If someone had told you two and a half years ago that there would come a day when Emily Austin, a Jewish-American sports journalist, social media influencer and model, and Mosab Hassan Yousef, the "Green Prince" who was previously impossible to book for interviews and now hosts bar mitzvah parties, would sit together in the same Tel Aviv restaurant – you probably would have asked what that person was taking. Then maybe you would have asked who Emily Austin is.
In the past two years, a new breed of celebrities has emerged in Israel and the US – those who have taken it upon themselves to explain Israel to the world since October 7, and are doing the job excellently. Austin is among the most prominent of them. Though she's only 24, she has already become a household name as a leading advocate for Israel against the flood of hatred, filth, and antisemitism.
This week, Austin and Hassan Yousef sat together, alongside a row of leading Hebrew-speaking comedians, in a kind of post-war after-party – trying to understand together where we're going from here, and whether the end of fighting requires fresh thinking about everything related to advocacy.
The non-Jewish guy from college
Austin was born in New York and raised in Brooklyn and Long Island, daughter of an Israeli family of Iraqi origin that settled in the US. She attended the modern Orthodox North Shore Hebrew Academy for high school, and later studied communications at a private university. At age 16, she went with her class on a Holocaust trip to Poland, an experience that, by her account, greatly strengthened her Jewish identity.
When we met her this week on the top floor of the Sheraton Hotel in Tel Aviv, Austin was busy, as always, updating her millions of followers on various social media platforms about her interview with Israel Hayom. During her very brief visit to Israel, she managed to film a sketch for "Eretz Nehederet" playing herself as a new immigrant, upload a considerable amount of photos and videos to social media (she travels with a dedicated videographer), eat a kosher hamburger, meet family and friends, and also meet us for an interview.
When you were a child, did you ever think that at age 24 you'd be dealing with advocacy for the State of Israel, confronting such amounts of hatred, and mainly experiencing antisemitism in your life?
"Never. I grew up in a home where they made it clear to me very quickly that we are Jews and that we love Israel, because we have family and friends there. We celebrated all the holidays, I ate only kosher, I studied at a religious school, and walked around with my Star of David necklace.
"Antisemitism? Once, in college, a guy started with me, and I told him we couldn't date because I'm Jewish and he's Christian. He didn't understand what I meant, and when we met a year later, he called me 'kike.' I was shocked, smiled at him, and said, 'That's really not funny.' He said to me, 'You were condescending to me, you said you're above me because you're Jewish and you're better than me. You think you're better than everyone.' And suddenly I understood what he was referring to and why he was actually attacking me. For me, when I told him we couldn't date, it wasn't from a place of superiority, but because of the way I was raised and educated. But then I understood how he interpreted it.
"What I took from that incident is that I, as a Jew, have double responsibility, and I represent something bigger than just myself. I can't talk like that to people, because they won't understand what I mean, and it could create damage and hurt others. But until that incident, I had never felt antisemitism. I knew we were Jews, and every summer vacation we would come for a two-month visit to Israel, which for me meant lots of schnitzel and beach paddles."
Then on October 7, the bubble burst.
"I didn't understand what was happening. At first, when I watched television, I still accepted the narrative of the various channels and thought Israel was to blame for something. Then I understood what was happening and realized this was a battle for home, because what they told us on television wasn't what every person understood immediately – they murdered and kidnapped people here, how can you justify such a thing?!
"It seemed logical to me, like any normal person, to post something for the hostages, because it was the right thing to do. Not just as a Jew, but in general. But we quickly understood that wasn't the situation. At first, they still supported us, but the discourse in the US changed very quickly. I started getting responses on social media that I'm a 'Zionist pig,' that I support an apartheid state.
"First of all, I grew up thinking that Zionism isn't a stream in Judaism, but that Israel is the Jewish state, and I'd never heard the word 'apartheid' in my life, certainly not in the context of Israel. So I understood something was happening, and the need to explain what was happening just burned in me."
Did you pay a price for showing support for Israel?
"I have 3 million followers on Instagram and another half million followers on TikTok, and they stayed with me, because they were my asset from before. But then the phone calls started coming about cancellations from companies I worked with.
