“Make Gaza Jewish Again.”
That was a shirt worn by Prager University personality Xaviaer DuRousseau, 27, in a picture posted to X on Feb. 29. DuRousseau explained in the post that he didn’t mean it literally, but it didn’t matter. The post received two million views on X … and a lot of backlash.
“Oh, that shirt did start some controversy, didn’t it?” DuRousseau laughed as he did a sit-down interview with the Journal inside the PragerU headquarters. He recalled “thousands of people” cussing him out on social media over that shirt, including some Jews who thought it was “too aggressive.” Even Marissa Streit, the CEO of PragerU, told DuRousseau that she thought the shirt was a bit much. But DuRousseau said he “would do it again.”
“(Israel) simply wants to exist in peace, simply wants their hostages back and go on to its regular way of life … this is terrorism versus democracy.”
In his social media post wearing the shirt, DuRousseau qualified it by stating: “I am not calling for the harm, exile, or hatred for anyone in Gaza. The meaning of my shirt is returning Israel to a unified state that welcomes and values cultural diversity and peace.” He explained further to the Journal that some people took it “too literally.” “They think it means to have all these Jewish people living in Gaza. I don’t even think that’s necessary,” DuRousseau contended. “I don’t even think that’s safe for the Jews.” DuRousseau also believes that there should still be a Palestinian territory in the Gaza Strip with a degree of separation between it and Israel. DuRousseau is simply calling for Israel to have some influence over Gaza in order to make it “a better place.”
“I would want the Palestinians to acquiesce a bit more to just having some type of agreement with Israel to be like, okay we’re going to help you get food, water, and electricity again, but there is a no-tolerance, no BS [policy] when it comes to terrorism,” he elaborated. “The terrorism has to stop.”
DuRousseau acknowledged that the shirt is “polarizing,” but felt like it was necessary because “sometimes you have to do something very bold and borderline polarizing in order to start the conversation.” “That’s what it did: I got people talking,” he said. “I got people realizing … would you rather Gaza stayed the same? Would you rather Gaza even be the same as it was on Oct. 6? Because I don’t. It’s not because the Muslims are there; it’s because there’s a terrorist regime there.”
DuRousseau’s well-trafficked videos on social media (he has more than 150,000 followers on X and Instagram) feature the PragerU personality advocating for Israel and against antisemitism as well as criticizing Black Lives Matter (BLM), COVID-19 mandates, and affirmative action. And on April 2, PragerU released DuRousseau’s 16-minute documentary “100 Days after October 7” about DuRousseau’s visit to Israeli communities that were devastated on Oct. 7.
Four years ago, all of this would have been nearly unfathomable to DuRousseau, who at the time was a self-described woke BLM activist. “I always describe my backstory as ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ but backwards,” DuRousseau said, explaining that he was born in the South Side of Chicago — then the most dangerous neighborhood in the city — to a “radical leftist” father and liberal mother. When his eldest brother got into trouble, the family moved “to the middle of nowhere cornfields” in Pontiac, a city in central Illinois. “At the time it was about 10,000 people — 95% white — and because of the differences, I was always told to focus on skin color and race and all of that,” DuRousseau said. “So I was always really woke as a kid, just because this is what I was led to believe.” College further hardened his woke leftist beliefs.
DuRousseau’s political shift began during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when out of boredom he applied — and was accepted — to star in a Netflix reality show to teach people how to be a woke BLM activist and ally. Because of the months-long wait for the show to start due to COVID restrictions, DuRousseau delved into counterarguments against BLM so he could better argue in favor of the cause. “There was a particular video I saw from Candace Owens about BLM that completely enraged me,” recalled DuRousseau, prompting him to want to debate Owens and completely debunk the arguments put forward by PragerU, Owens’ employer at the time.
“In the process of studying all the counterarguments, I ended up debunking the entire narrative that I had been indoctrinated with,” DuRousseau said. “So I accidentally red-pilled myself … I learned you have a way greater chance of being struck by lightning — as a black man –– than being shot and killed by the police. And that blew my mind, because I was under the impression that police officers were hunting down black people, and that I was going to go outside and become the next Black Lives Matter hashtag. And what I quickly realized is that that couldn’t be further from the case … if anything I just became more grateful for how far our country has come.”
