“The United States must be unequivocal: the wrongful detention or hostage-taking of Americans will not be accepted or sidelined,” the ADJ said in a statement issued jointly with other North American groups. “Our adversaries must recognize that harming Americans has lasting consequences, and Americans must be assured that their government will pursue their return with unwavering resolve.”

Along with the AJC, the call came from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and United Against Nuclear Iran. The co-founders of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum U.S., the American branch of the group that advocated for the Israeli hostages in Gaza, also signed on.

The groups celebrated the Trump administration’s record of negotiating hostage releases, writing that it had “already demonstrated an extraordinary record in recovering Americans from hostile regions, securing the release of over 70 Americans since January 2025, including every last hostage held in Gaza, living or deceased.”

The groups wrote, “The ability of the U.S. to lead in the recovery of not just Americans held in Gaza, but to secure the release of all hostages taken by Hamas showcases that the time to act decisively is now.”

Among those in captivity is Robert Levinson, a Jewish retired FBI special agent who went missing in Iran in 2007 during a business trip. Levinson’s family announced that he had died in Iranian custody in 2020.

“President Trump has brought more than 70 Americans home since January 2025,” Levinson’s family said in a statement. “We urge him to make Bob and every American held in Iran a priority in these talks — and to demand that the men responsible for our father’s abduction finally account for what they did. After 19 years, please help our family get the truth we need to move forward, and give our heroic father the justice he so rightfully deserves.”

The statements came as Trump announced that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, a condition that Iran has said was essential for any longer-term peace deal with the United States and Israel.

On Friday, Trump told Axios that he expected a permanent deal with Iran to be reached “in the next day or two,” and negotiators for the two countries are expected to meet over the coming days.

The potential deal, which has largely focused on suspending Iran’s nuclear activity, is not expected to include any provisions about the release of American hostages, which are often handled through separate negotiations. In 2023, former President Joe Biden negotiated the release of five American prisoners in Iran in exchange for releasing $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets.

There are signs that the United States is interested in securing the release of Americans in Iran. In February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Iran as a “state sponsor of wrongful detention,” writing in a release at the time that “for decades, Iran has continued to cruelly detain innocent Americans, as well as citizens of other nations, to use as political leverage against other states.”

While it is unclear exactly how many American hostages are currently in Iranian captivity, United Against Nuclear Iran currently maintains a list of 13 individuals.

“The Iranian regime must stop taking hostages and release all Americans unjustly detained in Iran, steps that could end this designation and associated actions,” Rubio said. “We encourage it to do so.”

The Jewish and pro-Israel group are calling on the Trump administration to “make the safety, security, and freedom of Americans held captive in Iran a top priority and ensure this is integrated into broader strategic discussions regarding Iran.”

They added, “We stand ready to work with the Administration to bring every American held in Iran home safely and swiftly. There is no time to waste—the moral and strategic imperative is clear.”

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“The president and the secretary of state have made it perfectly clear that people who want to sow discord in this country are not welcome here,” Kaploun told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday. “People who want to bring their brand of hate to the United States with antisemitism are not welcome. Coming to this country is a privilege. It’s not a right.”

Kaploun’s comments on a potential ban were first reported by Euractiv, which said he told a European Jewish Association conference in Brussels that the United States was “holding countries accountable for ministers who are saying things, and they are not being allowed into the country.”

But Kaploun dismissed Euractiv’s report that the United States would institute a ban specifically on European politicians, instead saying that “everybody is judged as an individual.”

“If there is a minister that is promoting, you know, there are people who are promoting right-wing antisemitism or left-wing antisemitism,” Kaploun said. “Either way, coming to the United States is a privilege, not a right, and everybody is judged on making sure that they’re going to be coming to this country, that they’re going to not ferment hate.”

The FIFA World Cup, which will be hosted in cities across the United States, Mexico and Canada from June 11 to July 19, will be the organization’s largest event to date, featuring 48 national teams.

The countries that qualified include several that have battled openly — and in some cases literally — with Israel, such as Iran, Turkey and South Africa. (Israel, which has faced widespread calls to be banned from the Union of European Football Associations, will not participate, having lost in qualifying competition last year.)

Participating countries also include several where antisemitism is seen to be on the rise or where U.S. officials have sparred with leaders over issues related to Jewish safety — for example Belgium, where the U.S. ambassador recently challenged the health minister publicly over the arrest of mohels who performed Jewish circumcisions.

Kaploun, who was confirmed as antisemitism envoy in December, has taken aim at antisemitism in Europe in recent months, including in January when he split with the president of the Conference of European Rabbis over the root of antisemitism in the region.

Kaploun’s comments came as FIFA President Gianni Infantino confirmed at CNBC’s Invest in America Forum on Wednesday that Iran would participate in the World Cup, despite its ongoing war and fragile ceasefire with the United States and Israel.

“The Iranian team is coming for sure, yes,” Infantino said. “We hope that by then, of course, the situation will be a peaceful situation. As I said, that would definitely help. But Iran has to come. Of course, they represent their people. They have qualified. The players want to play.”

On Thursday, Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House FIFA World Cup task force, told Politico that the Trump administration did expect Iran to be in attendance.

“I’m not going to speak for the Iranian team, but I will say that the president, when I’ve talked to him, has invited the Iranian team here,” Giuliani said. “The president of FIFA made a statement, I think, yesterday, that they’re going to be coming. So we expect them here.”

Discussing who could be affected by potential bans, Kaploun pointed to those involved in the October decision by England’s Aston Villa Football Club to prohibit Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from attending a match, as well as individuals tied to the violence in Amsterdam last year that left several Maccabi Tel Aviv fans injured.

“Those people who are responsible for what occurred in Amsterdam at the soccer matches, or that are responsible for the lies that ended up resulting in tourists, people, not being allowed to come to a soccer match — those people who do those things will be held accountable and aren’t welcome to come to the United States of America,” Kaploun said.

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“There is no other way to protect victims of harassment or discrimination unless you collect information about them,” Andrea Lucas, chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said at a conference on antisemitism and the law held at Harvard University. 

As part of its investigation into antisemitism at Penn, the EEOC has demanded the Ivy League university produce a list of Jewish faculty, staff and students, along with personal identifying information. The school opposed the subpoena, saying the demand “raises serious privacy and First Amendment concerns,” but an Obama-appointed judge recently ruled that the Trump administration was within their rights to ask for such a list. 

Penn has appealed the case and this week asked for a stay on the court order, which would otherwise require them to produce the list by May 1. 

The case has drawn fierce opposition from Penn’s Jewish community, including its Hillel chapter, and beyond. Free-speech groups have also spoken out against the demand, though some Jewish groups have argued it is reasonable.

Lucas, who is not Jewish, said she couldn’t comment specifically on the Penn case due to ongoing litigation. Her representative did not respond to requests for an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency following her talk.

But in broad terms she defended her office’s approach to antisemitism cases, claiming that for class-action employment harassment cases, any eventual payout would be dependent on having specific names of victims.

“At some point, either the government will know information about individuals related to their religion or we will not be able to enforce the laws on their behalf. I understand the sensitivities around this issue,” she told the crowd. “But fundamentally the Jewish community does have to decide: Do you want to have civil rights enforcement in this space?”

The conference was put on by the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a legal group that frequently defends Jewish and pro-Israel college students. It was held at Harvard as part of the terms of a different antisemitism settlement between Harvard and the Brandeis Center, related to the university’s handling of pro-Palestinian activism after Oct. 7. 

Attendees were a mix of representatives from umbrella Jewish groups, including Hillel International’s lead counsel; sympathetic Jewish university faculty; and strongly pro-Israel advocacy groups including the Lawfare Project and American Friends of Likud. William Daroff, the head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, also spoke on a panel.

A view from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 18, 2025. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Lucas said she had to obtain information about “somebody’s affiliation with a religious organization” in order to determine potential payouts from any religious discrimination settlement her office might negotiate. She also claimed the list would give her a fuller picture of the victims.

