Protestant Conversos are important in the Evangelical Protestant movement and remain strongly pro-Israel
While the term “converso” is commonly associated with Jews who embraced Catholicism during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions but continued to live in crypto-Jewish communities (see Separation and Its Discontents, Ch. 5), a lesser-known development is the emergence of Jews—by both faith and ancestry—who have embraced Protestantism in modern times. This is yet another example of Jews infiltrating Christianity in order to shape it toward their own ends (see, e.g., here, here and here on the Catholic Church).
This dynamic was recently highlighted in a post by Chris Menahan of Information Liberation. In it, evangelical leader Laurie Cardoza-Moore, speaking with Israel National News, warned that the United States is experiencing a resurgence of 1930s-style antisemitic sentiment.
She had choice words for the “woke right,” singling out prominent figures such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. “These individuals are normalizing antisemitic rhetoric and questioning U.S. support for Israel. Some are even engaging with known terrorist sympathizers and hostile regimes. Carlson, for example, has interviewed leaders from Iran and Qatar—figures openly committed to Israel’s destruction. This is deeply disturbing, especially given their influence within conservative circles,” she stated.
As a filmmaker, Cardoza-Moore expressed concern over the growing influence of anti-Israel voices on the right. “Carlson interviews pastors from groups like Christ at the Checkpoint who accuse Israel of occupation. As a Christian, he should know better. Candace Owens claims to be Catholic. They should understand the biblical imperative to stand with Israel. And yet they are using their platforms to spread disinformation to Christian, conservative audiences—audiences that shape the future of the Republican Party,” Cardoza-Moore added.
Cardoza-Moore, while discussing “The Lost Jews of the Inquisition,” used the moment to criticize Carlson and Owens and reveal her ancestral connection to the Jewish victims of the Inquisition.
“This project is close to my heart. My own family descends from the conversos—Jews forced to convert during the Spanish Inquisition. On his deathbed, my grandfather told his children, ‘We are Jewish.’ That revelation opened my eyes. Many Hispanic and Latino Americans, including recent immigrants, may also descend from those same roots—without even knowing it,” the evangelical leader revealed.
Indeed, there is a nugget of truth behind Cardoza-Moore’s statement. A 2018 study found that approximately 23% of Latin Americans show genetic markers associated with Sephardic Jewish ancestry, and historians believe there could be between 80 to 100 million descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews worldwide. However, these figures may not be so clear-cut. According to DNA tests in a previous study, Spanish-Americans in the Southwest are not descended from Jews, but from Spaniards. These scientists ultimately found no major Jewish connection.
Nonetheless, instances of Jews converting to Christianity are undeniable even into the present. While Catholicism was the destination for most historic conversos, the last two centuries have seen a small but highly influential number of Jews convert to Protestant evangelical Christianity.
Several prominent historical and contemporary figures exemplify this trend:
Michael Solomon Alexander (1799–1845)
Born in Schönlanke, Prussia, Alexander was trained as an Orthodox rabbi. However, after migrating to England, Solomon received his baptism in 1825. Ordained in the Church of England, he was a member of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews and became professor of Hebrew and Rabbinic Literature at King’s College London.
Backed by Britain and Prussia, he was consecrated as the first Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem on December 7, 1841, overseeing a vast diocese that included Palestine, Syria, and Egypt. Alexander advanced Hebrew liturgy, founded schools and a hospital, and laid the cornerstone of Christ Church, the city’s first Protestant church.
Leopold Cohn (1862–1937)
Born Eisik Leib Josowitz in Berezna, Hungary, Leopold Cohn was orphaned early, trained in Hasidic yeshivot and claimed rabbinic ordination. Seeking answers about messianic prophecies, he emigrated to New York in 1892 and subsequently converted to evangelical Christianity and was ordained a Baptist minister. In Brooklyn, he founded the Brownsville Mission to the Jews in 1894, later renamed Chosen People Ministries, which became the largest U.S. mission to Jews. A prolific preacher and author of the autobiography To an Ancient People, Cohn championed what would later become modern Messianic Judaism.
