Meet the Orthodox rabbi taking Christian leaders to Israel

(Oct. 19, 2026 / JNS)

Christians and Jews have both called the land of Israel “holy” for thousands of years, but the geography of those holy sites does not necessarily overlap.

The center of Jewish religious life in Israel is the Western Wall, the Kotel, but Christians have a greater attachment to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Nazareth, Bethlehem and the Jordan.

JNS spoke with Rabbi Elie Buechler, director of programs and associate director of interfaith engagement at the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, about how he’s trying to bridge that divide by taking faith leaders to places like the City of David and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

“Israel, from a religious Zionist perspective, it’s the homeland of the Jewish people from an ethnic perspective, from a historic perspective, but that goes back to the covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” Buechler said. “When we bring our Christian colleagues to Israel, there’s a shared language about the Bible.”

Last winter, Buechler took leaders of Christian groups from across denominations to Israel and returned on Sunday with 15 state directors from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

After Oct. 7, the Orthodox Union, which mostly focuses on domestic issues in the United States, realized that it needed to do more to promote interfaith relations internationally, he said.

“Most of the work we do is about the Jewish community—freedom of religion, school choice—here stateside, and obviously Israel is a major component of our identity as Orthodox Jews, as religious Zionists,” he told JNS.

“What we recognized post-Oct. 7 was that issues related to Israel had not been part of our alliance-building with other faith groups,” Buechler said.

Protestant dispensationalists, who believe that the restoration of the contemporary State of Israel is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy, have long been among the most ardent Christian supporters of the Jewish state in America and make up as much as a quarter of the population across denominations.

In contrast with dispensationalists, Roman Catholics, who make up the single largest Christian denomination in the United States, hold that the refounding of the modern State of Israel in 1948 has no theological consequence. The Holy See did not recognize Israel until after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Buechler told JNS that it’s important for Jews to understand multiple Christian perspectives on Israel.

“The State of Israel, for us as Orthodox Jews, is the beginning of the flowering of the redemption of our people,” he said. “If that’s not their perspective, that’s OK too.”

Many Israeli officials have been critical of the Vatican since Oct. 7 over statements from Pope Francis, who died in 2025, and other Catholic officials about Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide,” Pope Francis said in a book of interviews published in 2024.

After his ascension to the throne of St. Peter in 2025, Pope Leo acknowledged “misunderstandings” between Jews and Catholics.

Buechler said that claims that Israel is committing “genocide” can contribute to the hatred of Jews.

“It’s important for our partners to understand that claims of ‘genocide’ or other forms of claims against the Jewish state lend credence to the antisemitism that we’re seeing today,” he told JNS. “You can’t claim one without understanding the repercussions.”

Those misunderstandings have sometimes gone in the other direction, as when the Israeli police prevented the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, from saying Mass at the Holy Sepulchre in March over security concerns “for the first time in centuries.”

“This incident is a grave precedent and disregards the sensibilities of billions of people around the world who, during this week, look to Jerusalem,” the Latin Patriarchate stated.

Buechler acknowledged that many Israelis “don’t fully understand” the sensitivities that many Christians have around holy sites.

He said that the Orthodox Union, as a member of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, had “implored government officials in Israel to recognize this blind spot.”

“These miscommunications and misunderstandings can blow up in so many different ways,” he said. “We saw the same thing when there were a number of Israeli soldiers who were desecrating a statue of Mary in Lebanon.”

“An Israeli soldier, who thinks he’s having a good time, doesn’t realize the hate and the impact that that type of act can have,” Buechler told JNS. “The Israeli army and government are finally coming around to recognizing the issue at hand.”

Whatever flaws there may be in how Israel balances the religious needs of the three major Abrahamic faiths, Buechler said that taking Christian leaders to Israel is one way to demonstrate that the “delicate balance” between those faiths continues to function.

“I think what will become apparently obvious while we’re there is that truly the only place in the region where Christians are freely worshiping and enjoying the freedoms that they can have is in Israel,” he told JNS.