{"id":90215,"date":"2025-10-30T23:51:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T04:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=90215"},"modified":"2025-10-30T23:51:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T04:51:16","slug":"jd-vance-sidesteps-college-students-antisemitic-question-while-defending-trumps-america-first-israel-stance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/jd-vance-sidesteps-college-students-antisemitic-question-while-defending-trumps-america-first-israel-stance\/","title":{"rendered":"JD Vance sidesteps college student\u2019s antisemitic question while defending Trump\u2019s \u2018America first\u2019 Israel stance"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ANDREW LAPIN<\/p>\n

(JTA) \u2014 Vice President JD Vance fielded skeptical questions about American support for Israel, including one conspiratorial remark about Judaism, from conservative college students while headlining Wednesday\u2019s stop on the right-wing group Turning Point USA\u2019s nationwide tour.<\/p>\n

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Vice President J.D. Vance takes a question about Israel from a conservative student at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss., Oct. 29, 2025. (Screenshot)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The event, at the University of Mississippi, was a further sign of shifting priorities among young conservatives when it comes to support for Israel, a long-held GOP tenet that has seen sharp erosion since Oct. 7 and the Gaza war. <\/p>\n

Following the talk, Vance \u2014 who recently declined to condemn a group chat of Young Republican leaders joking about Hitler and gas chambers \u2014 received criticism from Jewish conservatives for failing to take another opportunity to condemn antisemitism.<\/p>\n

Charlie Kirk, the murdered conservative activist and TPUSA founder whose legacy on Israel has been sharply debated since his death, was invoked by both Vance and his questioners.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a Christian, and I\u2019m just confused why there\u2019s this notion that we might owe Israel something, or that they\u2019re our greatest ally, or that we have to support this multi-hundred-billion dollar foreign aid package to Israel, to cover this, to quote Charlie Kirk, \u2018ethnic cleansing in Gaza,\u2019\u201d one student wearing a MAGA hat asked the vice president.<\/p>\n

That student went on to assert, of Judaism, \u201cNot only does their religion not agree with ours, but also openly supports the prosecution of ours.\u201d The student did not elaborate, though young right-wing Christians have taken Israel to task for recent videos of Jewish Israeli extremists spitting on Christians in the country.<\/p>\n

His was the second critical Israel-related question of the night. An earlier questioner had asked Vance, \u201cDo you think it\u2019s a conflict of interest for Miriam Adelson, an Israeli donor, to give millions of dollars to his campaign, and then Trump have pro-Israeli policies?\u201d (Adelson, a major pro-Israel GOP donor, is Israeli-American.)<\/p>\n

The questions mirrored a growing anti-Israel flank within the MAGA movement, as polls reflect a growing antipathy for the Jewish state among young Republicans. The movement is fueled by figures including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who maintains an influential presence on YouTube and X. Carlson in particular spoke at Kirk\u2019s funeral, and has platformed open antisemites \u2014 most recently including Nick Fuentes \u2014 while also headlining other stops on the current TPUSA college tour and maintaining close ties with Trump and Vance. <\/p>\n

At Ole Miss, Vance responded to both Israel questions in an America-first framing \u2014 and suggested that his own support for Israel was not unequivocal.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe pursues the interests of Americans first,\u201d Vance said about his boss to the student who had asked about Christian allyship with Israel. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019re not going to have alliances, that you\u2019re not going to work with other countries from time to time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vance continued, \u201dIsrael, sometimes they have similar interests to the United States, and we\u2019re going to work with them in that case. Sometimes, they don\u2019t have similar interests to the United States.\u201d <\/p>\n

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Israeli-American billionaire Miriam Adelson is recognized during a special plenum session in honor of U.S. President Donald Trump at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, on Oct. 13, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In praising the recent ceasefire and hostage return deal brokered by Trump, Vance said the president succeeded by \u201cactually being willing to apply leverage to the state of Israel\u201d \u2014 something many left-wing activists had pressured former President Joe Biden to do, largely unsuccessfully.<\/p>\n

