Donald Trump alleged that American Jews who voted for Democrats were being "disloyal" to the country of Israel.
Seemingly too stupid to realize the idea that Jewish people should be loyal to the country of Israel is anti-Semitic, Trump urged Jewish Americans to support the party that serves as a home for many racists and Nazi sympathizers.
"I think any Jewish people that votes for a Democrat -- I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty," he said in an interview, while discussing rookie congresswomen who have criticized Israel.
By and large, Jews in America support Democrats. The Pew Research Center found that 70% of professed Jews in the United States either are Democrats or lean that way in their politics. As Edward Shapiro noted in his examination of Jewish politics in post-war America, right-wing politics have a nasty connection to antisemitism and Nazism. Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa has repeatedly met with Nazi-affiliated groups and appears to be a believer in far-right racial politics, for example. As such, outside of the socially conservative Orthodox communities, Jewish people associate with liberalism and the left.
"With good reason, Jews identified anti‑Semitism with the right," he wrote in A Time For Healing: American Jewry Since World War II. "In addition, they attributed the rise of Hitler to the economic and social dislocations caused by the Great Depression. A society that provided good housing, jobs, unemployment insurance, health care, and educational opportunities would, they believed, be less immune to anti‑Semitic demagogues. Liberalism was thus a bulwark against anti‑Semitism."
Jewish American organizations were quick to call out the president's comments as the latest in a line of anti-Semitic remarks.
“This is yet another example of Donald Trump continuing to weaponize and politicize anti-Semitism,” said Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, in an interview with the Associated Press. “At a time when anti-Semitic incidents have increased — due to the president’s emboldening of white nationalism — Trump is repeating an anti-Semitic trope.”
