About JewsOnFirst.org
We launched JewsOnFirst.org in October 2005 because we wanted to oppose the growing strength of the Christian right and the
accelerating pace of its theocratic agenda. (To see our original home page, click
here.)
We knew there had to be thousands of Jews around the country who were already working hard to protect the First Amendment or were
seeking a way to get involved in stopping theocracy. And we surmised that many of those who were engaged in resistance to
Christianization, or were offended enough to get engaged in resisting it, were looking for encouragement, for resources and for
a supportive community.
So we started this website, started assembling resources, and started reaching out to let people know that we were here.
Over the years we've built a network of individuals -- Jews and many others -- and organizations dedicated to energetically opposing
efforts to Christianize our government and our culture.
Despite the 2008 electoral defeat of the Republican Party, where the Christian Right is hugely influential, we continue our
work because the Christian right continues its work, unabated, on the state and local levels and, without missing a beat,
in augmenting the ranks of Christian Zionists, who envision Israel as the scene of the End Times.
We're hope you will join us in this important work.
About our funding. We've always managed to be too busy with our work to write funding proposals or do fundraising.
Instead, we relying on you, our visitors and community members, to keep JewsOnFirst.org going by giving multiples of $18,
which is "Chai," the Jewish word for life. Please click here to make a secure credit card donation. JewsOnFirst is a project of HaMifgash, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization; your donations are tax deductible. Thank you.
About the founders of JewsOnFirst, Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak and Jane Hunter. We are veterans of political work in the
Jewish and general community. Rabbi Beliak has been involved with social justice activism throughout his 30 years as a campus and
congregational rabbi. He has served as vice chairperson of the American Rabbinic Network for Ethiopian Jews, and is currently a
member of the board of the Progressive Jewish Alliance. Jane Hunter, a lifelong political activist on both foreign and domestic policy
issues, has worked as a journalist and currently works as a researcher for a labor union.
Together we were co-directors of the Coalition for Justice in Hawaiian Gardens and Jerusalem, www.StopMoskowitz.org, which works to stop Irving Moskowitz's use of gambling profits from Hawaiian Gardens, California to undermine efforts at Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Contact us: Please email us at catcher@JewsOnFirst.org. Or, if you prefer, write us (or send a check). The address is:
JewsOnFirst
P.O. Box 33821
Washington DC 20033
By JewsOnFirst.org:
Our most recent reports and conversations
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A Conversation with Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah.
The Christian right has grown by attracting people who were seeking to transcend their personal sense of sin through its authoritarian structure. Now that authoritarian religious movement controls the Republican Party, says Blumenthal in conversation with Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak.
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Christian Right Attacks Senator Barack Obama's Christian Faith.
Some fundamentalist evangelical Christians are responding to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's outreach by disparaging his faith. One used video of an abortion to make his theological argument.
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"Religious views shouldn't come into play in a civil marriage".
In this conversation, Michael Weinstein, founding director of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said of the post-Proposition 8 struggle for marriage equality: "It doesn't matter if you like gay and lesbian couples or approve of them. The majority in a democracy doesn't get to deprive the minority of rights."
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JewsOnFirst Conversation with Rabbi Stuart Federow.
Rabbi Stuart Federow, spiritual leader of leader of Congregation Shaar Hashalom in Houston talks with Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak of JewsOnFirst about the wave of complaints that drove the principal from a local school after she addressed an act of anti-Muslim hatred with a presentation on Islam by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
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"The state should get out of the marriage business altogether".
Dr. Elliot Dorff, a Conservative rabbi and professor of Philosophy at the American Jewish University, said in a recorded conversation with JewsOnFirst. Dorff also expressed concern about the impact of Prop. 8 on gay and lesbian teens.
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Anti-semitic attack on Mikey Weinstein's home; Jewish vet blamed for Iowa flood.
June 16, 2008. Intruders attacked the Albuquerque home of Mikey Weinstein, a leading critic of fundamentalist Christian activity in the armed services. Meanwhile, in flooded Iowa City, neighbors confronted disabled veteran David Akiva Miller.
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"There is so much hurt in the lives of the couples that have been married"
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Rabbi Denise L. Eger of Congregation Kol-Ami in Los Angeles said that in a recorded conversation about the destructive impact of Prop. 8. Eger, who is prominent in the Reform Movement, said: "The passage of this very draconian measure took away the civil rights from Californians citizens."
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Onward Christian Soldiers
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In a lawsuit, Army Specialist Jeremy Hall alleges that Maj. Freddy J. Welborn broke up an atheists’ meeting organized in Iraq, exclaiming: “People like you are not holding up the Constitution and are going against what the founding fathers, who were Christians, wanted for America!”
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"It feels quite personal to have lost this civil right".
Rabbi Lisa Edwards, rabbi of America's first gay synagogue, Beth Chaim Chadashim in Los Angeles, told JewsOnFirst in a recorded conversation that she officiated at 43 weddings before Proposition 8 overturned the right of same-sex couples to marry.
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Recorded conversation with Jeremy Hall and Mikey Weinstein.
Army Specialist Jeremy Hall, an atheist, is suing the Department of Defense and his commanding officer in Iraq for inappropriately imposing fundamentalist Christianity on him.
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Rebutting Obsession.
This special section centers on our major critical analysis of the video Obsession, which shows the falsity of its claim of a direct connection between Hitler's Nazis and what it calls "Radical Islam." The section also includes profiles, sidebars and a summary presentation.
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McCain forced to reject Hagee, Parsley endorsements
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May 22, 2008. Republican presidential candidate John McCain today rejected the endorsement of fundamentalist preachers John Hagee and Rod Parsley because of their controversial statements. Hagee, who heads Christians United for Israel, was reported to have said that the Holocaust was part of God's plan to propel Jews to Israel.
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Insertion of millions of Obsession DVDs in swing-state newspapers appears to aid McCain campaign.
A shadowy organization is financing the delivery this month of millions of DVDs of the controversial video Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West.
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McCain endorser Rod Parsley Preaches Bigotry and Christian Supremacy, Recordings Disclose.
Recordings obtained by JewsOnFirst of services at Parsley's World Harvest Church are full of incitement to war against "Islamo-fascism" and secularism. Oliver North is a guest at one of the recorded services.
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John Hagee's Christians United for Israel Conference Mixes End-Times Prophecies With Lobbying.
Even though televangelist John Hagee barred reporters from the conference of his Christians United for Israel (CUFI), reporters for JewsOnFirst.org covered most of the sessions of the July 2008 conference at the Washington Convention Center. Our report includes video and audio clips of the conference.
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Leader of Reform Judaism warns against embracing Christian Zionists.
Considering Rabbi Eric Yoffie's warning, Mendelsohn writes: "[I]f we continue to show the world that we accept the support of extremist Christian Zionists, we are relinquishing our right to claim shock when the world finally understands the dangers we have helped to heighten as a result of this alliance."
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You can see all JewsOnFirst.org reports and conversations
here.