Friday, August 9, 2024
For immediate release
Contact: William Epstein, 610-505-6105
The members of the board of Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania (DJOP) said
today that remarks on antisemitism made by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave
McCormick and Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance, “are totally inconsistent with their
long silence in the face of repeated outrageously antisemitic comments by their party’s
leader, Donald Trump.”
Jill Zipin, Chair of the state-wide political action committee, said the claim by McCormick
and Vance that Kamala Harris’ pick of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz over Pennsylvania
Gov. Josh Shapiro is antisemitic “is phony MAGA double talk that seeks to use
antisemitism and Israel as wedge issues to divide our nation, not bring it together.”
Zipin said:
“McCormick and Vance are not qualified to talk about the motives of Kamala Harris in
selecting her Vice Presidential running mate. And they certainly are not qualified to talk
about antisemitism.
“Where were they when Donald Trump said there were ‘some very fine people’
marching with torches and chanting ‘Jews will not replace us’ in Charlottesville in
August of 2017? Where did Trump see ‘fine people?’
“Where were McCormick and Vance when Donald Trump called us ‘absolute fools’ and
said we ‘should have our heads examined’ if we vote for Democrats?
“Where were they when Donald Trump said Vice President Harris ‘doesn’t like Jewish
people’ — even though her husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish?
“Where were they when Donald Trump agreed with a New York City radio interviewer
who called Doug Emhoff ‘a crappy Jew?’
“Where were they when Trump repeatedly accused us of ‘dual loyalty’ and spoke about
American Jews as if Israel is their country, rather than the United States, and referred to
Benjamin Netanyahu as ‘your Prime Minister’ and the American ambassador as ‘your
ambassador’ while in the company of American Jews?
“And where were they when Donald Trump had dinner with Nick Fuentes and defied
credibility by saying he knew nothing about Fuentes’ racist, antisemitic, pro-Hitler
tirades?
“To Connecticut Dave McCormick and JD Vance we say, ‘Thanks, just the same, for
your advice. But, unlike Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz, you don’t know the first
thing about antisemitism.”
