JD Vance: ‘There’s a difference between not liking Israel’ and antisemitism

U.S. Vice President JD Vance arrives at Ben Gurion airport on October 21, 2025 in Tel Aviv. Photo by Nathan Howard – Pool/Getty Images

(JTA) — Under fire over antisemitism within the Republican Party, Vice President JD Vance said on Monday that “the single most significant thing you could do to eliminate anti-semitism” is reducing immigration to the United States.

Vance also laid out his attitude about criticism of Israel, tweeting, “I would say there’s a difference between not liking Israel (or disagreeing with a given Israeli policy) and anti-semitism.”

Vance made the comments on X while responding to a journalist who had shared an essay by the Jewish commentator Yair Rosenberg expressing concern about antisemitism among younger Americans.

“Research suggests America is becoming more anti-Semitic because its young people are becoming more anti-Semitic,” Rosenberg had written. “This finding flies in face of folk wisdom that prejudice is the province of the old and will die out with them. That may be true of some bigotries, but anti-Semitism is not one of them.”

The quotation caused Vance to respond with a thread that represented some of his most direct and extensive comments on the topic since the Republican Party’s internal divide on antisemitism was thrust into the open following the September assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk. Since then, some in the party have urged a confrontation with antisemitic sentiments that appear increasingly common among younger Republicans influenced by online personalities such as Nick Fuentes.

But Vance, while saying he opposes antisemitism, has not heeded the calls, rejecting claims of surging Republican antisemitism and downplaying expressions of antisemitic sentiment by young Republicans as immaturity.

Now, he says those concerned about growing right-wing antisemitism in the United States are barking up the wrong tree.

“Mainstream journalism is just profoundly uninteresting and lame, consumed by its own pieties. To write an article about the ‘generational divide’ in anti-semitism without discussing the demographics of the various generations is mind boggling,” Vance wrote.

His next tweet was a quote apparently intended as a rhetorical statement of what he sees as a faulty view: “We imported a lot of people with ethnic grievances prior generations didn’t have. We celebrated this as the fruits of multiculturalism. Now we’re super surprised that the people we imported with ethnic grievances still have those ethnic grievances.”

Then Vance shared his conclusion. “The most significant single thing you could do to eliminate anti-semitism and any other kind of ethnic hatred is to support our efforts to lower immigration and promote assimilation,” he wrote. “But these guys won’t do that, because they all lack curiosity and introspection.”

Finally, Vance pointed to a researcher who said his research had found higher antisemitic sentiment among U.S. residents who had been born abroad and Americans whose parents were immigrants.

“As I noted in my post on the topic, foreign-origin is a much better predictor of antisemitism than ideology or age,” wrote Charles Fain Lehman, a a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute.

The Manhattan Institute released a report earlier this month finding while most Republicans reject antisemitism, 17% met researchers’ definition of “anti-Jewish Republicans” because of their sentiments.

The report described higher levels of antisemitic sentiment about Republicans under 50 and “New Entrant” Republicans, those who voted for Republicans in national contests for the first time only recently.

“Anti-Jewish Republicans are typically younger, disproportionately male, more likely to be college-educated, and significantly more likely to be New Entrant Republicans,” the report found.

Polls show that anti-Israel sentiment is also rising among younger Republicans, fracturing a consensus in a party that has recently boasted of its staunch support for Israel. Vance’s tweet clarifying that he does not believe anti-Israel sentiment is necessarily antisemitic represents his clearest statement yet about his tolerance for anti-Israel sentiment, coming as he is seen as a likely presidential contender in 2028.

Vance’s comments come as the Trump administration takes aim at immigrants, cracking down harshly on those in the country illegally and seeking to block migration totally from some countries, including from countries such as Iran and Yemen where antisemitic sentiments are prevalent.

Jewish groups have tended to align strongly with pro-immigrant stances, in part owing to a shared Jewish family history as an immigrant class, though those views are shifting. However, HIAS, a Jewish immigrant aid group, has taken a strong stance against the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants and refugees.

The Trump administration has also said it would screen the social media histories of tourists and visa applicants for evidence of antisemitism and has sought to deport some immigrants it alleges are antisemitic, often because of their participation in pro-Palestinian protests.