Jewish and pro-Israel organizations that have celebrated the Abraham Accords in recent years appear slow to recognize the role they could be playing within the Abrahamic coalition — particularly by leveraging their Washington clout and decades of experience engaging Congress — as countries in the accords face increasing criticism for their participation in the normalization framework.

In recent weeks, prominent Saudi social media figures and media outlets have amplified sharply critical and often inflammatory rhetoric aimed at countries that joined the Abraham Accords, particularly the United Arab Emirates, portraying normalization with Israel as a betrayal of regional interests and casting Abu Dhabi as a proxy for Israeli power.

Countries that joined the Abraham Accords do not have comparable grassroots advocacy in Washington, making the role of established Jewish and pro-Israel organizations potentially consequential to the broader normalization effort. Yet despite those longstanding relationships, the groups have mounted little effort to inform the conversation in Washington as the Abraham Accords and their signatories face growing attacks. This was evident from Jewish Insider’s reporting earlier in January, when pro-Israel lawmakers from both parties largely downplayed concerns about Saudi Arabia’s shift when asked for comment.

Several of the groups have voiced growing discomfort with the kingdom’s pivot away from what was perceived as its moderating force in the region. But their relatively cautious responses, particularly around Riyadh’s increasingly hostile posture toward Israel and traditional alliances, have also highlighted an awkward tension as they seek to maintain support for the long-sought but elusive goal of bringing Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords.

That dynamic has come into sharper focus as a few major Jewish and pro-Israel organizations prepare to attend a sensitive meeting in Washington on Friday with Saudi Arabia’s defense minister, raising questions about how — or whether — the groups will more forcefully confront the growing rhetoric against the Abraham Accords.

Among the groups invited to the meeting were the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Zionist Organization of America, multiple sources familiar with the situation told Jewish Insider on Thursday, though it remains unclear which will attend. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies confirmed it would be attending a separate sit-down with the defense minister in the morning.

Notably, representatives from the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC weren’t set to attend, according to some sources familiar with the dynamics, hinting at some possible internal debate in the community regarding the wisdom of engaging with Saudi Arabia in spite of its troubling recent behavior. AIPAC declined to comment on the meeting when reached by JI on Thursday afternoon.

The AJC and ADL also declined to comment, and the Conference of Presidents did not respond to a request for comment. The Republican Jewish Coalition was invited to the meeting, one informed source told JI, but the group would not confirm its involvement.

The varying approaches suggest that Jewish organizations are strategically sensitive to alienating Saudi Arabia — as they hope for a change of heart on normalization with Israel. In turn, many groups haven’t directly confronted the antisemitic vitriol among influential figures in the kingdom.

Even as these organizations champion the advantages of joining the Abraham Accords, their responses appear to neglect a key regional signatory, the UAE; a prominent Saudi columnist recently called the UAE “an Israeli Trojan horse in the Arab world” in one of the latest public attacks now regularly targeting their neighboring country, as Riyadh reportedly turns away from its traditional moderate alliances and towards Islamist countries hostile to Israel, including Qatar and Turkey.

None of the organizations had publicly commented on Saudi Arabia’s new direction until reached by JI late last week, reflecting a possible early blind spot concerning a major regional shift that threatens to have far-reaching consequences not only for Israel but Jewish safety more broadly in the Middle East.

The largely reactive tenor of the engagement so far indicates that Jewish advocacy groups have yet to formalize a strategy for preemptively tackling such challenges and raising awareness among legislators and other policymakers to build an infrastructure to help advance the Abraham Accords amid dwindling Saudi support.

Jonathan Schanzer, FDD’s executive director, said the “worsening” rhetoric on Jews and Israel “has left U.S. organizations that previously advocated for warmer engagement with Saudis at an interesting crossroads.”

“Some will double down and attempt to embrace the Saudis with a bear hug,” he told JI on Tuesday. “Others will begin to criticize the kingdom sharply. This natural dichotomy may actually be healthy, showing the regime that there are two paths it can take. One will obviously be more advantageous to the regime than the other.”

“The priority now must be rapid de-escalation between Saudi Arabia and Israel, two close American allies, whose widening rift is being aggressively exploited by Muslim Brotherhood governments in Turkey and Qatar, as well as the Islamists in Iran,” FDD CEO Mark Dubowitz said. “Allowing this crisis to bleed into the Saudi-Israeli normalization process — and incitement against Israel and Jews — would be a strategic setback, particularly given its central importance to President Trump’s regional agenda.”

In addressing the shift, some Jewish groups have pushed back on Riyadh’s problematic language. The ADL, for example, condemned state-aligned media channels and regime mouthpieces for promoting “openly antisemitic dog whistles” while opposing the Abraham Accords, rhetoric it called “harmful” to “the prospect of peaceful coexistence in the region.”

AIPAC, meanwhile, struck a more diplomatic note in a statement to JI that made no explicit mention of Riyadh’s turn to open antisemitism, saying that “America would be stronger and our interests would be better served if more nations, including Saudi Arabia,” normalized ties with Israel.

That view was echoed by Democratic Majority for Israel, which glancingly alluded to “recent political frictions and unhelpful rhetoric” from Saudi voices, while characterizing normalization as “an enduring strategic imperative,” even as the kingdom has been increasingly hostile to a rapprochement with Israel.

For its part, the American Jewish Committee, which has actively pushed for normalization, has refrained from publicly commenting on the issue, only noting that it is “keeping a close eye on any developments.”

The COP, which in 2020 led a historic delegation to Saudi Arabia in what was then interpreted as a sign of warming ties with Israel, has likewise declined to publicly weigh in on the situation, in advance of the meeting on Friday.

Mort Klein, the national president of the conservative Zionist Organization of America, said he was also invited to the meeting on Friday by a caller “with an Arabic name,” but was unable to join due to a scheduling conflict. “I received a strange phone call asking me to attend,” he told JI on Thursday. He would not elaborate on the conversation or why another ZOA official would not be participating.

The ZOA has sharply criticized Saudi Arabia’s evolution as a “dangerous” development, urging the Trump administration to reconsider its plans to sell F-35 fighter jets to Riyadh, among other policies.

