Revisiting the Question of Why So Many American Jews Vote Democrat

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. So, why is it that American Jews tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat? It is Thirdly Jewish Thursday. We are right in the midst of the holiday of Sukkot. On the one hand, it is at the beginning of the New Year in the Jewish calendar of tradition. It is in the seventh month in the biblical calendar, but it completes a series of one holiday or holy day after another, beginning with the sounding of the shofar, the Feast of Trumpets, which has become Rosh Hashanah in Jewish tradition, the first day of the seventh month in the biblical calendar, ten days later Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the calendar, the Day of Atonement, then five days after that the seven-day celebration of Sukkot, Tabernacles, where traditional Jews around the world will make a sukkah, make a booth in the back of their house, it could be on the roof, a flat roof of a house, and will have meals there and fulfill traditional commandments in doing so. And then there's an additional day called Shmini Atzeret, which has been appended to it, a final day of celebration and also customary rejoicing in the Torah, Simchat Torah. As the cycle of reading through the five books of Moses on an annual basis comes to an end, this is now the time of celebration, often a time of study of Torah through the night.

So that's the season that we're in. We're going to talk about a bunch of different things today on Thoroughly Jewish Thursday, and as always, phone lines are open. This is Michael Brown, here's the number to call, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-348-7884. That is the number to call any Jewish-related question of any kind. If you differ with me in my belief that Yeshua is the Messiah of Israel and want to talk to me about that. Anything else have a deal with Israel, Jewish people, Middle East today, Jewish tradition, Messianic prophecy, Hebrew language, Jewish background to the New Testament, we'll do our best to answer your questions as well.

Again, 866-348-7884. Okay, before we get your calls, before we talk any more about Sukkot, Tabernacles, let's examine an interesting question. There are different groups in America that tend to vote in blocs. In other words, the great majority of white evangelicals vote Republican, overwhelmingly so.

The great majority of black Americans vote Democrat, again, overwhelmingly so. The great majority of Jewish Americans vote Democrat. And many Christians wonder why, because they would say, hey, look, the Republicans are much more pro-Israel than the Democrats. President Trump was perceived as a strong friend of Israel. President Obama was not perceived as a strong friend of Israel, especially within Israel. And you have the radical left members of Congress, women like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, some of whom have been accused of anti-Semitism and certainly outright anti-Zionism, and now they got in the way of a major defense bill being passed for Israel. It turns out it was passed as a separate bill, but many, many concerns about the stance of the Democrat Party, and then many would say, but look, even in terms of key biblical issues like life and marriage, the Republicans are clearly standing with scripture and the Democrats against it, wanting to redefine marriage, supporting abortion, et cetera.

So why do so many American Jews vote Democrat? I'm going to address that. I've got an article coming out later today. Check for it at AskDrBrown.org or Stream.org or other places where it's carried. Religion Unplugged just begun to carry some of our articles. They've got some great stuff there. You should check out the website. So why? I want to take you through the article.

Again, if you're listening live, I don't think it's up yet on different sites, but it will be within hours, and if you're listening afterwards, it's probably available online. So let me just pull up the text of this article in front of me, and what prompted me to write on this was when the House Democrats dropped from a major budget bill $1 billion in defense for Israel. This is for the Iron Dome. The Iron Dome is not an offensive weapon.

The Iron Dome is not an actual dome. It's the Israel's missile defense system, which exists only to shoot down incoming rockets. Without this defense system, there would have been perhaps hundreds, if not thousands of casualties in Israel in recent years as bombs poured in, in particular from Hamas in Gaza.

So this is a defense system. Some of the members of the squad pushed against it, and because of that, it was pulled out of the budget. It went unprecedented. Now, it ended up that a separate bill was put forward just to pass that, and that went through, but there's reason for concern. So one of my Christian friends said, this is unprecedented.

Why does this happen? He said overwhelming Jewish support for the Democratic Party is hard to understand. As I say in the article, though, yet Jewish support for the Democrats remains strong. But some exit polls giving President Biden roughly 70 to 75% of the Jewish vote, a number that's held fairly steady with limited fluctuation since the late 1920s.