Three days before the Netflix show was about to start filming, DuRousseau backed out; at the urging of a friend, he began making videos to share the information he had learned. He posted his first video in February 2021: “30 different issues that are more relevant today to the black community before we should even be talking something like white supremacy, and that video just blew up. And the rest is history.”
How did this “red-pilling” result in DuRousseau becoming a staunch Zionist advocate? He was initially “confused” about how to view Israel due to the “conflicting narratives” that were “deeply muddied with propaganda.” When he was a BLM activist, “I just didn’t bother,” he said; he could only fight so many fights. But after his political awakening, DuRousseau leaned toward the pro-Israel side because it seemed to him that Israel was always on the defense in response to Palestinian terror “but I didn’t really understand it.” In the summer of 2023 DuRousseau visited Israel for the first time through a trip organized and coordinated by PragerU, and having become “ten times more excited” about the idea after going to a Shabbat dinner.
“I was fascinated by, first of all, just the depth of the tradition,” he said. “I was just in love with the fact that Jewish people worldwide can be in a synagogue anywhere and they are still studying the same part of the Torah all simultaneously, like that just seemed so unified and strong to me.” He also found it “beautiful” to learn about the various songs and traditions at a Shabbat dinner that date back thousands of years. “The core values, the core principles, the core traditions are consistent,” DuRousseau said. “And everybody can at least agree on the core values. And that made me just really respect the Jewish community more than ever.”
“Never once did it go through my head like, ‘Oh they’re all looking at me like I’m a weird black guy,’ because first of all, I saw a bunch of black people there, which was something I didn’t expect to see … But it was a pleasant surprise.”
DuRousseau fell in love with Israel during his first trip, which lasted 10 days. “It was my best vacation ever,” he said. “We were there for 10 days, and I was in love with the food, with the culture … just learning how everything that I had heard about Israel couldn’t be further from the truth.” DuRousseau was also “in awe of the night life” and of the Shuk (market). “I just loved everybody I interacted with, and never once did it go through my head like, ‘Oh they’re all looking at me like I’m a weird black guy,’ because first of all, I saw a bunch of black people there, which was something I didn’t expect to see,” he said. “But it was a pleasant surprise.”
The first nine days “felt like a dream.” But on the final day of the trip, DuRousseau received a “wake-up call” about the danger that Israel faces when he was touring near Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. “In the middle of the tour, I hear the loudest explosion I’ve ever heard in my life,” DuRousseau explained, “and the ground starts shaking.” And then another even louder explosion occurred, prompting DuRousseau to start panicking. He later learned that the explosions were due to Israel retaliating against Hezbollah’s failed missile strikes by firing cannon shots into Lebanon.
“The thought of having to teach my child that the world hates you because of your heritage and you have to get used to hearing war, that broke my heart, and I’m glad that it did.“
But what stood out to DuRousseau was watching a woman attempt to console her sobbing nine-year-old daughter when the explosions went off. “It dawned on me in that moment that this is the reality of growing up in Israel,” he said, adding that “as joyful as these people are … they’re constantly under attack and constantly having to defend themselves. And the thought of being a parent — because I would love to be a father one day — but the thought of having to teach my child that the world hates you because of your heritage and you have to get used to hearing war, that broke my heart, and I’m glad that it did. Because had I left Israel without that experience, I would have left an almost too idealistic view of what the Middle East is like.”
DuRousseau also received a rude awakening to the reality of antisemitism after posting on social media that he was visiting Israel. “Just me posting that I went got me so much backlash,” he said. “I’m talking hundreds of people mad at me just for going, cursing me out, saying things like, ‘Why would you go there? You know they hate black people there, Israel is a racist country,’ all of this stuff. I’m like, well I’m here, and nobody’s been to mean to me, everybody’s been very nice to me.” He was subjected to various terms he had to Google like “Shabbos goy” and “good goyim.” “I asked my Jewish friends, is antisemitism still that big of a deal today? Because I was under the impression that people weren’t corny like that anymore,” DuRousseau said. What makes him want to use “corny” to describe prejudice? “Because: why? It’s just… grow up. It’s 2024. Why are you being prejudiced? It’s so unnecessary.”
