Donald Trump drew ire from the Jewish community during his first administration for never appointing a Jewish community liaison, making himself the first president not to do so since Jimmy Carter first appointed Edward Sanders to the role in 1978.
As Trump begins appointing his new cabinet, Jewish advisors and organization leaders discussed the value of having a Jewish liaison for the White House and the Jewish community during a panel on Monday at the North American Jewish Federations General Assembly.
Chanan Weissman served as the Jewish liaison during the final year of the Obama administration and also served in the role for a year during the Biden administration. He is now the director of the SAPIR Institute at the Maimonides Fund.
Weissman wouldn't be surprised if Trump once again doesn't fill the liaison position, but said appointing a Jewish leader to the role is a reflection that American Jews are a minority community and acknowledges that Jews play a central role in the makeup of the country.
"We are part of the fabric, and so it's critically important for us to have a voice," he added. "It's quite important also for the White House to have access to that stakeholder group."
Weissman argued that while Jared Kushner unofficially acted as a branch of the Jewish community, he only had relationships with certain individuals from certain parts of the community. Weissman said that the role of the liaison is to be the open door for all members of the Jewish community, regardless of how much power or influence they have.
Jewish liaison in White House
Elan Carr, who Trump tapped as the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism two years into his administration after relentless pushing from the Jewish community, bore some of the brunt of the absence of a Jewish liaison, which he described as "a little hiccup."
Calls and requests from Jewish community leaders to the White House were diverted to Carr's desk because it wasn't made clear who from the White House was responsible for these issues.
"It's better to have a Jewish liaison," Carr said on Monday during the panel. "We lived without one, and we did okay. But it's better to have one."
It's all about relationships, Carr said, noting how having a relationship with the President, secretary of state, or high-ranking senior staff can make a dramatic difference in having things considered.
Elan argued for taking fights with the administration to the public, whereas Daroff made a case for keeping arguments between the Jewish community and the administration private.
Carr also said it doesn't matter which administration it is, "we all have to unite around the President of the United States.
While the Jewish community can exert its voices, Elan said, "We can't screw over the President or his cabinet or really each other."
"No matter what political perspective we have, it's just bad for the Jews to breach the trust of the President or his administration," he said.
Weissman politely disagreed, noting that the majority of American Jews voted for Harris and cited democracy as the number one concern driving their vote.
"We also have to hold him to account when he undermines certain core principles," Weissman said. "Yes, there are moments where we have to shed our partisan sense of self and express our appreciation, and there are moments where we have to forgo the most powerful person in the world, especially if he does things to undermine some of the liberal dimensions of the Democratic nature of the country."
Whether there's a liaison or not, it's important for Jewish organizations to know who the right people are in Congress and the administration to go to to make sure they're having the right conversations with the right people within the administration for Jewish organizations to engage them with, William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said.
Daroff also emphasized bipartisanship, noting that parties and individuals come in and out of power.
"I think it's just incredibly important for our community to maintain relations across the aisle, to engage when we feel comfortable engaging," he said. "And be sure that there are relationships there for issues that are so important to us."
Daroff added that he'd encourage the Trump administration to "continue what we've seen over this last week" by having a more orderly transition and an orderly public liaison function within the White House.