“I have reason to believe there are victims there, but I may not know all of them. So there’s going to be information gathering,” she said, adding that the EEOC would do the same for Black complainants alleging discrimination.

The Brandeis Center’s founder Kenneth Marcus, himself a former Trump official, interviewed the chair onstage and praised her leadership of the office.

“I think that she has been a transformative chair of the EEOC, one of the most consequential civil rights enforcement officials that we have,” Marcus said of Lucas, who was nominated to the commission by Trump in 2020 and appointed as chair in 2025. The EEOC’s Penn case dates back to 2023, prior to Trump’s second term in office.

Not everybody in the audience agreed with Lucas’s arguments. Mark Rotenberg, general counsel of Hillel International, told JTA that Hillel echoed its Penn chapter’s concerns about the list.

“The government has many ways in which to ascertain the scope of the problem of antisemitism in higher education without forcing the universities themselves to create and disclose lists of Jews,” Rotenberg said shortly before appearing on another panel at the conference. 

He added, “The idea that this topic, compiling lists of Jews, is just like compiling lists of women or something like that misses the important historical context in which Jews experience horrifying examples of being singled out by the government. And the Jewish experience with that is something that we believe the enforcement officials need to take into account when they choose the tools they use to deal with the terrible problem of campus antisemitism.”

Rotenberg said he wasn’t the only one in the room who differed with the EEOC chair on the issue. “I think people in the room were trying to be courteous to her and didn’t want to engage in an open debate with her on the merits of that,” he said.

Lucas did not directly address broader concerns from Jewish groups that “collection of Jews’ private information carries echoes of the very patterns that made Jewish communities vulnerable for centuries,” as Penn Hillel said earlier this year. Instead, she addressed perceived privacy issues.

“I can assure you, though, that we understand the concerns and we take our confidentiality duties very, very seriously,” she said.

The EEOC is also pursuing an antisemitism probe against the University of California. The agency’s work is separate from other federal campus antisemitism probes at the Department of Education and other agencies.

Under Lucas, the EEOC has been more aggressive in pursuing antisemitic workplace discrimination cases — a cause the chair said she felt compelled to because of her interest in religious liberty.

“For me, religious liberty is a core thing the EEOC needs to be focusing on,” she said. “And combatting antisemitism is, of course, an integral part of defending religious liberty.”

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Wednesday was the third time in as many years that the Senate voted on resolutions to limit weapons sales to Israel, introduced and promoted by the Vermont independent and progressive leader Bernie Sanders.

In 2024, 19 Democrats voted for at least one of the “Block the Bombs” resolutions on the table at the time. Last year, 24 senators endorsed the move.

Now, 40 senators — all but seven Democrats — voted for at least one of the two resolutions they faced on Wednesday, more than doubling the support in two years. The new backers include several Jewish moderates who describe themselves as pro-Israel as well as multiple senators who are seen as likely 2028 presidential candidates.

“I have struggled with these Joint Resolutions of Disapproval as much as any vote since I joined Congress,” said Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a moderate from Michigan, in a statement calling the issue of support for Israel “raw, painful and personal.”

“My entire life, I have been — and continue to be — a strong supporter of a Jewish and democratic State of Israel. The people of Israel, like all people throughout the region, deserve long-term security and peace,” Slotkin said. “But being pro-Israel today is not about simply supporting the political or military agenda of Prime Minister Netanyahu, just like being pro-American should not be equated with loyalty to President Trump.”

All three measures fell short in the Republican-led Senate. Still, the vote on the weapons sales resolution in particular offered a powerful demonstration of shifting sentiment in the party about Israel. A survey released this week found that 80% of Democratic voters hold an unfavorable view of Israel, up sharply over the last three years. The findings correlate with a growing number of polls showing rising opposition to Israel in both parties, with a steeper rise among Democrats.

In addition to Slotkin, three other Jewish senators voted to block the sale of bombs for the first time: Adam Schiff of California, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Jon Ossoff of Georgia.

Mark Kelly of Arizona, who is seen as a likely presidential contender and is married to the Jewish former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, said in a speech on the Senate floor that he “cannot and will never abandon Israel” but was voting to stop the weapons transfers because he opposes “the reckless decisions being made by Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump.”

Along with Kelly, Ossoff and Slotkin, two other possible presidential candidates also newly voted against weapons sales to Israel: Cory Booker of New Jersey and Ruben Gallego of Arizona. (Both have Jewish family members.)

Senate Democrats also voted as a bloc to restrict President Donald Trump’s ability to continue the war against Iran, which he launched jointly with Israel in February without congressional approval. Trump entered a ceasefire last week without achieving the varying goals he had outlined.

The weapons resolutions would have blocked the sale of D-9 bulldozers, widely used in military operations, and 1,000-bombs to Israel, while not affecting the sale of smaller and defensive munitions. Four senators who voted to block the bulldozer sales voted not to block the bomb sales.

Jewish critics of the war and the Israeli government applauded the votes.

“It’s encouraging to see a growing number of senators recognize that unconditional US military support for Israel is no longer tenable in light of the Netanyahu government’s policies,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, which this week came out against U.S. support for Israel’s defensive systems for the first time.

Morriah Kaplan, executive director of the progressive group IfNotNow, said the vote represented “a powerful step toward shared safety” in the Middle East and a bellwether of change in the United States.

“Establishment Jewish institutions will spend the next week writing angry letters to the Senators who voted ‘yes’ and trying to convince U.S. Jews that these politicians are putting our community in danger,” Kaplan said. “But our community is no longer falling for the disastrous lie that our safety will come through bombs, bulldozers, walls, or repression.”

There was little sign of immediate public condemnation by the Jewish groups that historically have taken aim at lawmakers who vote against support for Israel. Following the votes, the American Jewish Committee tweeted only, “Thank you to the Senators who continue to stand by Israel as it continues to face ongoing terror threats on multiple fronts.”

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But first, Pinchas Cohen, the pioneering scientist responsible for the naming quirk, wanted to say a few words about the real potential for mitochondrial-derived peptides.

Peptides represent a revolution in medicine, with potential for major new drug discoveries, the University of Southern California professor said. And the gray market fad worries him.

“These are potent biological molecules,” Cohen said. “They should be used under the supervision of a physician, and when they’re being produced in reliable manufacturing facilities — most of which is not happening right now.”

That said: about those names.

Cohen’s lab at USC has given the world SHLP (pronounced “schlep”), SHMOOSE, MENTSH, and a few others not yet published — including one called NOSH and another PUTZ. Each is a legitimate scientific acronym, carefully reverse-engineered to land on a Yiddish word.

SHLP stands for Small Humanin-Like Peptide. SHMOOSE expands to Small Human Mitochondrial ORF Over SErine tRNA. The names are light-hearted, but the science is serious. Naturally occurring SHMOOSE has been linked to a 30% increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. MENTSH, after Cohen also named a company he founded, shows promise for treating diabetes.

Cohen has a rule that he doesn’t name things himself. That’s the students’ job. “I always give the students and postdocs the chance to name the project they’re working on,” he said. “But I get veto power. They’ve already learned that the best way to get me to say yes is to come up with something really cute.”

Not every Yiddish name comes from a Jewish lab member. MENTSH was coined by a Taiwanese-American colleague who grew up in the Bay Area. “Surrounded by Jews,” Cohen noted. “He probably knows more Yiddish words that I do.”

The first peptide Cohen co-discovered was named by someone else — a Japanese scientist who called it humanin. But the second was Cohen’s subtle nod to Jewish tradition. MOTS-c, pronounced “mots-see,” was quietly crafted to echo the Hebrew word motzi, as in the blessing over bread. “That was subtle,” Cohen said, “but it was on purpose.”

The discovery of MOTS-c and the peptides that followed represented something genuinely new in science. Researchers had known about peptides for generations — insulin, the diabetes treatment, is one — but those were found through conventional means, in glands and tissues where scientists knew to look. Cohen’s innovation was finding that mitochondrial DNA, the tiny separate genome inside mitochondria long thought to encode only energy-related proteins, secretly harbored an entirely hidden library of bioactive peptides. In places scientists weren’t looking, and in parts of the genome dismissed as structural, there were functional molecules with potential to treat disease.

