Our Sages could have been talking about today’s abandonment of Jews and principles to gain the Muslim vote when they wrote: “Be cautious with the government, for they only bring a person close to them for their own needs.” 

Political engagement can be a double-edged sword for Jews. On the one hand, it can result in personal and communal empowerment; but on the other, it can lead to the false conflation of ancestral values with non-Jewish ideologies that are incompatible with Torah, and which prompt the erosion of Jewish identity. The tension is especially problematic in the US, where antisemitism, support for Israel, and now Christian nationalism have become trigger issues in different ways for Democrats and Republicans.

For their part, today’s Democrats count among their ranks progressives who hate Israel, embrace Hamas, and spread antisemitic conspiracy theories. As a result, only a third of their party support Israel – an all-time low. In contrast, most Republicans (eighty-three percent) identify as pro-Israel, though some also espouse Christian nationalist views and refuse to distance themselves from those on the “woke right” who traffic in antisemitic stereotypes. Thus, while the party has had a strong record of supporting Israel and denouncing antisemitism since at least the 1990s, Jewish conservatives are uneasy about the reluctance or unwillingness of some to chastise fellow travelers who peddle anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric disguised as political speech.

Though more Jews than ever before seem to be voting Republican because of concern for Israel and anxiety over antisemitism in the mainstream, they would do well to remember that most Democrats also used to support Israel and oppose the kind of bigotry now expressed by progressive radicals who influence their party’s domestic and foreign policy agendas.

The takeaway from the Democrats’ moral devolution is that their past philosemitism was not based solely on historical justice or respect for Jewish values, but rather political and demographic considerations that made sense in Jewish voting hubs during and after the Cold War and yet changed over time.

As their party turned leftward, and as the left became increasingly antisemitic, the more they began to tolerate or embrace radicals, Islamists, and bigots – and the more hatred for Jews and Israel became socially acceptable.

It should be clear to anyone with historical perspective that party affiliation, whether Republican or Democratic, can never be seen as an a priori expression of Jewish identity and that neither party is intrinsically “Jewish.” There is nothing wrong with Jews endorsing political agendas that happen to align with their priorities – if they recognize that such alignment is often impermanent and subject to partisan unpredictability. This is something liberals often do not understand after generations of equating Jewish tradition with progressive values and affiliating Democratic as a putative expression of Jewishness. In fact, many still believe that registering Democrat is – politically speaking – the most Jewish thing they can do, despite the party’s leftward turn and embrace of ideologies and special interests that are hostile to Israel and in conflict with (or extraneous to) traditional Judaism and Torah law.

If anything, the facile embrace of anti-Zionism and Jew-hatred by progressive Democrats shows that radical ideology is not only inconsistent with Jewish values, but contrary to them. It also shows that secular political values and party affiliations are not synonymous with Jewish tradition and can neither reinforce nor sustain Jewish identity, regardless of the decades-long effort by Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist clergy to emphasize liberal political values over traditional text and rabbinics (a trend that may well correspond to rising Jewish illiteracy in the non-Orthodox world).

In contrast, Jewish conservatives tend to be guided by traditional core values, e.g., support for Israel, opposition to antisemitism, and respect for Jewish religious, cultural, and moral autonomy, in exercising their voting preferences. Though they may agree with Republicans on fundamental matters of policy, they generally do not believe Jewish identity is synonymous with the Republican Party – only that their interests and priorities converge at this moment in time.

Still, given the Jews’ immigrant experience in America, it is logical to see how over the years many absorbed external political values (both individually and collectively) and how they came to identify as Democrats.

When Jews immigrated to America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to escape pogroms and persecution in Russia and elsewhere, many found employment in urban sweatshops where working conditions were poor and employee protections nonexistent. As a result, many joined unions and became enmeshed in the American labor movement. It thus seemed natural to gravitate towards the party they identified with labor; and as many abandoned traditional observance and standards of piety, they sought out ideological substitutes – often political – to fill the resulting spiritual void. Indeed, many embraced Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal” with religious-like fervor – though they remained willfully blind to FDR’s patrician antisemitism, indifference to Jewish suffering, and refusal to aid or rescue Jews during the Holocaust.

It was during this period that many acculturated Jews came to view the Democratic Party as a spiritual destination, though it was their abdication of traditional Torah values that facilitated the unfounded belief that certain political ideologies were innately Jewish or mystically transcendent. As voting members of society, Jews are free to support whatever causes their consciences dictate. However, they cannot claim Jewish tradition demands support for platforms that contravene Jewish law. Though many nontraditional rabbis today use their pulpits to promote trans issues, for example, there is no halakha that approves or permits surgical or chemical alteration of the human body in the name of “gender affirming care.”

Moreover, the endorsement of radical policies by secular Jews does not make them consistent with traditional Jewish norms, which ultimately derive from Torah, not politics or popular culture. In fact, no political agendas – whether liberal or conservative – are synonymous with Jewish tradition simply because Jews vote for them. Whereas Jewish voters can endorse or oppose any controversial topics upon which liberals and conservatives disagree (e.g., abortion or gun control), they cannot claim the imprimatur of tradition where Jewish law conflicts with those issues or takes no position on them.

Likewise, it cannot be claimed that the Republican Party or political conservativism are synonymous with Jewish identity, though there is a good deal of ideological overlap regarding support for Israel, respect for personal property rights, and the acknowledgement of historical antisemitism and need to combat it today.

Although the political right certainly has an odious regarding history with antisemitism, the left’s historical track record is no less shameful. Rising above their history, however, American conservatives have acknowledged their past culpability and have made thoughtful efforts to purge antisemitism from their ranks, as was eloquently demonstrated in 1992 by the late William F. Buckley in his pivotal work on the subject, “In Search of Anti-Semitism.” No comparable literary testament has been produced by anybody on the left, despite the exponential increase in progressive hatred for Jews, Judaism, and Israel in recent years.

Unlike progressives who ignore, excuse, or validate antisemitism on the left, Jewish conservatives remain vigilant and sensitive to its reemergence on the extreme right (both secular and Christian) and are closely monitoring the conservative mainstream’s response to those who harbor antisemitic and anti-Israel animosity. There is also growing discomfort among Jewish conservatives regarding the conflation of conservative principles with evangelical Christianity, the tenets of which are inconsistent with Jewish scripture, tradition, and values. Increasingly, many are disquieted by the seemingly expanded influence of right-wing Christian nationalists, those within Christian Zionism who support Israel in order to missionize Jews, and seemingly discordant voices in organizations like Turning Point USA.

Moreover, while conservatives and Republicans may have an affinity for traditional Jewish ideals at this moment in history, they are not governed by the same scriptural and doctrinal imperatives that inform Jewish political sensibilities.

At the end of the day, Jewish survival and continuity do not require us to (a) treat any secular political system or agenda as synonymous with Jewishness; (b) embrace a “Judeo-Christian” banner that implies commonality between fundamentally incompatible belief systems; or (c) proclaim common cause with those who support Israel as subterfuge to proselytize and advance phantom prophesies found nowhere in Tanakh. Rather, it requires steadfastness of heritage and faith. There is nothing wrong with Jews participating in politics or government, as long as they remember that their unique heritage, spiritual legacy, and history are neither functions of, nor secondary to, the secular political process.

Perhaps that’s what the Sages meant in Pirkei Avot, when they said: “Be cautious with the government, for they only bring a person close to them for their own needs. They appear as friends when it benefits them, but they do not stand by a person in his time of difficulty.” (Pirkei Avot, Chapter 2, Mishna 3.)

©2026 Matthew Hausman, J.D. All rights reserved.

A church in Washington, D.C. has gained the attention not only of hundreds of young Christians, but also the liberal media.

King’s Church has a size of about 600 congregants and is located in the basement of a bar one mile from the White House. With its growth taking off during the COVID-19 pandemic, that appeared unique enough to have earned the church a lengthy exposé in Vanity Fair labeling it a “MAGA” hot spot.

Writing for the magazine, Tara Palmeri painted King’s Church as a “recruitment machine” and asserts that the congregation is a “long-term investment” for the Republican Party.

“What makes King’s so startling—even unnerving—for the secular left is how effortlessly it fills a void progressives never cracked: blending identity, community, and political machinery,” Palmeri writes.

Palmeri describes the church’s nondenominational contemporary worship service as “half revival, half silent disco.”