That \u201cleverage,\u201d Vance said, proved that Trump was acting in America\u2019s interests, not Israel\u2019s. He then hinted at a conspiracy theory of his own. \u201cSo when people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the president of the United States, they\u2019re not manipulating or controlling this president of the United States,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He then attempted to address the student\u2019s comments about the divide between Jews and Christians. <\/p>\n

\u201cJews disagreeing with Christians on certain religious ideas, yeah, absolutely. It\u2019s one of the realities, is that Jews don\u2019t believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. Obviously Christians do believe that,\u201d he said. \u201cMy attitude is, let\u2019s have those conversations. Let\u2019s have those disagreements when we have them.\u201d <\/p>\n

Vance named protecting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, a holy Christian site, as an area \u201cI really, really care about\u201d and wanted to work with Israel on. Vance, a convert to Catholicism, attended mass at the church during his state visit to Israel last week. The church is primarily tended to by Palestinian Christians, and has been the site of contested real-estate disputes as far-right Israeli settlers have sought to secure control of historical Christian sites in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

To the student who asked about Adelson, the vice president denied that Trump was influenced by her Israel views \u2014 even as he acknowledged that Israel appeared to be her primary cause as a top Republican donor.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is very clear about the fact, she doesn\u2019t hide the fact, that she really loves Israel, and that is part of what motivates her political giving. That is a reality. At the same time, the president of the United States is America first, through and through,\u201d Vance said, adding that he, too, had \u201ca very good relationship\u201d with Adelson. The widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson was present at Trump\u2019s Knesset address announcing the Gaza ceasefire, and received several shout-outs from the president.<\/p>\n

Vance also said that Trump\u2019s anti-war critics, some from his own party, hadn\u2019t given him enough credit for the ceasefire.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember when people said that the president of the United States was going to get us into a multi-hundred-thousand troop, regime-change war for Israel,\u201d the vice president said. \u201cI wonder if they stepped back and said, \u2018You know what, we were wrong about that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Vance\u2019s performance has attracted ire from Jewish conservatives who increasingly have been warning of rising, unchecked antisemitism on the right.<\/p>\n

\u201cTonight the vice president had an opportunity to denounce antisemitism amid its historic surge,\u201d Jewish conservative activist Sloan Rachmuth wrote on X. \u201cHe could\u2019ve set an example for the young people who are steering in that direction. JD Vance chose not to.\u201d Conservative writer Jonah Goldberg wrote that Vance was \u201ca profile in cowardice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a Turning Point USA event this week, a young man said something that should have been met with instant moral outrage,\u201d the pro-Israel commentator Daniel Mael wrote on his Substack. \u201cInstead, the Vice President of the United States treated it as a legitimate question.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mael took issue with several of Vance\u2019s phrasings, including his remark about Trump not being \u201ccontrolled by Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe meaning was obvious. It implied that past presidents\u2014Biden, Obama, and George W. Bush\u2014were controlled by Israel,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWith one careless phrase, the Vice President of the United States echoed one of the most poisonous lies in history: that Jews secretly control governments and act against others for their own gain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vance\u2019s failures to respond to claims that Israel was committing \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d and to the remark about Judaism targeting Christians were also troubling, Mael wrote. \u201cThe claim that Judaism attacks Christianity is not ignorance; it is the sewage of the alt-right media machine\u2026. If conservatives do not confront this now, the movement will rot from within. The world\u2019s oldest hatred has returned, speaking the language of patriotism and pretending to defend faith. \u201d<\/p>\n

At the conclusion of his Q&A, Vance \u2014- who also raised eyebrows by stating he hoped his Hindu wife, Usha, would convert to Christianity \u2014 thanked the Israel critics in the audience for strengthening the conservative movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t need, in our political movement, people who agree with us on every single issue. We got a couple of questions about Israel,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat we need is people of good faith who love the United States of America and are willing to work hard to save it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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