He is one of two Jewish Republicans in all of Congress and hails from a heavily evangelical district in Tennessee.
The politically conservative district in eastern Memphis and West Tennessee that Congressman David Kustoff represents, he recounted in Jerusalem last week, has almost as many church steeples as McDonald’s golden arches.
When he first campaigned for Congress in 2016 and went knocking on doors, he was often asked what church he attended. His answer, ‘Temple Israel,’ generated much enthusiasm. He often received the response: “I love Israel. What can we do to support Israel?”
Kustoff, who serves as the chairman of the House-Knesset Parliamentary Friendship Group, was in Jerusalem last week on a 72-hour solidarity visit.
“I want to tell you that I am here simply because I am a friend of Israel, and friendship is essential in times such as these,” he said in his address to the House-Knesset Friendship Group. Kustoff spoke at the invitation of Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana and in the presence of U.S. Ambassador Jack Lew.
In an interview with JNS in Jerusalem on July 4, the soft-spoken 57-year-old chose his words carefully. The former United States attorney for the Western District of Tennessee is neither verbose nor sensationalist.
He expressed concern over U.S. President Joe Biden’s level of commitment to Israel of late, particularly the administration’s withholding of certain munitions (“Given the number of mixed messages over the last couple months I am concerned about the Biden-Netanyahu relationship”).
Kustoff reiterated his condemnation of the top Democrat in the U.S. Senate, Chuck Schumer, for meddling in Israeli politics by calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be replaced (“We don’t do that in the United States with allies; there is no justification for that”) and had nothing but praise for his evangelical constituents for their strong support of Israel (“They reach out to me all the time about Israel and I am really proud of them”).
But his overarching message during the trip, which included a visit to southern Israel communities that were hard-hit in the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and a meeting with Netanyahu, was that the vast majority of Americans stand with Israel, critical media reporting notwithstanding.
“We need to show America, Israel and the entire world that the U.S. stands firmly with Israel,” Kustoff said.
The congressman acknowledged the troubling rise in antisemitism in the U.S. and is especially concerned by its spread on social media, but pledged to continue speaking out against it both on Capitol Hill and wherever else he may be.
“I have an outsized voice from the House floor, and I plan to continue to use that to speak out against antisemitism,” Kustoff told JNS. “We’ve got to speak out.” He noted that the House has been “fairly unified” in condemnation of antisemitism from the far left of late.
But the congressman offered one prediction about one effect of Oct. 7, saying, “Many American Jews went to bed on October 6 as progressives and woke up the next morning as conservatives.”
“I believe we will see that trend continue,” he said.
