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Jewish exodus underway from Heritage Foundation’s antisemitism initiative over Tucker Carlson
The Heritage Foundation’s marquee effort to combat antisemitism, a coalition known as Project Esther, is rapidly losing members following the conservative think tank’s public defense of Tucker Carlson after he gave a friendly interview to the white nationalist and antisemitic provocateur Nick Fuentes.
At least seven individuals and organizations affiliated with Heritage’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, launched last year under the Project Esther banner, have resigned or threatened to do so, citing Heritage president Kevin Roberts’s decision to stand by Carlson and his description of the television personality’s critics as a “venomous coalition.”
The defections suggest that Project Esther — unveiled on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack as a conservative “national strategy to counter antisemitism”— could be imploding.
Neither the co-chairs of the initiative nor the Heritage Foundation immediately responded to a request for comment about the resignations.
Conceived as a counterweight to the Biden administration’s 2023 antisemitism strategy, Heritage’s plan focused almost entirely on left-wing and pro-Palestinian activism, portraying what it called a “Hamas Support Network” as the chief driver of antisemitism in America.
From the outset, the project drew skepticism for not including most mainstream Jewish organizations and for downplaying antisemitism on the political right. That tension has now widened into a rupture.
The first public resignation from the task force came Sunday with an announcement from Mark Goldfeder, an Orthodox rabbi and the CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, that he was quitting in protest of Roberts’ defense of Carlson.
“Elevating him and then attacking those who object as somehow un-American or disloyal in a video replete with antisemitic tropes and dog whistles, no less, is not the protection of free speech. It is a moral collapse disguised as courage,” Goldfeder wrote in a letter posted to X.
On Monday, the New York Post reported on the resignation of David Bernstein, author of “Woke Antisemitism” and founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, who had served on the Heritage task force. Bernstein said Roberts’ language felt like “a real attack against Jewish political agency on the American scene.”
“The phrase ‘venomous coalition aligned against him [Carlson]’—that’s me and any Jewish person who cares about condemning antisemitism,” Bernstein said. “It allows you to justify almost anything said in the name of political conservatism, and that empties it of all meaning.”
There’s no public list of all Project Esther members, but several groups that are named on the initiative’s website told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that they had disaffiliated or were prepared to do so.
Lori Lowenthal Marcus, a lawyer with the Deborah Project, a legal group that fights antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, said she had resigned from all Heritage affiliations.
“The Heritage folks I’ve encountered on the Task Force have been uniformly terrific and sincere about fighting antisemitism,” she wrote. “But the edifice of Heritage is no longer one which I can trust. … I cannot be questioning the commitment of those who claim to be at my side.”
The Jewish Leadership Project, a conservative network co-founded by Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser, said it is “evaluating our involvement” and will withdraw absent “a vigorous explanation that Judaism and Jews are inherently allies of Christians” and “a disconnect from Carlson immediately.”
The Coalition for Jewish Values, led by Rabbi Yaakov Menken, said it has already communicated its intent to resign if Roberts does not retract his remarks and sever ties with Carlson. “Today Heritage has chosen to vocally stand with an antisemite, call his Jewish critics a ‘venomous coalition,’ and slander organizations like CJV,” the group said. “Whether we continue is a ball that is at present in their court.”
Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, echoed that warning: “If [Roberts] doesn’t retract, apologize, and condemn Tucker Carlson… we at the ZOA will no longer be part of the Esther Project.”
And in a statement, Young Jewish Conservatives, another member group, said it was withdrawing its membership entirely. The group accused Carlson of “spewing antisemitism,” ridiculing Christian Zionists, and spreading propaganda for “enemies of the United States.” Roberts’s defense of him, YJC said, was “100% inconsistent with conservative values. … Anyone who aligns with Adolf Hitler must be unequivocally disavowed.”
The World Jewish Congress, an international federation representing Jewish communities and organizations in over 100 countries, remains listed as a participating organization on Project Esther’s website, despite its assertion that it has never been involved.
“WJC was not involved in the creation and is not involved in the implementation of Project Esther,” a spokesperson said.
Asked to respond, a Heritage spokesperson said in a statement, “The WJC was among those present at the launch stage of the task force, which informed the initial list of participants and is reflected on our website. We appreciate the engagement of those who contributed at all stages of this critical mission.”
