Beware of politicians who hide behind Jewish family members.
It would be a major mistake to assume that political leaders with Jewish family members will automatically be pro-Israel and good for Jews in their country. Their policies and decency must be tested.
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This is a guest essay written by Nachum Kaplan of Moral Clarity.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
U.S. presidential contenders Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, all have something in common: They have Jewish family members.
Harris and Starmer have Jewish spouses, while Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner are Jewish.
This might shield these leaders somewhat from allegations of antisemitism, but it does not follow that they will adopt policies that are good for Israel, or good for Jews in their country.
It is possible to love a person who is Jewish, while harboring suspicion of, or a dislike for, Jews as a group, or as a concept. That might sound crazy, but antisemitism is a form of madness.
Antisemites do not hate Jews for what they do, or for who they are, but for what they represent. To some Muslims and Christians, Jews stand as a living testimony that not everyone who witnessed Jesus’ and Muhammad’s teachings and miracles was impressed.
To those jealous of some Jews’ educational and financial success, Jews represent a scapegoat for their financial insecurity. There are many other examples, but the point is that an individual Jew may not represent any such insecurities, but Jews as a group or concept may.
Having Jewish family members does not stop someone from being (overly) sympathetic to the Palestinians or not liking an Israeli government’s policies. Even being Jewish does not stop this. While the vast majority of Jews are Zionists — with those few who are not being deranged and unworthy of attention — there are plenty who oppose Israel’s war with Hamas and Israeli policies more broadly.
Being married to a Jew does not magically bless someone with critical thinking powers. The “Woke” virus and its attendant brain-rot can afflict anyone, and this is where much of antisemitism is emanating nowadays.
It might seem odd to dislike Jews when you have Jewish family members, but people are capable of extraordinary cognitive dissonance. Just think about “Queers for Palestine” or “Gays for Gaza.” In fact, we all probably need some cognitive dissonance just to function. For example, you might think that we are facing an existential climate emergency, but you still need to drive to school to pick up the kids in a gasoline-fueled motor vehicle.
Trump danced at his daughter’s Orthodox Jewish wedding and trusts Kushner greatly, but that does not stop Trump from leaning into antisemitic tropes when it suits him, or when he wanders into one of his meandering rambles through Crazy Town.
In 2019, at a Republican Jewish Coalition event, he referred to Benjamin Netanyahu as “your prime minister,” as if American Jews were Israelis, feeding the trope that American Jews have dual loyalty.
Then, in a 2020 conversation after Rosh Hashanah, Trump told American Jewish leaders, “We really appreciate you; we also love your country.” The implication again is that Israel is their country, not the U.S. Dual loyalty is an old trope used to portray Jews as untrustworthy.
Trump also entertains Holocaust deniers such as neo-Nazi podcaster Nick Fuentes, an utterly despicable human being whom Trump hosted at his Florida residence. He also leans into Nazi-like language; for example, his comments that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country” is classic Nazi propaganda from the 1930s.
It is anyone’s guess whether Trump does this because he believes it, to woo the racist extremists in his party, to stir up controversy, or because he just has such an unsophisticated view of race and religion.
He is certainly campaigning hard for the Jewish vote now, knowing that American Jews, many of whom traditionally support his political opponents, the Democrats, are more disillusioned with the party than they have ever been. They are especially suspicious of the poisonous antisemitism on the party’s increasingly influential far-Left.
Trump was highly supportive of Israel during his first term, brokering the Abraham Accords and moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. So, he is an example of someone who has Jewish family members and supports Israel, yet is tainted with antisemitism.
Then there is Kamala Harris, whose husband Doug Emhoff is Jewish. Emhoff is very much a “progressive” liberal and that makes him a personification of the struggle many Left-leaning American Jews face. They support “progressive” causes but now find themselves in a party that treats Israel and Jews as “oppressors” despite it being a preposterous and counterfactual claim.
The higher the ivory tower these Jews come from, the more “progressive” they seem to be. Emhoff’s tower is so high that he probably cannot see the open antisemitism and anxiety that ordinary American Jews are feeling on the ground.
Such people usually share the “progressive” worldview that frames Israel — at a very minimum Israeli policy — as “problematic” to use one of the “Woke” Left’s idiotic phrases. The same is true in the United Kingdom, where Keir Starmer’s wife, Victoria, is a Shabbat-celebrating Jew. These people being Jewish does not protect them from “Woke” cluelessness, so they are not necessarily a constraint on their partners’ policies.
The idea that a Jewish first gentleman or first lady is something Jews should attach hope to is a mistake. Starmer and Harris have been married to Jews for years and this has not stopped them from having policies that are (unreasonably) critical of Israel and overly sympathetic to the Palestinians, despite the latter’s vile terrorism and genocidal goals.
Starmer has only been UK prime minister for a few months and he has already adopted less Israel-friendly policies. Many in his party, which is infested with antisemitism despite Starmer’s efforts to disinfect it, would like him to go even further, which he may do yet.
He has said that he would like to recognize a Palestinian state as part of a peace process. Evidently, he sees nothing wrong with rewarding Palestinian terror with statehood.
Starmer has also withdrawn the UK’s objections to the International Criminal Court’s disgraceful and entirely political issuing of arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
He recently urged Israel to “move quickly” on a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas, as though it was Israel holding it up and not Hamas, the latter of which abducted the hostages and has rejected more than a dozen ceasefire offers.
None of this makes him any different from a Left-wing leader without a Jewish spouse.
Likewise, having a Jewish husband has not prevented Harris from being (overly) sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, which she thinks is about nationalism and self-determination even as Palestinian leadership has clearly articulated that its aim is the genocidal decimation of Israel.
While Harris made much fanfare of her support for Israel at the Democratic National Convention last week, including admirably not giving a platform to Palestinian speakers, her speech was unconvincing.
She made the irritatingly “balanced” comment that an immediate ceasefire was needed “such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination."
This is equivocal gibberish. A ceasefire will achieve none of those aims. It will achieve the precise opposite, allowing Hamas to regroup and return to pursuing its genocidal goals.
This follows her snubbing of Netanyahu’s speech to U.S. Congress last month and her telling him that she “will not be silent” about humanitarian issues in Gaza.
She has even praised the bigoted anti-Israel protestors, who have put fear into the hearts of Jewish students across U.S. universities, as “showing exactly what the human emotion should be.”
I cannot write a more categorically incorrect statement than that.
Harris’ views on Israel are not that different from many others in her party, so clearly having a Jewish spouse has not been a moderating force.
There is also not a clear link between being antisemitic and adopting anti-Israel rhetoric and policies. One could not be antisemitic but think that supporting Israel is not in their nation’s strategic interests. Mind you, if someone does not see supporting the only democracy in the Middle East — a region of dictators, clerical madmen, and thuggish warlords — as in their country’s strategic interests, then we should be deeply suspicious of their motivations.
Equally, it is possible to be antisemitic but pro-Israel if supporting the Jewish state is deemed strategically wise. Former U.S. presidents Richard Nixon and Harry Truman were both antisemites, but they viewed supporting Israel as necessary to have a bulwark against Soviet expansionism in the Middle East. Such a leader might be good for Israel but not so good for American Jews.
Then there is the small matter of votes. Politicians of principle are as rare as poltergeists. Politicians will do anything to win votes and awkward conversations over the family dinner table will not stop them.
We must not allow leaders and candidates who have Jewish family members to get a free pass on policies towards Israel and dealing with antisemitism. We must look to their words, actions, policies, support bases, and advisors — whose interests they serve — to decide whether they would protect Jewish interests at home as well as those of Israel.
It's an old adage, because you are married to a Jew doesn't mean you're not an antisemite, and just because you are a Jew doesn't mean you're not an antisemite too.
Maybe instead of worrying who someone is married to or whether they have Jewish grandchildren we should judge them the old fashioned way, by their actions and deeds.
Your criticism of Trump is ridiculous. I am a US citizen but I consider Netanyahu to be "my" Prime Minister because he and I are both Jewish. I also consider Israel to belong to me, too, because I am Jewish. I think "we (Jews) are all in this together."