Jewish Standard: Vandalism hits Gottheimer campaign

Halie Soifer is the executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Jewish Democratic Council of America. “We are very disturbed that anyone would deface not only a sign but someone’s home,” she said. “The swastikas indicate that this person was trying to send a message specifically targeting Jews — both the people who live in the house and Josh Gottheimer.

“This is a pattern. This rise in anti-Semitism that we see in this country, clearly has happened since Trump has taken office. We think that the neo-Nazis and the white supremacists and the other bigots have existed in our country all along, but it does seem that they have been emboldened in the Trump era, whether it’s through the defacing of property, incidents in our schools, or marching in the streets of Charlottesville or Washington.

“We are deeply disturbed by this. We don’t see it through a political lens, but it is troubling that the neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers and white supremacists who are running for office are doing so as Republicans.”

It’s not that it’s surprising that they’re running, she elaborated, it’s that they’ve been able to move from the fringe parties that used to be their natural home to the Republican party, which until recently would not have allowed them on its ballot line. “I think that Trump has given these people enough sense of legitimacy that they are now running as Republicans,” she said.