His lab has now published about a dozen such peptides, with another dozen or two in preparation. The number of these microproteins that may ultimately exist in the human genome, Cohen said, could reach into the millions, transforming biology in ways that are only beginning to be understood.

Cohen, who goes by the nickname “Hassy,” was born in Israel and moved to the United States at 14, when his parents were posted to the Israeli embassy in Washington. He comes from deep Zionist roots. His father’s family has been in Israel since the 1880s, among the founders of the first Jewish community in Haifa. His grandfather studied biology in Berlin in 1904 and helped establish agricultural institutions in pre-state Israel.

Cohen did his medical training at the Technion in Haifa, then Stanford, then the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA, before joining USC 14 years ago as dean of the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

Though his family is Ashkenazi, Cohen didn’t grow up speaking Yiddish — his father studied at Berkeley, his mother at the London School of Economics — and his accent bears little trace of his origins. The Yiddish names, he said, are less about heritage than about fun, and about giving his team a sense of ownership over their work.

“My identity is deeply rooted in my Jewish and Israeli heritage,” he said. “I am delighted your publication took an interest.”

The key to healthfully aging, Cohen said, is diet and exercise. “And the best diet is the Mediterranean diet,” he said, noting Israel’s high life expectancy. 

He belongs to a Kehillat Israel synagogue in Pacific Palisades, though the fires that swept through the neighborhood earlier this year, he said, “slowed things down a bit.”

Cohen is careful not to let enthusiasm for the science bleed into endorsement of the wellness industry that has appropriated it. Each peptide, he said, is its own unique compound with its own effects and risks, not a supplement to be ordered from a TikTok link. The revolution he envisions runs through clinical trials and FDA approval, not gray market vendors and cryptocurrency payments.

But he is optimistic. Somewhere in the vast molecular landscape his lab is mapping, he said, there are more discoveries waiting, and, almost certainly, more Yiddish words to find them.

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The amicus brief, which was filed Friday by the National Jewish Advocacy Center alongside the Orthodox Union and the National Council of Young Israel, comes years after Daniel Grand, a resident of the suburb of Cleveland, invited a group of Jewish men to his home for Shabbat services starting in January 2021.

At the time, University Heights, citing zoning laws, issued a cease-and-desist order blocking Grand from using his home for prayer.

Grand initially applied for a special use permit to use his home as “a place of religious assembly” in 2021, but later withdrew the application, saying he did not “wish to operate a house of worship as is defined under the zoning ordinance.”

According to the NJAC, the former mayor of University Heights, Michael Dylan Brennan, then encouraged Grand’s “neighbors to watch his home and report any sign of Jewish worship to the authorities.”

“What happened to Daniel Grand is not an isolated incident,” Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, the CEO of NJAC, said in a statement. “It is the latest chapter in a long and documented history of municipalities using zoning laws to suppress Orthodox Jewish religious practice.”

The city’s current mayor, Michele Weiss, who was elected last fall, told JTA that there was currently one residence in the city that had obtained a special permit to host worship gatherings and that another was currently in the middle of applying for one.

“My perspective is that everyone has a right to worship in their home with a small group of people (a minyan) without city involvement, just like a book club might do,” Weiss, who is the first female Orthodox Jewish mayor in the United States, wrote in an email to JTA. “If a congregation wants to worship in a residence with a proper congregation then each city should have a way forward through their planning commission.”

In September 2022, Grand filed a lawsuit against the city and Brennan, alleging that the former mayor was motivated by “animus against Orthodox Jews.” He maintained that the actions blocking him from conducting services in his home were part of a “systematic campaign” to prevent the Orthodox community from growing in University Heights, according to the Cleveland Jewish News.

In January, Weiss told JTA that University Heights’ Jewish community had grown a “tremendous amount” in recent years, and was the “largest Orthodox contingency of residents in the state of Ohio.”

Brennan, who was twice censured by the city council for “inappropriate language,” had faced criticism from the city’s Jewish community during his tenure. In November 2024, he drew backlash for criticizing voters in a heavily Jewish neighborhood who supported Donald Trump, and in April 2025, he accused the volunteer-run Jewish ambulance service Hatzalah of “jeopardizing public safety.”

In October 2024, the U.S. District Court of Northern Ohio ruled in favor of University Heights, and the Ohio 6th District Court of Appeals later upheld the ruling in November 2025.

A petition for Supreme Court review is currently pending, and a decision on whether it will be heard is expected in the coming months, according to NJAC.

“This case deserves Supreme Court review because, across the country, Jewish religious practice has repeatedly been constrained through the neutral application of rules in ways that disproportionately burden visible Jewish life,” David Benger, the litigation counsel at NJAC, said in a statement.

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Dave Yost, a Republican, says he wants to prevent Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion from closing its 151-year-old Cincinnati campus at the end of the current school year. Yost’s lawsuit alleges that the planned closure would violate state laws intended to protect the original intent of nonprofit donors, who believed they were supporting HUC’s Cincinnati base.

“Hebrew Union accepted millions of dollars in donations based on a 76-year-old promise it now would like to break,” Yost’s office said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit, citing the school’s 1950 agreement to “permanently maintain” a rabbinical school in the city. “We’re suing to keep these assets in Cincinnati where they belong.” The suit asks a judge to bar HUC from closing its doors before a court date.

In 2022, HUC leadership announced that they would be closing degree-granting programs at their flagship Cincinnati campus in order to focus on their other campuses in New York and Los Angeles, which the school claimed were more popular with students. The college has pledged to preserve its archives and library housed on the campus, but has also pursued plans to sell off property across all its campuses as well as, reportedly, to sell rare books from its collection.

The move sparked intense blowback from leaders in the Reform movement, some of whom have argued that the college was abandoning its founding principles by moving out of the Midwest in favor of the coasts. 

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, seen in 2024, claims HUC “accepted millions of dollars in donations based on a 76-year-old promise it now would like to break.” (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Some of HUC’s former Ohio figureheads, along with other Reform leaders, have since announced plans to launch their own Cincinnati-based rabbinical school: The College for Contemporary Judaism.

“We believe it is imperative that there be a strong, vibrant rabbinical school in Cincinnati to serve the liberal American Jewish community, especially between the coasts where access to congregational rabbis and rabbinical education is severely limited,” the college’s founders said in a statement Tuesday. “While we cannot comment directly on the lawsuit filed by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost against Hebrew Union College, it is vitally important that assets subject to the lawsuit are used as originally intended: to support a strong, thriving rabbinical school in Cincinnati.”

The college’s founders include Rabbi Sally Priesand, the first female rabbi to have been ordained by HUC in 1972, who will serve as the new college’s honorary president; and Rabbi Gary Zola, longtime director of HUC’s Cincinnati-based American Jewish Archives, who will now serve as CCJ’s founding president.

Opponents to Hebrew Union College’s restructuring plan hold a “Rally for Our Rabbis” on the school’s Cincinnati campus, April 7, 2022. (Courtesy of Lew Ebstein)

The college pledges not to affiliate with any particular denomination but will instead commit to “Liberal Judaism” with what its site describes as “an unwavering commitment to the existence and well-being of the Jewish and democratic State of Israel.” It will have a particular focus on Jewish communities in the Midwest, South and Mountain West, where its founders say “access to rabbinical education has been severely limited.” 

The announcement comes as denominational seminaries, including HUC, increasingly offer low-residency programs aimed at increasing access for aspiring rabbis who may not be able to relocate to New York or Los Angeles.

In explaining the decision to base the college in Cincinnati, the school points to some of the Jewish institutions there currently being shepherded by HUC, including the library and archives. It also names the region’s historical importance to American Judaism, as the city where Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, spiritual forefather of Reform Judaism, chose to base his fledgling movement.

