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Jewish conservatives are looking to JD Vance to draw a line against the antisemitic right. He hasn’t delivered.
(JTA) — Ben Shapiro, Bari Weiss and Dan Senor were mostly in lockstep as they condemned antisemitism on the right during an event for Jewish conservatives on Sunday night.
But despite their shared concern about Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, they were divided on how to think about Vice President JD Vance, who hasn’t publicly disavowed either the influential podcast host or the white supremacist he recently interviewed.
“I’m worried, but I’m not alarmed,” said Senor, a columnist and host of the podcast “Call Me Back,” about the groundswell of antisemitic expressions on the right.
“You’re not alarmed?” interjected Weiss, the newly named editor-in-chief of CBS News.
“I’m not alarmed because I am struck that every leader that is under pressure from this online mob is still standing strong,” said Senor, who pointed out that President Donald Trump has been steadfastly pro-Israel. “Who has fallen? No one has fallen.”
Weiss pressed the issue, singling out Vance: “But what does it mean that the vice president of the United States had Tucker Carlson on his show, when he had hosted Charlie Kirk’s show?”
The question, referring to Vance’s tribute to the slain leader of Turning Point USA, drew applause from many of the more than 1,000 attendees at the 2025 Jewish Leadership Conference, held in Manhattan and organized by the conservative Tikvah Fund.
The exchange aired a growing debate within the Republican party and the right as a whole. Stoked by Carlson’s friendly sit-down with Fuentes, and Carlson’s own harsh criticisms of Israel, it has led to calls within the party that its leaders disavow the antisemites in its midst. Influential Jewish conservatives, who see Republicans as a much more reliable friend to Israel than the Democrats, are eyeing key figures like Vance as counterweights to the right’s increasingly isolationist and emboldened antisemitic forces.
But so far Vance — a likely 2028 presidential candidate — has not delivered any rebuke to Carlson, Fuentes and the growing antisemitic “groyper” movement on the right. Instead, he has drawn concern over what his critics say is a weak response: He did not push back on skeptical questions about Israel, including one laced with an antisemitic conspiracy theory, at a Turning Point USA event at Ole Miss. He also downplayed the significance of the text messages shared among Young Republicans, which included jokes about gas chambers, racist slurs and praise of Hitler. Vance dismissed the invective as “jokes” and said that critics should “grow up.”
Vance’s failure to call out what others see as troubling isolationism and blatant antisemitism has become a talking point at Jewish gatherings.
Scott Jennings, a conservative political commentator for CNN, spoke about the U.S.-Israel relationship at the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly in Washington on Sunday. Jennings did not name Vance, but alluded to him as a presidential candidate in 2028. “Hopefully the people who run to replace this administration understand the benefit of this, that it’s a good thing and not something to be ashamed of,” he said, referring to support of Israel.
Meanwhile, donors at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual summit in Las Vegas two weeks ago were not shy about their views on Vance.
“In 2028 you can bet, if he’s the nominee, I won’t vote for him,” said Ed Wenger, who called Vance “Tucker Central.”
The vice president, Wenger said, “sounds like he tolerates religions” other than Christianity, rather than embracing them. “Well, I don’t need Vance to tolerate Judaism or me.”
Valerie Greenfeld’s thoughts on Vance in 2028 were quick and straight to the point. “Marco Rubio for president,” said Greenfeld, an author attending the RJC summit.
Jewish activist Shabbos Kestenbaum, who spoke during the RJC’s summit, criticized Vance’s response to the conspiracy-laced question at the Turning Point USA event.
“When you have a vice president who is unable to condemn the obvious antisemitic, conspiratorial, victim-blaming mentality of young people, that is incredibly concerning,” Kestenbaum said in an interview. “And I am very concerned about JD Vance’s inevitable run for the presidency. This is not someone who I have seen has been able to show the moral clarity that a leader needs.”
Ari Fleischer, an RJC board member and former White House press secretary, did not criticize Vance, but said about the vice president’s response to antisemitism within the party, “This is going to be one of those issues that’s going to define his future.”
“The number of candidates who emerge to run for president will be significant on the Republican side, and that’s going to begin in earnest in about one year,” Fleischer said. “And I think JD’s going to have to earn it like everybody else, and be very curious to see what he has to say.”
While Vance hasn’t weighed in on the Carlson-Fuentes controversy, he did defend Carlson’s son, Buckley, in an X post on Saturday. An X user had asserted that Tucker Carlson’s brother “idolizes Nick Fuentes” and asked whether Buckley, who serves as an aide to the vice president, is “also a vile bigot.”
