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EDITORIAL Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, Bridge-Building Philanthropist
INTERNATIONAL Fellowship
of Christians and Jews founder
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, who
died Feb. 6 at age 67, is being
remembered this week by poli-
ticians, clergy and Jewish com-
munity leaders.

From all corners of the
world, the tributes are pouring
in for the New York-born rabbi
whose organization raised
more than a billion dollars
from the evangelical commu-
nity to support Israel and the
Jewish people.

In addition to facilitating
immigration to Israel from all
over the Diaspora, Eckstein’s
IFCJ helped transform the lives
of thousands of Israeli resi-
dents, including IDF soldiers
and their families, adults and
children living in poverty and
elderly Holocaust survivors,
as well as the Jewish poor in
the former Soviet Union. In
every area where his IFCJ got
involved, it did so in a big way,
and made a big difference.

The posthumous outpouring
might surprise Eckstein, a dual
American-Israeli citizen, whose
efforts to foster ties between
evangelicals and Jews were
not always met with approval.

Indeed, when he first proposed
building alliances between the
two groups in the late 1970s, he
was met with deep skepticism
and even disdain.

Undeterred, he founded
IFCJ in 1983, and battled to gain
credibility for his bridge-build-
ing efforts in the “mainstream”
Jewish world, even as he culti-
vated extraordinary relation-
ships with evangelical leaders
and their flocks and pulled in
eye-popping donations.

Eckstein’s activities gained
traction in the 1990s, when
he pursued efforts in support
of Jews in the former Soviet
Union, raising enough funds to
facilitate thousands immigrants
to Israel. In the following years,
his Jerusalem-based organi-
zation became a well-oiled
money-making machine with
diverse programming — one of
the largest charitable organiza-
tions in Israel.

But notwithstanding his
organizational and financial
success, Eckstein was frus-
trated by his inability to per-
suade many of his fellow Jews
to believe in the purity of his
motives and the legitimacy of
his outreach to evangelicals.

He tangled with Israel’s Chief
Rabbinate and was criticized
by a wide array of Orthodox
leaders, liberal American Jews
and Jewish organizational stal-
warts. Later, he would have a
very public falling-out with the
Jewish Agency.

In a 2005 profile of Eckstein
for The New York Times, Zev
Chafets reported that he was
focused on getting Jews to
practice “the Four As: aware-
ness that evangelicals are help-
ing Israel; acknowledgment of
that help; appreciation; and
attitude change.”
We have no question that
“awareness” and “acknowledge-
ment” have been met. And
the posthumous accolades for
Eckstein’s extraordinary accom-
plishments suggest that “appre-
ciation” may have also been
achieved. As for the desired
“attitude change,” the jury is still
out. Part of the problem may
have been Eckstein’s larger-than-
life persona and related issues
that got in the way.

But in the end, all that is over-
shadowed by the good Eckstein
did for the Jewish world, all
driven by his deep passion for
the Jewish people and love for
the state of Israel. May his
memory be for a blessing. l
The View from Here will return
next week.

Coming to Grips With the Truth About Qatar
BY JONATHAN S. TOBIN
THIS WEEK, the national
press has continued to keep
the heat on Saudi Arabia as
more details about the murder
of journalist Jamal Khashoggi
have made it clear that Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman
probably ordered the killing.

The outrageous slaying of
Khashoggi, a resident of the
United States who wrote for
The Washington Post, has
focused the world’s attention
on the brutal nature of the
Saudi regime and, as far as
14 FEBRUARY 14, 2019
many Americans are con-
cerned, called into question its
status as a U.S. ally.

But while the Saudis are
being subjected to even greater
scrutiny than ever, with many
in Congress demanding that
the United States stop assisting
their war against Iranian allies
in Yemen, another more insid-
ious force for radicalism has
been flying under the radar.

The emirate of Qatar on the
coastline of the Persian Gulf
has benefited greatly from
the limited attention span of
Americans who think that
the only threats in that region
emanate from Iran, ISIS terror-
ists or Saudi Arabia.

But given Qatar’s determi-
nation to spend a lot of its oil
wealth on spreading Islamism
and funding terror, even while
this Gulf State enjoys the sta-
tus of U.S. ally, it’s high time
that the West started paying
more attention to the insidious
nature of its activities.

