Allen Jackson - Interview with Yael Eckstein
Allen Jackson: Welcome to Tennessee.
Yael Eckstein: What a blessing. Shalom y'all.
Allen Jackson: This is a learning season for us. So I hope you will help us a little bit. This is the high holidays in Israel, and for you to be in Tennessee is a great sacrifice.
Yael Eckstein: It's a great blessing.
Allen Jackson: Well, you are very kind. The celebrations in Israel right now are truly remarkable and so it's a quick trip, but we are delighted that you would spend some time with us. The Flags of Fellowship Campaign, we have 1200 flags on our campus this morning. We'll look at a little video of that in a minute. But can you tell us a little bit about that campaign and why you picked up that initiative and what that means?
Yael Eckstein: And what we saw on October 7th was not only our borders being breached, a reminder that Israel is not forever if we don't protect it. But we've seen a terrifying rise in antisemitism that we realize with all of the words, "Never again," and all of those niceties that people have said, following October 7th, we see the evil rear its ugly head once again that we've seen throughout history. And so what the Fellowship believed is that even though on social media and on mainstream media, it seems like everyone hates us, it seems like the world hates Israel, the world wants Israel destroyed, we saw the silenced majority. We saw millions of Christians who wanted to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and have their voice be heard. And so every one of those 1200 flags outside of your church represent something so profound that I believe will go down in history. You spoke before about the Nazis, 70% of Nazis identifying as Christians and everyone here would say, "Well, they weren't very Christ-like," but like you said, the Jewish people don't know the difference between that. What you did outside is what Corrie ten Boom would have done. It's raising your voice without fear. Because you know that you're having risks against you now, for having those flags outside and saying just like the story of Ruth, "Your people are my people, your God is my God". And when we pulled up, it was me and my children who pulled up, and we saw those flags, 1200 flags planted to represent each life lost on October 7th one year ago. It's you and hundreds of other churches throughout America. And what I saw, Pastor, was a flag for my best friend's nephew who was killed on October 7th, was four flags planted for Fellowship recipients, Holocaust survivors, who were getting food every single week until they were killed on October 7th, were six volunteers of the Fellowship who were first responders, medical first responders who took their gear and went down south when they heard of the terrorists infiltrating to do whatever they could to save lives. And so when we look at these 1200 flags, it represents so much. It represents the Corrie ten Booms of our generation. It represents the Christians who have actually put meaning behind those words, "Never again," which have lost so much meaning. It gives a voice to the silenced majority. But for me and my children, every single one of those flags represents our people.
Allen Jackson: She has some of her children here with us. They're actually talking to some of our children today. But your children asked a question when you were coming to the States and coming here about the attitude. They said to me, "Will these people be kind to us or are they angry with us"? I assure you that we don't understand as a matter of routine, the degree to which the Jewish community feels isolated and imagine the hatred that is pointed at them. We're just kind of deaf and blind to that. So the Flags of Fellowship is being repeated in hundreds of churches in every state?
Yael Eckstein: Yes, in every single state and, Pastor, to your point, there are a few things that really stand out for me of what my children are experiencing that really represent what most of the Jewish people in Israel are experiencing right now. When we were coming to America, my 18-year-old who's joining the army soon said, "Are people going to hate me because I'm not only Israeli, but I'm actually going to be defending these borders"? And my 12-year-old said to me, "Are people burning Israeli flags in the street? And why are they also burning America flags? Don't they at least love their own country"? And my 8-year-old said, "Should I tell people I'm from Israel or... Mom, you taught me not to lie, but should I lie and say I'm from America because I speak English"? And when we pulled up here, it answered all of those questions more than any word could. It said, "There are millions of people who love you because you're from Israel, who pray for you because you're in Israel". And so both as the head of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews that we have the honor of representing you on the ground that we give that message to the Holocaust survivors as we bring them food and as we place bomb shelters outside of children's schools and as we provide thousands of flak jackets to first responders, and we say, "This is from Christians who love you". And I remember going down to Sderot right after October 7th, that's a city that had a lot of people killed in it. The terrorists entered the city and killed almost everyone they saw. And the city was evacuated and there were a few elderly, mostly Holocaust survivors who stayed behind who said, "I would rather die in my home than live as an evacuee once again". But there are no supermarkets, there are no banks open, there are no social services. And so they rely on the Fellowship for food. And I remember going to the home of one lady who watched her neighbors all be killed by Hamas terrorists. And it was a miracle that she was hidden and saved and I brought her food and she started crying and I said, "Tell me why you're crying. Tell me your story. Tell me what you went through. Tell me what those eyes saw". And she looked at me and she said, "No, no. For the first time, these are tears of joy. You're telling me Christians have remembered me here in southern Israel in an evacuated city where there's nothing? Christians in America have remembered to bring me food"? That's what it means to have hope for the future. That's what it means to see the light of God. And I believe that's what it means to be God's messengers which just by showing up here today, by listening to the wisdom of Pastor, by planting those flags, by raising our voices for the victims of that horrible hurricane and Israel because in a way, it's the same: disaster on God's people is disaster on God's people. And Jews and Christians are in this together, whether we like it or not. You know, Pastor, very often I say we could sit here and talk and that's very nice. But if we wonder what's really happening, we have to look at the words of our enemies. Our enemies, just like you said, this is spiritual war. This isn't about governments or geopolitics. This is about the Spirit of the Lord that people are either tapping into or going against. And I look at the enemies and they say first we're going for the Saturday people, that's the Jews. And then we're going for the Sunday people, the Christians. First we're going for the little Satan, that's Israel. And then the big Satan, that's America. And so as I heard you today in this sanctuary where God's presence is so, so strongly felt, there's something, a moral clarity, a spiritual clarity. Those words of we are united in Judeo-Christian values have never been so powerful and so meaningful as they are today. So, thank you.
