Christian Support for Israel

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of the Simon Wiesenthal Center has a major essay in Jewish Action entitled “Friends and Foes:  Who’s Who in the Christian World.”  The essay is a comprehensive review of evangelical support for Israel, the divestment movement in certain liberal churches, the issues involved in cooperation between Orthodox Jews and Christians, and related matters, and it calls for a re-thinking of these issues:

For hundreds of years, it was easy to tell the difference between the victims and the victimizers. We Jews were the pursued innocents; Christians, plainly put, were our tormentors and foes. Matters are no longer so simple. In a world permeated with hatred of Israel, of meteorically rising anti-Semitism and an ascendant Islam suffused with more hatred of Jews than Nazi Germany, many Christians have become our most ardent supporters. Should we plod along as if nothing has changed? Chazal tell us to “binu shenot dor vador,” which some have appropriately rendered as “understand the differences between generation and generation.” 

Richard John Neuhaus, writing in the February 2007 issue of First Things, says the Adlerstein essay “may be a portent of a significant turn in the history of post-Holocaust Jewish-Christian relations.”  He cites approvingly Adlerstein’s description of evangelical support for Israel:

We also think that Evangelicals support Israel because they hope to bring Armageddon closer in time, at which point all Jews will either convert or be killed, God forbid. This is a very common fallacy. If Israel-friendly Evangelicals prepared a top-ten list of reasons to support Jewish causes, their picture of the end of time might rank as number eleven. Evangelicals look forward to a Messianic Age, but very few believe that it is within their reach or duty to hasten it. Supporting Israel is important to them because God’s covenant with Abraham, as set forth in Bereishit, explicitly promises that those who bless the Jews will be blessed themselves. Simply put, Evangelicals are being completely self-serving — in a laudable manner — when they militate for Israel. They take the Bible seriously, and they wish to assure themselves a piece of God’s favor!

Essential listening:  One Jerusalem’s January 25 Bloggers’ Conference Call with Pastor John Hagee (perhaps the most prominent evangelical minister in the country), and Anne Lieberman’s post on the call.

Essential reading:  Omri Ceren’s “FAQ: Debunking Liberal Myths About Evangelical Support For Israel” and Ed Lasky’s exhaustive report in American Thinker on “Splitting the Evangelicals from Israel.”