Here's why Trump's 'disloyalty' comments repulsed American Jews

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published 22 August 2019

President Trump said a lot of things in his digressive 35-minute back-and-forth with reporters Wednesday afternoon, from the quixotically amusing — Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell raised interest rates "too fast, too furious" — to the messianic, mendacious, and undiplomatic.

Trump also elaborated on his statement Tuesday that "Jewish people that vote for a Democrat" show "either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty." Some of his Republican Jewish supporters had defended the comment, widely criticized by Jewish groups and Israeli politicians, saying Trump meant Jewish Democrats are disloyal to themselves, not Israel. On Wednesday, Trump clarified: "I think if you vote for a Democrat, you are very, very disloyal to Israel and to the Jewish people."

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Trump comments flirted "with a notion that has fueled anti-Semitism for generations and has been at the root of some of the most brutal violence inflicted upon Jews in their history," Julie Hirschfeld Davis explains at The New York Times. "The accusation that Jews have a 'dual loyalty' ... dates back thousands of years. It animated the Nazis in 1930s Germany," and today "it is a common refrain of white supremacists who claim there is a secret plot orchestrated by Jews to replace white people through mass migration and racial integration."

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Trump insisted his comments weren't anti-Semitic.

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In fact, "when it comes to Jews, President Trump presents a puzzle," writes Yair Rosenberg at The Washington Post. "His daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism. ... He loudly proclaims his support for Israel and has long employed Jews in prominent positions in his businesses. But Trump also seems to say a lot of anti-Semitic things," including his frequent suggestion that "American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the United States."

"So is Trump a philo-Semite or an anti-Semite? The answer is both," Rosenberg writes. "Trump believes all the anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews. But he sees those traits as admirable. To Trump, the belief that Jews are foreign interlopers who use their wealth to serve their own clannish interests is not a negative — as it is for traditional anti-Semites — but rather a positive." Yes, "this form of 'positive' anti-Semitism is better than the negative kind," he adds, but "it is still deeply dangerous."

Read Rosenberg's essay on Trump's philo-Semitism at The Washington Post and a brief history of the "dual loyalty" slur at The New York Times.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.