Louis Meyer (1862–1913)
Raised in a Reform Jewish family in Crivitz, Germany, Meyer earned medical and science degrees before immigrating to Cincinnati. Converted through a Presbyterian mission in 1892, Meyer graduated from the Reformed Presbyterian Seminary in 1897 and was a minister in Minnesota and Iowa. An adept writer and lecturer, he helped shape early 20th century Hebrew-Christian (proto-messianic) networks. Notably, he edited periodicals such as “The Jewish Era” and authored “Eminent Hebrew Christians of the Nineteenth Century.”
Moishe Rosen (1932–2010)
Born Martin Rosen in Kansas City, Missouri, to Ben Rosen and Rose Baker, Moishe Rosen was raised in Denver, Colorado, in a household that blended Reform and Orthodox Jewish traditions. His mother’s parents were Reform Jews from Austria, while his paternal grandfather was Orthodox. Despite attending synagogue regularly, Rosen viewed religion as a “racket.” After graduating from the University of Colorado, Rosen married Ceil Starr in 1950. In 1953, both converted to Christianity.
Ordained as a Conservative Baptist minister in 1957, Rosen worked for 17 years with the American Board of Missions to the Jews before founding Hineni Ministries in 1970. This project would later be renamed to Jews for Jesus. After leaving ABMJ in 1973, he incorporated Jews for Jesus as an independent organization, revolutionizing Jewish evangelism through confrontational street tactics inspired by the hippie counterculture and anti-Vietnam War activism. His trademark broadsides—provocatively titled pamphlets like “Jesus Made Me Kosher”—helped the organization distribute over two million tracts annually by the mid-1980s.
Jews for Jesus grew into the world’s largest Messianic Jewish organization, with a $13 million budget and international branches by the time he retired as executive director in 1996. Rosen’s organization holds distinctive Christian Zionist positions. Jews for Jesus supports Israel’s territorial claims and viewed the nation’s restoration as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
David H. Stern (1935-2022)
A Ph.D. recipient in economics at Princeton and former professor at UCLA, David Stern embraced Christianity in 1972 and became a pioneer of the Messianic Jewish movement. After earning an M.Div. at Fuller Seminary, he made aliyah to Jerusalem in 1979 and devoted his scholarship to restoring the Jewish context of the New Testament. His landmark “Complete Jewish Bible” and “Jewish New Testament Commentary” reframed Scripture with Hebraic terminology, while his manifesto “Messianic Judaism: A Modern Movement with an Ancient Past” articulated the movement’s theology.
Stern’s views on Israel were deeply theological, believing that Palestine belongs to the Jews and that Messianic Judaism would eventually form a critical mass in Israel. Through his Complete Jewish Bible translation, Stern emphasized the Jewishness of Christianity and advocated for recognizing Israel’s central role in God’s plan.
Sid Roth (1940-)
Born Sydney Abraham Rothbaum on September 7, 1940, in Brunswick, Georgia, Roth was raised in a traditional Jewish home but found organized religion irrelevant to his life. His primary goal was to become a millionaire by age 30. By 29, he had graduated college, married, become a father, and worked as an account executive for Merrill Lynch. However, feeling unsuccessful for not reaching his financial goal, he abandoned his family and career to embark on a quixotic quest for happiness.
This search led Roth into Eastern meditation and New Age practices, where he encountered what he believed was a spirit guide but which began to torment his mind with evil power. His spiritual crisis reached its peak when a Christian businessman challenged him. The businessman explained that Roth’s occult practices were condemned in Deuteronomy 18 and that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah which his Orthodox upbringing had concealed from him. In desperation during a tumultuous night of his life, Roth prayed a simple two-word prayer: “Jesus, help!” The next morning, he woke up to find the evil presence gone and his mind filled with supernatural peace and love.
