Ted Cruz at Chabad’s Israel Event
A Chabad performer sang that Cruz “stands for Israel and the Jews.” The senator answered with a vow to do “everything humanly possible” to crush anti-Semitism on the right.
Ted Cruz took the stage at Chabad-Lubavitch’s Lamplighter Awards as the man who “stands for Israel and the Jews.” Then the Texas senator announced he would do “everything humanly possible” to fight what he called anti-Semitism on the political right.
The clip opens with a performer singing, “He follows the facts and finds the clues. He stands for Israel and the Jews. His name, that’s right, Senator Ted Cruz.” Cruz did not speak those lyrics. He stood onstage as the room celebrated them.
The American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) gala gave Cruz its Leadership Award on Sept. 23 at Washington’s Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, according to the Mayberg Foundation’s event record.
Cruz then made his own commitment. “I stood up and resolved that I am going to do everything humanly possible to defeat antisemitism on the right and make clear that these bigots have no place in our party,” he said in the video.
Jewish Insider reported that Cruz also warned the audience that young evangelicals were “turning systematically against Israel.” He called that shift an “existential” crisis and urged Christian leaders to fight it.
Cruz said, “We’re Americans. That’s who we are.” Yet the award-show chorus, the Israel-centered warning, and his promise to devote every possible effort to the cause put the senator’s political priorities on public display.