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New Group Fosters Jewish, Christian Alliances to Combat Hate: ‘There Is so Much We Can Do Together’
A congregant from a church that participates in “Solidarity Sunday” hugs an Oct. 7 survivor at the event on May 5, 2024. Photo: Provided by Moral Hearts Alliance
The founders of a new organization that aims to foster closer ties between Jews and Evangelical Christians who support Israel told The Algemeiner that not putting an effort into aligning the two communities is a “missed opportunity” at combating hatred targeting the Jewish state.
“Together there is so much that we can do,” said Dana Cohen, a co-founder of the Moral Hearts Alliance. “We all recognize the evil that is Hamas and is facing Israel, but now on the college campuses, it’s on our shores too. We have an amazing ally and we have to reach across the aisle to one another and come up with ways to build on that alliance and activate it for all of us.”
The main goal of the Moral Hearts Alliance is to strengthen relationships for Israel and the Jewish people around the world with different religions, ethnicities, and countries that share their same values. Partnering with Christians who support Israel should be an obvious alliance considering that there are 60 million Evangelicals in the United States and 600 million globally, according to Cohen.
“We have to put aside our prejudices as a group and accept that they want to love us and embrace us and be there for us. They want to be there for Israel and want to be included,” added Valerie Feigen, a fellow co-founder of the organization and Cohen’s sister-in-law.
The two women co-founded the Moral Hearts Alliance earlier this year after Feigen went to Israel in January and met with survivors of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks. One survivor asked Feigen to help share first-hand testimonies from Oct. 7 attacks with people outside of Israel, and she came back to the US with that mission in hand. She became dedicated to having people “outside of the Jewish bubble” hear stories from survivors just like she did.
Feigen’s trip to Israel inspired a project that the Moral Hearts Alliance organized last week called “Solidarity Sunday,” in which seven survivors of Oct. 7 — including three from the massacre at the Nova Music Festival — spoke at seven churches across the United States, from California to New York, about their experiences surviving the terrorist attacks that day. The event was organized in cooperation with the Christian pro-Israel organization Eagles‘ Wings.
The largest congregation to host a “Solidarity Sunday” event was in San Bernardino, Calif., with roughly 1,500 people.
The events took place across the US on May 5, the eve of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah), and the overwhelming response was “emphatic love for Israel, love for the Jewish people, and the desire to stand with Israel,” Cohen said.
Each congregation sang Israel’s national anthem Hatikvah at the event, and lit candles and held a moment of silence in honor of the victims of the Oct. 7 attacks. At one church, a Jewish prayer shawl, known in Hebrew as a tallit, was draped upon a cross inside the congregation. The events were also live streamed and shared on Zoom for others who wanted to hear the testimonies from the survivors.
A sign outside the Family Worship Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, ahead of the “Solidarity Sunday” event hosted by the congregation on May 5, 2024. Photo: Provided
“The overwhelming response was extraordinary love and gratefulness that the Israelis had come all this way to share their story,” Feigen explained. “From every pastor to every member of the church, every single Israeli and Moral Hearts representative chaperoning each Israeli were received with such love. And we heard after from the Israelis that people lined up for an hour and a half to hug them, thank them, bring them gifts. They were welcomed with such tenderness, love, and kindness.”
“We’re late in doing it,” Feigen added about helping Oct. 7 survivors share their experiences with people outside of the Jewish community.
“The Jewish community missed an incredible opportunity in the last seven months since the Oct. 7 attacks in not bringing stories about the attacks to the Christian community,” Cohen noted. “The Christians were hungry for these stories.” She said the positive response to “Solidarity Sunday” was even more heartwarming when considering the sometimes violent anti-Israel protests that have erupted on US college and university campuses in recent weeks.
At a “Solidarity Sunday” event hosted at a church in New York led by Bishop Robert Stearns, the founder of Eagles’ Wings, a Jewish student leader from the Students Supporting Israel chapter at the University of Buffalo also spoke to congregants about the hatred Jews are facing on college and university campuses. Stearns urged church congregants to support a pro-Israel rally taking place at the University of Buffalo the next day, and on Monday, 100 members of the congregation attended the campus demonstration to show solidarity with the Jewish state.
The Moral Hearts Alliance wants to help encourage similar displays of unity in the future, in which Jews and Christians can show support for one another.
