Vermont synagogue co-hosts fundraiser for Mohsen Mahdawi amid mounting scrutiny over extremist ties

According to the event listing published on the synagogue's website, the gathering at the Unitarian Universalist Church featured Mahdawi speaking on updates regarding his legal case, alongside guest speakers including constitutional lawyer and civil rights scholar David Cole, Harvard Divinity School Jewish studies professor Shaul Magid, NOFA Vermont executive director Grace Oedel, Vermont-NEA member benefits director Mark Hage, Middlebury College visiting professor Eric Levi Jacobson, and Unitarian Universalist Church minister Rev. Joan Javier-Duval.

Proceeds from the gathering were designated directly for Mahdawi's legal defense fund.

Rather than facing criminal charges, Mahdawi was targeted under a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. Section 1227(a)(4)(C)(i)), which allows the Secretary of State to initiate removal proceedings against a noncitizen whose presence or activities are determined to carry potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.

Mahdawi's detention sparked immediate legal and political challenges. While federal district judges initially intervened to secure his release from custody, the legal landscape shifted significantly in mid-2026. The Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that the government had provided sufficient evidentiary backing for his removal, and an immigration judge officially ordered his deportation to Jordan in June 2026.

Mahdawi subsequently appealed the decision to the US Court of Appeals, while federal appeals panels reinstated aspects of the government's authority regarding his custody status.

While Mahdawi's supporters have widely portrayed him as a progressive student leader targeted for exercising his freedom of speech, investigative work by David Collier and Rachel Feldman paints a portrait that contrasts sharply with that narrative

According to Collier and Feldman's findings, the autobiographical personal narrative Mahdawi has shared across various media outlets, including CBS 60 Minutes and other publications, contains significant factual inconsistencies when cross-referenced against historical records from the Second Intifada, such as B'Tselem casualty databases and weekly updates from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

Specifically, the investigators claim to have found that Mahdawi's accounts regarding childhood incidents, such as the reported death of a best friend and the circumstances surrounding family members killed during the conflict, did not match recorded historical events, noting instead that the relatives he mourned were active combatants killed while launching attacks against Israeli forces rather than innocent civilians.

Furthermore, the investigative reports uncovered extensive online activity from a public Facebook group created and managed by Mahdawi alongside his mother, Abeer Shamali.

Among the material highlighted in the investigation was a video posted to Mahdawi's group featuring his mother participating in the infamous "Khaybar" chant, a slogan allegedly threatening violence against Jewish people.

As documented in Collier and Feldman's investigation, the decision by the Beth Jacob Social Action Committee to co-host the fundraiser and invite Mahdawi for a pre-event discussion triggered immediate pushback among some of its own membership. When concerned congregants circulated the researchers' findings across the synagogue's internal mailing lists, leadership faced mounting pressure to address the red flags surrounding the event.

According to the published investigative records, rather than engaging with the documented evidence, prominent supporters within the synagogue sought to deflect criticism. Eric Jacobson, a synagogue member and scheduled speaker at the fundraiser, dismissed Collier's investigative credentials and questioned the researchers' linguistic proficiency in Arabic. In subsequent email exchanges documented in the reports, Jacobson questioned whether Collier was on the payroll of Israel's Ministry of National Security.

The investigative files further detailed that when concerns continued to mount regarding the hosting of an individual associated with the glorification of terrorism, synagogue leadership ultimately postponed an initial in-house reception. Writing on behalf of the Social Action Committee, organizer Alice Silverman acknowledged that members held significant concerns, but explicitly stated that an event to address those issues "would serve a very different purpose than what we are hoping and planning for on August 9, which is to show our full support."

Collier and Feldman claim in their report that attempts by independent researchers and concerned members to open a dialogue with synagogue organizers were met with institutional resistance. According to the journalists, leadership demonstrated no interest in discussing the documented evidence, choosing instead to push forward with an unconditional expression of solidarity for Mahdawi while attempting to silence internal dissent.