The obscene effort to shame ‘Trump’s Jews’
Allow me a moment of pride: The hot new criticism of my fellow Jews is that we don’t complain enough.
Really. A host of pundits, concerned about President Trump’s baffling unwillingness to single out neo-Nazis for criticism, are turning to the American Jewish community and pleading: Would it kill you to maybe kvetch a bit?
The idea we haven’t protested is bonkers, but more important, the left’s campaign to get all Jews to publicly denounce Trump has taken a profoundly dangerous and ugly turn. And it needs to stop.
On Tuesday, the Washington Examiner reported that a coalition of left-leaning Jewish organizations have decided to lead by example. The groups had organized a conference call with President Barack Obama each year just before the High Holy Days, but this year, ostensibly because of Trump’s atrocious response to the violence in Charlottesville, their leaders chose to boycott the call.
To be clear, the call was generally a heavily politicized event at which the liberal groups and the liberal president pushed liberal policies under the guise of faith. Indeed, one of the groups is the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, which (the inside joke goes) has long been split between its political wing and its political wing.
But as rabbis and community leaders, they are clearing a path for others to follow. And they’re far from lone voices.
Late last week, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank took aim at a trio of Jews serving Trump: the president’s top economic adviser, treasury secretary and son-in-law. “What Gary Cohn, Steven Mnuchin and Jared Kushner did last week — or, rather, what they didn’t do — is a shanda,” he wrote, using the Yiddish word for shame. Specifically, they didn’t publicly trash their boss.
Late last week Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, this means they’re playing the role of “court Jew.” The court Jew, he explains for those unfamiliar with a staple of Judeophobic bigotry, “existed to please the king, to placate the king, to loan money to the king,” and “his loyalty was to the king,” not his co-religionists.
So, to Milbank, Trump’s treasury secretary is a greedy, power-hungry money lender and a traitor to his people. I liked the column better in the original German.
In fairness, Milbank wasn’t even the first at the Washington Post to use this term about Jews insufficiently militant toward Trump; right after the election, Conservative Rabbi Jill Jacobs and left-wing activist Daniel Sokatch levied the charge in that paper.
And anyway, he was merely following the lead of the New York Times, which last week splashed this headline over a large picture of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump: “Jewish Trump Staff Silent on His Defense of Rally With Anti-Semitic Marchers.” Whom did the Times specifically hiss at? Cohn, Mnuchin, Kushner.
The expectation that employees must go public with their criticism of the boss is silly, and the Times ought to know it.
During the fight over the Iran nuke deal, the Times editorial board insinuated opponents of the deal were more loyal to Israel than to the United States, and a month later put up a vote tracker on the Times website that highlighted — in yellow! — how the Jewish members of Congress were planning to vote. How could employees of the Times stay silent, especially given the ugly history of the dual-loyalty charge against Jews?
And should there today be no Jews working for the Times? In the Daily News last week, Gersh Kuntzman furiously denounced the Jews in the White House, singling out (you guessed it) Cohn, Mnuchin, Kushner — and added that they should all quit: “It’s a no-brainer.”
Then on Sunday, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who is Jewish, agreed on MSNBC. Asked if Jewish officials should resign, he said: “Yes. I think they have to.”
It should be clear why all this is wrong. First, the rabbis dropping their High Holy Days call with the president: These days are about atonement, forgiveness, humility, grace and the willingness to talk to those who have wronged you. These rabbis will, during the coming High Holy Days, stand before their congregations and preach those values — clearly with no intent to practice them.
Second, calling Jewish government employees “court Jews” for not quitting their jobs: Liberals increasingly argue that Trump is not merely pro-Nazi but essentially a Nazi himself — historians and writers have been making the comparison in the Washington Post, the Times and other publications. The “court Jew” moniker, then, in this context is a close relative of the term “kapo” — Jews who cooperated with the Nazis. Democrats refused to vote to confirm Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, because he once used this term. They should consider how hypocritical they look.
One key difference: Friedman apologized. At least someone knows the value of atonement.
Ivanka’s rabbi rips Trump for blaming ‘both sides’ for rally violence
The rabbi who oversaw Ivanka Trump’s conversion to Judaism blasted President Trump for blaming “both sides” for the deadly violence in Charlottesville last weekend.
Rabbi Haskel Lookstein and two other rabbis, Chaim Steinmetz and Elie Weinstock, sent a letter to members of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on Wednesday condemning the “monstrous act of murder” of Heather Heyer during a white supremacist protest.
“We are appalled by this resurgence of bigotry and anti-Semitism, and the renewed vigor of the neo-Nazis, KKK and alt-right.
“While we always avoid politics, we are deeply troubled by the moral equivalency and equivocation President Trump has offered in his response to this act of violence,” the rabbis wrote, according to New York Magazine. “We pray that our country heeds the voices of tolerance, and stays true to its vision of human rights and civil rights.”
Trump has been hammered for his lukewarm comments immediately after the deadly mayhem Saturday during a white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally decrying the planned removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Va.
Heyer, 32, was part of anti-racist counter-protesters who clashed with neo-Nazis that day and was fatally mowed down by Nazi sympathizer James Alex Fields Jr. Nineteen others were injured.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides,” Trump said Saturday.
Trump finally denounced the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists two days later, saying “racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name criminals and thugs.”
But the next day, during a chaotic press conference, he defended his initial comments that “both sides” were to blame for the deadly unrest.
“You look at both sides. I think there is blame on both sides. I have no doubt about it,” Trump said.
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