JTA — In a recent interview for his New York Times podcast, Ezra Klein asked Texas State Rep. James Talarico why the Christian right puts so much focus on abortion and gay marriage.

“I’m Jewish, but when I read the New Testament, I always come away a little bit amazed that politicized Christianity is so worried about gender and sexuality, and so unconcerned with greed,” said Klein.

Talarico, 36, answered in the religious language that has made him not just a political darling in Texas — where he hopes to do the unthinkable and flip a Senate seat from red to blue — but a national figure.

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Talarico responded with a knowing laugh. “Absolutely. Concern for the poor, concern for the oppressed, is everywhere. Economic justice is mentioned 3,000 times in our Scriptures, both the New Testament and the Hebrew Scriptures. This is such a core part of our tradition, and it’s nowhere to be seen in Christian nationalism or on the religious right.”

His response was what the Texas Tribune has called “archetypal Talarico fare”: a blend of religion and “progressive, populist politics.” It has also made him the standard-bearer for a resurgent religious left, which includes more than a few Jews, in Texas and beyond, who have longed for a liberal politician who can speak from and to the language of faith.

“We need the kind of religious values [that] tell us that we are all made in God’s image,” said Joshua Shanes, a historian at the University of California-Davis, explaining why he’s excited by Talarico’s candidacy. “Religious values tell us that the government should be there to create a social safety net and create a healthcare system that helps everyone, and progressive taxation.”

The majority of Jews have tended to consistently support such positions, and vote accordingly. What Talarico adds to the mix is the faith-first rhetoric of the budding minister — which he is, pursuing a degree in theology at a Presbyterian seminary.

While mainstream Democrats will invoke their religious faith on the campaign trail, they rarely make it a signature. When the late Rabbi Michael Lerner, in the pages of his Tikkun magazine in the 1990s and early 2000s, called for the need for a religious left as an alternative to the Christian right, he found few Jewish allies. Jews were long wary of a Christian right that seeks to erase the line between church and state, and, like many liberals, tended to favor what the writer Cynthia Ozick has called the “unadorned public square” — a politics where religion remains a private matter.

Jewish conservatives, meanwhile, had long made peace with the Christian right, sharing its views on public funding for parochial schools and uncritical support for Israel.

In polling done in 2024, however, the Pew Research Center and other surveys indicated that younger progressives are open to candidates whose religious faith motivates social justice commitments, as long as it doesn’t translate into restrictive policy.

Perhaps noting this trend, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, in his recent autobiography, centered his religious Jewish identity in describing his political philosophy. “Now........

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