Disloyal Jew

Here is an appropriate response to President Trump’s senseless comment, “I think any Jewish
people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”  Donald Trump. President of the United States.”

No one has to prove his/her loyalty to anyone. Loyalty, faithfulness, and love are personal feelings, the love you have for your mother/land is between you and the mother and not anyone’s business.

I admire this poem by Reb Irwin Keller.

“Disloyal Jew”

By Reb Irwin Keller

[Reb Keller’s website is https://www.irwinkeller.com/   He lives in Sonoma County California and is a student member of Ohalah, the Association of Rabbis for Jewish Renewal.}

I am a disloyal Jew.

I am not loyal to a political party.

Nor will I be loyal to dictators and mad kings.

I am not loyal to walls or cages.

I am not loyal to taunts or tweets.

I am not loyal to hatred, to Jew-baiting, to the gloating connivings of white supremacy.

I am a disloyal Jew.

I am not loyal to any foreign power.

Nor to abuse of power at home.

I am not loyal to a legacy of conquest, erasure and exploitation

I am not loyal to stories that tell me whom I should hate.

I am a loyal Jew.

I am loyal to the inconveniences of kindness.

I am loyal to the dream of justice.

I am loyal to this suffering Earth

And to all life.

I am not loyal to any founding fathers.

But I am loyal to the children who will come

And to the quality of world, we leave them.

I am not loyal to what America has become.

But to what America could be.

I am loyal to Emma Lazarus. To huddled masses.

To freedom and welcome,

Holiness, hope and love.