by Joel Rosenberg, October 01, 2006
With Iran threatening to wipe Israel "off the map," and few countries moving decisively to stop Iran from obtaining the nuclear weapons they need to acccomplish their objective, an estimated 30 million evangelical Christian supporters of Israel in some 100,000 churches in more than 100 countries are taking part today in a "Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem," reports the Jerusalem Post. The event is timed to coincide with the High Holidays in Israel and has been organized by evangelical leaders in cooperation with Israel's Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Tourism, along with the Knesset's Christian Allies Caucus. Participating in a prayer broadcast from Jerusalem are Natan Sharansky, Yuri Shtern and Benny Elon, all Knesset Members.
This is by no means the first event of its kind. Indeed, such large and growing evangelical efforts to bless the Jews are dramatic and historic and worthy of more investigation and discussion by the Jewish community, writes David Brog in his fascinating new book, Standing With Israel: Why Christians Support The Jewish State.
Brog -- a Jewish lawyer who says "I am not a Messianic Jew or a Jew for Jesus -- I don't believe that the Messiah has ever appeared on Earth" -- worked for Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) for seven years, first as his chief counsel and later as his chief of staff. He describes himself as not a member of the Religious Right "but as one who has seen difficult combat with the Christian Right" through the years over issues such as abortion and embryonic stem cell research. But during his years on Capitol Hill, Brog found himself intrigued by "Christian Zionists who impressed me by their devotion to Israel and their apparent love for the Jewish people."
"If there is one great theme to Jewish history," Brog writes, "it is our lonely walk through the centuries. The Jews have known no great allies, no stalwart friends -- we have lived and died facing a hostile world alone. Thus I found it intriguing to think that, finally, we had some very big friends standing on our side" in the growing movement of evangelical Christians....Television, newspapers, and magazines all informed me that Christian Zionists were not real friends of Jews but enemies in disguise who supported Israel out of a sick desire to see the Jews killed or converted at the end of days. I started researching this book in a simple quest to discover the truth, to see if these purported friends were what they claimed to be."
"What I learned in the course of my research," Brog continues, "far surpassed what I had expected to find. I became convinced that the evangelical Christians who support Israel today are nothing less than the theological heirs of the righteous Gentiles who sought to save Jews from the Holocaust."
In his excellently researched and highly readable history of evangelical-Jewish relations, Brog painstakingly details the deep roots of evangelical love for the Jewish people and the practical ways evangelical leaders and rank-and-file church goers have helped Israel over the years. Example: Brog documents how one of earliest and most passionate allies of Theodor Herzl -- the founder of the modern Zionist movement -- was an evangelical named William Hechler who "formed a committee with other Christian Zionists to raise money to resettle...Russian Jewish refugees in Palestine" and who "traveled to Russia in 1882 to meet with Jewish leaders" where "he encouraged them to return to their ancient land," based on his understanding of Bible prophecies that said one day Israel would be reborn as a nation in the "last days." Brog also notes that when Herzl lay dying in 1904, "the only nonfamily member permitted to sit by Herzl's bedside" was William Hechler, so close had they become in their common mission of saving the lives of Jewish people in the Diaspora.
I can't recommend Brog's book highly enough.
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