Theology in the Raw - An Israeli Christian's Perspective on Israel-Palestine: Dr. Dan Sered

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

Dr. Dan Sered is a COO for Jews for Jesus and overseas the Jews for Jesus teams in Europe, South Africa, Israel, and Australia. With a doctor of ministry from Dallas Theological Seminary, an MA in ministry and leadership from Western Seminary. Dan was born in Israel and had a secular Jewish upbringing. His family relocated to the United States when he was in his teens, where he came to Christ in the late 90’s. Dan helped to pastor All Nations Church in Israel for 17 years. He and his family returned to the US in 2020, when Dan was appointed chief operations officer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology and Ra. My guest today is Dr. Dan Sarid, who is the COO for Jews for Jesus and oversees the Jews for Jesus teams in Europe, South Africa, Israel, and Australia. He's got a doctorate in ministry from Dallas Theological Seminary and MA in ministry and leadership from Western Seminary. Dan was born in Israel and had a secular Jewish upbringing. His family relocated to the United States when he was in his teens. And that's where Dan came to Jesus in the late 90s. And Dan moved back to Israel with his family to help pastor All Nations Church in Israel for 17 years. And he and his family returned to the US in 2020. And that's when Dan was appointed Chief Operations Officer for Jews for Jesus. I tell the story a little bit, but Dan and I share a mutual friend,

Ferris Abraham, who's been on the podcast once or twice actually. And I was just really impressed with the conversation I saw Dan and Ferris have about the situation in Israel-Palestine. You know, Ferris is Palestinian, Dan is Jewish, both are believers in Jesus. And so, I just thought that they modeled just beautiful gospel unity in the midst of this really intense, divisive war going on in Israel-Palestine. So, I wanted to have Dan on the show. I know I've had, look, I've had many Palestinians on. I've had, I think only two Israelis on the podcast to talk about the situation. And I wanted to have Dan on to add his voice to the conversation. And just really, really enjoyed talking with him about his perspective of how as a Jewish Christian

living in Israel or formerly living in Israel, how he has viewed the situation going on in Israel-Palestine. So, without further ado, please welcome to the show for the first time, the Wonderlander, Dr. Dan Sarie. All right, Dan, thanks so much for being on theology in Iraq. I, I, I came across you through our mutual friend, Ferris Abraham, and, and watched a dialogue you both had about Israel, Palestine, and how you're thinking through this. I mean, Ferris is Palestinian, you're Jewish, Israeli Christian, born, raised in the land. And I just thought you guys model the gospel so beautifully. And so I was like, I got to have Dan on. So thank you so much for being on Theology of the Rock. Preston, thank you so much for having me. It's a privilege and a pleasure.

So, thank you, brother. Yeah, my pleasure. Why don't we start by just having to tell the story of how you came to Christ? I mean, because that's a bit of an unusual thing for a Jew to come to Jesus in Israel. Right, right. So, I was born and raised in a typical Israeli Jewish home. And for many of our listeners here, when you think of Israeli Jewish home, many don't recognize that most Jewish people and most Israelis are secular, right? Secular Jews, that's the majority of

the Jewish people. But many times Christians would think of Jewish people, I would just think of the Orthodox Jews, right? So, but that's just a small minority. So my parents were actually born in Romania and moved to Israel as teenagers in one of the, you know, Aliyot, one of the waves of people that came into Israel from all over the place. And they met in Israel, got married. And both my parents are atheists, more educated. They don't see any sense in believing in God. You know how it is, secular, liberal. So that was my upbringing. But in Israel, just like in every country,

we have holidays and the holidays in Israel are the Jewish holidays, the Jewish feast. So as we would celebrate them, even as secularists, you know, we all love holidays, we all celebrate holidays, right? I didn't, for me, those holidays were very meaningful even as a child. And the stories that I heard about God, about what He did for us, I truly believed. So for example each year when we would recount the Exodus story around our Passover table, you know, Passover is coming up. And I really believe that God brought us out of Egypt,

that He really performed all those miracles, you know, and delivered us from slavery. So for me I never really bought into my parents' atheism. And then when I was 14, my dad's job moved us from Israel to the States. So I graduated from high school in New York, started attending Stony Brook University, which is a state university of New York school. And I was studying math. I have a bachelor of science in math and while I'm going to school, I got a job tutoring students.

I very much pretty quickly figured out that my gifting in math is something that many college students struggle with. So I said, yeah, let me take advantage of it. So I started tutoring different students and one day I was helping this girl with her math, you know. And as I was helping her, she recognized my accent in English, and she asked me if I was Russian. And I said, no, I'm not Russian, I'm actually Israeli.

And she said, oh, that's wonderful, I'm also Jewish. So that kind of gave us a connection, you know, and something in common. So, you know, we just continue just talking small talk. And then at some point in the conversation, she told me, she says, you know, am I believe in Yeshua? Now being fluent in Hebrew, right away, I recognized the word Yeshua. The word Yeshua is the Hebrew word for salvation. But I've never heard that word used as a name. Today in Israel nobody is called Yeshua. So I said to her, Yeshua, who's that? And she says, that's Jesus. And that

was amazing to me. Shocking really because I never knew that Jesus said a Hebrew name that meant salvation, that was Yeshua. Second of all because I never knew that Jesus said a Hebrew name that meant salvation, that was, you know, Yeshua. Second of all, I never met somebody who was Jewish and believed in Jesus. So I wanted to know more. I had to find out more. So we met for lunch a few days later, and that's when she opened the Old Testament scriptures to me, and she shared with me prophecies about the Messiah.

