The Eric Metaxas Show - #44 - Erez Soref

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

In this episode, I talk with Erez Soref of @oneforisrael about his Jewish journey to faith in Jesus, why Nehemiah matters right now, and why they see modern antisemitism as spiritual, not just political. TIMESTAMPS (0:00) Intro (0:19) Dr Erez Saraf Joins (2:11) How A Jewish Israeli Met Jesus (5:23) Why Nehemiah Still Matters (7:31) Exile, Return, And Rebuilding Walls (13:05) Who Was Nehemiah’s Persian King? (14:24) Is Israel Setting The Stage? (17:11) Why Is Antisemitism Surging Again? (22:34) One For Israel And Bible College

Hey there, folks. Welcome. It's my great joy to bring a new guest to the program. This is our new friend. His name is Dr. Erez Soreth. He is the CEO and president of an organization called One for Israel. He's the author of a brand new book called Walking the Walls with Nehemiah. And he's my guest right now. Errez, welcome. Hi, good morning. Hello. Shalom. I know you're in Tel Aviv area. You're in Israel. I want your story before we get into everything. Where did you grow up? What is your faith story? And how did you get to be the head of an organization that's bringing Jesus to Jewish people? Well, I was born and raised in Israel. And in my generation, in the 70s and the 80s, we would hear. We heard absolutely nothing about Jesus of Nazareth. And when I was 22, I met for the first time in my life. It was outside of Israel when I was traveling a group of Christians. And, you know, like I said, I didn't know very much about Jesus or Christians,

but I could see some spiritual quality in their lives who became friends. And they told me about Jesus. And I said, well, Jesus is great for you, you know, but I'm Jewish. we don't believe in Jesus, but it was through their testimony that what Paul is calling, causing the Jewish people, the jealousy happened to me.

Where were you when you met these folks? So there was in Europe, and I actually got a New Testament in Hebrew, and I started reading it, and I was absolutely shocked because I could understand what was going on. You know, it all happened in Israel, and, you know, the religious leadership of the day,

the Pharisees, Sadducees, they were still very much with us, but I was very much drawn to Yeshua, to Jesus. And anyway, through a process where the Holy Spirit convicted me of my sinful nature, I have become, I confessed my sins and became a follower of Yeshua.

And I thought I was the first and lonely Jewish person to make this great discovery, you know, that Jesus is not just the Messiah of all the world, but also our Messiah. I hate to break it. to you, but Peter got there before you. Well, well, just a little bit.

I thought I was the first one in 2000 years, at least. It was a photo finish between you and Peter. No, I, it is funny, right? Because I think, again, it's been a big part of my life writing my book on Bonhoeffer, how so many people think that there are two groups of people in the world. You know, there's Jews and Christians. And I say, no, no, no. There's Jews and Gentiles.

And many, many Jews believe. in Jesus and many, many Gentiles do not believe in Jesus. And there's been a huge confusion on this issue. And of course, I've discovered the Jewishness writing about Bonhoeffer. He discovered the Jewishness of Jesus. And it really is beautiful. It's like a coming home when we realize this is at the heart of our faith. And so I know it's your story more than it, my own, but you want to bring Jewish people to their Messiah. And so it's an exciting thing. So how did you get involved, though, in founding a ministry in Israel?

And is there, I guess, I would assume that there's some hostility, that there's so many Jews that do not understand that Jesus was a Jew and he came for the Jew first? Right. And so shortly after I became a follower of Yeshua, I was filled with intent. enthusiasm to tell my friends, my family, my neighbors, you know, people that I meet. And when I did, I found that the response was, you know, some, I was a little bit naive. I thought that we'd be so happy to hear, but the response was not as positive as I expected. And yes, you're right.

Certainly 30 some years ago. And even today, there are a lot of people that don't like that. They think that Jesus is not for us as Jewish people, partially because there is a painful history between the Jewish people and the church, mainly the Catholic Church. And this is something that's always at the forefront of the, I would call the national conscience or, you know, memory of the Jewish people. But I will say this.