So the question is, why? So one reason that's often been given is that there's a prophetic ethic in Judaism that leans left, so siding with the rights of those who are perceived to be oppressed. That would include racial minorities. That would include women, gays, transgenders, others. So in other words, you've got to stand for the rights of women. That is pro-abortion, and the babies doesn't have those rights as human being. Stand for the rights of gays. That means redefining marriage.

First you're transgender, so you redefine and re-understand your view of gender because you're siding with minorities. Now, there's definitely some truth to this. I've interacted with liberal Jews, and I grew up in a family of liberal Jews and my extended family of liberal Jews, all voting heavily Democrat. My dad was heavily involved in the Democrat Party in New York City when I was growing up. There is definitely some of this that exists in Jewish thought.

But here's the thing. Most American Jews are fairly secular with limited familiarity with Judaism. So can this really explain such voting patterns? And why is it that generally speaking, Jews in different parts of the world tend to lean centrist or right, quite the opposite of things here in the USA? Even Israel itself, the voting leans more to the right. And in point of fact, Jews around the world either just kind of blend in with the rest of society, or according to what I've read, will go centrist or right, normally not over to the left the way it is in America.

So why? Social scientist Professor Kenneth Wald points out another anomaly, something else that's unusual with American Jewish voting. He explained that we expect most affluent people to favor the party of the right.

As a group, even allowing for individual differences, American Jews rank at or near the top on most measures of social class, education, income, occupational prestige, and such. What makes their commitment to the Democrat Party and liberal values puzzling? What then explains the leaning? Why do so many Jews lean left?

So Professor Wald, others say it's simple. American Jewish voting patterns have to do with the uniqueness of the American context. I'm quoting Professor Wald, the US Constitution follows a classic liberal model in separating citizenship and religion. Rather than rooting citizenship and blood or religion, the American system eliminates ethnic particularities as a condition for full membership in the political community.

This arrangement resonates powerfully with American Jews for practical reasons. It gives them a chance to participate as equals in a way they had not experienced elsewhere. And it differs radically from their historical experience as it best to tolerate a minority whose status often changed on the whims of rulers. So you live in a Muslim country, you live in a Catholic country, you're a religious minority, you don't have the full rights of everyone else.

You have to blend in with everybody else or else be kind of trampled under or excluded or marginalized. America's citizenship and full rights were not based on religious status. So although there was a time when American Jews voted Republican in higher numbers, and remember Republicans were the anti-slave slavery party, it was Democrats that were post-slavery. So at the time American Jews voted Republican in higher numbers, once the Republican Party became more closely aligned with evangelical Christians, Jews moved quickly to the Democrats.

Let me step back from the article for one moment and say this. There were various factors in Jewish voting as more and more Jewish immigrants came into America in the early 20th century, so the early 1900s, and then as they were standing with other immigrants and things like this, this does affect voting patterns. At this point, the Republicans are not deeply united with evangelical Christians in particular in that way, in terms of the more recent outreach to white evangelicals in particular. But the reality is that the parties were shifting, things that began in the late 20s, 30s, and then really codified under FDR and his so-called New Deal, the shift is pretty much permanent after that.

All right, so back to the article. Wald explains when, however, the Republican Party reached out to white Protestant evangelicals who eventually came to constitute the party's base, Jews reacted negatively because they perceived a threat to the liberal regime. Those with their God talk, insistence on a Christian America, and general willingness to deny fundamental liberties to some minorities on religious grounds, struck many American Jews as a fundamental danger to core values of the polity.

