Former President Donald Trump is running into criticism as he tries to court Jewish Americans to support him rather than President Joe Biden in November.
Trump has been critical of Biden’s policies toward Israel, notably Biden’s decision to begin withholding arms from Israel for its ground invasion into Rafah earlier this week. In criticizing his 2024 election opponent, Trump leveled his latest attack on Jews who vote for Democrats, but he may have opened himself up to slings and arrows as well.
“If you’re Jewish and you vote for him, I say, shame on you,” he told Spectrum News 1 North Carolina this week.
In a social media post, he said Biden “hates Israel” and “hates the Jewish people.”
“If Jewish people are going to vote for Joe Biden, they have to have their head examined,” he said.
In his haste to attack Biden’s treatment of Israel abroad and Jews in the United States, Trump has been accused of repeating antisemitic tropes himself.
“Like a cuckoo clock of hate, he is popping up every month with the same patronizing antisemitic shtick and reminding Jewish voters that he has no respect for us,” Biden campaign spokesman Charles Lutvak said in a statement.
While he was president, Trump accused Jewish Democrats of being “disloyal” to him. It’s a remark that many condemn as antisemitic because it evokes the trope that Jews have “dual loyalty” and put their loyalty to Israel over their nationality.
Trump also infamously remarked that there were “very fine people on both sides” during the “Unite the Right” rally in which white supremacists and neo-Nazis rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, during the first year of his presidency.
Earlier this year, Trump said Jews who voted for Democrats “hate their religion” and “hate Israel.
“I actually think they hate Israel,” Trump said. “I think they hate Israel. And the Democrat Party hates Israel.”
“Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion,” he continued. “They hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.”
The remark was denounced by many in the Jewish community.
“That escalation of rhetoric is so dangerous, so divisive, and so wrong,” said Rabbi Richard Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest U.S. Jewish religious denomination. “This is a moment when Israel needs there to be more bipartisan support.”
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Secular Jews are statistically more likely to vote for Democrats, while conservative or more religious Jews are more likely to vote for Republicans.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Trump’s campaign for comment.
