Nine months after the Heritage Foundation came under fire for defending Tucker Carlson’s friendly interview with a neo-Nazi, the conservative think tank is facing fresh scrutiny over accusations that it has enabled an extreme culture in which new hires feel free to question the Holocaust and to engage in historically revisionist debates about World War II, with no apparent internal policing from leadership.

Former Heritage employees, who had been part of a mass staff exodus stoked by its president’s refusal to disavow Carlson for hosting the neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes on his podcast last October, told The New York Times Magazine in a newly published investigation that they encountered troubling debates during their time at the organization over issues like “whether the Holocaust happened or not” and “who was the bad guy and who were the good guys” in the war against Hitler.

Andrew Hale, a trade policy analyst at Heritage who left in January to join a rival think tank launched by former Vice President Mike Pence, recalled that prior to departing he had found new hires were fixated on antisemitic conspiracy theories about the Holocaust and Israel of the sort popularized by Fuentes, Carlson and Candace Owens, the extreme-right podcast host.

Hale confirmed to Jewish Insider in an interview on Wednesday that new, particularly younger, staffers at Heritage “openly said things which were antisemitic, whether they realized it or not,” crediting their views to an obsession with far-right social media channels.

“The Heritage Foundation had an opportunity to combat antisemitism and misogyny but instead they chose to hire people with these views,” Hale argued, while claiming that the think tank’s “original goals have been subverted under the current leadership” and is now “a force for antisemitism and misogyny.”

Brian Phillips, a Heritage spokesperson, called Hale’s claim about the Holocaust debate “absurd” but did not address related allegations from former staffers, whom the think tank sought to discredit as “self-serving, bitter and vindictive” in a statement to the Times Magazine.

“There is no debate at the Heritage Foundation whether the Holocaust happened and our record opposing antisemitism is long, consistent and public,” he said in a brief email statement to JI, sharing a link to a page on Heritage’s website detailing such efforts.

The foundation, which had long been influential to Republican administrations, has found itself on the defensive after its president, Kevin Roberts, posted a controversial video to social media last fall in which he dismissed Carlson’s critics as part of a “venomous coalition,” among other terms widely interpreted as antisemitic tropes.

“Heritage is catering to a conspiratorial streak popular with Gen Z Republicans, perhaps out of the belief that it’s the future of the party,” Daniel Samet, a fellow with the conservative American Enterprise Institute who focuses on U.S.-Israel relations and Middle East policy, told JI. “It’s one thing to have serious heterodox views. It’s another to spew dreck about Jews. Heritage is failing to draw a line in the sand.”

Among those who left the organization over their discomfort with Roberts’ decision and handling of the fallout were the leaders of an antisemitism task force that opted to sever ties with the think tank last November, even as they voiced hope to “collaborate” again.

Late last month, Luke Moon, a conservative Christian activist and co-chair of the task force, returned to Heritage as a part-time visiting fellow to support its “efforts to combat antisemitism,” the organization said in a statement.

Moon has said he chose to join the organization after Yoram Hazony, an Israeli American political theorist and national conservative leader who has denounced Carlson as antisemitic, became a member of its board in May.

But Moon said on Wednesday his recent experience had been “the opposite” of the internal culture that former staffers had described to The Times. “They’re almost a little overzealous to have me there,” he told JI. “There’s a real frustration in the reputation being tarnished.”

Still, others who left the think tank said that they remained unconvinced Roberts had meaningfully reckoned with his remarks. Yaakov Menken, the executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values who resigned from the antisemitism task force last year, said that Roberts had not distanced himself from the rhetoric he used in his defense of Carlson.

“Anyone who thinks I belong to a ‘venomous coalition’ either doesn’t understand antisemitism or is a part of spreading it,” Menken told JI. “Heritage cannot combat antisemitism and endorse it at the same time.”

Josh Blackman, a legal scholar who also resigned from Heritage last year, said he had “not seen any public or private action taken by” the think tank “to adequately address” concerns over antisemitism that precipitated departures. “Until changes are made, I’m not sure how Heritage can be seen as a credible partner in the fight against antisemitism,” he told JI.

While Moon acknowledged that there were “certainly” issues at Heritage last fall, he said the think tank no longer employed problematic staffers like the former chief of staff who had written Roberts’ scripted comments about Carlson.

