Trump criticized for using an anti -Semitic insult in Iowa’s speech

The Jewish defense groups criticized President Donald Trump for using an anti -Semitic descriptor on Thursday during his Iowa speech that celebrated the approval of his expense bill.

Trump used the term “Shylocks”, which evokes an anti -Semitic trope of centenarians about Jews and greed, to talk about tax changes in the bill.

“Without death tax, without equity tax, without going to the examination of banks and bars, in some cases a good banker, and in some cases Shylocks and bad people, but they took a lot of family. They destroyed many families, but we did the opposite,” he told the crowd.

Shylock is a reference to the name of the Jewish lender and villain in “the merchant of Venice” of the playwright William Shakespeare that demands a “pound of flesh” by the protagonist Antonio.

The Anti-Defamation League on Friday morning criticized the president, reiterating that the term is “extremely offensive and dangerous.”

“The use of President Trump’s term is very worrying and irresponsible. He emphasizes how lies and conspiracies about Jews remain deeply rooted in our country. The words of our leaders are important and we expect more from the president of the United States,” the organization said in a statement.

Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council of Public Affairs, also condemned Trump’s comments, saying in a statement that he was one of the “anti -Semitic stereotypes more par excellence.”

“This is not an accident. It follows years in which Trump has normalized antiseemitic tropes and conspiracy theories, and is deeply dangerous,” he added.

Trump was asked about his use of the word after returning to Washington DC on early Friday. The president, who has made the combination of anti -Semitism in schools a priority in his administration, said “has never heard it like that.”

“For me, Shylock is someone who is a money lender to high rates. I have never heard it that way. You see it differently than me. I’ve never heard that,” Trump said.

This is not the first time that a member of the executive branch was criticized for using the term.

In 2014, then Vice President Joe Biden took heat for using the deadline during the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Legal Services Corporation, referring to predatory bankers such as “these Shylocks who took advantage of these women and men abroad.”

Biden apologized after the then national director of Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, criticized the use of the term.

“He is correct, it was a bad choice of words, particularly when he said that he came from” someone so friendly with the Jewish community and opens and tolerated an individual as Vice President Joe Biden is. “He is right,” Biden said in a statement.

Benjamin Siegel of ABC News contributed to this report.