When it comes to many of the great cultural and political issues of our age—religious freedom, school choice, the culture of the family, love of Israel—Jews and Christians are indispensable allies to one another and essential leaders for the country. The time has come to form a deeper cultural and political alliance between our two communities in the public arena, while respecting the permanent theological differences that will forever define our distinct identities as Jews and as Christians.
Gary L. Bauer
Gary Bauer is one of America’s most effective spokesmen for pro-life, pro-family, and pro-growth values. He served in President Ronald Reagan's administration for eight years. While serving at the Education Department, Bauer was named Chairman of President Reagan's Special Working Group on the Family.
Completing his service in the Reagan White House in late 1988, Gary Bauer became President of the Family Research Council and a Senior Vice President of Focus on the Family. He took his pro-family, pro-life message across the country in 1999 and into the 2000 Republican presidential debates and primaries. He has continued to champion these and other causes at American Values, a non-profit educational organization Bauer founded after the 2000 presidential campaign.
Bauer is also a leading Christian advocate for a strong and secure Israel and has devoted considerable time and energy to strengthening the shared values of the Israeli/American alliance.
He is the author of Our Journey Home, published in October 1992; co-author of Children at Risk: The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Our Kids written with Focus on the Family Chairman and Founder, Dr. James Dobson; author of Our Hopes, Our Dreams: A Vision for America, published in 1996, and Doing Things Right, published in 2001.
Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik
Rabbi Dr. Meir Y. Soloveichik is a senior fellow at Tikvah, director of the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University, and senior rabbi of Congregation Shearith Israel, the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States. He is also the host of the popular Bible 365 and Jerusalem 365 daily podcasts. Rabbi Soloveichik previously served as associate rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in Manhattan.
He has lectured throughout the United States, Europe, and Israel to both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences on topics relating to Jewish theology, bioethics, wartime ethics, and Jewish-Christian relations. Rabbi Soloveichik's essays on these subjects have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Commentary, Mosaic, First Things, Azure, Tradition, and the Torah U-Madda Journal. His first book, Providence and Power: Ten Portraits in Jewish Statesmanship, was published in June of this year by Encounter. In August 2012, Rabbi Soloveichik gave the invocation at the opening session of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. He is the son of Rabbi Eliyahu Soloveichik, grandson of the late Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik, and the great nephew of the late Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik.