To Former President Donald J. Trump

Dear Former President Trump:

While some of us Jewish Democrats have very real concerns and issues with fellow Democrats, your assertion that we need to have our heads examined which will lead us to see you as a viable alternative is as wrong and delusional as every other perverse and aspirational lie you tell. We would rather battle it out within our party than to even allow you to think you have a chance with us. The #NeverTrump movement is alive and well among Jewish Democrats.

Regardless of what you think you’ve heard, Jews have never fared well under strongmen wannabees playing politics with Jewish lives. We can see right through your divisive and hateful tactics. And if you don’t believe us, feel free to get a check up from the neck up after you lose the election.

We thank you for Jared’s successful Abraham Accords and for your recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and for recognizing the Golan Heights as part of Israel, but your dog-whistling rhetoric to antisemites has launched a country-wide, if not world wide, permission to antisemites from all extremes to descend on Jews for opprobrium and a return to classical dangerous antisemitism. Some of us would even venture to say that many challenges we are facing in the Democratic party can be attributed to a combination of your personality, divisive politics with Jewish issues and generalized white supremacist demeanor. We don’t need any more of this. Your politics of grievance, blame and gutter, hateful, trash talk continually lowers the bar for antisemites of all stripes to get dangerously ugly.

So, when you go low, we will be going higher. We know your game to which we respond, #NeverAgain. That is all.

B’shalom,

Dr. Edward S. Beck