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Does anime have a Nazi problem? Some Jewish fans think so.
TAIPEI (JTA) — When the Season 3 plot twist of “Attack on Titan” aired in 2019, viewers wasted no time in jumping online to discuss what they saw.
In the world of “Attack on Titan” — an extremely popular Japanese anime series now in its final season, which started in March and does not have a known end date — humanity has been trapped within a walled city on the island of Paradis, surrounded by Titans, grotesque giants who mindlessly eat any person who gets in their way.
In the third season, the Titans’ origins are revealed as a group called the Eldians, a group that made a deal with the devil to gain Titan powers with which they subjugated humanity for years. A group called the Marleyans later overthrew the Eldian empire and forced them into ghettoes, forcing them to wear armbands that identified their race with a symbol similar to the Star of David. Political prisoners were injected with a serum that turns them into the terrifying Titans.
The implications that a race meant to represent Jews had made “a deal with the devil” to achieve power were too much for some to bear. Fans debated the meaning on Twitter and Reddit as think pieces pointed to the show’s “fascist subtext” and possible antisemitism as ratings and viewership climbed. Some viewers defended the series as a condemnation of those ideas and a meditation on moral ambiguity, but others said the plot’s condemnation of fascism was too weak. The New Republic in 2020 called “Attack on Titan” “the alt-right’s favorite manga.”
Either way, in November 2021, the show’s production team announced it would cancel the sale of Eldian armbands — the ones Eldians were forced to wear in their ghettos — explaining that it was “an act without consideration to easily commercialize what was drawn as a symbol of racial discrimination and ethnic discrimination in the work.”
“Attack on Titan” is only the latest manga (a specific type of Japanese comic books or graphic novels) or anime (TV shows or movies animated in the manga style) series on the chopping block. As it continues to gain popularity outside of Japan’s borders, the Japanese animation medium as a whole has been hit with criticism for alleged glorification of antisemitism, fascism and militarism. The debate has been fueled by a stream of examples: the literal evil Jewish cabal in “Angel Cop,” (references to Jews were later removed in the English-language dubbed version), the Fuhrer villain in “Fullmetal Alchemist,” the Nazi occultism (in which Nazis channel the occult to carry out duties or crimes) in “Hellboy,” and the Nazi characters in “Hellsing” and “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure” to name a few.
Western viewers are not the only ones taking issue. Fans of “Attack on Titan” in South Korea — which was subject to Japanese war atrocities during World War II that Japan continues to deny — have taken issue, too. Revelations from Hajime Isayama, the creator of the original “Attack on Titan” manga, that a character in the series was inspired by an Imperial Japanese army general who had committed war crimes against Koreans were met with heated discussion and later death threats from Korean fans online. Some also pointed to a private Twitter account believed to be run by Isayama that denies imperial Japan’s war atrocities.
“Ridiculous the lengths a fandom will go to downplay the blatant antisemitism in a series and protect and lie about the creator of said series,” wrote one Twitter user. “[Y]ou doing this and ignoring koreans and jewish people says a lot.”
These themes are so common in manga and anime that some independent researchers like Haru Mena (a pen name) have begun creating classifications for the many Nazi tropes that make regular appearances. Mena, a military researcher who lectures annually at the Anime Boston convention about World War II and Nazi imagery in anime and manga, says the phenomenon is a result of how Japan remembers its role in World War II — not as the aggressor, but as a victim of war.
“Japan does not want to be the bad guy. They love to have other people be the bad guy,” he said. “That’s why they’re using all these Nazi characters. We all agree Nazis are bad, war crimes are bad, no decent self-respecting nation would ever do [what they did].”
But many Jewish anime fans, like Reddit user Desiree (who did not offer her last name for privacy reasons), have taken issue with the way some anime and manga series portray Nazis while reducing the Holocaust to narrative devices.
