Mr. Trump, strong men like you apologize

Dear Mr. Trump,

You’re a candid, direct man, which I respect. So I’ll be equally blunt. You’re forcing people like me, who reject the poll-driven fraudulence of modern politics and who are excited by your candor, to now choose between you and our values. And I’m appealing to what I believe are your own deeper values. Even your worst critics agree that you did an amazing job raising good kids. And I’ve learned from experience that no one can raise good children if they don’t have good values.

My eldest son is an American serving in Israel’s Defense Forces, in a combat unit on the Golan Heights across the Lebanese and Syrian border. He believes in helping a vulnerable democracy stand against tyranny. President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran has put him and his fellow soldiers in direct danger, because it gives Iran $150 billion to buy the most deadly equipment for Hezbollah, an Iranian terror army on Israel’s northern border.

{mosads}For that reason, I could never back Hillary Clinton as president. She not only promises to stand by this horrible deal, she brags that she was its original architect as former secretary of State. I will not support someone who funds terrorists, especially when it is my own child who is most exposed. And for the four years of her tenure as America’s highest-ranking diplomat, Clinton never once condemned the genocidal aspirations of Iran against the Jewish people and their promises of a second holocaust.

I also could not support Clinton given that she relies on people like Sidney and Max Blumenthal as advisers on Israel, whose book “Goliath” is full of references to Israel’s “Nazi mentality,” Israelis as “Judeo-Nazis” and the Israeli army as “Nazi SS.”

I have stated publicly that for America’s national security and Israel’s defense, you are by far the better candidate for president.

Your son-in-law Jared Kushner and your daughter Ivanka, whom I know, are amazing people who live observant Jewish lives. They, along with your grandchildren, are what we call a Kiddush Hashem — they sanctify God’s name through lives publicly committed to the Torah. 

That Torah promotes certain values to whose universal propagation I have dedicated my life, among which is the affirmation that all people, regardless of religious or ethnic difference, are created equally in God’s image and are to be treated with dignity and respect. Every person — Jewish, Christian, Muslim and atheist — has an equal spark of the divine. Race and creed are utterly irrelevant when it comes to the core oneness of the human family.

But when you speak of a judge being biased because he’s Mexican, that violates this principle that you too believe in. You can’t elevate ethnicity above humanity. It makes you sound bigoted. I don’t believe that to be true, so why not just apologize and correct it? You have taught your children to be respectful of everyone. So surely you must model it yourself.

Apologies do not come from weakness but from strength. The feeble man fears that an apology is capitulation, while the strong man knows that taking responsibility for an error is a sign of courage and conviction.

The same is true of any proposal to ban Islamic immigrants, even temporarily, from coming into the United States. America’s first great freedom was religious liberty. We can never agree to censure based on faith.

If your point is the legitimate concern that Islamic terrorists might infiltrate the United States along with endangered Muslim refugees, then remedy it by focusing your ban geographically on countries with significant penetration by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah. For the past two years, whenever I came into the U.S., I was asked by the border agents if I had been to West Africa and Sierra Leone, not because the American government is racist but because of Ebola. By all means, screen people coming in from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Pakistan. But do so because these countries have serious terrorist penetration. And devote significant funds to border agents so that people who are in genuine danger can be processed quickly and rescued.

I like that you tell it like it is, Mr. Trump. Obama has made a mockery of the war on terror by substituting the term “Islamic terrorism” for the ridiculous “violent extremists.” Does he really think he’s doing Islam, a great world religion, any favors by pretending it’s not being compromised by people killing in the name of Allah? Does he not know that most God-fearing Muslims want their radicals identified so they can be purged?

No one’s asking that you join the president’s cynical evasion. But punishing Muslims as a whole violates the Jewish and American values of personal rather than collective accountability. 

Judaism expects leaders to lead, to call out any hatred being touted in their name and strongly repudiate it. You would gain the moral high ground if you came out powerfully and made absolutely clear that you condemn all the haters who claim to support you — many disgusting anti-Semites and racists — who have attacked journalists and others who have criticized you, using racial and ethnic slurs.

Please help us, Mr. Trump. Help us defeat Clinton, the Obama administration’s designated “yeller-in-chief,” who so often belittled Israel’s democratically elected prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and support your candidacy without our having to choose between you and our values.

You won the hearts of so many American Jews when you showed unconditional support for your daughter’s conversion to the Jewish faith, two of whose great teachings are to always respect the immigrant and the stranger, and to turn enemies into friends.

Win over your adversaries, Mr. Trump. Surprise them with graciousness and magnanimity.

Don’t give us Clinton by default because you made a derisive comment about a journalist with a disability or heroic American prisoners of war that is not in accordance with Judeo-Christian values.

God bless you and your family, Mr. Trump. Thank you for your friendship to Israel and the Jewish people, and thank you for hearing me out.

“America’s Rabbi” Shmuley Boteach, whom The Washington Post calls “the most famous rabbi in America” is executive director of The World Values Network, which promotes universal values in politics and culture. He is the international best-selling author of 30 books, including his forthcoming, “The Israel Warriors Handbook.” Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.