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“I’m not a prophet or a son of a prophet”

On February 13, 2017, only weeks after Trump was inaugurated President, I wrote a blog about Trump’s mental condition and whether it ought to disqualify him as president.

I’m certainly not a prophet nor the son of a prophet in the sense of predicting the future. Actually, the biblical prophet displayed only the capacity to see reality clearly as it was, to project forward the consequences of that reality, and to predict doom based upon the moral failures of the present. In that sense, the psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, political thinkers, historians, and friends of Trump that I cited called out who Donald Trump was and what America could expect going forward with him as President.

Nothing I said in that blog four years ago wasn’t true, and all of it has been borne out these past years and since the November election. Though Trump will be gone from the White House on January 20, we are hardly rid of him and his destructive, illiberal, anti-democratic, autocratic, seditious, treasonous, and anti-American presidency because he has infected his malignantly narcissistic toxicity into millions of followers who hail to him as “leader.”

You can read my blog from four years ago here – https://rabbijohnrosove.wordpress.com/2017/02/13/should-trumps-mental-condition-disqualify-him-as-president/

About the Author

John L. Rosove is Senior Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Israel of Hollywood in Los Angeles. He is a former national co-Chair of the Rabbinic and Cantorial Cabinet of J Street and a former National Chairman of the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA). He serves as a member of the Advisory Council of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism. John was the 2002 Recipient of the World Union for Progressive Judaism International Humanitarian Award and has received special commendation from the State of Israel Bonds. In 2013 he was honored by J Street at its Fifth Anniversary Celebration in Los Angeles. John is the author of 3 books - "From the West to the East - A Memoir of a Liberal American Rabbi" (2024), "Why Israel Matters - Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to the Next Generation with an Afterword by Daniel and David Rosove" (Revised edition 2023), and “Why Judaism Matters – Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to his Children and the Millennial Generation with an Afterword by Daniel and David Rosove” (2017). All are available at Amazon.com. John is a co-editor of "Deepening the Dialogue - Jewish-Americans and Israelis Envisioning the Jewish-Democratic State" (Hebrew & English, publ. 2020). John translated and edited the Hebrew biography of his Great Granduncle – "Avraham Shapira – Veteran of the Haganah and Hebrew Guard" by Getzel Kressel (publ. by the Municipality of Petach Tikvah, 1955). The translation was privately published (2021). John is married to Barbara. They are the parents of two sons - Daniel (married to Marina) and David. He has two grandchildren and he lives in Los Angeles.