BISHOP JACKSON.
E.W. Jackson was honorably discharged from the United States Marine Corps. He then graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Phi Beta Kappa Key from the University of Massachusetts at Boston, and from Harvard Law School. While in law school, he was accepted into the Baptist ministry and studied at Harvard Divinity School.
He practiced small business law for 15 years in Boston, and taught Business and Regulatory Law at the college and graduate levels. His first book, “Ten Commandments to an Extraordinary Life” was published in 2008. His second book is scheduled for release in 2014.
He is the Founder of Exodus Faith Ministries, a nondenominational Christian church. On July 4, 2009, he launched S.T.A.N.D. – Staying True to America’s National Destiny. In December of 2013, he founded “Unite Virginia PAC.”
He was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, but his family dates back to the Revolutionary War. His great grandparents (Gabriel and Eliza) were a sharecropper family in Orange County, Virginia after slavery ended.
In 2011 Bishop Jackson ran for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. In 2013 he sought the nomination for Lt. Governor and won. While unsuccessful in the general election, Jackson received one million votes and sparked a movement which continues to inspire and unite Virginians.
He and his wife founded the annual Chesapeake Martin Luther King Leadership Breakfast which brings hundreds of people together to celebrate the ideals of Dr. King.
Mr. Jackson founded and ran Boston’s first and only gospel radio station for 9 years, and has hosted local and national radio talk shows. He has been a guest on FOX News’ The O’Reilly Factor, Megyn Kelly’s America Live, CBN World News, ABC’s Good Morning America, C-Span’s Washington Journal, ABC Radio Network, National Public Radio, Virginia Public Radio in Richmond and Tony Macrini’s morning radio show on WNIS.
He was consecrated a Bishop in July 1998. He and his wife, Theodora, have been married for forty two years, have 3 children and reside in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Bishop Jackson is an experienced Bible teacher, and looks forward to sharing insights to God’s on the upcoming trip to Israel.
Ron Wexler- Heritage Study Programs
Ron Wexler heads Heritage Study Programs, an educational travel organization based in Boca Raton, Florida and serves as president of the Ten Commandments Commission, a non-profit that fosters improved understanding between Christians and Jews.
Ron Wexler served in the Israel Defense Force during the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. He both attended rabbinical school and has done research on early Christianity, giving him the basis for his work promoting conciliation between Jews and Christians. He has produced programs for the Municipality of Jerusalem and the Government of Israel Tourist Office; in particular, he was responsible for the "Jerusalem 2000" celebration.
Daniel "Danny" Ayalon
Daniel Ayalon is an Israeli diplomat and politician who currently served as Deputy Foreign Minister and as a member of the Knesset for Yisrael Beiteinu. Formerly he served as Israeli Ambassador to the United States from 2002 until 2006. He frequently writes in Israeli and international newspapers, notably in the Jerusalem Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Ayalon was appointed Israel's Ambassador to the United States in 2002 by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Before his appointment, Ayalon had served as a Deputy Foreign Policy Adviser to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and to Ehud Barak as well as Chief Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Throughout his time in Washington, Ayalon cultivated a strong relationship with President George W. Bush and played a leading role in the Road Map for Peace negotiations between President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon. He also secured the agreement for $9 billion in U.S. grants and loan guarantees to Israel beginning in 2003 which Israel needed in order to raise funds abroad at low interest rates. In early 2012, as Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister, Ayalon, met with his U.S. counterparts to secure another three-year, $3.8 billion extension of loan guarantees.
Dr. Mordechai Kedar- Lt. Col. (res.)
Mordechai Kedar is one of the top Israeli scholars of Arabic literature and a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University. He holds the Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University.
Kedar is an academic expert on the Israeli Arab population. He served for twenty-five years in IDF Military Intelligence, where he specialized in Islamic groups, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic press and mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena. The Los Angeles Times' Edmund Sanders described him as "one of the few Arabic-speaking Israeli pundits seen on Arabic satellite channels defending Israel".
Kedar drew attention with a June 2008 Al-Jazeera interview in which he challenged the moderator's assertion that "You cannot erase Jerusalem from the Qur'an", pointing out that Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Qur'an.
Ali Yahya
Yahya was born in 1947 and raised in Nazareth. He completed his BA degree in history and Arabic literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1970. Yahya is married and has five children.
Prior to becoming an ambassador, Yahya was the coordinator of the Israeli Foreign Ministry's Special Projects Division for the Middle East and the Peace Process.
In 1995, Yahya became a member of the Board of Directors of the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA), where he was in charge of Arabic and radio programs. That year he also joined the Lapid Movement for Learning the Lessons of the Holocaust. Later in 1995 he was appointed the Israeli ambassador to Finland. He served until 1999.
In 1999, he served as Coordinator and Advisor for Special Projects (P.T.P.), at the Department for the Middle East Peace Process and was the direct responsible for the Aqaba Eilat peace talks.
In 2006, Yahya was appointed the Israeli ambassador to Greece.
Yahya was the first Israeli-Arab to light the ceremonial torch at the Israeli Independence Day celebration, and was the delegate of the Israeli - Arab Community at the Nobel Prize Ceremony in 1995.
Joshua S. Reinstein - Director of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus
Josh Reinstein has been the Director of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus since its inception on January 5th 2004. Before assuming his present position, he served as English Language Spokesperson for the Israel Beiteinu and for Uri Lupliansky, the Mayor of Jerusalem, during his election campaign. Mr. Reinstein also owns and operates JSR International Marketing, an international marketing and public relations firm based in Israel.
Josh Reinstein is an advisor to the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs and the producer and founder of the hit TV show, Israel Now News. Israel Now News is a half an hour weekly news magazine that is broadcast to 35 million viewers in a 191 countries around the world.
Mr. Reinstein grew up in Dallas, Texas and Toronto, Canada. He is an honors graduate of the University of Western Ontario, where he earned a degree in Political Science. He served as a tank gunner in the elite 188 unit of the Israel Defense Forces Armored Corps. He currently lives in Jerusalem with his wife, Rebekah and three sons.
This year, Mr. Reinstein was named as one of the "50 most influential Jews in the world" by the Jerusalem Post.
General (ret.) Amos Yadlin
Amos Yadlin was born in Kibbutz Hatzerim and in 1970 enlisted in the IAF. After qualifying as a fighter pilot, Yadlin joined the 102 "Flying Tiger" Squadron, with which he flew the A-4 Skyhawk during the Yom Kippur War. In the early 1980s Yadlin was among the first batch of Israeli pilots to fly the F-16 Fighting Falcon and was among the eight pilots selected to carry out Operation Opera against Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981. A year later, Yadlin participated in Operation Peace for Galilee. In all he had accumulated about 5,000 flight hours and flew more than 250 combat missions. Yadlin commanded two fighter squadrons (116 and 106), two Israeli Air Force bases (Nevatim and Hatzerim) and between 1990 and 1993 headed the IAF's planning department. He then served as Deputy Commander of the IAF.
In February 2002 Yadlin was awarded the rank of Major General and appointed commander of the IDF's Military Colleges and National Defence College. Between 2004 and 2006 he served as Israel's military attaché to the United States. Upon his return to Israel, Yadlin was named head of Aman, the IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate.
After his retirement from the IDF in November 2010, Yadlin joined the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as the Kay Fellow on Israeli national security. In November 2011, he was appointed director of Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies.
Yadlin obtained a B.A. in Economics and Business Administration at Ben Gurion University in the Negev. He received a master's degree in Public Administration from the JFK School of Government, Harvard University.