Donald Trump And The Jewish Vote

I've been thinking about this for a long time. I know that there are plenty of Jews who support and will vote for Donald Trump in November. Much of the reasoning behind this is due to his relationship and accomplishments surrounding Israel. Let's start with Trump moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. On the surface, this seems like an easy call. How can an embassy not be in the country capital? Congress even authorized this move back in 1995. (Biden voted in favor of this.) For a variety of reasons, though, the move never happened until Trump took office. While maybe pro-Trump Jewish voters are okay with the end result here, Trump said that he moved the embassy “for the evangelicals.”

“And we moved the capital of Israel to Jerusalem. That’s for the Evangelicals. You know, it’s amazing with that: the Evangelicals are more excited by that than Jewish people.” pic.twitter.com/nO8aIzuZJa

— David Pinsen (@dpinsen) August 17, 2020

 

I'm definitely not going to speak for evangelicals here. I'll let Walker Robins, a former Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University post-doctoral fellow (and current lecturer at Merrimack College) explain.

Some evangelicals "stress biblical prophecy, holding that Jewish possession of Jerusalem, especially the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem, is essential to a number of prophesied events that will accompany the Second Coming of Christ." Many evangelicals see the embassy move as getting closer to the Rapture / End Times / Armageddon where good Christians go to heaven and the rest of us (including Jews) are left behind or worse. Therefore, it's fair to suspect the way the embassy move was done (it upset lots of people) and the reason for the move. 
 
By the way, Trump said this during his acceptance speech at the Republican Convention last month.

“Rather than spending $1 billion on a new building as planned, we took an already owned existing building in a better location … and opened it at a cost of less than $500,000.”

In reality, from this fact check from the link above, the cost for converting the building is over $23 million, and the costs for the permanent embassy could surpass $1 billion.

Even back in 2018 when Trump claimed that the site would only cost between $200,000 and $300,000, the State Department awarded a $21 million contract for embassy building upgrades.

I’m not going to write that Trump lied about the costs, but, um, I’m not sure the right way to finish this sentence if I don't write that. I should also mention that if people are worried about the status of the embassy if Trump loses, Biden said he’ll keep the embassy in Jerusalem.

I realize that I barely started this post, and I’m including lots of links and quotes. That’s not like me! You generally read stories about my kids or about how many burritos I ate in a year. I’ll try to have less of this.

Israel recently signed peace agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain thanks in part to assistance by the United States. Trump is taking credit for this, and he should. This is his biggest international accomplishment of his presidency. However, let’s not pretend that Trump was at Camp David with international leaders for weeks trying to broker a peace deal like Jimmy Carter. UAE and Israel have been building towards an agreement for years based on growing business connections and a mutual enemy in Iran. And honestly, the Saudi Arabia and Iran relationship is probably the key here. Hot take: They don’t like each other very much. UAE and Bahrain don’t do these deals without the backing of Saudi Arabia. And this is where things get tricky. Or maybe not tricky at all. 

The CIA concluded that Mohammed bin Salman (“MBS”), the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Nevertheless, not long after the murder, Trump bypassed Congress to sell about $8 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia and UAE. He also vetoed resolutions blocking the sale as well as a bipartisan bill to end US support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen’s civil war. In addition, it was recently revealed that Trump bragged to Bob Woodward that he “was able to get Congress to leave MBS alone.” Clearly, Trump values his relationship with the Saudi monarchy (and probably more specifically their money), and they obviously love Trump. I mean, there were no repercussions at all for murdering a journalist. In fact, they were rewarded and protected!

So it clearly looks like Israel decided that they’re on the Saudi side of the Saudi Arabia-Iran whatever you want to call it. And this is where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes in. Bibi (and others including many in the American Jewish community) didn’t like the international deal between the US and other countries with Iran during the Obama administration. Obama and Bibi never seemed to get along, and the signing of this nuclear agreement strained the relationship (at best) between the two. Because of this, there are people who think that Obama and Biden (since he was VP under Obama) are against or hate Israel. However, it was under Obama and Biden in 2016 that the US signed a record $38 billion deal for military aid to Israel. Now, it’s fair to question this deal and incredible amount of money involved here, but it happened even with the sour relationship between Obama and Netanyahu. The point is America is committed to Israel no matter who is in the Oval Office. And it seems to me that Biden has a solid track record on Israel and to a lesser extent so does Kamala Harris.

