T. Belman. I attended the “First Begin Symposium- Securing the Nation” last week and was blown away by the remarks of Michael Hoenlein who introduced Pastor John Hagee and the remarks of the Pastor himself. These remarks start at 2:05. Of particular note is what Hagee had to say about the British.
Before I made aliya in 2009, I took over Israpundit in 2002. That brought me eventually to attend a Night to Honour Israel hosted by Christians United For Israel (CUFI). There, I met the great Pastor Hagee.
Longtime friends and allies in advocating for Israel Malcolm Hoenlein and Pastor John Hagee talk to Israel Hayom about the surprising partnership between the US Evangelical community and the Jewish people.
Malcolm Hoenlein, left, and Pastor John Hagee shake hands at an interview with Israel Hayom diplomatic correspondent Ariel Kahana on March 13, 2022 | Photo: Naama Stern
A Christian pastor, a Jewish leader, and an Israeli journalist walk into a room and start talking. This is no joke, and it’s not an ordinary event, but this week, all three met in Jerusalem.
John Hagee is one of the most influential Christian pastors in the US, and possibly North America. He has played a founding role in the history of Evangelical Christians standing by Israel. His movement, Christians United for Israel, numbers 11.5 million members. When the Russo-Ukraine war broke out last month, Hagee raised $2.5 million to help extract Ukrainian Jews and bring them to Israel. Last week, he spent a night at Ben-Gurion Airport to witness women with small children and infants, carrying “all their worldly belongings” in backpacks, step off the plane, which he says was “heart-rending.”
On Sunday, Hagee was awarded two honors for his work on behalf of Israel: one from the Menachem Begin Heritage Center and the second from the Great Synagogue of Jerusalem. Hagee’s friend Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, who also serves as president of the Great Synagogue, was present at both ceremonies. Hagee, 82, was very moved.
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Video: Yoni Rikner
He began working with Hoenlein, one of the most prominent leaders of US Jewry in the last 50 years, at the end of the 1980s.
At a time when ties with pro-Israel Christians have become routine for the American Jewish leadership, many in Israel are still skeptical of the relations, despite the Evangelical movement’s growing importance in shaping Israel-US relations and bolstering the American commitment to Israel.
“I’ve never had one minute of regret. My appreciation [for them] only grows,” says Hoenlein, an Orthodox Jews whose sons and grandsons are yeshiva students.
Q: The current US administration very much wants to renew the Iran nuclear agreement. Is that the right policy?
Hagee: “The Biden administration had a very poor policy, and President Biden is doing his absolute best to make it worse. The policy that is being directed right now is going to result in one day, mysteriously, ‘Pop,’ Iran is going to have the [nuclear] bomb, because Iran is breaking all the rules. There is no one examining what they are doing. They will not allow anyone to examine what they are doing. When the United States of America, Biden, takes on Iran and Russia as partners by selling Russia oil, he is sending a fortune to Russia, and Russia is using that money to fund this attack in Ukraine. Then he’s talking about taking Iran as a partner. Do you want [to] partner with a nation led by radical Islamists who want to kill every Jew on the face of the earth? I can’t imagine anything that would … arouse the faith-based people of this nation against that presidency.
Hoenlein: “I hope that there will still be efforts to rationalize it and not provide $10 billion, let alone $100 billion, which will just go flow to Hamas, Hezbollah, and [other] terrorist organizations Iran supports … We have to look at the implications of the Iran deal – how it will affect our allies. They are already skeptical, sometimes, about the West’s commitment to security … They will look to other ways, including starting to open up to Iran.”
Q: For many Israelis, cooperation between an Orthodox Jew and a very well-known Christian pastor isn’t “natural.” It doesn’t make sense. Can you explain the history of this Jewish-Christian cooperation?
Hagee: “I could write a book about that. We began by myself, an Evangelical, reaching out to an Orthodox rabbi named Aryeh Scheinberg [of Congregation Rodfei Sholom in San Antonio, Texas, who passed away last year]. In 40 years, he became the dearest friend I’ve ever had in my life. When I proposed the first Night to Honor Israel in 1981, people thought I’d lost my mind. I went to the Jewish Federation and told them what I wanted to do, and they were very fearful. So I met Rabbi Scheinberg, and there was a blending of our spirit, that this was a good thing for the Jewish people, that it was to help them, not hurt them. Israel is not a political issue, Israel is a Bible issue. And that issue starts in Genesis 1:1, when God entered into a blood covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that this was to be their land. That someone else, the Palestinians, are coming along and saying, ‘This land belongs to us,’ is absolutely impossible.”
