WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 15: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the press prior to his departure from the White House on September 15, 2020 in Washington, DC. President Trump was traveling to Philadelphia to participate in an ABC News town hall event. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) (JTA) — Two left-wing Jewish groups are accusing Donald Trump’s presidential campaign of anti-Semitism over an ad showing Bernie Sanders holding Joe Biden as a puppet.
The ad, according to screenshots posted on Twitter, has Biden dangling like a marionette from strings that are wrapped around Sanders’ fingers with text reading “Joe Biden: The radical left’s puppet.” Sanders, who challenged Biden from the left in the Democratic presidential primary, is Jewish.
IfNotNow and Bend the Arc said the ad perpetuates the anti-Semitic stereotype of Jews nefariously pulling the world’s strings. The accusation that Biden is a puppet of the far left is a frequent one among Trump supporters, who often use images of Sanders to illustrate the argument.
“There’s a long, dangerous history of Jews being scapegoated as all-powerful puppet masters,” Bend the Arc tweeted Tuesday. “Trump is using this antisemitic lie to spread fear & division.”
Anti-Semitic cartoons throughout history have included images of Jews as puppet masters. In a tweet from 2018 regarding a different cartoon, the Anti-Defamation League wrote, “Even if no anti-Semitic insinuation is intended, casting a Jewish individual as a puppet master who manipulates national events perpetuates #antiSemitic tropes.”
Trump has also accused Biden of being the puppet of non-Jews. A Trump ad with a similar theme from May reads “Joe Biden: China’s puppet” and features a video of Chinese Premier Xi Jinping standing behind Biden and moving his mouth like that of a ventriloquist’s dummy.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.