“I think that most people who are telling these stories aren’t coming from an area where this would be as personally familiar,” she said. “There’s almost no resonance to it. Because they take away all these details they make it a big trope.”
hi
anime and manga have an antisemitism problem
good day
— Kay (he/they, she for friends only) (@Cayliana) February 19, 2022
East Asian interest in Nazi imagery has also bled over into the West in the form of news headlines in recent years — involving everything from Nazi-themed bars and parades to Nazi cosplay in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Korea.
But some experts say that repeated references to Nazi villains and World War II in manga and anime have more to do with Japanese history and culture than with antisemitism.
“There is a fascination with Nazism in Japan to some degree or another,” said Raz Greenberg, an Israel-based writer whose Ph.D. research examined Jewish influence on Japan’s “God of Comics,” Osamu Tezuka, an artist sometimes referred to as Japan’s equivalent to Walt Disney. In 1983, Tezuka released the first in a five-volume series called “Adolf,” a popular manga set in World War II-era Japan and Germany about three men with that name — a Japanese boy, a Jewish boy and Hitler.
“I think there’s something fascinating about Nazi aesthetic, certainly for countries that never actually participated in the war against the Nazis. But I don’t think it’s that different from, say, the way George Lucas made the Empire in the ‘Star Wars’ films very Nazi-like in its aesthetic,” Greenberg said.
As Greenberg notes, Western media is also full of Holocaust references — some more successful in its repudiation of Nazi ideology than others — like the numbered tattoos and recent use of a Lithuanian prison camp as a filming location in the Netflix hit show “Stranger Things.”
“What makes people angry is, people think when the Japanese approach it, they approach it without understanding. And it’s easier to think that they don’t understand it when you look at a show like ‘Attack on Titan,’” Greenberg said.
Liron Afriat, a Ph.D. candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Asian Sphere program and the founder of the Anime and Manga Association of Israel, said while shows like “Attack on Titan” reference the Holocaust and use World War II-era imagery, it’s likely that Western viewers are misinterpreting its intended parallels to Japanese politics. … particularly Japan’s past of aggressive and corrupt militarism and late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s attempts to reinstate a non-defensive military.
“Western people are very eager to jump to conclusions when it comes to Asian media. This is something I see a lot in my work and it’s very frustrating,” she said. “There is a sense that because Japanese pop culture is so popular nowadays, it’s very easy to kind of dogpile on it and say it’s racist.”
In recent decades, anime series have been watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world, and the medium has gone from being seen in the West as a geeky niche genre to a mainstream phenomenon. Though show creators may be conscious about their references, some fans say the fascist and Jewish references, especially the more clear-cut ones — like the Jewish conspiracy in “Angel Cop” — have real-life consequences.
Many in the anime fan community today remember a 2010 incident at Anime Boston when a group of cosplayers dressed up as characters from “Hetalia: Axis Powers,” a series that anthropomorphized Axis and Ally countries, was photographed making Nazi salutes just around the corner from the city’s Holocaust memorial.
“It used to be like, I can go to an anime convention and they would be selling uniforms that were clearly meant to be Nazi uniforms, but sans the swastika,” Desiree said. “And then over time, I noticed conventions started banning that kind of thing.”
“JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure” features a Nazi character named Rudol von Stroheim. (Screenshot from YouTube)
Noah Oskow is the managing editor of the digital magazine Unseen Japan and a Jew who has lived in Japan for seven years. He recalled similar experiences at U.S. anime conventions.
“I think that it is problematic to portray Nazis and the Holocaust in the very frivolous way that it’s often portrayed,” he said. “Even in a place that is so far removed from Japan, that aesthetic of Nazis from manga or anime was seeping into somebody’s choices in a far-removed anime and manga event.”
Oskow says recent portrayals of Nazis and fascism in anime and manga lack the depth necessary to confront an issue like the Holocaust, but that some subtext in shows like “Attack on Titan” is likely missed by Western viewers since it is created for a Japanese audience.
