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The End Jew Hatred Movement is spreading across the country — and sparking controversy
(New York Jewish Week) — Last month, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Jewish Democrat, proclaimed April 29 “End Jew Hatred Day,” citing “an urgent need to act against antisemitism in Colorado and across the country.”
Similar proclamations came from New York Rep. Mike Lawler, a Republican, and dozens of other elected officials nationwide.
But in the New York City Council, an identical effort proved controversial. While the overwhelmingly Democratic council approved April 29 as End Jew Hatred Day annually, six council members either abstained from or voted against what organizers had intended to be an unanimous decision.
The initiative behind the proclamations, called the End Jew Hatred Movement, is a relatively new presence based in New York City that is increasingly making its voice known nationally — through rallies, petitions, a relentless press campaign and now in the halls of government. One measure that demonstrates the initiative’s growth is the number of April 29 proclamations. Last year, there were a handful. This year, according to End Jew Hatred, there were 30.
The movement also provided the spark for the unexpected opposition in the New York City Council. Lawmakers who did not support the proclamation said they demurred because the End Jew Hatred Movement, while run by people who say they “set aside politics and ideology,” has been associated with right-wing Jewish activists.
End Jew Hatred doesn’t publicize much about its structure or funding. It is not a registered nonprofit organization, and would not tell the New York Jewish Week its annual budget or how it receives donations.
Its backers call it an unapologetic voice that’s fighting a growing problem, antisemitism, while its critics say it is an attempt to inject hawkish rhetoric into a national effort to combat anti-Jewish persecution. Amid that debate, the movement’s growth, and its successful spearheading of resolutions nationwide, show how an initiative founded by conservative activists has wielded influence in the conversation about antisemitism, even in liberal political spaces.
Here’s what we know about End Jew Hatred, how it’s establishing itself in New York City and beyond, and why its activities are drawing backlash.
A movement founded in the politics of 2020
Founded in New York City near the beginning of the pandemic, End Jew Hatred first drew local attention in October 2020, when it organized a rally in front of the New York Public Library protesting the way its activists said New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo were unfairly targeting Orthodox New Yorkers with public health restrictions.
Haredi New Yorkers and their backers railed against the city’s regulations that year, and claimed that policies limiting group prayer and other religious ceremonies were selectively enforced against their communities.
“Never in my life did I think I would see this type of blatant Jew-hatred from our public officials,” Brooke Goldstein, who founded End Jew Hatred, said at the rally, which drew dozens of protesters. “Singling out New York Jews for blame in the coronavirus spread is unconscionable and discriminatory.”
But while the movement’s first significant action concerned the pandemic, a spokesman for End Jew Hatred said it was inspired by another seismic event that took place in 2020: the racial justice protests and the growth of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“How can we replicate this for the Jewish people?” said Gerard Filitti, senior counsel for the organization Goldstein directs, the Lawfare Project, describing End Jew Hatred’s genesis. “We saw antisemitism shoot up during the pandemic. So it was kind of the right time to launch this idea.”
Since then, in addition to spearheading the proclamations, the initiative has continued holding rallies, protesting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which aids Palestinian refugees, for “promoting Jew hatred”; speaking out against antisemitism in Berlin, Toronto and other cities around the globe; and, earlier this year, opposing a reported plea bargain for the men who assaulted Joseph Borgen while he was en route to a pro-Israel rally in May 2021. It was also a signatory on a letter to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg protesting the plea deal, and members of the movement showed up to the alleged attackers’ court hearing.
Nearly three years after its launch, the movement remains opaque about its structure, declining to share any financial information or elaborate on its relationship to the Lawfare Project, which bills itself as an “international pro-Israel litigation fund.” In a brief statement to the New York Jewish Week, a spokesperson for End Jew Hatred said the organization accepts donations from local community members and support from like-minded nonprofit groups, though he declined to detail how those donations were processed.
“Our network of activists spans the globe, from New York City to Los Angeles, from Toronto to Berlin,” he said. “Also, the movement is supported by people from all walks of life who donate both their time and money to make the movement a success. Activists are encouraged to fundraise within their community, and some actions have been supported by organizations that have taken part in them.”
