Former President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the Israeli American Council National Summit on Sept. 19. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

By Elliot Cosgrove September 20, 2024

This week’s Torah reading, “Ki Tavo,” is all about blessings and curses. If you follow God’s commandments, you will be rewarded with harvest, land and blessing. If you disobey, famine, exile and much, much worse. 

But there are times when what initially appears to be a curse turns out to be a blessing, and what seems to be a blessing is actually a curse. Think of King Midas, granted the wish that everything he touches turn to gold – a wish he comes to regret. 

We saw such a situation this week on the campaign trail, as former President Donald Trump attempted to signal his staunch solidarity with Israel at war and ended up trafficking in pernicious antisemitic tropes.

Not once but twice on Thursday night, Trump asserted that if he loses — again — in November, blame will lay at the feet of American Jewry. “If I don’t win this election,” he said, “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.” 

As Americans, as American Jews, we have grown accustomed to Trump’s peddling of insults, falsehoods and divisive identity politics. Crafty rhetorical sleights of hand that provide cover for the dog whistles in every sentence. 

“There are good people on both sides,” he said of the 2017 right-wing rally in Charlottesville where activists chanted “Jews will not replace us.” Calling the Jewish people — us people — “you people;” a cutting accusation of dual loyalty baked into every word. 

Then there are the Republican campaign ads targeted to Muslim voters in Michigan that highlight his opponent’s husband’s Jewishness and pro-Israel politics.

Over the years, I’ve heard all the excuses. “He didn’t actually say that” (which is what Trump himself falsely claimed, at the recent presidential debate, regarding the Charlottesville bit). “He didn’t actually mean it” or “It wasn’t actually him.” Some will point out, “His grandchildren are Jewish” as if that makes it all OK.

Sometimes we tell ourselves, and each other, that anything Trump says is preferable to the hushed hatreds of the other side – the leftist Squad of House Democrats who spare no criticism of Israel. Many of us have excused past hurtful statements by focusing on the bottom line: “He is strong on Israel and in this moment Israel needs all the friends it can get.” We have no shortage of rationalizations for the antisemitism in our midst.

The shame of it all is that beneath the rhetoric there is actually a real conversation to be had. With the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack only a month before our election and no end in sight for the Israel-Hamas war, it is right and proper to debate which candidate or which party is better or worse for Israel and for the Jewish people. It is not a debate that will ever happen in my synagogue, but it is a debate that good people, good Jews and good Zionists can have without rancor and without accusations of betrayal or antisemitism. 

It is also reasonable, given the similarities between their stated positions — both parties support Israel, stand against antisemitism and seek the self-determination of the Jewish and Palestinian people — for American Jews to make their choices based on the economy, the war in Ukraine, the environment or scores of other issues.

As a matter of principle and policy, I do not endorse candidates. But as a matter of principle and policy, when I see the behavior of any person, presidential candidates included, threatening the well-being of the Jewish people, I have to speak out.

So let me not mince words. President Trump is trafficking in the most base form of antisemitism. As far back as Pharaoh, as far back as Haman, there have been leaders who have accused Jews of dual loyalty, of being a fifth column, of being a threat to the well being of the general population. And that’s what Trump did on Thursday night.

The suggestion that the only consideration an American Jew has when approaching the ballot box is Israel reeks of accusations that American Jews are somehow suspect citizens. The suggestion that blame for a prospective loss should lay at the feet of less than 2% of the electorate — our 2% — puts the Jewish people in grave danger. 

This is beyond dog-whistle. It is a form of preemptive scapegoating aimed to scare Jews into voting for Trump. Under the rhetoric, cover and guise of being a defender of the state of Israel, President Trump has endangered the Jewish people. It is abhorrent, it has no place in our national discourse, and it must receive blanket condemnation from every person of conscience. 

To be clear, I am not endorsing any candidate. What I am doing is calling on Donald Trump to immediately and fully recant what he said.

There are blessings and there are curses — there are blessings that are actually curses. This week, Trump offered phantom blessings for the state of Israel wrapped in a curse against the Jewish people. May we have the clarity, and the courage, to see the difference.

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