Ben M. Freeman is a Scottish-born author and educator whose work focuses on Jewish identity and antisemitism. He wrote Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People (2021), Reclaiming Our Story: The Pursuit of Jewish Pride (2022) and The Jews: An Indigenous People (2025), and writes for the media-monitoring group HonestReporting. He also works as a diversity, equity and inclusion specialist, offering speaking engagements and training on Jewish identity, antisemitism and Holocaust awareness. He is a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy and a columnist for The Jerusalem Post.
Role at the time: Author and writer for HonestReporting
Condemned
Statement summary
Ben M. Freeman wrote in a HonestReporting article that Rula Jebreal's description of Hakeem Jeffries as an "AIPAC monkey" and "errand boy" delivers the two most recognizable slurs in the American vocabulary of anti-Black racism, and that it was not an unfortunate choice of words. He set the remarks against the history of anti-Black racism in the United States and the Arab world.
“When a Black man is called a monkey and a boy, there is no ambiguity. It is not an unfortunate choice of words. It is the two most recognizable slurs in the American vocabulary of anti-Black racism, delivered together, on a podcast that describes itself as being of the left.”
Open source (opens in a new tab)The Historic Racism Behind the 'AIPAC Monkey' SlurSection headed "Racist rhetoric", fourth paragraph
Why we used this label
The case asks whether Rula Jebreal's description of Hakeem Jeffries as an "AIPAC monkey" and "errand boy" was racist. Freeman wrote that when a Black man is called a monkey and a boy there is no ambiguity, and that the words are the two most recognizable slurs in the American vocabulary of anti-Black racism. That expressly rejects the remarks as racist, so we labeled it Condemned.
Rula Jebreal called Hakeem Jeffries a "bought and paid by AIPAC monkey" and an "errand boy" while denying racial intent, then apologized. The Congressional Black Caucus called the words racist; Wajahat Ali and Joy-Ann Reid stressed context but criticized the language.