The situation is greatly shifted in the last 30-some years. And now, many of our family members and friends and neighbors, they're a lot more open to discuss, you know, Yeshua being Jewish and faith in him as Jewish people. And by the way, at one for Israel,

we're not only minister to Jewish people, we also minister to Arab people because 20% of the Israeli population are Arabs, and as you know, we are surrounded by a billion Arabs. And so it's very important for us not to share it only with Jewish people, but also with Arab people. Well, if you're a human being,

you're created in the image of the one who sent Jesus into the world, and he wants every single one of us to know him personally. So it's a beautiful thing. I want to talk to you about your book, Walking the Walls with Nehemiah. What made you decide to write this book? Well, I, for many years, been infatuated with the character of Nehemiah. I always saw in him a wonderful inspirational leader.

And, you know, over the years, over the couple of decades, I'm following the Lord. I always went back to the book and studied it, read it. The last 10 years, did a couple of teaching series about it. And then three years ago, we had a staff conference at one for Israel. There was probably about that time 80 of us or so. And we studied the book together for four days. The result of that conference, the book is part of the teaching we had there.

And what really drew me, I think, beyond the leadership lessons, which are really one is also the very interesting parallels between the period that Nehemiah served, the return from the Babylonian exile, the first exile of the Jewish people. And what he did as a civil leader paved the way for the first coming of the Messiah. And now we are leaving in a season where the Jewish people have once again come back to the land. And the Jewishness of the gospel, as you put it, and the faith in the Messiah once again spreads in the land. Israel really didn't happen since the book of Acts. And in some way, we are now looking, and in some way we have part of preparing the way, if you will, for the second coming of the

Messiah to this earth. So very interesting parallels. We're discussing all those things in the book. What is the history for folks tuning in who aren't aware of the history of the Jews going into exile? When did they go into exile? When did they come back? Give us a little bit background. on the years we're talking about. Sure. So about 450 years before Jesus came to Earth, the Jewish people went on the first diaspora. They were dispersed from the land of Israel.

The temple was destroyed by the Babylonians. And most of the Jews went to exile, which was the most severe form of discipline in the Mosaic covenant. They were in the diaspora for 70 years, as Jeremiah prophesied. You know, the Lord said through Jeremiah. And then groups of Jews started to come back. It was under the Persian Empire at the time, which is interesting that it was the Persian now in our day with attention with Iran.

But that's what happened. The then Persian king was very positive to Jewish people. And Nehemiah came about 100 years later after the first Jews came back. when they came, when the first came back, they wanted to build a temple and so on, but they failed. And the reason they failed is because Jerusalem did not have a wall around it. So there was no security for the city. And as a result, the spiritual status of the worship of God in Jerusalem was suffering. And so that was Nehemiah's life calling.

That's what he did, building the wall around Jerusalem, which enabled safety and the worship of God and preparation, as I mentioned, to the first coming of the Messiah. Now, why do I have the date 587 BC in my mind? No, you're right. You're right. That was the exact date that the exact year actually was, I think, I believe, 586, that the Babylonians completely destroyed the temple. And then throughout that next year, they drove the Jewish population away.

But I thought you said 450 years before Jesus. Yes. You are correct. I was estimating and you are correct. It's 586. I was going to say, because I know you know this. So I just want to make sure because I thought, am I missing something?

So this is obviously a big deal in the history of the Jewish people. So what enabled them to come back? Well, you know, about 20 years before Nehemiah, and men named Ezra, who was a spiritual, leader received the permission from the Persian king to come to Israel. Now, Ezra was a spiritual leader, and I specifically used the following word. He was a reformer around the word of God. He allowed Jews from all tribes to come and study the word of God, not just Levites and priests, but from all tribes, which was truly, you know, a real reform back in the day. 20 years after him,

After Ezra came, he came with a small group, relatively small group, Nehemiah, who was a very, very high official in the court of the Persian king, decided to forfeit his very high position, his very comfortable life, make a very significant personal sacrifice, risk his life in asking the king to come to Jerusalem and rebuild the city. He spent four and a half months, between four and five months, in prayer, in fasting, in consulting with others that were like-minded with him. And when the opportunity came, he asked the king to do just that, and the king gave him everything.

