Orthodox Jews will still vote for Trump over Hillary, despite Trump’s lewd remarks leaked on Friday.
Orthodox Jews tend to have a realistic understanding of life. They understand that men talk this way, and that most men, when given the opportunity, act this way.
William Kolbrener (a professor of English Literature at the Orthodox Bar Ilan University) writes for Haaretz (which publishes about 30 negative articles about Trump for every positive one):
“But he’s good for Israel!” So goes the mantra repeated among Donald Trump supporters, many in the Orthodox Jewish world, both in the United States and Israel.
That the Republican candidate for President of the United States has long shown that he is a bigot, a racist, and a sexist has not seemed to faze this demographic of supporters. But will the pro-Trump mantra survive “TapeGate” and the revelation that he is not only vile and vulgar, but a self-avowed sexual predator?
Cynicism abounds: Nigel Farage of Britain’s hard-right pro-Brexit UKIP has scoffed that Trump is not running for Pope, while Trump’s campaign manager in Israel Tzvika Brot has helpfully pointed out that Trump is not running for Chief Rabbi.
Heads of state, apparently, are free to joke about groping women. This is what alpha males do, Farage went on to say, to paraphrase Trump’s own excuse: “a harmless bit of locker-room humor.”
Rabbi Shmuely Boteach, in the meanwhile, while promoting his campaign against pornography (with Pamela Anderson!), and who has been called one of Trump’s top Jewish surrogates, tweeted that in the spirit of “the ten days of repentance,” preceding Yom Kippur, Trump’s recent recorded conversation – kibbutzing with Billy Bush about grabbing women’s genitals – should serve as a “wake-up call to the growing American pandemic of the exploitation of women.” Boteach however, claiming to have publicly pleaded with Trump to run a “values-based campaign,” has not withdrawn support for Trump. Apparently, as Trump confided to Bush, his fellow alpha male: “When you’re a star … you can do anything.”
Boteach of course is not the only figure in the Jewish world who continues to embrace The Donald. Israel Hayom, the newspaper backed by the right-wing American newspaper magnate, Sheldon Adelson, led with the headline, the day after TapeGate, with Trump’s apology and “regret,” though seguing quickly into a diatribe against the ‘hypocrisy’ of his critics.
Being Trump means never having really to say you’re sorry. Indeed Trump himself used his apology to pivot to an attack on Hillary: “Clinton has actually abused women and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims.” Not surprising, given the confluence of stories, that Trump recently gave a shout-out to Adelson at a Nevada rally – “a great guy, Sheldon, Sheldon, Sheldon Adelson” – who put together a five million dollar donation for Trump’s Super-Pac, some suggest in exchange for a shifting of policy towards Israel.
Often combined with this Orthodox lack of political sophistication is a cocktail of sexism (against the prospect of Hillary as President) and racism (against the memory of eight years of Obama as President), with a splash of general cynicism, indeed fatalism, about the efficacy of politics (“it can’t get any worse”). But what Jewish supporters of Trump miss – and here’s where knowing a demagogue when you see one matters – is that their words are only as good as the political moment they serve. Trump happily took Adelson’s money – though only last December, he snorted to a gathering of Jewish republicans: “You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money.”
Trump prides himself on being a negotiator, but the ghost-writer of Trump’s The Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz, says that if he had to re-title the work today, he’d call it The Sociopath. Israelis may be familiar with a prime minister seemingly motivated only by the preservation of his own power, but say what you want about Bibi, he does have a political agenda. By contrast, Trump – who makes many Americans feel less embarrassed about the political scene here in Israel – a would-be leader with sociopathic tendencies (his own lawyers will only meet with him in pairs so as to later verify his words) has only the aim of self-glorification. Positions on political issues (is there one in which Trump has maintained a consistent position?) only serve what Schwartz calls Trump’s “stomp, stomp, stomp” need for attention.
For those Jews who today continue to utter the Trump mantra, somehow overlooking the principles of decency and morality originating at Sinai and codified in Jewish law, they should take note: the demagogue cannot be trusted to keep his word. Trump, like demagogues before him, has no principles, only the desire for personal power. He will make deals, but not for the benefit of Israel, nor for the Palestinians, but only for himself. So during these ten days of repentance Orthodox Jews should indeed take stock and repent, stop hiding behind their pro-Israel mantra, and disavow Donald Trump.
