Non-Orthodox Jews have been at the forefront of the movement calling out Donald Trump for his immigrant-bashing rhetoric and his inflammatory statements regarding different minorities in the US.
They have demonstrated outside his rallies and at the entrance to the horrendous and inhumane detention camps operating under his aegis.
To an outside observer, there is little doubt that Donald Trump has inflamed racial tensions in America and ratcheted up a climate in which hate and hostility thrives.
And when that happens, minorities, including Jews, suffer. It has been just ten months since a white supremacist entered a synagogue in Pittsburgh and massacred the congregants.
But to opine, as so many non-Orthodox American Jews have, that they have “never felt so threatened, as Jews” since Donald Trump assumed the presidency, suggests a stupifying level of ignorance regarding the experience of Strictly Orthodox Jews in America.
Earlier this week, Rabbi Jonah Pesner, the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, tweeted that he would be appearing on MSNBC with Reverend Al Sharpton “to discuss the president’s rhetoric about Jewish Americans.”
As dozens of incensed Orthodox Jews replied, Rabbi Pesner seemed to either not know or not care that Al Sharpton’s own rhetoric has in the past led to attacks on Jews and Jewish-owned businesses, most notoriously in the Crown Heights Riot of 1991.
Seeing this constant lack of support from non-Orthodox Jews, even as Orthodox Jews are continuously targeted, it seems fair to ask why.
Is it because these regular incidents involve the wrong kind of victims, or the wrong kind of attackers?
Do those non-Orthodox Jews who so like to cite the words “Justice, Justice you shall pursue” from the book of Devarim somehow feel uncomfortable when the victims of injustice wear beards and peyos (sidelocks)?
Or is it because the attackers are overwhelmingly not white supremacists wearing red MAGA hats? Does the narrative of people from one minority group attacking another not fit such activists’ preferred depiction of American society?
Even worse, over the past few days I have seen attempts by some non-Orthodox Jews to downplay or even excuse such behaviour.
References will be made to racism within the Charedi community towards African-Americans, Latinos or Arabs.
Alternatively, the practices of some Strictly Orthodox landlords – including slum landlords – will be cited as having been directly responsible for such attacks on Charedim.
Or the perceived attitude of Charedi Jews towards non-Charedi Jews will be invoked as a reason why they do not "deserve" the sympathy of the non-Orthodox. Such attempted “defences” are worse than pathetic.
I am under no illusions regarding the racism that exists within the Charedi community. At the black-hat yeshiva I attended, I was astounded by some of the racist comments – particularly towards African Americans – which I heard from some American students.
And of course there are examples, tragically, of Charedi owners of tenements who have mistreated those living in such accomodations.
But the idea that this could somehow excuse or “balance out” regular attacks on Orthodox Jews is bizarre and offensive.
People providing such attempted justifications would not dream of doing so if another minority community were being attacked in such a fashion.
And if you think that the largely Lubavitch Jewish community in Crown Heights, for example, treats non-Orthodox Jews shabbily, you clearly don't know that much about Chabad.
The silence of some of America’s most vocal justice activists in such cases speaks volumes.
Those who shout loudly about the threat Donald Trump poses to American Jews, yet simultaneously ignore constant attacks on Jews from those are not Trump supporters, only open themselves up to charges of the most egregious hypocrisy.
