Jerusalem Dispatch: Israel This Week

October 17 - 23, 2026

The Forgotten Calling

Has the Church Failed the Jewish People?

“Why are there so few of you?”

A Christian leader who lives in Israel recently put that question to a group of visiting believers. One of those visitors was Dr. Tim Orr. He is a researcher at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy. Since hearing the question, he has not been able to shake it. Neither can I.

After 7 October, he was told that very few Christians came to Israel to comfort its people. Many had good reasons: war, money, health, family. Orr grants all of that. Then he asks the harder question:

“Have we become comfortable talking about Israel without taking action?”

Many of us who love Israel know the prophecies well. We can trace Ezekiel’s dry bones and the return of the exiles. We read the headlines and fit them onto an end-times chart.

Orr warns that somewhere along the way we can begin to see the Jewish people “as mere figures in a prophetic timeline,” and forget that they are people. “Christian Zionism must be more than a theological position,” he writes. “It must become a calling to love and serve the Jewish people.”

This week gave us a picture of both. More than 35,000 Israelis living abroad have registered with one group alone to fly home for a single day, because Israel has no absentee ballot and they want their vote to count. Meanwhile, foreign music executives are staying away from Israel’s annual music showcase in record numbers. “They won’t even talk to me,” says its artistic director.