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How a Kentucky lawmaker’s friendship with a Jewish woman helped inspire her viral speech decrying anti-trans legislation
(JTA) — Pamela Stevenson, a Democratic state representative in Kentucky, was chatting recently with her friend Zahava Kurland about one of Kurland’s duties at her Orthodox synagogue: preparing the dead for burial.
“She was trying to explain to me certain things that had to be done,” Stevenson, who is also a Black Baptist minister, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last week. The seemingly esoteric topic was one of many the two women have discussed over more than a decade of weekly Friday-morning conversations — which cover anything from politics and friendship to faith and being one’s true self.
Stevenson said her conversations with Kurland have made her attuned to Jewish sensibilities. “She’s always listening for and giving me information” about Judaism and Jewish experiences, said Stevenson, who was first elected to the Kentucky legislature in 2020.
So Kurland was not surprised when, in a viral speech on Wednesday decrying her fellow lawmakers for signing off on a law that bans gender-affirming care for trans youth, Stevenson also centered antisemitism.
“First, you hated Black people,” Stevenson said, addressing the Republican lawmakers who voted for the legislation. “Then, you hated Jews. Now, you’re hating everybody. So the question is, when the only people left are you, will you hate yourself?”
Kurland said her friend is a listener and naturally empathetic, so she would be sensitive to how hatreds intersect.
“She’s truly well balanced,” said Kurland. “She truly cares about people.”
Stevenson says she looks forward to her Friday morning talks with Kurland. She said the conversations have helped give her a more expansive perspective on life, which drives her to fight bigotry.
“I really believe that I will never know as much as she knows,” Stevenson said. “But I can develop an appreciation for what it’s like and not use my view of the world as the only view of the world.”
What prompted Stevenson’s floor speech was the overwhelmingly Republican legislature’s override of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of a law that bans a range of medical treatments and practices for trans youth. It outlaws doctors from providing gender-affirming treatment to youth; requires them to cease care if it has already begun; bans conversations in schools about gender identity or sexual orientation; bans school districts from allowing transgender students to use the bathroom aligned with their gender identity; and allows teachers to refuse to use a child’s preferred pronouns.
The bill was introduced weeks after state Sen. Karen Berg’s trans son, Henry Berg-Brousseau, died by suicide. Berg, who is Jewish, said that referring to the anti-trans bill as a parents’ rights bill is an “absolutely despicable affront to me personally,” according to The Washington Post. Stevenson, who has appeared alongside Berg at rallies, called her “phenomenal” and said, “This is infinitely more personal for her.”
Stevenson said that she mentioned anti-Jewish hatred in her speech because she believes hatreds are mutually reinforcing, and she connects the anti-trans sentiment she sees with rising racism and antisemitism.
“If you have a model where you have to hate somebody to win, then you always have to have somebody to hate,” she said. “People say it was out of nowhere, but it’s really out of somewhere. We’ve gone through the cycles of the Native Americans, the Black folks have been hated for a long time, the disabled. Everybody is always on the bottom of that model. And in just recent years, it was the Muslims, then it was the immigrants, and then it was back around the Blacks again. And so because of this overflow of hate, there’s been an uptick in antisemitic actions.”
Stevenson said her mission is to make people cognizant of the roots of hatred. “People want to say that all the attacks against the Jewish temples and the Jewish people in recent times came out of nowhere,” she said, referring to reports of a spike in antisemitic attacks. “No, it did not. We just have chosen not to pay attention to what’s been said.”
Kurland, who is a member of Congregation Beth Jacob in Atlanta, and Stevenson, a retired Air Force Colonel and an attorney who is running to be Kentucky’s attorney general, met in 2006 when Stevenson was serving in the Air Force and Kurland was working as an accountant in Atlanta. They attended a three-day course with Landmark, the personal development program that presses participants to face uncomfortable truths about themselves.
“When we were closer-in logistically she came over very often for Shabbos meals,” Kurland said. “I often invite people for Shabbos meals and the holidays and I love explaining, you know, how Judaism gave more to the world than anything, anybody, any person. Torah, Judaism has given the world its whole structure for society.”
The Air Force started moving Stevenson around. “That’s when we started talking on the phone all the time, because we couldn’t get together,” Kurland said.
Stevenson is “a committed listener, someone who’s going to hear you and call you out on your stuff,” Kurland said. “It’s not a friendship where you massage each other’s egos. It’s a friendship where you hold each other to account for who you say you are.”
They each speak with outrage at the lawmakers who, they feel, would breach the relationship between a parent and a child.
“As a mother, how dare you interfere with one of the most intimate relationships?” Stevenson said two weeks ago during debate on the bill, addressing Rep. Jennifer Decker, a Republican who was its lead sponsor. “We have no right to interfere in the parental rights.”
Kurland agrees. “These are all decisions to be made between a child and his parents or her parents and their doctor,” she said. “It has no place for the government to have anything to do with anything.”
And both Kurland and Stevenson say religion is a key part of their identities.
