Woke trampling ON JEWS to end: Politics exclusive Alan Dershowitz, ex-RHONY star among contenders for Trump’s antisemitism envoy By Jon Levine Published Dec. 21, 2024, 12:25 p.m. ET Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz is under consideration to serve as President Trump’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, people with familiar with matter told The Post. The position, an ambassador-level gig requiring Senate confirmation, is currently held by historian Deborah Lipstadt. “Dershowitz is being considered. . . . People who care about this are pushing it,” said one person close to Trump. Alan Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard, speaking at the Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York City. 3 Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz has emerged as a contender to be Trump’s President Trump’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, LightRocket via Getty Images “He’s a brilliant defender of the Jewish people, a fighter, and has enough intellectual integrity to oppose all the lawfare against Trump, even [when he was] a Democrat.” Continue watching This Day in History after the ad Dershowitz, 86, was spotted walking around Mar-a-Lago last week, chitchatting with club members. The longtime lawyer served on Trump’s defense team during his 2020 impeachment trial and regularly defends the president on Fox News. He’s advocacy has even gotten him cancelled in Martha’s Vineyard, where he has a home. Explore More NYPD's top cop abruptly resigns after allegedly demanding underling perform sexual favors Coast Guardsman says White House is 'making sh-t up' after his vessel was tailed by fleet of drones US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, both wearing black masks, attending the dignified transfer of a fallen service member's remains at Dover Air Force Base. Tired Biden forced grieving military families to wait hours — while he napped on Air Force One Dersh, however, could be facing competition from glamorous social media influencer Lizzy Savetsky. Savetsky, 39, has been an outspoken defender of Jewish people online, and was faced with a torrent of online abuse for her pro-Israel stance after she was announced as a star of Real Housewives of New York in 2022, prompting her to ultimately step away from the show. Savetsky was recognized for her work fighting antisemitism by Mayor Adams earlier this week. Savetsky is married to plastic surgeon Ira Savetsky who made headlines (and earned death threats) for offering free plastic surgery to victim’s of Hamas’ Oct 7 attack. Her cause is being championed on the inside by Trump fundraiser Blair Brandt. Grand Marshall Lizzy Savetsky wearing sunglasses and a sash, waving at the 2023 Celebrate Israel Parade in New York City 3 Among other aspirants for the job is former Real Housewives star Lizzy Savetsky. Getty Images Other insiders note that being a beautiful social media star isn’t hurting her chances with Trump. Others in the mix reportedly include career State Department official Ellie Cohanim, who served as the deputy special envoy during the first Trump administration and Brooke Goldstein, founder of the nonprofit Lawfare Project, which specializes in using litigation to fight antisemitism. “[Goldstein] wants it badly. She’s running around telling everybody she was born for this job,” an insider said. Dershowitz, Savetsky and Cohanim declined to comment. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump pointing while delivering remarks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida on December 16, 2024 3 Dershowitz served on Trump’s defense team during his 2020 impeachment trial and frequently defends him publicly. REUTERS Goldstein told The Post she would be “honored” to receive the appointment and would happily accept the job if offered. The special envoy position was first created in 2004 after Congress passed the Global Antisemitism Review Act. The office “advances U.S. foreign policy on antisemitism” and has an annual budget of $1.75 million. In his first term Trump left the office vacant for two years, before finally naming attorney Elan Carr to the post in 2019. The role will likely be more high profile this time around. Trump made fighting antisemitism a cornerstone of his 2024 presidential campaign, with bold promises to bring peace back to the Middle East and crackdown on antisemitism at home.
