Like many others, I was shocked today upon hearing that Donald Trump will be addressing the Torah U’Mesorah President’s Conference on Friday. I understand the importance of being on good terms with influential leaders, but the context in this case is damning. As president, Trump was one of the best ever – if not the best ever – for Orthodox Jews and Israel. There’s little doubt about that in my mind. He has a long list of accomplishments under his belt that I am very thankful for. But now he’s running for president again, and this time, he has been meeting with outspoken antisemites, and perhaps more importantly, refusing to condemn them. It wasn’t even a month ago that Trump invited Kanye West to his home at Mar-a-Lago and dined with him. Along with Kanye came Nick Fuentes, arguably the most notorious white supremacist, antisemite, and Holocaust denier in America. Trump’s excuse for meeting with Kanye was that he was trying to help the rapper – who lost hundreds of millions of dollars in recent months – because Kanye said nice things about him. But let’s remember why Kanye lost all that money. It was because he made numerous antisemitic statements, invoked antisemitic tropes, and even threatened to go “death con 3” on Jews. This is the person Trump thinks it’s okay to meet with? As far as Fuentes, let’s assume that Trump’s claim that he didn’t know him are true. Fine, but why didn’t the former president condemn him? Over and over he’s been asked about the meeting, and not once has Trump condemned either Kanye or Fuentes. Not once. There are questions to be asked about Trump’s allegiances nowadays; how could we not, seeing that he refuses to condemn horrific antisemites? As Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel noted at the Agudah Convention about Trump, sometimes people who were once our best friends could become our worst enemies. And now, despite Trump’s unwillingness to call out antisemites, his defense of the meeting, and his recent attacks on “Jewish leaders” for not supporting him enough, Torah U’Mesorah will sit there and listen to a speech from him? Is it not obvious that Trump wants to address Torah U’Mesorah to sanitize his reputation? Isn’t it plainly clear that he knows his refusal to condemn antisemites is a bad look so he wants to play both sides? Why would Torah U’Mesorah allow themselves to be the avenue and serve as his off-ramp from actually coming out and condemning his horrible dinner mates? What are they thinking? L.G.N. – Williamsburg, Brooklyn NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN. DO YOU HAVE AN OPINION YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE POSTED ON YWN? SEND IT TO US FOR REVIEW. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
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