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Visiting Jerusalem, Ron DeSantis tries out his Jewish stump speech
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Ron DeSantis may not have declared that he’s running for president yet, but his incipient campaign was on full display Thursday at a conference in Jerusalem, where he ran down a laundry list of issues relevant to Israel and American Jews.
Most of the Florida governor’s remarks reflected what has become Republican orthodoxy in the post-Donald Trump era: He supports Israeli West Bank settlements as well as keeping Jerusalem under full Israeli control. He wants the United States to be more aggressive toward Iran’s nuclear program. He vehemently opposes the movement to boycott Israel.
And he declined to take a position on the Israeli government’s effort to sap the Israeli Supreme Court of much of its power — which President Joe Biden has repeatedly criticized as a danger to Israeli democracy.
“We must also, in America, respect Israel’s right to make its own decisions about its own governance,” he said. “You’re a smart country. You figure it out. It shouldn’t be for us to butt into these important issues.”.
He also pushed back at claims that his legislation has led to the banning of Holocaust books in his state, calling them “fake narratives” (though multiple Holocaust books have been banned). And, at a press conference, he signed a bill that aims to penalize antisemitic harassment. He also touted a new bill that gives vouchers worth thousands of dollars to parents who send their children to private schools.
“We’ve really seen a historic migration of American Jews and Israeli Americans moving to southern Florida,” he said. “It’s really, really boomed, and I think Florida’s policies have really reinforced that.”
DeSantis, who landed in Israel yesterday, was the keynote speaker at a conference on Thursday hosted by the Jerusalem Post at the Museum of Tolerance here. He received multiple standing ovations and cheers throughout the morning. At a press conference after his speech, some of his supporters sat among the journalists and clapped at his responses.
Israel is the latest on a four-stop international trip by DeSantis, who is expected to announce later this year that he will challenge former President Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. On the trip, he is meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and other officials. His trip also includes stops in Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom.
“If there’s any announcements, those will come at the appropriate time,” he said in response to a question about his potential candidacy.
In his speech, DeSantis described his past support for Israel, advocating for the 2018 move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and, in 2019, holding a Florida cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. He also told the crowd that he baptized his children with water from the Sea of Galilee and said he put a note in the Western Wall asking God to protect Florida from hurricane season.
An affinity for the Bible also played a role in DeSantis’ position on the West Bank, which he called “disputed” rather than “occupied.” He referred to the territory by the term “Judea and Samaria,” which is the Israeli government’s standard term for the area and also emphasizes its place in the Bible. He spoke of visits to the northern West Bank settlement of Ariel, as well as to the City of David, a Jewish neighborhood and archaeological site in eastern Jerusalem.
“We visited the Biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria,” he said during his speech regarding a previous trip. Later, at the press conference, he said, “Those are the most historic Jewish lands there are, going back thousands and thousands of years.”
He also came out staunchly in favor of continued Israeli control of eastern Jerusalem, claiming that it is the best way to ensure religious freedom in the city. Palestinians aspire for the city’s eastern area to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.
“With Israeli sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem, people have the ability to practice their religion freely,” he said. “They have the ability to visit their sites freely. That would just actually not be true if that were in other hands.”
Although his Israel policies dovetail with those of Trump, and even though Trump’s Israel ambassador, David Friedman, was at the conference, DeSantis avoided saying the former president’s name in his speech, instead referring to “the previous administration.” He did say Trump’s name once during the press conference.
Following his speech, DeSantis announced partnerships with Israeli firms to develop tech products, and portrayed his state as an inviting home for Jews. He said the state had invested millions of dollars into synagogue security as well as Holocaust education. And he signed a bill that bans projecting threatening images on buildings without permission, as well as littering with the intent to intimidate.
Florida has seen an uptick recently in white supremacist activity. The Goyim Defense League, a far-right antisemitic group, relocated there last year. In October, several public spaces in Jacksonville displayed messages promoting the antisemitic ideas of rapper Kanye West. Neo-Nazis intimidated attendees at an Orlando-area Chabad center in February, and last week, police arrested a man for a March attack on a different Florida Chabad center.
