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In antisemitism discourse around Jamie Foxx’s ‘Jesus’ post, evidence of a ‘culture clash’
(JTA) — When Shawn Harris saw that Jamie Foxx had written “They killed this dude name Jesus… What do you think they’ll do to you???!” on Instagram on Saturday, she thought, “Let’s see what happens next.”
Harris, a Black Jewish artist and educator in Virginia, weighed the possibility that the Oscar-winning actor was echoing the age-old antisemitic charge that the Jews killed Jesus. But she also considered that, in this case, “they” did not refer to Jews.
So when Foxx deleted the post and clarified his statement in an apologetic post on Sunday, Harris felt reassured. Foxx wrote, “I want to apologize to the Jewish community and everyone who was offended by my post,” explaining that he was “betrayed by a fake friend and that’s what I meant with ‘they’ not anything more.”
But if Harris wasn’t upset with Foxx, she was troubled by the social media conversation surrounding his posts. Multiple antisemitism watchdogs criticized Foxx for the post, implying despite his clarification that his initial post was antisemitic. Other users on the network popularly known as Twitter denied that the post suggested anything antisemitic. Still others posted explicitly antisemitic comments in response to the debate.
“What was distressing to me was the conversation happening around it,” Harris said. “As often happens, the initial incident is a relatively minor thing, and it gets blown out of proportion by a whole bunch of people, and it encourages loud, ignorant people to come out of the woodwork.”
She added, “To me it looked like a basic kind of culture clash that was taken in all kinds of directions by people adding their two cents about it and not really listening to the substance.”
Foxx’s posts, and the responses to them, showcase the delicate nature of adjudicating accusations of bigotry in real time. The posts also resurface questions that have circulated as both antisemitism and social media have become increasingly prominent in American public life.
When should audiences read prejudice into ostensibly anodyne statements? How should advocates react when they detect signals of hate? How should the public judge apologies against the statements they have come to apologize for? How much does context matter — and which context counts?
“Either way you slice it, this is a perfect storm of cultural competency failures in multiple directions,” Rabbi Shais Rishon, a Black Jewish writer who goes by the name MaNishtana, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. In a subsequent tweet, he wrote, “Multiple things can be true at the same time… Multiple things can be wrong at the same time.”
In the immediate aftermath of Foxx’s posts, multiple Jewish groups called him out. StopAntisemitism, a watchdog with 72,000 Twitter followers, posted a screenshot of the “Jesus” post and wrote, “Did Kanye hack Jamie Foxx’s Instagram account?” That was a reference to the rapper and fashion mogul formerly known as Kanye West, who went on an antisemitic tirade last year.
After Foxx apologized, StopAntisemitism tweeted, “Words matter. And those with massive audiences on social media have a responsibility to be careful with their content to not incite more hatred than already exists.”
On Saturday, the American Jewish Committee released a statement referencing the initial post and the apology. It praised Foxx’s apology — and conveyed that the “Jesus” post was antisemitic, regardless of his intent.
“The deicide charge, falsely implicating Jews in Jesus’ death, has fueled antisemitic hatred for centuries,” the statement said. “Jamie Foxx did the right thing by apologizing for this statement. It is important for everyone, including Foxx’s millions of followers, to know why his post was harmful.”
The condemnation spread beyond Jewish activists. The actress Jennifer Aniston, who had initially liked Foxx’s first post, wrote on Instagram: “This really makes me sick” and “I do NOT support any form of antisemitism.”
Several Twitter users wrote that what Foxx had initially posted was a phrase understood among many Black Americans to refer to betrayal among friends, rather than to an antisemitic dog whistle. Yvette Nicole Brown, the actor and comedian known for her roles on the TV show “Community” and a range of other shows and films, tweeted that Aniston “owes Jamie an apology.”
“The phrase ‘They killed Jesus, what you think you got coming?’ Has been a phrase in Black churches & homes FOREVER,” Brown tweeted on Monday. “It has ALWAYS been about #FakeFriends. It is NEVER said as a dig against Jewish people. NEVER!”
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, tweeted on Saturday, “We welcome @iamjamiefoxx’s apology and thank him for his clarification.” The group also wished him health following a recent hospitalization. Greenblatt tweeted on Sunday that he had spoken to Foxx and that Foxx confirmed “privately what he also said publicly. His message of love for the Jewish community is crucial in this time of rising hate.”
