Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States. Among the speakers at the ceremony was Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University. Berman prayed that Trump and Vice President Vance “choose the right and the good, unite us around our foundational biblical values of life and liberty, service and sacrifice, and especially of faith and morality.” The first time that clergy offered prayers at a presidential inauguration was in 1937, when Franklin Roosevelt’s second inauguration included an invocation by Chaplain ZeBarney Thorne Phillips and a benediction by Father John A. Ryan. The first rabbi to participate was at Harry Truman’s inauguration in 1949, when Rabbi Samuel Thurman of the United Hebrew Congregation in St. Louis offered a prayer. Since then, most, but not all, presidential inaugurations have included a rabbi in the ceremony. What rabbi spoke at a presidential inauguration and then at a later time criticized that President?

President Roosevelt's Inauguration Address (15075354530) by SMU Central University Libraries is in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons

A. Rabbi Thurman, who had offered the prayer at Harry Truman’s inauguration. In 1950 he criticized Truman for remarks made at the Washington Hebrew Congregation commemorating the Holocaust, because Truman failed to mention Israel.

B. Rabbi Seymour Siegel, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, offered a prayer at the second inauguration of Richard Nixon in 1973. Years later, when the Nixon tapes were released, Siegel heard the many antisemitic comments by Nixon (eg, “The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality”) and he stated that in hindsight he regretted having participated in the inauguration.

C. Rabbi Marvin Heir, Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, offered a benediction at Donald Trump’s first inauguration, in 2017. Heir criticized Trump later that month for offering remarks on International Holocaust Memorial Day that failed to specifically mention Jews.

D. Rabbi Abraham Rosenberg from Congregation Bnai Brith Jacob in Savannah, Georgia, offered the benediction at Jimmy Carter’s inauguration in 1977. In 2006, he criticized Carter upon the publication of Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, noting that apartheid was not an appropriate description of the situation of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

E. Rabbi Amal E. Litella spoke at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961. He later criticized President Kennedy for what he called antisemitic remarks, when he heard Kennedy say the famous words, “Ask not what your country can do for Jew—ask what Jew can do for your country.” Told that Kennedy said, “you,” not “Jew,” Rabbi Litella replied, “Oh, that’s very different. Never mind!”

Click here for the answer.

✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