Berl Falbaum
The assassination of Charlie Kirk brings to the forefront the disconcerting, troubling, puzzling, and inexplicable support of Trump-Kirk by a significant sector of the Jewish community.
As with President Trump, this Jewish component has glossed over Kirk’s venomous attacks on Jews because he “was good for Israel.”
Let’s cover Trump first. We will not deal here with Trump’s Jewish supporters abandoning truth, virtue, honesty, integrity, honor, decency, character, tolerance, civility — their entire moral foundation — by ignoring, if not embracing, Trump’s thousands of lies, corruption, his sexual perversion, 34 felony convictions, January 6 insurrection, lying about the 2020 election, etc. We’ll just focus on Jewish political interests, particularly antisemitism.
Trump’s antisemitism started almost immediately after announcing his candidacy for president when he distributed antisemitic materials in the campaign in July 2016.
He tweeted a meme of Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, overlaid on $100 bills alongside a six-pointed Star of David containing the phrase “Most corrupt candidate ever!” The image came from a white supremacist web forum. Jonathan Weisman, author of the book, “(((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump,” wrote that Trump conducted the most antisemitic campaign in modern U.S. history.
Deborah Lipstadt, the renowned historian and Holocaust scholar, accused the Trump administration of being “soft on the Holocaust,” and “de-Judaification of the Nazi genocide.”
Through the years, Trump embraced the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, both harbor antisemitic beliefs; had dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Nick Fuentes, the white supremacist leader as well as with Kanye West, the antisemitic rapper; called a group of Jews in the real estate business “brutal killers…not nice people at all,” but said they would vote for him because they wanted to protect their wealth; said he did not want anyone counting his money except Jews wearing yarmulkes,; would not repudiate the former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, who said the eve of Trump’s election was the happiest night of his life; and Trump frequently cited the antisemitic trope that Jews had dual loyalties — to the U.S. and Israel.
Why did the Jewish electorate give Trump 24 percent of the vote in 2016, 30 percent in 2020, and 32 percent in 2024? He was “good for Israel.” The evidence? He moved the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem.
Now, that move did not make Israel any safer, neither did it help the country economically or politically. Indeed, it made Israel more vulnerable by angering the Arabs. Previous presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, understood that such a move did absolutely nothing for Israel; it only provoked the other side.
What prompted Trump do it? First, to please Evangelicals. A poll in April reported that 72 percent of white evangelical Protestants approve of Trump as president. Evangelicals support Israel because they believe Jesus will return to Earth in Israel, a final battle, Armageddon, will follow, and Jesus will rule the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Jews will be expected to convert or face a dismal future in eternity.
Trump also acted in response to pressure from the late billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Adelson, who even offered to pay for the move, sat in the first row at the ceremony in 2018 and ultimately, he and his wife, Miriam, contributed $90 million to a Trump superPAC in the 2020 campaign. (Miriam Adelson donated another $95 million in 2024 after her husband died in 2021.)
The clergyman who delivered the invocation at the embassy ceremony was Pastor Robert Jeffress who believes Jews will go to Hell for their beliefs. He warned, “You can’t be saved being a Jew.”
Does anyone reading this believe that the Pope, any pope, would invite a clergyman who believed Catholics will go to Hell to pray at the Vatican?
The benediction? None other than Pastor John Hagee who said the Holocaust and the persecution of Jews was the result of Jewish disobedience to God, and described Hitler as a “half-breed Jew.” In a book, Hagee wrote Hitler was born from a lineage of accursed, genocidally murderous "half-breed Jews." It doesn’t get much uglier than that.
The late Republican Senator John McCain, when he was the GOP candidate for president, rebuked Hagee for his bigoted religious views and rejected the pastor’s endorsement.
Trump appointed Stephen Bannon, who trafficked in antisemitism, to the National Security Council. Bannon called Trump a Hitler (as a compliment) and used “Heil Hitler” in his writings.
Also appointed as a White House adviser was Sebastian Gorka, who was a member of the Hungarian antisemitic organization, Historical Vitezi Rend. He wore the organization’s pin in his lapel at Trump’s first inauguration.
Now to Kirk, who was joined at the hip to Trump when it comes to antisemitism. As recounted in a previous column, his views on Jews ranged from charging that Jews controlled Hollywood, the media, adding, “It’s not just the colleges. It’s the nonprofits. It’s the movies. It’s Hollywood. It’s all of it.” Not only did Jews exert such control, but they were supporting “culturing Marxism,” and “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them…the philosophical foundation of anti-whiteness has been largely financed by Jewish donors in the country,” according to Kirk.