The groups that criticized Foxx have stood by their statements. In an email to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a spokesperson for the American Jewish Committee wrote that the group’s reaction was warranted because Foxx’s post could have been read as antisemitic regardless of what he meant.
“It is important to continue to educate and explain why something may be interpreted as antisemitic,” the spokesperson wrote. “Foxx has 16.7 million followers; we do not know how they will interpret and internalize the comment, so it is imperative to call out statements that can be antisemitic.”
Liora Rez, StopAntisemitism’s executive director, told JTA that while the group appreciated Foxx’s apology, antisemitism “must be called out each and every time no matter who it is from.” She added, “Words matter and it’s important for Jews to be able to define and identify what we consider to be antisemitism.”
The discourse around Foxx’s posts did lead to explicit antisemitism. Some of the more than 150 people who shared StopAntisemitism’s post included their own antisemitic statements. One wrote that Jews find the deicide charge offensive “because the Jews know better than anyone who killed Jesus.” Another, whose account supports West’s supposed 2024 presidential campaign, wrote: “They spread more hate than anyone that they complain about.”
Harris said one possible takeaway from the discourse — the idea that Foxx had intentionally said something antisemitic — did not sit well with her, especially as some critics seemed to liken Foxx to other Black public figures who have been accused of bigotry toward Jews.
“It was a bunch of people trying to make Jamie Foxx the latest Black face of antisemitism, which got on my nerves because Jamie Foxx is not advocating hatred of Jewish people or giving people who hate Jewish people a platform,” she said. At the same time, she added, “Some people did kind of get very dismissive of the concerns about antisemitism.”
MaNishtana wrote that one way to lessen misunderstandings of this kind is to seek out the perspectives of African-American and Caribbean Jews, “Because we live in BOTH worlds and speak BOTH languages, and we’re CONSTANTLY watching our worlds talk past each other.”
The upshot of the incident, Harris said, is that Foxx apologized exactly how she would have wanted him to. “He did exactly what we wish everyone did in that situation,” she said, “which is [say] like, ‘OK, I get it now, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.’”
The lesson, she said, is “Listen a little better, be a little more sensitive.”
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The post In antisemitism discourse around Jamie Foxx’s ‘Jesus’ post, evidence of a ‘culture clash’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’
Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
In a warning sign for the campaign of Democratic nominee for mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani, a majority of city voters in a new poll say the candidate’s hardline anti-Israel stance makes them less likely to vote for him.
In the survey of likely city voters conducted by American Pulse, 52.5 percent said Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada” coupled with his backing of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement made them less likely to vote for him in November. Just 31% of city voters polled were more likely to support him because of these positions.
At the same time, a significant share of young New York City voters support Mamdani’s anti-Israel positioning, a striking sign of shifting generational views on Israel and the Palestinian cause.
Nearly half of voters aged 18 to 44 (46 percent) said the State Assembly member’s backing for BDS and “refusal to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’” made them more likely to support him.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, has been under fire for defending “globalize the intifada,” a slogan many Jewish groups associate with incitement to violence against Israel and Jews. While critics argue it glorifies terrorism, supporters claim it’s a call for international solidarity with oppressed peoples, especially Palestinians. Mamdani has also voiced support for BDS, a movement widely condemned by mainstream Jewish organizations as antisemitic for singling out Israel.
The generational divide exposed by the poll comes amid a broader political realignment. Younger progressives across the country are increasingly critical of Israeli policies, especially in the wake of the Gaza war, and more receptive to Palestinian activism. But to many Jewish leaders, Mamdani’s rising support is alarming.
Rabbi David Wolpe, visiting scholar at Harvard University, condemned the phrase with a sarcastic analogy.
“‘Globalize the intifada’ is just a political slogan,” he said. “Like ‘The cockroaches must be exterminated’ was just a housing authority slogan in Rwanda.”
Jewish organizations have reported a surge in antisemitic incidents in New York and across the U.S. since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last fall. The blending of anti-Zionist slogans with calls for “intifada,” historically linked to violent uprisings, has deepened fears among Jewish communities that traditional red lines are being crossed.