“We decided to have the first Night to Honor Israel amid all the misunderstandings, and it was a huge success. Please understand that there was a bomb threat at the end … I told my wife as we walked off the stage that we were going to have a night to honor Israel until these Nazi thugs get accustomed to what we’re doing. I made videos and sent them to churches all over America, I got in my plane and flew from state to state … and amazingly, it took off.
Q: What would you tell Jews who are still unsure about it?
Hagee: “That it is a non-conversionary relationship. Brother, if conversionary is our method, we are one of the greatest fouled-up organizations in the world … We are spiritual brothers, Abraham is our spiritual father, and we are working for the common cause of each other because the Bible mandate says, ‘I will bless those that bless you, and I will curse those that curse you.’ The premise of the judgment of the nations is ‘How did you treat the Jewish people on the face of the earth?’ … We are on the right side of history, and we are on the right side of scripture. The people who are worried about something that happened 100 years ago [Christian missionaries] need to turn the page.”
Q: Malcolm, even secular Jews sometimes have trouble with this cooperation. What would you tell them?<
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Hoenlein: “I think much more in the secular community, there is greater concern and fear about it. I say to them – take a look at what has happened. Now there’s a track record of decades… There were historic reasons [for the concern], but you also have to recognize the change.”
“This is a very pragmatic issue. It’s not a religious thing. Here you have people, tens of millions, who are willing to stand with Israel. Do you turn your back on them?”
No longer competing religions
Q: Do you see Judaism and Christianity as not being competing religions any more, but are now religions that are cooperating?
Hoenlein: “We respect each other, and we respect their religious beliefs. It doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything. We’ll ask the Messiah when he comes, ‘Were you here before?’ If he says yes, we’ll apologize. If he says no, they’ll apologize. But the fact is that what we have in common far outweighs what divides us … There’s nothing that I’ve seen at CUFI that challenges [my Orthodox Jewish principles]. They are staunch allies. They stand up sometimes stronger than we do in defense of the state of Israel.”
Hagee: “In the Bible, it [Christianity] never has been a competing religion. People who for their own purposes structured it to be compatible to their own bias were antisemitic. Jesus Christ, who brought Christianity to us, told the Samaritan woman, ‘Salvation is of the Jews.’ That’s a verse of scripture that many Christians just look off. But look at the word ‘Judeo-Christianity.’ Judaism does not need Christianity to explain its existence, but Christianity cannot explain its existence without Judaism. Therefore, we are connected at the hip.”
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Q: According to some polls, the young generation of Evangelicals is less committed to Israel than their parents’ generation. Is this accurate?
Hagee: “It all has to do with the amount of exposure. The children in our school, we have a Christian school of 1,700 people, can sing Jewish songs. They celebrate Jewish holidays, because they have been educated to respect the Jewish people. In our church, we have a congregation of 23,000, and all of the young people in all the youth departments are very familiar with Jewish songs, Jewish traditions, and so forth.
‘One of the highlights of my life’
One historic moment in which Hagee played a major part was the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – an event that served as a clear expression of the combination of strong religious faith, support for Israel, and political strength. Hagee agrees to tell Israel Hayom exactly what he said to then-US President Donald Trump one fateful night back in July 2017.
“My wife and I went to the White House and had supper with the president. In a matter of minutes, the issue came up, ‘What do we do about the issue of Jerusalem?’ I said, ‘I thought it will be a wonderful thing if you would recognize Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Israel.’ He said, ‘I have been told that if I do, it will cause a war.’ And I said, ‘I think it will have exactly the opposite response. Every time that you propose something for peace, [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas says we can’t do that because the Jerusalem issue has not been resolved. Snatch it off the table. Let history pass them by, and start doing business with people who are for peace. Make the pronouncement, and let them [the Palestinians] adjust to it.’
“And then I said, ‘Every 50 years in Israel there is a jubilee. 1917: there was the Balfour Declaration. In 1967, there was the Six-Day War, in which Israel doubled its size, defeated its enemies, and Jerusalem was reconnected to the Jewish state … And here we are in 2017, this is a jubilee year. You, Mr. President, are the only man on the stage of history that can make this happen. And if you do, you will go down in political immortality.’ He thought about that for just a moment, and he clapped his hands and said, ‘Other presidents have failed you, but I will not fail you. A few weeks later, he pronounced Jerusalem as the capital and moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem. I was invited by [then-US Ambassador] David Friedman to give the benediction, and it was one of the highlights of my life.”
Fantastic!