A Jewish American activist looks to his faith for ways to remedy America’s political divisions.

Daniels made national headlines during the 2016 and 2020 presidential election cycles with his distribution of tailor-made red and blue kippahs (also known as yarmulkes) for supporters of the Republican and Democratic candidates. Careful to reach out to all sides, including supporters of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, the author sought to spread a message of peace and reconciliation; the inside of each kippah featured a nonpartisan prayer for Muslims, Christians, and Jews to “weed out hate.” They were part of a national movement that Daniels led, which he surveys in his previous book, Weed Out Hate: Plant a Rose (2020). The author is the grandson of the inventor of the Ross Root Feeder, a popular horticultural tool, and he uses the invention as an extended spiritual metaphor throughout both books. Just as his family’s business centered on nurturing rosebushes and trees “at the deepest roots,” so, too, does Daniels see his kippah-distribution movement as one that has spread nutrients of peace and cooperation. At its best, the book blends an account of the author’s spiritual vision with a campaign memoir that recounts his interactions with some of the nation’s leading politicians. Vice President Mike Pence, Daniels notes, posted a picture on Twitter of himself hugging the author, and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, he says, insisted on calling him “Rabbi,” despite his insistence that the title didn’t apply to him.

The author also openly admits to the initial naïveté that infused his movement, noting that he’d long been “fascinated” by Trump as a fan of his NBC TV show The Apprentice. During Trump’s first run, Daniels presented the Republican candidate with 50 gold hats that featured the words “Donald Trump 2016” in Hebrew and English; Trump said “I love it” and asked that Daniels give them to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The author now describes his interactions with the Trump campaign as “dancing with the devil,” and he relates his appearances at Trump’s campaign rallies as reminiscent of his own visits to the Dachau concentration camp; he also compares one of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels’ speeches and “today’s right-wing ideologies.” In this book, he offers an alternative vision (“Making America Kosher Again”) that blends Kabbalah mysticism and the “deepest roots of the Torah” to offer a spiritual vision that turns Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again, “on its head” by encouraging civic prayer and collective intentions for “cultural unification.” Despite the book’s dire assessment of contemporary Republicans, the author is relentlessly positive in his belief in civic transformation. This belief in the fundamental goodness of humanity may be refreshing to readers tired of cynicism, but it may strike others as overly optimistic. Still, Daniels is effective at making his argument, and he approaches this brief book with an enthusiastic writing style. The engaging narrative is complemented by a wealth of full-color photographs of political figures, credited to various photographers.

A timely and accessible political commentary that draws on Talmudic wisdom.