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The fundamental miscalculation behind the GOP’s antisemitism crisis
As the political right navigates Tucker Carlson’s recent decision to host the white supremacist Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes on his podcast, one thing has become clear: There are some people in this country who are eager to pretend that antisemitism on the political right is a new issue.
This is untrue. And understanding the contours of that warped perception are essential to accurately identifying and pushing back on antisemitism in the United States today.
For a long time, much of the political right has held that to be pro-Israel is to be good for the Jews, and to be too critical of Israel is to be an antisemitic security threat.
This has meant that President Donald Trump can be excused for ranting about “globalists” and pushing conspiracy theories about Hungarian-born Jewish billionaire philanthropist George Soros, because he is such a friend to Israel. For many right-wing American Jews, that friendship was enough.
There is a cost to this calculus. Those who believed conservative support for Israel would keep antisemitism on the right at a level they deemed comfortable are now, perhaps, beginning to see that they have made a devil’s bargain.
The most obvious proof of that is the decision of Kevin Roberts, president of the influential Heritage Foundation, to publicly stand by Carlson. (Nearly a week after his initial statement, Roberts apologized to staff amid profound internal criticism, claiming he didn’t know much about Fuentes. He also issued another video statement proclaiming that even “even when my friend Tucker Carlson needs challenging,” he and Heritage will speak up).
The Heritage Foundation is behind the Trump White House’s antisemitism policy: It developed Project Esther, a plan to instrumentalize antisemitism to crack down on civil society. The group has been enormously influential in turning a purported battle against antisemitism into a trademark effort of Trump’s second term. For Roberts to say that to “cancel” Fuentes — who has compared Jews in death camps to cookies in an oven and deemed Jews “unassimilable” — would be a mistake suggests that the significant sector of the right that they represent sees antisemitism more as an opportunity than as an actual problem.
Because for all the stories about Republicans racing to condemn the antisemites in their ranks in the wake of Carlson’s interview with Fuentes — who for a long time was considered too extremist for more mainstream right-wing figures to touch — the Republican party has been comfortable using antisemitism for years.
They’ve built the modern right on conspiracy theories about Soros, transparent hints at charges of Jewish “dual loyalty,” suggestions that Jews are to blame for electoral losses, and winks and nudges at hateful tropes about Jews and money. The reason that the pro-Israel right is now, suddenly, deeply concerned about these tropes is that Fuentes has a vitriolic hatred of Israel, in violation of longstanding conservative norms.
Which raises the question of why they, or anyone, thought that antisemitism was acceptable or could be contained so long as it came with support for a nation state — or so long as it was only directed against liberal Jews, or was couched in suitably coded language.
Those who practiced that kind of cultivated looking-away overlooked an essential fact: Antisemitism that simmers at a certain level does not check itself. It just makes society as a whole more comfortable with antisemitism.
The idea that antisemitism is a new problem for the right in this country — one that must be condemned now, but was fine before Carlson invited Fuentes on his platform — is contradicted by the reality of the last decade of American political life.
The Republican Jewish Coalition condemned Roberts for standing by Carlson. That’s good. However, the same group was proud to endorse Trump, whom it called “the most pro-Israel president in U.S. history,” in 2024, two years after he had dinner with Fuentes and the rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, now known for his exceptionally vocal and vicious antisemitism. (Trump claimed he did not know who Fuentes was at the time of the meeting, but also proved unwilling to openly criticize him after details of his past statements were made clear.)
The right-wing Jewish pundit Ben Shapiro is accusing Carlson of helping to sabotage the U.S. by hosting Fuentes. I agree that Carlson’s prominence and widespread influence on the right is bad for the U.S., but I also thought that was true when he repeatedly used his platform to push the so-called “replacement theory,” a conspiracy theory that Jewish-coded shadowy elites are trying to flood the country with non-white migrants.
Several Jews who are affiliated with the Heritage Foundation and Project Esther reportedly threatened to quit over Roberts’ response to the Carlson scandal. But why were these individuals content to be associated with a plan to ostensibly fight antisemitism that did not bother to meaningfully engage with white supremacy — the root of Fuentes’ antisemitism — in the first place?