Still, he says, as a Jew, there is a discomfort with these depictions, and the problems with simplifying themes like fascism and genocide should not be ignored just because the product came from Japan — particularly as stereotypes about Jews as having outsize influence remain common. In Japan, as in other East Asian nations such as South Korea, China and Taiwan, books and classes on how to become as smart and wealthy as Jews — believed to be among the most powerful people in media and finance — are not uncommon.
“In my years of discussing Jews with Japanese people…they really think of Jews as an ancient historical people or the people who were killed in the Holocaust unless they have some sort of conspiratorial idea. But most people have no conception of Jewish people,” Oskow said. “So when they’re portraying Jews in manga or anime or any sort of media, and when readers or viewers are engaging with that media, I just don’t think there’s this thought of how a Jewish person would perceive how they’re being portrayed.”
Jessica, a 29-year-old Jewish and Chinese anime fan from Vancouver who also requested her last name be left out of this article, said she deliberately chooses not to watch shows such as “Attack on Titan” and “Hetalia” because she finds the discussions about them among fans to be unproductive and frustrating. Desiree echoed Jessica’s experience of being ignored when raising the topic of antisemitism within the medium or within the fan community on platforms such as Reddit.
“I saw the reactions of other Jewish fans and, more importantly, saw the reaction of the goyish fans — the way ‘Hetalia’ fans did the sieg heil in front of a Holocaust memorial, the way that [‘Attack on Titan’] fans would swarm concerned Jewish fans in droves to tell them that they should perish in an oven, and I decided I didn’t want anything to do with anime that attracted that sort of fanbase,” Desiree said.
“Attack on Titan” returned to streaming services on March 4 with the first part of its final season. In the first episode, the protagonist Eren, whom audiences have followed for a decade, begins carrying out a global genocide known as “the rumbling” with the end goal of destroying all Titans for good and bringing peace. The end result is a wipeout of 80% of humanity, an act that Eren believes was the only path to freedom. He thinks humans must all suffer as a consequence of being born into the world — a nihilistic philosophy that can be found among the manifestos of school shooters and incels.
In the original manga series, Eren’s supporters on the island militarize in order to defend Eren’s violent act, chanting a slogan: “If you can fight you win, if you cannot fight you lose! Fight, fight!” The ending was seen as morally ambiguous and was not popular with fans, who mostly refuted it due to poor writing. Many hope that the anime series will go a different route in its final episodes, which have not yet been released or given future release dates.
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West Bloomfield Iraqi Christians rushed to aid Temple Israel on a terrifying day. An open invitation for Shabbat followed.
Last week’s attempted attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, prompted the Shenandoah Country Club across the street — which serves the town’s Iraqi Christian Chaldean community — to provide a refuge across cultural lines.
Staff turned a ballroom usually reserved for weddings into a reunification area. By the afternoon, 140 children from the Temple Israel day care center, who had no idea they were escaping a terror attack, were safe inside.
The next night, the same room filled again with refugees from Temple Israel. This time, the event space hosted 1,000 congregants gathered for Shabbat.
Shenandoah Country Club President Patrick Kattoo said when a staff member told him about a possible shooting across the street, “I instructed him to direct all those people into our building, into our ballroom, and immediately give them what they need.”
Kattoo proceeded to allow law enforcement to set up command centers at Shenandoah, as children and teachers sheltered in the ballroom for hours. Around 5 p.m., relieved families were reunited at the country club.
In true Iraqi fashion, Kattoo said the children were kept well fed. “It was Thursday, so our chef was here. We just brought them out chicken tenders and fries, M&Ms, waters, and drinks. There were infants here that were in diapers, and fortunately, we have diapers that we keep on hand.”
Once he arrived, Kattoo said Temple Israel community members were in “panic mode.” “There were just a lot of frightened children. And I’ll tell you one thing: Shenandoah will not stand to see frightened children.”
Around 40 more children and their teachers did not make it to the country club, and instead found safety in the home of a Chaldean neighbor.
