Israelis*In*America

Shimon Erem, Community Activist: Building Bridges with the Christian Community

"As an Israeli American I think I am a bridge between the United States and Israel."

Considered by many as the "patriarch" of the L.A. Israeli community, Shimon Erem has been a community activist for over five decades. He holds masters degrees in economics (Columbia) and agriculture (Hebrew University, Jerusalem.)

After serving in the British army in WWII, Erem became involved in clandestine operations to smuggle Jewish refugees into Israel and served as general in the Isreali Defence Forces. After moving to the U.S. in 1970 he conducted strategic research, in part with the Department of Defense and American intelligence agencies.

Active in such organizations as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), former president of Bnei Brith of the Western U.S., and former chair of the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, Erem now spearheads efforts to garner support for Israel among American Christians and to build bridges between the Israeli and Christian communities. His wife Danielle is an 8th-generation Jerusalemite who holds a Doctorate in Law from the French University in Beirut.

What is your focus these days?

Most of my time is taken up in my activities with the Christian community, the Israel Christian Nexus … it consumes most of my time. We are trying to establish as many churches as possible to support Israel, by first and foremost meeting and talking to their pastors and then the churches themselves.

We have already at this stage have 35 churches supporting Israel in Sacramento, we have 39 churches supporting Israel in Bakersfield, 19 churches supporting Israel only in Simi Valley here, 19 churches in San Diego. So we have quite a few hundred churches that support Israel and we just want to build it up.

We have events in the churches, and speak often to them. It is impossible for us to speak to every church so most of the time it is the collection of churches….we had a big event in Stephan Wise Temple for solidarity – Jews, Christians, rabbis and pastors. We filled up the area with 23000 people .

Are you working also with the Christian schools?

We decided now to start working with the Christian schools after an exceptional great work that Dr. Dan Lieber , son of the formal president of university of Judaism has done with the Catholic Church….he’s done exceptional work with them … we are going to do the same thing with the churches that are affiliated to us.

Outside southern California when I speak to churches in some other places I insist that I want to speak to the teachers to the high schools if they have any. I have done it in Minnesota, I’ve done it in Michigan. I have in each place a volunteer who represents me there and makes the arrangements.

Most of the churches are Lutheran churches in the Midwest, prior to the contact to me were quite apprehensive as well as Israel is concerned…. some of them even hostile…The procedure starts with one-on-one encounter. I meet with one pastor, we speak, and in more than 90 percent of the cases….

[For example,] in Minnesota I met with 13 pastors. Only one I didn’t manage to convert to become a friend of Israel. But 12 of 13 so much so that they called me or my representative and said "if Shimon Erem wants to talk to the church, he is more than welcome, if he wants to talk to our school… he is more than welcome. If they have a radio they invite me to speak on their radio, and then in few cases they have TV stations. After I come and I speak, they get in touch with my representative. Everywhere it was the same thing – in Florida, in Michigan, in Texas, in Oklahoma, in Minnesota, they get in touch. They say we would like to have either breakfast, lunch or dinner whenever I’m free … and without exception I had to extend my stay so that I have enough breakfasts lunches or dinners to meet with them. It is very very successful and very gratifying.

There are three kinds of churches – all Protestant and Evangelical churches… [Of the first two] either they are part of the Calvary Chapel which are already pro-Israel, or they are part of the Four Square churches which are not hostile but they need education. It will be much easier now because the honorary co-chairman of our organization, Pastor Jack Hayford has become the president of the 38,000 Four Square churches in the world. We have developed a person who was friendly to Israel before but we made him even more so, more involved, and invested in him a lot as far as our education is concerned He is now the world president of the Four Square churches [comprising] about 49,000 pastors and 38000 churches all over the world. So this is the second group. And the third one is [comprised of] evangelical independent churches.

I have a bone of contention with the Fuller Seminary which is a very famous one. Quite pro-Palestinian, not overly friendly to Israel, and this is probably the only exception in the evangelical world and that is a seminary. It was in Los Angeles Times that the president of the seminary wrote a letter to evangelical leaders and sent them a draft of an agenda what are the things that an evangelical board should do. It concentrates mainly on the social issues not the political issues, … that [they] should declare that [they] are not affiliated in any way – not only formally – with any of the parties.

I wrote another letter to the same people … and I said he missed the main issue of our life – and this is terrorism. We don’t have to wait until we’ll have another 9/11 in this country on a much larger scale to start considering terrorism is the main issue. It is enough of what we see in the world and it was not by sheer chance that he missed this issue. This omission is because he did not want to insult our–in quotation marks –"Arab friends." It is part of the not-friendly attitude to Israel. I can assure you I’ll have more people siding with me in the top hierarchy of the Evangelical movement whether it is Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell or other heads of the Evangelical movements.

I will have a meeting in the month of September with hundreds of African-American pastors. I have met them before, when I visited churches of some of the pastors immediately after the last riots in Los Angeles. I went to a church of a friend, a pastor friend of mine, to express my solidarity. He was surprised to see me, but happily surprised. I have connections with Latino pastors– again, not as widespread as I have with others, but this is one of the thing that I am going to concentrate on now.

History … it’s part of me and I use it, because I am working a lot with the evangelical Christians. Evangelical Christians believe in the Bible. Not only in the New Testament, but also in the old. It’s extremely, extremely useful in the course of a conversation or an address to a larger group, if you suddenly quote the Bible and the chapter and verse. There is a verse in Psalms which says "God will give strength to Israel, God will bless them with peace." I quote this and see them pay attention.

==IiA==