Trump would eliminate antisemitism envoy in proposed State Department overhaul
The envoy’s functions would be moved to a new ‘Jewish affairs coordinator’ position in an office dealing with Israel
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks alongside U.S. President Donald Trump during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 10. Photo by Getty Images
By Arno Rosenfeld April 22, 2025
A proposed Trump administration plan to drastically overhaul the State Department would eliminate the most prominent job in the federal government fighting antisemitism and replace it with a “Jewish affairs coordinator” focused on Israel.
The role, special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, is the most senior federal official tasked with addressing antisemitism. Its mandate is currently focused on international threats, including antisemitic incidents abroad and stopping efforts to ban kosher slaughter or other legislation that would impact Jews.
Moving the functions to an office focused on Israel and the Middle East could significantly shrink its portfolio and would align with the Trump administration’s efforts to fight antisemitism, which have focused almost exclusively on criticism of Israel and alleged support for Hamas.
The change was one of dozens recommended in a leaked draft of an executive order first reported by The New York Times Sunday that would also end almost all of the United States’ diplomatic work in Africa and shut down State Department offices focused on human rights and climate change.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Times reporting “fake news” on social media, and it is not clear exactly who drafted the plan or how likely it is to be signed by President Donald Trump. Rubio released a more modest restructuring plan Tuesday morning that would relocate the special envoy offices within the State Department but not eliminate them.
Trump nominated Yehuda Kaploun, a Miami businessman and Republican fundraiser, to serve as his antisemitism envoy earlier this month. The post was created in 2004 and elevated to the level of ambassador during the Biden administration, when it was held by Deborah Lipstadt, a prominent Holocaust historian.
In the draft order, the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism is eliminated alongside offices focused on human rights, democracy, religious freedom, refugees and criminal justice.
The draft also calls for creating an Office of Israel-Palestine Affairs and a new post of Global Jewish Affairs Coordinator, which “shall assume responsibilities previously held” by the antisemitism envoy.
The Trump administration has undertaken a major crackdown on universities in recent months focused on what it describes as a failure to address campus antisemitism, including suspending billions of dollars in grants to Columbia and Harvard and canceling the student visas and green cards of around 1,500 foreign citizens studying in the U.S.
Trump also named Leo Terrell, a Black civil rights attorney, to lead an interagency antisemitism task force in February. Terrell subsequently said that he also wanted to investigate “anti-white bias” and shared a social media post from a white supremacist declaring that Trump had “the ability to revoke someone’s Jew card.”
Elon Musk, a close adviser to Trump who has been leading an effort to cut and reshape the federal government, also regularly engages with antisemitic social media accounts and previously promoted conspiracy theories about Jews seeking to damage the standing of white people.
The White House is also planning to shut down the Education Department’s civil rights office, which investigates campus antisemitism. The department has already laid off roughly half of its staff of 550.
