Donald Trump’s recent characterization of American Jews who vote for Democrats as people who hate their religion and hate Israel is more than simply another stereotypical, ignorant, and biased rant from the former president. It is a cynical political ploy in his attempt to siphon Jews from the Democratic Party.
Trump made his accusation in an interview published online on March 18, 2024 with Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump special White House aide who now hosts a conservative talk radio program, “America First.”
Gorka asked Trump about criticism that prominent Democrats — including Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader and President Biden — aimed at Benjamin Netanyahu, the right-wing prime minister of Israel, and his mishandling of events during and following Hamas’ attacks on Israel, October 7, 2023, and the genocide he has inflicted on innocent Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and in the occupied West Bank.
“I actually think they hate Israel,” Trump replied, referring to Democratic American Jews, and Gorka agreed. “Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” Trump continued. “They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”
After the broadcast, the Trump campaign double-downed on his inflammatory indictment, declaring that “Trump is right,” and that the Democratic Party “has turned into a full-blown anti-Israel, antisemitic, pro-terrorist cabal.”
Well, first of all, Trump certainly has no clue about Jews and the American Jewish community. No, Mr. Trump, Jared Kushner and Ivanka do not represent all (or even many) American Jews. They are not the model to which we all aspire.
I often hear a saying in my Jewish community that “Whenever there are two Jews in a room, there will be at least three different opinions.”
Our people come from a tradition of critical analysis, dialogue, and debate. In the Jewish Bible, the figure of Jacob is also called Israel, the one who wrestled with God (Genesis 35:10). As the “Children of Israel,” members of the Jewish community have often passed on this legacy of wrestling with God and tradition in our desire to create meaning in our lives.
Trump fails to understand that for most American Jews, the U.S. is our country. While many of us have concerns, some very deep, for and about Israel, contrary to Trump’s assertion, Netanyahu is not “our” Prime Minister.
Trump has proclaimed a definition of Jews and Judaism, which is the height of arrogance and hypocrisy even for him.
Trump simply pulled out an old trope of his, which he constructed even prior to his 2016 campaign. As President, in December 2019, he told an audience at a meeting of the American Israeli Council:
“A lot of you are in the real estate business, because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers, not nice people at all,” he charged. “But you have to vote for me – you have no choice. You’re not gonna vote for Pocahontas [a reference to Elizabeth Warren], I can tell you that. You’re not gonna vote for the wealth tax. Yeah, let’s take 100% of your wealth away!”
Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office earlier in 2019 that “any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat – I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”
He didn’t say originally to whom this would be “disloyal,” though later in front of a gaggle of reporters on the White House lawn he clarified:
“In my opinion, you vote for a Democrat, you’re being very disloyal to Jewish people, and you’re being very disloyal to Israel,” he said, “and only weak people would say anything other than that.”
In 2019 while President, in a speech before the Republican Jewish Coalition, Trump said that the recently reelected Benjamin Netanyahu was “your prime minister.” This implied that Jews are not or cannot be U.S. citizens, but we are actually citizens only of Israel.
So, any Jewish person who votes for a Democrat is both ignorant and disloyal to Israel, possibly to the United States as an ally of Israel, and by extension, to Trump himself as an alleged defender of Israel.
If uncritical support for and admiration of a nation’s leaders and their policies is a criterion for “loyalty” and patriotism, then Donald Trump would be considered as a “sycophant” if his country happened to be Russia, Hungary, or North Korea.
Whereas he refers to himself as “an American,” on the other hand, he stands as the preeminent “disloyal” hater of his own country. Trump never thinks much about his projection of his own desires and flaws onto others and his hypocrisy whenever he utters a sentence.
In his campaign speeches and impromptu courthouse diatribes, he bristles at the “American carnage” gripping our nation, the toxic deadly gangs invading our borders, the corrupt judicial system that is conducting a politically motivated “witch hunt” against him and his “perfect” company. He refers to the current President as the head of “a crime family” who has destroyed our country.
At a campaign stop this month in Dayton, Ohio, Trump referred to Biden as “a dumb son of a *****,” and expected his crowd to fill in the blank.
“Remember this. Remember this,” Trump said. “Joe Biden is a great threat to our democracy. He’s a tremendous threat to our democracy. His incompetence is the number one reason. Also, he uses the Justice Department, the FBI, to go after his political opponent, who happens to be me.”
By any measure, if Trump uses the standards that he has set on us American Jews to quantitatively assess our “loyalty” or “hatred” of Israel and of our religion, then Trump has totally failed his own loyalty test when it comes to his own country.
