Opinion | How Jews Become Christian Nationalists: The Case of Josh Mandel

A supporter holds a Bible as Trump supporters gather outside the Capitol in Washington D.C.Credit: AP Photo/John Minchillo

"Are we seriously supposed to believe the most Christian values Senate candidate is Jewish? I am so sick of these phony caricatures." Mike Pukita, entrepreneur and IT consultant, was trying to gain traction within a crowded Republican primary field hoping to succeed the retiring Ohio Senator Rob Portman, and this radio ad was his method.

 
An attack on front-runner Josh Mandel, the ad received a predictably outraged response, but Pukita refused to back down. He explained: "In terms of antisemitism, all I did in an ad was pointed out that Josh is going around saying he’s got the Bible in one hand and the constitution in the other. But he’s Jewish. Everybody should know that though, right?"

 
The thing is, Pukita was right.

 
It has been well-documented how Mandel, who heavily emphasized his Jewish faith during previous successful runs for Ohio Treasurer, now touts his "Judeo-Christian" values, utilizing explicitly Christian imagery. His campaign website, for example, features a picture of an American flag waving before a church steeple topped by a cross. It is not preposterous to accuse Mandel of false advertising.

Unaffected by the ad and its line of attack, Mandel maintains a healthy lead. Pukita’s fatal campaign mistake, in the end, was not asserting that America is a Christian country. His mistake was defining the word "Christian" religiously, not politically.

 

President Donald Trump holds a Bible as he visits outside St. John's Church across Lafayette Park from the White HouseCredit: AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

Pukita should have seen it coming. It is hard to imagine someone less religiously Christian than the philandering, dishonest, narcissistic, hedonistic Donald Trump, who yet enjoyed widespread support from the Christian right and in particular from the ultra-conservative white evangelicals that his own ad was meant to sway.
 
In truth, Mandel and Trump are not claiming to be "Christian" in any spiritual sense. Instead, they are claiming what Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry define as Christian nationalism, "a political theology that fuses American identity with an ultra-conservative strain of Christianity...an ethnic Christian-ism."

As they explain, "study after study shows Christian nationalism is strongly associated with attitudes concerning proper social hierarchies by religion, race, and nativity." In other words, "Christian" is little more than a euphemism for “conservative, white, and native-born."

 
By claiming America is a "Christian country," what they are really saying is that it belongs to them, and people who look like them. Rather than worshipping God, they utilize religious imagery and ceremony to celebrate and maintain political power.

 
Whitehead and Perry convincingly demonstrate the roots of Christian nationalism as an essentially anti-democratic ideology going as far back as slavery, anti-immigration movements, and Jim Crow, and its current manifestations in gerrymandering and voting restrictions intended to entrench the power of America’s shrinking white majority.

Donald Trump perfectly encapsulated this supremacist attitude, as Adam Serwer described: "Only the president and his allies, his supporters, and their anointed are entitled to the rights and protections of the law, and if necessary, immunity from it. The rest of us are entitled only to cruelty, by their whim." 

 
When Mandel uses the term "Judeo-Christian," he intends to define, like Trump, who is a "real" American - and who is not. Despite many observers wondering about Mandel’s sharp turn to the extreme right, his nativist, racist, and Islamophobic views have been a through-line across his political career. 

 
If Christian nationalism is really about white supremacy, then it follows that Mandel can be seen as "Christian" despite his Jewish lineage and observance. This is what he means by "Judeo-Christian," a term he uses largely in opposition to what he calls "radical Islam." 

Judeo-Christian > Radical Islam

— Josh Mandel (@JoshMandelOhio) September 3, 2021

It should now be clear how Mandel could tweet in support of Mike Flynn, who stated last week, "If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God and one religion under God, right?" 

 
Flynn, never known to be deeply religious, was echoing Trump, who frequently closed speeches by referring to his vision of America as "one people, under one God, saluting one flag." Again, it is not so much about a religious vision as it is about a cultural, ethnic vision of a monochromatic, homogeneous America.

 
It is not shocking that recent research has demonstrated a link between Christian nationalism and antisemitic attitudes.

 
For example, when Mike Flynn, in 2016, retweeted the response "Not anymore, Jews. Not anymore," to a claim that the "Democratic machine" would do anything to install Hillary Clinton as president, he may not have (solely) meant adherents to the Jewish faith as much as Americans with a more cosmopolitan ("globalist") and therefore, in his mind, disloyal, outlook.

 
It has been interesting, though not surprising to see Mandel adopt the same antisemitic language. He takes it a step further, though, by directing it at actual Jews.

 
In particular, firing back at the Anti-Defamation League calling on him to apologize for calling President Biden’s vaccine mandate policy "Gestapo" tactics, Mandel called ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt a "kapo." 

Hi @ADL, I will not stop. I will not apologize.

It’s you and kapo @JGreenblattADL that should apologize.

As you guys play footsie with Jew-haters, I will keep fighting alongside Patriots like @Cernovich and @JackPosobiec as we defend the Judeo-Christian bedrock of America. https://t.co/8A5UVxUp3a

— Josh Mandel (@JoshMandelOhio) September 10, 2021

"I will keep fighting alongside Patriots like @Cernovich and @JackPosobiec as we defend the Judeo-Christian bedrock of America," Mandel continued, despite both Cernovich and Posobiec’s long records of antisemitic and Holocaust-minimizing statements and associations. Again, if "Judeo-Christian" really means "white," Mandel’s statement makes more sense.

 
In contrast, under Greenblatt’s leadership, the ADL has taken the position that the most effective way to fight antisemitism is by building connections with other minority communities fighting their own battles against bigotry and racism.

 
Greenblatt’s work, especially working in concert with a Democratic administration elected by a diverse spectrum of voters, stands in sharp contrast to Mandel’s Christian nationalist perspective. To Mandel, Greenblatt essentially is working with the Nazis.

 
Of course, in its original meaning, "kapo" was a slur that described a collaborator with a violent ethno-nationalist movement that used democracy to gain power, then consolidated around a vision of racial and cultural purity, often couched in mystical, even religious language. One wonders if Mandel, hurling the term at Greenblatt, is even aware of the irony.

 
Avraham Bronstein is rabbi of The Hampton Synagogue in Westhampton Beach, NY. Twitter: @AvBronstein