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For the Republican Jews whose Vegas confab kicked off the 2024 primary, Trump was always present
LAS VEGAS (JTA) — For Republican Jews looking for an alternative to Donald Trump in 2024’s presidential race, Ted Cruz presented a tantalizing choice on Saturday — at least for a few minutes.
“When I arrived in the Senate 10 years ago, I set a goal to be the leading defender of Israel in the United States,” the Texas senator said during his chance to address the Republican Jewish Coalition conference last weekend.
The crowd packed into a ballroom deep in the gold lame reaches of the Venetian casino complex lapped it up in what some of them refer to as the “kosher cattle call,” auditions for some of the GOP’s biggest campaign donors.
Cruz applied his folksy bellow to phrases already rendered stale by the speakers who preceded him, making them seem fresh. “Nancy Pelosi is out of a job,” he said of the Democratic speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, eliciting more cheers from a crowd relishing a fragile majority in the House, one of few GOP wins during midterm elections earlier this month.
But the onetime constitutional lawyer lost the crowd when he asked everyone to take out their cell phones and text a number associated with his podcast, “Verdict.” As the murmurs graduated into grumbles it became clear: About a third of the 800 or so people in the room were Shabbat-observant Jews, taking texting off the table for them.
Cruz never really recovered his rapport with the audience, which included deep-pocketed donors looking to pick a candidate and rally support for him or her. That made his speech an extreme example of the trajectory of just about every address by prospective presidential hopefuls at the RJC conference — excitement tempered by two nagging questions: Does this candidate have what it takes to beat Trump, whose obsession with litigating the 2020 election helped fuel this year’s electoral losses? And is Trump inevitable whoever challenges him?
The former president was at the center of every presentation and of conversations in the corridors during breaks. On the stage, some folks named him, some did not, but — except for Trump himself during a video address from his Florida home — few did so enthusiastically.
Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was the first of Trump’s primary opponents in 2016 to drop out and endorse him, and then among the first to repudiate him during his presidency, repeated the admonition he made a year ago to move beyond Trump.
Say his name, Christie urged the crowd. “It is time to stop whispering,” he said. “It is time to stop doing the knowing nod, the ‘we can’t talk.’ It’s time to stop being afraid of any one person. It is time to stand up for the principles and the beliefs that we have founded this party on, this country on.” He got big cheers.
Trump was the first candidate to announce for 2024, last week, and so far the only one. But others among the half dozen or so likelys in Las Vegas were clearly signaling a run. Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations who is a star among right-wing pro-Israel groups for her successes at the United Nations in marginalizing the Palestinians, all but told the group she was ready.
“A lot of people have asked if I’m going to run for president,” Haley said. “Now that the midterms are over I’ll look at it in a serious way and I’ll have more to say soon.”
The biggest cheers were reserved for Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who was a bright spot for Republicans on Nov. 8, winning reelection in a landslide. DeSantis listed his pro-Israel bona fides (boycotting Israel boycotters) and his culture wars (taking on Disney after the company protested his “Parents Rights in Education” bill, known among its critics as “Don’t Say Gay”).
The crowd loved it. “The state of Florida is where woke goes to die!” he said to ecstatic cheers.
DeSantis did not once mention Trump; the former president has already targeted him saying whatever success he has he owes to Trump’s endorsement of his 2018 gubernatorial bid and dubbing him “Ron DeSanctimonious.’
Getting the nickname was a clear sign that DeSantis was a formidable opponent, said Fred Zeidman, an RJC board member who has yet to endorse a candidate. “It’s a badge of honor, in that Trump has identified you as a legitimate contender for the presidency,” he said in an interview.
Yet even DeSantis was not a clear Trump successor. The RJC usually heads into campaign-year conferences with a clear idea of which of its board members back which candidates, and then relays the word to Jewish Republicans whom to contact to join a prospective campaign.
That didn’t happen this year, and Trump was the reason. Jewish Republicans are still “shopping” for candidates, Ari Fleischer, the former George W. Bush administration spokesman who is an RJC board member and who also has not endorsed a candidate, said in a gaggle with reporters.
