at a previous debate last week, accusing Collins of hiring “half of the Third Reich.” 

Asked by the debate moderator about Ossoff’s accusations and his former staff, Collins said that he condemns “any sort of hate speech, antisemitism, hate of any kind, it’s abhorrent. I fire people when things happen.”

Asked about Sen. Jon Ossoff’s comments accusing him of hiring “half of the Third Reich," Rep. Mike Collins condemned “any sort of hate speech, antisemitism, hate of any kind" and said, "I fire people when things happen.” Read @marcrod97’s full coverage: https://t.co/t3PxpEE2kO https://t.co/s6C2upomiQ

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) October 14, 2026

“I’ll tell you, young people on both sides, Republicans and the whole DSA wing of the Democrat Party, we do have a problem with antisemitism and hate around the world,” Collins said. “These young people feel like they’ve been forgotten, and they’re just lashing out. And this hate speech has got to stop. We’ve got to educate them. We’ve got to help them by giving them opportunities.” 

Ossoff responded by pressing Collins to commit to ensuring that no more neo-Nazi propaganda would be shared from his home before the election. 

“I’m a little tired of this, Jon,” Collins responded. “There’s a crazy person in jail right now because of your rhetoric — threatened my son-in-law, threatened to kill me. Had another threat just yesterday. That’s because of you and your rhetoric that you’re out there spewing, just vitriol, hate.”

Collins sought to turn the tables on Ossoff, emphasizing his support for Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, and El-Sayed’s connections to antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker and the Democratic Socialists of America.

“Mike, if any of those folks were based in my house, then I’d understand you’d ask me to take responsibility for them,” Ossoff shot back. “What I asked you, Mike, was can you commit for just three weeks to stop the production of neo-Nazi propaganda from your home? We all know what’s happening. Why can’t you stop it? Why won’t you commit right now to stop it?”

The two continued to talk over each other until moderators forced them to move on. 

Collins also defended his support for the Iran war, praising the administration for having the “leadership” to send in U.S. forces to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

“My opponent and the Democrats, all they’re interested in is sending more money to Iran,” Collins said. “We’re in Iran to make sure they don’t get a nuclear bomb and destroy America, because that’s what they want to do. And I’ve got kids and grandkids, and we want to make sure that they have a future.”

Ossoff, for his part, called Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whom he voted to confirm, a “deep disappointment” and said that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth “has lied repeatedly about the war in Iran.”

Asked by a moderator about his stance on U.S. aid to Israel, Ossoff largely repeated an answer he offered at a previous debate, standing by his votes on resolutions to block arms sales to the Jewish state while emphasizing that he wants security for both Israelis and Palestinians.

“When it comes to selling weapons or giving weapons to a foreign government, we should assess in every case whether that foreign government is acting consistent with our interests, our laws and our values,” Ossoff said. “Israel had every right to go to war with Hamas after the despicable Oct. 7 terrorist attack. I also believe that it’s right for U.S. senators to ensure that American laws and international laws are being respected by those who fight with our weapons.”

Michelle Smith, a senior advisor in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, endorsed an antisemitic claim about a GOP operative in the state in a post on X last year.

Smith, who has served as a senior advisor to Paxton since December 2020 and is not employed by Paxton’s Senate campaign, wrote in a June 2025 post on X that she agreed with another user’s antisemitic claim about Chad Wilbanks, a veteran Texas Republican operative. 

The user, who goes by the name Happy American on their profile, wrote on the platform at the time, “If Chad were to squat ‘n cough, shekels would prolly [sic] fly out,” in response to a post criticizing Wilbanks as “one of the most miserable, post menopausal women in Texas.”

“That’s a true statement,” Smith replied.

Hunter Bonner, chairman of the Marion County Republican Party, criticized Smith over her comment in a post on X where he called on “all Republicans in this state, especially party officers, to denounce this, and to demand that Michelle Smith should resign or be fired.”

“We now know that his senior advisor Michelle Smith is an antisemite with this remark,” Bonner wrote. “Antisemitism should not be tolerated from people trying to use our Republican brand.”

In response to Bonner’s antisemitism accusation, Smith published a detailed post rejecting the claim in which she stated that her “grandfather’s photograph hangs at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. He served under [WWII Gen. George] Patton and played a role in the liberation.”

