Candace Owens, moral confusion, and Jewish lawyers

There are moments in Jewish history when confusion becomes more dangerous than hatred.

This is one of those moments.

Because when an antisemite attacks Jews, we know what we are facing. But when Jews themselves provide cover, legitimacy, and defense to those who spread that hatred, something far more dangerous is taking place. This week, we crossed that line.

A prominent, high-profile Jewish attorney — someone publicly known as a proud Zionist — has chosen to defend Candace Owens in her legal battle over her grotesque defamation of France’s first lady, Brigitte Macron.

Let us not dress this up in polite language. This is not professionalism. This is not neutrality. This is not “just doing a job.” This is moral surrender.

And the question that must now be asked — plainly, urgently, and without apology — is this: Why would any Jewish lawyer take her money and compromise his or her moral standards?

Candace Owens is being sued by President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, for spreading the vile lie that France’s First Lady is secretly a man. This is not commentary. This is not skepticism. This is humiliation for profit.

Brigitte Macron — a dignified woman, a wife, a grandmother — has been turned into a global spectacle of degradation by someone who thrives on outrage.

I stood with her at Auschwitz during the commemoration of the liberation of the death camp. I saw her reverence for the memory of the murdered. And now she is being dragged through the mud for clicks.

Let the courts decide her fate. But the deeper issue is what this moment reveals about us.

Candace Owens has built a brand not on ideas, but on hatred. She invokes the phrase “synagogue of Satan.” She traffics in conspiracies about Jewish power. She demonizes Israel in language designed to inflame. And she goes further — into territory that should horrify anyone with even a basic understanding of Jewish history.

She has accused me personally of drinking Christian blood — a direct echo of the medieval blood libel that fueled centuries of massacres. She has accused Jews of killing President John F. Kennedy.

These are not slips. These are not exaggerations. These are deliberate, repeated accusations, broadcast to millions.

She has smeared Israeli soldiers — including my own children — as genocidal murderers. This is not commentary. This is incitement.

My daughter and I were among the first in the American Jewish community to recognize the danger Candace Owens represents, and to confront it publicly. We did not wait for consensus. We did not hedge. We acted. We exposed her as one of the most demented and unhinged antisemites in America.

That confrontation reached its peak in a televised debate where I faced her directly. Her arguments collapsed so completely that she was reduced, in real time, to searching online — consulting Google and AI in the middle of a live exchange. It was a revealing moment.

But standing up to her came at a cost. It cost me friendships with people I respect and love — individuals who, inexplicably, chose to defend or promote her. Yes, I am speaking about my friend of 40 years, Dennis Prager. Yes, I am speaking about Ben Shapiro.

Why any Jew would support — let alone platform or pay — Candace Owens will forever remain a painful and tragic mystery.

In my book “Kosher Hate,” I argue that Judaism demands moral clarity. We are commanded not only to love good, but to hate evil. Not people indiscriminately — but evil ideas, evil actions, evil movements.

What we are witnessing today is not just the rise of antisemitism. It is the collapse of our willingness to confront it. We have confused tolerance with virtue We have confused civility with cowardice. We have confused professionalism with complicity.

Candace Owens is not simply “someone we disagree with.” She represents a stream of thought that has led to violence against Jews throughout history. And yet, instead of confronting it with moral force, too many have chosen accommodation.

Which brings us back to this week’s scandal. When a proud Jewish Zionist chooses to defend Candace Owens, something profoundly dangerous happens. It grants her legitimacy. It allows her to say, without saying it: “How antisemitic can I be? Look who stands with me.”

This is not just representation. This is validation.

I have seen this pattern before. After being threatened with violence for being openly Jewish and defending Israel, I found myself targeted — not protected — by powerful institutions. And in those moments, too, there were Jews willing to stand on the other side. To defend. To rationalize. To normalize.

This is no longer an anomaly. It is becoming a pattern. And patterns, if left unchecked, become destiny.

We must confront a hard truth. When Jews defend those who attack Jews, the damage is not theoretical. It is real. It erodes our ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood. It weakens our collective defense against hatred. It tells the world that even antisemitism can be negotiated.

Here is the reality we must face: Antisemitism never begins with violence. It begins with words. It continues with normalization. It thrives on indifference. And it escalates — always.

We know this. We have lived this. We have buried six million of our brothers and sisters because the world chose accommodation over confrontation.

And now, in our own time, we are watching something eerily familiar: Hatred repackaged as commentary. Conspiracy repackaged as curiosity. Bigotry repackaged as debate.

And worst of all — we are watching Jews help make it acceptable.

Candace Owens will continue to speak. But the real question is not what she will do. It is what we will tolerate. Will we continue to excuse? Will we continue to rationalize? Will we continue to blur the line? Or will we finally remember who we are?

A people commanded not only to love — but to stand against evil. A people who know the cost of silence. A people who must never again allow hatred to be normalized — especially not with our participation.

Not for money. Not for prestige. Not ever. Because if we do, the next chapter of this story will not be written by historians. It will be lived by our children.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach of Englewood is author of 36 books. Follow him on Instagram and X @RabbiShmuley.

Opinion