Republican Jewish Coalition decries ‘anti-Semitic invective’ in presidential race

(JTA) — The Republican Jewish Coalition condemned the “troubling increase of anti-Semitic invective” aimed at journalists covering the presidential campaigns, but without singling out the two most widely reported incidents, both involving supporters of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.

“We abhor any abuse of journalists, commentators and writers whether it be from Sanders, Clinton or Trump supporters,” the RJC said in a statement released Tuesday. “There is no room for any of this in any campaign. Journalists, regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity should be free to do their jobs without suffering abuses, anti-Semitic or otherwise.”

Last month, Julia Ioffe, a Jewish reporter who wrote a profile of Trump’s wife Melania for GQ, received multiple death threats and anti-Semitic rhetoric via email, phone calls and on social media from self-identified Trump supporters. She filed a police complaint because of the threats.

On May 19, a New York Times editor, Jonathan Weisman, was flooded with anti-Semitic tweets by self-identified Trump supporters after he wrote disapprovingly about the Ioffe incident and criticized Sheldon Adelson, the casino operator and Republican donor, for urging his fellow Jews to support Trump.

Following the Ioffe incident, the Anti-Defamation League called on Trump “to make unequivocally clear anti-Semitism has no place in presidential politics or American society.”

Trump did not respond to the ADL’s call and said May 5 he has “no message” for what he termed as his “fans” who had attacked Ioffe.

In its statement, the RJC said it “will be making the case that Jewish values are American values and American values are the Republican values of free markets, peace through strength and unwavering support of Israel. Now more than ever our political process should be geared toward a civil discourse focused on solving our most vexing and intractable problems as a country.”