President Trump has done a laundry list of public acts that benefit the Jewish people. These acts have an emphasis on attacking anti-Semitism and supporting Israel. Despite that, many in the organized Jewish community let their other religion (Liberalism/Leftism) ignore his good deeds because he doesn’t support their other policies. Those are mainline Left-wing politics.
A recent example is his executive order (EO) to restrict a college’s federal funding due to anti-Semitism on college campuses. Every involved Jew knows that colleges have become a hotbed of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic rhetoric and acts. Not shocking since many professors’ favor Palestinians despite the rampant anti-gay, anti-woman mindset in the Arab world. It is as if many Jewish organizations were mimicking Jackie Mason saying Trump is “Too Jewish.”
The New York Times jumped on Trump and said his EO establishes Jews as a race or nationality. The Left followed suit by attacking on Twitter and Jewish organizations fell in line. Then VOX, a left-of-center publication, called a halt to the groundswell, saying the claim is false – the EO does no such thing. The material aspects of the EO have been worked on for years in a bipartisan manner and the Obama Administration supported it but would not pull the trigger. Trump signed it like he signed the long-approved plan to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
The same Jews who can’t choke down that Trump signed this order would be the first ones marching against similar hate thrown at Blacks or Hispanics on college campuses. They are saying it is an issue of free speech. That is rich since they don’t support the free speech rights of students supporting Republican/Conservative causes, but support the rights for those spewing anti-Jewish venom. Yes, supporting this order is perhaps “Too Jewish.”
The other day I was doing my daily readings which included some commentary about Trump’s speech at the Israel American Council (IAC) national meeting. The only coverage I saw was in the Israeli press. It was favorable and spoke of Trump attacking Ilian Omar for saying that support of Israel was all about the Benjamins (money). I did not really see anything in the MSM. Seemed like Trump might have gotten through this one unscathed.
Then someone sent me a Facebook posting by a prominent Rabbi with a statement from Yehuda Kurtzer, President of the Shalom Hartman Institute. Kurtzer hijacked that organization as often happens the longer organizations exist. They tend to end up with Leftist leaders. He has done the same thing to Hartman that Jonathan Greenblatt has done the ADL.
Kurtzer wrote a long polemic attack on Trump’s comments at the IAC. The longer you read his dribblings the more you are confused as to what he was attempting say. He writes heady stuff like invoking Occam’s Razor so he could get people to run to their dictionaries and be wowed by how one could be so erudite.
The problem is nowhere in this overly long statement does he state what Trump actually said that launched him into this heartfelt statement of hate for Trump. I brought this up to the person who shared it and told him that, as a writer, if I were going to attack the statements of someone the first thing I would do is clearly state the offensive utterings and then go about systemically dismantling them. Kutzner did not deem it necessary to do that because — after all — he was going after Trump. It was good enough for Kurtzer to in effect say, “Trump said bad things, anti-Semitic things; take my word for it and let me tell what a horrible crackpot this guy is and a threat to mankind.” I laud Kurtzer for one thing: he openly states he is a Leftist. Usually the writer never acknowledges that simple fact and blanch if you dare call them that.
Then I was told that Kutzner is a fine scholar and leader. That is the way it always goes. Just because someone has an advanced degree, they must be a scholar. Then they get some lofty position based on that. What follows is a congratulatory award. They are big on awards. Many have managed to accumulate positions and titles, but they have little wisdom. They always seem to lack that.
Finally, I was provided with the questionable comments. President Trump’s prepared remarks included many references to actions fighting anti-Semitism. This included calling on the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat anti-Semitism, Elan Carr, to expounded on the Administration’s efforts against anti-Semitism throughout the world. Trump then made some off-the-cuff comments.
“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 said. “But you have to vote for me — you have no choice. You’re not gonna vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. You’re not gonna vote for the wealth tax. Yeah, let’s take 100 percent of your wealth away! Some of you don’t like me. Some of you I don’t like at all. And you’re going to be my biggest supporters because you’re going to be out of business in about 15 minutes if they get it. So, I don’t have to spend a lot of time on that.” There are various versions of what he said, but they are very similar to these words.
This is typical Trumpian talk. If you don’t like Trump, you will not like how he expresses himself. The question is whether there is anti-Semitism here.
This is a new theme from the Left. If you refer to money and Jews in the same sentence, no matter the context, they deem it anti-Semitism particularly if you are not liked. That is why every attack on George Soros and how he spends hundreds of millions on left-wing/socialist causes is counterattacked with the charge of anti-Semitism. This is a man who other than being born Jewish has had no affinity for the religion in decades and is blatantly anti-Israel. But, because he funds their causes, he needs protection. Charges of anti-Semitism are always good to discredit the opposition whether they are substantive or not.
Trump has used similar rhetoric with other groups. What’s new? What is new is Trump received overwhelming support at the event and that could not be the message coming from a speech Trump delivered to Jews.
So, here are the new rules: American elections almost always turn on “pocketbook issues.” Many liberal pundits have said Trump has a distinctive leg up in the upcoming election because of the strength of the economy. If Trump delivers a speech where there are any Jews in the direct vicinity of the event, he cannot mention economic issues because that would obviously be anti-Semitic. Jews might vote for president based on their own economic self-interest just likes Christians, Muslims, Blacks, Hispanics, Gays, Asians, three-toad sloths and caterpillars, but you dare not state that publicly.
Think about this. Thinking like this is anti-Semitic — not what Trump said. If every time you think that mentioning money around Jews is equivalent to ancient moneychanger tropes, then you are the anti-Semite. If you single out Jews as potentially being offended because someone mentions they have a level of financial success and they may not want to lose it on wild-eyed Leftist concepts (proven wrong), then you are the anti-Semite.
The people who singled this out amongst a speech praising Israel and chastising anti-Semitism are the dangerous ones. They are devaluing the term, allowing real anti-Semites to prosper because the value of framing them as anti-Semites has been gravely diminished. The old story of crying wolf.
Trump is a strong supporter of Jews and what we stand for. Those who don’t get that are deeply confusing their Jewishness with their Left-wing causes. That is the sad part of this story.