Trump’s dinner with anti-Semites a breaking point for Jewish allies
For much of Donald Trump’s presidency, Jewish Republicans rationalised away the bigoted fringe of Trump’s coalition, arguing the racist supporters in his midst and the anti-Semitic tropes he deployed paled in comparison with the pro-Israel policies of his administration.
But last week, Trump dined at his Palm Beach, Florida palace, Mara-Lago, with performer Kanye West, who had already been denounced for making antisemitic statements, and with Nick Fuentes, an outspoken antiSemite and Holocaust denier, granting the anti-Semitic fringe a place of honour at his table.
Now, even some of Trump’s staunchest supporters say they can no longer ignore the abetting of bigotry by the nominal leader of the Republican Party.
“I am a child of survivors. I have become very frightened for my people,” Morton Klein, head of the right-wing Zionist Organisation of America, said yesterday, referring to his parents’ survival of the Holocaust. “Donald Trump is not an anti-Semite. But he mainstreams, he legitimises Jew hatred and Jew haters. And this scares me.”
Not all Republican leaders have spoken out, but Jewish Republicans are slowly peeling away from a former president who, for years, insisted he had no ties to the bigoted far right, but refused to repudiate it. Jewish figures and organisations that have stood by Trump, from Klein’s group to pro-Trump commentator Ben Shapiro to Trump’s own former ambassador to Israel and onetime bankruptcy lawyer, David Friedman, have all spoken out since the dinner.
For Jews, the concern extends far beyond a single meal at Mar-a-Lago, though that dinner has become a touchstone, especially for Jewish Republicans.
“We have a long history in this country of separating the moral character of the man in the White House from his conduct in office, but with Trump it’s gone beyond any of the reasonably acceptable and justifiable norms,” Jay Lefkowitz, a former adviser to former President George W Bush and a supporter of many of Trump’s policies, said yesterday.
For American Jewry, the debate since the dinner has brought into focus what may be the most discomfiting moment in US history in a half-century or more.
“The normalisation of antiSemitism is here,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the AntiDefamation League.
West, a figure with an enormous following, has espoused hatred of the Jews. Neo-Nazis are returning to Twitter, bringing memes and coded messages not seen for years, now that its new owner, Elon Musk, has reinstated accounts blocked for bigotry. Musk himself yesterday tweeted a cartoon of “Pepe” the frog, a symbol adopted by the alt-right segment of the white supremacist movement. That followed a tweet last month of a German soldier from World War II, which was cited by white nationalist Telegram accounts as evidence of Musk’s like mindedness.
And House Republican leaders say they will reinstate Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar to committees from which they were jettisoned by Democrats in part for their anti-Semitic comments or associating with white supremacists like Fuentes.
“The level of anti-Semitism being expressed, anti-Semitic acts at a very elevated level, and the acceptability of anti-Semitism — it is all creating an environment which is, thank God, unusual for the United States, and it has to be nipped in the bud. That’s it. That’s the moment we’re in,” said Rabbi Moshe Hauer, executive vicepresident of the Orthodox Union, which represents the branch of Judaism that has been most supportive of Trump.
For his part, Trump shows no sign of contrition. His spokesperson, Liz Harrington, told a right-wing broadcaster yesterday that Trump was “probably the most pro-Israel president we’ve ever had”, then added: “President Trump is not going to shy away from meeting with Kanye West.”