In the concourse above the convention floor, Shabbos Kestenbaum pulled out his phone. Less than 24 hours had passed since he was a prime-time speaker at the Republican National Convention, blasting the rise of antisemitism at elite universities. His speech was met by cheering and a standing ovation. On social media, though, he was getting death threats.
Kestenbaum, 25, is used to the hostility, he told me. Ever since he filed a lawsuit against Harvard, his alma mater, for failing to protect Jewish students against antisemitic attacks, he’s faced a flood of antisemitic vile. Much of it came from self-declared progressives who vilified Israel. But now, after his appearance at the RNC, he was taking heat from the far right.
He showed me his iPhone screen. “Literal neo-Nazis are sending me death threats,” he told me. Under a post on X with a video of his speech, a long list of users blasted him with anti-Jewish tropes. One user, a professed Christian, said Kestenbaum was “subverting our culture.” Another said “Jewish values aren’t American.” Nick Fuentes, the far-right provocateur, called him a “terrorist.”
He shrugged. “If these are my enemies, I’m clearly doing the right thing,” he said.
The “right thing” to Kestenbaum and the tens of thousands of Republicans who attended last week’s convention, though, aren’t always the same thing. Kestenbaum is a registered Democrat and a former Bernie Sanders supporter. He speaks glowingly about progressive ideas like a $15 national minimum wage and the Green New Deal. But he feels that his party abandoned him on Israel, by not pushing hard enough against the antisemitism festering on the far left.
Does that mean he’ll vote for Donald Trump? “I doubt it,” he said.
His RNC speech never explicitly offered an endorsement of Trump, unlike most other speakers during the four-day convention. Support for Trump was the unifying thread throughout a convention that saw some of Trump’s loudest former critics, from Ron DeSantis to Nikki Haley, offer full-throated endorsements.
Kestenbaum sidestepped the issue. “I was there to talk about antisemitism and bringing the hostages home,” he told me. During his five-minute speech, he mentioned Trump only once, when he endorsed one of Trump’s proposed policies: to “expel foreign students who violate our laws, harass our Jewish classmates and desecrate our freedoms.” He then called on the audience to “elect a president” who will instill patriotism in schools, confront terrorism and defend Israel.
A semantic bypass? Perhaps. But Kestenbaum couldn’t bring himself to offer an endorsement of the candidate. “He’s a convicted felon,” he told me. “The whole cognitive dissonance is shocking. ‘We have to be tough on crime.’ Do you know who you’re standing in front of?”
Kestenbaum walked out of Tucker Carlson’s speech
The law-and-order paradox is only one part of it, Kestenbaum told me. “Deeply immoral is another thing,” he said. He chided Trump’s degrading comments about women and racially insensitive statements. He criticized Trump’s association with individuals who have avowed antisemitic theories — Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Fuentes. (Kestenbaum walked out of Carlson’s RNC speech, the day after his own, in a quiet protest.)
Where does that leave Kestenbaum, a political progressive offended by his party’s stance on Israel, the top issue informing his political decisions? “Look, if the Democrats want me, or any Jewish student, or any family of the hostages (to speak at their convention), we would be more than honored,” he said. “But the Democratic Party, for whatever reason, is really not interested in this story.”
Republicans, despite Kestenbaum’s deep disagreements with them on many issues, seem “genuinely interested” in this one, he said. Right after Kestenbaum spoke at the RNC, the parents of a hostage held in Gaza, Omer Neutra, addressed the audience. And as he was leaving after his speech Wednesday night, multiple congressional leaders stopped him, handed him a business card, and scribbled their personal cellphone number on the back.
“I’m trying to help my party get out of its own way,” Kestenbaum said. “I want to reform it.” He has, at least, some Democrats on his side: Rep. Ritchie Torres, who represents Kestenbaum’s home district in New York, has been a key ally. Torres texted Kestenbaum after his speech. “He said it was OK, and that I could stay with the Democrats,” Kestenbaum said, smiling. Come November, Kestenbaum plans to write in Torres’ name for president.