Trump to meet with Orthodox Jewish group on heels of Fuentes, Ye dinner

Former president Donald Trump is set to meet with a Orthodox Jewish educational group on Friday, amid ongoing controversy over his decision to dine with two prominent antisemites.

Trump will give a speech before the annual President’s Conference of Torah Umesorah at his club, National Doral, in Miami, a person close to Trump confirmed. The event is part of a days-long gathering that brings together leaders, educators and askanim (Jewish social workers) for the group, which promotes Torah-based religious education and Jewish private day schools.

The event comes at a particularly delicate time for Trump. Over the Thanksgiving holiday break, the former president hosted a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach with Ye (better known as Kanye West) and white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

Trump subsequently insisted he had no idea who Fuentes was at the time. But he has stopped short of denouncing his or West’s views, which include repeated attacks on Jews as well as — in Fuentes' case — Holocaust denialism.

"I had never heard of the man — I had no idea what his views were, and they weren’t expressed at the table in our very quick dinner, or it wouldn't have been accepted," Trump told Fox News.

Last week, Trump attacked "Jewish Leaders" for lack of loyalty to him and forgetting his record on Israel, in a post on his social media site, Truth Social.

The Orthodox Jewish community has hewed far more conservative politically than reform and even conservative Jews. And the Republican Party has courted them accordingly. Torah Umesorah has hosted several prior annual president’s conference events at Trump’s Doral club.