When Project Esther debuted in 2024, Heritage hailed it as proof that the conservative movement takes antisemitism seriously. The 33-page blueprint called for purging “Hamas propaganda” from school curricula, firing “Hamas-aligned faculty” from U.S. universities, and pressuring social-media platforms to restrict antisemitic content. The goal, it said, was to make “Hamas Supporters” as socially toxic as the Ku Klux Klan or al-Qaida.
Yet the rollout was chaotic. Multiple groups Heritage named as participants — among them Christians United for Israel, the Hudson Institute, the Atlantic Council, and the Republican Jewish Coalition — denied any involvement.
Heritage officials responded by saying they had “invited” numerous Jewish organizations but purposely limited their inclusion. “More of my concern was really with the non-Jewish groups,” James Carafano, Heritage’s senior counselor and a leader of the antisemitism task force, told Jewish Insider. “Quite honestly, if [Jewish groups] were being effective, we wouldn’t have the problem that we have.”
Carafano told Jewish Insider he did not believe antisemitism was a problem on the American right. “White supremacists are not my problem,” he said. “They are not part of being conservative.”
Carafano declined to comment for this story.
Those comments, along with remarks from Luke Moon, executive director of the Christian-Zionist Philos Project, reveal how Heritage’s internal debates foreshadowed today’s crisis. Moon last year disclosed that task force members had discussed whether to call out Carlson and conservative commentator Candace Owens, who has also trafficked in antisemitic tropes, but decided against it.
“We had a long conversation several times about whether or not to, or how much energy do we spend going after, like, Tucker and Candace Owens, or do we really focus on where the majority are right now, at least, which is these folks on campus, [Students for Justice in Palestine] and stuff,” Moon told Jewish Insider last year.
He did not respond to a request for comment about recent events.
That decision now looms large as critics accuse Heritage of adopting a “no enemies to the right” ethos.
Robert’s statement drew swift rebukes from Republican senators Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell, as well as from Ben Shapiro, Mike Huckabee, and others who denounced Carlson’s platforming of Fuentes.
“I disagree with and even abhor things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer, either,” Roberts said.
Roberts later issued a follow-up post condemning Fuentes’s antisemitism but stopped short of retracting his praise for Carlson.
Shapiro pushed back on Roberts’ characterization. “It is not cancellation to draw moral lines between viewpoints,” Shapiro said in an episode of his podcast Monday. “In fact, we used to call that one of the key aspects of conservatism.”
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The post Jewish exodus underway from Heritage Foundation’s antisemitism initiative over Tucker Carlson appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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A Chabad Jew was stabbed in NYC. He returned the next day to continue wrapping tefillin.
(JTA) — Less than 24 hours after he was stabbed in midtown Manhattan, Yosef, a Chabad-Lubavitch man from Crown Heights, was back on the same street where he’d been assaulted, popping into Diamond District businesses as usual to help employees wrap tefillin.
Yosef, 26, who did not share his last name to maintain his privacy, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he was back on 47th Street on Thursday afternoon, the day after the stabbing, without missing a beat in his Monday-through-Thursday rounds even as police investigate the incident as a possible hate crime.
A number of the people he visited pieced together that the widely circulated footage of a man being stabbed the previous night was of him.
“They were in shock. They were obviously scared for me,” said Yosef, who has been wrapping tefillin and distributing Shabbat candles to Jewish Diamond District employees for about three years. He started that routine when his father, a Chabad Jew who works in the jewelry business, realized he needed his son’s help to handle the demand for those acts. Yosef told Chabad.org that he was “still shaken” by the attack a day later.
Still, he told JTA, “We can’t allow some hate to stop us.”
Yosef said he felt it was important to communicate that message because “we need more mitzvahs in the world, we need more light in the world.”
Yosef was taken to Bellevue Hospital on Wednesday evening around 6 p.m., where medical staff assessed that he had no internal bleeding and would not need stitches. No arrests have been made, but the assailant has been described as a woman in her 40s.
The attack has renewed concerns about security that have faced Chabad adherents and institutions, which often host public events and maintain a visible street presence. But the threat didn’t diminish their presence in midtown Manhattan on Friday.
Multiple Chabad men stood under a bright yellow tent on the sidewalk wrapping tefillin for a steady stream of workers in the heavily Jewish Diamond District.