And so he came to Jerusalem as the new ruler of the Persian king on behalf of the Persian king and told the Jews that were there. That's why I came. We need to rebuild the wall to reestablish the worship in Jerusalem so that God will once again received the honor. So that was the motivation. And who was the king Cyrus? No, no, no, no. It was a different

dynasty. It was the grandson of Ahasawares, which we read about in the book of as we, as the Greeks like to say, Xerxes, yeah. Yes, Xerxes, that's right. That's right. You're Greek and I have very good friends in Greece as well, a lot of very good friends

in Greece. Well, on this program, there's neither Jew nor Greek, so forget about it. That's awesome. Yeah, there we go. Hey, folks, before we get back to our guests, I just want to say a lot of people donate when there's a headline. But MDA, Magan David Adom, doesn't get to slow down when the news cycle moves on. MDA is Israel's national EMS system. That means emergencies don't stop today, tomorrow next month. Heart attacks, accidents, trauma, surgeries, blood shortages, they're constant.

Keeping that system strong requires ongoing support. When you give to the American friends of Magin David Adom, your funding, the basics that make everything else possible. Ambulances on the road, blood banks for trauma and surgery, training for first responders, and equipment that's used every single shift. This is not symbolic giving. This is practical life-saving support. If you want your donation to have direct, measurable impact, this is one of the clearest ways to do it. Go to savinglifeisrael.org. That's savinglifeisrael.org. So yeah, so that was, that was the, that was his grandson. His name was I'm going to slaughter it.

I can say it in Hebrew, but I'm going to slaughter it really badly in English. But that's the grandson of Ahsa-Wares or Zerxes, as you say. Xerxes. I think Xerxes has two X's in it, so it makes me feel good because my name only has one. Well, so in your book, walking the walls with Nehemiah,

what are you talking about? Who is the book for? So really, it is a book, particularly for people in leadership, because Nehemiah embodied and describes very vividly a lot of very common leadership experiences, anything from willing to personally sacrifice to standing against slander,

to stand against external enemies, stand against internal strife from among the people that you serve, and just generally a lot of different tensions. And as I mentioned previously, for me personally, and I think probably for others who would read it, his character, his leadership, his devotion to God and a willingness to personally sacrifice

his position is something that is very, very inspirational and gives a lot of wisdom. But it really is for anybody. It's not just for people that are currently in leadership positions, because most of us, most people, have some leadership in their lives, you know, some people that are responsible for and so on. I want to go back to what you were saying before that we're living in a prophetic moment,

this idea that once upon a time, the Jews were in Israel, they're driven out of Israel. Of course, in God's timing, they return to Israel in our lifetime now. They're back in Israel. And you're saying that you believe this is God setting the stage for the return of Jesus.

So there's a, I'll start with a very well-known story. I mean, true story. It's about a rabbi from the 13th century. It was a very famous Bible commentator in the Jewish tradition. And he lived in Spain. And he wrote a... Now, and who was this? His name is Rabbi Moses, son of Nachman.

In Hebrew, his acronym is Rambana, with an N at the end. The Rambon. Yes. He wrote a commentary on the book of Genesis. And he noticed, as he was studying the book of Genesis, that kind of what happens to the fathers is happening again, you know, to the sons, to their children or children, children, and so on. So he coined the term that states, the acts of the fathers are assigned to the sons. In other words, history repeats itself.

