Statement by Reform Movement Leader on Presidential Candidate Donald Trump's Campaign Ad

WASHINGTON – Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, made the following statement in regard to presidential candidate Donald J. Trump's recently released campaign ad: 

We denounce, in the strongest possible terms, the use of contemptuous and historically anti-Semitic tropes in the recent campaign ad of presidential candidate Donald Trump. References to 'the establishment' and a 'global power structure,' juxtaposed over images of Jewish public figures, create thinly-veiled allusions to centuries-old anti-Semitic propaganda.  

This latest ad is, regrettably, part of a pattern of the use of such words and imagery that has been repeated by the Trump campaign over many months. There is no place in civil political discourse for the perpetuation of harmful and baseless stereotypes. It is the responsibility of every candidate for elected office to promote the interests of all Americans, without resorting to dangerously xenophobic and otherwise bigoted rhetoric or insinuations.

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The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is the Washington office of the Union for Reform Judaism, whose nearly 900 congregations across North America encompass 1.5 million Reform Jews, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis, whose membership includes more than 2,000 Reform rabbis. Visit www.rac.org for more.