Whether this emerging coalition reshapes New York politics remains to be seen. However, the poll indicates that among younger voters, views that were once considered fringe are quickly moving into the mainstream.
The post New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events
A Jewish gay pride flag. Photo: Twitter.
The research division of the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) released a report on Wednesday detailing incidents of hate against Jews which took place last month during demonstrations in celebration of LGBTQ rights and identity.
Incidents reported by the group include:
- At a Pride march in Wales, the activists Cymru Queers for Palestine chose to block the path and show a sign that said “Profiting from genocide,” an attempt to link the event’s sponsors — such as Amazon — to the war in Gaza.
- A Dublin Pride march saw the participation of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which labeled Israel a “genocidal entity.”
- In Toronto at a late June Pride march, demonstrators again attacked organizers with a sign declaring, “Pride partners with genocide.”
CAM also identified a recurring narrative deployed against Israel by some far-left activists: so-called “pinkwashing,” a term which the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement calls “an Israeli government propaganda strategy that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.”
The report notes that at a Washington DC Pride event in early June Medea Benjamin, cofounder of activist group Code Pink and a regular of anti-war protests, wore a pair of goofy, oversized sunglasses and a shirt in her signature pink with the phrase “you can’t pinkwash genocide.”
Other incidents CAM recorded showed the injection of anti-Israel sentiment into Pride events.
A musical group canceled a performance at an interfaith service in Brooklyn, claiming the hosting synagogue had a “public alignment with pro-Israel political positions.” In San Francisco before the yearly Trans March, a Palestine group said in its announcement of its participation, “Stop the war on Iran and the genocide of Palestine, stop the war on immigrants and attacks on trans people.”
CAM notes that this “queers for Palestine” sentiment is not new, pointing to a 2017 event wherein “organizers of the Chicago Dyke March infamously removed participants who were waving a Pride flag adorned with a Star of David on the grounds that the symbol ‘made people feel unsafe.’”
In February, the Israel Defense Forces shared with the New York Post documents it had recovered demonstrating that Hamas had tortured and executed members it suspected of homosexuality and other moral offenses in conflict with Islamist ideology.
Amit Benjamin, who is gay and a first sergeant major in the IDF, said during a visit to New York City for Pride month that “All the ‘queers for Gaza’ need to open their eyes. Hamas kills gays … kills lesbians … queers cannot exist in Gaza.”
The post Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl/File Photo
The UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it had pulled its last remaining inspectors from Iran as a standoff over their return to the country’s nuclear facilities bombed by the United States and Israel deepens.
Israel launched its first military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war with the Islamic Republic three weeks ago. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors have not been able to inspect Iran’s facilities since then, even though IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said that is his top priority.
Iran’s parliament has now passed a law to suspend cooperation with the IAEA until the safety of its nuclear facilities can be guaranteed. While the IAEA says Iran has not yet formally informed it of any suspension, it is unclear when the agency’s inspectors will be able to return to Iran.
“An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict,” the IAEA said on X.
Diplomats said the number of IAEA inspectors in Iran was reduced to a handful after the June 13 start of the war. Some have also expressed concern about the inspectors’ safety since the end of the conflict, given fierce criticism of the agency by Iranian officials and Iranian media.
Iran has accused the agency of effectively paving the way for the bombings by issuing a damning report on May 31 that led to a resolution by the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said he stands by the report. He has denied it provided diplomatic cover for military action.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday Iran remained committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“[Grossi] reiterated the crucial importance of the IAEA discussing with Iran modalities for resuming its indispensable monitoring and verification activities in Iran as soon as possible,” the IAEA said.
The US and Israeli military strikes either destroyed or badly damaged Iran’s three uranium enrichment sites. But it was less clear what has happened to much of Iran’s nine tonnes of enriched uranium, especially the more than 400 kg enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from weapons grade.
That is enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran says its aims are entirely peaceful, but Western powers say there is no civil justification for enriching to such a high level, and the IAEA says no country has done so without developing the atom bomb.
As a party to the NPT, Iran must account for its enriched uranium, which normally is closely monitored by the IAEA, the body that enforces the NPT and verifies countries’ declarations. But the bombing of Iran’s facilities has now muddied the waters.
“We cannot afford that … the inspection regime is interrupted,” Grossi told a press conference in Vienna last week.
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