More than 130 journalists and heads of media companies from 40 countries and all continents gathered in Jerusalem from the 15th until 18th of October for Christian Media Summit, organized at the initiative of Israel Government Media Office. It was the first time when the event of such format had taken place on the state level – in the year of the 50th anniversary of Jerusalem as a capital of modern Israel and on the eve of the 70-th anniversary of establishing of Jewish State. 

The event was of state importance; therefore, top officials visited the meetings during four days. On the 15th of October, the Prime-minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in the Jerusalem Museum to the participants of Christian Media Summit. The speech was out standingly passionate and open-hearted. The head of Israel Government adamantly and publicly declared the following, “The most loyal and consistent friends of Israel are Christian communities all over the world. We thank Christian media for all the work that you do.”  

The program of the Summit was extremely busy, starting at 9 a.m. and ending at 10 p.m. Themed speeches of experts and discussion panels took place in the morning. Some of the topics discusses were: Israel as the only democratic country on the Near East; the nature of aggressive anti-Jewish Islam; Palestine; the main threat from Iran; coverage of Israel topic in the world mass media; etc.  

After lunch, Christian media representatives from all over the world got acquainted with Israel by visiting offices of high-technology companies, examining Israeli West Bank Barrier with its creator Dany Tirza, making visits to Jewish settlements on the west bank of Jordan, and familiarizing with biblical archeology. 

In addition, sever a lot her governmental officials, such as the mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat, the member of parliament Avi Ditcher, the Minister of Immigration Absorption Ze’ev Elkin, and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Hotovely, came to meet the participants and to give speeches.In the end of the summit, itsdelegates went to the residence of the President of Israel Reuven Rivlin. The head of the state gave a warm welcome to the Christian media representatives from all over the world and thanked them for their friendship and solidarity, for faithfulness to the truth and values of democracy. After the half an hour speech and answering questions in the residence of the President, there was a reception and dinner. 

Ukraine was represented at this even by Ruslan Kukharchuk, the President of Journalist Association Novomedia. Heal some with the Head of Media Office of Israeli Government Nitzan Chen; the parties discussed further cooperation with Ukrainian colleagues. “Our organization has a long history of partnership and collaboration with the Embassy of Israel in Ukraine. Participation in Christian Media Summit with the President and Prime-minister of Jewish state opens new horizons in our relationship. It is our honour to represent Ukraine at the event of such a significance and scale in Jerusalem,” remarked Ruslan Kukharchuk. 

We would like to remind that earlier in 2014 and 2016 the office of Novomedia organized the trip of Ukrainian journalists to the Holy Land on the invitation of the Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel. Based on the latest tour, a 20-minute documentary “To See What You Have Read” was filmed.