Haaretz: As U.S. Election Nears, Both Parties Use Fears of Anti-semitism to Woo Jewish Voters

By Amir Tibon

With less than a year before the United States’ 2020 presidential election, both parties are already investing in campaign advertisements targeting the American Jewish community. On Tuesday, the Jewish Democratic Council of America released its first campaign ad of the presidential year, two weeks after the Republican Jewish Coalition debuted its own.

The Democratic group’s ad focuses explicitly on President Donald Trump and the topic of far-right violence in the United States during his presidency. It shows the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, during which far-right demonstrators cried “Jews will not replace us.”

It then cuts to footage of Trump saying that there were “very fine people” among those who participated in the white supremacist demonstration. It ties his rhetoric to white nationalists, one of whom carried out the Pittsburgh shooting on the Tree of Life synagogue last year.

President Trump is the biggest threat to the safety & security of American Jews. His bigotry was exposed after Charlottesville and in his claim that Jews voting for Democrats are ‘disloyal.’

We will do everything we can to elect someone who shares our values in 2020. pic.twitter.com/bf573tJVBl

— Jewish Dems (@USJewishDems) November 19, 2019

The minute-long advertisement also shows a clip of Trump from August 2019, in which he said that Jews who vote for the Democratic party are showing “great disloyalty.” That quote was strongly denounced by almost all mainstream organizations within the American Jewish community.

Trump, according to the JDCA ad, is “the biggest threat” American Jews are currently facing. The group’s ad will target Jewish voters in key swing states, such as Florida and Pennsylvania. The organization stated that “We will do everything we can to elect someone who shares our values in 2020.”