“There’s an explicit and very clear expectation on me to take on antisemitism on the right,” he said, adding that Heritage had also hired a researcher to help him with such work. “They’ve been very clear to me where they stand on antisemitism.”

Photo: Kevin Roberts 2025 by Gage Skidmore, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The only freedom that Arabs lack in Israel, which they do have in the rest of the Arab world, is… the freedom to kill Jews.”

Rabbi Yaakov Menken provides a contrasting view of civil liberties, stating that Arab citizens living within Israel possess a full suite of democratic and social rights.

A bill to make daylight saving time permanent across most of the United States is facing stiff resistance in the Senate, despite backing from President Donald Trump and overwhelming approval in the House.

The House passed the Sunshine Protection Act 308-117 on July 14, sending it to a Senate where Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, has already warned there is “a lot of opposition” to the proposal.

The debate has cut across party lines, with senators from northern and rural states appearing more likely to object because of later winter sunrises.

Religious groups have also raised concerns. Orthodox Jewish organizations argue permanent daylight saving time would interfere with morning prayers tied to sunrise. Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, said the change would disrupt prayer schedules for observant Jews, while the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center has said it has allies in the Senate opposing the bill.

Read the full article at Newsweek

Cover image: An alarm clock sitting atop a lush green field with PDM 1.0 deed, accessed via PICYRL.

The mainstream media has been sounding the alarm about the renewed opposition to gay marriage. Specifically, they are raising concerns about current efforts to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which required states to license and recognize same-sex marriage.

The media have limited their coverage to the efforts of Christian conservatives, with no discussion about why they oppose the Court’s decision, including the impact gay parenting has had on children. Yet other segments of society, including observant Jews and many conservatives without religious affiliation, share in their desire to return to a traditional definition of marriage. Collectively, their advocacy appears to have a growing impact in realigning the culture with traditional values, if not the law.

Observant Jewish leadership in the U.S. (and Israel) continues to be vocal in supporting the traditional family. The traditional family is the bedrock not just of Judaism, but of all of humanity.

Eleven years ago, when the Supreme Court heard Obergefell, the Coalition for Jewish Values, a group of some 1,100 Orthodox rabbis, actively supported a traditional definition of marriage and subsequently opposed the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision. Its position has not changed. In a letter regarding the “Respect for Marriage Act,” Yaakov Menken, director of CJV, wrote, “the proposed Act would adopt, as US policy, a definition of marriage directly contrary to that found in our Bible and to core Judaic belief and religious observance.”

Foundationally, for observant Jews, the Hebrew Bible is God’s instruction manual for living. Jews read the laws about proper sexual behavior from the Torah (Leviticus 18) at the holiest time of year, at the holiest moment of the day; i.e., on Yom Kippur before the end of the fast.

While Jews don’t proselytize or tell others how to live, we do hold that everyone should follow seven basic Noahide laws. Proper sexual behavior is one of those seven laws, along with don’t murder and don’t steal.

The Talmud and the Midrash, the 1,700-year-old commentary on the Book of Genesis, note that a society that tolerates individual sins is viewed very differently from one that institutionalizes them. When discussing the generation of Noah and the Flood, these holy sources teach that the ultimate doom of that society was sealed when they went so far as to draft formal marriage contracts between males.

It isn’t just religious people who want to see this law overturned. Almost 40 percent of non-religious Republicans also want to see Obergefell overturned.

There are logical reasons: the negative impact on children and the overall negative impact on the future health of Western society. As has been studied and documented, children raised by gay parents have many more mental-health challenges than those raised by traditional families, including significantly higher rates of depression, fearfulness, poorer academic performance, and much higher instances of sexual abuse.

This is why the “Greater Than” coalition was formed. The coalition now includes 83 different organizations from across the spectrum that are opposed to gay marriage for this critical reason—because of the negative effects on children who grow up in same-sex parental households.

Some will argue that those who are opposed to same-sex marriage need to have compassion for those who have same-sex attractions and that, therefore, we need to allow for gay marriage. Compassion for those struggling? Yes, absolutely.

But is sexual preference akin to race, or is it something that could be managed if a person so chose? Is same-sex attraction something a person can identify in themselves? Is it immutable?

