\u201cThere\u2019s an awful lot about Pharisees in there,\u201d Buttigieg told the Washington Post\u00a0while speaking about then-Vice President Mike Pence, a Republican who frequently touted his Christian values. \u201cAnd when you see someone, especially somebody who has such a dogmatic take on faith that they bring it into public life, being willing to attach themselves to this administration for the purposes of gaining power, it is alarmingly resonant with some New Testament themes, and not in a good way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scholars of ancient Judaism and liberal Jewish leaders objected, saying that the term carried antisemitic implications even if not intended that way. Just days later, Buttigieg\u2019s team announced<\/a> he would no longer use the term, saying, \u201cWe appreciate the people who have reached out to educate us on this.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, it\u2019s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth who has derisively name-dropped the sect, understood to be precursors of modern rabbinic Judaism in their approach to Jewish practice.<\/p>\n Speaking to members of media on Thursday, Hegseth said he had thought of the Pharisees\u00a0in church when his minister preached about a New Testament story describing Jesus entering a synagogue and healing someone sick.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Pharisees \u2014 the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time \u2014 they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report,\u201d he said. \u201cBut \u2026 even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn\u2019t matter. They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n An 1843 engraving of Jesus with the Pharisees by Friedrich August Ludy, after a painting by Johann Friedrich Overbeck. (Getty Images)<\/p>\n To Hegseth, the comparison was clear amid critical coverage of the U.S. war on Iran. \u201cOur press is just like these Pharisees. Not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy Trump-hating press, your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Pharisees scrutinized every good act in order to find a violation, only looking for the negative.\u201d<\/p>\n The invocation alarmed some Jews who heard it, according to posts on social media. They were responding with an awareness that in Christian tradition, the Pharisees have come to be thought of as \u201chypocrites, fools and a brood of vipers, full of extortion, greed, and iniquity,\u201d as the Jewish scholar of early Jewish-Christian relations Amy-Jill Levine put it in a 2015 article arguing that Christian criticism of the Pharisees is antisemitic<\/a>.<\/p>\n But this time, the comparison triggered a sharper outcry among some Christians and conservatives, because it likened Donald Trump and the U.S. military to Jesus at a time when the president has roiled some of his Christian base by posting an AI image of him as a Jesus- or God-like figure. (He said the image was depicting him as a doctor rather than Jesus, then deleted the picture.)<\/p>\n \u201cHegseth and Trump need to leave the religious jargon out of this,\u201d wrote<\/a> Peter Laffin, a senior editor at the conservative Washington Examiner, on X. \u201cIt is grotesque to compare the press to Pharisees, because it implies that they, Hegseth and Trump, are Jesus. \u201cThis is a hole they need to stop digging.\u201d<\/p>\n The Jesus image closely followed Trump\u2019s sparring this week with Pope Leo XIV. After the pope criticized the Iran war, Trump lambasted him on Truth Social<\/a>, saying he should \u201cget his act together\u201d and implying that Trump played a role in his appointment. The pope rejected Trump\u2019s criticism, adding fuel to a feud that has captivated Catholics around the world and even reshaped elements of Italian politics<\/a>.<\/p>\n Soon after Hegseth\u2019s speech, Pope Leo XIV tweeted<\/a> again: \u201cWoe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic, and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.\u201d<\/p>\n Hegseth\u2019s comments come as the Trump administration has injected overtly Christian ideas<\/a>, references and practices into government activities. They were not his only comments citing scripture to draw criticism this week. He has also been mocked for quoting a biblical verse \u2014 Ezekiel 25:17<\/a> \u2014 using not the text found in Jewish or Christian texts but the one used by a character in Quentin Tarantino\u2019s \u201cPulp Fiction\u201d to justify violence.<\/p>\n Passover may be over, but your chance to support independent Jewish journalism isn’t. Help JTA keep reporting the stories that define our era.<\/p>\n \n\t\tOne-time \tChoose an amount to donate<\/p>\n \n\t\t$72$180$360$500\t<\/p>\n \tSupport Us<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost exactly seven years after a presidential candidate stopped referring to \u201cPharisees\u201d in response to allegations of antisemitism,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[120],"tags":[18,21047],"class_list":["post-30929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pete-hegseth","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-pharisees"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116423488156495807","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/black-bg-2160x1200-2-7.jpg\")
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