The Jewish Case Against Donald Trump

We look to our leaders to articulate a vision for where we ought to go and to be models for who we ought to be. This Republican presidential candidate is anathema to both.

ed note–MAMMA MIA, WHERE DO WE EVEN BEGIN???

Ok, first things first–

A. As evidenced by the title, the Jews don’t like Trump. Not that this particular article should be the ‘slam dunk’ finally making it official, as literally the JMSM in America has been screeching this message now for months. Nevertheless however, we have to repeat this due to the overwhelming stupidity of some in this ‘movement’ who still think that Trump is ‘working for the Jews’ because he acts political in saying nice things about Israel.

B. Note that the ‘good Rabbi’ references the Torah, over, and over, and over again. So much for those ‘experts’ in this ‘movement’ who claim that the Torah has nothing whatsoever to do with modern day Judaism and that it plays no part in Jewish life.

C. Our ‘good rabbi’ does however let some of the dorsal fin of the shark poke its way out of the waterline a bit with this statement–

‘Rabbis are meant to advance Torah in the world, and the Torah is, among other things, a political document.’

INDEED IT IS. It is a manual for worldwide conquest using every weapon available–religion, money, politics, deception, prostitution, genocide, enslavement, etc, etc, etc.

D. The ‘Good Rabbi’s’ statement thus–

‘Trump’s domestic policy positions – such as building a wall to prevent Mexican immigration, deporting the roughly 11.5 million illegal immigrants currently in the country, and banning Muslim immigration are anathema to Jewish values. Our tradition makes explicit our moral responsibility to ensure to the best of our ability that the circumstances of others’ lives, especially the lives of those who are unlike us..’

LOL. Never underestimate the Jews’ capacity for bald-faced lies. All one need do is look at how the Jews have dealt with the Palestinians for half a century as proof, including all the things which the ‘good Rabbi’ uses in criticizing Trump–Walls, driving them out, keeping them out, subjecting them to inhumane treatment.

E. ‘Judaism demands justice. Advocating for mass deportations, vilifying hundreds of millions of peaceful and law-abiding adherents of a major world religion, pursuing the economic devastation of other countries, and gleefully advocating torture are all antithetical to the Jewish moral ethos.’

There really is no need to expand/expound upon anything here, being as self-evident as it is, but we’ll do it anyway–

The Jews have decimated the economies of the West through their control of finance and usury. They celebrate the economic destruction of Egypt yearly during Passover, where they recall how their ancestors stole all the gold and silver of the Egyptians before hauling ass out of there as fast as they could. Torture–read about what the Israelis do to the Palestinians, including the most recent case of them threatening a Palestinian father with having his wife and children raped if he didn’t confess to crimes he didn’t commit. Villifying the entirety of the Muslim world–The JMSM pours this very filth into the western consciousness every minute of every day.

And finally–drum role please–the icing on the cake–Trump’s ‘propensity for vulgarity, innuendo, invective, slander and his lack of concern for the opinions or feelings of others.’

To explore this last issue would take a book in and of itself, so we’ll just leave the reader with a few names to consider–

Sarah Silverman, Howard Stern, Al Goldstein, Pamela Geller, Seth Rogan, Adam Sandler, Alan Dershowitz, Joan Rivers, Sandra Bernhard, etc, etc, etc…we could go on like this for years…

Rabbi Michael Knopf for Haaretz

A few months ago, a New Jersey rabbi had a dream of rallying his colleagues in support of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump. Rabbi Bernhard Rosenberg reportedly built a Facebook page called “Rabbis for Trump,” hoping it would attract like-minded rabbis. It didn’t. The page was then renamed “Rabbi for Trump.” Alas, as Rabbi Akiva said to Rabbi Eliezer after the latter remained the lone stubborn dissenting voice regarding the purity of a particular type of oven, “My master, it appears to me that thy colleagues keep aloof from thee” (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 59b), ultimately, Trump’s key rabbinic supporter abandoned his lost cause, attempting to close down the page in early February.

In my view, there is a place for rabbinic voices in politics. Rabbis are meant to advance Torah in the world, and the Torah is, among other things, a political document. However, there is something unsettling about rabbinic endorsements of political candidates, since it is hard to imagine a party or a politician that fully and unambiguously reflects or advocates for the Torah’s vision of a good society. Often, such endorsements represent the rabbi’s political point of view garbed in his or her rabbinic authority.

