President Trump’s comments that Jewish people who vote for Democrats hate their religion and “should be ashamed of themselves” are sparking outrage from Jewish groups and leaders. 

“Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion, they hate everything about Israel, and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with a conservative radio host, Sebastian Gorka. Noting that he was “amazed” at how many people show up at Palestinian marches, Mr. Trump said that “guys like Schumer see that, and to him it’s votes.” 

Iran was “stone cold broke” under his administration, Mr. Trump said as he criticized President Biden’s handling of Iran. 

Senator Schumer on X called Mr. Trump’s comments “highly partisan and hateful rants.” 

A slew of Jewish groups, rabbis, and leaders are slamming Mr. Trump for playing into antisemitic stereotypes.

“Accusing Jews of hating their religion because they might vote for a particular party is defamatory and patently false. Serious leaders who care about the historic US-Israel alliance should focus on strengthening, rather than unraveling, bipartisan support for the State of Israel,” the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, told USA Today.

Pew Research polling indicates that Jews “are among the most consistently liberal and Democratic groups in the U.S. population,” with 70 percent of Jewish adults identifying as or leaning Democratic. In the months leading up to the 2020 election, nearly 75 percent of Jewish people disapproved of President Trump, the survey found.

Noting those numbers, Rabbi Jay Michaelson slammed Mr. Trump’s inflammatory comments during an interview Monday night on CNN as being “beneath even Donald Trump.”

“This was truly a disgusting comment,” he said. “We’re talking over two-thirds of American Jews that Trump says hate Judaism. As a rabbi who sometimes votes Democratic, I do not hate Judaism.”

The comments are a “smear against an entire community,” he noted, at a time when Jewish people are already feeling insecure and facing antisemitism — “and now we’re going to be attacked by the presumptive nominee of a major party and saying that we are self-hating is absolutely despicable.”

Several Democratic lawmakers have spoken out against the comments and attacked Mr. Trump personally for them. 

“Donald Trump is a hateful man who’s trying everything in his power to get Americans to hate each other,” Congresswoman Becca Balint from Vermont wrote on X. “He’s hardly a moral authority on anything, let alone on religion and spirituality.”

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said the comments demonstrated that the Republican presumptive nominee isn’t fit for office. “Trump demonstrates daily his lack of fitness for the presidency by spreading dangerous stereotypes and embracing antisemites,” she wrote on X. “We cannot allow this hate peddler to turn Israel and our Jewish faith into partisan issues.”

In the wake of the backlash, the Trump campaign has not backed down. His 2024 press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Monday that Mr. Trump “is right.

“The Biden Administration has given millions in aid to Gaza and the Iranian Regime, Democrats in Congress have signed petitions supporting Gaza terrorists and caved to the demands of Far-Left Palestinian extremists,” she said, as Axios reports. “The Democrat Party has turned into a full-blown anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist cabal.”