This article was originally published on Tuesday, Jan. 27 at 4:42 p.m. and updated on Jan. 27 at 10:26 p.m.
Kaylee Mahony, a sophomore influencer with more than 125K followers, known as Kaylee Marie or @Kayshmoneyy on TikTok, started a verbal altercation with the Students Supporting Israel club at the Spring Involvement Fair on Tuesday, Jan. 27.
In a video recorded by a student who wishes to remain anonymous, Mahony can be heard saying “Christianity, which says love everyone, meanwhile your Bible says eating with someone who is a non-Jew is like eating with an animal. That’s what the Talmud says.”
She then can be heard projecting her voice and addressing multiple passing students saying, “That’s what these people follow. That’s what these people follow. They think that if you are not a Jew you are an animal. That’s the Talmud. That’s the Talmud.”
Later in the video, Mahony can be heard responding to one of the SSI members, saying “Because you’re disgusting. It’s disgusting.”
Mahony is known on TikTok for her political posts, which often take anti-Israel, anti-immigration and anti-Democrat positions. On her LinkedIn, she lists herself as the head of public relations for the UM College Republicans and the head of social media for Turning Point Miami. Until this evening, Mahony’s Instagram and Tiktok bios included “Proud Goy” — a term used by Jewish people to refer to non-Jews. It has since been deleted from her Instagram bio.
Lazaro Chavez, the president of UM College Republicans, said that the club’s executive board came to the collective decision to terminate her membership in the club.
“What happened today is disgusting,” Chavez said. “This is not an organization that accepts hate. This is not an organization that wants to see antisemitism run wild or any form of discriminatory behavior rampant. It’s completely against not only my own personal views, but it’s also completely against the club’s views.”
Freshman Ella Leon was tabling for SSI during the fair when the altercation happened.
“The main things she was saying was that rabbis eat babies, that we shouldn’t be allowed on campus and that we are dirty,” Leon said. “And that’s not right.”
Leon also noted that the members of SSI were proudly wearing necklaces displaying their culture and that Mahony’s debate was not centered around Israel, but Judaism in general.
Mahony denies ever saying this. In an email to The Hurricane, she wrote, “Anyone saying that [I said those things] is completely fabricating it for their own narrative. However, it’s important to know what I’m referencing.”
Mahony claims that the students at the SSI table said they follow the Talmud, and that “referencing the disgusting verses of the Talmud is not being antisemitic. Asking someone about the book that they use as their moral compass isn’t antisemitic.”
Professor Ira Sheskin, director of the Jewish demography project of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies, emphasized that the Talmud is a very old text.
“Remember the Talmud started being written in 200 AD and was done in about 750 AD, it was a different world then. You don’t interpret today on the basis of what happened 1,300 years ago, to start with,” Sheskin said.
Student leaders with SSI said that they welcome all kinds of civil debate and interaction with students from different viewpoints, but that the debate with Mahony quickly grew heated.
A member of the Committee on Student Organizations — the organization hosting the fair — approached the table after a few minutes of the argument and encouraged Mahony to calm down and leave.
Josh Brandfon, the senior director of student activities, student organizations and student center complex programs at UM, also approached the table.
“The school is amazing. Josh Brandfon came and checked to see if everything was okay, because obviously it wasn’t really just any run-of-the-mill debate. It was just kind of bigoted,” said senior Tamir Shazo, another SSI member who was at the table.
The third SSI member running the table, who said his name was Yonah, encouraged any students looking to debate to attend an SSI’s event scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 29, called “The World’s Biggest Zionist. Ask Me Anything.”
“At SSI, we’re not afraid of genuine conversation. We welcome discussion from all opposing viewpoints. Even, I would go as far as to say, those that are of antisemitic nature, like the one that just occurred,” Yonah said. “That’s what a university is for. To be able to exchange and debate ideas. So if anyone reading wants to come and try for themselves, we welcome it.”
This altercation happened to take place on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which marks the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps that killed millions of Jews during the Holocaust.