And still others are apparently hoping that we can go back to playing nice with those who deal in antisemitism, so long as they are sufficiently subtle about it and keep supporting Israel. Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the ADL, which recently dropped “protect civil rights” from its online mission, thanked Roberts for clarifying after his initial statement that he finds Fuentes’s views abhorrent. Ideally, one does not need to clarify that they abhor Holocaust denial.
The truth is that when you decide to look past antisemitism for political purposes, you can’t be shocked when that antisemitism eventually goes too far.
And so when pundits now talk about a “civil war” on the American political right over antisemitism, we should remember is that this is the result of years and years of tacit approval of subtle antisemitism. It may have come with support for Israel, and it may not have actually used the word “Jew,” but it has been a core part of the political movement that is currently ruling the country.
We are not going to be able to put this genie back in the bottle if we pretend it only emerged when Fuentes came onto Carlson’s show.
The post The fundamental miscalculation behind the GOP’s antisemitism crisis appeared first on The Forward.
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Deni Avdija becomes first Israeli to be selected as an NBA All-Star
(JTA) — Portland Trail Blazers star Deni Avdija’s meteoric rise has officially reached a new stratosphere, as the 25-year-old forward has become the NBA’s first-ever Israeli All-Star.
Avdija was named an All-Star reserve for the Western Conference on Sunday, an expected but deserved nod after the northern Israel native finished seventh in All-Star voting with over 2.2 million votes, ahead of NBA legends LeBron James and Kevin Durant. Avdija’s breakout performance this season has earned him repeated praise from James and others across the league.
Avdija’s star turn began last year in his first season with Portland, when he further captured the adoration of Jewish fans across Israel and the U.S. But he took another step forward this season, averaging 25.8 points, 6.8 assists and 7.2 rebounds per game. His points and assists clips are by far the best of his career, and rank 13th and 12th in the NBA, respectively. He’s considered a front-runner for the league’s Most Improved Player award.
For close observers of Israeli basketball, Avdija’s All-Star selection is the culmination of a promising career that began as a teenage star with Maccabi Tel Aviv and made him the first Israeli chosen in the top 10 in an NBA draft.
“Deni Avdija being named an NBA All-Star reserve is an unbelievable achievement in the mind of every Israeli basketball fan,” Moshe Halickman, who covers basketball for the popular Sports Rabbi website, wrote in an essay for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “This is a dream come true for many — a dream that became realistic and even a must-happen during his breakout season — but something that in his first five seasons in the NBA never came across as something that was going to be real.”
Halickman, who has covered Avdija in Washington, D.C., and in Israel, wrote that Avdija is not only considered the greatest Israeli hooper of all time, but perhaps the best athlete to come out of Israel, period.
Oded Shalom, who coached Avdija on Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Under-15 and Under-16 teams, echoed that sentiment in a recent profile of Avdija in The Athletic.
“Even though he is only 25, I think he is Israel’s most successful athlete in history,’’ Shalom said. “We’ve had some great gymnasts — and I hope everyone forgives me for saying it, because we’ve had some great athletes — but I think Deni has become the greatest.”
Avdija’s ascension has also come against the backdrop of the Gaza war and a reported global rise in antisemitism, which he has said affects him personally.
“I’m an athlete. I don’t really get into politics, because it’s not my job,” Avdija told The Athletic. “I obviously stand for my country, because that’s where I’m from. It’s frustrating to see all the hate. Like, I have a good game or get All-Star votes, and all the comments are people connecting me to politics. Like, why can’t I just be a good basketball player? Why does it matter if I’m from Israel, or wherever in the world, or what my race is? Just respect me as a basketball player.”
Now, Avdija’s talents will be on display at the NBA All-Star Game, on Sunday, Feb. 15, in Los Angeles.
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Democratic leader says GOP-led Congress boosted ICE funding while Jewish security is underfunded
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries used a Jewish gathering in New York on Sunday to spotlight what he described as an imbalance in federal priorities, building on outrage over the Trump administration’s violent crackdown in Minneapolis that resulted in two fatal shootings.
Jeffries criticized the Republican-controlled Congress for boosting immigration enforcement funding by billions while, he said, security funding for Jewish institutions continues to lag amid rising antisemitic threats. He said that in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed last July and included cuts to Medicaid, the Department of Homeland Security received an additional $191 billion, including $75 billion for ICE.
