The GOP’s “Weirdness,” the Jewish vote and the DNC

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1. Jewish campaigning gone wild

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz made his way from being a well-liked yet obscure midwestern politician to sharing the Democratic presidential ticket by coining the term “weird” to describe Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance. The idea of GOP leaders acting weirdly and saying weird stuff caught fire, and within days it became the Dems’ most popular line of attack against their rivals.

Perhaps unintended, the “Weird” tag also seems increasingly suitable to the GOP’s message to Jewish American voters, or at least to the messaging coming from their standard-bearer Donald Trump. In recent weeks, Trump has homed in on a line he believes could win him Jewish voters, potentially tilting the swing state of Pennsylvania in his favor.

“Any Jewish person who votes for a Democrat or votes for Biden should have their head examined,” Trump said back in April, after President Biden sought to apply pressure on Netanyahu to change course in the Gaza war. At a photo op during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago last month, Trump called Biden’s treatment of Israel “insulting.” And then, following Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race, Trump updated his message, stating that “any Jew who votes for Kamala Harris and her friend Tim Walz should have their head examined.” This has since become an integral part of Trump’s stump speech, repeated in practically every campaign event he holds.  

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong, nor is there anything new, with Republicans trying to play the Israel card in order to make inroads with Jewish voters. A key 21st-century argument in the GOP’s appeal to Jewish Americans was that Democrats’ only goal is to pressure Israel into concessions in order to advance their pro-Palestinian agenda, while Republicans have Israel’s back and will always support Israel’s (almost always right-wing) government in Jerusalem. 

For Democrats, the key to winning over Jewish voters has always been—forgive the simplification—arguing that while they fully support Israel, that’s not really what Jews care about. The focus, they stress, should be on liberal values, which Democrats and Jewish Americans share.

So, what makes Trump’s campaign pitch to Jewish voters weird?

It’s not the argument of being more pro-Israel than Democrats, which Jewish voters can argue about endlessly, and they do. It’s about the tone.

Are there really Jewish voters out there who had yet to make up their minds and who now, after being described by the former president as needing their heads examined, will see the light and vote for him? Does suggesting that your friends in the Jewish community suffer from some kind of mental illness demonstrated by their political choices somehow win votes? It doesn’t. Nor does Trump’s assertion, implied in this claim and pronounced clearly many times in the past, that Jewish Americans should vote based on the interests of Israel—that otherwise they are “disloyal” to Israel.

These are, at best, good applause lines for Trump’s Jewish base. But the election isn’t about rallying the Jewish base. Those same quarter to a third of Jewish Americans who voted for Trump in previous elections will likely do so again come November. It’s about winning swing voters, who, in the case of the Jewish community, may be sincerely concerned about a President Harris applying too much pressure on Israel and who may feel that the Democratic Party has veered too far to the left. But by calling them, their families and their fellow Jews sitting next to them in shul insane, Trump is not moving a single vote. 

Do Republicans not understand that?

Of course they do. But that’s the problem with having an unconventional and charismatic candidate heading the ticket. This type tends not to listen to his advisers.

2. The Jewish split-screen

The state of play in courting Jewish voters was on full display last Thursday, when on the same day, at the same time, Republicans and Democrats held events aimed at winning over Jewish Americans.

After completing a press conference, Donald Trump hosted at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey an event for Stop Antisemitism, an advocacy organization funded primarily by Republican donors that pays special attention to left-wing antisemitism. The message conveyed in his speech to several hundred participants, many of them Orthodox, was that the danger to Jewish Americans comes from the left wing of the Democratic Party and from VP Harris. “If Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are elected, the radical left flag burners and Hamas sympathizers will not just be causing chaos on our streets. They’ll be running U.S. foreign policy in the White House, and Israel will be gone,” Trump said, after warning that “what is going on now is exactly what was going on before the Holocaust.”

At the same time, some 35,000 Jewish Americans, according to organizers, were glued to their computer screens watching an entirely different Jewish political gathering: the Jewish Women for Kamala online event, hosted by the Jewish Democratic Council of America and starring none other than Barbra Streisand, who suggested sending Trump “back to where he belongs—in his golf cart, lying about his scores.”

In contrast to Trump’s event, here Israel was only one issue among many. Speakers sought to dispute the Republican candidate’s claims that Harris would be bad on Israel, but they also spent time talking about immigration, abortion and democracy. 

