Uncategorized
With ‘Let It Be Morning’ and ‘Cinema Sabaya,’ Israeli filmmakers are winning awards for portraying Palestinian stories
(JTA) — Years ago, the Israeli filmmaker Orit Fouks Rotem took a class led by director Eran Kolirin, best known as the maker of “The Band’s Visit.” This month, movies by both filmmakers are getting theatrical rollouts in the United States.
On a recent Zoom call, Palestinian author Sayed Kashua joked: “Was that his class — how to use a Palestinian story?”
Kashua was smiling on Zoom as he said it — he is, after all, known for his often fatalistic sense of humor, particularly when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And the author had given his blessing for Kolirin to make an adaptation of his novel “Let It Be Morning,” and said he loved the final result.
But like most jokes, this one had a kernel of truth: Israel’s two most recent Oscar submissions, hitting New York’s Quad Cinema within a week of each other, both — to varying degrees — tell Palestinian stories.
“Let It Be Morning” is a dark comedy about an Arab Israeli village that has suddenly and with no explanation been cordoned off from the rest of the country by the Israeli military. This event forces its Palestinian residents, including a protagonist trying to return to his comfortable middle-class life in Jerusalem, to reckon with how their dignity as citizens has been denied to them by the mechanisms of the Israeli occupation. At the Quad, the film is accompanied by a retrospective of Kolirin’s work, including “The Band’s Visit,” the basis for the Tony Award-winning musical; the retrospective is sponsored by the Israeli consulate in New York.
The all-female cast of “Cinema Sabaya,” a mix of Jewish and Arab actresses, in a film directed by Orit Fouks Rotem. (Courtesy of Kino Lorber)
The following week will see the opening of Rotem’s film, “Cinema Sabaya.” It follows a group of eight women, some Jewish and some Arab and Palestinian, who bond with each other while taking a filmmaking class in a community center in the Israeli city of Hadera. Cast member Dana Ivgy, who plays the class’s instructor, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the filming experience “felt like how living in Israel should feel,” adding, “We have more women in the film than in the Israeli government.”
Stylistically, the two films couldn’t be more different. “Let It Be Morning” is a tightly plotted narrative with boldly realized characters; almost all of its dialogue is in Arabic. “Cinema Sabaya” is a loose, heavily improvisational piece that is almost entirely set in one room, and is mostly in Hebrew (although in one tense early scene, the characters debate whether to conduct their class in Hebrew or Arabic). One is a dry, Kafkaesque satire; the other is an intimate, naturalistic drama.
But together, the films provide a snapshot of the delicate dance Israeli filmmakers must perform in the current climate. On the one hand, these art-house directors are being feted on the international stage for their empathetic storytelling that incorporates or even centers entirely on Palestinian characters. But on the other, they’re being attacked by government officials for their perceived insufficient loyalty — and their films’ very status as “Israeli” is being questioned, too, sometimes by their own cast and crew.
“Everyone can call it what they want,” Rotem said of her film. “I’m an Israeli and it’s in Israel, but I have partners who call themselves Palestinians, and some of them call themselves Arabs, and each one defined herself. I think it’s really how it should be.”
“A film does not have an identity,” Kolirin insisted in an interview with JTA. “It is a citizen of the screen.”
Eran Kolirin accepted the award for Best Director for “Let It Be Morning” at the 2021 Ophir Awards in Tel Aviv on October 5, 2021. (Tomer Neuberg/ Flash90)
Kolirin isn’t a fan of the label “Israeli film” in this case, even though that is how “Let It Be Morning” was categorized at its 2021 Cannes Film Festival premiere; its own press notes also list Israel as the “country of production.” That Cannes screening took place shortly after Israel’s deadly conflict with Hamas that killed more than 250 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and around a dozen Israelis. The events turned Cannes into a political firestorm when the film’s Palestinian cast refused to attend the premiere.
“We cannot ignore the contradiction of the film’s entry into Cannes under the label of an ‘Israeli film’ when Israel continues to carry its decades-long colonial campaign of ethnic cleansing, expulsion, and apartheid against us — the Palestinian people,” the cast’s statement read in part.
“Each time the film industry assumes that we and our work fall under the ethno-national label of ‘Israeli,’ it further perpetuates an unacceptable reality that imposes on us, Palestinian artists with Israeli citizenship,” the statement continues, calling on “international artistic and cultural institutions” to “amplify the voices of Palestinian artists and creatives.”
Kolirin himself supported the cast’s action. He knew they were grieving over the outbreak of violence in Gaza and didn’t want to put themselves in a situation where “some politician is going to wave a flag over their head or whatever.”
What’s more, he said, the status of “Let It Be Morning” as an “Israeli” film, despite the fact that around half the crew was Palestinian, was not his decision: “The film was not submitted to Cannes as an Israeli film,” he said. “You know, you fill in the form: ‘Which were the countries that gave money?’” In this case, the answer was Israel and France.
Most of the cast later did not attend the Ophir Awards ceremony, Israel’s equivalent to the Oscars voted on by its filmmaking academy, where “Morning” won the top prize (which automatically made it Israel’s Oscar submission for that year). In solidarity at the awards, Kolirin read aloud a statement from his lead actress, Juna Suleiman, decrying Israel’s “active efforts to erase Palestinian identity” and what she called “ethnic cleansing.”
