Former President Donald Trump declared there has “never been a more dangerous time since the Holocaust” to be Jewish in the US on Saturday night.
The Republican presidential candidate made the remarks at a campaign rally event in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, where he claimed Vice President Kamala Harris decided against choosing Penn. Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate because he is Jewish.
“They turned him down because he’s Jewish,” Trump told a packed house at the Mohegan Sun Arena.
“They turned him down for other reasons, but the primary reason is because he’s Jewish,” the ex-president continued, adding that “any Jewish person that votes for [Harris] or a Democrat has to go out and have their head examined.”
“What’s happening with Israel and Jewish people, there has never been a more dangerous time since the Holocaust if you happen to be Jewish in America,” he said.
Shapiro has dismissed allegations that he was overlooked for his faith, saying Harris’ choice of Minn. Gov. Tim Walz told him that “antisemitism had no impact” on the decision.
There has been a surge of antisemitic hate crimes nationwide since Hamas launched its attack on Israel on Oct. 7 killed some 1,200 Israelis and sparked a grueling war in the Gaza Strip, now in its 10th month.
New York City in particular has seen a concerningly sharp increase in antisemitic incidents, with 30 anti-Jewish offenses being investigated by NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force in July alone. There were 45 incidents of crime targeting Jewish people in June.
So far this year, 229 anti-Semitic hate crimes have been reported to the NYPD through Aug. 4, according to the latest data available. By that time last year, only 126 such incidents were reported.
Just last week, a hateful Citi Bike rider slugged a 70-year-old man in Central Park in a hate crime attack. The thug called the elderly man a “F—king Jew pig” and threatened to kill him while he was walking his daughter’s dog before he punched him repeatedly.
The war in Gaza has sparked widespread protests across the country, most notably on scores of college campuses last spring, that have led to hundreds of arrests.
New York City has seen nearly weekly anti-Israel protesters taking to the streets of Manhattan, often disrupting the city’s main transit hubs.
Michelle Ahdoot, Director of Communications for End Jew Hatred, told the Post last month that “the single most significant hatred we see in New York City since Oct. 7th is overwhelmingly Jew-hatred.
“On an almost daily basis, we see groups of radical Hamas supporters — some even waving the Hamas flag — marching in city streets calling for the genocide of Jews. We do not feel safe,” she added.