Accordingly, Jewish support for Democratic presidential nominees rose from roughly two-thirds to three-fourths in the 1990s and thereafter. This also explains why the more that Israeli leadership moves to the right, both politically and religiously, the less solidarity American Jews feel with Israel, despite its importance to them. Many evangelical Christians are actually surprised to learn that they appear to feel more loyalty to Israel than do their American Jewish friends. As for the growing number of Orthodox Jews that identify as Republican, up from 57% in 2013 to 75% today, one headline declared, in voting, Orthodox Jews are looking more like evangelicals. As the story reported among Orthodox Jewish Trump voters, Israel, Iran, and terrorism were among the top concerns cited in a survey by Nishma Research, a Connecticut-based polling firm, among Orthodox Jewish Biden voters, the coronavirus pandemic bringing the country together in health care were the top three issues. I wonder how those issues are working out for the Biden voters now. This indicates then that American Jews are more divided by ideology than they're united by religious faith since there's a massive gulf between traditional Judaism and liberal Judaism just as there is between conservative Christianity and liberal Christianity. I end the article by pointing out that the Orthodox population is continuing to grow.

Over a period of time, will that actually shift voting so that more and more American Jews will vote Republican if things stay as they are? It'll be interesting to see. All right. We'll be right back. It's The Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Would you join me in praying for the lost sheep of the House of Israel? There are many Jews who are involved in other religions, cults. There are many Jews who are atheistic or just largely secular. There are many Jews who are devout, who wake up in the morning and their first conscious thoughts are wanting to honor God.

And through the day, they're seeking to live scrupulously so as to honor and please God. And obviously, having friends that are religious Jews that I've been interacting with for many years, my heart especially goes out to them with great love that the God they desire to know and please and honor would reveal himself to them like never before, would reveal to them the truth of Messiah. Join me in praying. Your prayers make a difference. God open the hearts, open the minds of the lost sheep of the House of Israel as you open our hearts and our minds as we were all lost outside of your son. Be merciful God in Yeshua's name, Amen. Any question, Jewish-related question, phone lines are open, 866-344-TRUTH.

We start in McAllen, Texas, Sims, welcome to the line of fire. Good afternoon, Dr. Brown, thank you again for your ministry, I appreciate everything that you do. I have a question concerning the oral Torah. I saw a video right around the same time your book Christian Antisemitism came out, which I have, I just haven't read yet, but the video was by one for Israel Ministry and it was entitled, this particular video was Myth 12, the Oral Torah says that women are the daughter of the king. And they spent about 18 minutes going through various, I guess, quotes from the Talmud and from currently living rabbis about women, and these are some of the most horrific things that I have ever heard, comparing women to brainless donkeys saying they're not teachable or trustworthy and whatnot, and so I'm wondering, obviously we can't go through all of the examples, but I'm wondering sort of how we sort of think about that sort of biblically and what would sort of be a way to respond to that.

Yeah, so this is actually a very difficult and delicate subject, let me explain why. I love what One for Israel does, Eitan Barr and I are in fairly regular contact, I so appreciate the outreach they're doing, and in the context of living in Israel, when they're there is so much opposition that comes their way from very religious Jews, some of whom are corrupt and have even had jail sentences, you know, served in the government and then ended up in jail. And as much as they do some of these ultra-orthodox Jews to undermine what we believe and do as messianic Jews, you get to see the worst side of things, you get to see their ugliest side.

I'm just trying to back into this by giving a broader context. In America, it's a very different situation, and the types of abuse that they deal with in Israel would be unheard of here in America. And in America, and in other parts of the world, I'm very jealous to expose misinterpretations of Jewish texts, I'm careful to reveal antisemitic readings of the Talmud and things like that as I do in the book you mentioned, Christian antisemitism. So that's my heart and my burden to do that and to show the best side that I can of Jewish faith, to compare the best side of Jewish faith to the best side of Christian faith.

That's a fair way to do it. So the context in Israel is very different here. The context in Israel is they are battling often opposition that is pharisaic and hypocritical. Here in America, I'm doing my best to protect rabbis and those in the Jewish community from false charges, okay?

That's why this is kind of a minefield to walk through. So on the video specifically, I've interacted with Eitan, I've interacted with Orthodox rabbis who were very upset with it and feel it gives a misleading impression. What about quotes from some rabbis today that are wacky, that are terribly demeaning to women, that are ugly, that are inexcusable? That's what they are. Wacky, ugly, inexcusable. And every rabbi that I know would denounce them and say, that's not who we are, that's not Judaism, that's not what we think, that's not what we believe.

