The Anti-Defamation League just released its annual report on anti-Semitism in the United States. Guess what? The number of incidents from last year has nearly doubled, to almost 2,000. This past weekend, six months to the day since the worst anti-Semitic incident in American history occurred, another synagogue was attacked. Within the last two months, Muslims were gunned down in New Zealand, soon followed by a massacre of Christians praying in their churches in Sri Lanka.

In the interim, between the two synagogue attacks, Donald Trump was applauded by Jewish groups despite calling into question their identity and loyalty as Americans. He also reaffirmed that he was not a supporter of white nationalism despite having called himself one, and, in Charlottesville, Virginia two years ago, calling the White Supremacists and neo-Nazis who marched, “fine people.” In the same period of time, Trump relocated the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, an area seized from Syria in 1967 during the Six Day War. He also timed these events to coincide with Israel’s national elections in order to help his good friend and Jewish mirror-image (although the Israeli Prime Minister is demonstrably smarter than his American counterpart) “Bibi” Netanyahu, win re-election.

What’s the connection between all this? It really isn’t difficult to discern: racism, politics, and an implicit reawakening of the historical divide between support for a Jewish state and the health of American Jewry.

Regarding racism, rather than repeat myself from previous posts, let me quote from Dana Milbank, columnist for The Washington Post. On April 30th he wrote, in reference to the the California synagogue attack: “The great times for anti-Semites come after Trump joked about Jews being money-grubbing, tweeted an anti-Semitic image, declined to call off supporters threatening anti-Semitic violence, and echoed anti-Semitic tropes about “globalists” while stoking conspiracy theories about prominent Jewish Americans, particularly Jewish American George Soros, who was sent a bomb by a Trump backer.” As his colleague at The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, wrote the same day: “The president, primarily through his unconstitutional rhetoric, has fostered an atmosphere in which hate-filled white supremacists feel motivated, vindicated and emboldened to act.”

For Trump, beyond having a difficulty with Jews, he is obviously comfortable in using his racism for political gain. The extreme end of the populist movement is where we find the white supremacists; their candidate and ideological partner is Mr. Trump. Personal history, and a repeated failure to denounce these haters, makes that clear.

Finally, we must examine American Jewry and its often difficult relationship with both the concept and reality of a Jewish state, especially in the years leading up to its founding in 1948.

Many American Jews, along with their respective organizations, were opposed to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, especially in the period between the two world wars. Their argument was essentially that such an endeavor would raise anew the issue of dual loyalty at a time when their very safety was at threat. Once the dimensions of the Holocaust were evident, much of the opposition to securing a place of safety for the remnants of European Jewry, was diminished. Today, thanks to Donald Trump, that loyalty issue arises anew, with its concomitant hateful—and sometimes violent—fallout. This has, in turn, been accompanied by an American Jewish community that is clearly (most polls indicate), moving left-of-center. Currently, Jews evidence more concern with upholding their liberal Jewish values than with supporting a Jewish state whose politics and society are increasingly alien to them. That may be good for the future of American Jewry, but bodes troublesome for a Jewish state that needs American security assurances along with the political clout of American Jews.

This is where we are today: a strong—but thankfully small—element of American Jewry supports an American President whose attitudes and behavior towards Jews is highly problematic. Why? They claim he is “good for Israel.” The health and well-being of American Jewry be damned.