President Donald Trump addresses the 2016 American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington, D.C. Following the president's remarks on violence in Charlottesville, AIPAC urged officials to "reject moral equivalence." | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Jewish Republicans reject Trump's take on Charlottesville violence

Jewish Republicans rejected Donald Trump’s comments in response to violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, but it doesn’t appear the president is facing further consequences from the small but vital GOP constituency over what they saw as a failure to adequately denounce crowds that shouted anti-Semitic chants and hoisted Nazi flags last weekend.

The Republican Jewish Coalition in a statement called for Trump to show greater leadership after he seemed Tuesday to equate neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan demonstrators with those protesting them. Matt Brooks, executive director of the RJC, would not say whether members plan any further steps to warn the president.


"People are scared and frightened and disgusted by the events of Charlottesville," Brooks told POLITICO on Thursday. "It's incredible in this time and place in our American history that we're dealing with the scourge of vile neo-Nazis and white supremacists. It's just intolerable."

Brooks also would not disclose any conversations with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson, who sits on the RJC's board but has not personally weighed in.

Still, some Republican strategists are nervous about turning off a group that regularly votes, raises money and donates to candidates. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her family are Jewish, as are several of the president’s top aides. But his statement that there were “very fine people” amid those protesting the planned removal of a Confederate statue — who chanted, among other things, “Jews will not replace us” — shocked supporters and critics alike.

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"Getting this right is life and death for the Republican Party. You can't have a Republican Party that people believe is a racist party," said Rick Tyler, a Trump critic and former communications director for Sen. Ted Cruz, who aggressively courted Republican Jews in his own 2016 presidential bid. "The Republican Jewish community provides a lot of support for the Republican Party, particularly financial support."

The RJC — which asked Trump to “provide greater moral clarity in rejecting racism, bigotry, and antisemitism” — was more direct than the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which issued a statement Thursday urging “all elected officials to reject moral equivalence between those who promote hate and those who oppose it.”

But AIPAC’s statement was nonetheless a striking rebuke given the group’s past praise of Trump’s hawkish stance on Israel and as-yet-unfulfilled vow to move the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Tennessee Rep. David Kustoff, one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, called on "White Supremacists, the KKK, neo-Nazis and all groups that preach hate" to be "explicitly condemned." The other, Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, followed Trump in placing blame on “both sides” for violence that culminated in the death of a woman after a car plowed into a crowd of counter-protesters.

But Zeldin added: "These two sides are not equal. They are different."

Nonpartisan Jewish groups, like the Anti-Defamation League, have been more direct in criticizing Trump's rhetoric.

It's not the first time Trump has angered the American Jewish community. Many were baffled and offended when his White House put out a statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day that made no mention of the Jews who were killed.

Fred Zeidman, a member of the RJC board of directors and a former George W. Bush appointee to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, praised his group's leadership for taking a stand after the Charlottesville violence.

"We know the issues that evolve from remaining silent, and we can't remain silent," he told POLITICO on Thursday. "We know what happens when we remain silent."

