Before Shabbat on Friday, my wife sent me up the street to our local bakery to pick up challah. Outside, a man was calling out “156!”
I asked him what 156 meant. For 156 weeks in a row, he told me, he has delivered challot and other Shabbat food to IDF soldiers every Friday afternoon.
I gave him a donation for his project, and then I stopped for a moment: 156 weeks. Three years since October 7, 2023.
In the Bible, three years is a significant span of time.
In one of the most frightening moments in biblical history, the Book of Kings describes the mighty Assyrian Empire sweeping through the Land of Israel. The 10 northern tribes have already been exiled, Sennacherib has captured the fortified cities of Judah, and now his army stands menacingly at the gates of Jerusalem.
His officer shouts up at the men on the wall in Hebrew, so that every one of them will understand: No god has saved any city from our army, and your God will not save you either!
The aftermath of Hamas’s Nova music festival massacre in Re’im, southern Israel, on October 7, 2023. Picture taken November 2, 2023 (credit: Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)
The righteous King Hezekiah tears his clothes, goes into the Temple, and sends for the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah answers with more than a reassuring message; he offers a specific timeline: “This shall be the sign for you: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what springs from that. But in the third year, sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit” (II Kings 19:29).
In ancient and modern Jewish history, three years is the distance between the depths of despair and miraculous deliverance. Just three years after the horrors of the Holocaust, the Jewish people were dancing in the streets of a reborn State of Israel.
With each passing year, we gain perspective on October 7 and on the world we woke up to on October 8.
October 7 shocked us. Jihadists entered Israel with hatred in their hearts to kill Jews and to tear down the society and civilization built on biblical values.
On October 8, something new emerged. With God’s help, the IDF began to take the upper hand. From Hamas to Hezbollah, from Syria to Iran, enemies who threaten not only Israel but the entire free world have been degraded in ways almost nobody thought possible three years ago.
October 8 also gave birth to a new kind of Jew. “October 8 Jews” are those who, after the massacre, found faith and recommitted themselves to their people and their God. And October 8 became the day so many Christians around the world raised their voices and said: Not on my watch.
None of this was clear three years ago. In the fog of war, none of it was obvious, but three years later, clarity is emerging.
This week, thousands of October 7 commemorations are taking place in cities and neighborhoods across Israel because every town has lost sons defending our homeland. Jewish communities around the world are likewise mourning with Israel in synagogues and Jewish day schools.
The ‘plant 1,200 Israeli flags’ initiative
But there is another commemoration taking place, the largest global initiative to memorialize October 7, which the Jewish people need to know about.
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has organized more than 4,375 churches placing 1,200 Israeli flags on their front lawns to memorialize the 1,200 victims of October 7.
In 2024, 220 churches took part in “Flags of Fellowship.” Under IFCJ president Yael Eckstein’s leadership, participation has grown exponentially this year, with well over five million flags planted in memory of our loved ones.
In just three years, Flags of Fellowship has become one of the largest gatherings of Jews and Christians anywhere: believers in the God of Israel praying to our Father in Heaven, recalling His faithfulness, and standing shoulder to shoulder as brothers and sisters in faith.
The fellowship’s work goes far beyond the hundreds of millions of dollars it raises for Israel each year, extraordinary as that is. Each flag demonstrates that we are living in unprecedented times. The people of Israel have come home from an exile that began in the days of the Assyrians. Despite every tragedy our people have endured, we are not being uprooted again.
And we are not alone.
I took part in a Flags of Fellowship ceremony at the Banyas Church, an ancient building restored and rebuilt through the shared efforts of Israeli Jews, Christians, and Druze.
I watched 1,200 Israeli flags fluttering in the wind against the mountains of the Golan Heights, surrounded by a community of Christian Arab Zionists who proudly serve in the IDF and have lost loved ones defending the Jewish state.
It was a scene that I will never forget, a picture of pain and sadness, but also renewal, growth, and fellowship.
Too much attention goes to the loud voices online and on social media denying Israel’s legitimacy and trying to isolate the Jewish people.
But more than five million flags planted around the world this week give us reason to trust Isaiah’s timeless promise: after three difficult years, the Jewish people will plant, we will harvest, and we will rejoice.
The writer is the founder of Israel365, a Jewish organization dedicated to educating Christians about the biblical significance of the Land of Israel, and the host of The Universal Zionist podcast.