Rabbis Condemn Specious Accusations Of Anti-Semitism Against Trump and His Administration

The Coalition for Jewish Values today harshly condemned “specious accusations of anti-Semitism” coming from sectors of the Jewish community, directed at US government officials and the Trump Administration as a whole, dismissing these allegations as “unfounded, damaging and embarrassing.”

CJV Senior Rabbinic Fellow Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer remarked, “these recriminations are clearly motivated by politics, as they lack logic and defy objective facts. Critics are deliberately ignoring the Administration’s concrete actions of friendship and vocal support for the State of Israel and Jewish values.”

“We have seen this repeatedly,” said Rabbi Yaakov Menken, Director of the CJV. “Steve Bannon, Michael Anton, Sebastian Gorka, and President Trump himself. Unless you redefine anti-Semitism as ‘advocating conservative values,’ not one of these men qualifies.”

CJV Senior Rabbinic Fellow Rabbi Dov Fischer added, “Jewish Americans owe a profound and deep apology to these men and to so many others in American conservative circles who have been slandered as ‘anti-Jewish’ despite their profound, consistent, and lifelong support for Israel, the Jewish community and Jewish interests.”

Concerning the Trump Administration, the CJV pointed to the open friendship with Jews and Israel of the President, Vice President Pence, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, to cite but a few examples, and the extraordinary steps US officials have taken to counter anti-Semitic bigotry at the UN and restore close collaboration with the government of Israel. 

“The accusations of Jew-hatred are contrived and hollow,” added CJV Senior Rabbinic Fellow Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, “and serve only to mask real Jew-hatred that is occurring throughout the world and which the Trump Administration is vigorously fighting.”

“There is something unprecedented and malevolent in these manufactured accusations,” said CJV Senior Rabbinic Fellow Rabbi Aryeh Spero. “False accusations against individuals with long histories of genuine friendship towards the Jewish people and State of Israel can cause nothing but alienation of our friends and allies. 

But die-hard liberals seem not to care, showing that their primary loyalty is to the advancement of liberal politics and power over truth and the interests of the Jewish people. Their indifference to anti-Semitism from the Left affirms that their religion and worship is political liberalism.”

Bolstering this claim, Rabbi Gordimer added that “these same individuals endorse purported friends of the State of Israel who mouth vague platitudes of friendship while consistently stabbing Israel in the back.”

Rabbi Spero elaborated: 

“Hypocritically, they have been absolutely quiet regarding vile anti-Semitism coming from Islamic groups, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Rep. Keith Ellison, and were cheerleaders for Obama’s Iran Deal, though Iranian leaders boasted that the deal would enable it to destroy Israel and murder its Jewish citizens.”

The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), a national organization directed by prominent rabbinic leaders, articulates an authentic Jewish perspective on current events, and promotes Jewish values through writing and teaching derived from traditional Jewish thought.