Dear Friend—

In hoping to enlist your support for our work here at the American Alliance of Jews and Christians, I could list our activities, events, appearances, and publications—and I shall do so.  But first you deserve a picture of the umbrella beneath which everything we do flourishes.

Let me try this metaphor: Imagine plucking a beautiful rose from your garden and placing it in a vase on your dining room table. Your first impression is that you made a pretty smart move.  No longer do you need to go outside, cross your lawn and stoop down at the rose bush to enjoy the flower’s beauty and its fragrance.  It is right there on your table.  However, by the next day or two, you begin to have doubts. Your severed flower has begun to droop, and its colors are fading while its sisters, still on the plant outside, are flourishing in their loveliness.

Initially, when our culture detached the frighteningly fragile flower of society from its roots, the eternal Biblical values of the Judeo-Christian tradition, it looked like a pretty smart move.

It looks a lot less smart now.  It is now apparent to us all that what distinguished life in America from life in most other places, was widespread acceptance of the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of civilization. Until the early 1960s, people were mannerly, kind, and compassionate because of our Biblical heritage. People were basically law abiding, family-minded, and hard-working for the same reason. Can you believe that the phrase “…under God…” was easily inserted into our Pledge of Allegiance as late as 1954? Can you imagine this happening today?

Yes, there is a canyon cutting through our culture. But no, contrary to the propaganda messages that attempt to indoctrinate us, the canyon does not separate rich from poor, or men from women, or people with black skins from people with white skins, or Christians from Jews. These are false and secular divisions. They are artificial.

The canyon does seem to separate those who view Judeo-Christian, Bible-based values as vital for civilization’s survival from those who view those values as primitive obstructions to what they see as progress.

Working together, you and I are making a difference in protecting that vital set of foundational values, and I appreciate your partnering with the American Alliance of Jews and Christians to do so.

We continue to change the hearts that will change the culture by consistently publishing three weekly resources, Thought Tools, Susan’s Musings, and Ask the Rabbi. We put out a weekly audio program carried on The Blaze, iTunes, YouTube and other platforms, and we put out a daily television show, Ancient Jewish wisdom with Rabbi Daniel & Susan Lapin produced by the TCT Television Network.  The AAJC has sponsored my appearances before more than a thousand pastors and Christian leaders during 2018 as I strengthened their hearts and encouraged their passions. My regular synagogue speeches carry the same goal.

This work and more, will continue in 2019 as we see enthusiasm for our efforts grow. With your help this can be done. I am not going to suggest how much you should or can give. This is an intensely personal decision; however, I will tell you that for our programmed activities in 2019, we have planned a program requiring a budget of $600,000. Our leadership is discussing expanding our work beyond the borders of the United States of America. In an increasingly connected globe, bad ideas spread quickly; but good ideas and true beliefs can be spread just as effectively. To that end, I have been privileged to carry the banner of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians to the United Kingdom, Taiwan, and Switzerland. In all three countries I was amazed to see such receptivity to timeless truth.

God brought about the Exodus to give the Israelites freedom to follow Him. He warned Pharaoh, “Let my people go so that they may worship me in the desert.” (Exodus 7:16) By following God’s rules, people would interact in a way that would create a safe and secure community. Tyrants understand that once God is out of the picture, they can reverse that equation, seducing citizens into trading freedom for the promise of safety and security, which will never be delivered.

Much more cultural energy is being pumped into the anti-Christian propaganda campaign than was ever delivered to the anti-smoking or anti-drunk-driving campaigns of years gone by. Fervent zealots of secularism are flinging themselves into this anti-Christian war with fanaticism.

If they succeed, Christianity will be driven underground in America, as it has been elsewhere, and her benign influence on the character of America will be lost. In its place we shall see a sinister secularism that menaces Bible believers of all faiths. Once the voice of the Bible has been silenced, the war on Western Civilization will be strengthened and we could see a long night of barbarism descend.

Without a vibrant and vital Christianity, America is doomed, and without America, civilization is doomed.