So DuRousseau doubled down by discussing Israel and the Jewish community during one of his “Walk With Me” videos, where he talks about serious topics while drinking an Erewhon smoothie and donning AirPods — (he describes it as a “funny Gen Z kind of way” of going about it). In a video he posted in August, DuRousseau said: “So a lot of people think that Jewish people are corrupt because a lot of them hold powerful positions, but to me that just sounds like bitterness and jealousy, because Jewish people know how to work hard. They know how to move in silence because wealth whispers, and Jewish people have values that elevate their community. Meanwhile, too many other communities are focused on dragging each other back down to the ghetto … if anything we should be taking notes on how they have continued to elevate their community in the face of adversity.” As for Israel: “I just find it funny how all these Middle Eastern Muslim countries are unproblematic apparently but Israel, the one Jewish country, is not allowed to exist. If you have a problem with a nation that minds its business but stands on its values and stands its ground, just say that.” Of course “it triggered the antisemites — which I knew it would — but it was the beginning of me standing with the Jewish community,” DuRousseau told the Journal.
And then the Oct. 7 massacre happened. “I remember it so vividly,” DuRousseau recalled. “I had company in town that had flown in, and I’m sitting there on my couch and I start seeing all the headlines … I just couldn’t believe it.” Having just visited Israel, his mind “began racing” as he frantically redownloaded WhatsApp to see if the friends that he had just made in the Jewish state were okay. Du
-Rousseau ended doing a live stream with his friend Adam Scott Bellos, who hosts the “Unfiltered with Adam” podcast. “He’s in tears telling me what’s going on out there, just giving me the reality,” DuRousseau said, “and I’m someone who always has something to say, but at this moment I was speechless.”
Hours later, the PragerU influencer noticed that the online narrative began turn against Israel. “These people are being slaughtered, raped, beheaded and massacred, and y’all over here are saying that they deserved it or that it didn’t happen?” DuRousseau said of the anti-Israel narrative following Oct. 7 that was fermenting online. “So what is it that we’re looking at these video footages?” One of the first videos he saw from Oct. 7 was the video of a woman (later identified to be Shany Louk, 23) “who looked like she had been violently raped, beaten and battered” being paraded through the Gaza Strip. “There is no situation where that’s acceptable,” DuRousseau said. “That’s not resistance. That’s terrorism.”
At that point, he knew he had to fight back against the anti-Israel narrative and that there is “nothing more important” than discussing the situation in Israel. DuRousseau views it as “an American issue” because there are still Americans being held hostage by Hamas and Israel is an important ally to the United States for geopolitical reasons as well as the fact that Israel shares America’s Judeo-Christian values.
“You got Russia who’s mad at us for supporting Ukraine, you have China that’s been salivating at the thought of invading and taking over Taiwan, you have Iran who still wants to get their revenge on the United States and eliminate all of Western culture,” DuRousseau said. “If you take Israel out, you have all of the Middle Eastern region — led by Iran, plus Russia and China who both want to be the global power — those are three ginormous allies who would come after America potentially if World War 3 were to pop off … if you think about that, we would need somewhere even just to base. How are we going to fight in the Middle East if we don’t have Israel to put our equipment and our intelligence and all of that?”
Thus, he has been churning out video after video in defense of Israel, all of which have gone viral, although he now has “to take extra precautions” due to receiving multiple threats. But DuRousseau refuses to live in fear. “I am very confident that God’s plan will protect me.”
“It was the first time in my life I feel like I looked evil right in the eye. I was in disbelief hearing the stories of what happened there.”