Roots in pro-Israel and right-wing activism
The Lawfare Project, Goldstein’s group, has represented Jewish students who settled a discrimination lawsuit with San Francisco State University, and the following year, represented an Israeli organization that settled a suit with the National Lawyers’ Guild, after the guild declined to place the group’s ad in its annual dinner journal.
This year, the group is providing legal aid to a Las Vegas-area Jewish teen who had a swastika drawn onto his back. And it sued the mayor of Barcelona over her decision to sever ties with Tel Aviv.
Goldstein also has a history of right-wing activism and controversial statements. She has made appearances on conservative news networks such as Fox News, One America News and Newsmax. She once said that “there’s no such thing as a Palestinian person,” and on Election Day in 2016, tweeted, “Can I run the anti-anti-islamophobia department in the Trump administration?”
Goldstein has said she sees Ronald Lauder — the philanthropist, World Jewish Congress president and conservative donor — as an ally. In a virtual conversation between the two hosted by Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Synagogue last year, Goldstein thanked Lauder for his “support and his friendship,” and Lauder called Goldstein “so smart and wonderful.” Lauder was also involved with the movement’s effort to establish End Jew Hatred Day in New York City last year.
Ronald S Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) recorded before a bilateral a conversation with Chancellor Scholz. (Michael Kappeler/Getty Images)
End Jew Hatred has also worked with Dov Hikind, a former Brooklyn Democratic state assemblyman who now runs a group called Americans Against Antisemitism. Hikind’s group has partnered with End Jew Hatred, and he has appeared at its events. Hikind told the New York Jewish Week that his group and End Jew Hatred are “involved in terms of pushing the same agenda.”
Hikind has stirred controversy as well: In 2013, he wore blackface as part of a Purim costume, and in 2005, sponsored a bill that would have allowed police to profile Middle Eastern men on the subway. He was a follower of the late right-wing extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Controversy or consensus?
Even as its right-wing connections have sparked suspicion from progressive activists, End Jew Hatred has garnered support from establishment Jewish groups. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations promoted End Jew Hatred Day on Twitter last week, posting a graphic with the logo of the movement. And the city’s Jewish Community Relations Council also backed the City Council resolution.
“All people, regardless of party affiliation, have a role to play in combating antisemitism and other forms of hatred, and we should not lose sight of that,” a JCRC spokesperson told the New York Jewish Week. “From our perspective, every day should be End Jew Hatred Day.”
Lauder has also advocated the use of the term “Jew hatred” in place of antisemitism in a video published by the World Jewish Congress that has been viewed more than 480,000 times.
“No one is embarrassed anymore when they’re called an antisemite,” he said. “Antisemitism must be called what it really is: Jew hatred.”
That view is not universally shared among antisemitism watchdogs. Holly Huffnagle, the American Jewish Committee’s U.S. director for combating antisemitism, said that the term “Jew hatred” is “jarring” and “makes people stop and think.” But she said the term does not capture the way antisemitism is often expressed via coded conspiratorial language.
“[People] might not know what [the term] antisemitism is, but Jew hatred they know,” she said. “In that sense it can be used to get attention, to help people call it out.”
“On the other hand, the antisemitism we see today, in its primary form, which is conspiratorial, is not captured by the term ‘Jew hatred,’” she added. “I hear from a variety of people that they don’t hate Jews, they’re against Jew hatred, they’re not antisemitic, but they believe that Jews have too much power [or] they control the media.”
And End Jew Hatred’s right-wing ties have also made some progressive activists in its home base of New York City wary of its motives. The lead sponsor of the City Council’s End Jew Hatred Day resolution was Queens Republican Inna Vernikov, a former aide to Hikind who has previously spotlighted antisemitism allegations at the City University of New York.
Her resolution, which passed overwhelmingly, garnered a mix of 14 co-sponsors, including some prominent Jewish Democrats and all six of the council’s Republicans — two of whom have links, respectively, to white supremacists and a person arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Council Member Inna Vernikov introduced a resolution to create an annual “End Jew Hatred” day in the New York City Council on April 27, 2023. (New York City Council Flickr)
Those right-wing connections were part of what led six progressive council members to either abstain from or vote against the resolution. One of the council members who voted no, Brooklyn’s Shahana Hanif, told the New York Jewish Week that she has participated in multiple actions against antisemitism but opposed the resolution because she didn’t want to endorse End Jew Hatred as a movement.
