by Brian Kaylor on A Public Witness
Since May, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has led monthly Christian prayer services at the Pentagon featuring the Lord’s Prayer, Christian hymns, and a sermon from a rightwing Christian preacher. One month, U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer attended the service since she happened to be touring the Pentagon that day. That inspired her to start her own monthly prayer service, but the inaugural DoL one on Wednesday (Dec. 10) included more religious diversity as a Trumpian Orthodox rabbi offered remarks.
Amid a service otherwise focused on Christian songs and Christian holidays, the invited guest speaker was Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values. He served as the founding chief executive of the group when it launched in 2017 as a rightwing public policy advocacy group that pushes how “America’s founding fathers looked to the Bible.”
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While many U.S. Jewish groups criticized various Trump statements and policies during his first term, CJV consistently offered its support to Trump. The group stood out for its support of Brett Kavanaugh amid allegations of sexual misconduct, and CJV frequently attacks other Jewish groups as too liberal and not faithful to the Torah. Much of CJV’s advocacy has been against same-sex marriage and transgender people. While CJV claims to represent over 2,000 Orthodox rabbis, many Jewish critics of the organization (including some Orthodox Jews) dismiss the numbers as exaggerated. Most American Jews are affiliated with either Reformed or Conservative traditions, with just 9% identifying as Orthodox.
“Hanukkah is not just about a festival of lights. Hanukkah is about redemption from religious persecution,” Menken said during the DoL service. “The miracle of Hanukkah was a sign from God that [the Maccabees] had done the right thing and that they would be successful in their efforts.”
“We also live in a generation where too many, even in things that the Department of Labor deals with directly, are focused upon how to do it wrong, persecuting individuals based on their religious beliefs,” he added. “There are employers out there who will try to force even and, of course, in government to certify same-sex weddings, require preferred gender pronouns, force a baker to bake a cake celebrating something he doesn’t like, force nurses to perform abortions, endocrinologists to administer unnecessary and harmful hormones. And in too many firms, anyone with a Jewish name need not apply. Hanukkah tells us that not only that there is a right and a wrong, but there is an almighty God who stands with us when we fight to move in the right direction.”
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Photo credit: DOL Perkins Building by Shawn T Moore on Flickr