Donald Trump Gets Jews for Jesus Blessing
Image by Getty Images
(JTA) — CNN reported that Donald Trump last week met with “Christian, Jewish leaders.”
I tried to but could not track down which “Jewish leaders” were in the group. What also puzzled me was that it was the first day of Sukkot: That didn’t rule out the presence of a “Jewish leader,” but it made it less likely.
The leader, it turns out, was not of a group that would conventionally be understood as Jewish. On Sept. 30, Jewish Insider noted the Sept. 28 CNN story, and paired it with another report from the following day by the Christian Broadcasting Network, which identified one of the participants as Messianic Jewish Rabbi Kirt Schneider.
In a video accompanying the Christian Broadcasting Network report, Schneider confers upon Trump, leading in polls ahead of the Republican primaries, the priestly blessing, amended to include the name of Jesus and the pronunciation of God’s name.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