We know there is no physical test to measure same-sex attraction: no blood test, no DNA, no measurement of differences in brain size, etc. Therefore, we are dealing with an aspect of personality that may be heavily influenced by experience and/or culture. Note that today, 30% of Gen Z women in the U.S. are self-identifying as LGBTQ, which would indicate that culture is the primary cause.

Immutability is clearly a myth. Former lesbians outnumber current lesbians 5:1, and even for males, a significant number have returned to a traditional lifestyle. (“How Many Homosexual Desistors Are There in the United States?” Paul Sullins, sullins@cua.edu, May 29, 2024, The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health).

One of the greatest and most effective rabbis of our generation, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of blessed memory, the founder of the modern worldwide Chabad movement, wrote a letter to someone who was struggling with same-sex attraction. He compared that struggle to one who struggles with other inclinations, such as kleptomania, something we would not want to encourage. More importantly, he said, “One has the capacity to choose the right behavior and it is entirely a matter of one’s will and determination.”

Bottom line—the Torah is clear. Simple logic is clear. Four thousand years of human history are clear. The traditional family is foundational.

If people choose not to follow God’s law, that is up to them. We can be compassionate and even tolerant, but we should not legally codify, encourage, and celebrate their behavior.

More importantly, if we focus on what’s best for children, gay couples should not be parents. A child’s well-being supersedes the desires of the gay couple, as difficult as that may be for a gay couple to accept.

The tide is turning. This coalition of committed, focused, clear-thinking religious and secular Americans is expanding. God willing, we will be successful in righting the ship.

Orthodox Jewish organizations are warning that legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives to make daylight saving time permanent would complicate daily religious observance, particularly morning prayers.

The House approved the Sunshine Protection Act on Tuesday by a bipartisan 308-117 vote. The measure, backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, would end the twice-yearly clock changes while allowing states that already qualify for exemptions, such as Arizona and Hawaii, to remain on permanent standard time. The bill now heads to the Senate, where its prospects remain uncertain.

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), who has introduced the legislation since 2018, called it a “commonsense” reform.

“Permanent daylight saving time will improve public safety, promote healthier and more active lifestyles and give families more daylight to enjoy after work and school,” Buchanan wrote, urging the Senate to send the measure to Trump’s desk.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told JNS that the House vote is “definitely worrisome.”

“Our main objection remains that permanent daylight saving time would disrupt the morning prayer schedule for many Orthodox Jews, making it difficult to pray at the appropriate times and still meet work and school obligations,” he said. “This isn’t just an inconvenience. It would affect daily life and halachic practice for a large segment of the population.”

Menken acknowledged that “many of our allies” support the legislation because they oppose changing clocks twice a year.

“No one is doing this to hurt the Jewish community, but they believe that the switch to daylight saving time every year is itself harmful,” he told JNS. “That’s by no means settled. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine advocates for year-round use of standard time, which would be much less problematic.”

While the coalition is hopeful that the legislation will stall in the Senate, Menken said that “the occasional passage in one house or the other certainly remains a cause for concern.”

Rabbi A.D. Motzen, national director of government affairs at Agudath Israel of America, told JNS that the organization is concerned that the bill would “put children at risk and affect our religious practices.”

“For the Orthodox Jewish community, an unintended, yet compelling, consequence of such legislation is the effect it will have on our fundamental religious practices,” he said. “In Jewish law, morning prayers and the rituals associated with them must be recited no earlier than at specified times. The later sunrise occurs, the later synagogue services must begin.”

“The extension of daylight saving time will create an extreme hardship on observant Jews,” Motzen said. “It would be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to arrive on time for a job and will affect the start time of our schools.”

Motzen noted that the United States briefly adopted year-round daylight saving time in the 1970s, but Congress repealed the policy following public backlash.

“The popularity of the measure dropped dramatically once Americans experienced one dark winter and Congress had to reverse itself within a year,” he told JNS.

“We are hopeful that the Senate will consider all of the effects of daylight saving time and compare them to the effects of permanent standard time or maintaining the status quo before rushing into this major change,” Motzen said.

Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, told JNS that the organization shares those concerns. He pointed to a 2022 letter from the group warning that permanent daylight saving time would interfere with congregational prayer schedules while raising “safety issues for children who would be going to school in the pitch dark for many weeks of the year.”

He also cited a 2022 Washington Post article quoting health experts who have warned that year-round daylight saving time would leave people’s sleep cycles more out of sync with natural daylight.

Diament told JNS that “we have allies in the Senate who are firmly opposed to this legislation,” including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).

“We still have work to do, of course,” he said.

Leading American Jewish organizations on Sunday issued statements expressing grief and paying tribute to US Senator Lindsey Graham following his sudden passing, praising the veteran South Carolina lawmaker for his decades of advocacy, partnership, and backing of Israel and religious freedom.

Major communal and rabbinic bodies highlighted Graham’s legislative record, his leadership on national security issues, and his relationships with Jewish leaders across the political and religious spectrum.

The Orthodox Union (OU), representing Orthodox synagogues and institutions across the United States, issued a tribute honoring Graham’s long-standing collaboration with the organization.

“The Orthodox Union mourns the sudden passing of Senator Lindsey Graham, whose steadfast support for Israel and the Jewish people was a defining feature of his public service. Throughout his years in Congress, he stood firmly with our community and consistently championed the US-Israel relationship. We are proud to have partnered closely with Sen. Graham, through the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, on many important policy initiatives including the enactment of the Taylor Force Act. OU Advocacy leaders regularly met with Sen. Graham and valued his insight, love for Israel and the Jewish people, and good humor. We extend our deepest condolences to his family, loved ones, and the people of South Carolina during this time of profound loss.”

The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), an organization representing over 2,500 traditional and Orthodox rabbis, pointed to Graham’s advocacy for religious liberty and educational freedom, as well as his commitment to US-Israel defense ties.

The organization said it “mourns the passing of Senator Lindsey Graham, a steadfast friend of Israel and the Jewish people, whose moral clarity and courage distinguished his decades of public service. He confronted antisemitism, defended religious liberty, and treated Jewish concerns with seriousness and respect.”

The rabbinic organization highlighted his understanding of the alliance between Washington and Jerusalem.

“Senator Graham understood that America’s bond with Israel is rooted not only in strategic partnership but in shared moral purpose. He championed Israel’s security with unwavering resolve, strengthened US-Israel defense cooperation, and stood firmly against efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state. His voice was consistent, principled, and deeply informed by an appreciation of Jewish history and its role in providing the ethical foundations of American and Western civilization.”

Cover Image: Lindsey Graham by Gage Skidmore, Accessed via Flickr with CC BY-SA 2.0 Deed

The exchange between Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Elena Kagan, during her confirmation hearing for the U.S. Supreme Court on June 29, 2010 is one of the most lighthearted Jewish references in such a venue.

“As we move forward and deal with law of war issues. Christmas Day bomber. Where are you at on Christmas Day?” Graham asked.

The Coalition for Jewish Values said that the late senator was “a steadfast friend of Israel and the Jewish people, whose moral clarity and courage distinguished his decades of public service” and who “confronted antisemitism, defended religious liberty and treated Jewish concerns with seriousness and respect.”

“Sen. Graham understood that America’s bond with Israel is rooted not only in strategic partnership but in shared moral purpose,” it said. “His voice was consistent, principled and deeply informed by an appreciation of Jewish history and its role in providing the ethical foundations of American and Western civilization.”

“His passing leaves a void in American public life,” it added.

Read the full article on JNS.

Journal ‘is tangential to Harvard’s tolerance of grotesque antisemitism,’ rabbi tells The College Fix

A new scholarly journal at Harvard Divinity School focused on “modern Judaism” and named after a pagan goddess is adding to concerns about antisemitism on campus.

The first edition of Asherah, a “journal of Jewish liturgy,” was published in May, funded in part by the dean’s office.

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told The College Fix in a recent email interview that the decision to name a journal after a pagan deity is not original but it is concerning

“That it is named after a form of idolatry reminds me of the Jewish feminist magazine ‘Lilith,’ named after an impure spirit, which is turning 50 this year,” Menken said.

He continued: “There’s nothing groundbreaking here.  When the founder claims that they ‘received many responses stretching from congratulations to curiosity to disturbance and even anger,’ I would take that with a hefty grain of salt.”

