OPINION:
During a recent interview on Sebastian Gorka’s “America First” podcast, former President Donald Trump stated that “any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion.” He went on to claim that liberal Jews “hate everything about Israel,” and “they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”
Mr. Trump’s observations prompted the White House to condemn the comments, with spokesman Andrew Bates characterizing Trump’s words as “vile and unhinged antisemitic rhetoric.”
Joining in on the criticism was The Anti-Defamation League, whose Chief Executive Officer, Jonathan Greenblatt, labeled the past president’s remarks as “defamatory and patently false.” While the discussion with Mr. Gorka stirred denunciations on the left, Trump’s spirited response mirrors some of the sentiments harbored by many Jewish Republicans, who have expended years encouraging liberal coreligionists to abandon Democrats following the party’s palpable anti-Jewish shift.
Mr. Trump’s unvarnished style reflects the irritation held by Jewish conservatives whose minority stake in blue-state communities has yielded a polite suppression of thought. With that said, October’s slaughter in Israel by Palestinian terrorists, coupled with the surge of antisemitism in America, necessitates a Jewish political reckoning, one that entails liberal Jews emerging from a political paralysis and disassociating from the faulty progressive policies that continue to undermine Jewish safety.
Moreover, Mr. Trump’s judgments echo, albeit more directly, some of the beliefs shared by prominent Jewish conservative intellectuals, including the late Irving Kristol, who derided liberal Jews for their “political stupidity.”
For his part, Norman Podhoretz has written extensively about how Jewish enthusiasm for Democrats results in the party’s creed evolving into more than a “political outlook.” In his 2009 piece for The Wall Street Journal, Podhoretz explains that for many American Jews, contemporary liberalism has “superseded Judaism and become a religion in its own right.”
Mr. Trump’s language captures an excusable airing of what many on the right agree to be Democratic Jews prioritizing liberalism above Judaism.
As the Biden administration persists in appeasing Israel and America’s enemies, whose positions are anchored to Iran’s leadership and within Dearborn’s mosques, the period under which liberal voting habits preferred by the majority of American Jews were thought of as a mere political slippage has long passed. Instead, backing politicians whose policies handsomely fund Israel’s detractors and who resist confronting antisemitism in America has led to a dangerous environment for global Jewry.
Indeed, the list of pro-Israel accomplishments under Trump’s administration includes the signing of the historic Abraham Accords and moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Still, among its most impactful decisions was withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal and defunding the terror-linked United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Upon taking office, President Biden reversed these policy moves and has since gifted Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism, with billions of dollars in sanctions relief. Simply put, Democrats are helping subsidize Islamic state proxies to fulfill Iran’s hegemonic aspirations and abetting its quest to annihilate Israel.
While an overwhelming number of U.S. Jews view Israel favorably, American policy towards Israel has remained consistently at the bottom of their political barrel, with many choosing to focus on social issues. Conducted in June 2023, the Jewish Electorate Institute’s National Survey of Jewish Voters revealed cultural topics, such as abortion and climate change, topping the list of electoral concerns. Whether October’s massacre against Israel is enough to shake the political consciousness of left-leaning Jews remains uncertain.
Jewish liberals who remain removed from the threats facing Israel are still aware of the rising antisemitism unfolding on American campuses and across Democratic-run cities. In the face of his foreign policy agreements, Trump’s agenda surrounding the fight against antisemitism received minimal media attention.
Yet his 2019 Executive Order broadening the interpretation of Title VI in the 1964 Civil Rights Act to protect students subjected to antisemitism now more easily enables Jewish victims of discrimination and harassment to file legal claims. At the time, Mr. Trump’s message to universities was, “If you want to accept the tremendous amount of federal dollars that you get every year, you must reject antisemitism. It’s very simple.”
For those applauding efforts by lawmakers such as Republican Representatives Virginia Foxx (NC) and Elise Stefanik (NY) for elevating the matter of antisemitism at our nation’s universities, it’s wise to consider that the presidents of the Ivy League schools who appeared before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce in December would likely have faced no scrutiny had the Chairmanship been in the hands of a Democrat.
In the coming months, Democrats’ turn against Israel may prove enough to move the Jewish needle toward Trump in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Georgia. This year’s Siena College Poll also found that Jewish voters in New York prefer Trump (53%) over Biden (44%), and this may portend a rightward drift among America’s Jewish communities.
Orthodox Jews, who overwhelmingly identify as Republicans, coupled with Evangelical Christians, remain the backbone of U.S. support for Israel. Although a minority within the U.S. Jewish populace, Mizrachi and Sephardi Jews trend more conservative than their Ashkenazi counterparts, thereby rendering them reliable Republican voters.
What the uncomfortable truth holds, and statistics confirm, is that as assimilation rates among non-committed Jews rise, America may face a Jewish community whose future is demographically smaller but ideologically stronger. Until then, liberal Jews should consider a new political home by exercising a degree of electoral dignity through the cessation of bolstering a party that has grown more hostile to Jews with more Jewish votes.
• Irit Tratt is an independent writer residing in New York. Follow her on X @Irit_Tratt.
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