Rabbis Yechiel Eckstein, left, and Moshe Sebbag at the Grand Synagogue of Paris, June 27, 2016. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
PARIS — The summer drizzle that soaked the French capital did little to dampen Yechiel Eckstein’s enthusiasm as he arrived recently with his wife Joelle at the city’s Great Synagogue for a private tour.
But a run-in inside with a local community leader moments later — typical, perhaps, of this Israeli-American Orthodox rabbi’s often strained relationships with the Jewish establishment — quickly changed the tone of the visit.
Raised in Canada and living in Jerusalem, Eckstein, 64, was in Paris in June to oversee a major initiative by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews — the philanthropy empire that he built starting in 1983, which now brings in $180 million annually in donations, mostly from Christian philo-Semites.
According to its most recent annual report, 73% of its annual expenses goes to what the IFCJ calls “mission services,” including “worldwide programs to support relief, outreach and solidarity with Israel and her people,” including food and clothing for impoverished Israeli children, basic necessities for needy Israeli soldiers and emergency provisions for Jews in Ukraine and other crisis-prone areas.
Reacting to the proliferation of anti-Semitic violence in France and the record-setting Jewish emigration it is generating, Eckstein’s fellowship this summer began bringing large groups of French Jews to Israel (450 have come so far) as part of his oft-repeated commitment to intervene anywhere Jews are threatened.
This activity was nothing new to Eckstein.
His fellowship has already arranged the arrival of 4,000 Ukrainian Jews since it started in 2014 to handle Jewish immigration to Israel, or aliyah, from that war-torn country.
It has raised at least $170 million over the years to help bring about a million newcomers to Israel through the Jewish Agency.
But entering the epicenter of an established Orthodox Jewish community like the one in Paris is not routine for Eckstein — a maverick rabbi who is often shunned in Orthodox circles for his outreach to Christians and his study of other faiths, including Buddhism.
The visit, to which Eckstein invited a JTA reporter, was a sign that Eckstein is finally gaining some acceptance in mainstream Orthodoxy.
The visit, however, did not go smoothly.
At the synagogue, Eckstein burst into an unsolicited cantorial performance from the ornate pulpit, triggering an angry dispute with a local community boss.
The singing interrupted an interview that Joel Mergui, a senior community representative, was giving inside the synagogue to a television crew from Israel’s Channel 10.
Mergui believed, mistakenly, that Eckstein had arranged the crew to record the interview so Eckstein could elbow in on the background, and then use the footage for PR and fundraising purposes.
“It’s a trap!” a livid Mergui exclaimed, ending the interview abruptly. “I host you, advise you to keep a low profile and you use me as a prop for your commercials,” Mergui told the rabbi.
The interviewers tried to explain they were not working for Eckstein, but to no avail.
As with countless previous tiffs over public recognition between Eckstein and would-be allies, the fight seemed rooted in suspicion toward Eckstein, and exacerbated by his temperament and easily bruised ego.
Eckstein is also a media presence who has produced infomercials, aired by the Fox network and Christian channels in the US, promoting IFCJ’s projects around the world.
In one video, which generated millions of dollars in donations, he is seen crying while talking to needy Jews in the former Soviet Union, where his fellowship spends $30 million annually on helping communities and promoting aliyah.
Eckstein’s intense emotional style is part of what made this Yeshiva University graduate an odd fit in Orthodox circles. But they are also what made him an instant hit with millions of Bible-loving Evangelical Christians, whose style of worship is considerably less inhibited.
“I realized that among the conventionally Orthodox, I would always be an oddball, a square peg,” Eckstein says in The Bridge Builder, his authorized biography, which was published last year.
A former professional singer — he used to perform at weddings to keep the fellowship afloat in its early years — Eckstein calmly denied Mergui’s accusation. A tall and broad-shouldered man who played basketball for Yeshiva U., Eckstein assumed a defensive yet non-aggressive body posture as he tried to mollify a much shorter but much angrier Mergui.
Eckstein apologized for his singing, explaining he “just wanted to check the acoustics.”
But Mergui’s reply hit a nerve. “I don’t want you on television singing here without rabbinical approval,” Mergui told Eckstein.
Getting rabbinical approval isn’t Eckstein’s forte.