Some Middle East analysts familiar with Saudi Arabia’s recent maneuvering have raised doubts about whether the meeting will amount to more than a PR stunt for the kingdom. Both Qatar and Turkey have similarly engaged in past discussions with Jewish leaders that have done little to change their approaches to Israel or ties to Islamist groups.

“This meeting will be complete window dressing,” one expert told JI on Thursday. “The Saudis may try and rationalize their way out of their new alignment with Pakistan, Qatar and Turkey and say everything is fine with the UAE when evidence says otherwise.”

Daniel Shapiro, a U.S. ambassador to Israel in the Obama administration who served as a top defense official in the Biden administration, said that it was “wise and understandable” for Jewish organizations “to keep the door open to normalization” with Saudi Arabia, while stressing a need to “draw some bright lines about what’s not acceptable” with regard to its rhetoric and policies.

Citing the unpredictability of the situation, Shapiro also suggested that Jewish groups should seek to engage in proactive outreach “to get members of Congress and other officials focused on trying to figure out” Saudi Arabia’s motivations. That could result in “direct and frank conversations with” Riyadh to better understand its new thinking and potentially “draw some red lines.”

“People are really still making an adjustment to it,” Shapiro told JI in an interview on Wednesday. “It’s wise to use diplomacy, in real time, to try to put up some guardrails.”

In some ways, the hesitant manner in which some Jewish groups have contended with Saudi Arabia shows how the kingdom’s sudden realignment has confounded even the most seasoned Gulf watchers. 

“The thoughts coming from Saudis are horrific and apparently at total odds with the public messages of the last few years,” Simon Henderson, a Middle East expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told JI. “Without a corrective comment from a senior Saudi figure, they should be taken seriously. Put simply, forget normalization anytime soon. Analysts are in a state of shock trying to work out the why and how permanent the damage may be.”

Still, Abe Foxman, the former longtime national director of the ADL, stressed that efforts to court Saudi involvement in a diplomatic agreement with Israel need not obscure a broader commitment to strenuously denouncing the kingdom’s “anti-Israel expressions and antisemitism.”

“As much as we may want Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords, that hope and desire should not inhibit our ability to criticize” its recent policies, Foxman told JI on Tuesday. “I recall that during the years we pursued peace between Israel and Egypt and Israel and Jordan, we did not refrain from being critical of their anti-Israel policies or their embrace of antisemitism.”

Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, cast the differing positions from Jewish groups as a “reflection of the wide diversity of views inside of the Jewish American community,” arguing that some of their responses are a demonstration of their “proximity” to Saudi Arabia or the rival UAE.

Jewish and pro-Israel organizations were invited to a meeting with the Saudi defense minister in Washington on Friday afternoon, four sources familiar with the invitation confirmed to Jewish Insider.

Invited groups included the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and Republican Jewish Coalition, though as of Thursday morning it was not clear which invitees would be accepting the invitation.

Foundation for Defense of Democracies is meeting with the defense minister in a separate sit-down Friday morning, FDD CEO Mark Dubowitz confirmed to JI.

Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman, the brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is in Washington holding meetings with U.S. officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff on Thursday and Friday. 

The invitation comes as some Jewish organizations have expressed concerns about the recent rise in antisemitic and Islamist rhetoric out of Saudi Arabia, but they’ve been relatively cautious in their language as they seek to maintain their support for the long-sought but elusive goal of bringing Riyadh into the Abraham Accords.

“This meeting will be complete window dressing,” one Middle East analyst familiar with the invitation and with the larger Saudi pivot in the region told JI. “The Saudis may try and rationalize their way out of their new alignment with Pakistan, Qatar and Turkey and say everything is fine with the UAE when evidence says otherwise.”

“They may also want to send a message to Jewish organizations with absolute clarity that they will not be joining the Abraham Accords until there’s a Palestinian state, especially ahead of a rumored visit by [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to Washington in the next 30 days,” the analyst added. 

“If these Jewish organizations do attend the meeting, they should give a stern message to Saudi leadership that their new strategic alliances and promoting antisemitism and being destructive in the region regarding Israel are not helpful.”

A burgeoning legal battle between the University of Pennsylvania and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission escalated last week when the Ivy League university called the agency’s methods of investigating whether the school permitted an antisemitic work environment “extraordinary and unconstitutional.” 

The EEOC subpoenaed the university to turn over lists of Jewish employees and members of Jewish organizations, along with detailed identifying and contact information, saying the information is needed for the agency to contact potential victims of antisemitic discrimination. The university’s president and trustees — with the support of Jewish campus organizations Hillel, Chabad and Meor, as well as the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia — refused to do so. 

Handing over those names would disregard “the frightening and well-documented history of governmental entities that undertook efforts to identify and assemble information regarding persons of Jewish ancestry,” the university asserted in a legal filing last Tuesday. 

What may appear to be an arcane legal issue illuminates the tension at the heart of the Trump administration’s aggressive approach to combating campus antisemitism, with even some of the victims of that discrimination concerned that the methods of countering it have gone too far. While the EEOC said it is committed to doing whatever it can to investigate antisemitism among faculty and staff of the elite university, Jewish faculty and students see something worrisome.

“We are deeply concerned that the EEOC is now seeking lists of individuals identified as Jewish, including their personal home addresses, phone numbers, and private emails, based solely on their affiliation with Jewish organizations on campus — and without their consent,” Hillel and Meor wrote in a social media post in November. “Across history, the compelled cataloging of Jews has been a source of profound danger, and collection of Jews’ private information carries echoes of the very patterns that made Jewish communities vulnerable for centuries.” 

Why does the EEOC, which examines complaints of discrimination and civil rights violations at American workplaces, want Penn to provide the lists of Jewish university affiliates? And why are Jewish faculty members — including some who support the federal government’s efforts to investigate antisemitism at their place of work — urging their employer not to comply? 

The dispute dates back to December 2023, when the EEOC pledged to investigate whether Jewish employees at Penn had been subjected “to an unlawful hostile work environment.” 

The inquiry was opened the same week that then-Penn President Liz Magill testified before Congress about her handling of antisemitism at the Philadelphia university in the weeks that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel. The investigation continued quietly for nearly two years, overseen by EEOC Commissioner Andrea Lucas, who last year was appointed chair of the agency by President Donald Trump. 

