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Remembering the Hostages

Trump makes first visit to Lubavitcher rebbe’s gravesite 

The former president prays for the release of hostages at the Ohel; Vance calls for Hamas’ defeat at Oct. 7 event in D.C.

Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump places a rock on a tombstone as Ben Shapiro watches at Ohel Chabad Lubavitch on October 07, 2024 in New York City.

Former President Donald Trump made his first visit to the gravesite of the Lubavitcher rebbe in Queens, New York, on Monday, hours before participating in an event in Florida to commemorate Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks. 

Meanwhile, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), his running mate, was in Washington, D.C., to deliver an address at a pro-Israel gathering on the National Mall.

Wearing a black kippah, Trump appeared at the tomb of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Ohel, where he prayed for the release of the hostages in Gaza. The former president was joined, among others, by family members of Edan Alexander, one of four American captives still being held by Hamas.

Trump’s team initiated the Monday afternoon visit, according to a source familiar with the situation who asked to remain anonymous to discuss a confidential matter. “They wanted this to happen,” the source told Jewish Insider after the event.

The visit was described by Chabad, the Hasidic movement led by Schneerson until his death in 1994, as “the continuation of a family tradition” for Trump, whose daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have visited the Ohel in recent election cycles.

The gravesite in New York City draws an estimated 400,000 visitors annually, according to a Chabad spokesperson, and in recent weeks has seen visits from Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, and Edi Rama, the prime minister of Albania, among other world leaders.

Trump’s stop at the Ohel — where he was also joined by billionaire investor Howard Lutnick, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro and Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch — marked the latest in a growing number of Jewish outreach events in the lead-up to the November election, including with the Hasidic community, where polls show he maintains overwhelming support.

Last month, for instance, the former president was scheduled to visit a kosher deli in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, which is home to a sizable Satmar community, but the campaign event was canceled at the last minute when the deli’s owner died unexpectedly.

The former president has also given remarks at two recent events on countering antisemitism organized by Orthodox business partners Yehuda Kaploun and Ed Russo, including last month in Washington, D.C.

Following the pit stop in Queens, Trump was set to participate in a gathering on Monday evening at his Doral golf resort in Miami to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 attack.

“The atrocities, including the slaughtering and capturing of innocent Israelis and Americans, that took place on Oct. 7 would have never happened if President Trump were still in the White House,” a Trump campaign spokesperson said in a statement on Monday, echoing a claim the former president had stated repeatedly throughout the election.

Earlier on Monday, Trump drew increased scrutiny after claiming in an interview with Hugh Hewitt that “Israel has to do one thing. They have to get smart about Trump, because they don’t back me.”

“I did more for Israel than anybody. I did more for the Jewish people than anybody,” Trump added. “And it’s not reciprocal, as they say, not reciprocal.”

Vance, meanwhile, delivered the keynote address at the ​​Philos Project’s memorial rally, which preceded a march on the Mall in support of the hostages. The crowd of about 100 leapt to their feet, chanting “U.S.A., U.S.A.,” as the Ohio senator took the stage. 

“In this crowd, some of us are Christians, some of us are Jews, some of us are people even of no faith, but we are united in the basic common sense principle that we want the good guys to win and we want the bad guys to lose. What happened on October the 7th was disgraceful, and we have to fight to make sure it never happens again,” Vance said in his 13-minute speech, during which he described Oct. 7 as “one of the worst terrorist attacks in the last 30 years, and I think certainly the worst terrorist attack since 9/11.”

“This is not just a dispute about territory or borders. This is a war between a peaceful nation and terrorists who want to exterminate the Jewish people and eradicate the state of Israel forever,” he continued. “What Hamas started on October the 7th now threatens to erupt into a widespread war. And I speak for Donald Trump, and I think I speak for all Americans in saying that we want peace. We want the real peace that can only exist in the region when Hamas is defeated.”

Vance wore a dog tag to represent his support for the hostages during the address, arguing that doing so represented “a simple principle: whatever your faith, whatever your political beliefs, I think that all of us can unite to say, bring them home.”

He urged anti-Israel protesters and those who chant “from the river, to the sea,” to “educate” themselves about the slogan, which has been a rallying cry for terrorist groups calling for Israel’s destruction. He cautioned that such a message was “going to lead to the genocide of millions of people.”

“I know there are a lot of Americans who will go to protests and chant this slogan, ‘from the river to the sea,’ without knowing what it actually means. So I’d ask Americans who chant that terrible thing, ask yourself what river and what sea? When you say ‘from the river to the sea,’ what you are fundamentally promoting and fundamentally celebrating is the end of a Jewish state altogether. Educate yourselves about what you’re actually saying,” he told the crowd. 

Vance also pledged that a second Trump administration would “stop funding anti-American and anti-Jewish radicals,” “bring home American hostages, wherever they’re held and whoever is holding them” and “give Israel the right and the ability to finish what Hamas started.” 

“We’re going to say, if you’re an elite university, if you’re using federal money to harass Jewish students, we’re going to resolutely stand against anti-Jewish hate, and we’re going to go after the accreditation and the federal support of colleges,” he vowed.

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