In 2001, Israel’s then chief Ashkenazi rabbi, Avraham Shapira, published a letter condemning Eckstein’s use of Christian money to “expand Christian missionary propaganda.”
Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the late influential Talmud scholar, signed a letter forbidding cooperation with Eckstein, calling it “close to idolatry.”
“I see you’re so afraid of having your picture taken with me,” Eckstein snapped at Mergui. “If you’re so ashamed, maybe you’re the wrong person to be giving interviews.” Turning to his wife, Eckstein said: “Let’s go get some lunch.”
Eckstein, who says in the biography that his father often discouraged him and never really believed in him, has lost dozens of allies and friends in the Jewish mainstream over his insistence on recognition for himself and his donors.
This issue was part of the reason that in 2014 Eckstein cut the group’s $13 million annual donation to the Jewish Agency for Israel and started his own aliyah operation, which offers every new immigrant a $1,000 grant on top of benefits offered by the Jewish Agency — the body certified by the State of Israel to handle aliyah.
The Jewish Agency has accused Eckstein’s fellowship — a nonprofit with several dozen staff and offices in Chicago and Jerusalem — of acting irresponsibly by creating inequality among immigrants to generate PR for himself.
Eckstein dismissed the critique as coming from disgruntled competitors.
In an interview with JTA, he said the decision to break with the Jewish Agency owed to what he perceived as incompetence, red tape and a lack of transparency on their part, as well as that body’s reluctance to acknowledge the fellowship’s contribution.
The Jewish Agency, in turn, has denied any such reluctance and maintains that it has solved staff-readiness issues that occurred immediately after the surge in 2014 in aliyah both from France and Ukraine.
Ever sensitive about getting a “seat at the table,” Eckstein broke relations with the aliyah group Nefesh B’Nefesh, which he helped establish, over the recognition issue in the early 2000s, he said.
To Eckstein’s critics, this is indicative of an ego problem.
“In his megalomaniacal effort to supplant both the Jewish Agency and the Federation system, Eckstein has become the Donald Trump of Jewish philanthropy,” Sam Shube, a nonprofit consultant and former executive at the left-leaning Rabbis for Human Rights and the Hand in Hand Center for Jewish Arab Education, wrote in a lengthy comment on eJewish Philanthropy.
Jewish federations in North America support aliyah through allocations to the Jewish Agency.
Eckstein accepts the ego charge (“I’m sure I have a great ego, I don’t think anything is done without ego,” he told JTA), but says his insistence on recognition is not self-aggrandizing but aims to “show the donors we’re taking their money and we’re doing, we’re really bringing [Jews].”
He also insists that bodies that benefit from fellowship funding show gratitude not to him but to his donors, “who give sacrificially an average of $75 from their salaries, social security payments, giving up on vacations and cars to help Jews,” he said.
As the top professional at IFCJ, Eckstein is a recipient of some of that sacrifice.
From 2002 to 2007, he made an average annual salary of $363,312, plus another $129,596 per annum in unspecified benefits for a total average compensation of $492,908 a year.
According to the Forward’s annual salary survey, a dozen CEOs of Jewish not-for-profits, excluding university presidents, make more than that.
But he earned considerably more after the institution of his pension plan: From 2008 to 2014, Eckstein earned an average annual salary of $464,229 from the fellowship, plus another $419,000 per annum in deferred payments to a pension plan that was instituted for him in 2008, according to the fellowship and a review of its tax-exempt filing.
John French, the chairman of the fellowship’s board, said it determined Eckstein’s compensation based on annual reviews. The pay “is comparable to or less than that of heads of similar Jewish organizations,” he said.
Towers Watson, a leading organizational consultant, ranks Rabbi Eckstein’s salary as average for heads of similar sized charities, French added.
The Fellowship receives positive ratings from the Charity Navigator watchdog and has the Better Business Bureau’s seal of approval, according to French.
Eckstein, a workaholic with a packed schedule and no hobbies, has worked tirelessly to give Christians a chance to help what they believe is G-d’s Chosen People.
The challenge, he says, has been to negotiate a path that would neither espouse proselytizing nor prohibit Evangelical Christians’ perceived duty to spread Christ’s message.