Again, many Jews turned a blind eye because he was “good for Israel.”
So, let me conclude by quoting somewhat extensively from a piece by Dan Jacobs, a co-founder of JewThink, a platform for Jewish ideas and voices. His analysis is so penetrating, that I wrote this column, in part, so I could quote him.
“Being pro-Israel doesn’t make you a friend of the Jews,” said Jacobs.
“There’s a trap many Jews fall into, especially those desperate for allies in a hostile world: we confuse support for Israel with support for Jews.
“Charlie Kirk played directly into this. He visited Israel, praised it, defended its policies. His statements about Hamas were unequivocal. For many Jews, especially on the political right, this made him not just an ally, but a hero.
“But saying ‘I support Israel’ doesn’t cancel out saying ‘Jewish donors are controlling everything’ or ‘Jewish communities have been pushing hatred against whites.’ It doesn’t neutralize conspiracy theories about Jewish money, culture, and influence, the very same tropes that fueled centuries of antisemitic violence, from ‘The Protocols’ [of the Elders of Zion] to Pittsburgh.
“To accept Kirk’s Zionism as evidence of his philosemitism is to flatten Jewish identity into a single political relationship. It is to say: as long as you support our state, we will ignore what you say about our people.
“But support for Israel can come from the worst of places. Far-right nationalists have long admired Israel, not because they love Jews, but because they see it as a model of ethnic strength, border security, and militarism. They admire the wall, not the people behind it.
“Likewise, antisemitism can thrive behind the mask of Zionist loyalty. A person can claim to love Israel and still believe that Jews at home are subversive, powerful, or untrustworthy. These are not contradictions. They are just different flavors of the same poison.
“Support for Israel is not a litmus test for loving Jews. And the opposite is also true: being critical of Israel does not mean you hate Jews, but it doesn’t give you a free pass to do so either.
“What’s important is the rhetoric, the framing, the empathy, not the tribal flag.”
That says it all. No one has said it any better.
As with President Trump, this Jewish component has glossed over Kirk’s venomous attacks on Jews because he “was good for Israel.”
Let’s cover Trump first. We will not deal here with Trump’s Jewish supporters abandoning truth, virtue, honesty, integrity, honor, decency, character, tolerance, civility — their entire moral foundation — by ignoring, if not embracing, Trump’s thousands of lies, corruption, his sexual perversion, 34 felony convictions, January 6 insurrection, lying about the 2020 election, etc. We’ll just focus on Jewish political interests, particularly antisemitism.
Trump’s antisemitism started almost immediately after announcing his candidacy for president when he distributed antisemitic materials in the campaign in July 2016.
He tweeted a meme of Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, overlaid on $100 bills alongside a six-pointed Star of David containing the phrase “Most corrupt candidate ever!” The image came from a white supremacist web forum. Jonathan Weisman, author of the book, “(((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump,” wrote that Trump conducted the most antisemitic campaign in modern U.S. history.
Deborah Lipstadt, the renowned historian and Holocaust scholar, accused the Trump administration of being “soft on the Holocaust,” and “de-Judaification of the Nazi genocide.”
Through the years, Trump embraced the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, both harbor antisemitic beliefs; had dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Nick Fuentes, the white supremacist leader as well as with Kanye West, the antisemitic rapper; called a group of Jews in the real estate business “brutal killers…not nice people at all,” but said they would vote for him because they wanted to protect their wealth; said he did not want anyone counting his money except Jews wearing yarmulkes,; would not repudiate the former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, who said the eve of Trump’s election was the happiest night of his life; and Trump frequently cited the antisemitic trope that Jews had dual loyalties — to the U.S. and Israel.
Why did the Jewish electorate give Trump 24 percent of the vote in 2016, 30 percent in 2020, and 32 percent in 2024? He was “good for Israel.” The evidence? He moved the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem.
Now, that move did not make Israel any safer, neither did it help the country economically or politically. Indeed, it made Israel more vulnerable by angering the Arabs. Previous presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, understood that such a move did absolutely nothing for Israel; it only provoked the other side.
