LISTEN: Trump may end up redefining Jewish American identity

Supporters of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump attend an election campaign rally, Jerusalem, October 26, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Supporters of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump attend an election campaign rally, Jerusalem, October 26, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

By Dahlia Scheindlin and Gilad Halpern

Northeastern Professor Dov Waxman’s book, Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel (2016) was published before envisioning Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office. Gilad Halpern and I hosted him on our podcast, the Tel Aviv Review, a couple of days after Trump’s inauguration, to try and understand whether — and how — a divisive and irascible commander-in-chief, and his unorthodox views on Israel, would affect the debate that his book unpacks.

Trump, Waxman told us, will likely exacerbate the already raging conflict on the very essence of the Jewish-American identity. And in it, Israel is simply part of the furniture.