Yost’s latest lawsuit, filed on Friday, was his second aimed at blocking HUC’s downsizing. He also sued the school in 2024 following reports that the seminary’s was exploring the sale of some of its rare books. The two parties settled the following year with an agreement intended to keep HUC from selling items without 45 days’ notice to the state.

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“Jesus Christ does not support genocide,” one person shouted out during the event at the University of Georgia. Shortly after, a voice yelled out, “You’re killing children! You’re bombing children!”

“I agree,” Vance responded. “Jesus Christ certainly does not support genocide, whoever yelled that out from the dark.”

But he said the audience should be thankful for the Trump administration’s negotiation of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

“You know who’s the person who got a peace agreement in Gaza? Donald J. Trump,” Vance said. “So if you want to complain about what happened in Gaza, why don’t you complain about Joe Biden and the last administration? We’re the administration that solved that problem.”

Vance also addressed criticism of the Iran war later in his remarks during the evening. “I recognize that young voters do not love the policy we have in the Middle East, OK,” he said, adding, “I understand.”

The incident at Turning Point USA, an influential youth organization in conservative politics that was founded by Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist who was killed last September, comes as the Republican party has faced blowback over the Iran war from top conservative activists, including Tucker Carlson.

Carlson, who has disparaged the joint U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and increasingly spread anti-Israel and antisemitic conspiracy theories on his show, has long maintained a relationship with Vance, whose refusal to rebuke the commentator has drawn scrutiny from Jewish conservative leaders.

While roughly seven in ten Republicans support the war with Iran, favorable views of Israel have declined among young Republicans in recent years, with 57% of Republicans ages 18 to 49 having an unfavorable opinion of Israel, up from 50% last year, according to the Pew Research Center.

Vance has defended the war in public despite reports he privately opposed entering the conflict. He urged the crowd to remain politically engaged despite potential disagreement with the administration.

“I’m not saying you to have to agree with me on every issue,” Vance said. “What I am saying is: Don’t get disengaged because you disagree with the administration on one topic. Get more involved, make your voice heard even more. That is how we ultimately take the country back.”

When asked by an attendee which “influencers” he would recommend young people listen to, Vance pointed to the popular podcaster Theo Von, who last June asked the vice president on his show about the “genocide” in Gaza. During that appearance, Vance rebuffed the idea that Israel was committing genocide.

The Turning Point USA event came shortly after Vance sparred with Pope Leo XIV over the pope’s criticism of the war. He said on Friday that “God does not bless any conflict” and that Christians should never be on the side of those who drop bombs.

Vance, who is Catholic, offered a different view. “Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis?” he said. “I certainly think the answer is yes.”

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The closure, which follows semester after years of financial troubles, won’t affect the Yiddish Book Center, which operates on land purchased from the college in Amherst, Massachusetts.

“We are saddened by Hampshire College’s announcement,” Susan Bronson, president of the Yiddish Book Center, said in a statement. “Hampshire has been a valued neighbor for many years, and we recognize the significance of this moment for its community.”

Founded by Hampshire alum Aaron Lansky in 1980 as an effort to save Yiddish-language publications from extinction, the Yiddish Book Center purchased the land for its permanent campus space from the college in 1997. It expanded 12 years later and today owns its property outright, though the center has contracted with the college in the past to provide dorm space and other amenities for programs and conferences.

The center was at the vanguard of a larger Yiddish-interest revival that also encompassed the college, as when the two institutions partnered to offer Yiddish classes, which are popular offerings in Amherst.

“The financial pressures on the College’s operations have become increasingly complex, compounded by shifting external factors,” Hampshire’s president and board of trustees said in a statement announcing the school’s imminent closure after 61 years. They cited declining enrollment (the school currently enrolls around 750 students), mounting land debt and a lack of resources as factors in the closure.

While the Yiddish Book Center is Hampshire’s most visible contribution to Jewish culture, it is not the only one. As an undergraduate in 1973, according to the college, Lansky and some of his Jewish classmates were involved in “the nation’s first college course on the Holocaust, ‘Thinking the Unthinkable.’” 

A course description from the time notes, “The present generation of students is notably a post-Holocaust one for whom that event is remote and unreal despite the fact that it impinges on their lives and their world. It is the purpose of this course to try to learn about the Holocaust, to try to understand that which seems to defy understanding and to try to face its effects.”

Aaron Lansky speaks at a Yiddish Book Center gala, May 4, 2025. (Susan Magnano/Magnanimous Pictures)

Also involved in the founding of the course were Leonard Glick, an anthropologist of Jewish history at Hampshire, and Galina Vromen, a journalist and novelist. Vromen clarified to JTA that Lansky was not initially involved with planning the Holocaust course. He was, however, one of its first students.

Hampshire then made the course syllabi available to other colleges, helping spur a broader effort to teach the Holocaust at a college level, according to Vromen.

“Hampshire was debatably the first college in the United States to teach a course on the Holocaust, and it happened through a student initiative,” Vromen told Hampshire’s news service last year. “I’ve always appreciated Hampshire for teaching me how to plan the steps I need to take to reach whatever goal I set for myself, how to evaluate myself along the way, and how to articulate the process to others — all extremely useful life skills.”

Via a Yiddish Book Center representative, Lansky declined to comment for this story. Hampshire currently enrolls around 325 Jewish students, more than 38% of its total student body, according to Hillel International. 

Part of Amherst’s “Five Colleges” consortium, Hampshire’s focus on self-directed study made it a unique center of learning. Other notable Jewish alumni have included actor Liev Schreiber; Stonyfield Farm co-founder Gary Hirshberg; and actor Ella Dershowitz, daughter of attorney Alan Dershowitz, who in 2009 engaged in a public spat with the college over a student activist campaign to divest its holdings from Israel.

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The survey, which was conducted by GBAO Strategies on behalf of the liberal pro-Israel lobby J Street, comes as AIPAC has faced heightened scrutiny for pouring millions of dollars into Democratic primary races in New Jersey and Illinois in recent months with the aim of electing a majority pro-Israel Congress.

Candidates’ rejection of AIPAC support has become a litmus test for many Democrats, and a number of presumed 2028 presidential candidates have sworn off AIPAC, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

Last week, the Democratic National Committee rejected a vote on a resolution that would have condemned AIPAC specifically, instead advancing a resolution that condemned “dark money” more broadly in electoral politics.

In a statement Monday, the Union For Reform Judaism criticized the negative focus on AIPAC, writing that it was “deeply concerned by efforts to single out AIPAC as a particularly malign influence in campaign finance.”

The organization joined others that have pegged the focus on AIPAC as antisemitic.

“Every candidate has the right to accept or reject funding from any PAC, including AIPAC’s, but the harsh language being used by some to denigrate and vilify AIPAC borders on — and in some instances crosses over into — antisemitism,” the URJ said, adding that it was “pleased” the DNC’s resolution failed.

The survey, which included interviews with 800 Jewish adults from March 23 to 25 and had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, found that, overall, 66% of American Jews oppose the lobby spending money raised from Republican donors in Democratic primaries, while 34% said they supported it.

Support for the spending was largely split along partisan lines, with 87% of Jewish Democrats opposing the spending while 89% of Republicans supported it. (Among Jews aged 18 to 34, 74% said they opposed the spending.)

The survey also asked Democratic respondents whether an AIPAC endorsement of a candidate in a Democratic primary would make them more or less likely to support them.

Overall, 40% of Jewish Democrats said it would make them less likely to support the candidate, while 47% said it would make no difference and 13% said they would be more likely to support them.

Among Democratic Jews aged 18 to 34, two-thirds said they are less likely to vote for a Democratic primary candidate endorsed by AIPAC.

The survey was released one week after another conducted by the Mellman Group and commissioned by the Jewish Electorate Institute found that a majority of American Jews have “not heard much” about the role that pro-Israel lobbying groups have played in this year’s early midterm primaries.