Trump was the elephant in the RJC room, Fleischer said, using the Hebrew word for the animal.
“Donald Trump is the pil in the room. There’s no question about it,” Fleischer said right after Trump spoke. “And he is a former president. He has tremendous strength and you could hear it and feel it with this group, particularly on policy, particularly on the substantive issues that he was able to accomplish in the Middle East. It resonates with many people.”
Trump had earned cheers during his speech as he reviewed the hard-right turn his administration took on Israel policy, moving the embassy to Jerusalem and quitting the Iran nuclear deal, among other measures.
“There are other people, they’re going to look at his style and look at things he’s said, and question if he is too hot to handle,” Fleischer continued.
Trump in his talk at first stuck to a forward-looking script but toward the end of it could not resist repeating his lies about winning the 2020 election. Asked by RJC chairman Norm Coleman how he would expand the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements he brokered between Israel and four Arab countries, should he be reelected, Trump instead bemoaned the election.
“Well, we had a very disgraceful election,” he said. “We got many millions of votes more than we had in 2016, as you all know, and the result was a disgrace in my opinion, absolute sham and a disgrace.”
It was one of many only-in-Vegas moments at an event that brings together disparate groups, including young secular Jews from university campuses gawking at the glitter, Orthodox Jews lurking at elevators waiting for someone else to push the button so they can get to their rooms, and Christian politicos and their staffers encountering an intensely Jewish environment for the first time.
“Shabbat starts on Friday night and ends on Saturday night,” one young staffer explained to another as they contemplated a “Shabbat Toilet” sign taped to a urinal. “But doesn’t it flush automatically anyway?” asked the other.
South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, another presumed 2020 hopeful, was the only speaker to decry violent attacks on Jews.
“When I think about my brothers and sisters in the Jewish community, in New York City being attacked on the streets of New York, it is time to rise up on behalf of those citizens,” he said. “Rise up against those folks spreading antisemitism, hate and racism.” He was also the only speaker to praise a Democrat, Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen, with whom he has launched an African-American Jewish coalition in the Senate.
A couple of contenders who have separated themselves from Trump said his name out loud — but with disdain.
“Trump was saying that we’d be winning so much we’d get tired of winning,” said Larry Hogan, who is ending a second term as the governor of a Democratic state, Maryland, with high ratings. “Well, I’m sick and tired of our party losing. This election last week, I’m even more sick and tired than I was before. This is the third election in a row that we lost and should have won. I say three strikes and you’re out.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence peppered his speech with fond references to Trump and his refusal to heed experienced personnel who counseled an even-handed Middle East policy, a move that Pence and the RJC both believe paid off.
Yet Pence also appeared to condemn Trump’s boldest rejection of norms, his effort to overturn his 2020 loss, which spurred an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in which Pence’s life was threatened. “The American people must know that our party keeps our oath to the Constitution even when political expediency may suggest that we do otherwise,” Pence said.
One contradiction for those in attendance was the longing for Trump’s combativeness while wanting to shuck themselves of Trump’s baggage.
Typical was Alan Kruglak, a Maryland security systems contractor who said he appreciated the pro-business measures Hogan had introduced in his state but was more interested in a fighter like DeSantis.
“Trump did great things, but I think Trump’s past his time, we need younger blood that is less controversial,” said Kruglak, 68. “Trump needs to hand the baton to somebody younger, and who doesn’t have any baggage associated with them but has the same message of being independent.”
The problem is that insiders said Trump still commands the loyalty of about 30% of the party, and that could be insurmountable in a crowded primary.
Trump, Fleischer said, was inevitable as a finalist but he didn’t have to be inevitable as the nominee.
“If there’s five, six, seven real conservative outsider candidates, Donald Trump will win with a plurality because nobody else will come close,” he said. “If there’s only one or two, it’s a fair fight.”
Who would those one or two be? Fleischer would not say. Among the Republican Jews gathered in Las Vegas, no one would.