Simply getting the message out there wasn’t enough for DuRousseau — it was important for him to visit Israel again during the country’s darkest hour, and through a friend he was able to join a trip with the Young Jewish Conservatives (sponsored by the World Zionist Organization) in January. While his first trip to Israel may have felt like a dream, the second time around was “very intense” and “a whirlwind of emotions” as DuRousseau sought to document the situation on the ground and provide a global message of solidarity with the Jewish community. They visited various communities that were ravaged on Oct. 7, including Kfar Aza and Ofakim, both of which can be seen in his documentary. “It was the first time in my life I feel like I looked evil right in the eye,” he said. “I was in disbelief hearing the stories of what happened there.”
One particular moment that stood out to him was when he was standing outside of a safe room at Ofakim. Prior to Oct. 7, Hamas knew in that part of the neighborhood were older people who would all go to that safe room, so the terrorists set up a trap so they could gun them down as they attempted to flee into the safe room. In that safe room, DuRousseau found a crayon drawing by children who were hiding in there, clearly “just coloring trying to appease their anxiety” in such a perilous situation. “When I walked out of there, I heard kids laughing and playing at a playground about a hundred feet away,” DuRousseau recounted. “Now this was 99 days after Oct. 7, and hearing these kids laughing and playing, something clicked for me how real this was. Some of those kids might not have parents anymore. Some of those kids watched people die. Some of those kids probably watched their siblings die. Some of those kids might have been shot … they are still in this community trying to enjoy life. How do you smile again after going through something like that? It broke my heart,” he said, struggling with his emotions. “It was the most complicated emotion I’ve ever felt. It made me happy to hear these kids be joyful and not be perpetually sad, but at the same time, it was just very disheartening to know what they’ve gone through.”
DuRousseau further remembered visiting a hotel where members of a devastated community from Oct. 7 are taking refuge and talking to children who were orphaned as a result of Oct. 7. “They just got so angry,” DuRousseau said, “and these kids couldn’t have been more than six years old. They were very little kids and they were literally grabbing their hair, pulling it out, one of them was shaking, one of them went mute … and the ones that were talking were talking about how angry they are at Hamas for doing this, and it clicked for me … the same heaviness that Holocaust survivors went through, these kids are now survivors of.” So now DuRousseau wonders how that anger the children are feeling — which he says is justified — will manifest as time goes on. “I have no idea how much your anger can fester after witnessing something like that at such a young age,” he said. “That really scares me for the next generation, what their perspective of the world is going be.”
And then there was the site of the Nova music festival. In the documentary, DuRousseau stands next to a picture of David Newman, explaining that he was an American-Israeli who was murdered by Hamas at the festival and that he used his stature to shield his girlfriend from Hamas; Newman’s girlfriend survived. The couple, in their 20s, had been planning on getting an apartment together. “This is a human being. This is a humanitarian problem, and we can’t let stories like David Newman’s go untold,” DuRousseau says in the documentary.
After taking a moment to gather his emotions, DuRousseau told the Journal about his visit to the site of the festival: “Seeing the gunshots, seeing the blood splatter, seeing the photos of who these people were, learning their ambitions, learning that some of these people were young and had just gotten engaged and had their whole lives ahead of them and that it was taken away from them so abruptly … I’m 27 years old. If I lived in Israel, there’s a chance I would have been at a festival like this. I would have been out there having a good time or in a kibbutz like this, in a young person’s community. And to know that these people were just minding their business, living their lives, and seeing what happened, it broke me. It really destroyed me … and to know that there’s people in the world who either, one, deny that this happened or two, encourage it to continue to happen… it really just made me concerned about human nature overall.”
He also realized that he had been erring in referring to the conflict as “complex,” when it’s actually quite simple: on one side are “musty genocidal terrorists” who are “murdering their own people” and inciting hatred against Jews worldwide, while the other side “simply wants to exist in peace, simply wants their hostages back and go on to its regular way of life … this is terrorism versus democracy.”
If he had to describe the difference between his first and second trips to Israel, it would be that the first trip showed him “the joy of Israel” and the second showed him “the heart.” He explained how people he met treated him like family, and seeing at the site of the Nova festival a large group of people who didn’t know each other gather in a circle where they sang, prayed and heard each other’s stories. “That’s resilience,” DuRousseau said. “It was profound to me.”