“This is going to be able to provide more tools to be able to combat antisemitic activity,” DeSantis said. ״If you have a synagogue and someone shines a swastika-like image on that, they have a right to do the image for themselves, but putting it on someone else’s property, they’re defining that in this bill as a trespass.”
The signing of that bill, and DeSantis’ contention that he supports Holocaust education, comes as legislation he signed has enabled parents in the state to pursue bans of Holocaust literature. A South Florida school district library removed a Holocaust-themed novel by Jodi Picoult in March, and this month, a high school in the state removed a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary from its shelves.
Despite those instances and other bans parents are seeking, DeSantis claimed that there was no significant campaign to ban Holocaust books. He called that allegation the “book ban hoax.”
“Those are all fake narratives,” he said. “We’ve provided curriculum transparency for parents, to make sure that the curriculum used in school is transparent and to make sure everything is age appropriate and is not conflicting with Florida standards. And so, what parents have identified unfortunately are pornographic images in books.”
The legislation, which has targeted books about sexuality and gender, is at the center of DeSantis’ campaign to limit or ban discussion of those topics in schools. The law, called the “Parental Rights in Education” bill and dubbed by critics as the “Don’t say gay” bill, also bans discussion of LGBTQ topics between kindergarten and third grade, among other measures. It is one of a series of recent state laws limiting transgender rights.
That law is also at the center of DeSantis’ feud with Disney, the state’s largest employer, which just sued the governor for allegedly punishing the company for its criticism of the law. At the press conference, DeSantis said the suit is about Disney wanting “to be able to control things without proper oversight.”
DeSantis did not refer specifically to the Anne Frank graphic novel in his remarks, and said Florida had “beefed up” Holocaust education in the state. But a Jewish ally of his who accompanied him on the trip, Republican state Rep. Randy Fine, defended banning the book, which he called the “Anne Frank pornography book.”
“I read the diary of Anne Frank many times as a kid and I don’t remember any of that stuff that they put in that graphic novel,” Fine told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “And frankly that graphic novel is antisemitic. To sexualize the diary of Anne Frank in that sort of inappropriate way, it is antisemitic.”
When told that the passages, which are authentic and relate to Frank’s attraction to another girl as well as a description of her own genitalia, have been included in the diary for decades, Fine said that the graphic novel was inappropriate regardless because it depicted the passages in an image.
“It wasn’t just that the passages were in the book,” he said. “It was how they were visualized.”
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The post Visiting Jerusalem, Ron DeSantis tries out his Jewish stump speech appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The ‘godfather of denim’ was an Italian designer whose Jewish father was murdered at Auschwitz
(JTA) — Adriano Goldschmied became known as the “godfather of denim” for elevating jeans from casual wear to a luxury staple. His own father’s story was equally riveting.
Goldschmied, who died April 5 at 82, following a battle with cancer in a hospital in Castelfranco Veneto, Italy, credited himself with founding or developing at least 50 brands, including Diesel, AG, Replay, Gap 1969, A Golde and Goldsign.
He was just an infant in 1944 when his Italian Jewish father was arrested by the Nazis.
Goldschmied’s mother, Sofia, was in hiding with his sister at the time of his birth on Nov. 29, 1943, in Vico Canavese, Italy. The Nazis had invaded Italy just months earlier.
His father, Livio, had joined the Italian resistance after the Nazis took over. When he tried to visit his wife, daughter and newborn son, he was apprehended en route. One of six people with his last name deported by the Nazis via Milan’s central station, he was ultimately sent to Auschwitz, where he was killed several months later.
According to a testimony made by a survivor to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust center, Livio was denounced by a midwife and received permission to visit his son briefly after his arrest. The testimony, which cannot be independently verified, said he had rejected an offer to move to the United States to work with the physicist Enrico Fermi because he would not have been able to bring his family, and had also declined an opportunity to escape from the train that took him to Auschwitz.
