I. The degree to which many Orthodox Jews have predicated the security of the Jewish people on President Donald Trump is noticeable. The degree to which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has predicated Israel’s security on Trump is also noticeable.
Yehudah Mirsky’s fine article for the American Interest, “The New Jewish Question” (12/2016), still resonates:
...Trumpism and its focus on the Great Leader has thrust Jewish politics back by centuries, to the time when all that mattered was the personal relationship between the sovereign and Jewish merchants with good connections, or in slightly less exalted circumstances between the poritz (the baron) and his transactionally useful Jewish intermediaries (schtadlanim).
In the middle ages, Jews were sometimes spoken of as servi camerae regis, servants of the royal chamber. According to the Laws of Edward the Confessor (England, 12th c.):
All Jews, wherever in the realm they are, must be under the king's liege protection and guardianship, nor can any of them put himself under the protection of any powerful person without the king's license, because the Jews themselves and all their chattels are the king's. If, therefore, anyone detain them or their money, the king may claim them, if he so desire and if he is able, as his own. (Source: Wikipedia)
From whom did the Jews need protection? From numerous oppressors.
In the rabbinic tradition, Christendom is equated with the Roman Empire which, in turn, is identified with Esau, of whom Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai said (Sifrei Numbers 69), in reaction to the biblical description of Esau's kissing Jacob (Genesis 33:4):
הלכה בידוע שעשו שונא ליעקב
Halachah (=it has the force of a received legal tradition(?)): It is certain that Esau is hostile to Jacob (translation mine)
(Nowadays, traditional Jews tend to view Christians with equanimity (at least Christians of the evangelical kind) and consider Muslims, associated with the biblical Ishmael, to be hostile.)
For his part, Netanyahu is known for his emphasis on the unending hatred of the nations of the world toward the Jews. From his so-called ‘lecture’ to Obama of May 2011:
Mr. President, you're the -- you're the leader of a great people, the American people. And I'm the leader of a much smaller people, the --
PRESIDENT OBAMA: A great people.
PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: It’s a great people, too. It’s the ancient nation of Israel. And, you know, we've been around for almost 4,000 years. We've experienced struggle and suffering like no other people. We've gone through expulsions and pogroms and massacres and the murder of millions. But I can say that even at the dearth of -- even at the nadir of the valley of death, we never lost hope and we never lost our dream of reestablishing a sovereign state in our ancient homeland, the land of Israel.
II. It appears that President Trump has convinced Orthodox Jews and many in Israel, including Netanyahu, that he is the one to defend the Jews and to enable us to complete the fulfillment of the dream of sovereignty in our ancient homeland.
President Trump's decision to commute the sentence of Sholom Rubashkin on Wednesday, December 20, 2017 (during Chanukah) was received with great joy by Orthodox Jews in many places in the U.S. (see this article, including video, in The Yeshiva World.Com). The President's act was seen by many as a Chanukah miracle. He had done an act of pidyon shevuyim, redeeming captives. He had saved a Jew from a harsh punishment. He had protected a frum Jew and, thus, all frum Jews (and, perhaps, all Jews).
Netanyahu connected the President's decision of 6 December 2017 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital and to move the US embassy there not only with previous statements of Lord Balfour and President Harry S Truman but also with the proclamation of King Cyrus the Great of Persia permitting the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem:
PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: Thank you. Thank you. Mr. President, Donald, Melania: Sara and I want to thank you for your extraordinary friendship and hospitality. It’s always a pleasure to see you, both but this is the first time we meet in Washington — America’s capital — after you declared, Mr. President, Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. And this was a historic proclamation followed by your bold decision to move the embassy by our upcoming National Independence Day.
I want to tell you that the Jewish people have a long memory. So we remember the proclamation of the great King Cyrus the Great — Persian King. Twenty-five hundred years ago, he proclaimed that the Jewish exiles in Babylon can come back and rebuild our temple in Jerusalem. We remember, 100 years ago, Lord Balfour, who issued the Balfour Proclamation that recognized the rights of the Jewish people in our ancestral homeland.
We remember seven years ago, President Harry S. Truman was the first leader to recognize the Jewish state. And we remember how a few weeks ago, President Donald J. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Mr. President, this will be remembered by our people throughout the ages. And as you just said, others talked about it. You did it. So I want to thank you on behalf of the people of Israel.
Bear in mind that the prophet Isaiah (45.1) refers to Cyrus as the anointed one (meshicho) of the Lord.
III. I am left wondering about a number of questions:
- Does Trump represent, for many Orthodox Jews, a messianic figure? Is he a harbinger of the Messiah? It is clear that, for many evangelical Christians who support Trump, his decisions concerning Jerusalem hasten the arrival the messianic era. Do many Jews think in similar ways?
- With Trump's decision, what is left of Zionism? I mean, if we focus on the agency of powerful non-Jews such as King Cyrus, Lord Balfour, President Truman, and President Trump, what is left of the agency of Jewish Zionists? If Trump can hasten the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, there appears to be less of a need for Jewish activism. (Here is a support for a Jewish state that even Neturei Karta might embrace!)
- A darker thought: Is the American Embassy in Jerusalem a sign of support from the United States of the Jewish State? Is it perhaps also a concession of Jerusalem to the United States? Until 2018, Jerusalem was Israel's capital because Israel said so. Is the U.S. now somehow in charge? Are we moving from "har habayit beyadenu, the Temple mount is in our hands" to "the Temple mount is in your hands, O President Trump?"
- Another darker thought: Are we predicating our experience of Jewish sovereignty now as an outgrowth of evangelical Christian faith? How ironic that one evangelical pastor who, incidentally, has said that Jews are going to hell (a view he is certainly at liberty to hold and preach), led a prayer at the opening ceremony Jerusalem Embassy (which he made explicitly in the name of Jesus) and another evangelical pastor gave the closing benediction.
IV. My readers probably know that I have deep misgivings about the fact that Donald Trump is president of the United States of America. His narcissism, his misanthropy, his cruelty and bullying, and his smallness of spirit are damaging for the country and the world (not just as the result of his policies and actions but also because, as Maimonides writes in The Laws of Kings and their Wars 3:6, the mindset of the ruler is the mindset of the ruled, see here). In my view, the President's character is his destiny, the destiny of the United States of America, and, in significant ways, the destiny of the world (see here).
I don't believe we can pick and choose with President Trump. The blessings that, we may feel, he showers us with come together with acts of uncaring and intimidation. Rashi, in his commentary to Numbers 22:12, quotes Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 6, a passage that imagines Balaam offering to bless the Israelites if he is not at liberty to curse them:
משל אומרים לצרעה (ס"א לדבורה) לא מדובשיך ולא מעוקציך
A parable! People say to the hornet: neither any of your honey nor any of your sting!
I think that whatever honey (commutation of imprisoned Jews; perceived kindnesses to Israel) the president may grant us, we must also be prepared to accept his sting (any one of numerous acts or statements of cruelty, uncaring, and misanthropy). We may feel: His sting is reserved for others. I think that such an attitude is morally untenable and, in addition, short-sighted in the extreme.
-- David M. Rosenberg