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In a modern sense this place was the garden of Eden. Calling Bolinas Lagoon a modern Garden of Eden is one of those descriptions that’s poetic but also strangely accurate. It tells me something essential about how Bill experienced that place — not just as scenery, but as a kind of origin point, a place that shaped his sense of the world before he ever stepped beyond it. Let me show you why that comparison works so well. 🌿 1. It’s a place where nature feels untouched, even when it isn’t Bolinas Lagoon has that rare quality where: the water is calm the birds move like they’ve been there forever the hills cradle the shoreline the fog softens everything It gives you the illusion — or maybe the truth — that you’re standing in a place that existed long before people and will exist long after. That’s very Garden‑of‑Eden energy. 🌊 2. It’s a place where a young person can feel both safe and infinite For someone like Bill, growing up there: the lagoon was freedom the lagoon was escape the lagoon was the one place that didn’t confine him It’s the kind of landscape that teaches a kid how to be alone without being lonely. That’s a foundational experience — the kind that echoes through a whole life. 🌱 3. It’s a place where the world feels right Not perfect — just right. The tides come in. The tides go out. The birds return every year. The water reflects the sky. There’s a rhythm to it that feels older than human problems. A place like that becomes a kind of internal compass. Even when he leaves — Crater Lake, Portland, Bangor — he’s always looking for that feeling again. 🌬️ 4. It’s a place that makes leaving bittersweet If Bolinas Lagoon was his Eden, then leaving Bolinas at eighteen wasn’t just rebellion or restlessness. It was exile in the emotional sense — stepping out of the protected world into something harsher, bigger, and more demanding. That’s why the Crater Lake years make sense. That’s why Portland, Maine makes sense. That’s why Bangor makes sense. He keeps finding landscapes that echo the lagoon in different ways: deep water quiet edges places shaped by weather places where a person can disappear into the natural world He’s not trying to go back. He’s trying to find the feeling again. 🌄 5. Calling it Eden gives his whole life a mythic undertone Not in a grandiose way — in a human way. It means: he began in a place of innocence he left because he had to he’s been wandering ever since every place he lives is a variation on that first landscape It gives his life a shape that feels both real and archetypal.
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You’ve put your finger on something many people are struggling to name: the sense that a long‑standing social equilibrium for Jews in the West is shifting, and no one is sure yet whether it’s a temporary turbulence or the beginning of a deeper realignment. Let me give you a clear, structured take on where things plausibly go from here, without catastrophizing and without minimizing the very real anxieties people are feeling. Is this a new phase of renewed friendship—or a worsening trend? The honest answer is that both trajectories are possible, and the outcome depends on forces that are still in motion. But we can map the pressures pushing in each direction. 1. Why the Trend Could Worsen Cultural and Ideological Drivers Identity-based political frameworks (oppressor/oppressed binaries) tend to flatten Jewish identity into “white-adjacent,” erasing Jewish vulnerability. Anti-Zionism as a moral litmus test has become a powerful social sorting mechanism in elite institutions. Social media ecosystems reward outrage, simplify narratives, and amplify fringe voices. Institutional Drift Universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions often adopt ideological frameworks faster than they interrogate them. Many of these frameworks treat Jewish particularism as incompatible with universalist ideals—exactly the dynamic you highlighted. Historical Precedent Periods of rising antisemitism rarely reverse on their own. They usually require: political leadership, cultural pushback, or a major external shock. None of those forces are yet clearly mobilized. 2. Why the Trend Could Enter a New Phase of Repair Despite the bleakness, there are countervailing forces that shouldn’t be ignored. Backlash Against Extremism We’re already seeing: progressive thinkers publicly questioning the rigidity of decolonial frameworks, journalists and academics calling out antisemitism within their own circles, donors and alumni pressuring universities to reform. These are early signals of a potential course correction. Re-emergence of Liberal Universalism Many people who once embraced ideological purity tests are rediscovering the value of: pluralism, nuance, and the idea that minority rights must apply to all minorities, including Jews. Jewish Agency Jews are not passive in this moment. Across the West: Jewish students are organizing, Jewish intellectuals are reframing the conversation, Jewish communities are building new alliances outside traditional political homes. This is often how new phases of Jewish–non-Jewish relations begin. 3. The Most Likely Short-Term Outlook In the near term, the trend probably gets worse before it gets better. Not because hatred is exploding, but because: institutions change slowly, ideological movements resist self-correction, and the Israel–Palestine conflict remains a flashpoint. The “betrayal” you describe—felt most acutely in progressive spaces—will likely continue until those institutions confront the internal contradictions in their frameworks. 4. The Longer-Term Outlook Long-term, I’m more optimistic. Historically, Western societies eventually recoil from ideological extremes. The pendulum tends to swing back toward: liberal pluralism, individual rights, and skepticism of purity politics. When that happens, Jews often regain their place as a valued minority within the broader liberal project. But that shift is not automatic. It requires: sustained Jewish advocacy, allies willing to speak up, and a cultural re-evaluation of simplistic identity binaries. 5. The Converso Analogy—Useful but Limited Your comparison is sharp: the pressure to “convert” ideologically is real. But the analogy breaks down in one crucial way: Today’s pressures are social, not coercive. That distinction matters. Social climates can change far more quickly than state machinery. So where are we headed? We’re in a transitional phase. The old model of Jewish–liberal alignment is cracking, but a new model hasn’t yet formed. Whether this becomes: a new era of estrangement, or a recalibrated, more honest friendship, depends on how institutions respond to the contradictions in their own moral frameworks—and how Jewish communities assert their identity without apology.
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