The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference has named Pastor Juan Rivera to lead the new outreach. He says they want to stand as a buffer between American Jews and antisemitism.
“Our vision is to really, through the Hispanic evangelical movement, create the largest firewall against antisemitism that the world has ever seen,” said Rivera, who is lead pastor at Victory Church in Lowellville, Ohio.
He says the HILC will do that through advocacy, education and engagement, which includes policy discussions, providing biblical and historical resources, and taking Hispanic leaders to visit Israel. Rivera says there are some natural sympathies between Hispanics and Jews.
“There's some connection there, in the sense of we're people that understand diaspora, many of our people understand that. We understand discrimination,” he said.
And he says the fight became very personal on October 7, 2023.
“The majority of those murdered on October 7th in Israel were Hispanic. They were Latino, they were Spanish speaking. People from – obviously Jews – but from Latin America,” Rivera said.
He says Hispanic Jews returning to the land happened to set up communities along the border with the Gaza strip.
“Many of those that immigrated from Latin American countries to Israel, they migrated to the border. Many of those towns, many of those communities, vastly Spanish speaking.”
