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

At its recent Board of Governors gathering (June 2026), the Jewish Agency for Israel issued a statement declaring that “a diverse, pluralistic and tolerant Judaism has been and remains one of the cornerstones of Zionism.”

It is a pleasing sentiment. It is also untrue – provably so, from the movement’s own founding documents.

The cornerstone of Zionism was never a theology. It was peoplehood. Theodor Herzl built the movement on a single premise, stated plainly in Der Judenstaat: “We are a people – one people.”

Precisely because the Jews of 1897 could not agree on Judaism, Herzl’s achievement was to set religion aside as the basis of the enterprise. Would the Jewish state be a theocracy? “No, indeed… We shall keep our priests within the confines of their temples in the same way as we shall keep our professional army within the confines of their barracks.” Religion – in every form – was to be respected and contained, not enthroned as a founding value.

Herzl’s oft-quoted promise that “every man will be as free and undisturbed in his faith or his disbelief, as he is in his nationality”, was a pledge of civic liberty extended to all future citizens, Jew and non-Jew alike. It was freedom of conscience – not a declaration that competing denominations constitute Zionism’s foundation. To read it otherwise is to confuse a civil right with a religious ideology.

History of the Jewish Agency

History is even less kind to the Agency’s formulation. The movements that today carry the banner of “pluralistic Judaism” were not Zionism’s cornerstone; they were among its most determined opponents.

The Reform movement’s Pittsburgh Platform of 1885 declared: “We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine…” In July 1897 – weeks before the First Zionist Congress convened in Basel – the Central Conference of American Rabbis resolved its total disapproval of any attempt to establish a Jewish state. In 1942, Reform rabbis founded the American Council for Judaism for the express purpose of fighting Zionism.

The Reform movement entered the World Zionist Organization only in the late 1970s and fully reconciled with Zionism only in its 1997 Miami Platform. A cornerstone cannot be laid one hundred years after the foundation – least of all by those who opposed the construction.

The Conservative movement fares a little better in this history – yet its record, too, refutes the Agency’s claim. Solomon Schechter, the architect of American Conservative Judaism, endorsed Zionism in 1906 – but as a bulwark against assimilation and an ally of traditional Judaism, not as a warrant for pluralism.

He did so over the public objections of his own seminary’s patrons, and his successor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Cyrus Adler, remained a committed non-Zionist. Institutionally, the movement joined the World Zionist Organization only with the founding of Mercaz in 1976. Where early Conservative Zionism existed, it was an argument from peoplehood and tradition – which is precisely our point.

The Jewish Agency’s statement also invoked the Western Wall. For the sake of historical integrity and honesty, we refer readers to the Memorandum on the Western Wall, submitted in 1930 to the Special Commission of the League of Nations on behalf of the Jewish Agency for Palestine – the direct precursor of today’s Jewish Agency for Israel, written by the same Cyrus Adler, Ph.D., D.H.L., then president of the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. In the section titled “Action Requested,” Adler wrote: “We now come to the request that we will make to your honorable body on behalf of the Jewish Agency: That you give recognition to the immemorial claim that the Kotel Maaravi (Western Wall) is a Holy Place to the Jews; that they should have the right of access to it for prayers to be conducted in accordance with their ritual in a decent and dignified manner; that the regulation of such services shall be under the direction of the Rabbinate in Jerusalem, who shall assume responsibility therefor.”

Such is all that is requested now – that which the president of the Conservative movement’s own seminary, writing for the Jewish Agency itself, requested then.

What, then, was the movement’s actual founding arrangement on religion? The Basel Program of 1897 contains not a single word of religious law. When the question arose, the Second Zionist Congress in 1898 resolved that Zionism would undertake nothing contrary to the precepts of the Jewish religion – a pledge of deference to traditional Judaism, offered to keep Orthodox Jewry within the tent.

The paper trail settles the matter. Language about “mutual respect for the multi-faceted Jewish people” entered the movement’s platform only in the 2004 Jerusalem Program. It appears nowhere in 1897, and nowhere in the 1951 revision.

The Zionist movement’s own constitutional documents date the concept – and refute the words “has been.” And, let us be brutally honest, a politically (and financially) motivated phrase added to the World Zionist Organization Jerusalem Program by a small group of delegates does not redefine Zionism.

Some will object that Zionism was always a big tent, and that is true: the World Zionist Organization has housed secular, religious, socialist, and Revisionist factions for well over a century. But coalition politics is not theology.

A Congress in which Mizrachi and Poalei Zion (a movement of Marxist Zionist Jewish workers) sat together did not thereby declare all Judaisms equally valid; it declared the Jewish people indivisible.