What prompted Trump do it? First, to please Evangelicals. A poll in April reported that 72 percent of white evangelical Protestants approve of Trump as president. Evangelicals support Israel because they believe Jesus will return to Earth in Israel, a final battle, Armageddon, will follow, and Jesus will rule the world from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Jews will be expected to convert or face a dismal future in eternity.
Trump also acted in response to pressure from the late billionaire Sheldon Adelson. Adelson, who even offered to pay for the move, sat in the first row at the ceremony in 2018 and ultimately, he and his wife, Miriam, contributed $90 million to a Trump superPAC in the 2020 campaign. (Miriam Adelson donated another $95 million in 2024 after her husband died in 2021.)
The clergyman who delivered the invocation at the embassy ceremony was Pastor Robert Jeffress who believes Jews will go to Hell for their beliefs. He warned, “You can’t be saved being a Jew.”
Does anyone reading this believe that the Pope, any pope, would invite a clergyman who believed Catholics will go to Hell to pray at the Vatican?
The benediction? None other than Pastor John Hagee who said the Holocaust and the persecution of Jews was the result of Jewish disobedience to God, and described Hitler as a “half-breed Jew.” In a book, Hagee wrote Hitler was born from a lineage of accursed, genocidally murderous "half-breed Jews." It doesn’t get much uglier than that.
The late Republican Senator John McCain, when he was the GOP candidate for president, rebuked Hagee for his bigoted religious views and rejected the pastor’s endorsement.
Trump appointed Stephen Bannon, who trafficked in antisemitism, to the National Security Council. Bannon called Trump a Hitler (as a compliment) and used “Heil Hitler” in his writings.
Also appointed as a White House adviser was Sebastian Gorka, who was a member of the Hungarian antisemitic organization, Historical Vitezi Rend. He wore the organization’s pin in his lapel at Trump’s first inauguration.
Now to Kirk, who was joined at the hip to Trump when it comes to antisemitism. As recounted in a previous column, his views on Jews ranged from charging that Jews controlled Hollywood, the media, adding, “It’s not just the colleges. It’s the nonprofits. It’s the movies. It’s Hollywood. It’s all of it.” Not only did Jews exert such control, but they were supporting “culturing Marxism,” and “Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them…the philosophical foundation of anti-whiteness has been largely financed by Jewish donors in the country,” according to Kirk.
Again, many Jews turned a blind eye because he was “good for Israel.”
So, let me conclude by quoting somewhat extensively from a piece by Dan Jacobs, a co-founder of JewThink, a platform for Jewish ideas and voices. His analysis is so penetrating, that I wrote this column, in part, so I could quote him.
“Being pro-Israel doesn’t make you a friend of the Jews,” said Jacobs.
“There’s a trap many Jews fall into, especially those desperate for allies in a hostile world: we confuse support for Israel with support for Jews.
“Charlie Kirk played directly into this. He visited Israel, praised it, defended its policies. His statements about Hamas were unequivocal. For many Jews, especially on the political right, this made him not just an ally, but a hero.
“But saying ‘I support Israel’ doesn’t cancel out saying ‘Jewish donors are controlling everything’ or ‘Jewish communities have been pushing hatred against whites.’ It doesn’t neutralize conspiracy theories about Jewish money, culture, and influence, the very same tropes that fueled centuries of antisemitic violence, from ‘The Protocols’ [of the Elders of Zion] to Pittsburgh.
“To accept Kirk’s Zionism as evidence of his philosemitism is to flatten Jewish identity into a single political relationship. It is to say: as long as you support our state, we will ignore what you say about our people.
“But support for Israel can come from the worst of places. Far-right nationalists have long admired Israel, not because they love Jews, but because they see it as a model of ethnic strength, border security, and militarism. They admire the wall, not the people behind it.
“Likewise, antisemitism can thrive behind the mask of Zionist loyalty. A person can claim to love Israel and still believe that Jews at home are subversive, powerful, or untrustworthy. These are not contradictions. They are just different flavors of the same poison.
“Support for Israel is not a litmus test for loving Jews. And the opposite is also true: being critical of Israel does not mean you hate Jews, but it doesn’t give you a free pass to do so either.
“What’s important is the rhetoric, the framing, the empathy, not the tribal flag.”
That says it all. No one has said it any better.
––––––––––––––––––––
Subscribe to the Legal News!
https://www.legalnews.com/Home/Subscription
Full access to public notices, articles, columns, archives, statistics, calendar and more
Day Pass Only $4.95!
One-County $80/year
Three-County & Full Pass also available
