Hostage parents, Harvard alum activist address Republican convention

Shabbos Kestenbaum introduced himself as a past Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) supporter and lifelong Democrat, who has seen it as “my party” since registering at 18 . He still received some of the largest standing ovations Wednesday evening at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

The proud Orthodox Jew and first-generation American, who is “the proud plaintiff suing Harvard University for its failure to combat antisemitism,” recently graduated from Harvard Divinity School.

The Democratic Party “has become ideologically poisoned, and it is this poison, it is this corruption, that is infecting far too many young Americans,” he told the crowd. “Far left antisemitic extremism has no virtue, and the radicalism on our campuses and on our streets has no moral legitimacy.”

Kestenbaum, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of Harvard since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack in southern Israel, told JNS that the Trump campaign contacted him a few weeks ago. It asked if he would discuss his experiences and “how we’ve been really disappointed in the far left of the Democratic Party and the inability of the Democratic Party to stand strongly with the crucial ally in the Middle East, the State of Israel.”

Channeling a famous quote from Ronald Reagan, Kestenbaum told JNS, “I did not abandon the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party abandoned me, and I want to work from within.”

“I want to fix it, but I also recognize that in the short term, there are a lot of problems in my party,” he added.

‘Sick and tired’

At Harvard, Kestenbaum told the packed convention audience at the Fiserv Forum on Wednesday night, he came to study religion and found “not theology but a contempt for it.”

Within 24 hours of 1,200 Israeli and U.S. flags being installed on campus in Cambridge, Mass., the memorial for the victims on Oct. 7 was vandalized, he told the audience.

“I found myself immersed in a culture that is anti-Western, that is anti-American and that is antisemitic,” he said, citing student and faculty calls for more Hamas attacks, including against the United States.

Prior to his speech, Kestenbaum told JNS that he hoped to convey this support for policies that would “expel students who are abusing the foreign visa system in order to harass Jewish students and to desecrate our American freedoms.”

“I want the world to recognize that Jewish students, and really Americans across the board, are sick and tired of being sick and tired,” he told JNS.

“We know that our work is cut out for us,” Kestenbaum added. “There is a growing movement within the Democratic Party that is anti-west, that is anti-American, that is anti-Israel and that’s antisemitic, and that’s why we need to call them out. I will speak at any platform, at any venue, and call them out.”

At the podium on Wednesday, Kestenbaum threw his support behind former president Donald Trump, who he said recognizes that Ivy League schools like Harvard “have long abandoned the United States of America.”

“The Jewish people never will, because Jewish values are American values, and American values are Jewish values,” he added, to loud applause and an ovation.

After Kestenbaum concluded his remarks by asking for God to protect and return the hostages from Gaza, Orna and Ronen Neutra—the parents of Long Island, N.Y., native Omer Neutra, who has been held captive since Oct. 7—addressed the RNC audience. Both wore t-shirts with their son’s image.

Earlier in the day, both of the parents endorsed the Israeli ceasefire and hostage release proposal, which Washington has backed, but at the RNC, the two didn’t discuss the proposed deal. Instead, they shared personal stories about their son, including his brush with terrorism in utero.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Orna Neutra walked across the Queensboro Bridge and departed Manhattan after the attack on the Twin Towers.

Ronen Neutra told the crowd that Trump called him and his wife shortly after their son was kidnapped on Oct. 7. “We know he stands with the American hostages,” Ronen Neutra said.

Both were greeted on stage with a chant of “Bring them home,” which returned several times.

Like Kestenbaum, the Neutras framed the issue as a pressing universal one, rather than just something that affects Jews or Israel.

“During the brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel, over 1,200 people were slaughtered. Of them, 45 were American citizens,” Ronen Neutra said. “Where is the outrage?”

“This was not merely an attack on Israel,” he added. “This was and remains an attack on Americans.”

Domestic ‘iron dome’

Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman who is Jewish and whose 2022 campaign nearly defeated New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, also spoke at the convention.

He told the audience that U.S. President Joe Biden “has refilled Iran’s coffers,” and “Since Oct. 7, Biden has pandered to antisemites who cheer Hamas’s attack, all while Americans are still being held hostage in Gaza.”

One of two Jewish Republicans in the House during Trump’s tenure, Zeldin said that Trump’s resume includes moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and launching the Abraham Accords, “which no one said was possible.”

When Trump returns to the White House, he said, Washington will build “an iron dome defense shield at home” to counter bad actors.