Vice President JD Vance is facing criticism from Jewish commentators over comments he made about the nature of antisemitism during a closed-door appearance before the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas this week.

Speaking with RJC chairman Norm Coleman at the group's National Leadership Summit, Vance described "blood libel" as the essential core of antisemitism, defining it broadly as the idea that a person is guilty of a crime "because of your genetics... your blood... your ancestry," rather than anything they actually did. He tied this to Christian theology, invoking the concept of Imago Dei — that people are made in the image of God — as common ground he said Jews and Christians share, and argued that this shared belief makes the Christian gospel "the solution" to antisemitism. He also linked rising antisemitism in the U.S. to immigration policy, saying it grows when the country absorbs groups that bring foreign ethnic rivalries with them.

The remarks, made off the record but later obtained and published in full by The Daily Wire, are being challenged by critics who note that "blood libel" has a specific, well-documented historical meaning: the medieval antisemitic accusation that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals — a libel that fueled violent pogroms across Europe for centuries, from the 1144 case of William of Norwich onward. Critics argue Vance's framing — reducing the term to "guilt by ancestry" in general — either glosses over or misunderstands that specific historical content, and note that Vance has previously used "blood libel" loosely, including to describe criticism of ICE, drawing similar objections from Jewish commentators at the time.