And then she showed me how Jesus, how Yeshua fulfilled each and every one of those prophecies in the Messiah. And then she showed me how Jesus, how Yeshua fulfilled each and every one of those prophecies in the New Testament. And it just made perfect sense to me. So I said to her, okay, what are my parents going to say about this? You know, showing that I really believed. So praise God. And a few days later I prayed with her to receive the Lord. And Preston, you should also know that two years later, we got married. This is my wife Dina today. We have three children. After we got married, we got married in August 99 and then joined the Ministry of Jews for Jesus. In August of 2000, after we completed our missionary training program in New York City, we moved

to Israel. So all three of our kids were born in Israel. I served there as a missionary for many years and became the Israel director of Jews for Jesus. Also, I pastored the church in Israel for many years, for over 17 years. And just as COVID was doing at the height of COVID, July of 2020, we moved to the States, not because of COVID, but because of my new position within Jews for Jesus as the Chief Operating Officer. So that's my story briefly. Where did you live in Israel? Where have you

lived? Like around Jerusalem or Tel Aviv? No, so I was born in Herzliya, which is a northern suburb of Tel Aviv. And then most of our time we lived in a city called Petah Tikva, which is an eastern suburb of Tel Aviv. The greater Tel Aviv region is called the Cluster of Dan, not named after me, but actually named after the tribe of Dan that had his inheritance right there. But remember then they rebelled and moved up north. But anyway, that cluster of Dan is basically the greater metro Tel Aviv area where most

Jewish people, most Israelis live. You don't really know where Tel Aviv starts or ends or where another city is, you know, it's all kind of this cluster. And most people when they land in Israel, they land in, you know, Ben Gurion is our one airport and they think it's in Tel Aviv, but actually it's not officially in Tel Aviv, it's in another neighborhood. Oh, it's not. Yeah, I thought it was in Tel Aviv. Yeah. No, it's in a city called Lod. But anyway, it's this cluster of cities and I lived in that cluster. You know, it's not. Yeah, I thought it was in Tel Aviv. No, it's in a city called Lod. But anyway, it's this cluster of cities and I lived in that cluster. It's like Los Angeles. Where does Los Angeles begin and end? It's just a big sprawl. That's right. You understand that very well.

So you said most Israelis are secular. Some are very committed Orthodox. I'm sure you have you know, very committed Orthodox. I'm sure you have, you know, different viewpoints in between. How do they view each other? How do the secular Jews view the Orthodox and how the Orthodox view the secular? Do they get along great or is there like tension and animosity? There's definitely some tension with this Israeli society for sure. And, you know, and there are several reasons for it. A lot of it has to do also with our form of government and with some cultural issues. But just like you said, hopefully people understand

that there's a lot of people in between. So there are secularists who might be a little bit more traditional and maybe will keep more or less of the practices, but then there's the extreme, ultra-orthodox Jews who didn't even want to mix with the secularists. It's more complicated than we would want it to be or maybe the way we communicate is sometimes very in extremes, but there was a lot of people in between. Okay.

So I do want to talk about just the current war and the tensions and everything going on in Israel-Palestine. I would love to kind of lead us into that. Growing up in Israel, what was your perspective of Palestinians? Did you have any interactions with them? Or was it where you... I talked to another Israeli friend, he said, for most of my life, I didn't even talk to a Palestinian. There's

minimal interaction. And obviously, that's different depending on the geography of where you're living. But yeah, what was what you thought of Palestinians? What came to your mind growing up? Yeah, definitely growing up. I didn't have much interaction with Palestinians. But I think that was also important, you have to make an important distinction, right? So when we're talking about Palestinians, we're talking about Arabs who don't have Israeli citizenship, right? For whatever reason. Now, of course, there are some Arab Israelis, Arab who do have Israeli citizenship, who would still

consider themselves Palestinians. But I'm talking about broad strokes, right? So I did have, growing up, I did have connections with some Arab Israelis who wouldn't see themselves as Palestinians, but you're right, I didn't really know much of Palestinians. They seemed kind of like, I mean, again, I was a kid, right? So in my childlike mind, you know, there were our enemies, you know, they're, they're the ones who are going on buses and, and blowing themselves up, you know, that was something that happened a lot, you know, before the wall, before the fence, all that, you know

what I mean? And I was brought up in that reality, you know, where we were very, you know, we saw a lot of buses that were blown up in Calavita, in Haifa, around us, you know. So that was kind of the reality. And who was to blame for it? Well, it was the Palestinians, you know. And so, yeah, in many ways, I, but I didn't have many interaction or I didn't have any interactions really with Palestinian Christians. Yeah, I was, I lived outside of Jerusalem for about four months in 1999. And the bus route

that took us to Jerusalem that we took every day, I remember after I moved home, one of those buses got bombed. Yeah. And it's a little surreal. Yeah. It was a period where it seems like, maybe it wasn't daily, but to me as a kid, it seemed daily that there were basically terrorists going with bombs on them and just blowing themselves up in buses. Now, you think about how it is to kind of grow up with that and kind of what that does to you and to your psyche. You know, it's very hard. And, you know, unfortunately, we're seeing a continued hostility and escalation in both sides today, you know, again, affecting children on both sides in very traumatic ways, right? children on both sides in very traumatic ways, right? So talk to me about October 7th.

