V Last Thursday, Donald Trump’s team released limited-edition merchandise marking the genesis of a new coalition. A royal blue T-shirt. A white, blue and quintessentially Trumpian gold tote bag. And a car bumper sticker. All emblazoned with the words “Jewish Voices for Trump” – the name of the new movement his campaign launched to fight what Trump described as “radical antisemitism”.
Last year saw the highest number of antisemitic incidents in the US ever recorded, according to a report jointly released by Tel Aviv University and the Anti-Defamation League.
“In America, evil antisemitism is rampaging all throughout our cities, the Democrat Party, our left-wing media institutions, a certain candidate for the president of the United States [and] and our colleges and universities,” Trump said to a packed crowd of his Jewish supporters at his private golf club in New Jersey after being introduced by philanthropist Miriam Adelson.
“United by its faith and heritage, the Jewish Voices for Trump coalition recognises the dangerous rise in radical leftist antisemitism in our streets and on our college campuses… For those in the Jewish community who feel politically homeless, for those who have been betrayed by the Biden administration’s many flip-flops on the safety and security of the Jewish community and the State of Israel, you do have a home. It’s with the Republican Party, and with President Donald J. Trump,” read a press release announcing the new group.
Among the founding members of the coalition announced in the release were “thought leaders, business trailblazers, former administration officials, authors, influencers, and those within the Jewish community.”
For die-hard Jewish Trump supporters, the former president’s focus on stamping out Jew hatred is nothing new. Trump proponents point to the former president’s portfolio: recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the US embassy there from Tel Aviv, engineering the Abraham Accords and codifying antisemitism protections into law as indicators of how “President Trump did more for Jewish voices than any administration in history”, as his campaign states.
“Jewish-Americans and the Jewish State of Israel were protected under President Trump in his first term,” Ellie Cohanim, who served as US Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism from 2019-2021, told the JC.
Cohanim added that unprecedented protections for American Jewry were enshrined during Trump’s first term, which is why she expects a possible second term would be no different. “Trump’s 2019 Executive Order Combating Antisemitism gives Jewish-Americans Civil Rights protections under TITLE VI and guides federal agencies to refer to the IHRA gold-standard definition of antisemitism in determining if there has been an antisemitic infraction of the law.”
That Executive Order, Cohanim noted, has since become “the primary avenue for Jewish students to seek reprieve from the vicious and often violent Jew-hate we have seen engulf American campuses since October 7!”
Such protections for the country’s Jewish population are now under attack, Trump claimed last Thursday, reiterating that the October 7 attack, which killed more than 30 Americans, and the antisemitism wave that followed in the US, would never have happened under his watch, nor would the antisemitism wave that followed in the US. “This evil atrocity [on October 7] would never have happened if I was president,” Trump said. “The toxic poison of antisemitism now courses through the veins of [the] radical Democrat Party. We believe that this vicious outbreak of militant antisemitism… must be given no quarter, no safe harbour, no place in a civilised society. We must reject it in our schools, reject it in our foreign policy, reject it in our immigration system and reject it at the ballot box this November.”
For Emmy award-winning news anchor Stella Escobedo, supporting Trump helps not just Jewish Americans from antisemitism at home, but is also the prudent move in reviving a more assertive US foreign policy that re-establishes Western deterrence against dangerous adversaries.
“Jewish Voices for Trump is important because Jews in America are under attack,” Escobedo said. “And under Trump’s presidency, he cut off the head of the snake in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and created the Abraham Accords. He promises to continue where he left off.”
Escobedo, who was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and immigrated to Iowa at age six, added: “Jewish Americans must remember that one of our founding fathers was Jewish.
“Polish-born Haym Salomon helped finance the revolutionary war.
“Jewish Americans fought to defend our constitution.
“Therefore, antisemitism isn’t just anti-Jewish or anti-Zionist. It’s anti-American. Jew hatred should not be tolerated in America. And President Trump knows this.”
While a new cohort of Jewish voters – some of whom had previously been registered Democrats – has certainly gravitated toward the GOP in recent months in what’s been described as a mass “JEXIT”, Jewish voters still remain very much divided along party lines.
On the same night as Trump’s antisemitism event last Thursday, Jewish supporters for Kamala Harris hosted a 30,000-person virtual event called “Jewish Women for Kamala” featuring Barbra Streisand and Curb Your Enthusiasm star Susie Essman.
Jonathan Harounoff is the author of the forthcoming book Unveiled: Inside Iran’s #WomenLifeFreedom Revolt