Which is why I, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, am so terrified of American Christianity caving in.  I believe that we Jews and Christians must stand together replacing our timidity with confidence and our diffidence with daring and determination.  Almost every day, we see the battle lines being drawn. Defense will be far harder down the road if we ignore the danger signals now.

We feel that it is important to have prominent Jewish and Christian voices on the right side in the struggle for America’s future and your gift helps us recruit and train those voices.  We pray that your heart leads you to support our work at the American Alliance of Jews and Christians and are grateful to you for joining our mission.

Whatever support you can give to our work will be very much appreciated. American Alliance of Jews and Christians (AAJC) is a 501(c)(3) not for profit organization (EIN 26-07642520). We have several different ways now that you can make your tax-deductible donation:

• Through our website (Credit Card or PayPal)
• By mail (Check or Cash) to:  AAJC, PO Box 58, Mercer Island, WA 98040
• Via the AAJC Facebook page – Donate Button
• Network for Good
• Amazon Smile (a small portion of your Amazon shopping purchases will go to AAJC)

With my deepest gratitude,

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, President
American Alliance of Jews & Christians

The simple answer is, “No one.” It has been many years since there was one spokesman like Moses. Even King David had a counterpart in the prophet Nathan. So, while I am aware that columnists do not get to pick the titles of their pieces in newspapers, the heading of William Galston’s piece in the Wall Street Journal of Oct. 31, irked me.

The headline proclaimed, “Jews Are Proud to Stand with Refugees,” and Mr. Galston extols HIAS – the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society – founded in 1881. HIAS indeed has done admirable work in its more than a century of existence. What Mr. Galston failed to point out is that HIAS used to be a case of the Jewish community, not the government, supporting Jewish refugees. If it urged the government to allow more refugees to enter, it encouraged legal channels. I am not familiar with HIAS today, but most likely they, like so many once worthy Jewish organization, have instead become mediums for far Left politics.

I don’t draw any commonality between the honorable work HIAS has done in the past and its new focus. Obviously, being upset with HIAS, as murderer Robert Bowers was, doesn’t entitle one to enter a synagogue and start shooting. HIAS and any Jews who support it, have a voice in our open society. So do the many Jews who see the flouting of American law and the invasion by hordes of people illegally crossing the border as a threat to both the United States and safe Jewish survival here.

Neither group speaks for the non-existent “the Jews”. Only our enemies see as as one indivisible group, united as they are in wanting our death whether we are Democrats or Republicans, political conservatives or political liberals, religious or secular.  I assume that Mr. Galston is embarrassed by the title given to his piece. He speaks only for himself and those who agree with him, not for an entire people.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin was asked to respond for a news article to Louis Farrakhan’s most recent anti-Semitic remark on Twitter, and on Twitter’s hypocrisy in addressing “hate-speech”. Here is his submitted quote:

“Jews, along with all Americans, are best served by constitutional fealty and it is the First Amendment to the Constitution that happily makes America one of the few nations not to criminalize what is called “hate-speech.” The reason I say “happily” is because we Jews would rapidly become hate-speech legislation’s first victims, as teaching certain Biblical chapters is made illegal. In America, Louis Farrakhan may freely utter his opinions about Jews, and being a private sector company, Twitter may freely choose to publish those opinions. But Twitter betrays its moral mendacity by providing Farrakhan with a megaphone while banning many voices like the Christian blogger, Elizabeth Johnston, for opposing the sexualization of young children by Teen Vogue magazine. Americans would be better served by a Twitter that practiced no censorship at all. And Twitter would be better off too.” ~ Rabbi Daniel Lapin, American Alliance of Jews and Christians

You may not have heard, but on Friday, September 14, 2018, Rabbi Daniel Lapin appeared on television throughout Iran.

“If a billion Muslims became Evangelical Christians tomorrow, would the world be a better place?”

This is the simple yes/no question that Rabbi Daniel Lapin has become famous for asking to large audiences. As a result, he was invited to tape three shows with Iran Alive Ministries under the direction of Dr. Hormoz Shariat. Iran Alive Ministries beams full time Christian programming to an estimated 2 million Christians in Iran as well as to a large secularized Muslim audience that is actively seeking a religious alternative to Islam.

