FUTURE OF JEWISH
The End of Jewish Apology Culture
Mitch Schneider
February 17, 2026

There’s a generation of Diaspora Jews who don’t explain themselves anymore. They don’t apologize before they speak. They don’t qualify their loyalty. They don’t flinch when someone tries to turn their civil rights into a foreign policy debate. They show up, they say what needs to be said, and when someone tries to knock them off balance, they don’t move. Recently, one of them walked into a hearing room in Washington, D.C. and showed the entire country what that looks like. What moral clarity sounds like when it’s not performed for cameras but spoken plainly, to power, by a 27-year-old who came prepared to talk about America and refused to talk about anything else. Before we get to what happened in that hearing room, you need to understand who this young man is. Because the story only makes sense when you know where he comes from. READ MORE

X Hear Shabbos Kestenbaum speak about Harvard University, antisemitism and the campus scene today.

COMBAT ANTISEMITISM Commissioner Removed From Religious Liberty Commission After Antisemitism Hearing Turns Controversial Former Miss California turned conservative activist Carrie Prejean Boller was removed from the Religious Liberty Commission on Wednesday — two days after a contentious hearing in which she revived the deicide charge against Jews, challenged the premise that anti-Zionism constituted antisemitism, and defended disgraced political commentator Candace Owens. The Religious Liberty Commission was established by President Donald Trump in May 2025 to advise the White House Faith Office and the Domestic Policy Council on religious liberty policies of the United States.