And I think as we look at the Bible from this perspective, we can see that many, many, many times things tend to, what's the word word? I don't know, to kind of repeat themselves, if you will. And, of course, other people said history repeats itself, right? But I think in biblical history, in God's timetable, there are certain things that are happening. You know, God chose to do it that the first time he regathered the Jews,

Christ, Jesus, Yeshua came the first time. Now, it's at least an option to look at it in a way that God has again regathered the Jews as he said he did, he will. And once again, there's a revival that's going on among

both Jews and Arabs in Israel in the Middle East is this part of setting the stage for the Messiah's second coming. Of course, there's many other things as well that are happening around us in that direction. Well, the rise of anti-Semitism, I have to say it does shock me. And I want to talk to you a little bit about that. I mean, I know, again, mainly because of my study on Bonhoeffer, that when you attack the Jews, you are attacking the people of God. You're trying to attack God. You will also attack Christians. We're seeing this right now. We're seeing an attack. increased attacks on Christians, increased attacks on Jews. What do you think is at the heart of this?

And what do you think is at the heart of not many Christians, but some Christians really misunderstanding this idea that we're supposed to stand with the Jews? They get upset by this. They really don't seem to understand what we mean by this. Well, I think the source is ultimately a spiritual source. And God has an enemy. he's not equal to God in any way, shape, of form.

He's a created angel, name Satan, as you know, created by God and gives account to God. Now, he hates God and he hates anything that has to do with God. And he tried to destroy Israel before the Messiah came the first time. And amazingly, he is trying to destroy Israel again before the Messiah's second coming because he knows that Israel still has a role to play in God's plan. for humanity. And, you know, ultimately, when you hate the Jews,

when you persecute the Jews, it's not about Israel. It's not about the Jewish people. It's about the God of Israel. I mean, that's really at the heart of it. And it is very sad. As you mentioned, there are some voices in the evangelical community

that are speaking very, you know, very harshly against the Jewish people, against Israel, also against the current state of Israel, which is, an imperfect democracy, but it is the only democracy in the Middle East. And I think that's just a total misunderstanding. It's, yeah, it's a shame that's taking place.

But as you said, talking about Bonhoeffer's period. So my wife's family, they were Jewish believers in Jesus in Germany at that period of time. And when the race laws came to be, they were, you know, they were forbidden for in participating in in church activities because they were they were Jewish and and they were. I mean, they were excommunicated kind of deal because the explanation was, well, we have to obey the law kind of deal. I mean, people like Bonhoeffer were few and far between then and unpopular. Many people before you continue, I just want to clarify for those listening, most people don't know at the heart of the story of Bonhofer, at the very at the center of it was that

the Nazis, of course, these are pagans, you know, devil worshiping, atheists, whatever they are, they wanted to control the church. And they wanted to define things, not the way the Bible defines things, but according to race. So to them, Jews bad, Germans, Aryans, good. And so according to this, they said, well, we're going to make the church Aryan. We're going to make the church pure. Jews allowed. And that's where Bonhofer and the Confessing Church said, excuse me, we have a problem. In the church, there's neither Jew nor Greek. In the church, everyone who worships Jesus is a member of the church. And of course, that's where the clash came. And you had many pastors, and we have those kinds of pastors today unwilling to stand up against the government, unwilling to stand up for what the

Bible says, but the fact that your wife's family experienced this personally, that Jews in Germany who believed in Jesus were kicked out of German churches. If you want to know what the church is, if you kick out people who believe in Jesus, you are not the church. So it's unbelievable to me, and I've never spoken to anyone who's had a direct experience of that. So I'm excited just to get to know you. I look forward to meeting you in person and meeting your wife and talking about this in person. But thank you for mentioning this, because this is central to where we are right now. I agree. And I think this is exactly because the atmosphere, the general atmosphere now, even in the United States, is very similar to what happened in Germany, to the atmosphere

in Germany in the 1930s. I mean, again, maybe the early part of it. But, you know, the next phase, God forbid, I hope it's never going to come to this, is really. that, as you say. So I agree. This is, this is our time in history, again, repeats itself in a sense. Well, we know what the, we know what the spiritual root is of this. It's satanic. And if you follow it, yes, that's where it goes. That Satan wants to destroy the people of God, the people of God being the Jews and those who believe in Jesus. That's always been his goal. And you say, see it sometimes very clearly. In the Bonhofer time, you see it extremely clearly. I don't want to assume everybody's read my book or seen the movie, but it's so fascinating to me that we're seeing

