Why does the US support Israel?

This isn’t meant to be a question on whether or not the US should support Israel or the ramifications of that but I am, and I suspect many other US citizens, generally misinformed.

I honestly have no idea why we support Israel as much as we do. It seems from my uneducated POV to cause a lot of issues in the middle east. It also seems that we give an enormous amount of support to Israel in means of military support (I recall hearing something on NPR of the Israeli leader thanking the US for being the biggest supporter of their country) Is this a religious backed thing? Like the US defending the Christian holy land or is there something more to it than that?

Like I said, I’m completely ignorant to the whole thing and would love to learn about it but don’t really feel like sifting through countless sites online reading differing opinions.