By JTA and Philissa Cramer, reposted from Haaretz, April 11, 2025
President Donald Trump has selected a new special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, elevating a Miami businessman and fundraiser named Yehuda Kaploun to the role. “Yehuda is a successful businessman, and staunch advocate for the Jewish Faith and the Rights of his people to live and worship free from persecution,” Trump said on Truth Social, announcing his selection. “With Anti-Semitism dangerously on the rise, Yehuda will be the strongest Representative for Americans and Jews across the Globe, and promote PEACE. Congratulations Yehuda!”
Kaploun is affiliated with Chabad, the Orthodox movement, and was a fundraiser and surrogate for Trump during last year’s campaign. He appeared with Trump at a ceremony in Florida to mark the one year anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
[Editor’s note: To learn more about Chabad, see this; Chabad sometimes openly teaches that “the soul of the Jew is different than the soul of the non-Jew.”]
Asked before the election by Mishpacha Magazine, an Orthodox publication, about whether he was eyeing a position in a potential Trump administration, he demurred. “I’m not thinking about a position,” Kaploun said in an interview. He added, “What’s important to me is to do everything in my power to help Trump win, so that we – Jews everywhere – can feel safer.”
[Editor’s note: Mishpacha previously reported: “Donald Trump’s 2016 administration was responsible for many firsts, but no presidential historian has yet noted the smashing of one particular glass ceiling: the record number of Orthodox staffers. From the Jared Kushner circle to David Friedman’s embassy and the iconic Rose Garden Minchah after the signing of the Abraham Accords, the Trump White House was so Orthodox-friendly it could have been a kiddush club.”]
The role, which requires Senate confirmation and was elevated in recent years to the ambassador level, is the United States’ top position related to fighting antisemitism and has responsibility primarily for what happens overseas.
[Editor’s note: This position was created in the State Department in 2004 by Israel partisans over objections of the State Department itself.]
Kaploun, who initially got connected to Trump through Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, the Jewish Republican megadonors, offered a clear sense in the Mishpacha interview of where he believes the greatest threat to Jews lies.
[Editor’s note: Miriam, who gave Trump campaign $100 million, is an Israeli citizen who inherited money from her husband Sheldon Adelson – see video.]
“Democrats are afraid to even say the words ‘radical Islamic terror’ while Trump says it openly,” Kaploun said. “He speaks fearlessly about the threat of Iran and makes clear that its goal is to destroy the United States. This is when Democrats refuse to even recognize the butchers of women and kidnappers of children as terrorists. How can you go along with that?”
[Editor’s note: For information on this see this and this.]
He also presented a grim view of antisemitism in the United States. “Our situation is similar to that of Jews in 1930s Germany, on the eve of Kristallnacht,” he said. “They, too, lived in peace and quiet until the ground shook under their feet. And in the United States, the ground is already shaking.”
[Editor’s note: The alleged ‘antisemitism’ is most often people objecting to Israel’s ongoing slaughter of Palestinian Muslims and Christians in Gaza.]
If confirmed, Kaploun would join an administration that has cited antisemitism in rolling out a range of new policies, including around canceling the visas of students involved in pro-Palestinian protests, freezing federal funding to colleges and universities, and monitoring the social media feeds of immigrants.
He would replace Deborah Lipstadt, a historian of antisemitism, who occupied the role in the Biden administration. During her tenure, the office expanded significantly and also broadened its focus to tackle antisemitism in the United States as well as abroad.
[Editor’s note: See commentary about Lipstadt by Ron Unz, founder of Unz Review, here.]
Trump’s announcement elicited a wave of sharply antisemitic comments on the social network, which Trump owns and is favored by his supporters. “No one believes Anti-Semitism is an issue but the Zionists. I will criticize our Greatest Enemy whenever I want,” wrote one commenter.
Said another: “Combat anti-semitism? Don’t people have the Constitutional right to like and hate who they like? What kind of name is Yehuda anyhow? Doesn’t sound American to me.”
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