We are living through a moment of distinct historical vertigo. The foundational truths that built the West—the very architecture of our freedom—are being dismantled by a cultural amnesia that views tradition as oppressive and faith as obsolete.
But if you look closely at the global stage, amidst the noise of Davos elites and the moral confusion of the United Nations, you see flickering of a revival. You see it in the unapologetic strength of Benjamin Netanyahu and even more so of the IDF defending its people; you see it in the MAGA - America First resurgence led by Donald Trump and Marco Rubio; and recently, we saw it in an electrifying moment when Javier Milei stood before the World Economic Forum and dismantled the socialist consensus.
It is no coincidence that these movements toward liberty often intersect with the ancient wisdom of Judaism. When President Milei cited the Parashat Bo—the section of the Torah detailing the Exodus—he wasn’t just performing a religious ritual, he was tapping into the original manifesto of human liberty. He was reminding the world that the Judeo-Christian tradition is not merely a "religion" in the private sense; it is the bedrock of political freedom. To defend the freedom of Judaism today is not just to defend a minority group; it is to defend the operating system of Western civilization itself.
The Exodus Algorithm: The original defeat of Statism
Let’s be precise about what happened in the Book of Exodus. For millennia, the default setting of human governance was tyranny: the Pharaohs, the Caesars, the Emperors—they were not just political leaders, they claimed to be gods. They owned the land, the means of production, and the bodies of their subjects.
The narrative of Bo—of the Israelites leaving Egypt—is the first time in recorded history that a group of people stood up and said that the State is not God. When Moses demands, "Let my people go" he introduces a radical, shattering concept: that human rights are pre-political. They are not grants from the government, they are endowments from the Creator.
This is the spiritual ancestor of the Declaration of Independence. When conservatives today talk about "limited government," we are echoing a sentiment that was born in the Sinai Desert. The Jewish tradition taught the world that there is a moral authority higher than the King, higher than the Parliament, and certainly higher than the technocrats in Brussels or Davos.
Constitutionalism before the Constitution
Critics often credit Athens with democracy and Rome with the Republic. And yes, we owe the Greeks our logic and the Romans our concepts of civil administration, but we must be historically honest: neither Athens nor Rome believed in the sanctity of the individual in the way we do today. In those societies, you mattered only insofar as you served the State. The concept of the individual—a being with a divine spark, worthy of dignity regardless of social utility—is a Jerusalem gift.
Consider the Jewish approach to the executive branch: long before the Magna Carta or Montesquieu, the Hebrew Bible was drafting the blueprints for constitutional restraints on power. Look at the Book of Judges (Sefer Shoftim), the timeline is crucial: the Law (the Torah) was given before the Land had a King. In every other ancient civilization, the King was the law. In Israel, the Law preceded the King.
In Deuteronomy (Devarim), Chapter 17, the constraints placed on a future Jewish king are staggering for their time—and frankly, for ours. The Torah commands that the King may not accumulate too many horses (a check on the military-industrial complex and foreign adventurism), he may not accumulate too many wives (a check on foreign entanglements and political corruption) and he may not amass excessive silver and gold (a check on personal greed and the looting of the treasury).
But the most profound requirement is this: The King is commanded to write a Sefer Torah—a scroll of the law—with his own hand, and keep it with him at all times. Why? "So that his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren."
Think about the depth of that. The ultimate leader is forced to engage in a solitary act of scholarship to remind himself that he is a subject of a Higher Law, just like the peasant in the field. This is the "rule of law" in its embryonic, purest form, it is the antithesis of the arbitrary rule of men. When we see leaders today who believe they can rule by executive fiat, who bypass the legislature and the courts, they are reverting to Pharaonic paganism. The conservative insistence on the Constitution is a distinctively Judeo-Christian impulse to bind the ruler to the text.
Dina D’malkhuta Dina: The model of integration vs. the theocratic threat
There is a slur often tossed around by the anti-Semitic left and the isolationist fringe that questions Jewish loyalty or implies a "dual allegiance." It is a lie that crumbles under the slightest theological scrutiny.
One of the most robust principles of Jewish law, codified in the Talmud (Baba Kamma 113a), is Dina d’malkhuta dina—"The law of the kingdom is the law." These principal mandates that Jewish people must respect the civil laws, property rights, and taxes of the nations in which they reside.
This creates a harmonization that is unique in history. Judaism does not seek to conquer the host nation, it seeks to be a righteous citizen within it. It constructs a "fence" of tradition while fully integrating into the civil reality of the state.
Compare this to the challenge we face from radical Islamism today. The radical Islamist worldview—not the peaceful practitioner, but the political ideologue—rejects Dina d’malkhuta dina because they seek to replace the Constitution with Sharia, they do not want integration, they want subjugation.
This is why the alliance between the modern conservative movement and the Jewish community is so organic. We are fighting the same battle, we are fighting for the nation-state, we are fighting for the rule of law, we are fighting against the importation of ideologies that refuse to assimilate. When we see rising antisemitism on the streets or college campuses, disguised as "anti-zionism," it is really a hatred of the West itself. They hate Israel because it is the only outpost of Western democratic values in a sea of totalitarianism.
The 'respect for the life project of others'
Milei often uses the phrase: "Liberalism is the unrestricted respect for the life project of others." While he draws from the Austrian School of economics, the soul of that phrase is purely Biblical.
In the pagan world, your life project was to serve the empire, but in the Jewish tradition, every individual is a world unto themselves. The Talmud teaches that to save one life is to save the entire world, this radical individualism is what fuels capitalism. If I believe that you have a divine spark, I must respect your property rights, I must respect your labor, and I must trade with you voluntarily, not coerce you. A society that forgets Jerusalem eventually forgets freedom. When you remove the Creator from the equation, you don't get a neutral, secular utopia, you get the State as God. You get the gulag. You get the re-education camp. You get the surveillance state.
A call for pride
It is time for conservatives to stop being apologetic about the Judeo-Christian roots of our prosperity. The Greeks gave us the columns of our buildings, but the Jews gave us the foundation of our souls.
The struggle we see today—whether it’s Trump fighting drug cartels, Milei fighting the socialists, or Netanyahu and the brave sons of Israel fighting the terrorists—is a singular struggle. It is the struggle to ensure that the "King" remains subject to the Law. It is the struggle to ensure that the individual remains free from the crushing weight of the collective.
Nicolás Krapf Photo: CourtesyWe should be proud of this heritage. These are the values that are transforming Argentina into the new lighthouse of liberty for the South, that sustain Israel as the eternal fortress of democracy in the Middle East, and that restore the United States as the unshakable defender of the West. To defend Judaism, to stand with Israel, and to protect religious liberty is not charity. It is self-preservation.
We must remain the people who know that the law comes first, that the ruler must be humble, and that freedom is not a gift from the government, but a gift from God. That is the covenant that made us free. And it is the only covenant that will keep us that way.
The author is a Political Consultant in Argentina