Trump Didn't Take Down Universities For Anti-Semitism He Took Them Down For Anti-Zionism

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This is a long one and naturally there is dirt.  Excerpt link to full below.
![image](https://us-lax-1.linodeobjects.com/sojooo/comments/1278/1751199043751-1d92fcd2070a77c5.png)
Then-Republican presidential nominee President Donald Trump lights a candle with Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun at an event marking one year since the October 7 Hamas atrocities, October 7, 2024, in Miami. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The first time Yehuda Kaploun’s name entered the US Congressional Record, it was because a senator named Joe Biden had elevated his concerns about antisemitism.

The second time came last week, 32 years later, when President Donald Trump, who preceded and followed Biden in the White House, formally nominated Kaploun to an ambassador-level role tasked with fighting antisemitism.

Taken together, the two moments might suggest a straightforward ascent from Kaploun’s time as a young firebrand and Brooklyn yeshiva student to government office — the potential capstone of the rabbi’s career.

But his path has been more complicated. Over the decades, Kaploun has occupied a unique place in Jewish communal life, cultivating influence through quiet diplomacy, high-level political connections and moments of controversy.

*His story includes a longstanding relationship with the Adelson family* and, before he died, Elie Wiesel; a deepening alliance with the political right; and a lawsuit involving allegations of infidelity and personal betrayal.

*That lawsuit alleged that Kaploun conducted an affair with a married woman he met through his Orthodox congregation and threatened her husband to keep it quiet. It was quietly settled just days before Trump announced the nomination.*

If confirmed, Kaploun would become the most senior Hasidic Jewish official in US government history. The position he’s been tapped for appears to have survived a broad restructuring at the State Department that eliminated many other roles. He is now slated for a Senate confirmation hearing, where lawmakers are expected to question him on his character, background and worldview.

Kaploun declined to comment for this story, saying he was refraining from interviews until after the confirmation process. But last year, as he became more visible in Trump’s campaign, he acknowledged a shift in posture.

“I’ve always preferred working behind the scenes,” Kaploun told The Jerusalem Post at the time. “But given the challenges the Jewish community faces today, I realized it was time to speak publicly.”

Indeed, the confirmation process will thrust into the public spotlight a businessman and philanthropist whose political and civic engagement has typically occurred behind closed doors. At least twice, *Orthodox publications have identified Kaploun as an askan.* *A term that comes from Hebrew and has been used colloquially in Yiddish, it means Kaploun is a communal advocate or fixer, quietly advancing communal interests, brokering connections or helping individuals.*

For example, he regularly pays off the debts of shoppers at kosher grocery stores near his house, according to the store’s owner, Yitzchok Spalter, who has known Kaploun for more than four decades.

Then-Republican presidential nominee President Donald Trump talks with Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun at an event marking one year since the October 7 Hamas atrocities, October 7, 2024, in Miami. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

“He comes in and says, ‘I know there are families that can’t pay their bills. Here’s a check for X amount of dollars. Take it off their tally,’” Spalter said in an interview. “He’s a good-natured person. He does good stuff people don’t even know about.”

*The plaintiff behind the recently settled lawsuit, filed in late 2023 in Miami-Dade County, painted a different picture.*

“*Petitioner fears for his safety and life because Respondent Yehuda Shmaya Kaploun has threatened him in writing and orally, directly and indirectly, through a continued course of conduct that he will have him lose his job, that it well end up in a blood bath, that he will ruin his reputation and career unless Petitioner agrees to keep confidential the extra marital affair involving Petitioner’s wife,” the lawsuit alleges.*

Court records show that Kaploun, who is married, denied the allegations, saying he was a friend and rabbinic confidant to the woman but never her lover. When pressed under oath in a court deposition for certain details of their relationship, Kaploun repeatedly invoked clergy privilege or refused to respond, but did acknowledge he told the woman she was attractive. Kaploun also filed his own lawsuit, accusing the husband of intimidation and harassment.