A start was made towards
that goal with a conference
held this week in Washington,
D.C., by the Middle East Forum
under the title of “Qatar: U.S.

Ally or Strategic Threat.” The
daylong event brought together
scholars, intelligence profes-
sionals, journalists (I moder-
ated one of the panels) and
some members of Congress to
ponder the extent of Qatar’s
reach, as well as what to do
about a situation in which it
has largely avoided being held
accountable for its activities for
the simple reason that it is not
the Iranians, ISIS or the Saudis.

The answer that came out
of the sessions was clear: Qatar
is not merely a dangerous
source of radical Islam and
terror funding, but has also
benefited from a successful
effort to influence American
thought leaders, including
some American Jews, convinc-
ing some to view it as a force
for moderation when in fact, it
is anything but that.

The problem starts with the
fact that the emirate has almost
completely replaced the Saudis
JEWISH EXPONENT
as the source of funding for
Islamist education around the
world. The Saudis are no longer
trying to spread its own harsh
Wahabi brand of radical Islam
in the way they did as recently
as a decade ago.

ical Islam in the region and
was responsible for Egypt’s brief
period of radical Islamic rule
after the fall of the Mubarak
regime, as well as serves as
the spiritual godfather of the
Hamas terrorist movement.

Qatar is not merely a dangerous source of radical
Islam and terror funding, but has also benefited
from a successful effort to influence American
thought leaders, including some American Jews.

But the same madrassas and
mosques that were being influ-
enced by the Saudis are now
getting money from Qatar.

That wouldn’t be a bad thing if
Qatar was pushing a moderate
curriculum, but it’s doing just
the opposite.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the
exiled Egyptian cleric who is the
chief ideologue of the Muslim
Brotherhood, is orchestrating
all of Qatar’s efforts in spread-
ing Islam. The Brotherhood is
one of the chief sources of rad-
Qaradawi is also deeply
involved in the Qatar
Foundation, an institution
supported and sustained by
members of the Qatari rul-
ing family that has spread
radicalism around the world
while masquerading as a
charitable group.

But Qatar doesn’t just fund
institutions that promote
Islamism. It has been directly
funding Hamas’s efforts to
See Tobin, Page 16
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



O pinion
KVETCH ’N KVELL
Listen Now, Rather Than
Planning for the Future
BY DAVE ANDERSON
HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy
Pelosi (D-Calif.) deserves to
be congratulated for her vic-
tory over President Donald
Trump. But the victory must
be regarded as partial since she
was able to get the partial gov-
ernment shutdown terminated,
but only for three weeks.

The saga we are living
through concerning border
security is politics at its worst.

Yet it is a prism into what pol-
itics is so frequently about:
positioning for a future elec-
tion and optics.

First, politicians do not
have job security and they
must work hard to keep their
jobs and that work is ongo-
ing. Second, politicians, like
most people, look for images
and pictures and symbols to
advance their agendas.

Trump, Pelosi, Senate
Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate
Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) were all as
and building walls like doz-
ens of other countries around
the world.

We are a country that must
have a wall, the president says, to
protect ourselves against crime,
drugs, terrorists and illegal
immigrants that steal American
jobs. We are a country that
must not have a wall, the core
Democrats say, because, apart
from being ineffective, it is rac-
ist, xenophobic, antiquated and
down-right un-American.

This saga illustrates two
goals we need to set for
American politics.

First, we must figure out
ways to make the next election
less critical to decisions today
than the importance of the pol-
icy issues at stake. This can be
done in various ways, including
longer terms of office and term
limits. We need a national com-
mission to address this funda-
mental problem.

Second, we must shift the
attention in our politics from
the eye to the ear. Philosophers
like Richard Rorty in
Jewish Community Should Respond to
Virginia Governor Blackface Scandal
visualize the future. Analogies,
metaphors and images can be
misused by politicians and
make our thinking more rigid
and uncompromising.

We need a politics — as
many of our centrist organi-
zations like No Labels, Better
Angels, the Institute for
Communitarian Policy Studies,
and the Bipartisan Policy
Center have been explaining for
years — that focuses more on
dialogue and listening.

