President Donald Trump spoke out after aroused criticism for using a term widely considered to be anti -Semitic during a speech. Addressing a crowd in Iowa Thursday, Trump used the term “Shylock” when he discussed his “big and beautiful bill”, now signed.
Friday, when he was approached by a journalist about his use of the term “widely considered as an anti -Semitic sentence”, Trump was asked if the word “was used in this way”.
“No, I have never heard it this way. For me,” Shylock “is someone who is a lender at high rates. I have never heard it in this way. You see him differently from me. I have never heard that,” he said, before opening up to other questions about the Tarmac at the common base Andrews.
Trump had used the word during the discussion on taxes, saying to an Iowa crowd: “No death tax, no inheritance tax, not go to banks and borrowing, in some cases, a good banker and in some cases Shylocks and bad people.”
The Jews’ defense groups went out to condemn the use of the term, retracing its history to the villain of William Shakespeare The Venice merchant, Who sees the doubtful character demanding a book of flesh from a Christian merchant incapable of paying his debt. The room has long been considered anti -Semitic and problematic.
Find out more: How Trump fits into the long and heavy history of the relationship between Israel and American Jews
“The term` `Shylock” evokes an anti-Semitic trope of several centuries on the Jews and the greed which is extremely offensive and dangerous. The use of the term by President Trump is very disturbing and irresponsible, “said the anti-destruction (ADL) league in a press release published on social media. “This underlines how lies and plots on the Jews remain deeply anchored in our country.”
Former President Joe Biden used the term “Shylocks” in a speech in 2014 when he was vice-president, but then declared that it was a “bad choice of words”.
The use by Trump of the term arrives at a precarious moment, because cases of anti-Semitism and crimes of hatred towards Jewish Americans have increased in recent years, in particular since the start of the War of Israel-Hamas. The ADL reported that anti -Semitic incidents have skyrocketed 360% in the aftermath of October 7, 2023.
An attack in Boulder, Colorado, in June and the deadly shooting of two employees of Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, in May, are two recent incidents of anti-Jewish violence that rocked communities in the United States
Find out more: The rise of anti-Semitism and political violence in the United States
Meanwhile, the Jewish Council on Public Affairs spoke on Friday against Trump’s “deeply dangerous” use of the term “Shylocks”, calling him “among the most out of excellence anti -Semititic insults in his remarks”, and claiming that the moment “follows years in which Trump has normalized anti -Semitic tropes and conspiracy theories”.
The Jewish members of the Congress also came to condemn the use of speech. Representative Jerry Nadler of New York, a democrat, described the history of the term, calling him “one of the most recognizable anti -Semitic insults in the English language” which “fueled discrimination, hatred and violence against the Jews”.
“I condemn Donald Trump’s dangerous use of this manifest insult and his long history of anti -Semitic tropes,” said Nadler. “I have often said that if Donald Trump was serious about the fight against anti-Semitism, he could start with anti-Semites in his own administration … If Donald Trump was serious about the fight against anti-Semitism, he could start with himself.”
It is far from the first incident that aroused concerns about the use by Trump of anti -Semitic tropes.
Trump previously seemed to engage in an anti -Semitic trope of the Jewish people controlling things behind the scenes. In 2015, during an event with Jewish donors, he told the crowd: “I don’t want your money. You want to control your own politician. “
Eminent Jewish voices have also raised concerns about Trump’s rhetoric in 2019, when he told journalists: “In my opinion, you vote for a democrat, you are very unfair to the Jewish people, and you are very unfair to Israel … and only weak people would say anything other than that.”
His comment came shortly after having said: “I think that any Jewish people who vote for a democrat, I think it shows a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”
Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL responded to Trump’s comments to “disloyalty”, saying that the president had “clearly indicated that he thinks that the Jews have double loyalty to Israel. This anti -Semitic trope has been used to persecute the Jews for centuries and it is unacceptable to promote it.”
In 2021, Trump revisited this rhetorical line, saying in an interview that “the people of this country who are Jews no longer like Israel. I will tell you evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews of this country. ”
