To My Brothers and Sisters in Israel: Don’t Trust Trump

I’m your partner. This means I have an Israeli passport (darkon) and I have an Israeli identity card (teudat zihut) and I have all the accoutrements including a home, in Herzliya. I’m on your shores very often. And I love you and our land and our people very very much.

So, I adjure you, fellow citizens, please please please listen up and remember all the false messiahs in our history. Remember all those who have betrayed us through the centuries. Remember those who despised us and hurled their canards at us and our progeny. Remember it and remember it well. If not, it may come back to haunt you, and yours, and me, and mine.

Donald Trump is not one of the good guys. I know, deep in your hearts, deep deep in your souls, you already know that. Please believe your own instincts.

A man who lies unrelentingly, unforgivably, unbelievably, is not someone we can trust. We’re smart enough to know that. Aren’t we?

This new love affair between the despicable Trump and all of his equally despicable partners, and our beloved nation, cannot, and will not last.  You have heard this before.  Please believe it.  It’s true!  We are a people whose existence and lives are based on Jewish law and principles and honor and commitments and beliefs.  We’re far far from perfect.  We get into ridiculous squabbles with one another.  We certainly don’t live in simple harmony.  But, we are rank amateurs in the land of the immoral, immodest Trump cohort.

Just look and listen, my brothers and sisters.  Do you like or believe in what you see?  And what you see is only the real tip.  We don’t have icebergs in Israel but you know what I mean!

Do you want friends who can’t even be faithful to their own spouses.  Spouses indeed.  Trump has had three and been openly unfaithful to each of them.  Why would he be compelled to be more faithful to us?

He has lived a life based on discrimination and hatred.  Long before he became president he was already making sure that blacks, qualified blacks, couldn’t rent in his apartment complexes.  And, until today this despicable behavior against numerous minority groups has defined him.  Are we, you and I, not minorities?  Should we trust a man so filled with anger?  So paranoid? Can any of us applaud his obscene remarks about so many different groups.  He calls them murderers, rapists and he categorizes entire nations as shitholes.  Can our leaders, our rabbanim, our people, support such shameless and unforgivable thoughts…….and actions?

Who are we anyway?  Have we so quickly forgotten the lessons we learned so very recently?  Are we now protected against what history has long taught us to expect? Can we so easily forget that we too were unwanted immigrants and how so many of us didn’t arrive safely at the shores of America or Israel?  We, of all people, shouldn’t welcome immigrants?  We, of all people, should discriminate against them?

So, an evil man, a would-be dictator, an emperor with no clothes, comes to power, and he says he likes us.  Maybe he even says he loves us.  Friends, is their no conundrum if he says he loves us but despises so many others?  Can we really live with that? And can we really expect the pendulum not to swing and chop off our heads? And,  of course, can we ever believe him, this man whose life is based on lies?

Friends, did you go to Trump University? It was a fraud, wasn’t it?  It was never a university at all. Read all about it and then tell me that you can believe this man who lies for a living. His entire business career can be summed up in Trump U. Everything he has done, everything in business has been dishonest and fraudulent. An agreement signed by this man is worth less than nothing. It is a betrayal.

Are you ready to be betrayed?

Can you believe him when he says he loves you?  Didn’t he say that to Ivana?  To Marla?  To Melania?  His words are false.  And, in these days of #MeToo, this man is unscathed? This man whose haunting speech speaks so loud and clear. Rabbis, are you listening? Is this what you condone? Please explain!

When I learn about Jewish values, is the man who personifies them Donald Trump?  Rabbis, are you listening?  Which Jewish values are you ready to ignore so you can support Trump?  Which are dispensable to you?  Derech eretz?  Lashon ha ra?  Please explain!

My friends, I am not trying to pick a fight with you or our rabbis. Nor am I calling out the many rabbis for whom I have deep deep respect, whose lives are emblematic of all the Jewish values I hold so dear.  I am searching for understanding.  Why do so many Jews, Israelis and Americans? Rabbis?  Teachers?  Why is there so much support for the indefensible? I really need to know.  Help me out here.