What a consummate fuck-up. There was a burst of semi-bewildered outrage this week when Mike Pence, the Vice President of the United States, attempted to pay respects to the 11 Jewish victims of an explicitly anti-Semitic attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue two days earlier by appearing with a fake rabbi at his rally in Michigan on Monday. The "rabbi" in question, Loren Jacobs, subscribes to Messianic Judaism, a belief system that sees him spend most of his time essentially trying to convert Jews to Christianity. After all, if you think Jesus was the Messiah, you sound a lot like a Christian, and mainstream Jewish groups do not recognize Messianic Judaism as a Jewish faith.

It was, in general, a gesture of profound ignorance and disrespect. Jacobs, who reportedly attended "the Moody Bible Institute, a conservative Christian institute in Chicago," invoked Jesus by name in his rally oratory and asked God Himself to back the Republican Party in the midterms. All God's children, and all that. As the outrage grew, Pence tried to shove the blame onto the congressional candidate he was there to support, Lena Epstein, who he said had invited the Fake Rabbi. The buck stops here, and all that.

Loren Jacobs speaks at the rally in Michigan. Screenshot via Slate

But the tragicomedy only continued Wednesday, when NBC News came out with a stupefying new layer to the story. Jacobs is not, in fact, just a Fake Rabbi. He's a Fake Fake Rabbi, which somehow doesn't make him a real rabbi.

Loren Jacobs, who was invited onstage by Vice President Mike Pence to speak at a rally in Michigan for a GOP congressional candidate, was defrocked 15 years ago, according to a spokeswoman for the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations.

“Loren Jacobs was stripped of his rabbinic ordination by the UMJC in 2003, after our judicial board found him guilty of libel,” Monique Brumbach said in an email.

Brumbach did not say who Jacobs allegedly libeled, but it appears from his synagogue website he was involved in a theological battle with other leaders of the group, which believes that Jesus is the son of God — a belief that is anathema to the vast majority of the world's Jews. Jacobs seemed to be concerned that the group was insufficiently conservative on doctrinal matters.

He's not even legit with his own crew.

Brendon Thorne Getty Images

One of the under-appreciated dimensions of the Trump administration is the total lack of professionalism. It's a juvenile incompetence. There is a total disregard for doing some of the basic groundwork of governing the country, which includes thoroughly vetting people who appear with senior government leadership. Everything is just thrown together haphazardly, often with disastrous results. It bleeds down from the very top, of course, from a president who constantly demands free periods like he's a senior in high school. But the vice president is very much a vector of this laziness and ignorant buffoonery masquerading as strength and conviction.

I mean, honestly, you couldn't find a real rabbi to pray for the victims of an anti-Semitic attack? Actually, perhaps they wouldn't have been able to: "Members of the Michigan Board of Rabbis are not participating in political campaigns," Rabbi Marla Hornsten, former president of the Michigan Board of Rabbis, told NBC News. Moreover, they might have struggled because of the more general context. As Josh Marshall has pointed out, the Trump Era may be strengthening the allegiance of American Jews to the Democratic Party in unprecedented ways, not least because the Republican president seems reluctant to condemn white supremacists who march through the streets of an American city chanting his name.

The solution, if that's the case, was not to invite a Jews for Jesus guy. You would think the vice president would have a handle on that, but as the NBC piece points out, there's already suspicion about why Evangelical Christians like Pence so vociferously support Israel.



“They talk about support for Israel, their love for the Jewish people, and on the surface that comes across as very unifying,” [Shyovitz] said. “But there is a deep suspicion in much of the Jewish community that they see the state of Israel as a means to an end, that their support is based on the belief that when Jesus returns, the Jews will be converted to Christianity, or wiped out.”

Or maybe Pence just didn't know any better. He should've asked Mother.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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