The Orthodox and Trump: A Response

I read Tablet daily and often recommend it to my friends as a source of insight and independent analysis. Therefore, I was horrified when I came across Josh Shanes’s article “The Evangelicalization of Orthodoxy.” I agree with much of the article and the legitimacy of the issues it raises, but it starts off by presenting me (by strong implication) as a Trump supporter and a person who embraced the Trump/Kushner peace plan because it leaves the Palestinians “devoid of sovereignty.” Let me state clearly: I am not a Trump supporter. I have supported a Palestinian state for more than 40 years—conditioned, then and now, on stopping delegitimation and denial of Israel’s right to exist.

My ethics and personal Torah teaching are the opposite of Trump’s approach. I stand for the dignity and equality of every human being in the image of God—without regard to race, gender, color, or sexual orientation (as against white supremacy or preserving a white Christian Nordic America); for priority for protecting God’s Creation—as against global warming, species destruction, and the exploitation and degradation of Nature; for extended medical insurance and food support programs so that human lives not be lost for lack of money; for asylum rights for refugees and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants—as against discriminatory exclusion and separating children from parents, especially out of our memories of past Jewish exclusion; for justice and equality before the law, especially for the poor and the vulnerable—as against smearing protest marchers as violent radicals and opposing police reform; for the religious obligation to use objective science and medicine to save lives—as against politicized distortion and macho denial that has led to the reckless handling of the pandemic and extra loss of tens of thousands of lives.

The article locates me at the beginning of a series of slides by Orthodoxy toward the right and toward Trump. Shanes describes the rise and hegemony of a radical conservatism (including unfettered capitalism, anti-immigration bigotry, anti-abortion, gun rights, anti-LGBTQ) on which modern and ultra-Orthodoxy are coalescing—implying that I have joined them. He fails to disclose that I have fought all these trends all the way to this day. Moreover, he fails to say that in these right-wing movements, I, my views, and my political and cultural positions are anathema. He refers to the progressive Orthodox exponents as a kind of saving remnant—without disclosing that I am and have been an active leader in these groups. Instead, he reasserts his misrepresentation, describing me as “somebody once in the progressive wing of Orthodoxy.”

Readers of my article in the Jerusalem Post can see the truth. Contrary to his claim that I support “punishing” the Palestinians by “their reduction to a rump territory devoid of sovereignty”—I quote from the original article, posted for a week before Tablet made edits—I supported the Trump/Kushner peace plan because it offers the best chance for a genuine two-state solution. I wrote: “This plan gives Palestinians an achievable path to sovereignty—a path which would be in their hands.” I wrote that it would block the growing group on the Israeli right that supports the swallowing of Palestinians through annexation of the West Bank, on the grounds that this is a threat to democracy in Israel that can be handled but is less of a threat than an irredentist state that could fall into Hamas/jihadi hands and make life unlivable in Israel. I pointed out that most of the settlers and many on the right oppose the plan because they saw that it would lead to a Palestinian state.

I did say—and still affirm—that this administration, miserable in many areas, made a major contribution—not just the symbolic act of moving the United States embassy to Jerusalem but the aggressive confrontation of the United Nations’s anti-Semitic double standard of condemning Israel, uniquely and constantly, in order to delegitimate its existence. And advancing normalization between Israel and Arab countries is priceless, because it undercuts the greatest threat to the Jewish future, i.e. the existential threat to Israel’s right to exist. We should be willing to acknowledge a great contribution even when made by those whose other policies we reject.

There is nothing we can do other than acknowledge the contribution, because the cumulative evil of denial of climate change in words and policies, the cruel anti-immigrant policies, the encouragement of white supremacists and violent extremism, the assault on medical insurance for those who lacked It before, the anti-science and anti-mask behaviors, and the reckless denial and incompetent mismanagement of the pandemic, which has resulted in countless deaths, means that we cannot support him, no matter what contribution he makes to us. In fact, when you add the debasement of public discourse, the incorrigible lying, the assaults on free press and media, the threats to democracy, and the reprehensible personal example to the equation, it makes it imperative for Jews—really, for everybody—to vote and turn him out of office.

“The Evangelicalization of Orthodoxy” misrepresented my teachings and my worldview. I continue to teach a Torah of the infinite value of every human being, of upholding life and affirming universal human dignity and equality, as I have for more than five decades.