By JERUSALEM POST STAFFMike Evans, founder of the Friends of Zion Heritage Center in Jerusalem.(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
We decided to add an honorable mention to this year’s list of 50 outstanding Jews for a person who has made great contributions to Israel and the Jewish people.This person is Dr. Mike Evans, who in 2015 founded the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, with Shimon Peres as its first chairman. The museum’s purpose is to combat antisemitism and help educate people from all backgrounds about the heroic accounts of Christians throughout history.Evans wanted to showcase the men and women who believed and fought for the Jewish people and for the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel. His goal has been to activate, through the institutions he runs, a latent mass of Christian-Zionist allies of Israel who can be the linchpin of efforts to roll back anti- Zionist sentiments taking root in universities and in the mainstream globally.For Evans, the most critical objective today for the Christian-Zionist movement is to recruit the millions of Evangelicals and other Protestants to fight alongside Israel in the forum of world-wide opinion and activism.In 1980, Evans began working closely with then-prime minister Menachem Begin to build relationships between Christian Zionists and Israel, as well as advocating for strong US-Israel relations. He did this by producing a television special based on his book Israel, America’s Key to Survival.After President Donald Trump declared his intention to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Evans announced that he would give an award to all world leaders who move their country’s embassy to Jerusalem. The award has so far been given to Trump, President Jimmy Morales of Guatemala and former Paraguayan president Horacio Cartes.