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Israelis pause for a different kind of siren: the one marking Holocaust memorial day
(JTA) — For the last six weeks, whenever Israelis have heard a siren, they were instructed to run to their nearest bomb shelter. On Tuesday, a siren instead brought them to a halt.
The two-minute siren was the one sounded annually on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust memorial day. In keeping with a national tradition, Israelis stopped whatever they were doing for a moment of silence to remember the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Drivers exited their cars on the streets; shoppers froze in grocery store aisles; and people strolling the streets paused where they were.
Even for seasoned Israelis, the dissonance was strong this year. Hillel Fuld, an Israeli influencer, wrote that he was initially unnerved to see so many people failing to follow the guidance about what to do when a missile is incoming.
“I exited my car and was about to lie down when I realized, that’s not a siren warning of a missile. That’s a siren remembering the six million!” he wrote.
“I felt that emotional confusion that every Israeli knows too well. Sadness. Devastation. Hopelessness,” Fuld continued. “And at the same time, tremendous pride, optimism, and unity.”
This year’s Yom HaShoah is the first since all Israeli hostages taken on Oct. 7, 2023, were freed from Gaza. Some of the freed hostages, including Eli Sharabi, participated in small remembrance gatherings known as Zikaron Basalon. Others posted symbols of Jewish survival, including Sagui Dekel-Chen, whose wife posted pictures of him alongside his grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, and Elkana Bohbot, who with his wife announced that he is expecting a child.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Israelis pause for a different kind of siren: the one marking Holocaust memorial day appeared first on The Forward.
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Many children killed in the Holocaust had no one to say Kaddish for them. These Jews have stepped up.
(JTA) — As each week’s Shabbat morning service comes to a close at Temple Beth El in West Palm Beach, Florida, an unusual tradition unfolds as the congregation prepares to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish.
Rabbi Alan Bell asks to stand all those reciting the prayer on the anniversary of the death of a loved one. He also asks other congregants to stand, too: those who have taken it upon themselves to recite Kaddish for a child up to the age of 17 who was murdered in the Holocaust and for whom there are no living relatives to recite it.
The Conservative synagogue calls the program Remember a Child, and at least a third of members in the 150-family congregation participate. Most recite the mourner’s prayer on the date of the child’s burial as well as on Yizkor, the special memorial prayer for the departed recited in the synagogue four times a year.
But some recite the Mourner’s Kaddish far more often.
Bell and his wife Susan have “adopted” a girl named Renee Albersheim who was born in 1930 in Berlin. They do not know when she died, only that it was in the Kovno Ghetto in German-occupied Lithuania. As a result, Susan Bell said, they recite Kaddish for her each time Kaddish is recited — multiple times a day and sometimes multiple times in a single service.
It’s become a family tradition. “When each of our granddaughters became bat mitzvah we got each a child to show them that children their age were dying [in the Holocaust],” Susan Bell said.
“They were girls from different places in the world — one was from Greece and the other from Romania — and they had the same first name as my granddaughters,” she continued. “I wanted to show the girls how widespread the Holocaust was; it was a learning experience for them.”
The Nazis murdered an estimated 1.5 million Jewish children during the Holocaust, many of whom died alongside everyone else in their family. That left no one traditionally assumed by Jewish law to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish on their behalf — siblings, parents or, for adults, children and spouses.
Rabbi Alan Bell and his wife Susan Bell lead a Holocaust remembrance initiative at Temple Beth El in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Courtesy)
At Beth El, those who participate in Remember a Child think of themselves as having “adopted” a child who was murdered more than eight decades ago. Cheryl Finkelstein, who helmed the project for many years since it launched as a Men’s Club initiative about 40 years ago, said she found those who opted in tended to “take this very seriously” and grow deeply connected to the child they have committed to remembering.
“When I sent one woman a photo of the child she had ‘adopted,’ she wrapped her arms around it and waited until the paper was warm,” Finkelstein recalled. “It breaks your heart.”
