Yael Eckstein, President and CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (also referred to as IFCJ or The Fellowship), oversees all ministry programs and serves as the international spokesperson for the organization.
Prior to her present duties, Yael Eckstein served as Global Executive Vice President, Senior Vice President, and Director of Program Development and Ministry Outreach. Based in Israel with her husband and their four children, Yael is a published writer and a respected social services professional.
Yael Eckstein has contributed to The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, and other publications, and is the author of three books: Generation to Generation: Passing on a Legacy of Faith to Our Children, Holy Land Reflections: A Collection of Inspirational Insights from Israel, and Spiritual Cooking with Yael. In addition, her insights into life in Israel, the Jewish faith, and Jewish-Christian relations can be heard on The Fellowship’s radio programs.
Yael Eckstein has partnered with other global organizations, appeared on national television, and visited with U.S. and world leaders on issues of shared concern. She has been a featured guest on CBN’s The 700 Club with Gordon Robertson, and she served on a Religious Liberty Panel on Capitol Hill in May 2015 in Washington, D.C., discussing religious persecution in the Middle East. She was also featured as the cover story of Nashim (Women) magazine in May 2015. Her influence as one of the young leaders in Israel has been recognized with her inclusion in The Jerusalem Post’s 50 Most Influential Jews of 2020 and 2021, and The Algemeiner’s Jewish 100 of 2019. She was named a winner in the 10th Annual 2022 CEO World Awards®, and received The Jerusalem Post’s 2023 Humanitarian Award.
Born in Evanston, Illinois, outside of Chicago, and well-educated at both American and Israeli institutions – including biblical studies at Torat Chesed Seminary in Israel, Jewish and sociology studies at Queens College in New York, and additional study at Hebrew University in Jerusalem – Yael Eckstein has also been a Hebrew and Jewish Studies teacher in the United States.
In honor of Israel’s 75th anniversary, Yael Eckstein featured Ambassador Ido Aharoni on her podcast, Conversations with Yael. Ambassador Aharoni, an Israeli diplomat, has dedicated his entire career to fostering connections between Israel and the international community. As he shares with Yael, Israel stands as a remarkable testament to the ingenuity and resilience of the Jewish people. However, there remains a vital task of effectively conveying Israel’s distinctive identity and the story of its accomplishments to the world. Ambassador Aharoni emphasizes the importance of ensuring that people not only recognize Israel but also comprehend the immense value it brings to the global stage. Join Yael and Ambassador Aharoni as they commemorate Israel’s past, delve into its present, and envision its promising future.
Yael Eckstein: The Fellowship is celebrating 40 years of serving the Jewish people with its Christian supporters and friends, and Israel is celebrating 75 years since the founding of the Jewish State in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. With that in mind, as we celebrate Israel and all she has contributed to the world on so many different fronts, I welcome to the podcast our distinguished guest, Israeli Ambassador Ido Aharoni. Throughout his extensive career as a diplomat in Israel’s longest serving consul general in New York, Ambassador Aharoni has dedicated his life work to building bridges between Israel and the world.
He currently serves as global distinguished professor for international relations at NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He’s a member of the International Advisory Council of APCO Worldwide and a global ambassador for the Maccabi World Union. Following his 25 year career as a veteran of Israel’s Foreign Service Ambassador Aharoni founded the Brand Israel program and was named head of Israel’s first brand management program. Born and raised in Jaffa, his parents were part of the generation of Israelis to fight for and welcome the newly independent state of Israel.
Ambassador Aharoni also served in the IDF and was an infantry commander during the First Lebanon War. This career in public service to Israel while building bridges and friendship with her neighbors worldwide is certainly in line with The Fellowship’s mission.
YE: Can you tell us a little bit about your upbringing in Israel and how it was different from the Israel we know today?
IA: Certainly, Yael. My family has a long history in this region. My father’s side settled in Jerusalem in the 1870s, coming from the region of Bukhara in Central Asia. They were merchants and played an important role in establishing one of the first neighborhoods outside the Old City, which is still known as Bukharim. On my mother’s side, they came from Yemen and settled in Tel Aviv shortly after its establishment in 1909. I was born in Jaffa and raised in the city of Holon, a southern suburb of Tel Aviv. Back then, Israel was much smaller, with a population of only two and a half million. It was a time when there was no television and limited access to certain luxuries. The economy was primarily based on agriculture, with Jaffa oranges being a significant export. Over time, Israel has undergone tremendous growth and transformation into a technology and life sciences superpower.
YE: You shared that you see hope and light when envisioning the future of Israel. Can you elaborate on that unique and positive outlook?
