Actually, You Can Be Both a Zionist and a Harris Supporter
Recently, The Commentator released the results of a student survey asking which candidate the student body supports in the upcoming election. According to the poll, most students in Yeshiva University are supporting Donald Trump. 94% of students said that they trust Trump more than Vice President Kamala Harris to support the U.S.-Israel relationship. While not surprising, the results demonstrate a significant problem among YU students and the wider Orthodox Jewish community. Specifically, the vast majority of those supporting Trump out of concern for Israel are doing so based on inaccurate or false information and dangerous pre-conceived notions of a second Trump term. This can be seen in another article that also came out a short while ago, insultingly and offensively entitled “You Can’t Be Both a Zionist and a Kamala Harris Supporter.”
As the title suggests, this article is based on the baseless canard that Vice President Harris and Governor Tim Walz are antisemitic and anti-Israel, and that Trump is the only candidate that will be supportive of Israel. This claim, which is being heard throughout the frum and pro-Israel world, is a regurgitation of flat-out lies told by the Trump campaign and his supporters. As an Orthodox Jew, a staunch Zionist, and a strong supporter of Vice President Harris and Governor Walz, I can assure you there is absolutely no truth to these ridiculous claims.
The pro-Israel bona fides of Vice President Harris have been laid out and restated by many others. One only needs to read these pieces and so many others to see that the accusations of antisemitism and being anti-Israel are baseless. Claims otherwise are simply lying or utilizing unsophisticated and even childish arguments to support their position.
Many members of the Jewish community know that the vice president and the governor have stated unequivocally that charges of antisemitism are baseless and false. In my interactions with Vice President Harris I have found her to be intelligent, insightful, caring, and a strong supporter of our community and Israel. In my numerous interactions with families of hostages, I have been told that President Biden and Vice President Harris have been remarkably engaged, contacting the families directly themselves and offering comfort and support. This past December, I visited with the families of some of the hostages at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv and then again at the Hostage Family Forum HQ a few blocks away. I was told multiple times of the families’ deep appreciation for President Biden and Vice President Harris and was asked to convey the families’ gratitude to them.
None of this is surprising. Vice President Harris was a strong supporter of Israel even before she joined the Senate in 2017. Upon arriving in Washington, one of her first speeches, made on March 28, 2017, was to AIPAC, where she noted that her first act as a senator, on January 5, 2017, was introducing a resolution that condemned a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel.
Contrary to the allegations made, Vice President Harris has repeatedly supported Israel’s right to defend itself from its enemies, including Iran and Iran-backed terrorists, repeatedly promised to always ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself, called for eliminating the threat Hamas poses to Israel, called out Hamas for the barbaric and abhorrent attacks of Simchas Torah 5784 and repeatedly stressed that her commitment to the security of Israel is unwavering. The number of times the vice president has done so is well-documented for anyone interested in seeing them. She has also said that Hamas cannot be permitted to control Gaza. For example, on Oct. 17, 2024, she stated, “Israel has a right to defend itself, and the threat Hamas poses to Israel must be eliminated.”
The vice president has repeatedly given clear and precise recountings of the heinous acts of Hamas, such as on Dec. 2, 2023, while speaking in the UAE. She has repeatedly spoken out forcefully against Hamas’ unconscionable use of sexual violence on Oct. 7. Just one example was on June 17, 2024, speaking publicly after the showing of Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary “Screams Before Silence”. During her DNC acceptance speech, the vice president said, “Let me be clear, I will always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself and I will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on October 7th, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.”
Predictably, the author repeats a claim made by many in our community that commenting on the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza is proof that the vice president does not care about the Jewish people or those murdered and kidnapped on Oct. 7. This approach demonstrates an incredibly unsophisticated appreciation for interpersonal communication and international diplomacy, to say nothing of a basic sense of decency. One can feel sorrow that Palestinians are dying without being antisemitic. One can suggest that more needs to be done to get aid to those trying to survive under incredibly difficult conditions without being anti-Israel. If one approaches the situation honestly and objectively, one can clearly see that Vice President Harris is a friend of the Jewish community and a supporter of Israel. For this reason, experts in the Israeli military and intelligence community, such as Israel’s former Deputy Head of the National Security Council Col. Itamar Yaar and others with whom I have personally spoken, support Vice President Harris.
Would that the same could be said of Donald Trump. Members of his own team have expressed reservations about his leadership, and his National Security Advisor Ambassador John Bolton has explicitly stated that we cannot rely on Trump to support Israel in a second term.
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance has also demonstrated that we cannot trust the America First ideology to support Israel. This past week he stated that he doesn’t believe that the United States should support Israel if its interests do not overlap with those of the U.S. He also stated that he does not believe that the U.S. should support Israel in military action against Iran, calculating the level of interest on the financial cost to the U.S.
Obviously, Israel has the right to defend itself, but America’s interest is sometimes going to be distinct, like sometimes we’re going to have overlapping interests, and sometimes we’re going to have distinct interests … our interest, I think very much, is in not going to war with Iran, right? It would be a huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country … we recognize [that the] Israelis, Gulf Arab states don’t like Iran, so let the Israelis and the Gulf Arab states provide the counterbalance to Iran … America doesn’t have to constantly police every region of the world. We should empower people to police their own regions of the world. One, we would save a lot of money. Two, we’d save a lot of focus.
Then we have the frightening and despicable rally held at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27. The rally attempted to dehumanize Trump’s opponents and those he claims are “poisoning the blood” of the nation. Trump used xenophobic language and his rally featured Tucker Carlson, a proponent of the Great Replacement Theory that has hosted Holocaust apologists on his show and is known for expressing racist and antisemitic sentiments. Both Carlson and Donald Trump Jr. echoed the Great Replacement Theory’s themes in their remarks. Though Carlson did not mention Jews or Israel, he mocked Harris’ ethnicity, calling her a “Samoan Malaysian low IQ former California prosecutor.” This type of ethnic marginalization should set off alarm bells for American Jews, even if they are not the group presently under fire. That Carlson has been a part of Trump’s campaign, and that he was anywhere near MSG that night, is because Trump wants Carlson’s message and support amplified. A candidate supportive of the Jewish people should not normalize such voices.
That students at YU could be so ignorant of reality and history is truly distressing. To ignore Trump’s nature, actions, beliefs and agenda is a monumental error. To ignore what happened at MSG last week because it was not our people who were the target of most of the vitriol is a betrayal of our mandate to be an “ohr l’goyim,” a light unto the nations. To sit back and ignore the threat to others is a violation of the Torah prohibition “lo sa’amod al dam rayecha” (do not stand on your neighbor’s blood). It is a violation of basic human decency. To support such a candidate is not only to forget the lessons of history but to disrespect the memory of all those who have suffered under oppression. To ignore all of the above is to forget who we are supposed to be. Our ancestors, were they still here, would be ashamed.
Rabbi Benjamin Kelsen, Esq. is an alumnus of Yeshiva University (YC ’94, CSL ’97, RIETS Yoreh Yoreh, Yadin Yadin), an Orthodox Rabbi, and a practicing attorney.
Photo Caption: An Israeli flag.
Photo Credit: Zachi Evenor // Wikimedia Commons