These guys are wacky. So let's agree that the One for Israel people accurately have pulled quotes from leaders in Israel, some well-known, some little-known, that are really bad, that are ugly, that are demeaning to women, that could be called misogynistic, etc. So let's start there and say those exist. Also, there are quotes that are on the video that rabbis would challenge. In other words, that was someone's opinion, but in the larger text, it's rejected.

So let's say that there are some things that are disputed. The other thing is that within Judaism, women do have a lesser role in terms of they do not lead the community the same way that men do. So the leaders of the community, elected officials, the synagogue rabbis, etc., they will all be male. And when you have a public gathering, let's say you're having a wedding, the men and women are separated for the times of celebration. When you are having a Sabbath service or any other religious gathering, the men are in the main hall and the women are off to the side.

They can look through windows to participate and things like that. So in that sense, it can be seen as demeaning, and in that sense, women can be perceived as second-class citizens, and some of the rabbinic texts would point in that direction. The flip side argument would be this, and then I'm going to give my conclusion, okay? The flip side argument would be that in traditional Judaism, women are highly honored, highly esteemed that it was a Jewish society like Israel that had an environment for a female prime minister early on in history, Golda Meir. It would be noticed that, for example, every Sabbath that the husband will recite Proverbs 31 to his wife as a virtuous woman, that women are highly honored and are recognized for their unique gifting, etc., and that also explains why the divorce rates are lower in the religious Jewish communities and on and on, and that they love having large families and being mothers and so on, so that this is a complete misrepresentation of Judaism, and you'll find so many rabbis, many other teachings about loving the wife and honoring the wife and esteeming the wife, etc.

So how do we sort this out? Some of the ancient writings reflect the culture, just like Paul's teachings about women in the New Testament or warning about women being misled by other teachers. Those could be taken in such a way that women were being demeaned in general, but then we point to all the texts extolling women, honoring women through the New Testament, etc. So some of the ancient Jewish texts do reflect a denigrating view of women with statements far more extreme than anything you find in the New Testament. Some of it was cultural, and some of it was part of ancient Judaism, and one for Israel does a good job of exposing that. Some of the texts have a pushback, as I said, that they are an opinion that is rejected elsewhere or that is contradicted by other writings, and therefore each citation should be examined carefully. You should watch the video and then watch some of the responses by some rabbis to the video. Rabbi Moshe Shulman, for example, has some lengthy responses. And then the third thing is there are some real bad apples out there, and there are some forms of Judaism that are traditional Judaism that really are oppressive. So it's multifaceted. The religious Jews that I know, the men would honor their wives as much as anyone you'd want to meet, esteem their wives, love their wives, care for their wives, nurture their wives, and basically would speak of them and honor them the way best Christian couple would as well. And yet for sure, we know of many religious Jewish women that are kind of raised in a system, multiple babies, starting at the earliest age, kind of trapped in and feel oppressed by the system as a whole. So it's a mix. You could get an exaggerated picture just by watching that video, but there are some real sore spots that the video hit on.

It's gone completely viral, and it's led to a lot of discussion within Israel because some prominent leaders have said some really bad things, and now they're paying the price for it. So sorry for the long answer, but as I said, it's somewhat complex. I hope that gives some helpful insight.

Yes, it does. Absolutely. I appreciate that. I always appreciate your even-handedness in your call to examine things in context, so much appreciated. Yeah.

Thanks, Sims. And again, look, I am not trying to play both sides against the middle here. It's just this is complex. There are plenty of things.

Ask me, and my first answer is yes, no. Or here's why this is categorically wrong, or here's why I totally embrace this. This is more complex. So where there is corruption, where there are bad traditions, let them be revealed. Let them be dealt with. Where there is misunderstanding, let there be clarification. Wherever something results in hatred of the Jewish people, resist it, because that's not from above.

That's not from God, and it's not based on truth when you end up with that attitude. And here you've got Israeli Jews saying, hey, we're not anti-Semitism. We're Jews. We're Israelis. We love our people. We love our country. But we do believe there are some traditions that need to be addressed.