It spilled into public view in November when the EEOC filed suit against Penn, seeking to force the university to finally compile and hand over the lists of Jewish faculty members and students that the EEOC said are crucial to its investigation. 

The sought-after lists would include the members of all Jewish clubs and student groups, the names of everyone who participated in confidential university listening sessions about antisemitism, faculty members who were criticized and doxxed in a social media post from an anti-Israel student group and all employees and faculty of the Jewish studies program. Karen McDonough, deputy director of the EEOC’s Philadelphia office, said in a legal filing that the university’s refusal to turn over the lists has “severely hampered” the investigation. 

Penn disagrees. The university called the demand “not only disconcerting but entirely unnecessary,” pledging instead that it would send a message to all university employees telling them how to get in touch with the EEOC to share instances of antisemitism they experienced or witnessed. The university said it has “cooperated extensively” with the agency by turning over more than 100 documents. 

A more typical investigation might involve agency officials interviewing people who issued complaints directly with the agency, then visiting the campus and publicizing their investigation, according to Samuel Bagenstos, a law professor at the University of Michigan with expertise in employment law. 

“If there are those claims that should be followed up, they should definitely be followed up, and they should be followed up according to usual investigative practices and not this dragnet of, ‘Let’s compile a list of all the Jews at Penn,’” Bagenstos told Jewish Insider last week. “It’s an incredibly unusual, if not completely unprecedented, request. It’s not tailored at all to any particular allegations of discrimination.” 

An EEOC spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

The agency appeared to follow a similar playbook last year when it investigated antisemitism among staff at Columbia University and the affiliated Barnard College. Employees from both institutions received text messages from the EEOC on their personal phones asking them to fill out a survey identifying whether they are Jewish or Israeli, and if they have faced antisemitic harassment. 

In that case, university officials had agreed to hand over employee data. Columbia’s associate general counsel and deputy general counsel told the Columbia Daily Spectator, the student newspaper, that the university complied with a subpoena to share employee information with the EEOC. But because the dispute ended in July with a settlement — and not with legal action — the EEOC’s methods of information-gathering at Columbia and Barnard never became public. (Columbia agreed to pay $21 million to resolve antisemitism charges.)

The Penn faculty members and employees opposed to the efforts by the federal government to obtain the controversial lists are not saying that the university is free from antisemitism. The Penn Faculty Alliance to Combat Antisemitism, which formed after Oct. 7 in response to rising anti-Jewish antagonism on campus, filed a brief supporting the university, and its members said that while they want to see the EEOC’s efforts to combat antisemitism at Penn continue, they oppose the methods being used by the agency.

“While the Alliance supports the EEOC’s efforts to combat antisemitism at Penn, its members are gravely concerned that the scope of the EEOC subpoena, which effectively seeks full lists of Jewish individuals at Penn and their personal information, invokes the troubling historical persecution of Jews, and threatens the personal security of the Alliance’s members,” the group wrote in a legal filing last week. 

As the case moves forward in federal court, Penn and the EEOC are poised to test the boundaries of how far a civil rights investigation can go in the name of protecting a vulnerable group.

Several leading Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy groups are expressing concerns about the impact of the recent rise in antisemitic and Islamist messaging out of Saudi Arabia, as the Gulf kingdom’s rhetoric is increasingly raising questions about its standing as a reliable U.S. ally in the region.

In recent weeks, Saudi Arabia has ratcheted up its anti-Israel rhetoric through state-sanctioned media and other regime mouthpieces, amid a widening rift with the United Arab Emirates and closer alignment with Islamist-oriented forces that are hostile toward Israel, such as Turkey and Qatar. 

The new posturing, part of a broader pivot from what national security experts had seen as Saudi Arabia’s moderating influence in the region, has fueled surprise and frustration among Jewish American advocacy organizations that have pushed for the kingdom to normalize relations with Israel, an objective now regarded in some circles as unlikely for the foreseeable future.

Last week, the Anti-Defamation League said in a sharply worded social media statement that it was “alarmed by the increasing frequency and volume of prominent Saudi voices — analysts, journalists and preachers — using openly antisemitic dog whistles and aggressively pushing anti-Abraham Accords rhetoric, often while peddling conspiracy theories about ‘Zionist plots.’”

“This is harmful on many levels, diminishing the prospect of peaceful coexistence in the region and weakening regional initiatives promoting tolerance, understanding and prosperity,” the ADL added.

The pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, for its part, amplified a recent X post by Barak Ravid, a global affairs correspondent for Axios, who flagged what he called Saudi Arabia’s “information war against the UAE” and said “the Saudi press is full of articles that include anti-Israeli conspiracies, anti-Abraham Accords rhetoric and even antisemitic language.”

In a statement to Jewish Insider on Monday, Deryn Sousa, a spokesperson for AIPAC, emphasized that “America would be stronger and our interests would be better served if more nations, including Saudi Arabia, joined the Abraham Accords and worked together with our democratic ally Israel to promote regional peace, security and prosperity.”

Brian Romick, the president and CEO of Democratic Majority for Israel, echoed that sentiment, calling the Abraham Accords “a landmark diplomatic achievement” whose expansion, “especially through Saudi-Israeli normalization, should be a bipartisan pillar of U.S. policy.”

“A breakthrough between Israel and Saudi Arabia would be the most consequential step the region can take toward lasting peace, security, and prosperity, and the Trump administration should pursue it relentlessly while linking any upgrade in the relationship to measurable progress toward Saudi-Israeli normalization,” Romick said in a statement to JI. “Despite recent political frictions and unhelpful rhetoric, deep mutual interests in security, economic integration and technology make normalization an enduring strategic imperative.”

The American Jewish Committee, which has also promoted Saudi participation in the Accords, said it is “keeping a close eye on any developments” tied to the kingdom’s shift, but declined further comment.

While experts have linked Saudi Arabia’s recent animus toward Israel to such issues as the war in Gaza, Israeli recognition of Somaliland and unrest in Iran, Michael Makovsky, the president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, suggested that one unexplored motivating factor may be the Trump administration’s friendly relations with Islamist leaders in Turkey, Qatar and Syria.