Okay, sorry for a few more links. Joe Biden’s website discusses his record and plan pertaining to Israel and Harris shared her commitment to Israel. There are also some “fun” facts about Harris and her relationship with the Jewish community.

By the way, Israel definitely didn’t want Iran to have nuclear capabilities. Well, guess who may have enough uranium ore to produce nuclear fuel? That’s right, Saudi Arabia!

Moving the American embassy to Jerusalem is fine, and it’s great the Israel has peace agreements with UAE and Bahrain. However, anyone suggesting that Trump is the best president Israel has ever had certainly doesn’t know the history between the two countries. While I stand by my point that the US-Israel relationship will be strong with whoever is in the Oval Office, Israel needs to worry about their own leadership given that there have been approximately 87 elections for Prime Minister over the last few years! (That’s only a slight exaggeration.) I think most people want Israel to have peace agreements with as many countries (and including the Palestinians) as possible. Until that happens, though, I think it's fair to be skeptical (and there are probably other words you could use here) of the Saudi Arabian government.

Now that I wrote about America’s relationship with Israel, I wanna really, really, really wanna zigazig ah.

Actually, I wanna really, really, really discuss this this September 2, 2020 opinion article titled "Many Orthodox Jews support President Trump. I'm one of them - here's why" by Mishpacha Magazine editor Binyamin Rose published in Washington Jewish Week. Here are some quotes from the article:

We feel an affinity to the president’s cadre of Orthodox Jewish advisers, including Jared Kushner. Jared’s father, Charlie, was my high school classmate at the Jewish Educational Center in Elizabeth, NJ. The Kushners wore their commitment to Jewish causes and Israel on their sleeves.

It’s nice that Rose has a personal connection to the Kushners. It’s funny that he didn’t mention that Kushner pleaded guilty to 16 counts of tax evasion, one count of retaliating against a federal witness and one count of lying to the Federal Election Commission. And that one count of retaliating against a federal witness is quite a story. Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, videotaped it, and then sent the videotape to his sister to attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury. So Kushner served time in federal prison, but since he’s committed to Jewish causes and Israel, everything is okay? As for Jared Kusher, the only reason that he has such a prominent role in the Trump administration is because he married Ivanka Trump. I would say that he’s a real life Tom Wambsgans, but as pointed out in this amazing Last Week Tonight segment, he has plenty of responsibilities. (This video is not safe for work.)

If Kushner wasn't married to Ivanka and showed up at the White House with his resume and asked to be responsible for Middle East peace negotiations, on the coronavirus task force, as well as the other items he does, he would be laughed away. Back to the article.

Recent events have only solidified Trump’s standing despite the coronavirus pandemic, which most Orthodox Jews view as primarily a health issue and not one that politicians can solve. Biden can critique Trump from the basement of his Wilmington, Del., home all he wants, but he can’t prove retroactively that he would have done better.

I’ll give Rose the benefit of the doubt that this was published in early September before the revelation that Trump told Bob Woodward that he was downplaying the severity of the virus to avoid panic. We all know that Trump tries to avoid panic at all costs. Remember all of the gang members and terrorists that were part of the Central American migrants ready to invade our southern border? He definitely tried to downplay that, right? Rose is correct that we can’t prove that Biden would have done better during the pandemic. But how could he have done worse? Biden never said that the virus would simply go away. Biden also never said that the virus "affects virtually nobody" under 18. Again, I'm not going to write that Trump lied, but um...

Aside from catching COVID-19, the two outbreaks Orthodox Jews fear most are a breakdown of law and order, and rising anti-Semitism. To an extent, the two dovetail.

American Orthodox Jewish voters are concentrated in and around major cities, where Jewish institutions have spent millions of dollars since 9/11 on security upgrades. We have watched in dread as this summer’s legitimate demonstrations against police brutality against Black Americans quickly gave way to rioting and looting, with big-city mayors looking the other way.

While the vast majority of the protests haven’t resulted in rioting and looting, let’s go with Rose’s point. So the way to improve law and order and rising anti-Semitism that has happened during the Trump presidency is to, re-elect Trump?

Yes, political dialogue has descended to gutter level. Trump bears his share of the blame for that. Judaism has laws for kosher speech, just as it has for kosher food. Jewish law forbids the use of derogatory nicknames. We’d like to see the president eliminate the name-calling from his political lexicon.