"For example, I had a contract with Puma, and I was at a stage in my career where everything was taking off – and here, in one moment, everything collapsed and disappeared. In a sense, that very day when everything disappeared from me was the beginning of the two best years I've had in my career in terms of exposure and followers, and the worst I've had in my life as a Jewish girl. The two are intertwined.
"I'll give another example: I was a judge in the Miss Universe pageant. The beauty queen who represented Israel spoke to me about what was happening, and I heard in her voice that she was worried. I asked the contest managers to say something that would note what happened in Israel, to express some kind of solidarity on social media, which is the minimal thing they could do.
"They explained to me that everyone needs to feel comfortable in the contest and that it's forbidden to harm the security of the contestants, so they wouldn't raise the issue and wouldn't say anything. So I told them, 'Yes, but the Israeli contestant doesn't feel secure.' It was clear this was over between us, but I really didn't care."
Host of football events
Her meteoric rise must be understood: After completing her communications studies, Austin had already launched a popular independent interview show featuring NBA stars from her Instagram page at the age of 21. The idea had come to her during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The beautiful and audacious girl, who possessed a keen understanding of basketball, immediately attracted the attention of decision-makers on various channels. Later, she began broadcasting an interview show called "The Emily Austin Show," and all the big league stars came to her to be interviewed. She worked for Sports Illustrated, hosting football events, and appeared regularly on MTV, as well as hosting a popular basketball podcast. She also wrote for Newsweek magazine and frequently appeared as a panelist on the conservative Fox News Channel.
In the past two years, after she began expressing her opinions and worldview, Austin connected to her roots in a way she had never thought about - as an Israel advocate. She serves as a communications consultant to the Israeli delegation at the UN; changes the minds of NBA stars who call to ask her questions about the situation; became one of the leading supporters of President Trump, who thanked her for her efforts; and now she's part of the support campaign for independent candidate Andrew Cuomo in next week's New York City mayoral elections, which are stirring the Jewish world – yes, the fateful elections where the anti-Israeli Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani is leading.
Curses on mobile alongside support
This week, as she walked around the Carmel Market, Tel Avivians surrounded her with love, and even gave her yarmulkes with the portrait of the US president, so she could pass them to Trump the next time she meets him.
Now that the war in Gaza has ended, or at least been halted, how do you think your advocacy battles will look? It seems we're at the threshold of a new struggle.
"I want to throw the word 'advocacy' out of the discourse. It's over, I'm sick of it, I'm not willing to hear about it anymore. We don't need to explain anything else – the war is over. What do I need to explain, the existence of the State of Israel? If they ask me something related to Israel's existence, I'll simply answer: Just because. We're done explaining to the world that we have been a state since 1948."
How can you say such a thing when even you yourself continue to pay a price every day for your support of Israel?
"You mean every minute, not every day. Look what's happening to me on my phone, in the messages I'm getting right now."
Austin pulls out her mobile phone and shows her inbox. On one side, curses and racial and antisemitic slurs. On the other hand, support from Jews and non-Jews. Exactly half and half.
"This has been like this for two years. Those who want to talk, I talk with them and explain to them. There's a lot of ignorance in the US, and those who want to listen – I'll usually convince them to support Israel. This happened to me with basketball stars and coaches as well. When they tell me 'Israel is a racist state,' I show them photos and data of blacks or Arabs who work and live in Israel, and then they just shut up. Some actually continue to attack, and then I understand it's something basic from them against Jews, and not really related to October 7."
How secure do you feel in the US today?
"Look, as long as Donald Trump is in power, I know I can walk around with my Star of David without any problem anywhere, and even if people think what they think, they won't say anything. As long as the Republicans are in power, we can be calm, and even when Vice President JD Vance replaces Trump in the future, the situation will be the same. But what will happen after that? What future do we Jews have in the US?
"There are nights when, before I fall asleep, I think where we would be now as Jews, where the Israelis would be, if Kamala Harris had been elected president and not Trump. It's terrifying to think that she or someone like her would be president of the US. We Republicans believe in law, believe in our police and in state institutions, but with the Democrats, everything happened in reverse, especially in my generation, Gen Z."
The future indeed doesn't look bright, certainly not in the US, and particularly not in New York, where you work and operate.
