A week after the shock of Donald Trump’s election victory, many of us are still scrambling to comprehend the implications.

One reaction has been to clutch at straws — to try to minimise the bigotry, misogyny and general boorishness as defects in personality rather than policy. Might President Trump, faced with the reality of office, turn out to be a very different animal to candidate Trump? Understandable as it may be to look for signs of hope, it is worryingly misguided.

His very first appointment was Stephen Bannon, a man accurately described by John Podhoretz as a “tawdry, destructive, and repulsively uncivilised goon”.

President-elect Trump’s win has emboldened the forces of darkness both in the US and beyond who rightly see him as their ally. Mr Bannon has already said he would like to work with the ‘Le Pen women’. Some in our community who should know better are now positing Mr Trump as some sort of friend of the Jews, based on his apparent support for Israel.

This is dangerous nonsense.

A bullying bigot is President-elect. He has no saving graces, and we have every reason to be fearful of the forces he will unleash.

Profound change

There have been many changes in our community over the past half century, but none as profound as the rise of Jewish schools.

That 63 per cent of Jewish children attend a Jewish school is astonishing enough, but it does not even include those Charedi children at unofficial institutions. The implications for future generations have barely even been thought about, let alone acted on.