 
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Can I stop laughing now? Trump has been president for nearly four years. What makes you think he’s going to stop name-calling? He was just on Fox and Friends on Monday suggesting that Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Congressman Adam Schiff (who he called "Shifty Schiff") made up Ruth Bader Ginsburg's deathbed statement that "my most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed." His political lexicon isn't changing.

Trump’s diatribes have emboldened far-right extremists and white nationalists.

 

But wait, you just said that rising anti-Semitism was the biggest concern besides COVID-19!

At the same time, Democratic progressives have ramped up their anti-Israel rhetoric, supporting the BDS movement under the banner of free speech. Both parties are guilty of fomenting anti-Semitism. But for an Orthodox Jew, what’s the bigger present threat? A far-right extremist in a distant rural town, or a looter in a Jewish neighborhood?

 
This makes no sense. Does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez embolden people to loot in Jewish neighborhoods? I’ve never once heard that correlation.

By the way, there were at least two far-right extremists in the last few years in Pittsburgh and Poway (just outside San Diego). Those aren’t distant rural towns. And just from personal experiences, Jewish agencies have spent millions of dollars on security upgrades since the Tree of Life synagogue shooting rather than since 9/11.

This is out of order, but one final quote from Rose.

We also support government funding of secular studies curriculums within parochial schools, as many Western countries do. 

If that’s your #1 election issue, I guess you’re going to vote for Trump. I mean, almost all school funding occurs on the local or state level, but go with Trump over Biden here. By the way, you know what else is a pressing item for Jews and all Americans? Healthcare. Trump's entire healthcare plan has been to abolish Obamacare, so much so that his administration is currently waiting to argue this in front of the Supreme Court. How many times over the last 3.5+ years has Trump said that he would have a new, better healthcare plan? It's late September, and there's still no plan or proposal.

Finally, please listen to Trump’s phone call with various leaders, rabbis, and Holocaust survivors (who he meets “on the campaign trail often”). I’d love to see a list of who exactly was on this call. Oh, and when and where exactly is Trump meeting all of these Holocaust survivors? Is it before or after his speeches at airport hangers? Anyway, while it seems like the premise of this call was to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and wish people a Happy New Year, the vast majority of the nearly 15 minutes of the video consists of Trump talking about himself and encouraging everyone listening to vote for him. A "may you be inscribed in the book of life" statement would have been nice. At around the 9:30 mark, he says, “If we don’t win, Israel is in big trouble.” Once again, he’s downplaying panic, right? He also complained that he only got 25% of the Jewish vote in 2016 even though “I have a son-in-law and a daughter who are Jewish” and grandchildren that are Jewish. Yes, when most people vote for president, the religion of the candidate’s family members is the deciding factor. I think he really feels like he should get more votes from American Jews simply for this reason.

At the end of the call, Trump says that “we love your country also.” Aren’t the people on this call American? American Jews certainly have a connection to Israel, but the United States is our country.

(JTA has a good summary of this call.)

If you made it all the way through this post, thank you. Look, I know that this post isn’t going to change anyone’s mind, especially because I can’t imagine that there are any undecided voters at this point. I’m just trying to share that Israel will be just fine without Trump, and America will be better without him too.

Shana Tova, and may you be inscribed in the Book of Life!

(Photo of Trump and MBS from Getty. Photo of Biden and Harris by Anthony Lanzilote of Bloomberg.)

UPDATE: It was only a few hours after this post that I saw this story which states "After phone calls with Jewish lawmakers, Trump has muttered that Jews "are only in it for themselves" and "stick together" in an ethnic allegiance that exceeds other loyalties, officials said." Maybe this isn't true, but this certainly sounds like something he would say, right?

Meeting Benjamin Netanyahu

I visited Israel during winter break of 1996/the first day or two of 1997. It was an amazing trip. I was part of the leadership bus consisting of college students throughout the country. Most of the people on the bus didn't know more than a few others, so there weren't the cliques that you might expect. I became friends with a couple from the University of Houston and went to their wedding a few years later. My assigned roommate attended Texas A&M, and I remember him trying to bargain for cheaper ice cream at Ben & Jerry's since you're expected to bargain at retail stores in Israel. Obviously, this did not apply at Ben & Jerry's but the interaction between my roommate and the employee was hilarious. I made friends with people from George Mason University, Arizona State University and San Diego State, and in this last case, she vouched me, helping me get a job there.

Unfortunately, I lost all of my pictures from this trip. I don't know if I accidentally threw them away packing up after college graduation, but they have been gone for 18+ years now. However, I recently found a newsletter that included this picture of me with the current Israeli Prime Minister and the leader at the time, Benjamin Netanyahu.