The poll, which surveyed 800 registered Jewish voters March 13-23, found that just 11% of American Jews had heard a “great deal” about “the role pro-Israel groups have played in the early 2026 primaries,” while 27% said they’d heard “some” about it.

Meanwhile, 62% said they’d either heard “not much,” “none at all” or that they don’t know.

In a release that accompanied the survey, the groups suggested that, based on its results, outsized attention had been given to the involvement of pro-Israel groups like AIPAC.

“Despite the media coverage of the involvement of pro-Israel groups in the recent primaries, few Jews have been following this closely,” the release reads.

The survey found that AIPAC is viewed favorably by 39% of American Jews and unfavorably by 29%, with the rest being unsure. Among Jewish Democrats, opinion skews against AIPAC, with 37% having an unfavorable opinion and 29% favorable.

The poll also revealed a partisan split around pro-Israel groups’ tactics: 46% of Democrats agreed that “these heavy-handed efforts by pro-Israel groups in primary elections make things worse by turning voters against a strong US-Israel relationship, and they should stop.”

But another 28% of Democrats said that it is “more important than ever” for those groups to be taking action to elect pro-Israel candidates.

Overall, 39% of respondents said the efforts were “more important than ever” while 37% said pro-Israel groups’ efforts makes things worse.

The Jewish Electorate Institute survey also asked respondents their views on Israel and its government, with 86% saying they are “pro-Israel,” and 63% saying they identify as both pro-Israel and critical of Israeli government’s policies.

The survey found that just one-third self-identify as Zionists, despite 55% having a “favorable view” of Zionism. That closely matches the findings of a survey conducted earlier this year by the Jewish Federations of North America.

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But many details about her father’s family, some of whom had perished in the Holocaust, were scant.

On a recent Thursday morning, Nathan spent two hours at the Ackman and Ziff Family Genealogy Institute in Manhattan, where those secrets would be uncovered as part of a new program called “Histories and Mysteries.” Nathan learned about the fate of a great-aunt, who was confined at Theresienstadt, and her grandson, who by a circuitous, ultimately tragic path is remembered by Catholics as a martyr.

She discovered not only what happened to those relatives, but saw photographs of them and their homes, and read newspaper articles and letters about them.

“My father talked about his family so much,” Nathan, 83, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “But it seemed far away. And now that I know more, it’s much closer.”

The free program, launched Jan. 7, uses genealogy, crowdsourcing, archival records and photographs, and aims to answer unsolved questions about and restore connections between families that were victimized by the Holocaust. So far, about 50 people have applied to have their families’ mysteries solved, and 12 cases are actively being researched by the team, which includes volunteers, said a representative for the Center for Jewish History, where the genealogy institute is housed.

As long as the research question seems solvable, it may be selected for the program. (Geographic areas where there was little official documentation, or inquiries with unknown or common names may be difficult to research.)

“Histories and Mysteries” is funded by a nearly $300,000 grant from The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany and is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Finance. It’s an additional service of a center that already offers visitors access to a range of online databases and research guides, with staff available to assist on a search. Holocaust survivors and their immediate descendants can also make appointments for in-depth searches.

Nathan’s story will be shared on the Center for Jewish History’s social media channels on April 14, in commemoration of Yom HaShoah.

“Every name recovered, every connection restored, is an act of remembrance that reaches far beyond a single family,” Gideon Taylor, president of the Claims Conference said in a statement to JTA. “By uncovering these histories, we are preserving memory, not only for descendants, but for the world, safeguarding truth against distortion and silence. This work reminds us that remembrance is not static; it is an ongoing responsibility we all share.”

Nathan was curious about two relatives in particular: her great-aunt Marie Bernheim, and Wolfgang Bernheim, Marie’s grandson.

From her own research and speaking to family members, Nathan knew just a few facts about Marie. Marie had married Siegfried Bernheim, the owner of a chemical factory in Augsburg, Germany, and had three sons: Kurt, Willy, and Heinz.

But the lead genealogist on Joan Nathan’s case, Moriah Amit, found additional information and documents that filled in some blanks on the Bernheim family, and helped fit the family into that tragic part of German-Jewish history.

“Joan gave me very little information about the family members that she was interested in me researching,” Amit said. “I was up for the challenge.”

A newspaper article published in 1933 falsely accused Siegfried and his sons of committing tax evasion and foreign exchange fraud. Marie and Siegfried’s middle son, Wilhelm, was imprisoned for two years as a result. The business was among the first in Germany to be “Aryanized,” or seized by the government from the Jews, based on these allegations.

“The primary sources were just amazing to me — and the newspaper accounts,” Nathan said, pointing at a digital scan of the 1933 clipping on Amit’s laptop. “This was shocking to me. The Bernheim family, my family, was not a bad family.”

By 1942, Marie was the only member of her family remaining in Munich. (The others had emigrated or passed away of natural causes.) She was deported to Theresienstadt, where her cremation card shows she died there in January 1944 — just five months before the ghetto and transit camp was liberated.

In Switzerland, Marie’s eldest son Kurt was living a very different life. After the birth of his son Wolfgang, he divorced from his first wife, married again, and converted to Catholicism, along with his son. By 1938, as the Nazis tightened their grip on Germany, Wolfgang’s family made plans to leave, and most of them headed to Switzerland. For unknown reasons, the now 15-year-old Wolfgang remained in Germany, where he lived alone. In 1940, he finished his studies at St. Benedictusberg Abbey in the Netherlands, on the border with Germany.

A path near a church in the German city of Augsburg is named in memory of Wolfgang Bernheim, a relative of Joan Nathan’s who died at the Sakrau labor camp in Poland. (Courtesy Dicese of Augsburg) .

Nathan was especially struck by a photograph of Wolfgang taken around that year. His somber face contrasts sharply with the youthful smile of an earlier family picture from 1936.

“What he had gone through, I want my kids to see,” Nathan said. “The emotions are right in my heart. I just — I don’t think I’ll ever forget that face of Wolfgang.”

Now known as Brother Paulus, Wolfgang began to make a life for himself as a monk. But in 1942, the Nazis began deporting Dutch Jews. The Catholic churches in the Netherlands opposed the policy, and in response, the Nazi Commissioner of the Netherlands declared that all Jews who had been baptized as Catholic be deported. With Wolfgang’s life in danger, his fellow monk Jos Niesen — a member of the Dutch resistance — attempted to smuggle Wolfgang to Switzerland. But when Niesen presented the plans to the abbot of the monastery, he was met with hesitation. The abbot was in a complex situation: save the monastery, or the life of one individual monk.

“He began to pressure Wolfgang to sacrifice himself for the monastery and allow himself to be taken away by the Germans,” Niesen wrote decades later in a letter to a colleague, recalling the events of Wolfgang’s deportation. “I, in turn, tried to convince Wolfgang that with the latter option, there was virtually no chance of surviving. He was reluctant to follow my plan.”

According to a relative of Nathan’s who provided some of the sources Amit worked with, the abbot reportedly also wrote letters to the Vatican and to monasteries in Switzerland pleading for a safe exit for Wolfgang.

But an index card from The Jewish Council in Amsterdam shows that Wolfgang, just 19, was sent to the Westerbork transit camp. From there, he was sent to the Sakrau labor camp in Poland, where he died in the fall of 1942. Niesen described the emotional scene of his deportation.

“Even as I accompanied him to the main road at the foot of Mount Benedict, I pleaded with him until the very last moment, unfortunately without success,” Niesen continued in the letter. “We were both deeply affected and wept, but his decision was unshakeable. I helped him climb into the truck, which was already largely filled with women, men, and children, all wearing the Star of David.”

Though his life was cut short, Wolfgang is memorialized throughout the various places he made a mark. His name is listed in the memorial room for Jewish Holocaust victims in Augsburg’s city hall, and in 2010, he became a martyr of the Catholic Church. St. Benedictusberg Abbey commemorates his life every year on August 25.

