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Super Bowl ad combatting antisemitism draws criticism from Jews
Artificial intelligence, Uber Eats, Steven Spielberg’s next film — and antisemitism.
Those were among the topics competing for attention during Sunday’s Super Bowl ads. The antisemitism commercial showed a white Jewish high school student being taunted with the slur “Dirty Jew,” until a taller Black classmate steps in to defend him.
The high-profile spot was funded by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, formerly known as the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism.
For Kraft, 84, the moment was meant to model allyship. Through Blue Square, he has partnered with Hillel International and the United Negro College Fund to host “unity dinners” bringing together Jewish and Black students, and he told CBS News that he hopes Palestinian students attend as well. The ad, Kraft said, was about solidarity.
This is not Kraft’s first Super Bowl ad. In 2024, he paid for an ad featuring Martin Luther King Jr.’s speechwriter in a spot that leaned on similar themes of Black-Jewish collaboration and a shared history of Civil Rights activism. And he began running ads about antisemitism several years before that during Patriots games.
But instead of unifying viewers, the commercial quickly became one of the night’s most divisive spots. Critics — including many Jews — derided it as “dated” and “disconnected” from the way antisemitism actually shows up in 2025, especially on college campuses and online. To some, the ad seemed stuck in a moral universe where antisemitism is an interpersonal problem solved by a well-timed intervention, rather than a systemic one fueled by ideology, institutions and, increasingly, online indoctrination.
Online, the backlash was swift. Many Jewish commenters argued that the estimated $15 million Kraft spent on the campaign, which is also slated to air during the Winter Olympics, would have been better spent elsewhere.
A sharp backlash has emerged against the brand of advocacy that Kraft has undertaken, with some Jewish leaders decrying efforts to combat antisemitism as ineffective and misguided.
“What we call the fight against antisemitism, which consumes tens of millions of dollars every year in Jewish philanthropy and has become an organizing principle across Jewish organizations, is a well-meaning, but mostly wasted effort,” the center-right New York Times columnist Bret Stephens said in a “State of World Jewry” address last week in New York. Instead, he called for large-scale investment in Jewish day schools, cultural institutions, philanthropy, media, publishing and religious leadership.
Others simply found the ad tone-deaf and potentially even harmful.
In an open letter addressed to Kraft, Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Harvard graduate who sued the university over alleged antisemitism, put it bluntly. “You’re a smart guy,” he wrote, “but the people you have hired either are morons or are taking advantage of the money you pay them.”
Emily Tamkin, a contributing columnist at the Forward, posted on social media: “I know in my heart that somewhere in this country of ours a Jewish kid is getting bullied with a Post-it today because of that ad.”
“This Super Bowl ad was clearly well intentioned, but it missed the mark,” posted Margot Touitou, a Tel Aviv-based content creator. “If legacy orgs want to understand what antisemitism looks like for young Jews today, they need to actually be online and tapped into internet culture. Without that, campaigns like this won’t ever land, and that hallway scene especially felt stuck in a ‘90s movie, which just isn’t how Gen Z moves or experiences this stuff.”
The team behind the ad pushed back, insisting the criticism misunderstands its intent — and its data. In a letter to the Forward, Adam Katz, president of Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, said online use of the slur “Dirty Jew” has increased 174% over the past three years, arguing that the ad reflects real trends affecting younger Jews in particular. “We test all of our ads,” Katz wrote, adding that early results have been “promising.” He said the decision to set the ad in a high school was deliberate: “That is where we have seen the most concerning trends in antisemitism data.”
The Anti-Defamation League, whose independent research found the ad resonated with audiences, echoed that defense. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called the spot “powerful” and praised it as “a simple yet moving depiction of resilience in the face of discrimination.”
In response to the criticism, several groups released their own versions of the ad.
On Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces posted its own stark, 11-second video to social media. “This is our Super Bowl commercial,” the IDF wrote, over footage of soldiers carrying machine guns to a soundtrack from Bad Bunny, who performed during halftime. Eylon Levy, who served as an Israeli government spokesperson in the early months of the Gaza war, shared the clip and added a pointed rejoinder: “Much more inspiring for an American Jewish kid who’s getting called a ‘dirty Jew’ than hoping a taller, cooler Black kid will save him.”
Daniel Lubetzky, a Jewish philanthropist and founder of Kind Snacks, released his own version of Kraft’s ad, reimagining the bullied Jewish teen not as a victim in need of rescue, but as a future doctor: accomplished and confident. The video went viral almost immediately, drawing praise from viewers who found it more empowering, and scorn from others who felt it simply swapped one trope for another.
Together, the competing ads — and the arguments around them — revealed a deeper divide: not just over tactics, but over what kind of story American Jews want to tell about themselves at a moment when antisemitism feels both newly visible and painfully unresolved.
JTA contributed to this report.
The post Super Bowl ad combatting antisemitism draws criticism from Jews appeared first on The Forward.
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Ukraine Has ‘Irrefutable’ Evidence of Russia Providing Intelligence to Iran, Zelenskiy Says
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a press conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (not pictured) and European Council President Antonio Costa (not pictured) on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 24, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko
Ukraine‘s military intelligence has “irrefutable” evidence that Russia continues to provide intelligence to Iran, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after meeting the head of military intelligence.
“Russia is using its own signals intelligence and electronic intelligence capabilities, as well as part of the data obtained through cooperation with partners in the Middle East,” he said on X.
Kremlin last week dismissed a Wall Street Journal report that Russia was sharing satellite imagery and improved drone technology with Iran as “fake news.”
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Belgium Deploys Soldiers to Reinforce Security at Jewish Sites
Belgian army personnel patrol a street as part of a deployment of soldiers outside Jewish institutions in Antwerp and Brussels following attacks at Jewish sites in Belgium and other European countries, in Antwerp, Belgium, March 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
Soldiers were deployed on the streets of leading Belgian cities on Monday to bolster security for the Jewish community, after what officials said were antisemitic attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands.
The move follows an explosion this month at a synagogue in Liege that authorities called an antisemitic act.
“From today we’re putting soldiers back on the streets in Brussels and Antwerp because safety is a basic right,” Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken said in a post on X on Monday.
The deployment, in collaboration with federal police, will provide security at Jewish sites including synagogues and schools, Belgian authorities said in a press release last week.
Antwerp “is again a little safer … the Jewish community too. We say NO to antisemitism!” Francken said on Monday.
The upgrade in security also follows an arson attack on a synagogue in Rotterdam and an explosion at a Jewish school in Amsterdam in neighbouring The Netherlands.
Dutch police have arrested five suspects, aged 17 to 19, over the synagogue attack in Rotterdam.
The US embassy in Oslo was also targeted in a bombing earlier this month branded by Norwegian investigators as an act of terrorism. None of the attacks caused injuries.
A Belgian defense ministry spokesperson said on Monday that soldiers would be deployed in three different phases: First in Brussels and Antwerp, later in Liege.
Rights advocates have raised concerns about possible attacks against Jewish communities around the world following the launch of the US and Israeli war with Iran. Four ambulances belonging to a Jewish community organisation in north London were set ablaze on Monday.
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Trump Puts Off Threat to Bomb Iran Power Grid; Tehran Denies Talks Taking Place
Streaks of light illuminate the sky during an interception attempt amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, as seen from Tel Aviv, Israel, March 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
US President Donald Trump said on Monday he had given orders to postpone for five days the attacks he had threatened against Iranian power plants, and said the US was in talks with Tehran about ending the US-Israeli war on Iran.
However, Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, mooted to be the leader representing Iran in contacts with the US, posted on social media that no talks had been held with the US.
As reciprocal airstrikes continued, financial markets had broadly welcomed the reports of efforts to negotiate an end to the war. Even after Qalibaf’s comments, the Brent crude oil benchmark was down around 8% to about $103 a barrel.
