By Ivan Hodes
In her opinion piece published in the Cordova Times and Must Read Alaska on Oct. 11, Rep. Sarah Vance exploited the tragedy in Israel to promote bad legislation.
Rep. Vance’s Israel Anti-Discrimination bill is grounded in transparently bad faith on her part. Her support for the State of Israel is not motivated by even a single gram of concern for the welfare of Jewish people. Rather, it is a product of the strange theological obsessions of the Christian-nationalist circles in which Rep. Vance runs. These people “need” Israel to exist in order to serve their fantasies about the End Times and the Second Coming.
We know with certainty that Rep. Vance does not care about Jews, and never has. She does not care about discrimination against Jews, as long as it’s the right kind of people doing the discriminating. If she cared about Jews, she would not have published her essay with Must Read Alaska, an amateur blog that has defended antisemitic conduct and promoted antisemitic content. If she cared about Jews, she would not have invited David Eastman, the most notorious antisemite in Alaska politics, to serve on her Judiciary Committee. If she cared about Jews, she would not have introduced HB 181, a bill whose explicit purpose is to allow discrimination on the basis of religion. If she cared about Jews, she would not be a member of NACL, a national group of “Christian” lawmakers that seeks to impose (their version of) Christianity on America’s millions of religious minorities.
As an Alaskan and a Jew, I call on all Jews and all Alaskans to condemn Rep. Vance’s promotion of this bill at a time like this for what it is: an effort to build a Christian-nationalist agenda on top of a pile of dead Jewish bodies.
