When President Donald Trump put forward his new special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) urged Senate Democrats “not to provide the Trump administration with a single vote to confirm Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun.”
Nadler had opposed the Antisemitism Awareness Act, opposed Trump’s crackdown on campus antisemitism, opposed the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and opposed defunding colleges that tolerate antisemitism.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamist group whose leader celebrated the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, praised Nadler’s opposition to the Antisemitism Awareness Act, meant to protect Jewish students from campus Hamas supporters like the ones that the congressman had been defending in 2025.
So it’s not too surprising that Nadler now also opposes the new antisemitism envoy.
While many Jewish groups sent their good wishes to Kaploun, joining Nadler in his opposition to the new antisemitism envoy was the anti-Israel group J Street, which had lobbied for recognizing and funding a “Palestinian” government that would include Hamas.
What did the rabbi do to provoke the ire of the leftist congressman from Manhattan?
According to Nadler, “Rabbi Kaploun publicly claims that after Oct. 7, ‘Democrats refuse to even recognize the butchers of women and kidnappers of children as terrorists.’”
Nadler claims that this accusation is so “offensive,” “absurd” and “insulting” that it “does not deserve a response” but is “disqualifying.” The trouble is that the accusation is also true.
And it’s not only true of Nadler’s party, but of the anti-Israel congressman personally.
After Mahmoud Khalil, a key figure in the pro-Hamas riots at Columbia University, was detained for violating the terms of his stay in America, Nadler rushed to his rescue. He tweeted, posted and signed congressional letters. Nadler claimed that Khalil, who had described the Hamas murder of Jews as “armed resistance,” was solely being persecuted for his “speech.”
After Momodou Taal, a foreign national who had urged students to take a cue from Hamas, and celebrated Oct. 7 with a call of “glory to the resistance,” was busted, Nadler claimed that Taal’s detention was “a direct assault on the very freedoms that define our country.” Taal’s idea of America’s freedom was to declare that “absolutely anyone the U.S. calls an enemy is my friend.”
In 2025, Nadler issued more press releases on behalf of Hamas supporters in America by name than he did on behalf of any named Jewish hostages, including Edan Alexander from Tenafly, N.J., not even a half-hour drive away from Nadler’s Manhattan district.
While this year Nadler could not bring himself to mention an American Jewish hostage from near his own district, he did agitate for Khalil, Taal and terrorist supporters by name.
And that’s consistent with Nadler’s growing activism against Israel and for the terrorists.
Nadler had joined Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a congressional letter pushing an arms embargo on Israel, accusing the Jewish state of causing “civilian casualties and humanitarian suffering in Gaza.”
“I am deeply disturbed by Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s decision to abandon the ceasefire agreement, return to war,” Nadler said after Hamas paraded the bodies of the murdered Bibas children, claiming that it “will make an already desperate situation for Gazan civilians substantially worse.” Fighting Hamas, Nadler was “a step backward for all who seek an enduring peace in the region.”
When a mob of Hamas supporters recently attacked a synagogue in Brooklyn, Nadler did not condemn the mob, he condemned the Israeli politician visiting the synagogue, whom he denounced as a “racist, terrorist, Jewish supremacist” who had “pushed for an unending war in Gaza.” This rhetoric could have come from the Hamas supporters whom Nadler has been championing. Nadler then pledged to “introduce new legislation” against Israeli Jews.
As awful as all this is, he is far from the worst among the Democrats.
Is Nadler furious at Kaploun and trying to block his confirmation because he’s outraged at the rabbi’s accusations, or because they’re true and he’s terrified of an antisemitism envoy exposing what the Democrats have become?
After Oct 7, more Democrats in a Quinnipiac poll said they sympathized with the “Palestinians” than with the Jews. In a recent poll, 25% of Democrats expressed support for Hamas.
Nadler complains that Kaploun is “divisive” because he condemned the failure of then-President Joe Biden and the Democrats to stand up for Jews after the worst wave of public antisemitic violence in America in two generations. But those are also Nadler’s failures.
Nadler has repeatedly opposed measures to fight antisemitism because of his supposed concern for the speech of Hamas supporters. He has championed those Hamas supporters but remained silent when pro-Hamas mobs attacked a Holocaust museum and synagogues. He stood against Israel’s battle against Hamas and flirted with an arms embargo against Israel.
While the congressman’s politics have always been liberal, they became markedly more hostile to Israel and Jews as his party did. The rapid decline in Nadler’s approach to the Jewish state began under former resident Barack Obama and hits new lows every few months. Like most politicians, he follows the trends of his political movement. Nadler is defending Hamas supporters and denouncing Jews as part of the broader shift of the Democrats into the terrorist camp.
Who’s most likely to oppose an antisemitism envoy? Antisemites and their political allies.
Nadler has opposed every serious effort to fight antisemitism. Despite co-founding a caucus that was supposed to fight antisemitism, he’s become known for sabotaging and undermining efforts to fight antisemitism at the federal level to protect his antisemitic allies.
The Trump administration’s efforts to fight antisemitism have been met with fervent opposition by the congressman, who represents a large Jewish district and who has split the difference by promoting fake efforts to fight antisemitism while sabotaging real ones.
Nadler is trying to stop the confirmation of an antisemitism envoy who might expose his party’s descent into antisemitism and his defense of a movement that celebrates killing Jews.