“It sends a signal to the Saudis that you could take more Islamist positions, and it won’t hurt you with the United States,” Makovsky said in an interview with JI on Monday, arguing the administration will need to “reorient” its engagement in the region if it wants to help shape Saudi policies to align more closely with American interests.

But Makovsky said he has not seen interest among Trump officials in pursuing that path — even as the administration has long encouraged Saudi Arabia to join the Abraham Accords.

“I think the administration needs to step back and reflect on the fact that, if the Saudis are acting like this now, and they’ve been more of a moderating influence,” he said, “it should lead to a rethink of how they’re approaching all these other countries.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Several leading Jewish organizations in Virginia and Washington issued a joint statement on Thursday slamming state Del. Sam Rasoul and calling for his resignation as chair of the Virginia House of Delegates’ Education Committee, days after the Roanoke Democrat announced that he is considering running for Congress in 2026. 

The statement — from the Jewish Community Relations Councils in the greater Washington area, Richmond, the Tidewater (including Virginia Beach) and the Virginia Peninsula (Newport News) — accused Rasoul, who is Palestinian American, of using rhetoric that fuels antisemitism. 

It did not mention Rasoul’s possible congressional bid. The four organizations are all nonprofits and prohibited from engaging in political advocacy. 

“Del. Rasoul’s antisemitic rhetoric dates back several years, and his vitriol has continued to increase in recent weeks. We are speaking out now because the situation demands it,” Vicki Fishman, director of Virginia government and community relations at the Washington JCRC, told Jewish Insider on Thursday.

Instead, the Jewish groups called for Rasoul to resign as chair of the education committee in the statehouse.

“Sam Rasoul has had the opportunity to provide children with a supportive learning environment and the responsibility to help keep them safe in their classrooms. He has repeatedly failed on both counts and is no longer fit to serve,” the organizations stated. Rasoul has faced scrutiny from Jewish leaders in the state for months, but he remains in the leadership role. 

“Del. Rasoul uses his position and platform to regularly spew vitriol toward the Jewish people — calling Israel ‘depraved’ and ‘evil’ while re-defining Zionism to falsely disparage it as a ‘supremacist ideology,’” the organizations wrote. “Del. Rasoul’s words are precisely the type of destructive rhetoric that fuels antisemitic attacks.” 

Rasoul said his decision to run for a U.S. House seat will depend on whether Virginia moves toward redistricting next year, a process that the House of Delegates appears likely to approve. 

Several major Jewish organizations rallied around Ron Halber, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, after a spokesperson for Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) attacked Halber as an “apologist for the Netanyahu government” and unrepresentative of his community.

The Van Hollen spokesperson’s comments came in response to remarks by Halber to reporters in which Halber said that many in the Maryland Jewish community feel “betrayed” by the senator and that he has failed to show empathy for Israel and the Jewish people.

The JCRC’s Board of Directors, in a statement late Thursday, offered Halber, who has led the group for nearly three decades, its full support, and applauded his work.

“Recent personal attacks leveled against [Ron] by Sen. Chris Van Hollen are undignified, unwarranted, and untrue. Ron and his leadership team have our full backing and support,” the board said in a statement. “In a time marked by division and discord, political leaders should model respectful behavior and discourse. We are deeply disappointed that Sen. Van Hollen chose instead to malign Ron and our organization, but we are heartened by the outpouring of support from so many partners and friends. They know what we know: Ron and the JCRC support not only Jewish families, but the millions of people who live in the DMV.”

William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said he’s known, worked with and respected both Halber and Van Hollen for decades, and that Van Hollen has been his representative for much of that time.

“That is why I am stunned, offended, and frankly angry at Senator Van Hollen’s personal attack on Ron,” Daroff said on X. “Ron is a respected communal leader who has spent decades serving Maryland Jews, advocating for security, and giving voice to a community that is anxious and afraid in this moment of rising hostility.”

He said that Halber’s criticism was “not partisan” and was at its core a call for empathy for Israeli lives, Israel’s security dilemmas and the “vulnerability so many Maryland Jews feel today,” but was “met instead with derision.”

“We can disagree about Israeli policy. We can debate strategy and tone. But labeling American Jews as apologists when they challenge you is not discourse. It is a smear. It cheapens the conversation at a time when Jewish anxiety is real and rising, and when we need leaders who hear us rather than dismiss us,” Daroff said. “Our community deserves respect. We deserve empathy. We deserve partnership grounded in good faith. We will speak up for those expectations.”

The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, another major D.C.-area Jewish umbrella organization, also offered support for “the vital role Ron Halber and the JCRC of Greater Washington play in advocating for Israel, Jewish safety, belonging, and connection across Greater Washington.”

“Ron has worked tirelessly for years to build a stronger Jewish community and Greater Washington region,” the organization continued. “At a time of extreme divisiveness in our society, our public officials should not be contributing to these divides through personal attacks.”

AIPAC said the statement by Van Hollen’s team was “shameful.”

“Disagreeing with you, Senator, doesn’t make American Jews apologists for a foreign leader,” the group said on X. “Resorting to this tired and toxic trope only reflects the shallowness of the Senator’s arguments.”

The Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella group that represents hundreds of Jewish communities and groups around the country, said in a statement that it “stand[s] with our esteemed colleague Ron Halber … following the deeply troubling personal attack leveled against him.”

“Ron and [the JCRC of Greater Washington] understand and speak for their community, and their well-documented concerns should be listened to and addressed on the merits,” JFNA continued. “We are grateful to all the public officials in the Greater Washington DC area who are engaged in productive conversations and collaborations with the Jewish community.”

Yehuda Kurtzer, the president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, called the statement “unconscionable” and said Halber deserves an apology from Van Hollen.

“Politicians need to have thicker skins in responding to criticism, especially when it is directed at them by respected representatives of minority communities. That’s part of the job,” Kurtzer said on Facebook. “Van Hollen has the right to cut off contact with the organized Jewish community even though I think that’s a toxic political choice. But he should not respond publicly like this.”

He added that, “to characterize a pro-Israel view as an apologetic for a foreign government is to evoke unfounded suspicion of foreign interference and to cast the[m] as therefore ‘un-American.’ This is dangerous stuff and politicians shouldn’t do it.”