His concept for doing so is called “witnessing” — a vision in which Jews acknowledge that Jesus was “a force for good,” as Eckstein says in the biography, and in which Christians leave it up to G-d to achieve what they regard as salvation for Jews by having them accept Jesus as the Messiah.
An IFCJ video assures donors that “You Can Help Fulfill Biblical Prophecy” by donating to the aliyah of Jews from the former Soviet Union.
Despite ruptures and setbacks, this modus vivendi has allowed Eckstein’s fellowship to play a meaningful role in Israeli society and the Jewish world. But it came with a personal price. Eckstein has been boycotted personally by leaders from the Orthodox world, as well as some Christian zealots.
In 1989, a rabbi at his regular synagogue turned Eckstein away from the pulpit during the Bat Mitzvah of his oldest daughter, Tamar. He says in the biography that the humiliation he experienced then made it the worst day of his life.
After his divorce from his first wife, he recalls in The Bridge Builder, he sank into a “dark, bottomless pit” for which he was prescribed an antidepressant.
The setbacks and insults have made Eckstein stronger and more capable of taking on greater challenges, with greater success, he says.
“Or, at the very least, they gave me a much, much thicker skin than I used to have,” he added.
That’s a pretty high salary for a CEO of a non profit organization. The fact that it is average puts the other organization in question as well.
This leave a lot of mixed feelings among the Christians who have been donating to this org. for quite some time, for myself 4-5 years. I had no idea that this Rabbi was not an Messianic Jew. For me this is not a real problem seeing as how i subscribe to Genesis 12:2-3. As for my personal beliefs i have to admit that i’m one of many who follow Paul’s Gospel from Acts 9:15 to Philemon, reading Gal. 2:10. What grabs your heart are the children that and old woman that are portrayed as the needy. My bottom line is this, i would rather my money went to the Jewish people, Gods people, rather than any one of our false religious systems of which all are for refusing to preach outside of the first four books of our New Testament. I need help in finding an honest Jewish org. to donate to. So,can you help me?
Project Nehemiah is a mission that helps new Jewish Immagrants when they arive in Israel. They do alot and have various programs for helping Jews in Israel. They are staffed by Jewish Christians and Christians, Look them up. http://www.projectnehemiah.net
Project Nehemiah may be contacted at:
PO Box 777
Hixson, TN 37343
Or by phone: (423) 876 9151
I looked up Project Nehemiah with the BBB and found the following information: This charitable organization either has not responded to written BBB requests for information or has declined to be evaluated in relation to BBB Standards for Charity Accountability. Charity participation in BBB review is voluntary. However, without the requested information, it is not possible to determine whether this charity adheres to all of the BBB Standards for Charity Accountability. The BBB encourages charities to disclose accountability information beyond that typically included in financial statements and government filings, in order to demonstrate transparency and strengthen public trust in the charitable sector.
On the other hand the BBB provides a very favorable detailed report on ifcj. In light of this information I will continue to support them with my monthly donation!
The BBB is a joke. The A+ rating that some receive is bought and paid for. Don’t believe it, do a search about it.
If these people need so much help. Bring them to America the whole world is starving. Not just them the kids in Africa so many other places.
In the TV commercials, not ONE of the old people have missed a meal since WWII. They are ALL overweight with no sign of malnutrition. Makes me want to donate to somebody who is actually starving and underweight. I feel I’m being duped if I donate to this organization.
Have you ever thought that inactivity and high carbohydrate diet could cause this overweight issue. On my several visits I saw school kids eating bread as they walked along the street. Maybe this is the only choice they have. As an older person I eat very little, much less than many younger people that I know. Due to health issues that keep me from getting much exercise I am overweight.
My question is why doesn’t that multimillionaire Yael Eckstein chick who does the commercials give some of HER money to feed the poor unfortunate people depicted in the ads?
Good article but why can’t you write God? You needed to say it as G-d? Why?
Hi Erica, Jewish people have the custom of not throwing out any papers out in which G-d’s name appears, instead the papers are buried. So by replacing the ‘o’ with a hyphen, we avoid G-d’s name being thrown out/erased (when the newspaper/blog post/article etc is thrown out or deleted). HTH
Sure, they show respect to God this way, but that seems hardly any regard to avoiding disrespect at all when compared to the disrespect of “calling God a liar, by not believing in the record that God gave of his Son,” 1 John 5:10.
Well Rabbi Eckstein,I have read all of this report regarding your kind heart and your salary.The way I see it you are a millionaire in salary alone. I am a retired disabled Christian that wanted to help Jews in need not contribute to them becoming millionaires. Thank the Most High God your organization is not the only one to help people in need, I contribute to others so what I was sending to IFCJ I’ll be saving it or donating to someone else. May the Almighty be with you and keep you going.
What is up with that massive amounts of money he keeps for himself? I was trying to do the right thing helping the Jews not help one guy got rich. Does God feel that’s right when His people are in need. My dad & I need my cash way more than the ceo’s
Hello, I have been trying to save money from my very meager social security check, which is barely enough for me… I am disabled and legally blind… But I have read the info here stating the millions and millions of dollars this Rabbi has and still collects millions in salary… why is he salaried??? I am sick to my stomach reading all of this. There is no way I am going to do without my needs to give him anything!!! He should be ashamed of himself. I hope our GOD of ISRAEL is watching his arrogance and his filthy way of getting rich. This is not right and it will only STOP IF ALL OF US NEVER GIVE HIM ANOTHER PENNY!!!
I cannot see where this man is doing anything wrong.
Are you crazy!!! I could see him getting $100,000 a year not almost $500,000 salary. Think how may Russian Jews could be fed $45 (divided into $400,000) that’s 8,888 that aren’t being fed because of this mans greed!!! This doesn’t even include the money he’s funneling into his retirement fund !!! I hope his soul rots in hell though eternity!!!!!!!
Agreed. I fell asleep with my tv on and awakened to one of Ekstein’s infomercials. Good grief– there was nothing promoted about Christian/Jewish relations anywhere. Rather it was an exploitation of supposed holocaust survivors for $40.00 a month donations. How much was spent on the infomercial??? How much of Ekstein’s salary comes from Financially strapped Christians and Jews who unknowingly become his shillers.
If I understand it correctly, he lives in Israel and when I toured there twice I learned that their living expenses are much higher. Housing prices were astronomical. I see that a lot of donations are going to outreach. It appears even though it is high salary he is on the honest side by revealing the financial reports.
I was wondering if 100 per cent of the donations sent to IFCJ of Canada go toward helping the |Jewish people? It seems that the people working for this organization are paid a very high salary. I would like my donations to go 100% to helping the Jewish People not paying big salaries to the staff. I would like an answer to my comment.
There is no way 100% of donations could go directly to the people. All organizations have expenses that need to be paid. For example our homes aren’t free neither are the utilities. All organizations whether profit or non profit have paid employees.
Yes I know that the staff has to be paid but he (Eckstein) seems to be paid a lot of money. I worked all my life and sure didn’t get that kind of money. When you get mail from him it sure sounds like they are in desperate need and I know that the Jewish people are. I want to help but don’t want to pay a lot of money out to other people.
Yes, I understand what you’re feeling. You have to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit when you sow into any ministry. I think it is a lot of money also. As I mentioned before housing is extremely expensive in The Holy Land. I am not trying to make excuses for anyone but I have been their twice and even a 1 room apt. can run $40,000. a year according to our last guide. So just pray before you give and follow your heart. God Bless!
I’m very sad after seeing the salaries paid. I’m a Christian and wanted to help the Jewish elderly survivors of the Holocaust! It breaks my heart to see them enduring even MORE/CONTINUED poverty and hatred! (But…since Israel’s laws prohibit nepotism, it “looks like” the Rabbi “sneaked” around that law by paying his daughter’s salary via his US established organization)
I also am going to pray for the Holy Spirit to direct my giving to IFCJ due to such high salaries and other additional benefits.
Even tho on Soc Sec, near 70, totally disabled, my income is at poverty level. I also give to two other charities, FOOD FOR THE POOR and ST. JUDE’S CHILDREN’S CANCER RESEARCH HOSPITAL where ALL or nearly ALL funds go to the people in need! Perhaps IFCJ as well as many other charities should DO THE SAME!! (Oh, I gave IFCJ another donation this weekend) I LOVE THE JEWISH PEOPLE but like I’ve told other charities, it’s the tremendous salaries paid, I do NOT like!
