It was presupposed to be an occasion on preventing antisemitism, however like so many issues in Trumpworld, it shortly turned into Donald Trump simply partaking in antisemitism. “I’m not going to name this as a prediction, however in my view,” he stated, “the Jewish individuals would have so much to do with a loss if I’m at 40%.” Trump went on to say that, regardless of being the “hottest individual in Israel,” he has not been “handled proper” by Jewish individuals.
Trump has lobbed antisemitic tropes earlier than. He’s brazenly pushed the favored “dual loyalty” trope—for which the Anti-Defamation League has a whole part of its web site—saying in 2019, “Should you vote for a Democrat, you’re being very disloyal to Jewish individuals, and you’re being very disloyal to Israel.” And in Might 2024, exterior his criminal trial, Trump referred to as Biden’s coverage on Israel “disgraceful” and stated that “any Jewish individual” who had voted for Biden “needs to be ashamed of themselves.” And let’s not neglect, the man beforehand entertained famous Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago.
This newest invective is usually simply Trump being Trump, indulging in bigotry and antisemitism, wildly tossing out threats and accusations. However Trump is utilizing a tactic that conservatives have lengthy used in opposition to liberal Jews. “The twin loyalty canard that has plagued Jews is the fertile soil during which centuries of those stereotypes have taken root and grown,” Deborah E. Lipstadt, a professor of contemporary Jewish historical past and Holocaust research, told The New York Occasions in 2019. In truth, accusing Jews of twin loyalty dates all the best way again to historic Rome.
Trump has implied—and maybe hoped—that his help for Benjamin Netanyahu in some way makes him extra palatable to liberal Jews. That’s as a result of, in his warped view, Jews should be loyal to Israel first, which in itself is an antisemtic trope. Nevermind that Israeli Jews are protesting Netanyahu usually. As a result of if Trump thinks he can use Israel as a wedge problem to place himself again within the White Home, he’ll undoubtedly do all he can to drive this message on the marketing campaign path.
Rising up as a Jew, I at all times knew Israel was an essential place for the group. And whereas the existence of Israel didn’t affect a lot of my life as a reform Jew with two Jewish dad and mom and three Jewish kids, I do know there’s additionally a sure contingent of conservative Jews who primarily transfer like a monolith on Israel. A few of them use the “unhealthy Jew” trope in opposition to liberal Jews to get them to comply with swimsuit. Trump, for his half, is placing a MAGA spin on that trope, implying that it’s in some way the duty of American Jews to vote purely on the idea of Israel. To do that, he wants Jews to imagine that he’s higher for Israel.
However let’s unpack that for a minute: Certainly one of Trump’s crowning achievements on the difficulty, as he sees it, was shifting america embassy to Jerusalem in 2018—a transfer that drew immense criticism as a result of it additional infected the peace course of between Israel and Palestine. “The US is meant to be performing just like the fireman,” as Ilan Goldenberg, a Center East professional with the Heart for a New American Safety told Vox on the time. “As an alternative, we’re performing just like the arsonist.” Worse but, we later discovered that the embassy relocation wasn’t entirely for Israel; it could have been a part of a quid professional quo with Sheldon Adelson, who invested thousands and thousands in Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign. All through the remainder of his presidency, Trump went on to “[ignore] issues about treating Palestinians as in the event that they have been on equal footing with Israel in pursuing peace,” journalist Maggie Haberman argued in her 2022 e-book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, writing that he pushed by means of “a string of measures, comparable to slashing monetary support to Palestinians, forcing the Palestine Liberation Group from its Washington workplaces.”
In the end, I don’t suppose individuals like Trump are good for Jews. I don’t suppose racism, othering, and choosing on minority teams—say, by spreading lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio—is nice for Jews or for anybody. As a liberal Jew from a household of liberal Jews, I’m so happy with the work that Jews have accomplished preventing for civil rights on this nation. I’m happy with individuals like Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner (and James Chaney), who have been all murdered in Mississippi in 1964 for making an attempt to assist Black voters register to vote. I say this coming from a household that fought for civil rights themselves; in September 1949, my grandfather, Howard Quick, and singer and activist Paul Robeson held a live performance for peace in Peekskill, New York. Robeson’s biographer later wrote that “Peekskill bears the identical relationship to the Civil Rights Motion as Fort Sumter does to the Civil Conflict.” Like many racial justice demonstrations on the time, it resulted in a riot. “Police who have been supposed to guard us,” my grandpa and Robeson said, “attacked and assaulted us.”
My nice grandparents got here to this nation within the 1800s from Ukraine, the place Jews have been being murdered in pogroms. Basically, they weren’t all that completely different from the Haitian immigrants in Springfield: hardworking individuals fleeing to America for a greater, safer life. My nice grandparents stayed and had kids and jobs and paid taxes and grew the economic system and added to the material of America, identical to Haitian migrants have. Trumpism is pushed by the concept that immigrants are doing the other—that they’re taking your stuff and that there isn’t sufficient for everybody. However that couldn’t be farther from the reality: America’s tradition and economic system is robust exactly as a result of of immigrants—not despite them.
