2 min read
In most respects, the 2016 presidential election is a testament to how comfortable Jews are in America. The two major candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, each have children who married Jews. Bernie Sanders, a crotchety Jewish socialist, came shockingly close to upsetting Mrs Clinton in the Democratic primaries, yet American Jews were sanguine about his successes, neither rallying around our kinsman nor fretting about a backlash.
American Jews, however, should not feel comfortable about this election. Instead, we should feel afraid.
"We've seen this before." That is the slogan that Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish advocacy group, chose for its campaign against Mr Trump. It is intended to evoke the nightmares that Jews left behind when they came to America.
Mr Trump, though, is no antisemite.
True, some might disagree. Yes, Mr Trump's suggestion that Mrs Clinton secretly plots with international bankers struck some as uncomfortably close to "Protocols"-style conspiracy theories. Yes, Mr Trump has repeatedly re-tweeted white supremacists. Yes, Jewish journalists have been subjected to unprecedented torrents of online abuse from his neo-Nazi fans.
At the same time, Mr Trump's daughter, Ivanka, is a convert to Judaism; she and her husband, real-estate scion and close Trump adviser Jared Kushner, attend a prominent Orthodox shul. Mr Trump has marched as grand marshal of New York's Salute to Israel Parade. And even as many Republican Jewish donors shun him, he enjoys the backing of a handful of Jewish business tycoons.
What American Jews should fear about Mr Trump is not any antipathy toward us but rather what his candidacy signals about the state of US democracy. We owe our comfort and safety to the strength of this country's democratic norms and institutions. Mr Trump's ascendance suggests that they are not as strong as we had believed.
The Donald is a demagogue; he capitalises on resentments and stirs up hatred. Thin-skinned and vain, he slurs anyone who dares to criticise him. In temperament, he is manifestly unsuited for the job of president.
Republican leaders know all these things. Yet far too few have been willing to take a strong stand against their party's nominee; far fewer still have been willing to stand with Mrs Clinton, the only person who can defeat him.
American politics have been warped by a poisonous partisanship. Now a dangerous man has come perilously close to the presidency. Our democratic culture should have prevented such a thing from coming to pass. It did not. Jews have seen that before. We can no longer feel so comfortable.
Daniel Treiman is a former managing editor of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and a former opinion editor of the Forward
