> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://unhyd.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Jewish American Summit 2026 Examines Who Shapes the Public Conversation - URL: https://unhyd.com/article/jewish-american-summit-2026-los-angeles/ - Published: 2026-09-16T17:10:26.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-01T19:38:40.000Z - Description: The sold-out Los Angeles gathering brought diplomats, entertainment figures, creators and community leaders together to examine antisemitism, civic participation and the changing mechanics of advocacy. - Author: Malin Rasmussen - Tags: Culture, Events, #unhyd-import, #home-featured-slider, #popular-post, #sidebar-popular-posts On August 30, the third annual [Jewish American Summit 2026](https://www.jewishamericansummit.com/?ref=unhyd.com) filled a Westside Los Angeles venue with more than 1,000 attendees, according to organizers. The sold-out gathering brought public officials, entertainment executives, journalists, creators, philanthropists and community leaders into the same program. Its central subject was voice: who has it, how it is used and what happens when institutions no longer control the entire conversation. That question gave the event wider relevance than a conventional community conference. The schedule moved from Hollywood and higher education to diplomacy, California politics and digital advocacy. Across the day, speakers returned to the pressures Jewish Americans face when discussing Israel, antisemitism and identity in public. The summit is an [Aish LA](https://www.aishla.com/?ref=unhyd.com) project, and its pro-Israel perspective was explicit. It was a community and advocacy gathering, rather than a neutral policy forum. That context matters. It also explains why many of the most revealing moments concerned methods: public speech, civic participation, storytelling and the direct reach of personal platforms. ## Hollywood and Campuses Set the Opening Frame Jay Sures, vice chairman and managing director of United Talent Agency and a University of California regent, joined national reporter and anchor Erielle Reshef for a session titled Hollywood, Campus and the Courage to Speak Up. Their conversation placed two influential institutions, entertainment and higher education, inside the same debate about public responsibility. Businessman and philanthropist Adam Milstein later spoke with journalist Jacki Karsh in a discussion that framed antisemitism as an American and Western concern, not solely an issue involving Israel. The program also featured U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in conversation with journalist Stella Inger Escobedo, followed by Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter. The pairing of Hollywood and campus leadership was deliberate. Both settings distribute influence through reputation, networks and public pressure. The summit asked what people inside those systems should do when speaking carries professional or social consequences. It did not offer one universal answer, but it treated silence as a choice with consequences of its own. ![Panelists at the Jewish American Summit 2026](https://storage.ghost.io/c/df/e4/dfe4d080-643c-453a-8a60-0452bdbc0efd/content/images/2026/09/1569cabca4695e89f053.jpg) Courtesy: Jewish American Summit ## Advocacy Is Becoming Personal and Portable The shift was most visible during The New Face of Advocacy. Filmmaker and THINK AGAIN founder Zach Sage Fox, Melanie Shiraz, journalist and writer Luai Ahmed, actor Andy Buckley and IDF veteran Eli Wininger joined entrepreneur Erik Huberman for a conversation about social media, storytelling and public engagement. The panel reflected a basic change in how political and cultural messages circulate. A creator can now reach a large audience without waiting for a newsroom, studio, political party or nonprofit organization to approve the message. That model offers speed and intimacy. It also places more responsibility on the speaker to supply context, verify claims and resist the pressure to turn every complicated subject into instantly shareable content. At the summit, personal platforms were presented as tools for education and mobilization. Their limits deserve attention. Personality-driven feeds can compress disputed history and policy into content built for an immediate emotional response. Even so, the panel captured an important reality: public advocacy now belongs to people who hold attention, not only to officeholders or institutional leaders. ## California Politics Moved Into the Room The program then moved closer to home. California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton and attorney and community advocate Elizabeth Barcohana took part in a conversation titled Fixing California. Dillon Hosier, founding CEO of the Israeli-American Civic Action Network, discussed what voting data may reveal about Jewish political priorities. Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva also made a brief appearance. For a gathering concerned with Jewish identity, the attention to local politics was practical. School boards, city councils, college systems and law enforcement agencies are often where disputes over education, security, public speech and religious life become immediate. National politics may command the largest audience, but local institutions frequently determine how policy is experienced. Later appearances by professor and author Gad Saad and author and activist Mosab Hassan Yousef widened the discussion to empathy, extremism and the personal experiences that shape political conviction. Their inclusion also showed the breadth of the summit's programming, which moved quickly between policy, biography and cultural commentary. ## Why the Gathering Resonated ![Jewish American Summit 2026 attendance](https://storage.ghost.io/c/df/e4/dfe4d080-643c-453a-8a60-0452bdbc0efd/content/images/2026/09/b6d29d33035df2696b9d.jpg) Courtesy: Jewish American Summit The gathering took place amid sustained concern about antisemitism in the United States. The Anti-Defamation League's [2025 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents](https://www.adl.org/resources/report/audit-antisemitic-incidents-2025?ref=unhyd.com) recorded 6,274 incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism. That was 33 percent below the record total reported for 2024, but five times the level recorded a decade earlier. The ADL's count draws on reports from victims, law enforcement, media and partner organizations, so it covers a broader set of incidents than criminal prosecutions alone. Those figures help explain the urgency that organizers and speakers brought to the stage. The summit's response emphasized visibility, coordination and a refusal to withdraw from public life. In a statement after the event, co-founder and co-executive producer Mike Drath said the turnout showed that “Jewish Americans are not going to retreat.” He described JAS as a place for multiple perspectives within a shared community framework. That message became the day's clearest through-line. The subjects varied, but the program consistently treated public participation as something to practice rather than outsource. A media executive, a diplomat, a social creator and a local voter have different forms of influence. JAS placed them on a common continuum and asked what responsible action looks like in each setting. ## The Measure Beyond the Stage After the main program ended at 5:30 p.m., the Layla Lavan Young Professionals Mixer continued on the rooftop with music, [entertainment and networking](https://unhyd.com/article/why-nostalgia-is-the-dominant-force-in-entertainment/). That closing format was more than a social add-on. For a third-year gathering, the relationships formed between sessions may ultimately matter as much as the ideas presented from the stage. JAS 2026 showed there is demand for a Jewish civic space that can accommodate entertainment, politics, philanthropy, faith and digital media in one day. Los Angeles is a fitting setting because those fields already overlap through the city's professional and social networks. The summit assembled those networks around a specific question: how should Jewish Americans use public voice at a moment of heightened pressure? The long-term effect cannot be judged from a single sold-out event. The turnout does, however, show that many attendees wanted a place to move from private concern toward public participation. The next measure will be what they build, publish, organize or change after leaving the room.