With Israel at war and rampant global antisemitism, what does the future hold with Trump returning as leader of the free world?
By David E. Kaplan
“Jan. 6 made me rule out Trump; Oct. 7 made me vote for him,”
writes Ellen Just Braffman, a retired educator and grandmother of 12 who lives in Bala-Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, in the same area as my wife’s sisters and their families. What Braffman unveils throughout her article is the anguish between the two monumental dates – January 6, 2020 and October 7, 2023:
“When October 7th happened; the world changed. October 7th changed everything.”
I understand her cerebral journey perfectly. My wife’s nephew, a life-long Democratic living also in the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia not far from Braffman’s Bala-Cynwyd, emphatically expresses that until October 7 he was,“coasting along,” but now feels “like a born-again Jew.” Like for so many Jews today, October 7, shockingly “changed everything.”
They were brutally reminded of their identity! More than that; they were reminded of their insecurity because of that identity.
For the equivocating US Jewish voter, it was a reminder that throughout history at moments of hope or choice – It is not so much a case of who will be good for the Jews but who will be less bad.
It was through this prism that anguished Jews viewed the 2024 US presidential election.
How many Jews in the US identified with Braffman when she writes that following January 6, 2021:
“…my anti-democracy, beginning of totalitarianism” radar began to send signals. The horrifying images of the US Capitol mitigating against a peaceful transfer of power horrified me …and Trump’s complicity in this shameful anti-democratic act was clear.”
Yet confounding this narrative were the facts – not words – that contributed to her perplexity that during Trump’s turbulent first term he initiated “the Abraham Accords, amputated Iran’s financial muscle, moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognized the strategically critical Golan Heights as part of Israel, and even cut aid to UNWRA, the profound significance of which was not yet widely understood.” Nevertheless, she writes, “I was done with President Trump,” who she “considered a highly flawed and dangerous individual.”
And then October 7th happened. “The world changed. October 7th changed everything.”
What also changed was who she was going to vote for!
And you can understand why. What else had also “changed” was a fundamental shift in the Democratic Party that historically stood by Israel from the time of President Truman who despite internal opposition, ensured the US was the first country to recognise the new Jewish state in 1947 and then helped the young state’s development. Instead, in recent years, the Democratic Party welcomed as part of its ‘proud’ progressive shift, the so-called “Squad” with its Middle Eastern agenda undermining the US’s support for Israel at every opportunity. This Squad were at the forefront demanding cease-fires and the blocking of arms to Israel during a time of an existential war and banding slogans in sync with Israel’s worst enemies. They embrace a narrative that Israel was established as a “colonial outpost,” implying that Jews have no right to their own state in their ancestral land! Instead of jettisoning this toxic invasion into its ranks, Democrats were absorbing them and allowing it to reshape the party’s DNA.
House Democrats also undermined their support with Jews when they splintered over a bipartisan resolution condemning antisemitism on college campuses and calling for the presidents of Harvard and MIT to step down. The episode highlighted stark Democratic divisions that had been bubbling up to the surface. Although the resolution passed 303-126, only 84 Democrats voted in favor of it while a whopping 125 voting against it. All Republicans bar one, voted for it.
The smell had become a stench and then for Philadelphian Ellan Braffman it became personal. While being “overwhelmed by the scope” of the October 7 massacre, then came “the green tents on College Green on the campus of U of Penn, my alma mater. Then there was the pro-Hamas march through Center City Philadelphia to Goldie’s restaurant, my favorite stop, their faces hidden by kaffiyehs, screaming “from the river to the sea.” My anti-totalitarian radar began sending me nonstop alerts and making clear the importance of a strong USA, a force for good in this world with a clear vision of good and evil.”
So, while challenged on route to the voting booth by the January 6th storming of the Capitol, many perturbed Democratic Jews were now guided by another date, October 7th. There were now two narratives; two diverse mindsets – a pre and a post October 7. The people who might naturally have voted for pre-October 7 suddenly would now vote for the opponent because the prime issue was no longer democracy, the economy, abortion, health care or the border but the future of Jews both in Israel and globally. This was brought home as I write post-US election and see the braking news of violent attacks against Jews two days before the anniversary of Kristallnacht in 1938, of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in Amsterdam following the match against Ajax.
‘We were ambushed’: At least ten injured, three missing in Amsterdam pogrom” read The Jerusalem Post headline with Israel sending two emergency flights to evacuate Israelis from the city.
That in this day and age, Israel has to send emergency flights to a European capital because it is unable to protect its Jewish visitors? This comes only a few weeks after reports of Dutch police refusing to guard Jewish sites over “moral dilemmas”. As reported in the media, Marcel de Weerd and Michel Theeboom from the Jewish Police Network, reveal:
“There are colleagues who no longer want to protect Jewish targets or events”.
These same officers later spoke with De Telegraaf, where they said that some members of the police are refusing to be deployed at the Dutch National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam nor to accept food and drinks from the venue.
In the wake of the antisemitic attacks at the Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv football match, the Dutch Organization for Central Jewish Consultation issued an urgent call for immediate, tough measures:
“The terrible scenes we witnessed last night show that there is no time to wait before taking tough measures.”
In the Netherlands, much like the rest of the Diaspora, antisemitic incidents significantly increased after Hamas’s October 7 attacks – an increase of over 800%, according to the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel.
On October 7, Hamas pulled the trigger but the next day there was a global queue to join its firing squad.
It may seem crazy to some, but maybe we need a little crazy in the White House to face-off crazy in the world!
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