Jews & Evangelicals:
Some of Our Best Friends...
By Rahel Musleah

It may seem peculiar, but the Christian right has become one of the Jewish state’s most steadfast and outspoken supporters.

A solidarity rally for Israel in Washington, D.C. Sound familiar? This past October, however, it was not the Jewish community that braved rain and the Washington-area sniper to proclaim its support for Israel, but the Evangelical Christian community.

The Christian Coalition of America’s annual convention drew 10,000 to wave Israeli flags, stand for singer Ted Pearce’s rendition of “Zealous for Zion” and watch as “This Is the Day of Elijah” dancers celebrated Christian love for Israel. In attendance alongside Evangelical notables Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay were Ehud Olmert, then the mayor of Jerusalem, and Israeli Knesset member Benny Elon.

As the Christian right’s support for Israel has become increasingly vocal, the Jewish community faces a subsequent dilemma: Is this isolated Christian voice in a pro-Palestinian wilderness a short sighted mirage or a life-giving oasis? “The Jewish community is schizophrenic on how to relate to the Christian right,” says Eugene Korn, director of interfaith affairs for the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. The reactions run the gamut. Some reject pairing; others have created official alliances with Israel’s “best friends.” Many, like the ADL, fall in the middle—appreciating the stance on Israel, but steering clear of formal coalitions because of conflicts over the domestic agenda, issues of church-state relations, abortion, gay rights and more.

“American Jews should not be apologetic or defensive about cultivating Evangelical support for Israel, which is overwhelming, consistent and unconditional,” says Abraham H. Foxman, ADL’s national director. “The fears that it will undermine our impact on other concerns are overblown, since we will continue to articulate in forceful ways our significant disagreements on social issues.”

The outspoken Evangelical “love” of the Jewish people is rooted in Genesis 12:3, when God promises Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you.” But theology ranges widely, says Korn. Evangelicals on the extreme right view the ingathering of Jewish exiles and the creation of the Jewish state as a necessary precursor to the Second Coming of Christ. During the Apocalypse, they say, Jews will either be converted or destroyed. The centrist position supports Israel as a democratic, tolerant society committed to peaceful coexistence with the Arabs.

“The people who really believe in the Second Coming do so out of unshakeable theological belief, not because Israel is a democracy, battles terrorism or shares values,” contends Rabbi James Rudin, senior interreligious adviser for the American Jewish Committee. “The realists—that includes me—say, ‘any port in a storm.’ Let’s take the support. Respect what they are doing. But let’s know with whom we’re dealing. The very same Evangelicals who hold up a sign saying ‘Israel—Yes,’ hold up a second sign saying ‘Judaism—No.’ It’s bifocal vision.”

Raised amid “a sea of Southern Baptists” in Virginia, Rudin stresses that Evangelical Christians are not weirdos or strangers to him. The double strategy he advocates may be inherently tense, but “it’s the only honest way.” Work with those who support Israel’s survival, he suggests, yet encounter them on questions of theology. “Stress that Judaism is a living faith that doesn’t need to be supplanted or fulfilled.” When Christians start quoting proof texts, however, Jews, who are uncomfortable with theology, react either with contempt or fear, Rudin says.

To help local Jewish communities understand and engage the Christian community, ADL has developed “Meeting the Challenge: Church Attitudes Toward the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” a booklet that has summaries of nine church positions regarding the conflict and responses to common arguments.

ADL polls show Evangelicals harbor no greater inclination toward anti- Semitism than other groups in American society. One-third of American Christians, about 30 million, are Evangelical, from Robertson to Bill Clinton to Bill Moyers. The anti-Israel perceptions of the other two-thirds—mainstream Protestants and Catholics—stem from information disseminated by Palestinian-run Jerusalem churches, says Korn. “In the eyes of the public, Israel has lost the moral high ground because it has been portrayed as a militaristic oppressor,” he explains. “It’s important to give a forum to those who do support and advocate for Israel.”

In fact, an ADL advertisement targeted at increasing support of Israel among the Christian community featured a Los Angeles Times op-ed by Ralph Reed, former Christian Coalition executive director and chairman of the Georgia Republican Party. The piece, entitled “We People of Faith Stand Firmly With Israel,” explains that the Christian right’s support of Israel is based on shared democratic values, common strategic interests, humanitarian concerns and “the simple fact that its land was the cradle of both Judaism and Christianity. Regardless of one’s eschatology—and there are as many theological strains as denominations—there is an undeniable and powerful spiritual connection between Israel and the Christian faith.”

While ADL has not created a partnership with the Evangelical community, it has formed a coalition with the Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity in Jerusalem and the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel. Called Faith and Freedom: International Christian-Jewish Association on the Middle East, the organization promotes Israel advocacy within the Christian community and defends the freedom, rights and interests of Jews and Christians in the region.

At a time when we’re feeling totally isolated on behalf of our beloved Israel, to have groups so strongly in support of Israel is moving and should not be spurned,” says Hannah Rosenthal, executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella organization of 13 national agencies, including Hadassah, and 123 local community relations councils.

Rosenthal voices concerns, however. “I wish we could come to an official agreement that there isn’t proselytizing at work here,” she says, pointing out that many of the same staunch supporters of Israel fund Jews for Jesus. Rosenthal also notes that the Evangelical political stand—that Israel should not cede any land—closes off options for negotiations. “This is a new relationship and will take time to work through,” she says. “When it comes to advocacy for Israel the relationship seems to be getting closer every day. To what extent that will have an impact on the future of our domestic agenda is a concern. We don’t want the relationship misused.”

