The Israel-Christian Nexus (ICN), a 10-year-old organization whose mission is to galvanize support for Israel by connecting American Evangelical Christian leaders and laypeople with their American Jewish counterparts, has named a new leadership team that includes Jacob Dayan, who served as Israeli Consul General in Los Angeles from 2007 until 2011.
ICN’s founder, Gen. Shimon Erem, died in May 2012. He was 90.
Since leaving Los Angeles, Dayan has been leading an Israeli-based venture capital fund that invests in the Negev region. He will serve as ICN’s president, a volunteer position, and intends to travel to Los Angeles at least twice a year to work with the organization and its board.
As an organization dedicated to bringing Christians and Jews together, ICN always has sought to have roughly equivalent representation of Jews and Christians on its board. Dayan will share the board leadership with Dr. Jack W. Hayford, immediate past president of the Foursquare International denomination, who served as founding co-chair of ICN with Erem.
Gary Dalin, a former executive with The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, had been serving as executive director at ICN until last December. Dalin is preparing to move to Israel, and Patricia Johnson, who owns a small public relations company, has succeeded him in that role.
“In terms of the direction and the mission of the organization, there is no change,” Johnson said. The vision that Shimon had for the organization is what will continue.”
The official installation of Hayford and Dayan is set to take place at the board’s meeting next month, when ICN is also scheduled to hold two large-scale public events for Jews and Christians in the Los Angeles area.
Tuesday Oct. 16 at 7 p.m., Ambassador Auditorium, 131 S. St. John Ave., Pasadena, CA. Speakers include: Hayford, Dayan and Israeli Consul General David Siegel, as well as ICN board members, including Pastors Che Ahn, Danny DeLeon and Robert Stearns, entertainer Pat Boone, and Rabbis Kalman Topp and Mordecai Finley.
Wednesday Oct.17 at 7 p.m., The Rock Church, 295 E. Orangethorpe Ave., Anaheim, CA. Hayford, Dayan and Stearns will speak, along with other rabbis and pastors. Uri Resnick, the new Deputy Consul General of Israel in Los Angeles, also will speak.