In 2018, two memorials were installed at the last homes of Wolfgang and Marie in Augsburg. According to a newsletter documenting the ceremony, four generations of Bernheims were in attendance, as well as Catholic abbots from the area. The ceremony concluded with the multi-faith group singing “Heivenu Shalom aleichem” — “We have brought peace upon you.”

“I’m full of emotion,” Nathan said, still looking at the photos of Wolfgang. “It’s sort of permeated me.”

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One of the judges, Roopal Patel, a Boston immigration court judge, oversaw the Trump administration’s immigration case against Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish Tufts University doctoral student who was detained by ICE agents on the street in Somerville last March.

In February, Patel found there were no grounds to deport her, following a months-long legal battle with the Trump administration and opposition to her arrest from Jewish students and groups.

The other judge fired on Friday, Nina Froes of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, blocked the deportation of Mohsen Mahdawi, a pro-Palestinian student activist at Columbia University and green card holder from the West Bank, in February.

Froes told the New York Times that she had “fully expected” her firing and said she was unsure if ruling against Mahdawi could have changed the outcome.

“I don’t know what’s in the minds of other people,” Froes said. “But I can’t imagine it was helpful.”

The firings of the judges comes as the Trump administration has dismissed over 100 immigration judges and hired more than 140 permanent and temporary judges seen as more aligned with the president’s immigration agenda, according to the New York Times.

The detentions of Mahdawi and Öztürk last year were part of a broader immigration crackdown by the Trump administration on non-citizens who had participated in campus pro-Palestinian protests that drew allegations of antisemitism.

Many of those detained as part of the crackdown were later shielded from immediate removal after judges blocked the federal government’s attempts to deport them, including Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia graduate and protest leader.

On Friday, the Board of Immigration Appeals denied Khalil’s bid to dismiss his deportation case, which remains ongoing. (Khalil called the board “biased and politically motivated” following the ruling.)

Last month, the last person still detained in the Trump administration’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protests, Leqaa Kordia, was released from ICE custody.

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Quinn Fleming, a sophomore at Winter Park High School near Orlando, Florida, said her only experience with Holocaust education was reading a short text in eighth grade. 

“It was just the basics, that Jews were sent to concentration camps by Nazis, and that was it,” she said. Fleming, who is not Jewish, did not come out of the lesson with a better understanding of the genocide and did her own outside research to become educated on the topic. 

Even though Florida law mandates Holocaust education, Flemings’ experience is not unusual. 

Despite similar mandates in 23 states,  a 2020 study from the Claims Conference showed that Millennials and Gen Z members in Florida have one of the lowest “Holocaust Knowledge Scores” in the country. In one glaring example, 63% of those surveyed did not know six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. 

Those findings, combined with rising antisemitism and the dwindling number of living survivors, have spurred both government and private institutions in Florida and elsewhere to find and deliver new approaches to teaching about the Holocaust.  

The Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida is attempting to fill these gaps by sharing survivor stories.

The museum’s new Hope & Humanity exhibit, which will be on display for nearly two years, focuses on telling the stories of survivors and approaching Holocaust education from their point of view. While the exhibit is currently at the museum’s Maitland location, it will remain part of a new location in downtown Orlando, set to open in early 2028 as the Holocaust Museum for Hope & Humanity.

The museum’s expansion is part of a state-wide effort to make good on the 1994 law that required students to learn about the Holocaust in school. The law requires that Florida students gain an understanding of the Holocaust and its effects on the Jewish people and that students should take away a sense of tolerance they can use in a diverse community. 

According to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, almost all of the 200,000-plus Holocaust survivors alive today will be dead by 2040, meaning fewer and fewer young people will have the chance to meet and learn from them. 

Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League found that antisemitic incidents in Florida increased by 277% from 2020-2024, and 161 incidents in 2024 related to anti-Israel sentiment, an increase from 2023.

To address these trends, Florida’sa Department of Education will start incorporating Holocaust education into a wider range of classes starting next school year. This includes teaching about Holocaust survivors on a more personal level, including in culinary or music classes. Florida is the first state in the country to use this method, according to Michael Igel, chairman of the Commissioner’s Task Force on Holocaust Education, which guides the department. 

“A lot of times, these students are learning terrible things about Jewish people before they even get near a textbook,” said Igel. “The key is that we need to keep evolving [Holocaust education] and stay with our roots of how we’re doing it. 

Last summer, young people had another local opportunity to learn about the Holocaust. The Winter Park Library hosted a temporary exhibit titled “Americans in the Holocaust.” It focused on the American perspective of World War II and the Shoah, garnering approximately 9,600 visitors in August of 2025 with a 28% increase in foot traffic compared to the previous year. About a quarter of these visitors were youths.

“What teens did seem to respond to was pretty much anything that had an interactive component,” said Rachel Simmons, an archivist at the library. These interactive elements included one-way telephones that played audio, a timeline of newspaper articles during World War II, and a map of the United States’ movement into Germany. 

“They overwhelmingly gravitated to the third one, which basically had a recording of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his progression going from ‘We don’t want to be involved in World War II’ to ‘We have to do this.’ I think they found just engaging with that specific historical audio to be very interesting,” said Simmons.

In its first few weeks, the Hope & Humanity exhibit, focusing on local Central Florida survivors and their personal experiences in the Holocaust, attracted more than 500 visitors and approximately 950 students from field trips and school presentations.

The Hope & Humanity exhibit focuses on local Central Florida survivors and their personal experiences in the Holocaust. (Courtesy HMRECF)

“We’re really using the site to introduce this concept of highlighting lived experiences of our neighbors, specifically through the lens of the Holocaust,” said Suzanne Grimmer, senior director of museum experiences. “What we wanted to do was remind people that the Holocaust is not this distant event that happened in Europe.”

Guests follow the stories of 10 survivors who experienced the Holocaust at different ages, in different places, and while practicing Judaism differently, individualizing their narratives. 

“Too often, we start with the Holocaust with 1933 or they start with the camps, and you don’t really understand anything about the thousands of years of Jewish life and culture that were erased and then also what it took to rebuild that life and and culture in different places,” said Stephen Poynor, the museum’s senior director of education and community engagement.

By putting Jewish culture and history at the forefront of Holocaust education the museum hopes to build empathy in school visitors. “It’s just a different way of teaching the Holocaust, and it’s been really successful so far,” says Grimmer.

Guests also learn about hate in the present, ending their visit with a wall titled “Anti-Semitism in Florida Today.”

“We’re trying to reiterate that this was not something that was invented by the Nazis, and it didn’t go away with the end of the Holocaust,” said Grimmer. “The first time you even see a swastika in this entire exhibit is on that last wall, and it’s from a rally that happened right here in Orlando in 2023. We’re really trying to get people to understand that this is a story that might feel global and very distant in terms of location and time, but at its core, is happening in your own backyard.”

The new museum will include an AI conversational algorithm that answers questions from visitors with responses from Holocaust survivors based on their recorded testimonies. Additionally, the new location will have a learning lab, where students can connect history to their own communities. The museum will also continue its partnerships with Orange, Seminole and Osceola County Public Schools and its week-long teacher institute, where scholars from around the world provide instruction on teaching the Shoah.

Offering a variety of Holocaust education opportunities, from school curriculum to museum and library exhibits, specialists like Poynor agree that this helps reach more teens in ways that are meaningful to them.

“We want to encourage students to step into their community and to engage, and through some of these stories and through this history, we hope they can connect and engage within their own schools,” said Poynor.

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In Israel, which launched the war against Iran jointly with the United States, the ceasefire has brought a return to normal operations in much of the country — but army leaders say they are maintaining readiness to return to war.

Israel’s north is still being buffeted by Hezbollah rockets, as the Israeli army continues to battle the Iranian proxy in Lebanon. The status of that conflict is a point of tension between the United States and Iran, which believes Hezbollah is subject to the ceasefire agreement, but it does not appear to be the biggest sticking point.

That appears to be Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which the war was meant to curb permanently. On Sunday, President Donald Trump said he had been briefed by Vice President JD Vance, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who had been in Islamabad, Pakistan, for the Iran talks, which stretched for 21 hours.

