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As much as we hate it when Donald Trump sucks up to the Jewish lobby, he will frequently do so in ways that are amusingly condescending. On Rosh Hashanah, Trump made a post on his vanity social media site Truth Social that read:

Just a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed false narratives! Let’s hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward! Happy New Year!

In the next sentence, he calls those same liberal Jews “sheep,” and in the sentence after that, he misspells Nazi as “Natzi.” He then goes on to list his own personal Greatest Hits of things he’s done for Jews. He moved the United States embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the country’s “true capital”; he restored Israel’s control of the Golan Heights; he increased funding for Holocaust education, etc., etc.

I believe that pickup artists refer to this as “negging.” You have to admit, though, that a guy who brags about his contributions to Holocaust education and yet not knowing how to spell “Nazi” is objectively hilarious.

Fourth on his list, having Jews declared a race for Title VI purposes, actually spooked a lot of liberal Jews who want you to believe that they are “just a religion.”

Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told Forbes that Trump’s post was “dangerous and wrong,” and said that Trump was “playing into conspiracy theories about dual loyalty . . . on one of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar.”

Many other self-appointed spokesmen of the Jewish people weighed in as well. New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler tweeted:

Next time you attack American Jews, think twice before about doing it on one of our holiest days. Your antisemitism is loud & clear. And your fear of democracy supporters here & in Israel is showing because you love authoritarianism.  — Jerry

CNN hostess Dana Bash (née Schwartz):

There is nothing, nothing even close to appropriate about what he said. In fact, this is classic Trump trying to divide subsets of America, divide people who are already — he sees that there are not just embers, but there are flames of division within the Jewish community and within American culture when it comes to Israel.

Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs:

Meanwhile, Trump marks the end of Rosh Hashana with an antisemitic post accusing Jews who voted against him of “destroy[ing] America & Israel.”

Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America (how many councils does 2% of the population need?) tweeted:

This isn’t Trump’s first threat against the vast majority of American Jews.

2019 — He called Jewish Dems uninformed & disloyal.

2020 — He asserted he moved the U.S. Embassy “for the Evangelicals,” presumably because they’re more loyal.

2022 — He implored American Jews to “get their act together on Israel before it’s too late.”

Now he’s alleging #LiberalJews voted to “destroy America & Israel,” warning us to “make better choices moving forward.” What’s he trying to say here? Apart from repeating the same depraved antisemitic threats & tropes.

It takes a special kind of narcissism to take another group’s religious holiday and make it all about yourself. I’m half-inclined to feel offended myself on behalf of the Jews, but then I remember everything else about the Jews and stop caring.

Trump’s post also includes a reference to the hashtag #JEXIT, which refers to a non-profit based in Florida. JEXIT’s website describes itself thusly:

Founded in 2018, JEXIT stands for Jews Exiting the Democrat Party. Our mission is to help educate and encourage Jews to understand and be fully cognizant of the fact that the Democrat party has abandoned them and Israel. JEXIT believes that much of the core of today’s Democrat party is anti-Israel, antisemitic and anti-American.

The Times of Israel claimed that JEXIT created the offending post, but its syntax pure Trump, and I have a hard time believing that there are any Jews who don’t know how to spell “Nazi.” The only thing that makes me doubt it was Trump is that I doubt he knows how to use graphic design software, and if someone helped him, I would like to think that person would know how to properly spell Nazi.

Now, if you want to take a glass half-empty take on this story, it looks as if after everything, Trump has still not given up on pandering to Jews. If you want glass half-full, Trump certainly sounds like he is starting to resent the Jews.

Trump seems to understand two-thirds of the Jewish Question. First, he understands that Jews run the country, or are at least are critical gatekeepers in American politics. We know this because Trump panders to Jews far out of proportion to what their numbers as a voting bloc would merit. If it were about getting votes, there are many other groups that he would get more bang for his buck out of pandering to. This is about winning over gatekeepers.

Second, Trump understands that Jews are extremely ethnocentric. The part that Trump either does not understand or refuses to acknowledge is Jewish antipathy for white gentiles. Trump therefore respects that Jews are in power and panders to their ethnocentrism to the maximum degree, and is continually surprised that this isn’t enough for them. Last December, during the backlash over his meeting with Kanye West, Trump posted on Truth Social:

How quickly Jewish Leaders forgot that I was the best, by far, President for Israel. They should be ashamed of themselves. This lack of loyalty to their greatest friends and allies is why large numbers in Congress, and so many others, have stopped giving support to Israel.

What Trump doesn’t understand is that it is less important to Jews that you love them than that you hate their enemies.

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