Halber’s counterparts in other parts of the country have also rallied to his defense. “The contempt with which [Sen. Van Hollen] showed for Ron, the DC JCRC, and the Jewish community is unacceptable. He needs to apologize,” Tyler Gregory, the CEO of the Bay Area JCRC, said.

Jeremy Burton, the CEO of the Boston JCRC said that “Labeling American Jews as ‘apologists’ just because you disagree with them & their (our) attachment to the Israeli people is unacceptable” and also called on Van Hollen to apologize.

Amy Spitalnick, who leads the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, lamented both Van Hollen’s attack on Halber as well as New York Jewish figures’ criticisms of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

“We can’t even engage without resorting to ad hominem attacks. A Senator’s office calls a respected Jewish community professional an ‘apologist for Netanyahu.’ Multiple leaders call the Mayor-elect an ‘enemy of the Jewish people,’” Spitalnick said. “Countering antisemitism and hate, protecting democracy, advancing peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians all require us to engage — not disparage and smear — even and especially when we disagree. This is all so dangerous.”

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, said that “This was a display of bigotry unbecoming a US senator. [Van Hollen] owes the entire community, and especially [Halber], an apology.

Though he did not address the situation or the senator directly, Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore — who addressed a JCRC legislative breakfast the same day as Halber and Van Hollen’s comments and offered praise and thanks to Halber — also reaffirmed his partnership with the D.C. JCRC in an X post on Thursday.

“There’s no higher goal for me than ensuring people feel safe where they live, work, and worship. That’s why our administration is fully committed to combating antisemitism in all its forms, and why I’m proud to announce that my upcoming budget proposal will preserve historic funding for hate crime protection grants,” Moore said, alongside a photograph from his speech in front of a JCRC banner. “Thank you to @JCRCgw for your partnership in this work.”

Eileen Filler-Corn, the Jewish and Democratic former speaker of the Virginia House, said on Facebook that she’s “offended by the personal attack directed at Ronald Halber,” describing him as a “respected leader in our Jewish community” and an “essential” advocate for the community.

“We can and should have healthy debates about the Israeli government and disagreement is part of a vibrant democracy, but labeling American Jews as ‘apologists’ for Netanyahu simply because they express support for the State of Israel is unacceptable, unproductive and entirely out of line,” Filler-Corn said. “Our community is hurting. We are being targeted and antisemitism is surging. At a moment like this, personal attacks on those who advocate for our safety and dignity do nothing but deepen the pain.”

Van Hollen does have some defenders in the Jewish community. Hadar Suskind, the CEO of the left-wing Israel advocacy group New Jewish Narrative, praised Van Hollen’s engagement since the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks and with the war in Gaza.

“Chris has always been there for his Jewish constituents and in support of the people of Israel,” Susskind said on X. “But you know what, like the majority of Marylanders, including Jewish Marylanders, he disagrees with many of the policies and actions of the Netanyahu government. And he is 100% right to do so and to say so.”

“As American Jews who care about Israel we should want all of our elected officials [to] do what Senator Van Hollen is doing, speak the difficult truths that need to be told and support a better future for Israelis and Palestinians,” he continued. “​​The days of demanding that elected officials ‘pick a side’ and show loyalty to ‘one team’ are over.”

Several major Jewish organizations are expected to call on the Senate to “swiftly” confirm President Donald Trump’s nominees for special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism and international religious freedom ambassador. 

The groups, led by the Jewish Federations of North America, are writing in a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that filling the roles is “of utmost importance in fighting growing antisemitism and ensuring freedom of religion or belief worldwide,” according to a draft obtained by Jewish Insider. The letter is set to be sent on Tuesday, according to a source with knowledge of the draft.

“We dare not delay in filling these critical positions that protect human rights around the world,” the letter states. “To that end we strongly urge you to prioritize filling these positions, sending a powerful signal to governments around the world that the United States upholds our constitutionally guaranteed rights to life and liberty, to freedom of religion and belief, and calls on them to do the same.”

In April, Trump tapped Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, an Orthodox businessman and Chabad rabbi who served as a campaign surrogate, to serve as the next U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. In the Biden administration, that role was filled by Deborah Lipstadt, a Holocaust historian at Emory University. In May, the two authored a joint op-ed, with former antisemitism envoy Elan Carr, calling for action after two Israeli Embassy staffers were killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. 

Trump named former Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC) as the U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Both positions require Senate confirmation, and neither has had a confirmation hearing yet. 

“We believe that these ambassador-at-large positions are crucial to protecting vital human rights, promoting religious freedom and vigorously confronting the global surge in antisemitism,” the Jewish organizations wrote. 

JFNA CEO Eric Fingerhut told JI on Tuesday that the positions must be filled to help Jewish organizations combat rising antisemitism.

“The 141 Jewish Federations across our system are on the front lines of responding to and combatting antisemitism, and every single day we hear from them about the elevated levels of antisemitism our communities are facing,” Fingerhut said. “The government is a critical partner in our fight against antisemitism, both at home and around the world, so we must make sure that these roles do not remain vacant.”

A spokesperson for Thune did not respond to a request for comment. 

A spokesperson for Schumer referred to the hold the Senate minority leader currently has on dozens of Trump nominees, and Trump’s recent message to Schumer to “go to hell” after bipartisan negotiations broke down. The spokesperson declined to comment specifically on Kaploun or Walker. 

“President Trump has focused on promoting religious freedom and fighting antisemitism in a historic way,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly told JI in a statement. “He wants all of his nominees confirmed as quickly as possible, including Yehuda Kaploun and Mark Walker, whose roles will be critically important to protecting Americans of faith.”

Current signatories to the letter include the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League, the Orthodox Union, the Israeli-American Council, the Zionist Organization of America, Hadassah, American Jewish Committee, Agudath Israel, B’nai Brith International, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, NORPAC, Combat Antisemitism Movement, Religious Zionists of America and the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists. 

A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. 

This story was updated at 9:35 a.m. ET on Aug. 27, 2025.

More than 75 Jewish organizations around the world signed on to a joint letter Monday voicing “unequivocal support” for Katharina von Schnurbein, the European Commission coordinator on combating antisemitism, amid calls for her dismissal by EU parliament members over her support for Israel. 

