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(JTA) — As Jewish liaisons to four different presidents, we had the responsibility inside the White House to give voice to the perspectives and priorities of the American Jewish community. While our community may not be unified in matters of policy and politics, our spiritual practice, cultural traditions and history have instilled in American Jews a shared commitment to protecting those targeted by bigots, racists and others spewing hate and division.<\/p>\n
The presidents we served repeatedly used their bully pulpit to condemn hatred and bigotry when it appeared, whether in America or overseas. A video of President Ronald Reagan\u2019s speech at the 1981 NAACP Convention following the lynching of an African-American man in Alabama has gone viral in recent days. President Bill Clinton led the nation\u2019s mourning following the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and we all vividly recall President George W. Bush\u2019s eloquent remarks standing on the rubble of the World Trade Center in the immediate aftermath of 9\/11 and President Barack Obama\u2019s eulogy and rendition of “Amazing Grace” following the murder of nine African-American worshippers at a historically African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump, in his reaction to the violence in Charlottesville and to other examples of anti-Semitism, shows that he neither understands his responsibilities nor the nature of the ancient hatred of anti-Semitism and other forms of hate. His equivocation and unwillingness to speak clearly, without restraint, against blatant examples of racism, anti-Semitism and related manifestations of hate, as well as his refusal to lay blame for violence, are anathema to the best traditions of his office and to the examples set by the presidents we served. And in his failure, he exposes not just Jews but all Americans to greater danger.<\/p>\n
If we were working in the White House today, we hope we would have had the courage, honesty and integrity to call upon President Trump to demonstrate moral leadership \u2013 and to resign in response to a failure to do so.<\/p>\n
If we had a successor in the current White House \u2014 there is no liaison to the Jewish community in the Trump White House \u2014 we hope he or she would have done so, too.<\/p>\n
We need that leadership more than ever. The reason is not just because we have witnessed violence in our streets.<\/p>\n
We need moral leadership to respond to the rise of hatred we are witnessing in the nation we love \u2013 hatred motivated by the things we cannot change such as the color of our skin, the faith we practice, the land of our birth, the language we spoke as toddlers.<\/p>\n
We former Jewish liaisons know that the Jews in America feel hate and reject it, whether it\u2019s directed at them or someone else. We are commanded by our faith to welcome the stranger, to comfort the oppressed, to reach out to the weak and dispossessed. We Jews have always been targeted and called out because of our differences from the majority. And even when we\u2019re not called out and targeted, we know that those who use hate as a political tool will eventually turn their sights on us.<\/p>\n
We hear today the chants against the Jews or the \u201cZios.\u201d We hear in an American city the “alt-right” protesters chant \u201cJews will not replace us\u201d and the Nazi marching trope of “blood and soil.”<\/p>\n
We see in some academic and media circles the casual lumping together of Jews as enemies of the state, incapable of loyalty to America.<\/p>\n
We see the use of the language and the imagery of anti-Semitism \u2013 the hooked noses and the bloody hands — resurrected in modern digital media to deny to Jews our humanity, our individuality and our agency. We see the rough language of Brownshirts casually tweeted by young Americans \u2013 \u201ctoss them in the ovens,\u201d \u201cthrow rocks at the yahood [Jews].\u201d We see the resuscitation of the blood libel.<\/p>\n
And we know, the experience of Jews in America may be different from our historical experience as a religious minority elsewhere in the world, but this anti-Semitism is not different. We\u2019ve see this hatred before.<\/p>\n
So we say to the president:<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. President, this nation has a problem. People think they can say and do hateful things with impunity. You have a responsibility. Not to weigh hatred against hatred. Not to divide blame equally among \u2018both sides.\u2019 Not to excuse those among you who hate by pointing out others who hate worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are among your supporters and your appointees people who are anti-Semitic. Do not treat them as a cost of doing your political business. Cast them out \u2013 not only from your political tent, but from the conversation about America\u2019s future. They don\u2019t have a place in either.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou must stand on this nation\u2019s strongest moral foundations and principled aspirations and against the violence and hatred. And you must recognize that whenever the Jew is attacked, there is a deeper hatred at work. Anti-Semitism serves as a gateway to other forms of group-based bigotry and hatred.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe language of anti-Semitism is the language of national suicide \u2013 it is, sadly, a mother tongue to discredited and extinct ideologies known throughout human history. If anti-Semitism takes root in America, it will be America\u2019s ruin. Because whoever gives voice to the ancient and tired tropes of anti-Semitism, his mouth goes dry with ashes.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. President, you must call out and stand against any creeping normalization of anti-Semitism \u2014without obfuscation, hesitation or equivocation \u2013 not only because anti-Semitism is odious, but also because it will invariably lead to other forms of hatred and bigotry that divide and destroy our nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matt Nosanchuk (Barack Obama)
\nNoam Neusner (George W. Bush)
\nJarrod Bernstein (Barack Obama)
\nAdam Goldman (George W. Bush)
\nJay S. Zeidman (George W. Bush)
\nScott Arogeti (George W. Bush)
\nDeborah Mohile Goldberg (Bill Clinton)
\nJay K. Footlik (Bill Clinton)
\nJeanne Ellinport (Bill Clinton)
\nAmy Zisook (Bill Clinton)
\nMarshall J. Breger (Ronald Reagan)<\/p>\n
(The authors each served in the White House as the president\u2019s liaison to the American Jewish community in Democratic or Republican administrations.)<\/em><\/p>\n