WASHINGTON (JTA) — Donald Trump announced his third presidential campaign on Tuesday night, kicking off the 2024 presidential primary preseason and establishing a showdown over the longer term of the Republican Party.
American Jews likely need no reminders about Trump: In spite of everything, he was president lower than two years ago, and he didn’t exactly disappear after leaving office after voters replaced him with President Joe Biden after one term.
The truth is, his unusually early declaration appears geared toward curbing multiple investigations into his efforts to remain in power after being voted out in 2020, including into his role within the January 6, 2021, riot on the US Capitol by his supporters who desired to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
Still, Trump’s complicated relationship with American Jews — some love him, but more reject him and he’s baffled as to why — is price recapping as he tries to stage a comeback. Here’s a reminder of the massive themes of Trump’s first term, the tumultuous years since and what might lie ahead as he runs again.
Trump initially had little Jewish backing, even amongst Republicans
In 2015, at Trump’s first major Jewish event as a presidential candidate, he told people attending a Republican Jewish Coalition forum that they bought politicians, and he was not about to be bought.
“You’re not going to support me although you recognize I’m the most effective thing that might ever occur to Israel,” Trump said on the time. “And I’ll be that. And I do know why you’re not going to support me. You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money. Isn’t it crazy?”
If that wasn’t enough, Trump in early 2016 refused to disavow the support of David Duke, the onetime Ku Klux Klan leader, after which finally did so only half-heartedly.
That was an excessive amount of for Norm Coleman, a Jewish Republican who once was a US senator from Minnesota and who chaired the RJC. In a hometown newspaper op-ed, Coleman called Trump “a bigot. A misogynist. A fraud. A bully” and added for good measure: “Any man who declines to resign the affections of the KKK and David Duke mustn’t be trusted to guide America. Ever.”
Supporters arrive at former US president Donald Trump’s club, Mar-a-lago in Palm Beach Florida, November 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Now, Jewish Republicans see him as one of the vital pro-Israel presidents ever
Three years after Trump’s first appearance at an RJC event, he was back again as president and repeating familiar tropes about Jews and money — and Coleman was singing a distinct tune this time, literally. He chanted “dayenu” counting all the guarantees Trump had kept: moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, pulling out of the Iran deal, cutting assistance to the Palestinians and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
“There have been some doubters on this room, and I used to be foolishly amongst them,” Coleman said.
Trump’s Israel track record appears to have convinced many among the many small portion of American Jews who make Israel a top issue on the voting booth. This week, the Zionist Organization of America gave Trump an award for his Israel achievements that only seven others have been given in history.
“In case your worldview is such that these items are unbelievable accomplishments and things that you just’ve waited your whole life to see occur, this president is a dream come true,” Richard Goldberg, a former Trump administration official, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2020.
Former US president Donald Trump addresses the Zionist Organization of America in Recent York City, November 13, 2022. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
That doesn’t mean Republican Jews necessarily want Trump to be president again
Like many of their party, Jewish Republicans are in search of a presidential candidate not simply to love but who can win. Last week’s midterm election results, through which lots of the politicians backed by Trump fell short, have them considering hard about whether Trump is that candidate.
Trump, thus far the one declared candidate in 2024, won’t be appearing at this week’s gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition, but several other likely contenders for the Republican nomination will probably be, including Trump’s vp, Mike Pence; Nikki Haley, the previous US ambassador to the United Nations; and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who got a warm reception at a distinct gathering of Jewish conservatives in Recent York earlier this 12 months.
The RJC said Trump was invited but demurred, citing a “conflict.” Last 12 months, he sent a video message.
The RJC has not openly criticized Trump, but its donors have shown signs of fatigue at his drama. Eventually 12 months’s gathering, Trump acolytes who remain near him chided Jewish donors who once reveled in all he did for Israel but who now were distancing themselves from him.
Miriam Adelson, who together with her late husband Sheldon has been a significant funder of Republican Jewish causes, has pledged to remain neutral within the 2024 presidential primary. She enthusiastically introduced Trump via video on the Zionist Organization of America event on Sunday, though.
