The political action committee of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, JDCA PAC, released an ad on Tuesday featuring the Jewish mourner’s Kaddish in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial actions and video statements about COVID-19 after he returned to the White House on Monday. The president had spent three nights at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center being treated for symptoms associated with the coronavirus.
The jarring ad features a photo of a stone about to be put on top of a grave marker that already consists of stones on top of it, in lieu of flowers and in accordance with Jewish tradition.
Alongside the Kaddish being recited is audio of Trump’s past statements on the pandemic, such as “It is what it is,” as an increasing number of COVID-19 deaths flash across the screen. To date, more than 7.5 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with COVID-19 with nearly 215,000 recorded deaths as a result of the highly infectious disease.
The ad ends with the word “VOTE” at the conclusion of the Kaddish.
Jewish voters mourn the more than 210,000 American lives lost to COIVD-19. Our loss is magnified by the knowledge that this tragedy could have been avoided.
President Trump has shown he is incapable of protecting us from this pandemic.
We must vote for change. pic.twitter.com/L51E7D8hDH
— Jewish Dems (@USJewishDems) October 6, 2020
“The Jewish community is in mourning due to the devastating human loss of from the coronavirus, and many of us are saying Kaddish. Each Saturday, my father and I attended shul together until he contracted and succumbed to the virus a few months ago,” said JDCA chairman and former Rep. Ron Klein (D-Fla.) in a statement. “The Jewish community in South Florida, including my own family, has been deeply impacted by this devastating disease. The magnitude of this tragedy could have been avoided.”
Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matt Brooks told JNS, “This ad does nothing to win over undecided voters; it’s awful. If a voter already feels Trump mishandled the virus, then they’re already voting for [Joe] Biden … couple that with the fact that they aren’t spending any money on it, and it all adds up to a big zero.”
The ad is actually part of a $250,000 ad campaign by JDCA PAC.
And it comes one week after JDCA PAC released an ad comparing Trump’s America to Nazi Germany. Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, including the American Jewish Committee, slammed the ad, which was released just days after Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden compared Trump to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.