Herzl’s Altneuland preached civic tolerance – its villain is the demagogue who would deny others a share in the commonwealth – but tolerance among citizens is not “pluralistic Judaism” as a creed. Both partners to the founding compact, the secular majority and the religious Zionists, would have rejected such a creed.

It would have shattered the coalition from either side.

Why does this matter? Because the Jewish Agency is a national institution, entrusted with the heritage of the entire Jewish people.

The Jewish Agency is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world, serving as the primary link between the State of Israel and Jewish communities globally. It is responsible for facilitating aliyah, managing global shlichut programs, and strengthening Jewish identity. The organization is funded by global philanthropic efforts, including the Jewish Federations of North America, KKL/JNF, Keren HaYesod, and the Israeli government.

When it converts a contested contemporary agenda into a founding principle, it does not honor history – it rewrites it. Religious pluralism is a position some hold; but they can not smuggle it into Basel.

Zionism’s cornerstone was, and remains, Klal Yisrael – the unity of one people. That foundation is broad enough for every Jew who ever prayed, in any accent, “Next year in Jerusalem.” It requires no retroactive renovation.

Also printed in Israel National News as “A Cornerstone Laid a Century Late.”

Photo: Delegates at the First Zionist Congress, Basel, 1897, by the Government Press Office (Israel), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The newest kid on Israel’s political block, and this season’s general de jure, is Gadi Eisenkot, former IDF chief of staff and a relatively brief member of the wartime security cabinet. It has long been a tactic of the Israeli left to seek out a former general to lead its election campaigns in order to bolster its credibility on security matters, given its propensity for policies that weaken Israel’s security. And Eisenkot is what President Trump would call – and likely appoint – “right out of central casting,” tough-looking, son of Moroccan immigrants, career army man, and, most sadly, father of a soldier who fell in battle in Gaza. We all honor his service.

Nevertheless, most mature countries have moved away from the “general as president or prime minister” fantasy. The United States has not elected a general as president in almost 75 years (Dwight Eisenhower, in 1952) and only once since then has a general even competed for the presidency (Wesley Clark, in 2004). No other general has served as US president since the 19th century. No English general has served as prime minister in almost two centuries (the first Duke of Wellington). The general who assumes political power is the hallmark of banana republics.

Yet, many Israelis remain enamored with the general-turned-prime-minister model, and to our misfortune. As it turns out, the three greatest strategic blunders in the history of Israel were made by renowned generals who were elected prime minister.

It was PM Yitzchak Rabin, former IDF Chief of Staff acclaimed (rightly or wrongly) as one of the heroes of Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War, who foisted the Oslo Accords on the people of Israel in 1993. He thought that it was a grand idea to import into the heartland of Israel our sworn enemy, one with genocidal ambitions, and give them a governing authority and weapons.

What could possibly go wrong??

What went wrong was a wave of terror that left Israelis dazed and despondent, and thousands of Israelis dead and maimed.

Almost as egregiously, the Oslo Accords essentially announced to the world that the Land of Israel does not belong exclusively to the Jewish people. Since then, we have struggled to prove to the world that we are entitled to any part of the land of Israel. But Rabin was Mr. Security, being a former general, and Israelis bought it.

It was PM Ehud Barak, also a former IDF Chief of Staff, and lionized as “Israel’s most decorated soldier,” who orchestrated the withdrawal of the IDF from Lebanon in 2000 in the dead of night, abandoning our Lebanese allies to their fates and leaving behind enormous stores of IDF weapons. This was in response to the campaign of the “Four Mothers” who mobilized much of society against the IDF remaining in Lebanon and Barak’s strong conviction that the IDF could return to Lebanon at any time to deal with terror.

Well. Instead, the hasty retreat emboldened Hezbollah to conquer southern Lebanon, which it did in due course, and build the elaborate underground terror infrastructure that we are slowly and painfully dismantling.

Additionally, Israel has since been forced to fight several wars in Lebanon, extracting a far greater cost in life than the number of soldiers who were killed annually while the IDF still occupied southern Lebanon in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Barak’s tactical retreat was widely perceived by our enemies as a timorous surrender that has engendered even deadlier conflicts.

The failed Ehud Barak – who later served multiple terms as Defense Minister – was succeeded as prime minister by Ariel Sharon, one of Israel’s greatest generals and a genuine hero of the Yom Kippur War who crossed the Suez Canal into Egypt, turned the tide of war, and forced Egypt to its knees. And his legacy as Prime Minister was the forced expulsion of 9500 Jews in 2005 from Gaza and the northern Shomron and the destruction of two dozen thriving communities.

That folly, twenty-one years ago this week, occasioned the speedy takeover of Gaza by Hamas, the construction of another elaborate terror network through diversion of all the billions of dollars of international aid that flowed into Gaza, constant terror attacks on Israel, multiple rounds of fighting, and all culminating in the catastrophe of October 7.