“The Rebbe says that the way to defeat darkness is only through the addition of light,” said Shmuel Cohen, who was handing out small photographs of the movement’s late leader, the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
Cohen told JTA that he had not heard about the attack that took place just down the block two days earlier, though his partner under the sidewalk tent had. Cohen said that the best way to respond is through “the observance of Torah and mitzvot without being ashamed of our Judaism but presenting it to everyone.”
Also on Friday, Chabad officials met with New York Police Department representatives for their annual meeting about security ahead of Chabad’s international conference in Crown Heights, the Brooklyn neighborhood where the movement is headquartered. The conference begins on Nov. 5.
Chabad has been targeted in multiple high-profile attacks in the past year, including the deadly Bondi Beach shooting in Australia in December. The following month, a man rammed a car into the doors of the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn, raising further questions over how the movement should balance its commitment to making its events accessible with security.
Meanwhile, Jews have been targeted in more than half of hate crimes committed in New York City in 2026, despite making up about 12% of the city’s population.
“Security is our top priority. Our goal is to provide an environment where every participant feels safe and can fully experience the purpose and spirit of the gathering,” said Rabbi Mendy Kotlarsky, a top organizer of the upcoming conference.
In the wake of the attack, Yosef said he is not concerned about going out in public as a visibly Jewish person and doesn’t plan to change how he approaches the world.
“I was wearing the same clothes on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday,” he said. “I didn’t change my routine.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post A Chabad Jew was stabbed in NYC. He returned the next day to continue wrapping tefillin. appeared first on The Forward.
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They met on a Birthright trip then married. Now this American Israeli couple’s internet fame has turned to infamy.
Ethan and Hila Klein first met at Yad Vashem — Israel’s Holocaust museum — in 2007, a meet-cute they recounted, giggling, years later for their millions of YouTube followers.
“I think I went up to her and said something like, ‘They had it coming, don’t you think?’” said Ethan, known for his edgy humor and infamous internet trends, including Vape Nation and Papa Bless. “No I didn’t say that. I wonder if you would have laughed though.”
They were on a Birthright trip, Ethan an American and Hila an Israeli soldier on leave to join the group. Soon after the trip ended, Ethan moved to Israel to be with Hila, and the two began making videos under the name H3H3 Productions (the H for Hila and the 3 standing in as an E for Ethan). They married, moved to America, and started a popular podcast.
A Jewish love story, until Thursday, when Hila, now mother to their three children, accused Ethan publicly of having a months-long affair.
“The betrayal I feel is immeasurable,” Hila said in an Instagram post. “My only family on this side of the world. How do I even begin to make sense of this?”
Ethan reposted her statement.
Their podcast is run by a handful of crew members who often chime in and participate in various skits and bits. The crew also shared a statement saying they stand with Hila and refuse to work with Ethan, though they added they don’t know what this will mean for the future of the show.
A couple roiled by Oct. 7
The left-leaning, secular couple’s videos and podcasts focused primarily on pop culture, internet drama and general politics, not Jewish or Israeli issues.
Both Ethan and Hila would make statements sometimes when tensions in Israel flared, and they would occasionally speak out against IDF actions that upset them.
In 2021, Ethan started a podcast with political commenter Hasan Piker, a controversial left-wing influencer, called Leftovers, a nod to their leftist politics.
Then came Oct. 7.
Ethan, an American Israeli dual citizen like Hila, was horrified by the attacks but quick to call the IDF genocidal in the aftermath. In their first episode together after Oct. 7, Ethan and Piker said the show would continue through their disagreements. The episode was tense, and it was their last.
As Piker’s rhetoric on Israel intensified and became at times antisemitic, the two began a nasty internet feud, culminating in a nearly five-hour livestreamed debate.
Piker posted about the news of the affair on X, sharing a video of Ethan and expressing disgust for men who cheat.
“Now this is a high caliber man [with] good morals,” Piker said sarcastically. He also posted “Judge me by my enemies” after sharing Hila’s statement.
Hila, who owns a makeup and clothing company, increasingly came under scrutiny by Piker and others after Oct. 7 for her service in the IDF. Artists refused to work with her. One model she hired publicly disavowed her after finding out she was Israeli.
