Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman write passionate plea for 'fellow Jews' to decry Trump

Authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman are calling upon people who practice Judaism to denounce President Donald Trump for “his racism, white supremacism, intolerance and Jew hatred.”

The literary couple released an open letter on Thursday, after the president’s claims that some people who attended the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, were “innocent” and “very fine people.”

They called upon all of the Jewish members of Trump’s administration (including Steven Mnuchin, Gary Cohn, the President’s lawyer Michael D. Cohen, and more) to resign. They had an even stronger ultimatum for Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, writing, “To Jared Kushner: You have one minute to do whatever it takes to keep the history of your people from looking back on you as among its greatest traitors, and greatest fools; that minute is nearly past.”

The authors also addressed the government of Israel and implored the fellow members of their faith who support the president to reconsider their opinion.

“Among all the bleak and violent truths that found confirmation or came slouching into view amid the torchlight of Charlottesville is this: Any Jew, anywhere, who does not act to oppose President Donald Trump and his administration acts in favor of anti-Semitism; any Jew who does not condemn the President, directly and by name, for his racism, white supremacism, intolerance and Jew hatred, condones all of those things,” they wrote. “To our fellow Jews, in North America, in Israel, and around the world: What side are you on?”

Chabon and Waldman are both Jewish, and Waldman was born in Jerusalem.

Read the full letter here.

Chabon and Waldman are among a number of prominent celebrities, politicians, and world leaders to condemn President Trump. On Twitter, Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote: “Outraged by expressions of anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism and racism. Everyone should oppose this hatred.”