Jews and Conservatism Conference Shows Challenge for Trump With Women Voters

Politically conservative Jews, particularly women, remain positive on President Trump concerning policy, if less so on his personality and “acting presidential.”

That’s the “take away” from this weekend’s Jews and Conservatism conference in New York City which has tripled in size in its third year of existence. More than 800 Jews attend the conference in New York’s Grand Hyatt Hotel which ironically had replaced the old decrepit Commodore Hotel thanks to President Trump’s work in New York real estate development more than four decades ago.

Despite their stated and unstated misgivings about President Trump, conference attendees voted with their feet and made “The Trump Doctrine: America, Israel, and the Middle East,” the best attended session of the event.

In my unscientific, anecdotal survey, one woman told me she will vote for President Trump against any Democrat in the 2020 election, but she had supported U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in 2016. She called president Trump, “sleazy,” although she agreed with the president on standing with Israel, stopping illegal immigration, and boosting the economy. Another woman when I asked her feelings on the president, said “I think you should talk to my husband instead,” while acknowledging she is still a fan. A third woman when I mentioned my strong favorable view of the president said nothing, and had a look on her face of “don’t go there with me.”

Nevertheless, the president could perhaps feel heartened by a fourth woman who related the following somewhat amusing hypothetical. What would she say if she were told that President Trump had shot a woman on Fifth Avenue? Her response: “I would ask what the woman had done to provoke the president.” In other words, she sees President Trump standing in the breach against all sorts of evil and anarchy, and damn everything else.

One cannot help drawing the conclusion that a cohort of women voters support the president in general, but don’t like his direct or even pugnacious brand of retail politics and therefore think negatively of him personally.

The Third Jewish Leadership Conference on Jews and Conservatism, presented by the Tikvah Fund, which means hope in Hebrew, was landmark in that these Jews now openly recognize that their views run fundamentally counter to the overwhelming majority of their co-religionists who skew toward liberalism and socialism. Still, despite doubts about the president, there was a sense of triumphalism in the air with President Trump having moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, not to mention record low unemployment for blacks, women, Latinos, and Asians and more than 150 conservative federal judges being appointed.

In addition, because of the growth and intellectual rigor of the conference, a new broad-based vehicle was now coming into existence to animate and motivate politically-conservative Jews in both Israel and the United States outside of any particular political party. The resulting thrust of the conference, therefore, was that conservatism, particularly as gleaned from Jewish traditional sources, is the answer to creating healthy societies in both the United States and Israel.

In other words, the Tikvah Fund and future Jewish Leadership Conferences can create the substantive framework for Jewish conservative activists and fellow travelers to fight socialism and defend western civilization, and more broadly the case for G-d in history and modern life.

Among the fascinating highlights of the conference besides the political weather report on President Trump, I found the following four worth mentioning:

1. The now common acceptance and understanding that politically conservative Jews now feel more aligned with Evangelicals in the United States than they do with their fellow Jews. They are grateful for Evangelical support, particularly from Pastor Charles Hagee and his Christians United For Israel, the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States.
2. The stunning realization that Christian religious leaders see a crisis that includes losing their children to secularism. They want traditional Jews to teach them the Bible, which is the source of morality that they look to emulate and inculcate in their communities and congregations. Increasingly, more Jewish teachers are agreeing to do so, too.

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3. The stirring first-hand account of Dr. Henry Kissinger at the conference in which the now 96-year-old former Secretary of State related how President Richard Nixon in the midst of Watergate and his Vice President Spiro Agnew resigning in scandal, orchestrated the military re-arming of Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. With the help of Kissinger, Nixon ordered the U.S. Defense Department to replace every piece of armor and weaponry destroyed by Egypt and Syria in the first week of the war when Israel was on the ropes. Nixon resigned in shame in 1974, but will be remembered by posterity as a righteous gentile among the nations for saving the Jewish People in one of its darkest hours.
4. Finally, the American writer and philosopher Victor David Hanson reminded that healthy, functioning societies, ones that survive, must have a sense of “transcendence,” an overarching theme of the eternal nature of their customs and cultures. For the Jews in Israel, this transcendence is Judaism and the people’s loyalty to their invisible, all powerful G-d. For Americans, most would identify this concept with our country’s “exceptionalism,” or what President Reagan called, “A Bright Shining City on a Hill.” Hanson continued that he decries the devaluing of citizenship in the United States by giving illegal aliens equal status with actual Americans. I would conclude and echo Hanson’s views by stating that political conservatism and American Liberty cannot truly exist without some sort of ethical framework which might best be called a commitment to Judeo-Christian values.

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