A group of leading Jewish conservatives has joined forces for an unlikely crusade: to defend the Christian Coalition, the nation’s largest religious right organization.
Adding to the twist, this group of Jews is defending the Coalition from a perceived attack by the Anti-Defamation League, a mainstream Jewish organization.
And yet, while supportive of the Christian Coalition’s conservative domestic political agenda, some of its Jewish allies seem largely unfamiliar with the views on Jews and Israel articulated by the group’s leader, Pat Robertson.
Seventy-five Jewish supporters of the evangelical group recently signed onto a prominent advertisement in The New York Times on behalf of the Coalition.
The Aug. 2 ad castigated the ADL for being unfair to a group the signatories consider to be one of Israel’s and the Jewish community’s best friends.
At issue was a recently published ADL study calling the religious right, led by Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition, “a threat to pluralism and tolerance in America.”
In the five years of the Christian Coalition’s existence it has been highly successful in shaping the agenda of the Republican Party nationally and getting its candidates elected at the local level across the country — to boards of education, library boards and planning commissions.
Signatories to The New York Times ad included some of the conservative Jewish world’s leading lights, such as Irving Kristol, Herbert Zweibon and Midge Decter, who co-authored the text with Rabbi Daniel Lapin.
Lapin, an Orthodox rabbi, runs a little-known group called Toward Tradition from his home base on Mercer Island, a suburb of Seattle.
He founded Toward Tradition two years ago as a response to “a Jewish community more committed to the tenets of radical liberalism than the tenets of the Torah,” he said in a recent interview.
Lapin and some other Jewish conservatives are aligned with the Christian Coalition on a range of ideological issues, from efforts to limit the size of government to opposition to teaching about homosexuality in public schools.
The Coalition and other Christian evangelical groups have also long been strong supporters of the State of Israel.
‘AMPLE AREA OF COMMONALITY’
“There are numerous areas where we agree with the Christian Coalition,” said Lapin. “There is ample area of commonality.”
Lapin has addressed those areas of agreement at appearances at the last few annual gatherings of the Christian Coalition, called Road to Victory conferences.
Lapin is slated to speak again this year, while the Christian Coalition’s executive director, Ralph Reed, is scheduled to appear at a Toward Tradition conference in Washington on Oct. 6.
According to Christian Coalition spokesman Mike Russell, other Jewish supporters of Robertson’s organization include the Jewish Action Alliance, a New York-based group headed by Beth Gilinsky, and Marshall Breger of the Heritage Foundation.
The National Committee for the Furtherance of Jewish Education, a Lubavitch-based organization, helped the Christian Coalition distribute its voter guides before the 1993 New York City school board elections.
Robertson’s organization has recently been making a concerted effort to broaden its base of supporters by reaching out to Jews and other minority groups.
The Christian Coalition’s chief Capitol Hill lobbyist, Marshall Wittmann, is Jewish.
“We have said to our grass-roots members: establish a dialogue with the Jewish community. Have a get-to-know-you type of meeting. We have had success in Pennsylvania, California and New York in getting the Jewish community mobilized,” said Russell.
But some of the Coalition’s new-found supporters seemed unfamiliar with Robertson’s teachings about Jews and Israel.
When asked if there was anything Robertson has said with which he disagrees, Lapin said, “I won’t answer that. It’s not my job to defend the Christian Coalition.
“There is some deep theological agenda having to do with a belief in Jews and the Holy Land, but it’s irrelevant.
“I haven’t studied what their views are,” Lapin added.
In fact, Robertson outlines his views on the role of Jews and Israel in his 1990 book “The New Millennium.”
He explains the eschatological views he shares with other Christian fundamentalists and the central role they believe Israel must play in bringing Jesus back to earth.
“That tiny little nation will find itself all alone in the world,” Robertson writes. “Then, according to the Bible, the Jews will cry out to the one they have so long rejected, and He will come in heavenly power to give them deliverance from the earthly power of all the nations of the earth.
“Then we will have a reign of peace on earth known as ‘The Millennium.'”
In a section titled “The Rise of Anti-Semitism,” Robertson blasts Jews for persecuting Christians and warns that they are hurting support for Israel.
“The part that Jewish intellectuals and media activists have played in the assault on Christianity may very possibly prove to be a grave mistake,” warns Robertson.
In the July/August 1990 issue of “Pat Robertson’s Perspective,” Robertson compared the plight of evangelical Christians in the United States to the treatment of Jews under Nazi Germany.
Decter, a fellow at the Religion and Public Life think tank, and co-author of the recent New York Times ad, said she was unfamiliar with this statement. When it was read to her, Decter called it “silly.” When pressed, she called it “a ridiculous piece of hyperbole.”
Gilinsky said, “I would disagree with that comparison,” although she said she had not read any of Robertson’s publications.
After being read some of Robertson’s published statements about the role of Jews and Israel, Breger of the Heritage Foundation said, “To the extent to which a group will support the Jewish community it is worth getting that support, whether or not they have their own reasons.
“I’m not sure everyone has to love us unconditionally to have common coalition with them.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
