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We spoke to the Jews advising Donald Trump, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis

WASHINGTON (JTA) — In the middle of his victory speech on the night of the Iowa Caucuses, Donald Trump said he would end the Israel-Hamas war. 

At a recent debate, Nikki Haley avowed that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. 

At another debate, Ron DeSantis gave a shout-out to the director of the Republican Jewish coalition.

Jewish voters have historically voted overwhelmingly for Democrats. But that hasn’t stopped Republicans from focusing on American Jewry and Israel — both because the Jewish vote in swing states can help determine the election, and because of Israel’s importance to evangelical Christian voters. 

This year, all three remaining Republican candidates take the Jewish community seriously enough that they have their own advisers on Jewish issues — trusted team members who possess deep knowledge both of the candidate and of the Jewish community. These Jewish whisperers fulfill a dual role, both steering the candidate on issues of Jewish concern and acting as a liaison to Jewish voters.

Ahead of next week’s New Hampshire primary, we spoke with top Jewish advisers to each of the campaigns. Each, predictably, said their candidate didn’t really need their advice — but each also plays a key role in their respective races for the White House.

David Friedman, lawyer-turned-ambassador for Donald Trump

David Friedman was Trump’s trusted bankruptcy lawyer until a snowbound day in February, 2005, when he said he realized he also was the real estate magnate’s close friend. He recalled that Trump traveled more than three hours through inclement weather to sit shiva with Friedman, who was mourning his father Morris, a prominent New York area rabbi.

In 2016, Friedman was one of a trio of close Jewish advisers to Trump, joining Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and another lawyer, Jason Greenblatt.

Trump named each of the three to roles in his administration, appointing Friedman as ambassador to Israel. Friedman’s past hardball rhetoric about the liberal Israel lobby J Street — he called them “worse than kapos” — almost sank his confirmation, but he was approved for the job on party lines.  

On his watch, Trump enacted a series of policies celebrated by the Israeli government and its supporters. He moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognized an Israeli right to settle in the West Bank, recognized Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights, withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and brokered the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations between Israel and four Arab states.  Trump has said Friedman played leading roles in moving the embassy and recognizing the Golan.

As ambassador, Friedman also pivoted from a Trumpian attack dog mode to a more avuncular persona, posting self-deprecating videos about coping with the frantic pace of getting ready for the Jewish holidays in Israel.

Three years after Trump left office amid a firestorm of controversy, Kushner and Greenblatt are no longer advising him. But Friedman endorsed his ex-boss last year. In an interview he said the endorsement — and his current advisory role on the 2024 campaign — were easy calls.

“The most powerful argument, obviously, is his record, and it’s a record not just with regard to Israel but with regard to fighting antisemitism domestically as well,” he said, referring to Trump’s 2019 executive order on federal investigations of universities for antisemitic discrimination.

What about Trump’s reputation for encouraging — or at least not condemning — far-right extremists? Friedman notably called out Trump in 2022 when the former president met with Kanye West, the rapper who made a stream of antisemitic comments, and Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier.

That was an outlier, said Freidman. Friedman spoke with Trump after he made his unhappiness known, but would not describe the phone call. “All I can tell you is that, to state the obvious, that hasn’t happened again,” he said.

How close are they? Trump has confessed to being unnerved when Friedman calls him “Mr. President,” wishing he would go back to Donald.

Fred Zeidman, fundraiser for Nikki Haley

Fred Zeidman has known Nikki Haley since 2010, when he was invited to support her first run for South Carolina governor that year.

“I absolutely just thought the world of her,” he said of Haley, then a state representative in her late 30s. “And so I sort of stayed close. She just seemed like she had it.”

Getting Zeidman on board was a catch for Haley, who was trailing better known South Carolinians at the time. Zeidman is a Texas businessman who was among the first to see presidential material in George W. Bush, and who organized, when Bush was governor, a life-changing tour of Israel for the future president.

Bush had named Zeidman to chair the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council, a thankless non-paying job that requires a dedication to the issue — coupled with fundraising chops. Zeidman, who says his mission is “the safety and security of the Jewish people and the state of Israel,” had plenty of both: He has become a sought-after fundraiser for Republican candidates over several election cycles.

