JNS
JNS sought comment from the conservative student organization, cofounded by the late Charlie Kirk, about how the Jew-hatred was allowed a platform to begin with.
A staffer at Turning Point USA spoke to organizers of an antisemitic booth, in full view of JNS, at the student movement’s America Fest event in Phoenix, after which JNS saw booth occupants remove a statement on a screen that directed a homophobic slur at Jewish commentator and Daily Wire cofounder Ben Shapiro.
The offensive statement was displayed in an outside vendor’s “prove me wrong” booth—as a topic ostensibly for attendees to debate with the booth organizers—on the second day of the conference, held Dec. 18-21, which drew 31,000 people, including about 10,000 students, according to Turning Point.
A student associated with the booth, who said that he is 19 but turned his badge around so that JNS couldn’t identify him, declined to give his name but said that it was his idea to display the slur about Shapiro and he typed it out.
The unnamed student told JNS that he meant it “as a joke.”
The prior night, Shapiro had delivered a speech, in which he decried Jew-hatred, including in the conservative movement. He gave the talk immediately after an address from Erika Kirk, CEO of Turning Point and widow of the movement’s cofounder Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk was shot and killed as he held an event on a Utah campus on Sept. 10.
On the first day of the conference, the offensive booth—which is distinct from the conference’s official “prove me wrong display”—stated on a screen that “Israel is not America’s greatest ally.”
Emilio Martinez, who told JNS that the booth in question was his, sat in front of the screen and shouted into a microphone that Israel could have killed Charlie Kirk and that the Israeli intelligence agency had advanced knowledge of the al-Qaeda terror attack on the World Trade Center in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001.
The booth also displayed posters stating “deport all illegals” and “abortion kills more than guns.” There were two chairs set up with microphones. (It developed a reputation as the event’s “groyper” booth, or a site associated with followers of Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.)
Dennis Feitosa, who is running for Congress as a Republican in California’s 30th congressional district, at Turning Point USA's America Fest event in Phoenix, Dec. 19, 2025. JNS has blurred out a homophobic slur. Photo by Audrey Hoffman.
Dennis Feitosa, 40, who is running for Congress as a Republican in California’s 30th congressional district, sponsored the booth, according to Martinez. Feitosa was one of its debaters, and the name of his comedy social media channel, Def Noodles, was displayed on the booth. (JNS sought comment from Feitosa’s campaign and from the California Republican Party.)
Martinez, the other debater, told JNS that “we lean into topics that people don’t want to talk about.”
“What I said was, ‘If they were our greatest ally, why didn’t Mossad, why didn’t they tell us that 9/11 was going to happen?” he told JNS, of Israel. JNS asked if Martinez had evidence that Israel had prior knowledge of the attack. “I said, ‘If they knew,’” he said.
Martinez told JNS that Ben Shapiro “created” Fuentes by pushing him away. JNS sought more information.
“Hitler was upset with the Jews,” he said. “The Jews were the leaders in the socialist movement and the Bolshevik movement.” He added that if Jews could go back in time, they ought to talk to Hitler rather than getting “defensive.”
He also told JNS that “the Jewish question” is “the narrow path that Christians have to walk” to support Israel and Jews while fulfilling their obligation “to tell the world about Jesus.”
JNS asked if he was comfortable using the phrase “Jewish question” given that antisemites have used that term, Martinez said that he aims to “take the word back.” He claimed to have Jewish ancestry and told JNS that “my ancestors were forcibly converted in Spain.”
JNS sought comment from Turning Point about why such blatant antisemitism and Holocaust denial was permitted to have a platform at the event. Turning Point declined to comment.
Some 50 feet from the booth, Generation Zion, a group that formed after Oct. 7 to empower Jews and Christians to confront hatred against both groups and against Israel, had a vendor booth set up.
Emilio Martinez at Turning Point USA's America Fest event in Phoenix, Dec. 19, 2025. Photo by Audrey Hoffman.
Students who are members of the group were debating in favor of Israel and Jews at the antisemitic booth, even as Omer Shem Tov, the liberated Israeli hostage, was interviewed on camera at Generation Zion’s booth. Prior to that interview, he addressed the conference from the main stage, receiving a standing ovation.
Gabriella Magenheim, 21, a student associated with Generation Zion, told JNS antisemitic “groypers” have tried to brainwash students “into literally making you believe Hitler.”
“This is the fight that we’re fighting against the left, and if we have to fight it against the right, that’s fine,” she said. “These are the new Hitler Youth.”
Magenheim told JNS that fighting with a young woman at the event, with a video recording spreading on social media, “wasn’t on my list.”
“But I’m always going to defend the Jewish people,” she said. “I’m always gonna say what’s right.”
Luke Moon, founder and president of Generation Zion, told JNS that the difference between his and the nearby booth is that the pro-Israel one “was respectful.” The other one was “intentionally provocative and antagonistic, and meant to stir up the kind of divisiveness that we’re seeing really promoted here by unsavory elements,” he said.
