In 1984, the United States rectified a diplomatic anomaly when it formally recognized the Vatican and agreed to exchange ambassadors with the papal mini-state in Rome.
But when Congress held hearings on the measure, Rev. Jerry Falwell, by then already a familiar figure as the head of the “Moral Majority” group, testified against the move.
Was Falwell’s position based in the theological antagonism between Baptists and Catholics that had its roots in the Reformation? No.
The roly-poly evangelical instead urged the Senate not to recognize the Vatican until it extended the same courtesy to Israel.
The Vatican eventually did recognize Israel a decade later. But the idea of Jews publicly campaigning in this manner was out of the question.
Falwell’s intervention here is barely a footnote to this chapter in history, but it is symbolic of much of his interactions with U.S. Jews over the years.
He was always among our most zealous allies on Israel’s security and its place in the world. But his efforts in this regard were not merely unbidden.
They were, for the most part, regarded with incredulity by Jewish audiences and groups, and thus not merely unappreciated, but often outright rejected. He was U.S. Jewry’s most unwavering and yet unwelcome ally.
Falwell’s death recently at age 73 set off a wave of retrospectives in the media about the rise of Christian conservative politics. But no discussion of his effect on the culture of this country is complete without examining his iconic position as the bête noire of liberal Jewry.
Disgust and horror
Liberal Jews regarded Falwell’s noisy support for Israel — and the willingness of Israeli leaders like Menachem Begin and Benjamin Netanyahu to embrace him — with a combination of disgust and horror.
The reason for that horror wasn’t hard to explain. Falwell was one of the leading figures of the right’s counterattack on liberal politics and cultural values. Therefore, liberals hated him deeply.
His sanctimonious demeanor and willingness to voice his (in the view of most U.S. Jews) antediluvian views on just about everything — including the possible sexual orientation of one of the “Teletubbies” — made him a ripe subject for satire.
But what made Falwell really scary to liberals was that his mobilization of Christian conservatives helped change American politics. Although the “Moral Majority” had a short life (it disbanded in 1989), Falwell’s influence will live long after him.
His movement was not an attempt to undo democracy. Rather, it gave life to religious conservatives’ well-founded fear that they were losing control of American culture.
Although they won a fair share of the election battles, that verdict is unchanged. Look at the content of virtually any network television drama or comedy, let alone contemporary feature films, and it won’t be hard to discern that Falwell’s views about abortion, sex and homosexuals’ rights have not prevailed. Indeed, his views have lost considerable ground.
As some of his allies on the right noted in the wake of the public’s unwillingness to support the impeachment of President Clinton, maybe the majority in this country wasn’t so “moral” after all.
And given that a pro-abortion rights candidate such as Rudy Giuliani has a shot at the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, it may be that the tide has turned on these issues in the GOP itself.
But none of that explains why many Jewish liberals felt that Falwell’s enthusiastic support for Israel ought to be treated with disdain.
The excuses for this attitude always centered on the notion that his motives were tainted by his intention to evangelize among Jews or his notions that a Zionist triumph would bring the second coming of Jesus.
Few who made these charges understood much about Falwell’s actual beliefs. While Falwell honestly acknowledged that he considered his own faith to be the truth, he always denied that his love for Israel was anything but unselfish. Given that most Jews gave him abuse for it, his critics ought to concede that point.
Nor did his willingness to open the pulpit of his Liberty University to figures like Reform movement head Rabbi Eric Yoffie convince liberals that he was as committed to the free flow of political debate as they were.
To the day Falwell died, liberal groups used his waning national presence to rally their faithful; and they were unwilling to make common cause with him even on a concern many shared with him: Israel’s safety.
This unwillingness to accept conservative Christian support for Israel remains the great contradiction of modern American Jewish politics.
Contrast this attitude with the enthusiasm with which many Jews continue to make coalitions with liberal Protestant denominations that often join efforts to wage economic warfare on Israel via disinvestment schemes.
Jews didn’t have to agree with Falwell on abortion or anything else, any more than they do with liberal Protestants. But they ought to have recognized his willingness to expend his political capital in Israel’s defense.
During crises, such as the 2002 Palestinian terror war against Israel, Falwell and his allies were capable of putting aside their other agendas, and putting the Bush administration’s feet to the fire to ensure that it backed up Israel’s measures of self-defense.
Perhaps the main disconnect came from the fact that for Falwell and his friends, Israel was not the marginal point that it has become for many Jews who place its survival far below domestic issues on their list of priorities. Though Falwell never harmed a single Jew in his life, most of us still seemed to be more afraid of him than of Hamas.
At a time when Israel is under increasingly vitriolic attacks seeking to delegitimize Zionism, as well as physical assaults, this reluctance to extend friendship to an ally remains, at best, short-sighted.
One imagines that few recent synagogue sermons were devoted to Falwell’s memory. But it might be appropriate if more Jews took a moment to recognize his friendship.
The rise of international anti-Semitism and left-wing anti-Zionism should remind us that — whether we like it or not — we are going to need a lot more unwelcome allies like Falwell in the coming years.
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.
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