RSS
‘Am Yisrael Chai!’: Jews, Christians Come Together for Zionist Solidarity Event
From left to right: Jonathan Avendano, George Washington University student Sabrina Soffer, and Jeremy Davis at “Solidarity Sunday,” an event organized by the Moral Hearts Alliance nonprofit, at Iglesia Mana Del Cielo in Sterling, Virginia on Jan., 26, 2025. Photo: via Iglesia Mana Del Cielo
Sterling, Virginia — Christians and Jews across the United States participated last weekend in an ambitious effort launched by the Moral Hearts Alliance (MHA) nonprofit to foster friendships and pro-Zionist solidarity among members of the two faiths.
“Solidarity Sunday” — inspired by Dana Cohen’s and Valerie Feigen’s vision to elevate pro-Zionism from being a shared idea to a formidable alliance comprising people from all walks of life — was the mass gathering, and it took place in over 30 cities around the world.
The Algemeiner attended one of the events, held on Jan. 26 at Iglesia Mana Del Cielo — which translates to “Manna from Heaven Church” — in Sterling, Virginia, a Pentecostal congregation which is predominantly Latino and Spanish speaking. Its keynote speaker was George Washington University student Sabrina Soffer. Manna’s pastor, Jonathan Avendano is an avid supporter of Israel and welcomed the opportunity to host her after being asked to do so by MHA partner and Christian nonprofit, Eagles’ Wings.
“The main reason why I wanted to participate in Solidarity Sunday is because, first of all, of the great love that I have for the Jewish people and beautiful nation of Israel,” Avendano said. “As a young evangelical believer, I undertook the challenge of reading the whole Old Testament on my own, and through that challenge I began to really fall in love with the story and the people of Israel, and the Jewish people. And I really took seriously when it says to bless the people of Israel.”
Avendano, who has visited Israel numerous times, including during its war with Hamas, added that he feels connected to the Jewish community through a shared belief in the God of Abraham.
“In the religious aspect, it really is the spirit of God that connects us so deeply with the word of God, and through the word of God, we see the walk that God had with the Nation of Israel,” he continued. “We just feel a spiritual connection with the people of Israel — everything that they went through, all that they’ve sacrificed just so that they can continue to honor and fear the Lord in their walk. We now walk that same walk that they did, and there is a strong resemblance, I feel, between their story and ours.”
During her speech to Manna from Heaven Church, delivered in fluent Spanish, Soffer called for the relationship between Avendano’s people and hers to continue.
“Our unity — Jews and Christians — allows us to build a stronger future. I want to thank you all — from the bottom of my heart — for your strong support for the people of Israel,” said Soffer, who was accompanied by her boyfriend, Jeremy Davis. “I want to thank you for being with us that tragic morning of Oct. 7 — fifteen months ago, when the ‘Never Again’ we promised years ago happened once more.”
She continued, “That day saw a new Holocaust — the Nazis of yesterday’s reincarnated today as the terrorists of Hamas … But our strength and faith are the light that repels that threat.”
Sabrina Soffer addressing Iglesia Mana Del Cielo at Solidarity Sunday. Photo: Dion J. Pierre/The Algemeiner
Speaking to The Algemeiner after the event, Soffer noted that Solidarity Sunday spotlights the achievement of cultural pluralism in America, a country which has faced challenges in its pursuit to forge one nation out of many. Sunday’s event showed why that goal has largely been a success, she said, as it saw Pentecostal Latinos welcome into their congregation a young Jewish couple.
“America has an underlying foundation of Judeo-Christian values which stress the importance of the shared dignity of man, and those values continue to bring together together all who subscribe to them, even as they face the toughest opponents,” Soffer said. “What we saw on Sunday is the culmination of 250 years of human progress on a scale not seen in the whole history of mankind. I was proud to stand with my Latino brothers and sisters in solidarity with Israel, and I look forward to doing so again in the years to come.”
The Moral Hearts Alliance, the creator of Solidarity Sunday, was founded by Dana Cohen and Valerie Feigen in 2024. The women, both of whom are Jewish, saw crumbling support for Israel in progressive circles and the Democratic Party following the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel and feared that pro-Israel Jews, largely ensconced in metropolitan cities and being abandoned by people they once counted as allies, were in danger of becoming friendless.
They knew, however, that a wellspring of pro-Israel support could be found outside of big, politically left-wing cities and inside the churches of what has been described by scholars and foreign policy writers as Jacksonian America: communities of God-fearing rural, suburban, Christian, and often conservative men and women whose faith teaches that the return of the Jews to the land of Israel was a divine imperative that commands the respect and support of the two billion people who subscribe to the belief that Jesus is the messiah promised to mankind in the prophetic Jewish scriptures.
Given that opportunities to bring together Jews from New York and Tel Aviv and Christians from Middle America are scarce, Cohen and Feigen thus proposed “Solidarity Sunday,” a series of intimate gatherings in which Jews visit Christian congregations for dialogue on global antisemitism and the danger posed to the Jewish state by its enemies.
The initiative has so far taken women such as Oshrit Sabag, an Israeli resident of the Nahal Oz kibbutz, where Hamas-led terrorists murdered dozens during their rampage across southern Israel, to the American south for the first time.
“It was such a natural coming together,” Sabag told The Algemeiner during an interview. “It’s mind-blowing for someone like me to be able to sit down and speak, in very small churches, in the countryside, in the deep south, with amazing people I’ve never met. It was mind-blowing to see how they support Israel and how much love they had for us. It reminded me of my kibbutz really.”
In addition to being a symbol of Christian-Jewish unity, the Moral Hearts Alliance’s Solidarity Sundays are also a “genuine partnership” between Jewish organizations, Dana Cohen told The Algemeiner, crediting End Jew Hatred, Growing Wings, Brothers for Life, Students Supporting Israel, and the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition for helping to launch the events.
“Our goal is to build bridges between Jewish and Christian communities. Our partnership with Eagles’ Wings to create Solidarity Sunday is palpable proof of the success of our mission,” Cohen said. “In less than a year, we’ve grown from seven to nearly 40 churches bringing to each Jewish stories recounting the Holocaust and the recent horror of Oct. 7. Our speakers felt embraced by the communities and have created lasting bonds, and we know there is so much more we can and will do together to grow this movement quickly and effectively.”
Follow Dion J.Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Am Yisrael Chai!’: Jews, Christians Come Together for Zionist Solidarity Event first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.