Township Supervisor Jonathan Warshay recounted that Rabbi Paul Yedwab wondered, “you know, would he be holding funerals for these children? And then they learned where they were.”
Jewish community members expressed their deep gratitude for the Chaldean community.
Temple Israel rabbi Jason Bennett told the Forward, “They immediately sprang into action, everything from just giving us their space to baking cookies for the kids and creating an atmosphere where, at least for the children, it was safe and secure, and families could come and reconnect with their kids. It was a beautiful part of this tragic day to see children just shielded from everything.”
Some Temple Israel adults said that because of the bucolic environment at the country club, many of the children thought they had gone on a field trip.
Rabbi Bennett recounted hearing about one child recapping the day at bathtime: “The child said, ‘Well, I was so excited. I got to read a story, and then I did some art, and then I got to meet a police officer.’ That was her recounting, which is remarkable.”
‘It was really natural’
Chaldeans are Iraqi Christians who traditionally speak Aramaic, and Michigan has the largest population of Chaldeans outside of the Middle East.
The Chaldean community makes up 24% of West Bloomfield’s 65,000-person population. The Jewish and Chaldean communities have long shared a special relationship there, with joint youth programs, shared meals between community leaders, and parking lots often shared between Temple Israel and Shenandoah Country Club during large community events.
“Throughout my career, these last 32 years, they have been inextricably linked to the Jewish community,” said Bennett. He noted that in other difficult moments, the two communities have supported one another.
“We were together after 911 and supported each other. When Oct. 7 came, they came into our sanctuary, and their entire board was with us for our vigil service,” he recounted. “They brought a significant donation at that time to the Jewish community to help our emergency campaign for Israel. And so it was really natural when something like this happens, for them to be our partners.”
According to Chaldean community member Jibran Jim Manna, who was born in Baghdad, the love the Chaldean community has for Jews goes all the way back to Iraq. “Prior to us immigrating to the U.S., our neighbors were Jewish, and we loved them; they were good to us.”
He said the shared experience of being minorities forced to flee Iraq has shaped that bond. “They all had to get out of Iraq,” he said, “and we had to leave there too.” He added, “Some of us, like myself, think of ourselves as one of the lost tribes of Israel, because we are so close in culture.”
A Chaldean’s first Shabbat service
The day after the attempted attack, roughly 1,000 members of the Temple Israel community gathered in the Shenandoah Country Club ballroom for Shabbat services.
Kattoo said Temple Israel rabbis had told him on Thursday in the attack’s immediate aftermath that they had nowhere to hold services. The sanctuary had been badly damaged in the attack, in which the assailant’s vehicle had caught fire. “I said, ‘Well, our doors are open, you could do it here tomorrow,’” Kattoo recalled.
Bennett said that while Temple Israel had received multiple offers to host services, holding them at Shenandoah “felt like the natural fit, given the long-standing partnership and the role that they had played in that day.”
He added: “They set up for us, they welcomed people in, they partnered with police and law enforcement agencies, and we just had this magnificent gathering of 1,000 people to celebrate what had gone right.”
The rabbis were able to bring the “miraculously” recovered Torahs to the country club. But the temple’s prayer books had been destroyed, so the service was held without them.
The theme of the evening was honoring acts of heroism. According to Warshay, congregants “gave a standing ovation to the leaders of Shenandoah and to the security personnel.”
For Warshay, a highlight was seeing families together in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event. “There were many families at the service, a lot of young children. We sort of heard them talking and playing around,” he said, adding, “It was quite emotional.”
Kattoo said as congregants entered the ballroom for services, he “greeted every single one of them,” then stayed as the community joined in prayer.
“I don’t speak Hebrew,” he said, laughing. “But you know, I thought it was a beautiful service. I learned something. It’s beautiful to see that they have their community gather every single week on a Friday. To me, it’s unbelievable. It’s my first Shabbat service I’ve ever seen in my life.” He added, “I kind of wish we did that once a week.”