“Antisemitism is real,” Hanif said. “I understand the urgency. I understand the opportunity when there is a resolution or any kind of symbolic gesture that comes along, that every legislator wants to be united in supporting our Jewish colleagues. But in the same breath, it is our responsibility to know who is leading on these efforts.”
City Comptroller Brad Lander, a prominent Jewish progressive politician, vouched for Hanif’s record of standing up to antisemitism and echoed her concerns. He told the New York Jewish Week that End Jew Hatred’s activists are “right-wingers who have a track record of working very closely with people who foment hatred.”
Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a progressive group, also opposed the resolution. Rafael Shimunov, a member of the group, said the resolution was “clearly associated with the right,” and noted that at a hearing ahead of the vote, an activist decried bail reform, something right-wing advocates have pushed for years to repeal.
Shimunov also took issue with remarks Vernikov has made about George Soros, the billionaire Jewish liberal megadonor who has become an avatar of right-wing antisemitism, and whom Vernikov called ”an evil man, who happens to be Jewish.” JFREJ activists also noted that also noted that some Republican cosponsors of the bill, such as Vernikov, Vickie Paladino and Joann Ariola, have called for transgender women to be barred from women’s sports at schools and universities. In addition, Paladino has a history of anti-LGBTQ comments. The activists say these views undercut the council members’ calls to oppose hatred directed at Jews.
End Jew Hatred’s supporters dismissed accusations that their cause is right-wing. In a text message, Vernikov told the New York Jewish Week that “this resolution has nothing to do with politics or right-wing extremists.” Hikind also echoed that message.
“Everyone in the Jewish community supported this idea,” Hikind said. “To say it’s just right-wing organizations is dishonest and hypocritical.”
Filliti, the Lawfare counsel, said the aim of the resolution — and End Jew Hatred as a whole — was to send “a unifying message.”
“We’re not looking to make this political,” he said. “We have had so much success with this and we are so happy to see this going forward.”
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In the depths of Tel Aviv’s bus station, a fragile refuge for those with nowhere else to go during war
(JTA) — TEL AVIV — Two floors underground, past dumpsters and oil-laden puddles, through a reinforced Cold War-era door, a bomb shelter is buried underneath Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station.
Built in 1993 to accommodate more than 16,000 Israelis, the shelter found a new life during the Israel-Iran war as a public refuge for residents of Neve Shaanan, among Tel Aviv’s most diverse neighborhoods and one of its poorest, home mainly to asylum seekers and foreign workers.
With few other options for public shelters in south Tel Aviv, residents pitched tents in the squalor of a space that had fallen into disrepair — with pipes dripping and rats scurrying — for more than 38 days as Israel and Iran exchanged missile fire until a ceasefire that began on April 8 halted the fighting.
“It’s very difficult. Not just because of the war, but because of the conditions we’re living in,” Gloria Arca, who took refuge inside the shelter with her son, Noam, said in Spanish during an interview in April. “We’re protected from the missiles, but inside we’re not safe.”
For many Israelis, the bus station occupies a space that balances between nostalgia and revulsion. Until 2018, the station was a main node for travel into and out of Tel Aviv. Since then, ridership has dropped, and now the hulking structure is seen as little more than an eyesore. During Israel’s 12-day war with Iran last year, a short video by Israeli comedians went viral for sharing the station’s GPS coordinates in a video that jokingly urged Iran, “Please don’t bomb this bus station.”
Yet the station also offers a concrete window into Israel’s widening reliance on foreign workers, which has surged in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.
When there is no war on, the shelter functions as a community center, complete with a Filipino church, a refugee health clinic, and retailers catering to customers in more than a dozen languages.
During wartime, the station takes on a new and vitally important role as a shelter for those who have none in their homes or neighborhoods, no family in the country whose homes they can flee to and little ability to pay for temporary accommodations somewhere safer.
Arca, who came to Israel more than two decades ago from Colombia and is in the country legally, knew that it would take her and Noam more than 10 minutes to get to a shelter from their home — longer than Israel’s advanced missile warning system allows. So they decided to move into the bus station, pitching a tent alongside some of their neighbors.
Depending on the day, more than 200 residents spent their nights in the shelter during the war, according to Sigal Rozen, public policy coordinator at the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants.
