(JTA) — Four years ago, when the founders of Ben & Jerry’s took to The New York Times to defend their creamery’s West Bank settlement boycott, the opening of their op-ed read, “We are the founders of Ben & Jerry’s. We are also proud Jews.”
For at least one of them, that may have changed.
Ben Cohen, the Ben of the pair, appeared on Tucker Carlson’s talk show this week, mostly to discuss his opposition to US involvement in the Ukraine war and the Pentagon’s sprawling budget, issues where his long-touted progressive ideals can overlap with Carlson’s far-right ones.
Then, at the end of the hour-long show, Carlson asked Cohen about his “spiritual beliefs.”
“In terms of a spiritual belief, I mean, I don’t practice a religion,” Cohen responded. “I was born a Jew. I love Jesus Christ. I think the words that he said are wonderful, are amazing. And, you know, I’m kind of distressed that a lot of organized Christian religions are not really, I don’t know, abiding by the words of Jesus Christ.”
The moral vision of Jesus Christ
He added, “I think if we could follow the words of Jesus Christ and think about the Sermon on the Mount and, you know, take his words seriously, we wouldn’t be doing the stuff we’re currently doing.”
The Sermon on the Mount, in the New Testament Gospel of Matthew, is a series of widely known sayings in which Jesus outlines his moral vision.
Cohen’s religious inclinations are significant because Carlson is known for inviting antisemites, including a Holocaust revisionist, onto his show in the past. They are also important because Cohen and his co-founder Jerry Greenfield publicly marshaled their Judaism in defense of their company’s 2021 boycott.
The boycott drew widespread opposition from centrist and right-leaning Jewish groups, a wave of state-level legal challenges and led to a court battle that lasted years. Cohen and Greenfield — who grew up attending Hebrew school together on Long Island — sold the company to Unilever decades ago and no longer control it, though recently Cohen was reportedly planning a buyback.
“That we support the company’s decision is not a contradiction nor is it anti-Semitic,” the pair wrote in the Times op-ed. “In fact, we believe this act can and should be seen as advancing the concepts of justice and human rights, core tenets of Judaism.”
Later, they added, “As Jewish supporters of the State of Israel, we fundamentally reject the notion that it is anti-Semitic to question the policies of the State of Israel.”
The Carlson show, posted on Monday, also raises questions about whether Cohen would still identify as a supporter of Israel. The bulk of the interview was about Ukraine and the US defense budget, but near the end, when discussing why he thinks “we’re kind of headed toward war” in Iran, Cohen brought up Israel.
“There seems to be some kind of strange relationship between Israel and the US, where, I don’t know, Israel now has the US supplying weapons for its genocide,” Cohen said. “And what I’m told is that Israel wants some concept of greater Israel. I mean, I don’t really know much about that.”
(The term “greater Israel” has generally referred to Israeli control of territories such as the West Bank and Gaza, rather than its regional conflict with Iran.)
In response to a subsequent question, he said, “Right now what it means to be American is that we are the world’s largest arms exporter, we have the largest military in the world, we support the slaughter of people in Gaza, if somebody protests the slaughter of people in Gaza, we arrest them. What does our country stand for?”
This is not the first time this year that Cohen has accused Israel of genocide in its war against Hamas in Gaza, a charge the country strenuously rejects. In March, he said, “The US supporting this genocide is essentially trampling on the soul of America,” and added, “It’s not a war, it’s a slaughter. I don’t think there’s much difference between somebody getting killed by a bomb or getting killed by being thrown in a gas chamber.”
In the interview on Monday, Carlson did not address Cohen’s statements on Israel. He seconded Cohen’s praise of Jesus.
Cohen has also recently begun promoting a website to back DOGE, the Elon Musk-run operation that has rapidly slashed parts of the federal government, including large global humanitarian programs. A request for comment via that website, which Cohen touts on his X account, was not immediately returned.