“Every time I see a public attack on Buckley it’s a complete lie,” Vance wrote, later adding that “*everyone* who I’ve seen attack Buckley with lies is a scumbag.” His tweets did not mention Fuentes.
Saul Sadka, a pro-Israel influencer with nearly 65,000 followers on X, recently called out Vance’s exchange about Buckley Carlson and his failure to condemn his father. The vice president has “decided that trying to impress the schoolyard bullies by performatively picking on Jews is the way to become popular as the new kid in school,” wrote Sadka.
Vance’s boss also ignored the Carlson-Fuentes tensions for weeks, only to brush aside concerns about Carlson, who joined him on the campaign trail last year. “You can’t tell him who to interview,” Trump said on Sunday. “If he wants to interview Nick Fuentes, I don’t know much about him, but if he wants to do it, get the word out. People have to decide.”
And while Trump hosted Fuentes and rapper Kanye West for a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 (Trump later claimed he didn’t know who Fuentes was), some still see him as a bulwark against the anti-Israel and antisemitic waves represented by the groypers.
Kestenbaum said he is “so proud to support President Trump,” but is concerned about the power vacuum that will be created once his second term ends.
“I’m just concerned that when President Trump reaches his term limit, and when there is an open Republican primary, that we will see the nefarious far-right actors that President Trump has so clearly kept at bay, and has made clear have no room in the Republican Party — I’m concerned that they will be let in,” Kestenbaum said.
At Sunday’s Tikvah conference, Shapiro, the conservative political commentator and founder of the Daily Wire, cautioned against dismissing the threat of figures like Fuentes — whom he called a “basement dweller” — and the far-right influencer Andrew Tate, and their influence on younger, more online generations.
“They haven’t aged into the voting population yet,” Shapiro said about their audiences. “And so I think one of the things that we have to be very careful of is trying to write that off as not a problem.”
Weiss concurred, saying, “It’s a great lesson of the left over the past 15 years that everything was downstream of online culture.”
Senor, responding to Weiss, agreed that Vance should say more about the rising tides. “I am patiently waiting for the vice president to come out, like a number of other leaders have come out in recent weeks,” he said. Sens. Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell both criticized the Heritage Foundation for standing by Carlson.
Jonathan Silver, the moderator and Tikvah’s chief programming officer, cut in at that point, saying there’s “comfort to be had in the fact that elected leaders have acted in such a patriotic, American way,” before shifting the conversation more specifically to asking why Fuentes appeals to young people.
Many attending the Tikvah event seemed also to be waiting for a strong statement from Vance condemning Fuentes and Carlson.
“I’m willing to be patient — but only so patient,” said Neil Cooper, referring back to Senor’s comment that he’s “patiently waiting” for Vance to comment on Carlson.
Luke Moon, a leader of a Christian Zionist non-profit, expressed concern about an emerging “neo-isolationist” wing of Republicans who oppose supporting Israel.
Moon said he’s even noticed a recent shift in how Vance has posted about Israel on social media.
“JD went to Israel a couple weeks ago, and they didn’t post pictures of him at the [Western] Wall,” Moon said. “Now I appreciate that as a Christian he should go to the Holy Sepulchre. But he had also previously gone to the Wall.”
Others did not take issue with Vance, saying they believed the threat at hand was being blown out of proportion.
“That’s just a small little group of people. Only people involved in journalism take that stuff serious,” said Edward Shapiro, a retired professor who has moved from New Jersey to Florida.
He added, “They’re such fringe characters.”
As for Weiss, who was named to head CBS News after four years at the helm of the consistently pro-Israel Free Press, she said she hoped to use her new position to counter the voices like the ones at the center of Sunday’s discussion.
“The choices that it feels like we have sometimes — which is [the progressive streamer] Hasan Piker and Tucker Carlson, or Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate, the kind of people who are rising in the podcast charts — those don’t actually represent our values,” Weiss said. “And I don’t think that they represent the values or the worldview of the vast majority of Americans.”
The post Jewish conservatives are looking to JD Vance to draw a line against the antisemitic right. He hasn’t delivered. appeared first on The Forward.
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A Super Bowl Ad Against Antisemitism with No Consequence Misses the Mark
Robert Kraft. Photo: New England Patriots/Wikimedia Commons
I greatly respect Patriots owner Robert Kraft and his efforts to warn about the dangers of antisemitism. The Jewish community has largely failed in fighting this disease, for which there is no cure.
