The Truth

By Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz

It is one of the strangest things in politics; Jews overwhelmingly vote Democrat. This habit is said to go back to the days of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a hero of liberal Jews. And the dichotomy was evident there. Though FDR provided jobs for many unemployed citizens, led the United States into World War II, and guided the country to subsequent victory in the war that saw 6 million of our brethren murdered, he refused entry to refugees from the Nazis and rebuffed pleas to bomb the tracks to the concentration camps and shut them down. Many have faulted him for millions of deaths, which they say could have been prevented had he acted properly.

Nevertheless, he brought Jews into the party and they stayed there. His successor, Harry S. Truman, earned the Jewish vote, supporting the founding of Israel in 1948. Then it was Adlai Stevenson and his fascinating oratory against the dour – and some say anti-Semitic – Dwight D. Eisenhower, and you couldn’t blame the Jews for voting for Stevenson.

Eisenhower’s vice-president, Richard Nixon, was seen as an anti-Semite, and Jews couldn’t bring themselves to vote for him against the youthful, telegenic John F. Kennedy. Though Kennedy’s father was a well-known Jew-hater, so bad that he and his future generations were cursed by a leading rabbi, his son was seen as prince charming and Jews fell in line, voting for him. And so it was.

Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer from Georgia, was no friend of the Jews or of Israel. You would think the Jews withheld their votes from him, but you’d be wrong.

Things changed a bit with Ronald Reagan, a great friend of Israel who ran against him. Reagan got a few more Jewish votes than a typical Republican. The Jews solidly backed the loser, because he was a Democrat. As Reagan was swept to victory in a landslide the second time around, the Jews once again put on their blinders and voted for the Democrat. No other group did that besides the blacks.

And so it was. They decided that George H.W. Bush was an anti-Semite and gave him a huge thumbs down in both of his elections. Bill Clinton, who beat him the second time around, was a huge favorite of the Jews. Though the affection wasn’t rewarded, they voted for him the second time around and then for his wife, despite her being part of the Barack Obama anti-Israel brigade and treating the Jewish country harshly during her term as secretary of state.

George W. Bush was a decent person and displayed great friendship to Israel, but it didn’t matter. He was a Republican, so the Jews voted against him. Obama was no friend of the Jewish people or Israel, and nor were many of the people in his administration. But shhh… Don’t say anything. The anti-Semites may get upset if the Jews say a word.

It’s ridiculous. I omitted some others here and simplified the races, but the fact is that Jews ignored their own best interests and foolishly voted for Democrats at every chance they had. Not only in presidential races, but also in local races, anyone with a “D” next to their name could be guaranteed the Jewish vote. It didn’t make a difference what their position was on moral and social issues, nor if they continuously voted to increase taxes on our hard-earned income and homes. Democrats got the Jewish vote.

It makes no sense at all. There is no rational, intelligent way to explain why a Jew who cares about Judaism, about Jews, about Israel, about his wallet, or about the cultural climate of this country would vote for a Democrat. It is nonsensical.

But it’s one of those things you aren’t allowed to discuss. Not if you want to be considered intelligent, learned, and savvy. If you want to be with the “in” crowd, get invited to political functions, and have your picture taken with important people, you aren’t allowed to discuss the ugly secret. If you want to be viewed as important and connected, and perceptive and shrewd about the political world, you hobnob with liberals and Democrats. The media likes you, the machers like you, and people who don’t know better see your picture with Chucky Schumer or Jerry Nadler or some other phony and think, “Oh wow. This guy really gets around. He’s important.”

Of course, it’s all meaningless.

But when the president of the United States, who is a greater supporter of Israel than anyone who preceded him in that position, points out the obvious and says that a Jew who doesn’t vote Republican is either an idiot or disloyal to the party that supports Israel and fights anti-Semitism, the Jews and the media go crazy and say that Trump is out of his mind. How dare he point out that the Democrats can no longer be counted on to support Israel? Who is he to remind everyone that the Democrat Party tolerates anti-Semitism and has within its ranks some of the most prominent enemies of the Jewish state? Not only does the party support and condone them, but it places them on vital congressional committees, where they certainly don’t belong.

Trump, the media warns, is an anti-Semite. “Jews,” they say, “be careful. Stay away from him. He doesn’t like you.”

It is helpless to remind them that his son-in-law is Jewish, that he permitted his daughter to undergo an Orthodox conversion to marry a Jew, that his grandchildren are Jewish, that his closest people in the administration are Jews, that he stuck his neck out for Israel several times, and that he freed Rubashkin because he is a compassionate person who cares about justice.

