Former US President Donald Trump spoke to the annual President's Conference of Torah Umesorah at his club, National Doral, in Miami, on Friday. Trump began by welcoming several of the rabbis in attendance, noting that one "Is slightly over seventy years old, but looks much younger than that" and that another "Still looks like a young man...there’s something nice about being a rabbi, I think. You look beautiful." And then he proceeded to read and amplify, throughout the rest of his speech, excerpts from Arutz Sheva columnist Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer's article , posted on December 4th, titled: "On Trump, Kanye, Biscuit, Jews and dinners". He mentions Rabbi Fischer at about 4:45 minutes into the recording. "Trump formally recognized united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel...and we moved the embassy, as you know, to Jerusalem." "We commuted the antisemitic lowa prison sentence of Sholom Rubashkin," Trump said. The statement was met with exceptional cheers, prompting Trump to inquire: "That gets a bigger hand than Jerusalem?" Sholom Rubashkin, a kosher meat executive who was found guilty in 2009 of 86 counts of bank fraud, was sentenced to 27 years in prison. Trump commuted his sentence in 2017. Trump asked after his welfare, saying: "Is he still healthy? Is he still around?" and then noted that "Every time I mention that, it gets a bigger hand than anything else. That was a terrible thing...I should have done that and just left." Related articles: 'Trump disavowal of deportation of Gazans is encouraging' Adam Boehler removed from Gaza hostage negotiatons Hamas welcomes Trump's statement on Gaza residents Trump: 'Nobody's expelling any Palestinians' “It doesn’t make sense that Jewish people and people that love Israel would choose a Democrat for president. How do you do that? How do you do that when they’re really inducing the possible destruction of Israel? Somebody in this room may explain it one day, but I don’t understand it. I am honored to do it but it doesn’t make sense.” Trump cited his own 2019 State of the Union address, in which he said the US “must never ignore the vile poison of antisemitism or those who spread its venomous creed. With one voice, we must confront this hatred anywhere and everywhere it occurs.” Trump reiterated his claims of electoral interference in 2020, stating, “If the election wasn’t rigged and stolen all of the Arab countries would have signed onto the Abraham Accords, the normalization deals with Israel. We kind of had them all waiting in line.” Trump's speech ended with “one little piece of advice that I think is very important...Congress is almost anti-Israel, I would say very much opposed to Israel and frankly to Jewish people. You have to treat your friends with respect, you have to treat your friends with dignity and you have to be loyal to those friends.”