In the letter addressed to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the groups said von Schnurbein — who has served nearly a decade in the role —  “has worked tirelessly and with great integrity to strengthen European policies and initiatives that protect Jewish communities and ensure that Jewish life can flourish across our continent.”

“Her mandate has always been grounded in European values, democratic principles, and the urgent need to defend the Jewish community against hatred and discrimination,” the letter, spearheaded by the American Jewish Committee, continued. 

The signatories called it “deeply troubling” that von Schnurbein is accused of “‘bias’ simply because she refuses to trivialize or ignore threats against Jews.” Other signatories include the Anti-Defamation League, Conference of European Rabbis, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and World Jewish Congress. 

“To attack her for defending Jewish dignity and security is, in effect, to challenge the European Union’s own credibility in combating antisemitism,” the letter continued.   

A formal request to the European Commission calling for von Schnurbein’s firing was submitted on Friday by 26 EU Parliament members, Israel Hayom reported. The correspondence condemned a leaked presentation she made in May regarding ties between antisemitism and efforts to delegitimize Israel. It claims that von Schnurbein went beyond her institutional authority by attempting to persuade EU member-state representatives against imposing sanctions that would impact Israel’s position in the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

As students return to school in the coming weeks, four leading Jewish organizations are encouraging university leaders to adopt a new set of recommendations, released on Monday, designed to curb the antisemitism that has overwhelmed many campuses since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, Jewish Insider has learned. 

The guidelines — which call for increased safety measures as well as long-term structural reforms and build upon a four-page set of recommendations released last August —  are a joint effort from the Anti-Defamation League, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Hillel International and Jewish Federations of North America. 

The recommendations urge university leaders to “consistently enforce” codes of conduct around protests; appoint a coordinator to address Title VI discrimination complaints; reject academic boycotts of Israel; conduct annual student and faculty surveys in regard to campus antisemitism; crackdown on online harassment (in addition to physical safety concerns); and hold faculty accountable for political coercion and identity-based discrimination.

Some of the guidelines, such as the appointment of a Title VI coordinator, echo commitments that several university leaders have made in recent months amid battles with the Trump administration over federal funding. At Columbia University, some Jewish students expressed skepticism that the moves would have a significant impact on campus antisemitism. 

“These recommendations aren’t just suggestions, they’re essential steps universities need to take to ensure Jewish students can learn without fear,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “Jewish students are being forced to hide who they are, and that’s unacceptable — we need more administrators to step up.”

“We are encouraged by the universities that have taken prior recommendations seriously, implementing changes that have reduced the most severe types of incidents, creating safer and more welcoming environments as a result. But our work is far from complete,” Hillel International president and CEO Adam Lehman said in a statement. “These updated recommendations provide a roadmap for institutions to build on their progress and address the challenges Jewish students continue to face.”

The recommendations released last summer by the same groups, in addition to the American Jewish Committee, called for university leaders to “anticipate and mitigate disruptions” on the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7. Other suggestions included that universities clearly communicate campus rules, standards and policies, support Jewish students, ensure campus safety and reaffirm faculty responsibilities.

The Toronto International Film Festival reversed course on Thursday, deciding to air “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” a documentary about the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, at its upcoming festival.

TIFF had faced serious backlash from Jewish organizations and Canadian politicians over its initial decision to cancel the screening due to the film’s usage of Hamas footage from the attacks, saying the terror organization had not approved them for use.

TIFF board member John Ruffolo told the Toronto Sun that the organization decided at a board meeting Thursday that the movie “will be exhibited as planned and even bigger than originally.”

The documentary tells the story of retired Israeli general Noam Tibon, who raced from Tel Aviv to rescue his son and two young granddaughters trapped in a safe room in Kibbutz Nahal Oz when Hamas terrorists invaded on Oct. 7.

Another source told the Sun that TIFF President Cameron Bailey and Barry Avrich, the film’s director, were essential to the decision, along with input from philanthropist Heather Reisman and entrepreneur Henry Wolfond, both influential Jewish Canadians.

Councillor Brad Bradford, who had called on TIFF to reverse course, said he was “relieved” by the organization’s decision, “but the fact it was ever pulled — silencing a Canadian filmmaker and granting legal legitimacy to a listed terrorist organization — is deeply troubling. It should not have taken a public outcry to correct this mistake.”

Around 400 Jewish organizations and synagogues signed onto an Anti-Defamation League backed letter Monday expressing concern over the “growing level of antisemitic activity” within teachers’ unions, which recently escalated with the National Education Association’s adoption of a measure targeting the leading Jewish civil rights organization, Jewish Insider has learned.  

Signatories include the American Jewish Committee, Jewish Federations of North America, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, National Council of Jewish Women, Orthodox Union, Rabbinical Assembly and Union for Reform Judaism. 

The letter, addressed to Rebecca Pringle, president of the NEA — the largest teachers’ union in the U.S. — comes on the heels of a measure passed last week by the association that bars the union from using any teaching materials from the ADL. 

The letter urges Pringle to reject the measure, referred to as New Business Item 39, as well as to issue a condemnation of and plan of action to address antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric in the NEA.

“The ADL has been a national leader in anti-hate education in K-12 schools for decades and is widely recognized as one of the country’s foremost experts on antisemitism,” the letter states, raising concern that, “although NBI 39 does not explicitly say so, we understand that much of the underlying concern prompting this resolution is directed at ADL’s Holocaust education materials.” 

“That reality makes this proposal especially disturbing,” the letter continues. “This is precisely the kind of education that is vital not only to combat antisemitism, but also to fighting hatred and intolerance of all kinds. The effort to exclude ADL’s voice from educational spaces at a time of skyrocketing antisemitism — including in K-12 classrooms — speaks volumes about the climate within NEA that allowed this measure to pass, and the lack of understanding, if not outright hostility, behind it.”

The letter also references several Jewish teachers who spoke out against the resolution at the Representative Assembly, claiming that they were “harassed and shouted down during the proceedings.”

“It is our belief that the goal of those who introduced NBI 39 is to marginalize mainstream Jewish voices within this country’s public school systems and to limit the ability of educators to address the growing threat of antisemitism with their students,” the letter states. 

The ADL has criticized the vote, calling it “profoundly disturbing that a group of NEA activists would brazenly attempt to further isolate their Jewish colleagues and push a radical, antisemitic agenda on students.” 