Hey, thank you very much for the call, 866-34-TRUTH. If you haven't read Christian anti-Semitism, I really encourage you to. It'll be an eye-opener.

As I said in the preface, it's the book I wished I didn't have to write, but I had to. Welcome, welcome to The Line of Fire. It's thoroughly Jewish Thursday during the festival of Sukkot. This festival prophetically foreshadows the ingathering of the nations, part of the final harvest feast in this series, and it foreshadows the ingathering of the nations. You see that clearly laid out in Zechariah, chapter 14, where the survivors of the nations that attacked Jerusalem come to the city to celebrate Sukkot.

This is after Messiah's return and the establishing of his kingdom on the earth. You get a Jewish-related question, 866-34-TRUTH, 866-34-87-884. Hey, I've got a question for you first. Have you visited vitaminmission.com? No? Well, why not?

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And then there are many different ones for specific things. So check it out. All right. We go back to the phones. Ben in Stillwater, Oklahoma, welcome to the line of fire.

Hey, Dr. Brown, God bless you, brother. I've wanted to call in for so long. I finally get the opportunity to. Well, here we are. Here we are. Awesome. So I have a question, and it's a big one.

You ready? Go ahead. So recently, William Lane Craig, he's put out a book on the historical Adam. And from basically what I can tell, he affirms the existence of the historical Adam, but he puts it way, way, way back in the past. So it was to include other, he calls them other humans, like I guess Neanderthals, Homo heidelbergensis, or whatever the other one was. Yeah, that there would be some type of human-like being, but without the breath of God in a soulish way being breathed into that person to make them uniquely created in the image of God. And that would explain what appears to be scientific records and fossils and evidence and things like that with the account of one Adam, one Eve, as the founders of the human race. So that he and others have approached things like that.

I haven't read his book yet, but obviously a lot of discussion and controversy around it. Okay. So my question is, I guess, it seems, I don't know, Dr. Brown, I've really struggled with this for a long time.

I've racked my brain trying to answer it, because it appears that either way anyone tries to answer this, whether it be a young earth answer, an old earth answer, even like a naturalist answer, I mean, I think we can all agree that there's no way that life could form on its own. DNA is too complex, you name it. I think everyone has to face this answer. So I was reading a response by Owen Strickland, and I like him and Dr. Craig, but he was pretty much calling Dr. Craig out and saying that, I don't know. I don't want to put words in Dr. Strickland's mouth, but he basically said like, if you don't hold to like a literal six day, 24 hour period, then it's not Orthodox Christianity. And then, I mean, cause I've heard that and then, but how would they reconcile that with, I guess, quote unquote, modern scientific evidence.

And this brings me to say this. I don't want to read things into Genesis. I want to take Genesis for what it is and look at it and not read my cultural understanding into it. So I guess, Dr. Brown, what is one, your view of Genesis and specifically 1 to 11 and 2, what is like the traditional Jewish view of that? Right.

Okay, so a few things. Number one, because I haven't read Dr. Craig's book or responses to it, I'm not going to comment on quotes from either side. I will say, it is absolutely not a matter of orthodoxy that you must hold to a 24 hour six day creation, okay? There's no way, scripturally, that you can make that into a fundamental doctrine that people must hold to. Those who are young earth are Orthodox believers and those who are not young earth are not Orthodox believers, absolutely not. The Bible does not put that forth in any way as a sign of orthodoxy.

And there are different ways to read the text and be faithful to the Hebrew text. So I honor and respect you, Ross, old earth creationist astronomer, as a fellow believer in Jesus and Jonathan Sephardi, whom I had on to talk about COVID vaccines a week ago, a young earth creationist. I honor him as a believer, and we hold to the fundamentals of the Bible being God's authoritative word. We hold to the fundamentals of one God, one God only, salvation only through the blood of Jesus, Jesus' eternal divine nature, dying for our sins, rising from the dead, et cetera.

