In his own way
Trump is telling Jews how to be Jews.
Since the start of his political career, Donald Trump has played on stereotypes about Jews and politics.
He told the Republican Jewish Coalition in 2015 that “you want to control your politicians” and suggested the audience used money to exert control. In the White House, he said Jews who vote for Democrats are “very disloyal to Israel.” Two years ago, the former president hosted two outspoken antisemites for dinner at his Florida residence.
Hey, he’s a friendly guy.
And this week, Trump charged that Jewish Democrats were being disloyal to their faith and to Israel. That had many American Jews taking up positions behind now-familiar political lines. Trump opponents accused him of promoting antisemitic tropes while his defenders suggested he was making a fair political point in his own way.
Sure, his own creepy hate-mongering venomous way.
Trump’s comments followed a speech by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the country’s highest-ranking Jewish official. Schumer, a Democrat, last week sharply criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ’s handling of the war in Gaza. Schumer called for new elections in Israel and warned the civilian toll was damaging Israel’s global standing.
“Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” Trump retorted Monday on a talk show. “They hate everything about Israel.”
See? His own childish hate-mongering venomous way. Opposing Netanyahu’s handling of the war is not hating everything about Israel, just as considering Trump a blight on our record is not the same as hating everything about the US.
Pittsburgh-based journalist Beth Kissileff — whose husband, a rabbi in the Conservative denomination of Judaism, in 2018 survived the nation’s deadliest antisemitic attack — said it was highly offensive for Trump to be a “self-appointed arbiter” of what it means to be Jewish.
“Chuck Schumer had every right to say what he said,” Kissileff added. “Just because we’re Jews, it doesn’t mean we agree with everything the (Israeli) government is doing. We have compassion for innocent Palestinian lives.”
Trump, by the way, has compassion for no one.
Criticisism of one equals hatred of all? That sounds oddly familiar.
I’d always gotten the impression that taken as a bloc American Jews weren’t particularly the religious type while they’re definitely pro-Israel to a degree that does give a bit of a veneer of authenticity to that dual-loyalties trope.
BKiSA: #2
I think it is fair to say that the majority of diaspora Jews (religious or not) are supporters of the principle of “Israel as Jewish homeland”. But from what I have seen, few of them are in favour of Netanyahu’s continuing strategies and tactics (and I have a lot of relatives who are American Jews). Jews tend towards the liberal/progressive end of political and social opinions, which has made it very hard for those who are now seeing many of the people they thought were friends and allies come out as anti-Semitic, with their recent rendering of Jews as “white European colonizers”
Yeah, that’s definitely a problem, especially when most Israelis are Arabs… Just shows that “whiteness” is a term with no meaning.
Y’know, it beggars disbelief that they’ve not given Bibi the boot; his policies were a significant factor in allowing Hamas to carry out their attack (a position most Israelis would seem to agree with); wouldn’t someone else be better equipped to handle the crisis than the corrupt arsehole that let it happen?