“Excluding ADL’s gold-standard educational resources is not just an attack on our organization – it’s a dangerous attack on the entire Jewish community,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the group’s CEO, said in a statement. “We urge the NEA Executive Committee to reverse this biased, fringe effort, and reaffirm its commitment to supporting all Jewish students and educators.”

Even outside of the recent measure, antisemitism and anti-Israel activism in teachers’ unions has been increasing since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel. At their conventions last year, both the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers, the second largest teachers’ union in the U.S. — which together represent 4.7 million members — made anti-Israel resolutions a notable part of both gatherings. In July 2024, the NEA signed a joint letter calling on President Joe Biden to halt all military aid to Israel amid its war against Hamas. 

Also in July of last year, at the AFT convention, members voted on a total of seven resolutions regarding Israel, including one against the “weaponization of antisemitism” to defend Israel. One of the seven proposed resolutions critical of Israel at the AFT convention passed.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced on Friday that it had awarded $94.4 million in security grant funding to a total of 512 Jewish organizations nationwide, around half of a long-delayed supplemental funding round.

Applications for this funding, provided as part of last year’s national security supplemental bill, opened in the fall of 2024, and grant awards were initially expected to be announced early this year. But they were delayed in a government-wide review of federal grant funding implemented by the Trump administration.

“DHS is working to put a stop to the deeply disturbing rise in antisemitic attacks across the United States,” Tricia McLaughlin, the Department of Homeland Security’s assistant secretary, said in a statement. “That this money is necessary at all is tragic. Antisemitic violence has no place in this country. However, under President [Donald] Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem’s leadership, we are going to do everything in our power to make sure that Jewish people in the United States can live free of the threat of violence and terrorism.”

The grant funding was open to all nonprofits, with a focus on organizations facing higher threats due to the war in Gaza.

But the funding round was expected to include the full $220 million in remaining NSGP funding from the national security supplemental legislation. It’s unclear at this point how and under what procedures FEMA plans to disburse that remaining $126 million.

The agency has yet to open applications for the 2025 full-year grant process.

Asked for comment on these issues, FEMA referred JI back to a press release on the funding grants and did not respond to a subsequent follow-up question.

“We welcome the Administration awarding $94 million in Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) funding to help protect over 500 Jewish institutions amid the historic levels of antisemitic threats that ADL is tracking,” Lauren Wolman, director of federal policy and strategy at the Anti-Defamation League, said. “But the job isn’t done. DHS must urgently release the additional NSGP supplemental funds Congress appropriated to meet overwhelming demand and save lives. ADL will continue working with lawmakers and senior officials to underscore both the urgency of increasing funding and moving previously appropriated funding.”

In my years of covering politics, it’s pretty rare for mainstream Jewish organizations to be wildly out of step with the predominant views of the Democratic Party. But in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s decision to order bunker-busting strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites over the weekend, the views of the institutional Jewish community and many rank-and-file Democrats couldn’t have been more divergent.

Consider: The American Jewish Committee’s CEO Ted Deutch, a former Democratic congressman, praised Trump’s decision and called it “an historic moment for the United States, Israel and the world.” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt thanked Trump for “holding true to the commitment that the United States will not stand by and watch the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and antisemitism develop nuclear weapons.”

Even the more-partisan Democratic pro-Israel group DMFI, which normally can be counted on to criticize the president, rejected its own party’s predominant view that further congressional approval should have been received before the strikes. “Iran was unwilling to give up its nuclear program through diplomatic negotiations across three different administrations, so the United States was left with no choice but to take decisive military action,” DMFI CEO Brian Romick said.

By contrast, it was tough to find many Democratic lawmakers — even among the many who are typical allies of Israel — to offer praise of the strikes severely degrading Iran’s nuclear program. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who earlier this month recorded a video taunting Trump for “folding” against Iran, criticized the president for carrying out the strikes without congressional authority. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), one of the strongest pro-Israel stalwarts in the Democratic Party, likewise withheld support for striking Iran’s nuclear facilities while also reiterating her view that Iran should never be able to obtain a nuclear weapon. Like Schumer, she called on more congressional involvement.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), another strong pro-Israel ally running as the moderate Democrat in a Michigan Senate primary, sounded wary about the U.S. decision to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities. “The last thing our country needs is to be involved in another foreign war,” she said, echoing rhetoric from more progressive voices in the party.

To be sure, there have been a handful of Democrats sounding like the pro-Israel lawmakers that once dominated the party. Just look at the comments from Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ),  Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL),  Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), all of whom described the all-too-urgent threat that a nuclear Iran posed to Israel and the world.

As one pro-Israel Democrat put it to JI: There were notably more Democrats putting out statements cheering anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil being released from immigration detention than those expressing solidarity with Israel in its time of great need.

The debate over dealing with Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been a fraught one within the Democratic Party, ever since former President Barack Obama cut a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 that many pro-Israel leaders found too accommodating towards the Islamic Republic. There were very messy internal divisions in the party back then as well.

But with public support for Israel among Democratic voters waning, according to recent polling, it looks like it’s getting harder for even sympathetic Democrats to vocally support the position, as Landsman did, that preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is a step towards peace. It’s possible to quibble with the administration’s lack of legislative outreach while also acknowledging the positive end result.

On national security, this is becoming a moment of truth for the Democratic Party at large, which is trying to moderate its record to win back power in Washington, but still is beholden to its activist base. The fact that Zohran Mamdani, a radical anti-Israel candidate defending the slogan “globalize the intifada” is running as competitively as he is in tomorrow’s New York City Democratic mayoral primary, is a sign of where the party could be headed without more mainstream leaders speaking out.

The American Jewish community is facing an “elevated threat” following a surge of violent antisemitic attacks across the country in recent weeks, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned last week. 

In a joint statement, the FBI and DHS called for increased vigilance among Jewish communities, noting the possibility of copycat attacks after a shooting in Washington in which two Israeli Embassy employees were killed and an attack in Boulder, Colo., in which 15 people were injured in a firebombing targeting advocates calling for the release of hostages in Gaza. “The ongoing Israel-HAMAS conflict may motivate other violent extremists and hate crime perpetrators with similar grievances to conduct violence against Jewish and Israeli communities and their supporters. Foreign terrorist organizations also may try to exploit narratives related to the conflict to inspire attacks in the United States,” the agencies warned. 

