It’s not every day you get invited orthodox rabbi to pronounce a prayer at the inauguration of a american president, but there I was on January 20, 2017 doing just that. To be clear, as founder of the Centro Simon Wiesenthal, Never I have endorsed no candidate from any party. But I had the honor, like Jewish American born to poor immigrant parents, to stand before the nation and the world and – flanked by the presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush y Barack Obamaand the incoming president Donald Trump– Say these words:
“The freedoms we enjoy are not granted in perpetuity, but must be claimed by each generation!”
In 2022 it is no secret that the political and civil discourses of USA they are broken. American Jews, who make up 2.4% of the US population, are the targets of 63% of all religious hate crimes. These are not my stats; are from FBI. The Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, he said earlier this month that Jews were “being beaten from all sides.” And those numbers don’t even reflect the latest tsunami of anti-Jewish hatred dominating social media in the wake of the ill-fated outbursts. anti jewish of Kanye “He” West [Louis] Farrakhan-esque that followed.
In this context, I was deeply surprised to learn that former President Trump had received two anti-Semites last week, Kanye West y Nick Fuentesat your resort Mar-a-Lago. And I mightn’t help but wonder, what would other ex-presidents like Washington, Lincoln, Truman y Reagan or civil rights leaders like the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. y Bayard Rustin regarding such a meeting? It would have been as if they were hosting a dinner for leaders of the KKK.
I can’t believe that a man with Jewish grandchildren, who was the first president to recognize Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish people by moving the United States Embassy to the holy city, and who invited this native of the Lower East Side of New York to lead our nation in prayer during his inauguration, he might have made such an ill-conceived decision.
The namesake of our Center, a survivor of the holocaust and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, loved the United States of America. He never forgot that it was the American soldiers who saved him in May 1945. He was mesmerized by the stars of the American flag, each of which represented not only a state, but also the values of Freedom and Justice of the United States. When I asked him why he didn’t move to the US, Simon replied that if you wanted to fight the scourge of Nazism and the hatred of the Jews, you had to fight from the swamp. If Simon were alive today, he would have moved here.
Simon would be surprised to learn of the former president’s meeting with someone like Fuentes, whose hallmarks of “America First” include white supremacy and hatred of Judaism, and who, in 2019, “jokingly” denied the Holocaust, comparing to the Jews burned in the Nazi death camps with cookies baked in an oven.
Even if President Trump hadn’t previously heard of Fuentes, he surely knew all regarding West, who has criticized and threatened Jews on social media time and time once more. Among his recent comments: “I’m going to kill the Jews,” “I don’t think [los judíos] have the ability to do anything for themselves. I think they were born in the midst of money” and “the Jews are the owners of [la] black voice… we will not be owned by the Jewish media anymore.” He also declared that “we need a government of Christians,” adding: “The Jews can be here, but they can’t make our laws.”
democrats y Republicans They can continue to disagree on political and social issues, but not on the fundamental principles of democracy that have always made America great. I am encouraged by the voices of some prominent Republicans who have joined Democrats in denouncing Trump’s meeting with West and Fuentes. But it is necessary that many more speak.
President Trump, our Jewish faith does not believe that anyone is perfect. Rather than divert attention, I urge you to clearly and unequivocally denounce the two fanatics you hosted and everything they stand for.
Rabbi Marvin Hier is the founder of Los Angeles’ Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance and Moriah Films. He is the only rabbi to have been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and to have won two Oscars as a producer of Holocaust documentaries.
