The Jewish vote is, for the first time since Reagan beat Carter 44 years ago, likely to be close. Considering that Hillary Clinton garnered over 70% of the Jewish vote in 2016, and Trump less than one-fourth, this is a tectonic shift in Jewish allegiance away from Democrats. But it’s not hard to understand why even Jews with leftist leanings are reevaluating their loyalties this year.
As a community rabbi, director of a popular Jewish study center that attracts Jews from all backgrounds, and an officer of the largest rabbinic public policy organization in America, I am very well acquainted with local and national Jewish thought. But honestly, no expertise is needed: wherever Jews gather to chat, whether in synagogues, kosher supermarket aisles, community centers and on social media, we all hear the same conversations. Where once Jews would be embarrassed to admit they planned to vote for a Republican, today the opposite is true.
Those Jews whose priorities are progressive, or who consider Trump a dictator in waiting, will remain Harris voters. Many others are reconsidering. Amongst Orthodox Jews, the shift is nearly universal. It is driven by the fear Jews have for their personal safety and their concern for the continued viability of Israel and their dismay at the the credence Biden and Harris give to antisemitic tropes, that embolden our enemies.
President Biden and Vice President Harris have repeatedly berated Israel for not doing “enough” to prevent civilian casualties. America’s own military experts say precisely the opposite: that Israel routinely protects civilians to an unparalleled extent, even in ways that harm its own military goals. Yet the administration ignores this, instead repeating inflated casualty figures that even the UN and the Associated Press admit are untenable.
Similarly, both the President and Democratic candidate have repeatedly asserted that Israel is permitting those civilians to starve, falsely implying both that there is a food shortage and that Israel has caused it. In reality the amount of food brought in from Israel alone is enough to feed all of Gaza. Much of it, of course, is stolen by Hamas terrorists for their own use. This makes Israel the only country in history to generously feed the enemy trying to annihilate it, while simultaneously being falsely accused of starving the civilian population.
These lies elevate the antisemitic belief that Jews constitute a hostile force, anxious to mistreat all humanity in service of their own ends. Whether or not the administration recognizes the hateful roots of the false narrative it presents, there is no question that these statements are helping to popularize antisemitic sentiments in America.
This was reinforced when the administration withheld necessary weapons from Israel and warned Israel against entering the border city of Rafah to eliminate the Hamas battalions there. These positions gave Hamas breathing room to regroup, rearm and prolong the conflict at the expense of the lives of Jewish soldiers and hostages. It also reinforced the notion that Hamas, a genocidal terror group sworn to stamp out Jewish existence in the world, is not all that bad—and that Jewish lives can be sacrificed to maintain their presence in Gaza. The gruesome murder of six of the Rafah-held hostages, and the attempts by the administration to blame Israel for Hamas refusing to agree to any proposal for a pause in the fighting, only reinforced these false messages.
The Biden administration’s tacit permission for members of their party to boycott Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress further undermined Israel’s credibility in the world, and also harmed the fight against antisemitism here in America. That Vice President Harris skipped her opportunity to not merely attend, but preside, completed the Jewish perception that the administration is treating them as a lessor class of people.
When recent anti-Israel and antisemitic protests on campus turned violent and Jewish students were attacked and denied access to their own schools, the President did not send federal troops to protect Jewish rights and safety, as President Eisenhower did to ensure Black citizens would be safe in Arkansas public schools. Neither he nor Vice President Harris distanced themselves when Ilhan Omar, a member of their own party, went to a university campus to stand with terror-supporting protesters at Columbia. Neither could they summon up the moral courage to express outrage when Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg dropped charges against nearly all of the perpetrators, even those who were caught on video taking over a university building and screaming murderous slogans against Jewish students.
It should be no surprise, then, that Jews look back with longing to Donald Trump’s embrace of Jews both on a national and personal level. Trump finally recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and, unlike his predecessors for over two decades, kept his campaign promise and moved the U.S. Embassy to that city. He enforced the Taylor Force Act, halting indirect American support for the Palestinian Authority’s infamous pay–to–slay policy (unlike the current administration). And, of course, he brokered the historic Abraham Accords, the biggest advance for peace in the Middle East in at least thirty years.
Equally comforting is Trump’s personal affinity towards the Jewish people, something he inherited from his father. Trump’s respect for Jews and their religion was in evidence long before his entrance into politics, through his close relationships with numerous observant Jews including, of course, his own Jewish daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren.
Neither Biden nor Harris ever demonstrated a similar bond with the Jewish people, and although Harris married a Jew, her husband has scant connection to his roots. Emhoff’s first wife was no more Jewish than is Harris, and his two children were not brought up as Jews. To the contrary, his daughter Ella is actively involved in raising money for Gaza, funds all but certain to fall into the hands of Hamas.
With history’s oldest irrational hatred on full display in America and throughout the world, even left-wing Jews have far more pressing concerns than progressive values and garden-variety political issues. Jews are worried and feel they need a strong leader who can not only protect them but value their contribution as full citizens and contributors to the well-being of the United States. It is clear why they feel that they have that person in Donald Trump.
Rabbi Moshe B. Parnes is the Dean of the Hollywood Community Kollel and serves as the Southern Regional Vice President of the Coalition for Jewish Values. Opinions expressed are his own.