CNS Touts Pro-Trump Jewish Group’s Attacks On Biden, Endorsement Of Racist Conspiracy Theory

The Coalition for Jewish Values is less about Jewish values than it is about Trump values — it’s a group of right-wing rabbis who support highly Trumpy Republicans and conservatives. No wonder, then, that CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman loves them, giving them the kind of stenographic coverage he usually reserves for the likes of Franklin Graham. He uncritically reported in an April 5 article:

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), which was largely ignored by the left-wing media, more than 1,500 Orthodox rabbis explained that the pro-LGBT Equality Act “is a direct attack upon our religious values.” 

Further, Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, chairman of the Coalition of Jewish Values’ Rabbinic Circle, said “the law even explicitly rejects religious freedom as a defense, meaning it provides Anti-Semites with a new way to persecute the religious Jewish community.”

Chapman simply and lazily copied-and-pasted from the group’s website to describe it: “According to its website, the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV) ‘represents over 1,500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis in matters of public policy.’ The coalition ‘advocates for classical Jewish ideas and standards in matters of American public policy. The CJV begins from the premise that something can be called an authentic Jewish value only if it is rooted in Biblical and Rabbinic teachings through millennia of Jewish history. Neither spurious references to ‘Tikkun Olam’ nor the use of Biblical verses plucked out of context transform personal views into Jewish tenets.'” No mention, of course, of the group’s kneejerk right-wing Trumpism.

On April 9, Champan uncritically forwarded the group’s assertion that “By deciding to renew funding for the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the Biden administration is funding terrorism.” Five days later, Chapman uncritically presented evidence of just how far-right the Coalition for Jewish Values is with its attack on the Anti-Defamation League for criticizing Tucker Carlson’s turn to white supremacy:

In a letter to Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, the Coalition for Jewish Values, which represents more than 1,500 traditional, Orthodox rabbis, strongly criticized the ADL leader for calling on Fox News Channel to fire conservative commentator Tucker Carlson for his alleged “white supremacist ideology.”

The coalition also criticized the ADL for its apparently selective denunciation of anti-Semitism.

[…]

“Your recent attack on Tucker Carlson of Fox News, calling it ‘white supremacist’ to question whether particular policy choices enable illegal immigrants to nullify the votes of American citizens, is merely one example,” reads the letter. 

Interestingly, Chapman made no note of the evidence, if any, the group had to support its contention that Carlson isn’t echoing white supremacy by invoking the “great replacement” theory that immigrants are replacing white people in the U.S. in order to make it more liberal — an argument regularly invoked by white nationalists and white supremacists.

Chapman further promoted the group’s endorsement of Carlson’s racist conspiracy theory (and another attack on the ADL) in a May 10 commentary (surprisingly, labeled as such, not passed off as “news” as CNS typically likes to do):

The ADL “does not speak for Jews and no longer even is a Jewish organization,” said Rabbi Dov Fischer, the Western Regional vice president of the CJV in an article for The American Spectator.

Rabbi Fischer also stressed that the Biden administration’s immigration policy is designed precisely to allow as many illegal immigrants into the country as possible, as part of a decades-long policy, to “replace” American voters and secure a Democrat-majority electorate.

[…]

“Carlson is absolutely correct,” wrote Rabbi Fischer, referencing a recent column by Jeffrey Lord in The American Spectator. “Voter ‘replacement’ is exactly, precisely what the Biden-Pelosi-Schumer Democrats now are endeavoring to do, with the U.S. Supreme Court’s nine seats next in their sights.”

“Of course we now are watching, before our very eyes, a concerted effort to replace the electorate that was electing Republicans,” said the rabbi.  “And look where newcomers are being sent, all those unaccompanied children who are wrapped up by Biden’s administration in aluminum foil and placed initially in Obama–Biden cages — places like San Diego, one of the last redoubts of conservatism in California, and Texas, the red state with the most electoral college votes. Understandably, North Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has spoken out forcefully, telling Biden that she will not let her state be next.”

“How can anyone objective not see what is happening?” he added. “The reason that Biden insists that the chaos at the border is not a ‘crisis’ is plain to see: it is planned chaos, aimed at overrunning the system to leave no choice but to move millions of future Democrat voters ultimately into states where they can turn those tides as they have in the American Southwest.”

CNS also gave space to Moshe Parnes, the CJV’s “southern regional vice president,” for an April 27 column further whining about the situation on the border while gushing that how “under Trump, the border was—for all intents and purposes—finally secured.”

And CNS’ mission statement to “fairly present all legitimate sides of a story” takes another hit.