It is worth noting that all the generals who became prime minister claimed to know better than others what would provide security to Israelis and what would endanger our existence. They also claimed that their withdrawals were all easily reversible and that, if the need arose, the IDF could simply retake the territory surrendered. No harm, no foul.

The opposite, of course, was true; grave harm resulted from multiple fouls, all self-inflicted. And the land that each purported to surrender to our enemies in order to safeguard our security – land originally conquered and held at a high cost in Jewish blood – has mostly been retaken by saner heads (non-generals) responding to reality and not fantasy. That land has been reconquered, and again at a high cost in Jewish blood.

What then qualifies Gadi Eisenkot to serve as prime minister, other than that he has been designated as leader of the ABB (Anyone but Bibi) sect? He could be the exception to the rule but his tenure as Chief of Staff was unremarkable, mainly remembered for Eisenkot’s advocacy of a “small and smart IDF,” an IDF that relied more on technology than on manpower, something that debilitated us on October 7 and thereafter.

He threw the book at Elor Azaria, provoking indecision among soldiers that factored into the deadly terrorist attack last Friday. His brief tenure on the wartime cabinet was also undistinguished, noted for his advocacy for the release of the hostages at any price and opposition to initiatives that actually worked. Apparently, he still supports the establishment of a Palestinian state and has suggested that we learn to live with an Iranian nuclear bomb. He also currently favors the immediate entry of 150,000 Gazans to work in Israel, as if that hasn’t been tried before with devastating results.

It is not often realized that generals might be brilliant tacticians on the battlefield but simultaneously awful geopolitical strategists. Those are completely different skill sets. The affairs of state require the ability to navigate multiple and often conflicting interests, and on both the domestic and international stages. Clichés aside, does Eisenkot have an economic or educational policy, an objective more comprehensive than “Israel must win,” a position on the dictatorial excesses of the Supreme Court, or a desire to do anything other than topple Netanyahu?

The failed Israeli generals-turned-prime-ministers also had tenuous commitments to democracy, and especially to the rights of minorities, as evidenced by Rabin and Sharon’s contemptuous dismissal of their opponents and settlers. After all, generals are used to giving orders and are not always amenable to the give-and-take of democratic governance. Harry Truman, who chose not to run against Eisenhower, predicted that his successor would have a hard time getting things done: “He’ll sit right here and he’ll say do this, do that! And nothing will happen. Poor Ike-it won’t be a bit like the Army.”

If only that would be our problem! Our problem has been not military leaders turned prime ministers getting nothing done but in getting the wrong things done. Our problem has been generals spearheading and bulldozing their (and our) way into strategic calamities that cost us dearly in lives, treasure, international standing, and the fulfillment of our destiny.

A mature society knows better than to expect tough-looking generals to be successful politicians. A Jewish society should know to find leaders who can advance our national, spiritual destiny, until we merit true leaders as we had in days of old.

Photo: Gadi Eisenkot by Elad Malka, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Few Americans realize that one of the country’s most beloved entertainers was born Israel Iskowitz, the orphaned son of impoverished Jewish immigrants on New York’s Lower East Side. He later changed his name to Eddie Cantor—the comedian, singer, actor and radio personality who entertained millions. But when European Jewry came under assault during the 1930s, Cantor never hesitated to speak publicly as a Jew, even when doing so invited criticism and placed his career at risk. When history demanded that he choose which identity would speak first, Eddie Cantor answered as a Jew.

As America celebrates the 250th anniversary of its independence, Cantor’s example invites us to ask a larger question: How should Jews understand themselves while living in America? Are we Jewish Americans—or American Jews?

At first glance, the distinction seems little more than wordplay. After all, both phrases describe Jews who proudly call America home. Yet perhaps the difference is more than linguistic. It may reflect something deeper about how we understand ourselves.

The question is not whether we are patriotic. Nor is it how deeply we cherish either America or Judaism. Rather, it is which identity each phrase places first.

For some Jews, Judaism is understood primarily as a source of universal moral values—justice, compassion and creating a better world. For others, Judaism begins with belonging to the Jewish people, an eternal nation whose shared history, memory and covenant have shaped Jewish life for more than three millennia. Both perspectives see themselves as part of the Jewish people and embrace many of the same ideals, yet they begin from different starting points. And where we begin often shapes where we arrive.

Perhaps this helps explain why thoughtful, committed Jews can respond so differently to many of the questions confronting our community today. Recent disagreements over Israel, antisemitism, Jewish education, religious observance and communal responsibility have revealed differences that often run deeper than politics or religious affiliation. They reflect differing understandings of Jewish identity itself.

