President Donald Trump and Rep. Ilhan Omar. Image by Getty/Forward Montage

By Aiden Pink August 21, 2019

Updated August 22

President Trump’s remarks from the Oval Office on Tuesday, in which he claimed that Jews who voted for Democrats showed “either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty,” were condemned by a variety of Jewish figures and organizations.

But in some cases, their initial reactions were different from their responses after Rep. Ilhan Omar said in March that she wanted “to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

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Many observers thought that both comments echoed the anti-Semitic trope of “dual loyalty” – but in some cases, figures only explicitly called one of them “anti-Semitic.”

For example, American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris called Trump’s remarks “inappropriate, unwelcome, and downright dangerous.” But after Omar’s comments, Harris was much more direct: It was “anti-Semitism, plain and simple,” he tweeted.

On the other hand, some prominent Jewish Democrats went in the other direction, calling Trump’s remarks anti-Semitic but not Omar’s.

First-term Rep. Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, who once served on the board of her local Jewish Federation, said in March of Omar’s comments, “At best, they are tone deaf….I am not going to go so far as to call her anti-Semitic, and I think if I were to say that her comments were, it would be tantamount to calling her anti-Semitic.”

But on Tuesday, Wild’s criticism of Trump was clear. “Calling American Jews disloyal for voting for Democrats is offensive and anti-Semitic,” she tweeted.

Some Jewish groups that had called Omar’s “allegiance” comment anti-Semitic did do so about Trump as well.

In response to Omar in March, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote in USA Today, “Let’s be clear: The problem isn’t that Omar criticized Israeli policies,” Greenblatt in USA Today. “The problem is her comments were anti-Semitic.”

In his initial response on Tuesday, Greenblatt didn’t explicitly call Trump’s remarks anti-Semitic. “It’s unclear who @POTUS is claiming Jews would be ‘disloyal’ to, but charges of disloyalty have long been used to attack Jews,” he tweeted. “As we’ve said before, it’s possible to engage in the democratic process without these claims. It’s long overdue to stop using Jews as a political football.”

But appearing on CNN the following morning, Greenblatt was willing to use the relevant word: “I will be exactly clear on what that was — anti-Semitism,” he said.

Democratic Majority for Israel co-chair Ann Lewis stated in March that Omar’s “allegiance” line “is among the oldest and most dangerous anti-Semitic charges.” In response to Trump’s language on Tuesday, she and DMFI CEO Mark Mellman released a statement saying Trump’s rhetoric “inflames anti-Semitic passions” – but did not say whether the words were anti-Semitic themselves. On Wednesday afternoon, after Trump clarified that he meant Jewish Democrats were being “very disloyal to Israel,” the organization tweeted, “[Trump] is employing the same antisemitic rhetoric used by [Omar].”

A few Jewish Democratic politicians used consistent standards as well.

Rep. Ted Deutch of Florida harshly criticized Trump’s remarks on CNN on Tuesday, saying that anti-Semitism “should be condemned wherever it comes from.” In March, Deutch gave a speech on the House floor condemning Omar’s language, as well as statements by Trump and other Republicans, as anti-Semitic.

Senator Jacky Rosen of Nevada, the former president of her synagogue, tweeted on Tuesday, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: questioning the loyalty of American Jews is anti-Semitic.” The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in March that Rosen’s office had refused to respond to requests for comment about Omar’s “allegiance” statement, though the following month, Rosen released a video that did not mention Omar by name but criticized public figures, including political allies, who made anti-Semitic statements such as questioning Jews’ loyalties. “We have a moral obligation to put a stop to this disturbing trend by calling out even our friends when they cross that line,” she said.

And Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois co-wrote a CNN op-ed in March condemning Omar’s “anti-Semitic tropes.” On Tuesday, Schneider tweeted, “At best, President Trump is exposing his childish fantasy of America as a monarchy with himself as king. At worst, he’s knowingly trafficking in antisemitic tropes of dual loyalties, and feeding the hateful delusions of violent extremists. Apologize and end the dangerous rhetoric.”

Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia, another of the CNN op-ed’s co-authors and a 20-year Navy veteran, released a statement saying the dual loyalty trope “create[s] an anti-Semitic environment.”

The third co-author, Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, retweeted Greenblatt’s first tweet and released a statement that did not anti-Semitism at all: “Since Israel’s founding, the Democratic Party has been, and remains, an unwavering supporter of the Jewish State. Hard stop. Despite attempts to inject politics into it, the U.S.-Israel relationship is, and must remain, a bipartisan issue.”

Note: This article is an incomplete list and will continue to be updated as more information is acquired.

Correction: A previous version of this article did not include a tweet from Democratic Majority for Israel that condemned both Trump and Omar’s comments as anti-Semitic.

Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor of the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aidenpink

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