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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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BBC Apologizes for Not Mentioning Jews During Holocaust Remembrance Day Coverage
The BBC logo is displayed above the entrance to the BBC headquarters in London, Britain, July 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Hollie Adams
The BBC apologized on Tuesday night after at least four of its presenters failed to mention the murder of Jews in the Holocaust during the national broadcaster’s coverage of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“BBC Breakfast” presenter Jon Kay said on air Tuesday morning that Holocaust Remembrance Day was “for remembering the six million people murdered by the Nazi regime over 80 years ago.” Several BBC broadcasts by some of its most well-known presenters included similar comments that omitted the mention of Jewish victims when discussing the Holocaust.
In one broadcast, “BBC News” presenter Martine Croxall also said Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day “for remembering the six million people who were murdered by the Nazi regime over 80 years ago.”
BBC World News presenter Matthew Amroliwala introduced a bulletin on his show with the same scripted line.
On the BBC Radio 4 program “Today,” presenter Caroline Nicholls discussed plans to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day and said in part: “Buildings across the UK will be illuminated this evening to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, which commemorates the six million people murdered by the Nazi regime more than 80 years ago.”
“Is the BBC trying to sever all ties with their Jewish listeners? Even on Holocaust Memorial Day, the BBC cannot bring itself to properly address antisemitism,” the Campaign Against Antisemitism posted on X. “This is absolutely disgraceful broadcasting. BBC, we demand an explanation for how this could have happened.”
“The ‘Today’ program featured interviews with relatives of Holocaust survivors, and a report from our religion editor. In both of these items we referenced the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust,” the statement read in part, as cited by GB News. “‘BBC Breakfast’ featured a project organized by the Holocaust Educational Trust in which a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust recorded her memories. In the news bulletins on ‘Today’ and in the introduction to the story on ‘BBC Breakfast’ there were references to Holocaust Memorial Day which were incorrectly worded, and for which we apologize. Both should have referred to ‘six million Jewish people’ and we will be issuing a correction on our website.”
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said in a post on X that the BBC’s not mentioning Jews during its coverage of Holocaust Remembrance Day is “hurtful, disrespectful, and wrong.”
“The Holocaust was the murder of six million Jewish men, women, and children. Any attempt to dilute the Holocaust, strip it of its Jewish specificity, or compare it to contemporary events is unacceptable on any day,” she added.
Danny Cohen, the BBC’s former director of television, said the mistake, especially on Holocaust Remembrance Day, “marks a new low point” for the broadcaster. He said the mishap will surely be hurtful to many in the Jewish community “and will reinforce their view that the BBC is insensitive to the concerns of British Jews.”
“It is surely the bare minimum to expect the BBC to correctly identify that it was six million Jews killed during the Holocaust,” said Cohen, as cited by the Daily Mail. “To say anything else is an insult to their memory and plays into the hands of extremists who have desperately sought to rewrite the historical truth of history’s greatest crime.”
This year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the 81st anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp in 1945. On Tuesday, King Charles and the Queen Camilla lit candles at Buckingham Palace in honor of the annual commemoration and hosted a reception for Holocaust survivors and their families. Last year, King Charles, who is patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, became the first British monarch to visit Auschwitz on the 80th anniversary of its liberation.
Tuesday was not the first time that the BBC has come under fire for its coverage of issues concerning the Jewish community or Israel.
In February 2025, the BBC apologized for “unacceptable” and “serious flaws” in its documentary about Palestinian children living in the Gaza Strip, after it was revealed that the documentary’s narrator was the son of a senior Hamas official. An internal review by the British public broadcaster also revealed that the documentary breached the BBC’s editorial guidelines on accuracy.
In July, the BBC apologized for streaming a live performance by the British punk rap duo Bob Vylan at the Glastonbury Festival, during which the band’s lead singer led the audience in chanting “Death to the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Also last year, the host of “Good Morning Britain” apologized on-air for failing to mention Jewish victims of the Holocaust during her coverage of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
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New York Is Right to Keep Antisemitic Protests Away From Synagogues
Nov. 19, 2025, New York, New York, USA: Anti-Israel protesters rally outside of Park East Synagogue. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Hamas’ October 7 massacre, and the subsequent war against Israel, motivated sympathizers of the terrorist group to persecute Jews worldwide, even though the practice of blaming Jews for the actions of Israel is a globally recognized form of antisemitism.
In the US, dozens of these antisemitic campaigns targeted synagogues.
In recent months, the bigoted rallies grew especially menacing at two New York synagogues that hosted events for a non-profit corporation called Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN). NBN conducts information fairs that promote “aliyah” (immigration) to Israel, and it guides interested parties through the naturalization process.
During the NBN gatherings, congregants could not enter or exit the synagogues without encountering harassment and intimidation by hundreds of angry demonstrators.
The haters obstructed the entrances while screaming antisemitic obscenities and incitements such as “Intifada revolution” and “Resistance you make us proud; take another settler out.” At one of the synagogues, the protestors endorsed antisemitic terrorism by chanting, “Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here.” Meanwhile, a member of the crowd repeatedly shouted, “We need to make them scared.”
On January 13, 2026, New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) pledged to curb such synagogue-focused hostility by legislating protest-free buffer zones for all houses of worship. Each buffer zone would form a 25-foot perimeter around the property of the religious institution. Outside the boundary, demonstrators could freely exercise their First Amendment right to scream and shout. Inside the line, worshipers could safely enter and exit the facility, engage in their freedoms of speech and religion, and enjoy their right of privacy to avoid the rowdy mob.
