When Ignoramuses Speak for Judaism

US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee

I am generally averse to using sources that are known to be heavily biased, even when the bias aligns with my views. This is because their slant strongly influences their reporting, making their version of reality highly suspect. However, I occasionally rely on such sources when their reports have an obvious ring of truth. This is one of those times.

WIN (World Israel News), a heavily right-wing, pro-Israel online news source, reports the following:

American Jewish groups are sparring over the upcoming Senate confirmation vote for President Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. This has pitted Orthodox Jewish rabbis and conservative pro-Israel activists against the Reform Judaism movement.

I stopped being shocked long ago by Reform Judaism’s support for J-Street policies regarding Israel. The idea of Israel as a Jewish state in the true sense of the word is anathema to them. It is therefore unsurprising that they oppose Mike Huckabee’s selection as U.S. ambassador to Israel. The very notion of restoring Israel to its biblical glory is as foreign to them as observing the laws of the Torah.

Thus, when a U.S. ambassador recognizes the value of biblical Israel - such as by supporting the annexation of Judea and Samaria (Huckabee refuses to call these areas the West Bank) they deem him unfit. On the contrary, they view such opinions as a betrayal of their values and condemn Huckabee’s opposition to Palestinian statehood.

They also cite Christian end-times theology as a disqualifier:

Huckabee is an ordained Southern Baptist pastor, and many Evangelical Christian Zionists have linked their support of the Jewish state to “the belief that Jewish sovereignty over the biblical land of Israel will hasten the return of Jesus Christ,” Pesner wrote. (Pesner is the director of the Reform movement’s outreach arm—the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.)

“We are gravely concerned by a teaching in which the well-being of Jews, of Israel, and of America are not ends in themselves but means to the fulfillment of Christian eschatology.”

How ‘Frum’ of them. As if what Evangelicals believe about the end-times makes any difference with respect to their support for Israel in the present. Besides, Orthodox Jews already know that the end-times will not unfold according to Christian theology. Furthermore, if I understand correctly, Reform Judaism doesn’t believe in any version of end-times theology. So what difference does it make if some Evangelicals support Israel for that reason?

More importantly, as I have said dozens of times, that is not why most Evangelicals support Israel and the Jewish people. They do so because they believe what the Bible repeatedly states in Genesis: that God blesses those who bless the Jewish people. They support Jews because they seek God's blessing. I hear Evangelical ministers preach this message to their congregations all the time. Orthodox rabbis who work with them have confirmed the same. While some Evangelicals may have eschatological reasons, the vast majority do not even though that is their belief,

I tend to align far more with the following perspective:

“It is difficult to fathom how anyone who calls himself a Jewish Zionist could oppose Gov. Huckabee’s confirmation,” ZOA President Morton Klein wrote in an open letter to the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“We were thus appalled by Reform Religious Action Center director Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner’s February 21 letter criticizing Gov. Huckabee.”

Klein defended Huckabee’s rejection of Palestinian statehood and his support for Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria while condemning the Reform movement’s broad criticism of Christian Zionism:

“It is also mortifying that Pesner’s letter maligned the tens of millions of evangelicals and Christian Zionists in the United States.”

Morton Klein is as politically right-wing as one can get on the issue of Israel, so his response is no surprise. I had never agreed with his hardline stance against a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. And certainly not with his advocacy for annexation. But after October 7^th - and more recently, after seeing how Hamas humiliated the released hostages, not to mention the brutal treatment they endured in captivity or the cold-blooded murder of the Bibas children with their bare hands while claiming Israeli airstrike killed them- I don’t see how anyone could still advocate for a Palestinian state. Nor should annexing Judea and Samaria generate such outrage, even if it will never actually happen.

I am so tired of Reform Judaism and J-Street-aligned Jews claiming to speak for Judaism or represent Jewish values in any way. If these people truly want to understand Jewish values, let them attend a real Yeshiva for a few years. Without an authentic Jewish education, they will continue to believe that their progressive values are the only real Jewish values. Without it, they will remain ignoramuses for the rest of their lives.