Now is the time to step up to the plate. Please call and email as many Senators as you can. Thank Sen. Manchin for standing against bullying and for civility. Plead with Sen. Collins, Flake and Murkowski to reject the politics of personal destruction and the assumption of guilt until proven innocent. Of course, pray, pray and pray that our country has a future.

Like many others, I have been extremely emotional about the accusations surrounding Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. I am pretty sure, based on past history, that some readers of this Musing will agree with me, others will violently object to my words and a number of readers will remove themselves from our email list. I could easily write about something less controversial. I am not doing that because I think that our country is worth fighting for and sharing my thoughts is my way of doing that.

As always, whether you agree or disagree, as long as your words are polite (and follow a few other basic rules) your comment will get posted.  It is rare for us to delete a comment. So, if you disagree and your emotions are running as high as mine even if in another direction, I would appreciate the opportunity to hear them. We can only grow and expand our understanding when we talk to each other.

For a few short years, mothers possess mythical powers. We can sit at a traffic light with our toddlers and know exactly when to tell them to say, “Change light change,” to make the light turn green. We can announce that it will rain after lunch, go to the park in the morning, and then cozily sit inside reading books in the afternoon as they marvel at how we control the weather. We magically pull out a new box of cereal from the pantry when the old one is finished. Of course, our children soon grow a bit and learn that the only power we used in all those cases was that of observation.

I’m delighted that Lindsay Graham reacted to Democrat politicians with anger and disgust during the Judge Kavanaugh hearings. Orrin Hatch too has found his voice. At the same time, I ask, “What took you so long?” You see, I am one of the women Republicans are supposed to represent in Washington DC. And I, along with millions of other conservative women, have been angered and disgusted for decades. Mostly, our ire has been directed at Republicans for leaving us undefended and unrepresented. Where were your powers of observation until now?

(more…)

The Senate Kavanaugh hearings, ostensibly to seek justice, were a disgrace for America. Pray that God turns it into an opportunity for people to see how corrosive hatred is and how fragile is the veneer of civilization. We need a reformation.

The following appeared in Jewish in Seattle magazine, the August/September 2018, edition. The question posed to Rabbi Daniel Lapin was, “Is Evangelical support good for the Jews?”

Forgive me for conforming to the rabbinic stereotype of answering a question with a question but when you ask “…good for the Jews?”  which Jews do you mean?  I often tell my audiences that if you gathered together, into a colossal stadium, every self-identifying American Jew, the only thing you could get us all to agree on is that Hitler was a very bad man.

Evangelical support is good for those Jews who see modern day Israel as a fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham.  The nexus of American support for Israel is not Foggy Bottom. The State Department has long leaned Arab.  The United States was not the first country to recognize Israel in May 1948; the Soviet Union was.  But since 1948, Christian Evangelical strength in America has skyrocketed and paralleling it, so has American support for the Jewish state.  America’s Bible belt has become Israel’s safety belt.

(more…)

We submitted the following to the Wall Street Journal and  an abridged version appeared in the August 1, 2018 edition:

I appreciated Liel Leibovitz’ article (Is Brett Kavanaugh Bad for the Jews? July 24, 2018 ) confirming that the Anti-Defamation League currently serves more as a partisan branch of the Democrat Party than fulfilling its founding mission as an organization combating anti-Semitism.

However, I want to point out that while Jonathan Greenblatt has moved the ADL further to the Left, that shift was already well under way during the tenure of the organization’s prior president, Abe Foxman. During the 90s, the ADL became actively hostile toward Evangelical Christianity as seen in many of their publications such as “The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance & Pluralism in America”.  This notorious 200 page polemic, for which the ADL eventually was forced to apologize, excoriated leaders like Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell Sr. and Phyllis Schlafly.  The American Alliance of Jews and Christians was founded in response to the leftward tilt of many Jewish groups like the ADL.  Our credo is to “promote traditional values while opposing bigotry against traditional faith, particularly the war on Christianity.” 

Sadly, many groups founded by Jews express hostility to Judeo-Christian values, not only abandoning their lofty founding goals but  converting them into vehicles hostile towards religious Jews and Christians but nearly always supportive of Moslems.