Allen Jackson: You are welcome. You saw the flags on campus when you came in. But actually, yesterday afternoon, some children from the church came and helped us put those in place and in the lobbies are some banners with the names of all those persons who lost their lives on October 7th of last year. There's an invitation in it for you today. I don't want you to leave it limited to campus. But as you're leaving, at all the entry and exit points are those flags. Take a moment to walk through them and say a prayer for those families that have been affected, for those communities that have been affected. We were there in, I forget, March and then back in June and it's amazing to see the change, how life is coming back to those communities, how they've rebuilt. We were down in those towns where the terrorists had walked the streets. Kathy went to a Moroccan wedding in a little community right down on the border. They had a wedding with 650 guests, they had a party. And so it's amazing how they have regained the momentum of their lives and your prayers make a difference. You know, we can't all get on a plane and go to Israel this week, but we can take a moment and call on the name of God. So don't just admire those flags. You go stand amongst them and you say, "Lord, I will stand with these people. I will stand on their behalf," because we have an assignment in this earth to be ambassadors. And it's a way that you and I, everybody says to me, you know, "What can I do"? Well, that's something we can do.
Allen Jackson: Tell us a little bit more about the Fellowship. I know that it's something that is a very important part of your life. And I'm very grateful for what you're doing. Tell the people about what that is and what that means.
Yael Eckstein: Thank you so much, Pastor. Well, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is the largest philanthropic organization in Israel. And what that means is Christians...
Allen Jackson: Which is quite an accomplishment. They have some philanthropic organizations.
Yael Eckstein: Yes, yes, amen. And we represent the Christian voice of love and support for Israel, that silenced majority. And when we decide how we're gonna distribute the aid, we look at the scriptures: "feed the hungry," check. We've distributed millions of meals to poor elderly in Israel just since the war began, and for many years. We have soup kitchens in every single city, including in northern Israel just half a mile away from Lebanon, Hezbollah. We had a direct rocket hit on our soup kitchen and I was there just hours later and I said, "We have to make sure that we are up and running by tomorrow morning because people are relying on us for food". And within 24 hours, we were distributing hundreds of meals in the city under rocket attack. Praise God. And so we feed the hungry, we clothe the naked, we shelter the poor. Actually, there was a terror attack in Tel Aviv, the same day that the rockets from Iran were launched at Israel. And one of the victims of that attack was a man who was living in a Fellowship-sponsored homeless shelter. And so we are there both during times of peace and during times of war to say, "Nachamu, nachamu ami," "Comfort, comfort my people". And Pastor, when you're talking about going down to the borders and seeing life return, the words of the prophets just came to my mind. "Yesh tikvah le'acharitech, v'shavu banim l'gvulam" is how you say it in biblical Hebrew. "There is hope for the future, says the Lord, and the children will return to their borders". And we always understood this at the Fellowship as meaning Aliyah, bringing Jews from Russia and the former Soviet Union, from the Arab world, to their biblical homeland, being part of this prophetic in-gathering of the Jewish people. And that's what we've done. Do you know that since the war began, you Christians through the Fellowship have brought Jewish people home to Israel, an Aliyah, every single day without fail. No rockets could stop them. But I look at those words now, Pastor, and I say, Oh, maybe it has another meaning which we look at as a calling, that the children will return back to their borders, that they'll go back to Be'eri, that they'll go back to Kiryat Shmona, that they'll go back to Netiv Ha'asara, all of these cities that were ravaged by the terrorists, all these cities that were burned by the evil, all of these cities that their goal was to take God's land away from his people. The prophet said, "No, no, no, they'll return to those borders. They will rebuild those borders". And so the Fellowship is there, placing bomb shelters and elderly centers and ambulances and anything that's needed, and so we could fulfill those words of the prophets. "There is hope for your future, says the Lord, and the children will return to their borders".
Allen Jackson: You know, when she talks about bomb shelters, to us, it's kind of a theoretical concept because when I grew up in school we used to do all sorts of drills, you know, tornado drills, we'd line up in the hallways and, you know, get in some part of the building where there were no windows or I'm old enough that we used to do drills in case of a nuclear attack. Anybody here have to do that? Yeah. Do you know what they taught us to do? Get under our desk. I'll tell you, we used to have some special desks in schools. They could withstand direct nuclear hits. So, you know, our imagination is, it's really kind of nonsensical but it's very serious in Israel. The children all have to be taught that when they hear the sirens, to go to the shelters. And this past year it's been very much a part of their lives, I'm sure, all over the land. Your children learn those drills as well?
