Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the Trump administration’s nominee to be U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, cited education as the key to defeating Jew-hatred at his Senate nomination hearing on Wednesday.
“We must educate, educate, educate about the history of the Jewish community in America and the Judeo-Christian values our country was founded on,” the Chabad rabbi said. “Antisemitism is anti-American. Those who chant ‘death to the Jews’ all too often chant ‘death to America.’”
Born in Israel and raised in New Haven, Conn., Kaploun, if confirmed, would become the second Chassid to be approved by the Senate for a senior administration position. Mitchell Silk was confirmed as assistant secretary of the treasury for international markets in 2020 during the first Trump administration.
The U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism is a position within the State Department tasked with fighting Jew-hatred overseas.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a leading critic of Israel in the Senate, asked Kaploun whether he thought criticism of Israeli government actions is antisemitic.
Kaploun pointed to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which describes the line between acceptable and unacceptable critiques of Israel.
“You have a right to criticize a country, but if you are only going to criticize Israel, and that’s every statement that you’re making, but you’re not going to be consistent across the board, in the IHRA definitions, it’s very clear that you need to condemn everything across the board and not just single out Israel,” Kaploun said.
“When you single out Israel is when it crosses that line of becoming an antisemitic issue, possibly,” he said.
Van Hollen submitted to the record a letter from Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who is Jewish, opposing Kaploun’s nomination and co-signed by 17 other House Democrats.
“In a blatantly offensive and repugnant comment, Mr. Kaploun publicly claimed that after Oct. 7, ‘Democrats refuse to even recognize the butchers of women and kidnappers of children as terrorists,’” Nadler wrote. “This absurd, insulting and malicious attack alone should be disqualifying.”
Wednesday’s hearing also included the nomination of Tammy Bruce, a former Fox News host currently serving as spokeswoman for the State Department, to be the U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations.
Bruce said that one of her priorities would be ensuring that UNRWA, the U.N.’s Palestinian aid agency, would not have a role in rebuilding Gaza and pointed to its promulgation of anti-Israel and antisemitic educational materials in its schools.
“We will pick up the difference of whatever UNRWA claimed that they were doing,” Bruce said. “The nature of what they were doing in inculcating and grooming the next generation of the children of that region to hate also must come to an end.”
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has not yet publicly scheduled a vote on the nominations. After passing out of committee, Bruce and Kaploun would need to be confirmed by the full Senate.