In 2016, Zeidman could not stomach Trump’s approach and backed other candidates in the primary.  Like some former Trump skeptics, he became a fan when Trump proved his pro- Israel bona fides (in part via Haley, who served as Trump’s first United Nations ambassador). At one point, Zeidman even tore up a t-shirt saying George W. Bush was the greatest ever president for Israel.

But this year, following Trump’s false claims of winning the 2020 election, and the subsequent Jan. 6 riot, he has again chosen Haley. Zeidman is a dedicated Republican, but also longs for healing. He has been outspoken in praising President Joe Biden’s backing for Israel in its war with Hamas. 

He says he felt intense pride in being an early backer of Haley’s in 2015, after she brought about the removal of the Confederate flag outside the state capitol in the wake of the mass shooting at a Charleston Black church.

“When you look at the things that she did to demonstrate leadership to demonstrate moral clarity, when after the shooting —  You know, she’s got it,” he told JTA this week. “She’s showing what she needs to do. She didn’t capitulate. She stood up of all places in the world at ground zero of the Confederacy.”

Zeidman says that Haley has also shown leadership on how Republicans can handle abortion — sticking to their conservative principles while not demonizing abortion rights advocates.

“She is the first Republican to break ranks on women’s rights, which is a key, key, key, key issue and ought to be a defining issue,” he said.

Zeidman’s son, Jay, also worked for George W. Bush as a liaison to the Jewish community. But he’s departed from his father — and is a leading fundraiser for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. His father describes with pride how they banter about their respective candidates.

Gabe Groisman, Jewish surrogate for Ron DeSantis

Gabe Groisman met Ron DeSantis about a decade ago, when the then-Florida congressman was visiting Israel.

“I immediately understood that he was one of these elected officials who really, really understands the region,” Groisman,  a former mayor of Bal Harbour, told JTA. “It’s not just talking points.”

Groisman credits DeSantis’s time in the Navy, as an attorney at Guantanamo Bay and then on deployment to Iraq, for how he seems to get Israel. DeSantis’ faith, and his diplomas from Yale University and Harvard Law School, don’t hurt, Groisman added.

“It seems like it’s a mix between his military experience as a JAG officer in the Navy and his education and then also his religion — he definitely has a deep religious connection to the state of Israel,” he said. DeSantis has baptized his children with water from the Kinneret, or Sea of Galilee.

That made DeSantis the perfect candidate for Groisman, who feels a calling to persuade Florida’s Jews to vote Republican. Groisman, who accompanied DeSantis when the governor convened his first Cabinet meeting in Israel in 2019, is on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

DeSantis, among the first governors to legislate against dealings with businesses that boycott Israel, is well known for his pro-Israel positions. Groisman wants people to learn more about DeSantis’s domestic Jewish initiatives, including expanding school choice — a potential boon to Jewish day school families — and toughening laws targeting hate crimes against Jews. 

He says he’s frustrated by the press linking DeSantis with issues reviled by liberal Jews, including book bans and his targeting of the LGBTQ community.

“Despite lots of press to the contrary, the fact is, he’s with the Jewish community, time and time again,” Groisman said. “He’s helped pass legislation year in and year out to protect the Jewish community, expanding different laws to give police more power to protect the community.”

Groisman is the kind of Jewish leader Republicans hope will become more prominent: As Bal Harbour mayor from 2016-2022, he used his platform to speak out against Israel boycotts and has been an outspoken critic of campus antisemitism. A lawyer, a philanthropist and a consultant on government relations, he is active in the Israeli-American Council.

He gets an activist strain from his Israeli American mother, Judit, a longtime member of the Women’s International Zionist Organization. 

“Even though she’s getting older, she spends her life as a community organizer,” he said. “Her attitude is, ‘get things done.’”

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The post We spoke to the Jews advising Donald Trump, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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New MIT Accuser Comes Forward With Harrowing Antisemitism Allegations

Illustrative” A pro-Hamas encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, May 6, 2024. Photo: Brian Snyder via Reuters Connect

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is being accused by another alleged victim of refusing, as de-facto policy, to quell antisemitic discrimination which violated rights guaranteed by Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act.