“Just because I proudly support Israel doesn’t mean I put Israel before America,” Smith wrote. “My commitment to America first means we need to avoid unnecessary wars. Israel is a steadfast ally. For anyone to deem me antisemitic is utterly insanity; they clearly don’t know me. My grandfather was a guard for the war criminals at Nuremberg, prominently featured in every photograph from that time.”

The post was taken down after Jewish Insider reached out to Paxton’s campaign for comment last Wednesday. 

In response, a Paxton campaign spokesperson provided JI with a statement touting the Texas attorney general’s record of support for Israel and of combating antisemitism, while not addressing Smith’s post directly.

“Ken Paxton has always stood with Israel, and he always will,” the spokesperson said. “As Attorney General, he defended Texas’s law barring taxpayer dollars from going to companies that boycott Israel and won at the Fifth Circuit. He backed other states fighting the anti-Israel BDS movement in court. After October 7, he joined attorneys general nationwide pressing the DOJ and FBI to crack down on antisemitic terrorism. When Plano parents reported anti-Israel indoctrination in their kids’ classrooms, he opened an investigation.”

“Ken Paxton believes antisemitism has no place in the Great State of Texas and is proud to stand with the Jewish people and with Israel,” it continued. “That will never change.”

Smith is a prolific user of X who has posted more than 44,000 tweets since joining the platform in 2009. She generated attention on Wednesday for her social media usage after the Huffington Post reported on her posts, sent hours before President Donald Trump arrived in Texas for a rally in support of Paxton, describing the state of the U.S. economy as “horrible.”

Smith has expressed support for Israel in some of her recent social media posts, including a December 2023 post where she wrote that, “you can’t be anti-Semitic and support Israel … not possible. Show me how I’m wrong.”

Smith has also defended Paxton’s support for Israel in response to users who replied to her posts with criticisms of his pro-Israel record, arguing on numerous occasions that one could believe the Jewish state is an important U.S. ally while embracing cuts to military aid as part of an America First agenda.

“Paxton will always be America first,” Smith wrote in May. “You can be America first and also because of your faith love the country of Israel. That doesn’t mean you give Israel money.”

“Are you asking if he will give our money to another country? I don’t think so,” she wrote in a later reply to the same user. “Are you asking him to abandon his belief in Jesus? That will never happen. Ken is a Christian.”

Smith has worked in Texas politics since 2009 and has worked for Paxton and his ex-wife, GOP state Sen. Angela Paxton, according to her LinkedIn profile. She served as political director for Paxton’s first campaign for attorney general in 2014 and was his campaign manager for his 2018 bid for a second term, during which she concurrently led Angela Paxton’s state Senate campaign. Smith has worked for Paxton in the attorney general’s office in all three terms. 

Prior to joining Paxton, Smith served as Texas state director for Concerned Women for America, and was the Texas state coalitions director for Rick Santorum’s 2012 presidential campaign.

The assistant attorney general for civil rights, Harmeet Dhillon, warned last week that countries participating in boycotts of Israel could face U.S. retaliation, raising the prospect of sanctions against Britain and other European governments. 

But Washington still has yet to clarify its policy, and it remains unclear whether the Trump administration plans to move forward with retaliatory measures.

Speaking in Washington last week, Dhillon sharply criticized the measures taken by European countries, describing the actions as involvement in BDS and a form of antisemitism. European officials, however, have argued that the sanctions are different from the BDS movement. 

“What we call this in the United States is the BDS movement. It is antisemitism,” Dhillon said while speaking in D.C. on Oct. 6. “And I think every country that is doing that is going to risk, while President Trump is in power, retaliatory or corresponding sanctions potentially.” 

One Republican congressional source told Jewish Insider that Treasury Department and Commerce Department officials had told their office that the departments were prepared to add those countries that announced sanctions targeting Israeli settlements last month to the Treasury’s international boycott list, but the State Department was refusing to grant the clearance necessary to do so.

Reached for comment, a State Department spokesperson told JI: “We are not going to comment on internal deliberations speculated on by an anonymous source.”

The U.K. announced an import ban on settlement goods and sanctions on related entities on Sept. 9. 

