Into the Lion's Den
6 Tamuz 5785 (2 July 2025)
I think I just came back from what has to be the most “churchy” experience I’ve ever had and I honestly loved it. I just spent 3 days at the Christians United For Israel (CUFI) summit in Washington DC. I expect some of you reading to be taken aback a bit, stay still friends, I have a lot to say, that much at least should be unsurprising.
CUFI is a massive organization that does advocacy, lobbying, and fundraising. It’s already ~20 years old and boasting 11 million members. That metric alone makes it the largest pro-Israel organization in the continental United States. Ignoring and or otherwise dismissing this entity is patently foolish for that reason alone. The character and inception of CUFI can basically be credited to a single man: Pastor John Hagee. His story and activism on the fronts of curbing jew hatred and promoting the US-Israel alliance is something I will get into, but I figure it’s probably more proper to clear the air for many of you before I do so. The choice to attend the conference wasn’t difficult to be honest. I believe that Jews and Christians have more in common than differences in the American continent.
I had an invitation extended to me by Kasim Hafeez (shoutout to a fellow brown), the deputy director of messaging at CUFI. Kasim’s life story is fascinating in its own right being that of a Pakistani ex-muslim with a fantastic sense of dry English humor. However, I won’t waste time relating his entire biography, he’s much better suited to do that and I suggest you give him a follow if you aren’t already. Despite my quick decision to attend the conference, I did feel a small level of creeping anxiety about going to a Christian gathering on the train ride there. Would attendants try to preach to me about Jesus? Would proselytization be expected and tolerated? Would the New Testament be a constant reference in the plenary sessions? How accommodating would it be for Jewish attendees in general?
I’ve had plenty of pleasant interactions with Christians, but the few unpleasant ones still remained in my mind. I don’t totally care to expand on this much but I have had some deeply aggravating interactions with proselytization attempts including once when it was visited upon my father, zichrono livracha, when he was brought into hospice care during his final days. I only relate this story so that the rest of the essay be taken seriously and not dismissed as one naive man’s take. Though not quite like Daniel, I felt perhaps that there was a slight chance that I would be walking into the Lion's Den.
CUFI, to their credit, does a good job of anticipating any anxiety Jews might have in attending their summit for the first time. Before any of the major programming begins, Jewish attendees were invited to a private panel with Pastor Hagee and Rabbi Avraham Scheinberg. It was made clear from the beginning that CUFI is a one issue organization: the well being of the Jewish people in the totality of what that entails. Consequently, this organization is explicitly non-conversionary and they do not tolerate proselytization efforts from either their staff or the attendants. I cannot stress enough how much that means to me, and I believe that this principle should go to them as an incredible credit. They lobby the US government, rally churches across the country to support the fight against antisemitism, promote positive Jewish-Christian relations, and do whatever they can to bolster the US-Israel alliance.
Hagee, for his part, left a remarkable impression on me with how emotional and distraught he became in speaking about his lifelong spiritual brother, friend, and personal confidant Rav Aryeh Scheinberg. The Pastor was the only gentile who spoke at the Rabbi’s funeral and Hagee said with teary eyes that he looks most forward to seeing Rabbi Scheinberg when he enters his afterlife. He described his love for Rabbi Scheinberg as that which Jonathan had for David. I don’t consider myself a fool and what I saw from Pastor Hagee as he sat beside the son of the late Rabbi was true fraternal love for a fellow human being who also happened to be an Orthodox Jew. He spent most of his time talking to us about the ways in which Jews influenced his life for the better and the deep love he has for Israel. His condemnations of antisemitism, including when it comes from christian spheres, were refreshing. He views Jew hatred as demonic (yes he uses that word explicitly) and poisonous. He and his daughter, heir apparent to CUFI leadership, feel that Christians should not be spared from the curse that antisemitism brings to society. “If you’re going to draw a circle, draw it around us as well”.
I was reminded of all the whining in American Jewish discourse about the struggle to find allies, I couldn’t help but feel that these people were perhaps genuine allies. Pastor Hagee founded CUFI decades ago when then Iranian president Ahmadinejad described Israel as a “one-bomb country”. He organized 400 pastors to embark on a trip throughout Israel on his own volition and leveraged their experience to create a political organization that could wield enough strength to influence the highest levels of American politics.