How you were in the States at that time. What went through your heart and mind when you were watching the... So it was Saturday. I don't know about you, but I love sleeping in on Saturdays. But on that particular Saturday, I don't know what it was, But on that particular Saturday, I don't know what it was, but I woke up and I saw that it was early. But I didn't know what time it was, so I don't know. I have a bad habit.

I look at my phone. Look at these things, the phone. So why do I look at the phone to see the time and it was 6.45? But there was something very strange. Immediately I said, why it's too early, I want to go back to sleep. But my phone was on fire. You know, there were thousands, thousands of messages. You know, so you need to know that even though I moved to the States, I'm still very much connected with people in Israel. My family lives there, my brother, my

dad, and of course, the church that I pastor, you know, it's still going on today, praise God. So I have a lot of connections, a lot of people not to mention the 70 or so Jews for Jesus staff that I'm responsible for that are there, right. So you need to know that I have obviously a lot of connections, I travel to Israel all the time. So even though I was in the States, you know, I was connected, I'm very much connected through the phone and through social media with Israel. And then when I saw thousands of messages, I'm like, wow, something is wrong. Something happened. So I started looking and

it was just so... It's hard to describe. It was disbelief, shock, heartbreak. Some of the videos that I saw that were there, I wish I would never seen. I mean, it's just horrendous, horrific, and videos of houses burned, people burned, rape, I mean, murder, I mean, it was just awful, awful stuff. I don't know how much of those pictures of video you've seen, I wouldn't recommend it.

It's just really awful. And I never thought that I would see such images in my life. Now, of course, I've been exposed a lot to the Holocaust. My grandparents Holocaust survivors, I've been to the Holocaust. My grandparents are Holocaust survivors. I bring to the Holocaust memorials and Holocaust museums. Yad Vashem, the one in Washington, D.C. said that I haven't seen stuff, but I never thought that I would see images that would just kind of remind me and bring me back to that dark history. So it was just great, you know, shock, sadness and

unbelief. And of course right away I started to connect with people and making sure people were okay. And you know, so... Did you lose anybody that you knew in on that day? Not directly, but like I know people who have close family members and friends who were lost and that's very typical in Israel. Pretty much everybody knows somebody. You either know somebody first hand or you know somebody who knows somebody. So it's very, very sad and including then seeing the hostages and seeing hostages taken. And I know some people who family members are hostages.

So very, very disturbing and very heartbreaking. I never thought that something like that would happen. And I don't think anybody really thought that that was possible. You know, as Israelis, our confidence, as Israelis, especially non-believers, again, broad-stroke, general picture, you know, our confidence is in the IDF, in the intelligence, in our security forces. And all of that was pretty much discovered as an illusion. So I'm not as spiritual as my wife, and for me it was kind of like shock, connect, whatever.

When I woke up, Deena, my wife, and told her about it, she said, okay, let's just stop for now, let's pray. I don't know if your wife is like that. And I needed to kind of recalibrate myself and say, wait a second, let me just hold on. Let's pray. Let's, you know, look in the scripture, you know, and of course the time I need, I turn to the Psalms. I'm sure you do too as well, you know? Yeah. Anyway, it's been, it's been ever since and it's been, it's been very difficult. And I've been to Israel several times, of course, times, I think five or six times since October 7th.

And not just October 7th, but just basically what happened afterwards in terms of Jewish people and the rise in anti-Semitism and Jewish hate. I'll be really vulnerable with you that just yesterday. So I'm the chief operating officer of Jews for Jesus. I'm responsible now for all the Jews for Jesus mission outside of North America. And just yesterday, I got a text pictures from our director in France, in Paris. This This past weekend there's been a lot of demonstration and anti-Israel, anti-Semitic rallies all over Paris and our office was just yesterday graffitied with like a very anti-Semitic graffiti. So we're all affected by the Jewish people, the Jewish community, you know, is really hurting in them and afraid and very much feel alone. You know, like the whole world has turned against us, you know.

So it's been very difficult, challenging in time. You would say you used the phrase arise in it. I mean, anti-Semitism is centuries old. It's always there, but you've seen a rise in that in the last couple of years or last decade or? Since October 7th. Well, yeah, first of all, we've seen that kind of trend, but it wasn't as predominant. It wasn't as big as we're seeing it now. I mean, the UN, for example, has always passed a lot of resolutions against Israel, condemning

Israel. If you look at archives, you'll notice that out of any country on earth, Israel has been the most scrutinized by the UN with a lot of resolutions, you know, but you know, since October 7th, that number has rocketed, you know, and anti-Semitic attacks have been on the rise for a while, but they just, you know, exponentially increased since October 7th. We're talking about attacks on Jewish people, attacks on Jewish institutions. I mean, in this country, all the protests on college campuses, you know, and protesting the war, but turning very quickly with a lot of chants that are just very anti-Semitic

and calling Jews' names, chanting to destroy and kill Jews. I mean, just really, protect type of stuff. Now, I would never think that in the United States of America that this would be our experience, but it is. In Jewish students, in NYU, in Columbia University, and in other universities across the country, UCLA have really experienced a lot of fear and a lot of trauma and a lot of anxiety because they don't know that their homes, their campuses are safe anymore for them because they're Jewish.

