Simon Schama: Donald Trump is insensitive to Jews

British historian Simon Schama called U.S. President Donald Trump “wicked” for appearing to support an unfounded claim that investment magnate George Soros is financing the caravan of migrants heading north from Central America.

Schama charged that the president gave credence to “outrageous” anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about the billionaire, when he told reporters on Oct. 31 that he “wouldn’t be at all surprised” if the claim was true. Soros, who is Jewish, is a huge donor to the Democratic Party and was one of the 14 critics of Trump who was targeted by mailed pipe bombs.

Schama said this was “a wicked thing to say.” The president’s failure to speak out against “the demonizing of Soros as this secretive banker, this manipulator, is a shanda.… He can’t be innocent of the organized attack on Soros as a Jew,” Schama said while answering a question, following his keynote Jewish Book Month lecture at the Jewish Public Library in Montreal on Nov. 1.

“It’s extraordinary to me that these 3,000 Hondurans, mostly women and children, are being represented by Trump as perpetrators of the very things they are fleeing,” said Schama, who said the migration reminds him of the many Jews who have had to run from the countries they lived in.

Schama, a Columbia University professor known for his BBC television documentaries and books, also expressed disgust at Trump’s apparently joking complaint about having “a bad hair day,” after getting wet during a news conference about the deadly Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

Trump, Schama said, has “no sensibility” with regard to Jews.”