Mark Goldfeder, a nationally recognized attorney who has represented Jews and Zionists in discrimination cases across the U.S., announced he is resigning from the Heritage Foundation’s National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism following the organization’s defense of right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson’s interview with white nationalist and antisemite Nick Fuentes.
Goldfeder, who leads the National Jewish Advocacy Center and identifies as a conservative, said he could no longer remain affiliated with a task force whose leadership has chosen to “celebrate” a figure like Fuentes. His resignation comes after Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts issued a video defending Carlson and condemning “globalist elites” and “their mouthpieces in Washington,” rhetoric widely criticized for echoing antisemitic tropes.
The National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism was established after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, as antisemitic incidents surged across the United States. Backed by Heritage, the task force billed itself as a bipartisan coalition devoted to countering hate. Goldfeder’s resignation, however, underscores growing tensions between that mission and the political direction of the think tank’s leadership.
In an open letter posted online, Goldfeder said he initially joined the task force believing that “combating antisemitism must remain a nonpartisan moral imperative.”
“I hoped this initiative could model something better — a principled coalition grounded in shared decency and moral clarity,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, the recent decision by Heritage leadership to defend and even celebrate Tucker Carlson’s decision to platform Nick Fuentes … makes continued participation impossible.”
He continued: “Elevating him, and then attacking those who object as somehow un-American or disloyal, in a video replete with antisemitic tropes and dog whistles no less, is not the protection of free speech — it is moral collapse disguised as courage. Free speech protects the right to speak; it does not compel anyone to provide a megaphone for a Nazi.”
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