We need politicians who
will speak to those tens of mil-
lions of Americans in the mid-
dle who are not certain and
who want bold, creative solu-
tions that take ideas from the
left and the right.

Ironically, if we put lis-
tening over both talking and
ocular metaphors, we will also
make an abstract unreachable
future less relevant to decisions
today because our long-term
goals will be more integrated
with our current challenges.

In short, we can make the
next election less relevant to
We need politicians who will speak to those tens of millions of Americans
in the middle who are not certain and who want bold, creative solutions
that take ideas from the left and the right.

focused or more focused on the
2020 election than what was in
the best interest of the country
today. Trump needs the wall to
fulfil a campaign promise, and
the Democrats need to block
his request in order to deny
him the loyalty from his base
that he craves.

A 2,000-mile concrete wall
is a vivid image that helped
Trump win in 2016. It is also an
image that is anathema to many
Democrats since it paints a pic-
ture of the United States which
is offensive to their moral sen-
sibilities — the United States
losing its exceptionalism status
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Philosophy and the Mirror of
Nature have decried the role
that ocular metaphors play in
Western thought for illustrat-
ing how knowledge is obtained.

Focusing on visualizing the
future basically devalues the
importance of other human
senses, notably listening.

Every politician and corpo-
rate leader creates a vision for
the future. Truth be told, this
leadership style is overrated.

Politicians spend too much
time speaking and not enough
time listening, and they spend
too much time focused on the
future and getting voters to
our politics if we listen more
to each other and envision the
future less than we try to hear
it from each other. Hearing
the future does not mean not
having long-term goals; it
means not having simplistic
visions which we will realize
and which make us less likely
to compromise with others. l
Dave Anderson is editor of
Leveraging: A Political, Economic
and Societal Framework. He
has taught at the University
of Cincinnati, Johns Hopkins
University and The George
Washington University.

JEWISH EXPONENT
THE BLACKFACE AND KKK scandal of Virginia Gov.

Ralph Northam offered the Jewish community an opportu-
nity to join forces with African-Americans, including the
Congressional Black Caucus, in calling for the governor’s res-
ignation. Yet the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish
Committee and other national Jewish organizations have
been silent.

Historically, the Black-Jewish alliance was at its high point
during the civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s, when Jewish
leaders such as Rabbis Abraham Joshua Heschel and Wolfe
Kelman marched in tandem with Martin Luther King Jr. at
Selma, Ala., and other places in the South.

Since that time, there have been fractures in the alliance. Now,
however, this opportunity presented itself, but we let it slip away.

Jews might view this through our own prism. Imagine Gov.

Northam had Nazi memorabilia on his yearbook’s page. We
would be outraged and demanding his resignation. There’s no
difference. If the Nazi memorabilia insults our sensibilities, we
should recognize that the blackface and KKK robes do the same
for African-Americans.

It’s not too late. The ADL, et al. can still weigh in. And we can
learn for the future, as incidents like this will surely surface. Next
time, the Jewish community should be ready to act.

David Broida | Bryn Mawr
Roe v. Wade Under Ongoing Attack
Stanley R. Askin wrote (“Human Life is Worth the Inconvenience,”
Feb, 7), “As a Jew, I would never wish to force upon a woman the
burden of caring for a child that she does not want.” Yet, he goes
on to condemn abortions performed for reasons other than the
“usual rape, incest and for the health of the mother.”
Roe v. Wade gave women the right to control their repro-
ductive health and that the right to choose is to be made by her,
her health care provider and loved ones should she so choose.

The Casey decision placed constraints on Roe allowing states to
restrict that right as long as they did not constitute an “undue
burden.” Every Republican governor has pushed the envelope on
“undue burden” to the extreme.

Abortion will be illegal in 35 states as soon as Roe is over-
turned or rendered meaningless by the Supreme Court. This will
happen during the Trump administration. Ironically, it’s the
Republicans who call for less government intrusion on our lives
and freedom of choice yet they always embrace the religious right
to pass laws restricting personal freedoms that conflict with their
personal dogma. l
Mark N. Cohen | Havertown
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published in the Jewish Exponent are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect
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FEBRUARY 14, 2019
15