Trump Repeats "Dual Loyalty" Sentiment About American Jews

On August 9, 2020, Donald Trump told a group of Jewish supporters at a fundraiser in New Jersey that, “we need more Jews in the U.S. that love Israel.” The fundraiser was held at the home of the recently deceased Stanley Chera, a friend of Trump’s who died of COVID-19 complications in April of 2020. 

Trump made similar comments about American Jews at the Israeli American Council’s National Summit in 2019, saying some American Jews “don’t love Israel enough.” In April of the same year he told reporters, “I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.” 

Trump’s repeated assertion that American Jews ‘should’ be loyal to Israel bolsters an age-old trope about Jews and “dual loyalty,” and promotes the antisemitic idea that American Jews are not ‘real’ Americans, but hold a primary loyalty to the State of Israel.