Mr. Leibovitz wrote that the ADL should, “…realize that the threats to Jews these days come as fiercely from the left as they do from the right.” That is not entirely accurate. Anti-Semitism on the right is from the fringe, while anti-Jewish and anti-Israel bigotry  from the left increasingly represents the position held by rising stars in Democrat politics who are seldom denounced by the establishment. 

Rabbi Daniel Lapin

Mercer Island, WA

President, American Alliance of Jews and Christians

Dear AAJC Friend,

Greetings to you as we rapidly approach the summer months of 2018.  It is our prayer that so far this has been a blessed, healthy and prosperous year for you and your loved ones.

I saw a recent editorial headline that read, “America is a more divided nation than ever before”  At first, I agreed wholeheartedly with that statement.  But then, I questioned myself.  After all, we were a pretty divided nation in the 1770s.  Some wanted to break with England while others did not.  We were a very divided nation in the 1850s.  That division even led to a bloody war.  We were divided in the 1930s.  Some wanted to participate in finishing off Nazi Germany while others wanted to leave the ‘Old World’ to fight its wars alone. 

But now really is different.  At the time of our founding, we were divided about declaring independence but we all agreed about the Judeo-Christian basis to our society.  During the Civil War both sides relied on the Bible for guidance.  Many Americans did not want the country in World War 2 but everyone agreed that the Nazi barbarians threatened the Judeo-Christian values that had built civilization.

But today, we are divided about those Judeo-Christian values.  Some believe them to be vital for our nation’s survival while others view them as primitive obstructions to progress.  Some regard the work of those wise Christian men over two hundred years ago, our Constitution, as vital for our nation’s survival while others see it as a primitive obstruction to progress.  Today, we really are divided about the fundamentals of our existence.  The kind of lives we shall live and the kind of country in which our children will grow up is up for grabs.  It could go either way.

It should be obvious to all that civilization as we know it and as we live it in comparative tranquility every day utterly depends upon Biblically based Judeo-Christian values being gently and lovingly implanted in every hearth.

This is a question I regularly ask when I am being interviewed on radio and television:  Right now, would the world be a better place or a worse place if a billion Moslems became Christians.  The long silence I usually get indicates that everyone knows the answer.

We’re living in a time Christians and Jews must stand up for  what we believe.   Only Judeo-Christian values can save the world from descending into decades of darkness.  That, in short, is our mission.

And in support of this mission we’ve been sending out Thought Tools free to over 40,000 subscribers every week now for ten years.   I hope you receive it and enjoy it.  More than that, I hope that you extract meaning from it and discover new spiritual strategies to apply in your life. 

(If are a new subscriber to Thought Tools and have yet to benefit from it or you do not share my views about the future of civilization and what we could be doing, I apologize.  Please ignore it and forgive me for troubling you.)

However, if you have been reading our Thought Tools for a while, you might have noticed that this weekly spiritual strategy is sent out by the not-for-profit American Alliance of Jews and Christians.  I would like to tell you a little about the AAJC.

The American Alliance of Jews and Christians grew from the deep conviction held by a group of Jewish and Christian friends, that despite theological differences, millions of Jews and Christians share a common vision of civilization and furthermore, definitely prefer civilization to its alternative—barbarism.

Civilization prefers tranquility to violence; it prefers men to treat women with respect and deference; it prefers freedom to centrally planned tyranny; it prefers people enjoying economic independence through their own efforts to socialism; it believes in charity by choice rather than in government redistribution by force; it believes that marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman devoted to one another and to their children, and it believes that both the beginning and end of life should be in God’s hands alone.  Civilization engenders friendship, beauty, compassion, and courtesy rather than brutishness and vulgarity.  Like the American Founders, we prefer a Biblically inspired culture to the sordid stain of secularism and the socialistic society it tends to inspire.

In recent years, America’s Judeo-Christian principles have been increasingly under assault by the media, our universities, as well as the government.  The self-evident truths of 1776 that the Founders based so solidly on Scripture have been marginalized by the notion that no such truths exist.

