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| Adelson, Trump and Kaploun at an event marking on the 1st anniversary of Oct 7 |
Once again, I find myself in the awkward position of
defending a man I believe was unfit to be president for a variety of reasons. (Which I won’t repeat here.) But as someone who seeks the truth, I
feel compelled to defend him here. Labeling Donald Trump - a man who has had
such close relationships with Jews throughout his professional life and beyond -
especially Orthodox Jews - as antisemitic is utterly absurd.
Hate him all you want. Just don’t lie about him. Don’t buy
into a false narrative based on comments that were perceived as antisemitic but
weren’t - and were never intended to be.
But I suppose if you’re on the left and already hate Trump and
his conservative agenda - you’re going to believe every negative claim made
about him.
Most Jews who think Trump is an antisemite point to his
anti-DEI policies, assuming they stem from bigotry. This is how they characterize
the president’s harsh sanctions against schools like Harvard that haven’t been protecting Jewish students harassed
and threatened on campus by pro-Palestinian protestors.
Liberal Jews argue that these sanctions do more harm than good,
perhaps even fueling antisemitism as a backlash from those who see such moves
as stifling constitutionally protected free speech. When they see visibly
Orthodox Jews supporting those sanctions, they view us not only as
countercultural - but as anti-American. At least, that’s how we appear in the
eyes of progressives, whose values many non-Orthodox Jews embrace.
There is little dispute about the following statistics,
compiled by Pew Research. They are perhaps the most respected nonpartisan think tank in
the world: 90% of American Jewry is non-Orthodox. Many of them are abandoning
their faith as irrelevant. Over 70% care so little about their Judaism that
they marry out of the faith.
It’s reasonable to assume that this large segment of Jews - many
of whom lack even a basic Jewish education - have little understanding of what
it truly means to be Jewish. Instead, they’ve embraced progressive values as
the epitome of ethics and morality. Those who do retain a spark of Jewish pride
often reinterpret Judaism through a progressive lens, seeing those values as
the essence of what Judaism is all about. For them, the Torah is a relic - something
ancient and largely irrelevant to their modern worldview.
Their values champion social justice for the oppressed. And
in their minds, the current oppressed are the Palestinian people - whose
supposed oppressors are the Netanyahu government, aided and abetted by the U.S.
administration. Especially under the current president. (How they reconcile
that belief with the view that the president is antisemitic remains a mystery
to me. But I guess if you hate both Netanyahu and Trump, you find ways to
rationalize that contradiction.)
Given how many Jews are aboard the progressive train, I’m
surprised that only 52% of the registered Jewish electorate believe that Trump
is an antisemite. Frankly, I’d expect it to be closer to 90%.
Those of us who are observant - who understand that being a
Jew means following the laws of the Torah as interpreted by the sages - have an
entirely different view of the president and his political agenda.
Yes, it’s likely he appreciates our support. But I think he
also sees us as more authentic Jews. He sees us as people who are loyal to our biblically
based traditions. That’s why we support policies that align with biblical
values. Values that reflect how we live. (I recall President Bill Clinton once
said something similar about Chasidic Jews after meeting the Skverer Rebbe. He
saw them as more authentic than the assimilated Jews he associated with.)
That President Trump may have made some disparaging remarks about
liberal Jews, it wasn’t because he’s antisemitic. It’s was because he’s
anti-liberal.
Perhaps the clearest evidence that Trump is not antisemitic
is his choice of Yehuda Kaploun, a Chasidic Jew (Chabad) as the U.S.
antisemitism envoy. After the resignation of Deborah Lipstadt - an antisemitism
expert and outspoken Trump critic - Kaploun was nominated to fill the role.
Critics might say Kaploun was chosen simply because he’s a
Trump loyalist. It’s true that he’s a strong and very public supporter. But
guess who elevated his voice decades ago? JTA reports the following:
(The) first time Kaploun’s name appeared in the Congressional Record, it was because a senator named Joe Biden raised concerns about antisemitism on his behalf.
Kaploun has held a unique role in Jewish communal life—quiet diplomacy, political connections, even some controversy. He’s had ties with the Adelson family, the late Elie Wiesel, and now the political right.
Yes, there was a lawsuit involving infidelity allegations that
it appears was settled out of court. I don’t know the details, and I won’t
speculate. But here’s what we do know:
If confirmed, Kaploun would become the most senior Hasidic Jewish official in U.S. government history. The position he's been tapped for survived a major restructuring of the State Department. He is slated for a Senate confirmation hearing where his background and worldview will be scrutinized.
My guess? With a Republican majority in the Senate, he’ll be
confirmed. Likely along party lines.
If appointing a visibly Chasidic Jew to a senior role in government is
antisemitism…
If arresting Hamas-supporting foreign students on visas is antisemitism…
If penalizing Ivy League universities for not enforcing anti-hate policies is
antisemitism…
If appointing the most pro-Israel Secretary of State in history is
antisemitism…
If standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel’s prime minister in the war
against Hamas is antisemitism…
Then I’ll take it.
The majority of American Jews who believe the president is
an antisemite need to get educated - about their religion, and about what real
antisemitism actually looks like.
