The End of Jewish Apology Culture

A new generation of Diaspora Jews is refusing loyalty tests, rejecting defensiveness, and asserting their civil rights with unapologetic moral clarity.

Shabbos Kestenbaum, then a Harvard University student, praying in front of a pro-Palestinian encampment (photo: Shabbos Kestenbaum/Facebook)

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This is a guest essay by Mitch Schneider, who writes from Israel.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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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.

His great-great uncle was Rabbi Yosef Breuer, the leading German Orthodox Rabbi of his generation. His great-great aunt has a memory she will never forget. She was a little girl hiding under her bed while her father was arrested by the Nazis and their historic synagogue burned to the ground on Kristallnacht in 1938. They were among the last Jewish families to flee Nazi persecution in Germany.

They came to America because America promised them something. In 1790, President George Washington wrote a letter to the largest Jewish community in the United States, all 25 families of them in Newport, Rhode Island. He told them that in this country, as descendants of Abraham, they were welcome to practice their faith. Because in his own words: “Bigotry will be granted no sanction and persecution no assistance.”

That family, carrying that promise, built a life in America.

Shabbos Kestenbaum is their descendant. He graduated summa cum laude from Queens College in New York City, earned his degree from Harvard Divinity School, recently donated a kidney to a complete stranger because his Jewish values demanded nothing less, and filed the first civil rights lawsuit against Harvard University on behalf of Jewish students, setting legal precedent for seven subsequent lawsuits across the country.

And last week, he stood before the White House Religious Liberty Commission and quoted George Washington’s 1790 letter.

The hearing took place at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. Alongside Kestenbaum sat Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University; Yitzy Frankel, the lead plaintiff in the civil rights case against the University of California; Bruce Pearl, the legendary Auburn University basketball coach; and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of Congregation Shearith Israel in Manhattan. They were there to testify about what was happening to American students on American campuses.

He opened not with grievances, not with anger, but with a Hebrew prayer: Modeh ani lefanecha (Thankful am I before You). It’s the first thing a Jewish person says every morning before getting out of bed. The rabbis teach that the phrase is inverted deliberately. Not “I am thankful” but “thankful am I.” Because before you can say anything about yourself, before the day even begins, the very first act is gratitude.

Shabbos stood before the commission and thanked them for doing what the previous administration refused to do. He told them he registered to vote as a Democrat the day he turned 18, that Joe Biden’s administration did not lift a finger as American students were being denied access to education on their college campuses, and that, when President Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail that religious liberties would be a priority, this commission was proof that promises made had become promises kept.

Then he laid out why this matters beyond any one community. He talked about students at Oklahoma State University chanting against Mormons, and a Catholic school in Long Beach, California being vandalized so severely they couldn’t renovate it.

He made a point that reframed everything: He told the commission he probably sat in a room at Harvard University with a future congressman, a future senator, even a future president of the United States. These institutions purport to train the next generation of American leaders. And if America’s future policymakers, its future judges and jurors, the future authors of the books your kids and grandkids will read, are being taught to hate Western civilization, to hate the founding of their country, and to hate other people based on their religious identity, then this is no longer simply an antisemitism issue. This cuts at the core of American democracy.

That, he told the commission, unfortunately brings us to Harvard University.

Days after October 7th, a masked student stood before a thousand students and professors at Harvard and called Hamas “freedom fighters.” The reaction from a thousand of America’s future leaders was thunderous applause. Not one person walked out. Not one thing was challenged or condemned.

That applause gave permission for what came next.

Two weeks later, a Jewish Israeli student was physically assaulted at Harvard Business School. And here’s what happened to the people who attacked him: One was awarded a $65,000 fellowship by Harvard Law School to intern at an organization with noted ties to Hamas, and the other was given the honor of Class Marshal at Harvard’s graduation. Not expelled, not suspended, rewarded.

So things escalated. An Israeli student was told by her professor to leave the classroom because her nationality made other students uncomfortable, and a Jewish American was spat on for wearing a yarmulke.

And then it crossed a line that should have ended careers at Harvard overnight. A university employee vandalized hostage posters, wrote that a kidnapped nine-month-old baby’s head was “still on,” challenged Kestenbaum to debate whether Jews orchestrated 9/11, and posted a video of himself waving a machete with Kestenbaum’s face on it, saying he was coming after more than blood and that he was coming after the “Zionist mafia.”

Shabbos and his team sent dozens of phone calls and emails to Harvard University, simply asking about that employee’s status. To this day, they have not once responded.

Then came the encampments. Masked students who appointed themselves “safety marshals” followed visibly Jewish students to class, filming them, refusing to stop when asked. Shabbos told the president of the university and he told the President of the United States.

Harvard President Alan Garber’s response was remarkable: If you agree to pack up your tents, we will let you meet with Harvard’s endowment managers to discuss Israel divestment. If you agree to pack up your tents, we will let you meet with senior faculty to discuss establishing a Palestinian study center. Of the hundreds of students who violated internal Harvard policy and followed American students on their way to class, zero were expelled, zero were suspended, and zero were disciplined in any measurable way.

The message that Alan Garber sent to American students was unmistakable. Call for an intifada loud enough, follow Jewish students long enough, vandalize enough property, and Harvard will grant you a seat at the table.

Shabbos filed the first civil rights lawsuit of its kind. Kestenbaum v. Harvard was the first lawsuit pertaining to the civil rights violations of Jewish students on an American college campus to be allowed to go to trial, and it eventually forced Harvard into a confidential settlement. Seven subsequent lawsuits across the country have cited it as legal precedent.

