Donald Trump’s repeated assertion Thursday that “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with” his loss if Kamala Harris prevailed on Election Day set off a mix of outrage and concern among Jewish leaders Friday, raising fears that ardent supporters of the former president could be incited against Jews in an era of rising political violence.

“With all I have done for Israel, I received only 24% of the Jewish vote” in 2020, Trump said in Washington on Thursday afternoon in a speech to a largely Jewish audience at a campaign event billed as about “fighting antisemitism in America.”

“In my opinion, the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” he added.

Shortly after, Trump repeated that argument in a speech at the annual summit of the Israeli American Council, a hawkish pro-Israel and right-leaning group, saying, “If I don’t win this election,” then “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss.”

Jews make up only about 2.4% of the U.S. population, with the biggest concentrations in New York, Florida and California, which are outside the presidential battlegrounds. In an extremely tight election, they could make a difference in swing states, but the same could be said for many other ethnic, religious and racial groups.

And Trump’s comments come at a time when many Jews feel squeezed between overt antisemitism on the right and a rising antisemitic strain among pro-Palestinian activists on the left.

“Preemptively blaming American Jews for your potential election loss does zero to help American Jews,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish-led human rights group, said Friday in response to Trump. “It increases their sense of alienation in a moment of vulnerability when right-wing extremists and left-wing anti-Zionists continually demonize and slander Jews. Let’s be clear, this speech likely will spark more hostility and further inflame an already bad situation. “

Noting that Trump had made his remarks at an event billed as combating antisemitism, Greenblatt added: “Calling out hate is important, but I can’t overstate how the message is diluted and damaged when you employ hate to make your point.”

Trump’s institutional support among right-leaning Jews has remained solid. Matthew Brooks, the longtime head of the Republican Jewish Coalition, staunchly defended the former president’s comments, calling them “Trump being Trump.”

Brooks said his organization had been saying all year that in an extremely tight election, Jewish votes for Trump in swing states could secure victory. All Trump was doing was stating the converse, he argued: that Jewish voters could cost him the election.