{"id":81806,"date":"2015-12-09T15:11:59","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T23:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=81806"},"modified":"2015-12-09T15:11:59","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T23:11:59","slug":"opinion-u-s-jews-responding-to-donald-trump-should-learn-from-french-jews-and-le-pen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=81806","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: U.S. Jews Responding to Donald Trump Should Learn From French Jews and Le Pen"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Haaretz<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The two largest Jewish communities in the West found themselves responding to a far-right racist surge this week. The first, on Sunday night, were the Jews of France, faced with the resounding success of Marine Le Pen\u2019s National Front in the first round of regional elections, in which the party received the largest number of votes and came first in half the country’s regions.
\nA day later, it was the turn of American Jews, shocked – like the majority of their fellow Americans – by a speech by Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump in which he called for \u201ca total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country\u2019s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.\u201d
\nIn cases like these, silence is not an option. Le Pen has tried, with some success, to \u201cdetoxify\u201d the National Front\u2019s image from the proto-fascist party her anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying father, Jean Marie Le Pen, founded. However, the suspicion continues to linger. The front’s change of focus to France\u2019s Muslim minority may have taken the heat off the Jews, but it has kept the party in its xenophobic corner. Trump himself has no history of anti-Semitism, he even has a daughter who converted to Judaism, but his racist proposal can\u2019t be left without a response. Jews have too much historical memory of the price of not protesting such ideas.
\nAnd the responses were swift in coming. The morning after the election in France, French Jewry\u2019s representative body, the CRIF, put out a press release calling on all French voters to \u201cblock the National Front\u201d in the second round of voting next week, describing it as \u201ca xenophobic and populist party\u201d and exhorting France to \u201cnot let the Republic give way in the face of threats.\u201d Le Pen hit back, calling CRIF a \u201ctool of the establishment\u201d in a radio interview. The French Jewish leadership did not back down. Chief Rabbi Chaim Korsia joined in, calling upon the French to keep \u201cnational cohesion\u201d and vote against \u201cobscurantists\u201d and \u201cproponents of exclusion.\u201d
\nTwenty-four hours later, across the Atlantic, Jewish organizations were just as quick in denouncing Trump. The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement saying that his proposal \u201csingles out Muslims\u201d and is \u201cdeeply offensive and runs contrary to our nation\u2019s deepest values.\u201d Other groups, like the American Jewish Committee and Reform Judaism, joined in the condemnation.
\nBut there was a contrast between the Jewish response in France and in the U.S.. While French Jewry\u2019s denunciation was sweeping, coming from the organization and rabbi representing the community\u2019s mainstream, the response in America was largely from groups identified with the more liberal and left-of-center sector of the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Haaretz: The two largest Jewish communities in the West found themselves responding to a far-right racist surge this week. The first, on Sunday night, were the Jews of France, faced with the resounding success of Marine Le Pen\u2019s National … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81806"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81807,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81806\/revisions\/81807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}