The point is not that one group loves America more than another. American Jews across the religious and political spectrum have every reason to feel profound gratitude toward this country. The United States has offered the Jewish people freedoms and opportunities unmatched in much of our history. Here, Jews have flourished as citizens while contributing richly to American life. That is a blessing worthy of celebration, especially as our nation marks this historic anniversary.

Yet gratitude alone does not answer the deeper question of identity.

For my part, I think of myself as an American Jew—a Jew whose family has been blessed to now make its home in America, while some of our children have built their lives in Israel. I cherish this country, pray for its welfare, and remain deeply grateful for the liberties it has afforded my family and generations of Jews before us. But my citizenship, precious as it is, does not define the deepest part of who I am. That identity was forged long before the United States came into being. It binds me to a people, a history and a covenant that transcends every country in which Jews have lived.

America’s 250th anniversary is a fitting moment to reflect not only on what it means to be an American, but also on what it means to be a Jew living in America. Whether we ultimately describe ourselves as Jewish Americans or American Jews, the more important question remains: which identity does each phrase place first? Our understanding not only shapes how we see ourselves, but also how we meet our responsibilities to one another, to our country and to the Jewish people.

Photo: Statue of Liberty, NY by William Warby, licensed under CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s bogus threat against Israel’s prime minister revealed something essential about his political career — and even more about his sycophants. When Mamdani promised to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu should he set foot in the United States, only to admit that this would be both impossible and illegal just days later, his fan club did not blink, much less assess whether he was prone to reckless, false claims. They simply moved on.

That indifferent reaction is the point: Mamdani’s followers are not impressed by truth or history.

A fact-free mob is dangerous, often more likely to justify violence than to condemn it. One can expect that they will respond to his new call for “protest” by conducting themselves like those described on CNN as “mostly peaceful” while stores burned in the background. As NYPD Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry put it, “violent agitators will assume they have permission to cause as much havoc as possible.” Already, a deranged man yelling Allahu Akbar attacked bystanders (including a Jew coming from prayers) in NYC just days after Mamdani’s racist tirade.

And Mamdani must have known he was inciting his crowd. He gave them not only permission but pretense, stating as fact that Netanyahu was a “war criminal,” deserving of a violent welcome. He claimed that Israel’s rescue of hostages being tortured, starved and raped, and the elimination of the terrorists responsible, constituted a “genocide.”

He wants us to imagine that it’s simply coincidence that the victims whose rescue he condemned were primarily Jews. Surely he would deny being the monster and sexual deviant that such condemnation makes him out to be.

But, crucially, his entire effort is based upon such obvious lies. Equating the neutralization of terrorists to murder of civilians is the least of his problems.

That honor goes to the underlying narrative of “Palestine,” which Mamdani and his followers defend with fervor and without curiosity.

The Bible refers to Israel thousands of times as both a nation and a homeland. “Palestine,” on the other hand, was invented by Greco-Roman colonialists, and instituted by Hadrian to replace the indigenous name Judea, identified with the Jews he was driving out.

The “Palestinian” flag flown at rallies is derived from that of the Arab Revolt of 1916, representing no new identity, but the Jihadists’ dream of a unified Arab kingdom from Syria to Yemen. Old administrative maps of the British Mandate, and similar bureaucratic charts dating back hundreds of years, are exploited to rewrite the historical record of the land they depict.

The history of the region called Palestine is real — and overwhelmingly Jewish. It produced the Palestinian Talmud (also called the Jerusalem Talmud) and the Palestinian Gaonate.

The four central cities of Jewish scholarship — Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias — fundraised together for centuries as “the Four Holy Cities of Palestine.” Maimonides, Rabbi Yosef Karo, the Ari, and Rabbi Moshe Cordovero all lived and taught there. Safed alone produced a revolution in Jewish mysticism.

None of the foregoing related to “Palestine” as anything more than the name used by Greco-Roman and Christian scholars. And notably, there is no parallel Arab or Muslim, much less “Palestinian,” intellectual tradition tied to the region, until Arafat’s PLO determined that manufacturing one would serve their bigoted cause.

In other words, the modern Palestinian national narrative is a mid-20th-century political fiction, built upon the erasure of two millennia of Jewish history and the denial of the land’s holy status to Jews as their homeland and center of Jewish religious practice. That is not a judgment about any individual Arab or Muslim, much less “Islamophobia.” It is simply historical fact.

Thus it is fair and accurate to describe Mamdani’s followers as indifferent to the truth. The tragedy is not that Mamdani is so wrong, so malevolent, and so clearly adversarial towards American values, but that his followers have lost the ability to care.

That is why his reelection isn’t just plausible, but likely — at least until New Yorkers recognize that following in the historical footsteps of Berlin and Moscow is a truly bad idea.

Photo: Zohran Mamdani Speaking at a DSA 101 Meeting at the Church of the Village in NYC by Bingjiefu He, 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.