“Judaism is the center part of my life,” said Kurland. “It’s what I am, it’s who I am, it’s what I’m about. And as a Jew, you cannot sit by and let another one of God’s human beings [be excluded]. I mean, when we honor other people, we are doing God’s work. We are honoring God. When we cut people out, then we’re not “
Stevenson likewise calls herself “a woman of faith.”
“I believe what is required, in almost every faith that I know of, is to love one another and take care of the people around us,” she said.
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When New York and Public Institutions Decide Which Hate Matters
A man walks a subway platform in New York City, United States, on Oct/ 25, 2022. Photo: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
New York City is home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. For generations, Jews here have built schools, businesses, synagogues, and civic institutions with the assumption that this city, whatever its flaws, understands the cost of antisemitism.
That assumption feels less stable today.
The NYPD’s numbers are unambiguous. Jews remain the most targeted group in reported hate crimes in New York City. The volume is not symbolic. It is disproportionate and sustained. Yet beyond the statistics, there is a quieter shift taking place inside schools and workplaces. Antisemitism is not always denied. It is deprioritized.
I saw this pattern unfold inside my son’s school over the past two academic years.
On the night of October 7, 2023, as Israelis were still counting their dead after 1,200 people were murdered and more than 200 were kidnapped by Hamas, the school principal sent a message to families. The email expressed sorrow over the situation in Gaza. It did not mention the massacre in Israel. It did not acknowledge the Jewish families in the community who were grieving in real time.
That omission was not technical. It was moral. At a moment when Jews across the world were processing the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, the institutional expression of sympathy pointed elsewhere.
Throughout that same school year, a music teacher regularly wore a keffiyeh in class. In isolation, one could argue that clothing is personal expression. But context matters. This was happening in the immediate aftermath of October 7, when Jewish students were experiencing rising hostility across the city. During curriculum nights, parents had been told that students would learn songs connected to Jewish holidays as part of the music program. Those commitments were not fulfilled. Jewish content quietly disappeared while visible political symbolism remained present.
Concerns were raised. The response was to remain calm and avoid escalation.
Later that year, a fifth-grade student arrived at school with a swastika drawn on his arm. That symbol of genocide was present inside a New York City classroom. The matter was handled privately. There was no schoolwide reaffirmation of values, no public condemnation of the symbol, no communication to families explaining what had occurred and how it would be addressed. It was resolved behind closed doors.
Then came another incident. My son returned home disturbed by a flag displayed in class that closely resembled a Nazi symbol. I sent an urgent email requesting clarification. The following day, I was told it was an ancient Indian symbol. That explanation may have been historically accurate. But the issue was not intent. The issue was impact.
In a school community that includes descendants of Holocaust survivors, imagery resembling a swastika carries emotional weight. Children react before they research. I asked that the school address the matter openly and provide context to students so that confusion and hurt would not linger. The image was removed. There was no broader communication.
Weeks later, a racist remark targeting another minority group during a public meeting triggered an immediate and forceful response from leadership. Families received a strong statement. The language was clear. The commitment to accountability was public.
That response was appropriate. Racism demands clarity.
The contrast between responses is the issue.
When swastikas are handled quietly, when Jewish curriculum promises fade, when the murder of 1,200 Israelis is omitted from expressions of institutional sympathy, and when Jewish concerns receive polite acknowledgment without operational follow-through, a message accumulates. Antisemitism becomes something to manage discreetly rather than confront directly.
This pattern is not isolated to one school. Across New York, Jews who speak openly in support of Israel report professional and social consequences. Anti-Zionist rhetoric has become normalized in many institutional spaces. The distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is often presented as clean and obvious. In practice, it rarely is.
When Jewish students see authority figures signaling affiliation with movements that openly question the legitimacy of the Jewish state, while Jewish identity is treated as politically sensitive or secondary, the environment shifts. Jewish belonging becomes conditional.
I say this not as an activist seeking attention, but as someone whose professional life is rooted in safety and resilience. I am the founder of Krav Maga Experts in New York City. I work daily with civilians, executives, and families on preparedness, threat awareness, and responsible self-defense. Over the past year, I have heard the same concern repeatedly: Jews feel that institutional standards are uneven.
Some advise restraint. They argue that raising Jewish concerns risks appearing divisive. They note the historical suffering of other communities and suggest that Jewish worries should be measured against broader narratives of oppression.
Equal standards do not require comparison. They require consistency.
If a racist act demands public condemnation in one instance, it demands the same in every instance. If a symbol that evokes trauma for one group requires explanation and restorative action, the same principle applies universally. Institutional credibility depends on even enforcement of values.
Antisemitism rarely announces itself with clarity. It adapts. It embeds itself in prevailing political language. It thrives in environments where moral hesitation replaces moral steadiness.
The solution is not complicated. Schools and workplaces should explicitly include antisemitism in their bias and inclusion frameworks. Crisis communications should acknowledge Jewish trauma when it occurs. Symbols with genocidal associations should be addressed transparently. Curriculum commitments should be honored without selective erosion.
New York’s Jewish community does not require special treatment. It requires principled treatment. Safety is not built on selective outrage. It is built on consistent standards applied without fear or favor.
The city that holds the largest Jewish population outside Israel should lead in moral clarity. That clarity begins with a simple rule: hate is hate, regardless of who it targets. When institutions decide which hate merits urgency and which can be handled quietly, they weaken the trust that holds diverse communities together.