The complainant, a male researcher, came forward to join a lawsuit that the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed in June, which required its being amended to include him. According to court documents shared with The Algemeiner, he endured psychological torment, having been swarmed by “masked” pro-Hamas activists clamoring for the destruction of Israel and students who “interrogated” his Jewish identity, pelting him with slurs and threatening to “prevent” his reproducing to bring “more Jewish children” into the world.

While administrators received formal complaints describing in harrowing detail the severity of the bullying being perpetrated against the student, they allegedly took no action. Left to stand alone, the student resorted to concealing his Jewishness on a campus which purports to be one of the most inclusive in the country.

“Antisemitism continues to persist at MIT, ultimately allowing the abuse to escalate until a promising Israeli researcher was forced from his lab. This not only deeply impacts this individual, but an entire campus and the communities this researcher, and other like them, could help through their work over the course of their careers,” Brandeis center founder and chairman Kenneth Marcus said in a statement. “MIT has had countless opportunities to stop this harassment and protect their Israeli and Jewish students and faculty. Instead, antisemitism has only worsened at MIT — an outcome made possible by the administration’s continued negligence.”

As previously reported, the other plaintiffs, Lior Alon and William Sussman, allege that MIT became inhospitable to Jewish students after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, as pro-Hamas activists there issued calls to “globalize the intifada,” interrupted lessons with “speeches, chants, and screams,” and discharged their bodily fluids on campus properties administered by Jews. Jewish institutions at MIT came under further attack when a pro-Hamas group circulated a “terror-map” on campus which highlighted buildings associated with Jews and Israelis and declared, “resistance is justified when people are colonized.”

The suit added that Alon — who lived through both intifadas, or periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels, as a citizen of Israel and lost his childhood friend to the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre — has personally been victimized by campus antisemites. During anti-Israel encampment protests in spring term 2024, Alon was prohibited from entering the Kresge Lawn section of campus, through which he needed to pass to access his office. The edict allegedly came down from pro-Hamas activists and was enforced by an MIT police officer, who became an accessory to the group’s usurpation of school property.

Later, Alon was allegedly harassed by Michel DeGraff, a tenured linguistics professor. According to the suit, DeGraff posted videos of Alon on social media, replete with his “personal information, including details of his Israeli military services,” as well as spurious accounts of his life which portrayed him as sinister. The productions inspired misfits to approach him in the streets, as they showed up at “the grocery store and his child’s daycare.”

All the while, MIT’s administration allegedly refused to correct the hostile environment.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, MIT has allegedly ignored dozens of complaints of antisemitic discrimination. Discrimination there has been described in harrowing testimony provided by students at hearings called by the US Congress, in social media posts, and in comments to this publication. Only last year, MIT student Talia Khan told members of Congress that attending the institution “traumatized” her, charging that it has “become overrun by terrorist supporters that directly threaten the lives of Jews on our campus.”

Khan went on to recount MIT’s efforts to suppress expressions of solidarity with Israel after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, which included ordering Jewish students to remove Israeli flags from public display while allowing Palestinian flags to fly across campus. She described the double standard as a “scandal” alienating Jewish students, staff, and faculty, many of whom resigned from an allegedly farcical committee on antisemitism. Staff were ignored, Khan said, after expressing fear that their lives were at risk, following an incident in which a mob of anti-Zionists amassed in front of the MIT Israel Internship office and attempted to infiltrate it, banging on its doors while “screaming” that Jews are committing genocide.

“These incidents demonstrate what happens when antisemitism is allowed to flourish in the absence of leadership and accountability,” Jonathan Polkes, global co-chair of legal practice White & Case, the law firm partnering with the Brandeis Center to litigate the suit, said on Wednesday. “Through its inaction, MIT allowed a tenured professor to use his position of power to persecute Jews without consequence — breaking both federal and university laws in the process. Our clients are taking a courageous stand against injustice, and we are proud to represent them.”

