Trump Dines with Anti-Semites at Mar-a-Lago, Causing a Bit of Alarm

By Yehudit Garmaise

Many Orthodox Jews felt alarmed after learning that former President Donald Trump dined last week at Mar-A-Lago with Holocaust-denier and white nationalist Nick Fuentes and Kanye West, a rapper who was briefly banned from Twitter after posting that he wanted to “go def-con3 on the Jews.”

After Musk recently reinstated West on Twitter, West returned by eerily tweeting, “Shalom ?.“

“To my friend Donald Trump, you are better than this,” tweeted David Friedman, who served as the US ambassador to Israel from 2017 to 2021. “Even a social visit from an anti-Semite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable.

“I urge you to throw those bums out, disavow them, and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong.”

Friedman, who served during Trump’s presidential term, pointed out that he condemned former President Barak Obama when he associated with Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright.

“This is no different,” Friedman tweeted. “Anti-Semites deserve no quarter among American leaders: right or left.”

Trump was hailed by some in the Jewish community for remaining an unusually strong ally to Jews and Israel while he was president. Trump’s efforts in the Abraham Accords not only resulted in establishing diplomatic relationships between five Muslim countries and Israel, but he recognized the disputed Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights from Syria and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. 

Some Orthodox Jews, however, now worry about Trump’s new alliances with Fuentes and West, who have clearly stated anti-Semitics ideas more than once. 

In 2017, Fuentes also attended racist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va., and he is considered a person of interest in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots.

“I love Trump, but I’m very disappointed in his behavior,” tweeted Soya Radin. 

Former District 48 Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who previously supported Trump tweeted, “If @realDonaldTrump welcomes vicious and unrepentant anti-Semites like Kanye and his strange bedfellow Nick Fuentes to Mar a Lago, we could expect more and worse if Trump were in the White House again!

 “All that because they say nice things about the former president.

“Nobody gets a free pass today because yesterday they did something good. 

“There’s never a good excuse for dining with anti-Semites.”

Photo Simon Edelman, Energy Department