Consistency is not a political position. It is a test of integrity.
Tsahi Shemesh is an Israeli-American IDF veteran and the founder of Krav Maga Experts in NYC. A father and educator, he writes about Jewish identity, resilience, moral courage, and the ethics of strength in a time of rising antisemitism.
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US Pulling Non-Essential Staff From Embassy in Beirut Amid Iran Tensions
A general view of a US State Department sign outside the US State Department building in Washington, DC, US, July 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon
The State Department is pulling out non–essential government personnel and their eligible family members from the US embassy in Beirut, a senior State Department official said on Monday, amid growing concerns about the risk of a military conflict with Iran.
“We continuously assess the security environment, and based on our latest review, we determined it prudent to reduce our footprint to essential personnel,” said a senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The Embassy remains operational with core staff in place. This is a temporary measure intended to ensure the safety of our personnel while maintaining our ability to operate and assist US citizens,” the official said.
A source at the US embassy said 50 people had been evacuated, while an official at Beirut airport said 32 embassy staff, along with family members, had flown out of Beirut airport on Monday.
The US has built up one of its biggest military deployments in the Middle East, with President Donald Trump warning on Thursday that “really bad things will happen” if no deal is reached to solve a longstanding dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran has threatened to strike American bases in the region if it is attacked.
“Should employees occupying emergency positions wish to depart post, please review alternative arrangements to fill the emergency position and consult with your regional bureau Executive Office as necessary,” said an internal State Department cable on the pullout, which was seen by Reuters.
The State Department on Monday updated its travel advisory for Lebanon, repeating its warning that US citizens should not travel to the country. Remaining embassy personnel are restricted from personal travel without advance permission and additional travel restrictions may be imposed “with little to no notice due to increased security issues or threats,” the advisory said.
American interests were repeatedly targeted in Lebanon in the 1980s during the 1975-90 civil war, during which the US held the Iran-backed Hezbollah responsible for attacks including the 1983 suicide bombing against the US Marines headquarters in Beirut, which killed 241 servicemen, and a 1983 suicide attack on the US embassy in Beirut that killed 49 embassy staff.
TALKS ON THURSDAY, DIVISIONS REMAIN
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is scheduled to travel to Israel on Saturday and meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was still planning to do that, but “the schedule remains subject to change,” the US official said.
The United States wants Iran to give up its nuclear program, but Iran has adamantly refused and denied it is trying to develop an atomic weapon. Washington views enrichment inside Iran as a potential pathway to nuclear weapons.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Sunday that he expects to meet with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in Geneva on Thursday, adding that there was still “a good chance” of a diplomatic solution.
Both sides remain sharply divided – even over the scope and sequencing of relief from crippling US sanctions – following two rounds of talks, a senior Iranian official told Reuters.
Citing officials on both sides and diplomats across the Gulf and Europe, Reuters reported on Friday that Tehran and Washington are sliding rapidly toward military conflict as hopes fade for a diplomatic settlement.
On Sunday, Witkoff said the president was curious as to why Iran has not yet “capitulated” and agreed to curb its nuclear program.
It would be the second time the US and Israel have attacked Iran in less than a year, following US and Israeli airstrikes against military and nuclear facilities last June.
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Iranian Students Protest for Third Day as US Pressure Mounts
Protesters chant, ‘We’ll fight, we’ll die, we’ll reclaim Iran,’ at Al-Zahra University in Tehran, as they mark the 42nd day of mourning for those killed by the Iranian regime in recent anti-government protests. Photo: Screenshot taken Feb. 23, 2026, from social media video via Reuters Connect
Iranian students defied authorities with protests for a third day on Monday, weeks after security forces crushed mass unrest with thousands killed and as the United States weighs possible air strikes against the Islamic Republic.
State media outlets reported students chanting anti-government slogans at Tehran University, burning flags at the all-women al-Zahra University, and scuffles at Amir Kabir University, all located in the capital.
Reuters also verified video showing students at al-Zahra University chanting slogans including “we’ll reclaim Iran,” but was not able to confirm when it was recorded.
In a new sign of the mounting tension in the Middle East, the United States began pulling non-essential personnel and family members from the embassy in Beirut, a senior State Department official said.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran since major nationwide protests across the country in January, saying on Thursday that “really bad things will happen” if talks between the countries fail to produce a deal.
Washington wants Iran to give up much of its nuclear program, which it believes is aimed at building a bomb, limit the range of its missiles to short distances, and stop supporting terrorist groups it backs in the Middle East.
It has built up forces across the Middle East, putting increased pressure on Iran as it weighs its response to US demands amid ongoing talks.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei already faces the gravest crisis of his 36-year tenure, with an economy struggling under the weight of international sanctions and growing unrest that broke out into major protests in January.
On Sunday Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said negotiations with the US had “yielded encouraging signals” even as a second US aircraft carrier headed towards the Middle East.
Trump has not laid out in detail his thinking on any possible Iran strike. A senior White House official told Reuters last week there was still no “unified support” within the administration to go ahead with an attack.