Why Does Donald Trump Keep Dissing Jews?
“I do think that he’s so insensitive about the presidency — about the responsibilities of the leader of the free world —
that he doesn’t realize it’s not enough to say, once or twice, ‘I don’t agree with them.’ He doesn’t realize that you have to be very clear.” And he doesn’t realize — or care — that he’s validating and encouraging them.
The tone-deaf breeziness of his approach was accentuated by the message he left in the visitors’ book: “It is a great honor to be here with all of my friends — so amazing
& will never forget!” As Yair Rosenberg of the Jewish magazine Tablet tweeted, it was “basically just what teenagers write in each other’s high school yearbooks.”
Ivanka Trump went to the Warsaw memorial in her father’s stead, though Trump softened
that blow somewhat by mentioning, in his big Warsaw speech, that “the Nazis systematically murdered millions of Poland’s Jewish citizens.”
Ivanka converted to Judaism to marry Jared Kushner, and the couple’s key roles in the White House mean
that Trump has observant Jews at the very core of his presidency — and of his life.
In fact, the campaign moved to replace the star with a circle when the image gained attention.” Even so, PolitiFact noted, Trump had an unusual habit of “using social media to broadcast material
that comes from sources with a history of spreading racism, anti-Semitism or white supremacy.”
I’m not convinced that Trump is much of an anti-Semite, any more than I’m convinced that he’s much of a homophobe.
Trump interpreted the question as an indictment not of his behavior but of his being — “I am the least anti-Semitic person
that you’ve ever seen in your entire life!” he trumpeted — and turned the discussion toward the big, bad media.