Following the war, Goldschmied moved with his mother to Trieste. He later spent a stint pursuing skiing in the 1960s in Cortina, the ski resort in the Southern Alps.
He did not speak readily about his family’s Holocaust history, and unlike his sister, he did not connect with his Jewish heritage. Diana was responsible for installing Stolpersteine, small memorials embedded in sidewalks documenting the Jews who lived at that address before the Holocaust, to commemorate their family members who were murdered.
“Like my father, my brother was a man of great intelligence and extraordinary intuition,” Diana told the Italian-Jewish news outlet Moked. “However, he did not want to talk about our family history. I think memory was working inside him, though.”
Goldschmied got his start in fashion in the 1970s, when he launched his shop, King’s Shop, in Cortina d’Ampezzo, and started a denim line, Daily Blue.
“That first production was going to a fabric store in my hometown, buying crazy fabrics for a very high price and going through manufacturing with my tailor,” Goldschmied told Women’s Wear Daily in 2023. “The product was extremely expensive, and in some way, I created a premium denim by accident.”
In 1981, Goldschmied went on to found the Genius Group, a collective that backed emerging labels like Diesel, Replay and Goldie.
Among Goldschmied’s innovations throughout his career were the development of the stonewash technique, experimenting with Tencel fibers, creating super-stretch denim and pioneering sustainable production methods as early as the 1990s.
“He was the architect of a global staple,” Mariette Hoitink, the co-founder of House of Denim, told Women’s Wear Daily. “Adriano didn’t just design jeans; he orchestrated the greatest transformation in the history of apparel. He was the singular force who elevated denim from rugged workwear into a global fashion staple.”
Goldschmied is survived by his wife, Michela; his daughters Sara, Marta and Glenda; two grandchildren; and his sister.
“Adriano and I led very separate lives,” Diana told Moked. “I rediscovered my Jewish identity. He took a different path, but everyone carries the past within them.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post The ‘godfather of denim’ was an Italian designer whose Jewish father was murdered at Auschwitz appeared first on The Forward.
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Not Stupidity — Something Worse: Why the ‘Israel Controls America’ Myth Keeps Spreading
US President Joe Biden and Democratic presidential candidate and US Vice President Kamala Harris react onstage at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, US, Aug. 19, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
In a recent post, Donald Trump took aim at Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Joe Kent, calling them “low IQ” and “losers,” and asking — between Carlson and Kent — “who is dumber?”
It was vintage Trump: blunt, theatrical, and calibrated to dominate a news cycle with a single line. He has long relied on that instinct — to compress a dispute into something sharp enough to stick. But beneath the spectacle sits a more serious issue.
The problem is not intelligence. Many of these figures are clearly relatively smart. The problem is that they — along with a growing chorus of voices on the political left such as Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur, and Mehdi Hasan — continue to advance a claim that collapses under minimal scrutiny. Strip away the stylistic differences, the accents, and the partisan framing, and the argument is identical: “Israel controls the United States,” or in its updated form, “Benjamin Netanyahu controls Donald Trump.”
That claim has resurfaced repeatedly over the years, sometimes dressed in more sophisticated language, sometimes stated outright. What makes its latest iteration notable is not merely its persistence, but where it is now being voiced.
This weekend, Kamala Harris, speaking at a Democratic fundraiser in Detroit, said that Donald Trump had been “pulled into this war” by Benjamin Netanyahu. That phrasing carries a clear implication: that the president of the United States — the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the world — is not acting independently but is being maneuvered into conflict by a foreign (Jewish) leader.
When this idea circulates on the fringes, it is dismissed. When amplified by pundits chasing attention, it’s often ignored. But when it’s echoed, even cautiously, by a former vice president and major presidential candidate, it crosses a different threshold. At that point, the claim can no longer be dismissed as noise. It has been normalized.
