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Vance’s Jewish chief of staff shares his approach to right-wing antisemitism, new profile reveals
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance has spent months drawing fire from Jewish conservatives for his refusal to confront antisemitism within the Republican coalition. Now, a new profile suggests that the Jew who is perhaps closest to him — his chief of staff, Jacob Reses — is on board with that approach.
An extensive New York magazine profile of Reses published this week reveals that the 35-year-old operative, characterized as one of the powerful figures in the Trump administration, has used his private X account to amplify voices calling on Jews to embrace, rather than resist, the Christian nationalist current reshaping the GOP.
In September 2025, according to the profile, Reses reposted Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale’s approving quote of a statement arguing that Jews should stop being uncomfortable with public expressions of Christianity.
The statement read, “To save this Nation of Kindness that has bestowed such blessing on us, we Jews can no longer be squeamish about the majority’s invocation of the Christian deity and other aspects of their faith. The neutering of Christianity has been disastrous for all of us and must end.”
A Jewish Telegraphic Agency profile published in 2024, when Vance was selected as Donald Trump’s running mate, traced Reses’ Jewish identity and his journey from a Democratic-leaning Jewish teenager in southern New Jersey, whose grandfather escaped the Holocaust in Lithuania, to one of the most influential conservatives in Washington. His trajectory included internships for Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, a political conversion at Princeton, and stints at the Heritage Foundation and in the office of Sen. Josh Hawley.
For months, Vance has faced a drumbeat of criticism from prominent Jewish conservatives, including Ben Shapiro and Commentary editor Abe Greenwald, for declining to draw a line against antisemitic figures gaining influence in the party, particularly the white nationalist livestreamer Nick Fuentes, who was platformed by Vance’s ally Tucker Carlson in an October 2025 interview. At a Turning Point USA conference in December, Vance declared that he would not subject the conservative coalition to “endless, self-defeating purity tests,” and that America has always been a “Christian nation.” He omitted any mention of Jews or Nazis from his Holocaust Remembrance Day statement in January. And he has repeatedly said he does not believe antisemitism is surging in the GOP.
New York magazine reports that Reses reposted Vance’s rejection of purity tests. One person in Vance’s orbit told the magazine that Reses’s overarching priority is Vance’s political success “at the highest possible level, up to and including U.S. president.”
The profile also offers a window into the personal bond between the two men. In January, Vance officiated at Reses’s wedding to Rachel Altman at a synagogue in Rockville, Maryland, delivering a Jewish prayer under the chuppah. The Chabad House at Princeton, Reses’ alma mater, posted a photo of the couple with the vice president, celebrating the occasion as an expression of Jewish pride.
That closeness and Reses’ alignment with Vance’s stance on antisemitism have not spared Reses from becoming a target of antisemites: A white-nationalist website ran an article about him headlined “Another Nail in the Coffin — Jew Runs J. D. Vance.” Similar rhetoric is growing widespread on social media.
Meanwhile, the man who helped convert Reses from a liberal Democrat to a conservative appears to have gone in a different direction. Princeton professor Robert George, whom Reses has credited as an important influence, resigned from the Heritage Foundation’s board of trustees in November after Heritage president Kevin Roberts defended Carlson’s interview with Fuentes and refused to fully retract a video in which he called Carlson’s critics a “venomous coalition.”
George declared that the conservative movement “simply cannot include or accommodate white supremacists or racists of any type, antisemites, eugenicists, or others whose ideologies are incompatible with belief in” human equality. His departure was followed by additional board resignations amid an exodus of Heritage staffers.
Reses, who keeps his X account private and does not give interviews, appears to see the tradeoffs differently than his former mentor. According to the profile, his tolerance for right-wing antisemitism is rooted in a catastrophist worldview that frames American liberalism as an existential threat and Trumpism, with all its flaws, as the only viable alternative.
The magazine describes unnamed sources depicting Reses as having embraced the logic of conservative essayist Michael Anton’s infamous “Flight 93 Election” argument: that liberals, like the terrorists on the hijacked plane, are driving the country toward destruction.
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JD Vance refuses to disavow Tucker Carlson
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance acknowledged that he has “political disagreements” with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News personality who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories and sparked a rift within the Republican Party.
But that won’t impact their friendship, Vance said during a press conference on Thursday at the White House.
“Everybody knows that Tucker Carlson and I are friends, and I think it’s very obvious that Tucker has said some things that I disagree with,” Vance said.
He pointed to Carlson’s criticisms of Vance’s boss, President Donald Trump, as well as Carlson’s suggestion that he would rather Democratic progressive Abdul El-Sayed win Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat than Republican Mike Rogers, as examples of where they disagree.
“Tucker is a friend despite the fact that we disagree on a number of things. And I’m not going to play the game where I throw friends under the bus because I have political disagreements with them,” Vance said.
Vance’s refusal to disavow Carlson comes days after he appeared in a closed-doors session in Las Vegas before hundreds of Republican Jewish Coalition members, some of whom have indicated that they would prefer Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Vance as Trump’s successor in 2028.
His RJC appearance started and ended with standing ovations for the vice president, and he spoke about the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship and denounced antisemitism during the 35-minute conversation. He angered a number of attendees and Jewish conservatives, however, when he sidestepped a question about Carlson and other controversial right-wing podcasters.
On Thursday, a reporter asked Vance about “those who are uneasy” with his close relationship to Carlson and believe that he is avoiding addressing questions about it.
“I’m not avoiding anything,” Vance countered.
After declining to distance himself from Carlson, Vance said that his refusal to do so should be a model for how other Americans engage in discourse across lines of disagreement.
