Jared Kushner Defends Donald Trump After Observer Writer Denounces ‘Anti-Semitism’
Jared Kushner defended his father-in-law Donald Trump against claims of anti-Semitism after a Jewish journalist at his Observer newspaper denounced the Republican presidential candidate.
Trump “does not at all subscribe to any racist or anti-Semitic thinking,” Kushner said in a statement Tuesday night, Politico reported
“My father-in-law is an incredibly loving and tolerant person who has embraced my family and our Judaism,” Kushner said in the statement. “I have personally seen him embrace people of all racial and religious backgrounds.”
Dana Schwartz, a culture reporter at the Observer, earlier wrote a heartfelt letter to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner about the anti-Semitic attacks that she received after condemning Trup’s post of Hillary Clinton with a Star of David on Twitteron July 2.
No Jew can vote for Trump with a clean conscience. He makes very clear the type of people he tries to appeal to. pic.twitter.com/CvhrGpYd6j
— Dana Schwartz (@DanaSchwartzzz) July 2, 2016
Schwartz said that after her tweets were picked up by Trump supporters, she received hundreds of memes and messages calling her slurs, making fun of the Holocaust, and telling her to kill herself.
“But deny or play dumb as you might, when I tweeted out my response, my worst fears were realized: his message, whether purposeful or inadvertent, was met with cheers by those to whom that star’s message was certainly clear,” she said in the letter.
She said that Trump’s claims that the star was merely a sheriff’s star, is commonly used in Microsoft application or was tweeted out by accident do not hold water.
“These explanations are so facile, infantile in their blatant disregard for context or logic that I can only imagine them being delivered by someone doing so while grinning and winking,” she said.
Maybe instead of attacking the media, you should condemn the anti-Semites who “misinterpreted” that image https://t.co/S8CpBocTBk
— Dana Schwartz (@DanaSchwartzzz) July 5, 2016
Schwartz says the claim that Trump’s actions cannot be anti-Semitic because he has a Jewish son-in-law is particularly concerning. Adding that she does not believe Trump is actually anti-Semitic, she said that Kushner’s silence on the attacks enables such behavior.
“Please do not condescend to me and pretend you don’t understand the imagery of a six-sided star when juxtaposed with money and accusations of financial dishonesty,” said Schwartz. “I’m asking you, not as a “gotcha” journalist or as a liberal but as a human being: How do you allow this?”
After Schwartz published her letter, Observer editor Ken Kurson told Politico that he signed off on the letter, but did not agree with its sentiments. Back in April, the Observer endorsed Trump as the Republican candidate.
“I understand that the worst among Trump’s supporters can make Jewish journalists — including myself — uncomfortable with their stupid and hateful screeching,” he wrote. “But with regard to Trump personally, I’m in a different place from Dana, who happens to be a brilliant and thoughtful writer. I’ve seen this guy hold his grandsons at a bris.”
Contact Veronika Bondarenko at [email protected] or on Twitter, @veronikabond.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
