175 years young

This week we unashamedly blow our own trumpet. True, in the span of Jewish history, 175 years is nothing. But during the existence our people have endured tragedy and evil previously beyond human imagining, followed by new hope with the creation of Israel. All of which gives us an instinctive sense of historical perspective. It is in that context that we should consider the election of Donald Trump. It is not an accusation, merely a statement of fact, to describe Mr Trump as a racist, misogynist bully. For Jews, one specific aspect of his ascendency is deeply worrying: his campaign was self-consciously antisemitic. One of his main themes has been that a global elite is conspiring against ordinary Americans.Every one of the examples cited by Mr Trump is Jewish. ne might wonder if the post-War years, when the US preserved a global order that destroyed prejudice rather than cementing it, was merely a short-lived exception to normality. Many of us look to the US as a beacon of freedom. When Britain stood alone against the Third Reich, it was the US that sacrificed so many of its sons to defeat the Nazis. In the Cold War it was the US, through Nato, that ensured the Soviet Union was held in check. Nato has since helped preserve the long-delayed freedom of Eastern Europe from the Warsaw Pact. All that is now threatened. Mr Trump cites Vladimir Putin as a role model and questions Nato’s purpose. The message is clear: far from standing up to an aggressive tyrant, he will willingly acquiesce in that aggression. These are worrying times. We have already been scapegoated by Mr Trump, so it is no supposition to suggest that worse may be to come. History shows that when bullies take charge, it is the Jews who are turned on first.

O