On Sept. 15, I stood on a hilltop at Banias Church in northern Israel, surrounded by 1,200 Israeli flags. Each represented someone murdered on Oct. 7, 2023. I thought about how easily a number can hide the people behind it. Every person had a family, a future, and a place in someone else’s life. Those places are still empty.
As a Jewish person and an Israel Defense Forces reservist, I looked across those flags and saw Christians remembering people from my country whom we had lost. The Star of David, which Jews have been targeted for wearing, stood openly on church grounds. People of another faith had made space for our loss in their own community. Those flags told me that our grief mattered to them, and that we did not have to carry it alone.
That is the power of Flags of Fellowship, an initiative of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. By planting Israeli flags, Christian communities make remembrance visible. They invite everyone passing by to pause, remember the murdered, and recognize that the Jewish people have friends willing to stand publicly beside us.
At Banias, I met someone who had worked with my grandmother, May Long. Growing up in Boston, I watched her build relationships between Christians and Jews through Christians and Jews United for Israel, which she founded in 2006. Among those flags, I came to understand her work more deeply. She had spent years building friendships that her grandchildren would one day desperately need.
I served as a lone soldier in Israel, began supporting other lone soldiers in 2018, and founded Growing Wings in 2019. Since Oct. 7, I have served in the reserves in places now being debated and lied about. I saw it with my own eyes. In 2024, two people in ski masks ambushed me at DePaul University in Chicago and attacked another Jewish student. The hatred we face in Israel is not confined to Israel.
These experiences have made bearing witness a responsibility I cannot ignore.
The world needs to hear from those who lived through Oct. 7 and its aftermath. Their testimonies carry the voices of those who can no longer speak for themselves. We owe them the truth about what happened and the care to remember who they were before their lives became part of a tragedy. Bearing witness means carrying their memory as a responsibility to bring hope and light into the world.
Strong Voices for Israel, an initiative of Growing Wings, creates opportunities for Jews and Israelis to share their firsthand experiences with non-Jewish communities. Our partnership with the Fellowship brought those testimonies into churches across the United States for Flags of Fellowship.
On October 4, at World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, I joined Pastor Allen Jackson and the Fellowship’s Robin Van Etten. I asked the congregation to imagine a Jewish child walking past their church and seeing Israeli flags planted outside.
At a time when Jews are attacked simply for being visibly Jewish, what might that child feel? Perhaps, for a moment, less afraid. Perhaps aware that people beyond their own community care about their safety and future. Those flags could reach a child the congregation might never meet, offering reassurance they could carry home.
In Tennessee, I told the congregants that my testimony was the truth, and now theirs to carry forward to combat misinformation about Israel and the Jewish people. Showing up means listening and taking responsibility for what you hear.
Our other speakers encountered that solidarity in the communities they visited.
In Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Yehonatan spoke to help the congregation see the families behind the headlines about Israel. He described the power in having people of faith come together out of humanity and love for Israel.
In Tampa, Mordi, who experienced Oct. 7 and later served in Gaza, arrived to find Israeli flags throughout the church grounds and gardens. “Seeing Israel represented so proudly in a Christian community was a beautiful and powerful feeling, and it made me feel welcomed,” he said.
We honor our shared Judeo-Christian values by supporting grieving families, helping people rebuild, and staying present after public attention moves elsewhere.
That includes confronting the danger of hatred itself. A world without Israel is a world without Jews, and a world without Jews is not safe for anyone. History shows us that what starts with Jews doesn’t end with Jews.
We cannot restore the lives taken on Oct. 7. We can honor them through greater compassion, greater courage, and a commitment to supporting the living.
OUR SAVIOR IS JEWISH. WHY ARE SO MANY CHRISTIAN LEADERS STAYING SILENT?
“Never again” is a promise we keep by remembering the murdered, supporting the living, and refusing to let hatred take root.
The flags will eventually come down. Our responsibility must remain.
Max Long is the Founder and CEO of Growing Wings and a co-founder of Strong Voices for Israel.
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