Commenting on the lawsuit, MIT has previously said, “MIT will defend itself in court regarding the allegations raised in the lawsuit. To be clear, MIT rejects antisemitism. As President Kornbluth has said, ‘Antisemitism is real, and it is rising in the world. We cannot let it poison our community.’”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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Charlie Kirk’s Producer Debunks Anti-Israel Conspiracy Theories Pushed by Lawmaker, Podcasters, Pro-Iran Propagandist

US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) talks with reporters after a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the Capitol Hill Club, Washington, DC, Sept. 9, 2025. Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA) via Reuters Connect

Last week’s assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has animated a wave of anti-Israel conspiracy theories, inspiring voices on both the far right and far left to join together in promoting an assortment of unsubstantiated claims inflected with conventional antisemitic tropes.

On Monday, Kirk’s producer and a billionaire supporter of Israel both rejected the allegations fueled by Max Blumenthal, a fiercely anti-Israel journalist promoted by Iranian state media who carries a long record of smearing the Jewish state.

Blumenthal, editor of the Grayzone website, published claims from anonymous sources that Kirk had been pressured at a Hamptons gathering hosted by billionaire Bill Ackman weeks before his death. Kirk was reportedly “hammered” over his views on Israel by Ackman and other pro-Israel advocates, leaving him to feel blackmailed.

The report named Natasha Hausdorff of UK Lawyers for Israel as among those who berated Kirk. Hausdorff confirmed to the New York Post that she attended the meeting but called the accusation “categorically untrue” and added that whoever said it “is absolutely lying.” Ackman also denied the charge, calling the claim “totally false.”

Blumenthal has long written articles sympathetic to Hezbollah, the former Assad regime in Syria, and Hamas. In 2013, he notably published Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, which Eric Alterman, media columnist for the leftist flagship magazine The Nation, described as “a propaganda tract” that could “have been published by the Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club (if it existed).”

The Grayzone report has since influenced Candace Owens, the podcaster who has been widely accused of antisemitism, and US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), among others, demonstrating a convergence between far-left and far-right figures in promoting antisemitic narratives and anti-Israel conspiracies.

Owens — who previously worked with Kirk before her shift to open, unapologetic opposition to Israel and promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories, which resulted in her termination from her job as podcaster at The Daily Wire in March 2024 — claimed during a Monday monologue that pro-Israel forces staged an “intervention” with Kirk involving Ackman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She alleged Kirk, an outspoken supporter of Israel who often called out the dangers of antisemitism, was changing his views and offered “a ton of money” to remain pro-Israel, comparing the meeting to a “re-education camp.” Owens said Kirk refused the offers, warning her followers to be “very wary and suspicious of the people who are already telling us to stop asking questions about the Charlie Kirk assassination.”

The podcaster later clarified that she was not directly accusing Israel of orchestrating the murder but argued Kirk had faced “extreme pressure” over his views. Owens also shared social media posts criticizing Netanyahu, captioning one with “All will be revealed.”

Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, responded on X, saying Owens had “slandered” him by accusing him of staging an intervention and suggesting that he blackmailed Kirk. He denied ever offering Kirk or Turning Point USA, the political advocacy organization he started, any money, pressuring him on Israel, or threatening him. “In short, this was not an ‘intervention’ to ‘blackmail’ Charlie Kirk into adopting certain views on Israel,” Ackman wrote in his statement. He described his interactions with Kirk as cordial and said he admired him.

Ackman said he and Kirk first connected on Zoom in June, then worked together to organize a conference of conservative influencers in Bridgehampton in August. He said about 35 influencers attended, collectively reaching more than 100 million followers, and that discussions included a range of issues such as economics, dating, immigration, and Israel. He added that participants expressed varied views on Israel and US support for the country.

Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” corroborated Ackman’s account. In a statement, Kolvet said he had spoken with three Turning Point staffers who were present at the gathering in question and that “Bill never yelled at Charlie, never pressed him on Bibi [Netanyahu], never gave him a list of Charlie’s offenses against Israel.” Kolvet added that Kirk himself had told him he had a “cordial relationship” with Ackman and that the event was “productive.”

Despite those denials, the conspiracy theories gained further traction on the far right. Greene wrote on X that supporters should “believe Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson” over “Bibi Netanyahu (a foreign country’s leader),” before warning: “Do not allow a foreign country, foreign agents, and another religion tell you about Charlie Kirk. And I hope a foreign country and foreign agents and another religion does not take over Christian Patriotic Turning Point USA.” She described Kirk as a “Christian martyr” and suggested Jewish influence threatened his movement.

