This weekend in Tulsa, Oklahoma, President Trump held his first campaign rally since the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the country. The campaign said that there were more than a million ticket requests; however, the 19,000 seat arena was only a third full. The Jewish community of Tulsa traces its history to the beginning of the 20th century, with many Jews settling there and opening retail stores. In 1908, Russian immigrants Max and Harry Madansky opened a clothing store in Tulsa that eventually added additional locations in Bartlesville, Muskogee, and Oklahoma City. In 1921, they took out a full page newspaper ad announcing the change of the store name from Madansky Brothers to May Brothers, explaining that the name change was “the final step to prove ourselves wholly American in every sense of the word. We have eliminated those parts of the name Madansky that are of foreign origin. We wish to forever renounce the name that reminds us of our foreign birth.” In the early-1940’s, B’nai Emunah, a synagogue that was a hybrid of Orthodox and Conservative practice, built a new building, only to learn that many women protested and refused to sit upstairs in the women’s balcony. How did the synagogue resolve that dispute?

Golden Driller, Tulsa USA by The Erica Chang is licensed under CC BY 3.0

A. They designated one side of the downstairs room for mixed seating and the other side for men only, with a large curtain down the middle aisle.

B. They designated the front half of the sanctuary for men and the rear rows for mixed seating, with a large curtain dividing the front and back sections.

C. The synagogue leadership refused to allow the women to sit downstairs, at which point roughly a third of the membership resigned and started a new synagogue which had mixed seating.

D. They designated half of the balcony for mixed seating, maintaining the downstairs seating for men only.

E. The President of B’nai Emunah made a speech where he called out the protestors. “Our incredible success in rebuilding B’nai Emunah stands in stark contrast to the extremism and destruction and violence of the radical mixed seaters. We just saw it outside. We just saw it outside, you saw these thugs that came along. These people, call them protesters, isn’t it beautiful, it’s so beautiful. No, they’re so wonderful. They call them the Tulsa Mixed Seaters. But they can’t do that. The lion may lie down with the lamb, but the men shall not sit down with the women. Not in my synagogue. MEGA! MEGA! Make Emunah Great Again!”

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President Trump addressed the graduating class at the United States Military Academy at West Point last Saturday. The event was controversial, as the campus had previously closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic; yet, President Trump decided to address the graduates, requiring them to return to the campus for the event despite the health risk to the cadets. There is a long Jewish history at West Point. The 2019 graduating class included the 1000th Jewish graduate of the Academy since its founding in 1802. And in fact, half of the graduates in the very first class in 1802 were Jewish (though there were only two students in the class). The Jewish student, Simeon Magruder Levy, graduated at the bottom of his two-person class, but went on to distinguish himself at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, marking the end of the Northwest Indian War. For more than 60 years the West Point Jewish Chapel Choir has been a part of student life. The Choir sang at what presidential event?

West Point 16 by Gurney Halleck is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

A. The West Point Jewish Chapel Choir made one of their first public performances at the inaguration of President John F. Kennedy on January 20, 1961. The event took place the day after a blizzard hit the Washington, DC area, which almost led to the canceling of the Inauguration parade. But they managed to clear the streets, the parade rolled, and the ceremony took place on the East Front of the Capitol building. Poet Robert Frost recited his poem, The Gift Outright, after which the West Point Jewish Chapel Choir sang a medley of songs including Let My People Go and God Bless America.

B. In January 2002, President George W. Bush hosted a memorial concert at the White House to remember the victims of the September 11 terrorist attack and to honor the first responders. Among the performers were Bruce Springsteen and the National Symphony Orchestra, as well as the West Point Jewish Chapel Choir. The choir sang a choral arrangement of Psalm 23, which is traditionally recited at Jewish funerals, and then sang Amazing Grace with the Howard University Gospel Choir.

C. President Dwight Eisenhower died in March, 1969, two months after Richard Nixon’s inauguration. A memorial service was held in the United States Capitol. Nixon eulogized President Eisenhower, whose grandson David Eisenhower had married Nixon’s daughter Julie only three months earlier. Because President Eisenhower was one of only two U.S. presidents who attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (the other being Ulysses S. Grant), the West Point Jewish Chapel Choir performed at Eisenhower’s memorial service, singing the Star-Spangled Banner.

D. At the White House Chanukkah party in 2011, the West Point Jewish Chapel Choir entertained guests by singing holiday songs including Maoz Tzur, Who Can Retell and Oh Chanukkah. After the official end of the party, the choir met privately with President Barack Obama for a photo op, at which time he asked them to sing another song. At the suggestion of the choir director, the group sang Lo Yisa Goy, the traditional Jewish folk song based on the words of Isaiah, including the line “Nation shall not take up sword against nation; they shall never again know war.”

E. The West Point Jewish Chapel Choir actually sang last week at the 2020 graduation ceremony which President Trump ordered the cadets to attend. Per the request of President Trump, the choir sang If I Were a Rich Man and a rewritten traditional Jewish song, Donald, Melech USA.

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Last week President Trump appeared for a photo op in front of the St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, DC. The event was in response to demonstrations calling for justice and equality for black Americans following the horrendous murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. After the police and National Guard used chemical irritants and smoke to disperse the peaceful protesters, Trump walked to the church and posed for pictures while holding a Bible. After 10 minutes he returned to the White House. While there have been Christian Bibles printed in English for many centuries, English editions of the Hebrew Bible have only been around for about a century and a half. Which of the following is an English edition of the Hebrew Bible?

