Yael Eckstein, President and CEO of 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 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 Eckstein 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 also named a winner in the 10th Annual 2022 CEO World Awards®.
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.
On her podcast, Conversations with Yael, Yael Eckstein speaks with Gordon Roberston, President and CEO of The Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Yael and Gordon share their experiences of stepping into the shoes and carrying on the legacies of faith of their fathers – Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein and Pat Robertson.
Tell us about your guest today.
YE: 40 years ago when my father, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein of blessed memory, began knocking on the doors of evangelical Christians to build support for his fledgling organization, then known as the Holy Land Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and now of course, as the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, no one was more important or influential in helping him fulfill his vision than Pat Robertson. At that time, Pat Robertson was already a well-established leading figure in evangelical circles, as the founder and president of the Christian Broadcasting Network, and host of his flagship program, The 700 Club. Pat’s endorsement and support meant the world to my father and helped him to bring his vision for The Fellowship to countless Christians.
Fast-forward to 2019, as I was wondering how I was going to fill the enormous shoes left behind after my father’s unexpected and untimely death, my dear friend Gordon Robertson was one of the first to offer me his support, and to host me on his program, as The Fellowship’s president and CEO. Both Gordon and his incredible father have been longtime faithful friends of my father, myself, The Fellowship, and of course, Israel. We could not do the work that we do, and reach the Christian audience that we do, without the help of leaders like Pat and Gordon. So as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Fellowship this year, I can think of no better guest to help us mark that milestone than the incredible Gordon Robertson. So welcome, my friend. Welcome, Gordon. I’m so happy to have you on.
GR: Yael, it’s great to be with you. And happy anniversary to The Fellowship. It’s a wonderful milestone, 40 years. And look how far you’ve come, from very small beginnings. It’s such a wonderful God story. He always likes planting seeds and then watching them grow into big trees, and it’s great to see it.
Can you tell us what it was like being raised in this household of one of the most influential families, and always being in the spotlight, always having a role? Internally, in your family, what were the core values that would you say defined your family?
GR: I get it a lot. “What was it like growing up, the son of Pat Robertson?” He certainly instilled in me a great love of Scripture, and a great belief that if you have faith in God, literally anything is possible. If God gives you an idea, He expects you to raise it. It’s kind of like giving you a baby, and He expects you to parent it, and see it into adulthood. So, all of those things were great. But I’ve got to confess, I’m the black sheep son of Pat Robertson. I knew it was prayed over me when I was young, six, seven years old, that at one point in time, I would be sitting in this very chair. And I said, “No, I don’t want that. I don’t want to go into ministry.”
I saw the struggle it took from both my parents, and the sacrifices they made, in literally the first 20 years of CBN’s history. And my father was a graduate of Yale Law School. My mother was a graduate of Yale Nursing School. They could have had successful careers, from the world’s standpoint. And I thought, “Well, who wants to go into ministry? It just means you’re going to be poor.” So I became the black sheep son. I ran away from it. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. And then, God got my attention in my mid-30s, and I came back. And I left the law practice, in order to sit in the very chair I was told I was going to sit in.
YE: Amen. Definitely. Everything you say, I can relate to that. My father used to say, “People say that I had success overnight with The Fellowship. Yeah, it was an overnight success after 25 years of very hard work that took a big toll.” So when you talk about those first 20 years, and how you saw it, on one hand, you understand this calling, to do good things, to fight for a bigger purpose. But for me, there was also this place of, “But why my father? Why my family?” Someone else should be doing those big things to save the world. I just want a normal family, who’s a lawyer or a doctor.
I remember in school, whenever the teacher would ask, “What does your father do for a living?” And this was before anybody knew who The Fellowship or Rabbi Eckstein was. I was like, “Oh gosh, can’t he have an easier job?” “It’s hard to explain,” is what I would always say, because I didn’t fully understand it. I just knew that it was taking a huge emotional toll on him, a financial toll on him, in every way, in building this ministry. It comes with a lot of sweat, tears, and hard work. But I guess what both of us prove, because I also, from the age of 14, left faith, left anything that had to do with ministry, or God, or spirituality, and said, “I’m taking my own path.” But I guess when God has His plans, there’s no way of escaping them.
What was it like to start working with your father at CBN?
YE: So after practicing law for 10 years, you began working at CBN with your father. I think that was around 1994. Was that a hard step to take? Or did it just feel natural, that you both got into the groove right away, and found the path that led you to where you’re sitting right now? I know for me personally, my father, when I said I wanted to join The Fellowship, he at first tried to push me away, to see if this was really my calling. Was it something that happened naturally when you decided to join the ministry in 1994? Or did it also take some hard work?
