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Trump Chastises Jewish Democrats
President Trump continues to amaze me each time he alienates another group of Americans. And this time he’s correct: Jews who are Democrats clearly are misguided and foolish regarding their attitudes toward Judaism, the Democrat party, America and Israel. Here’s Trump’s brief remark:
I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat — it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.
In response, several Jewish groups denounced the comment:
‘It’s unclear who @POTUS is claiming Jews would be ‘disloyal’ to, but charges of disloyalty have long been used to attack Jews. As we’ve said before, it’s possible to engage in the democratic process without these claims. It’s long overdue to stop using Jews as a political football,’ Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted later Tuesday.
J Street, which frequently engages in anti-Israel attacks, said this about Trump’s statement:
It is dangerous and shameful for President Trump to attack the large majority of the American Jewish community as unintelligent and ‘disloyal.’
And Halie Sofer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, accused Trump of anti-Semitism:
If this is about Israel, then Trump is repeating a dual loyalty claim, which is a form of anti-Semitism. If this is about Jews being ‘loyal’ to him, then Trump needs a reality check. We live in a democracy, and Jewish support for the Republican Party has been halved in the past four years.
(I have no idea if the last sentence in her comment is accurate.)
Since Trump has not clarified the reasons for his comments, I’m going to offer my own interpretations.
Jews have supported liberal movements for a very long time. As the perpetual underdog community, it has shown empathy for those who suffer. In the 20th and 21st centuries, however, the have shown themselves not worthy of defending; the Palestinians, Hamas, and Hezbollah in particular, have proven to be vicious and destructive. Their goal is to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, a reality that many Progressive Jews prefer to ignore. (I’d suggest that this fact is one reason that Trump states that Jewish Democrats lack knowledge.)
Jewish Democrats also seem to have no problem living with cognitive dissonance. Even though Rashid Tlaib and Ilhan Omar made blatant anti-Semitic and anti-Israel remarks, the Jewish Democrats refused to condemn them. Yet these same Jews are delighted to berate President Trump, in spite of his daughter and son-in-law being Jewish, his supporting Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu, his encouraging the withdrawal of UN funds that supported the Palestinians, and acknowledging Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
By the way, I believe when Trump described Democrat Jews as disloyal, he was speaking of their disloyalty to this country due to their support of a party that is constantly condemning America and refuses to pass legislation in the country’s interest. I also think he feels they are disloyal to the Jews in Israel who are fighting for their very existence, and disloyal to other Jews in this country who are Republicans, a party whose values are much closer to Jewish values than the Democrats could ever be. There might have been a time when a Jew could try to justify being a Democrat before the domination of the Progressives, but those times are long past.
I like what the Republican Jewish Coalition tweeted:
President Trump is right; it shows a great deal of disloyalty to oneself to defend a party that protects/emboldens people that hate you for your religion.
Indeed.
Published in Politics
Here’s a take on Trump’s comment, from an Israeli site. A couple of paragraphs of note:
There’s more, though it isn’t very long. Worth reading for some context. And for the Israeli Jewish perspective.
Thanks, Susan, for starting this discussion. Thanks also for the others of good will who participated. I must say, though, that I am a little taken aback by a few of the other comments made. Good to know, though.
Generally speaking, observant Jews do not support the Democrat Party. There is a direct statistical relationship between level of Jewish observance and political conservatism. Orthodox–the most Torah observant–Jews make up about 10% of the American Jewish population. Republicans often poll at 90% or higher in these neighborhoods or in the population when they are polled and sub-classified by level of observance.
The ones that get me the most are military or ex military who are Democrats.
LOL. Yup 2 votes. Don’t represent the Dems at all.
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel’s ambassador to the US is done in the House, and the US ambassador to Israel may not be far behind.
Multiple Democrats told The Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Ron Dermer’s role in the banning of two congresswoman from visiting Israel means he will never get a meeting in a Democratic office again.
Thanks for sharing the additional information, @Caryn. You’ve helped to fill in the picture!
The only really religious Jewish person I remember running for president was Joe Lieberman as the Democrats’ incumbent vice presidential nominee in 2004. He received 0 delegates and 1.73% of the primary vote. Al Sharpton who might have a different opinion about those of the Jewish faith was a non-politician (and not the Democrats’ incumbent vice presidential nominee) when he received 20 delegates and 2.38% of the primary vote that same year.
First Jewish American to win a U.S. presidential primary was Bernie Sanders in 2016.
First Jewish floor leader in the U.S. Senate was Chuck Schumer in 2017.
I must be a long over 100-year long takeover of the Dem Party.
…
The first Jewish Secretary of Defense was a Republican, James R. Schlesinger in 1973. The first Jewish Secretary of State was a Republican, Henry Kissinger in 1973. The first Jewish Attorney General was a Republican, Edward H. Levi in 1975. The first Jewish floor leader and whip in the U.S. House of Representatives was a Republican, Eric Cantor in 2009 and 2011.
I guess the first president with Jewish grandchildren was also a Republican.
Perhaps they are taking over the GOP.
…
It might be interesting to find out what Commentary editor John Poderhertz says as I think he is over in Israel right now.
“By the way, I believe when Trump described Democrat Jews as disloyal, he was speaking of their disloyalty to this country due to their support of a party that is constantly condemning America and refuses to pass legislation in the country’s interest”
No, he was not. He was speaking specifically about disloyalty toward (a) Israel and (b) the Jewish people:
“In my opinion, the Democrats have gone very far away from Israel. I cannot understand how they can do that,” Trump told reporters from the White House South Lawn on Wednesday. “They don’t want to fund Israel. They want to take away foreign aid to Israel. They want to do a lot of bad things to Israel. In my opinion, you vote for a Democrat, you’re being very disloyal to Jewish people and very disloyal to Israel.”