Yael Eckstein: Well, I'll take you to just a day before we came here to Nashville. It was 5 o'clock in the morning. We're all sleeping and the sirens started sounding, which means there's a rocket coming to our city. We have 90 seconds. We're lucky. We have 90 seconds. So I have four kids and we also have two dogs and a cat. Does anyone have animals here? All right. And so I had to gather my kids, my husband and I running through every room, get up, there's a siren, run to the bomb shelter, run to the bomb shelter. Everyone's waking up, getting to the bomb shelter. We get to the bomb shelter and I realize we don't have much time left and my little 8-year-old Jimmy is crying, "But the dogs, the dogs are out there". And you hear the siren wailing and you hear the booms starting, and I had to look at him and say, "We'll pray for the puppy, but we have to keep ourselves safe right now". There have been so many situations of being in a car with two, three children. The siren starts wailing. Well, who do you choose to unbuckle in time and get them to shelter? Or as a mother, as a father, do you just stay in the car, all of you facing the same fate together? And so it's the children that we're so focused on. The Fellowship actually has a project where we placed a bomb shelter next to every single bus stop in northern Israel. There are videos, many of them, but one in particular that just haunted me. It was time to place the bomb shelter up north, but there was heavy, heavy rocket attack and we had to make the decision. Do we continue placing those shelters or do we wait? And I said we have to place them. The Lord is calling us now, "Go, go, go, save lives". And so we had to stop every few minutes with the huge shelter on the back of a truck in order to get on the ground, protect ourselves. We placed it two days later, a bus of children pulls up, the sirens start wailing. Sixty rockets on this one tiny, tiny town. Every child runs off the bus and they have a shelter there to find refuge in because the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews placed it. Praise God. And so that's what I believe when God says, be the watchman on the wall. When they're standing in that shelter and they see, "Donated with love from Christians in America," you better bet you're the guardian of Israel that neither slumbers nor sleeps, so.
Allen Jackson: I believe the outcome of this and it's not a pleasant path to walk. Shadowed valleys are never fun, but I have no doubt God is going to restore what the hate of Hamas tried to completely destroy and that Israel will find themselves in a place where they're stronger, more unified. For the families who have lost so much, I don't know that that brings great consolation honestly, but I can tell you this, if we're not as determined to stand for our faith and our beliefs, to protect them in the public square, as Israel is determined to stand, to protect their sovereign nation, we will lose our freedoms and liberties. We have hidden behind hymnals on Sundays for too long. And we better understand that we have a right to the public square and a right to public education and a right to the university settings. They need to reflect our values and our worldview. Amen, church. Yael, we are honored that you would come, spend some time with us. We hope you'll come back to Tennessee.
Yael Eckstein: I would love so. I would love to come back and I hope to see all of you in Jerusalem.
Allen Jackson: Amen, let's go. We wanna close with a prayer. Why don't you stand with me. Tom, you wanna come pray? Tom Newman has been very instrumental in helping us with the "Allen Jackson Now" program that is on in the evenings. And Tom really helped put this event together. So, you know, I don't know what he bribed Yael with to be able to sit and be nice to me for a few minutes, but it had to be significant. But I know you and you're a group of people who believe in prayer. And I want you to leave today with a sense of a commission. If you haven't heard it up to this point, you now have friends on the ground and many of you have many names that you could call. And we have an assignment to not relent until we see peace returned to that group of people, amen? Tom Newman, do you want to pray for us?
Tom Newman: Absolutely. Let's pray. Father, this is a moment in time and a moment in history, but it's a moment that we're alive. It's a moment that we're here just as Jesus came in the fullness of time. We are here at this time for a purpose and for a reason. And Father, as we have heard such moving words articulated so well that have touched all of our hearts and all of our souls, Lord, we felt your Spirit inside of us that's drawn us here today, that heard these words. And Father, you know the response that each one of us can make here, a response of giving, a response of praying, a response of spreading goodwill. What I pray, Father, for each one of us who have heard these words today is that we bear the responsibility that come with them. We haven't heard these things to just sleep better at night. We have heard these things in order to carry out, to be the hands and the feet of Jesus. And Father, on behalf of our Jewish brethren, we pray for them. We pray supernatural strength, we pray that they will endure. We pray supernatural miracles to take place, undeniable miracles, Lord, that this world will hear of. And Father, I pray from this service today that as we walk out of these doors, that we will be changed, but more than us being changed, we will take that change with us and make a difference everywhere we go, that we will be ambassadors for the kingdom of God, ambassadors for Jesus and ambassadors for the Jewish people and for Israel. We thank you, Father, for this time. And we ask that we go in the strength of God Almighty, that we would be responsible, each of us in our own way, in Jesus's name, amen.