The Netherlands introduced stricter measures on Sept. 22, including penalties of up to six years in prison for violations. Israel responded by revoking the diplomatic credentials of Dutch envoys in Ramallah.

France, Canada and other countries have also enacted or pledged similar restrictions involving the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The measures have drawn condemnation in Israel. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has warned that Britain could face economic repercussions.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio had previously indicated that the U.S. would not join the sanctions. Republicans in Congress have also told JI they oppose them. Before Dhillon’s remarks, the administration had not publicly condemned the measures. 

A former U.S. administration official, speaking on background, confirmed the sanctions are not yet “settled administration policy” and noted that Dhillon’s comments could be strategic.

“Dhillon’s comment does not necessarily reflect settled administration policy. A decision to impose such sanctions would need consideration by Treasury, State, USTR, and above all the President; it’s not a DOJ decision,” the former official said. “It may reflect a decision to sanction the UK, or a warning shot meant to deter others from following the UK, or her view but not a final policy decision.”

The distinction between the European measures and the broader BDS movement could also become significant as the administration determines how to respond. European governments have presented their restrictions as measures targeting Israeli settlements rather than participation in the broader BDS campaign against Israel.

Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said the uncertainty comes against a complicated history of U.S. policy toward Israeli settlements and BDS.

“Israeli settlements have always existed in a gray area when it comes to U.S. opposition to BDS. President Obama excepted West Bank settlements from his enforcement of anti-BDS laws, and Biden sanctioned certain settler activities while officially opposing BDS.”

He said that ambiguity appears to have carried into the Trump administration as tensions between Israel and European governments over settlement policy have increased.

“This gray area now seems to be carrying over to the Trump administration, where coherent and consistent policymaking has never been a strong suit, precisely as the West Bank and U.S.-European ties become particularly tense more generally,” Ruhe said.

Ruhe also pointed to the administration’s previous responses to European actions targeting Israel as a possible indication of how Washington could respond to the latest measures.

“Though Amb. Huckabee repeatedly called settler violence ‘acts of terror’ and ‘criminal activity’ over the summer, Europe’s latest threats follow a pattern where the administration jumps at the opportunity to retaliate for sanctions, embargoes, and arrest warrants aimed at Israel from Europe,” Ruhe said.

Jason Greenblatt, who served as White House Middle East envoy in the first Trump administration, did not clarify whether he expects the policy to be officially implemented, however he noted that he would “strongly support such a policy.”

“Countries that do that should understand there can be consequences, even if they are long standing friends of the United States,” Greenblatt said. “When governments turn the BDS movement’s anti-Israel agenda and antisemitic ideology into policy, the United States has every reason to respond.”

Greenblatt further argued that just because certain countries are U.S. allies, it should not shield them from consequences when acting against Washington’s interests.

“Ambassador Huckabee publicly warned of consequences before Britain announced these measures last month, and Britain proceeded anyway,” he continued. “Friendship and history should not provide immunity when a government acts against U.S. interests and principles, and against one of our closest and most important allies.”

More than 1,100 people gathered Monday night at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich., for an event organized by local Jewish groups featuring Reps. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) alongside commentators Dan Senor and Bret Stephens, discussing the rise of antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment in political life.

Though the Michigan Senate race wasn’t directly addressed, the event came ahead of the election in less than a month, in which Israel and the Jewish community have been central topics of discussion. During the event, Scholten and Gottheimer discussed the rising antisemitic and anti-Israel trends in their party and why they’ve remained outspoken against them.

The event was jointly organized by the the Jewish Federation of Detroit, the Anti-Defamation League’s Michigan office and the local American Jewish Committee chapter, billed as exploring “some of the most urgent questions facing the Jewish people today from the rise of antisemitism and the meaning of Zionism to the increasingly challenging climate for political discourse in the United States.” 

Temple Israel was the site, seven months to the day before Monday’s event, of a Hezbollah-inspired terrorist attack. Scholten told the audience, during a Q&A session alongside Gottheimer moderated by Senor, that she felt “emotional” arriving at the synagogue, according to clips of the event reviewed by Jewish Insider.

