President John Adams was no wishy-washy Democrat
Halie Soifer’s unfair attack on President Donald Trump (“Trump’s weaponization of anti-Semitism,” Voices, March 21) masks a far more serious problem — the precarious state of the Democratic party — a problem that has nothing at all to do with Trump or the Republican party.
Soifer ignores the real issue on many minds today: Why do so many Jewish Americans continue their blind
allegiance to the Democratic party despite the increasing influence wielded by anti-Semites within the party?
Under the aegis of two Muslim members of Congress and their progressive and socialist peers, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism proliferate within the party. Sadly, the Jewish American community and many Jewish members of Congress remain virtually silent in the face of this.
American support for Israel and the Jewish people is not just a matter of shared values. Rather, it is part of our nation’s DNA.
President George Washington, personally thanking the Rhode Island Jewish community for endorsing his call for ratification of the Bill of Rights, wrote that “the Government of the United States, … gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, …” (“Letter to the Jews of Newport,” 1790). Long before a Jewish state became a glimmer in Theodor Herzl’s eyes, John Adams, after his presidency, made the first of many pro-Zionist statements by an American head of state: “For I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation” (1819).
Compared to the principled stand taken by our Founders, the wishy-washy attitude of the Democratic party toward the anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism within its ranks is a disgrace, and should be an insult to all self-respecting Jewish Americans.
MARC L. CAROFF
Virginia Beach