“If you have a disagreement with someone politically — even over a deeply held issue — you should still be friends with that person, because the whole republic depends on people of different perspectives being able to talk to one another,” Vance said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Jerusalem cafe bows to Haredi protests, will no longer open on Shabbat
(JTA) — Cafe Basimta, the Jerusalem coffee shop that became a flashpoint in the city’s long-running dispute over Shabbat observance, will stop opening on Saturdays beginning this weekend after two months of weekly ultra-Orthodox protests.
The cafe said Thursday that the decision was made “after prolonged deliberation and with a heavy heart,” out of a desire to lower tensions and restore calm.
Eli Birnbaum, CEO of the messianic group Jews for Jesus, which runs the cafe, called the move a “difficult and painful decision” in the statement, saying it stemmed from a responsibility to its customers, its faith and Israeli society.
“Over the past few months, the cafe has become a focal point of friction and danger, a reality that contradicts our identity as Jews who believe in Jesus and our belief in loving others, respect and bringing people closer together, even with those who oppose us,” Birnbaum said.
He thanked Israel Police, the Jerusalem municipality and those who had come to support the cafe during the protests. “We now want to return Cafe Basimta to what it was intended to be: a calm, pleasant and open place for coffee, culture and dialogue.”
The decision marks a reversal for Cafe Basimta and its operator, Yoel Ben David, who said after the first protest on July 4 that the business would continue opening on weekends despite pressure from demonstrators. By late July, Ben David told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the protests had actually helped business financially, but added: “Me and the staff, we don’t love it. We’d all love it to just chill out.”
Basimta opened earlier this summer in Jerusalem’s central Nahlaot neighborhood, near the Mahane Yehuda market. It later emerged that the cafe was operated by Jews for Jesus, a missionary organization whose members identify as Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah.
The demonstrations began July 4 and continued for nine consecutive Saturdays through Aug. 29. At the first protest, dozens of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators, many of them minors, surrounded the cafe, banged on its windows and overturned tables, according to staff and video from the scene.
Later protests saw demonstrators break through police barricades and try to approach the cafe, while a bag containing feces was thrown at its entrance on another weekend. In August, a woman was accused of putting glue in the front-door lock, delaying the cafe’s opening.
Supporters meanwhile began turning up each Saturday to patronize the cafe, at times forming long lines outside, while police deployed officers and barricades to separate the two sides. Politicians including Yisrael Beytenu Chairman and former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and Democrats Chairman Yair Golan, a former IDF deputy chief of staff, also visited or backed supporters of the cafe.
Golan denounced Thursday’s decision as the result of “haredi terror,” saying weeks of violence, demonstrations and threats had ultimately forced the cafe to give in. Liberman said the closure showed growing religious coercion, writing on X that in “Israel 2026,” drinking coffee on Shabbat was forbidden while “hating, attacking and rioting on Shabbat was permitted.”
Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Adir Schwartz, who heads the pluralist Hitorerut municipal faction, also criticized the closure. Hitorerut said it was examining ways to operate a cafe on Saturdays in response to Basimta’s closure.
A spokesperson for Jews for Jesus told JTA that any such initiative was unrelated to Basimta or the organization.
Basimta’s ties to Jews for Jesus have also prompted a separate campaign against the cafe by anti-missionary activists. Rabbi Binyamin Vulcan, who heads the counter-missionary activities of Or LeAchim, told JTA in July that the organization was planning a weekday demonstration focused specifically on the cafe’s connection to Jews for Jesus and was seeking to have it closed through municipal channels.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Spain’s Jewish federation reports over 200 antisemitic incidents in 2025
(JTA) —
MADRID — Spain’s Jewish umbrella organization and a watchdog group have reported that antisemitic incidents rose 14.5% in 2025, warning that hatred was being “normalized.”
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) recorded 221 antisemitic incidents in Spain last year, up from 193 in 2024, in a report released Wednesday together with the Movement Against Intolerance (MCI), a Spanish human rights group. Spain is home to an estimated 40,000 to 70,000 Jews.
The trend matches an increase in hate incidents documented by the Spanish government. Spain’s Interior Ministry said in June that Jews were targeted in 69 hate crimes and incidents in 2025, jumping from 37 in 2024. Data from the Interior Ministry reflects crimes that are formally reported or detected by police, while the FCJE monitors incidents collected from community members, social media and other sources.
The new report came from the Observatory of Antisemitism, a joint initiative by the FCJE and the MCI to track antisemitism since Hamas’s attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s ensuing assault in Gaza. The initiative has followed incidents such as the vandalism of Holocaust memorials with swastikas, the desecration of Jewish graves and the individual targeting of Jews, including a group of French tourists who were harassed and spat on in July while leaving a synagogue in Barcelona.
“Since October 7, 2023, Spanish Jews have had to go to our gathering places with special security measures,” FCJE president David Obadía said in a statement. “Our children are the only ones who go to school with a police presence, and insults and discrimination are part of our reality practically every day.”
María Royo, a spokesperson for the FCJE, blamed “campaigns against Israel” for the rise in antisemitic incidents. She told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that some groups, saying Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, also “blame all Jews.”
“The security forces are doing everything within their power, but the government, politicians, media and opinion leaders could be much more rigorous and careful to prevent this situation,” said Royo.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is among Europe’s most vocal critics of Israel, which he says has committed genocide. The Israeli government has repeatedly said the Spanish government is antisemitic, an accusation that Spain strongly rejects.
Esteban Ibarra, the president of the MCI, said in a statement that antisemitism should be distinguished from debates about Israel.
“Antisemitism is not an opinion or a political disagreement: it is a form of hatred and discrimination against Jews,” said Ibarra. “When it is tolerated, normalized or minimized, coexistence deteriorates and democracy is weakened.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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