Immediately after his second trip to Israel, DuRousseau attended a screening in New York City (through The Philos Project, a Christian Middle East advocacy nonprofit) of the 47-minute compilation of bodycam video from Hamas terrorists documenting the carnage of Oct. 7. DuRousseau still loses sleep after watching the film. “If I hear even the most faint noise in my building, my mind just races … the thought of the terrorists coming in and doing what they did, the trauma of that is just so insane,” he said, describing the footage as “the most gruesome acts of violence that I ever could fathom.” “Watching someone’s head be sliced off, seeing the before and after of groups of women being violently raped and seeing the blood, seeing people shot at point blank range,” DuRousseau said, needing another deep breath before he could continue. And the Hamas terrorists mocked their victims while doing so, as the film shows terrorists taunting two young children whose father was just blown up by a Hamas grenade; the grenade also blinded one of the children.
DuRousseau couldn’t “wrap my head around” the fact that the Hamas terrorists committing these atrocities were in the 18-20-year-old range or in their late 20s who subsequently called their parents to excitedly tell them about the Jews they murdered in the name of Allah. “That made me sick,” DuRousseau said. “Because I’m like, there’s no way their parents are proud. But they were. And the mom is crying tears of joy they’re so proud, and the father’s saying how they’re so proud of their kids for killing these Jews and for living out these acts of violence, that to me was unspeakable. Unspeakable level of generational evil. And it showed to me how deeply ingrained hatred is to these people.”
Before his second trip to Israel, Streit told him that he would be safer in the Jewish state than in Los Angeles — and DuRousseau believes she was right. “These soldiers are there to protect us. They’re there with their guns to make sure that we’re not caught off guard again,” DuRousseau claimed. “And the people of Israel … they’re just good-natured people. I’m not concerned about being robbed and kidnapped and all these different things from the Israelis. But in L.A., it’s a free-for-all.”
He further alleged that the Israeli app alerting people about incoming rockets “is nearly as active as the Citizen app in L.A.,” which informs users about crimes happening in Los Angeles. “I feel like every 30 minutes I’m getting a notification about some maniac or some criminal or something’s happening … someone said a Christmas tree was on fire in front of my house recently,” DuRousseau said. “People are just always doing something crazy … it’s not safe here in our major cities anymore.”
DuRousseau’s thoughts on BLM Chicago and Los Angeles making social media posts in support of Hamas following Oct. 7? “It’s a very circular issue as to why people of the likes of BLM stand with Hamas,” he opined. “Woke ideology and social justice has become people’s new religion, and there is nothing in the world that will lead people to do irrational things without questioning it more than religion. And if you manipulate someone religiously, you can get them to do some very powerful and awful things.”
To adherents of the “woke religion,” all one has to do is claim that the Palestinians are being oppressed, and “any detail after that no longer matters to these people … they are dead set and dead-focused on eliminating who they view as an oppressor,” argued DuRousseau.
He wished “more black people understood the history of Israel and understood [that] there are so many black people in Israel, there’s so much history even within that to unpack. It makes all the sense in the world for black and Jewish people to stand together.”
While DuRousseau has gotten “a lot of backlash” from the black community over his work, he also has received “a lot of curiosity … particularly because there are prominent black conservative commentators that have completely different takes on Israel and what’s going on than I do, and because for the most part I’ve been aligned and in agreement with certain other large black political commentators that they’re kind of shocked to see the divide.” He added that he wished “more black people understood the history of Israel and understood [that] there are so many black people in Israel, there’s so much history even within that to unpack. It makes all the sense in the world for black and Jewish people to stand together.”
DuRousseau understands the importance of the digital war for Israel and the Jewish community, as he learned from a Holocaust museum how “decades” of propaganda brainwashed people into thinking that Jews were “vermin,” and thus “nobody cared” about what happened to the Jews in Nazi Germany. “Information is more accessible than ever before, which means propaganda is more available and easy to distribute than ever before,” said DuRousseau, “so part of my stance in this fight is: I have to fight the propaganda. Bad things only happen when not enough good people are there to step up and stop it.”
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