(Bloomberg) -- The event was always a head-scratcher.
Donald Trump was to make a campaign stop in deep-blue New York, fewer than 50 days before a presidential election that could very well be decided in the suburbs of Pennsylvania. His audience? College kids who experienced antisemitism. The Location: Gottlieb’s Restaurant, a deli in the heart of Satmar territory — an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic sect whose heterodox views on modernity and Zionism put them at odds with most American Jews.
To political pundits, he was in the wrong burg. Instead of spending time in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the Republican presidential nominee would likely have been better served campaigning in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
But then, on the morning of the event, the death of the owner of the 62-year-old Jewish deli meant the event ended up canceled. It was another unusual moment in what has been an unprecedented presidential campaign.
A few twists, like the cancellation of the NYC gathering, have been merely surprising. Others have been more serious: two attempted assassinations and the replacement of the Democratic candidate just a few months before the election. And some have been simply hard to fathom, such as the extraordinary number of references to animals — from insults over “childless cat ladies,” unfounded rumors of pets being eaten, a bear and even a worm in the brain.
At Gottlieb’s on Thursday, a notice on the door said that the establishment will be closed until the middle of next week because Joseph Gottlieb had passed away. He had died of complications from pneumonia at the age of 75, his son Menashe said.
Just a day earlier, Menashe Gottlieb had been excited about the prospect of the Trump gathering. He went to the synagogue to pray for the success of the event, he told Bloomberg Wednesday.
The US Secret Service first approached him about the event on Sunday, when he was so surprised he thought maybe the whole thing was a prank. But then several agents, snipers and New York City police officials came to talk with him at his restaurant.
By 10 a.m. on Thursday, barricades surrounding the street where the restaurant stands were being gathered up by police officers. A dozen or so bystanders stood around in disbelief, trying to get more information about the canceled Trump visit.
“He’s very pro-Israel, but we are very against Israel, absolutely,” Menashe Gottlieb told Bloomberg on Wednesday, referring to his Satmar sect. “I don’t know how that works together.” But he thinks Trump was a “great president.”
Some Hasidic Jews such as the Satmars don’t support Zionism because they believe the Jewish state should only exist once the Messiah arrives. That doesn’t mean they support violence against Jews in Israel.
The Satmar sect may be anti-Zionist in principle, but its biggest concerns are the rise of antisemitism as well as the progressive left and its impact on religious freedoms, said Max Hauer, a member of the Satmar sect who runs an e-commerce automation software company.
The Trump campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Trump’s main campaign event in New York was in Long Island on Wednesday, when he pledged to lift a cap on the state and local tax deduction valuable to many state’s homeowners that he imposed as president.
The trip took him outside of the swing states likely to determine November’s election outcome. While New York is Trump’s home state — and he has said he thinks he can carry the state — no Republican presidential candidate has won the state since 1984.
A Siena College poll released Thursday shows Vice President Kamala Harris — the Democratic nominee — leading Trump in New York by 55% to 42% among likely voters.
Later on Thursday, Trump will be in Washington, DC, participating in an evening event on fighting antisemitism featuring ally and Republican donor Miriam Adelson. He is also expected to speak at the Israeli American Council’s national summit.
--With assistance from Hadriana Lowenkron.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
