By Rabbi Bernhard Rosenberg and Rabbi Sam Michaelson
The news about Donald Trump’s dinner meeting with his friend Kanye West (Ye) created more problems than Trump might have expected. West brought two people Trump did not know—Milo Yiannopoulos and Nick Fuentes—to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Trump insisted that he only did so because Kanye West brought the Holocaust denier without notice. And who arranged this meeting? It was none other than Milo Yiannopoulos, a right-wing gay provocateur who has outraged people for almost a decade. Yiannopoulos shamelessly ridiculed ridicule Islam, feminism, social justice, and political correctness. Yiannopoulos is a former editor for Breitbart News from 2014-2017; his animus against several public figures and politicians is well-known. In 2017, Breitbart News fired Yiannopoulos after allegedly condoning statutory rape and sexual relationships between underage boys and men.
Yiannopoulos loves acting as a lightning rod for strange and unusual ideas.
At the Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump has many people attending his resort for dinner and other public gatherings. The New York Post recalls, “Trump and West reportedly were supposed to meet one-on-one in the club’s library, but Trump, eager to show off his celebrity guest to his paying club members, decided to hold court on the club’s main patio dining area.”
Yiannopoulos knew that Trump did not know anything about him and Fuente’s antisemitic remarks, and he admitted to NBC that he set up the dinner “to make Trump’s life miserable because he was aware news of the dinner would leak.”[1]
You shall not join hands with a wicked man (Exod. 23:1)
Trump claimed that West knew about Fuentes’ unsavory background and his history of denying the Holocaust. In a video posted, West claimed that “Trump is really impressed with Nick Fuentes.” Given his willingness to go along with Yiannopoulos’s plan, it would appear West also wanted to humiliate Trump. Let us not forget that Kanye West recently declared his intention to run for president in 2024.[2]
And why would West help “set up” Trump? Please permit me to offer the following conjecture. In the 2020 campaign, West believed that Trump would acknowledge his efforts to help get Trump elected, and he gave up on his campaign to run for president because he missed the filing deadlines.
But Yiannopoulos did not stop there: “I wanted to show Trump the kind of talent he’s missing out on by allowing his terrible handlers to dictate who he can and can’t hang out with,” Yiannopoulos said. “I also wanted to send a message to Trump that he has systematically repeatedly neglected, ignored, and abused the people who love him the most, the people who put him in office, and that kind of behavior comes back to bite you in the end.”[3]
Perhaps West might have felt underappreciated by Trump for his efforts to assist him. More likely, Yiannopoulos might have convinced Kanye West because he thought he could benefit from Trump’s humiliation.
The international Jewish community swiftly condemned Trump for his lack of discretion. Several of my Republican Jewish friends, who admire Trump, criticized the meeting.
As we contemplated the incident, we wondered: Could the information be more nuanced? Jewish tradition often stresses in the Talmud that a judge must not make a rash legal decision without knowing all the particular facts. Appearances can be deceiving. Yet, the Torah teaches, אַל־תָּשֶׁת יָדְךָ עִם־רָשָׁע “You shall not join hands with a wicked man” (Exod. 23:1). Jewish tradition also says, “Woe to the wicked, and woe to his neighbor!”[4]
In principle, we believe that Trump got ambushed by failing to investigate each of his guests. As a past president who has legions of enemies, he cannot afford to be nonchalant about the appearance of impropriety, which Jewish tradition calls, מַרְאִית-עַיִן (“mar’at ayin”). One such example occurs when having a meat dinner, one should not drink almond milk without having the shells nearby. Such caution prevents others from thinking one is violating the kashrut laws.
Let us expand on this topic in more detail.
People seem to forget how Barack Obama associated with Louis Farrakhan. In 2005, Obama had a picture of himself taken with the Nation of Islam leader at a Congressional Black caucus. But he urged the photographer not to make the picture public since I might adversely “make a difference” to Obama’s political future. The photographer, Askia Muhammad, told the Trice Edney News Wire that he “gave the picture up at the time and basically swore secrecy.”[5]
The National Review reported that according to Farrakhan, Obama and he maintained a cordial friendship for many years—even as late as 2016 when Obama ran for president. Did Obama condemn Farrakhan for his admiration of Hitler? Or for his outrageous comments about the Jews? Did he condemn Farrakhan for declaring whites as a “race of devils?” Did Jews blame Obama for calling Judaism a gutter religion?
Who can forget the famous retort of Kamala Harris, who blasted Biden when he fondly recalled his warm relationships with racist segregationists in the Senate? Biden praised the white supremacists for their “civility,” even hailing infamous Democrat bigot Senator James Eastland, who believed Black Americans to be an “inferior race.” President Joe Biden happily recalled that Eastland “never called me boy.”[6]
Politicians are not always known for their moral problems; sometimes they make stupid mistakes like Trump did, but Trump’s behavior pales in comparison with Obama and Biden’s association with avowed antisemites and racists.
The real question we must ask ourselves is, why are we willing to condemn Trump more so than we would the famous presidents?
Bill Clinton was a long-time admirer of the ex-KKK Robert Byrd. At Byrd’s eulogy, Clinton said, “There are certainly no perfect politicians.”Though his own career is a testament to those assertions, Mr. Clinton offered an explanation for the well-known stain on the life record of Sen. Robert Byrd: his long-ago association with the Ku Klux Klan.”
We must disagree with Clinton. Then, Senator Biden in 1975 and later in 1981, “Biden joined hands with by segregationists like Strom Thurmond, Robert Byrd, and J. William Fulbright to delay votes on racial integration. However, modern-day Democrats apparently forget that their Commander-in-Chief brushed shoulders with many of these Jim Crow Senators during his four decades in the upper chamber of Congress.”[7]
“Guilt by association” works both ways. Historically, the Democratic leaders are not without sin. Therefore, they need to realize that most politicians live in glass houses.
If we are to treat people fairly, we must say that Trump’s encounter with West, Yiannopoulos, and Fuentes was most likely a mistake—and an ambush designed by some of Trump’s enemies.
Remember that Trump’s Jewish daughter and grandchildren and his accomplishments in establishing the Abraham Accords deserve respect, not hatred from the Jewish community.
Although he has announced his candidacy for president in 2024, we hope Trump does not run again. Our country needs a leader who can unify the nation and not divide it further. Trump needs to encourage a new generation of leadership to take over.
If you wish to disagree with Trump over some of the things he says, that is fine. That’s what we do in a democracy. Demonizing him over this incident is wrong. And if we are fair-minded, we must be prepared to hold all politicians to a similar exacting standard.
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[2] Kanye West launches 2024 president run with Milo Yiannopoulos (thepinknews.com)
[3] Trump fumes at Kanye over Nick Fuentes dinner: report (nypost.com)
[4] See Tanhuma to Parshat Korach.
[5] Now It Can Be Seen: The Long-Lost Obama and Farrakhan Picture | National Review
[7] 5 Segregationists Who Joe Biden Praised… Before He Was ‘Woke’ | The Daily Wire