In the days leading up to the exploding communications device incidents in Lebanon, an under-the-radar gathering was held at one of the most iconic Times Square hotels in New York City.
There was a notable absence of signage in the Marriott Marquis lobby at the event on September 15 and 16. Attendees were told to turn their badges around while on the street. It was difficult to find anything online that announced the spirited, high-energy gathering peppered with high-profile speakers and punctuated by heartfelt prayer, a parade of ornate flags symbolizing the 12 Tribes of Jacob, spontaneous dancing, religious text study, calls for repentance, audible sobbing, the singing of Hebrew songs, the vigorous waving of Israeli flags, and the occasional blast of the shofar.
Welcome to the 2024 Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast (JPB), a prayer movement of Christian clergy and political leaders launched and chaired by Israeli lawmaker Robert Ilatov, with former US Rep. Michele Bachmann serving as co-chair.
The threat of a UN vote sanctioning Israel hung over the gathering. On September 18, just days after the JPB, the General Assembly approved the nonbinding Palestinian proposal demanding Israel end its “unlawful presence” in the West Bank. Leading up to that vote, the mood at the prayer breakfast was somber.
“The United Nations has made up its mind,” Albert Veksler, JPB co-founder and global director, told the crowd. “They want to have the nations, one after another, send their ambassadors to lift their hands and vote that God’s covenant is criminal. That’s what they are trying to say. They are trying to say, ‘God, you have no right to tell where your people should live.’”
Thunderous applause and shouts of “Amen” accompanied Veksler’s introduction as he issued a directive—and a warning.
“We have to stand up for God’s word, and we have to stand up for his covenant because this is the time that a red line is about to be crossed by the nations of the world, and we will see the consequences that this world has never seen,” Veksler admonished. “You cannot mock God and get out of it for nothing. … We want to see the fear of God come over these people.”
Indeed, with the dawning of the following day, it appeared as if the prayers emanating from Times Square had found their way to the Middle East. News broke of beepers, pagers, and other communications and electronic devices exploding in the hands and pockets of Hezbollah operatives. That act, which Israel has not officially taken responsibility for, comes after months of Hezbollah strikes on Israel, which resulted in tens of thousands of displaced Israelis and dozens of Israeli casualties.
The unprecedented act of cyberwarfare seemed to fulfill the biblical verse from Genesis 12 that Veksler and others cited throughout the day: “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.”
This week’s JPB attracted participants from 30 nations, with nearly 1,000 in attendance and millions more tuning in remotely to pray for Jerusalem and express support for Israel.
Speakers at the event
Speakers included Republican Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, who expressed outrage at recent expressions of anti-Zionism among his colleagues. Historically, he said, the United States has been the “greatest friend” that Israel has had. After addressing the JPB, Lawler went to Columbia University to take part in a bipartisan roundtable about antisemitism on campus with Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York, both Democrats.
Lawler is among the authors of the Antisemitism Awareness Act. That bill would legislate an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that ordered the Department of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism when applying antidiscrimination law. The IHRA definition lists “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” as an example of antisemitism but notes that criticism of Israel is not, by definition, antisemitic.
Lawler criticized college and university leaders for failing to protect Jewish students from antisemitic protests last year. “There was a failure to uphold Title VI,” he said, decrying Columbia University’s then-President Minouche Shafik’s “total failure to enforce the rules.”
“This has been allowed to fester on college campuses for years, and we’re not going to tolerate it anymore,” he said.
Lawler’s call to political action reverberated throughout the sessions.
Republican Rep. Robert Ortt of New York said that the prayer that took place during the JPB needed to be matched with action. “There’s work to be done,” he told The Media Line. “Hopefully, this will inspire people to get involved, take action, and pay attention to political candidates on this issue.”
He said that American security depends on support for Israel since Israel’s enemies are also enemies of the US. “If the US is divided in its feelings, that division and lack of support emboldens the enemies,” he said.
Ortt also noted the significance of holding the JPB in New York, a metropolitan area with nearly 2 million Jews. For New York Jews, he noted, “Israel is not a foreign place. So many New Yorkers go back and forth between Israel and home. They have friends. They have family there.”
Both Jewish and Christian religious leaders took the stand at the JPB. Rabbi David Fohrman, an Orthodox rabbi and bestselling author, offered a guided study of a Hebrew hymn. Pastor Robert Stearns, founder and executive director of Eagles’ Wings Ministries, integrated Jewish concepts into his speech.
“We are living in a day when God is speaking to the nations of the world,” he said, describing God as having “brought the Jewish people home.” “If God has brought the Jews home, the Messiah is on his way,” he said.
Stearns spoke about the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who tried to “unify the church against this demonic” force of Nazism during Hitler’s rise. “Largely, the church was silent, and we all know what happened,” Stearns said. “Six million Jews and 60 million humans lost their lives because the church was silent.”
He said that 500 New York Christian leaders ought to have shown up for the event.
Acting as a de facto pastor, Bachmann issued fiery calls for repentance from those who have acted against Israel. Her speech, which made use of the Hebrew word for repentance, brought some audience members to their knees and evoked audible wails from others.
In a conversation with The Media Line, Marcia Pally, a professor at New York University and in Humboldt University of Berlin’s theology faculty and author of a recent book on white evangelicals and politics, noted that some evangelicals use their faith to guide their political activism.
“Those who feel that the ingathering of the Jews in Israel is part of the path to the coming of the Messiah are speaking from their faith and theology,” she said.
Some Jews have expressed unease regarding the eschatological basis of evangelical support for Israel. However, Pally emphasized that the actions of evangelicals must be considered separately from their beliefs.
“Those concerned about the Mideast must make their own decisions about whether the political actions—not theological beliefs—of Christian Zionists move us to a peaceful, flourishing region and world,” she said.
The friendly, pro-Israel atmosphere was remarkable for Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN. “I’m not used to hearing a warm welcome,” he quipped. He said that the UN had developed “a sick obsession with Israel.”
Danon commended the gathering of “Jews and Christians fighting together for the same values.” “When Jews and Christians unite, it is an unstoppable good,” he said.
He described the October 7 attacks as an “assault on the values of the free world,” amplifying a theme present throughout the JPB.
Alongside solidarity and activism, a key message at the event was the call for education, especially regarding media savviness. That was the focus of a midday session where National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) CEO Troy Miller spoke with Felice Friedson, founding president and CEO of The Media Line. The two shared a podium to deconstruct the weaponization of social media during the Israel-Hamas war.
Friedson discussed her experience speaking with Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin. After being seriously wounded and taken hostage on October 7, Hersh was executed by Hamas three weeks ago in a tunnel under Rafah with five other young hostages.
Friedson lamented the devaluing of truth in reporting on the war. “If only we lived in a world of just getting the facts, but we don’t,” she said. “Social media has taken over the mainstream media.”
Both Miller and Friedson decried the absence of truth-telling in stories about the conflict, pointing to media outlets that neglect to call Hamas a terrorist organization as an example.
Friedson said she holds the public accountable for much of the problem. “They don’t know how to read the news,” she said. She called on citizens to recognize that “Hamas uses social media like Nazi Germany and Goebbels.”
Miller affirmed Friedson’s assertions. He said that people of all ages now get their news from social media, be it TikTok for the younger set or Facebook for older generations.
Both speakers condemned the use of social media platforms by terrorist groups. “Hamas is on Telegram,” Friedson said. “How can it be? No one is looking at it. No one is shutting it down.”
“We at the NRB have been pushing our media organizations to keep this issue on the forefront,” Miller said. “We are committed not to let this issue fade into the background.”
This article was originally published at www.jpost.com
