Yechiel Eckstein: Man in the middle

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, born in 1951, is founder and president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. IFCJ in 2013 and 2014 received contributions of $241 million, mostly from Christians. It used $165 million of that sum to help Israelis as well as Jews still living in the former Soviet Union or taking their exodus from it. In further celebration of Passover, here are edited excerpts from our interview before Patrick Henry College students.

Many Jews now agree with one of your famous statements—America’s Bible Belt is Israel’s safety belt—but until recently the common view was different. The stereotype not just among Jews, but in society as a whole, was of a Southern, redneck, anti-Semite with a pickup truck with a big dog in the back and a shotgun and drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

When you organized an evangelical-Jewish dialogue 38 years ago, did many Orthodox Jews resist the idea of fellowship between Christians and Jews? Orthodox Jews, especially then, as you probably know yourself, aren’t fond of dialogue. They want a line in the sand, not to deal with Christians. For 2,000 years they associated Christians with the Crusades, with the Inquisition. I remember Jews saying Hitler was a Christian. There is no realization it’s an act of choice that you choose to become a Christian. Just because you’re not Jewish and you’re not Muslim doesn’t make you a Christian. Today, Bible-believing Christians, true Christians, are the Jewish people’s best friends. That’s a huge change within the context of 2,000 years.

While Jewish organizations were largely working with liberal Christian groups, you built connections with fundamentalists. I was studying for my doctorate at Columbia and Union Theological Seminary. At Union they would keep talking about “fundies.” I didn’t know what “fundies” were. Then I met the head of the Southern Baptist Convention, Rev. Bailey Smith, who had said, “God Almighty doesn’t hear the prayers of Jews.” We took him to Israel, and he invited me to speak at his megachurch in Oklahoma. I spoke about the Crusades and the Inquisition, the history of anti-Semitism, and how we are entering a new day. Bailey got up and said, “Isn’t this Rabbi Eckstein terrific? We have to bring him back for one of our Crusades.”

‘I believe that after 2,000 years Jews now see Christians as their best friends, and more Christians are blessing Israel and the Jewish people.’ —Yechiel Eckstein

I like your response there: “I don’t know about the Crusades part: It didn’t work out all that well for Jews the first time.” And Jews from Eastern Europe were fearful at Christmastime and Eastertime of mobs coming and calling them Christ-killers. But I believe that after 2,000 years Jews now see Christians as their best friends, and more Christians are blessing Israel and the Jewish people.

Crusaders, on their way to Israel, did some terrible things to Jews along the Rhine River—but 20th-century atheist Adolf Hitler was a thousand times worse. You’re also talking about the difference between persecution and genocide. But the charge that the Jews killed Christ led to Jews forced out of every country in Europe.

Jewish leaders were involved in that, but they didn’t have the power to kill: The Romans did. And, of course, Jesus and all the Apostles were Jews. Correct. By A.D. 325, the time of Constantine, the idea that Jews killed Christ and therefore are to suffer eternally had entered into the church. It gained expression in the Middle Ages in a much more drastic way, and according to many was fertile ground for the Nazis, who were secular, as you say. There were also the Dietrich Bonhoeffers, the White Rose, the Corrie ten Booms, the Schindlers, and Le Chambon in France, a village of 5,000 Pentecostal Christians right under the eyes of the Nazis, where the pastor said everyone is to take in one Jew and 5,000 Jews were saved. But today you still have an Oberammergau, which reinforces the image of Jews screaming, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” That’s why bridge-building is so important.

In a sense, you’re building bridges at the same time some on both sides are shooting at you. First, the attacks came mainly from the Jewish community. As one of our philanthropic projects in Israel, we’ve provided 5,600 bomb shelters in Israel, and each has a plaque, “A gift of love from Christians,” because when Jews have to run into their bomb shelter, I want them to see that Christians are helping save them. There are rabbis who say that even when there are missiles falling, they are not allowed to use those shelters.

You know the saying, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” When bombs fall, will some Israelis stand outside instead of entering the shelters? Not one. It’s rhetoric. On the Christian side, the Messianic community has targeted me, saying we are taking funds from people who think they are giving to missionary activity, that people are unaware I’m a Jew, an Orthodox rabbi.

Messianic Jews want to offer spiritual and material help: Are you offering only material help? I disagree with that fundamentally. We’re not a humanitarian organization. We’re a faith-based ministry. I’m not saying Christians should help elderly Holocaust survivors in Kiev with food, medicine, heating fuel, and rent out of humanitarian reasons. I’m saying that is the expression of their Christian faith.

Charisma magazine in 2013 attacked you: What did it say and how did you respond? I don’t believe in Messianic Judaism. I believe that if you accept Jesus, that’s your right, but you become a Christian. That’s been a sore spot between Charisma and us. Charisma came up with the charge that I’m making a million dollars in salary. Anyone on the internet can see what the combined salary plus retirement benefits is. Not until seven or eight years ago could we start a retirement plan—I’m now 64—and that leaves X amount of time to put in the money so I can retire decently. I don’t have a private plane. I don’t stay at the Ritz.

How do you respond when Jews come to Christ? My line in the sand when I took on building bridges with evangelicals was: I will not work with groups that target Jews for conversion. If Christians do general mission and witness, and there are Jews among them, and God, through the Holy Spirit, brings about a change in the conversion, that’s God’s doing. But if someone becomes a Messianic Jew, I mourn them, because we need every one—especially when one-third of the Jewish people were lost. When we lose one, we really feel it.

Polls show Jews more favorable toward abortion than any other religious group. You don’t want to lose even one, but a lot are lost. Why? It’s a terrible blight on our civilization as a whole. First, a lot of secular Jews are on the liberal spectrum. They’re the ones, not Orthodox Jews. Secondly, even for the Orthodox, our Jewish law says we may kill the fetus where the life of the mother is in danger.

That is very, very rare. Very rare.