Jews, to the Parapets!

Thus said the Lord, have you [Ahab] killed, and also taken possession?  And you shall speak to him, saying, Thus said the Lord, in the place where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick your blood, even yours.

-1 Kings 21:19

According to the Hebrew Bible, Ahab was a tyrannical King of the Israelites who stole the land of a peaceful vintner, Naboth, and then had him killed.  For his tyranny, Ahab was torn to death by dogs.  The story of Ahab illustrates the eternal opposition in Judaism to demagoguery and dictatorship.  As Moses said in Leviticus 215:10, “Go, proclaim liberty throughout the land, and to all the inhabitants thereof.”  This declaration of freedom and equality appears on our Liberty Bell, and is as much a part of our secular ethos as Americans as it is our religious belief as Jews. 

I truly believe that this principle of the Jewish and American experience is in danger from Donald Trump and those who support his platform of religious bigotry, political paranoia, a mocking contempt for the disabled, women, Muslims of all stripes, prisoners of war, anyone who opposes him in any degree.  Trump and his minions march to the music of the Strongman as Savior, the Duce who asserts with unbridled and anti-democratic arrogance that, “I alone can make things right.”  The truth, however, is that Trump is a snake-oil salesman who promises safety and greater economic prosperity if we just “trust” him, notwithstanding his refusal to provide proposed policies for his presidency, except for the walling off of our country from brown-skinned people, the barring from our country of Muslims as Muslims (a promise that should raise the hairs on the necks of all Jews who recall our own history as scapegoats in times of crisis), and the undermining of NATO, the alliance of democracies that however imperfect, saved the West from communism, provided air cover and intelligence support to the U.S. immediately after 9/11, and serves as a bulwark against Russian expansionism. 

As a con man, Trump is superb:  He has exploited the longtime and festering anger and bigotry of white Americans, especially those most unsettled by our post-industrial economy, and has granted them permission to ignore the so-called political correctness of our time with salvos against any group they fear however irrationally are undermining the society they once knew – the one of a more racially and culturally adhesive nation represented not by the history books (which paint a far more complicated picture of the past) but by reruns of The Donna Reed Show, where men in suits worked outside the home, women in dresses (never slacks or shorts) stayed in the house and cleaned and cooked, children were all well-behaved little drones, and everyone – everyone – was as white as snow.  Jews should be wary of sipping the Kool-Aid Trump has served to his minions, thirsty for a leader who will solve all their problems.  American Jews are a polyglot of shades, of Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Iranian immigrants and their families.  We are not as white as some of us would like to think.  And Jews should be very wary of Trump’s allegedly pro-Israel views:  His stated intention, that as President he would assist in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks by treating both sides as morally equivalent, should cause queasiness in the gut of every Zionist.

In the Jewish faith, the true Messiah will “include and attract people from all culture and nations” (Isaiah 11:10).  Trump styles himself a political prophet, but he is a false Messiah, one committed to a closed society of angry and vengeful white people, who dream of returning to an era that never was.  Trump stands against every hope we Jews have for the Mashiach, or even for a leader who represents the strength of character and not of a neo-fascist, neo-isolationist, and full-blown nativist who, like the catfish, is a bottom-feeder.  And bottom feeders are not kosher. 

Hillary Clinton is a flawed candidate:  Her arrogance shows in the way she campaigned for the Democratic nomination in both 2008 and 2012, and more importantly, by her misuse of a private and personal server for official emails sent and received while she was Secretary of State.  She was not my first choice for President.  However, she is not a megalomaniac willing to exploit every political, racial, and religious prejudice that still presents itself, sometimes dormant, sometimes not, in the American conscience.  Unlike Trump, she is not a petulant Prince of Darkness who claims that the political system is “rigged” against him whenever he suffers a setback (which, so far, has been sadly rare) and who treats everyone with whom he disagrees as criminal, crooked, or dangerous to the Republic.  Unlike Trump, Clinton proposes – sometimes in mind-numbing, wonkish detail – specific policies for her possible presidency.  Her views are within the mainstream of the Democratic Party and the center-left, whereas Trump holds to an authoritarian ideology heavy on self-adulation but light on details that strays greatly from the limited government, rule-of-law philosophy of modern-day Republicanism.  Hillary Clinton leaves me ambivalent but still hopeful for our future.  Donald Trump leaves me deeply troubled by a candidate who would reshape G-d in his own, vile image. 

Jews have fared much, much better in modern democracies than in dictatorships.  Like the rest of our countrymen and women, we have our constitutional guarantees of liberty and equality, and need no modern Ahab to save us with his strength while stealing from us what he wants for himself – in Trump’s case, our democratic soul.  Fear of Islamist terrorism and economic insecurity does not justify turning over the Presidency to a tyrant in waiting.  As Benjamin Franklin warned, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Bruce J. Einhorn is a retired federal judge, a human rights activist, and a professor of law at Pepperdine University.