AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE
How the Jewish left botched its response to the Pittsburgh shootings
THE aftermath of Pittsburgh has been a disgrace.
In ordinary times it would have been unseemly to comment on the atrocity at the Tree of Life Synagogue so soon after it unfolded. It was the most deadly anti-Semitic attack this country has ever seen. It should have given us pause and brought us together.
But these are not ordinary times. Donald Trump is president.
Before the bodies of the dead had gone cold, let alone been buried and mourned, the Jewish left sacrificed an opportunity to cry in unity and chose instead to call for division. Bend the Arc, reputedly the largest Jewish social-justice organization in the nation, published a letter blaming the president for the attack. Other groups, such as The Jewish Vote and If Not Now, also saw the attack as a chance to castigate the president.
Apparently these liberal groups need reminding that the shooting at a Jewish community center in Kansas occurred during the Obama administration.
Instead of trying to score political points, would not a more appropriate response have been to urge calm upon the hyper-partisanship that has seen both sides court incivility?
Yet more egregious, however, was the excoriation by Jewish liberals of their fellow Jews who support President Trump. Another three Jewish social justice groups — Torah Trumps Hate, Hitoreri and Uri L’Tzedek — penned an open letter to the National Council of Young Israel (NCYI), blasting the Orthodox synagogue umbrella group for its statement condemning the attack. NCYI’s sin? Concluding its heartfelt statement by expressing appreciation for “the strong words of support from President Trump and the administration in urging everyone to work together to combat anti-Semitism.”
Meanwhile, Franklin Foer, the former editor of The New Republic, wrote: “Any strategy for enhancing the security of American Jewry should involve shunning Trump’s Jewish enablers. Their money should be refused, their presence in synagogues not
welcome. They have placed their community in danger.”
This brazen attempt to blame Jewish backers of the president for the attack and excommunicate them from their community is scandalous. It is also a dog whistle
for animosity toward more traditionalist Jews, who constitute one of the most proTrump demographics in the country (indeed several serve as high-ranking officials in the administration).
Such sentiments reveal what underlies
the entire liberal Jewish response to Pittsburgh: For them, Judaism is synonymous with liberalism. Donald Trump is cast as an enemy of the Jews not because he has shown any hostility to the Jewish people or the Jewish State (quite the contrary) but because he is an enemy of liberalism. The same goes for his “Jewish enablers,” who have allegedly betrayed their community by backing him.
As it happens, Trump has done more than any other president to prevent attacks on Jews, including by cutting funds to the Palestinian Authority. This courageous decision thwarts its pay-to-slay policy of issuing financial reward to terrorist murderers of Jews. But no matter. The Jewish socialjustice chorale serves at the altar of liberalism and Trump is their Antichrist (just as, lest we forget, George W. Bush was before him).
Degrading Judaism to advance their petty politics, as the Jewish social justice movement has always done, is insulting enough. Using Pittsburgh’s dead to do so is altogether grotesque.
But if these critics really want to talk about betrayal of the Jewish people, consider who supported the nuclear deal with Iran, which enriched the world’s most heinous terror state and which legitimized the pursuit of the bomb by an Islamo-fascist regime bent on annihilating over 6 million Jews.
And consider who for decades paid lip service to the justice of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish State and moving the American embassy but then, when it actually happened, opposed it or gave it only half-hearted support — solely because it was implemented by a president whom they detest.
Following the shooting, a number of American Jewish newspaper editors came together and authored a joint editorial sounding the alarm on rising anti-Semitism in the US, and declaring #WeAreAllJews. This is a fitting retort to those who have tried to claim that some of their co-religionists are not.
Such expressions of solidarity within the Jewish community are welcome and must be encouraged. That, and not partisanship, is what will make the memory of those who lost their lives in Pittsburgh a blessing.
Jonathan Neumann is the author of “To Heal the World?: How the Jewish Left Corrupts Judaism and Endangers Israel” (All Points Books), out now.