WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: Yesterday I attended an “Israel’s Resilience: The Struggle To Survive” program at a remarkable organization, The Friends of Israel, in New Jersey. You need to know about that program and group.
“The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry” Through the Eyes of a Grassroots U.S. Jew
About a month ago, my longtime Christian Zionist friend Carol showed me a flyer for an upcoming April 6 “Prophesy Up Close Conference – Israel’s Resilience: The Struggle to Survive,” at The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry in Westville, New Jersey. I said without hesitation, “Let’s Go.”
This would not be my first direct encounter with this remarkable organization, but my third, more about which anon. Ok, history has taught our people to be a bit squeamish about “Gospel Ministry,” and I’m course no exception, but more about this also anon.
The first thing you need to know about Friends of Israel is that it’s a venerable worldwide expertly-run organization. Check out foi.org. Its bimonthly magazine, Israel My Glory, reaches “the homes of hundreds of thousands around the world.” Its upfront Mission Statement:
“Our mission at The Friends of Israel is focused – we are a worldwide evangelical ministry proclaiming biblical truth about Israel and the Messiah, while bringing physical and spiritual comfort to the Jewish people.”
My first personal encounter with Friends of Israel was some years ago. My co-author, Lee (of Blessed Memory) of our book Pressing Israel: Media Bias Exposed From A-to-Z, who made almost all our speaking engagements, arranged our PowerPoint talk, “Ten Misleading Media Expressions,” at FOI. We were well received.
Later, Eileen and I attended Friends of Israel’s Seventy-Fifth Anniversary celebration dinner, a memorable night highlighted by moving speeches by leaders who’d led FOI during history’s most devastating times for us Jews. One of my heroes, fellow guest attendee Morton Klein, always-outspoken National President of the Zionist Organization of America, seeing me, sat down next to me for a moment and said he was thinking of having Lee, Philly chapter co-president, and me do our thing for some minutes at ZOA’s upcoming national convention in Philly. I assured Mort if he turned us loose at ZOA’s convention, we would not disappoint him. And so, thank you FOI, we got to give our talk in the House that Mort Built. A foundation president in attendance gave us a grant to finance our website, www.factsonisrael.com. So I guess we did not disappoint.
So yesterday, April 6, was my third personal encounter with Friends of Israel. Two speakers, Dr. Jim Showers, FOI’s Executive Director, and Director of North American Ministries, Steve Herzig, alternately gave coffee-and-lunch-break presentations, covering Jewish return to the land, Muslim and Christian Replacement theology, Israel as Ground Zero of the Spiritual War, and the Messiah. Jews, Christians and Muslims see the driving forces of Jewish homeland history differently, and it was enlightening and encouraging to hear this empathetic evangelical perspective. I share FOI’s view that Muslims’ intense unending Spiritual War with Israel as Ground Zero, as FOI puts it, renders any sharing of the land of Israel, western Palestine, in a peaceful “two-state solution” beyond unlikely, and one thing that particularly struck me was that both speakers were as equally comfortable and knowledgeable in discussing Hamas’ atrocities on October 7 and events in the war in Gaza that followed, down to details, as the roles of God and Satan in biblical times and beyond.
What impressed me immensely was FOI’s documented statement that it not only voices strong support for the Jewish people and Israel, but that it acts on the ground in multiple ways and encourages members’ participation. Described in the presentations and in depth on its website are FOI Equip, Encounter, Origins, Hesed and other “Get Involved” here and in Israel programs.
Ok, there’s an historically-honed queasiness in us concerning attempts at “conversion.” There was for a time, for example, in our Philadelphia area a not-well-disposed-towards-us Christian denomination that was sponsoring “synagogues.” Unlike Judaism, Christianity actively seeks new adherents. FOI wears its identity on its sleeve. And it went on an Israel trip jointly with an official South Jersey Jewish community organization. When I was an officer of my fraternal order Brith Sholom, I put it to our members this way: “Their first name is ‘Friends of Israel.’ Their last name is ‘Gospel Ministry,’ but we’re on a first name basis, all’s well.”
In these days of incessant howling in the streets, not least here in America, of “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!”, of our people’s homeland outrageously wrongfully hauled into international court on charges of “Genocide!”, of our country’s President calling Israel’s civilian casualty-minimizing Hamas-threat-ending, hopefully-hostage-freeing action in Gaza to be conducted “over the top,” its accidental-in-war killing of seven aid workers an “outrage,” of support for Israel among American citizens slipping, we American Jewish supporters of Israel feel a little bit lonely.
Last night, having that morning staggered at 5 AM, Daylight Delaying Time and all, into the shower so I could pick up Carol and arrive in Westville on time, I slept well, but had a dream. I dreamed a fortnight had gone by and it was Passover. I was at a hugely-attended Seder. We got to a new part at which the leader read “And He not only did all these wonders for our forefathers in days of old, but He caused there to be in our own time in Westville, New Jersey, an organization, “The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, Inc.,” and we all responded “Dayenu!”