Orit Fouks Rotem (Courtesy of Kino Lorber)
“Cinema Sabaya” hasn’t played host to as much offscreen controversy, but its vision of Israeli multiculturalism is still inherently political. Rotem’s mother is a local government adviser on women’s issues in Hadera, and the film was inspired by her experience participating in a photography class designed to unite Jewish and Arab women. Rotem herself later led filmmaking classes in a similar vein as research for “Sabaya.”
In the film, Ivgy’s character, who is modeled on Rotem, instructs her class to film their home lives, while secretly hoping to make a movie from their efforts. When her desire to do so is revealed, the women in the class feel betrayed: They thought they were just making films for themselves, not for their stories to be told by someone else.
Similarly, Rotem said that working with Arab and Palestinian actresses made her “aware to the fact that I can’t really tell their story.” Her solution was to allow the performers — some of whom are well-known activists who had to think twice about appearing in an Israeli movie — to voice their own opinions, and to establish the necessary trust to allow them to be unscripted on camera.
She theorizes that “Cinema Sabaya” has been so well received in Israel because “it doesn’t say ‘occupation, occupation, occupation.’ It says ‘humanity,’ so people are less afraid.” (She also noted that, in real life, the women who attended her filmmaking classes bristled at her initial suggestion to make a documentary about them, telling her to fictionalize their stories instead — which she did.)
Lately the Israeli government has a tendency to view its filmmaking class as agitators unworthy of national support, particularly when they make films criticizing the occupation. Former Culture Minister Miri Regev often disparaged films she thought were bad for Israel, including celebrated international hits such as “Foxtrot” and “Synonyms.” Her current successor, Miki Zohar, has already threatened the makers of a new documentary about the West Bank city of Hebron, saying the movie smears the military and that the directors might have to return government funds.
In recent years, Israel’s culture ministry has pushed two new controversial proposals: a grant program earmarked for those who make films in settlements, which are considered illegal under international law; and a form pledging not to make films “offensive” to Israel or the military that filmmakers would be required to sign in order to apply for certain grants, which many directors have likened to a loyalty oath. For years, some of the country’s largest grantmakers have required applicants to sign a form promising to represent their projects as Israeli on the national stage.
There has also been an effort among some members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new right-wing government to end funding to public broadcaster Kan, which the country’s film industry views as another attack on its free expression.
“Kan has all this dialogue,” Ivgy said. “It has Jewish and religious and Arab and Palestinian, for kids and for grownups. And nothing is taboo there. I feel that it’s very dangerous to close that option down.”
Many Israeli filmmakers are fighting back. Hundreds, including Kolirin and Rotem, have refused to sign the ministry’s pledge, and many have also protested the settlement grant program. Nadav Lapid, one of the country’s most celebrated and outspoken directors, harshly critiqued government restrictions placed on his own work in the 2021 drama “Ahed’s Knee,” which went on to win a special prize at Cannes.
Kolirin said he had recently been on a call with several Israeli filmmakers looking to further organize against artistic restrictions, and that it had given him hope. “I had this feeling of some optimism, which I didn’t have for a long time,” he said. But he didn’t mince words when discussing Israel’s new governing coalition, which he likened to “a circus of mad dogs unleashed.”
Rotem said that the current government is “very, very bad and scary,” but that it has only strengthened her resolve to make political films.
“For me, it’s also political to show women in Israel in a deep way: I mean Arabs and Jews,” she said. “Because I don’t think there are enough films that are doing that.”
For Kashua, a veteran TV writer and opinion columnist, the question of identity in Israeli and Palestinian filmmaking is even more pronounced. After a long career of trying to write about the Palestinian experience in Hebrew as a way of reaching Israelis, he left Israel for the United States in 2014, becoming discouraged by an incident in which Jewish extremists burned a Palestinian teenager alive as revenge after Palestinian terrorists kidnapped Israeli soldiers. Now based in St. Louis, he has worked as a writer and story editor on Israeli series that center on both Palestinian and Jewish stories — including the global hit “Shtisel,” which focuses on haredi Orthodox Jews, and its upcoming spinoff, along with “Madrasa,” a young-adult series about a bilingual Hebrew-Arabic school.
Israeli filmmakers choosing to center Palestinian stories can be its own radical political act, Kashua believes. He noted that the dialogue in “Morning” is almost entirely in Arabic, a language that Israel demoted from national language status in 2018 — doubly ironic as he had deliberately chosen to write his original novel in Hebrew.
“The idea that this film is ‘Israeli’ — it really contradicts the idea of Israel being a purely Jewish state,” Kashua said. He added that, while he had initially hoped a Palestinian director might have adapted his novel, he was ultimately happy with Kolirin’s approach.
“I truly love the movie, and it’s barely Orientalist,” he joked, echoing Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said’s famous book about how a Western lens on Eastern cultures can be reductive and harmful. “Which is a big achievement for an Israeli filmmaker.”
—
The post With ‘Let It Be Morning’ and ‘Cinema Sabaya,’ Israeli filmmakers are winning awards for portraying Palestinian stories appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
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.
Uncategorized
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.”
The post Jan. 6 protester Jake Lang renounced his Judaism to court the far right. It isn’t working. appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
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.
The post U of Florida College Republicans, caught making Nazi salutes, sue school for disbanding chapter appeared first on The Forward.