Trump’s choice of centuries-old trope angers Jewish leaders

President Donald Trump takes the stage at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines on Thursday to kickoff of America250, a yearlong series of events to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding. Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times

Image

By Tyler Pager

The New York Times

Jewish leaders denounced President Donald Trump on Friday for using the term “Shylock” at a rally in Iowa the previous evening.

During a wide-ranging riff about taxes, Trump said Thursday that farmers should not be forced to go to, “in some cases, Shylocks and bad people” to borrow money to pay estate taxes, though most Americans are not subject to those taxes. In 2025, the threshold to pay estate taxes for a couple was $28 million.

After the rally, when asked about his remark, Trump said he had never heard that the word was an antisemitic slur but thought it referred to usury. In fact, the term comes from Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” in which a character named Shylock is a Jewish moneylender.

“This is blatant and vile antisemitism, and Trump knows exactly what he’s doing,” Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., said on social media. “Anyone who truly opposes antisemitism calls it out wherever it occurs — on both extremes — as I do.”

Trump has said that countering antisemitism is a priority of his presidency. He has cut federal funding for universities, arguing that they are bastions of antisemitism, and his administration has stripped the visas of people who have participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

In 2014, Vice President Joe Biden apologized after he used the word “Shylocks” during a speech.

But many of Trump’s critics say he often traffics in antisemitic tropes and fails to condemn antisemitism.

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said the word was “one of the most recognizable antisemitic slurs in the English language.”

“Today’s speech shows that antisemitism in the Trump Administration is the rule not the exception, and emanates from the very top,” Nadler wrote on social media. “If Donald Trump were serious about fighting antisemitism, he could start with himself.”

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy group, also criticized Trump’s use of the word. “The term ‘Shylock’ evokes a centuries-old antisemitic trope about Jews and greed that is extremely offensive and dangerous,” the group posted on social media.