“It’s not easy, especially with young children and families with special needs,” she said. “You can’t get up in the middle of the night and just run.”
The Hotline, with funding from the Tel Aviv Municipality, worked to improve conditions in the shelter, but the starting point was dire. During a visit in April, rats could be seen scurrying across newly installed artificial turf meant to brighten the space, and mosquitoes landed on visitors’ ankles before being chased off.
More than anything, Arca worries about safety in the shelter — but not from the war. “We’re protected from the missiles, but inside, we’re not safe,” she said. “Security is there, but they don’t do their job. Drug users come in and use the bathrooms. There are many children here, and we’re afraid.”
The challenging conditions were nothing new to many of the people who moved in, who represent an often unseen but growing sector of workers in Israel.
The category of “foreign worker,” a term used in Israel to describe non-citizen laborers, most of them from countries such as the Philippines, India, and Thailand, who enter the country on temporary work visas tied to a specific employer, has long been a fraught designation.
Dominant in some industries, such as home health care, where there are so many foreign workers that the role is known as “filipina” in Hebrew, foreign workers have taken on greater shares of other sectors in recent years, particularly after Israel banned Palestinian workers from Gaza and the West Bank after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack. With Israelis increasingly reluctant to take low-paying manual labor jobs, the Israeli government has moved to fill the gap by permitting employers to hire more foreign workers.
Israel’s foreign worker population rose by 41% in 2024 alone to more than 156,000. By 2025, the total had reached 227,044. It is expected to grow even more in the coming years, as the government has set a ceiling of 300,000 workers.
For many Israelis, footage that circulated after the ceasefire showing long lines of foreign workers arriving at newly reopened government offices to renew their visas offered a stark illustration of the growing sector.
It is not uncommon around the world for people from impoverished countries to migrate to countries with more work and higher pay. For the workers, occupying a tenuous legal status can be worth it to be able to support their families, send their children to stronger schools and earn wages on a different scale than in their home countries.
Evelyn, a Filipina caregiver sheltering with her three children beneath the Central Bus Station, declined to give her last name out of fear of deportation. “In Israel, I can earn 10 times what I do in the Philippines. So I have money to send back to my family — not just taking care of my kids here, but my parents in Manila.”
But advocates for the workers say foreign worker status, and Israel’s increasing reliance on foreign workers, creates conditions that are ripe for abuse. Ohad Amar, executive director of Kav LaOved, a nonprofit that works to uphold equal labor rights for all workers in Israel, said the workers are “enduring conditions akin to modern slavery.”
Many foreign worker visas in Israel are tied to a specific employer and are non-transferable. Kav LaOved has documented numerous cases of delayed or unpaid wages, as well as workers who feel pressured to remain silent about abuse from their employers lest they lose their immigration status.
“Israel had not relied on migrant workers in the same way before. This is the first time at this scale,” Amar said. “Every day we are getting reports of workers’ rights violations, and we are completely overwhelmed.”
During wartime, foreign workers are frequently exposed to Israel’s unique dangers in extreme ways. On Oct. 7, as sirens blared, foreign workers were slaughtered in the fields of kibbutzes near Gaza. During the most recent war, videos circulated online of construction workers from China who filmed themselves stranded high in the air during missile barrages, afraid and without protection.
The first death in the latest round of fighting with Iran was Mary Anne Velasquez de Vera, a foreign worker in Israel from the Philippines. At the end of March, two other foreign workers were killed by a Hezbollah rocket while working in a field in northern Israel after they were unable to reach shelter.
Feeling physically vulnerable is an experience many foreign workers in Israel know well. Evelyn, a migrant from the Philippines who slept in the bus station with her children during the war, described how, in an industry as intimate as caregiving, working with elderly people who struggle to make it to a shelter, workers can feel pressured to stay in the building during an attack.
“They can’t exactly tell their employer they left grandma in the building during a missile attack, because they’ll get fired and lose their visa,” Amar said.
Some of the risks are much less visible. Evelyn was out of work as a housekeeper for the duration of the war, when her employer, an elderly woman, left the country. She lived on donations from community members and civil society organizations.
“Here is still better than back home,” she said. “But we are all struggling, and not just because of the shelter. If I can’t start working soon, I really don’t know what I will do.”