it again now. Precisely the same thing. Now, if people want to check out your ministry, what is the website for One for Israel? You're the head of One for Israel, but what is the website for One for Israel? So the website is all letters, no numbers, and no spaces. One for Israel.org. That's one for Israel.org. And as you mentioned, there's O-N-E-F-O-R. Yes. One-for-Israel.org.

Yes. And by the way, as you mentioned, it's not just the book that's came out. We also have a program, a series, a 10-part series on Nehemiah on TBN, on Saturdays. It premieres on Saturdays at 830 Central. And again, reruns on Tuesday same time.

I used to have a show on TBN back in the 1970s. Most people don't know that. It was right before the Gators. Now, you also have a Bible college in Israel, one for Israel Bible College. Yes. So we are the only accredited Bible college in the country. And so we are very privileged to serve the wide church.

You know, Israel is an immigration country. So we have people from literally all parts of the world, Jewish people from all parts of the world, as well as, as I mentioned previously, Arab brothers and sisters. And particularly in the last three years, when there's been, you know, we went through really harsh wars, both in the Gaza's trip and then with Iran and just a general, very negative atmosphere around the world.

It's a powerful testimony to say that in the Messiah, Jews and Arabs serve together, love each other, pray together, and just a powerful, powerful testimony to the power of the gospel. Well, it's a joy to get to know you a little bit. I look forward to more. My guest folks has been Dr. Erez Soreff. He is the head of One for Israel. You can check them out at One for Israel. That's all spelled out, OneforIsrael.org. and the brand new book is Walking the Walls with Nehemiah. Dr. Erez, Soref, God bless you. Thanks for coming up. Appreciate it.

Hey there, folks. I want to tell you about a coffee company. I genuinely admire 10 Boom Coffee, inspired by the faith and courage of the 10 Boom family. This isn't just great coffee. It's coffee with a mission, ethically sourced, expertly roasted, and rooted in Christian values.

If you care about what you consume and who it supports, This is coffee you can feel good about. Go to 10boomcoffee.com. Use promo code Eric for 15% off your order. That's 10boomcoffee.com code Eric. While the corrupt federal elites have been quietly building wealth through cryptocurrency, hardworking American patriots have been left behind. Today, I want to tell you about metaxis crypto.com.

They're bringing access to cryptocurrency wealth to real Americans. Crypto is supercharging President Trump's America First Economic. miracle, and now you can be a part of it. I partnered with Block Trust IRA because their mission perfectly aligns with President Trump's Make America Great Again agenda, smashing down the barriers between loyal patriots and the financial freedom they deserve. Their animus AI trading platform works 24-7 analyzing market data and executing advanced crypto strategies that are beyond simply buy and hold, helping true American patriots build impressive wealth in Trump's historic. economic boom. There's a reason their system was named the number one crypto technology platform

by Bitcoin magazine from over 1,500 global competitors, whether you're a teacher, truck driver, small business owner, or retiree, watching inflation, eat away your 401k. Block Trust IRA's advanced animus AI gives red-blooded Americans the same advantages as those coastal elites. Right now, their clients are seeing over 250% returns on their investments. And with military-grade security investments are protected by up to $200 million in insurance. Don't wait, visit metaxiscrypto.com. That's metaxuscripto.com and find out how they can help you join the Trump Crusade Financial Revolution that's finally giving forgotten Americans access to the greatest

crypto wealth opportunity in history. For a limited time, they're offering my viewers up to $2,500 in bonus crypto when you open an account. Crypto created 80,000 new millionaires last year under Trump's phenomenal economic leadership. Why not you next? Visit metaxuscrypto.com. That's metaxuscrypto.com making retirement great again.