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"The response was, 'If you really love us, just leave us alone. We've had our fill of your love for 2,000 years,'" Eckstein recalls one Jewish leader saying. "Wells turned and said, 'But I can't.'"

That exchange exposed long-standing tensions between evangelical Christians and observant Jews greatly worried about the viability of their faith, families, and communities. Other conferences followed, and Jewish-Christian relations began their slow thaw.

There were icebergs along the way. In 1980, Bailey Smith, then president of the Southern Baptist Convention, proclaimed, "God Almighty doesn't hear the prayer of a Jew." His comment created a firestorm among Jews already suspicious of the nation's largest Protestant denomination. Rather than lash out, the irenic Eckstein invited Smith to accompany him to Israel. Smith later apologized for his declaration; Eckstein spoke and received a standing ovation at Smith's church. When he began IFCJ in 1983, Eckstein had few friends in either the Jewish or Christian world. He worked alone, took no salary, and had no health insurance. Eventually, Eckstein came to appreciate the differences between Baptists, Pentecostals, charismatics, and evangelicals.

With a new level of understanding, Eckstein evolved into an intermediary and supporter. His resumé of accomplishments on behalf of evangelicals is impressive by any measure. "I became the interpreter and defender to the Jewish community and secular press against common stereotypes of evangelicals," Eckstein says. "I saw my calling as transmitting this information to which only I in the Jewish community was privy. I knew these Christians and I loved them."

Undeniably through IFCJ, Eckstein has constructed a bridge linking evangelicals, Jews, and Israel. He has been a trailblazer on an uncharted path of showing ways the two faiths can cooperate on behalf of shared biblical concerns. He has brought evangelical and Jewish politicians together in Washington, D.C. He has spoken out against religious persecution abroad and has traveled to China on behalf of imprisoned Christian pastors.

For much of the first decade, Eckstein ran IFCJ with the assistance of only a secretary, a small salary, no pension, and a modest budget of about half a million dollars. In that span, IFCJ had about 1,000 donors, 80 percent of them Jewish.

The turning point for the organization came in 1993, the year it produced a 30-minute infomercial narrated gratis by Christian celebrity Pat Boone. The infomercial stayed on the air for a year, generating a response that tilted the ministry's database heavily toward Christians, especially Pentecostals. Today, IFCJ has a giving list of 800,000, 98 percent of whom are Christian.

"Our donors are those Christians who genuinely believe Jews and Christians share a biblical view and ought to come together for the sake of their shared vision, [part] of which is Israel," Eckstein says. Now, other Jewish and evangelical groups have jumped on the bandwagon to raise evangelical support for Jewish causes. These days, the bridge Eckstein built is crossed by everyone from televangelist John Hagee to the Israel Ministry of Tourism.

Half a dozen organizations with goals similar to IFCJ's set up booths at last year's annual National Religious Broadcasters Convention. Eckstein, who for many years toiled among Christian broadcasters as an anomaly, isn't sure that the motives of all the other groups are altruistic. Ironically, some view IFCJ as competition. "Some Christians see me as taking too much of the pie that belongs to them," Eckstein says. "There is resentment and jealousy."

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February 2009, Vol. 53, No. 2