Dear Friend—
With our uniquely American celebration—Thanksgiving—fast approaching, I want to thank you for your consistent and generous support of my work here at the American Alliance of Jews and Christians. This year we have been focusing our efforts on these four challenges:
- Teaching Jews what Christians do for Israel and the fight against anti-Semitism.
- Fighting anti-Bible bigotry in education, entertainment, and politics.
- Defending the dignity and morality of the profession of business.
- Building Jewish support for Christian leaders attacked by militant secularists.
We are grateful for the many successes we have enjoyed and thank you for your participation without which, little could have been accomplished.
It’s already a year since I last fulfilled one of my responsibilities as president of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians, namely reminding you of our need and asking for your support. It’s time for me to do it again but first, just a few paragraphs on our history:
I first began building bridges between Jews and Christians twenty-six years ago. I was still serving as a congregational rabbi in Los Angeles when I realized that Jews lived more benignly, more tranquilly and more prosperously today in the United States than anywhere else in the world during the past two thousand years. It was clear to me that this was precisely because America is a Christian country.
Yet it was also clear to me that Bible-believing Christians in America are vilified, insulted, and denied respect by many in media, entertainment, education, and government. I thought then, and I still do today, that it’s crazy that more Jews are not defending Christians who are being attacked for holding those very values that we all, Jew and Christian, share. After all, these values were not only the values of the forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but they were also the values of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America! They need to be defended, not just by courageous Christians but also by Jews.
There are those in this country who try to discourage meaningful communication between Jews and Christians, because united we would present an almost irresistible force for spiritual renewal. AAJC is determined to bring about communication and alliance.
I was blessed with some wonderful Jewish and Christian brothers and sisters who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me as we began building the bridges that would one day become the American Alliance of Jews and Christians.
We felt bonded by the Bible. We recognized that the central core of our culture was a majestic and mysterious book that has never been out of print since Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in the middle of the 15th century.
Out of this came the American Alliance of Jews and Christians.
I am asking for your help and support today. I value your time and I appreciate you and the many other ways you help defend all that is good. I know you support many worthy causes.
But if you’re still reading my words, you might like to know more about our work and perhaps help our work continue by means of an appropriate gesture of financial support. Let me tell you a little more about the idea behind the AAJC and its goals and dreams.
The American Alliance of Jews and Christians grew from my deep conviction that despite theological differences, millions of Jews and Christians share a common vision of civilization and furthermore, definitely prefer civilization to its alternative—barbarism.
Civilization prefers tranquility to violence; it prefers men to treat women with respect and deference; it prefers freedom to centrally planned tyranny; it prefers people enjoying economic independence through their own efforts to socialism; it believes in charity by choice rather than in government redistribution by force; it believes that marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman devoted to one another and to their children, and it believes that both the beginning and end of life should be in God’s hands alone. Civilization engenders friendship, beauty, compassion, and courtesy rather than brutishness, filth, and vulgarity. Like the American Founders, we prefer a Biblically inspired culture to the sordid stain of secularism and the socialistic society it tends to inspire.
I believe that America’s great blessings as well as the tranquil haven of prosperity she has provided for members of so many religious groups and nations are a result of these Biblically-inspired principles.
The ideas and systematic spiritual strategies of ancient Jewish wisdom were well known to and appreciated by most Christian leaders of colonial America.
This is why Mayflower Pilgrim, William Bradford, wrote the first few pages of his book of the history of the Plymouth Plantation in the Hebrew language. This is why great spiritual leaders like Ezra Styles, later to become president of Yale University and pastors like Cotton Mather all knew the Lord’s language, Hebrew.
One New England pastor, Abiel Abbot wrote in 1799 these words, “The people of the United States come nearer to a parallel with Ancient Israel, than any other nation upon the globe.” By the way his parents named him Abiel because in Hebrew the name means God is my father.
The eminent 19th century Irish historian, William Lecky wrote: “Hebraic mortar cemented the foundations of American democracy.” Here at the American Alliance of Jews and Christians we work on supplying that mortar.
Just as ancient Israel arrived in the Promised Land with nothing but a set of Biblically-based ideas and proceeded to carve a civilization out of a wilderness, those great early Americans did the same thing. They crossed an ocean bearing little more than those timeless truths of the Bible and they too carved a great civilization out of a great wilderness.
Now plucking a flower from its roots and bringing it indoors to enjoy might seem like a good idea but pretty soon we discover that anything severed from its roots dies mighty quickly. Similarly, the great ideas of western civilization have roots too. Those roots are enshrined in the page of Scripture. And trying to disconnect civilization from its roots assures it of a rapid demise.
Therein lays the sacred mission of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians. Keeping civilization attached to its Judeo-Christian spiritual roots to maintain it as a fresh, strong, and influential force.
Our weekly Thought Tools as well as the books and audio CDs we help make available, our daily TV show on TCT Television Network, and our podcast are part of how we provide the intellectual ammunition for good men and women all over the world to deploy in the struggle to defend civilization and protect all we hold dear.
Today, steadfast vision and calm courage is needed to defend that civilization, the culmination of two millennia of Judeo-Christian achievement. Helping it remain attached to its roots, able to draw nourishment and endurance from those roots is our task.
Your generosity has enabled the AAJC to bring the tools and the inspiration to millions of people via radio, television, personal appearances, and our books and audio CDs that today are found on every continent. You enabled us to bring aboard the well-known Rabbi Yaakov Rosenblatt of Dallas as director and you helped make it possible for me to address audiences in over forty synagogues, churches, and business organizations during 2017.
This coming year, 2018, we hope to do even more. We would like to expand the scope of AAJC’s activities reaching many more. We hope to increase the opportunities for injecting the civilization-protecting principles into all corners of the culture.
With your help this can be done. I am not going to suggest how much you should or can give. This is an intensely personal decision; however I will tell you that for our programmed activities in 2018, we have planned a program requiring a budget of $1,400,000.
This is a lot of money but I have prayed about this and know that with our large body of active supporters it can happen. It is up to you and up to me. If you give us the tools, I can assure you that we will do the job.
Whatever support you can give to our work will be very much appreciated. American Alliance of Jews and Christians (AAJC) is a 501(c)(3) not for profit organization (EIN 26-07642520). You can make your tax-deductible gift by clicking HERE, or by mailing in your gift to AAJC, P.O. Box 58, Mercer Island, WA 98040 or by calling (888) 722-2441 and saying that you want to support AAJC.
May God bless you and protect you and may we all be privileged to do our part in protecting the legacy He entrusted to humanity on Mount Sinai over three thousand years ago.
Rabbi Daniel Lapin
President
American Alliance of Jews and Christians
Rabbi I have a personal lady friend, sister in Christ…who travels to Israel, several times a year to work with & support the Israeli Soldiers…her name is Sheryl Gilbert, vfi-usa.org /Volunteers For Israel /951.926.5619…and Sheryl welcomes anyone who like to travel with her, even for curiosities. Lovely Lady. Sweet. Has albums of photos for show & tell. And she is a Christian…I know she would Love to hear from you. Blessings!
Yes l would love to help but l have felt rejected by orthodox Jews because l am a Christian. Even when l say l am messianic l feel l am not welcome to join the group. I ask a friend and she said Jews don’t like Christians because they think we’re trying to take over. I am in search of hebrew study group in my area of southern illinois if you know of any please send it to me. I would also like to go to Jerusalem 2018 Sukkot if you have a travel group. Thank you –
Sherry, we appreciate everyone who helps and support us but we know that all of us have many commitments and no one should feel that they must give us a reason why they can’t or won’t help. However, you sound quite bitter. Perhaps it is just the written word which lacks the nuances of speech, but bitterness is a harsh master. We obviously reach out to and have dear friendships with many Christians. That’s what AAJC is all about. To say you feel the need to spurn us because you’re upset at others seems a bit strange to us.
If you are saying to the Jewish people, “I want to be friends with you but only if you will adopt my religious beliefs,” then we understand why you are rejected. We have a different theology than you and that means we can’t worship together. We actually don’t want to discuss theology at all; that is where we differ. AAJC is all about respecting and acknowledging different theologies while joining together to work on the culture that surrounds us.
We don’t have a travel group, but we have met thousands of Christians who go to Israel for Sukkot and are sure that you can find a compatible one. Best of luck.
is Sherry saying without actually saying that she is jewish, however that she’s a believer, that she believes jesus is the jewish messiah?…. (cuz she writes that she is a messianic…jew?)
if so, your husband would say she is guilty of false advertising….but it sounds as if you are saying “yes, we can be friends however with some terms and conditions”…. nothing wrong with that….is there?
in my opinion, any US Jew who manages to escape secular humanism (as taught in most/all US reform temples and conservative synagogues) and find instead Torah life as taught in the Orthodox synagogue and/or Jesus as Lord should be celebrated with a sincere and loud MAZEL TOV!
I don’t think Sherry sounded bitter, she does not need to be criticised , sad! She is hurt.
I’m so glad John 3:16 makes sense because it’s about a personal relationship with the living God .
I invite any one to my church, I never think religion , because of John 3:16, I know Jesus is able to do so much more when we pray, so I will pray for the person, that the Holy Spirit will touch him or her. I will evplain who is Jesus and why did he die, so the person is able to have some knowledge of the living God. It’s not about me , it all about Jesus.
I believe Sherry is a believer Sherry you are in good company , Yeshua loves you!
There are online Hebrew courses you can join, I considered one some time ago.
I’m going to Jerusalem come March with God Tv. Face book Amoy Joyce , check “Out of Zion 2018” Israel Tour God.tv. Today I paid my down payment if you have any problem FB me Amoy Joyce and message me . Happy Thanks Giving
Blessing to all!
Big Love to you Sherry
Oops! You could email God Tv and ask about the israel tours you are interested., Jewish Voice does one also or just ask Google. I’m
Looking forward to my trip. I’m a Born Again Christian and I love to tell others about Yeshua the Jewish Messiah
Big Love Amoy
Dear Sherry–
Thank you for writing and for sharing your feelings of pain with such candor. One of the things that struck me about your letter is that it closely resembles another letter I recently received from an upstanding and lovely friend who is an active member of the LDS Church. He wrote to express his pain at feeling ‘rejected by Christians because I am a Mormon’. He actually also wrote ‘…even when I say that I am also Christian, I don’t feel welcome to join the group’. Now what would you, Sherry, say to my friend? Wouldn’t you want to know what he meant by ‘join the group’? For instance, if a practicing Buddhist wanted to join my synagogue prayer group, I’d probably explain gently that what this group is about is precisely the area in which we have no compatibility. However, if that same Buddhist wished to join my boat maintenance club, many of whose members happen to be Jewish, I’d be delighted to welcome him. So ask yourself, please Sherry, what you mean by ‘rejected’. I know that no Orthodox Jews asked you not to walk into their synagogue. That would never happen. So how were you ‘rejected’ and what sort of group was it? I know of at least two Christians who attend my Orthodox synagogue regularly. I know they don’t feel rejected. Finally, there is no such thing as ‘the Jewish community’ or ‘the Orthodox Jews’ any more than there is such a thing as ‘the Christian community’. There are countless subdivisions, many with major distinctions. So, we’re sorry that some Jews made you feel bad. Perhaps you might approach them a little differently ? Southern Illinois is not an area with any major Jewish centers so I doubt that there would be any synagogue centered Hebrew study group but perhaps try the SI University in Carbondale. There are literally dozens of tours being organized to visit Israel for Sukot 2018, Israel’s 70th year. Only you can pick the most compatible one. Good luck
Cordially
RDL
Rabbi,
Your work has been a profound blessing to our family. We are extremely grateful to you, Susan, and everyone at the American Alliance of Jews and Christians. We are looking forward to a long and fruitful partnership with AAJC.
Thank you!
John & Paige Fritsche
Thank you John and Paige–
Your kind words bring much-needed encouragement. We cherish your friendship and profoundly appreciate your generous support.
Cordially
RDL