“I want to say to this Jewish community here tonight that we’re with you,” she said. “It’s so important for us to communicate to you that we are with you in this moment. … People are scared right now. I hear from our Jewish community, especially our young people who have experienced the horrors of a post-Oct. 7 moment on their college campuses.”

She said that the Jewish community feels outnumbered, “and that is one of the main reasons why I have felt so compelled to not be shy in speaking out in this moment. … I want American Jews, Michigan Jews, to feel like they have an ally and a champion.”

Scholten is the only sitting Democratic member of Michigan’s congressional delegation who hasn’t yet endorsed Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed.

Asked why she’s staked out such a strong position, in such a difficult political environment, Scholten said, “I’m not a radical. In fact, I am radically not radical, and it almost seems like in today’s politics, to be not radical is almost a radical position. Everyone is trying to pull you farther and farther to the extremes, but it is actually a very bold and noble position to stake out this position in the center.”

She said that she wishes there was “more respect across the board from our colleagues to say, ‘I was elected to serve my constituents with the values that I bring to this position,’ and more intellectual curiosity, instead of just an immediate rejection or retribution of the position that we have taken out.”

Scholten said she believes the Democratic Socialists of America and DSA-aligned candidates are gaining steam because they are emphasizing issues like healthcare, jobs and fighting corruption, “and people don’t even recognize the underlying current of the U.S.-Israel relationship or the antisemitism that is a part of that. I know we see that across Michigan.”

Scholten said that she sees First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt as a model for how Democrats can respond in a moment when a growing DSA bloc is set to enter Congress. Roosevelt, she said, “really took on communism” without resorting to McCarthyist tactics, staking out a position in defense of strong New Deal-era social programs while rejecting radicalism.

Scholten applauded Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), in whose district the event took place, and Stevens’ likely successor, state Sen. Jeremy Moss, who Scholten said was in the audience Monday evening.

Gottheimer praised Scholten for having the “courage” not to cower in the face of “major blowback” as support for Israel has become highly unpopular among the Democratic base, particularly as a lawmaker who’s not Jewish.

He attributed the shifting tides on Israel policy among Democratic elected officials in part to pressure and harassment from vocal anti-Israel activists, which can be particularly effective with lawmakers for whom the issue is not top of mind and don’t have Jewish or other constituents invested in it. Other pro-Israel colleagues have offered a similar diagnosis.

“All you had to do is say this magic word [genocide] and it would all go away,” he said. “That’s how this thing started. And then the disinformation gets out there and, of course, it’s everywhere.”

Gottheimer described socialists as a separate entity trying to hijack the Democratic Party by playing on real anxieties about the economy, and then, “in a crafty way, [they] threw the Jewish thing into there, and they kind of melded it together” — blaming economic problems on U.S. aid to Israel.

“But this is not about money to Israel when you protest outside a temple, or boycott a Democratic member of Congress from buying coffee at his coffee shop in his own district,” Gottheimer continued. “It has nothing to do with your position on Israel. That’s just finding a great scapegoat.”

Ultimately, he said, it became easier for Democrats to stay silent. “You’re kind of nuts right now in Democratic politics for running around and talking about this stuff in the way that we do. It’s not popular, right? You get harassed for it. People cancel fundraisers.”

He said that some once-dependable allies have said they’ll stick with him on key votes, but have been unwilling to speak up boldly and publicly.

He warned that the same trends are growing in the GOP.

Gottheimer emphasized the need for the Jewish community to remain strong and optimistic even in the face of hardship.

He said that the current environment has shown the community who its friends and allies are, as well as bringing the Jewish community closer together. He said that figures like himself and Scholten are “not going quietly” and intend to fight back in the face of attacks from socialists.

“We [the Jewish community] know we’ve got to look out for each other, and that only we can overcome this by working together. We got to stay focused. [Enemies of Israel and the Jewish community] spent a long time — decades — focused on how they’re going to tear it apart,” Gottheimer said. “We were a little asleep at the switch, I think, but now we’re up and we’re focused and we know what we need to do to actually overcome it — overcoming socialism and overcoming antisemitism.”

In a statement to JI, Gottheimer thanked Scholten for inviting him to the event and emphasized that “silence is not an option” in the face of antisemitism.

