President Trump said Thursday he would “end the attacks” on Jews, even as he has been blamed by political adversaries for helping create an environment that fosters anti-Semitism.
Trump made the remarks in the Rose Garden during a National Day of Prayer service after receiving praise from Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was wounded Saturday by a gunman at the Chabad of Poway synagogue near San Diego.
“We will fight with all our strength and everything we have in our bodies to defeat anti-Semitism, to end the attacks on the Jewish people, and to conquer all forms of persecution, intolerance, and hate — you know that, rabbi,” Trump said.
Goldstein spoke with bandaged hands about having “my fingers blown off,” and lavished praise on Trump, whose daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and adviser.
“I’d like to thank our dear honorable Mr. President for being, as they say in Yiddish, a mensch par excellence,” Goldstein said. “Mr. President, when you called me I was at home weeping. You were the first person who began my healing. You heal people in their worst of times, and I’m so grateful for that.”
The Saturday synagogue attack killed one member of the Poway congregation, Lori Kaye. Goldstein and two others were wounded. The man charged in the shooting, 19-year-old John Earnest, struck exactly six months after the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Robert Bowers has been charged with killing 11 people in that shooting.
Trump’s embrace from Goldstein follows attacks from some of his political foes, linking him to rising reports of violence motivated by prejudice. Many Trump critics invoke his infamous August 2017 statement that “very fine people” were on both sides of protests between those defending a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Va., and activists opposing them and the landmark. Critics point to the plethora of white supremacists defending the statue, but Trump’s defenders have noted that when he made the remarks, he said he was not referring to the white supremacists among those supporting the statue.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., on Tuesday said Trump and “his allies are doing everything that they can to distance themselves and misinform the public from the monsters that they created that is terrorizing the Jewish community and the Muslim community.”
Last year, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, then considering running for president as a Democrat, linked the Tree of Life synagogue shooting to Trump, saying, “unfortunately I think things are going from bad to worse and all of this partisan nastiness is really tearing the country apart.”
Declared 2020 candidates challenging Trump have made oblique attacks following the Poway attack.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who entered the Democratic primary last week, called Trump “the only president who’s decided not to represent the whole country.”
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said Sunday, in a clear reference to Trump: “My home state of California just on Saturday made clear what was clear in Charlottesville, and what was clear at the Tree of Life synagogue. Let’s speak truth: racism, anti-semitism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia are real in this country.”
