Ties That Bind

The Rev. Rick Fish has long hair, a shaggy beard and wears
jeans and a flannel shirt. Preacher Rick, as he is called, is the friendly and
gregarious leader of The Live Ride, a church in Simi Valley that administers to
bikers. Fish also visited Jerusalem last February and fell in love with it.

“At The Jerusalem Post Web site they have a connection where
you can look at the Western Wall with a Webcam, and you can watch the events
and the bringing in of Shabbat,” he said. “I keep that on my computer all the
time.”

Fish is one of 20 Church leaders and other Christian
officials who have gathered — along with a dozen Jewish leaders — at the Church
of Rocky Peak, a large Evangelical church in Chatsworth, for a kosher dinner
and a meeting of the Israel Christian Nexus. The group, which was started in
June 2002 by writer Avi Davis and Shimon Erem, a former general in the Israeli
army, is one of many organizations (such as the Interfaith Coalition Of
StandWithUs and The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews) that is
looking to capitalize on the Evangelical Christian communities’ overwhelming
love for Israel and the Jewish people.

The Nexus, set up with a grant from the Jewish Community
Foundation, was established to provide the Christian community with pro-Israel
educational resources and to help them mobilize Israel action committees. As
there are far more Christians than Jews in America (according to some
estimates, there are over 70 million Evangelical Christians in America,
compared with 6 million Jews), their support for Israel could be crucial in
influencing government policy, visiting, and raising funds for the beleaguered
Jewish state.

“We have a common cause and a common enemy [radical Islam]
and we have a lot of mutually beneficial activities that we can undertake,” Davis
said. “They are pretty well-funded and they are an enormous power base to
current administration. A lot of George Bush’s views about Israel were formed
by his association with the church, which is why it is important for us to
cultivate that group.”

The Jewish cultivation of Christians (and vice versa) is a
new development in the bloody history of Jews and Christians, which for
centuries has been rife with anti-Semitism and the atrocities of the Crusades,
the Inquisition, pogroms and blood libels. However, after World War II, the
relationship took a turn, and Christianity softened its stance toward the Jewish
people. But it was the evangelical Christians, such as the Baptists and the
Pentecostals, who base their practice on a fundamentalist reading of the Bible,
who found in the Bible reason to love the Jews. They cite, for example, the
verse in Genesis 12:3 in which God says to Abraham, “I will bless those who
bless you, and curse those who curse you.”

They believe that the Bible proves Jewish ownership of the land
of Israel, because God gave it to the Jews. The evangelicals also consider the
Crusades to be the Catholics’ problems, and they attribute their love for the
Jewish people to something that they can’t quite explain.

“It’s supernatural,” said George Otis, the founder of Kol
Hatikvah, a Christian radio station that broadcasts in Israel and the Middle
East. “It’s something that God has spoken, and there is no explanation for it.
After 2,000 years of us being leery of each other, to suddenly see this love —
and this is not a temporary thing. This is going to last until Moshiach comes.”

“Something happens in your heart and you just feel compelled
to bless [the Jews],” said the Rev. Todd Hacker, the executive pastor at Hope
Chapel in the Valley.

This love has lead Hacker to teach a sermon series on the Middle
East, and to invite speakers from the Nexus into his church. He also uses the
collection plate to raise money for Israel and joins pro-Israel rallies, though
he does not organize any, because he prefers his church to stay out of
politics. He is also planning on joining the Nexus in its bid to find ways to
solve the water shortage crisis in Israel.

In Fresno, Stuart Weil, a local American Israel Public
Affairs Committee leader and member of the Israel Christian Nexus, organized a
joint rally with six churches and two synagogues. He also has regular meetings
with other church leaders to organize phone campaigns where parishioners call
their congressman to ask them to support President Bush, since, according to
Weil, Bush is the most pro-Israel president, ever.

At Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, Rabbi Daniel Bouskila
invited the Rev. Ray Bentley from the Maranatha Chapel in San Diego to
co-officiate a Friday night service at which Dennis Prager spoke. Bouskila is
also planning a Jewish-Christian Yom HaAtzmaut service this year, as well as a
possible joint trip to Israel with Bentley.

There are other benefits to the alliance. The Christian
community has arranged media appearances on national television and popular
radio stations for people like Erem, where they are given a platform to speak
about the reasons why Israel should be supported.

Daniel Johnson, a member of the Christian community, is
showing his love for Israel by donating his company’s new desalination
technology to Israel to assist with their water shortage problem.

“We have always had a heart for Israel because of our
Judeo-Christian faith,” Johnson said. “The Bible commands us to love and honor
Israel and to support it in whatever way we can, and whatever we can do to help
Israel, we do.

For many Christians, their pro-Israel stance is not grounded
in altruism as much as an eschatological belief that sees Israel as part of the
fulfillment of an end-of-days prophecy, where all Jews will return to Israel
and accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah. But many of the Christian groups who
join forces with the Jews separate their belief in the prophecy from their
current support of Israel.

“The prophecy is not a focus,” said Polly Grimes, who is
president of Tours Through The Book, a Christian Israel touring company that
runs Exodus Limited, an organization that raises funds for underprivileged
children in Israel.

“We just think of the needs [of Israelis] and what has been
happening,” she said. “We can’t stand to see the suffering, and it is breaking
our heart.”

However, the eschatological and the proselytizing component
of the evangelical Christian belief system can be problematic. In October 2002,
Jewish groups in San Diego boycotted a Mission Valley Christian Fellowship
dinner for thenJerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, because the money being raised from
the dinner was going to the Nicodemus Project, a church program aimed at
spreading the word of God in Israel.

Currently, groups like The International Fellowship of
Christians and Jews (which is affiliated with 20,000 churches and has more than
300,000 Christian donors) and the Israel Christian Nexus, will not work with
churches who proselytize.

“In private conversations with Church leaders it has been
made fairly clear to us that they are not interested in doing this or
participating with us for the purpose of converting Jews,” said Davis, senior
fellow of the Freeman Center for Strategic Studies in Los Angeles. “Proselytism
is a concern, but it is not an issue. The issue is Israel’s survival. Until the
Messiah comes, we have to live in the present world and focus on our common
cause and our common enemy.”