Yechiel Eckstein (Hebrew: יחיאל אקשטיין; July 11, 1951 – February 6, 2019) was an Israeli American rabbi who founded International Fellowship of Christians and Jews in 1983 and led it for many years.

[4] In 1952, when he was just a year old, Eckstein moved with his family to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, as his father accepted a newly created rabbinic post as the Chief Rabbi of Ottawa, where he was raised, as his father oversaw four synagogues, two which eventually merged to form Congregation Beth Shalom.

[8] Its first goal is to provide material aid to needy Jewish families and the elderly, for example, by helping them buy food and medicine.

[9] When Eckstein started the Fellowship, he had no salary, no medical benefits and a pregnant wife.

was listed as the second-largest charitable foundation in the country by Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

[11] Eckstein was also known for private donations to the Israeli military, through the US-American lobby group "Friends of the IDF".

[12] In 2023, leaked files from the reputation management firm Eliminalia showed that the firm had been engaged to target stories about Eckstein and his daughter, specifically trying to remove content reporting their combined $4 million annual compensation in 2019, which an IFCJ spokesperson said was due to a death benefit paid out to the elder Eckstein's widow,[13] and that Eliminalia had used what the Washington Post characterized as "bogus copyright complaints" in its attempts to do so.

[24] In June 2010 he was listed by Newsweek magazine in the Top 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America.