The privilege of responsibility
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OpinionI'VE BEEN THINKING

The privilege of responsibility

Old Jewish joke: Two elderly Jews are sitting in a Berlin park in prewar Germany, one reading a Yiddish newspaper and the second perusing, with a smile, the Nazi propaganda sheet Der Stürmer. “Why are you reading that terrible paper and smiling?” asks the first. “Simple,” answers his friend. “In your paper, the Jews are impoverished, persecuted, imprisoned, beaten, even killed. In mine, the news is positive; we own all the banks and newspapers and control the whole world. What’s not to smile about?”

And in the more things change, the more they stay the same department: While Jews comprise just 2.4% of the U.S. population, that tiny drop of the American electorate will, according to Donald Trump, be a large factor if he loses (me: God willing). Who knew we were so powerful? Answer: First, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” and now Trump, who, at a “fighting antisemitism” event, ironically, or was it malevolently, painted a target on our backs.

But the thrust of this column is not directed at what Trump says about us; it’s what we say about him. And I’m not talking about his robust Jewish supporters, found, to my deep sorrow, largely in my Orthodox community. About them I can only express bewilderment that people who study in the same classes, attend the same lectures, read the same essays, and hear the same sermons about middot and Jewish values that I do, can cheer for someone whose every malicious and misogynistic action, every lying expression of loathsome language, every nasty name-calling and Know-Nothingness, violates the essence of everything I’ve been taught to hold dear. I simply don’t understand how they can strongly support someone who, in the words of the New York Times, is “morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest [and] . . . has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities – wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks.”

Rather, I’m thinking of two pieces about him that recently appeared in publications catering to the Orthodox community. They were written by smart, knowledgeable people whom I respect and suspect are not Trump supporters. And yet, I think, both missed the mark.

The first, a letter to the editor (“Can We Please Tone Down the Rhetoric”), was a heartfelt and thoughtful plea to do what its title suggests. As a strong believer in civil discourse, I too support moderation in debate when possible. But moderation is not the antithesis of honesty, and honesty should be the sine qua non of serious political discussions. And in this election the two sides are not equal; both candidates are not “Patriotic Americans who sincerely believe that their election will do the most good for the most citizens”; the claims made by each candidate about their opponent do not balance each other out. Pretending they do isn’t toning down; it’s failing to accurately grapple with a critical issue that lies at the heart of this election.

To be more  specific: The letter states that “Trump and his allies say that, if Harris wins, the state of Israel will cease to exist in two years. Harris and her allies say that, if Trump wins, then our constitutional republic will cease to exist.” These conflicting views “fan the fires,” and thus both should be replaced by discussions focused on policy differences.

But these claims are not equal in substance. While there’s no certainty that a Trump victory will result in the end to our constitutional government, there’s much truth to the fear that the continuation of democracy as we have known it is seriously at issue in this election. For example, Trump’s unrelenting and false claims of a rigged 2020 election and his refusal to accept its results were not only the sparks that fanned the fires of controversy and violence that resulted in the January 6 insurrection and new voter suppression activities, but also bordered on, if not crossed over to, criminal activity. And his continuing four-year campaign equating any electoral loss by him with vote-rigging, together with his threats to punish election officials both past and present, are not the actions of a “patriotic American.”

But don’t take my word for it. Just look at how the letter itself demonstrates that Trump’s election-rigging charges and continuing refusal to concede his loss clash with basic American values. The author writes: “I yearn for the presidential elections of my youth, when Democrats could accept Richard Nixon’s 1968 victory and Republicans could accept Jimmy Carter’s in 1976.”

Exactly! I too remember those elections (I cast my first presidential ballot, in the days before the 26th Amendment, in the Nixon-Humphrey race), and how the loser accepted defeat graciously. Indeed, that tradition dates back to an 1801 letter from President John Adams to president-elect Thomas Jefferson after their bitter election was decided by the House of Representatives. Or, to move from the early 19th to the early 21st century, after a 36-day legal battle, Al Gore speedily accepted a controversial 5-4 Supreme Court decision that he disagreed with, conceded defeat in a nationally televised speech, and presided a few days later over the counting of the electoral ballots in favor of soon-to-be President Bush. No claims of election rigging or fraud, no threats to civil servants, no alternate elector slates, and no storming of the Capitol. Just a continuation of 200 years of peaceful transfers of power.

But not Donald Trump. He not only shattered that very paradigm but also infected a large swath of the Republican party and its elected representatives with his anti-democratic (small “d”) canard. So claiming that Harris’s victory will result in the demise of Israel — a vile and false claim that Israel’s existence is dependent on the election of a single dictator-loving man, which should offend and be rejected by all lovers of that cherished country — is not the same as accurately noting that Trump does not believe in, and thus puts at risk, America’s cherished democratic ethos.

I also read an article (“A Mitzvah Like Marror”) directed to those who “worry, or may have concluded, that the likelihood of catastrophic outcome for Israel (and hence Judaism) if Harris wins is greater than the likelihood of catastrophic outcome for U.S. democracy if Trump wins.” Nonetheless, the authors maintain, even such voters should not happily and enthusiastically support Trump as a joyous mitzvah. Rather, because of Trump’s “weakening if not destroying his supporters’ faith in the electoral process,” they should deem it a bitter mitzvah, like eating marror on Pesach.

Good, but not good enough from such respected thinkers and leaders. First, they pull back rather than lead when they write that “we each do our own math on these issues, and thus do not write here to tell you the ‘correct’ calculus.” Wrong; that’s exactly what they should do as teachers — emphasize that Trump is a systemic threat to America who cannot be trusted again with power. Moreover, rather than analogizing to a mitzvah of eating (albeit a bitter one), they should have compared supporting Trump to the aveirot (sins) of eating, declaring that supporting Trump is as wrong as the sin of eating chazer treif, as serious as eating a cheeseburger, even worse than eating on Yom Kippur. In these precarious times, Jewish leaders need to follow the prophetic tradition of, in the stirring words of Rabbi Norman Lamm, “applying principles without compromise, . . . [and] rais[ing] their voices in harsh criticism or indignant protest.”

We are in a crisis no less than the colonies were in December 1776; our souls are being tried as our democracy teeters. It is not a time for summer soldiers to see unequal sides as equal; for sunshine patriots to see bitter mitzvot rather than sin. Rather, it’s the time for those who love America and Judaism to act to rid our nation of this menace so that we will be able to face our children and grandchildren in years to come and tell them where we stood and what we did when America was in danger.

Members of our Jewish community, like all Americans, have a responsibility to vote in the best interest of our country. Equally important, we have a responsibility to act in a manner that exemplifies our Jewish ideals and ideas and the principles of decency and democracy, equality and empathy, compassion and caring; a responsibility to act responsibly and righteously. We need to vote for democracy and not for Donald Trump so the following Yom Kippur prayer — al chet she-chatanu le-fanecha be-frikat ol; for the sin we have committed against you by casting off responsibility — does not apply to us in this 2024 election season.

Shana tova to all.

Joseph C. Kaplan, a retired lawyer, longtime Teaneck resident, and regular columnist for the Jewish Standard and the New Jersey Jewish News, is the author of “A Passionate Writing Life: From ‘In my Opinion’ to ‘I’ve Been Thinking’” (available at Teaneck’s Judaica House). He and his wife, Sharon, have been blessed with four wonderful daughters and five delicious grandchildren.

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