The project has gained attention far beyond the synagogue’s walls, and elicited a range of mourning practices that go beyond reciting the traditional prayer.
“We had a number of people who are not Jewish who felt strongly that they wanted to be engaged in this,” Finkelstein added. “One of those women wrote a poem about her ‘child,’ imagining her as a little girl who chased butterflies, living in a world of innocence. And another woman purchased aging software and used it on a photo of the child she had adopted to see what the child would have looked like as an adult.”
Having taken over the initiative from Finkelstein, Susan Bell has sought to gather as much information as she can about roughly 15 of the children whom congregants have “adopted,” starting with a page of testimony assembled by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel.
Ari Rabinovitch, head of Yad Vashem’s international media section, said the names of the children murdered in the Holocaust and for whom there is no one to say Kaddish are kept in the organization’s online names database, which has 587,226 names of children up to and including age 17.
Rabinovitch noted that Yad Vashem has prepared a list of names — both children and adults — with details about them for use in Holocaust name reading ceremonies. “It is not uncommon for groups to access lists of names on their own for memorial services,” he said. But the memorial does not track how they are used, or how many synagogues may have adopted a practice like Beth El’s.
Bell believes at least some have. A Beth El member promoted the project on business trips, she said.
“Several of those synagogues picked it up but I don’t know if any have continued it,” she said. “It takes a toll on you when you do the research and learn what happened to each of these children.”
Menachem Rosensaft, general counsel emeritus to the World Jewish Congress who was born in 1948 to survivors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, is an outspoken advocate for such a commemoration. He believes every synagogue should incorporate some mention of the Holocaust during Shabbat services, to ensure that its legacy is woven into the ongoing fabric of Jewish life — and he sees the Kaddish for child victims at Beth El as one powerful way to do that.
“It’s important in whatever way to bring into our consciousness that we are not letting it become just another event in Jewish history, just another occurrence, just another tragedy, just another pogrom,” Rosensaft added. “Because if that happens, in another generation the Holocaust will be a statistic and basically a catchphrase for people to throw around.”
As Holocaust memory is increasingly contested in the public sphere and the trauma of the Holocaust is joined by other tragedies for the Jews, Rosensaft’s vision has grown uncertain. But Finkelstein said she knew of at least one case where Remember a Child is likely to have impact into the next generation.
One Beth El congregant who “adopted” a child murdered by the Nazis “put in his will that his son was to say Kaddish for the child after he dies,” she said. “He put the instructions in his safe deposit box so that his son would take them out along with the keys to his house.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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VIDEO: ’Love was there too:’ A Yom Hashoah commemoration in Yiddish
די פֿאַרגאַנגענע וואָך האָט דער „ייִדישפּיל“־טעאַטער אין תּל־אָבֿיבֿ אַרויסגעשטעלט אַ ווידעאָ פֿון אַ „יום־השואה“־אַקאַדעמיע וואָס די טרופּע האָט דורכגעפֿירט אין 2022. די טעמע פֿון דער פּראָגראַם איז געווען מאָמענטן פֿון ליבע בײַ ייִדן אין די געטאָס און קאָנצענטראַציע־לאַגערן.
אינעם ווידעאָ לייענען די אַקטיאָרן פֿאָר זכרונות פֿון לעבן געבליבענע ווי אויך ייִדישע לידער אָנגעשריבן בשעת דעם חורבן. זיי באַשרײַבן ווי אַזוי געליבטע פּאָרלעך האָבן זיך געטראָפֿן בשתּיקה; רירנדיקע מאָמענטן פֿון געזעגענען זיך און ווי די לעבן געבליבענע האָבן זיך באַמיט מיט אַלע כּוחות צו געפֿינען די געליבטע נאָך דער באַפֿרײַונג.
דער ווידעאָ הייבט זיך אָן מיט אַ באַגריסונג פֿונעם תּל־אָבֿיבֿער בירגערמײַסטער, רון חולדאי, אויף העברעיִש, אָבער די פּראָגראַם גופֿא איז אין גאַנצן אויף ייִדיש.
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