Iran has effectively closed the key Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows.
Trump wrote early in the US morning on his Truth Social platform that the US and Iran had had “very good and productive” conversations over the past two days about a “complete and total resolution of hostilities in the Middle East.”
OIL DROPS, STOCKS RECOVER ON PROSPECT OF PEACE TALKS
He later told reporters that his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had been negotiating with Iran before the war, had had discussions with a top Iranian official into the evening on Sunday, and would continue on Monday.
“We have had very, very strong talks. We’ll see where they lead. We have major points of agreement, I would say, almost all points of agreement.”
“All I’m saying is, we are in the throes of a real possibility of making a deal,” he told reporters before departing Florida for Memphis.
He declined to say who the US was speaking to in Iran but said it was not Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who was wounded in the Israeli attack at the start of the war that killed his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to Washington.
“We’re dealing with the man who I believe is the most respected and the leader,” Trump said.
An unnamed Israeli official and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters that Qalibaf, increasingly influential, was representing Iran and that talks on ending the war could be held in Islamabad as soon as this week.
A reporter for the US news outlet Axios also said mediating countries, which he named as Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan, were trying to convene an Iranian-US meeting in Islamabad this week including Witkoff, Kushner, and Vice President JD Vance.
Trump said he had spoken with Israel, which he said would be “very happy with what we have.”
Although Mojtaba Khamenei holds the ultimate authority in Iran, and the foreign ministry led past negotiations with the US, Iran experts say the realities of wartime decision-making have effectively shifted control to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which now exerts decisive influence over key areas including foreign policy.
A source briefed on Israel’s war plans said Washington had kept it informed of its contacts with Tehran, and that Israel was likely to follow Washington in suspending any targeting of Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on talks or on Washington’s decision to suspend strikes on some targets.
Global markets rose sharply, with US stocks up more than 2%.
On Saturday, Trump had warned that Iranian power plants would be destroyed if Tehran failed to “fully open” the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping within 48 hours. Trump set a deadline of around 7:44 pm EDT (2344 GMT) on Monday.
The IRGC threatened retaliation, saying it would attack Israel’s power plants and those supplying US bases if Trump followed through with his threat.
MARKETS AND ECONOMIES IN TURMOIL
Iranian media reported that they had on Monday attacked targets in Israel and US bases in the region.
More than 2,000 people have been killed in the war the US and Israel launched on Feb. 28, which has devastated Iran’s leadership and military capabilities while driving up fuel costs and accelerating global inflation fears.
However, the threat of strikes on Gulf electricity grids raised fears of mass disruption to desalination for drinking water, and further rattled oil markets.
While attacks on electricity could hurt Iran, they could be catastrophic for its Gulf neighbors, which consume around five times as much power per capita.
Electricity makes their gleaming desert cities habitable, in part by powering the desalination plants that produce 100% of the water consumed in Bahrain and Qatar. Such plants use seawater to meet more than 80% of drinking water needs in the United Arab Emirates, and 50% of the water supply in Saudi Arabia.
Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said the resulting energy crisis was worse than the two oil shocks of the 1970s and the gas shortage connected to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine put together.
Iran‘s Defense Council escalated its threatened retaliation on Monday, prior to Trump‘s delay, saying Tehran would cut all Gulf routes by laying sea mines if Trump followed through, state media reported.
The Israeli military said early on Monday it had begun its latest broad wave of strikes on infrastructure in Tehran.
Iranian news agencies said six people had been killed and 43 injured in strikes in the western city of Khorramabad.
The Iranian Red Crescent posted a video of a residential building in affluent northern Tehran with most of its facade destroyed and emergency staff rescuing someone on a stretcher from the upper floors.
Across the Gulf, the Saudi defense ministry said two ballistic missiles had been launched towards Riyadh. One was intercepted while the other fell in an uninhabited area.