“This is a moment of consequence, and we all have to stand up, speak out, and say plainly that hate has no place in our country. I’ll always stand with the Jewish community against antisemitism, and I’m proud to be in the room with so many others who feel the same way,” Gottheimer said.

Prior to the Q&A with the two members of Congress, Senor delivered prepared remarks and then conducted a separate Q&A session with Stephens. In his opening remarks, Senor pushed back against the accusations of genocide against Israel, describing them as a modern iteration of the ancient blood libel.

The genocide accusation has been deployed, Senor said, to attack every Jew and Jewish institution, including the preschoolers at Temple Israel, and to declare Israel’s existence fundamentally illegitimate. And, he said, political leaders have joined in by parroting the genocide accusation.

Brian Hermelin, the president of the Detroit Federation, told JI that the idea for the event came from a conversation between himself and Senor.

“He wanted to come have a conversation with the community, not to advocate for any particular candidate, but to talk about the seriousness of the issues that we’re facing around antisemitism, around the blood libel of the genocide lie and put it in historical context for the community to understand,” Hermelin said. “This has a lot of historical precedent that hasn’t bode well for the Jewish community, and we should be paying attention.”

Hermelin said the event was “really well received” and that it was particularly poignant to host it at Temple Israel on the seven-month anniversary of the terrorist attack, marking the first time that some attendees had returned to the synagogue since the attack happened. “For the community, it was important, it was meaningful to be there,” Hermelin said.

Bringing together the Federation, AJC and ADL to host the event provided a “united front” among the major Jewish advocacy organizations and demonstrated that “everybody realizes the seriousness of the decisions that we have in front of us,” he continued.

He said that Senor and Stephens had discussed the “obsessive focus on Zionist participation in political life” in the current moment, and how that is a unique facet of the current electoral cycle.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the state, the pro-El-Sayed coalition Michigan Jews for Democracy held an event night with Brad Lander, the progressive Jewish Israel critic expected to join the House next year, and former Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI).

Decky Alexander, the chair of the Michigan Democratic Jewish caucus and one of the hosts of that event, said that the goal of the event was to create an intimate space for traditional Democratic Jewish voters who are unsure how to vote to talk through their feelings and concerns.

The coalition, which is not formally affiliated with El-Sayed’s campaign but issued a recent petition in support of him, also recently held a similar event with Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT), another progressive Jewish House member.

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs called on Democratic and Republican candidates on Thursday to reject antisemitism and political violence, including within their own political coalitions, ahead of November’s midterm elections, warning that conspiracy theories about Jewish influence and efforts to exclude Jews from public life have become increasingly normalized.

In an open letter, the group urged candidates to condemn harassment and intimidation, reject conspiracy theories about Jewish control of government and elections and make clear that those promoting such views have no place in their political coalitions.

JCPA CEO Amy Spitalnick said antisemitism has become normalized in American politics, “with Jews too often treated as political footballs” amid increasing hate and violence. She said leaders in both parties have a responsibility to reject rhetoric and conspiracy theories that can fuel attacks against Jewish communities.

The letter emphasized that criticism of Israel, AIPAC and U.S. aid to Israel is not inherently antisemitic, but warned against holding Jewish Americans responsible for Israeli government policies or invoking conspiracy theories about Jewish money and power. It also criticized political litmus tests that exclude Jews over their connections to Israel and efforts to divide the community into “Good Jew” and “Bad Jew” camps.

While affirming the right to protest, JCPA warned that chanting “globalize the intifada” outside a synagogue or celebrating Hamas could constitute intimidation when directed at Jewish communities rather than policymakers. The letter also urged candidates to reject Nazi symbols, threats and harassment, regardless of the political cause behind them.

JCPA cited as one example Florida Republican state House nominee Marshall Rawson, whose attendance at the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., has not largely been condemned by fellow Republicans. The organization also raised concerns about antisemitic tropes and efforts to exclude Jews from political spaces on the left amid debates over Israel and pro-Israel organizations.

The letter cited the firebombing of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home and attacks at the Capital Jewish Museum, in Boulder, Colo., and at a Michigan synagogue as examples of violence targeting Jewish communities. JCPA argued that protecting Jewish Americans is inseparable from protecting other minority communities and democratic institutions, calling on political leaders to apply the same standards regardless of party.

