Rabbi Shmuley Boteach blasted White House hopeful Cory Booker for using the Jewish Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament, to attack President Trump.
In response to Trump’s comment that American Jews who voted for anti-Israel and anti-Semitic Democrats were being “disloyal” to themselves, Sen. Booker told an interviewer in Iowa that Trump was not displaying the Jewish values of tzedakah (charity) and chesed (kindness). “The word tzedakah — I know you’re not a Torah scholar — it not only is used to talk about charity and decency and mercy, it’s actually the word for justice as well. We need to get back to that, to being good to each other,” he told the interviewer.
Rabbi Boteach responded in a statement: “The Torah is not to be weaponized politically. Nor is it to be used for political gain in contravention of core convictions. You cannot quote from the Torah about love and kindness, all of which I taught Cory in hundreds of hours of Torah learning at Oxford, while not condemning Iran’s plans to annihilate six million Jews in Israel, just as the Germans murdered six million of our brethren in Europe.”