Workers like Evelyn who lack work visas must rely on informal employment, making them ineligible for compensation from Bituach Leumi, Israel’s national workers’ insurance, when they go unpaid. But having a visa did not solve the challenges of war, Rozen said.
The threat of losing their visa if they lose their employment hangs over the heads of the workers, forcing them into difficult decisions, like whether to leave their children with volunteers at the shelter or alone at home.
“Even those who still have work face a problem. If a single mother has children and there’s no school, where does she leave them? She can’t bring them along when there’s an alarm,” Rozen said. “So even when work exists, many can’t do it.”
She said the war had offered a glimpse into the as-yet-unaddressed challenges that come along with Israel’s increasing reliance on importing labor from abroad. The country’s labor market didn’t come to a standstill, as was the case in other countries in the region such as the United Arab Emirates where the vast majority of workers are migrants who tried to leave, but for Rozen, something new and troubling was laid bare.
“If you don’t want foreigners here, then don’t recruit them,” Rozen said. “But you can’t recruit them, triple their numbers, and then expect them to disappear when there’s a war.”
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Nearly half of young Americans view US relationship with Israel as a burden, survey finds
(JTA) — Nearly half of young Americans, 46%, believe that the United States’ relationship with Israel is mostly a burden to the United States, according to a new survey from the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School.
The Harvard Youth Poll, which polled 2,018 Americans aged 18 to 29, found that just 16% of those surveyed described the U.S. relationship with Israel as mostly a benefit.
Respondents were asked about their view of other U.S. alliances, including Canada, which 53% saw as beneficial, and Ukraine, which 21% saw as beneficial. Israel received the lowest perceived benefit of any country tested.
The survey also found that 55% of young Americans believe the U.S. military action in Iran is not in the best interest of the American people.
It comes as attitudes about Israel among young Americans in recent years have grown sharply negative. Earlier this month, a Pew Research Center survey found that 70% of Americans aged 18 to 49 held a somewhat or very negative opinion of Israel. That view was split among partisan lines, with 84% of Democrats in that demographic holding a negative view of Israel, compared to 57% of Republicans.
The Harvard survey was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs between March 26 and April 3 and had a margin of error of 2.74 percentage points.
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Long Island father and teen son arrested after investigation into swastika drawn in school bathroom
(JTA) — A father and his teenage son were arrested Wednesday after an investigation into swastika graffiti at the teen’s school led police to search their home, where authorities said they found chemicals used to make explosives.
The arrests stemmed from an investigation into swastika graffiti found in a boys’ bathroom at Syosset High School on Long Island. After police determined that a 15-year-old student had drawn the swastika, the Nassau County Police Department sent officers to his home.
There, the teen told the officers about the explosive materials, according to prosecutors. He said his father had purchased the chemicals for him to build rockets.
During the subsequent search of the home, police found “highly unstable” materials that had been combined to make explosives, including nitroglycerin, multiple acids, oxidizers and fuels. They began to evacuate people in adjacent homes, fearing an explosion.
The teen was not identified by police due to his age. Francisco Sanles, 48, who was arrested at the scene, has pleaded not guilty to seven criminal counts, including criminal possession of a weapon and endangering the welfare of a child. His son was charged with five counts, including criminal possession of a weapon, criminal mischief, aggravated harassment and making graffiti.
Swastika graffiti is relatively commonplace in schools, with the Anti-Defamation League reporting over 400 incidents in 2024: Syosset High School itself was hit by a spate of antisemitic graffiti, including swastikas, in 2017. But it is relatively rare that incidents result in arrests.
In an email to the school district Wednesday night, the Syosset School District — which enrolls a large number of Jewish students — said its investigation had identified the student for the police, and he would face “serious consequences pursuant to the District’s Code of Conduct.”
“Antisemitism and hate speech have no place in our communities or in our schools,” the district said. “Syosset has long been proud of being a welcoming, empathetic, and inclusive community and those values remain firm. We protect those values and this community by confronting and holding accountable those who traffic in any form of hate.”
In January, New York City Police arrested and charged two 15-year-old boys suspected of spraying dozens of swastikas on a playground in a heavily Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood with aggravated harassment and criminal mischief as a hate crime.
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