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"God Bless Trump" signs litter Jerusalem: At the Scribe

JewFem Blog: Politics and Leadership
Elana Sztokman
Thursday, 04 January 2018
1968 Hits
1 Comment
"God Bless Trump" signs litter Jerusalem: At the Scribe
“God Bless Trump!” read the placards and signs all over Jerusalem. A three-story poster in this exuberant praise of the current American president hangs a few meters from my son’s dorm room in the center of town. He can barely sleep because of the flashiness of it. I can barely sleep because of the implications of it.

A year in to this reality, I still cannot believe that this man is the president. He is not only a compulsive liar, narcissist, and bully, he is also an admitted sexual assailant. Knowing that sixty million Americans so easily dismissed his behavior towards women in favor of whatever it is that they saw in him has made me extremely distrustful of my compatriots. When I meet people that voted for him or support him – and that incredibly includes people whom I consider friends – I am always uneasy and actually hurt that the sexual assault of women means so little to them, that so many other things were more important than women’s trauma. This remains very hard.

 

This new development, however, in which many coreligionists think he is the Messiah because he declared Jerusalem the capital, has added a new layer to my psychic angst. They actually think he is a gift from God. The pussy-grabber-in-chief has now been elevated in status among certain Jews because he has taken a unilateral decision about Jerusalem that sets him squarely on the side of the most right-wing members of the tribe, no matter what the implications of this decision may be.

We know that for many Jews, a politician’s worth is based entirely on his or her allegiance to right-wing ideas about Israel, which is why Trump received such a strong vote among Orthodox Jewish Americans. Only Israel matters. Still, when I witness the “Only Israel matters” approach to politics in the Trump context, I am reminded once again of how little women are valued in the Jewish community. So many of my coreligionists continue to throw women under the bus. Our needs as a woman are unimportant compared to the perceived needs of Israel.

Read more: https://forward.com/scribe/391358/to-only-israel-voters-women-dont-seem-to-matter/

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About the author

Elana Sztokman

Elana Sztokman

The JewFem blog is written by the award-winning writer Dr. Elana Maryles Sztokman, former Executive Director of JOFA, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance. Elana's books include The Men’s Section: Orthodox Jewish Men in an Egalitarian World, which won the 2012 National Jewish Book Council Award for Women's Studies, Educating in the Divine Image: Gender Issues in Orthodox Jewish Day Schools, which won the 2013 National Jewish Book Council Award for Education (co-authored with Chaya Gorsetman), and the forthcoming The War on Women in Israel: How Religious Radicalism is Stifling the Voice of a Nation Elana writes frequently at The Forward, Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, Lilith, and more.

Author's recent posts
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Friday, 16 October 2020 If you think Trump is a friend of the Jews, you are a 'freier'
 

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Guest - Suzanne E Smith on Wednesday, 17 January 2018 22:34

As a woman raised in Texas and the Southern Culture and now gladly out of that region, I can tell you why Trump was voted in by so many "religious Conservatives" including the women. It is because secretly they are like him or want to be like him. The women too are brainwashed into this culture of putting up with woman-hating- behaviors-but woman -loving words. I was brainwashed into that culture and because I refused to play the manipulative games the women need to survive in that Culture - of course it blew up in my face. Thank God it did for despite the hardship of having my husband destroy my life- I am no longer brainwashed and am only accountable to me and God. Any money, success and blessings obtained by me now and in the future will now be used with wisdom not because of a manipulating thieving jackass and certainly I won't be pressured to play the game with my resources by women who also are abused like I was, but pretend they are not. Poor as I am at the moment after finally getting my divorce...I feel lighter, free, more beautiful and happier than I have ever been.

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As a woman raised in Texas and the Southern Culture and now gladly out of that region, I can tell you why Trump was voted in by so many "religious Conservatives" including the women. It is because secretly they are like him or want to be like him. The women too are brainwashed into this culture of putting up with woman-hating- behaviors-but woman -loving words. I was brainwashed into that culture and because I refused to play the manipulative games the women need to survive in that Culture - of course it blew up in my face. Thank God it did for despite the hardship of having my husband destroy my life- I am no longer brainwashed and am only accountable to me and God. Any money, success and blessings obtained by me now and in the future will now be used with wisdom not because of a manipulating thieving jackass and certainly I won't be pressured to play the game with my resources by women who also are abused like I was, but pretend they are not. Poor as I am at the moment after finally getting my divorce...I feel lighter, free, more beautiful and happier than I have ever been.
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