“I could go into great detail, and talk about much that has been gotten but, there is only one thing that matters — IRAN IS UNWILLING TO GIVE UP ITS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “In many ways, the points that were agreed to are better than us continuing our Military Operations to conclusion, but all of those points don’t matter compared to allowing Nuclear Power to be in the hands of such volatile, difficult, unpredictable people.”

Meanwhile, in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ventured into Lebanon on Sunday to meet with soldiers stationed there. His visit followed a recorded speech that he released on Saturday night making the case to Israelis that the war with Iran, which resulted in the deaths of 24 civilians, had been a success. “If we hadn’t acted in time, Iran would already have had nuclear weapons,” he said.

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Bilzerian registered this week to run in the Republican primary against the Jewish far-right firebrand Rep. Randy Fine in Florida’s sixth district. Bilzerian initially gained fame for his Instagram photos alongside bikini-clad women but has since become a vocal critic of Israel and Jews — and has repeatedly called Fine a “fat Jew” in the lead-up to his campaign launch.

In a TMZ interview after Bilzerian announced his candidacy, the outlet’s Jewish founder, Harvey Levin, questioned the influencer on whether his use of the phrase “fat Jew” was antisemitic.

“[Fine] literally talks about how Muslims are lower than dogs, so, is that Islamophobic?” Bilzerian shot back. Fine drew bipartisan criticism for his comments earlier this year.

“Yes,” TMZ’s Levin and Charles Latibeaudiere responded. (Bilzerian added that Fine “tweets that, and he’s a senator,” though Fine is actually a member of the U.S. House of Representatives who was formerly a state senator.)

Bilzerian responded to a follow-up question by denying that he’s antisemitic — and questioning the term “antisemitism” altogether, saying it’s been “hijacked to only talk about Jews.”

“No, I’m not antisemitic. I think that that’s kind of a made-up term, I think the Palestinians are the real Semites,” Bilzerian said.

“Was Hitler antisemitic?” Levin asked.

Bilzerian did not say.

“Like I said, the term is focused solely on Jews, but actual Semites are the Arabs,” he answered. “And Palestinians are Semites as well. They actually have more DNA lineage to that region than any of the Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews that have taken it from them.”

The comments were nothing new for Bilzerian, who has 30 million followers on Instagram and 2 million on X. He regularly tweets opinions like “Jewish supremacy is the greatest threat to the world today,” questions the accuracy of the statistic that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust, and reposts clips of avowed antisemite Nick Fuentes.

But now, Bilzerian’s foray into electoral politics could serve as a test of the popularity of an emerging, anti-Israel faction within the Republican party headlined by figures like Tucker Carlson and Fuentes, who’ve espoused conspiracy theories about Jews.

Those figures’ opposition to the war in Iran have sped up their dissent from President Donald Trump. During the TMZ interview, Bilzerian said Fine should be tried for treason for putting “Israel before America,” and also criticized Trump for being “Israel first.” He has tweeted that Trump “needs to be impeached.”

(Ironically, Fine introduced a bill that would ban dual citizens from serving in Congress, and Bilzerian is a dual American-Armenian citizen.)

Bilzerian is not the only anti-Israel Republican challenger to Fine, a staunch Israel supporter who’s been backed by AIPAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition.

“I appreciate @DanBilzerian‘s zeal to take @RepFine out of Congress. I’ve been working tirelessly for one year on the same goal,” wrote Aaron Baker, who’s been endorsed by the Anti-Zionist America PAC. “I would however also appreciate if Dan ran for FL-16 much closer to where he grew up. Make @AIPAC spend $ defending more seats. Divide and conquer.” FL-16’s current representative, Vern Buchanan, was endorsed by AIPAC in 2024.

But Bilzerian, with his 29.6 million followers on Instagram and 2.1 million on X, brings a larger national audience to the congressional primary.

“I’d never heard of this guy before, until a couple of days ago, but having watched your interview, it’s clear that he simply doesn’t like Jews. In America you’re allowed to do that,” Fine said on a TMZ appearance following Bilzerian’s. But, he continued, “I don’t think it’s going to work out to become a congressman, having that perspective.”

Bilzerian gained many of his followers when he was the “king of Instagram,” posting photos of himself surrounded by scantily clad women, sports cars and with large guns. In June 2015, Bilzerian said he would be running for president, though by December he’d gotten behind the candidacy of Trump.

Before that, he’d served four years in the U.S. Navy starting in 1999, and dropped out of the University of Florida to play professional poker. His father, Paul Bilzerian, is a businessman who, as a corporate takeover specialist, was sentenced to four years in prison for federal crimes including fraud and criminal conspiracy.

In the months after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and the ensuing war in Gaza, Bilzerian’s social media presence began taking its current shape of focusing predominantly on Israel and, eventually, Jews.

“Do you think the Israeli attacks on Gaza are justified or f–ked up?” Bilzerian asked his followers on Nov. 6, 2023. By 2024, the occasional surveys he took of his followers became pointedly focused on Jews.

“Who causes the majority of the worlds problems,” he asked, with users overwhelmingly voting for the multiple-choice option “16 million Jews.”

In January 2025, Bilzerian asked his followers whether Hitler was a “good person,” a “terrible person,” or if they didn’t know. A third of the 178,000 voters said Hitler was a “good person,” and another 23% said they didn’t know.

Bilzerian laid out his views on Jewish people in a 2024 interview with conservative commentator Patrick Bet-David, during which he said Jews “knew about 9/11” and “had JFK assassinated.”

Later that year, conservative media personality Piers Morgan asked Bilzerian how many Jews he believed died in the Holocaust.

“I don’t know, but I would bet my entire net worth that it was under 6 million,” Bilzerian said.

According to FEC filings, Bilzerian’s campaign treasurer is Patrick Krason. Krason was also the treasurer for the short-lived presidential campaign of Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, another public figure who’s spread conspiracy theories about Jews.

Bilzerian has promoted the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, claiming that Jews control the media and are using that position to push an “anti-white agenda” and replace whites with non-white immigrants.

“It started with the jewish owned news stations telling us ‘white supremacy is the greatest threat to America,’” Bilzerian wrote last year. “Whites were replaced in movies & streaming networks. Then the Jewish exec run Blackrock forced DEI on all major corps.”

Bilzerian often cites passages from the Talmud to make claims about Jewish beliefs, such as that Jews approve of stealing and raping as long as the crimes are committed against non-Jews. Other figures like Candace Owens have similarly taken passages from the Talmud, but rabbis have criticized those figures for using quotes that are mistranslated and often taken out of context from the text, which includes centuries of rabbinic debates and is not a formal code of laws.

During a stream with the influencer Sneako, who has also spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, Bilzerian said he supports “exterminating Israel” and that he “would sign up tomorrow and go f—king put boots on the ground and go f—king kill Israelis.”

“Give me a rifle and send me the f–k over there,” he said, adding, “I truly believe that the majority of that country is evil.”

On Morgan’s show, Bilzerian said Judaism innately promotes “Jewish supremacy,” and pointed to the State of Israel as being the result of that ideology.

“Israel is a manifestation of that religion,” he said. “And I think that religion is terrible.”

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Rabbi Jen Lader criticized Abdul El-Sayed, a physician and former county health executive, for “suggesting that violence against a synagogue in suburban Detroit could be understood through the lens of Israeli actions.”

Lader’s op-ed, published Friday in The Free Press, marked an instance of a rabbi publicly opposing a specific political candidate — a once-rare occurrence that has become more normalized. It came days after El-Sayed, who is taking the left flank in a close three-way primary for an open seat, held two rallies with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, whom some Jewish leaders have accused of antisemitism for his harsh commentary on Israel and Zionism.

Lader’s commentary didn’t mention Piker or the recent rallies. Instead, the rabbi parsed two statements El-Sayed had made following the Temple Israel attack last month: an initial statement condemning antisemitism, which she commended, and lengthy follow-up remarks that also discussed Israel’s war in Lebanon, where the attacker’s brother was killed. (The FBI has concluded that the Temple Israel attacker, who drove a car filled with fireworks into the building during a preschool session before shooting himself, was ”Hezbollah-inspired.”) 

Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul el-Sayed greets supporters at a rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 7, 2026. The rally also featured Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitism. (Andrew Lapin/JTA)

El-Sayed’s second statement, the rabbi said, was “offensive” and undermined the first. 

“Michigan’s Jews are not abstractions or stand-ins for a foreign government,” Lader wrote in a piece with the headline “The Two Faces of Abdul El-Sayed.” 

“We are a local community of families who gather to pray, to learn, to celebrate, and to mourn together,” she added. “When we are violently attacked, it is not an understandable reaction to personal loss. It is antisemitic hatred directed at Jews wherever we are.”

After this story’s initial publication, El-Sayed’s campaign responded to the letter with the following statement: “Abdul has always been clear that he stands against antisemitism in all its forms. That’s why he condemned the horrific attack on Temple Israel immediately—and will continue to stand up against attacks against Jewish people, Jewish institutions, and Judaism.”

The candidate has repeatedly defended his decision to invoke Israel’s war in his statement on the attack, including when he spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency following his rallies this week. 

“Many of my friends growing up worshipped at Temple Israel. Nothing justifies the heinous attack that we saw on Temple Israel,” El-Sayed told JTA on Tuesday. “I also think it’s just critical for us to understand that hurt people do hurt people, and the circumstances happening 6,000 miles away can affect the lives that we live here.”

He continued, “I think some people tried to quote that out of context, and I understand that’s how politics works. I’m not here to defend myself, but I will tell you this: I will always stand up to defend my Jewish sisters and brothers who are fighting for an equal right to be who they are, to express their beautiful faith in the way that I choose to express mine.”

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The DNC’s Resolutions Committee instead advanced a resolution condemning “dark money” more broadly in electoral politics. AIPAC is one of several lobbies that have flooded elections with millions of dollars of spending, along with technology and real estate PACs, but it was the only one mentioned specifically in the proposed resolution.

Proponents of the resolution said AIPAC’s $14 million spend during Illinois’ primaries last month made it worth calling out specifically. But its critics — including some who are themselves critical of AIPAC — said the resolution’s singling out of AIPAC carried an “undercurrent of antisemitism.”

Chair Ken Martin said the DNC had opted to take the more inclusive approach. “We had various resolutions that focused on different industries and groups, and instead of going one-by-one, we passed a blanket repudiation,” he tweeted. “I have made my position on this clear from day one: We must end the influence of dark money in our politics and restore power back to the people.”

Jewish Democratic groups praised the decision.

“We agree with the rejection of dark money in politics — a topic covered in another more expansive resolution adopted by the Committee — but also believe that singling out any individual organization is both unproductive and unnecessarily divisive,” said Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.

The DNC’s rejection of the resolution comes as a new poll finds that about 80% of Democratic voters say they have an unfavorable view of Israel, up sharply over the last three years. The Resolutions Committee also declined to adopt two resolutions supporting the Palestinians and opposing the war in Iran, instead referring them to the party’s year-old Middle East Working Group, which is also meeting this week.

Martin and other party leaders have portrayed the working group as an essential strategy to manage delicate decisions on a complex topic, but their critics say it is a mechanism to evade making decisions on a topic where party leaders and rank-and-file members may not share the same views.

“We’re pleased that the DNC Resolutions Committee rejected a set of divisive, anti-Israel resolutions,” Democratic Majority for Israel President and CEO Brian Romick said in a statement. “These measures would be a gift to Republicans, would further fracture our party, and do nothing to bring Israelis and Palestinians closer to peace.”

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Israel and the United States have maintained that the deal struck between Iran and the United States earlier this week to halt hostilities in Iran does not apply in Lebanon, where Israel is battling Hezbollah. But Iran says the deal requires an end to fighting there and that Israel’s continued campaign, which included intense bombing in the capital of Beirut on Wednesday, represents a violation of the truce.

The latest strike killed the personal secretary of Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday. “Our message is clear: Whoever acts against Israeli civilians—will be struck,” he said in a statement. “We will continue to strike Hezbollah wherever required, until we restore full security to the residents of the north.”

Another sticking point with the potential to derail the ceasefire is Iran’s handling of the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping corridor. President Donald Trump made reopening the strait, which Iran closed in response to the start of the war, a key demand to avoid punishing strikes this week. But while Iran said it was acceding to the demand, it is seeking to levy a steep toll on all ships passing through — which if applied would aid in rebuilding its weakened military infrastructure — and so far has not let many ships through.

Leaders from across Europe say they believe Lebanon should be included in the ceasefire. Many also say they oppose tolls in the Strait of Hormuz.

Israel has begun to relax some restrictions in response to the ceasefire. It has reopened the Dome of the Rock, which had been closed since the war’s start, to Muslim worshippers. It also announced that schools, which have been largely closed for more than a month, would reopen on Thursday, following the end of the Passover holiday in Israel.

Meanwhile, as Tehran returned to normal during the cessation of bombing, supporters of the Iranian regime, which remains in place despite efforts to topple it, rallied en masse on Thursday.

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About half of them say they have a “very unfavorable” view of Israel, a proportion that has tripled in the last four years.

The survey of 3,500 U.S. adults conducted late last month, weeks into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, offers the latest signal that anti-Israel sentiment is surging among Americans. Multiple previous polls have shown that Americans newly sympathize more often with the Palestinians over the Israelis.

The poll results come as politicians on both sides of the aisle are pushing for Israel to receive less or no U.S. aid, and as the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC has become a punching bag especially among Democrats.

The latest poll replicated the partisan divide widely detected in polling, with about 80% of Democrats saying they have an unfavorable view of Israel, compared to 40% of Republicans. Nearly half of Democrats under age 50 said they have a “very unfavorable” view of Israel.

While Republicans continue to hold an overall favorable view of Israel, they are split on their assessment of its leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the Pew survey, which had a margin of error of 1.9 percentage points. As many have little or no confidence in him as have a lot or some confidence — though among Republicans under 50, only 30% said they had any confidence in him.

The poll is the second released this week to detect opposition to the Israeli government among Jewish Americans specifically. The Pew survey found that 56% of U.S. Jews have little or no confidence in Netanyahu when it comes to world affairs. A smaller survey by the Jewish Electorate Institute found that 63% of respondents described themselves as both “pro-Israel” and critical of Israeli government policies.

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U.S. President Donald Trump and the prime minister of Pakistan, which brokered the truce talks, announced the two-week halt in hostilities late Tuesday, as Trump’s deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or risk annihilation neared. Vice President JD Vance called “fragile” as Iranian officials said they would keep their “finger on the trigger” in case of further attacks.

Israel said it would abide by the truce but said the deal did not extend to Lebanon, where Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, is based — despite comments by Pakistan’s prime minister asserting the opposite.

Hezbollah joined the Iran war shortly after the United States and Israel launched it with a wave of strikes on Feb. 28; it has since pummeled northern Israel with hundreds of rockets, causing damage, disruption and death.

Israel’s Home Front Command, the military unit advising civilians, said there would be no immediate changes to guidelines barring large gatherings and that Israelis should still be prepared to find shelter in the case of sirens warning them of incoming missiles.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly urged Trump not to agree to a ceasefire, arguing that pausing attacks meant to curb Iran’s nuclear threat would carry risks. On Wednesday, after the ceasefire set in, Trump said on Truth Social that there would “no enrichment of Uranium, and the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried (B-2 Bombers) Nuclear ‘Dust,'” signaling a commitment to reining in Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump also said the United States had concluded that Iran “has gone through what will be a very productive Regime Change.” Trump cited regime change as one of multiple evolving goals of the war. After the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the war’s first day, Iran appointed his son Mojtaba to take his place; Mojtaba, a hardliner, was injured and may remain comatose, U.S. intelligence reportedly believes.

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