GR: Well, it took a lot of hard work. But it took God; it took a supernatural intervention. I had what theologians call a theophany. I had an encounter in which God literally showed up. He proved He’s real. I don’t have to have blind faith. I saw, so, “Okay.” And that was in all places, India, on the shores of the Godavari River, in the middle of a Hindu festival, which is… I don’t know too many people that have a conversion experience in that environment. But that’s what happened to me.
And from that, I came back to talk to my father. And in that conversation, I told him, “Well, I think God wants me to be a missionary.” And I was expecting him to say, “Well, God wouldn’t want that. You’ve got a wife and a child to support, and you’ve got a career as a lawyer. He wouldn’t want you to leave all that…”
But he looked me in the eye, and said, “Well then, why haven’t you?” And that was the conversation, one sentence, “Well then, why haven’t you?” And he got up and walked away.
“Okay, well that’s a good question. Why haven’t I? If I think about this. If I’ve had this experience, then what in the world is holding me back?” So instead of coming to CBN in Virginia Beach, I went to, of all places, Manila in the Philippines, to start CBN Asia. At the time, I was trying to do a missionary training center. The guiding verse was Luke 10:2, “Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” So, that became my watchword. And it was one of those things where God had to work on me a lot.
What was the journey to start CBN Asia?
GR: I kept going to the really hard places of Asia, the Naxalite rebellious regions of India, the Muslim regions of Thailand and Indonesia, and the Golden Triangle. I got cerebral malaria on the border of Myanmar and Thailand. So I was trying to be this binary missionary, and going to places where they’d never heard of the Bible. They heard the name Jesus, but they didn’t understand any of the stories of the Bible.
Again, God had to direct me to television. And that was a series of miraculous things, where a guy in a stadium called me out in the back of the stadium, and called me up to the front, and said, “God wants you on television.” Which, to people who have never had that kind of experience, it’s just like, “What in the world are you talking about? How in the world can somebody point you out in a Manila stadium with 2,700 people, and say ‘You’re the guy to be on TV’?” But, that’s what got me in. I spent five years in Manila, and during that, CBN Asia was birthed, CBN Indonesia was birthed, CBN India was birthed, as well as CBN China, Hong Kong, and Beijing, and CBN Thailand. And those were incredibly fruitful years.
YE: During my father’s shiva, the Jewish period of morning, a journalist said she was very close to my father and loved him, and said, “How are you going to fill his shoes?” And I looked at her, and I said exactly that. I said, “There’s no way I could. His foot was way bigger than mine. His shoes will not fit me. So, the only thing I can do is try to wear my own.” And that’s what I think the world has seen you do. And it’s incredible to hear firsthand that calling and journey that God has taken you on. Because it’s also so aligned with the biblical stories.
Could you tell us how this love for Israel has really transformed and taken root in your heart and soul, in a personal way?
GR: Well, let’s go back to 1969. My father had a tradition of taking his children on trips with him. He wanted to have that closeness, that intimacy that comes with travel, and his attention focused on you. So my older brother went to Colombia, and my older sister went to Costa Rica. It’s always been in CBN’s vision to take the Gospel outside the United States and take it internationally. So all of this is happening in the 1960s, in the struggle times.
And he takes me to Israel. I find that just fascinating, from a whole variety of levels. But I went to the Western Wall. So this is two years after the Six-Day War. This is two years after Jerusalem was unified. And before 1967, if you were Jewish, you were not allowed in the Jewish Quarter. You were not allowed at the Western Wall. It was illegal under Jordanian law. So here I am, in 1969, 2 years later, and I see men dancing with Torah scrolls. The joy was unbelievable. It was finally, after thousands of years, we were back. And it impacted me emotionally, and spiritually. It’s a vivid memory. So vivid, that I have this bizarre Christian bar mitzvah, where I take, one-on-one, my children, my three children have all gone with me to Israel. I baptize them in the Jordan River, and then I take them to the Western Wall, where we pray. With my girls, we had to separate. “We can pray outside those areas, but I want you to go and touch the Wall.” With my son, it was such a profound experience. As we were leaving the Western Wall area, and walking away from it, he turned to me, and said, “Dad, I can’t explain it, but I feel like I’m home.” Which is strange, for a 12-year-old boy to have that kind of insight, and for that to be generational is phenomenal.
But then, something happened to me, and this is all part of the healing from cerebral malaria. As I’m dying, I sense a Christian hymn, based on Psalm 118. I don’t think, as I sang it as a child, I understood what I was singing, that I was singing Psalms. “This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.” And it turned into sort of a chorus, and it’s this happy chorus that usually ends with “This is the day.”