The split-screen provided by these two competing events illustrated the diverging approach and style of both camps to Jewish voters. The Dems still feel at home with Jewish voters, freely sprinkling Yiddishisms, sharing stories and jokes, almost taking for granted the idea that three or four of every ten Jewish voters will go their way.

On the Republican side, the demography is different—many more kippot, more Hebrew, and emphasis on the fear factor based on concerns of antisemitism and violence.

3. Pressing Netanyahu

Negotiations over a hostage release and cease-fire deal have reached their moment of truth. How many times have you heard this sentence in the past ten months?

This time, it may be true.

The Biden administration believes that a deal is within reach and that there’s no good reason not to have it sealed by the end of this week. The Israeli government seems more skeptical. Hamas won’t even acknowledge that progress has been made.

For American Jews, this is one of those uncomfortable moments in which they feel pressed from both sides: Many in the community, and a clear majority of Israelis, want to see Netanyahu sign the deal immediately and believe that the Israeli PM is now the key obstacle to getting it done. On the other hand, publicly pressuring an elected Israeli leader has always been something the organized Jewish community has tried to avoid.

As of now, the communal leadership is still tiptoeing around the issue, with general statements on the importance of releasing the hostages, but without pointing at Netanyahu.

This is why a letter, sent last week to leaders of Jewish federations by family members of the hostages held in Gaza, is so interesting.

The letter, signed by families of more than 40 Israelis and dual Israeli-American citizens held in captivity by Hamas, does not mince words. “We, family members of the Israeli and American hostages in Gaza signed below, appeal to you, our Jewish American brothers and sisters, to help us urge our prime minister and government to sign and implement the current ceasefire/hostage deal immediately,” the letter reads. It goes on to state that “you have the power to help save our families and the democratic Jewish state, by publicly urging the Netanyahu government to sign the deal.”

This is the clearest message to date directed at the Jewish community in the United States—a desperate call from families hoping that their leader in Israel, who has thus far ignored appeals from fellow Israelis, may be willing to listen to the American Jewish community.

However, at least as of now, the American Jewish community has yet to step up to the challenge.

4. Goldenberg in the line of fire

Last week the Harris campaign tapped Ilan Goldenberg to serve as its liaison to the Jewish community. It may sound like a safe bet: Goldenberg was born in Israel, went to Jewish day school in New Jersey, has spent his life working on Middle East peace and was part of the Obama peace negotiation team. But he has never shied from criticizing those who he believes are not playing a constructive role in advancing a peace agreement, primarily Netanyahu but also Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Goldenberg was also a strong supporter of the Iran nuclear deal, which Netanyahu deemed dangerous and worked tirelessly to overturn.

So it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the appointment was met by some pretty harsh criticism from pro-Bibi circles. “Do Kamala Harris’s new Jewish liasion’s policies align with American Jews?” asked Michael Starr at The Jerusalem Post. Don’t hold your breath; the right-leaning publication has the answer. A column by the paper’s chief editor, Zvika Klein, suggested that “Harris’s golden boy should alarm every friend of Israel.”

5. What to watch for at the DNC

Moving forward this week, all eyes are on Chicago, where Democrats are gathered for their convention.

There’s much to watch: Joe Biden being celebrated while being shown the way out; Tim Walz introduced to America; Harris stepping up to her greatest moment and much more. But here’s some of the Jewish and Israel stuff you may want to keep an eye on:

How significant will the pro-Palestinian protests be? Organizers have limited marches and rallies to a location so distant from the convention venue that most delegates won’t even know they happened. But tens of thousands of activists, angry at Biden’s policies on Israel and hoping to see Harris change course, are not going to let their message go unnoticed.

It is also worth looking at how the Democratic Party manages to contain not only the protestors but also the “uncommitted” delegates; they did not support Biden in the primaries because of his Israel policies and now want to be heard. It’s a difficult balancing act for the DNC, which is trying to bring everyone under one tent without conceding on policy issues.

And keep an eye on the hostage families who are traveling to Chicago to make their plea for the release of their loved ones. At the Republican convention, the entire arena roared with support when Ronen and Orna Neutra spoke about their son, Omer, held in Gaza. How will Democrats respond? It may be a bit more complicated. 

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia (CC-BY-SA-3.0).