On the local level, Rosenthal relates, a handful of communities are beginning to forge closer ties. The Israel Task Force of the Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater, Virginia, recently formed a committee to explore working with its Evangelical neighbors, according to Israel Zoberman, rabbi of Reform Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach. The Federation’s Holocaust Commission also invited Robertson, who lives in the community, to speak at a local synagogue. Among both Jews and Christians, “some people expressed surprise,” says Zoberman, “but overall he was well received.” About 500 attended.

“Unusual times call for unusual responses,” says Zoberman. “Those committed to the peace process are in anguish. When we see people willing to defend us, we have to do what we have to do. Liberal Protestants who are strongly aligned with the Palestinians don’t have what we need at this time. That doesn’t mean we are glossing over our differences. When it comes to the Second Coming, our plans for the First Coming are still in place.” Zoberman hopes productive dialogue on theology, too, will emerge from the newly opened door.

Robertson may have spoken “glowingly” about Israel in Tidewater, but Jo-Ann Mort, who writes frequently on Israel, notes that the Web site for Robertson’s Christian Broadcast Network, www.cbn.com, featured the following statement: “Indeed, there will finally be such a fullness of Israel when their hardness and blindness to the gospel is overcome as to vastly enrich the whole world. For the whole truth is that all Israel will be saved. The fullness of Gentiles will climax with the fullness of Israel.”

“Their vision of Israel is frightening,” says Mort, who also serves as national secretary of Americans for Peace Now. “They don’t want to see a Jewish state.”

Jewish Women Watching, an anonymous feminist group, dramatized its view by distributing a mailing containing a condom to members of the Jewish community. “Practice Safe Politics,” the mailing read. “This condom will not protect you from the real intentions of the Christian right wing. Abstinence from strange bedfellows is advised.” Its Web site, www.jewishwomenwatching.com, warns “the Jewish community must protect itself from the shortsighted decisions of our leaders. Who knows what we could catch from the radical right?”

For Yechiel Eckstein and Daniel Lapin, two Orthodox rabbis, working with the Christian right is not a new, pragmatic or temporary venture but an attempt to foster a deep and permanent relationship. Both express the commonalities between the Christian right and Orthodox Jews who espouse a traditional lifestyle, conservative beliefs and support of Israel. Lapin, who founded Toward Tradition in Seattle in 1991, feels that American Jews know very little about the differences between Christian denominations. “I have always believed America’s Bible Belt is Israel’s safety belt,” he says. “We consider the fact that there may be many for whom support of Israel has to do with dreams of ultimate conversion of the Jews, but their activism is confined to conversation. Traditional Judaism encourages gratitude for good actions regardless of motivation. The way to ensure Jewish survival is not to suppress Christian belief but to increase the number of knowledgeable Jews through massive education.”

Eckstein’s 20-year-old bridge-building organization, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, based in Chicago and Jerusalem, has contributed $85 million for programs in Israel to support aliya, immigrant absorption, security and antipoverty projects. Its latest political advocacy component is the Stand for Israel campaign, launched with Ralph Reed, to mobilize leadership and grassroots support for Israel in the Christian community. On April 2, its first briefing and awards dinner in Washington drew about 1,000 participants hailing from Alaska to Puerto Rico; some have dubbed the organization a “Christian AIPAC.”

In the past year, Eckstein says he has seen more “change for the better” in the Jewish attitude toward Evangelicals than in the past 25 years. It was that long ago, during his service as ADL’s national codirector of interreligious affairs, that he recognized the potential reservoir of Evangelical support. “The Jewish community is getting it now,” he says. “More Jews are willing to bracket the domestic questions. It’s not that their concerns are allayed, but Israel’s survival is believed to be at stake.” Eckstein does note, however, that he doesn’t work with groups that target Jews for conversion. His philosophy is to “cooperate whenever possible; oppose when necessary. Teach and sensitize at all times.”

The assessment that the Christian right supports Israel only out of apocalyptic motivation is a “sexy media spin and a myth that began in earnest a year ago,” argues Eckstein, pointing to a 60 Minutes episode that aired in October (Zion’s Christian Soldiers) and a Time magazine cover story on eschatology. “What difference does it make what they ultimately believe when their actions now show their support?”

Gershom Gorenberg, an American-born Iisraeli journalist and author of The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount (Oxford University Press), vehemently opposes that argument. “It’s naive, shortsighted and demeaning to ignore their theology,” says Gorenberg, who found parallels between Jewish and Christian fundamentalists while researching his book.

Christian right-Jewish coalitions will also damage the long-term political and interfaith landscape, says Gorenberg. “Support for Israel will become identified with the Christian right. That will turn off part of the American mainstream and even some Jews, and will undermine decades of interfaith dialogue with mainstream churches.”

Linking with Evangelical groups is less of an issue in Israel than in the United States, says Gorenberg, though it has received greater media attention in the past months. Many right-wing Israeli politicians have attended Evangelical events. As far back as 1980, Prime Minister Menachem Begin presented the prestigious Jabotinsky Award to Jerry Falwell at New York’s Waldorf Astoria. In 1998, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a group called Voices United for Israel—many of whom were Evangelical—and said, “We have no greater friends and allies than the people sitting here in this room.”

“The Christian right is not part of the political constellation in Israel,” Gorenberg says. “For Israeli politicians who agree with the Christian right over the continued Israeli role in the West Bank and Gaza, this is an easy relationship that gives them allies in American politics. They don’t have a great understanding of the consequences of appearing on a public stage together. They lend their legitimacy and create connections between the two causes.

“I understand the sense of crisis,” he continues. “People advocate the position that when you are drowning you don’t ask questions about who’s throwing you the rope. My response is, ‘Yes, we are drowning, but Israel’s existence is not in danger.’ It’s appropriate to snap out of the panic. Israel will weather the crisis.”

Despite misgivings across the Jewish spectrum, the Christian right’s support continues to be offered, accepted and, in Israel’s time of need, much appreciated.