LISTEN: Jews are a religion and a people — until the NYT claims Trump thinks so
ToI's analyst Haviv Rettig Gur talks about the long-term push-pull relationship between American Jews and Jewish Peoplehood in light of US President Trump's new executive order
At a December 11 White House Hanukkah party, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order that aims to fight anti-Semitism on university campuses through broadening the application of civil rights protections to Jews.
Through a combination of cloudy media reporting and anti-Trump sentiment, liberal US Jewry took umbrage, claiming that the Jewish people could not, and should not, be classified as a nation.
“Defining Jews as a nation makes Jews more vulnerable in a climate of hate,” wrote one leading liberal rabbi in the first flush of confused New York Times reporting. “If Jews are defined as a nation, we are no longer considered Americans,” she wrote.
Spring-boarding off of a recent in-depth book review, in this week’s edition of The Times of Israel Podcast, senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur delves deep into the push-pull relationship between American and Israeli Jews in conversation with Jewish Times editor Amanda Borschel-Dan.
Said Rettig, there’s nothing new under the sun in liberal American Jews’ recent rejection of a Jewish peoplehood — except their palpable fear.
And, as a special bonus, we hear Trump explain the meaning of Hanukkah.
The Times of Israel podcast is available for download on iTunes, Soundcloud, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Stitcher and PlayerFM.