The “long 1950s” – roughly 1948 through 1963 – witnessed a significant transformation of Christian attitudes towards Jews in the United States. Among the reasons for the change, perhaps the most surprising was an unprecedented association of Jews with vigorous masculinity at a time of national confusion and anxiety about the meaning and durability of male gender roles. All Americans felt the pull of these tensions, not least among them Protestant Christians who, despite the emergence of new male role models in their own midst, accepted tutelage from other traditions as well. Particularly powerful symbols of the new Jewish masculinity were a triad who can be thought of as the “three Bens”: on the movie screens, Judah Ben-Hur in the 1959 blockbuster film Ben-Hur; from library shelves Ari Ben Canaan, the hero of Leon Uris’s bestselling 1958 novel Exodus as well as the 1960 film made from it; and on the evening news, David Ben-Gurion, whose career as the most important figure in Israeli society and politics coincided exactly with the span of the “long 1950s.” The “three Bens” differed from other male role models in the era by their effective linkage of hyper-masculinity with a sense of focused purpose. The union of masculinity and mission would help shape American ideals and ideologies in the 1960s and beyond.