Passover Attack on Gov. Shapiro Reveals Trump Doesn’t Care about American Jews
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Passover Attack on Gov. Shapiro Reveals Trump Doesn’t Care about American Jews
By Halie Soifer
This week, Jewish people around the world celebrated Passover, marking our historic liberation from tyranny and freedom from hate. More than three thousand years after our exodus from Egypt, various forms of oppression, including antisemitism, still plague us. This was evident on the first night of Passover when Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s home was set ablaze in a targeted act of political violence. Nearly a week later, President Trump has failed to condemn the attack or reach out to Governor Shapiro to offer his support.
Trump’s apparent indifference to a life-threatening attack on one of the leading Jewish elected officials in the country, while he attacks universities under the guise of “fighting antisemitism,” reveals that his policies were never really about increasing security for Jewish Americans. Trump remains focused on silencing political dissent, and – in the case of attacks on higher education and campus deportations – American Jews are being used as political pawns in his larger political agenda.
The arson at Governor Shapiro’s residence on the first night of Passover should not be difficult to strongly condemn. The perpetrator of this attack forcibly entered the Governor’s residence, threw Molotov cocktails, and destroyed the very room where Shapiro’s family and guests held a Passover Seder a mere hours before. According to the Pennsylvania State Police, the arsonist, Cody Balmer, “clearly had a plan” to harm the Governor and was “very methodical in his approach.” Balmer himself admitted to “harboring hatred toward Governor Shapiro” and stated intent to beat Shapiro with the hammer he used to enter the residence.
In his call to 911 less than an hour after the attack, Balmer stated that he targeted Governor Shapiro because of his position on the war in Gaza and reportedly told a dispatcher that he “will not take part in his [Shapiro’s] plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.” Despite a clear political motivation for the attack, Attorney General Pam Bondi has not classified the attack on Shapiro’s residence as an act of domestic terrorism, which she has done for attacks on Tesla vehicles and dealerships. The Attorney General’s apparent refusal to categorize the firebombing of Shapiro’s residence as severely as damage to car dealerships is similar to the message sent by Trump’s refusal to condemn the attack – clearly, this White House doesn’t really care.
On Monday, Trump made his only substantive comments about the violence that could have killed Shapiro and his family. He said: “The attacker was not a fan of Trump, I understand…he’s probably just a whack job, and certainly a thing like that cannot be allowed to happen.” What’s missing from the President’s statement is an unequivocal condemnation of the attack, as well as any commitment to support the investigation. In the days since, Trump’s silence has been deafening, especially considering the unequivocal condemnation and support that Shapiro immediately offered Trump following the attempt on his life last year in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The key difference between these two leaders is that Josh Shapiro condemns political violence regardless of its target, while Donald Trump stokes and incites political violence when it suits his agenda, as he did on January 6. On the first day of his second term, Trump pardoned, released from jail, and commuted the sentences of more than 1,500 individuals involved in the 2021 attack on the Capitol. This included those who committed acts of violence targeting police, as well as the leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, both of whom were serving 18-year prison sentences for sedition. The clear message sent by these pardons is that political violence is acceptable to this White House when it’s in service to Donald Trump.
Trump has also stoked antisemitism, including hate-filled words targeting Governor Shapiro. Last August, he referred to Shapiro as “The highly overrated Jewish Governor of the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” There is only one Governor of Pennsylvania and, therefore, only one likely reason to invoke the Governor’s religion while denigrating him – to fuel antisemitic animus. This came at a time when Governor Shapiro was already under attack by pro-Palestinian activists, who dangerously coined the hateful term “Genocide Josh.”
Trump’s failure to condemn the Passover attack comes amid months of his feigning concern about antisemitism on college campuses and using it as a pretext to defund higher education, as well as arresting, detaining, and threatening to deport students and others without due process. Instead of actually combating antisemitism, Trump is gutting the very office in the Department of Education responsible for investigating antisemitism on college campuses and freezing funding for security grants to Jewish institutions, schools, and synagogues, both of which diminish the safety of American Jews.
It has become painfully clear that Donald Trump doesn’t actually care about Jewish Americans. One of the highest-ranking Jewish elected officials in the country was targeted with Molotov cocktails, and the President was essentially silent. Furthermore, Trump’s inaction in response to the Shapiro attack – combined with his defunding of programs that have actually kept Jews more secure – reveals that the President is attacking free speech and higher education under false pretenses. This isn’t actually about security or antisemitism. Jewish Americans are being used as Trump’s political pawns in his persistent attacks on democracy, and we’ve had enough.