A planned study trip to Italy for some 100 Jewish early childhood educators from the U.S. and Israel was canceled after participants were required to sign a statement condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza, prompting organizers to conclude that the trip’s political litmus test made such a trip untenable. 

The educators — members of the U.S.-based Paradigm Project — were scheduled to travel to Reggio Emilia, Italy, from Oct. 11–16. Their goal was to study the Reggio Emilia Approach to early childhood education, a method long embraced by Jewish preschools, and bring those insights back to their classrooms. 

But ahead of the trip, participants were asked to sign a statement declaring, “I distance myself from the occupation of Gaza and the violation of children’s and human beings’ rights in the occupied territories as well as in every places [sic] in the world,” according to a screenshot obtained by Jewish Insider. 

The dispute began publicly in Reggio Emilia earlier this month when parents affiliated with Reggio Children, an organization that oversees the educational approach and had been working with Paradigm, objected to the delegation’s arrival over claims that participants supported the IDF.  

According to the intended attendees, a protest had been organized specifically against the group’s participation based on their religious affiliation and connection to Israel. Reggio Children was also reportedly already working on a document for visiting delegations that would emphasize keeping “militarization out of schools.” 

“Our identities were made public, and our personal and institutional social media profiles were reviewed and characterized as demonstrating our support for Israel and the IDF,” Pesha Kletenik, head of Manhattan Day School and one of the educators who had planned to attend, wrote to her community. 

In a school-wide email on Wednesday, the principal of a Jewish day school in the mid-Altantic, which had planned to send three teachers on the trip, called the cancellation “a loss for our community in the near term — our teachers, and in turn, their students will not be enriched by this experience.” They attributed the cancellation to “the ripple effects of global antisemitism.” 

“We are sitting with what this means for our longstanding alignment to the Reggio philosophy,” they wrote. 

The Reggio Emilia Approach, developed in the northern Italian city after World War II, is an early childhood education philosophy centered on children helping to shape their own education. It emphasizes hands-on exploration, collaboration, creativity and close observation by teachers, with classrooms designed to encourage children to discover their interests rather than follow a determined curriculum. 

Many Jewish early childhood educators have embraced the approach in part because they see its emphasis on children’s individual potential, relationships and community as compatible with Jewish values. The Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative, which helped bring Reggio-inspired education to Jewish preschools in the U.S., describes its model as a combination of Reggio principles and Jewish ideas, saying the pairing works because of Reggio’s educational reputation and its “philosophic consistency with Jewish values.”

Responding to the pressure, the Paradigm ultimately canceled the trip and informed Reggio Children.

Paradigm said in a statement to educators on Wednesday, the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, that the trip would not go on as planned. “The Paradigm Project is a professional learning network for early childhood educators from across the United States. They planned this trip for one reason: to learn from the Reggio Emilia Approach and bring what they learned back to the young children in their classrooms.” 

It said that such learning “requires a calm, open setting” and that, “in the current climate, we do not believe our educators could have the experience the program is meant to offer.”

Paradigm said it remains hopeful that the relationship has not been “irreparably harmed” and that it intends to engage in further dialogue about redesigning the experience and potentially learning together in the future.

Several speakers at the right-wing National Conservatism Conference in Jerusalem said on Wednesday that Jews complain too much about antisemitism — on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, which were followed by a sharp increase in hate crimes against Jews around the world. 

NatCon, as the conference spearheaded by right-wing Israeli American intellectual Yoram Hazony is known, was held in Israel for the first time this week.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, whose defense of far-right commentator Tucker Carlson sparked a firestorm at his think tank last year, opened the conference on Tuesday with a speech supportive of the U.S.-Israel alliance and avoided controversy, after his organization had previously been roiled by accusations of tolerating antisemitism. He called antisemitism evil and a “malignant sin,” and said that Israel and the U.S. are part of an alliance against “red-green leftism.” 

But in a plenary on Wednesday titled “American Right: The Next Generation,” multiple speakers berated Jews for speaking out against antisemitism, accused Israel of drawing the U.S. into wars and mocked evangelical Christians’ beliefs about Israel. They also blamed liberal and neoconservative Jews for mass immigration to the U.S.