“We believe this is an amazing opportunity for the Jewish community to turn the tide of hate against Israel and what is occurring in the United States,” Cohen said, emphasizing the importance of seizing the possibilities that come with forming alliances between Jews and Christians.
“We have this amazing partnership potential and we just need to meet them halfway, and we just want to spearhead that effort,” she added. “There is just so much we can do together.”
The post New Group Fosters Jewish, Christian Alliances to Combat Hate: ‘There Is so Much We Can Do Together’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Senate Confirms Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel
Mike Huckabee looks on as Donald Trump reacts during a campaign event at the Drexelbrook Catering and Event Center, in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, US, Oct. 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
The US Senate on Wednesday backed former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel, installing a staunch pro-Israel conservative in the high-profile post amid war in Gaza and relations complicated by US tariffs.
The Senate backed Huckabee by 53 to 46, largely along party lines, with Republicans all supporting President Donald Trump’s nominee and every Democrat except Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman voting against him.
An evangelical Christian, Huckabee has been a vocal supporter of Israel throughout his political career and a longtime defender of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Critics said the former Republican presidential candidate was too partisan to represent the United States given the sensitivity of negotiations to end the war in Gaza and avoid broader regional war.
Huckabee’s supporters said he knew Israel well, having visited more than 100 times, and was well positioned to work closely with Trump to bring peace to a chaotic part of the world.
“We urgently need a qualified ambassador in the region, and I have no doubt Mike Huckabee is that person,” Republican Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said as he urged support for the nominee.
PRO-ISRAEL POLICIES
Trump has pursued strongly pro-Israel policies as president and his choice of Huckabee as ambassador signaled that they would continue.
Pro-Israel evangelicals are an important part of Trump’s base and voted heavily in favor of him in the Nov. 5 election.
“There’s no such thing as an occupation,” Huckabee said in a 2017 interview with CNN, in which he referred to the West Bank by its biblical names Judea and Samaria.
During his first term, Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem and sided with Israel on its claims over Palestinian territory in the West Bank. During his second, he has advocated taking a “hard stance” on Gaza, the Palestinian enclave for which he has proposed a US takeover.
The United States is Israel‘s closest ally and largest single trading partner. Netanyahu has visited Trump at the White House twice since Trump began his second term on January 20.
He was there this week, seeking to limit the sting of tariffs imposed on Israel as part of the Republican president’s sweeping tariff policy. Under the new policy, Israeli goods face a 17 percent US tariff, despite the two countries signing a free trade agreement 40 years ago.
Netanyahu pledged to eliminate Israel‘s trade surplus with the United States. But when asked if his administration planned to reduce tariffs on Israeli goods, Trump made no promises.
The post US Senate Confirms Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Argentina Prosecutor Seeks Arrest Warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Over 1994 AMIA Bombing
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 25th anniversary of the atrocity in Buenos Aires. Photo: Reuters/Agustin Marcarian.
The lead prosecutor in the case of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires has petitioned Argentina’s federal court to issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s so-called “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, over his alleged involvement in the deadly terrorist attack.
On Tuesday, Sebastián Basso — who succeeded former prosecutor Alberto Nisman after his murder in 2015 — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas summon the Iranian leader for questioning and issue an international arrest warrant through Interpol.
He also ordered Argentina’s federal security forces to arrest Khamenei if he enters Argentine territory.
This latest legal move represents a significant shift from the country’s past approach in the case, in which the Iranian leader was treated as enjoying diplomatic immunity. Basso claimed that “this approach does not align with international law,” especially regarding crimes against humanity and acts of terrorism.
According to Argentinian local newspaper Clarin, the lead prosecutor argued that Khamenei was directly involved in planning the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires — the deadliest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history, in which 85 people were killed and more than 300 wounded.
The Iranian leader “led the decision to carry out a bomb attack in Buenos Aires in July 1994 and issued executive order (fatwa) 39 to carry it out,” Basso wrote in the resolution submitted to the court.
Khamenei not only has the final word in Iranian state matters, according to Basso, but also “all of Iran’s military and foreign policies are under his direct supervision.”
“It is also undeniable that … Khamenei is the main supporter of groups with military capabilities, such as Hezbollah,” the lead prosecutor said, referring to the Lebanese terrorist group and Iran’s chief proxy force.
He explained that Khamenei appointed Hezbollah’s recently slain secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, as his representative in Lebanon.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out. Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
In April 2024, Argentina’s second-highest court ruled that the 1994 attack in Buenos Aires was “organized, planned, financed, and executed under the direction of the authorities of the Islamic State of Iran, within the framework of Islamic Jihad.” The court also said that the bombing was carried out by Hezbollah terrorists responding to “a political and strategic design” by Iran.