And then Shabbos closed his testimony with something that no one in that room expected to hear from an Orthodox Jew at a hearing on antisemitism. He said that an attack on one Christian is an attack on one Jew, and an attack on one Jew is an attack on one Christian. We are in this together. And he told America that, as an Orthodox Jew, he knows this country would be a much stronger and better place if more young Christian men went to church, if more young Christian men studied and learned the New Testament and the Old Testament, and if young Christian men believed and learned the values and teachings of Jesus.

A 27-year-old Orthodox Jew at a hearing on antisemitism, closing not with grievance but with a call for Christian renewal. Because he understands what Washington understood in 1790. The Judeo-Christian tradition isn’t a talking point. It’s the foundation.

But here’s what made his testimony different from every other account of campus antisemitism you’ve read. Through all of it, every incident, every assault, every machete threat, every encampment, Shabbos never once mentioned Israel. As he later told Jewish News Syndicate:

“I’m so often accused of being ‘Israel first,’ being a ‘Zionist shill,’ which is why in the hearing today and in all the hearings that I’ve spoken at, I deliberately do not mention Israel. I want to get the point across that what is happening at American universities is happening to American students, and it’s an affront to American values.”

He knew the trap and he refused to walk into it. Every word of his testimony was about American students, American values, and American law. He laid out a clear framework: Any institution of higher learning that violates the civil rights of any group based on gender, religion, or ethnicity does not entitle itself to American taxpayer money. And students who come to this country and call for the eradication of Western civilization should not be allowed within 50 feet of it.

That’s what made what happened next so revealing.

Commissioner Carrie Prejean Boller spent the majority of the hearing on her phone — a hearing on the civil rights violations of American students, documented harassment, physical assault, a machete threat, and she was texting through it. Then, after nearly 90 minutes, she put her phone down. She had been counting. “Since we’ve mentioned Israel a total of 17 times,” she said, “are you willing to condemn what Israel has done in Gaza?”

This was not a spontaneous question. She sat there for 90 minutes counting every mention of Israel, waiting for her moment. And she was wearing a Palestinian flag pin on her lapel.

A commissioner at a White House hearing on American religious liberty, wearing the flag of a foreign cause on her lapel, accusing a Jewish American of loyalty to a foreign country. She wore a foreign flag. He wore none. She accused him of divided loyalties.

Kestenbaum didn’t flinch. He looked at her and said: “The only genocide ever carried out was on October 7th, when Hamas tried killing every man, woman, and child they could possibly find.”

And then he stripped the entire fight down to its core: “You can hate Jews or not hate Jews. I don’t really mind. What I do mind is when people violate the law. Hate Jews? Think they control the banks? Think they have horns? Go for it. But what matters is when they’re violating the law, and that’s what the purpose of this commission is.”

That wasn’t part of his prepared testimony. That was his response during the discussion that followed, a man under ambush with the clarity to strip the whole fight down to one sentence.

But Boller was just getting started. When Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University, pointed out that it’s antisemitic to say Israel can’t exist as a Jewish state while showing no concern for the existence of dozens of Christian and Muslim states, Boller accused him of Islamophobia. At a hearing on antisemitism, the president of Yeshiva University was accused of Islamophobia for pointing out a double standard.

Kestenbaum’s response to Jewish News Syndicate cut through it: “If your reaction to the fact that Christianity is outlawed in Saudi Arabia is to blame Islamophobia, you’re not seriously engaging with the political and religious issue.”

Every time Jewish civil rights are discussed in this country, someone pivots to Israel. Every time antisemitism is documented, someone says “but Gaza.” Every time a Jewish American speaks about discrimination on American soil, they must first pass a loyalty test, must first condemn a foreign country, before their civil rights are acknowledged as real.

No other minority group in America faces this test. Nobody demands Black civil rights advocates condemn violence in African nations before their rights are recognized. Nobody demands Catholic Americans condemn Vatican policy before their dignity is protected.

Only Jews.

Shabbos Kestenbaum’s response came the next day, addressed directly to Boller:

“Yesterday, you wore the flag of a foreign country to the White House Religious Liberties Meeting. I did not. I focused my testimony on the countless concrete examples of religious discrimination against American Christians, American Mormons, and American Jews. I mentioned the need to encourage more young men to go to church, to learn the Christian foundings of our country, reject foreign funding on American campuses, and more. At no point did I mention Israel, Zionism, Gaza, Bibi, or the Middle East. My entire testimony was focused on America. You used the last four minutes of the hearing, after you spent nearly the entire time texting, to pivot to Israel.”

And then: “Cut foreign aid to Israel, think Jews killed Jesus, support Candace Owens, I literally don’t care. I care about the civil rights violations perpetrated by American colleges against Christians and Jews, a point you never addressed. If you are not planning on helping young Americans such as myself fight for religious liberties then I encourage you to give your seat to someone who will.”

That’s what his entire testimony was about — not Jews versus anyone. Americans, together. And Shabbos Kestenbaum responded the same way he began: Modeh ani.

Because Kestenbaum represents something bigger than one hearing. He represents a generation of Jewish Americans whose knees no longer tremble, who don’t apologize for being Jewish, for being clear, for refusing premises designed to delegitimize them before they’ve said a word.

This is what Jewish pride looks like in 2026: not aggressive, not defensive, just clear.

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