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October 19, 2025
Key Developments and What We're Discussing Today:
- 738 days after October 7, 2023, the last 20 living hostages returned home. Hamas has yet to return the remains of all the deceased hostages, including two Americans: Omer Neutra and Itay Chen.
- It is too early to evaluate the deal or Trump's role in bringing home the hostages, but the return of the remaining living hostages is a relief and a joy.
- Amid the joy, some are asking why the left is not celebrating the ceasefire and why Hamas's murders of Palestinians are not drawing more outrage. Answers are below.
- Texts leaked to Politico show that the next generation of Republican leaders is infused with antisemitism and that current GOP leaders are tainted.
- The Nexus Project released the Shofar Report, a major study outlining steps for defending democracy and fighting antisemitism.
You're welcome to read for free, but if you get something out of this newsletter, you can give something back by credit card or PayPal, by Venmo @Steven-Sheffey, or by check. Thank you.
Greetings!
Finally--no living hostages in Gaza. Regardless of everything else that is wrong in the Middle East and the world, including in the United States, that is cause for relief and celebration. The horrible day they were taken seems like yesterday. The wait has been excruciating. It is finally October 8.
As of this writing, Hamas has returned the remains of some deceased hostages but has yet to fulfill its agreement to return all of them. It is unclear to what extent this is willful trangression and to what extent some remains truly cannot be found. Either way, it is terrible for the families seeking closure whose hopes were dashed when the remains of their loved ones were not returned on Monday.
The Trump administration does not believe that Hamas has yet violated the agreement regarding returning deceased hostages.
Isn't it weird that the GOP no longer believes that we should never negotiate with terrorists in general or Hamas in particular and that they are praising a deal that does not require Hamas to surrender and leaves Hamas armed? I wonder what changed.
Jonathan Chait wonders why Trump is making excuses for Hamas.
What about people who aren't celebrating hard enough? Personal confession: Amid the joy and celebration of the hostages coming home, I spent my time reading about them. It did not occur to me that I should have spent my time scrolling through left-wing feeds to see who was not celebrating or did not celebrate hard enough. Apparently, that was a priority for other people, prompting them to ask why some on the left were not celebrating, or at least not celebrating with sufficient fervor. Emily Tamkin and Shaul Magid have the answers.
Others worry that Trump is not sufficiently celebrated. Release of the hostages is huge. The extent to which the deal as a whole is worthy of celebration and Trump's role is yet to be determined.
Whither Sudan? Coincidentally, some of our friends who developed a sudden interest in Sudan over the past two years seem to have lost all interest. They should be ashamed of themselves for using suffering in Sudan as nothing but a prop to deflect from suffering in Gaza. They are unwittingly proving that we care about what matters most to us, not what is objectively the worst crisis in the world.
How would they have felt if, on October 8, someone chastised them for not talking about Sudan? After all, more have died in Sudan than on October 7. Don't expect to see posts about Sudan on their feed anymore. Don't expect them to understand that deflection is often an admission that you cannot defend your position on the merits.
How about Hamas killing Palestinians? Others ask why Hamas's killing of Palestinians in Gaza after the ceasefire went into effect doesn't get the same attention as Israel's killing of Palestinians during the Gaza war (even though Hamas thus far has killed far fewer Palestinians than Israel). To be clear, Hamas is a terrorist organization. Its violence against Palestinians since the ceasefire went into effect is horrible.
The short answer is that Israel and Hamas are not on the same moral plane: If we are proud of Israel and believe that Israel shares our values, we should hold Israel to higher standards than the standards to which we hold Hamas. In addition, the U.S. does not provide Hamas with military aid. It should get more attention in the U.S. when the U.S. is paying for it. But as David Schraub explains, the premise behind the question is wrong.
Republican antisemitism runs deep. A major Politico investigation found thousands of leaked text messages from leaders of Young Republican groups that included racist and antisemitic comments, including jokes about gas chambers, slavery, and rape.
Many work for or are associated with Republican officeholders, not kids or students. The "Young" Republicans are 18-40 years old.
This is the next generation of Republicans. As Politico notes, these texts provide "an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening."
The Young Republican Board was shocked, just shocked, to learn of these sentiments among its membership. It should come as no surprise. Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) has a thread going that identifies some of the relationships between these Republicans and Republican officeholders, including members of Congress.
As House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) noted (with receipts), Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY) "have been palling around with these racist, antisemitic and bigoted 'Young Republicans' for years."
