(RNS) — President Donald Trump has nominated Yehuda Kaploun, a Miami businessman and outspoken supporter of Trump, to serve as the administration’s new special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.
“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 wrote in his Truth Social post announcing Kaploun’s nomination on Thursday (April 10). “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!”
On Friday, leaders of the Orthodox Union celebrated the choice of Kaploun, who holds a rabbinical degree and is part of Chabad, the Hasidic Orthodox movement also known as Lubavitch.
“During these troubling hate-filled times, this is a critical role which Yehuda will fill with pride in our faith and values and confidence in the positive Jewish contribution to every country and society in which we reside,” the statement read. “We commend President Trump for this nomination and applaud the high priority he and his Administration have placed upon fighting antisemitism.”
The statement, signed by Orthodox Union President Mitchel Aeder and other Orthodox leaders, added: “We look forward to working with the nominee in service of the Jewish community and the bedrock American value of religious freedom.”
Kaploun’s nomination requires confirmation by the U.S. Senate, but the loudest responses so far have come from members of the House, dividing along party lines. U.S. Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, hailed Kaploun’s nomination, calling him a friend. “Rabbi Kaploun will be a steadfast voice in defending the Jewish community, confronting antisemitism head-on, and holding accountable those who spread hatred and bigotry,” Díaz-Balart wrote on X.
U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat and the most senior Jewish lawmaker in the House, urged his Senate colleagues in an X post “not to provide the Trump Administration with a single vote to confirm Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun.” He cited past statements by Kaploun accusing Democrats of refusing “to even recognize the butchers of women and kidnappers of children as terrorists” during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas in southern Israel, remarks Nadler called inaccurate and “disqualifying.”
In an interview conducted last year with Mishpacha, an Orthodox Jewish magazine, Kaploun insisted that antisemitism in the U.S. was increasingly severe, saying the situation facing Jewish Americans is “similar to that of Jews in 1930s Germany, on the eve of Kristallnacht.”
Speaking at a Trump campaign event last year, Kaploun said, “It is safer for a Jewish student in a college to walk down the streets of Abu Dhabi with a kippah than it is to walk in our hallowed institutions — or our so-called hallowed institutions — of Columbia, Harvard, (the University of Pennsylvania), UCLA, USC — and the list is unbelievably long,” referring to antisemitic incidents arising from pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses last year.
Kaploun’s nomination comes as the president has ramped up the administration’s focus on antisemitism. In February, the president signed an executive order expanding efforts focused on the issue made during his first term. A few days later, the Department of Justice announced a task force charged with “root(ing) out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses.”
Since then, the administration has threatened to withhold government funding for research from elite colleges and universities, accusing them of not doing enough to protect Jewish students during recent pro-Palestinian protests. Columbia University has recently taken steps to restore some $400 million in funds that were being withheld due to “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students,” the administration said.
“President Trump has been clear that any college or university that allows illegal protests and repeatedly fails to protect students from anti-Semitic harassment on campus will be subject to the loss of federal funding,” read a statement from early March from the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism.
Meanwhile, the administration is locked in multiple legal battles over its attempts to deport holders of student visas as well as a legal resident who participated in campus protests. On Thursday, a court filing revealed a two-page government memo claiming Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born green-card holder who served as negotiator and spokesperson for pro-Palestinian campus groups, had been detained because he had participated in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities.” The memo did not accuse Khalil of any specific crime.
In a radio appearance last month, Kaploun suggested Khalil, without listing specific evidence, supports the taking of Israeli hostages in Gaza. “This is a gentleman that advocates for this,” Kaploun said.
The government’s efforts in the Israel-Gaza conflict have been considered controversial, including among Jewish Americans. Jewish students have participated in pro-Palestinian protests as well as those opposing the effort to deport Khalil, and Kenneth Stern, director of the Center for the Study of Hate at Bard College and the lead drafter of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, has accused the government of “weaponizing” antisemitism.
If confirmed, Kaploun may also face arguments that the Trump administration isn’t doing enough to combat antisemitism from the right, exemplified, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, by a wave of antisemitic comments that greeted the announcement of Kaploun’s appointment on Truth Social.