*The legal saga, which has not been previously reported, included restraining orders against Kaploun and the husband and led to Kaploun’s departure from the synagogue where he had been a member for more than 15 years.* The lawsuits were settled out of court with a signoff by a judge on April 1 –10 days before Trump announced his pick of Kaploun. Terms of the agreement remain confidential and both sides said they are barred from speaking about the case.

Michael Diaz, an attorney for Kaploun, offered a comment on his behalf.

“This is an unfortunate situation between husband and wife that our client got dragged into, and it’s been resolved,” Diaz said. “Thankfully, it’s all behind him, and we wish the other parties a speedy resolution of their problems.”

While the case never went to trial, court records and interviews with congregants reveal how fallout from the dueling lawsuits — and the underlying allegations, which played a role in an acrimonious divorce — disrupted community life at Bais Menachem, a large synagogue in North Miami Beach affiliated with the Chabad Hasidic movement, where Kaploun had belonged for most of the time since he moved to South Florida from New York.

Early on, secretly recorded audio and video clips of Kaploun and the woman began circulating in the community, according to court records. One of Kaploun’s lawyers said in court that the recordings, whose exact contents are not specified in court records, ultimately led Kaploun to leave the congregation.

“It was used to harass Rabbi Kaploun,” the lawyer said, according to a court transcript. “It was used to defame him. It was used to spread an intention of malice throughout members of the congregation or the synagogue and animosity towards him. He was essentially ousted from his synagogue because of these materials.”

Bais Menachem got roped into the lawsuit when subpoenas arrived requesting security footage from the synagogue. Nearly a dozen congregants, as well as the head rabbi, Yosef Marlow, were summoned to testify. Marlow declined to comment for this story.

Few among the scores of people touched by the case were willing to speak on record about Kaploun’s nomination as antisemitism envoy, citing a range of concerns. Some said they were afraid Kaploun would harass them or use his political connections against them, and others said they were holding their tongues because of how the alleged affair and its aftermath might reflect on Orthodox Jews or on Trump, who is highly popular in Kaploun’s circles.

A congregant at the synagogue with personal ties to both Kaploun and the husband said he strongly supports Kaploun’s nomination.

“He’s a frontline soldier for the Jewish people,” the congregant said. “He helps people. He helps poor people with food. He helps widows. He goes after child molesters. He really, really steps up for the underdog.”

The congregant was closely familiar with allegations against Kaploun but said they shouldn’t be used to disqualify him.

“Should it prevent him from getting his job in the White House? No,” the congregant said. “Just because you’re a Jew, it doesn’t mean you’re perfect. I want him to succeed.”

The reluctance among some in Kaploun’s community to speak about him creates a void that has yet to be filled by voices from the wider Orthodox world, where there has so far been little public commentary about Kaploun or the milestone his nomination represents.

The newspaper Haaretz went so far as to suggest there’s conspicuous silence around Kaploun in an article titled, “Trump’s Pick for Antisemitism Czar Is a Chabadnik. Why is the Movement Keeping its Distance?” However, at least two Chabad institutions did, in fact, congratulate Kaploun: The Lubavitch Educational Center, a school in Miami Gardens, Florida, and Chabad On Campus International, an umbrella organization for university Chabad centers, praised Kaploun on social media following his nomination.

Kaploun, the eldest of five children, was born in Israel but has been an American citizen from birth through his mother, Dreizel, a Connecticut native. A member of the Hecht family, she married Yaacov Kaploun, an Australian, uniting two prominent lineages within the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

When Yehuda was a toddler, his father completed his rabbinic studies and the family left Israel, spending a few years in Connecticut, where Yaacov began his career as a Jewish educator. They later moved to Ottawa, Canada, where Yaacov became the director of Hillel Academy, the Jewish day school Yehuda attended.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-rise-of-yehuda-kaploun-how-a-hasidic-fixer-became-trumps-antisemitism-czar-nominee/

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