Some will also say that no ad will stop antisemitism, and argue that it’s a waste of money to run advertisements at all. But I strongly disagree.
There are a range of people in America, including some who have hatred in their hearts but have not yet acted on it, or some who don’t even know Jews personally. In a world where millions are listening to Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and laughing at Kanye West’s “Heil Hitler,” it would be useful to have some persuasive media strategy against antisemitism.
I’m not sure how many Americans watch Douglas Murray, Ben Shapiro, or follow Hillel Fuld online, but more than 100 million watch the Super Bowl annually.
It is a fantastic decision to spend money on an ad against antisemitism if it can get people’s attention, be emotionally impactful, show consequences for a perpetrator of hate, and make people think for a second.
Many tools must be used in the fight against antisemitism, and there is no reason why ads can’t be one of them. While they won’t likely change the mind of people planning to assault Jews, they might change the minds of others. I have a friend whose son was called a dirty Jew in school. The student likely called him that because he figured there would be no consequence.
This year’s ad — which follows ads in 2024 and 2025 — featured a Jewish boy who is pushed. We see a post-it calling him a “Dirty Jew.” An African-American student puts a blue square on it, and notes that Black people have experienced similar hatred.
The ad is a failure because it doesn’t grab your attention, shows no perpetrator, and more importantly — shows no consequences.
It is a slight improvement over last year’s ad with Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg, as that had zero authenticity. This ad has some authenticity, but by showing no perpetrator, it actually normalizes antisemitism — as if we should expect students to write “Dirty Jew” on the backpacks and lockers of students. We should have seen the student writing it, and seen some repercussions — be it a suspension, students looking at them as losers, or something of that sort.
There should be funds allocated to making meaningful ads about Jew-hatred both on regular TV and online. It is inexplicable that this is not being done, and there are so many Jewish celebrities that could be involved. I just wished Kraft’s ad had done a much better job.
The author is a writer based in New York.
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Beyond the Bunker and the Billboard: A New Approach to Fighting Antisemitism
Tens of thousands joined the National March Against Antisemitism in London, Nov. 26, 2023. Photo: Tayfun Salci/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Earlier this month, Bret Stephens delivered the “State of World Jewry” address. At the risk of oversimplifying his speech, Stephens’ message was a somber pivot: the millions of dollars spent fighting antisemitism are largely wasted. We cannot “cure” the world of this hatred. Instead, we should spend those resources strengthening Jewish identity — funding Jewish day schools, summer camps, and building a fortress of internal resilience.
On Sunday, Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism continued their diametrically opposite approach. During the Super Bowl, they ran an ad featuring a Black student showing allyship to a Jewish student who is being bullied. The message is optimistic: Education, awareness, and cross-cultural empathy can win the day.
One strategy is retreat and fortify; the other is reach out and persuade.
I believe both are destined to fail.
Stephens is right that we cannot logic our way out of hate, but his solution surrenders the public square. Kraft is noble in his pursuit of allyship, but his solution relies on empathy that simply may not exist in large enough quantities.
There is a third path. It does not rely on Jewish introspection, nor does it beg for non-Jewish affection. It relies on universal enforcement.
The Failure of “Particularism”
If you poll Americans on how they feel about “antisemitism” (or its modern fraternal twin, “anti-Zionism,” which is a label that now mostly serves as a cover for Jew-hatred), the results are messy. Resistance to these specific bigotries is not universal; it is partisan, generational, and fraught with “context.”
However, if you poll Americans on the universal moral taboos — overt bigotry, dehumanization, and the endorsement of violence — the consensus is overwhelming. Even in our divided era, I am certain that more than 90% of the country agrees that persecuting a racial or religious group or celebrating violence is socially unacceptable.
This is the strategic flaw in both the Stephens and Kraft approaches: They treat antisemitism as a unique problem requiring a unique solution.
But we don’t need a “Jewish” solution. We need a universal solution, and fortunately one already exists.
The most effective way to protect the Jewish community is to stop asking society to protect Jews specifically, and start demanding society protect civilization generally and all of its people equally.
We must broaden the fight. We recruit the entire country not to defend Jews against Jew-hatred, but to defend the core American value that all overt hatred is an inadmissible taboo.
When we make the standard universal, we strip away the “exceptions.” If society agrees that “dehumanization is a firing offense,” then a person dehumanizing a Zionist must be fired the same as if they dehumanized Black or gay Americans — not because the employer loves Zionists or Black or LGBT people, but because the employer fears tolerating and normalizing these taboos of hate regardless of the group being targeted.