It would have been better if he had included this clarifying language in his original comment.
I think you meant most Jews are Democrats.
Not to worry–Percival corrected me a ways back. Thanks, Randy.
I understand that Trump said something racist again. I can tell by how hard the media is twisting the 6 levels of separation to so how obviously it is racist because it is similar to stuff somebody said hundred of years ago.
Outside of possibly England, there’s no other country where people involved in U.S. politics feel so tied to a particular side of the political dynamic in another country than Israel, and that’s one of the drivers here over the Democratic Party’s growing split with the Jewish state.
Remember for the first 30 years of its existance, Israel was governed by the Labor party, which has a more socialist bent. That gave Labor and progressive U.S. Democrats (Jewish or not) a certain political bond with the country — while you still had you’re far left types attacking Israel in the 1960s and early 70s because the Soviets were allied with Nasser in Egypt, most of the Democrats were all-in on supporting Israel, because they saw a nation that thought like they did.
The election of Begin and Likud in 1977 started blowing up that connection, because to the Democrats, it was as if Washington, D.C. just voted Republican. And under Sharon and Netanyahu, Israel has remained with Likud in control for most of the past four decades (and when Bill Clinton was hoping to win his Nobel Peace Prize, he sent James Carville over to Israel in 1999 to help Ehud Barak defeat Netamyahu in the election, because Clinton knew Labor would be more willing to agree to a deal with Arafat — he just didn’t expect Yassir to walk away from the table).
Israel might as well be a Red State in Flyover Country to Democrats because they keep returning Netanyahu to office, and his closeness to Trump (and Trump’s moving the embassy to Jerusalem) has only increased their dislike. The hate has gotten to the point it’s starting to blur the lines between the people who’d be OK with Israel again if they’d just stop electing
RepublicanLikud leaders, and the true anti-Semites like Omar and Tlaib, who just want to see the country die no matter who’s in charge of it. And many Jewish Democrats are defending them in Trump and Bibi Derangement Syndrome solidarity.Very astute analysis. I’d offer only one small correction: the Labor Party in Israel didn’t have a “more socialist bent;” it was outright and unapologetically Socialist (apparently why the USSR didn’t veto Statehood). The country only started on its climb out of the basket and to “Start-Up Nation” status when Sharon made Netanyahu finance minister.
I think that for America’s Jewish Left, it’s the other way around.
I’m guessing Trump’s daughter converting and marrying a Jewish man only deepened his respect for the Jewish people. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t point out the error they make supporting the Dems.
Every single Jew I know is a Democrat with only once exception. I don’t know any Orthodox Jews.
I think there is a really simple reason why so many Jews vote for Democrats: the Jewish people I’ve known care deeply about education and health care issues, and they are very idealistic. They don’t trust Republicans to share their domestic policy goals, and that is our fault in not connecting better to them on the issues that matter most to them.
I once asked a close and very bright Jewish friend why she and most Jews voted Dem. She attributed it to the fact that Jews have been discriminated against down through the ages and identified with the party they believed defended minorities. She went on to complain about the WASP clubs and organizations that wouldn’t permit Jewish members. For those of you who don’t remember, to be called a WASP is to refer to an individual as a white Anglo-Saxon protestant. My counter was to tell her that Jews can also discriminate against Christians as I had once been engaged to a Jewish boy whose mother referred to me as a shiksa (a derogatory term for a female WASP) and did everything in her power to eventually succeed in breaking us up.
Yes, intermarriage is strongly discouraged. Families often don’t survive maintaining the faith. As crude as,this sounds, it probably wasn’t personal.
It sure felt personal at the time. Most of the Jews I know do not attend synagogue but consider themselves cultural Jews. It’s like most of the Christians who don’t attend church but still consider themselves Christian. It’s a shame fewer and fewer people aren’t observing their faith by attending church or synagogue.
My grandfather was a Jew who married into a very Episcopalian family. He attended Christmas Eve services with us and proudly sat with my grandmother during my confirmation service. Don’t forget that Jesus was a Jew he used to say as he happily gave us all loving gifts at Christmas. Nevertheless, he knew who he was and went by himself to synagogue nearly every week. As a child I felt sorry for my darling “Papa” and proudly announced to him when I was about ten that I wanted to be Jew and go to his church with him. My precious “Papa” talked me out of it on the basis that I should wait a few years so that decision would be based on more study and for reasons other than to please him.
I can understand why it felt personal. I remember asking a conservative Rabbi if he would marry my gentile fiancee and me, and he was aghast I would ask, and he refused. We were married by a reformed Rabbi, who only did so because my husband wasn’t engaged with Catholicism anymore.
Your grandfather sounds like he was a wise and sweet man. Your story illustrates, however, the kinds of conflicts that can come up in these situations. Some people seem to be able to work it out; in some ways, we have. But given my return to Judaism, it has created a tension, and I take responsibility for that. Thanks for sharing your story, GWW.
Oh, Susan, other than my husband, he was the man I loved most in my life. He taught us all about tolerance and kindness toward those who have beliefs different from your own. He had no family other than ours as he had escaped from Russia during the Revolution and came to the US with nothing. Perhaps, though, I’m not giving my grandmother enough credit since she recognized his right to have his own beliefs and had no problem with them. In fairness, they might have had difficulties over it I was unaware of since I was a child. He died when I was 18. All these many years later it seems to me that he had more of an uphill climb to fit into our life and still maintain his own faith. Family was everything to both of them. He was also acutely aware of lending his assistance to those less fortunate than himself.
Jews are very giving people to those in need of help which is another reason it seems more logical for them to be Republicans as Dems are far more apt to rely on the Feds to take care of obligations to the needy.