This encounter in 1972 transformed Roth’s life completely, leading to his restored marriage and his entire immediate family’s conversion to Christianity. In 1977, he founded Messianic Vision and launched a nationally syndicated radio broadcast aimed at reaching Jewish people with the Gospel.
His television program “Sid Roth’s It’s Supernatural!” began in 1996, featuring weekly interviews with people who claim miraculous healings and supernatural encounters with God. Through his media empire, including the It’s Supernatural! Network (ISN) and Middle East Television (METV), Roth has built a global platform reaching millions with his message of supernatural Christianity while maintaining his focus on evangelizing “to the Jew first.”
Roth has been a fervent supporter of Israel, operating television networks that are “must carry” on every television set in Israel. His ministry emphasizes that Israel is central to God’s end-times plan, stating that “the center of God’s universe is NOT Washington D.C. but Jerusalem, Israel.” He frequently discusses biblical prophecy related to Israel and advocates for Christians to support the Jewish state financially and through prayer.
Curiously, Roth has been an ardent supporter of Donald Trump, predicting in 2020 that Trump would be a “two-term president” and receive Nobel Peace Prizes. He believes Trump was divinely appointed to support Israel, stating that “God directed me to mobilize as many Christians as possible to vote for Trump because of his positions on Israel and abortion.” Roth has prophesied that Trump will have “a major encounter with God himself” and that his presidency represents God’s blessing on America.
Joel Chernoff (1950-)
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, but raised from a young age in Cincinnati, Ohio, Joel Chernoff came from one of Messianic Judaism’s founding families. His parents, Martin and Yohanna Chernoff, established Congregation Beth Messiah in Cincinnati in 1970—the first modern Messianic Jewish congregation in the United States.
In 1972, Chernoff formed the music group LAMB with Rick “Levi” Coghill, a studio guitarist and fellow believer. LAMB pioneered what became known as messianic music, blending ancient Jewish musical motifs with contemporary folk-rock sounds and Hebrew lyrics. Over two decades, LAMB recorded 14 albums that sold over 600,000 copies, with several songs reaching the Top 10 on contemporary Christian music charts.
Beyond music, Chernoff has played a significant role as a Messianic Jewish leader. He has served as General Secretary and CEO of the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America (MJAA), the largest institution representing the worldwide Messianic Jewish community. He also founded and chairs the Joseph Project International, which has delivered over $170 million in humanitarian aid to Israel and operates as the country’s largest importer of such aid.
Jonathan Cahn (1959-)
Raised in New York State by a Holocaust survivor mother within a committed Jewish family, Jonathan David Cahn attended synagogue regularly and celebrated his bar‑mitzvah in the traditional manner. Like a significant portion of American Jewry, he found organized religion irrelevant to his daily life, though he was proud of his Jewish heritage.
Cahn’s early spiritual doubts deepened as he struggled to reconcile the vibrant depictions of God in Hebrew school lessons with the dry formalism of synagogue worship. After a near-death experience at age 20, he ultimately found conviction in biblical prophecies and embraced Messianic Judaism before graduating from SUNY Purchase.
Cahn subsequently founded the Beth Israel Worship Center in Wayne, New Jersey, and serves as president of Hope of the World Ministries, an international evangelistic organization. He gained worldwide recognition with his 2011 debut novel The Harbinger, which draws parallels between ancient Israel and the United States, suggesting that events like 9/11 represent divine warnings.
The book became a New York Times bestseller for over 100 consecutive weeks and sold over 2 million copies. His subsequent bestsellers, including The Mystery of the Shemitah, The Paradigm, and The Oracle, have established him as one of the most prominent voices in modern prophetic teaching, focusing on end-times prophecy and calling for national repentance and return to biblical principles.
Cahn strongly supports Israel and views the Jewish state as central to God’s end-times plan. He teaches that Israel faces spiritual warfare from “principalities and powers,” particularly from Iran (which he identifies with the biblical “principality of Persia”). Cahn believes the “forces of hell” have been trying to destroy Israel since 1948 and that the nation’s restoration fulfills biblical prophecy.