We hold to all those things foundationally and immovably. That's the test of orthodoxy. Now, if you deny that there was a historical Adam, that Adam and Eve are just poetic figures, that's a different story. That is now undermining something that the Bible clearly speaks of repeatedly of Adam and Eve as first human beings, or Adam sinning and the consequences for the human race. So you could say, well, doesn't the Bible do the same thing with six days that God created the heavens and the earth and rested on the seventh?

You could argue that. You could also argue that the Bible says that with the Lord, one day, as this is 1,000 years, that within Genesis 1 and 2, you have the Hebrew word yom, day, used three different ways. You have it used for daylight, you have daytime, and you have evening, right? So that's yom, daytime. Then you have yom, one day, meaning the whole of morning and evening. And then in Genesis 2, you have it in a grammatical form, beyom, which simply means when. So it's used three different ways within the opening chapters of Genesis, and because you have day and night before you even have a functioning sun, what are we to take away from that? So my own view in terms of the age of the earth based on scripture is I don't know because I don't believe the Bible gives us specific guidance.

It could well be that the earth is young, so if you go to a website like creation.com or Answers in Genesis, they will give you all the scientific answers you're looking for. How do you explain this? How do you explain this? How do you explain this?

How do you explain this? They would even say, look, Adam and Eve were created, according to everything we understand, as fully mature human beings. So why couldn't God create a fully mature universe that had the impression of being older just like a fully mature human being? I'm not a scientist, but I'm saying if you go to those websites, you will find scholars, PhDs in various scientific fields, biology, chemistry, etc., all arguing for a young earth. If you go to a website like reasons.org, you'll find out that Dr. Ross became a believer based on reading the Bible and seeing what the Bible says about creation through the whole Bible, how that ties in with science as we understand it, and why clearly we can believe in an old earth in science. Personally, just studying the Hebrew text, I understand that Genesis 1 is there not to teach us science or history, but to teach us about God, to teach us about how God works. Things are laid out in a systematized seven-day form.

You have the first three days kind of setting the stage, the next three days filling the stage. You have a lot of parallels between that and the building of the tabernacle and the building of the temple later in the Bible. So it's clear to me that the lesson there is not the age of the earth.

That can be debated other ways, the genealogies, other things like that. The lesson there is that God is the creator. He brings light out of darkness. He brings order out of chaos. He causes everything to reproduce after its own kind.

He establishes human beings as unique on the earth and created in the image of God. As for Jewish interpretation, traditional Jewish interpretation really doesn't get into this. On the one hand, there are chronologies and the date of the earth, you know, we're in the year 5782.

It's, you know, those kinds of things. However, traditional Jewish interpretation just doesn't get into this. It doesn't debate these things. It reads the text in a different way.

And these types of debates about young earth, old earth are rarely found in Jewish traditional writings. It's just not the focus of the text. Interesting. Okay.

Yep. So, there you go, Ben. It doesn't give you guidance in terms of sorting out the debate with Dr. Craig. John Walton has a book on historical Adam, Raising Many Questions.

I believe Hugh Ross has one as well, maybe with Fuz Rana, I forget if they co-authored that. And then, of course, Young Earth Creationists with Pushback Strongly. To me, again, the key issue is the recognition of the first couple uniquely created by God, Adam and Eve. If either they are just mythical fictional characters, that to me is clearly undermining and to many others the authority of scripture and the whole narrative of the fall of human beings and Jesus coming into the world, etc. If you say that there were beings that existed before them that were not truly human, that opens up a different debate.

It's an important debate, but it's not quite at that same level. Okay. We will be back for more of your calls on the other side of the break. Ben, thanks for finally calling in. 866-3-4-TRUTH is the number to call. It's The Line of Fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into The Line of Fire now by calling 866-3-4-TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Welcome, welcome to Thoroughly Jewish Thursday.

Michael Brown here. A headline, just want to read this to you, Daily Mail, Iron Dome's $1 billion funding is overwhelmingly approved in House 420-9, as Rashida Tlaib is accused of anti-Semitism by fellow Democrats after she called Israel a violent apartheid system. So what happened, this $1 billion defense bill for Israel, for the Iron Dome, which is simply rockets to shoot down incoming rockets.