Well, I was put at ease, this didn’t seem like a Lion's Den at all. This summit, marking the 20 year anniversary since its first, had the highest Jewish attendance yet. Jewish college students, Israeli community leaders, American Chassids, a bevy of major Jewish activists and politicians were in the room. Finding a minyan was only difficult in that you had to accept being added to yet another whatsapp chat. Actually, most of the Orthodox Jews in attendance have been veterans of the organization for many years. I was surprised. I met a daati leumi man who hails from a yishuv in shomron and operates an organization to connect Christians to communities in Judea and Samaria. He had been coming to the CUFI summit for years and the support has been a two way street with CUFI directly providing material assistance to his community. The heads of the Young Jewish Republicans were there as well. I met an unassuming chassid who spent his time chatting with African christian pastors at the convention and was planning a meeting to see Cardinal Dolan to discuss how we could improve Jewish-Catholic relations more specifically. Frankly, religious Jews seem very much at ease and comfortable at CUFI.
When I davened, we were given a private section of the conference plaza for our prayers with security around the corner. We live in a pretty remarkable era when Jews and Christians can meet each other in goodwill. I think it’s important to internalize this. Anyone who studies Jewish history can only be in awe of how utterly unique a place like CUFI is. The Christians were nothing short of pleasant. I was frequently greeted with a “shalom shalom” (for some reason people said it twice), very warm smiles, fistbumps and handshakes. It did bother me a bit how nice people were. This is an entirely unserious complaint, and only born of my naturally cynical and untrusting disposition. Perhaps Jews are conditioned to expect assholes and the lack thereof triggers us. I’m not sure, I’ll leave the pathologizing to neurotic Jewish therapists. I spoke to pastors, students, mothers and fathers. There was a fundamental undertone of goodwill in every conversation I had. The programming itself was great. I didn't really learn anything new from the content of the speeches themselves. Being a terminally online Jew will expose you to far more than you bargain to learn. I definitely learned a lot about how emotional the Christian attachment is to the Bible, and by extension the Jewish narrative and Israel.
The truth is that this didn't feel foreign to me. Learning Torah, reading Jewish history, and the melding of the two is also deeply satisfying to me as well. Obviously, lehavdil, the methods are a bit different, but the result is ultimately adjacent. It’s maybe a bit gauche for cosmopolitan society to admit this, but talking explicitly about G-d, giving thanks, and recognizing the intricate design in life is actually quite liberating and fulfilling if not at the very least interesting. It was moving to see a large group of people appreciate G-d and pursue moral matters. The two emotional high points of the summit both involved hostage families who were invited to speak. Yair Horn, a former hostage who was kidnapped along with his yet to be released brother, jumped off the stage after his speech to approach John Hagee and embrace him in a hug. Hersh Goldberg Polin’s mother also delivered a deeply emotional memorial for her son Hirsh. I’m only describing all this exposition because this is what natural “allyship” should look like in my estimation. A coming together over shared values and a cultural exchange. Liberal Jews have been understandably rocked by the fact that their political allies turned out to be horndogs for a medieval death cult, I can sympathize with that. All I ask is that they see that genuine allyship does exist, it’s just not where they’ve been looking in vain.
I will say that it was strange to watch pastors and preachers “work” a room full of christians from a pulpit. It was strange to me but I don't mean that in any sort of derogatory way. It was simply different from what we’re used to seeing in synagogues. I expect that Chrisitians would find our sermons and methods of prayer strange as well. Usually our Rabbinic sermons that come from a pulpit command general silence from the audience with intent to listen to analytic theology and narrative. Christians are far more animated. Open shouting from the audience, hands and fingers thrust into the air in agreement and praise. People suddenly standing with eyes closed and outstretched arms. The pastors in an expertly fashion timed the rhythm of their speeches to the audience, many seemed entranced by it. Still though, all the verses shared were strictly from Tanach and the level of enthusiasm returned to the speaker was electric. People vigorously shouting “YES”, and “AMEN” to the stories of Hashem’s miracles performed during the exodus or the Jewish war against Haman in the book of Esther was fascinating to watch. Even more so, some of the speeches were just downright hilarious. Here’s a clip of Pastor John Russell, I was cackling like a maniac at this opening.
