A soccer legend from Argentina. A bishop from Liberia. A pastor from Fiji. The son of a Hamas co-founder. A Catholic cardinal from Chicago. A Hall of Fame closer for the New York Yankees. The widow of Charlie Kirk. These names share space on the Israel Allies Foundation’s seventh annual list of Israel’s Top 50 Christian Allies, released in honor of Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles), as Christians from around the world stream into Jerusalem to celebrate the one biblical holiday the prophets say the nations will one day keep alongside Israel.
The foundation said each honoree has been particularly vocal in their advocacy, positioning themselves as among the most prominent defenders of Israel globally over the past three years since October 7.
The top spot went posthumously to Joni Lamb, co-founder and president of Daystar Television Network, a global Christian media platform broadcasting in over 200 countries, who established Daystar House of Hope Israel to aid Holocaust survivors. Paula White-Cain, who leads the White House Faith Office and is known for her influential role as President Trump’s pastor, took second place and is the only person to have received the honor of the #1 Christian ally of Israel for a second time since the list’s inception.
Pastors Larry and Tiz Huch of New Beginnings Church in Texas placed third. Larry Huch traveled to Israel just days after October 7 to document the atrocities firsthand. CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings ranked fourth for having repeatedly challenged guests who fail to condemn Hamas’s October 7 atrocities.
The 2026 list blends veterans of the Christian Zionist movement with a wave of fresh faces. Twenty honorees carried over from last year’s list, including White-Cain, the Huches, Terri Pearsons, ICEJ President Dr. Jürgen Bühler, Bridges for Peace CEO Rev. Peter Fast, Bishop Robert Stearns, ICEJ-USA President Dr. Susan Michael, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Joni Lamb climbed from fourth place last year to the top spot this year.
Pastor John Hagee brings the longest institutional track record. He founded Christians United for Israel in 2006, and the organization has grown to more than 10 million members, while Hagee Ministries has directed more than $130 million to humanitarian causes in Israel. Bishop Robert Stearns pioneered the Global Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem, uniting more than 500,000 churches in 175 nations. Dr. Susan Michael has spent more than four decades furthering Christian engagement with Israel. Troy Miller of the National Religious Broadcasters, ranked 11th, joined the KCAC and Israel365 to announce the Biblical Heartland Resolution in 2024.
The thirty newcomers reflect how far Christian support for Israel has spread since October 7. Erika Kirk, ranked sixth, joins the list one year after her late husband Charlie Kirk was honored posthumously in second place. Since his assassination, she has bolstered support for Israel and condemned antisemitism, including on the right, as evil. Television representation shifted as well: last year featured CNN’s Van Jones and Fox News host Sean Hannity, while this year’s list names Jennings along with Fox News anchors Harris Faulkner and Lawrence Jones, who has publicly confronted anti-Israel campus protesters and defended Israel against accusations of genocide.
The sports world traded boxer Floyd Mayweather for two new names. Lionel Messi, ranked twelfth, has visited the Western Wall, supported Argentinian Jewish causes and served as a brand ambassador for Israeli technology companies. Mariano Rivera, now an ordained pastor, has publicly affirmed that as a Christian he stands with the Jewish people and the Jewish state. Mosab Hassan Yousef, the “Son of Hamas” who worked for years as an Israeli intelligence asset saving lives, makes his debut at twentieth.
Several newcomers represent the next generation. Jacob Smith, a young content creator known online as The Moderate Case, uses fact-based analysis and legal reasoning to counter misinformation about Israel. Destiny Albritton has worked through CUFI and the Israel on Campus Coalition to connect emerging Christian leaders with the Jewish state.
The geography of the list is its most striking feature. Brazil’s Pastor Carlito Machado Paes leads a congregation of more than 30,000. Liberia’s Bishop Robert Bimba, Nigeria’s Bishop Sally William Chinebu, Kenya’s Rev. Teresia Wairimu, and Tanzania’s Pastor Christina Shusho represent a growing African Christian bloc standing with Israel. Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, Singapore, the Philippines, the Netherlands, Canada, and Fiji all have representatives. Rev. Manasa Kolivuso of Fiji has spoken at the ICEJ’s Feast of Tabernacles, the annual Sukkot gathering in Jerusalem directed by Bühler.
The list was released to coincide with Sukkot, a holiday commemorating the booths the Children of Israel lived in during forty years in the desert, carrying a biblical promise that the nations of the world will one day come to Jerusalem to celebrate it. The Book of Numbers commands that during the seven days of Sukkot, a descending number of bulls be offered on the altar: thirteen on the first day, twelve on the second, down to seven on the seventh. The total comes to seventy. The Talmud (Sukkah 55b) records Rabbi Elazar’s teaching that these seventy bulls correspond to the seventy nations of the world, the family of nations descended from Noah and listed in Genesis 10. During Sukkot, the Jewish people brought offerings on behalf of all humanity.
On the eighth day, Shemini Atzeret (the Eighth Day of Assembly), a single bull was offered, corresponding to the singular nation of Israel. The Sages compared this to a king who threw a great feast for all his servants for seven days. When it ended, he turned to his beloved and said, “Now make me a small meal, so that I may enjoy your company alone.”
Rabbi Yochanan added a lament that belongs in every discussion of the nations and the Temple: “Woe to the nations, for they lost something and do not know what they lost. When the Temple stood, the altar atoned for them. Now, who atones for them?”
The universal character of Sukkot dates back to the First Temple, when King Solomon chose this festival to dedicate the Beit HaMikdash (the Holy Temple) around 957 BCE. The Book of Kings records that all of Israel gathered “at the feast, in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month” (I Kings 8:2), the month of Tishrei, when Sukkot falls. In his dedication prayer, Solomon asked God to answer the prayers of the foreigner who comes from a distant land, “that all the peoples of the earth may know Thy name” (I Kings 8:43). The Temple was dedicated on Sukkot with a prayer for the nations built into its foundation.
The prophet Zechariah carried this to its conclusion. Describing the aftermath of the final war over Jerusalem, he wrote:
“And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.” (Zechariah 14:16)
The Israel Allies Foundation draws the same line from the prophet to the present. In releasing its 2025 list, the foundation cited Zechariah’s prophecy and stated that Bible-believing Christians who flood the streets of Jerusalem during Sukkot are “a fulfillment of this prophecy.”
Of all the holidays in the Bible, Zechariah singles out Sukkot as the festival the nations will keep. The prophet adds that nations refusing to come up to Jerusalem will have their rain withheld, a fitting consequence, since Sukkot is the season of Chag HaAsif (the Festival of Ingathering), when Israel celebrates the harvest and begins praying for the coming year’s rain.
Zechariah’s vision contains a detail that cannot be skipped. The nations who come to Jerusalem to worship are the survivors of those who came against Jerusalem. The prophecy describes a world that fought the Jewish people and then turned around to worship alongside them.
The Israel Allies Foundation list published this week names Christians from six continents who spent the three years since October 7 standing with Israel while much of the world turned against it. Many of them are in Jerusalem this week, sitting in sukkot (booths), marching in the Jerusalem parade, and praying at the Western Wall. The seventy bulls are gone from the altar, and the Temple has not yet been rebuilt. The nations are already on the road to Jerusalem, exactly as Zechariah said they would be, and they are arriving in time for Sukkot.
