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| Rabbi Abba Cohen at the recent National Day of Prayer Service (JTA) |
The truth is that I do not consider him a low-life. People are complicated. Trump is certainly no exception. Trump has many qualities. Some of them bad – even very bad. And some of them good. I am not going to go into the bad ones. Been there and done that more times than I can count. Anyone who does not see that simply isn’t paying attention.
But he does have some good qualities. One of which seems to be a healthy respect for freedom of religion. That has led him to do some very positive things for the Jewish people. One can argue about which ones are good and which ones aren’t. But as it affects Orthodox Jewry his policies have been more favorable than the policies of any other President in my lifetime. And that’s saying a lot considering the fact that they have all been pretty good to us to one extent or another.
As I have said so many times, when it comes to Jewish values, Orthodoxy looks at the word of God as outlined in the Torah and interpreted by our sages. The President has been nothing short of amazing in this regard. Those who don’t see that are blinded by their antipathy for the man. Especially if they are on the Left politically. To the extent that they might begrudgingly give him any credit at all – it would be far outweighed by what they see as his overwhelmingly negative character. I do not see it that way. One can separate the two. And appreciate the good while rejecting the bad.
An honest evaluation of the man will give you a complex picture that is neither totally positive nor totally negative.
What exactly is it that Trump should be so appreciated for? Kampeas has done a decent job of answering that question. He notes that there are mixed feelings about the President in the realm of religious freedom depending upon whether one’s perspective is religiously Orthodox or liberal. What makes this even more interesting is that politically liberal Orthodox Jews tend to make the same arguments that the religiously liberal Jews do. For example:
Some of the administration’s proposed new rules aim to protect health care providers who say certain procedures violate their religious conscience, including abortion, assisted suicide and end-of-life issues.
The changes would reverse eight years of Obama administration policy, which sought to expand access to birth control, abortion and medical services for women and LGBTQ people. Conservatives say the policy put government restrictions on what they deem are expressions of their faith...
‘Liberal women’s groups, LGBTQ groups and civil libertarians are alarmed by this development.
Orthodoxy embraces these reversals. Liberal groups on the other hand expressed concern over church-state separation. Much the same way liberal Orthodox Jews do. For them - civil liberties override religious rights every time they come into conflict. Personally I don’t see how you can force someone to do a medical procedure that violates their conscience. Not only that, but as OU executive, Nathan Diament says,
“If you’re a patient, you don’t want a doctor or nurse who has qualms about how they’re treating you...”
On the other hand there was across the board agreement between the liberal and Orthodox groups in another area:
Federal employees for decades have had the right to ask for religious holidays off, but the Trump administration toughened up the process for the administrators, favoring the employee making the request.
Employees now have a year to make up time taken for holy days through overtime. Previously it varied from agency to agency, and there might only have been a window of a few weeks. Additionally, administrators must now explain rejections in writing.
There was also across the board praise for the President in the area of ‘Religious Land Use’. Zoning boards in certain areas have been denying permits to build or expand synagogues - in some cases openly saying that they want to keep Orthodox Jews out of their neighborhoods. That is a clear violation of our civil rights. According to Kampeas, the Trump administration has been more vigorous than previous administrations in ‘assisting local Jewish communities in disputes with recalcitrant local authorities’.
This is why policy matters... and why it is more important than character. It’s easy to say that character matters more than policy. But I think that is only when policy does not directly affect you. If it did, you might have an entirely different approach.
The question arises whether there are also policies that are harmful to go along with those that are beneficial. That certainly has to be taken into account. Obviously if there are more bad policies than good ones (assuming equal value to all for purposes of simplicity) then one makes a decision based on that as well as character.
But as I have said in the past, whether a policy is good or bad depends a great deal on one’s political or religious perspective. When it comes to what is beneficial to Orthodox Jewry I don’t think there is any question about what matters most. The proof - as they say - is in the pudding. That should be acknowledged by everyone with any sense of objectivity. And the President should be thanked for it.