President Trump outside St. John's Episcopal Church, cropped by The White House is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A. The Jewish School and Family Bible, by Abraham Benisch, published in England in four volumes from 1851 to 1861. Benisch, a respected journalist and Hebraic studies scholar, went on to become the editor of the Jewish Chronicles, the oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the world.

B. The Koren Jerusalem Bible, a Hebrew/English Bible from Koren Publishers in Israel. This edition followed their earlier publication of the Koren Bible in Hebrew, the first bible published in modern Israel, leading David ben-Gurion to state, “Israel is redeemed from shame.”

C. The Jewish Family Bible, edited in 1881 in England by Michael Friedländer, the principal of Jews’ College in London. Friedländer, who taught theology, Talmud, mathematics, Arabic and more, was best known for his English translation of Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed.

D. The Twenty-four Books of the Holy Scriptures, also known as the Leeser Bible. This edition was the first Hebrew Bible published in English in America. Isaac Leeser, a rabbi and educator in Philadelphia, finished this work in 1853.

E. The MAGA Bible, also known as “the bible that Ivanka Trump carried in her $1,540 Max Mara handbag to a photo op for her daddy.” Asked by reporters about the bible, President Trump replied, “It’s Ivanka’s bible. So it’s a Jewish bible. A Hebrew bible. Because Ivanka is now Hebrew, as you know. So she wouldn’t hand me a Christian bible like Eric would. But all bibles are good. Jewish bibles are good. Christian bibles are good. Muslims don’t have a bible. But anyway, the bible I held is more than good. It’s great. I call it the MAGA Bible because one of the ways we can Make America Great Again is by holding bibles. That’s why I went to that church to show the nasty demonstrators that good Americans hold bibles. I’m guessing that George Floyd is looking down and smiling at this bible, and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country. This is a great day for him, it’s a great day for everybody. This is a great, great day in terms of equality and the Bible.”

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CNN not only reported the news, but was in the news last week, as one of their journalists was arrested live on TV by Minnesota State Police as he covered the demonstrations following the police killing of George Floyd. In addition, demonstrators in Atlanta defaced the iconic CNN sign outside their headquarters. CNN was launched in 1980 by Ted Turner as the first 24-hour cable news channel. In 1990, journalist Wolf Blitzer joined CNN as a reporter, and he eventually became a news anchor and host of CNN’s Sunday interview show, Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. He has won numerous honors including an Emmy and the Anti-Defamation League’s Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. Blitzer’s parents were Auschwitz survivors who emigrated to Buffalo where he was raised. He studied Hebrew at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and one of his first jobs was as a Washington correspondent for the Jerusalem Post. Not everyone is a fan of Wolf Blitzer, however. Which of the following has criticized Wolf Blitzer?

Wolf Blitzer - CNN Portrait by Philkirwin is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

A. David Duke, white nationalist and former Ku Klux Klan leader, stated that the “Jewish media” was unfairly attacking Donald Trump, and said directly to Wolf Blitzer during an interview, “You can’t handle me, and you can’t handle the truth, and the fact is, you are an agent of Zionism. You work for AIPAC…You’re an Israeli agent.”

B. Journalist and MSNBC reporter Joy Reid criticized Wolf Blitzer for supposedly treating Jewish guests too deferentially. She wrote in a blog that Blitzer is a “former flak for the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)” who “doesn’t even try to hide his affinity for his Israeli guests, or his partisanship for their cause, while turning instantly to prosecutorial mode when questioning any guest who has the dumb luck to be an Arab or Muslim in King Blitzer’s court.”

C. Wolf Blitzer recently criticized President Trump for concluding a coronavirus press briefing without taking questions from reporters. Said Blitzer, “This is the first time that the President has been afraid to answer questions from reporters...The President clearly, uh, shall we say, was chicken today.” Trump later tweeted about Blitzer, “Today I was called chicken by that kosher turkey Wolf Blitzer. HOW RUDE IS THAT. I’m the President. I answer questions when I want to answer questions.”

D. Kellyanne Conway, political consultant and advisor to President Trump, was offended when Wolf Blitzer asked her questions about her husband, George Conway, who is an outspoken critic of Trump. She responded, “You wanted to put it in my husband’s voice because you think somehow that will help your ratings or that you’re really sticking it to Kellyanne Conway. And let me make it very clear, you didn’t stick it to Kellyanne Conway. I think you embarrassed yourself and I’m embarrassed for you.”

E. Wolf Blitzer studied journalism at the State University of New York in Buffalo, where he joined the Jewish Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. He basically spent all of his time in the frat house in front of the TV, watching every news program he could find. He wouldn’t even hear his fraternity brothers calling out to him, thus earning him the nickname Laser Wolf because of his laser focus on the headlines. He adopted this nickname as a badge of pride and when he began anchoring a news program on the campus radio station, he called it “The Situation Room with Laser Wolf.” But shortly thereafter, he received a cease and desist letter from a lawyer representing the writers of Fiddler on the Roof which stated, “Your radio show title infringes on our copyright and brings discredit to our character, the butcher Lazar Wolf. Simply put–If Blitzer says he’s Laser Wolf, we pity him so. He’ll broadcast for three weeks. And when three weeks are up. We’ll drag him into court. We’ll guard our copyright. And thus we’ll sue you Blitzer. Litigate you, Blitzer. Prosecute you Blitzer. Here’s our court subpoena if you say you’re Laser Wolf!!!!”

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