Jewish top Hollywood agent honored after home vandalized by anti-Israel protesters
Jay Sures flanked by major clients as he honors parents, salutes wife Linda’s bravery in face of student activists: ‘Don’t mess with a recently converted 5-foot-10 Slovakian Jew’
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Top Hollywood talent agent Jay Sures, whose wife and home were targeted by anti-Israel student activists in February, was honored Thursday by the Los Angeles Jewish Federation in a gala at Los Angeles’s Beverly Wilshire hotel.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the glitzy event for the federation’s Entertainment, Media and Communications Network was attended by some of Sures’ high-profile Jewish clients, including “The Big Bang Theory” creator Chuck Lorre, “Modern Family” creator Steven Levitan and “Sex and the City” and “Emily in Paris” creator Darren Star.
Accepting the recognition, the Reporter said, Sures paid tribute to his late father, a veteran of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, and to his mother, whom Sures commended for her prescience about antisemitism, which has risen precipitously following the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.
Sures quipped that his 92-year-old mother, who was in the audience, would have been prouder of him only if he “were receiving an award for being a Jewish doctor,” the Reporter said.
“My mother has a strong sense of right and wrong,” he said. “She’s been talking about antisemitism for years. And honestly, I turned a blind eye. I didn’t think it really existed, but she was right. And it’s because of her that I use my various platforms to stand up for what’s right, no matter if it’s popular or not.”
“Antisemitism has reared its ugly head in places we never mentioned,” he said. “My family saw it firsthand and was horrified by what happened at our home. But it just made me more resolute to fight back. My hope is that in tonight’s gathering we find power to counter hate and ignorance through education. We all must be fighters.”
???? Right now, Students for Justice in Palestine UCLA and their off-campus goons are doxxing the home address of Jonathan "Jay" Sures, a UC Regent and United Talent Agency exec.
Why? Because HE'S JEWISH.
They're showing up to his Los Angeles home with death threats. pic.twitter.com/baqNmImDMw
— Sia Kordestani (@SiaKordestani) February 5, 2025
In a protest early on February 5, some 50 masked members of Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA, where Sures is a regent, vandalized his Brentwood home with red paint, surrounded his wife’s car and beat on drums, chanted “intifada revolution” and carried at least one sign threatening that Sures “will pay until you see your final day,” according to social media posts by the SJP branch, local media and a statement from UCLA, which subsequently suspended the student group.
The Hollywood Reporter quoted Sures at the gala praising his wife, Linda, for standing her ground during the protest: “Don’t mess with a recently converted 5-foot-10 Slovakian Jew.”
Sures is vice president at United Talent Agency, a global company based in Hollywood. Among his clients is the Anti-Defamation League, a US-based antisemitism watchdog, which Sures signed in 2021 “amid a resurgence of extremism and hate in this country” after Jewish men were attacked in Los Angeles, entertainment news outlet Deadline reported at the time.
Anti-Israel protesters demonstrated outside the Brentwood, Calif., home of University of California Regent Jay Sures, a year after Sures introduced a policy that prohibited university departments from making political statements.https://t.co/Fw4OkdaPoe
— Melissa Weiss (@melissaeweiss) February 6, 2025
According to the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper, Sures is also a board member of the Los Angeles Police Department Foundation and chairman of the board of governors of two US nuclear weapons laboratories.
SJP, which demands universities divest from Israel, said at the time of the protest in February it was rallying outside Sures’ home because he was “one of the unelected officials responsible for protecting UC investments in genocide and weapons manufacturing.” The group also singled him out for having “attempted to intimidate students and faculty who spoke out against the genocide in Gaza.”
In January 2024, according to the Bruin, Sures introduced to UCLA’s Board of Regents a policy prohibiting academic departments from issuing political statements on their homepages. The policy was passed in July that year, according to the outlet.
The Bruin reported in August that Sures was ordered to pay some $150,000 in legal fees to one of the students who protested outside his house in February, against whom Sures unsuccessfully tried to secure a restraining order.
The Times of Israel Community.