By Luke Tress
Former president Donald Trump addresses the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, Sept. 5, 2024. (Luke Tress)
(JTA) — LAS VEGAS — Donald Trump told American Jews that they will not survive and Israel will be destroyed if he loses the presidential election.
He made the comments live via satellite to the annual conference of the Republican Jewish Coalition, urging his audience to rally Jewish voters to his campaign.
“You’ll never survive if they get in,” Trump said to the gathering of hundreds at the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas. “Kamala Harris is the candidate of the forces who want to destroy Western civilization and Israel. I am the candidate of those who want to defend Western civilization and Israel.”
Trump made his pitch as part of Republicans’ effort ahead of the November election to attract Jewish voters, who historically vote for Democrats in large majorities. Republicans hope to draw Jewish supporters in the face of progressive criticism of Israel’s war against Hamas along with surging antisemitism.
Trump also said Jews who supported his opponent needed to get their “head examined,” a refrain he has sounded repeatedly in recent weeks.
“Jewish people that are voting for these people that hate Israel and don’t like Jewish people, why are they voting? How do they exist?” he said, drawing laughter from the crowd.
“You’re going to be abandoned if she becomes president and I think you have to explain that to your people because they don’t know,” he said. “They have no idea what they’re getting into. You’re not going to have an Israel if she becomes president. Israel will no longer exist.”
He added, “You must get them to vote for Republicans. You must get them to vote for Trump and if you don’t you’re not going to have a country.”
Trump leaned on his moves in support of Israel as president, highlighting his decisions to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, and his administration’s role forging the Abraham Accords that normalized ties between Israel and several Arab countries.
Referencing anxiety among American Jews about rising antisemitism, Trump said that when he was president, “American Jews felt safe on our streets and college campuses.” Republican leaders at the convention repeatedly tied the Biden administration to raucous campus protests that have unnerved and frightened a swath of American Jewry.
He has made other dire claims about American Jews in recent weeks, saying, “What’s going on now is exactly what was going on before the Holocaust,” in a speech about antisemitism last month.
“We kept radical Islamists out of our country but all of that changed with comrade Kamala Harris and crooked Joe Biden in the White House,” Trump told the RJC. (Jewish communal watchdogs and law enforcement also documented a rise in antisemitism during Trump’s presidency, which included the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history, the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.)
Trump’s call to deport “foreign jihad sympathizers and Hamas supporters” brought the crowd to its feet in applause, with some holding up signs that read “We are Jews for Trump.” Others in the crowd wore kippahs bearing Trump’s name.
Speaking after Trump, RJC CEO Matt Brooks told reporters that the party saw an opening for swaying Jewish voters due to the Biden administration’s handling of the war and its fallout in the United States. According to the RJC’s data, close to 50% of Jewish voters in swing states were expected to vote for Trump, Brooks said.
Ahead of Trump, three Democrats who switched their party allegiance addressed the RJC audience, including Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Jewish Harvard Divinity School graduate who also addressed the Republican National Convention and testified to Congress about antisemitism on his campus.
Harris has declared her support for Israel, including in her speech accepting the Democratic nomination, and after Trump’s speech, Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said Trump had “denigrated millions of American Jewish voters.”
Soifer said in a statement, “He accused Jewish Americans of having a dual loyalty by referring to Israel as ‘your nation.’ This is antisemitism, plain and simple.”
Trump repeated his call to mobilize Jewish voters at the close of his speech.
“They have to get out on November 5th and they have to vote for Trump. If they don’t it’s going to be a very terrible situation,” he said.
“You have to win but you need a partner. You can never have that partner if these radical Marxists win the election,” he said.
The crowd rose to its feet in cheers as red, white and blue balloons cascaded down from the ceiling, while Trump gazed on from the screens mounted on the walls.