Donald Eason was driving with his family from his home in North Carolina to vacation in Myrtle Beach when he passed the Beverage Industries headquarters in Cheraw, S.C. There in the parking lot was an enormous Israeli flag.

“We saw his big Jewish flag outside of his business and we started clapping and applauding,” Eason, 42, told JTA. “We asked the workers if we could speak to the manager, and we told him we appreciated his support for the Jewish people.”

Beverage Industries, which sells equipment for the food and beverage industries, is run by Mitchell Langdon, who put up the flag to show his support for Israel and the Jews. Eason is an industrial insulation and sheet-metal worker from Fayetteville, who told JTA he had learned in church that Jesus wants him to be a “proactive force for Israel.” Part of that proactivity is the large Israeli flag tattoo Eason has on his upper arm that reads: I STAND WITH ISRAEL.

“We all gotta stand with Israel against the people who are tryin’ to overrun em’,” Eason said.

Talia Lavin Talia Lavin is an intern at JTA. A recent Harvard graduate and aspiring novelist, she recently returned from a Fulbright grant in Ukraine, where she studied early 20th-century Hebrew literature.