At the same time, it is telling when virtually no rabbis endorse a particular candidate or when many, if not most, actively oppose one. Such rare cases of rabbinic agreement (in a highly controversial arena like politics, no less) call for attention and analysis, because they indicate a consensus about bedrock Jewish values, about our collective rabbinic desire for leaders who embody and advance those values, and about our collective rejection of figures who stand in stark contrast with those values. In the 2016 presidential election, there is indeed such a candidate, a politician virtually universally rejected by American Jewish spiritual leaders: Donald J. Trump.

The Jewish tradition would reject Trump because of his positions. His domestic policy positions – such as building a wall to prevent Mexican immigration, deporting the roughly 11.5 million illegal immigrants currently in the country, and banning Muslim immigration – advance a stunningly cruel vision of America, where white and Christian citizens enjoy renewed and unchallenged supremacy. His foreign policy is belligerent and brutal in its protectionism and hawkishness, turning trade into a zero-sum game where others have to lose in order for America to “win,” and in matters of war and peace presuming that the only way to keep Americans safe is to devalue the lives of non-Americans.

These positions are anathema to Jewish values. Our tradition makes explicit our moral responsibility to ensure to the best of our ability that the circumstances of others’ lives, especially the lives of those who are unlike us, match what we would want for ours: Love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt (Leviticus 19:34).

The Bible invokes our collective memory of oppression in Egypt no less than 36 times, harnessing our history over and again so that we connect the crises others face today with our crises yesterday, to see their story as our story, to experience their reality as personally as we would our own. The Torah trains us to want for others, and particularly for others who are disadvantaged, what we would want for ourselves.

And our tradition imparts the moral responsibility toward the other as an extension of our theology. The Torah’s most basic faith claim is that “God is One.” If God is one, then all is one. As Rabbi Ed Feinstein puts it, “God is Melech ha-Olam, Sovereign of All, the God of global concern. In God, there is no such thing as care for our own apart from concern for the other, because in God there is no such thing as the other.” In a one-God universe, we are all one – brothers and sisters, children of one parent (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5).

Where Trump seeks “greatness,” Judaism desires goodness. Where Trump wants to “win,” Judaism demands justice. Advocating for mass deportations, vilifying hundreds of millions of peaceful and law-abiding adherents of a major world religion, pursuing the economic devastation of other countries, and gleefully advocating torture are all antithetical to the Jewish moral ethos.

And I believe the Jewish tradition would reject Trump because of the personality with which he dangerously marries his immoral positions. Take, for example, Trump’s characteristically unfiltered manner of speaking. This trait may appeal to those weary of restrictive political correctness and endlessly focus-grouped and programmed politician-speak, but his propensity for vulgarity, innuendo, invective, and slander also reflect a lack of concern for the opinions or feelings of others.

The Jewish tradition, on the other hand, deals at length with our responsibility to watch our mouths. For instance, Genesis 1 holds that God created the world through speech. The rabbis commonly interpreted this to mean that words create worlds. Speech has the power to shape reality in profound and enduring ways, to build up and to break down. That’s what the biblical book of Proverbs means when it teaches, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21), why the rabbis of the Talmud adjure us, “Teach your tongue to say, ‘I don’t know’” (Babylonian Talmud, B’rakhot 4a), and why entire tractates of Jewish law are devoted to shmirat halashon, guarding our speech. Our power of speech calls for extreme responsibility.

Similarly, while most politicians exhibit some degree of narcissism and have a propensity for self-promotion, Trump wears these qualities on his sleeve. Trump revels in displays of arrogance, frequently reminding audiences of his greatness, his singular talents, and his unparalleled successes.

The Jewish tradition teaches us to be wary of such arrogant people, especially when they are in positions of leadership. Those who see themselves as special tend look down on others. They have little compassion for those they do not perceive to be on the same level. They presume always to be right, never allowing for new information to change their mind. When our family members, peers, or co-workers exhibit that quality, most of us find them insufferable. When leaders possess that quality, they are dangerous. That’s why the biblical model for leadership is Moses, a man described as exceedingly humble (Numbers 12:3), and why haughtiness is consistently called out in the Bible and rabbinic literature as the most contemptible of qualities.

We look to our leaders both to articulate a vision for where we ought to go and also to be models for who we ought to be – as individuals, and as a people. On both of these grounds, it seems to me that the Jewish tradition speaks with a clear, and uncharacteristically unified, voice: Donald Trump is unfit to lead.