Though their politics are very different from mine, Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman are very good writers (“Love and Treasure” is an excellent book, though I also have some major criticisms, as well), and are far from being “anti-semitic” or “self-hating Jews”, in spite of their (very sad) reference to the State of Israel as an “occupation”.
That being said, I, too, as a Jewish woman who self-identifies as center Right, am horrified by certain choices made (and being made) by President Trump.
I do not, in my heart, believe that President Trump is a conscious, ideologically committed white supremacist (though I believe that his Father very likely was); I do believe that he is very closely surrounded by conscious, ideologically committed white supremacists and persons with powerful links to white supremacist movements (just as President Obama was also very closely surrounded by some very dangerous people, as well….Perhaps this is a sign of growing corruption within American politics). President Trump did not stand up to white supremacy clearly and unequivocally (a failure to act), and I deeply believe that American citizens should not accept this inability to do so (just as one should not accept the inability to stand against the moral wrong of terrorism clearly and unequivocally, whoever the actor/perpetrator may be).
The existence of white supremacist thought and ideology within the Jewish community has also long been “swept under the rug”. Internalized racism and anti-semitism in the Jewish community is real (both on the Left and the Right). A number of Jews who are white supremacists in the United States have been documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center…
In the end, Ivanka Trump cannot speak for her father (or for her husband, for that matter); he must speak for himself.