The goddess, according to the journal introduction by student editors Daisy Jacobs and Lila Rimalovski, is “entirely present and invisibilized in most expressions of modern Judaism.”

“Some claim she was originally a Canaanite deity, but that remains a matter of scholarly debate. She was certainly adopted and used by Israelites in their places of worship and homes in both the kingdoms of Judah and the more unruly northern kingdom of Israel,” the preface states, citing Old Testament scriptures.

The name refers back to “a spiritual moment in the ancient Israelite tradition, not to subvert the norms that constitute Judaism today as much as to enhance them by reviving the idea of devotional practices that are not severed from the beauty of the natural world all of us inhabit,” it states.

However, a recent article by the Washington Free Beacon raised concerns that the use of the name Asherah constitutes a blatant disregard of biblical Judaism. The article cites Deuteronomy 16:21, which states, “You shall not plant for yourself an asherah, [or] any tree, near the altar of the Lord, your God, which you shall make for yourself.”

Menken told The Fix that the journal “is about hostility to Judaism, not just Jews. The journal claims to be respectful, but names itself after an idol and implies Judaism needs revision.”

“I would expect that several of its writers tolerate and even subscribe to beliefs about the modern-day country of Israel and its enemies that all traditional scholars would deem antisemitic,” he said.

The Free Beacon similarly raised issues with the journal and antisemitism, describing Harvard as “a cesspool of Jew-hate.”

“… it’s more than a bit much for the Harvard Divinity School dean’s office–after all that had happened in recent years–to subsidize the production of an openly non-scholarly magazine devoted to redefining Judaism into something that will strike many Americans, justifiably, as a perversion,” according to the article.

Rabbi Menken also referenced Harvard’s record on this score, telling The Fix that the journal “is tangential to Harvard’s tolerance of grotesque antisemitism.”

To Menken, the journal’s intentions were questionable from the outset.

“The notion that Harvard Divinity would genuinely contribute to ‘Innovations in Jewish Prayer and Ritual,’ much less with a journal devoid of any authentic Jewish scholarship, is alternately humorous and sad, more than hateful,” the rabbi said.

Neither of the co-editors nor the school’s media relations responded to two emailed requests for interviews over the past two weeks, asking about the academic value and mission integrity of the journal as well as the concerns about antisemitism.

Although the journal’s first issue invites inquiries, pointing interested parties to its website, Asherah does not include any means of contacting it. Under the donations tab, there is a place for donors to include a message. But otherwise, neither the website nor the first issue of the journal include an email address, phone number, or contact form.

The journal, which is dedicated to “Innovations in Jewish Prayer and Ritual,” states that it is offered “in the hope that it will serve a broad community of Jews and non-Jews.”

The first article of the journal is an interview with Rabbi Jericho Vincent who self-identifies as “trans” and “nonbinary.”

In the interview, Vincent told student editor Rimalovski, “The word ‘God’ is one way to hold on [to the concept of one divine being], ‘Goddess’ another, ‘Goddexx’ another.’”

Vincent praised the journal, exclaiming: “And now — oh my Goddess — there’s going to be an Asherah journal at Harvard Divinity School! Our ancient mothers and fathers, ancestors two and a half thousand years ago, they’ve been waiting so long. How much nachas they must have that we’re coming home [to a faith with Asherah].”

Vincent described “mainstream Judaism” as an “articulated myth” surrounding a “new king [who] is going to rise, some dude on his calico donkey who will save us all.”

Vincent said of the Messiah of traditional Jewish religion, “It’s very beguiling, and, of course, he’s never going to come.”

Instead, Vincent painted a picture of Jews worshipping Asherah, lamenting, “We know so heartbreakingly little about how the ancestors worshiped the Goddess, but we know there’s strong evidence of dancing around the tree…Spending time dancing in circles — versus sitting in a pew that doesn’t move, staring at people performing for us, checking a box and leaving — it moves the energy in a completely different way.”

Vincent also called on Asherah in the closing prayer of the interview: “From our places of deep center, I call out to Asherah — the One within us, between us, and beyond us.”

When asked about the potential impact of the Asherah journal, Rabbi Menken was confident in the victory of the traditional Jewish religion over the quasi-Jewish, pagan rituals.