Further, Cahn has been one of Trump’s most vocal evangelical supporters. In 2019, he prayed over Trump at Mar-a-Lago, declaring that God had “raised you up to be a Jehu to your nation” and calling Trump to safeguard Israeli interests.
Cahn has likened Trump to the biblical king Jehu, a “warrior king” called to “make his nation great again” by overturning ungodly leadership. He believes Trump was “born to be a trumpet of God” and appointed to overturn “America’s cult of Baal” (making a reference to the abortion movement). Following Trump’s 2024 election victory, Cahn praised it as “the greatest political comeback in American history” and argued that “the only real threat of fascism in America actually comes from the Left.”
Wayne Allyn Root (1961-)
In a similar vein, conservative media personality Wayne Allyn Root illustrates a similar trend of Jews embracing Christianity. Root is an ethnic Jew by birth—” 99.5% European Jewish” as confirmed by DNA testing—who became an outspoken evangelical and, for a brief moment, a high-profile member of the Libertarian Party. Root converted to Christianity in the early 1990s and has been actively involved in conservative and libertarian circles.
Root’s run for vice president in 2008 alongside former Congressman Bob Barr represented a neoconservative subversion of the Libertarian Party’s presidential agenda. Root unapologetically departed from standard libertarian non-interventionist principles, saying he was a strong supporter of the War on Terror, but only believed it was mishandled.
He endorsed the “troop surge” in Iraq, saying, “I agreed with the recommendation of the Generals on the ground—to build up a troop surge. We did and it’s been a great success.” Root’s rapid ascent in the Libertarian Party naturally provoked a backlash from the more principled, non-interventionist members of the party. The now-inactive libertarian blogger “Classically Liberal” accused the Barr-Root ticket of being “neocon infiltrators” who brought “foreign interventionism” to the party. Their presence as Libertarian Party nominees betrayed libertarian principles of non-interventionism.
Like several Jewish political figures in the U.S. political arena, Root eventually changed his political stripes, leaving the Libertarian Party to embrace Trump-style populism. Since his pivot, he has adopted conventional hawkish positions toward neocon bête noire Iran, describing it as “the biggest threat to Israel’s existence ever.”
Root and his fellow Messianic Jews and Jewish converts to evangelicalism demonstrate the folly of trying to convert them Christianity. Even when they convert, they continue to pursue political agendas that advance Jewish interests at the expense of the Gentile host population. It’s quite literally in their DNA.
* * *
As commentators like Mike Peinovich have astutely observed, efforts to limit Jewish social mobility have been most aggressively pursued under National Socialism and in certain Muslim nations, particularly Yemen, where Jews were ghettoized and barred from achieving equal status.
Reduction of Jewish power, not conversion is the answer to the lingering Jewish problem.
History suggests that no matter how sincere the conversion, the political consequences remain the same: loyalty to the tribe persists unless Jewish power itself is checked.
Jews are not generally enthusiastic about “conversion” or missionary work for “Yeshua”, but quite happy to have Christian Zionists in tow, especially those who deny Palestine identity or who like the idea of an anti-Muslim war. These fundamentalists do not seem fazed by Jews attacking the New Testament as a “cause” of The Holocaust or the Talmud’s condemnation and gruesome fate of “Yeshua”. The “Abrahamic” religions are anyhow all mistaken about the historicity of Adam, Noah and Moses, which compounds their combined danger to Europe.
