Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, summed up the Republican pitch to Jewish voters succinctly in his speech to the Republican national convention in Milwaukee on Tuesday evening.
“My message today to the Jewish community is clear: There is only one pro-Israel party, and it’s the Republican Party,” Brooks declared, as Jewish convention attendees waved yellow signs with the words, “We are Jews for Trump.”
In keeping with their historically Democratic leanings, in 2020, the overwhelming majority of Jewish voters opted for President Joe Biden over former President Donald Trump.
And Trump, whose daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism before marrying Jared Kushner, has even disparaged Jewish Democrats, claiming they “hate Israel.”
But Trump’s allies apparently see an opening following Hamas’ deadly terror attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Democrats remain divided on support for the ferocious invasion of Gaza Israel launched in response, which has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of whom are civilians.
Brooks’ message got greater amplification on Wednesday — the theme of the day’s programming was “Make America Strong Again,” and it focused heavily on foreign relations and the military. The lineup of primetime speakers included, in quick succession, Orthodox Jewish campus activist Shabbos Kestenbaum; Orna and Ronen Neutra, the parents of an American citizen, Omer, captured by Hamas while serving in the Israeli military; and former Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Jewish Republican who ran an unexpectedly spirited race to unseat New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2022.
Kestenbaum, a recent graduate of Harvard University, has already made national waves with his criticism of pro-Palestinian campus activism, which he has said veers into antisemitism. He is now suing Harvard for allegedly violating his and other Jewish students’ civil rights.
Kestenbaum told the crowd he had already been alarmed by the “anti-Western,” “anti-American” and “antisemitic” culture of Harvard before Oct. 7.
“After Oct. 7, the world finally saw what I and so many Jewish students across this country experienced almost every day,” Kestenbaum said. “When I planted 1,200 Israeli and American flags on campus, they were all vandalized. Within 24 hours, I was harassed by my peers merely for being a Jew, and have received countless death threats online.”
Kestenbaum, a registered Democrat who was so progressive in 2020 he posed with then-congressional candidate Jamaal Bowman, told the Forward earlier this week he still supports many domestic progressive policies, such as raising the minimum wage and the Green New Deal, but said progressives’ abandonment of Israel and refusal to take antisemitism seriously had pushed him to accept Republicans’ invitation to speak at their convention.
In his remarks on Wednesday, Kestenbaum sounded every bit the true believer in Trump’s second term, listing the ways in which he believed Trump would stand up for pro-Israel Jewish students and what he sees as the anti-American streak in higher education.
“Let’s elect a president who will instill patriotism in our school once again. Let’s elect a president who will confront terrorism and its supporters once again. Let’s elect a president who recognizes that although Harvard and the Ivy leagues have long abandoned the United States of America, the Jewish people never will — because Jewish values are American values, and American values are Jewish values!” he concluded, drawing applause from the crowd.
The Neutras offered remarks that were less heavy on partisan politics, focusing instead on the plight of their son and repeatedly leading chants of “bring them home.”
The couple moved from Israel to the U.S. before their son was born; Omer enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces on his own after spending a gap year in Israel.
The couple, notably, did not endorse Trump in their remarks. They previously met with Biden, along with the family members of other American hostages, in December, and told Haaretz this week that there has to be “political will in Israel” to make a deal with Hamas for the hostages’ freedom.
“President Trump called us personally right after the attack, when Omer was taken captive,” Ronen Neutra said. “We know he stands with our American hostages.”
Biden played a critical role in brokering the only hostages-for-prisoners swap between Israel and Hamas back in November, and is currently the driving force behind the negotiations for additional exchanges currently underway. If successful, those talks would also produce the first break in fighting since November, and could be the seeds of an eventual end to the horrific war in Gaza.
Trump, by contrast, claimed in the June 27 debate only Hamas wants a ceasefire, and that Biden should let Israel “finish the job.” (He also used “Palestinian” as a pejorative for Biden.)
“As one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, it was amazing to witness history, making progress, strengthening the US-Israel relationship under President Trump.”
– Former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.)
Speaking after the Neutras, Zeldin gave the most conventional praise of Trump’s pro-Israel policies, ticking off the many ways in which Trump elated right-of-center Israel supporters — and unsettled proponents of a more balanced approach to managing the conflict, let alone left-wing proponents of Palestinian rights.
Among other things, Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the annexed Golan Heights, brokered the Abraham Accords between Israel and several Arab nations, and withdrew from the Iran nuclear agreement, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposed.
“As one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, it was amazing to witness history, making progress, strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship under President Trump,” Zeldin said.
He later claimed Biden has “pandered to antisemites who cheer Hamas’ attack, all while Americans are still being held hostage in Gaza.”
In fact, Biden, who has expressed pro-Israel views dating back to the 1970s, has angered many on the left, as well as Arab American and Muslim voters, with his refusal to impose material consequences for what many human rights groups and Western governments have determined are Israeli war crimes in Gaza. Biden showed his dedication to Israel by shepherding a foreign aid bill through Congress in April that included $26 billion in military and economic assistance to Israel, along with $1 billion in humanitarian aid for Palestinians.
Like other recent presidents from both parties, Biden has instead mostly expressed his disapproval of Israeli decisions in conversations with Netanyahu. He won some progressive praise in May for pausing a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, on the grounds that those munitions pose unnecessary danger to civilians in dense areas, but he has yet to follow through on promises of a broader weapons cutoff in the event of a massive Israeli invasion of Rafah.
In his Tuesday speech, Brooks seized on that pause to claim Biden is “still withholding critical arms that Israel needs to defend itself.”
Brooks had opened his remarks by asking the crowd to cheer if they support Israel. He received a roaring response.
“Now, if someone tried that at the Democrats’ convention, they’d be booed off the stage, but here at the Republican convention, we proudly and loudly stand with Israel,” he said.
Brooks might have been overstating the case. But given how divided rank-and-file Democrats are on the topic of Israel, many national party leaders would just as soon avoid the topic. It is hard to imagine a speaker making a similar request of the crowd at the Democratic national convention in Chicago this August, let alone getting that kind of positive response.
Whether concerns about the Democratic Party’s commitment to Israel are enough to shift enough Jewish voters into Trump’s corner — especially in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan — to make a difference in the election is another question entirely. Jewish voters do not vote on Israel policy alone. And a national poll out in June found that while Biden had lost nine points of Jewish support relative to his 2020 margin, he still had the support of two-thirds of Jewish voters.