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Click on the book a free trial lesson button and pick a 30-minute time slot that is convenient for you. It's 100% free, no excuses. And it's a great way to meet a teacher and gain a better understanding of how easy, convenient, and fun learning with Kairos will be. The saddest thing for me is just the people's inability to separate what they might see as injustices done by the Israeli government and separate that from all Jewish people in the same way that people

can't separate Palestinian, even a Palestinian Christian from, say, Hamas or something, you know. You can protest and despise Hamas and absolutely love Palestinian people. And it's just that, and vice versa, you can say, I think the Israeli government is doing some really horrific things and I love Jewish people. The majority who might even not even agree with a lot of what the Israeli government's doing and the inability for people to separate those two categories. I mean, I could criticize the United States government as I often do.

It doesn't mean I despise 400 million Americans. You know, it's like, I don't know. Where does that come, I mean, is that just, is it just lazy thinking? Is it propaganda? I don't know. It's just- I don't know, but I think that it's also,

for me, it's also kind of amazing to see how much, and you know, Preston, you know this, that there is a lot of injustice, a lot of horrific things that are happening all over the world. We have, for example, a situation where Russia invades Ukraine. It's hard to know the numbers, what exact or whatever, but you're looking at hundreds of thousands of deaths, soldiers, civilians on both sides. I don't know the exact numbers, whatever. But I'm not seeing protests on college campuses, free Ukraine, move away Russia. Now, maybe there was one or two, but not the value. Not to mention Burma, where there is great genocide, the

largest refugee over a million. I'm not seeing, you know, people going to the streets, people are fighting and not within the church, not without the church, with outside of the church about it. You know what I mean? But it seems that there is, you know, the Israeli government, let's just pick on them. It's like, okay, yeah, but American government, Burmese government, Russian government, there's a lot of governments that maybe, so maybe we should look at some sort of, you know, I'm not saying equality, but it's just, for me, that's what's really amazing. Why is the country that I'm from such a small, tiny country? You know what I mean?

How many Jewish people are there on the face of the earth? Maybe 16 million, 17 million? You know, it's almost like why are you picking on us and just on us? Do you think the difference though is that the US is, while, you know, very much supporting the state of Israel and in particular the military, you're funding the military where they're not funding Russia's invasion of Ukraine or Burma. I don't even know what's going on. I don't know the details there. Yeah, I'm not an expert either, but I wasn't just talking about the US, I was talking about

globally. Okay. In the world. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, it's talking about what I'm seeing in France and in Australia and in other places. But back to the US, the truth is that the US also supported the Palestinians, also sent a lot of money to the Palestinians. In that way, I mean, Israel also sent money. That's part of the biggest criticism against another one, again, to politics, but against the prime minister in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu,

that he led the people to have this conception that, hey, we'll send money to the Palestinians, to Hamas. They're there, sure, they send rockets to us. We have a border around them, we have a wall around them. We're keeping them at check. They send rockets, we bomb them. But hey, we're still supporting them. We're giving them, it's all okay. The money that has come to Hamas has come from the US,

has come from the EU, come from the Israel as well. You know, so it's not just, and U S is just supporting Israel. They just kept nose. It's also supported the Palestinians and I don't know the numbers and I'm, I don't know, I guess as well as more, but, but so you see what I'm saying? And we have, we have to look at things kind of like from both sides. It's not an either or it it's a both-and. But my hope that the audience that is listening to this podcast, that they would walk away with this understanding that as Christians, as brothers and sisters in the Lord, that

we're united with our Israeli Jewish brothers and sisters in the Lord, that we're united with our Palestinian Arab brothers and sisters in the Lord, that we're united with our Palestinian Arab brothers and sisters in the Lord. You know, we- That's good. I hope that we can reject this false binary narrative that you must pick sides, you know? And you're either pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian.

You can't do both. You know, I really hope that we understand that two things can be true at the same time. They're suffering on both sides. They're suffering Israelis, and they're suffering Palestinians. As Christians, our heart breaks for both, and for both sides. Yeah, that's good. That's good. How have you... So, yeah, post October 7th, the last 18 months, you know, there's been a lot of obviously, you know, deaths among Palestinians. How have you thought through the Israel's response?

Like is, I'll leave it open-ended because I don't want to put words in your mouth. Preston, there's been a lot of deaths among Israelis as well. And any death is tragic. War is tragic. And the situation is very nuanced, very complex. There are no quick, simple answers. Perhaps none where everyone wins. In many ways, it's war.

Everyone loses. And war doesn't have winners, you know? And we all need to pray for peace. We need to pray for an end to this senseless violence and aggression on both sides, both sides, you know? And I think that, you know, for me, my heart grieves, you know, grieves for the pain and suffering that we're seeing by people. I think that very quickly we can get into politics, we can get into who's right, who's

wrong, they did this, they did that. But in many ways, it doesn't change the gravity and the heartbreak of the situation where you're having people who are lost. And in many ways, maybe that's what we need to focus on. And that is the need of the gospel to go to Palestinians, to go to Israelis, to go to Gaza, to go to the West Bank, to go to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. You know, and we've got brothers and sisters on both sides who are doing just that, you know, who are preaching the gospel, bringing the good news in the midst of great pain and suffering and in the midst of great hardship, you know. I love you said, you know, let's not focus on politics, let's focus on the gospel.

