slate - "Donald Trump's Jewish Problem"

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/02/donald_trump_s_disturbing_dalliance_with_anti_semitic_rhetoric.html

Donald Trump’s Jewish Problem

The president’s dalliance with anti-Semitic rhetoric should be disturbing to all Americans.

By Dahlia Lithwick

When do we get to say out loud that the Trump Administration has a very serious problem with Jews, Judaism, and all things Jewish and that it has now risen to the level that even saying the word Jew has become problematic?

On Monday, 11 Jewish Community Centers across the United States were targeted with bomb threats and evacuations, the fourth round of such threats in 2017. Outside St. Louis, more than 170 graves were desecrated and toppled in a Jewish cemetery.

The White House’s statement on the JCC threats read in full:

Hatred and hate-motivated violence of any kind have no place in a country founded on the promise of individual freedom. The President has made it abundantly clear that these actions are unacceptable.
It’s worth noting that terrorism and vandalism have absolutely nothing to do with “individual freedom” and that threatening to kill small babies and elderly people is an affront to human safety and dignity, not just “freedom.” The White House statement, you also might have noticed, did not contain the words Jewish, Jewish Community Center, or terrorism or anti-Semitism. This has become something of a tradition for the Trump administration, which failed to mention the existence of Jewish victims in a message issued on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Last week, Trump fielded a question about the rise in anti-Semitic incidents during a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by making another rambling reference to his Electoral College victory and his Jewish daughter and by dismissing the question as unfair. And on Thursday, in the strangest performance to date, Trump told a Jewish reporter to sit down and accused him of lying when he was asked a softball question about the rise of anti-Jewish hate.


On Tuesday morning, responding to increasing pressure to say the words aloud, Trump called anti-Semitism “horrible” and “a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil.” In a Facebook post, the executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect called this “a pathetic asterisk of condescension after weeks in which he and his staff have committed grotesque acts and omissions reflecting anti-Semitism, yet day after day have refused to apologize and correct the record.”

Indeed, to be grateful that Trump finally said the bare minimum at the latest possible moment he could say it is to miss what was most horrifying about his assorted romps with anti-Semitism. You may have missed it amid the distraction of Trump’s insult to a Jewish reporter, but in the same press conference, SiriusXM’s Jared Rizzi circled back to the hate crimes question. “I’ll follow up on my colleague’s question about anti-Semitism,” Rizzi said. “It’s not about your personality or your beliefs. We’re talking about a rise in anti-Semitism around the country. Some of it by supporters in your name. What can you do to deter that?”

snip - more - well written, important article

[Behind the Aegis]

1. Good article.

Brings up a few important ideas, the biggest one being we should be "appreciative" he even bothered to mention it. It is true, most people don't give two shits about anti-Semitism, and I don't know why, exactly, that is, but one reason is likely because most people don't have a clue as to what anti-Semitism is, much less it's impact on Jews and our history.

One irony, some have neglected to mention, is the Jewish reporter who was essentially told to shut up and sit down, went on Fox (Faux) News and defended the "president" by saying (paraphrasing): "His defensiveness is an indication on how important combatting anti-Semitism is to him." Anyone teaching logic, rhetoric, or psychology, should look for that clip and show it to their classes, because it is the most blatant example of cognitive dissonance I have ever seen!

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. indeed. good to see you!

[Gothmog]

3. Trump and bannon are holocaust deniers