I have given to the fellowship for many years. My wife developed dementia several years ago and passed away in Aug of 2016. Caring alone for a person with dementia is a twenty four hour a day endeavor and it leaves no time for anything else. It is exhausting and financially devastating. I live now on only my social security income. My last contribution to the fellowship was two months ago……meager amount of fifty dollars perhaps but when living on fifteen hundred per month it is not easy. A month after my last contribution I received a letter from the rabbi telling me it has been over a year since I last contributed. It will be much longer than a year before I ever contribute again. Living in a small home with only social security income, donating to a people I love, thinking they are the beneficiaries of my giving and then seeing what this man takes for himself sickens me.
While I can understand the initial reaction of some of the (now angry) donors to IFCJ, I don’t find any of the information covering Eckstein THAT appalling or out of the ordinary in this day and age. His salary, while high, isn’t totally abhorrent compared to many of his colleagues in the world of Mega-Churches and Televangelists, and while he seems a bit egotistical and cocky, (which is to be somewhat expected from a character in his position), he also demonstrates peaceful and humble qualities in his dealing with the angry community leader. God bless him and you and all if us.
I hate any charity paying high salaries, and prefer that more money go to the people they help. However, the BBB says that 60 cents of every dollar goes to the recipients and they give it a thumbs up – so, I made a donation.
What a disappointment. Grosser Goniifs everywhere you look. A Jewish Elmer Gantry..
I am very disappointed in this info. Have been giving for 12-15 years. I am praying about how I can give to the Jews and not be affiliated with IFCJ any longer. God sees everything we do and will judge us that day.accordingly.
You are right about God judging us. We need more education on the things we read because not everything is seen. When I was in Israel 15 years ago a 1 bedroom apt. was $40,000 a year. So anyone doing ministry in Israel needs more income to survive. I am glad you are seeking the Lord on your giving, we should be led by the Holy Spirit after all it He has blessed us with the money and we should use it wisely.
This is not a “fellowship.” A fellowship provides mutual support among its members. Where are examples of Jews helping poor, elderly Christians?
Commercial on tv shows what is supposed to be poor elderly women who are going without necessities. These women look more robust and well fed than a lot of our own people. I will continue to help those who genuinely need it. Shame on you.
night after night I see ads by them asking for money to feed old russian jews. Hmmm, just how many of russian jews are still alive? Fifteen? How about they took the THOUSANDS of dollars spent on their begging to do the feeding? (no, they need the money to keep paying that HIGH SALARY to the top boss)
I live in Chattanooga Tennessee which is right next to Hixson Tennessee where project Nehemiah is located but it may well be a good organization but since there’s no background on Cherokee navigator or any other site showing where the money goes, I just can’t give even though I was very interested in it when I first saw it. I just wonder how much money they’re losing each year by not being transparent.
Also to the Jewish person posting as to why they always leave out the o in God, very interesting!
This is the world we live in, for some people it’s all about making money, and for others, we just try to do the right thing. My belief is that we are all going to have to answer for what we have or have not done. I am not here to judge, that is the Lord in heaven’s roll. I know in my heart that I have done the right thing in the eyes of my Lord. Where the money goes after that is not my concern. I do believe that people should not become millionaires as they claim that it is a non profit organization. I do not know what his living, travel,healthcare and other expenses are, so maybe we should not judge, what we don’t know.I do know that he (rabbi) has done more than any of us have, so let us all take a step back before judging this man. No one is forcing anyone to donate, remember, we all have a choice, to give or not to give!
I guess people just don’t like to be lied to and deceived and aparently this man has made a nice living for himself. Live somewhere else if you cannot aford Israel. If I cannot aford a place I move. So I guess this man can make as much money as he wants and still calls his organization non profit, yet he seems to be making a profit. The churches like Kenneth Copeland , Benny Hinn and others are doing the same thing and are crooks also. Just because one is doing it doesn’t make it right. Lastly in the title is the word Christian and Jews. Since he is using the word Christian, I suppose for sympathy, but just how much goes to Christians?