This is not a new idea. It is one of the oldest political accusations in circulation, and it is remarkably easy to test against reality. Only last week, Trump effectively dictated that Israel must accept a temporary ceasefire with Hezbollah — an outcome widely opposed within Israel, where many believe the campaign should be completed and remain skeptical that the Lebanese state will ever disarm Hezbollah. If Israel were directing American policy, that outcome would not occur.
Historically, the “Israel controls America” claim has appeared in different ideological forms but with identical substance. On the far-right, figures such as David Duke have advanced it explicitly. On the far-left, figures like Cynthia McKinney have repackaged it in political language. The wording changes, but the core allegation remains the same: that American power is not sovereign, but subject to external — specifically Jewish — control, echoing Henry Ford and his “International Jew” conspiracy theories of the 1920s and 1930s.
The argument collapses as soon as one examines scale and structure. The United States is a $27 trillion economy with unmatched global reach across military, financial, technological, and diplomatic domains. It maintains a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and leads a network of alliances that spans continents. Israel’s economy, by contrast, is approximately $700 billion. Its military is highly capable, but it is not a global force. It does not control sea lanes, command multinational coalitions, or set the terms of global finance. The disparity is not marginal; it is foundational.
This asymmetry is not unique. The United States maintains deep strategic relationships with many smaller allies such as South Korea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. In fact, the United States fought a war to liberate Kuwait in 1991, sustaining approximately 150 American combat fatalities in the process. Yet, almost no one claims Kuwait controls Washington, or that Saudi Arabia dictates US foreign policy. Only one small ally is routinely described in those terms.
The historical record reinforces the absurdity of this Israel “controls” America trope.
In 1956, despite repeated attacks on Israel from the Sinai and Egypt-controlled Gaza, Dwight D. Eisenhower forced Israel to withdraw from Sinai following the Suez Crisis; Israel complied. In 1982, Ronald Reagan pressured Israel to halt operations in Beirut, facilitating the evacuation of Yasser Arafat and the PLO leadership to Tunisia. In 1991, George H. W. Bush asked Israel not to respond to Iraqi Scud missile attacks to help preserve the US-led coalition; Israel absorbed 39 Scud strikes, 13 deaths, and stood down.
In 2015, Barack Obama advanced the Iran nuclear deal despite sustained Israeli opposition. Under Joe Biden, Israeli operations in Rafah were delayed for months under US pressure despite Israeli hostages being held there and its centrality to Hamas’ military infrastructure.
More recently, on June 24, 2025, as a Trump-negotiated ceasefire was taking effect, Iran launched multiple ballistic missiles at Beersheba, killing four Israelis. Israel prepared a large retaliatory strike. Trump intervened and effectively ordered Israel to turn its planes around.
This is what an unequal alliance looks like: coordination, pressure, and at times outright constraint. It is not a relationship where the far smaller country exercises “control.”
So why does the claim persist? Not because it is analytically persuasive — but because it is emotionally effective. Political narratives built on grievance often prefer simple explanations to complex realities.
It is easier to attribute outcomes to hidden manipulation than to acknowledge the interplay of strategic interests, risks, and constraints that define foreign policy decision-making.
There is also a deeper historical layer. For centuries, European political culture absorbed and transmitted variations of the same vile accusation: that Jews operate behind the scenes, exercising covert and pernicious influence over institutions and leaders.
So, when modern commentators repackage that idea — whether in the language of “influence,” “lobbying,” or outright “control” — it does not enter a neutral environment. It lands on fertile soil, reinforcing a long-established and familiar narrative.
Since World War II, the claim hasn’t changed — only its migration from the margins into the mainstream. And once it crosses that threshold, it stops being rhetoric and starts shaping behavior.
As it did in Germany after World War I, if a significant number of people come to believe that their government has been captured, that their leaders are not acting independently but are controlled by a nefarious external force, the range of conclusions and actions they will justify or rationalize expands dramatically. History offers no shortage of examples of where that logic can lead.