To do this, we must re-acquaint the mainstream with the concept of moral taboos.
As Jonathan Haidt explored in The Righteous Mind, true moral taboos are not intellectual; they are visceral. We don’t debate whether incest is wrong; we recoil from it. We need to restore that same visceral recoil to bigotry and the endorsement of violence, which largely exists, but then we must re-familiarize society with the mechanism for enforcing taboos: social consequences.
Stephens gives up on the outer world. Kraft tries to persuade it with carrots. The Third Path uses the stick of social ostracism. Social consequences are society’s immune response. When the immune system is working, a “Rejoicer” who cheers for violence is expelled from the body politic — not by law, but by consensus.
The Binary Choice
While restoring these taboos sounds like a generational challenge, the alternative makes the choice obvious.
We are either going to restore these universal guardrails — punishing those who egregiously violate them, just as we did to the KKK — or we will allow hate to be normalized until it spills over into political violence that no amount of Jewish Day Schools or Super Bowl ads can stop.
We don’t need to beg the world for its affection, nor should we retreat into a fortress. We need to remind the world that the taboos which protect us are the same ones that hold civilization together. If we lead the fight to restore those universal standards, we won’t just be securing a future for the Jews — we’ll be saving the country from itself.
Erez Levin is an advertising technologist trying to effect big pro-social changes in that industry and the world at large, currently focused on restoring society’s essential moral taboos against overt hatred. He writes on this topic at elevin11.substack.com.
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How the Palestinian Authority Hides ‘Pay-for-Slay’
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visiting the West Bank city of Jenin. Photo: Reuters/Mohamad Torokman
On Feb. 10, 2025, under intense pressure from Western countries, Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas announced the cancellation of the PA Commission of Prisoners’ terror rewards program known as “Pay-for-Slay,” saying that the payments to terrorist prisoners and so-called Martyrs’ families would be moved to the Palestinian National Economic Empowerment Institution (PNEEI) and be based on social welfare criteria.
While many Western leaders have praised the PA for promising to stop paying terrorists in prison, the PA has another huge terror rewards program for released terrorist prisoners with more than 10,000 hidden Pay-for-Slay recipients receiving more than $230 million a year. And the PA has no intention of disclosing it or stopping it.
The PA enlarged this already existing program in 2021, when it took nearly 7,500 released prisoners who were receiving payments and moved them from the PA Commission of Prisoners into other frameworks. In addition, there are more than 13,500 families of Martyrs and injured living outside the PA areas who are receiving over $86 million a year.
The PA Prisoners and Released Prisoners Law requires the PA to reward terrorists who were imprisoned for more than five years with lifetime salaries. After Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) exposed in 2020 that there were at least 7,500 released prisoners to whom the PA was paying monthly terror reward salaries, the PA was condemned by the donor countries.
As the PA explained: “Europe, the US, and Israel” did not accept that the PA paid released terrorists merely because “they killed.”
The PA acted quickly. In early 2021, Mahmoud Abbas issued a Presidential Order to “integrate” all the thousands of released terrorists receiving Pay-for-Slay salaries into government and PA Security Forces (PASF) jobs, and he changed PA pension laws to enable thousands of ineligible terrorists to receive PA pensions.
The PA set up a special committee to work continuously, “even on vacation days,” to hide these recipients. By the end of 2021, all 7,500 recipients of terror salaries were erased from the Commission of Prisoners lists and, although unqualified, were granted jobs and pensions to receive their hidden Pay-for-Slay without Western scrutiny.
These recipients are so well hidden that some Western donor countries, to avoid funding Pay-for-Slay, have been designating their support specifically to pay civil servants or PASF salaries and pensions — the very places that the PA has hidden its terrorists.
With this terror reward program below the West’s radar, the PA is not planning to stop these terror payouts to released terrorist prisoners. PMW estimates that with these two programs, at least 23,500 terrorists received hidden Pay-for-Slay payments in 2025, amounting to $315 million in hidden Pay-for-Slay.
Part 3 of our recent report includes transcribed conversations between recipients of Pay-for-Slay in the first months of 2026, confirming that the PA is expanding its Pay-for-Slay by at least 6,000 recipients. The PA is intentionally lying to the US, the EU, France, and other Western countries, while working continuously to find ways to secretly reward Palestinian terrorists.
The author is the Founder and Director of Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.