Personal finance expert Dave Ramsey is rescuing a pro-Israel conference from cancellation after a Nashville hotel backed out from hosting because of alleged threats by anti-Israel activists.
When Ramsey heard that a Nashville hotel revoked access for the Israel Summit, an event scheduled for next week that will feature prominent Christians and Jews, organizers say Ramsey got in touch and offered not only to host it, but also to help make it even bigger.
“Dave Ramsey reached out and said, ‘You’re going to have it at my place and we’re going to take this event to a whole new level and make it 10x what it was before,’” Joshua Waller, a host of the Israel Guys podcast who is co-hosting the event, told The Daily Wire. “All of the details have come together and the event is skyrocketing in numbers.”
The Israel Summit describes itself as the first gathering of pro-Israel supporters who “unconditionally support Israel’s right to be sovereign in the entirety of the land of Israel, including Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the Gaza Strip.”
Along with The Israel Guys, the event is sponsored by HaYovel, an organization started by Waller more than 20 years ago which brings Christians to volunteer at farms in Judea and Samaria, and the Christan-Jewish bridge building nonprofits, Israel365 and Keep God’s land.
HaYovel went viral after Hamas’s brutal October 7 attack for bringing a group of American cowboys to help Israelis in need of labor as foreign agriculture workers fled and men were called up to fight in the war.
READ MORE: Meet The American Cowboys Who Rushed To Israel To Fill In For Farmers Called Up To Fight Hamas
“Ramsey Solutions is proud to stand beside our friends from Israel by providing them a safe place to hold their event as our gift to them,” Ramsey Solutions said in a statement.
Despite Sonesta Hotel backing out from hosting the event, the event will take place on the same days it was originally scheduled for next week. It will move from Nashville to nearby Franklin, Tennessee, where Ramsey Solutions is headquartered.
“National news has taken on the story and the stage that we had planned for our Israeli friends has gotten so much bigger than we could have ever dreamed of,” Waller said. “This is the incredible story of bringing Israel to Nashville because so many of the best of Israel now have an incredible place to speak.”
“We’re so grateful to Ramsey Solutions for hosting the event,” Waller added.
Speakers include former U.S. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Member of Knesset Ohad Tal, Israeli musician Yair Levi, CEO of National Religious Broadcasters Troy Miller, and several pro-Israel journalists and activists.
Sonesta Hotel was pressured to cancel the event after a coordinated group of anti-Israel activists claimed the event would “recruit new Zionists” and pushed for people to call and email the venue to “demand for the immediate cancellation of this event.”
“Because of threats from radical anti-American, anti-Israel, and pro-Hamas hate groups, the hotel canceled on us,” Waller said.
First Liberty Institute, which is representing the Israel Summit, accused Sonesta of religious discrimination and violating Tennessee state law and Title II of the Civil Rights Act.
The hotel told Fox News that it consulted with local law enforcement and that the decision to pull out was because the event “presented a considerable risk to the safety of our team, our guests and those attending the event given heightened security concerns.”
According to FOX 17 News, the Metro Nashville Police said they “did not advocate, in any shape or form, for the cancellation of the conference at the Sonesta Hotel.”