With harsh words — in English and Yiddish — Republicans try to win Jewish voters
Former President Donald Trump at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit on Oct. 28, 2023. Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh September 5, 2024
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday accused President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of maligning Israel in their response to Hamas’ murders last week of Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages.
Both Biden and Harris blamed Hamas for their deaths, but Biden also said on Monday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not doing enough to secure a ceasefire-hostage deal.
“The blame for these wicked murders lies with Hamas, and Hamas only,” Trump said in a 15-minute address to the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit via satellite. “Only a morally rotten president and vice president would seek to blame Israel for heinous acts of terror committed against its own citizens.”
Trump went on to describe Vice President Kamala Harris as “the candidate of the forces who want to destroy Western civilization and Israel” and suggested that if she’s elected, terror groups will wage attacks on Israel. “You’ll never survive if they get in,” he said.
Harris can point to a strong pro-Israel voting record, and her refusal to heed calls from pro-Palestinian groups to impose restrictions on U.S. military aid to Israel.
In response to Trump’s remarks, Harris campaign spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein said Trump is no friend of Jews.
Trump “openly demeans Jewish Americans, proudly dined with a neo-Nazi, and reportedly thinks Adolf Hitler ‘did some good things,'” Finkelstein said. “He has said the only people he wants counting his money are ‘short guys wearing yarmulkes,’ and praised neo-Nazis who chanted ‘Jews will not replace us’ as ‘very fine people.’” In contrast, the spokesperson said, Harris “has been a lifelong supporter of the State of Israel as a secure, democratic homeland for the Jewish people and stands steadfastly against antisemitism both at home and abroad and will do the same as president.”
Courting Jewish voters
In a statement before the gathering, Matt Brooks, the RJC’s chief executive, framed Trump’s speech as one that could resonate with all American Jews. But the vast majority of Jewish Americans vote for Democrats, and Trump’s words likely appealed only to those already inclined to support him, and largely echoed his recent remarks on the campaign trail denigrating Jews who don’t vote for him.
“They have not been your friends,” Trump said of Democrats. “I don’t understand how anybody can support them. And I say it constantly, if you support them and you are Jewish, you have to have your head examined. They’ve been very bad to you.”
‘Chuck Shmuck’
Other speakers at the conference, at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, called Democrats “antisemites” and used vulgar Yiddish slang to describe Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish. And they accused Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris of trying to use her Jewish husband, Doug Emhoff, to make her candidacy more appealing to Jews.
Here is some of what they said:
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida accused Harris of using Emhoff as a cover to appeal to the radical left. “She thinks because her husband is Jewish, it somehow gives her cover as she appeals to the radical antisemites in her party, the same people who told her not to pick a Jewish governor to be her running mate,” he said. Republicans suggested last month that internal Democratic politics on Israel and antisemitism influenced Harris’ decision to bypass Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate. The Harris campaign and Shapiro called those accusations “absurd.”
Scott, who is running to succeed Mitch McConnell as the Republican Senate leader, also said Harris and Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, “don’t give a damn about Israel, don’t give a damn about the Jewish community.” Harris and Walz tout their pro-Israel credentials and their campaign has a robust outreach program geared toward Jewish voters.
Norm Coleman, the national chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, opened Thursday’s program by referring to Schumer as “Chuck Schmuck,” a Yiddish term meaning jerk, or a vulgar reference to male genitalia.
Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Harvard Divinity School student who spoke at the Republican National Convention in July, said he didn’t endorse Trump then in order to give Democrats a chance to address campus antisemitism at their convention last month. Disappointed in the party, he now says he’s supporting Trump: “The Democratic Party has taken the Jewish vote and Jewish voters for granted for far too long.”
Conservative radio host Mark Levin called Harris, without evidence, “an antisemite.”
“One of the reasons they’re hiding Kamala Harris is because she’s an antisemite,” he said. He went on to attack Shapiro, the Pennsylvania governor, calling him a “little jerk,” for accusing Trump of promoting antisemitic tropes after the former president called him a “highly overrated Jewish governor.” Levin said: “Jews like this give cover to the antisemites.”
Miriam Adelson, widow of GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson and herself a major Trump backer, introduced Trump: “Here we have a president that has already proved that he is committed to Israel, that already brought us whatever he is promising he will do … He is our best friend. He will save us, and I’m eagerly waiting for him to enter the White House and save the Jewish people.”
Unsubstantiated brags about Jewish support
Posters distributed to the crowd at the gathering read, “Kamala = Squad” (which was also the WiFi code for reporters ) and “Kamala … Oy Vey!”
In 2020, Trump received 21% of the Jewish vote, according to an exit poll commissioned for J Street, while an RJC-sponsored poll showed him with 30%. Republicans are aiming to glean more Jewish votes for Trump this election. The RJC has allocated up to $15 million for Jewish voter outreach in swing states including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin — states Biden won in 2020 by less than 3%, and where Jewish voters make up an estimated 1% to 3% of the electorate.
In his brief remarks, Trump claimed — without evidence — that his support among Jews has grown to 50%. “I only ask you, who are the 50% of Jewish people that are voting for these people that hate Israel and don’t like the Jewish people?” he said. “This November, you must get Jewish people or people that love Israel — you must get them to vote for Republican, you must get them to vote for Trump.”
Trump did not attend the summit in person, as he has in previous years, organizers said, due to a scheduling conflict. Before addressing the RJC, Trump wrapped up a 90-minute speech and Q&A session with business leaders at The Economic Club of New York shortly before appearing on screen.
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