On a political front, I will admit that it was basically just a right-wing rave. CUFI sort of pays lip service to lobbying democrats but it’s transparently just a matter of practicality. Is AIPAC still LARP’ing as a bipartisan organization? Did you guys know that they don’t even hold summits anymore? Speakers at CUFI included PragerU CEO (and unit 8200 veteran) Melissa Streit, Mark Levin, Richard Kemp and a plethora of Trump admin officials including Aryeh Lightstone who works directly with Steve Witkoff. Miriam Adelson was front and center in the audience and also delivered a speech. I'm not complaining, I had a great time. It was a bit of respite from constantly surveilling islamist, communist and anti-Israel channels for content. Kemp, Levin, Hagee and Streit all fed my appetite for nationalist rhetoric very well. What was nice to see also was how well this summit addressed elements of antisemitism in their own spaces. Qatarlson and Klandace were jabbed at multiple times for what CUFI correctly perceives as what’s either moral cowardice at best or moral inversion at worst. Macron also caught a funny jab from Kemp, well deserved and it’s nice to see englishmen still excel at a favorite pastime of putting the French on blast. The success of the joint Iran ops was also a center stage issue. The room erupted every single time a B2 bomber was mentioned. G-d I love America. Naturally, religious language adorned the narrative surrounding the unfolding events of the two weeks of bombs flying on eagles wings, BASED. Levin and Hagee were both explicit however that they seek peace with the Iranian people and that they see them as held hostage by their own government. Also BASED.
Before I conclude my thoughts I just want to make a point I think will be necessary in anticipation of what I think will be pushback to this essay and some of the ideas in here. Many will oppose efforts like CUFI because they’re suspicious of the motives. Despite the overwhelming efforts they’ve gone to to make their summit a welcoming space for Jews, I’m positive many Jews will still view their efforts as suspicious because they’ve heard about Christian rapture and eschatology. “They want to support Jews only so they can bring about the end times” or some meme of the sort. This is an unserious concern in my view. I would only address it with two points. The first point is that the majority of the summit celebrated Israel, and celebrated the Jewish people as being in common will with western values. It is far too idealistic to assume that every Christian seriously only looks to work with Jews because of eschatology. Rather the simplest explanations are usually the correct ones: christians at CUFI correctly view Israel as a spear tip defender of Western democracy and Judeo-Christian values, it’s in their natural interest to do so.
The second point I want to make is a little bit more unflattering to the Jewish point of view. Even if I were to grant that Christians only support Israel or Jews at large because of rapture (and that isn’t the case), it would still be in our interest to work with them. We are Jews, we have our Torah. I’m very secure in my beliefs. I don’t believe in Christian rapture, but if somebody wants to come and work with me towards a common goal, his religious convictions don’t bother me in the slightest, I simply disagree with what he believes will happen. So why not accept this partnership on a purely material basis then? I’ll be explicit. Usually I find that the Jews who are most concerned and most suspicious of working with Christians are Jews, who themselves are most insecure in their own Jewish identity. As I said earlier, the summit had a large cohort of Haredi Jews attending. Such Jews represent our own fundamentalist expression of Judaism, and yet they feel they can walk amongst Christians at CUFI in complete comfort. Perhaps investigate why you feel apprehension, and the misconceptions that you carry. My unease dissipated very quickly on the first day. Gabe Groisman, former mayor of Bal Harbour Florida, and Orthodox Jew summed it up perfectly:
Ultimately I realized a bit later into the conference that I was right feeling like I was entering the Lions Den. CUFI is an organization animated by deep spiritual conviction, fraternity and courage. It’s a lion's den alright, but we’re not lambs among them. I highly recommend that Jews check it out. Having been and seen what the summit is all about I honestly have no reservations in encouraging more Jews to go. You’ll be more than safe and certainly welcomed. It’s different from AIPAC, IAC and the bevy of other copy/paste Hasbara Inc. events. I look forward to bringing the other LEZM admins to this conference along with LEZM GANG to this event.
Jews, historically, have always been a bridge between the east and west. We are unique as a people in that we still maintained particularism as we brunted the weight of diaspora in every corner of the world. The flourishing of the Abraham Accords and the Cyrus Accords inshallah are fantastic developments for the East. Let’s not soon forget or become unfamiliar with the West just because we can go shopping in Dubai now. Nor should we forget that Christianity also spent much time in the east as well. A lot of the anger hurled at us is over our status as a chosen people. Yes, we were chosen for a purpose: to make Earth a resting place for G-d and to popularize morality. We need to construct this bridge and one Jew working alongside one Christian can make a world of difference, that’s what CUFI showed me at least. Let’s move forward with no fear.
שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹקינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד
- Lawless Levite
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This is great, thanks for sharing it. You mentioned pushback from Jews. I don't really think this is pushback, but maybe you will. Here goes.
I think we Jews have more than enough reasons to take any support with a grain of salt until the supporter proves their sincerity. That last couple of years have made that necessity clear.
Excellent!!