Rabbi Yechiel Z. Eckstein honored with Jerusalem Post Award
Winner is founder of largest Christian evangelical-funded NGO in Israel.
By MAYA SHWAYDER, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENTYECHIEL ECKSTEIN(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
NEW YORK – Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder and president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, was honored with the third Jerusalem Post Award at the Post’s annual conference in New York on Sunday. The Post honored the Chicago native for his work in building bridges between the Christian and Jewish communities around the world.“Eckstein is recognized as the world’s leading Jewish authority on evangelical Christians, and his fellowship now raises $120 million annually, making it the largest Christian-supported humanitarian non-profit in Israel today,” Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Steve Linde said.The fellowship has provided millions of dollars of support for Jews from the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia, India and elsewhere to help them resettle in Israel.Eckstein hosts the radio broadcast Holy Land Moments, which talks about the Jewish roots of Christianity and discusses Jewish traditions. The broadcast has about 15 million weekly listeners in Africa and the English-speaking world, and a Spanish-language version of the series enjoys around 10 million listeners in Latin America.In 2010 Eckstein was the recipient of the first-ever Award for Special Contribution to the Welfare of the People of Israel, presented to him by then-welfare and social services minister Isaac Herzog. In total he has received around 50 awards for his public service work, including from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Friends of the IDF, the Jewish Agency and Colel Chabad.