The couple was harassed, sometimes online, sometimes in-person, as they attempted to take what they viewed as a nuanced stance in the aftermath of Hamas’ attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. The united front seemed to fortify their relationship, as Ethan, ever outspoken, routinely came to his wife’s defense.
Their show lost thousands of subscribers, but loyal fans stuck with them — fans who now say they are gutted and confused by the news of the affair. Many in disbelief noted that Ethan had Hila’s face tattooed on his arm less than two years ago as a surprise for her.
“The greatest thing a man can do for his children is to love their mother,” says the quote surrounding the tattoo.
The Forward attempted to contact the Kleins through their work emails and did not immediately hear back.
The post They met on a Birthright trip then married. Now this American Israeli couple’s internet fame has turned to infamy. appeared first on The Forward.
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These Jewish college students have some ‘nonnegotiables’ for El-Sayed
At the University of Michigan, first-year student Robert Kashan, 18, and sophomore Jacob Reich, 19, sat behind a large blue sign. “Some things are nonnegotiable,” it declared in all caps.
The sign laid out their requirements for any candidate seeking their support: a commitment to Jewish safety, “including for Zionist Jews,” and supporting Jewish statehood in Israel, among other positions.
“Zionism is a legitimate part of the Democratic coalition, and a lot of us are feeling less represented by the Democratic Party,” Kashan told the Forward.
The students are part of a broader “Nonnegotiable” movement in Michigan, a coalition of Jewish Democrats who are spelling out their dealbreakers for candidates ahead of the Senate election between Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Republican nominee Mike Rogers.
The movement has attracted national attention, with hundreds of rabbis across 34 states signing on to the “Nonnegotiable” demands. Meanwhile, about 20 students at the University of Michigan have publicly signed, while hundreds more offered support anonymously, according to Reich.
The “Nonnegotiable” supporters aren’t saying whom they’ll vote for if their concerns aren’t addressed — or whether they’ll vote at all. But they are pushing back against the assumption that Jewish voters will, as the saying goes, “vote blue no matter who,” urging El-Sayed to engage with their demands if he hopes to earn their support.
That’s in contrast with two other Jewish political camps, including a group called Michigan Jews for Democracy that endorsed El-Sayed. Their petition, which has garnered almost 1,000 signatures, notes that some signatories hold reservations about El-Sayed but are voting for him nonetheless as a check on President Trump.
“We understand that a vote is not a valentine; it’s a strategic chess move,” the petition reads.
A competing petition, dubbed “Michigan Jews Against Extremism,” has drawn hundreds of signatures from Michigan Jews who plan to vote for Rogers. That petition similarly emphasizes that Rogers voters may still have reservations about the candidate: “Our vote for Mike Rogers does not require that we agree with him on every issue or that we support President Trump,” it reads.
“Nonnegotiable,” meanwhile, rejects the idea that Jewish voters would have to choose between Zionist and Democratic values. Some have criticized the nonnegotiable movement for ignoring the reality of the electoral choice at hand. Others have called it “a veiled attempt to excuse the actions of Jewish Democrats who want to feel validated about voting for Mike Rogers.”
But Kashan and Reich, who met at Hillel and plan to major in political science, said the “Nonnegotiable” movement was the only way they could see themselves engaging in the election, as they felt increasingly pulled between their identities as Democrats and as Jews.
Some Michigan Jews have expressed alarm at El-Sayed’s questioning of whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state and his decision to campaign alongside controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric. Rogers, who Trump has endorsed, earlier this week called El-Sayed “anti-Jew.”
In a letter to Michigan Jews, El-Sayed has vowed to “stand up against antisemitism and take the threat of violence against our Jewish community incredibly seriously.” He has also hired a Jewish liaison in the final weeks leading up to the election.
This will be the first election when Kashan, who just turned 18, is eligible to vote, and Reich’s first national election after voting in a local primary in his hometown of Palo Alto, California. For both, voting Democratic in their first major election had once seemed like a given.
“I’m a Jewish Democrat, and I want Democrats to take the Senate,” Reich said. “I want to vote for a Democrat in my own state.”
They’re still holding out hope that will happen — and that, with less than two weeks until the Nov. 3 election, El-Sayed will sign on to their petition.
And if he doesn’t? Neither student is ready to say.
The post These Jewish college students have some ‘nonnegotiables’ for El-Sayed appeared first on The Forward.