I honestly don't know why I was picked to meet Netanyahu, and more importantly, why the Prime Minister took time out of his schedule to address a group (though a large group) of American college students. I think I probably said hello, but I doubt we said more than ten words to each other. I'm positive that I was much nicer to Netanyahu than I was to former California Governor Gray Davis.

Netanyahu is in the news quite a bit these days. He's currently running for re-election in Israel and may or may not address Congress in the near future. Whether or not you agree or disagree with any (or all) of Netanyahu's opinions and policies, how often can you say that you shook hands with a country leader? I mean, sure I got a holiday card from the Gore family, but Al Gore was only the Vice President at that time, and it's not like we actually met.

Steeler Nation Israel

I mentioned on Monday that my blog is going to be heavy on Pittsburgh Steelers content over the next few weeks. That happens when the team that you love advances to the biggest single game in the United States. But what about other countries? Daniel Sass is the founder of the Steeler Nation Israel page on Facebook, so I thought I would check-in with him about being a Steeler fan abroad.



How did you become a Steeler fan? Are you from the United States or have you always lived in Israel?

I was born in Pittsburgh in 1966. While I only lasted in Pittsburgh for 2 years, I was raised a Pirate/Steeler/Penguin fan. My earliest memories of the Steelers was their 1971 season (in which they had losing record).

I moved to Israel in 2002 (from Portland, OR).

Where do you watch Steelers games?

Fortunately [the] NFL has excellent coverage in Israel. There are weeks during the season that we have more games broadcast here than many cities in the States. ESPN, FOX Sports, and METV (a Christian station that pioneered showing NFL in Israel years ago), all broadcast NFL games. Last weeks AFC Championship game was actually broadcast simultaneously on two of these channels (ESPN & METV).

I have a video production company in the City of Efrat (a suburb of Jerusalem). I film and produce videos for Weddings, Bar/t Mitzvahs, etc. Years ago I converted the living room of my studio into a Steeler 'Man Cave' complete with Pool Table, big screen TV and probably the largest collection of Steeler memorabilia in the Middle East (including four chairs from Three Rivers Stadium). This is where we watch the games.



Do you know of Steelers bars in Israel?

As far as I know (and I did investigate) there are none.

Do you dread Sunday and Monday night games? They must start in the middle of the night for you!

NBA & MLB are kind of tough to follow closely because of the number of games played annually. But the NFL only has a 16 week season, so it is worth the investment of staying up all night to watch the games. It doesn't hurt that I am a night owl.

Since the Pittsburgh Pirates are never shown nationally in the United States, do they ever air Pittsburgh Pirates games there?

ESPN has the game of the week and the Pirates show up on TV a couple of times a year, but not more than that.

Tell us about the Steeler National Israel group.

This group has only become official recently, but there are an inordinate amount of people from Pittsburgh who now reside in Israel. AND it seems that EVERYBODY from Pittsburgh is a diehard Steeler fan.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lived in the Philadelphia area for much of his childhood and spent a significant amount of time in Boston at Harvard and MIT. He later was Israel's ambassador to the United Nations. Based on all of this, if Netanyahu is a football fan, he probably supports either the Eagles or Patriots with a slim possibility of the Giants or Jets. This is a very odd way of prefacing this question, but are there any famous Steelers fans in Israel?

ABSOLUTELY . . . in my tiny little community there is a religious lady named Varda Epstein. You couldn't tell that she is a Steeler fan until you watch a game with her. She has one of the Three Rivers seats reserved for watching the games. Her uncle is (was) Myron Cope. It's a tiny little world.

Any Myron Cope stories from his niece?

You should ask her yourself. Her name is Varda Epstein and she is in the Steeler Nation - Israel group. (Sean’s Note: Maybe I will)

Finally, any predictions for the Super Bowl?

I know that the Pack is favored by 3, but I honestly believe that the Steelers will win by 10. They are post-season proven and I think Ben will prove again that the bigger the game the bigger he plays. Plus the Defense will do what they have been doing all season. Final score: Steelers 27 - Packers 17


Thanks to Daniel for agreeing to answer my silly questions. It's nice to get the perspective of how Steelers fans live abroad. In addition, thanks to Daniel for providing pictures of his man cave. I included a few more below. I'm extremely jealous of the Three Rivers Stadium seats. Don't forget to check out (and even join) the Steeler Nation Israel group.