The New York Times and the media echo chamber that follows it accused Trump of bringing up the old canard that Jews are not patriotic citizens of the lands in which they reside, because he used that dirty word “loyal” when he said that Jews who vote for Democrats “are being very disloyal to the Jewish people and very disloyal to Israel.”

Says the Times in an editorial, “In the bloody history of modern anti-Semitism, one of the most common justifications for violence is the inflammatory canard that the loyalty of Jewish citizens is suspect.” So, by using the word “disloyalty,” Trump has reawakened an old lie and “Mr. Trump toys with fanning [the] flames” of anti-Semitism, as seen in Pittsburgh and Poway. Liberal Jewish mouthpieces got into the act and jumped all over Trump, as if he were the worst enemy of the Jews and Israel, comparing him to Hitler, Stalin, and such wicked murderers.

The same Democrats who Jews have been supporting and helping put into office term after term now control the strings of New York State government. And how are they repaying us for our support? For one, they are going after yeshivos as never before. With a venomous hatred, yeshivos are being treated as enemies of mankind and hotbeds of bolshevism. Who is doing this? The Democrats. Yup, those same people every macher was friendly with and took pictures with. As soon as they were free of the Republican shackles, their true progressive colors came out and the battle began. The governor so many Jews contributed to and felt friendly with couldn’t care less. Oh, but he’s our friend. All the state assemblymen and state senators who are described as friends of our community, well, some friends they are. With friends like these, who needs enemies? Yet, G-d forbid for us to call them out or to mention the obvious.

How long will we permit the farce to continue? For how long will we and those who claim to represent us play the game in which we end up at the losing end of the stick? When will we face up to the truth that these people don’t like us and act accordingly?

Four women new to the game of politics have shaken it up, striking the fear of progressiveness in the hearts of all. Four hateful women have taken a party hostage. The entire Democrat roster of presidential candidates is dancing to the tune of those women. Local politicians veer further and further left because they are afraid of those women.

There is only one person in this country in a leadership position who stands up to those women. He deserves our support. He is neither an anti-Semite nor a nut, as the left claims. Rather, he expresses the truth. Our existence here in this country is becoming more and more precarious by the day. We need to support the president because he is the only one who will suppress the anti-Semites and battle the progressives.

It’s all about loyalty and intelligence.

Michelle Goldberg explains the thinking of the leftist Jews. Writing in the New York Times, she says, “The Jewish left rejects the idea that anti-Zionism is equivalent to anti-Semitism, but even more than that, it rejects the idea that Israel is the guarantor of Jewish safety or the lodestar of Jewish identity. And that is not for religious reasons. It is because they don’t care about Israel. ‘Where we are is our home. This is what we fight for. This is where we seek kinship,’ said one spokesman to the Times, in a quote eerily reminiscent to the ‘Berlin is our Jerusalem’ slogan of the enlightened ones in Germany a century ago.”

And that is why they hate Trump so much. Writes Ms. Goldberg, “For those primarily concerned about Jewish life in the Diaspora, Israel…isn’t really an ally, much less an ideal. And Trump, who always speaks of American Jews as if they belong there, is a grotesque enemy. He tells Jews committed to life in America that they owe loyalty to Israel, which he sometimes calls, when speaking to American Jews, ‘your country.’ He says this and expects Jews to react with gratitude.”

So, the non-Jew fights for Israel and reminds Jews that it is the land that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave them and blessed them with, and for doing so, he is deplored, because the Jews of the left don’t really care about Israel.

Thanks to former President Obama and our European allies, Iran gets stronger by the day. The stockpiles of missiles intended to fall in Israel, killing our brothers and sisters, grow daily. Is there anyone other than Trump who is supporting Israel and working to curtail Iran? Which other western leader stands up to Iran and seeks to remove the threat it poses to Israel and the world?

Lev melech beYad Hashem. Hakadosh Boruch Hu has chosen him, for reasons unknown to us, to lead these battles on our behalf. Hashem has emboldened and strengthened him, providing him with the fortitude to stand at our side during these fateful times.

Elul is here and we begin looking at things seriously. With Elul, we think about ourselves and where we are holding, and we also look at the world and offer tefillos that we be spared further pain, additional hatred, and more wars. Let’s be intelligent and know what we are davening for.

May we all be zoche to a meaningful Elul and the geulah kerovah b’meheirah.