What a liberal Jewish teen learned at a conference of conservatives

This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.

“The Rise of the Right in Contemporary American Politics” is not a class that many would think would be offered by the liberal Fieldston School. Yet despite the diverse and educationally progressive climate, the private school in the Bronx still recognizes the value of looking at an issue from all perspectives. That’s how 65 of my classmates and I ended up at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland earlier this month. 

For a group of liberal teens from New York City, this was quite the culture shock. I had never seen anything like this: a hotel full of MAGA supporters shouting and chanting as if President Trump were a rockstar. I am used to being around left-wing individuals with strong anti-Trump beliefs. Often, I am around people who will turn the TV off when he appears.

My time at CPAC was both frightening and intriguing. Speakers celebrated the anti-immigration policies of the president and the administration’s assault on DEI programs in government agencies, schools, colleges and the workplace. Leo Zachy, a candidate for governor of California said, “We need to defeat the Marxist, globalist, and socialist and the woke agenda.” Similarly, Mike Davis, former Colorado assistant attorney general, declared that, during the pandemic, “the forced masking and forced vaccination was outrageous.” Steve Bannon, Trump’s former senior adviser, would later deny that the straight-arm gesture he made on Day 1 of the conference was a Nazi salute.

I was shocked by the grotesque ideas these people had about the ultimate state of our country.

However, I couldn’t walk more than a few feet without seeing someone wearing a kippah. As a Conservative Jew growing up in New York, this was not a rare feeling for me. But it was confusing to be surrounded by so many similar to me and yet so different in the things we believed. I felt strangely safe but uncomfortable within the safety. 

That feeling was amplified as speaker after speaker emphasized the work that the second Trump administration has done and will do for Jews and the strong relationship between Israel and the United States. 

On a main stage panel in the Potomac ballroom, Vice President J.D. Vance spoke with conservative media personality Mercedes Schlapp about policies rolled out during the early days of the Trump administration. He emphasized the efforts that President Trump is making to bring each hostage held by Hamas home.

“Our message to the hostages is that Trump loves you, he hasn’t forgotten about your loved ones, he’s going to fight every day to bring them home,” said Vance.

During another panel, Israelis Gal Gilboa-Dalal and Adi Alexander spoke about their experience as family members of hostages. “Everyone can do something and we have the responsibility to do all we can to bring them back — and together we will,” said Giboa-Dalal. Both men placed their trust in President Trump to get this done. 

As a liberal Jewish teen, such statements were difficult to reconcile with so much else of what this administration stands for. I want to believe Vance meant what he said but I don’t know if I can, given the administration’s transactional and impulsive relations with other traditional allies, like members of NATO and even Canada. I want each hostage to be freed and returned to their families, but how can I support a president who is doing so much to hurt our country? 

Having learned about antisemitism and the obstacles Jews of earlier generations faced in hiring and admittance to elite schools, I support the aims of DEI and see its dismantlement as a disaster for other historically disadvantaged groups and our country as a whole. I worry kids around the country won’t be allowed to express their true identity and we will all be less immersed in diverse environments. 

Similarly, I worry that his rollback in health policies — like slashing billions of dollars for cancer research at the National Institutes of Health or appointing a vaccine skeptic like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary —  are dangerous for our country’s overall wellbeing. 

After the conference, I debriefed with a few of my Jewish classmates. “It was disappointing to see that many Jews there because Judaism is about love and peace and the conservative party harbors a lot of hate of groups of people who have been historically marginalized,” said Lyla Santemma, a junior at Fieldston. 

Another one of my Jewish classmates couldn’t get over how she could be so similar to people and so different at the same time.  “It was very disheartening to be around Jewish people who I knew I couldn’t connect with, at least not about our values,” said Alexa Citron, a senior. 

For me, this was really my biggest takeaway. It wasn’t about politics, but just about our community overall. It was troubling to be around so many fellow Jews with whom I disagree so completely. It was also eye-opening, and reminded me that the Jewish community is not a monolith, and that there is a benefit in getting outside our political bubbles, no matter the side we are on. That being said, I am going to continue to fight for what I believe in, from DEI to Israel, and pray that the values of decency and diversity prevail in the years to come.