IA: The first thing is we have to understand how we got here. Israel is a miracle. There’s no question about it. And what are the reasons for the miracle? Because no other nation was able to do what our nation was able to do. Not only when you look at survival, the story of the survival of the Jewish people. I mean, if you think about throughout history, every major empire in every civilization, the Jews were accused of trying to rule the world and someone was trying to kill the Jews in every generation. It’s insane. And yet, here we are and the Roman Empire is, you can read about them in the history books, but they no longer exist. All those who tried to destroy us are not there anymore. And the question is why? There are two explanations that I think are the key to Israel’s success today.
Nothing that I say is my own original idea. These are things that other people researched and validated and confirmed. The first thing is that there’s something about the DNA of the Jewish people that is the key to the understanding of not only their survivability but also their success. And that is the refusal to accept limitations. The refusal to accept limitations is part of the DNA of the Jewish people. And it starts with Abraham’s permission to argue with God. It continues until this very day with the culture of debate. So when a lot of people see political debates in Israel, they see bad news where what I see is actually a very healthy debate, a debate that emanates from tension. And tension exists in every immigrant society, whether it’s in Chicago or in Toronto or in any place where you have immigrants and you bring them together, but that tension is what creates the magic, right?
There was tension between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. A great deal of tension. We know that. But look at what that tension created. There was great tension between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, but look at what that created. So there’s tension between groups in Israel and that’s great. We just need to make sure it doesn’t turn into violence, which it hasn’t so far. But that tension creates creativity. That creativity is the engine of Israeli prosperity. That’s the first thing that I would say.
The second thing [is that] the Israelis, the Jewish people and Israelis, are continuing that tradition as a nation of storytellers, and stories inspire people. When you look at the role of Jewish people punching way above their weight, the Jews are 0.02% of the global population. And yet when you look at their contribution to humankind, the Jews are punching way above their weight.
The reason is because they are being viewed as inspirational in every dimension of life, whether it’s in culture, in science, even in politics and business. They’re being viewed as inspirational. And I think that this is what the world sees in Israel. So if we take the view from above about what’s happening in Israel, I think that those assets are still there. I think they will be there forever in terms of, this is who we are, this is our DNA as a nation. Regardless of what is happening in the political sphere, I think that Israel will continue to thrive. As I mentioned before, we are expected to become a nation of 18 million people by 2048. That’s a big country.
YE: What words would you use to describe Israel from a brand management point of view? And what do you see in the years ahead as being Israel’s strongest brand as we try to spread this beautiful message in those two defining characteristics that you described to the world?
IA: What defines Israel and will continue to define Israel is the exceptional creative spirit of the Israeli people. Some people call it a startup nation. I think the startup nation is a very limited view of Israeli creativity only in high tech. But Israeli creativity is manifested in all areas of life, from the Israeli cuisine to the Israeli canvas, to the Israeli dance floor, and even to the way you raise money to help the Israelis like you do day in and day out. Very creative. So creativity and the creative spirit of our people, which is inspirational on the one hand, and of course is galvanizing, brings people together on the other.
Here’s the thing. For decades – and my work is not done unfortunately, for decades – Israel tried to defy the very basic rules of marketing. What is the number one rule of marketing? Let’s say I want to sell this bottle to you. First thing I need to know is what is the value proposition? What is the relative advantage of this product? Then once I understand what are the qualities of this product, my job is to communicate those qualities to the relevant audiences. That’s marketing.
Now what Israel tried to do, and understandably because Israel was under attack, is to market itself through its problems, which stands against the very basic rules of marketing. You cannot market a place, a country by highlighting its problems all the time. It means that the only people that will visit you, or the only people that will invest their money in you, the only people that will develop curiosity in you will be the people that feel sorry for you, which has been the case. And there’s nothing wrong with that, by the way. Many good Jews and many good Christians connected with Israel on that background.
However, when you want to grow and you want to establish a powerful brand, you need to be relevant to people beyond the people that feel sorry for you or feel committed to you for whatever reason. If you want to build new audiences. And we even see that today when we look, and I’m talking about this after looking at research, even in the younger generation of people, when you look at the younger generation of evangelical Christians, when you look at the younger Orthodox Jews in America, when you look at younger people all over the world, the connection their parents had to Israel, which their parents and their grandparents took for granted, is not being taken for granted by them. What does it mean? It means that we, the Israelis, have to work harder to connect with them. We have to make an extra effort to connect with them.
How do we make that effort? By showing them how Israel can be relevant to their life, not the other way around. There’s a new formula. Israel has to make the effort. Israel has to put in the effort to communicate itself, its qualities, and most importantly, how Israel is relevant to people’s lives. When people that battle cancer will know that the breakthroughs are coming from Israeli scientists, it will change their position. I’m a big fan of television and I’m a big fan of movies and content, and I have to say that many people in the United States were completely unaware of the fact that some of the greatest content that they’re consuming actually originates from Israel. And it gave me great joy and pleasure to bring this to their attention, and people were blown away.
