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| Michael Regenstreif, Editor |
By Michael Regenstreif
Editor
My
column in our August 19 issue discussed the explicitly racist attacks of U.S.
President Donald Trump on four rookie members of the U.S. House of
Representatives, all of whom are women of colour. In the days and weeks after
that issue went to press, there have been some downright bizarre developments
to the story.
Two
of the congresswomen, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who both support the
anti-Israel BDS movement, were scheduled to visit East Jerusalem and the West
Bank in August. In July, despite a law allowing Israel to bar BDS supporters
from entering the country, Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States
(who is known to be extremely close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu),
announced, “Out of respect for the U.S. Congress, and the great alliance
between Israel and America, we would not deny entry to any member of Congress
into Israel.”
That
changed on August 15 when Trump tweeted, “It would show great weakness if
Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all
Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their
minds.”
Immediately
following Trump’s tweet, Israel announced that Omar and Tlaib would not be
allowed to visit after all. Although Netanyahu and his ministers claimed the
change had nothing to do with Trump’s tweet, few analysts believed that.
The
decision was immediately condemned by mainstream American Jewish organizations
including AIPAC, Jewish Federations of North America, the Simon Wiesenthal
Center, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Israel
Policy Forum, and J Street as contradicting democratic values.
Barring
Omar and Tlaib may well have provided more PR value to the BDS movement than
the visit itself would have.
Then
the story got even weirder. On August 20, Trump proclaimed, “I think any Jewish
people that vote for a Democrat; I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge
or great disloyalty.” (According to the Pew Research Center, Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton received 71 per cent of the Jewish vote
in 2016, compared to 24 per cent for Republican candidate Trump. In the 2018
midterm elections, after two years of the Trump administration, 79 per cent of
the Jewish vote went to Democratic candidates, compared to just 17 per cent for
Republicans.)
Trump
invoked the antisemitic trope about the loyalty of Jews – one of the most
common expressions of antisemitism throughout history. In the following days,
Trump doubled-down and tripled-down on the trope elaborating that Jewish
Democratic voters (in other words, Jews who don’t support Trump) are disloyal
to the Jewish people and to Israel.
“In
my opinion, if you vote for a Democrat you’re being very disloyal to Jewish
people, and you’re being very disloyal to Israel. And only weak people would
say anything other than that,” he declared on the White House lawn.
And
in a tweet, Trump quoted and thanked talk radio conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn
Root for his “very nice words”: “President Trump is the greatest President for
Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the
best President for Israel in the history of the world and the Jewish people in
Israel love him like he’s the King of Israel. They love him like he is the
second coming of God.”
The
nightly news – in these Trumpian times – is, indeed, stranger than fiction.
Thanks Stephanie
As Stephanie Shefrin notes in her column, she is stepping back from being a
regular contributor to Modern Mishpocha, the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin parenting
column she created six years ago. Stephanie’s insights and discussions of
various family and parenting issues have made her columns compelling reading
for parents, grandparents and others.
One
of Stephanie’s innovations was to recruit other contributors to the column and
we’ll continue to publish Modern Mishpocha columns from Jen Perzow and Shirlee
Press. In the coming months, we’ll also introduce a couple of new contributors
Stephanie has recruited.
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