‘PAINFUL REMINDERS’ OF PREJUDICE
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday condemned recent threats against Jewish community centers in the U.S. as “painful reminders” of lingering prejudice and evil, his first full-throated comments on the rise of anti-Semitic venom after pressure for him to speak out forcefully.
With what was seen as a somewhat delayed denunciation of racism and anti-Semitic violence, Mr. Trump sought to reset his relationship with American Jews, which has been strained by a recent White House statement on the Holocaust, comments by some of his supporters and his own fractious exchange with a reporter for an Orthodox Jewish publication.
Mr. Trump’s latest remarks, made at the newly opened National Museum of African American History and Culture, marked the first time he directly addressed recent incidents of anti-Semitism, and it came amid the weekend vandalism at a Jewish cemetery and multiple threats to community centers Monday.
Eleven Jewish community centers across the country received telephoned bomb threats, according to the JCC Association of North America. Like three waves of similar phone calls in January, the new threats proved to be hoaxes. In addition, as many as 200 headstones were damaged or tipped over at a Jewish cemetery in suburban St. Louis late Sunday or early Monday, causing scores of frantic families to try to learn whether their relatives’ graves were intact.
“The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil,” Mr. Trump said. He did not outline what that might entail.
But Mr. Trump was immediately pressed to speak more forcefully about the issue and to take specific steps to tackle hate crime in the United States.
On Monday, Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka wrote on Twitter, “We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers,” and used the hashtag #JCC. She converted to Judaism ahead of her 2009 marriage to Jared Kushner.
Civil rights advocates also were alarmed Tuesday when officials said that Mr. Trump appears on the verge of reversing protections put in place by the Obama administration to stop discrimination against transgender students in schools.
In other news elsewhere in Washington, the new Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt sought to calm employees anxious about his longtime opposition to the agency.