The Heritage Foundation’s signature antisemitism project was teetering Tuesday as a flurry of Jewish organizations and leaders decamped over the conservative citadel’s defense of anti-Israel commentator Tucker Carlson.
The Zionist Organization of America said it plans to leave the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, a Heritage-led coalition that unveiled its Project Esther strategy on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre.
“Up until now, ZOA was proud and gratified to be a key participant in the Heritage Foundation’s excellent Esther Project initiative to combat antisemitism,” said ZOA National President Morton Klein in a Tuesday statement. “However, we believe that the Heritage Foundation can no longer capably combat antisemitism while its president defends and allies with leading forces that are defaming Israel and the Jewish people.”
As a result, he said, “ZOA has thus sadly and painfully concluded that we will terminate our participation in Heritage’s Esther Project, unless Heritage President Kevin Roberts publicly and immediately condemns Carlson’s actions and statements; apologizes for Roberts’ video statements; and ends Roberts’ and Heritage’s relationship with Tucker Carlson.”
Mr. Klein added that the “only alternative would be for Kevin Roberts to resign or be removed.”
The departure of the nation’s oldest pro-Israel organization came with at least a half-dozen other members ending or evaluating their involvement with the high-profile task force.
Also tendering its resignation Tuesday was the Baltimore-based Coalition for Jewish Values, which said it “cannot grant legitimacy to an effort to combat antisemitism operated by the Heritage Foundation while Heritage is validating antisemitism and giving it a platform.”
Young Jewish Conservatives on Tuesday said the group has “no choice but to withdraw our membership” in the task force as long as Mr. Roberts “remains at the helm and Heritage continues its alliance with a vocal purveyor of antisemitism.”
Mr. Roberts touched off an uproar on the right by rushing to the defense of Mr. Carlson, saying he will always be a “close friend of the Heritage Foundation” after the former Fox News Channel host was blasted for his friendly interview with Nick Fuentes, a 27-year-old provocateur known for his anti-Israel and antisemitic commentary.
In his Thursday video, Mr. Roberts also took shots at the “globalist class” and “venomous coalition” targeting Mr. Carlson. A day later, the Heritage president issued a second statement condemning Mr. Fuentes.
Even so, National Jewish Advocacy Center CEO Mark Goldfeder resigned from the task force Sunday, calling it “painful” that Heritage would “choose this moment to blur the line between worthwhile debate and the normalization of hate.”
Other organizations severing their ties with Heritage include the Deborah Project and the Israel Forever Foundation, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Project Esther targeted the “Hamas support network” fueling antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment in areas including academia and government, offering a vigorous alternative to the Biden administration’s tepid 2023 National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism.
Heritage had no public comment on the rash of resignations, but the task force’s four co-chairs urged members in an email posted Monday by National Review Online “to give us additional time to work out the practical steps moving forward.”
“We had the opportunity to speak with Kevin Roberts today. He shared his apology about how he has handled this issue, and was very open to our counsel,” said the email.
I canceled an event with the @Heritage Foundation that was supposed to take place this week. ⁰⁰If those who support Tucker Carlson want to see a venomous coalition, they should look themselves in the mirror.
I don’t work with antisemites. pic.twitter.com/zwzKXmboFy
— Congressman Randy Fine (@RepFine) November 3, 2025
Heritage has also been blackballed by Florida Rep. Randy Fine, one of four Jewish Republicans in Congress, who announced at last weekend’s Republican Jewish Coalition conference that he would no longer welcome the foundation’s staffers at his office.
“I was supposed to do an event with Heritage next week. They don’t know what I’m about to tell you. Right now, I’m canceling it,” Mr. Fine said as the crowd cheered, as shown in a video posted on X. “They will have no future in my office, and I will be calling on all my colleagues on the Republican side to do the same.”
He added: “If those who support Tucker Carlson want to see a venomous coalition, all they need to do is go look in the mirror.”
