Dallas Jenkins Declares ‘We Stand with’ Israel as ‘The Chosen’ Wins K-Love Fan Award
- Michael Foust Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
- Updated Jun 03, 2024
The creator of the popular streaming series The Chosen underscored the project’s Jewish roots as he accepted an award last week and declared he stands with Israel amid global criticism. The Chosen Season 4 won the film impact award at the K-Love Fan Awards broadcast on TBN Friday, edging Sound of Freedom, The Blind, The Shift, Ordinary Angels, Journey to Bethlehem, Big George Foreman and After Death.
Dallas Jenkins, creator and director of The Chosen, emphasized the series’ Jewish background as he accepted the award. “We are a Jewish show,” he said, noting that Season 5 will be set in Jerusalem.
“And it's a reminder: You know, there are innocent people in this conflict that's going on in the Middle East right now,” he said. “We love and pray for all of them. But the roots of our faith and the roots of our entire lives were birthed in Israel. And this is a Jewish show. We serve a Jewish Jesus. And so, to the people in Israel, we stand with you and we kneel for you. We love you.”
The Chosen is one of the most successful faith-based projects in entertainment history, with 200 million viewers worldwide. Even so, Jenkins said, many people still are unaware of the Jewish roots of Christianity.
“It's shocking to me, sometimes, to go around the world and to recognize that there are people who don't understand that Jesus was Jewish, and that the roots of our faith are in Judaism,” Jenkins said during a post-awards news conference. “And one of the really beautiful things about the show that we've seen is [that] even in the country of Israel, which would traditionally be a little bit resistant towards the Jesus show, it is growing rapidly there because we are honoring Jewish prayers, Jewish rituals.”
Jesus was “honoring His heritage” and “uplifting and fulfilling it,” Jenkins said. A messianic Jewish rabbi is one of the panelists of religious experts who review the scripts.
“And so the country of Israel and the Jewish people there, even those who are not believers in Jesus, are so appreciative of the fact that we are not only not denying the Jewishness of Jesus, we're celebrating it. And we're seeing Gentiles all over the world start to do these prayers, and really embrace it. So it's been a beautiful thing.”
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Photo credit: ©JosiahWeiss for K Love Fan Awards
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
