By Joe Gandelman
The Moderate Voice
SAN DIEGO — Former President Donald Trump is being widely criticized for his comments at an antisemitism event where he said if he loses Jews will be largely to blame.
From Jewish newspapers, to some key Jewish organizations, to bloggers, and politicians and regular citizens, Trump is coming under fire for lumping Jews together as a monolithic group and setting the scene for his supporters to hate Jews if Vice President Kalama Harris wins the hotly contested election. Here’s a partial roundup:
The Jewish newspaper The Forward:
In a speech Thursday billed as former President Donald Trump’s answer to rising antisemitism, he said Jews would bear much of the responsibility if he loses the presidential election.
And in a second speech later in the evening, to the Israeli American Council, Trump elaborated on his past assertions in recent weeks that Israel would not survive if he doesn’t win in November, by painting a doomsday scenario in which Iran launches nuclear weapons and invoking the Holocaust.
“The Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” Trump said during the first speech of the evening, an hourlong address at an event called “Fighting Antisemitism in America,” organized with GOP megadonor Miriam Adelson, at the Hyatt Regency hotel on Capitol Hill.
“You can’t let this happen,” he told his largely Jewish audience.
And:
Trump in recent weeks has offended many Jews by questioning their mental health for voting for Democrats — as most Jews do — and predicting Israel’s demise should Harris win. But Thursday night’s comments seem to represent an escalation in Trump’s rhetoric, in that he singled out Jewish Americans — who represent only about 2% of the electorate — as a significant reason he might lose the election, one whose results he has never pledged to accept.
‘Outrageous and dangerous’: Jewish groups blast Trump after he said Jews would bear blame if he loses. Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said after the speech that Trump’s remarks endanger Jews.
“Treating Jews and Israel as political footballs makes Jews, Israel, and all of us less safe,” she said in a statement. “Dividing Jews into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ camps and engaging in dual loyalty tropes further normalizes antisemitism.”
“Anyone who cares about Jewish safety should call it out,” she added. “This is not partisan politics — it’s about the fundamental safety of the Jewish community.”
The Trump campaign had described his first speech of the evening as an opportunity for the former president to speak to a group of “Jewish leaders from all walks of life” about rising antisemitism.
Trump outlined his plan to protect Jewish students by cutting funds to universities that fail to protect them. He said he would take tough measures to seal the border, and ban immigration from countries that foment terrorism.
“I’m here today to tell the Jewish American community that this ugly tide of antisemitic, pro-Hamas bigotry and hate will be turned back and crushed starting at noon on Jan. 20, 2025,” he said, referencing inauguration day.
Pro-Israel Jews, he continued, have an important role in assuring that he can carry out his plan. “You have to defeat Kamala Harris more than any other people on Earth,” he said, seemingly conflating American and Israeli Jews. “Israel, I believe, has to defeat her.”
“And if not,” he added, “Israel will be eradicated.”
Reached for comment, the Harris campaign provided a statement she gave in response to Trump’s speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition earlier this month. “Donald Trump has made it obvious he would turn on Israel in a moment if it suited his personal interests, and in fact he has done so in the past.”
The statement also described Harris as a fast friend of Israel: “She has been a lifelong supporter of the State of Israel as a secure, democratic homeland for the Jewish people. She has an unwavering commitment to the security of Israel and will always stand up for its right to defend itself.
In these and other remarks Trump consistently conflates all Jews with Israelis, and assumes that American Jews owe their first loyalty to Israel, not the U.S. Once again, Trump’s utter lack of self-awareness is stunning.
The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League:
In rare statements on the presidential election, the nonpartisan American Jewish Committee and Anti-Defamation League issued statements on Friday morning condemning former President Donald Trump’s comments on Thursday evening about the Jewish vote.
[…}The AJC, highlighting that the Jewish population makes up just 2% of the U.S. population, said that Jewish voters “cannot and should not be blamed for the outcome of the election. Setting up anyone to say ‘we lost because of the Jews’ is outrageous and dangerous. Thousands of years of history have shown that scapegoating Jews can lead to antisemitic hate and violence.”
The AJC also argued that “none of us, by supporting the candidate we choose, is ‘voting for the enemy,’” linking such language to “a time of rising threats of political violence,” including the two assassination attempts targeting Trump.
“Both candidates should work to earn the support of our community based on policy,” the statement concluded. “But let’s not make this election and its outcome about the Jews.”
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said that Trump had “undermined” his condemnations of antisemitism last night “by then employing numerous antisemitic tropes and anti-Jewish stereotypes — including rampant accusations of dual loyalty.”
Greenblatt added that “Preemptively blaming American Jews for your potential election loss… increases their sense of alienation in a moment of vulnerability when right-wing extremists and left-wing antizionists continually demonize and slander Jews.”
The ADL CEO warned “this speech likely will spark more hostility and further inflame an already bad situation. Calling out hate is important, but I can’t overstate how the message is diluted and damaged when you employ hate to make your point.”
Axios reports that Trump’s comments made some Republicans squirm. One key quote: “The House Republican added that they ‘don’t like this rhetoric,’ also citing Trump’s comments about Haitian immigrants: “I think it’s awful … I think it’s disgusting.”
Blaming Jews for stuff was, of course, Adolf Hitler’s MO. The Nazi leader blamed German Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War I, claiming the tiny minority had “stabbed Germany in the back”—language that sounds not dissimilar to what Trump had to say yesterday, and not dissimilar to the things he’s said and done re: Jews for years now.
She also provided a list of things Trump said in the past. Go to the link to read it in its entirety.
Trump’s comments, delivered in a pair of speeches at events dedicated to the U.S.-Israel relationship and combating antisemitism, are among his most explicit forays into antisemitic tropes in a political career that has been riddled with them.
The CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, said he appreciated Trump’s calling out of antisemitism, “but the effect is undermined by then employing numerous antisemitic tropes and anti-Jewish stereotypes, including rampant accusations of dual loyalty. Preemptively blaming American Jews for your potential election loss does zero to help American Jews.”
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, the first Jewish spouse of a U.S. president or vice president, dismissed Trump’s allegations that Harris doesn’t like Jewish people as “typical Donald Trump gaslighting.”
“After the horrific events of Charlottesville, where people were marching with tiki torches saying ‘Jews shall not replace us,’ he said there are ‘fine people on both sides.’ This is a guy with a record of saying incredibly vile, antisemitic things. For him to say that, I almost laugh at the chutzpah,” Emhoff told ABC News.
But, Samuels notes, condemnation of Trump was not unanimous:
The national chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Norm Coleman, and CEO Matt Brooks lauded the speech as a “tour de force in support of the Jewish community.” In a statement, they noted the “countless standing ovations” that accompanied Trump’s policy initiatives and critiques of Harris.
“President Trump also rightly pointed out that as President of the United States, he did more for American Jews and the Jewish state than any President in modern history; and although many Jewish Americans vote for Democrats, he is working tirelessly to change that,” they said, noting that “in 2020, President Trump received the largest share of the Jewish vote in 40 years, including record-setting levels of support in key battleground states.”
Joe Gandelman is publisher and editor of The Moderate Voice, with which San Diego Jewish World trades stories under auspices of the San Diego Online News Association.