Faith in the midst of war: Dr. Erez Soref on why more Jews are turning to Jesus - THE ROSENBERG REPORT

Dr. Erez Soref, the president of ‘ONE FOR ISRAEL’ ministries, grew up in a traditional Israeli Jewish household. Like many young Israelis, he completed his IDF military service and set out to travel the world. It was during that journey through Southeast Asia and Europe that he began searching for deeper meaning, exploring his spirituality, and ultimately came to believe that Jesus (Yeshua) is the Messiah.

“In the Netherlands, I met a group of believers in Jesus for the first time in my life. And they told me that Jesus changed their life,” Soref shared in the latest episode of THE ROSENBERG REPORT, filmed at the National Religious Broadcasting Convention in Dallas, Texas.

“They were young Christians, not super sophisticated, not particularly knowledgeable with the Word of God, but they were very enthusiastic about God and His word,” he told TBN host and ALL ISRAEL NEWS Editor-in-Chief Joel Rosenberg.

What struck him most was their direct relationship with God. Those young believers talked directly to him through the Jewish Bible.

“I was brought to jealousy,” he explained. “And eventually I told myself, 'Erez you are a hypocrite. You need to read the New Testament.'”

As he read, he felt drawn to Jesus. “I just fell in love with Jesus. He wasn’t like other religious leaders,” Soref said.

After he had a spiritual experience with the Lord, he became even more passionate about reading the Bible and started wondering: How come he has been in the land of the Bible for all these years, without knowing any of this?

His discovery turned into a lifelong calling. Through his personal journey, Soref became the prototype of who his ministry is trying to reach.

Soref now leads ONE FOR ISRAEL an evangelistic, discipleship ministry that has become a multimedia success story while also running the only accredited Bible college in Israel.

A key turning point came in 2010, when the Rosenberg’s' ministry, The Joshua Fund, invested heavily in Soref’s then-small ‘start-up’ media initiative.

“One of the most dramatic things that your ministry is doing is the short form testimony videos of Israeli Hebrew-speaking Jews who come to faith in Jesus, and Americans as well – myself included. But when did that idea start?” Rosenberg asked.

“Some of the graduates of the Bible College, younger than me, came and said, ‘we're going to have here an internet revolution’,” Soref recalled. “The point was to share… somebody sitting in front of a camera just sharing their journey.”

Soref believed personal stories would resonate, but he never imagined how far they would reach.

“Israel is a country of 9 million people. The viewership is in the hundreds of millions, in Hebrew only,” he told Rosenberg. In English, the videos have been watched nearly 450 million times.

“It doesn't mean that everybody agrees… It doesn't mean that everybody embraces the gospel. However, many people – I would say about two-thirds of the people – are writing to us, contacting us, texting us,” Soref added.

In 1967, there were fewer than 2,000 Jewish people around the world who believed that Jesus is the Messiah. Recent studies indicate there are now one million followers of Jesus worldwide of Jewish descent.

The war that erupted in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, has only accelerated the trend, with notable shifts in spiritual dynamics.

“We have seen a tremendous uprise in the number of people that contact us and the number of people that write to us and want to know more about the Lord,” Soref said.

“We call upon God when things are not going well. And this has been the hardest time for Israelis and Jews worldwide since the Holocaust,” he noted.

When asked by Rosenberg if he believes this trend will continue even after the war ends, Soref admitted it’s hard to predict. Whereas we might see a “little decline” in the short term – overall, the number of Jews receiving Jesus as Messiah will keep increasing.

“People under the age of 35 in Israel, all have heard that there's a growing group of Jewish people claiming Jesus as our Messiah and I think that's going to continue,” he explained.

Soref also emphasized the importance of Evangelical support during this difficult time, through a combination of humanitarian relief work and sharing the word of God.

“I think Israelis have seen during this war that the only friends that Israel has are the Evangelical Christians. Nobody else is our friend anymore.”

THE ROSENBERG REPORT airs Thursday nights at 9 p.m. EST and Saturday nights at 10 p.m. EST on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the most-watched Christian television network in the United States.