“If that can happen, then the least that we can do is ensure that this vital security grant program is funded by hundreds of millions of dollars more to keep the Jewish community and every other community safe,” Jeffries said.
The Nonprofit Security Grant Program, established by Congress in 2005 and administered by FEMA under the Department of Homeland Security, provides funding to nonprofits, including houses of worship, to strengthen security against potential attacks. Congress began significantly increasing funding in 2018 after a wave of synagogue attacks nationwide, bringing the program to $270 million today.
Major Jewish organizations are pushing to raise funding to $500 million amid rising antisemitic threats. Last year, the Trump administration briefly froze the program as part of broader agency cuts, and some groups have been reluctant to apply because applicants must affirm cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
Jeffries said House Democrats strongly support an increase to $500 million annually to meet escalating security needs. “It’s got to be an American issue, because that is what combating antisemitism should be all about,” he said.
The breakfast, previously held at the offices of the UJA-Federation of New York, was held this year for the first time in the events hall at Park East Synagogue, which was the site of a pro-Palestinian protest last year that featured antisemitic slogans and posters.
Sunday’s program also included remarks from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who told the audience that his support for Jewish security funding will only continue growing under his leadership, calling it his “baby.”
“As long as I’m in the Senate, this program will continue to grow from strength to strength, and we won’t let anyone attack it or undo it,” Schumer said.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, the co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Caucus who is retiring at the end of the year after 36 years in the House, also spoke at the event. Nadler, like several other Democrats in recent months, compared the actions of ICE agents to the Gestapo, Nazi Germany’s secret police. The comparison has drawn sharp criticism from Democrats, Republicans and Jewish leaders.
Support for Israel aid
Both Schumer and Jeffries vowed in their remarks to continue supporting U.S. military assistance to Israel, amid increasing calls within the party for sharper opposition to Israel. Polls show that Democratic voters are increasingly sympathetic to Palestinians. In July, a record 27 Senate Democrats, a majority of the caucus, supported a pair of resolutions calling for the blocking of weapons transfers to Israel.
“I think it’s the humane thing to do to ensure that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state and eternal homeland for the Jewish people,” Jeffries said. The House Minority Leader, who has cultivated close ties with Jewish leaders since his election in 2012, noted that he has visited Israel nine times. He recalled that on his recent trip, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Yechiel Leiter, joked that it might be time for Democrats to buy property in Jerusalem.
Schumer, the nation’s highest-ranking Jewish elected official, has seen his popularity decline and has faced calls to step down from his role as leader. On Sunday, he pledged that he “will always fight to give Israel what it needs to protect itself from the many who want to wipe Israel off the face of the map.”
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Antisemitism speech sparks pushback from Jewish conservatives
(JTA) — When Orit Arfa read political theorist Yoram Hazony’s recent comments on antisemitism on the American right, she decided that her past admiration for him no longer justified staying silent about what she sees as a moral failure.
Arfa, who served until last month as a spokesperson for Hazony, responded Thursday with a deeply personal essay in Tablet magazine titled “Yoram Hazony’s 15 Minutes.” She wrote about her departure after four years from the Edmund Burke Foundation, the organization Hazony founded that is an institutional hub of the national conservatism movement. In her essay, she accused Hazony of erasing work she and others did under his leadership and of publicly faulting Jewish institutions for failures she says he knowingly helped create.
“I have known and admired Yoram for many years,” Arfa wrote, praising his scholarship and describing his 2015 book on the Book of Esther as one of the most influential works in her intellectual life. “It’s with a heavy heart, then, that I feel compelled to set the record straight.”
An Israeli conservative intellectual, Hazony is one of the architects of national conservatism, arguing for a politics grounded in nationalism, religion and tradition. His ideas have gained influence among Republican politicians, donors and movement strategists, particularly within the wing of the party associated with figures like Vice President JD Vance.
Hazony’s influence has placed him at the center of a growing dispute on the Jewish right, as the movement he helped shape confronts allegations of antisemitism in its orbit. Hazony has declined requests for an interview from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in recent months.
Because of Hazony’s prominence, Arfa’s break with him has resonated well beyond their personal history, highlighting a broader debate among Jewish conservatives over how to confront antisemitism when it comes not from political opponents, but from figures embedded in the American right.