However, Pastors Wesley Welch, 34, and Ben Palka, 35, say they have never worked in politics. Palka says they would “have no idea how to engineer a ‘recruitment machine,’” adding, “we’re going to be honest about the issues, but we’re not going to wave a particular political banner.”

“What we’re doing is pretty typical church outreach,” Palka said.

“If a church is in a neighborhood, they’ll reach out to their neighborhood, they’ll canvass the neighborhood, they’ll invite people to participate in church and to explore Christianity, and that’s all we’re doing.”

Welch and Palka founded the church in 2018 with a mission to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to Washington, D.C.

More specifically, Palka says King’s Church aims to “take a robust biblical … worldview and apply it to people’s lives in a way that the jobs, the lives that they’re living are Christ focused and Christ centered.”

Pastors of King’s Church Wesley Welch and Ben Palka. (Virginia Allen/The Daily Signal)

The church’s growth did not begin until 2020, when Palka says he watched amid the COVID-19 pandemic as “young people that previously didn’t take their faith very seriously started taking it very seriously.”

What Palka said surprised him most about the Vanity Fair piece was “how out of touch, the mainstream media is with just Christianity 101.”

“They looked into a pretty normal, young Evangelical church and the only way that they could understand it was through the framework of politics in power, because … that must be how they view the world,” Palka said.

The congregation of King’s Church meeting in the basement of Penn Social bar in Washington, D.C. (King’s Church)

Congregants of the church say they chose to join the community because of the positive experience they had after walking through the church, or bar, doors.

“I think it’s evident that God is moving in King’s Church,” Avery Lance, 27, says.

“By all reports and metrics, young people aren’t going to church,” Lance said, adding, “people in a city like D.C. are not going to church, but King’s Church kind of stands in defiance of all of that.”

Lance and his wife Danielle lead one of the 25 small groups for King’s Church, providing a time to study scripture, pray, share a meal and “bear each other’s burdens and encourage each other,” Danielle Lance explained. “It’s my favorite night of the week,” she said.

Avery and Danielle Lance, King’s Church congregants. (Virginia Allen/The Daily Signal)

On a chilly Sunday morning in January, Welch preached from the book of Daniel in the Bible, using the story of Daniel living in captivity in Babylon as an exhortation to seek the Lord and represent Him regardless of the circumstance.

The church is roughly half Gen Z, 30% millennials, and 20% in the 45 plus age demographic, according to Palka.

“We didn’t set out to be a church for young people. It’s like the Lord’s just done a revival there,” Welch said, adding, “it has been amazing to see the younger generation come hungry for truth and hungry for the Lord, and receiving it.”

Washington, D.C. is young city with 34 being the median age, according to Census Reporter.

Husband and wife Sandra, 45, and Kristopher Klaich, 48, have been attending the church for over four years. As an “older” couple in the community, they quickly became mentors to many of the younger congregants, joking they are shocked so many young people want to spend time with them.

Kristopher and Sandra Klaich, King’s Church congregants. (Virginia Allen/The Daily Signal)

One of those “young people” is Jack Renner who, now 32, has been attending the church since the first year it was founded and believes so many other young people have chosen to join the church because they are hungry for community.

“When you enter King’s Church you can feel the welcoming hospitality there, the love for God and love for our fellow humans,” Renner told The Daily Signal.

As King’s Church continues to minister to the people of D.C. who join them on a Sunday morning or during the week for a small group, Wesley says the vision for the church is not only to one day have their own building, but also to “create a long term ministry here in D.C.”

AUTHOR

Virginia Allen

Virginia Allen is a senior news producer for The Daily Signal and host of “The Daily Signal Podcast” and “Problematic Women.” Send an email to Virginia. Virginia on X: @Virginia_Allen5

RELATED POSTS:

Megan Basham Weighs in on America’s Potential Religious Revival

‘Lewis & Tolkien’: Show Chronicles Their Friendship, Falling Out

How AmericaFest Celebrated Charlie Kirk’s Legacy

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

For many historians, it is difficult to imagine the survival and continuity of Persia, knowing full well the avalanche of assaults by extremely powerful and ruthless armies during its tumultuous history. Professor Robert Payne  has eloquently described this paradox:

“There are good reasons for the continuity of Persian features and Persian character. Invaders have swept over the land: Arabs, Mongols, Greeks, Turks, and Scythians. They came in floods, stayed for a little while, and then the floods subsided, leaving the original Persians unharmed.”