I love that so much. I have an honest question and love your response. It's going to dabble maybe a little bit in politics, but I do, I really want to talk about how you have joined with Palestinian Christians to pursue peace together in the midst of these tensions. with Palestinian Christians to pursue peace together in the midst of these tensions. Obviously there's suffering on both sides. Is it, from my vantage point, which is from a distance, I don't live in the land, I've spent time in the land, but nothing nearly is obviously you growing up there.

It does seem a little lopsided. Like, I mean, I mourn every single death on October 7th. I've said that many times. I mean, I can't imagine the horror of being just massacred, that civilian massacre. It's just, you know, any human being should be able to mourn that full stop. Since then, there's just been, you know, what, 17,000 children, Palestinian children killed, many other women, and for every, you know, bombs dropped on whole buildings to get one Hamas leader and, you know, 150 civilians crushed under the rubble. Like, it seems like while all suffering is, any Christian should mourn that, it seems a little

lopsided like Hamas isn't flying jets over Tel Aviv and dropping bombs on apartment buildings, you know. They're fighting, any rocket set is, I think, an evil and we should condemn that. And whether it hits a field, a house or a person, that's, again, full stop. But is it right? Am I right to say it does seem to be very lopsided, the injustice? Yeah. I think that that is a very fair question. I don't know that you and I can be the right judges over it. Praise God we don't judge, right? God is the one, the ultimate judge. So I feel grief and concern for both Israelis impacted

and the Palestinian people who are suffering. And the Palestinian people have been suffering in Gaza for a long time. And not just at the hands of Israel, but at the hands of Hamas as well. When Israel disengaged, when Israel left Gaza, I think you heard of the head of the Bible Society in Gaza that was dragged in the streets and martyred. That happened in Gaza City, you know. So there's been a lot of suffering that the Palestinians people have gone through. So I think what I would want to say is that, you know, I think that I want people to understand how actually, you know, Jewish people and the Palestinians, you know, we don't think

of it, but in many ways, there is a lot of commonality of Jewish people and Palestinian people. Have you ever thought about that? I mean, you know, no one wants today, it seems that no one wants the Palestinians. I mean, remember when Trump made his, one of his bombastic statements, hey, they should go to, we should send them to Egypt or Jordan or whatever. They kind of came up and said, no, we don't want them.

You look at the Jewish people, no one wanted the Jewish people. I mean, remember the Holocaust, remember what happened. You know, it's not that Jewish people were displaced and sent out of their homes in Iran, in Iraq, in Yemen, of course, all over Europe, right? And Israel became our state because of that in 1948 when the UN declared Israel as the

sovereign state, place for the Jewish people. So in many ways, there is a lot of common ground and I don't find us talking about that. You know, there is, I don't know, I'll say it again and again, a lot of grief, a lot of concern for all those who are impacted by this senseless evil war. You know, Palestinians, Palestinian children, Palestinian adults, innocence, and also Israeli children and Israeli adults, you know, and we, you know, we need to recognize that it's on both ends. And, you know, this is a tragedy.

It's a humanitarian crisis. Again, two things can be true at the same time, suffering Israelis and suffering Palestinians. I don't know that I am, I mean, you're basically saying it's disproportional. Okay. I am, I don't know exactly how we judge like what's the, what's the time period you're just talking about right now. Well, you know, maybe we should go back in history. Maybe not. I don't know.

I don't, I don't really pertain to have all the answers. My whole point is just to say that there is just pain and suffering on both sides, and both sides need the hope of the gospel. And that's what we really need. And I pray several times every day. I pray for Palestinians, and I pray for especially our brothers and sisters there, and of course for my own people, Israelis, Jewish people. I hope that the audience would join us,

would join with us, not to pick sides. And there are no winners here, there are only losers. And we just need to be in prayer. So like I mentioned before, it seems that all the countries on earth are against Israel and against the Jewish people. So what does that mean? It seems that Jewish people are being picked up on in all these countries where we live in.

And what about that? What about the anti-Semitism? are being picked up on in all these countries where we live in. What about that? What about the anti-Semitism? What about all those other things that are happening? Protests that are pro-Palestinians that become so full of hate against Jewish people, against Israelis, against innocent people. When do we say about that? It's all wrong.

It's all evil. It's all wrong. It's all wrong. It's all evil. It's all wrong. Yeah. No stop. Including the bombing of innocent people in Palestine, in Gaza. Absolutely. You know, nobody, nobody wants that. You know, by nobody, I mean, hopefully nobody among our brothers and sisters in the church, what in that? Right?

I mean, I can't speak for everybody, but for myself, you know, I definitely don't want that. I couldn't agree more. That's so good. Yeah. Talk to me about your conversations more recently, I guess, with Palestinian Christians. I mean, I just watched the one with Ferris, and Ferris is such a wonderful, I just, I respect him beyond, way beyond, I respect myself.

And it's just such a beautiful conversation, you know, like seeing you guys talk about Jesus, and with, again, some differences, maybe different slants on some things. But to see you both light up when you talk about Yeshua is really beautiful. Has it been hard talking to Palestinian brothers and sisters in the last, especially 18 months? Or what have those conversations been like? And what's motivated you to keep having those conversations? Yeah. So I, first of all, I'm a big Faris fan as well, you know, so I think he's wonderful. But I have other Palestinian brothers and sisters that are friends that I've had conversations

with since. You know, you would think that it would be hard or you would think that, oh, wow, they're enemies, but we're not. We love each other. And yeah, maybe we have different narratives. Maybe we have different opinions. I mean, Preston, me and you might not agree on eschatology. We might not agree on other theology, but I mean, those things shouldn't divide us. Right.