Is there any one meeting with any sort of leader that you remember as just being either informative or hysterical or unexpected? A meeting that stands out to you that when you look back at your many years as a diplomat, you just can’t believe that really happened?
IA: Well, I attended so many unbelievable moments really. You have to understand how old I am. When I joined the Israeli government, the Israeli Foreign Service, the Prime Minister was Yitzhak Shamir. So that’s how old I am. I’ve witnessed them all since then. But you know what? I’ll tell you a story that puts things in perspective. So in 1992, I was accompanying the Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in New York. He came for the United Nations General Assembly. And Shimon Peres really was the kind of person that really liked to be embraced by the public. Whenever he had a chance, he would walk the streets of Manhattan. That evening we went to see a Broadway show starring Marla Maples called Ziegfeld and the Follies. I think it was a short-lived Broadway musical.
And we were walking somewhere around Times Square, and of course, I was walking the back. There was a whole entourage. And Shimon Peres was walking there surrounded by his security. And obviously, people on the street realized it’s an important person because he’s surrounded by security. So people took pictures of him and there was one particular couple that wanted to have a picture taken with him. And they did. And the entourage continued to walk. Then as I was approaching these two people that took a picture, the elderly couple, the wife was asking the husband, “Who was that? Who did we take a picture with?” And the husband said, “Don’t you know? That was Yitzhak Shamir.”
And it was really an epiphany for me because I realized that in this case, it was Peres who was convinced that everybody knows who he is. I realized that we’re not really at the center of the world, and in fact that we have to work very hard to make an impression and to be attractive. And it’s not enough just to assume that everybody cares about us. We need to work hard to cultivate relationships with our evangelical friends, with our Jewish friends, and with our other friends. We have to work very hard at the maintenance of this relationship. That to me was a moment. Of course, we never said anything to Peres that the couple didn’t even recognize who he was. They just assumed he was a famous person and they wanted to have a picture with him. But the same thing goes for most… With the exception of Moshe Dayan. Because of his eye patch, he was really almost a household name all over the world. Even David Ben-Gurion. There are documents from the American Department of State, they didn’t even know who he was. People knew Chaim Weizmann because he was the face of the Zionist movement because of his international diplomacy. He was the global face of the Zionist movement. But the Americans didn’t really know David Ben-Gurion. Their documents indicated that they thought he was a radical. They thought he was a terrorist. I’m talking about the US Department of State in the 1940s. Of course, we think everybody knows who we are. Yeah, they’ve heard of Israel, but we need to make sure that they understand what value we’re bringing to the table. That’s the key. What is our proposition? Why is it important for you to be in touch with us? The onus is on us to prove that.
As we celebrate 75 years of Israel, what’s your anniversary wish for Israel and what do you see for the next 75 years?
IA: What I see for the next 75 years is tremendous growth in all walks of life, and the level of energy in this country is unbelievable. Every Israeli wants to make a contribution. My main concern is that we will be successful integrating fully into Israeli society the two sectors that are right now not part of the Israeli miracle, we’ll call it. … Because Israel, this is very important for our listeners to understand, Israel is a knowledge-based economy. What does it mean, a knowledge-based economy? Our main asset is intangible. It’s not oil, it’s not gold, it’s something intangible. It’s here. We need to bring in all the sectors in Israeli society to be part of that effort, to be part of that celebration. So we have right now two sectors that we need to make sure that they come in.
First is of course, what is popularly referred to as the ultra-Orthodox. They do work. About 50% of ultra-Orthodox men work as part of the labor market. But the problem is that they work within their own community, and we need them to be the scientists of the future. We need them to be the doctors of the future. And of course, the other sector is the Arabs. And with the Arab sector, the problem is especially women’s employment. And if we are able in the next 75 years to bring these two sectors into the system that produces knowledge, that produces the great breakthroughs, then my imagination doesn’t even… I’m unable to grasp the potential. It’s going to be huge.
I’m very optimistic about the future. I think, again, it’s going to be marked with tremendous growth, unprecedented growth. And my wish for Israel for the next 75 years is to be able to fully and successfully integrate all sectors within Israeli society. And I don’t like when people use the word tribes to describe, because the tribes, we’re talking about decentralization of the world of information. So by definition, it’s an endless number of echo chambers and what people call tribes. So I prefer looking at it as a joint effort, as a celebration, as a party. And we want other people to join the party celebration.
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