New York, November 19th, 2025 – Over one thousand leaders, among them one hundred specially invited Christian leaders, met on Sunday in New York for the annual Jewish Leadership Conference to learn how to navigate in an increasingly polarised political climate where Jews are being attacked from both spectrums of the political divide, that is the extreme left and the extreme right.

Commenting on the new threats from the political right, American writer and political adviser Dan Senor remained largely positive observing that no one from the political establishment of the Republican party have so far endorsed the recent antisemitic tirades by social influencers like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes, who have rather experienced a backlash because of their role in spreading antisemitic tropes.

“Whereas antisemitism has become mainstream in many progressive circles in the US the jury is still out on the conservative movement,” Senor said, but was rebutted by Bari Weiss who noted the silence from President Trump and passive support from Vice-President Vance. (On Monday President Donald Trump gave his first comment on the Tucker Carlson interview with Fuentes, saying that he did not know much about Fuentes and it was up to Tucker Carlson to interview whoever he chooses to.)

Weiss and Senor were both recipients of the prestigious Herzl award which was presented to the two political pundits alongside Ben Shapiro. Both Shapiro and Weiss have been targets of recent antisemitic attacks on social media but have fought back through their own media platforms, the Free Press and the Daily Wire respectively. Bari Weiss was recently appointed editor in chief of CBN News, after the media outlet was purchased by Paramount Skydance. In her speech she explained how antisemitism is no longer a question of being on the political right or on the political left but how bad people are now to be found everywhere in their mutual embrace of a new policy of resentment.

Professor Ruth Wisse kicked off the conference by comparing the situation in the Warsaw ghetto in the early 1940’s with today’s rise of antisemitism, warning the audience for complacency. The message in the Warsaw ghetto at the time was for the Jewish people not to despair, trying to calm them down from their worst fears. “Remaining positive and thinking the best of your fellow citizens is a great virtue but it has not served the Jewish people well,” she warned while acknowledging how the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto finally fought back against the Nazis once they understood the real nature of the threat that they were facing. “Also today we need to fight back intellectually as the political climate is beginning to remind us of the 1930’s,” she warned. We are no longer in the Warsaw ghetto but have institutional power and are able to fight back.

Throughout the conference the speakers encouraged the audience to help build new institutions, from education to media, in order to create a better future, not only for the Jews, but for humanity as such. Dan Senor admitted that the very institutions which are responsible for today’s rise of antisemitism have been generously funded by many Jewish philanthropists. “This will have to stop as we need to strengthen our own institutions and build new ones,” he said.

At a pre-conference in the Lincoln Square Synagogue on Saturday social critic and author Os Guinness spoke about the importance of building a human friendly society. He explained how civilisations either decline and fall or experience redemption and renewal. The uniqueness of the Judeo-Christian tradition is its ability to renew and reform. Speaking about the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States he called on people of faith, Jews and Christians, to renew their commitments to our Judeo-Christian roots or else continue a path of decline shaped by secular thought.

Other speakers at the conference, which was organised by the Jewish Think Tank Tikvah, included Tikvah CEO Eric Cohen, Elliot Abrams, George Russell Meade, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, UN Ambassador Mike Walsh and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik. ECI was represented at the leadership conference by founding director Tomas Sandell and board members Peter Fagerholm and Vassilios Tsirmpas thus solidifying the important the transatlantic link in defence of a human friendly society.