This past Saturday, Donald Trump visited a Baptist church in Detroit. It was another recent opportunity for him to get some face time with the African American community after polls showed he had virtually zero support within that demographic. An odd thing happened at the Great Faith Ministries in Detroit, however, when Bishop Wayne Jackson wrapped Trump's shoulders in a tallit (Jewish prayer shawl) that the minister said was from Israel.
"This is a prayer shawl straight from Israel," Bishop Wayne Jackson said. "Whenever you're flying from coast to coast -- I know you just came back from Mexico and you’ll be flying from city to city -- there is an anointing. And anointing is the power of God. It's going to be sometimes in your life that you're going to feel forsaken, you're going to feel down, but the anointing is going to lift you up. I prayed over this personally and I fasted over it, and I wanted to just put this on you."
"This is a prayer shawl straight from Israel," Bishop Wayne Jackson said. "Whenever you're flying from coast to coast -- I know you just came back from Mexico and you’ll be flying from city to city -- there is an anointing. And anointing is the power of God. It's going to be sometimes in your life that you're going to feel forsaken, you're going to feel down, but the anointing is going to lift you up. I prayed over this personally and I fasted over it, and I wanted to just put this on you."
The response from most in the Jewish community was quick and critical. Many argued that a gentile like Donald Trump wearing a tallit was a form of cultural appropriation. At the very least, many maintained, this act was inappropriate and certainly puzzling. My first inclination was to rush to blog about this as an offensive act because a tallit, contrary to a yarmulke (kippah), is a Jewish religious garb based on a mitzvah (commandment) that mandates only Jews are to wear it. After reflecting on the situation at Great Faith Ministries and reading other comments about it, however, I don't think Trump can be held accountable for this. I also don't think it can simply be chalked up as cultural appropriation.
On Sunday morning, I posted the photo above of Trump wearing the tallit and jokingly captioned it, "I lent my bar mitzvah tallis to a Baptist church in Detroit over the weekend. Hope it gets to the dry cleaners before it's returned." The discussion that ensued was actually helpful for me to understand what happened and how to characterize it. The bottom line is that Trump was surprised by the gift of the tallit and did what most people in his situation would have done. The headlines that proclaimed that Trump "donned a tallit" were inaccurate. He didn't place the tallit over his own shoulders and it appears obvious that he didn't choose to have it placed on his shoulders.