Jews Historiclly had taken great pride in ridiculing Christianity but they would never accept any mockery of their jewish irrational MYTHS. How can Christians ever come to a general universal acceptance considering that according to the Gospels JEWS KILLED JesusChrist the Messiah.?.that makes them Christian’s main enemies. I find it specially painful that Christians/Zionists are slaves to the Jewish dispensationalists fake Theology Blasphemies. It is abhorrent abomination that Christians are supporting helping the MASS Genocide murder strarvation of 3million Palestinians most of them children..the children of GOD. WE Christian can NO longer go down that inmoral ungodly inhuman brutal savagery abyss…IT is time to break FREE from Judaism before they corrupt Christianity beyond any repair. The “conspiracy” theories are many and varied through time..BUT Jewish Conversos have been undermining Christianity/Religious/Traditions/Theology since the crucifixtion of Christ..Many Rabbis openly bragg that Jews invented Chrsitainity and that St.Paul was a jewish spy, infiltrator, to judaize the Roman World through Chrsitainity. I propose that whatever the version may be…IF Chrsitainity is to survive IT must be on ITS own truths/merits ragardless of jewish criticism of its validity. ITS TIME TO REBUILD TRADITIONAL CATHOLICISM CHRISTIANITY..OUR VALUES BELIEFS OUR COMMON (Historical/Global/UNIVERSAL) HERITAGE which by definition JEWS claims of privilege racial religious divine superiority. Jews can NEVER achieve HUMAN UNIVERSALITY. Catholics must return to its ROOTS…the Supremnacy of the Gospels…the chucrh Fathers..PD Catholics we had been the only ones capable of Missionary Christian EVANGELISM preaching the all emcopassing eternal belief that GOD created all humanity/Nature/and tehrefore GOD loves all Humans/creation EQUALLY…In Africa the sick lepers, cancer patients, HIV victims the last EYES.faces they will see are NOT jewish, will never be jewish..The last human contact will be catholics NUNS, priests, Missionaries that believe in the all loving all inclusive GOD..JEWS/Judaism will never go there. We must go back to our traditional Catholicsm and let the JEWS go their own way.. It jewish claims of exclusive dinivity that lets them be so INHUMAN to nonjews..??
God didnt create humanity . God doesn’ t love anyone because he doesn’t exist. The universe is a brute fact, and doesn’t give a crap about humanity or anyone else. We are on our own, and religion only makes us mad.
All the more reason to deport every Hispanic we can.
I thank José Nino for writing yet another genuinely informative essay. For me, the fly in the ointment is that he—and he is not alone—refers to insincere Jewish converts to Christianity as conversos. Surely he must know that the Spanish people of reconquered Catholic Spain reserved the word “conversos” for those Jews who gave every indication of having truly abjured their Jewish beliefs, prejudices, and racial loyalties. The insincere Jewish converts who became Catholics in name only were referred to as marranos—i.e., pigs.
Of course, it’s not surprising that the Jew-created Narrative of today would discard the latter Spanish term as too unflattering to be tolerated. Instead, the Narrative takes as an article of the Jews’ own self-serving faith the claim that, without exception, all recantations of Jewishness were insincere, the result of pressure from the Spanish Inquisition—an institution that, like Adolf Hitler and Richard Nixon, is regarded by the Establishment as an indisputable, unalloyed, unqualified evil. Thus, per the Narrative, all converted Jews must be called conversos. How original of the Jews to imply that perjury and insincerity are virtues!
I simply wish that so dedicated and able a pro-White writer as José Nino hadn’t tacitly gone along with the Jews’ party line in this admittedly somewhat marginal matter.
A thorough, unprejudiced and careful study of Jewish literature, especially historiography and apologetics, will show that there is no party-line imposed narrative, and that the term “Marranos” is still widely in current use, even if only to retain evidence of persecution by label as well as auto-da-fe. A few conversos became active Jew-hunters/haters. St Teresa of Avila was probably of part-Jewish ancestry on the paternal side.
Where, precisely? Please supply examples in support of your claim. “Marranos” is as scarce as hen’s teeth at this site and at the Unz Review.
Maybe research into primary Jewish material as well as secondary anti-Jewish polemic would help. Meanwhile, try: Dan Cohn-Sherbok, “Antisemitism” (2022) chapter 8; Norman F. Cantor, “The Sacred Chain” (1994) pp.187-193; David Nirenberg, “Anti-Judaism” (2014) p.441; Solomon Grayzel, “History of the Jews” (1968), p.359 & passim; Cecil Roth, “The Religion of the Marranos,” JQR (July 1931); Timothy Oelman (ed) “Marrano Poets…” (2007); Yirmiyahu Yovel, “The Other within: The Marranos” (2009); Jose M. Estrugo, “Les Sefardies” (2002). Will this do?