So I’m dying of malaria, and from the innermost depths of my being, this song comes out. And we don’t have enough time to go into the whole story, but I had a foolish prayer. I prayed for a taste of Gethsemane. “Lord, not my will, but Your will be done.” And I didn’t know the implications of that. I didn’t know it was going to result in a near-death experience, where I was going to be bleeding. My body was shutting down. It was profound. But I start singing that, and then I get healed. And in getting healed, I hear another audible voice. It’s not like I hear audible voices a lot, but this is the second time. “Get up, get to work, for I have healed you.”
And I’m supposed to go on a mission trip to India in two weeks. So I go on the mission trip, and it’s just amazing. We’re seeing miracles. It’s wonderful. And I get really wound up, and I have trouble falling asleep after these kinds of meetings. And I’m staying in a pastor’s house in India, and it’s kind of like a 2,000-year-old house in Israel. It was built of bricks, and it had levels and a flat roof. And he had a study on the second level. I’m in that study, and I can’t go to sleep. So he’s got a library there, and I say, “Well, I’ll read myself to sleep.” And I literally think, “What really boring book can I pick up?” And there in front of me, is A Christian View of the Festivals of Israel. So I look at that, and go, “That will put me to sleep.”
So I pick it up, and I start reading their view of the Seder: “This would’ve been the last song sung at the Last Supper.” They sang a hymn and went out, which is what the Gospel of Matthew records. Everyone reading that in the 1st century would know exactly what hymn they sang. The five songs that are sung at every festival. So Psalm 118. “This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice, and be glad in it.”
And for me, I found Jesus in Psalm 118. “I shall not die but live, and declare the glory of the Lord. Open up, find the sacrifice for the horns of the altar.”
Where do you see the future of Jewish-Christian relations that your father invested in so heavily, and changed the course of history? Where do you see that heading?
GR: I like to remind all people everywhere that Christianity is a Jewish religion. That sometimes strikes people as odd. It’s a new thought for them, but it is a Jewish religion and a profoundly Jewish religion. The entire New Testament was written by Jews. Being raised Baptist, we used to try to take pride in the Gospel of Luke, that Luke is a Gentile name. But Luke also wrote Acts, and he was an eyewitness to some of the things that happened with the Apostle Paul, on the Temple Mount. As a Gentile, he would not have been allowed there. He would have forfeited his life. So, the entire New Testament is authored by Jews.
So with that as a firm understanding, when you look back to the root, you have to acknowledge God is a covenant-keeping God. And whether that’s the covenant He made with Noah, the covenant He made with Abraham, or the covenant He made with Moses. As a Christian, I love the New Covenant, but I recognize that God keeps those covenants, and He will keep it for all generations. In that covenant, you find specific promises for the Jewish people and specific promises for the nation of Israel. Israel is promised – you can use the word prophecy, but I prefer promise – to be a light to the nations. That means, to me, as a Gentile, that Israel is proof that God keeps His covenant. He keeps His promises.
And we’re walking into a period of time when the people in Israel claim that verse, regardless of their religious outlook. I find it fascinating that non-religious Jews in Israel say, “We’re supposed to be a light to the nations. This is our calling. This is what we’re supposed to do.” And we’re seeing it unfolding before our eyes. The number of inventions coming out of Israel, and the number of problems that the world is facing, whether that’s in medicine, technology, water management, or farming, these things are being solved in Israel, because God is keeping His covenant, and pouring out creative ideas over Israel. That’s wonderful.
You also see in Isaiah, “My house…” And I love that God calls it a house, not a temple. He calls it a house. “My house will be a house of prayer for all nations.” That’s a wonderful promise, that He wants everybody to gather together, and at a specific location, at the Temple Mount. Today, if you’re Jewish, it is so unfortunate that you’re not allowed to pray there. You can pray at the Western Wall, but you can’t pray on the Temple Mount. If you do, it’s going to cause some kind of riot. Wouldn’t it be wonderful for that verse to be fulfilled in our lifetime, where everyone gets to pray?
Is there a go-to Bible verse that gives you strength?
GR: “I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” God’s always there, even when you’re rebellious. I’ve got another verse I quote from Psalms, “I made my bed in hell, and behold, You were there.” Even in my darkest moments, even in my most rebellious moments, God made the decision for me, and He said, “I will never leave you. I will never forsake you.” Sometimes, people can be with you, but they’ve already forsaken you in their hearts. They’re already turning away. God never turned away from me. He never forsook me. He was always there, wanting me to finally turn and say, “Yes.”
YE: So important for all of us to remember. It has been such an honor to have you as a guest, Gordon. I hope that you will come back again soon.