Trump has said nothing. JD Vance defended these jerks by deflecting to what the Democratic candidate for Attorney General in Virginia said, as if that is a defense. New York Governor Kathy Hochul is right. If you think JD Vance is right, read Jon Lovett.
Jonathan Chait writes, "The vice president apparently grasps that openly defending references to Black people as 'watermelon eaters' and quips about sending political rivals 'to the gas chamber' would hurt his political standing, but he also clearly needs these Young Republican leaders if he hopes to consolidate the Trump base behind him. Deflection is a calculated response. In the racist provocations of conservative cadres, Vance clearly sees the future of the party he intends to lead."
As if that's not enough, check the swastika flag from a staffer in Rep. Dave Taylor's (R-OH) office. Taylor claims he just found out about it. Amazing how all this stuff has been going on and no one in the Republican Party noticed until now.
Oh, this too: The U.S. Border Patrol shared — then later deleted — a reel on its Instagram page using lyrics from a song that featured an antisemitic slur.
How to identify and fight antisemitism. Last week, the Nexus Project--a leading and growing organization in the fight against antisemitism--released its new blueprint for how to confront antisemitism without abandoning the values and institutions that make us safe.
Written by scholars and leaders in the Jewish, civil rights, and academic communities, it directly answers the Heritage Foundation’s destructive “Project Esther,” which seeks to turn the fight against antisemitism into a partisan tool to target and silence others.
The Shofar Report: A Call to Defend Democracy and Confront Antisemitism calls for exactly the opposite. It insists that protecting democracy is the path to protecting Jews. It lays out concrete policies to enforce civil rights, safeguard free expression, and build coalitions strong enough to confront hate at its source.
On Tuesday, the Forward’s Arno Rosenfeld devoted his Antisemitism Decoded column to the Shofar Report. JTA covered it too.
Expert essays and analysis in the report include:
Amy Spitalnick on rejecting the false choice between Jewish security and democracy;
Hannah Rosenthal on links between antisemitism and xenophobia;
David N. Myers on defending academic independence;
Joshua Shanes on the shifting uses of antisemitic tropes;
Eric Ward on how attacks on DEI weaken pro-democracy coalitions;
Judith Lichtman on resisting the misuse of antisemitism claims to undermine civil society; and
Dov Waxman and Jeremy Ben-Ami on how U.S. foreign policy can hinder the fight against antisemitism.
The report includes a fascinating essay from Rabbi Irwin Kula on the Jewish generational divide on Israel and antisemitism, observing that younger Jews tend to "evaluate Israeli policy using the same standards applied to other democracies and their support for Israel is often conditional, not tribal. For this generation, conflating anti-Zionism or pro-Palestinian protests with antisemitism feels manipulative and politically expedient."
Its recommendations to Congress include:
- Ensure vigorous enforcement of existing civil rights laws by providing adequate funding for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the Department of Justice’s civil rights programs, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s activities;
- Focus enforcement on clear cases of discrimination and harassment while protecting political expression and academic freedom;
- Fully fund comprehensive education initiatives that teach about diverse Jewish contributions to American society and the history of antisemitism; and
- Secure funding for nonprofit security grants and ensure that grantees and sub-grantees are not beholden to an administration’s ideological whims on issues like diversity or immigration.
The Shofar Report is a long read, 63 pages in all. It's worth your time. I am proud to serve on the Board of this important organization.
In Case You Missed It:
Republican Antisemitism of the Week. This is a new feature. Republican antisemitism is so common that we don't consider it news anymore. That has to stop. This week's losers are Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Donald Trump, whose comment last week was antisemitic even under the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
To make this manageable, this feature focuses on Republicans who hold federal or statewide office and who have said or done something antisemitic in the past week (thus, the Young Republicans discussed above are not eligible). I'd do the same for Democrats, but I'd have too many long stretches of nothing.
Tweets of the Week. Nimrod Novik, Nexus Project, and Dan Shapiro.
Video Clip of the Week. Office Lip Dub.
Vintage Music Clip of the Week. The Beat: Don't Wait Up.
The Fine Print. I read every reply to this newsletter. I reply as often as I can. All I ask is that you read the Fine Print before you reply or send me anything.
For those new to this newsletter. This is the newsletter even Republicans have to read and the original home of the viral and beloved Top Ten Signs You're At a Republican Seder (yes, I wrote it). If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, why not subscribe and get it in your inbox every Sunday? Just click here--it's free.
I periodically update my posts on the IHRA definition of antisemitism and on why Democrats are better than Republicans on Israel and antisemitism. My definition of "pro-Israel" is here (it's a work in progress, as am I).
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