Jewish organizations that track threats to the community are similarly concerned about online rhetoric following the attacks. 

The Anti-Defamation League highlighted that, one day after the incident in Boulder, videos allegedly recorded by the assailant shortly before the assault began circulated on a Telegram channel called Taufan al-Ummah, which translates to “Flood of the Ummah,” a reference to the Al-Aqsa Flood, Hamas’ name for its Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel. The circulated posts celebrated Soliman’s actions. 

The ADL also noted that extremists responded to the attack by spreading conspiracy theories which blamed Jews for the firebombing. Additionally, the Bronx Anti-War Coalition posted a threat shortly after the attack: “May all Zionists live in perpetual fear and paranoia until the day the criminal entity crumbles.” 

“The volume of alerts when our social media web scraping tools highlight postings that may be real threats is happening at a much higher run rate than before D.C. and Boulder,” Mitch Silber, director of the Community Security Initiative, which coordinates security for Jewish communities in the New York region, told Jewish Insider.

“I would say it’s unprecedented,” Silber said of the threat Jews are confronting.  

Silber also called it “unprecedented that American Jews are being targeted because of Israel’s actions,” referring to the Boulder attack, the killing of the two Israeli Embassy staffers, and an attempted arson attack on the home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro during the holiday of Passover. The suspect in the Boulder attack told investigators he “wanted to kill all Zionist people” and had planned the attack for a year. The shooter in Washington yelled “Free Palestine” shortly after the attack and the arsonist cited Shapiro’s support for Israel as his motive.   

These attacks, according to Silber, are distinct from other antisemitic incidents that have occurred in recent years, such as the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh — which remains the deadliest attack on Jews on U.S. soil — and the 2022 hostage-taking at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. 

“The key element that’s different here is the motivation of the attacks,” Silber said. The Tree of Life shooter was motivated by HIAS immigration actions and the Colleyville shooter was looking to get an al-Qaida fighter freed. “Of course, antisemitism is the broad brush,” he continued, “but if you look at recent attacks, they are really attacks against Jewish communities in the U.S. because American Jews are stand-ins for the Israelis that these attackers can’t reach.” 

CSI is responding in “a multitude of different ways,” Silber said. “It’s been a tsunami of requests from organizations.” 

“We’re encouraging any Jewish institution or organization to let us know if they are having an event and that way we can let local law enforcement know,” Silber continued, adding that the group’s new plans include subsidizing armed guards to complement law enforcement at outdoor events hosted by Jewish organizations, as well as expanding its team of analysts searching on social media, surface web and dark web for threats.  

“We have more hands on keyboards to give ourselves a better chance of detecting a Boulder or D.C. before it happens,” Silber said. 

Community Security Service, a group that provides self-defense and safety training to Jewish institutions, also told JI it is beefing up services in light of the recent attacks. 

“Both of the attacks within a two-week timespan have been accompanied by the same kind of slogans that we’ve been hearing on college campuses and yelled at synagogues,” said Richard Priem, CEO of CSS. “That is a new manifestation. Of course we are concerned.” 

Following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and ensuing war in Gaza, CSS saw a dramatic increase in Jewish communities requesting security support, which lasted for about a year, according to Priem. “But over the last two weeks, we’ve had dozens of inquiries from organizations,” he said. 

“We are making sure that more quarters of the community use the training that we have for them,” Priem said. “Not just by deploying volunteers for large- or small-scale events but also just giving them guidance and training on how to organize themselves in a way that makes them less vulnerable.”

“We will open some community-wide training sessions in the coming weeks that are open to anyone to give awareness to pre-attack indicators,” he continued. “We have to get out of this mindset that the only way we’re going to solve this is by outsourcing to more companies. We’re not going to get out of this situation unless we as a community start taking ownership and realize we have to do training. We have to pay attention. Whether there’s an increased threat or not, people should do preventative training now.” 

Marc Calcano, a former NYPD officer who runs a New York City-based private security firm with several high-profile Jewish clients, echoed that “the level of terror” American Jews face is “extremely high right now” and warned that the Boulder attack, in particular, could be easily replicated.

“I instruct individuals and large groups but I think it’s time for us to do this on a larger scale, which is creating an institution where many can come, here in New York and other states to learn how to physically defend yourself,” Calcano said.  

The Jewish community can use fear “to its advantage,” he continued. “We have to learn how to protect ourselves.”  

A coalition of 46 Jewish organizations issued a joint statement on Thursday urging additional action from the federal government to address antisemitism in the United States following the killing of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, and particularly expanding funding for a variety of programs to protect the Jewish community.

“The rising level of anti-Jewish incitement, which inevitably leads to violent acts like the one in Washington, DC yesterday, requires governmental action commensurate with the level of danger,” the letter reads.

The demands include a call to massively expand funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $1 billion, from its current level of $274.5 million, in addition to $200 million in supplemental funding also expected to be released soon. The new request is double the $500 million request from Jewish groups in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks and the request recently submitted by a bipartisan coalition of House members.

The letter further said the NSGP process should be “made more flexible and accessible,” describing it currently as “cumbersome and lack[ing] transparency.”

The groups also called for additional funding for security at Jewish institutions, for the FBI to expand its intelligence operations and counter-domestic terrorism operations and for local law enforcement to be empowered to protect Jewish establishments.

“The demands on local and state law enforcement far outpace their capacity to meet the need, which disproportionately affects targeted communities like the American Jewish community,” the letter says, of the need for additional funding for state and local law enforcement.

The groups also urged the federal government to “aggressively prosecute antisemitic hate crimes and extremist violence in accordance with the law” and to hold online platforms including social media and gaming sites “accountable for amplification of antisemitic hate, glorification of terrorism, extremism, disinformation, and incitement.”

The letter describes the murders as “the direct consequence of rising antisemitic incitement in places such as college campuses, city council meetings, and social media that has normalized hate and emboldened those who wish to do harm.”

Signatories to the letter include major national Jewish organizations including the American Jewish Committee, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Jewish Federations of North America, Anti-Defamation League and AIPAC, as well as groups representing a wide political and religious cross section of the Jewish community.