Finally someone states the biggest obvious thing in this world! A lesson we where taught or should have been taught by our parents. JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE ELSE DOES SOMETHING, DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD TOO!!!! Saying that the salary he took was less compared to what others took is an example of this. I understand that portions of the money needs to cover costs and wages but not half million to one person(annually)is wrong!! Other organizations are also guilty of over rewarding themselves as payment for helping others in need. Some to the tune of millions. It would be a lot more honest if they would lose the title of nonprofit organization and just say help us raise money to help the unfortunate. But they would lose their tax benefits and THEIR Personal profit. When i hear things like this, i lose trust in charities and hesitate to donate and so do many others. Still, in the end a lot of money was raised that wouldn’t have been raised otherwise,and some was used to help people in need. If you don’t donate because of your mistrust in large charitable organizations, then donate locally to people in need. Deliver food and supplies personally to the shelters.(no middleman or woman). 100% of your gift will be given to those in need.If people would listen to their heart, hopefully they would know if what they are doing is the right thing to do. Take care and be kind, Jerry
It is true that God knows your heart and your intentions when giving money, and everyone that has been giving to this organization means well. But let’s not forget that we have to be good stewardess of our money as well, so it is important to know what they are doing with it, and that it is used for the purpose it was given. God bless!
I see the good Rabbi takes a salary of over $600,000.00. Nice work if you can get it. Perhaps he should take $90,000.00 a year and leave more on the table for charitable good works helping the Jews of the former Soviet Union..I don’t think I want any part of my contribution going towards his $600k in the pocket.
There is no way we can know what justification there is in that salary or what goes on in his heart. The article says 60% goes to the ministry He has to live as well so you also have to do what the Lord asks without judging Yechel too harshly because only the Lord knows what’s really going on in that situationJust do what the Lord is asking of you you are not responsible for what the Lord is asking of Yechel
There are two kinds of people in this world – Hustlers and suckers. IFCJ spends a bundle on tearjerker advertising that pulls on the heartstrings of suckers. Eckstein is a true hustler, he takes well over a million $ per year for himself between his salary and his pension ( as if he really needs one of those ) Expenses – give me a break! He has expense accounts. It doesn’t come out of this salary! Oh – and by the way his daughter is on the payroll too – she also makes a bundle. Good thing there are lots of suckers making donations!
The latest letter I received from IFCJ on 9/19/19 showed a photo of an old woman who survived the Holocaust. She was digging through trash cans and dumpsters to get a scrap of food. Then I find out the guy who runs IFCJ got paid $6,182,603.00 over 7 years. So instead of feeding this old lady with his millions of dollars, he takes her photo to use in fund-raising, so he can get even more money. Sick.
Tonight was the first time I saw the infomercial about the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. As I watched I became sick to my stomach. How can an accredited agency such as this, and the man who founded it continue to do this kind of begging on behalf of the exploited, aged people who they claim are suffering and starving in the cold Ukraine and other impoverished places around the world? I watched him trek through the snow to bring freezing, elderly, forgotten “Holocaust survivors” meager bags of supplies which will last only a few days, weeks or at most a month if they ration to the barest minimum. How in all the years of his “service to humanity” has he not thought outside the box? I am at minyan at my temple every week where we know it’s our obligation to leave the corners of our fields for the poor, the widow and the orphan. How can the world condone his “acts of charity” when he has never thought of once and for all really solving the problem of these people? With all of the millions he has amassed during the years (when he was alive) has he even thought of bringing these impoverished people out of their horrendous environment to create a warm, safe place for them? With all the millions he made he could have built a luxury hotel in Israel for these people complete with medical help, warm clothing, baths, nourishing food and companionship. How do you find a small puppy in the snow and walk away with a clear conscience? Let alone these cold, starving people he claimed to be helping in the name of G-d?
How can you come to visit and walk away leaving them to live in these hovels until they die off one by one? How did he sleep at night with his horribly inflated income, expense accounts and the best of food and housing? Easily when gullible people see him as being blessed by his maker for exploiting these poor, forsaken people. Now it’s his daughter’s turn to perpetuate this travesty. Bottom line, the longer she leaves them in the snow, the longer the money will continue to pour in.
Why not use some of the million$ donated to clean up and buy provisions, a decent cook stove, etc, of the filthy places that the old folks in the commercials are allowed to live in?
I wonder how long that food box for $25/month lasts. There is hardly enough in there for a week. All the money that is spent on advertising could be used to give these improvished Jews more food. Why not move them out of these hovels?
Whenever I see the commercial, I get ill. fox should take it off the air. Scam!!!