The court additionally ruled that Iran had been responsible for the 1992 truck bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 people.
Last year, Judge Rafecas requested Interpol to arrest four Lebanese citizens as part of the AMIA bombing investigation, citing “credible evidence that the four collaborated with Hezbollah’s military wing or acted as its operational agents.”
Since the terrorist attacks in 1992 and 1994, diplomatic relations between Buenos Aires and Tehran have remained strained, with this latest move and Argentina’s growing support for Israel under current President Javier Milei further intensifying tensions.
The post Argentina Prosecutor Seeks Arrest Warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Over 1994 AMIA Bombing first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pro-Hamas Activists Call for ‘Jihad’ in Rally Outside Israeli Embassy in Berlin
Anti-Israel protesters march in Germany, March 26, 2025. Photo: Sebastian Willnow/dpa via Reuters Connect
Pro-Hamas activists chanted antisemitic slogans, called for “jihad,” and celebrated “armed struggle” against Israel at a demonstration outside the Israeli embassy in Berlin earlier this week.
The calls for violence came amid new revelations that the German capital has failed to spend millions of euros specifically allocated for combating antisemitism, which has reached record levels across Germany following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
Approximately 220 Hamas sympathizers reportedly rallied in the Schmargendorf neighborhood, a southwestern area of Berlin, under the slogan “Freedom for Palestine! End the genocide in Gaza!”
According to German media, the protesters chanted, “The people want to declare jihad!” and “Anyone who wants to reclaim the country must carry a weapon,” among other statements calling for violence. A reporter for the German tabloid newspaper Bild shared video from the scene on social media.
„Hört auf, verbotene Parolen zu skandieren – sonst beende ich die Demo!“ Mit diesen Worten versucht die Veranstalterin der Pro-Palästina-Kundgebung vor der israelische Botschaft in Berlin ihre Leute zu stoppen. Doch die Berliner Polizei? Schaut weiter zu.#b0704 pic.twitter.com/NkSU7Xl7Dx
— Iman Sefati (@ISefati) April 7, 2025
According to local police, a 31-year-old man was arrested during the rally for using a prohibited slogan and is under investigation for displaying symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organizations.
In front of the Israeli embassy in Berlin, one of the speakers leading the protest was reportedly Ahmad Tamim from Generation Islam, who allegedly said, “Our task is to liberate Palestine once again.”
German authorities have identified Generation Islam as part of the international Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir – an antisemitic organization that actively promotes and encourages terrorism and praised Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities in southern Israel. The group has been banned in Germany since 2003, as well as in several other countries, for advocating for the destruction of the State of Israel through militant jihad.
Offener Aufruf zum heiligen Krieg – mitten in Berlin?
„Das Volk will den Dschihad!“ – Islamisten-Parolen vor Israels Botschaft!
Was sich gestern vor der israelischen Botschaft abspielte, ist kaum zu fassen – und brandgefährlich:
Bei einer Pro-Palästina-Demo brüllten… pic.twitter.com/oDqC29J9Zt— Iman Sefati (@ISefati) April 8, 2025
The rally came after the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel revealed last week that the Berlin Senate has done nothing with 3.5 million of the 11 million euros that the federal government allocated to the German capital to fight antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.
The funds were reportedly not spent, despite a historic surge in antisemitic incidents, due to organizational and administrative issues — specifically the absence of any department dedicated to the fight against anti-Jewish hatred through which the money could flow.
Meanwhile, the 8.5 million euros that were actually spent are being called into question for alleged misappropriation, with critics charging the money went to organizations not equipped for or effective at combating antisemitism.
Germany has experienced a sharp spike in antisemitism since the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. In just the first six months of 2024, for example, the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin surpassed the total for the entire previous year, setting a new record for the highest annual count, according to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).
The figures compiled by RIAS were the highest count for a single year since the federally funded body began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015, showing the German capital averaged nearly eight anti-Jewish outrages a day from January to June last year.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany in 2023, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
Last week, German authorities issued deportation orders for three EU citizens and one US citizen living in Berlin over their participation in anti-Israel protests, stating that they “pose a threat to public order.”
The post Pro-Hamas Activists Call for ‘Jihad’ in Rally Outside Israeli Embassy in Berlin first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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