There is also no question that to Orthodox American Jews President Trump is a hero because he pardoned Sholom Rubashkin and allowed Jonathan Pollard to leave America and make Aliyah to Israel. In addition, under his Orthodox son in law Jared Kushner the United States successfully brokered the Abraham Accords establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and the Islamic countries of Morocco, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kosovo. President Donald Trump supported Israel in its existential struggle with the bellicose Palestinians and with terroristic Iran and assisted Israel in all international diplomatic forums fighting anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism wherever it raised its ugly head.
Trump managed to support Israel and keep it strong without resorting to wars in the Middle East. It is therefore no secret that most Israelis and religious Jews in America were praying for President Trump's re-election. But it was not be, as we know America now has an ultra-liberal Catholic President Joe Biden surrounded with an abundant coterie ultra-liberal Jewish-born (some not halakhically Jewish) officials and spouses with far-left antagonistic positions to the nation of Israel and its values. How the pendulum has swung! But this too shall pass! The Jewish People have overcome far worse than this.
As I think how loyal President Trump was to Israel and to Jewish causes, how he stood up for Israel and protected it, and showed mercy to prominent imprisoned Orthodox Jews in the United States, and how he brought his Orthodox son in law Jared Kushner into his inner circle as well as his love for his daughter Ivanka who converted to Orthodox Judaism, and the pride he publicly showed in his Orthodox Jewish grandchildren, it strikes me that this very closeness brings him closer to the heart and essence of the Jewish People, their struggles and triumphs, and dare I say, even to their God.
Take for example President Trump's choice for the United States' ambassador to Israel, David Friedman a paragon of an Ohev Yisrael - Lover of Israel and Jews in all senses. Ambassador Friedman's love of Am Yisrael, Medinat Yisrael and Torat Yisrael as well as Elokei Yisrael is unparalleled in our times. What an amazing mensch! In Judaism we say Shlucho Shel Adam Kemoto, that the envoy/messenger of someone is like the person who sends him, and that tells us volumes about where the heart and soul of President Trump lies!
All this closeness between Trump and the Israelis and Orthodox religious Jews is a real bond that in many ways makes President Trump one of the greatest Ohavei Yisrael, lovers of Israel and Zion, of modern times. Who can compare? Line them up: Obama? Israel seemed like a chicken bone stuck in his throat. The two Bushes saw themselves as the front line protectors of Saudi Arabia and its oil wells. Clinton? Thanks to him Israel had to endure the Oslo Accords that brought armed Palestinians to Israel's borders. Reagan was okay, but really didn't do much to further anything. Carter brought Camp David, a milestone of sorts. Nixon was an anti-Semite yet he did re-arm Israel during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 because he wanted to keep the USSR at bay. Eisenhower and JFK were not strong friends of Israel. Truman gets a high five because he was the first to recognize the new State of Israel, but he only got his job by accident after FDR suddenly dropped dead. So President Trump really stands out for his open, hands-on love of Israel and the Jewish People.
The first rule of things is CAUSE NO HARM, and in this respect President Trump caused no harm to either Israel or the Jewish People, and on the contrary, for doing the opposite, inflicting lots of harm on Israel's enemies such as Iran, Hamas, the PLO and other malevolent actors.
While not being a convert to Judaism himself, President Trump, to judge by his words, deeds and actions proved himself to be a lover of the Jewish People and the State of Israel to the point that there was no distance between him, the Jews, and Israel. Ironically this closeness to the Jews makes you liable for Jewish problems. People start to hate you. People want to make you into the bad guy. People look for ways to pick at your faults.
Jewish History is not a happy history. It is full of persecution and exile for most of its length. Among the Arabs the Jew is forced to live like a dhimmi, a second class citizen no matter how much he contributes to society and civilization. The Jew in Europe is kicked around from one place to the other. He is shamed. He is humiliated. He is lied about. He is forced to wear a funny hat or a Jewish symbol or star. He suffers from pogroms and crusades until he is crushed in the Holocaust. He is the devil incarnate to the Christians, and to the Communists he is an evil Capitalist to be overcome.
Since the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem around 2,000 years ago, the Jewish People were humiliated, silenced, vilified, and martyred, just because they were Jews and they steadfastly refused to succumb to the Cross, the Crescent, the Hammer and Sickle, the Swastika, and the prevailing politically correct beliefs surrounding them at any given time.
And so it is no wonder that Trump now suffers the travails of the proverbial persecuted wandering Jew! He is silenced, vilified, demonized, hated, pilloried, humiliated, shamed, and disgraced as his enemies seek endless vengeance against him. The Jews know this Jewish version of the "Oberammergau Passion Play" where Jews and Judaism are the true victims of persecution and now Donald J. Trump is an honorary member of the persecuted and martyred tribe by virtue of all that he has done for them.
Now stand back and observe the difference between Trump's policies and attitudes to Israel and Judaism versus Biden and his ultra-liberal court Jews as they go about skinning and eviscerating and melting down anything good Trump ever did for Israel. Their liberal radicality knows no bounds.
They are giddy and dizzy and flush with a Pyrrhic victory. They will pander to Iran and ignore its evils. They will downgrade the Abraham Accords, they will not support Israel's rights to Eretz Yisrael, they will interfere in Israel's internal affairs trying to unseat its government, they will support all the depravities that the Torah, and God, condemn, as all hell has broken loose. Like Jews of all previous generations we must hang onto our Jewish faith and put our trust in our Father in Heaven. The People of Israel lives! Am Yisrael Chai!
Rabbi Yitschak Rudomin is president and founder of the Jewish Professionals Institute. An alumnus of Yeshiva Chaim Berlin and Teachers College, Columbia University, he has dedicated his life to Jewish outreach and education, served for 7 years as full-time director of Sinai Heritage Centers in Manhattan and 3 as an AJOP trustee, .among many oher endeavors.