US President Joe Biden makes an announcement after a gathering of G7 and NATO leaders in Bali, Indonesia, November 16, 2022. (Doug Mills/The Recent York Times via AP, Pool)
Liberal Jews — and Biden — consider Trump has emboldened antisemitism
Political liberals have an extended list of reasons to oppose Trump’s candidacy and the overwhelming majority of American Jews are amongst them.
But in the case of the actual issue of Jewish security, Jews have special concerns. Polls show that American Jews are more concerned about right-wing antisemitism than left-wing antisemitism, and Trump’s single term in office included three of essentially the most shocking incidents of antisemitism in US history, all perpetrated by right-wing extremists.
In 2018, a gunman who killed 11 worshipers on the Tree of Life synagogue complex in Pittsburgh was spurred partially by notions of an “invasion” of migrants, a conspiracy theory Trump himself had peddled. Pittsburgh’s Jews identified Trump with the attack and lots of joined protesters who turned their backs on him when he visited the synagogue.
The subsequent 12 months, a white supremacist attacked a California synagogue, killing one.
Each incidents followed a deadly white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 that quickly became synonymous with the rise of far-right hate groups in the USA.
Trump equivocated endlessly about condemning the marchers, and his both-sidesing an event through which the one victims were counterprotesters and through which the perpetrators were neo-Nazis reportedly earned rebukes from Jewish members of his Cabinet and his Jewish daughter, Ivanka. It also became a theme of Biden’s presidential campaign, ranging from his announcement and lengthening to his final appeal to voters.
Among the many Jan. 6 rioters, one man wore a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt; the judge who sentenced him to prison said he was wearing a Nazi SS shirt underneath. The sweatshirt became a logo of ties to white supremacist movements by the rioters, all supporters of Trump.
Supporters of former US President Donald Trump hold flags outside Trump’s Mar-A-Lago residence in West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 15, 2022. (Giorgio Viera/AFP)
He really doesn’t understand why American Jews don’t support him
Trump looks at polls closely, and one result continues to irk him: his poor showing amongst American Jewish voters. He keeps saying, most recently this week on the Zionist Organization of America gala, that American Jews aren’t sufficiently loyal to Israel, otherwise they’d not overwhelmingly back Democrats (and oppose Trump).
“No president has done more for Israel than I actually have,” he said on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns, last month. “Somewhat surprisingly, nevertheless, our wonderful Evangelicals are way more appreciative of this than people of the Jewish faith, especially those living within the US.”
While his Jewish backers are likely to agree, others say Trump is implying that Jews hold dual loyalty, an antisemitic trope that has been used to justify hate against Jews in other times and places. Those critics include the Anti-Defamation League, the nonpartisan watchdog group.
“Let me be clear: insinuating that Israel or the Jews control Congress or the media is antisemitic, plain and easy,” ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt said in late 2021, after one (but not essentially the most recent) set of Trump’s comments. “Unfortunately, this just isn’t the primary time he has made these offensive remarks.”
From left, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Jared Kushner, Eric Trump, and Lara Trump applaud as former US president Donald Trump broadcasts he’s running for president for the third time as he speaks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, November 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
He has Jewish family and friends — lots of whom have worked for him
Two of Trump’s top advisers were his Jewish daughter, Ivanka, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who brokered the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations between Israel and 4 Arab countries. They dropped at the White House a proud and open sensibility about Jewish practice, although things didn’t all the time go swimmingly between the couple and their DC-area Jewish community.
The couple remain personally near Trump, but have distanced themselves from his politics. Kushner took a number one role in each presidential campaigns and Trump blames him partially for losing 2020.
Kushner and Ivanka Trump have notably not endorsed the elder Trump’s falsehoods about winning that election. They now live in Florida, where their governor, DeSantis, decisively won reelection last week and quickly vaulted into frontrunner status for 2024.