On July 28, Greene accused Israel of engaging in a genocide in Gaza.

The New York Post reported that Owens’ comments relied in part on Blumenthal’s Grayzone article. In addition, Owens suggested law enforcement had intentionally allowed Kirk’s killer to evade capture, though police have charged 22-year-old Tyler Robinson of Utah with the shooting.

Authorities have not presented any evidence linking Israel or pro-Israel figures to the crime. Rather, the alleged shooter’s animosity toward Kirk’s positions on LGBTQ issues appears to have inspired the attack, according to prosecutors.

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Rising Antisemitism on European Campuses: Italian Professor Assaulted, French Students Excluded From Online Groups

Youths take part in the occupation of a street in front of the building of the Sciences Po University in support of Palestinians in Gaza, during the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Paris, France, April 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

Violence and intimidation against Jewish and Israeli students as well as faculty are on the rise across European campuses, as an Italian professor was assaulted at the University of Pisa and students in France were excluded from online groups over their Jewish identities.

On Tuesday, pro-Palestinian protesters stormed a classroom at the University of Pisa in Tuscany, Italy, and assaulted an Italian professor who has opposed cutting ties with Israeli universities.

According to local reports, protesters burst into the classroom waving Palestinian flags and shouting antisemitic slurs, targeting the professor over his opposition to the university’s recent decision to sever ties with two Israeli universities.

A student who tried to intervene was attacked by protesters. When the professor stepped in to protect him, he too was assaulted and later hospitalized with injuries to his head and arms.

On the same day, anti-Israel protesters disrupted a lecture by a visiting Israeli speaker at the Polytechnic University of Turin in northern Italy, shouting antisemitic slogans as they stormed the classroom.

Shortly after the incident, the university announced it was cutting ties with the speaker because he had defended the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during the confrontation with the protesters.

Since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, anti-Israel activity on campuses has intensified, with Jewish and Israeli students facing frequent targeting and isolation in an increasingly hostile environment.

On Monday, a group of first-year economics students at Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris created a group chat on Instagram that excluded several students, accusing them of being Zionists based on their Jewish-sounding names or surnames, French media reported.

“If there are any other Zionists in this group besides those I’ve already kicked out, leave now — we don’t want you here,” wrote one of the students who created the group, placing a Palestinian flag in the middle.

This latest antisemitic incident follows a similar episode last month, when a student created a poll in a WhatsApp group chat titled, “For or Against Jews?”

Yossef Murciano, president of the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF), denounced the rising wave of anti-Jewish incidents, noting that the group had posted notices across multiple campuses to highlight the latest antisemitic episodes.

“We reported the incident to the university, but so far nothing has been done. We were told that measures would be taken, but we don’t know when or how,” Murciano said.

In a press release, the university strongly condemned such “unacceptable behavior,” expressing its full support for those students affected by the recent antisemitic incidents.

The university also announced that it had submitted “all available evidence to the public prosecutor” regarding these two incidents and plans to initiate “disciplinary proceedings” against each of the perpetrators.

“These two acts, whose antisemitic nature seems clear, deserve a punishment commensurate with their severity,” the statement read.

French Minister of Higher Education and Research Philippe Baptiste strongly condemned the latest incidents, demanding a zero-tolerance approach.

“I stand with these young people, victims of antisemitism that must be opposed everywhere, including, sadly, in our universities. There is only one possible response: zero tolerance!” Baptiste wrote in a post on X.

Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF), also spoke out against the incident, calling it a disturbing example of rising antisemitism on campuses.

“This is not a pro-Palestinian campaign, it is a campaign of antisemitic intimidation,” Arfi said in a post on X.

The incidents occurred weeks after two international Jewish groups and a German watchdog published a report showing that antisemitism on European university campuses following Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of Israel has fostered a “climate of fear” for Jewish students.

Then earlier this week, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) released their own report which found that the vast majority of Jewish students around the world resort to hiding their Jewishness and support for Israel on campuses to avoid becoming victims of antisemitism.

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