For the majority of America’s nearly 90-million strong Evangelical community, supporting Israel is not about politics but the Bible.
“The connection really starts with Genesis 1:1,” explained Shari Dollinger, co-executive director of Christians United for Israel, with the verse: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth.”
“If people are not tied spiritually to Israel, when Israel does something they don’t agree with, they can walk away,” said Dollinger. “If the link to Israel is through Scripture, tied to who they are – once you are rooted, you cannot walk away.”
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Dollinger and her co-influencer, Yael Eckstein, the CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, have devoted the majority of their adult lives to creating meaningful and relevant bridges between the Christian community and Israel.
Dollinger began working at CUFI 14 years ago, first as associate director and since 2018 as co-executive director, a position she shares with Pastor John Hagee’s wife, Diana.
Although Dollinger grew up in Kansas, a state with a large Christian community, she was raised within a close-knit Jewish community, including attending the local day school, and never really knew about Christian Zionists. Only when she had an internship with former senator Sam Brownback, who had a 100% pro-Israel voting record and about 0.003% Jewish constituency, did she understand.
“I was amazed and enamored,” she said. It spoke to me that he was not politically motivated by the Jewish community; that he had all of these Christian constituents that deeply supported Israel and the power the Christian community has to shift public policy.”
When Dollinger was hired, she was the organization’s third full-time hire. Today, it has around 50 employees located around the United States – and Dollinger has played a strategic role in CUFI’s growth.
CUFI has 10.5 million “members,” defined as email addresses, and another 2.5 million Facebook and other social media followers – a high percentage of whom actively stand up for the Jewish people and the Jewish state, according to Dollinger.
The organization garnered more than a million signatures in support of the Taylor Force Act which keeps US taxpayer dollars from aiding and abetting terrorism.
CUFI was instrumental in building support for moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; at the ceremony in Jerusalem in 2018, Pastor Hagee delivered the benediction.
Today, the organization is working to fight antisemitism, which has been steadily on the rise in the US.
“There are at least 10.5 million Christians that are committed to supporting their fellow Americans in combating the rise in antisemitism,” Dollinger said. “This should make American Jews feel better and sleep better at night.”
ECKSTEIN, TOO, is from the Midwestern United States. She grew up in Chicago. Her father, the late Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founded the fellowship.
When she made aliyah in 2005, she did not really envision working for the organization. But when she needed a job, she asked her father, who assigned her to do basic office work.
“I was putting stamps on envelopes,” Eckstein recalled. “My prayer was that God should use me to do things in the world, whatever that looks like.”
Then, in 2006, she was sent up North during the Second Lebanon War to report back about the needs of the people. She started chronicling her experience for the fellowship’s donors, who were immediately taken by her powerful messaging, and she by their outpouring of love and support for Israel during such a time of need.
The rest is history.
Eckstein had already been selected as the next president of the fellowship when her father died suddenly in 2019.
“There was a lot of pressure on me to fill his shoes,” she recalled. “But I decided that he had filled his shoes and I will fill mine.”
She knew, taking over, that most organizations that pass to the second generation usually fail – especially Christian ministries. In her first year, Eckstein lost the fellowship’s long-standing chief operating officer and its director-general. She put together a budget in hopes of just breaking even, but surprised even herself.
“We had expected to raise $123 million that year,” Eckstein said. “We closed with $173m. And this year, two years later, we have doubled our donor base from around 300,000 donors to 627,000. We have almost doubled our budget, too, which means we have helped almost double the amount of people.”
And she did all this in the shadow of COVID-19, during a war with Hamas and a lot of other surprises.
“My goal was to be focused, strategic, intentional and well-planned, yet agile enough that at the drop of a dime we were able to be on the ground, meeting needs,” Eckstein said. “It is not just about having funds, but the ability to distribute them effectively.”
During the Hamas-Israel conflict, the fellowship placed 20 bomb shelters near the southern border, and delivered more than 5,000 meals to people in bomb shelters, along with activity kits for special needs children.
The fellowship is the largest philanthropic organization in Israel; the next largest is around half of its size.
In the past two years, she said, she has proven that Christians loved her father, but did not support Israel because of him. It is a genuine support for God’s country.
Her father fought for three decades to achieve acceptance for Christian support for Israel. Today, Eckstein said, people appreciate and celebrate it.
“As a religious woman, I am in such a privileged position,” she said. “I help people make aliyah, provide food to the hungry, and I have a platform to teach Christians more about the roots of their faith.
“The Torah is coming alive in Israel,” she concluded. “Christians are yearning for that connection.”