That debate was thrust into the open after Hazony’s keynote speech earlier this week at the Second International Conference on Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem, where he forcefully condemned antisemitic rhetoric aired on the program of conservative media figure Tucker Carlson. Hazony described Carlson’s show as a “circus of aggressive anti-Jewish propaganda,” listing familiar antisemitic tropes aired by guests.
“These aren’t normal political messages, disagreeing with other members of the Trump coalition on legitimate policy issues,” Hazony said. “They’re abusive, wild slanders, and their repeated appearance on Tucker’s show has persuaded almost every Jew I know that the program’s purpose is to drive Jews—along with tens of millions of Zionist Christians—out of the Trump coalition and out of the Republican party.”
At the same time, Hazony argued that Jewish and Christian Zionist activists had failed to persuade Republican leaders to distance themselves from Carlson — not because Carlson was too powerful, but because critics had not presented their case professionally. He mocked the absence of a concise, evidence-based “15-minute explainer video” that could persuade conservatives unfamiliar with Carlson’s program, calling this a sign of “extreme incompetence” by what he labeled the “antisemitism-industrial complex.”
That claim became the focal point of Arfa’s response.
“The truth, as Yoram well knows, is that there is such a video,” she wrote. According to Arfa, she and other Edmund Burke Foundation staff members worked with Hazony to produce exactly such an explainer — a 14-minute, 57-second compilation of examples of antisemitic rhetoric aired on Carlson’s program.
Hazony, she said, chose not to make it public.
“He kept it unlisted in an obscure account,” Arfa wrote, adding that she was “flabbergasted” to hear Hazony publicly insist no such work existed. “It saddens me that he would diminish the work of his dedicated employees by erasing our efforts.”
A spokesperson for Hazony did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The dispute over Hazony’s speech has become a proxy for a larger argument about responsibility and strategy. Hazony is urging Jews to focus on building alliances with what he describes as the dominant nationalist wing of the Republican Party, arguing that moralistic confrontations risk alienating potential allies and entrenching antisemitism.
“What would you find if you actually invested the time and effort, and opened those doors?” Hazony said in his speech. “Mostly, you’d discover that nationalist Republicans are not anti-Semites. That they are strongly committed to having Jews in their coalition. That they would like to have closer relations with the Jewish community. That many of them see Israel as an inspiration and wish America were more like Israel. In short, you’d discover that most of them are potential friends and allies.”
Critics counter that this approach shifts responsibility away from political leaders who tolerate antisemitism. Several commentators on the right have argued that treating antisemitism as a communications problem, rather than a moral red line, risks normalizing it.
Tablet, where Arfa’s essay was published, issued an unusually scathing response on social media, accusing Hazony of effectively blaming Jews for their own marginalization.
In a post on X directly responding to a Hazony, Tablet wrote, “Tucker Carlson could goose-step down Pennsylvania Avenue butt-naked with a swastika carved into his forehead and it would be the fault of ‘the anti-semitism industrial complex’ for not making the case ‘clear enough’ to ‘Republican nationalists.’”
Tablet’s post added, “The fault doesn’t lie with the Jews for being targeted by political arsonists. It lies with those people themselves, and with those who have given them political and intellectual cover, yourself included.”
The post went on to accuse Hazony of importing European-style ethnonationalist ideas into an American context defined by constitutional liberalism and religious pluralism, warning that such thinking risked alienating both Jews and the broader electorate.
Others focused less on ideology than on political accountability. Max Abrahms, a political scientist who studies extremism and political violence, argued that Hazony’s framing functioned as a defense of powerful allies who have declined to distance themselves from Carlson.“I interpret this as a defense for your political allies, especially J.D. Vance and Kevin Roberts who won’t ditch Tucker,” Abrahms wrote.
A broader critique came from Saul Sadka, a conservative writer and analyst, who accused Hazony of minimizing antisemitism in service of what he considered a marginal political project. Writing on X, Sadka argued that Hazony mischaracterized the Republican Party, overstated the influence of nationalist conservatives, and pressured Jews to align themselves with forces that, he said, are both electorally weak and tolerant of antisemitic rhetoric.
For her part, Arfa,wrote in Tablet that she’d prefer to stay out of the conversation now that’s stopped working for Hazony. Her focus is on studying to become a rabbi at the Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam, Germany, a seminary affiliated with Reform and liberal Judaism.
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