Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Letters

Letter | On The Left’s Failure To Recognize The Hate On Its Own Side

Dear Editor,

On Wednesday, the Forward published a piece by Omar Baddar titled “Trump’s Bigotry Isn’t Accidental. We Must Unite To Fight It.” The article made the case that President Trump’s recent statement — that it would show “disloyalty” for a Jew to vote for a Democrat — was just another example of bigotry and hatred coming from this President.

Baddar makes the case that President Trump must be anti-Semitic because of these comments. He also argues that all charges of anti-Semitism that Republicans have leveled against Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Rashida Taib are “baseless.”

Was it anti-Semitic for President Trump to say that it would show “disloyalty” for a Jew to vote for the party of Congresswomen Omar and Tlaib? The specifics are up for debate, but either way, this kind of language is unacceptable coming from the President of the United States. President Trump has a more than checkered history when it comes to issues of race and religion, as Baddar notes. There was clearly no consideration of word choice or concern for the effects that words can have, an unfortunate pattern of this President. When speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition, he referred to Benjamin Netanyahu “your” Prime Minister, and also went on and on about how many “negotiators” were in the room.

With all of this said, it is unreasonable to conclude that President Trump is a deep and abiding anti-Semite who has a root level prejudice against Jews.

It’s a good faith Baddar is unwilling to grant Trump — though he is willing to grant it to Omar and Tlaib. Baddar starts the piece by briefly mentioning that President Trump’s claims of anti-Semitism against Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib are completely “baseless.”

But if I feel 100% comfortable calling out President Trump for his unacceptable and ignorant statements, Baddar should feel that way about Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib as well.

He should feel comfortable calling them out for planning to go on a trip to Israel led by Mifta, a group that has celebrated terrorists, printed blood libels, and published neo-Nazis.

He should feel comfortable calling them out for sharing a cartoon drawn by Carlos Latuff, a man who won second place in Iran’s Holocaust cartoon contest and has a long history of anti-Semitic cartoons.

Instagram post by Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib

Screenshot of anti-Semitic Instagram post by Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib Image by Batya Ungar-Sargon

He should feel comfortable calling Rep. Omar out for retweeting an article published on Mondoweiss, a website described by the Washington Post as a “Hate site.”

All of these examples that Baddar had the opportunity to call out have come within the past few weeks, yet concerns about Rep. Tlaib and Rep. Omar’s feelings towards Jews are “baseless,” he claims.

I am on board with calling out “ugly and divisive rhetoric” whenever and wherever I see it, but it helps nobody when people are more preoccupied with pushing an agenda than actually confronting hate. There is no doubt that hate comes from both sides — whether it be President Trump, Rep. Steve King, Rep. Omar or Rep. Tlaib — but our job as Americans is to call it out, not make excuses and divert attention.

Sincerely,

Jack Elbaum

Jack Elbaum is a high school student from Illinois. His work has been featured in the Washington Examiner, Times of Israel, and the Daily Wire.

A message from our CEO & publisher 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 during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.