Mark I. Pinsky has covered Southern politics since 1972 and is the author of “A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed.”
Mark I. Pinsky
By Mark I. Pinsky
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News In Florida, Democrats focus on coronavirus, Republicans on Israel
The Villages is a sprawling Florida retirement community about halfway between Orlando and Gainesville. It has a small Jewish population, and its residents tend to lean Republican. But Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign is thinking that this year, it might be able to win them over. A Biden commercial, featuring a Village resident disturbed…
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News This isn’t the first time Trump has used the Bible as a prop
When President Donald Trump held a Bible aloft — and upside-down — in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church on Monday night, it was just the latest example of how he and his religious supporters have used the holy book as both a crutch for support and a cudgel to attack opponents. In this case,…
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News Exclusive: Trump impeachment lawyer Jay Sekulow says ‘I’ve never felt not Jewish’
Jay Sekulow, the Bar Mitzvah boy who converted to Christianity, became one of the nation’s leading evangelical legal advocates and is now co-leading President Trump’s impeachment-defense team, said in an exclusive interview that he has no idea how he was selected for the role other than by “God’s hand.” Sekulow, who along with the White…
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News How South Florida’s Alter Kockers Helped Legalize Medical Marijuana
Like many South Florida Jewish seniors, 92-year-old Ricki Marks didn’t need any persuading to support legalizing medical marijuana. Marks, a resident of a Palm Beach Gardens assisted living facility who brags that “I still have all my marbles,” voted for legalization twice, once in 2014 when it narrowly lost in a statewide referendum, and again…
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News Nikki Fried Rides Anti-Gun Wave To Unlikely Win In Divided Florida
Florida has an improbable new “farmer-in-chief,” a 40-year-old Miami-raised Jewish lawyer. Nicole “Nikki” Fried, who will become the state’s Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs, won her first political race just as improbably: by picking a fight with the National Rifle Association and its iconic state lobbyist — a 79-year-old grandma who carries a gun…
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News Donald Trump’s Favorite Female Evangelist Wears a Jewish Prayer Shawl — Just Like Him
High Holiday appeals for money are nothing new to North American synagogue-goers. But for sheer chutzpah, few could compare with the Yom Kippur video appeal from Paula White, Donald Trump’s most visible evangelical supporter. White stares into the camera, with cascading blond hair and Botox-swollen lips. She tells those on her ministry email list that…
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News Why Were ‘Selma’ Jews Who Fought for Civil Rights Ostracized?
For most Americans outside the South, Montgomery, Alabama today is a kind of civil rights museum, an indoor-outdoor repository of the 20th century movement for racial justice and equality. The new film “Selma,” which opened in limited release over the Christmas weekend and is slated for wide theatrical release January 9, is likely only to…
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The Schmooze For 25 Years, ‘The Simpsons’ Has Been Good for the Jews
“The Simpsons” 25th anniversary marathon on cable network FXX — now airing every episode, plus the 2007 feature film — includes a surprising insight for careful observers: The award-winning cartoon sitcom is one of the Jews’ best friends. For millions in North America and globally who have never actually met a Jew, “The Simpsons” has…
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