Was Stephen Miller’s Republican Family Shunned By Their Liberal California Synagogue?
Image by Getty Images
Stephen Miller, the aide to President Donald Trump who helped create his “Muslim ban” and defended it on television, comes from a Republican family at odds with their fellow congregants and neighbors in liberal southern California.
Miller attended Hebrew school at the Santa Monica Synagogue, graduating in 2001. The Hollywood Reporter recently spoke with a number of members there who remember the Miller family, who were members for only two or three years. “They have been and are conservative Republicans,” Rabbi Steven Windmueller told the magazine. One source, who was not named in the article, said they did not fit in with the liberal leaning congregation, so they left.
Many have wondered how a native of such a liberal city as Los Angeles could grow up to be one of Trump’s closest advisors. But others have pointed to the political differences in the city between the wealthier areas and those that are more middle class.
“In Santa Monica, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, all those things exist,” Oscar de la Torre, one of Miller’s high school teachers, told the magazine.
Some in Miller’s parents’s neighborhood have stopped speaking to the Millers. “We’ll try to get as many of these on the block as we can,” one neighbor told the magazine of the lawn signs in the area touting liberal causes. “Maybe the Millers will get the message.”
Contact Shira Hanau at hanau@forward.com
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
