Ted Cruz’s Father Says Jews Are ‘Democrats First’
Image by Getty Images
The father of 2016 Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz told a Florida Tea Party audience that Jews are “Democrats first and Jews second.”
Rafael Cruz made the explosive comments, along with similar remarks about Catholics, on Saturday, in front of the Palm Beach County Tea Party.
“This is what has happened to a great many in the Catholic Church,” “They are Democrats first and Catholics second.”
Rafael Cruz is not officially part of his sons’ campaign team, but appears at his sons’ events. He is an evangelical preacher and director of the religious group, Purifying Fire International ministry.
“Hitler was very smart,” Cruz began. “Hitler went to the pastors and pat them on the back and said, ‘look, you take care of their souls, I’ll take care of all the rest of it. In other words, you keep locked inside your church and leave the rest to me’… and as a result of that, six million Jews were massacred.”
According to Cruz, the Church had a responsibility to monitor the government, and failed, so that was the reason for the Holocaust.
“We need to put principle above tradition,” he said. “There are people voting Democrat because, ‘My grandfather or my father voted Democrat.’ Let me tell you something. The Democratic party today is not the Democratic party of John Kennedy. John Kennedy would be a Republican today.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