He continues: “The Persian Empire swallowed up the Babylonian and Assyrian Empires, and went beyond them. It was the greatest empire the world had ever known, and for two centuries its capital was the capital of the world. Today only the core of this empire remains. But the Persians, who rarely regret the past, do not believe the glory has departed. Speaking quite confidently, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, they will say: “Glory lay over this land from the beginning.”

“For them Persia is far more than a country: it is a place of splendor, where the gods dwell and the ancient heroes still walk in the land, where the remote past and the immediate present live side by side. For them all other lands are disappointing, for the sun does not shine so brightly elsewhere and there are almost no buildings beyond the boundaries of Persia which shine so brightly as their blue-tiled mosques.”

According to Bernard Lewis

“Iran was indeed Islamized, but it was not Arabized. Persians remained Persians. And after an interval of silence, Iran reemerged as a separate, different and distinctive element within Islam, eventually adding a new element even to Islam itself. Culturally, politically, and most remarkable of all even religiously, the Iranian contribution to this new Islamic civilization is of immense importance. The work of Iranians can be seen in every field of cultural endeavor, including Arabic poetry, to which poets of Iranian origin composing their poems in Arabic made a very significant contribution. In a sense, Iranian Islam is a second advent of Islam itself, a new Islam sometimes referred to as Islam-i Ajam. It was this Persian Islam, rather than the original Arab Islam, that was brought to new areas and new peoples: to the Turks, first in Central Asia and then in the Middle East in the country which came to be called Turkey, and India. The Ottoman Turks brought a form of Iranian civilization to the walls of Vienna.”

During my generation, Iran was overall a modern and secular country. Islam was not an important aspect of life to most Iranians. Islam was performed for only special occasions such as burials, weddings and by a very devout Shi’a minority Muslims, during the month of Muharram, specifically, during the days of Ashura and Tasua.

Forty years has passed since the Islamic invasion of 1979. Today, many Iranians are incorrigibly disaffected from the fraudulent and oppressive Islamic rulers. Although Islam was imposed on the Iranian people some 1,400 years ago, Iranians deeply value their own ancient non-Arab identity and have never fully surrendered to Arab culture.

Today, Iranians have finally awakened and search for their roots and identity. Some people have thanked Ayatollah Khomeini for this enlightenment. For revealing true Islam, not the figment of their imaginations about Islam. Many have already started to refer to this period as an era of Persian renaissance or awakening.

Historically, Islam has always contradicted Persian values, costumes, traditions and culture, as is evident from the glorious pre-Islamic Iranian festivities and celebrations such as Nowruz. The current anti-Islam movement in Iran in recent days has gained serious momentum, especially among the younger generations who are savvy and aware of world events via the Internet.

These brave and young enlightened Persians hold the key to break the chain of Islam that was wrapped around the necks of their forefathers many years ago with the sword of Allah. They were forced to pledge their loyalty with an oath to Allah’s book –the Qur’an– the same charter that they held in one hand while slashing the throats of tens of thousands of innocent Iranians and yelling joyously “Allah is the greatest.”

Free and civilized people must understand that it is not easy to reach the peak of freedom overnight. It takes great vision, effort and courage to ascend from the pit of Islamic slavery to the peak of emancipation.

Diversity

Iran has always been a diverse empire. From the dawn of its inception to its current existence, diversity has always been its strength. They are the people who have given Iran its enduring strength and continuity throughout the ages. Those natives include Persians, Azaris, Kurds, Balochis, Turkmen, Gilakis, Mazandaranis, Lurs and more. For millennia, these Iranian patriots have all pledged their allegiance to Iran as an idea and a country that they all have shaped and contributed to its lofty culture and beauty. Iran has been a unified nation for thousands of years. I can attest that many Iranians consider themselves to be the spiritual children of Cyrus the Great and adherents to his Charter—the first Charter of Human Rights—that clearly proclaims equal rights and is worthy of the beliefs and practices of all people.