According to Kattoo, the outpouring of thanks from the Jewish community has been overwhelming. “Their gratitude was beyond what I could expect.”
While Temple Israel is in the process of moving services to the Berman Theater at the local JCC, Kattoo said his offer to host Shabbat services still stands: “If the banquet hall is available, I’ve told them it’s more than theirs.”
The post West Bloomfield Iraqi Christians rushed to aid Temple Israel on a terrifying day. An open invitation for Shabbat followed. appeared first on The Forward.
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Jan. 6 protester Jake Lang renounced his Judaism to court the far right. It isn’t working.
(JTA) — Jake Lang has burned a copy of the Talmud, performed a Nazi salute outside AIPAC’s headquarters and repeatedly declared that “Christ is King.”
But those antisemitic displays have not earned him an in with his fellow far-right personalities. Instead, after Lang’s anti-Muslim rally in New York City earlier this month was derailed by bomb-throwing counterprotesters, they ramped up a campaign against him.
“This f—cking r—tard larping as a white Christian is jewish,” wrote social media personality Dan Bilzerian, who has increasingly embraced antisemitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories, in a post on X to his 2 million followers. “This is what jews do, they pretend to be white to spread white, black and Muslim hate only to later separate themselves later by saying oh but I’m not white I’m jewish.”
Nick Fuentes, the antisemitic livestreamer at the center of a growing divide at the Republican party, quickly piled on.
“This guy is a Jewish operative and his entire campaign is a psyop to instigate conflict between Whites and Muslims to gin up support for escalation against Iran,” Fuentes tweeted. “Couldn’t be more transparent yet all of you people are falling for it.”
In far-right corners where antisemitism is a currency, it was an explosive allegation. But it was also rooted in truth about Lang’s Jewish heritage.
In November, after Lang staged another anti-Muslim protest in Dearborn, Michigan, photos circulated online of him holding a bar mitzvah certificate with his name on it at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. He quickly denounced Judaism but soon disclosed to Nick Shirley, the far-right YouTuber, that his mother is “Russian Jewish.”
The disclosure gained new attention within the far-right ecosystem after Lang’s demonstration outside Gracie Mansion, the home of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. And Lang, a pardoned Jan. 6 protester who is currently vying for a Senate seat in Florida, offered more details about his background.
During an appearance on a podcast hosted by right-wing Jewish activist Laura Loomer, he again said his mother is Jewish. But he was baptized as a child, he said, while contending that his mother isn’t among the kind of Jews whom far-right antisemites, including himself, view as pernicious.
“We have these false Jews that Jesus warned us about, that are in control of the banking in different places, but they’re not the average Jew,” Lang said. “We have amazing, patriotic, white Jews, which my mother is one of them, who exemplify everything it needs to be an American.”
Lang’s mother, Sari, participated in a press conference in January 2025 calling on President Donald Trump to issue blanket pardons to Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol protesters, including Lang. Lang spent four years in federal custody in Washington, D.C., after being charged for allegedly beating a police officer with a bat during the protest.
Matthew D. Taylor, a visiting scholar at the Georgetown University Center on Faith and Justice who studies extremism, said the backlash against Lang reflects a form of racialized antisemitism found in Nazi ideology, in which Lang’s Jewish ancestry remains disqualifying despite his adoption of far-right causes, including antisemitism.
“Here you have this guy, Jake Lang, who seems like a real scumbag in and of himself, but is affirming Nazi ideas,” said Taylor. “But that his Jewishness is still a knock against him amongst these other white supremacists and Nazis, and even his espousal of Christian theology doesn’t cleanse him of that issue in their mind.”
On the Loomer podcast, Lang shared his views of Jewish identity and influence, attempting to draw a distinction between Jews he considered allies versus enemies while invoking antisemitic conspiracy theories.
“I have to give an unequivocal, real deal talk to the American people here, we have been psyop-ed into blaming everything on the Jews, that’s ridiculous,” said Lang. “But on that same hand, I will be the first one to call out this liberal, woke Jewish mafia that controls Hollywood and is brainwashing the white women to all fall in love with black men, and they’re poisoning and they’re not real Jews.”
