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Jewish groups blasted a call by Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump to deny all Muslims entry to the United States.

“A plan that singles out Muslims and denies them entry to the U.S. based on their religion is deeply offensive and runs contrary to our nation’s deepest values,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement on Dec. 7 hours after Trump, a real estate billionaire and reality TV star, issued his call.

“In the Jewish community, we know all too well what can happen when a particular religious group is singled out for stereotyping and scapegoating,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s CEO. “We also know that this country must not give into fear by turning its back on its fundamental values, even at a time of great crisis.”

Donald Trump addressing the Republican Jewish Coalition on Dec. 3 photo/jta-getty images-alex wong

The American Jewish Committee’s director of policy, Jason Isaacson, noted the timing of Trump’s statement, which called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” coincident with the start of Hanukkah.

“As Jews who are now observing Hanukkah, a holiday that celebrates a small religious minority’s right to live unmolested, we are deeply disturbed by the nativist racism inherent in the candidate’s latest remarks,” Isaacson said.

In his news release, Trump alluded to the massacre of 14 people in San Bernardino last week by a couple apparently radicalized by the Islamic State terrorist group. “Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension,” he said. “Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life.”

Other Jewish groups condemning Trump’s comments included J Street, Bend the Arc, the National Jewish Democratic Council, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America (Orthodox) and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which noted that “the policy would only serve to strengthen ISIS recruitment around the world [by] lumping all Muslims in the crosshairs.”

A different kind of response to the proposal came from the Jewish mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida, who announced that the candidate would be unwelcome in his city. “I am hereby barring Donald Trump from entering St. Petersburg until we fully understand the dangerous threat posed by all Trumps,” Rick Kriseman said on Dec. 7  on Twitter. Kriseman, a Democrat elected in 2013, is the first Jewish mayor in 30 years in the central Florida city of about 250,000.

In announcing Trump’s position, his campaign referenced a poll conducted by the Center for Security Policy think tank in June that claimed a “significant” minority of Muslim Americans embrace “supremacist notions that could pose a threat to America’s security and its constitutional form of government.”

 “If I win the election for President, we are going to Make America Great Again,” the statement said.

According to the Associated Press, Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said the proposed ban on Muslims would apply to “everybody,” including Muslim tourists and those seeking immigration visas. He declined to tell the AP whether the ban would also apply to U.S. citizens who travel outside the country or how he suggested customs and border officials should determine a traveler’s religious identity.

Trump, the front-runner among Republican presidential candidates, sparked controversy in November when he suggested the United States should create a database tracking all Muslims in the country. Several Jewish organizations, including the ADL, condemned the idea, noting its resemblance to registries the Nazis created of Jews at the beginning of the Holocaust. — jta