Acclaimed Author Mark Helprin Agrees That the Least Accurate Description of President Trump is “Antisemite”

Dec 19, 2017 by Susan Rosenbluth

Here is a wonderful interview in Moment magazine with politically conservative author Mark Helprin, who is comfortable with Judaism and Israel, doesn’t see Jews as self-loathing Woody Allen wannabees, and knows Donald Trump is not an anti-Semite.

Author Interview // Mark Helprin

Mr. Helprin speaks for many of us.

It is important to remember that while, in the recent past, 85 percent of Jewish voters cast their ballots for Democrats, in 2016, that number dropped to 70 percent. The reason: a full 85 percent of the fast-growing Orthodox community voted for the Republican. Most of the Orthodox community agrees with Mr. Helprin and sees Donald Trump as one of the most philo-semitic Presidents in US history.

I would advise our liberal co-religionists who chafe at the fact to view it with equanimity. As Gordon Zacks, z”l, once told me, Jews are too small a minority to vote so overwhelmingly for one party. It allows the right to write us off and the left to take us for granted. By design, 40 percent of us should vote Democrat; 40 percent for Republicans; and we should let the candidates spin their heads over the remaining 20 percent.

I once suggested that since American Jews were not about to do that, at least, we should let the public think that’s how we were voting. Therefore, I wrote, if your name begins with A-M, tell any pollsters who ask that you’re voting for the Democrats; N-Z, tell them Republicans.

I didn’t have any more luck with that idea than Gordie Zacks had with his.

S.L.R.