The episode also ties into a widening rift on the far right, one that has sharpened in recent weeks over the war in Iran. While Fuentes has vehemently opposed the U.S. strikes in the country, Lang has praised the conflict as a “war with Islam” and a display of “Christian dominance in the Middle East.”
“Now the Zionists have started amplifying anti-immigration, anti-Muslim rhetoric to distract Right Wingers from the Iran War,” Fuentes wrote in a post on X earlier this month. “Probably the best way to prevent Muslim immigrants from coming here or attacking us is to stop killing them and destroying their countries for Israel.”
During the conversation with Loomer, she and Lang decried what they perceived as support for Muslims from far-right influencers like Fuentes.
“While patriotic Jews and Christians unite to save our country from the threat of Islam, compromised influencers are actively radicalizing vulnerable youth on behalf of their foreign handlers in Qatar, Russia and Iran,” Loomer wrote in a post on X alongside a clip of the interview.
In a post on X, Fuentes, once a staunch Trump supporter who urged his supporters to attend the Jan. 6 protests, accused Trump of sidelining anti-war voices and embracing pro-Israel allies, including Loomer.
“Trump turned against Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Greene for their opposition to the Iran War and Epstein Coverup,” wrote Fuentes. “Now, he surrounds himself exclusively with Israel First Zionists like Mark Levin, Laura Loomer, and Jared Kushner. We didn’t leave MAGA, MAGA left us.”
While Lang, who was identified as a “Christian Crusader” onscreen during the podcast, acknowledged his Jewish heritage during the conversation with Loomer, he has simultaneously worked to distance himself from it.
In response to Bilzerian’s post, Lang posted a photo of him as a baby during his Catholic baptism, writing “JESUS IS LORD & GOD.”
In November, after the Western Wall pictures first circulated, Lang wrote, “You’re a f—cking idiot I denounced all ties to Israel and Judaism days ago…Jesus is King,” alongside a video of him burning the Quran, the central religious text in Islam, the Talmud and a book on Christian Zionism titled “Standing With Israel” by David Brog.
“Jesus is King, no Talmud, no Quran, America’s a Christian country,” Lang says in the video. “Lord Jesus, we pray your spirit over America. We pray that you would bring back white Christian America. We are being replaced, there is a white replacement and genocide happening and it is because of these two books, the beliefs of these people.”
In a December interview with YouTuber Nick Shirley, whose video on alleged fraud by Somali-run day cares in Minneapolis preceded a federal immigration crackdown, Lang explained that his visit to the Western Wall had been on a family vacation.
“That was over 10 years ago. Nowadays, it’s seen as a symbol of fidelity towards Israel and towards, you know, this kind of shadow government that’s seemingly overseeing America,” said Lang. “So nowadays, if I were to go as a Christian influencer, right, as a conservative, I would never show that type of fidelity because the optics behind it have basically been completely perverted.”
Riffing on a phrase that has come to express disdain for politicians who take photographs at the Western Wall, Fuentes denounced Lang last week as having been “kissing the wall, making out with the wall, with the f—cking cube on his head and everything.”
Calling Lang a “big, disgusting, revolting Jewish douchebag,” Fuentes connected Lang to the allegations, amplified this week by the U.S. counterterrorism director in a resignation letter, that Jews had lured the United States into conflict.
“They tricked us into going and fighting their wars by convincing us that their enemies were our enemies too, and now we’re doing it all over again,” said Fuentes. “And then you’ve got Jake Lang in New York, inciting Muslims to attack him again … antagonizing them to achieve that desired result.”
The attacks on Lang from Fuentes and Bilzerian are revealing, according to Taylor, the extremism scholar.