Amen. And I don't even pretend to say that I'm right, that I know, those things shouldn't divide us. Right. Amen. I don't even pretend to say that I'm right, that I know everything. I don't. Maybe my narrative is wrong. I don't know. But the point is that we have and we're unified in Jesus and that's what brings us together. And then praying for them, praying with him, with them, it's just a privilege that I have. So to have those brothers and sisters, I just feel so privileged, so thankful, grateful to have that. I wouldn't want to be in a monocultural situation where just people like me and just Israeli Jewish people, from Ashkenazi Jews, from Eastern Europe, no, the gospel is cross-cultural. It surpasses boundaries and we're one.

When we come together, multicultural communities, they're just a taste of heaven where we're all going to be together, unified, praising the Lord. That's what it's all about, right? That's what the gospel is. So I've had some very difficult conversation, hard conversation just because of the pain and suffering and seeing your brothers and sisters in such pain and is always painful for you. So that doesn't just include Palestinian brothers and sisters, but I have very good friends

in Israel, brothers and sisters in the Lord who lost those messianic leader in Israel who lost their son in Gaza. And you see the pain and suffer. So you're paining with them, you're suffering with them. And that's true anytime when I'm with a brother and sister who is in pain and in mourning. And you know, Jews for Jews, we have staff in Ukraine. So I've traveled there, I visited our team there and you see some of the destruction and some of the pain and suffering and just your heartbreaks for them, you know? And with them, so that has been part of the painful process. You know, ultimately, one who suffers the most for all these injustices and all these heartbreaks is our Lord and Savior Jesus, right?

That's a really important theological point to make. Are there like unifying gospel-centered peace talks happening between Palestinian and Jewish Christians? Like, and is that, because I've heard, you know, having lived there a little bit and have friends that are there and stuff like, they talk to me about, man, it's just some of the most beautiful and sometimes really difficult conversations that have happened between, you know, Christians on different sides of the wall. I can only imagine that those have been more challenging since October 7th. But do you have stories and examples of Christians on both sides of the wall coming together in the last 18 months?

Yeah. Yeah, they've been more challenging in the sense because of the war and where before you could, you know, a Palestinian Christian could leave. Sure, they would have to go through the checkpoint or whatever, but they could leave and come into Israel. And, you know, and I've, that's how I've met many of, you know, Palestinian Christians, right? Because they've come. I pastor the church in Israel for over 17 years and we've had both Palestinians and other Arab Israelis come and worship with us. The name of our congregation is All Nations. It still goes on in Patech Tikvah, you know, and that's the whole point, right? All Nations. So, you know, since then it's been more challenging in that sense, but yeah, of course, I've heard stories.

I think one of the most powerful stories that I can share with you is something that happened with our Jews for Jesus staff. So when October 7th broke out, we started doing different things to help people, help people process, help people with some physical needs as well, but many spiritual needs, bringing the gospel to them. One of the things that we wanted, we wanted to bring comfort to our people. For us, like I mentioned to you, turning to the Psalms has been a point of comfort for us, for me personally, and for many believers, and for our staff.

What they decided to do is they decided to animate 50 Psalms, putting them to music, and just kind of sending them on social media, just to kind of encourage people. There's nothing more encouraging and uplifting than the Word of God. Anyway, in the process while we're doing all of that, believers from Iran, Iranian believers, got in contact with us and through the states, but then in Israel and basically said to us, hey, we love Israel, we love the Jewish people, we're on the ground here,

we're facing a lot of hardship in Iran, the believers, they have no freedoms, right? And these particular ones were artists. Now, can you imagine being in an oppressive, as an artist, you know? And they just reached out to say, hey, we're praying for you, we love you guys. And anyway, so we started a conversation with them and then we found out that there were abandoned singers. And basically we said, hey, can we send you the music and the words to Psalm chapter six six verses two to seven?

Can you learn it and sing it for us? We'll put animation story to it and then we'll broadcast it. And basically the story that we put to it was their story. You remember the lady in Iran in 2017 that took off her hijab? And basically we kind of told that story. Not exactly, but basically somebody who goes in with the whole full garb and going into a meagre, anyway, it's so beautifully animated with them singing in Hebrew,

Psalms chapter six verses two to seven. Such a powerful thing, you know, we were in believers, and we should really, us the believers did the animation and whatever. And then as soon as it went live, you know, the Israeli secular TV, you know, caught a glimpse of it and said, hey, can you come and we'd love to interview you, you know. Now, of course, we didn't disclose their names or anything, we understand their security risk, but we're able to basically say, yeah, you see Iranian believers in Jesus, Jewish Israeli

believers in Jesus, we're unified, we're one in Christ because of what Messiah did for us, you know? Yeah, I love that so much. I just, when ethnic cultural tensions are overcome by the gospel, it's just such a beautiful thing. I mean, it's so biblical, right? I mean, it goes all the way back from, you know, covenant with Abraham, right? I mean, through you all nations will be blessed.