Jonathan Keeperman, the owner of a conservative publishing house who recently courted controversy for remarks against Indian Americans, said that most of the American right is “at present suspicious of the value of our country’s geostrategic partnership” with Israel, and “exhausted by efforts to use the Holocaust or Jewish suffering in generally as a moral obligation to support Israel. They are completely unmoved by accusations of antisemitism and any hardline approaches to disavow and shame Israel’s critics.”

Amanda Milius, a conservative documentarian, portrayed those accusing others of antisemitism as being “in a fit of hysteria,” and said that doing so is “at risk of becoming [Black Lives Matter] to the younger American right. They are correctly sick of being called racists.” 

Matthew Peterson of the Claremont Institute warned that “denouncing antisemitism in the abstract in America these days is like calling somebody racist; both have little currency in America these days … We have a boy-who-cried-wolf problem in the West.”

The remarks drew widespread criticism from the right. American First Policy Institute Vice Chairman Fred Fleitz wondered on X: “Why did NatCon host this antisemitic weirdo [Keeperman]? … I was invited to speak at this conference. I’m glad I’m not there.” 

George Mason Law Professor Eugene Kontorovich, who is a fellow at former Vice President Mike Pence’s Advancing American Freedom think tank, wrote: “Who on the American right argues a moral obligation to support Israel based on the Holocaust? They argue strategic utility, technological prowess, and common enemies. Then comes this gaslighting.” 

Omri Ceren, a foreign policy advisor to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), commented that “as an empirical statement, this claim is straightforwardly false. Americans continue to find antisemitism weird and off-putting. They code it as a foreign mind virus.” 

Also at NatCon, William Wolfe, a former Heritage staffer who is now the executive director of the Center for Baptist Leadership, said on stage, “Americans are war-weary. [Israelis] might say ‘join the club,’ but we are not [Israel]. We are not beset on all sides. … We have spent thousands in lives and American blood and trillions in American treasure in a region that many are asking ‘why are we over there?'” 

“We want our sovereignty back,” he added. “We want America First to mean America First.” 

Keeperman’s prescription for winning back young, right-wing Americans is for Israel to “secure its own peace and manage its own problems without drawing in American force” – even though the U.S. military has not been involved in any of Israel’s wars over 77 years, only fighting with Israel against Iran — and continuing the fight against Iran even after Israel stopped engaging this year. 

Keeperman said in a video later deleted by the NatCon X account that “neoconservatives,” frequently used as shorthand for Jews, are “identified as the most vocal proponents of foreign interventionism and have been openly hostile to Trump and his movement from the start,” and “have been deeply poisonous to the reputation of Israel.” 

President Donald Trump is more popular in Israel than in almost every other country in the world. 

“Furthermore, the overwhelming support of mass immigration by liberal Jews and the demonization of populists and conservatives by organizations like the [Anti-Defamation League], which claims to speak on behalf of Jews, has likewise been very damaging to this alliance,” Keeperman stated.

Kontorovich responded: “This sounds not great. Some Jews in America have politics we don’t like, so we will get mad at a totally different bunch of Jews.” 

David Wurmser, a former Middle East policy advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney, wrote on X that he appreciated Keeperman’s speech, as he too is critical of Jews who have valorized victimization, but added: “I fear he may be edging too close to establishing a strawman to avoid holding to account those in the conservative movement who are wandering down destructive shibboleths.”

Peterson also said: “I can’t emphasize this enough: while many of my Evangelical friends still hear ‘Stand with Israel’ as a religious duty, many other religious Christians feel it is condescending that their faith is dependent on the interests of a foreign nation.” 

Wolfe argued that “theology is waning in the U.S. and simply saying ‘because the Bible says so,’ in light of these very difficult conversations, isn’t going to work.” 

Israeli Cabinet ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Amichai Chikli spoke the day before; their offices declined to comment. Despite the controversy over the remarks, Israeli Foreign Ministry Director-General Eden Bar Tal and MK Simcha Rotman addressed the conference on Thursday. 

Rotman told JI that he was unaware of the controversy and did not wish to comment on remarks he had not heard, but that “one of the nice things about a conference is that everyone can say what he thinks and we can debate.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry had no comment.