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.”

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.

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