The Birth of Persia

Some 2,500 years ago, the Persian Empire ascended to power and became an Aryan (Iranian) Monarchy. Cyrus the Great (Cyrus II), an Achaemenian King founded the Persian Empire in the sixth century BCE by the unification of the two Aryan tribes, the Medes and the Persians. In that medieval era, Persia controlled an empire that stretched from Europe’s Balkan Peninsula in the West to India’s Indus Valley in the East. It was the largest empire the world has ever known to that point.

Persian or Farsi

Since Arabs lacked the letter P in their Alphabet, Persian or Parsi became Farsi, an Arabized version. The word Farsi is in fact inaccurate nomenclature. Linguistic scholars recommend it not be used. But, unfortunately, Farsi has become part of the lexicon of the free world today and it is used by both Iranians as well as non-Iranians. The earlier exodus of Zoroastrian migrants who fled to India after the Arab invasion of Iran, now use the authentic name of the word ‘Parsi’ as their ethnic group name.

The current Parses or Persians who live in India are the true Persians who were forced to flee Persia in the seventh century to save their lives, culture and religion. They came to India with nothing, but now they are the wealthiest minority. They have always lived in harmony with the local host and assimilated well. They educated themselves, created wealth, supported their own community and helped others.

In contrast, Muslims, wherever they go, loot, murder, rape and plunder. They have ruled Iran for centuries, during which, they oppressed other religions with brute force. They were always in conflict with the hosts, cutting the hand that fed them! They burned the most valuable Iranian books and detested any other kind of education, barring reading of the Quran.

Iran or Persia

Many people and media assume Persia no longer exists and it is now referred to as Iran. The terms Iran and Persia are often used interchangeably to define the people from Iran. I believe Persia should continue to be used for historical purposes in order to connect Persia to its glorious antiquity. In 1935 AD, Reza Shah notified other countries to refer to Persia by its native name, Iran. However, map-makers and writers overlooked this formal request and continued to use Persia as the formal name instead of Iran. The name Iran has always been used among the natives and it was nothing new. Iran means the land of the Aryans. The name Iran has gone through evolutions as well. From Airyana or Airya or Aryans and other names and finally Iran. Even though not all Iranians are Persians, but both names Persia and Iran have become synonymous to include all the residents in Iran.

Islamic Invasion of Persia

Before the Islamic invasion (Revolution) of 1979, most Iranians were uninformed as to the core values of Islamic ideology simply because they could not read Arabic. So, they created their own version in their minds. Regrettably, in the seventh century AD, the Persian Empire (Sasanian Dynasty) lost the war to the Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula in the Battle of Qadisiyyah. Why they were defeated is a long story. For years Iranians resisted and fought back, but no avail. With that defeat, the Islamic creed was imposed on an enlightened, tolerant and free people at the point of a sword.

Zoroastrianism, the original Iranian religion, was not an effective barrier against the radical and backward religion from the Arabian desert

Islamic Invasion (Revolution) of 1979

In 1979, the world witnessed another Arab-Islamic invasion on the peaceful nation of Persia. As we mentioned earlier, most Iranians never knew of Islam’s true nature. But after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, it opened their eyes to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s version of Islam: violence, executions, mutilations, torture, rape, harassment, forced hijab, Islamic dungeons and more. They finally tasted the real Islam.

In the past forty years, many Iranians have begun to reject Islam in its entirety with its exclusionary and oppressive dogma. We call on decent and tolerant people of the world who celebrate gender equality, race amity, and liberty for all to join us in once and for all defeating the scourge that is Islam.

Many Iranians continue to abandon the slaveholder Islam: they break loose from the yoke of the exploitive clergy, renounce Islamic dogma, purge the discriminatory and bizarre teachings in the Quran and the Hadith, and leave the suffocating tent of dogmatic Islam for the life-giving expanse of liberty.

Dr. Jason Reza Jorjani, one of the pioneers and leading intellectuals of the Iranian Renaissance movement, in his powerful presentation, sheds light in a rapidly growing movement of Persian revival.

In short: The Persian awakening has already begun. Islamdom is at a crossroad. Millions in Iran, a hugely important force of sustaining and fanning the Islamic fire, have already turned and are turning against the Islamic credo. They and the rest of the world need to hear the voices of secular decent people who are in league with them and can help to put Islam, the very spawning swamp of the deadly virus that makes for jihadists, out of business.

©2025 Amil Imani. All rights reserved.