Ben Lorber

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Latest Articles

Specters of Balfour

Substack · August 27, 2026

A personal essay on the long shadow of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, and what its legacy of promises and dispossession still explains about the present moment.

On Christian Zionist leaders doubling down on apocalyptic End Times theology at their national conference, and the interfaith activists countering with a liberation-focused reading of scripture.

On how far-right Christian nationalist figures are exploiting declining American support for Israel to promote classical antisemitic tropes, rather than any substantive critique of Israeli policy.

A d’var Torah on the Torah portion Achrei Mot-Kedoshim, on law, holiness, and what it means to seek the sacred when the divine feels distant.

An update on Kingdom Now, Ben’s forthcoming book tracing Christian Zionism from the Puritans to MAGA.

Co-written with Ethan Fauré, Steven Gardiner and Annie Wilkinson, on how Minneapolis residents organized to resist federal immigration enforcement, and what their mutual aid and solidarity networks teach about countering authoritarianism.

The Fear of Mordecai

Substack · March 3, 2026

A Purim-season essay on Mordecai, fear, and the uses and misuses of Jewish power.

Co-written with PRA colleagues, on ICE’s enforcement operations in Minneapolis and the grassroots strategies residents used to resist them.

On the far right’s stunned reaction to a leaked Minneapolis ICE Watch chat, and the long, envious history of conservatives insisting the left is “infinitely more organized” than they are.

On James Fishback, the groyper-friendly Florida governor candidate whose blend of white Christian nationalism, Israel-skepticism and populist economics shows how far Nick Fuentes has already moved the GOP mainstream.

On Elon Musk’s unvarnished embrace of white nationalist rhetoric, and how seven years of dog-whistles about “importing voters” and “globalists” collapsed into open talk of Jewish “elites” engineering white replacement.

Hinges on the Jewish Anti-Zionist Left

Substack · December 21, 2025

On where the Jewish anti-Zionist left stands today, and what its internal debates hinge on.

Tucker Carlson and the Lure of Selective Empathy

Substack · December 11, 2025

On Tucker Carlson’s selective invocations of empathy, and what they reveal about the far right’s approach to antisemitism and other bigotries.

On a record-breaking Christian Zionist delegation to Israel, and the apocalyptic framing organizers used to describe its purpose.

On Ambassador Mike Huckabee’s appearance at a Christian conference organized around converting Jews and hastening the End Times.

Co-written with Jess Schwalb, on a conference meant to confront antisemitism on the right that instead offered a portrait of an old guard left twisting in the wind.

On the rising cohort of young, Israel-skeptical Republicans shaping Florida’s midterm races.

On Yoram Hazony’s feigned surprise at MAGA antisemitism, and how the pro-Israel right’s own scapegoating of Soros and liberal Jews helped set the fire now consuming their movement.

On the contradictions of a conservative movement that claims to fight antisemitism while embracing antisemitic tropes of its own.

On Nick Fuentes’s decade-long metapolitical climb into the MAGA mainstream, and why the American right’s crisis over Israel finally gave him the opening he needed.

On how the young leaders rising through the ranks of the right have little room for the “Judeo” in their vision of a Christian West, and why the conservative movement’s professed fight against antisemitism has always been selective.

On how MAGA’s embrace of Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson’s normalizing of him is forcing pro-Israel Jewish conservatives to reckon with a threat they helped enable.

A two-part primer for progressives on understanding antisemitism as both real bigotry and a weaponized conspiracy theory, and on fighting it without losing sight of collective liberation.

On the generational, isolationist and nationalist forces cracking the GOP’s once-ironclad support for Israel, and why the left should stay wary of the motives driving that shift.

On Heather Johnston, the little-known Christian Zionist operative who has quietly arranged Biblical-prophecy-driven Congressional trips to the West Bank for decades, including Mike Johnson’s latest one.

On the antisemitic conspiracy theories fueling MAGA’s obsession with Jeffrey Epstein, and why progressives shouldn’t mistake that revolt for anything resembling solidarity.

On Israel365, the media and publishing operation that has spent over a decade building the connective tissue between Israeli settler leaders and MAGA power players like Steve Bannon and Paula White-Cain.

On the ADL’s latest antisemitism audit, which somehow counts Jewish Voice for Peace as a bigger perpetrator of antisemitism than an actual white nationalist hate group.

Co-written with Fred Clarkson, on the New Apostolic Reformation’s rise to the top of Trump’s second term and its pivotal role in the U.S.-Israel relationship’s dangerous new phase.

Remarks delivered at a UCLA School of Law conference on antisemitism, law, and the politics of definition.

On Trump’s claim that Chuck Schumer ‘is not Jewish anymore,’ and what it reveals about the right’s conditional embrace of Jewish identity.

A review of a new translation of the Yiddish novel “Our Comrade, Avreml Broide,” and what it offers for reclaiming Jewishness as a marker of difference rather than power.

On Trump’s executive order to ‘combat antisemitism,’ and how it weaponizes Jewish safety to target Palestine solidarity activism on campuses and beyond.

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