It is an entirely defensive weapon, okay? That's all it's for, the Iron Dome, to save lives, both Israeli and Arab lives living there. So it was part of a bill to partially avoid a government shutdown, $1 billion. Some of the radical leftists objected to it, immediately got pulled from, okay, we're not going to debate that, which was a scary thing to see, but then put forth separately and it passed 420-9. It's a good sign. It's a good sign to see still that the support for Israel's defense is that strong.

It's a very positive sign and I appreciate all the Democrats along with all the Republicans who voted in this way. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, how did she vote? Present. Yeah, she voted present. Among the no's, Rashida Tlaib and fellow squad members Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley. So this is, again, these individuals for whom we pray have some very, very radically anti-Israel views. So Tlaib had referred to Israel as a violent apartheid state and Foreign Affairs Chair Representative Ted Deutch of Florida said, I cannot allow one of my colleagues to stand on the floor of the House of Representatives and label the Jewish Democratic State of Israel an apartheid state. I reject it. He said, if you believe in human rights, if you believe in saving lives, Israeli and Palestinian lives, I say to my colleague who just besmirched our ally, then you will support this legislation. When there is no place on the map for one Jewish state, that's anti-Semitism and I reject that. Well done, sir.

Appreciate Democrats raising their voice in that way and calling out the anti-Semitism and the ugly anti-Zionism that's there. All right. Let's move over to Joseph in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Welcome to the line of fire.

Hello, Dr. Brown. Thank you very much. I have a question, quick little information for you. We're raised in a very Catholic household family. I myself have left for Christianity, but my cousin, and I and my cousin are both combat vets, he has now elected to go for a Masonic, Messianic Jewish lifestyle, but his biggest thing that we talk about is he is telling me where, as a Messianic Jew, where he wants to live more like the first century Jews and here observe a lot of the traditions and, I don't know how you call it, rites and rituals, I guess, of the Jewish culture.

And I tell him that we no longer have to do that. And our discussion kind of goes into, well, he claims that it's the riches that you receive in heaven by following the Mosaic laws. And then really quick, also, he has family members here who actually have, they don't call it a synagogue, they call it a kehilah, I don't know if that means anything to you. Congregation, yeah.

That's mixed into it? Yeah, congregation. Okay, okay. I wasn't sure if that was just a Spanish in a... No, that's Hebrew. That's Hebrew.

That's Hebrew. Okay, great. So he has people that are in that mindset that he goes with, and I just, I'm not, I basically say as long as you don't, we don't disagree on the resurrection of Christ, third day bodily ascension into heaven, you know, I think a lot of that isn't necessarily dividing, but how much of that really should I, as a Bible-believing born-again Christian, kind of observe the Jewish traditions? Do I even have to?

You do not have to. You absolutely do not have to obey Jewish tradition. You're not a Jew in the first place. The second place, God never laid Jewish tradition on everyone. Thirdly, we are not under the Sinai covenant, we're under a new and better covenant, and it finds its expression in the New Testament writings.

Jesus brings the law and the prophets to their fulfillment, and now brings us into the fullness of what God intended. So when it comes to other issues, if someone feels convicted to observe the Sabbath on a Saturday, and someone else says, every day is equally holy to the Lord, Paul says in Romans 14, each of you have your convictions, don't judge each other. If he finds spiritual riches, joining with a Messianic Jewish congregation, celebrating the feasts, and says, hey, look, God gave dietary laws, there must be a reason for it, I'm going to live by fine, he's free to do that. He's absolutely free to do that.

And you're absolutely free not to. What I would be on the lookout for is the dangerous tendency where he begins to preach it's an obligation, or begins to tell you that you're wrong if you don't do it. And I'm almost 100% sure that whatever Messianic congregation is going to, it's a majority of the people attending are Gentile and not Jewish, and that it's a mix and match. It's like, we do this tradition, we don't do that. Because if you compare them to ultra-orthodox Jews, they keep like one-tenth of the traditions that can be kept, you know? And then why do you do this and not that, et cetera? So look, if you're going to take on Jewish traditions, why are you driving to the meeting? Or traditional Jews won't drive on the Sabbath, and so on and so forth.