"At least one prominent thing we took off the table: there's no such thing as hating Israel and saying 'but I have no problem with Jews.' That's nonsense, we understood that. They hate us, like they always hate us. I saw this already in Operation Protective Edge in 2014, when they explained to me they have no problem with me but with Israel's policy, and I still thought then that maybe there was something in what they were saying.
"In high school, I was on a trip to the extermination camps in Poland, and that was a life-changing experience for me. But it was portrayed as something from the distant past, something less relevant to my current life, as an American Jew. I felt that such things couldn't happen today, and that they were mainly related to my basic identity, rather than an existential threat to me.
"Now we're talking about a different reality. When you tell me that in your travels abroad, you change your name to another name in the travel booking app, aren't we in 1930s Berlin? That's it, we're giving up to them? We went back to being ashamed of being Jews? No way! And if we pay a price for it, then we pay. But we won't let them win."
The sketch about Yad Vashem
As mentioned, this week Austin filmed for "Eretz Nehederet," alongside Omer Zion playing Donald Trump, in a sketch showing what will happen if Mamdani, the Muslim candidate likely to win the Big Apple mayoral election, actually wins – and she'll be forced to immigrate to the Holy Land. Additionally, she's expected to appear in a new film project produced by Yoav Gross, which will focus on the Mossad's pager operation that dismantled Hezbollah a year ago. She is also expected to continue participating in important ceremonies and conferences throughout the US.
In the world we live in, and certainly in American culture, the battle for young people is waged through social media. Austin, together with many others, stands at the forefront of the struggle, even though it sometimes seems that in the flood of ignorance and lack of knowledge in American society, we're talking about a battle that will never really end. At least it led her to film for Israel's leading satire show.
Did you know "Eretz Nehederet"? Did you dream that life would lead you to participate in it?
"Since I was a child, I dreamed of participating in 'Eretz Nehederet.' My parents watched it regularly, and when I didn't understand the jokes in Hebrew, they made sure to explain them to me. Every week we would sit and watch together.
"There was one sketch I kept returning to, about Project Taglit. You see American teenagers visiting Yad Vashem, and they don't understand what Yad Vashem is – yet they sing and dance. My parents would tell me, 'Look, you'll be like them,' and laugh. I always explained to everyone around me that 'Eretz Nehederet' is Israel's 'Saturday Night Live,' but since most of the time I was the only Jew and Israeli in the environment, they didn't understand what I wanted from them.
"When Molly Segev called me and invited me to come film – I knew this was something I had to do, because I've been dreaming about it for years."
"Whoever doesn't vote – will regret it"
Let's return to seriousness for a moment: Mamdani's expected election should worry us, shouldn't it?
"Absolutely, it's very worrying. I'm working with many others, so he loses the election, but the polls show he's about to win. My generation believes that candidates who make promises without backing them up are the epitome of this. Free public transportation, freezing vegetable and fruit prices, fundamental change in police structure. New York could become Gotham City.
"I'm going crazy from one thing: how do only a million Jews in the largest Jewish city in the world come out to vote? Where are all the other millions? It's like they don't care. Only on the Democratic side are they excited about Mamdani's promises, and feel sorry for him when he tells how Muslims suffered from Islamophobia after the 9/11 attacks. You understand where we've reached? Ultimately, he's the victim in the story. But believe me, if he's elected, all the Jews who didn't vote will regret it very much. Some of them will find themselves very quickly on the plane to Israel, immigrating – and not for the right reasons."
And what about you? Are you thinking of immigrating to Israel? You eat kosher, didn't date a non-Jewish guy in college. Come on, you'll have schnitzel and beach paddles here for free.
"I'll tell you the truth: I'm American. Israel, for me, is the home of summer months, and of the best experiences I had in childhood, but I tremble with fear every time I'm here.
"I travel to places and check how far they are from the West Bank, how far they are from Gaza. Look how many enemies there are around, and if that's not enough, there are also sirens from Yemen.
"It's clear to me that I'll continue coming here even when I'm a mother, with my children. But I'm aware of the reality around me, of course. If the situation under Mamdani worsens – I won't wait like the Jews in Germany for them to come take me, I'll know to flee in time. This time, unlike the past, we have a state. In my dreams, I run for president of the US. If someone like Kamala Harris ran, there's no reason I shouldn't run."