Pro-Palestinian organizations oppose the New York buffer zone proposal. The advocates claim that NBN illegally sells “stolen” Palestinian land. In their view, the slated law would not only “censor” their free speech right to denounce the alleged NBN crimes, but make New York State “complicit” in the supposed wrongdoing. They call the information fairs “non-religious political events.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D), who is openly pro-Palestinian, remains noncommittal on the buffer zone scheme. But he opposes NBN, arguing that “sacred spaces” should not be used to breach international law.
The mayor and buffer zone opponents misconstrue the applicable law. The 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act prohibits close-range harassment, intimidation, and physical interference at houses of worship, as well as reproductive health clinics.
Within this Federal framework, states and municipalities have enacted buffer zones to separate potentially dangerous protestors from those who frequent the protected sites. The Supreme Court has upheld the use of buffer zones to balance the adversarial rights involved. Based on subsequent case law, a thin, 25-foot buffer zone, such as the one designed for New York, is valid because it is “narrowly tailored” to meet its Constitutional goals.
Demonstration organizers cannot credibly portray NBN presentations as non-religious political events. In Judaism, “making aliyah” means “going up” to settle in the Biblical Promised Land. The ascent is a religious rite that Jews have performed for millennia. That is why NBN extends its outreach to synagogues. Even if NBN’s operations were purely political, they would deserve just as much First Amendment protection as any religious affair.
Another misconception is that NBN sells land. In reality, the outfit merely provides guidance on how to find housing.
The broader accusation that Israel illegally builds settlements on occupied Palestinian land is also untrue. The territories claimed by Palestinians have already been lawfully allocated to the state that became Israel, pursuant to the 1920 San Remo Treaty and 1922 British Mandate for Palestine. Occupation law applies when a state captures foreign land, but not when it settles its own land. A temporary exception to Israel’s sovereign reach was established when Israel and the Palestinians negotiated interim spheres of territorial control — called “Areas A, B and C” — in the Oslo Accords of the 1990s. Those limits are strictly observed by Israelis.
The International Court of Justice ruling referenced by the protest partisans to claim NBN is selling or promoting settlement on stolen land was an “advisory opinion,” which means it had no legally binding effect. It’s just as well. A dissenting judge on the court rightly rebuked the decision for failing to recognize Israel’s territorial rights. The US government recognizes Israel’s territorial rights. Any buffer zone objectors who dispute that US position should lobby the Trump administration, not Governor Hochul, because the Constitution reserves matters of international relations exclusively for the Federal government.
Regardless of whether Israeli settlements comply with international law, nothing in that legal realm can supersede the Constitutional safeguards planned for New York’s synagogues. The US government is legally barred from accepting any international obligation inconsistent with the Constitution.
The current trend of unbridled antisemitism has trampled on Jewish civil rights. Some of the worst offenders are those who harass Jews at the entrances to their synagogues. A buffer zone is the bare minimum needed to keep that threat at bay.
Joel M. Margolis is the legal commentator of the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, the US affiliate of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.
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‘Time Is Running Out’: Trump Warns Iran to Make a Deal or Next Attack Will Be ‘Far Worse’
US President Donald Trump delivers a speech on energy and the economy, in Clive, Iowa, US, Jan. 27, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump urged Iran on Wednesday to come to the table and make a deal on nuclear weapons or the next US attack would be far worse, but Tehran said that if that happened it would fight back as never before.
“Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!” Trump wrote in a social media post.
The Republican US president, who pulled out of world powers’ 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran during his first White House term, noted that his last warning to Iran was followed by a military strike in June.
“As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran,” Trump continued. “The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.”
He also repeated that a US “armada” was heading toward the Islamic Republic.
Iran‘s mission to the United Nations responded in kind.
“Last time the US blundered into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it squandered over $7 trillion and lost more than 7,000 American lives,” it said in an X post quoting Trump‘s statement.
“Iran stands ready for dialogue based on mutual respect and interests—BUT IF PUSHED, IT WILL DEFEND ITSELF AND RESPOND LIKE NEVER BEFORE!”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said he had not been in contact with US special envoy Steve Witkoff in recent days or requested negotiations, state media reported on Wednesday.
“There was no contact between me and Witkoff in recent days and no request for negotiations was made from us,” Araqchi told state media, adding that various intermediaries were “holding consultations” and were in contact with Tehran.
“Our stance is clear, negotiations don’t go along with threats and talks can only take place when there are no longer menaces and excessive demands.”
Trump said a US naval force headed by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was approaching Iran. Two US officials told Reuters on Monday that the Lincoln and supporting warships had arrived in the Middle East.
The warships started moving from the Asia-Pacific region last week as US-Iranian tensions soared following a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests across Iran by its clerical authorities in recent weeks.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if Iran continued to kill protesters, but the countrywide demonstrations over economic privations and political repression have since abated. According to reports, the Iranian regime may have killed more than 30,000 people over two days in one of the deadliest crackdowns in modern history.
He has said the United States would act if Tehran resumed its nuclear program after the June airstrikes by Israeli and US forces on key nuclear installations.
Iran‘s President Masoud Pezeshkian told Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a phone call on Tuesday that Tehran welcomes any process, within the framework of international law, that prevents war.
Bin Salman said during the conversation that Riyadh will not allow its airspace or territory to be used for military actions against Tehran, state news agency SPA reported on Tuesday.
The statement by the Saudi de facto ruler follows a similar statement by the United Arab Emirates that it would not allow any military action against Iran using its airspace or territorial waters.