Hasidic boys’ choir sings tribute to Donald Trump
(JTA) — Even without hearing the words, the pictures that animate the “Appreciation Song for President Trump” sung by a group of Hasidic boys clearly spell out the reasons for their appreciation for Donald Trump.
“With devotion so strong, you lead us like you know how,” they sing as a photo of Sholom Rubashkin, the former meat processing plant owner whose 27-year prison sentence Trump commuted in December 2017 appears on the screen.
“The economy is growing like never before,” they sing against the backdrop of a stock ticker.
“The peace that you bring, freedom back to its core,” they sing as a photo of Trump announcing a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates flashes by.
Set to the tune of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the song sung by boys from Camp Munkatch, a summer camp run by a Hasidic sect based in Brooklyn, is not the first written in Trump’s honor by an Orthodox singer or group. Last summer, Yaakov Shwekey, an Orthodox soloist, sang a version of one of his songs rewritten about Trump for a Trump fundraiser in Long Branch, New Jersey.
But it was the latest example —and one that came quite late, given that it was uploaded to YouTube the day the Trump presidency ended — of the fervent support for Trump among Orthodox Jews, the overwhelming majority of whom are thought to have voted for his reelection in November.
The Camp Munkatch song, sung equally in English and Yiddish, includes photos from significant moments throughout the Trump presidency as well as video from a trip the camp took to Washington, D.C., in 2019.
“We the children came here from the Munkatcher camp to so proudly say thanks to our President Trump now,” the boys sing as video shows them visiting sites in Washington. It even includes a reference to Trump’s pardon of Sholam Weiss, a Brooklyn-born businessman sentenced to more than 800 years in prison in 2000 in a major insurance fraud scheme, in the final hours of his presidency.
The boys end the song with a phrase from the Jewish prayer for kings.
“Shechalak michvodo levasar vadam,” they sing while the video shows Trump visiting the Western Wall. The phrase refers to God “who shares from his glory with human beings.”
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