Member of Trump’s antisemitism panel rips Zionism, calls Jews killers

Amidst testimony about challenges facing Jews in America, the US Religious Liberty Commission, meeting in Washington on Monday, became a forum for antisemitic talking points.

The Jew-bashing was platformed by commission member Carrie Pre-jean Boller, one of 13 panel members appointed by President Donald Trump. She repeatedly baited witnesses with expressions of anti-Zionism and descriptions of Jews as killers over two-millennia — from the death of Christianity’s founder to the killing of Palestinians by Israelis during the Gaza war.

“Jews killed Jesus,” Boller said, adding that because of her Catholic faith, she “does not support Zionists.”

In social media posts, Boller, a former Miss California who is a right-wing activist and commentator, has accused Israel of “deliberate starvation” and “murdering children” in Gaza. She has also attacked Christian Zionists.

In recent months her social media posts have been dominated by defenses of the right-wing commentators Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, repeatedly accused of Jew-hatred. She returned to those defenses on Monday.

“I would really appreciate it if you would stop calling Candace Owens an antisemite,” Boller told Seth Dillon, CEO of the satirical Babylon Bee. “She’s not an antisemite. She just doesn’t support Zionism, and that really has to stop. I don’t know why you keep bringing her up, and Tucker.”

“Because they’re the two most famous antisemites,” Dillon replied.

“There you go again,” Boller said. “I guess everyone’s an antisemite.”

Boller, who Jewish Insider observed appeared to be wearing a Palestinian pin, said she listens to Owens every day.

Boller asked Shabbos Kestenbaum, a prominent young Jewish activist, “Since we’ve mentioned Israel a total of 17 times, are you willing to condemn what Israel has done in Gaza?”

Her lines of questioning drew booing from the audience several times and seemed to exasperate the commission’s chairman, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican.

“I’m going to interrupt the discussion,” Patrick said. “This is not a commission on defining religions or calling out any theology. This is not the commission for that.”

“This could be another discussion on another day, and you two can have coffee,” Patrick said, of Boller’s questions of Kestenbaum.

“Catholics do not embrace Zionism, just so you know,” Boller told the panel. “I want to be clear on what the definition of antisemitism is. If I don’t support the political state of Israel, am I an antisemite, yes or no?”

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At the hearing, the commission’s only Jewish member, Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of Manhattan’s Congregation Shearith Israel, said Boller’s statements misrepresented both Jewish and Catholic perspectives.

“This is an incredibly diverse country, and the one thing we should be careful about is speaking on behalf of all members of a religious community, even if one is a member of that religious community,” Rabbi Soloveichik said.

“I certainly wouldn’t claim to speak for all Jews on all subjects. We’re not known for agreeing on everything, and that certainly should be said for speaking about Catholics in America.”

Soloveichik quoted Secretary of State Marco Rubio, “who also happens to be a very devout Catholic,” who has spoken about the Jewish people’s connection to the land of Israel.

JNS asked Kestenbaum what he expected, when he woke up in the morning, would happen at the hearing.

“Not to get in a foreign policy debate about Israel,” he said. “In fact, I’m so often accused about 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 said. “The fact that a commissioner would bring in a foreign conflict, that was not part of my narrative, demonstrates that there was an agenda.”

“She decided that this should be a debate on Israel’s conduct in Gaza, which I’m not entirely sure how that affects American students being discriminated against,” he said.”

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Kestenbaum added that it was curious that Boller said that Catholics don’t support Israel “given that there are hundreds of millions of Catholics, including some who are on this commission, speaking at this commission today, who would vehemently disagree with such a grandiose assertion.”

At one point, after Rabbi Ari Berman, Yeshiva University president, said that it is antisemitic to say that Israel cannot exist as a Jewish state while not also objecting to the many Christian and Muslim states, Boller said that Islamophobic statements shouldn’t be acceptable at the hearing.

Berman told her “G-d forbid” that anyone would say something anti-Muslim.

“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,” Kestenbaum said later of the exchange.

The takeaway that Berman hopes viewers will emerge with is that there is a need to incentivize universities teaching American values.

“I think the government should be funding those universities that see themselves as repositories of cultural inheritance and of a Western tradition that undergirds what America stands for,” he told JNS. “Faith-based universities are a great examples of that.”

Patrick, the commission chair, told JNS that Boller’s spirited questions “didn’t surprise me.”

“Organically, it took a life of its own that I think led to some really great discussion on a number of issues,” he said. “Everything from where the Catholic Church stands to Zionism to anti-Zionists.”

“There was so much great testimony and so many great quotable moments, it’s hard for me to — I’m going to go back and watch this,” he said.

“I think just that the general recognition that we have no room in this country whatsoever for anyone to give any type of foothold on this antisemitism that is going around.”

“We have to all stand together, all denominations, all faiths. We have to all get together and say, ‘This will not stand in America’,” he said. “I think maybe that’s the key.”

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The commission is tasked with drafting a report to President Trump on how to promote religious liberty.

Other members of the panel include Cardinal Timothy Dolan; Pastor Franklin Graham; Pastor Paula White, a senior adviser to the White House Faith Office; Allyson Ho, partner at Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher; Kelly Shackelford, president and EDO of First Liberty Institute; writer, speaker and radio host Eric Metaxas; Dr. Phil McGraw; Ryan T. Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Genter; and Bishop Robert Barron. Dr. Ben Carson is vice chair.

JNS spoke with Bruce Pearl, former coach of the Auburn Tigers men’s basketball team and founder of the Jewish Coaches Association, who testified at the hearing.

“I thought it was great,” he said. “Even if you’re referring to when it got a little tense, I actually thought it was good. … She basically said, ‘So if I’m anti-Zion, is that antisemitic’?”

“I think that the committee was able to explain to her that, ‘Yes, it was’,” he said. “Not calling her an antisemite [but] these are antisemitic thoughts, because we try to connect the Jewish faith to the State of Israel and our Bible and our history and our culture and our everything. That doesn’t make me any less American.”

“I think we should have these discussions,” he said. It was “explained, ‘These views are antisemitic,’ because if you don’t believe Jewish people have a right to return to our ancestral home, this is our religious belief. It kind of gets in the way of our religious liberties.”

His main takeaway was about higher education.

“There was a lot of discussion about American universities and what is being taught, and what is being allowed, and some of the hypocrisies,” he said. “We have to teach the truth, and we have to teach the good versus evil even though it may well be uncomfortable.”

“I don’t think universities should stay institutionally neutral,” he added. “There’s a difference between freedom of speech and moral clarity, and I think that was pointed out very clearly today.”

Suing the panel

Just as the hearing was getting under way at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, a coalition of religious groups filed suit against the Trump administration and the commission in federal court in New York for allegedly excluding non-Christians and lacking ideological diversity in violation of the law.

“No members of the commission represent other minority religions, such as Islam, Hinduism or Sikhism, and none of the members on the commission represent an interfaith organization, despite the commission’s mandate to celebrate America’s history of religious pluralism,” the lawsuit states. “Its members, consisting of almost exclusively Christians with one Orthodox Jewish rabbi, represent the narrow perspective that America was founded as a ‘Judeo-Christian’ nation and must be guided by Biblical principles.”

The plaintiffs, who include Interfaith Alliance, Muslims For Progressive Values, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund and Hindus for Human Rights, argue that the commission, as structured, violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires such presidential commissions to be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view.”

JNS asked Patrick, the commission chair who is also the Texas lieutenant governor, about the lawsuit after the hearing was over. He declined to comment.