Trump attempted to reduce this to a punchline. But this is not a matter of tone. It is a warning sign. And this time, it is coming from closer to the political center than it has in a very long time.
Micha Danzig is an attorney, former IDF soldier, and former NYPD officer. He writes widely on Israel, Zionism, antisemitism, and Jewish history. He serves on the board of Herut North America.
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War or No War, India Stands With Israel
FILE PHOTO: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the nation during Independence Day celebrations at the historic Red Fort in New Delhi, August 15, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Adnan Abidi/File Photo
In today’s global climate, Israel is a country many are expected to avoid. Turn on the international media — from CNN, to European and Indian broadcasters — and one narrative dominates: Israel as aggressor and pariah, Israel as a place defined by war, or worse, apartheid. Add to this the open hostility of regimes like the Islamic Republic of Iran, Turkey, and a growing hostility among Western leaders, such as Italian Prime Minister Meloni suspending defense cooperation.
The message is clear: Stay away from Israel.
And yet, in the midst of missile fire, media hostility, and geopolitical pressure — they came anyway.
A group of Indian workers, recruited through an Indian manpower agency, chose not to be deterred. Their arrival in Israel a few days ago is more than a labor story. It is a quiet but powerful act of defiance against a global narrative increasingly detached from reality. When I received photos of the team from the Israel-Jordan border, proudly waving the Indian and Israeli flags, my heart was happy.
Their journey was anything but straightforward.
After receiving their visas, these men and women left their jobs in India, stepping into uncertainty. Then came the cancelled flights, closed routes, and more than a month of waiting as airlines suspended operations to Israel. Many may have reconsidered at this juncture.
They did not.
Instead, they flew to Amman, waited again, and then endured long hours of land travel and layered security checks on both sides of the Jordanian-Israeli border before finally entering Israel.
Since the October 7 attacks, Israel has faced an acute labor shortage, especially in sectors such as construction, caregiving, and general services, which were once filled by Palestinian workers. India, with its vast labor pool and long history of global migration, is uniquely positioned to help fill this gap. Following Prime Minister Modi’s historic visit in February, just before the Iran-Israel/US conflict escalated, Israel and India strengthened ties through key Memoranda of Understanding in defense, technology, agriculture, research, and labor.
One visible outcome is the arrival of Indian workers who choose to come to Israel, to see and experience the country for themselves despite the weight of propaganda, fear, and misinformation.
They also came after weeks of watching missile barrages over Israeli cities on their television screens. They came despite a steady stream of coverage portraying Israel as unsafe, unstable, and morally suspect. They came knowing that public opinion in parts of India, influenced by global narratives, has grown more critical of Israel.
I recently interviewed an Indian caregiver documenting life under Iranian missile fire — daily fear, resilience, and routine. Her videos have gone viral in India. Alongside support, she also faces hostility from those echoing distorted narratives, but equally sparks curiosity and a deeper desire to understand Israel.
Together with others working to strengthen Israel-India relations, I recently shared a reel on Instagram about Indian workers arriving via Jordan. The response has been overwhelming from both sides: messages from India expressing support and genuine interest in a country often misunderstood, and Israelis warmly welcoming the new arrivals.
What we are seeing is the rise of a people-to-people alliance. One that is less visible, less celebrated, but potentially more enduring. An alliance that is built on shared values: resilience, pragmatism, and the instinct to move forward despite adversity.
At a time when parts of the international community are distancing themselves from Israel, the arrival of these workers offers another perspective on alliance.
If Israel is wise, it will recognize this as an opportunity to invest in these relationships, amplify these voices, and allow a narrative to emerge not from above, but from those who have seen the country firsthand.
At a moment when the nation is misrepresented, and misunderstood, the decision of these workers from India to come to work in Israel carries meaning beyond economics.
In difficult times, we know who stands with us.
Paushali Lass is an Indian-German intercultural and geopolitical consultant, who focuses on building bridges between Israel, India, and Germany.