And you see Ruth and Rahab and even Uriah, you know, there's other people coming in. And then in Ephesians 2, the wall, Jesus breaking down the ethnic barriers so that we are one in Christ. I mean, and that's one of the greatest tensions in human history, right? Ethnic and cultural, which turns it off into like religious tensions. And to see the gospel shatter those is just, it's so beautiful. And obviously, you know, Israeli and Palestinian tensions are among the most intense right now. And to see Christians on both sides come together, what a beautiful, beautiful picture we can show the world, you know? Like, that's why I just love these conversations so much. Coming together and saying, hey, we're above that.

Yeah. Yeah, there is suffering. Yeah, Palestinians are suffering as well. but we're gonna look above and beyond that. We're gonna come together as one because of Ephesians like you mentioned, because of what Jesus did. Jesus didn't just stay with the Pharisees in Jerusalem, with the rabbis. John chapter three is with Nicodemus, John chapter four is with the Samaritan woman. Oh man. Where Tzavos has been it's been towards a cut cast, right?

So to come up and say, hey, we're going to do that and we're going to stop looking at who's right, who's wrong, who's suffering more, where am I seeing more persecution? Who is this? Who is that? Can we rise above that and say, you know, there is a God here who cares about each and every one, you one, each person. God is not looking up there and says, well, I think right now Israel is more to blame because they threw more bombs or right now Hamas is more to blame because God doesn't

work that way. Sing his sin, injustice is injustice. But what is God calling us to do? He's calling us to love. He's calling us to pray for our enemies. He's calling for us to bless those who persecute us. He calls us to be united in Him. And when I see, unlike you, brother, when I see brothers and sisters who rise above that, that's just amazing. That's the gospel right there. That's just amazing. That's the gospel right there.

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That's e-l-i-c dot org forward slash t-i-t-r. It is pretty just uncanny how his situation in the first century bridges the gap. I mean, he's obviously Jewish, right? So I mean- He's Jewish. he's living under occupation. Yeah. And then he goes through a centurion and heals his, you know what I mean? And he goes around and he heals. He doesn't say, oh, no, no, no, you're the occupiers. I'm sorry. Not for you. It's like, but like both, both, both modern day Israelis and Palestinians can look to Jesus and both have, He resonates

with both situations, obviously as ethnicity Jewish and yeah, under occupation, you know, I think Palestinians can resonate with that. Yeah, but the point is that He resonates also with the suffering Sudanese child who just saw the mom being raped or, you know, he resonates with all the suffering of everybody. So it's not just the Palestinian and Israelis, it's everybody, you know. Jesus is very near the brokenhearted, right? He's near those who are suffering, who are in pain, you know?

And I think we, in many ways, we pain the Lord when we just take one side and when we just basically dehumanize the whole situation. I hope you're not thinking, oh wow, look at Danny's, I'm the chiefest of sinners. I'm just as guilty as anybody else. So I've done this, you've done this. When you just dehumanize the situation and the conflict and say, well, look at the Israeli government, look what the Jews are doing or what the Palestinians are doing.

You know what I mean? There are people behind all those, right? It's people and Jesus called us to pray for them. So in many ways we should pray and love Hamas as well. Those are people. They should come to faith in Jesus. We should pray and love IDF soldiers and the Israeli government and American government. You know what I mean? This is what we're called to do versus just kind of

judging and passing blame. That's not what the Lord is calling us to do. Yeah. I think there's a place for prophetic critique of misuse of power, but that's not, we're thinking out loud here, how to articulate, but that's not at the expense, that's not at the, it's an outflow of the gospel, not the, like, okay, even if you protest whatever government entity you see is doing evil, and even if that, say your protest was effective and they stopped doing evil, like, that's still not the gospel. That doesn't replace the work of Jesus, right? I mean, I don't know. All protests, all prophetic voices that we do should be done with love, right? I mean,

at the end of it, that's really what it's about. So, it shouldn't replace it. And in many ways, we think that, I mean, I would not call myself a prophet. I don't know if you would call yourself one, but... No, I would be a very... Some people think I'm a false prophet, but... You speak prophetically or calling people to the truth and preaching the gospel? Yeah, absolutely. But in many times, sure, if we see injustice, but here you're talking about something that is

so complex. The situation is very nuanced. It's not, there is so much history, so much baggage, so many stories, so many, that in many ways I'm thinking maybe our time would be spent better if instead of being prophetic, we would be spent better if instead of being prophetic, we would be praying. And I mean, and we would, we would love one another and we would show kindness and mercy and grace. You know, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but that's it. It is complex. I mean, I've, um, it's so funny, though, I thought, you know, I raised in, you know, I've, I did my PhD in first century Judaism.

Jewish history is my first love, really. Having lived in the land and toured the land, it changes your life. Yeah, when I spent fall of 99 in the land of Israel and just going to the sites, my faith will never be the same. It's so shockingly real, you know? As powerful as it is to go to the sites in Israel, and obviously I've been there, I've grew up there, so I love them as well.

But let me just telling you, seeing the living stones is more powerful. Seeing our brothers and sisters who live in that land. And Israeli, Jewish brothers and sisters, Arab Israelis brothers and sisters, Palestinian Arabs brothers and sisters, that's, and sisters, Palestinian Arabs brothers and sisters. That's really, you know, when I've taken tours, whatever, and when I've introduced them to local believers,

you know, and I know that that has been really meaningful. And unfortunately, many who tour Israel and kind of miss that, you know, and they never come in touch with local brothers and sisters in the Lord. Most tour groups don't take the time to stop by and go and visit a local messianic congregation or local Arab Christian church or whatever. In my mind, that's a big miss.

