(JNS) Jewish organizations and supporters of former President Donald Trump are expressing outrage about a recent dinner he shared with two prominent antisemites, Kanye “Ye” West and Nick Fuentes.
The dinner happened at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort at the request of disgraced rapper West, who has come under fire for openly antisemitic statements on social media and conspiratorial antisemitic views in multiple interviews. West brought along 24-year-old white nationalist Fuentes, who is known for statements denying the Holocaust, hating Jews and leading white nationalist movements.
The Orthodox Union (OU) pointed out that West’s comments—such as tweeting to his 31 million Twitter followers he was going to go “death con 3” on Jews—have already resulted in multiple antisemitic incidents. The organization said that it was worrisome that Trump, who announced his bid for the presidency in the 2024 election just a week earlier, would associate with “some of the most vicious antisemitic figures.
“We call on former President Trump to condemn these individuals and cut ties with them and their associates. As a major public figure, Donald Trump has a responsibility to denounce hate in all of its forms and lead by example for his many followers. Anything less gives a stamp of approval to the world’s oldest hatred,” OU leadership said in a statement.
OU also called on political leaders, especially in the Republican Party, to speak up, citing an unprecedented rise in antisemitism in the United States.
Trump’s longtime friend and one of the Trump administration’s highest-ranked Orthodox Jewish officials, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, implored him to disavow West and Fuentes.
“To my friend Donald Trump, you are better than this. Even a social visit from an antisemite like Kanye West and human scum like Nick Fuentes is unacceptable. I urge you to throw those bums out, disavow them and relegate them to the dustbin of history where they belong. … Antisemites deserve no quarter among American leaders, right or left,” Friedman tweeted.
Another Trump friend and high-ranking Orthodox Jewish official, former White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt, wrote an op-ed for CNN expounding on his views.
“… [The dinner] should not have happened. Period,” Greenblatt wrote. “I hope President Trump condemns Fuentes, West and their ilk for what they are—haters of Jews and haters of the foundations of the United States of America. People like Fuentes are dangerous to the United States.”
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) avoided being specific in its condemnation of the dinner, naming West and Fuentes in a statement, but without mentioning Trump.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) denounced the former president and called out Fuentes’ past statements, which included questioning the murder of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust and saying, “I piss on your Talmud. Jews get the f*** out of America.”
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted: “If anyone still had any doubts about Donald Trump’s embrace of bigotry and division, it’s certainly clarifying to see him spend time openly and unapologetically with notorious antisemites Nick Fuentes and Kanye West. Awful, appalling and yet entirely in character.”
The Trump administration’s former special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Elan Carr, tweeted: “No responsible American, and certainly no former President, should be cavorting with the likes of Nick Fuentes and Kanye West. To placate antisemitism is to promote antisemitism. President Trump must condemn these dangerous men and their disgusting and un-American views.”
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), which earlier this month awarded Trump with the prestigious Theodor Herzl Medallion at its 125th anniversary gala for his pro-Israel accomplishments while in office, called on Trump to condemn West and Fuentes in the strongest terms.
“President Trump must not sully his extraordinary presidential record of pro-Israel actions and combating antisemitism on college campuses and elsewhere by failing to clearly condemn vile antisemites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes,” stated ZOA National President Mort Klein. “I, who was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany, lost almost my entire family who were murdered during Hitler’s Holocaust. My parents, both Holocaust survivors, Sarah of Poland and Rabbi Herman Klein of Czechoslovakia—who lost his first family to Hitler’s evil—would have demanded this statement of me and ZOA as history demands that all people of good faith denounce Jew-hatred.”
The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), which represents 2,000 Orthodox rabbis, also called for Trump to repudiate his dining companions.
“A former president does not enjoy the luxury of meeting over dinner with any oddball, especially when that fool is a self-declared hater,” CJV Vice President Rabbi Dov Fischer said in a statement.