President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visit Yad Vashem in May 2017. (AP/Evan Vucci)
“It just seems strange to me,” former president Trump said.
By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News
Former president Donald Trump told a reporter from Jewish magazine Ami that he was surprised by what he felt was a lack of Jewish support from voters.
In an interview published by the Brooklyn-based Orthodox weekly on Thursday, Trump listed a litany of his accomplishments on behalf of the Jewish community, mostly focused on strengthening Israel.
He referred to his move backing recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which resulted in him being gifted with a namesake town, and moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
He also touched on his decision to unilaterally withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.
“You know what really surprised me?” he asked Ami reporter Jake Turx. “I did the [Golan] Heights, I did Jerusalem, and I did Iran—the Iran Deal was a disaster, right? And I also did many other things.”
Despite those achievements, Trump said, “I believe we got 25% of the Jewish vote, and it doesn’t make sense. It just seems strange to me. But I did very well in Florida. I did great in Florida.”
He said he did not understand why those successes hadn’t translated into support from Jewish voters.
“Jewish people who live in the United States don’t love Israel enough. Does that make sense to you?” he asked the reporter.
“I’m not talking about Orthodox Jews,” he clarified later.
According to an October 2020 survey by Ami, a staggering 83 percent of Orthodox Jews said they would vote for Trump.
Just 54 percent of Orthodox Jews said they voted for Trump in 2016, according to a 2017 survey from the American Jewish Committee.
A survey conducted by Pew Research in November 2020 just before the election found that 70% of American Jews said they would vote for Joe Biden.
Orthodox and haredi Jews make up some 10 percent of the American Jewish population.
Reform and unaffiliated Jews largely vote for the Democratic party.
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