Some insist that America must change by casting off the old and putting on the new.  But the change that we urgently need is not movement away from, but a return to our founding Judeo-Christian principles.  At this important time in our nation’s history, we must respond by retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles.

That is why we began this important work over twenty years ago which led to our establishing the  American Alliance of Jews & Christians.  Since that time we have been directly impacting our world by promoting better understanding and cooperation between Christians and Jews who care about God’s Biblical blueprint.

Our mission is to equip today’s thought-leaders and opinion-makers with the Bible’s ancient solutions to  cutting-edge problems that come directly from the sacred principles found in ancient Jewish wisdom. 

I am asking for your help and support today.  I am telling you this right now so that if you are unable to help at this time or simply do not wish to do so, you don’t have to continue reading. And that is just fine.  I value your time and I appreciate you and the many other ways you help defend all that is good.

But if you’re still reading, you might like to know more about our work and perhaps help our work continue by means of an appropriate gesture of financial support.  Let me tell you a little more about the idea behind the AAJC and its goals and dreams.

We have not done this work alone.  Countless people have given of their time and financial support to help us make a positive difference in America and around the world.   AAJC is a not-for-profit organization.  It is the support from people like you that allows us to continue broadcasting Bible teachings from ancient Jewish wisdom worldwide via radio, TV, books, the Internet, newsletters, personal appearances, speaking engagements and much more.

We have been honored to work alongside many wonderful organizations that share a similar conviction of restoring Biblical principles into the American culture.  Although the American Alliance of Jews and Christians   has made tremendous progress and it continues to expand its  calling, there is still much to be done.  We need your help more than ever. The threat of Muslim terror and political influence continues to rise.  Not only in the United States, but also directly against Israel.

How can we stop this onslaught against our culture?  Who has the knowledge and the ability to help fight this battle?  With your help, the AAJC has become a leader in this courageous fight.

The sacred mission of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians is to provide the ammunition for keeping the culture attached to its Judeo-Christian spiritual roots enabling it to continue as healthy and successful. 

Our weekly Thought Tools as well as the books and audio CDs we help make available, our daily TV show on TCT Television Network and our podcast now heard around the world are all part of how we provide the intellectual ammunition for good men and women around the world to deploy in the struggle to defend civilization and protect the culture we love. 

This year, AAJC continues to increase our effectiveness through new publications, programs, speaking engagements in the US and Internationally, and we look forward to soon announcing a national conference.

If these values are important to you and your family, I would like to ask you to join with us.  We have a responsibility to our children to do what we can to fight for a return to Judeo-Christian values.

I would never suggest how much you should or can give. This is an intensely personal decision; however, I will tell you that for our programmed activities during 2018-2019, we have planned a program requiring a budget of $900,000.  We are grateful for those few of you who give in the tens of thousands of dollars.  We are equally grateful to the many of you who give in the hundreds and tens. It is up to you and up to me and if you give us the tools, we’ll do the job. 

Whatever support you can give to our work will be very much appreciated. You can make your tax-deductible gift HERE or by mailing in your gift to: 

AAJC
P.O. Box 58
Mercer Island, WA 98040 

May God bless you and protect you and may we all be privileged to do our part in protecting the legacy He entrusted to humanity on Mount Sinai over three thousand years ago. 

Rabbi Daniel Lapin

President

American Alliance of Jews and Christians 

PS:  Just as ancient Israel arrived in the Promised Land with nothing but a set of Biblically-based ideas and proceeded to carve a civilization out of a wilderness, those great early Americans did the same thing.  They crossed an ocean bearing little more than those timeless truths of the Bible and they too carved a great civilization out of a great wilderness.

Now plucking a flower from its roots and bringing it indoors to enjoy might seem like a good idea but pretty soon we discover that anything severed from its roots dies mighty quickly.  Similarly, the great ideas of western civilization have roots too.  Those roots are enshrined in the page of Scripture. And trying to disconnect civilization from its roots assures it of a rapid demise.

Therein lays the sacred mission of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians.  Keeping civilization attached to its Judeo-Christian spiritual roots to maintain it as a fresh, strong, and influential force.

I want to support the  AAJC