“Here you have a guy who wants to be a card-carrying white supremacist, who wants to be a card-carrying Christian nationalist, and who wants to kind of prove his bona fides by hating on Muslims, and the white supremacists are rejecting him because he has an underlying Jewish ethnic identity,” he said. “There’s no other word for that than just racism, right? And antisemitism.”
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U of Florida College Republicans, caught making Nazi salutes, sue school for disbanding chapter
(JTA) — Another group for young Republicans is in hot water over revelations that its members have engaged in antisemitic activity.
The University of Florida disbanded its College Republicans chapter over the weekend following social media posts in which two members reportedly made Nazi salutes, among other actions. In response, the group sued the university, accusing administrators of violating its First Amendment rights.
“The University of Florida punitively deactivated and shut down the UFCR, in response to alleged viewpoints expressed by a member of UFCR, and in an effort to silence the club and chill its future speech,” the lawsuit reads.
The chapter is being supported in its efforts by a national umbrella College Republicans organization, whose president said he supported the students’ “right to free speech.”
UF has 6,500 Jewish undergraduates, the most of any university in the country, according to Hillel International. The revelations concerning its College Republicans group come weeks after a similar controversy involving Florida International University’s chapter, and followed leaked antisemitic group chats among leaders of several statewide Young Republicans chapters, including New York, last year.
In a statement explaining its move to disband the group, UF said members of the College Republicans “engaged in a pattern of conduct that violated its rules and values, including a recent antisemitic gesture.” Photos posted online by pro-Israel activists appeared to show members of the chapter flashing Nazi salutes, as well as posing with antisemitic influencers Nick Fuentes and Myron Gaines. Other reports of the leaked material describe group chats stating that Hitler “didn’t do enough.”
The UF statement continued, “The University of Florida has emphatically supported its Jewish community and remains committed to preventing and addressing antisemitism and other forms of discrimination and harassment that are threatening and disruptive to our students and to the teaching, research and expressive activities of the campus community.”
UF College Republicans had recently hosted James Fishback, a GOP gubernatorial candidate in the state who has embraced popular online antisemitic slang on the campaign trail. In its lawsuit and on X, the College Republicans group suggested the two events were linked.
“48 hours after we hosted James Fishback (@j_fishback) at the largest Candidate event at UF in nearly 10 years, @UF terminated our organization,” they wrote on X. The lawsuit claims, “UF likely further deactivated Plaintiff because UFCR hosted republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback, a critic of Israel, at a March 11, 2026, event attended by 500 students.”
Fishback himself criticized the university for disbanding the group, likening it to the school’s decision to disband a pro-Palestinian group in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks.
“It is disgraceful for Florida’s taxpayer-funded universities to punish student groups for their protected speech,” he wrote. “In 2023, it was Students for Justice in Palestine. Today, it’s College Republicans.”
Also supporting the chapter was College Republicans of America, an umbrella organization, although its website does not include UF as a listed chapter.
“We support our students’ right to free speech, even if their endorsements don’t match our own at the national level,” CRA’s president, William Branson Donahue, wrote on X. “I’m aware they’ve retained counsel and we will support them in reinstating the chapter.” The group’s recently appointed political director, Kai Schwemmer, is a streaming partner of Fuentes.
The university had claimed it was following the lead of a different College Republicans umbrella group in disbanding its chapter, the Florida Federation of College Republicans — a more moderate organization that condemned antisemitism after the FIU scandal. UF College Republicans says it has no relation to the Florida Federation of College Republicans.
A Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for further comment to College Republicans of America was not immediately returned. The student who joked about Hitler in the group chat told the New York Times he had not intended to be antisemitic and also claimed he was not affiliated with the UF College Republicans.
Anthony Sabatini, the attorney representing UF College Republicans, is also representing FIU students who were exposed in that school’s recent College Republicans antisemitic group chat controversy. On X, Sabatini shared a notice from FIU’s general counsel that one of the students, who had been placed under investigation by the university, had been “re-instated.” The president of that school’s Turning Point USA chapter recently stepped down over his involvement in the chats.
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