So it's fine to do. Plenty of my friends are leaders in the Messianic Jewish movement, and they love the Lord, and they've done a great job of helping the church to remember the Jewish roots of the faith and to tell the Jewish community, you can be Jewish and believe in Jesus. But once a Gentile feels an obligation, once he begins to identify as a Jew, even when he's not, or acts as if Jews were on a higher spiritual plane, which is not the case, or begins to step away from evangelism, is not free to just worship Yeshua with you, worship Jesus, Jesus, I love you, I worship you as God. If he's not free to do that, then he's getting pulled in a dangerous direction.

And just like churches, there are Messianic congregations that are healthy and thriving, and Messianic congregations that are unhealthy and going in dangerous directions, just like churches can be good or bad. So I would just watch carefully, again, one, is he feeling obligated, I must, God's commanding me, then I have a little caution, bigger caution. You're wrong, because you're not doing it. He tells you that you're wrong.

Now it's a much bigger caution. Do you have my book, 60 Questions Christians Ask About Jewish Beliefs and Practices? I do not, sir. All right, Joseph, stay right there. Our call screener is going to come on with you. Get your address. I want to mail it to you, 60 Questions Christians Ask About Jewish Beliefs and Practices.

The last quarter of the book deals with these very issues, and you'll find it helpful. So we're going to get your info and send you a free copy of the book, 60 Questions Christians Ask About Jewish Beliefs and Practices. I trust it will be a blessing, and let's pray for your brother to walk in the fullness of God's goodness and truth. Hey, thank you for the call. Let's go over to Brett in Concord, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire. Good afternoon, Dr. Brown.

You could almost shout to me from Concord, we're pretty close. Yes. All right, well, I just have a quick question about Jeremiah 31, where it talks about the new covenant, and our church recently went through and just looked at God's covenant, starting with Abraham, and then all the way through into the New Testament. And when we were going through the prophecies in Jeremiah and also Ezekiel 36, it just brought up the question to me, I see the new covenant as being fulfilled in Jesus, his death and resurrection, and then the subsequent outpouring of the Spirit. But what do traditional Jews think about that passage, Jeremiah 31, and how the new covenant is fulfilled? Right, so they see it as still future, Jeremiah 31 verses 31 to 34 in our English Bibles, one verse different in the Hebrew Bibles.

They see it as still future. They would point out that it is the covenant for the House of Israel and the House of Judah, not for the whole world, not for the church, but for the House of Israel and the House of Judah. They would point out more importantly that God says he will put his Torah in their hearts in the future, and that the difference is not going to be in the content of the Torah, the divine teaching, instruction, law, but rather in the fact that the Jewish people as a whole will fully obey, like Ezekiel 36, that God would put a new spirit within them and that they would keep his commandments. So in the Jewish mind, when the Messiah comes, then the new covenant will be realized and there will be universal obedience from the Jewish people that their hearts will be turned, their hearts will be circumcised, and that it will be the same Torah. The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation reads torot, laws, plural, and that's how it's quoted in the New Testament. But just as we would say now that we see this partially fulfilled because God has put his laws within our hearts and we have a new nature and yet we're still in this world, still in these bodies, still with these minds that need to be renewed, and therefore on a daily basis we renew our hearts and minds in obedience until we see the complete fulfillment of this in the world to come, Jews would say we're still waiting for that to happen and when it happens it's not going to be different laws, it's not going to be different holidays, it's going to be the same laws. Here and there there'll be moderations, for example the idea that in the world to come there'll be Thanksgiving offerings but not atonement offerings because there won't be sin, but otherwise traditional Jews look forward to the new covenant when all Jews will observe the Sabbath, all Jews will observe the dietary laws, all Jews will live by the other customs and traditions laid out in scripture and then of course some that have been added through traditional Judaism. So that's the debate there and it's a healthy debate, it's a fair debate to have. Hey friends, with that we are out of time for our fellow Jewish friends and for everyone Chag Sukkot Sameach, Happy Sukkot, Happy Tabernacles.