And, you know, if it was up to me, every tour group would meet some of the locals, some of the living stars. You know? Talk to me about what God is doing among secular Jews in Israel. Do you see, is the Christian church, which is very small, I mean, you know, you talk about Jews knowing each other in Israel, what, the Christian community in Israel is like... Absolutely. You know people's middle names, their second borns, birthday. I mean, it's very tight knit.

Is it growing? Is it shrinking? Are they persecuted? Tell us about that community. Thank you. Great question. And you're right, very small community. And among the 30,000 evangelical Christians in Israel, only about 10,000 are Jewish believers in Jesus. So we're looking at 10,000 out of 7.5 million Jews, very small, very tight knit. But yes, since October 7th, Preston, that's been the most encouraging thing is that we've seen great openness to the gospel. And let me just give you one stat. I'll give you some

numbers. Behind every number, though, there is a person. So pre-October 7th, on an average month, we would get less than 100 orders of the New Testament in Hebrew. So the New Testament is not a book in Hebrew. It's not a book that you can check out of the library, you can't find it in bookstores. So we offer it for free on our website or our social media and so on. Since October 7th, that number has risen to over 200 for the past 18 months every year. There's openness. People want to know more. We've had thousands of gospel-centered conversations engaging Jewish people, and we're seeing more

and more interest, more and more coming to faith. And that report is not just true of Jews for Jesus, of my staff, of our team there, but it's true across the board. You ask other Messianic believers, and they say, yeah, we've seen an amazing growth in interest and openness, people coming to faith. So despite this hardship, this grief, this tragic war, and God is doing something. In my prayer closet, I've cried out to God, why is this war happening? Please make it stop and I'll be honest with you, I continue to do that. I want to see peace, you know. It's worried, oh, seeing the hopelessness of the people of Israel and seeing them wanting hope and them seeing the hope that we have in the gospel. And they see that on brothers and sisters in the land. And it's just been very encouraging to see how God is moving. Do you see where, yeah, where will this war lead? It just seems to keep escalating. And

if you think through secular lenses, if you just think through a political lens, it just seems hopeless. And obviously, as a Christian, we should never say hopeless. That doesn't belong in our vocabulary. But from a political perspective, if I wasn't a Christian, I would be like, this is just, this could lead to World War III. Yeah, it's very hopeless. Last time I was in Israel, you could feel it in the air. It's so strong. People have no hope. People are like, yeah, it's never... And that's why, that's the power of the gospel.

And that's why Jesus came to give us hope and we have hope in him. That's really powerful and to see more people in Israel wanting that and being attracted to the gospel, that's very encouraging to me and it also gives me a lot of hope. Where is this war leading to? I think where all wars lead to and that is to the second coming of Jesus Christ. Come back Lord Jesus, come as quickly as you can. You know, I mean, that's really, and in many ways, right? That's the hope that we have. That's the hope of the gospel, right? So you're right. We should never, as brothers and as Christians, we should never lose hope. Absolutely.

Well, Dan, thank you so much for being on the show, man. I really appreciate the work you're doing. And I think we're talking offline. Your office is, I could probably almost see my daughter's apartment, which is across the river from you, from your office. I don't know what you're facing, but yeah, I'm actually going to be out there in a couple of weeks. I would love to connect. I'm out there just for a couple, it's like 48 hours, so I don't think I'll have time, but maybe we'll, is the Jews for Jesus office, is it in like near Times Square? Where is it in Manhattan? Yeah, so in Manhattan Manhattan we have our ministry center

right by Washington Square Park. So, oh yeah, right at NYU and NYU has a lot of buildings, a lot kind of like there. And anyway, we have there a coffee shop called Mosheva. Mosheva is the Hebrew word for village. And then obviously the tracts a lot of Israelis. We share the gospel. There's a lot of amazing things. And the coffee is great. Preston, if you like coffee, I think we have the best coffee in all of New York City. Really? Okay, well, shops say the same thing,

but our coffee is really good. You should go and check it out. So it's on West Eighth Street, right? Very near Washington Square Park. And hey, would love to have see your daughter there as well. That'd be amazing. It's a very hip place. A lot of college students are there. A lot of Israelis. Yeah. She's in film school out there. She's done some filming at Washington Park. Yeah, that's where they had the chess players, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. The NYU area and

that whole area. Oh, it's just beautiful. It's gorgeous. It is. It's very cool. Amazing food. What's the best Israeli food restaurant? Wow. There's a place called Miznon. It's not too far from there. That's really good. I don't know if it's the best. There's a bunch of them. Yeah, it's called Miznon. Yeah. Miznon, okay. Yeah. Okay. I'll have to check it out. I absolutely love Israeli food, Palestinian food. I mean,

a good shawarma, fresh hummus with some onions on the side. Oh gosh. That was the hardest thing to leave in Israel was I just got addicted to, I got addicted to falafels, shawarma, just Middle Eastern food in general. I just, oh my gosh, it's so good. There's a place here in Boise actually, a couple of places that serve, they make a really good hummus, doma. Yeah, I have Armenian roots and so there's a little bit of overlap in some of the kinds of food in traditional Armenian cuisine.

A little bit of overlap. People would probably say, no, there's no, it's totally different. All right, Dad, thank you so much, and many blessings to you, your family, and your ministry. Thank you. Thanks a lot. ministry. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.