Mike Pence Gets Jews For Jesus ‘Rabbi’ To Pray For Pittsburgh Synagogue Victims
Image by Getty Images
By Dave Goldiner October 31, 2018
Vice President Mike Pence was joined by a Jews for Jesus ‘rabbi’ who prayed for the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting at a Republican campaign rally in Michigan on Monday.
Messianic Jewish Rabbi Loren Jacobs of Synagogue Shema Yisrael intoned prayers to “Jesus the Messiah” and denounced the “hate inspired shooting in synagogue in Pittsburgh” before Pence spoke at the rally in Grand Rapids.
Rabbi Loren Jacobs of Messianic synagogue Shema Yisrael offers prayer before VP Pence speaks at Michigan campaign event: “God of Abraham … God and Father of my Lord and Savior Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah…hate inspired shooting in synagogue in Pittsburgh”https://t.co/tRwFvBTjYE pic.twitter.com/u6JJCfdhgj
— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) October 29, 2018
Pence is an evangelical Christian who maintains close ties to so-called Messianic Jews, who mostly share his right-wing political beliefs and strongly support Israel and the occupation.
Messianic Jews believe in Jesus Christ and focus on seeking to convert Jews to their unusual belief system. Most mainstream Jewish groups do not accept them as legitimate Jews. Some retweeted stories about Pence’s rally with the hashtag #FakeJews, a play on Trump’s penchant for bashing the media.
Like President Trump did over the weekend, Pence quickly pivoted away from the tragedy in Pittsburgh to partisan pot shots.
“All that talk about a blue wave, let’s just make sure that blue wave hits a red wall right here in Michigan,” Pence said, according to the Detroit News.
The veep stumped for GOP Rep. Mike Bishop, who is trailing Jewish Democrat Elissa Slotkin in a tightly contested race. Pence also boosted Lena Epstein, a Jewish Republican, who is locked in a tight race with Democrat Haley Stevens for an open seat outside Detroit.
Epstein, who ran Trump’s successful 2016 campaign in Michigan, has invited Jacobs to pray at other campaign events, Talking Points Memo reported. She claimed that inviting Messianic Jews is a sign of embracing “religious diversity.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Dive In
-
Fast Forward Cornell’s new Jewish president says he is ‘very comfortable with where Cornell is currently’
-
Fast Forward Digital breadcrumbs lead to the team behind Jewish Onliner, the AI-powered website that got a Yale scholar suspended
-
Sports The Trail Blazers let Israeli starter Deni Avdija cook, and minted a franchise player in the process
-
Fast Forward What Mahmoud Khalil says about Gaza and Israel in ‘The Encampments’ documentary
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Opinion Is this new documentary giving voice to American Jewish anguish — or simply stoking fear?
- 4
Opinion Mike Huckabee said there’s ‘no such thing as a Palestinian.’ It’s worth thinking about what that means
In Case You Missed It
-
Books So much to say about Israeli violence, so little to say about violence against Jews
-
Opinion Think every Palestinian in Gaza is Hamas? This week’s protests prove you’re wrong
-
Opinion A Palestinian Oscar-winner’s arrest shocked the world. For these Jewish activists, it was terrifyingly normal
-
Opinion In the Trump administration and Israel, a grotesque display of virility coupled with a loss of humanity
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.