If not, search for “Marranos” online via: Jewish History; My Jewish Learning; jewishwikipedia; jewishvirtuallibrary; Ohr Somayach; Agata Bielik-Robson; Anita Novinsky
This is one of your typical evasions, Ned, as you well know.
“…marginal matter…”?
What happens after compounding one, “…marginal matter…”, on top of another, in a “… self serving…” way, over a period of 2,000+ years?
If you have trouble answering, then I have a story of a poor victimized owner of 100’s of Central Banks World-wide who’s humble beginnings began in the 15th century ghettos of Frankfurt, Germany, with a Holocaust story that you might like to buy.
I think you failed to read my comment with care, Roy, since the “marginal matter” you remarked on snidely is unrelated to the one that my use of the phrase referred to.
Thank you Jose Nino for clarifying one important point in your essay. As a southwest real Hispanic it’s important to note that we are descendant of the Spanish that settled the area BEFORE there was an America or Mexico. Our Spanish dialect is unique in that we use old Spanish not spoken in other Spanish speaking countries. There are books written and it is no secret here in the southwest. Our DNA as confirmed by Jose is European and therefore has been given reason to be attacked by our new cultural and political overlords. We did not come to America, America came to us. If real history was taught in our schools that would be well known, even to our own people. History has been purposely distorted to prevent any unity among Europeans. I don’t expect Americans to know our history since they don’t even know theirs due to cultural Marxism taking root in America!
Just so. Reminding White people of old, often long-settled ethnic grievances—in effect, reopening old wounds and then rubbing salt in them—has been one of the Establishment’s most successful projects. For decades, KM has been in the forefront of those who have tried to alert Whites to this divisive strategy, but there have been times when it has seemed as if very few pay him any heed.
The strategy has partnered especially well with the Generational Name Game, which has had great appeal for those who don’t understand the ease with which statistics can be manipulated. Gen X’ers have been taught to blame Millennials, Millennials have been taught to blame Gen Z’ers, and everyone has been taught to blame Boomers for all of society’s ills. In short, the aim has been to distract people with social-science blather alleging age-related divisions and distinctions that either are grossly exaggerated or don’t actually exist at all, to the end of diverting attention from society’s prime manipulators: the Jews.
Jews were prominent in the US New Left six decades ago which spread across the western world with its “race, gender, class” ideology that has been organised as the dominant “diversity, equality, inclusion” imposed on our societies, though with Gentile (especially non-white) collaborators. See online some kosher documentation: Phillip Mendes, “We are all German Jews” & AICE/JVL “Modern Jewish History: the New Left”. Herbert Marcuse (an interesting writer in other ways) was the chief culprit in attempting to mobilise blacks, migrants, sexual deviants, “women” and students against racial integrity and national identity, family values, personal achievement and “right-wing” speech. Some Jews have recently rowed back on this because of the left-wing (especially non-white) attack on Israel.
Like Masons and Social Democrats generally, Jews have been prominent promoters of “internationalism” and its soulless bureaucracies. Since WW2 they have been more interested in promoting ethnic diversity inside European nations rather than conflict between them, the Arab/Muslim world being a different matter, aggravating Sunni-Shia rivalry a case in point; a “cordon INsanitaire” around Israel.
Jews are uncomfortable in nations with a strong unifying monoculture, but recent mass-immigration of anti-Zionist communities (not only Muslim) into Europe has been too much, and counter-productive in several ways (e.g. Palestine genocide demos & Holohoax cyber posts). Cf. Bradley Strotten, “Simon Schama [‘We Jews are a suitcase-people’] wants you to shut up,” Spiked Online, February 12, 2025.