The media is still in an uproar about Trump’s infamous dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. CJV had much to say on this topic, both praising Trump’s record of support while criticizing his failure to condemn West and Fuentes’ antisemitism.
Lars Larson asked Managing Director Rabbi Yaakov Menken if Jews should shun Trump after this most recent political gaffe. To The Wall Street Journal, Rabbi Menken said that “I don’t think his agreeing to meet with West over dinner overcomes all the things he did in office on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people. Trump definitely remains a friend.” Coverage in The Daily Wire, in the meantime, highlighted numerous positive efforts by Trump enumerated by Rabbi Dov Fischer, contrasted with Biden’s moves since taking office.
All of these came prior to Trump’s accusation of “disloyalty” against Jews disappointed with his failure to condemn antisemitism.
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In the meantime, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff called an antisemitism roundtable in response to Trump’s conversation with Kanye, as if this were more relevant to the beating of Jews in New York City than the Black Hebrew Israelites, Al Sharpton, or Louis Farrakhan, who taught Kanye antisemitism before the latter switched parties.
The roundtable included two types of Jewish organizations: those that will not call out any public official by name, and those eager to call public officials antisemitic as long as they are Republicans. It should come as no surprise that CJV was among the prominent organizations not invited to join the roundtable, despite their ongoing contributions to the fight against antisemitism.
Melanie Phillips, a featured columnist for JNS, immediately noticed this ironic contradiction. She cleverly summarized Emhoff (as well as many others) as “Jew Baiters” who categorize all Jews into the “Good Jew” or “Bad Jew” classification. Good Jews have politically correct, progressive opinions. Jews who don’t hold with those opinions (such as CJV) are Bad Jews.
The news outlet, Breitbart, also reported that while CJV and the ZOA were calculatingly excluded from this roundtable, numerous people with an explicit bias against Israel were included.