“It will not have a meaningful, long-term impact upon the Jewish world, especially among those practicing Jewish Prayer and Ritual,” he said.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s remarks for America’s 250th birthday, in which he decried the country spending “our tax dollars on bombs and bailouts,” Elon Musk as the “world’s first trillionaire” who “hungers for more” and a “health insurance industry that exploits the sick,” were dangerous and in appropriate, rabbis told JNS.

“We see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions. We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world—one where children go to sleep hungry while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more,” the mayor said on Friday ahead of July 4.

“We see monopolies that dominate every industry and oligarchs who buy elections. We see masked agents terrorizing our streets, eating food cooked by our undocumented neighbors before spiriting them away in unmarked vans,” he added. “We see a nation whose immense wealth has been built by those with calloused, dirt-streaked hands— those who toil on factory floors and chisel into stone—and we see a nation that has allowed so much of that wealth to be held instead in the soft hands of a precious few.”

Rabbi Menachem Levine, CEO of Joan Dachs Bais Yaakov–Yeshivas Tiferes Tzvi, a 70-year-old Orthodox school in Chicago, told JNS that Mamdani’s approach, in which he began by referring to the United States as a place of opportunity and “a grand experiment in self-governance,” evokes the tactics of the biblical spies, whom Moses sent to scout out the Holy Land.

The spies returned bearing enormous fruits and told the Israelites that the land was good and then pivoted to information that it was inhabited by giants, who saw the men as grasshoppers. Because the spies led the people to fear entering the Holy Land, God forced almost the entire generation to wander for 40 years in the desert—one year for each day of the mission of the spies—until each person had died before their descendants could enter the Holy Land.

Per rabbinic tradition, the spies “began by acknowledging the land’s physical beauty, thereby lending credibility to their subsequent falsehoods regarding its inhabitants,” Levine told JNS.

“Ultimately, his objective is to dismantle the existing social order,” he said of the New York City mayor. “However, he has unfortunately considerable political acumen and is a significant threat.”

Mark Goldfeder, an Orthodox rabbi and CEO and director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, told JNS that “Judaism invented institutionalized national self-criticism, so the objection is not that a leader criticized his country.”

“It’s how and why and when,” Goldfeder said.

The Talmud “contrasts two people welcomed at the same table,” Goldfeder told JNS. “One says, ‘Look how much trouble my host went to, and all of it for me.’ The other says, ‘What trouble did my host really go to? He ate his own bread. Whatever he did, he did for himself and his household.’”

He advised reading Mamdani’s speech with that template in mind. “You will see it is built exactly like the second guy’s toast,” Goldfeder said. “Every American generosity gets recharacterized as extraction.”

Those who defend the New York City mayor will say that there is a “some kernel of truth” in everything that he said, according to Goldfeder.

“Sure. The spies Moses sent into Canaan also told the truth. The Talmud points out that slander only takes hold when it opens with truth, and it still counted the spies’ report among the gravest sins in the national record,” he told JNS. “The facts were right. The verdict was the sin.”

Standing on the threshold of the Promised Land, the spies “assembled some technically accurate observations into a case against the entire enterprise,” Goldfeder said. “The mayor did the same thing at the threshold of the country’s 250th year.”

“Judaism never tamed national self-criticism by suppressing it. It tamed it with a calendar,” he said. “There is an entire fast day, Tisha B’Av, set aside for the national indictment, when Jews sit on the floor and read the catalogue of their own failures out loud. And precisely because that day exists, Passover is not allowed to become a seminar on them.”

“Eulogies are barred on festivals for the same reason,” Goldfeder told JNS. “July 4 is the festival, and he went ahead and gave the eulogy.”

Rabbi David Wolpe, rabbi emeritus of Sinai Temple, a Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles, told JNS that it was “foolish” for Mamdani to make the statement that the “powerful have always known their answer” and that “America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal.”

“To speak of the powerful as a block not only betrays the many powerful people who created the rights and economic dynamism and hope that he celebrates but neglects the reality that he is among the powerful,” Wolpe said.

“A less thoughtful and more self-sabotaging statement would be hard to imagine,” he told JNS. “When the Torah says, ‘Do not favor the rich or poor in judgement,’ it is arguing against this exact lumping of people into a category simply to excoriate them.”

Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told JNS that he is reminded of a different biblical episode when he listens to the New York City mayor’s July 4 speech: Jacob’s prayer in Genesis 32, imploring God to “save me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau.”

Chaim ibn Attar, an 18th century Moroccan rabbi and Kabbalist, explained that Jacob was praying for protection from his enemy Esau even if the latter came to him as “my brother,” according to Menken.

“He is dangerous either way. The same can be said of Mamdani,” he told JNS. “Much of what he says is historically wrong, and his characterization of businesses today is no better.”

Diverse Religious Perspectives

A brief submitted by the Anglican Church in North America, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Coalition for Jewish Values, and the National Association of Evangelicals emphasizes that the term “conversion therapy” originally meant only physical treatments to eradicate homosexuality. But the American Psychological Association’s 2009 report represented a “sea change” in counseling people reporting their homosexuality or gender dysphoria. It made “sexual orientation change efforts” (SOCE) or “sexual orientation and gender identity/expression change efforts” (SOGIECE) cover any counseling that did not affirm reported same-sex attraction or gender identity, and condemned all such efforts as dangerous, even though some people reported being benefitted by SOCE.

The brief maintains that what it calls “exploratory therapy,” which these organizations say they practice, is neither “affirmative” (supportive of same-sex attraction or opposite sex identity) nor “conversion” or “reparative” therapy (which seeks reorientation to opposite sex attraction or identification with one’s biological sex). It simply seeks to provide clients with “a safe therapeutic space to discuss how their current values ha[ve] shaped and informed how they view their sexuality in ways not understood by many [n]onreligious clinicians.” But because it might involve moving away from homosexuality or transgenderism, it is not “affirmative” and thus was banned in Colorado. It would seem, however, that a committedly Christian counselor would have to decline further conversation if the client feels he or she should move toward some LGBT identity, which again would have been illegal under MCTL, because of its viewpoint discrimination.

The Manhattan Institute, the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team, the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty, and Dr. Dovid Schwartz observed in their brief that proper identification of males and females is essential to the practice of Judaism. A Jew experiencing gender dysphoria must identify with his or her biological sex to participate in the life of the community, but licensed counseling to help with this for a Jewish minor was illegal under MCTL. This “is a serious burden on the exercise of Judaism.” There are many situations in Orthodox Jewish religious life where biological sex is important (a ritual haircut for boys on their third birthday, wearing the kippah (skullcap) and tzitzit (ritual fringes) for the first time, girls reciting a morning blessing thanking God that they are women, and “strictures that govern all areas of Jewish life, from marriage, sex, and privacy to prayer and even death and burial.” Laws that prohibit counseling to identify with one’s biological sex “inhibit the free exercise of Judaism by burdening Jewish patients, therapists, and communities.”

The impact on the practice of Islam is similarly grave. “Belief in the distinct biological sexes is not only rooted in sacred teachings but goes to the very core of religious exercise. Rules governing decency, modesty, and seclusion apply to all Muslims and require clear distinctions between men and women … Prohibiting therapy that would make patients more comfortable with their biological sex interferes with religious free exercise, which Muslim therapists would consider to include helping fellow Muslims fulfill Islam’s obligations. It also contradicts Muslim therapists’ religiously driven mission to alleviate pain and suffering. It imposes a set of values that are alien to Islam and violates the principles of proper care.” Although these claims were cast in terms of religious freedom, which the court did not consider, they easily translate into claims of free speech, and MCTL’s censorship and viewpoint discrimination. The brief further noted the separate seating areas for men and women in prayer, and the male-only obligation for Friday prayers. A minor child growing up in Islam will naturally want to participate in this and may want counseling illegal under MCTL.

An Islamic therapist associated with the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team very persuasively said:

“In professional counseling, it is in our code of ethics to work with the values of our client. Denying clients this service is contradictory to our very mission to elevate [sic] [i.e., alleviate] human suffering and contradicts our code of ethics because we are saying they are not entitled to help, in essence imposing another set of values on them. A Muslim therapist who is not allowed to assist clients with issues related to gender and sexuality in congruence with their and the clients’ beliefs would actively be harming the client.”