(RNS) — Over the course of American history, there have been presidents who have made stupid and even hateful remarks about Jews.
For example, President Harry Truman. When World War II and the Holocaust ended, Jews and others called for the creation of a Jewish state.
Truman felt compassion for Jewish survivors. And yet, in private conversations with his wife and friends, he was known to have uttered antisemitic epithets and other malicious things about American Jews.
In particular, Truman was offended by Jewish assertiveness in their activism toward the creation of a Jewish state. Jewish leaders were frequently brusque with Truman — a favor he willingly returned. As David McCullough wrote in his biography of Truman, at one cabinet meeting, he became so furious over Jewish agitation that he snapped: “Jesus Christ couldn’t please them (the Jews) when he was on earth, so how could anyone expect that I would have any luck?”
In fairness, that was only mildly antisemitic. Truman’s record speaks for itself. He had a deep friendship with his business partner, Eddie Jacobson, who had originally convinced him to meet with Chaim Weizmann. As Michael Oren has written, when Truman reflected on his role in creating Israel, he imagined himself to be the modern-day incarnation of the ancient Persian King Cyrus, who invited the Jews of his realm to return to their land. (Yes, Truman knew the Hebrew Bible).
Decades later, President Richard Nixon wanted his daughters to stay away from any involvement in the arts: “The arts you know — they’re Jews, they’re left-wing — in other words, stay away.”
Decades later, President George H.W. Bush was frustrated about Israeli settlements on the West Bank (a rebuke to those who think only Democratic presidents have criticized Israel on that issue). He wanted to delay loan guarantees until Israel halted settlements and entered a peace conference with the Palestinians.
President Bush whined that “there are 1,000 lobbyists (AIPAC) up on the Hill today lobbying Congress for loan guarantees for Israel and I’m one lonely little guy down here asking Congress to delay its consideration of loan guarantees for 120 days.”
Was that remark truly antisemitic? Perhaps and perhaps not. Despite its lobbying for the Jewish State, AIPAC is by no means a Jewish organization. But the remark did raise the specter of inordinate Jewish influence, and it did cost President Bush much Jewish support.
But, those remarks were mild in comparison to what we heard this past week when former President Donald Trump stated “if he didn’t win the election,” then “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.”
Let the irony not be lost on us: He said those words at a campaign event that was centered on denouncing antisemitism.
The Republicans have been running a presidential campaign based largely in hatred and vile lies. They willfully and gleefully stood by as Trump trumpeted his pitiful invention of Haitian immigrants stealing and eating household pets in Springfield, Ohio.
To quote the Hebrew poet Zalman Shneur, writing in 1913:
Again the Dark Ages draw nigh! Do you hearken, O man, do you sense it —
The whirling and swirling of dust and the sulphurous scent in the distance?
When it comes to the Jews, the Dark Ages always seem to be drawing nigh.
It is puzzling that President Trump’s Jewish supporters and the Republican Jewish Coalition seem to pay little heed to his hateful, antisemitic rhetoric. How puzzling, as well, their feigned ignorance of Jewish history (and as my readers know, I have equally and tirelessly criticized the antisemitism of the progressives — so much so that I have lost some friends).
For here is the Donald/JD playbook: first, you make sh-t up about the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. Then, you make it up about the Jews. Haitians, Jews, who cares? We can invent a blood libel about the Haitians, because it worked so well with the Jews.
When Donald Trump “pre-blames” his potential loss on the Jews, this is a dog whistle to his most violent supporters. This is a man who has encouraged violence in the past. This is a man who applauded violence against a protester at a rally in 2016 and offered to pay the legal expenses of those who do violence at his rallies.
For this reason, we should all dread the day after Election Day. We have every reason to worry that there might be violence against Jews and Jewish institutions.
If Trump loses, that is one set of worries.
If he wins, there is another set.
This is a man who has already threatened that if he wins again, he will target his perceived enemies. When he was in the White House, he did so.
Therefore, we can imagine, grimly, that President Trump 2.0 would come after prominent Jews and Jewish leaders who opposed him. We can imagine his administration coming after Jewish institutions. And with a Supreme Court that has already augmented presidential power and immunity, there would be little to stop him.
When I go to Poland later this week, I will once again encounter the grandeur of that civilization. It was, arguably, the greatest and most enduring Jewish culture in Europe. Consider that the overwhelming majority of American Jews can trace their roots, in some way, back to Poland, or territories that were once part of Poland. You cannot tell the story of Poland without the Jews, and you cannot tell the story of the Jews without Poland.
But, even as I encounter the grandeur of Polish Jewry, I will encounter its fragility. To rehearse the biblical story of the Jews: new kings arose who did not know the Jews. One king could be benevolent; the next, not so much. And the Polish people themselves and their priests and local lords? A historical coin toss. Ordinary Poles could do great good, like hiding Jews during the Holocaust. But they were equally capable of horrendous acts, such as violence against Jews, even after the Holocaust ended.
My trip to Poland and my encounter with its Jewish history will be like an onion.
I will be peeling it, layer by layer, and with each act of peeling, it will elicit my tears.
I mentioned the hateful and obnoxious comments some American presidents have said about the Jews.
But like every traditional Jewish text this must end on a redemptive note.
I return to our first president, George Washington, and the words he addressed to the “Hebrew congregation” (the Touro Synagogue) in Newport, Rhode Island:
For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support …
May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.
Which America will we get? Which voice will prevail?
That will ultimately be our choice.
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